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Policy archive

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Problem users

Does anyone have any idea how many "problem users" ever end up as useful contributors? I'm not talking about people who have a strong POV and get into battles on certain pages but manage to contribute meaningfully elsewhere. I'm not talking about people who end up leaving Misplaced Pages in the midst of major battles. I'm talking about people who get into conflict from the start. I know a lot of people start off with angry exchanges - for example when their first article gets VfD'd. Most of these people are reasonable once they understand the system. I mean the people who show up with an axe to grind or a POV to push, or just show up to be disruptive. Can anyone cite any examples? Guettarda 23:23, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are people, particularly younger people, who will be disruptive for a while and just screw with the system before they mature a bit and start actually taking an interest in contributing (sometimes as a result of stumbling across a topic they actually have interest in). You seem to have excluded most scenarios that I've seen from your definition of "problem users" though. If your goal is to encourage a stronger policy for punishing these people, I think you have to consider how difficult it is in practice to distinguish the various classes of problem users you describe, at least in the short term. Deco 23:58, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I was just thinking about the amount of effort that people put into disruptive users, and whether this was something that ever paid off. I was wondering if there was some way to distinguish the ones with potential from the ones that won't be worth the trouble. I was just thinking about the way we allow troublemakers to drive off good editors, about the point where bureaucracy takes over and overwhelms the fun of this amazing project... I have lots of patience for the users who believe in the project but get caught up in edit wars or who misinterpret the comments, or who have serious differences in how they interpret "the truth". But I don't have patience with people who spend their time aruing about how their "right" to edit here is infringed by our rules. I don't know where I am going with this... Guettarda 03:31, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One thing Ive noticed was brought up when one user pretty told the "Request for Comment" page to go screw itself. I forget the exact case, but the user was causing all kinds of problems with reverts, edit wars, personal attacks, etc. It went from RFC and then to ArbComm. The user wrote something like "this isnt like its a real court or something" and blew off everything in the RFC and vandalized the ArbComm Page! When he was banned, he just started up a new account and now there are sockpuppet issues with this same person. Point being...there is no enforcement...nor can there really ever be. We dont have the Misplaced Pages Police who can come to your house, fines cannot be given, nor can legal action ever be taken (nor should it be, actually). Its actually part funny and part scary. Reminds me of SGA somewhat, we think we have the power but really don't. -Husnock 4 July 2005 01:01 (UTC)

There is the ban. Apoc2400 4 July 2005 21:56 (UTC)

Which, sadly, can be easily circumvented by started up another account. Roaming IP addresses are also a hindrence as someone can log on from several different locations and show up as different users. -Husnock 5 July 2005 09:01 (UTC)

Yeah, but a banned user can be reverted on sight - rather than a POV pusher who needs to be reasonably argued with - arguments over if someone is a sockpuppet are ugly, but banning does make it easier to stop someone(by making it legitimate to revert them on sight.) (BTW, what did you mean by SGA? - the disambig page has 11 meanings...) JesseW 19:58, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Student government ? -- 67.182.157.6 21:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

There's similar case with User:202.7.190.130. He makes changes to monarch titles and these changes get invariably reverted (as they do not fit Misplaced Pages common style). He doesn't respond to questions on talk page. He may be well intentioned but at the end there's lot of lost time and no progress. There should be some way to deal with such borderline cases. Pavel Vozenilek 19:26, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Non-Latin characters in article names

Is there somewhere a discussion or a policy about the use of non-latin characters in article names? Since MediaWiki 1.5 enabled these characters, some users already started moving articles around, i.e. Wroclaw was moved to Wrocław. Tokyo could be moved to 東京 (now a redirect), and a whole lot of articles could be moved around quite a bit. Personally, I would prefer latin characters only. In any case, this should be decided quickly. Any comments or links? Thanks -- Chris 73 Talk June 28, 2005 11:36 (UTC)

As long as there is a version of the name in Latin characters redirecting, what harm is there in writing article names properly? --Ngb 28 June 2005 12:00 (UTC)

This is the English Misplaced Pages, so if there is an English name, that should be used.--Patrick June 28, 2005 15:27 (UTC)

I think that we should use the English name if any commonly used such exist. Else we use the native name tranitterated to a latin alphabet. Wrocław could be allright if it has no English name – like how Göteborg is called Gothenburg while Malmö always should be called Malmö. The most commonly used name should be used (traiterated if from a non-latin aphabet). Jeltz talk 28 June 2005 22:38 (UTC)

I don't know, but I am sure that "we should use the English name if any commonly used such exist" is not a good idea. Leghorn is the English name for Livorno; I think it's now rather quaint but it's not freakishly rare. It's less common in English than Livorno. Leghorn redirects to Livorno, which I think is the way it should be. (Today's amazing discovery: the very first sentence of the "Culture" section of Marseille is "The French rap band IAM is from Marseille." Doesn't Marseille have some rather less ephemeral culture? Oh, never mind.) -- Hoary June 29, 2005 02:56 (UTC)

Ok, the name most commonly used in an English text should be used.--Patrick June 29, 2005 07:21 (UTC)

I think that I agree with that. We should try to apply the currently existing policy of using the most common name in English writing to special characters in article titles. Jeltz talk 29 June 2005 11:40 (UTC)

On place names, I agree with that. People's names, or names of works are trickier. For example, Nicolae Ceauşescu is commonly written in English as "Nicolae Ceausescu", and the poem Martín Fierro as "Martin Fierro". I'd sure be inclined to say "Nicolae Ceauşescu" and "Martín Fierro" are the right article titles. -- Jmabel | Talk July 2, 2005 04:35 (UTC)

A related question is whether Misplaced Pages should stick to typewriter typography in article titles (or in the body text for that matter). Mother’s day or Mother's day, for example. (On a Windows box, you typically cannot see the difference. Increase font size or print it out: the former uses an apostrophe, the latter a straight typewriter quote.) See Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (Quotation marks and apostrophes). Arbor 2 July 2005 17:30 (UTC)

• There are always the templates {{wrongtitle}} and {{titlelacksdiacritics}} to deal with naming problems: some browsers have problems with non-latin characters. Physchim62 4 July 2005 09:18 (UTC)

This might be useful for folks - the convention for English article titles has been around since 2002 - Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English). Fuzheado | Talk 08:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Only linking to the first mention - why?

Why is the policy only to link to the first mention of something in an entry? I just don't get it.

It's annoying when reading - you get to a certain point in the article and think, "Oh, that thing would be interesting to read about", but it's not linked. Is it just plain not linked, or is it linked somewhere previously in the article? Either way, a pain.

It makes editing more difficult in several ways - for example:

- When entering new text, you have to check whether it was linked in a previous location, and if so, not link it in your new text;

- Similarly, you have to check whether it was linked in a later location, and if so, link it in your text, but unlink it in the later location;

- Deleting text and/or moving text suffers the same problems.

And it's not like there's some sort of resource wasted by linking multiple times.

I'm not saying always link every mention of a subject - it clearly would be overkill in some situations - but it seems like that's actually the far minority of situations. And in those few situations when linking every time would be overkill, people probably wouldn't link every time anyway.

This seems like something that shouldn't have a policy at all, one way or the other.

Policy leads to consistency, which is good. As for only linking the first time, if a term is likely to trigger a "oh, I want to read about that" reaction, it's likely to do so the first time you read it. Nobody's going to drag you into arbitration if you accidentally link a word again while editing because you didn't see it had already been used previously, but by avoiding double-linking articles become less visually noisy and easier to read. --W(t) 29 June 2005 05:32 (UTC)

if a term is likely to trigger a "oh, I want to read about that" reaction, it's likely to do so the first time you read it.: That sounds nice, but in practice, I find it to often be false. -Rwv37 June 29, 2005 06:11 (UTC)

Policy leads to consistency, which is good.: Yeah, consistency's great and all, sure, but it's not the be-all and end-all. My point is that without any policy regarding this topic, Misplaced Pages would probably naturally self-moderate itself into a state that is more usable than its current state. People won't go crazy with linking absolutely every mention of everything. -Rwv37 June 29, 2005 06:16 (UTC)

I usually link once per major section, or once per page of text -- or, in practice, once every time I think about it while writing, which works out to about the same. Also, if something's first wikilinked in an infobox, I'll link it in the text no matter how short the article. --Carnildo 29 June 2005 05:48 (UTC)

I do somewhat similar. I find it stupid to have to look through long chunks of texts to look for a link for what I am searching. On the other hand, I find it annoying when the same word is linked in every sentence. --Fred-Chess June 29, 2005 10:36 (UTC)

Let's amend policy to reflect long-existing practice (Carnildo lays out what that is). Which policy page is this? Pcb21| Pete 29 June 2005 10:51 (UTC)

It isn't policy. It is a guideline in Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links), and it doesn't say only the first occurrence. Relevant to this discussion, it does say "An article may be considered overlinked if any of the following is true:

• ...
• a link is repeated within the same screen (40 lines perhaps)
• ...
• low added value links (e.g., such as year links 1995, 1980s) are duplicated

I think Carnildo's suggestion about linking in text even if first linked in an infobox is a good one. Gene Nygaard 29 June 2005 12:03 (UTC)

I think the guideline covers it; just a matter of applying common sense, really. Filiocht | Talk June 29, 2005 12:38 (UTC)

In practice it's fine to link the same topic multiple times, if the article is long. It's typical for a topic to be mentioned in a summary and then mentioned again when the topic is covered in more detail; in this case it's quite appropriate to link it again. Years may need to be linked multiple times so that date preferences work. Gdr 2005-06-29 13:01:11 (UTC)

That's a good point. Both day-month or month-day and year should be linked in all dates so that preferences work right, no matter how many times they appear. It is just the years standing alone or only with a month that shouldn't be linked multiple times. Gene Nygaard 29 June 2005 16:41 (UTC)

• One downside is if the article referenced is moved or renamed. Five links imbedded in a long article are harder to upgrade to eliminate orphans than one. OTHO, The original point about wanting to read more about a repeating term is strong to me— The desire to follow such gets stronger LATER in the long article— i.e. once one's interest has been wetted. In my experience, in most cases, the original use or three of a term is introductory and hasn't yet built a desire to 'click', until the surrounding text provides enough detail to eventually create the desire to do so. In such cases, I've italicized or bolded the first occurences until the topic has built up background, then provided the link. Of course, some copy editors have removed such logical planning in favor of linkizing all, or just the first, so Shrug. It's their time, and I did my best to make it logical. It's certainly not worth getting excited about.
• One solution requiring a guideline change would to 'emphasize key terms' in bold or italics with the covention that said 'busy appearances' (to some, not I.) consistantly means "See the See Also List' at the end for a link; but I don't advocate this, as it's too much work for little gain 'Wiki-wide', plus the below counterpoint. This would have the virtue of being consistent with tail-end-charlie external links placement as well.
• In the main, this strikes me as an area where hard and fast rules are probably not a good idea. Providing additional links as a long history article develops is probably a very good idea as the relationships between terms unfolds, the user can make his side trip for more information and return to exactly the same place in the original article by hitting backspace. That's definitely not the case for infrequently occuring links or bottom collected links, and I think these decisions should be left in the province of the editor or copyeditors following behind.
• I do think that the guidelines should be firm on the following, rather than any arbitrary 'count of lines' approach (My bi-focaled eyes are comfortable enough viewing 'small' to assume everyone uses the same size fonts for viewing!). 'Link Density' or 'busy appearance' should probably be evaluated strictly (only) in 'Medium' browser display mode, not whatever is the favorite of the editor. In an article on less weighty matters, less links are appropriate.

User:Fabartus || Talkto_FrankB 5 July 2005 16:11 (UTC)

copyright problem procedure

If I find a page that is a copyvio does it have to be given the {{copyvio}} template and listed on WP:CP or can it just be rewritten? If it has already been listed on WP:CP does a rewrite have to go on a temp page and wait for the WP:CP listing to time out instead of replacing the old version? (If I already made the mistake of just replacing with a rewrite should I restore the copyvio template and move my rewrite to the temp page it points to?)RJFJR July 2, 2005 02:09 (UTC)

It's better to restore the copyvio template and do the rewrite on the temp page. If you find a copyvio page, it's better to tag it as copyvio and do the rewrite on the temp page. --cesarb 2 July 2005 02:23 (UTC)

I don't really understand why we do this. The {{copyvio}} template is supposed to be for possible copyright problems. The whole rigmarole is unnecessary for definite copyright problems. In those cases, we may as well re-write immediately. Pcb21| Pete 3 July 2005 09:42 (UTC)

I might put it more strongly. If a breach of copyright is established, continuing to display the offending material without permission will constitute an additional act of infringement because it converts the display on the part of Wiki as publisher from an arguably unintentional to an intentional act. It should be removed from public display immediately, regardless of when it might (or might not) be rewritten. -David91 3 July 2005 10:35 (UTC)

The offending material is not displayed in either case - if we go down the template route, the template completely replaces the text. If we go down the rewrite route, the rewrite replaces the text. Pcb21| Pete 3 July 2005 12:59 (UTC)

But it's still available in the page history. That's why the page needs deleting and any rewrites should go on the /temp page. Dunc|☺ 3 July 2005 15:41 (UTC)

You (or a neighbourly admin) should delete the offending material in either case. Per-revision deletion is available if necessary depending what order things are done. Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 09:37 (UTC)

AFAIK, it is policy to only remove copyvios from history if the copyright owner objects or in spcific, very limited cirumstances. Also, AFAIK, WP:CP is only to be used if the problem can't be fixed immediately. Removing history is a generally Bad Idea, for copyvio or other reasons. JesseW 04:29, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

According to Misplaced Pages:Copyrights#If_you_find_a_copyright_infringement this is not correct. if the 'entire page consists of noting but a copyvio, the page is deleted and recreated to remove the copyvio from the history, or specific versions are deleted to revert to a pre-copy-vio version. If only aprt of the article is a copyvio the situation is more complex, and the history is not always altered. where do you find the above as policy? DES 16:17, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Biography articles - reluctant subjects

Moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#Reluctant subjects -Willmcw July 5, 2005 23:49 (UTC)

Where is the license in this image?

