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Wikipedia:Village pump (policy): Difference between revisions

Revision as of 10:45, 24 November 2007

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Why does it always seams that it is an important thing if software is open source, proprietary or something like that. It is often mention first in articles, in infoboxes, in comparison of different software... I think most people care more about the price than this. How many think about if you can read/edit the source, very few does that. I think it gets a to big role in the articles (it can be mentioned of course, but not the way most articles does). (This discussion will probably not change anything, guess there are too many open-source fanatics here, like GNU/Linux-geeks. Helpsloose 23:21, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Whether software is open source is important in terms of licensing and support (whether for better or worse); both of which are significant factors for businesses thinking about adopting new products. Some companies, for example, will only adopt software that has a strong support model, whereas for others the price is a key determinant. These can vary significantly between closed and open source models. — RJH (talk) 22:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There might also be more information available about open software which can be examined, rather than the amount of information which a manufacturer releases. That depends upon the particular item. (SEWilco 03:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC))[reply]

But it plays a too important role in many articles. Helpsloose 17:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would help if you pointed out specific problems, instead of vague claims of the subject being "too important" in unnamed articles. -- 68.156.149.62 12:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think he/she means that, besides other things, Open Source is generally considered a political issue, too. So he/she possibly tries to hint at the supposed fact that Wikipedia is too political here. The real issue behind this being, of course, the sad fact that most people are still not aware how much they can, and already do, benefit from the increasing amount of Open Source software. --217.232.218.170 11:37, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It was actually not my point. I already said my point. It is put more weight on the issue than necessary. See for example here [[1]], almost first in the article, like it is one of the most important thing. Also one of the first in this page [[2]]. There is probably many others. Helpsloose —Preceding comment was added at 17:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Helpsloose on one point: the use of green and red in the chart in the second link to designate open source vs. non-open source definitely puts a political slant on the issue favoring open source. Maybe the community is fine with this, but it's certainly not a neutral view on the topic. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 20:35, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have any guidelines here for whether licence plate numbers can appear in images? This recently uploaded image [[3]] is of an unmarked (or personally-owned) police car in Slovakia. It's a beautiful shot but the plate number is clearly visible and I don't know if that's cool or not. Do we have any precedent about whether plate numbers need to be airbrushed out in this situation? Squidfryerchef 22:29, 5 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. I can't think of any specific policy on it, though one could argue that it should be airbrushed or otherwise obfuscated in compliance for privacy and in keeping with the living persons guideline (since the license plate is only slightly less personal info than posting someone's DL number, at least in the US), especially for a personally-owned car. The license plate could trace back to a living person. So my off the cuff 2 cents is that a readable plate shouldn't be seen in an image. Collectonian 02:23, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Collectonian. Unless this person is ok with their license plate being shown, and has said as much, a courtesy blurring or blotting of the number would probably by the best option. I can't imagine such a modification would cause any problems in regards to attribution or license used. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 02:33, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In general, I disagree. A license plate on image of a car (absent any other context) is not significantly identifying information. I can walk down any street and get dozens of license plates without knowing anything significant about their owners. Now if the caption said, this is Bill Person's BMW and it had an identified license plate, that would be entirely different. But I don't see any need to remove isolated pieces of information taken out of context, any more than I feel the need to blur out all of the potentially identifiable faces in photographs of a crowd.

All of that said, in this specific case of a license plate on an undercover police car, it is the kind of specific context where removing the plate is probably a good idea. Dragons flight 02:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The police in this case could if they wanted have arrested the photographer if they didn't want the picture taken so why are we worrying about it .Garda40 19:46, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that in this particular case the courtesy blurring of an in service undercover vehicles plate would be an option. I would hazard a guess that the blurring of all non-relevant plates to halt possible identity theft is not within Wikipedia's remit. If some governments are silly enough to sell their licence databases to anyone who wants them (such as the US DMV), and those buyers charge one-off fees on the internet to anyone who wants all the information related to that plate isn't our problem. 86.21.74.40 03:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with Dragon's Flight. It's not exactly private when you slap it on your car and go for a drive (unlike your DL number or SSN, which presumably you keep to yourself). As for this image, it's not exactly undercover with that red light on the roof. Not sure I see a privacy problem with it. --Kbdank71 03:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd just like to clarify. I don't think it's an unmarked in the sense that it's used for undercover detective work, i think it's for traffic enforcement. The notes with the pic said it was taken at such-and-such highway in Slovakia. Squidfryerchef 03:57, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There may also be a law in that country that prohibits the disclosure and publication of police and other government vehicles for security purposes. Otherwise we could all produce a database on such vehicles which would pose a national security threat. Better to obscure the undercover vehicle's plate. --Andmark 15:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Beg pardon, but "While I don't have anything definite, there might well be a law against (blank) somewhere!" is not and has never been a justification for removing anything on Wikipedia, nor should it be; our standing orders are to report any legitimate legal concerns to WP:AN and the Foundation's full-time legal counsel) who will then bump it up the ladder to Jimbo as necessary. Any more than that is WikiLawyering and beyond our individual mandate to act.

