Misplaced Pages

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WP:COLBERT

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

Male Domination?

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

Proposal of Bloque to Pedro for vandalism and racism

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s a brief summary of what Noviscum said:

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

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

It has been almost a week without recurrence. We can hope that a rewrite of Savage Islands to address the dispute in as balanced a fashion as possible has achieved peace between Portugal & Spain (or at least Portuguese & Spanish contributors). Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 03:32, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Proposed naming convention: military vehicles

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

Linkless signatures

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

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

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

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

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

Moved from Talk:Main Page

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

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

and my article got rejected?

why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LOL! But the rant was not the sole cause of the article's creation. The rant caused the issue to be reviewed, and the review led to the article's creation. Anyway, we both know what we mean. Carcharoth 09:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Do you list mergers on deletion review or elsewhere?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Since history merges are hard to undo, I prefer redirecting said edit history to the new article to retain attribution. When you feel a merge shouldn't have happened, you should mention it on the article talk page. Deletion review is, as the word says, for review of deletion, not merges. - Mgm| 17:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

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

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

Strange species capitalization convention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Original research, verifiability and relevance

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google maps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why not produce original artwork? The physical shape of an island cannot be protected by copyright, so there is nothing stopping you from taking the satellite photo and tracing the outline to produce your own map. — Haeleth Talk 00:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

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

Trivia sections a huge problem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wikimedia vs Misplaced Pages

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

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

Here are the facts that puzzle me:

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

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

Is Misplaced Pages governed and managed by Wikimedia?

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

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

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

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

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

But if we read a little further:

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

And here comes "manages" again.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But is that the limit of Wikimedia' governance?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you agree with this view?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proposed style guide on ALL CAPS

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

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

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

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

Cut and pasting and "merge" tab

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can't see how a merge tab would work in practice, but the status quo allows a form of vandalism that involves moving large chunks of text around Misplaced Pages and putting a "reasonable" edit summary explaining the move. The trouble is, if the edit summary does not say where and from where the text is moved, then it is very difficult to trace the origins of the text. I've seen this happen with the best of intentions (ie. not vandalism), but in effect it still messes things up horribly (see Talk:History_of_Greek_and_Roman_Egypt for an example). This "cut and paste loss of attribution" could, IMO, already be a major problem. Normally, after a period of, say, 5 years, you could go through the history and versions of a Misplaced Pages article and expect to see the text evolve and see different editors add different bits. But when a "cut and paste" event occurs, and the edit summaries are inadequate, then what you see is a large chunk of text disappear with no clue as to where it went, or conversely, a large chunk of text arrives with no clue as to where it came from. Now, you might say that it came from the editor adding it. But in fact, it could have been copied from another Misplaced Pages article, and in fact be the work of lots of Misplaced Pages editors and not the one doing the cut and paste move. Even using edit summaries to link back to the original is not ideal, as the edit history is not all being kept in one place. Carcharoth 09:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

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

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

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

Extension to page move mechanism

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

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

A few concerns:

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

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

Thoughts?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misplaced Pages:Civility

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

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

Consistency proposals

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

Similar Usernames

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

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

WP:CSD use and ab...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wrong again,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building notability guidelines

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

Speedy deletion doesn't seem to be so speedy lately

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Units of length

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

Are User pages protected?

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

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

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

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

If a vandal is vandalising your user page:

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

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

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

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

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

Unaccreditted institutions

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

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

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

Using the metric system in Misplaced Pages

Discussion moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) bobblewik 20:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Sketch from copyrighted article

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

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

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

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

Images pool

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

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

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

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

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

Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions#Stars

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

accent marks in English articles

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

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

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

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

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

Financial policy of Wikimedia Foundation

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

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

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

Note that if you use "e-mail this user" the email address you've provided in your account preferences is the "from" address of the mail that is sent (so the recipient can reply to you). -- Rick Block (talk) 23:49, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. That's why I'm holding off until I've changed it to somehing else. :-) Carcharoth 00:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Common Names vs. Manual of Style