Well, I put this image in the Misplaced Pages in spanish, but they told me I needed a license for it, but aparently, the english version doesnt have any problem, so I am guessing it already has a license... I just cant find it, could somebody give it so the image can also be in the spanish version?--201.139.132.232 4 July 2005 18:28 (UTC)

I believe it counts as free use. I have added a tag to that effect. Sonic Mew July 4, 2005 22:05 (UTC)

(note: fair use may not apply to other wikipedia projects. You need to check each project's licensing rules. I don't know about the Spanish wikipedia.) RJFJR July 4, 2005 22:31 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal

There is currently a vote on a large number of proposals to expand the criteria for speedy deletion. If passed, they would tend to place the onus for everyday deletion decisions in the hands of administrators and substantially reduce the number of articles that get discussion time in Votes for deletion and other deletion discussion policy forums. Discussion and votes are required.

Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 16:14 (UTC)

Proposal 1, which at present looks likely to pass, says that administrators should have discretion to delete "An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead."

What concerns me here is that it is left up to one person, instead of Misplaced Pages editors at large, to decide for themselves what an assertion of importance or significance is. Only a very vague idea is given of what is intended and the administrator is given complete discretion. This proposal needs scrutiny. At present the article would be listed on VfD and discussed for five days, which saves many important articles that were wrongly thought to be deletable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 6 July 2005 01:49 (UTC)

• What Tony fails to mention is that daily, between ten and twenty-five articles on unremarkable people (such as high school students, random friends of an editor, or people who just think they're great without specifying why) are nominated for deletion, and get near-unanimous votes to delete. It would save a large number of people a significant amount of time if those articles wouldn't clog up VFD. After all, Misplaced Pages is not a bureaucracy.
• Presently, VFD is longer than it should be (which is an obvious result of Misplaced Pages growing) and this prevents people from participating - thus making VFD less the instrument of consensus that it should be. This is considered by many to be undesirable.
• It is easy to distinguish an article on an obviously unremarkable person (e.g. "Joe Smith is a nice guy who works at a supermarket") from a possibly encyclopedic person (e.g. "Joe Smith is the president of major corporation GnirpGo"). Of course, the latter may be false, but the mere assertion keeps it from being speedily deletable. Admins have common sense. If they did not, they would not be admins.
• There is statistical evidence of over a hundred articles per week that presently go on VFD that would be removed without further bureaucracy if this proposal passes. There is no evidence whatsoever, only conjecture, about articles about famous people that do not even say why the person is famous - of course anyone who would write about George Washington is going to state that he was a president, not just that he was a nice guy. Radiant_>|< July 7, 2005 13:33 (UTC)
  • It kind of irks me that some who are opposed to this proposal seem to feel that editors who hang around speedy are in it just for the blood lust. If other editors are like me (and I'm sure they are), they will speedy only when it is emminently clear that the article is a candidate. I often add to or even rewrite articles that show up in speedy, and regularly remove speedy tags from inappropriately labeled articles. In other words, I take my power seriously. At least as seriously as inclusionists like Tony take their mission to save every god-blasted little article. Denni☯ 2005 July 8 02:34 (UTC)

You're being a little bit naughty here, Radiant. Why should I mention that unremarkable article are listed on VfD? That's what VfD is *intended* for. It's doing a good job. As for saving time, nobody asks people to vote for delete, and if nobody but the proposer had anything to do with the nomination the article could still be deleted, but would have benefited from five days' listing and potential for discussion (alas even this this was not enough to save the article on the legendary writer and journalist, Davey Winder, which I had to rewrite). There is nothing about VfD's current size that "prevents people from participating". Just go there and look at the page. Unlike in earlier months when it was transcluded, it no longer takes a long time to load and is much more accessible than ever.

If VfD is "less of an instrument of consensus than it should be" how can this be improved by removing articles from VfD and giving the decision on their deletion to a single, demonstrably fallible person?

"Joe Smith is the president of major corporation GnirpGo" is not enough to save an article from speedy deletion under the proposals. Some administrators regularly claim that being the President of a corporation does not make one worthy of an encyclopedia entry.

Denni, I've not suggested that any lust of any kind is involved. It is a fact, which I've proved beyond doubt with actual cases, that being an administrator does not make us better (or even very good) editors. Administrators routinely judge salveagable articles as worthy only of deletion. The carnage at present is low and containable. The proposals will make the load on administrators much higher because some of us will be deleting stuff and the others will be restoring the wrong deletions. VfD saves us from such nonsense, that's why it exists. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Inter-wiki Citation and PLaerism Policy

What is the policy about taking content from another language wikipedia and moving it into the English wikipedia. Does no ownership apply so it's to fine copy anything? Should it be cited anywhere?

Example: I have recently discovered a timeline on the French Misplaced Pages (here:) and made an English version here

--Commander Keane 6 July 2005 11:34 (UTC)

When you edit on a Wikimedia project you "release" your submission but you don't "relinquish" it, it's still your work as such, and you can exercise some rights over it (not sure what they are).

But don't worry, you haven't made any serious error. Right at the bottom it says "By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public domain resources". WP is certainly a public domain resource; that disclaimer waives any responsibility you might have had for this uncredited copy, as it it isn't automatically assumed that you wrote/made whatever you're adding in each edit.

What I would do now if I were you is to make a minor change to the table and put something like "translated this table from the xx Misplaced Pages version of this article" in the edit summary. That way you're crediting the originator in a vague way.

Alternately, use comment tags (<!-- this is a comment -->) to leave a note below the table. These are invisible to the reader, but editors can see it.

Certainly I wouldn't credit it in the article, as that other page could change or something. In theory you could link to a fixed version of that page where the table is intact, but that still isn't really necessary. Master Thief Garrett 6 July 2005 12:15 (UTC)

MTG's suggestions are reasonable, but I should note one correction. Misplaced Pages is not public domain. Contributions are licensed under the GFDL, which means that authorship records must be maintained. Consequently, you do have to cite the other Misplaced Pages as a source. In practice, I think you would be in good shape by

• noting the source in the edit summary (per MTG),
• adding a note to the Talk page of the article indicating a source, and
• where appropriate, adding an interlanguage wikilink to the destination article.

Are there any other suggestions? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 6 July 2005 12:55 (UTC)

Adding a comment along the lines of "This article is based on the corresponding article Verb in Catalan Misplaced Pages" in a Source section at the end of the article text seems reasonable and in compliance with WP:CITE. The comment can be removed if the article is substantially edited thereafter, author information is preserved. Physchim62 11:50, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Google Earth

Wondering if we can use pictures from Google earth for reference in wikipedia.

Or how about the kmz files from google earth?

Sveden 6 July 2005 20:58 (UTC)

See Use of data. It basically says that "personal" use with copyright tags intact is OK. I'm not sure WP includes that. Perhaps you could contact them with a grovelling message explaining how the copyrights would remain intact etc. etc. etc.

I assume they'd be happy to be featured here, and in turn it would generate more outside interest in their service!

So try that. :) Master Thief Garrett 6 July 2005 21:18 (UTC)

I see no reason to try to focus on Google Earth at the moment; we can link to Google Satellite Maps, which is good enough, and doesn't lock a link into supporting only Windows. --Golbez July 6, 2005 22:06 (UTC)

No, you can't. -- Cyrius|✎ 7 July 2005 02:12 (UTC)

We already do, through http://kvaleberg.com/extensions/mapsources/ - Omegatron 14:48, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

There is a massive difference between linking to a site and uploading their data. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:18, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

"we can link to Google Satellite Maps" - Omegatron 20:05, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest to make a template for coordinates, which could be edited separately. Then from the article you just refer the template, fill lattitude and longitude in, and the template then handles formatting several links: to Google Maps, to the kvaleberg.com mapsources, and perhaps also to a script that generates the required .kmz file for Google Earth on the fly (trivial, see their tutorial or ask me for the code snippet). This way we can easily support all significant coordinates-based map sources, with easy maintenance as the new map sources appear and old ones change. We also won't have to do just "good enough" when we can have it all. Could it work? I personally miss such feature. --Shaddack 18:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Geographical coordinates. Gene Nygaard 19:46, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Putting the pictures on Misplaced Pages could result in some copyright problems because Google got the license from DigitalGlobe. There is also "2005 Google" sticked onto the images to prevent you from claiming it as your own, and they don't let you do the "save as target" right-click option. — Stevey7788 (talk) 20:35, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (chemistry)

The names of chemical compund pages have been the subject of a number of minor disputes (and some major ones, now hopefully resolved) for some time.

This page resembled more of a discussion than a set of guidelines. I have summarised the discussion that was there (and informed all the authors of signed comments) and added some more comments that have been discussed at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Chemicals.

Any and all comments on the results are welcome. In particular, the page may be a bit too technical at present (help on this would be appreciated!). Have we missed any points?

More discussion on the style of chemistry articles can be found at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines.

Thanks to all who have already helped, and to those who take the time to add their comments. Physchim62 7 July 2005 11:14 (UTC)

Unit Disagreement, MiB vs. MB

What unit types should be used when describing storage capacity in articles?

A problem has arisen in different related articles on whether to use the MB or MiB. Some articles have decided to stick with using MB, some have chosen to use MiB.

Talk:PlayStation_3#Memory_prefixes

Talk:Xbox_360#Mib_v._MB

Discussion moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit Disagreement, MiB vs. MB - Omegatron 23:03, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

A vote has been started on whether these prefixes should be used all the time, in highly technical contexts, or never. - Omegatron 14:45, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Guide to layout -- changing the section

I want to change the Misplaced Pages:Guide to layout, part of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style. The current MoS states that the ==External links== should come after the ==References== section. I totally disagree with this and feel that it should come before the ==References== section. External links are an integral part of an article, unlike the reference section which is used to crosscheck. The World Book is on my side, it has the References at the end. Any objections if I am bold and change it? User:Nichalp/sg July 8, 2005 16:35 (UTC)

I object! :-) For one thing, ==References== often contains external links to online articles and the like, and ==External links== often consist of reference-type even when not explicitly cited. For another–you can ask anyone who does a lot of academic writing–the references are very much a part of an article. Not only do they allow you to fact-check, they also usually contain a wealth of additional background information.

Have you got some specific articles in mind where you perceive the ordering of these sections is a problem? That might help to clarify why this change should be made. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 8 July 2005 17:31 (UTC)

Oh no! I'm not asking to remove the references from the article, I'm saying that the references should be the final section instead of the ==external links==. Just switching the order. User:Nichalp/sg July 8, 2005 18:52 (UTC)

Sorry; I wasn't clear. The first paragraph of my reply was merely to illustrate that there is often appreciable overlap between purpose and contents of the ==References== and ==External links== sections; I'm not sure it's appropriate to argue one or the other is more an 'integral' part of the articles here. (I'm sure that no one here would suggest removal of either section.) The key question is in the second paragraph—have you some specific articles in mind where they would be improved by the rearrangement of the sections?

I would further note that if external links contain content integral to the articles, it's possible that a)our article is insufficiently comprehensive, or b)the external link contains primary source material that probably should be listed as a ==Reference==. Thoughts? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 8 July 2005 22:04 (UTC)

Well, think of it like an essay. If you include both References and a Bibliography, the References go first. And External Links are much like a Bibliography is. That's one way of looking at it. :) Master Thief Garrett 9 July 2005 00:33 (UTC)

Ok, see Indian Railways. I want the external links to come ahead of the Notes and references as it has some quality information and official sites on the IR. User:Nichalp/sg July 9, 2005 05:26 (UTC)

Ah, hm, well, that's where it becomes a grey area. Really the Manual of Style is thinking that the references will be of "higher quality" than the links. In this case the references are just links so, um, hm. I'm really the last person to be asking I'm afraid. Certainly if I was writing an essay I'd put such things last but with a webpage links are more immediately useful to the reader. Hm. Garrett 08:48, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with MTG here, particularly in his earlier remarks. I'm also not sure that it would be a good idea to upset the Manual of Style on this issue—changing the section layout of articles is something that would upset literally thousands (probably tens of thousands) of articles. (And I wouldn't want to get into making exceptions for some articles and not others; that would make article navigation more difficult for regular readers and probably lead to some really lame edit wars over the order of sections.) Finally, in the article cited the Notes, References, and External Links sections represent in toto a shade over one screen of information. Your mileage may vary based on your resolution and display settings, but I'm not sure that our readers will find scrolling a bit to be an insurmountable task. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

(film) or (movie)

When disambiguating a movie title wich is best to use ? (movie) as in The Canterbury Tales (movie) or (film) as in Passenger (film) ? --Melaen 8 July 2005 18:06 (UTC)

I'd prefer using "film" as it's a word pretty much used the world over. "Movie" tends to have an American (rather than worldwide) feel, jguk 8 July 2005 18:33 (UTC)

I've always thought it would be better to put the film's year, like IMDB does. That would disambiguate films both from other films with the same name, and other non-films with the same name. But nobody seems to do this. – Smyth\ 8 July 2005 19:38 (UTC)

Historically, "movie" has been preferred but not mandated -- this was wrangled about several times during WP's early history.

