Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 14:29, 12 December 2007

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

English spellings

Someone should write some code for the next revision of MediaWiki that adjusts your how certain words appear based on your IP, sort of like autocorrect in OpenOffice. Canada-kawaii 01:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I propose we table this suggestion. --Carnildo 04:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I second the motion, and raise you a shelf. -Jéské 07:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

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

Sirs:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What is being done policy wise about this?

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

end of soapbox — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.118.64 (talk) 08:17, November 12, 2007 (UTC)

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

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

• The notability guideline sets some easy to follow and fairly objective standards, with a relatively low bar to inclusion. However, I do see uneven application of the standards at AfD, mostly by uninformed nominators and less informed evaluators. This is more of a problem than the guidelines. --Kevin Murray 13:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

For example? Editors being too strict about WP:N, or too lenient? I'm a relative newcomer that spends a bit of time at AfD, and in the wake of your comment, am now looking for guidance. --- tqbf 19:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

• A lot of people tried to abuse the rules by including webcomics that were just starting hadn't gotten any outside coverage (reliable or otherwise). I'm sure there are multiple webcomics that satisfy the current criteria. We just can't include ALL of them. - Mgm| 13:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Why not include everything that gets submitted, if the information is correct? Are you short on money to buy more hard drives? Are people having a hard time finding the information they are looking for? Is there some other reason for the policy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.122.139 (talk)
    • If it doesn't pass the basic notability guidelines, there generally isn't enough verifiable information to be sure anything in the article is correct. Hence, it's often better just to delete it until such a time as some information is available from reliable sources. Sχeptomaniac 22:16, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
      • In that case, just enforce the verifiability guidelines. Your argument if followed through leads to the conclusion that the notability requirement is redundant. Mdmkolbe 23:14, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

More on this, I finally figured that...the notability paradox, the more you exclude notability, the more insignificant you become. Britannica has an enormous amount of trivia, and because of this, errors or not, it will always be the encyclopedia of choice, vs wep which has notable authors such as the man who posed as the Dr of divinity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Artoftransformation (talk • contribs) 19:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyright vs. Trademark

There seems to be a big issue here on both Misplaced Pages and Commons, where users are confusing copyright versus trademark. This has been an issue with many logos, which cannot be copyrighted due to their simplicity, but are subject to trademark laws. For example, Image:Mbta-logo.svg cannot be copyrighted because it merely consists of the letter "T" inside a circle. An editor has been confusing copyright with trademark, and has since added a copyright image tag (in addition to the public domain tag), and now the image is listed for deletion. I don't want to start an edit war over this, or any other image, but it is certain that editors need to establish the difference between copyright and trademark, and know when to use {{Trademark}} and {{PD-ineligible}} on image pages. There is no detailed explanation about this at WP:LOGOS, and I think that a statement should be instated somewhere. I also think that a {{PD-logo}} should be created to help users understand this concept a little bit better. NOTE: This message was previously posted at Misplaced Pages talk:Logos on 2007-11-07 with no replies. –Dream out loud (talk) 16:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea to me. -- Ned Scott (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

As an additional note to the above, there is no legal regime that prevents Misplaced Pages from using a non-copyrightable trademark in any manner, except that we can not confuse the public into thinking that we are in fact produced by the company that is the owner of the mark (see Likelihood of confusion). bd2412 T 05:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm having an issue right now with an editor over the licensing status of Image:SEPTA.svg. The image is in public domain because it was first published without a copyright notice before 1978, and it also consists entirely of simple geometric shapes, which cannot be copyrighted to begin with. However, despite the fact that I added public domain tags to the image, another editor insists that the image must be copyrighted because it has a trademark. I tried explaining to the user the different between the two, but he continued to be ignorant after I left him a message and he changed the copyright status back to fair use because of a trademark disclaimer, and said NOT to change it back. I'm not starting an edit war here, but I need to get this issue resolved, as well as other issues regarding copyrights vs. trademarks. –Dream out loud (talk) 17:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the arrangement of the "simple geometric shapes" in that logo could be copyrighted (even if in this case it isn't due to failure to go through the formalities), just like a Mondrian painting is. That "simple geometric shapes" exception is for truly simple things like a circle or a square. - JasonAQuest 16:09, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The wording of Template:Non-free logo doesn't help. It says "copyright and/or trademark". That basically implies that trademarks are fair use images. FunPika 20:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Policy for discussion of policy policy

As part of the Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings arbitration case it has been noted that the sockpuppetry policy had "diverged from established norms at some points". It is not alone. Other policies have been rewritten by parties in dispute in order to enable their behaviour.

I would like to suggest that all policies marked as such (with {{policy}}) be protected indefinitely, and any edits made solely on the basis of consensus on the discussion page and an {{editprotected}} request handled by an independent admin not part of the discussion.

This is not proposed in order to create bureaucracy, but in order to maintain a stable policy base so that people have a realistic chance of keeping wihtin policy, and to avoid the absurdity of arbitrators and administrators fishing through past versions of policy to find out whether a given act violated the policy as written on that day. Guy (Help!) 23:48, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I came here prepared to mock a policy proposal about policies as being needless bureaucracy and plain silly. But this is a sensible and workable proposal. The only potential downfall seems to be the transition from a proposed to an accepted policy. That doesn't seem to be a very fixed-in-stone or formal process but immediately protecting a new policy would seem to give more weight to those who accept the proposed policy as non-admins would then be in a poor position to challenge the policy's status as easily as they can right now. But that's not a show-stopper, IMHO, just an issue to keep in mind and try to avoid. --ElKevbo (talk) 00:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

With a 10% error margin, all proposed policies fail. There's no such thing that actually works. --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

(ec)It's a good concept. I've been hoping for the introduction of 'stable versions' to allow a similar system wherein only revisions marked with the highest approval level (not available to most users) would be accepted policy... again requiring consensus before any updates are 'official'. Obstacles to be overcome would be how to handle policies which are currently subject to dispute and the long term possibility of ossification if people find the process to get updates made too difficult. I'd suggest holding off on declaring any version of the disputed pages 'official' until the dispute is settled and having some sort of standard where if a change suggested on the talk page isn't disputed for a set period (e.g. 7 days) it goes in automatically. --CBD 00:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Guy, there aren't a lot of times I agree with you completely, but this is one of them. This proposal addresses a long-time concern of mine; anyone can edit policy right now and half the edits to policy aren't even noticed, or people are chased away when making queries. Certainly if this practice had been in place we would not have seen six months of edit-warring, serial protection and "disputed" tags on WP:NPA. I concur with CBD that there are some fine points to be worked out (in addition to his examples, also looking at the links within policies to ensure they are going to "approved" rather than "proposed" pages), but I think this is quite workable. Risker (talk) 00:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that, in my opinion, if the above framework of article and policy hierarchy could be adopted as a standard for the entire project, you have the makings of a brilliant transition into the "new and much improved WP." Very... Nice (talk) 01:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I fully support this. Mackensen (talk) 02:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Guy, could you give us some specific examples of cases where parties to a dispute have rewritten policies to their advantage, and not been reverted or sanctioned for it? (In the Privatemusings case you mention, did PM make changes to the sockpuppet policy? Was the document changed in a way that violated consensus, or is the divergence of the policy from practice simply the result of a lack of timely updating?) At first blush, I like your suggestion, but I also get the but that's un-wiki vibe.

