Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:17, 18 August 2012

Jimbo welcomes your comments and updates – he has an open door policy.

This is Jimbo Wales's talk page, where you can send them messages and comments.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

Archives: Index, Index, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252Auto-archiving period: 1 day

Archives

Index –index– October 28, 2001 – April 12, 2004 April 16, 2004 – August 23, 2004 August 28, 2004 – December 8, 2004 December 9, 2004 – March 23, 2005 March 23, 2005 – July 24, 2005 July 26, 2005 – September 9, 2005 September 9, 2005 – September 24, 2005 September – December 2005 January 2006 January – February 2006 February 2006 February 2006, cont. March 2006 April 2006 – late May 2006 May 24 – July 2006 July 2006 – August 2006 August 2006 Most of September 2006 Late September 2006 – Early November 2006 Most of November 2006 Late November 2006 – December 8, 2006 December 9, 2006 – Mid January 2007 From December 22, 2006 blanking Mid January 2007 – Mid February 2007 Mid February 2007– Feb 25, 2007 From March 2, 2007 blanking March 2–5, 2007 March 5–11, 2007 March 11 – April 3, 2007 April 2 – May 2, 2007 May 3 – June 7, 2007 June 9 – July 4, 2007 July 13 – August 17, 2007 August 17 – September 11, 2007 September 14 – October 7, 2007 October 28 – December 1, 2007 December 2 – December 16, 2007 December 15 – January 4, 2008 January 4 – January 30, 2008 January 30 – February 28, 2008 February 28 – March 11, 2008 March 9 – April 18, 2008 April 18 – May 30, 2008 May 30 – July 27, 2008 July 26 – October 4, 2008 October 4 – November 12, 2008 November 10 – December 10, 2008 December 5 – December 25, 2008 December 25 – January 16, 2009 January 15 – January 27, 2009 January 26 – February 10, 2009 February 8 – March 18, 2009 March 18 – May 6, 2009 May 5 – June 9, 2009 June 10 – July 11, 2009 July 12 – August 25, 2009 August 26 – October 3, 2009 October 4 – November 20, 2009 November 20 – December 21, 2009 December 22, 2009 – January 25, 2010 January 22, 2010 – February 22, 2010 February 22, 2010 – March 17, 2010 March 17, 2010 – April 9, 2010 April 11, 2010 – April 24, 2010 April 23, 2010 – May 12, 2010 May 10, 2010 – June 4, 2010 June 4, 2010 – June 26, 2010 June 26, 2010 – July 22, 2010 July 22, 2010 – August 23, 2010 August 4, 2010 – August 28, 2010 August 28, 2010 – September 14, 2010 September 13, 2010 – October 6, 2010 October 6, 2010 – November 8, 2010 November 8, 2010 – November 21, 2010 November 21, 2010 – December 6, 2010 December 6, 2010 – December 22, 2010 December 21, 2010 – January 17, 2011 January 16, 2011 – February 10, 2011 February 6, 2011 – March 19, 2011 March 16, 2011 – March 26, 2011 March 26, 2011 – April 22, 2011 April 22, 2011 – May 16, 2011 May 17, 2011 – June 9, 2011 June 10, 2011 – July 1, 2011 July 1, 2011 – July 15, 2011 July 16, 2011 – July 26, 2011 July 26, 2011 – August 15, 2011 August 14, 2011 – August 23, 2011 August 21, 2011 – August 31, 2011 August 30, 2011 – September 7, 2011 September 4, 2011 – September 25, 2011 September 26, 2011 – October 19, 2011 October 16, 2011 – November 5, 2011 November 4, 2011 – November 12, 2011 November 11, 2011 – November 24, 2011 November 24, 2011 – December 6, 2011 December 3, 2011 – December 14, 2011 December 10, 2011 – December 16, 2011 (RFC about the Stop Online Piracy Act) December 15, 2011 – December 30, 2011 December 27, 2011 – January 9, 2012 January 9, 2012 – January 18, 2012 January 17, 2012 – January 30, 2012 January 28, 2012 – February 12, 2012 February 7, 2012 – February 25, 2012 February 19, 2012 – March 4, 2012 February 27, 2012 – March 18, 2012 March 17, 2012 – April 2, 2012 March 31, 2012 – April 13, 2012 April 12, 2012 – April 18, 2012 April 18, 2012 – April 26, 2012 April 26, 2012 – May 6, 2012 May 2, 2012 – May 22, 2012 May 19, 2012 – June 9, 2012 June 4, 2012 – June 20, 2012 June 18, 2012 – June 28, 2012 June 26, 2012 – July 12, 2012 July 3, 2012 – July 22, 2012 July 19, 2012 – July 29, 2012 July 25, 2012 – August 9, 2012 August 7, 2012 – August 30, 2012 August 29, 2012 – September 13, 2012 September 13, 2012 – September 27, 2012 September 26, 2012 – October 5, 2012 September 24, 2012 – October 20, 2012 October 9, 2012 – October 31, 2012 October 29, 2012 – November 19, 2012 November 17, 2012 – December 5, 2012 December 2–15, 2012 December 15–28, 2012 December 24, 2012 – January 12, 2013 January 13–31, 2013 February 1–10, 2013 February 11–28, 2013 March 1–16, 2013 March 17–27, 2013 March 28 – April 6, 2013 April 6–19, 2013 April 19 – May 3, 2013 April 25 – May 8, 2013 May 6–19, 2013 May 18–30, 2013 May 27 – June 16, 2013 June 17–30, 2013 June 27 – July 30, 2013 July 31 – August 4, 2013 August 4–12, 2013 August 13–27, 2013 August 28 – September 4, 2013 September 5–10, 2013 September 11–22, 2013 September 24 – October 6, 2013 October 7–16, 2013 October 17–27, 2103 October 28 – November 6, 2013 November 7–19, 2013 November 20–27, 2013 November 28 – December 5, 2013 December 6–24, 2013 December 25–30, 2013 December 31, 2013 – January 14, 2014 January 15–24, 2014 January 25–29, 2014 January 30 – February 10, 2014 Archives not yet dated: 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 This manual archive index may be out of date. Future archives: 184 185 186