However, a proposal has recently been made to change this convention, and to make "film" the preferred disambiguation term. See Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (movies) and Misplaced Pages talk:Naming conventions (movies), where a poll is in progress. Only about a dozen people have weighed in so far -- please go participate if you have an opinion on the matter. Note that the policy page itself has been listed on Misplaced Pages:Requested moves to be moved to Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (films). — Catherine\ 00:52, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Inline links vs. Reference citations

SEWilco has created an editting tool (i.e. manually controlled bot) for the purpose of standardizing some of the ways that citations appear in Misplaced Pages articles. As something of a test run, he did such a conversion to a single page, ice core, see the diff . As a result, myself and one other user objected to how he was converting inline URL links into formal reference links.

Apparently such a conversion is supported by statements at Misplaced Pages:Cite sources and Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links), however these statements seem to be only a few months old and I have been unable to locate any significant discussion of them.

As a result of this disagreement, discussion has ensued at Misplaced Pages talk:Footnote3#Footnotes_vs._inline_web_references, and we are looking for outside input on this issue.

Dragons flight July 8, 2005 23:07 (UTC)

What follows below is a summary of the formatting styles being discussed for the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with these different styles.

Summary of formatting styles

Inline linking

One way to reference a website is simply to add a link to it in the body of the article. For example, one might write "Zebras like to play checkers ", with a simple inline link pointing directly at the site.

Footnote style

Some users dislike inline links like this because they don't provide information on what is available at that site or when it was retrieved. Instead, it has been suggested that we should used the {{ref}} / {{note}} style of Misplaced Pages:Footnote3 and {{web reference}} for such web references, for example: "Zebras like to play checkers"

References

• Template:Web reference simple

Where the little superscripted number links to the appropriate reference and the "^" on the reference links back to the little number. This has the advantage of providing additional information on the website source so that it could possibly be found again if the link ever went dead. It also would make website references consistent with book / journal and other references relying on the {{ref}} / {{note}} form.

The disadvantage is that to get to the external material one would have to click on the little link and then click again on the link in the references section. Personally, I think this is a big disadvantage since it makes it harder to get to outside material and it doesn't provide a way of distinguishing reference links to books and hard resources from those which are immediately available over the internet.

Hybrid style

A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers ." Along with:

References

• Template:Web reference simple

But not using the {{ref}} / {{note}} formulation to link between the two. This preserves the direct link from the text but also gives the detailed reference information. However, since the two aren't linked, it is more likely that one may get removed or changed without the other being fixed. Also, there is some concern this could create very long references sections out of what in some cases are fairly innocuous but plentiful links.

Hybrid style 2

A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a linked formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers." Along with:

References

• Template:Web reference simple

This creates both types of links but is visually larger, even using a minor code trick of using the sentence-ending period be a short text link. This could be presented differently in several ways: two images can be stacked (images of numbers 1-99 could be addressed), or is there a way to tuck an external link under a superscripted link number? (SEWilco 9 July 2005 00:03 (UTC))

Comment: Needlessly complicated. Inline is an awesome feature, it's been built in to the Misplaced Pages software because it encourages newbies to fearlessly and boldly add links; footnotes remain controversial and are not built into the software, FootNote3 in particular is a complicated (and to some unapproachably scary) hack. Stbalbach 9 July 2005 05:26 (UTC)

My understanding is that the footnote styles are used in the ==notes== section, not the ==reference section== See wikipedia:featured article candidates/Geography of India for the discussion and Geography of India for implementation. 1) Text should not be linked to an outside source (as what you have mentioned under hybrid style). I think the footnote style is much neater that the placing of a raw link at the side of the text. User:Nichalp/sg July 9, 2005 08:34 (UTC)

Discourage inline links

I for one am quite happy with the hassle of following a link to a webpage through a number of mouseclicks. Indeed, I certainly don't think that following an external link should be part of "reading the article". That's just sloppy writing, encouraged by the wonders of hypertext. Remember that WP prose is supposed to stand on its own. The material at Those amazing checker playing zebras should not be important for understanding the article, and we should expect/force only a tiny minority of readers to read that resource. So a footnote is quite appropriate, which itself can point to a list of external links. Am I making it harder for the reader? No. The external link shouldn't be part of the reading experience, so she shouldn't feel compelled to follow it. Am I making it harder for the author? Oh yes! She is now forced to write a complete, internally consistent article.

So here's what I want:

... Zebras like to play checkers....

Notes

...

Study by Minerva McStripe (1943), based on observing 43 individuals in captivity in the London Zoo. A later study by Sarah Hoof (1996) on wild zebras (not peer reviewed) confirms these findings.

...

References

• Hoof, Sarah. Template:Web reference simple
• McStripe, Minerva. "Hoofed animals and boardgames". Zoology, vol 32, nr. 5. 1943

Arguing that the "two mouse clicks" is too much hassle is irrelevant. Even one mouse click should be more than needed to understand the page. If you're an expert on zebras, or checkers, or a later editor, then you belong to the tiny minority of readers who is expected to follow the link. Arbor 9 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)

As one of the zebras, I find mouse clickings distracting while playing and prefer a quiet experience until the end of the game. Only then might I be interested in leaving the game to discuss some of its finer points. I prefer the text to be as self-explanatory as possible. If further information is available elsewhere, then it should be signed separately at the end of the text. -David91 9 July 2005 11:02 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for being politically correct! </sarcasm> Anyway, I don't think breaking the references is a good idea. I'd rather have it APA-esque, where you have everything as one piece right away. I mean, what is the writer saying under "References" that they aren't saying under Notes? Basically it's the name of the book and the date of retrieval, little else. You can have that before the little "what it's about" summary. Simple. So I think it could just be combined. Right? Garrett 9 July 2005 11:27 (UTC)

Just to add my two bits to the conversation: I prefer inline links and citations, but then that's because all American law students (that would include myself) are trained to use inline citations. The advantage of inline links is that they allow for immediate linking to online sources that can quickly substantiate a controversial point. For example, we had problems on the Los Angeles page with people disputing the validity of my assertion about the frequency of crime in Los Angeles until I added the direct link to the LAPD press release page. Now no one touches that paragraph, since they can follow that link and see how many people were murdered in Los Angeles this week! --Coolcaesar 9 July 2005 17:16 (UTC)

I find pure links to typically be rather opaque and unclear - I think outside links with titles, i.e. can be and are useful inline, but just saying heres a website that is somehow relevant is IMO typically insufficient to explain what it's purpose is. If explaining the relevance of the link is not appropriate inline (using titles, parentheses, etc.), then use {{note}} (or one of the other ones) and explain it at the end. In conclusion, I think numbered external links ought to be fixed when seen, either by expanding on their relevance inline, or turning them to footnotes and expanding on their relevance in the footnote. Thoughts, responses? JesseW 20:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree. I tend to use the style recommended at Misplaced Pages:Cite sources#Web sites and articles (not from periodicals) when citing websites in footnotes. I don't think an inline link actually cites your source; it just provides a link which will be useless when the link breaks. Steve block 09:54, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Somewhere in the early 1990s, some engineer at some small nuclear collider, wrote some code, while probably thinking to himself "Now here's a novel solution to the footnote issue". Perhaps we could perhaps stick to his solution, and not revert to the poor mans' methods that came before. :-) Kim Bruning 10:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for inclusion to Lists of (insert ethnicity)-Americans

There have been some disagreements on what constitutes being an Ethnic-American. It seems to me that it's something that having a policy on might be helpful for. I've put out the following proposal:

1. The individuals page must make note of their ethnic ancestry OR
2. The individual must have documented evidence of being 1/8th ethnic (ie one of their great grandparents being born in ethnicity).

This rises out of the discussions I've seen primarily at Talk:List_of_Irish-Americans, although when looking around I see the same discussion at Talk:List_of_Chinese_Americans. At least at the Irish one it has led to what can only be described as Edit wars, which I'm not a big fan of. Wikibofh 9 July 2005 15:04 (UTC)

I don't think it makes any sense to have a numerical rule. By the 1/8 rule, someone could be considered as a member of 8 different groups, or be considered a member of a group with which he or she has no real connection. It seems to me that ethnicity is primarily a matter of affiliation, not of biological ancestry. So I would propose a rule based on public identification with a group: the individual identifies him or herself as an X, or is commonly identified as an X by others (it may be worth noting this even if the identification is incorrect!). Even in cases where you might presume identity based on, e.g., a personal or family name (Yannis, Watanabe) or place of birth, these are not reliable. --Macrakis 9 July 2005 15:39 (UTC)

The 1/8th rule was somewhat arbitrary, but I based it on the criteria that the Native-American Indians use for determining whether or not someone is eligible for benefits. My fear is we end up dealing with the controversies similar to what happened with Ward_Churchill. However, the most important thing for me in this debate is that we reach a consensus and then move on. Otherwise we seem to burn too much time and angst arguing it in each ethnic list. I think your concern is valid. As a sporadic genealogist, the biological method seem like a good idea to me.  :) I'd also welcome any comments from people on where they think this debate belongs to get the widest audience. Wikibofh 9 July 2005 16:50 (UTC)

As I mentioned on the Talk page for Irish-Americans, I think an amendment to the first criterion is important:

1. The individual's Misplaced Pages page must have made note of his/her ethnic ancestry prior to his/her addition to the list page, or if this is not possible (due to new information coming to light), a reliable source must be cited

I certainly see your side, too, Macrakis, as it seems silly to lump someone into an ethnic group they intentionally do not claim. I think what we've got here so far is a pretty good start, though I don't anticipate it will solve the problems we're having at List of Irish-Americans.—chris.lawson (talk) 19:30, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

As I've already stated on Talk: List of Irish-Americans, my main concern is that only people with obvious African ancestry are currently being blanked. Not one other person has been challenged, despite the fact that there are many others on the list with mixed ancestry. I don't mind saying I find that disturbing, to say the least. An Englishman was on the list for a day or two, nobody batted an eyelid. Macrakis, I see your point, but it would entail a lot of sourcing. It's a long list.

Lapsed Pacifist 20:54, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Lapsed, you are complaining about African-Americans who have no Irish ancestry at all. Rosario Dawson, Mariah Carey, Muhammad Ali are on the list, they are part African-American, but also part Irish. The issue is not about African-Americans mixed with Irish. The issue is you are listing people that are African-Americans but have no Irish ancestry. You are also lying about them being the only ones questioned. I had to remove all those white people you listed in Politics who had no Irish ancestry. 64.109.253.204

Lapsed Pacifist, I think I understand your point: just because someone has some obvious African ancestry doesn't mean he or she doesn't also have European ancestry, and to presume that the African ancestry somehow 'trumps' the European ancestry is deeply racist (one-drop rule). But saying that Muhammad Ali is Irish-American because he has an Irish great-grandfather doesn't make sense, either, since he doesn't apparently consider himself Irish-American, other people apparently don't consider him Irish-American, and he may not even be aware of his Irish ancestry: "I am not sure whether Ali knows about this". Ethnicity is not about biological ancestry! --Macrakis 22:33, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

That is the essence of the debate. It would be very easy to provide sources that show that some entries have acknowledged and even celebrated their Irish heritage. But for many Irish-Americans it is not something that they feel defines them, as they see no reason to define themselves by their ethnicity. Being simply American is good enough for them. Should these people be included? If not, I believe the list would become a much shorter one. I think you're right about the "one-drop rule" being applied, though for some reason (perhaps his pale skin) there is'nt much of a fuss about Ali. By the way, check out the links on the talk page; Ali already knew about his Irish ancestry.

Lapsed Pacifist 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

The reason there hasn't been any fuss about Ali is because people have cited sources. What part of this do you not understand?—chris.lawson (talk) 01:03, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Ali never would have been a world heavy weight boxing champion if it wasn't for his Irish blood.

Trouble will never stop until Lapsed Pacifist is banned, and if he is not banned, I will no longer contribute to the list on wikipedia, I will work on the list myself so Lapsed Pacifist will not have the power to edit. I will put it up on another webiste when I finish it.

I don't believe we're getting as many fresh opinions here as we expected. Why not inform both the Misplaced Pages:U.S. Wikipedians' notice board and the Misplaced Pages talk:Irish Wikipedians' notice board of our debate?

Lapsed Pacifist 02:43, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I just want to interject that going by blood is somewhat silly. Would an English child raised in China by Chinese foster parents be Chinese? I think it would be fair to call him/her a Chinese in that case, despite the lack of any Chinese blood. I think a better way would be to let the person decide if there is confusion. If one can cite evidence on this, then include that person. Perhaps the person doesn't want to be or do not think of themselves as belonging to any group. Tiger Woods is a good example of this. Trying to pigeon-hole someone into a group, unless he himself decides to, is unfair and does not recognize the increasingly multi-racial nature of the population.

In regards to banning someone, I think that's silly as well. At least he's here debating with this and asking the community for feedback instead of just trolling. It would go against the spirit, or my perception of it at least, to ban someone disagreeing and editing an article. As long as he's not being destructive, there's no point to banning him. Comatose51 02:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

• Actually, going by blood isn't silly, but it may not be exhaustively inclusive. The question is whether or not someone of no genetic relation, and little cultural relation, could claim to be in that list. If you think this is simply a philosphical exercise, I'd recomment this article. Regrettably, the blade cuts both ways. You'll also notice that I think I've tried to be the voice of moderation, and I've never recommended banning. I also recommend that this get the widest audience possible. If someone has a place they'd like to advertise this discussion, please do. I've already put the notice on every American-ethnic list I could find. I'm just disappointed that, as an Asshole-American, my list is under-represented.  :) Wikibofh 05:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

The second half

I am not overly concerned about the ethnic part of Ethnic-American lists, but the American part. I'm basing this on the list of Korean-Americans which includes some people with tenuous connections to the US, such as the Korean-Canadian actress Sandra Oh. If the person does not identify himself/herself as American, then it seems it makes no sense to identify that person as an ethnic-American. The only thing is it's not always easy to find out what someone's national self-identification is; should we have a US-citizen-only policy? --Iceager 01:22, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Took the liberty of creating a second section here, in hopes this wouldn't get lost. What if we applied a two-point criterior here as well?

