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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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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Often, I come upon articles that have (or consist entirely of) trivial references to an article subject in various media. I think that Wikipedia needs a policy on this. I think that they should be aggressively removed, per my essay here. I welcome community feedback. --Eyrian 19:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Concur. Allowing any trivia or pop-culture refences, even if they are especially notable, just makes it that much harder to keep the truly non-notable ones out, as every game user feels their game is notable! - BillCJ 20:18, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't care for popular culture or trivia sections. Once in a while, though, there may be a popular movie that contains a good moving image of the subject of the article. On other occasions, the only exposure most of the general public has had to the topic of the article may have been in a popular movie or book, and that depiction might have been wrong. In such cases, I think it might be worth mentioning the popular depiction in the article. --Gerry Ashton 22:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I have mixed feelings about trivia sections, but I support moving them off to separate articles once they become large enough. I know WP:BHTT is on a list of arguments to avoid but it does serve a purpose. Squidfryerchef 04:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps WP:TRIVIA will help? Blueboar 13:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections. I do not personally recommend the strict removal of trivia. Dcoetzee 14:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I say slash them and burn them. With a very few exceptions, these lists are just useless and unencyclopedic cruft-magnets. Anything worthwhile can be included in the main body of the article. --John 18:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Well said! I've gotten very tired of cruft-wrangling, and feel it's time for pop-culture sections to go. - BillCJ 18:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

All interested parties: Please see Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not#Not a trivia collection. --Eyrian 21:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Look, could someone please start up a wiki where this stuff can be kept? Because I'm sick of this mania for removing anything that might actually be useful. -Multivitamin 22:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree only that there seems to be an unseemly amount of aggression involved in the campaign to remove this material. There seems to be a complete lack of attention to nuance involved.

There are articles where historical or legendary figures play such a large role in popular culture that an article such as these seems absolutely necessary, even if the current article sucks and is in dire need of improvement. (E.g. Adolf Hitler in popular culture). With mythological or legendary creatures, current appearances and uses are in some sense as valid as "classical" ones, and should stay or merge (E.g. phoenix in popular culture). Then there are ones that seem ridiculous, mostly because the title subject of the fork is popular culture in the first instance. (E.g. Britney Spears in popular culture). People who want all of this material gone don't see a difference.

The anti popular-culture agenda has been misused. Notoriously so, in the case of Richard Dawkins, where a group of his groupies refuse to allow his article to admit that he was satirized in the South Park episode "Go God Go", despite the fact that South Park's audience exceeds that of Dawkins's scientific works or atheist screeds by at least a factor of ten.

I think it's time to step back from the whole business. Vague and litigious words like trivia and indiscriminate should not be used in guidelines. The wikilawyering that claims that recognizing allusions is "original research" needs to be fish-slapped; noticing these things is neither original to the editor who sees them, nor pushing an agenda in the typical case, and a citation to the work in which an allusion appears is reference enough. I'd be prepared to take the deletion of "trivia" more seriously if and when some greater sensitivity is shown to the variety of subjects involved here. - Smerdis of Tlön 19:43, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The South Park episode is not in Dawkins' article because it is trivial. There is no evidence that it was significant enough to be there, especially not your made up number. Also, you showed how full of hatred you are, so have a beer and chill. Also, don't pretend you know something about science.--Svetovid 15:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

As Wikipedians, we all agree to adhere to the encyclopedia's core values of verifiability and notability: our articles must be accurate and their subjects must be significant. We regularly delete articles that fail to demonstrate these tenants, why should we keep articles of list of things that fail to demonstrate them? I agree with Eyrian that in popular culture sections are a bane to the encyclopedia, and that their systematic removal is in the best interest of our cause.

The first issue I take with in popular culture articles is their lax approach to verifiability. These articles accumulate vast amounts of original research as editors add in "popular interpretations" of symbolism and whatnot in media, art, and music. Connections are insinuated between unrelated items, without a proper source to defend them. For example:
From Phoenix in popular culture:"Some literary critics believe the conclusion of Andrew Marvell's 1681 poem "To His Coy Mistress" may allude to the phoenix, given its references to birds and fire," "In the anime series Beyblade, characters battle using a form of spinning top, many of which contain "bit-beasts" which are based on animals including mythological creatures. One such bit-beast is named Dranzer and is based on the Phoenix."
From Classical elements in popular culture:"The Fantastic Four are based loosely off elementals: the Human Torch and the Thing personify Fire and Earth, Mister Fantastic's fluid nature mimics Water, and the Invisible Woman can become as transparent as Air, in addition to her "invisible force" fields. In some continuities, their most recurring enemy, Dr. Doom, represented Metal and/or Lightning."
From Georgia Tech in popular culture:"In the movie Contact (1997), the character S.R. Hadden (played by John Hurt), responds to a comment about his technical abilities with the statement: 'Once upon a time, I was a hell of an engineer'. This is a reference to Georgia Tech's fight song, Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech."
From Kent State shootings in popular culture:"There is also speculation that the second verse in John Denver's "Stonehaven Sunset" refers to Kent State."
From Milton Keynes in popular culture:"The city's road system, with its abundance of roundabouts and scarcity of traffic lights, is famously difficult to navigate for those unfamiliar with the city, while self-evident to locals. The resultant frustration for visiting motorists is almost certainly the origin of Milton Keynes' often surprisingly bitter reputation with out-of-towners."
None of these claims are referenced. Some might be accurate representations of cultural ties, but who knows? If there's a source for the Contact quote that says, "Yeah, I like Georgia Tech. S'why I made that character reference it when I wrote the screenplay," then we've gone somewhere. As it stands, it might just be a regular guy saying he was good at his job.
The second, and far more important criticism I have of in popular culture articles deals with notability, though. Wikipedia has a policy of keeping minorly important people, things, and ideas out of the encyclopedia. This prevents us from downgrading into a social networking site or glorified blog. Why should the same rule not apply to in popular culture lists? The majority of references are of little significance. For example:
From Satan in popular culture:"In Charmed, The Source of All Evil is an elected (or descended) king of all the demons, comparable to the devil, which he is referred to as once in season one," "Him, a character on the animated series, The Powerpuff Girls, is a cheerfully evil, red-skinned, cross-dressing demon," "The adult animated comedy show Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show is hosted by Mr Hell who bears a striking resemblance to Satan himself."
From Chevrolet Corvette in popular culture: "Eiffel 65's song "I'm Blue" mentions a blue Corvette," "Gremlins, Gizmo drives a pink Corvette toy-car," "Malcolm McDowell drives a C3 Corvette in Blue Thunder."
From NYU in popular culture: "Will Truman (from Will & Grace) attended NYU Law," "In Clueless, Cher gives Josh advice: "I hear the girls at NYU aren't at all particular," "In Avenue Q, the song "There is Life Outside Your Apartment" mentions NYU."
Why are any of these things important? If I created Places mentioned in Avenue Q, it would be torn to shreds. And yet, the fact that NYU is mentioned in Avenue Q is worthy of inclusion? The same goes for Vehicles operated by Gremlins. Easy deletion fodder, but individually mentioned, worthy of inclusion. There is no threshold of significance when the only qualifier for a pop-culture reference is that it a something appeared in a something else. Tables in popular culture would be of similar quality and theme, and deleted with impunity.
Yes, I understand that the same can't be said for every mention in every list. There are some references out there that are deliberate, sourced, and present some sort of literary or critical value. God help me, I can't find any at the moment, but I'm sure they exist. And when they do, I believe they should be included in the subject article. In the end, any reference that is both notable and verifiable can add value to the encyclopedia. Noting that Chipoltle restaurants once had a slogan on their bag claiming "our burritos go to eleven" does not. Consequentially 02:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
As I just mentioned elsewhere, sometimes ir/relevance is obvious. Sometimes the trivia has to accumulate to a point where a pattern appears as to some of it being relevant or some being irrelevant. (SEWilco 01:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC))
That pattern isn't our job to determine, though. By asserting that our growing list of references in other media is a pattern of notability is WP:OR, unless there's WP:RS that say it first. I'm not at all opposed to an article on a particular entity's effect on media, but that has to come from a WP:V and WP:N perspective. If an academic paper is published saying that the appearance of the Eiffel Tower in Deep Impact holds a deeper symbolism, that's one thing. If an author reveals in an interview that he chose phoenix-like imagery to connect his piece to mythology, that's alright. But to randomly chronicle every appearance, no matter how insignificant, is bad for the encyclopedia. Consequentially 05:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
The real question is, what do you do with this sort of material? It has ever been my practice not to simply remove contributions that I find dubious or unimproving without first preserving the contested content on the talk page. It seems common courtesy, respectful of the contributions of others, and lets strangers to the difference of opinion know what we are talking about.

Instead, what seems to happen now is not this. The practice seems to have taken root to fork out these edits into separate "in popular culture" articles, which are then proposed for deletion en masse in episodic spasms. This is not as good, for multiple reasons; most seriously, it leads to the potential loss of valuable contributions.

Phoenix in popular culture is a perfect example. As a mythical critter, the phoenix exists only as long as people remember and rehearse the legend to yet another generation. The use of the phoenix as a heraldic symbol belongs in the article. So, for that matter, do at least some appearances of the legend in well known works of fiction. We can trust people to use their brains; if something is called a phoenix and it seems associated with fire and rebirth, it belongs somehow.

No, not every such appearance should be catalogued; but deleting the data en masse and wiping it from the history is an even worse thing to do. - Smerdis of Tlön 04:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I feel no remorse for the removal of factoids and irrelevant trivia from the encyclopedia, but we can't keep bad content because someone worked hard on it. If the information is valuable, and by that I mean it has significance and is verifiable, then it belongs in an article, maybe even the main article. But we both know that it's not these brilliant gems of cultural weight that are getting these articles forked and deleted. I suspect that if we held popular culture references to a higher standard when determining when to include them, we'd never have a long, listy section that needed forking. Consequentially 05:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
"I feel no remorse for the removal of factoids and irrelevant trivia from the encyclopedia, but we can't keep bad content because someone worked hard on it." Amen to that! Bulldog123 10:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Years ago in Boston, there was a radio DJ who had a rock music trivia contest each morining. If you got his question correct, you could ask him your question. Each show, they said the same thing: "Trivia", not "trivial"! "What color shoes is Jimi Hendrix wearing on his last album cover"? didn't cut the mustard. I see many of these pop culture nuggets as fitting the "trivial" category. That makes me a deleter - Off with their heads!MarkinBoston 04:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Another angle on this

In the "X is mentioned in Y" sort of trivia, we already have a linkage on this, assuming that it's important enough for the article on "Y" to refer to "X" in its text. I refer to the "What links here" item in the toolbox.

The phrase "in popular culture" is also a problem because it implies that these references are somehow special. I note that Phoenix in popular culture, for instance, completely ignores this and puts in everything from the church fathers to Harry Potter. I dont'see the need for the segregation, especially as it is apparently oft ignored anyway. Mangoe 18:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

When I was looking at the Linux article today, I found that this article was about systems that use the Linux kernel, and that there's a separate article (Linux kernel) which was about the actual kernel itself. This made me think for a second. While systems that utilize the Linux kernel are more likely to be what the user is looking for when he types "Linux" into the search box, there's a certain sense of correctness about showing the article about the original meaning of the word instead. Long story short: "Linux" has always been the Linux kernel—that's the origin of the name—while systems that use the Linux kernel came a while afterwards—should an encyclopedia not have a rule for linking to the original term as often as possible, despite the derived term being more popular?

Another example. A "medical emergency" is defined as an injury or illness that poses immediate peril to a person. Medical Emergency is an Australian reality TV show. While the TV show may be the more popular thing that the average user looks for (and I don't know whether it is, but it just may be), it's clear (in my opinion) that the term "medical emergency" should link to the article about medicine, and not to the article about the television show. (Currently, it does link to the article about medicine, the original meaning of the term, unlike the Linux example.)

And I'm not sure if this discussion has been done already. It probably has, but I'm just thinking out loud here. I think that linking to the original meaning of a search term in most cases (there will always be exceptions) is a bit more encyclopedic and pronounced about which phenomenon is the actual primary definition of that term. —msikma (user, talk) 16:43, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

That's what we have hatnotes for in many cases. If there's a different topic that could be called by that name, we have a quick link at the top of the article to hop over or check out a disambig and get to it. Now, it would be silly to force Olympic Games to go to Ancient Olympic Games, but we (now) have a link in the lead to take people looking for the original meaning of the name. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Essay on how 3RR hurts the project and a proposal to fix it.

Hi! I would appreciate it, if you could give me your thoughts on this essay: Accusations of collaboration: 3RR hurts Wikipedia. Comments are welcome both here and in the essay talk. --Alexia Death the Grey 09:23, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

WT:NC

Members of the community may be interested in knowing that there is currently a discussion at Naming Convention's Talk Page over the guidelines for naming US city articles. The debate starts at the section called "Requested Moves", and continues through several subsections. New England Review Me! 01:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Looking for a specific policy/notation

I posted my question over on the Spam project but I'm not sure that was the right place. Radiant! suggested I ask here. I fully understand the reasons, but I'd like to know if there's a specific page/guideline/policy that covers users adding photobucket.com links to articles (most often to the "external links" section, linking to pictures at photobucket of the subject). I know that the uploading, or using of those images is covered under copyvio policy, and I understand the theoretical reason for not allowing them to be in links, but I'd like to be able to cite a specific policy, if asked. Does one exist? Thanks in advance! Ariel♥Gold 11:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if there is actual policy about it, but there are good reasons why not to do it.
  1. If the picture is relevant to the article, why is it not in the article.
  2. If the picture is not relevant to the article, why should it be an external link?
  3. If the picture is relevant to the article, but would violate policy being in the article itself, it would also violate policy if it is hosted on photobucket.
Remember this is wikipedia, and there doesn't have to be policy for everything someone does. He can just do it because he thinks it will make wikipedia better. And if it doesn't then someone will come along and fix it. Martijn Hoekstra 14:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Martijn, and yeah, I've said all those things, I just wondered if there was a specific policy I'd missed. This isn't in regards to any specific situation, just more my boundless curiosity and anticipating a need to explain it in the future. Thanks for the tips! Ariel♥Gold 14:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Not all external links to photobucket.com are prohibited. There is no reason for a policy, guideline, manual of style to specifically says you should not link to "photobucket.com" since each such external link is handled situation by situation. As an aside, linking to photobucket.com is not use of an image from photobucket on Wikipedia as posted here. -- Jreferee (Talk) 14:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Jreferee, could you please clarify this: "As an aside, linking to photobucket.com is not use of an image from photobucket on Wikipedia as posted here"
Are you saying that was 'not a violation of the user to link to a photobucket.com image? The person's edit was [IMG]http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w156/kb8207/osceolahs.jpg[/IMG] clearly (although they tried to do it with HTML) the intent was to add a photobucket image to the article. Even if it is not the actual image appearing in the article, are you saying that the link itself is allowed? As Marty wrote above, "If the picture is relevant to the article, but would violate policy being in the article itself, it would also violate policy if it is hosted on photobucket." - so that makes me think that linking to an image such as the above issue, would be the same thing?
Perhaps a word is missing there that's making me not understand you, but I'm a bit more confused now, because it seems as though you're telling me that it is just fine to create links to photobucket? Also, you say that the MoS specifically mentions Photobucket? I was unable to find this, so if you can point to that I'd really appreciate it! Thanks! Ariel♥Gold 06:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • As stated above, this is a matter of common sense. Since our policies/guidelines are descriptive, and to my knowledge this hasn't been a big issue in the past, nobody has bothered to codify it so far. But if that user is asking "is this against policy", he's asking the wrong question - the proper question is "does this improve the encyclopedia". As Martijn said, if the image is appropriate, we should host it; if it's not, it shouldn't be in the article anyway. >Radiant< 08:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Mobbing

