Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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

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

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Trivia is what Wikipedia does best; Wikipedia has become bigger than itself

Since the world already knows that Wikipedia is only a temporary social experiment, and not a reputable inclusion of actual human knowledge to the serious and deadly pursuit of organic survival values in a cold, remorseless universe of strange, complex, exciting, and inexplicable wonders, the fountain of trivia should continue unabated. The new and absurd signs indicating "This is trivia, Wikipedia discourages trivia" should make any seasoned viewer of Wikipedia laugh a speculative laugh. Wikipedia articles are written by unknown people with unknown credentials. Surely Wikipedia attracts self-aggrandizing "experts" in actual fields of study, who add and edit with care and zeal. But it is obviously run by people who have either nothing better to do with their lives than "edit" an encyclopedia, or by people who have time on their hands, for whatever reason -- be it disability, alcoholism, laziness, or inherited wealth. Since the world should not and does not and will not take Wikipedia seriously, it should continue to be a repository of unsubstantiable trivia. That's what makes it fun to read. There's a catagory page for "mysteries," which contains much speculation. Since this speculation is from "sources," does that make it authoritative ? Wikipedia should stop trying to represent itself as it would like to be seen and represent itself as what it has actually become. That will help to clarify to non-Wikipedians what it intends to be, whether or not it actually achieves what it sets out to be, which it has not, and cannot do. The hyper-emotionalized, utterly non-intellectual bickering evident on these talk pages simply runs counter to what it purports to be, but it serves as a source of comedy that these days I cannot live without. Acrimony is hilarious.

Wikipedia is a vast repository of human consciousness, the objects of the "Third World," the world of objective contents of thought (reference to the philosophy of Karl Popper). This is very important as a tool to brighten human future. A place to put stuff that others can access which libraries cannot catagorize, hold, or cross-reference. Angered by my tagline "Trivia is what Wikipedia does best ?" Well, I'm not surprised. Another non-intellectual reaction to purely intellectual issues. This unfortunate and ubiquitous overemotionalizing is the bane of humanity: the cause of wars, poor evaluations of actions and situations, inept interpretations, and policy-page acrimony. Read on, if you dare. I'm making an important point here, which is this: there has never been a place where humans across the intellectual spectrum could deposit and associate all the loose strands of accumulated knowledge that has been collecting dust on shelves across the planet for decades and centuries. Libraries cannot cross-reference nor even contain all this important detritus. Libraries, crucial as they may be, are at once repositories and filters. Yes, filters. Because only those knowledge sets and nuggets deemed important or relevant are contained therein. Seemingly useless lists and uncatagorizable (Dewey Decimal style) knowledge chunks fall to the wayside due to the physical limitations of the space, as well as the cost of human labor and materials, not to mention time. Wikipedia spreads all this out horizontally. Wikipedia must not be compromised by overzealous editing. The exclusion of trivia will eliminate so much future cross-referencing as to render it a simple encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not merely an encyclopedia. Those who purport to possess the vision and power to state unequivocally that Wikipedia is merely an encyclopedia are perpetrating a grave injustice not just to Wikipedia itself, but to human consciousness past, present, and future. Wikipedia has become a PROCESS, not just an accumulation of facts. Wikipedia is bigger than its stated goals. Wikipedia has transcended its own identity. Wikipedians must now embrace what Wikipedia means to the future of human consciousness. Kreepy krawly 01:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to sound insulting, but all that is quite unappealing to read, much less for the simple point of allowing trivia. Also, please place new posts at the bottom. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, I see you've posted a shorter version of this already. Just because no one responded doesn't mean you should post it again and again. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it's a good example of the sort of "essay" that articles would be full of if we didn't have policies to help guide our editing. Dicklyon 01:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I've been called a proponent of trivia in Wikipedia, and even I found this to be a rather unappealing rant. The bulk of this is just flowery embellishment of a point that can be summed up in a couple of sentences, and it's furthermore a point that many have brought up before. The counterpoint is that despite what some people think it "ought to be", Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That's what it was created for and that's what its purpose continues to be. If you want to argue about what might belong in an encyclopedia, that's a different issue entirely ;)

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

20:39, September 12, 2007

Interesting. Sorry my essay/rant is so unappealing. Actually, I'm not sorry at all. Perhaps as this string continues ad infinitum, Wikipedians will find some ability to respond to my future pithy statements on the matter in a way that creates a dialogue. I'm not at all surprised to discover "attitudes" in place of "thoughts" in response to my well-intentioned points. The non-Wikipedians whom this essay is also directed toward will delight in the confirmation of one or more of my theories. Here's the short end of my sharp stick, in truncated form: Wikipedia encyclopedia more than because future require horizontally decentralized freedom thoughts experiment continue forever necessity invention. Hope that is appealing enough. Perhaps we should write articles in this fashion, with only predicates and predicate modifiers. That should speed things up, and remove and prevent the flowers from growing.Kreepy krawly 03:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Deliberate foolishness in regards to criticism will no more prove your point than your preceding rant. Moreover, it hardly helps your credibility. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 03:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

So based on this logic, attempts at improvement are not only futile but stupid? Does this mean rehab centers should not exist because drug addicts should just accept what they have become? Mr.Z-man 03:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

break for section edit 1

(unindent)Drug addicts are recognised for what they are; Wikipedia maintains that it is an encyclopedia and only a few have pretended it is anything else. However, if you see that Wikipedia is evolving into something other why don't you take advantage of the free software and nurture this new lifeform. Take what you need from here and invite others to be midwifes and nursemaids. The rest of us can continue to contribute here. LessHeard vanU 13:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Your main point, Kreepy, is that Wikipedia has grown past being an encyclopedia, and you think it would be of more use to the public as such, and so we should just give in to that. That's the sentence you should've written, if you indeed wanted to make a serious attempt as condensing this. This isn't a good a good argument though, because it has such an obvious answer -- and that answer is no, this is an encyclopedia, as is stated many times over in many different locations. The goal of this place is not to aid humanity through whatever means necessary. Rather it is simply to make an encyclopedia. A BETTER argument, which I tried to allude to in my first response, is that trivia doesn't necessarily need to be excluded from a work titled an encyclopedia. But whatever you do, don't try to say this isn't or shouldn't be an encyclopedia. That's the worst thing you could possibly say, because it simply isn't true. It was intended to be an encyclopedia and continues to be intended as such, by its founders and by the people who maintain it. You simply won't find too many people who agree that we are, or should be, getting away from that intent.

Equazcion (Talk • Contribs)

04:09, September 13, 2007

Again, fascinating. I'm fascinated by the tone of this forum. And the viewers of my writing have reiterated their unending fascination with the tone of this forum. My point being proven manyfold, which is vitriol is more entertaining than thought, I will allow another elucidation for your edification, but introductions always come first. The name is Kreepy krawly, to be exact. Wikipedia can continue to "improve" itself, but not via the attitudes of a frustrated mob lacking future vision. Ahhhhh, trivia is the seed of this string, but the larger issues loom: I make no attempt to prove any such credibility as mentioned, as it is futile and unnecessary. Yes drug addicts should accept addiction and let that sword fall where it may, as destiny draws the poet to danger in a dry gulch. A hummingbird drinks from the flower that fits its beak. We are driven by our nature and the limitations of our environment to unpredictable worlds. Wikipedia is indeed an encyclopedia; my thought on this matter involves systems theory, dynamical and chaotic systems, self-describing systems, complex systems. Systems: their origins, processes, utilities, and outcomes. Stars are born and stars die. And new stars are born. And from the cauldron of these ashes emerges a galaxy, which could not exist without creation and destruction. And were there a "god" controlling the system, only a spiral wonder no more complex than an image painted by a house cat could exist. Wikipedia cannot be controlled, only curtailed by well-intentioned, if somewhat misdirected, editors. It appears that Wikipedians are meer traffic cops, keeping the vandals at bay. These traffic cops are like weather men trying to rid Kansas of tornados with sorcery and card tricks. But they will and must persist with their traffic duties. Wikipedia has generated more information about bickering than this bickering has generated useful information. Should a word count be commenced to determine exactly what the ratio of encyclopedic data compared to bickering is within Wikipedia ? So. My point here is that Wikipedia, as a dynamical system like any other, will continue to become other than what it is described to be. Like it or not. Intelligence designs, creates, and unleashes a complex system into the world. Intelligence tries to control the system. The rate of change of the system increases. Intelligence can no longer use original definitions to describe the system. Intelligence becomes frustrated. The system cannot notice the designer, it keeps right on changing. Intelligence takes a back seat. So embrace that process, its inevitibilities, and that is how Wikipedia will be "improved." And embracing trivia, encouraging trivia, hyperlinking trivia, will yield intellectual rewards unforseen. What is futile is trying to stop the stars from being born, and trying to keep them alive forever. Because eventually, in every system, the diffuse clouds of randomness coalesce into something they never knew they could be. Let me know if you'd like a real email, real name, and telephone number, so you can tell me what you really think. And friends, let's be colleagues on a mission of truth and common values rather than opponents in a ring of fire. The world is hellish enough without smartish simians running around banging heads with bones. I like imagery, as it encapsulates meaning in potent ways. Logic is a subset of possible thought, and not the primary system of cognition. I'm waiting for Wikipedians to decide on unborn or nascent civility and enter the slipstream of optimal enhancement. I can show you how if you wish. Kreepy krawly 07:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC) 07:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you serious? Gwinva 08:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Whilst the writing, punctuation and use of white-space are p!ss poor there are a couple of legitimate points there. Using trivia as a vehicle is pointless IMHO as well.

WP governance needs to grow up, to recognise where the project is now, not where the aspiration was several years ago. Until that time, it'll remain of marginal value as an information repository and of more interest as an experiement in gateless, collaborative, knowledge management.

