Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:49, 24 December 2008

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

Cleanup templates: Is it time for a fundamental change?

I am a great supporter of the current array of templates available at Misplaced Pages:Template messages/Cleanup, as I feel that they invite editors to address issues such as {{notability}} by improving the articles in question. I use them often, and despite the fact their use brings me into conflict with other editors, I feel their benefit far outways their disadvantages.

However, there is an issue about their relevance to general reader. On the one hand, they act as a warning that there may be problems with the article subject, the content or viewpoint of the article itself, or that there are other quality issues that the reader should take account when forming their own views about a particular topic. On the other, cleanup issues such as notability really are not a major issue for most readers, and frankly notability is a rather esoteric subject in any case.

My proposal is that cleanup templates would be better placed on article talk pages, rather than added to the mainspace articles themselves on the grounds that they detract from the reader's experience of Misplaced Pages. In articles such as A Terrible Vengeance, the templates tend to disfigure the articles when looked from a purely presentational view, and the issues they are designed to address are probably better addressed through the talk pages in any case. Does anyone share this view, or should they remain on article page as is current practise? --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it depends on the template, as you suggest. There's certainly no need for a notability template to be shown to readers; however some others do have a use on the article page, as a kind of warning (or apology) to readers. (I feel that these tags are overused, and are often used without enough specificity, but that's another issue.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I support a review. I think there are many templates that can be on talk pages rather than articles. The 'machinery' of Misplaced Pages should be invisible to the casual reader in most cases. Lightmouse (talk) 11:33, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that we need to consider moving these to talk pages. Brief brainstorming: tags that go on the article should include only (1) tags that serve as early warnings for possible deletion (e.g. notability) and (2) tags that serve as a beneficial warning to the reader. So for instance, the main {{cleanup}} tag should probably go on the talk page... but {{unreferenced}} and {{notability}} maybe do belong on the article page. Mangojuice 13:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Moving the tags to the talk page misses a fundamental point: The purpose of the tag is not just to tell the reader that problems exist, but to invite the reader to help us fix them. If the tags are on the talk page, the only people who will see them are those who are already working on the article. If the new consensus is that we don't want to invite readers to help us fix problems anymore, fine, but any new consensus that does not address that issue IMO is fatally flawed. That said, I would support changing the instructions for various cleanup templates to state that any editor may remove the template from the article if there is no talk page discussion of the issue, but that anyone may re-add it if the discussion is started. That of course wouldn't apply to templates that are blatantly obvious, like "This article has no references". It may also be that we have tags for things that are really not needed; those could certainly be deleted. Anomie⚔ 13:49, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Every "reader" is also a potential "editor". Even regarding the Notability tag, there is every chance that a reader would be aware of a source that would convey the notability of the subject, or make helpful additions to an article that needed work. I can't think of any cleanup tags that would work better if placed on the Talk page. And unneeded tags? Such as? -- Mwanner | Talk 14:04, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of attracting editors is a good one, but I think very unsuccessful. Look at WP:TC -- all the templates include an invitation of some sort to improve the article, but most of these templates are fundamentally comments about the article that an editor wants to make. {{Essay-like}}, {{Fansite}}, {{Story}}, {{restructure}}, {{generalize}} just to name a few, all give non-specific criticism of an article and don't give good opportunities to improve. Comments on an article belong on the talk page, that's what it's there for. Maybe it's not moving the templates to the talk page that's necessary; maybe what we really need to do is some house cleaning on the templates. Mangojuice 14:26, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I like them the way they are. However, the "mere invitations to help clean up the article"-type templates could be replaced by "1-line" templates that say something like

This article needs help in the following area:

copy-editing

You can help.

only prettier and with a drop-down with the full template in the dropdown section linked from "show me how." Other templates, such as content-quality or reference-quality issues, should remain as-is. This will also be much easier to implement and won't require retraining existing editors. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 14:46, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm still opposed to this. Header templates, just like hatnotes and inline cleanup comments, are of service to the project's goals, and help to flag issues which can affect a reader's perception of the article's coverage. There are not as widespread as is occasionally reported anecdotally, primarily being used by articles which are of low quality. Furthermore, our approach to talkheader templates means that they're usually useless and ignored entirely (being primarily composed of WikiProject spam). The only arguments I can see for moving cleanup tags to talkspace are the avoidance of self-references and a general sense of aesthetics; in the former I feel that the selfref is useful if it helps improve a bad article, and I believe that our current tags are stylish and only minimally intrustive for the most part. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:57, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Lightmouse. Agree with Anomie that we want to invite the reader to help, but mainspace could make the invitation without explaining to the reader what job needs to be done; that could be on the talk page. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:54, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose the move to talk pages. As a reader (as well as as an editor), I find these notes helpful. Libcub (talk) 17:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Just a short note to tell that I strongly support moving cleanup tags to talk pages. Every article is in need of improvements. Let us have an encyclopedia with a decent layout and appearance, instead of cluttering tags on almost every article. --Kildor (talk) 21:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm indifferent towards the proposal. I agree that numerous cleanup tags on one out of every few articles looks encyclopedic, but if they're moved to the talk namespace, they'll surely go unseen by the vast majority of readers. I've found some cleanup tags to be somewhat helpful, particularly {{refimprove}} and {{copyedit}}, but {{notability}} is rarely of use, at least to me. –Juliancolton 21:38, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. Ideally, all readers are editors and we should be encouraging people to edit, giving them ideas is a way to do that. Unless there's some sort of evidence that cleanup tags attract no editors, I don't see how we can assume that they don't. Additionally, if a reader comes across a crappy article, they're going to get a very negative impression about Misplaced Pages's quality. But if the crappy article is tagged as being a crappy article, they'll at least know that crappiness is not supposed to be the norm and that the article probably isn't a representative sample. There's also massive implementation costs with this. As of this comment, 379,559 articles (about 14%) contain Template:Ambox, it would take a bot editing nonstop 20 pages per minute 26.4 days to move them all (since each article requires 2 edits, one to remove from the article, another to add to the talk page). The documentation pages for hundreds of templates would have to be updated to reflect the new rule. It would also create issues with section-specific templates. The implementation costs and possible loss of new editors far outweigh the potential benefits. Mr.Z-man 22:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm surprised that this perennial proposal hasn't made it to Misplaced Pages:Perennial proposals by now. Uncle G (talk) 19:16, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Response to original poster: there are two main reasons to place templates in article space: as content warnings (take this with a grain of salt, as there is reason to suspect it is inaccurate), and in order to recruit assistance from readers, who can all be editors and may be able to help if they just know what needs to be done. That said, templates that cover things like process that require significant familiarity with Misplaced Pages to understand are better left to talk pages. Dcoetzee 19:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• I am not disagreeing with you but on the point of content warnings, as this a more serious issue. For instance, if the article content is disputed, I can understand why cleanup templates (perhaps these could be renamed "reader advisory notices") which address issues of bias or content dispute should be visible to the general reader and displayed on the article page. However, for cleanup issues that are a matter of internal procedure and process (such as notability, context, overlong plot) are you suggesting that perhaps these are better left to the talk page of the article concened? --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

It is important for a reader to know that an article is not up to Misplaced Pages snuff. Tags belong atop articles that need major work. Tags can also serve to invite a reader to participate. Kingturtle (talk) 16:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Articles at FA get a bronze star on their top line. Other assessment levels are hidden. Why not be up front with all the assessments?LeadSongDog (talk) 16:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I too believe that we should not "hide" cleanup notices on talk pages for the sake of making articles more visualy pleasing. The main purpose of this site is to facilitate the colaborative creation of good quality free licensed content, providing a great reading experience of the work in progress, while importnat, is of secondary concern IMHO. Once in a while someone will see a notice on an article they know something about and descide to do something about it. It may not happen very often, but it does and if even a tiny fraction of our readers descide to take action to inprove the content based on a cleanup tag then that's of far greater value to the project than making a flawed version of the article look more visualy pleasing to casual readers. Besides I do believe a good numbers of "read only" people actualy appreciate us beeing up front and obvious about problems and concerns about the article they are reading. --Sherool (talk) 20:09, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

• I tried this once before here it didn't go the way I wanted. I've become a big fan of at least using {{articleissues}} if there are two or more tags on the page, and I generally remove any expansion or referencing tags from one or two line stubs as it seems rather obvious. I agree that it is important for users to know if an article is unsourced, but many of the other tags could go on the talk page, or be more unobtrusive like {{stub}}. I have also seen folks using WP:Friendly in ways that don't strike me as friendly at all. That is, adding three or four tags to a two line stub that has been up for about two minutes. I don't think that helps anyone. So I guess my view is that tags indicating possible factual errors should remain on the page as a warning to readers, but other tags, especially if there are several that could be added, should go under the umbrella of the article issues tag and discussion should be on the talk page instead of trying to talk it out with tags all over the article. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

• I am getting the impression that there is a good argument to move some templates to the talk page, but not all. However, this would create a problem in itself: how would you know which ones go where? It seems to me that having some cleanup templates on the article page and some on the talk page would be difficult to apply without making mistakes. Would any agree that this is an "all or nothing" change? If so would it still be worth moving all cleanup templates to the article talk page? --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup tags should be in prominant locations on the article page (top of page; top of section) because they serve two purposes: 1) they alert readers of weaknesses of the article they are reading so they do not assume an article with serious problems is reliable; 2) they alert potential editors of important areas where the article needs improvements. Neither of these purposes would be served by hiding the notices on the talk pages.  —Chris Capoccia ⁄_C 14:17, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

As noted by many others above, cleanup tags serve important functions for wikipedia readers as well as wikipedia editors, not least of which is the conversion of one into the other :D. I agree with the sentiment that there should be no cleanup tags on any of our articles. However, it should be so because there aren't any cleanup issues to resolve. That is our real priority. Happy‑melon 15:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Citations should include page number

Hello, I don't have much experience editing wikipedia, but I have a lot of experience learning from it. I just wanted to point out that it's very annoying when a one sentence "fact" has a 200 page PDF as its citation, and the citation doesn't reference what page of the PDF the "fact" comes from. You end up digging through a very long and technical document, looking for verification of a fact that for all you know the document may not even verify.

So I thought perhaps the policy on citations could be changed to require citations to mention on what page of the document the "fact" they cite is documented. When books are cited the page number is included in the citation, I don't see how a lengthly PDF should be any different. If requiring this would be too radical a change, policy should at least encourage this. It seems like this bit of extra information could only help. --ScWizard (talk) 05:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd guess that none of our 40+ policies mentions page numbers, but that several of the guidelines related to citations do. Or should. It's probably not a big deal to change a guideline to say that when a cited source is more than ten (or twenty or whatever) pages, it is appropriate to include a page number in the citation - I really can't see anyone objecting. (So all that needs to be done now is to identify the guidelines that need to be changed, and then to change them.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Ugg :effort: I'll get around to it eventually I guess, but I was kind of hoping someone would deal with the issue if it was raised. --ScWizard (talk) 21:30, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

You can always tag the citations with {{pn}}. This adds them to Category:Misplaced Pages articles needing page number citations.  —Chris Capoccia ⁄_C 22:38, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That's very useful information :) --ScWizard (talk) 07:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Needs resolution: Are places inherently notable?

This is a problem that has bugged me since the conclusion of Misplaced Pages:Village pump (proposals)/FritzpollBot: the community were relatively ambiguous about the notability of places and settlements. The purpose of the bot, which has already been approved by community consensus but as yet not ever run, was to eliminate the need for writers such as User:Dr. Blofeld to do it manually, which takes place to this day, albeit with limited speed and semi-automated tools rather than bots. Now I have been asked about Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics#Bot_to_create_articles_on_missing_settlements_and_places_in_India on my talkpage and I went there to offer my assistance, and save Tinu from creating the bot himself when one already exists in an approved form. And I noticed in the proposal the old chestnut of "inherent notability" - I'm afraid I can't let this one go, because if Tinu gets approved to run in this fashion, I will wonder why the community bothered having the argument with me on notability in the first place, and I want to know if the consensus on the notability of places has changed.
I don't think this needs to be resolved for the purposes of bots, but for the simple fact that these articles are regularly created en masse manually. If they aren't notable, we need to decide to prevent this creation. If they are notable, it frees up some work for BRFA if other automated/semi-automated means are proposed. SO this isn't about Bots, and those who know me will understand why I want to avoid that discussion - this is a matter of notability (never cleared up at the essentially defunct Misplaced Pages:Notability (Places and transportation)) that needs to be decided one way or the other without people referring to the non-policy/guideline of common deletion outcomes. I hope you can all be of help Fritzpoll (talk) 08:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, places (i.e. towns, villages and settlements, but not necessarily streets or parts of towns) are notable. This is built very much into the way Misplaced Pages is, and ought to be stated unambiguously in the policy/guidelines. Some people don't like it, but community consensus has decided in practice that it is to be thus.--Kotniski (talk) 09:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