Is there any rule against playing out the 3RR by simply calling up wiki-friends to help "revert the POV"? I mean when user:X (sorry if this exists) dislikes Y's edits, as usual, calles it POV or original research, whatever - you all know this situation -, then when a revertwar erupts, and he's done with his 3 rvs, calls his mates to "finish the job", and play that "enemy" out, then of course report Y as 3RR offender. Is there any? Cos' I accidentally just found such a case... And in fact 4 others (!!) since... by checking the 3RR report page's content, reported (and reporter) users' actions, and reported pages' histories. --Ezsaias 18:32, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Some call it a cabal, and it is a very effective way for a special interest group to hijack and article or manipulate WP policies. Sad but true. --Kevin Murray 18:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
See WP:SOCK and other wikipedia policies. Meatpuppets are not to be tolerated any more than sockpuppets. In addition, the attempt to use a "technicality" in attempt to circumvent the spirit of wikipedia policies and guidelines is expressely a bad faith move, and regardless of the methods used, as long as the result is disruption, the practice is to be stopped. The page in question should be protected, and the principals involved should be brought to ANI for further investigation and possible reprimand. This cannot be tolerated. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 18:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
WP:CANVASS and WP:SOCK hypothetically addresses the situation, but it is difficult to distinguish between legitimate reversions against improper edits by an edit-warrior (perfectly appropriate) and a cabal protecting a non-compliant page (problematic). The solution for someone opposing a cabal is WP:BRD, and escalate quickly to RFC, which I've had success doing in getting some POV-pushing pages to come closer to Wikipedia policy. If you never revert, no one can accuse you of 3RR violations, though, of course, it also means that a group of POV-pushers will never be exposed for acting as such. THF 18:49, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Can't agree that any of these policies are effective as they are commonly enforced. Actually I see canvassing as the most effective tool to break a cabal's hold on an article, by recruiting fair-minded editors to the fray. However, that can be a double-edged sword. --Kevin Murray 19:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, this is quite common. Also, teams of editors with the same goal often impose changes through proposals, which are not even supposed to be a vote, and insert inaccuracies and heavy POV into the article. This is a huge problems on Wikipedia when it comes to controversial topics (and because of human stupidity and unnecessary rivalry more and more topics are becoming controversial) and not much is done about it for the sake of "consensus" (which is faked) and "good faith".
Here is a nice quote:
--Svetovid 19:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. If I understand it right, there's some platform where a suspected "cabal" (I'd rather say: "a group of ppl with common interests and/or ideas abt a certain thing" even if it's longer a bit :) ) can be investigated. Wikipedia is too big, and there are more than one creationist user, and more than one evolutionist. And if they come together... :) But in a real world, it could happen, that for example for some reason, the creationst became the overwhelming majority, so all the evolutionist became banned for POV pushing, and all the related articles are became overwritten from a cr. POV. This is what I see in other themes, overwritten from a certain POV, and the...let me call balance of them is banned or retired because of them. (please, stick to my problem, don't start some religious war).

However I had a second question about recruiting people for revert warring. Is it forbidden, or not? --Ezsaias 22:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

  • As I see it you can advertise the issue at a common area such as the Well, or you can directly contact other editors who have worked on the specific article or a closely related article. Or you could advertise at the talk pages of closely related articles, and at the project page if the topic is within a project or related to a project.--Kevin Murray 23:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a problem, that I see many people face, just like I do. See the section below for a proposal to fix it.--Alexia Death the Grey 09:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC) 

I've got the same sort of Question.

I added a link to the Queenstown (NZ) site which was critical over the amount of development. http://www.boston.com/travel/articles/2004/11/07/new_zealand_at_a_crossroads?pg=full It was unceremoniously deleted. The site itself is a brochure for Queenstown, there are so many people with a vested interest hotels, property developers, tour companies etc, etc... Almost impossible to say a bad thing, but Wikipedia isn't a glossy brochure to sell bacon slice apartments ???Yonk 08:40, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Overciting and FA

An FA reviewer of Richard Hawes, an article I edited heavily and nominated for FA, has commented that I seem to have "gone nuts" with the footnotes, to the point that it impedes readability. It is true that almost every sentence is footnoted, and a few have two (to avoid mid-sentence citations). However, I felt like having a footnote on almost every sentence was the best way to avoid complaints that such-and-such wasn't cited properly, especially since I've had to return most of the sources to libraries far and wide by now. This mentality was reinforced by the GA reviewer of Happy Chandler, who stated: "Presumably you'll be taking this article to FAC in the near future. If so, then building up your citations to the "almost every sentence" point certainly won't hurt anything."

I've already used paragraph-at-a-time citation where every sentence in the paragraph comes from the same source. The FA reviewer on the Hawes article suggested that when most of the citations in a paragraph are from the same source, that I should move all of them to the end of the paragraph. While this probably would improve readability, I'm not sure it's in line with citation policies, a subject on which I am clearly not an expert. So I refer the matter to my more experienced and better versed wiki-brethren (and sistren?). What say you? Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 13:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, we don't have a citation policy, only a style guidelines (WP:CITE), but if you've sherperded articles to GA and towards FA, I'm guessing you know that. Based on my academic work, I would say that any source used heavily throughout a paragraph should be at the end of it, but you should only have two citations at the end of a paragraph if they both support the same thing(s), albeit with different details. Sentences within such paragraphs not supported by the paragraph citation(s) should be separately cited, and of course all quotations should be cited immediately. SamBC(talk) 13:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The first paragraph of the main body is clearly overcited. If any of the general references listed at the bottom of the article will support the fact, it doesn't need a sentence-specific citation (for example, names of parents) A cite at the end of that paragraph would be fine, but I wouldn't even consider that those sentences needed cites. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:43, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I keep hoping that someday Wikipedia will hide footnotes by default so that the general reader doesn't have to look at them, but they can be "turned on" by anyone who wants to see them. —Kevin Myers 14:57, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks good to me, actually. It's not like you're citing every sentence to the same ref. It doesn't impede readability to me: I just skim over the blue numbers...--SarekOfVulcan 17:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I was the one that raised objections about overciting at the FAC in question. There are 2 things I would like to say:
  • It is not inconsistant to both require cites and require that they be well-organized. Per Wikipedia:When to cite (also read Wikipedia:Per,) section titled Text-source relationship says it well, I think.
  • To drop a footnote after every sentance simply to head off problems seems rather WP:POINTy, like saying "I know that those cite-nazis are going to require more footnotes, so I'll show them. I'll cite every sentance..." Quite frankly, I have NEVER seen a blanket requirement that every sentance be cited. As a rule of thumb, I have NEVER seen a single objection where an FA has a cite 1) At the end of each paragraph 2) Following each quote 3) After statements of opinion (such as "Historians have found that"... or "Critics have said that") or 4) After superlative statements (so-and-so is the largest, best selling, etc, etc.) It seems to assume bad faith in the people who will be reviewing your article to think in advance they will have unreasonable objections and then simply attempt to head off those objections by being overzealous.
I frequently request that articles be better cited. Nearly every time I have failed a GA nomination OR have objected to an FAC it has been because of not using inline citations enough. However, the article in question seems to go beyond prudent citation to the point of being, well, WP:POINTy... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Are you sure its wise to be invoking WP:POINT here? I'm sure you're just misusing it, because accusing someone of violating it is a complete assumption of bad faith. What I think you mean to say is that this article is just over the top in its citations. The version I'm looking at right now has an acceptable number of citations, but only just. Atropos 03:24, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I didn't want to specifically accuse anyone of being disruptive per se, but several people have implied, both here and at the FAC in question, that the addition of the citations was not because they felt the article honestly needed them, but because they felt that there were people out there who would unreasonably hold up an otherwise FA worthy article for a frivilous reason. To intentionally overcite an article since you assume that people will object to a reasonably cited article seems an assumption of bad faith at the least, and possibly point-making of the worst kind... I do want to say emphatically that I do NOT accuse Acdixon of doing this. I think its much more a case of his receiving bad advice from people who themselves wish to make a point; that there are people who believe that there are editors out there who will only accept an article that is referenced at every sentance. Those people advise that it is better to just reference every sentance before trying FAC; I am denying that this has ever been the case. Such requirements have never existed and have never been asked for by any one commenting on an FAC. Yes, often articles arive at FAC that need many more references, but rather than try to use references appropriately, it seems that some would rather over-use footnotes so that no one can complain about a "lack" of citations. That misses the point entirely. There is a right way to do it; and it is my opinion that this is not it. Footnotes should be applied intelligently as needed, articles that footnote every single sentance are just as bad as ones that don't use them at all. Using them everywhere is not the same as using them correctly. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad I didn't comment on this last night as I had intended, because I did feel like I was being accused. I am glad to see this morning that Jayron32 understands my predicament. This is only my 3rd FA nom, and though the first two passed, it was only after significant contention, so I guess you could say I'm a little over-cautious at this point.
On my talk page, Raul also pointed me to Wikipedia:When to cite. Unfortunately, that hasn't helped a whole lot. I don't think the first two points under "When not to cite" are applicable to Richard Hawes, as very few people know there was such a person in the first place. The third one is the one I'm most concerned about. I've been known to rearrange material in an article that I wrote and accidentally leave the cite behind. I felt like citing every sentence would avoid that. Also, the guideline of "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" is a little too fuzzy logic for my very boolean brain. I realize that the guideline has to be general enough to apply to a variety of articles, but I still find this a difficult judgment call.
I think Kevin Myers above has the best solution – some way to show/hide footnotes. How do we get this idea to the "Keepers of the Wiki?" Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 11:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The point is that using those in-line superscripted numerical links overly much impedes legibility of the article. >Radiant< 10:44, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I wasn't going to comment on this, but I can't keep from it. I agree with SarekofVulcan on this topic. I tend to skim over the footnotes anyway, and the article doesn't feel overcited to me. I often like to check verifiability of statements mentioned in articles, and I like to know the original source for that particular statement. I don't like having to go to the end of the paragraph and dig through multiple references to find it in the original source. This is my opinion, obviously, but I believe the article is fine as is. Wikipedia, please make it to where you can show/hide footnotes! -- Steven Williamson (HiB2Bornot2B) - talk ▓▒░ Go Big Blue! ░▒▓ 14:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I also personally prefer to err on the side of over-citation. I've been in the situation of needing to go back to original source material to verify things, and tying sources closely to their related statements saved a lot of time and effort there. In addition to helping the verifiability of the article at hand, it helps in keeping track of which sources may be useful for related articles. As for hiding the superscripted references, if a logged-in user really wants to do that, the following could be added to their monobook.css:
.reference { display: none; }
— TKD::Talk 15:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I also think over-citing makes an article almost unreadable. I have quite a trouble trying to read something like this. Mostly because it is on a computer monitor, my eyes keep being "pulled up" to the previous line. Telling a passing by reader that the way to avoid that is "register, log-in when reading, learn CSS, learn how to use it on WP" is asking too much, isn't it? - Nabla 14:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Citation in Richard Hawes is great. I don't think citing every sentence should be a requirement, but there is certainly nothing wrong with doing so. I don't understand why anyone would object to it. How on earth does it impede readability? I dislike putting more than one note after any sentence - multiple references for one point ought to be in the same note as happens in published material - but one little superscript numeral has no effect on readability. People who object to articles at FA or GA on those grounds should be banned from reviewing on said locations. :) Well, that's just my opinion anyways. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 15:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
Honestly, I have been mulling this over for a few days... needed some distance from it to think it through. What it seems I was mainly upset about was not the article, or Acdixon, but rather the mentality that people who require a well-referenced article are being unreasonable in doing so. Several comments made around the periphery of this FAC seemed to indicate that there are people who advocate citing every sentance, not because they believe that it should be done that way, but precisely because they believe it SHOULDN'T be done that way; there is group of editors at Wikipedia who feel very strongly AGAINST footnoting. I was really projecting my displeasure against that group, the anti-referencing crowd; really this article is quite good, and the issue is small; honestly I would MUCH rather an article be overcited rather than undercited; in the best case scenario articles would simply be CORRECTLY cited. However, I can see no further reason to withold my support for the article; I am glad my comments generated further discussion, and I see that as a good thing. I am sorry if I got unreasonable; hopefully you all will forgive me... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:27, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
No offense taken here, Jayron32, and I wholeheartedly agree that the discussion was beneficial on all parts. Anything that makes us look at ways to make Wikipedia better has got to be a good thing, right? Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 15:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I think the mentality is not that "people who require a well-referenced article are being unreasonable in doing so", but that "people who believe that citations require locality at the sentence level are being unreasonable in thinking that that is a requirement for an article to be well-referenced." It absolutely infuriates me when someone dings an FA (or adds the dreaded "citation needed" tag all over an article) when the citations in the article already address the point, because it's a clear indication that the dinger has not, and probably will never, actually checked the existing citations. Nandesuka 05:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

As a disinterested reader, I have to say that to my eyes the article is extremely overcited. I don't see the need for a citation for the subject's nother's name, or the other totally uncontroversial biographical information. And while I'm used to reading scientific papers, I did find the constant footnote numbers distracting. I though I was going to come down on the side of the author, but I'm surprised to find myself itching to pick up a red pencil. If it were me, I would strike out at least three quarters of the citations, and that's a conservative guess. The article itself looks like a good one, stained by the excessive caution of the author. A citation or two in each paragraph shows that someone has made a good effort, and a good reference list at the end supports that impression. Anything more is just make-work to this reader. MarkinBoston 04:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Purpose of arbcom and resolving disputes

It seems that arbcom is technically on the list of solutions for dispute resolution. However, it apparently cannot resolve disputes. I propose changing this, because apparently, there are some cases when all other steps in dispute resolution just fail for one reason or another. Of corse, it should only be done only after all other measures in WP:DR have been both tried and failed, and at the agreement of all involved parties to abide by the arbcom decision.--SefringleTalk 23:22, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, what are you basing these comments on? SamBC(talk) 23:26, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Currently I, and many other editors seem to be unable to reach a consensus over the allegations of apartheid articles, and we seem to be unable to reach a solution through regular means in WP:DR (only an unresolved content dispute). See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Allegations of apartheid. At first, I thought that was the purpose of arbcom, but apparently it isn't, and apparently, a lot of other people involved in the dispute thought so as well.--SefringleTalk 23:32, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The ArbCom doesn't, and never has, arbitrated content disputes except in rare exceptions. ArbCom deals with user conduct. Sean William @ 00:08, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I know that, but there appears to be some confusion by many parties about this, and it seems like a group of highly respected editors who can make decisions over content disputes might be in order, which is partially why I am proposing this change.--SefringleTalk 02:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely with Sefringle., We desperately need some higher court of appeal for resolving content disputes. Otherwise what are dispute resolutions for? Not all disputes can be solved by addressing user conduct. Sometimes, both sides show good etiquette, but simply cannot come to resolution about some highly volatile issue. --Steve, Sm8900 02:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

That would be a really bad idea to have some higher authority empowered to make decisions on content. Work it out; I know it's not easy, but usually if users behave then discussions can lead to reasonable compromises or some sort of consensus. Dicklyon 02:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
But then again, there are those rare cases where no matter how much you try to work out a dispute, a compromise that is reasonable and agreeable by both sides cannot be reached, reguardless of how much discussion goes on.--SefringleTalk 02:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Sure, it happens. So let it happen. I'd rather see an infinite edit war than a set of people empowered to make content decisions. Dicklyon 02:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with giving some people the power to make content decisions. Besides, no process is immune from appeal, even at the highest levels; there is always the ability to simply discuss it individually, at the talk pages of each of the individual arbiters.
By the way, I'd much rather see final decisions made on content, rather than on individual editors' status, like we have now.
Also, the currrent system is creating a direct incentive for editors to hurl accusations and counter-accusations, since that is the only way to pursue these matters, according to the official procedures themselves.
By the way, Dickylon, actually I'd rather see a set of people empowered to make content decisions, than an infinite edit war. --Steve, Sm8900 03:20, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this. It goes against a fundamental part of Wikipedia which is that content disputes are resolved through discussion and concensus and not by allowing certain editors to make excecutive decisions on content. I recall a comment by Jimbo that even he was scared to edit Nupedia. Also, this seems a bit WP:CREEPy to me. MartinDK 06:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Content or respect of wp principles ?