For the record, and in keeping with the Project's status as a "neutral source of encyclopedic information", I oppose any material alteration of an image unless it's WP:OFFICE ordered or manifestly designed to improve the image in some inoffensive way. Bullzeye ^{(Ring for Service)} 21:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any problem with showing this information. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:53, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO : Since we can get a name and address for a few bucks (and a SSN from there if you pay enough), the general rule should be to avoid showing a license plate. To state “Not our problem if DMV sells the info” is a bit short sighted. There is a difference between a single guy walking on the street, me placing the plate on my car for all to see (an obligation by law) and showing it to millions. Modern character recognitions also makes it a “big brother” issue. This being said, in this specific case, it’s a civil servant and I have liberal views on obtaining information on any government activity. They should have nothing to hide, be it a blue collar sleeping on the job in a city truck, a cop giving a ticket, or the mayor’s aid in a red light district. Finally I bow to Bullzeye’s opinion, if the picture is considered Art by the author he should have the last word on a case by case basis. YegLi (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:09, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This issue is an important question for Wikipedia policy. How should administrators and the average user deal with other users who are mentally ill? What qualifies as mental illness? Where should the line be drawn? In terms of this matter, my view may be seen as rather strict. I believe that the contributions of an editor do not factor in their judgment if they have shown to be irrational and abusive towards other users. This is similar to how I think abusive editors (even if they are not mentally ill) should be treated. Currently, the administration seems to take a very laissez-faire approach. This is causing a great deal of harm here at Wikipedia as a whole and to individual users. - Cyborg Ninja 06:35, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is difficult to address this problem with any kind of guideline or policy, because it is a difficult problem even for mental health professionals in face-to-face situations. It will probably have to be dealt with on a case-to-case basis. Wikipedia assumes rationality and good faith, but as an activity it is vulnerable to intrusion by the corrupt, the malicious, and the deranged. The barbarians are always at the gates, and it only takes a few to destroy a civilization or a Wikipedia. We also have to recognize that Wikipedia has become an arena for contests for power. The high ranking :of its articles in the search engines is also an incentive for invasion, at first by subtle and skilled efforts that can seem to be "civilized" in this context but which if not repelled will eventually destroy the project. Jon Roland 07:59, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia, in general, takes a very laissez-faire approach -- it's one of the fundamental precepts of our philosophy, in general, both a great strength and a source of many problems. For my part, I'd rather we avoided throwing around a bunch of unqualified, amateur guesses as to whether so-and-so has such-and-such illness, and just focused on the issue of a person's participation in the project. Are they contributing? Is their behavior disruptive or productive? Is there anything we as a community might do to help them become a better editor? What chance of improvement is there? Again, as I mentioned in your other thread, it's very difficult to have these sorts of conversations in a general sense, and I'm not sure how productive it might be. Problematic users can be reported to the appropriate admin noticeboards for discussion and possible administrative response, if need be; I'd also encourage you to make use of the dispute resolution process, whenever possible. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:26, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Cyborg; While I can understand your concern at dealing with users who, as you say, are of "questionable mental stability", may I ask one small thing? If they don't give you any indication (by userbox, etc...) - what puts you in a position to be able to judge who is mentally stable or unstable? That's not meant as an argumentative statement, simply an idea for me to understand, say, do you have some experience of dealing with mentally unstable people by reason of work or something? No one on here has ever questioned my mental stability, but I suffer from Paranoia. If I hadn't said anything about that, would you have had some way of knowing that that was the case? Thor Malmjursson 13:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's a "This Wikipedian is off their meds" userbox? In all seriousness, having a bipolar userbox on a user page hardly qualifies as a legitimate means of diagnosis. Personally, I don't think we can make any special exceptions for disruptive editors because they're mentally ill, otherwise every malicious editor will try to use that as an excuse. Caknuck 15:37, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Caknuck, I quite agree. We don't make any exceptions for anyone based on their state of mind, that is true. But as I have said, How do you know they are mentally ill in the first place??? Thor Malmjursson 15:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Example?: I would like to offer Valery Fabrikant, a school shooting killer with chronic access to the Internet. When no access is available to him he asks his son to post on message boards, newsgroups and to update an 'official' web page. Perhaps even change his own WP page? Or worst change pages related to research of his victims (he claims said research is his and that was his motivation for the killings). This being said, current state of things shows that WP is pretty good at defending itself of abuses, and I offer Fabrikant only as a good example of 'questionable mental stability'.YegLi (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:45, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with Thor and Luna. There's just no way to tell for sure if someone does or does not have a mental illness, even if we had qualified professionals who were editors here. Also, even if there was a way to tell if an editor has a mental illness, they shouldn't be treated any differently unless their behavior is somehow disruptive to the community. GlassCobra 16:09, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm only referring to users who are disruptive. Paranoia doesn't count as something that would be very disruptive, IMO. In no way am I suggesting I be the person to decide who is mentally ill or not; neither is there an easy way to do this. There are some users on this site who do show their true colors, even after much productivity. I suggest dealing with it privately and to be very gentle, and only in cases that are obvious. At the same time, I don't think it would work for administrators to do that. It seems like a line is being crossed if they do. I've seen mental illness in online friends of mine who have later come clean about it to me (one was extremely paranoid). I tried to help him on a personal basis, but as you probably expect, it didn't work. So what we should focus on is to not ignore any obvious policy violations. We cannot use "Oh he was just angry and got over it" or "He's ill, let him be" as an excuse. I know a lot of you just take the "report it to AN/I" approach, but I've seen administrators turn the other way even in the most extreme of cases because they don't want to hurt someone's feelings, or deal with it any further. The problem is, with many of these people, they'll get upset again and the same thing will happen again. We need to be stronger than this. Thank you all for the replies. Sorry that came off as a bit of a rambling — I don't have all the answers. - Cyborg Ninja 20:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are some editors who are clearly disturbed, and it's sometimes helpful to conceive of their bizarre or abusive editing as the product of some personal issues. But mental illness isn't a yes or no thing. We're all a little sick in the head at times. And schizophrenics, obsessive compulsives, neurotics, bipolars, and even sociopaths are human beings too and may have something to contribute here. It would be sad and unfair to say that you're disqualified from Wikipedia for having an organic brain disorder. Judge the edits, not the editor, and don't punish people for being honest about their mental state. We shouldn't deny the obvious - our bipolar colleagues can be a total pain at times. But they can also be wickedly smart and productive, and deserve a seat at the table like everyone else provided they can get along.Wikidemo 21:27, 10 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some users do 'lose it' a bit very easily and appear unstable. We all know of those that when one of their articles is tagged even by a bot, say it's ruined their experience on Wikipedia. Or they go on massive WP:POINT campaigns, tagging numerous articles, solely because they feel one of theirs was tagged unfairly. It's not disparaging to those with mental health problems, most of whom can still contribute sanely to Wikipedia. But some people even if they haven't been diagnosed with any illness easily flip out, and go on a rampage. They may even say 'now I'm going to turn evil- ruhaha' or some such. Thhen go back to normal briefly and apologise slightly so they get away with it. Then a few days later something sets them off again. Hopefully they get blocked if they continue in such a pattern. As an individual editor, the best way to deal with them is probably to avoid much contact with them. As a community, to notice their history when they invite their latest block, and if the pattern has occurred several times, long-term block. 91.110.169.154 16:03, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is exactly what I'm talking about, and I'm glad that you noticed it too. "Unstable" is the keyword here. There are multiple editors who have this problem, and I think it's a part of their lifestyle, but I believe the laissez-faire approach at this site and others on the Web allows them to keep being disruptive. To add to your characterization, these editors take minor setbacks (tags, warnings, bots, etc) very personally and threaten other users for something that is quite minor. This, to me, shows that they are not trying to make Wikipedia a better place and that they are acting in poor faith. I'm sorry, but assuming good faith in evidence of obvious bad faith is absurd, and some administrators and many regular editors need to realize that and stop using that as an excuse. This is a serious problem on Wikipedia. I realize that some of these editors contribute plenty to Wikipedia, and therefore many people don't want to ban them, but if this is a pattern and if they are harming other users: it needs to stop. I try to be sensitive to unstable people like this both online and in real life. I have a grandmother who behaves like this, and the best my family can do is try to alleviate her stress to avoid setting her off. However, I recognize that she does have some ability to control herself and we do not accept every emotional outburst. We do love and forgive her, of course. But please realize, administrators, that if an unstable user has a pattern of this behavior and is harming other users, you absolutely should not accept it. I imagine that a lot of you are thinking "We don't," but I've seen this from other admins and users. The twisting of the WP:AGF policy is partly to blame. - Cyborg Ninja 19:55, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I should add that I have one person in mind right now (though he is not the only one to act like this). A quick glance of his Contributions page shows me that he makes 300+ edits a day and frequently spends over half of the day, every minute, editing Wikipedia. Every day. Now, I think I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia, but that's mostly to read articles to expand my knowledge. But that person's amount of time here... can we really call that normal, or healthy? He does everything the user above cited as conduct that an unstable editor does here. I'm not suggesting that we warn someone just because they spend vast amounts of time here obviously, but I think it's something to think about. - Cyborg Ninja 20:23, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we can be overly suspicious just due to 'spends too much time here.' What we are basically talking about is conduct that would lead to an RfC, but because the user spreads the conduct over different areas and his/her WP:POINT sprees target many different articles and people, it's hard to have an RfC that truly covers what they get upto, because RfCs have to be about 'the same dispute', so it's harder to raise the two people needed that have the boldness to stand up. If RfCs were allowed to address the user's behavior in general when they're having one of their 'episodes', then they would be a more accurate representation of the user. Because while it runs the risk of being seen as ganging up on someone, sometimes that kind of RfC would be useful/necessary.91.110.230.131 21:31, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Two RFCs have been done of one person I have considered as unstable. Even if a tagging spree spans over dozens of articles that are unrelated, a question comes into one's head: is it acceptable to do mass-tagging of articles that one has not spent more than 5 seconds with? I know we have bots that handle other operations, but most of what they do makes sense to me and is useful. Marking every article with a big citations tag at the top isn't really going to encourage people to improve the article. I mean, come on people, get real. Still, some admins think it's helpful. But on this issue; it's nowhere near the worst example and even I wouldn't consider anything more than an informal warning for it if I were an admin, unless they ignore the warning. As you hinted at, RfCs are dedicated to one episode or event. If a user's behavior over several months needed to be reviewed, where should it be done? - Cyborg Ninja 08:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As an editor with a mental illness (although I don't think you would be able to guess that based on my contributions) I appreciate your concern, but I don't think that any special consideration should apply except for the application of the WP:CIVIL policy. If we just remember that this applies to comments made to all editors, even abusive ones, then there should be no problem. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:20, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think we need to distinguish two things; (1) Having a mental illness, which isn't necessarily the project's business; (2) behaving disruptively, which is the project's business, but which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a mental illness. I'm not saying there's never a relationship between the two, but it does seem to me the project's proper business is the second only. I don't see how Wikipedia volunteers could be trained or equipped to understand when (1) does and does not affect (2). One reason for a gentler approach with established editors is the belief that ordinary people sometimes get overheated and affected by emotions in conflicts and similar situations, in other words, a belief that variation and "instability" is a characteristic of ordinary people and not the exclusive province of the mentally ill. It's very important to avoid stereotyping here, to avoid a discriminatory prejudice that having a psychological diagnosis implies an editor or admin is going to be disruptive. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 06:56, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

