Misplaced Pages

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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)

Conditionally Oppose: I see Zaorish's point, however the hundreds of hours already put into such articles would seriously discourage those people to come back and contribute elsewhere. I agree however that these articles need to be tightened. Stubs should be avoided and, when found, quickly merged with the appropriate main or more substansive article. Lady Aleena | Talk 09:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Meh-style conditional support. Yes, the argument to compile all human knowledge at Misplaced Pages is a good one, but a list of every television episode of shows like Dilbert and Stargate SG-1 isn't helpful to achieving this goal. Maybe start another Wiki, call it something like "WikiSeries," and transwiki all of those articles there. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule (Memory Alpha being a good example) where the wiki's contents make it near manditory to keep lists of that sort of thing, and synopses and all that, but Misplaced Pages should not be TV Guide. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 04:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Oppose The effects fiction has on reality has been well documented such as Star Trek communicators, making way for the cell phones. --Masssiveego 18:02, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree A project such as Wikiseries exists. It focus only on TV series. I think it's a good idea to have a short article on Misplaced Pages, and an interwiki link on a more specialized Wiki such as http://www.wikiseries.org (build by a TV series fan, only a french speaking version). This TV wiki needs some help yet. Anonymous guy 14:00 GMT+1 2 February 2006.

Oppose According to the sister wiki Wiktionary, an encyclopedia is supposed to be comprehensive]. That means everything is fair game. Part of the allure of Misplaced Pages is that you can theoretically enter just about anything and find something on the topic...and if not, you can write about it! Applejuicefool 22:05, 2 February 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)

FWIW that second one shows a pale green background in my IE. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:05, 27 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)• 18:00, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Lists of X in (year)

Problem: We have tons of lists of politicians, religious leaders, artists, literature, etc. organized by year. While these series are nice for inflating edit count, I find organization of individual articles by year to be unmaintainable, and not very useful. I (subjectively) say not very useful for lack of imagination; I'm open to justification of utility.

They are unmaintainable because they're lists of incomplete information, blatantly duplicated across many articles, and they are neglected. Duplication of information that needs to be changed is always bad. This requires lots of human labor to do something a computer can do easily. For an example of an unmaintained series, look at List of state leaders in 18BC. The adjacent years are all practically empty.

Some individual articles have been nominated for AFD, but there was no chance that a single article would be deleted considering the "precedent" of all the other year articles.

Solution: Either this needs to be automated, or reorganized to be more maintainable. Categories are normally a maintainable alternative to lists, but the current technical features of Categories are not ideal for such lists: a political leader that ruled for 50 years would need 50 category tags. We would need a technical change to allow "range" categories.

One idea that does not require software changes is to organize by decade instead of by year: that would increase maintainability by a factor of 10. And it would be more useful to the reader than browsing lots of year articles and manually comparing the differences. We can think about the optimal granularity for lists: obviously "List of political leaders in September 1984" would be too small, but "List of political leaders in 1000s" is too large. I think decade is the right granularity. —Quarl 2006-01-25 19:20Z

I agree that we should change it to decades rather than individual years. That makes these lists a potentially useful resource, which they most probably aren't at the moment. -Chairman S. 23:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the reason why they are not by decade is in recent history, like List of state leaders in 1984, they are quite full, and doing them by decade would be more troublesome. Also, they are in many senses parts of the general year pages, like 18 BC, or 1984, and so doing them in decade form would be difficult because of that, also. I would suggest you contact the people who made the first few edits to various of them, and ask them to comment on this. Regarding automating it, that is a good idea - doing it with a bot is the customary way such things are handled on Misplaced Pages, you should probably mention this on Misplaced Pages:Bot requests. This is a good point to bring up, thanks for mentioning it. JesseW, the juggling janitor 10:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I did contact some people. The sole author of the 17 BC, 16 BC, 15 BC, ad nauseum state leader articles has effectively refused to update those pages with the information from 18 BC. Normally when I see such a thing I would fix it myself, but as I've said above, I feel that would only be perpetrating a system that is unmaintainable in the long run. —Quarl 2006-01-28 00:01Z

If you are talking about this discussion;

it looks like there was some confusion in how you asked; you pointed out a simple typo that needed to be merged, and hinted(in the last part of your request), that you really wanted to talk about all those pages, but said nothing about your opinion on them; the person you spoke to misunderstood this, and responded only to the specific request that you made, not the possible offer to discuss the whole issue of List of state leaders pages. I'm glad that you contacted some people, but I don't think it was a case of anyone refusing anything - just a misunderstanding due to a less than totally clear request on your part. I strongly encourage you to post on Bot requests, asking people for ideas of ways to semi-automate the creation and maintanence of those pages, and/or coming up with such ideas on your own. This is a good point you bring up. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it appeared he misunderstood in the beginning, but his final message to me on my talk page indicated to me that he was not interested in working on the other articles. (This is why fragmented talk pages suck.) Anyway I don't wish to single him out as I have gotten bored of particular pages in the past as well. I will think about a way to do it with a bot as you suggest. Thanks. —Quarl 2006-01-28 06:45Z

Misplaced Pages:Good articles

The talk page has recently had a question about why the {{proposed}} tag has stayed on the page for so long when the guideline portion (the front matter before the TOC) has remained stable for so long. One editor simply replaced the template with a box of his own creation, and someone else replaced it, and then it got replaced again, and I restored it. The argument is that the proposed box detracts from the page, and should not remain on it indefinitely. Should this article become a {{guideline}}? Or something else? --TreyHarris 07:31, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not list it at Centralized discussion? Consider a straw poll. My first impression is that it's just redundant, despite being well-intentioned. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Redundant with what? It's specifically not Featured Articles, for the reasons described there, if that's what you're saying it's redundant with. --TreyHarris 19:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not proposed, it's not a guideline, it's a list of good articles, and hey, it's a list! It's working, it's there. We're fine with it. No one opposes it, some people actually like it. It's FINE. Congratulations with your working project namespace page.

Now stop waving around tags in peoples faces, before you find someone silly who takes offence. *sigh* Kim Bruning 18:51, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Check the history Kim, several people have opposed this in the past (mainly because this list also adds templates to every article that's on it), hence the "proposal" tag in an attempt to get more interest. Radiant_>|< 21:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the goal here is to get GA as well-accepted as FA, i.e., a standard part of Misplaced Pages. How is that done? Walkerma 20:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

By running it. If it's useful, everyone on wikipedia will use it one day. If it sucks, it'll peter out. Kim Bruning 20:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Use of pre-1923 "copyrighted" stock images

There are a couple of images on Corbis I would like to use for articles, but am reluctant to upload images from such a commercial stock image site. The images in question are pre-1923, as stated in the image information on the website. I do not know if they were in fact published before 1923 though. Corbis claims copyright on the digital version. What has been the general practice or policy with inclusion of such images on Misplaced Pages? — Eoghanacht 14:16, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

if you can asscertain they were published long enough ago tag as {{PD-US}} or {{PD-art}} depending on exactly how old they are. Plugwash 15:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Corbis can claim whatever it likes, but even reputable institutions and companies frequently claim copyright over things that are in fact public domain, because they lose nothing by doing so and will discourage plenty of copiers. This chart is very helpful in determining what is and is not in the public domain in the U.S. Regarding whether something was published, if the author died prior to 1936, it's irrelevant; it's all in the public domain. What can you tell us about the images that would help us figure out what category they belong to? Postdlf 15:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

They are black and white studio portraits of George Jay Gould II (aka "Jay Gould" or "Jay Gould, Jr."). The pictures are very obviously professionally done -- but with no photographer referenced. The first seems to have an older non-Corbis copyright tag in the lower corner -- although I cannot read all of it (only the city) at the preview resolution. This first one also has a 1910 date in the Corbis info. Unfortunately I just realized that this first image has a faint "CORBIS" watermark over it (not particulary visible in this particular image, though). The second image does not have a date, but he looks several years younger than he is in another image dated 1925. I have a version of this second file without the watermark. — Eoghanacht 16:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I would imagine they are safe to use, providing the Corbis marks and etc are stripped off of them. I really hate it when big companies and institutions make false copyright claims. They definitely know better, they just hope people believe their lies so they can sell them for big bucks. If you need help stripping stuff or want a more thorough opinion, you can post the image to someplace like yousendit.com or rapdidshare.de (I think that's the name) and link to it so one of us can look. DreamGuy 18:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Just as a note: Corbis claims the copyright to a ton of known-PD images (including a bunch of PD-USGov images). When one is sure that the image is in the public domain, one should not hestitate to ignore their blanket claims. I once tried to e-mail them about a few images I knew were PD and they responded that they don't care. --Fastfission 19:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, here is what they wrote me back (this was some time ago):

Thank you for taking the time to write with your copyright query regarding images NA007397, IH132146 and IH129444. Corbis owns the copyright to our digital scans of these images. The underlying images are in the public domain in which no one owns the copyright.

Which is complete nonsense -- scanning an image does not generate a copyright, at least not in the United States. I wrote back to them:

I'm fairly sure that it was clearly ruled in Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. v. Corel Corporation (1999) that exact photographic copies of two-dimensional public domain images could not be protected by copyright because they lack originality.

So how can Corbis claim a copyright to something which is an exact photographic copy of something which was created by the federal government and not eligible for copyright? That's my question -- it seems to me that Corbis is clearly out of line in claiming such a copyright, and is really opening itself up to a class action suit for anyone who has paid you for a copyright license.

If I'm wrong about this, I would really like to know.

References:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/36_FSupp2d_191.htm

http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/105.html

OK -- I'll admit. Using footnotes was a little pedantic. Anyway I got no reply. --Fastfission 20:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

You say that like it's a bad thing! Personally I'd award major style points for using footnotes in a letter to a big corp that uses footnotes themselves, but YMMV. ++Lar: t/c 20:12, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for all your comments. If someone would like to take the time to upload and explain the use of Corbis images IH185261 and/or IH179075 for article George Jay Gould II, you are welcome to do so -- otherwise I'll add the task to my to-do list, as I am a little too busy at the moment. Also, I will make a note of this for future reference for other images/articles. — Eoghanacht 14:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Should "Trivia" be a valid sub heading for Misplaced Pages Articles?

In the course of my browsing today, I chanced upon the Moonlight Sonata article, about Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C#m, which contains (inter alia) the following pieces of information, under the sub heading "Trivia":

• Brazilian heavy metal band Viper made a version of the "Moonlight" Sonata with lyrics in their 1989 album Theatre of Fate.
• The first movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata figures in the first Resident Evil video game
• The videogame "Earthworm Jim 2" uses the complete first movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata as background music
• The videogame Jet Set Willy plays a small portion of the "Moonlight" Sonata during the introduction sequence
• A rendition of the Sonata, performed by Alan Wilder, is included as a B-side on Depeche Mode's single Little 15.
• A variation of this song is also on the first track of Trans-Siberian Orchestra's Beethoven's Last Night album.
• Yannis Ritsos has written a poem called Moonlight Sonata.
• The musical You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown features a song that uses the tune to Moonlight Sonata
• Bass player Stuart Hamm made a version of the "Moonlight" Sonata in his album Radio Free Albemuth using a two-hand tapping technique. He performed his rendition of the Sonata at a live concert with guitarist Joe Satriani in 2002 ("Joe Satriani - Live In San Francisco").

This is utter dreck which I have deleted with satisfaction, but it raises in my mind a bigger question: why does Misplaced Pages tolerate a "Trivia" subheading in articles at all? By definition, trivia is unimportant, non notable material. Is there not be a guideline saying "please don't include pointless trivia"? If there isn't, shouldn't there be? ElectricRay 00:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I see "Trivia" or "Other information" sections as a group of small but interesting pieces of information that have not yet been expanded into complete sections. I don't think "completed" articles should necessarily have them, but they're a handy mechanism for corraling away little bits of info that need future expansion. Deco 00:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

...or just make a new page Moonlight Sonata in market-driven culture, pack plastic recycling bags with the content and eject it into deep space, retaining a subheading Main article: Moonlight Sonata in market-driven culture and the wording "The Moonlight Sonata's familiarity has generated many trivial references in market-driven culture." --Wetman 00:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I can't tell, Ray, whether your objection is to the content, or just the heading. If the latter, I agree; just change it to something more suitable, such as Quotations in popular culture. If it's the content, address it on that article's talk page (or boldly remove it); our policies already address such things. Still, the fact that the theme is recognizable enough (even in our post-musically-literate society) to be so often used in pop culture is a significant piece of information about this composition, even if the entire list is overkill. —Wahoofive (talk) 01:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Eww Eww Eww. Incorporate the info into the article somehow or I will come after you with a vengeance for making such headings. Even a different heading such as Uses... or Mentions in Popular Culture as is said above. If they're not all related to each other, then find a way to incorporate the info into the article. (Have you noticed yet that I hate these trivia sections?) — Ilyanep (Talk) 01:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Similar things were discussed at wikipedia talk:trivia - I'll move this discussion there too, when it's finished. --Francis Schonken 07:57, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I hate these. I hate them. I HATE THEM. Look at the last 50 edits to Marduk (as of this post): almost all of them are additions of such valuable gems as "In Namco's PS2 game Tekken 4, one of the playable characters is named Craig Marduk" and "In the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Evangelion pilots are chosen by a mysterious organization called the "Marduk Institute." The Institute is actually a front for SEELE, who are in possession of secret dead sea scrolls that fortell the fate of humanity and the end of the world.". Drivel, written by teenage boys, which has only the slightest tangential relevance to the topic of the article.

Look at the article right now. The crap now fills half of it—in spite of User:A Man In Black's valiant (but doomed) excision of the previous junk not three months ago—and it's only going to grow.

Okay, finished ranting. User:Wetman's suggested solution is the right one; the kiddies can scribble to their heart's content, and people who want to read about classical music or Mesopotamian mythology aren't distracted by poorly-written irrelevancies. —Charles P._(Mirv) 08:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Wetman's suggested solution is an excellent one, but for the fact that those opposed to "elitism" (etc.) would object to it. Yes, this trivia is dreary, as are "References in popular culture", which I've seen somewhere. How about the solution of a link from the (very shaky) article on Citizen Kane to "List of references to Citizen Kane in other work"? Failing that, a "Trivia" section is a good idea, given that WP is editable by all, and that thousands of earnest teenagers (of all ages) take this stuff seriously and will insist on sticking it somewhere. Better that it's labeled "trivia" than for it to muck up substantive sections of an article. And of course if some item within it is not trivial, people are free to move this item elsewhere, while leaving all the "Simpsons" references (etc etc etc) as they are. -- Hoary 08:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

All very good suggestions. Wetman, I have done as you suggested on the Marduk article - see now References to Marduk in Popular Culture and when I get a moment I will do the same for LVB. Hoary, I sort of see your point, but think there's a fine distinction between elitism and plain irrelevance - it would be equally irrelevant to the topic of Mesopotamian mythological figure - and deserving of jettison to the black expanses of deep space - that there was a character named Marduk in the Book of Kells.ElectricRay 09:13, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with Deco ElectricRay; I can't really go along with Wetman's idea, though. It would solve part of the problem, but another part of the problem is that trivia sections trivialise Misplaced Pages; making separate articles for them will do pretty much the same. Just delete them all. If something's trivial, then it doesn't belong in the article; if it belongs in the article, then it can't be trivial, and should fit into the appropriate place in the main text.

How about starting up "Trivipedia" for all the teenagers out there who add this rubbish? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny that you say you couldn't agree more with me, yet I disagree very strongly with you. I think it's fine to have these sections around and that they will, in time, develop into more integrated and expanded content. I might remove them from a published or stable version, but not from any working article. Your generalization about teenagers and proposed project are also offensive to the well-meaning contributors who add this content. Deco 22:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I was too hasty in tracing the writer of the original comment (aided by the absence of a space between comments). I've corrected it. Oh, and it wasn't my generalisation, though I repeated it, and pretty well stand by it. There are too many train-spotters here, and people who know (and care) about nothing other than the trivia of celebrities and popular culture. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

and its comments like that which keep wikipedia as the pile of shit it currently is (and is generally perceived as). those "well-meaning contributors" are dumb-ass schoolboys who play videogames all day, indulging them simply creates more cruft articles about Klingon etc that makes wikipedia = trivipedia already. gotta be harsh. KILL ALL CRUFT.

Although these trivia sections should be thoroughly cleaned of cruft (and wontedly have far too many references to cover songs and other knock-offs generally unrelated to the topic), they provide a helpful way to give the reader bits of additional, characterizing information which might otherwise bog down the article's main narrative. I'm strongly in favour of trivia sections in biographical, film and music articles. I mean, what better way to fluidly let the reader know Frances Farmer let the studio shave her eyebrows off in 1936 but had rebelliously grown them back... and untrimmed... by 1937. This would seem, uhm, trivial to mention in the main text but adds context, depth and interest to the subject. Wyss 23:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Cruft should be stamped out. If something has had a genuine impact on popular culture, a sub-article should be created if not a sub-section (see, i.e. Nuclear weapons in popular culture, which grew out of just such a crufty-subsection). --Fastfission 20:09, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I've been having the same sorts of problems all over the place. Lilith, Chimera, Dragon, Dracula, Behemoth, Jack the Ripper, Werewolf, etc. etc. keep getting filled up with all sorts of trivial references to video games, anime, roleplaying game supplements, one off mentions in tv shows, incidental one off lyriucs in songs, etc. I remove this dreck constantly every day. One of the major problems is that it's difficult to have real consensus to remove them because so many kiddies all get together to try to claim that info is vitally important. "Castlevania is the most well known and important video game series of them all, so I am going to list all the details here." etc. About the only way I've been able to have any lasting sanity is to create Werewolves in fiction, Jack the Ripper fiction, liberally move the crap to disambiguation pages and then just give up on trying to keep the cruft out of that offshoot article. It's like segregation or something. Whenever someone puts crap in the main one I suggest the offshoot, and then the offshoot is total crap but oh well. I personally think Trivia headings should just not be used, and that it's very, very clear that trivial mentions... some character named after some mythical character, one off appearances in comic books, D&D or other RPG adapting something, Magic the Gathering card, Pokemon character, etc... do not belong in the main articles unless those articles are specifically about that fictioncruft and not the main topic. We desperately need stronger policy on this, and maybe, I don't know, something to make it more clear that this is supposed to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA and not just long fanlists of every silly trivial fictional reference you can think of. DreamGuy 22:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think that trivia helps pique the reader's interest. As for relevance, the word encyclopedia comes from the Greek words enkyklios paideia, meaning "general education," or "well-rounded education." Thus, in Misplaced Pages--the largest encyclopedia ever created--any knowledge can be included. Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged defines an encyclopedia as "a work that treats comprehensively all the various branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles arranged alphabetically". Stroll by a library reference section and you will find encyclopedias of agriculture, of computing, of slang, and so on. The inclusion of trivia shows just how much encyclopedic Misplaced Pages is. Besides, deleting trivia will turn off many contributors from adding other information to Misplaced Pages and possibly turn to vandalism. Further, many of the users who add trivia are younger. If we alienate them, we destroy our future.
  --Primetime 22:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

