Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Request for comment

Wikipedia:Categorization policy is a bold proposal to make WP categorization more consistent and stable.

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Disagree--A virtue of WP is its flexibility. Another is its refusal to elevate members to exalted status or restrict them to a minor role. This proposal takes WP in the direction of the old Nupedia: "Let's have real experts do it right the first time." That's been shown not to work.

This proposal does point to some real problems; some of these may be an unavoidable "cost of doing business". But I'll wager there are more than 2 Finnish botanists, perhaps even more than 2 worthy of note. We simply haven't gotten around to filling out the category. In 100 or 200 years, I wouldn't be surprised to see a dozen in there. We're just laying the groundwork today.

I think it is appropriate to understand that over the next several centuries, Wikipedia and its sister projects will probably become the central repository for human knowledge: the primary source of durable, factual information, absorbing and subsuming all others. Maybe your planing horizon does not extend quite that far. (Sony Corporation's chairman once said that Sony's long-term planning horizon was 300 years in the future.) That's fine; work on today -- it's all we have now.

None of us today can fix a plan for WP, except in the most general terms, that will endure for centuries. Let's just stay flexible and trust in the Wiki Way to produce a work of value from moment to moment -- which is all that anyone has any use for, anyway. — Xiong (talk) 15:07, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)

Wikipedia/Wiktionary Split

One of the unique things that makes Wikipedia so great is that it offers a single-access-point to reference information, and the whole idea of splitting it into wikipedia and wiktionary seems very arguable to me. While making a copy of wiktionary-like entries to wiktionary seems totally appropriate to me, removing them from wikipedia is i.m.o. a bad thing. I have personally been a heavy promoter of the wikipedia effort with everybody i know, but i would feel deceived if i'd check on wikipedia for something (including dictionary terms) and not find it there. Please carefully reconsider your strategy, this split will hurt your efforts and i believe you'll only find yourself with many frustrated users in no time. Thank you for your time.

PS I am writing these lines becuase i recently submitted a QoR (Quality of Results) entry to wikipedia and found out it's listed as "candidate to moving to wiktionary".

I concur completely with the opinion of User:Gyll, who forgot to sign, it seems. --TVPR 11:58, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree too. I've also come to feel that the split between dictionary and encyclopedia, like so much else about traditional encyclopedic practice, is artificial given the nature of on-line media, and also that the "move to wictionary" movement is a thin front for anti-stubism (I am a big fan of stubs) or an attempt at propping up wiktionary in the face of a relative lack of excitement in it. I also question whether the open-content, anyone-can-post-and-it'll-all-get-sorted-out dynamic really works for word definitions or etymologies the way it does for general knowledge. Certainly when I need to look up a word I head straight for one of the many other free-access online dictionaries before wictionary. Sharkford 14:50, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)

Agree -- I think splitting off sister projects (in any effort) is generally a Bad Idea. This tends to create stagnant backwaters liable to suffocate through lack of interest. All the good effort originally diverted into the sister project is then wasted. I'd be quite happy seeing all the sister projects moved into various namespaces within Wikipedia. I do believe readers should be more obviously noticed when moving in and out of various namespaces, but that's another issue.

I suspect the sister project explosion is rooted in two families of cause: technical limitations, which can always be overcome; and political grievances, which ought to be remedied, rather than forcing dissidents to take their marbles and play elsewhere. — Xiong (talk) 15:29, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly disagree with this. Things that are purely dictionary definitions are not encyclopedic, and outside of our scope. Wiktionary is still part of the greater wikimedia project, as are the other language versions of the encyclopedia. I don't think wiktionary is stagnant, nor do I think that even if it were, we should artificially make wiktionary-type content more interesting by bundling it with the encyclopedia - If most people are interested in the encyclopedia in the first place, why not just give that to them? Plenty of people, from what I've experienced, use more than one wikimedia project. --Improv 16:45, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Things that are purely dictionary definitions are not encyclopedic, and outside of our scope. Your argument only holds if this statemement is true, but if it is true, it is not obviously so - as the long debate about whether to start wiktionary in the first place attests. I am personally in favour of separate projects but tighter integration through soft redirects and so on, but you do find that some people are opposed to even that. Pcb21| Pete 17:07, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My question is rather simple: why on earth should somebody, when typing QoR in Wikipedia, get no results versus getting an answer to what they want to know? You may answer that they will also get no results for "why do horses have 4 legs", which seems a pretty valid position and it weventually boils down to wether or not wikipedia should include/redirect this or that query. It's all a matter of perspective, and this is why i only said "please carefully reconsider this position". Personally i am frustrated when i don't find what i'm looking for, and i am against multiple access points to information, so much so when it's the same editor that willingly splits the info, but that's only me. In the end it's Wikimedia's policy not mine or any other contributor's. Maybe a poll over this issue would be a good thing? Dunno... --Gyll 11:16, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And now that i think about it, how about this: for each "Candidate to moving to wiktionary" page, make a weighted signed poll (each respondent weighted somehow based on their contributions to wikipedia), and when the number of answers exceeds N let the polling result make the decision w/r to removing the item from wikipedia pages. Well, it's just a suggestion. --Gyll 11:23, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The subject of Wiktionary entries are words the subject of Wikipedia articles are the actual thing the word names. There are also major format issues ; Wiktionary entries have a very standard layout with little prose while Wikipedia articles have many different formats with lots of prose (well they are supposed to :). More at Wikipedia is not a dictionary. --mav 21:33, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If there's no Wikipedia article for something, there's always a link suggesting you should look at Wiktionary.
Why look in an encyclopedia if you want a dictionary?