I'm concerned that protection of policy pages will exacerbate the problem by making maintenance of policy documents more difficult. Finally – and I may well regret opening this can of WP:BEANS – will this change just move edit wars and wikilawyering off the policy (and policy talk) pages and on to ancillary guideline pages? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines being more general, is that necessarily a problem? (Not to say it's not an important side-effect to consider.) One other problem here might be the introduction of new policy -- at what point do we protect the page? We could let "new" policies lay unprotected for a bit, to gather some momentum and build consistency/stability, before protecting them. Some policies are still developing, even if they do have wide support; others, WP:3RR comes to mind, are far more stable. – Luna Santin (talk) 03:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I've one minor quibble. This tends to make policy pages into something more akin to legislation, which gets changed only when an amendment is 'passed'. I've always understood policy pages to describe rather than proscribe. Policy changes not when the page changes, but when we start doing something a little different (which is normally gradual). Thus policy pages will often not reflect current policy anyway - they are designed to be dynamic.--Doc 02:26, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Possibly not a bad idea... policy pages, if not watched very carefully, can become a hodgepodge of random editors pet peeves and personal quirks writ large... everyone wants to add their own little thing, and most of these people mean well... but the end result is often a few core ideas with 50 minor things tacked on here and there, it's not very coherent. One problem with this plan is that it could make it hard to change the current state of policies... which evidently isn't very good in some places. --W.marsh 02:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Certainly worth trying for awhile. If we find the policies are getting too stagnant, then we can put them on a schedule for review maybe. FloNight♥♥♥ —Preceding comment was added at 02:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's be real - the people accused (no comment on the validity of the accusations; haven't looked at the case) of editing policy to enable their administrative actions are (of course) admins. If they were A) already knowingly going against current policy and B) changing policy against consensus; why would they not just edit the page anyway? What on earth does this accomplish?—Random832 03:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This has been proposed before for the exact same reason. For what it's worth, I agree with the idea. It should be difficult for people to change policies to support their own agenda. Graham87 06:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Guy, I came here to laugh at you but instead find myself praising your brilliance. I'm astounded that a solution so elegant and simple has not been proposed before. east.718 at 11:39, November 25, 2007

I don't like it, but it does seem necessary unfortunately, so I also support this. Garion96 (talk) 11:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

"The absurdity of arbitrators and administrators fishing through past versions of policy to find out whether a given act violated the policy as written on that day." As far as I am aware, Misplaced Pages:Disruptive editing hasn't change. Just because an editor who specializes in throwing out red herrings for admins to follow doesn't mean they should be followed. And yes, I agree that policies susceptible to being rewritten by parties to enable questionable behavior may be protected as you suggest. -- Jreferee t/c 16:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Won't this encourage wikilawyering? If the ArbCom is actually fishing through policy page history to determine if an editors' actions are in line with nominal policies on particular days in the past, then frankly they're doing it wrong. Full protection of policy pages isn't the answer in that case; the ArbCom – and all Wikipedians who are trying to enforce policy – ought to be aware that the absolute letter of any policy or guideline is not the be-all and end-all. We are much more interested in maintaining the spirit of our rules—and even then, we enforce the rules only as a means to maintaining and improving the encyclopedia.

If an editor is doing something that is harmful to the encyclopedia, we ask them to stop. If an editor persists in deliberately doing things a reasonable person would think disruptive, we sanction. If there is disagreement about whether or not an action is harmful, we have a discussion. We don't hew to the bright line of the nitpicky wording of policies—that leads to the refrain that all of us (including Guy) have seen on AN/I in defense of one obnoxious act or another: "Show me the exact policy that says what I'm doing isn't allowed!". Permanent protection of policy pages will exacerbate those cries: "If there's no consensus to disallow my behaviour in policy, you can't block me for it and ArbCom can't sanction me for it!" While such arguments will get short shrift from individuals exercising common sense, there will nevertheless be cries of 'admin abuse!' and endless wikidrama from individuals who need letter-perfect adherence to these etched-in-stone policies.

Under the present system, such wikilawyering occasionally leads us to update the policy to close the loophole. More often, we acknowledge that there will be edge and pathological cases that our policy doesn't contemplate, and opt to use our best, collective judgement in the future. We realize that modifying policy to fit every odd case or specific situation is an exercise in futility (not to mention a risk of WP:BEANS) and that rewriting policy over single, rare occurrences can have unintended consequences.

Misplaced Pages policies evolve because it is sometimes useful to codify the practices and standards we refer to on a regular basis rather than having to reinvent the wheel each time we face a situation; they're specific expressions of commonly-used interpretations of the five pillars and the policy trifecta. (Indeed, I could see the value of permanently protecting short, sweet versions of those policies and those policies alone, and pushing everything that's interpretation of them off into regular, editable policy pages.) Misplaced Pages is not a legal system or an experiment in government; we don't attempt to control behaviour through a complex set of preestablished laws. Making the change to full protection of all policy pages will, I'm afraid, encourage the misconception that Misplaced Pages is a nomic and that policy pages are to be interpreted in a most lawyerly fashion. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

We can speculate all we want to about the various misfortunes that would fall on Misplaced Pages should policy pages be locked down; that way lies (in my opinion) simply inertia, since there isn't any way to get a 100% guarantee that any change will be positive. We're talking, what, forty-some pages? Why not just do a trial (say, three months) and see if problems arise? And the way to measure success would be simple: have reasonable proposals for changes (for example, copyediting) on the policy talk pages been ignored or implemented?

