Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Problem users

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Does anyone have any idea how many "problem users" ever end up as useful contributors? I'm not talking about people who have a strong POV and get into battles on certain pages but manage to contribute meaningfully elsewhere. I'm not talking about people who end up leaving Wikipedia in the midst of major battles. I'm talking about people who get into conflict from the start. I know a lot of people start off with angry exchanges - for example when their first article gets VfD'd. Most of these people are reasonable once they understand the system. I mean the people who show up with an axe to grind or a POV to push, or just show up to be disruptive. Can anyone cite any examples? Guettarda 23:23, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are people, particularly younger people, who will be disruptive for a while and just screw with the system before they mature a bit and start actually taking an interest in contributing (sometimes as a result of stumbling across a topic they actually have interest in). You seem to have excluded most scenarios that I've seen from your definition of "problem users" though. If your goal is to encourage a stronger policy for punishing these people, I think you have to consider how difficult it is in practice to distinguish the various classes of problem users you describe, at least in the short term. Deco 23:58, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I was just thinking about the amount of effort that people put into disruptive users, and whether this was something that ever paid off. I was wondering if there was some way to distinguish the ones with potential from the ones that won't be worth the trouble. I was just thinking about the way we allow troublemakers to drive off good editors, about the point where bureaucracy takes over and overwhelms the fun of this amazing project... I have lots of patience for the users who believe in the project but get caught up in edit wars or who misinterpret the comments, or who have serious differences in how they interpret "the truth". But I don't have patience with people who spend their time aruing about how their "right" to edit here is infringed by our rules. I don't know where I am going with this... Guettarda 03:31, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

One thing Ive noticed was brought up when one user pretty told the "Request for Comment" page to go screw itself. I forget the exact case, but the user was causing all kinds of problems with reverts, edit wars, personal attacks, etc. It went from RFC and then to ArbComm. The user wrote something like "this isnt like its a real court or something" and blew off everything in the RFC and vandalized the ArbComm Page! When he was banned, he just started up a new account and now there are sockpuppet issues with this same person. Point being...there is no enforcement...nor can there really ever be. We dont have the Wikipedia Police who can come to your house, fines cannot be given, nor can legal action ever be taken (nor should it be, actually). Its actually part funny and part scary. Reminds me of SGA somewhat, we think we have the power but really don't. -Husnock 4 July 2005 01:01 (UTC)

There is the ban. Apoc2400 4 July 2005 21:56 (UTC)

Which, sadly, can be easily circumvented by started up another account. Roaming IP addresses are also a hindrence as someone can log on from several different locations and show up as different users. -Husnock 5 July 2005 09:01 (UTC)

Yeah, but a banned user can be reverted on sight - rather than a POV pusher who needs to be reasonably argued with - arguments over if someone is a sockpuppet are ugly, but banning does make it easier to stop someone(by making it legitimate to revert them on sight.) (BTW, what did you mean by SGA? - the disambig page has 11 meanings...) JesseW 19:58, 9 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Non-Latin characters in article names

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Is there somewhere a discussion or a policy about the use of non-latin characters in article names? Since MediaWiki 1.5 enabled these characters, some users already started moving articles around, i.e. Wroclaw was moved to Wrocław. Tokyo could be moved to 東京 (now a redirect), and a whole lot of articles could be moved around quite a bit. Personally, I would prefer latin characters only. In any case, this should be decided quickly. Any comments or links? Thanks -- Chris 73 Talk June 28, 2005 11:36 (UTC)

As long as there is a version of the name in Latin characters redirecting, what harm is there in writing article names properly? --Ngb 28 June 2005 12:00 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia, so if there is an English name, that should be used.--Patrick June 28, 2005 15:27 (UTC)

I think that we should use the English name if any commonly used such exist. Else we use the native name tranitterated to a latin alphabet. Wrocław could be allright if it has no English name – like how Göteborg is called Gothenburg while Malmö always should be called Malmö. The most commonly used name should be used (traiterated if from a non-latin aphabet). Jeltz talk 28 June 2005 22:38 (UTC)

I don't know, but I am sure that "we should use the English name if any commonly used such exist" is not a good idea. Leghorn is the [specifically] English name for Livorno; I think it's now rather quaint but it's not freakishly rare. It's less common in English than Livorno. Leghorn redirects to Livorno, which I think is the way it should be. (Today's amazing discovery: the very first sentence of the "Culture" section of Marseille is "The French rap band IAM is from Marseille." Doesn't Marseille have some rather less ephemeral culture? Oh, never mind.) -- Hoary June 29, 2005 02:56 (UTC)

Ok, the name most commonly used in an English text should be used.--Patrick June 29, 2005 07:21 (UTC)

I think that I agree with that. We should try to apply the currently existing policy of using the most common name in English writing to special characters in article titles. Jeltz talk 29 June 2005 11:40 (UTC)

On place names, I agree with that. People's names, or names of works are trickier. For example, Nicolae Ceauşescu is commonly written in English as "Nicolae Ceausescu", and the poem Martín Fierro as "Martin Fierro". I'd sure be inclined to say "Nicolae Ceauşescu" and "Martín Fierro" are the right article titles. -- Jmabel | Talk July 2, 2005 04:35 (UTC)

A related question is whether Wikipedia should stick to typewriter typography in article titles (or in the body text for that matter). Mother’s day or Mother's day, for example. (On a Windows box, you typically cannot see the difference. Increase font size or print it out: the former uses an apostrophe, the latter a straight typewriter quote.) See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Quotation marks and apostrophes). Arbor 2 July 2005 17:30 (UTC)

There are always the templates {{wrongtitle}} and {{titlelacksdiacritics}} to deal with naming problems: some browsers have problems with non-latin characters. Physchim62 4 July 2005 09:18 (UTC)

This might be useful for folks - the convention for English article titles has been around since 2002 - Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Fuzheado | Talk 08:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Only linking to the first mention - why?

Why is the policy only to link to the first mention of something in an entry? I just don't get it.

It's annoying when reading - you get to a certain point in the article and think, "Oh, that thing would be interesting to read about", but it's not linked. Is it just plain not linked, or is it linked somewhere previously in the article? Either way, a pain.

It makes editing more difficult in several ways - for example:

- When entering new text, you have to check whether it was linked in a previous ___location, and if so, not link it in your new text;

- Similarly, you have to check whether it was linked in a later ___location, and if so, link it in your text, but unlink it in the later ___location;

- Deleting text and/or moving text suffers the same problems.

And it's not like there's some sort of resource wasted by linking multiple times.

I'm not saying always link every mention of a subject - it clearly would be overkill in some situations - but it seems like that's actually the far minority of situations. And in those few situations when linking every time would be overkill, people probably wouldn't link every time anyway.

This seems like something that shouldn't have a policy at all, one way or the other.

Policy leads to consistency, which is good. As for only linking the first time, if a term is likely to trigger a "oh, I want to read about that" reaction, it's likely to do so the first time you read it. Nobody's going to drag you into arbitration if you accidentally link a word again while editing because you didn't see it had already been used previously, but by avoiding double-linking articles become less visually noisy and easier to read. --W(t) 29 June 2005 05:32 (UTC)

if a term is likely to trigger a "oh, I want to read about that" reaction, it's likely to do so the first time you read it.: That sounds nice, but in practice, I find it to often be false. -Rwv37 June 29, 2005 06:11 (UTC)

Policy leads to consistency, which is good.: Yeah, consistency's great and all, sure, but it's not the be-all and end-all. My point is that without any policy regarding this topic, Wikipedia would probably naturally self-moderate itself into a state that is more usable than its current state. People won't go crazy with linking absolutely every mention of everything. -Rwv37 June 29, 2005 06:16 (UTC)

I usually link once per major section, or once per page of text -- or, in practice, once every time I think about it while writing, which works out to about the same. Also, if something's first wikilinked in an infobox, I'll link it in the text no matter how short the article. --Carnildo 29 June 2005 05:48 (UTC)

I do somewhat similar. I find it stupid to have to look through long chunks of texts to look for a link for what I am searching. On the other hand, I find it annoying when the same word is linked in every sentence. --Fred-Chess June 29, 2005 10:36 (UTC)

Let's amend policy to reflect long-existing practice (Carnildo lays out what that is). Which policy page is this? Pcb21| Pete 29 June 2005 10:51 (UTC)

It isn't policy. It is a guideline in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), and it doesn't say only the first occurrence. Relevant to this discussion, it does say "An article may be considered overlinked if any of the following is true:

...
a link is repeated within the same screen (40 lines perhaps)
...
low added value links (e.g., such as year links 1995, 1980s) are duplicated

I think Carnildo's suggestion about linking in text even if first linked in an infobox is a good one. Gene Nygaard 29 June 2005 12:03 (UTC)

I think the guideline covers it; just a matter of applying common sense, really. Filiocht | Talk June 29, 2005 12:38 (UTC)

In practice it's fine to link the same topic multiple times, if the article is long. It's typical for a topic to be mentioned in a summary and then mentioned again when the topic is covered in more detail; in this case it's quite appropriate to link it again. Years may need to be linked multiple times so that date preferences work. Gdr 2005-06-29 13:01:11 (UTC)

That's a good point. Both day-month or month-day and year should be linked in all dates so that preferences work right, no matter how many times they appear. It is just the years standing alone or only with a month that shouldn't be linked multiple times. Gene Nygaard 29 June 2005 16:41 (UTC)

