Misplaced Pages

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Policy archive

Discussions older than 7 days (date of last made comment) are moved here. These discussions will be kept archived for 7 more days. During this period the discussion can be moved to a relevant talk page if appropriate. After 7 days the discussion will be permanently removed.

Anonymity

Is there an explanation somewhere in a policy or guideline page on an editor's "right" (for lack of a better term) to remain anonymous? A group of editors, including me, is being attacked by another editor (who has chosen to reveal his true identity) as "cowards" for not providing our real names, credentials, etc. android79 13:52, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Check out the section on Usernames about real names vs. pseudonyms - I think that's what you want. Essentially, you're free to do so, though some people may complain based on personal preference. -- nae'blis _(talk) 21:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

How do you know its his true identity? Anyway, that's crazy... I'd never do that. The last thing I need is some disgruntled editor with a gun knocking on my door... Herostratus 06:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Changes on his personal website coincided with comments left on talk pages. Thanks for the tip, Nae'blis. That's not worded as strongly as I had hoped, but it least it's policy. android79 07:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Editors should not be expected to share their credentials, because the information put forth should verifiable elsewhere. Shouldn't they? We should not be expected to find search out the bio of an author to determine the veracity of an article. Freekee 04:19, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

First of all, calling another editor a coward is clearly a violation of Misplaced Pages:No personal attacks. Simply ignore it and try to focus on the substance of the debate itself - not the people in the debate. (My general rule of thumb is to always address the issue rasied and not the person who raised it). Secondly, all personal information that is volunteered is unverifiable, and therefore mostly irrelevant. If I said I was actually an alien who had hacked into NASA's deep space network and was using that to contribute to wikipedia, would you have a way to disprove me? :-) --Bachrach44 16:33, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

How about: Sectioning off of/possible banning of Fictional Universe articles

Information is, in general, good. But not all of it is really valuable.

And I, like many people, enjoy some computer/video games/science fiction/fantasy stories/worlds. But think about this: How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

I propose that there should be a separate "Fictional Universes" wiki. We know that games/movies like Star Wars, Final Fantasy and Lord of the Rings have influenced world pop culture, and that they often have huge amounts of detail, but with the goal of Misplaced Pages being useful knowledge, too much information about those things begins to seem frivolous.

Put another way, I don't think Misplaced Pages needs to be a competitor to Gamefaqs, or starwars.com, or battle.net.

I just think that Misplaced Pages, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things.

Please criticize/respond. --Zaorish 21:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• I am strongly opposed to this idea. First of all, we are an encyclopedia- and, as such, we need to contain encyclopediac information. Time and the Rani is perfectly encyclopediac. Second, anything that factions Misplaced Pages, as a community or an encylcopedia is a very, very, bad thing. So, again, I'm strongly opposed to this idea.--Sean|Black 22:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
• I support the idea to move this to a separate wiki. The information should not be lost, but it would be excellent to move it elsewhere. --Improv 22:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Ummm no. Mememory alpha is worrying enough. The articles are not doing any harm and tend to be fairly accuret. As long as thier minor characters lists don't suddenly tern into lots of stubs I don't see a problem.Geni 23:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to adopt a mergist approach to these -- fewer larger articels are better than more smaller articles, particualrly stubs. I especially oppose the creation of stubs for minor fictional characters, adn will merge these with the appropriate article on the larger work. But fictional works are often of significant cultural importance and there is no simple way to draw the line between thsoe that are and those that are not. I do wish WP:FICT was more rigourously followed, however. DES 23:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Where would Sherlock Holmes, Horatio Hornblower, Elizabeth Bennet, Tarzan, and Sam Spade go? Dsmdgold 23:12, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I hate to discount you so lightly, but this is a perennial proposal and the subject of endless contention. See Misplaced Pages:Fancruft for example. This isn't changing overnight, and I personally favour the status quo. My policy is, if I see a topic about a fictional entity that is too obscure, I merge it with related entities into a summary/list article such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time characters. For what it's worth, I think Sarah Kerrigan is an excellent article consolidating plot information from diverse primary sources across many games (perhaps overdoing it a bit on the links). She may not be as notable as Link or Mario, but I hate to see good content obliterated. Deco 23:18, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no problem with covering the subject matter of fictional characters on Misplaced Pages. The problem is instead how they are covered. It is mostly done with very little context—no attempt to firmly tie everything that is said to be true about the character to the works of fiction in which they are depicted. See Radioactive_Man_(Marvel_Comics) for an example of this flaw; excepting the word "fictional" in the intro sentence and the infobox details, the article is written as if the subject were real. No reference is made in the article text to a single writer, artist, or even comic book issue or title. See also the "character history" of Spider-Man, which starts with summarizing a plot about his parents having been spies that was not written until after over thirty years of publication history. These articles merely paraphrase fiction rather than describe it, and appear to be written from a fan perspective rather than a cultural historian.

Compare those with Captain Marvel, a recent featured article, or Superman. Both summarize the history of the characters in the real world, revealing the "facts" of fiction according to that framework. We need a very clear set of guidelines to make sure all articles about fictional characters are written in this manner. Postdlf 23:44, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure, that's a problem, but that's what {{sofixit}} is for.--Sean|Black 23:51, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I think both fiction-oriented and real-world-oriented presentation orders are each appropriate in different circumstances, sometimes both in one article. Summarization of the plot of a fictional work in chronological order is an integral part of many articles on books, movies, and other fictional works. On the other hand, an article should never exclusively summarize the fiction, but should also talk about the entity's history, practical aspects of its creation (e.g. influence on gameplay), and cultural impact. Deco 23:55, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I just think that Misplaced Pages, assuming it is an encyclopedia, might be best limited to at least real information about completely real things. Someone better tell Brittanica that their article on Hamlet ain't encyclopedic. And I can't wait for the deletion wheel war on Jesus. android79 23:58, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: the interest in "fiction-oriented" presentation, I think the chronology we should be most concerned with is real-world. A story written later but "taking place" earlier should be described as such, but the publication order should dictate the structure of the article; fictional canons are not our concern, but instead how the character has been used at different times. A true history of the character will only get obscured if the present bleeds into the past. Why should a recent story lead the info given about a character that has a much older body of work depicting him? Summarizing the plot in an article about a book is necessary and appropriate. But in an article about a murder mystery novel, for example, you wouldn't start the summary by describing who done it and how even though the murder is what happens first in fictional chronology, if the book reveals the murderer's identity last. The order in which things are revealed to the audience, whether within one work or across a series, is of utmost importance.

But the lack of real-world context is not only a problem of academic integrity, but an issue of copyright infringement. Both of the major comic book companies, as well as the Star Wars, Star Trek, and other sci-fi franchises have officially published numerous encyclopedia-style books about their characters and associated fictional universes. I suspect that many of the cruftiest, context-less articles are mere paraphrases of these (or of video game manuals, role-playing games, etc.). Even those that aren't are still doing more than merely reporting facts—they are simply summarizing fiction without transforming it or adding new information to it. This arguably makes these articles mere derivative works of the original fiction.

This is a systemic problem probably because the ones most driven to write about certain fictional characters are fans who are mostly concerned with "knowing" the complete and "true" story of the fictional universe. We need a guideline page (something like Misplaced Pages:Writing about fictional characters) that sets out the principles I've described above, with an accompanying template that will label and categorize an article about fictional characters as lacking that context (the trick is finding the right concise language). We have Template:Fiction, but it needs to be made clear that inserting a "this character is fictional" disclaimer in the introductory sentence of a ten paragraph article is not enough. I lack the time to solve this problem on my own, but I will definitely assist anyone else who wishes to contribute to solving it. Postdlf 00:14, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I would favor soemthing of the sort Postdif suggests here. DES 00:31, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Uncle G/Describe this universe might be a worthwhile starting point. —Charles P. (Mirv) 14:34, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the examples of good and bad writing that Uncle G used make it clear that he's getting at the same point that I am. Postdlf 15:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

We do have the ability to create interwiki links to many, many other wiki projects, like those over at Wikicities (I'd like to see these become more transparent, but excepting MΑ and Wookiepedia, there's not much completeness over there). I'd like to see some of the cruft trimmed, true (and am working on it with The Wheel of Time series), but if it helps our regular editors to do a ] article or three before jumping back into quantum physics, it does little harm. -- nae'blis _(talk) 00:53, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed that this 'perennial proposal' caused so much controversy. Looking over the responses, it seems that Consolidation of those articles might be best--ie, an article about "Star Wars," then maybe an article on "Minor Star Wars Characters" and not an article about every single Jedi and their favorite ice cream flavor. In the future I'll try to generally put this into practice, by suggesting merges.

It's true, assuming Misplaced Pages has unlimited space, then articles about fictional universes could/should indeed be unlimited, because there is no harm in posting them. I was just taking into account the fact that Misplaced Pages is nonprofit and that more space/server power costs significant amounts of money.

And obviously Jesus and Sherlock Holmes are more important than something like Star Forge. Your argument, friends android and Dsmdgold, is something called reductio ad absurdum.

Postdlf: Your idea on a new fictional character template could be valuable, to put fictional concepts/characters in their cultural context before delving into obscure details.

And thank you all for your (generally) well-reasoned responses. ; 3 --Zaorish 14:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm checking back. I found this article: StarCraft Secret Missions. It's literally a /verbatim/ transcript of a few levels from a computer game. I personally would move to delete it. Any objections? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.216.217.174 (talk • contribs)

What an awful article. The text forgets that it's describing a video game and instead tells a story. I can't even tell who the player is supposed to be, what the player controls, what events are mere contingencies, or what events are actually experienced in game play versus read about or seen in movies. This is not an article. Postdlf 15:01, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose such an idea. Fictional universes are an important part of our culture. I would possibly support the merge/removal of fictional stubs, but content which can make a decent article should be kept. -- Astrokey44|talk 15:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree. Misplaced Pages is not paper and to make restrictions of this sort on content would, IMO, open the door for further content restrictions to the point where Misplaced Pages will become nothing but a bunch of articles on nuclear physics and Shakespeare (and even then, banning an article on, say Mr. Spock means you'd have to ban articles on Shakespeare's characters, right?) and that's not what this place is about. I've already seen some people grumbling about banning articles based on film and TV shows, for example. I've nothing against guidelines, but creating a separate wiki for this would be a mistake. The priority should be on improving articles if substandard ones arise. 23skidoo 15:27, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Two points:
  1. Misplaced Pages is not infinite, but we are specifically advised by WP:NOT#Misplaced Pages is not a paper encyclopedia not to worry about space limitations. Our concern should always be only on the encyclopedic nature of the topic and the quality of the article.
  2. I think the real problem is not so much that there are all these fictional-universe articles, it's that so many Misplaced Pages editors lavish so much attention on them rather than the more mundane topics like "Gary, Indiana" or "Container Security Initiative". But there are many dimensions of perceived imbalance in Misplaced Pages, like "not enough people articles" or "too many stubs" or "not enough cleanup being done" or "too much focus on the manual of style". We must remember that the whole project operates on the assumption that a worldwide community of freelance editors will eventually get around to working on any perceived deficiencies — and do them justice as well. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 15:33, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
  • • As a sub-point to this one, I thought I should mention that although Misplaced Pages's space is unlimited a lot of people still think that the effort spent on editing stuff is zero-sum - ie, that if someone spends an hour working on a Star Trek article, then that's an hour they didn't spend working on something of "real importance." I think this is not the case, personally, and eliminating the "unimportant" articles would have the opposite effect; people who come here to tinker around with Star Trek articles and every once in a while toss something useful into one of the real science articles would just leave altogether. They almost certainly wouldn't turn all the energy they spend refining articles on their favourite fictions toward topics they aren't interested in, these are all volunteers here. Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose this idea, but also empathise. I think a compromise is good. A lot of Fictional Universe articles and all their linked sub-articles have too many sub-articles. For instance, you probably don't need a sub-article for a character that appeared once on a show. Or in Stargate Atlantis, for instance, you probably don't need an article for the minor few-episodes character Bob (Wraith). So scrap the stubs and unneeded articles, but certainly keep the main bulk. Fiction like Stargate, Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and so on are massive cultural influences and have shaped both our history and television/cinema's history. And to be honest, I feel that most of the articles under these are concise whilst being detailed, informative, without POV or fancruft, and ultimately also useful. -- Alfakim --  talk  16:06, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This proposal is hopelessly bad, IMO. But if it does make any progress towards being implemented, by some chance, I insist that we also include sports-related articles under its umbrella. There are thousands of articles in Misplaced Pages about trivial unimportant sportsmen who play trivial unimportant games that have nothing to do with curing cancer or military battles or whatever it is that're supposed to be "serious" subjects. Since I have no interest in sport, there's obviously no value in having articles about it and it's just a waste of everyone's time writing them. (The preceeding opinion is only a semi-parody :) Bryan 16:18, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Templates are always a good idea, though. --Happylobster 18:07, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow, deja vu all over again.  :) I well remember the contretemps at Talk:Mithril, lo these over three years ago.  :) User:Zoe| 19:09, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

• Ultra-extreme oppose This is an incredably bad idea. Here is why:
  • Some articles provide practical information, like where to watch TV shows, or backround info to unconfuse new fans. An example of this is: List of Stargate SG-1 episodes
  • Many fictional articles are about classics and are naturaly part of history.
  • Many are so largely know, like Harry Potter that it would be stupid not to have an article on them.
  • Fictional articles on video games act as a guide for players to do better in the game.
  • The whole reason I contribute to wikipedia is that wikipedias vision is having all of humankinds knowlage in one place is an achiveable goal, which I try to work towards. If we start exporting info, this goal will be lost, and many users who follow this vision will stop contributing. Tobyk777 01:52, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose - I disagree with the idea that we should delete articles on fictional places / concepts / characters &c. I do however agree that it should be clear in the opening paragraph that the subject is fictional and what particular fictional universe it relates to. As for having lots of stub articles, surely this was why the Misplaced Pages:Fiction guideline was written? -- Lochaber 15:00, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
• I generally agree with what User:Sean Black said above. Articles on fiction need to be presented in that context. They exist in a fictional universe but were created by someone real and the article needs to convey that connection to reality. These fiction articles on popular culture draw in a lot of potential editors who can (theoretically) practice their wiki-skills on these and satisfy their fanboy urges before moving on to real-world articles. Also, as User:Nae'blis mentioned above there are wikis dedicated to each show, like Wookieepedia and StargateWiki. --maclean25 05:04, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

As part of this (perennial) discussion, I'd just like to briefly discuss a retort to the classic Misplaced Pages is Not Paper argument. It is true that we have an unlimited capacity for topics, and I frankly don't buy the "articles use resources" argument (the total sum of all articles ever deleted is unlikely to exceed a few megabytes in disk space and network bandwidth). However, topics on obscure fictional entities can be disruptive for several reasons:

• Each article must independently establish the context of the universe, leading to a great deal of redundant content which is difficult to maintain.
• These articles can be very difficult to expand. In the real world we can always derive new information about real people, places, and things. In fiction, we know only what the creator tells us; if a character appears in only one chapter of a book, it's quite unlikely that after proper summarization we'll be able to say more than a paragraph about the character, ever. Articles this short are not particularly useful, spending more time establishing context than describing the subject.
• Attempting to learn about the universe as a whole involves a difficult, unorganized navigation between many small articles, each different in its style and assumptions, that can frustrate readers.