This page has archives. Sections older than 24 hours may be automatically archived by ClueBot III when more than 2 sections are present.

Does running for office confer automatic notability for an article?

I have seen a recent increase in bio articles about candidates running for office, especially now that many states have wrapped up their primaries, or presumptive nominees are locking up their chances ahead of time. Is it standard practice that someone whose article would never have been created, let alone pass an AfD, be allowed to stay based only on the fact that they are running for an office? And what happens if that person loses? At what point do we say that having run for a congressional district in rural Utah in 2012 is not a notable enough reason to be in Misplaced Pages? (the year 2020...2040... when the person dies?...)97.88.87.68 (talk) 17:49, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

See WP:POLITICIAN. --Tango (talk) 18:09, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Any such articles created should be redirected to the article for the district election, e.g. Kara Anastasio currently redirects to Ohio's 7th congressional district#Election results because she has done nothing to satisfy the general notability guide. Tarc (talk) 18:45, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

But let's be clear on what WP:POLITICIAN actually says on the subject: Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article". So a candidate who has not held a significant office previously may be notable anyway, and therefore merit their own article. Some people like to go around before elections blanking and redirecting almost any "candidate" article they can find for deletion; sometimes its warranted, sometimes its not. Neutron (talk) 22:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Possible, but uncommon. When I have sifted through these sorts of articles on occasion, I've seen a few candidates who were notable for, say, being a noted leader in an industry, or a prominent and covered business owner. Tarc (talk) 23:12, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it is too uncommon, consider Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. He is only notable for running for office. When it comes to candidates, they should be judged based on GNG. Some may be notable only for running. The important aspect is making sure the coverage isn't trivial. Many candidates will get a lot of trivial mentions, fewer will get in depth coverage. Ryan Vesey 23:45, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

The big problem is that we get coverage of somebody running against an incumbent who is only being covered because they are a candidate; and the only coverage of them is not on their own merits as notable persons, but rather due to their status as candidates or nominees. A twenty-year-old living in an upstairs apartment does not become notable just because he filed for and received a major party nomination to take on an incumbent: the notability if any attaches to the race, not the nominee(s), if they would not otherwise meet WP:GNG - it's kinda like WP:BLP1E that way. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

