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Editors, please note: Editors, please note:


In February 2007, after four months of discussion at ], a number of editors at ] agreed on a means of merging ] with ], while also streamlining ] into a simpler FAQ at ]. However, the community decided against deprecating those longstanding policies, which are conceptually distinct and handy to refer to as such, rejecting the original proposal to give this page policy status. In some cases, this page may be easier to refer to, but when attempting to refer to individual elements of this page, it will best to refer to those. In February 2007, after four months of discussion at ], a number of editors at ] agreed on a means of merging ] with ], while also streamlining ] into a simpler FAQ at ]. In a ] in April 2007, the community voted 424 to 354 in favor of the merger (with 102 neutral or suggesting other compromises), which was not a sufficient majority. After this, at the suggestion of Jimbo Wales, the page held a unique quasi-official status as a "canonical summary".


] is intended by some editors to be a more cohesive version of the core content policies with which the Misplaced Pages community is already familiar. Although whether the page should be more clearly marked as an essay, marked as a guideline, re-proposed as a policy or guideline, marked as a rejected policy, or tagged as historical has been a matter of ongoing dispute. ] is intended to be a cohesive version of the core content policies with which the Misplaced Pages community is already familiar, discussing how these core policies work together and support each other.


<span class="plainlinks"> <div class="plainlinks">
{{archive box|auto=long| {{archive box|auto=long|
* ] * ]
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* ] * ]
* ] * ]
<center>'''Quick history links (the status)'''</center> {{center|1=''']'''}}
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=80754977|11 October 2006}}: "proposal"
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=108424716|15 Februrary 2007}}: "policy"
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=111613765|28 Februrary 2007}}: +"superseded"
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=116575079|20 March 2007}}: -"superseded"
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=121380032|9 April 2007}}: "proposal"
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=140584448|25 June 2007}}: "summary"
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=162850639|7 October 2007}}: "Historical"
* {{Querylink|Misplaced Pages:Attribution|qs=oldid=170999165|12 November 2007}}: "status disputed"
<center>''']'''</center>
}} }}
</span> </div>


{{User:HBC Archive Indexerbot/OptIn {{User:HBC Archive Indexerbot/OptIn
|target=./Archive index |target=./Archive index
|mask=/Archive <#> |mask1=/Archive <#>
|mask=/popculture |mask2=/popculture
|mask=/Community discussion |mask3=/Community discussion
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|mask=/Role of truth |mask5=/Role of truth
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== Status? == == Use of term ==


In the past, I've used "attribution" to refer to the very simple idea that folks adding content should attribute claims, particularly opinions, not just for sourcing purposes them but to identify whose opinion is involved and provide some context to help evaluate it. Thus, in a dispute on some religious topic where secular scholars disagree with relgious claims. It's important to say something to avoid saying things like "some say C but others say Y", and instead say something like like "Bob Smith, a professor of archeology and Sumerian specialist at the University of A, says 'X', or "John Jones, a theologian and professor of bible at the B Theological Seminary, says 'Y'". It would be nice if there were a quick, simple policy link that would explain why attribution is important in covering controversial subjects and diverse opinions neutrally. This page used to be the one I used. The title is valuable and represents a simple but important idea. As a result, the page's conversion to an essay represents something of a loss. Best, --] (]) 23:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
So apparently this is no longer a policy proposal. Is it an essay? &mdash;] 22:35, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
:I agree... but unfortunately several others did not. 00:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
::But there's a way: most of the language here was consensus. If you like something, propose it, or something which approaches it, at ] or ]. ] <small>]</small> 18:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
:::I suspect that Shirahadasha's desired use of ''attribution'' is more related to ] and balance than to ] or to ]. --] (]) 12:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
:I also agree with Shirahadasha. I just discovered that ] redirects to essentially a less well-written copy of ]. What the heck happened, and where did that old paragraph go? ] | (] - ]) 08:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)


See the section ] lower down this page for a further discussion on this issue.
:I think it's a good idea to leave it without status for the time being. It's not a personal essay. There's a sense in which it's policy, in that it's a summary of two other policies, but strictly speaking it doesn't have that status (though it did for a while). It's not a proposal anymore. Yet it's a page that lots of people still use and link to in order to understand the policies. Therefore, it has a kind of unique status. ] <sup><font color="Purple">]</font></sup> 22:38, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


== Attributing in-text (]) compared to this page; retitle? ==
::But it's definitely ''not'' a policy or a guideline or anything official, is it? That should probably be mentioned at that top. &mdash;] 22:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
The paragraph Shirahadasha is looking is ]/]. From looking at the history of these shortcuts it's not clear how or even if the ] shortcut ever went to that paragraph. But the title to that section of ], "Attributing..." has existed since , and the uses the word attribute frequently, ''always'' meaning '''in-text attribution of controversial statements'''.


Thus, when people talk about attributing something on Misplaced Pages, they generally are thought to mean attributing an opinion in-text rather than presenting it as fact. I think that this page (WP:ATTRIBUTION) uses the word attribute in a confusing way, particularly given the existing jargon in Misplaced Pages where attribute means in-text attribution. Better to retitle this page to something which indicates that it is a summary of core policies or something, as that's what it really is, then to use a word which has a particular meaning as a synonym for verifiable or reliably sourced. Unfortunately, I have no good title ideas.] | (] - ]) 05:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)
:::Like was said, it has a sort of unique status -- it's sort of half-official and half-unofficial. Best to leave it this way unless and until it can be pinned down. ] 09:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


== Can we discuss the quality of a source? ==
::::I disagree that the page has a unique status. In my opinion, either it's policy or it isn't, and apparently it isn't. I think it's an essay. Some essays are written by one writer, and some essays are written cooperatively. What is the evidence to support the idea that it has a unique status, and what process was carried out for it to achieve such a status? The current tag which states that it summarizes two key policies is misleading -- it sounds as if it's policy, which it isn't. It should also have an essay tag above that, to make it clear that it does not have consensus (as was found in the ].)
Can we in addition to attributing authors discuss the quality of a source, ex. whether it discusses an issue in detail or just in passing? I raised the issue ]. Comments appreciated. --<sub><span style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">]|]</span></sub> 16:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
:This sounds like a way to "discredit" sources... which is a subtle form of POV pushing. ] (]) 16:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)


== Is ] a reliable source? ==
::::I think the original idea of this page was to simplify policy by replacing two policy pages with one. To make it a new policy page only makes the policy more complex (three pages rather than two) and to create a whole new type of status that pages can have makes policy even more complex. An essay tag would solve all that. --] 16:11, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


Should ] be regarded as a reliable source? ] (]) 23:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
::::I also disagree that it is an accurate summary of the policies, for reasons discussed in the section "the second sentence" of this talk page. --] 16:13, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
:Yes, ] has given his , so it must be more reliable than . ] (]) 23:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


==Status March 2010==
:::::It seems to me that it is time to add {{tl|essay}} to this article, until such time as it is given another status. The wording on ] '' do not have policy or guideline status, and most are the opinion of one or two users. Nevertheless, many contain useful insights, and at least some of them are worth reading.'' This seems like a good description of the current status of this article rather than something like {{tl|historical}} or {{tl|rejected}} --] 17:26, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


::I only just noticed someone had put an essay tag on it. It's not an essay, but a summary of two of the key policies, so I've restored the wording we created for it. I'll look around for the paragraph you mention. ] <small><sup>]]</sup></small> 09:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
::::::The problem though is that, like you mentioned, essays are often just the opinion of one or two users, and this is a page that a great deal of effort has been spent on with many different opinions having been involved. Calling it a simple "essay" seems to ignore this. It does not need a special category to be created, I think it should just be left the way it is. What exactly is bad the way it is now? Just call it a page, alright? ] 03:23, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
:::::But essay is not ruled out because it does not say "LIMITED TO the opinion of one or two users" so it can be an essay --] 10:15, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


:::Here we go again folks... (see the archives for previous itterations of this debate... essentially they come down to: "This page is a summary of policy"... "No, it's nothing more than an essay"... "No, its a summary"... "essay"... "Summary!"... "Essay!"... "Duck season!"... "Rabbit season!")... seriously, does it really ''matter''? ] (]) 15:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Any other thoughts on this or can I place an essay template on the top? --] 19:13, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


SV after over a year and after a very long discussion you only just realized that since 23 July 2008 it had been marked as an essay. That was a compromise thrashed out by a lot of editors over a period of a year. I do not think you should have changed it without seeking a wider consensus than you did. I have put it back to an essay. -- ] (]) 02:12, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
:It's not just an essay: hundreds of people worked on it, and hundreds more wanted it to be policy. Jimbo suggested we call it the "canonical description" of the policies. I've already added an explanation to the page. <font color="Purple">]</font> <small><sup><font color="Blue">]</font><font color="Green">]</font></sup></small> 19:16, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
::::(That was on , before the straw poll. --] 19:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC))
::Are you saying that there is an upper limit to how many people contribute to an essay before its status changes to something else? If so what is the number? --] 23:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


As you seem to have been absent for the second half of the conversations now archived see ] for BB's compromise solution which I for one was not keen on I wanted {{tl|historical}} or {{tl|rejected}}, but I could live with it if it put this page to bed. -- ] (]) 02:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
:::When hundreds of people work on draft legislation in a government and want it to become legislation and it's voted down, they don't generally create a new status for the draft legislation -- they just accept that it didn't meet the requirements to become legislation.


From the edit history:
:::The current note at the top of the page is misleading. It says "This page summarizes two of Misplaced Pages's core content policies: No original research and Verifiability, which explain how and why sources should be used in articles." This makes it sound as if this page is policy. It should be clearer that while it is an attempt by hundreds of cooperating editors to summarize policy, it is not the actual policy but is an essay. --] 17:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
: 02:18, 21 March 2010 Crum375 (rvt -- this is not an essay; it is a summary of core policies, supported by a majority of editors; please do not change its status without a broad consensus)
Crum375: It was marked as an essay for well over a year after extensive discussions and only reverted by SV a few months ago without any wider consultation other than a statement here. So where is the consensus you claim exists expressed in an section on this talk page or in its archives? -- ] (]) 06:25, 21 March 2010 (UTC)


For heaven's sake, Philip, please don't start this again. It's not an essay. It's a combination of two policies written by large numbers of people. Please just leave it tagged as such, as was agreed at the time. ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 10:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
::::I think {{tl|rejected}} would be the most honest classification. I mean, that's what happened... &mdash;] 21:00, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


:Please show me where in these talk archives it was agreed at the time.
:::::I restored the message box which says "The status of this page is currently under discussion." Please don't delete it, especially not without explaining why here on the talk page, before the discussion is resolved. Here there is a discussion, not yet resolved, about putting an essay tag or otherwise changing the status tags of this article, therefore the message box about being "under discussion" is accurate. --] 00:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


:As I said above please see ] for BB's compromise solution which was the compromise which we came to and which prevailed until you unilaterally changed the banner form Essay to another one which was never agreed to other than as a temporary fix, I can find the exact discussion on this in the archive if you wish but I presume you remember it. --] (]) 11:20, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::I support the edit by Ashley Y which added "It is not itself policy" to one of the message boxes. It supplies a needed clarification as I point out above. --] 00:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


::You can't call something an essay that faithfully reflects two core content policies, and that a large number of editors contributed to over many months (and which was policy for a few weeks, remember). That's not how the word "essay" is used on WP. The current tag is completely accurate, so I don't understand the obsession about changing it. ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 11:34, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::::SlimVirgin is right: we can't just slap an ordinary "essay" tag on it. The "essay" tag says ''"This is an essay. It is not a policy or guideline; it merely reflects some opinions of its author(s). Please update the page as needed, or discuss it on the talk page."'' That would be misleading, since although this page is not itself a policy, nevertheless it's (attempting to) summarizing policies which do have consensus. It can be an essay, but special wording is needed, such as the "It is not itself official policy" currently on the page. Putting it into the category of essays and including "This is an essay" in the tags still seems like a good idea to me, though.
:::::::Also, will someone please put back the tag saying "The status of this page is under discussion". Of course everyone knows there's a talk page, but it's useful to let people know that the status of the page is under discussion at the present time so that more people will participate in this discussion and hopefully help resolve it. For most pages, minor edits are occurring all the time, but usually the status of the page is not under discussion. In this case, it is. --] 21:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)


:::The debate regarding what to do with this page (how to conduct the big poll, to be specific) was one of the most stressful experiences that I've had at Misplaced Pages, and to note that SlimVirgin and I didn't exactly get along swimmingly would be an understatement. But I must say that I was taken aback when I saw that the page had been labeled an "essay" (by which point I was too exhausted to argue, as I imagine was the case for many others). I strongly agree that it simply doesn't make sense to call it that. I favor tagging the page as a summary or similar, but even the {{tl|historical}} tag (or a variant explaining the situation) would be less misleading than conveying that the content was written as an ] (something for which "no formal attempt to gauge consensus has been made"). —] 12:35, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
::::::::] would seem to be a fair summation. "This Misplaced Pages page is currently inactive and is retained primarily for historical interest. A historical page usually is one that is no longer maintained or no longer relevant, '''or one for which consensus is unclear'''. If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the proposal page of the village pump." (my emphasis). If the "]" is currently working on this page then when they report back this template can be removed. If the Working party are not working on the problem, then this page is inactive. Does anyone know is the working party is active? --] 11:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


::::I am willing to have {{tl|historical}} or {{tl|rejected}} but the consensus compromise was {{tl|essay}} and I have not seen that there is a consensus to move from that compromise. The whole point SV is this does not "faithfully reflects two core content policies" it never has and when I tried to make it do so, you reverted those edits. Rather than having to keep it up to date with the content policies it is better to leave it be or it just opens up another area for people to edit war over and to find inconsistencies with policy. SV I notice that instead of answering my questions you answer with a statement that included "so I don't understand the obsession about changing it" which suggests that it is only those who disagree with you have an "obsession about changing it". It was you who after a period of when this was headed with a standard essay template who changed it from essay to a rejected status, without any form of consultation what so ever. I have asked you to show me where you think that the archives show a consensus that supports you view that it has a special status. Please show me. Here is the archive sections were it was agreed to make the page as an essay: Archive 18 ] and immediately following that section ]. -- ] (]) 00:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
(<<outdent) I support the clarifying edit by Blueboar changing "It" to "This page" in "This page is not itself official policy." The "rejected" tag seems close to being appropriate but could be misleading since the policies being summarized are official policy. Either "historical" or "essay" seems appropriate (i.e. having "This is an essay" but not exactly all the usual words in the essay tag). I haven't heard anything about whether it was ever decided who was to be on the working party or whether the working party was ever active; I never accepted or declined my nomination, as I was waiting to hear more first about the purpose and format of the working party. --] 21:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


::::In July 2008 when this was put to bed. Kevin Murray summed up my position on this issue and I still think it is true:
:The working party was waiting for ] to get back to us with feedback from Jimbo, but we never heard back nor got responses to follow-up queries on her talk page. ] <small>]</small> 22:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
{{quotation|

:::::Ryan, it really does matter. Creating a "summary" implies that it accurately summarizes policy, which it may or may not, but requires constant energy to maintain the accuracy and update changes to policy. Summaries of critical documents including rules, professional opinions, etc. are very tricky, since deciding what to ommit can seriously alter the interpretation. The reason this became an issue recently was that this page was being cited elsewhere as a way to create "policy" without the rigorous process of attaining consensus. This is why it is important that we follow the format described at ] and not subvert them to find the more cozy and polite avenue. --Kevin Murray (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
So another month and a half has passed anyone still object to ]? --] 19:23, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
}}

::::--] (]) 00:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::I don't object to the concept... however I wonder if that is the right template. Is it "historical" if people are currently referring to it? Recently, I have seen several references to this page on discussion pages (most of them incorrectly calling it a policy, and citing it as such)... I just don't know if there is a better tag? Essay seems to not catch the right facts either. At the hight of the debate over this page, Jimbo seemed to agree that it should be considered a "summary" of NOR and V... It isn't a policy, but because it summarizes policy it is more than an essay. Guideline does not seem to work either. It is sort of in a category of its own. Sigh... I would tag it however you want, expecting someone to come along and object. Heck, tagging it 'historical' might just get movement on figuring out what the status actually is. ] 19:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
:::::Philip, would you mind pointing out where this summary fails to reflect the core policies it summarizes? Thanks, ] (]) 00:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

:::If as you say people are "incorrectly calling it a policy, and citing it as such" at the very least a more explicit banner needs to be placed at the top. So asit seems Blueboar that you and I are the only ones discussing this at the moment so I have added ] to the top and lets see if that puts the cat among the pigeons. --] 22:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

How about ]? It seems to fit. &mdash;] 04:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

:::No because it is not a supplement it is a summary. If the word supplement is used then people will think that it is in addition to the policies it is summarising.

:::It seems to me that until such time as the "working party" starts its work the best template for this is "]". When the "working party" reports back then this article can be in the words of the template "If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the proposals page of the village pump." --] 09:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

::::It's no longer simply historical, since its authors now intend it as a summary of existing policy. As such it's a "supplement" (which is a kind of essay). &mdash;] 00:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

== The second sentence ==

This is a continuation of a discussion, part of which was moved to ].

Enchanter said in part: ''"...I would suggest something along the lines of "Material should not be included in Misplaced Pages if it cannot be attributed to a reliable published source, even if we think it is true. This is because Misplaced Pages is not the place to judge the truth of new ideas."Enchanter 12:27, 24 June 2007 (UTC) "''

I agree with this suggestion, and I also agree that the colon is better but only slightly and that some other wording needs to be found.

I believe that everyone can be satisfied if we find a wording which accomplishes the following:
*Makes it very clear that material Wikipedians believe is true, but which is not attributable to a reliable source, is not to be included.
*But does not seem to imply that it's OK to insert, without prose attribution, material which one knows or believes to be false.
*But in the process of clarifying the above, does not seem to imply that Wikipedians must verify or guarantee the actual truth of material which is included.

Note that there are a number of suggested wordings on the page ] which I believe accomplish the above and to which no one has objected.

It's often OK to include material some Wikipedians know or suspect to be false if it is in a sentence like "The XYZ Association states that..." That's what's called a prose attribution. In that case, even if the statement by the XYZ Association is false, the Misplaced Pages article itself is not false as long as it's true that that statement was made by the XYZ Association.

I ask that people participating in this discussion please participate here on the talk page, not in the edit summaries; also please don't revert without discussion unless you can refer specifically in the edit summary to talk page discussion somewhere which supports your revert. We need to move this process forward to reach consensus, and talk page discussion is a much better way to accomplish that than edit summaries. --] 16:03, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Possible alternative wordings:
*Just delete ''"not whether it is true"''. Once ''"verifiability"'' is gone, those words are unnecessary.
*Revert to the original ''"verifiability, not truth"''.
*As ] suggested: ''"...not solely whether it is true"''.
*''"...not merely whether it is true."''
*''"Being true is not enough."''
*''"Some true material does not belong."''
*''"All material must be attributable."''
*''"If it's not attributable, it does not belong."''
*''"...otherwise, it does not belong in Misplaced Pages."''
*''"...; only such material is acceptable."''
*''"...without this, it cannot be included."''
*''"...; proving that something is true does not get it included."''
*''"...; however, false or contentious material requires prose attributions (see WP:NPOV)."''

Please do not change the colon back to a period without discussion. Changing back to a period increases the extent to which it could seem to imply that it's OK to insert, without prose attribution, material which one knows or believes to be false -- something
I think it's a bad idea for Misplaced Pages policy to imply, and which
is not implied by the current policy "verifiability, not truth". There are many other
possible alternative wordings to be thought up. Please try to find a wording that accommplishes the three objectives I listed further above. --] 17:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

== Revive discussion? ==

Hi.