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

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

Suggestion for German lanugage page approval implementation

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

Question about 3RR

A self-proclaimed new editor posted a stream of conciousness rant as a new section on a page I watch. Seeing that the issue this editor brought up was indeed a good addition, but lacking time to clean it up properly, I cut and pasted the changes to the article's talk page with a note that the info was useful but needed to be made encyclopedic, with the hope the person in question would do so. About 24 hours later the same editor tried again, with a note that "everyone" agrees the info should be on the page. Again, I cut the info and placed it on the talk page, with a note that discussions about the merits of the of the edits should not be placed on the main article space. A few minutes later the person, claiming they had no other way to reach me, asked if they could at least put a heading regarding the information. (Rather than simply doing it themselves.) I cut the info again, reminding the person that discussion belongs on the talk page, and shortly thereafter rewrote the content, making a short NPOV, properly wikified addition that was a summary of the information. (Sorry I'm being vague I don't wish to stir up more trouble by posting the article I'm talking about.)

I started a dialogue with this person, who on one hand feels we reached a good compromise and on the other is posting about having been a victim of 3RR. I don't think this is a case of 3RR, but I thought I would ask here. What would other editors do in a situation where you see a clumsy edit that you don't have time to clean up? I can't stand leaving these efforts on the page, and feel that pasting the info on the talk page for discussion is a good compromise. I realize different people have different wiki learning curves but I'm really frustrated trying to deal with this person, who keeps saying "but I was being BOLD". Any advice about what I can say to this person would be helpful.

Thanks for your help. 71.34.113.170 01:52, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Actual discussion, including moving stuff to the talk page to discuss it, trumps 3RR and Being Bold everytime, IMO. Edit warring, enforcing 3RR and Being Impatient Bold are confrontational ways of editing. Initiating discussion is the mature, reasonable way, and is always best. If the editor shows signs of being particularly impatient, give them a timescale for the discussion. Carcharoth 02:01, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

From reading your description (obviously cannot give full judgment without specific case), he was being bold, when he made the initial edit. After that, he was being non-cooperative by evading discussion, actual severity or possible rulebreaks unknown. WP:BOLD applies to original actions prior to dispute, and is there so that people don't go "but I'm too scared/shy to edit! What if no one likes it?". After your edits are disputed, that's where collaboration is supposed to take over. --tjstrf 02:07, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

It looks like a good time to post the matter at Requests for Comment. Durova 15:28, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with Carcharoth's assertion that 3RR does not apply if there is discussion. If you get to the third contentious edit on anything, you should stop and take a breather. Discussion doesn't mean "I reverted your edit and here's why". Discussion means "I think your edit should be reverted and here's why".

Yes, I know this is really hard to do when there's an egregiously bad piece of text in article mainspace. You have to use your judgment. If the text says "John Seigenthaler was suspected of..." then you have to take it out and rely on the "gross violation of policy" defense. If, on the other hand, it's just a POV rant, then it's probably better to let it stand after your second attempt and let another editor step in. If this doesn't prevent an edit war, then issue an RFC and go through the dispute resolution process. Consider this (proposed) guideline: Other than slander, libel, copyright violations and incivility in the article itself, the biggest sin on Misplaced Pages is edit-warring. Avoid it at all costs. --Richard 19:36, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Responding to your comment about 3RR and discussion, I don't think I was clear about what I meant. I was really trying to say that blocking for 3RR is something that, in my opinion, shouldn't be done if discussion has started and it looks like a consensus may be reached. In other words, a series of straight reverts with both sides screaming 3RR at each other and not attempting to discuss things, is bad. But if there is dialogue going on, then nurturing that is better than an admin coming along and using a block. Carcharoth 09:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinions. I may have gotten a little carried away, since I was thinking only of not leaving a bunch of crap (not libelous, just heavily POV and ranty to the point of being garbled) in the article and not about 3RR, but really there were only 2 reversions in a 24-hour period and we worked it out after that. I had reacted when I saw an IP editor keep repeating the same mistake (and I had explained what the problem was on the talk page) and I tried to remedy this the best I could. (I'm not really an IP; I have 2000 mainspace edits.) I'm just frustrated the person started bringing up 3RR, claiming they feel bitten, rather than addressing the issues I had with what they added. (Which I pointed out without name calling, while they accused me of censorship and other things bordering on uncivil.) I guess I'm more thick-skinned. If someone had pointed out what I had done wrong, I would have learned what to do right and not repeat the mistake. So it's hard for me to hear: "But I'm still learning!" when I have given them the tools to learn. But not everyone is like me, thank god. So I'm trying to learn from this. I'll try to be more careful/patient in the future. In other words: BE TIMID! And other than arguing about whether or not I was being mean to this person, we have worked out the issue, so no need for comments or dispute resolution at this point, though I let the person know that was an option. 71.34.113.170 01:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Attempt to pass a policy with only 59% in favor