One downside is if the article referenced is moved or renamed. Five links imbedded in a long article are harder to upgrade to eliminate orphans than one. OTHO, The original point about wanting to read more about a repeating term is strong to me— The desire to follow such gets stronger LATER in the long article— i.e. once one's interest has been wetted. In my experience, in most cases, the original use or three of a term is introductory and hasn't yet built a desire to 'click', until the surrounding text provides enough detail to eventually create the desire to do so. In such cases, I've italicized or bolded the first occurences until the topic has built up background, then provided the link. Of course, some copy editors have removed such logical planning in favor of linkizing all, or just the first, so Shrug. It's their time, and I did my best to make it logical. It's certainly not worth getting excited about.
One solution requiring a guideline change would to 'emphasize key terms' in bold or italics with the covention that said 'busy appearances' (to some, not I.) consistantly means "See the See Also List' at the end for a link; but I don't advocate this, as it's too much work for little gain 'Wiki-wide', plus the below counterpoint. This would have the virtue of being consistent with tail-end-charlie external links placement as well.
In the main, this strikes me as an area where hard and fast rules are probably not a good idea. Providing additional links as a long history article develops is probably a very good idea as the relationships between terms unfolds, the user can make his side trip for more information and return to exactly the same place in the original article by hitting backspace. That's definitely not the case for infrequently occuring links or bottom collected links, and I think these decisions should be left in the province of the editor or copyeditors following behind.
I do think that the guidelines should be firm on the following, rather than any arbitrary 'count of lines' approach (My bi-focaled eyes are comfortable enough viewing 'small' to assume everyone uses the same size fonts for viewing!). 'Link Density' or 'busy appearance' should probably be evaluated strictly (only) in 'Medium' browser display mode, not whatever is the favorite of the editor. In an article on less weighty matters, less links are appropriate.

User:Fabartus || Talkto_FrankB 5 July 2005 16:11 (UTC)

copyright problem procedure

If I find a page that is a copyvio does it have to be given the {{copyvio}} template and listed on WP:CP or can it just be rewritten? If it has already been listed on WP:CP does a rewrite have to go on a temp page and wait for the WP:CP listing to time out instead of replacing the old version? (If I already made the mistake of just replacing with a rewrite should I restore the copyvio template and move my rewrite to the temp page it points to?)RJFJR July 2, 2005 02:09 (UTC)

It's better to restore the copyvio template and do the rewrite on the temp page. If you find a copyvio page, it's better to tag it as copyvio and do the rewrite on the temp page. --cesarb 2 July 2005 02:23 (UTC)

I don't really understand why we do this. The {{copyvio}} template is supposed to be for possible copyright problems. The whole rigmarole is unnecessary for definite copyright problems. In those cases, we may as well re-write immediately. Pcb21| Pete 3 July 2005 09:42 (UTC)

I might put it more strongly. If a breach of copyright is established, continuing to display the offending material without permission will constitute an additional act of infringement because it converts the display on the part of Wiki as publisher from an arguably unintentional to an intentional act. It should be removed from public display immediately, regardless of when it might (or might not) be rewritten. -David91 3 July 2005 10:35 (UTC)

The offending material is not displayed in either case - if we go down the template route, the template completely replaces the text. If we go down the rewrite route, the rewrite replaces the text. Pcb21| Pete 3 July 2005 12:59 (UTC)

But it's still available in the page history. That's why the page needs deleting and any rewrites should go on the /temp page. Dunc|☺ 3 July 2005 15:41 (UTC)

You (or a neighbourly admin) should delete the offending material in either case. Per-revision deletion is available if necessary depending what order things are done. Pcb21| Pete 5 July 2005 09:37 (UTC)

Biography articles - reluctant subjects

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)#Reluctant subjects -Willmcw July 5, 2005 23:49 (UTC)

Where is the license in this image?

Well, I put this image [1] in the Wikipedia in spanish, but they told me I needed a license for it, but aparently, the english version doesnt have any problem, so I am guessing it already has a license... I just cant find it, could somebody give it so the image can also be in the spanish version?--201.139.132.232 4 July 2005 18:28 (UTC)

I believe it counts as free use. I have added a tag to that effect. Sonic Mew July 4, 2005 22:05 (UTC)

(note: fair use may not apply to other wikipedia projects. You need to check each project's licensing rules. I don't know about the Spanish wikipedia.) RJFJR July 4, 2005 22:31 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

There is currently a vote on a large number of proposals to expand the criteria for speedy deletion. If passed, they would tend to place the onus for everyday deletion decisions in the hands of administrators and substantially reduce the number of articles that get discussion time in Votes for deletion and other deletion discussion policy forums. Discussion and votes are required.

Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion/Proposal

--Tony Sidaway|Talk 5 July 2005 16:14 (UTC)

Proposal 1, which at present looks likely to pass, says that administrators should have discretion to delete "An article about a real person that does not assert that person's importance or significance - people such as college professors or actors may be individually important in society; people such as students and bakers are not, or at least not for the reason of being a student or baker. If the assertion is disputed or controversial, it should be taken to VFD instead."

What concerns me here is that it is left up to one person, instead of Wikipedia editors at large, to decide for themselves what an assertion of importance or significance is. Only a very vague idea is given of what is intended and the administrator is given complete discretion. This proposal needs scrutiny. At present the article would be listed on VfD and discussed for five days, which saves many important articles that were wrongly thought to be deletable. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 6 July 2005 01:49 (UTC)

What Tony fails to mention is that daily, between ten and twenty-five articles on unremarkable people (such as high school students, random friends of an editor, or people who just think they're great without specifying why) are nominated for deletion, and get near-unanimous votes to delete. It would save a large number of people a significant amount of time if those articles wouldn't clog up VFD. After all, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.
Presently, VFD is longer than it should be (which is an obvious result of Wikipedia growing) and this prevents people from participating - thus making VFD less the instrument of consensus that it should be. This is considered by many to be undesirable.
It is easy to distinguish an article on an obviously unremarkable person (e.g. "Joe Smith is a nice guy who works at a supermarket") from a possibly encyclopedic person (e.g. "Joe Smith is the president of major corporation GnirpGo"). Of course, the latter may be false, but the mere assertion keeps it from being speedily deletable. Admins have common sense. If they did not, they would not be admins.
There is statistical evidence of over a hundred articles per week that presently go on VFD that would be removed without further bureaucracy if this proposal passes. There is no evidence whatsoever, only conjecture, about articles about famous people that do not even say why the person is famous - of course anyone who would write about George Washington is going to state that he was a president, not just that he was a nice guy. Radiant_>|< July 7, 2005 13:33 (UTC)
- It kind of irks me that some who are opposed to this proposal seem to feel that editors who hang around speedy are in it just for the blood lust. If other editors are like me (and I'm sure they are), they will speedy only when it is emminently clear that the article is a candidate. I often add to or even rewrite articles that show up in speedy, and regularly remove speedy tags from inappropriately labeled articles. In other words, I take my power seriously. At least as seriously as inclusionists like Tony take their mission to save every god-blasted little article. Denni ☯ 2005 July 8 02:34 (UTC)

You're being a little bit naughty here, Radiant. Why should I mention that unremarkable article are listed on VfD? That's what VfD is *intended* for. It's doing a good job. As for saving time, nobody asks people to vote for delete, and if nobody but the proposer had anything to do with the nomination the article could still be deleted, but would have benefited from five days' listing and potential for discussion (alas even this this was not enough to save the article on the legendary writer and journalist, Davey Winder, which I had to rewrite). There is nothing about VfD's current size that "prevents people from participating". Just go there and look at the page. Unlike in earlier months when it was transcluded, it no longer takes a long time to load and is much more accessible than ever.

If VfD is "less of an instrument of consensus than it should be" how can this be improved by removing articles from VfD and giving the decision on their deletion to a single, demonstrably fallible person?

"Joe Smith is the president of major corporation GnirpGo" is not enough to save an article from speedy deletion under the proposals. Some administrators regularly claim that being the President of a corporation does not make one worthy of an encyclopedia entry.

Denni, I've not suggested that any lust of any kind is involved. It is a fact, which I've proved beyond doubt with actual cases, that being an administrator does not make us better (or even very good) editors. Administrators routinely judge salveagable articles as worthy only of deletion. The carnage at present is low and containable. The proposals will make the load on administrators much higher because some of us will be deleting stuff and the others will be restoring the wrong deletions. VfD saves us from such nonsense, that's why it exists. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 22:07, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Inter-wiki Citation and PLaerism Policy

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

What is the policy about taking content from another language wikipedia and moving it into the English wikipedia. Does no ownership apply so it's to fine copy anything? Should it be cited anywhere?

Example: I have recently discovered a timeline on the French Wikipedia (here:[2]) and made an English version here

--Commander Keane 6 July 2005 11:34 (UTC)

When you edit on a Wikimedia project you "release" your submission but you don't "relinquish" it, it's still your work as such, and you can exercise some rights over it (not sure what they are).

But don't worry, you haven't made any serious error. Right at the bottom it says "By submitting your work you promise you wrote it yourself, or copied it from public ___domain resources". WP is certainly a public ___domain resource; that disclaimer waives any responsibility you might have had for this uncredited copy, as it it isn't automatically assumed that you wrote/made whatever you're adding in each edit.

What I would do now if I were you is to make a minor change to the table and put something like "translated this table from the xx Wikipedia version of this article" in the edit summary. That way you're crediting the originator in a vague way.

Alternately, use comment tags () to leave a note below the table. These are invisible to the reader, but editors can see it.

