Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Carcharoth (talk | contribs) at 23:20, 31 August 2006 (→Financial policy of Wikimedia Foundation). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

• Table of contents
• First discussion
• End of page
• New post

• ]

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

WP:COLBERT

(also listed at WP:RFC/POLICIES) Misplaced Pages:Stephen Colbert's Neologisms Lack Truthiness -- In light of many articles and vandalisms regarding Stephen Colbert's neologisms, I proposed this guideline, suggested by User:VoiceOfReason, which suggests that the user go to List of neologisms on The Colbert Report and list the item there. Might help with dealing with things like "Wikiality" and "Unicorn husbandry". Any thoughts? ~ Porphyric Hemophiliac § 00:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Male Domination?

See Misplaced Pages:Village_pump_(proposals)#Male_Domination.3F.

Americanism / American bias

Hi,

This is a genuine question and not an attempt to flame etc -- is WP primarily American / for the American audience? It seems that for many articles, there's a section relating to how that subject might occur in America -- e.g. "Soup" has an American History of soup. There also appear to be many (seemingly random) roads/places in America listed, and many articles which imply the reader has some cultural background to America. I'm not complaining, just wondering what the consensus was on this?

many thanks

--Kierenj 09:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a systematic bias that is considered in the policy WP:BIAS. For the most part it's an unconscious bias that is shaped by the demographic of the wikipedia editors. There is a concentrated effort to neutralize the bias and any occurrence that you see, feel free to Be Bold tidy it up. Agne 09:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

At the minimum, you could add the template {{globalize}} to articles that you consider excessively parochial. Regarding the roads, there was a debate some time ago on inclusion/deletion of B roads (minor roads) in the UK so yes, these things are debated. As Agne says, be bold. You've got me interested in soup now though - how does the history of soup differ in the USA from anywhere else...? Tonywalton  | Talk 10:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. That's crying out to be made into a subsection (History of soup in the USA) with other subsections such as "History of soup in Europe" or whatever. Go for it (but make sure it's as well-researched as the section that's already there). Tonywalton  | Talk 10:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Another area where there is a distinct US bias is in various articles about US States. There are many instances where they are written from a perspective of a US Writer to a US Reader. An example would be in our geography terminology. When we use phrases such as Midwest, a non-native will naturally think of the connotation of "Middle" & "West" as laid out on a geographical map. They won't immediately realize that the phrase Midwest has taken on an archaic sense and has become more "cultural" or "historical" then in actually relating to Geography. As a whole we should be more conscientious about this and in places where a reader would be assuming to read "Geographical location" (like in the intro of a State's article) we should strive to put more geographically accurate descriptors that is understandable to all--not just US reader. Later in article we can include "historical" or "Cultural" terminology Agne 12:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Em.. no.. as a brit I never realised that about the midwest :) --Charlesknight 12:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

However Agne's use of Midwest above is an almost-perfect example of when things work! The ] link takes you (via a redir) to Midwestern United States, so any reader unsure of the context just needs to follow the link. Of course, if I were a picky Brit, I could advocate using ] to avoid the redir and so that "Midwestern United States" appeared on the link's tooltip, avoiding the need to follow a link if only the geographical context was required. Still, it shows that with care it can be done. Tonywalton  | Talk 13:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Again though, in context Midwest is a cultural or historical designation, not a Geographical one. I think more proper form is to have the most geographically accurate term being used first in the introductory page, followed by whatever cultural or historical term that would apply. An example would be the state of Missouri which is described as the more geographically accurate central state. The cultural context of Midwest (and in this case Southern) then follows. In my opinion that is much more Encyclopedic and it takes into consideration readership apart from the US.Agne 19:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

It's both. See Midwestern United States -newkai t-c 19:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a problem on (most likely all) Wikipedias. The only other language I'm fluent in is German, and a vast amount of the articles discuss the subject of the article in Germany to a huge majority. -newkai t-c 19:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. It's a problem and we all should be more conscientious. I think the hardest part is trying to remove our own systematic bias. Our first instinct is to think of how we always thought of it, instead of how someone who has no history or connection to the subject would view it. In regards to Geographical Location, the one common denominator that everyone, of all backgrounds, has is the ability to look at a map---especially since we provide one on most articles. :) Hence, the first description should relate to that map in the most accurate way. Then follow it with the cultural or historical reference. It's poor form to assume that a reader would have a common denominator of our history and culture.Agne 20:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Western bias. in addition to "Midwest" example, when brits and americans say "Far East, where is that? is that in the east. When you are supposed to be eastern can we say that we are also in the far east when we are already here?pmc 09:01, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I, for one, had no idea "Midwest" meant anything other than "middle west". I don't know very much about the United States, but I like to think I have at least a basic understanding. JIP | Talk 11:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal of Bloque to Pedro for vandalism and racism

I change the article of Savage Islands with information about the dispute of Spain about the island. Not about if the Spain has right or not only I probe with a link to the diary os sesion of the spanish senate that Spain doesn´t recognize the soberany of Portugal. The wikipedist Pedro ] "La esfera alrededor de las islas Canarias" that's about the waters, not the islands - the islands are no sphere! Portugal has no problems with no country! it just has Olivenza because our neighbours are like gypsies, not because of gypsie culture of Southern Spain, but because it invades other people's property: Spain = Turkey part II 1/2 (as in Cyprus) - and still Portugal does nothing. See, it even respects those who doesnt deserve it, in my opinion, that's because we have chilcken and monkeys insted of politicians, but that's another issue. "

I think that is imposible to work in this article of Misplaced Pages with this vandalism and I know that is not the first problem of this wikipedist. Pedro ] is a vandal and a racist and must be block For Pedro: Spain=gypsies=thieves. That is racism about the spaniards and the gypsies. Noviscum 08:57, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

THIS MAKES ABSOLUTLY LITTLE SENSE, IS THERE A WAY TO REMOVE LARGELY UNINTELLIGEABLE PROPOSALS/COMMENTS FROM W.P. ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE UNFRUITFUL IN GETTING THEIR POINT ACCROSS AND HAVE NOT RECEIEVED ANY RESPONSES? I also think that perhaps this user should be contacted and asked to provide this comment in their native lanaguges, im assuming Portuguese so that someone may translate it to make more sense of his comment? Qrc2006 03:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Users who don't speak english shouldn't be on the English wikipedia. If he only speaks protugese, he should be on the protugese wikipedia. Also, this request should go on WP:AIV, this is just the non-sensical proposal for one user to be blocked. Tobyk777 03:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Many users for whom English is a 2nd language make major contributions to the English Misplaced Pages. Remember, many of the more important regional contributions are best understood by the residents of the region, residents who over much of the world speak English only as a 2nd language. It does require additional effort on our part to understand their phrasing, but an encyclopedia is about understanding the concepts, so we should make the effort.

Here’s a brief summary of what Noviscum said:

1. Noviscum edited an article on the Savage Islands, including information about the dispute between Spain and Portugal over territorial rights.
2. The Spanish Senate does not recognize the sovereignty of Portugal to the Savage Islands (in a session to which Noviscum linked the article).
3. Wiki editor Pedro ] indicated that the conflict is about the waters around the islands, not the islands.
4. PedroPVZ is accused of asserting that Spanish people have a gypsy culture—they take what is not theirs by right.
5. PedroPVZ is also accused (by quotation) of equating Spain to Turkey (referring to the conflict for Cyprus).
6. Noviscum thinks that is impossible to edit the Savage Islands article on Misplaced Pages because of what he views as PedroPVZ’s continuing vandalism and racism.
7. He indicates that PedroPVZ must be blocked because he is a vandal and a racist. Noviscum considers it racism to equate Spaniards with Gypsies (and perhaps it is, or perhaps it is an indication of Spanish racism).

I’ll research the facts of the Savage Island territorial dispute and see if we can sort out the correct position to take in the article. Williamborg (Bill) 20:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed naming convention: military vehicles

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

BPOV, proposed new policy

I'd like to propose a new standard called Balanced Point of View (BPOV) which remain a separate and editable article for practical, reference, and historic reasons.

The full text of the article at the time of writing:

Balanced Point of View (BPOV) is a suggested alternative to the neutral point of view (NPOV) principle in order to correct some of the mistakes in the NPOV principle.

The goal of BPOV is to make Misplaced Pages a more informed, self-conscious, and intelligent area. The members of Misplaced Pages's production of knowledge are all members of specific cultures, geographic locations, historical times, genders, class, and race. All these, and more, affect the knowledge being produced in Misplaced Pages.

Thus, a BPOV is needed to ensure that;

• Facts should be represented as neutral as the source they came from. It is pointless to cite a source like the CNN or the KCNA and then to present it in any neutral way.
• Opposing views should be represented fairly so that each opposing view is represented.
• Facts about facts should be neutral and unbiased, because only facts about facts are unbound by views. For example, undisputed dates, the fact that something is disputed, the geographical coordinates of a specific area, the boiling point of water, etc.
• Certain facts and issues need direct reference to individual context and meaning. The slave trade during the 18th century is something that needs not a Neutral Point of View, but each relevant point of view at the time.

First and foremost, we should let BPOV become the new guideline because;

• The word "Neutral" in NPOV suggest "no meaning" and since every individual is even so inavoidedly bound by culture, tradition, individual quirks, social control, norms handed down by society, economic bias, and so on, employing a "neutral" approach to writing an article is perhaps a bad word. NPOV combined with "consensus" creates an unimaginative athmosphere of collective passivism, where the "norm du jour" slips into a teethless, cowardly conformist view, and every edit designed to preserve the dinosaur NPOV becomes a reactionary move to perpetuate it instead of broadening and expanding an article with more poignant views.
• The word "Balanced" in BPOV suggest each writer to take more responsibility into his own editing, and providing a balance between all elements of "do"'s and "dont"'s in wikipedia becomes more apparent by using this word. It encourages a more careful and calculated, even responsible edit, where balance exists not only between issues right or wrong, but right or left, even north and south, even the inclution of references never before thought of (because of the restriction to imagination imposed by NPOV) but most importantly it allows for each factoid to stand on its own and clearly state its intention as well as its source.
• For every source, you have an agenda. While NPOV encourage listing as many sourced factoids, disguising them as NPOV, the people behind the sources are never NPOV. Instead, BPOV more honestly state the intention of each source, by adding the sourced fact in clear language. Most importantly, by doing so, it becomes less neccessary to repeat the same agenda several times with many different sources, and it becomes more evident when an article is over-represented in one agenda where it should be represented by other relevant ones.
• BPOV is more honest and intelligent towards the reader.

--Bjornar 18:43, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Go on, remind me... What's the wiki that has Balanced POV as it's core principal and it sources articles initially from en.wikipedia? Hate it when i know it's out there but can't remember! :) Thanks/wangi 18:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, I was thinking of Wikinfo's sympathetic point of view. Ta/wangi 19:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

From WP:NPOV:

Neutral Point of View (NPOV) is a fundamental Misplaced Pages principle which states that all articles must be written from a neutral point of view, that is, they must represent views fairly and without bias. This includes maps, reader-facing templates, categories and portals. According to Misplaced Pages founder Jimmy Wales, NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable."

Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view is one of Misplaced Pages's three content policies. The other two are Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research. Jointly, these policies determine the type and quality of material that is acceptable in the main namespace. Because the three policies are complementary, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another, and editors should therefore try to familiarize themselves with all three. These three policies are non-negotiable and cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, or by editors' consensus.