It is obvious that giving a court the right to decide on content is dangerous and could give more bad results that good ones (censorship - oriented editorial lines) but could not a court state that some choices do not respect wikipedia principles ?
For example, if it is clear that a court cannot decide about the reality or pertinence of an information, cannot it take decisions or give advices concerning the formulation's compliance with fundamental principles ? Alithien 09:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Excellent point by Alithien. i agree completely, and feel this is an extremely fair and reasonable idea to add to the sturcture and format of dispute resolution processes. --Steve, Sm8900 16:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

No need. If the issue is whether a source is reliable, ask at the reliable sources noticeboard. If the issue is BLP, ask at the BLP noticeboard. If we come up with another type of issue for which clearly correct answers are likely to be forthcoming and that regularly occurs, we'll set up another noticeboard for that type of issue. Those are good, functioning, and non-court like mechanisms that give advice. Article RfCs sometimes succeed - and would more often if more editors paid attention to them.

Where things fail is where there are large factions of strongly opinionated pro/anti editors some of whom are not dedicated to NPOV. Group dynamics make achievement of consensus very difficult until there is an agreement to seek NPOV. Sometimes that requires weeding editors who really don't want an NPOV article out of the discussion. GRBerry 16:09, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. however, that's an interesting idea. i guess you feel that weeding out those POV editors won't involve any further controversy, and would totally solve the problem? not sure I agree. --Steve, Sm8900 16:12, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Nothing will "solve" the problem of editing tensions on controversial articles; this tension is one of the keys to Wikipedia and how it functions. On the other hand, if tensions go beyond acceptable give-and-take to abusiveness, ArbCom steps in to address the offending behavior. A "content ArbCom" would be unlikely to work, because it would require people who are a) willing to take the inevitable abuse, b) highly experienced Wikipedians, and c) thought to be impartial on all possible content matters by most or all of the community. Few, if any, such people exist. And look what happens to impartial arbiters: User:^demon, a truly uninvolved user without a horse in the race, closed the DRV on an allegations of apartheid article. Within moments, he was being savaged by the side that didn't like his decision as biased, deletionist, not having enough article-writing experience, etc. The problem is the behavior and the atmosphere, not the existence of controversy. MastCell Talk 17:44, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
The issue though, is not always about the behavior. Editors shouldn't necessarily be weeded out because they have a particular view, unless they prove themselves unwilling and unable to compromise, and sometimes that judgement is made too soon. Sometimes the actual problem is the dispute, and censorship of opposing views is not necessarily the best solution. A trial of the editors is not necessarily what is always needed; not when we are facing content disputes, especially ones which harm wikipedia's value system.--SefringleTalk 02:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Well. I am very interested by the history of 1948 and I am really fed-up to discuss with "pov-pushers" who never even read a book about the topic and who comes and add material destroying good work. And I am not the only one concerned.
When wikipedia community will decide to support contributor vs pov-pusher, then signal it.
Alithien 18:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes. I am very interested in medical and health-related topics, and I get really fed-up with POV-pushers who lack knowledge, perspective, or experience and come along and destroy good work or maintain misinformation. But that is the price of working on an encyclopedia which anyone can edit. In general, the community is pretty good about supporting contributors over POV-pushers (with a few exceptions), though resolving such issues often takes longer than I'd like. MastCell Talk 22:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
No. It doesn't take longer than you would like.
It is simply not done.
Because when pov-pushers are clever enough not to insult, they are just not stopped.
On the topics related to the israeli-palestinian conflict this is clear and well known.
So, if the community doesn't want to act, at least, the minimum would be to write : YES, wikipedia is unable to deal with that, that is the reasons why Citizendium appeared.
No regards, Alithien 06:36, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it, it's WP:CREEPy, and reminds me of something out of Animal Farm. All editors are equal, but some editors are more equal that others. Not a path we want to start down. -- 146.115.58.152 18:19, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, we'll give arbcom the power to block editors who they believe are causing the problem, and thus we give them the power to decide who wins the dispute, since they can just block the opposition, yet we won't let them just resolve the dispute by executive order. Seems a bit ironic.--SefringleTalk 04:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Not really. If they were to resolve the dispute by fiat, then no future editor could change the article. But by getting rid of editors who fail "plays well with others", content-related discussion is merely postponed until another editor comes along to take up the "defeated" side of the dispute. --Carnildo 08:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It's really quite simple. Minorities don't get special treatment. Majorities don't get special treatment. No one gets special treatment because we are NPOV and uncensored. Article content is determined through consensus and our policies and guidelines. Those who do not wish to play by those rules are removed from the articles in question by ArbCom. Those who wish to play by the rules but disagree with the current consensus can seek dispute resolution through RFC's and mediation or general feedback through our noticeboards. Wikipedia does not and should never hold any paticular view on a subject while banning those who disagree with that view. There are other Wikis for that kind of thing, like Conservapedia. MartinDK 10:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

New York City Subway station naming convention proposal

Over at WP:NYCPT, we have been trying to reach a consensus on how New York City Subway stations should be named, because the subway system uses various names and punctuation formats for its stations, and users have "move-warred" articles in the absence of an agreed-upon guideline. The proposed convention is at Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City Public Transportation/New York City Subway/Station naming convention. TLK'in 08:22, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Article Removal

I have a question about article removal. A company that I work for has an article on Wikipedia that meets the notability guidelines for an article and is a relatively extensive article. I was recently asked, because I use wikipedia frequently, if the company were unhappy with the article, would it be able to have the article removed? If so, how could that be accomplished? 131.230.103.184 04:40, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

No, if the article met notability guidelines then it would not be removed. However, pressure from the company it's about could result in removal of all unreferenced statements from the article. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
That would be difficult without a specific concern to address. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your response. On a related issue, if the article in question were rated as GA quality, would removal of any unsourced statement by editors, without pressure from the company, be considered vandalism? Or, would this constitute keeping the article clean?131.230.103.184 04:54, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Any unsourced statement believed to be untrue may be removed at any time by any editor. However, make sure to explain this in the edit summary or else it may be misinterpreted as vandalism. —Remember the dot (talk) 04:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you again to both of you for your helpful and prompt responses. I think this will help me reassure my employer about the content of our article.131.230.103.184 05:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • On the one hand, see WP:OTRS, which is a convenient way of reporting problems in articles about you or your company. On the other hand, see WP:COI, our guideline on conflict of interest (some companies are attempting to use Wikipedia for advertising, which is inappropriate). HTH! >Radiant< 13:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Funny fonts and policy pages

Sorry if this is too trivial or has been discussed before, but do we have a style guideline for how to write policy and guideline pages?

I'm thinking, when to use bolds or italics, standard table and bullet point styles, how to distinguish the effective part of the policy from (i) justifications of the policy, (ii) explanations of how to comply, (iii) citations or quotes form other policy pages, and (iv) examples. For example, WP:NONFREE is pretty long and messy, and looks like it could use better headings and organization, and perhaps breaking the "law" section out to an essay or separate page. Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion has it all, bold, italics, two tables, and (green text!)

Maybe some more serious requirements, like when to enumerate things versus when to use a category, passive voice versus active or imperative, conditional versus certain. The notion that policy pages are for broad universal rules, guideline pages for how those rules apply to different situations (or is that really the case?). To make up an example, "Spam should not be placed in the main space, talk pages, user pages, or anywhere else on Wikipedia" should read "Spam is not allowed on any Wikipedia page."

Is that sort of thing collected anywhere and should it be? Wikidemo 17:14, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

It does seem like a good idea to have a style guideline for how to write policy and guideline pages. In the meantime, a bit of searching from place to place in MOS, and elsewhere is what is required. Would be nice in one place. Newbyguesses - Talk 05:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest due to Wikia, Inc.

There is a discussion taking place at WP:COI/N (Conflict of Interest Noticeboard). One admin has consented to keeping it in the open there. Two non-admin users have attempted to hide it from general view. I assume that it is fair for me to revert the attempts to hide the material, at least until an administrator is the one who hides it. --Dude Manchap 16:39, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I heard that the person who is in charge of the Wikimedia Foundation's finances is the very same person who is in charge of the for-profit Wikia, Inc.'s finances. Is that true? --Dude Manchap 03:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Good question. DurovaCharge! 20:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
So what if it is? I certainly trust them to do a good job if they are, and I'm sure that the board (who is in charge of the person) knows about this considering the owners of Wikia are previous board members. (...and the Board isn't stupid). Cbrown1023 talk 23:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
That's fine if you personally trust them, Cbrown1023, but you may want to look at the IRS form 1023 (no joke -- it's the same form number as the number found in your User name -- coincidence or irony?), especially what's said about Line 5a: A "conflict of interest" arises when a person in a position of authority over an organization, such as a director, officer, or manager, may benefit personally from a decision he or she could make. Note also Appendix A, starting at Page 25, which outlines a sample Conflict of Interest policy that a non-profit organization might adopt. Do you think that, as Appendix A suggests, either Jimmy Wales or Michael E. Davis have ever left the room during a Wikimedia Foundation board meeting, so that the other board members could discuss whether a conflict of interest was present for those two, who just happen to be former business partners and are currently vested in Wikia, which benefits from many, many favorable associations within Wikipedia? Jimmy Wales tried to hire a Wikipedia Arbitration Committee member onto Wikia. Wikia has many thousands of outbound links from Wikipedia, which point to pages monetized by Google AdSense ads. I guess, Cbrown1023, the question is not whether the Board "knows about this", but rather, why are they allowing such a gross appearance of conflict of interest to continue unabated? --Dude Manchap 03:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
If you feel that the Wikimedia Foundation is doing something wrong, by all means file a complaint with them. Otherwise, please take this discussion elsewhere. This noticeboard isn't for solving legal problems. - Jehochman Talk 03:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
This is not currently a legal problem. Nobody said it was. It is a Conflict of Interest problem. Another administrator has called it a "Good question", so why should it be swept under the rug and be "Resolved" by a non-administrator? --Dude Manchap 14:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi again Dude. A few clarifications: you posted to ask whether there's a conflict of interest but haven't supplied much information. Normally requests to this board cite specific activity and evidence. And normally there's an onsite edit history to reference. If this person actually has registered and edits in a way that reflects a conflict of interest, this noticeboard might be able to accomplish something. If the conflict of interest relationship doesn't extend to actual editing activity then I have no direct power and only a little influence. Yet as the founder of Category:Eguor admins I'm particularly open to this type of request. Sure, why not investigate a Wikipedia/Wikia COI? Burden of evidence rests squarely on your shoulders. Go for it if it's particularly important to you. Just expect to shoulder most of the work yourself. I'll check it out, see if there's anything I can do about it, and possibly ask for broader input. That's as fair as I can be. DurovaCharge! 15:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, this is a wiki, so the burden of evidence isn't just on me -- it's on the other users who will hopefully see this thread and have enough "wikisleuthing" in their blood to check it out some more. I appreciate your support of it staying in the open, rather than being hastily "resolved", which really would have reflected poorly on the Foundation. For starters, people may wish to look at these discussions about the Wikia/Wikipedia conflict of interest:
Again, I look forward to whether anyone else will step up and investigate this further. --Dude Manchap 15:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
(stepping over issues of whether this is the right page to talk about the subject)...indeed, board members and accountants both have fiduciary duties to act in the best interest of their organizations. By various laws and governance principles they have to recuse themselves or avoid involvement when there is a conflict. Even a perceived conflict can be corrosive to governance and is sometimes prohibited because people lose faith. Someone who is on the board of Wikimedia or does its finances and also has a financial stake in Wikia should be very careful about taking positions here on things that benefit Wikia by directing traffic there, banning things from Wikipedia so as to distinguish it from a commercial site, making Wikipedia less attractive to constituents than Wikia. Actions that seem to raise a conflict include banning commercial links, advertisements, fair use media, conflict-of-interest editors, etc., from Wikipedia so that people go to Wikia for that.Wikidemo 16:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) Looking over those five links, two of them are specifically legal issues outside my expertise. I have no qualification to evaluate them. Joe Szlilagyi's blog is hardly a reliable source and another on-wikipedia thread was started by someone who's expended his credibility also. The techcrunch.com article holds water, in my opinion. What exactly are you seeking? If the basic complaint regards financial relationships at that level, then the most I could do would be to ask the WMF board to review this matter, and possibly to ask someone to institute nofollow to outgoing links to Wikia. My sysop tools would be useless to address this. Or is more forthcoming? DurovaCharge! 17:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a wiki -- there's no telling if there is "more forthcoming" or not. Another example might be the Essjay situation. Essjay was nominated by Jimmy Wales to the Arbitration Committee -- the highest level of dispute resolution below the Board itself. Only a month earlier (I may be wrong about the timeline), Wales had also hired Essjay to work for Wikia, Inc. This took place this year, well after the issue of "Conflict of Interest" has been made so noticeable on Wikipedia, thanks in part (ironically) to Wales' discussions of editing by conflicted parties. Was it appropriate for Wales to nominate one of his Wikia employees to a position on the Arbitration Committee? I believe that question was obscured by the whole firestorm over Essjay's fabricated credentials. Yes, I think the Board of Directors should look at this entire matter; but do you realize that it should be while Wales and Davis and Beesley (and any other Wikia parties I may have missed) are not present in the room? The other factor that I think is important here is that this discussion remain open for some time. Already two non-admin users have attempted to hide it from plain view, with the reason being it belongs somewhere else. This seems very weak, being that this is a Conflict of Interest Noticeboard, and this is a conflict of interest issue. --Dude Manchap 17:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) To clarify for newcomers to this thread, we've agreed to refer discussion here from the other locations because this looks like the kind of issue best addressed by community input and (possibly) petition to the WMF board. DurovaCharge! 17:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I only have a few comments on all of this... first, I agree that the issue should not have been posted on the COI noticeboard... that is for EDITING with a COI, not conflicts of interests that have nothing to do with articles or editing them. Second, I am not sure what all this hooplah is about, and frankly I don't care. If there is an impropper COI at the exectutive level, I am sure that Jimbo's attorneys will notify Jimbo of it and suggest a change. It does not affect our project of building an encyclopedia, so why should we care? Blueboar 19:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I wish even ten percent of the people who offer opinions about how WP:COIN ought to run actually pitched in to help run it. DurovaCharge! 20:20, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
A conflict of interest on the board of a nonprofit does potentially affect the nonprofit's projects. Jimbo's pronouncements have a quasi-policy effect here, and the board does vote on resolutions that affect what the encyclopedia looks like, how content is licensed and distributed, and how we go about our business generally. If a board member were to say "We do not X on Wikipedia, that is for other Wikis" (implying, Wikis where I might make some money from it) I can understand why people would be concerned. Without saying there is or is not a problem, it's certainly the prerogative of the stakeholders to discuss management issues, and a worthy subject of discussion. Wikidemo 21:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
But, again, what's the resolution? Wikipedia policy is that Jimmy Wales gets to override all the other policies at his whim, so there's always the hypothetical possibility of Wales running Wikipedia for his self-interest, and that's unavoidable unless you want to mirror the site and start over somewhere else and hope people follow you to the new site. In the absence of an actual policy proposal by Wikia that presents an actual conflict of interest adversely affecting the encyclopedia, this is all hypothetical. One could argue that the WP:BLP policy, which deletes not just libelous material, but all controversial material even if true, presents a conflict of interest, because it values Wikipedia assets threatened by lawsuit over the judgment of individual editors about how best to produce an encyclopedia by creating ironclad rules. That's not an argument against BLP, by the way, just against the extreme concerns about conflicts of interest presented here. THF 21:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Fiduciary duties are a serious matter. Overriding the will of individual editors for the benefit of the project as a whole is one thing; not saying this is happening but overriding the editors as a group in favor of a board member's private interest is quite another. One step people could take, and the Board should certainly take, is to subject Jimbo's proclamations to more scrutiny and not adopt them all as a matter of course. If that means changing policy, policy can be changed. We have that power. We don't need to wait for a new, or actual, or proven, conflict to arise before considering the matter. As a technical matter, Wikimedia is not a membership organization so the actual relation between editors, bureaucrats, administrators, the Foundation, and the public is rather complex. Practically, I doubt anyone is going to do anything unless there's a melt-down of some sort. But nothing wrong with discussing. For an interesting parallel (but a very different organization and context) it's interesting to look at the relationship between Craigslist (a for-profit that runs the website) and the Craigslist Foundation (a nonprofit that gives away all the profits). They had to separate over conflict of interest issues, but Craig is still on the Board of both. Wikidemo 23:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
The community has overruled Jimbo on occasion and if a sufficient number of community members raised this issue with the board it would probably have an effect. DurovaCharge! 23:48, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I am sort of confused. Yes, Wikia and Wikipedia share a number of people. Yes, there are some aspects of cozy relationship. That is public information.

