Misplaced Pages

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Questions about Admin Culture

I'm writing a feature for Radio Open Source on admin culture, I was wondering if there was someone out there who might have something to say, vis-a-vis groups and cliques in the admin world, loyalty to other admin friends, relationships in the betwen administrators. Email me at: jessica at radioopensource.org, but make it an email address. Much appreciated!

Proposed naming convention: military vehicles

Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (military vehicles): please comment on the talk page. —Michael Z. 2006-08-15 20:50 Z

Suggestion for German language page approval implementation

This post has been moved to the proposal page Misplaced Pages:German page approval solution

Proposal: RfA process

See initial draft at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship process

Notability of politicians - how far down do we go?

Just came across Robert Parkyn, a City of Calgary, Alberta alderman from 1926 to 1944. Someone is putting in the entire historical list of Calgary aldermen. Is this is a good thing or a bad thing? --John Nagle 05:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I do not see why it is inherently a bad thing to have knowledge about people being put into Misplaced Pages. Of course, if we only rely on web references for checking purposes people may be a little surprised about how much just isn't there. These people are likely to have a lot of written information about them.

Also, in what sense are you using the word "notability". Ansell 05:24, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not paper. Notability is just there to make sure we can meet verifiability and NPOV without original research. An alderman likely has enough written about him to ensure that. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is also not a junkyard. It's not just there for verifiability/NPOV - we don't want articles that are written about not-notable topics, even if they're verifiable and NPOV. Blocks of sidewalk in New York City, or for that matter, Bismarck North Dakota are not notable enough for an article. --Improv 13:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I completely disagree with User:Improv; one man's junkyard is another man's treasure trove. I think that the very nature of Misplaced Pages is to allow for the inclusion of those articles which may not appeal to a specific class of users. I think that folks living in Bismarck night vociferously disagree with your claim that they are not notable enough for an entry. Elitism is hardly appropriate here in WP.Pete 00:59, 26 October 2006 (UTC)arcayne

O RLY? If a block of sidewalk has multiple non-trivial media mentions, I'm guessing it's a pretty special chunk of sidewalk. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:36, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Like, for example, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, outside Mann's Chinese Theater. I am pretty much guessing that folks in Europe or China aren't the least bit interested in that particular block(s) of sidewalk. However, we kinda are. ;) Arcayne 04:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

John Nagle has not told you the whole story. Robert was a City of Calgary Alderman for 17 years on and off, he was also a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta for 4 years while still serving as an Alderman, he was chairman of the Calgary Public Library and helped found a Federal Canadian political party. If that is not noteable then what is. --Cloveious 16:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

i should note that in my statement above, I wasn't meaning to comment in particular on Robert Parkyn -- i was talking in the abstract. --Improv 17:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

In general I'm uncomfortable with the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office. There is verifiable information about many of these people but I think we should establish WP:NOT . In specific, I'd probably say delete him: he has done a number of relatively unimportant things. The Land 19:20, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

In this case, is Lexis Nexis going to find info about a guy who was alderman and MLA in the 1920s? One problem I have with Misplaced Pages at times is that every little tiny infinitisimal thing that has anything to do with United States popular culture seems to get a 10K page, while important individuals from before World War II, especially those that aren't American but sometimes even Americans, aren't in the Misplaced Pages. I added a US Congressman just a few days ago who wasn't in Misplaced Pages (Michael J. Kennedy of New York (1939-1943)). Yet we have dozens of articles on Neopets. --Charlene 04:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

An alderman isn't minor if you live in his city; he influenced the lives of thousands of people in significant ways. Why does it bother you if someone else writes an article about him? It's not like we're running low on disk space. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• In the past, a reasonable solution to many stubs about relatively minor positions has been to merge them to e.g. List of Calgary aldermen. >Radiant< 11:07, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as to support "the idea that we should document every occupant of every relatively minor public office", if "should" in that context means that it's a problem if some aldermen remain undocumented. (When I started editing Misplaced Pages, there were some U.S. Congressmembers lacking articles. Now, that was a problem that had to be addressed.) On the other hand, I don't see the problem with retaining such an article if someone is willing to research and write it. JamesMLane t c 15:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

It is a shame that others do not take your attitude about articles that people will bother to research and build up. Misplaced Pages should not bite any editors, not just newcomers. By trashing an articles subject as unimportant in ones personal view, one may not be putting the entire picture in. It is not sensible to be making up classifications on top of the original policies just to get ones personal viewpoints accepted about having neat little categories of things instead of thing that someone has actually considered to be their contribution to the sum of human knowledge. Ansell 03:01, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

User deleting inoffensive comments from own talk page

I know removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed, but what should one do when a user blanks out their own talk page (including an archive link which had warnings on)? Should they still be warned about it? Should the talk page be reverted? Would be interesting to know what to do in this case... - ||| antiuser (talk) (contribs) 01:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Depends on why they blanked their talk page. Is there a specific incident you are referring to? (Of course there is, or you wouldn't have posted this.) Some people archive their talk page, others don't. Some delete old comments thinking that the page history acts as an archive. I think it really comes down to intent. Why did they blank their talk page?~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 01:40, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm referring specifically to User_talk:Snowbound. I'm just used to hitting history any time I see a blank talk page, since usually people do that without archiving to get rid of warnings, but this user didn't seem to have anything particularly bad on there. I didn't know whether to warn them about it, revert it or just leave it alone. ||| antiuser (talk) (contribs) 02:42, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• It's their talk page and it's not disruptive. I'd say leave it to him. Oh and by the way, your statement that "removing warnings and block templates from your own talk page is not allowed" is incorrect (specifically, there is ongoing debate about this and consensus has not been reached to make it policy). However, removing a message means you've read it, so subsequent behavior may warrant sanctions. >Radiant< 09:44, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• If you want Misplaced Pages to attract users I suggest letting people do what they want with their talk page. On the other hand if you want to chase people away, then hassling people by interfering with their talk pages is a great idea. Wimstead 13:12, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Wimstead; as long as they aren't getting rid of something important like warnings then why care? It's their talk page. I myself have removed stuff from my talk page (just the welcoming info, I believe) just to clean it up and make it easier for me to navigate. I don't see why this shouldn't be acceptable. --The Way 06:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

• A user's talk page is a tool they use to communicate with. We all create differently, let us not attempt constrainment unless really necessary. Terryeo 07:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

This is a stupid idea, and is an example of how petty certain members of Misplaced Pages are getting lately - what users have or don't have on their talk page is completely irrellivent to the success of the project. Certainly I'll be damned if I'm forced to keep a warning on my talk page where everyone can see it - why should a warning be a badge of shame? What positive good will ever come of that? I second Wimstead; stop dedicating your energy to scaring people off and limiting freedom to edit our own user area. It's *his* talk page, he can do what he likes to it. Leave him alone, and stop being such a petty minded freak.--▫Bad▫harlick♠ 17:17, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to get into a debate about the topic here, but just would like to point out a good reason to prohibit removing warnings. If there is a problem with a user and an admin goes to the person's talk page, they should be able to see the history in order to help them decide what level of warning/block is appropriate. Matchups 03:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I have a question: I received a warning for cutting material from here. However, I had removed frm where I - as a newbie - had incorrectly placed it to put it at the bottom of the page, with its own header. So, I wasn't vandalizing other's text and whatnot. Is it appropriate for me to clear off the warning from my talk page?Arcayne 02:39, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPA's scope

I have a question regarding WP:NPA's scope - I was informed recently that only attacks on editors constitute a violation. But what if a demeaning reference to women as "virgins" and senior citizens as "old-age pensioners" is posted on a user talk page? There are many women and old people who contribute to Misplaced Pages and (will) find those "general" statements quite insulting. While an administrator informed me that such statements are not violative of WP:NPA, I'd like to have more opinions. Rama's arrow 18:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the reference to "virgins" was referring to women per say. I think it was more referring to children and people young enough that adults want to protect them from profanity and nudity (and presumably, the adults that are doing the protecting). At any rate, looking at that specific comment I don't think it was ment to be an attack on anyone or group of people so much as it was meant to convey impatience with people who don't approve of certian language and images. I think you have to take things in context, and not cry "attack" or "Racist" or "Sexist" at every possible opportunity. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the user's block record, you'll know there is a reason to discount WP:AGF. I have never heard of the use of the term "virgin" for "children" or "young people." Rama's arrow 20:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

"Virgin" means someone who has never had sex. It does not matter if that person is male or female, young or old. Though most of the time children have never had sex (i.e., are virgins), and it is children people seem to want to protect from any reference to sex. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 13:20, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Exactly - the meaning is not "children," but those who "have not had sex." This "insult" could apply to the 40-year old virgin. Rama's arrow 15:25, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

My point was that it was not specifically aimed at women. Also, taken in the context of a discussion on censorship it seemed to be referring to children and those who seek to protect them by censoring sexual content. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:27, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, an administrator has advised me that its not a violation of NPA. I was looking for more feedback, but I guess this settles the point. Thanks, Rama's arrow 15:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Just a note: the relevant policy here would be WP:CIVIL. This was not intended as a personnal attack. I believe it is indeed improper but it is not targeted at anyone in particular. Pascal.Tesson 15:36, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought so too. The only thing that made me feel that it was a "personal attack" was the explicit sexual insinuation - that is a subject which is generally deeply personal. Rama's arrow 15:44, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

"Pensioners" is not demeaning in the slightest. It was the official term used in Britain until fairly recently (and the editor whose talk page it was on is apparently from London), it is accurate (since they are indeed drawing a pension), and it is still the most common term (along with OAPs) used for elderly people in everyday speech, including by most pensioners themselves. "Senior citizens" still sounds patronising to me, both to the people themselves and to those of us who are younger (since "senior" actually means "more important than", not "older than"), and is rarely used in everyday speech in Britain. "Virgins" is quite obviously being used in a lighthearted way to mean people who are naive and innocent; why on earth it should be taken as referring specifically to women is beyond me. This was in no way a personal attack or uncivil in my opinion and I'm puzzled why anyone would take it to be. -- Necrothesp 00:00, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

If you would kindly refer to the contributions and block record of this user, you'll know why I'm anxious to determine that no policy is being broken here. The point of concern is not his use of the terms "virgins" or "pensioners," but his attitude and reason for doing so. More in the avenue of WP:CIVIL than ]. Rama's arrow 00:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused. Are you commenting on his use of a banner on his talk page or his wider edits? You appeared to be asking for comment on the former, not the latter. You also did seem concerned by his use of those two words (refer to your first post at the top of this section). -- Necrothesp 00:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay in responding - my concern is on what he is posting on this talkpage banner. Even so, I consider the matter closed as an administrator and general opinion here recommend that its ok. Rama's arrow 20:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

IMHO, it's not a personal attack because it's not directed at anyone in particular. My understanding is NPA only applies when we're attacking someone in particular. For example, if someone says, "I think all XYZs should die" (XYZ could be anything ranging from race, to religion to whatever) somewhere, clearly intending it as a general statement rather then directing at anyone in particular, this is not a personal attack even if it's very inappropriate for wikipedia and extremely offensive. On the other hand, if someone says to a user "Go and die you XYZ" this is clearly a personal attack. Using the above example, if someone were to say, to a user "go away, virgins/pensioners shouldn't be reading this article anyway", this would be a personal attack. Nil Einne 22:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Acceptable username policy

We're having some debate about the username policy over at Misplaced Pages talk:Username.

Basically, about a month ago, the line which said random usernames aren't allowed was removed because it was causing problems (people were getting blocked erratically. like how User:Asdfghjkl:; was blocked on sight, where as User:Lkjhgfdsa and User:Asdfg12345 were not blocked, and have gone on to be decent contributers).

Now User:pschemp wants to add the line in. Because he things it should be kept. And he insists it should be kept on the policy page because there was never consensus to remove it (although there was never consensus to add it in the very first place.)

Can some people go take a look and give some third opinions? Both regarding whether the line saying "no random usernames" should or shouldn't be kept on the policy page when there is no consensus to keep it; and regarding whether we should keep it in the long term.

--`/aksha 04:57, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

There was never consensus to remove that part of the policy in the first place, thus its stays until consensus to remove it reached.pschemp | talk 06:03, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I support removing it. The presumption that random username = vandal/sock is utterly ungrounded. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 06:08, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Prove that please. While your opinion is nice, until consensus is reached, we don't remove things. That's the whole point. Your addition of an opinion does not consensus make. pschemp | talk 06:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

No offense intended, but people are given a better impression when it doesn't look like a user picked their name by randomly pounding the keyboard or dragging a finger across the center line. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 06:24, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Hence why I put an explanation on my user page. Anyway, judge by the contributor, not the name. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 06:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

i agree. Usernames that look well thought-out do give a better impression. But it doesn't mean usernames which don't look well thought-out should become a bannable offense. --`/aksha 06:52, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I still think it should be discouraged. It could be done in a nicer fashion, of course. Slap together a quick substable template saying "pick a coherent username" or something like that and stick it on the talk page when banning them. User gets a name we can understand and it's all good. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 07:01, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no problems with discouraging it. I don't think many people would. I do, however, have a problem with the "ban on sight" approach some people seem to be taking. Whether they look good or not, there are people with very random names who seem to be contributing fine. --`/aksha 07:34, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

There is human error to consider. It's highly unlikely that they'd catch every randomly named account in existence. Those that slip through the cracks with good edits will inevitably survive, but only by a stroke of luck. Plus, a change in username can be forced on those editors if it was really deemed necessary. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 07:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

the human error in this case is exceptionally high when compared to the other username guildlines. Throughout all the discussions, no one's even bothered to try and provide some definitions/boundaries for what is meant by "random". Simply because it's almost impossible. For policies like "usernames should personally attack other groups of people", it's (in most cases) glaringly obvious whether a username falls into the category or not. The blurry grey area in between is small. For randomness, i'm afraid the blurry grey area is huge. The most obvious example i can think of is admins who don't read leet doing "block on sights" for usernames written in leet codes. As a matter of fact, leet often looks very "random" to people not familiar with it. Maybe we should disallow usernames written entirely in leet too then? See my point? --`/aksha 13:06, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

"the human error in this case is exceptionally high when compared to the other username guildlines" another statement you cannot prove Yaksha. Again, where is your proof? Where are the legions of wronged users who have complained?pschemp | talk 13:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

fine, let me rephrase it into "the human errer in this case would be exceptionally high".

or actually, i don't even need to. I think the example i pointed out on the username talk page of how when one username was blocked, and another almost identical one was not proves the point. I don't suppose you could dish up any example of such inconsistency when it comes to enforcing the other accpetable username rules?

the legions of wronged users...well, i hardly except newbie who gets banned within two mins of registering to make any public complaints.

you demand proof for a lot of things pschemp, but i don't see you ever supplying any proofs for your claims. (explaining how each of the other examples of random usernames that i found (on the username talk page) were in fact 'not random' or 'leet' would be a very good place to start. Since you dismissed all the examples on the basis of them all actually being not random.) --`/aksha 14:11, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Who's to say what is and isn't random? What seems random to you may be a deeply meaningful screename that a person has used on all sorts of websites throughout their internet life. Lets say, for example that someone comes along with the username "SACGWDGSRG18" That seems a little random, doesn't it? I've never used that screen name, and probably never will as I always use ONUnicorn, but I could see myself having picked it at one time. To me that would be a meaningful name as it consists of the first, middle, maiden, and married initials of my mother's name, followed by the first, middle, and last initials of my father's name, followed by the first, middle, and last initials of my (maiden) name, and ending with my age when I first went on the internet (all caps because they are all proper nouns). On the other hand, if we block "random usernames" that seems to me like a very blockable name. Why bite new contributors before they've done anything wrong (or right for that matter)? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Who's to say what is and isn't offensive? Yet, we make that decision all the time and its the same thing. Nothing here is 100% as it is run by human beings and the two cases are the same. At some point, a line needs to be drawn. An example, from last night User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq blocked on sight, had already vandalised the moment he created his account. Check the contribs. This happens all the time. The other point here is that this is a long standing policy and until there is consensus to change it, we don't. That's how wikipedia works. And blocks are not biting newbies, especially when done early so as to save them the aggravations of having to change later. A perfectly polite message is left for them. pschemp | talk 16:32, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't think there is anyone anywhere who would argue that a username like "F_U_U_(insert group of people here)_FREAKS" is not offensive. For the most part it is patently obvious when things are offensive. On the other hand, "aslgore fjoenroe", while it seems like randomness (in this case it was), may not be to the person who contributed it. As for it being a long-standing policy changed without consensus, we are encourgaed to be bold in making changes, and that includes policy. If someone disputes it after the change, then a discussion is entered into (as now). Maybe it was rude for whoever changed it not to discuss it first, but they were just being bold. As for the length of time that it was there representing consensus, I'd be willing to bet that WP:Username is not one of our highest-traffic policy pages; I know I've only looked at it once (before today) and never referenced it in discussion. Most Wikipedians have probably never paid it any attention at all. (After edit conflict) As for User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq, they had already vandalised, thereby demonstrating their bad intentions. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:49, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I went to block before it was known they had vandalised 'cause they did it so fast after creation but decided to check because people around here are claiming innocents are getting bitten and they aren't. The other point, is that most ramdom names *are* vandals, as with this one too User:1524gf86d3sf546 which is the exact same story. (Whereas I would normally just block, I check first and lo and behold, it was vandalising). pschemp | talk 19:19, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

How many times do i have to say this. Just because most random names *are* vandals is NOT an excuse to block on sight. Most anon edits are ALSO vandals, should we start reverting on sight too? Actually, most vandals are anons, maybe we should just block off all the anons? --`/aksha 04:08, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, you are taking this the the absurd, and no one has suggested doing that. You seem to be suggesting we should ignore obvious vandal usernames until they vandalise which is silly. I'm still waiting for the proof of the legions of innocent users who were harmed. pschemp | talk 04:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The best "policy" on acceptable usernames is that any username is acceptable unless somebody reasonably finds it unacceptable. Lets avoid instruction creep and very harmful blocks against new editors whose only mistake is picking an esoteric username. Let common sense prevail. Thanks/wangi 05:00, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Um wangi, its not instruction creep, the random rule has been in there for over a year. Also, they *are* deemed unacceptable at the time they are blocked, that's why they are blocked. pschemp | talk 05:05, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Although what might have been consensus at one point might no longer be so :) Anyway, I'm not really that fussed about getting into the this debate, however I do not believe that we need to mention random character names in the policy - it simply makes it easier for good faith editors to be banned before they make a contribution (for example Someguy0830 would be banned). It's a piece-of-piss for the robot script folk to generate usernames combining dictionary words which are immediately non-random. This is a harmful "rule". But getting back to my original point - I really have no problem with individual admins blocking usernames thay find offensive (be they random or not) but see no need to enforce banning of "random" usernames. Thanks/wangi 05:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The existence of a rule is not in itself a valid justification for the said existence. --`/aksha 08:21, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a policy against unpronounceable usernames? I think most names that would be recognised as random fall into this, so the "random" policy is redundant, and ambiguous. Remove.--SidiLemine 12:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Remove: Two reasons, both already noted by other users: 1) what looks random to one user may not be random to another (pschemp looks pretty random to me) 2)judge the user by the contribution, not the name. --Badger151 14:13, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Frankly I agree with Badger151, that pschemp looks random to me. Almost any username can be considered random. But I can see how some could be considered more random then others. Here are some usernames from the last few minutes of the User creation log. I have picked them as being the ones that seem the most random to me (but that's subjective): User:KMC1986 at 14:10, User:0101ccty06 at 14:10, User:Nanfengbb at 14:11, User:Tadg04 at 14:13, User:Pal9900 at 14:14, and User:Nkrajenka at 14:15. Let's give them a bit of time (say, an hour) and see what kind of contributions they make. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:26, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

"Krajenka" is a surname as well as a town in Poland. A big problem with making assumptions about users with seemingly random names is that many first and last names (as well as words, especially foreign ones) would be considered "seemingly random" by some people. It should also be noted that as wikipedia gets bigger, users are going to have an increasingly difficult time finding an unused username that "makes sense". And is there a policy against "unpronouncable usernames"? Where? --Milo H Minderbinder 14:54, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

That's almost exactly my point; randomness (unlike, say, offensiveness) is entierly subjective... what seems like a random collection of letters to me is a town in Poland and someone's last name. "11100010101010" might be how someone would spell their name in binary. "SACGDWGSRG18" are meaningful initials to me. "Wyq49h" is how I'd spell my first name if my fingers were on the wrong keys (one row up) "Xbzfk" would be how I'd spell it if they were one row down. "Djstpm" is how it'd be spelled if they were one letter right and "AgEIB" if they were one letter left. I could see myself using any of those options for a username if I had to choose a new one I'd never used before. Meanwhile (from Misplaced Pages:Recently created admins) what does Aski mean (User:Aksi great)? How about User:TKD; that could be anything? It's completely subjective. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 15:10, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

With all due respect, "Someguy830" doesn't make a "better impression" on me either, it seems equally careless and hard to remember or understand. But probably the prime offender would be someone trying to be cute by misspelling a common term for anonymity and sticking in the name of a small furry animal. That should be bannable on sight. AnonEMouse 14:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. As should anyone whose name makes no apparent sense, and consists of far more consonants than vowels, such that they have been mistaken for a bot before. Postdlf 14:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Username blocks, continued

*Sigh* you guys just aren't getting how this rule has been applied in actual use. The only random ones that are blocked on sight are the really obvious ones like User:1524gf86d3sf546 and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq. The borderline ones and unobvious ones and short ones aren't and never have been. And no, randomness isn't an entirely subjective quantity. All the examples OnUnicorn has given are either short (and short ones never have been blocked since human can remember short things easily) or have an identifiable pattern. Basically people are arguing that admins can't be trusted to make correct decisions and that's a load of crap. pschemp | talk 15:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Results The most random seeming username; User:0101ccty06 has made one edit(dif). It needs to be cleaned up for grammer and stuff, but seems to be fairly sound, at least it's not vandalism. User:KMC1986, User:Nanfengbb, User:Tadg04, User:Pal9900, and User:Nkrajenka (the rest of them) haven't made any contributions yet. As for them being short and easy to remember, let's say someone's from Kangerlussuaq and wants their username to be their town. Still too short for you? How about Muckanaghederdauhaulia (the longest place name in Ireland)? A wiki-deletionist, a person with severe depression, or someone who thinks that Misplaced Pages is not as good as traditional encyclopedias might pick the screen name Floccinaucinihilipilification. Some people pick screen names after favorite animals. What if someone's favorite fish was humuhumu-nukunuku-a-pua‘a? A fan of Aristophanes might pick Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhyp...gklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, OnUnicorn, those *weren't* blocked because they *aren't* random so you don't have much point. pschemp | talk 16:40, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, pschemp, you didn't follow the links, did you? Those *aren't* usernames. To my knowledge no one has acutally tried to register with any of those names. Those are all things that, if someone did register with them, would seem like a random combination of letters to someone patrolling for unacceptable usernames. The fact that they all exist in the real world makes them not random despite the fact that they might seem random to someone who didn't know better if someone were to use them. That was my point. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I take it back, someone did actually register as User:Kangerlussuaq, check the log. But they don't seem to have any edits. There's also a User:Floccinaucinihilipilification. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 16:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

The point is that they aren't random enough that they would be blocked. I wouldn't block those and neither would any admin I know, they aren't blatantly random. Agian, you seem to think admins can't make rational decisions, which isn't the case. pschemp | talk 16:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

My username is random? I'm hurt. Well, not really. If you can honestly say you have trouble remembering two combined words and a short number sequence, then I don't see how you expect to remember something like tjstrf. Random in this case would mean something that has no indentifiable pattern, like sdbaivb or other such nonsense. The usernames that get blocked in this policy are rarely here for a good purpose, and those that are probably register good usernames after learning better. Also, I recommend we get off the subject of bashing each other's usernames to make a point, since it's quite clear that our names do fall well within the tolerance for understandable usernames. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 16:16, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