This is why I recommend that groups of related articles about obscure fictional entities be merged into a single summary or list article, or into a "parent" article: the context need only be established once, all together they have enough detail to fill out an article, relationships can be established between entities by direct reference instead of cumbersome links, and the order of presentation can be controlled for maximum brevity and clarity. In fact, I recommend this approach for any group of strongly related small articles - if one of them later outgrows the list article, it can easily be moved back out, as occurred for example with Agahnim. Deco 05:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of using sub-pages, e.g., Stargate/Daniel Jackson instead of Daniel Jackson, and having big colorful templates at the top of all the fiction-based articles clearly indicating that they are fiction-based with the name of the source work (book, show, etc.) and genre, to aid the many clueless wikisurfers out there. James S. 10:59, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Subpages in the main namespace were deprecated long ago, and with good cause. Should Daniel Jackson be a subpage of Stargate, or a subpage of Fictional character, or a subpage of Michael Shanks? As a subpage it can only be under one of these, and I hate to imagine the many pointless and time-consuming arguments all over Misplaced Pages about which articles should be subpages of which other articles. This is the sort of thing that categories are for instead. Bryan 20:59, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose: I've heard this argument many times and I always have a few unanswered questions.
  • I never understand why people want to move this information to other wikis. Why not have it here? It still uses 'resources' if it is hosted on a separate wiki. Considering how articles should have their sources cited, most of the information that is available on Misplaced Pages is indeed available elsewhere. Instead of having a (mostly) pointless article about Still Sick... Urine Trouble (which was the first article forthcoming from the Random Article link), why not just tell our browsers to go to another site? Is that not what hosting on another wiki would do? I thought that one of the goals of Misplaced Pages was to consolidate knowledge so that people do not have to search around on multiple websites.
  • If you do move such information to another wiki, what's to stop users from recreating the articles? Would a "crime" that be treated as innocent ignorance (we do, after all, encourage new users to try the wiki out) or as something more serious, like vandalism? I'm sure those editors will want to return after they receive a friendly warning not to edit "like that" again.
  • As well, I've never understood why fictional information is targeted. Why not also move everything that is mathematical to another math-related wiki, as Bryan has said? Or sports? Where do we stop? Where do we draw the line? Before we can decide exactly what constitutes "irrelevant and over-obsessive fancruft" and what is "actual fact belonging in an encyclopedia", we should not remove anything.
  • I’m also worried about estranging users by moving/removing information. Certainly there are those who only contribute to fiction-based articles such as these, but others help out in other areas as well. I'm proof of that, for I've touched up a Jedi article or two while also restructuring the ringette article at the same time (not yet done, btw). What message are we sending to potential editors if the "global encyclopedia" does not allow information of one of their many preferred subjects?
  • However, I do have to agree with what others have said before me about quality. There are certainly articles that are unwikied, unclear and unintelligent. Every article that fits that description should be deleted. Some articles do not have enough information to justify their existence and that is the nature of fiction: we can only document what the creator gives us. I still would like to see articles of high quality created and maintained, and some of these fiction-based stubs have merit. While a few/some/most articles should definitely be merged and combined, others have potential and should be expanded upon, not banned. Maybe we cansystematically check every What Links Here section as potential critera for what can be merged? Take the HoloNet article, for example (a Star Wars one; I followed links for a stub, trolling for an example to use here). I initially thought that it could be merged into a larger article, but with twelve "real" (i.e. non-user) articles citing it, I don't think that moving it/removing it would be a simple task, especially if you consider all the articles that a major sweep would entail.
  • In short, I don't see the point of moving/removing articles resulting from fictional universes. Moving them still uses resources, while removing them detracts from Misplaced Pages's main goals. Both need clear and precise guidelines; else, everything will eventually be sectioned off into other wikis or even deleted entirely. And both moving to another wiki or deletion will alienate editors who bear knowledge; a precious commodity. I vote that we keep all articles derived from fictional universes. –Aeolien 04:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Seriously Very Strongly Absolutely Agree and am Willing to Killl People to Make it Happen. I say we get rid of all the fictitious crap in Misplaced Pages. Dumb fictitious stories and twerps who write nothing but crap they make up, based only some-what on the truth. Who needs any of it? I know I could've done without it during my life-time... *ahem* Sorry, the urge to comment was overwhelming. Heavy dose of sarcasm. 203.173.22.63 08:51, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose: Many have rebutted the motion in general terms, Let me answer the direct question asked by the original poster of this topic.

How much do articles like "Star Forge," "Luccia," or "Sarah Kerrigan" really add to our knowledge of the world?

• • When I hear or read one of these terms and I have no idea what it is, so I look them up in wikipedia. It tells me first off that they are Fictional devices or characters. The some basics about them so I can understand the reference to the character location or item without having read the original fiction. If I am then interested in this particular fiction it then gives me the reference (i.e. the original books/games/movies/etc) where I can see/learn experinece more about this fictional item/character and/or location.
  • It is true that anyone particular article on a fictional thing is not likely to be relevent to any particular person. But by the same token almost all articles on fictional things will be relevant to some person at some point when they come across something which they may or may not realise is a reference to a fictional thing.

Waza 04:08, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

This is the worst idea ever strongly oppose -- Truth is, we don't even know if Moses is real -- should we get rid of the article? After all, he's probably just a character in some really old book. What about god? Just because these ideas may be fictional doesn't mean they shouldn't be included. Same goes for all of these other notable works of fiction as well -- I love that Misplaced Pages has an article on chewbacca and pikachu. -Quasipalm 04:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY OPPOSE for reasons stated above. The Wookieepedian 01:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY AGREE I have seen poets, authors, socially relevant people, events and historical articles, all deleted in this Misplaced Pages, all while Pokemon and other such articles survive? No doubt Pokemon (and Star Wars) are of interest to people, but you have to wonder what their roll is here. Take Star Wars for example, Star Wars was socially significant in the 70’s, 80’s and made a comeback in the 90’s. But in the big picture of humanity (and Misplaced Pages), it merits recognition in its proper context. It does not merit having every bit of its minutia trivia recorded here, and there has to be some limit. A separate Misplaced Pages (with reasonable policies) for subjects like this would enable those interested in recording the minutia of perhaps socially interesting but not socially significant things would have that forum. When Pokemon is displacing real life people and events, our priorities have become skewed. (Incidentally, I LOVE LOTR, however would count it in the same category as Star Wars. Interesting, worthy of note perhaps, but should not consume, monopolize or displace more relevant articles. LinuxDude 08:05, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

STRONGLY GROK like I get really tired of seeing the fictional stuff when I plunk Random Article, and I would LOVE to have a choice, a check box, where I could tune my Randoms (this idea could be expanded further) ... And would anybody really mind having a different color background on ALL of the fictional stuff? (let's argue about the color for a few weeks, but would you believe "#CCFFFF" light cyan? ;Bear 02:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I agree in principle with the concept of readily identifying articles about fictional things, this is a slippery slope because there will then be lots of argument over what is fictional. This will include almost all religious articles. And where does a technical article about, say, a fictional film film go? (BTW1, I think the fictional artciles should be in the main wiki, but fewer larger ones is best.) -- SGBailey 08:22, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Wait a minute, I sort of get what you're saying, Bear, but what's that grok word mean? I know, I'll look it up on the Misplaced Pages. Hmmm, "...was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Stranger in a Strange Land, where it is part of the fictional Martian language..." Oops, it's about fiction. I better go and nominate it for deletion now. Anville 15:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

A word can be sourced from fiction and yet become part of real-life usage. Grok is one such, muggle another. (If you don't consider muggle to be a valid word as you consider wizrads to be fictional, then try Geo-muggle which relates to Geocaching. -- SGBailey 08:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Concerns over personal attack templates

I am concerned about templates surviving TfD that appear to contrast with established policy. In particular, I feel that these templates are Poisoning the well when it comes for how we treat our fellow wikipedians. There are circumstances where knowing too much about one's neighbours politicises how one deals with them. This is, to an extent, unavoidable in society, but wearing signs of hate as badges on our shoulders takes what is a small problem that we can usually deal with into the realm of being damaging to the community. Already, there have been signs of people refusing to help each other because they are on different ends of a political spectrum -- this seems likely to get worse if this trend continues. Some people cry that this is an attack on their first amendment rights (if they're American, anyhow), but that doesn't apply here because Misplaced Pages is not the U.S. government -- it is a community that has always self-regulated, and more importantly it is an encyclopedia with a goal of producing encyclopedic content. We have a tradition of respecting a certain amount of autonomy on userpages, but never absolute autonomy. We might imagine, for example, templates with little swastikas saying "this user hates jews". I am not saying that such a thing would be morally equivalent to this template against scientology, but rather that we should aim to minimise that aspect of ourselves, at least on Misplaced Pages, so we can make a better encyclopedia. The spirit of NPOV does not mean that we cannot have strong views and still be wikipedians, but rather that we should not wear signs of our views like badges, strive not to have our views be immediately obvious in what we edit and how we argue, and fully express ourselves in other places (Myspace? Personal webpage?) where it is more appropriate and less divisive. --Improv 20:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

I do agree with some of what you've said in principle, but the problem is, there's no way to stop self identification. Even if the templates were deleted, what's to stop someone from adding "I dislike scientology" to the text on their userpage? Or making their own userbox without a template? (I've done that in a few places on my user page). It may be a slight risk to self identify (alienating other editors who disagree with you), but it's a risk we can't stop people from taking. --Bachrach44 16:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Retouched pictures

Currently a debate about the use of digital alteration, retouching and photo manipulation is taking place on Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_candidates. Are there any Misplaced Pages policoes which I just cannot find or has this issue simply not been dealt with? In the courde of the discussion I proposed a new template {{RetouchedPicture}} Please check its talk page for a short policy draft.

This is a retouched picture, which means that it has been digitally altered from its original version. Modifications: Recolored Empire State Building to match my shirt.

The template is a rip-off of {{FeaturedPicture}} and similarly puts all tagged pictures in a new category (to be created) listing all retouched pictures. Any comments are appreciated. --Dschwen 12:18, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Commons might be better suited for this kind of labeling. I posted on the commons village pump. --Dschwen 12:23, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Ignore all rules

WP:IAR has turned into a long policy gob for reasons that I only partially understand. The main issues are:

• IAR is an awful title for the concept it expresses, and it should have been changed long ago.
• There is claimed to be an "IAR cult" which religiously believes that rules are made to be broken. More generally, there definitely are people who misuse IAR because of what it appears to state.
• The current IAR page is mainly explaining that you cannot, in fact, ignore all rules.
• IAR is very important to Misplaced Pages and does not deserve to be in its current state (IMHO).

I proposed a general solution on the talk page:

1. Rewrite IAR, as shown here: Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules/temp
2. For the user guideline (stated in the Five Pillars, essentially the heart of IAR), link to Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages has too many rules which I have written.
3. For the policy statement (intended to defuse the IAR cult) move the current page to Misplaced Pages:Product over process.

The talk page is generally a mess. I haven't gained consensus for this just by attracting the passersby, so please comment either here or there. Ashibaka tock 01:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Ignore all rules can be very subtle to employ. I'm not sure about your changes. It might make it hard to employ ignore all rules correctly when it's actually needed. (which unfortunately still all too often. :-/ ). In fact, that's a common problem when trying to write guidelines upfront, instead of letting them work themselves out naturally. Hmmm. Kim Bruning 02:03, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

As a general rule if you are in a situtation where you are worried about exact wording of IARs you should not be ignoreing rules.Geni 02:14, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The current page (which discusses when breaking rules is acceptable) would be preserved, except it would be moved to a new name, where it might even evolve into an official policy instead of an "important page" since it won't have to talk about literally ignoring all rules anymore. That would be nice, eh? Ashibaka tock 02:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, and the risks are far outweighed by the short-term benefits: let's fill in the cracks as the need arises. We can move the existing policy to Misplaced Pages:Jurisprudence constante --- Charles Stewart 02:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

If nobody else has anything to say I would like to ask an admin to make the two moves described above... Ashibaka tock Save our rectangular corners! 02:13, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I definitely think a clarification has been needed for a long time. This is a step in the right direction, in my opinion. Superm401 | Talk 03:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

• IAR has turned into an excuse for admins to ignore consensus and skip out on process. They are speedily deleting first and then listing on DRV later claiming IAR. This needs to stop now.--God of War 02:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• It should be noted that Misplaced Pages:Use common sense is a redirect to Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules, and that is the true meaning of IAR - don't let the rules stand in the way of the "right thing". In a sense, WP:IAR is a generalisation of WP:DICK. -- ALoan (Talk) 03:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• Disagree that IAR means don't let rules stand in the way of (what you perceive to be) the "right thing". I like the version in Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules/temp because it seems to be the flip-side of Don't Bite the Newcomer. This version is essentially a committment to newcomers that they won't be bitten, (alas not always true) but does not give those who know better license to do as they please. --BostonMA 03:41, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I see Ignore All Rules as just our defense from feeling like drones in a bureaucracy. I hardly see it meant as absolving the responsibility of editors, and frankly quite often common sense is a better guide than policy. This project would become intolerable for me if all rules were strictly enforced at all times. Sarge Baldy 16:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I tend to read worthy thoughts into all these comments, however, I think the ignore all rules mantra was useful in the past but is now an impedement to scholarly standards. I think the rules should be well-written enough to be followed by everyone. Misplaced Pages's leadership and community now has years of experience and I think its time to start putting that to meed. Wyss 16:57, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

We got this far using Ignore All Rules as one of our basic stratagems, which got us to our current scholarly standards; but now suddenly abandoning it is what will improve our scholarly standards because... ?

One of the key reasons Ignore all rules has always been there so that scholars can just write what the fsck they know about a subject without getting harrassed by angsty rule-seeking teenagers (to name a group). :-)

The other reason we have ignore all rules is becuase the wiki seems to change almost from day to day. It's very hard to keep track of the ruleset-du-jour.

