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Changelogs

KelleyCook (talk · contribs) removed the bullet point about changelogs earlier today, about three hours after one of his/her articles was nominated for deletion. Personally, I think this is a no-brainer, as the spirit would violate NOT's ideas about cataloguing and indiscriminate information anyway, but there are a worrying amount of glorified changelog articles (see, the AfDed articles)... Sceptre 20:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Without commenting directly on the AFDs, this was something that was spun out of the guidelines that have been used by the gaming wikiproject for a while now. In some instances it might be reason to remove an article. You might also consider reducing the coverage of the versions down to something more like a summary than a complete changelog. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
To describe the history of a piece of software you have to have some description of how it has changed over time. For commercial reasons the release dates of software and the introduction of features have become quite significant, and such milestones in the software's history can be notable and are worth documenting. Major, complex pieces of software like operating systems usually have thousands of changes between versions, and obviously listing every single change is inappropriate, but a condensed list selected by editors is worthwhile and provides a valuable reference by showing a condensed history that is (ideally) free from marketing gloss and hype.
The only past discussion I could find about changelogs is here, and I agree with the editor who said "A brief summary of versions is appropriate. Listing individual bugfixes as they appeared in v2.08 build 1037 is obviously over the top." I suggest a tighter definition of "changelog" along these lines.
I think the previous wording, "avoid a complete step-by-step record of every release or update", was too broad. The current wording, which was incorrectly tagged as an Undo, is slightly better, but should be more explicit about the suggested level of detail, giving examples. The wording "violates other precepts of this policy" is too vague, if it is indiscriminate say so. Dcxf (talk) 00:04, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
It's actually still pretty indiscriminate to include bulk text of changelogs even if you are selectively pulling only the biggest changes. I would almost argue that the better way to look at these articles is that they should be changelogs as viewed from the standpoint of third-party/secondary sources. A new feature introduced to an OS update that is caught on by sources is appropriate to include. A significant bug fix that can only be sourced by pointing to the change log is not. We're an encyclopedia, and we should be summarizing the changelogs over time, examining it as a history/timeline, than a routine "version number and here's what changed" role. --MASEM (t) 00:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
For example, looking at the iOS version history article, for example, 4.1, the important changes, such as Game Center and HDR for the iPhone 4, it's lost in all stuff about iPhone 3G bugfixes. Same for iOS 5: there's a lot of stuff no-one really uses given equal prominence to the Notification Center and Siri; indeed, background changes to Safari get more bullet points than the introduction of a groundbreaking voice control app. Hence, the proposed text:

Release notes and changelogs: An article about a product should only discuss changes that have likewise been discussed in reliable secondary sources. New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics, and bug fixes, unless notable in themselves for fixing a major software flaw, should not be discussed.

Sceptre 01:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with this approach--the excessive detail has concerned me, and without a rule, it's been difficult to get rid of it consistently. DGG ( talk ) 01:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Also strongly agree with this approach. This also reflects best practices on good/featured articles. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay, but there should not be a need to differentiate between features and bug fixes in the guide: WP:DUE weight applies in both cases. Uniplex (talk) 05:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
I'll put in two cents: I really like being able to see changelogs on wikipedia in the well known, easy to read wikipedia format. The deletion note on the iOS page is what brought me here. I agree that the level of detail might be inappropriate, but deletion would be a shame and, I think, against the principle of the site. To me the contents on that page is relevant information. Glaux (talk) 10:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
What is "well known easy to read wikipedia format"? By default, Misplaced Pages generally formats into prose, not tables. And like on that iOS page (which you note people are not saying should be deleted but should be radically rewritten) there's a lot of people arguing usefulness and the like, but "usefulness" or "utility" are not reasons to break the nature of WP as a tertiary, summarizing source. --MASEM (t) 12:36, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
"New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics": this seems too vague and could be interpreted in any number of ways. If I say that a new feature was added am I being abstract or specific? I suggest something like "Briefly summarize notable new features rather than describing every detail of their implementation". Also I don't think the requirement for secondary sources will help much for major packages like iOS as there are reliable sources that will happily list all the changes in great detail, e.g. . I think a determined editor could source almost everything on the current list, so this policy would entrench the current version rather than shortening it. Dcxf (talk) 19:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
The intention is that we say something like "Siri is a natural language processor for the iPhone 4S which replaces the Voice Control app in previous versions and is integrated into most of the device's stock software", instead of going all the way down the feature list (it can text people, make appointments... and tell you where to hide a dead body). Sceptre 08:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure that is the best example. As a major feature in a major OS, it probably would warrant more detail, but not everything. (I was about to say we could probably justify an article on it, but there is one already, though I think it could use more detail. ) DGG ( talk ) 01:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I am still not happy with the wording, but is a specific policy for changelogs even necessary? Since we seem to have established that a blanket ban on changelogs per se is not desirable, isn't everything else already covered by WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:DUE, WP:V, etc? I don't think the policy as written would "fix" the iOS version history article, so perhaps we should leave that up to editors. Dcxf (talk) 22:38, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Also not happy with the wording (e.g. "the abstract" also means "the lead"). You're right inasmuch that if folk take on board the policy, this entire guideline is not necessary. However, a list of specific "don'ts" is often more accessible to newcomers than a list of general "dos". Uniplex (talk) 05:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's a stab at some wording:

  • Product release-notes and ‘changelogs’ are primary sources of information, so their content is not in general suitable for inclusion in Misplaced Pages articles. An article on a product (or, if it has been split, a sub-article) may discuss the product's (version) history, but such information should be obtained from discussion by secondary sources and be in proportion to their treatment of the overall topic. Alternatively, a stand-alone article on the version history of the product might be created, providing that the topic of the product's version history (distinct from that of the product, or individual product versions) meets Misplaced Pages's topic notability guideline (and the content is sourced accordingly).

Uniplex (talk) 07:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

    • Dismissing primary sources is not going to fly well, they actually may be suitable for specific information. The point that Spectre's change is is to address the fact that we summarize info, not flatout repeat it, and thus should distill the key change features from what secondary sources say are important. --MASEM (t) 13:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
They're not dismissed: the text says "in general", but if we're not trying to steer people away from including wads of primary sourced info, then maybe we don't need the guideline. Uniplex (talk) 13:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
The simpler way to say this, in not so many words is "Discussion of the history of a software production should not include text from changelogs or patches verbatim, but should be summarized and filtered based on coverage from secondary sources." That's pretty much it. --MASEM (t) 13:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I support the opinion that while primary sources are not to be dismissed altogether, the secondary sources must be the basis for decision what is included and what is not, and how the feature description must be summarized and further evaluated. I.e., the secondary sources must decide which information is encyclopedic. There is no reason to turn wikipedia into a product billboard. After all, everything must be easily found in the product website (if not, then the product support sucks). Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 16:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

While Sceptre's proposal is reasonable, the phrase "features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics" is a way too abstract guideline. What is "abstract"? Have you had a change to read patent specs where definitions are as abstract as possible, to increase patent coverage? I would suggest a more direct advice: "Descriptions of functionality ("features" is functionality, right?) must be reasonably summarized, omitting technical details not essential to the understanding of the feature". Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 16:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Except that, at times, specific technical details may be the core part of why something's notable. I don't know of a specific example, but lets say on change in a changelog increases allowed memory use from 256 mg to 1 gb. By itself that's a technical detail with no relevance to a non-user of the product. If, on the other hand, third-party or secondary sources comment that the increase of memory to 1 gb drastically improves performance in a manner that can be related in an abstract way that the non-user can understand, that may be a detail to keep. More often than not, however, I think the results of summarizing such articles would be the new features added, as opposed to changes on old features. --MASEM (t) 16:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
OK, a possible correction: "...not essential to the understanding of the feature or of its importance". On the second thought, no correction is needed: if an independent party assers an importance of a fact, then this fact deserves incorporation regardless this policy. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Changelogs vs version or release history

An important distinction needs to be made between a changelog and a version history (or release history). I've seen many people confuse these two and attempt to use parts of WP:NOTDIR's Changelogs or release notes as justification for removing encyclopedic content, but while the two concepts are related, they serve very different purposes.