My bad, no such policy (pronouceable). pschemp, I think the controversy comes from the fear that accounts will be deleted without warning. The way I understand hte policy, it is made so as to avoid automatically created accounts (spam, bots, etc.); A manual check (and possibly advice to change username) should be able to handle that. But for clarity's sake, the term "random" needs to be clarified with a few short definitions and examples, as are "offensive" and "wiki-related".--SidiLemine 16:45, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Um, a username block doesn't delete an account. In fact regular admins can't delete an account at all. When they are blocked, the {{usernameblocked}} template expands to give an explanation already. pschemp | talk 16:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Copied from Misplaced Pages talk:Username - "That list is intended as a guide, it is not supposed to be exhaustive (wikipedia is not a bureacracy or experiment in rule making), it is the broader purpose behind the username policy which is important, if the rationale for an item on that list doesn't tally with the broader policy rationale then there is arguably something amiss. It also has to be remebered that the emotive "banning a newbie" etc. is not the case, blocks for most inappropriate usernames are without prejudice and the autoblocks should be removed without question, it is of course important that appropriate edit summaries are used {{usernameblock}} for example expands out in the block message to give the whole text regarding the status. --pgk 12:04, 24 October 2006 (UTC)" That is exactly what is done in practice. pschemp | talk 16:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Given the current power of computing, I wonder if it possible to do some sort of analysis to determine what characteristics are shared by those usernames that are the most prolific vandals, but aren't shared by other users. If this can be determined, perhaps new usernames sharing those characteristics could be more closely watched until they develop a pattern. --Badger151 17:14, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, pschemp seems to be the most vocal supporter of this policy. Let's look at some of pschemp's blocks since so far most examples have been hypothetical. User:Qwerty123456789101112 doesn't seem random to me, it seems easy to remember, and quite clever if someone wants to maintain a high degree of anonimity. Of course, the stated reason for the block was the length of the name (Is 21 characters really that long?) rather than its randomness but still... User:Qwerty123456789101112's contribution log shows one contribution (diff) that might be considered linkspam, but has not been removed from the article despite the subsequent removal of other seeming linkspam. User:1524gf86d3sf546 is much more random then Qwerty...., and the block reason was vandalism rather then randomness or length. User:NotForVandalism was blocked before making any edits with "are you sure?" as the reason... now tell me, aren't we to assume good faith? If an editor says their account is not for vandalism, shouldn't we believe them until they prove otherwise (yes, that is slightly tounge-in-cheek)? User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq seems random, and was vandalising, and the block reason was, again, vandalism, NOT the randomness of the name. User:Mamamamamamamamama doesn't seem random, and was blocked because the name was too long (18 characters, even shorter than Qwerty, and exactly twice as long as my username). They had made one edit, diff, which was reverted (and probably rightly) using vandalproof by someone who, in my experience, has a history of misusing vandalproof. User:Random or unreadable text or characters looks like someone trying to make a point, and has no contributions. Same goes for User:I read your username policy and it's gay. Perhaps these are people who were blocked for seemingly random usernames and are now complaining by re-registering with pointy usernames? User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB was blocked as random with no contributions... but I can see it making sense to someone. Anyway... ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 18:41, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

It might be better to discuss this in just one place... use VP only to build awareness that there is a discussion. But that said, every one of your examples is a good block based on the username alone, under current policy as it has existed for months and months. You have not shown any of them to actually be bad blocks, or that there was harm caused to anyone by them (with 0 or 1 edit, getting a new username is just Not A Big Deal). And the onus is on those that want to change policy to show reasons for it, not on those that want the status quo to show reasons for not changing, because the status quo ought to be presumed to be good, in the absense of any compelling reason to change. Again, policy is descriptive not prescriptive. Admins block scads of IDS under the current policy all the time and I am not seeing a huge volume of reports at the admin incident noticeboard suggesting that this behaviour is causing massive problems. What I am seeing here by proponents of change is a lot of hypothetical supposition. ++Lar: t/c 18:58, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

oh good God OnUnicorn, I already told you above that ] and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq were ones I wast just going to block for username but that I checked first because I wanted to make *SURE* that innocent people weren't getting wronged and lo and behold, they weren't innocent. They weren't blocked because of vandalism, they were blocked because of their username!, and I just added vandalism so people would know. How many times do I have to spell this out to you? And User:Qwerty123456789101112 and User:Mamamamamamamamama aren't random, and that's not *why* they were blocked as said in the edit summary. Your assumption that they are random is illogical, I don't lie in my edit summaries. Let me repeat this again since you seem to have missed it "you just aren't getting how this rule has been applied in actual use. The only random ones that are blocked on sight are the really obvious ones like User:1524gf86d3sf546 and User:Plmoknijbuhvygctfrdxezswaq. The borderline ones and unobvious ones and short ones aren't and never have been." pschemp | talk 18:55, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I never said Qwerty123456789101112 was blocked for randomness, but I did question the approprietness of the block for the length of that name. It's only 21 characters. User:Can't sleep, clown will eat me for example is 31. Are you going to block him? You never addressed User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB, the only one on my list above where you did give randomness as the sole reason for the block. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB hadn't vandalized. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB hadn't done anything yet. You also didn't address User:Random or unreadable text or characters and User:I read your username policy and it's gay. On their face, doesn't it seem like those are people who were most likely previously bitten by our username policy (specifically the part under discussion here)? Lar says we're "not seeing a huge volume of reports at the admin incident noticeboard suggesting that this behaviour is causing massive problems". How many newbies even know that the admin noticeboard even exists? I started contributing here in March and I didn't know the villiage pump existed until sometime in July. That's 5 months. I found out that the admin noticeboard existed shortly afterwords. What kind of newbie whose username of User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB is blocked under this policy is going to go complain there? ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 19:12, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Guess what? we aren't discussing length of names here, we are discussing randomness. User:4g1rLn4M3dBoB is a name that I feel is not conducive to collaboration, regardless of vandalism. As for User:I read your username policy and it's gay that was from a whole string of names that quoted bits of policies. And his original name that he was blocked for was so offensive I won't repeat it (It was *not* a random name but a vulgar attack). However, since you weren't watching the username creation bots at the time, you don't know the whole story and have therefore picked out bits and pieces to use to criticize. Unless you are on the bot at the time, you don't have the whole picture and criticizing people's actions without knowing the whole story is a mighty big assumption of bad faith on your part. Last, any blocked person can complain on their talk page and request and unblock, and *that's* where I don't see complaints. That's where the proof of abuse would be should it exist. pschemp | talk 19:31, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

ONUnicorn asks "What kind of newbie would complain?" I'll tell you what kind... The kind that reads anything at all in their block message. That kind would ask the admin that blocked them, or would seek some help. But the kinds that are getting blocked for randomness aren't reading, because (news flash) they almost certainly are here for vandalism!!!! Is this a perfect system? Might we block someone inadvertantly who then chose not to create a new username despite the instructions on how to do so? Yes, we MIGHT. But the alternative is far worse. Please stop wikilawyering about this. You don't have a case for change. Get over it, internalise it, and move on. ++Lar: t/c 19:36, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't realise I was "wikilawyering" and certianly didn't intend to do so. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 20:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Since when is it instruction creep to restore an inappropriately, non-consensus delete of a portion of policy? Discuss, get consensus, then delete. Don't delete then demand consensus to put it back. Random names are blocked. Period. Get over it. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

"Random in this case would mean something that has no indentifiable pattern, like sdbaivb or other such nonsense." You see, this is the entire problem. YOUR defintion of random is that it has no "identifiable pattern". In which case, User:Asdfghjkl:; is not random (it's just the middle row of the keyboard). But clearly, pschemp by his definition of "random" believed User:Asdfghjkl:; IS random (User:Asdfghjkl:; was blocked by pschemp for randomness.)

Pschemp - if you think randomness is not a subjective quality. Then how about gracing us with your definition of randomness? How long is two long? how obvious is an "obviously identifiable pattern". Clearly, the pattern behind User:Asdfghjkl:; was not obviously identifiable enough for you.

"ONUnicorn asks "What kind of newbie would complain?" I'll tell you what kind... The kind that reads anything at all in their block message. That kind would ask the admin that blocked them, or would seek some help." - no, they won't. The sheer size of wikipedia is intimidating to many new people. You probably don't realize it, or maybe you just don't remember when you were once a newbie. But someone who has never edited wikipedia before, comes to sign up an account, and gets blocked within a matter of minutes, is not going to go chasing after people who blocked them. Maybe if the person was a regular in internet communities, maybe if they've edited for a long time as an anon and became familiar with the environment here, they might complain. But a complete newbie isn't going to. That's what WP:BITE exists for - it protects such new users.

If new users do go and seek help from admins when they are blocked, then i suppose you could provide a few examples? Considering how many usernames get blocked, surely by now, there must be quite some records of newbies who do go seek help after sudden blocks.

"Since when is it instruction creep to restore an inappropriately, non-consensus delete of a portion of policy?" when the portion of the policy was never added in consensus in the first place. It slipped in as something that is "discouraged", then slipped in further as something which is not allowed. Then it became something which was bannable on sight. And got removed when someone noticed how users like User:Asdfghjkl:; get blocked on sight but users like User:Lkjhgfdsa and User:Asdfg12345 survived. In other works, inconsistent happy-trigger blocking. --`/aksha 03:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

So, why should I not block usernames with non-Latin characters? —Centrx→talk • 03:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

uhh...did i say anything about usernames with non-Latin characters? --`/aksha 03:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe not. I didn't read your rants. The length of the comments is usually inversely proportional to the soundness of the proposal. —Centrx→talk • 04:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

You know, I found one, User:pschemp. Looks like the "user" (he may not have vandalised, but he almost surely will!), has just randomly hammered the keyboard, coming up with a giant mass of consonants which can't possibly be a word. Quickly, to the banhammer! Lankiveil 01:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC).

Further discussion of username blocks

Huh. So, the less recognizable a username is as meaningful to an English-speaking admin, the more likely it is to get blocked as a random string of characters. In some cases, it's a vandal. In some cases, it's a legitimate contributor who picks a different name and that's fine. In some cases, it's a legitimate contributor who is so intimidated or confused by the {{usernameblocked}} message that we lose them. It seems to me that, if too many username blocks are the second or third type, then the admins making those blocks would need to exercise more restraint. There's no reasonable way to define what makes a random username, and since so many of them are vandals, it wouldn't make sense to refrain from blocking every account until it proves itself to be vandalistic. We have to depend on administrative discretion, and the fact that {{usernameblocked}} is pretty helpful and polite. Since this isn't a job robots can do, we just have to trust the humans who are doing it. -GTBacchus 03:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

well, lengthy/insulting/wierd-non-latin-characters/POINT aside, there aren't that many. Or at least, all the examples that have been provided as "obviously random" have fallen into the category of being very lengthy, insulting or making a point, or having wierd symbols in it. As i said, there's really no evidence that blocking usernames which are only random (and doesn't break any other username guildlines) based purely on randomness has done any good.

and rules against things shouldn't exist by default. As in, we should not take a "everything is not allowed until they are proven to be okay" approach. Assume good faith means we assume things are okay until there's evidence that they're not okay.

I'm suspicious of there even being any evidence of a Correlation between randomness of usernames and vandalism, let along any Causality between the two. --`/aksha 03:42, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't think of it in terms of "not allowed". You make a new account, the username you choose may work out, and it may not. You find out pretty quickly. No big whoop. That happens to me every time I set up an account at any website - the name I first choose may or may not stick. You're thinking way too much in terms of rules, but Misplaced Pages works in terms of humans. We don't need to talk about correlation and causation and evidence and "proof" and what the word "random" really means. We just need to accept that admins exercise their judgement, and if there's a problem in a particular case, we address it.

It's really not about assuming good faith, either. Blocking an account within a few minutes of creation isn't a statement about the account holder's motivations at all. It's just a judgement, by a human, that a particular username isn't going to work. If a roughly equivalent one gets through, whatever. No big whoop. -GTBacchus 03:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The reason is that usernames must be identifiable. Random strings of characters defeat most of the purpose of a username. —Centrx→talk • 04:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

and that justifies the appropriateness of ban-on-sights? Considering all the opposses inthis (which was for 'extreme cases'), i can't imagine how consensus for shoot-on-sight blocking would have been reached for something like randomness 7 months later when that rule was first added. --`/aksha 05:59, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What justifies quick username blocks is that they're no big deal, and it's very easy for someone to either try again with a more wieldy username, or defend the one they first chose. It's likely that none of our policies would have achieved consensus, had they been submitted for it to a group anything like the current population of Misplaced Pages. That's not really an argument against good practices. In specific cases where problems are caused by quick username blocks, you should bring up those specific problems. If there are so many of these problems, that will become apparent, and we'll do something about it. Until then, try not to worry so much about it. There really are hundreds of things at this website more worth your energy. Most people who want to contribute to Misplaced Pages use nicely accessible usernames, on their first try. It's really ok. -GTBacchus 06:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Username policy, continued

When a user's username is blocked under this policy, what type of message does that user receive? --Badger151 06:04, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Badger151, it's {{UsernameBlocked}}. -GTBacchus 06:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

After being accused of wikilawyering I was going to stop participating in this discussion; but I conducted an experiment and feel obliged to state that it's not {{UsernameBlocked}}. {{UsernameBlocked}} is part of it, but the actual message is a lot longer then that and, imo, slightly confusing for a new user. ~ ONUnicorn (Talk / Contribs) 14:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

What else is there? -GTBacchus 17:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

In looking only at the {{UsernameBlocked}} template, I note that all username blocks seem to be given the same lengthy message, which starts with a huge red X and, "Your username has been blocked indefinitely because it may be rude or inflammatory..." For the moment leaving aside the issue of the wisdom of blocking random usernames, perhaps we should subdivide the username blocks based on the reasons for the block. Equally important, perhaps the message associated with the block can be made a little more friendly and/or use a block similar to those found on other sites: registration of an improper username fails to go to completion, but perhaps suggests similar alternate names. Does anyone know how many usernames are blocked on a typical day? --Badger151 17:56, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't have that number handy. I asked some admins and someone said "around 50 100-150". As for making the message more friendly and helpful, I support that. What would you change about it? -GTBacchus 18:08, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I took a moment to review the registration process by creating User:Test (see talk page), and I noticed a few things. 1) On the registration page there are some notes on what constitutes a valid username, but I don't know how many people notice or read them. 2) On entering a username and creating a password, the next screen said "Login Successful... Your account has been created...) with no mention that usernames to be found unsuitable would be blocked - I expect that most new users interpret this to mean that their account name was found to be acceptable, making subsequent blocks very unexpected. Perhaps adding something along the lines of "Misplaced Pages reviews all new usernames to see if they might match or resemble current users, or for some other reason create difficulties. This process typically take a few minutes (or hours, or days - whatever is correct). If, for some reason, your username proves to create difficulties, we will contact you and help you move this account over to another username. For the moment, click here to change your preferences, or here to go to the main page" would make subsequent blocks less shocking. For the blocks, removing the big red X might make them more friendly. The bold "blocked indefinitely" also seems a bit rough... I'll tinker some and see if I can put together a written-out proposal. --Badger151 18:49, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the trouble to do this Badger151, that's very helpful. :) -GTBacchus 18:53, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm actually enjoying it. It's also a nice work break. A proposed revision, along with the original template, is now at user:Badger151/templates. Please comment! --Badger151 20:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Oops - looks like I connected the link wrong - thanks to RHaworth for picking that up and correcting it. --Badger151 01:53, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

There seem to be three reasons to block random usernames:

• They reduce the sewious appeawance of Misplaced Pages. I disagree. For one thing, they are not part of the encyclopedia itself. And for another, we allow all kinds of other silly usernames, such as User:Can't Sleep, Clown Might Kill Me (or whatever it is), User:Cute Hobbit, or User:Fetish Grrrl. How does User:Yuyuyuy777 look worse?
• They are often used by vandals. Sorry, this is bogus. Sure, they are often used by vandals, but don't you think they'll catch on and use acceptable names to get around those blocks?
• They're hard to remember and keep track of. For the most part, the software takes care of this for us, but other times, such as on WP talk pages, it's nice to be able to just type someone's handle. It's also good to be able to recognize names (e.g., I see User:So-and-so is active again, better check his changes, or Oh good, User:Fetish Grrrrl is on the case, I don't need to worry about it. If we think this is important, the rule needs to be written with that in mind, and to disallow usernames which appear random or are otherwise difficult to remember or recognize, even if the user has a good explanation. And we should think about user names formed with long sentences or arbitrary misspellings in this category as well (did you notice the spelling variation on the two fetish girls).

Matchups 04:20, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

God, it's just a bloody username. Apply innocent until proven guilty and get on with something more important. -- Earle Martin 21:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

References header

Isn't it about time that it becomes policy to use correct headers for the References sections. A lot of different forms are currently used, with most of them not really making sense. A lot of people use:

==Notes==

when they are references and not footnotes. Footnotes are rarely used on wikipedia since it would be just as easy to go to the article which the note refers to (if there is one, there often is). I have seen one, maybe two pages which actually had a footnote in the Notes section, although the majority were still references. So shouldn't something be added to the MoS to say that inline citations should be placed under the References header with a subheader below that for General references:

Policy is Needed

...The true litmus test of neutrality is conducted each day through peer revision. Unfortunately, the need for a policy regarding revision/reversion when it comes to political candidates is of growing importance, as more sophisitcated methods of astroturfing and viral marketing become available to even the most pedestrian of political followers.

Clearly, the inclusion of second-hand information (in many cases, citing blogs, news analyses, and commentary from campagin staffers disguised as being fromt he candidate him/herself) is cause for pause. We should not care as to the liability of a candidate's media handlers to their candidate. It is not our business that they can be fired for advocation of some bizarre policy or political leaning. The only thing that should matter - I repeat, the ONLY thing - is to verify that what we are documenting are actual, factual statements about the candidate whose name is on the entry,

If so inclined, editors should feel free to include an entry for the campaign manager, whose comments some editors are so keen to include. After all, they are the campaign manager's statements, and not the candidate's. Again, by allowing the inclusion of statements that clearly cast in a positive light a candidate they may have previously personally endorsed in discussion, all of us are proceeding down a slippery slope wherein far less-reputable folk can use the doorway some demand be open to cause serious damage to specific political entries immediately before an election.

Example: let's say that tomorrow (being shortly before Election Day), someone posts a citable source (an obviously biased or partisan, swiftboat-like source) that says either one candidate or the other is being investigated by the FBI's Financial Crimes Unit. It does not matter if the allegation is true (and the citation may be purged right before the polls close), but the damage will have been done. People who read WP for a heads up on the candidates (there actually are people who put this off until the last moment) will see the erroneous comment and make a decision based upon that. Before you can say 'Florida Recount,' WP has unwittingly helped unscrupulous people to alter the results of an election.

I guess I am not understanding how wikilawyering (this is not policy, etc.) is a proper justification for avoiding neutrality and lending credence to unsubstantiated statements. This is why I discuss this matter here - we are the front line of neutral documentation. Heresay is for articles about Wham! reunions and Lost episodes, where the stakes are not nearly as high. WP cannot alter whether there is a Wham! reunion, nor can it likely alter the episodic content of Lost. It is entirely conceivable that it can alter the course of an election, and WP needs to protect its own reputation and neutrality from bias. Some form of control needs to be instituted.

I have stated before my ideas for handling political candidates before understanding WP's obvious procedural complexity. Knowing a bit more, I suggest the following. Please understand that these policies are specific to political candidates currently seeking office (within a year of the election):

• I think that a narrower interpretation as to citable sources should be adopted - replacing 'caution' with specific prohibitions (ie. disallowing comments by campaign managers and staffers to be used in place of actual statements by the candidates themselves). This, I believe, more accurately reflects the entrant's identity than a second-hand account of who the entrant is. It also removes the endless necessity of revission and likley resultant editwars. The entrant's own words cannot be refuted, whereas the statements of persons other than the entrant/candidate can be repudiated by the candidate themselves. This new policy suggestion would avoid the endless headaches associated with the 'he said she said' drama that usually results for a news cycle or three.

• As well, I think tighter control needs to be exercised in certifying sources cited. I have personally discovered no less than 10 citation misquotes/paraphrasings or simply dead links, more than half of them in the Peter Roskam (candidate for office in Illinois). I imagine that this is not an isolated issue with political candidates' entries throughout America, but one as omnipresent as freckles on redheads. A citable source carries more weight than an uncited one, and it is quite likely that unscrupulous political operators would cite unverifiable material with the understanding that before the source can be checked and removed for neutrality or citation violation, the damage will have already been done. Sources are not often checked immediatley at all, most editors thinking 'well, if it was cited, then it must be true.' This leads me to my third point:

• I think that a holding pattern be established, or some sort of drafting place be installed, perhaps as a discussion sub-page, wherein the draft of changes can be checked before they "go live" on the viewable page. this would allow editors to verify sources for solid links and credibility. Wording can be checked and changed so as to remain neutral. I am unsure as to how long the article revisions would remain in this 'holding pattern,' but certainly long enough to make sure that what goes live is a properly cited, language neutral article. I think that a policy editor or a senior editor would approve the draft version to go live.

I believe that this preserves all Five Pillars of WP, as well as making the process transparent. It also allows for editors to hash out the debatable language before it goes live. This avoids editwars and the petty reverting that occurs with contentious political issues and candidates.Arcayne 19:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Clarification requested on acceptable sources

I would appreciate guidance on the use of citations from published books which purport to be factual accounts, but which themselves clearly fall short of the standards of WP:V, or WP:RS, or WP:NPOV.

A related issue which I would also like clarified is the acceptable use of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention.

I am sure that these are issues which arise frequently, but I will illustrate the problems by citing a specific group of exemplars.

The book Outrageous Betrayal by Steven Pressman, which represents itself as a biography of Werner Erhard was published in 1993 and went out of print shortly thereafter. It has been used as a source reference for numerous edits, especially by user:Smeelgova and user:Kat'n'Yarn.

I have raised my concerns about the acceptability of this book as a source with these two editors in discussions on the (archived) Landmark Education talk ] page, and their response was that it qualified automatically by virtue of being a published book. I have also brought the issue up with various administrators, but have not obtained a clear ruling so far.

Clearly the book is partisan in nature, and seeks only to highlight and sensationalise negative material about its subject. But more importantly, it appears to me that the book fails to meet what I understand to be the criteria for being a reliable primary or secondary source. Although written in a matter-of-fact narrative style, it clearly deals with events to which the author was not party or witness. That would be fine if he were to identify specific verifiable sources for the events he describes, but he does not. There are no footnotes or references to identify the author's informants for any particular incident which is depicted. Perhaps anticipating criticism over that shortcoming the author includes the following bland statement it the 'Acknowledgements' section at the end of the book (p. 279):

A note is in order here about my use of quoted conversations throughout the book. In some cases, conversations have been recounted based on the recollections of participants or witnesses. ... Many of the sources I relied on for information are named throughout the book; many others are not. They all deserve equally my thanks for contributing to this disturbing story of Erhard and the movement he created.

My question is: "Is this good enough?" Especially bearing in mind the potentially defamatory nature of many of the assertions in the book (not only as they apply to Mr Erhard, but also to many other living individuals mentioned by name. And also considering that many of these accounts are directly contradicted in other published books (e.g. Werner Erhard The Transformation of a Man: The Founding of EST by William Warren Bartley III; and 60 Minutes and the Assassination of Werner Erhard by Jane Self. By contrast both of these volumes are meticulous in identifying their sources and witness statements).