I wouldn't mind some soft links somewhere in an article indicating we've got a wiktionary entry for it. But including wiktionary in Wikipedia will just make things messy for new users who don't know about namespaces. The mere fact Wikipedia and Wiktionary have different names, should help people in distinguishing where to put stuff, even if some people still ignore it. Also, as things currently stand. Dic defs clog up the namespace and make the whole redlink is no article less useful. 131.211.208.36 09:50, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

NPOV → China

Why doesn't the NPOV policy apply to Taiwan. Apparently Wikipedia treats Taiwan as a sovereign state called the Republic of China? Beijing totally refutes this and no-one officially on the world stage recognises the "Republic of China". Not even Taiwan recognises itself as independent. Surely we have to change to refer to Taiwan as "Taiwan" and to accept that Taiwan is not sovereign? I though the NPOV policy was sacrosanct, jguk 12:26, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Could you please spare some time and read all these articles before speaking around? — Insta ntnood 13:07, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

I have - and it is unreasonable for WP to take the view that there is a sovereign state based in Taipei called the Republic of China when we all know, and have been recently reminded by the news, that Beijing completely opposes that position. That is the problem, jguk 13:12, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But that's just one POV. There is another, equally long held POV that says that the Republic of China encompasses all of Mainland China, Mongolia, Taiwan, etc., its provisional capital is Taipei, and it's just waiting for a good opportunity to liberate the Mainland from Communist rule. That's clearly equally far into the realm of fantasy as the POV espoused by the PRC. The fact is that there are territories that are clearly under ROC control, several countries entertain diplomatic relations with the ROC, the ROC and the PRC both participate in international competitions (sports etc., though under different names), etc. The Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Chinese) merely state that the political entities should be referred to as the "People's Republic of China" on the one hand, and as the "Republic of China" on the other, and that for political purposes neither should be equated with "China" or "Taiwan". If and when appropriate, individual articles can and should mention that there are several competing PsOV and explain them in all relevant detail. The current naming conventions merely try to stick to the pieces that reasonable people should be able to agree on: there is a sovereign political entity known as the PRC and there is a sovereign political entity known as the ROC. The latter is trickier, because Western mass media often refer to the ROC incorrectly as "Taiwan", which is POV, because the question whether ROC=Taiwan is extremely contentious, even among ROC citizens. Wikipedia need not and should not get involved in this debate, which is precisely what the current naming conventions try to accomplish. --MarkSweep 20:49, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Taiwan IS a sovereign state. Taiwan is the place. ROC is the current regime. Some Taiwanese believe that ROC is illegitimate. THat has nothing to do with Taiwan being the place where the ROC rules. But who believes ROC rules China/Mongolia? You can't say Taiwan does. They only don't say that they don't because PRC, even though they say the whole ROC business is illegitimate anyways, threaten war. How do you accept "truths" that are under the pressure of violence?

So you consider Beijing's POV = NPOV? — Insta ntnood 13:19, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that having a WP policy that is totally contradictory to Beijing's stance is POV. One completely accepting Beijing's stance would also be POV. It's best to have a convention to use terms on which the main sides agree. They all agree that (at present) Taiwan is not independent of China. They also all use the term "Taiwan" as a short-hand for territory that is currently controlled by Taipei. So it'd be best to adopt this approach rather than treating Taiwan as a separate sovereign state and referring to the "Republic of China" or "Cross-Straits", jguk 13:27, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Comment Something that the posters on NC:Chinese keep forgetting is that an NPOV isn't no POV. A neutral POV explains controversies, it doesn't try to bury them by creating and vigorously reinforcing "Naming Conventions". This goes to the heart of the entire current NPOV section on everything China. It's ridiculous to be creating categories and shoving articles around to non-existent entities (Mainland China) because it doesn't agree with everyone's POV about what "China" is. So long as everyone in Taiwan, HK and Macau get their way, "China" doesn't exist. SchmuckyTheCat 14:17, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Mainland China" isn't a non-existent entity. It's a neutral term that everyone uses to refer to PRC minus HK and Macau.

But I agree with everything else you said. -- ran (talk) 16:57, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Not non-existent as a phrase, but it's not a political, geographical, cultural or language entity. It's an informal phrase that could be avoided 90% of the time it's used here. Some users also abuse it to advance their agenda of minimizing PRC references which is why I oppose it's widespread usage. SchmuckyTheCat 22:09, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

it is unreasonable for WP to take the view that there is a sovereign state based in Taipei called the Republic of China -- this is precisely the view of the ROC itself. It calls itself the "Republic of China", and its provisional capital is Taipei.

Apparently Wikipedia treats Taiwan as a sovereign state called the Republic of China? -- no, Wikipedia currently treats the ROC as a government / regime that controls Taiwan and a few other islands. Similarly the PRC is a government / regime that controls Mainland China, HK, and Macau. -- ran (talk) 17:00, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with ran. I'd even call Taiwan sovereign but only on the territory it controls. My problem is using that status to redefine the PRC. SchmuckyTheCat 22:09, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

May I refer you to the naming convention policy that states "Wikipedia treats the Republic of China as a sovereign state with equal status with the People's Republic of China"? jguk 17:36, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Regime or government would perhaps be a better word to sovereign State. I agree some of the sentences of the #Political NPOV needs some clarifications. Nonetheless both the ROC and the PRC are treated as regimes/governments is a shared view among many users, such as MarkSweep, Jiang, Ran, Penwhale and me. — Insta ntnood 17:49, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

I propose that all further discussion take place here in order to avoid fragmentation. Let me briefly state here that the person who started this debate on the Pump is, IMHO, simply mistaken both about the intent behind the naming conventions and about the real world situation. --MarkSweep 20:33, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the noteworthy goal of putting it on the pump is to get people who don't already have a dog in the fight to come in and put forth an opinion. NC:Chinese has been having this stalemated discussion for months. SchmuckyTheCat 22:09, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, I don't even have a dog. Despite my pinyin online handle, I am not Chinese at all, merely a China buff who spent a few years there. I have no authority. Perhaps my opinion will carry some weight even so (but I'd rather have a black Lab).

Pretty much all Chinese agree "There is only one China." But what do they mean?

When I say "San Jose", sometimes I mean the city in which I live -- that is, the land within the official city limits and every Lexus, palm tree, down-and-out junkie ex-systems analyst and Starbucks upon that land. Sometimes I mean the geographic area variously termed "Silicon Valley", "Santa Clara Valley", "Santa Clara County", or "South Bay Area". Sometimes I mean the computer/microelectronics industry. Sometimes I mean the political entity goofing off inside City Hall, with tentacles throughout the state: municipal guvmint. In some conversations, I might be referring exclusively to the San Jose Police Department ("There was two cars at the scene from Sunnyvale before San Jose got there.") "San Jose" means nothing in itself; it must be namespaced before it acquires even a roughly agreed-upon meaning. In normal conversation, that happens automatically, in context. But this is not a normal conversation.