To summarize the situation: An incumbent has an article. The election has an article. A challenger is running, but if he hasn't held past elective office his notability is questioned. His article is deleted. FEC filings, Open Secrets, On the Issues, Project Vote Smart all provide information on federal candidates. Even if that material for the challenger is merged into the election article, let alone his background, it is deleted for Bias and Undue Weight as the incumbent has that material in his own article, not the election article. I don't know why everyone pretends this is a new problem when this game is played every single election year, even in elections which are polled as being close. A lot of voters would like to get information on politicians from Misplaced Pages, and are surprised by the official view (consensus of Admins) that who will represent them is too trivial to cover beyond the official campaign site. This is the incumbent advantage. Even Bill Foster, who had founded a major cimpany with his brother and won a Nobel Prize In science, was considered unnotable and had his article deleted countless times the first time he ran. Don't pretend this is unbiased. ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.78.81.245 (talk) 16:20, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

If the person who is a candidate won a Nobel Prize, then they meet the notability requirements outside of the political sphere - if it's provable, then it should be good, IMHO dangerouspanda 16:26, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Any voters coming to the Misplaced Pages to find information on a candidate are about as intelligent as those who once said they voted for Jimmy Carter because he had a nice smile. The "anyone can edit" model does not lend itself well to creating neutral political articles. Tarc (talk) 16:40, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

That's not true, but thank you for sharing. As I wrote, "FEC filings, Open Secrets, On the Issues, Project Vote Smart all provide information on federal candidates." You find those biased? Perhaps you worked on the Eric Hovde article, which ignored those sources as well? Or do Tea Party candidates get special dispensation from including facts? Or being notable? Your bullying snarkiness, particularly about Democrats, may amuse some and discourage others, but this is a discussion of notability, and the double standard being applied. Not your opinion of Jimmy Carter supporters. This is 2012. I looked at that Hovde article after he lost the primary this week. It was written two months ago, never had serious souces, and its 'facts' were fluff from his campaign website. Glittering generalities with no non-partisan information. I would like to see decent articles about every candidate for federal office who has some actual support. You would prefer to try to derail the conversation. Tell me. Does your bullying, insulting and tantrum-throwing usually have the desired effect of ending discussions? I only ask because you do it so often you must believe it works. How many editors have you driven off? 184.78.81.245 (talk) 13:25, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Baseless complaining aside....I find such coverage (FEC filings, etc...) to be routine and not a basis for establishing notability. A person has to have done something prior to becoming a candidate in order to justify an article. To have held another elected position, be a notable businessman or received some sort of coverage in reliable sources. There are indeed cases though where just being a candidate for office itself attracts reliable source coverage, such as Jean Carnahan. Tarc (talk) 14:08, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

I have redirected the Hovde article to United States Senate election in Wisconsin, 2012. If that does not stick, it will be taken to AfD. Tarc (talk) 14:12, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Again, you pretend to miss the point. Hovde lost, so who would argue against deletion at this point? You're closing the barn door after the horse has left the building. A merge and redirect is appropriate, with its history kept as an example for what future articles should NOT be. This was a very close primary election. A good article would have helped readers. This was a bad article, despite the 'help' of various Wikipedians after it was deleted and restored two months ago. Those people were well aware of what other politician articles include, but they chose to meet the letter not the spirit of notability and references. It was, and remained, a campaign brochure. I did NOT present FEC filings etc as proof of notability. My point was that if an article exists for a candidate, certainly those should be included. If a separate article does not exist, then that information should be in the election article and not deleted as Undue Weight and Bias. Would you like me to repost my first comment with bolding? I do find notability to be inherent in a candidate running for federal office with real support. So do many other people, including many of those on the Project over the years. You do not. Fine. Make that point and stop making strawman arguments, claiming I'm saying something I'm not. I'm not doing 'baseless complaining', I am pointing out facts. You choose to whinge and make excuses and go off topic and resort to name-calling. That's not what a serious Wikipedian does. My comments deserve despect and consideration. Your attitude is a serious problem, whether or not you realize it. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 17:52, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you believe "notability to be inherent in a candidate running for federal office with real support", but unfortunately that runs counter to the consensus regarding politician notability at this time. Non-notable politicians should not have any info on their campaign in any Misplaced Pages article, either a standalone bio or at the target of the candidate name's redirect. Anything else? Tarc (talk) 18:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