If the accusation is that there's a potential COI, then yes, but everyone's aware of it, from the Board to individual admins and editors who bother to pay attention. It's possible we'd all miss some sort of actual conflict or improper behavior, but I haven't seen any.

If you're suggesting such is going on, then please provide us some more specific proof.

If you're worried about it, ask board members if they can let you know what they're doing to review potential conflicts of interest. Georgewilliamherbert 19:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Georgewilliamherbert, did you see when Jimmy Wales used Wikipedia as a talent pool to hire an admin named Essjay onto the Wikia, Inc. staff? Then about a month later Wales appointed the same Essjay to the Arbitration Committee on Wikipedia. If the Board was aware of COI, shouldn't Wales be working on reducing the number of Wikia staff members who infiltrate the highest positions of authority on Wikipedia, rather than increasing the count by one more person? Also, did you notice when Jimmy Wales overruled community consensus and decided that "nofollow" tags should be added to all outgoing links -- but that many of the inter-wiki links to Wikia, Inc. sites were not subject to this decree? Those are actual conflicts or improper behavior. Aren't they? --Dude Manchap 00:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

How to add a new list or glossary of terms (B2B technical terms) standards

Hi,

I would like to understand and get more information as to how would I go about publishing a glossary on to WIKIpedia. My company and other people from other high tech insdustries have a long list of terms associated with B2B technology standards that we would like to publish on here. Is there any upfront cost if any?

I appreciate any guidence and help on this matter.

thank you karen —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.107.248.220 (talk) 14:12, August 22, 2007 (UTC)

This is not the place to "publish" information. This is an encyclopedia and, as such, we report previously published information. If your glossary has already been published, you can write an article about it. If the terms have been published in some other glossery or glosseries you can write an article about the terms. If not, then you are out of luck. As for up front costs... um... YEEEAH... just forward $1,000,000 (payable to "Blueboar") to my Paypal account. :>) (Seriously - what part of "The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" confuses you?). Blueboar 15:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
This editor has also posted this same question at NCH and on my talk page. I addressed it with much the same response as above, though money has not previously been mentioned. If only I had known; I could use the extra cash! Adrian M. H. 18:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject guidelines and WP:BIO

I proposed in WP:BIO about wikiprojects roles in borderline BIO cases, which has mainly to do with minor league players but it could be expanded as such. Wikipedia talk:Notability (people), the last section. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 20:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

To me, its time we create a new set of guidelines addressing the notability of all athletes (think WP:ATHLETE). We should go sport by sport and set notability guidelines for each one. Sasha Callahan 21:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I would second that idea. Acdixon (talk • contribs • count) 19:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Banning policy on proxying--banned users can censor?

Currently the Wikipedia:Banning policy states:

Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying."

If a banned user asks to have something included, does that really mean that all of the sudden everyone is forbidden from including it? If that were the case, a banned user could effectively censor just by asking to have the material he or she wishes to censor included. I'm sure that can not be the intent of the policy. Can we rephrase this so that it doesn't allow banned users to censor new material?

Please respond at Wikipedia talk:Banning policy#Proxying. Thank you. ←BenB4 17:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a problem in the wording, and no it doesn't mean that. If an editor decides in good faith to follow a banned user's suggestions that are made openly on a talk page, then he is not "at the direction" of that user and can do as he chooses. Dicklyon 18:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflicted with the above) I don't see that as a problem. It just means we don't post on behalf of the banned editor. If the proposed edit has merit then someone else will probably make a similar edit completely independently, which is fine. DurovaCharge! 18:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

How are administrators expected to discern between independent and directed inclusion? How is someone who has decided to include material which a banned user suggested supposed to defend themselves from accusations of proxying? Wouldn't anyone proxying likely claim that they are acting independently? ←BenB4 18:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good questions. I think that if I was going to add something that a banned user suggested, I'd say so on the talk page and explain my reasons. It would be up to others to AGF. I wouldn't think you could formalize a procedure for this, but you also can't allow concepts to be censored just because a banned user proposes them. Admins will have to be flexible, as usual. Dicklyon 19:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, provided that the editor adding the content is able to confirm that they believe it valid (per WP:V etc, of course) the WP:AGF dictates that we believe the editor concerned. All we require is the belief that the content is not being added purely on the basis that it has been promoted by a banned user. LessHeard vanU 19:53, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Directed inclusions are usually pretty obvious because they reproduce the same problems that led to the editor's ban. They're mostly cut-and-paste jobs. If anyone really agreed with these people and cared enough, they'd research independently and put citations and statements into their own words, which would be fine. DurovaCharge! 20:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
The only premise I can think of is if the banned editor was blocked regarding their conduct (or similar), rather than contributions. If, owing to overzealous interpretation of the rules, otherwise good edits were removed simply because they were the contributions of a banned user then it may be permissable for someone to reintroduce them - citing that the edits had consensus for inclusion prior to the ban of the editor concerned. For this the question of whether it is being done at the behest of the banned editor is irrelevant, the edits are under a different name and therefore the banned editor is not credited. In reality, good edits will always return (without prompting) since the good sources remain. Bad edits will not survive (despite prompting). LessHeard vanU 20:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I have proposed changing that sentence to:

Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying," unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and have independent reasons for making them.

Is that better? ←BenB4 19:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

No clarification needed. "At the direction of a banned user" is clear enough; it doesn't include making changes that a banned editor wants if the acting editor is doing it independently. Mangojuicetalk 15:25, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

How are BLP guidleines interpreted for a subject who is dead?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Full discussion taking place at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#How_are_BLP_guidleines_interpreted_for_a_subject_who_is_dead.3F

I asked this on the BLP noticeboard as well: This is a serious question - obviously we always should source articles, but do the particularly stringent BLP rules apply for a subject who is no longer alive? Specifically I'm talking about the removal of material that hasn't been adequately sourced(BLP) vs. adding a "Fact" tag requesting citations (most others). Thanks. Tvoz |talk 04:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

With BLPs, it is an urgent matter that unsourced content, particularly that which is negative, be removed. With BDPs, the content should be sourced or removed, but it isn't the same sense of urgency. It's the difference between a mad gunman vs a mildly annoyed guy with a plastic knife. --B 04:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've given a comprehensive answer to this and to some followup questions at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#How_are_BLP_guidleines_interpreted_for_a_subject_who_is_dead.3F, and am closing this discussion to avoid WP:MULTI. THF 04:37, 28 August 2007 (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.

You beat me to it. Thanks. Tvoz |talk 05:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

ps. The recently dead will likely have bereaved family and friends who may be even more litigious than the recently dearly departed, given their emotional state. I have in the past suggested that BLP should be extended to 6 years after the recorded death, i.e. at the point where the tax office also declares them deceased. LessHeard vanU 21:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
If the concern is litigation, you can rest easy. Generally speaking, family and friends have no standing to sue for libel or slander on behalf of the dead. On the other hand, my understand is that BLP goes a bit beyond mere legal concerns and general ethical concerns still apply. -Chunky Rice 23:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
You can't rest totally easy. Remarks about dead people can sometimes create a libel about people they are associated with. Tyrenius 23:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
That's an issue of libeling the living person, not the dead person. Of course a living person has standing to sue if they themselves are libeled. They just can't do so on behalf of the dead person. -Chunky Rice 23:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Of course, but the point is that you can make a remark about a dead person which creates a libel about a living person, so you have to take care what you say. Tyrenius 00:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that we should always take care what we say. But on the question of BLP, I think it goes without saying that it applies to living people (even if they aren't the subject of the article). -Chunky Rice 00:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

RFC: Notability of years

I am requesting comments on Wikipedia:Notability (years), a policy which at present merely writes down what precedent has already said. It needs to address issues for which the precedent is unclear, such as the notability of fictional references to future years. PrimeFan 22:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (Reality Television participants)

Wikipedia:Notability (Reality Television participants) has been proposed as a new guideline. Are these people significantly different enough to merit a new guideline? Or is this rule creep --Kevin Murray 18:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal Guideline/Policy

I would like to dicuss here a proposal for a possible Guideline/Policy (Whatever it suits the best) on Wikipedia, labelled "Wikipedia:Don't edit for power." and this page is to warn that you should never edit wikipedia just for the purpose of gaining power to become an admin or such, because it's for building an encyclopedia, and if you try for power and fail. The result can drive editors mad and cause disputes, etc why wikipedia shouldn't be used for power. I would like feedback on this before I see if such a page should be created. The sunder king 16:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to write an essay on this (we have lots of essays that reflect the ideas of individual editors and give advice about how best to do things on wikipedia... one more won't kill us)... but I seriously doubt that it would ever be promoted to guideline/policy level. It just isn't the sort of idea that most people think should become 'official'. Blueboar 17:20, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I will write an essay then, but I would still like to see more opinions on this. The sunder king 17:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Weeding out otherwise productive editors for "bad motives" is like outlawing money for "making people too greedy". Moreover, if someone wants to single-handedly create fifteen "featured articles" just for the chance to become an admin, I'd say "more power to ya."
One principle frequently articulated around WP-land is "comment on contributions, not contributors". If you feel a contributor (be it an admin or anyone else) has made a specific contribution that goes against WP standards and policy, address the contribution itself. That's much more productive, because it's easy to misinterpret motives, and it's easy to misunderstand someone's intent.
Unless you have a clear and blatant track-record of specific incidents suggesting someone is willfully disregarding WP policy, it's probably better to just keep your guesses about improper motives to a minimum and if possible don't mention it at all. dr.ef.tymac 17:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
While laudable I don't see it as practical and we just have too many well meaning but ambiguous policies and guidelines already. I too think that there are a lot of people out there looking for authority and/or validation in their lives and trying to find it here at WP. I see the buy little beavers packing their resumes in aspiration of getting a mop of honor. --Kevin Murray 19:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


People come to Wiki for data, editors come to Wiki for power. At some point, and it seems to have occurred, the needs of the editors will dominate and nothing submitted will be quite "good enough", or comply with the myriad of policies being promulgated.

Gathering data is hard, editing by comparison is easy. But editors don't think so. So diversity is weeded out, fresh data sources are turned away, and Wiki stagnates into irrelevence.

As Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. put it, "So it goes." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Oracle2world (talk • contribs) 21:46, August 22, 2007 (UTC).

To clarify, an editor is anyone who clicks "edit this page." You cannot contribute anything to Wikipedia without being an editor. It is quite unwise to suggest that the majority of people who contribute do so to gain some sort of power; I can assure you that I edit because I enjoy doing so. Atropos 08:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Not only that, but anyone has the potential to influence almost any part of Wikipedia's system – from processes to policies – if they have sufficient wit and will to do so. But we each have to accept that there will be some things with which we don't agree, but they are set up a certain way for a reason and have widespread support. Nothing is perfect for everyone, and that is as true of Wikipedia as it is of real life. Adrian M. H. 20:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
<minor_rant>True indeed, for example, Wikipedia will probably never be perfect for me unless and until people use more precise terms than "real life" when editing articles. Perhaps promoting a pet peeve is another putative means of projecting personal power.</minor_rant> dr.ef.tymac 14:41, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Deletion and merging violate the GFDL in some cases

As was brought up during the BJAODN discussion, deletion of pages occasionally violates the GFDL, in particular section 4.I.

Consider the following scenario: 1. Article X is created. 2. Content from article X is merged into article Y, with proper attribute as described by WP:MERGE in order to comply with 4.I. 3. Article X is deleted. 4. Article Y now violates the GFDL, since the history required by section 4.I. is no longer accessible.

Since GFDL compliance is a Foundation issue, don't deletion, merging, or both need to be changed to bring Wikipedia back into GFDL compliance? Evouga 20:16, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

As a minor point: the full history isn't used on http://static.wikipedia.org, just the list of contributors.
To address your real question: There is an explanation for administrators here about how to deal with a "merge and delete" RfD outcome, but it's not as well known as it should be. It would be better practice, however, if a list of contributors was copied to the destination article whenever a merge is carried out. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Right, but there's not much an administrator can do if the result of the discussion is delete (not merge), but an editor had independently merged content in the past.
Would it be possible to add, in addition to history, a "contributor history" section to every article, containing only the information required by the GFDL, eg title, contributors, etc, and which is permanent, and untouched by admin deletion? This solution seems clean in that it does not rely on extra effort on the part of the administrator or the editor merging, above what is required of them now. Evouga 21:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that would be technically possible, but the history needs to be with the merged content, not in the original article. And that means we need to educate people about how to merge content correctly (by copying a contributors list to the talk page at the same time). — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:52, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
How would one do that? I don't think wp:merge says anything about copying contributor lists; is there a way to extract the contributors & dates from a page's history? Evouga 01:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
That's a possibility, but it's less complicated to do one of the following:
  1. Don't merge and delete; merge and redirect, and mention in the article history of the main article "Merged from XXX". As far as I'm aware, this is common practice, or should be. That way, the history section of the merged article is still accessible, as it should be.
  2. If the merged article should absolutely be deleted, then do a history merge. (See WP:CUTPASTE for more information about history merges.)
GracenotesT § 03:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
But that's again if the entire page was merged, right?. What if one paragraph gets moved, then one month later the original page is AfDed and deleted, with nobody remembering that a paragraph had been moved. The article into which the paragraph was moved will still have the "merged from article X" note in the edit history, but since article X is now deleted that's not enough to satisfy the GFDL. Evouga 04:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
In that case, the best course of action would be to undelete article X and make it into a redirect. If article X was merged into more than one article, the best solution I can think of is to make a trivial (but non-null) edit listing non-IP-based contributors to article X. Or lament that there weren't better free-content licenses when Wikipedia was started... GracenotesT § 04:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I saw this too, and it has me worried. But my first thought is: This assumes that each page on Wikipedia is a separate "document" for purposes of the GFDL. I had always assumed that Wikipedia itself was the "document". The whole website, the database behind it, the project as a whole. If Wikipedia was a book, then each page would be, well, a page in that book. Is there anything anywhere that says otherwise? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 17:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Using the "orphanBacklinksOnSpeedyDelete" feature on Twinkle