Standing by for some messenger shooting

ALR 12:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) These unappealing rants—which most likely owe much of their length to wiktionary—need more cowbell. LaraLove 12:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ha! :)

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 16:07, 09/13/2007

I am serious about my message. My writing is bad ? Oh, I see. And I never consulted any outside sources during the composition of this message. What is Wiktionary ? I doesn't matter. Apparently Wikipedians, as expected, are unable and/or unwilling to engage in serious dialogue. And the facile late-night skit show reference accomplishes what ? Again, acrimony is hilarious. When again I restate this string, I shall do so in a more efficient manner, so as not to, hopefully, welcome such pathetic acrimony. Kreepy krawly 16:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Serious conversation is impossible with such ridiculous embellishment, especially when several different poeple have told you as much. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 20:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

(←) Kreepy Krawly is in no way serious. I burst out laughing when I got to his third or fourth post and it was a giant wall of rant. You don't do that when you're actually trying to make a point. He's giggling his little head off on his side of the screen.-BillDeanCarter 20:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. But it provides me with some amusement too...not seen such wonderful (!) purple prose in ages. Gwinva 21:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Still no serious discussion. I've noticed comments about the words, and not the message. I've also noticed a disproportionate emphasis on the person, rather than the message. Is this the manner Wikipedia demonstrates its professionalism to the world ? How can serious people take Wikipedia seriously with this level of dialogue ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kreepy krawly (talk • contribs) 22:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think I've addressed your message rather satisfactorily. My comments on your wording were a mere side issue.

Equazcion • argue/contribs • 20:10, 09/14/2007

Section Edit Break 2

Cover Judgment...Move On

Aside from the abrasive delivery, there were actually some decent points in the first wall. This is a social experiment. Maybe it neutralizes the arguments if the results don't take into account that the population involved sought to alter the experiment. Maybe the experiments have more to tell you.

What if the mouse looked up at you from his little maze and said, "Look, this would be a lot more fun if you added some ramps and slides. I'm tired of the same old landscape."

Imagine a similar revelation.

I realize this gives Gamers a lot of leeway in the policy. But skip ahead through the common sense sector of Wikipedia. Policy and enforcement should dictate the guidelines that enable communication, but otherwise its purpose should be to keep the experiment from destroying itself.

On another note, we should realize that everyone here has a right to an equal voice. Yes, voice, not vote. This thread was started because one individual has a different idea about what wikipedia could become. We each reshape this document with every word we write. Realize that the purpose of his outburst was not to whine about why this experiment should be his way. The purpose of his comments was to start a discussion on this particular topic.

To summarize:
1. We all have different ideas about the value of information(whether you name it trivia or knowledge), but it can be agreed that we all value it. No one's idea should be unrecognized because of its poor presentation.
2. Maybe some of the ideas in the original paragraphs need to be discussed.
This page should be taken into account: Wikipedia:Be_bold
Nonbankfiddle 20:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Such is exactly my point. We all value information, just not the same information, and who is to decide what information is valuable and what information is useless. Useless information indeed exists in any complex system. And the Wikipedia guidelines are well-functioning limiting factors. There are extensions to my original thread that I will bring up in the future, and I will restate some of my original points in a more concise form. I appreciate my esteemed colleague Nonbankfiddles comment above immensely, as it diffused a growing angst, and provided at least some vindication of my efforts in this forum. I agree my rant was an outburst; thank you for declaring that I was not whining and I didn't want it my way. Exactly true. What I was attempting to do, and what I will continue to do in the future, is to open up a kind of Wikipedia-specific metacognition thread, of which more topics than the ones expressed here are valid discussion points. This is also in relation to complex system theories about informational systems describing themselves, and Godel's Theorem. Users may or may not be interested in the background intentions or psychomemetic, epistemological, semiotic, or semantic mechanics of my threads, but there is a higher purpose than even this mere encyclopedia. Yet this encyclopedia represents something, as stated, bigger than itself, and a recognition of this may aid in attracting more talent to the project. The project is only as good as its contributors. The project will continue, and we all agree the project should continue to improve, not just because we put alot of time into it, nor because its got lots of ramps and slides (it does !), but because by making Wikipedia a better place, we are making the future a better future. Wikipedia has become important to human evolution. Kreepy krawly 22:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in. There may be others with better stuff to post on this thread. But, I guess, I couldn't resist myself. Well, from what I read so far I think this discussion contains the following points (even if not in so many words) - (1) we should encourage trivia, not discourage it; (2) the definition of trivia may be those pieces of information that doesn't fit anywhere else; (3) this should be done because no other system of reference does it; (4) Wikipedia is has grown beyond its original purpose to accommodate this inclusion; (5) the policies need a review; (6) because we all have different views on the value of information; (7) the other way to this is to start a similar project founded on the values of trivia; (8) but, such proposals should be written in precise and concise form as opposed to flowery prose; (9) because flowery prose is not taken seriously... There may be more, but this would do, I guess, for now. Now for my two cents - how do we accommodate an indefinite number of uncategorizable information? Or have we forgotten that Wikipedia runs on a category system (or category systems - in plural) of its own? Not even Wikipedia has indefinite shelf space. As for an indefinite amount of randomized trivia, google already serves us fine. With all the forums and blogs and whatever floating around, and a google search engine to bind all that in a structure, why do we need Wikipedia to serve that purpose? Well... better brains are at work. I shouldn't worry too much. Cheers. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 17:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

You keep going on about how serious you are. It's funny how someone who has to continuously state they are "serious" usually means most people just scroll on by or stay to watch for entertainment value. You talk about how "bickering" on Wikipedia is such a source of entertainment for you. But I wonder if it ever occurred to you that by making a self-righteous, insulting post, you're just becoming a "wanker" and not a "wankee"? By participating here, you make yourself just as acrimonious as anyone else who might participate. Laerwen 19:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Who are insulting here, my dear? Poor old me (it comes right after my post, you know)? Or, Kreepy krawly (since KK made the original post)? Whoever it is, please, don't do this. Comments like this are very detrimental to discussion and consensus. If you don't like a thread, you can always ignore it. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 17:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

:::actually the intended value is the part highlighting wikipedia as a rough paradigm of what could be a vast collection of human consciousness...a way to acheive a global democracy, almost...can you imagine a site such as this that automatically translates everything into your chosen language? we could communicate with anyone in the world, see their points of view...it could be an incredible thing or it could be a failure...but best of all, it could be a place where all people have an equal voice...

so what KK was trying to say, is wikipedia is just informational right now, but it could be a model for something greater...Common Sense, Thomas Paine.

Nonbankfiddle 18:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I actually searched this out just to post how dissatisfied I was personally with Wikipedia attempting to eliminate the trivia section. This is what made Wikipedia great. It was an internet resource not only full of pertinent information, but also some nice random facts about the subject. Removing trivia sections will not increase Wikipedia's credibility, but is more likely to just bring more actual disdain of Wikipedia.

~IH ThekolIH@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.3.7.129 (talk) 04:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, some of us think that the trivia actually enhances WP, as suggested by KK. But, how do you profitably organize the indefinite amount of trivia coherently into the project? Will it be less random than a Google search? If yes, how so? If no, why bother? Random information organized randomly should be a function of serch engines, not an encyclopedia (or something resembling an encyclopedia). The the flow of human consciousness is an epistemoligcal problem still beyond any hope of organization, why dump it on a few million hapless editors most of whom are even unaware of the heap load of philosophizing that goes along the very word consciousness. Ummmm... never mind. It just doesn't seem to be a workable soultion. Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 12:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

As is often stated else where : WP is not a paper encyclopaedia and therefore can provided new possibilities for the organisation of data. I think what is being discussed here might be more conveniently termed as orders of importance. Back in the early 1960s when my farther purchased the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it was not that it had more detail on each subject that impressed me (I was expecting that) but that it had articles about things -I hither too- did not think important enough to be in any encyclopaedia. However, these extra article were very helpful -in as much- that they made some of the articles on other topics easier to understand, because they provided knowledge about the world and it workings -which that at that time- I lacked totally. Off the top of my head here is a rough possible brake down:

Section Edit Break 3

Orders of IMPORTANCE

1)Those articles which provide prime knowledge about subjects which one would need to be aware of if one was to be considered to have a well rounded education (example: say mathematics and forms a part of 'general' knowledge).
2)Those articles which expand on the knowledge in the prime articles by concentrating on a sub speciality (say for example calculus which forms part of 'specialised' knowledge.
3)Articles which foster insight and understanding.
4)Articles which are not of global importance but are of importance :
a) Locally.
b) Culturally.
c) Linguistically.
d) Etc.,
5)Articles of odd details and passing ephemera, which on their own and individually, maybe of little importance, but their sum presence provides the real world context to all the above. In other words: These are the small things that a Martian would have to know about before s/he or it could make sense of our world from our written and illustrated text alone.

This is already beginning to happen in part by the grading articles by importance for the CD version. See: Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Assessment. What is needed -I think- is a proposed policy which outline where the dividing lines could be, in order that both 'information in articles' and individual articles can be placed into the most appropriate classification of importance rather than just deleted because Britannica would not included such mundane detail or trivia. It might also help clarify what is truly unwanted moronic banal trivia. 'Useful' collections of knowledge are so, because they are organised, rather than any policy of what a library might accept or refuse. Example: the British Library which takes in every thing published in the UK. It is not about making WP into something other that an encyclopaedia, it is about how to develop it to its full potential. This requires a creative vision which is not always easy to state clearly and often beyond the intellectual grasp of others. So a few words from dissenters is to be expected. Stick to your guns KK.--Aspro 14:03, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Are you suggesting a separate set of articles for trivia (like we have for, say, portals)? Portals already make all articles kind of passing ephemera, as they keep changing, and there is no good going back to a portal for easy access to an article or whatever. Or are you suggesting a separate wikimedia project like the Wiktionary? Or may be just random inclusion of trivia wherever an editor fancies? Aditya^{(talk • contribs)} 14:12, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. I will put it another way:

'Trivia' is often in the mind of the beholder. For instance: At my side I have a local history book with 31 pages devoted just to fragments of Roman pottery. On one page picked at random there are 16 fragments drawn and described, and similar numbers (depending on relative size of pots) on the other 30 pages. To some editors views, to included that amount of potsherds (plus plans showing where each was found) is un-needed trivia - if all you want to know is 'were the Romans here?' BUT if they (the editors) where interested only in Idie Bands, then they might think that every album and every track by a certain globally unknown BUT LOCAL band is important enough to put on WP - to 'me' that is trivia BUT to everybody that follows that band it might be the only interesting info in WP. To a social anthropologist, they my find the Indi Band track titles interesting; as an indication of the type of issues today's youth is concious of. For this reason they might not consider it trivia either.