"Places are inherently notable" is a bit tricky one. Though it is not unanimously accepted ( apparently not liked by a very few) but it is the generally accepted status quo in the community. Moreover I dont think of any reason, atleast an article of an inhabited settlement of more than 5000 people is not verifiable/notable. Quoting Sam at closure of FritzpollBot discussion, In this regard, "notability is a way that we judge the verifiability of information. I don't think anyone is proposing creating articles about places who's existence is unverifiable". Having said that , the consensus of the community as of now is that Cities and villages are acceptable, regardless of size, so long as their existence can be verified through a reliable source. See also Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes#Places, Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(Geographic_locations)#A_census_as_a_source_of_notability , Misplaced Pages:Notability (geography) , Misplaced Pages:Notability (Geographic locations) etc -- Tinu Cherian - 09:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Mmm a long standing question. Basically I think the fact that we have full detailed and encyclopedic articles on places with as little as 3 people and that some notability is asserted even for its history etc shows to me that anything can be written about just about any place. Any place is notable to the people who live there so if we are to think from a neutral viewpoint then I believe a high proportion of places are. I disagree with "places are inherently notable" as it suggests to me a gross generalisation of the world, given that many places however small or large often couldn't have a more different history or status. In reality though all cities, towns and villages are considered noteworthy on wikipedia as potentially a lot could be written about most places as has been proved. The main problem is undoubtedly equal access to information on all world places and indeed whether every hamlet or small village in the world needs including in wikipedia. As much as I want full world coverage, creating a high number of stub articles may be problematic given the gross uneveness in access to information and undoubtedly the uneven way in which editors edit wikipedia. If we were to create an article for every place in India as a stub how long to we think it would take manually for editors to fully expand them all? How many articles do you think would attract Indian IP's or vandals which post unintelligible text into them as has happened already on many articles and going undetected? I fully support the idea in principle but in reality the uneven acces in information and indeed the number of editors willing or interested in expand them is shockingly low given the scale of the project. I must have come across thousands of RamBot articles even on the United States which have barely been edited since so if we were to do the same for countries in Asian And Africa it is highly likely most will remain sub stubs for 5-10 years at least. So while I support the idea that a lot of notable information can be written for just about anywhere, the question is do we want hundreds of thousands of new articles with nothing more than a population figure sitting around for a long time without being expanded? As I said before on numerous occasions with Fritz if we can compile some sentences of information and start articles as meatier stubs rather than one liners I'll fully support it if we maximise the utility of it. The Bald One 11:44, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I broadly agree with the practical points by the good Doctor here, but I think this issue of "inherent notability" needs to be sorted: is it right or not? Otherwise we're going to get botwriter after botwriter arguing that their bot is allowed to create such articles on the basis of nothing more than a line in common deletion outcomes. Fritzpoll (talk) 12:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

In all honesty I loathe the term "inherent notability" LOL. However in answer to your question settlements are widely accepted in our guidelines to content so yes places are generally considered notable on wikipedia. Testimony to this is how often to you see articles on villages at AFD snowballed with a reosunding keep?. It is up to editors to ensure that they contain resourceful content. So in theory every place can be considered "inherently notable" (cringe cringe) but it is the content of the articles which leaves an impression on the reader as to whether this article is notable. For instance I've lost count how many times somebody has placed one of my stubs at AFD and snorted "non notable place or person. No hits". Then 30 minutes later we suddenly have a fuller, well referenced article and they sheepishly go quiet as they can see that with content it puts it in a different perspective and gladly accept it as an encyclopedia article. The Bald One 12:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely not. No one, nothing,and no place is "inherently notable". Every addition to Misplaced Pages needs sources that describe the topic directly and in detail, per WP:N. It's true that virtually every place in the world has been so described, but the sources need to be in hand when the article is created. We don't need millions of permastubs that contain nothing but a geographic coordinate and a name. That's what an atlas is for, and an encyclopedia is not an atlas.

These groups of tiny little stubs are better off grouped: I'd rather see an article about "The Yak-herding villages of Northern Slobovia" that contained a map of where ten of them were, showing their physical relationship to each other and the terrain, than 10 individual stubs by a bot that didn't even know that the primary industry of each of the 10 little specks was yak-herding.—Kww(talk) 12:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, and I'm not suggesting I dust off the very old, and very misunderstood, FritzpollBot proposal that doesn't bear resemblance to the consensus reached over the summer. I'm not even really talking about bots: But Tinu's bot is planning to introduce 200,000 of the stubs with a little localised consensus based on the concept of inherent notability and I think that, since it was such a contentious issue previously, it needs airing now. Fritzpoll (talk) 15:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

"... millions of ..." was a short way of saying "... extremely large numbers of ...". I'd be upset about a hundred, so 200,000 is close enough to "millions" to get me upset.—Kww(talk) 15:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough - either way, I agree with you. I'm just concerned that people think that I'm proposing something that I'm not - I'm just very concerned that, having established a community standard for this very kind of thing, local consensuses are being used to override a much wider and more detailed examination of what the community wants Fritzpoll (talk) 15:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

The fact that we have all these stub articles on places and the like makes it very very difficult when it comes to try to argue to others on the notability of topics in their field, particularly with fiction-related ones. It is hard to convince people when they throw "WP is not paper" and the existence of these back at you when you are trying to argue about reducing article count and helping to improve WP's commitment to its core policies and long-term maintainability. Location names should be included in WP, but not given the weight of their own article until more than just a coordinate and population figure can be provided, otherwise, these should be placed into tables with redirects to help with searching - the same as we typically do with other topics we want to include but not have their own article. --MASEM 13:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Which is exactly why lists of places by district with coordinates were considered a sensible alternative. The Bald One 14:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

One thing that really buggeed me about the whole thing, which I didn't bring up when it had that major discussion earlier this year, is that somehow adding all those places with a bot was supposed to counter systemic bias. The thing is, to me it seems that adding them would be /increasing/ the bias, against other topics in the encyclopedia. But that's just me. Furthermore, it seems to me that stating "every place is inherently notable (because we can prove their existence)" is rather like saying "every book is inherently notable", or whatever. In fact, it seems to ME that things should be the opposite -- since settling in places together in a group is standard human behavior, doing so is the exact opposite of notable and any place needs to have a reason to be in the encyclopedia beyond existing. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Well if you created 2 million geo articles it would probably change the balance but to me indeed it would only exemplify the uneveness in quality and access to information for certain parts of the world when editors search through large categories finding nearly all of them one liners and devoid of content. The idea that the world is fully covered is right in principle but indeed we would be kidding ourselves if we had 2 million sub stubs on places and prentending that we had the world covered. We'll get there eventually but sensibly and at least compromising the number of articles with greater quality. ANyway this discussion is nothing about what happened in the summer so please lets discuss notabililty only. In regards to notability as I said above, if articles contain adequate content or at least have the potential to be fully expanded with what sources are avilabale at present then they become welcome additions to the encyclopedia in my book. For example at present I am working Mexican municipalities at present which can all be fully expanded within minutes using reliable sources and they are started well. I wouldn't be bothering to create them if I didn't feel they weren't notable or couldn't be expanded immediately. This is why I no longer create articles based on computer generated coordinates I'd like to add. Best ot work wirh the information and resources we have at present. A coimputer generated site only is not good enough in regards to starting places I think. The Bald One 15:20, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

In my distorted view, notability is, in essence, a function of verifiability. If there isn't substantial secondary coverage of the topic, how can we verify that the article we write is at all accurate? If it's just census data, that's verifiable and it's not a problem, but probably best left as a table instead of opening the possibility of articles filled with WP:OR. SDY (talk) 18:11, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for outside the United States, but inside the United States, if a locality has the power to make and enforce criminal laws that apply to visitors, e.g. towns, villages, Native-American reservations, etc., or it is a major administrative geographic subdivision, such as a county, a non-charter township, etc., then it qualifies. Other places that might have quasi-governmental authority, such as special-purpose taxing districts, homeowners' associations, neighborhoods, etc. generally have to earn their notability the old fashioned way. Having said that, a lot of not-really-notable neighborhoods and taxing districts have pages because they are part of "a set" such as "neighborhoods in major city" or "hospital district in state." Whether they would survive AFD probably depends on who happens to see the AFD and voice their opinion more than anything else. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

nothing is inherently notable. every article must cite reliable and independant sources that provide significant coverage of the subject matter. The only questions should be hashing out the details of what all those words from WP:NN mean in terms of the sources usually available for places (for example, clarifying that a dot on a map does not count as significant coverage).  —Chris Capoccia ⁄_C 21:30, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Coming down to the basics: What's a notable village and what's a non notable village? Should there be a criteria (eg population cut-off limit)? =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This statement is a strong reason why I think we need to restructure what we say is notable and the like. Obviously no village that is on some public official record is non-notable (using the non-WP meaning of the word), but on WP, very small villages with little more than a population figure and geocoords may not need its own article. That is, we want to include any officially-recognized settlement, but inclusion is not the same as having its own article. We're relying on "notability" per WP:N to do two things: inclusion and the quality of having an article, when in fact they should be separate. I'm not proposing that we do away with the core of WP:N and the subguidelines, in the sense that for a topic to have an article, they need to have secondary sources or presumption of those, and if these are met, the topic most certainly meets inclusion guidelines. --MASEM 15:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I think this is what it comes down to. Putting a settlement into a list is a good thing, but that doesn't mean there should be an article about it. To use an area of my own knowledge, it's like -- we don't necessarily need an article about every song by Franz Schubert (or perhaps a better name would be, say, Camille Saint-Saens) but listing them all in the works list is on the other hand something we do want. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 15:54, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I think Masem is on to something here. We need to explicitly clarify that the degree of notability necessary to justify an article is greater than the degree necessary to justify a statement. We don't require every statement or entry in a table to be formally notable, so long as it contributes to understanding of the article's subject. In some cases, a text line in a DAB page will be the only justified entry. Creating an article for the two farmhouses at the "Corner of Fifth Line and Eighth Concession, Whosits Township, Whutstate" won't do much for the encyclopedia unless there is some distinctive character to the farmhouses. That said, I'd still like to see an article on the Antrim Truck Stop, Ontario, which narrowly escaped the fate of Radiator Springs. (Trivia side note: Guinness used to list the world's most remote tree, in North Africa-until someone managed to drive into it.) LeadSongDog (talk) 18:10, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

My fundamental question remains unaddressed. (These questions are not addressed to any person)

1. Would a village in England with a population of 14 be more notable than a village of a greater population in Bhutan simply because no one has written independent sources on the subject? How does one determine that a village is notable?
2. Assuming the local government has set parameters for classification of a settlement as a village, town, city & metropolis. Should WP follow the local government
3. What do you mean by notability of a village? I can understand that verifiability is possible (census figures, postal codes, telephone codes, geocordinates). But what makes a village notable? I've written articles on sleepy towns in Sikkim. What then, makes a town notable?
4. Again, what prevents village stubs from being expanded? I do not subscribe to the fact that villages will always remain stubs. I think content can be added. For example, climate, temperature and geography of the region can be borrowed from parent subdivision articles, given the fact that they are geographically localised. If villages are on a river or coast, those can be added too. The same could go for the history of the place too. IMO, ample scope for expansion. There is no deadline. =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• As I said I don't think anybody here or on wikipedia is in a position to state what place is notable or not about places in the world many thousands of miles away to many people. We have clearly seen that a great deal can be written about the smallest of places even small monuments etc in tiny villages. I don't think anybody is in a position to say that a village with 15,000 odd people in India is not notable. From what I've seen most of the place started will have thousands of people living in them, which are widely accepted on wikipedia anyway. The main issue with me is information content, does the articles contian resoureful information to the reader which improves wikipedia? We know that articles can be expanded immediately after creation, the main concern was by me was that creating 200,000 new articles would take a great deal of time to develop particularly if they were just one liners. If, however they can be fleshed out a bit and started so they are a solid foundation initially rather than a useless sub stub then I would fully support it. As Ganeshk has indicated they will be filled out then I am more sympathetic to it. The main problem is who is going to expand everyone of the 200,000 articles, who is goiing to watch out for unsourced info or vandalsim that may be added to some of them, and indeed is there information on the web which can be used to fill them out completely? The Bald One 11:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
• 1) Niether are notable at this point because no sources have been provided that establish notability. 2) If the reliable sources cited in the article use a particular naming scheme, it should be followed. If the reliable sources cited in the article do not agree on a naming scheme then some judgement will have to be made for consistent naming. 3) Notability is loosely defined in WP:NN. 4) Nothing prevents stubs from being expanded, but there's also not very much that prevents a stub without significant coverage in reliable sources from being deleted either.  —Chris Capoccia ⁄_C 18:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

See User:Uncle G/On notability#Notability is not a blanket. You're looking for a blanket. Stop looking. Even Rambot worked from and cited sources. Uncle G (talk) 23:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

• I read this as a "not inherently notable" thing - not sure who your "You're" is, but I'm not after a justification of inherent notability, which appears to me to be an anomalous concept as your essay describes. I just want to try and demonstrate to those at the India Noticeboard that this is not a position they can take as being the default view of the community at large Fritzpoll (talk) 08:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Let me clarify this. At the India project, we are planning to create articles that have credible references (census, government websites, map websites etc). The articles are not going to be two line stubs, they will have sections, categories, infobox and location information, demographics enough to make a beefy article. We are not after inherent notability, we would like to know what makes a village notable? How many references will the community need before they let the bot create these articles? Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 03:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
    • I cannot answer for the community, but it is worth observing that that is the argument that allowed Rambot to create articles such as this. I notice that your example article is somewhat thinner, in comparison. Looking at the sources, I see that this is because they simply don't tell one very much about each subject, essentially giving it no more than a row in a table. Perhaps you should gather some more sources together, and find some more in-depth sources. One of the factors that govern notability is the depth of the sources. Uncle G (talk) 04:58, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