...or at the target of the candidate name's redirect. It is your opinion, not the consensus, but thank you for finally providing your view. I'm sure it will come as a great surprise to many that even in a close election, no mention may be made of one of the candidates, presumably including the campaign website. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 19:10, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Simply running for office is not sufficient for an article, as per consensus on the project. Candidate listings, tiny local newspapers, blogs, and the candidate website are NOT sufficient to add additional notability. If the person does have additional notability - such as a Nobel Prize - then as long as it's provable via 3rd party reliable sources then they may have deserved an article (and still might). An absence or presence of an encyclopedia article (that is WP:NOTNEWS) would not have had an effect on an election - anyone who thinks it would does not understand the purpose of an encyclopedia, or might be thinking promotion is somehow permitted dangerouspanda 19:07, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for sharing, but that is NOT the issue being addressed. Tarc did address it, and I replied. 184.78.81.245 (talk) <s@pan style="font-size: smaller;" class="autosigned">—Preceding undated comment added 19:14, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Right, and the above answers the question - and pretty much should have stopped it further. You're making it sound like Misplaced Pages is at fault for not having an article, and therefore someone lost. The policy is clear, and has been explained - there should be no further need for discussion here. If you wish to try and change the policy, that can be discussed elsewhere. dangerouspanda 19:28, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The statement by Tarc was that an election article should ignore certain candidates, even in a close election, is both risible and unencyclopedic. There are articles about every federal election in every U.S. state, as has been the custom for years, so your comment doesn't make sense. The election article is the target of the candidate name's redirect. That's what Tarc said. You've never contributed to this Project, have you? Reporting a close election as if it were uncontested would be misleading, yet both of you are claiming that's what Misplaced Pages should do. All right. Any more Wikipedians with thoughts on this? 184.78.81.245 (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

You're taking my statement to a rather ludicrous extreme. What I feel the article should look like is pretty much like United States Senate election in Wisconsin, 2012 looks like at the present, just a straight-forward who's who about the election and participants. No great laundry lists of what the candidates positions are on every topic under the sun, their oppoent's reactions, and the counter-reactions. Tarc (talk) 02:15, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

How is that "a rather ludicrous extreme"? In that election article Hovde's name is listed. His generic occupation of 'businessman' is listed. His campaign website is listed. Polling results, forecasts and rankings are included for the race in great detail, but nothing about campaign contributions, issue positions, personal or business background relevant to office, debates, interviews or newspaper coverage. No links to FEC, Follow the Money, Project Vote Smart, On the Issues, or C-Span. It's not that no one has bothered to add the, but that you claim the 'consensus' is that they are not and will not be permitted. (There is a link to Open Secrets, but I added that recently so it isn't relevant.) Election articles in previous years always included campaign finance information, at least Open Secrets. The current articles clearly used the earlier ones as a base, yet all that has been 'cleansed' as unimportant and not relevant? Unlike forecasts, rankings and poll results? The Tommy Thompson and Tammy Baldwin articles have all that and much more about their political lives, with little else. Presumably that's what readers are interested in, and what is considered important, relevant and notable about them. I see a troubling double standard. Neither of your names appears on the Admin list, yet you claim to speak with great knowledge and authority. You are absolutely adamant that nothing about candidates, even in very close elections, appear anywhere, in any article, in Misplaced Pages unless they have previously held a state or federal office and alreay have an article on that basis. You are willing to now make an exception for a Nobel Prize winner. Pokemen characters, TV serial episodes, TV sitcom characters (as opposed to the actors) are all considered notable, worthy of a separate article, yet you claim there is a 'consensus' that a candidate in serious contention for U.S. federal office is not only unworthy of an article, but no mention in the election article beyond name, occupation and campaign website. No one else has weighed in on this, including Jimmy. Are any of those facts in dispute? 184.78.81.245 (talk) 13:03, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