There are plenty of young people adding real encyclopedic content here. Alienating the bad contributors to keep the good contributors is a GOOD thing. Some people just are not cut out to write encyclopedias. This shouldn't be controversial, it just is. If their only contributions are to say that some pokemon character kind of looks like Pazuzu if you squint real hard, let the alienation proceed unfettered so we don't destroy our future by having the clueless kiddies running the show while knowledgable editors get alienated. I know I don't like having to play janitor to a bunch of people whose only experience in the world is videogames and anime who think articles on other topics can be improved with the latest kewl thing they saw. I'm here to write an encyclopedia. DreamGuy 17:42, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• If you want a trivia encyclopaedia, there's a far bigger one than Misplaced Pages - it's called Google. If some method of differentiation between trivia and useful information can't be imposed, we may as well give up on wikipedia and just use Google. It's a line call whether that's a better idea already. Now it's a sociological fact that anime heads will keep adding this stuff - it's not irrelevant to them - so the answer is to give them their outlet - a "references in popular culture" page which is referenced by, but doesn't form part of, a main article achieves that very neatly. Xbox nuts are not alienated, the page isn't disrupted - that sounds to me like a workable compromise. That's certainly the approach I'm going to take from now on. ElectricRay 23:17, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

That sounds like it would make them very difficult to find. I don't think trivia authors would be too keen on that idea. I admit, though, that it is better than just deleting the information. --Primetime 08:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

maybe i didn't explain it properly: there would be a link on the page from the main article - very easy to find. see, for example, Marduk. ElectricRay 09:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't we distinguish between trivia that actually relate to the subject of the article, and trivia connected with persons or entities that just happen to have the same name? Many of the points in Marduk in popular culture don't relate to Marduk (that is the subject of the Marduk article) at all, they relate to fictional characters that just happen to have the same name, so they should surely go to a disambiguation page? --rossb 15:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• Many are expressing views I agree with, in effect, trivia's fine if it relates directly and helpfully to the subject, but the trivia sections are often used for content which is no better than link spam. Perhaps references in popular culture "see also" pages would give the cruft (cartoon characters who play Beethoven and so on) a home. Wyss 15:50, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• except that trivia is, by definition, trivial. If it's worthy of inclusion, is it "trivia"? ElectricRay 18:16, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• rossb, that was exactly what I was coming here to say. There is a distinction between material that really is important enough to a topic and just hasn't been integrated yet and that which isn't important to the topic. For example the WWII article doesn't need a trivia section remarking that it was referenced in X anime show. That's an extreme example, but not far off what is going on. Pop culture trivia or other things that aren't demonstrably important to the given topic should not be on the page, they should instead be in that pop culture topic's specific page. That makes it really easy to include important information in the right place. - Taxman 16:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• By the way, we're having a specific and contested discussion of this at Talk:George Frideric Handel. -Sesquialtera II 17:27, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

PD-art vs. PD-US

Does the tag PD-art apply to photographs of art from before 1923 without life of author plus 100 years? If not, does PD-US apply to recent photos of pre-1923 art? Justin Foote 01:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

That depends on the nationality of the artist for copyright purposes. The photograph has the same copyright status in the US as the original work, as long as the original is two-dimensional (ie, painting, but not a sculpture; see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.). Pre-1923 work by American artists is certainly PD: for other jurisdictions it might be trickier, I would have to double-check the relevant laws. As for the template, {{PD-US}} fits the bill, but please give as much info as possible on the description page (artist name, date of death, date of production of the work) to help users in other jurisdictions. Physchim62 (talk) 12:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Netoholic, {{Main article}}, {{Further}}

Something odd is going on. I'm seeing a bunch of changes:

• {{Main}} to {{Main article}}
• {{See}} to {{Further}}

I've not seen any discussion of these changes. These are cited in various guidelines, so I'd expect there to be a lot of discussion before deployment.

--William Allen Simpson 02:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy summaries

There is an almost comprehensive Misplaced Pages:list of policies. Would anyone like to add the two or three remaining summaries, check it and offer their comments or opinions? Stevage 07:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Attacks on non-contributors

It has been suggested that current policy on personal attacks be extended, in some manner, to give some protection to non-contributors (e.g. the subject of a bio article). See Misplaced Pages talk:No personal attacks#Non-contributing personal attacks. --Rob 11:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Proposed deletion

This is a proposed very simple way to deal with non-controversial article deletions. The proponet propses a live test in the near future. I think the idea is a good one, but that some degree of community support is needed to sanction a live test. Please visit Misplaced Pages talk:Proposed deletion to express your views. DES 17:27, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Song copyrights

What's the policy on quoting lyrics in songs? Do we state copyright holders - and if so, what's the prefered format here? --Flatulus 02:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean just a line, or a full song? If a full song, don't do it. It's copyrighted material. If it's just a line or two, then that falls under fair use I think. --Golbez 02:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Do quote the authors. Usually, this is clear in context. Superm401 - Talk 03:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Cite the people who wrote the lyrics. Sometimes the liner notes don't make it clear who this is - in this case just credit everybody listed as a writer on the song. There's no standard format - you can use a footnote, put it after the quote, before the quote, whatever. Don't quote more than a stanza. Deco 08:50, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Recipes

What is Misplaced Pages policy on recipes in articles? Captain Jackson 18:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not... Instruction manuals - while Misplaced Pages has descriptions of people, places, and things, Misplaced Pages articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes. Wikibooks is a Misplaced Pages sister-project which is better suited for such things. --Misplaced Pages:What Misplaced Pages is not -Raul654 18:58, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks has a recipie book! :-)

Not just recipes, but a whole b:Cookbook. Gentgeen 10:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy trifecta now entirely controversial

The policy trifecta , consisting of neutral point of view, ignore all rules, and don't be a dick is now entirely under fire from all sides, but especially from newer editors. :-)

The original writers are mostly doing foundation work now, so they're too busy to defend or explain their position on any of these rules.

As these policies have long been thought the cornerstone of wikipedia, I am beginning to doubt if simply rewriting these will actually have any meaning. (That is, won't people just keep following them anyway, or else we would have no wikipedia altogether?)

Anyway, it would be nice if people would look into this some more.

Kim Bruning 21:06, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it is inevitable that as the number of editor grows, editable policy docuents enter a state of continuous flux. As a recently arrived editor, I have found the WP policy and guideline documents to be very helpful, despite somewhat chaotic organization and a mild case of endemic inconsistency. Even if there is a lot of tug-of-rope editing and reverting going on (which I haven't really dug into the edit histories and talk pages to discover in most cases), these articles still seem to be useful and relevant, and I imagine they will continue to be. Perhaps being "under fire from all sides" will lead policy statements to become as resilient, flexible, and strong as possible? [[User:Ben Kidw ell|Ben Kidwell]] 21:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Let's hope so. They're important policies, so it'd be useful if people looked in, helped out, and thought really hard... :-) Kim Bruning 22:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree that policies need to be continually revised not only to address previously nonexistent situations, but to better suit the modern body of contributors. Nevertheless, founding principles like NPOV function as design goals for every article and are at this point essentially irrevocable except by forking - there's already one fork of Misplaced Pages based on disagreement over this policy. Deco 09:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, consider forking to MAINTAIN your view of NPOV in the near future then. Pay attention please. :-P Kim Bruning 09:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, my point is that it seems like the only way to actually change policies like NPOV is to drastically update every article, which is infeasible. Any meaningful change to the policy cannot be implemented. I think a lot of the discussion about these foundational principles isn't about changing what they mean but about spelling out details that were before implicit or vague. I hope anyway. Deco 09:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Less hoping, more helping. Kim Bruning 10:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

If I haven't already made myself clear, I don't think there is a significant danger that these founding principles will be undermined by the current edits that they are undergoing. They're intended for clarification and they're not yet settled. Deco 10:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Good luck thinking. Don't be a dick got moved to meta, ignore all rules is under threat of deprecation. I'm sure NPOV will be clarified in a similar fashion :-) Kim Bruning 10:08, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, to be honest I've only participated in the IAR discussion, and there doesn't seem to be any consensus for change there - the straw poll alone (without even looking at the various reverted conversions to redirects and moves and disagreements over rewrites) seems to indicate that nobody seems to agree on anything about IAR. It's important to be flexible, but I think consensus incorporating old blood will control drastic changes. I have no idea what the motivation was for moving DICK to meta. Deco 10:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Re: Ignore all rules, you missed Misplaced Pages:Process is Important. If you view the talk page, you will see that this page is intended to replace ignore all rules. Kim Bruning 10:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

actually you are incorrect there. Misplaced Pages:Process is Important is NOT intended to replace WP:IAR and it says so explictly. it is intended to explain the reason that I and soem other users dislike and diapprove of IAR, and I ahve said that I want IAR deleted or tqagged as rejected, but others who support Misplaced Pages:Process is Important do not agree with that opnion. More importantly, Misplaced Pages:Process is Important is intended to expalin why I and those who agree feel that actions taken outside of process (soemtimes but not always under the auspiceies of IAR) are in most cases bad ideas, and in the long run harmful to the encyclopedia. It is a set of principles and arguements, not a policy or policy proposal. If everyone on wikipedia ageed with them, IAR would cease to be a major force, i think, but I don't think you need worry about that any time soon. DES 22:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think you may be overstating the danger a little bit. For instance, the deprecation of WP:IAR was raised by one lone editor and garnered only brief discussion. I hadn't been aware of Misplaced Pages:Process is Important, which in my personal opinion is dangerous, but it's just a Misplaced Pages essay. --Nick Boalch 10:48, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