As I said, I also have a concern about the usage of the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention. It was a frequent gambit of user:Smeelgova to write a verbatim extract from this book (or other suspect source) into an article in blockquote format with a ref tag. Although sophisticated readers would recognise this as indicating a quotation, I feel that others might be misled into seeing it as a factual assertion within the article. Should there be an explicit indication that this is a quotation? Maybe the problem would not arise if we are more rigorous about the sources that are acceptable? DaveApter 13:23, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

To answer the easy points:

• Just because something has been published does not mean that it can be used to support a statement. You still have to question with academic rigorously whether what has been written is credible enough for what you are saying.
• I don't know what the "blockquoted and referenced" formatting convention is meant to be. If, however, it does not necessarily make it clear to readers who may be unfamiliar with the style that it is a direct quotation then it should not be used - or at least it should be modified so as to make that clear. Presentation matters, jguk 13:39, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the author of that book got most of his "conversations" from the mouth of people who were recounting those conversations. As for its use in the article, a book which is narrowly published should be treated as a source which is narrowly published, i.e. it should not form a major portion of an article except about itself. There it could (if it qualifies as worthy of an article) be more extensively quoted. Misplaced Pages prefers the best sources of information possible. A person's recollection of a conversation which is passed on to another person, who then publishes the recall is not a very good source of information. In a court of law, for example, it would not hold the same weight as better sources of information. Terryeo 21:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm confused. Blockquoted and referenced is a standard academic method of referencing sources. It may indicate laziness on the part of an editor who will not take the time to reformulate material into his or her own words, but it is in no way a "gambit." Should we also note on every page that material surrounded by quotation marks are quotes? If you could link to a specific example where blockquotes are used in a misleading fashion, that would be helpful. Edited to add: has the article been deleted? -sthomson 21:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's one example to illustrate the kind of thing I'm talking about. It's from the article on Brian_Regnier created by user:Smeelgova (one of a dozen or two disparaging pages about individuals arguably not notable apart from a - sometimes tenuous - connection with Werner Erhard).

______________________________________

Transformational Workshops

Brian Regnier began his experience with "Transformational Workshops", through his early associations with Werner Erhard and est :

Regnier's had plenty of practice at changing people's lives and checkbook balances. In 1971, he tells us, he abandoned a career as a computer analyst and started doing transformational workshops. What he means by "transformational workshops" is est, the controversial seminar made popular by former automobile and encyclopedia salesman Werner Erhard, born Jack Rosenberg. Est's 60-hour program shares such defining features with Landmark as buzzwords and long days with few breaks. The difference seems a matter of politeness: Forum participants can go to the bathroom when they want. No one yells here. And no one is obliged, as they were in the '70s, to refer to Erhard or anyone else as "the source."

____________________________

Note that there are no quotation marks and the only indication that the second paragraph is merely the opinion expressed by the writer of the quoted extract is the indentation and the numerical reference. It would be easy for a reader to misinterpret that statement as a factual assertion of the wikipedia article.

In answer to your question, this article and a number of similar ones still exist. Some others have been deleted or re-edited. DaveApter 10:36, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I found the articles after a little searching. Thanks. In regards to block quotes, here is a quick guide to the MLA style rules on block quotes. No quotation marks are needed. If you prefer Chicago Style, it is similar . The place to indicate who the author is and how that applies is either in the introduction to the quote or in the paragraph following. sthomson 19:13, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks - that essentially addresses my concerns. The above example violates this convention by failing to "indicate who the author is and how that applies ". Adding some text such as "Steven Pressman makes the claim that..." to introduce such passages would make all the difference. DaveApter 10:18, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

By all means, BE BOLD! :) sthomson 19:45, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Ban

I'd suggest a ban for new policies. Too much laws kill the law, as nobody understands them except those who really want to pass by them.

Let's peruse the existing ones calmly and take note of any problems that could or have come and domains that are not covered. In common law, analogy applies : why not here ?

Then let's make a validation test of our policies, rules and hints against the goals of WP. Do they help, are they accurate, clearly defined, structurate enough. Amendments are welcome, but only after a delay - let's say, some months.

A former WP editor wants to go back to an expert encyclopedia, based on best of breed articles taken from here, but excluding, I hope I understand, anything related to unnecessary fandom. Fans are many amongst our editors here ... so this means really strict rules. Do we want this ? What do you think ? -- DLL 18:02, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Have you actually looked at WP:ATT, Harvestman? It is pfg, Pretty Fine and Good. :) Terryeo 18:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Terryeo. -- DLL 22:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

My firts remark still stands. Eleven more proposals for an improved policy in three days here. That's a thousand each year. -- DLL 20:13, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Survey on proposal to make U.S. city naming guidelines consistent with others countries

There is a survey in progress at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (settlements) to determine if there is consensus on a proposed change to the U.S. city naming conventions to be consistent with other countries, in particular Canada. --Serge 05:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

This proposal would allow articles for American cities to be located at articles titled Los Angeles or Boston, rather than Los Angeles, California or Boston, Massachusetts. This would also bring American cities into line with cities such as Toronto and Paris.--DaveOinSF 16:24, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

And users with a knowledge of how to conduct meaningful Google searches, are especially welcomed to join in! - Pete

The proposal would allow U.S. cities to be inconsistent with the vast majority of other U.S. cities and towns, which (with a few exceptions) all use the "city, state" convention. -Will Beback 23:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages heavy emphasis placed on a person's ethnic/racial/religious background?

I'm a huge fan of WP and use it everyday, but one thing that I find a little creepy is the almost fanatical emphasis that is placed on a person's ethnic/racial/religious background. Every time I look up a person to find out more about his history, there is almost always information on his father's ethnic origins, his mother's ethnic origins, both parents religious background, his spouse's ethnic background, her parents' religious background, etc. It sometimes makes me wonder if I've logged into some racist website.

The really bizarre material is saved for the end of the article. There I can look up such groupings as Italian-Americans in the Music Industry or Arab-Americans who are Christian or Bangladeshi-Americans who were scientists. I personally believe that anyone who needs to know who in the music industry is an Arab-American may have a questionable motive.

I think that this feature of Misplaced Pages should be looked at and hopefully toned down in the future.

From an American born in South Africa, living in the southern United States with his wife who is the child of an Italian-American and a Dutch-English-American. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Njg123 (talk • contribs)

Hi, welcome Njg123, and thanks for sharing your thoughts here. (How did you find out about this page, by the way?) I think you may have a point with your observation. I think the reason is this: Once one editor starts adding such things, it is likely to attract a certain amount of controversy. The more controversy is attracted, the more attention is paid to that aspect of the article. The more attention is paid, the more space ends up being devoted to it in the article finally. It's a bit of a nuisance, but we can't really do very much against it, in my experience. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:50, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Njg makes a valid point. In a world where every other individual is a mouseclick away from communication, racism is a non-issue. Who cares? Perhaps as we rub and link our consonants and vowels, editor ideas of which information are important will change too. Terryeo 23:16, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

• I respectfully diagree with all of the above for several reasons:

1. One of WP's goals is to be as complete as possible. If an individual merits an entry at all, there's is no reason not to be complete.
2. An individual's background, whether religous or racial, is almost always am inportant part of who they are and many, if not most, people are proud of their background or heritage.
3. The idea that mentioning someone's ethnicity is somehow inherently rascist is simply a fallacy.
4. Personally, I have a lot more concerns about WP editors who emphasize their religous or racial backgrounds to the detriment of accuracy and quality in our articles.

--Doc Tropics 23:30, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Well written, Doc Tropics.

Racism is the belief that one race is better than another, and I hope you're not seeing that reflected in Misplaced Pages articles. Its existence is not a reason to hide one's ethnic background (at least not where I come from, thankfully).

One of the great things about Misplaced Pages is that with contributors from around the world, it is not written from, for example, a British, American, or any other Anglo-centric point of view. Editors supply their points of view, and information from sources in other languages, and it all gets shaken out to create better articles. Yeah, I've seen it get ugly on the talk pages, but many patient and thoughtful contributors and Misplaced Pages's consensus system give great results. —Michael Z. 2006-10-28 23:38 Z

I'm sorry, njg, but Doc Tropics is correct. Simply mentioning a person's race is not racism, and to think that way is to have a very misguided view of racism (at least in my opinion). Terryeo, we're not at that stage yet (we're not even at that stage in certain parts of the world, let alone the whole world), and pretending we are at that stage creates its own of problems. ColourBurst 02:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

The observation is probably valid. I suppose when there seems to be a disproportionate amount of emphasis on racial background in an article, it would seem a quite odd, especially when racial backgroun isn't an important to the article subject. But the solution in that case wouldn't be to tone down on talking about racial background. But rather, tone up on talking about everything else. --`/aksha 08:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. At one time, one's linage was very important within the group comprising one's society. As transportation increased it became less important to society's view of the individual. Today, we don't know the race of most of our fellow editors, tomorrow we wouldn't care if we were told. However, I do recognize the situation with people who are in the public eye. Terryeo 08:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Nig123. A person's lineage is no doubt important to them, but it in most cases it has no importance to me. Sometimes it is a part of why they are notable and should be included. For example, we should note in an article that the individual was the last white man to captain the West Indies cricket team, or first black and Asian to captain them - that's notable. But to go through and make a note by each West Indian cricketer as to whether he is white, Asian or black is useless information. And as Nig123 correctly notes, it would be racist to do so.

Mentioning someone's race is tantamount to saying that it is a feature about them that is notable to others. Doing this indiscriminately is inherently racist (and DocTropics, ColourBurst and Mzajac really need to research what is meant by the term if they believe it just refers to an assertion that one race is superior to others! Would an apartheid system offering an equally good life to different races not be racist?). The solution is, of course, to remove racist categories. However, these tend to be added and strongly defended by those who use them to for their own race-politics purposes. This leave those who do not subscribe to seeing the world only in terms of black, white, Asian, etc. with the choice of putting up with a constant stream of racial epithets in certain Misplaced Pages articles, or going elsewhere for a better read, jguk 09:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Hyperbole much? In all my time on WP I've never seen an article that contained "a constant stream racial epithets". That kind of absurd overdramatization does a profound disservice to our editors and it also cheapens and degrades the topic at hand. --Doc Tropics 10:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, an apartheid system does pretty much assert one race is better than another. There hasn't been an example in history where an apartheid system has offered equally good life to different races, so your example is a straw man (Even the crime of apartheid under the UN's definition explicitly includes oppression as part of the definition). ColourBurst 15:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

So I'm reading some gross generalizations above, that there's an overemphasis on race in Misplaced Pages. Please show me a few examples of articles which overemphasize race to the point of racism. I'm reading that race is not important to us, so mentioning it is apartheid and racist. I may not find someone's date of birth, age, place of birth, citizenship, religion to be significant, but I don't think that these things should be removed from articles because someone out there will perceive the very facts to be ageist, nationalist, religionist or racist. So please explain how apartheid has been manifested in Misplaced Pages. Also, please name a few of the racist categories.

If there's really a perceived problem, I don't see it, so let's make the discussion a bit more concrete. —Michael Z. 2006-10-30 00:02 Z

I, too, thank the user for his comment, but I don't really see a problem. I don't see them so much as "racist categories" as "racial categories". And, if the fact is not controversial or disputed, why not include it? Sadly, small-minded people are always going to find reasons for bigotry, and the presence or absence of these categories isn't going to do much about that. Lankiveil 01:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC).

Is a Personal "User Watchlist" ok?

Today I came across a personal "user watchlist" as a subpage of an editor's user talk. It's meant to be a list of editors that the editor in question feels should be watched for controversial or problematic activities. It just doesn't feel right to me, too much like a personal attack. Any comments? --Zeraeph 23:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

This has come up quite a bit recently and caused a number of controversies. As I understand it the current consensus is that such pages are probably ok if they are "generic" (ie, give no real indication of their purpose), but a list titled "Troublemakers" or "Editors to always vote against" would most likely be deleted. Of course the existence of these pages can be (and always is) discovered, usually by someone who is on the list; this generally leads to unpleasentness regardless of the original intent of the page. At this point there is no policy against such pages but some Admins may delete them on sight. --Doc Tropics 23:59, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I've got a javascript tool that sort of does what you describe. Personally, I think if you want to see what a certain user is doing, you can easily look at their contributions page without doing anything wrong. I'd say a user watchlist is just a way to aggregate this information about multiple users without having to visit each one of their contributions pages individually. The problem, as you describe it, comes when you publicly list who you're watching. People could take offence if they find their name listed there. I think it's probably best if the list is kept somewhere confidential either inside a normal watchlist (which my tool does) or off Misplaced Pages. Tra (Talk) 00:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed somewhat controversial. My opinion would be that what matters is how (if at all) the list is described. Having a "list of Foo users" isn't really substantially different from saying "this user is a Foo" — if the latter would constitute a personal attack, then so does the former. A special case to keep in mind is that an undescribed (or very vaguely or evasively described) list may lead people to assume less-than-innocent motives. The general rule applies here: when what you're doing is not obvious, explain yourself. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It is clearly described as "monitoring vandals and other problematic editors", that's what worries me, particularly as the last editor listed doesn't qualify at all IMHO. --Zeraeph 01:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

While many are understandably upset by pages like this, they do have some legitimate uses and can be a useful tool for responsible editors and admins, especially those who frequently deal with vandals and troublesome users. As always, we should assume good faith in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary. --Doc Tropics 04:09, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure, whether publicized on a user's subpage or scribbled on a piece of paper, several editors have a short list of people they watch closely. However, it erodes good faith to publicize such a short list in a derogatory fashion. Terryeo 08:38, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

As far as I am aware ArbCom has actually approved of such lists in the past. I have, however, always seen this as a mistake. Such a page is really nothing more than an attack page - a public statement that that user intends to stalk and harrass those on their watchlist, exercising a personal, and often immediate, veto on anything they disagree with. It is also a clear statement that the person maintaining the watchlist assumes those listed on it are acting in bad faith, jguk 09:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Depends on the list. At one point, I had a list that included several users who were knowlegable contributors, but had a poor grasp of spelling. Spellchecking articles recently edited by those users is hardly "harassment". --Carnildo 10:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Er ... that's spelled "knowledgeable". Was that a self-referential list? :-) AnonEMouse 20:12, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

LMAO...and I was going to ask Carnildo to add me to the list! --Doc Tropics 20:17, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Good point and good example. Also, tracking vandals isn't really the same as stalking. I keep several lists, but only one of them actually has a sinister and nefarious purpose :) --Doc Tropics 10:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• These are controversial, and I always point out a similar effect can be achieved through an internet browser's bookmark facility. That seems to solve all problems to me. Steve block Talk 08:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Quite. There's no need to have a public user watchlist at all - unless you want to publicise your nastiness. And, of course, there's nothing to stop you having a private user watchlist if that's the sort of person you are, jguk 13:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• Follow up - This ended up in an MfD debate. After slightly modifying what was regarded as "non-neutral" language on the page in question, the result is very close to being a snowball "Keep". It seems that most editors support these pages as long as they are not clearly and solely attack pages. --Doc Tropics 19:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Careful with your wording there, Doc Tropics. The developing consensus was already almost unanimously to keep the article even before the changes were made to it. Changing the article doesn't seem to have altered the consensus. —Psychonaut 23:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Correction, most editors who were aware of the existance of the specific MFD support these pages :o) which is not quite the same thing.

Apart from which WP:5P states quite clearly:

Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. Misplaced Pages is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It is not a trivia collection, a soapbox, a vanity publisher, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, or a web directory. Nor is Misplaced Pages a collection of source documents, a dictionary, or a newspaper, for these kinds of content should be contributed to the sister projects, Wikisource, Wiktionary, and Wikinews, respectively. Misplaced Pages is not the place to insert your own opinions, experiences, or arguments — all editors must follow our no original research policy and strive for accuracy.

Misplaced Pages is an Encyclopaedia which I always take to mean that Misplaced Pages is about verifiable encyclopaedic content, not personalities, or personal opinions of other people.

Misplaced Pages is not...an experiment in anarchy or democracy. I take that to mean that Misplaced Pages is not about indiscrimately promulgating anything based soley on the fact that a majority vote could be produced for it.

WP:NOT expands on that idea and states clearly that Misplaced Pages is not a vehicle to make personal opinions become part of human knowledge.. I assume that also means personal opinions about other editors, which, once the actual activities of those other editors become past tense is all any watchlist consists of: personal opinions about other editors.

As I would interpret policy those opinions do not belong on Misplaced Pages, good or bad, useful or not, possibly even consensual or not, because policy would seem to state that Misplaced Pages is simply not a venue for discussing our opinions of other people.

If anyone feels that their opinions of other editors are important enough to publish then they should surely take responsibility for that decision by publishing them on their own websites? --Zeraeph 21:17, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

"Most editors..." is definitely not as accurate as "Most editors who were aware of the MfD..."; I stand corrected :)

It would certainly be a mistake to assume that the clusters of opinions expressed in any XfD represent a true cross-section of community opinion. --Doc Tropics 21:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

If someone wants to maintain such a list, why not just encourage them to maintain it privately and offline on their own machine? Certainly we couldn't prohibit that anyway, and I think that would prevent a lot of issues. Seraphimblade 08:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:WEB and content distribution

No.3 of the WP:WEB notability guideline states:

The content is distributed via a site which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster.

There's a few instances where people have tried to use this to push through software (like self-published games and mods) that otherwise has no mentions (or passing mentions) in third-party sources, by claiming that the software is distributed through something like tucows, download.com or gamespot (these sites don't really establish notability, they have many, many pieces of software under their wing, and the quality varies wildly). I don't think this was the intention of WP:WEB's 3rd criterion (my belief is that it's used mainly for articles, like a blog/news site that's under the umbrella of a larger publisher, Slate (magazine) being the offhand example) That criterion really needs to be clarified. ColourBurst 02:40, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Which is why it goes on

^ Content that is distributed by independent online sites will almost certainly satisfy the first criterion. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of such content will be complete regardless. For example, Ricky Gervais had a podcast distributed by The Guardian. Such distributions should be nontrivial. Although GeoCities and Newgrounds are exceedingly well known, hosting content on them is trivial.

And goes on to say sites like download.com do not count. --Simonkoldyk 22:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, Simonkoldyk has it right, that's the reason why we wrote the clarification, to clear up this precise point. Steve block Talk 08:59, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's worth

I know everyone hates ads but here is something interesting to read:

What would Misplaced Pages.org be worth if it were a for-profit? http://www.watchmojo.com/web/blog/?p=626

I got this off the discussion page of the Misplaced Pages article. Pseudoanonymous 04:02, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

💕: priceless. —Michael Z. 2006-10-29 07:03 Z

Seconded; WP is priceless...it goes way beyond business and narrow interests.--User:Zaorish

That value would be considerably less if it were for-profit, as the vast majority of the current editors would leave to form their own non-profit fork. User:Zoe|(talk) 18:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the author was familiar enough with Misplaced Pages to factor that in. It's an intersting read. --Doc Tropics 18:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

That's an enteresting point. Also, If WP were to suddenly go for-profit, I could see editors suing WP for the collective millions of hours of free editing and such. Sure, it's released under the GFDL, but editors were "signing" (so to speak) under the impression that they were contributing to a non-profit. It would be sort of like the American Cancer Society taking everyone's donation money and opening up a cigarette factory, or the Red Cross buying nukes and invading countries. I have no idea how such a case would work out, but it's an interesting (if slightly chilling) thing to think about. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:14, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

As I understand the situation (hey, whatta I know), a very, very small handful of persons are waxing wealthy from the efforts of a very, very large group of editors who contribute to Misplaced Pages in an effort to be helpful to their fellow man. The small handful of people who control inflowed contributions would be most unlikely to upset the apple cart. Terryeo 21:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

And that money comes from where, exactly? — Omegatron 21:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

And who are those very, very small handful of people wasing wealthy from our efforts? User:Zoe|(talk) 03:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I meant to say that Misplaced Pages proceeds on contributions. It wasn't started purely on contributions but the pages often ask for contributions and apparently a fund is being built just in case there is a legal defensive need. I meant to say the contributions are obviously controlled by a small group of people who are approprieately using them. I didn't mean to imply any more than that. And my comment was meant to recognize the reality, not imply anything negative. I like Misplaced Pages, a lot of the college students I know of use it as a first reference for a new topic. Terryeo 23:56, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

A lot of for-profit companies mirror our content. I don't know if they are "waxing wealthy" from it, but they are definately using it for profit. The GFDL allows this though; it's the "price" of releasing our copyrights, so to speak.

I watched a Maine Senatorial Campaign Debate. Is posting about it O.R. ?

I wrote down pretty much the whole thing, so I'm confident my quotes are accurate. Can I post what, say, Senator Olympia Snowe said about the Iraq war, especially because she's changed her position from what's on her article? --User:Zaorish

Is it possible for someone else to verify the quotes are accurate, e.g. was the debate published in a newspaper? Tra (Talk) 15:48, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

(ec) Reporting on something you witnessed would indeed be original reporting - in this case, you should wait for media to report on the debate, as they indubitably will, and then use those as reputable sources for the quotes. In any case, in such political elections I'm sure the entire transcript will be published by a news source or organization somewhere, and you could then cite those sources to ensure verifiability. However, our sister project Wikinews has a policy encouraging first-hand reporting, and I'm sure they would appreciate your contributions to making an article on the debate, if appropriate. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:50, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict...) I've seen people cite video sources. But to be reliable, I would say that there has to be some way of us verifying it other than that we happened to be watching at the time. I.e. a transcript is available somewhere, a tape of the debate is available, etc. --W.marsh 16:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Note however they this may make a good wikinews article Nil Einne 00:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Request for information about content policies

There is a discussion on the Dutch Misplaced Pages about the necessity of citing sources. People use the following arguments: "It would cost too much work to add sources for all articles because there are so many articles without", "I have no reason to lie about these things", "I know because I have an academic education", "I know because I was there" or "I know because I am a specialist". Implicitly, the debate is about the application of two out of the three English Misplaced Pages content policies, namely Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research. In need for stronger arguments, I would like to know whether there are any official(ly authorized) documents about content policies that apply for all language versions of Misplaced Pages. Could anybody help me with this? Best regards, Ilse@ 21:58, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. The only "core policy", WP:NPOV (as I understand it) arrives at presenting a Neutral Point of View by presenting Published Information (from a single point of view) (and then published information from a single point of view) (and then published information from another single point of view). Terryeo 22:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

It's kind of odd that other Wikipedias are so different than wp-en... arguments like that were ones we had here in 2003/2004 and have long since been dismissed by nearly everyone. As far as I know the foundation is behind the principles of WP:V (only adding claims if they're backed up by a source). I think a lot of people confuse that with "you must cite a source to say anything" but it really just means that you must be able to cite a source if people doubt your claims are actually from one, and not your own opinion.

As for official documents, I dunno offhand, except in WP:V we mention a quote from Jimbo "I can NOT emphasize this enough. There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo information is to be tagged with a 'needs a cite' tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons." --W.marsh 22:41, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your replies.

After rereading many pages on policies, I think the best support for WP:NOR is in the Dutch policy that says "Misplaced Pages is not for essays with your own ideas about a topic".

