Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:01, 15 December 2008

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• WP:VPM

A "new" wikipedia

Hello, My name is Graham I am 13 years old and use wikipedia alot for school. What i think would be great is a Misplaced Pages for kids, because normal wikipedia is very complitcated and hard to understand often in 9th,8th,7th grade etc. Would be great, thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.55.225 (talk) 16:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Have a look at the simple English Misplaced Pages. Algebraist 17:01, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

The simple English Misplaced Pages has simple content, but its interface and syntax rules and programming are the same as regular wikipedia. What Misplaced Pages could use would be a very simple instruction manual. The Wiki syntax language is quite simple to use once you understand it. Kingturtle (talk) 02:54, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the OP is saying that WP's content is complicated. I don't think he was talking about editing. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 09:07, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

What would be pretty siiick is if there could be some kind of mirror site or something that had all the same info as wikipedia, but wasn't wikipedia so it could be used as a source for school. And yes, I know it won't happen. But it would still be cool. And I do know that there are ways to get around wikipedia's not being allowed, so nobody tell me something like that (if anyone even says anything). So now i'm gonna just stop talking. yeah... Petero9 (talk) 01:05, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

There's hundreds of mirrors of Misplaced Pages. Just take a random chunk of text from a Misplaced Pages article and google it. I don't see why they would be a more reliable source than Misplaced Pages itself though. Mr.Z-man 01:25, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Simple English Misplaced Pages is not simple content. The content is the same, but uses simple words. The interface looks the same, but again, uses more simple words. For example, have a look at the article American Airlines Flight 11, not a simple topic, but it uses simple words. Kennedy 16:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I think what Pereo9 is getting at is that someone could select a stable, reliable version of a large number of articles and use it to construct a static version of Misplaced Pages that could be cited. Anyone could do this and I imagine there are some similar efforts to this underway. Dcoetzee 21:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

something like Misplaced Pages for Schools by any chance? DuncanHill (talk) 20:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Personal information of minors

If someone has created an account with what appears to be their real name and has identified themselves as a minor and has also given other personal information about themselves on their user page (where they live) - do we just notify them that that is not necessarily a safe thing to do or can administrators go in and remove that data? Trout Ice Cream (talk) 20:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

You should delete the information, inform the user and request oversight. – ukexpat (talk) 21:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Protecting children's privacy#Proposed remedies for the guidance from ArbCom on this subject. - BanyanTree 07:34, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

2 questions: one about contributions

Hi.

First off, is this the right page for me to be asking this question--I'm still a bit of a beginner here.

Second, I want to contribute to Misplaced Pages, as I indeed like it a lot, but I loves my privacy.
What would happen if I sent cash--from $20 to $100--in a reasonably opaque envelop, with my username, an email address I got for free (in my case Yahoo! but I suppose there are many others), and maybe post a message on my username:talk page. Would it be accepted, used well, and would no one else accredit it to anyone but me?

Thanks
Yartett (talk) 20:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Generally speaking, you're not advised to ever send cash through the mail system - it's not secure and passes through the hands of many people who are capable of detecting it and have no qualms about taking it. Instead, you might consider setting up a proxy to donate on your behalf, or creating an anonymous Paypal account associated with your Misplaced Pages user to donate with (in this case, only Paypal would be able to link your user to your real life identity). Dcoetzee 21:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Your warning is not to be taken lightly and is noted, however, it's not the first time I've sent cash via the mails; further I don't even want Pay Pal to know about me. Again, the question is, what if I did it, and what if the letter reached Wikimedia's fund address. What would they do with the letter?Yartett (talk) 21:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure they would accept the donation, but keep in mind that there is additional administrative cost to processing an unusual cash donation, and you might receive a warning on your talk page about it. As for whether you'd receive credit, I don't know - I'm speculating and you're better off getting in touch directly with the people who process donations. Try the e-mail address info (at) wikimedia.org. Dcoetzee 22:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Beagle Boys

I really don't like IP addresses as user names. But I haven't come here to propose disallowing them; that has been proposed many times already and I guess there's a good reason why we have them. No, I just came here because I feel it's always better to take things in good humor. So I propose to refer to them as Beagle Boys. — Sebastian 19:52, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Fishery templates