The project namespace is a mess due to user apathy. People refuse to participate in discussions, thus even key policies get warped beyond recognition. Kim Bruning 10:55, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• That's a pretty POV statement, considering that you're complaining about NPOV being in danger. Perhaps you could point to some concrete examples of POV articles, than we might have a better understanding of what the problem is? - brenneman 11:33, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
• Kim. I know you make a habit of rather inflamatory statements(evidence provided on request), but this one just cries out for evidence - "key policies get warped beyond recognition"? Which ones? Are you talking about IAR? IAR is fundamentally self-controdictory; it can't be written down; therefore it can't be "warped beyond recognition". Are you talking about WP:NPOV? I just did a detailed analysis of all the changes in that page since March 2005(look on the talk page); it has been changed, but hardly "warped beyond recognition". Please give more details. JesseW, the juggling janitor 20:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

  Thanks for the compliment. I've been practicing my inflammatory statements really hard! ;-) Well, see the topic which says "policy trifecta now entirely controversial". I shall repeat myself for your benifit: WP:DICK is off-wiki, WP:IAR did seem to have a fairly stable version for a couple of years there (but now does not, despite whatever way you seem to want to put it), and now people on the talk page of WP:NPOV are discussing a total rewrite. Kim Bruning 21:16, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• (leftify) No, I'd say that statement is entirely mistaken.
  1. WP:IAR has never been policy per se, I thought that was the whole point. Problem is (1) it's untenable in larger society (meatball:CommunityMayNotScale) and (2) people have been abusing it, to breaking point (which has led to the rise of WP:PI, which is also sometimes abused the other direction).
  2. If you check the history, WP:DICK has been on META for about a year now. I'm not sure if WP:NPOV is really in as much danger as you claim.
  3. And finally, WP:TRI is not any kind of founding principle since it was written last april.
• Radiant_>|< 21:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The trifecta was a summary of the state of the wikicommunity at that point in time, duh. So the community appears to be changing.

The whole community may not scale concept is utterly bogus. I've done some numbers and it's scaling spectacularly well. Drop by my user page for details. :-) Kim Bruning 22:23, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• One word: backlog. Radiant_>|< 22:32, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

That takes a long answer or none. Maybe we should chat on irc about this sometime. :-) Kim Bruning 22:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

3D Images on Misplaced Pages

I am alarmed at the large number of "compatible" red/cyan 3D images that are currently being added to wikipedia articles. The problem with the images is that the images look bad without the required glasses (which the majority of readers won't have). For example, User:3dnatureguy has uploaded over 100 3D images and plans to add thousands more. These images shouldn't be treated as standard article illustrations, instead being treated as an alternate media type. I feel the images would be a positive addition if they where uploaded to commons and linked to articles with the standard {{Commons}} or maybe a new template specifically stating 3D images are available at commons. Is there any existing policy on this? --Martyman-(talk) 06:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Figure out something sane. Do it. Then write down what you learned. Tag your writeup as a guideline.Kim Bruning 10:32, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I am not feeling authoritarian enough to try and write a guideline based solely on my opinion. Is there any way to judge general perception on these things before jumping in at the deep end? --Martyman-(talk) 11:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

*grin* Well, since no one has a good idea, try something. But before you do that, read through the image policies a bit, and see what you can find in old polls or what not. You might get some ideas. Try and do something that seems sane in respect to what's already there. Discuss with folks too. I know this is tricky at first. Once you figure something that works, go and do it. If it works well, PLEASE also write it down on the wiki, so other people can learn about it. (that's what the guideline bit was about). Most importantly, have fun! :-) Kim Bruning 11:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Bringing it up here is a good start, IMHO. Then maybe create a new template tagging these images as having issues? Put one or two up for deletion to judge consensus? Start a discussion page somewhere in the Misplaced Pages namespace (BTW where ARE the image policies to be found?) and try to put down the pros and cons, maybe invite a few noted metapedians to comment on it, as well as the image uploader that's uploading all of them. Personally, after going to look at a few of these (and in particular looking at an article, Custom car where they are used), I think they're distracting and make the articles look "gimmicky", and your thought that they should be treated as a separate media type rather than being acceptable as the only images in the article seems a good one to me. Hope that helps. All IMHO only, and I'm just some newb. ++Lar: t/c 19:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

As far as I can see there are not many image guidelines/polcies. The ones that exist seem to be entirely about copyright issues, rather than content. I am feeling a bit lost, and don't really know where to start. I don't feel IFD is the right path, though. I am also concerned that "anachrome" being used by the uploader to describe the images is the trademark of his company that sells 3D glasses. --Martyman-(talk) 21:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I have tried to scrape together my ideas at User:Martyman/Sandbox3 Misplaced Pages:3D Illustrations. Any comments? --Martyman-(talk) 22:01, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Martyman, if I can chim in here - my issue with the 3-D photographs is 1) the sheer number that are being posted in these articles per each article and 2) Are they illustrative of the subjects, or are they simply showing off what the process car accomplish. Here's the thing, any illustration for an article should at least provide examples of the article - a lot of these 3-D images just show a part of the car being written about (fender, or a radiator cap, etc). The problem that I have with the 3-D process images is that they are not universally accessible to Misplaced Pages's user unless they have access to the glasses which they have to buy or otherwise obtain. In there proper context, (an article on 3-D imaging, etc.) are more appropriate. Still, I really would like to encourage this user to start submitting regular images that don't showcase this limited technology. Stude62 22:23, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I have moved the proposed guideline from my sandbox to the wikipedia namespace at Misplaced Pages:3D Illustrations and tagged it as a proposed guideline. I am unsure how to go about generating discussion on it now. I have asked for the opinion of a few wikipedians I respect, but am not sure where else to ask. --Martyman-(talk) 23:22, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Response from User: 3Dnatureguy.

Let me have a chance to respond to the "tempest" that seems to have arisen over my 100 pictures posted. I have thousands,but I never said I intended to post thousands! Actually I'd be happy to cut down to just 10 new images a month to cover attrition from zealous editors! I see nothing wrong with using a noble public vehicle, like Wiki to promote progress in the area of mass education... What I offer, is being embraced by colleges and professional educators, as the months go by. I don't make or sell paper glasses at all. But tens of millions are sold by others. Many sites give them away free. I am one of several people who sell plastic glasses to colleges, science and medical schools. Anachrome is a name for "backwards compatible 3D", meaning it looks ok up to postacard size without glasses. Anachrome images have only about 5% of the "messiness" found in regular "crude" anaglyphs.So here's my case:

First I want to stress that those posted are generally good pictures in terms of color and relevancy. Secondly,they are supposed tolook at least average, overall compared to the typical illustration at the thumb size. Has anyone bothered to look at them with any of the millions of paper glasses distributed each year? These are actually offered FREE on several websites.

Here are three images posted in small thumbnails, to illustrate:

Anachrome is a process that places very high value on "backward compatiblitiy".There are only about 5 topics where bad 3D images ought to be "tolerated" on Misplaced Pages, articles about 3D and perhaps some NASA related articles. On that, we agree!

I ask you to consider that the ideal encylopedia is no longer the Britanica 1911 format, but rather something like a fusion of modern Britanica and National Geographic. Good color has come to be a staple in National Geographic, but there were many in the thirties, who couldn't conceive that a 35mm camera and a roll of Kodachrome could capture the real world in color for the magazine. Let me send glasses to the first 10 editors who take any interst. Look at these images, form an opinion on the over-all value of what you see. In the meantime I will refrain in posting more than 10 images per month, They will all be of the best possible quality in terms of "compatibility" and of course, relevancy. Finally, and most importantly I think thumbs for 3D should restricted to no larger than 150px wide, and always marked 3D as a warning to readers. Also, when both a flat version option is posted as primary, a secondary can be thumbed at one third the size of the primary. A good example is a NASA artwork, which, I think could be offered both ways. Another option would be for "stereo fans" to create our own Stereopedia, using Wiki text with our images. Is that legally doable?3dnatureguy 02:13, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Above comment copied to Misplaced Pages talk:3D Illustrations, please try to keep discussion on the proposed policy page. --Martyman-(talk) 02:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Tutorial: how to circumvent guidelines & consensus-building

See: Talk:List of Polish monarchs#Aftermath

I'm presently a bit discouraged by ethnic/nationalistic cabals driving home a firm grip on page naming, scorning wikipedia's general guidelines & policies.

The example above is about how a subset of Polish wikipedians were successful; as we all know the Icelandic subset is not less successful, for example presently holding back the adoption of Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (thorn).