Chinese people do not have a "Western" sense of the passage of time. I doubt I could find two American highschoolers to tell me the significance of the Whiskey Rebellion, and that was a definitive moment in American history, with lasting effects on the balance of power between State and Federal guvmint, only about 200 years ago. Hey, I wonder how many could write more than a sentence out of their own heads on the Vietnam War. Chinese highschoolers can name every dynasty for thousands of years, back to when they were a small tribe scratching in yellow mud, and tell you about quite a few wars. American businessmen plan, at most, 5 years into the future; Chinese plan 100 years ahead.

So far as many Chinese are concerned, 1949 was yesterday. Nothing has been settled in the last 50 years. An American might think that if he saw somebody steal a kid's bike, he could run down the street and grab the bike back -- but if he saw that same bike in a thrift store 10 years later, it would just be too late to recover the stolen property. From the Chinese POV, though, it's never too late -- or at least, it's not too late yet.

I think it's absurd to say that there is only one China, when there are four or five San Jose's (not including anything in Puerto Rico). There's China, the People's Republic; China, the Republic of; China, the geographical area including all of the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and a bunch of other islands, and maybe Singapore, too. There are cultural groups, language groups, ethnic groups. Why, most Han people don't think anyone else is Chinese.

Now, this whole fuss began about 150 years ago, when the Empire (the government) started crumbling under the influence of the British mercantile invasion; by 1912 it was gone. Different groups and individuals began to grab power, and China entered another period of fragmentation. The Japanese did their best to stir the pot and various "Western" powers put in their oars, too. When the dust settled -- after 100 years of war and upheaval -- there were essentially five independent Chinese political entities: PRC, ROC, HK, Macau, and Singapore.

Taking the last first, although Singapore is largely Chinese, nobody has ever to my knowledge tried to call it China or part of China. I don't know why.
Hong Kong was and is an abnormal political entity. It has always functioned with a great deal of autonomy -- from London by reason of distance, from Beijing by reason of sheer stubbornness. But it has never thought of itself as an independent nation, despite having its own (import/export) customs, immigration, currency, laws, police, languages, and culture. Beats me.
Macau was and is an even more abnormal entity than HK. It is very small; the natives say, "There is only one street." I hope I can say frankly, without offense to anyone, that Macau is basically a large casino, whorehouse, and drug distribution center -- the Las Vegas of Asia. It owes its autonomy not so much to strength, but to the fact that all parties, from the Portugeuse to the carpetbaggers of Zhuhai to the Mandarins of Beijing, find it a convenient place for rest and relaxation; nobody wants to take responsibility for it, or be embarassed by failure to do so. It also has its own customs, immigration, currency, laws, police, languages, and culture.
The government now based in Beijing, calling itself the People's Republic, exercises effective control over a very large area. Toward the western borders, this control is a bit shaky, but less so than it might be. It is extending control over HK and Macau, but I like to say this is like a man playing three hands at a blackjack table. They are still operated independently.
When the ROC government fled to the island of Taiwan, the PRC was pretty tired of a three-cornered war that had gone on for 30 years. Even so, they might have pursued to Taiwan, except that the good old US of A put its oar in, threatening to defend Taiwan against the mainlanders. The PRC still exercises no real control over Taiwan, but refuses to give up its claim to it. Chinese are patient people; perhaps the day will come when the US is no longer willing to threaten war to defend Taiwan, and the ROC will be forced to negotiate with the PRC.
Meanwhile, the ROC continues to maintain that it is the only legitimate government of all of China, presumably including HK and Macau. The most neutral comment I can make on this is that it doesn't seem to be supported by the evidence.

I could go into a discussion of the other Chinas -- the cultural, the linguistic -- but debate really only rages over the political question. To recap, there are two utterly incompatible statements asserted by two different groups, and a third statement upon which they both agree:

(1) PRC is the government of all China.

-- or --

(2) ROC is the government of all China.

-- and either way --

There is only one China, including everything I've mentioned except Singapore.

This last statement is not contested by any official body, but I find it patent nonsense in this political context. It may be valid in other contexts, but to me, it is obvious that there are four, possibly five, Chinas (Chinese nations de facto).

Anyway, a whole bunch of terminology depends from each statement (1) and (2). There is no middle ground; over time, every possible name for every possible Chinese thing has been co-opted into one camp or the other.

I assert that Wikipedia's NPOV policy in this case simply forbids anyone, at any time, in any place, from editing, criticizing, or discussing any term applied to the whole of China, any part of China, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Kowloon, Macau, Taiwan, or the Sprately Islands. Whoever called it whatever first, that's it. — Xiong (talk) 01:31, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the point you're making here. The historical facts and the situation (both de facto and de iure) are not under dispute, as far as I can tell. The issue is mostly one of terminology, especially as it applies to article names. Naming an article can easily turn into an epic battle: in the end, there can be only one name (there can be many redirects, though). The question in particular is whether articles that are primarily about the current Republic of China should be renamed to be about "Taiwan", and whether referring to the "Republic of China" violates the NPOV policy (since the very existence of the ROC runs counter to the POV put forward by the PRC). The current Naming Conventions state that "ROC" is the best term to use in political contexts; many editors agree with it, a few disagree. The main arguments have been set out before on Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese), and I won't repeat them here. I'll simply encourage you to visit that talk page, read up on the prior discussion, and perhaps join the merry crowd. --MarkSweep 19:52, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is some topic being long disputed. The reason we do not take PRC's view point as neutral point of view is because this encyclopedia is not based in Beiging. We reach a neutral point by reflecting the reality while keep all the POVs into the article. Whether Taiwan is neutral or not based on one's point of view. However, the reality is that PRC does not control Taiwan/ROC. Similiarly, the U.S. does not recognize Cuba and this fact does not make Cuba less sovereign than other nations. We treat Taiwan/ROC as a sovereign country becasue it function like a sovereign country, not because it is a sovereign country in everyone's eye on this earth. We choose a treatment not to against PRC's POV but a treatment which is closest to the reality. When PLA start to patrol over the Taiwan coast daily, we will stop treating ROC as a sovereign country. Before that, I suggest we reflect the reality.