Why not revive the discussion of this page? It seems no clear consensus occured either pro or con for the merger. ] 03:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

== Links to sections, not summaries ==

If the policy section is not clear, then the policy section should be changed to make it more comprehensible. As this is not policy or a guideline, this document should not try to make summaries of policy and guideline sections, in an alleged attempt to make Misplaced Pages policies more understandable, because placing summaries here can lead to confusion.

All that is needed is a section header is a link to the appropriate section in a policy or guideline article. If this is done then this document can become a navigation aid to those looking for an overview of ] ] and supporting guidelines, without causing confusion by trying to interpret the policies and supporting guidelines. --] 09:30, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

:I don't see any problem with (briefly) summarizing the Policies and Guidelines that are being linked to... a summary of a sentence or two will help people be sure that they are navigating to the correct policy statement. The key is to make sure that any summary we include is firmly consistant with what the Policy or Guideline in question actually says. ] 14:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
*I spotted this comment in the page history, "Rvt - can't link from policy level to guideline, as guidelines derive from policies"... I should point out that this is obviously false. There are no bureaucratic restrictions on linking to pages, and plenty of policy links to pages that aren't policy. ] 13:12, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Also this page is not a Misplaced Pages policy page as its status is still under review. --] 13:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this page is that if summaries of policy and guidelines, is that there is no guarantee that this page accurately reflects the policy pages as this page may not be up to date. Who is to say that this page is an accurate summary of the Misplaced Pages policy pages? Better by far to place links to the policy and guidelines sections and not try to interpret them in the text on an unofficial page. --] 13:39, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

For example Blueboar "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" to the section. Is not a summary it is almost a word for word copy from the guideline, what is the point of that, when the same thing can be looked at via a link to the guidline? --] 13:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
::I certainly don't disagree with you, Philip. My restoring of the text (but also resoring the link to WP:RS) was an attempt at compromise, nothing more. If the text is simply copied from RS in its entirety, I agree we need to re-write it so that it ''is'' a summary.
::Moving from specifics to the general: My feeling is that we should have both links to the more complete sections on the policy and guideline pages ''and'' brief summaries of each section (an aid for quick reference). As far as making sure that such summaries do reflect the content of the policy or guideline in question... that is an issue whenever we refer to one policy within another. The solution is to constantly check this page against what NOR and V say... and if there is a conflict, correct this page to reflect the official Policy. ] 15:03, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that this is where you and I part company. I was never against the merger of the other policy and guidelines into one. What I was against was the alternation to the wording (by a few editors) before the merger took place. I think that this document should only link to the sections that it is proposed should be merged into the WP:ATT document. Only once those sections are agreed, and it is agreed that WP:ATT should replace WP:V etc should those sections be merged word for word into this article. Once that is done then the full Misplaced Pages community can help to fettle the wording of the WP:ATT policy document. Making summaries of the Misplaced Pages policies, is I think a step too far, and will stop many who would otherwise agree with a merger supporting it. --] 15:20, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

:Unfortunately, I think the idea of a merger is a dead duck (I supported it at the time, but realize that there is no consensus for it). However, I think the idea of this being a summary page, one page that links those policies and discusses where the two policies overlap and compliment each other ''is'' valid. As such, I don't think it is wrong to repeat what V and NOR say... as long as we ''do'' stick to what those policies say. I understand your concern about the alteration of the wording ... In my concept, this page would do nothing but directly quote relevant key statements from V and NOR, essentially cutting out the various examples and explanations that fill out the policy pages. In other words, this would contain accurate summaries of the policies, and not rewrites of them. ] 15:43, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This seems contrary to ] to me. That guideline describes procedures for keeping summaries and the longer articles that they summarize in synch; I don't see why that should be a problem here. PBS's edits go too far in my opinion, turning a useful guideline into a much less helpful sequence of links and making it more difficult to interpret. —] 17:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

:What is the source for:
:* "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources"?
:* "The Bible cannot be used as a source for the claim that Jesus advocated eye removal (Matthew 18:9, Mark 9:47) for his followers, because theologians differ as to how these passages should be interpreted."
:--] 18:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

:David Eppstein: Thanks for explaining the reason for your reversion. If I understand what you're saying, you mean that a summary, according to WP:SUMMARY, should have a certain amount of information, not be extremely short, and that Philip Baird Shearer's edit was going too far in the direction of making it too short. I think that's a good point. Anyway, we'll see what happens at WP:NOR. --] 18:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

But it dos not answer the points above. Besides a summary should be a summary and the current wording is not. --] 16:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

== Image Attribution ==

It seems to me that ] is a good place to include a description of how to properly attribute an author contributed image.

] 15:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

== Status - Historical? ==

The question has been raised above ... should this be tagged as 'Historical'. If we look at this page in terms of it being a failed proposal to merge two policies... the answer is "yes". However, if we look at this page as being a ''summary'' of two policies (as I do) the answer is "no"... the two policies that this summarizes are still active and, thus, so is the summary of them.

This page may be a unique case. None of our existing templates seem to fit. It isn't a guideline, it isn't an essay, and it isn't policy. It is neither active or historical. I think what we need is a ''new'' template... one that clearly informs people that this is a ''summary'' of policy and not a policy in its own right. ] 12:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
:] is a summary and it has no tag at all; perhaps this tagging fascination is the problem? ] (]) 12:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

::As I wrote above in ]: It seems to me that until such time as the "working party" starts its work the best template for this is "]". When the working party reports back then this article can be in the words of the template "If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the proposals page of the village pump." --] 13:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

::Although the 5 pillars doesn't have a tag, it does have an introductory sentence at the top which serves a similar purpose. One big difference between the 5 pillars and this page is that (as far as I know) the 5 pillars page has the support of the community, whereas broad consensus was never reached as to the wording of this page, particularly the "not whether we think it is true" part which is not accepted by myself (and perhaps also not by others, who did not accept an earlier version) as a summary of the policy "verifiability, not truth". In my opinion, the meaning is significantly different in a way of fundamental importance. Since the community as a whole does not seem to have accepted this page, "historical" seems accurate; the template says it's for pages where consensus is unclear, which describes the situation here.

::Reverting without engaging in ongoing back-and-forth discussion on the talk page with a goal of achieving mutual understanding and consensus has been a longstanding problem on this page, and I believe it is the reason why consensus was not reached on the wording. This same problem is happening now. Please do not revert without first engaging in current discussion on the talk page. --] 16:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

If no one is going to engage in why this is not an historical page I shall put back the historical template. --] 16:15, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

done --] 12:14, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
:Good. ] 12:13, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

== Types of sources ==

Note that there is currently discussion at ] to replace the source typing section with different wording which gets across the same basic idea without mentioning primary, secondary etc. sources. After consensus is reached at WP:NOR, we may need to update this page. --] 16:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
::and at the moment, the version by SV is the correct statement of the practice at WP. Primary sources can be used in appropriate cases, with the limitations mentioned. ''']''' (]) 08:00, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
:::Agreed... However, Coppertwig does have a point. Those who edit on this page should keep tabs on what is happening at WP:NOR (and at WP:V) to make sure that any changes ''there'', are reflected ''here''. ] 16:39, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

== Status November 2007 ==

This page is not ''historical'' as it summarizes existing policies. ] <small>]</small> 00:34, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:Agreed. At this point it's more or less an essay: it's some people's views but not necessarily everyone's. I see its status as similar to ], someone's discussion of policy but not itself policy. &mdash;] 02:26, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

::I think trying to add "historical" to this is just being provocative for the sake of it. It's not historical, because it describes current policy. Jimbo was quite happy for it to be called something like the "canonical description" of policy. If some people don't like it, you don't have to use it or link to it, but please allow the rest of us to do so without it having a misleading historical tag, because many people still find it very useful. <font color="Purple">]</font> <small><sup><font color="Blue">]</font><font color="Green">]</font></sup></small> 06:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is it "provocative for the sake of it" to describe it as historical? It is historical because we are waiting on the working party starts its work. Until they do the contents of this page is controversial because it uses other examples and words that are not in the wikipedia content policies and guidelines and -- while it does -- keeping it up to date with the policies and guidelines is as difficult as agreeing changes to the content policies and guidelines. Until such time as the working party starts its work I think we can all do without without the endless debate that this page engenders if if is to be kept up to date as a current page. --] 10:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:What working party? <font color="Purple">]</font> <small><sup><font color="Blue">]</font><font color="Green">]</font></sup></small> 11:51, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

::This one ], announced by ]. ] 13:53, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:Agreed. The current wording of this page is months behind what current policy says, particularly given recent and major activity going on at ]. Furthermore, this page has ''never'' been properly rewritten to accurately reflect the scope of policy anyway, and has remained mostly inactive since Jimbo had to get involved due to the upheaval it caused when it '''was''' policy briefly. It's historical by any measure of the word, and I would go so far as to say redundant on top of it. -- ] ('''<sub><font color="blue">]</font></sub> <small><font color="red">]</font></small> <sup><font color="green">]</font></sup>''') 11:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

'Pending revision' is a better fit for the status of this page than 'historical'. 'Historical' on a proposed policy/guideline/essay implies rejection, and I do not see that the contents of this page have been rejected. -- '''<font color="navy">]</font>''' 11:49, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

::It's not correct at all that Jimbo got involved because ATT was causing upheaval. On the contrary, it was being used very successfully. Jimbo described ATT as the "canonical description" of the policies.

::There have been no changes to V and NOR that affect this summary of them. People are still using this page. This is the page I still link to when people e-mail me for policy advice.

::What difference does it make to those of you who don't want to use it? All you have to do is ignore it. <font color="Purple">]</font> <small><sup><font color="Blue">]</font><font color="Green">]</font></sup></small> 11:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
:::]. As far as it being the "canonical description" of policy, what he said was, quite possibly, the exact polar '''opposite''' of that. As for why he got involved, it most certainly '''was''' due to problems with the policy. If you don't believe me, take it from the man himself:

:::{{cquote|Merging "Misplaced Pages:Verifiability with Misplaced Pages:No original research, while also streamlining Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources into a simpler FAQ at WP:ATT/FAQ" was a big mistake, and the result is completely incoherent. This needs to be reverted immdiately because it is just wrong. It is bad policy all around, and this is not the right way to make policy.

Verifiability and No Original Research are conceptually distinct: they are different things, not the same things. Reliable sources, too, is quite different from the other two, although arguably a subset of Verifiability. The resulting confusion is apparent in many arguments around Misplaced Pages, as editors are getting confused about two very different concepts.

There is no logical reason for the merge, as the information contained in this unified policy can be more sensibly separated back out into the two separate policies.}}

:::I don't think it can be any clearer than that. -- ] ('''<sub><font color="blue">]</font></sub> <small><font color="red">]</font></small> <sup><font color="green">]</font></sup>''') 13:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

No need to rewrite history. A couple of hours later Jimbo added this to the NOR and V policies: "The canonical description of this policy is at the unified WP:ATT page. This page is policy, but should track that page in terms of details. This page exists to give a rich explanation of the policy." -- see and . It's hardly surprising that SV knows the facts of the matter. ] 13:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:And five minutes after making those "canonical description" changes to ] and ], Jimbo wrote:<blockquote>I very much support a straw poll. In the meantime, after an excellent discussion with SlimVirgin, we hammered out a compromise until we can have a fuller discussion. What the pages say now is that WP:ATT is canonical, and WP:V and WP:NOR exist as separate pages to more fully describe those. My big beef with this merger is that we often need to send people to a page like WP:NOR which explains in a rich and persuasive way what the policy is about and why it is a good idea. This involves sometimes saying things which overlap with parts of WP:V. (They are not the same idea!) The combined page provides a handy way to keep policy consistent and have a tight presentation of what policy actually is. The separate pages can be more detailed and understandable.--Jimbo Wales 21:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC) </blockquote>Note "compromise '''until we can have a fuller discussion'''" (bolding added). Then followed the straw poll, no consensus during or after that poll.
:My assumption: I don't think the discussion in this new talk page section will lead to anything new (consensus-wise), if we keep ruminating ], irrespective of whether we describe these argumenta ad Jimbonem as confirming or opposing argumenta ad Slimvirginem. Let's have an "excellent discussion" (oops, quoting Jimbo again) instead. --] 14:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:::Please note that I was not arguing for or against the "historical" tag, just wanted to point out that "No, Jimbo didn't say that at all" was rewriting history. Maybe not terribly hysterical but still somewhat funny under the circumstances. My personal opinion on ATT is virtually nonexistent - I was, at the time, taken as much by surprise as Jimbo. ] 01:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

::I discussed this with Jimbo a lot. He was happy to have this page stay as the "canonical description of the policies," with the benefit that its existence would ensure the other key policies didn't stray far from it. But he wanted the other pages to exist separately, in part so that people who wanted more details could find them, and in part to emphasize that V and NOR are separate concepts. So that's what we did.

::The poll was to find out whether we had consensus for this to ''replace'' NOR and V, Francis. You're mixing those two issues up. <font color="Purple">]</font> <small><sup><font color="Blue">]</font><font color="Green">]</font></sup></small> 17:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:::In other words, nor your extensive discussions with Jimbo, nor the straw poll (nor the ensuing "working party" and "working group" initiatives for that matter) are of assistance when deciding today whether to mark the page as "historical". That was my point (and not what you make of it).

:::And then I tried to get the discussion on a somewhat higher level than the "Jimbo said..."/"Argumentum ad Jimbonem" type of argumentation. Sorry if my invitation was unsuccessful thus far. I'm not decided (yet) whether the historical tag is useful here (I think you misinterpreted me there too), I'm looking for "quality" in the discussion, hoping arguments might appeal to me by the time quality reaches "excellent". If Jimbo says (sic) he had an "excellent discussion" on the topic, it shouldn't be too difficult to reproduce something of that level of quality here, should it? Anyway, Philip's last contribution to this page seemed to me more successful in avoiding the usual pitfalls for downgrading the level of quality of the discussion. --] 19:45, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The article has had the historical template on it for over a month http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Misplaced Pages%3AAttribution&diff=170999165&oldid=163062819 I think it should remain until there is a consensus to remove it because as the template says:
:A historical page usually is one that is no longer maintained or no longer relevant, or one for which consensus is unclear. If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the proposals page of the village pump.
And AFAICT there is no consensus for it to be an active page, and there has been no attempt to seek a broader input. --] 16:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

::Phil, you are correct that this page isn't "active" in the way a policy or guideline would be active ... but it isn't historical either. It is somewhat unique in that it is a ''summary''. I would think that as long as the two Policies are active, and as long as this page accurately summarizes what they say... it is a valid, non-historical page. The issue of it's "activeness" is moot. ] 20:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:::Back in August I tried to reduce some of the paragraphs so they accurately summarize the policies but each time the changes were reverted (e.g. ). So rather than try to reach a consensus over the content of this "not policy" it is easier to disagree and keep an historical template on the tome/tomb until such time as the working party reports back. --] 12:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

It does not and never has "accurately summarizes what they say... ". I find it interesting that many people who argue for the retention of this page as a summary are the same ones who argued for its promotion and can not understand why anyone would want to keep it on life support. To repeat myself: It is historical because we are waiting on the working party starts its work. Until they do the contents of this page is controversial because it uses other examples and words that are not in the Misplaced Pages content policies and guidelines and -- while it does -- keeping it up to date with the policies and guidelines is as difficult as agreeing changes to the content policies and guidelines. Until such time as the working party starts its work I think we can all do without without the endless debate that this page engenders if if is to be kept up to date as a current page. --] 21:07, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the "historical" tag is a reasonably good indication of the status of this page. I'd be happy to have a discussion to try to reach consensus on the wording of this page. Until there is consensus on the wording, it should not be presented in such a way as to appear to be policy. I think that the tag which says that it summarizes policy, and then says that this page is not in itself policy, is still too easily misinterpreted, perhaps by someone who doesn't read the last sentence of the tag, as meaning that the page is policy, and that another tag is needed before that to clarify the status. Here's a suggested wording for the tag: ''"This page is believed by some users to accurately summarize some of Misplaced Pages's policy pages. While there is consensus for those policy pages, the status of this page is unclear."'' I believe that this page does not accurately summarize the policy. The policy says "Verifiability, not truth". This page has "not ... true" but without the "verifiability" to clarify the intent of those words. I think it would be a better summary if it said "Verifiability, not truth" instead. Other options have previously been mentioned and not discussed much.

I would like to ask anyone who reports Jimbo's point of view to please always quote in full Jimbo's exact original words. --] 22:37, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
::Hi! I regularly cite to ] for one and only one proposition which hasn't been clear in either ] or ]: in the event of a controversy, the article must provide a reader with the ability to identify who said an opinion -- it must '''attribute''' the opinion to an opinon-maker or side in a disagreement. For example, in articles on religion, religious and academic opinions are frequently mixed in a way which makes it unclear what is what. I cite ] for the proposition that a reader needs to be able to tell whether a given statement comes from religious theologians or secular scholarship. Similarly, when different religious denominations disagree about the interpretation of the ] or some other religious issue, the reader needs to be able to tell which denomination has which interpretation. But I must confess that I don't tend to cite ] for most other purposes, I tend to cite either ] or ] for that directly. Best, --] 22:44, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Please leave the dispute tag in place until this dispute is settled. The dispute tag is to let people know that the status of this page is in dispute, and to direct them to participate in this discussion. By the way, in reply to jossi: a page can summarize existing policies and still be historical. Another example of such a page would be an earlier version of a policy page, in the page history, which has been edited for spelling and grammar only. --] 22:59, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion to Crum375: If the reason for removing the dispute tag is that there is too much clutter, as you suggested in your edit summary, then I suggest removing one of the other tags instead. I think the nutshell tag could likely be removed without anyone objecting much. After the dispute is resolved and the dispute tag is removed, perhaps there would be enough room to put the nutshell tag back. I'm OK with having 3 tags. Another option would be to replace the middle tag with one that simply states that the status of this page is under dispute. --] 23:04, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: that the page have a tag that looks like the "historical" tag but has this wording: "'''''This Misplaced Pages page is currently inactive'''. <s>Consensus for this page is unclear.</s> If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the proposals page of the village pump.''"