In a funny way, this connects to the problems mentioned above by Kim: the same people that are successful in bending the guidelines at the outskirts of the project namespace (the "thorn" & "Polish Rulers" Naming Conventions are definitely outskirts), often as easily engage in modifying general guidelines, example Misplaced Pages talk:Ignore all rules#Change proposal --Francis Schonken 15:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I find it interesting, that when I listed the page on various noticeboards, RfC, W:Naming convention sections and talk pages, almost nobody came to debate this. But months after first proposal, after we finally gave up on attracting more opinions and started moving the pages, suddenly the case is reopened and people who invested hours into doing the research, making the proposal and such are accussed of being a nationalist, POV-pushing cabal :( --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 17:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Piotrus, don't worry too much about the name-calling - in fact I had to say the same to your opponents here --Francis Schonken 17:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Funny thing is, his opponent (i.e. me) never actually called him these names. Piotrus is merely claiming this in order to make out that he is being victimized (defense being, as the old saying goes, the best form of attack ;) ). He claimed this on another page too, I asked him to point to an example and, funny thing this, he never did. Others have used these terms for him, but not me; of course, not having done it doesn't mean I disagree with these. On the other hand, I have a growing number of examples where he did indulge in name calling, and I'll be more than happy to post links should Piotrus desire it. :)- Calgacus 18:13, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Mini-guidelines

Is there a page where guidelines specific to a small number of articles and which were created after lenghty discussions are compiled? For example Capitalizing prophet in "Prophet Muhammed" or using in this order "Judaism, Christianity, Islam" when referencing to the Abrahamic religions. CG 16:02, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

• I believe the latter has been discussed, and has largely been decided that the order of the three is not defined and should not be defined (concerted efforts to impose a standard order by individuals will likely meet opposition). If one is speaking about "the Prophet Mohammad", it would be capitalised as being part of a proper compound noun, as per the rules of English. --Improv 00:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• • There were just examples. My point was to create a page to put all these small conventions together. CG 22:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikiprojects dealing with Templates

While this policy proposal is directed at Wikiproject:Userboxes, it may as well be directed to any Wikiproject with associated templates (i.e. chemical infoboxes for the Chemistry wikiproject, school infoboxes for the Schools wikiproject, etc. etc...). I would like to turn control of the deletion of Wikiproject-related templates only to the Wikiprojects themselves and not sent to TfD. TfD is for templates that matter and templates that have value, like Misplaced Pages message boxes and Speedy Deletion tags and things like that. TfD is not for cruft, specifically cruft that lives in the User namespace and is not encyclopedic. (I'm not saying that chemical infoboxes are not encyclopedic, but like I said before, this policy practically singles out Wikiproject:Userboxes...) Why isn't this a policy? I don't see why TfD should be filled to the brim with flame wars about why "usrboxen r sux" and why "usrboxen r kewl lol," and since Userboxes have sweet give-all to do with the Misplaced Pages article namespace, why the hell are we dealing with it in a place where templates that don't suck should be dealt with? I'm not saying that userboxes suck, I'm saying that people need to take that crap elsewhere. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 19:19, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• Why not just create Misplaced Pages:Userboxes for deletion? That would sequester all the userbox debate on a separate page, and dramatically reduce the amount of clutter at WP:TFD. Plus, since some userboxes contain both a template and a category, this could handle both at once. In practice, I suspect most nominations would end in no consensus, but that already happens at TFD. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 19:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

You want to create a page solely for the purpose of reaching no consensus? Wow, that's a great idea. (I realise that's not quite what you mean, but you are basically saying that would be the effect). Sam Korn 19:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I want to create a page where unproductive, pointless discussion can be sequestered so that the rest of TFD can concentrate on important stuff. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 19:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Easy to do. It's called archiving. I'll speedy keep any template on TfD where consensus is clearly not going to be reached by discussion on that forum. What you are suggesting is a place for userbox wars to be held out of sight. If we keep them in sight, we can tell people what idiots they're being. Sam Korn 19:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I really think this is no longer a major issue. While there are people who still vote in a black-and-white way over userboxes, that has now basically ceased and those who continue can be ignored. A month is a long time on Misplaced Pages, and I think that the furore has now died. I won't go into the logistical problems of such a policy, except to say that they are myriad and not easily resolvable. Sam Korn 19:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Black-and-white voting is, in fact, alive and well. —Cryptic (talk) 19:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

But petering out, as far as I can see. Not many people vote "keep OMG userbox DELTIONIST VANDAL" any more. Those that vote in that idiotic way can be ignired, as I said. Sam Korn 19:59, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away, though. I think a UBfD page would be a great idea (sort of what I'm getting at). And granted, keeping things in sight allows us to tell people what idiots they're being, but they're still in sight for those of us who actually want work done and not cruft debates. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 03:57, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Test template

Can I get some comments on a possible update to the test warning template? See More friendly? at Template_talk:Test, Thanks!- Ravedave 20:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Copyrights revision

Quadell has started a draft of a revised Misplaced Pages:Copyrights at Misplaced Pages:Copyrights/draft. Please comment at Misplaced Pages talk:Copyrights/draft, not here. Superm401 - Talk 00:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Illegal links?

This is an interesting edit. An anon user deleted external links with edit sum removal of copyrighted material.

Well, the links actually seem to me to be a form of linkspam, but maybe not. They don't actually point to video files; I went to a couple and got a little runaround before being dumped into (in one case) a link farm and (in the other) a link farm plus what may actually be a link to a video. I suspect this dynamically-generated link will not work for anyone else. On sight, I suspect that if there is a video at the end of this rainbow, it's probably bootlegged -- but I certainly don't know this. But all these are side issues, are they not? Another side issue is the question of whether -- assuming that the links were good, that they really pointed to videos, and that those videos were legitimately released -- it would be appropriate to include them in an article about the band that made them. I think so, but I don't think that's the key issue here.

Can we link to illegal content? Easy to say no. But I don't see how we are capable of vetting all our external links in this way. Link to, say, a major film studio's trailer site -- probably legit. Link to one of the many trailer/promo sites (such as http://www.movie-list.com/), maybe okay too. But there is a continuous spectrum of such sites shading right into the Ukranian Mafia "copywho?" sites. Where do we draw the line? It's clear to me that a link itself violates no copyright.

Take the issue out of the context of copyvio and it sprouts more hair. Some site advocates the violent overthrow of the US Government; if the people that run it are notable, we might create an article about them. Should we not link to the site itself? Note that the site is in violation of US law; free speech does not protect at this limit. (cf this Mississippi State Statute.) "Patriots" will say no link; but put the shoe on the other foot. Another site advocates the independence of Taiwan from China. This site is in clear violation of Chinese law. Can we link to it?

Either:

1. We must allow external links without regard to the legal status of their destinations; and thus forbid the kind of edit I first referenced; or
2. We must develop some clear procedure for verifying that external sites violate no law; and thus forbid external links until they have been so vetted; or
3. We must set some policy describing which laws we will permit external sites to violate and develop some clear procedure for verifying that external sites comply with our policy.

What shall we do? John Reid 13:56, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Under US case law, knowingly and intentionally linking to material that violates copyright or a site whose primary purpose is to do so constitutes a form of contributory infringment and is illegal. Such links should be removed whenever they are discovered. As long as effort is made to clean up after such things, the Wikimedia Foundation is unlikely to have any liability, so it is not really necessary to test links in advance of being posted. Aside from copyvios, it is difficult to imagine any other class of material that would be so illegal to even link to. Dragons flight 15:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Come on, it's not that hard to imagine another class of material you cannot even think of linking to. --cesarb 16:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. Dragons flight 17:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's a need for new policy here. We can just keep on the way we've been doing things. Links to obvious copyvio content get the axe; if something's in a gray area (promotional material like movie trailers, for example) try to find a source that's approved by the copyright owner, but don't sweat it too much unless we're asked to remove; use good judgement and common sense with regard to linking external sites likely to be considered 'offensive'; don't link to stuff that the laws of the United States or Florida forbid us to link, because that's where our servers are. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Quotes of Eyewitnesses

In my opinion quotes of (alleged) eyewitnesses about crimes or similar actions should not be part of articles of an encyclopedia, since such quotes would make an article lurid and potentially manipulative. Is there an official policy of the Misplaced Pages about this (couldn't find any)? I'm discussing this topic in a specific case on Talk:German_17th_Infantry_Division --Volkerfreund 19:54, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

In this case it deals with confirmed witness, and the statement is used in scholar works as evidence for war crime. Volkerfreund hasn't provided any sources confirming his opinion that the witness is "alleged" --Molobo 20:02, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

You don' get it. It's not about the veracity of the quote. Even if it is true, it shouldn't be in the article for the reasons mentioned above.--Volkerfreund 20:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC) If its true and the witness isn't disputed, and neither are the facts then it shouldn't be a problem. Or do you claim it isn't true ? --Molobo 20:10, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

If the quotes are cherry picked to push a particular POV, then they violate WP:NPOV policies. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 20:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

That was my opinion, too. Could please someone "neutral" check on the article German 17th Infantry Division?--Volkerfreund 20:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Also with this particular quote, it needs to be cited. Where did it come from? And the quote would need to be put into more context, about what the role was of the German 17th Infantry Division in the massacre. If there's enough context, then maybe a shorter excerpt of the quote might be okay. -Kmf164 (talk | contribs) 20:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Where did it come from? The quote is from Institute of National Remembrance bulletin, article about Wehrmacht atrocities in September 1939.The article was written by professor Witold Kulesza who uses the quote as reference .He is the Prosecutor of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN)- Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes Against the Polish Nation --Molobo 20:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Off-Wiki Policy Discussion

Given some of the recent discussion on WP:AN/I and other forums regarding the use of the mailing list to make policy, and some of my own thoughts on the matter that have been brewing for some time, I've opened up Misplaced Pages:Off-Wiki policy discussion considered harmful. Feel free to comment. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 21:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a really, really well written and very good idea. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 21:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 21:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Anon edit summaries