I do see the problem of the definition of China where the definition is affected by the regions outside of the mainland China. However, this is really the by-product of the NPOV policy in Wikipedia. As long as Chinese people makes assertions extending beyond current PRC's control and also as long as those being claimed regions objects the definition from PRC's view point, a clear cut definition of China, either geographically or politically, would always being occluded for the sake of NPOV not to biasing against those diagree with the PRC difinition. Again, this is being done to reflect reality, not because we want to bias against PRC. The only way to circumvent this issue is to define China as where PRC controls and take note of PRC's claim in the articles to reflect PRC's POV. However, it seems less likely to reach such a consensus.Mababa 05:36, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The people of Taiwan do not agree "there is one China". The govenment of Taiwan for decades used the fiction (excuse) that there was one China to avoid being voted out of office by the Taiwan people. 4.250.168.188 13:28, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Template:Cleanup-technical - what's the practicality of this?

Template:Cleanup-technical or {{cleanup-technical}}<br\>What's the practicality for the use of this template? Isn't the evaluation of what's too technical going to vary by each individual reader? For example, if I (as a non-principal author) can understand the content of an article, is that grounds enough for removing it, or do we have to put it to a vote every time we want to remove such a tag? I'm also unclear as to the overall intent of such a tag. Is this supposed to create pressure for evolving towards a "Wikipedia for Dummies" authorship style? - Bevo 19:50, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

First, if you find a template like that on an article, feel free to move it to the talk page, as that's the current recommendation for the cleanup tags. Second (and this part's just my opinion), if such a tag was placed on an article without explanation on the talk page and it's not painfully obvious why the tag is there, feel free to remove it. If the tagger hasn't explained why the article was hard to understand, how would another editor know where to add some explanation? On the other hand, if there's no commentary and you do see the problem, adding a few words for other editors would be a good thing so they, in turn, don't need to guess at the problem.

If you do happen to remove such a tag that really did belong there, someone will eventually add it back, quite possibly with an angry "why did you remove this perfectly reasonable tag?!! It was there because...." ... and magically, the reason for the tag appears :) --iMb~Mw 11:56, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The link you provided doesn't point to any cleanup tags. Also, while someone suggested to move cleanup tags to talk pages there's still a lot of opposition, as an editor browsing past is less likely to fix things. I'd have no problems with the tag being removed if it's not explained or painfully obvious though. 131.211.208.36 09:56, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Multiple stub notices?

I had a peak at the new article Battle on the Irpen' River, & was mortified to see six different stub notices. I guess the original contributor was worried some people using Wikipedia might not think this article was a stub.

Seriously, are there any justifiable reasons to put more than one stub notice at the end of an article? Category stub notices admittedly can be of use to draw attention to a given article, but in this case, I'm strongly tempted to either delete all but {{russia-stub}} & {{lithuania-stub}} seeing how the other 3 categories could be folded into those two, or delete all but {{history-stub}}, & replace the rest with category markers. I prefer the second option, but am I going to find myself arguing with a majority of wikipedians who don't see the silliness in multiple stub notices? -- llywrch 00:16, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No, there are not. To emphasize to some of our newer contributors who read this - THERE IS NEVER, EVER, EVER A REASON TO HAVE MORE THAN 1 STUB TAG IN AN ARTICLE. →Raul654 00:29, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

If only these editors spent as much effort on expanding stubs as categorizing them... Gdr 02:37, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

LOL...well, I count only five, but that still must be some sort of record! No, as pretty as some of the subject-stub tags are, there's no excuse for using more than one of them. — Matt Crypto 04:53, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Probably the major reason I just didn't go ahead & remove all of the tags was to be able to point at the article & say "You won't believe what I just found." But I have entered disputes over matters like this one, thinking I have right on my side, only to find most of Wikipedia wondering why I would be so obsessed over a triviality. Better to be sure I have a possible concensus on my side. -- llywrch 05:05, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

IIRC, somewhere in the multiple pages of the Stub Sorting project, it says you shouldn't use more than two stub notices. --cesarb 12:22, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

5 isn't a record. If more than one stub tag is needed sohve them on the talk page.

I got some beating with a heavy stick here for puting several stub notices to the article under discussion. A relative newbie, I would be happy to comply with "Never ever more than one stub rule" in the future, if this is indeed the policy. However, could some one point out the reason behind it? My reason of putting several stub tags was to encourage other wikieditors, knowledgable in any of the fields of several stubs, to contribute by finding the article in the lists of stubs in the category, they feel competetent to write. Could someone point out why using the stub tags to attract editors was a bad idea. Thanks! Irpen 15:45, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Because it's ugly and it doesn't serve much purpose to have a list of stub notices that's longer than the article. All stub notices are the same: "This article is incomplete." Everything else people have added to them is just window dressing. -- Cyrius|✎ 15:58, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Cyrius -- though, I must admit, that array of flags on this article's full collection of stub notices was exceptionally colorful window dressing. JamesMLane 16:33, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While I agree that it's better to unstub an article than to agonise over whether it should have 1, 2 or 12 stub notices, once we got into stub sorting categorisation becomes important. The alternative to multiple stub cats is more specific stub cats. I think "Bulgarian-bio-stub" and "scientist-stub" is more useful than having a "Bulgarian-scientist-stub". Otherwise, if someone is interested in expanding "scientist-stubs" s/he might never find the ones classified under "Bulgarian-stubs". I prefer multiple stub cats (2, maybe 3 max) or no stub cats. Guettarda 16:46, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Note that extra stub categories can be added by hand instead of using multiple templates. —Korath (Talk) 17:14, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it (admittedly, I never read the original discussion on categorizing stubs), the whole point of adding stub note category was to help editors looking for projects to better identify topics in need of work; Category:stub is so large & unwieldy that it fails in this purpose. (Plus many stubs remain flagged with {{msg:stub}}.) Sorting stubs into categories helps if there are specialist editors working in that catory who will respond to the need; otherwise, it is just so much busy-work. Any better suggestions for attracting editors to stubs that need attention? -- llywrch 17:53, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

OK, how about a rule of (at most) one stub tag, and then categorising the article into the other stub categories (but without the stub message). That way, the article isn't cluttered up with stubcruft, and still editors can find short articles to expand in their field of interest. — Matt Crypto 13:23, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To answer the original question as to whether it is justifiable to have more than one stub template on a page, the answer is a definite, clear, and unequivocal YES. To emphasize to some of our newer contributors who read this - THERE IS FREQUENTLY A VERY, VERY GOOD REASON TO HAVE MORE THAN ONE STUB TAG IN AN ARTICLE. The whole purpose of subcategories for stubs is to enable editors responsible for particular areas of research to be able to find stubs. If an aticle is in more than one area of research, it would be crazy NOT to allow two (or, on rare occasions, more) editorial groups to find the article. Take the following examples, for instance.