• It is obvious to me that places are not inherently notable, anymore than the street where I like is inherently notable. The idea that a topic is "inherently" notable is a matter of personal opinion, not fact; only evidence in the form of non-trivial reliable secondary sources can demonstrate notability. We cannot assume that notability can be inherited/acknowledged/presumed in the absense of reliable secondary sources by places, because we would not be able to distinguish between genuine articles about notable places and content forks on the same subject. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:27, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• If you mean "places" to be anything on a map; then no, not every "place" is notable. That will exclude most houses/backyards/corner stores/hilltops/meadows/farms and so on. It is highly unlikely that anyone would be interested in reading encyclopedia articles about "places" like that. However, settlements, even very small ones, are the kind of subjects which you traditionally find in paper encyclopedias, and most people would expect to find subjects like that in an encyclopedia aspiring to be the most comprehensive in the world. I generally argue for very lenient notability standards when it comes to villages. If a stub on a village can be verifiable, I am all for keeping it, and applying the strict WP:N restraints that the sources must be "secondary" or "non trivial" is in my view rather unhelpful. In most cases, a map can provide a basis for a paragraph on location (district, roads, closest large city, etc.), and census data is a reasonable basis for rudimentary demographics. Together, information like this produces a stub, but not a useless article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:40, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• Even if you assume (for a moment) that settlments are inherently notable, such stubs fail WP:NOT#DIR, as Misplaced Pages is not a directory of everything that exists or has existed. However, you can't ignore the requirement of writing an encyclopedic article without reliable secondary sources. You argue that as long as you can obtain random verifiable stuff about a settlement, this would be sufficient justification for an article, but without the context, analysis or commentary which can only obtained from reliable secondary sources, you have basically written a group of stubs that have no content to differentiate between them except their coordinates on a map. The fact that this town has a town hall, and that one does not but it has 150 people does not provide enough information sufficient to write a stub that is even capable of getting past WP:NOT#GUIDE. In the absence of evidence of notability, you have to ask why are these stubs being created? I guess these stubs offer the opportunity for any editor (or bot) to create a thousand stubs complete with info box, links to google earth and a few stats. But what does this offer the reader? Nothing that is not already available from looking a map or reading a travel guide or a book of national statistics. The inclucsion criteria for encyclopedic articles is not just the fact that a place (by which I meant settlement) exists, but that there is evidence of notability which the reader can benefit from now, not at some future time which may never come to pass. A stub about a settlement is no different that a stub about the street where I live, because neither have any worthwhile content and both fail WP:N and WP:NOT, the only difference is your opinion says they don't. I say the emperor has no clothes. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:14, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

In contemplation of WP:Build the web I offer the observation that when we geocode a place name we open a new linkage. Following that link to, for instance, google earth, we frequently discover that there are available images of those places, often with sufficient metadata to enable adoption or recruitment of the images into WP. This doesn't mean that we need articles to make those links (indeed a list of places in a district may be more appropriate), but it does mean that the tree of eventualism can bear fruit.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

• Your analogy is interesting, but obtaining fruit from a tree is not a guarantee, othewise we would have stubs on everything under the sun in the hope that they would become articles some day in the future - this is streching notability too far into crystal ball gazing. I can see why leaving bots to create stubs in such a fashion might be attractive to some editors: they probably see themselves as the automated equivalent of Johnny Appleseed. However, their work still conflicts with WP:N and WP:NOT, and I suspect many of these stubs will be deleted eventually, not because the tree of eventualism is slow fruiting, but also because some of the data and images you place all your hopes on may turn out to be trivial. It still takes encyclopedic coverage to write an article, and if these bots are not smart enough to identify reliable secondary sources, then I think they should stop work, otherwise they are going to create a whole new category of Geocruft. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:26, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

User categorisation

Hi there, I have a question regarding user categorisations. As you all know users may categorize themselves base on their background, skills and interests etc. I want to know if there is any policy prohibiting users from identifying themselves as supporters or members of terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda or Hizbullah by using User categorisation? --Kaaveh (talk) 08:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Category:Wikipedians who support Hezbollah has been previously deleted, and its deletion endorsed by a subsequent deletion review. See Misplaced Pages:Deletion review/Log/2008 February 28. Also see Misplaced Pages:Userboxes#Content restrictions. -- Rick Block (talk) 11:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

All support/oppose user categories have been deleted, in fact. VegaDark (talk) 16:34, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Self Identification

I wanted to mention/discuss Self Identification and related policies. Due to recent American Election, a couple of issues has come up that may or may not have been discussed before, mainly how a person's BLP reflects how they self identify and editor's POV on the issue. Most times this s not an issue, but with Barack Obama being elected as the President of the United States, we now have an issue. Mainly it is this: A person is born of mixed race/heritage. While they acknowledge their mixed race/heritage, they prefer to be identified as one race/heritage, various reliable sources refer to this person as that race/heritage, and the public seem them as they self identify as. While most of these articles do delve into the person's mixed race/heritage to some degree, some editors have issues with what the person of a BLP self Identifies as. If it is verifiable through reliable sources that the person self identifies as something, would it be a BLP violation not to refer to them as such? Should a policy, addition, whatever be written to address this issue? I've noticed in the past that some editors also have a problem disassociating themselves from their POV when it comes to this issue? They seem to take this issue very personal and, in my opinion, ignore how the person of the BLP views themselves even if it violates BLP and NPOV. Brothejr (talk) 15:43, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, what is Michael Jackson? If you look at the list of "lamest edit wars" you'll see some that are about ethnicity of living people. To a certain extent, the best thing to do is to "describe and not categorize." For someone like Mr. Obama, simply say that he has such and such father and such and such mother and is generally considered to be such and such ethnicity (citing important mainstream sources). WP:FRINGE explanations (i.e. that the people in Africa would consider him white if he were an African but are fine with considering him black since he's an American) should not be given WP:UNDUE weight. If the person's self-description conflicts with the mainstream interpretation, report both since both are of interest to a reader and the neutral stance is to report both sides of the issue. SDY (talk) 18:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What if what he self identifies as does not conflict with the mainstream interpretation and if instead a group is pushing against the mainstream interpretation what should be done? As in the Obama article, his mixed race is covered both four paragraphs down from the lead and also in a sub article. Yet, the lead is written to reflect what the mainstream media and the public refer to him as. Yet, at various times a variety of people come to the talk page to push either for the mixed race or to remove AA completely from the lead against the mainstream media? Though I do agree with you about the "lamest edit wars!" Yet, this idea continues to come up on various related BLP's. I seem to remember a short bit ago one editor going around changing a whole bunch of BLP's over to mixed race against both consensus and mainstream media reliable references. Brothejr (talk) 19:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, for Obama it's basically a question of WP:UNDUE. Even if it's verifiable, the lead and the article should reflect mainstream views (i.e. AA) with significant minority views covered and identified as minority views but otherwise treated in an NPOV fashion. Removing AA completely is inappropriate, even if calling him "mixed race" is the WP:TRUTH. SDY (talk) 19:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If reliable sources identify them as something other than (or in addition to) what they self-identify as, then it is not a WP:BLP violation to identify them as such. I guess this query is in response to Talk:Barack Obama#Media coverage of ethnicity controversy and the intro, which is really a completely different matter (which I'm not going to touch with a 39½-foot pole). Anomie⚔ 19:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

This query is related to that conversation but again not. It is more of a general question on the idea of a BLP subject's self identification and the repeated attempts to think that an editor's POV trumps mainstream media and BLP subject's self identification. (One person in that conversation came out and said that the subject's self identification did not matter. That got me thinking and asking the question here does the subject's self identification matter in their BLP?) Brothejr (talk) 19:56, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

You also came right out and said that it would be a violation of WP:BLP. For the most part the hundreds of threads started on the Obama talk page are people wanting something about his mixed heritage to be incorporated into the lead along with African American, not that AA be removed. Hundreds of thousands of sources say Obama has a black Kenyan father and a white American mother, hundreds call him bi, mixed, multi racial and so on. From what I've seen most ppl just want the lead to say "with a black Kenyan father and white American mother Obama is largely considered the first African American President" or simply "coming from a biracial background Obama is the first African American President." I feel that since reliable sources can be found in large number for his mixed heritage and African American it is a violation of WP:NPOV to pick one side over the other when labeling him a race. It is one thing to say he is largely considered and another to report it as fact, see WP:ASF. Landon1980 (talk) 22:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I also want to ask a question regarding policy. Brotherj has repeatedly stated calling Obama anything other than AA is original research, is that true? Hundreds of sources can be found calling Obama bi-racial, multi-racial, and so on, so when a reliable third party source says something is it still OR like brotherj says? I am under the impression that what Obama self-identifies has nothing to do with BLP, and that one could call Obama anything they wanted as long as it can be verified by reliable sources without violating wp blp. According to brotherj, though, since Obama most of the time self-identifies as AA this would be a blp violation. Landon1980 (talk) 22:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It is neither WP:OR nor a WP:BLP violation to state that Obama is bi-racial or multi-racial based on any of the many reliable sources that make such a statement. Anomie⚔ 03:07, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I thought so I just wanted to make sure. Cheers, Landon1980 (talk) 03:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

And I stand corrected. Brothejr (talk) 10:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Deletion Policy

Lately I've noticed a rise in seemingly unfounded deletions. As a non-admin editor, I have to say that the process for reviewing and correcting such deletions could use some improvement. Once a page is deleted, it would be nice if the page was still visible and any discussion of the deletion was easily accessible. In general, it seems that the current deletion policy gives a lot of power to admins, some of whom are abusing it, so I think the policy may need to be somehow revised. --Elplatt (talk) 05:43, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If you have any specific concerns with deleted articles, please bring up those specific articles at WP:DRV. If you want to know why an administrator deleted an article, please contact that administrator directly on his/her user talk page. Please do not make vague comments about "admin abuse" without concrete evidence to back up such accusations. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 05:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

As the editor is addressing policies in general I don't think trying to send them off to other venues is appropriate. If you don't think there are problems with the AfD process you are welcome to state your opinion. I have seen a number of editors express concerns and frustrations over the process and percieved misuse of it. So it seems like a topic worth discussing. As for alleging generalized Admin abuse, I agree that's not helpful. ChildofMidnight (talk) 08:00, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Although I would substitute overusing for abusing, I otherwise concur with Elplatt's comments. Also I agree with Elplatt and (apparently) ChildofMidnight that this is a general problem and that insisting on continued ad hoc treatment of the problem is at best unhelpful and at worst counterproductive and potentially alienates well intentioned editors who perceive the dismissive deletion of their efforts as actively hostile instead of merely indifferent. See also Excessive Deletion above and various archived discussions. Nude Amazon (talk) 09:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

"Once a page is deleted, it would be nice if the page was still visible" - Erm, how is that deletion? In any case, the foundation's legal counsel has said that making deleted content viewable to non-admins would be potentially problematic and would not be done. If there was a deletion discussion, it should be linked to in the deletion log, which is visible, though most pages are deleted through WP:PROD or WP:CSD which doesn't require discussion. Mr.Z-man 16:27, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

And of course there is Deletionpedia. – ukexpat (talk) 16:30, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, it would be nice if the page was visible in the same sense that old revisions are visible. Really what I'm suggesting is 1. more transparency for the deletion process, and 2. making it harder to delete articles and easier to restore them, in the interest of balance. --Elplatt (talk) 21:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If you delete something, its so its no longer around. If everyone can see it by clicking a few links, its not deleted, its just somewhat hidden. But as I said, the foundation's legal counsel has pretty much vetoed any chance of this change being made. Your second argument makes little sense. It assumes that there's just as many bad deletions as there is bad pages needing deletion, such that we need to be overturning massive amounts of deletion. Either you have no idea about the massive numbers of crappy pages deleted every day, or you're just not assuming good faith on the part of admins. The community-discussion based deletion process for articles, WP:AFD gets around 85-150 deletion discussions per day, the equivalent undeletion process for all pages (not just articles), WP:DRV, gets 1-5 discussions per day. If anything, we need to be making it easier to delete in the interest of expediting maintenance tasks and reducing backlogs. Mr.Z-man 23:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Would I be right in thinking that the edit history of a deleted article actually remains somewhere in the database? If so, and if I discover quite some time later that an article I worked on has been deleted without my knowledge, how would I find out who deleted it, and how could I retrieve the content in order to attempt to improve it to the point of notability and beyond? Globbet (talk) 00:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Search for the article title here, and contact the deleting admin, or just as a friendly admin to mail you a copy. Unless someone has been repeatedly re-posting or there is a legal issue, (it was deleted due to WP:BLP or WP:COPY problems) I imagine it wouldn't be an issue. --Nate1481 18:12, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Copyright of animal pictures