The fishery articles use a number of fishery templates to form a somewhat hierarchical network across the articles. Since these have been installed, the traffic for fishery articles has much increased, particularly for the lower level articles. However, every now and then, someone comes along, and wants, usually without discussion, to introduce their own idea of layout, or simply removes templates or pushes them out of the way. Sometimes editors come along who seem malicious. Is there some forum where I can get these issues properly considered by capable editors without axes to grind? --Geronimo20 (talk) 02:12, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

This has been posted on several forums, and the user has been pointed to the steps listed in WP:DR. — Sebastian 04:27, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

pseudonym?Emily C. Orr

Does anyone know if the 19th century author, Emily C. Orr is a pseudonym? "She" wrote, "Thoughts For Working Days"; published in 1894 in London, England by the Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge. The New York publisher was E.& J.B. Young & Co. "She" also wrote "Thoughts For Men & Women".

B. Clarke —Preceding unsigned comment added by Baclarke (talk • contribs) 18:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

You should ask this at the Humanities Reference Desk, where you'll find editors much more knowledgable on literature.-gadfium 19:37, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's just end the virgin killer wars and get back to buisness

Friends,Romans,countrymen, lend me your ears. I relisted virgin killer on IFD for the sole reason that for a fair-use image, the controvery that it has created makes it seem rediculous to keep. Thousands of users have had their acess impeded for the sake of "policy." I say the product is the most important and no policy is too important never to be ignored. So lets let all those users back in by putting this picture out of it's misery for the sake of the project and it's content. I have asked for wider input on ths to see if the keepers of that content agree.--Ipatrol (talk) 23:29, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it got speedily kept already. Celarnor 23:36, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I see, Well, I would like to keep this up as a more general discussion with fresh eyes as weather to grant the image an IAR exemption rather than delete it. I want the communtity to establish a consensus as to weather or not WP:NOTCENSORED or a few other policies should apply to this image. If the community agrees to grant an exemption, then we might re-nominated with that in mind. If the issue permenantly subsides and the IWF and the WMF can reach an agreement, then we can put this issue to rest.--Ipatrol (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

The issue has already been put to rest, as there has been broad consensus to keep the image as it is, and continued renomination at this point would be rather pointy and probably disruptive. The IWF action is now essentially a non-issue, as they have retracted their block. Tarc (talk) 01:54, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

User:24.18.119.54

Could somebody who knows Roman History check the edits made by http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Contributions/24.18.119.54? I'm not sure what they're doing is vandalism or is actually improving these articles. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 02:53, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Tricky. Particularly since some of these articles are of extremely un-notable Romans. But they do need checking (and deleting altogether in some cases). -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I've passed this on to Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. Any further discussion should be held there. -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:36, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I was looking for a Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Ancient Rome and couldn't fine one.  :) Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 00:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

WorldNetDaily pattern of anon IP edits

I guess WorldNetDaily threatened to sue Misplaced Pages in 2007, which may or may not have anything to do with the ongoing push-pull going on in the last couple months at that article. But is seems odd to me that there has been (what looks to me as) an incessant pattern of anon IP editors dropping in to the article and scrubbing out the non-flattering content. I am interested in third opinions about this. SaltyBoatr (talk) 18:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Article type/subject area statistics request

This is either a request for information that already exists, or a suggestion for creating it... I have often wondered what types of articles make up the bulk of wikipedia, and would love to see, for instance, a pie chart showing this. E.g. what percentage of all articles are about places, about people, companies, entertainment, etc. It seems to me (particularly when I use the 'random article' function) that certain more or less un-historically important categories (TV shows of the late 20th c, minor bands, etc) are massively represented compared to other, more significant areas, but I'd love to see it in numbers. -Wormcast (talk) 01:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Someone actually did a small sample of this fairly recently, in fact: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias#Article_distribution. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Excellent - that was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Thanks, Melodia! -Wormcast (talk) 11:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Poor researching by regular editor