I must confess that in the discussion I also confuse WP:V with "you must cite a source to say anything", occasionally. For me the following quote from WP:V makes the exact difference more clear: "Any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a reliable source, which should be cited in the article". That leaves one question about validity. The Jimmy Wales quote you give here is from the mailing list for "discussing issues relating particularly to the English language Misplaced Pages". Can I interpret "Jimbo Wales as ultimate authority on any matter" in such a way that the statement in the quote is also valid for the Dutch Misplaced Pages? - Ilse@ 23:29, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

You can cite him as a source, but I don't know that it's considered binding. I think I read somewhere (don't ask me to find it) that he basically encouraged the non-English wikis to go off and govern themselves, or thoughts to that effect. Maybe smaller wikis are just starting to face the issues that :en already had to address and hammer out policies for. Fan-1967 23:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this goes beyond just self-governance issues though, as Jimbo's quote is largely about making sure we don't leave libel in articles. (almost) all servers are located in the US, no matter what language the Misplaced Pages is, so the same legal issues apply to all of them, even if the most common ones concern wp-en. Anyway, maybe some other people will be able to help you out with more specific policy quotes. If not, you might ask Jimbo or Brad for clarification, because this is an important issue. --W.marsh 00:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It comes down to credibility. If you make a claim and no-one knows what foundation you have for it, why should anyone believe it? And what value to do place on an article that you are not sure you can believe or not?

Really it is a matter of best practice when writing anything technical to refer to your sources for all new information that you seek to introduce. So, forget whether Jimbo has made a binding statement about it for non-English wikis - look at the big picture. Always quote your sources, jguk 13:12, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It was our founder's statement of goal that is still the foundation of Misplaced Pages. For my thinking the goal can only be fulfilled if articles are written with a Neutral Point of View. In order for many editors to achieve that, WP:V (all included information be verifiatible by a published, reliable source) is necessary and WP:NOR (no original research) is necessary. The goal which Jimbo states can not be achieved by other methods, from my point of view. Terryeo 00:02, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Politically motivated AfD's: the elephant in the room

It seems like Politically motivated AfDs are the "elephant in the room"--which everyone sees, but no one can mention. Certain editors will go around in groups (some people call them "cabals") and actively push their own narrow POV.

It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will vote to delete pages which are against their political beliefs, yet fervently support to keep similar pages which suport their political beliefs.

Partisan editors voting record is clear--if an article is against their narrow POV, no matter how well written it is, how well sourced it is, etc, it will be put up for deletion, and this little group will vote against it. I have been an editor for just over a year, and I have been troubled by the amount of articles which have been deleted by partisans of ALL political persuasions, right or left.

It is clear that certain editors are doing it because they are biased and slanted, but no wikieditor can actually bring this up. When another wikieditor brings it up, people scream WP:NPA. I support WP:NPA fully, but in some cases, policies are detrimental. WP:IAR? Policies are tools to help us wikieditors build a better encyclopedia. When a small group of users is actively deleting well referenced material because of political bias, then the policy rule needs to be reevaluated.

Why is the word (insert title here) cabal so off limits?

Why when anyone brings up the subject, they are heckled off the talk page?

One user suggest this:

If an editor or a group of editors is pushing a narrow POV then follow the dispute resolution process. I know it's a lot of work, but going through the trouble of presenting a case with evidence and diffs is what's needed to rise above (possibly subjective) accusations of POV pushing.

Is this the only option?

Any other experienced editors have suggestions? Travb (talk) 23:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

If cool, rational discussion between editors doesn't work (or isn't possible), then the Dispute Resolution process is the best option. Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case. It can be slow and, yes, tedious, but the process is still your best bet. Good luck. --Doc Tropics 23:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Doc Tropics Thanks for your comments.

I am just wondering if there is any system which is faster, which has been proposed before. WP:DR is tedious, and can be disruptive to all of the editors involved. I am concerned how much well researched information is deleted on wikipedia, often by editors who have agendas and strong POVs.

I am looking for editor suggestions, other than the tedious WP:DR.

"Taking unilateral actions or appearing uncivil can only hurt your case." I agree 100%, I was once booted for being uncivil on an AfD and for singling out one editor. Travb (talk) 00:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

You could try to find a neutral 3rd party to help with some informal mediation. It might be a good option if the editors involved are all amenable. --Doc Tropics 01:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

* First, discuss the topic on its discussion page. In some instances, some discussion on an individual editor's page might be helpful, too. In some cases, not.

* Get other editors involved. Cite the article which appears to be "owned" by a "cabal" on a discussion page like this one where additional editors might view what is going on. Often enough, just getting 2 or 3 more editors with a fresh point of view irons the wrinkles which are preventing a reasonable, neutral article.

* There is the process of WP:Mediation and Request for comment and so on.

* In the other direction, WP:DE (Disrutive Editors) is a new guideline which is still being hammered out, but you might find some help there if you post your example to its discussion page. Terryeo 01:16, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks User:Terryeo. From a quick glance at WP:DE, I don't know if making WP:DE a policy is a good thing. We can discuss my opinion of WP:DE on another page, including the WP:DE talk page, if you wish, I would like to focus only on the AfD issue here. After spending some time on WP:DE Wikipedia_talk:Disruptive_editing#comments_about_this_article, I don't think WP:DE applies :( Travb (talk) 03:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Old example

Old example, removed from above:

It is the worst when these groups of people put articles up for deletion. For example, certain editors will attempt to squelch 9/11 consipracy theories by putting these articles up for deletion. (Just for the record, I do not support any 9/11 consipracy theories)

Another example is a user's page, who actively attempts to delete all conspircy theories:

User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard

I am sure there are other user pages like this. I bring this one up simply because it is the only one I am aware of. Any other editors now of others? Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

While this is a reasonnable concern, I find your example pretty unconvincing. I, for one, have voted on a couple of these 9/11 AfDs and even added a couple to GabrielF's list if I remember correctly. But I fail to see how why this should be viewed as a political question. You seem to assume some political motive behind this string of deletions but I see no evidence of this. I'm not American and I don't have a political agenda around here and to me this is just another effort to clean up some of the cruftiness. I view that particular list like I would the equivalent list that would point out the Pokemon cruft. The few 9/11 conspiracy I got involved in concerned not-so-notable 9/11 truth movement participants, were for the most part blatantly point of view and seemed to exist mainly to give credibility to far-flung theories of the nonsense. To me their deletion was less a political act than their creation was... Are cabals a real problem? maybe. Are politically motivated cabals a problem? I have yet to see convincing evidence that they exist. Pascal.Tesson 01:01, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It is only one example, I don't want to get in a debate about this one example, I am only interested in the problem in general...Travb (talk) 03:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The example travb offers does not support the accusation's he's making. I didn't create that userpage to eliminate articles because of their subject matter, I created it because there were a flood of non-notable 9/11 conspiracy articles nominated for deletion around the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and I thought it would be useful to create a list of them. Please understand that article's weren't nominated because someone disagreed with their subject matter - nobody nominated Alex Jones for example - they were nominated because they were essentially free publicity for non-notable people and books. As evidence of this, I suggest that readers examine the AfD discussions linked to at the page in question. You'll see that 46 of about 55 AfDs were deleted or merged and many of the nominations were not challenged. We are not "squelching" anything by nominating an article about a book that appears in fewer than 40 libraries in the world for deletion. Furthermore, I explicitly state at the top of my page that articles can only be listed if the nominator believes the article inherently violates some policy such as notability guidelines. Finally, the page is completely transparent - anyone can add to it or comment on a listing. GabrielF 03:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

User:GabrielF, maybe it is a bad example, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, and moved it from the main question. I hesitated to use examples, and maybe I shouldn't have. The reason why I probably should't have including examples is because I don't want to get in an argument here about which pages should be deleted and which should not. I have simply noticed that some editors will vote for a page's deletion regardless of the content. With some editors you can guess how they will vote in an AfD before even seeing the AfD. If your page, User:GabrielF/ConspiracyNoticeboard does not fall into this catgory, my apologies. Travb (talk) 03:55, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but then I still wonder whether if the elephant is really in the room. Groups of editors have indeed, at times, acted as a single block in a sequence of AfDs, regardless of content. This has happened for instance in the case of school AfDs (to cite but one example). But I don't know of a case that one can seriously consider as politically motivated. Pascal.Tesson 04:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe ideologically motivated would be a better description. Again, arguing whether or not 9/11 conspiracies should or should not be on wikipedia was not my intention in writing this talk page topic. It is clear now that it was definetly a mistake to use any examples at all. Thanks for your comments Pascal. Travb (talk) 11:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

While this appears a perfectly good example one needs to anayse things one has no access to. For example there appeared to be, but may not have been, a core of editors who wished the 9/11 Controlled demolition article to be deleted, and their rationale appeared to be able to be said to be "George Bush is right, so there". Agaknst the deletion arguments were a group of people who appeared to think that "It has to have been conspiracy, so the article must stand". In all probability each apparenty partisan grouping cancels the other out. A good closing admin will also be able to spot spurious arguments and discount them. It is not a ballot, after all.

In the middle ground are those who argue Misplaced Pages's corner. Put plain, a good, notable, verifiable, well sourced article shoudl stay and the rest shoudl either be improved to that standard duringthe AfD process or go. Taking the 9/11 article I mentioned, the closing admin did just that, and several editors have been battling with the article to make sure it can no longer be criticised. That is a valid outcome for a work of reference such as this. Also any ashortcomings in the article can be highlighted on its talk page and improved.

There are different results with Schools. For example it had long been held that a Primary School was not inherently notable and worthy of an article, but a secndary or high school was. There was a sudden rash of sub-stubs from a less than communicative yet prolific editor that generated many AfDs. The often used argument against deletion came from the same names and was on the basis that "Every school is worthy of an article". The deletion arguments came from others with the view that the long held view of deletion od primary schools (or better the non creatioon of the articles) was necessary unless there was inherent notability. Verifiability alone was not and should not be enough, for even the smallest school is verifiable

The Elephant in the Room is probably not politics, but is dogma. And it appears that it is on each "side" of a deletion discussion. But it is also easy to see "cabals" where none exist. People have often shared the same opinions but have not even been loosely grouped together. Fiddle Faddle 12:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Facinating, excellent points. I can tell you have been an editor for sometime. Thanks User:Timtrent /Fiddle Faddle. Travb (talk) 16:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"All" we need is what we have: sufficient Misplaced Pages oriented editors and Misplaced Pages oriented admins to be able to recognise the danger of Room Elephants of this nature, and to neutralise that danger when closing AfDs. It really does not matter if 10 people yell "Delete" or "Keep" with no rationale except "I want it to be (choose your action)", or "My brand of dogma says it must be (choose your action)" and only one presents a cogent argument for the reverse. The good admin will close it to meet the cogent argument coiupled with their understanding of the article and Misplaced Pages policies and guidlines. A good admin needs to see past spurious "but it passes ], so it must stay" too.

This is one reason I do not wish to be an admin. So much rests on an admin's shoulders in terms of getting it right that the role is one that very few people are likely to do well. We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display bias. We have a few who appear to display it, which also makes us unlucky. But we do have community scrutiny. After all, if you show me an editor or an admin who has never made a mistake I think I can show you one who is new to the role.

I do believe that admins and only admins should close AfDs. And I believe that the admin who closes a heated AfD has a clear duty to explain the decision. An excellent example is the closing rationale here. It does not matter whether one agrees with or disagrees with the decision; that is a completely different discussion. What matters is that one can see the process clearly. In this case the discussion remained live until the point the admin froze it before closing it, because time was needed to consider the huge number of points made by the various contributors. It was a reasonable interval later that the results were published. And the rationale is clear to see for any subsequent review by us, the community. Fiddle Faddle 17:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Two responses:

• AfD is not a vote. Votes made with a biased justification, or without justification, would typically be disregarded.
• Only articles with severe, irreparable bias can be deleted on the basis of bias. More often, if an article has a bias, someone who opposes it can simultaneously improve the encyclopedia and promote their own POV by making it more neutral. This is the invisible hand of wiki at work. Deco 21:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

User:Timtrent wrote: We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display bias. User:Timtrent, you are either:

a) incredibly naive about wikipedia, which you obviously are not.

b) Someone aspiring to be an admin and kissing ass, which you say you are not,

c) you must be editing different articles than I do, or

d) you generally only see the glass half full and filter out the rest, whereas I see it half empty.

Russians say a pessimist is an informed optomist. Your statment, I am sorry, is absurd. Everyone has bias, cultural bias, religious bias, political bias. I guess maybe you meant to say We're lucky that so many of our admins do not display much bias. Which, I would respond, which ones? I would really like some names, because I want them to be judging me if I ever get in a content dispute.

For example, try bringing up the idea of copyright to many of these editors. They overwhelming believe in the capitalist/liberal economic mantra: that copyright is a good, and that fair use should be very narrowly constued. They are incredibly biased on this subject. Do you know how many times I was told by admins out of the blue that adding an image to wikipedia was "stealing"? Basically saying I was a theif? When someone says such strong words, you are not only dealing with bias, you are dealing with an ideology. It is pointless to argue anymore at that point.

Goodness, I am going off on tangents, human beings are hardwired and socially trained to not look at the big picture. When I go off on tangents (i.e. the bigger picture), I usually lose people...Anyway, back to the subject matter:

What matters is that one can see the process clearly.' here is bias right now. Your bias, "belief" as you call it, is that the process works, that wikipedia works. I am arguing, and my bias is that the policy sometimes doesn't work, and should be fixed. I am looking for suggestions to fix it, since you seem to clearly feel that wikipedia doesn't need to be fixed, "'All' we need is what we have" then I guess we will simply agree to disagree. I am looking for possible solutions to what I see as a problem, not more rationalizations, I have gotten a million of those before, and they are starting to lose their luster (value).

RE: AfD is not a vote If I had a nickel for everytime I heard this argument. AfD is a vote. Wikipedians decide whether or not they want to keep the article, that is a vote. An AfD is not a democracy though. A select group of wikipedians, who are admins decide whether to keep the article. It is a vote, and calling an AfD not a vote is absurd, wikipedia just calls it something else, but for all intensive purposes, it is a vote. Since the idea that an "AfD is not a democracy" is repulsive to most people who believe that democracy is the best form of government, and anything that has the word "democracy" in it must be good, and anything that is not a "democracy" is bad, wikipedians, the majority who are American and believe this "democracy" ideology, decide to make up a grammatical fiction (in law we call they call it a "legal fiction"):

"The AfD is not a vote"

....when in reality it is a vote, it just isn't a democracy. Again, I am going off on tangents.

I don't want to waste time arguing whether an "AfD is not a vote", unless you have some incredible insight which I never thought of.

Votes made with a biased justification, or without justification, would typically be disregarded. (I didn't read the rest of your comments)

Again, more the "system works" arguments, please see my statment above. I am not here to convince obidient wikipedians that the system is corrupt, nor argue whether the AfD system is or is not corrupt, I am here to garner suggestions of how to fix a corrupt system. I am also not here to argue the levels of corruption. Travb (talk) 04:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Pornography as defined in the United States by the FCC and its inclusion on this Encyclopedia

Dear Misplaced Pages,

I would very much like to express my regrets at the inclusion of pictures of erect male genetalia. Specifically the aricle "Penis". Having found this web-site to be, in my own words to my friends and peers, "the best thing on the web", I was more than a little put out to realize that it contained images which are classified as pornography in the United States.

I attempted to rectify this, and my edits were immediately removed.

Now, should all of you wish your daughters to view erect male penises, please shout me down and I will (perhaps) leave you in peace. But I cannot help but think that this is one (perhaps the ONLY) area where I feel that the inclusion of these photos is a matter of opinion, and a bad one at that.

We should be making a resources for ourselves and our children. Should we allow pictures of erect penises? Any penises? Can I put a picture of mine up? Are pictures of naked children acceptable? Should we include links to pornography sites?

There is, apparently a line. It is my opinion that it has been crossed. Please clarify where this line is for me so I can include your policy to my congressmen.

Xchanter 01:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)Xchanter

See WP:NOT (censored), which spells the line out (everything encyclopedic that is not illegal in Florida is fine for Misplaced Pages). Also, the mere image of a penis, erect or not, is not pornography. I just checked the article and found nothing that was a "prurient depiction of sexual acts" or "appealed to the prurient interests". If you are not happy with this policy, you can either fork the knowledge base and create a bowlderized kid's version of Misplaced Pages, or refrain from using it. --Stephan Schulz 01:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

This topic comes up on a near-daily basis and the bottom line is: Misplaced Pages is not censored for children. On the other hand, your last comment comes perilously close to violating our no legal threats policy. If you wish to remain active on WP you need to be very careful about how you phrase things like that. --Doc Tropics

I fully agree with the above first reply, and there is every reason to have a picture of a penis in an article about penises. I wish to extend this point to some of the picture galleries which can be found in userspace (examples found here - NOT SAFE FOR WORK) which are displayed to demonstrate the point that Misplaced Pages is not censored. Just as a picture of a young child with their clothes on is not normally considered to be child pornography, a whole collection is often considered unhealthy, and in many jurisdictions, prosecuted under obscenity laws. Some of these galleries may indeed "appeal to prurient interests". Can someone explain how they are to be judged under US laws? -- Jim182 02:07, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Some of the galleries may, but I don't think your gallery is an example. Overall, under US law only obscene content is not protected by the first amendment. To be considered obscene, any work would have to pass the Miller test, which includes (among others), a test if "the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". Unless the supreme court revises this standard, Misplaced Pages is very safe. --Stephan Schulz 02:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Please do send a copy of our policy to your congressman. I'd get a really big kick out of some politician trying to argue that a picture of a penis in the Penis article of an encyclopedia should somehow be banned. If you'll excuse the sarcasm, I also heard that the Digital Urology Jounrnal is waaaaaay pornographic. Pascal.Tesson 02:18, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm horrified by the idea that pictures of penises (erect and flacid) wouldn't be available on the penis article. I very much do want my daughter to be able to find out what a penis looks like without having to walk up to a man and ask him to show her. An encyclopedia seems like a great place for her to satisfy her curiosity. --Siobhan Hansa 02:19, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It's no good. I simply can't resist it. At what point of erection does the penis become "obscene"? Before answering consider that not all penises rise to the occasion. Some point downwards. Fiddle Faddle 20:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I believe we had an article on something like this... ah, here it is: the Mull of Kintyre test. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 22:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

According to The Brethren, at least one U.S. Supreme Court Justice used exactly this standard in obscenity cases, although he didn't mention it in the published opinions. (Personally, I think we could live without some of the raunchier content here, but I know the community consensus is the other way.) Newyorkbrad 01:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

We're not censored. Especially not for young children. If it's appropriate to the article, keep it. If you genuinely have legal concerns or wish to take legal action, the person you want to contact is wikipedia's official legal advisor User:BradPatrick. legal threats are otherwise not allowed. After looking at Special:Contributions/Xchanter, this is starting to look suspicious like trolling. --`/aksha 02:23, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

For any users interested, the convening user above (Xchanter) appears to have been trolling. His talk page has a followup discussion where he self destructed and has been blocked for 24 hours pending further review. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 06:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I wish my daughter (and yes, I do have one) to view pictures of erect penises. I don't really think she has any interest in the matter at her age but when she does, I want her to see a real photo of a real penis and I would strongly prefer that she sees it in a neutral context. Yes, you may upload a photo of your erect penis. Note that unless it is a substantial improvement over existing male organs, it may be deleted as redundant. I would particularly like you to upload a GFDL-licensed illustration of autofellatio. No, photos of naked children are probably not acceptable; these almost always qualify as child porno, forbidden by US and especially Florida law. Please copy our censorship policy to your congressman; I'm sure it will be of public good to demonstrate a balanced application of the First Amendment to our public servants. Thank you. John Reid 18:41, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

At any rate, FCC policy on censorship applies only to broadcasts in the public airwaves, not to other media such as cable TV or the Internet. These boundaries could always be subject to change due to legislation or litigation. There are some trying to get broadcast decency rules extended to cable, while others would like to get a test case up to the Supreme Court which might overturn government authority to censor the airwaves at all given technological and cultural changes since the last (1978) decision in that area. However, attempts to censor the Internet in this manner (the Communications Decency Act, for instance) have been overturned by court rulings, with the exception of a requirement that schools and libraries with federal Internet funding apply filtering. *Dan T.* 19:05, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

A couple legal clarifications to elaborate on your comments: the internet filtering case was decided based upon the ability of Congress to impose conditions on the receipt of federal funds, not upon any power of the government to regulate internet content. FCC indecency regulation was upheld as constitutional because broadcast radio and television is subject to reduced First Amendment protection. As you suggested, if anything will change it's the disfavored treatment of broadcast speech (and hopefully the completely irrational fear/disparagement of nudity and sexual speech and imagery generally), not the extension of those restrictions to other contexts. Postdlf 19:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe this is stereotyping on my part, but I envision this sort of complaint as coming from a parent in a small United States community (they usually use U.S. English or cite U.S. law) and I imagine the same person would - in another context - condemn censorship in China and Saudi Arabia. Sixteen years ago, when Saudi censors prohibited U.S. troops on its soil from having access to Cosmopolitan magazine and Chinese censors blacked out stories about Tienanmen Square, these issues seemed entirely separate. Now we live in a smaller world. Misplaced Pages isn't a community publication or even a national one. People in mainland China only recently regained access to most of the English language Misplaced Pages after a year of total firewalling and they still can't read Misplaced Pages's Chinese language edition. Nearly one human being in five is affected by that censorship, which in itself is enough reason to oppose efforts to censor Misplaced Pages at an organizational level: the establishment of any such precedent would become a wedge for further censorship. It's simple to solve a perceived problem in one's own home. Just filter access in the home through parental control software or lock out the site and send the kids to a family-friendly Misplaced Pages mirror. When the children become more mature they'll appreciate the additional lessons in civics and free expression. Durova 20:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

While I don't disagree with you in any way, shape, or form, I strongly advise against getting worked up about this user; he's already been banned once, and if he continues trolling, will most likely be perma-banned. It is entirely possible the above was posted specifically to get a rise out of people. Just take a deep breath, mutter a few choice obscenities, and walk away. :-) EVula 20:28, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

That's blocked, not banned. Considering what this user posted the block was quite lenient. Durova 20:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

WP:PEREN#Content_warnings. Misplaced Pages is not regulated by the FCC, and there is no universal legal standard for content which is not so regulated; it depends on locale. Deco 21:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The legislation that actually applies here is COPPA. We are regulated by the FTC (not the FCC) according to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act which is in force. That doesn't depend on locale, only on the fact our servers are in the United States. Also, we are protected by the claim that our material is educational. Issues arise when material is used in a way that can't be justified as educational. However, putting a penis on Penis is a pretty clear educational use so no one need fear it will be removed. How ever Europeans like to complain about prudish Americans, the fact is our server resides in the US and so must follow the laws of that country. pschemp | talk 01:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The user in question has been indefinately blocked for repeated legal threats even after my block. - CHAIRBOY (☎) 21:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy

An RfArb has been opened on the subject of the policy proposal Protecting children's privacy. I must ask at the outset that my fellow editors refrain from commenting here, within this little section, on the merits of this proposal. It may be good or bad; that's not the issue I wish to discuss. I'm concerned about it before ArbCom.

The Arbitration Committee is our court of last resort; there is no appeal from its final decisions except to the person of Jimbo. ArbCom makes its own rules and hears whatever cases it likes. It has almost invariably confined itself to issues involving user conduct, including admins and other editors; it consistently rejects cases which are purely article content disputes. This is as it should be. ArbCom is not answerable to our community. This is a necessary evil.

We have a mechanism for creating project-wide policy; it involves the discussion of all interested community members and may result in consensus. This is the mechanism by which the vast majority of proposals are made, amended, and passed into policy or rejected. This is as it should be. The mechanism is inefficient, frequently raucous, and does not always work as we might wish. This is a necessary evil.

We do not, under any circumstances, want ArbCom to rule on the status of a policy proposal. If the discussion on a proposal gets heated, as it so often does, we ask editors to cool out; if they don't, we ask admins to warn, then block them. We may employ other steps in dispute resolution. So long as discussion continues without participants exceeding the limits permitted in discussion, all is well -- regardless of the status of the proposal on the table.