We currently have the impressive and interesting File:Chimpanzee congo painting.jpg as a DYK hook to Congo (chimpanzee) on the main page. That picture's description states that "Animals have no copyright" and hence the image (and faithful photographic reproductions) are in the public domain. I have two conflicting thoughts about this. First, from a moral perspective I don't see why animals, or at least higher primates and cetaceans, should not enjoy copyright protection of their works (also see Great Ape Project). Of course, legally they don't, at least in most jurisdictions. That opens up the other angle. Isn't, in this case, the animal just a tool of the owner for producing pictures? In that case, the copyright would belong to whoever had the idea of getting Congo to paint and gave him the proper equipment. Would that be different from a modern artist who semi-randomly splashes paint onto a canvas? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Related link: the Independent, 05.05.2007 Everything may change, and Europeans will eventually effect suffrage for animals :)) NVO (talk) 10:32, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I would say there is a difference, as this animal clearly has more artistic talent than people who just randomly splash paint on a canvas. I suppose on the first argument, however, if the chimp wishes to press a copyright claim, it can send Misplaced Pages a notice.  ;) The second argument is interesting though. I am not certain what the copyright rules are on a situation like this. It isn't really a policy issue though. Maybe bring it up at one of the image noticeboards? Resolute 22:25, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Common sense would suggest it is a "work for hire." Another legal parallel would be the creations of slaves in the United States before the civil war, even or especially if the creation was not specifically commissioned by the slave-owner. Another parallel would be the creation of "art" by a 2 year old making random scribbles with crayons. You could probably make a case that the latter was in the public domain because there was no creative element. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 00:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think "Work for hire" is appropriate, as there probably was no contract, and no meeting of minds ("if you paint, I give you this banana" ;-). But if it were, then the copyright would be with the zoo or the researcher. The slave analogy seems to be more appropriate. Does anybody know about the legal status of creative works created by slaves? I don't think they were in the public domain. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of any historical arguments on this issue (it would be fascinating to see), but in the U.S., slaves were not legally people, so by consequence they couldn't create anything copyrightable either. Postdlf (talk) 21:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

The legal theory involved is pretty straightforward: an animal is not a legal person, and so cannot own anything (such as a copyright). The animal's owner didn't exercise creative effort in making the work, so he doesn't hold copyright to it either. --Carnildo (talk) 10:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I would agree. But I'm not so sure that a judge would necessarily agree. The creativity is in giving the tools to the ape, and certainly in claiming that the result is art... -Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ideas aren't covered by copyright, so no one would have a copyright claim just because they thought of sticking the paintbrush in the ape's hand. Postdlf (talk) 21:26, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Deletion was requested on copyright grounds, and the image was kept. See:

commons:Commons:Deletion requests/Image:Chimpanzee congo painting.jpg

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:37, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Good discussion over there, especially the HLR article. I'm convinced enough that we are legally in the clear. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

I am becoming increasingly concerned that the Fringe Theories Noticeboard is being used to enforce Political correctness, or in some cases just the personal preferences of a few users. See, for example, this discussion , in which a few users from that noticeboard argue for the removal of an article, which admittedly has problems, but which certainly has notability, based on premises that seem problematic. I want to put this here now, but do not have much time, and will fill this out better later, and supply some more examples too.

I have come to view the very existence of the Fringe theories/Noticeboard as more of a problem for WP, than as a solution to a problem. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 16:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I would suggest that you are using the term "political correctness" in a way that is almost meaningless. It is reasonable to doubt the value of an article on a concept that very few people take seriously in the wider world. Paul B (talk) 21:09, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

this is, to put it politically incorrectly, a load of nonsense. FTN has done more to get rid of political correctness used as a tool to cirucumvent NPOV than any other project on Misplaced Pages. The only people complaining about FTN in the past have been conspiracy mongers wishing to push fringe topics (SRA comes to mind). Malcolm Schosha is trying to create political noise instead of a straightforward defense of the questionable article title "Eurabia" rather than the less sexy Islam in Western Europe within WP:NAME which it would be up to him to present if he wishes to keep the two articles separate, regardless of whether there has been any discussion at FTN prior to the merge request at Talk:Eurabia. It beats my how people can suggest that an issue of merging or cleaning up an article is somehow "tainted" or less valid if it has grown from a preliminary discussion at a noticeboard somewhere. Editors can just as well discuss things off-wiki, what counts is the merit of the issue raised, and not how it came to be raised. --dab (𒁳) 21:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Dbachmann wrote: The only people complaining about FTN in the past have been conspiracy mongers wishing to push fringe topics...

Dbachmann, this amounts to an Ad hominem (the most notorious of logical fallacies) criticism of me -- or what you imagine about me -- and I want you to know that I do not appreciate that. I will fill out my criticism of the Fringe theories/Noticeboard as soon as I have more time, which will be tomorrow at the earliest. In the mean time, if you add further edits, I would appreciate your discussing the issues, instead of trying to discredit me.

I will say this, briefly. Placing an edit on the Fringe theories/Noticeboard (unlike most other noticeboards) usually has the effect of assembling a team of like minded editors who will then take action on the article targeted. The process is what for other editors, outside the fringe theories noticeboard, would be termed canvassing. Despite that inherent canvassing in the operation of the noticeboard, in many cases things works out okay, and sometimes problematic articles are trimmed back or re-written in a way that improves them. But there are also cases when this goes wrong. That is not surprising, and there are good reasons that canvassing is discouraged. I will add more to this later. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

There appears to be another ambiguity in your complaint: as I read the article talk page, the proposal is not to remove Eurabia but simply to merge it. It is quite appropriate to merge closely related articles when they are both notable. The redirect can simply be tagged {{R with possibilities}}, and they can be split again in the future. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 10:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Hroðulf, my concern is not the Eurabia article, it is just an example; but, rather, with much more general problems with the fringe theories noticeboard. If I was only concerned about that article, I would not have initiated this discussion here, on a noticeboard concerned with WP policy. I will give an example, the particular example that first aroused my concern about the fringe theories noticeboard, as soon as I have enough time to put it together. (I have work in the outside world, that is close to a deadline, that needs some attention.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:14, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Re:the "inherent canvassing in the operation of the noticeboard". Your accusation might be applied with equal justice to any other noticeboard on Misplaced Pages, including this one. The rest of your argument amounts to little more than "When I like what the Fringe Theories Noticeboard does, it works; when I don't, it doesn't. Recently, I haven't liked it very much at all, so let's get rid of it altogether". Again, this argument might be applied to any other noticeboard on Misplaced Pages. --Folantin (talk) 10:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I do not think that Folantin is correct about the canvassing problem being equally true of every noticeboard. For instance this notice board is intended to discuss WP policy, and (as far as I know) notices here do not server to assemble a team of editors to change an article in an agreed upon way. But that is exactly does happen when notices are placed on the fringe theory noticeboard. And, as often as not, there is nothing ever put on the article talk page to inform editors of the discussion at the fringe theory noticeboard, with its planning of major changes kept in secret, and that they really have every right to know.

There also seem to be many noticeboards (perhaps the majority) that exist to discuss improvement to articles in certain areas, i.e. religion noticeboards, visual arts noticeboards, etc. One could never compare any of that to canvassing. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:04, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

One has to wonder if there's a pattern developing here. Other editors don't like my changes to contentious articles? let's change the rules. Other editors don't agree with my point of view on FTN? FTN is useless. These policies and mechanisms appear to work for a great majority of the users, Malcolm. Why do they not work for you? Tarc (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Rule? Which rule are you referring to? I have been fairly active on the fringe theories noticeboard, and I have no recollection of seeing you there. Concerning the Eurabia article, I only made a few edits none of them (as far as I can recall) recent. The issue is the fringe theories noticeboard, and not WP rules. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 17:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Referring to the special editing rules for contentious articles that you tried, and failed, to push in the earlier section liked to above. And it does not matter where I am or am not active at the moment. "When I like what the Fringe Theories Noticeboard does, it works; when I don't, it doesn't. Recently, I haven't liked it very much at all, so let's get rid of it altogether" nailed this pretty perfectly as far as I am concerned, and I posted here to agree with that assessment. Tarc (talk) 17:39, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That was a description of a WP problem, as I perceive it. As far as I know, that is what this noticeboard is for. It is a discussion, and not (as you try to portray it) a sneak attack. Concerning this, there was some interesting discussion, and I hope that other users will continue to think about the discussion. I did not "fail" because there was no specific suggestion I wanted to succeed. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 18:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

trust that Malcolm has taken the wikilawyering to the (predictable) next level of calling it ad hominem. Pointing out that your argument has no merit isn't ad hominem, give me a break. Next thing you'll claim I have threatened you with violence or insulted your mother. How about you stick to the actual issue and try to build a case instead of trying to drag it to the level of wikipolitics. Everyone is prepared to give your article a fair chance within WP:NOTE and WP:DUE, so how about trying some, dare I say it, WP:AGF. --dab (𒁳) 20:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Your direct implication has been that I, or anyone who opposes your editing goals, are a "conspiracy mongers" is most definitely an ad hominem. Believe it or not, ad hominem is not a wiki-term. As for wiki-lawering, usually I am accused of not understanding WP rules, which is mostly true; and not understanding wiki-speak, which is also mostly true.

What I see in your whole edit (above) is an attempt to discredit me personally (with accusations of wiki-lawering, wiki-politics); and, instead of responding to the actual problems. And what the hell is WP:NOTE and WP:DUE anyhow? All this wiki-speak (new speak?) is driving me nuts here. Can't someone here say anything in English? (In fact I have discussed notability and balance issues on the article talk page. Why would I discuss them here?) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:48, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree that WP:FTN has been quite useful. On a number of occasions, I've found useful feedback and sanity checking there when dealing with editing which violates WP:FRINGE or WP:NPOV. Our mechanisms for dealing with serious violations of content policy are slow, clunky, and often ineffective. The fringe theories noticeboard is a useful streamlining measure for dealing with clear-cut cases. In any case, if an editor feels the noticeboard is inappropriate or counterproductive, then the correct procedure would be to submit it to miscellany for deletion. MastCell  21:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

MastCell, I agree that the fringe theories noticeboard is useful, and I do not think that contradicts my specific criticism of it. I was not thinking of nominating it for deletion. Rather I am interested in some fine tuning to reduce problems that come with canvassing like minded users, as does happen on that noticeboard. It is inevitable that users will think their POV is correct, but when an enthusiastic group of like minded users can be mobilized against articles, a lot of caution is necessary. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 22:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

This can happen on any noticeboard, project board, etc. It has the merit of being open, unlike the various mailing lists that exist for various 'causes'. So long as it is open, anyone can read it, right? And post there. I don't see a problem. You must have noticed that some stuff that gets brought there has been, after discussion, considered not to be fringe, or not suitable for whatever drastic (:-)) action was originally proposed. dougweller (talk) 19:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it does not happen on just any noticeboard. The way it works is that, for instance, if you happen to decide an article is fringe, you put it on the noticeboard and you and a bunch of other editors descend on the targeted and make massive changes, or merge it. That is typically done by you without any previous discussion on the article talk page, much less trying to notify editors who have previously worked on the article. Your attitude is arrogant, and you think you have final ability to decide what is fringe and what is not. That sort of arrogance does not coincide with wiki-etiquette, nor even common decency. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 20:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's kinda the nature of consensus there, pilgrim; when a broad majority of people come to an agreement on a given topic. If more people agree with them the there are people that agree wit you, then you kinda lose. No matter how much time is spent dragging this out, it is still coming across like a case of WP:SOURGRAPES (I'm surprised a page doesn't exist for that already, actually). Tarc (talk) 03:40, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Tarc, it seems you may misunderstand what WP:Consensus is: Consensus develops from agreement of the parties involved. Consensus involves reasoned discussion, willingness to see the other side's point of view and (importantly) compromise. Consensus is not one side outvoting the other and and then shoving their POV down the other side's throat in a winner take all in a zero sum game. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:14, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Consensus does not mean unanimity, I'm afraid. We don't grind to a halt when a one voice or several still insist on swimming against the tide. Tarc (talk) 12:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

← Malcolm, it really sounds like the only solution for you would be to completely scrap our current Notice Board processes and invent something new. All the notice boards have a tendency to attract people interested in a particular topic. You may see that as PoV, but it's inherent to the system. Unless you propose and get community consensus to implement a new system, you're stuck with the consensus at the Fringe board. — The Hand That Feeds You: 00:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

What you say about noticeboards is generally true, and I have no problem with that aspect of their functioning. My concern is cases like this thread started on the fringe theories noticeboard. This is targeting an article for major change, and canvassing editors for the effort. It may be quite true that the article needed changes, and I do not object to that. The problem is the way it is done. For instance, you can see that the original canvassing was dated 27 November 2008, but there was not a single edit on the article's talk page before 2 December 2008 to explain the changes (really, not much then either). Certainly no effort was made to contact interested editors who had worked on the article, to explain why major changes were needed, and to solicit input from editors familiar with the content of the subject. I understand that the intention is good, but the way changes are made to articles by editors at FTN is often reprehensible. I do not think the system of noticeboards needs to be changed to correct that problem. All that is necessary is common decency and WP:etiquette. This was the first edit by an editor from the fringe theories noticeboard . The massive change may have been justified, but by doing that without discussion and explanation, there followed a long edit war because there was nothing done to build understanding of the goals; and certainly the approach in the edits that followed did nothing to build understanding and good faith. Instead, that that edit did was communicate an attitude saying: the editors who wrote this article are a bunch of fools who don't understand or care about WP, we (at the fringe theory noticeboard) are going to make whatever changes we want to this article, and if you try to stop us you will get your buts kicked. So the intention of the FTN editors was good, but the approach was problematic. I think that can, and should, be changed without major changes to WP. (NB: The particular article is just given as an example, and there are countless other examples of this same over-aggressive approach to changing articles. I had nothing to do with the editing of the article ever, and am not interested in the subject.) Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

hi Malcolm. your original contention was that you were (in my words) concerned that the Fringe Theories Noticeboard was being used to WP:POVPUSH and not maintaining WP:NPOV. your example was Seth Material and how social dynamics surrounding it coalesced to edit that page in a manner that was unpopular and unconsulting amongst those who ordinarily edited the page based on coordination on that noticeboard. you wondered whether the context of the Fringe Theories Noticeboard was a contributing stimulus to this social dynamic, and if it was this that led to a breach of WP:CONSENSUS.