Unless you plan on starting a completely new Misplaced Pages or deposing Jimbo Wales, it's pointless to debate the merits of your proposed policy, because it's a complete non-starter here. Kickaha Ota 19:46, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I'll bring the pitchforks, you bring the burning effigies! Down with the God-King! Er... sorry, Jimbo is okay. :-) Deco 21:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

This sounds too much like Fox's "Fair and Balanced". What really makes Misplaced Pages go is verifiabilty. --John Nagle 22:26, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"What really makes Misplaced Pages go is verifiabilty." Source? ;-) JChap2007 00:46, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Balanced point of view connotes that it's okay to give a biased account, as long as it is countered (balanced) by an opposing viewpoint. If that's what you intend, it sounds like a really bad idea (for one thing, it seems to allow for the introduction of opinion. For another, it seems to require that any negative views *should* be balanced by positive), If that's not what you intend by the policy, I think too many people would think that's what it meant. -Freekee 18:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

bjornar has a crucial point that cuts to the heart and soul of wiki-nation point of existance - what is knowledge and how is it to be produced and assessed? each and every article works within a set of assumptions, but very few authors critically assess these assumptions. that usualy makes for "bad knowledge" by almost everyone's criteria. and whether or not the wiki-gods wish it or not, these sorts of discussions on npov are going to happen and are essential. indeed, to deny such discussions or to silence them seems to directly contradict the entire point of wikipedia - generate knowledge.

the real questions here are how to assess and judge our standards. while maybe not the most excitingt of dialogues for many authors, it is essential in any community. with questioning and challenging and discussing the basic rules of knowing, any society simply degenerates into producing schlock and does not even realize it.

bjornar suggests bpov, which is an excellent start. i have posted quite a bit about the inherent and fatal problems of npov on my page, and i have links to what many university professors are saying about the type of knowledge that is produced by a community made up overwhelmingly by western, white, males between the ages of 18 and 35. when you have so many authors of similar culture, society, and epoch, it produces a definate POV, whether they wish to admit it or not. please visit and read some more about this when you need something for those sleepless nights. :) Hongkyongnae 02:42, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Selection bias is indeed a recognized problem with Misplaced Pages, and many of the WikiProjects are designed to bring in material that falls outside the normal range of "things interesting to Internet-oriented people". I would certainly encourage you to help out there. But the NPOV policy isn't where you should focus your efforts, because it's one of the extraordinarily rare areas of Misplaced Pages that have been clearly staked out as absolute and non-negotiable. Unless you fork Misplaced Pages and start over (as the Wikinfo folks did), you simply cannot do it, and you are likely to wind up angry and frustrated by the attempt. Kickaha Ota 02:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Angry or not is beside the point. It seems that arguments are being weighted solely by how far and hard the NPOV policy is enforced. This is like saying that Misplaced Pages cannot improve, because the NPOV policy and whatever way you interpret it is written in stone and cannot be touched. How can anyone be inspired to expand articles if what the Misplaced Pages project is really about is to simply aggregate information, without an intelligent process behind it, to assess not only if something can be sourced or not, but indeed the composition of human knowledge itself? How can one pretend to be able to educate others unless one has a clear picture t what knowledge is and how it can easily be distorted, either by social-demographics or by archaic guidelines? OK, so maybe NPOV is the Holy Grail of Misplaced Pages policy so holy it cannot be touched. Does that mean my argument is "simply wrong"? Why can anyone not understand that BPOV is not only a practical idea, it is neccessary to avoid stagnation ing the development of correctly balanced perspectives, especially in areas of history, culture, politics and controversial topics. So maybe BPOV as a replacement for NPOV is a dead-end because of stubbornness, however, I move to say that further debate about this issue is clearly needed, and that any fruitful results of such a debate should be merged into the current NPOV policy guideline in such a way that it does not contradict it, but complement and correct the inherent flaws that exist today. Failiure to recognize the current flaws is neglect of the whole Misplaced Pages projects future and credibility. --Bjornar 14:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

this is a very good discussion, thanks for starting it bjornar. now to bjornar's and kickahaOta's fine points. dont "worry" that i will become overly frustrated by the wiki-gods and their decisions on NPOV. i am fortunate to have other joys in my life besides wiki-land. next, your point that the wiki-gods are unable/unwilling to budge on NPOV. that may be, but as we both can see, it does not make them "correct" or their arguments valid. it only displays the limits of their arguments since they must resort to wiki-power to enforce their views upon others and discipline the forms of knowledge here. all that is obvious. but i would like to add one more point. i agree that the wiki-gods do not seem overly willing to erode their pre-existing and non-NPOV arguments over NPOV. (by selectively barring arguments such as ours, they are of course in violation of their own NPOV policy, but they cant see it. how ironic.) but to me, THAT is exactly why debates such as ours MUST and will surface. given their internal logic and the structure of wiki, they can not prevent such arguments from coming out and being read by folks. and, as my friend's mother once told her, "once you open your eyes, you cant shut them again." paradoxically, the wiki-gods may have given birth to little wiki-guerrillas. hee, hee. Hongkyongnae 15:26, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

We do have dumps of our data available -- if you disagree with the rules, we want it to be easy for you to go start an alternative community. Bring our data with you, and edit it however you like on your server. Start your own community, and do cool things. That'd be great! Every site has to have rules, and NPOV is a pillar of our community and non-negotiable, but there's no reason you can't try another way of doing things somewhere else, and very few sites offer their data for that purpose. --Improv 19:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

A question, if I may: what failing, exactly, in the current policy does this address? The only significant variances from the NPOV policy that I see are that it is more ambiguous and has worse grammar. Is it intended to be aimed at identifying, rather than eliminating, bias? --tjstrf 20:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Unfortunately, we can all talk here until we turn blue. The fact is the NPOV policy is not open to be changed here. It is a mandate of the Wikimedia Foundation; not merely a Misplaced Pages policy (like the writing style guide). It is one of the few policies we can freely debate but never change from within this project. Changes to core Wikimedia policies such as this must come directly from the Foundation. Perhaps the best way to do this aside from becoming a director or lobbying a director for change is via the Meta-Wiki version of this page: m:Meta:Babel. Davodd 22:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Sockpuppet tagging policy

If a person register a sockpuppet account for the purpose of remaining anonymous and not associated with the main account, and do not break rules, including any restrictions on sockpuppets (such as rigging votes or supporting other account in discussions)... In other words, if both sockpuppers behave perfectly legally and independent of one another...

Are administrators allowed to tag the sockpuppet account as such, or put references to the sockpuppet account on my main account (or in any other way link those accounts)?

WP:SOCK details what sockpuppets may and may not do, but it doesn't say under which circumstances admins or other users may reveal or accuse of sockpuppetry.

Misplaced Pages:Suspected_sock_puppets allows users to post suspicions, but also provides no rules regarding whether any policy violation is required for an accusation to take place.

Is it logical and fair to accuse someone of sockpuppetry if they did not break any rules? After all, sockpuppet accounts are registered with the very purpose of not being associated with main account (unless it's a case of admin/regular/bot separation of accounts).

In either case, if there is a clear-cut policy on this question, I'd like to know it, and if there isn't, I'd like to ask one to be established. -Wane 06:31, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• If a user does not use said account in any manner related to their use of their main account, or if the user does not use said account to break the rules, they will usually not be accused of sock puppetry. It is, however, sill frowned upon to make an anonymous secondary account, because that's not a very good reason to have one. The page does, however, note in several cases that policy violations are a prerequisite for sock puppet tagging, particularly near the given templates. 06:48, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• Some users are known to use a "primary account" for matters of policy and perhaps editing in a single area, while using a secondary account to edit in another unrelated area. They may be marked as a suspected sock puppet, and viewed with suspicion, but as long as they do not violate use they will probably not be blocked except by an overzealous admin action that would be easily overturned. Deco 08:21, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• • New users who are unusually familiar with editing and policy are viewed with a little suspicion even by the most good-faith-assuming editors here. On the other hand, I would like to think that Jimbo could edit under a different username sometimes, just so he doesn't get constantly harangued, and so that people don't accord undue weight to his edits. Similarly, I think that if any other well-known editor wants to occasionally get away from politics so they can focus on the *gasp* encyclopedia part of Misplaced Pages, then I think that's an obviously good thing too. (as long as, per above, they aren't using the sock to escape problem edits, only to continue disrupting wikipedia as a supposedly fresh face) --Interiot 12:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

• • "They may be marked as a suspected sock puppet, and viewed with suspicion, but as long as they do not violate use they will probably not be blocked except by an overzealous admin action that would be easily overturned." That's precisely what I'm asking about. If I create an anonymous sockpuppet and don't break rules, I don't just want not be blocked, I also want not to be revealed. I'm asking why should someone even mark the account as an SP, if there is no rule breaking, and if it is indeed allowed, perhaps the policy should be no marking unless rulebreaking occurs. Admins have unique powers to identify sockpuppets, but should they be allowed to use it without reason? If an admin thinks there is a potential rulebreak but don't have any proof should they discuss this on their internal boards rather than use their admin powers to mark the SP and expose it to the community, and only later hope a rulebreak justifying this is found? This is like first putting someone in jail and later hoping evidence to keep them there will be found. - Wane 17:53, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

It's nothing like putting you in jail at all. The equivalent of jail on Misplaced Pages is temporary blocks, indef blocks being a rescindable death penalty or life in prison.

Regardless, why would it be illegal on wikipedia to point out User A being the same as User B? If you aren't breaking any rules, then this disclosure --especially if you make it yourself-- will actually help alleviate suspicion by the people who figure it out on their own. If you're trying to make a fresh start after problematic edits, then the proper course of action would be to admit this, and go on with your normal law-abiding activity using your new account. If you are trying to evade a wikistalker or something similar, then shouldn't you be addressing the problem directly rather than creating multiple accounts? --tjstrf 23:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikiquette Question: who has the onus for discussion?

I'm a recent newbie and have a wikiquette/policy question, that I can't see a clear answer to on the policy pages.

OK, here's a hypothetical (but one that has probably happened to all of us!) Say that you write a paragraph for an article and introduce it in there for the first time. Let's say you spent two hours carefully writing the prose, and it is clearly isn't vandalism or a copyvio, and you clearly have put a lot of thought into it....(it may be imperfect, and need a further citation...but you figure that, hey, nothing is perfect and the evolutionary wiki process will fine tune it eventually).

Now, let's say an existing editor that regularly "patrols" that article, hates your paragraph and removes it immediately. (Sounds familiar to everyone? :-)

Now here's the wikiquette question: is (1) the onus on that editor to in fact not remove it but go to the discussion page first and argue for its deletion, or (2) is the onus on the introducer of material to accept this deletion and go to the discussion page to argue for its inclusion?

In other words, I am unclear if in wiki-world one errs to the side of inclusion or deletion. I've seen plenty of discussion pages where a deletionist editor has flamed some poor hapless contributor with the words: "you should have discussed this before putting this here." Alternatively I can find just as many discussion pages where a contributing editor has said: "this should have been discussed before deletion."

So, what are the "correct" do's and don'ts of the discussion process? In the same way there are road rules that say which driver has "right of way," is there a set of wiki road rules for the discussion-deletion process?

I can see that heavy handed trigger happy deletionists are good to have around on the wikipedia as they do a great job of keeping out the crazies....and their swift deletions with no discussion seem welcome in those cases. But this does make them appear rude when, in their zealotry, good-faith contributions get deleted without discussion. Kinda collatoral damage, so to speak :-) Are there some guidelines to help them understand when and when not discussion-before-deletion is expected?bunix 11:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I would say that the onus is probably on the both of you. ;) There is a lot of give-and-take and judgement involved -- while I'd probably never ask on a talk page about fixing an obvious period mistake, I probably would ask before completely rewriting an article from scratch. In this case, there seem to be at least two editors who disagree, so it wouldn't hurt to have a discussion, however brief. Refer to dispute resolution for some more information, and especially third opinion, if this only involves two people. Hope that helps! Luna Santin 12:15, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we work by onuses -- instead, both editors should outline their reasons, make an effort to convince each other, and if need be draw in a number of outside eyes and have a straw poll. If one of the editors is butting up against policy or style guides in their edits, the straw poll is probably unnecessary, but otherwise discussion should be central. --Improv 15:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd comment that people need to remember that no one editor "owns" any particular article, no matter how stridently they are patrolling and overseeing its growth. It's a matter of courtesy, of course, to defer in some cases to the person who has contributed the most to a particular article, but again they need to keep in mind that it's not specifically -their- article to outright deny inclusion of any particular material. I wouldn't say there's an onus, in that case. But if someone deletes some good work you made toward the growth of an article out of hand, I'd say, put it back, and put a comment on the talk page and in the edit summary mentioning the talk page, explaining what you're trying to add. At least that's my take on it. Errick 16:36, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

No one should be reverting changes without an edit summary except in cases of obvious vandalism. The general rule is to provide a good edit summary. If anyone does anything that you find annoying, the general rule is to talk to the other editor about it in a polite, non-accusatory manner. If he or she reverted a change and the edit summary doesn't indicate a reason, a note on the other user's talk page like "I noticed you removed a paragraph I just added to <article link> and can't tell from the edit summary why. Can you please let me know why?" If the summary says why and you disagree, the note might be a little different, perhaps "I noticed you removed a paragraph I just added to <article link> and the edit summary says <quote>. I think <this>. Is there some compromise wording we can work out?" All of the editors here are people (well, except for some bots). The general rules are set up to encourage people to communicate. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:03, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Guys, you are all making very interesting comments and saying what to do if someone deletes stuff. That's cool. But that was not really my original question. My question is what are the "road rules"? For example on roads, automobiles on a main road have right of way and the ones on a minor road have to "give way." So I'm not asking what to do if the cars on the minor road violate that, I'm trying to find out the highway definition of what constitutes a "minor road" and a "major road" in the first place! And it makes sense to me that the Misplaced Pages needs a better defined "highway code." So using this analogy I'm trying to find out a consensus as to how deletions should be carried out and how much discussion should take place beforehand. Is "discussion" like the major road and "deletion" like the minor road, or is it the other way around? Is it that on Misplaced Pages that all roads are of considered equal in width and therefore I'm asking the wrong question?bunix 22:49, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Users are encouraged to be bold. Anything anyone adds can be easily deleted. Anything anyone deletes can be easily recovered. So go ahead and boldly add. Similarly, go ahead and boldly delete. Road rules are designed to prevent collisions. Collisions here are fine, so the rules here address what to do when there are collisions (how to resolve conflicts), not how to avoid them. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:14, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