As the person who started this thread let me state my opinion. No candidate for an office should have an article who otherwise would not have an article. With the possible exception of a candidate for President/Vice President from one of the two major parties (or to make it global, any major party of a country with a real chance of electability), just to make for the possibility that one day a relatively unknown were to make it, it's happened in America's past, though with the depth of Misplaced Pages covering every House candidate and war hero this is unlikely that a Presidential or VP candidate would be unknown to the Misplaced Pages, whereas in the past a candidate may have been unknown to the leading encyclopedias of the age (we've had some very obscure VPs). I agree with Panda and Tarc on how to structure an article on an election, though the way I interpret NOTNEWS, I really think all election articles should be held off on until after the election, IMHO. I disagree with Tarc's assertion that people who use WP for learning about candidates are not intelligent voters, well I agree that they arent intelligent, but unfortunately a vast majority of our voters ARENT intelligent! No polling I can find has been done, but I'm sure more than we would like are coming to Misplaced Pages when they see someone's name they dont know, and using this as a place to find information. Look at the fact that candidates are now using Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Blogger, and USA Today had an article a week or two ago about candidates using Pinterest even! Is using Misplaced Pages to frame their views any different from their point of view than using any form of social media?97.88.87.68 (talk) 16:01, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for rejoining the conversation. I am surprised you consider the FEC, Follow the Money, Project Vote Smart, On the Issues and C-Span to be the equivalent of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+ and Blogger. Is that only true for election articles, or are you suggesting C-SPAN be removed as a reliable reference in all Misplaced Pages articles? How about the FEC and other government sources? Should they too be removed as reliable references? I've never heard this suggestion of yours that only campaign websites should be included for politicians. Quite thought-provoking. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 16:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Kara Anastasio isn't notable. Just because in three minutes on Google I find out she's wife of John Hagelin doesn't count (not even worth a redirect, apparently). The Washington Post doesn't count, and it probably risks much even to mention lesser sources. No, there's nothing to be done for this. If you want to do something people here will respect and admire you for, follow Peter Cohen's example and write up a bunch of blather about how Misplaced Pages's purpose is to provide biased campaign coverage and try to get their tax exemption revoked. Meanwhile, do like everyone else and use Google - the top ten hits give you a more thorough, less biased view of the subject than Misplaced Pages ever will. Because Google doesn't believe in "ethics". Wnt (talk) 05:59, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. She does not technically fall into the "notable for one event only" category, as she was the Democratic nominee twice. Was that your point? Regardless, she should have redirects to the appropriate election articles. It seems you are taking the view of Tarc and others that if a person isn't notable enough for her own article, then only her name, occupations and campaign website should be allowed to be included in the election article. Perhaps her pre-election poll results also, but that's the limit. Is that correct? Also, you're wrong about Google. I recently googled for a candidate name and the first 14 references were her campaign website and 13 subsections of it. Not the old all-in-one-area display, but 14 SEPARATE listings. I have yet to find the relevant FEC, Follow the Money, Project Vote Smart, On the Issues and C-Span links in the top ten, and often not on the top 100 or more. Why do you consider those biased and not 'thorough' sources? The results depend on the candidate, of course. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 16:34, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Database wikis

Many editors on Misplaced Pages feel this burning driving need to dump databases into Misplaced Pages. It may be to document every player and every match played in every lacrosse game for instance or every track on every music CD or list every stop on all the train or bus timetables or every political opinion for every election - the list is endless. These tend to form articles with no real secondary source content except a one line lead and often the citations if any are iffy. I'm not sure if it is just obsessive or they really think it is important or whether they are worried about their sources disappearing and they want the stuff preserved for posterity. The big problem with it all besides just not being notable is that Misplaced Pages cannot act to preserve stuff as we require sources, also of course who is going to stop it being completely vandalised if the originator stops watching the stuff?