• first i encourage you to overlook the personal comments in response to you and have a fun time at Misplaced Pages. the wet blankets can sure sour the experience if one takes their critical, ad hominem responses to heart. generally you can ignore them and pretend that they are not there. certain ones will attempt to drive you away from their sandboxes with their acid and snide comments. get used to it, they appear to be gaining the upper hand in Misplaced Pages.
• secondly, my examination (brief) of the FTNboard indicates that it is one of the zones of contention within which a general cultural struggle has ensued to which i have pointed within the Village Pump before (originally posted to the MISC section, see below for a link to its substance regard hierarchic wikis). from what i can tell some of the agents of this self-righteous struggle intentionally try to dishearten and disturb those with variant, esoteric, or 'fringe' paradigms as part of their agenda. at this point it has been incorporated as essential parts of WP:NPOV and WP:NPOVFAQ where it intersects WP:UNDUE, WP:FRINGE and the use of pejorative categories like Category:Pseudoscience. these are the launching points from which the hunting that occurs in your 'Fringe Theories Noticeboard' serve as target practice and nasty sociopolitics. there's such a divide about it that i don't think anyone is seriously addressing the issue as yet, though your consideration that certain forums lend themselves to the struggle seems to me somewhat accurate in a very specific way (the term 'fringe' is the lightning rod here).
• finally, i would like to encourage you to consider the likelihood that Misplaced Pages is by its social choices pushing what it calls "fringe theories" and "pseudoscience" into other, more specialized wikis. consider my theory of hierarchical wikis ("The Bowl-Shaped Misplaced Pages"). there are other, non-encyclopedic and broader-minded, wikis to which the 'fringe' and esoteric authors are contributing instead. I've been trying to map them somewhat here.-- self-ref (nagasiva yronwode) (talk)

Hi Self-ref, and thanks for adding some interesting points to this discussion. I agree with most of what you have written. Perhaps I am more inclined to regard Misplaced Pages a lost cause than you.

There are, as you know other problematic areas in addition to the all too common disinclination of some editors to present esoteric subjects as they are, editors with a preference for adding negative editorialials. I started this discussion because of an effort to eliminate the Eurabia article. The basic idea of Eurabia is pretty simple, but highly problematic from the POV of those with a New Left, and university influenced Politically Correct thinking, and an inclination to impose that thinking on WP articles they find disagreeable. I suppose, in the final analysis, there are a growing number of editors who want articles on a number of subjects to conform to their POV, and then declaring their imposed POV to be WP:NPOV. (NB: my criticism of New Left and Politically Correct does not imply that I disagree with the entire content of either. Also my defense of the Eurabia article because of the notability of the subject mean I am in agreement with its premises.)

I do not have time now, but will write more later. Malcolm Schosha (talk) 13:09, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

A subject, and accusation, which has entered this conversation a few times is the claim that FTN is concerned about (to use Dbachmann's term) "conspiracy mongers." The fact is that discussion at Fringe theories/Noticeboard generates its own conspiracy theories -- I suppose created by its own participating conspiracy mongers.

An outstanding example is this discussion, concerning the activities of Misplaced Pages's Baha'i editors. For those who are interested, the discussion continues here , where much of the discussion centers on objections of FTN editors to Baha'i coming at the top of alphabetical lists, and here , where a FTN editor made a major change to a well developed article without any explanation (much less discussion) on the article's talk page. There was, later, some discussion on the talk page , in which several FTN editors out voted an editor of the article, ensuring that (what they regarded) undeserving Baha'is would no longer be at the top of an alphabetical list. It was this series of editing events that first caused me to doubt the positive benefit of FTN. In the end, I quite regretted my participation, with the disregard of protests by an established editor of that article. I doubt that any change was necessary, and if change was made it should have been done in a way that was not so arrogant.

The situation on the Fringe theories/Noticeboard is of somewhat out of control editors, in my view loose cannons, who suspect that much of what they do not understand, or what they do not like, to be fringe; and consequently going on the attack based on ignorance and/or personal preferences. They claim the result is NPOV, but the result is all too frequently nothing more than their own POV.Malcolm Schosha (talk) 15:19, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Infobox for Lame Duck status?

I'm not sure if this has come up before, but would it be useful to add an infobox setting for outgoing incumbent officials? In other words, currently an official is listed as incumbent up until the end of his or her term, even if a successor has already been named. I just checked at George W. Bush, and there are warnings all over the place not to change it until 2009-01-20. Wouldn't it be less confusing and more information-rich to note these officials as "outgoing (on yyyy-mm-dd)" rather than "incumbent"? (also "outgoing" would seem better than "lame duck")

I checked on the Template:Infobox talk page and didn't see any comments there, but I thought I'd float the idea here first, since this page gets more traffic. I'll add a note there shortly. superluser_tc 2008 December 17, 00:03 (UTC)

Since George W. Bush is still sitting in office making decisions, "Incumbent" would seem to be an accurate description of the situation. --Carnildo (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

That's not quite the point. Labelling such an official as "outgoing" would also inform readers that the official has not won re-election (if applicable) and that a replacement has been chosen, which is more information than is currently presented. Right now, this information is located in the article text and not as easily accessible. As I said, it would also reduce the need for the warnings (which people have placed in the article for Bush or had to create a separate template for).

For readers who do not come from the area in which the official rules, it can help to reduce confusion about upcoming events. I see that incumbent makes sense; I'm just wondering if outgoing makes more sense. superluser_tc 2008 December 17, 05:07 (UTC)

Totally unnecessary. What gives you the impression that people do not follow the text? =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:33, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I see no fewer than eight reversions of George W. Bush regarding this, despite the page being semiprotected and having warnings in the text. That suggests that someone's not reading it.

Honestly, I don't have any real opinion on this, but it does seem more information-rich to describe it that way, and I don't think Misplaced Pages has ever had to deal with the issue before (though possibly in the wake of the Australian elections in 2004). I'm simply suggesting that we give the idea a fair hearing, because we won't have incentive to reevaluate this again for a few years. superluser_tc 2008 December 17, 23:17 (UTC)

Let's not over explode the infoboxes. The US transition period is one of the longest in the world (to my knowledge). In most countries transitions between governments is an issues of weeks, if not days. As Misplaced Pages is not a news site adding a transition status for a fewdays would be over the top. So this expansion would be only relevant for those few countries with lengthy transition periods (ie the US) which happens only for a few months every 4 (or in the case of re-election) or 8 years. I think this is just over the top, to deal with a very specific and time-bound issue; so I would say, not relevant enough to implement. Arnoutf (talk) 22:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Further, when are you going to add "outgoing" to Bush's infobox? You could justify adding it as early as the evening of November 2, 2004. --Carnildo (talk) 23:33, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Arnoutf makes some good points. I'll add that the issue comes up more frequently (though less prominently) every two years in the US, since there are approximately 60 days between the election and the inauguration of new Congresspeople. Again, I just want to give the idea a fair hearing because it will probably be a long time before we have a reason to revisit the issue. superluser_tc 2008 December 19, 06:00 (UTC)

Adding it once there is a president (or whatever) elect would seem a neat place, as their successor could be linked (or Presidential transition of Barack Obama). I like the idea as it provides information and could be formattted as formatted as "Incumbent (outgoing January 20, 2009)" --Nate1481 19:03, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

New individual access level: editprotected

Background: Recently, an administrator from the German Misplaced Pages requested adminship so he could edit the English Misplaced Pages spam blacklist. The discussion is ongoing, but many of those in opposition do not want to grant him more rights than he needs to edit that blacklist.

Issue: Currently the editprotected right applies to administrators and bureaucrats. I think this should change.

Many templates are permanently protected against abuse, as are some sensitive pages in other namespaces, such as MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Allowing more than just administrators to edit these pages would reduce the workload of existing administrators and would allow those who wanted to work in these areas to avoid the bureaucracy of requesting adminship and avoid handing out tools like "view deleted edits" or "block user" to those who don't really need them.

I have two proposals I'd like a straw poll and comments on before I do a full proposal:

New individual access level: editprotected proposal 1: general editprotected access

Proposal 1 A new access category, similar to rollbacker or accountcreator, which grants editprotected rights and nothing else. Who could give this permission and under what circumstances would be discussed at a later RfC, probably bureaucrats either on their own authority or through a lightweight RFC, but possibly administrators.

Discussion

Support

1. Very weakly supporting. I don't see a burning need to do this, but I agree with it in principle. It's mostly a question of whether it's worth stirring up all the ruckus to make it happen. If I were designing the system from the ground up I would include this, but I haven't run into any situations where it's been all that critical. SDY (talk) 00:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
2. Weak support Adding another layer of bureaucracy. This is an issue that comes up very seldom. But it is more beneficial to grant such requests this way than denying a task oriented RFA candidate in a strife ridden drama. For a precednt, we have already split off rollback and allowed admins to grant it. Dlohcierekim 01:31, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   To clarify, (rollback was just an example of change), as Lar says below, this should be a consensus driven, crat administered process. Someone with a very specific area they wish to edit, as a specialist, with skills apart from adminship, who has a support from the community for such as a remit as cheerful seth is now seeking the whole package for. Dlohcierekim 03:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

3. Support. What the hell; if it doesn't work, we'll stop. I'd go with "editprotected" + ability to semi-protect plus ability to move over redirects if it were up to me, but just "editprotected" should work fine. Seeing how someone handles the mini-mop (sponge? Oh the "sponge-worthy" jokes) would give us a good idea how they'd handle adminship, and not a lot of harm would be done if we have to "ex-sponge" them (told ya). I think the accelerated "thumbs-up" from the community would fill an emotional need, and we could use more people doing these chores. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   Now making support conditional on letting these users edit a smaller subset of pages than admins can edit. Matthew makes the case on his talkpage that editing some protected pages could have scary and even legal consequences. Also, I think there's enough opposition to this that it won't pass in this form, and people seem to want something a little different; let's keep talking. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

4. Strong Support I think of all of the people who come to RfA for a single reason, to get a single tool that they could use to benefit the project, that has the least risk for abuse, and it would be this. If they are trusted with the tool, then we know they won't use it to violate protection blocks on articles---and if they did, it could be reverted like Rollback. But we are routinely getting candidates who want the ability to edit the templates or other parts of the project where they contribute, but can't because it has been protected.---Balloonman 02:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
5. Weak Support, kinda like the idea...but not sure Absolutely, as Balloonman has said: our German colleague's RfA indicates this would be a useful permission to unbundle. This userright, incidentally, was a strong reason I decided to run for RfA: I needed to make multiple edits to a fully-protected project template. I wasn't going to break anything, and I had the project's endorsement. It became a hassle to bother admins to do my work for me. On the other hand, this would add a layer of bureacracy. To be honest, if I trusted someone to edit protected templates, then I would trust him with the whole package. Lazulilasher (talk) 02:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   It wouldn't be more of another level than rollback rights.---Balloonman 04:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