What should be done? We should all be polite to each other in our quest for a more perfect encyclopedia. We shouldn't delete other people's edits without explaining why - though discussing it with the editor would be even better. Not only is finding one's edits deleted discouraging (especially to new editors), it doesn't generally help us in our quest (constant changes will improve articles in the long run). Failing that, how should one respond to such a deletion? It doesn't really matter. Revert the deletion until the deleter gets frustrated into giving an explanation? Try to draw him into a discussion about it? Decide an edit war isn't worth the hassle? Examine your edit and figure out for yourself why it was deleted? Take your pick. Is there policy concerning this? There is no policy of this nature - only guidelines concerning being nice to people, such as Assume Good Faith and Don't Bite the Newbies. -Freekee 02:22, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's quite it though -- we do want to be polite and kind to each other, but there is the underlying goal of producing a good encyclopedia. In areas where the project's goals, policies, and the like strongly push us in one way (towards a neutral, well-styled article with good grammar that sticks to the point, with no legal problems or trivia), we should be polite but firm in moving articles towards that end. It may be wise to give a bit of leeway to more experienced editors who presumably have been part of the project longer and (hopefully!) better understand its goals, although taking that too far would be a mistake. As for notifying users, that isn't always a good idea -- sometimes (as is the case with anons) even contacting them isn't possible, and sometimes even well-intentioned edits end up introducing a lot of junk to an article -- it can save a lot of pain to remove it once and *then* start the discussion if they object/add it back. The only major problems arise when people keep reverting without discussing (which usually gets them blocked if it keeps up for long enough) or when people become rude. People should generally aim to be "polite but firm" when they're enforcing policy/good style/rest of the above, and "polite" otherwise. --Improv 16:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Good points. But I do think people shouldn't delete work without comment unless it's obvious crap. Deleting a well-intentioned edit witout comment is... bad. I would guess that most often, it's a seasoned editor removing a newbie's work. I don't feel that elitism is a good trait to demonstrate to the newbies. We like to think our articles are near perfect already. Shutting everybody else out of "our article" isn't really a good thing. Don't pretend you've got better things to do. Take a minute to explain your actions, if you can. -Freekee 02:16, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

A couple of things worth noting:

1. Major articles, like those with feature status and those on common subjects you'd find in any encyclopedia, tend to prefer the status quo. So it's best to discuss major changes on the Talk page before implementing them.
2. There is no burden of proof either way (a lot of edit wars happen because editors believe the burden is on the other). However, paragraphs added without sources can (and usually will) be deleted. Be sure to source everything you add.
3. Talking, not lawyering, resolves disputes better. Talk to the other editors. Make use of the article's Talk page. Put the paragraph(s) there so people can edit, discuss, and properly source it before putting it on the page. Fagstein 17:03, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Good question about a frequent problem. IMNSHO, one deletes material only if its clearly vandalism, slander of a living person, unsalvageable gibberish -- or material that has no place in Misplaced Pages. (As an example of the last category, if you don't like a certain politician, celebrity or other person with an article in Misplaced Pages, write your about your dislike in an essay for your Blog -- not in a Misplaced Pages article.) If it's irrelevant to the article -- say you add a paragraph about a person who once lived in Perth, Australia, & that person has an article in Misplaced Pages -- then move the material to another article. And for any other reasons that you don't think the material fits in the article -- move the passage to the Talk page with an explanation why it shouldn't be in the article. IIRC, isn't this the purpose of Talk pages?

Of course, all of these considerations at moot if the paragraph in question is deleted because the editor is trying to force material into an article that other editors have repeated explained should not be in there. But even in that case, the edit summary should contain something like "removing edit in excess of 3RR rule". -- llywrch 20:24, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

The "onus" is on all parties involved. If there is a disagreement, hash it out, either on the article's Talk page, or on your User Talk pages. If there is no agreement, then by all means, make sure that you discuss it (pleasantly) on the article's Talk page, where other eyes can look at it and comment. If that fails, then, after a while (at least 5 days with no consensus, perhaps even more) follow WP:DR. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:02, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

In the comment (above) that Rick Block makes about the "be bold" imperative, Rick suggests that this equally means "boldly delete" as well as "boldly add." That's a very interesting statement that deserves comment and analysis from you other guys. I like the way Rick thinks, as he is getting to the heart of my original question. So in the light of Rick's statement, I think I can now rephrase my original question in a clearer way: is the wiki consensus that "boldly delete" and "boldly add" are equally weighted, or is the imperative to err more on the side of "boldly adding"? bunix 02:47, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

There really is no hard and fast rule. For whatever it's worth, "two hours carefully writing the prose" is really neither here nor there. It's easily recovered from the history, and can easily be copied to the talk page (or linked from the talk page by linking to a diff like this) and if the consensus of a discussion on the talk page is to restore it, nothing is really lost.

If someone removed significant non-vandalistic prose without either an edit summary or a comment on the talk page, that was not good. But it's easily addressed: raise the issue on the talk page; alert the person you are arguing with on his/her user talk page so that there is no chance that you are blindsiding the other party; and allow a day or two for an answer before proceeding. If they answer, you are in a discussion. If they don't, just put a comment on the talk page like "It's been two days, no response, I'm restoring this."

The issue here isn't to find something blameworthy in the other person's conduct. It's to get the job done without behaving like a dick oneself. There is a lot of gray zone between a really cooperative editor and a bannable wikifelon, and a lot of the editors you will interact with are going to be in that gray zone. - Jmabel | Talk 06:45, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

On the question of whether the wiki consensus is that "boldly delete" and "boldly add" are equally weighted, my answer is yes. In all cases boldness needs to be tempered with civility. I think you're getting the same answer over and over. Just do it! But don't be a dick. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

User page limits?

I tagged an autobiographical article for db-bio, and it got userfied. I left the user a note saying his user page was his to do with as he wants, and he apparently he took it to heart. Looks like he's looking for a job, and is using us as a webhost for his résumé, which is more detailed and extensive than anything I've ever seen. Is there a policy somewhere to set limits on this? (He's also created an article under his full name, with a redirect to the user page, but I've tagged that for speedy as a CSD R2.) -- Fan-1967 18:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

• I removed the resumé content. If it shows up again, let me know and I'll talk with him some more about it. --Improv 19:14, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

• I've seen some minor stuff like that, but never anything remotely close to that extensive. Is there an official policy somewhere to set limits? (As a side note, I have db-bio-tagged a number of autobios for Asian IT people in the last few weeks (one just a few minutes ago). Has someone posted a note somewhere that this is a good place to post your résumé?) Fan-1967 19:17, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
  • We don't need a policy, just good sense. The content is just as gone now because I removed it as if there were an explicit policy forbidding it. --Improv 19:54, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Not a policy, but a guideline: WP:NOT#Misplaced Pages is not a free host, blog, webspace provider or social networking site. User:Zoe|(talk) 21:07, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Since you guys are talking about it, I also came across a user page that may be questionable. It's for Fir0002. Just seems a little extreme to me and definitely shaping up to be a "personal web page" which guidelines specifically state are not allowed. Thoughts? Roguegeek 22:01, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

• Thoughts? It's a myspace page, which is better than a résumé, but not much. Fan-1967 22:04, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh, Fir0002's page isn't so bad-- almost all of it is actually relevant to his Misplaced Pages activities, and its wiki nature is attested by the other users who have edited it to add barnstars. So what if he spent some energy making it look good, and it contains a few details that you didn't absolutely need to know? Melchoir 02:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
    • I have to second that. It's a bad example to support this point, as there's nothing out of line about this particular page. Most of it has to do with this user's Misplaced Pages awards and activities. Nothing wrong with that (and I hope he isn't put off by his page being discussed here.) 23skidoo 02:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
      • My reaction to Fir's page is, "it is creative". For low bandwidth application it might be a bit much. 95 percent of it has to do with his talent as he applies it to Misplaced Pages. The other 5 % might be argueable either way. His discussion page shows he is interested in Misplaced Pages working. Terryeo 15:16, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
        • I don't have a problem with it, it's colorful, but it serves the purpose of letting us know about the User's Misplaced Pages activities. User:Zoe|(talk) 16:10, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The only problem I have is with: Image:Fir0002 about.jpg, which is a waster of bandwidth, and could be better done with text. Davodd 01:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Linkless signatures

I've been seeing these a bit more often, recently, and I'm thinking that they're a bit problematic -- some users check "raw signature" without putting any wikilinks into their signature; when that happens, there's no easy way to get to their userpage, contribs, user talk page, or any of that fun stuff without digging through the page history. In the event their signature doesn't match their username, finding their diffs in history can be additionally problematic. With that in mind, I'd venture a proposal that all signatures be required or strongly encouraged to include a link to either of the user's main page or talk page. Thoughts? Luna Santin 02:17, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Agree, while I haven't seen too many instances of this, perhaps a link to the signature guidelines in the preferences screen would be good, that way they could be made aware of the policy?--digital_me 02:21, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Additionally, "don't click this unless you KNOW what you're doing" could be added. —this is messedrocker (talk) 02:24, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

In the rare case where I see a linkless signature, I add {{unsigned}} after it. --Carnildo 08:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I suggested a while ago at WT:SIG that there be a requirement, or at least a guideline to the effect of, "link to either your user page or your user talk page". I'd also go further and suggest "contains the text of your user name in some recognisable form" and "doesn't contain to personal advocacy or other spammage in link form or otherwise." Alai 21:22, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Things people heard at live shows vs. original research and unverified claims

This thought came to mind while reading(and doing a little bit of editing) the Streetlight Manifesto article, but is important to discuss for many band articles. If you'll look under the "Musical influences and style" section, one quote reads "In fact Streetlight have performed the two songs merged together live, with "Keasbey Nights" in the middle." Now, this is obviously true to me, as I've heard it and it's posted all over the internet. Many such notes from live shows appear in other music-related articles. See Rules of the Game for another example.

Now, in general it is illegal to record an artist's concert from what I understand. Some artists sell or upload recordings of their concerts but those are hard to access. This information is important to have in articles but it violates the unverified claim or no original research policies. Is there some way to resolve this with Misplaced Pages policies? KevinPuj 02:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Are there any reviews or news article which discuss it? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:33, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

What, exactly is your question? Are you wondering whether not-widely-available sources are still viable sources? On that last point, yes they are. Especially if they're published by the author/performer. -Freekee 03:34, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no. See WP:RS. Publications by the author/performer are primary sources, and are deprecated. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:51, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

You're going to have to be a little more specific than that. First of all, I see nothing on that page saying you can't use an organization's (band's) own website as a source (only that you need to use caution). Are you trying to say that if a musician publishes his set list after a show, we can't report that here, because... wtf? Also, when I said that about sources being published by the author, I was thinking of CDs (though that's irrelevant). -Freekee 01:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a similar argument going on at Monsters of Grace. I attended the Canadian premiere of the show, and it was booed by some audience members, which I noted (and which was also noted in media coverage however none of that media coverage from 1999 appears to have survived on the Internet). Because I cannot provide an online or print source, the claim is being made that it is OR, even though it is relating an event that happened. The article at Goldfrapp cites comments made on stage by the band as the source of a rumor that they were going to be doing the theme for Casino Royale, however in that case there was some Internet-based coverage, so that was easier to identify. 23skidoo 02:00, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Comments that aren't reported in a reliable source are not verifiable by other editors. Similarly, I just saw in an article about a radio personality (Mr. KABC) that all of the biographical info is derived from on-air comments. Yet the show isn't archved so other editors have no way of confirming the facts. -Will Beback 03:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:Main Page

ya know, i process mail for a living. i tried to add an article about some of the machines we use at work. much to my chagrin, wikipedia has turned into and idiotic feudalistic playground for bored assholes. there are dozens, if not hundreds of articles about stupid, idiotic fictional characters in video games and books and movies.

there is not an article about mail processing system that is used every day to process hundreds of millions of envelopes.

and my article got rejected?

why?

when i first came to wikipedia i started many stub articles. stubs are an excellent way to grow. nowdays, you cant. there are hundreds of rules and regulations about adding crap. and worst of all, some little shitbag king-for-a-day moderator (who is chosen how exactly? the same way the 'brilliant' slashdot moderators are i suppose - way to go, copy slashdot, king of accuracy) decides to reject the article. its fucking stupid. the whole reason wikipedia is a success is because there were no fucking rules about who could add what.

but the "real rules" behind the rules are this:

if its something bored white 20-35 year old males enjoy, like comic books or lord of the rings, it will be added.

if its not, then they will think up some rule for why it doesnt fit.

wikipedia is just, dead. its stupid. the idea is dead because the people running it are disconnected from the users and dont care about them.

its just turning into more and more of an upper middle class pissing contest about abstract bullshit.

if you keep adding more and more rules, then the only articles that will be created are by people who have enough time and bureaucratic know how to send an article through. which means, basically, the rich, the well off, the bored, the idle.

ordinary people who know a great deal about how the world works and how the food gets to your plate and how this little computer you are using right now, how it comes to be.... they are being cut out, shuffled out, de facto barred from contributing by this bureaucratic nonsense, red tape delusion, and so-called 'quality' control. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.185.250.195 (talk • contribs)

Eh, this page is only for discussion of the main page. And for those interested, he or she is referring to the rejection of an submission at Misplaced Pages:Articles for creation/2006-07-05#OPEX. And to commentor, all you must do for your submission to be accepted is follow the advice given by the reviewer; just provide another link to establish notability and resubmit. It's nothing worth getting upset over. Hyenaste  19:26, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