So I am saying: if we can accept trivia as just another level of knowledge, we can not only include it in WP but also organise the information in a way that has not been done before in an encyclopaedia. The advantage would be that: if someone was just starting out on learning say European History, they could knowingly skip over low importance (trivia to some) sections or even whole low importance articles (these are articles that exist already), so that they can concentrate on getting a good overview first. A grading system (of existing content) will highlight the best articles to read first -as an introduction to the subject. The lower importance articles can be left until they are certified 'anoraks'. This is not suggesting 'trivia' be added on purpose! Rather that where trivia occurs it is identified as such, and in proper relationship to the other information.

Acceptance, would also remove the excuse some editors have, of removing perfectly good content just because it is outside their particular sphere of interests, in the very narrow world, which they themselves inhabit... Do the underlined bits above answer your question?--Aspro 16:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Section Edit Break 4

Final thoughts on Trivia.
To use an analogy. For augments sake, liken the present 'paper encyclopaedias' to the early museums -all you saw was all there was. Now, today, museums have more artefacts in the back-rooms than on public display. It may seem to some people to be pointless to have row upon row of draws full of even more bones and things, best examples of which are already on display. Yet this is were the new discoveries are made; new patterns found; new connections formed; new insights gained. Large collections of bones can suggest the incidence of cannibalism, TB, leprosy, etc. WP like wise provides the opportunity for vast amounts of data to be stored and selectively retrieved and cross referenced. The semantic web is being designed to make this task easy but that is not a reason, not to explore what WP is capable of achieving. What I think needs to be formalised is a way of informing the “Readers” of WP : “Here is the public display cases of prime examples. If your thirst for knowledge runs deeper then the back- rooms are through there.” These divisions -I think- are important, because if one tries to take too much in one go when studying -it becomes too easy to make erroneous conclusions. BUT it is 'all potentially' important information - even that, which some editors consider to be in their eyes trivia. Trivia can -and often does- turn out to be very important; sometimes leading to new sciences. This is why I am being so pedantic.--Aspro 17:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Reading age

This is spawned from a discussion at WP:NOR.

There appears to be no policy or style guide on what the target reading age should be for Wikipedia articles. If there is, I haven't spotted it.

I am a great believer in Plain English (though not a great writer in it). However complex a subject should be, there should not be any need for any unnecessary complexity in the language. It is very tempting to write academic articles in academic prose, when we should recall that this is supposed to be an encyclopaedia for everyone. Often people think that clever English makes a piece seem more credible. I think that a really good piece of editing can bring the reading age down, and still keep the same content.

I've run a few random pages through a readability test (cut and paste of plain text to avoid distortions of links etc) and I have seen that pages appear to come out at requiring graduate level comprehension and low readabilities. I would suggest that biographies and descriptions of places that came up should not require high reading skills, I might forgive more esoteric scientific articles. Harry Potter did not fair well (14 years of education required for a children's book subject).

W3c guidelines support this approach.

Do you think that this is a worthwhile issue to pursue? Spenny 15:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

From what I gather, articles are meant to suit the average English reader who understands most common words in English. The articles themselves do have implicit guidelines for understanding - you will only understand Leibniz integral rule if you understand integration and only if you understand calculus and so on. If you think an article is too confusing, there are tags like Template:Confusing and Template:Technical to use. We do have a Simple English Wikipedia that uses Simple English. x42bn6 Talk Mess 16:02, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

My opinion: use the simplest language that can explain the concepts. If you have a reading-level tool you think we can trust, please consider automating it and running all articles through it. Set up a wikiproject to evaluate the worst offenders. Note, however, that an article's comprehensibility is increased dramatically by juducious use of links, and the tool will not recognize this. -Arch dude 20:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

While we should avoid unnecessarily florid or elaborate language, I see no reason to dumb down any given topic so that it's accessible to the lowest common denominator. -Chunky Rice 20:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a difference between dumbing down and plain English - which I think really is what you have said in a different way. When Rupert Murdoch took over The Times, they deliberately lowered the reading age, I seem to recall it went from something like a 15 to a 12. Such writing does not need to lose facts or concepts. It is more about getting the point across clearly. Spenny 21:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the clarity of an article often depends most on how the information is organized and whether necessary context is given. "Big words" are less confusing than missing or disordered premises, which X42bn6 alludes to above in raising the idea of subtopic relationships. It's largely a matter of remembering to set forth the basics before you get into the details, which is often difficult to do because the obvious facts that a completely unversed reader needs to understand the topic are usually invisible or uninteresting to someone who would presume to write about it. Many articles have really lousy introductory paragraphs because of this. Postdlf 20:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm all in favor of plain English wording, however it depends a lot on the subject as well. But, if it's a 'simple' subject, like military history or something, there is no need for having a lot of convoluted jargon that only veterans or military history specialists would know. Subjects such as these could easily be writtenn for probably like a Middle School level without losing any information. OracleDude 21:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Military history is a simple subject? How should we explain Psychological warfare or Hundred Years' War at middle school level? The longer and more comprehensive an article gets, the more technical it gets and the reading level will increase. Most stubs (except those about technical subjects) are quite simple as the only provide basic facts. Longer and more comprehensive articles will, by nature, be more complicated. While we should not make things hard to understand just for the sake of using big words and purple prose, we should not restrict complexity at the sake of quality and comprehensiveness. Mr.Z-man 21:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I would mention that there is an assumption of summary style so arguably it should not get more technical and detailed. There should be no incompatibility between explaining a complex subject and using plain English to do so. My point is that if you feel there is a need to use complex English to explain complex subjects, then one of the aims of an encyclopedia is being missed. I'll take a look at those articles and see if there is anything specifically wrong with them. Spenny 14:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think either of them were articles that were appropriate to make or deny the case. Psychological warfare is just not a very good article: confused and inaccurate lead, major POV problems that psychological warfare is a modern phenomenon where as there is solid written evidence of such things going back to Greek and Roman times. Whilst the term may be relatively modern, the concept is not, and also the term is not always used simply in international military conflicts, but national, and also in sporting and social contexts. That's before we get onto the English.

With reference to the 100 Years War: yes it is bound to be a more complicated level of English with specific terms, but reading through it, it had a reasonable lead, but no intermediate summary of the subject - simply diving into detail. There was a complexity to the language that seemed unnecessary ("primarily a dynastic conflict" struck me as something that someone who was not an historian would flinch at), but mainly it is the dense presentation that is an issue, rather than plain English. Spenny 16:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

So Strict!

I love Wikipedia, its one of my top 5 sites, but don't you hate how there are so many rules that you have to file through when you post, there is more than a 50% chance it will be deleted? e.g. "What Wikipedia is not", etc, there are an infinite number of pages telling you the various Wikipedia guidelines. this includes the wikipedia cronies who wander around telling you what you wrote is not in the "spirit" of wikipedia, them delete, renovate, or move what you wrote. Come on! I think of Wikipedia as a simple, user-generated encyclopedia that I can always go to. But the more I explore, the more specifications and rules I find, and this can be quite discouraging, how goddamn strict it is. I do understand that consistency in articles is good and many of the changes the so-called experts make are for the good of the articles. But I feel that Wikipedia has gone over-the-top, and I say this: Wikipedia, I love you, but please stick to simplicity. Lose all the guidelines.

Does anyone follow me? Agree? Disagree? Know where else I can post this? Thanks. And please don't respond in Wikipedian language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gingerbreadmann (talk • contribs) 01:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You are free to ignore all rules if you feel it improves the encyclopedia as a whole. Users are not required to now every single guideline, policy, and related item in order to edit. That said, policies and guidelines are followed more often than not simply because it maintains a sense of continuity throughout Wikipedia, and prevents Wikipedia from dealing with many of the issues that would be present if they were not there. For instance, without Wikipedia:Notability, we could have an article on every "John Doe" in existence, which would neither constructive or useful to a reader. The aforementioned "ignore all rules" policy is highly contested as a result, and often only applied in the most stringent of situations.

In your case, it seems that the issue has been that many of your edits have been removed for being "trivia." While such information can be helpful, it is better that it is incorporated into the primary text of the article. Random tidbits about a person, company, or other thing are not necessarily constructive, as Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Looking back on this, I apologize for betraying the letter of your message by linking to policies and guidelines, but there's no way around it. However, don't be discouraged. You are as free to edit Wikipedia as every other person here. Sephiroth BCR ^(Converse) 02:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a random thought: I see the rules of Wikipedia (and elsewhere) just like the one saying you have to drive on the right hand on the street (or left in UK etc.). It is not that somebody limits your freedom of driving wherever you like, it's just a way to make traffic flow somehow easily. --Goochelaar 08:14, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I see your point, but I kind of see them as you have to drive on the right, wear a seat belt, not park on the street from April to November, stop for pedestrians, let the other guy go, stop at all stop signs and lights, no right on red, AND always fill up the parking meter, etc., or you will be arrested and be in jail for life. (Of course, I would never break those laws. See what I mean? It gets to be waaay too much to remember and follow at all times, or even learn in the first place. and you don't get a second chance; your work is just gone. I know the intentions are good trying to make it uniform or flow better, but it just gets to be far too strict, extensive, and over the top. Thanks for replying to me.--Gingerbreadmann 18:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, are you jailed for life if you break any Wikipedia rule? :-) Actually, the penalty for breaking most of the road rules you give in your examples are, in real life, quite more severe than having an edit reverted, or even being blocked for a time from editing Wikipedia. The basic rules of WP are almost non-existing: go ahead and edit. Of course, if your edit is offensive, or not supported by sources etc. it might be modified or reverted (I am not saying yours are, of course). More complex actions (propose the deletion of an article, apply as an administrator etc.) follow more complex courses. We may and must criticise single rules, but as a whole I do not feel constrained by the rules. They somehow obtain the result of making tens of thousands of people work together with not too many problems. --Goochelaar 17:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

• There are many people in WP who oppose the proliferation of guidelines. It's not that we believe in lowering the standards, but rather we believe in clarifying and simplifying the standards. --Kevin Murray 08:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

50%? Really? If that figure is in any way representative of your own experience, then you may need to evaluate your own contributions from a new perspective. I mean that as an honest and well intentioned piece of advice. Either that or you have been on the receiving end of some bad behaviour such as trolling or ownership, and we have rules to deal with things like that. Oh, but you don't like rules. Not even useful and important rules that prevent anarchy? Adrian M. H. 14:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You, my friend, are overreacting. I just made a simple comment reflecting my honest opinion. Yes, from my experience, more than 50% of my work has been altered in some way, and nowhere in my post did I promote trolling or anarchy. I'm not stupid! I understand that certain rules are necessary to prevent things like anarchy, and of course trolling should be deleted. As well-intentioned as your advice was, I do not need to evaluate my own work from another perspective. I try to follow as many of those guidelines as I can, it's just that there are so many that your work is deleted by someone who prides themselves in strictly adhering to the guidelines for some reason you've never even heard of and was probably just incorporated recently. It can get intimidating to post knowing that it will all end up deleted(of course, not always), so wy ever bother? I appreciate your response, but please don't take my post out of context. I was just speaking my mind.--Gingerbreadmann 18:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

50% altered in some way? Wow... you are pretty good; since close to 100% of the articles I have worked on have been altered after I worked on them. Such is the nature of Wikipedia. See WP:OWN. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Are TV Show Episodes and Songs suitable as entries in an Encyclopedia ?