A final reason for having ignore all rules is because wikipedia is growing and changing day to day, and we need to deal with outside-context-ish problems Kim Bruning 17:44, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Again, all these points have their strengths and I totally heed your vast experience. However, while Misplaced Pages's scholarship in the sciences, maths and IT is high and more than helpful, its scholarship in the social sciences can be dismal (or at least very uneven, to a level which harms scholarly thought in the world). I mean, ignore all rules does seem to work in some areas but not in others. So I still have an opinion that if the rules were written in a certain, scalable way, there would be little need to break them and plenty of protection from the teenaged mob. Wyss 18:09, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I think to some extent if people are contributing globs of information, it doesn't ultimately matter whether, for example, it pushes the article into a POV (such as by focusing on a specific aspect and pushing the balance), because once the information is available it can be sorted out more properly by other editors. To take an eventualist standpoint, the rules are only partially necessary because the project is self-correcting. I contribute to social science articles and I can understand the criticism of the policy in relation to it (although I think it's more an issue of a lack of compotent editors to these topics than an intentional application of "ignore all rules"). I actually think "IAR" is especially important with regard to these articles, because they are the ones people are most afraid of contributing to (since, for instance, most information is abstract and there are no clear "facts"). I suppose I would agree that some rules are always necessary (i.e. no original research, vanity pages, etc) while most are not. Sarge Baldy 21:07, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Your point about "IAR" as a check against incompetent authors in the social sciences (a very real problem) is interesting and probably accurate. In my experience, however, it's less effective with trolls and salesmen. For them, I think the only protection is a clear sourcing policy and rigid enforcement of it. Hopefully, Misplaced Pages's leadership will come to understand the importance of high scholarly sourcing standards in this sort of article too. Wyss 21:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

All wikipedia policy is currently a mess. So the last rule we should mess with is Ignore All Rules for now. (Without it, wikipedia would instantly grind to a halt ;-)) Kim Bruning 03:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Strange bibliography

Can someone have a look in Foiba? There is a strange bibliography. Is it correct to analyze the political membership or the ideology of an author (particularly if these are supposed)? In Italy and for italian people this is ILLEGAL! in Italy there is a law about the privacy that specify who anybody can declare the ideology or the political membership if this is supposed. I would let you this information before my modification to restore a normal bibliography. --Ilario 13:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It was me that wrote that bybliography that way, after seeing many neo-fascist publications intermingled with other historical research. Some authors can be traced to extreme-right environments, which have been very vocal in the issue, and are therefore likely to be biased. I wanted that to be clear to a reader, without censoring any reference. It is furthermore patently false that there is any law in Italy (nor relevant since the servers are in the US, to my best knowledge) that prohibits to evaluate the political stance of the authors of references; even if it were a privacy breach (which it is not), a link is provided for each allegation to the material I based my conclusions on: according to Italian law, only the first "squealer" is punishable. --Orzetto 16:01, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

This does not seem to be standard practice on Wiki, and I would suggest that labelling authors as having a particular POV is NPOV. The better route is to include a separate element within the body of the text evaluating the source material in a way that meets the NPOV standard. Balanced critique is fine but this looks like an editor who simply has a problem with the politics of those authors. David91 07:18, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

(Sorry for indenting on your behalf ;-) The theme of "Foibe" has been a very hot topic in Italy for the extreme right. This produced a lot of propaganda material, and my effort was to "sort out" what was propaganda from the rest. I would like to stress that I did not label as "filo-fascist" all those books that are more denouncing of the Foibe, such as Sgorlon's or Bartoli's, but only those that could immediately be traced to the extreme right (such as Settimo Sigillo publishing, authors engaged in hardline fascist political parties, or with a war-crime record in those areas).

Personally I think I have seen a number of reference sections structured as "Sources in favor of X", "Sources biased against Y" and so on. If I understand you correctly, you would prefer not to place these sources in a "ghetto", and maintain a short critique beside the reference. Like:

The truth about Mickey Mouse, by Donald Duck. Donald Duck is considered to bear a significant grudge to Mickey Mouse, and his paper may be biased. He presented no references for his claims. His main argument is that M. Mouse may bring back the Bubonic plague.

(I would also add links to back up the claims in the critique, of course).

Re-reading your entry I think I misunderstood—You would prefer a section on "source credibility" or "POV of available sources"? Anyway, if you feel like editing the article in a way you think would be better to maintain users informed on what they read and the article NPOV, you are very welcome. --Orzetto 18:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

My question is simple... If a book is POV it MUST BE CANCELLED. If I mark a book with my PERSONAL OPINION I AM MORE POV THAN BOOK. Ask to my question with a simple answer. --Ilario 21:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

If a book is POV it should not be removed, or someone will come later on and add it back again, passing it (possibly in perfectly good faith) that it is NPOV. Removing information, any information, is bad practice. Misplaced Pages is supposed to be NPOV, not its sources. If the sources are (very likely to be) biased, this should be noted. Misplaced Pages's criterion is verifiability, not truth.

I would also note that Ilario has been widely abusing of his administrator status on the Italian Misplaced Pages at the same article, where he has blocked the article for two weeks with the pretext of "vandalism" or "edit wars" that never were there, and has acted effectively as a censor. In stark contrast, he has done almost nothing on the English one (except for placing a POVcheck tag), where he is not an administrator. --Orzetto 21:18, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Lawfully citing copyrighted images

Why wikipedia need public domain or free use images?

I know that image as quotaion is not needed public domain.

If I make a article, a thesis or a paper, I can quote copyrited images for my articles. It is not copyright infringement. and I need not to allow copyrighter's permission. and I can publish them as GFDL license, also.

but...why wikipedia need "Free license" images for quotation? any other purpose?

All auther, reporter in the world use any copyrited iamges for quotation, freely. why only wikipedia is restricted for quotation? why need a free license image?

I don't understand... -- WonYong (talk) 04:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

At wikipedia, iamge "itself" is not important...image "as quitation" is inportant. but... why need image itself free license? -- WonYong (talk) 04:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to contextualize Mr. WonYong's entry. Mr. WonYong is stirring controversy in the korean language wikipedia, claiming that we should disregard GFDL since South Korean copyright law allows for free citation within the realm of non-profit news reporting, criticism, research and education I have been telling him that simultaneous application of South Korean copyright law and GFDL (technically, the application of South Korean copyright law over GFDL) is against Misplaced Pages's very foundations (and the spirit of the FSF generally), and could get Wikimedia Foundation into trouble, because it would open up Misplaced Pages's content for illegal subsequent for-profit use locally illegal forms of subsequent for-profit use. However, he ignored various users' warnings, created a Misplaced Pages namespace document regarding "citations" all on his own, and started uploading a mixture of Fair Use and plain copyright images to the korean language wikipedia. (South Korea has no Fair Use equivalent, thus its use was prohibited in korean language wikipedia by consensus sometime in its beginnings). He also claims that including a copyrighted photography in a wikipedia document is "citing it". Atm we have a lively ongoing debate at the Korean Language Village Pump, sections 13-17. He also posted under section 18 a korean language translation of what he wrote here under the current subsection, which is how I came to know about this. Sooooo basically he wants Misplaced Pages to stop using GFDL. Go figure. Regards, --Yonghokim 05:44, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

free citation within the realm of non-profit news reporting, criticism, research and education?? non-profit(X) -- WonYong (talk) 06:05, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I'll grant there may exist for-profit news reporting or education. Then I shall point out that GFDL may allow any kind of commercial use as long as it abides by the GFDL, which results illegal under said SK law. --Yonghokim 06:12, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Yonghokim, I think you are not "south" korean...my english is not good. I worry about your supplement...is that comment is negative? or positive to me? -- WonYong (talk) 06:15, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

What are the images in question. Zach 06:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

He uploaded en:Image:Doctor-hwang-early2000.PNG at ko:Image:Doctor-hwang-2000.png. WonYong's home-made license tag reads as follows:

This work is a copyrighted photography from a media or similar source about a person, product or event. The act of using this image in a Misplaced Pages document that describes the person, product or event in question is considered citation according to South Korean copyright law and is considered to not be an infringement to copyright rights. According to the copyright law, no permission from the author is needed for citations. (ko:Template:quote)

--Yonghokim 06:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Delete it. Reuters says at http://today.reuters.com/Copyright.aspx "All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from this website for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world." We do not allow non-commercial images, so it will be deleted. If he uploads, block him. Zach 06:55, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Korea copyright law allow (image) "citation" (such as US fair use) and reuters legal notirication is not importnat. it is korean copyright law.

"citation by korean copyright law" need 5 element.

1. quoted object has been publiched publicly by someone.

2. to quote fot journal, paper, thesis, education, etc.

3. citation for main content. (citation=main(X))

4. to follow fair custom.

5. notify source

and of course, I can also quote copyrighted image. It is korean fair use. it is the citaion right. -- WonYong (talk) 10:06, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Your interpretation of Fair Use is mistaken. Fair Use allows for use, that is, you can print/use a photograph all by itself, and treat it as an independent object, as long as it abides by Fair Use. As an indicator of this, the US Fair Use has no clause whatsoever that says "the use itself cannot be considerably longer or equal to the original material", because, indeed, you are using the entire original material.

.

The disputed South Korean Copyright Law Article 25 states that you may cite works, and clause #3, ("citation needs to be smaller in comparison to the original source itself, and also the main text in which the citation is being used"). This is obviously an attempt to define the notion of a citation in its technicality. I can't find it right now, but the equivalent of this in US law or customary law is the practice of allowing verbatim quoting capped at 5% of the original text for academic purposes. (e.g. when you write a scholarly paper)

.

In korean language, there is another word for "use" (사용), which has a broader connotation - the SK law would have said "사용" if it aimed to be the equivalent of Fair Use. In other words, there is no South Korean equivalent of the Fair Use clause. You claim that uploading a copyrighted image to the korean lang wikipedia and then using it in a GFDL document constitutes "a quotation" of the image in question. I find your understanding to be tragically misoriented. --Yonghokim 16:25, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

The Reuters legal notice is very important since they made the damn image. They make their business by selling news photos, and they cannot have people like us taking their photos, putting it on Misplaced Pages where people can get it for free, instead of buying them from Reuters or the AP. And since this image was made very recently, people are still trying to pay for this image to use in print and television media, so if we apply the US fair use rules, we will fail and this image will be seen as a copyright violation. Zach 19:16, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

One last post of his to KLVP might shed some light to Mr. WonYong's degree of legal understanding to this whole issue (he's been bugging KLVP for two weeks now on this issue):

(User:WonYong, in response to User:Truelight's question, who had asked if "uploading" an image could really be the equivalent of "citing" it) There is no reason to make a big fuzz about copyright. ... All around the world, citations for the media, even commercial media, is legal and freely allowed. But the korean language wikipedia's copyright policy is so stiff.. and I did my research, and found out that it's actually because no one in the korean lang wikipedia is knowledgeable about copyright law! They know nothing about GFDL! This is outrageous, but understandable because it's got such a small user base. It's against common sense that you can't use the logo of Samsung in an article that describes Samsung Corportation. People rant about GFDL, FAir Use, SK CRL, US CRL but these laws are not related at all to the issue. This is about common sense. No one is actually opposing under a reasonable basis. Now I've got this huge task of making everyone else understand . They are just being stubborn. I mean, at first I thought they actually had grounds for opposing WonYong (talk) 2006년 1월 15일 (일) 15:27 (KST) korean original (see bottom). (all emphases - bold and italics - are Yongho's)

--Yonghokim 06:57, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a discussion that should more properly be contained to the South Korean Misplaced Pages, but I should note that the Misplaced Pages servers are located in and so under the legal jurisdiction of the United States and the state of Florida. Their international activities may make them subject to other jurisdictions, but they absolutely must abide by U.S. copyright law. Generally we try to choose policies of what content to accept based on what would be likely to be legally accepted in a large number of nations in which Misplaced Pages is available - don't imagine that just because the material is written in a South Korean language that it is not available or useful in other nations. Deco 21:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages servers are not limited to Florida. They can also be found in Amsterdam and Seoul. Jacoplane 05:48, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

If this is so, that only creates more restrictions on our content, as we have the same content stored and distributed at each location, and so it must obey the laws of all three countries (not to mention any other countries that end up having jurisdiction over us; see LICRA vs. Yahoo!). Deco 06:20, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pagesns also can't be certain that the laws of their home jurisdiction, if outside the U.S., would be applied to any potential copyright lawsuit aimed directly at them. The physical location of the servers as well as the nationality of the copyright owner would factor into that determination. There's certainly a risk that a copyright owner could sue a South Korean Wikipedian in the U.S. under U.S. law, and then have that judgment enforced in South Korean courts. I'm not familiar with what conflict of laws principles South Korean law uses, but if you're not either, why risk it? Postdlf 23:02, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I pointed that why? wikipedia block to "proper quote"? why wiki need free license image to quote? GFDL? it is no proper reason. All authers of the world have a right to quote. (of course image,text, etc) Why wiki block that right? I don't understand. GFDL is no relevant. quote right is all auther's right. only wiki restrict that right. All authers have a right to quote images. It is absolute right. Any restrictions can't to that right. Only wiki resctrict. It is serious problem. -- WonYong (talk) 23:58, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

You said, "All authers of the world have a right to quote. (of course image,text, etc)" That's just not true. FreplySpang (talk) 00:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Why? specificully? -- WonYong (talk) 05:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

In the United States, and I believe in all the countries of the Berne Convention, authors who want to publish works that use copyrighted prose (above a certain length), any copyrighted images, or any copyrighted poetry must get permission from the copyright holder. If they do not get this permission, they can be sued. Maybe South Korean copyright law has some kind of exception, I don't know, but United States copyright law certainly does not. FreplySpang (talk) 05:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Warning boxes are getting out of hand

Recently, we're seeing more and more "warning boxes" on articles telling us that an article is biased, incomplete, needs cleanup, doesn't cite references and other things like that. Unlike the "stub" template in the old days, which came at the bottom of the page and was relatively unobtrusive, these new templates are flashy, colorful, and the reader cannot miss them. Is this really wise?

Just as an example, take a look at Joss Stone, a "Random Article" I just came across. For three months now, everyone that comes to this article gets a "this article does not cite its references or sources" message right in the face. Why? How is this article different from the 90% of the Misplaced Pages articles which don't cite sources, or from other encyclopedias which don't cite sources? Are some of the facts listed on this page accused of being false? which facts? why? This big-shiny warning sign doesn't explain any of this to the reader; The talk page doesn't explain which citations are missing. Any reader getting to this article will seriously doubt all its content, even if just a single fact is questionable. And for three months, people have been editing that page but nobody dared remove that sign, in case it's there for an important reason (which again, nobody knows).

And this is unfortunately not a single example. I see this situation more and more. People going to articles which are not worse than the average wikipedia article, and sticking a "cleanup" tag on them, which often causes people to avoid reading and editing this "unclean" page, instead of what this tag intented them to do (and again, hardly anyone dares remove those tags). People come to a page on a controversial issue of figure that has been running find for a few years (with various arguments cropping now and again on the talk page) - and stick a "NPOV" tag on that page, when in fact nothing has changed. And again, people are afraid to remove those tags, in fear of being blaimed of hiding controversy instead of fixing them. So important articles get that big shiny colorful warning message on top of them, basically telling all readers "don't trust the crap written here. Misplaced Pages is crap - go find a better encyclopedia". I don't understand why we're insisting to send this message to our readers.

I think that the vast majority of these warning messages should appear on the talk page, if anywhere, not on the article. They *should* be followed by rationale and discussion. If messages appear on the articles, they should be like those stub messages: small, unobtrusive and at the bottom of articles.