New mental illness in established admins and editors

• I'm starting this as a new section because I believe it is worthy of its own category. - Cyborg Ninja 09:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The question seems loaded. Most abusive editors do not have any recognised mental illness. The interesting borderline case to consider here is: if there's a person who makes useful contributions, or even achieves adminship, while in a good mental state, and then their mental integrity degrades as a result of a illness-induced mood change, acquiring a new illness, or a change of medication, should they be de-adminned or banned, or should we wait for them to seek assistance and recover? If they do recover, do they have a means of requesting re-evaluation on this basis? Dcoetzee 14:10, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on their behavior, if they are an admin and they behave poorly, then they should have their privileges taken away. You can't put power into the hands of someone who isn't mentally healthy. Of course, the admin would have to come out as having mental illness or it would have to be clearly discernible from normal behavior. Most cases won't be so easy. As for editors, it's a bit more difficult. I would not want to upset the user and taking away their ability to edit could have a drastic effect on them. But, as I've stated above, if there is a pattern of this behavior, it cannot be tolerated. If they decide to come back and state that they are now healthy and be open about their past, then I would welcome them. - Cyborg Ninja 09:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sirs:

I am really at odds with the NOTABILITY/Trivia policy.

This policy has alienated a large number of WebComic advocates, and certainally cost WP some creadibility and good will, and some donation money too.

As I stated on my former user page, ( I will provbibly not log in again ):

"This is upsetting me, a lot. Articles are set for speedy deletion based upon the concept of Notability, i.e. popularization which to me has a connotation of sensationalizm. Since the most of the web is sensationalism and esoteric, and polarized in that way. ( Some eMusic sites I have been to only have 25~30 page views.)

Why would you want a encyclopedia, that only has popular topics? I really wound't want that. Id read 'People' Magazine if I wanted that. Encyclopedias should EMBRACE THE ESOTERIC. There is an article here on wikipedia for every pokemon character, and I %*&3 hate pokemon, but I respect its reverence amoung five year olds, and especially five year olds who use wikipedia as their reference. Can you imagine the effect of children growing up as knowing wikipedia as something that was usefull to them, and they would enjoy comtributing to?

By this criteria alone ( Notability ), we should delete ALL HISTORY before WWII for its irelevence. Is Joan D'Arc relevent? Practically no. But she has extrodinary significance to the history of religion, spirituality and philosophy." You can easily rewrite history, by only looking at the "popular" aspects of it.

I have an eye for detail and consistancy, and am about to actually work on my first complete rewrite, ( although, no one has stepped forward to guide me, or adopt me). Is it actually become sport to destory what others are passionate about? ( Feel free, of course, to delete this message if you feel that is not notable enough. )

What is being done policy wise about this?

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Comments:Wikimedia_fundraiser_highlights_webcomic_community%27s_frustration_with_Wikipedia_guidelines#The_tip_of_an_iceberg.

end of soapbox

You're clearly upset about the notability requirement, but I'm sorry to say that I don't understand much more than that. I'll take just a couple of your points: Why would you want a encyclopedia, that only has popular topics? Why indeed? But en:WP isn't that. (Brutalist architecture isn't a popular topic or a popular kind of architecture.) Again: By this criteria alone ( Notability ), we should delete ALL HISTORY before WWII for its irelevence. Is Joan D'Arc relevent? Practically no. But she has extrodinary significance to the history of religion, spirituality and philosophy. If she indeed has extraordinary significance to these three histories, then surely she's notable. Where's the (potential) problem with here? Perhaps you could rephrase your complaint. -- Hoary 09:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is no longer essentially nessessary. Wikipedia will be the only product of 'Group thought' and 'Mass popularizm' If its "interesting" to the admins It stays, I am taking Jim Bo's suggestion that I find something else significant to do with my life other than swim upstream. I have created other accounts on other wiki's and am developing my SPAM bot to help a few others using wiki-software that do not have the benefit of a few million dollars in resources. See ya. (i.e. dont waste your time ) Stupidly I didnt sign my very last, and final post. G'day mate! Artoftransformation 12:51, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• The notability guideline sets some easy to follow and fairly objective standards, with a relatively low bar to inclusion. However, I do see uneven application of the standards at AfD, mostly by uninformed nominators and less informed evaluators. This is more of a problem than the guidelines. --Kevin Murray 13:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• A lot of people tried to abuse the rules by including webcomics that were just starting hadn't gotten any outside coverage (reliable or otherwise). I'm sure there are multiple webcomics that satisfy the current criteria. We just can't include ALL of them. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:53, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I need help determining notability. It states on the Wikipedia Notability page that short term news bursts don't count as notability. But what if that news burst was short term, but major in how far it reached? Like a person who got on the news in America and also got on the news in Korea?... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Heero Kirashami (talk • contribs) 04:51, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As our world becomes more connected, through global TV networks, the internet, and general mass media, it becomes more and more likely that the reach of a news item will grow. Where someone once became famous for five minutes only locally, they can now become famous for five minutes on a global scale. That does not change the fact that they were only famous for five minutes. A short term news burst is still a short term news burst, no matter it's reach. Blueboar 19:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My personal opinion? Ask yourself, if it disappears from the headlines and nothing else happens, will people still want to read about this a year from now? Sometimes you can predict. If a volcano explodes or someone wins the Nobel Prize you can be pretty sure people will be interested a year from now, even a hundred years from now. If a person gets arrested for a bizarre crime, nobody will care next week. In between you have to guess. Sometimes, an event is just news for now but there is a lot of context, connection with other important events, importance in illustrating the subject, etc., so you can take a chance and infer that it is notable. But you're risking the possibility that after all your work, six months from now people are going to decide the article is pointless and delete it. It's nice when Wikipedia can be current and relevant, and useful to understand the latest headlines. But we don't have to be completely up to date with the news - that's what newspapers are for. There's usually no harm in taking a breather and waiting a week or a month to see how the story plays out before writing the article.Wikidemo 00:55, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So in the case that a person continues to make news, at least amongst academia, that person may be article-worthy?... --Heero Kirashami 02:00, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• There is no hard and fast standard, only guidelines which are subject to reasonable interpretation. Read WP:BIO and use good judgment. For an academic or musician consult WP:PROForWP:MUSIC respectively. If someone doesn't like your article you will hear about it or it will be nominated for deletion. Without very clear information on you subject we just can't tell much more. If you write an article and feel it is being unfairly criticized, please contact me and I will help. --Kevin Murray 03:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Notability for an encyclopedia article differs from notability in the news cycle. If a topic is notable enough for a stand alone encyclopedia article at one time, it remains notable even after the news fades. Take for example Theodore Kaczynski, who hasn't been in the news much lately. Conversely it is prudent not to place excessive merit on skiing squirrels simply because they made the evening news report. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There has been a lot of rewriting going on at Wikipedia:Five pillars recently, with very little broad based oversight. It might be a good idea for more of us to be involved, at least in observing the process. --Kevin Murray 16:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I took a look, & didn't see anything. But your concern leads me to wonder: if some troublemaker managed to significantly rewrite some fundamental policy but almost no one supported the change, would that rewrite matter? Beyond a few literalists who might believe we must "follow the policy -- right or wrong!" -- llywrch 00:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It appears to me that there is the very real possibility that a very small number can change policies, and then cite them to support what they, in good faith, believe is best for the many. The fact that most editors are interested in article topics and content rather then policies or consensus discussions provides the obscurity to allow what would not pass muster among the many. Watch the deletion discussions, and the policy changes. The same names appear from fewer than 25 wikipedians, making decisions for all who do not enter into those specific discussions. And even when a lone editor confronts them they dispose of the arguments one by one, one after another, day in and day out, month after month. As if representing the objectives of some larger, external agency, as a full time job. - Michael J Swassing 02:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that would be WP:CABAL. WP:ROGUE may or may not also be relevant. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Golly, now I feel silly. Surely various government agencies, and political partisans take no interest whatever in how policies are presented. Corporate public relations departments can be similarly trusted. - Michael J Swassing (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Policy thrash