http://en.wikipedia.org/The_Church_of_the_SubGenius From now on, you should consider this a guideline for your editors: If you don't know anything about it, find someone who does. Deleting an article on the Church of the SubGenius is about as lacking in cultural knowledge as deleting an article on Burning Man, Skull and Bones, or Survival Research Laboratories. Seriously, Kraftlos needs to be spanked for putting a Notability on the Church of the SubGenius. With three books, two of which were published by Simon and Schuster, and a film featuring Negativland and Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO, this one is a no-brainer. Even a basic search of the WWW provides several hundred thousand references to it. That should be relevance enough. 71.102.2.128 (talk) 20:23, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The point of wikipedia is that anybody can edit anything however they see fit, and that enough other people will (or, at least, should) counter-edit until errors are removed. Expecting that nobody will ever make any errors in the first place is silly. The proper response is not to put a comment here, as some sort of demonstration of your cultural smarts, but to edit the article as you see fit. Go ahead and remove the box if it's wrong. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 23:21, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I note that the article was never deleted, only that its notability was questioned. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:11, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Where do I post a request for expansion of an article?

The page for article expansion has been archived and more or less abandoned. So if I think there is an article that needs help (specifically, the article on angels although I would like to know the answer in general as well), where do I post such a request? Please don't tell me to do it myself, since the reason I'm asking is because I want information about the topic. Minaker (talk) 09:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Bounty board, Misplaced Pages:Reward board or a suitable Misplaced Pages:WikiProject. - Mgm| 12:27, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

thanks man Minaker (talk) 23:53, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Another option, if you think that an important aspect of a topic, or an entire topic that is important, is being neglected, is to post a note at the talk page(s) of the WikiProject(s) that are listed on the article talk page. Best to explain why the aspect/topic is important, not just say "Please work on this", since WikiProjects always have plenty of work yet to be done. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:06, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

WWE Hardcore Title page

Why is stated that the reigns for the Hardcore Title at Wrestlemania 2000 are not recongised by the WWE, when they are recongised in all of the WWE Superstars bio pages. But when i change the info it gets deleted --Wolfman123 (talk) 17:07, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a reliable source for your changes. – ukexpat (talk) 17:41, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

elapsed time

is anyone aware of a template that calculates future and elapsed time (T+/T-) rendered: xx years, xx months, xx days. my first choice was {{For year month day}}, however, it apparently cannot handle the future. --emerson7 19:16, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

This is better asked at either the technical page of the Village pump or where the template experts hang out. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:03, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

World Club Championship?

What channel are Manchester United playing their games in the world club championship on in england --Wolfman123 (talk) 02:47, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Questions unrelated to editing Misplaced Pages should be asked at the Reference desk. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

And now for something completely different ...

I've been trying to update the game guide to include all the latest information about WikiPedia – could someone please check that I've included all the Game Master spells? In other words, what do you think of the updated page? It Is Me Here 14:59, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Some folks really do spend wayyyyyyy too much time here! LOL! Roger (talk) 20:25, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

number of edits over time

I noticed I was suddenly able to keep up with special:recentchanges again, and realised it had gone past midnight in the united states. Do we have any pretty graphs of number of edits per time interval to show how much variation there is in number of edits? --fvw* 07:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Really bad article

I couldn't figure out how to properly flag this, so I'm posting it here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/Aterhov —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumarine (talk • contribs) 19:01, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Page has been deleted. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 21:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Threats of violence form letter

While participating in a recent TOV thread at ANI, I noticed that, while there are suggestions on how to respond to threats, there is doesn't seem to be a form letter to serve as an example of how a good contact attempt to a law enforcement agency should look. I've quickly thrown one together at User:Mendaliv/TOV letter, and would like some further outside input. —/Mendaliv//_Δ's/ 19:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Prominent inclusionists?