Certainly I wouldn't credit it in the article, as that other page could change or something. In theory you could link to a fixed version of that page where the table is intact, but that still isn't really necessary. Master Thief Garrett^Talk 6 July 2005 12:15 (UTC)

MTG's suggestions are reasonable, but I should note one correction. Wikipedia is not public ___domain. Contributions are licensed under the GFDL, which means that authorship records must be maintained. Consequently, you do have to cite the other Wikipedia as a source. In practice, I think you would be in good shape by

noting the source in the edit summary (per MTG),
adding a note to the Talk page of the article indicating a source, and
where appropriate, adding an interlanguage wikilink to the destination article.

Are there any other suggestions? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 6 July 2005 12:55 (UTC)

Adding a comment along the lines of "This article is based on the corresponding article Verb in Catalan Wikipedia" in a Source section at the end of the article text seems reasonable and in compliance with WP:CITE. The comment can be removed if the article is substantially edited thereafter, author information is preserved. Physchim62 11:50, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Google Earth

Latest comment: 20 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Wondering if we can use pictures from Google earth for reference in wikipedia.

Or how about the kmz files from google earth?

Sveden 6 July 2005 20:58 (UTC)

See Use of data. It basically says that "personal" use with copyright tags intact is OK. I'm not sure WP includes that. Perhaps you could contact them with a grovelling message explaining how the copyrights would remain intact etc. etc. etc.

I assume they'd be happy to be featured here, and in turn it would generate more outside interest in their service!

So try that. :) Master Thief Garrett^Talk 6 July 2005 21:18 (UTC)

I see no reason to try to focus on Google Earth at the moment; we can link to Google Satellite Maps, which is good enough, and doesn't lock a link into supporting only Windows. --Golbez July 6, 2005 22:06 (UTC)

No, you can't. -- Cyrius|✎ 7 July 2005 02:12 (UTC)

We already do, through http://kvaleberg.com/extensions/mapsources/ - Omegatron 14:48, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

There is a massive difference between linking to a site and uploading their data. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:18, 16 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

"we can link to Google Satellite Maps" - Omegatron 20:05, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I would suggest to make a template for coordinates, which could be edited separately. Then from the article you just refer the template, fill lattitude and longitude in, and the template then handles formatting several links: to Google Maps, to the kvaleberg.com mapsources, and perhaps also to a script that generates the required .kmz file for Google Earth on the fly (trivial, see their tutorial or ask me for the code snippet). This way we can easily support all significant coordinates-based map sources, with easy maintenance as the new map sources appear and old ones change. We also won't have to do just "good enough" when we can have it all. Could it work? I personally miss such feature. --Shaddack 18:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Geographical coordinates. Gene Nygaard 19:46, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry)

The names of chemical compund pages have been the subject of a number of minor disputes (and some major ones, now hopefully resolved) for some time.

This page resembled more of a discussion than a set of guidelines. I have summarised the discussion that was there (and informed all the authors of signed comments) and added some more comments that have been discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals.

Any and all comments on the results are welcome. In particular, the page may be a bit too technical at present (help on this would be appreciated!). Have we missed any points?

More discussion on the style of chemistry articles can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals/Style guidelines.

Thanks to all who have already helped, and to those who take the time to add their comments. Physchim62 7 July 2005 11:14 (UTC)

Unit Disagreement, MiB vs. MB

What unit types should be used when describing storage capacity in articles?

Multiple-byte units

Decimal
Value	Metric
1000	kB	kilobyte
1000²	MB	megabyte
1000³	GB	gigabyte
1000⁴	TB	terabyte
1000⁵	PB	petabyte
1000⁶	EB	exabyte
1000⁷	ZB	zettabyte
1000⁸	YB	yottabyte
1000⁹	RB	ronnabyte
1000¹⁰	QB	quettabyte

Binary
Value	IEC		Memory
1024	KiB	kibibyte	KB	kilobyte
1024²	MiB	mebibyte	MB	megabyte
1024³	GiB	gibibyte	GB	gigabyte
1024⁴	TiB	tebibyte	TB	terabyte
1024⁵	PiB	pebibyte	—
1024⁶	EiB	exbibyte	—
1024⁷	ZiB	zebibyte	—
1024⁸	YiB	yobibyte	—
1024⁹	RiB	robibyte	—
1024¹⁰	QiB	quebibyte	—

Orders of magnitude of data

A problem has arisen in different related articles on whether to use the MB or MiB. Some articles have decided to stick with using MB, some have chosen to use MiB.

Talk:PlayStation_3#Memory_prefixes

Talk:Xbox_360#Mib_v._MB

Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit Disagreement, MiB vs. MB - Omegatron 23:03, July 9, 2005 (UTC)

A vote has been started on whether these prefixes should be used all the time, in highly technical contexts, or never. - Omegatron 14:45, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Guide to layout -- changing the section

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I want to change the Wikipedia:Guide to layout, part of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. The current MoS states that the ==External links== should come after the ==References== section. I totally disagree with this and feel that it should come before the ==References== section. External links are an integral part of an article, unlike the reference section which is used to crosscheck. The World Book is on my side, it has the References at the end. Any objections if I am bold and change it? User:Nichalp/sg July 8, 2005 16:35 (UTC)

I object! :-) For one thing, ==References== often contains external links to online articles and the like, and ==External links== often consist of reference-type even when not explicitly cited. For another–you can ask anyone who does a lot of academic writing–the references are very much a part of an article. Not only do they allow you to fact-check, they also usually contain a wealth of additional background information.

Have you got some specific articles in mind where you perceive the ordering of these sections is a problem? That might help to clarify why this change should be made. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 8 July 2005 17:31 (UTC)

Oh no! I'm not asking to remove the references from the article, I'm saying that the references should be the final section instead of the ==external links==. Just switching the order. User:Nichalp/sg July 8, 2005 18:52 (UTC)

Sorry; I wasn't clear. The first paragraph of my reply was merely to illustrate that there is often appreciable overlap between purpose and contents of the ==References== and ==External links== sections; I'm not sure it's appropriate to argue one or the other is more an 'integral' part of the articles here. (I'm sure that no one here would suggest removal of either section.) The key question is in the second paragraph—have you some specific articles in mind where they would be improved by the rearrangement of the sections?

I would further note that if external links contain content integral to the articles, it's possible that a)our article is insufficiently comprehensive, or b)the external link contains primary source material that probably should be listed as a ==Reference==. Thoughts? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 8 July 2005 22:04 (UTC)

Well, think of it like an essay. If you include both References and a Bibliography, the References go first. And External Links are much like a Bibliography is. That's one way of looking at it. :) Master Thief Garrett^Talk 9 July 2005 00:33 (UTC)

Ok, see Indian Railways. I want the external links to come ahead of the Notes and references as it has some quality information and official sites on the IR. User:Nichalp/sg July 9, 2005 05:26 (UTC)

Ah, hm, well, that's where it becomes a grey area. Really the Manual of Style is thinking that the references will be of "higher quality" than the links. In this case the references are just links so, um, hm. I'm really the last person to be asking I'm afraid. Certainly if I was writing an essay I'd put such things last but with a webpage links are more immediately useful to the reader. Hm. Garrett^Talk 08:48, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I'm inclined to agree with MTG here, particularly in his earlier remarks. I'm also not sure that it would be a good idea to upset the Manual of Style on this issue—changing the section layout of articles is something that would upset literally thousands (probably tens of thousands) of articles. (And I wouldn't want to get into making exceptions for some articles and not others; that would make article navigation more difficult for regular readers and probably lead to some really lame edit wars over the order of sections.) Finally, in the article cited the Notes, References, and External Links sections represent in toto a shade over one screen of information. Your mileage may vary based on your resolution and display settings, but I'm not sure that our readers will find scrolling a bit to be an insurmountable task. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

(film) or (movie)

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

When disambiguating a movie title wich is best to use ? (movie) as in The Canterbury Tales (movie) or (film) as in Passenger (film) ? --Melaen 8 July 2005 18:06 (UTC)

I'd prefer using "film" as it's a word pretty much used the world over. "Movie" tends to have an American (rather than worldwide) feel, jguk 8 July 2005 18:33 (UTC)

I've always thought it would be better to put the film's year, like IMDB does. That would disambiguate films both from other films with the same name, and other non-films with the same name. But nobody seems to do this. – Smyth\^talk 8 July 2005 19:38 (UTC)

Historically, "movie" has been preferred but not mandated -- this was wrangled about several times during WP's early history.

However, a proposal has recently been made to change this convention, and to make "film" the preferred disambiguation term. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (movies) and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (movies), where a poll is in progress. Only about a dozen people have weighed in so far -- please go participate if you have an opinion on the matter. Note that the policy page itself has been listed on Wikipedia:Requested moves to be moved to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (films). — Catherine\^talk 00:52, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Inline links vs. Reference citations

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

SEWilco has created an editting tool (i.e. manually controlled bot) for the purpose of standardizing some of the ways that citations appear in Wikipedia articles. As something of a test run, he did such a conversion to a single page, ice core, see the diff [3]. As a result, myself and one other user objected to how he was converting inline URL links into formal reference links.

Apparently such a conversion is supported by statements at Wikipedia:Cite sources and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), however these statements seem to be only a few months old and I have been unable to locate any significant discussion of them.

As a result of this disagreement, discussion has ensued at Wikipedia talk:Footnote3#Footnotes_vs._inline_web_references, and we are looking for outside input on this issue.

Dragons flight July 8, 2005 23:07 (UTC)

What follows below is a summary of the formatting styles being discussed for the benefit of those who may be unfamiliar with these different styles.

Summary of formatting styles

Inline linking

One way to reference a website is simply to add a link to it in the body of the article. For example, one might write "Zebras like to play checkers [4]", with a simple inline link pointing directly at the site.