Meanwhile, let's see if we can have consensus that the dispute tag can remain in place until we've finished discussing whether to have the "historical" tag or not, and then page-protection can be removed. --] 22:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
:I dunno about anybody else, but I find that suggestion quite acceptable. -- ] ('''<sub><font color="blue">]</font></sub> <small><font color="red">]</font></small> <sup><font color="green">]</font></sup>''') 22:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)


This page is neither inactive, nor historical. It is no different that ] as it simply summarizes and explains existing policies. 02:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC) <small>—Preceding ] comment added by ] (] • ]) {{{2|}}}</small><!-- Template:Unsigned --> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->

:I don't agree with the analogy because this page was an attempt at a replacement/merger of other policies, so much of its content is as detailed as the policies it was to supplant. To date my attempts to make it a summary have been reverted. To take one example: compare the entry for secondary sources in this article with the current version in the ]. --] 23:20, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

:jossi's right that it's neither historical nor inactive. On the other hand, there is no consensus for labelling it a summary. Philip Baird Shearer has a good point that the way it was produced tends to make it too lengthy to be a summary; also, while many users believe that it accurately summarizes the other policies, the difference between ATT and the Pillars is that there are also a significant number of users who believe that in its current wording it is not an accurate summary of those policies. (It seems to have fallen behind the recent updates to the PSTS section at NOR, for example.) I don't think there's any other page in quite the same situation.
:I like Ashley Y's suggestion to use a tag similar to that at ]. The word "complement" could be replaced by "summarize". A problem with some of the other suggestions (template:policy summary, or a tag beginning "This page summarizes...") is that they don't make it sufficiently clear that there is no concensus that this is either policy or an accurate summary of policy. I don't oppose a tag saying historical, inactive or pending revision, but I think something that lets people cite it (essays are cited, for example, even without concensus) would be more accurate and more likely to get consensus for a tag change. --] 01:04, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

===If the shoe doesn't fit===

If none of the tags accurately describe the status of this page, then we could always come up with a tag that does describe it. There used to be (it seems Radiant it a couple of days ago for some reason). If that's not appropriate, we could put together some custom tag that explains that:
* This used to be a proposal to ''supersede'' several other policies, but in that respect it's inactive.
* It's now something of a summary of those other policies, and how they interact.
--]&nbsp;(]) 02:39, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
::You mean something like: "''This page summarizes two of Misplaced Pages's core content policies: No original research and Verifiability, which explain how and why sources should be used in articles. This page itself is not official policy.''"? ] 02:51, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I put up the WIARM-like tag as suggested above, but it's been reverted. I'm putting the dispute tag back up, as clearly the dispute is not yet resolved. Some tag is needed that makes it obvious that this page is not actually a policy page: a historical tag, or the WIARM-like tag, or something. The other tag, if read two-thirds of the way through or if only the bold type is read, makes it look very much as if it's a policy page and would be misleading if it's the first tag on the page. Please don't remove the dispute tag until consensus is reached, and please don't revert without participating in discussion on the talk page. --] (]) 01:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Crum375's edit summary was ''"Rmv redundant template - we already say it's a summary and not policy"''. A suggestion: we could keep the WIARM-like template and remove the other template. --] (]) 01:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

:I'm opposed to that idea. -- '''<font color="navy">]</font>''' 03:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

::Thanks for participating in the discussion! What's the reason for your opposition? I'd be interested to hear any reason from any user, so that we can try to find a solution that satisfies all concerns, or at least a compromise. I second Dreadstar's call to "work it out on the talk page".

::By the way: meanwhile, I'm opposed to the removal of the dispute tag, since the dispute is ongoing. However, the dispute tag could possibly be reworded since there are more possible solutions than just a historical tag. Although this page is not simply historical, it doesn't seem to be used by many people, and perhaps it would be better to make it historical than to have tags that could easily be misread as indicating it to be a policy page. --] (]) 13:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

:::This page is a useful summary of the WP:V and WP:NOR policies. While I did not participate in shaping it, I watched its development, and thoroughly approved of it. I was disappointed that Jimbo intervened to demote this to 'summary' status and keep WP:V and WP:NOR as separate policies. It should remain as a 'summary' of those two policies. Calling it 'historical' implies that it is no longer valid, which is not true. -- '''<font color="navy">]</font>''' 14:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

::::I don't think he intervened to demote this to 'summary' status. Intervened yes, but not to a 'summary' status. --] (]) 15:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

:::::That's right. This page never went through a proper process for making it into policy. The widely publicized poll didn't ask whether this page would become policy alongside V and NOR -- it only asked about the merge idea, which was not confirmed. Making it into an official summary would require discussion at the village pump and, in my opinion, changes to the wording to make it into what I would consider a reasonably accurate summary of the actual policies. --] (]) 00:34, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

::::Donald, this is why I proposed some form of custom message, since there are two things that need to be said, the first being that it is indeed "inactive" or "historical", but only in its aspect as a policy proposal (there has been no activity on the merger-and-superseding business for many months). --]&nbsp;(]) 01:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I support edit which makes the first few words of the first template read "This page is not a policy or guideline itself, it is intended as a summary ..." which makes the status of the page clearer and easier to notice, addressing some concerns raised above. --] (]) 17:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I do not agree that this page was ever "intended as a summary of two of Misplaced Pages's core content policies: No original research and Verifiability, which explain how and why sources should be used in articles." Its status will not be decided until the working group is formed, reports back and further discussions take place. --] (]) 18:45, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

There has been no consensus since the last time it was protected. I suggest that we reprotect it until such time as there is a consensus. --] (]) 18:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

:I don't insist on the "intended as a summary" part. I only meant I think it's important to have the "This page is not a policy or guideline itself" part in a prominent position. I have no particular preference for "intended as a summary", but I oppose an earlier version "is a summary", since I don't consider it an accurate summary in its current form. --] (]) 23:28, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

== Protected ==

I've protected this page for 72 hours due to edit warring over the tags at the top of the page. Edit warring on a page like this is detrimental to the project as many people cite this in discussions. Please take this time to discuss what place this page has on the project and when protection expires, only alter the tags once consensus has been reached. ] 23:06, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

:As the historical tag has been on the article for more than a month I presume not many people cite this page, and those who do have not been reading the page! I think that the few people who do cite this page should cite the policy pages as they are a more accurate reflection of Misplaced Pages policy. --] 11:38, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I've reprotected the article due to continued edit warring. Work it out on the talk page. ] <small>]</small> 06:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)


::::::It is easy to do for example "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge." primary sources may make other sorts of claims such as "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.", but that is not the point, even if this essay were fixed so that it perfectly reflected policy, a change to the policy page would have to be reflected here, which if it is to be taken as a summary would lead to just a much debate here as in the policy pages. For example if you disagree with me and think that "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge." perfectly reflect policy, then the fact that we disagree on this point only goes to show that having this at any different status from essay or historic or whatever, just means that this another area of potential disagreement. -- ] (]) 01:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
== Interwiki link for Farsi page ==


:::::::As SlimVirgin noted, this is a former policy. If it isn't an accurate summary or is unfeasible to maintain as such, it should be labeled "historical." It absolutely isn't a text for which "no formal attempt to gauge consensus has been made" (a quotation from ]). In fact, it was the subject of one of Misplaced Pages's most extensive attempts to gauge consensus.
{{tl|editprotected}} Please add interwiki link for current Farsi page of this policy to prevent users from creating duplicate copys in Farsi wikipedia. The link should point to ]. ] (]) 04:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
:::::::So if you're okay with a {{tl|historical}} tag (or a custom variant explaining the situation), so am I. —] 01:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:{{done}} -- ] (]) 04:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


::::::::But it's not historical. It does summarize those two policies. This was agreed at the time with Jimbo, that this would be describe as a summary, a canonical account. I find it bizarre that Philip is still discussing this after however many years it has been. ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 02:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
==RFC: Status as of April 2008 ==
:''See above for earlier discussions on the status of this article ], ] and ]''


:::::::::If it's an accurate summary, I agree that it should be tagged as such. The one thing that I'm certain it isn't is an essay. —] 02:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I have put the template {{tl|Historical}} back on this page to make it clear that it does not reflect current thinking. I have done this because the some of the content of this page has been dragged into a debate over on ]. This page was never designed to be a summary page it was meant to be a replacement page, but it failed to gain a consensus and is misleading as it has not been actively edited in many months. --] (]) 21:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::I agree. I have just read it again, and don't see any significant discrepancy from the policies it summarizes. If there is consensus here that something needs to be fixed, then we should fix it, not toss out a very useful summary. ] (]) 02:18, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:Actually, it was originally intended to be a ''merger'' of two policy pages, which is slightly different. It may have ''originally'' been designed to be a merger page and not a summary... but in the process of discussion it ''became'' a summary. The only question is: is it still an accurate summary? If it still accurately summarizes WP:V and WP:NOR then it is incorrect to mark it as historical. I think it still does... and thus, I am removing the template.
::::::::::Agree. PBS, why do you not think this summary is accurate? ]<sup>]</sup> 02:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:This has been discussed multiple times (see above). You know as well as I do that tagging this as historical is very likely to end up in yet another edit war. Please resist the temptation. Instead... file an RFC or something. ] (]) 22:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
::As noted multiple times, I have never considered this page to be an accurate summary of current policy. <font color="#000000" size="4pt">☺</font> ] (]) 22:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
:::What do you think is inaccurate? ] (]) 22:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


:::::::::::I gave an example above. But please read what I wrote about keeping it up to date (and is also expressed by ImperfectlyInformed below). I really no want to wast time on this dodo. I thought it was dead and buried. -- ] (]) 06:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
It never was an accurate summary, that is why some people opposed it in the first place. Further as one of parties who took part in creating I appreciate that you may find it hard to do but I think you should let it go. But to give you a specific examples then please look at the edit history of my edits to this page last year. Further trying to maintain this page as well as the policy pages themselves is a wast of everyone's time (at one point I tried to reduce it to just the links to policy sections it is trying to summarise, but some objected to that). Much better to mark it as historical and be done with it. --] (]) 23:08, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


I'm sympathetic to Philip and Kevin. Of the relatively small population of Misplaced Pages which are even aware of this page, it is obviously extremely controversial. It doesn't seem like we have the energy and time to keep this "summary" up to date and verify its accuracy. Therefore, it shouldn't be labeled as a summary because its accuracy may be questionable. Crum says he reviewed it and saw no "significant discrepancies", but anyone can say such a thing. At the least there needs to be a disclaimer that this page may not track entirely with the policy pages. Knowing Misplaced Pages, its decentralized system allows things which are supposed to track to very easily diverge. ] | (] - ]) 03:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::::Again, what is inaccurate? ] (]) 11:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:All guidelines on Misplaced Pages must track their governing policies, and what we do in those cases (e.g. ]) is clarify that in case of conflict, the relevant policy takes precedence. I see no problem in doing the same here: adding a note that since this page is a summary of the two parent policies, in case of conflict please consult the policies (and update the summary as needed). ] (]) 03:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
:::::Look at my edits last year to this article such as this one: where I copied the text that was then currently used in WP:NOR. There are lots of others. I see no point in trying to keep this article up to date so it is better that it becomes historical. --] (]) 11:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Well, this is a ''summary''... so we should ''summarize'' what is in the policies instead of simply doing a cut and paste of entire sections from the policies. I notice that the current version of ATT leaves the entire PSTS section of NOR out of the summary... are you saying we need to add it in? 11:39, 24 April 2008 Blueboar
:::::There is a section in this article called "Primary and secondary sources" and no I am not saying we need to add text to this article, I am suggesting that we mark this article with {{tl|Historical}} so we don't have to modify the text or discuss it further. --] (]) 12:07, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::In answer to Blueboar's question "what is inaccurate": See ]. <font color="#000000" size="4pt">☺</font> ] (]) 12:23, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::Ah yes... I was wondering when you would raise your problems with the "Verifiability not Truth" issue. Coppertwig, that statement is in WP:V... thus is not an inaccuracy to repeat it in the ''summary''. In fact, if we were to change it here, then it would be an inaccurate summarizaton. If you can convince people at WP:V to change it... ''then'' we would need to change it here. In other words, the summary is accurate... you just don't like what it is summarizing. ] (]) 12:35, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::::There was never a consensus that this page should be a summary page. Development was put on hold while the there were back room discussions about it. But AFAICT those came to nothing so the status of this page is undecided and as it has been undecided for a year now, so its status is best described as historical. If we are going to convert this into a summary page I suggest that we do it by removing as much text as possible and replace it with links to the relevant policies and guideline sections - as I tried to do some time ago with . This would reduce the misunderstand that the text on this page can cause, and would reduce its maintenance to manageable proportions. If such a change is not to be made then I think it should be headed with the {{tl|Historical}} template which is an accurate summary of its current status. --] (]) 12:51, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
::I disagree that there is no consensus for it to be a summary. The discussions on this page seem to indicate that there is consensus. But feel free to do a double check ... file an RFC and let's find out. As to the issue of whether it could be a ''better'' summary... I have no problem with continuing to work on this page to improve it. I would object to simply having a link to the relevant policy section. That isn't a summary, it is just a link. We should at least have some text that gives the gist of what is stated in the policy.] (]) 13:01, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::Where (and when) on the talk page do you think a consensus was reached? --] (]) 14:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)


::Works for me.--] (]) 05:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
My two cents: Big and bold it says "This page is not a policy or guideline itself." Thus, it doesn't really matter whether it is {{tl|historical}} or not - it remains an essay. YMMV of course. :) -- ] (]) 22:26, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
:::I withdraw my objection given the . Thank you very much, Blueboar. <font color="#BB0000" size="5pt">☺</font> Blueboar, I support all of the wording of ]. My objection was to "not ... true" without qualification. ] (]) 23:17, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
*As another author and contributor to the development of this page, I would rather see it marked as an essay or as historical, but not this odd summary tag. ] <small>] </small> 13:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
*Much of a do about nothing. No problem in keeping it as is, no problem in calling it an essay.] <small>]</small> 00:40, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:: Whatever it is, it should stay as an example of the growing difficulty in making ''any'' progression in adapting policy as the project evolves. It can join the ranks of the recent BLP discussions, the source typing discussions, and other proposals that died. I would call it "The Routinization of Misplaced Pages" :) ] <small>]</small> 00:43, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
:I now see that Philip's RFC is responsive to my to WP:V. First, I need to apologize for a bit of misunderstanding. I did in fact take the policy at face value as being, by consensus, "intended as a summary", without being aware of its history. However, my edit to WP:V stood for 6.5 days, and now (after drive-by reversion, followed by an instructive interlude with another editor) is being tried out in a new version. I still think it was a clever enough finesse to break the logjam, and I see I can thank Merzul for the original finesse, which I merely promoted. :D So, Philip, I see your concerns here as (1) editors possibly misapplying more credence to WP:A than proper and (2) your seeking resolution of an unpigeonholed proposal. I can understand why both concerns together might tempt one to RFC, but I believe they are separate solutions. (1) I don't see that overreliance on WP:A is in any way an ongoing problem, and my one reliance on it does in fact use a consensus of over one year, as shown below; the solution is to see how my edit plays out at WP:V. (2) To solve the pigeonholing, we need to rekindle interest in this page as a workshop for a true summary and build from it here. It serves a useful purpose in staving off edit wars from core policies by directing them to this less volatile location.
:I will repeat the same point I made at WT:V: if one believes the long version of "verifiability not truth" found here is an accurate description as it claims to be, then one would have no objection to it standing in WP:V; and if one believes it isn't, then one would need to explain why the phrasing "whether we think it is true", presented soundly as a compromise by Merzul , has already so well stood the test of time in that role. Merzul has answered both debate sides: those who think bald statement of VNT is necessary to ward off certain cases of "what we think is true", and those who think VNT, too baldly stated, improperly wards off too much of "what is true".
:Briefly, I believe this page is not historical but is well-described already; after its initial phase it was in fact redesigned to serve as a summary; and its consensus failure as a policy and its later quietude does not impair its effectiveness as a summary, although updating it per the WP:V discussion is appropriate. ] 18:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
:I see that Blueboar's accommodation of Coppertwig here is a good parallel to my WP:V proposal as well. ] 18:13, 1 May 2008 (UTC)


:::] you have been pushing for this page to have a special status for years why? SV please read ] the status of this page being anything other than an essay or historical depended on the ] reporting back. It never happened, so under what justification do you claim a special status for this page? -- ] (]) 06:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::JJB, that you were confused is why this should be marked as historical, others will come along and make the same mistake over the content of this page. Even if this page was a true summary of current policy -- something I do not think it is -- that this page will diverge from the policies as they evolve is inevitable unless they are kept up to date (and who need to debate the neuances of a summary having just agreed a hard fought change to policy), so unless we are going to just link to the appropriate sections or block copy those sections here, it is inevitable that the nuances of policy will on occasions be presented on this page incorrectly. That being so, any one reading this page will have to read the policy pages to check what they have read here is an accurate summary of the current policy pages, therefor there is little point to this page. I think this page does more harm than good and should be marked as historical. --] (]) 19:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


::::Both its history and its content are pretty unusual amongst project pages. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to replace its tag (summary, essay, what have you) with a description of how the page came to be, what it was, and what it is.--] (]) 07:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
J Readings what was your reason for reverting? --] (]) 09:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
:I see no consensus yet for adding the {historical} tag. In fact, you seem to be the only editor (so far) to push for (and want) this tag on the main page. I removed it per ], which is, as you know, a firm Misplaced Pages policy. Unilaterally (and repeatedly) adding back the tag is inappropriate and ill-advised at this stage. Personally, I have no problem with ] serving as a ''summary'' of two core Misplaced Pages policies, but if the overwhelming Community consensus should decide otherwise that's fine with me. I would recommend that you file a formal RFC if you really want to pursue this further. Best regards, ] (]) 11:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
::Can we please just call it an essay and be done with. Philip has legitimate concerns regarding this page being used as policy or guidance, whilst others, self included, don't think it should be historical. Let's not dress it up in fancy clothes, let's simply refer to it as an essay. Then it is quite clear for everyone that it is not policy or guidance, but it does have some support as a position which can be taken. ] <small>] </small> 11:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
::*I have been reverted as well. If there is no willingness to compromise or discuss, there is no collaboration. See y'all on some other page. I'm going to let this one drop of my watchlist. ] <small>] </small> 11:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
:::Hi. Thanks for the note on my talk page. I just noticed your comment here. All I can say is that you might be right. Maybe it should be categorized as an essay. Then again, maybe it should be categorized as am information page, or a policy, or a guideline, or a simple summary of the latter two. For quite a while, it's remained only as a summary of two core Misplaced Pages policies: ] and ]. In cases affecting potential Misplaced Pages rules of governance, identifying this page (rightly or wrongly) is something that the Community ultimately decides, not just one, two, or even five people. I can tell from your tone on my talk page that you're quite upset. I'm sorry about that and even a little surprised, actually. But, if you really want compromise, discussion, and collaboration I really don't see why you would object to a formal RFC involving many of your colleagues. The more collegial input, the better. Best regards, J Readings (talk) 11:46, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


:::::We could write at the top of the article: "In February 2007, after several months of discussion, ] was merged with ] and renamed ], which became policy. After a ] in April 2007, the community voted 424 to 354 in favor of the merger, with 102 neutral or suggesting compromises, which was not a sufficient majority. Since then, at the suggestion of Jimbo Wales, the page has held the status of a cannonical summary of the two policies. In the event of disagreement between this page and the policies, the policies take precedence." ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 18:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
::::It seems to me J Readings that from your reply you are not aware of the history of this page. Please read the archive of this talk page, if you do you will see that this page has failed to gain a consensus as policy replacement and has never had gained consensus as a summary page. It was left moribund waiting for a "]" to report back as it never has this page should now be marked as either {{tl|historical}} or {{tl|rejected}}. I suggest this because several edits to this page indicate that despite the box on the top some editors are confused by the structure of the page and think it is a policy page. --] (]) 12:27, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::Interesting. Thanks. Please let me ask, did the "Working party" instruct you to put the {historical} tag on the page? Did you contact them to find out what happened? I ask because, so far, based on my reading of this talk page, the current section thread and the "Working party" threads, nothing leaps out at me suggesting that editors agree with you. In fact, the opposite seems to be the case. With the noted exception of ] (who wants this page tagged as essay, and not even {historical}), there seems to be no consensus for placing a {historical} tag on the page. Personally, I'm content with whatever the Community decides, but it's a little strange that you are the only one specifically wanting this tag so far. ] (]) 12:51, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
::::::Please read this page again, there are a couple of other editors who agree and one this is for certain the status of this page as it is at the moment is confusing people and there has never been a consensus that this should be a summary page. Usually when a such page is put to the community and there is no consensus to promote it then it is marked historical or rejected, why should this page be any different? --] (]) 13:59, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::::Hmmm. Well, I've read and re-read this page. There are numerous contributors who are responding to your suggestion. It would help if you actually name the two people who explicitly agree with you in order to put this situation into context. On another note, I'm happy to be corrected. Which policy or guideline page are you thinking of in particular with your second comment? If the Community does not "promote" a page (assuming that accurately reflects what happened, and some editors seem to disagree with you saying that the "summary" tag accurately reflects the consensus), the page "usually" gets tagged as "historical"? I looked for that specific policy or guideline, but I'm not familiar with it. ] (]) 14:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)