I would like to remind admins who are using the Twinkle user script to be careful when removing backlinks to pages that they have speedy deleted using this script. Sometimes a vandal or new user will click on a legitimate red link and create a speedy deletable page. Please remember that WP:RED says that "removal of red links for nonexistent topics should not be done without careful consideration of their importance or relevance." Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 05:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Switchover to CC 3.0

Comments would be appreciated in the discussion at MediaWiki talk:Licenses. This proposed change would change the license selection drop-down to use CC 3.0 instead of CC 2.5. —Remember the dot (talk) 01:26, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Two types of stubs

There are currently two types of stubs, those which are assessed as stubs, and those which deserve stub templates. The first is based on content, the second on size. This is an odd double-standard. I propose that we treat these as an either/or situation. There is no reason to limit the stub templates to size when the content is what needs expanding. At the least, Wikipedia should decide on one type of Stub so that the word will mean the same thing no matter where you see it. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 17:04, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

  • What's a stub isn't based strictly on size, though there are certainly size-related clauses in the (somewhat open-ended and discursive) "definition". What's a "stub-class article" is... left entirely to the imagination, as far as I know. When these first started appearing, the distinction was justified by at least one WP1.0er on the basis that they "weren't necessarily the same", without a clear-cut definition or distinction being advanced. I suspect most people treat them as being the same, and the huge number of "automatic assessments" obviously assume that "stub" implies "stub class article" (whether or not the reverse is also true). Personally, I'd entirely abolish "stub-class article" categories, on the basis of being unnecessary, confusing, and creating just this sort of definitional headache. (i.e. essentially merge the "stub" and "start" classes, with distinction between them being left to whether or not there's also a stub template.) But I strongly suspect I'm on a loser on that one. People seem to like having tremendously fine-grained "assessment categories" -- despite the original rationale for these (inclusion in or exclusion from WP1.0) necessarily having a distinctly boolean character. Failing that, we should probably do as Johnny suggests, and treat the two as being same, and enjoin people to "please make them consistent, one way or the other!". (Though I'm still dubious that's a job for a bot, since if the two are currently inconsistent, there's no way in principle to know which to resolve it in favour of. It'd be possible to do this in a db-query-assisted semi-automated way, though.) Alai 18:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
  • There's been quite a lot of comment in the past at Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting about this problem. Having the assessment-style templates called "Stub-Class" was a silly mistake from the beginning, since the stub system had already been in place for a considerable time, and there was bound to be confusion resulting from it. Alai's suggestion of amalgamating the terms Stub-Class and Start-Class into a single Start-Class would get around this, or alternatively simply rename Stub-Class to something less confusing. This would not overly affect the assessment system, and would make it easier for WP:WSS, which is often faced with comments from editors confused about the two systems. There are good reasons for the need of two different types of assessment of stubs, though, so I'm less in favour of Johnny's suggestion of making them identical. the Stub system assesses articles in general for expansion by all editors, whereas the Stub-Class assessment is dedicated to individual wikiprojects; as such, it is likely that there'd be a more rigorous assignment of exactly what constitutes a Stub-Class article. This would create a systemic bias, in that articles connected with specific WikiProject subjects would have a different assessment criterion from those with no dedicated WikiProject. So, overall, either renaming Stub-Class to something less confusing, or combining Stub-Class and Star-Class, would be my ideal preference. Grutness...wha? 00:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • I think that the difference between stub-class and start-class is relevant and important. I would support renaming stub-class, but to what? "Seed-class"? Or, rename stub-class to start-class and rename start-class to something else indicating progress, but that would be a fair amount of upheaval. SamBC(talk) 00:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I'm not saying there's no difference between "stub-class" (assuming that's something like a "stub", as current practice would strongly imply) and "start"; OTOH, it does seem likely that it doesn't map in any way to prospective inclusion or exclusion from WP1.0, so I don't follow why it's important to, or relevant to that (and to what else it might be, remains a mystery). I do think it's pointless to differentiate between them twice, as at present, with the consistency issues that introduces.
      • The categories are template-populated, so if the Stub-Class Articles were to be renamed (which would seem a rather half-hearted measure, if it fails to clear up the alleged distinction between those and stubs per se) it wouldn't be a ludicrous number of total edits, and it'd be reasonably automatable. Alai 03:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
        • What about this - keeping Stub class, but as synonymous with those under WP:Stub sorting. This would be purely based on size, and these exceptionally short articles should be grouped together. Then change current Stub to Start, and current Start to something that reflects the fact that it is the foundation of a good article. Perhaps Basic-class, or the (slightly lengthy) Foundation-class? I'm okay with upheaval if we can settle a long-standing point of confusion. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 03:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
          • At the risk of reiteration: Wikipedia:stubs are not defined purely by size. Nor does WP:STUBSORT advance any definition of its own, other than that in that guideline. Alai 04:16, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
          • If we were going to rename the start class at all I would go with 'C' class, continuing with the theme of letter grades. As one of the few people who regularly makes assessments (going by the number of articles that haven't been assessed) I treat the two as the same. Stub is something lacking heavily in content, start is something lacking significant content but being at least half way there, not just a few lines of something. It's not at all 'fine grained' to have both a stub and a start class - the assessment scheme is fairly 'coarse' with just the classes it has, not that I think that needs to change either. Introducing another class would probably just complicate things further, and confuse those used to the current system. Richard001 01:47, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
            • I don't recall seeing any cases where something would be assessed as Stub-class when it wouldn't qualify as a stub for stub sorting, and vice versa. Indeed, many larger projects got a bot (the one written by Kingboyk) to automatically assess all articles with stub templates and add Stub-Class tags to the talk pages. Of course there are plenty of pages where there are inconsistencies, but these are pages that need something updating (lots of stubs have been expanded, but the template or the assessment has remained as Stub). I pretty much agree with Richard on all points. Walkerma 03:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

User who Outed Himself and is Well Known Wants Nobody to Now Say Who He Is, aka User:THF and Michael Moore

User:THF has become an issue, specifically, that he is a well-known individual off of Wikipedia. Under his previous user name (one need only go the very first cache of his current User page), which was his real name, he introduced himself on his User page using his real name and also that of his employer. He also wrote an attack piece on Michael Moore here, using his real name, which he wanted inserted into 25 articles on Wikipedia. For these actions I and another editor raised WP:COIN issues against THF, both of which failed. During those COINs, THF chucked his Real Name User Name for the one he currently has, which are his real initials, THF. Now he wants the bell unrung, and despite all this prior history of introducing himself, his employer, his real name User name, and trying to put work he authored and was published by his employer, he wants nobody on Wikipedia to make any mention of his formerly-used Real Name User Name or his real name. This has caused a massive amount of bad feelings and disruption. First, Michael Moore's website, upon learning who THF was, and how often he edits all of Moore's articles on Wikipedia, made a note of it on his website. There was not attack, and I have a screen shot saved. It was factual: this is who THF is, and this is what he is doing. However, there was a perceived invitation to harass THF by including links to edit his User page (it's possible they thought this was where we leave messages to each other) and also an invitation to edit the Sicko page (nothing wrong with that). However, THF, under the banner of WP:HARASS, led a fight to have MichaelMoore.com removed from Wikipedia. Why? Because Moore revealed who THF is, and Moore was inviting harassment with the link to edit his User page. This caused a massive argument on AN/I, which continues in various forms to this day. Edit wars over removing Moore's website from his encyclopedia articles ensued. Consensus is divided whether this falls under WP:NPA or not. At the least, we asked Moore to remove the links to the edit pages, which he did. Now what is argued is that the very mention of THF's real-life identity, which remains on that page, qualifies MichaelMoore.com as an attack site under WP:NPA, even though there is no "attack" as that word is defined, but a factual statement. The fall-back argument is now that THF has elected to unring the bell he run of disclosing his identity, Moore's site is in violation of WP:HARASS. So, many people want removed from Wikipedia a link to one of the most influential Americans out there because THF wants the bell of his identity unrung, and we are going to "punish" Moore for disclosing who THF is. One would thing that if mattered that much at this point, THF would switch to another User name. Instead, for the wishes of THF and his second thoughts, we are going to start de-linking pertinent websites and remove information from the encyclopedia we are building. My RfC: I would like to have an RfC to find out how feasible it is for a notable person on the outside who did all of the above (introduce himself, edit under his real name, reveal his employer, then switch to a User name with his real initials, and effort to have work he wrote under his real name inserted into multiple articles) to not have that persons name ever used on Wikipedia, to the length of removing content because an outside relevant website points out a statement of fact: This is who this person is, and they edit my Wikipedia pages. Comment on unring the bell and its feasibility? --David Shankbone 18:29, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The ridiculous BADSITES pseudo-policy strikes again and again and again... who will rid this site of this troublesome policy? *Dan T.* 18:37, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Stop your ridiculous BADSITES jihad. This has nothing to do with that. A self-identified user with an ideological axe to grind is editing Michael Moore-related articles. Moore is justifiably teed off. There is no "badsites" policy so stop flogging that strawman.--Mantanmoreland 18:44, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Mantamoreland, if you wish to falsely accuse me of COI violations, please raise the issue at WP:COI/N#Sicko. THF 18:56, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I said you had an ideological axe to grind. You clearly do. That is separate and apart from whether that gave rise to a COI violation. If you don't understand why Moore would be teed off by your editing articles on Sicko, than I would suggest that you're being a bit disingenuous.--Mantanmoreland 19:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
And he's already opened a counter-thread at WP:ANI. Whee. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I've also alerted Jimbo to this issue. I think THF's thread at ANI shows the problem: he essentially wants a gag order on all his prior edits because they reveal who he is. We simply can't discuss his edits, and the work he did on Wikipedia, because of a choice he once made. This is a serious discussion. I find what THF wants to be impossible. This goes beyond the SlimVirgin issue. --David Shankbone 18:48, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I've already explained why I'm not changing my username a second time. WP:HARASS#Posting of personal information explicitly permits a user to change their username without having their real name discussed, even if the personal information is available in a cache. My complaint is that David Shankbone is making false COI accusations against me on yet a seventh different page after being rejected in the first six forums he shopped at, and this is a real WP:STALK problem that I would like an administrator to deal with. If he wishes to discuss changing the WP:HARASS rule without personalizing it with false characterizations of my behavior, he is welcome to do so. Again, I note that I was threatened with an indefinite block when I inadvertently revealed User:Jance's real name in the identical situation where she changed her username, and multiple editors have been doing it deliberately multiple times without so much as a warning. I'd merely like some even enforcement of the rules. THF 18:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

If you think someone is breaking the rules, report them or warn them yourself. Administrators don't have an all-seeing eye. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 18:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
DavidShankBone, how many more venues are you going to bring this up on? This is getting a bit silly. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:01, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
(ec)I agree the raising of this issue on multiple forums is becoming disruptive. At a minimum I urge the involved parties to argue at one forum. If David Shankbone wants to discuss the policies in general or changes to the policy, that might be more appropriate at Wikipedia talk:Harassment, with a note here linking to it. The title of this thread has nothing to do with policy. My two cents. Flyguy649 talk contribs 19:03, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The policy issue is that WP:HARASS does not apply here. THF is a public person, involved in issues and in writing Wall Street Journal Op-Eds and pieces that attack Michael Moore. THF is a public person, not a private person. He has no reason to expect WP:HARASS applies to him, especially when he brings his public battles with other public people to Wikipedia, as he has done with Michael Moore. After all, THF wrote this attack piece on Moore and argued to have it inserted into 25 articles on Wikipedia. I can't believe we are defending the right of a public person trying to conceal his identity when he brings his public spats with other public people onto Wikipedia. Frankly, it looks like we are taking sides. And that's not WP:NPOV and WP:HARASS does not apply. --David Shankbone 19:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:HARASS clearly applies to the actions of DavidShankBone, and heres why. I've only ever known user THF under that name, i did not know he had changed his user name until editors started to publish it and other personal details in violation of WP:HARASS that simple. (Hypnosadist) 19:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Has it occurred to anyone that branding Michael Moore's official website an "attack site" and purging its links from the English Wikipedia will only draw additional attention to the matter (and to THF's identity) and possibly spark a new controversy? It isn't as though it will actually prevent anyone from finding Moore's website, so what's the point? —David Levy 19:50, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I think someone should poke Noronton about this, but he appears to be acting alone. Are there any new issues here? Why must we relive this again every day? THF is not currently trying to "punish" michaelmoore.com—I don't see what this could possibly accomplish. Cool Hand Luke 19:57, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Can we add up the number of misrepresentations in Shankbone's claims?
  • I have never asked for Moore to be delinked permanently. I have asked for policy on websites that try to intimidate Wikipedia authors to be applied evenly, whatever that policy is, and protested when an editor who was applying that policy in good faith was blocked (and agreed that he should be reblocked when he continued acting disruptively after he was unblocked). If policy doesn't require delinking, then policy doesn't require delinking, and I don't seek a change in policy--though I strongly suspect that the policy is not being enforced consistently, and that the results would be different if it had been David Horowitz trying to intimidate a left-wing editor.
  • The Moore page was clearly intended as harassment and intimidation, and I'll be happy to forward the numerous obscene emails and phone calls and death threats I received as a result to anyone who contests this.
  • The offwiki harassment by Moore in an effort to intimidate me from making legitimate edits on Wikipedia is entirely separate from the on-wiki violations of WP:HARASS#Posting of personal information by Cyde and others. WP:HARASS explicitly says it "applies in the case of editors who have requested a change in username, but whose old signatures can still be found in archives." So the fact that I once disclosed my name on Wikipedia is irrelevant to whether people can use it on-wiki today. Numerous users are violating this rule and one admin announced that the rule didn't apply to him. Given that I was once threatened with an indef block for inadvertently violating this rule in the identical situation of User:Jance (who also publicized her real identity off-wiki and on- before a username change), why aren't these users getting so much as polite reminders from other admins?
  • David complains that two weeks ago, I used a talk page to suggest the addition of a cite to an article I wrote. That's exactly what Wikipedia guidelines on WP:COI say I should do, which is why his complaints about this have been rejected in six different forums in the last two weeks, and he has now raised them on at least three other forums today, complete with a series of false characterizations and allegations. When an RFC agreed that the cite should not be added, I dropped the subject. On other pages, other editors have chosen to add links to items I have written; on Robert Bork, I deleted a link someone added to a blog post I wrote, because the paragraph violated WP:WEIGHT.
  • I have never "written about Michael Moore for the Wall Street Journal." I write for the WSJ about legal issues. I wrote an article about movie statistics for The American that mentioned Moore in passing. I may or may not write about Moore in the future (I'm almost forced to now just to show that I will not be intimidated), but that is irrelevant: we don't forbid experts from writing in Wikipedia, so long as their edits are not controversially self-promotional, just as we don't forbid photographers from adding their own photographs to Wikipedia articles.
  • I have not violated the COI guideline. I even self-reported myself at WP:COI/N#Sicko to ask for guidance. My edits to Sicko have all complied with Wikipedia policies, which require edits to have a neutral point of view, not editors.
  • I have never asked for a gag order on my edits. If you have a problem with my specific edits, show diffs and discuss. I have always been reasonable in that regard. I have asked that WP:NPA be adhered to: comment on edits, not editors. My resume is irrelevant to whether my edits comply with Wikipedia policy.
  • Changing my username is only going to make the harassment worse for reasons I have repeatedly discussed, including in private email with Shankbone. I'm keeping my username for good reasons, not to be disruptive. I simply politely ask that people refer to me on Wikipedia as THF, not by my real name. I have legitimate reasons for doing this, including several instances of off-wiki harassment by on-wiki users (including one instance of a threat that a participant in this thread is intimately familiar with), and is it really so hard for people to respect that? If some people remember who I am, or learn about it off-wiki, so it goes. It can be an open secret, I'm not asking for memory wipes or oversight of thousands of pages. I'm just asking that WP:HARASS be respected and enforced on a going-forward basis on-wiki.
  • Am I notable? I'll leave that for other people to decide. There used to be a page about me on Wikipedia for a year or so, an anon vandalized it to delete all the useful information and insert many BLP violations, and it got CSD'd as an attack page months before I was an active Wikipedia editor. I haven't asked for it to be created, and I don't particularly care if it is or isn't. In a week, I'll be named the director of an organization that already has a wiki page about it that I have steadfastly avoided editing, and I'll have a lot less time to spend on Wikipedia.
  • I have real writing to do. I resent being forced to defend myself in forum after forum after forum on the same stale false charges. WP:STALK applies, and I wish it would be enforced against David's disruption. THF 20:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
THF, I am totally new to this issue but I agree that you have serious writing to do. You have contributed extensively to Wikipedia, and whether or not some of your contributions are problematic you have done a heck of a lot of good, positive editing. Michael Moore is an excellent article as Wikipedia goes - biased or not (something we all can and should filter for) it presents a lot of good, sourced information, references, and links. So wherever you stand politically it is a good starting point to learn more about the individual and his work. Slanting the prose one way or another does not really influence the state of the world or the usefulness of the article. Not that it will do any good but it seems to me that everyone involved ought to take a deep breath and consider whether this (meaning the Wikipedia bickering, not the underlying issues) is worth the bother. There are bigger fish to fry. As a public figure you can't expect privacy. Editing articles despite an obvious COI is allowable, as long as your edits are neutral and in good faith, and I commend you on being forthcoming form the beginning. But it is hard to discuss the matter seriously without mentioning who you are. However, I will honor your request that we spare you some of the very real stalker/harassment trouble that comes from being prominent on the Internet. As for notability, I just wrote a Wikipedia article about you, trying to be as neutral as possible, so we'll see. In my opinion you clearly satisfy the Wikipedia biographical criteria for notability. Nevertheless, it was hard to find good sources...many thousands of articles by THF but I couldn't find reliable sources about THF. If you or someone else could add those references or leave a note on the talk page that would be super. Thanks, Wikidemo 20:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
The issue is this: THF edited under his user name and outed himself over a year of editing. Two weeks ago he decided he wanted to be anonymous. He has written attack pieces about Michael Moore. THF is a public person whose career revolves around public policy and public people. He edits every Michael Moore article, and has attacked Moore outside of Wikipedia. Moore identified that this public critic of his also edits his Wikipedia page. Cue the mob: remove Michael Moore's website from Wikipedia for "outing" THF. My RfC is over two things: 1. to what length should a public person involved in public disputes, who then edits articles related to those public disputes, be afforded anonymity when requesting it, especially since they edit for a year under the name with their employer proclaimed on their User page; and 2. Is Moore identifying a public critic of his on his website as a Wikipedia editor an "attack" or "harassment" in any spirit of policy and guideline? --David Shankbone 21:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
"2. Is Moore identifying a public critic of his on his website as a Wikipedia editor an "attack" or "harassment" in any spirit of policy and guideline?" Yes WP:NPA and linking repeatedly violates WP:Harass. (Hypnosadist) 21:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Enough. Moore's behavior does not make his site an attack site for these purposes. THF does have a possible conflict but as far as I can tell all his edits have been NPOV or close to NPOV. He should of course be careful to continue abiding by NPOV and pay particular attention to the WP:COI guideline. JoshuaZ 21:22, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The applicable policy and section here is WP:NPA#External links, which has been modified in recent days. - Crockspot 21:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Sources and no original research