I am not asking for a crusade against such editors, in fact in many cases such a war would be lost because of the numbers of them, what I think would be better is if a way could be provided to satisfy their urge without damaging Misplaced Pages. In fact what I would like set up is wikis for such database facts where people could become acknowledged experts and entries could be marked as checked by such people and were protected better against random vandalism. We could then refer to entries there in the externals section as well as any secondary source and there would be much less pressure here to do anything besides put in halfway interesting stuff that had been written about in secondary sources rather than listings of team members back to 1870. Dmcq (talk) 11:33, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Not 100% sure, but I thought wikisource was for that kind of stuff? IRWolfie- (talk) 14:22, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Collections of facts would be new work, perhaps combined from multiple published sources, whereas Wikisource tends to hold separate text documents, rather than updated lists of basic facts or statistics. -Wikid77 15:45, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

• Restrict minor entries to be only in lists: There was a recent BLP removal request from one of those myriad 20th century Olympic athletes, because the article gained speculation text, but the woman was not even listed in the "full" lists of greatest, highest, mostest whatever sports athletes, where those non-tabloid lists are perhaps too boring to create, rather just create athlete articles for rumors. We need a guideline policy wp:ONLYLIST, to emphasize limiting all those thousands, millions of athletes into only lists of yearly award winners, where the person's name redirects into a list, not have a stub article for everyone who ever "moved a muscle". In the case of this athlete, I wanted to know the other "greatest" athletes for each year or nation, and WP had no such article, just picked the one woman who wanted not to be discussed for rumors. So, I saw that as a major failure of WP, to not have lists of yearly leaders, or world records, in each sport. See essay "wp:How many footballers?" about the current 70,000 footballer articles, while the website Playerhistory.com has documented over 242,000 footballers, perhaps in lists. Also, some lists are copyvio problems, where the entire list is a copyrighted work, and only part of the rank can be repeated. This long-list concept goes back to those 171,000 numbered asteroids which were stored in a "database" at Harvard, stored in 37 large datafiles, but were expanded in WP as over 2,000 asteroid articles, listing only 100 asteroids per article, when 1,000 per article would have given a better data mining scan, as a sample size of 1,000 by summarizing each whole article. We could not get consensus to avoid tiny lists, so those 2,000+ articles remained. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:50, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

• See WikiData. It was announced earlier this year . (Journalism is important for an informed citizenry! Read/support your Signpost! ;) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:21, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
• WikiData seems good to update town populations: Currently, we use town-group templates to keep current population figures for all the 2,600(?) cities/towns in Austria, through the Austria City/Town infobox. However, it seems WikiData would be more efficient, to expand auto-retrieved population figures for larger nations. Population figures become outdated very quickly, due to the tedious nature of updating counts in each small town, while larger cities tend to be updated sooner due to the wider interest and fewer of them. This backlog of outdated populations is a law of "information physics", so beyond Austria's towns, or similar template-based population updates, expect population figures of mid-size towns to be outdated for years. It has to be made easier for typical editors to update all towns within an hour or so; otherwise population fanatics tend to burnout, and population counts fall out of date. I think both Austria and Germany's town articles have current, template-based populations, and there were plans to also update town articles of France. -Wikid77 15:45, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

We seem to be forgetting in this thread that Misplaced Pages, in addition to being an encyclopedia, does have the content of an almanac. Such lists are found in almanacs, thus OK for Misplaced Pages.97.85.211.124 (talk) 15:28, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

YGM?

You (and the circling vultures) may want to see some of this. 99.251.125.65 (talk) 03:37, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Even I, with long years of experience, am a bit astonished that we have a longstanding feud resulting in interaction bans, sockpuppeting, and all that... about whether mid-sentence references to should be to the Beatles or The Beatles. I think, per the amusing discussion here recently about editing and drinking caffeine or alcohol, that some people need to have either more or less of one of those two, depending on personal affinity and circumstances.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:05, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