Today's featured article on the pilot episode of "Smallville" prompts me to ask "Is a TV show or any of its episodes of sufficient importance to warrant an entry in encyclopedia ?" Recently I used the random article function and was surprised to see individual songs also coming up as full entries. That makes me wonder what percentage of entries in Wikipedia are songs or TV show episodes ?

Does this burden the Wikipedia with information that is not of interest to the majority of users ?

I think that a band or artist is sufficiently important to have an entry but not a song or album; those songs or albums can be incorporated into the artist's entry. Similarly, a TV show episode could be incorporated into a listing for the entire TV series (not even sure if the entire TV series should be a listing) or referred to in an actor's entry.

Any thoughts ? Paul Gilmurray 06:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

What is of interest to you would not be to others, and likewise what you find unimportant others may not. Would you honestly say Oops!... I Did It Again (song) should be merged (personally, I hate this artist, but that's beside the point) simply because it's a song? — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

See also WP:NOTABILITY for how notability is classified. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:04, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

To expand further, it depends on which episode or song. Stairway to Heaven and Smells Like Teen Spirit are certainly acceptable candidates for articles, as there will be a significant amount of source material on which to write an article. Most songs, probably not, as that will not be out there. Same with TV episodes—most episodes probably don't warrant an article of their own, but there are some that do. It's not a question that's answerable with "yes, an (episode|song) should always have its own article" or "no, we should never have an article on any of them." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

To expand upon what Seraphimblade has said, if XXXX has enough reliable source material to write an encyclipedia article from, then XXXX can be an article. If YYYY does not have enough source material to write an encyclopedia article from, then YYYY does not get an article. This hold true regardless of what categories XXXX and YYYY belong to. XXXX and YYYY can both be part of the EXACT SAME category, and have any number of arbitrary things in common. The deciding principle is "is there enough information that exists outside of Wikipedia about this subject to write an article about". This is true for politicians, species, city streets, TV show episodes, characters from novels, atheletes, or any other random category you can choose. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Specifics as to when there should and shouldn't be articles of the type you mention are at Wikipedia:Television episodes and Wikipedia:Notability (music) 6SJ7 03:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day

Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day seems to be controversial, but popular with some admins and thus a sacred cow. Is this an essay or a guideline? Reading through the talk pages leads me to believe that this has never had the support necessary to demonstrate consensus. Most recently it has been re-tagged as a guideline without broad support, but today’s effort has both established the guideline tag and had the page protected. Please join the discussion. --Kevin Murray 08:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I merely see it as further explaining WP:NOT#OTHOUGHT. So it should have at least guideline status. --Farix (Talk) 11:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

That's almost exactly why I don't think there is any need for it to be a guideline. To me, that's a perfect essay - it doesn't add anything new to Wikipedia's rules, it just explains some concepts with reference to established policies and guidelines. In my view, saying that everything that further explains a policy or guideline has to also be a policy or guideline is the road to instruction creep. TSP 11:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I hate to see instruction creep cited, but I have to agree with the remainder of TSP's reasoning. This should be an essay that explains the rationale behind the policy/guideline, and nothing more. That is the perfect use of essays when they relate to section policies/guidelines such as those found in WP:NOT. Adrian M. H. 15:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Read Wikipedia:Per to understand what refering to things like this means. It is not "This should not exist because it is written in stone that wikipedia does not allow this." It means "I believe that Wikipedia should not have this article for the same reason that this policy/guideline/essay/other editor has said". Wikipedia has only 3 unbreakable rules; everything else is open to consensus. When someone says: Delete per Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day, they DO NOT MEAN that that page should be accepted as official policy. Rather what they are saying is that they agree with the opinion expressed by that page; when a preponderance of other editors likewise agree with the same opinions, that is called consensus. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why there should be a controversy over what tag is put on something that is just a matter of common sense, and is really just an example of how the policies on verifiability and original research are applied. And it's not instruction creep, because over time many people have created articles about things that obviously were made up one day in school, or at work, or in a bar, so there is a need to spell this out. 6SJ7 04:07, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with 6SJ7. We need separate guidelines to tell us not to post unsourced information we hear at bars, via spam email, or from stories told by grandparents. Yes that was a bit of sarcasm to illustrate a point. The root of the problem is already dealt with via verifiability. Guidelines dealing with examples of verifiability problems are not required. To me this seems like people getting really lazy about citing reasons for removal of information. We could have 50 guidelines citing examples of violation of verifiability, or a single guideline with those 50 examples included, so that when a verifiability problem comes up we can direct someone the guideline without offering any argument whatsoever -- OR, we COULD just use our goddamn BRAINS and make actual ARGUMENTS, saying things like, "This information is unsourced and seems to be original resaearch. I am removing it for now. If you have a source for this information please feel free to repost it along with a proper reference. Thank you." Say no to laziness.

Equazcion • argue/improves • 04:22, 09/28/2007

In what way is it controversial? Do you think we should have articles about things made up in school one day? Corvus cornix 21:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Overactive deleting

Recently I randomly decided to try to expand on a previously deleted article. I was attacked by a sudden vfd and an army of "delete this!!" votes. I followed guidelines in Wikipedia and found substantial sources and established notability according to current policies. That was ignored, the article deleted, and my appeal was ignored. My point of this post though is not that article (and the many times I protested it's eventual deletion). My point is that I think Wikipedia has become a site where it is hard to establish new information. That article had real sources for it's information, journals, newspapers, etc... but because it had been deleted before and was for a crappy establishment, people became biased towards it and deleted my version of that article. How can we encourage a community of knowledge creators and still check for notability? Honestly I am really discouraged with the whole Wikipedia process. I'm sure this is a sign of people leaning too heavy on the delete policies. That will lead to Wikipedia's own rot. (The article that I tried to make, by the way, was about Pirate's Dinner Adventure) Nesnad 08:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

If the sources were, in fact WP:RS, then go ahead and take it to Wikipedia:Deletion review. The above shouldn't have happened, given a clear case for notability et al, although I'm not saying that there was one - I never saw the article. That said, the tenor of the debate in the AfD was a bit off on both sides. MrZaius^talk 08:41, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the thoughts. Yes they were WP:RS. People discounted them because they were from a "hispanic magazine" and other POV nonsense. But I had many many reliable sources. Yes, I also linked to Youtube and review sites, but that was just trying to give a round picture. I did take it to Deletion Review (or atleast tried) but it was just buried by people saying I was not establishing notability and then confirmed as deletable. If sources in multiple magazines, business journals and what not aren't enough, what is? I really think this is a case of dogma and I don't know what to do. It's really quite frustrating. Nesnad 17:39, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you really understood many of the comments in the AFD and DRV, a mention in a reliable source does not prove notability, only existence. When you use blogs, YouTube, non English sources, and minor mentions as refs, that makes it look like you are just going for the "shotgun approach," using anything and everything you can find to have as many refs as possible. Accusing others of having an agenda (against you or pirate themed restaurants apparently) or claiming a "conspiracy" and harassing every user who endorses the deletion does not help either. Perhaps it is notable - the article text did not show it. Perhaps you could try writing a new version in a subpage of your userpage instead of complaining. It just seemed like it was missing something critical, I can't quite determine what yet. If you create a new version in your userspace, I would be more than willing to help you make it into a decent article. I would recommend starting from scratch, but if you want a copy of the last version of the article, set up an email address in your preferences and I can email you a copy (ask on my talk page for any assistance). Mr.Z-man 18:01, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I think people are rightly wary about including articles on restaurants if those restaurants aren't demonstrably important in some way. The truth is, most restaurants can expect to be covered in reliable sources, if you count local paper restaurant reviews as reliable sources... but it doesn't follow from that that we should allow articles on any restaurants covered in sources, because that would imply that we effectively allow all restaurants to list themselves on Wikipedia. You found some sources but mainly low-profile local coverage, nothing that implies this restaurant is anything out of the ordinary (apart from, I suppose, its format). Mangojuice^talk 18:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Somewhat tangential reminder: Moving content to user-space diminishes much of the power of collaborative Wiki-based editing and incremental improvement. This is marked as a "tangent" because it is just a reminder to people who consider "user-space" improvement as a desirable workaround to compensate for main-space deletions. User-spacing a deleted article is not much better than outright deletion. Therefore, let's all remember to make an effort to keep that in mind lest we mistake user-space as a "safety net" against aggressive deletion.

(DISCLAIMER: this remark has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the article being discussed here, it's just a reminder). dr.ef.tymac 19:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiki policy on appropriate articles: is it just me?

Hi, is it just me or does anyone else find the balance of article subjects on this website somewhat disturbing?

Some subjects are obviously favourites with the editors notably:

- tv (eg: Pilot (Smallville), today's featured article);

- celebs minor or otherwise

- computer games;

- music that goes with computer games, computer viruses, List of computer term etymologies or really anything computer related;

- stuff about Nazis / WW2 / military things generally ...?

Am I missing something here? Is there no administrator / Wiki director who takes steps to ensure that some sort of overall balance of articles is maintained on Wikipedia? eg: more and fuller articles on literature, history (not just WW2 / wars), cultural things? can there not be a Wikipedia:WikiProject for eg substantially rationalising and reducing the amount of computer games related material?