There certainly is no reason why, for locked-down policy pages, we can't put a big banner at the top telling editors how, and where, to suggest changes. Policy pages aren't articles; any editor coming to the page to get information isn't going to be put off by a clear notice about how to change the policy. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 01:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I oppose this on principle, per my earlier comments and TenOfAllTrades. Gives a wrong impression of how wikipedia works - and that is more dangerous than anything.--Doc 01:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Disagree per DocG and TenOfAllTrades. The people I've seen editing policy pages during a dispute to make them look better have the technical ability to edit protected pages. Better to leave them unprotected so that such edits during dispute can be reverted by anyone. Without a much stronger method of gathering input and testing consensus the suggestion is not viable. GRBerry 14:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about this suggestion -- although willing to live with the outcome, at least for a while. On one hand, it does appear to be a good idea -- at least for some of the policies; this will silence the argument "but how do I know the rules won't change?" And it will be one area where we need not worry about edit wars. On the other hand, this weakens one of the reasons for ignore all rules: by locking these pages down, instead of encouraging people to follow the spirit of the policies, it encourages them to follow the letter. -- llywrch (talk) 19:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC) On second thought, after seeing this thread below, which is about the related discussion on Misplaced Pages talk:No original research, I am against this proposal. Right now, there is no worry that some crank might successfully weasel something into one policy or another that prevents us from writing useful content, so Wikipedians like me can leave these discussions to the policy wonks, cranks & so forth & concentrate on writing & improving articles. The possibility that one of these policies might actually be locked in a bad version (which is not the wrong version) would mean that the rest of us would have to regularly police these timesinks, & not have the time to write. I'll admit it: when I post here, or at WP:AN, or at WP:AN/I, & at similar places I'm slacking. However, if spending time in these fora were a requirement to write the articles I have been doing -- I'll leave. -- llywrch (talk) 20:37, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a bad idea, as long as the {{editprotected}} is not used - that's not what it's for. The protection would, IMO, be to prevent changes without consensus to be made, and general shifting of policy on a day-to-day basis. It would be to make changes to policy pages a "special occasion". Thus, a discussion should simply be initiated, with no need for a template... but obviously we could continue using the template for simple spelling corrections and so on. The protection would also reduce vandalism to high-profile policy pages such as WP:3RR, WP:CIV and... it's got to be said, WP:VAND. All in all, it's a good idea... and I'm not an admin, so I'm signing away my birthright, here! --Porcupine (prickle me! · contribs · status) 18:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing the other day, but if we want to do that, we first need to cut down on the number of policy pages, especially in the "behaviour" section. A new, much pruned core set of stable policies needs to be devised, and it needs to concentrate on the creation and maintenance of content, not on micromanaging of user behaviour in backspace. Zocky | picture popups 11:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I said exactly the same thing months ago and got pooh-poohed for my trouble. But I guess I don't have the cachet of a User:JzG :/ Gatoclass (talk) 17:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree, but with the caveat that admins may not edit policy pages for any reason whatsoever without first discussing it on the talk page. Period. (Or full stop, according to your preference.) All edits should be discussed on the talk page, and in the case of large changes, planned on a draft page. They should be implemented either unanimously or with discussion that results in a consensus. A link to all major changes should be added to WP:VPT, {{cent}}, WP:RFC, and/or WP:AN, as appropriate. Otherwise, I oppose this measure per GRBerry. Gracenotes § 18:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, I'm not sure this needs to apply to all policies (for example, WP:BOT, which non-admin members of the BAG might need to edit) – merely ones on which contentious edit warring has previously occurred, especially behavioral policies. Gracenotes § 18:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Great idea, Guy. I also agree with the comment that admins should also not make changes (other than truly minor ones) without discussion on the talk page. i find the whole policy stability thing offputting. --A. B. 05:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a philosophy shift from longstanding practice. One of Jimbo's fundamental principles (not necessarily policy) is that "'You can edit this page right now' is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred." I agree with Jimbo. Policy pages are Misplaced Pages pages too, and have benefitted greatly from the Misplaced Pages philosophy of WP:BOLD. If we lock them down, there will be three effects:

1. Policy will tend towards Creep, since even though consensus may not be established in favor of Creepy language in policy articles, you can also never get consensus to remove Creepy language, once it infects a policy article. There's always a cabal of Creeps who oppose it, so you don't have consensus, even though there is no consensus for it to be there in the first place.
2. For similar reasons, policy statements that do not reflect consensus, such as when consensus changes, can never in practice be removed, because even though there is no consensus as to a particular policy, there's also no consensus to remove that policy. Thus, we get stuck with 2005's consensus forever.
3. Policy page innovation will die, because nobody can be bold.

I don't think we want any of these consequences. COGDEN 04:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

May you consider just for a moment, that what as served the project well for 3 years, may also serve the project for another ten? Change for the sake of change, is not good practice. The community will find consensus when it needs it to change policy. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:41, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• What a brilliant idea, why hasn't this been done a long time ago? I dorftrottel I talk I 00:02, December 5, 2007

Oppose per my comments at the Admins Noticeboard, where this discussion has recently started. Anything which further divides admins from ordinary users is bad for everyone - it adds to feelings of "us and them", it reduces transparency, it gives admins a policy-making rôle which they were never intended to have, and it increases the risk of admin abuse. Being an admin, we are often told, is "no big deal - admins are ordinary editors". This proposal drives a coach and horses through that principle. We should be improving the way wikipedia gains consensus for policy and involving a broader, more representative section of the community in making policy. Preventing most editors from editing policy pages will reduce participation, increase bad-feeling and harm the Misplaced Pages. DuncanHill (talk) 10:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

This (policy protection) is a profoundly bad idea that fails totally to connect with how consensus editing and development works. Insisting that you must have an admin's permission to update policies either by way of correction or bold proposal is wrong and creates a police-guard around the policies in question. Anyone can edit this encyclopedia, and its policies exist and mutate only because of that fact. If the motiviation to this is vandalism, then you know where to get off, and if it's bad changes to those policies well, just revert then discuss. There is no effect to either vandalism or a non-consensus change since neither carry any actual weight at all. Splash - tk 13:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Alternative idea: Post on talk page first, then implement

Random832 said it well above: Administors are people, too. (I can attest to that, I'm one myself). I don't think the distinction should be between admins and ordinary editors, but between discussed changes and undiscussed changes. Moreover, there are plenty of changes by non-admins or even IP accounts, such as interwiki links, for which we should not create an unnecessary hurdle. Therefore, I propose the following:

• Changes that affect the meaning of a policy need to be posted on the talk page first. If no objection is raised after 3*24 hours, they can be implemented on the page. Any meaning changes that are implemented in violation of this rule should be reverted by any editor. If that reversion is again reverted, it will be treated as revert warring.