--SPUI (T - C) 10:06, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Lyrics on song pages

Is it a wikipedia policy not to have lyrics on the pages of songs? Is this a copyright issue? I would have thought if a song is important enough to warrant its own encyclopaedia article, surely the lyrics are the first thing you'd want to include in it. Suicup 14:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

• Yup, song lyrics are copyrighted unless they're so old that they've entered the public domain. If you get reprint permission from the copyright holder, go ahead (with appropriate copyright and permission notice attached). Durova 15:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Standard caveat: the author must release the work under the GFDL or a strictly more liberal license such as fair use, and we don't reprint long works; those usually go in Wikisource. In particular a simple permission letter or Creative Commons license is not adequate. Deco 22:58, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
• Misplaced Pages policy also frowns on links to sites which contain lyrics if the site owner is not the rights owner to the lyrics. We don't link to copyright violations any more than allowing them here. User:Zoe|(talk) 02:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

automation

I have very little experience as a Misplaced Pages editor, so perhaps these are stupid questions but,

1. If every comment should be signed and signing is the same for everyone (simply involving typing four tildes at the end) is there any reason the system can’t add the tildes/signature its self to save us humans the work?

2. From http://en.wikipedia.org/Special:DoubleRedirects : “Each row contains links to the first and second redirect, as well as the first line of the second redirect text, usually giving the "real" target page, which the first redirect should point to” Under what conditions would it not be desirable to make the first redirect point directly to the target of the second redirect? Surely the process that gathers this information could be upgraded a little to make the change without intervention.

165.165.204.124 16:11, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

These might belong more at the Proposals pump. For #1, I could imagine the following: there's a little check box next to "minor edit" and "watch page" called "sign". If it's checked when you save your edit, it inserts your signature after the last character you added. (But if it's checked and you sign anyway, it doesn't add a second sig.) Upon editing a page, the box would be checked by default if and only if:

1. You have it enabled (or not disabled) in your personal preferences, AND
2. One of following is true:
   • It is a Talk: page (or Misplaced Pages talk:, User talk:, ...)
   • The page already contains signatures. (to account for AfD, Refdesks, pumps...)

Moreover, the function would be completely disabled and invisible on articles, categories, and templates.

Does that sound about right? Melchoir 16:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I believe that description on the special double redirects page is telling how to read the listing, not telling what the text is on the redirect pages themselves. -Freekee 03:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

There are certainly legitimate cases where you don't want to skip redirects. For example, if an article refers to chair, which currently redirects to furniture, but might later have its own article at chair. It is my opinion however that the software should follow multiple redirects in a row. As for tildes, this is just the smallest problem with our current discussion system, among the large number that LiquidThreads aims to fix. Deco 07:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Changing article names when they are not grammatical

I am trying to change the article Great standing on the Ugra river to Great Stand on the Ugra River, purely for reasons of English language conventions. This means that I have to redirect people from the original one. There is no way that I can see to migrate a change through many pages. Perhaps this is something that others have wanted to deal with. Is there a way to propose such changes? It seems like a major policy issue to have a name that actually is grammatically and semantically correct in English. The capitalization of such names is also a problem since redirects for every possible capitalization pattern do not make sense.