Nyh 23:18, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

My personal rule of thumb is that any "good" article (e.g. Joss Stone) should not have any of these kind of templates for the reasons you give, any concerns should be made on the talk page. However "bad" articles (e.g. pretty much every article in Category:Articles that need to be wikified) should definately be tagged for 2 extremely important reasons; (1) So visitors to Misplaced Pages don't think they are the accepted standard (2) The articles can then be very easily found and improved to the state of a "good" article. Martin 23:29, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

There simply aren't enough people going to these articles and fixing them. And even fewer people who give articles the loving attention they need to grow. — Ambush Commander 00:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there aren't enough people fixing them, but at least they eventually get fixed/expanded/deleted, if they are not tagged they just float around forever never being improved (after a recent datadump trawl I identifed 1000s of articles that were months old and ranged from simply terrible to speedy deletes to copyvios). Martin 00:31, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Do people actually rewrite articles because they've seen them on lists?Freekee 04:13, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes! admittedly I havent much recently, but I used to work through the wikify category and deadend pages all the time. Martin 09:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

People going to articles which are not worse than the average wikipedia article, and sticking a "cleanup" tag on them This isn't an argument to stop using tags, it's an argument that the average Misplaced Pages article needs to be cleaned up. Instead of complaining about the tag, fix the page. If you don't want to fix the page, stop whining about it. DreamGuy 03:33, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

You completely missed my argument. First of all, I am fixing pages all the time, but I don't need a big shiny message box on the top to tell me that a page sucks, I can see it for myself. Secondly, much of the time, it isn't at all clear why this tag is there, and after which fix am I "supposed" or "allowed" to remove it (after I correct one false fact, did I get rid of the dispute or not? How should I know that if the person who put the tag didn't bother to explain is action? After what amount of editing can I call the article "clean"? and so on). Lastly, tags and categories are indeed great for having a way to find pages to work on, and I gave a good example: the stub categories. But, I don't see why these messages need to be so obtrusive - large, colorful and on the top of pages, or why they can't be moved to the talk page (which perspective editors will view anyway). Nyh 08:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I get an article off the cleanup list on a regular basis. Comanche was one. Golden Earring was one. Neither is FA material, but neither is embarrasing (and they were.) I did neither by myself - others helped, usually because they saw the article on cleanup also. I am currently trying hard to motivate myself to do Guiding Light - feel free to come help, there is a sandbox. KillerChihuahua 16:48, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Another example I ran across by random: Development stage is a relatively good article. Someone wrote a very short and unnecessary article Release to manufacturing, and it has been suggested (3 weeks ago) to merge them both. This is all great, but my complaint is: why is the merge suggestion so prominent on the top of the good Development stage article? Wouldn't it have been enough to have a small notice on the bottom of the page? Wouldn't it have been even better if the notice was on the talk page? In fact, the notice already links to the talk page, but as you'll notice the talk page doesn't mention this merge suggestion at all. Unfortunately, again, this is not an isolated example. I see these messages abused all the time. Nyh 09:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with you, Nyh. I find it irritating that people will slap cleanup notices on any half-decent article, and then not even raise their concerns on the Talk page. You'd think the least they could do would be explain what they saw the problems as, if they couldn't fix it themselves. I find the solution is... be bold and remove the cleanup notice, inviting anyone who still has a problem to explain on the Talk page. It nearly never happens. pfctdayelise 03:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

In the case of tags without further comment, the right thing to do is either: fix the problem; provide a comment explaining the problem; or remove the tag. Unless the tag itself says something you don't understand, if there is no further comment, and you can't see the problem - remove the tag. That's the right thing to do, don't be embarassed! If there is further comment, follow the same procedure - except read and try to understand the text, as well as the text in the tag, as above. If someone wants to put this into a policy page somewhere, please do. JesseW, the juggling janitor 07:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

And actually, this VP topic is encouraging me to go through one of the cleanup cats, and fix some stuff - so there... ;-) JesseW, the juggling janitor 07:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

"Download high resolution version" on fair use images

First of all apologies if this has been discussed before, I could not find it elsewhere. It seems very contrary to me that on certain fair use images, a link with the text "Download high resolution version" should be displayed. This would appear to contradict the fair use image templates, which state "It is believed that the use of low-resolution images' of X...". I therefore propose that the link text on the images be changed to "Download higher resolution version", or a similar message that does not imply that the image is in fact breaking the fair use laws under which it is hosted. Mushin 01:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

i'd say if a fair use image displays that link it almost certainly means its in violation of our fair use guidelines and should probablly (much as the archivist in me hates to say it) be downscaled and the original removed. Plugwash 01:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

If that's the case then all images displaying that are not actually low-resolution (I'm not sure of the actual definition used for that?) should be downsized as you say. And anyway, for a book cover, DVD cover, etc we don't need higher resolution images, regardless of their legality. Mushin 01:24, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I imagine that (once worse fair-use deviances are resolved) there will probably be a programme converting fair-use images to their screen-ready size, as used in their article. As you say, we don't need higher resolution, and our fair-use claims are strengthened a lot when we're not using or presenting more than we need. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

How low is low? I think this seems a good idea but we may want to try to pick nice dimensions that scale well (scaling a 250 to a 240 can be icky... picked as an example, why would you actually do that!) multiples of 60 are nice for that. ++Lar: t/c 02:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, WP:FAIR says "The amount of copyrighted work used should be as little as possible" (my emphasis). From that I would argue that if you intended to present a fair-use PR photo of say Evangeline Lilly at 300 pixels wide on the screen, the image stored by wikipedia should be 300 pixels wide. Given that interpretation in mind, I've started cropping the (very few) fairuse images I upload to maximise the utility we get from our few pixels - for example, the image I uploaded for Peter Mullan is dramatically cropped from a larger publicity image. Now I'm not saying that my interpretation of this is policy now, and the legal responsibility of figuring out what is and isn't fair use (supposedly) lies with the uploader (so really it's up to you), but I think a mass downscaling of fairuse images is likely to happen at some point, and I'd recommend "crop intelligently now, lest you be automatically downscaled later". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:48, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Legal issues aside, to say we don't need high-res versions of any image is shortsighted. We're building an encyclopedia, not a website, and those images will have many uses down the line for print versions of Misplaced Pages, editing, and so on. This is why we have a policy of retaining the highest possible resolution version allowed by law. Deco 06:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Besides, even if we don't count the printing, the images used are likely to grow as the next generation of displays gets higher resolution. Remember when 640x480 was common? It is not so long ago. Also, some images capture high-value details - eg. various labels and texts - that are legible only when checking the larger version. And you never know when such detail contains something crucial for somebody. --Shaddack 06:34, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree. If someone decides to make a printed copy of a Misplaced Pages article (or the entire Misplaced Pages), using these images continues to be fair use - even if printed at the finest resolution the printer has to offer. Fair use is about the purpose of use, not about the format used to store the material. Misplaced Pages should make sure that users understand that while Misplaced Pages's license allows them to copy whole articles, once you start taking only parts of articles, you lose some of the rights - and in particular, you can't take a "fair-use" labeled image out of Misplaced Pages and do anything which is not "fair use" with it - regardless of the image's resolution. Nyh 08:18, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

So what are the highest possible resolutions allowed by law? (I asked this in my second question). In any case, my original point has been somewhat sidetracked in favour of a discussion on the actual reoslution on images stored by wikipedia. To reiterate my proposal, that "the link text on the images be changed to "Download higher resolution version", or a similar message that does not imply that the image is in fact breaking the fair use laws under which it is hosted". The resolution of the images hosted is of course, as you have pointed out, dependent on the media used and the current standards. But the point is that the current wording of this message is contradictary to the wording of the fair use agreement. Mushin 10:07, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

There is no law placing a particular limit on the resolution of an image used under a fair use claim. Indeed it is not clear that in most or all cases a lower-resolution image will have a batter fair-use claim than a higher-res image will. The reasonign is that a lower-res image is less of a "Replacement for the original" which is an important factor in determing wither a use is fair use, but when a low-res image in fact serves as a replacement the high-res woudl be no more of a violation, and if other factors make the low-res image accceptable, they might also apply to the high-res version. It is very much a case-by-case and so image-by-image matter, as far as the law goes. Misplaced Pages can, of course, chose to have a policy that places an upper limit on the size or resolution of images used under a fair use claim, but no law currently requires us to do anything of the sort. DES 20:32, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

This is an accurate assessment, to my knowledge. Deco 03:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Who's Who?

During a recent AfD I came across an attempt to use one of the many "Who's Who" directories and registries as a proof of notability of an individual, to argue for the inclusion of his biography in Misplaced Pages. Doing some research I found that, for example :

• "Man of the Year - 2005, American Biographical Institute, Raleigh, N.C."

... but then found scam reports about this "award": , ,

• "America's Registry of Outstanding Professionals, 2003-2004"

.. but then read similar scam reports about this "registry":

• "The Contemporary Who's Who of Professionals"

... but could not find any such thing anywhere, besides mentions alongside of one of the scams above.

In summary, it seems that anybody can get into a "Who's Who" or get a "Man of the Year" award. Listings on these directories includes bowling coaches, gym teachers, undertakers, administrative assistants, landscapers and school nurses. There are more than 100,000 entries in "Who's Who in America.", for example.

It seems that the Who's Who publication's aren't too picky about who gets into their books. John Fox Sullivan, a member of a "Who's Who in America" board of advisors, told Forbes, "The reality is, I don't do anything." So there are a lot of self-nominated people who haven't really accomplished much. Nearly everyone who is nominated gets into the book. Read the Forbes article debunking the whole thing: "The Hall of Lame"

I would suggest adding some wording to Misplaced Pages:Vanity_guidelines and Misplaced Pages:Notability (people) to alert the community about this. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:23, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

"Who's Who" should also be viewed critically as a source, since it appears to simply print the entry of the submitter without substantial fact-checking. -Will Beback 23:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

That is exactly my point. I will try and add some wording to Misplaced Pages:Notability (people) to reflect this. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 01:40, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Sports teams that have moved with multiple articles

Recently I have come across a number of sports teams articles. A number of teams have changed cities over the years, with some having separate articles per city and others having each city in the same article. Some like the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants (baseball) just redirect to the modern day team name Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, etc. Others like the Minnesota North Stars, Montreal Expos and Hartford Whalers have their own article with a mention of the new team name in the lead. Furthermore, the Anaheim Angels article mentions the current naming dispute and then has an link to the real team article (Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). There are many more example too, that fit in either of the first two examples. Has a consensus been reached? In many of these articles, there is at least some discussion, and often heavy debate about if the articles being merged together or not. If there hasn't been a consensus, maybe it is time to set up a guideline so people have an idea on how this should be handled. I have my own beliefs as to which format I'd like to see it in, but more importantly, I'd like to see a uniform standard with regards to multiple sports page articles for the same team. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 00:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

And Decatur Staleys redirects to Chicago Bears... -- DS1953 19:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• Its not just sport teams, it also affects US broadcast articles and many other establishments. I think that both options are correct in certain cases. Many editors have wanted to merge America West Airlines out of existence since the corporate merger was announced. The fact that the airline will continue flying into 2007 does not seem to matter. Vegaswikian 18:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I do think sports teams are a little different than corporate mergers, since in the former case they carry with them the history and usually the team name (except for the city delimiter). In corporate mergers, the sense of the old company is often gone entirely. With the conversion of Marshall Field's into Macy's by Federated Department Stores, it would seem almost silly to redirect someone looking for information on Marshall Field's to an article on Macy's. Once the name is gone from a going business, someone looking for Marshall Field's is clearly looking for information on Field's, not Macy's. That is probably less true in sports teams where it is a continuous history of one organization rather than an amalgamation of separate histories lost in a larger entity. -- DS1953 19:14, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly the problem I have with this. The teams usually are still owned by the same person, have all of the same players and quite often keep the same team mascott, the only change being the city they play in. --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 22:07, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

• To answer the original question, there is no consensus. Just read the heated debate on the AFD discussion of Montreal Expos. Some people prefered to merge the Montreal Expos and the Washington Nationals, and some wanted to keep them seperate. All the arguments for and against merging have been expressed there. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:13, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

A general discussion like that was exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for the link! I guess this issue is closed (for now, I am sure it will come up again sometime in the future). --PS2pcGAMER (talk) 03:15, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Admin accountability poll

This is a gauge of community opinion on admin accountability, RFA, power abuse, and deopping. Not a policy proposal. Opinions welcome. Radiant_>|< 18:28, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Please note that additional questions have been added to this straw poll, if you went and visited it early. -- nae'blis _(talk) 23:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Blocking over fair-use image disputes

The community's input would be appreciated at Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard#Blocking_over_fair-use_image_disputes. Cheers, SlimVirgin 21:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

Defining vandalism

I would like to get input on discussion of what vandalism is at the end of Misplaced Pages talk:Vandalism. Two items are when is the removal information vandalism, and whether hoaxes are vandalism. See section Misplaced Pages talk:Vandalism#Throwing out everything with the bathwater and Misplaced Pages talk:Vandalism#Propose to list Hoax as example of vandalism. --Rob 22:25, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

What is vandalism? "I know it when I revert it". --Carnildo 01:04, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

From Misplaced Pages:Vandalism - Vandalism is any addition, deletion, or change to content made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of the encyclopedia. What exactly is ambiguous about that? I would say it clearly encompasses hoaxes, and removal of information that's made in bad faith. Of course, we assume good faith, unless the user makes it absolutely beyond question that they're acting in bad faith. Removal of information that a user really feels should not be in an encyclopedia is never vandalism, because that's a good faith edit, though it may be misguided in the extreme. -GTBacchus 02:50, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy on songs

Is it acceptable to post detailed musical analysis, a lá Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven) (although perhaps even more detail: that link is more of an overview) of songs like Candle_In_The_Wind, or even individual songs on their album pages, perhaps?

I suggest it is acceptable, because of the growing number of people studying popular music students who may have to write similar things on similar pieces.

And I'm also a bit of pedant who thinks that that sort of thing should be on the internet and gets a slight kick out of writing them.

• Actually musical analysis is exactly what most song articles need. The only problem is that it shouldn't be original research, but if you stick to uncontroversial statements that no musician would disagree with you should be fine. Kappa 00:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'd agree with Kappa but also add that analysis beyond the blindingly obvious and unarguable is acceptable, providing any subjective interpretation is from a cited, knowledgeable source. A statement that begins "von Karajan described Beethoven's 9th Symphony as..." is the sort of thing that could be useful. Reporting on analyses made by reputable music scholars and well-known composers and musicians is preferred over original research and analysis. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:38, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Why can't we be like the other Wikipedias?

I've always been rather skeptical about the article creation restrictions (especially the ones that actually apply to registered users that have been registered under X days), but having recently realized that the English Misplaced Pages is the only one with these rather controversial restrictions, I'm starting to question whether it would be a good idea to remove these restrictions.

The strangest thing for me, is that the restrictions on creating new articles were actually introduces after someone vandalized an existing article. I'm sorry, but this makes no sense to me at all, especially since creating an account actually makes it harder to trace a vandal than if they simply use their IP address.