Footnote style

Some users dislike inline links like this because they don't provide information on what is available at that site or when it was retrieved. Instead, it has been suggested that we should used the {{ref}} / {{note}} style of Wikipedia:Footnote3 and {{web reference}} for such web references, for example: "Zebras like to play checkers^[5]"

References

^ Template:Web reference simple

Where the little superscripted number links to the appropriate reference and the "^" on the reference links back to the little number. This has the advantage of providing additional information on the website source so that it could possibly be found again if the link ever went dead. It also would make website references consistent with book / journal and other references relying on the {{ref}} / {{note}} form.

The disadvantage is that to get to the external material one would have to click on the little link and then click again on the link in the references section. Personally, I think this is a big disadvantage since it makes it harder to get to outside material and it doesn't provide a way of distinguishing reference links to books and hard resources from those which are immediately available over the internet.

Hybrid style

A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers [6]." Along with:

References

Template:Web reference simple

But not using the {{ref}} / {{note}} formulation to link between the two. This preserves the direct link from the text but also gives the detailed reference information. However, since the two aren't linked, it is more likely that one may get removed or changed without the other being fixed. Also, there is some concern this could create very long references sections out of what in some cases are fairly innocuous but plentiful links.

Hybrid style 2

A potential compromise exists by way of a mixed form with both an inline link and a linked formal reference, which is to say using "Zebras like to play checkers.^[7]" Along with:

References

^ Template:Web reference simple

This creates both types of links but is visually larger, even using a minor code trick of using the sentence-ending period be a short text link. This could be presented differently in several ways: two images can be stacked (images of numbers 1-99 could be addressed), or is there a way to tuck an external link under a superscripted link number? (SEWilco 9 July 2005 00:03 (UTC))

Comment: Needlessly complicated. Inline is an awesome feature, it's been built in to the Wikipedia software because it encourages newbies to fearlessly and boldly add links; footnotes remain controversial and are not built into the software, FootNote3 in particular is a complicated (and to some unapproachably scary) hack. Stbalbach 9 July 2005 05:26 (UTC)

My understanding is that the footnote styles are used in the ==notes== section, not the ==reference section== See wikipedia:featured article candidates/Geography of India for the discussion and Geography of India for implementation. 1) Text should not be linked to an outside source (as what you have mentioned under hybrid style). I think the footnote style is much neater that the placing of a raw link at the side of the text. User:Nichalp/sg July 9, 2005 08:34 (UTC)

Discourage inline links

I for one am quite happy with the hassle of following a link to a webpage through a number of mouseclicks. Indeed, I certainly don't think that following an external link should be part of "reading the article". That's just sloppy writing, encouraged by the wonders of hypertext. Remember that WP prose is supposed to stand on its own. The material at Those amazing checker playing zebras should not be important for understanding the article, and we should expect/force only a tiny minority of readers to read that resource. So a footnote is quite appropriate, which itself can point to a list of external links. Am I making it harder for the reader? No. The external link shouldn't be part of the reading experience, so she shouldn't feel compelled to follow it. Am I making it harder for the author? Oh yes! She is now forced to write a complete, internally consistent article.

So here's what I want:

... Zebras like to play checkers.³²...

Notes

...

[32] Study by Minerva McStripe (1943), based on observing 43 individuals in captivity in the London Zoo. A later study by Sarah Hoof (1996) on wild zebras (not peer reviewed) confirms these findings.

...

References

Hoof, Sarah. Template:Web reference simple
McStripe, Minerva. "Hoofed animals and boardgames". Zoology, vol 32, nr. 5. 1943

Arguing that the "two mouse clicks" is too much hassle is irrelevant. Even one mouse click should be more than needed to understand the page. If you're an expert on zebras, or checkers, or a later editor, then you belong to the tiny minority of readers who is expected to follow the link. Arbor 9 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)

As one of the zebras, I find mouse clickings distracting while playing and prefer a quiet experience until the end of the game. Only then might I be interested in leaving the game to discuss some of its finer points. I prefer the text to be as self-explanatory as possible. If further information is available elsewhere, then it should be signed separately at the end of the text. -David91 9 July 2005 11:02 (UTC)

First of all, thanks for being politically correct! </sarcasm> Anyway, I don't think breaking the references is a good idea. I'd rather have it APA-esque, where you have everything as one piece right away. I mean, what is the writer saying under "References" that they aren't saying under Notes? Basically it's the name of the book and the date of retrieval, little else. You can have that before the little "what it's about" summary. Simple. So I think it could just be combined. Right? Garrett^Talk 9 July 2005 11:27 (UTC)

Just to add my two bits to the conversation: I prefer inline links and citations, but then that's because all American law students (that would include myself) are trained to use inline citations. The advantage of inline links is that they allow for immediate linking to online sources that can quickly substantiate a controversial point. For example, we had problems on the Los Angeles page with people disputing the validity of my assertion about the frequency of crime in Los Angeles until I added the direct link to the LAPD press release page. Now no one touches that paragraph, since they can follow that link and see how many people were murdered in Los Angeles this week! --Coolcaesar 9 July 2005 17:16 (UTC)

I find pure [http://example.com] links to typically be rather opaque and unclear - I think outside links with titles, i.e. [http://example.com An example website] can be and are useful inline, but just saying heres a website that is somehow relevant is IMO typically insufficient to explain what it's purpose is. If explaining the relevance of the link is not appropriate inline (using titles, parentheses, etc.), then use {{note}} (or one of the other ones) and explain it at the end. In conclusion, I think numbered external links ought to be fixed when seen, either by expanding on their relevance inline, or turning them to footnotes and expanding on their relevance in the footnote. Thoughts, responses? JesseW 20:52, 9 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I agree. I tend to use the style recommended at Wikipedia:Cite sources#Web sites and articles (not from periodicals) when citing websites in footnotes. I don't think an inline link actually cites your source; it just provides a link which will be useless when the link breaks. Steve block 09:54, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

Somewhere in the early 1990s, some engineer at some small nuclear collider, wrote some code, while probably thinking to himself "Now here's a novel solution to the footnote issue". Perhaps we could perhaps stick to his solution, and not revert to the poor mans' methods that came before. :-) Kim Bruning 10:34, 12 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Proposal for inclusion to Lists of (insert ethnicity)-Americans

Latest comment: 20 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

There have been some disagreements on what constitutes being an Ethnic-American. It seems to me that it's something that having a policy on might be helpful for. I've put out the following proposal:

The individuals page must make note of their ethnic ancestry OR
The individual must have documented evidence of being 1/8th ethnic (ie one of their great grandparents being born in ethnicity).

This rises out of the discussions I've seen primarily at Talk:List_of_Irish-Americans, although when looking around I see the same discussion at Talk:List_of_Chinese_Americans. At least at the Irish one it has led to what can only be described as Edit wars, which I'm not a big fan of. Wikibofh 9 July 2005 15:04 (UTC)

I don't think it makes any sense to have a numerical rule. By the 1/8 rule, someone could be considered as a member of 8 different groups, or be considered a member of a group with which he or she has no real connection. It seems to me that ethnicity is primarily a matter of affiliation, not of biological ancestry. So I would propose a rule based on public identification with a group: the individual identifies him or herself as an X, or is commonly identified as an X by others (it may be worth noting this even if the identification is incorrect!). Even in cases where you might presume identity based on, e.g., a personal or family name (Yannis, Watanabe) or place of birth, these are not reliable. --Macrakis 9 July 2005 15:39 (UTC)

The 1/8th rule was somewhat arbitrary, but I based it on the criteria that the Native-American Indians use for determining whether or not someone is eligible for benefits. My fear is we end up dealing with the controversies similar to what happened with Ward_Churchill. However, the most important thing for me in this debate is that we reach a consensus and then move on. Otherwise we seem to burn too much time and angst arguing it in each ethnic list. I think your concern is valid. As a sporadic genealogist, the biological method seem like a good idea to me. :) I'd also welcome any comments from people on where they think this debate belongs to get the widest audience. Wikibofh 9 July 2005 16:50 (UTC)

As I mentioned on the Talk page for Irish-Americans, I think an amendment to the first criterion is important:

The individual's Wikipedia page must have made note of his/her ethnic ancestry prior to his/her addition to the list page, or if this is not possible (due to new information coming to light), a reliable source must be cited

I certainly see your side, too, Macrakis, as it seems silly to lump someone into an ethnic group they intentionally do not claim. I think what we've got here so far is a pretty good start, though I don't anticipate it will solve the problems we're having at List of Irish-Americans.—chris.lawson (talk) 19:30, 9 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

As I've already stated on Talk: List of Irish-Americans, my main concern is that only people with obvious African ancestry are currently being blanked. Not one other person has been challenged, despite the fact that there are many others on the list with mixed ancestry. I don't mind saying I find that disturbing, to say the least. An Englishman was on the list for a day or two, nobody batted an eyelid. Macrakis, I see your point, but it would entail a lot of sourcing. It's a long list.