Thanks,

Nathan

See WP:RM. --Golbez 16:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I would check to see first if it's correct to make this change. The article refers to the event as "The Great standing..." so perhaps historically "Standing" is the correct term. Similarly I would doublecheck to make sure "Stand"/"Standing" is supposed to be capitalized in this instance. 23skidoo 17:50, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I have a situation

Editors defy WP:V's intent. When confronted with the particular and specific portion of WP:RS which spells out how the edit is counter to the intent of WP:V, the editors simply revert their shit back in and state, "oh, WP:RS is just a guideline". In earlier instances editors have stated, I'm just going to revert it every time" (and no more discussion about whether the edit follows policy or not). Mostly it is personal opinion appearing on personal websites, cited as secondary sources that I'm talking about. While you would think a concensus of editors would agree toward more stable, reliable articles, the situation is just the opposite. A consensus of editors agree to cite newsgroup information, personal opinion, original research and personal websites. What to do, what to do? <a disguntled Scientology Series editor> Terryeo 20:34, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I sympathize with you. Yours is not a fun situation to be in. For moral support, consider joining WP:ESPERANZA. To address the specific dispute, follow the dispute resolution process.

Most importantly, step away from the computer, take a deep breath, maybe even a walk or a couple days away from Misplaced Pages. Then come back and hopefully you'll have a different perspective on how important all of this is.

Good luck.

--Richard 20:45, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Lol, good of you to state some understanding. Happy Ho Ho's. Terryeo 20:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Numbers need citations

In light of the fact that too many articles these days have unsourced numerical figures and statistics, I propose this guideline as a means of insisting that all numbers in articles require citation. Dr Chatterjee 09:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. I would suggest making it a section of one of the citation policy documents though, such as WP:CITE, rather than put it on its own page. Carcharoth 09:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That was my initial consideration, though I feel that a special sub-policy/guideline specifically for numbers is needed. Numbers, more than any other types of statements, require citation. They are utterly meaningless and invalid without proper sourcing. That being the case, it may be useful to have a dedicated policy page specifically and succinctly describing as much. Dr Chatterjee 09:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

OK. Comment added on talk page for that proposed guideline. Carcharoth 09:50, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd say this should really be moved wholesale into WP:VERIFY and WP:CITE. ALready it is required that such statements are referenced, this document only really agrees again with this and provides some suggestions on the matter. It should be noted that there are some forms of statement that need to have references more than numbers - in particular, those relating to living people. Nice idea, though :) LinaMishima 13:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words. :) Whatever the consensus ends up being on this proposal, I definitely think we need to enforce/practice these ideas re: numerical citations with increasing frequency. Unsubstantiated numbers are a huge problem standing in the way of Misplaced Pages's being taken seriously as an academic source. Dr Chatterjee 14:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a good idea, but there's almost an implicit suggestion in there that non-numbers do not require citations. Everything in Misplaced Pages articles need a citation, and we should be crystal clear about that point to people. Implying one thing is more important than another might serve to confuse new users. Fagstein 18:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Deleting the talk pages of editors with a significant edit history

I have brought this up before, but there has not been a satisfactory resolution. Practice, and until recently English Misplaced Pages policy, has been to not delete user talk pages of users with a significant editing history unless they are suffering from harassment or there is some other extreme circumstance. However, Misplaced Pages:User page has been modified to include a link to m:Right to vanish and the exceptional circumstances required for deletion are not mentioned, which gives the impression that anyone can request deletion of their talk page under right to vanish. Is this what we want? I do not mind if it is, I just want there to be consistency about it. The deletion of user talk pages has often been reversed in the past. The only ones to stick that I know of are cases when there has been harassment, when a sympathetic admin has deleted the page with no one who might object noticing, or when Jimbo has deleted the page due to a request by the user or to stop an edit war of deleting and restoring (Rbj came back and a new page was started, while Locke Cole's page was started over with new messages after he left. Neither page was restored.). Also, occasionally a talk page is deleted as part of an agreement that an editor will leave.