I have proposed a replacement for the WP:NOR#Sources section of Wikipedia:No original research at Wikipedia talk:No original research#Sources proposal. The proposal focuses on what sources should be relied upon and how to handle other references, in relation to original research. Cheers! Vassyana 16:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

placement of citation

What is the policy about citation location? Should one put it on a phrase, on the sentence, at the end of a paragraph? Suppose two sentences in a paragraph have the same source? Can the citation be at the end of the second sentence?--Filll 16:39, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

See WP:FN and its talk page. If a citation refers specifically to one part of a sentence and is not relevant to the rest of that sentence, then place it in the middle as needed; otherwise, place it at the end. Two or more facts in one sentence or paragraph that come from the exact same reference source can be cited with just one reference. For the sake of readability, it should go after punctuation. Some folk cite reasons of style and convention for placing them before punctuation, but easy readability is more important. Adrian M. H. 17:18, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Reference styles

I cannot seem to get this information from WP:REF or similar areas. Which of these is correct?

  • Some statement.[1]
  • Some statement.[1] ... (with obviously a REF section on the page)

I think the second one looks better and makes articles more consistent, but I still see the first style. Can I get some comments on this one? Thanks Timneu22 02:55, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

The second one. It allows for precision and explanations:
  • Some statement.<ref>For the precise place of the invasion, see [URL1 impressive_web_page1], which cites [book1]; for the weather at the time, see [URL2 impressive_web_page1], which cites unpublished papers held by [archive].</ref>
Et cetera. Note that after you've scrupulously entered your note, some well-intentioned blunderer may fiddle with the main text so that your footnote appears to source something other than what it really does source; thus a bit of explanation in the footnote can be a good idea (though tedious to type of course). -- Hoary 03:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Another advantage of the second is that you can use the citation templates, but even if you don't, you can still add explanatory notes (per Hoary), the authors, publication, date accessed, etc. Also if you use <ref name="ref"> ... </ref>, then you can cite the same source more than once by using <ref name="ref" /> for additional occurrences. I do find the first type (inline citation) useful if I'm in a hurry, but I at least want to ref a source. -- Flyguy649 talk contribs 03:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't particularly recommend the templates (more typing/pasting involved) but their layout examples are very useful as a guide to best practice. The biggest issue with embedded URLs is that(obviously) they prevent inline citations for offline sources. Another advantage of footnoting is the {{note}} system that allows you to split up notes and references. Adrian M. H. 11:09, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Well then, everyone agrees. So shouldn't the citation pages be updated to make that more clear?... This style[2] is considered deprecated. When I see this style[3] I amost always replace it with this one[2], but I wasn't sure that was the absolutely correct thing to do. Now that we all agree, should the WP:CITE pages be more clear in steering editors in the correct direction for citation styles? Thanks again. Timneu22 14:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I think so, and have always thought so, but that is just my opinion. I never liked using embedded URLs and I have since returned to old articles and changed any that I can find. But therein lies part of the reason for their continuation; they are very easy for new editors to grasp. Not that footnotes are hard at all, but a simple URL link means one less thing to learn when someone (like me) comes along and says "you know, you should really cite all that". I would not mind seeing the embedded URL system given less weight, at the least, though I doubt that we would readily reach consensus in favour of that. We won't see it given the elbow altogether any time soon. Adrian M. H. 16:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that it's not hard at all, yet I also agree that URLs are easier for first-time editors to understand. I'm simply suggesting that comments are made on the WP:CITE pages that say something like, you could use this URL refs, but the preferred method is the ref style.... Isn't that worth it? Timneu22 16:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it is. You already had my full agreement about that. Propose it at WT:CITE and see what response it gets. Adrian M. H. 17:20, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
WILL DO, THANKS. Timneu22 18:23, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Childhoodsend/Balance check (2nd nomination)

I believe this user page debate should get more attention. Editors should weigh in on whether this sort of alleged administrator POV rollcall violates WP:CIVIL and/or WP:USER. If such lists are uncivil, I think we should ask whether it would also be uncivil for a users to post them on public talk pages. Cool Hand Luke 05:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

  • An interesting question is what people seek to gain by having such lists (1) visible to the public, and (2) in a place where the subject of said lists can't practically edit them. >Radiant< 08:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The answer is, don't criticize a government using resources the government controls, regardless of whether the criticism is valid. Considering your list is focused on a single issue (global warming), calling it "balance check" is simply a misrepresentation.--Father Goose 16:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Non-free album artwork in Song articles

Is it acceptable fair use of non-free images if album cover artwork is included in articles about songs on an album. An example is Image:SurferRosa.jpg in Where Is My Mind?. I would suggest that it is not fair use, as the image is not being used to illustrate the song itself. This has been discussed briefly before, but no real consensus was reached. I think this needs to be clarified as it affects a huge number of articles. Thanks Papa November 14:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't even find it appropriate in album articles unless the cover art itself is a notable part of the album, I'd certainly say the same for songs. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:34, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I sure disagree. The cover art is essentially the only thing that can illustrate the album. I think it's fair to say that for songs, too, unless they had a single cover. Ask User:Mikegodwin. ←BenB4 22:08, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm hard pressed to see a reason why we would care. It seems to be working fine. The musicians put art on the covers to attract attention to their products and their careers. Having this art at WP atracts attention to their music and careers. Everybody wins but the anal rule enforcers/creators. Please let sleeping dog lie and turn up the tunes. --Kevin Murray 22:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Here is the text from the US Copyright Office webpage about Fair use:
Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered “fair,” such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;

3. amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The distinction between “fair use” and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.
So even the Copyright Office says that this is not a bright line. In my view, using an album cover to illustrate a song satisfies all the four points: (1) Wikipedia is nonprofit and for education purposes, (2) and (3) are both answered by the fact that the album cover is intended by the copyright owner for display to the public at no charge before the work is purchased and that only the outer cover is used, not the entire package graphics and text. This would be different if the artwork were used to illustrate something unrelated to the music an on the album, for example an album by Madonna used to illustrate an article about "Nightclubs" would not be fair use. (4) is answered by the fact that album copyright owners actively encourage the display of their album artwork everywhere and that there is no way its display on Wikipedia would reduce the value of their product. This is in contrast to, for example, if there were a bonus fold-out poster of the artist inside the CD package - that would be something of value intended only for purchasers, such that if it were displayed would reduce the value of the package.
For those reasons, I believe displaying album cover artwork to illustrate the following topics is valid under fair use: The album; songs from the album; the recording artist; and the record company (if the record company is the copyright owner).
These are my personal opinions, having done some study of Intellectual Property issues. As said, I'm not an attorney, but I can't imagine a copyright owner of an album complaining about exposure for their music by display of the album cover. Examples are everywhere on the web, wherever there are reviews, there are album covers, and there are no cease and desist letters or lawsuits about those things, the record companies welcome it.
I suggest that WP:FAIR policy is unclear on this and needs to be improved. I'm sure that there are attorney editors who would be glad to help with interpretations and to clarify the language. --Parsifal Hello 23:22, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
The question here is not fair use, directly. Wikipedia has policies that are more restrictive than the fair use limits, for two or three main reasons. One is to steer well clear of copyright liability rather than pushing any limits, keeping in mind that Wikipedia has a small legal budget, that it intends the articles and material in them to be re-used by people with very different purposes (including creating derivative works), and that these uses may be in different copyright jurisdictions. Another main reason is to limit the use of copyrighted content overall. And finally, Wikipedia hopes to encourage people to develop free use content, either by creating original material or finding public domain things.
Under Wikipedia's limitations -- not fair use necessarily -- an album cover to identify a single from the album is probably not a good use. This boils down to criterion #1 (replaceability) and #8 (significance) of the 10 non-free use criteria at WP:NFCC. It does not uniquely identify the song. It's there mostly as a visual device, not a necessity. In fact, whereas most album articles do have the cover art for the album in the infobox, you'll find that most song articles here do not use that kind of picture and they do just fine. It's not a question fo can you do it legally under fair use, it's do you really need it. My hunch is, no.
If you don't like the policy this is as good as any a place to talk about it but it's very entrenched and I do not see it changing soon. If you want to know what the policy is instead of what you think it should be, WP:NONFREE and its often contentious talk pages are a good place to read up. Be sure to check through the archives. Hope that helps. Wikidemo 23:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not agitating for change about this, I was just offering my view based on the prior question. My personal opinion is that displaying album covers is much ado about nothing, because the copyright owners love it when their album covers are made visible. I've seen the pages you refer to, and I respect that others have other concerns about keep all uses free. I'll leave that debate to them. Thanks for your reply. --Parsifal Hello 22:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Using cover art in the album article makes sense, maybe even for singles. However when the article is about a song rater than any particular single release of it I don't see what business we have putting cover art into the article. Now granted people tend to "work around" that by simply dedicating large portions of the article to the various single and cover releases of the song, but asuming the article is actualy mostly about the song itself I would say you need to carefully explain why it's needed if you want to add an image to it, albumcovers can rarely be said to identify the song, a particular release of a song yes, but rarely the song itself (over the years a song is usualy included in any number of releases with all sorts of different cover art), and you would need more than a brief mention of a particular release in order to justify an identifying image of it in a song article. --Sherool (talk) 21:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
There are two different arguments against including non-free pictures, such as album covers. One is that it violates general fair-use guidelines. You hear this one when people say things like, you have to make a serious discussion of the artwork... The other is that Wikipedia restricts fair-use content, because it restricts the ability to distribute and redistribute the material found here. Currently, the line is blurred regarding the first point. As far as I know, nobody has any official rules on what's okay, and what's not. Everyone who weighs in on whether an image is okay to use or not is giving his own opinion (do not use that fact as an excuse to push the boundaries). Just try to keep it reasonable. With regards to the second point, the English Wikipedia supports the use of fair-use material. If you keep it reasonable regarding the first point, you shouldn't have any trouble here either. -Freekee 03:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

THF

Per WP:COOL, I have not edit-warred on this, but I'm asking for the end of hostilities and edit-warring on a remarkably silly issue, and have one apology and one request, which I split into separate sections. THF 15:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

1. On the question of WP:HARASS

Over the last six months, I have been subjected to an extraordinary amount of harassment because I sought to comply with WP:COI and disclosed my identity. In an effort to reduce the harassment, I made a username change, which I thought was a good compromise: long-time editors generally inclined to behave themselves knew who I was, trolls wouldn't be able to immediately pick me out. Unfortunately, due to a number of unenforced violations of WP:CIVIL and WP:STALK, this has had a counterproductive effect, as efforts to politely ask people not to gratuitously throw my real name around merely encouraged canvassing for systematic harassment. I strongly suspect that much of the combat over this was a proxy war for other Wikipedia controversies that had nothing to with me, but that some editors were seizing upon this dispute to create a precedent for attacking a more popular editor. So I'm just not going to ask any more, and would encourage people to not fight about it, and instead focus on the production of the encyclopedia.

I have to suspect that Wikipedia would not have treated me this way if I were left-wing, rather than right-wing.

Except this is more than a suspicion: it's a demonstrable fact. In February, I complained that the Drum Major Institute had retained two attorneys to act as "Civil Justice Wikipedia editors", and was systematically subverting Wikipedia by completely rewriting every article in my field, legal reform, to reflect solely left-wing views, making literally thousands of POV-pushing and original-research edits that violated Wikipedia policy even without the WP:COI violations. But when I linked to the blog post where they indicated their conflict of interest, I was immediately threatened with an indefinite block, administrators debated whether I should even be given the chance to apologize, and was sternly warned never to do it again--even though the same editor previously edited under her real name before starting a new account with a new username, but no record of her previous account's edit history. No one even suggested that I was not in the wrong, and I abjectly apologized.

I apologize to those who were offended by my invocation of WP:HARASS in what were literally identical circumstances. I am an attorney by training, and my mind thinks in terms of precedent, and this was an obvious application of precedent to facts precisely on point. It should have occurred to me sooner that the problem was with the original administrative decision in the first case to demand an apology from me and forbid me from repeating the evidence of COI.

I want to thank those who came to my defense, and I apologize to them if they are frustrated by my concession here after they spent so much effort on the issue.