It looks, to me, like a pretty abrupt way of rejecting an article. Also, it didn't explicitly say that a resubmission with more links to notable sources would be welcome, which a new user (and we can assume that most unregistered users are going to be new, surely?) might not know. I typed opex mail corporation (minus quotes) into Google and got 139,000 results; the first two pages contain some trade news articles as well as official pages. That's certainly enough to get started with. And had the original moderator carried out the same search they would surely have come to conclusions regarding notability beyond "Denied." Nach0king 10:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I do see that it says "Needs sourcing", but coming so soon after Denied, it doesn't seem to me to be in language that would be welcoming to a newcomer. I do realise that it doesn't explicitly say the article isn't welcome... but nor does it say that it IS welcome, either. Nach0king 10:39, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

As the reviewer of that article, I suppose I should make some sort of comment here. The Articles for creation page receives dozens and dozens of proposed articles per day. There is a constant backlog of requests. Looking back on that article, I certainly wish in hindsight that I had provided a more detailed explanation to the poster; but the sheer volume of requests makes it difficult to take the time to do so. I would also point out that, thanks to a lot of collaborative effort, AfC procedures have changed and improved since that article was processed; among other things, there are now templates that allow reviewers to provide longer, more meaningful explanations to submitters while still cranking out the reviews in a speedy fashion. I would encourage the experienced editors reading this to get involved in the AfC process; the more people there are sharing the work, the more time can be spent on each request. Kickaha Ota 13:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Alexa Misplaced Pages's share of internet traffic hit an all-time high on Saturday, so I don't think your rant will kill it any more than any of the other rants from people who have stated that it is already dead. Chicheley 23:22, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone created the article yet? It seems a reasonable request, and I think the editor who reviewed the request should have made it clearer that with another citation, the request would be granted. Though having looked through that page and the volume of submissions, I begin to sympathise. Carcharoth 22:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I made it. BhaiSaab 01:18, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

FYI - Article is at OPEX (Corporation) and could use some attention. Megapixie 08:45, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

The original poster's message read just like the countless rants I've read, basically saying "Misplaced Pages sucks because it won't accept an article about me or my band/forum/webcomic/company". However, in this case, it looks like Misplaced Pages did accept the article. I just wish people would tone down their aggression and not insult the entire Misplaced Pages editor body just because an article they wrote got rejected or deleted. JIP | Talk 08:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages 'accepted' the article after the rant. But not because of it. :-) Carcharoth 22:58, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

But without the rant, it wouldn't have been created by now, would it? Causality at work, I think. ;-p -- drrngrvy @ 15:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Do you list mergers on deletion review or elsewhere?

If there is a merger that you feel did not qualify, do you list it on deletion review or another location? Hello32020 17:59, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to list it anywhere, just as one can BOLDLY merge a page, one can boldly un-merge it, especially if adding content. Use the talk page if dispute arises. Kappa 18:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure you know what are you talking about? There are specific guidelines that say that merging and demerging, especially if it involves moving large chunks of text, is not something to be done lightly. It took me a while to pick up on this myself, but cutting and pasting large chunks of text around Misplaced Pages destroys the attribution. What I mean by this is that if you move text from one article to another (either merging or splitting articles), then the edit history (and the list of who wrote which bits of the article) is lost. What is usually required is a merge of the edit histories, which needs some admin magic, I believe. (Compare this to a page move, where the edit history of the article is moved from the old location to the new one). At the very least, when merging or splitting, a link to the old pages is needed to allow the edit histories to be traced back, though this solution is less than ideal. This is why encouraging boldness in these cases can backfire. You really need to know what you are doing before doing a merge or split. Carcharoth 21:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles that are merged should almost never have their histories merged. The only -- only -- time this should happen is when a fork of an article is made. If a page is merged and someone disagrees with said merge they are absolutely free to unmerge. Sam Korn 21:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

How is the act of cutting and pasting text from one location to another to do a merge, different from cutting and pasting from one location to another when moving a page? We are told not to do the latter, but it seems we are told it is OK to do the former. This has always really confused me. Misplaced Pages:Merge says this about page moves:

"Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content, because doing so destroys the edit history. (The GFDL requires acknowledgement of all contributors, and editors continue to hold copyright on their contributions unless they specifically give up this right. Hence it is required that edit histories be preserved for all major contributions until the normal copyright expires.) If you come across a cut-and-paste move that should be fixed by merging the page histories, please follow the instructions here to have an administrator repair it."

But the same page says that you can cut and paste to do a page merge, as long as you leave a link in the edit summary saying 'from where' and 'to where' you did the cut and paste. This leaves the edit history for that cut and paste text at a different location to where the text ends up. I realise that this is how things are done, but the system seems to be saying: "move pages this way because we want to preserve the edit history in one location, but move chunks of text this way and spread the edit history around over several different pages." Do you see what is causing the confusion?

I keep raising this point, and no-one really seems that bothered about it. I think that merging and splitting of pages will eventually mean that in some cases it will become really difficult to trace back who wrote what in an article. That makes a mockery of both GFDL and editor attributions. Carcharoth 22:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

One wonders if a merge tab is needed. It would copy the text to the end of the target article and add a correctly linked comment. Then all the editor needs to do is move the text around in the new article. Vegaswikian 21:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. I've going to start a new thread on this, as this has veered off the original topic of the post. Carcharoth 23:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Strange species capitalization convention

The Misplaced Pages project for birds has established the convention that bird species names be capitalized, despite it not being an accepted general convention. According to one of the promulgators of the new policy, it's a convention that's used by a significant number of bird journals and texts for clarity reasons (but not even all of them!). The major English encyclopedias, novels, periodicals, etc., do not use this convention. I don't think it's appropriate for Misplaced Pages. Worse, this capitalization convention has spread to cover all mammals, hence the strange capitalization in articles such as lion, blue whale, and previously, before being edited by other Wikipedians, horse and so on.

I propose that the mammal and birds wikiprojects stop this harmful policy. Exeunt 00:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

It's not a new convention, it's old. I was fighting it back before I left Misplaced Pages the first time, and lost then, too. User:Zoe|(talk) 01:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't ike it either. I didn't mind it on bird articles. But it looks strange on mammal articles. Where is the most extensive recent discussion of this? Carcharoth 02:53, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I discussed it a bit on the WikiProject Birds page. Exeunt 02:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't like the capitalization either, and for the lowercase articles I've created for plants, insects, and fish, no one has shown up to complain. Perhaps there's a cultural disconnect among groups of editors? Melchoir 04:28, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it comes from birds like Steller's jay, that bear the name of an individual, giving rise to the mistaken "Steller's Jay". Thus Grevy's zebra morphs to "Grevy's Zebra". --Wetman 09:34, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was more to do with "this is a Black Rat" versus "this is a rat that is black" (incidentially indicating how rewriting can ameliorate this kind of thing). Carcharoth 22:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it has to do with the worshipful attitude of people who are emotionally close to the subject, the capitaliztion being, for the time, good enough while in the future, as human population increases and animal species decline, it might become "Black Rat", then "BLACK RAT" and finally, "Oh Holy BLACK RAT". Terryeo 15:39, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

German de-adminship solution

Just thought that I've written up the Misplaced Pages:German de-adminship solution, comments and suggestions are welcomed to improve onto it. - Mailer Diablo 15:12, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm having an issue related to naming conventions.

What do I do if people refuse to follow existing naming conventions because they see them as "cumbersome"? --NE2 21:20, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Have you read Misplaced Pages:Resolving disputes? -- Rick Block (talk) 01:11, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that applies; the "Avoidance" section implies that a dispute is taking place in article space. This is a discussion on a WikiProject talk page. --NE2 01:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

This is a highways issue again, isn't it... ;-) Kirill Lokshin 01:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what namespace. Disputes are disputes. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:07, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

So what do you suggest I do about Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Virginia Highways? I've tried to discuss, but the others don't seem to understand my arguments. I'm stuck. --NE2 03:24, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd encourage you to participate in Misplaced Pages:State route naming conventions poll (I'm curious why you have not already participated) and suggest others from the Virginia project participate as well. It looks to me like there is not yet a project-wide consensus, which suggests you should not change any existing article names to your preferred naming style and, IMO, creating lots of new articles not following the current informal convention for the state borders on WP:POINT. Consensus takes time, and patience, and generally the ability to compromise. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:52, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a pretty clear lack of consensus at that poll, which seems overly complex and yet too simple to have any effect. Participation, if you can call it that, simply consists of making a vote; I'm hoping for an informed consensus. I fail to see how WP:POINT would apply; it specifically mentions "either parody or some form of breaching experiment". I have openly discussed why I feel that my names are best at satisfying the naming conventions; there was hardly a response until I suggested changing the existing articles. --NE2 04:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:POINT says State your point; don't prove it experimentally. You disagree with an existing naming practice. You've brought this up in the appropriate forums (stated your point). By creating articles flagrantly violating the existing naming practice you're attempting to force the issue (prove it experimentally). Whether it's "either parody or some form of breaching experiment" doesn't matter. I strongly suggest you drop this issue, pending consensus at Misplaced Pages:State route naming conventions poll. If you don't want to participate there, that's your choice. Continuing to push your point in other forums (like here) could be interpreted as trolling. -- Rick Block (talk) 04:28, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me? I'm helping the encyclopedia by writing articles and naming them by our existing conventions. I have no intention to stop writing articles just because you believe I'm doing it for the purpose of disruption. I came here looking for help, not abuse. --NE2 05:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Original research, verifiability and relevance

Okay, I was looking at our article on primary sources and noticed that it stated that:

As a general rule, however, modern historians prefer to go back to available primary sources and to seek new (in other words, forgotten or lost) ones. Primary sources, whether accurate or not, offer new input into historical questions and most modern history revolves around heavy use of archives and special collections for the purpose of finding useful primary sources

So tying in with our original research policy, what I'm thinking is that primary sources need evaluation as to their importance and interpretation, and then that interpretation would constitute original research, yes? Any interpretation would need to be published in a reliable source to be acceptable to Misplaced Pages, yes? I was also thinking that the relevance of a primary source is something which needs to be determined, through its use as a primary source in a secondary source. A primary source has no relevance to impart to its field or subject by itself, it is something that critics, historians and experts bestow through publishing their research, yeah? Relevance, meaning that a primary source has information to bear, is not something we can determine, but rather must be determined for us through secondary sources, yeah?

Can we decide what has relevance within any given field, or is that in violation of WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR? Do we need secondary sources to determine relvance for us? Steve block Talk 11:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

• Certainly we shouldn't provide or imply some interpretation of a primary source that is not supported by secondary sources. That would be a novel analysis of the sort that is prohibited by the original research policy. Relevance of a primary source to a topic should also be established by secondary sources in general, though this might not require the primary source actually being discussed in a secondary source: e.g. if a historian makes a criticism of an individual in a book, and that individual publishes a response to that criticism on his website, then I would say the response is probably relevant. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

This is an interesting problem. For example, during the 1960s while in college my wife was on a friendly basis with Julia Mullock. According to my wife, Julia mentioned that she was Jewish, yet I do not know of anywhere here or elsewhere that mentions that. So if I put that in the wikipedia entry, it would be original research & ineligible, right? Aside from the sort of 'so what' aspect. --Dan 20:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Google maps

What's Misplaced Pages's policy on using google maps screenshots on Misplaced Pages? --Dijxtra 16:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK they're copyright, so you can't add them. You can make them an external link, however. -- Grafikm 16:21, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe a screenshot of their graphical display (their GUI, or the actual map), or the "hybrid" would be copyrighted. The actual satellite images themselves if cropped out with no Google content I don't believe are copyrighted as I think they're the work of the US Federal government. If you need for some reason to link to Google's fancy stuff (hybrid maps, etc.) probably best to just directly link to the appropriate spot, as I did on this article. So, on this Google maps linke where that image displays the name of the nearby town, the state highways, and so on, I think it would be fair to take a cropped version of the satellite images. Just note that Google watermarks lots of stuff, so that may complicate things. Unless you really have a pressing need to show the image in your article, and can make it work with all this and copyright law, better to just link. rootology (T) 16:25, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

If you want satellite data akin to Google Maps/Earth, you should probably use NASA WorldWind instead, as that does come from NASA data. The photographic imagery on Google Maps is copyrighted, it does not come from NASA. --Interiot 16:32, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, that clears that up. I didn't know it was from a private mapping company. Thanks. rootology (T) 16:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

And anywhere you need to / feel it's useful to link to an external map it's much better to use one of the many templates (for example {{coor dms}}, see also WP:GEO) that link to multiple mapping sites. Thanks/wangi 16:42, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I thought of that. But, at the moment, I'm populating redlinks on List of inhabited islands of Croatia and it seems to me that it is fairly relevant to include a satelite photo of an island since the shape of an island is an important property... unline the shape of, for instance, a city. What is your personal oppinion, is it sane to put a satelite photo in every article about an island? --Dijxtra 16:46, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

My interpretation of their terms of use is that it is basically verboten to use their imagery in Misplaced Pages. Alr 19:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Scottish monarchs naming policy

There's a debate going on as to whether the early Scottish kings should be named according to their English or Gaelic names. I support using the English names, as do a few other people, whilst the principle contributors to the article want Gaelic names used. Any comment would be appreciated: Talk:Cináed I of Scotland --Nydas 06:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Try both? I suppose it's up to the community to decide as to the article's title, but as long as both English and Gaelic names are stated clearly upon commencement of the article, I don't see why having a certain one be prevalent amongst names is problematic. Personally I would suggest English in the English version of WP, but this is with no understanding of the topics in question. Mouse Nightshirt 01:22, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Trivia sections a huge problem

In "Trivia" sections of articles discussing works of fiction, there is a rampant problem of an apparent belief that "Triva" means "The Rules of Misplaced Pages don't apply here." I see all sorts of speculation, original research, and unsourced/unverifiable statements in trivia sections, and it needs to stop. Is there any policy statement that addresses this specific problem, or some way to make one? Sorry if this has been said already, and thanks in advance. -- Digital Watches!