A similar system is currently working very well on WT:SLR. — Sebastian 23:31, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

It might be worth a try I guess. It would certainly be better than the system in place now. Gatoclass 05:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I think this proposal runs contrary to the idea of a wiki. It would probably have a chilling effect on constructive edits to these policy pages. Also, I think that sometimes users who are accused of violating policy (e.g. sockpuppetry) begin taking an interest in that policy at that point, and decide to make edits with the intent of bettering the policy. It's not necessarily just people wanting to legalize their own behavior. Sarsaparilla 04:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. One of Jimbo's fundamental principles (not necessarily policy) is that "'You can edit this page right now' is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred." I agree with Jimbo. COGDEN 04:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but official policies pages impose a further burden on editors wanting to edit it. Just read the disclaimers at the top of each official policy if you need a reminder. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

This page documents an official policy on the English Misplaced Pages. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. Please do not edit this page without first ensuring that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page.

Am I strange to suggest that you should "merely" check to ensure your edit reflects consensus? --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Laboratory of democracy

Edit wars on protected pages are wheel wars

I'm uncomfortable with the general idea of protecting the policy pages, for many of the reasons discussed above, but mostly because of a gut feeling it's un-Misplaced Pages-like. Edit wars on protected pages are wheel wars, and it seems it might even escalate things on hotly-contested debates (raising the stakes of each edit). However, since there's so much interest in doing something, might I suggest a laboratory of democracy, and try it a couple of different ways on a couple of different pages, and see what happens? Use Guy's proposal on 2-3 policy pages, use Sebastian's sort of overlooked proposal on 2-3 pages, and, noting jossi's comment above, enforce more strictly the current statement in the policy box on 2-3 pages. Don't change anything in the other policies. See what happens it 1-2 months. --barneca (talk) 01:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

What a great idea! Here's a table where we can propose which policies could be good candidates for each way (or "policy policy"). — Sebastian 02:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Please add your proposals in the table. — Sebastian 02:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

LOL! You are proposing we violate IAR on IAR? :-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 04:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

A novel proposal: Let's use Consensus

Misplaced Pages policy, guidelines and essays are descriptive, not prescriptive, and to date have been formed through consensus. It is official policy that you are not supposed to blindly follow policy, for many many reasons too numerous to list here.

By protecting these pages, while it is true that you prevent games of wiki-nomic (aka wiki-calvinball), you also prevent people from updating and maintaining policies, guidelines and essays according to the procedures stated at Misplaced Pages:Consensus.

It is better to deal with the occasional anomaly posed by consensus, than to not be able to fix problems at all (or only with great difficulty).

With that, could we relegate the protection of policy pages to "perennial proposals", and just get back to using consensus? :-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 03:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Exactly! That's why I proposed First talk, then implement. Can you think of a better way to assure that changes are made by consensus? — Sebastian 10:00, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I can think of no better way to ensure they are not.

This is a wiki, many wikis have no separate talk page at all. A lot of people lazily use the talk page for purposes it was never intended for, and this makes it a lot harder to reach consensus.

Try to reach consensus by normal wiki-editing as much as possible. The talk page is there to discuss how you're doing.

--Kim Bruning (talk) 10:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Well phrased, Kim. I support this, and oppose the protection of policy pages. *runs off to add a bunch of them to his watchlist*--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 15:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The concept of protecting policy pages seems to me to be the antithesis of our very core principles. We are the encyclopedia that anyone can edit (with very - VERY - few exceptions). I do not believe that consensus has stopped speaking about policies. I do not agree that policy is done evolving, and I believe that anything that slows down or stops that evolution is a bad thing. - Philippe | Talk 04:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I support Kim's modest proposal, although I doubt it will prevail. It's only supported by WP:CONSENSUS; it doesn't subserve the power trips of those who got their pet notions into a policy page back in 2004, and therefore now claim that consensus is required to remove what they put in off the tops of their heads.

But then, in an ideal world, the revert warriors would also be held to the standard of ensuring that their reverts also reflected cconsensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:54, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

That is a very good 'idea', Kim. Fully support this use of consensus. Fully support the way things are and have always been with no particular consequences. Splash - tk 13:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Not blinding following policy is good, but you are raising a false dichotomy between that and consensus. Remember that policies and guidelines are based on consensus, and that consensus usually was more wide than that which will be stimulated on any one article. Epthorn (talk) 14:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The majority of fiction is non-notable

Can we just delete everything to do with fiction, period? It seems kind of subjective that we're deleting virtually every article on video games characters, often with very little warning (two articles that I frequently contributed to were deleted before I was even aware they had been nominated for deletion). And really, what fiction is important? I suppose Shakespeare can stay, and Dickens, and Austin, and "classic" literature, stuff like that. And I suppose some people would get quite upset if the Harry Potter or Foundation stuff went as well, but I don't see why we need an article on Pokémon, or CardCaptor Sakura, or Red Dwarf, or The Edge Chronicles. I mean let's face it - who cares? RobbieG (talk) 13:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to take them to deletion review, but in general fictional concepts that have been around for over a century and are still actively studied and read, such as Dickens and Shakespeare characters, have sufficient independent scholarly sources as to allow a realistic assessment of their historic cultural importance. The character you have to kill to get to level 3 in Sonic is less unambiguously significant. Guy (Help!) 13:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I made that distinction. The works of Shakespeare are probably suitable material for an encyclopaedia, as is most classic literature. Apart from that, though, surely all fiction is irrelevant to Misplaced Pages's goals, right? RobbieG (talk) 13:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you're trying to say. The notion of "classic" literature is extraordinarily flexible, at least if we concede that "modern classic" is more than a marketing gimmick, and especially if somebody claims that the term "instant classic" isn't mere hyperbole.

Putting aside the matter of what "classic" means and what it covers, there's a great amount of fiction that interests a substantial number of thinking people, although perhaps not you or me, and about which people may write intelligible and informative articles according to WP's precepts of "no original research" etc. As long as they follow the rules and also don't risk confusion of fiction and reality, I don't see what's problematic.

You introduce your question about fiction with something about video game characters. I don't see why video game characters merit articles (though I'm open to persuasion); and I also don't see why fictional characters merit articles, unless those characters are known (perhaps only faintly, and perhaps only has doubly fictional caricatures) to people who haven't read the fiction. The fiction might be fairly well read in this century (Lolita and Humbert in Lolita) and it might not (Svengali and perhaps Trilby in du Maurier's Trilby).