<-- --] (]) 15:35, 28 May 2008 (UTC) ::::::Or we can be more honest and mark it as {{tl|rejected}}: "This is a failed proposal. Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time." -- ] (]) 10:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
:I see now. Thanks. Essentially, you're making an assumption on what to do based on these lists of places where the tag was placed in the past. I think I understand your thinking a bit better now. The first problem is that many of these tags were placed on all kinds of projects that never had any legs to begin with. Just reading through a few of them now, in some cases, there weren't any opinions expressed at all. It's a small wonder the historical tag was finally placed on the page. In contrast, the second problem is that ] page seems to elicit (sometimes strong) opinions, hence my question to you about what concrete procedural policies or guidelines you're citing in order to move forward. This is not a decision that can be made unilaterally. Ultimately, in cases like this, I agree with some of the other editors here: if you're looking to legitimize the {historical} tag placement, filing a formal RfC is a worthwhile option. A wide community discussion -- with specific wording on what the issues are -- needs to be opened, discussed and ultimately respected (whatever the conclusion). In good faith, ] (]) 09:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
::This page is not "Historical" (as the policies that it summarizes are still in force), and it is more than an "Essay". It is a ''Summary'' of existing policy. It may be unique in its categoriazation. ] (]) 11:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


:::::::That would be even more misleading than the highly misleading {{tl|essay}} tag. The proposal to have the page supersede the pages from which it was derived was rejected, but the likely interpretation on the part of someone seeing the {{tl|rejected}} tag is that the actual concepts were rejected. —] 14:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Edit conflict this was addressed to ] last post:
::There is no need there because was no consensus for this page to become policy and the consensus at the time was not that the page should become a "summary of two of Misplaced Pages's core content policies" the intention was that the working group would report back as to what was to be done. Clearly the working group is either as dead as a dodo or it is moribund so the emphasis is the other way round as there has never been a consensus for this page to be a summary and it is in essance al, as the {{tl|historical}} template says "If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the proposals page of the village pump."
::If you look at the history of the page you will see that as early as (500 edits ago) that the page was marked clearly with a box at the top that "This Misplaced Pages page has been superseded by Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research, and it is retained primarily for historical interest." That tag replaced the former tag with an edit on there was some edit warring over that heading until which added a box about the working committee on 25 March 2007. That stayed there there (on and off) until when SlimVirgin changed it to a summary box. I can not find a discussion on this change in the ]. There have been to the page since then apart from changes to the status at the top of the page and discussions about its status (for example it was marked as historical for ). So AFAICT there is no consensus for the change in status at any time and as a rejected policy it should marked as historical until such time as a "broader input via a forum such as the proposals page of the village pump" is sought. --] (]) 11:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


::::::::Even the word "rejected" is misleading here, since there was a clear majority in favor, though not sufficient to meet the needed threshold. And as David says, even those who opposed didn't necessarily object to the concepts themselves, since it was mostly a format issue. ] (]) 15:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
===PBS adds new tag===
:::I am not opposed to PBS's new tag (saying that whether the page is historical is disputed) so long as he is not opposed to our tinkering with it to demonstrate better its currency. ] 13:17, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
::::Hi John. By tinkering "it" what do you mean--the main page or the new tag itself? ] (]) 13:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
:::Hi JR! The main page. But I'll be going slow of course. And of course Crum has reverted the new tag, and of course this used to ''be'' a formal RFC, as stale by the bot. Like you, I had read the result as (at least) no consensus, resulting in default to no historical tag. ] 15:42, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
::::Hi, the page has something of a unique status. Jimbo has called it the canonical description of two of our content policies: V and NOR. Editors who use it see it as a good summary of those pages. We tried to get it to replace the policy pages, and we got a majority but not enough to go ahead, so it remains as a useful summary. It shouldn't be classed as historical or as an essay, because those policies are still in place. The best thing is just to leave it be, unless V or NOR change in a way that requires a change here too. <font color="Brown">]</font> <small><sup><font color="darkgreen">]</font><font color="Light green">]</font></sup></small> 17:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::SV you assert that "the page has something of a unique status" when was this agreed? AFAICT you made the 25 June 2007 with out discussing the change at the time and building a consensus to do so. If I am wrong and you did then please show me the section in the archives where this was discussed. It is because the other policies remain in place and this is a fail policy that it should be marked as such. Your idea of leaving it in place might be reasonable if some editors were not getting confused over its status. This has been seen recently in the comments a couple of editors have placed on this talk page and in guidelines such as and . --] (]) 16:05, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::I basically agree with PBS (I've been wanting to say that some day!). Normally a failed policy proposal would be marked as such, but marking as "historical" makes sense in light of how similar this is to our actual policies. Of course, per ], it could be remarked as "proposed" and put through the grinder again, as so much time has passed. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 15:41, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::And, BTW, don't tell me there's no confusion -- there are two sections below here where are actually people still arguing, quite bizarrely, about what ] says and what parts need to be changed. I don't quite have the heart to tell them that it doesn't matter in the least, because this isn't policy and is unlikely to become policy any time soon. They're like ]s, lol. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 03:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
:::Actually, if various guidelines and policy pages are adding links to this page, I think that argues towards the idea that it ''isn't'' considered historical.
:::As for the fact that people are discussing and arguing about changes... that does not mean it should be historical. If you look at the talk pages of WP:NOR and WP:V (the two policies that this page summarizes) there are constant discussions and arguments about what they should say... and no one would ''dream'' of saying that these discussions and arguments make those policies historical. I agree that this page isn't policy... what it is is a "Summary" of two policies. Since those policies are active, so is this summary. ] (]) 03:44, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
::::Unless I am mistaken, pages do not acquire 'unique status' by virtue of a tag that gets put up, they acquire status through being useful, and being used correctly and often by wikipedians. An essay is an essay. For instance WP:pillars; no tag is provided or required, and we follow the advice on that page ''because we volunteer to do so and because the page is supremely useful''. No tag is needed to make that happen. All of our core policies, and the remainder of our policies and guidelines must be relevant and remain in use, or redundant or replaced; it is their usefulness, not the tag at the top, which needs maintaining. --
::::Personally, I could care less what tag this-page gets. If it isn't useful, then don't use it, or else edit it to improve its usefulness (though that can't happen while the page is protected). --] (]) 03:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
::Yes tag wars. Thank you for that last! I think PBS's "historicality is disputed" tag is an offer to compromise and should be treated as such. But I prefer most anything to protection, when forced to choose. ] 04:15, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


::::::::I should invite Kim to respond you Crum375 ;-) "rejected" does not say a consensus <u>not</u> to implement something. The rejected template says: "Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time." Also David it does not say the the concepts have been rejected (they are present in other policies) it just say "This is a failed proposal". It is damaging to the project, because it is confusing to a reader who does not know the history of this page, to give an indication that this is in anyway part of the canon of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. Given the length of time that has passed I would prefer {{tl|rejected}} (or {{tl|historical}} as it was policy for a very short time) but as {{tl|essay}} was the last consensus compromise I am willing to support keeping that at the top of the page. -- ] (]) 22:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
==Attribution in Image captions==
Should attribution be given in photo captions, i.e. "Photo by John Doe?" A proposal at the Village Pump wants your opinion:
] (] (]) 14:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC))


:::::::::1. Why do you expect a typical reader to know that the concepts remain active on other pages? If one sees them on this page below the statement "This is a failed proposal. Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time.", the logical assumption is that the concepts were proposed here and rejected.
== Something missing here ==
:::::::::2. You haven't addressed my point about why the {{tl|essay}} tag is inappropriate. It's unhelpful to blindly abide by a past decision. —] 23:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


::::::::::(1)I can see how someone might infer what you have suggested, but that is not what it says. It is better that they ignore this page than mistakenly think it is part of the canon of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines and worse still think it has some form of consensual status. (2) I support the tag essay although it is not my first choice because it was a compromise, and I do not see that a new consensus has emerge for a change, so until a new consensus emerges I think it should remain tagged as an essay. -- ] (]) 00:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
This policy is missing two words '''relevant''' and '''contextualised'''. So, should I add that
<blockquote>
'''Reference to any source has to be relevant to the statement or data presented in the article, and should be in the appropriate logical context to the statement or data it purports to support.'''
</blockquote>
Cheers--] (]) ♠<font color="#BB0000">♥</font><font color="#BB0000">♦</font>♣ 13:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)


:::::::::::1. You "can see how someone might infer what have suggested," and you're okay with that?
:What is important is that the text of this page closely matches whatever is in ] and ] (since this is supposed to be a summary of those two policies) .... if these words are in those policies then they can (and should) be added here... if not, then they should not be added. ] (]) 13:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::It isn't a problem if someone ignores this page. The problem is that they would ignore the concepts contained therein.
::From memory this was supposed to incorporate ] as well. I think what you're looking for is already covered in ], '''Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources.''' It's kind of angled differently here, which may be why this page died the long slow death it did. Next time we should just dump ] on top of a page, ] in the middle and ] at the bottom and then let editing remove redundancies. Come to think of it, next time I am bored... ] <small>] </small> 13:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::::Please keep in mind that I'm fine with a custom variant of the {{tl|historical}} tag. A custom variant of the {{tl|failed}} tag (explaining that the proposal to merge the various other pages failed) would be okay too. But simply slapping on the default text ("This is a failed proposal. Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time.") is unacceptable.
:::::::::::2. You ''still'' haven't addressed my point about why the {{tl|essay}} tag is inappropriate. If past consensus was misguided (and I await your explanation of how it wasn't), it makes no sense to cling to it. —] 00:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


I've put {{tl|supplement}}, {{tl|failed}} and a brief introduction. Other combinations will also cover the ground, and I don't really care which of them we do; but a dispute over tags seems one of the worst solutions. ] <small>]</small> 21:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Yet another example why this page should be marked {{tl|Historical}} "This policy is missing two words ...". Further there has never been a consensus that this is a summary page. If such a consensus exists on this talk page or in the archives please indicate in which section this was agreed. --] (]) 15:48, 24 May 2008 (UTC)


:Agreed. But rather than combining the default tags and a separate introduction, I'll create a custom tag that covers the same ground. We might not agree on a standard tag to use, but I think that we ''can'' agree that it makes sense to include a straightforward explanation instead. —] 22:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
::In WP:V (Self-published and questionable sources in articles about themselves) "1. the material used is '''relevant''' to their notability"
:: In WP:NOR nothing about relevance
::In WP:NOR ((Sources) "Take care, however, not to go beyond what is expressed in the sources or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intent of the source, such as using material out of '''context'''."
::In WP:V (Sources - about 2/3 down) "The appropriateness of any source always depends on the '''context'''."


::Big thumbs up on the . More informative and fitting than any of "essay", "failed", "historical", or other options so far proposed.--] (]) 04:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)
::Here is the problem though - someone uses a snippet from country data in the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress is not a "questionable source" as such, but the snippet is out of context even if relevant. The intent of the country data is to be used as a general reference for the country, a very general one, so it offers a summary, but the editor chooses to use it in a very specific, and specialised way ordinarily reserved for a given specialist subject field terminology because both use the same word, even if in completely different contexts. So, instead of offering a source that deals with the specific application of the specialised term in editing the subject article, what is offered is the general usage of a word in English that is one of many possible which could have been applied in the very general summary, with the argument that the word comes from a reliable source and is in context. For example, in writing the article about the recent victory by Manchester over Chelsea, instead of specifically saying how the match ended (extra time, etc.), the Library of Congress summary of all football events for the year is used as a source to say "Manchester defeated Chelsea" (</ref LoC webste). Well, sure it did, but I don't need to read Misplaced Pages and the rest of the article to know ''that''.
::I am also strongly objecting to use of other reference sources ''exclusively'' when editing a Misplaced Pages article. I know its another story, but surely that it the purpose Misplaced Pages was conceived, to give readers a choice other then Britannica and Encarta--] (]) ♠<font color="#BB0000">♥</font><font color="#BB0000">♦</font>♣ 22:11, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
:::I'm lost. Can you clarify why the part in ] about '''Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made''' does not cover what you are referring to? ] <small>] </small> 15:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


==For the record==
::::A source can be, and has been used by editors selectively. Although the source may be appropriate ''generally'', the degree of directness in WP:V is not clear, so the reference can be either irrelevant or taken out of context despite the source being appropriate. I often find references in my scope of articles which are attached to a sentence in a section, and only cover that one sentence, with the rest of the section being entirely OR if I did not know the material. What I would like to see, is the wording changed to '''Sources should be relevant to the context of the sentence or paragraph of the article's content, and should be referring specifically to the claims made'''--] (]) ♠<font color="#BB0000">♥</font><font color="#BB0000">♦</font>♣ 01:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to make clear for the record that the plan after the poll was to make this page policy because we did get a majority, even after a wiki-wide poll, which no one expected. The idea discussed with Jimbo was that I should set up a working party to decide how to implement it, while being careful to preserve the status of NOR and V.


That didn't happen because I couldn't stand the pettiness and I walked away from it. It saddens me to see the same attitude continuing over what to call it. This is not historical because its contents are currently policy; and it's not an essay because of the degree of consensus it attracted, the amount of work a large number of editors put into it, and the fact that it was policy for a short time. It is unique. It would be policy today had it not been for an intervention from Jimbo. And ''that'' only happened because we inadvisedly stuck a "superseded" tag on the NOR page, which when Jimbo saw it made him think NOR had been abandoned. During the following truly insane discussion and poll, a lot of people didn't understand what was being proposed, and those of us trying to explain were half exhausted, half demented, and couldn't get the message across. And so the day was lost. What happened really was a case of "]".
==Welcome back SlimVirgin!==
Hi there. I am seeking to assist in migrating the "unique status" here into one or more pigeonholes acceptable to a wider audience, and have been doing miscellaneous policy cleanup for a month or two. My leaning is to see how much WP:A can be harmonized with standing policy so that it either reaches the level of being policy itself (perhaps supplanting two other core policies) or is regarded as redundant itself (and thus resolving back in favor of the three standing cores). IMHO this page is ambiguous primarily because it introduces concepts not acceptable at the policy pages, and if these concepts are unpacked (I suppose "unpacked again") in this "safer" environment we might be able to sell them better at the policy pages on a piecemeal basis. So I went ahead with synchronizing just the first paragraph here with extant policy (and with the consensus definition of ]). There was a debate at ] over "verifiability, not truth", which seems to be resolved in favor of a consensus I assisted in:
:''whether readers are able to check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a ]''
Here you favor the language:
:''whether material is '''attributable to a reliable published source'''''
First question: is there any significant difference in meaning? Second: If not, why not keep the longer, less ambiguous version? If so, what is the difference and how do you think we can encourage the WP:V editors to accept such a change? And of course: Any other issues with my importing of other wording from policy and consensus? Thanks for your assistance! ] 17:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
::Hi John, thank you for your help with this. I could never understand the objections to ATT, as they seemed to involve a misunderstanding of what some of the words meant, so I'm not able to answer your questions. Certainly, we chose attribution/attributability because "verifiability" is actually used somewhat incorrectly in WP:V, as it implies a relationship with truth. It's an error that was made early on but it has stuck. <font color="Brown">]</font> <small><sup><font color="darkgreen">]</font><font color="Light green">]</font></sup></small> 17:12, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
:::SV I would have thought that it this is "summary of two of Misplaced Pages's core content policies" then it should summarise and not start to criticise current Wikipidia policy articles. Why not mark in historical and be done with it? --] (]) 18:08, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
::::There's no criticism of the policies in ATT. It just summarizes them, and it's not "historical." <font color="Brown">]</font> <small><sup><font color="darkgreen">]</font><font color="Light green">]</font></sup></small> 19:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
OK thanks SV. But "verify" means "check by attribution", not "attribute", correct? It seems to me that the relationship with truth needs handling either way: either it has been truly published, or truly attributed. ] 18:45, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
:"Verify" suggests checking that something is true, which of course is not what we do. It was clearly meant as "attribute" when first started, and it's how people understand it now. I'm not sure what you mean by "either it has been truly published, or truly attributed." <font color="Brown">]</font> <small><sup><font color="darkgreen">]</font><font color="Light green">]</font></sup></small> 19:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, the policy (now) defines "verify" as "check that has already been published", so it deflects that misinference. Perhaps "check via attribution" is good enough for everyone. My last comment referred to a different relationship with truth than the one you were concerned with, so never mind. OTOH, we ''do'' routinely check whether it's true that "Y says Z". I may make that into an essay myself. ] 19:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


I appeal to Philip Baird Shearer to let his three-year campaign against this end. You won. It isn't policy. Instead we're stuck with two core policies that should be combined, because they only make sense when they're read together. But that's Misplaced Pages for you.
SV as you have replied here and not above perhaps you did not see my questions to you:
:SV you assert that "the page has something of a unique status" when was this agreed? AFAICT you made the 25 June 2007 with out discussing the change at the time and building a consensus to do so. If I am wrong and you did then please show me the section in the archives where this was discussed. It is because the other policies remain in place and this is a fail policy that it should be marked as such. Your idea of leaving it in place might be reasonable if some editors were not getting confused over its status. This has been seen recently in the comments a couple of editors have placed on this talk page and in guidelines such as and .
--] (]) 12:12, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
:Well, I apologize for any action which may have misled Viridae to characterize our collegial draft comparison procedures as edit warring requiring protection. Ah well. This time SV reverted my text "whether readers are able to '''attribute''' material added to Misplaced Pages as already published by a ]" with "the idea of things being attributable (not necessarily attributed) is key". I still don't get it. "Readers are able to attribute material" equals "material is attributable". If there is no real difference in meaning, what is it about that shorter wording that commends itself to SV and yet fails to find consensus at ] (other than brevity)? Why is reversion so important on this page? I didn't think there was anything canonical at WP! ] 13:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
::Since Viridae has stated the protection has no stated expiry until people are actually talking about the allegedly warred material instead of reverting, and since I don't see anyone else either indicating animus or thinking there is much new to discuss (one truly minor scrap excepted), I don't see that much is likely to happen on this page soon, and the hoped-for rekindling of interest in this unique summary may be quenched. For the record, I am open to just about any of the reversions I've noticed (although of course with some of them I may try an exploratory foray into new editing territory, believing that "revert" and "undo" both refer only to ''old'' editing territory). That is, count me as an automatic "yes" !vote on both sides of any question brought forward to end the alleged war. However, for the nonce, I believe the circumstances indicate it best to shelve temporarily my ambitious plans for resolving this longstanding ambiguity and focus on other areas. Will keep watchlisted though. ] 03:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)


There doesn't have to be a tag or a template for every single thing in the world. Please allow the top of the page to describe what it is with words that don't involve squiggly brackets. ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 18:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
== Essay ==