Lapsed Pacifist 20:54, 9 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Lapsed, you are complaining about African-Americans who have no Irish ancestry at all. Rosario Dawson, Mariah Carey, Muhammad Ali are on the list, they are part African-American, but also part Irish. The issue is not about African-Americans mixed with Irish. The issue is you are listing people that are African-Americans but have no Irish ancestry. You are also lying about them being the only ones questioned. I had to remove all those white people you listed in Politics who had no Irish ancestry. 64.109.253.204

Lapsed Pacifist, I think I understand your point: just because someone has some obvious African ancestry doesn't mean he or she doesn't also have European ancestry, and to presume that the African ancestry somehow 'trumps' the European ancestry is deeply racist (one-drop rule). But saying that Muhammad Ali is Irish-American because he has an Irish great-grandfather doesn't make sense, either, since he doesn't apparently consider himself Irish-American, other people apparently don't consider him Irish-American, and he may not even be aware of his Irish ancestry: "I am not sure whether Ali knows about this"[8]. Ethnicity is not about biological ancestry! --Macrakis 22:33, 9 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

That is the essence of the debate. It would be very easy to provide sources that show that some entries have acknowledged and even celebrated their Irish heritage. But for many Irish-Americans it is not something that they feel defines them, as they see no reason to define themselves by their ethnicity. Being simply American is good enough for them. Should these people be included? If not, I believe the list would become a much shorter one. I think you're right about the "one-drop rule" being applied, though for some reason (perhaps his pale skin) there is'nt much of a fuss about Ali. By the way, check out the links on the talk page; Ali already knew about his Irish ancestry.

Lapsed Pacifist 00:37, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

The reason there hasn't been any fuss about Ali is because people have cited sources. What part of this do you not understand?—chris.lawson (talk) 01:03, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Ali never would have been a world heavy weight boxing champion if it wasn't for his Irish blood.

Trouble will never stop until Lapsed Pacifist is banned, and if he is not banned, I will no longer contribute to the list on wikipedia, I will work on the list myself so Lapsed Pacifist will not have the power to edit. I will put it up on another webiste when I finish it.

I don't believe we're getting as many fresh opinions here as we expected. Why not inform both the Wikipedia:U.S. Wikipedians' notice board and the Wikipedia talk:Irish Wikipedians' notice board of our debate?

Lapsed Pacifist 02:43, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I just want to interject that going by blood is somewhat silly. Would an English child raised in China by Chinese foster parents be Chinese? I think it would be fair to call him/her a Chinese in that case, despite the lack of any Chinese blood. I think a better way would be to let the person decide if there is confusion. If one can cite evidence on this, then include that person. Perhaps the person doesn't want to be or do not think of themselves as belonging to any group. Tiger Woods is a good example of this. Trying to pigeon-hole someone into a group, unless he himself decides to, is unfair and does not recognize the increasingly multi-racial nature of the population.

In regards to banning someone, I think that's silly as well. At least he's here debating with this and asking the community for feedback instead of just trolling. It would go against the spirit, or my perception of it at least, to ban someone disagreeing and editing an article. As long as he's not being destructive, there's no point to banning him. Comatose51 02:57, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Actually, going by blood isn't silly, but it may not be exhaustively inclusive. The question is whether or not someone of no genetic relation, and little cultural relation, could claim to be in that list. If you think this is simply a philosphical exercise, I'd recomment this article. Regrettably, the blade cuts both ways. You'll also notice that I think I've tried to be the voice of moderation, and I've never recommended banning. I also recommend that this get the widest audience possible. If someone has a place they'd like to advertise this discussion, please do. I've already put the notice on every American-ethnic list I could find. I'm just disappointed that, as an Asshole-American, my list is under-represented. :) Wikibofh 05:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Invitation to Join a Project

I've been working on some framework for The Wikipedia Community for some time. The work is in the form of a WikiProject. The project is called Wikipedia:WikiProject_Community and is built from the standard Template:WikiProject which is really quite a marvelous tool.

Please take a look at the project page and see what you think. ALL are welcome to join and learn, teach discuss, debate, study, and design a better community at //en.wikipedia.org . Thanks in advance for your participation. Quinobi - Community Builders Task Force 9 July 2005 16:45 (UTC)

COTW and AID templates

Latest comment: 20 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

There is an ongoing debate by several parties at the COTW talk. Please read it before responding. The debate is over whether it is wikipedia policy to not include the COTW and AID templates on the article page. Several others and I claim that it useful to the reader, and since a consensus was never reached on the subject that the templates can go on the page. The other parties disagree and state that they are not interest to the reader. Hopefully they will come here and comment. I'm not sure if I should set up a vote here or not. However, I was told to bring the discussion here. Thanks for all comments. Falphin 01:01, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

In general I feel it is important to keep clutter in the article namespace to a minimum, only the very short and very worst articles need to be defaced with coloured boxes. Our readers, of which there are far more than editors, have little interest in whether a page has been nominated for a COTW, put through Peer Review, listed for expansion, or accused of having limited geographic scope. All these things are mainly of interest to editors, and should thus be kept on the talk pages. - SimonP 01:12, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that articles need the littles amount of clutter but I believe the COTWs and Aid are important to have on the page because it will be of interest to the reader because, it explains that the article is not of best quality and secondly that there is an effort to improve,similar to the cleanup, and NPOV tags. I don't think the Peer Review is of any interest to the average reader because it is not telling the user if the article is good or bad just a discussion. I do believe the Featured article template should be on the article. I believe there should be two expansion templates one which describes a requests and one which has been recognized by the wiki community that it needs expansion which is actually the COTW template. The former should be on the talk like you said. I'm not familiar with the last one. By the way, I posted a message on all the users talk page that had been involved in the discussion at the COTW talk page. (That was a run-on, oh well) Falphin 01:26, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I say start a vote; democracy rules. But this can only raise awareness of COTW, which in no way is a bad thing Juppiter 02:28, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I like Falphin's reasoning. One concern I just have is that nonexistent articles, which are nominated frequently, may be created by inexperienced nominators with just the COTW template. Not that that's really a reason not to do it, so I don't know why I'm bringing it up. All in all this decision is not that controversial or consequential, at least not enough to garner enough caring for a vote. I think there are valid reasons for both talk or article space, but one of the biggest reasons we always did it on the talk space is that we always did it in the talk space. So right now I'm leaning slightly towards putting it in the article space, if only because it will give us more publicity (then again, we may end up with just bandwagon, fair-weather voters who won't contribute). --Dmcdevit 04:58, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

The thing is, that habits are hard to change, even if Simon finds supporters for his idea. The habits are such that people put all templates on the main page, cleanup, expansion, the not-english-template, inuse, VfD etc. They put the template on the main page because it makes the most sense, because it is harder to overlook. Even if we could draw up a policy to try and change that habit, how would you go about it? There must be thousands of templates to move right now. There are thousands of editors you would have to personally contact on their user page and inform them about the policy change. Many would not comply or just forget. Human habits are very powerful and in this case the conventions make perfect sense, so why change it?--Fenice 06:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Replying Fenice: At the top of each COTW (or AID, same below, as in all my uses of COTW on this page) voting page a notice board exists. The policy change can be announced there and no mess would be generated. Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Replying Dmcdevit: Although the number of bandwagons will increase, however, by any means, the number of contributors won't decrease. The concern is to raise the number of voters, of course hopefully, but not necessarily contributors. Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Please note that SimonP is unilaterally changing where the templates are located on articles. ~~~~ 12:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Hallo~! This is Deryck from Hong Kong, who originally advocated the change of the COTW template from the talk page to the article page. My point is that, now the template is on the talk page. Even contributors will not notice the existence of this notice, because such stubs are so short that they can't bring up disputes (therefore viewing the talk page is unnecessary). If the notice is put on the article page, it would be easier for readers as well as editors to go voting and later help the brushing up of the article. Deryck C. 01:14, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Vote

The vote is currently going on elsewhere:

Wikipedia:Template_locations#Template:Expansion for AID
Wikipedia:Template_locations#Template:COTW for COTW

Falphin 21:05, 10 July 2005 (UTC) and Deryck C. 01:13, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Policy on External Linking in Articles to Sites That May Not Be Encyclopedic

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

In regards to this article: Seduction, I removed from the article links to sites that give primary information on the subject, ie. how to seduce someone. It's inappropriate because they aren't very "scientific" or adhere to standards that Wikipedia aspairs to. Conceivably there are thousands of such sites on the Internet. Why should we favor one over another? Or are we going to list all the sites related to a topic? We're not a wikified version of Google. I also removed the link to Robert Greene's site, which seems to merely advertise his book on same topic. Basically, anything that links to a site that provides non-encyclopedic information/primary source should not be in the article. I want to know what everyone else's opinion is on this. Please advise. Comatose51 02:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Your general statement of what shouldn't be in an article is far too broad. Most obviously, on controversial subjects, we often link to unencyclopedic primary-source sites, for the benefit of readers who want a fuller exposition of that point of view. Based on what you say about the links you removed, though, I'd say that they served no purpose in that article. The link to Greene's site in the article about him should of course stay. JamesMLane 03:23, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Those interested in this topic may want to weigh in (hmm) at Talk:Ted_Kennedy#fatboy.cc. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:23, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

Rename the Help desk

Latest comment: 20 years ago13 comments5 people in discussion

In the past few days I have come across a distraught dog owner and a very disappointed kid asking questions at the help desk. The help desk help are, understandably, not terribly sympathetic. They get reference desk questions all the time. They have enough to do answering questions from idiotic Wikipedians like me. There is a very simple solution to this problem - RENAME THE BLOODY HELP DESK! I shout because I find the whole thing extremely distressing for everyone involved. This happens over and over again, every day. Call it - I don't know - "Guided Tours" or something. Anything but the help desk. Please. DO something to stop this. --Mothperson 13:59, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Never underestimate the dimness of humanity; whatever you name it, they'll find some way of misinterpreting. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:04, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

True, but we don't have to aggravate it, do we? --Mothperson 15:10, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Actually, I take that back. It's only partly true. If the Help desk were to be renamed "Wikipedia works" or "Wikipedia ways" or " Wikipedia wonkiness" or whatever, I doubt you'd be receiving questions about injured dogs there. Okay, so you still might get genealogy questions with those, but surely someone can come up with a name that acts as a decent filter? --Mothperson 15:32, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I gather that the problem is that people are using the Wikipedia Helpdesk for general help enquiries - such as "what is the time of the next bus to Billericay?" or "My Chinchilla is foaming at the mouth - what is wrong with it?"