Erm.... If core policies aren't being enforced, then do so. Is it more complicated than that? --Interiot 09:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's appropriate to remove trivia sections on sight. If you have trouble keeping them removed, drop me a note and I'll have a chat with those restoring them. --Improv 12:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There's a newly minted guideline on this at Misplaced Pages:Avoid trivia sections in articles. Steve block Talk 13:03, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There's also a relevant essay here.--Fuhghettaboutit 13:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

My previous tactic was to move a trivia section to the talk page to allow other editors to participate with integrating the information worthy of inclusion in the article. If I read this new guideline correctly, that should not be done in the future. Doc ♬ talk 13:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Fair play. I've had a bash at editing the guideline, feel free to amend it yourself. It's new so I don't see why it shouldn't be editable. Steve block Talk 13:34, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks. I'll take a look at that and start doing what's necessary to get rid of this problem. Digital Watches (ヂジ) 19:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The guidelines say that trivia sections shouldn't be deleted but rather should be left as a store of information pending intigration. If it gets to large and unorganised it should be moved to the talks page. --Matt D 21:54, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I've been renaming Trivia sections in movie articles as "Additional production information". It seems more encylopedic that way...Michael Dorosh 21:58, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposal of Creators rights policy

I've been thinking recently that creators of articles arnt really given alot of chance to argue against deletion, or speedy deletion and i think that maybe a policy could be adopted to rectify this problem, i am proposing the following.

• After and an article is determined to have met the criteria for deletion and the marker is placed on the page a message should be place on the creators talk page which signals to them that their article is a candidate for deletion.
• there should then be a period of X amount of hours in which the creator is allowed to post a statement on a certain page, the purpose of the statement being that the creator is able to say what the merit of the page is and why it should be spared from deletion.
• Discussion is encouraged after the statement is issued and once a consenus is reached appropriate action to either delete or keep the article will be taken.
• If the time limit after the talk page message has elapsed the deletion of the article would commence
• It would be most effective if the standard deletion appeal process is kept after the possible enactment of this policy goes ahead.Zepher25 11:18, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

All this already applies. If someone has an article they "created" (I take it you mean "originated") on their watch list, they'll see if it's tagged for deletion. There are processes to object to speedy or ordinary deletions, there is ample opportunity for discussion. What do you think the problem is with the current system? WP:OWN applies, as ever - originators of articles have no special rights. --ajn (talk) 11:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

thats my point, i think creators should have the special right to defend the legitamacy of their article, i have fallen victim to this system of supposed fairness, being a non american the article was deleted during my sleep hours, which makes it completely unfair for a large amount of users who do not have the chance to defend their articles and wake to find it deleted.Zepher25 12:35, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Then you take it to deletion review. --ajn (talk) 12:44, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

• On wikipedia, there is never "your article". It's a community site, none of us own any articles. --Improv 12:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

• I think if you spend some time on RCP you might get a better idea of why this proposal is totally unworkable. In a typical hour, there are dozens of absolute garbage articles: pranks, attack pages, autobiographies by teenagers, nonsense vandalism, etc. Look at Category:Candidates for speedy deletion at any given time. If you let this stuff hang around for 24 hours, the backlog would become totally unmanageable. If a legitimate article gets speedied, then as ajn says, take it to Deletion Review, or recreate it with a note on the talk page to defend it. Speedy deletion as it stands is absolutely necessary. Fan-1967 13:04, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

well it appears i am defeated, but this is my opinion and i will not diverge from it.Zepher25 14:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

That's perfectly okay; no one is trying to say that you are wrong for having your opinion, just that it doesn't mesh well with the overall culture. There is a problem, in my view, with workable article stubs & substubs being nominated for deletion within their first 2-3 minutes of existence (New Pages Patrol is not Whack-a-mole). If it has any plausible existence as an encyclopedic article, it should be prodded, watchlisted, or sent to Articles for deletion. We bite way too many newbies by trying to keep our scores as low as possible. -- nae'blis 03:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

'Clinical Depression' v. 'Depression as a mood'

I am constantly finding biographies in Misplaced Pages which contain statements such as "the person was depressed" or "they entered into a period of depression". And, more often than not, the word 'depression' is linked to 'clinical depression'.

The condition of 'clinical depression' requires a medical diagnosis. If a person states that they feel 'depressed', without such a diagnosis, this should be entered into the biography linked to 'depression (mood)’.

If a written policy covering this does not presently exist – one should.

Michael David 13:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

If a policy should be applied, it's the idea that words should not be systematically linked, your exemple is typical of the abusive use of links. Christopher Lims 21:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Question about linking in tables

Can anyone please point me to section of the policy where it states that you may not link to a page multiple times in the same table?

E.g.

Only the first line referenced to album D I added also links to album D on the next line(s).

But my changes were changes were reverted?

What is the proper policy? Thank you

--CedricVonck 14:17, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I am believing this: If you must "search" for a link, it makes sense to include some reundancy, have in mind (or argue) not everyone reads the complete article. Editor and reader see an article completely different. If it becomes more readable, this means to improve an article! Policies are a framework... User:Yy-bo 14:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

There's no rule/guideline/policy that breaks it down as far as "how many times can a link show up in a table?". But the general guidelines that cover linking are in Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (links). The "Overlinking" section is the key one here. It says, among other things, that an article (or table) is overlinked if: "a link is excessively repeated in the same article; however, duplicating an important link distant from a previous occurrence is appropriate". Whoever reverted your edits presumably decided that if "duplicating an important link distant from a previous occurrence is appropriate", then duplicating a link that's very close to its previous occurrence -- in this case, in adjacent rows of the table -- must not be appropriate. Kickaha Ota 15:37, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

NDA information (non-disclosure agreement)

This particiualary affects technical information, for instance excerpts from manufacturer manuals which are stamped "confidential".

My questions:

• are wikipedia articles allowed to link to sites, which obviously break an NDA?
• must these links be removed immediately, or just let them be?
• how about unlicensed information into articles? Basically this means, "NDA" is some sort of license, and cannot be replaced by GDFL. If I take information out of a documentation, which is stamped confidential, i believe this is a breach of applyable law.
  • otherwise, GDFL grants me to use that information!
• most likely this affects privileged technical information: computer technology, research, etc.

The reason why i write it: today i found a sufficient formulation: "Confidentiality: These forums are not confidential. Please do not discuss matters covered under an non-disclosure agreement (NDA)." (freescale semiconductor)

The background: SEGA programming references. There are bits and pieces on the net, i even had them on my computer. But they are clearly stamped confidential. It is not verifyable how they made their way on the net. For superstition reason, i can not use any of this information.

It is affecting probably .1 percent of wikipedia articles. Hence it is only affecting a minority of users. User:Yy-bo 14:51, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't link to materials that obviously violate an NDA. My concern wouldn't be legal reasons; in general, there's no legal penalty for the person who receives information in violation of an NDA -- just for the person who gives it. But the fundamental problem with such links is that they would almost always be very fragile. The owner of the information is likely to try very hard to get it off the net (especially once it's linked from a Misplaced Pages article). And if and when the information is removed, then the article suddenly loses its source. Kickaha Ota 15:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Legal questions step aside - one gets a hacker smell attached, if deriving projects from hacker knowledge, or information containinig vulgar comments, presented in broken environments, and in addition not respecting/bypassing security mechanism. My question was if GDFL can whitewash such knowledge - and my own answer to it is NO. I wish it being useable - but there was strong feeling not to do it. User:Yy-bo 16:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Non_Disclosure User:Yy-bo 17:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

NPOV does not overide V or NOR! (Or does it?)

There's an ongoing discussion on Misplaced Pages talk:Neutral point of view over how the NPOV, V and NOR policies relate to each other. There seem to be two camps, one proposing that NPOV is the primary policy, and the other that they must all be satisfied. --Barberio 17:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Stating that NPOV is the primary policy in no way indicates that all three need not be met. I believe that by properly satisfying NPOV, we will satisfy V and NOR inherently, but that this does not apply in the inverse. (Meaning satisfying V and NOR will not automatically satisfy NPOV.) This would indicate that Verifiability and No Original Research are sub-policies of NPOV. --tjstrf 17:38, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Shortcuts to special pages

I beg pardon if these already exist; using Special:Whatlinkshere has suggested to me that they do not. Just as we have the WP: quasi-namespace for shortcuts to pages in the Misplaced Pages: namespace, why not add a few shortcuts for special pages? S: happens to be taken by Wikisource, so I figure SP: or SPEC: would be the next choices. As one example, SPEC:RC could link to Special:Recentchanges. If nothing else, it would make my job at the help desk just a smidge easier, from time to time. Thoughts? If this is a good idea, do we prefer SP: or SPEC:? Luna Santin 19:23, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

• Would it be possible to go WP:SPRC? Just to keep it all in the WP quasi namespace? I think we have some WP redirects that go to help pages rather than wikipedia namespace pages, so it's got potential. Steve block Talk 19:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

• Special pages are easy to access via the link in the "toolbox" sidebar, so i don't think a shortcut would be necessary. Martin 19:30, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It would appear redirects to special pages don't work, see SP:NP (and the other ones at Special:Prefixindex/SP:). -- Rick Block (talk) 00:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

New Policy Proposals:

I have made a few suggested wikipedia policy changes and have posted them at Misplaced Pages talk:Administrators' noticeboard.Courtney Akins 01:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

How to describe this, other than horrid? The first of your policies would essentially forbid the usage of the article talk pages, even to discuss improving the articles. Those of us who look for and stop vandalism, search out and attempt to resolve content disputes, a lot of administrators, and people who prefer to hammer out new sections on the talk page first, would all be BANNED. The second of your proposals is just semantic. The third proposal would be a good idea, but goes against the Misplaced Pages motto, and would be unenforceable. This will probably be the fastest shooting down of a policy proposal ever. --tjstrf 03:09, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

AFD woes

Hey I currently have an article in an AFD and the more I look at it, the more I realize it might have a place in Wikibooks or StrategyWiki (take a look at the article). Although I'd like it to stay as it is, I just have a quick question about alternate solutions. Can I nominate or move the article for either of the earlier two ideas while it's in an AFD? or is it too late? --Clyde Miller 03:04, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

From what I understand, Wikibooks is not the place for game guides any longer. However since StrategyWiki is GFDL, you should be able to copy the final content (transwiki) it over there, but include the attributions from the page's history on the talk page/a subpage of the article there, to keep the record straight. -- nae'blis 03:45, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Transwiki it to Wikibooks. Davodd 09:26, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

So does the article have to be voted to be transwikied or can I just do it? Also, I am a little unclear on what nae'blis said. Are you saying I should take the transwikied information and put it on a subpage or should I just tell them that I moved it? Finally, nae'blis you are saying I can't transfer the article to wikibooks but Davodd, you say I can. Now I'm really confused. --Clyde Miller 14:48, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikimedia vs Misplaced Pages

I asked a question on Jimbo's talk page but it seems difficult to get feedback from him (what I can understand).

Anyway, here it is, hoping that somebody will be able to bring clarity. And my apologies if the question was already raised and solved.

Here are the facts that puzzle me:

• Jimbo's presentation says that he is "the founder and the chairman of the Wikimedia Foudation, the groups that governs Misplaced Pages";

• Misplaced Pages:Overview FAQ#Who owns Misplaced Pages? says that "Misplaced Pages is managed by a nonprofit parent organization, The Wikimedia Foundation".

Is Misplaced Pages governed and managed by Wikimedia?

The way I understand the situation is that the foundation owns the name "Misplaced Pages", the domain names and the servers that Misplaced Pages is using, but that it does not "govern" or "manage" Misplaced Pages as it is neither the owner nor the editor of the content of Misplaced Pages. If "govern" and "manage" mean "organises, determines the content" and if Misplaced Pages means the encyclopedia, I certainly do not agree with that concept.

Some clarity is thus desired. To use the words of somebody who asked the same question on Jimbo's talk page, "I don't consider I work for anybody in particular but for a project and I consider this project owes nobody but everybody. Am I wrong ?"

I could find no real help in the Foundation's By-laws that are repeated in this page:

"The goal of the Wikimedia foundation is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge."

Cool! "develop", "maintain", "provide",...it does connect nicely with the view that the Foundation "supports" the encyclopedia.

But if we read a little further:

"In addition to the multilingual general encyclopedia Misplaced Pages, the Foundation manages a multi-language dictionary and thesaurus (...)"

And here comes "manages" again.