A mountain on the border between two countries - which country's stub gets added, or do you anonymously dump the article in with geography stubs from around the world?
An Italian politician - Italy stub or Politician stub?
William Blake - Poet or Artist?

As to the articles "becoming ugly", a stub IS ugly, by definition. Adding only one stub templates to it won't change that - it will still be ugly. But adding two or three will improve the chance that the article will be extended to the point where it is no longer a stub and is no longer ugly. Stub notices are not there for the readers (surely a reader will have enough common sense to realise when an article is short) - they are there to help editors find articles, and as such the more help they can get, the better. I must admit I'm amazed at an article having six stubs on it - I've sorted a LOT of stubs in the last few months, and have never seen an article with more than three. As to taking the stub template off and just adding a category, that has been tried, and there were complaints from editors. They thought that it was unfair that one particular stub got "precedence" by being left on the article. It's also far easier for stub sorters to use the templates, since the category names tend to be longer and more complex (I know - a minor reason, but a valid one nonetheless).

Please, the whole idea of one stub vs more than one stubs has been suggested on a couple of occasions in the past at WikiProject Stub sorting, and each time it has been soundly rejected, as it is a BAD IDEA as regards the whole stub process. Grutness|^hello?

03:05, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have made a proposal to solve this multiple stub thing at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Reform proposal: stubs and categories. -- Toytoy 04:55, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Commercial use of GFDL Material

Help me understand: GFDL allows for future commercial use of material, but as a copyleft GFDL asserts said future commercial material must also be GFDL. How can something be both commercial and licensed under GFDL? If an advertisement using GFDL material is considered "commercial" then the dual GFDL/commercial nature does not seem contradictory, but what about someone selling a poster with GFDL material on it? Does that mean after I buy the poster I am free to copy and redistribute it, but not before I buy it? More cartoon examples might help me. Thanks. Lensim 18:10, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Let's say I print up the geographical articles into a book and call it SuperAtlas. I can sell it to you. Until you buy it, you have no rights to it. Just because I downloaded and printed the GFDL content, I'm not under an obligation to give it to anyone else. However, whenever I do give it someone else (whether I'm doing it because they bought it or I'm a nice guy), I must do so under the terms of the GFDL, insuring the person to whom I'm giving it the same rights I have.

In particular, that means that once you have one copy of the SuperAtlas, you can give it to your friends or reprint it or publish it on the web (as long as you do so under the licensing terms). You could try to get a copy of my SuperAtlas by asking someone who already has one for a copy; there's nothing wrong with that. Or you could do the same thing I did and consult the source. But I have no obligation to both sell copies of the SuperAtlas and give them away. Demi ^T/_{C 19:12, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)}

Thank you that is exactly what I wanted to know :) PS your signature wields unbridled power. Lensim 21:40, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quarantine of Fanatic Debate

Last night, I went absolutely insane.

I am not Chinese, but I confess to a fascination with all things Chinese, and I would like to participate in projects relating to things Chinese. But every forum discussing things Chinese -- every Talk page on every article whose topic is Chinese -- seems to be full of a certain fanatic debate. This debate is so highly polarized that it cannot even be characterized in neutral terms -- but we have to call it Something, or you'll wonder what I'm talking about. Please allow me to call it the "PRC vs ROC" debate. You might just as well call it the "Mainland vs Taiwan" debate, or the "One China" debate, or the "Beijing vs Taipei" debate, or just the "Evil vs Good" debate -- and who is evil and who is good, I am sure I cannot say. Its most visible expression is argument over what to call it -- what names may be used to identify Chinese things, be they political, geographical, human, philosophical, or ethnic entities.

I have other contributions to make and am hardly a China expert, so I thought I would just leave this alone, though not without a comment or two on the ludicrousness of either side trying to convince the other. I can't imagine why I thought that would quiet either of these rabid parties. After all these years, I still manage to believe in the goodness of human nature and the rationality of the human animal.

What finally set me off was when a user came onto my Talk page to ask me to weigh in on the debate. Imagine! Here I have set it down in no ambiguous language that I consider the entire debate offensive, contrary to the WP Way, out of order, and incapable of resolution. I have real work to do, articles to edit, graphics to upload, typos to catch, links to fix, garbage to be emptied. Now I'm being dragged into this cesspool of contention.

I went absolutely insane.

I fired off a completely unsupported fiat -- my "last word" on the subject -- and began to archive all this useless debate into one page -- arena, battleground, what have you -- one place where the warring parties can slug it out until the end of Time. This immediately touched off protest, unsurprisingly not by neutral parties. I had the forethought to create a page to house this metadebate, too.

After a break of some hours to eat and relieve Wikistress, I returned to find that Curps had attacked my unilateral action with some unilateral action of his own. He has bypassed normal procedure, saying I have bypassed normal procedure. He has ordered me to cease and desist. I shall be delighted to lay this burden down, so unwillingly assumed in the first place. But I'm not going to drop the matter, either. All is not well.

I paraphrase for general consumption, highlights of my reply:

You don't like me to impose a solution? Please, you impose a solution. If you think you have more authority than I do, you probably do. If you have the power to unilaterally bypass social mechanisms and throttle me, then you have the power and the responsibility to impose a unilateral solution on these political fanatics before they destroy us all.

Every existing method of conflict resolution has failed. This endless, pointless debate is wrecking everything with which it comes in contact. It's not even limited to China-related pages; it spills into the Pump, a half-a-dozen policy talk pages and, I swear, I think I come across it while I'm trying to edit Graph theory. The debate is a cancer eating away at the fabric of WP society.

Curps moved the page I created for the debate to User:Xiong/Talk:PRC vs ROC. Fine by me; when I run out of bandwidth or storage, send me a bill. Pick a name -- any name, any namespace -- just so long as it doesn't overlap with real discussion. Believe me, I don't have a dog in this fight. I simply have no opinion on the "Taiwan question", the "Mainland China" question, or any of the other thousand forms of the debate.

(note designated debate page now at: User:Xiong/Chinatalk. 19:52, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC))

My actions are only disruptive to those who need to disrupt WP to make their points. I haven't even interfered with those who just want to continue the eternal debate itself -- only those who feel it must be aired in every conceivable forum.