I desperately come here for advice. Anyone here know any prominent inclusionists who help form wikipolicy? Unfortunately, I know a hell of a lot of prominent, powerful, deletionists, but not one prominent inclusionist. I look forward to your reply. Inclusionist (talk) 07:54, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

• So become one. But beware, with great power... –Pomte 08:45, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Users Uncle G and DGG are models of intelligent and discriminating inclusionism and the former seems to have been quite influential in forming policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:13, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
    • You may find some through WP:ARS. User:Benjiboi has a fantastic track record of rescuing articles from deletion, but has perhaps less policy weight than the aforementioned users. Skomorokh 17:15, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
      • If you have any interest in fictional topics, see the opposing editors at Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Sgeureka. They probably have a similar mindset to you. :) (Just read the RfA, and especially its talk page, to understand!) —Erik (talk • contrib) 19:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
        • Thank you all. Really wonderful suggestions. Another user suggested Misplaced Pages talk:Userfication to find those who are attempting to influence wikipolicy. Thank you again all.

          User:Benjiboi doesn't seem interested in policy. Inclusionist (talk) 23:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

          • Which shouldn't happen, because deletion of inappropriate content is necessary for the health of the project. Why are you using an article talk page as a project soapbox, exactly? This thread should be continued elsewhere, if at all. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 00:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
            • I refactored my comments, anyone else have some good suggestions? Inclusionist (talk) 00:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: The only "-ist" I espouse being is encyclopaedist. The only times that people use "deletionist" and "inclusionist" is to call other editors names, something which I wholeheartedly disagree with (c.f. Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Deletion/archive1#Name calling is a bad idea, for example, or my own talk page in 2007). Yes, I've given Misplaced Pages the Misplaced Pages:Guide to deletion, the big green box that opened the floodgates when it came to the Misplaced Pages:Biography of living persons wording on people notable for just one event, and the Primary Notability Criterion that helped with a formulation of Misplaced Pages:Notability that a lot of people could back, along with many other things. But I did and do those purely as an encyclopaedist, not as any other "-ist". And I certainly disagree with the notion that Misplaced Pages policy is mainly formed by "a hell of a lot of prominent, powerful, deletionists". That's more name calling. I said in 2007 that I don't recall ever having seen the use of either "deletionist" or "inclusionist" improve a discussion, and it is still true, even here. Uncle G (talk) 00:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Uncle G, Colonel Warden was right you are " model of intelligent and discriminating inclusionism", because to get anything done here on wikipedia, you have to build consensus, that means ignoring or keeping to yourself the obvious, stroking egos, and building alliances.

I really love your appeal to unity, which I am sure appeals to Wikipedians.

It is like Barack Obama's patriotic speeches:

We are not conservatives or liberals, blacks or whites, we are all Americans.

Nevermind that their are actually black people and white people and conservative people and liberal people. Mr. Obama is going to ignore the obvious to build unity and consensus.

The terms deletionism and inclusionism came from outside observers of Misplaced Pages, dozens of journalist in the media, Deletionism and inclusionism in Misplaced Pages (where this message was before you moved it). It is a reality, even if it is publicly condemned as an expletive by consensus building "models of intelligent and discriminating inclusionism".

I didn't post this question to build consensus, I don't have the patience or charisma that you do Uncle G. I posted this question to find like minded editors who are troubled by what is happening on wikipedia. I look forward to more suggestions. Inclusionist (talk) 01:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Me. I don't know how prominent I am, but I tend to err on the side of keeping in close cases. Many cases aren't close and I've done my share of speedy, prod, and prod2 tags as well as my share of "Delete" recommendations at xFD. However, if the topic is "marginally notable" I'll usually give a "weak keep" or remove the PROD or questionable SPEEDY tag, or at the very least recommend a keep+redirect so the edit history is kept, or boldly-redirect a PROD to avert history loss in the inevitable AFD. By the way, every editor who participates in xFD or takes any other actions that result in articles being deleted or not deleted is by definition affecting Wikipolicy - either by affirming the existing policy or by indicating that the existing policy does not have unanimous consent and may not even have WP:CONSENSUS. This applies whether or not they participate in the Wikipedia_talk: policy discussion pages. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 02:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