I apologize to Wikipedia to the extent that my request for straightforward policies to be enforced as they had been previously enforced was disruptive. For the reasons stated above, these requests were in good faith.

I note that this incident raises three issues for discussion:

  • The need to modify WP:HARASS.
  • Whether Wikipedia has a bias in enforcement of its blocking policies.
  • Whether Wikipedia should be permitting any anonymous editing of the encyclopedia. THF 15:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

2. On the question of WP:COI

I would like to repeat again that, over the course of 7000 edits in over 2500 pages at Wikipedia, I have consistently tried to comply in good faith with the WP:COI guideline, seeking guidance from admins with legal training. I would again like to ask editors to comply with WP:NPA, and comment on edits, not editors: for all the complaining about me, no one has identified a single instance of a bad-faith mainspace edit. Compare and contrast SPA User:Drum Major Institute, which has made precisely one non-promotional edit in the course of its Wikipedia career without anyone saying boo or nominating its articles for AFDs.

I again ask that COI guidelines be enforced neutrally. Chip Berlet and William Connolley are permitted to edit articles in their field, even though they have very strong opinions, and even though they are attacked by trolls on- and off-wiki for the appearance of COI. But when they are attacked and harassed by trolls on-wiki, the trolls are blocked. In my case, however, not only are the trolls not blocked, but their demands are taken seriously: there are editors who are demanding that I entirely avoid not just articles in my field of expertise, but any controversial articles. I'd like not to have to fight the same battles over and over, and not have to wade through mud on such simple basic tasks as participation on the WP:BLP/N cleanup. Can we get a definitive and internally consistent ruling: are Chip, William, and I permitted to edit, and if so, under what constraints?

I note that an overexpansive COI ruling, while simultaneously permitting anonymous edits, is only going to cause more conflicts of interest, by making it perfectly clear that different rules apply for anonymous editors and non-anonymous editors. There is also discussion at WP:COI/N#Sicko, where I demonstrate that there is no reasonable interpretation of the COI guideline that suggests I should be prohibited from editing that article. THF 15:09, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

A ban on anonymous editing is not going to happen, but I think you're right on COI. The popular understanding of the policy penalizes people for every bit of personal information they reveal. This is completely backwards: the policy should encourage COI disclosure so that such edits can be monitored by others. Many editors have suggested that you start a new anonymous account while simultaneously suggesting that your edits violate COI. That's doublespeak, and its bad for the project. Cool Hand Luke 15:28, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The problems with THF's Posts above

This is a repeat of the argument I made at the Community Sanction board. I find it highly disingenuous that THF now wants us all to learn from his experience, as if is a victim, when in reality he caused a massive amount of disruption. The problem here is not one of COI, the problem is one of disruptive editing and Wikilawyering. I've outlined this case in my above comment. Our policies and guidelines protecting user anonymity are there to protect the NYPD police officer who makes a factual but unflattering edit to the Michael Bloomberg page, and should his identity be found out, may have ramifications for him with his job. However, if Fernando Ferrer, a Bloomberg opponent, began editing the Mayor's page, his identity would be pertinent to the discussion, and our guidelines and policies would not protect Ferrer. The situation with THF is analogous to the Ferrer situation, not the police officer. THF's career is to criticize public figures that disagree with his ideological point of view, and in the situation at hand, with Michael Moore in particular. Our guidelines and policies are there to protect those of us who are not public figures so that we may edit with knowledge we possess without fear of negative consequences in our waking life. Harassment, death threats, stalking, job problems. THF, who now says he has nothing to hide, so I am guessing he does not mind being called Ted Frank, has none of these issues and if he does, they are probably more a problem when he goes on Fox News than when he edits Wikipedia. Therein lies the rub: Ted has wanted to protect his identity against "unseen forces" on Wikipedia that he curiously is not concerned about when he goes on national television, with his face, employer and identity for a much larger audience to see. The problems I see for sanctioning are as follows:

  1. THF's WP:Wikilawyering - using and abusing the letter of policies and guidelines with no concern for the spirit of why these were intended. This has caused a massive amount of disruption on the Wikipedia Project. He argues he should be protected by rules that are not there to protect Fernando Ferrer or Ted Frank when they bring their public disputes onto Wikipedia.
  2. THF's Disruptive editing - He has consumed the ANI board over the last week asking to have pertinent content removed from articles, in this case Michael Moore and his sub pages, because Moore fingered a known, notable public critic of his as one of his main Wikipedia editors. THF has instigated disruptive edits and made them himself by gaming our policies and guidelines.
  3. THF's WP:COI - when a person authors an unnotable piece as THF did, and then argues strenuously to have it included, going so far as saying it is a violation of policy not to include it, they are violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the COI guidelines. When a person who has a public feud with another public person, such as Michael Moore, and then efforts to have that person's content removed from Wikipedia, it violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the COI guidelines.

Those are my arguments for sanctioning.
--David Shankbone 17:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This is about the enforcermnet of wikpedias rules not what some editors think the policies should be. Shankbone and cydes repeated harassment of an editor due to his political beliefs is appaling. The fact that no admin has stopped this blatent breaking of the rules is even more worrying. Just so you know i will post what policy actually says;

1.4 Posting of personal information Posting another person's personal information (legal name, home or workplace address, telephone number, email address, or other contact information, regardless of whether or not the information is actually correct) is harassment, unless that editor voluntarily provides or links to such information himself or herself. This is because it places the other person at unjustified and uninvited risk of harm in "the real world" or other media. This applies whether or not the person whose personal information is being revealed is a Wikipedia editor. It also applies in the case of editors who have requested a change in username, but whose old signatures can still be found in archives.

AND

2 Off-wiki harassment Harassment of other Wikipedians in forums not controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation creates doubt as to whether an editor's on-wiki actions are conducted in good faith. As per WP:NPA#Off-wiki personal attacks, off-wiki harassment can and will be regarded as an aggravating factor by administrators and is admissible evidence in the dispute-resolution process, including Arbitration cases. In some cases, the evidence will be submitted by private email. As is the case with on-wiki harassment, off-wiki harassment can be grounds for blocking, and in extreme cases, banning. Off-wiki privacy violations shall be dealt with particularly severely.

Harassment of other Wikipedians through the use of external links is considered equivalent to the posting of personal attacks on Wikipedia. The Arbitration Committee has ruled that links to off-site harassment, personal attacks or privacy violations against Wikipedians are not permitted "under any circumstances" and must be removed. Such material can be removed on sight, and its removal is not subject to the three-revert rule. Repeated or deliberate inclusion of such material can be grounds for blocking.

There is not interpretation ArbCom was clear and the harassment is still on wikipedia So do something about it.(Hypnosadist) 18:31, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Comments

Wouldn't a user conduct RfC be a much better forum for this? --Iamunknown 17:36, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Possibly. Although my edit count with THF will go up for the amount of forums I edit about regarding his behavior. I also posted that in response to his post. --David Shankbone 17:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Given that both parties allege that the other has acted unacceptably, it would seem more appropriate to seek mediation, then arbitration. That said, mediation is probably not going to work well at this point.
I must say that I applaud THF for his restrained and mature response to this ongoing issue. His behaviour at (what I believe to be) his original COI discussion was far from appropriate, and he's learned from that and is now behaving much more reasonably and I can't find fault with his behaviour based on a casual inspection of the case (I don't have time to look into it in depth). THF has declared his interest and behaved appropriately from that in every case since that COI that I have seen. The behaviour of those editors persuing the matter seems to be approaching that befitting a witch hunt.
In the interests of openness, I should add that I am generally in support of most of Moore's agenda, and despite THF's politics. That doesn't extend to me despising him, nor does it (or should it) lead to me obstructing his edits in support of that political agenda where it actually leads to better articles. SamBC(talk) 17:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope I am not premature in saying that David and I have reached a reconciliation on his talk page. I hope that resolves the majority of the issues. I encourage discussion of the COI issue at WP:COI/N#Sicko. THF 21:57, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Picture galleries

The following tag is being used to tag photo displays, but I can find no specific guidline or policy that expresses a preference for removing picture galleries to Commons, nor can I find any prohibitions against the use of image galleries. --Kevin Murray 21:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It's based on WP:NOT#REPOSITORY; "4. Mere collections of photographs or media files." See also Wikipedia:Galleries.--Svetovid 00:12, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
In addition to the above, (and part of that proposed policy cited) Mainspace galleries which states: Mainspace gallery pages must be titled (e.g.) Gallery of the Kings and Queens of Great Britain. A single gallery section within an article should be titled Gallery. (Much more information in that section) Ariel♥Gold 00:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems that these both recommend against pages which are substantially pictures only, but does not prohibit a gallery section as an illustrative tool in a comprhensive article. --Kevin Murray 00:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that's a good summation. Perhaps because having many images in one article could hinder those on dial-up or slower internet connections, but I personally feel that galleries simply don't "fit" into the article format as well as images that are placed in a balanced, eye-appealing manner throughout the article (my opinion). Ariel♥Gold 00:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't advocate these for the general case, but I can't see a prohibition when the tool makes sense for the subject matter. --Kevin Murray 00:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Talk page policy question

Per a recent discussion I had with an anonymous editor who removed entire comments made by another editor, I'd like to know if there is a policy that states specifically, that comments you leave on your talk page, or other users' talk pages, may not be posted elsewhere. (Basically, an editor "quoted" an anon editor from his talk page to illustrate a point, and the anon editor feels that's against policy to do.) I've reviewed the policies and guidelines and find no such policy, in fact, the issue of other editors quoting you, is something mentioned more than once. Thanks in advance. Ariel♥Gold 11:37, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

  • No, there's not, per the GFDL people are allowed to cite one another. It does matter what they're doing; for instance, following a user around and quoting a hasty unfriendly remark he made everywhere is clearly not constructive - and neither is selectively quoting (or removing) only part of a conversation with the apparent intent of misrepresenting it. The relevant "policy" is probably WP:DICK (which is not aimed at you but as a general principle). >Radiant< 11:41, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, yes thanks Radiant. This edit removed the quotations (that were also accompanied by diffs) but also removed the entire comment of the other editor, which is why I reverted it in the first place. Thanks for the clarification! Ariel♥Gold 11:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Dealing with templates in user signatures

WP:SIG states clearly that users should not transclude templates in signatures, but makes no mention of what to do when you find an unsuitable signature that transcludes a sub-page. Is MFD the best route to take? WP:DP and the MFD page do not make any specific mention of this unless I have missed something, and UAA looks unsuitable for this. Adrian M. H. 17:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I encountered a user with one of the flag templates as a part of his sig. I left a friendly note on his talk page with a link to the policy, and he removed it very quickly. I'm not sure what you could do if the user refuses to comply and/or is transcluding a huge page. Probably TfD or MfD. Perhaps adding noinclude tags to the subpage would decrease the size as a temporary measure. But I'm just thinking off the top of my head here. Flyguy649 talk contribs 18:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
It's generally acceptable to edit signatures that cause problems, say by Subst: the page or replacing it with a more generic less distracting attribution, as long as you don't alter any of the basic information (timestamp and username) Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:53, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for replying. I want to talk to him about it before doing anything, but it helps to have something to tell him about what might happen so that he's fully informed. He hasn't edited many talk pages yet (fairly new user) so it's not yet a big problem for anyone. Adrian M. H. 20:02, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
  • The best approach is to talk to him first, and if that fails to resolve anything, ask an admin to get him to stop. MFD is really not necessary, because the existence of his subpage is not the issue. In a few extreme cases, people have been blocked until they changed their sig. >Radiant< 11:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Academic updating their own article

Under what circumstances is it appropriate for an academic to update their own article here, with new publications, new interviews, new lectures etc?--Filll 20:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

See WP:AUTO. The route suggested is for changes to be brought up on the article's talkpage and then integrated into the article by independent editors. (Having said that, something like the publication of a new book is easily verifiable and I personally wouldn't see any problem with autobiography in a case like that.) --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\talk 20:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Objective and readily verifiable information like the above-mentioned publication of a book is OK, though it has to be prudently sifted so that only the person's most notable stuff is included. I'm far more concerned about cases I've seen where academics have blatantly whitewashed their articles or filled them with puffery. (Not at all to say that such sins are confined to academics.) Raymond Arritt 20:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

what a source is?!

good example :
i put a trivia on The Prince of Tides article, the movie, and some guy, User talk:Spellcast, undid it : cause : "unsourced" - - - sometimes, when i'm on wiki, i'm really asking myself about intelligence, in general - - -
trivia text : "The actress Kate Nelligan, who plays Tom and Savannah's mother, Lila, was born on March 16th, 1950, and was older than her twins in the movie, Tom (played by Nick Nolte, born on February 8th, 1941) and Savannah (Melinda Dillon, October 13th, 1939)" : what more do we need, more than the birtdates?! ri-di-cu-lous, huh! 84.227.48.33 07:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

  • The problem is that you're just posting your own observation. Even though it's trivial to do the math, it's trivial to do any number of comparisons--that's how people come up with all those wacky numerological coincidences. The question is 'why is this observation noteworthy?' The answer is to find a secondary source that has taken note of it, and its reliability is a sign of the amount of value to give this observation. If it was noted in a review, cite that, for example. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 07:38, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, the information makes sense, but you need to state where you found that information (ie. its source). Did you read it somewhere? Did you see it on TV? Everything in a good encyclopaedia must be backed up be a reference. Papa November 07:49, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • sometimes, too often, people on wiki are really... how to put it politically correctly?! sorry, there is no other word than **ity : who needs sources to read an official birtdate? AND you do not know what a numerological coincidences is!!! what i put is NOT a numerological coincidences but JUST the FACT that an actress was older than other actors playing her son+daughter in a movie, that's all 84.227.48.33 08:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
bravo, i never read something this *** about what a source is... in this case, the point is just to KNOW the bithdate: no one needs a source!!!! OR : you have to put in wiki all sources for all mentionned birthdates, good luck! 84.227.48.33 08:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
-Papa November 08:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

This whole discussion is very silly. First, it should be clarified that 84.227.48.33 means that the actress playing the mother was nine years younger than the actors playing her children. This is certainly an interesting fact, and Night Gyr's question implies that he didn't fully understand what 84.227.48.33 was talking about.

Second, Papa November is mostly wrong. Birth dates are rarely referenced (though that doesn't mean they shouldn't be), should not be removed for being unreferenced (though checking them and referencing them would be a splendid way to improve the encyclopedia), and, in my opinion most importantly, his last question about making up dates implies that anything unreferenced is made up or that allowing anything without a reference behind it is supporting factually inaccurate information. This is an enormous assumption of bad faith and simply not a logical conclusion. Atropos 20:44, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's an interesting trivial fact. But is there a source that recognises this observation? Is there a source out there that says "oh look, the actress playing the mother was nine years younger than the actors playing her children!" Spellcast 01:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Such a source is unnecessary if there are sources for their birth dates. This is an obvious factual observation, like finding the population density of a region for which you have the population and the area. Atropos 05:18, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
yes, but to demonstrate that this is more than a minor factoid you require secondary sourcing. This is kinda like WP:N on a small scale and IMHO is a good thing. It prevents articles degenerating into trivia lists. Zunaid©® 14:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Even if this were backed up by a source, it doesn't have to be included if it's too unimportant or not relevant. Now, if this were a part of the critical reception of the film, that would be a different thing. Mangojuicetalk 15:19, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Since the article has a trivia section its a little to late for that pressing concern. Even still, I would certainly suggest that this be included in a well-written cast section were the article more mature. Atropos 18:45, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

i am User:84.227.48.33 : OF COURSE i was meaning the actress was "much" younger than her son+daughter in the movie !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 84.226.96.243 07:47, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

User page collection of material against others proposal

There is a proposal at User page: Collection of material proposed language to address user page posts about other Wikipedians at MfD that do not rise to the level of a WP:CSD#G10 speedy delete attack page. Please participate in that discussion. -- Jreferee (Talk) 18:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

cleanup-restructure?