Yes, an otherwise unimportant change to policy does matter, because tools and processes are built on policy. Example:- including or excluding high schools is not really that critical - but a move to exclude them would result in many thousands of hours of work being nullified. Moreover, an undocumented later move to allow them again would absorb a load more effort. This has been happening on MoS to some extent. Rich Farmbrough, 11:55 18 November 2007 (GMT).

Could you link to that discussion? Relata refero (talk) 18:21, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: THis discussion moved here from Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)

I am puzzled as to why Archival material can be edited. Surely archived material should, by definition, be packed away and not be changed or deleted? This would include archived talk pages, archives of the reference desks and so on. If you wish to reactivate some of this material, you should copy it over to a current active page, link it to the archive it came from and take it from there. And similarly, why does the system allow the history pages of articles to be amended? It is after all an auditable record of what was actually written. I know you can get the history of the history pages, but wouldn’t it be simpler and cut down on data storage to cut out as much of this stuff as possible? Myles325a 23:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The main reasons I've seen are new "archive" navigation templates being invented, users who have changed their usernames updating their signature, and new spelling bots. As for why these pages aren't protected, it would appear to be a waste of admin time to have our sysops protect every archived discussion and then have to respond to requests to people asking for edits to the protected archives, especially when archive edits are so rare and so transparently traceable through the history. I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "why does the system allow the history pages of articles to be amended". Do you mean, "Why can page revisions be deleted by admins?" - BanyanTree 20:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now I'm the one who doesn't understand. As someone with auditing experience, my understanding of archives are they are historical records, which have had a line ruled under them, and are packed away for future reference, not something which can be amended or "fixed up" later. And I don't get why we would need "sysops [to] protect every archived discussion", seeing as there are already umpteen articles which have been locked, either temporarily or indefinitely. And you don't say anything about my idea of posters copy/pasing material from archives into current pages. Of course, someone researching archived material could look for changes in the history pages, but that is a tiresome task which should not have to slow them down. And really, if the only reason you can give me is that some users change their usernames, then I must confess I consider that to be a trifling matter. In contrast, I would estimate that about 5% of Wikipedia is encyclopedia articles. The rest is all this stuff, and it gets hard to sift thru it all. Letting archives be archives would be a step in the right direction in slowing down and rationalising some of this stuff. BT, you're a great sysop, but I think you should have a chat with an auditor. Editing historical records is what people like Stalin did. Myles325a 03:30, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, my mistake. I thought you were looking for an explanation, rather than an excuse to start an argument. Please ignore my response above as I wouldn't have bothered if I had realized your intention. - BanyanTree 04:00, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Myles325a, are you sure that you are addressing a real problem rather than a theoretical one? Do you have evidence that (1) there are archives being modified in a way that is truly problematic, (2) these problematic changes are not being caught and (3) these problematic changes are happening often enough to warrant the cost of preventing them?

If you are an auditor or have worked with one, surely you know that there is a cost/benefit analysis to preventing or even detecting problems. The edit history on archive files is enough to prove that an archive file has been tampered with and how. Even if an editor goes into an archive file and makes a substantive but illegitimate change, we would be able to detect that if it were important enough to make the effort. Usually, however, archive files are not of any great value except in providing evidence for ARBCOM cases. I would drop this line of inquiry as not likely to be very productive.

--Richard 17:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Archives may be edited, but histories are not. While the currently visible version of any page may or may not be the full story, the history tab shows every single version of every single page including talk pages. You can't make stuff change or disappear by altering an "archive". Even deleted pages aren't really "deleted". Admins and buerocrats have access to them and their histories. This seems a non-issue to me. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 04:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Myles325 replies to BanyanTree, above. Ho hang about a sec, bro, and swap that high horse for a pony. You sound like some high priest giving “explanations” to a young dynamic researcher as to why the status quo is the best of all possible worlds, and getting snippy when he doesn’t just say “Oh, of course, how silly of me, O Divine One, thank you for setting me straight.” Wikipedia is not some medieval conclave of metaphysicians pulling rank on their novitiates, but a dynamic, evolving structure. And, frankly, I don’t mind an argument; you seem to think it an impertinence. I am a novice here, sure, and I was genuinely in search of explanations, but there is an element of the Socratic Question in my approach. I think that there is something irregular in allowing archives to be amended. Are you so sure that that there is nothing in anything that I said? I was, until medical retirement, a Senior Management Consultant in a large organisation, in charge of about $1 billion in capital investment. That involved a lot of careful and intricate analysis of structures. What’s your line of work? You have not substantially answered any of my points, and I would appreciate it if you did not bother to reply to this with more of your snotty “humour”. There are plenty of sysops out there, and the chances are that nearly all of them would have heads made of something of more benefit than the wood of a Banyan Tree.

To Richard. I am a management consultant, and they work with everyone in an organisation, including auditors. But making the most of cost-benefit analysis is not an auditor’s job. In fact, it’s quite the reverse. It is their job to make the system as fraud and fool proof as possible, at whatever expense. Trying to make it profitable is mine. Auditors demand audit trails on every transaction made in any business. The lack of strong transparent audit trails is behind most frauds. I fully realise that your history pages act as a kind of audit trail. I do not see why there needs to be a byte consuming tier on top of the archives, when it serves no real purpose. This might be cruel of me but the problems of a user “Stuffymuffy” who now wants to be known as “Fluffymuffy” would not be top of my priorities. As to whether these archives have much use, I point you to Karl Popper’s notion of World 3, as the cultural world which holds information in libraries etc, which can be retrieved IF and WHEN needed. There are books in such libraries that have not been opened in hundreds of years, some will never be opened. Why not turf them out? Because no one knows when the data held there might be needed for some future purpose not now known. A good example is the daily flight data of the Viking space craft, held on floppy discs in “archives” and thought useless. Until someone noticed that the craft had travelled further than theory predicted. The daily data, which could have been turfed out, formed the basis of one of the most important cosmological theories of the last 30 years. Archives are there as a historical record, like Magna Carta, and the Domesday Book. They are not there to be edited and amended with a footnote to the “original version” elsewhere. No auditor, historian, or indeed any scholar would countenance such an outrage. Apart from opening the door to fraud, it makes it harder for some SERIOUS researcher down the track who is sifting thru an already Byzantine maze of info for what they need. Such researchers would not be best served by having to study copies of newspapers from 1879, which have been emended in 2007 by some wit who has replaced text with “I have a big donger” and a pointer to what the original was. And my overriding concern is with the intelligentsia and the researchers of the future. The Stuffymuffies of the present are not my top priority, and neither should they be yours. Myles325a 05:24, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't like a newspaper or some historical document. It's not something people can irreparably damage. They can be irritants, sure, but that is a non-issue. Regular users archive pages all the time, and not all archives use the same formatting. To expect admins to track down and semi/full protect every one is unfeasable, as well as completely unnecessary. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 05:54, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I never understood this either. Surely it takes more time to keep a constant eye on such pages than perform a one time protection of such pages? The number of people who want to perform truly essential and non-destructive edits on such pages can be counted on a single hand. It might be largely a theoretical issue now, but I'd rather not see it become reality. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:38, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In many companies the backup system works as follows: A complete incremental backup of every harddisk on a central server is made every night, or every weekend. But most people don't know who to ask if they want to restore deleted data, or they know and it's a complicated process. Therefore, and to be on the safe side, they make their own backups.