If you're unhappy about some deletion, you can take up the matter in "Deletion Review". -- Hoary (talk) 14:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

To be perfectly frank, I am unhappy with several specific deletions, but I really haven't the time or the energy to spend arguing my point, when I have very little confidence that the people at deletion review would take my complaints seriously anyway. But that's got little to do with the point I'm making here now, which is: do we need multiple pages listing every Pokémon from #1 to #however many there are by now? Compare the article on Wyatt's rebellion with the article on Dagger of the Mind, for example. A reader of Misplaced Pages would probably find out more information about the fictional history of Star Trek than the real world history of England. Doesn't this bother anyone else? RobbieG (talk) 14:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Deleting good articles on pop culture topics doesn't make articles on "important" topics any better... it's not like the guy carefully formatting Naruto infoboxes is going to just start working on articles about the French Revolution because you deleted his fiction articles. More likely he leaves and the "serious" articles still suck. --W.marsh 14:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

(ec) The solution to that problem isn't to delete Dagger of the Mind, but to improve Wyatt's rebellion. You say you haven't the time or energy to spend arguing your point, but what exactly is your point? Anomie⚔ 14:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

This is why notability for articles on fiction is present. It defines what level of external information for a fictional work should be present to allow for articles on it (this itself is the reason why many fictional articles are being put for deletion - its to help stop fancruft). Now, we may be overly strong on modern "fiction" and weak on older ones but that is primarily because of the makeup of the editors, with a larger fraction interested in these newer works than those of the older ones, but there's no reason why there can't be more coverage of classical works that met the same requirements for notability - we just need to find the editors to help out on those. --MASEM 14:52, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, man. Lady Macbeth (Shakespeare) cites no references showing real-world importance. Maybe I should speedy delete it just to be safe. --W.marsh 14:41, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, it was only a suggestion. I wasn't trying to disrupt anything, but if the cruft is here to stay, then so be it. RobbieG (talk) 14:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You ask: do we need multiple pages listing every Pokémon from #1 to #however many there are by now? Answer: No. ¶ You ask: A reader of Misplaced Pages would probably find out more information about the fictional history of Star Trek than the real world history of England. Doesn't this bother anyone else? Answer: It bothers me. It bothers me that the real history of England (or anywhere else) is poorly covered; it alternately bothers me and hugely amuses me that great numbers of people would spend large chunks of their life writing up Star Warstrek. Well, WP is promoted as the encyclopedia anyone can edit, so its editors are likely to approach a cross-section of people capable of using a computer and writing in English. Now, if you look at what the anglophone masses read about, you'll find junk and trivia hugely represented. Hardly surprising that the Misplaced Pages-editing masses then choose to write about junk and trivia. -- Hoary (talk) 15:24, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

RobbieG brings a valueble point, especially with the Pokemon. I just checked and there are currently 493 pokemon. All that plus the articles on the characters from the show, the regions, the games, the movies, the manga, etc. You must have 500-600 articles just for Pokemon (which most of them are stubs). Are they really necessary? Should they be tolerated? My answer is no. Just by having 1 pokemon article is fine. Everything else belongs in a Pokemon Wikia. Lex /_C Guest Book 16:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Most Pokemon characters are in lists such as List of Pokémon (1-20) (which has been pwned by the fair use guidelines/policies meaning we can't even have pics of most pokemon here). Notable ones such as Pikachu do however have their own articles. And if we come to the point that all Pokemon knowledge must either be transwikied or be simply deleted, I think Bulbapedia would be more suitable then Pokemon Wikia. FunPika 20:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

W. marsh has a good point. There are no references at all in that article. I hate inline citations, but a nice reference at the end is not too much to ask. Not so tongue in cheek. Keegan 07:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

• Disagree. A very large amount of fiction is undoubtedly notable according to Misplaced Pages policies, including all the examples that you give. Indeed, it would be difficult to include all the relevant information on Pokemon into a single article; it would be incredibly unwieldy. However, where Misplaced Pages falls down is the amount of articles on certain types of fiction. To give an example; there are currently over 600 articles on Gundam. Most of these articles could be happily deleted or merged without any loss of encyclopedic content, but it doesn't happen. Why? Because Misplaced Pages content, especially on fiction, is not based on actual notability, but how many Misplaced Pages editors think that content is notable. If you don't believe me, find a non-notable, unsourced, in-universe article on this topic (there are hundreds - here's a good starting point) and AfD it. Unless it's indefensibly NN, you will get a slew of WP:ILIKEIT keep votes (thus), and even if the closing admin correctly closes as Delete, the eventual outcome, after weeks of stress, will be that the information is merged somewhere else, resulting in an article with a long list of NN, unsourced information instead of individual articles (example). Sometimes they do get deleted; but it doesn't happen often. If you PROD an article, it'll probably be removed, and someone will claim to be writing a merged article; then nothing will happen ((example). No wonder that most people can't be bothered. ELIMINATORJR 16:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I find it telling that the only examples you provide are unwieldy mass-noms. Invariably, when someone shows up to mass-nom Gundam articles, it turns out they havn't examined them closely. Even more invariably, people who have problems with Gundam articles never post on WP:GUNDAM about it.

Current consensus is to merge minor stuff into list of articles and only make or keep articles about major things. That's policy and that's how we at WP:GUNDAM do things. Your claim about 'nothing being done' is in fact a blatant lie-- a lot of work is being done at the moment, but it mostly is focusing on mecha from a specific series at the moment. There are not many people working on WP:GUNDAM, and not all of them know everything about every series. Jtrainor (talk) 17:56, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• Partly agree. I would not say Pokémon is not notable but I really think that many details of this phenomenon are non-notable and yet they are widely covered in Misplaced Pages. Like other fan stuff (Star Trek and so on) it has a coverage that goes well beyond what is logical: there is absolutely no reason to cover each epysode for instance; this doesn't happen with Pokémon, it seems (only a handful of epysodes in the list have active links, what is excessive), but it happens with Star Trek, what is absolutely ridiculous. The notability of other fiction stuff should as well be adressed properly, specially when it comes to have loads of articles about the most nimious related detail, be it characters, toys, epysodes... --Sugaar (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

OK, be aware that I've thought about it and toned down my views a little since my last comment here. The thing is, I am in many ways an inclusionist (despite the impression I probably gave above). I don't see why we shouldn't have more detail on fiction than a print encyclopaedia because, well, Misplaced Pages is not paper. On the other hand, Gundam Wing is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about. Wikia is full of specialist wikis for various works of fiction, the majority of them awful, due partly to a lack of material and partly to a lack of decent rules like the ones we have here. The result is that if someone wants to add their knowledge of Gundam Wing (for example) to a wiki, they won't go to Wikia, they'll come here. I don't think it helps that when something is declared non-notable, it is rarely transwikied to a Wikia site; in this deletion debate, I proposed that the content of a page be transwikied to a relevant wiki and deleted from Misplaced Pages. The material was not transwikied, as far as I can tell; it was promptly deleted. Consequently, we have this vicious circle where newcomers add information about their favourite work of fiction to Misplaced Pages, it gets deleted (quite rightly so), newbies leave in a huff, and more newcomers arrive, eager to add their own info. The Gundam wiki, meanwhile, is a bit pathetic, full of red links. To sum up my current view, I don't think modern fiction should be out of bounds for Misplaced Pages, but I do see that we seem to be the lead authority on a number of unencyclopaedic topics that ought to be other wikis' business, and I think we should do something to change that. RobbieG (talk) 17:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