I think ordinary users should get the same treatment as vandals, those who are admins or have friends who are admins, and those who appeal to Jimbo. I propose that Misplaced Pages:User page be modified to say either that editors may request the deletion of their talk pages under right to vanish, or that user talk pages are not deleted except in extreme circumstances, such as harassment of the user.

Some may want there to be some qualifications for deletion by right to vanish, such as not being a "serial vanisher". This makes sense to me, although I would give a user a second chance before denying deletion requests. At least one editor did not want to delete the talk page of a user who has warning on his or her talk page, but since the user is leaving and the page will be restored upon returning, I do not think it matters.

For the no deletion option, some may want to allow the blanking and protecting of a user's talk page as a compromise. The history would still be visible to all users, but would it would be less visible and the deleted content would no longer be indexed by search engines, although it would take a little while for the page to stop showing up in search results based on the previous contents of the page. Also, protecting the page prevents additional messages from being posted. This would be done for those who are truly leaving Misplaced Pages and who want to vanish, so there is no point in further messages, positive or negative. If the user does return, the page can be unprotected and reverted to its pre-blanking state.

Finally, there is a question of what to do when the policy, guidelines or practices on the English Misplaced Pages, or any other project, are in conflict with those on Meta, unless there is a policy somewhere about this that I do not know about.

This is what spurred this second post on the subject. The requested deletion of his talk page under right to vanish, and as of my writing this, the consensus was to delete and the page has been deleted. I put this at the bottom so that hopefully people will read my post before going off to comment and to stop them from thinking that this is just a response to that particular situation. -- Kjkolb 12:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I think in general, if someone wants to leave and delete their user page and user talk page, we should accomodate them. Usually when people want this, it is because they are problem users anyway (not all! but usually). Better to let people walk away with dignity, why not?--Jimbo Wales 09:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Sections "In popular culture" for tragic events

I am concerned about the sections "In popular culture" for events that are seens as tragic e.g. Jonestown. See Talk:September_11,_2001_attacks#Attacks_in_popular_culture Some contributors may find a section "In popular culture" for tragic events inappropriate. I understand this and I have some sympathy for this, but this should be applied consistently. Why is this okay for Jonestown but not for the September_11,_2001_attacks. What is or should be the policy on this? Andries 14:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not censored, I'm afraid. Although such things may include aspects of questionable content, the effects on popular culture provide a vital comentary on the event itself. At most such things should be spun off into a seperate article, but never wholesale removed if they are properly referenced. LinaMishima 15:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

LinaMishima, thanks for your reply. I cannot say that I like your reply, but I think if this is the policy then it should be applied consistently and not make exceptions for e.g. the Holocaust. Of course, I realize that it is a very sensitive subject for a lot of people, but for me other articles are sensitive (e.g. Jonestown) and I think it is wrong to make distinction. Andries 17:10, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

As mentioned on Talk:September_11,_2001_attacks, the "pop culture" section became way too long, and was split off into a separate subarticle. (see discussion) Has nothing to do with this being a "sensitive subject". There is an extensive category (and subcategories) of articles relating to 9/11, with the amount of material quite large. To maintain a reasonable article size, some material (especially that less central to the topic) will be split off into subarticles. --Aude (talk contribs) 17:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

For Jonestown there is just one article. Should this article grow so large, exceeding recommended article size, then it would be appropriate to split off sections into subarticles, per WP:SUMMARY. --Aude (talk contribs) 17:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

To me, this goes beyond the issue of "tragic events", but is more an issue of "trivia sections" in articles. I personally don't care for these sections and think they distract from the quality of the article. Look at some examples in Misplaced Pages:Featured_articles#History, which tend not to have "trivia" sections or list of pop culture references. Though, pop culture sections are okay (in my opinion) if they are properly referenced, put into prose format, and explained why they are relevant/notable in relation to the event. You might check out WP:TRIVIA and Misplaced Pages:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information for more guidance. --Aude (talk contribs) 18:08, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, no exceptions have been made for Holocaust, they simply have a far more sensible and explained section entitled "Impact on culture". LinaMishima 19:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Vandalism is not a game