6. Support—I've long thought that it would be useful to allow some of the "safer" admin rights to be unbundled as their own user groups, and this seems a feasible proposal. I must note that I oppose this group including the editinterface right, though: editing the MediaWiki space could have more dire consequences than, say, editing the Main Page. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 03:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
7. Support - Per comments already mentioned, I've always supported similar proposals. Something tells me it won't happen though...Misplaced Pages does not like change. — Realist 03:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
8. Support - Editprotected makes the most sense to me to be unbundled. --Izno (talk) 03:49, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
9. Support OK this is of course subject to the developers saying whether or not a particular unbundling is technically feasible; but if it were, this would be useful to editors like myself who want to make non controversial edits to protected pages such as thrity - thirty, (page was protected at the time). But there would be wider advantages to the Wiki, just as with Rollback, the more specific tools like this that are available to those who show a specific need for them, the less of a MMORPG this place will become, and hopefully we would see fewer "the toolset comes as one package" opposes at RFA. ϢereSpielChequers 11:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
10. Support - if any of the admin tools are going to be unbundled, this is the one to start with. The ability to edit protected pages is a (fairly) minor thing; if someone only wants that ability, and they are sufficiently trustworthy, I think it should be unnecessary to make them go through the mess of an RFA. I'd rather limit the ability to hand out this new right to bureaucrats, as it's more their area of expertise than admins' - but as long as it's easy to remove, like rollback is, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference either way. Terraxos (talk) 11:39, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
11. Support I don't think that we have a serious need to do this, but I think we will get more benefit out of this than harm. I suggest that we give and remove this just like rollback with admins giving and removing. Captain panda 13:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
12. Support Surely inertia will kill this proposal, but I do think that this would be a great idea, perhaps also splitting editinterface as well, or what if we made pages like the spam blacklist and other blacklists editable within their own right, like editblacklists, this would be useful in this situation. Foxy Loxy 13:57, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
13. Strong Support - I have always supported breaking up some of the tools that aren't part of the main trifecta (Block, Delete, Protect), and this would help. This would save niche users the trouble of going through RfA. And hopefully, no admin will be foolish enough to give out this user group until a process is defined. NW's Public Sock (talk) 15:17, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
14. Strong Support I could use this tool now and then, though due to the immense hostility at RFA I'd be unlikely to pass. ~the editorofthewiki ~ 20:59, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
15. Support There are plenty of good coders and project space operators out there who are willing to do this. Also, for the opposes, just because the right is devolved like rollback doesn't mean that the criteria have to be the same. It could very well be that the number of people who get this tool is 1/2 or 1/10 of the rollbackers out there. On the side, I support breaking down most of the admin tools so they may be handed out piecemeal. Protonk (talk) 01:20, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
16. Support - but with the proviso that it can't just be handed out by admins based on a talk page request... a (lightweight) review process needs to happen, and the right handed out by a 'crat... otherwise, no. ++Lar: t/c 02:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
17. Support with the view that this is meant for editors with a very specific purpose (similiar to accountcreator and IPexempt, we should not see the number of users under this cat exceed three figures), with no need for the use of other components. We have some of them which were grilled on RfA because they needed this feature and this feature only, but it came as a set. It should help them significantly. - Mailer Diablo 08:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
18. Support asI support the splitting of admin rights. This works. PXK /_C 22:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
19. Support I have no other comments for now as they can be kicked around during the RFC if/when it occurs. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 03:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
20. I can't forsee too much harm in general coming from giving a trusted editor access to this administrative ability. I am, however, concerned by how giving out this access level might be potentially gamed by a vandal or troll to vandalize the main page, for instance. MBisanz below brings up a real concern, and we have to ensure that we aren't giving out the bit to an edit-warrior. We also have to make sure that this is an access level easily revoked if misusued, similar to rollback. Specializing this user-right, such as for template work, is a good idea. Master&Expert (Talk) 20:22, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
21. Support Per Dank55 and Balloonman. Jake Wartenberg 22:00, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
22. Support. Any increased granularity of privilege is a positive step on any number of levels. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:25, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
23. May as well. Although if it were a template-only right, it would be a shoo-in. Stifle (talk) 17:07, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
24. Support. Absolutely. Essentially all of the concerns people that are opposing have raised can be handled in who gets the new right. Think about it. All admins currently get this, so we are giving it out, if it is only given out to a few more people that are highly trusted but have no desire to go through the RFA gauntlet or don't have desire for the other tools then it is still a net win. More likely there are a lot of trusted users in that position and they could learn how to use these tools better than most admins and get the tasks done more effectively. But again, how the right is given out can fairly easily be handled later. - Taxman 17:51, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
25. Support I'll remind everybody that User:Archtransit (desysopped and banned) asked for adminship so he could help out at WP:DYK which required editprotected access for T:DYK. It would have been quite nice to have given just that access, instead of full adminship. Jehochman 01:16, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
26. Support per Chris Cunningham above. I like to think I'm a user who would be trusted with editing protected pages though I'd clearly never survive an RFA. Maybe I'm not trusted to update the DYK template? Honestly, you think editors like myself would spend years here to get +editprotected and right away go screw with {{!}} just for giggles? Get a grip. <Boilerplate dismay about those affecting (if not intending) perpetuation of the admin superclass below>. --JayHenry (t) 07:02, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
27. Support, especially for templates; it's quite frustrating to not be able to improve something simply because it's high-use. There does not seem to be any reason aside from the technical one to bar Jay from editing DYK. Rollback was a thorough success, and further unbundling is certainly worth pursuing. I suggest the privilege be removed from editors who make non-trivial alterations to fully-protected articles; we do not want this to become a "cabal-endorsed pov-pusher" designation. Skomorokh 13:12, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
28. Support as long as editinterface is included. Dendodge Talk 14:57, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Oppose

1. Oppose until this is a proper proposal and criteria are developed. Given the number of pages that are protected right now precisely because registered users mess around with them (especially templates), and how many pages are protected because of edit warring by registered users, I am not persuaded that this needs to be handed out "like rollback". Risker (talk) 04:33, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   I support the idea of knowing exactly what we're proposing before we get too excited, too, but I'd like to see how the conversation develops before we chisel it in stone. I oppose the idea of debating criteria; we'll only get it wrong. We have figured out the FAC criteria by taking it one article at a time, and the RfA criteria by taking it one candidate at a time. That seems to work best. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 05:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   Ah, well then. Rollback wasn't such a big deal because it can only really affect one page at a time. Editprotected access can affect thousands with one keystroke. I turn down nearly half of the editprotected requests I review because they aren't based on consensus or are otherwise improper. There's a reason why these pages are edit protected - to ensure sober second thought before they are modified. And since assessment of consensus is really something the community has decided is an admin task, I think this needs to remain in the admin-only toolkit. Risker (talk) 05:09, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

2. Oppose This proposal is strange. The author mentions a German Misplaced Pages administrator, which needs adminship in order to edit spam blacklist. However this list in the MediaWiki namespace, editing of which requires 'editinterface' right. So granting this German administrator 'editprotected' right will not solve their problems. So I can not support this proposal, because it is unclear what is actually proposed? To grant some editors all three editprotected rights ('editprotected', 'editinterface' , and 'editusercssjs') or only some of them. What will be the process of granting and removing them? Ruslik (talk) 12:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
3. Oppose No, most pages are protected for very good reasons, like system messages, templates, or edit warring among established editors. Expanding the number of people who could mess up such a situation, when there is no backlog in handling requests, is a bad idea. Even admins who are not experts in system messages or templates should use edit protected in such situations. MBisanz 15:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   I know I've waited longer than a week for some of my editprotected requests to be fulfilled. If there's not a backlog, then waiting that long suggests that not enough admins cover that area frequently enough. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 03:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

   To expand a bit more the following cases show why this is a bad idea:

   • Editing MediaWiki pages like MediaWiki:Copyrightwarning can alter the legal release of content by editors corrupting the database with incompatible material.
   • Editing MediaWiki pages like MediaWiki:Common.js and MediaWiki:Common.css can alter the way the site functions for editors rendering it unusable.
   • Editing Template pages like Template:! and Template:Portal can trigger a cascade failure that would render the site uneditable or worse, rotate millions of vandal edits through high visibility pages like Main page.
   • Editing article pages like the Main page that are viewed by hundreds of thousands of users per second can dramatically impact the site's reputation and standing.
   • Editing code pages like User:MBisanz/monobook.js can trigger auto-log-out sequences that prevents a user, even an admin, from logging into the system.
   • Editing an image like File:LinkFA-star.png that is shown on thousands of articles and would trigger rolling vandalism even if quickly reverted.
   • Editing code pages like User:Animum/easyblock.js can trigger massblocks/deletes by administrators using the script, in effect hijacking an admin account.
   • And of course, giving someone the ability to edit a page to their version, can lead to wheel-wars, as best shown in Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Sarah Palin protection wheel war and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/IRC.

   For all these reasons, it seems to me that it is too dangerous to permit this splitting of rights. MBisanz 04:51, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

   As I understand the code, giving only the 'editprotected' right would not allow most of those examples. Editing MediaWiki namespace pages needs the separate 'editinterface' right. Editing other users' css/js needs the separate 'editusercssjs' right. 'editprotected' also does not give permission to edit cascade-protected pages, which includes Template:!, Template:portal, and Main page; a good argument could be made on the basis of non-cascade-protected high-use templates. I don't know whether they could upload a new version of File:LinkFA-star.png or not, and that leaves edit warring that should immediately lose them the editprotected right. Anomie⚔ 05:51, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

   Well my other point being that as long as we have backlogs at Category:Misplaced Pages semi-protected edit requests and Category:Requested edits, I do not see this as anything more than another status to symbol, to make little userboxes for, and give out barnstars for using, and create endless drama through misuse. I'm checking now that there are 3 edit protected requests that would fall within this program, one of which is an edit warring request that an admin should do and there are 3 semi protected reqs and 9 requested edits. MBisanz 10:06, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

4. Strong Oppose. This is not a tool that should be unbundled from adminship. I can see unstoppable edit wars and system message change abuse. Malinaccier (talk) 02:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

   Why wouldn't we just block someone and remove the right if they abused it? If I protected a page to stop an edit war and one of the participants in that edit war violated WP:PROTECT using their specific user right, I would block them instantly and remove the right. It would be more clear cut than rollback abuse is already. Protonk (talk) 05:07, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

5. Oppose - there are two many reasons things are protected for a one-size fits all solution. Articles protected due to edit wars != articles protected due to office actions != articles protected for BLP reasons != high-risk templates != the interface. --B (talk) 05:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
6. The reasons for protection are varied, and as MBisanz mentions, sometimes even sysops don't know what the hell they're doing. The editors I trust to edit fully-protected templates or the interface are the same ones that are sysops, though; "trust" is key here.
   Now, that said, I suppose I could get behind a proposal that would allow key users (such as bots) to have the bit only to perform bot-type tasks (such as interwiki edits). But a whole new process? I'm not seeing much actual need here (whereas rollback had a bit more necessity to it). EVula // talk // ☯ // 06:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
7. Oppose - The ability to edit protected pages is extraordinarily powerful. I don't think we should trust it to anyone who we wouldn't trust enough to be an admin. Is it really that difficult to just put the entries he wants added to the spam blacklist on another page and have an admin transfer them over? --ScWizard (talk) 07:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
8. Oppose per the points mentioned by User:MBisanz, User:Malinaccier, User:EVula as well as User:Ruslik0. — Aitias // discussion 15:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
9. Oppose Too risky. Editing protected pages should remain a right granted through RfA. PeterSymonds (talk) 15:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
10. Oppose per the same reasons that MBisanz pointed out. –Juliancolton 15:47, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
11. Oppose - Per MBisanz and EVula. All of the editors I trust to edit those are admins. Xclamation point 23:40, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
12. Oppose In one off circumstances like thsi the editor in question can be granted admin rights, otherwise no.193.120.116.186 (talk) 17:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
13. Oppose creation of yet another separate usergroup with just one associated permission. You'd find my support more forthcoming for a 'trusted' usergroup, with or without that name. Happy‑melon 15:40, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
14. Oppose Oppose, nobody is stopping this German editor to build credibility in the English Misplaced Pages project and then apply for English Wiki adminship. Editing cultures and language are (slightly) different over international projects, so carrying over admin powers without evidence the user qualifies in this project is potentially hazardous for stability here. Arnoutf (talk) 17:39, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
15. Oppose - I honestly don't see the need for this. Users who work in the template space are welcome to either use editprotected for minor changes, or copy the template to their user space and work on it there, raising an editprotected request when their work is complete. Changes on protected articles can and should be discussed before implementation on the talkpage, even if the editor (or admin) can edit the protected page. I also don't see a long backlog of editprotected requests waiting to be actioned - they're usually done fairly promptly. All other issues aside, I don't see a use case that would be solved by having this mechanism that is not already catered for through the existing processes. Many thanks. Gazimoff 21:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
16. Oppose rights creep, just not necessary, etc. --Hammersoft (talk) 02:33, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
17. Oppose for many of the reasons above. Just not necessary is also a very compelling reason.-Djsasso (talk) 14:22, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Neutral

1. Neutral This sounds like a good idea but it could have a fairly limited use.

   It would be a good idea to clarify either now or at a later stage exactly what permissions would be included in this, as I've noticed a number of people above have made their comments with the assumption that, for example, editing the interface would be possible with this access level. Here are my thoughts on the permissions that could possibly be included:

   • Editing the interface: Some system messages only apply in a small number of situations, but others, such as MediaWiki:Common.js apply all the time. Common.js worries me especially since if someone accidental or deliberately (hopefully not the latter) introduced a security hole into the code, it could compromise accounts. This sort of damage could not be entirely fixed by simply reverting the page, so a higher level of trust would be required to be able to edit the page. For this reason, I would oppose allowing the interface to be edited.
   • Editing users' .css and .js subpages: While most of these pages provide scripts for one user, there are some pages such as User:Lupin/popups.js and User:AzaToth/twinkle.js which host javascript tools used by many users. For similar reasons as before, mistakes in editing these could compromise security.
   • Editing cascade-protected pages: I think that users with edit-protected should not have this right, the main reason being that it would give them the ability to transclude other pages in a cascade-protected page which effectively gives them the ability to protect any page they want, which is not an ability which is being proposed here. Additionally, preventing edit-protected users from editing cascade-protected pages would give the option of giving extremely high risk templates such as {{!}} and {{tl}} additional security to ensure that they can only be edited by administrators.
   • Moving pages and uploading images when the page/image is protected: Both of these should be fine to be included.

   Unfortunately, this means that the edit-protected right could not be used for editing pages such as the spam blacklist or parts of the main page, which narrows down its usefulness. I think this permission would therefore be useful for people who want to edit high usage templates, perform minor edits to articles protected for edit warring or make maintenance edits to pages protected for other reasons.