Before I started moving comments in this debate to a designated area, I saw Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Chinese) grow to a whopping 150K; I could barely get it to load in my browser, let alone edit it or make any comment on any other issue -- one upon which some consensus might be reached, one having nothing to do with PRC, ROC, or any of that.

What I have done is to archive portions of a verbose, distributed discussion in a central location. I'll admit I have done so with a great deal of huffing and puffing, and you're welcome to censure me for that. But I contest any censure of my actions or characterization of them as disruption or vandalism. Archival of discussion is a normal user function on WP. I have contrived a method of quarantining this -- foolishness -- while preserving not only the foolishness itself for those who care to indulge, but also the legitimate business of the forums so polluted.

Please do not tell me everything is going to be okay. Don't ask me to wait around for consensus to pull out of this furball; it will not. Human beings have been executed by their leaders for expressing opinions on this subject; there are plenty of warriors on both sides who will not lay down their arms. You will not get these folks to the bargaining table, let alone get them to agree on anything. The debate itself is pointless. It has gone on for years; if a solution by consensus or any other existing method were possible, it would have taken place. No new information is going in; a great smoke and noise is coming out.

I took action. You don't like it? You take action. Be bold. If you think this needs to be decided at the Highest Levels, get together with the other bigwigs and thrash it out. There is not much point trying to do serious work on one corner of this project while holy wars rage everywhere. This debate is merely one egregious offender.

Please prove me wrong. Please prove me an insolent fool, a rude buffoon, a maniac on wheels. Prove my actions unwarranted, extreme, overreaction. You will earn my most sincere apologies. Show me. Bring the combatants together, or for that matter, allow them to continue their war, somewhere away from the general business of this project. Let your solution serve as a model for the other holy wars raging here, which are all too numerous and visible.

Meanwhile, I call for a Speedy quarantine procedure, which will permit any admin to immediately, without metadebate, establish a forum for any debate which threatens to engulf multiple unrelated forums. Note that all participants will automatically contest quarantine; they will assert that their debate belongs everywhere, right up front. Thus no metadebate on quarantine itself is permissible, except within the quarantine forum. The admin acts, and thereafter, all related comments will take place in the designated forum.

Let us disagree, but let us do so with some fragment of civility. — Xiong (talk) 14:01, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)

I'm part of that debate and I totally agree with what you just said. I got myself into it after being reverted a billion times by partisans and ended up becoming a partisan myself. It's all consuming. Personally, I think it needs people who don't know Chinese politics to come in and lay down common sense. SchmuckyTheCat 15:08, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Xiong,

You wrote a document at User:Xiong/xiongxiong which makes for, uh, interesting reading. You say that "consensus is impossible to achieve", so "imposition by fiat of [a] settlement" is necessary. You grant yourself "jurisdiction" and state "I assume the burden of imposing a settlement". You provide examples of "forbidden edits" and announce "All edits to any main namespace article violating this settlement will be reverted. If I need help policing this settlement, I will recruit deputies". You conclude with "And that is my very last word". I'm not sure how to characterize all this, but this is not the way that dispute resolution is done on Wikipedia.

You then went ahead and deleted various people's comments from talk pages on the grounds that their comments contravened your "settlement"; you also deleted content several times from this very page, eg [1]. I left a note on your talk page, mentioning that doing this could be interpreted as vandalism and I provided links to Wikipedia policy pages, including the page on Wikipedia:Dispute resolution. For anyone who's interested, my comments on your talk page are here: [2]

The China PRC/ROC/Taiwan debate has been extremely verbose and people are quite stubborn, but everything is very civil and there really haven't been any edit wars. Wikipedia has seen much worse disagreements, over German/Polish or Armenian/Azerbaijani issues for instance. I take it you are relatively new on Wikipedia and haven't seen the various dispute resolution mechanisms in action. Wikipedia has always been able to weather these various disputes so far.

It may be that we will conduct a broad survey of Wikipedia opinion, something similar to what was done for "Gdansk". But your announced "settlement" wasn't the way to go and was not in keeping with how Wikipedia operates. -- Curps 18:06, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Xiong,

I'm going to put it this way. Your proposal threatened to destroy everything that the Chinese participants of Wikipedia, of whatever political opinion, have worked for so far.

Yes, there have been arguments, and some of them were long, or bitter. But consensus has been reached before. Compromises have been reached before. In fact, I would go on to say that Wikipedia has the most politically correct, most precise, most factual, and most neutral definition and description of China-related terms anywhere on the internet, if not in the entire history of the world. Where else are you going to find an article of the Republic of China or Mao Zedong or Tibet, for example, that explains what everyone thinks and why they think this way, all in unemotional and neutral language? The talk pages may be messy and drawn out, but what counts are the articles themselves -- and those are works of art. These arguments that you hate so much do achieve something. Wikipedia itself is proof and testament.

If your "settlement" is enforced, then all of that will be destroyed. Wikipedia will become a war zone, with people grabbing article titles most favourable to themselves. It will become precisely what you're trying to prevent -- a battleground for political zealots. If your settlement is enforced across the board, Wikipedia will be destroyed.

That's my two cents. -- ran (talk) 19:19, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that the majority are now angry with me, rather than at each other. Perhaps you can build on that feeling and extend it to other areas of agreement.

I have deleted nothing; all debate I have moved, I have moved to the designated area for such debate. Those who wish to pursue the matter may do so there. I absolutely agree that such debate is vital to the building of the actual articles so long as it remains in its proper place. When it spills out into other areas of the project; into demands for a restatement of general policy; it is One-Thingism, fanaticism, and disruption.

Of course nothing is ever the last word; I cannot even keep up with archiving debate, so I've abandoned any attempt to control edits -- a foolish, headstrong aspiration to begin with. Edit wars can be dealt with by the usual mechanisms.

In short words, for the benefit of those who don't want to slog through It All, I maintain that all debate surrounding the question "What Is China", including WP policy on it, WP policy on enforcement of WP policy, and so forth -- as long as it can be traced directly back to the substantive issue and nothing else -- is a mere extension of the holy war and should take place in one place only.

Fortunately, I can enforce nothing "across the board". I am limited both in authority and resources. But if I come across debate disruptive to the community, I will deal with it as best I can -- as every Wikipedian should. — Xiong (talk) 19:47, 2005 Mar 26 (UTC)

Policy on including non-notable objects

Would someone please explain to me to me the official policy on the inclusion of very non-notable items in the Wikipedia? I'll give you two examples, Pencil Case and Cleat.