Thinking about it, I was wondering to what extent the issue might originate in a confusion between:

• Misplaced Pages, the name;
• Misplaced Pages, the encyclopedia that is currently using that name.

Does this section of Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines contain a hint, when it says that "Jimmy Wales (and) the Board (may create a policy) for copyright (or) legal issues"?

Considering what the Foundation owns and controls, I understand it does have a certain amount of control related to two orders of issue:

• legal issues that are of direct interest to the foundation (possible threats towards the Foundation that need to be adressed),
• the pillars of the encyclopedia are not respected (if, for instance, a majority of wikipedians would vote for a policy that is a negation of NPOV),

but I have difficulty in accepting a general statement that the Foundation governs or manages Misplaced Pages. Bradipus 15:30, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not associated in any way with the Foundation, however my understanding is the Foundation owns the domain name and funds the servers, and thus "owns" the website, its copyright terms, and all rules and policies that are in force. The Foundation chooses to allow anyone to contribute to the content and, although each contributor owns their own text (in an authorship sense), by clicking "submit" each contributor agrees to the licensing terms established by the foundation. The Foundation chooses to license the content under the GFDL which ensures the content can be freely forked and mirrored. The Foundation similarly chooses to manage this website by letting it run nearly autonomously, through its own consensus-driven rules and policies. The Foundation has made it fairly clear they expect to continue operation of this site in essentially its current form essentially permanently, but it could (extremely hypothetically) choose to "close the doors" tomorrow and not let anyone edit or view the content ever again. Note that doing this would not affect any existing forks or mirrors, and cannot affect the license of current content. So, yes, in an absolute sense the Foundation governs and manages Misplaced Pages. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

It's their servers, their name, and they're in charge, at least on paper. Of course, most of the smaller, day-to-day decisions are made by contributors. If you don't like it, you're more than welcome to start your own wiki encyclopedia, and Wikimedia even provides a complete database dump free of charge. Fagstein 18:10, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The people at the Wikimedia Foundation are in general lead or former contributors and administrators; it does not consist of external shareholders or something. Their goals are aligned with the purpose of a 💕. If this were ever to change or there were some other failure of the Wikimedia Foundation, the license of Misplaced Pages content is such that anyone can start up another such project with a duplicate. Policies are generated and revised every day by regular contributors, you can see this on their discussion pages, while there is in some areas a level of a rather passive benevolent dictatorship. It would be better to be more specific if you have further questions. —Centrx→talk • 18:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me clarify something: I do not question anything specific that the Foundation would have done or the goals of the board members.

In any case, the by-laws of the foundation state that its goal is "to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge.", so at the end of the day, the foundation does share that with most wikipedians.

But it is not because I share this with most wikipedians that I would automatically give a small group of wikipedians power to govern the encyclopedia.

So it is really the "govern" and "manage" stuff that annoys me.

Again, as I said, I also understand that the foundation can be there as some kind of watchdog chacking that WP:IAR does not go as far as ignoring the pillars of WP.

But is that the limit of Wikimedia' governance?

I mean, between "the Wikimedia Foudation governs Misplaced Pages" and WP:IAR, where the heck are we exactly? Bradipus 20:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Where we are is doing what is necessary to create an encyclopedia. The Wikimedia Foundation does not govern Misplaced Pages in the way you may be thinking, but it wouldn't make sense to think of it that way anyway, it is all individuals in the end. The persons involved with Wikimedia and Meta are, in general, highly respected people, long-time contributors, who are also part of the Misplaced Pages community. Their ideas command respect because of this, but they are not demanding things, people agree with them. Some things that someone might point to that are influenced by "Wikimedia" are the tightening of Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons after the Siegenthaler controversy or the central position of NPOV, and there are discussions about it on the mailing lists too in addition the Misplaced Pages talk pages, but the fact remains that they are good ideas, people agree with it, and everyone who wants to be is involved with making the policy. —Centrx→talk • 20:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Another example could be from Jimbo's recent speech at Wikimania, saying that the English Misplaced Pages should focus more on quality rather than quantity, as we already have so many pages, but many are mediocre. A lot of people agree with that because it is a reasonable idea, they think Jimbo is an intelligent person, and if there is a leader of Misplaced Pages, he would be it. So, some people will focus more on quality than quantity, but of course anyone can still do what they want. —Centrx→talk • 20:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd put it slightly differently. The Foundation owns, runs, governs, manages, <whatever words you want> Misplaced Pages. They set it up with the "foundational" rules of WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR and are currently choosing (and show no indication of ever doing otherwise) to let it basically run itself by whatever other rules the users decide upon. If the users decide something stupid (like, say, to allow copyrighted images to be included), the Foundation will pretty clearly intervene. We (the users) are guests in their house, but it is ultimately their house. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:47, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the fact remains that they can legally do whatever they want, but currently they haven't done anything that is against the spirit of Misplaced Pages, and a significant portion of major contributors support the actions they have made. If they were to take any seriously bad action, they would find that "Misplaced Pages" is nothing but its content and contributors. That content, which is free, can and would be hosted elsewhere and encyclopedia contributors can and would migrate to a new host. Welcome to the future; this is what technology enables. —Centrx→talk • 23:16, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, Rick Block, this is exactly what I meant when I said that I would understand the foundation would intervene if the pillars of the encyclopedia are not respected, and I gave the example of wikipedians voting for a policy that is a negation of NPOV.

What I understand from your answers is that the foundation has the legal capacity to govern and manage Misplaced Pages, but that as long as the self-management or mild anarchy inside the project goes in the general direction that is given by the pillars, the foundation will just do nothing with that legal capacity.

That I can understand, and as Centrx noted, the limit to that power is the fact that wikipedians also have the legal capacity to decide to work for another project starting with a dump of Misplaced Pages, but as long as they are satisfied with the way the foundation exercises its powers, they will stay within the project.

There is by the way a limit to the powers of the foundation, which is its by-laws. It can't do anything that is contrary to its by-laws. What kind of limit this means practically, I do not know, but lots of people gave money to the foundation, and when they did so, they were supporting certain concepts. Should these concepts be "betrayed", I guess even some kind of legal action woud be possible (don't ask me what exactly, I got my law degree 20 years ago, and I am not used to the concept of foundation that is of very little use in European financial law).

Anyway, to get back to the initial question, the answer, is, as I understand it, that the foundation, as owner of the domain names, the name of Misplaced Pages and the servers that Misplaced Pages is using, is technically the current "owner" of the general framework (website) that is currently representing Misplaced Pages, and that although the content of Misplaced Pages is free, the foundation is the only person that has the legal capacity to organise and govern the current Misplaced Pages project (within the boundaries of its by-laws) but that the foundation has decided to let the users run the project as long as they remain within the boundaries of the pillars and do not cause any legal threat for the foundation.

In other words, if you take the usual meaning of "govern and manage", which is organising and taking decisions on a day-to-day basis, the foundation is not governing or managing Misplaced Pages because the foundation decided so (I do not consider as "management" the fact that a lot of people work on ensuring the material support necessary to Misplaced Pages and eventually take decisions to ensure that).

Do you agree with this view?

To take a step further, I think the best way to describe the foundation may be the following: the Foundation is at the same time the Constitutional Convention of the projects it supports, and the Constitutional court of the projects, but it lets the general legislative and executive powers to the electronic citizens of the projects, knowing that the other side of this mild anarchy is that the foundation can at any time intervene as constituant power or as constitutional court to put the project back on tracks.

What do you think of this conclusion? And while I am typing this, wouldn't it be a good idea to materialise this parallel with politics and write a constitution for the projects?

Thank you for the people who took the time to read me and gave me interesting information that helped me, I hope, to form a clearer view. Bradipus 11:49, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I mostly agree, although I believe members of the board are a little more in touch with the running of at least en.wikipedia (I can't speak at all for the others) than your "constitutional court" analogy would imply. In particular, Jimbo occasionally makes binding proclamations (anonymous users not being allowed to create articles, WP:CSD#I4, and category:living people are some fairly recent ones) which I think suggests his role includes (and he occasionally exercises) executive privilege. And, as Centrx points out, the philosophical goals of the Foundation are understood and shared by at least most of the "major contributors". Nearly all of this is already described at Misplaced Pages:Who writes Misplaced Pages. Is there something missing that a constitution would cover? -- Rick Block (talk) 15:52, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I think these two examples are well within the boundaries of the cases where I did envisage a direct action of the foundation without going through the whole normal process: when dealing with legal issues that are of direct interest to the foundation (possible threats towards the Foundation that need to be adressed), and when the pillars of the encyclopedia are not respected. In the examples you give, it all goes around stressing the importance of respecting the pillars when the foundation is at risk :who knows what would happened if somebody would sue the foundation for something defamatory in a biography? And who wants to court-test the concept that only the author is accountable for what is on an article? Noone I think.

Advantage of a constitution? Maybe a bit more clarity. If I asked the question, it is because there is a certain lack of clarity, hu? ;-) Bradipus 16:31, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

<quibble> Quoting from somewhere above: "The Foundation has made it fairly clear they expect to continue operation of this site in essentially its current form essentially permanently" - well, actually, if I could speak for the Foundation, I'd put that as the Foundation expect to continue to operate the site for as long as the Foundation exists and can do so.</quibble> All things end eventually, even Misplaced Pages. The information and organisational hallmarks may continue to echo down the corridors of eternity for a while, but thinking of possible "end-game scenarios" for Misplaced Pages is a fascinating exercise. I think there was a page abot it somewhere, but I lost it. I like the "Foundation clamps down, users migrate to a fork" one! :-) Carcharoth 23:50, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Protecting children's privacy

Recently there have been a number of cases posted to the administrators' noticeboard about editors who self-identify as children posting personal information, such as their addresses, to their user pages. This presents a possible violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and is at the very least unwise as it could invite unwanted attention. I have created a draft policy (WP:COPPA) for discussion. It is early and rough; please whack away at it as needed. I think most of the rationale is there. Thatcher131 (talk) 16:25, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed style guide on ALL CAPS

A style guide called Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (ALL CAPS) is proposed. Please tell us if you like the guide, what is missing, what should be changed or amended, etc.

The purpose of the style guide is to curb the use of all caps. I consider this guide to be natural, but still necessary. If anyone wants to ask any questions on the talk page, we'll gladly answer them. Shinobu 18:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Why not just incorporate anything new into Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (capital letters), which appears to cover this already? Fagstein 21:55, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

The capital letters MoS only says "Initial capitals and all capitals should not be used for emphasis", but the MoS(AC) is much broader. Please see Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (emphasis) for the rationale(s) of having this style guide on a separate page. Of course, having MoS(AC) as a section of MoS(CL) would be possible too, but a separate MoS-page is a bit easier to find. Shinobu 23:19, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Cut and pasting and "merge" tab

Copied from here and placed under its own title to clarify topic. Comments would be greatly appreciated, as well as ideas about where to get more input. Carcharoth 23:05, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

There are specific guidelines that say that merging and demerging, especially if it involves moving large chunks of text, is not something to be done lightly. It took me a while to pick up on this myself, but cutting and pasting large chunks of text around Misplaced Pages destroys the attribution. What I mean by this is that if you move text from one article to another (either merging or splitting articles), then the edit history (and the list of who wrote which bits of the article) is lost. What is usually required is a merge of the edit histories, which needs some admin magic, I believe. (Compare this to a page move, where the edit history of the article is moved from the old location to the new one). At the very least, when merging or splitting, a link to the old pages is needed to allow the edit histories to be traced back, though this solution is less than ideal. This is why encouraging boldness in these cases can backfire. You really need to know what you are doing before doing a merge or split. Carcharoth 21:13, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Articles that are merged should almost never have their histories merged. The only -- only -- time this should happen is when a fork of an article is made. If a page is merged and someone disagrees with said merge they are absolutely free to unmerge. Sam Korn 21:43, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

How is the act of cutting and pasting text from one location to another to do a merge, different from cutting and pasting from one location to another when moving a page? We are told not to do the latter, but it seems we are told it is OK to do the former. This has always really confused me. Misplaced Pages:Merge says this about page moves:

"Do not move or rename a page by copying/pasting its content, because doing so destroys the edit history. (The GFDL requires acknowledgement of all contributors, and editors continue to hold copyright on their contributions unless they specifically give up this right. Hence it is required that edit histories be preserved for all major contributions until the normal copyright expires.) If you come across a cut-and-paste move that should be fixed by merging the page histories, please follow the instructions here to have an administrator repair it."

But the same page says that you can cut and paste to do a page merge, as long as you leave a link in the edit summary saying 'from where' and 'to where' you did the cut and paste. This leaves the edit history for that cut and paste text at a different location to where the text ends up. I realise that this is how things are done, but the system seems to be saying: "move pages this way because we want to preserve the edit history in one location, but move chunks of text this way and spread the edit history around over several different pages." Do you see what is causing the confusion?