If admins fail in their duties and begin to wheel war, then we resort to ArbCom. Quite simply, the only sure way to terminate a wheel war is to take away sysop privileges from the warriors. Technically, only a Steward can do this; politically, Stewards heed only ArbCom on this project. ArbCom thus holds the big stick in wheel wars and can stop them by deadminning or threatening to deadmin. This is what ArbCom is for and this is all we need.

If we permit or, worse, encourage ArbCom to rule on policy matters, then they become not only our supreme-and-only-court but also our legislators. Whenever a policy discussion starts to go against you, you just bring it to ArbCom; if enough arbitrators are sympathetic, your problem is solved without any further discussion or messy consensus. Indeed, policy discussion is now pointless, mere heckling from the peanut gallery. ArbCom makes all the rules. We do not want to buy a ticket to this destination.

Until now, ArbCom has acted with restraint and confined itself to user conduct issues. Now, with 5 arbitrators in favor of hearing this case, it looks as though they wish to decide policy for us as well.

I strongly urge all community members, new and old, to protest this power shift. This is our community. It will only remain ours so long as we keep a hand on it. John Reid 19:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure I share your alarm here. From what I understand, the ArbCom is not being asked "should we use proposal A or proposal B as policy?", or is it invited to impose a compromise policy. It is being asked to decide whether WP:CHILD should be

1. tagged as a failed proposal (which one group supports)
2. considered as policy given the broad support that another group is claiming
3. sent back for more discussion in the hope of garnering a significant consensus (I don't think anyone really wants that)

I don't see this as a power shift, it's just an arbitration committee doing arbitration. Pascal.Tesson 22:44, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I want more discussion. I'd prefer that the discussion remain civil and that people tag the proposal with care. (There is indeed a new tag for such polarized discussions of proposed policies: {{polarized-proposal}}.) I would like to expect that everyone will conduct himself properly; that nobody will edit war, tag war, or cite the proposal as "policy" if it has not garnered consensus. If someone should forget himself, I hope that he is cautioned civilly; if that fails, I hope he is blocked judiciously. I trust admins involved in such blocking to do so with complete disregard for the substantive issue, blocking only to remove stubborn, disruptive editors from the table; I'd like to believe that all involved admins will be mindful of our no wheel warring policy and discuss such blocks among themselves, rather than block war. If the proposal itself becomes too unstable, I expect admins to protect it from further editing, while permitting discussion to continue on talk. Of course, I wish to think that involved admins will avoid protect-warring at all costs by discussing the process issue among themselves. Finally, if some of my expectations are not met and weak admins do wheel war, then I expect a case to be brought to ArbCom -- a case involving user conduct.

In short, I want our process of policy formation to play itself out. I do not want to see it aborted by ArbCom or anybody else. Am I alone? John Reid 00:36, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I broadly agree with John Reid. My stance is simple: if the protection of children's privacy is an urgent issue, then it is urgent enough for the Wikimedia Foundation to hand down a policy. Especially if we are indeed breaching this American COPPA law if we don't have it. Otherwise, leave it to the community. The Arbcom should preserve its status as the last resort for conduct issues, not the place where everyone goes if they're bored with discussion. I've made a suggestion in the Workshop along these lines, which would amount to the Arbcom endorsing the status quo with respect to them formulating policy. --Sam Blanning 03:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• I thought around the issue and find I agree with John as well, and I've made a few suggestions too, regarding the {{disputedpolicy}} tag. Steve block Talk 13:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Template tampers with page title

I found this User:Daniel.Bryant/Title which is transcluded from various user pages Special:Whatlinkshere/User:Daniel.Bryant/Title. It superimposes some text over the 'official' page title that is generated by the Wiki software. Surely this must be against some policy, could someone take care of this matter? Femto 21:34, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Using this template is not ideal, because it means that the page will not render properly for browsers that do not support css. Therefore, this type of feature is permitted only in userspace. It is still possible to see the 'official' page title by looking in the title bar. Tra (Talk) 21:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

• At the very least, it's highly obnoxious -- I am inclined towards the idea that such things should removed on sight for faking the software interface. --Improv 21:54, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. Who permitted this, even only in userspace? I say the right to edit our userspace ends at the page title. Nobody should have to go searching for some alternate means of getting information from a standardized interface just because of someone's stylistic fancies. Femto 22:17, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't see that anybody has spoken to this editor directly about this matter. Do you think that might be wise? John Reid 01:03, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry if you find it in any way disrputive. Originally, I found this in someone else's userspace, and merely copied the formatting across. However, I find it semi-ironic that I'm the only user being picked on, when in fact I've seen this type of thing used on many other user talk pages, even now still.

I will {{db-owner}} it, only if someone goes around and asks everyone who has used it to remove it (and cite this discussion). By this, I do not mean automatically remove it, but instead ask the "owner" of the user talk page to do so. Once there are no transclusions, then I will have it deleted. I also ask that you will extend this request to other users on Misplaced Pages who have similar things, ie. User:Glen S. Daniel.Bryant 07:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Two more things: a) I would have much preferred that people have mentioned it on my talk pages - no single editor has ever had a problem with it before, however I would have been more-than-happy to discuss and reach a comprimise. On that note, I am slightly disappointed about the manner in which this was brought up; also, comments like "Who permitted this, even only in userspace?" are strange, as there is no permission avenue for anything on Misplaced Pages, really; and b) John Reid's post, with a comment like "I suggest you return to each place you have used it and replace it with something less confrontational and obscure", is also misled - note that I have never, ever, ever added this template to anyone else's userpage - I used it on my talk page for about two days, and in that time it was duplicated 6-7 times on other user pages (maybe my user talk page is that popular :D). I am also stunned by the comment "this thing will upset a lot of your fellow editors", considering this template has been used on a number of user pages for over a month now and no-one has even mentioned it. Daniel.Bryant 07:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

For the record, my comment "Who permitted this, even only in userspace?" was in reply to Tra's "this type of feature is permitted only in userspace". Your page was the first instance which I encountered; not picking on anybody in particular. It's a problem of general policy, not about compromising with specific users about their private use of this code. Femto 15:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. Can I polish your boots for you too? Wash your car? Pick up your dry-cleaning? --Doc Tropics 07:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I find the sarcasm in that last comment grossly unwarranted. I could stick my back up and not offer this comprimise, but I decided not to; amazing the brilliant degrees of civility I recieve in return. It is not my job to run around the Wiki at the beck-and-call of another user; if you want me to delete it, then you have to do some work also. Daniel.Bryant 07:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Pages which use an identical template:-

1. User talk:Mitaphane
2. User:Kzzl
3. User:Mitaphane
4. User:Zzyzx11
5. User:Crazytales56297
6. User talk:Crazytales56297
7. User:AThing
8. User:Herostratus/Aa
9. User:Killer Panda
10. User:Kajimoto
11. User:Orannis/Sandbox
12. User:Jorcoga
13. User:Voretus
14. User talk:JayW
15. User:Agentscott00
16. User:DarknessLord
17. User:The Runescape Junkie
18. User talk:The Runescape Junkie
19. User talk:DarknessLord
20. User:Ikiroid
21. User:Chris5897
22. User talk:Ed
23. User:Kitia
24. User talk:Kitia
25. User:Kitia/Watch
26. User:Kitia/Sandbox
27. User:Kitia/Babel
28. User:Kitia/Johan Agrell
29. User:Ais523
30. User talk:Kzzl
31. User:Jumping cheese/Title
32. User:DarknessLord/Userboxes
33. User:DarknessLord/Favorite TV Shows
34. User:DarknessLord/Personal Facts
35. User:DarknessLord/User Facts
36. User talk:DarknessLord/Userboxes
37. User talk:DarknessLord/Favorite TV Shows
38. User talk:DarknessLord/Personal Facts
39. User talk:DarknessLord/User Facts
40. User:DarknessLord/Sandbox
41. User talk:DarknessLord/Sandbox
42. User:DarknessLord/Template
43. User:Ed
44. User:HappyUser/Main
45. User talk:HappyUser/Main
46. User:1ne
47. User talk:1ne
48. User:SushiGeek/Title (redir)

1. User talk:Kzzl/archive 7.8
2. User talk:1ne/All Messages Ever
3. User talk:1ne/Archive 4
4. User talk:Kzzl

See User:1ne/Title and Special:Whatlinkshere/User:1ne/Title (this was the template I copied originally). Daniel.Bryant 08:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Interestingly, found Misplaced Pages:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 June 30#Template:Title. I'm still willing to have mine be deleted, however the 1ne version will have to be discussed. Daniel.Bryant 08:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to plead guilty to sarcasm, but I didn't mean for my few words to provoke almost 60 lines of response. Now I feel like a troll...or at least an imp. --Doc Tropics 08:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The 60 lines wasn't all in response to you - only about 3 :D - ever since this was brought up, I have been searching for where I copied the code from (and found it at User:1ne/Title). What I'm going to do, if this OK with everyone, is transfer all the use of my template to that of 1ne's, and then delete mine. From there, this can be discussed, whether as an MfD etc. Is this sweet with everyone else? Daniel.Bryant 08:26, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I started an WP:MfD on User:Glen_S/Title, User:Daniel.Bryant/Title and User:1ne/Title. Feel free to add any more if there are.

The MfD procedure should take care of removing the inclusion links to such pages, in the event the Misplaced Pages community decides such pages should not be used. --Francis Schonken 08:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

May I suggest you group them all into one MfD? Daniel.Bryant 08:32, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Proposed formatting of Japanese names

I've noticed that whenever Japanese names are mentioned on Misplaced Pages they are written in an inconsistent fashion. The convential Japanese way of writing names is to write the family name first, then the given name second, in contrast to the Western tradition of given names first and family names second.

Most of the articles which mention Japanese names do not state which format they are using, which could be a real problem for those who are not familiar with Japanese given names, and may not be able to distinguish otherwise between the two, and therefore may become confused as to which name is which, or, if they are completely unaware of the mistake, use the wrong name for the person altogether.

I think that it would be wise to implement a wikipedia policy regarding Japanese names to clarify which format they are to be written in primarily, and have this stated in the relevant articles.

See Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style_(Japan-related_articles)#Names. Dragons flight 22:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

YouTube in EL

Please see Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#External_Links_and_YouTube. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

A proposal to the Community here

Now that I'm back to enjoying my retirement, I thought I would tempt fate with a proposal for you all. I've put it on my user page (not really the right place, I know, but it seemed as good a place to start as any). For a number of reasons, it could not fit into this wiki as currently configured, but if a partitioned area were to be made available, then we could make progress. Obviously, whether such a proposal could be implemented would involved a policy decision at the highest levels of the Wikimedia Foundation, but I've decided to test the waters here first. David Marshall 10:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

What should be the limiting factors as to which cities get a "Roads of..." article?

It was brought to my attention that a number of relatively small cities - like Ashland, Kentucky (population about 25,000) and Charleston, West Virginia (population about 50,000) - have "Roads of..." articles (there is a discussion of the issue on this talk page. While I think the intention is quite nobile, I suspect that, in the global context of Misplaced Pages, this would either A) open up a huge can of worms as to deciding which cities, if any, would merit similar articles (there is no Roads of New York City, for example); or B) lead into a serious dispute as to which roads/avenues/byways merit inclusion into the article. An anonymous editor suggested that Roads of Ashland, Kentucky and Roads of Charleston, West Virginia be merged with the respective articles covering the cities, presumably because either there was quite a bit of duplication already at the target articles, or the information would be better used in the appropriate State Road, U.S. Route, or Interstate articles - and the suggestion drew a heated reaction from the articles' writer.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind a Roads of Troy, Michigan or Roads of Falkirk, Scotland or Roads of Chilliwack, British Columbia article, but unless some standards regarding cities' "eligibility" or determining which streets/roads/etc., would be included in the article (and such standard should be mentioned somewhere in the article or the talk page), I also see a huge slippery slope that would be best avoided. This issue needs objective input from people who haven't invested themselves in these (or similar) articles. B.Wind 22:45, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

There's plenty of space at Misplaced Pages: it's not a paper encyclopedia. Thank goodness we don't have to edit these or read them. Why would one want to clutter city articles with such stuff? We certainly don't want to forbid them-- or do we?--Wetman 02:54, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Plenty of space doesn't mean we should accept random garbage, and in fact there are costs associated with running the server. Our mission is to be an encyclopedia. I have no specific comment on the factors, but the "plenty of space" argument is broken. --Improv 16:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well there's a Roads of Louisville, Kentucky, for example. I had intended for it to cover like Main Street, Broadway and our Parkway system (designed by Olmstead), about which I can cite a great deal of reliable sources, actual meaningful info and so on. Right now it just covers highways for the most part, which I'm not tremendously interested in, but my point is that reliable sources do exist for some roads, enough to create an article on roads that's interesting, if nothing else to road geeks and people interested in local history. But if all you can say is "There's a road here, it's this long"... I dunno, that's not really for an encyclopedia. But sometimes you can say a whole lot more.

So the question really, "have reliable sources written meaningfully about multiple roads in a town/city?" and if so, all notable roads of the city can be covered in that one article, until you get to cities like New York where individual roads get articles. Improv is right in that we shouldn't include everything just because we technically can, but if something is interesting and based on reliable sources, even if it's highly obscure, we should strongly consider including it. --W.marsh 16:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• But there is a second part that is yet to be discussed here, if I read the original comments correctly: should every city in the world be "eligible" for a "Roads of..." article, or should there be qualifications attached to such a consideration. While every city is notable, do we want exhaustive lists of streets and roads from every hamlet that is incorporated, or should there be a population restriction be placed on this as well? While it's easy to say Roads of Ashland, Kentucky is a "useful" article (albeit possibly at the expense of the articles covering the state and US Roads mentioned in RoAK), what's to prevent something like Roads of Islandia, Florida (on one extreme) or Roads of Jacksonville, Florida (on the other extreme)? While the intention seems to be a good one, I'm concerned about the precedent these articles are setting in Misplaced Pages - that this is opening a huge can of worms... and it's better to deal with it on the onset than after a mess has been created by editors with different "visions." 147.70.242.40 20:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Can anyone cite reliable sources specifically about roads in Ashland, Kentucky? I was just looking the other day at an entire book about the roads of Louisville, with histories, descriptions, summaries of traffic and parking problems, and so on. If people can say more about the roads of Ashland than "well this one runs for this many miles", then I'd say an article is fair game. But the problem is that often nothing like that has really been published for very small towns, when you get down to it, and anything you could say would just be personal knowledge. --W.marsh 20:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Currentness?

Is there a guideline anywhere that says that we are writing not about the present but about all recorded history? In other words, that an item should not be removed from a list just because it has been demolished? --NE2 23:57, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

There's no policy like that specifically, but since one of our goals is to record "...the sum total of human knowledge..." it's absolutely correct. Of course, an item might need to be moved to a different list or re-written if the facts change. --Doc Tropics 00:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Try WP:NPOV. We should not give undue weight to things from the present vs. things from the past, as it is a form of systematic bias. I also seem to remember there being a page somewhere that explicitly stated Misplaced Pages aimed to be timeless, but that was when I first joined and I can't find it anymore. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 00:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This is why it helps to provide a diff to a specific case; so much depends on the actual context...--Doc Tropics 00:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

The specific case has not happened yet, but the discussion at the bottom of Talk:Ghost ramp may get there. --NE2 00:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I took a quick look and I don't know enough about the subject itself to have an informed opinion about it. It seems that if the page is a List then it should certainly be as comprehensive as possible. If it's an article though, the list of examples seems excessive. Generally 3 - 4 examples should be adequate. --Doc Tropics 00:59, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

There is not, but I have seen several remarks regarding the bias towards recent topics, such as the statement that about 80% of articles regard topics conceived in the last 20 years. The balance clause of NPOV primarily applies toward the content of a single article rather than the systematic bias of WP as a whole. Most editors take a tolerant attitude toward systematic bias as something best combatted by recruiting active editors in sparse areas. Deco 11:57, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes you can structure the knowledge to meet both aims without confusion. I am currently working on the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, which basically gives a current view e.g. As of June 2006, only two wrecks are designated.... However this article is supported by a list - List of designations under the Protection of Wrecks Act - which lists all of the designations including ones since revoked. If I had called it the List of Protected Wrecks, whether this was currently or historically protected might have been more of an issue. Viv Hamilton 12:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Copyright on image

A user has posted a photograph that is almost certainly a picture of herself, but the image has embedded on it a copyright notice with the name of the photographer. The image was uploaded with I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain - what is the correct way to deal with this? --ArmadilloFromHell 01:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

What's the image? Link it. As for action, you should stick a disputed tag on it. I forget the exact template. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by link it - for articles that violate copyright I put a speedy delete db-copyvio tag on and I do that daily, but I don't think I do that with images - and this is the first copyright image problem I found. --ArmadilloFromHell 01:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Link it means add a link to it here so we know what you're referring to :). (For images, use a colon first so the thing doesn't render, i.e. ]). --SB_Johnny||_books 01:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Image:Judypringlephotoshoot 620.jpg Presumably the image of the user who uploaded it, but (c) 2006 John Pringle is probably the photographer, and professional photographers usually retain copyright, so it seems wrong to state I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain --ArmadilloFromHell 02:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Unless said uploader can prove they're the copyright holder listed on the image, they can use a PD tag on it. I'm sure there's an improper license tag to put on it. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Never mind. I've done it already. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I noted what you did so I can do the same thing next time I get that problem. --ArmadilloFromHell 02:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Note that if the uploader is the photographer, they're at liberty to make conflicting declarations. They can always choose to put into the public domain an image that they first claimed copyright on. In that case the copyright notice is only confusing; since it's embedded in the image, it can't be easily removed. An explicit note from the photographer/uploader clarifying the intent would be helpful if this is the case. However, from what we have here, it looks more like the photographer is the husband or other family member of the uploader. In that case the PD notice would be void since only the copyright owner can declare something PD. Nice picture, by the way. 207.176.159.90 04:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

South Asia versus Indian sub-continent

There's been a low-level edit war ongoing in various articles and templates relating to South Asia/the Indian sub-continent. A certain cadre of editors have been replacing the term "South Asia" with "Indian sub-continent." I and others have been reversing the edits, but the game of whack-a-mole doesn't seem to stop.

I did a google test on the two terms (in quotes, so as not to get partial matches) and there are 965,000 ghits for Indian sub-continent and 29,800,000 for South Asia. Indian sub-continent was the older term, in use during the British Raj; it seems still be in use primarily in the context of geology. However, since the sub-continent was split into five countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal) the term South Asia has replaced the older one, as not claiming the whole sub-continent for one of its parts. As we see from the ghits, South Asia is 30 times more common than the older term.

The Partition of India was a horrible, bloody disaster that is still sparking controversy, hatred, riots, massacres, and wars half a century later. I believe that the campaign to use the older term is politically motivated. It implies that the non-Indian nations on the sub-continent are somehow illegitimate.

Can we have a policy ruling that in any context OTHER than the geological or historical, that South Asia is the more common and the preferred term? If there's consensus that the use of the common term is preferable, in which policy statement should this be enshrined? Or do we write one from scratch? Zora 07:53, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Surely South Asia is not the same as the Subcontinent. I'm not sure most people would see Nepal and Bhutan as being in the subcontinent. Clearly Sri Lanka is in South Asia but not in the subcontinent. I'm sure there are other differences too. Use whichever term is most accurate for what you are saying, jguk 09:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that South Asia, geologically (and politically), is actually in the subcontinent as well - it's presumably on the same tectonic plate as the rest of India? I understand that in some parts of the world, "Indian Subcontinent" may be politically charged, but at least where I live, it's a pretty neutral term that's not uncommon (among other things, I've heard my friends from that part of the world use it in a present-day context). --Improv 11:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

When I took a graduate level course in the history of modern India and Pakistan, the preferred term for the region was "South Asia." I'm not sure it's possible to get a policy rulng on this, but you could certainly propose renaming the disputed articles. Notify me on my talk page and I'll participate in the discussion. Durova 15:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to second Durova. I don't think you can get a ruling, but I'd be very interested in the discussion. Just let me know. --Doc Tropics 19:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

South Asia is not an obviously self-explanatory term. Why does it not include Saudi Arabia or Indochina, which are also the southern part of Asia?--Runcorn 21:01, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this is the problem with the term. When I read Sout Asiain the newspaper I am sure that the writer means at least India, but I am not sure what else the author means. Andries 23:10, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Indochina is part of South-East Asia not South Asia. I would say it's understood by most SEA including those in Indochina that they're a part of SEA not South Asia. Indeed I'm somewhat doubtful that many in Vietnam would say they're part of South Asia and also why only refer to Indochina? What about Indonesia, Myanmar etc? I agree that the term doesn't make perfect sense but I think it is the understood term. Indian subcontinent arguably isn't as clear as well. Is Sri Lanka part of the Indian subcontinent? What about Nepal and Bhutan? In any case, I would suggest until there is consensus changing existing references is a no-no. If these editors write new article then perhaps it would be acceptable but otherwise I would suggest not Nil Einne 00:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's mission doesn't include redefining established academic terms. Durova 04:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I have always seen "South Asia" as an Americanism. I don't think it's commonly used in Britain even today. And incidentally, Nepal and Bhutan were always independent - they weren't part of the partition, since they were never part of British India. The fact is that the area has been known as India for far, far longer than Pakistan has existed. To claim its use is politically motivated is flying in the face of the facts. -- Necrothesp 21:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's used in the UK. Both Cambridge and Oxford have schools of South Asian Studies! Ghits, academic usage -- all point to South Asia as being preferred. Zora 05:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Barnstars

Recently, I was given a barnstar by an editor and I wanted to express my thanks. I discovered that on their talk page, there were many messages of thanks, I checked the editors contributions and I found that the editor, had given literally, hundreds of barnstars. I confronted the editor, Sharkface217, who is very decent with this message -

It is obvious that you like to give out Barnstars by the hundred, and I'm sure everyone that has received a Barnstar from you is very appreciative. However, I must advise you that giving a Barnstar to just everyone you come across is not the way to do it. Barnstars are awarded as special recognition, and the giving out of hundreds degrades the quality and significance of the award. Please bear this in mind, as you continue to edit, and I advise that you give out no more for the time being. If you want awards yourself, trading barnstars is not a good way to do it either, it is much better to earn recognition for excellent editing and community service that to simply buy them from other editors.

He responded with:

It is probably true that I have given out far too many barnstars than what is good, I would like to note that they greatly boost the morale of long-time Misplaced Pages contributors who have received little or no recognition. Certain "Smile tags" are ok, but really serve no purpose. Almost all of those who do have Barnstars on the Misplaced Pages community have many. Barnstars awards are usually concentraded; most users who do have at least one have many more. Other users who I have awarded Barnstars to have been here for years and have edited many good articles with no recognition whatsoever.