I am not saying that any of these articles are not sufficiently notable - I couldn't care less about that; my point is that the distribution of articles by subject matter is frankly embarrassing

obviously the content reflects the nature of the people with spare time and inclination to write these articles: wiki editors are interested in computer games, they are generally not interested in writing about culture and stuff; equally it's easier to make an article which consists of a series of uninteresting facts (eg: list of Roman battles or List of wars and disasters by death toll), or describes your favourite episode of Dallas, than something more thought provoking;

but is no one worried about what kind of impression this gives to the rest of the world?

wiki editors seem to be so obsessed with wiki vandalism and tedious arguments about whether an article is adequately referenced or (horror!) contains someone's opinion; these are trivial concerns against the real issue: that (generally) wikipedia looks like it's been churned out by a bunch of high school students with too much time on their hands

Dr Spam (MD) 14:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

That's what happens when you have volunteers – and only volunteers – creating content. They will write about the things that they feel are important or interesting. Everything will eventually get filled in, but it takes time; there are more 'experts' on The Simpsons or Ashley Simpson than on particle physics or medieval history. Wikipedia is a work in progress. The recent shift toward more emphasis on adequate references and sourcing is a good thing—it signals a move toward more academically-rigourous content and less high-school-essay-style material.

You – or anyone – are free to address any perceived deficiencies in Wikipedia's coverage by starting, expanding, and editing articles. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Admins do not have special authority in content issues, nor can we compel authors to work on certain subjects. However any editor, regardless of status, may fill in these gaps should they wish to. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 15:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys! helpful comments! Dr Spam (MD) 15:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe people who have the expertise and motivation to write about subjects like business and technology, or academia, are gainfully employed and find their writing is better compensated elsewhere. People who like to write about minor Simpsons characters probably have a lot of time on their hands and find a good outlet for that here. Just a thought. But if you want to help, find the most important subject you can think of that's not well covered and write or expand articles there. A random example for today: Foster Farms (poultry company) (or perhaps they're referring to Foster Farms Dairy is the 197th largest private company in the United States at $1.8 billion revenue and 10,000 employees. Yet it has only a 2-sentence article. If you want to expand our business coverage, for example, you could go down the Forbes list starting at #1 to see which ones need a better article.Wikidemo 15:32, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Some perspective: we now have 26,000 more articles on Wikipedia than we had on 7 September. That's more than 1000 new articles per day that have not been deleted. Yes, a large percentage of these articles are about sports figures, TV shows, schools, rock bands, etc. However, some of the new articles are about "important" stuff. The lists of missing articles and most wanted articles are steadily getting shorter. Wikipedia is not paper, so a typical user will not see the "junk" and will find the real articles of interest via a google search or by using the Wikipedia search. You only notice the "junk" if you look for it. e.g. by hitting the random article link a lot. -Arch dude 00:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

For WWII and other major conflicts, by some objective measures, major conflicts are worthy of a lot of attention. WWI and WWII had profound effects on human history, and the details of e.g. the Battle of Midway are fundamental to the understanding of U.S. perceptions and policy to this day. The battles on the Eastern front had profound effects on European history to this day also. If you feel that we need to add articles on more important stuff, then please do so. Even a personal list to important missing articles would be appreciated. -Arch dude 00:16, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

We do have policies and guidelines to help us decide what articles to create. "verifiability" says that we can only add facts to an article if we can verify these facts as existing already in reliable sources. Likewise, "notability" says that if the subject of an article does not have any verifiable information about it, then there should not be an article about it. It's not more complicated then that. If the world finds a topic important enough to have written extensively about it, and there is enough published information in the world on a topic to write an encyclopedia article from, then the article can exist. That's it. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

We do have Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. --Ybbor^Talk 02:49, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Policy of the Village pump

Why exactly is there a separate talk page? Can that just redirect to the main page? Might prevent some confusion/duplication of effort. MrZaius^talk 15:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The talk page is for topics like this one. Talking about the village pump policy page. Wikidemo 15:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

That answers that :) (Although it doesn't seem to reflect many of the uses of the talk page) MrZaius^talk 17:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

No, a lot of the uses reflect the misunderstanding that discussions should always happen on talk pages. There's a reason for a seperate talk page, but it does get misused. *shrug*. SamBC(talk) 17:43, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Representation of nationality

It seems that a policy will be needed about the representation of nationality on Wikipedia. Due to constant and massive ethnic-warring, even an honorable, encyclopedic, and accurate compromise such as

"...is a British writer from Scotland..." or

"...is a Canadian singer from Quebec...", etc.,

isn't enough to fend off warriors who want solely "British" (sovereign nation, passport, U.N. member, embassies) or "Scottish" (former nation, historical ethnic group) to appear. Each article becomes a battleground, lots of time is wasted concurrently, admins can't enforce anything without a policy on the topic. Surely something as clear as nationality, citizenship of a sovereign nation (having a passport or being able to get one) and the way to represent it, could and should be prescribed on Wikipedia on an objective basis like other dictionaries and encyclopedias?

Those interested in advance-preparation for this issue may want to consult the (con)current 3 RFCs on exactly the same point:

• at Talk:P. G. Wodehouse#RFC (British vs. English) (disclosure: that's mine)
• at Talk:Andy Murray (tennis)#Nationality
• at Talk:Colin McRae#Protected.

— Komusou ^talk @ 19:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Good luck with that. Adrian M. H. 19:53, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Komusou is grouping together very different issues. Some of these are athletes who competed for Britain; and for some of them, there is a question whether they are Scots or English. At Wodehouse (an undoubted Englishman, who became an American), he is insisting on "British writer of English origin", which is bad writing to begin with. In this case, British is debateable, but Wodehouse's writing, like his characters, is very English. Above all, we should not straightjacket these into a single policy; but treat each on their merits. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I would have to agree with Mr. Anderson here. WP:CREEP is a problem creating a megalithic policy by saying something like "All nationalities must refer to a sovereign state of birth" or some such. The fact is that concepts like "citizenry" "nationality" "nationhood" "sovereignty" etc. etc. don't fit nicely into the little boxes that we want them to. A similar debate went on for a LONG time over Nicholas Copernicus over whether he was German, Polish, Baltic German, Prussian, etc. etc. The fact is, it isn't our position to decide for someone else what their identity is. If person X itetifies themselves as nationality Y in a consistent manner, then so should Wikipedia. If John Smith considers himself Scottish, then Wikipedia should call him Scottish. If John Smith considers himself British, then Wikipedia should call him British. To do otherwise is for us as editors to impose our own beliefs on how he SHOULD identify himself, a decidedly non-neutral position to take. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:40, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

And I thought this rejected MOS proposal about United Kingdom and nationality was sane... of course, more sane than all those absolutely ridiculous edit wars. 68.101.123.219 22:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Request for comment

A few days ago the text "; remove section name if it does not apply" has been added to the "Edit summary" text on Wikipedia edit pages. There is a discussion about this under MediaWiki_talk:Summary and your participation would be appreciated. Cacycle 23:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Using a yearbook as a reliable source?

Hi, I'm trying to clarify if a yearbook can be used as a reliable source on an article. The subject of the article alleges to have gotten numerous death threats (which I believe to be true) and has stated that because of these threats his identity and location were to be kept out of articles and reports (although the location is likely to be compromised soon). His identity however has been kept out but now an editor is asserting they have a yearbook in which they can prove the subject's identity. I responded that that was original research but they cited that yearbooks aren't included. So, can a yearbook be used as a reliable source or is it us doing original research? Benjiboi 00:25, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It's always been my understanding that yearbooks are reliable sources. We allow them for Good article status. I would not publish the identity of the person, however, if he is receiving death threats. LaraLove 00:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the response, just to follow-up do we have this listed anywhere as well or could someone second this with a confirmation? I will continue to campaign to keep the information out until it's both widely known and published in numerous reliable sources. Benjiboi 00:45, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The information included in the yearbook would be a reliable source - for example, for a given person, a yearbook would be an acceptable source to establish their age. Using the facts in a yearbook to form a theory, however, is original research - for example, if a reliable source had said that some crime had been committed by a 17-year-old Jones School student from Tulsa, and the Jones school yearbook showed that there was only one 17-year-old from Tulsa at the school, it would be original research to include this in the article on the crime; unless a reliable source had already made that connection. See the no original research policy, and particular the section on synthesis:

Editors often make the mistake of thinking that if A is published by a reliable source, and B is published by a reliable source, then A and B can be joined together in an article to advance position C. However, this would be an example of a new synthesis of published material serving to advance a position, and as such it would constitute original research. "A and B, therefore C" is acceptable only if a reliable source has published this argument in relation to the topic of the article.

TSP 00:55, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

If the issue is outing the identity of an individual who might thereby be subject to death threats or harassment then it's not a question of RS. Presumably the information would be deleted from articles, talk pages, and anywhere else it appears, and then purged from edit history by administrators. My guess is that if the death threat claim is credible a sympathetic administrator would be willing to do this, and block any editor who persists in putting it back in. If it becomes too much to handle through the consensus process there may be a different track to escalate this kind of thing. Wikidemo 01:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, all info appreciated. A reliable source (not used in the article) has already slipped out what i believe to be his location so I honestly believe his identity will be revealed sooner than not. If it escalates beyond reason I'll recruit admin help. My concerns are that we either identify the right person or someone we think is the right person and then they are attacked or killed so I see no reason why we can't wait until reliable sources make the information widely known. Benjiboi 01:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

American wikipedia

How, can people here claim this is the English language wikipedia, when it would seem the official policy is to violate UK, and other countries laws. How can wikipedia justify taking an image from a British (or other country) website which clearly says "All text and images copyrighted by the Museum of xxx", then releasing it into the public domain under cover of {{PD-Art}}, without even stating the source. Personally I believe it is illegal to do so in the USA also, but people disagree with this. How can en.wikipedia justify going against everything decided on the commons and all other wikimedia projects ? Do Americans feel no shame at taking an image that is clearly copyrighted with an explicit copyright tag on it, and then simply saying "I am American I do what I like". Many of the works pictured are older than the USA themselves, who are you to decide who owns the copyright to photos of them? How can this claim to be the English language wikipedia when it shows such blatant disrespect for the works and copyrights contracted by people in the very country the English language originated in ? This is no different than Iran releasing American films into the Public Domain and hosting warez sites over there, because they are unhappy about being rejected by the US from various international projects. Jackaranga 14:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The servers are in Florida, so those are the laws we must work under. We don't work under the laws of every country because that would not be possible. Our content is based on a neutral point of view, but our limitations to the law are based on the physical location of the servers. Without knowing the name of the image you are talking about I cannot comment much further. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 14:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Jackaranga is frustrated by the responses he got at Template talk:PD-art#International issues. 76.240.228.205 16:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Claiming copyright on an image does not make it so. Under American copyright law, a copy of a two-dimensional image (e.g., a painting) is just a copy, so re-photographing a public domain work does not give you a new copyright in that photograph. This is because American copyright law does not protect effort or labor, only creative expression, and an accurate photograph of a painting does not differ creatively from the painting itself (and a work "older than the USA" is obviously in the public domain). Perhaps UK copyright law on this point differs (I don't know), but I'd think it would be unworkable in practice to extend copyright protection without regard to content, and it would substantially undermine the concept of the public domain if one could claim new and unique rights in identical copies.