1. The individual must be or have been a Country-Y citizen, OR

2. The individual must self-identify or be routinely identified in other sources as (Country-X) (Country-Y), e.g. "Korean-Canadian." -- Visviva 03:50, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I am disappointed to see that there is not yet a list of Chineese-Somalians or Greek-Mongolians. How can Misplaced Pages claim to be NPOV if neither of these lists exist? --Munchkinguy 03:58, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

• I'll treat your comment as serious even though it appears sarcastic. NPOV is irrelevant to the issue that you have raised. It's never POV that a subject simply doesn't have an article yet. NPOV enters only into affirmative editing decisions, to create or to delete articles or to add or remove content from articles. However, it would not be POV to list for deletion such a hypothetical article, were it to be created, if it's not an encyclopedic topic simply because no significant number of notable Chinese-Somalians exist or no notable people publicly identify themselves as such. "Hybrid" ethnicities in the U.S. are furthermore notable because they represent substantial populations and prominent self-identifications in a country that has paid significant attention to such ethnic backgrounds. Prove the same is true of Somalia and that there are enough notable, self-identifying Chinese-Somalians and we'll have such a list article. It's not POV to refuse coverage to extremely trivial or unverifiable subjects, and we're not going to have lists of people who don't merit articles. Postdlf 04:21, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Invitation to Join a Project

I've been working on some framework for The Misplaced Pages Community for some time. The work is in the form of a WikiProject. The project is called Misplaced Pages:WikiProject_Community and is built from the standard Template:WikiProject which is really quite a marvelous tool.

Please take a look at the project page and see what you think. ALL are welcome to join and learn, teach discuss, debate, study, and design a better community at //en.wikipedia.org . Thanks in advance for your participation. Quinobi - Community Builders Task Force 9 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)

COTW and AID templates

There is an ongoing debate by several parties at the COTW talk. Please read it before responding. The debate is over whether it is wikipedia policy to not include the COTW and AID templates on the article page. Several others and I claim that it useful to the reader, and since a consensus was never reached on the subject that the templates can go on the page. The other parties disagree and state that they are not interest to the reader. Hopefully they will come here and comment. I'm not sure if I should set up a vote here or not. However, I was told to bring the discussion here. Thanks for all comments. Falphin 01:01, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

In general I feel it is important to keep clutter in the article namespace to a minimum, only the very short and very worst articles need to be defaced with coloured boxes. Our readers, of which there are far more than editors, have little interest in whether a page has been nominated for a COTW, put through Peer Review, listed for expansion, or accused of having limited geographic scope. All these things are mainly of interest to editors, and should thus be kept on the talk pages. - SimonP 01:12, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that articles need the littles amount of clutter but I believe the COTWs and Aid are important to have on the page because it will be of interest to the reader because, it explains that the article is not of best quality and secondly that there is an effort to improve,similar to the cleanup, and NPOV tags. I don't think the Peer Review is of any interest to the average reader because it is not telling the user if the article is good or bad just a discussion. I do believe the Featured article template should be on the article. I believe there should be two expansion templates one which describes a requests and one which has been recognized by the wiki community that it needs expansion which is actually the COTW template. The former should be on the talk like you said. I'm not familiar with the last one. By the way, I posted a message on all the users talk page that had been involved in the discussion at the COTW talk page. (That was a run-on, oh well) Falphin 01:26, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I say start a vote; democracy rules. But this can only raise awareness of COTW, which in no way is a bad thing Juppiter 02:28, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I like Falphin's reasoning. One concern I just have is that nonexistent articles, which are nominated frequently, may be created by inexperienced nominators with just the COTW template. Not that that's really a reason not to do it, so I don't know why I'm bringing it up. All in all this decision is not that controversial or consequential, at least not enough to garner enough caring for a vote. I think there are valid reasons for both talk or article space, but one of the biggest reasons we always did it on the talk space is that we always did it in the talk space. So right now I'm leaning slightly towards putting it in the article space, if only because it will give us more publicity (then again, we may end up with just bandwagon, fair-weather voters who won't contribute). --Dmcdevit 04:58, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

The thing is, that habits are hard to change, even if Simon finds supporters for his idea. The habits are such that people put all templates on the main page, cleanup, expansion, the not-english-template, inuse, VfD etc. They put the template on the main page because it makes the most sense, because it is harder to overlook. Even if we could draw up a policy to try and change that habit, how would you go about it? There must be thousands of templates to move right now. There are thousands of editors you would have to personally contact on their user page and inform them about the policy change. Many would not comply or just forget. Human habits are very powerful and in this case the conventions make perfect sense, so why change it?--Fenice 06:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Replying Fenice: At the top of each COTW (or AID, same below, as in all my uses of COTW on this page) voting page a notice board exists. The policy change can be announced there and no mess would be generated. Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Replying Dmcdevit: Although the number of bandwagons will increase, however, by any means, the number of contributors won't decrease. The concern is to raise the number of voters, of course hopefully, but not necessarily contributors. Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Please note that SimonP is unilaterally changing where the templates are located on articles. ~~~~ 12:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Hallo~! This is Deryck from Hong Kong, who originally advocated the change of the COTW template from the talk page to the article page. My point is that, now the template is on the talk page. Even contributors will not notice the existence of this notice, because such stubs are so short that they can't bring up disputes (therefore viewing the talk page is unnecessary). If the notice is put on the article page, it would be easier for readers as well as editors to go voting and later help the brushing up of the article. Deryck C. 01:14, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Vote

The vote is currently going on elsewhere:

• Misplaced Pages:Template_locations#Template:Expansion for AID
• Misplaced Pages:Template_locations#Template:COTW for COTW

Falphin 21:05, 10 July 2005 (UTC) and Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Policy on External Linking in Articles to Sites That May Not Be Encyclopedic

In regards to this article: Seduction, I removed from the article links to sites that give primary information on the subject, ie. how to seduce someone. It's inappropriate because they aren't very "scientific" or adhere to standards that Misplaced Pages aspairs to. Conceivably there are thousands of such sites on the Internet. Why should we favor one over another? Or are we going to list all the sites related to a topic? We're not a wikified version of Google. I also removed the link to Robert Greene's site, which seems to merely advertise his book on same topic. Basically, anything that links to a site that provides non-encyclopedic information/primary source should not be in the article. I want to know what everyone else's opinion is on this. Please advise. Comatose51 02:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Your general statement of what shouldn't be in an article is far too broad. Most obviously, on controversial subjects, we often link to unencyclopedic primary-source sites, for the benefit of readers who want a fuller exposition of that point of view. Based on what you say about the links you removed, though, I'd say that they served no purpose in that article. The link to Greene's site in the article about him should of course stay. JamesMLane 03:23, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Those interested in this topic may want to weigh in (hmm) at Talk:Ted_Kennedy#fatboy.cc. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:23, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Rename the Help desk

In the past few days I have come across a distraught dog owner and a very disappointed kid asking questions at the help desk. The help desk help are, understandably, not terribly sympathetic. They get reference desk questions all the time. They have enough to do answering questions from idiotic Wikipedians like me. There is a very simple solution to this problem - RENAME THE BLOODY HELP DESK! I shout because I find the whole thing extremely distressing for everyone involved. This happens over and over again, every day. Call it - I don't know - "Guided Tours" or something. Anything but the help desk. Please. DO something to stop this. --Mothperson 13:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Never underestimate the dimness of humanity; whatever you name it, they'll find some way of misinterpreting. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

True, but we don't have to aggravate it, do we? --Mothperson 15:10, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I take that back. It's only partly true. If the Help desk were to be renamed "Misplaced Pages works" or "Misplaced Pages ways" or " Misplaced Pages wonkiness" or whatever, I doubt you'd be receiving questions about injured dogs there. Okay, so you still might get genealogy questions with those, but surely someone can come up with a name that acts as a decent filter? --Mothperson 15:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

I gather that the problem is that people are using the Misplaced Pages Helpdesk for general help enquiries - such as "what is the time of the next bus to Billericay?" or "My Chinchilla is foaming at the mouth - what is wrong with it?"

IMHO I would suggest that anything Wiki-specific should have a Wiki- prefix to help minimise (I wouldn't be so rash as to suggest 'eradicate') confusion. So maybe something along the lines of "WikiHelp" would be a step in the right direction? --JohnArmagh 15:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

That seems the right direction to me, as long as you can avoid the use of the word "help." Or those foaming-at-the-mouth chinchillas will probably keep streaming in. --Mothperson 16:28, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Given that the emergency services telephone numbers (strangely supposedly reserved for calling the police, medical or fire services in, well, emergency situations) are routinely asked for help on homework, etc., I suspect that the problem has no solution because the moment you offer help with or solutions to problems, or advice or guidance, there will always be a group of people who think that this service was designed to solve their immediate difficulty. Changing the name or placing explanatory notices will not deter such people. And, no matter what you say, they will feel indignant that you are not helping them. It is one of the curses of modern life as deference has declined and selfishness has risen. -David91 19:43, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

There's a great big pink sign at the top of the page, with a red stop sign inside of it, which lets everybody know in no uncertain terms that the page isn't a place for asking general questions. I think, as Mel notes, that no matter what we do people will always be posting things in the wrong places. I think the help desk is the correct term for the page, as a Help desk is a place where one goes for trouble-shooting problems (The computer lab help desk, or the library help desk if you don't understand the numbering system), while a Reference desk is a place where someone goes to find out the answer to whatever random question is on their minds. I'm not sure we should be re-naming these commonly used terms just because people get confused — that's what the great big pink sign is for. — Asbestos | Talk 19:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Given that Wikipedians are supposedly smart enough to find their way to obtaining help with Misplaced Pages problems, whatever the source of that problem-solving is named, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE CALLED A HELP DESK? I can't believe that the poverty-stricken owner of a dog with a collapsed lung is going to be pestering something called "Wikimess" or "Wikipediassness" or whatever. Of course, some will get through. But do you really feel it's necessary to lay down a red carpet and install flashing neon arrows? As for the big pink sign, I'm not a total moron, and even I don't notice it. It doesn't sink in. It's nothing. I do not understand why the name of the help desk can't be changed as the simplest semi-demi-solution to a constant problem, unless we've got some sort of stake in being elitist snobs. I hope we don't. --Mothperson 20:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

The trouble is, it's a place where people go to get help — thus "Help desk" is a suitable name for it. Changing it some awful neologism, or to anything more obscure, might deter the occasional twit who thinks it's a place to get tickets for Phantom of the Opera, or get advice on how to treat his piles, but it is also likely to make things much less clear and useful for the many people who use it for what it's for. After all, it's not just called "Help desk" — it's called "Misplaced Pages:Help desk"; if that isn't enough, what would be? And what on Earth is élitist about the plain, everyday name "Help desk"? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

There's nothing elitist about calling it the "Help desk." What's elitist is insisting it can't be called anything else, and those fools who come there thinking they will get help deserve nothing better than dismissal. Which reminds me - the Village Pump - I've finally figured out why it's called that. One comes here with an issue, and the answer, in my experience, is "go soak your head." I don't know what the answer to the Help desk problem is, but I thought it was sensible to present it here. I was wrong, and should have known better. I will try some other routes. Never mind. --Mothperson 22:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

It seems to me that the real problem is people who just dismiss the question out-right, not the name of the page. I don't visit the Help Desk much, but I would have thought what most people would do would be to tranfer the question to the Reference Desk and leave a link at the Help desk telling the original poster where their question can be found. I know that this does happen, as I often see questions at the Reference Desk which have been moved from the Help Desk, I guess the problem you're highlighting is that this doesn't happen often enough. — Asbestos | Talk 11:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

You might say that. But I am loath to blame the help desk volunteers, who do enough as it is. It took me two months to figure out the difference between help and reference, because I read labels, pink or otherwise colored, as much as I read instruction manuals - i.e. I don't. It took me three months to realize what the reference desk actually was. ] 20:35, 11 July 2005 (UTC) and cripes, now I have to go over to the help desk to solve my signature problem - these people don't get paid nearly enough

Symbols as article titles

Are we ok with articles that have titles like ? Joyous (talk) 01:34, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Since IE won't even render that, I would say no. However you should see also @, presently a requested move, and Þ, Ð, Æ, and many other things in Category:Uncommon Latin letters. If there isn't a policy on this already, I would say there needs to be one soon. Dragons flight 01:50, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

How about we say all titles must be in words, no symbols other than letters, punctuation and numbers, and put that in the relevant section of the style guide? Maurreen 06:30, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Depending on how liberally you interpret that, it's either too inclusive or too limiting. Are þ, Я, ئ, ⡶, 낑, אַ, and き all letters? Are ‡, ≈, and ± punctuation? Is ∂ a lower-case delta (a letter) or a differential "d" (a math symbol)? Is ‰ a number? --Carnildo 07:11, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I would say that in the English Misplaced Pages all titles should consist of upper case and lower case letters on an English language keyboard, and also (more rarely and only where justified) the digits 0 to 9. It has to be remembered that any article should be searchable by the title without needing to know specific unicodes. Introducing 'foreign' characters makes searching more difficult. Further, if you don't happen to have the correct font installed (or if your browser isn't set for the particular font-set) you won't see the symbol at all. --JohnArmagh 07:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