:I did not take part in the poll over whether this should be policy or not, so I did not "win" anything (and I don't think that such terms help to build a consensus). I was in favour of the concept, but not the specific wording or the initial procedure that was used to implement it, so I abstained.
This page was categorised as an essay for ten months or so, Slim categorising it there back in July last year. You can amend that, discuss amending that or do what you like, but don't make false claims in edit summaries like it is the wrong cat or a demotion or there was no consensus. It was there '''ten months'''. That's a bloody strong consensus. I am tired of people misrepresenting things to achieve their own ends. If you want to retag it, I am perfectly happy to discuss such a proposition, but attempting to state that there is no consensus is simply unacceptable in the light of the fact the page was categorised as such for ten months. If I cock up, I hold my hands up. I speak to people reasonably, and if I don't like something I state that instead of dressing it up as anything else. I expect to be treated with respect and with good faith. I don;t care what you tag the page with, just do not misrepresent my actions. That I cannot tolerate. ] <small>] </small> 21:24, 29 May 2008 (UTC)


:The archives show that without a clear label like {{tl|essay}} or some similar some editors are confused and link to this page from policy and guidelines pages as if it were policy.
:Actually... You are correct that the page was ''categorized'' as an essay for several months... however, we also need to note the fact that over that same period of time we were engaged in debates over whether to ''tag'' it as an essay or not. I have a feeling that with the focus on the banner at the top of the page, those who objected to this being an essay simply did not notice the categorization at the bottom of the page. I know that if I had noticed it, I would have removed it a long time ago.
:This simply isn't an essay (which are essentially personal opinions)... it is (as Jimbo defined it) ''cannonical'', meaning it has some degree of official standing (which essays don't). As far as I know, it is unique... it's a ''summary'' of two core Policies it falls into the cracks. It is "''official''", but is neither Essay, Guideline, nor Policy. Personally, I have no problem with that unique status. I just don't see a need to force square pegs into round pidgeon holes. ] (]) 22:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
::I'm from the school where if it ain;t policy and it ain;t a guideline, it's an essay, but I could really care less. I also don't tend to give Jimmy's thoughts any more weight than any other contributor. Personally, I have no issues with the page, and was heavily involved in drafting it, but I resent misrepresentations. Given this page was reverted back to an essay here and there in the past, I have to wonder how people could miss that fact. I also don't seem to see the same amount of traffic you do on this talk page. Givemn you made the page an essay back in July, I kind of find the fact that you say you didn't know this was an essay somewhat odd. . Like I say, I don't mind what we call the page, but I do resent people misrepresenting things, and I really resent people misrepresenting my actions. If you've changed your mind, that's fine, but don't present my action as being something it isn't in an edit summary, especially when you yourself have acted contrary in the past to build a consensus you later deny exists. If I cock up, I hold my hands up. Fair play, yeah? ] <small>] </small> 23:46, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
:::Look at that diff again, please... I was reverting the change of text in the noticebox (the stuff in red print in the diff), not the essay categorization (which I did not notice) This is exactly what I was referring to in my comment above. Concentrating on what was in the big box at the top of the page and not focusing on what showed up at the bottom. ] (]) 00:02, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
::::I'm looking at it. You've added that category. It wasn't there in the version you edited. It's there after you edited. This means you added it back. It's right there under all the red words. It's in green because it's new. It's not a question of it being at the bottom of the page, it's there at the top when you edit the page. All I'm looking for is fair play. At the top of this page there's a rough consensus that it's an essay, demonstrated in the ten months the category stayed on the page and removals of it were reverted, including yourself. I don't care what you want to call this page today, I simply don't see any justification for your edit summary, nor the way it misrepresents my actions. ] <small>] </small> 00:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
:::::No, I did not add the category... I did, inadvertantly, reinstate it. Go back one edit further and you will see that I simply reverted Melsaran's edit. Look at the edit summary... The issue at the time was whether to include WP:RS in the noticebox or not, and we were having a minor revert war over it. Perhaps I should have payed more attention, but I really did not notice that my revert was reinstating the categorization - in fact, I did not even notice that there was a categorization. My attention was focused on the noticebox at the top of the page, not the cat tag at the bottom. ] (]) 17:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)


:If it is marked as a (live) summary then it has to kept up to date, and that probably means as many debates over its content as those on the pages it summarises. Just look how much time we are wasting deciding on its status let alone the content to the page. Lets put it back to the essay status it had (as a compromise wording) for fifteen months and let it slumber on. -- ] (]) 10:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
== ] ==
::This page is not consensus as a whole; it is unlikely ever to be. Large ''parts'' of it are consensus, are well-phrased, and should be recommended to ] and ] as amendments to existing policy. This page is not a current summary, but it could be a very useful mine.
Editors must take particular care when writing biographical material about living persons, for legal reasons and in order to be fair.


::{{tl|essay}} is an incomplete description of this page, but it is accurate: some (even many) editors do agree with it. ] <small>]</small> 22:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
-- Gotta be a better, less ambiguous, word than 'fair'. Do we mean neutral, even-handed, unbiased, or do we mean just or non-malicious or 'nice' or what? Any suggestions? --] (]) 20:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
:Neutral. Unbiased. ] 22:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


:::Please explain how it's accurate to claim that "no formal attempt to gauge consensus has been made" (a quotation from ]). —] 23:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
== ] ==


::::I didn't say anything about the infinite pages of WP space; what {{tl|essay}} says is ''This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Misplaced Pages contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion.'' And every word of that would be true of this page. (Would adding that an attempt has been made and the result was not consensus help anybody? Those who care know that already.) ] <small>]</small> 15:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Any reader should be able to verify that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source.


:::::"Infinite pages of WP space"? I'm referring to the one linked via the wording that you just quoted. The information contained therein describes the widely understood nature of Misplaced Pages essays.
Read that sentence; does it read as if plagerism and copyvio become acceptable? How about :
:::::Whether active or historical/failed, this is a former/defunct policy. (Whether it's a butterfly or a moth, labeling it a hornet is not a sensible "compromise.") —] 16:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


Upon consideration, the quotation from ] is like much of Misplaced Pages space: the flat statement of a generalization, usually but not always true. How many attempts have been made to gauge consensus for deletionism or inclusionism? We all know the tesults: Neither pure position has consensus; both have advocates. Yet there are many essays explaining both positions, and shades in between. ] <small>]</small> 17:19, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
Any reader should be able to verify that material added to Misplaced Pages ''closely and neutrally reflects or summarizes information that'' has already been published by a reliable source.


:There is a non-trivial distinction between something written to express an opinion (with knowledge that the general concept has been discussed) and something written to serve as an official set of actionable rules.
Is that just as confusing? ''Any suggestionS?'' --
:Apart from ], what pages bearing the {{tl|essay}} tag were formally proposed as policies (let alone ''made'' policies)? Do any comprise content derived primarily from active policies/guidelines? —] 19:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


::But, whatever this is, it's not a set of actionable rules, and it is not consensus (although, again, ''parts'' of it are). It is the opinion of several editors, controverted by others.
* --And do we 'define' anywhere what we mean by "material"&mdash;it is the ''text'' which actually appears on the article page, including the text in footnote sections, and any diagrams charts infoboxes etc. It is ''not'' the same as the 'material' which appears on the page in the actual reliable source, because we, effectively, paraphase ''that'' material for our purposes. --] (]) 20:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
::Many essays have indeed been policies or guidelines; the only example I can think of off-hand is ], since abandoned. It is true that this tends to be a transitional state; but it need not be.
:Interesting potential inference. This has been comfortable policy at ] for some time as "material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source". I think the clear copyvio policy dispels the fuzzy potential reading, though it doesn't appear in the same place. You could make a case for changing "material" to "information" or "facts" ("... have"), and for mentioning copyvio policy elsewhere in WP:V, but I don't think you could argue for a substantial rewording of this sentence, because it could easily suggest greater leeway in summarizing sources than we wish to permit. ] 22:58, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
::On the other hand, many essays contain content "derived primarily from active policies/guidelines"; some, like ] are designed that way, to serve as a summary of the policy pages. ] <small>]</small> 05:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
::Thankyou for elucidating. I found these.
<blockquote>WP:V : The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to ''find the text that supports the article content in question''. </blockquote>
<blockquote>WP:V : Sources should ''directly support the information as it is presented in an article'' and should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptionally high-quality reliable sources.</blockquote>
::On reflection, I am comfortable with all that, given that we try to read all relevant policies in the proper context, and given that ''copyvio'' is adequately covered, just some paragraphs away. Thanks. --] (]) 23:30, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


:::1. I don't assert that ] is an active page backed by consensus. But it was proposed (and briefly implemented) as an actionable policy.
== Question ==
:::2. ] is tagged as a guideline. To what essay are you referring?
:::3. ] is labeled a {{tl|supplement}}. I created that template, so I obviously am aware that many essays expound upon policies and guidelines. By "derived," I was referring to the situation in which ] was compiled from other pages with the intention of merging/superseding them. —] 15:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
::::1 That's an argument for {{tl|failed}}, which seems...incomplete.
::::2. Ah, I see there has been some rearrangement. I ''meant'' the guideline much discussed at ] which used to occupy that space; it was proposed, accepted, much considered, rejected, made into an essay, accepted briefly, and rejected. Where it is now, I do not know.
::::3. {{tl|supplement}} would be acceptable for this page. I know ATT's origins, but there is no consensus that it should merge or supersede policy; and much dissent on specific provisions. ] <small>]</small> 20:53, 25 March 2010 (UTC)


:::::1. As stated above, I agree that the standard wording of {{tl|failed}} is inappropriate (because it might mislead readers to believe that the actual concepts were rejected), but if there is not consensus that ] is an active summary, I'm fine with a custom tag based on {{tl|failed}} explaining the page's unusual nature/history.
I'm obviously been floating around the recent RFAR involving some users that edit this page, and I read a bit about it. I notice one major flaw here. "Verifiability, not truth" is insanely flawed when it comes to BLP. If "verifiable" info exists about a person, but isn't true, does that mean we can include it? No, cause that would be a BLP vio. How does that make sense at all? <font face="comic sans ms">] <small>]</small></font> 22:25, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::2. I'm unfamiliar with the page in question.
:"Truth" is a philosophical or religious concept that is not a factor in deciding Misplaced Pages content. Verifiability and reliability are, along with NPOV, NOR, UNDUE, as well as notability. This is true for all articles, including BLP. For BLP we just make an extra effort to cross the t's and dot the i's, especially for contentious material, and we also remove such material first and ask questions later, if it's not properly sourced or otherwise in violation of the applicable policies. As a short answer to your question, yes, "verifiability not truth" also applies to BLP, and even more so. ] (]) 22:35, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::3. The {{tl|supplement}} tag is intended for pages that expound upon policies/guidelines, not ones that attempt to summarize them (essentially the opposite). —] 22:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
::You're missing my point. Allow me to rephrase: what if a statement is verifiable, but it isn't true? What do we do then? <font face="comic sans ms">] <small>]</small></font> 22:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
:::] is the place to address this. WP:ATT is just a summary of V and NOR. <font color="Brown">]</font> <small><sup><font color="darkgreen">]</font><font color="Light green">]</font></sup></small> 23:47, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
:The answer for you, Kwsn, is quite simple. A piece of information X is ] and ], very good. Now, if you say that "X is not true" and this is your private statement, Misplaced Pages chooses to ignore it per ] (sorry! it doesn't even matter if it's true). On the other hand, if you have verifiable information Y that conflicts with X, just filter both X+Y through ], and behold - you have a perfect article. --] (]) 21:51, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
:I have a case in point. The ], according to WikiProject Japan and several editors in the AFD, seems to have never existed -- but it's in several major English-language references as a Titanic-rivalling shipwreck. As apparently no source in either English or Japanese has noted this discrepancy, we were forced (well, some felt that way) to accept verifiability over truth. I don't have an answer; it seems obscene for us to promulgate that which isn't true, but just the fact that no Japanese sources exist for this wreck isn't enough. --] | ] 22:57, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
::So you did well. (And this doesn't seem like a case for ].) Sooner or later some bored historian will write a paper, and your article will be entirely re-phrased. --] (]) 23:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
:::I did "well" by the rules and norms of this community, but I don't feel that in doing so I served the larger purpose for which it is intended, and which drives my own participation. This is why this is such a troubling impasse. --] | ] 03:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


== Vacate this page ==
==Plea for discussion==
{{polltop}} no consensus to move. --] (]) 19:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
Per my latest edit, could we please minimize the risk of reprotection by hammering out here what the status should be? Thanks! My first vote is <s>"proposed"</s> <s>"supplement"</s> "essjay" but I have lots of votes. ] 18:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
:Viridae counted 15 reverts prior to protection. I count <s>12</s> <s>13</s> <s>14</s> <s>20</s> 22 full edit-and-revert cycles before and after (including /Header). I'm waiting. I have ] and I'm not afraid to use it. ] 19:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
::I've noticed nobody pointed it out (or it got buried in the archives): stop creating new policies and guidelines, especially overlapping ones like in this case. It does harm to our encyclopedia. ] and use ]! --] (]) 21:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
:::I would be happy to see this go back through the proposal process. It's been a long long while, by my reckoning, since this policy proposal went live. What I'm concerned about is that not a lot of people are really paying attention to this page if it's neither a policy nor a proposal, which means there's potential for a sort of "]" in wikipedia (as opposed to article) space, which if it had a known status no one would have to worry about. It's not an essay either. So, I mean -- what is it? The community has put this on the back burner for too long, imo. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 22:06, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
::::"''What I'm concerned about is that not a lot of people are really paying attention to this page if it's neither a policy nor a proposal''" - well, my suggestion is simply not being concerned. It's just a page. Misplaced Pages is not about people paying attention to regulations. They come here (in millions) expecting quite different challenges. --] (]) 22:34, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::WP:A is just a page. The essay tag is appropriate. Looking at the material, it seems very much 'in sync' with both WP:NOR and WP:V. There is very little prospect of this page becoming a dangerous fork. Why would normal editing be defective in the case of this page? So, it is an essay, and ought to be able to be edited, (''i.e.'' not protected). There is no need to mark an essay as "rejected" unless the material is clearly and dangerously wrong, in which case it would be ignored, or edited for improvement, or Mfd'd. --] (]) 22:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
::::Kendrick, this a very useful summary page for two closely coupled policies. And it is tagged as such. There is nor need either to revive it as a policy or deprecate it. There is nothing wrong in having a page of this kind, and it is not a unique one of this kind. E.g. I am aware of ]. ] (]) 23:41, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::This is a failed policy page. It should be marked as such with {{tl|historical}} or {{tl|rejected}}. It was tagged as a summary page by SlimVergin without AFAICT any consensus to do so. ] please read the archives so that you know the history of the page. --] (]) 07:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


] → ] —
I think that ] should be moved here. –]] <small>(originally written at 18:23, 30 March 2010, resigned after it was made into a formal move request)</small> 15:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
:I agree. Attribution generally refers to the copyright concept around here, not to citations. ] (]) 14:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
::Made a formal requested move: "]" can house this <s>historical</s> page. –]] 15:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


*'''Oppose'''. This page is not historical, but is a summary of two of our core content policies, and "attribution" is a key concept regarding sourcing on Misplaced Pages. It was recently decided to work on this page further, and repropose it to the community as policy. ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 16:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I have reprotected this again. When I next unprotect if it jumps back to edit warring again those involved in said edit warring who have not attempted resolution on the talk page will be blocked, really I sholdnt have had to come back. ]] 00:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
*:I've nothing against this being re-proposed as a policy, but I would suggest a less ambiguous name. "Attribution" on-wiki is more commonly understood to mean attributing edits in terms of licensing requirements. –]] 18:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::It's not even gained consensus as a guideline, let alone a policy; you would expect this to at least be able to attain consensus as one or the other if it's a "summary" of other policies. If there's useful material here, why not split it out into supplemental guideline proposals that have some real meaning? This is hardly ] so I'm unconvinced this has the same special status as that. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 02:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
*::Xeno, for content contributors, "attribution" refers to sourcing. I don't know what else we could call this if not Misplaced Pages:Attribution, as the point of the page is to highlight that aspect. ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 22:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::Ah. It seems to me, that this discussion is not about the status of this page! We have a page that contains material copied verbatim from policies. So I guess there is no dispute that the status is "summary of". The dispute is about the appropriate '''tag''' for such status: should we invent new "summary of" tag, or use existing {{tl|essay}} tag, or {{tl|supplement}} tag, or {{tl|guideline}} tag (achieved through {{tl|proposal}}). Am I right? --] (]) 06:51, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
*::It looks like "attribution" has only been a "key concept" since , when SlimVirgin herself changed WP:V to emphasize attribution rather than verifiability. ] (]) 19:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::: ] raises a good point. If ] manages to traverse the line between policy and essay by declaring "policy summary" status with few objections, why can't this page? What is it about this page that upsets such a small groups of editors that we don't read the same problem over at the ] talk page? Is it the length? Should this page be smaller? Is that the real issue? I'm trying to understand what's happening here. ] (]) 13:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
*:::Gigs, I don't even know where to begin with that comment. That's what verifiability means onWP, and always has. ] <small><sup>] ]</sup></small> 21:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::Please read the archives of this page. This page is a failed policy page. There was never was a consensus for the content of the page and (see above) there was never a consensus to to change this page into some sort of intermediary page. Further as I have mentioned above, there are several editors who have edited this page recently, and links to this page from guidelines, that show that at least some editors are confused as to the status of this page and think that it is policy. Better by far to mark it as {{tl|historical}} and concentrate on the policy pages. --] (]) 13:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
*::Not at all. "Attribution" on wiki primarily means the citing of material to reliable sources, per ] and ]. All material in article space must be attributable to reliable sources, and anything challenged, likely to be challenged, or quoted, requires inline attribution. All other uses of the term "attribution" are secondary. ] (]) 19:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::...which still does not answer my question. I've read the archives in full and that's not my question. Specifically, why do you have such a problem with this page being a "summary" of two existing core policies while, at the same time, you don't seem to have a problem at all with ]? I'm still trying to understand the difference. ] (]) 14:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
*:::You may think that, but then you are heavily involved in editing the policy pages. For others they may notice at the bottom of every Misplaced Pages page is the following link ] and that links to ] not to this page (see the sentence: "Attribution—You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author". -- ] (]) 00:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' This page is a summary of two of the core sourcing policies which describe the need for attribution, ] and ]. As I noted above, the term "attribution" on Misplaced Pages is primarily used to refer to the citing of reliable sources to support material in article space. All other uses of the term "attribution" are secondary. ] (]) 19:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
*:Really? Can you verify that somehow? What I can verify is that the word "Attribution" - in the ''licensing'' sense - appears at the bottom of every single Misplaced Pages page. See also ]. Note the first entry. –]] 19:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
*::See also ]. Copyrights, although important, are secondary to the need for attribution of everything we write in article space. The V nutshell says: "Any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be '''attributed''' to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." And the NOR nut says: "Misplaced Pages does not publish original thought: all material in Misplaced Pages must be '''attributable''' to a reliable, published source". This is the key to our sourcing requirements. ] (]) 21:38, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
*:::But that concept has nothing to do with this page or the name of this page, This page is a failed policy page. If you do not know that then I suggest we put one of the more explicit headers back onto this page so that there is no confusion over this issue. -- ] (]) 22:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
*:::::The concept has everything to do with this page. This page is a summary of V and NOR &mdash; two of the three core content policies. Both these policies are built around the concept of attribution, as shown in their nutshells, which I quoted above. Although the majority gained for this page as a ''policy'' was not large enough to be considered a "consensus", there is ample consensus to keep it as a summary of these two policies, and since attribution is what they are all about, so is this page. ] (]) 22:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
*::::::It has never been an accurate summary, that is one of the reasons it has never gain a consensus. From what you are saying it looks as if the custom box at the to needs to be augmented so that there is no confusion that this is now or has ever been gained consensus as an accurate summary of V and NOR. -- ] (]) 23:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
*::::::::"''It has never been an accurate summary''": Would you mind pointing out one item in WP:ATT which doesn't properly summarize WP:V and WP:NOR? ] (]) 00:36, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
*:::::::::See my comments the archives, and my edits in edit history. It is more trouble than it is worth arguing about how to make it accurate and keep it accurate. -- ] (]) 00:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
*::::::::::I participated in that discussion and don't recall a single example. Since you made the claim again above, would you mind just pointing out one example for us here? ] (]) 00:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
*:::::::::::See for example ] -- One that you did not participate in. -- ] (]) 21:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I read it. I still can't see any example why ATT is not a good summary of NOR and V. Can you mention just one such example? ] (]) 22:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::::::::As I said "See my comments the archives, and my edits in edit history. It is more trouble than it is worth arguing about how to make it accurate and keep it accurate." -- ] (]) 22:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
*:::::::I agree. When a policy proposal fails to gain consensus, we mark it rejected. There's no need for a failed proposal to take up valuable policy shortcuts. ] (]) 00:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::This was a special case. It was not a new policy &mdash; it was a merge of two existing policies into one, for simplification. It did get a majority, but not the super-majority required for the change to the new version. It was then agreed, with Jimbo's blessing, to retain this page as a "canonical summary" of the policies, to help newcomers understand them better. ] (]) 01:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::::Agreed by whom? ] (]) 01:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::::The community. ] (]) 01:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::::::Where? ] (]) 01:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Mostly this talk page. Read the archives. ] (]) 01:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::::::::It was agreed to have a working group to look at it. But the working group never reported back so after a lot of back and forth, for a year and a half it was marked as an essay as a compromise. towards the end of last year SV altered its status, and more recently after another debate the current banner was added. --] (]) 22:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::As I noted when you raised this issue before, the ATT page header says: "Please defer to Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research in case of inconsistency between those pages and this one." This ensures that even if some inconsistency creeps in, the official policies will override. And if you can't find a single inconsistency at the moment as example, I guess that's a good sign. ] (]) 00:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::As I said above "As I said 'See my comments the archives, and my edits in edit history. It is more trouble than it is worth arguing about how to make it accurate and keep it accurate.'" -- ] (]) 12:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