Speaking of Commons (which does accept photos of PD 2-D art not taken by the uploader), I've seen plenty of photographs of copyrighted public sculptures in the United States uploaded under a claim of "freedom of panorama," which is the law in some European countries, but which is not recognized in the U.S. for sculptures; such a photo would be a derivative under American copyright law, usable only pursuant to a license or a claim of fair use. Postdlf 14:43, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that the argument that an electronic copy of an image created on a client for the express purpose of viewing the website constitutes a distinct artistic entity is somewhat specious.

It's unclear from the above which image is being discussed, but if it's an image of an artefact, taken on behalf of the museum for the purpose of using on their website, then they legitimately hold copyright to the image. If it was taken by a member of the public and published on a private website then that member of the public holds the copyright to the image. I still don't think it's reasonable to just lift it and use it here.

ALR 15:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It's probably worth taking the specific case to the copyright pages for review in the specific instance, WP:COPY. The rules around images and copyright tend to be enforced quite strongly and they're all a little retentive about it over there.ALR 15:10, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The short answer is "Don't assume just because someone claims copyright on something that they actually own copyright on it". People claim copyright on things they cannot legally claim copyright on (in the UK, US or wherever) all the time. WilyD 15:15, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Use of flags in articles

For anyone interested, there is a lively debate over at Wikipedia talk:Use of flags in articles discussing the proposed ban on Wikipedia of flags and flag icons in almost all articles (including infoboxes). Proposed exceptions are sports articles where flags are needed. If you have any comments, please feel free to leave them on the talk page. Sue Wallace 20:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

User talk page disclaimer

Anonimu (talk · contribs)

I don't think there is a policy that directly addresses this issue and I would like to check that my opinion has (or doesn't have) consensus.

I don't think the disclaimer on Anonimu's user talk page is appropriate. It discourages discussion. It leaves no place for other editors to talk to this editor about his/her behaviour. I think the community consensus is that users should be allowed to start discussions and place warnings, and expect that they will be read by the associated user. I asked Anonimu to change this disclaimer to allow communication directly with him/her on the user talk page, but Anonimu declined and deleted the request. This disclaimer goes directly against the fourth pillar of Wikipedia, "Wikipedia has a code of conduct". That pillar directs us to "be open and welcoming"; this user talk page is neither of those. Sancho 17:04, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the disclaimer (and, apparently, his entire attitude toward editing) is inappropriate. I notice he's just been blocked for a week.. I suspect if he doesn't change his tune, an indef block is probably not far off. Friday (talk) 17:26, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's a policy specifically addressing this either, but it's clearly against the spirit of policy generally, given the number of policies and guidelines that instruct users to communicate by talk page. SamBC(talk) 17:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree... what a user says with his or her user space is their own choice, so long as it isn't a personal attack. If a user wants to say "Go away... Don't post things here... I'll just ignore and delete it if you do", he or she has a right to do so. On the other hand... no matter what that user may say, other editors have a right to post comments, etc. on a user's talk page (that's what user talk pages are for). If he deletes them... so what? It isn't like they are permanently gone... the comments are in the edit history if needed.

Warnings are perhaps a different issue... but again, it isn't like we can't find them if we need to. Blueboar 17:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Playing devil's advocate, what's wrong with the page? That he doesn't want (or care about) personal comments? That a message about an articles content would be more appripriate on that articles talk page? That he has consigned himself to what he deems as a futile process to contest blocks or other warnings? His comment about vandalism is pretty much on the money though. He may be unfriendly, but I don't see how that is a requirement to edit on Wikipedia. I have no idea what his previous edit history or other history is though, I may be completely wrong. wbfergus ^Talk 17:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is by nature a collaborative project. Collaborating is not optional. He can go away and be left alone, if he wants. But if he's going to edit Wikipedia, he must be responsive to feedback from other editors. Friday (talk) 17:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict... responding to wbfergus) Thanks for getting me to be more specific. The problem is that many policies and guidelines direct users to discuss problems with a user's behaviour (incivility for example) with that user on his/her talk page. This disclaimer doesn't leave any room for a user to do this. So, yes, it is the part about him not wanting or caring about personal comments that I disagree with. The other points I don't have a problem with (article discussion on article talk pages, not caring about block and warning process, vandalism) As for comments still being found in the history, the statement about any edits to the page being deleted without being read makes relying on the history as evidence of communication meaningless. Regarding a requirement to be friendly, no there isn't, but we have to be open and welcoming (pillar four). This disclaimer seems the opposite of open and welcoming. Sancho 18:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I understand that concept well enough then. Strangely, even though the talk page doesn't explicitly say it, I just ran into a different user then (User talk:Orangemarlin who is of the same vein (see his reply to my quickly archived, but requested, example at User talk:Wbfergus#Please stay off my page but you'll have to check his page history to see the deletion. So, what would be the difference between simply stating the opinion and not stating it, but acting that way to begin with? One is honest and the other isn't? wbfergus ^Talk 19:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

It is especially inappropriate to remove warnings, blockings, and other admin notices from talks pages (other than archiving) and the only people I have seen doing this are vandals or otherwise disruptive users. Removed notices are practically erased, as stepping through the history takes too much time and is not done without a good reason. Cacycle 14:42, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate but definitely not against policy or forbidden. If someone does this, you can discourage them but if they disagree, you just have to let it be. Nil Einne 16:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It does seem entirely inappropriate, especially the suggestion that admin's cannot post there. This is clearly wrong, however, it does not mean such warnings have to stay there, the edit log shows evidence of the warning being noted. There are mechanisms such as the notification banner that make it useful.

We can, regardless of his warnings, clearly post there because of WP:IAR which would be particularly appropriate in this case. :)

Another related issue is that some users seem content to splatter warnings about civility all over Wikipedia, but seem to believe that user pages are a place where abuse is quite acceptable. Spenny 16:25, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

How to proceed

It seems to me most are in agreement that the restrictions that this disclaimer attempt to apply are inappropriate. Regardless of whether or not somebody declares that they are going to act this way (or if they act this way without prior notice, as in wbfergus's example), the behaviour described in this disclaimer (although not all of it) is not appropriate for several reasons.

Do we just proceed as in WP:IAR, hoping that the rest of the community also does, and ignore the portions of the disclaimer that restrict appropriate communication or do we require that this disclaimer be removed/amended? Does something need to be added to policy, or is this rare and common sense enough to deal with case-by-case? Sancho 16:43, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it needs further guidance, it breaks so many anyway, it has to be case by case. However, I do think there is a tendency for people, even those who should know better, to treat posts to user pages as a de facto demonstration of stalking, or trolling or whatever, without recognising that in most cases they are an attempt at communication and problem resolution. So, treat it case by case, but nip it in the bud before the example spreads. Spenny 18:40, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't do anything. This user has chosen a bizarre and counterintuitive strategy, but whatever. Just use the talk page like you'd use any other user's and assume the user has read any comment left there, regardless of what he does with them. Atropos 00:50, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Why is this an issue? If, beyond this disclaimer, the user in question is not behaving in disruptive or inappropriate ways (such as edit warring, vandalizing, POV pushing, etc.) then the disclaimer, while rude and counterproductive, is not really a problem. If, beyond the disclaimer, the user acts in an appropriate manner, then this is a non-issue. If they act like a WP:DICK, then treat the likewise, but this stupid and rude disclaimer should have no bearing on that. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Though I still disagree that anything needs to be done unless the user in question becomes disruptive, WP:NOT#USER states specifically that your userpage does not belong to you, and that it exists solely for the purpose of collaboration. The disclaimer MAY violate the spirit of that; however to take action against this user SOLELY for this disclaimer violates WP:AGF, which IMHO is a more important principle... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:48, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Splitting references into a separate article

Some articles have so many references/footnotes. E.g. George W Bush. I personally think that putting references into a separate article is a good idea for articles where over one third of the article is references. Currently, I don't think it is possible to directly place a ref into a separate article when we use . So for example, for the George W Bush article, we'll have a page just for references, titled "Reference:George W Bush", and it's accessable at the top of the page next to the "discussion", "edit this page", "history", "watch". And whenever we use , the details of the reference will be automatically placed in "References:George W Bush". Oidia (talk) 11:56, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This seems like a good idea to me. Thanks. Is it technically feasible? Anyone?BernardL 12:58, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Why not put the references in a template, and make use of the hide/show option? Postdlf 13:22, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that would make it much harder to find the references, and to check them. A collapsable template would seem far preferable. SamBC(talk) 13:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure why it's considered a bad thing to have a long list of references at the end of an article. Putting the references on a separate page is right out; it would complicate printing an article with its references—which are an integral part of any academic work. There would also be strong opposition to any style change that affects references functionality (a single click on a footnote link should take you right to the correct note without having to open a collapsible box or jump through any other silly hoop); accessibility (any changes need to be compatible with screen readers and the like); or printing (an article should print correctly – with complete references – without complications). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:27, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Having the references on a different would also require a great deal of manual editing as well, since all of the footnate tags would need to be redesigned to place the ref on a different page, and all of 'automatic' stuff becomes useless and meaningless. It sounds like SamBC's suggestion is the most appropriate, it keeps all the refs on the same page where anybody would expect them to be (even the various citation templates). wbfergus ^Talk 15:10, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

The editors at Evolution experimented with reference space-saving gimmicks in June, 2007.