It is also worth noting that since the upgrade a number of articles have been moved to titles incorporating diacritical marks, e.g. í, ö, ê, ç, etc. Dragons flight 07:25, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

That's not quite correct. Those diacriticals available in Latin-1 (ä, ø, æ, å, ß, etc) were used in WP long before "the upgrade". Arbor 08:51, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I'd strongly resist any attempt to prohibit the use of diacritics, I wish that we used them in English as I find it a lot easier to correctly pronounce random foreign words with accents than a random english word. So long as there are redirects from a keyboard type-able form I can't see a problem with diacritics. --Neo 21:01, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Joyous, the problem with that article title is that it uses a code point in the Unicode private use area, so the appearance is very dependant on the font used. --Carnildo 07:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Unicode) (draft). Arbor 07:45, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

The article originally called Beth (letter) (concerning one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet) has recently been retitled ב rossb 09:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I should add to this that I'm reading this via Windows XP with the latest mulit-lingual versions of Arial and whatnot available and even *I* can't see a couple of the characters rendered above. So how can a user with a pre-OpenType computer even hope to keep up? And is a page URL comprised of "%1932%20421%20024%E3%81%8D" really such a good idea? People like referencing us, but if they get a "dirty" URL like that they might be a little annoyed. Garrett 13:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Whether IE will or will not render something should not determine whether it should be accepted as an article title in Misplaced Pages. There is policy specifying how articles should be titled. The above title is not appropriate for an article but could possibly be acceptable for a redirect. The Apple symbol is not part of Unicode, but Apple has placed it in the Private Use section at codepoint U+F8FF. See the votes for deletion page. David Remahl 07:54, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

this discussion has been going on for quite some time now, and I doubt there will be a final consensus soon. But I think this much can be said as a matter of common sense, that any article that uses non-ascii characters in its title should have at least one redirect pointing to it that is in ascii. And also, obviously, no private use area characters should be used. Redirects solve a lot of these problems. If you don't like ב, you can always link, and type, Beth (letter). Which is the actual title and which is the redirect will then be a matter of taste without much bearing on usability. I do not think we should base policy on "what IE is capable on rendering", since that will be an unstable policy (it may change with each upgrade of IE, and I don't put it beyond MS that some upgrades will also break previous compatibility). We should rather have a policy on which code pages are admissible. In general, it should be advisable to restrict ourselves to Latin, Latin1, and Latin Extended. We shouldn't have titles in Hebrew, Arabic or Indian alphabets, but we should use transliteration. A conceivable exception would be articles on the characters themselves, like ב. dab (ᛏ) 08:05, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Actually I'm writing this on Firefox, but IE seems to be similarly "broken". No, we should not kowtow to the most common browsers out there just because they can't "keep up", but certainly (as above) everything should have a basic-text redirect.

But the thing is, if the redirect takes me to the "correctly named" page "?", there should be some way to know what it's about if I can't see the symbol. If I read an article talking about "?" (name) is the first..." "? is used for..." "? also means ... in Hebrew..." and so forth, is it really going to be an article I want to read if I can't see what the heck it's talking about?

Therefore, we should perhaps have an image equivalent of these "rare" characters until such time as they can be displayed by the majority of browsers. I know some pages already do that like ankh, but not all necessarily do.

Our goal is certainly not to restrict organic content improvement to what some browsers support, but on the other hand we should ensure the maximum accessibility from said browsers. Garrett 08:23, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

this could be solved server-side, e.g. (optionally? via css?) rendering as images all glyphs of certain codepages. This would mean that editors simply encode their stuff in unicode, but that e.g. the runes would be served as images until most browsers support that codepage. Then the image-rendering would simply be switched off, and the glyph code would be served, without changing the article content (that would be a mediawiki project, of course). dab (ᛏ) 14:04, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Whatever will become policy,  is an unsuitable article name, as it uses a character of the Unicode Private use area. For example, on my setup it renders a micro-advertisement "Kurd IT Group" from the creator of a font I've installed. I'm sure you are meaning another symbol. But it isn't part of Unicode and so it's a bad example. --Pjacobi 14:13, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

British county names

There is disagreement on the policy for this. Some Wikipedians think we should use modern counties for articles on modern places, but historic counties where appropriate for historical articles and in history sections. Others believe we should use historic or traditional county names in all cases.

There is a clearly-stated policy (now a year old), but some editors are disregarding it. Feelings have run quite high for at least the last 18 months.

If you have an interest in British counties, cities and towns we would welcome your input. Visit the policy page and its discussion for details. Chris Jefferies 13:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Excellent! I was just looking for exactly that - policies on English county names. Thanks! Grutness...wha? 00:58, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Friendly Vandals

Maybe all those vandals who add nonsense or silly things to articles but aren't particularly malicous could be directed to Uncyclopedia.org? Just an idea. Uberisaac 11:11, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

http://thepedia.com/

This site uses the text from wiki and places a copyright on it. It does list the http address the data was obtained from. Does this meet the redistribution policy? Vegaswikian 05:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It is not in compliance. Please list it at Misplaced Pages:Mirrors_and_forks/GFDL_Compliance. David Remahl 07:41, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I've listed it. — Asbestos | Talk 10:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Goodness me, they're even hotlinking our images! Maybe it's time we installed a remote-linking blocker like Angelfire etc. have...? ...hmmm... Garrett 10:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

The most effective hotlink blocker I've seen didn't merely block the images, it replaced them with the Goatse guy. --Carnildo 20:19, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

oooh, that's a good one! I saw one just recently where an image had been replaced with "This guy STEALS images for his auction pages. Do you really want to bid for an item he didn't photograph himself and might not even own?!?" LOL! :) Garrett 12:41, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

I have contacted the site owner and the site now appears to be completely compliant. I don't know about the images. — Asbestos | Talk 15:39, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Pictures are still being pulled from our servers. Thanks for getting wiki listed on this site as the source of the information. Vegaswikian 17:58, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

(movie) to (film) vote didn't provide enough notification

There was recently a vote to change Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (movies), but I believe this major policy change didn't allow enough people to know about it. Shouldn't major changes have a notice posted at Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions or at least its talk page? Only 7 people voted, for goodness sake. Mackerm 15:16, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes they should have, and ideally at one of the Pumps or something as well as a heads-up to potential voters. That is unacceptable. You should call a revote. Votes for something as serious as that should be huge, look at Misplaced Pages:Pokeprosal/Poll for example. Garrett 12:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Poképrosal/Poll. Just for reference. Mackerm 05:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Links to copyvios

Is there a policy about links to copyvios? I just saw an anon inserting a link to page holding a Scientific American article. --Pjacobi 20:01, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Why do you need a policy? You have already figured out that there's something not right about doing it, otherwise you wouldn't be asking. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, but on en.wikipedia there are much more things allowed regarding copyvios than on de.wikipedia, where I know the policies. --Pjacobi 21:10, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

For example? Dragons flight 21:20, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Screenshots, pictures of book and CD covers. --Pjacobi 21:24, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

That's true, but that's about us hosting them, and we're supposed to host web-resolution samples rather than significant parts. This is significant, it's a full copy! So removing the link would no doubt be the right thing to do. Garrett 23:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Knowingly linking to sites that contain copyright infringements exposes us to contributory liability in the U.S. Postdlf 05:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

In France it's called recel de contrefaçon, I guess in most places it's not a very clever thing to do. Physchim62 12:16, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

New proposal (VfD renomination limits)

It's at Misplaced Pages:VfD renomination limits. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 05:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

I've made a counter-proposal that's less likely to have unintended consequences: Misplaced Pages:Kick the ass of anyone who renominates GNAA for deletion before 2007. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:26, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

• Best proposal ev3r! Radiant_>|< 09:29, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Resolution compromise

What is the policy on tailoring aritcles for certain monitor resolutions. I use 800x600 and often find tables that need to have their column width fixed to make them look good for me. --Commander Keane 12:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

The policy? We just don't. If info fits, that's fine, if it doesn't, that's not the reader's problem. We try to keep images to a reasonable size (~250px), but even so most of our content completely bogs down anything below 1024x768.

It is NOT advisable to design for "inferior" sizes if it means reducing existing content or limiting potential content in any way. Garrett 12:37, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

But it IS a good idea if it can be fixed for low resolution screens without giving up to much on other systems. Misplaced Pages should be accessible to as many people as possible. - Mgm| 12:53, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Amiguity in WP:NOR

This section of the NOR is the most commonly quoted and misrepresented part of the NOR:

Original research that produces primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and secondary sources is strongly encouraged. In fact, all articles on Misplaced Pages should be based on information collected from primary and secondary sources. This is called source-based research, and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.

I've seen more than one user quote it as some sort of get-out for using original research in articles. By arguing that their original thesis are backed up by logic applied to otherwise unrelated primary and seconday sources and citing this section they claim they are not performing original research, even though they clearly are. I think this section needs to be reworded. Axon 15:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages disclaimer

I was very surprised to learn recently that wikipedia was NOT an encyclopedia like those we are all used to using. Most people will not check for your disclaimers before looking for information, and they presume that what they find are well-researched facts. I only discovered this myself when I came across some information listed for a topic that was clearly opinion and was, in fact, gossip. You are therefore responsible for contributing to the spread of gossip and false data. Despite your disclaimer, you ARE presenting yourself as an ecyclopedia website, knowing that people will be deceived.

The very least that you can do is to have a heading on EACH page that appears, which says, "Misplaced Pages Makes No Guarantee of Validity." It would also be more correct of you, and certainly more ethical, if you called yourself, "Misplaced Pages, the user-created encyclopedia."

Linda Estabrook

"Real" encyclopedias disclaim accuracy, too. The three leading competing online encyclopedias have disclaimers and provide no warranty as to their accuracy - Britannica, Encarta and Bartleby. Sometimes the staff of those encyclopedias forget about the disclaimers. - Misplaced Pages:Replies to common objections

We really should make it a teeny bit more obvious, though, for newcomers. Add a "written by users like you!" at the top of the page or something. I am all about Eventualism and the convergence of the wiki towards Absolute Truth, but we aren't at Eventually yet, and vandalism and hearsay mean newcomers should check references and article history before believing everything. We are, most of the time, a much better source than half the crap floating around the internet, but some of our articles are far below the quality of a "real" encyclopedia (that wouldn't have any information on that subject at all).

That said, you should always check references for important things, even for stuff that's in paper encyclopedias, as they have errors, too. - Omegatron 17:10, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

You'd be surprised how many errors are present in the common text books too. David D. 21:57, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

A newcomer's response. While objecting to the escalation from, "I found one item of gossip" to "you are deceiving the world", I have been surprised by the ubiquity of wiki hits on Google. Since so many more people will now be accessing wiki material, perhaps Estabrook is correct in advocating a little navel gazing. Megatron's defence that wiki is a better class of crap than that served up by other internet sources is hardly reassuring and we should all recognise that most users will never trouble themselves to check the references against the possibility of vandalism. So perhaps the answer is that there should be a roving commission to survey material and, when it finds articles that are sound, it should lock them. If a future editor believes any of the locked articles to require revision, let that be argued before editorial access is allowed. In this way, there is a slow accretion of core material that can justify the label of encyclopedia. Peripheral and evanescent material can be allowed to come and go as fashions change, with or without warning notices. -David91 18:01, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Good luck. People come up with proposals like this all the time, and probably a lot of people like them, but it will take a lot of work to get any kind of consensus to change something so fundamental to the idea of wiki. Much more realistic is to at least acknowledge in an obvious place that the pedia is user-written, and that only some of those users are experts. - Omegatron 21:39, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

I came across many incorrect statements in the biology related pages. This was brought to my attention by students using it as source material. I agree there needs to be a stronger disclaimer on these pages. Some of the mistakes are subtle but some 'facts' are just wrong. Given how many online reference sources are harvesting wikipedia information it is scary to think how much misinformation may be out there on the internet. I do not think this means wikipedia is bad. It has huge potential and corrections will eventually get the quality up to scratch. But given the fact that there is wheat and chaff on these pages a disclaimer is warranted. David D. 18:41, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Please, when you come across these, either correct them or at least make a note on the relevant talk page. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:55, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

See? When we read the Misplaced Pages we don't assume that everything is correct. We are both reading to learn and reading to edit, constantly on the lookout for things that might be wrong or vandalism or need cleanup. We approach all content with healthy skepticism. If we don't approach the Misplaced Pages as a completely authoritative source on information, we need to make sure newcomers don't approach it that way and then blame us for deceiving them and never come back.