::::::::(edit clash) Also it is not true as ] wrote "We have a page that contains material copied verbatim from policies." Last summer when I tried to do that for ], I was told that this was a summary and that verbatim copies were not needed. When I tried to delete the verbiage of the old WP:APP proposal, I was told that the text is a summary, which it clear is not, as that text was meant to be a replacement for ]. --] (]) 14:08, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::What's wrong with ], which resolves to ]? --] (]) 18:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::::::] The devil is in the detail. This is not an overview, it was originally a replacement and as such it failed. Maintaining such a detailed "summary" is counter productive (given the amount of debate over whether "may" or "can" is better in ]), a summary here is bound to raise the same issues (unless it is a verbatim copy) and as has been seen this detailed "summary" is confusing people as to its status. Much better to mark it as {{tl|historical}} --] (]) 14:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
::For the record, I don't believe the charge has been proven that plural editors ''are'' confused or the page ''is'' confusing them. IMHO, the facts established are that I used a clause of this page to resolve a month-long hot discussion at WP:V, a resolution which has stood for more than another whole month, based on my belief that this is a summary (which it was successfully retracked into after being a failed replacement). I don't believe my one-time admission of former confusion, in an attempt to be civil, is sufficient evidence for everything that is now being said about confusion. ] 14:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
::::::::::Philip, ] has over thousand links from Misplaced Pages namespace, and over 500 from article Talk namespace. New links are created as we write this. "Historical" is out of question, put it and you will see some ''real'' confusion! --] (]) 18:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


*'''Support''' since we are doing the bolded vote thing, if it wasn't clear already from my comments. ] (]) 19:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
<<-- Have you looked at the links? The majority are user talk pages and are the result of having WP:ATT embedded in the welcome template for a time. The second most common is probably the result of the {{tl|cent}} template being embedded in some articles and WP:ATT is currently in the list. Of the other pages listed many have links to WP:ATT over a year old. Of those other pages that were not user, talk, archived pages, I found less than a score of which most stated that WP:ATT was policy (so I fixed them). --] (]) 11:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''. "Attribution" among researchers, editors, and writers does indeed refer to sourcing. The current name is certainly appropriate and applicable. I see no pressing need or overriding consensus to change it. -- ''']''' (]) 22:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
::''Of course'' you don't have links that say ATT is a policy... we make it very clear that it ''isn't'' a policy in a big banner at the top of the page. However, it also isn't historical... it is a "summary" of two policies, restating them with a focus on how they interact with each other. The only way to make this "historical" is to make the two policies that it summarizes historical. ] (]) 16:12, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''—As an FAC reviewer I have used this page as a resource. While it needs a bit of work, it should stay as is. It contains advice on key issues. ] ] 02:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
::::It did have pages that linked to policy and included this one until a couple of days ago when I altered them. Some of them could have been there since this was briefly a policy page, I did not check the dates when the additions had been made. --] (]) 07:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
* '''Weak oppose''', I think that ] is fine at its current name. I worked on rescoping/renaming it for a few days a while back (]), but gave up. ] (]) 04:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
:::Yes, but it lacks the wording of other essays. At the very least, it should say, as all other essays do, that editors don't have to abide by what it says. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 17:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' because eventually we are going to realise that this pages explains things to newcomers better that WP:V and WP:NOR do separately, and Misplaced Pages:Attribution is the best name for it. --] (]) 11:58, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
::::I really don't know what to think about the particulars yet, but I do know one thing for certain: the edit wars over these tags have to stop. No sooner had Viridae came back for the second time (!) to unprotect the page, explaining that the next time an edit war ensued, he'd start blocking editors, what happened? Someone right away disregarded the statement and changed and fiddled with the tags again. <sigh> I'm reading these arguments on the talk page very closely, thinking about the evidence, and seriously considering the logic because I think both are important, but I don't understand why anyone would want to provoke other editors on the main page after we've been repeatedly instructed not to edit war. Let's try to work things out here on the talk page. It could only help, right? ] (]) 17:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
{{pollbottom}}
:::::But as everyone keeps saying, this isn't a policy; therefore, the policy exception to ] doesn't apply here. As such, I've tried again to clarify the status. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 17:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
::Philip yes, I looked at the links. I've just excluded the page itself from {{tl|cent}}, and checked the count again. Let's assume that you are right and 0 (zero) pages in the Misplaced Pages assert that "WP:Attribution is a policy". But there are still '''11,500''' pages that link here at the moment, and probably say something like "take a look at WP:Attribution". Eleven ''thousand'' pages. Keep that in mind. --] (]) 20:06, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


==A versus B==
:::I looked through all the links for guidelines and policy documents and fixed them (there was about a dozen in total). Although I did not look at the 1,000s of other pages in detail I did dip into some. AFAICT (from a small sample) most are welcome sections in user pages because for a time the welcome used WP:ATT because it was policy. There were quite a few articles for deletion pages because they include {{tl|Cent}} which at the moment includes a link to WP:ATT. So I suspect that the vast majority of the links are historical and not current. --] (]) 08:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:''The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true.''


Here's something interesting to think about: how do we determine if a published source is reliable? Do such sources tend to be considered reliable if they publish true things? If so, isn't truth still an influence on inclusion threshhold? ] (]) 00:32, 22 May 2013 (UTC)
== Intent to edit ==
*Please note that I have resolved to edit the lead again for policy harmony, although three prior drafts were reverted. I would change the definition of "verifiability" from "meaning, in this context, whether material is attributable to a reliable published source" to the ] consensus of "that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source". "Verifiable" (checkable) does not mean "attributable" (citable); they are exclusive: citing refers to inserting text, while checking refers to responding to inserted text. (However, it could be said that "verifiable" does mean "attributed", which is already well hashed out.) The reasons for reversion were "back to original: the concept of attributability is important to mention up front, and it's just a summary of V and NOR" and "I think original version is simpler and clearer" and "the idea of things being attributable (not necessarily attributed) is key". In response, attributability is mentioned in the immediately next paragraph and in the nutshell, probably redundantly; if it's a summary, the two should be harmonizable (if we can't harmonize them it's not a summary but a replacement again); and the simpler, clearer statement about attributability may be true and expressed here and at ], but it's simply ''not'' a definition of "verifiability". So I believe this is clear-cut enough to go forward with it as a fourth draft, but in the interim I await further discussion about the proposed change. ] 22:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
:That seems reasonable, and if you are able to edit the page, good lock to you. ''that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source'' works at WP:V, so it works on this page. "Attributable" is a useful word, but it is not used perfectly correctly in the context, and the replacement offered ought to be unproblematic, seeing it is already in use at WP:V.
:Note that, if this page were unreliable, I would favour it be deleted or "historicalled', however as the material is not substantially wrong, there is no need for such. If the page is an "exact summary" of two other policy pages, it could be argued that it is redundant; perhaps so, however if the page is linked to, and used to good purpose, that argument is weakened, though not demolished. It is a matter of current use of and attitudes to the use of this page, or, if it is argued so, misuse if there be any. In other words, if the page attracts edits, it seems a current concern. I dont think I am any more confused than is usual, any confusion that I suffer from can't be blamed on this page. Cheers --] (]) 02:45, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
::Thanks Newby, we'll see if it wakes anyone else up when it happens. I am actually trying to resolve discrepancies between this page and the policies point by point, because when that is complete we can theoretically end the debate and delete as redundant if consensus leads that way. If this page really does say something different from policy, then it's not a summary and the disagreement should be resolved; if it is a summary, then all its good content can be safely reimported back into policy. We'll find out which in each case as we go. But this limbo is silly. ] 08:16, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
:::Wait the minute, so you are just trying to precisely summarize two large policies on the page just because you want a later consensus to historify/delete the page? Wasted work. Too many links lead here, so you will never have historical/deleted status. Maybe it would be easier to propose a short text about Attribution (with links to more precise ], ]) and seek consensus for such content first? Then, having decided on content, seek consensus on the status and tag? --] (]) 13:03, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


== Talk page transclusion: is it a COPYVIO or ATTRIB problem? ==
==The (first) threshold for inclusion==
I have a problem with changing the line from "''The threshold for inclusion...''" to "''The first threshold for inclusion...''". My issue isn't with the intent of the edit or even what the new wording says... at first glance, I actually agree with this. But... it does change the meaning away from what is stated at WP:V, which I do have a problem with.


Feedback of knowledgeable editors is sought regarding the transclusion of one talk page discussion to another, wherein
This page is supposed to be a summary of WP:V and WP:NOR... ''As'' a summary, the key bits of language need to closely follow what is stated on those pages - and this edit seems to be a step ''away'' from that. At the moment the policy page states "''The threshold for inclusion...''" so this page should state that as well. It there is a consensus to change it to say "first threshold", I feel that the change should be discussed and made at WP:V ... and ''then'' imported here. ] (]) 12:00, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
:See ] it was changed there as well, I have just reversed it on that page. This is one of the problem with ATT and why it needs to be marked as historical. --] (]) 12:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
::As I said, I have no real problem with the wording... so if the change is accepted at WP:V, and it remains stable, I have no problem importing it here. I simply want to make sure it ''is'' accepted there before we start changing it here. ] (]) 12:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
::From a slightly different perspective perhaps, I'd support the change in WP:V as well, but the language here must match the current stable version there or this page is useless altogether as a summary of policy. If it differs, then we essentially have the old situation of contradictory statements of policy. (personally, I think that this is such a real possibility that I'd mark the page historical and freeze it, but while it's live it has to be accurate.) ''']''' (]) 13:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
:::OK in this case again I fail to understand PBS. (1) He provided no reason for reverting WP:V either in edit summary or in this comment that I just noticed. (2) I, however, indicated the WT:V consensus I was building on, so I don't understand the reversion, especially with more support for the edit coming out. (3) I don't see anything wrong with changing in both places to see where it works better. (4) I don't think it serves PBS well to claim this incident as evidence for his favored tag on this page, and I am concerned that others may make improper inferences from his statement. Anyway, I'd appreciate it if centralized discussion continued at ], point 11. ] 17:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
::::Agree... discuss the change there... and if accepted, ''then'' change it here. ] (]) 17:50, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::We could perhaps add a header to the top of this talk page, stating that substantial changes need to be discussed at talk:V and talk:NOR before being implemented here. That way, WP:A lags behind, only slightly, but does not get in front. However, there probably aint no way to "enforce" such a requirement, a strong recommendation would have to suffice. --] (]) 00:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:::Consensus is developing at WT:V for "A fundamental criterion" in lieu of "The threshold". ] 15:12, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
::::Changes need to be discussed thoroughly on WT:V, then made on V, and should only be made here if we're sure the change to V will stick. Otherwise both pages will be flipping back and forth. <font color="Brown">]</font> <small><sup><font color="darkgreen">]</font><font color="Light green">]</font></sup></small> 15:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::I strongly agree with SV on this... gain ''full'' consensus on WT:V first. ] (]) 15:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


(1) all talk page comments have been previously signed and dated by those editors participating in the discussion; and
==Protected page==
Not good. I would suggest the 'essay' tag is perfectly suitable. I would suggest 'no tag' is perfectly suitable. I would suggest the 'supplement' tag is perfectly suitable. I do not see any reason to edit-war over any of these tags. Other tags may also be suitable. I will not be edit-warring over it (Haven't 'ever' done so). So, I suggest at this point in time, leave it as is, and let's get back to editing, maybe even editing articles. --] (]) 01:49, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
:*As to what should happen, I've been saying that it should be merged back into the relevant policies and guidelines, and that any controversies should be resolved seriatim because the en masse method was too much to pass consensus. Parliamentary division of question. Sounds like Kendrick's approach too.
:*As to the tag, I've been saying I'll opt for any of them. However, thanks to the excellent suggestion, "supplement" is now my favorite.
:*As to the edit war, I affirm Viridae this time, and I'd note that at this instant it appears everyone engaged in it (some 9 people) has made a modicum of ''attempting'' resolution on this page, but many of them should be encouraged to return and actually ''achieve'' resolution. However, another very viable solution is for an admin to unprotect it, and to let those of us interested in improving the ''text itself'' go ahead noncontroversially, while the others rack up the ] points in the tag section. (There has been very little reverting over the text itself.) That could easily also be construed as an improvement to Misplaced Pages. ] 13:32, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
::When it comes to tag: normal Essay would work best, but Supplement is a decent proposition. --] (]) 19:02, 3 June 2008 (UTC)


(2) the following notation is included in the transcluded discussion:
:::The reason I did not take part in the opinion survey that rejected this as policy was because although I was in agreement with the concept I was against the way it was being implemented. The wording on this page was not just an amalgamation of the wording on the two policy pages it was attempting to replace (a move that I supported), it was also replacement text for those policies (something I was against) -- for example have a look at the wording in the ]? That is more than a summary of the current ] --] (]) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


::"This ongoing discussion is transcluded from Talk:__________. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to this discussion.
=== Guideline ===


::"The foregoing discussion regarding this template was started on another talk page (see link here), and transcluded to this talk page on __________, 2015, in order to give all concerned editors the opportunity to participate."
OK. I've decided to mark this as a guideline, since attempting to mark it as anything else, even as a proposed guideline, has been met by derision. I actually believe as a summary of two policies, it meets at least this standard by definition. So, everybody happy? -- ]<sup>]</sup> 17:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


Question: given (1) the existing signatures of all participating editors and (2) the specific notation of the transclusion and hyperlink to the original talk page discussion, does the transclusion constitute a violation of either ] or WP:ATTRIB? Thank you, in advance, for any feedback provided.
::: Yes, why didn't I think of that. --] (]) 19:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


Please note: I a simultaneously posting this request for feedback here and the talk page of ]. ] (]) 10:43, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
::::It has never been agreed that the text on this page is a accurate summary of the policy pages it was supposed to supplant, so it definitely should not be a guideline. AFAICT there has never been a consensus to mark it as an essay or any other status (but if someone can find a section in the talk pages that proves me wrong I would be interested to read it). A ] was supposed to report back with findings but AFAICT the working party is moribund and until that working party reports back or the steps suggested in the {{tl|historical}} template are taken this should be marked either as historical or {{tl|rejected}}. --] (]) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


:::This is definitely not the place to post this. This is the talk page for a failed proposal to merge ] and ] which did not gain a consensus. -- ] (]) 11:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)
=== Removed guideline tag ===


== I can find this... ==
I've removed the recently placed guideline tag. The page as it is doesn't seem to meet the criteria for a guideline, being instead a mishmash of several established policies and guidelines sometimes with sections copied verbatim from the existing pages (ironically seemingly without any form of attribution). Things like ] and ] should not be presented as guideline because they are not. The page essentially tells users how to interpret certain policies which are deliberately descriptive rather than prescriptive, if a certain interpretation is accepted by ] it should be included on the policy pages not forked here. I can't see any significant change in the page since it was deemed to have been rejected by the community and think further discussion - not just arguments over an appropriate header - is required to establish the ]. ] (]) 20:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


:I have returned the tag to the version that has been here for over a year. It clearly states that the page is not a Policy nor Guideline, but is instead a ''Summary''... that is what it is, and what it is intended to be. nothing more, nothing less. ] (]) 21:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC) I just realized that I have been citing this page as the reason to keep edit histories of merged from/redirected pages, but I cannot find ''where'' in this page that information is located. Is this information here anywhere, or us on another page? ] (]) 19:06, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
:...Possible ]? ] (]) 19:07, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
:::It has not been marked as such for little under year but as AFAICT there was never a consensus for that and for over month of that time it has also been marked as {{tl|historical}} --] (]) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