IMHO I would suggest that anything Wiki-specific should have a Wiki- prefix to help minimise (I wouldn't be so rash as to suggest 'eradicate') confusion. So maybe something along the lines of "WikiHelp" would be a step in the right direction? --JohnArmagh 15:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

That seems the right direction to me, as long as you can avoid the use of the word "help." Or those foaming-at-the-mouth chinchillas will probably keep streaming in. --Mothperson 16:28, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Given that the emergency services telephone numbers (strangely supposedly reserved for calling the police, medical or fire services in, well, emergency situations) are routinely asked for help on homework, etc., I suspect that the problem has no solution because the moment you offer help with or solutions to problems, or advice or guidance, there will always be a group of people who think that this service was designed to solve their immediate difficulty. Changing the name or placing explanatory notices will not deter such people. And, no matter what you say, they will feel indignant that you are not helping them. It is one of the curses of modern life as deference has declined and selfishness has risen. -David91 19:43, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

There's a great big pink sign at the top of the page, with a red stop sign inside of it, which lets everybody know in no uncertain terms that the page isn't a place for asking general questions. I think, as Mel notes, that no matter what we do people will always be posting things in the wrong places. I think the help desk is the correct term for the page, as a Help desk is a place where one goes for trouble-shooting problems (The computer lab help desk, or the library help desk if you don't understand the numbering system), while a Reference desk is a place where someone goes to find out the answer to whatever random question is on their minds. I'm not sure we should be re-naming these commonly used terms just because people get confused — that's what the great big pink sign is for. — Asbestos | Talk 19:45, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Given that Wikipedians are supposedly smart enough to find their way to obtaining help with Wikipedia problems, whatever the source of that problem-solving is named, WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE CALLED A HELP DESK? I can't believe that the poverty-stricken owner of a dog with a collapsed lung is going to be pestering something called "Wikimess" or "Wikipediassness" or whatever. Of course, some will get through. But do you really feel it's necessary to lay down a red carpet and install flashing neon arrows? As for the big pink sign, I'm not a total moron, and even I don't notice it. It doesn't sink in. It's nothing. I do not understand why the name of the help desk can't be changed as the simplest semi-demi-solution to a constant problem, unless we've got some sort of stake in being elitist snobs. I hope we don't. --Mothperson 20:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

The trouble is, it's a place where people go to get help — thus "Help desk" is a suitable name for it. Changing it some awful neologism, or to anything more obscure, might deter the occasional twit who thinks it's a place to get tickets for Phantom of the Opera, or get advice on how to treat his piles, but it is also likely to make things much less clear and useful for the many people who use it for what it's for. After all, it's not just called "Help desk" — it's called "Wikipedia:Help desk"; if that isn't enough, what would be? And what on Earth is élitist about the plain, everyday name "Help desk"? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:17, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

There's nothing elitist about calling it the "Help desk." What's elitist is insisting it can't be called anything else, and those fools who come there thinking they will get help deserve nothing better than dismissal. Which reminds me - the Village Pump - I've finally figured out why it's called that. One comes here with an issue, and the answer, in my experience, is "go soak your head." I don't know what the answer to the Help desk problem is, but I thought it was sensible to present it here. I was wrong, and should have known better. I will try some other routes. Never mind. --Mothperson 22:51, 10 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

It seems to me that the real problem is people who just dismiss the question out-right, not the name of the page. I don't visit the Help Desk much, but I would have thought what most people would do would be to tranfer the question to the Reference Desk and leave a link at the Help desk telling the original poster where their question can be found. I know that this does happen, as I often see questions at the Reference Desk which have been moved from the Help Desk, I guess the problem you're highlighting is that this doesn't happen often enough. — Asbestos | Talk 11:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

You might say that. But I am loath to blame the help desk volunteers, who do enough as it is. It took me two months to figure out the difference between help and reference, because I read labels, pink or otherwise colored, as much as I read instruction manuals - i.e. I don't. It took me three months to realize what the reference desk actually was. [[User:Mothperson|Mothperson]] 20:35, 11 July 2005 (UTC) and cripes, now I have to go over to the help desk to solve my signature problem - these people don't get paid nearly enoughReply

Symbols as article titles

Latest comment: 20 years ago11 comments8 people in discussion

Are we ok with articles that have titles like ? Joyous (talk) 01:34, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Since IE won't even render that, I would say no. However you should see also @, presently a requested move, and Þ, Ð, Æ, and many other things in Category:Uncommon Latin letters. If there isn't a policy on this already, I would say there needs to be one soon. Dragons flight 01:50, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

How about we say all titles must be in words, no symbols other than letters, punctuation and numbers, and put that in the relevant section of the style guide? Maurreen 06:30, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Depending on how liberally you interpret that, it's either too inclusive or too limiting. Are þ, Я, ئ, ⡶, 낑, אַ, and き all letters? Are ‡, ≈, and ± punctuation? Is ∂ a lower-case delta (a letter) or a differential "d" (a math symbol)? Is ‰ a number? --Carnildo 07:11, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I would say that in the English Wikipedia all titles should consist of upper case and lower case letters on an English language keyboard, and also (more rarely and only where justified) the digits 0 to 9. It has to be remembered that any article should be searchable by the title without needing to know specific unicodes. Introducing 'foreign' characters makes searching more difficult. Further, if you don't happen to have the correct font installed (or if your browser isn't set for the particular font-set) you won't see the symbol at all. --JohnArmagh 07:19, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

It is also worth noting that since the upgrade a number of articles have been moved to titles incorporating diacritical marks, e.g. í, ö, ê, ç, etc. Dragons flight 07:25, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

That's not quite correct. Those diacriticals available in Latin-1 (ä, ø, æ, å, ß, etc) were used in WP long before "the upgrade". Arbor 08:51, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I'd strongly resist any attempt to prohibit the use of diacritics, I wish that we used them in English as I find it a lot easier to correctly pronounce random foreign words with accents than a random english word. So long as there are redirects from a keyboard type-able form I can't see a problem with diacritics. --Neo 21:01, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Joyous, the problem with that article title is that it uses a code point in the Unicode private use area, so the appearance is very dependant on the font used. --Carnildo 07:27, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Unicode) (draft). Arbor 07:45, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

The article originally called Beth (letter) (concerning one of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet) has recently been retitled ב rossb 09:25, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I should add to this that I'm reading this via Windows XP with the latest mulit-lingual versions of Arial and whatnot available and even *I* can't see a couple of the characters rendered above. So how can a user with a pre-OpenType computer even hope to keep up? And is a page URL comprised of "%1932%20421%20024%E3%81%8D" really such a good idea? People like referencing us, but if they get a "dirty" URL like that they might be a little annoyed. Garrett^Talk 13:01, 12 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Whether IE will or will not render something should not determine whether it should be accepted as an article title in Wikipedia. There is policy specifying how articles should be titled. The above title is not appropriate for an article but could possibly be acceptable for a redirect. The Apple symbol is not part of Unicode, but Apple has placed it in the Private Use section at codepoint U+F8FF. See the votes for deletion page. David Remahl 07:54, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

this discussion has been going on for quite some time now, and I doubt there will be a final consensus soon. But I think this much can be said as a matter of common sense, that any article that uses non-ascii characters in its title should have at least one redirect pointing to it that is in ascii. And also, obviously, no private use area characters should be used. Redirects solve a lot of these problems. If you don't like ב, you can always link, and type, Beth (letter). Which is the actual title and which is the redirect will then be a matter of taste without much bearing on usability. I do not think we should base policy on "what IE is capable on rendering", since that will be an unstable policy (it may change with each upgrade of IE, and I don't put it beyond MS that some upgrades will also break previous compatibility). We should rather have a policy on which code pages are admissible. In general, it should be advisable to restrict ourselves to Latin, Latin1, and Latin Extended. We shouldn't have titles in Hebrew, Arabic or Indian alphabets, but we should use transliteration. A conceivable exception would be articles on the characters themselves, like ב. dab (ᛏ) 08:05, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Actually I'm writing this on Firefox, but IE seems to be similarly "broken". No, we should not kowtow to the most common browsers out there just because they can't "keep up", but certainly (as above) everything should have a basic-text redirect.

But the thing is, if the redirect takes me to the "correctly named" page "?", there should be some way to know what it's about if I can't see the symbol. If I read an article talking about "?" (name) is the first..." "? is used for..." "? also means ... in Hebrew..." and so forth, is it really going to be an article I want to read if I can't see what the heck it's talking about?

Therefore, we should perhaps have an image equivalent of these "rare" characters until such time as they can be displayed by the majority of browsers. I know some pages already do that like ankh, but not all necessarily do.

Our goal is certainly not to restrict organic content improvement to what some browsers support, but on the other hand we should ensure the maximum accessibility from said browsers. Garrett^Talk 08:23, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

British county names

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

There is disagreement on the policy for this. Some Wikipedians think we should use modern counties for articles on modern places, but historic counties where appropriate for historical articles and in history sections. Others believe we should use historic or traditional county names in all cases.

There is a clearly-stated policy (now a year old), but some editors are disregarding it. Feelings have run quite high for at least the last 18 months.