davidwr, any suggestions were editors such as yourself tend to congregate? For example, I notice that editors who tend to support Misplaced Pages talk:Articles for deletion tend to congregate there, and editors who like to enforce perceived and actual copyright violations tend to congregate at Misplaced Pages:Copyrights. An editor suggested Misplaced Pages talk:Userfication today, for those who have different views about article content. Any suggestions davidwr? Inclusionist (talk) 04:10, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Article Rescue Squadron. I would be quite careful about where you take this train of thought. You are a couple of steps from creating a group whose purpose is to direct its members to influence policy/process over the consensus that may be existing on those topics, which is the definition of Misplaced Pages:Tag team. Such a group may be subject to accusations of meatpuppetry and its members may be subject to administrative sanctions. I would also suggest that if you find that you find yourself in the minority viewpoint in a numerous related discussions, it may be worth considering if you actually have a minority policy viewpoint, rather than assuming that there are a bunch of editors who share your viewpoint that you can't find. - BanyanTree 08:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with tag teams groups of like-minded editors as long as there is full disclosure when two or more people are voicing an opinion on the same subject and they behave with civility. In fact, if, say, 7 editors are editing an article, then over the next month 20 new editors edit it in ways the first 7 don't like, you could argue that the 20 now form the basis for a new consensus, or at least they've done away with the existing consensus. If that 20 grows to 50, then there's a clear new consensus. Technically, 7 people can block consensus in a group of 57, but it's very hard absent proof of real meatpuppetry. If those 50 were all students at the same college with the same professor, then yeah, you might be able to prove puppetry but otherwise, it would be hard. There are already groups like WP:PAW whose primary purpose is to watchlist articles as a group to preserve their POV idea of what NPOV means. I wouldn't be surprised if there are similar groups that watchlist other controversial articles, such as those related to Israel and Palestine. If you are in such a group, make very sure you are open about it and expect people to treat the unified voice of 5 members of the group as 1 voice rather than 5. By the way, what appears to be a minority may be a silent majority. The problem is, in a project like Misplaced Pages, silence implies either ignorance of or consent to the status quo. I may not agree with the status quo but I may consent to it in the interest of not wasting time. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

No clue. The type of article-rescue I do doesn't require collaboration. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think we exist but have a measurably lower sense of self-prominence. — CharlotteWebb 19:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages should be a botanical garden, with representative specimens labelled, fenced, and neatly presented. Misplaced Pages is not – or shouldn't be – a jungle; we're evolving past the stage of being a random hodgepodge of dense prose, slapdash lists, or impenetrable tangles of words. Sometimes the cleanup takes trellises, stakes, and water, sometimes it requires machetes. Is the gardener who pulls weeds and trims the topiary a 'deletionist'?

We're all editors. Slapping labels on each other is a derisive, dismissive, insulting practice; editors who engage in it ought to be embarrassed. (What's the old saying — anyone more liberal than I am is a communist, anyone more conservative is a fascist....) Pretending that all opinions and approaches to article content on Misplaced Pages can be divided into just two overarching categories is beyond the absurd. (Look how well that approach works in U.S. politics.) In reality, we have thousands of volunteers with millions of hours of collective experience. May of those editors have rational, detailed, nuanced opinions about article inclusion, editing, categorization, deletion, expansion, formatting, and organization.

The way to deal with those evil 'deletionists' isn't to go form your own private mob. The mature approach is through calm, clear, concise presentation of rational, detailed arguments. The 'deletionist' bogeymen aren't part of some secret cabal bent on destroying Misplaced Pages. Try engaging with them as thinking adults rather than as enemies to be thwarted. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

File:Lunar libration with phase Oct 2007.gif

This file has been included in the Moon article. While it is an excellent image, I feel a significantly reduced version should be created for article use. 9.64 MB is quite a download for bringing up an article, and a heavily trafficked one at that. Does anyone agree... or am I alone on this one? - RoyBoy 09:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Query: "Allegation" v "Conjecture"

I was pretty sure they were quite distinct, but a short time ago I found an editor who was quite adamant that they were quite the same.

"Conjecture is absolutely fine in a BLP, as per BLP policy/guidelines" with "By definition, all allegations are conjectural" and "Thus conjectures MADE BY SOURCES are just peachy. And nothing I have suggested is a conjectural interpretation of a source. You ARE A FLAT OUT LIAR so I am not sure if I am even going to bother to rebut the rest of your comments."