Please can someone reconsider this policy, I'm sure many would appreciate it. --82.7.125.142 22:23, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

There is considerable opposition to this policy, but Jimbo is our benevolent dictator, and if he wants to try a disruptive experiment, well, he can. I'm sure the statistics will in the end demonstrate its ineffectiveness. (someone is measuring this stuff, right?) Deco 23:43, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I was given the impression by another post on this topic that this restriction was just imposed by some sysop. As far as I was concerned it doesn't even have a page, so I've always wondered if this could really be called policy. --82.7.125.142 23:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimbo is our benevolent dictator and this was enacted directly at his behest. Plenty of internet news media covered that. Misplaced Pages:Signpost from the appropriate week might be your best bet to get info on it. - Taxman 23:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I think deep down we all know this is just another step in the direction of eliminating anonymous editing, all we need is another high profile vandalism which causes Jimbo to have another change of heart. Martin 23:52, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Or we can just jump ahead to the ultimate fate: all users will be be forced to apply for editing privileges, subject to background checks. Sarge Baldy 16:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Try doing new pages patrol at 1AM UTC without the restriction on. There are so many new pages that it gets impossible to check existing articles for vandalism. ] 23:53, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

I've done exactly that on multiple occasions, and about 50% of new articles were vandalism (which I deleted) while the others were not. Deco 00:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

We are losing 50% valid new articles (by anons) due to the restriction? Kim Bruning 02:11, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Somewhat less - some of them create accounts and then create articles. I have no idea how to estimate this, but I consider it a net loss. Deco 02:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

No, nothing near that. I'd say 30% were valid topics, but half of those were of such poor quality that there was nothing (repeat, nothing) salvageable. ] 13:40, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Can we make a faq about this to avoid discussing this every other week? The rationale was to try and reduce the nonsense article creations, so RC patrollers would have more time on their hands to spot and revert vandalism to existing articles, so yes, there is a connection. This is about manhours wasted by good editors forced to revert crap rather than editing themselves. Difficult to estimate a net loss, or net gain here, but if you're an anon and find an article that needs creating, and you walk away because you can't be bothered to spend 30 seconds registring, it is highly unlikely that your contribution would have been worthwile in the first place. dab (ᛏ) 13:52, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's fine, but can you make it like that for the other Wikipedias, too? If it's a policy, it should be applied universally. --82.7.125.142 16:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Why? Each project has different needs. The English Misplaced Pages attracts far more vandalism than the others and so this policy is (arguably) needed here whereas on other smaller Wikipedias it wouldn't be necessary. --Cherry blossom tree 16:19, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

There are huge differences betweneen en wikipedia and the others. For exapmple in en wikipedia you have 500 changes in 9 minutes (checked 1pm UTC) while czech wikipedia (with 25000 articles) only has 500 changes in 4 hours and 40 minutes. You need different rules.--Jan Smolik 12:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Making Misplaced Pages into a reliable source

A published supplement to Misplaced Pages - a policy suggestion

Whilst Misplaced Pages articles are being written they are actually "manuscripts". An encyclopedia that is a manuscript is a rather dubious source. I would like to propose the following policy for publishing these manuscripts:

1. That articles are "published" after a review.

These would be articles that a final editorial board has read, reviewed and checked.

The editorial board for each article would be composed of those contributors who make themselves available for the board plus a subject area chairman who is also an administrator to mediate and arbitrate.

All contributors to the article would be informed a month before it is intended to publish an article.

Published articles would contain links to a manuscript section where people can contribute.

It would not be possible to edit published articles.

2. The existing editing framework is used for manuscript development.

3. Published articles would be updated at a maximum rate of monthly but preferrably no more than twice a year. If the edition frequency is kept low the articles will be more stable and become more highly rated as reference sources. It would also limit the work load on the final editorial board. Each update would be given an "edition" number that can be used as a reference in other publications and the world at large. These controls might raise the status of the articles and make them into reliable sources for academic work.

4. The main page of Misplaced Pages links most prominently to published articles and Misplaced Pages search goes to published articles.

5. Initially all existing articles are published without warning (to prevent ferocious edit disputes!).

6. It would be reasonable for a small number of articles such as current news to be editable even though published. Perhaps an "editable" section of the published text could be used.

7. So that users know whether search results in google etc. are for manuscipt or published articles the manuscripts should be marked "Manuscript: draft not yet authorised for publication".

loxley 12:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Not a new idea. Look at Misplaced Pages:Stable versions. Tupsharru 15:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't realise this was "in process". I will move over there for further discussion. loxley 19:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I submit that this concept is perhaps based on a flawed assumption? Based on a random sample of complete-looking articles, Nature places wikipedia and britannica in the same ballpark re: article quality. (though britannica currently does have a slight lead) Kim Bruning 12:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Nature only looked at articles in the natural sciences. In humanities and social sciences, the standard of Misplaced Pages is often far from acceptable (with some notable exceptions, where we have particularly competent and dedicated writers). Tupsharru 15:36, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's science, maths and IT articles are for the most part... superb (exceptions arise when the topics are referenced in popular culture but that's somewhat rare). As indicated above, WP falls on its knees in the social sciences, especially biographies and popular history topics. The problem is severe and likely won't go away without some form of internal peer review and a tightening of academic standards. I'd go so far as to suggest that articles in the social sciences/cultural domain should be vetted differently within Misplaced Pages. Wyss 16:45, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

There is another problem that I also had in mind as well as article quality. If Misplaced Pages is to be quoted by other publications there is a requirement for the quoted text to be stable. Article quality would also be improved with periodic releases. I would stress that I do not consider Misplaced Pages to be inferior, the proposal is to make it very superior. It would also stop tiresome edit wars because the editors would have to agree for publication. loxley 12:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Weeeeellll...I'm not sure that it would stop tiresome edit wars so neatly; it would just ensure that those wars were particularly violent before the 'final' version was released. (Or continuous warfare might just prevent the release of some articles.)

With respect to quotation of Misplaced Pages, there's no need for our text to be fixed for us to be quotable. Standard practice in citing a web source is to include the date the web page was accessed; the article content from that date is available in the article history for verification. Alternatively, using the permanent link link from the navigator bar on the left side of the page gives a link directly to a static version of the page; quoting a passage from that link will always work.

For that matter, I'm not sure who would be quoting passages from Misplaced Pages in the first place. Any academic writer past grade school should be quoting primary sources where appropriate and using a general-purpose encyclopedia for background information only. The newsmedia will muck up quotations anyway and have always played somewhat fast and loose with citation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

What I am suggesting is that the chairman of the final editorial board would have the casting vote before publication so that edit wars would indeed end.

What you suggest about citation looks very different to the naive reader - most of these would probably have no idea how to access the history of an article to get to a version at a particular date. A handful of "editions" is much easier to handle than a chaotic history.

The real difference from what we have at present is that every article will have been reviewed and have relative stability. The biggest advantages are higher quality, focussing the attention of the editors on delivering a good product, and a clear reference that can be cited. It would make contributors focus on the idea of an encyclopedia for actual readers. It would turn something good into something excellent.

If the editorial board is the contributors there will have been no change in the freedom allowed. loxley 13:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

I think I wasn't clear myself that what I am suggesting is a published supplement to Misplaced Pages, not a replacement. The manuscript version would still be online and accessible. I have changed the subheading of this suggestion to make this clear. loxley 13:47, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

In fact this suggestion could be implemented by simply marking the approved version of the article with something like a "__NOEDIT__" tag and allowing search engines access to that particular article as well as more recent manuscript copies. Manuscript copies could always contain the text DRAFT - SEE PUBLISHED VERSION on the first line with a link to the last published version. Published copies would contain the link EDIT THIS ARTICLE on the first line with a link back to the manuscript.

The suggestion would end edit disputes because the admin chairperson would hold the casting vote for what is to be included in the published version (they would arbitrate and mediate). This suggestion would also solve the problem of vandalism and the problem of anonymous IP's.loxley 15:20, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

• My $0.02: this sounds a bit like how Misplaced Pages started out, when they managed to publish 24 articles in 3½ years. Seriously, I think this is too restrictive; I think that if people have to wait 6 months, or even 1 month, to see their contribution made publically available, they just won't bother.
  • The idea that monthly updates will make articles "more highly rated as reference sources" doesn't work for me; there are many articles on Misplaced Pages today which are crap, but which will be much better this time next week — or even this time tomorrow. The proposal would slow that process of improvement down considerably.
  • Edition numbers are a nice idea, but would in practice change fast enough to be useless. Can you imagine everyone on the net checking their Misplaced Pages references one a month to see if there's a better edition available? And if they don't, then people will follow links into Misplaced Pages only to find obsolete versions of articles — what will that do to our rating? — Johan the Ghost _seance 12:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

You made some interesting points, I'll answer these in turn:

Nupedia used academics. Misplaced Pages gets its huge input from the public at large. Contributors would still be able to see their input immediately but it would be flagged as a manuscript - which is what it is.

Periodic updates would focus the attention of editors on the process of publishing for outside readers.

Edition numbers on each article would only change as often as the article is published. Once every six months or so would be best.

I think I wasn't clear myself that what I am suggesting is a published supplement to Misplaced Pages, not a replacement. The manuscript version would still be online and accessible. I have changed the subheading of this suggestion to make this clear - thanks. loxley 13:42, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

So like a "stable version" and a "bleeding-edge version". It's an interesting idea, and I agree that what you're proposing isn't as stifling as Nupedia, but I still have my doubts over whether the "stable version" would actually be better. Most of the changes to the manuscript are either improvements, or get reverted pretty darned quick. And we have the "featured article" process, which I think achieves a lot of what you're after, except that the featured articles have all been approved as being up to a specific standard — it's true, though, that they represent a small subset of the whole work, whereas your proposed published version would be complete. True there's no edit blocking on FAs, but they're basically all monitored, and any detrimental changes should be reverted quick, whereas improvements are widely available at once. So, my personal opinion is that we'd gain more with anti-vandalism measures than this. — Johan the Ghost _seance 14:58, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

In fact the suggestion could be implemented by simply marking the approved version of the article with something like a "__NOEDIT__" tag and allowing search engines access to that particular article as well as more recent manuscript copies. Manuscript copies could always contain the text DRAFT - SEE PUBLISHED VERSION on the first line with a link to the last published version. Published copies would contain the link EDIT THIS ARTICLE on the first line with a link back to the manuscript.

The object of the exercise would be for the article's contributors and one admin person to drive each article towards a readable, checked copy every 6 months or year. The admin chairperson would hold the casting vote in edit disputes and so prevent a lot of the faffing around in Misplaced Pages. The process might be requested by any contributor and scheduled by the chairperson for a given 2 week period. The chairperson would judge how frequently publishing should occur. Each published version would have an edition number and previous editions could be accessed through a "previous editions" tab in place of a history tab when viewing the published version.

I agree that we also need some anti-vandalism measures. However, this would actually be a foolproof anti-vandalism measure as well as a solution to the problem of anonymous IP's. loxley 15:33, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

It would be an excellent anti-vandalism measure in terms of the perceived quality of Misplaced Pages, from the point of view of people looking at the published version; but it wouldn't address one of the main problems of vandalism, which is the amount of work people have to put in to monitoring and reverting it (because it would still be happening in the manuscript). — Johan the Ghost _seance 16:43, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's try to keep discussion of this idea at Misplaced Pages talk:Stable versions, where several contributors have spent many weeks settling on a suitable process. The argument for the idea is not that the freely editable version can never be high quality, but that it cannot be guaranteed to have high quality at any instant due both to brief vandalism and evolving/incomplete content. Any such version would be purely supplementary and on equal footing with the editable version. Deco 19:18, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Use alternatives to SVG where possible

I really think we should hold back with the use of SVG format images. I personally hate to see them because I have to use IE and the blue background is so very annoying. Why are people pushing a format that simply isn't compatible with the browser used by the vast majority of our readers? violet/riga (t) 20:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but... works fine here both with Firefox and IE. Misplaced Pages actually spits out a bitmap anyway... Thanks/wangi 23:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Works For Me.

But even if it didn't, MS is working on IE now anyway. But even if they're working on IE now, I don't care. Firefox has working-ish SVG support already, and it's a free download, so no excuse. (And the SVG support lib is free as in speech too, so MS and Opera and Apple and whoever can just use it, unless they're being contrary). Once SVG support is solid in at least one browser, we should switch to putting out SVG native, this will reduce bandwidth usage and server costs considerably. If this gets people to switch to free browsers more quickly, I won't be sorry. Kim Bruning 00:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The software renders SVGs as PNGs in articles, which I think is an excellent solution to this compatibility issue (current version of IE has some transparency problems with PNGs, but it's easy to add a background shape to an SVG if necessary). I think they should send down the original SVGs for users of browsers that do support it though, which is not the current behaviour. Deco 00:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, some organizations have reasons to keep Internet Explorer. Yes, it may not be necessarily wise, but hey, that's something beyond Misplaced Pages's control. We're on a multi-platform environment anyway, and it's not as if Internet Explorer's market share is insignificant yet. In any case, spitting out a raster file for an SVG is a perfectly fine compromise and pretty decent default behavior IMAO, even if there is some kind of server load cost associated with it. — T-Boy: (complain bitterly) (laugh contemptuously) 00:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Theres a simple hack to fix PNG transparency for IE... see http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html  ALKIVAR™ 00:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm against any change that will require a browser switch, as every browser has serious problems (at least on Mac) and users should be able to use the one that works the best for what they use it for. I have one main browser and use three others depending on the application. -- Kjkolb 01:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Getting back to the original question - as it stands Misplaced Pages renders SVG files as PNG bitmaps for display, and this works well on Internet Explorer. Obviously violetriga is having a problem with something, but it's not a generic issue. T/wangi 14:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

And the problem is nothing to do with SVG in fact... After a bit of digging in Violetriga's contribs (note - always a good idea to give examples!) I came up with:

• Image:Symbol OK.png
• Image:Yes check.svg

The second, SVG-based, one will display with a grey background on IE. The problem isn't SVG, but rather IE's handling of transparent PNGs. Thanks/wangi 14:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

In a case like this, the obvious solution is to stick a white rectangle behind the check in the SVG. If IE ever gets fixed, it's easy to remove. Deco 01:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Why would you want to put a white background? I use classic skin and it has a pale yellow background... Grey is fine. -- SGBailey 23:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

User hints he will delete content on Monday night

A dispute is brewing at Talk:Canadian federal election, 2006 that could use some attention.

Canada is having a national election on Monday. The polls close at 7:30 PM EST in Newfoundland, 8 PM in the Atlantic Time Zone, 10 PM in the Eastern, Central and Mountain time zones and 10:30 PM in British Columbia.

Under Canadian law, it is illegal to publish or broadcast results from any district in a way that makes them available in a place where the polls are still open. For example, a local TV station in New Brunswick can announce results at 8 EST, but the national network cannot announce the results to Manitoba.

Because the Internet is available everywhere, it's illegal to publish results from anywhere on the Internet before 10:30 EST. A guy in Canada was fined $1,000 for doing that in 2000.