If you have an interest in British counties, cities and towns we would welcome your input. Visit the policy page and its discussion for details. Chris Jefferies 13:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Excellent! I was just looking for exactly that - policies on English county names. Thanks! Grutness...wha? 00:58, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Friendly Vandals

Maybe all those vandals who add nonsense or silly things to articles but aren't particularly malicous could be directed to Uncyclopedia.org? Just an idea. Uberisaac 11:11, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

http://thepedia.com/

Latest comment: 20 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

This site uses the text from wiki and places a copyright on it. It does list the http address the data was obtained from. Does this meet the redistribution policy? Vegaswikian 05:17, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

It is not in compliance. Please list it at Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/GFDL_Compliance. David Remahl 07:41, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I've listed it. — Asbestos | Talk 10:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Goodness me, they're even hotlinking our images! Maybe it's time we installed a remote-linking blocker like Angelfire etc. have...? ...hmmm... Garrett^Talk 10:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

The most effective hotlink blocker I've seen didn't merely block the images, it replaced them with the Goatse guy. --Carnildo 20:19, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

oooh, that's a good one! I saw one just recently where an image had been replaced with "This guy STEALS images for his auction pages. Do you really want to bid for an item he didn't photograph himself and might not even own?!?" LOL! :) Garrett^Talk 12:41, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I have contacted the site owner and the site now appears to be completely compliant. I don't know about the images. — Asbestos | Talk 15:39, 14 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Pictures are still being pulled from our servers. Thanks for getting wiki listed on this site as the source of the information. Vegaswikian 17:58, 14 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

(movie) to (film) vote didn't provide enough notification

Latest comment: 20 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

There was recently a vote to change Wikipedia:Naming conventions (movies), but I believe this major policy change didn't allow enough people to know about it. Shouldn't major changes have a notice posted at Wikipedia:Naming conventions or at least its talk page? Only 7 people voted, for goodness sake. Mackerm 15:16, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Yes they should have, and ideally at one of the Pumps or something as well as a heads-up to potential voters. That is unacceptable. You should call a revote. Votes for something as serious as that should be huge, look at Wikipedia:Pokeprosal/Poll for example. Garrett^Talk 12:44, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia:Poképrosal/Poll. Just for reference. Mackerm 05:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Links to copyvios

Latest comment: 20 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Is there a policy about links to copyvios? I just saw an anon inserting a link to page holding a Scientific American article. --Pjacobi 20:01, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Why do you need a policy? You have already figured out that there's something not right about doing it, otherwise you wouldn't be asking. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:34, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, but on en.wikipedia there are much more things allowed regarding copyvios than on de.wikipedia, where I know the policies. --Pjacobi 21:10, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

For example? Dragons flight 21:20, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Screenshots, pictures of book and CD covers. --Pjacobi 21:24, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

That's true, but that's about us hosting them, and we're supposed to host web-resolution samples rather than significant parts. This is significant, it's a full copy! So removing the link would no doubt be the right thing to do. Garrett^Talk 23:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Knowingly linking to sites that contain copyright infringements exposes us to contributory liability in the U.S. Postdlf 05:56, 14 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

In France it's called recel de contrefaçon, I guess in most places it's not a very clever thing to do. Physchim62 12:16, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

New proposal (VfD renomination limits)

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

It's at Wikipedia:VfD renomination limits. Thanks,
Luc "Somethingorother" French 05:55, 14 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I've made a counter-proposal that's less likely to have unintended consequences: Wikipedia:Kick the ass of anyone who renominates GNAA for deletion before 2007. -- Cyrius|✎ 19:26, 14 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Best proposal ev3r! R adiant _>|< 09:29, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Resolution compromise

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

What is the policy on tailoring aritcles for certain monitor resolutions. I use 800x600 and often find tables that need to have their column width fixed to make them look good for me. --Commander Keane 12:00, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

The policy? We just don't. If info fits, that's fine, if it doesn't, that's not the reader's problem. We try to keep images to a reasonable size (~250px), but even so most of our content completely bogs down anything below 1024x768.

It is NOT advisable to design for "inferior" sizes if it means reducing existing content or limiting potential content in any way. Garrett^Talk 12:37, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

But it IS a good idea if it can be fixed for low resolution screens without giving up to much on other systems. Wikipedia should be accessible to as many people as possible. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:53, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Amiguity in WP:NOR

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

This section of the NOR is the most commonly quoted and misrepresented part of the NOR:

Original research that produces primary sources is not allowed. However, research that consists of collecting and organizing information from existing primary and secondary sources is strongly encouraged. In fact, all articles on Wikipedia should be based on information collected from primary and secondary sources. This is called source-based research, and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.

I've seen more than one user quote it as some sort of get-out for using original research in articles. By arguing that their original thesis are backed up by logic applied to otherwise unrelated primary and seconday sources and citing this section they claim they are not performing original research, even though they clearly are. I think this section needs to be reworded. Axon 15:40, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia disclaimer

Latest comment: 20 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I was very surprised to learn recently that wikipedia was NOT an encyclopedia like those we are all used to using. Most people will not check for your disclaimers before looking for information, and they presume that what they find are well-researched facts. I only discovered this myself when I came across some information listed for a topic that was clearly opinion and was, in fact, gossip. You are therefore responsible for contributing to the spread of gossip and false data. Despite your disclaimer, you ARE presenting yourself as an ecyclopedia website, knowing that people will be deceived.

The very least that you can do is to have a heading on EACH page that appears, which says, "Wikipedia Makes No Guarantee of Validity." It would also be more correct of you, and certainly more ethical, if you called yourself, "Wikipedia, the user-created encyclopedia."

Linda Estabrook

"Real" encyclopedias disclaim accuracy, too. The three leading competing online encyclopedias have disclaimers and provide no warranty as to their accuracy - Britannica, Encarta and Bartleby. Sometimes the staff of those encyclopedias forget about the disclaimers. - Wikipedia:Replies to common objections

We really should make it a teeny bit more obvious, though, for newcomers. Add a "written by users like you!" at the top of the page or something. I am all about Eventualism and the convergence of the wiki towards Absolute Truth, but we aren't at Eventually yet, and vandalism and hearsay mean newcomers should check references and article history before believing everything. We are, most of the time, a much better source than half the crap floating around the internet, but some of our articles are far below the quality of a "real" encyclopedia (that wouldn't have any information on that subject at all).

That said, you should always check references for important things, even for stuff that's in paper encyclopedias, as they have errors, too. - Omegatron 17:10, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

You'd be surprised how many errors are present in the common text books too. David D. 21:57, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

A newcomer's response. While objecting to the escalation from, "I found one item of gossip" to "you are deceiving the world", I have been surprised by the ubiquity of wiki hits on Google. Since so many more people will now be accessing wiki material, perhaps Estabrook is correct in advocating a little navel gazing. Megatron's defence that wiki is a better class of crap than that served up by other internet sources is hardly reassuring and we should all recognise that most users will never trouble themselves to check the references against the possibility of vandalism. So perhaps the answer is that there should be a roving commission to survey material and, when it finds articles that are sound, it should lock them. If a future editor believes any of the locked articles to require revision, let that be argued before editorial access is allowed. In this way, there is a slow accretion of core material that can justify the label of encyclopedia. Peripheral and evanescent material can be allowed to come and go as fashions change, with or without warning notices. -David91 18:01, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Good luck. People come up with proposals like this all the time, and probably a lot of people like them, but it will take a lot of work to get any kind of consensus to change something so fundamental to the idea of wiki. Much more realistic is to at least acknowledge in an obvious place that the pedia is user-written, and that only some of those users are experts. - Omegatron 21:39, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

I came across many incorrect statements in the biology related pages. This was brought to my attention by students using it as source material. I agree there needs to be a stronger disclaimer on these pages. Some of the mistakes are subtle but some 'facts' are just wrong. Given how many online reference sources are harvesting wikipedia information it is scary to think how much misinformation may be out there on the internet. I do not think this means wikipedia is bad. It has huge potential and corrections will eventually get the quality up to scratch. But given the fact that there is wheat and chaff on these pages a disclaimer is warranted. David D. 18:41, 15 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Please, when you come across these, either correct them or at least make a note on the relevant talk page. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:55, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

See? When we read the Wikipedia we don't assume that everything is correct. We are both reading to learn and reading to edit, constantly on the lookout for things that might be wrong or vandalism or need cleanup. We approach all content with healthy skepticism. If we don't approach the Wikipedia as a completely authoritative source on information, we need to make sure newcomers don't approach it that way and then blame us for deceiving them and never come back.

See MediaWiki_talk:Tagline#From_Wikipedia.2C_the_free.2C_user-written_encyclopedia. - Omegatron 17:38, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

But, on two occasions, when I attempted to change pages (in my opinion for the better) I was met with hostility and abuse. I rapidly withdrew. Those pages remain unacceptable (in my opinion). So, please, let us not assume that placing warning messages as headers will resolve inherent behavioural and content problems. -David91 07:11, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Then there would seem to be controversy regarding the article. Could you specifically tell us which pages these were (perhaps also linking to your edits in the history). I'll look into this. — Ambush Commander^(Talk) 19:31, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Merging

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

After I merge 2 articles, can I edit the page to remove the merge request? What about after I fulfill other requests, such as an image request? Thanks.

If you think you're done, yes. -- Cyrius|✎ 16:36, 16 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

What to do with an editor refusing to follow Wikipedia style norms?