The issue was about a source making a decidedly conjectural prediction (I noted also WP:CRYSTAL in claiming that such a prediction of future events was a conjecture). But what is the word "conjecture" supposed to mean in WP? Is "allegation" a simple subset of "conjecture"? Many thanks! Collect (talk) 12:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you would link to the discussion in question for more background. Allegation is defined as "An assertion, especially an accusation, not necessarily based on facts", or "the act of alleging" which could include legal testimony; conjecture is "A statement or an idea which is unproven, but is thought to be true". To me, there is a fine difference: "conjecture" says "I think this is true, but it needs to be rigorously tested/proven" (e.g. scientific hypothesis) while "allegation" says "I state this is true, although I present no proof" (e.g. legal testimony/accusation). As far as Misplaced Pages goes, neither allegation nor conjecture is appropriate in articles unless that allegation/conjecture is found in a reliable source (see WP:OR). The allegation/conjecture should not be misrepresented as proven fact; that would not be WP:OR, but it would be misuse of the source. If controversial, the statement should be specifically attributed to the source in question ("A says X" rather than just "X") and mainstream opposing viewpoints should be represented. Anomie⚔ 13:58, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

There were, in fact,more than one instance where this arose in Sarah Palin. One example arose where a person used a source to say Palin might run for office in 2012, while she denied it. To me, that fell into "crystal ball gazing." The other was where a cite was given to indicate that Palin was a "young earth creationist" who believed dinosaurs were "Jesus ponies" on the basis that an article said that people who had Palin's religious beliefs, believed that. I considered both to be, in fact, conjecture which requires extreme care in a BLP. Only the first was WP:CRYSTAL. Does projection future political runs fall intot he area of "conjecture" and does attribution of religious beliefs fall into that category? I am trying to present this in as neutral a manner as possible, to be sure. (BTW, I thought "conjecture" was more on the line of "this may be true or turn out to be true, but I have no basis to assert that it is true." Thanks! Collect (talk) 14:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

In the first example, the paragraph at the end of the "2008 vice-presidential campaign" section in this revision strikes me as ideal. In that paragraph, we lay out the fact that speculation exists and Palin's response without making any prediction of our own as to whether she will end up running or not. I haven't dug into the history to try to identify the statement you mention to see how different it was from that version.

In the second example, there are multiple issues. First, if Palin doesn't self-identify with those religious beliefs, it's probably against WP:BLP to attribute the beliefs to her. Second, I'd look closely to see if the source is really reliable; something talking about "Jesus ponies" sounds fringe to me. Third, if the source addresses "Religious group X" but not Palin specifically, it's close enough to WP:SYN to fail the stringent requirements of WP:BLP. And if all that passes, I still doubt the statement is WP:NPOV enough to not be a violation of WP:BLP. Anomie⚔ 19:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Please help with a scientific workshop on editing Misplaced Pages

As you can read on my user page, the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) is hosting a workshop this Tuesday, the 16th, to give their scientists a crash course in editing Misplaced Pages, especially for creating cell-biology articles. Tim and I are running the workshop, but we could benefit from your help! We'd like to find friendly, online Wikipedians who will greet the newbie scientists and offer to help them with their first articles. It seems like a great way to bring the scientific and Misplaced Pages communities a little closer.

The workshop will run from 12:30-2:30pm local San Francisco time. Tim and I will be speaking until ~1pm, and the participants won't start their user pages until 12:45pm at the earliest. We'll ask them to add the template {{ASCB workshop}} to their user page, which will add them to the Category:ASCB 2008 Misplaced Pages workshop participants category. Then you'll be able to see who's participating and welcome them. Other help with categorization, finding/formatting images and references, etc. would be much appreciated. Proteins (talk) 14:48, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

As a one-time classicist, now a lawyer I can't help with the scientific stuff , but happy to help with welcoming and other wiki stuff. – ukexpat (talk) 15:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much, ukexpat! Welcoming and wiki-stuff is just what we're hoping for; the scientists will probably want to take care of the science themselves. ;) We'd just like to keep Misplaced Pages from seeming too poluphloisboisterous in their first steps, Proteins (talk) 17:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

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