I am willing to greatly curtail my current habits of giving out Barnstars, but I would like to note that Misplaced Pages has lost many important users, such as RickK (who, I might add, has a Barnstar named in his honor. He left because he recieved little or no recognition while those who played the system and vandalized were mistakenly rewarded), because they see their efforts as going unappreciated. -- Sharkface217

I agree with him, but think that the issuing of thousands degrades the worth. We then both decided to bring this issue into public domain. Dfrg.msc 06:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

In a way, you're both right, since you both made very good points. Everyone appreciates recognition, but handing out hundreds of Barnstars tends to cheapen them somewhat. Sometimes it actually is enough to just Smile and say "Thanks" :) --Doc Tropics 06:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I got a barnstar from Sharkface217 yesterday. Yes, barnstars do boost morale and yes, they should be handed out parsimoniously (and they are for the most part). But I don't see a big problem in the occasionnal barnstar-crazy user. That's just part of Sharkface's wikipersonality. And I think it's also ok to tell him nicely if you think he's going overboard. Pascal.Tesson 07:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The value of the barnstar is only the degree of value it has to the person who receives it. For someone who maybe benefit from a "morale boost" or some recognition, a given barnstar holds just as much value to the receipt if it's given sparingly as if it was given in the thousands. For others, it may not mean anything. Then there are receivers who may increase or lessen its personal value to them based on who the giver is. I know a barnstar given from a respected editor means a lot simply because of the respect of that editor. In short, I wouldn't worry about the number of barnstars Sharkface gives out. I don't think there is any harm and at best, I'm sure there is some benefit. Agne 07:34, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

In my view, if you merely wish to thank people in general, you say "thank you". Barnstars are for ongoing contributions or single notable accomplishments. The reason they are meaningful is because they are a unique, personal award for a unique, personal contribution. Did Sharkface interact with those hundred users, or indeed even know what those hundred users had done that might deserve a barnstar? If he researched the contributions of each one and found something unique and worthy of a personal barnstar, then great. Otherwise, he's turning the barnstar into the equivalent of those "Sunshine student" and "Biggest smile" awards they give to kids in kindergarten: everyone receives an award, so nobody is actually recognized for their unique accomplishments. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 09:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the barnstar craze is annoying. Incidentally, I remember a user who displayed a similar pattern of behaviour, attempting to use these flattering ways to get himself promoted to admins. Im my experience, barnstar-happy behaviour often reveals lack of interest in content, immaturity, or penchant for trolling. --Ghirla 09:17, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I was both surprised and very pleased to have gotten a Minor Barnstar. It really was one of the best moments I've had on Misplaced Pages so far. I agree that handing them out by the "thousands" cheapens it -- but if someone deserves it, doesn't that make it okay, regardless of how many other people are getting barnstars at the same time? --Wolf530 01:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Hey all, I'm here to expand upon my original point. English Misplaced Pages has over 2,000,000 accounts, most of which are used infrequently. However, a good deal of them are used quite frequently. Of those that are used quite frequently, only a very, very, very small minority have Barnstars. The other accounts get almost nothing. Today I gave several stars out to editors who had been on Misplaced Pages much longer than I had (Some since November 2004) with many edits but no credit going their way. Indeed, I notice those that get no credit often do not speak on Discussion pages often, instead spending all their time either adding and improving articles or quietly fighting Vandals.

I do understand the sentiment that giving out Barnstars en masse will degrade its significance. I also believe that thousands, maybe even tens of thousands more Wikipedians would have to have at least one barnstar before we reach that point. Sharkface217 01:58, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to mention that Misplaced Pages has lost many hardworking, important, and influential users (I mentioned RickK before) due to the lack of recognition or boredom. Isn't the point of Esperenza (or one of it's missions) and other Misplaced Pages projects to keep long-time users from leaving due to the stress of the site/real life? Isn't that one of the reason's why those green stress-o-meter things exist? Sharkface217 02:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

A proposal for ammendment of WP:NCP for nicknames

In my opinion, the current wording of WP:NCP#Nick names, pen names, stage names, cognomens is not clear enough to cover the case of nicknames "conjoined" with real names (e.g. Joe "King" Oliver, Benjamin "Pap" Singleton). I proposed an ammendment to clarify it; please share your thoughts at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (people)#Proposed ammendment for "conjoined" nicknames. Duja 10:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Yahoo! and MOS-TM

I'd like to call more attention to Talk:Yahoo!#Requested move and Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (trademarks)#Trademarks with Question Marks (?) and Exclamation Points (!). For years (literally), we have had a trademarks guideline that discourages the use of special formating on trademarks and names, e.g. we avoid Macy*s and REALTOR® even though those are the "official" ways of writing Macy's and Realtor. By extention, it would seem to me that we should follow USA Today, Reuters, Business Week and many others in dropping the "!" from Yahoo! and simply use the more natural form "Yahoo" to describe the search mega corp. Some people at the move request are resisting this and arguing that the "!" should be used because it is part of the official name. In effect saying that there should be some sort of official punctuation exemption to MOS-TM. I would like to get more input on resolving this tension between our long standing guideline and what many people want to do in practice. Dragons flight 13:47, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Macy's is registered as "Macy's". "REALTOR" is registered as something else completely. No unusual characters. They're different cases than "Yahoo!", which is registered as "Yahoo!", exclamation point and all. It's the company name. There's no violation of any long standing guideline or manual of style. This discussion should be confined to the move request page. I can see RfC'ing here, but let's keep it in one place. *Sparkhead 14:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Technically the original discussion is the MOS page linked above, where everyone who participated to date agreed that Yahoo should drop the "!" and simply use the common name, without the branding. Hence the conflict. Dragons flight 15:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Technically, there's four threads on this. In Talk:Yahoo!, Talk:Yahoo (literature), here, and the MoS talk you list above. All the move discussions should have been linked to one spot (perhaps the original MOS thread), and now you have total confusion and I'll guess there will not be a consensus for any of the moves. I'm not going to comment on it further here. *Sparkhead 15:45, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Sandboxes in Wikispace

I was under the impression that sandboxes should be created in userspace only. If article X exists in wikispace, is it ok to create X/Sandbox to work on a potential addition to that article? Is there a guideline on this? I thought I saw something that said it was ok in certain cases but cannot find that information now. *Sparkhead 14:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if there's a guideline, but I suggest you don't do it. There are hundreds (thousands?) of /draft, /temp and whatever "articles" in the main space, long abandoned by their creators, but counting as articles, showing up on random pages, and so on. I suggest creating them in the article talk namespace or your userspace until they're ready to stand alone as articles. But since our articles are all works in progress, the need for draft versions is not really all that great. --W.marsh 15:22, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I didn't create it, another editor did. I'm looking for an official policy on it. I believe I've seen one but my searches reveal nothing. *Sparkhead 15:46, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, there's not a policy for everything. The {{copyvio}} template used to direct people to create temporary articles in the main namespce, and that's where a lot of these come from. I don't think anyone's really going to mind if you move a temporary page to the talk namespace, or if you delete it entirely if it's long abandoned and redundant to the main article (under G6, housekeeping deletions). --W.marsh 15:56, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The guideline is at Misplaced Pages:Subpages. I just learned that /temp pages in the main space are deprected, didn't know that before... Kusma (討論) 16:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, there we go. Maybe there is a policy for everything! :-) --W.marsh 16:32, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if anyone would find this useful. What I often do is WP:Sandbox and then fiddle and use "Preview" but don't save the sandbox at all. Then I copy the thing, past to Window's Notepad and have a useable copy to save to disk in case of meltdown. And can work later on it or paste it wherever appropriate. Terryeo 20:16, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

That is useful. Though I'm wondering if using "preview" leaves a trace anywhere, even temporarily. It must do, because there is data being sent to and from the servers, but I guess it is all treated as temp stuff, and then expunged fairly soon afterwards. Carcharoth 15:40, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I've no idea about "leaves a trace". I think that would be a technical issue about how wikipedia creates and uses temporary memory storage. I suspect it gets overwritten in a dedicated portion of hard drives. Terryeo 18:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Policy: Criticism

There is alot of debate in talk pages about handling a criticism section. I feel it is important to address this issue specifficaly. I think there needs to be a policy on how you address sections like this. --Zonerocks 20:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that WP:NPOV? Specifically the "Undue weight" section. I've seen articles where criticism makes up 80% of the word count of the article. Obviously 80% is too high, but there's no magic number, how much criticism really can or should be included will vary from article to article. A criticism policy would probably be redundant to NPOV, but there's an essay at Misplaced Pages:Criticism. It doesn't appear very active, but I suppose a guideline on this topic could be explored. --W.marsh 20:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

The use of {{Notable Wikipedian}}

Added to the talk pages of some articles is the template {{Notable Wikipedian}}. This adds a box to the talk page containing the text "The subject of this article, , has edited Misplaced Pages as (talk · contribs)", and places the talk page in Category:Notable Wikipedians. I recently removed this template from Paul Staines because there was no strong evidence that User:Paul.staines was in fact the subject of the article. Another user has reverted this, citing WP:AGF. If this is valid, the consequence is that every claim by a user to be the subject of an article has to be accepted unless there is proof to the contrary. I think this could get us into difficulties, and it appears to contravene WP:LIVING. Alan Pascoe 22:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This template seems like needless self reference to me. I'm plopping it on WP:TFD. Cowman109 22:19, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, AGF has almost nothing to do the notable wikipedia template. It appears to have been added by DWaterson , based solely on User:Paul.staines's username. Unless there's actual evidence that User:Paul.staines is Paul Staines (after checking his website, I found none), I think we should remove the template. EVula 22:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

And if he is not we should request the username to be changed Alex Bakharev 23:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

AGF means you should ask the user to prove his identity before assuming he is an impostor. But the template should be removed from the article (frankly, this template shouldn't be in articles in the first place) until a reliable source indicates the two are the same. Fagstein 06:46, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with users assuming that another user is the subject of an article and engaging in discussion on that basis. The problem is the template, because this states that the user claiming to the subject of the article is the subject of the article, and, by implication, all comments on the talk page by that user are from the subject. Alan Pascoe 21:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Another issue involving the template, is what kind of verifiability standard it has. For example, I routinely hang out with authors and actors and other "notable" folks. If one of them tells me their Misplaced Pages account name, and then I learn that they've been making autobiographical edits, should I then use my personal knowledge to add the {{Notable Wikipedian}} template to the page? Or should it only be self-added? --Elonka 22:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

BLP trumps AGF, in my opinion. While they are both important, only one of them has legal ramifications. :-P EVula 01:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Without verifiable sources that the person editing with that name is that person, to put the tag on the article is OR, and it should be removed. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:06, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

NOw that I've had a night to think about it, it seems like this tag is almost entirely OR, unless there are independent sources which prove that the people who use those User names are, indeed, the people they claim to be. I'm sure the newspaper articles which have made much of Jimbo having edited his own article could be used as a source to prove that User:Jimbo Wales really is Jimbo Wales, but much of their information comes from Misplaced Pages, thus making their sources suspect, as well. User:Zoe|(talk) 19:14, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Guideline or not Guideline

There is currently some debate on whether to keep WP:RS as a Guideline or demote it to Essay status. The issue revolves around what the community consensus is (one side claims that the Guideline has lost community consensus support and thus should be demoted, the other contends that there is consensus to keep it as a Guideline - although it may need continued work). Please pop over... read the guideline and the discussion on the topic, reach your own conclusions and tell us what you think. Blueboar 01:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If there are enough people saying that something does not have consensus, then quite clearly, it does not have consensus:) jguk 13:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, if not WP:RS, an editor should be directed to some discussion page for questionable sources. The issue comes up frequently as the internet's spectrum from unreliable, unattributed newsgroups and webpages fills in, right up to very reliable webpages. We need someplace to discuss the ongoing questions which arise. Terryeo 18:03, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines only exist while there is consensus for them. As soon as consensus lapses (either because more people become aware of the page, or because the page changes in ways that people don't like), it is no longer a guideline. You don't vote guidelines off the island; you don't have to form a "consensus to demote" a guideline. They are automatically demoted when people stop agreeing with them. Even Blueboar agrees that the page needs a major rewrite. Until that rewrite is finished and a large number of people agree with it, the page is not a guideline, no matter how many people stick a tag on it. Consensus comes first. Then a guideline tag. The only tag it should have in the meantime is the Disputed tag. Am I right? — Omegatron 03:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there a template to flag disputed guidelines? If so, I'd like to use it at Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (television), where we're currently having a big debate about whether the guidelines can be enforced "as law", or whether good faith exceptions can be made by consensus, like at certain WikiProjects. My own opinion is that some of the participants are confused about the difference between a policy and a guideline (they also keep using the word "vote" <sigh>). Anyway, if anyone's interested in weighing in on that particular debate, please see Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (television)#RfC Episode Article Naming conventions. --Elonka 20:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

There is. {{Disputedpolicy}} Some people seem to think that a page can be both disputed and a guideline at the same time, which makes no sense to me. Guidelines are pages that have a wide consensus among editors. — Omegatron 05:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Aha! That's what I needed, thanks. I was looking in Category:Dispute templates and not finding it. I've added it to that category now, thank you. --Elonka 20:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

A single person can "dispute" a guideline, yet concensus still exists at that time by all other editors. A bunch of users can dispute a policy, and yet it can still hold concensus amongst most editors. Concensus =/= 100%, nor 90%, nor any number. Concensus is determined by discussion, and until that discussion takes place, it keeps it's old status, because presumably its status hasn't changed yet. That's why it is being disputed. Daniel.Bryant 07:57, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Guidelines are determined by consensus. Rejected guidelines are determined by a lack of consensus; not a "consensus for rejection". See Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc. — Omegatron 08:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

It would be great if an unbiased soul could attempt to put an end to the issue at Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (television). It seems awfully clear to me (24-7 in favor of the current guideline) but certain people are trying to change it by attrition. —Wknight94 (talk) 21:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, please do not distort reality in order to gain sympathy. You were one of the people who were asking for a poll in the first place . We could delete that poll right now and still have the discussion area, which would still support what is being said in the guideline. I've also stated that I would not have a major problem with restarting the poll to make this all more clear, since you had concerns with the poll changes. The poll is simply a list of people who agree with certain statements, but we do not need numbers to come to the same conclusion. -- Ned Scott 23:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Ned, again, please read WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL. The kind of language that you used above is not helpful. --Elonka 07:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Infoboxes and flags in infoboxes

Just putting a general comment here, as I want to see how many people are interested in the issue of flags in infoboxes and the more general issue of infoboxes. There was a recent vote for deletion for Template:Infobox Scientist that failed to reach consensus, and disputes ongoing at Talk:Isaac Newton and Talk:Albert Einstein. Carcharoth 14:09, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The vote for deletion form Template:Infobox Scientist was on a previous, bloated form of the template, which has been streamlined recently. Personally, I am against the use of flags in such infoboxes. In fact, I believe that the main value of the infoboxes lies for articles which are between stub-status and good-article status. Infoboxes add a degree on uniformity and visual interest to what would otherwise be a mediocre article. For more highly polished articles, such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein, the infobox is of less obvious use. (Though, I'll admit to being a fan of the ability to navigate through the academic family tree using this particular infobox.) Bluap 18:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

You may want to refer people to WP:FLAGCRUFT. Although it is intended to be humorous, it gets the point across. Kaldari 19:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Carcharoth 10:07, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I just don't get it.

Why are wikipedians obsessed with warning templates? Why does WP:AIV tell you not to bother listing a vandal if they haven't been warned 4 times or vandalised within the last 5 minutes?

For example: a user who replaces "Nelson Mandela" with "Buttfucker" doesn't need to be told that his edit is considered vandalism... if he's smart enough to edit a page, he's probably smart enough to know that it's vandalism.

I'm an admin on other wikimedia projects. If someone vandalises a page, they get blocked. No warning, no cute templates added to their user page, nada... just blocked.

Blatant and sophisticated vandals who upload nasty images and/or alter templates are blocked permanently. No warning, no templates, etc. Should WP:BITE really apply to vandals? Why does blocking vandals cause an existential crisis? --SB_Johnny||_books 17:49, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think it might be over-clinging to WP:AGF. In such clear-cut examples as the one you've given, I'd slap their talk page with {{anon vandal}} (assuming it was an anon, of course), which is listed as a "final warning" template. I never use the lower-level warnings for anything other than minor issues (adding personal POV, unsourced claims, etc.) rather than mind-boggingly obvious vandalism. EVula 17:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm with you, Johnny -- it's nonsense. I've been dealing with a bunch of vandals in the last few days on a few articles about high schools, and I get seriously frustrated with having to follow up "warning" them repeatedly. Clearly, they know what they're doing. Why are we chasing people around constantly? This morning I pulled up my watchlist, and 7 of the top 10 lines were "revert vandalism" or equivalent. It's out of hand. And we wonder why we're so stressed around here? How about we get a little more hard-handed with vandals? No more 24/hour bans, no more one week bans. 6 months for stupid vandals, indefinite for repeat offenders. Where can we go to show our support for a new policy of harsher sentences for Wiki Criminals? :) --Wolf530 01:20, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree completely. Especially with regard to blatant vandalism and "sophisticated" vandalism, I see little need to assume good faith. Edits like the Mandela/Buttfucker example are irrefutable proof of bad-faith editing; it's simply foolish for us to assume that the editor was a misguided newbie. I would strongly support the equivalent of a zero-tolerance policy in these cases. --Doc Tropics 01:44, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

You might want to look at Wikipedia_talk:Assume_good_faith#Proposal_to_consider_the_removal_of_this_paragraph_from_Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith_policy — Omegatron 03:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! That's a good start. I'd really like to see some discussion about making the admin policies/guidelines reflect something closer to a zero-tolerance policy, as well. Is that going on anywhere? --Wolf530 03:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

As someone who may not edit here every day, I find it frustrating to have to nominate a (previously warned)vandal for blocking within 24 hours of his vandalism. -Freekee 05:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

In my heart I'm sympathetic to this thread. In practice this would take a lot more administrators. The majority of random vandalism is just that: some unregistered user surfs into the site, toys with a page or maybe four, and surfs away never to bother us again. Even if they're vulgar in those four edits I consider it a more productive use of my time to sleuth claims about established editors who might be violating WP:OWN or persistently harassing other Wikipedians. When an IP creates persistent problems I'll be more proactive. Recently I made several e-mails and phone calls over a school account that had been blocked eight times in twelve months. The district's IT staff were responsive and friendly and the result might be positive for Misplaced Pages: my suggested solution was to assign the offending children to improve an article about local history. Take a look at the ratio of administrators to registered accounts. If page vandalism is the equivalent of roadside litter, do you really think we have the police force to examine every chewing gum wrapper for fingerprints and fine the offender? Durova 05:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Look at your argument another way -- instead of having more admins, we currently require more editors to do tedious follow up tasks. We're asking people to follow up with vandals and leave arbitrary templates on their talk pages, instead of just having them blocked -- a quicker and easier solution that cuts down on the vandalism in the future.

Furthermore, when you think about it, as long as everyone follows the procedure and lists the vandals on Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism, after a while the amount of vandals will start to go down (they'll be blocked), so we'll need less admins to keep up with the nonsense ;) --Wolf530 06:07, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow! Durova, your dedication and positive attitude are amazing. Your resolution of that particular case sounds like an ultimate win-win situation. But at the other end of the spectrum, I've requested, and been granted, Sprotection on 4 different articles in the past 2 days alone; the high levels of vandalism (largely profanities and the addition of blatant nonsense) were literally clogging my Watchlist. Reverts were required on an hourly basis if not more frequently.

We really need a better balance between encouraging new Wikipedians, which you managed so adroitly, and limiting the damage done by individuals who obviously have no intention of making useful contributions. The current system is far too cumbersome, despite the valiant efforts of editors and admins alike. I don't even bother dropping a warning on User Talkpages that already boast over a dozen of them; why plant another tree in that damn forest? Surely there is some better way to handle this problem. --Doc Tropics 06:03, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That's great, Durova. Let me tell you my story, since it's a little different than the IP vandalism of your examples. I recently reported a vandal who already had a warning template on his userpage. He was registered, and the account had only been used to replace the same piece of garbage to the same article. He was one of a group of very persistent vandals. I can only hope that if I had discovered his vandalism more than 24 hours afterward, that the admins would have disregarded the technicality and blocked him anyway. -Freekee 16:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

The devil is in the details, of course, but under the right circumstances I've waived 24 hours. Durova 18:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Glad to hear that the rules are not straitjackets. I just hope seeing the rules don't scare people off from trying to report vandals. -19:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to make the point that this is a Crime Prevention vs. Criminal Lockup discussion. I don't think that we need to swing to either polar extreme by either blocking fewer people and trying to stop people from vandalism with pleading/educating or blocking everyone at first infraction. Right now, however, I think we're giving Wikicriminals -- the type who are committing crimes for the thrill of it -- too many chances. I think we're giving the Wikinaive -- the folks who are driving down one way streets because they don't know the area -- the "right" amount of discipline. I do think we should follow up where good faith is necessary and try and bring people onto the right path. Anyone, member or IP, who is committing any type of vandalism that is detrimental to the wiki and does not appear to be acting in good faith, needs to see less of our "other cheek," though. We don't need to be issuing four template warnings for people who are clearly doing wrong for the heck of it. For everyone's sake -- editor and admin alike -- we need to begin blocking vandals faster and for longer periods of time. Everyone's stress will go down, we'll see less reversions overall, and admins will be chasing fewer people around the streets cleaning up after them. --Wolf530 06:14, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That's the kind of middle-ground I was looking for; thanks for your eloquence. What I'd really like to see is "more":

• More support for newbies.
• More immediate blocks for blatant vandals

In other words, we need to be able to nurture the flower while rather ruthlessly pruning undesireable growths. --Doc Tropics 06:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Doc, for the vote of confidence. Part of what I'm saying is a nudge to more of our dedicated editors to try for adminship. The English language edition has one of the lowest ratios of administrators to registered users in the Wikipediverse (is that a new word?) Also, some of the things I've tried are things any editor can do. Just click the "Whois" "IP Info" link on a problematic school IP talk page until you find an e-mail or a phone number and then contact the school. I'll speculate that a good portion of our vandals make their first marks with buddies in their school library, discover they can get away with it, and carry the habit home. If we address these nexus locations - the schools themselves - it might have a positive ripple on the overall vandalism load. A side benefit is that these young users are in libraries full of books they can use to improve Misplaced Pages if the schools push in the right direction. Durova 06:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about the goof. Durova 21:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips Durova, it never occured to me to follow-up that way. The possibilty of turning Problem Child into useful contributors would be worth some significant effort. In fact, I may pursue that idea on your Talkpage in the near future. I also heartily agree that we should promote more admins; in addition to vandalism, some of the "Backlog" logs now list thousands of items that need attention. With so many editors on en-wiki, there must be many available who would make fine admins. --Doc Tropics 06:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Quote Durova: "the Wikipediverse (is that a new word?)" - well, that spelling is not very common, though Wikipediaverse is more common. BTW, I really like your idea of getting schoolkids to ransack their libraries for sources to add stuf to Misplaced Pages. It would teach them vital skills as well. Some schools and universities are doing this already. See Misplaced Pages:Schools and universities project. Carcharoth 08:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Adminship is good, yes... but the bar is pretty high. I've been here for 3 years and haven't amassed close to the level of "experience" that is supposedly required. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolf530 (talk • contribs)

Close to 1500 edits, that's not bad. Have you checked out Misplaced Pages:Esperanza/Admin coaching? Durova 07:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

There may have been some confusion due to a forgotten sig. Wolf530 has three years experience; I'm practically a newbie :) --Doc Tropics 07:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

No confusion. I picked up Wolf's username through the page history. Probably should have added the unsigned template but I was too busy looking at the user contributions. Durova 08:48, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'm having some problems with my sigs tonight. :) More "police" (since I'm using that analogy...) on the street is always a good thing. More janitors are a good thing, too! But the more you have, the more potential for corruption you have. I wonder if, like I mentioned above, it's better to become more efficient (ask the community to streamline the processes; do more blocking for longer periods) instead of getting more hands on deck? --Wolf530 08:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

We probably need both. While a number of admins are certainly controversial, I suspect that actual "admin corruption" is relatively rare. I've never encountered it personally, and when I follow threads from complainants I've always found justifications for admin actions. Certainly no group or individual is perfect, but on the whole there seems to be a lot more smoke than fire. --Doc Tropics 08:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Head over to Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment and Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration to browse. Administrator misconduct is one of the most common accusations made by editors whose own conduct is under scrutiny - usually that complaint is longwinded but unsupported by page diffs or other involved editors. The same editors who've been sanctioned sometimes come over to Village Pump to air their complaints. I try to keep an open mind because occasionally there's genuine misconduct, but the most recent time I gave the benefit of the doubt and actually went out on a limb for one of those posters I got dragged into an ArbCom proceeding as an involved party and the same editor I tried to help wound up making colorful insults about me. If you dig a bit you'll find the case. Depending on how you view things it's amusing or it's sad. Definitely a huge waste of time. Durova 18:55, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary conversation break

As far as the AGF argument goes, I thinik it's more important to assume the good faith of the people reporting vandals than it is to assume that vandals might not know they're vandals. It just seems a bit over the top to require that vandals be warned 4 times before a block can be "justified", and good-faith users shouldn't be required to "build a case" about the vandalishness of the vandals (unless we want to assume that people regularly report vandals because they're wikisadists and only want to block vandals because that's how they get their jollies). This only serves to further frustrate people who are already frustrated by having to waste time reverting bad-faith edits. It would be a lot nicer if when checking my watchlist I'd find mostly additions to the articles (maybe even really good additions that will teach me something new), rather than yet another reference to questionable uses of cucumbers.