With various discussions at WP:N, WP:WAF and WP:FICT, we're trying to address the problem of proliferation of fancruft articles that exist due to the previous definition of notability (which lacked the demonstration of coverage in secondary sources). That includes how to handle fancruft information and moving it to wikias. The problem is is that this process is not well defined yet, and you also have groups of editors that feel their work should not be removed because, primarily, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. It's a learning process, it's not going to change overnight. However, we need to education as many editors as to what is appropriate and what isn't, and yet not discourage editors from participating. --MASEM 17:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a thought. WP is a long-term project, right? So having lots of articles on stuff that young people find interesting draws them in and gives them the editing skills that they will remember when they come back in 5 or 10 or 40(!) years time and want to contribute to the subjects that they are interested in as older people. Rome wasn't built in a day.  —SMALLJIM  11:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment As it takes only 30 seconds to copy and paste an entire volume of game instructions into an article, it will probably only take 20 years before most of WP will comprise of nothing but Rome: Total War. Rome wasn't built in a day, but endless fancruft will flood into WP like barbarians very quickly unless admins make a greater effort to enforce the notability guidelines. --Gavin Collins (talk) 20:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I think Gavin Collins may have misunderstood my comment. I'm most certainly not advocating that we ignore the "endless fancruft that will flood into WP…". Exactly the opposite in fact - it's essential that we keep a firm hand on it, or else the young editors who are adding it will not have the chance to learn how things are done here. Reverting or amending any of their faulty contributions and explaining to them why we have done so is very important. We can't stop this addition of what to many editors is seen as trivia, so we should turn it to our (long-term) advantage as best as we can.  —SMALLJIM  15:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment Conversely it takes only 30 seconds to insert an AFD tag on an article, which seems to be done sometimes with no effort to improve an article on an otherwise notable subject. I think part of the difficulty is that many editors seem to rely solely on Google hits to "prove" that an article is notable or not. In any case, Rome: Total War is notable, just merely by having received awards from so many different magazines, but the article clearly needs to be sourced better than it is (like the vast majority of articles here). (I also can't think of another computer game, the main engine of which was used as the basis of a TV series on the BBC or any other television network, namely Time Commanders. I just wish they'd bring it back and let me on there to show everyone else how to win a battle properly.  ;) But then I'm a gamer/wargamer and that's not the candidates they'd like to have on their show.) In any event, this is starting to take us far afield from the original poster's concerns. As an aside I've cut way back on my editing essentially because it all got very tiresome even trying to convince editors that things that are notable are really notable (as the sources/refs I provided were even questioned). As a question of interest, when exactly does fiction pass from non-"classical" to "classical"? To take just one general genre, is Poe classical? Is Lovecraft (relatively unknown and unappreciated for his work while alive)? Is Stephen King? Is Poppy Z. Brite? Who "decides" these things anyway?  :) --Craw-daddy | T | 21:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment - My guess would be that if there is sufficient, non-trivial, discussion (such as review) of any work of fiction in what is generally counted as a reliable source, like newspapers, books, etc., that qualifies the fiction as notable. Lovecraft and Poe have both had several works published regarding their fiction, although, at least in Lovecraft's case, not all that fiction is necessarily reviewed, so not all of it is necessarily notable. King has also had several books of criticism published regarding his work, so I tend to think the material discussed at length there qualifies as notable. Don't know much about Brite (in the interests of objectivity, don't really like the stuff I know either), but any work of hers which has been subject of multiple significant, notable pieces of commentary probably qualifies as notable as well. John Carter (talk) 21:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment Well, I suppose my question might have been more rhetorical than not. The main distinction I was trying to make is between the notability criteria of Misplaced Pages and the more nebulous quality of being "classical literature". I haven't taken a survey of college or university literature courses, but I have the impression that, despite the critical analysis of his work, Lovecraft's writings aren't generally considered "classical literature". To me it's sort of like the words "encyclopedic" and "unencyclopedic" that editors throw around on various AFDs and other pages here. Those are words that have no real meaning as one man's "encyclopedic" article is another man's "cruft" (even if the subject under consideration could indeed be notable, Star Trek being an obvious example, there being loads of material (critical and otherwise) written about the original TV series and its derivatives, even, I'd wager a few PhD theses, but to other people it's all "cruft"). <shrug> --Craw-daddy | T | 22:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment And don't forget... Bulbasaur (of Pokémon fame) was, at one point, a featured article.  :) --Craw-daddy | T | 22:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer also has a lot of material written about it including academic studies.I believe there has been at least one PhD as well .Garda40 (talk) 22:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

We should be careful with terminology here. There is a difference here between 'classical' and 'classic' (compare the difference between 'historical' and 'historic'). Classical often refers to the period of classical antiquity, though as the disambiguation page shows, there are other periods called classical as well. Classic literature, on the other hand, is what we are talking about here (and what, to be fair, everyone was talking about before I pedantically pointed out the terminology snafu). That article doesn't do a good job of explaining what a classic is, though it does note that the origin of the phrase is from the word classical. Anyway, not all classics are literature and not all literature is classic. The standard of secondary literature on the topic is a good one. Tolkien Studies is a journal on the subject of Tolkien studies, and there is a fairly large body of secondary literature on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. Not all of it good, but then you can't have everything. Carcharoth (talk) 22:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment Apologies for not using the correct terminology. If you agree with that (unsourced) article, then anything written less than a hundred years ago (or, more specifically after 1900) can't be "classic literature" unless it has particular "modern significance" or "perceived future significance". <shrug (again)> As I said, it's like that "encyclopedic/unencyclopedic" difference in some cases. To me Lovecraft's work is "classic literature" (going along with the "modern significance" argument if you like). To others he's still a hack, even though much critical work has been written about his writing. --Craw-daddy | T | 23:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment: Perhaps we're beating a dead horse at this juncture, but for what it's worth, in response to the original editor's proposition, "I care." MalikCarr (talk) 23:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I have moderated my view considerably since I wrote that. I am perfectly aware that "I don't care about it" is not, in itself, grounds to delete anything. Actually, it looks as though my proposal was nothing new; the rules are in place, they're just not consistently enforced. RobbieG (talk) 19:09, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