A changelog usually contains detail of each change made between each version. A version history usually just contains version numbers and release dates (and sometimes a summary or notes of major or important changes). It is a normal convention here on Misplaced Pages to summarise or include a version history for larger software programs with a significant history. A few such examples include Emacs#Release history and Mozilla firefox#Release history (also History of Firefox).

To give another real-world example with which I'm very familiar, the detailed Changes* files in Eggdrop's software repository are changelogs, while the Versions file is a version/release history. I'm familiar with these because a number of years ago I "volunteered" months of my time to comb through email and software/patch archives for this project in order to compile this information. While I had to build the version history from scratch using the various archives, many of the changelogs existed in various parts in past releases and patches, but still had to be brought together and unified in a common format.

The motivation for this work was two-fold. One, without it, the history of the project was buried and mostly inaccessible to most people because it was not readily available online. Two, without the changelogs, proper attribution was not being given to those whom had contributed their time and knowledge to the project.

As hard as it might be for many of us on Misplaced Pages to imagine, I caught some flack for "volunteering" my time on this. A number of others who sometimes contributed to that project thought I was "wasting my time" on something unimportant and would have preferred I work exclusively on bugfixes (which I've contributed in the past as well). I was also attacked here on Misplaced Pages by this guy and a couple of his friends after he tried to track down projects I had contributed to outside of Misplaced Pages, and tried to use that to attack me here on Misplaced Pages. (For those curious, most of it has since been documented at the top of my talk page.)

To get fully back on the original topic though, version histories are encyclopedic and usually worth noting in an article, but there would be little value for most readers to include complete changelogs. Due to editor confusion, the Changelogs or release notes WP:NOTDIR entry which was added on 24 February 2011 in revision 415608718 either needs to be removed or clarified so that well meaning editors don't end up trying to remove encyclopedic content because they think the inclusion of a version or release history conflicts with Misplaced Pages policy. If this can't be clarified soon, in the interest of preventing edit wars and avoiding the loss of encyclopedic content, I'll remove this newer addition myself per WP:BRD until we can figure out how to keep such an addition to WP:NOT from conflicting with longstanding practice. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Self-promotion of academics on Misplaced Pages

Greetings. I received an interesting email at the end of the summer from Sage Publishing, who produce many top-tier journals (at least in my area of Communication and Media). On their "10 Ways to Increase Usage and Citations of Your Article", the first suggestion is to "Contribute to Misplaced Pages". They write:

"We recognize that many students are increasingly using Misplaced Pages as the starting point for their research. If there are pages that relate to themes, subjects or research that your article covers, add your article as a reference, with a link to it on SAGE Journals Online. If there isn’t a page in existence, why not create one? You can find out how here."

This seems a little dicey to me. Sure, published journal articles make good citations for Misplaced Pages articles and add credibility to content, but it just seems to me a bit too close to home for academics to be, in essence, using Misplaced Pages for professional self-promotion. I'm interested in hearing what others think? UOJComm (talk) 18:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I like it, and am always glad to see academic interest in editing Misplaced Pages. Since the articles should be reliable(being published in Academic journals) and since no particular point of view is being expressed I think this has more potential to bring in new editors, activity, and sources the encyclopedia than it does harm. If someone is self promoting in a harmful way then we have current methods for handling that.AerobicFox (talk) 19:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
Im good with it as well- so long as the new editors are up to date on policy and Coin. Id certaintly like to see more enduring science articles than all the video game related ones that flood wiki. Ottawa4ever (talk) 20:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm okay with it too if they follow the policies in a fairly reasonable way. Dmcq (talk) 21:44, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
It is OK, as long as everybody will be made aware that nothing is cast in stone, that everything must be judged by notability criteria, that publication in a peer-reviewed journal is not an ultimate truth. It will be good to have more contributors, but when academics and their students will flock here, some articles may turn into chaotic collections of scentific trivia, which must be periodically refactored. But this may happen with every topic, see eg, the #Changelogs discussion. Possibly, new wikiepdia guidelines will be due. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 16:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

What What Misplaced Pages is not is not

The guideline contains a wise phrase "Misplaced Pages is not any of a very long list of terrible ideas." Unfortunately it is at the very end, in the "And finally..." section. That is probably why there are so many failed suggestions to expand this policy. Therefore first of all, I would suggest to move this caveat to the preamble of the page.