It's a bit like that on Wikipedia. The history system is like the automatical centralized backup system. Everybody can use it, but it's not very convenient. If a talk page gets too long, one could just delete it, but then nobody would read the old data. That's why we have the manual archiving system. It's like a secretary saving her documents on a floppy disk.

I believe the answer to BanyanTree's question is: Contrary to appearances, archival material can not be deleted by ordinary users. On first sight it looks as if you could change history. But if you use the "Edit this page" button on a history page and save, the result seems to be exactly the same as if you copy the content of the old version, click "Edit this page" on the current version of the page, paste the content in, and save. The audit trail is not affected. Even though the wording on the history editing page suggests otherwise: "You are editing an old revision of this page. If you save it, any changes made since then will be removed." In the context of just having browsed history in order to get there this seems to suggest that you can remove everything after a certain date from history. BanyanTree: Is that what you meant? This would really be unreasonable, and it doesn't happen, as I just checked.

But it would be equally unreasonable for a company to put a system in place to make sure that everybody make their personal backups only on CD-ROMs, and that they have to be archived, rather than safely disposed of. Similarly, it wouldn't make much sense to turn the current archiving practices into a second history system. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:44, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Recently WP:FICT has been changed and the following section has been added:

"To a limited extent, sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material (due to said technical reasons).[3] In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article. Such sub-articles should clearly identify themselves as fictional elements of the parent work within the lead section, and editors should still strive to provide real-world content."

I see a problem with this as it seems to potentially go against several other established guidelines and policies such as:

WP:NN

"A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject."

WP:WAF

"Articles about fiction, like all Wikipedia articles, should adhere to the real world as their primary frame of reference. The approach is to describe the subject matter from the perspective of the real world, in which the work of fiction and its publication are embedded. It necessitates the use of both primary and secondary information."

WP:V

"If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."

WP:NOT

"Wikipedia articles on published works (such as fictional stories) should cover their real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's development, impact or historical significance, not solely a detailed summary of that work's plot"

Personally I do not feel that the change in WP:FICT was correct - although it may well reflect the current state of Wikipedia - but if there is a consensus for this change it should be consistent accross Wikipedia. Having guidelines and policies that contradict each other will not help people to build and contribute to a high quality encyclopaedia and will hinder the processes that rely on these polcies and guidelines (WP:AFD, WP:FA, etc.)). [[Guest9999 11:15, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

Um, WP:WAF is an manual of style, not a content or notability guideline. WP:WAF doesn't dictate who gets an article, but how you write about that article once you have created it. As for FICT, you pulled a single section, which is meant to incorporate the times when articles become too long and need to be split off. Secondly, the real world content still needs sourcing, which is the only thing the FICT section neglects to mention.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly I acceptt that WP:WAF is a style guideline, however by creating articles on a purely fictional topics with no real world notability it will be impossible to write the article (about fiction) in the way that the guidline on writing about fiction recommends. The fact that such articles exist - and are accepetd - should require a rewrite of WP:WAF to take them into account (if there is an actual consensus for these articles to exist). Secondly, this type of sub article is not mentioned in any of the above guidelines or policies - if these exceptions are allowed then they should be. [[Guest9999 13:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

Just to reiterate - may main point was not that the change to WP:FICT was a bad one (although I think it was) but that several other policies and guidelines (both content and style related) must be updated in order to take it into account due to the current contradictions. [[Guest9999 13:24, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

• The disputed section complies with all of the above to my eye, since it states Even these articles need real-world information.... How exactly does it not comply with the policies and guidance? I can't see any reason to change long-standing policies at this time. Steve block Talk 13:27, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Guest9999, it says in the section--"editors should still strive to provide real-world content"--it isn't saying you can split off a plot section that is too large, it's talking about sections that require real world information to begin with, just becoming too large for their parent article. Secondly, if every policy and guideline said the exact same thing, we wouldn't have a need for the plural, we'd have just one page that said everything that needed saying.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The whole problem of sub-articles is a bit vexed, since for a long time we, on a software level, pushed for 32kb articles. We don't do that anymore, but as a result sub-articles and breaking off articles took root in the culture. For the most part, I tend to think that the aforementioned change to WP:FICT is a poor decision because it spins off bad permastubs of articles, and that most of these minor characters would break off better to list articles. But I tend to think that this is often a good idea - sub-articles based not on topics but used more as figures and illustrations - split off large tables, large lists, etc. Ideally these would go into a separate project called something like WikiData that would exist to hold (sourced) data that is not quite appropriate for WikiSource. In practice, though, this is all a very big change, where as the change to WP:FICT seems to be an acknowledgement of reality and current practice. Phil Sandifer 13:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I thought we still enforced a 32k limit, for both technical, style and readability issues. Steve block Talk 13:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But 32 kb isn't the recommended split line any longer, it's like closer to 50kb.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I think there's also a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works as well. You write that "The fact that such articles (discussing fiction from an in-universe perspective) exist - and are accepetd". They aren't accepted as finished articles. They aren't approved, their status isn't affirmed, the way they are written is not locked in stone. Such articles do indeed exist, simply because people have created them. However, the goal of Wikipedia is to collaboratively create an encyclopedia, so the goal of Wikipedia is to write in an encyclopedic style. Therefore, part of the Wikipedia process is that we collaboratively edit such articles to better comply. Articles which do not currently comply with those standards should not be taken as evidence that the standards do not apply. They should be taken as evidence of the collaborative nature of Wikipedia. Hope that clarifies. Steve block Talk 13:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• By that standard I do not think that any article is truely "finished" - I don't think that even the best featured articles can be considered perfect and may be improved by contributions from the community. My point is that articles which are to be "treated as a section of another article" - and rely on that article for their claim of notability - do not neccessarily have to show - in themsleves outwith of the "parent article" - any evidence that they will meet the current guidelines for article inclusion. If this is the case should the other policies and guidelines not be updated in order to take this into account? [[Guest9999 13:53, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

• • But, the way you are wording it sounds like the guideline is saying it's ok for anything to be split. This isn't the case. The section may need clarification, but it wasn't meant to advocate for those minor characters to be split off on their own. It was meant to advocate for entire sections to be split off on their own. Like, if for some reason a special effects sections becomes overly long, but contains all valid, encyclopedic information, then to save space in the parent article you would split off that section. The new sub-article still needs real world content--I think the guideline says "strive" and that makes it sound like it's ok if you don't have it at all.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:58, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• The wording in the article states that in these articles editors should "should still strive to provide real-world content." - this clearly indicates that said sources whilst clearly highly prefrable are not a neccessity for this type of article. This contradicts with the polcies and guidelines listed and with the general principle that any article should be built around reliable sources. [[Guest9999 14:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]
  • That's what I just said, and I said "strive" gives a false impression and it should not do that. It shouldn't be there, and I will go remove it.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:31, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You seem to have a different reading of the line Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability to me. That line makes it clear that all articles are expected to "meet the current guidelines for article inclusion." Hope that clarifies. Steve block Talk 14:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• What the sentence actually says is ""Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material" - this basicly says that either the real world content doesn't have to be contained within the (sub)article or it does not have to be directly about the contents of the (sub)article. Both of these go possibilities would go against other polcies and guidelines - [WP:NN]] in particular. [[Guest9999 14:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