Would it be possible to require that anon's enter edit summaries beyond the section heading. I imagine most petty vandals (e.g. schoolkids) would also vandalize on the edit summary. It might make it easier to pick up on vandalism to less obvious targets such as Treaty of Ghent, which sometimes get missed for a longish while. This seems like a pretty small extra burden for anon's, as we're all supposed to do that anyway. Derex 22:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Having no edit summary is better than a meaningless edit summary, though. Usually, people stumbling upon Misplaced Pages and see a typo won't know what an edit summary is and won't bother to find out. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:06, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, how about calling it "a summary of your edit", then? If a user doesn't grasp english well enough to understand that, i'd really rather they didn't edit en.wiki. Not to quarrel with your response, but I'm not sure why you regard no summary as better than a meaningless one. A meaningless one indicates to me that it should definitely be looked at -- either editor is clueless or adding nonsense. An empty one only says that the user didn't bother; so I can't distinguish between the vandals, the clueless, and the lazy (but good faith) editors. This is my point in essence, that a filled in edit summary is more informative than an empty one. Derex 23:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly clear what an "Edit summary" is. However, not every vandal is out to make a scene and draw attention - many will either put misleading messages ("fixed comma") or put random junk. Many legitimate users would put random junk too, so it's not useful for catching vandals. You can't compel someone to use a feature properly. Deco 23:52, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'll leave off responding after this, because it's unseemly to argue. However, of course, you can't compel everyone to use a feature correctly. And of course you can't catch a dedicated vandal this way. All I want to do is catch idiots putting "so & so is gay" in articles. Those are usually schoolkids, who probably have no idea at all how we go about catching vandals. My guess is that they would put crap in the summary too. So, my point is not that this would eliminate vandalism; my point is that it might make it easier to catch some (not all) idiots, and it might just encourage some useful summaries along the way. It won't eliminate the need to check edits; it will optimistically just make it more likely that RC patrol catches quickly them rather than watchlisters catching them slowly. Derex 00:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

You might be right - really I'd have to see how it plays out in practice. Deco 00:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, please do not multipost! Deco 23:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by that. You deleted my post elsewhere with a note that it was being moved here. I didn't see it here, so I assumed you had inadvertently forgotten to complete the move. Or did you move it elsewhere, or just delete it? Derex 00:07, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually I said I was moving it to proposals, not policy (since it's a proposal). I got interrupted though, and I foolishly assumed you created this section at the same time as the original one. Sorry about that. Deco 00:44, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

• or, you know, we could stop making up silly rules that only anons have to follow, that would be nice--152.163.100.200 23:59, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
  • nice talk page ;) (couldn't help myself) Derex 00:19, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

POV debates in bibliographies?

In history some topics are so hotly debated that there are “schools” of interpretation. For example, regarding Reconstruction, the New Deal, or the Cold War. Book reviews in the history journals usually tell us which book belongs, more-or-less, to school X, Y or Z. In keeping with Wiki POV policy, the article should mention the main schools. The question is whether the bibliography of the article should mention that book A belongs to school X, or Y, or Z—-or perhaps say it is “balanced” or “neutral.” Some editors have objected that any such annotation of the bibliography is itself POV and should be avoided. I propose that we encourage that sort of annotation so that the user can follow up on the different schools. Rjensen 01:03, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing POV about claiming that a book follows a particular school of interpretation if it in fact does so. Per NOR, however, try to find a claim either in the book itself or from another author asserting the book's school. Deco 01:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I think we should be very careful about adding too many editorial comments to the references. If the comment is something that is not in dispute, or as you say, some sort of clearly defined school of interpretation, then that's fine. But the problem I and other users have been having with some of Rjensen's edits are POV editorial comments like "best biography" or "series of well written essays", etc. We shouldn't be reviewing books here. We should be discussing the article content, we don't need to add a whole new level of dispute about comments in the bibliography. --JW1805 (Talk) 04:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Wiki guidelines require editors to make value judgments on books: "you should actively search for authoritative references to cite. If you are writing from your own knowledge, then you should know enough to identify good references that the reader can consult on the subject... The main point is to help the reader and other editors." The point is that "good" is a POV--that is we have to review books and make judgments that they are in fact "good". The worst disaster is to have a grab-bag of books collected from Amazon or somewhere with no quality evaluation by editors. That does not help users and degrades our quality. Useful books are reviewed in the journals and bibliographies, and it is not POV to say that a particular book has been well received. If some editor disagrees then we certainly should discuss it in the TALK page. In fact I do not recall any example of anyone disagreeing with my evaluation of a book--they are afraid of any evaluation whatever. So I think we should have a policy decision. I suggest that if an editor decides a book is a "good reference" the editor should say so, and why. Rjensen 04:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Bibliographies are the recommended reading of an author. Thus, they are an opinion in themselves. When the author is not an authority on the subject (or is anonymous, as is often the case here) they should probably justify their listing of the works in question, as well. It is usually clear which works are the most respected on a subject, especially to someone who has done print research to write an article here. Bias can also be discovered by scrutinizing adjectives used in the work and whether it is up to date can be determined by looking in the front of the book or by reading evaluative studies. Encyclopedia Britannica's bibliographies are very opinionated, as are those from Colombia Encyclopedia. --Primetime 04:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I just can't see why we need to open up this can of worms. Is every article's talk page going to have debates on all the book reviews on all the references in that article? The debates need to be about the article content, not what precise language should be used to characterize the goodness of each of the references (i.e., is it "good", "very good", "the best", "one of the best", ... ) What if a lot of people like the book and a lot of people don't? Are we going to have long complex NPOV comments for each references? Are we going to have to cite references for our reviews of references? --JW1805 (Talk) 05:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

We need to open this can because some editors are blanking comments on books--not because they think the commentary is mistaken but because they think Wiki should have a "no comment" policy. I strongly disagree. If there is going to be a Wiki policy let’s set it here and not have blanking of one editor by another. If a user wants a book on a topic we can help by saying in a few words what is involved. As for debates: the controversial topic itself can be red hot (like "Cold War") but there seldom is much debate about the quality of the books. In terms of the books that go into bibliographies, there might be debate whether A is better than B, but that is not at issue. What readers need to know is the POV of the book, and its reputation for quality. A new user will not know that, but an experienced editor will know that, and I think we should share our knowledge not keep it hidden lest someone disagree. Thus far I have NOT seen much debate on the quality of a specific book in a bibliography--very little indeed compared to the huge debates on the content of the article itself. Rjensen 05:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

(unindent)

We should not be giving opinions about books in articles. We certainly need to evaluate them to determine whether they're suitable for citing, but professing the wonders of a reference in the article itself is a clear violation of NPOV. If you must describe a reference, describe it objectively and briefly as you would the topic itself, and describe only the parts of it that pertain to the topic. If you want to emphasize the quality or notability of a reference work, use an objective measure such as its number of citations, some of the universities it's used in, or whatever. Deco 07:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Agreed that commentary should be objective and based on visible characteristics of the book, such as citations and the ratio of favorable to unfavorable reviews it receives in the scholarly journals. Rjensen 16:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

It depends. The majority of portrayals can be proven by simply reading the source referred to. These include portrayals of bias, currentness, and completeness. If the author compares it to other works, they can cite the other works that they referenced. For example, if I wanted to say the Dictionary X is the best Spanish dictionary available, I can cite (if requested) the other dictionaries I compared it to. Such a statement can also be qualified to read "in this author's opinion, Dictionary X is the best." Such a statement would need no citation.

So, to summarize: bias, currentness, completeness, and statements preceded by "in this author's opinion" shouldn't need a citation, in my opinion. Comparisons should need only a reference to the other works it was compared to. --Primetime 21:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

True, but such a statement is original research, which is forbidden. We do not as editors make value judgements, implicitly or explicitly. Deco 22:19, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that rule was meant to apply to bibliographies. Rules must be interpreted so that we enforce the will of the rulemakers (i.e., the spirit of the rule). In this case, I can find no mention of bibliographies on the talk page of the original research regulation. In any case, bibliographies are not part of an article. They are set off in printed material by headings while sections within the body of the work are set off with subheadings. The main headings thus include the body, preface, and bibliography--among others. --Primetime 22:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is intended to apply to every part of every article. It has never been mentioned on the talk page because, simply put, you're the first one to come up with such an idea. Drop a comment on that talk page and see what some of the people with interest in that policy think. Also, the use of the phrase "in the author's opinion" contradicts communal ownership of articles, in which different authors of the same article can have differing opinions. Deco 02:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Original research of course applies to the substance of an article, which is not at issue. Wiki has the positive statement that editors "should actively search for authoritative references to cite.... identify good references that the reader can consult on the subject". I read that as saying the editors should pick out the best references and include them. When editors are asked to help the readers "consult on the subject" that means tell them something about the content or thrust of the recommended books. The information is asymetric: when the editors of an encyclopedia know something that readers don't know, we should reveal it and not keep it secret. Rjensen 02:54, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe this is how it should be. We should offer the best presentation, and in selecting that presentation we make a lot of subject choices, but the end goal is an objective discussion of the topic. Sometimes information asymmetry is desirable if the information either contradicts policy or is only tangentially relevant. Misplaced Pages is not just a dumping ground for everything in our heads, it needs to be organized and verifiable fact distinguished from non-notable editorial. Deco 23:57, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain how I (as a former librarian) go about selecting titles for a short Wiki bibliography on a controversial topic like Cold War. The goals is to have every major school of interpretation represented, as well as useful surveys. A good place to start is with major scholarly books that usually have a bibliography or footnotes or historiographical passages that evaluate the literature. In addition there are numerous compendia that historians and scholars use that summarize what are the evaluations of thousands of books, In diplomatic history we rely on Beisner, ed. American Foreign Relations 2v (2003), a 2000 page compendium of book reviews. For political & Economic topics we rely on the Harvard Guide (1954 and 1970 editions, abour 1500 pages of book evaluations) and the AHA Guide to Historical Literature (2v 2000), about 2000 pages of book evaluations. For new books the most important sources are the American Historical Rev, Journal of American History, Diplomatic Hist, and J of Military History (these print about 3000+ pages of book reviews a year). Whn scanning for titles to include I will use maybe one book in 20 or 1 in 50. (In some areas like Civil War there are over 50,000 books! For Cold War the numbers probably approach 10,000 books and scholarly journal articles.) History is strikingly different from science in that old items --say 30 or 50 years old--are often essential, so we really have a lot to sort through. Rjensen 00:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Precedents on application of policy

Is there someplace on Misplaced Pages that collects precendents on application of policies, especially for "borderline" cases? For example, on RfC, we are currently debating a possible violation of 'no scatological usernames' which is not clear cut. I would like to review past similar cases. Is there somewhere that already exists where I would look for this? ike9898 01:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the 3D image issue: The Wikipedian contributor who posted most of the so called "compatible" 3D images, can't have a say because he has been blocked or deleted. This is not air, when he is being asked to co-operate in establishing guidelines. Can this be fixed. 69.226.54.6 04:29, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Unregisted users creating pages

Does anyone know when unregisted users are allowed to create pages again?