See MediaWiki_talk:Tagline#From_Wikipedia.2C_the_free.2C_user-written_encyclopedia. - Omegatron 17:38, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

But, on two occasions, when I attempted to change pages (in my opinion for the better) I was met with hostility and abuse. I rapidly withdrew. Those pages remain unacceptable (in my opinion). So, please, let us not assume that placing warning messages as headers will resolve inherent behavioural and content problems. -David91 07:11, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Then there would seem to be controversy regarding the article. Could you specifically tell us which pages these were (perhaps also linking to your edits in the history). I'll look into this. — Ambush Commander 19:31, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I am not touting for a campaign of "Be nice to the old guy." Everywhere, I see reports of edit wars, sometimes over really meaningful issues such as what to call English counties or disputes over puncutation which get blown out of proportion by those with a non-consensual approach to life. "Looking into my editing history" is not going to add significantly to a pattern of behaviour that is well-documented and clearly inhibiting the growth of encyclopedic standards. The reason why I have not become involved in comparable disputes is that, at the first sign of abuse, I walk away. A plague on the causes of all those who will not iterate through reasonable debate towards some generally accepted point of view. -David91 05:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I believe that Misplaced Pages should include some type of disclaimer on every article page. I really like Misplaced Pages and try to contribute when I can. However, as a person involved in research, I would not advocate using Misplaced Pages per se as a reference; but, I would certainly recommend starting with Misplaced Pages in performing research. Misplaced Pages is a wonderful resource with many advantages over traditional reference works. Misplaced Pages is also very up-front about how it is created and its limitations. Unfortunately, most people will not realize the difference between Misplaced Pages and a traditional encyclopedia. Of course, no matter what you do, there will always be a few people who don't read the disclaimer. That said, I think it would be good to include a disclaimer anyway so that the majority of readers will get the idea. --Wyatts 18:19, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Merging

After I merge 2 articles, can I edit the page to remove the merge request? What about after I fulfill other requests, such as an image request? Thanks.

If you think you're done, yes. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:36, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, but don't forget to redirect the duplicate article after merging. - Mgm| 09:54, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

What to do with an editor refusing to follow Misplaced Pages style norms?

Many of you probably met Louis Epstein, who contributes from User:12.144.5.2. Luis seems to be a rather good editor, however, there are certain things which he refuses to do. First, he does not want to make an account, which is not bad in itself. But Lous also refuses to put space after period and comma, and calls this, together with the practice of using – (ndash) instead of the short dash -, stupid conventions. There are other pecularities which other people might comment on.

Now,you may think that,not putting space after period and comma is no big deal,but this screws up the format on a lot of pages,making this look very unprofessional,as you see from this sentence.Sometimes I think Misplaced Pages is too tolerant,and I'd argue that this is the case with this editor.What to do?Oleg Alexandrov 17:30, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

I refer the gentleman to the quote from the Misplaced Pages Manual of Style that I offered in response to the numerous others who have had this same disagreement with me on my talk page.--Louis Epstein/le@put.com/12.144.5.2 18:35, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

As the saying goes, "tough noogies". All the rest of the world says "put a space after a punctuation mark", mr. Epstein says "don't put a space after a punctuation mark". Polite requests have been stacked a foot high, all denied. Compromise is impossible. So either he stays and we continue to clean up after him, or we ban him. Since he makes good edits (content-wise) and we have a huge reservoir of editors, I'd say pick the first option. Provided, of course, that mr. Epstein doesn't insist on having his singular convention imposed on Misplaced Pages—if he insists on reverting those people who alter his edits to conform to the Manual of Style, he would be disrupting Misplaced Pages, and that's bannable. So if you can gather evidence of that, start an RFC (which this practically is) and then an RFAr. Otherwise, accept that this is a free wiki, and people are free to act in ways most of us don't like, as long as they do not actively obstruct the encyclopedia. I doubt many want to accuse mr. Epstein of that. JRM · Talk 19:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

What about adding the required spaces with some bot? That would take out the manual work. For one-time effort of writing a bot, the editor's worthy work would be preserved, the other editors would be spared of menial cleaning jobs, and everybody should be happy. (Though beware of adding spaces to numbers like 1,234.56!) --Shaddack 19:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I have a bot, see mathbot, and wrote a program to do clean up after Luis. I use it from time to time. However, one cannot let the bot do its job fully automatically, there are many more issues than just the IP address thing. What concerns me is however that the community lets somebody get away with not following the style rules. Oleg Alexandrov 23:25, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Don't worry much about that concern. Personally I'll trade style for substance any day if I can't have both. You may like to make the bot watch the editor's page with submissions, and run it only on those, then manually review the changes from the bot's logs. Could it work? --Shaddack 00:59, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

What to do,what to do...*flips coin* ah,RFC it is then.Yes this is disruptive,yes it is bannable(if there is no alternative),and yes, I'd better go back to using spaces before I throw up at this bastardisation of established typography. Do tell us when you make this RFC, should be an interesting read. :) His refusal to get an account is both a problem (due to lack of constant identity) and downright ridiculous. And it's not like he's doing it for his privacy. Certainly I think this is an event without precedent, I highly doubt an "anon" has ever been taken to RFC. But there's always a first time. Garrett 02:54, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Not having an account is not a big problem, as it seems his IP address is always the same.

Yes, not following the typographic rules is disrupting. There are at least 31 people urging him to do so on his talk page. Would a RFC help matters with this? Oleg Alexandrov 03:26, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't make a point of removing the spaces slaves to popular bad habits put after my punctuation remarks;where I do reverts it's where people have reformatted articles and they need to be put back in more sensible form.Spaces after punctuation marks are bad because they're informationally redundant (words should be separated by spaces OR punctuation marks) but if I were spreading wisdom to the conformists on this issue I'd never get anything else done.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 03:58, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Spaces after punctuation may be redundant information-wise, however they make the resulting text significantly easier to read. Also, there are cases where the marks should NOT have spaces behind, eg. in formatting the numbers or IP addresses or so. Also, the browsers break the lines on space, not after a punctuation mark (which would cause other issues on its own, eg. formatting of the numbers), which may lead to difficult-to-read outcome on the screen. --Shaddack 19:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

"Conformists" is a strange word to throw out as a pejorative to encyclopedia writers, because we're supposed to be conformists. We're a secondary (or even tertiary?) source. We're not out there to establish new standards or revolutionize the language. The whole point of an encyclopedia is that it conforms to what is already known and established. I'm sure there is some online forum out there that will be receptive to your personal preference and will help you change the world, one punctuation mark at a time, but this isn't it. Postdlf 20:49, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

If this person consistently reverts corrective edits, he is a disruption. Otherwise, just think of him as acting out of ignorance instead of radicalism, and fix his stuff. If he were a bad speller no one would be complaining. I hate to take sides, but really we should be glad he's willing to contribute material for free that we can easily repair. Deco 01:55, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

See the history of Supercentenarian. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 11:56, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

While I see a slow-simmering edit war on Supercentenarian, it seems to revolve around the question of which supercentenarians belong on the list. The Manual of Style conventions seem to be incidental to the conflict there. If that is the case, WP:RFC–rather than the Pump–would seem to be the most appropriate venue.

On the issue of punctuation, we have any number of editors whose spelling, grammar, or writing style fall below perfection. A silent army of copyeditors cleans up after them, and brings their work into line with both the Manual of Style and the general conventions of English usage. If Mr. Epstein would like to tilt at windmills on his crusade against en dashes and spaces after punctuation, he may do so—though deliberately creating work for copyeditors when he knows that the standard style here is different from his preferred conventions is rather rude. As long as his content contributions are good, then a bit of cleanup might be worth the effort. (Then again, he's walking a fine line with respect to WP:POINT.)

I suggest that it would clearly cross the line to disruption if he were to start 'correcting' articles or revert warring over his personal, peculiar stylistic conventions. While the Misplaced Pages 'house style' is decidedly more flexible than most, it is not appropriate to revert to one's own style when there is such a clearly expressed preference for the 'standard' usage. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Bed spellers don't inherently disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point. Louis Epstein does, and this is nothing short of vandalism. —Lifeisunfair (hoping that Mr. Epstein doesn't replace my em dash with a hyphen) 12:45, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't edit what people put on discussion pages,however much I may disagree with how they format it.The Supercentenarian and National longevity recordholders revert wars do concern format,but not punctuation;when I originated each of these articles,I organized them in a certain way,and others (often with no other interest in the article's content) have reorganized them and introduced insufficiently documented content in inconsistent ways.When I have new information to add,I always integrate it into the branch of updates that I prefer (minimizing formatted tables on the first article,and ordering all articles by age down to a cutoff age in the second),removing those entries that I consider to have been inappropriately added.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 18:30, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to post a note about this on RFC to settle the matter. Mr. Epstein should note that maintaining a preferred "branch of updates" is not an acceptable practice, and that the community should decide on a single format for the article in question. Within reason, making the article easier to read for the majority of users takes precedence over making it easy to edit. Whether the best way to achieve that is through tables, lists, or a combination thereof I leave to the RFC. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:00, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Here are links to Talk:Supercentenarian and Talk:National longevity recordholders for your convenience. This is really an RFC matter, rather than a Village Pump issue. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:06, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages isn't paper so doing it to save space isn't neccesary. Not using spaces after punctuation won't gain us anything. Spaces will help make a text more readable and is common across the majority of written sources. We shouldn't reinvent the wheel. - Mgm| 10:01, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

1. Spaces after punctuation are mandatory in English, and not to use them is simply, on any conventiuon, according to any manual of style, wrong. I don't believe that he doesn't know that (no-one who's barely literate can have failed to notice it), so he's being deliberately disruptive.
2. This sort of thing is genuinely infuriating, and is part of what drives good editors away. I have a similar problems with Ultimate Star Wars Freak (talk · contribs) and OmegaWikipedia (talk · contribs), occasionally abetted by DrippingInk (talk · contribs) and Everyking (talk · contribs). They insist on reverting wholesale my attempts to correct articles to Misplaced Pages (and normal English) style (inluding capitalisation in headers and article titles, numbers, quotation marks, etc.). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:35, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

"informationally redundant" is simply a laughable argument. Why, plaintext is informationally redundant. So I wonder why Mr. Epstein's submissions are not in gzipped format. Talk about eccentricity. Unless he is a really outstanding editor, this is simply not worth the bother. dab (ᛏ) 14:16, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Requests for articles to be deleted?

Following a quick discussion regarding John Stockwell in which his legitimate nephew claims that Stockwell wishes the page deleted - I'm left rather curious what what actual Misplaced Pages policy is in cases like this? He's a legitimate encyclopaedical entry, being the highest-ranking CIA member to publicly resign his post - and google turns up over 8000 hits for *him* (John Stockwell + CIA) Sherurcij 07:52, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

We ignore them. We are here to provide facts whether the subjects of those facts like them or not; as long as there's no legal concerns involved, we keep the content. If he sues, however, I assume we take it down immediately. Garrett 11:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Only if it's a copyright infringement. Otherwise, screw 'em, it stays up no matter what he wants or tries to do. I'd say a CIA agent would qualify as a public official (yeah, yeah, they do their work in secrecy...not the point), and even if not, someone who writes books and makes public speeches in the manner described in the article has certainly made himself a public figure. So as long as the information isn't both false and posted with knowledge or reckless disregard of that falsity, I can't imagine how he'd have a nonfrivolous legal claim. Postdlf 20:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

"Screw 'em"? Nice way to build community folks. Especially for a simple discussion on policy. Look, his only complaint is that he'd just like folks to quit talking about that time in his life. It was simply a polite request to remove it. I understand the concepts of how this site exists. There's no suit (though it is interesting how this conversation aautomatically jumped to that notion).

As the internet and growth in public knowledge gains momentum, does that automatically mean an individual gives up the right to have a hand in what is published about them? In traditional texts, authors are required to get permission or lacking that, publish biographys as "unauthorized" Now with Misplaced Pages, you have a huge number of essentially unauthorized biographies published to the largest potential audience without any acknowledgement to the subjects desires regarding the content.

Actually authors are not requires to do anyuthign of the sort. Most formal bigraphies are "unauthorized". Indeed many people assume that an "authorized" biography will be to some extent a puff-piece, and accord it less value for that reason. Some biograhies explicitly label themselves as "unauthorized" as a marketign ploy, to emphasize (or create) controversy. But there is not and never has been any such requiremtn for either academic or popular biographies. Many biographiers seek some degree of approval of their subjects, either as a point of courtesy or to get cooperation. Many of them still include notes sayign that they did not offer the final text for approval to teh subject, or only for approval on the grounds of factual inaccuracy. DES 19:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

So, do we set a precedent and not have a mark for whether or not a biography on a living person was publish with their concent or not or do we follow tradion and mark if it is authorized. It convention holds true, who is going to go and contact all the folks we have entried for? That would seem to be an already arduous task and could eventually get beyond the abilities of Misplaced Pages's community to manage. I guess as all things in the USA it is simply decided on who take whom to court. And with that, the initial jump to law suits no longer appears hasty.

Keep it up, take it down, all we did was ask.

Stockwell 05:16, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Almost all our biographies are unauthorized. I'm not sure that it is meaningful for a GFDL Wiki page to be authorised in this respect, but there are some subjects who participate in Misplaced Pages and edit their own pages. I was unaware of any strong tradition that required encyclopedias to get permission to have articles about people or else flag them as unauthorized. Can you cite any examples from traditional encyclopedias? I guess we could add a note to the general disclaimer.

Unfotunately, encyclopedias (and news sources) do not and should not refrain from publishing information about public figures merely because the subject does not want the information published. I hope you can see how that would intefere with our ability to educate about controversial topics, and secretive organizations.

I agree that "Screw 'em" was a coarse remark to make, especially with respect to an active Wikipedian. However, I do agree with the rest of Postdlf's comment. WIkipedia has firm rules about civility and neutrality, but it is general policy to push the envelope in terms of making encylopedic information available. As such, thinking about potential law suits is a reasonal guide for general principles, even if it is not warranted in this specific case.