Both pencil cases and cleats are entirely mundane, non-notable items. There is so very little that can be said about either. Cleat is currently on VFD at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Cleat and it appears that it will survive. Never mind the fact that it is a collection of dictionary definitions and has already been transwikied to Wikitionary.

Here's what I'm wondering: is the threshold for inclusion in the Wikipedia set at being a noun? If that is the case and we are going to have articles for all mundane things like Fingernail clippers and door knobs then why do people, books, elementary schools, albumns, etc. require notability?

Just wondering aloud. Kevin Rector 20:54, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Presumably no individual pencil case, cleat or set of cleats, nail clipper, etc. would deserve an article. However, as classes of objects, I think these all are potentially encyclopedic topics. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:19, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

A century or so ago there were things called "object lessons" which discussed a single mundane object and brought into the discussion a variety of educational topics associated with it. More recently, we've had wonderful books like John McPhee's Oranges, Henry Petrosky's The Pencil, Mark Jurlansky's Cod and Salt, etc. I don't know where I'd draw the line but I rather like these topics and I think they have considerable potential for growth. As Jmabel | Talk points out, I think the proper parallel would be between an article on a kind of object, like Cleat, and a kind of institution, like Kindergartens. The institution of the kindergarten is highly encyclopedic. Individual kindergartens are not. Just my $0.02. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:39, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that any noun can be included in the Wikipedia, even if it's only a dictionary definition (because it could potentially be expanded). But a proper noun must pass the notability test? Kevin Rector 22:00, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

We're talking common nouns here; proper nouns are another matter. And many common nouns would be redirects at best. I can't imagine, for example, that a radiator grille deserves an article separate from one on a radiator; similarly, while bookbinding certainly deserves an article, very few specific types of binding would deserve their own article. Probably there are other classes of exceptions that are not coming to mind. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:37, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

This discussion would not be complete without a mention of bread clip, which has been on Wikipedia:Unusual articles for quite some time. I can find absolutely no reason why this article on an "entirely mundane, non-notable item" should not exist. Wiki is not paper, and concerns of notability will never leave the realm of personal opinion—in my opinion. :-) Worry about verifiability instead. JRM 20:19, 2005 Mar 27 (UTC)

I find it very easy to believe that someone could write a wonderful article on Radiator grills, quite separately from that on Radiators. The article on (internal-combustion) radiators would talk about thermal properties, coolant flow, air flow, materials, etc.; the article on radiator grills would talk about their aesthetic development as part of automobile design, their materials (chrome etc.), their effects on pedestrians in accidents, etc. However, just because someone could write such an article does not mean that someone has. I don't see much point in having stubs around which aren't encyclopedic while we're waiting for a John McPhee to come around and make them so. By the way, there is a tradition of beautiful decorated pen/pencil cases both in Turkey (kalemtraş) and in Japan (enpitsu ire). --Macrakis 23:16, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Template for articles needing to be cleaned up

For articles needing to be cleaned up, shouldn't there be reasons why that article needs to be cleaned up (ex. Unorganized, Spelling, Grammar, ...) listed on the template? тəzєті 22:43, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

There are a lot of more specific templates than {Cleanup}. Use them as appropriate. But generally, it's best to put details on the talk page, not the article page. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

Our new judges

A self-appointed clique calling itself the Wikipedia:Office of Investigations has empowered itself to decide who is a "problem user" who needs to be "dealt with", primarily through arbitration. Do you support this move, or are you worried about vendettas and bullying? Please comment on Wikipedia talk:Office of Investigations. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 22:46, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I see only two problems with your statement here:

You're misrepresenting the group. It's an organization that appears to be centered around preparing RfC and RfAr cases.
The page in question is currently at Wikipedia:Association of Member Investigations.

Carnildo 23:28, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's an organization that appears to be centered around preparing RfC and RfAr cases.—yes, against those that they and they alone deem to be problems. No, I don't think that was a misrepresentation.
It was moved, and the resulting redirect deleted (I recreated it), after I posted the above. —Charles P. ^(Mirv) 01:12, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's irrelevant. If they prepare frivolous arbcom cases, the arbcom are unlikely to accept it. Even if they do, the subject of the case has nothing to fear. Arbcom will find the case was unfounded and not sanction them. And anyway, you can always appeal to the arbcom or Jimbo yourself. Just because they set up this organization doesn't mean they have any more power. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:24, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Any Wikipedia editor has a right to file an RfC, these editors have just organized themselves. It's up to the arbcom to decide if they want to hear the case, and if an editor or group of editors become nuisance litigators, an RfC can be filed against them. Just ignore them unless they bring you into an RfC, how is it hurting you? Rick K 23:33, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Fighting over broken redirects

Hi! I've attempted to start a discussion on Deletion policy/redirects regarding an argument I'm involved into (sigh) regarding deletion of redirects to missing articles. From what I've seen, I fear that page is not on many people's watch list; would there be a more appropriate location for it?

(I'm a bit anxious to get this resolved, as this has brought part of the Wiki Syntax cleanup effort to a halt, especially since one of its pages has been unilaterally put under protection.)

Thanks! --Fbriere 04:34, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If an admin is busy disrupting things with unwarrented page protection, you should probably report it at WP:AN/I. --Carnildo 05:04, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Unverified orphans

There seem to be a large number of images uploaded but not currently in use in any article (these are termed orphans). Many of these seem to lack source and licensing info. (unverified orphans, or UOs). A few Wikipedians feel that to reduce the load on the servers it makes sense to delete them. A few Wikipedians feel that unverified images uploaded before some date should not be deleted, since the image upload page was not always the way it is now. IIRC, earlier versions did not ask the uploader to tag the image with licensing info. and just asked them to check a box that said that they have permission to upload. IIRC long ago all content (including images) in Wikipedia were supposed to be GFDL, then fair-use images came along, and then came the possibility that Wikipedia could allow a myriad of "free licenses" and "permissions to use" to be used.