A simple question: How long before we start targetting articles about published novels? Probably 98% of our novel articles are 'simple info + plot summary' stubs.--Nydas 21:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Send the fancruft to Wikia. That's what Wikia is for. They host the Star Wars/Trek/Gate wikis and similar cruft. Wikia is in the business of monetizing fancruft. So let them have it and get it out of Misplaced Pages. --John Nagle 18:25, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with an article on any commercially and/or critically sucessful franchise such as Gundam or Pokemon. My objection is to devoted fans engaging in "fanspew" in that they take in an episode, then rush to the keyboard and spew out in-universe unreferenced articles about every minor event that happened in the episode, every character, costume, location, weapon, spell, space suit, spaceship, battle, or transformation. These things are better given appropriately brief mention in the general article about the show if they are important to the development of the plot arc or are ongoing elements of the show. If these elements receive independent scholarly analysis such as some objects or characters from the Sherlock Holmes stories or some episodes of Star Trek or Twilight Zone, then those reliable and independent sources can be used to write a split-off article. Edison (talk) 21:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is scholarly analysis the standard for fiction? What's wrong with the standard notability criteria (non-trivial, independent third party coverage)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chunky Rice (talk • contribs) 21:24, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Everybody commenting here should really try and adjust WP:FICT to stricter standards. It makes for a good exercise to learn a few things about how even the process of guideline-making has been hijacked to pave the way for uncurbed fan enthusiasm. On the issue of articles about novels vs articles about episode or minor character: William Pietri recently brought up the brilliant point that even average writers are always superb readers, whereas below-average readers cannot possibly write a coherent article. So that's what it has come to, as far as I'm concerned: Any hint that the author has read anything about the topic is enough for me to accept it. That means I can certainly tolerate an article about a book. But the unfortunately non-cliché 14-year-old half-literate who watches Family Guy or some such and then stuffs Misplaced Pages with every unimportant detail about it, convinced that he's doing a good thing, is something I cannot possibly combine with the idea of producing a serious encyclopedia. And the reason they keep fighting against the moving of such hopeless cruft articles to e.g. annex.wikia is a similar one, in that they are too lazy to even look for another place to gather. Misplaced Pages is right here, so why go somewhere else, right? Those people are unwilling (or unable, which is even worse) to do so much as google for sources and read them. I would endorse clamping down on those who do this, and on those who defend it by arguing for it. Alas, it's too late, the masses have already overrun Misplaced Pages and we may want to consider leaving it to them. A bit like with Moriarty in that "Ship in a Bottle" TNG episode. ¶ dorftrottel ¶ talk ¶ 21:39, December 5, 2007

Index lists

We have a growing collection of index-like "lists of articles" and "lists of lists" (which I'll collectively call "Index lists", as specifically differentiated from "encyclopedic-lists" such as List of Polish flags), and we need to revisit some past discussions about how to handle them, and what namespace they belong in. I'll start off with the examples (4 of our best sets are those covering mathematics, geography, philosophy, and film, so I'll use those), and then give the points for consideration.

The lists are generally one of 3 types:

1. An alphabetical index
   • List of mathematics articles, List of geography topics, List of philosophical topics, List of film topics, etc
2. A list of "basic topics" in a reference-card/cheatsheet format
   • List of basic mathematics topics, List of basic geography topics, List of basic philosophy topics, List of basic film topics, etc
3. A listing of lists
   • Lists of mathematics topics (a featured list in Oct 2005), Lists of philosophy topics, Lists of films, etc
   • also pages like Lists of people, List of timelines, List of centuries, List of '1996 in' articles, List of cycles, etc

Index lists: the problems and options

Scope

• There are currently: 40 Lists of lists, ~30 Year lists, 129 Basic topic lists (and The Transhumanist is was running a recruitment drive to generate 900 more (since removed?)), and a few hundred alphabetical/topic lists (100 or so of Mathematic topics lists alone). There is the potential for a few thousand.

(there are a lot more than 40 lists of lists - they number in the hundreds. See , , and    -TT) —Preceding comment was added at 20:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced

• Most of these are unsourced, and represent only what is currently written about within Misplaced Pages. A few of these can be sourced from academic and professional course lists (eg. The Transhumanist is trying to find appropriate sourcing for List of basic geography topics), but most of type #1 and #3 are inherently unsourcable, by their nature.

Wiki-project-like

• Do type #1 pages belong in project-space, like Misplaced Pages:List of standards topics or Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Middle-earth/List of Middle-earth topics are?

Disambiguation-like

• e.g. Lists of languages was recently tagged as being a disambig page. Is this what we should do with all the "Lists of lists" (type #3)?

Portal-like

• Should they become portal-subpages, like Portal:Energy/Explore and Portal:Science/Categories and Main topics are?
  • Don't forget dozens of "type #3" pages in the format Portal:Philosophy/Lists or Portal:Food/Food lists – why should some of these "type #3" lists be in "Portal" namespace, while other portals have them only in main namespace? Wouldn't it be better to have them all in the same namespace, striving for a uniform treatment of "/lists" subpages across portals?
  • There is concern that subpages of portals would not be linkable directly from articles, and hence languish unseen? (see this thread for details)
    • Unjustified concern: linking practice is established, see {{Portal}} ("This template is used to link an article to its related portal") – see also below, suggestions under "A new namespace?" caption.
• The primary indexes (Portal:List of overviews, Portal:Lists of topics, Portal:Lists of basic topics, Portal:List of glossaries) were recently moved from mainspace to portal-space. This move is contested by The Transhumanist, and is still being discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Contents#Contents pages, and lists of lists.
  • (note: discussion seems to have stalled there in the mean while)
    • Consensus met. Left as portals.
• "Portal:" namespace seems very suited for navigation purposes, per the description at Misplaced Pages:namespace#Portal: "The portal namespace (prefix Portal:) is for reader-oriented portals that help readers find and browse through articles related to a specific subject. It also may contain links to encourage readers to contribute to relevant WikiProjects" (bolding added)

Background

• Related policies/guidelines not mentioned: Misplaced Pages:Namespace, Misplaced Pages:Lists (stand-alone lists), Misplaced Pages:Lists, Misplaced Pages:Featured list criteria
• Further related discussion at: Misplaced Pages talk:Lists#Contradiction between Misplaced Pages:Lists and Misplaced Pages:Avoid self-references