Latest comment: 20 years ago9 comments6 people in discussion

Many of you probably met Louis Epstein, who contributes from User:12.144.5.2. Luis seems to be a rather good editor, however, there are certain things which he refuses to do. First, he does not want to make an account, which is not bad in itself. But Lous also refuses to put space after period and comma, and calls this, together with the practice of using – (ndash) instead of the short dash -, stupid conventions. There are other pecularities which other people might comment on.

Now,you may think that,not putting space after period and comma is no big deal,but this screws up the format on a lot of pages,making this look very unprofessional,as you see from this sentence.Sometimes I think Wikipedia is too tolerant,and I'd argue that this is the case with this editor.What to do?Oleg Alexandrov 17:30, 16 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I refer the gentleman to the quote from the Wikipedia Manual of Style that I offered in response to the numerous others who have had this same disagreement with me on my talk page.--Louis Epstein/le@put.com/12.144.5.2 18:35, 16 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

As the saying goes, "tough noogies". All the rest of the world says "put a space after a punctuation mark", mr. Epstein says "don't put a space after a punctuation mark". Polite requests have been stacked a foot high, all denied. Compromise is impossible. So either he stays and we continue to clean up after him, or we ban him. Since he makes good edits (content-wise) and we have a huge reservoir of editors, I'd say pick the first option. Provided, of course, that mr. Epstein doesn't insist on having his singular convention imposed on Wikipedia—if he insists on reverting those people who alter his edits to conform to the Manual of Style, he would be disrupting Wikipedia, and that's bannable. So if you can gather evidence of that, start an RFC (which this practically is) and then an RFAr. Otherwise, accept that this is a free wiki, and people are free to act in ways most of us don't like, as long as they do not actively obstruct the encyclopedia. I doubt many want to accuse mr. Epstein of that. JRM · Talk 19:27, 16 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

What about adding the required spaces with some bot? That would take out the manual work. For one-time effort of writing a bot, the editor's worthy work would be preserved, the other editors would be spared of menial cleaning jobs, and everybody should be happy. (Though beware of adding spaces to numbers like 1,234.56!) --Shaddack 19:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

What to do,what to do...*flips coin* ah,RFC it is then.Yes this is disruptive,yes it is bannable(if there is no alternative),and yes, I'd better go back to using spaces before I throw up at this bastardisation of established typography. Do tell us when you make this RFC, should be an interesting read. :) His refusal to get an account is both a problem (due to lack of constant identity) and downright ridiculous. And it's not like he's doing it for his privacy. Certainly I think this is an event without precedent, I highly doubt an "anon" has ever been taken to RFC. But there's always a first time. Garrett^Talk 02:54, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Not having an account is not a big problem, as it seems his IP address is always the same.

Yes, not following the typographic rules is disrupting. There are at least 31 people urging him to do so on his talk page. Would a RFC help matters with this? Oleg Alexandrov 03:26, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

I don't make a point of removing the spaces slaves to popular bad habits put after my punctuation remarks;where I do reverts it's where people have reformatted articles and they need to be put back in more sensible form.Spaces after punctuation marks are bad because they're informationally redundant (words should be separated by spaces OR punctuation marks) but if I were spreading wisdom to the conformists on this issue I'd never get anything else done.--Louis E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 03:58, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Spaces after punctuation may be redundant information-wise, however they make the resulting text significantly easier to read. Also, there are cases where the marks should NOT have spaces behind, eg. in formatting the numbers or IP addresses or so. Also, the browsers break the lines on space, not after a punctuation mark (which would cause other issues on its own, eg. formatting of the numbers), which may lead to difficult-to-read outcome on the screen. --Shaddack 19:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

"Conformists" is a strange word to throw out as a pejorative to encyclopedia writers, because we're supposed to be conformists. We're a secondary (or even tertiary?) source. We're not out there to establish new standards or revolutionize the language. The whole point of an encyclopedia is that it conforms to what is already known and established. I'm sure there is some online forum out there that will be receptive to your personal preference and will help you change the world, one punctuation mark at a time, but this isn't it. Postdlf 20:49, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Requests for articles to be deleted?

Latest comment: 20 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Following a quick discussion regarding John Stockwell in which his legitimate nephew claims that Stockwell wishes the page deleted - I'm left rather curious what what actual Wikipedia policy is in cases like this? He's a legitimate encyclopaedical entry, being the highest-ranking CIA member to publicly resign his post - and google turns up over 8000 hits for *him* (John Stockwell + CIA) Sherurcij 07:52, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

We ignore them. We are here to provide facts whether the subjects of those facts like them or not; as long as there's no legal concerns involved, we keep the content. If he sues, however, I assume we take it down immediately. Garrett^Talk 11:00, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Only if it's a copyright infringement. Otherwise, screw 'em, it stays up no matter what he wants or tries to do. I'd say a CIA agent would qualify as a public official (yeah, yeah, they do their work in secrecy...not the point), and even if not, someone who writes books and makes public speeches in the manner described in the article has certainly made himself a public figure. So as long as the information isn't both false and posted with knowledge or reckless disregard of that falsity, I can't imagine how he'd have a nonfrivolous legal claim. Postdlf 20:55, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Policy on ?ref in commercial external links and general Talk Page issues

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I'm not really all that HTML literate, but ?ref in a url appears to me to be an attempt to track links that come in to that external site from Wikipedia, which I assume is against a Wikipedia policy or guideline. However, I didn't see anything about it in Wikipedia:External links, although there is a lot of discussion of similar external link quality issues on Wikipedia_talk:External links. (posted by User:Spalding —Wahoofive (talk))

CGI scripts can use any variable name, not just "ref", to specify the referring page -- the key is what comes after the "ref=" part. If it says "ref=http://wikipedia.org", that might be a clue. Conversely, it could be a reference to a particular page on the target site, and therefore necessary (and harmless). Depending on your browser, a CGI script might be able to determine the referring page regardless of the content of the URL (see "HTTP_REFERER" on [9]). Anyway, I don't see why it's important to conceal it. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:01, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Also, in general, is there a way to search just the Wikipedia:Project namespace? And is anyone else a little disillusioned with the usefulness of Talk pages? They seem to suffer from a lack of traffic, so questions asked there often languish and get no real resolution, which is the main reason I am asking this here instead of on that Talk page. Thanks. Spalding 11:40, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

"American" in United States-related category names

Latest comment: 20 years ago4 comments2 people in discussion

I just listed Category:United States painters for merging/renaming to Category:American painters on Wikipedia:Categories for deletion. Currently, the subcategories of Category:American people lack uniformity, with it split between "United States", "U.S.", and "American", though most use the latter. I just wanted to make sure that this discussion got wider exposure, because based on past experience on the CfD page, I think the misplaced good intentions of a few have prevented a permanent and proper solution to the lack of category naming consistency.

The simple fact is that in all forms of English (not to mention through cognates in many other languages), "American" is the only term for referring to someone or something that is of the United States. This is regardless of the fact that this linguistic appropriation of an adjective that may have otherwise belong to two continents may be politically incorrect. The fact is that it's simply the way that it is. That's the convention.

"United States painter" gets a paltry 603 google hits, most of which seem to be Wikipedia mirrors (alas, this awkward and obtuse phrase shows up in some article text). There is obviously no such linguistic usage, nor should we invent one. "United States" is not in any way an adjective. Or look at it this way: would anyone, regardless of what part of the world you live in, expect someone to say "Hi, I'm a United States"? or "Hi, I'm a U.S."? when they introduce themselves? Yeah, they could say "Hi, I'm from the U.S.", but if they want to use the simple noun form, or an adjective, no one would say anything but "I'm an American" or "I'm American." Even though "U.S." may have some currency as an adjective, 1) it primarily refers to the government, 2) its usage is definitely minor compared to "American", and 3) it simply doesn't work for people ("No, I'm not Canadian, I'm U.S.")

I've never seen anyone who has disagreed that this convention is binding or pervasive actually offer any evidence supporting that "American" does not overwhelmingly and dominantly mean "of the United States", or that there are other comparatively prominent and correct alternatives. Please let's fix this, or at least discuss it with relevance to our policies and actual terminology, not socio-political motivations. Postdlf 16:50, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

See also Alternative words for American, which is about how substitutes for "American" have failed to catch on. Postdlf 16:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Whilst we're at it, then, could we standardise British and UK into British, since British is the term used to describe the nationality of citizens of the UK, as per the British passport. Steve block 21:07, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

I think the intention of the prevailing phrasing is to give possession of the person to the country. We'd have to rename a vast quantity of categories if this were changed... -Splash 21:43, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

The prevailing phrasing is actually "American ____": see the entries in Category:American people by occupation, which mostly use that form. Even were that not the case, the "prevailing phrasing" should be changed if it is incorrect (that's what bots are for, after all). The actual (and proper) convention in category naming of people is to apply the adjective form of the nationality, because that's what the English language uses. We don't have Category:The Netherlands people or Category:Union of Soviet Socialist Republics people, we have Category:Dutch people and Category:Soviet people. The nonconformists in Category:People by nationality are in the minority and should also be changed. Postdlf 21:56, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

Changing Template for Deletion criteria

Latest comment: 20 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I propose eliminating "Not in use" from the list of criteria for template deletion. I fail to see how this, in and of itself, constitutes a valid reason for eliminating a template. Certainly, a template might have other shortcomings that warrant its removal--but if the only objection is that no one's using it, that's not really a good reason to delete it. The simple fact that it's not being used doesn't actually hurt anything, after all--might as well keep it available in case someone does come up with a worthwhile use for it. Kurt Weber 21:36, 17 July 2005 (UTC)Reply

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