Sadly, it might never happen. Jimbo Wales personally created this policy, and although many disagree with it, his word is bond. Sarge Baldy 05:04, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

The way I heard it this an "experiment" for Jimbo, to see how effective it is at decreasing vandalism. Unfortunately, to my knowledge no one is quantitatively measuring the effect of the change - which makes any kind of experimental result we might have derived inaccessible. We do as a community have weight with Jimbo, but without clear evidence that it has a negative impact, I don't know if we'll see it get changed back any time soon. Deco 08:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Any editor who ever spent an hour or so under the previous arrangement, attempting to effect triage on the steady flow of garbage, would likely be under the impression that nothing of value is currently being lost. This impression will be easily dismissed as "anecdotal"—even "elite". --Wetman 08:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

I've spent many hours doing exactly that, and I am, to the contrary, under the impression that much of value is being lost, and moreover that much of the trash continues to be created by fresh user accounts. Deco 22:21, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Systematic violation of rules by administrators at international Wiki sites

How are the other international Misplaced Pages sites monitored so that they follow the Misplaced Pages spirit and policies? I think there is danger that a small group of bureacrats can hold the new encyclopedia to themselves and keep out the users from editing, for example, by adding protection to articles for no reason, but then continuing to edit the article how only they want. This has happened. Another question, how are the first adminstrators of a new international Misplaced Pages site selected? 192.100.124.218 10:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

This kind of discussion is more suited for meta, since it's there that all international and cross-wiki issues are discussed. You should look there — there is, for instance, a page where new language encyclopedias are/were proposed and discussed. --cesarb 14:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, meta isn't exactly the most active wiki. You may want to post a link to advertise it here. Deco 20:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have asked the question at the Meta discussion page 192.100.124.218 11:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

wording of ((guideline)) and ((style-guideline))

The wording of Template:guideline and Template:style-guideline have quite different tones to them--

• style-guideline: This page is a style guide for Misplaced Pages. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here. Misplaced Pages articles should heed these rules. Feel free to update this page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes.

• guideline: This page is considered a guideline on Misplaced Pages. It illustrates standards of conduct, which many editors agree with in principle. Although it may be advisable to follow it, it is not however policy. Feel free to update the page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose any major changes.

The former is much more restrictively worded than the latter - cf 'is' and 'is considered', and 'should heed' and 'advisable to follow it'. Should there really be this much divergence of authority between the two guidelines? --moof 11:39, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

And then there's still the divergent wording of {{Misplaced Pages subcat guideline}} used for, for instance, naming conventions guidelines, for which I have to plead guilty.

I think I started to get used to these divergences in formulations, for instance the MoS guidelines being nearly as strict as {{policy}} - but that might be a mild form of Stockholm Syndrome kicking in. So please go ahead if you think you have good improvement proposals. Maybe Misplaced Pages talk:Template messages/Project namespace would be a good place to keep (or ultimately store) such discussions. --Francis Schonken 12:47, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Used with permission "for educational and noncommercial uses only"

I have come across Prosocial behavior. The article states at the top "This article, or parts of it, has been retrieved from Indiana University with the rights to be reproduced for educational and noncommercial uses only.". I suspect that this is not compatible with the GFDL license, and I wonder how we should deal with this and other cases like it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 11:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Well either it's deleted as a copyvio or a complete rewrite, I'd say. Certainly isn't compatible with the GFDL/wangi 11:51, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Put a {{copyvio}} tag on it and rewrite the page on the temporary subpage, using any "clean" content from the original if there is any. Deco 02:42, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Fanlistings

Is there ever a time when a fanlisting is appropriate as an external link? Jdavidb (talk • contribs) 16:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

If they have valid information which is not in the article, but it's hard to know when it's valid. If they have a quotes page or a picture gallery, I suppose would be okay. User:Zoe| 19:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Ohio Schools

I've proposed a standard form for naming articles on Ohio school districts: Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Ohio school districts), which could easily be extended to apply to districts in other states. I'd welcome some feedback on this. PedanticallySpeaking 16:34, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Naming convention for Companies and Businesses

I just wanted to draw attention and comment to on a draft poll to determine naming convention for companies and businesses. I have looked around a number of places and have only seen comments to the effect of "we should have a convention" or "do we have a convention" on how to name a XXX company. This has either the effect of drawing a few uninterested comments or a stirring up a heated debate. In either case the net result is generally zero. Your comments to help clarify this poll and later corresponding vote would be greatly appreciated. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 17:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:No original research is a bad policy

Misplaced Pages:No original research is a bad policy. I tried to analyze the semantics of George W. Bush's Sixth State of the Union Address, which keeps on getting vandalized (and no administrator has taken action), and was told this was against policy. I assume Howcheng, who referred me, meant:

"In this context it means unpublished theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas; or any new interpretation, analysis, or synthesis of published data, statements, concepts, arguments that, in the words of Misplaced Pages's co-founder Jimbo Wales, would amount to a "novel narrative or historical interpretation"."

Interpretation or actual original research is one thing, but analysis should not be included in this list. We dont need a source to say that "we remember the events of september 11" is a reference to the September 11 Attacks. Please see the page and my expansion of the page to see what I mean. KI 22:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

My interpretation is that very simple synthesis or analysis of documented facts is okay, but various people have various levels of tolerance for this. Just use your discretion and try asking interested parties on Misplaced Pages talk:No original research if you feel unsure about a particular scenario. Deco 02:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Any time anyone draws from a body of existing research material, the editorial choices on what to include and what to exclude produce an original document, i.e. no-one has done it that way before. The simple collocation of existing evidence may, of itself, produce new insights without a commentary being necessary, i.e. the implication is clear when the two or more previously separated elements are seen juxtaposed. Sometimes a commentary is required to explain when the readership may not have the relevant infrastructure of knowledge to make the connections or the elements now brought together are evidence relied upon to produce a coherent argument. This latter case is the originality that Wiki sets its policy against. Those who write here can refer to any existing verifiable source and leave it to be readers to do the work, but the authors here cannot articulate those thoughts for the readers. Except that when writing on a page that touches the sensibilities of those more politically than academically inclined, even the hint of improper thought brings down the wrath of those POV pushers offended: a consequence that has implications for the credibility of the Wiki enterprise. David91 03:07, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Please view Democratic response to 2006 State of the Union address and see if that seems to be original research. Uncle G and Howcheng have both insisted my contributions to 2006 State of the Union address are original research - and since I wrote it (all other changes have been page moves or grammatical/formatting changes) this would mean 99% of the content would have to be deleted. KI 03:17, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be taking an original speech and applying your own expertise to analyse it rather than operating as a reference editor to point readers to verifiable sources of commentary on the speech. The same could be said of whoever wrote the page on the Democratic response. Since I have no status in this place I can freely offer my advice which is to walk away from this one. You could consider starting a new page on semantic analysis, introduce the different forms of rhetorical device and then use either or both speeches as examples. That might be half-way justifiable if someone else has verifiably done the same thing (although not necessarily using the same speeches). The culture of this place requires you to be nimble and flexible. David91 11:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Illustration examples under "Fair Use?"

I've been looking at articles about famous illustrators such as Robert McCloskey and noticed that many of them do not have examples of these illustrators' work. Most of these images are unfortunately not in public domain, but could it be considered "Fair Use" to supply, say, one example for each artist? --PlantPerson 12:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

If it is useful for understanding their work, and their importance as an illustrator is discussed in their article, then yes having an example would generally seem to qualify as fair use. Dragons flight 13:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

For example, Image:MakeWayforDucklingsBookCover.jpg... Physchim62 (talk) 21:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

This seems like legitimate fair use, but to improve the claim do not use current works with ongoing sales or very high resolution scans. Deco 22:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Copyright status of U.S. coin photos/scans

According to the image use policy: "Also note that in the United States, reproductions of two-dimensional artwork which is in the public domain because of age do not generate a new copyright — for example, a straight-on photograph of the Mona Lisa would not be considered copyrighted (see Bridgeman v. Corel). Scans of images alone do not generate new copyrights — they merely inherit the copyright status of the image they are reproducing." Does this mean that images taken from coin auction catalogs, like this one, could be uploaded under a {{Money-US}} license? This and similar images are clearly either scans or straight-on photos, with little or no creative work involved. Can they be used in compliance with copyright law and Misplaced Pages policy? Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 21:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe so. Entire pages from said catalogue could be copyvio, since they arguably contribute organizational value, but single images with no creative additions are under the original license. The common sense argument for this is that if the coin were in your possession, you could plop it on a scanner and get the same thing.Deco 22:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Harsher Sentences For Repeat Offenders

Who else thinks that blocking policy on wikipedia is too soft? It's ridiculous how many vandals cost hours of wikipedians' time only to get blocked for a couple a minutes before allowing them to do it again... and again... and again...