• Here is a version of Evolution with the references in a scrollable box
• Here's a version of Evolution with references in three columns (may need Firefox for it to work, Safari gives one column)
• Current version of the article has references in two columns (except in Safari)

As others have noted above:

1. The references are important, they should be available for use, not hidden away
2. Printing a page with collapsed or scrollable references is tough
3. Clicking on a reference number should take you to it
4. Not all browsers support the gimmicks for hiding or clicking

EdJohnston 15:29, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe that using CSS to do this will mean that browsers that don't support it will just be stuck with the space not being saved, and I know that using CSS you can define the space-saving features to only apply to the on-screen "normal" browsers, while not including it in the stylesheet for printing, screen readers, and accessible browsers. As long as the CSS is done sanely it won't be a problem. If javascript is used, I imagine that makes it more complicated, but if the print and audio (and other accessible) stylesheets are defined clearly and sensibly then it'd probably be fine. SamBC(talk) 18:55, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, doing it with Javascript would cause a problem for printing, but doing it with CSS, if properly done, would be quite sufficient. "overflow: auto;", give it a fixed height, and voila. For an example of this on Wookieepedia, see wookieepedia:Mace Windu#Appearances. EVula // talk // ☯ // 19:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Is accidental vandalism vandalism?

Recently I accidentally edited an article by pasting a section update I had organised for that article inadvertently over the entire article, previewing and believing that the preview I was shown was for the section I meant to edit. After realising my mistake I quickly reverted the copy, but someone seemed to be reading the pages’ history soon afterwards.

Another conscious Wikipedia contributor contacted me via my talk page and warned me about vandalism, although it was accidental. I have contacted this person to clarify my meaning but still have a query.

After searching Wikipedia for a policy regarding accidental vandalism I found nothing hence had a suggestion for a new Wikipedia policy. Basically, “If vandalism edits seem accidental, they’re not vandalism.” This would entail users looking at the surroundings of the vandalism, for example, where real vandalism, like swearing, deleting large sections and replacing it with malicious text, has not been used, and an account or IP with a clean record, which frequently contributes to the encyclopedia is used.

I feel that this would be beneficial for Wikipedia as it would reduce the number of disputes between editors, but that editors should still be made aware of their mistake in a laid-back fashion on their talk page with some type of template:

“You have appeared to inadvertently edited the article [[name]] and removed fundamental content relating to the subjects discussed within. It is politely asked that in future you preview your edit and ensure that you are fully aware of the consequence your edit will have. Thank you.” Ecopetition 16:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

There are several levels of "vandalism" warnings. The lowest level {{Uw-test1}}, assumes that the "vandalism" was just a test, the highest level is a final warning before a block. I think most editors try to follow this four-level warning system. Sancho 16:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

assuming good faith applies in all directions. Assume that the user that warned you did so out of a desire to help the project as a whole, and themselves made a mistake. Forget it and get on with the rest of your life. If you are not a habitual vandal (and you aren't) then there is no issue here to worry about. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

blatant POV warriors who delete large portions of text

What remedies are available for blatant POV warriors who delete large portions of text which does not meet their own POV? Is this vandalism? I have seen a small group of editors delete huge portions of referenced text on dozens of pages that they personally don't agree with. They cite policy for these deletions, but their policy reasons don't stand up to any scrutinty. It simply is a way to delete large portions of referenced text. What remedies are available, other than RfC and Arbcom?

I accept other peoples view points but destructive uncompromising deletions of large portions of text are terrible. One editor in particular, has been an editor for over a year and a half, and never actually adds anything to wikipedia, his only purpose is to actively get articles he doesnt like AfD'ed.

Any suggestions? User:travb 23:26, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I suggest taking this from the abstract to the concrete, but at WP:ANI and not here. Raymond Arritt 19:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Use of Template:Rescue on article pages.

Greetings, I am posting here because I need some guidance. I am a member of the Article Rescue Squadron - We are a group setup to "rescue" articles that contain encyclopedic topics from deletion (we are not Wild-eyed inclusionists). How we have been "flagging" articles for rescue up until a week ago was to place the {{Rescue}} tag on the article page - per our instructions and this example. There are three reasons why it is important that the rescue tag is displayed on the article page, verses on the talk page (which it has been suggested is the only acceptable place according to policy, but I am yet to see the applying policy) Anyway, here are the reasons:

1. With the Rescue tag on the article page, it makes it obvious that an editor believes that this article contains encylopedic topics, and this should encourage people that are !voting on the AfD to look for soures rather than just vote (note the lack of !) - having it on the talk page would not allow this as I would estimage fewier then 10% of people reading an article read the talk page.
2. I have seen comments that Wikiproject tags should never be placed on article pages. I completely agree that things like {{WPSchools}} and {{WP Australia}} should not be on article pages. But this tag is different, it is not used to say "this is part of a project" but rather "HELP:This article needs a rewrite within the next five days!!!"
3. Where's the harm anyway - (I am quite well aware of WP:HARMLESS) at worst the tag will be on the article page for five days, then, because it is contained within the AFD comments (per the usage instructions) the admin closing the article can remove the tag easily, or the page will simply be deleted. If the tag was used on the talk page, there is no guarentee that admins would remember to remove it. (An example where this has just happened now is here and talk page here)

So Simply put, I would like to request "official" permission to allow the Article Rescue Squadron to use this tag on article pages. - Fosnez 02:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The issue is already being discussed at Wikipedia:Templates_for_deletion#Template:Rescue. --Ezeu 17:06, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that, Yeah I have commented on that one already, I was wanting some clarification on the "Policy" concern Fosnez 03:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Navigational templates

Is there a policy or guideline somewhere that covers templates used for navigation at the bottom of articles, and what should and shouldn't be included? I checked WT:NAV and didn't really find a definitive answer, but the reason I ask is that I came across an article tonight during Recent Changes patrol, and it had Template:Neighborhoods in Dubai at the bottom, which initially looked like this. Now, I've never seen templates that have commentary in them as this does, and while I hid the commentary in noinclude tags, another long-time editor removed them and placed the commentary in the box. It still seems as though this kind of information would better be placed in the Dubai article itself, but I'd like to know if there is a guideline for it to point to. Thanks in advance, ^Ariel♥Gold 05:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Navigational templates should, well, contain navigation :) If the content included in {{Neighborhoods in Dubai}} is not important enough to be in an article, it should not be the defining criterion of a navigational template. The criterion for inclusion of links should be well defined and straightforward. There is no policy/guideline per se on this, but I think practice and precedent support it. Gracenotes^T § 16:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Userspace Salt Pages

I've started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Protection_policy#Private_Salt_pages. Regards, Navou ^banter 19:26, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Policy on images that contain URLs for commercial websites?

For example this image contains a watermark for rocketman.org, which is where the image originated, but that site is quite spammy and I don't think it would be allowed as an external link (the first text on that site is "Official Rocketbelt Flight Gear On Sale Now!!!")

I'm more aware of this site because there have been attempts to promote this site in the Jet pack article, it was previously mentioned and linked to many times and the related Dan Schlund article looks like an advert to me. Should images like this that have spammy URLs watermarked be removed? Basil Richards 19:37, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope... Image_use_policy states "Also, user-created images may not be watermarked, distorted, have any credits in the image itself." (read for context, its a bit contusing). Seems to me it would fall under spam guidelines and in addition make the image unencyclopedic. Since the image is licensed to permit derivative work, couldn't it just be cropped out or photoshopped over? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 19:58, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

However, the GFDL and CC-BY both require that any copyright notices be preserved in all derivative versions. Hence under those licenses it is inappropriate to remove embedded text that is acting as a copyright notice. 76.240.228.205 20:06, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Not so, GFDL does not require that the copyright notice be contained within the image... Also, that copyright notice does not satisfy the requirements of GFDL anyway. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The GFDL does not require that copyright notices be contained within the image, but it does require that if there is one in the image, then it is preserved. (See section 4. d. of WP:GFDL. This requirement to preserve copyright notices is indifferent to whether or not they are well-formed copyright notices. In summary, we can't remove this copyright from the image, so this image is not in compliance with the image use policy. Sancho 22:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

That being said, perhaps the copyright holder didn't realize that they are given credit on the image description page. We could probably convince the copyright holder to remove the watermark and upload another version. Sancho 22:54, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The GFDL and CC seems irrelevant in this specific case. According to the summary, the copyright holder releases the file for any purpose provided the copyright holder is properly attributed. It doesn't specify any form of attribution as necessary so IMHO removing the watermark would be fine. The GFDL & CC never come in to this as the copyright holder did not release them under the GFDL or CC, at least according to the summary. It is probably possible to license these under the GFDL & CC but this is unnecessary. However the bigger issue is that I see no evidence the copyright holder has released this image for any purpose. There is no mention of this on the rocketman page. If this was permission was received through e-mail, this should be done via the OTRS. Edit: Actually I didn't notice the uploader claims to be the person in the photo. In that case, the image license really needs to be clarified. Is it GFDL+CC or GFDL+CC+all rights released but attribution required or all rights released but attribution? Nil Einne 17:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

New sections in talk pages

Shouldn't new sections in talk pages be on the top? That way, the newer issues can be seen more readily rather than old ones that may have been resolved already. On that note, I think it should be policy to delete sections which have been answered. I'm sure there is a good reason for the current policy, but I'd like to know. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asderoff (talk • contribs) 19:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Firstly, it ain't broke so it don't need fixin'... Secondly, you can just click the most recent (bottom) item on the Contents box (but the most recent subject may not have the most recent comment...) Thirdly, reading your way through the topics may encourage you to add your own comments... Fourthly, if it ain't broke then don't fix it... LessHeard vanU 20:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Plus, if you're attmepting to follow a disucssion choronologically, you have to do a lot fo scrolling. Down to the bottom to read the first, scroll down to read the thread, then up to read the next thread, then down again as you move through the thread, then up again... etc. --Ybbor^Talk 02:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Each individual thread is read from top to bottom, so why not the entire page? -Freekee 03:34, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Punishing the Project

I refer here to WP guidelines and policies concerning punishment, blocking, banning, censorship, verifiability, with un-written reference to assumption of good faith rules, arbitration life-sentencing and inability of the project to divide itself into a religious and a secular sphere.