I've written this proposal in an attempt to create a more effective and glamour-free method of dealing with vandalism on Misplaced Pages. Its principles are similar to those espoused in the essay WP:DENY, though more nuanced and specific to the problems inherent to "counter-vandalism" as well as vandalism. Dr Chatterjee 15:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Symbols as words

Manual of Style (trademarks) is one of those obscure guide pages that is occassionally important. At present there is some confusion of whether writing things like "I ♥ NY", where ♥ substitutes for "love" are allowed or not. In the spirit of the guideline, I think they should be actively discouraged, but before rewriting that part of the guideline, I'd like to draw a little more attention to what is ordinarily an obscure talk page. Please comment at: Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style (trademarks)#Symbols as words. Dragons flight 19:15, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

User talk blanking

I would like to propose a policy to prevent users from blanking, or removing content from their own user talk pages. It is currently considered bad etiquette, but it is still allowed. When a user does this, it makes disscussion hard to follow, and if information is needed in the future, finding it would require searching through page history after page history.

Archiving of such pages should still be allowed. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 20:41, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

This would, I presume, not apply to vandalism? --tjstrf 20:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Reversion of blatant vandalism and abuse would be exempt. It would be treated in much the same way as any other talk page. --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 21:07, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, if I see someone blank their talk page, I just leave them a nice note explaining how to archive pages, telling them blanking is frowned upon, and asking them to please not do it again. Works like a charm most of the time. (Of course, if they're blanking an ongoing dispute or ongoing vandal warnings, then I restore it.) Do we really need a policy on this, or would it just be more instruction creep? --tjstrf 21:13, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Some very old editors, myself included, do not believe in creating personal talk page archives. Those conversations (unlike article talk pages) are usually discussions between myself and one other user and once they are completed to all parties satisfaction I don't see any need to provide others (and all of Google) with easy access to those conversations. Dragons flight 21:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. Maybe I'll trim my archives of any discussions not relevant to third parties... --Golbez 21:33, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict, directed at Dragon's Flight) Yes, navigating anything related to your talk page would be quite difficult. 87 kb? No offense intended, but I don't see how anyone even finds their own comments on that page. Also, wouldn't page move archiving actually do a better job of obscuring past conversations, since the history is relocated as well? --tjstrf 21:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

"(User talk blanking) is currently considered bad etiquette"... By whom? Refactoring/cleaning-up is good. Eugène van der Pijll 21:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:TP --GW_Simulations_{User Page | Talk} 22:24, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? Can't find it there. Eugène van der Pijll 22:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I would be absolutely opposed to such a policy. I've seen far too much harassment of good faith users who simply don't want to keep particular messages. I've seen such users being sent vandalism warning templates, and being threatened with blocks, and eventually getting very angry over something that should never have been an issue in the first place. There are certain posts that should be left in place — block notices and warnings for the duration of a block, sockpuppet templates placed by administrators, etc. But unwanted messaages sent to an ordinary, non-troublesome user who is making good edits and otherwise minding his own business? Administrators are actually more likely to block someone for harassment who keeps restoring those messages. Removing messages from your talk page is not disruptive, unless it's done like this. Also, there are cases (I've known some) where a user removes a post from his talk page because that post indirectly gives personal information about him. It would be nice if such users could do so disrceetly, without having a whole pile of busybodies descending on his page to restore the unwanted message, and generally draw more attention to it. If an editor's management of his own talk page does not interfere with writing an encyclopaedia, then that editor should be left in peace. AnnH ♫ 23:37, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. Management of such user talk pages can be creative, to say the least. This is definitely a case of following the spirit of the law, rather than the letter. At the risk of stepping on WP:BEANS, I once saw an editor who moved their talk page (and its history) to a subpage of their user page, and then managed to get someone to speedy delete that subpage because "it was a subpage and I don't need it any more". Thus they managed to delete a large chunk of their talk page history, possibly (though this was not certain) to hide certain exchanges that had taken place with other editors. But seriously, in general I agree with AnnH - editor's should in general be left in peace to manage their own talk pages. I'm still dithering over which archiving method to use for my user talk page, and whether to refactor to keep related topics together... Carcharoth 00:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Blanket Semi-Protection

See WP:BSP. mrholybrain 00:55, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Posted POV tag, now what?