   It would be important to have some level of trust in the users receiving this right, more so than with rollback. What we want to avoid is breaking templates, editing protected pages where you're involved in a content dispute, editing WP:OFFICE protected pages where there could be legal issues at stake and introducing security flaws into the user scripts that aren't stored in user space.

   This means that when we give out this right, we need to look for people who understand the protection policy, whether it's appropriate for them to edit a page, whether an edit is minor or not, whether they're involved in a content dispute or not, and (if they plan on editing in these areas) they need to be able to understand and be able to test template code and javascript to ensure they don't break anything.

   However, as others have pointed out, if they're trustworthy and experienced enough to do all this, they might as well be an administrator. I think there may be a few people who could benefit from this right but perhaps don't have skills in other areas (e.g. blocking, deleting etc) that would make them suitable for adminship. The question is how many people would this apply to? I think adding this group would create another level of bureaucracy but it would only be worth it if enough people could use this right. Tra (Talk) 00:44, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

New individual access level: editprotected proposal 1: namespace-specific editprotected access

Proposal 1 A set of new access categories, similar to rollbacker or accountcreator, each of which grants editprotected rights to a particular namespace, such as Template:, and nothing else. This would require a software change. Who could give this permission and under what circumstances would be discussed at a later RfC, probably bureaucrats either on their own authority or through a lightweight RFC, but possibly administrators.

Discussion

I don't understand why we would want to do this. I can understand why someone who just fixes typos and knows nothing of deletion could be given the right to edit protected articles but might not be given the whole set of tools; but why split this by namespace? Can the supporters give an example scenario where we would trust someone to edit in one namespace but not another? ϢereSpielChequers 11:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Editing a protected page in the main namespace can at worst hurt only that page. Editing a protected template could hurt millions of pages. --Pascal666 (talk) 21:04, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Fair point, but IMHO corrupting a template is likely to be blatant vandalism or gross stupidity, a mistake whilst potential POV pushers are harder to screen out, (I've even heard of admins POV pushing). ϢereSpielChequers 10:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I would have to strongly disagree with the first part of your statement. Making mistakes is part of being human. I have corrupted several templates in my time on Misplaced Pages, both by editing them directly and via {{EditProtected}}. The big difference between the two is that when I make the edits directly I can revert them immediately if I screw up. If I use {{EditProtected}} I have to use it again to fix the problem and the error stays in place until someone else bothers to come around and fix it (see Template_talk:Test2del for an example). --Pascal666 (talk) 13:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Good point, on reflection I've rephrased that. To err is human and mistakes will happen regardless, my belief is that once we've screened out the obvious vandals we are more at risk of those we trust indulging their POVs than having them go rogue and commit blatant vandalism. Hence my suspicion that the greater damage done by corrupting a template is balanced by the greater risk of a trusted editor letting their prejudices influence their edits. ϢereSpielChequers 12:55, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Support

1. I suppose I'll be the only one supporting this... what can I say, I like lost causes. The reason I think this is a good idea is that templates can be incredibly finicky, it's easy to completely screw them up with something as simple as substituting a \ for a | (missing the shift keystroke). Mistakes like that are not always noticeable until you've saved the page and suddenly there's a mob banging down your door because you broke {{!}}. This is why protected edits to high risk templates are usually handled by admins experienced in that field so they can ascertain what effect the proposed edit will have. It's not that I think that someone trusted by the community would intentionally corrupt a template, my concern is that they make a little mistake and suddenly thousands of pages have a corrupted template. If the editor doesn't notice, it will more likely than not take a lot of time and work to track down the culprit. Splitting up the right by namespaces may add a layer of bureaucracy, but I believe the benefit outweighs the risk.

Oppose

1. Oppose too beaucratic... too many areas that would have to be coded. If we trust them to work in protected areas, we trust them to work in protected areas.---Balloonman 02:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
2. Oppose. If you want to kill off any good that this might do quick, force the community to have to grant separate access every time they find a new area they'd like to edit in. No. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 02:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
3. Oppose. The arguments above make too much sense. Malinaccier (talk) 02:09, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
4. Oppose. Though I understand the logic behind this option, if you can't trust someone to police themselves you should not be trusting them to edit protected pages in the first place. --Pascal666 (talk) 13:11, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Neutral

Catch-all proposal: leave things as-is

If you are opposed to both and did not mark opposed above, sign here, with comments:

Opposed to both

1. Users either have the trust of the community to become admins, or they don't. There does not appear to be anything gained by doleing out the tools individually. There is no need to give a mop to some users, a bucket to others, a sponge to others, that little knife to clean the gum to yet others, etc. etc. If a user needs the access, let them apply for adminship. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 00:20, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   Say you own a car wash, and you get 100 cars a day. Would you rather hire 10 people who can each do 1 job each, or 1 person, who can do 10 jobs, to wash all your cars? --Izno (talk) 02:49, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

2. There's no reason for this. The proposal is supposed to reduce the workload on admins, but editing protected pages does not create a significant workload in the same way blocking/protection/deletion do. Its unlikely it'll have a significant effect. The amount of possible damage, from accidental screwups, or on purpose, while not major (unless it is expanded to include the pages in the MediaWiki namespace) is significant. The "car wash" analogy above fails, as we don't have 10 protected edit requests every day for each admin. We have maybe a handful per day and a thousand active admins. Mr.Z-man 03:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   The proposal has the benefit of reducing the workload for administrators, but that's not the only reason. As for the workload, I propose the same analogy above as before, except we can reduce it down to, if you want, 2 jobs by 1 person or 1 job each for 2 people. I'd personally take the latter. The original was more of a defense of making separate groups in general, to which Jayron was arguing, which is why I found it appropriate.
   As for editprotected, a good many of the times I've seen {{editprotected}}, it's either been a straight copy-paste of the request which is then edited in, a request to make it that easy by the protected-editor, or a turn-down because the code that needed to be pasted was wrong. All of these take time, and they would take less time if there were more people to do them. If the person screws up, they can be reverted; if they have a history of it, they can have their right removed, just as rollbacker is.
   For instance, I had a case where I asked for a completely uncontroversial editprotected and it sat in the queue for three days. While there's no deadline, that's still a little bit less stress for me and a little bit less stress for the admin who needs to edit. While anecdotal data is anecdotal, it's just one case where me-being-to-edit the template straight up would have been faster for all. --Izno (talk) 03:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   The analogy still doesn't make much sense. A better analogy would be this: Say you run a manufacturing plant. The plant makes 5 distinct parts. On an average day, you need to make 5000 of part A (deletion), 500 part B (blocking), 250 part C (protection), 50 part D (granting rollbacker/accountcreator), and 5 part E (editprotected). Every employee is currently trained in making every part. Why would you feel the need to hire several dozen more employees who only know how to make part E? Mr.Z-man 22:31, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   That analogy has major holes in it. You are assuming that everybody is trained on all aspects of the project, this is flatly not true. There are areas that I won't touch with a ten foot pole. There are areas that you never work in. So while I may have the technical ability to work in edit protected areas, I am not about to go modify the spam list or templates. Similarly, I feel comfortable when blocking somebody for vandalism, but that doesn't mean I feel comfortable blocking somebody for a username violation. A better comparison would be, the medical profession where you have medical professionals and each has assigned duties. You have some medical professionals who are fully qualified to perform certain medical procedures, but don't have the "doctor" label in front of them (and the procedure is not one that requires a doctor.) Do you allow them to do it?---Balloonman 22:53, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   Hence why I generalized the tasks. Not everyone can do everything, but everyone can do most things. Do you know how to edit an article? If so, you can probably do 5-10% of protected edit requests. I actually said on my RFA that I would do protected edit requests on templates and such. I'm fairly good at template coding. Do I do protected edit requests? No, because its boring as hell. An admin could probably knock out the current list at WP:PER in one sitting, but nobody does it because its so boring. The problem isn't lack of admins, its lack of interest. People (like myself back in June '07) think "oh, that sounds like an interesting area I can help in" then they do it for a week, get tired of reading through page after page of threaded discussion to see if there's consensus or trying to determine if a change is going to break a template, or if it should get consensus first. If we do this, the same problem is going to happen. It'll be popular for a while while its still a novelty, all the admin wannabes will get it and do a couple requests for an extra gold star on their RFA, then they'll forget all about it. This won't reduce any admin workload substantially, it may not even reduce the CAT:PER backlog. If we're going to add a new process, why not just one to streamline the protected edit requests, make it easier for admins to process them, and maybe people will actually be interested. Mr.Z-man 04:21, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

3. If you want to edit protected pages then go through RfA. I oppose any and all proposals to hand out administrator rights to non-admins; this one is no exception. - Rjd0060 (talk) 03:25, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   May I ask why? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 04:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   Because trust is a simple thing. Either I trust somebody or I don't. I don't trust them with some administrative user rights and not others. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   Good point, thanks. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 04:47, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   But the reality of the situation is that there are a number of users who come to RfA, who are niche editors. They have their area where they like to work, and have solid contributions there. They have a legit need for tools (usually this one) but the only way they can get those tools is via an RfA. Unfortunately, because these editors are niche editors, they don't have the broad exposure that is expected for Admins, and thus fail in their RfA attempt. Plus, I like the point that somebody else made, once we grant the bit to somebody, it is almost impossible to get it back. If we gave some of the tools out piecemeal, then we can easily take them back when abuse occurs. A person who gets blocked for violating 3RR is not the type of person we'd give the tools too, but lets say somebody with this ability did violate 3RR. Then that person would loose the ability to edit protected articles AND could probably kiss any hope of becoming an admin goodbye---for a long time.---Balloonman 15:10, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

4. Oppose - Sarah Palin. BJ 03:37, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

   If a user who has "editprotected" rights edits Sarah Palin when it's locked, then we de-whatever them, and just think of how much time we've saved that user from pursuing adminship when it never would have worked, and how much trouble we've saved ourselves compared with what would happen if they did get the mop. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 04:38, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Voting is evil

If you think voting is evil:

Voting is evil

General comments

Put general comments, including how you think permissions should be handed out, here.

Comments

• Where's the "polls are evil" option? There MUST be a Polls Are Evil option, otherwise this poll is incomplete and therefore invalid! Majorly 23:46, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Happy now, Majorly? Xclamation point 01:02, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• General question: Editprotected means "edit only created pages which are protected" or "edit all pages protected, created or otherwise"? I'm asking this with regard to salted pages moreso, but conversely, this also applies to the default mediawiki messages, which are also considered to be "salted" by the software. One or the other? Both? --Izno (talk) 00:00, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
• A technical point: Pages in the Mediawiki: namespace aren't protected in the same way that George W. Bush is. Rather, the software restricts who can edit them. I don't know if the ability to edit protected pages and the ability to edit Mediawiki: pages are the same thing. --Carnildo (talk) 01:24, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  Good point--so, this proposal wouldn't be applicable to the current RfA? Also, I've another question. Can you give the ability to, say, edit a protected page without giving the ability to change protection level? Lazulilasher (talk) 02:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  It's my understanding that being allowed to edit the MediaWiki namespace requires the editinterface right, while editing protected pages (but not changing the level of protection) is allowed through the editprotected right. Administrators have both rights, so they can, on a technical level, edit any page. I believe that giving the editprotected right alone would allow this group to edit protected pages, but not MediaWiki-namespace pages. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. :) {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 03:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  Mostly :) Admins don't have the 'editprotected' right, rather, they can edit protected pages because the highest protection level is 'sysop.' If for some reason we created a "bureaucrat only" protection level, admins couldn't edit pages protected to that level, but anyone with the 'editprotected' right (currently no one, except perhaps a global group like stewards or staff) could still edit it. The editprotected right does not give the right to edit the interface pages (editinterface), user CSS/JS subpages (editusercssjs), or pages protected with cascading protection set. Mr.Z-man 03:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  Ah, ok. I see, that makes sense and has taught me something that I didn't know. So, would it be possible to give the ability to edit "sysop" protected pages to someone who did not have the rest of the "sysop" package? In other words, would the editor currently at RfA be able to receive that right without the package (assuming the rights were unbundled)? If so, I could see myself supporting the proposal for such specialist candidates. Lazulilasher (talk) 03:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  Admins actually have 'protect' right, which allows them both to edit protected pages and change protections levels. 'editprotected' is a light version of 'protect'. It allows only editing of protected pages, and is not currently used on en.wiki. See this. Ruslik (talk) 12:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  Would someone better-informed please then update {{User access levels}}? It currently suggests that editprotected is the way that admins edit protected pages. (My guess is that it should perhaps also point to Special:Listgrouprights) Mr.Z-man, thanks for mentioning also editusercssjs which I knew about but forgot to mention. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 16:26, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

• I predict that if we did unbundle edit:Protected from the rest of the mop there would be an increase in the number of protected articles, possibly to the point that any article that is frequently viewed would become protected. To me that would be a healthy sign of Misplaced Pages growing up and moving from its initial growth phase to a more mature phase of consolidating and raising standards, with the vandals steered towards the less commonly viewed but frequently vandalised articles where they can be more easily patrolled and hopefully do least harm. But I'd be interested if anyone can see a downside to such an increase in protection. ϢereSpielChequers 12:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

  I assure you the authors of millions of the project's contributions can see a downside to an increase in protection, but none of them are wasting their time commenting here -- Gurch (talk) 02:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