== Where was the rationale for this change specifically discussed? ==
::I reverted this. Please let it be transcluded to ] until the issue with content is not resolved. Please edit as you wish ''there''. This way discussions about the header can be separated from discussions on the body's content. --] (]) 21:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:::The language in the messagebox was worked out by careful compromise... It has been in place for a long time (over a year) and was stable... why overturn it now? ] (]) 21:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
::::My change got reverted by you in a minute. "Why overturn now?" - per ] policy, of course, why do you ask? Please provide reasons why do you oppose the split and refuse to edit the splitted template. --] (]) 21:13, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::Um... I ''returned'' it to the consensus version... that is why I oppose the split. ] (]) 21:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
::::::No. You returned it to ''previous'' consensus. Now, as you can see here, on this talk page, we have no consensus now, and are working on a new one. Yes, ]. And you cannot possibly drag me into dispute if we have a dispute. We have a dispute, here it is, you are looking at it right now. There's an on going dispute about (a) content and (b) header. You provided no reason why you reverted the attempt to separate (b) discussion to another page (that is to ''']'''. --] (]) 21:37, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:That doesn't make any sense, Guest9999. You are saying it isn't a guideline because it's really a policy, like ] or ], just a policy without any consensus? -- ]<sup>]</sup> 21:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:::Kendrick... I know the history of this page... there is strong consensus that this page should NOT be a guideline. What there is consensus for is having this as a "cannonical" SUMMARY of two policies (similar in standing to ]). ] (]) 21:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::] Please indicate where in the archives, I can read about this consensus. --] (]) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
::::(edit conflict) Well partly yes. The language in the standard guideline tag does not represent the content of the page which among other things largely duplicates ] and ] - accepted policies. It's a legacy of the original intent of the page as a replacement for policy pages (], ], ]) and sticking a guideline tag on as a halfway solution doesn't seem acceptable - there is no community ] that BLP, NOR, etc. should have an occasional exception (]). Personally I do not like the idea of having a guideline like this that describes how to interpret and use various policies; policies are constantly edited and I do not see how this page would be able to keep up with the changes to ], ], ] and ] whilst still representing the community consensus of the time. ] (]) 21:43, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
::(ec) I'm enjoying watching this so much, and mmm, this popcorn sure is good! We're up to 19 full revert cycles, plus one at the subpage. I think David Levy's very smmaaarrt idea was that the next time this gets protected (and someone gets blocked), at least maybe the admin will only protect the header instead of the rest of the page. But of course that was assuming folks would all have consensus on duking it out at the subpage instead of hear, a consensus which does not yet include the last two editors just above. So I'll just sit back and watch and do what I can. Send in the IPs! (Or is it possible that Blueboar doesn't yet understand that he can put the "consensus version" at ]?) ] 21:32, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


changed "surprising or apparently important reports of recent events not covered by reliable ]" to "surprising or apparently important reports of historical events not covered by mainstream ] or ]". thx, Humanengr 15:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
We don't need another stupid edit war over this page. We really, ''really'' do not. ], ], and others... please... leave it alone. The purpose of this page is to ''describe'' the policies, not to ''be'' the policies. It's kind of like those booklets that governments hand out that explain the laws of driving in a succinct and straightforward way, without ''being'' the laws of driving that are codified in official traffic acts. <span style="color:blue;font-weight:bold;font-family: Monotype Corsiva;"> ] ]</span> 21:41, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
::See my comments above. To the best of my knowledge it has never been agreed that the text of this page is an accurate summary of the policy pages. That is one of the reasons it failed to become policy in the first place. --] (]) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:Then it should be marked as a guideline like every other page which describes policies (e.g. the ] guideline describes a section of the ] policy). That's exactly what you are describing, Warren. As for Blueboar, see ]. Just because people argued a long time ago that it shouldn't be a guideline has no bearing on the current discussion. If you think more consensus is needed, then someone let me put the {{t1|proposed}} tag on it. -- ]<sup>]</sup> 22:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


The edit summary does not provide rationale for that part of the edit, particularly the change from 'reliable' to 'mainstream'. Perhaps I missed it, but I see no reference to that change in archives here. ] (]) 22:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
:: What you are saying is at odds with the definition of the word ]. Take a couple of minutes to review dictionary definitions of the word, because you aren't using it correctly.
:Who cares now 12 years later? This is a dead project. For it to be properly maintained, it must be kept in sync with current policies. Certainly since 2007 our policies changed A LOT.
:Anyway, do you see anything wrong with this change? IMO it is OK. Current events are a red flag ''per se'' (i.e., beware ]). ] (]) 02:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
::AFAICS, this was where 'mainstream' was introduced on the way to its inclusion in ]. For historical purposes, I'm trying to track down the rationale. Any help would be appreciated. thx, ] (]) 02:52, 23 September 2018 (UTC)


== Not an accurate summary ==
:: We all ''have'' to follow what's in this article because it is nothing more than a restatement of what is written on policy pages. Other WP: pages, such as ], are guidelines because they are good expressions of common sense that help us build a better encyclopedia. The MOS is a guideline for the same reason. You don't ''have'' to follow the MOS in order to contribute to the encyclopedia on an ongoing basis, but you ''do'' have to follow policies. Once you understand the "policy = must; guideline = should" formula, you will understand why this page should not be described as a guideline. <span style="color:blue;font-weight:bold;font-family: Monotype Corsiva;"> ] ]</span> 22:28, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:::So you prefer the current version which basically says this has no force at all -- that it is neither a policy nor a guideline, and therefore can be completely ignored? That doesn't make sense either. There was never any consensus to make this policy; and I don't see how leaving it as an essay helps your case that it should be policy. In the wikipedia sense of the word, "guideline" status makes sense, as edits here or to ] and ] will mean it will be periodically out of sync with ''actual policy'', like it or not. At those times, the actual policies are what are in force, not this. Wouldn't you agree? -- ]<sup>]</sup> 22:40, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:::: As an experienced editor, you can completely ignore this page's existence if you want. You can't ignore the policy pages it is based on, and so long as the content on this page matches what is said in those policy pages, then yes, you must -- '''by implication only''' -- follow what is said here as well. If this page falls out of sync with actual policies, then it should be fixed. Given the sheer number of editors who are interested in presenting our policies well, it's extremely unlikely that such a problem will occur. Also, given the glacial pace of change with our fundamental policies, and how much ruckus gets kicked up if someone wants to change things, it's not even that great of a concern. Don't worry about it.
:::::It has never been agreed that the contents of this page is in sync with the policy pages. --] (]) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:::: So that we're clear about this -- you can't declare someone to be in violation of "]" in a dispute, because it is neither a policy or guideline, but you can suggest this page as some very good reading for someone who is relatively new to Misplaced Pages and could benefit from a stronger grasp of how we think about our policies. Like I said, this article is like one of those booklets you get from the government that teach you the rules of the road. It describes the law without being the law. <span style="color:blue;font-weight:bold;font-family: Monotype Corsiva;"> ] ]</span> 00:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::Right. It's almost as if it were "an indication or outline of policy or conduct" like one of those guideline booklets handed out by the government. I don't quite fathom your quibble here.... -- ]<sup>]</sup> 00:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::: I'm not the one with the quibble here -- I support the long-established status quo, because I think it makes the most sense. You're the one saying that a simple restatement of a policy document is a "guideline", whereas we clearly haven't used the term in this fashion elsewhere on Misplaced Pages. Guidelines are often ''based'' on policy (a good example is ], which builds on ] with additional points that we all agree on, like "don't bite the newcomers"). Other guidelines aren't derived from policy at all; the MOS is the stand-out example of that. Then we have pages like this one, and ], and ], and ], and ], that are neither policies nor guidelines, but summarize what it is we're trying to accomplish here in different ways. <span style="color:blue;font-weight:bold;font-family: Monotype Corsiva;"> ] ]</span> 01:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:::::::This is much much more extensively detailed than any of those in your list; this isn't in ] -- we could just as well have a "basic template" but currently don't. Of course, 5P and Enc are essentially "carved in stone" to where they transcend policy; obviously, this is not carved in stone. In any case, I've restored the essay tag on ] which only disappeared some months ago. And, as you point out: this is in fact based on policy; isn't any summary based on its source or sources? -- ]<sup>]</sup> 01:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
::::::::] when was this ''status quo'' agreed? I do not think it makes sense to keep the status quo or to make it a guideline, it makes much more sense to mark it as {{tl|historical}} and be done with it. --] (]) 09:37, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


This page is not maintained see the between Revision as of 22:15, 25 March 2010 and Revision as of 09:27, 20 June 2019.
==Protected (2)==
]. ] (]) 22:14, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
:It's interesting that you protected that page and left the transcluded subpage (intended to prevent such protection by separating the header dispute from the main content) ''un''protected. —] 00:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
::Yeah, David, I thought your idea was really smart, except that it assumes the editors will behave smartly too. Maybe the next time such a situation shows up, a big inline comment and a big bold talk comment might help. So much for idealism.
::Several editors are also missing the key point. The side which believes this is ''not'' policy or guideline thinks it is materially different from V and OR. That's the root issue that needs resolving and which I had been working assiduously on. It's exceeding challenging to get both sides to even state what their objections and concerns are, I end up being told instead about such important factors as whether brides are carried across ''a'' threshold or ''the'' threshold. I'm glad I read ] last week to keep my sense of humor about it. Don't worry though, the subpage will get protected too as soon as enough people figure out they can still edit it! ] 02:11, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
:::I have protected the header to match the page. There's no need to be snarky, David. I saw edit warring and acted reasonably. Splitting it to a template might not have been the best idea—it seems to have provided a new venue for argument. ] (]) 17:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
::::Huh? I was merely pointing out that you protected the page with the unprotected header subpage intact (thereby enabling the edit war to continue). How is that "snarky"?
::::The purpose of the split '''was''' to provide a new venue for the edit war (in which I had no part). I assumed that it would continue, and I hoped to limit the resultant protection to the header (instead of the entire page). It was worth a try, and it ''still'' would work if people would pay attention to the page and its revision history (instead of blindly reverting) and agree to leave the transclusion in place (with the current situation as the only alternative). —] 04:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


So I have removed the sentence from the nutshell that was added some time between those edits that stated "{{green|As a result, this page is kept as a '''cohesive summary''' of these two of our ], a discussion how they work together.}}"
==Status June 2008==
# Because this talk page clearly show that there was no consensus for such a statement
# The diff shows that in practice this page is not maintained so it is not going to be an accurate summary of the to content policies it was supposed to replace.


In fact one of the reasons it failed to replace V and NPOV was because it was not a "cohesive summary" and never has been. -- ] (]) 09:39, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
This failed policy should be marked as {{tl|historical}} or {{tl|rejected}}. Since Misplaced Pages has had the ability to redirect to sections of policy articles (eg ] and ]) the need for an artcle such as this has receeded. This particular article is a failed policy article and the text is basically the same as it was when it was promoted as a policy and has never been agreed that it is an accurate summary of policy. --] (]) 18:51, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
:'''Seconded'''. This is a historical page and let it be as such. ] (]) 20:04, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
== "Misplaced Pages:A" listed at ] ==
]
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect ] and has thus listed it ]. This discussion will occur at ] until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. <!-- from Template:RFDNote --> <span style="background:#000dff; padding:2px;">''']]'''&nbsp;</span> 17:27, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

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Editors, please note:

In February 2007, after four months of discussion at Misplaced Pages:Attribution, a number of editors at Misplaced Pages talk:Attribution agreed on a means of merging Misplaced Pages:Verifiability with Misplaced Pages:No original research, while also streamlining Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources into a simpler FAQ at WP:ATT/FAQ. In a wiki-wide poll in April 2007, the community voted 424 to 354 in favor of the merger (with 102 neutral or suggesting other compromises), which was not a sufficient majority. After this, at the suggestion of Jimbo Wales, the page held a unique quasi-official status as a "canonical summary".

WP:ATT is intended to be a cohesive version of the core content policies with which the Misplaced Pages community is already familiar, discussing how these core policies work together and support each other.

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Use of term

In the past, I've used "attribution" to refer to the very simple idea that folks adding content should attribute claims, particularly opinions, not just for sourcing purposes them but to identify whose opinion is involved and provide some context to help evaluate it. Thus, in a dispute on some religious topic where secular scholars disagree with relgious claims. It's important to say something to avoid saying things like "some say C but others say Y", and instead say something like like "Bob Smith, a professor of archeology and Sumerian specialist at the University of A, says 'X', or "John Jones, a theologian and professor of bible at the B Theological Seminary, says 'Y'". It would be nice if there were a quick, simple policy link that would explain why attribution is important in covering controversial subjects and diverse opinions neutrally. This page used to be the one I used. The title is valuable and represents a simple but important idea. As a result, the page's conversion to an essay represents something of a loss. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 23:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree... but unfortunately several others did not. 00:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
But there's a way: most of the language here was consensus. If you like something, propose it, or something which approaches it, at WP:V or WP:OR. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
I suspect that Shirahadasha's desired use of attribution is more related to WP:NPOV and balance than to WP:V or to WP:OR. --Rumping (talk) 12:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I also agree with Shirahadasha. I just discovered that WP:ATTRIBUTE redirects to essentially a less well-written copy of WP:V. What the heck happened, and where did that old paragraph go? II | (t - c) 08:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

See the section Status March 2010 lower down this page for a further discussion on this issue.

Attributing in-text (WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV) compared to this page; retitle?

The paragraph Shirahadasha is looking is WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV/WP:SUBSTANTIATE. From looking at the history of these shortcuts it's not clear how or even if the WP:ATTRIBUTE shortcut ever went to that paragraph. But the title to that section of WP:NPOV, "Attributing..." has existed since at least July 2006, and the original NPOV page uses the word attribute frequently, always meaning in-text attribution of controversial statements.

Thus, when people talk about attributing something on Misplaced Pages, they generally are thought to mean attributing an opinion in-text rather than presenting it as fact. I think that this page (WP:ATTRIBUTION) uses the word attribute in a confusing way, particularly given the existing jargon in Misplaced Pages where attribute means in-text attribution. Better to retitle this page to something which indicates that it is a summary of core policies or something, as that's what it really is, then to use a word which has a particular meaning as a synonym for verifiable or reliably sourced. Unfortunately, I have no good title ideas.II | (t - c) 05:21, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Can we discuss the quality of a source?

Can we in addition to attributing authors discuss the quality of a source, ex. whether it discusses an issue in detail or just in passing? I raised the issue here. Comments appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:09, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

This sounds like a way to "discredit" sources... which is a subtle form of POV pushing. Blueboar (talk) 16:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Is Rejecta Mathematica a reliable source?

Should Rejecta Mathematica be regarded as a reliable source? VictorPorton (talk) 23:42, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Doron Zeilberger has given his thumbs up for this journal, so it must be more reliable than Journal of Combinatorial Theory-Series A. Count Iblis (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Status March 2010

I only just noticed someone had put an essay tag on it. It's not an essay, but a summary of two of the key policies, so I've restored the wording we created for it. I'll look around for the paragraph you mention. SlimVirgin 09:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Here we go again folks... (see the archives for previous itterations of this debate... essentially they come down to: "This page is a summary of policy"... "No, it's nothing more than an essay"... "No, its a summary"... "essay"... "Summary!"... "Essay!"... "Duck season!"... "Rabbit season!")... seriously, does it really matter? Blueboar (talk) 15:48, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

SV after over a year and after a very long discussion you only just realized that since 23 July 2008 it had been marked as an essay. That was a compromise thrashed out by a lot of editors over a period of a year. I do not think you should have changed it without seeking a wider consensus than you did. I have put it back to an essay. -- PBS (talk) 02:12, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

As you seem to have been absent for the second half of the conversations now archived see Misplaced Pages talk:Attribution/Archive 18#What about "Essay"? for BB's compromise solution which I for one was not keen on I wanted {{historical}} or {{rejected}}, but I could live with it if it put this page to bed. -- PBS (talk) 02:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

From the edit history:

02:18, 21 March 2010 Crum375 (rvt -- this is not an essay; it is a summary of core policies, supported by a majority of editors; please do not change its status without a broad consensus)

Crum375: It was marked as an essay for well over a year after extensive discussions and only reverted by SV a few months ago without any wider consultation other than a statement here. So where is the consensus you claim exists expressed in an section on this talk page or in its archives? -- PBS (talk) 06:25, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

For heaven's sake, Philip, please don't start this again. It's not an essay. It's a combination of two policies written by large numbers of people. Please just leave it tagged as such, as was agreed at the time. SlimVirgin 10:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Please show me where in these talk archives it was agreed at the time.
As I said above please see Misplaced Pages talk:Attribution/Archive 18#What about "Essay"? for BB's compromise solution which was the compromise which we came to and which prevailed until you unilaterally changed the banner form Essay to another one which was never agreed to other than as a temporary fix, I can find the exact discussion on this in the archive if you wish but I presume you remember it. --PBS (talk) 11:20, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
You can't call something an essay that faithfully reflects two core content policies, and that a large number of editors contributed to over many months (and which was policy for a few weeks, remember). That's not how the word "essay" is used on WP. The current tag is completely accurate, so I don't understand the obsession about changing it. SlimVirgin 11:34, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
The debate regarding what to do with this page (how to conduct the big poll, to be specific) was one of the most stressful experiences that I've had at Misplaced Pages, and to note that SlimVirgin and I didn't exactly get along swimmingly would be an understatement. But I must say that I was taken aback when I saw that the page had been labeled an "essay" (by which point I was too exhausted to argue, as I imagine was the case for many others). I strongly agree that it simply doesn't make sense to call it that. I favor tagging the page as a summary or similar, but even the {{historical}} tag (or a variant explaining the situation) would be less misleading than conveying that the content was written as an essay (something for which "no formal attempt to gauge consensus has been made"). —David Levy 12:35, 21 March 2010 (UTC)
I am willing to have {{historical}} or {{rejected}} but the consensus compromise was {{essay}} and I have not seen that there is a consensus to move from that compromise. The whole point SV is this does not "faithfully reflects two core content policies" it never has and when I tried to make it do so, you reverted those edits. Rather than having to keep it up to date with the content policies it is better to leave it be or it just opens up another area for people to edit war over and to find inconsistencies with policy. SV I notice that instead of answering my questions you answer with a statement that included "so I don't understand the obsession about changing it" which suggests that it is only those who disagree with you have an "obsession about changing it". It was you who after a period of nearly 16 months when this was headed with a standard essay template who changed it from essay to a rejected status, without any form of consultation what so ever. I have asked you to show me where you think that the archives show a consensus that supports you view that it has a special status. Please show me. Here is the archive sections were it was agreed to make the page as an essay: Archive 18 What about an "Essay"? and immediately following that section Protected (3). -- PBS (talk) 00:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
In July 2008 when this was put to bed. Kevin Murray summed up my position on this issue and I still think it is true:
Ryan, it really does matter. Creating a "summary" implies that it accurately summarizes policy, which it may or may not, but requires constant energy to maintain the accuracy and update changes to policy. Summaries of critical documents including rules, professional opinions, etc. are very tricky, since deciding what to ommit can seriously alter the interpretation. The reason this became an issue recently was that this page was being cited elsewhere as a way to create "policy" without the rigorous process of attaining consensus. This is why it is important that we follow the format described at WP:Policies and guidelines and not subvert them to find the more cozy and polite avenue. --Kevin Murray (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
--PBS (talk) 00:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Philip, would you mind pointing out where this summary fails to reflect the core policies it summarizes? Thanks, Crum375 (talk) 00:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
It is easy to do for example "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge." primary sources may make other sorts of claims such as "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.", but that is not the point, even if this essay were fixed so that it perfectly reflected policy, a change to the policy page would have to be reflected here, which if it is to be taken as a summary would lead to just a much debate here as in the policy pages. For example if you disagree with me and think that "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge." perfectly reflect policy, then the fact that we disagree on this point only goes to show that having this at any different status from essay or historic or whatever, just means that this another area of potential disagreement. -- PBS (talk) 01:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
As SlimVirgin noted, this is a former policy. If it isn't an accurate summary or is unfeasible to maintain as such, it should be labeled "historical." It absolutely isn't a text for which "no formal attempt to gauge consensus has been made" (a quotation from Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages essays). In fact, it was the subject of one of Misplaced Pages's most extensive attempts to gauge consensus.
So if you're okay with a {{historical}} tag (or a custom variant explaining the situation), so am I. —David Levy 01:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
But it's not historical. It does summarize those two policies. This was agreed at the time with Jimbo, that this would be describe as a summary, a canonical account. I find it bizarre that Philip is still discussing this after however many years it has been. SlimVirgin 02:06, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
If it's an accurate summary, I agree that it should be tagged as such. The one thing that I'm certain it isn't is an essay. —David Levy 02:13, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I agree. I have just read it again, and don't see any significant discrepancy from the policies it summarizes. If there is consensus here that something needs to be fixed, then we should fix it, not toss out a very useful summary. Crum375 (talk) 02:18, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree. PBS, why do you not think this summary is accurate? Jayjg 02:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
I gave an example above. But please read what I wrote about keeping it up to date (and is also expressed by ImperfectlyInformed below). I really no want to wast time on this dodo. I thought it was dead and buried. -- PBS (talk) 06:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to Philip and Kevin. Of the relatively small population of Misplaced Pages which are even aware of this page, it is obviously extremely controversial. It doesn't seem like we have the energy and time to keep this "summary" up to date and verify its accuracy. Therefore, it shouldn't be labeled as a summary because its accuracy may be questionable. Crum says he reviewed it and saw no "significant discrepancies", but anyone can say such a thing. At the least there needs to be a disclaimer that this page may not track entirely with the policy pages. Knowing Misplaced Pages, its decentralized system allows things which are supposed to track to very easily diverge. II | (t - c) 03:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