(I looked in the FAQ for this but did not find an answer).

I read an article about a political writer that I felt violated the POV guidelines. I added the POV tag to the article and explained why under the article's Talk section. Is that the correct procedure? What is to stop the article's author from simply deleting my POV tag?

Hanover81 01:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Nothing is to stop the other author from removing it, but if the other author does remove it, it is considered vandalism, and if the other author does it repeatedy, he/she may be blocked. You followed the correct procedure 100% :-) —Mets501 (talk) 01:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course there is a better way to remove a Neutral Point of View tag, & that is to resolve the differences of opinion. Someone, perhaps you, should try to improve the article in such a way that it clearly and in a balanced fashion represents both points of view. When a reasonable attempt has been made to do so, it is also reasonable to propose removing the tag. This normally works by indications on the discussion page that one has made what they consider a pivotal change—they give it a day or two—and then remove the tag. Doesn’t always work, but if you work in good faith, it often does. Williamborg (Bill) 01:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

thank you Williamborg, I was editing the Powell page at the same time as you. I readded a few changes. Please let me know what you think. I like Misplaced Pages and use it sometimes in my work so NPOV is important to me. If you think my changes are acceptable I'd support removing the NPOV tag from the Powell article. Hanover81 02:33, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Removed the tag; your edits were fine; although I detect you are sensitive that he not be titled a historian, I see no problem there.

Appreciate your kind comments. You’re most welcome of course. We as Wikipedians are supposed to strive toward a neutral points of view. And almost everyone appreciates a well written NPOV article that doesn’t set off our alarms when we read it.

Keep up the excellent editing. Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 03:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Renaming Misplaced Pages:Vanity guidelines

Hi. I'm posting here to see what people think of the idea of renaming the "Vanity guidelines", and calling them Misplaced Pages:Conflict of interest guidelines instead. This suggestion arose in a conversation at Misplaced Pages talk:No original research, in which people were lamenting that "Vanity" is such a non-descriptive and prejudicial sounding name. I think it makes sense that someone would react much better to being told they were possibly in violation of a "conflict of interest" guideline instead of a "vanity" guideline, which sounds like we're trying to say they have some kind of character flaw, like narcissism or excessive pride or egoism. Opinions? -GTBacchus 01:51, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Conflicts of interest are different than what we describe as vanity, because conflicts of interest would also include situations where you had a particularly strong or vested POV about an issue. e.g., editing pages about a corporation you had been fired from would be a conflict of interests, but not Vanity. Conflicts of interest are a much broader set of possible neutrality infractions than vanity covers, and a Misplaced Pages:Avoid Conflicts of Interest would have to be a new policy, not simply a rename of Vanity. However, it is a good concept you bring up, and mentioning conflicts of interest as a detractor from the neutral point of view would be a positive. --tjstrf 02:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Listing individual chapters on Serialized Fiction

Is there any guidance of listing individual chapters for books and/or serialized fiction? Does anyone have opinions on if it should be done or not? (There are multiple instances of it cropping up in a wikiproject that I participate in, including creating separate articles just to list chapter titles.) --Kunzite 03:29, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Not policy, but seems like Misplaced Pages:Fancruft might be worth reading. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:45, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I find it difficult to imagine a book chapter with sufficient notability in and of itself to deserve an article. Not to say such chapters don't exist - I just haven't seen one. Similarly, in a typical book I would expect, at best, a few chapters to have sufficient notability to deserve coverage in the article on the book. I invite you to cite specific examples however, in order to prove that you're not asking a leading question. Deco 08:08, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

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