• I don't agree with your reading at all. It reads to me that it has to show notability, although some evidence of its notability may be found in the parent article. Steve block Talk 15:02, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• I'm also not sure how it conflicts with WP:NN, which in some part defers to the subject notability guidance pages, and states that articles which do not meet the guidance outlined should perhaps be nominated for the articles for deletion process, where the merits will be debated and deliberated for 5 days. I would suggest there and then you have your answer as to what to do with any articles you feel are affected by the contradiction you seem to be reading into the policies and guidance. I would suggest you not worry about it and trust the wiki process to sort it out. Steve block Talk 15:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"To a limited extent, sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but must rely on the parent article to provide some of this background material (due to said technical reasons).[3] In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article. Such sub-articles should clearly identify themselves as fictional elements of the parent work within the lead section, and editors should still strive to provide real-world content."

• The concept in mind when we discussed that section was that presently, most in-universe fictional articles lacking sources are basically written from a WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS fancruft standpoint (the "other stuff" being most of sub-pages from The Simpsons which actually contain real-world notability information within the sub-articles). The goal is to try to instead of taking a few fictional media and immediately writing a new article for every character, setting, episode, object, and the like, is to try to help editor write articles from the outside-in: start with what is notable about the fictional work, including the reception, criticism, release information, and the like, that can be backed with sources, and then only delve into the plot as much as necessary to gain an appreciation of the work as to be able to understand those prior notable statement. As a result, it may be necessary to go into character details or other fictional elements which can only be provided by the primary source (in-universe), and even rarer still it may be appropriate, per summary style and WP:SIZE to consider making that section, with the acknowledgment that it is primarily in-universe, as standalone, though that editors should continue to strive to obtain notability that can be made for such sub-articles (such as what Characters of Final Fantasy VIII provides). This doesn't mean that by the guidelines people are free to write individual character articles for any old reason, and it puts onus on editors to take this as an absolutely last resort (to the point I suggest that we include a rationale template as one does with non-free images to explain why such an article should exist without out-of-world information). Mind you, there's still more we'd like to add, but between discussions at WP:N on notability guideline merges and WP:WAF on working in tandem with them on additional details. --MASEM 14:39, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• In this discussion so far a lot has been made of real world information, I think it is importnat to remember that real world information is not the same as "significant coverage by reliable, independant secondary sources" - which is required by WP:NN. The fact there might be a lot of real world information about a topic - say from fansites or the author - does not therefore confer notability (per the primary notability criteria). I think the current section is badly worded in that it is in some ways contradictory and doesn't really explain how these (sub)articles are diffferent from a typical article. [[Guest9999 15:05, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]
  • Fansites are not typically a reliable source. Anything sourced from them should generally be removed per WP:V. Steve block Talk 15:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • True, I know I that when I say "real world information" or "out-of-universe" I'm implying significant coverage by secondary sources. A list of characters supported only by citing who the actors/voice actors with the rest in-universe are is not significant coverage. --MASEM 15:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm sorry to keep bringing up the point but I'm still slightly confused; the crux of my arguement can be summed up in WP:V, which states - "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.". To me it seems that going by the new wording of WP:FICT this will no longer be the case. Am I correct in interpreting the change this way? If so then I think either the changes to WP:FICT should be reverted or altered or changes could be made to other policy and guideline pages. This would be neccessary so that there are potentailly confusing contradictions between polciy pages. If this is not the case then I am sorry to have wasted your time by misunderstanding the rewrite. [[Guest9999 15:42, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

• You're dealing with "ifs buts and maybes". What the guidance and policies are stating is that on occasion sub-articles will be broken out of larger articles per Wikipedia:Summary style. These sub-articles should be built in such a way as to discuss an aspect of the larger article in keeping with WP:V, WP:NOR and WP:NPOV, and where applicable the WP:MOS and should be about WP:N|notable aspects. However, in certain circumstances the notability of the aspect may be ascertained more easily by referring back to the main article. I'd be encouraged to hear how you can summarise real world information without finding a third party source, by the way. Steve block Talk 16:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Maybe you can't summarise real world information without a third party source but you can definately do it without a reliable, independant third party source. I think with fictional aspects it can sometimes be quite difficult to assertain what is a first, second, third party source but it is often easy to see what is an indepenedant source. There are many, many articles on fictional topics entirely sourced by fansites - which are not considered reliable sources and information and interviews with the auther or publisher - which cannot be considered independant. [[Guest9999 17:19, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

• Gald you agree that WP:V isn't invalidated. See below for more on how it all fits. Steve block Talk 11:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The real problem here is that WP:Notability and Wikipedia:Summary style (and WP:SIZE) are unaware of each others' existence. As a practical matter, we keep articles under 50K or so, and spin out large sections into their own articles. This is good. Then those articles get arbitrarily purged at AfD. This is bad. You are right that there's an unresolved conflict here, but it's in a different area from where you're focusing.--Father Goose 18:36, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, the real problem is that articles have an excessive length due to sections full of non notable info (either in-universe or trivia), and people then decide to split this off into its own article instead of reducing the non notable stuff. It is only logical that such articles get deleted at AfD, and there is nothing arbitrary about it, it is the basic application of WP:NOTE and the fact that we are a tertiary source and need independent reliable secondary sources for all our articles, and that articles should not exist of plot summaries or other in-universe info only (or mainly). Fram 19:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Couldnt disagree more, its the overall subject which is notable, there is no such requirement for specific content. If the article needs to be split for convenience, then it should still be judged. The various conflicting WP policies are combined on the basis of reason and common sense. the very point of specific policies is to supplement the main policy, and when they exist, they are the authority for the subject. If wpedians in general think they are out of line, they should get interested in the specific discussion and try to change it. Why else would we have any policies more than a one line listing of each, for free interpretation. DGG (talk) 01:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I originally proposed the wording a little bit ago when WP:FICT was under some heavy fire from a lot of users (and not just your fly-by-night users, but even users like Radiant! had come to the talk page to question if the guideline had actual consensus.

The idea goes back to the whole concept of articles and sub-articles, and if it really matters if it's a separate document or not. We're talking about data here, and it's often an arbitrary definition about what is its own article or not. This is why the additional text specifically asks editors to treat a sub-article without real-world information as if it were a section in the main article (literally). If it is too much, or if that summary is simply not needed, then remove it and redirect the article.

(Sometimes we have a single "list of characters" for more than one book or show, presenting a situation where it would be practical to have a centralized list as a part of "basic info". But that's probably a lesser example. It's also, to a lesser extent, meant to look out for those weird articles like a list of episodes, which provide borderline "real-world" content, but seem to be considered basic information. These two examples are just my own thoughts, so I'm not sure if others would agree to that same thinking, but it is a small part of what I had in mind.)

So what we really have here is the debate about long articles vs short articles vs multi-articles, etc. I do fear the wording being mistaken, and that part of WP:FICT becoming a weak point, which is why I want to create a form of example table like the ones found on WP:CANVAS#Types of canvassingorWP:BADLINKS#Link assessment table, or something to that extent. -- Ned Scott 03:54, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Look, I think what we're dickering over here is a small subset of articles, for which the ultimate answer is to build a consensus case by case. Otherwise it is all "ifs buts and maybes". Here's how it is all supposed to work. A new editor wants to create an article, so they checks up on our guidance or they don't. If they do, they find out that the best thing to do is to be bold, or they don't and at any rate the article gets created or it doesn't.