However, Canadian censorship laws do not mean anything to Misplaced Pages, which is not based in Canada. (Theoretically, a Canadian could be held liable for posting results to Misplaced Pages, but I suppose the only way a prosecutor could find out who the user is would be if he was a user with an IP address for an ID.)

In the past, Misplaced Pages has ignored censorship laws of other countries, including Canada. Last year, there was a period of a few days in which it was illegal to publish some information on the sponsorship scandal. People did anyway on Misplaced Pages.

User:E Pluribus Anthony has hinted that he will revert any attempts to post results before 10:30, even if the information comes from reputable sources. To me, this is vandalism.

How should this issue be dealt with? -- Ray Oiler 01:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't have to do anything. Someone like you will revert the deletions, he'll revert again, you'll all talk about it on the talk page and come to a consensus. There's no reason this has to involve the rest of Misplaced Pages. We do not have to my knowledge any policy for or against this, nor really need one, and I don't think anyone's going to get in trouble by posting the content if that's what they decide to do. Deco 01:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I would add that he only gets three similar reverts before being subject to a block. I agree that in principle it's up to each Misplaced Pages editor as to how or if they want to participate on the page. The servers are in Florida, USA and are presumably protected by US first amendment rights (PS I'm not a lawyer). Wyss 01:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a can of worms, and not likely to make an impact here. I doubt this will result in anything more than a temporary dispute between Wikipedians, but Wyss, I think you're missing the point. The US has specific reciprocity agreement with other countries which cover the mutual acceptance of the laws other countries pass, in exchange for the acceptance of US law outside the US. Canada is the US's biggest trading partner, and has the most agreements between these two countries. This includes but is not limited to areas of law such as Copyright, Criminal Codes, etc. Although those treaty’s don’t trump the US Constitution within the US, the Constitutional protection of free speech does not extend to non-Americans especially if they are outside of the US. So if Canada passes a law not to publish its election results until such and such a time, and that law is covered under one of the reciprocity agreements (and I'm fairly sure it is, for Canadian election law is governance), Misplaced Pages can be made to honour it, as long as it wasn’t an American publishing the results. You shouldn’t rest so heavily on your Constitutional protections not knowing international law. LinuxDude 08:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The idea that the American legal system would go along with subpoenas of IP addresses from the Wikimedia Foundation in an attempt to help the Canadian government enforce its censorship law is completely out of the realm of possibility. There have been several instances of Canadians using American-based websites to skirt Canadian publication bans, as in the case of the Bernardo trial, the Gomery inquiry and that mass murder in BC. In each case, the American publishers relied on information from Canada. But Canadian prosecutors never even thought of trying to take action against the Americans or trying to pressure them to find their Canadian sources. If an American court ever were to acquiese in a foreign government's attempt to enforce censorship laws, the outcry in the U.S. would be enormous. That's why it's never happened and never will. -- Ray Oiler 01:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

You make me think there are some aspects to this which would be even more murky than I thought and also, I should have been more thorough in my remark. I for sure was thinking more in terms of Americans (US citizens) posting to a US server. Obviously a Canadian posting un-anonymously from anywhere, or even anon from Canada (maybe even the commonwealth, I don't know) would be breaking the law. The point you make about Misplaced Pages's general liability is interesting and I'm not a lawyer but ultimately I don't think the Canadian government can effectively shut down a server in Florida which is carrying content which is legal in the US, whatever the source. However let it be said, even I wouldn't rely on my own opinion here without knowing more. I should add, given my own affection in principle for the rule of law and my sympathy for the spirit of this Canadian one, personally, I wouldn't participate on the page. But then, I'm not a Canadian who might be anxious for information Monday night! Wyss 13:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Another note -- be careful about throwing the word "vandalism" around. I'll agree with you if you say that it's inappropriate for him to revert the changes, but vandalism has a specific meaning and this does not fit. --Improv 14:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

"Censorship" seems a fairly harsh word for the situation as well: the results will be freely available after 22:30 EST (03:30 UTC on Tuesday). The extent to which content providers are protected by the First Amendment against cases brought in foreign countries is not at all clear, as the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit demonstrated recently in the LICRA v. Yahoo! case (note that this case has now been going on for five years). I would suggest placing a banner at the top of the page explaining that results cannot be published until the polls have closed and that any purported results which are added should be treated as unverifiable speculation. Physchim62 (talk) 14:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that "censorship" actually fits (although it is of a very mild form with little possible harm) -- it is government supression of the publishing of information that the press would (presumably) like to print, which meets my basic definition. Personally I see little harm in people publishing reports of information people have, so long as they include a source. Verifiability of information does not always imply the same time scope as the censorship -- instead people must wait until the end of the elections to verify the data (although whether it is the data or that the source said it is the important part of verifiability is an open question). In any case, I don't think we should be thinking about the Canadian law or trying to respect it, but there may be unrelated good policy reasons (verifiability-related or not) that should affect how we handle this) --Improv 16:26, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• See my comments on the election article's talk page for my critique of the template. Regarding the LICRA v. Yahoo! case, you appear to have taken it well out of context. That case was filed by Yahoo in California in an attempt to overrule a French court's decision. Yahoo lost in the appeals court not on the issue of free speech but on the technical issue of whether or not the company had standing in the court. -- Ray Oiler 01:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Something like Template:ElectionResultsCA, for example. The Foundation seems OK on this problem, as the offense requires intent (s. 495(4)(d) Canada Elections Act), but any editor posting results is liable to a fine of up to C$ 25,000 if the Canadian authorities can find them. Physchim62 (talk) 15:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I've nominated that template for deletion as a blatant violation of WP:NLT. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 05:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

This template should not be used. Provided no citizen of Canada posts the results, there is no risk here to anyone. Canadian criminal law cannot be enforced in the United States. It is a fundamental principle of U.S. law that one jurisdiction will not enforce the penal laws of another, let alone when to do so would violate the First Amendment. Another issue is whether you actually think it plausible that Canada would even attempt to reach across its borders to restrict the free speech of a U.S. citizen or U.S. based company. Postdlf 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• U.S. courts will not enforce foreign judgments if they are deemed to violate public policy. For instance, there have been several instances where they refused to enforce libel judgments made under British-derived law on the basis that these did not meet the stringent requirements of the First Amendment. See . Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 05:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, there is a public policy exception to the recognition of foreign judgments generally, but when the foreign judgment imposed a criminal sanction, the penal law exception applies per se without the court having to even consider policy. Postdlf 05:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
    • That template is nothing to do with US Courts. Why are you bring US Courts or US Law into it. It was simply information to Canadians, who probably don't even know their own law. Surely this discussion should be NPOV, which means not discussing that template in terms of US, East Timoran, or Uzbeki law. Nfitz 06:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
      • We're discussing policy issues. WP:NPOV isn't at question here. Your statement above would justify slapping disclaimer templates on virtually every single article in Misplaced Pages. First, let's put disclaimers on all articles related to Tibet, Taiwan, and Falun Gong telling Chinese citizens they could get in trouble for reading/posting there. Then let's put disclaimers on all Nazi-related articles telling the Germans and French they could go to jail for posting a picture of a swastika. And then we can put disclaimers on all pages with photos of unveiled women saying that they violate Saudi Arabian law and that no Saudis should read those pages. Where does it stop? My answer: According to Misplaced Pages policy and guidelines, particularly Misplaced Pages:No disclaimer templates and Misplaced Pages:No legal threats, it doesn't start. We nip this in the butt right now. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 07:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
        • Actually, Commons:Template:Nazi symbol has been around for more than a year now (it's getting a bit long, but that's the Commons for you). The French don't risk jail, just a €1,500 fine and the withdrawal of the right to bear firearms. Physchim62 (talk) 12:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
      • I have no idea what NPOV has to do with anything here. Misplaced Pages is based in the U.S., so it's only natural that U.S. law would be of chief concern to Misplaced Pages because that's the only law that Misplaced Pages must follow. Individual Wikipedians must take responsibility for themselves when it comes to their own country's laws and use Misplaced Pages at their own risk. Laws from nation to nation vary so much that as Crotalus aptly pointed out, we'd end up putting warnings on just about everything. Postdlf 07:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
        • NPOV is relevent here, because all these people not involved in the debate, are suddenly quoting US law; yet none of the people involved in the debate ever mentioned the US. Besides, the template is neither a disclaimer, nor a threat. Nfitz 08:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
        • The part of the template which is most objectionable is "Editors who post such purported results are breaking Canadian law." No one outside of Canada's jurisdiction is breaking Canadian law by publishing these results: to break a law, one must be subject to it, and Americans are not. If the template were rephrased to apply to Canadians only, it would be correct, but problematic, as others have pointed out, given that peculiar laws in many countries would require a disclaimer on nearly every page here. Xoloz 18:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Would it not be sensible to put a paragraph on the page about elections in Canada about this law, and why it exists? To me it seems a very reasonable law to have, and it seems a fundamental part of Candian elections. Don't prhase it as a warning, but as part of an encylopaedic article informign people about elections in Canada. Thryduulf 11:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe an article about similar laws across the world: I know France has one. What should we call it? Election blackout laws? Physchim62 (talk) 12:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. In Britain it is also illegal to broadcast results/exit polls/etc until the polls have closed. Perhaps call it Election reporting restrictions? Thryduulf 12:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

We still have a fundamental problem here. The User orginally the source of this discussion, is still implying that he will remove results before 10 pm Eastern. Current discussion at Talk:Canadian federal election, 2006#Removal of early results. While I personally feel that a well-worded warning template is appropriate, and that Canadians shouldn't be flouting the currrent election law (no matter how unjust), I also don't think anyone should be removing apparently valid results in a vigilante fashion. Not sure anything can be done about this until it starts happening this evening ... except more talk. Nfitz 16:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Removing red links

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this: I occasionally come across red links which are removed without apparent reason (as in - just the latest example, not trying to single out this particular editor). Is there a policy for this, or is it just that people don't like red? I was under the impression that red links are one of the strengths of Misplaced Pages, and occasioanlly added them (usually with the summary: "term needs definition" or so). Common Man 16:41, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I've encountered this problem too (e.g. —also not singling out anyone, just the first one that came to mind). There's no firm policy on this; generally what to link and what not to link are left to editorial discretion, and generally that works pretty well—but sometimes, yes, people make mistakes and delink relevant topics. I try to remove red links to obviously inappropriate titles that will never be articles; otherwise I leave them alone.

Nice example - it shows which treasures can be hidden behind a red link. Common Man 17:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Build the web, Misplaced Pages:Make only links relevant to the context, and Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links) provide some guidance. —Charles P.  (Mirv) 17:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Red links that point to an article which should be in Misplaced Pages should always stay. In other words, if a link would be relevant to the context if an article existed AND it is reasonably likely that an article will exist at some point, the link should stay. I would give as as example all of the red links at the article on Lou Henson. The red links are primarily to NBA players, each of whom is likely to have an article at some point. Those red links should not be removed. -- DS1953 17:20, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you for your replies. So, why do people remove them? All I could find in the policy is "An article may be considered overlinked if ... more than 10% of the links are to articles that don't exist" (which would apply to the Lou Henson article, BTW). Common Man 17:27, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind redlinks so much in lists, but they can be somewhat distracting in an article. I usually don't make redlinks in articles unless two things are true and almost everyone would agree that they are true. First, that we should definitely have an article on the subject (something covered in other encyclopedias would be a good example). Second, that the article is likely be written relatively soon (within a year or so). Some articles would be almost entirely redlinks if only the first rule were followed. I also consider whether someone is likely to make a new article on it because of a redlink. I'd say that's probably more likely on a list or in a popular article. Also, if many redlinks meet the criteria, I would only keep only the most notable ones. This is for redlinks I make. I don't like to remove redlinks that other people make, but I will do it if it is very unlikely that we'll ever have an article on the subject or if the article is full of redlinks. (I wrote this before your reply) -- Kjkolb 17:38, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. So you have a much stricter criterion. Why? Common Man 17:45, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Personal preference, I guess. I just find them somewhat ugly, especially in large numbers, so I try to use them only when there is a benefit. Also, as I said, I'm not as strict when it comes to removing links that others have made. -- Kjkolb 19:15, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Since no real "remover" has spoke up yet, I'll have to keep asking you - sorry. At least you seem to agree with their criterion for what's desirable. So why do you find them ugly? Because you dislike the color red, or because you dislike unfinished things? Common Man 19:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Red text really jumps out when it is on a page with a white background, black text and some blue text. I think it's more noticeable than bold. I think it makes the text harder to read because it is so effective at getting your attention. So, the color of the links is probably the biggest factor for me. I would not want terms that have articles to show up red instead of blue, either.

If I were to change the color, I'd make them appear the same color that external links now have. External links could be changed to a different color (not red, maybe light to medium green), or left the same since there is an arrow on external links to differentiate them. However, I would still want to limit the "red" links to just what is necessary because it's also harder to read when just about every word is linked. Maybe I just have sensitive eyes. -- Kjkolb 19:59, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, that can be helped! Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:Preferences, click on Misc and uncheck "Format broken links like this" Common Man 20:19, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think a difficult issue for redlinks is the ambiguous names. Often what happens is somebody makes a link to something very generic. Then, somebody comes along and makes a new article, with the same name, but for an unrelated topic, and doesn't check the backlinks, creating a false association. Many people blindly make slews of redlinks for lists of names. For instance, they'll link every credited name in a movie. So, somebody makes a bio for another actor with the same name, and it doesn't occur to anybody it was a mistake. Often, people will try to avoid this problem by "pre-disambiguating" the name, so they'll say Some Person (actor), but even that fails, because other redlinks will exist, for the same person, but with different qualifiers used in the name (maybe Some Person (American) is the same as Some Person (actor)). It all creates quite a mess. I recently saw where somebody qualified an article title with "CFL", not considering that two people with the same name played in the CFL. So, I'm somewhat negative on many redlinks. The mere fact an aricle is warranted for a topic, is not by itself grounds for a redlink. But, if an aritcle is warranted, and the article name is predictable, then a redlink may be called for.

As to why people remove them. I can't speak for others, but sometimes if I find an article had a serious problem of incorrect association caused be excessive blind linking in the past, and I see there are still a slew of extra redlinks, that will cause the same problem in the future, I might just remove those redlinks, as a preventative measure. --Rob 17:47, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I see the problems you're describing, but I disagree with your conclusion that they are a reason to avoid red links. Yes, "it all creates quite a mess" - but this is exactly the sort of mess an encyclopedia is supposed to resolve! If we dodge this problem then we're failing at the heart of our mission!