I think the problem is rooted in misplaced empathy. We (the good-faith contributors to wikipedia) would be terribly unhappy if we found ourselves unable to edit. Vandals on the other hand will probably find something else to do (like throwing gobs of wet toilet paper at the nearest librarian). And even if they are terribly unhappy about being unable to vandalise wikipedia... so what?

There's a difference between newbie tests, clever jokes (which seems to be what the {{test}} templates are designed to address), inane vandalism (blanking, toilet humor, etc.), and sophisticated vandalism (uploading and placing obscene images, altering templates, and so on). The latter two kinds of vandals should just be blocked on sight, no warnings, no messages on their talk explaining it (i.e., no "monuments"). Rollback the edits, block the vandal, delete the nasty images, semiprotect regular targets (autoconfirmed only), move on. We were having a big laugh on IRC yesterday after importing a 1-page document that had over 300 revisions. A lot of the articles we import have rediculously long contrib histories full of mostly vandalism and reversions of vandalism, and a lot of the vandalism was by the same users. We don't put up with that kind of nonsense on wikibooks.

As far as needing more admins: yes, we probably do (though it's hard to believe... aren't there over a thousand already?). I've considered doing an RfA myself, but I suspect that having the tools but not being able to use them properly (because of unneccessary bureaucratic requirements) might be even more frustrating than just not having them (which is actually much more frustrating when you're used to having them). Doing an RfA on wikipedia seems to have become something akin to running for U.S. congress... it's not supposed to be a big deal. As far as "corrupt" admins are concerned, desysopping someone who isn't using the tools properly shouldn't be a big deal either.

There are exceptional cases, of course. You generally wouldn't want to block a school IP for a long period, though if the school IP is consistently a source of vandals, then it's obvious that the school either can't or doesn't bother to keep an eye on their students... if they can't be bothered with that, then their students will just have to sign up accounts on other computers (they can still read the encyclopedia, of course). And of course you can't permablock IPs (they sometimes change hands), but if an IP is causing a lot of problems, you can block them for a year (during which time the vandal might experience some personal growth). The problem is that we're making the rules based on the exceptions, which is an ass-backwards way of going about things. --SB_Johnny||_books 12:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you saying we're making rules based on exceptions per what we're doing here? Or what already exists? Because I think the exception to the rule is "good faith" naivety. I think the "rule" is generally "bad faith" vandalism. --Wolf530 16:47, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm saying that the current policy seems to assume that vandals are most likely good faith editors who are having a bad day, which seems to me an unlikely (i.e. rather exceptional) case :). --SB_Johnny||_books 17:24, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if User:SB_Johnny was found to be vandalising, I'd hope someone would block the account, because that would mean that someone had somehow logged in with my username, and I'd be most unhappy about that! --SB_Johnny||_books 17:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay that makes sense/is logical! --Wolf530 17:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. An editor who drops f bombs on a dozen articles is obviously up to no good. In other cases even blatant vandalism may be nothing more than a breaching experiment. Last week's article from the Chronicle of Higher Education begins with an example of a university professor who began as a vandal - just to test the wiki process - and later turned into a positive contributor. Durova 18:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Would being blocked for vandalising be any less informative about the wiki process? --SB_Johnny||_books 18:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Probably equally informative, but that could cause credibility problems for WP:AGF and WP:BITE. Durova 18:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Slightly over 1000 volunteer admins isn't all that many in relation to the size of the English language edition. That's fewer than 1 admin for every 1000 articles, fewer than 1 admin for every 2000 registered accounts. These last several days the administrators' noticeboard has seen repeated appeals for help with the WP:AFD backlog. I specialize in dealing with personal attacks and requests for investigation, which require careful attention - most recently I've been addressing problems at an article where a disruptive user has a copious sockpuppet drawer. At a different article that was subject to heavy anonymous vandalism I've semi-protected and culled away joke claims about the Hotel California and an arm wrestling match. Another anonymous editor has been altering Formula 1 racing tables - probably good faith attempts from someone who doesn't speak English - I've issued three blocks so far and conducted an unsuccessful search for a Japanese bilingual editor to intervene. I could go on. Believe me, I wish I had time to block more of the vandals who change biographies of saints into crude sexual slurs. If that's your editorial calling, then get sysopped and go do it. Durova 16:25, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

That being said, trying to encourage more people to reach for adminship is a long process. What can we do now to start making change that will help everyone? --Wolf530 17:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Earlier at this thread I proposed contacting schools that have persistent IP vandal problems. Another approach is to plug gaps at the policy and guideline level. I was one of the editors who helped draft Misplaced Pages:Disruptive editing. A related idea I keep meaning to start would be Misplaced Pages:Editor honesty as a corrolary to typical university academic honesty policies: I consider it shameful that this site has no official statement to condemn the deliberate falsification of citations. Type Misplaced Pages:Plagiarism and you get a redirect to Misplaced Pages:Citing sources which devotes most of its space to the nuts and bolts of Wikimarkup and the merits of Harvard referencing, but barely mentions plagiarism at all. If you're feeling proactive, just click my friendly red link and begin a draft proposal where I'll join. Durova 18:04, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it's just theat the political nature of wikipedia's RfA process is e-vile, and scares people off. I think I'll just nominate myself to prove this point (I'm easily qualified, but I bet I'm going to get a lot of no votes and have my motives and/or mental health questioned!). --SB_Johnny||_books 18:18, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

For sure. I think it's hard to get someone to put their name up on the block when they know it's just going to be a roast of their edit history. And for what...? You end up being everyone's whipping boy :-\ To boot, there's an extremely strong anti-elitism feeling about/for admins. So, there's definitely incentive not to go through the process. That's why I think streamlining policies is a great way to go, because it cuts down work for editors and admins. --Wolf530 18:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Not necessarily true. I'd had my eye on submitting an RfA for a while (my personal requirements for it, though, kept getting pushed back; originally, I felt like I would be experienced enough at 2k edits, but once I got there, realized I wasn't... wash, lather, repeat). Lowering the bar increases the number of admins, but if those admins don't have as firm a grasp on wikipolicy as their more seasoned brethren, not only do we end up with shitty new admins but resentful old ones, too. Personally, I think we need to be more pro-active in finding good admin candidates; there are plenty to choose from. EVula 18:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't get me wrong -- I am not advocating lowering the bar for adminship, and I completely agree with what you're saying. What I'm saying is that there are strong incentives against RfA for a lot of people. Take myself, for example -- I run another wiki that has 2000+ pages on it. I'm here a lot, and I think the general trend of my edits is towards cleanup and maintenance, so I'm comfortable with a mop. I've been dealing with jerks who have threatened me numerous times in the RPG I've run for 12+ years. Nonetheless, I'm not comfortable going up on the RfA block and having 100 people tell me that I should have inflected this word one way, or not used that word with another editor because it makes me a bad Wikicitizen. It's a lot of nitpicking, which may be useful, but in the end I'm not sure if I'd be motivated to keep doing what I'm doing after everyone has ripped me apart. :-\ --Wolf530 18:56, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I might have waited longer than I should have. From my reading of recent nominations, the things that tend draw negative votes are uncivil behavior, recent blocks, and really inadequate experience. Most other nominees get sysopped, maybe with fewer total votes. Durova 19:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

• NOTE: Many of our allegations in this discussion involve students. If you notice troublesome edits from an obviously young contributor, you might mention it at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Youth Foundation. I had this come up recently and their response was both speedy and discrete. I was also going to suggest that we might offer bounties for blocking vandals, but then I considered how many editors would create socks, just so they could turn themselves in... :) --Doc Tropics 19:40, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

My two cents here... I have noticed significant increase in vandalism since early September when school started. College/University students are not so much a problem, but high school and lower are often a source (when I run the IP through WHOIS). This school year, I am far less tolerant of vandalism. If the talk page has past warnings, I start with {{bv}}, and then block. Another useful tactic is to look through their recent contributions of articles they have vandalized. Pick the most embarrassing one, make the heading "Your edits to Mental retardation", for example . If it's a school, corporate, or government IP, I will also add {{Ipowner}}, such as here and . With this template, the name of the organization can be made into an external link; I will try and find the school's computer use policy and link to that. Though, kids may still vandalize, anyway. If the vandalism is really blatant, such as involving an obscene image or a template, it indicates the vandal knows what he/she is doing and will be blocked on sight. Of course it's tricky when the school IP is a shared IP. In those cases, the blocks may be relatively short, but long enough so that the kid has moved on to something else (e.g. next class). As pointed out above, we have just slightly over 1000 admins (not all that many). It's a waste of valuable admin time, to go through test, test2, test3, test4, and then block if the intent is obvious. Basically, zero tolerance is needed when the intent is clear, their vandalism is particularly harmful to Misplaced Pages, and I don't think they will stop. Other times, instinct tells me the vandal wants attention, and it's best to revert, ignore them, and they go away. And sometimes, the "vandalism" is really a test, and will handle it accordingly. --Aude (talk) 19:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

If these suggestions are normal policy, then we need to update Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism. That page makes it very clear that all vandals need to go through the scope of templates before any action is taken. --Wolf530 (talk) 20:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess that's the point I meant to make with the school IP thing... if a school IP is being used for vandalism, it's probably just some troubled kid looking to trouble someone else. A short block will give him time to find other trouble to make (which is not our problem). If it's a constant problem, however, a more serious block may be appropriate. I do wonder, however, why it's we who have to call the schools... seems to me that if they're dropping the ball and want to take advantage of the great thing we have going here, they should be the ones contacting us!

BTW: my RfA is going exactly as expected... point proven? (This is not a WP:POINT move... I'd love to have the tools, but the response I'm getting pretty much illustrates the problem with both the bureaucratic rules and the RfA process!) --SB_Johnny||_books 20:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I noticed :-\ --Wolf530 (talk) 20:10, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Purposefully loading your RfA to fail proves absolutely nothing. Any RfA that says "I'm not going to be one of the most active of admins on wikipedia" is guaranteed to fail. EVula 20:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

SB_Johnny, I happen to agree heavily with you on the whole warning template thing. Is it really such an awful thing to block a school IP for two hours so that annoying kid will go away? And will Misplaced Pages collapse if we ask AOL users to register an account? At least 80% of what comes from high schools must be vandalism, probably more like 90%. Although I voted against your adminship on these grounds (sorry!!), that was because you didn't seem to understand the policy, not because I thought it was a good one. I, for one, think the warning templates ought to be used for cases where's it's questionable, not for the "buttfucker" changes. And established users who do that crap should be blocked on site for 1 day, to give them time to think, in case it was a momentary lapse of judgment, to which they later feel remorseful. (I've seen this happen). Second offense and they're done. -Patstuart 06:24, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Changing Policy

This shouldn't fall into archive. Per my above, if it is normal policy that blatant vandals do not need the whole range of template warnings, then Misplaced Pages:Administrator intervention against vandalism and the other policy pages which require this action need to be updated. I don't want to go updating without consensus, though... --Wolf530 (talk) 16:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually I think the policy is for giving the warnings... my argument is that these warnings are appropriate for people who are being genuinely funny (but still need reverting), since they basically just say: OK, haha, please stop now because you're wasting our time (I have often wondered why the templates don't link to uncyclopedia). But most of the vandalism is just straightforeward vandalism, not clever, just inane additions intended to annoy wikipedian editors. Keeping the "must template" rule just brings means that their nonsense requires more work from wikipedians, and helping them in their goal of being annoying and wasting the time of strangers.

There was a discussion a while back about not building "monuments" to the "famous" vandals (Willy, Bobby, etc.). A talk page full of warnings is another kind of monument. And it's a kind of monument that in itself can get someone's goat (nothing like reverting 8 pages, then going to leave a warning only to find the user has been warned 100 times before). Like I said, other projects don't do this (they just block and move on, which might be part of why no other project has vandalism problems like the english wikipedia). The blocking admin can tell how many times they were blocked already, and take it up a notch as appropriate while on the block dialog page. No medals, no monuments, just quiet, business-like blocking to avert further trouble. --SB_Johnny||_books 18:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

So the question becomes, how the heck do we go about changing or making policy? I'll bet that if we made an attempt, there would be a large consensus that we don't need to be as lenient on the "buttfucker"/"jonny's mother is a gay whore" vandals as on the vandal that puts "hi" at the end of a page. Any ideas? -Patstuart 20:01, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is the {{blatantvandal}} user template, but no policy for it as far as I know. It would seem commonsensical enough, to just treat it as a long term t-4, no repeat/recent warnings necessary for reblocking, racheting up the blocks every time. As far as changing the policy, I don't know... this page seems as good a page as any (it certainly gets more eyes here than on a proposal page). --SB_Johnny||_books 20:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Notabilty Guidelines - what happens if things change?

I have a question about notability guidelines, particularly WP:WEB... if something meets a criteria and then at some point -stops- meeting the criteria. I ask because a webcomic may be notable under point 3 for being on Keenspot, but after they leave keenspot to be independent it's not clear what that means. Webrunner 20:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I may not be speaking for everyone, but the way I interpret the guidelines is that if something does not meet the guidelines at any point in time it may be nominated for deletion. —Mets501 (talk) 20:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd think once something achieves notability, it remains worthy of an encyclopedia article even if it's subsequently forgotten. We may reassess in hindsight whether something ever truly was notable, but I don't think it makes sense to consider notability something that can be "lost," because we document history, not just current events. In the webcomic example above, the article would still able to state that it was "previously hosted on Keenspot," if being hosted on Keenspot is a sign of notability. Postdlf 20:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I echo Postdlf. That Sir Joseph John Thomson hasn't won a nobel prize in a century doesn't stop him having won one. An achievement deemed noteworthy cannot be unachieved. Whether we still deem the achievement noteworthy is the issue. Steve block Talk 20:54, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

As Steve Block points out, the the consensus of Misplaced Pages editors can change as to what it takes to be notable. So even if "hosted on Keenspot" was viewed as a sufficient claim to notability yesterday, there is no guarantee that it is still so considered today. This change is, I think, more likely to occur soon, as we focus more on quality of articles and less on quantity of articles.

In general, encyclopedic notability is hard to loose. Current event newsworthiness is easy to loose. But this is Wkipedia, not Wikinews. The past few generations, print encyclopedias had a systemic bias in favor of historical subjects. Because they were paper, they would indeed weed out and trim subjects that were becoming less significant. But they couldn't, so didn't try to, cover the current state of affairs. Even the annual updates were usually a few months out of date by the time they reached customers, due to the editoraial, printing, and shipping processes. So encyclopedias only covered subjects that would be of long lasting notability. We aren't paper, so we don't need to trim just because something is no longer meets current criteria for notability.

In the case of criteria that could be lost; there should be a reliably sourced citation to establish that the criteria used to be met. In the worst case, the Internet Archives might become the citation evidence. Better would be a independent reliable source primarily about the subject of the article that happened to mention that. GRBerry 21:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Being on Keenspot is still considered sufficent for WP:WEB 3. I bring it up because a notable webcomic was recently voted for deletion 'as per WP:WEB', and am trying to figure out if the policies support that or not (the comic is obviously notable but whether the rules state it's notable or not is questionable) Webrunner 21:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's the case that being on Keenspace is still considered sufficient for WP:WEB 3, I'm not sure it was ever established it was the case. But beyond that a link to the debate would be useful. Our deletion debates don't have to follow what the notability guidelines set out. They are, after all, only guidelines. Steve block Talk 21:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Keenspot, not Keenspace. There's a difference. You have to be chosen to go on Keenspot, it's basically an online syndicate, not just hosting. Anyway, here's the AFD: Misplaced Pages:Articles_for_deletion/Girly - most of the deletes were citing WP:WEB Webrunner 21:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

There is no consensus for the idea that every webcomic is notable that is hosted by either Keenspot or Keenspace, or even by more notable webcomics publishers like theModern Tales sites. Girly is just one of several articles on non-notable Keenspot webcomics that have been deleted within recent memory. -- Dragonfiend 09:43, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

You helped write WP:WEB, so perhaps you can explain to me how Keenspot is not "a site which is both well known and independent of the creators". Oh, and by the way, Keenspace doesn't exist any more. Continually bringing it up (or even ComicGenesis, it's new name) is hurting your argument. Webrunner 18:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Sports: Current season standings

I'd just like to get a sense of whether people think articles for sports teams and leagues should be updated on a daily basis with standings from the current season. Any opinions? Is there any current policy/guideline on this? – flamurai (t) 23:48, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Once an article exists and is of a proven notable team/league, I've got no problem with it being updated regularly. However, I have to admit to some discomfort with the sheer quantity of sport-related data that's flowing into Misplaced Pages. While patrolling new pages, I see articles come in about every football club in the world, but I just don't know enough about the subject to determine whether something needs to be flagged as questionable notability or not. Maybe we should get tougher about only allowing "team" articles to be created, if there are multiple sources proving notability? Or is mere participation in major competitions, enough? --Elonka 01:33, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Such content is better suited for Wikinews than Misplaced Pages. Encyclopedias normally discuss the lasting signficance of something, and this weeks standings are hardly of lasting significance. One can add a cross-wiki box to Wikinews, like those used for Wikisource or Wiktionary. GRBerry 03:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

My current solution at New Jersey Devils#Season by season Records is to simply put "in progress" in the row of the current records. Note this is not supported by any precedent, but I believe that as an encyclopedia, we should try to limit the amount of daily/in-progress updating. – flamurai (t) 05:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Why not? Provided the information is sourced, and that source is updated, it just makes Misplaced Pages that much more current. Fagstein 08:12, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, saying as a team's record is encyclopedic, I have no problem with it being updated immediately after it happens. That's the benefit of not having a printed encyclopedia.

That said, I think that something more trivial (like the actual scores of games) we should probably shy away from, instead directing people to Wikinews (as mentioned above). EVula 16:09, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

For an example of what I was talking about, here's a list of articles that I've run across over the last few days, that I'm not sure are "encyclopedic". To me, they all appear to be unsourced and of marginable notability, but are obviously part of a much larger project that seems determined to use Misplaced Pages to document every sports score in every tournament, ever. Anyone else have an opinion on this kind of stuff? --Elonka 20:26, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

1. 1983 French Grand Prix
2. 1991 Rugby World Cup - Africa qualification
3. 1991 Rugby World Cup - Americas qualification
4. 1991 Rugby World Cup - Asia qualification
5. 1991 Rugby World Cup - European qualification
6. 2002 PDC World Darts Championship
7. 2003 PDC World Darts Championship
8. 2004 NBA Draft
9. 2004 PDC World Darts Championship
10. 2005 PDC World Darts Championship
11. 2006 PDC World Darts Championship
12. 2007 British Formula Three season
13. 2008 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships

Personally, I feel that if people want to create accurate, potentially useful content about events that were once newsworthy (as most sports championships and the like were), then I am not inclined to say they can't. So a part of the 💕 ends up being an encyclopedia of sports, oh well. Can't be worse than an Encyclopedia of Pokemon or an Encyclopedia of Buffy. However, I am not a big fan of in progress reporting on game results and the like because of the effort involved in maintaining such things. Dragons flight 20:39, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Naming_conventions_(adjectives)

What to do if an adjective yields far more google hits than the noun? This is the case for anti-Hindu when compared to anti-Hinduism. See talk:anti-Hindu. Andries 20:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

This appears to be one case where WP:Notability is in conflict with WP:Naming conventions.One proposed suggestion is that the article be renamed to "anti-Hindu (prejudice)".I am not too fond of it, but it is a possible compromise.Hkelkar 22:29, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I prefer keeping the title at anti-Hindu. Anti-Hinduism may be more than just prejudice. Andries 22:50, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of promotional photos

There is a recently created tag {{Replaceable fair use}} which is used to categorizes a given image into a dated category for deletion if it can possibly be replaced by a "free" image in the future - even if there isn't one currently available. Now it looks like this is being applied to all biographies of living people, bands, etc, with fair use images. However, there is an older template {{promophoto}} which used to say that a promotional photo (released by the copyright holder for the press) can be used "in the absence of a free alternative" (now changed) - so if no current alternative exists a fair use promotional photo could have been used, now it has been changed to say that if there is no possibility for free alternatives (which means most recent photos of living people are disqualified, as you can go out and take a picture of them).

So people who uploaded images in good faith under this criteria are still having their uploads deleted without much futher warning. Literally thousands of articles are losing their images that were put up in good faith and with a long-standing template to justify it.

Why don't we do something like what we have for fair use rationale and have some date before which these images are deemed ok to leave, but no new ones are uploaded (say October 13, 2006 when the template was changed). If it is under proper fair use then let the older ones be but do not allow any newer ones. No copyright laws are being violated here, and the only reason cited is to promote more "free" images, so I see no urgency to delete.--Konst.able 08:55, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

experence suggests that images uploaded before that date would never get deleted which isn't good. The other problem is that the exitance of "fair use" images tends to reduce the amount of effort people put into looking for free alturnatives.Geni 09:37, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Geni. Also, from a practical standpoint, the grandfathered images would set a bad example and inspire future violations of the policy. People copy what they see more often than they read policy. ×Meegs 10:02, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be regarding the deletion of images as a punishment of the people that uploaded them. That's not the case. Nobody's accusing people who uploaded promotional images of having bad faith, it's just that we need to focus more on being as freely-redistributable as possible. Having made the decision to get away from fair-use images as much as possible, it doesn't seem to make much difference when the image was uploaded. That seems pretty arbitrary, in fact. —Chowbok ☠ 17:26, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Related question: Should a fair use promotional image be removed from an article in favor of a free one, even when the free image doesn't illustrate the subject as well? -Freekee 18:19, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Depends somewhat of your definition of "as well", but yes. In fact there is not even a requirement for a free licensed alternative to currently exist. As long as it would be possible to create one. Basicaly unfree images are only allowed when they are non-reproducable (historic event (and most promo pictures don't depict historic events), subject no longer exist/live and such), or when the subject itself is a copyrighted work we are unlikely to get a release for (cartoon characters, logos, movie screenshots, statues etc). --Sherool (talk) 19:08, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

How to avoid wikipedia:plagiarism?

Please comment there not here. Andries 14:21, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Robot Wars Sections

Consider melding the noteworthy battles section with the battle summaries. I will be willing to provide information on as many battles as possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Statistic (talk • contribs) .

Propose this on Talk:Robot Wars. This page is for policy concerns. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 19:31, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

You have new messages

I'm tired of new users not understanding what this thing means and not realizing that people are leaving them messages. What if we changed it (through MediaWiki) to say "A Misplaced Pages user has left you a message. Please read it and respond if necessary"? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 22:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't think that would change much. Perhaps a help link might be more helpful (like "What's this?") Fagstein 01:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

When you get the "you have new messages" notice, don't you already get a link to your talk page and a diff link?