• Are you still with me?

• So we have an article. Now, let's assume it doesn't need wikifying or anything else, let's assume it falls into the narrow band of articles we've got to worry about here. Here's the checklist:

• Is it all plot? If so, can it be rescued, merged or should it be prodded or deleted, or shall I do nothing? All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:NOT out of the way.

• Does it cite sources? If not, tag for clean up or prod or afd or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:V almost out of the way.

• Are the sources from a third party? If not, should the article exist? Either list for deletion, prod or check notability guidance or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:V completely out of the way.

• Are the sources from a reliable third party source independent of the topic itself? If not, either prod, afd or check through the specialist notability guidelines, to which WP:N bows or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:N out of the way.

• Is the article part of a chain of information which describes a smaller aspect of a larger work, and the smaller aspect, whilst discussed in very few sources, yet is still critical to the understanding of the larger work, and of such depth that it can't be merged elsewhere, and it's parent article demonstrates that this article is sufficiently sourced to delineate the crucial aspects of this article? If not, either prod or afd or do nothing. All based on editors judgement, but all will involve consensus through collaborative nature of Wikipedia. That's WP:N(WHATEVER) out of the way.

• How does doing nothing involve consensus? Well, someone else will do something eventually, and then consensus will emerge. So, to answer the question, does the new section invalidate WP:V. Nope, nothing in the new section states that third party sources are not required. Does the new section state that WP:NOT is invalidated. Nope, nowhere does this section state that an article can exist solely of plot. Does the new section invalidate WP:N. Nope, it can't since WP:N openly concedes more specific guidance in specialist areas can apply. Does it invalidate WP:WAF? It doesn't even come into conflict with it; they cover separate ground. Is there a specific article you have in mind here, or is this just a general point? If the latter, I'd advise you once again not to worry. The collaborative nature of Wikipedia will work it out. Steve block Talk 11:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• Ultimately, the question is which policy or guidance is it which determines an article's right to exist. The answer is, funnily enough, usually WP:CONSENSUS, noting that consensus can change. Steve block Talk 11:17, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just wanted to point out that we are not talking about a small sub-set of article, We are talking about tens of thousands if not more. Warcraft all on it's own has had over 50 articles deleted. If the logical progression of what been happening continues eventually all 140 entries in list of warcraft characters would probably have been given there own article. This affects groups of articles about every game, tv show, book. Ridernyc (talk) 05:55, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Even if sub-article are viewed as an extension of the parent article, the references in the parent article only apply to the sub-article if the references also are in the sub-article. And you know what happens to a sub-article for which there are no reliable source references. -- Jreferee t/c 17:01, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• It's not a matter of sourcing the article, but where we place the real-world information. Lets say we have a section that talks about how different characters of a book came about from a production standpoint, but that information is organized in a way that doesn't blend stylistically with a list of characters (for example, if it's information that's pretty mixed about production, perhaps organized chronologically, rather than by element of the fiction). The article starts to get long, splitting a list of characters off into it's own article could make sense, and it would have real-world information to justify the content. -- Ned Scott (talk) 03:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
• I disagree to a certain extent, but not enough to argue over here. I can think of certain articles to which this might not apply, but I don't think it is worth worrying about, just as I do not think there are a large number of articles for which this issue will become problematic; most of the articles which fall into this grey area violate so many other policies and guidance that notability isn't the best stick to beat them with. If we applied WP:V with only a minimum of rigidity, say allowing a month to source information, we could clear a remarkable amount of articles from falling into this grey area. But I have faith that eventually the collaborative nature of Wikipedia will work out how to solve this mess. Most of the issues come from structural flaws; instead of splitting off a list of characters, it would be more encyclopaedic to split off an article discussing characters and concepts introduced within the work. So instead of list of New Bloods split from Bloodlines we have Characters and concepts introduced during the Bloodlines crossover. It may be a clunky title, but WP:SS makes allowances for that, and it demonstrates its claim to notability, its purpose and its parentage within the title. Anyway, that's my tuppence, Steve block Talk 15:31, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At the Dutch wikipedia we had one of our typical discussions about the question whether an anonymous user could have his own user page. It concerns users with a seemingly fixed address. Has the English wikipedia a policy on this subject? Ellywa 15:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly happens, for example User:199.71.174.100 so I suppose it is allowed. This example shows how it can be helpful (on a shared but static IP address) but most people find it mysterious why folks like this don't register. Thincat 15:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That is clear. Some people apparently have their reasons, we cannot understand, as we are so used to our nicknames and additional nice things such as a watchlist. Anyway. Thank you for your quick response. Ellywa 17:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IP editors cannot create new pages on English wikipedia, including user pages. This is one reason that very few IP editors have user pages. We expect long term contributors to register a user name, in any case; editors who don't want to do so have little room to argue about being deprived of benefits because of it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that the policy was recently reversed and IP users can once again create pages. Sadly. --Kevin Murray 18:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It was discussed, but in the end it was not put into effect, because the developers didn't see consensus to do it See Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Anonymous page creation. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great news. I'm so glad to be wrong on this one. --Kevin Murray 18:46, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FYI, the better term is "unregistered", rather than "anonymous". Registering and then editing only when logged in actually preserves one's anonymity (since only a CU or Steward can see their IP address), unless you choose to provide personal info. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 23:47, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

user pages for IP editors

(undent) Returning to the question at hand - unregistered users could create pages until the policy was changed in December 2005; since then, they've not been able to. Regarding the page User:199.71.174.100, that was created by a registered editor on September 21, 2007; the edit summary says "Create per request from 199.71.174.100". -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:18, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's a silly idea to create user pages for IP editors. There's no reason not to get a username, and as a community we need to encourage it. Having a userpage is one of the benefits of having a username. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't remember the IP off-hand, but there's definitely at least one that refuses to get an account for whatever reason, and we should respect that. If the IP is static and can be consistently traced back to the same person or source, I see no reason why they shouldn't get a user page. GlassCobra 14:28, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:68.39.174.238. -- Corvus cornix (talk) 17:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of examples User talk:68.39.174.238 and User talk:218.101.117.208 [[-- Guest9999 (talk) 18:00, 16 November 2007 (UTC)]][reply]

At NL wikipedia we have at least three users who do not want to register. I respect their stanpoint. Ellywa (talk) 09:08, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I regularly edited as an IP for years and have had several successive accounts now only because of peer pressure, as it were. I totally respect anyone who doesn't wish to create an identity here for themselves outside their contrib histories. Relata refero (talk) 18:19, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(note: I copied this discussion from the FP talk page, as I think it is important and not receiving notice there.) ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 18:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To Whom it May Concern:

I represent the Islamic Information Center (IIC) on a volunteer basis, and they asked me to contact you (whoever that may be) as to a possible violation upon our principle religion regarding both the Quran and relation to the modern world today. Unfortunately, I didn't see any phone number to contact, so I wrote in discussion - as Jim Wales suggested on C-SPAN for independent organizations to contact Wikipedia. The problem is this articles (or policies) title as a basis of the five pillars of Islam. We don't consider such actions hostile towards the Muslim community, however we do ask it be changed to prevent any possible confusion in Muslims relations with Wikipedia - to something more neutral.