I keep raising this point, and no-one really seems that bothered about it. I think that merging and splitting of pages will eventually mean that in some cases it will become really difficult to trace back who wrote what in an article. That makes a mockery of both GFDL and editor attributions. Carcharoth 22:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

One wonders if a merge tab is needed. It would copy the text to the end of the target article and add a correctly linked comment. Then all the editor needs to do is move the text around in the new article. Vegaswikian 21:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like a tool more often useful to vandals than to anyone else. - Jmabel | Talk 06:26, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Use of COLLADA format to enable 3D models for exemplification, explanation, and illustration

The .dae extension is for the COLLADA format (see http://en.wikipedia.org/COLLADA ). I would like to contribute some 3D models that I have authored using PD, CC:AT, and/or CC:SA:AT licenses. The first 3D model I'd like to submit is publicly available at http://people.redhat.com/tiemann/unitcube.dae and is licensed "Public Domain" by me. It is the unit cube. I hope this will open the floodgates for other modelers to begin adding their own creative 3D works with appropriate Misplaced Pages licensing.

--Michael Tiemann 14:09, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Extension to page move mechanism

A quick proposal for a minor extension to the page move mechanism: Give an option to disable the automatic redirect which is created at the page's old location. If the automatic redirect isn't created, then the old location becomes empty (as though the article were deleted), and can be the target of a subsequent page move. Note that the rule that the page move target must be empty or a trivial redirect still applies (for non-administrative moves).

This will allow many moves which currently must be handled by administrators to be performed by users, such as swapping two pages. Note that no information can be lost; all page histories are preserved by such moves. Consensus must be reached on controverisal page moves, like any controversial article change.

A few concerns:

• Such a policy might give Willy On Wheels (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) and imitators additional options; one could restrict non-forwarding page moves to "established" users. (Or, one could go further and limit all page moves to established users). On the other side of the coin, non-admin vandal fighters could then clean up WoW's messes more easily.
  • On particular area of potential abuse which must be watched for quickly is de-facto page deletes which are done through moving a page to an obscure location. While this can happen today, the redirect makes it easier to see what has happened. For example; suppose someone doesn't like Ann Coulter, and decides to move her article to Ann CouIter (Ann CouIter) without a redirect. The article will appear to have disapperared; but Ann CouIter (at the new doppleganger location) will still appear in people's watchlists, so those watching the page might not be aware of the move).
• This might open up a new avenue for edit wars (page-move wheel wars have been fought recently, so page move battle's aren't unheard of). 3RR should apply to page moves, obviously. OTOH, POV page moves with little community support can be reverted with administrator intervention.

The default behavior would be to create the redirect, as is done today.

Thoughts?

--EngineerScotty 21:13, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought the point of having automatic redirects created was to avoid breaking links. If you are moving a long-established page, you need a redirect there. Also, you would have to ensure (somehow) that people fix all the links to the old page to point to the new page. The sort of thing you propose would only work for articles that were only a few days old, and doing this for a long-established article with thousands of links pointing at it, would be disastrous. Also, as you point out, redirects help people to see what has happened and where articles used to be. This is important for tracing the history of an article. Your proposal would make it harder for people (especially non-admins) to see "what has happened". Carcharoth 22:25, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Carcharoth, if you move the page using the page move function, all of the history goes with it. I do not think that the creation of redirects is a big deal. If you do not want it to be a redirect, then change it to something else (an article or disambiguation page) or nominate it for deletion (however, some people love redirects, so it might be hard to get it deleted, even though it might be useless for searching or linking. be as thorough and persuasive as reasonably possible). Vandal moves do not require redirects and neither do pages with disambiguation in the name (usually something in parentheses) that have only existed for a short time (technically not needed, policy may say something different and a deletion nomination may be unsuccessful). If they have existed for a while, there may be links to that url from other websites. Of course, if the old name is deleted, you will need to update all of the pages that link to that name (if there are a lot of links, the article probably had that name for a long time, though. -- Kjkolb 04:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Can't think of a single occasion where one wouldn't want to keep a redirect at the old location — with the one notable exception of clearing obstructed move targets. This could cut the administrator workload of WP:RM by half, if not more. Definitely worth considering. But playing article-hide-and-seek with pagemove vandals sure won't be fun. A general option to omit the redirect is out of the question.

• So how's this: Provide an option to move a page without leaving a redirect — but then only to a fixed, automatically generated target location. Let's call it PAGENAME/outofway. (If PAGENAME/outofway already exists, try PAGENAME/outofway2 etc. until a slot is free.)
  • To move a source PAGENAME1 over an obstructed target PAGENAME2, 'outofway' PAGENAME2 to PAGENAME2/outofway, and normally rename PAGENAME1 to the now free title of PAGENAME2. Tag PAGENAME2/outofway for speedy deletion.

    Or, if PAGENAME2 had a significant history, normally move PAGENAME2/outofway to a new PAGENAME3, then tag the redirect which this leaves at PAGENAME2/outofway for for speedy deletion. Alternatively you can rename PAGENAME2 first and outofway the redirect.

  • To swap two pages, outofway PAGENAME1 to PAGENAME1/outofway, rename PAGENAME2 to PAGENAME1, outofway the redirect left at PAGENAME2 to PAGENAME2/outofway, and move PAGENAME1/outofway to PAGENAME2. Then tag the redirects left at PAGENAME1/outofway and PAGENAME2/outofway for deletion.
  • If a vandal outofways a page, you can just move it back and tag PAGENAME/outofway for deletion.
  • If a vandal outofways a page and recreates a spoofed page at the original location, outofway PAGENAME to PAGENAME/outofway2, and rename the original page from PAGENAME/outofway back to PAGENAME. Then tag both redirects at PAGENAME/outofway and PAGENAME/outofway2 for deletion.

Bad-faith hiding of a page is impossible because tracing back "what has happened" to a suddenly disappeared page is easy, due to the fixed target locations. Add a link to PAGENAME/outofway on the "page doesn't exist" error page that you get when you click a redlink. Tell people to check it just like they should check the deletion log. This helps to prevent accidental recreation of a page during a move in progress too.

Also, conditional on the existence of PAGENAME/outofway, show a warning on the page history of PAGENAME, similar to the red "you're editing an old version" box. It will say that there is another version of the page from a move in progress that needs to be resolved first. This prevents that spoofed pages can go unnoticed. Ideally, an outofway page shouldn't need to exist longer than a few minutes anyway, depending on the speed of the speedy deletions. Those usually will be easy decisions about empty redirects with no histories, no comparison to the regular (and needlessly inefficient) movework that an admin would have to do otherwise. Perhaps create a special deletion tag for this too.

The codingwork for the developers should consist of little more than a few path checks, some number generation, and the combination of a move and delete with special parameters. Any cases overlooked how this system could seriously get abused? Comments? Femto 20:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Civility

A discussion is being held on Misplaced Pages talk:Civility regarding the status of WP:CIVIL as an official policy and whether it should be merged with Misplaced Pages: Etiquette. — GT 21:55, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

More opinions are requested. HighInBC 23:47, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Consistency proposals

How likely is it that a proposal for article consistency (e.g. "Every biographical article should have an infobox based on that person's occupation/belief") is established? I have this horrible feeling that despite the fact that Misplaced Pages is supposed to be an encyclopedia, it will continue to grow away from the consistent (and thereby professional) look it should have. Arguments against the idea that consistency implies professionalism are welcome. 24.126.199.129 06:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Similar Usernames

Is a violation of Misplaced Pages policy for two different users to have similar usernames? I have recently noticed that a new user is editing under the username User:Tommyboy25. --TommyBoy 06:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is the correct forum for such a question, as this page is for discussing the policies themselves, not possible violations of them. Nevertheless I will answer your question. "TommyBoy" and "Tommyboy25" are sufficiently different that there's no real expectation that people will confuse the two of you. If he someday began to impersonate you or if otherwise the similarity began to cause problems then maybe he would be requested to choose a new username, but until then there shouldn't be any issue with allowing him to remain at Tommyboy25. — GT 09:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:CSD use and ab...

This has been brought up on WP:AN, but really it belongs here.

CAT:CSD is, of late, spending most of its time backlogged. This morning, some 350 items are in the category. I picked three at random, and they were all misuses of the speedy deletion system:

• Ed Comix Inc. - a corporation nominated as {{nn-club}} under CSD-A7, which is for people, clubs and bands.
• INSZoom - a cut-and-paste job nominated as {{db-copyvio}} under CSD-A8... but no evidence that the original website was directly involved in using the content for commercial gain.
• Whittaker World cup 2006 - nominated with the reason "no context, no verifiability. Not "nonsense" the way we use the term here, but nonsense in the sense that it makes no sense to the average reader. Possibly BJAODN if someone else feels charitable enough". If you need to make an argument for deletion, speedy delete is not for you.

As long as people keep abusing speedy delete in this way, CAT:CSD will remain overfull and the speedy method will slow down. People can't nominate 350+ articles a day, a good 100+ of them wrongly, and expect the couple of admins who look after this category to send the abused ones to AfD for them.

When the speedy delete criteria are abused, the user in effect is asking an admin to act out of process and to take the flak for it.

So, what can the community do? Well, people need to be educated in the use of the speedy criteria. Also, people who use the automatic vandalfighting programs need to be more circumspect (or the programs need altering - too many false nominations come from people who can click one button to nominate for delete but give no reason nor any thought to what they are doing).

Admins need to be harder about not deleting out of process: these articles don't belong here, are awful and won't survive AfD so we delete them out of process... and the nominator comes to believe that tagging things wrongly is fine (it works, after all!) and keeps doing it.

Finally, the point is coming where we need to widen the CSD themselves. If the vast majority of users already think that hoaxes, non-notable websites, non-notable corporations and spam are reasons for speedy deletion, then it is time for the community to act and make them reasons for speedy deletion. All of these are specifically excluded from the CSD, and yet one of them is given as a reason for speedy deletion in about a third of all deletion nominations. ➨ ЯEDVERS 09:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree that we need to widen CSD. I would add that if the rules were not constantly broken and ignored, there would be so much extra bureaucracy that the project would simply not function properly at all, after all everyone here is a volunteer, and free to leave when the bureaucracy gets too bad, certainly I can't be bothered with certain aspects of the project, they are just too slow and unproductive to be involved in. Martin 11:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, if you need to make a statement about something that an admin cannot verify on sight the discussion processes are in place. If I were an admin I would see the same trouble that Redvers refers to. I go through every now and then when I have time as it is and verify each of the claims in the category at the time and I usually come out with about 20-30% false claims. What reason is there to expand the process when people do not know what the current bounds are and why they are in place. Ansell 11:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

In reply to the original comments, there are reasons for why we do not make "non-notable" things speediable, the whole concept is still under discussion because there is widespread disagreement about its fundamental definition. The guidelines that have been decided on are each only for specific cases, and even then, they must be researched to verify that an article does indeed fall outside of each of the decided ranges. By expecting an admin to do the verification is actually a slow down in the process of clearing the category backlog. Ansell 11:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

"there are reasons for why we do not make "non-notable" things speediable" - wrong, see A7, Unremarkable people or groups are speediable, the reason? because there are so many of these that it would be impossible to deal with them all through AFD, it is essentially a measure to reduce bureaucracy. Martin 11:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Wrong again,

"Non-notable subjects with their importance asserted: Articles that have obviously non-notable subjects are still not eligible for speedy deletion unless the article "does not assert the importance or significance of its subject". If the article gives a claim that might be construed by anyone as making the subject notable, even if this claim seems ridiculous, it should be taken to a wider forum. However, articles with only a statement like "This guy was like so friggin' notable!" can be deleted per CSD A1 because it gives no context about the subject."

This is the note that comes as an explanation at the bottom of WP:CSD, and it is viewpoints like yours that make the category a backlog case. Ansell 11:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, now you are just being rude, as it is actually viewpoints and actions like mine that keep this place running. But trust me, if the rules were never broken, then nothing around here would work. Martin 12:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, my point still stands, we do delete non-notable stuff, if the article claims it is notable, then we are on to a new issue. Martin 12:12, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with both Redvers and Ansell. Notability and verifiability are not things that we can entrust to just a single pair of eyes. They are not things that we do entrust. (Note that the speedy deletion criteria involve assertions of notability.) Speedy deletion is for decisions that we trust can be reliably made by a single administrator alone. Determining notability and verifiability often involves the research of several editors in concert. And yes, we need to keep educating new users that speedy deletion is not a magic wand that one waves saying "Begone!". The speedy deletion criteria are deliberately narrow. I've been encouraging people at AFD to stop abusing the speedy deletion criteria there. (The most abused deletion criterion is Misplaced Pages:Patent nonsense. I'd personally prefer that the template were called something other than {{nonsense}}. It would reduce the confusion somewhat, since nonsense and patent nonsense are not the same thing.) Uncle G 12:18, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, there are corporations that are added with no assertion of notability... Is it much of a leap to go from speedying bands with no assertions of notability to speedying corporations with no assertion of notability? As for {{nonsense}}, how about {{gobbledygook}}? --Interiot 12:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Policy ideas for photographs of people who may be unhappy about having private photos appear on wikipedia

There has been a lengthy debate on WP:AN/I about how much proof is required that a model in a sexual pose has given permission for the photo to be uploaded to wikipedia.There was much complaint that we dont have any policies in place to cover such situations so I've started a page here where people can come up with ideas about how we should handle such situations. Everything is in a very early stage. Please come and help us write a proposal. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 10:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Building notability guidelines

I've noticed that in the last few months there have been more articles being written on physical locations here, and consequently more AfD's of these sorts of articles. Since there is no guideline for notability of buildings and other physical locations, I've started working on the one here. I'd appreciate any input on the guidelines (the only one I'm adament about is that this doesn't apply to schools; because that would be an instant kiss of death for this) as well as any help with the process of formally suggesting this as a guideline. Thanks.--Isotope23 13:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Speedy deletion doesn't seem to be so speedy lately

I want to say that I find it troubling that there is a backlog of (probably) over 200 images waiting to be speedily deleted. The process is supposed to be a fast way of removing content deemed unacceptable by its criteria, yet this backlog seems to have sprung up recently. Why is this? Alr 20:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

There has been a discussion about this and related issues at Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for adminship#Admin Growth chart. The short and simple answer seems to be that Misplaced Pages is growing faster than the rate we are increasing the supply of admins. --Allen3  20:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I would apply for adminship myself, but I don't believe I would be promoted because the criteria seem to be "you must be a memeber of the clique" rather than "you are experienced and qualified". Alr 20:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

False. There is no clique (or, after 6 month as an admin, I'm still looking for it). I have never supported someone because I have known them personally or opposed them because I don't know them. I have always judged on the basis of editing record, community involvement and demonstrated knowledge (even "voting" to support people who have the above but views I disagree with and "voting" against people I know but don't have the above). In short: if you can find a nominator, have been here for 3-6 months and have edits that demonstrate understanding of Misplaced Pages rules and guidelines, you can be an admin.