Maybe something like "A Misplaced Pages user has left you a message on your talk page, click here to view it" would make it a bit more obvious? --`/aksha 02:33, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

How do we get it changed? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:52, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Isn't there a place to go to request for changes to system messages? It would be a good idea actually, new users don't nessasarily realize their "talk page" is a point of contact for them. --`/aksha 02:55, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I thought this was it. I am an admin and I could change it, but want to make sure there's consensus. I'm making sure there isn't another place. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think the desired reaction with new members is "What the hell is this?" as they click on it, discovering their talk page in the process. I think it works just fine, but something a bit more obviously worded would probably work well, too. EVula 03:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Often, or at least for me, the "what the hell is this?" lead to "why the hell do i have a so-called discussion page named after me?". --`/aksha 08:50, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Why on earth should this cause problems in the first place? It's a fairly straightforward statement. -- Necrothesp 21:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I reversed it before seeing this discussion, but looking at it now I don't think there is a consensus for it. "A Misplaced Pages user" is misleading. The message could be from an IP (not a user account); it could be from a bot (not a person); it could be from someone passing by who has never edited Misplaced Pages before and may never again or from a banned user's several sockpuppets (not a Wikipedian). The message is shown simply when the user talk page is changed, and adding more specific verbiage of this kind separates it even further from its real meaning. —Centrx→talk • 02:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

How about "You have a new message on your Misplaced Pages talk page" which should make it clear. Part of the issue seems to be that people see and assume it is one of those advertisements that tries to get you to click on it by saying you have new messages. This wording should alleviate that problem. JoshuaZ 02:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately some don't quite get the concept for a talk page. They then don't see stuff like block warnings. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that wording is better than the current wording, and to be blunt, if people can't even get the idea of a talk page then they might be dumb enough thay it would be best if they didn't edit anyways. JoshuaZ 02:50, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah... so should we go and change it? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 04:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for AfD

I recently nominated an article for deletion (AfD) based on the criteria under "Conflict of Interest" which appeared to be an acceptable category under which an article could be nominated. However, during the discussion (discussion: ), several contributors pointed-out that although the "Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy" page gives Conflict of Interest as a reason for AfD, the page itself under Conflict of Interest specifically states that notability is the only issue for AfD, not conflict of interest. Thus, it seems that there is some ambiguity or conflicting information in the guidelines for AfD. I'm requesting discussion over whether it appears to others that the criteria need to be clarified or not in regard to this issue. Cla68 02:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't be a dick as a component of WP:TRI

Heh, I don't clearly understand the don't be a dick case, namely the goal of its existence. Why its corollaries are Be civil, Keep your cool, assume good faith and avoid personal attacks since the principle contradicts all of them? :) --Brand спойт 03:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

if you are referring to the title of the guideline, i think that it sums up the aims quite succinctly; there are far, far more offensive things on the internet than the word 'dick'; and they can be found quite unintentionally by a google image search. --Kaini 03:19, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Since the don't be a dick is a part of WP:TRI (which is in turn among Wiki's basic info) I personally don't understand how this principle could be a "basic social policy", which as stated has no definition. Currently a significant part of the principle drops out of NPOV and has an ambiguous character. The renaming discussion seems to be ceased. --Brand спойт 03:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

the title of the guideline transgresses linguistic boundaries pretty well though, and therefore makes the meaning far more apparent to a wider audience than an alternative phrasing. if you understand the meaning of the word 'dick' in the perjorative sense, then you understand the policy. far more people understand 'don't be a dick' than understand 'don't engage in personal attacks, don't make articles or edits in order to prove a point, and apologize if you're wrong'. i think that the guideline in question gets across a relevant point in a very efficient way, personally. --Kaini 04:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Though I support the statement that Wiki is not censored, in this case I don't think it's the way of keeping such a title only because it has a fixed linguistic boundaries thus making the meaning far more apparent. It simply looks like an appealing to vulgarity. Apparently a much more laconic and appropriate title for this policy exists. BTW, of course there are far more offensive words on the web, but it's only a kind of one trash. In my opinion the policy should be finally renamed and the content partially revised. --Brand спойт 05:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It would lose something if you tried to be tactful about it. The lack of any tact is what gives it its effectiveness. "Don't be a dick" is far more effective than, say, "Please stop acting like a child" or "Quit being a douche." – Someguy0830 (T | C) 08:38, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I personally like the "don't be a dick" line. It encompasses a lot of stuff in one simple sentence that cuts right to the point, although it does boaderline rudeness. If you're confused about it, have you actually read the "don't be a dick" page? (http://meta.wikimedia.org/Don%27t_be_a_dick) --`/aksha 08:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't be a dick is a very important rule but note that asking somebody to follow it is "something of a dick-move in itself". I think it's really important for me to keep the rule in mind, though, and try to follow it to the best of my ability. All of us act like dicks from time to time; we need to minimize that.

The page says "dick" because that's what you shouldn't be: a dick. "Dick" has a highly specific meaning, although very hard to define. We've all met full-time dicks; you can hardly go out in the world and do business for a day without running into one. Your boss may be a dick; just being a boss tends to bring out dickness. Dicks are worse than, say, jerks; the latter may just be sort of stupid and careless; dicks are deliberately annoying. No other Anglo-Saxon word has quite the same flavor.

The most important thing to remember is: "If you've been labeled as a dick, especially if you have been told this by several people in a particular community, it might be wise to consider the possibility that it is true." This applies to all of us, everywhere, at all times. John Reid ° 09:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I've read the page completely and agree that the lack of tact gives the effectiveness, but it's a vague effectiveness, which as I think shouldn't be used as a policy. The "don't be a dick" may be used as an essay, but not as a component of WP:TRI in its present form (especially while asserting that it is very hard to define). Of course being a boss or someone like him tends to bring out dickness, but Wikipedians are neither bosses nor any other kind to which the word "dick" could be applied by default. So I think that the statements like "if a significant number of reasonable people suggest, whether bluntly or politely, that you are being a dick, the odds are good that you are not entirely in the right" and "if you've been labeled as a dick, especially if you have been told this by several people in a particular community, it might be wise to consider the possibility that it is true" are simply ridiculous (mainly because Wikipedians should not label any particular Wikipedian as a "dick"). The dick policy may apply to all of its adherents. I'm out of them and personally like what Jimbo once said: "Here we are Wikipedians, which means: thoughtful, loving, neutral". --Brand спойт 16:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the dick rule is important, but its mention on TRI needs to be reworded to avoid saying "policy". "A general community consensus" perhaps? EVula 16:44, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

One problem with the admonition is that it's US English, and so may be either confusing or more offensive than it's meant to be to speakers of other forms of English. For example, its most obvious British English equivalent has an undertone of agression that may not be present in the US form. Another problem is that it's the kind of adolescant invective I'd expect from a nerd who spends too much time of his time on Misplaced Pages. But that might just be a problem of translation. Countersubject 17:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It might offend some Americans, too. Don't be dense might be a better way to go. --SB_Johnny||_books 20:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Ugh, do we really need to be frightened of maybe offending some Americans with "dick"? I'm from the U.S., and it doesn't offend me at all. "Dense" doesn't have anywhere near the same punch as "dick" does. EVula 21:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Apparently the US usage in particular doesn't reflect a global point of view. As I suspect, a significant part of non-native English speakers could be surprised the "don't be a dick" being a policy. The point is rewording to avoid saying policy, as EVula has wrote above. I know that I'm probably in minority and that the revision might be painful to the policy's adherents, but would like to know the opinions on that. --Brand спойт 22:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh I agree totally... I don't find it offensive either. I was responding to the previous comment which said it might be offensive to non-Americans.

There is a certain gracefulness in going with dense rather than dick though, since if someone's a dick calling them a dick isn't going to be helpful (since dicks are dicks and pointing that out is just asking for further dickery), but if you point out that someone's being dense, they might be more likely to say "what makes you say that?", rather than "yo mamma". --SB_Johnny||_books 21:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a prude about language in general, but in a world where tempers can easily flare (read: Misplaced Pages), why go out of our way to couch it in such an abrupt fashion? As someone noted, it tends to evoke the response, "Yo mama" (or the equivalent), which isn't useful. I wouldn't say it in front of my grandmother, or my mother, or my children. Profanity and/or "colorful language" has its place, but in controversy and argument, I feel that it becomes a species of emotional violence to use it. -- PKtm 22:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that's the thing. I'd say that to my friends when appropriate, but I wouldn't say it to someone in the supermarket without being ready for a brawl. I probably wouldn't say "don't be dense", either: maybe the best policy would be "Oh give me a break, man!". --SB_Johnny||_books 22:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above concerns, I don't think it's a very clever page - it contradicts WP:AGF - and, as Countersubject notes, it carries an undertone of aggression in British English that may not be known to US editors, where different words have different powers of offense. Basically, if one stranger in the UK said to another "don't be a dick" - that's a pretty offensive statement quite likely to lead to a smack in the face! The bottom line is that such sentiments do little to improve editorial harmony.--Zleitzen 22:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

"Don't be dense" just doesn't work here. Denseness refers to your intellect, not your attitude, and I don't think we have a better word for the attitude problem it describes that isn't even more offensive. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 22:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

One solution would be to phrase it positively rather than negatively. I vote for Misplaced Pages:Be excellent to each other. -GTBacchus 22:24, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like something out of the King James Version... just a step below Misplaced Pages:Thou shalt not be a stumbling block to the brethren. The point of the phrasing is that it be a non-esoteric policy. The major policies such as WP:NPOV, WP:RS, WP:CIVIL, etc. all assume you know a bit about Misplaced Pages, or at least the internet, in order to properly comprehend them. WP:DICK is the absolute entry level of policy. You can't misconstrue the meaning of "Don't be a dick" the same way you can misconstrue the Undue weight policy, for instance. --tjstrf Now on editor review! 23:37, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's straight out of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I don't see how it's possible to misconstrue a rule that says "hey, treat each other excellently!" Apparently the way it's couched as a "Do Not" offends some people, so I'm saying why not couch it as a "Do" instead? Is that a bad idea? Is "treat each other well" actually esoteric? Does anybody think that being a dick is an example of treating each other excellently? -GTBacchus 01:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

In reply to the original posting by Brandmeister... If one is applying WP:DICK to others, then it is indeed a violation of AGF, CIVIL, NPA and COOL. (It even says that calling someone a dick is itself a dick move.) If one is applying it to oneself though, then it doesn't fall afoul of any of those. Indeed, all of those corollary policies are undermined if they're used as accusations against others, and they all find their correct expression in rigorous application to oneself, even - especially - in cases where one feels that others may be violating them. This should perhaps be clarified somewhere? -GTBacchus 22:17, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the point, GTBacchus. --Brand спойт 23:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

This discussion is either very funny or very sad. See irony. I'd also suggest see wanker, but the argument might seem a little circular ... Countersubject 23:28, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Pfft, forget all the above. I officially subscribe to Don't be a fucking douchebag instead. EVula 05:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Removal of Template:Wr warning templates

This series of templates was just removed, but I cannot find the discussion where it was decided to remove them. --ArmadilloFromHell 15:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It was a somewhat out-of-process speedy. It's currently discussed on WP:AN. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:39, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm definitely left confused as to why they were deleted, when an August discussion voted to keep them. --ArmadilloFromHell 16:02, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Disambigs for very similar names

Is there a pre-existing policy for disambig pages where people have names that

• sound identical but are spelled differently, or
• are not identical in spelling, but are liable to be confused anyway?

Reason I ask is that I noticed there were two disambig pages for Charles Gray and Charles Grey. Neither of them linked to the other(!), so I added mutual links.

However, disambig pages are meant as navigation aids (not lists of identically-named things), so is it a good idea to have one for each minor spelling difference when people are unlikely to know which one they want anyway? Or should there just be one (e.g. for both spellings of "Charles Gray")?

Fourohfour 16:18, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd say merge the pages, and have one redirect to the other (doesn't matter which). Carcharoth 16:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If they're very large pages, then don't merge them. But if they're shorter pages, and they're minor spelling variations, then sure, go ahead and merge them. --Interiot 17:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

That's what I was thinking; a "common sense" approach bearing in mind the purpose of a disambig page. While I could have rushed off and done several, I wanted some sort of semi-formal consensus first. That way I could be sure I wasn't wasting my time with something the majority of editors disagreed with (and possibly for good reasons; another benefit of asking here is that it gives others the chance to spot any snags or drawbacks I'd overlooked). Fourohfour 19:47, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd leave them separate and use a "See also" section (see WP:MOSDAB for the recommended style). In other words, I'd do what you originally did, but formatted a little different. You're correct that some people might not know which spelling they are looking for, but other people will know. I think the odds of confusing people are more likely by merging them then having the link to the other page which they can follow. -- JLaTondre 23:54, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Biblical citations-- reference section or included in text

Does Misplaced Pages have a policy or guideline on whether or not to include bible verse citations in the reference section along with other references, or whether to just list them inside parentheses.

In most print biblical scholarship, cites are usually provided like this:

"Luke-Acts devotes a great deal of attention to women in general (Luke 1, 2) and to widows in particular (Luke 2:37; 4:25-26; 7:12; 18:3, 5; 20:47; 21:2-3)"

The alternative would be to treat them like normal references:

"Luke-Acts devotes a great deal of attention to women in general and to widows in particular "

The parenthetical style has the advantage of it being easier to view the citations-- you don't have to click on the link to see the cite. The hypertext style has the advantage of being much more readable-- when you have a paragraph full of cites, it can get a little difficult to follow the sentence itself.

Which way should we do things? Is there any kind of style guide specifying? --Alecmconroy 23:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

• Well first of the bat your citing analysis. You can't use the book itself, otherwise its original research because it's like saying the book analyzed itself. You need to get a source that analyzes Luke-Acts as "devoting alot of attention to women in general". On the other hand, if you quoting a text from the bible then yes you should cite the book as a footnote. Did that make sense? - Tutmosis 23:21, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I should have picked a better example. I thought about that before I posted it, but.. I was lazy. That sentence does need a "real cite", in addition to the biblical citations. I think it's okay to have the biblical cites too, just in case someone wants to look at the specific instances, but as is, I would consider the sentence "uncited" until we get a cite that says what the sentence itself actually says.

So, is there anything I could point to in order to convince people that we should footnote the biblical cites? I find that some people are really attached to the parenthetical citations and object to them being placed in footnotes.

--Alecmconroy 00:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the use of footnotes would be technically correct, in keeping with WP:MOS. --Doc Tropics 00:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

My understanding of the manner to present any quotation is to simply quote this is a quote,<ref>''name of book'', page number publisher</ref>. And the reason for that is the flow of the article. A reader gets his example right there and doesn't have to search around, but can explore further. However, in some instances, the second use of quotation would make a smoother reading, easier to understand article. So, it depends on style and content. It depends on an editor's understanding of the reader. It depends on what will best communicate the information to the reader. Terryeo 00:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Too quick to delete? Concerns with AfD trends

I think that some are being too quick to delete articles. If NOBODY sees merit in an article, well okay, but if even a couple of people find an article useful and intriguing, keeping it is less likely to do harm than not having it. I have noticed this too quick to delete trend on many articles that could have value if improved and that I in particular like. I always thought that the purpose of encyclopedias is to catalog human knowledge. Why limit ourselves? Blatantly false articles, I can understand as having no useful place here, but many lists are helpful an convenient, especially for those of us who simply don't have time to search through multiple articles. I realize Misplaced Pages must have some kind of server limits, but nevertheless many of the deletions will end up discouraging serious contributors, especially when some of the pro-deletion comments are insulting in nature. A lot of pages could be improved, but I whole-heartedly believe we should not be "delete happy." Have a pleasant week and best regards, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I do think people are a little too quick, as well. That being said, if there are 10 people who want to delete, and 2 or 3 who are for it, should that mean no consensus? Do we really want to go off the other end? -Patstuart 01:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, maybe we should go with something along the lines of it not taking a simple majority of votes, but rather something like 2/3 votes for an article to be deleted? I don't know how many people actually visit Misplaced Pages, but a vote in either direction could represent an actual percentage of users far beyond the number who actually vote on the AfD. For all we know, 2 or 3 people who vote for a people might actually represent hundreds or thousands who casually came across on article and enjoyed it or found it useful, but weren't around to notice the sudden deletion tag. --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:34, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Often times, those for delete will often have a concise and convincing arguement for deleting said article. I've noticed that people voting keep, Le Grand here in particular (just read his talk page logs), do not. This is usually why delete will come out on top. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 01:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I've greatly improved on my comments for keeping articles after the mass attacks and vandalism to my talk page. We all have to start figuring this out somehow . . . And most of those I've seen for delete have in fact provided arguments like "sucks" and the like, which is hardly convincing . . . --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Because of the repeated vandalism to your talk page, I made a link from it to this discussion to prevent this topic to being "all about you." I hope that you approve, Monsieur! --172.148.94.163 03:15, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Log in when talking about yourself. Hiding behind an IP won't help. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 03:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I do log in when I talk about myself. I use multiple computers, mostly public and in multiple cities (I travel A LOT!), and so please don't confuse all of the anonymous IPs with me. There might be a moment here and there where I forget to log in, but many times, you could just be seeing whoever is on the computer after me. Thanks! --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 03:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

So several different IPs just happen to find your talk page and revert it in the same manner? Give people a little credit. It's quite clear you're using IPs as sockpuppets. It won't work. – Someguy0830 (T | C) 04:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't give me too much credit! Anyway, Kavadi carrier, who seems to be a reputable user, said that "if the user sees these are excessive, s/he can remove them himself." I agree that the comments are the same thing over and over about my early comments on the topics, which are now irrelevant, because I've read them, responded, and now contribute different as a result. Therefore, I am following Kavadi carrier's instructions regarding my talk page and am cleaning it up accordingly. Please don't contradict each other! Best, --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 04:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The whole prinicipal of deletion is to uphold WP:N and WP:NOT. Whether the article is "intriguing" or not has nothing do with deletion. - Tutmosis 01:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but based on many of the pro-delete comments, those wanting deletions simply don't like certain articles. --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Le Grand, I strongly suggest you read the actual deletion policy found here and other relevant material found here. JoshuaZ 01:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I have and I still think many are too quick to delete without providing solid reasons and that there's a tendency to jump on certain proponents of articles. Thanks for the links, though! --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that there's serious evidence that AfD is delete happy. We already have default keep when no consensus is reached and admins will often claim no consensus when enough editors have shown interest in the article, unless these editors are supporting the keep on the basis of principle (you know, those "all X are inherently notable"). Pascal.Tesson 01:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there too much of a trend then to submit articles for deletion? --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Nope. Things are working by and large just fine. JoshuaZ 01:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree, especially when articles are voted to be kept and then renominated to be deleted. This strikes me as some having an agenda against certain articles. My principal concerns are that visitors and even editors will be turned off by having articles they spend time working on or enjoy being deleted by perhaps a handful of individuals who just don't like the article. --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:44, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Calls for deletion from "individuals who just don't like the article" will generally be unsuccesful. There is no rule against renominating since circumstances can change and even with the same circumstances, the prevailing attitudes may have changed. JoshuaZ 01:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I suppose it's just maddeningly frustrating when I visit an article, which I, my family, and/or friends find useful in whatever context and then all of a sudden, it's gone! For example, the original version of the article on American Idol Finalists' Album Sales (not the one deleted the second time) provided a clear sense of how successful the contestants were, but the article was deleted, re-created in a not quite as good fashion and then deleted again. I can understand the second deletion much more than the first. The deletion of the RMS Aquaculture article also baffled me in that the chain has been around for several years has had stores in around five or six different locations had a nationwide online store either had or was in negotiations for a fish farm in Mexico and so seemed more than just some minor local business. I was more recently horrified to see the fictional battles and wars and the proposed state of Superior articles being nominated for deletion. --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 01:56, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Do you have specific examples of this? JoshuaZ 02:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, see my revised post above. Thanks! --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 02:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The best way to get articles kept is to improve them, especially by adding references. People are much more likely to want to delete a poorly formatted, incoherent article with 5 cleanup tags on it than they are a clean, well-referenced one. Also, making good arguments is critical to getting an article kept (or conversly, deleted). The days of widespread support for keeping everything mostly for the sake of including as many articles as possible are gone... now the focus is more on quality than quantity. So provide quality, and it's still easy to include articles on most topics. --W.marsh 02:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

AfD is not a vote. Nominations with insufficient interest, or opinions that don't supply a rational reason, should be ignored by the closing admin. If they're not doing so, take the admin to task for it. Deco 02:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

AfD is not a vote? Gee golly I wish I'd heard that before I closed a thousand AfDs or so! --W.marsh 02:11, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, how much server space does Misplaced Pages have left versus how much has been used thus far? --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 02:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages isn't running out of disk space any time soon, it's not even an issue. Deleted articles stay on the servers anyway, as they're viewable to admins. Inclusion standards aren't about preserving disk space though. --W.marsh 02:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but does anyone know how much disk space something like Misplaced Pages actually has? How much bigger can this site get, especially with all of the archived material? --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 02:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm using up the last few bytes as I t.y...p..e....<end> <no space left> <cucumber error> <reboot universe>. Carcharoth 02:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

A useful link is Misplaced Pages:Don't worry about performance. Carcharoth 02:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Server storage space is not a problem... in other words. Look at our server list... add up all those gigabytes, and consider that the entire current database could fit on a single one of those drives. --W.marsh 02:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

As has been said many times before, disk space is not the resource that we need to worry about: for all practical purposes, it's limitless. But every article requires time and effort to maintain and that is not a resource we have unlimited amounts of. Pascal.Tesson 03:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And every worthless article makes Misplaced Pages worth less. Postdlf 03:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow! This discussion really took off! I whole-heartedly agree that false and/or defamatory articles do not help. I'm more concerned about factually articles created with good intentions that might get lossed in the shuffle. Have a pleasant night! --Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles 04:00, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

There's always Misplaced Pages:Deletion review. Fagstein 05:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

New policy proposal on schools.

See WP:SCHOOLS3. JoshuaZ 01:53, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

It is interesting to note...

Many articles in Misplaced Pages contain the phrase "it is interesting to note...". Perhaps I'm being nitpicky, but that doesn't seem NPOV. Who it to decide what is interesting? The "interestingness" of something is completely subjective. Encyclopedias shouldn't tell us what is interesting and what is not. I propose that all such instances be replaced with "it may be noted that...". --Munchkinguy 04:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The two aren't semantically identical. I think the first is generally used to suggest that the "interesting" information being noted contradicts or undermines the previous statement, almost like a "However, ..." ("Bush urged private citizens to house Katrina refugees. It is interesting to note that Bush did not offer to host anyone at his 2,000 acre private ranch.") I don't think "It may be noted that..." has the same suggestion; by contrast it seems like an attempt to make the instant statement more tentative, as if you're hesitant to advance it. But both are probably surplus verbage, to be edited out based on the surrounding context. Postdlf 05:02, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I delete 'em all. "It is interesting..." -- let the reader decide it's interesting. "It may be noted that..." -- excuse me, if it may be noted, then note it, and once you've done so, you don't need to announce that it may be noted. "Interestingly and ironically, it should be noted that..." --jpgordon 05:04, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Go ahead and be bold. My guess that it is in imitation of the 1911 Britannica, or perhaps even leftover text from when articles were often just copies of the public-domain edition, and "It may be noted that..." has the same antique flavor. In many cases, such phrases are just fluff that can be dispensed with. In other cases, something more direct would be preferable. If many students find the concept difficult because it is counterintuitive, then call it counterintuitive. If the point has important consequences, say so: "This lemma has important consequences." If someone notable has called the point surprising or interesting, then quote them: "Edward Witten has called this the most unexpected result since energy quantization." Robert A.West (Talk) 05:10, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Luke 1, Luke 2
2. Luke 2:37; 4:25-26; 7:12; 18:3, 5; 20:47; 21:2-3)

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