All guidelines on Misplaced Pages must track their governing policies, and what we do in those cases (e.g. WP:RS) is clarify that in case of conflict, the relevant policy takes precedence. I see no problem in doing the same here: adding a note that since this page is a summary of the two parent policies, in case of conflict please consult the policies (and update the summary as needed). Crum375 (talk) 03:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Works for me.--Father Goose (talk) 05:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Crum375 you have been pushing for this page to have a special status for years why? SV please read /Archive 18#Status? the status of this page being anything other than an essay or historical depended on the Working party reporting back. It never happened, so under what justification do you claim a special status for this page? -- PBS (talk) 06:49, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Both its history and its content are pretty unusual amongst project pages. Perhaps the best thing to do would be to replace its tag (summary, essay, what have you) with a description of how the page came to be, what it was, and what it is.--Father Goose (talk) 07:04, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
We could write at the top of the article: "In February 2007, after several months of discussion, Verifiability was merged with No original research and renamed Attribution, which became policy. After a wiki-wide poll in April 2007, the community voted 424 to 354 in favor of the merger, with 102 neutral or suggesting compromises, which was not a sufficient majority. Since then, at the suggestion of Jimbo Wales, the page has held the status of a cannonical summary of the two policies. In the event of disagreement between this page and the policies, the policies take precedence." SlimVirgin 18:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
Or we can be more honest and mark it as {{rejected}}: "This is a failed proposal. Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time." -- PBS (talk) 10:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
That would be even more misleading than the highly misleading {{essay}} tag. The proposal to have the page supersede the pages from which it was derived was rejected, but the likely interpretation on the part of someone seeing the {{rejected}} tag is that the actual concepts were rejected. —David Levy 14:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Even the word "rejected" is misleading here, since there was a clear majority in favor, though not sufficient to meet the needed threshold. And as David says, even those who opposed didn't necessarily object to the concepts themselves, since it was mostly a format issue. Crum375 (talk) 15:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I should invite Kim to respond you Crum375 ;-) "rejected" does not say a consensus not to implement something. The rejected template says: "Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time." Also David it does not say the the concepts have been rejected (they are present in other policies) it just say "This is a failed proposal". It is damaging to the project, because it is confusing to a reader who does not know the history of this page, to give an indication that this is in anyway part of the canon of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines. Given the length of time that has passed I would prefer {{rejected}} (or {{historical}} as it was policy for a very short time) but as {{essay}} was the last consensus compromise I am willing to support keeping that at the top of the page. -- PBS (talk) 22:13, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
1. Why do you expect a typical reader to know that the concepts remain active on other pages? If one sees them on this page below the statement "This is a failed proposal. Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time.", the logical assumption is that the concepts were proposed here and rejected.
2. You haven't addressed my point about why the {{essay}} tag is inappropriate. It's unhelpful to blindly abide by a past decision. —David Levy 23:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
(1)I can see how someone might infer what you have suggested, but that is not what it says. It is better that they ignore this page than mistakenly think it is part of the canon of Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines and worse still think it has some form of consensual status. (2) I support the tag essay although it is not my first choice because it was a compromise, and I do not see that a new consensus has emerge for a change, so until a new consensus emerges I think it should remain tagged as an essay. -- PBS (talk) 00:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
1. You "can see how someone might infer what have suggested," and you're okay with that?
It isn't a problem if someone ignores this page. The problem is that they would ignore the concepts contained therein.
Please keep in mind that I'm fine with a custom variant of the {{historical}} tag. A custom variant of the {{failed}} tag (explaining that the proposal to merge the various other pages failed) would be okay too. But simply slapping on the default text ("This is a failed proposal. Consensus in its favor was not established within a reasonable period of time.") is unacceptable.
2. You still haven't addressed my point about why the {{essay}} tag is inappropriate. If past consensus was misguided (and I await your explanation of how it wasn't), it makes no sense to cling to it. —David Levy 00:53, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I've put {{supplement}}, {{failed}} and a brief introduction. Other combinations will also cover the ground, and I don't really care which of them we do; but a dispute over tags seems one of the worst solutions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:47, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. But rather than combining the default tags and a separate introduction, I'll create a custom tag that covers the same ground. We might not agree on a standard tag to use, but I think that we can agree that it makes sense to include a straightforward explanation instead. —David Levy 22:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
Big thumbs up on the custom tag. More informative and fitting than any of "essay", "failed", "historical", or other options so far proposed.--Father Goose (talk) 04:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

For the record

I'd like to make clear for the record that the plan after the poll was to make this page policy because we did get a majority, even after a wiki-wide poll, which no one expected. The idea discussed with Jimbo was that I should set up a working party to decide how to implement it, while being careful to preserve the status of NOR and V.

That didn't happen because I couldn't stand the pettiness and I walked away from it. It saddens me to see the same attitude continuing over what to call it. This is not historical because its contents are currently policy; and it's not an essay because of the degree of consensus it attracted, the amount of work a large number of editors put into it, and the fact that it was policy for a short time. It is unique. It would be policy today had it not been for an intervention from Jimbo. And that only happened because we inadvisedly stuck a "superseded" tag on the NOR page, which when Jimbo saw it made him think NOR had been abandoned. During the following truly insane discussion and poll, a lot of people didn't understand what was being proposed, and those of us trying to explain were half exhausted, half demented, and couldn't get the message across. And so the day was lost. What happened really was a case of "all for the want of a horseshoe nail".

I appeal to Philip Baird Shearer to let his three-year campaign against this end. You won. It isn't policy. Instead we're stuck with two core policies that should be combined, because they only make sense when they're read together. But that's Misplaced Pages for you.

There doesn't have to be a tag or a template for every single thing in the world. Please allow the top of the page to describe what it is with words that don't involve squiggly brackets. SlimVirgin 18:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I did not take part in the poll over whether this should be policy or not, so I did not "win" anything (and I don't think that such terms help to build a consensus). I was in favour of the concept, but not the specific wording or the initial procedure that was used to implement it, so I abstained.
The archives show that without a clear label like {{essay}} or some similar some editors are confused and link to this page from policy and guidelines pages as if it were policy.
If it is marked as a (live) summary then it has to kept up to date, and that probably means as many debates over its content as those on the pages it summarises. Just look how much time we are wasting deciding on its status let alone the content to the page. Lets put it back to the essay status it had (as a compromise wording) for fifteen months and let it slumber on. -- PBS (talk) 10:51, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
This page is not consensus as a whole; it is unlikely ever to be. Large parts of it are consensus, are well-phrased, and should be recommended to WP:OR and WP:V as amendments to existing policy. This page is not a current summary, but it could be a very useful mine.
{{essay}} is an incomplete description of this page, but it is accurate: some (even many) editors do agree with it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Please explain how it's accurate to claim that "no formal attempt to gauge consensus has been made" (a quotation from Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages essays). —David Levy 23:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
I didn't say anything about the infinite pages of WP space; what {{essay}} says is This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Misplaced Pages contributors. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion. And every word of that would be true of this page. (Would adding that an attempt has been made and the result was not consensus help anybody? Those who care know that already.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
"Infinite pages of WP space"? I'm referring to the one linked via the wording that you just quoted. The information contained therein describes the widely understood nature of Misplaced Pages essays.
Whether active or historical/failed, this is a former/defunct policy. (Whether it's a butterfly or a moth, labeling it a hornet is not a sensible "compromise.") —David Levy 16:38, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Upon consideration, the quotation from WP:Essay is like much of Misplaced Pages space: the flat statement of a generalization, usually but not always true. How many attempts have been made to gauge consensus for deletionism or inclusionism? We all know the tesults: Neither pure position has consensus; both have advocates. Yet there are many essays explaining both positions, and shades in between. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:19, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a non-trivial distinction between something written to express an opinion (with knowledge that the general concept has been discussed) and something written to serve as an official set of actionable rules.
Apart from Misplaced Pages:Attribution, what pages bearing the {{essay}} tag were formally proposed as policies (let alone made policies)? Do any comprise content derived primarily from active policies/guidelines? —David Levy 19:37, 24 March 2010 (UTC)
But, whatever this is, it's not a set of actionable rules, and it is not consensus (although, again, parts of it are). It is the opinion of several editors, controverted by others.
Many essays have indeed been policies or guidelines; the only example I can think of off-hand is WP:MOSMAC, since abandoned. It is true that this tends to be a transitional state; but it need not be.
On the other hand, many essays contain content "derived primarily from active policies/guidelines"; some, like WP:Official names are designed that way, to serve as a summary of the policy pages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
1. I don't assert that Misplaced Pages:Attribution is an active page backed by consensus. But it was proposed (and briefly implemented) as an actionable policy.
2. Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (Macedonia) is tagged as a guideline. To what essay are you referring?
3. Misplaced Pages:Official names is labeled a {{supplement}}. I created that template, so I obviously am aware that many essays expound upon policies and guidelines. By "derived," I was referring to the situation in which Misplaced Pages:Attribution was compiled from other pages with the intention of merging/superseding them. —David Levy 15:19, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
1 That's an argument for {{failed}}, which seems...incomplete.
2. Ah, I see there has been some rearrangement. I meant the guideline much discussed at WP:ARBMAC2 which used to occupy that space; it was proposed, accepted, much considered, rejected, made into an essay, accepted briefly, and rejected. Where it is now, I do not know.
3. {{supplement}} would be acceptable for this page. I know ATT's origins, but there is no consensus that it should merge or supersede policy; and much dissent on specific provisions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:53, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
1. As stated above, I agree that the standard wording of {{failed}} is inappropriate (because it might mislead readers to believe that the actual concepts were rejected), but if there is not consensus that Misplaced Pages:Attribution is an active summary, I'm fine with a custom tag based on {{failed}} explaining the page's unusual nature/history.
2. I'm unfamiliar with the page in question.
3. The {{supplement}} tag is intended for pages that expound upon policies/guidelines, not ones that attempt to summarize them (essentially the opposite). —David Levy 22:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Vacate this page

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to move. --RegentsPark (talk) 19:52, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Attribution → Misplaced Pages:Attributing statements — I think that Misplaced Pages:Copying within Misplaced Pages should be moved here. –xeno (originally written at 18:23, 30 March 2010, resigned after it was made into a formal move request) 15:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Attribution generally refers to the copyright concept around here, not to citations. Gigs (talk) 14:59, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Made a formal requested move: "Misplaced Pages:Attributing statements" can house this historical page. –xeno 15:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This page is not historical, but is a summary of two of our core content policies, and "attribution" is a key concept regarding sourcing on Misplaced Pages. It was recently decided to work on this page further, and repropose it to the community as policy. SlimVirgin 16:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    I've nothing against this being re-proposed as a policy, but I would suggest a less ambiguous name. "Attribution" on-wiki is more commonly understood to mean attributing edits in terms of licensing requirements. –xeno 18:34, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    Xeno, for content contributors, "attribution" refers to sourcing. I don't know what else we could call this if not Misplaced Pages:Attribution, as the point of the page is to highlight that aspect. SlimVirgin 22:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    It looks like "attribution" has only been a "key concept" since April 9th, when SlimVirgin herself changed WP:V to emphasize attribution rather than verifiability. Gigs (talk) 19:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    Gigs, I don't even know where to begin with that comment. That's what verifiability means onWP, and always has. SlimVirgin 21:41, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    Not at all. "Attribution" on wiki primarily means the citing of material to reliable sources, per WP:V and WP:NOR. All material in article space must be attributable to reliable sources, and anything challenged, likely to be challenged, or quoted, requires inline attribution. All other uses of the term "attribution" are secondary. Crum375 (talk) 19:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    You may think that, but then you are heavily involved in editing the policy pages. For others they may notice at the bottom of every Misplaced Pages page is the following link Misplaced Pages:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and that links to Attribution (copyright) not to this page (see the sentence: "Attribution—You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author". -- PBS (talk) 00:45, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
  • Oppose This page is a summary of two of the core sourcing policies which describe the need for attribution, WP:V and WP:NOR. As I noted above, the term "attribution" on Misplaced Pages is primarily used to refer to the citing of reliable sources to support material in article space. All other uses of the term "attribution" are secondary. Crum375 (talk) 19:09, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    Really? Can you verify that somehow? What I can verify is that the word "Attribution" - in the licensing sense - appears at the bottom of every single Misplaced Pages page. See also Attribution. Note the first entry. –xeno 19:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    See also Attribution. Copyrights, although important, are secondary to the need for attribution of everything we write in article space. The V nutshell says: "Any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation." And the NOR nut says: "Misplaced Pages does not publish original thought: all material in Misplaced Pages must be attributable to a reliable, published source". This is the key to our sourcing requirements. Crum375 (talk) 21:38, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    But that concept has nothing to do with this page or the name of this page, This page is a failed policy page. If you do not know that then I suggest we put one of the more explicit headers back onto this page so that there is no confusion over this issue. -- PBS (talk) 22:01, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    The concept has everything to do with this page. This page is a summary of V and NOR — two of the three core content policies. Both these policies are built around the concept of attribution, as shown in their nutshells, which I quoted above. Although the majority gained for this page as a policy was not large enough to be considered a "consensus", there is ample consensus to keep it as a summary of these two policies, and since attribution is what they are all about, so is this page. Crum375 (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    It has never been an accurate summary, that is one of the reasons it has never gain a consensus. From what you are saying it looks as if the custom box at the to needs to be augmented so that there is no confusion that this is now or has ever been gained consensus as an accurate summary of V and NOR. -- PBS (talk) 23:46, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
    "It has never been an accurate summary": Would you mind pointing out one item in WP:ATT which doesn't properly summarize WP:V and WP:NOR? Crum375 (talk) 00:36, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
    See my comments the archives, and my edits in edit history. It is more trouble than it is worth arguing about how to make it accurate and keep it accurate. -- PBS (talk) 00:52, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
    I participated in that discussion and don't recall a single example. Since you made the claim again above, would you mind just pointing out one example for us here? Crum375 (talk) 00:57, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
    See for example Misplaced Pages talk:Attribution/Archive 15 -- One that you did not participate in. -- PBS (talk) 21:51, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
I read it. I still can't see any example why ATT is not a good summary of NOR and V. Can you mention just one such example? Crum375 (talk) 22:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
As I said "See my comments the archives, and my edits in edit history. It is more trouble than it is worth arguing about how to make it accurate and keep it accurate." -- PBS (talk) 22:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
  • I agree. When a policy proposal fails to gain consensus, we mark it rejected. There's no need for a failed proposal to take up valuable policy shortcuts. Gigs (talk) 00:03, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
This was a special case. It was not a new policy — it was a merge of two existing policies into one, for simplification. It did get a majority, but not the super-majority required for the change to the new version. It was then agreed, with Jimbo's blessing, to retain this page as a "canonical summary" of the policies, to help newcomers understand them better. Crum375 (talk) 01:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed by whom? Gigs (talk) 01:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
The community. Crum375 (talk) 01:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Where? Gigs (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Mostly this talk page. Read the archives. Crum375 (talk) 01:21, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
It was agreed to have a working group to look at it. But the working group never reported back so after a lot of back and forth, for a year and a half it was marked as an essay as a compromise. towards the end of last year SV altered its status, and more recently after another debate the current banner was added. --PBS (talk) 22:58, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
As I noted when you raised this issue before, the ATT page header says: "Please defer to Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research in case of inconsistency between those pages and this one." This ensures that even if some inconsistency creeps in, the official policies will override. And if you can't find a single inconsistency at the moment as example, I guess that's a good sign. Crum375 (talk) 00:24, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
As I said above "As I said 'See my comments the archives, and my edits in edit history. It is more trouble than it is worth arguing about how to make it accurate and keep it accurate.'" -- PBS (talk) 12:13, 7 May 2010 (UTC)


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

A versus B

The threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true.

Here's something interesting to think about: how do we determine if a published source is reliable? Do such sources tend to be considered reliable if they publish true things? If so, isn't truth still an influence on inclusion threshhold? Ranze (talk) 00:32, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk page transclusion: is it a COPYVIO or ATTRIB problem?

Feedback of knowledgeable editors is sought regarding the transclusion of one talk page discussion to another, wherein

(1) all talk page comments have been previously signed and dated by those editors participating in the discussion; and

(2) the following notation is included in the transcluded discussion:

"This ongoing discussion is transcluded from Talk:__________. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to this discussion.
"The foregoing discussion regarding this template was started on another talk page (see link here), and transcluded to this talk page on __________, 2015, in order to give all concerned editors the opportunity to participate."

Question: given (1) the existing signatures of all participating editors and (2) the specific notation of the transclusion and hyperlink to the original talk page discussion, does the transclusion constitute a violation of either WP:COPYVIO or WP:ATTRIB? Thank you, in advance, for any feedback provided.

Please note: I a simultaneously posting this request for feedback here and the talk page of WP:COPYVIO. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 10:43, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

This is definitely not the place to post this. This is the talk page for a failed proposal to merge Misplaced Pages:Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research which did not gain a consensus. -- PBS (talk) 11:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

I can find this...

I just realized that I have been citing this page as the reason to keep edit histories of merged from/redirected pages, but I cannot find where in this page that information is located. Is this information here anywhere, or us on another page? Steel1943 (talk) 19:06, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

...Possible WP:CWW? Steel1943 (talk) 19:07, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Where was the rationale for this change specifically discussed?

This 2007 edit changed "surprising or apparently important reports of recent events not covered by reliable news media" to "surprising or apparently important reports of historical events not covered by mainstream news media or historiography". thx, Humanengr 15:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

The edit summary does not provide rationale for that part of the edit, particularly the change from 'reliable' to 'mainstream'. Perhaps I missed it, but I see no reference to that change in archives here. Humanengr (talk) 22:07, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Who cares now 12 years later? This is a dead project. For it to be properly maintained, it must be kept in sync with current policies. Certainly since 2007 our policies changed A LOT.
Anyway, do you see anything wrong with this change? IMO it is OK. Current events are a red flag per se (i.e., beware fake news). Staszek Lem (talk) 02:38, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
AFAICS, this was where 'mainstream' was introduced on the way to its inclusion in WP:EXCEPTIONAL. For historical purposes, I'm trying to track down the rationale. Any help would be appreciated. thx, Humanengr (talk) 02:52, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Not an accurate summary

This page is not maintained see the diff between Revision as of 22:15, 25 March 2010 and Revision as of 09:27, 20 June 2019.

So I have removed the sentence from the nutshell that was added some time between those edits that stated "As a result, this page is kept as a cohesive summary of these two of our core content policies, a discussion how they work together."

  1. Because this talk page clearly show that there was no consensus for such a statement
  2. The diff shows that in practice this page is not maintained so it is not going to be an accurate summary of the to content policies it was supposed to replace.

In fact one of the reasons it failed to replace V and NPOV was because it was not a "cohesive summary" and never has been. -- PBS (talk) 09:39, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Seconded. This is a historical page and let it be as such. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:04, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

"Misplaced Pages:A" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Misplaced Pages:A and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Misplaced Pages:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 7#Misplaced Pages:A until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. interstatefive  17:27, 7 June 2022 (UTC)