It was an un-called for relief being punished for 18 months, and the only result was that the punishment has been of the project by the project. As ever, I only refer to facts that can be verified, and this isn't the time nor place and I'll just say that I have done a 'recce' and noted the plethora of articles which either still labour under mistruth or whose mistruth has profited from the very long punishment. (Doubtless a clever-dick will speed in and try and curry favour by maligning me, despite the project's guidelines, so that'll come as no surprise. i don't plan on responding to such..) My point here is solely that the project has only succeeded in punishing itself, whilst I have gained considerable free time to clarify the truth. Just as it always was, my entry is out of duty, to 'benefit society' (a legal concept). The persecutions of me will be no more justified ahead than in the past and the truth alone necessitates my personal effort. For enquiring minds I shall however endeavour to reveal something of relevant interest to today. The scope of my corrections before dwelt upon the 7 week period between 30 January 1933 and 23 March 1933 (the particular period of the 'Common-Plan' or conspiracy as defined by the Nuremberg Tribunals) whereas now it is possible for me to see the relevant religious element in this period as being descendant of a continuum to, in the latest, 800 AD. The illegal re-invention, in that year, of what we could call a christian 'Caliphate' bears directly forwards in spirit, philosophy and politics through to that 23 March 1933. I will shoulder the burden- in so far as denialists' hitherto non-existant respect for the project's laws determine- of supplying the most interesting textual verifications, in the sure understanding that by alerting the world through the project to this continuum I shall even further incur the odium of those for whom this 'caliphate' was, since 800 AD, their chief project. This is to say that I shall supply texts concerning historical events such that these will benefit disparate articles. The only other good news is that, as I am exceedingly interested in the entire 'caliphate', seeing it as exemplar towards our superscension of its co-terminal or slightly preceding twin and parallel absolutist concept, that the Wikipedia project's plethora of 'Common-Plan' flaws and denialism, since they have already been verified by me, become solely repetitious details for correction. Anyone who is concerned by the fact that I aslo persecuted and punished by a 'life-long' ban from 'catholicism' articles, might ask themselves in the first instance why a certain Ludwig Kaas - who's action is termed 'decisive' for the empowerment of Adolf Hitler, at Hitler's article, whether Kaas there should better be recognised as Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, or, whether the 'monsignor' Kaas article is or is not a 'catholic article'? If it is not, then it is not closed to me. If it is closed to me for the period of my life on earth (or the life of Wikipedia) then, logically, Ludwig Kaas is a 'catholic figure' and his status as Monsignor warrants immediate recognition as such at the Hitler article, and, that recognition also absolutely proves the point of contention verified by me through User:Bengalski from the eminent ecumenical historian, the late Klaus Scholder, that at the least Kaas is accused by this eminence as acting secretly upon the instructions of his religious mentor, (ie. boss) the future Pope Pius XII. Such an honest person would also be keen to see the allowance of full and true verification concerning the exact known elements of the final act of the Common-plan, which is to say, how it was that Kaas actually amassed the unitary vote of the Party he led, and gave this to Hitler in the rigged parliament against his own agreement with a previous chancellor in his party whose retention of his 'fraction' may have changed the entire course of mid and consquent 20C history, because it verifiably wasn't as Wikipedia anywhere reveals. Please don't call me, EffK 22:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

All of the decisions on your RfAr were a unanimous 8-0 vote. When there are 8 people elected by the editors of the Project who disagree with you, as well as those who brought the RfAr and those who posted evidence, might you not want to stop and think that maybe it's you who is in the wrong? Corvus cornix 23:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I am questioned. Indeed they were unanimous, and also entirely ignored the central plank of Wikipedia, which is verifability. I am proud to stand by my efforts at explanation, allowable under policy. I cannot regret my actions which were towards verifiability, NPOV inclusion of full history, and, when policy was openly traduced, my determination of the danger to Web2 and this project by concerted -nay verifiably instructed under pain of spiritual deprivation- editing. I note for you that none of the substantive issue of verifiability was addressed by any of these, nor the policies regarding either explanation nor regarding AGF. I wouldn't expect you to spend any time on it either as it is difficult, but the facts remain whatever about the punitive judgement handed down. Your 'maybe' is kind, but misplaced as 'maybe' the Arbcom was blinded by a desire to save the project from massive contention and that that explains how an arbitration called for by myself in the first instance, was incapable of attending to the substantive policy issues. Bengalski called it a scandal, it remains a scandal, none of the issues were satisfactorily dealt with, only brushed with punitive stroke under the carpet of bureaucracy. In reality an investigation should be held as to how the policies of WP were surrendered by its own representatives. As to he who brought the Rfa, he stupidly crowed as to his christian vindiction, was thereafter recognised for his off-site racism, and re-defined himself exactly as I had concluded- as Rfa fixer for the denialist outside power. Of course, he left, and now only jimbo lives in a limbo. It remains the case that the failure to address the issues of policy hurt the project then, still hurts it, and will doubtless continue to hurt it. Do you care? Do you not consider it your duty to understand how the policies were traduced, and to repair the damage to the project. But, thanks for maybe, and to the following editor- Anonguy did that.EffK 09:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

On a completely unrelated note, you might wish to have your talk page unprotected now that you're back. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 23:44, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Sandbox Questions

I think that posting nonsense on the Sandbox should be outlawed. I am not sure if you can do anything or not, but I would like a policy forbidding nonsense on the Sandbox. Laleena 00:22, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Look at it this way: if the kind of people who are prone to nonsense are not given an easily cleanable outlet, there will only be even more vandalism and disruptive test edits. Adrian M. H. 00:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Plus, if someone experimenting with formatting may not care what the text I am eperimenting on says. The experimenter may use nonsense text, because the point of the experiment is to figure out wiki markup. This is a perfectly valid use of the sandbox. Dsmdgold 02:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this EXPRESSELY what the sandbox is for? Would you rather that user did such work on an article instead? --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It is. What other purpose does the sandbox provide if people can't make nonsense edits to it? I'd much rather have people make their "wow, so I can edit anything, huh?" edits there rather than a real article. EVula // talk // ☯ // 05:55, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment

We have been trying to forward the above to a point of consensus. If you can spare a few moments, please take a look and submit thoughts on the talk page. Thank you. Privatemusings 06:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Disputed images

(Moved from WP:HELPDESK since is a policy issue and this is the page about policy. Od Mishehu 10:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC))

I'm probably asking this question in the wrong place, but I couldn't figure out where else to post to get a proper answer so, apologizes in advance. I recently uploaded some pictures for the Grace Kelly page. A few days ago, an admin tagged some of the images (and removed one) from the article. One tag mentioned something about finding a free image instead of the image I uploaded of a poster of the subject. I went ahead and tagged that for deletion myself along with another image of a screenshot that was also tagged. Admittedly, I probably did go a bit overboard so, instead of getting making an issue about it, I removed them.

However, one picture is tagged for deletion because the admin believes it "doesn't add significantly to readers' understanding of grace kelly" [1] I could be wrong (and it's fine if I am), but I feel the picture does in fact add to the article. It's placed in a section that illustrates the info (it's a picture of the Grimaldi family in the mid 60s).

My question is, how and where do I dispute this? There's a tag I can place on the picture, but I'm not sure how to argue this because it's basically my opinion versus the admin's (who is, according to her talk page, on sabbatical). If the picture is that disruptive, I'll gladly take it down because I don't want to clutter up a page or make it incomprehensible. I'm a bit confused by this because I've seen articles with semi random pictures of a subject posted in sections that don't really pertain to what is being discussed and don't necessarily add to a readers' understanding of the subject. Thanks! Pinkadelica 08:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

If there are only two of you involved, request a 3O first of all. Adrian M. H. 10:24, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Geography, Places and Notability

Perhaps I'm missing something. I can't seem to find any guidelines or policy on the inclusion of geographical features, highways, small towns and the like. I've tended to assume these are almost all notable in one way or another but I'm starting to doubt this perspective.

There is a constant influx of articles on towns of small size. Does every town and neighborhood deserve an article? Verification is of course easy with an atlas but that's my point. If Wikipedia is not a directory, is there a corollary of Wikipedia is not an atlas? Merely having Reliable Sources for a subject doesn't necessarily make it notable.

I admit up front I have strong biases for defining edges and limits for Wikipedia's content. I don't think I'm being unreasonable to expect an encyclopedia to have criteria for inclusion and exclusion, to not include every town in the world just because it exists. Well, my attitude assumes Wikipedia isn't an atlas. If it is, then I'll go on my merry way without questioning the basic inclusion of these features and focus instead on other issues. I really want to hear some discussion on this. Pig^man 16:06, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobody and nothing "deserves" an article, but WP:OUTCOMES indicates that every real location should have an article. That doesn't apply to housing developments and trailer parks, but verifiable communities. Corvus cornix 16:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Almost every town in the world has a history, which is available in published sources. Whether these sources are online is an irrelevant question, they exist so someday we should have an article on the town in order to fulfill our mission. WP:OUTCOMES is correct in noting the consensus position for towns an major geographic features. The boundary between major/minor geographic features has never been closely drawn, and comes down to the basic Wikipedia:Notability issue of available sourcing. WP:NOT explicitly does not say that we aren't an atlas, because we've never been at risk of becoming one, nor will articles on towns make us one. GRBerry 16:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Now, see? I managed to miss WP:OUTCOMES somehow in my WP experience or didn't make a note of it if I came across it. That neatly answers my questions. If this is a general statement of how AfDs tend to resolve, then that's a form of community consensus I can understand and respect. Although I admit I'm having difficulty resolving any practical difference between an atlas and WP on this score if WP eventually includes all towns and probably most geographical features. Be that as it may, I'm happy to go along with general consensus on the point. Thanks for the info and feedback. Pig^man 17:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Talk Page, Not A Forum

WP:FORUM notes that talk pages are not a forum for casually chatting between users, but it doesn't say what to do if a talk page has been cluttered by people chatting (such as on Talk:Meerkat Manor which is beset with kid editors who seem to use the talk page to chat and discuss the events of the show more than the actual article. Should the chatter be removed, notes posted about the "no forum" policy, or just ignored?

Semi-related (as it ties to the same article). Is a page like this User:Meerkat_Manor_Correctly which seems to be duplicating part of the main article with "correct" information against policy? The person whose page it is seems to have made it mostly because other editors won't let him get away with putting what he wants on the main article. Collectonian 17:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:TALK does; see the third point in the section about editing comments. Adrian M. H. 18:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

You can just remove comments that are unrelated to the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:32, 2 October 2007 (UTC)