  • WSC, I think you are missing the point of unbundling edit protected. It isn't to lock down major articles, which goes against the anyone can edit core policy, but rather to allow niche users who would otherwise fail an RfA to make useful edits with templates or the Spam Blacklist, for example. NW's Public Sock (talk) 15:19, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
    • To Clarify, I support the proposal but predict that an unintended consequence of more editors being able to edit protected pages is that consensus will shift, and more pages will be protected. Hence this thread is in the comment section. ϢereSpielChequers 15:36, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Giving and removing this tool

• As for how this should be handed out, I suggest similar to Rollback, admins should be able to give this tool to those who make a reasonable request, and just as importantly be able to take it away from those who've misused it. ϢereSpielChequers 12:22, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Absolutely not, someone could screw up thousands of pages, either accidentally or intentionally, with bad template code. Or they can start a huge drama clusterfuck by editing a page under dispute. With rollback, the damage from one instance of misuse is minimal. With this it could be major. We couldn't use the "easy come, easy go" system here. Besides the fact that rollback is already moving away from it (WP:RFR now requires a demonstrated need for rollback), 1 instance of misuse could be one too many. Mr.Z-man 03:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
    • @WereSpielChequers. Any bad account can work towards rollback, acc, etc. Removal of rollback from vandals is not common, but it does happen. Rollback is, however, relatively inconsequential in comparison. Anyone who screws with {{!}} on its own will break the site, let alone other pages as well... PeterSymonds (talk) 15:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
      • I envision that this group will only really have to be given out to a few users, those that work in templates or blacklists for example. I recommend that no fewer than three admins have to verify a requestees work. A requestee must have shown consistent need for the tool over a period of not shorter than two months. Also, this right should be removed after two months of inactivity
      • Sound good? NuclearWarfare _{My work} 20:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Go to WP:ERRORS any day of the week and there's a half dozen editors who sit there pointing out errors. Sometimes an admin won't come by and fix them for a few hours, and sometimes with the high-turnover templates like DYK they don't get fixed at all. But because of a hypothetical concern that somebody might edit {{!}} and cause a mess, we allow literally millions of readers to see errors on the main page. Of course, the real concern is not about the readers of the encyclopedia. If it were, it'd be an absolute no-brainer granting this to trusted users for the sake of our readers. (And zapping like an electric fence for a single instance of misuse. Give editors the rope to hang themselves. If they want to commit Wikicide for a single +editprotected prank then let's use that as a helpful filter.) So what is the real issue? Well, the real effect of implementing this is that it will diminish the gap between editors and admins. It would destroy our system of binary trust (that'd be a good thing to destroy). Binary trust: Admins are to be as exalted wikigod--trusted forever and always and unconditionally and only ArbCom can change it. Axiomatically: Adminship=trust ∴ !adminship=!trust. Zzzzz indeed. Let's make the encyclopedia better instead of play powergames and get on with debundling. --JayHenry (t) 07:28, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Enabling 'editprotected' for some editors will not give them access to the main page or DYK, because they are cascade protected. Ruslik (talk) 08:01, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a technical detail that could easily be tweaked if the community wanted the change. Even if not the substance of my point remains. It's unhealthy to treat trust as a binary attribute--present in admins; absent in others--as we're seeing here.--JayHenry (t) 00:36, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Some comments about this poll and the poll that brought us WP:ROLLBACK

We can all (almost) agree that introducing rollback to non-admins was an almost unmitigated success. It was a specific tool allotted to administrators by the code but not intrinsically related to their functions as trusted members of the community. In its time, the proposal was perennially rejected until some force came behind it. There are some big differences between expanding edit protected to non-admins and allowing rollback use by non-admins, namely when Misplaced Pages:Non-administrator rollback reached consensus there was a clear and obvious need for non-admins to have rollback. However there are some strong commonalities. Non-admins didn't actually need rollback (Twinkle and other tools could simulate it). Fears about edit wars and dilution of trust abounded. I think (not to invoke the policy version of WP:WAX) that we could benefit from looking at the straw poll which brought us rollback: Misplaced Pages:Non-administrator_rollback/Poll, specifically the oppose section. The guideline passed ~300 to 140 (a narrow margin as far as consensus goes). The primary oppose reasons were that it created a new class of users, it would create unstoppable edit wars, it was redundant to existing tools, and that tools shouldn't be unbundled from RfA. Let's think about how successful rollback has been and how fearful we were of it then when deciding how to treat this proposal. Protonk (talk) 23:54, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Podcasts and WP:RS

A question has arisen at WT:RS that I don't remember ever discussing before... are podcasts considered reliable sources? Assuming I am right and this is a new question, I think we need a fairly large sample of community opinion before we can determine consensus. Please swing by the guideline talk page an share your views. If it is not a new question... please point me to where it has been discussed. Blueboar (talk) 03:26, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

it depends. self-published podcasts should not generally be considered reliable (see WP:SPS). some podcasts are published in a way that makes them just as reliable as good magazines. in general, reliability is independent of whether the source is printed, video or audio.  —Chris Capoccia ⁄_C 14:03, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Boy did this question ever baloon... we ended up discussing it a both RS and at V. It touched on several other policy statements such as WP:SPS (for example: just who is the publisher when someone is interviewed on a podcast... the interviewee, the interviewer, the website, etc.) However, I think the issue is stettled. Just so people have a chance to comment if needed... we have reached the following determinations at the relevant policy pages:

When dealing with podcasts, the publisher is the website where the podcast is found. The people speaking are to be considered the authors of their remarks. Since both publisher and author are aspects of "the source"... both need to be evaluated when determining RS. As for whether WP:SPS should apply to a podcast... this needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis. For example, if a noted expert is being interviewed on a podcast, WP:SPS would apply if the podcast is hosted (published) on a website that is reasonably tied to the expert (the author). It would not apply if there is no reasonable tie between the two. Blueboar (talk) 19:05, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Input needed on use of non-free logos on sports team pages

Please provide your input on this RFC to resolve whether team logos can be used on pages that significantly talk about the team (such as per-season team pages or rivalry pages). --MASEM 14:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Protecting BLP articles feeler survey

FYI, based on a conversation on Jimmy Wales's talk page:

• Misplaced Pages:Protecting BLP articles feeler survey

Your feedback is appreciated. rootology (C)(T) 19:27, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think flagged revisions are a wonderful idea, but should be strictly kept to featured articles (helps us look good) and biographies of living people (legal reasons). I am strongly opposed to them going farther than that, I think it would break the spirit of wikipedia and turn it into a cool kids club of people who can commit revisions. --ScWizard (talk) 08:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Grammy Awards

Looking at 50th Grammy Awards and 51st Grammy Awards I observe that WP:MOSMUSIC has not been applied and that almost everything has been emboldened. I can, perhaps, understand emboldening the winner in a list of nominees, but can't see the point in a list of winners only or of nominees only. Should WP:MOSMUSIC be applied rigorously? -- SGBailey (talk) 23:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Remove A7

I recall a discussion I had some time ago about trying to clarifying A7, so that it was made clear that any assertion of notability was enough to warrant an WP:AFD. However the discuss dried up and very little came of it . It still appears that user are devoting far too much time speeding articles under A7 and not understanding how it works or the subject at hand .Not wanting to single any user out but needing an example User:Adamfinmo has nominated four articles for A7 in the last day which have failed . This raises the question how many border line articles has the user nominated and a admin deleted. I propose A7 is removed and articles which have questionable notability are taken to AFD. If these articles are about a not notable person , band or what have you a WP:Snow consensus will form rather rapid. This will at least give the article author time to defend their work (a article can be A7 deleted in minutes) and will stop biting people.Gnevin (talk) 23:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I for one value A7. I only delete articles under A7 where there is no assertion of meeting notability criteria. Things like, "my garage band is really cool," and "my boyfriend is so cute." There are way too many articles needing deletion under A7 to consider getting rid of it. It would be a monumental waste of time to AfD every article about a local band, small business or nn webpage that clearly makes no assertion of notability. That's why we have the speedy deletion process. If anything, we need more CSD categories to cover some of the drivel that does not fit. Dlohcierekim 23:37, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is there are far to many A7 noms for stuff which asserts notability and they whole process gives very little time for user to say {{hangon}} Gnevin (talk) 23:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Then the reviewing admin needs to remove the CSD tag. Just because someone sticks on a CSD tag does not mean the admin has to delete it. I have been known to detag articles I see as asserting notability. Dlohcierekim 23:47, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

This is not going to happen. About as many articles are deleted through A7 in a few hours are nominated for AFD in an entire day. The vast majority would just be a waste of community time to put through AFD. Mr.Z-man 00:00, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem isn't the category, but rather then admin. There are admins who rush the process or actually simply don't care. I contacted one yesterday about his careless speedies, and his response was essentially, "I don't care that it is not technically a speedy, it's going to be deleted anyway, so, use SNOW to justify deleting it." If you are interested in who, you can probably figure it out via my talk page.---Balloonman 01:18, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Maybe your right that it's a lack of understanding by admins or poorly applied policy take for example Boathouse_(band) which had BBC coverage and thus a level of notability and and Andrew Bonds which claimed 15,000 listeners and thus a modicum of notability .Both in my opinion should of went to AFD. Both haves No indication that the article may meet guidelines for inclusion) in the deletion log which seems totally wrong. I've asked both admin to discuss why the felt A7 applied here .Gnevin (talk) 02:02, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

@Balloonman: Its called WP:IAR, ignoring a rule to avoid wasting time. Its policy, admins are allowed to do it. In the case of obvious crap like Sandwichmas, its encouraged. And I'm curious as to how one "rushes" speedy deletion when there is no set time limit. And its not a "careless" deletion if they actually thought it out, which their response indicates they did. Mr.Z-man 16:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with removing it, as it is one of the most common ways IME of usefully getting rid of large amounts of non-notable spam articles that people create. Even with a WP:SNOW, it takes a lot longer to go through the AfD process, so this either significantly increases the workload, or means these articles never get removed. However, I do have concerns of admins who misinterpret this criterion. I think one problem is how explicit an assertion has to be. For example, should mentioning 15,000 listeners be enough, or do we have to spell it out with "This person is notable as he has 15,000 listeners"? Mdwh (talk) 02:46, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Copied from Dlohcierekim talk page

Can you please review this and tell us why you felt Andrew Bonds had no indication of notability 02:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnevin (talk • contribs) Dlohcierekim 02:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but there is no indication of meeting WP:BIO in the article. Dlohcierekim 02:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The point of the discussion is that the article doesnt have to meet BIO or any other guideline/policy only assert notabilty can you reply at the discussionGnevin (talk) 02:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

If it wasn't under A7 (which I think is valid here, assertion that the guy is moderately successful is not the same as an assertion of notability), it could've just as easily been G11'd, since it was basically a glowing ad for the guy and his work. That's an entirely valid speedy. Speedy doesn't preclude a decent article being written, so if you can find a good number of independent and reliable sources which discuss this gentleman in depth, please feel free to write an article on him. Otherwise, you're arguing technicalities, we don't invalidate correct actions for not following the correct process. Seraphimblade 02:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Its not for the admin to decide what is notable just that their is an assertion and the claim of 15,000 is a claim of notability, I have no particular interest in this article it was picked at random Gnevin (talk) 02:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

copying omitted portion from my talk page ::::There is no need to restore as I don't feel it would stand a WP:Snow chance on passing. I'm not trying to pick on you in particular ,rather just highlighting how A7 is being using far outside the scope for which it is intended . Gnevin (talk) 02:33, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok thanks for you feedback , I wasn't attempting to attack you or your decision , just trying to improve the A7 process which seems a litte off to me at the minute Gnevin (talk) 02:43, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Copied from Gnevin talk page

I seem to be being drug into this discussion whether i want to or not.

I'm sorry, but there is no indication of meeting WP:BIO in the article. Dlohcierekim 02:11, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't see that this asserts meeting notability. If you disagree, please let me know what I've missed. Cheers, Dlohcierekim 02:17, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

To continue, not asserting notability does not usually suffice with me. In searching for WP:RS providing verifiable information, I come up with nothing that would help me expand the article. Dlohcierekim 02:20, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Having 15,000 listeners asserts notability? How? What wstandard of notability are you going by? There is no significant media coverage that aI can find. No third party sources? i seem to be missing something? Dlohcierekim 02:22, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The scope of CSD is to remove article that unquestionably do not meet inclusion criteria. That, IMHO, is my remit. That's why admins are supposed o be trusted. I'm supposed to have the judgment to make this call, and the open mindedness to reverse myself when in error. Dlohcierekim 02:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Survey of A7 Deletions

I've been doing some reviews lately on CSD work... A7 actually appears, based upon my limited non-scientific survey, to be one of the more reliably used tags. That being said, I think it is the one where (even when properly utilized) does the most biting of newbies.---EDIT: Forgot to sign:---Balloonman 17:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

BLP

I have restored my original heading. that was deleted as A7, not G11, as the below discussion shows, it was A7, with BLP concerns.

What about BLP , the guy ran for president if that isn't an assertion of notability I don't know what is. Of 20 articles tagged for speedy ,I found 5 which asserted some notablity , 3 where deleted thats 18% Gnevin (talk) 02:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

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