Second, I think that "And finally..." gives a somewhat wrong, if indirect, advice: "Almost everything on this page made it here because somebody managed to come up with some new bad idea that had not previously been anticipated". If some smart-ass managed to do something stupid here, I don't think that this would be the reason to immediately document a ban on this new kind of stupidity. Therefore the preamble must include a phrase to the end that this policy documents common misconceptions about what and how wikipedia must be written.

In other words ,

"What wikipedia is not" is not
  • a list of all pranks done to wikipedia
  • a list of all text and data formats other than encyclopedic format
  • a list of all human behaviors other than writing encyclopedia
and finally, it is not a crystall ball on how people may screw up writing wikipedia.


I would also suggest to put a note to this end on top of this talk page as well. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 18:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

RfC on "verifiability, not truth"

There is an RfC here on whether to remove from the lead of Misplaced Pages:Verifiability that "the threshold for inclusion in Misplaced Pages is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Misplaced Pages has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

Note: the link above should read that the RfC can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#RFC - Compromise proposal re first sentence  Unscintillating (talk) 19:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

The RfC is likely to close in a few days so if you want to comment, please do so soonish. Many thanks, SlimVirgin 01:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The proposal is a lot more complex than just removing the line ... but you can read it and the rational for it at the RfC... in any case, I echo SV's call for you to come and comment. Blueboar (talk) 02:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

What Misplaced Pages Is

Would it be correct to say, based on the information I have found on this page and on others, this:

Misplaced Pages is an organized compendium of knowledge. The knowledge contained in this compendium is fairly notable.

DCItalk 21:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Good idea to start on the main missing policy "What Misplaced Pages is". But while the article subjects are notable, the individual pieces of information in the articles are not necessarily notable. North8000 (talk) 10:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Engaging articles on notable topics. Uniplex (talk) 11:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
See also: WP:ENC. Robofish (talk) 17:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

What WP:NOTCENSORED is not

I'm starting this discussion in response to a dispute on WP:ANI over the use of images on the Muhammad article. This discussion is not about that particular dispute (although you can read it here if you want the grisly details). It's about what I see as a growing misuse of WP:NOTCENSORED. I think it's time we agreed on exactly what that policy means.

Here's how I see it: WP:NOTCENSORED simply means that Misplaced Pages is not subject to any formal censorship. There is no 'censor body', such as the FCC, the BBFC or the Comics Code Authority, controlling what appears on Misplaced Pages; there is no equivalent of the Hays code restricting what content we can include. The only restrictions we are formally subject to are the law in the state of Florida, and WP:OFFICE actions. Beyond that, in principle, anything goes. (There are additional restrictions we've imposed on ourselves, such as the requirements of WP:BLP, but not because any outside body has forced us to do so.)

Some people seem to take NOTCENSORED much further than that, to mean something along the lines of 'content must not be removed solely for the reasons of being offensive to someone', or even 'offensiveness is never a legitimate reason to remove content'. I don't think the policy says anything of the kind. All that NOTCENSORED means is that there are no rules requiring that offensive content must be automatically removed, as copyright infringements and libellous material about living people must be. But it doesn't mean that content can't ever be removed for being offensive, providing there is a consensus to do so.

The policy page currently states '"being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds in itself for removal of content.'; but in reality, on several occasions images and text have been removed from various articles for being offensive or objectionable, where there was a local consensus to remove them, and that will continue to happen in future. (The only specific example I can think of at the moment is goatse.cx, but I'm sure it has happened on other articles as well.) Perhaps what the policy means is that offensiveness on its own is not enough, and content should only be removed where it is both offensive and of no educational value. But even if so, the offensiveness of the content is still a relevant factor to its removal.

Here's the TLDR version: that an image, or any other content, is offensive to many is not necessarily grounds for its removal from an article. But in some cases, it can be; and if a consensus of users agree that certain content is so offensive it should be removed, then it should be removed, and NOTCENSORED would not prevent that removal.