There have seemingly been arbitration cases over diacritics, so anything is possible! IRWolfie- (talk) 16:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom has also had to deal with disputes over the capitalisation of titles and the use of hyphens and en dashes. Typography is serious business. Robofish (talk) 17:16, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not the grammar that is the problem. The problem is from the politics going on behind the scenes over the months and years with this the/The issue. A admin and many reg editors have been banned, warned and generally discouraged at the bias that become apparent after reading some history. Side issues are raised for each and every opposer of one main pointy editor that just will not collaborate with anybody. He appears to be backed by admins and other "warning and blocking" editors that agree with him. **sigh** I have attempted several times in the last months to shed some light on this only to be banned and indeffed incorrectly many times by drive by righteous doers after attempting to use WP processes to correct some injustices and unwarranted behaviours (IMO). Since I don't care anymore about my own account, here I am, one more time. Yeah, sometimes I have given up after a block and spouted obscenities against some of these gang members but I have never started the feud and seldom been granted audience with any opposing points or neutral clarification requests. IPs are clearly not welcome on WP and the editors seem terrified of them resulting in fear mongering and attack dog habits. My main attacker started with "He knows too much" and it blossomed from there. This really verifies the really bad press WP is getting elsewhere online. AFAIC the typical collaboration on WP is only repression of edits for fear of reprisal driven and the articles suffer with only the POV of editors with the biggest, baddest and scariest user pages with huge decals and brag 1.38M edits. Geeezz I have had seasoned editors call me an "idiot" and "stupid", let alone continuously "troll" only to have the edit diffs removed and magically disappear, after I was user page blocked, by admins attempting to smooth things over. The history of these DOES NOT EXIST anymore. Some helped me but most helped their gang members. Bet you a nickle this and my account doesn't last more than 24 hours for correcting grammar. LOL. Thanks. /rant 99.251.125.65 (talk) 21:39, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Oh Yeah. Thanks for your response. I am honoured. 99.251.125.65 (talk) 21:41, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Fiction & Mass-Culture

if you use google-translate, you could read at ru:Википедия:Форум/Вымышленные миры, that some administrators insists that Fiction & Mass-Culture should be prohibited in Russian Misplaced Pages as irrelevant to encylcopledy, and "kindly" suddegets a good proposal to (re-)move all articles about Fiction & Mass-Culture from Misplaced Pages to other server...
• whether is it right for purpose of Wikipeida as a Free Encylopedia?
• and whether they have right to do this? (Idot (talk) 19:12, 17 August 2012 (UTC))

you could also check voting about Fiction & Mass-Culture at ru:Участник:Abiyoyo/Отзывы/Вымышленные миры‎, 22 people (including 13 of admin & non-admin closures) strongly supported deleting Fiction & Mass-Culture, and 44 people (including 8 of admin & non-admin closures) strongly disagreed deleting such articles, and 3 people (3 of admin & non-admin closures) weakly supported deleting some articles (Idot (talk) 19:22, 17 August 2012 (UTC))

Website is in the black list of Misplaced Pages: B E A T L E S. R U

Website is in the black list of Misplaced Pages: B E A T L E S. R U. But Misplaced Pages uses materials of the club - illegally (article: The Beatles - in Russian Misplaced Pages). Misplaced Pages does not contain the permission. Club does not contain the Creative Commons license. Club got terrible moral damage (and not only moral). Thus, Misplaced Pages is offender. Report was made already for: http://www.iprcenter.gov/referral (IPR Center). Misplaced Pages must to wait big troubles (if will continue to violate copyright). Warning. The only one. Kind regards. - 95.29.75.169 (talk) 20:55, 18 August 2012 (UTC).

Would you mind restating that a little more clearly? AutomaticStrikeout 21:26, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

The user is alleging that the Russian-language Misplaced Pages's article on the Beatles contains material copyrighted by the Beatles.ru website, and making legal threats to the effect that the offending material should be removed or Misplaced Pages will be sued. Someone should look into it. Evanh2008 22:11, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Prem Rawat

Oh dear. Misplaced Pages's old friend 'The Lord of the Universe' aka Prem Rawat, seems to be winning the battle to 'Rule Misplaced Pages' again. It seems that despite the banning of former Rawat champion Jossi Fresco, there is little remaining will to resist His dogged followers who just will not give up their clean-up campaign. I think us objectors have nearly one and all tired of the battle. Sorry, but the Prem Rawat article seems a lost cause. Maybe someone could just put a statement at the top to warn people that the article is being inexorably rewritten by followers of the guy. Cheers.PatW (talk) 22:17, 18 August 2012 (UTC)