Oh, BTW, if I were to put my criterion as concisely as Kjkolb it would be like this:

Terms deserve red links if:

1. they are relevant within an article and
2. their meaning is not obvious

This is independent of the decision if a term merits an article or not because that decision is better left to the people who know the term. If they decide to replace the link with a short definition then I'm perfectly happy. Common Man 18:13, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Forgot to add: I usually only add red links when I don't know a term. If I do know a term then I'll make sure that it's at least briefly described somewhere and link there instead. (E.g. in the example of the two people with the same name who played in the CFL I'd create a stub that clarified this ambiguity. Unfortunately, this may clash with the perception that there are already too many stubs on WP.) Common Man 18:17, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it boils down to idealism versus pragmatism. Ideally all red links will one day have an article, but pragmatically to create a useable encylopedia today red links should be limited to a small number per page, in my opinion. Andycjp Jan 24 (The most depressing day of the year, according to a UK psychologist) 2006

WP:FRINGE

Hi there. The AFD/DRV debate about Aetherometry inspired me to try and hack together some proposed guidelines about the inclusion of articles about fringe theories in Misplaced Pages. At the moment the page is at WP:FRINGE for lack of a better name. Suggestions are desired, I have no stake in this one way or the other, but want to come up with some sensible metrics for deciding how notability should be decided in these instances. --Fastfission 17:58, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

We already have Category:Pseudoscience. User:Zoe| 03:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Open proxy policy

Misplaced Pages appears to have a policy of blocking edits from open proxies; see, for example, {{Template:openproxy}}. However, is that policy officially documented anywhere? I couldn't find any official "no open proxies" rule in the Misplaced Pages namespace; perhaps someone could write one? --EngineerScotty 18:26, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

• I've created a proposed policy page, at Misplaced Pages:No Open ProxiesMisplaced Pages:No open proxies. Please comment, and help build concensus to adapt (or not adapt, as appropriate). --EngineerScotty 21:43, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Moved policy name to fix caps. --EngineerScotty 02:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

ID=TOC

The use of this within articles and templates needs to be carefully done. It (not unreasonably) appears to convert whatever it is within into a "Table of contents". However, since it is possible in 'user preferences' to turn off tables of content, it means whatever is flagged this way gets turned off. Therefore this tag must never be used on anything that is the body text of an article, only on things which genuinely are content tables. I have recently come across and had to remove id=toc from Lists of people by name (one of the sub headers) otherwise I got comepletely empty pages and from the Wheel of Time book sereis where the list of books went missing. -- SGBailey 07:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Good point. Perhaps we should periodically search the dump for such misuses. Deco 08:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I originally introduced this misuse and very quickly regretted it, but then it started to proliferate because everyone was copying it from my templates, and then from their templates, etc. I'm sorry about that. — Please use class=toccolours instead. — Timwi 13:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Cool Cat/Checkuser lite

This is a proposal for semi-checkuser privileges to check for sockpuppets. See below for a draft. This idea was first mentioned by User:FrancisTyers on IRC during a casual conversation. The original version of the ideas below are a result of the discussions between User:FrancisTyers, User:Robchurch and User:Cool Cat

Procedure:

1. Two wikipedia usernames are inputted: User:Username A and User:Username B (anon usernames (aka IPs)) should never be a valid input so as not to compromise privacy.
2. The IPs (logged on wikimedia servers) are checked for simlarities
   • If people are making identical edits thats generaly adequate enough to (blindly) block them both for sockpuppetary. This tool would only reinforce such blocks.
3. Returns Likely (very similar or identical IPs) / Maybe (similar but not so close IP range) / Unlikely (IP range not similar) for a comparasion of the ips of users.

Further suggestions:

1. This could also be a single username input checked for edits by other users from same ip. Which may...
   • Return the list of users who have used the IP
   • A yes/no value if the user has made edits as an anon without revealing his ip. (if an anon and non anon user is making identical edits they obviously do not care about their IPs privacy)
     • This may be bad though I am not so sure about this suggestion.
2. Checked checkuser lite maybe either...
   • Selective list of users whom are preferably Administrators
     • I for one am not an admin who does RC patrol and if many users are vandalising the same article (with same IP or in a similar IP range) this tool would be a great help to me.
   • All Misplaced Pages:Administrators
   • Every user (Since the IP isnt revealed)

What this tool is not:

1. This tool is just a tool there are valid reasons for multiple users to have same IPs (such as proxies). This tool should never be used soley to block users.
2. This tool is not an invasion of privacy, the IP is never evealed

Have a read of the original proposal. Before comenting please. --Cool Cat 12:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• Have you thought about what consitutes "likely"? There exists to my knowledge no simple algorithm for that. Checkusering is way more complex than you imagine. Radiant_>|< 13:45, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  • This tool will compare ###.###.###.XXX and @@@.@@@.@@@.YYY. If I were to design this likely would be when ###.###.###.XXX = @@@.@@@.@@@.YYY. Again if I were designing this maybe would be where ###.###.### and @@@.@@@.@@@ are identical. Unlikely would be everything else. Reliying strictly on a tool to ban people is bad taste. Real Checkuser is an art. THis tool is not a replacement of existing checkuser privilages that would be an insult to people like davidgerard whom mastered the art of checkusers.
  • This tool is intended to relieve stress from people like DavidGerard. It is to identify if two users claiming to be diferent people who make similar/identical edits/reverts also have similar/identical IPs. Suspected sockpuppets are blindly blocked, this tool would discourage sockpuppetary.
  • If two users with identical IPs are making completely unrelated edits there is no reason to use this tool. Blocks to such users (such as people using proxies) is a violation of a number of policies and guidelines. --Cool Cat 15:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that, fundamentally, you need to see the IP address and understand it to use CheckUser. This isn't a scientific process; it's an art. Without seeing the actual address, you can't tell if it's an AOL proxy server - potentially used by 22% of the internet - or a single dialup line in rural Finland. And the implications of a match in those two contexts are very, very different. Shimgray | talk | 15:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

This is not a relacement of checusers. Checkuser is an art which few (only 2 people I know) can preform. This is to have a check for people suspected of being sockpuppets. This tool is to check two people with similar edits suspected of being sockpuppets. If people have identical IPs and edits its safe to conlude they are sockpuppets. However, just because people have identical IPs is no valid reason to block them. Evidence to suspect sockpuppetary must exist prior to the use of this tool.

Real checkusers can be bothered if this tool returns an 'unlikely' for a more indepth analysis. --Cool Cat 15:53, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Um, we don't block people for sockpuppetry alone, "blindly" or not. I'm not sure what you want to achieve with your proposal.  Grue  16:01, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Sure we do. Any block on suspected sockpuppets is strictly based on the POV of the admin weather the edits of two parties are simmilar enough or not. Similar edits with identical ips are stronger sockpuppet candidates. What am I trying to achieve? A tool to detect sockpupepts without bothering David Gerard. Something will tell me if a person I or someone else blocked is still making similar edits or not. If two diferent ips are making similar ips they should undergo real checkuser rahther than being blocked on sight. --Cool Cat 17:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

What is your aim in this? Are you expecting all admins to be given the right to use it? If so, I think it's a bad idea. You can quite easily say "I know where this user comes from" and find out if another user matches the range of IPs, even if that user doesn't want to display where they're from. I don't think that's unreasonable. This tool could easily be misused. ] 20:27, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Currently, is it extremely difficult to tell if two users have the same IP? ArbCom members have access, not just David Gerard. Why can't they use regular checkuser? If the ArbCom members are unable to use checkuser effectively, then they should not have access (or a tool should be made that makes it easier, but only they should have access, not admins). Access should be granted to a few users able to use it well and who can be trusted. -- Kjkolb 20:52, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I like the attempt at privacy, but it seems like it will lead to mistakes in banning and blocking. If you know the IP address, you can see if it has any contributions and if it has Misplaced Pages user or talk page, which may have a notice on it that it is a dynamic or static IP. Having the IP also allows you to trace it to the ISP, where you can get more information. -- Kjkolb 21:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not seeing ips. Misplaced Pages servers know your ip. they simly tell me if you and another has an identical or similar ip or not. It is a simple tool that returns YY or YN or NN. --Cool Cat 23:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this should be used as a vindication that those aren't sockpuppets, rather to check that they are. Elle _{vécut heureuse} (Be eudaimonic!) 17:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Admins should be able to be more "confortable" in blocking people whom have sockpuppet behavior and identical IPs or "less confortable" in blocking distinct ips. Thats all there is for this tool. The tool isn't abusable as far as privacy is concerned. --Cool Cat 23:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Why checuser privilages is ineficent: I cannot have prompt responses from checkusers. I generaly have to wait lenghty aminsts of time as checkusers unlike common belief have a life. Checkuser privilages to arbcomers is really useless as most arbcomers dont have the time to scratch their head. This tool ment to be a quickie check. Real checkusers wont be bothered about incidents where obvious inpersonation or sockpuppetary is present. --Cool Cat 23:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Is checkuser really hard to operate? -- Kjkolb 02:19, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

m:9/11 wiki move proposal

Feel free to vote there --Cool Cat 13:26, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

RFC Enforcement

Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Enforcement is a proposal for simple injunctions against lesser disruptions, that do not reach the level of the ArbCom. Please take a look and comment on the talk page. Radiant_>|< 13:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Providing basic background information about living people: maintenance problem

I have a question whether it is wise to provide basic background information when e.g. attributing an opinions to living persons. The problem is that this basic background information can become obsolete quickly. For example a person may be a professor in a university X as of 2006 and the next year s/he is retired. See e.g my edit here So providing basic background information may lead a maintenance problem in Misplaced Pages. Any comments? Andries 13:55, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

A good convention is to avoid time-sensitive language. For example, we might say "John Doe is best known for his work as a professor at the University of Maryland", or referring to the "2000 census population" rather than simply "the population". A common tactic you'll see is to use "As of XXXX", as in "As of 2006, John Doe is a professor at the University of Maryland". Deco 20:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Request for Merger

I have a question about proposing merging pages. How long should this be left open? I noticed one that has been open for 7 months. Isn't this way too long? Thanks... Davidpdx 15:32, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I have worked on some 30+ mergers, and imo, a week's notice should suffice after initiating the discussion, especially, if there is no opposition or more importantly, no discussion apart from yours. I always specify that I would complete the merge after a week if I do not hear any objections. Whenever there is opposition, upto a month could be provided - after that, a decision needs to be taken by the editors involved. --Gurubrahma 15:46, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Some time ago I had a similar problem, and found no page specifying how long one should wait before doing a proposed merge (or split). I think that most editors wait from a couple of days to some weeks, but having some precise statement about that somewhere could be useful. - Liberatore(T) 15:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

I guess it depends how WP:BOLD you're feeling, but one to two weeks would seem reasonable to me. It is difficult to give a hard and fast rule, as some articles have much lower traffic than others. Physchim62 (talk) 16:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

A week? The one or two I did, I gave it a day. Put notices on the talk pages of the people that looked like recent editors from the histories and then, when no one said anything (in one case) or everyone said go for it (in the others) just did it. Merging can be undone (although it's a hassle, it's not THAT bad...) since the histories are still there. Is a day too short for small closely related low traffic technical articles? if so... Ooops! ++Lar: t/c 20:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Generally, if you get no response in a week, it's fair game regardless. On high traffic articles this should never happen. If you get a couple positive responses from regular contributors, that should be enough (it can always be moved back if new dissent appears). If an article is "abandoned" (no edits in months), I'd just leave a message, go ahead and do it, and see if anybody cares. Deco 20:00, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses everyone. Davidpdx 13:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Proposal for descriptions of magic methods

A lot of heated arguments seem to turn up when magic methods are described, and it seems that it seldom is resolved in a good way. Why not rely on the industry standard so those conflicts can be avoided? I've put together a proposal here: Policy for magic methods --TStone 17:37, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Will the real policy please stand up?

Just fyi:

Guidelines

• Misplaced Pages:Consensus
• Misplaced Pages:Assume good faith
• Misplaced Pages:Don't disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point

Essay

• Misplaced Pages:Five pillars

recently marked as wikipedia humor

• Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia (and still is right now)

Can people find other such policy craziness?

Kim Bruning 18:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Be bold in updating craziness. ] 20:40, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what your point is? Consensus = policy because it's a founding principle. AGF/POINT = guidelines because they're not that clear-cut as most policy. 5P is a description, hence essay. WP:ENC is a restatement of policy, and as such is policy, but it's worded in a humourous way. Any questions? And please be clear rather than gnostic, eschew obfuscation. Radiant_>|< 22:42, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Consensus is marked as not policy. Assume good faith and Don't disrupt to illustrate a point have lead to Arbitration committee bans (as opposed to say, userboxes or Categories for speedy deletion). If you mess up on the 5 pillars you won't be around for long. There's something odd going on here. Kim Bruning 01:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, the true craziness is that most people don't know what the difference is between a policy and a guideline, and yet many people assume that there is some sort of difference, leading to bureaucratizing remarks such as "you cannot just turn this into policy without a wikiwide vote on it". My personal rule of thumb (and mind you, I'm probably responsible for classifying at least half of them) would be that all founding principles are policy, as well as any rule that defines our process or process pages, as well as anything that, when breached, gets you in trouble almost instantly. For instance, while assuming bad faith is a patently bad idea, many people do it without getting in any kind of trouble - unless they start making personal attacks and are blocked for that. Most corollaries of the above are easier classified as guidelines (or, of course, merged). There's scant policy pages that don't belong - WP:DVAIN is doubtful, and WP:HAR is mainly a corollary of WP:CIV.
    • I should also point out that there's too many pages that attempt to simply restate all basic policies - that includes WP:5P, WP:8W, WP:ENC and probably others. Redundancy is not particularly useful. Radiant_>|< 11:08, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
      • And you guys are violating WP:WOTTA now, so hardly anyone gets what you're saying. But wotta is *humor* right? So no problem. *sigh* Kim Bruning 20:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong submissions

I noticed at the page listed "List of Saturday Night Live hosts and musical guests", that people keep on adding wrong info to the list. Many are based on rumors and probably personal wants, and are doubtful to be true. What should I do?