Please add your comments below. And remember, this is not about the specific Muhammad images (which I actually support including, for what it's worth), but the general principles here. Robofish (talk) 17:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(Or, the even shorter, pithier version: 'WP:NOTCENSORED is not the First Amendment'.) Robofish (talk) 18:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
  • Regarding religious "offense" (for violating a religious edict, as the case you point to is about), it does indeed exactly say that. Last paragraph. With no waffle words like "should not". Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | /CN 18:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
  • One cannot simply disconnect the various factors. They are, in order of causality, (1) a religious edict forbids those of certain sects of the Islamic faith from making or viewing such representations, (2) some from those sects believe such an edict applies to everyone, (3) their offense is over the fact that we are violating their understanding of their religious edict. They are all interconnected, and cannot stand alone when trying to make an unbiased point or argument on this matter. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | /CN 18:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Completely agree that we do not censor images unless legally bound by law or by the Foundation (eg child porn). But also agree that a consensus of editors can consider that an image may be inappropriate for an article despite the fact that it would otherwise be uncensored from the previous state. It would also behoove editors to consider appropriate community standards and chose images of least shock value if there are choices. --MASEM (t) 18:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
  • One final note: people seem to forget that WP:CENSOR does not magically invalidate other policies and guidelines that must be applied, such as bias, undue, relevance, rs, etc. This is why I see nothing wrong with wp:censor as it is. Whether image or text or quote, all of those (and others) must be applied in conjunction with wp:censor - not separately. That raises (in my mind) only one question... for those who do not realize that this is already addressed in numerous other policies that work in conjunction with each other, is it an issue where we need to clarify that which they should already know, or an issue of competence in respect to them not understanding the most basic policies that "control" Misplaced Pages? If people deem that the policies are so overwhelming that it is reasonable to not understand that they must be applied together, then yes, we need clarification. Otherwise... in my opinion it's a competence issue. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | /CN 18:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
"Perhaps what the policy means is that offensiveness on its own is not enough" - that is precisely the argument that has been made in this specific case. What ends up happening is advocates of censorship in this case engage in circular arguments, basically making the claim that "these images have no value because Muslims are offended". And no matter how many people opine that there is value, such arguments are inevitably ignored as if they were never made or the goalposts get moved in a bid to place an unreasonably strict burden of proof on one article that does not exist on others. The end result is always the same, however: requests for removal are predicated on offensiveness alone, with no legitimate additional argument. So in that sense, the argument that "your being offended is irrelevant" is accurate, because that is not sufficient to justify a special exception. After all: WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY BE OBJECTIONABLE (emphasis, Misplaced Pages's own) Resolute 18:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
And ironically, though numerous other articles with similar "false" representations have been pointed out, and a Community-Wide RfC to address the claimed issue has been suggested, such is ignored or swatted aside, leaving these effortssingularly motivated towards "special case exception for this article" to avoid applying policies uniformly to it (as is done with other bios). Ironically, the page already has a bunch of special case exceptions, such as (on the talk pages) the massive disclaimers, the FAQ, the instructions on how not to view the images, the removal of all images of Muhammad in the top 1/3 of the article, the explanations of policy on the talk page and so on. It is time we stop adding more special case exceptions to this topic - or we pass a policy that treats all other such topics equally (which will of course destroy Misplaced Pages). Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | /CN 19:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

We should probably also make this part of the policy, since it's currently just in the editing guideline. Nothing should be retained out of fear that removal might be considered censorship. Honestly, I'd prefer rephrasing WP:NOTCENSORED into something like "Misplaced Pages allows controversial and offensive content where useful" instead of making it about "censorship", since the c-word is very loaded language to the American ear. Offensive content is a bit like fair use content: it has a place in the encyclopedia because sometimes there is no adequate substitute, but it should be used reluctantly and replaced when not needed. SDY (talk) 19:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

That is all very utopian, but who are you to tell me what is offensive? Who am I to tell you the same? How many people have to agree that something is offensive before it is considered so? More to the point, I don't consider these images offensive in the least. That opinion does not contradict the fact others feel differently, but why should their POV overrule mine? Resolute 19:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)