Bovlb 13:44:12, 2005-07-18 (UTC) typo fixed Bovlb 14:43:45, 2005-07-19 (UTC)

You know, it's not that clear-cut always. In sweden we have something kalled PUL (Person-uppgiftslagen, approximatly translated "The Person Data Law") which says that you cannot post information on a webpage about a person if you don't have the consent of the person. So that would pretty much kill most of sv.wikipedia.org, but I think that there are exceptions for famous people ("public people"), as long as the information is not "trivial". Ie that it is illegal to write what the guy had for lunch, but you can publish his birthdate if he is a public person. There is also an exception for journalistic writing, but I don't really see how wikipedia fits into that loophole. Anyway, my point is that it isn't always obvious what rules apply. If the swedish wikipedia starts allowing non-notable people in it, there might be cause for a law-suit. gkhan 22:16, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Policy on ?ref in commercial external links and general Talk Page issues

I'm not really all that HTML literate, but ?ref in a url appears to me to be an attempt to track links that come in to that external site from Misplaced Pages, which I assume is against a Misplaced Pages policy or guideline. However, I didn't see anything about it in Misplaced Pages:External links, although there is a lot of discussion of similar external link quality issues on Wikipedia_talk:External links. (posted by User:Spalding —Wahoofive (talk))

CGI scripts can use any variable name, not just "ref", to specify the referring page -- the key is what comes after the "ref=" part. If it says "ref=http://wikipedia.org", that might be a clue. Conversely, it could be a reference to a particular page on the target site, and therefore necessary (and harmless). Depending on your browser, a CGI script might be able to determine the referring page regardless of the content of the URL (see "HTTP_REFERER" on ). Anyway, I don't see why it's important to conceal it. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:01, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Also, in general, is there a way to search just the Misplaced Pages:Project namespace? And is anyone else a little disillusioned with the usefulness of Talk pages? They seem to suffer from a lack of traffic, so questions asked there often languish and get no real resolution, which is the main reason I am asking this here instead of on that Talk page. Thanks. Spalding 11:40, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

For pages that get little traffic, you might try Misplaced Pages:Third opinion or WP:RFC. Maurreen 16:00, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

"American" in United States-related category names

New page

OK, I'm going to move this to Misplaced Pages:Category titles. Maurreen 03:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I have copied all the above discussion. Anyone interested, please go to Misplaced Pages:Category titles. I wasn't sure whether I should delete the above conversation from this page. Maurreen 03:28, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I have redirected the above page to Misplaced Pages:Categorization/By country as that is a more precise name, and separates the issue of the abbreviations from the country name/adjective/whatever. I've also moved the discussion text that was here to that page's talk page. -Splash 13:10, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I'm moving it back. Splash's move, in my mind, is prejudging the issue by naming it as categorising by country, when that has not yet been decided. It could be that we categorise by nationality. Steve block talk 13:23, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, in my defence, Radiant! had already created that page so I just redirected there. However, calling it Misplaced Pages:Category titles is unnecessarily broad, imo, and will make it hard to keep the discussion on topic. -Splash 14:02, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

UK

The discussion has broadened to consider categories related to the United Kingdom. So if you have an opinion on "of the UK", etc., please see Misplaced Pages:Category titles. Maurreen 18:08, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Changing Template for Deletion criteria

I propose eliminating "Not in use" from the list of criteria for template deletion. I fail to see how this, in and of itself, constitutes a valid reason for eliminating a template. Certainly, a template might have other shortcomings that warrant its removal--but if the only objection is that no one's using it, that's not really a good reason to delete it. The simple fact that it's not being used doesn't actually hurt anything, after all--might as well keep it available in case someone does come up with a worthwhile use for it. Kurt Weber 21:36, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

• What purpose would be served by doing this? No information is lost, if someone needed that template in the future it could be recreated. One could argue that something not being used has outlived its usefullness and should be deleted. If its needed then it should be in use. Its hard enough to find the right category or template tody. Keeping extra ones around just because probably makes it harder for someone to find the right one. Vegaswikian 22:30, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
• User:Kmweber suggested this in response to two templates I nominated for deletion in this TfD. They are unused, unedited, unlinked and undeveloped templates each with a single edit made to them a year ago. They are used in a single project suggestion mentioned in the TfD, which has received no attention since it was created. According to the voting at the moment, this is just exactly the kind of template Misplaced Pages would love to keep. -Splash 23:45, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
• In response to Kurt - you seem to be under the impression that unused templates will be deleted. However, such is not the case. The criterion says that unused templates may be nominated for deletion. They do not always end up deleted, that's what TFD discussion is for. Note, by the way, that strictly speaking any template may be nominated on TFD, no exceptions. If a template is essential, it will simply get a plethora of votes to keep it. (Same principle as for VFD: any regular page, mainspace or Misplaced Pages space, may be put on VFD; that includes the front page, any policy page or today's featured article. However, in those extreme cases people are almost guaranteed to disagree with your reasoning and/or cite WP:POINT at you). Radiant_>|< 14:48, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • No, I'm quite aware of what you're saying. What I'm saying is that the simple fact that a template is unused is NEVER a sufficient reason to delete it. Kurt Weber 16:34, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, maybe not the only reason but it is an important factor. At least to me it is. And like I said above, by current policy any template can be nominated for deletion; personally I don't see why we should make exceptions to that, as they tend to be gamable. Radiant_>|< 08:54, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

procedural question

I would like to address a question related to this proposed policy change, namely, whether or not a TfD should have voting/input suspended while a policy challenge exists. (This would probably apply to VfD, VfU, CfD, etc. as well). The only reasons I bring this up here, are because (a) I'm not sure where else this should be addressed, and (b) because this is an issue that has arisen on WP:TFD specifically because of this purported policy change proposal. Tomer 02:58, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

If we did that, we'd have had to have suspended all the *fDs for about 8 weeks while the new CSD criteria were being discussed and polled. There's no need for suspension — it's too gamable (e.g. as in this case for a defense of a consensus-to-delete template) and the policy can just come into effect if it is agreed. I'll hazard a guess that, at present, this policy proposal needs much more work before it is strong enough to warrant such drastic steps as suspension of anything. -Splash 13:06, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Why do we allow the PermissionAndFairUse image tag?

Why is the {{PermissionAndFairUse}} tag allowed on Misplaced Pages? It appears to violate our policies. It is a cop-out for us to allow this tag and claim we're in the right by disclaiming that each re-user needs to evalaute whether they're going to host the images that have this tag. Tempshill 16:54, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

• It is a bit of a cop-out, and His Highness King Jimbo I is on record as saying that most fair use images will eventually have to be removed. (can someone dig out the reference? It was tucked into the anouncement of the ban on "non-commercial only" images). It takes advantage of a provision of US copyright law which is not reproduced in other jurisdictions. Most foreign language Wikipedias do not allow fair use images. Physchim62 17:13, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
  • This is the appropriate mailing list post -- I can't see the reference to deleting fair-use images in the future... smoddy 17:23, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm actually more concerned about the "permission" part. If someone has a copyrighted photo and gives permission for it to be on the Misplaced Pages website, we shouldn't allow the image. It does some violence to our GFDL policy. The copyright owner needs to license the photo under the GFDL or release it into the public domain. I'm not sure about the history of the PermissionAndFairUse tag, but it sounds like typical "license creep", where someone wants to get their favorite photo onto Misplaced Pages and invents a new category of tag to sort of allow it. (Just as for a while we didn't allow 'fair use' images, but that is a separate topic.) Tempshill 17:37, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Neither can I. Lèse majesté removed. Physchim62 17:40, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
    • The idea of permission and fair use is that because of fair use, we can have the image. That we have permission is just a bonus, but one that should be noted. -- Cyrius|✎ 18:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
  • I believe this is the statement you were referring to. Yes, he is in favor of deleting almost all fair use images. --Carnildo 23:48, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks, I´m glad it wasn´t just the Spanish sun getting to me! Physchim62 10:17, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Book and Movie Summaries

I'm having a hard time finding any guidance on extremely lengthy summaries of books and movies. An overblown example is Harry Potter (plot). Obviously this page needs to be split into individual articles for each book, but assuming that is done, would those articles be encyclopedic? In other words, is a summary so large that it cannot be on the book or movie's own page worth having in the encyclopedia? James 19:59, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

• I would say, "No". In fact I would say that a summary so long that it cannot be put onto a single page for the series, adn requires a split into separate pages for the individual books if thos books do not have enough non-plot-summary info to justify separate pages is bad, and that in m,ost cases sereis like Harry Potter are better served by a single article on the series than by separate articles on indivdual work, albiet there are many exceptions. (I have renently merged 21 seperate articles and one template into the Aubrey-Maturin series articcle, for example.) DES 19:29, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

If a book summary is so long, then what's the point of reading them? One might as well read the book. Harry Potter (plot) is a perverse example of readers making it a game and exercise of writing detailed expositions. The worse is the recent Half-Blood Prince phenomenon. Go check out the current page. Obviously they have no place in an encyclopedia. However, since there's so policy against summary lengths, they often end up being so long that they can swallow their own tail. Mandel 22:43, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Summary style and Page size give some guidance in this regard. But that guidance is about summarizing and splitting long articles, not on the level of detail we should cover. --mav 00:39, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Does an anon editor "own" their talk page?

Or can their censorship of criticism be reverted? See - Omegatron 20:26, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

I believe the general feeling has been that if you want a private talk page, register. Many talk pages can hardly be considered "private" anyway, since they go with IPs used by many people. Joyous (talk) 20:36, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Is there any policy to this effect, though? - Omegatron 20:47, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

I dunno about policy. I looked at Misplaced Pages:User page and didn't see anything. Maybe ask at that discussion page? Joyous (talk) 21:53, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

I've proposed an amendment to our User talk page policy at Misplaced Pages:Talk page/Anonymous talk pages proposal. Briefly, it requires that (non-vandalism) comments be left on anonymous talk pages for a minimum period of time (seven days, perhaps?) before being blanked. If an editor wants more 'ownership' over his talk page, he can register. I'm looking for comments and refinements. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

The anon could link his talk page to an archive, but I'm really not sure about whether anons own their own talk page. — Stevey7788 (talk) 20:39, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Why would they do that? This is for anons blanking complaints against them and such. - Omegatron 21:04, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Banning Policy

I got banned when I added a post into the Tom Cruise Links section. The link was tomcruiseisnuts.com. I added it many times but eventually I got banned due to vandialism. I look at it now and someone else has added with link and no action was taken to that user. I got banned for a whole day and I believe that is unfair and would like to know why. Opt 05 21:44, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Possibly for breaking the 3RR, or 3 Revert Rule. You are allowed to make three reverts on one article in a 24 hour period. You can also try to ask the admin that blocked you to find out why. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 21:55, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the key phrase here is "I added it many times." As Zscout mentioned, we have the 3-revert rule. Also, since several different editors were telling you that there was a problem with your edits, that probably should have suggested that you should have discussed the link on the Talk:Tom Cruise page. Joyous (talk) 21:59, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Why did you fail to respond to the messages on your talk page? You were warned three times before you were blocked, after adding the link five times. Postdlf 22:01, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Oddly, you signed this post with the username of the person who most recently added the link. In any event, it should be clear now that it even the latest addition has been removed. I personally think the link should be there, and have begun a discussion at Talk:Tom Cruise. James 22:14, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Well, I was doing many things at once and didn't notice the messages comming into me. I though some mad fan didn't want anything like it on the page or something. It is a link that should be added, just because it isn't positive doesn't mean people can't see it. Opt 05 19:45, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

The preference is to add information to the article itself or use internal links to extend the available information. External links discusses this as well as inserting POV links. Vegaswikian 20:33, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Once it is clear that you are in a dispute, the appropriate thing is usually to take it to the talk page, not to just keep making the same edit without developing consensus. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:06, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Proposal

I've been thinking about this for a long time, but after being subject to a number of vandal attacks I'm starting to brood about the feasibility of making all Misplaced Pages editors log in before they could make an edit. I know a lot of people will oppose to this, but the gains are so sizeable that might offset the ills. It will certainly deter vandals and make them much easier to deal with. Imagine how much money will be saved each day with this policy. Mandel 21:57, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Village pump (perennial proposals)#Abolish anonymous users. smoddy 21:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

How not to be a spammer

I've drafted a short set of notes on how not to be a spammer on Misplaced Pages. This is intended as a summary of "spammer-ish" behaviors I've observed, and could be used as the basis of a guideline on identifying Wiki-spam. I don't intend it to be comprehensive, just to give people an idea of what sort of behavior is identified as "spammy" and how to avoid it.

Please respond on Misplaced Pages talk:Spam where the proposal is, so as not to make this page any more spammy than it usually is. --FOo 00:22, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Korean naming convention (Sea of Japan/East Sea): Vote

Sorry for crossposting, but I am desparate to involve as many Wikipedians as possible. We've discussed the matter endlessly, and now have a vote to help us reach consensus: Korean naming convention what order should Sea of Japan and East Sea be used in the articles? Kokiri 08:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion

The proposal for expanding the Speedy Deletion Criteria (WP:CSD) has ended. See Misplaced Pages:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal for details on the outcome. Four new criteria have been added, and one has been reworded. Radiant_>|< 19:17, July 20, 2005 (UTC)

Temporary articles

There has been some discussion of the use of temporary articles in Misplaced Pages, mostly in relation to game summaries as part of the Wikiproject Cricket (see Misplaced Pages:Votes for deletion/Essex v Glamorgan 15 May 2005, note particularly the Temporary articles section at the bottom). The idea of temporary articles is new to most of us, it would appear, and as I have found no policy on them I think one should be introduced. Whether the policy forbids temporary articles or merely provides rules and guidelines is what needs to be addressed. This stretches well beyond Wikiproject Cricket and should not be seen as solely relating to the project. -R. fiend 21:32, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Usually I've seen temporary pages at /Temp, and the content is then moved over the original and redirected. In the case of multiple stubs being prepared for consolidation, I suppose /Temp01, /Temp02, etc. could be created.