If you can't find an nominator but have the other requirements, drop me an email and I'll nominate you. The system works more often than it fails: it's all to do with your edits. If your edits are not up to it by your own judgment, then adminship is not for you... yet. Give it a couple of months and it will be! Memories here are short (unless you've issued threats. Then memories are long :o).

But as to the deletion of images... well, this was always the subject where admins were most likely to be dragged up a hill and crucified for making an error because image deletions used to be permanent. And in Image: about 1 in 50 tags are wrong; about 1 in 100 are malicious; about 1 in 25 have been corrected but the tag not removed. So, on average, 3 in 100 images in the categories are wrongly tagged. When deletion was permanent, good faith bad deletion (ultimately) meant desysoping. So admins shy away.

Technicalities have now changed: we can delete images and undelete them just as easily. But users must remember: as deletion is not permanent, assumption of admin infaliability is wrong too. If you want a backlog cleared, be prepared for mistakes. If you see a mistake, tell the mistaken admin nicely and gently. They are human and will thus respond.

No Misplaced Pages rule requires perfection from any editor. Even Jimbo is both not perfect and happy to admit to being not perfect. Backlogs can be cleared quickly, but we must allow leeway to admins clearing backlogs. In other words... WP:AGF at all times. ➨ ЯEDVERS 20:56, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

As for the reason for the sudden backlog see recent changes on Mediawiki:Licenses. Since a lot of people keep uploading "I have permission to use this on Misplaced Pages" or "free for non-commercial use" type images and tagging them as "no rights reserved" or public domain or what not, we added two new options for those kinds of images to the license selector, wich put the image straight on speedy deletion using {{db-noncom}} rather than having it sit around for a false licence tag for months on end. --Sherool (talk) 10:48, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Units of length

Discussion moved to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_%28dates_and_numbers%29 bobblewik 19:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Are User pages protected?

I just saw Ryulong's user page was vandalized. Shouldn't user pages be protected so that only that user and administrators can edit them? My impression was that User pages are intended to serve as the user's homepage on Misplaced Pages. Am I mistaken? If not, I see no reason for anyone else to edit that page. Will 05:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure the coding would allow that, though it probably does. However, even if it is possible, you do not own your user pages, you just possess a wide amount of control over it, so that would be a counter-productive idea. You can request semi-protection (or even full protection) of your user page if it is vandalized on a continual basis --tjstrf 05:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Correct: there is no reason for anyone else to edit that page. --Wetman 05:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, it is possible and some users have done it in the past. I don't know what the situation is currently. Alr 06:20, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

If a vandal is vandalising your user page:

1. they aren't vandalising an article
2. someone is likely to spot it pretty quick
3. the general reader is not as likely to see it as they would be to see God or the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich

User:Pedant 06:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There are good reasons to allow other editors than the userpage's owner to edit it. For example, if userpages contain copyright violations or personal attacks, non-administrators should be able to remove the offending content or to nominate the page for deletion. Kusma (討論) 13:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've recently had my user page and talk page vandalized repeatedly by one particular troll, and I've found the trashing gets picked up very quickly indeed, often before I see it. Further, allowing my pages to remain open to editting and trashing does create a record of a person's bad behavior - although I am skeptical of the ability of wikipedia admins to be very effective against a determined and persistent vandal. --Dan 20:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I protected my User page from non-admin edits awhile back and I didn't seem to have any trouble (this was due to a persistent vandal targeting it). I don't think there's any rule against protecting the page, though it's probably considered bad form to protect your talk page, for obvious reasons. IIRC only admins can protect pages though, so in theory only admins are able to protect their own userpages, though I imagine if a non-admin wanted the page protected, it could be ... but it wouldn't make much sense to do so since the "owner" of the page would be unable to edit it him/herself. 23skidoo 05:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Unaccreditted institutions

Some Misplaced Pages biographies deal with individuals who have graduated from unaccreditted institutions (see for instance Kent Hovind). These statements are often deleted, usually on the grounds that specifying the unaccreditted nature of the institution is spiteful, or a pointless criticism. I was wondering what your thoughts were on this and whether there are any policies on academic qualifications, to hopefully short-circuit a lot of circular debate and get on with more useful things. --Davril2020 10:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there is an established community standard on this but to me it seems very relevant to point out if a degree is from an institution not accredited by any of the major accrediting agencies. We usually don't point out that a degree is from an accredited institution just because it's usually implicit; if we weren't to mention it, any sensible reader would assume that the degree is indeed from an accredited institution. The difference between a real Ph.D and one from most unaccredited schools is significant enough that we should not mislead anybody. — GT 01:05, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

That's pretty much how it gets dealt with, but it's on an ad hoc basis and suffers constant arguments from people who, more or less, accuse this system of being elitist. It's very time consuming so I was wondering if there was an actual established policy on the subject. If not, would it make sense to incorporate it into existing policies on biographies? --Davril2020 12:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Using the metric system in Misplaced Pages

I notice that most articles in Misplaced Pages still make use of the emperial standards. An example would be Carol Yager. For any persons unfamiliar to emperial standards, the article is useless.

Arguably, this is because the USA still retains the emperial system, being one of only 3 countries not adopting the system. See Metrication

All other countries use the metric system and as Misplaced Pages is targeted at the whole world, I believe it is important that emperial standards be used, at least in addition to the emperial standards. (The ideal would be to only use metric standards as a good standard).

I did not find any reference to this important aspects.

The standard is to use both metric and Imperial measurements. See WP:MOSNUM. Kusma (討論) 13:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:MOSNUM#Units of measurement User:Pedant 16:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Won't someone help implement the metric system in our country :( 24.126.199.129 19:33, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

When I was in grade school, we were taught that the United States would be metric by the time we graduated high school. At the time, the president's name was Lyndon Johnson. Don't hold your breath. Fan-1967 20:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

A quite simple way of contenting both conventions lovers is the "hover" htlm feature. print metrics and let the hover be imperial. -- DLL 18:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"My car gets forty rods to a hog's head, and that's the way I likes it!" Kidding aside, I say simply remain consistent within a medium. If measurements for a subject are commonly given in imperial units, then that's what should be used. I like the "hover" idea, as well. – Someguy0830 (Talk | contribs) 18:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The issue is that to USan and British editors, road measurements are 'consistently' given in miles. To Candian and Australian readers, road measurements are 'consistently' given in kilometers.

Another issue is the rounding problem. As an example a road distance in an article source given in miles may have been originaly rounded, for instance 25.4556 miles becomes 25 miles. Now when you do a simple translation of this to kilometers, it becomes 40.2336km, and is rounded again to 40km. The original figure would have been converted to 40.9668171 and rounded to 41km. --Barberio 19:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Why not just treat this like we treat differences in British and American English. Either one is ok, and which one is used depends on who wrote the initial article, and on the "bias" of that author. --Frescard 20:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Sketch from copyrighted article

Can I create my own sketch from a copyrighted material? For example, a scientific publication has a table and a graph, and I want to cite a part of a table or a section of a graph. The citation is not a mechanical reproduction, but a new tabulation or graph image that reflect the contents of the copyrighted article pertinent to the issue. Barefact 14:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it (IANAL) there should be no problem with creating an entirely new table or graph representing information from a copyrighted document, as information itself is not subject to copyright (cf. Misplaced Pages:Copyrights). However, the creative expression of information is subject to copyright, so you would need to be careful not to infringe this; for example, the choice and order of columns and rows in a table, the range and axes of a graph, any line of best fit, etc., could all be subject to copyright if they were judged not to simply be choices which would be obvious to anyone working in the field. TSP 15:32, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ordinarily, no. Copying copyrighted material, even if done by hand rather than mechanically, will usually infringe on the owner's copyright. However, in most cases, scientific data resides in the class of "factual material that has been discovered" rather than creative works or matters of opinion. Generally in the US, factual content cannot be copyrighted, though the selection, arrangement, or style of presentation might be (e.g. Feist v. Rural). Since your intention is to take part of the data (presumably copyright exempt) and create a new image from it, you probably have nothing to worry about. Dragons flight 15:41, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Appreciate help and quick response. Barefact 23:14, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Images pool

I was surprised to find that I can't use images from another language Misplaced Pages (at least, it didn't work for me). Misplaced Pages should have a common pool for all images, or at least an easy way to acquire them from foreign language wikis. 24.126.199.129 19:37, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a common pool. Images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons can be used from all languages. Femto 20:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Well yeah, I know that. I just never knew that you couldn't use images from foreign language Wikipedias. That just seems stupid. The only plausible reason not to allow them would be different copyright standards, but I'm sure setting up something that checked the citation templates before allowing trans-wiki image transfers would be enough to overcome that possible problem. 24.126.199.129 11:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well yeah, it would probably be a Bad Thing to allow users from for example deWiki to insert fair use images from enWiki since such images are not allowed there. You would most likely get name conflicts galore too. Better to just have one central repository and try encouraging people to use it more instead. --Sherool (talk) 13:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense. 24.126.199.129 04:59, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Stars

I would like to propose a new naming convention (see Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Stars) and would welcome any comments. Thanks AndrewRT - Talk 19:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

accent marks in English articles

seems to me like Misplaced Pages does not want accent marks over letters in English articles. I am not really talking about words like cafe or decor, but more like proper names/biographies in the English language. A no accent mark policy makes good sense especially when we're talking about biographies of persons with lots of accent marks over their names. With the English keyboard, one cannot find the articles if the accent marks are incorporated into the article name b/c a searcher has no convenient way to make the mark or is unaway that the name has a mark. What is the policy though?

Create a redirect from the non-accented title. Problem solved. --tjstrf 23:46, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

There is an ongoing discussion about this issue at Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics); Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English) offers a bit of the underlying history. {{R from title without diacritics}} is the template one should append to a redirect created consistent with Tjstrf's suggestion. Joe 20:00, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Didn't know we had a template for that. Thanks for the info, I can think of a few dozen places to use it. --tjstrf 20:12, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Either way redirects solve the problem. There are cases where the "real" title having diacritics is or is not appropriate; for example, Celine Dion's real name is Céline Dion, but she is widely known and marketed under the unaccented name in the English-speaking world. Deco 08:27, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Financial policy of Wikimedia Foundation

Where is the best place to ask about the financial policy of the Wikimedia Foundation? I only ask because I recently followed the "Donations" link on the sidebar to reach WikiMedia:Fundraising, and noticed that the page says "See Budget/2005 for our latest budget, which details where the money will go " - this is a bit worrying, as surely the 2006 budget should be available somewhere? I looked around a bit more and found Meta:Talk:Finance_department, with three plaintive appeals for some updates on the financial situation. Who is the best person to contact about this? And even if the financial details are available somewhere, who can I ask to update the links on those pages? Carcharoth 21:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest contacting the foundation directly, please see http://wikimediafoundation.org/Contact_us. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. I'd like to use something like the "E-mail this user" function that exists in Misplaced Pages, or post something somewhere, rather than e-mail them from my real e-mail address. Actually, that reminds me, I need to set up an external e-mail account for my Misplaced Pages alias, so I should probably just do that anyway. Carcharoth 23:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Common Names vs. Manual of Style

We are having a debate on the naming rules for Cities of Japan. The specific MoS for Japanese related topics is at WP:MOS-JA. There is currently a debate at Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles) regarding the fact that the city naming rule in the MoS violates the Common names policy. Does a Manual of Style have priority over Common Names? The main contention is that the resulting article titles from applying the MoS are almost never used as names for the cities. Some comments would be highly appreciated. --Polaron | Talk 08:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what policy says this, but the obvious underlying datum is: "How can the page communicate to the reader". That is the good sense foundation. Terryeo 14:26, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for German lanugage page approval implementation

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

• Misplaced Pages community forums
• Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines
• To Village Pump (technical)