Is it really worth letting people back on, just on the offchance that they might contribute something useful? Weight the costs against the benefits. Benefit; 1 in 100 vandals turn normal editor worth two hours editing time per week. Cost; 99 in 100 vandals remain vandals and cost 198 hours of editing time per week. --Username132 22:46, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Repeat offenders are blocked for much longer periods like days or even weeks, but many of them use web proxies or dynamic IPs and so we can't afford to block them indefinitely. And don't forget that editing time is not interchangable - if a specialist with a Ph.D. in, say, modern dance happens to be using a vandal's IP, and would have become a regular contributor to a very sparse area, that's a loss that cannot be replaced. Deco 23:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

If I am fairly sure that blocking an IP will only hit a vandal, then I will gladly make long blocks. A month for the second offence is not unreasonable IMO. IIRC there was a similar discussion at wikipedia talk:Vandalism in progress with the consensus being that long blocks are good as long as they don't hit bystanders. Thue | talk 13:19, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

3D images again

A guideline proposal for 3D image use is under development at Misplaced Pages:3D Illustrations. The uploader who's prolific 3D image uploading brought this about is seeing the low numbers of people involved at the proposal as an indication that it is not the general opinion of wikipedians and can be ignored. How does a proposed guideline go from a few people hashing out a proposal to something that actually carries some weight behind it? --Martyman-(talk) 05:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Links to web pages

If webmaster of a site requests link to his site to be removed from Misplaced Pages, shoud that be done or is it considered vandalism? --Dijxtra 14:32, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

The answer is 'It depends'. We're under no obligation–legal or internal policy–to remove links on request unless they are somehow illegal under U.S. law (we're notified that they contain unlicensed copyrighted material or child pornography, for example).

If the link is good and informative, it's obviously preferable for us to keep it—and people who post things on the Internet should not be surprised when other people link to it. There's no reason for us to be a 'bad neighbour', however. If the webmaster made his request because referrals from Misplaced Pages are hammering his bandwidth and taking down his site on the first of every month, we should probably pull the link. If you can find a different external source to which we can link, that would be an ideal solution.

If you do remove a link without replacing it, leave an explanation on the article's talk page explaining why you've done it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:44, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Thing is: the webmaster has account at Misplaced Pages and is contributing POV info. And is being reverted. So, he decided to stop the edit warring, leave Misplaced Pages and remove his links. Should I revert the links to his web pages? --Dijxtra 14:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

If the links are relevant, informative, and on a publically-accessible website, there's no good reason not to retain them. (Of course, if they were being used solely to advance a slanted viewpoint, then we might be better off without them.) You might want to post a request for comment on the article(s) in question if you're not sure about the value or appropriateness of the links.

Removing a link from an article doesn't (usually) fall under the Misplaced Pages definition of vandalism, it's more of a content dispute. Keep in mind that the three-revert rule does apply, if an edit war should crop up. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Could have fooled me. Earlier today I came across an editor rather randomly deleting links from several articles without any substantive explanation, which appeared to me to be simple vandalism. (The links had previously been inserted by different editors, unrelated to me.) After I restored them, the other editor summarily deleted them again (marking some of the restorations vandalism). After a short round of reverts, the other editor broke 3RR (having already reverted another's changes to the same article's link section). What happens when I report the 3RR violation? It's excused, on the grounds that I'd somehow excited the other editor, and the admin involved commented that I must be following the other editor around, since I'd been one of several users who objected to the other editor's inappropriate, repeated deletion of comments from a discussion page a few days ago. Meanwhile, the innocent but excitable editor pulls up my contributions list, finds every AFD/FAC I've commented on recently, casts a contrary vote, then runs back to the friendly admin to accuse me of stalking him/her in those discussions. That seems to be OK. Any thoughts on that? Monicasdude 21:10, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

What are the policies governing the (non)deletion of Talk pages for deleted articles?

Hi. I would like to gain some understanding of the Misplaced Pages policies governing Talk pages that are left in place even though the article they were associated with has been deleted. I have tried to ask about it on Wikipedia_talk:Speedy_deletions, but have not gotten any answer - perhaps it was not a proper forum for the question, and this will prove to be a better one. The particular focus of my questions are the Aetherometry Talk pages. The Aetherometry entry itself was recently deleted, but the Talk pages were left in place, with the following explanation from User:Howcheng, who closed the AfD vote:

This article was nominated for deletion on January 14, 2006. The result of the discussion was delete. However, in the event that the article can be re-created with citing reliable sources, I'm intentionally leaving the talk pages alone. They can be deleted at a later time if editors feel they are no longer necessary.

I have the following questions about this:

• Who are the people referred to as "editors" in the above explanation? As far as I know, there are only two people who have significantly contributed content to the entry: myself and User:Pgio. However, neither of us has been consulted concerning the deletion or non-deletion of the Talk pages. On the other hand, when, after the removal of the Aetherometry entry, I submitted these Talk pages for speedy deletion, my request was briskly rejected by User:William_M._Connolley as being "silly". Are these Talk pages somehow a fiefdom of User:William_M._Connolley? Has he been nominated to be in charge of them? If so, by whom and on what grounds? As far as I know, his only contributions to the Aetherometry entry consisted of jeering, and of persistent and aggressive attemtpts to insert his own bias into it by labeling it as "pseudoscience". I realize that a lot of you share this bias, but unless you can quote reputable scientific sources to support it, it is just that: your own bias. Does Connolley's particular brand of aggressiveness and rudeness in expressing this bias somehow qualify him as an "editor" and as the appointed decision-maker about the Talk pages? Is there any policy governing this issue?

• The above explanation by User:Howcheng implies that someone regards these Talk pages as being "necessary" right now. Who are the people that decided the pages were "necessary"? What exactly are those pages thought necessary for? They cannot be necessary as references to "reliable information" about Aetherometry, because all information sources quoted in them have always been rejected, by Connolley and others, as being unreliable. And neither can the Talk pages themselves serve as "reliable information" about Aetherometry - if they did, there would be no need for contemplating a new entry based on "reliable information". What, then, is the reason for keeping them? Is there any policy governing this issue?

• Who, on what grounds, when, and by what procedure, is supposed to decide at "a later time" that these Talk pages are no longer necessary? If the word "editors" in Howcheng's explanation has the standard meaning, then surely the decision procedure should prominently include myself and User:Pgio. Does it? If not, whom does it include and why? Is there a policy governing this issue?

Many thanks in advance. Helicoid 17:03, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, there is no policy regarding this, but in general we delete talk pages along with articles, because discussion of an article that no longer exists and should probably never exist is rather moot. It's really the deleting admin's discretion. Deco 19:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your response, but in this case, it doesn't seem to be the deleting admin's discretion. When I contacted the deleting admin, User:Howcheng, for guidance concerning my submission of the Talk pages for speedy deletion, there was an immediate intervention from User:William_M._Connolley, who instructed Howcheng as follows:

Please ignore this request. The talk pages should be kept. I've removed them from the SD page. William M. Connolley 16:01, 2 February 2006 (UTC).

Helicoid 19:51, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

• Anyone can remove a speedy tag that s/he feels is unwarrented, anyone else can put the tag back, but warring over such tags is considered very poor form. WP:CSD says "Talk pages of already deleted pages, unless they contain the deletion discussion and it isn't logged elsewhere. (CSD G8) but if the deleting admin feels that the talk page might be useful in future, s/he can choopse not to delete such a page. If significant discussion about why a page should or should not have been deleted is on the page, it should probably be kept, unless that info is copied elsewhere (say to the AfD's talk page). I would treat "editors" above to mean simply which evner wikipedia editors express an interest in the matter, which includes you. If you post a note on the talk page suggestign deeltion, adn no one responds with a reaosn not to delete in a reasonable time, you can apply a speedy tag. Or you might try the about to be tested system of Proposed deletion. DES 20:29, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm unclear as to which of the criteria for speedy deletion the pages meet. Nor is it clear to me what urgency there is in deleting them (any more than I can see the need to keep them). Is there some hiddn agenda here of which I'm unaware? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I am a bit puzzled by your uncertainty about the applicable speedy-deletion criteria. Point (8) in the "General" category lists, as a candidate for speedy deletion:

8. Talk pages of already deleted pages, unless they contain the deletion discussion and it isn't logged elsewhere.

The Talk pages for Aetherometry do not contain the deletion discussion, so isn't this criterion quite clearly applicable?

As for hidden agendas, there is nothing hidden on my side. I would like the Talk pages deleted for two simple reasons:

(1) They contain unfounded, unsubstantiated derogatory claims about Aetherometry, its creators, and anybody willing to regard Aetherometry without scientific bigotry. A number of people freely and deliberately made such unsubstantiated, hurtful claims on the Talk pages under the excuse of "on Talk pages, I can say whatever I please" - thus misusing Misplaced Pages as a vehicle for venting and legitimizing private prejudices, and for deliberately attempting to damage other people's reputations.

(2) There is no guarantee that these pages, if they continue to exist, will not continue, in the future, to be misused in the same way - as a vehicle for new derogatory and damaging statements.

I have yet to see anybody openly coming out with a reason for why these pages should be kept. Helicoid 22:34, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

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