I don't think it's a good idea to tie up article space with names you never intend to (permanently) use when you could easily use a subdirectory.

But yes I'm sure there will be a way to work it all out properly. :) Garrett 03:40, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• There are temporary pages constantly flowing in various Misplaced Pages administrative pages, as well as here. Village pump is several articles which are regularly archived, while some administrative pages use subpages for various time-sensitive topics. So there are examples of how such things could be structured. A larger issue is whether temporary articles should be used in some situations. For example, is it encyclopedic to have information about a subject (ie, a specific cricket match) which is intended to be temporary? (SEWilco 06:12, 24 July 2005 (UTC))

Sysophood confirmation

What do you guys think of this proposal? User:Phroziac/Confirmation_of_sysophood I made it a while back but forgot to publicisie it! --Phroziac (talk) 04:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

You may wish to see the discussion at the RfA talk page, as well as the 4th question in the renomination RfA cited in Phroziac's proposal. -Splash 04:36, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Boldly corrected spelling in section header. :-) FreplySpang (talk) 11:33, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I saw the RFA and some of the talk page, it's huge and I don't have all day to read it though. Anything in particular you wanted me to notice there? --Phroziac (talk) 14:14, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Nothing particular; I was just pointing in the direction of a discussion on the same issue that had already been had, though in a rather non-advertised forum. There are also a couple of proposals lying around about de-adminning people (an obviously related issue), but I can't locate them at the moment. -Splash 15:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Slashdotted articles and vandalism

I think we should do more to deal with the attention brought by slashdotted/farked/etc. articles. We are leaving a very bad taste in their mouths, due to the vandalism their attention attracts. I think we should have a "welcome, slashdotters!" template and also recommend to them that they link to a known-good revision instead of the live article. More discussion here: Template_talk:Slashdotted#Slashdotter_first_impressions - Omegatron 15:00, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

I don't see what makes them so special. We're one of the few wikis with the power to deal with the childish vandalism that invariably accompanies Slashdot's attention; we don't need any special procedures to reduce it. --Ardonik.talk() 15:35, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

(I should note that I'm saying this as a Wikipedian who was originally attracted here from Slashdot.) --Ardonik.talk() 15:39, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Did you read my comments over there? We're obviously not dealing with it well enough. - Omegatron 15:47, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Google Maps

I've noticed lately that Google Maps seems to be becoming a potential major source of imagevios. I've already found two satellite photos that were taken from that website and added them to WP:CP. The terms of use clearly state that the satellite images can't be used on Misplaced Pages, and yet I cannot help but think that people are going to keep taking screenshots, cropping them, and uploading them to Misplaced Pages, possibly in large numbers.

Personally, I think that we should have some kind of policy that states that other than on the Google Maps page, satellite images from Google Maps (the actual maps are something else altogether) can't be used on Misplaced Pages. I'd like to know what everyone else thinks about this. Gwk 16:02, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

That's a pretty cut and dry issue... I'd sugges simply adding it to Misplaced Pages:Copyrights. James 16:08, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Google derives the majority if not all of its satellite images from the USGS, which means they are public domain as works of the federal government. The fact that they've slapped a copyright watermark on the images is irrelevant. Compare for example the Google satellite images of Washington, DC or San Francisco with the USGS ones found at terraserver.microsoft.com. Unfortunately, terraserver only has the higher res, color images of select locations, so unless someone knows of another site that has the complete set available, we can't do a complete comparison. Postdlf 16:24, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Google's pretty clear about their stance: "The imagery is copyrighted and may not be copied, even if modified or merged with other data or software." Even if they'd lose, they obviously have the intention of closely protecting their copyright, so I'd suggest leaving well enough alone. James 16:28, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

What I'm worried about are the images that don't come from the USGS, but from other sources. Even then, images should be obtained directly from USGS instead of from Google. Gwk 16:26, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I just wanted to correct myself, the San Francisco images are different, so the Google Maps one may simply be from a USGS image taken another time than the one up at Terraserver, or it may be from another source. Is there a more complete database of USGS imagery available online? For the ones that are verified to be USGS, however, there is no problem with taken them directly from Google because Google can't claim copyright in them. It looks like it's going to have to be a case-by-case determination for the time being. I noticed that the Google Maps article doesn't appear to have any information on their sources—any way we can discover this? Postdlf 16:34, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

USGS has their own site with significantly more image sets available anyway, including satellite, as opposed to the aerial photos both Google and Terraserver have up James 16:55, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

This looks like it could get complicated. Still, I think users should be encouraged to use USGS (perferably with programs like USAPhotoMaps), instead of Google, as the source is easily verified and one does not need to piece images together or remove disclaimer tags. Gwk 16:40, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that Google Maps gets its international, non-US images from private providers. Gwk 16:50, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• If Google don't want us to use their maps, sod them! They have their copyright issues to deal with, we have ours. Such images should be listed on IfD, and we should strongly encourage users to use PD sources such as the USGS. I just hope that this won't cause a spate of {{fairuse}} taggings... Physchim62 16:53, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

• This is why I say we need a policy on this. Users have to know that Google Maps and Google Earth are not appropriate for Misplaced Pages and that other free sources are available. Gwk 16:56, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Are screenshots from NASA World Wind okay to use if attributed to that source?-gadfium 02:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Since it's from NASA and made from USGS data, I'd say it's fine.

Image use policy/Proposal

I have drafted Misplaced Pages:Image use policy/Proposal and am opening it to discussion. Please note that this is a first draft and as such is subject to change. Gwk 20:01, 21 July 2005 (UTC)

Are future years classed under Crystal Ball?

I've just found pages like 2038 and 33rd century. Are these classed as Crystal Ball or what?

Certainly I can see the astronomical events being true due to calculations, but do we need pages going that far into the future?

From 34th century onwards, everything redirects to Future. So should the same be done for these other years? Garrett 02:30, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Nah; leave them alone. The astronomical stuff is interesting—I just found out that there will be three solar eclipses (two annular, one total) in 2038. (Bonus question for the astronomy buffs: when was the last time that happened on a single year?) The 33rd century cutoff seems to be a reasonable compromise between the end of most pop culture references and a need for crystal ball restrictions. For the individual more recent years there are a lot of events that have been scheduled well in advance, and it doesn't hurt to record them. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 02:54, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

(after an edit conflict)

The page 2038 refers to the known computer related problem, which is of sufficient importance and public awareness to justify appearing in a year article. The date of Easter is a once-in-a-century occurence, so is worth mentioning. The astronomical event will happen in the lifetime of many people here, so are worthwhile. I think a very strong case can be made for this article.

The 33rd century article has IMHO a weaker rationale for existence, since the events portrayed are either in fiction, or real astronomical events far enough in the future that few people are waiting with bated breath for them. I still think it's worthwhile to have this article; after all, we have a lot of popular fiction-related articles on Misplaced Pages.

You could always try putting up one or both for VfD and see what the response is. I suggest you wait until tomorrow as some people might object vigorously to that.-gadfium 03:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Self-Promotion as a Disincentive

Here is a problem I encountered. I posted an entry and then cited a book that I have written. Later, my post was removed under the “no self-promotion” policy.

This is the philosophic issue: The self-promotion provision, as administered in my instance, is a disincentive to quality entries.

The issue is twofold. First, anyone competent enough to write and publish a book is exactly the type of person needed to write entries in Misplaced Pages. Secondly, if the writer cannot cite his books as a bona fide of his competence, under the “no self-promotion” policy, then we are inadvertently excluding the type of people who can make Misplaced Pages a quality resource.

The crux is citing one’s own published book. First of all, a book serves as a benchmark of competence, and second, it is an objective and verifiable touchstone that what is written is accurate. This is how people are selected to write entries in traditional “dead tree” encyclopedias, and Misplaced Pages should adopt this industry standard.

Remember that a book is essentially an intellectual endeavor, rather than a financial endeavor. Citing a book is different than advocating a product, such as pantyhose, diet pills, a financial CD, or some other widget. Furthermore, any house-published book is already going to be available at least twenty other websites, so putting it on Misplaced Pages will not make any difference in advertising.

For instance, physicist Michio Kaku has published several popular volumes on physics. Should we bar him from contributing to Misplaced Pages, if he were to reference his own books in an entry?

The action grid breaks down as follows:

• If he were allowed to violate the self-promotion rule, Misplaced Pages gets a high-quality entry, and a double standard.

• If he was allowed, and then his entry was be deleted due to self promotion, then this would also inadvertently lower the quality of Misplaced Pages entries.

• If he wasn’t allowed to write, then Misplaced Pages looses a competent author, and we as uses are worse off.

• If we leave it up to a surrogate to write for him, then let’s stop horsing around and get it from the horse’s mouth.

• If we leave it up to a random fan, then we are not sure of the quality of the entry, then we are making Misplaced Pages worse off, and we are getting a diluted Michio Kaku. Once again, it would be best to eliminate the middle man.

The whole problem is one of genetic fallacy, attacking he origin of the information—someone competent enough that a publishing house would make a financial risk on the author—and not the content. It involves deleting the content solely because he or she is an expert.

In such an entry, it is important to remember that self-promotion is not the primary intent, but it is a secondary consequence of the entry. As I said, anyone with a book already has it on about two or three dozen WebPages already, and eliminating it from Misplaced Pages is not going to hurt sales one iota.

Misplaced Pages’s policy should be to allow authors cite their own books, recognizing that the intellect competent to write a book is competent enough to make Misplaced Pages the information nexus it should be. --Señor Cardgage 18:08, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Surely the self-promotion rule only applies where the editor wrote an article about himself. I am not aware that it has ever been Misplaced Pages's policy to bar expert editors from citing their own publications. Any moves to make it so should be resisted, for it can only damage Misplaced Pages's academic credibility, at a time when we are in great need of more expert editors. So many editors are pseudonymous, it will only be those who use their real names that can ever caught by such a rule. Apwoolrich 18:35, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

There is no 'self-promotion rule', though often people seem to think there is. See WP:AUTO, for the case about whole articles being 'self-promotion' and, usually, allowable. It is deeply frowned upon however, because in general, if you or something you have done is notable enough for an encyclopedia, then someone else will know about it and add it. It helps keep things objective. Promotional material is often removed, but, imho, should only really be so if it serves no encyclopedic purpose to the article it appears in. This is a policy-free area in the most part however, so discussion on talk pages would be the way to go. There is a criterion for speedy deletion relating to the most blatant case of an article consisting of a single external link (or, sometimes a list of them). In general, if your mention of your book added something of encyclopedic note to the article, I'd be inclined to let it stay but to expect you to have to defend it on the talk page. -Splash 18:52, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Forgive a naive thought but the authorship of each page is only identifiable by scrolling through the history. Hence, only an exceptional reader would ever connect the text to the reference(s). Unless, of course, the author is promoting the sales of his or her books by a direct sales pitch, e.g. "you can find a fuller explanation in my student-friendly works. . ." which would seem, at the very least, unethical. --David91 19:34, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Señor Cardgage is apparently claiming to be "Kendal Brian Hunter", the author of a book on Job from the Mormon perspective (Amazon sales rank #2,202,513). He appears to have contributed approximately the same paragraph to both Book of Job and Job (Biblical figure), explaining the special significance of Job to Mormons, citing his own book as a reference. These were reverted by Koavf and Jayjg respectively with fairly blunt edit summaries. In neither case can I see any sign that the reverting editors discussed the matter on the article talk page or on the talk page of the contributing user.

The paragraph in question is not 100% in line with Misplaced Pages style, but it does make it very clear that the point of view described is specific to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and it does cite a book as source, which is doing pretty well so far as NPOV and NOR usually goes. I am not qualified to say whether the content is true. I don't know whether the LDS generally hold those views about Job and, if so, to what extent they are unique to that organization. The LDS is a significant organization, so perhaps something about this perspective belongs in one or both of these articles. Alternatively, perhaps there is a place for a separate article about the Mormon take on Job, linked appropriately from other articles.

Regarding the general point raised, whether being a published author should disqualify one from being a respected Wikipedian, the answer is a resounding "No". On the other hand, Misplaced Pages does not accord as much respect to "experts" as, say, more traditional encyclopedias. In addition, I don't mean to pick on Mr. Hunter, but I'm afraid that in this day and age, being the author of a published book does not actually prove expertise. I hope that everyone would agree with that sentiment, even if they have different counter-examples in mind.

In particular, experience has made us suspicious of those who appear to be trying to promote their own interests rather than those of Misplaced Pages. I don't mean to pass judgement on Señor Cardgage here, but instead try to explain why there may be a certain resistence to apparent self-promotion. See Misplaced Pages:Spam, Misplaced Pages:Using Misplaced Pages to gain legitimacy, and Misplaced Pages talk:Spam#how not to be a spammer. Bovlb 05:44:47, 2005-07-24 (UTC)

Proposed policy for wiki closure

This is my proposed policy for wiki closure. We already have too many non-functioning wikis. It gives us a false sense of cosmopolitanism as long as you don't take a closer look at their contents. I propose that we act like responsible adults rather than hopeless day-dreamers. Now let's close some of them. -- Toytoy 06:58, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

How to avoid uninformative articles that consist mainly of opposing POVs?

I am a bit worried about some articles that have become largely uninformative because they are only used to push opposing POVs, see e.g. New_religious_movement#NRMs_and_their_critics and apostasy in cults. (I have to admit that I have been a POV pusher on the latter subject because I am an ex-cult member and I hate to be called a liar with regards to a very difficult experience of my life that I tried to tell in an accurate, factual way to others.) I do not think that either of these article break NPOV guidelines, but they are quite lousy anyway. Does anyone know how to prevent this? Andries 15:40, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

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