What's the status on this infobox? It's pointing to a dead Wikipedia instruction page, but is still being brandished over at Adult. --Nathanael Bar-Aur L. 02:55, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed new guideline

I was wondering if the Guide to good indentation should be turned into a guideline. It's currently an essay and is fairly sensible. It just needs to gain consensus--Pheonix15 17:46, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

It looks like you've (inadvertently) duplicated the material that's already part of Wikipedia:Talk page#Formatting. Perhaps you should just merge any additional instructions or clarifications to that page...? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
It looks like I have. This has it's own page though and elaborates further--Pheonix15 17:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Hold on. Would that mean it's already a guideline?--Pheonix15 18:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd say the material you linked to isn't redundant; the essay in question is more detailed and I believe that level of detail would be inappropriate on Wikipedia:Talk page. Perhaps a mention of Wikipedia:Guide to good indentation at Wikipedia:Talk page#Formatting, or making it a subpage? My original intent in writing a guide to indentation was to be comprehensive and representative of current best practices. Having more than the general, non-comprehensive pointers at Wikipedia:Talk page#Formatting would overshadow other sections and give unnecessary detail for a page that covers a broad range of topics. BigNate37(T) 19:18, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
No one has mentioned WP:TPG; in any case, I've reverted the edit that declared the page to be a guideline, as being a bit premature. See Wikipedia talk:Guide to good indentation for further comments. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Notability re Agents

I have a question re what might or might not be the appropriate perspective for notability with respect to agents: The question is prompted by the fact that I created an initial entry for an agent (deceased) by the name of Kurt Hellmer, who had represented Max Frisch and Friedrich Dürrenmatt amongst others. The entry was deleted as non-notable. My thinking was that a literary agent who had represented such major authors was of some note in an encyclopedia. Now, in most cases, agents, even very successful ones, keep relatively low personal profiles in the general press. Therefore, unless an agent is just starting out, a personal publicity hound, or a ripoff artist, they tend (with some rare exceptions) not to be the subject of articles devoted solely to them as opposed to passing references in other sourceable articles or books. Now, perhaps WP simply isn't interested in the possibility of an entry for such folks, that they simply aren't as important to the community consensus as, for example, anime characters, reality show contestants, minor athletes, or porn stars. On the other hand, it would seem to me, to cite this particular example, that a literary agent who represented major writers such as Frisch and Durrenmatt is of some interest, is verifiable to the extent of verifiable references though not devoted solely to them as the subject, and is appropriate. How do others feel? Would whoever T S Eliot's agent may have been be of interest to WP, or not? AtomikWeasel 17:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

  • That article shouldn't have been deleted, as it did genuinely assert importance. Talk to the deleting admin, I'd say. But ultimately articles need to be based on information from published sources... if so little exists that we could never create more than a directory-style stub article on the person, then deletion might be called for, but through WP:AFD, not speedy deletion, as happened here. --W.marsh 17:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Pardon me if I don't follow protocol well here -- I'm not a regular editor and rarely make it to these back pages. At any rate, agents are without question an essential part of the publishing process and their role is hardly trivial. They're more than repackagers and advocates -- frequently they determine the merits of a writer (or actor or whatever property the agent represents) before anyone else. Many agents work with writers on a line-edit basis before editors and publishers have their say. They're the difference between a solicited submission and unsolicited, or 'slush'. Certain agents have helped shape entire genres and publishing lines. For example, Virginia Kidd (and the agency named after her) at one time represented a huge number of the major writers that made up the 'Golden Age' of science fiction in the 40s through the 60s. A submission from her to a magazine or book publisher frequently meant the difference between acceptance or not. In the relationship that can establish a sub-genre or publishing trend, and agent can sometimes be more influential than a publisher, though not an editor. Of course the big problem is often documenting this. Many agents keep their client lists close to their vests for professional reasons -- others boast. But there is little question of their importance; especially historically." JimFreund 19:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Please, the entirety of the article when I deleted it read: "Kurt Hellmer was a New York literary agent who represented, amongst others, Friedrich Dürrenmatt." Period. If that's an assertion of notability, there's nothing that can be deleted for a lack of notability. Notability is not inherited, so an agent is not automatically notable by virtue of notable clients. In order to survive speedy deletion, the article has to assert that the agent is significant or important, which it did not. Even if significance / importance is asserted, the article can still be deleted at AfD if the consensus is that the subject is not Notable, as defined here (as opposed to here), meaning that there is adequate discussion of the subject in published sources. -- But|seriously|folks  22:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
    • "Notability is not inherited" is an argument for AFD. A7 isn't about whether something is important, it's about whether it claims importance. Even in the deletionist 2007 it's still held that A7 doesn't apply to articles that claim notability but an admin doesn't feel it's enough to survive an AFD. A movie with notable actors, a player for a notable sports team, and yes an agent for notable people, these are claims of importance. --W.marsh 23:51, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
      • It simply seems to me common sense that if an agent can verifiably be established as having represented one or more authors who are, as in this instance, generally understood to have been amongst the most important of the century, they are as noteworthy as, say, a pornstar, an anime character, or a Startrek uniform. Perhaps I lack an appropriate perspective. AtomikWeasel 23:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
        • That a given agent represented, at one point in time (for how long - two months? two years? two decades?) a famous person is hardly an assertion of notability as defined by Wikipedia; the deleting admin was correct (in my opinion). More to the point, "notability" isn't a totally subjective matter here - we have a guideline: Wikipedia:Notability (people). Looking through that, I saw nothing that argued that an agent who (let us say) has never had a published article about him/her is somehow notable. I think we're confusing Wikipedia as an encyclopedia (which MUST rely on the published, historical record) with some sort of subjective "importance" criteria. Spouses and parents and siblings of famous people often play a significant role in the success of their famous spouse/child/brother/sister, and on an "importance" scale presumably could be quite important; but if there is no historical record as to that importance, then Wikipedia isn't the right place for a biography. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:04, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
          • As defined by Wikipedia it is an assertion of importance. An assertion doesn't mean it's something that passes WP:N, it just means it asserts some credible level of importance. Being the agent of someone notable is a claim of importance. --W.marsh 01:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
          • Firstly WP criteria are demonstrably rapidly and nearly infinitely mutable. Secondly, I am unaware of their addressing a question of this form. The very definition as to whether or not an agent is important is whether or not they represent major figures. If WP prefers to confine itself to the trivial and arbitrary for the sake of convenience or its internal dynamic it condemns itself, ultimately, to trivially agglomerative status. The example you offer, that a friend or relative may be important to the dynamic of a notable figure begs the question in that one does not create an entry for Wife or Friend of X then argue notability based on X being important. In this instance, though, the simple rational fact is that an agent is a major agent if they represent major figures. To argue otherwise is effectively to argue that there is no criterion for notability for an agent in which their central function is the central criterion but, rather, to argue that notability would be determined by trivial or derivative consideration. Is this meant to be an encyclopedia of verifiable trivia? AtomikWeasel 01:17, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
            • Add'l: I've just looked at the entry for literary agents. By virtue of the delete arguments offered here it seems to me that most if not all of the examples given require deletion and that WP simply feels that literary agents don't make the cut, rather preferring entries for high schools, anime figures, porn and reality show stars, etc, etc. I fail to see the rational basis for this other than an anti-intellectual bias in the name of convenience and bureaucracy. AtomikWeasel 01:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
              • I would agree that this article asserted notability. Since the deleting admin has publicly disagreed, I have started a conversation at Deletion review. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dsmdgold (talk • contribs) 02:25, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Log in

When did "Log in" grow the enter some weird letters requirement & why? It is frustrating. -- SGBailey 08:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

You likely entered your password incorrectly once. It was done due to recent concerns over password strength, and one particularly notable incident where the account of an administrator was hijacked, which resulted in the main page being deleted, among other things. Sephiroth BCR (Converse) 08:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
When you made a mistake typing in your password. Someone's been running dictionary attacks against peoples' passwords, and this keeps it from working anymore. --Carnildo 08:33, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
OK - That makes sense. Thanks -- SGBailey 21:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I have created Wikipedia:Copyright on highway shields as a page to discuss and determine the copyright status of logos for highways, mainly toll roads. Please help, especially if you are familiar with copyright law. Thank you. --NE2 03:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Note to UK, Irish, Austalisian, South African, and other English speaking editors outside of North America - this is likely to involve Highways in the United States (and possibly Canada) only. LessHeard vanU 12:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Why? — The Storm Surfer 22:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Because, in the UK at least, we don't tend to have highway logos. Bluap 13:39, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Reasonable limits of the {{otheruses4}} hatnote template

Using all of the parameters of the {{otheruses4}} template as so:

{{otheruses4|USE1|USE2|PAGE2|USE3|PAGE3|USE4|PAGE4|USE5|PAGE5}}

resulting in the hatnote

This article is about USE1. For USE2, see PAGE2. For USE3, see PAGE3. For USE4, see PAGE4. For USE5, see PAGE5.

seems like an abuse of the idea of a hatnote – can anyone point out an instance where a hatnote should point to four different articles, rather than to a disambiguation page? Even three other pages seems like too many – I would consider a four article disambiguation page far preferable to a wordy three article hatnote. Is there some existing rule of thumb for the threshold where a dab page should exist? If so, would there be support for changing this template to only allow disambiguating one or two (possibly three, but certainly not four) other pages? Does anyone know how to find which pages transclude this template with all the parameters filled? — Swpbtalk|edits 15:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC) 19:20, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I would imagine a viable reason for multiple uses in this format is if they were closely related to both the intiial topic and each other, in which case the reference to them in this manner would be akin to a "See also" section at the base of the article.
That said, I think too long a list of other uses disrupts the article opening and presents alternative pages in a disorganised way. If I saw more than (say) two "other uses" in this cotnext, I would probably go ahead and create a disambiguation page or add the relevant links to the "see also" as described above.
I'm not aware of any mechanism for detecting pages with the template filled - I would think it is not necessary to amend the template as I've not noticed this being a problem to date. other views welcome, as always. Euryalus 02:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a mechanism that can do this. You change the template to include a "hidden link" (a space char that links to an article) to a tracker page in case, for instance, paramater USE5 is used by the template. Then you use the "What links here" of the "tracker page" and you will see how many pages make use of USE5. Of course that will generate quite some load on Wikipedia, because all pages with transclusions of otheruses4 will get queued for processing. --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Hatnote#Linking to articles that are highly related to the topic is also considered improper use of the hatnote, a guideline with which I agree. I haven't seen the full paramaterization of {{otheruses4}} in practice, but I have seen it used for three other pages, which I generally make into a disambig page when I find it. It just seems to me that there is no reason for the template to allow so many parameters, and that this would encourage poor structuring. — Swpbtalk|edits 15:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC) 12:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I also agree with Wikipedia:Hatnote#Linking to articles that are highly related to the topic - topics that are directly related to the main topic should be linked as outlined rather than as a hatnote. What I was envisaging was the cocnept of ssay, articles on a chemical structure where there were similar structures sufficinet that a reader could have sougth them instead, but the article cotnent was not sufficiently related to link it elsehwere in the text. Sorry if that sounds a bit unclear - I think we agree on the main point which is that multiple hatnote references are better converted into a disambiguation. Euryalus 04:47, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Controversial experts

Question: Has this Arbcom ruling --

  • 5) Knowledgeable users, including those who have been engaged in controversial activities, are welcome to edit on Wikipedia, provided they cite reliable sources for their contributions and respect Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, especially Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought, Wikipedia is not a propaganda machine and Wikipedia is not a battleground.
Passed 8-0
Passed 8-0

-- been superseded in any way other than WP:COI? (There was an identical finding in December 2005.) Please restrict answers to the general abstract Wikipedia rules and guidelines, without reference to particular individuals. Thank you. THF 23:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

What's this in reference to? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 00:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
It's in reference to a user who has announced that he will follow me around and complain about all of my edits, including talk page edits, as possible COI, though he has yet to find an actual example of a COI violation, unless administrators explicitly tell him to stop. But before I complain, I want to ensure that the principle of "undue focus" from this 2005 arbcom has not been modified in some other rule that I am not aware of. THF 02:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about anything else 'superseding' the arbcom ruling, but I don't see how COI actually contradicts it at all. SamBC(talk) 01:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't either, actually. I just wanted to clarify that I was aware of the COI guideline so that the discussion would not be derailed by someone raising it in response to my question. THF 02:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
It's not immediately apparent specifically who or what this is about. However, if people are misconstruing COI it might be useful on the COI guideline page to clarify that the mere fact of a lawyer (or a pundit, lobbyist, or gardener or web designer for that matter) having worked on a certain issue or for a client in a particular walk of life does not in itself create a conflict for that lawyer to later write a Wikipedia article related to the issue or subject. As a paid advocate, a lawyer may over the course of a transactions or litigation career come to represent any cause and industry under the sun. Just because, say, I helped a multinational company buy a shoe factory, or defended a manager accused of accounting improperly for vacation day accrual, does not mean I have a conflict of interests every time I discuss shoes or vacations. Making these kinds of accusations is a cottage industry in politics, and I hope the cynical partisanship games that promote them do not spill over into Wikipedia. Further, criticizing an expert from writing within his own field of expertise is a matter of keeping hens out of the hen house.Wikidemo 12:54, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I suggest that this be handled through an RfC/U, or an arbitration, rather than by raising it on talk pages and noticeboards all across the project. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 04:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

How are BLP guidleines interpreted for a subject who is dead?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Full discussion taking place at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#How_are_BLP_guidleines_interpreted_for_a_subject_who_is_dead.3F

I asked this on the BLP noticeboard as well: This is a serious question - obviously we always should source articles, but do the particularly stringent BLP rules apply for a subject who is no longer alive? Specifically I'm talking about the removal of material that hasn't been adequately sourced(BLP) vs. adding a "Fact" tag requesting citations (most others). Thanks. Tvoz |talk 04:01, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

With BLPs, it is an urgent matter that unsourced content, particularly that which is negative, be removed. With BDPs, the content should be sourced or removed, but it isn't the same sense of urgency. It's the difference between a mad gunman vs a mildly annoyed guy with a plastic knife. --B 04:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've given a comprehensive answer to this and to some followup questions at Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#How_are_BLP_guidleines_interpreted_for_a_subject_who_is_dead.3F, and am closing this discussion to avoid WP:MULTI. THF 04:37, 28 August 2007 (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.

You beat me to it. Thanks. Tvoz |talk 05:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

ps. The recently dead will likely have bereaved family and friends who may be even more litigious than the recently dearly departed, given their emotional state. I have in the past suggested that BLP should be extended to 6 years after the recorded death, i.e. at the point where the tax office also declares them deceased. LessHeard vanU 21:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
If the concern is litigation, you can rest easy. Generally speaking, family and friends have no standing to sue for libel or slander on behalf of the dead. On the other hand, my understand is that BLP goes a bit beyond mere legal concerns and general ethical concerns still apply. -Chunky Rice 23:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
You can't rest totally easy. Remarks about dead people can sometimes create a libel about people they are associated with. Tyrenius 23:49, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
That's an issue of libeling the living person, not the dead person. Of course a living person has standing to sue if they themselves are libeled. They just can't do so on behalf of the dead person. -Chunky Rice 23:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Of course, but the point is that you can make a remark about a dead person which creates a libel about a living person, so you have to take care what you say. Tyrenius 00:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I think that we should always take care what we say. But on the question of BLP, I think it goes without saying that it applies to living people (even if they aren't the subject of the article). -Chunky Rice 00:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. ^ http://www.google.com
  2. ^ http://www.google.com
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