To discuss this further, please contact me at

jarmin@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Josh Armin —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.105.111.65 (talk) 00:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If we went around changing every article that would/might offend Muslims then we would be in direct breach of the second pillar " Wikipedia has a neutral point of view," by submitting to one groups claim to offence not to mention we would lose all sense of accuracy and credibility to wikipedia. Its been argued over and over, especially on articles such as Aisha that wikipedia does not bend or change to Islam. Its about facts and knowledge and I highly doubt and unsigned comment by someone claiming to be from the IIC (even though you list a yahoo email address NOT an IIC one) is going to do anything constructive. Thats my two cents --Curuxz 10:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• In away I agree with Curuxc and we must be cautious about pandering to social pressures and special interest groups. However, I see legitimate concern in this case. Was it random chance that we named this policy the Five Pillars, or were we emulating Islam? I see no offense intended, rather I see a potential compliment. But if offense is being taken, why not modify our title. We are a young enough project that we can easily adapt. ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 18:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Islam lays no unique claim to the number five, or the idea of pillars supporting something. Their combination is rather natural, and the similarity a coincidence. EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I can't agree. There is no special meaning to "ten", nor to "commandments" but the combination has a very specific meaning. ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 21:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• "Commandment" doesn't have a strong definition outside of "The Ten Commandments" or general orders; "pillar" has a more literal definition, which is what the symbolic meaning is derived from. See Five Pillars, Four Pillars, and Three Pillars. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Good examples! Thanks. I'd like to find out more about the depth of concern. Perhaps someone should write to IIC, to see whether there is broad based concern. ---- Kevin Murray (talk) 21:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I think a more interesting question is whether this page is needed at all. All our policies are important. SashaCall 21:38, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• I strongly disagree. It's usually more usable and scalable to decide things based on general principles, rather than expecting people to memorize 27 different policy pages whose content may or may not be accurate at any given time. The principles and some intelligence are all you need; the details can be worked out as needed. Friday (talk) 21:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• The relevant question is whether we would change if it was the Ten Commandments of Wikipedia, and someone objected. I leave people to contemplate that. I'd also say that if it is the case that some people are being offended, we could perhaps leave it out of the welcome template, because that at least should be as anodyne as possible. Relata refero (talk) 18:16, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I’m fully aware that posts on Wikipedia go into the public domain. Nevertheless, I’ve just discovered that http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com, a site I have never visited before finding my information there in a Google search for another purpose, has taken my user page, in its entirety, and represents me as a member of their site. If it’s happened to me, it has probably happened to others, especially people that have posted on pharmacology. Is there any policy on the large-scale use of Wiki userpages?

http://www.prescriptiondrug-info.com/drug_information_online.asp?title=User:Hcberkowitz

Thanks

Howard (user hcberkowitz)

• Userpages are necessarily licensed under the GFDL. So they can be reprinted. Best is to add

  This is a Wikipedia user page. This is not an encyclopedia article or the talk page for an encyclopedia article. If you find this page on any site other than Wikipedia, you are viewing a mirror site. Be aware that the page may be outdated and that the user whom this page is about may have no personal affiliation with any site other than Wikipedia. The original page is located at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy).

  to the page if it bugs you. WilyD 19:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just FYI they have rather indiscriminately ported all articles and userpages from wikipedia. Here I am. —Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 19:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

At the bottom of every page on the pharmacy's website it states "This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GFDL (GNU Free Documentation License)". So they are abiding by all terms.
It annoys me because it messes up wiki mark up, but it is perfectly legal. However, enabling copying is one of the most prominent features of GFDL, and while it has some disadvantages, the free nature of Wikipedia is one of my primary motives for contributing. Puchiko (Talk-email) 20:11, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh I know GFDL, and I noticed the disclaimer; it's just rather strange, that's all. I wonder what their motivation is. —Cronholm¹⁴⁴ 20:37, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Laziness. It's easier to copy everything than parse the database dump. WilyD 20:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably done in the hope to get higher Google ranking. It is frustrating if they end up selling cheap drugs, or related to some scam.YegLi (talk) 21:52, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hehe, I hope they like my list of insults.[4] :) EVula // talk // ☯ // 20:51, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on there, weird. Maybe I should make a subpage on why their website sucks. SashaCall 21:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Let's be clear about one thing. The GFDL is NOT Public domain. There are similarities, but the two are quite different. - Mgm|^(talk) 13:47, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• The site is a known live mirror, i.e. it mirrors anything and everything on Wikipedia, fetching the current version of each page when it is requested. It even "mirrors" special pages, such as Recent Changes. -- AJR | Talk 22:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• If I would add something like "Prescription Drug Info is a scam website trying to steal your money and murder your children. Don't buy from them, buy from <some competitor>." to my userpage, could they sue me? Olaus (talk) 22:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

• Unless the allegation is true, yes, it'd be libel. WilyD 22:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am not really interested in waging a private war against some sleazy Viagra spammer, or whatever they are, but it seems like websites doing stuff like this leave themselves vulnerable to subversive campaigns from the users whose pages they copy. Olaus (talk) 00:33, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I get the sense that becaouse there are a lot of scifi fans amongst wikipedia admin/editors, even if they have no WP:RS they will be let off if it comes to a deletion debate and lack of notability to those who are not into it. I sense this because of the number of these groups who have an article, even with no WP:RS. If so, this should change, it's hardly NPOV of wikipedia as a whole to make special lack-of-rules for these groups. Merkinsmum 19:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you see an article that doesn't appear to meet notability standards, feel free to nominate it for deletion. You can also tag articles with no reliable sources for cleanup. There is no all-seeing guru on Wikipedia to review every article, so it's up to the user community to enforce the standards. -- Karanacs (talk) 20:09, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I know but I suspect there is a different rule for these type of articles, as so many of them have been here long-term and been allowed to stay.:) I may ask your opinion about one on your talk page.-- Merkinsmum (talk) 20:20, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen groups of article before that I wondered why they were still here, and I've usually concluded that they were of such narrow focus that no one had really noticed them before. I don't know if that's the case here, but it's a possibility. No one such be immune to the RS policy though. -- Karanacs (talk) 21:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a policy issue here? Because I'm not seeing it. Maybe if you provided some specific examples, this would be a more productive discussion. --- Chunky Rice (talk) 21:52, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Spoo. Surviving two AfDs. --MASEM 22:02, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Offhand, that article seems fine to me. I'm not seeing the problem. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 22:07, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Look through the sources - the bulk of the sources that attempt to cite the notability of Spoo are Usenet or other forum posts or from other primary sources (B5's Lurker Guide). There are no reliable secondary sources for that article (particularly of it's primary description as a term in the B5 mythos) --MASEM 22:23, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I think that the reason the article may have survived however is not so much because it is science fiction related but that it is related to a fairly active project. If one really wanted to help remove such articles, the best way might be to try to encourage the growth of broader projects which could eventually surplant these smaller scope projects. But I myself have seen the "History of As the World Turns" articles, currently in six articles, beginning with History of As the World Turns (1956-1959), which are soap-opera, not science-fiction, related, and I personally wonder whether they have even as much notability. -- John Carter (talk) 22:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but this doesn't really strike me as a policy issue. It sounds more like a content dispute. And I think that Spoo has gotten by on its status as a Featured Article more than because it's science fiction based. -Chunky Rice (talk) 22:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so much a content dispute because I meant is this what's happening in general, rather than on one particular article. There is a big Category:Science_fiction_organizations which seems a bit lengthy for them all to be notable for an encyclopedia. I'm not arguing for the category's deletion or anything, I came here to ask if having so many articles about these orgs is a matter of precedent/unwritten license, I can't think offhand but I know some types of articles are always kept at AfD.Merkinsmum (talk) 01:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no, they've discovered the Wikipedia Science Fiction Cabal!Anomie⚔ 02:26, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ROFL! Maybe I just need to prod some of these- but not too many at once because I'm already being threatened with being reported for harrassment, for questioning the notability of one of the groups.:)Merkinsmum (talk) 13:36, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]