Notes

1. ^ suggestions added by Francis Schonken

Index lists: discussion

Slowly-considered feedback would be very much appreciated. I've tried to summarize all the current suggestions, but read the links given above for further background. Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 05:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Summarizing my thoughts:

1. Indeed most of these pages do not belong in Main namespace (full agreement with Quiddity on this first point I suppose);
2. The problem is in most cases structural, meaning: by their very intent and content many of these pages don't belong in that namespace;
3. Portal namespace is a suitable venue for most of these pages, including the use of these pages as a coherent navigation utility, with an already largely standardised access from main namespace;
   • Note also that there are several links to portal namespace from Misplaced Pages's Main Page (by far the most visible page of the entire encyclopedia). From the 13 links highest on top of that page no less than 9 lead to portal namespace.
4. Other existing namespaces seem less suitable in most cases, although, arguably, some of these pages could be kept in Project ("Misplaced Pages:") namespace (linking to project namespace is less restricted from Portal namespace too while links to WikiProjects in project namespace are expressly foreseen to be placed in portal namespace, but largely discouraged from main namespace per WP:ASR) and a few others (like disambig pages, and WP:V/WP:NOR/WP:NPOV conforming lists) can be kept in main namespace (where they can link to portal namespace as described above); the possible overlap with category namespace is no part of the discussion here;
5. Creating a new namespace for these pages would probably have more downsides than advantages (e.g. decreasing visibility rather than increasing it on the short term, and needing to go through a lot of hoops before we even have the first page in such new namespace started, etc);
6. We can disagree on whether the "Portal" solution is the "least bad" or the "very best" solution we currently have available. But it is currently the best known immediately available solution and I propose to start implementing it without delay. I'm not interested in a "least bad" vs "very best" debate (which would be largely loss of time), and I can only encourage those who see better solutions to persue them, but that shouldn't keep us from proceeding with the best we can *with the available namespaces* (and their rules) we currently have. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Just a simplistic comment. I like the idea of putting navigation lists in the applicable portals. If there were some way to develop a simple convention to put them on their own pages somewhere, like to-do lists, then they could be transcluded for more than one purpose, if desired, without the headaches of maintaining redundant pages. RichardF (talk) 17:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

...and a simplistic answer: "Template:" namespace is more than any other namespace intended for transcluded content, especially if you want to standardise layout (like {{Navbox}}). But that's not the topic here (like a discussion of how this relates to "Category:" namespace isn't). The discussion regards which of the "Index"-type pages (as described in the intro) are displayed in which namespace (and under what page name). If you have a template (or use another page in whatever namespace as transcluded content), there still needs to be a page where one displays (transcludes) that content: well in what namespace should that content be? The only tangent regards the "search" function, that won't find transcluded content from another namespace than the one(s) one is searching. In other words, trancluding such content from "portal" or "template" namespace in main namespace would not yield any search results based on that transcluded content with "default" settings for the search. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I think this is looking better than it used to. {{Contents pages (footer box)}} now lives mostly in Portal: namespace and doesn't raise my hairs for {{self-reference}}. To my mind, type (3) lists of lists are fine, and we don't need to do anything about them just as long as they are strictly treated as WP:DAB. The problem is the "list of $TOPIC " articles. I cannot for the life of me find any usefulness in type (1), List of geography topics or List of mathematics articles or (sob) List of mathematics categories (they must be compiled by people who haven't yet noticed that Misplaced Pages is searchable and categorized). But type (2) "cheatsheet formats" like List of mathematics topics can actually be useful as long as they are intelligently arranged and not alphabetized. So, my solution would be: {{move}} the type (1) "$TOPIC articles" pages to "$TOPIC topics" and convert them into something useful where possible ({{merge}} the "basic topics" into "topics": "basic" vs. "non-basic" is not a distinction we should be making). Where such an approach doesn't work or meets opposition, {{move}} the list articles out of article namespace, either to Portal:, or to a newly defined Index: or Contents: namespace. dab (𒁳) 19:31, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Re. "move", see Portal talk:Mathematics#Stalled move request... thus far 2 (as in "two") people expressed an opinion in Talk:Lists_of_mathematics_topics#Requested_move, a fortnight after the start - a third one asking a question. Seems very hard to get people interested in such move proposals. Not even a third party could be found to close the move request, for reasons explained here (5th bullet). --Francis Schonken (talk) 19:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

update: Talk:Lists_of_mathematics_topics#Requested_move somehow managed to get in a wrestle, after an admin had closed it yesterday. Feel free to weigh in - I primarily want the page move procedure closed (with no discrepancy between the comment on top of the closed poll and the actual name of the page, even if that means ammending the closing comment without further moving the page). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• Linking directly to portal-subpages from mainspace is (I think) the main concern that TT was raising. I agree that it should be (or become) acceptable practice.
  • Anyway, I don't think any guideline (or policy) page would need to be changed for this to become an acceptable practice (for instance with the template, observing "This template is meant to be placed at the bottom of the article in the "See also" section", from the {{Portal}} guidance). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:28, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
• Type #1 pages are primarily useful to editors, partly for the "relatedchanges" function, and partly for collecting suitable redlinks. More obsessive readers will also find them useful, for reading through our coverage of entire topics. (They exist mostly because our category system is still so rudimentary, e.g. can't display subcat contents all on one page. But also because it's weblike and not finite.)
• Also, I've now removed a thread concerning a new namespace, as it served only to distract from more realistic options.

Thanks :) -- Quiddity (talk) 19:57, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

above copied from Misplaced Pages:Lists/Index lists, where I'd asked for preliminary feedback to get the questions clearer.

• To split lists up over multiple namespaces could get confusing - it may not be immediately clear to editors that some lists go in the main namespace but others do not. Lists of lists are in essence lists that couldn't fit on one page and had to be expanded. Lists are subject to expansion and splitting just like other articles. Many lists are expanded without renaming them to "Lists of" - they remain "List of" even though they are lists of lists. This reflects the standard article expansion protocol. For an example of list expansion, see List of dog breeds. The Transhumanist    21:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The list of lists of dog breeds by category may remain an article since these are defined by an international organization which may be cited. The lists of subjects, on the other hand, were compiled from various conflicting and overlapping sources, and perhaps the editors' own opinions. They may be useful as finding aids, but they are not the work of an authority or organization outside Misplaced Pages. GUllman (talk) 02:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
• If redirects aren't allowed to the portal namespace from the main namespace, you may find editors re-creating the missing lists. See Misplaced Pages:Cross-namespace redirects. The Transhumanist    20:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)