--159.91.139.5 20:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Simple, remove the names if you confirm they don't belong. If you're unsure of a name belonging, say something first on Talk:List of Saturday Night Live hosts and musical guests. Also, be sure to mention the source used to verify names in the article (I assume imdb would work ok). The obligation is on those adding the name to verify it. Unverified info should be removed, and you're welcome to do so, if that's the case (once confident it can't be verified). --Rob 21:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

copyright and other encyclopedias

Would it be considered a copyright violation to create lists of all the articles that exist in a given encyclopedia which are not present on Misplaced Pages? Specifically, I'd like to start making a list of missing scientists using the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, but I'm not sure if the selection of included scientists itself (which certainly took a lot of effort and consideration) is covered under the copyright of that work.--ragesoss 20:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Ask at WP:MEA who have been doing similar things with other encyclopaedias. I think the general consensus was that if you mess abut with it, possibly combining it with another list or something then it's probably ok. --Cherry blossom tree 22:08, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The answer to your question is yes, the selection of such items does fall under their copyright. Hence, creating a list of scientists from compilation X that are not in Misplaced Pages is generally a copyright violation. Such lists have been created and deleted in the past. However, there is no reason you can't create a list of missing scientists. To do so legally you should draw on multiple sources and preferably not include all the entries from any one source. As Cherry blossom tree says, WP:MEA is the place for work like this. Dragons flight 22:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Supreme Court of Misplaced Pages

self-exclamatory. So what do you think? WikieZach 00:55, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's not self-exclamatory. Ξxtreme Unction|_{yakkity yak} 01:13, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Seris of nine judges nominated by Jimbo, passed by the people, are a higher Mediation Board. Arb Com. is being overworked, we need to releve pressure by having an extra place of last resort. Misplaced Pages: Supreme Court of Misplaced Pages WikieZach 04:52, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

What would this do that the ArbCom doesn't already do? --Carnildo 05:28, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Give an additional place for the wikilawyering people who already lost an arbcom decision to try to drag things out to prevent sanctions againt them... i.e. a bad idea. DreamGuy 11:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with DreamGuy - bad idea. Misplaced Pages is not a judiciary. -GTBacchus 21:45, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I haven't heard it exclaim anything, self or otherwise. User:Zoe| 21:37, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I dunno, I heard it squeak a little bit in embarassment. BTW, Anyone know more about that new image on the talk page? Seems to be from some Turkish website, the uploader gave it an obsolete PD tag but how does one verify it's really PD? ++Lar: t/c 22:34, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think all Wikilaywers should send their overly verbose appeals to the ever-patient listener, /dev/null. Radiant_>|< 23:47, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong Submissions, continued

I deleted the unconfirmed info earlier, but it was replaced. What should I do? --159.91.139.5 06:04, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about, but I assume it's some kind of content verifiability dispute in some article. Delete it again, encouraging the person to discuss it on the talk page. Seek a consensus. If they won't discuss it, the three-revert rule will eventually stop them (or if it doesn't, intervention by the people who enforce that rule or page protection or something). Deco 06:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Replying on the page where talk was initiated, or on the page of the initiator

I have seen various practices for replying to comments on user talk pages. Some reply on the page where talk was initiated, some reply on the talk page of the initiator, some have statements on their pages regarding how they will act, and some request specific actions while initiating talk. Certain discussions are indeed touchy, and shifting questions and answers between two pages may help masking the touchy stuff. However, I have seen several examples of discussions being misunderstood (by third parties, that is) because the threads are divided, where one or the other editor's comments may seem totally out of place. This may affect not only subsequent editing but also voting. I wonder if the semi-privacy of divided talk outweighs the disadvantages. Could this issue be mentioned in some policy regarding user page editing or wikiquette? Even if the guideline would allow any practice, I'd feel easier at mind. --Eddi (Talk) 10:17, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I hate trying to follow discussions where people replied on different pages, so that you only see one side of a conversation in any one place. I wish conversations would stay in one place instead of being spread all over. *Dan T.* 18:15, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm one of those with a statement. I reply to folks on my talk page that initiate on my talk page. I watch any page (for a week or so) where I initiate. When folks mistakenly reply on my talk page, I copy and paste their response back on their talk page, and reply there. I wish there was a bit more of this guideline in Misplaced Pages:Talk page#How to keep a two-way conversation readable, but that's what I follow.

I recommend (that's what I do) you to reply on the user you're talking to talk page (it's more polite), but always copy his and your replies to your and his page so you would have a consistent and understandable discussion. CG 19:23, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I reply on both, and then continue the discussion on whichever page the other person replies on. --Carnildo 07:05, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

ALLOW COPYRIGHTED IMAGES!!

Multiposted material removed. See Commons:Village_pump#ALLOW_COPYRIGHTED_IMAGES.21.21.

Dealing with images with no license/copyright info

Would it be possible to add a policy where the image uploader is notified of any lack of information so that they can have the opportunity to add it, rather than just deleting the picture and leaving the articles that use it pointing to a dead link? Thanks, --Rebroad 15:43, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Okay, three things:

1. It is already our policy to notify anyone whose image is nominated for deletion on their talk page, and using a tag on the image description page in case they're watching it.
2. It is already our policy (as far as I remember) to leave a tag on unsourced images for a while requesting more information.
3. It is definitely already our policy to orphan images before deleting them.

Deco 19:56, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

This may be policy, but this has definitely not happened in many cases. I had two images deleted recently, and was not notified about either. I only found out when I visited the articles in which they were used. Neither was orphaned before deletion either. Mushin 20:41, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I suspect that a lot of uploaders aren't notified simply because most uploaders never respond to being notified. Alr 01:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Mushin: to help prevent this in the future, I advise you to keep all images you've uploaded on your watchlist. They may forget the talk page note, but they'll never forget the IFD tag (the people on IFD would notice). Deco 01:56, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately once you get a decently large watchlist your standard watchlist view drops to a measly 12 hours making it extremely easy to miss stuff Plugwash 02:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I've got a bot (User:OrphanBot) running to try to fix this. If the image is in Category:Images with unknown source, Category:Images with unknown copyright status, or Category:Uploader unsure of copyright status, the bot will notify the uploader and, if the image is more than six days old, will remove it from any articles it's in. Of course, this all depends on getting the backlogs in those categories down to the point that the bot can get to the images before the seven-day limit is up and the images get deleted. --Carnildo 07:10, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Would it be possible to have the bot put a message on the articles talk page also, so others users can fix the problem? Also, perhaps it should remove the image from the article a couple days earlier (say 3 days), as that's an effective way of getting people to "pay attention" before its almost to late to save the image (by finding needed source info). --Rob 08:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It's already sticking an HTML comment in the article text and notifying the uploader. Do you really think that adding a comment to the talk page will help? As for earlier removal, I'm trying to strike a balance between the people who want the image removed immediately, and those who don't want the images removed until after deletion. --Carnildo 08:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Wrong Submissions, part 3

In one article, I had to delete some unverified information that was also unlikely to occur. However, people keep on placing false information into the article. This is the third instance, what should I do? --WikiPlayer 21:25, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

• Get some outside opinions, e.g. at WP:3O or the "assistance" section of the village pump, and please tell us what article you're actually talking about. Radiant_>|< 23:44, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Will this work if say, the submissions are done by more than one person? --WikiPlayer 00:34, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

• The three revert rule doesn't protect against colluding vandals (or a group of well-meaning opposers), but I'd advise you to bring it up on the talk page, encourage the other users to enter discussion, and seek out some more interested users for comment. You may discover they had a good source for the info after all. Deco 01:23, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that anybody would look at the TALK page. It hasn't been used in almost a year. So far, I have found one entry that was absolutely false, and several that are extremely unlikely. --WikiPlayer 02:24, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Since the article is being actively edited, most likely any comment you put on the talk page would be responded to. Why not try? —Wahoofive (talk) 21:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's not the right page, but I see your point. I'll try it. --WikiPlayer 22:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Font sizes: bigger and smaller

Is there any styleguide guidance on when to change font sizes? Some articles have notes and links with size=75% but most don't. patsw 04:22, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Can you point to these? People shouldn't be changing font sizes. User:Zoe| 16:32, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I see this often in featured articles... (e.g. Planetary habitability, which has smaller fonts for "Notes" and "References"). I think people often follow such practices used by featured articles, but not aware of any specific style guidelines on this. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 16:36, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I copied this question to Wikipedia_talk:What_is_a_featured_article#Font_size_in_references.2Fnotes_sections. People who review featured article candidates might have a better idea where this practice comes from. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 16:43, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The Manual of Style says:

Formatting issues such as font size, blank space and color are issues for the Misplaced Pages site-wide style sheet and should not be dealt with in articles except in special cases.

Misplaced Pages:Footnotes insists that only special templates (which incorporate CSS) should be used for notes. The "How to cite sources" guideline doesn't mention any special formatting and none of its examples use it. In other words, I'd say all existing policy discourages such usage. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Requests for rollback privileges

Please vote on the requests for rollback proposal, a proposal which would give good contributors, who are not admins, access to the rollback privilege.

Local versus global consensus

I have serious concerns about some of the actions that have taken place recently on Canadian federal election, 2006 and {{ElectionResultsCA}}. Throughout most of the election, the large, ugly warning template was posted on the top of the page, warning Canadians that they were violating the law if they posted results, and stating that any such results were speculative and unreliable (even if they came from legitimate news sources). This, to my mind, clearly violates the Misplaced Pages guideline of no disclaimer templates and the Misplaced Pages policy of no legal threats. Unfortunately, a large number of contributors on these pages disagreed. My question is what constitutes "consensus" in these cases. Is it a consensus on the pages involved only, or a global consensus throughout Misplaced Pages? In other words, can the contributors to an individual page really create a consensus to deliberately violate Misplaced Pages guidelines on that page? I've heard arguments that the messages posted didn't rise to the levels of a legal threat, but I don't buy it. Everyone who makes legal threats on Misplaced Pages denies that they are making threats, usually preferring to categorize it as a "warning" of what "might" happen if Misplaced Pages doesn't do what the threatener wants. Before a similar situation comes around again, I'd like to get more input on what the Misplaced Pages community as a whole thinks constitutes violations of WP:NLT. This seems like a pretty straightforward case to me, but obviously some others disagreed. I'm trying to understand these positions. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 04:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't address your central question, but to me a "threat" is when the author implies that s/he will take action personally if you don't do what they want. A reminder that a certain action might have legal consequences isn't really a "threat" in my book. —Wahoofive (talk) 05:50, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Poll for naming convention of television content

There has never been a naming convention for television programming on Misplaced Pages so there are articles currently named:

• Television or TV? Century City (television), Hunter (TV), Miracles (tv)
• include TV? The Boondocks (television series), Lost (TV series), Beauty and the Beast (series)
• Show type? The Chair (game show), Joey (sitcom), Martha (tv program)
• Show/show? Charlie Rose (show), Los Luchadores (Tv Show)
• ??? Academic Challenge (national)
• Network? Bullseye (CNBC), It Takes a Thief (Discovery Channel), The Late Late Show (CBS)
• Country of origin? A Current Affair (US) and A Current Affair (Australia), Blind Date (US television) and Blind Date (UK television), Big Brother (USA TV series) and Big Brother (UK TV series)

Please help out by voting at the Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (television)/poll and voting on through February 15 2006. There have been two previous polls , , which failed to reach a consensus and proved to be divisive. Make your opinion heard and fix this issue! Thanks for your input and votes --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 05:39, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages NPOV and privacy

I write this as an objective visitor, touching on a potentially contentious issue in this community. Nevertheless I've decided to make my point here and it will either be accepted and discussed, or rejected and pushed away.

It seems to me, and I think it is the right time while the Google supoena is in the collective conciousness of the internet community, that Misplaced Pages needs to outline its boundaries in regards to privacy of the individual. I don't believe it is a reasonable enough argument to say "This is of interest to a sum of people, and therefore it belongs in an encyclopedia". This logic is a red herring, and I believe it contains flaws, which I will attempt to illuminate.

Firstly, it must be realised that the regular contributors of Misplaced Pages, of which predominantly all of you are, are a closed community. You are a very large community, but you exist independantly from the collective conciousness of 'general' society. Secondly, this collectivism is further concentrated by the very design of Misplaced Pages. By that I mean, the like-minded or polarised swarm on a particular topic, and thus give it energy and life. This is a good thing -- this is what creates great articles, allows the process of refinement and drives Misplaced Pages. And a side-effect of this is that an article can become, at times, inflated for what it is. This is of course a subjective comment, but look up some anime series articles or other subcultural influence articles to see the overstated and obfuscated effect of the collective 'importance' that is placed on some articles.

Even that is not my issue. But it leads me to it, in regards to privacy of the common individual.

I refer to two examples, the David Brandt article and the Brian Chase article. They are perhaps intrinsically linked, but they are how I came to see this side of Misplaced Pages after using it for many years. Due to the controversy surrounding one of these particular figures, I'd like to make clear that I have never been in contact or any interactive context with either of these figures beyond reading and absorbing the text that flows around these names.

In the first instance, it is overwhelmingly clear that David Brandt does not want his article on Misplaced Pages. In the second, Brian Chase certainly never asked, wanted, or imagined that he would be the focus of an article. He is, of course, the archetype everyman afterall. And yet both these men have articles. And so I ask why. The common response, so I can gather from the resulting delete/keep votes is the argument I paraphrased earlier -- "This is of interest to a sum of people, and therefore it belongs in an encyclopedia".

But this negates the very real issue of moral obligation. If someone does not want their article on Misplaced Pages, is it morally right to oblige? What constitutes a public figure? In assessing that constitution, should it be taken into account the inherent closed-circle collectivism of a non-mainstream community? Should it then be assessed whether the agenda of the community affects the reasoning towards these articles?

I chose these two examples because they outline what I see is a dangerous precedent, and one that should be openly and objectively discussed. David Brandt "critisied" Misplaced Pages. Brian Chase inadvertantly brought the integrity of Misplaced Pages into the temporary spotlight. And it is impossible to remove the motivations that spawn from a community that has this put onto them, from the objective assessment as to whether there is to be a need for the article to exist.

My strong contention is that these articles are a violation of the basic principles of privacy. This is further reinforced by the shift of power that places the opinion of one person into the subjective hands of potentially thousands. When the swarm surrounds the article, and the polarization process occurs, an angle is thus formed. So Brian Chase (hypothetically) the church going family man who enjoys his old Beatles LP becomes Brian Chase (Misplaced Pages hoaxer). It is of course undeniable that he placed a hoax on wikipedia. But by process of selection, the internet now knows him through the black and white context of being, essentially, stupid. Nevermind important factors such as intent or awareness. This information will concievably be retrievable instantly for the rest of his life. As a result, the mass concencous has a prepacked opinion of this man, and that will affect his day to day work and personal life.

Please assess the ethical and moral implications of this. Put yourself in that situation if it makes it easier.

I believe this man does not warrent enough importance to have his own article. But that is my opinion. Where is the line drawn? I believe this article made it to publication because of the link with Misplaced Pages. This inflated the relevance to the community, and thus it was assessed as relevant to the broader community. Secondly, it was not balanced with the moral and ethical repercussions that would affect this man.

Unlike a traditional encyclopedia, Misplaced Pages has no real issues in regards to space. This has positive consequences. But it does effect the relevance when writing about living persons. If extrapolated, one can assume that these types of articles will continue to grow. These men are not famous. They are not prominent outside of the Misplaced Pages community. They do not deserve their own articles, regardless of the role they have played in Misplaced Pages history. They are noteable to you. Indeed, these articles exist because the people that make the focus of them have touched on Misplaced Pages history in some way. But does how does this balance with the ethical and moral obligations such a community should possess? And doesn't, in a holistic sense violate the communities rules of NPOV? I believe Misplaced Pages should assess whether it has exercised a communal POV in these cases, and in doing so with no major opposition, has not felt the need to place checks on themselves.

You are in charge of a powerful tool. But articles about science and history are very different to biographical entries. Especially so when it comes to living persons. And even more so when it comes to living persons of little cultural or historical relevance outside of the Misplaced Pages/internet community. I believe the Misplaced Pages community needs to have a meaningful discussion about this. Focus on the articles that spring up involving the "little people" -- people that outside of your community have no cultural or historical relevance -- and decide on where to draw the line. "Rational"/Logical thought argument has been the general response. So now it is time to look at these articles from a moral and ethical perspective, strongly taking the effect on the subject into account, and their inability to do anything about it.

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