I would like to request more people to post their views on the threshold date for listing such images for deletion, whether to list such images for deletion at all, etc. at Wikipedia talk:Images and media for deletion/Unverified orphans#Two thoughts to deal with some of the images.. -- Paddu 06:41, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

One reason for my personally being against deleting all UOs (I'm not saying none of them should be deleted) is that there might be people who uploaded photos taken by themselves to wikipedia and didn't bother to include them in articles (since they would be redundant in an encyclopaedic article, e.g. an insect photographed from different angles) and didn't bother to tag them (since those days GFDL was IIRC kind of default). Most of these pictures would be ideal material for commons and hence IMHO should be moved there prior to getting deleted. -- Paddu 16:08, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This is a {{country data {{{1}}}

| flag link/core | variant = | size = | name = | altlink = national beach handball team | altvar = beach handball }}. We should not waste time deleting unverified orphans, although it is a harmless pastime for those so inclined.

The safe position is to delete everything -- text and images -- that we cannot prove was created by a Wikipedian and licensed under GFDL, or is definitely in the public domain.

The radical position is to retain everything that comes into the project, at least until forced to remove a copyvio.

My bias leans toward the radical end. As a matter of political position, I believe that intellectual property law -- statutory and case law -- is overly restrictive, and that actual enforcement is overzealous.

For example, I once enjoyed an independent movie house in Palo Alto; before the incident I shall relate, they were doing well and had begun restoration of a second theater, a historic downtown Palo Alto movie palace. They got a Disney movie under a license to play it for a restricted audience (I believe, of schoolkids) and carelessly played it for a general audience. The Mouse took it all. They weren't asked to settle the claim out of court; they were simply crushed.

We are all different, and what terrifies some, emboldens others. I think we need to stand up to such bullies, though with care. If they intend to lord it over us, let them work for the privilege.

That bias disclosed, let me quote from Wikipedia talk:Copyright violations on history pages: We should largely ignore possible copyright infringements in page histories...I've yet to see a complaint from a copyright holder about this, so it seems more on the paranoia side than something which is actually a problem for us.. Jamesday 12:34, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC) Jamesday is a WP developer. I suggest copyright holders don't complain about violations remaining in history because they never see it, and few reader do, either.

I think the issue of unverified orphans is even more of a non-issue. True, somebody might pick up on such an orphan and elevate it to star status, and if-and-when that happens, and if-and-when someone claims a copyvio, then we can deal with it, as we deal routinely with all alleged copyvios. Until then, this is a Black Hole.

Xiong, if what you say has to be followed, what about Wikipedia:Possibly unfree images then? That has been around for quite some time. There are some PUIs that are obviously unfree but we just haven't been able to locate the URL they infringe the copyright of, e.g. photos of models. But the WP:PUI page doesn't restrict from listing and deleting any untagged image. Recently a clause was added to contact the original uploader, but I'm afraid most original uploaders aren't around. I'm not bothered about images that were taken from some other resource (online or not). But IMHO images authored by Wikipedians shouldn't go away. Also if they get deleted the original authors might return, find that the images got deleted & then turn away from Wikipedia and influence those they know to turn against Wikipedia. If good faith is to be assumed only proved copyvios and redundant images should get deleted, but that is simply not the state of affairs currently. -- Paddu 21:13, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Scientific point of view

Wikipedia:Scientific point of view (WP:SPOV) is a discussion on SPOV and NPOV. Criticism and further development of ideas, improvemtn of my prose is welcome. :) Dunc|☺ 23:56, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

University of Maryland, College Park/Vote

There is a policy proposal being voted upon at University of Maryland, College Park/Vote. Some users believe that all articles for universities should use short names, such as "University of Texas" vs. "University of Texas at Austin", "University of Massachusetts" vs. "University of Massachusetts Amherst", etc. The poll has two questions, one about the specific name for University of Maryland, College Park and the other is a general policy proposal which would change Wikipedia:Naming conventions, affecting many articles. I'm not sure if University of Maryland, College Park/Vote is the right page for a policy proposal, and I don't think there has been any input from a larger portion of the community before voting started. Still, please vote. Rhobite 18:33, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

For the record, no there hasn't been a lot of input on the larger policy proposal, though mostly through the actions of User:John Kenney it had been brought it up at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions and across a significant number of schools where a long name (e.g. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is used in place of a more common short name (e.g. "University of North Carolina"). And some of those schools have been going round and round on this issue for years. In most cases though, little feedback was received, either pro or con. In the specific case of University of Maryland, however, it provoked long and irreconciable debate which is the proximal cause of this survey. Since there is a larger policy question here, those of us involved in creating the survey agreed to include that as an additional matter, with admittedly limited consultation from the broader community. It is my expectation that there probably will never be a consensus on University naming, but provoking the discussion and having the arguments on record should be useful when this issue inevitably comes up again and again. Dragons flight 20:06, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Any policy regarding school articles?

I think we should not include articles of some non-noteworthy high schools just because a single incident (see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Red Lake High School and Talk:Columbine High School. The majority of people do not agree with me. Is there an established policy?

Here are my views (edited):

Delete. [ Red Lake High School ] and Columbine High School are both not noteworthy. ... A high school is a high school. Unless it actually becomes something such as an elite high school, it's no more than a human butcher shop. Is there an article dealing with the garage at 2122 N. Clark Street, Chicago? Certainly not. Just because some people were killed over there on February 14, 1929, does not earn that lousy garage an article in an encyclopedia. -- Toytoy
The information [in Columbine High School] is possibly copied from the school website. It's legal, but useless in an encyclopedia. What do you want to know about a school? Its history? Its policy? Its people? That article has nearly nothing to justify its existance. One thing that tells Harvard University from the official http://www.harvard.edu/ website is our article has some original and interesting information in it. OK, even if someone has written something about that school, how do we check the fact? How many students of that school are writing for Wikipedia? Can they write anything that's useful to an outsider? ... -- Toytoy 02:03, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo in a car. The car does not have an article. The bullet that killed him is stored as a museum exhibit in Czech Republic. It also does not have an article. ... That high school is just a faceless high school. It does not have a story of its own ... (other than the massacre). ... If we need its information (who?), we visit its website ... . Otherwise, just another useless high school article does not enrich this encyclopedia in any way. Beslan school hostage crisis occured about six months ago, do you care about that Beslan Middle School Number One? Sorry, it's still a dead link. The Michael Moore movie [Bowling for Columbine] is irrelevant. Several McDonald's appeared in Super Size Me, none of them deserves any article. -- Toytoy 02:03, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)
[ In response to m:Wiki is not paper ]: Wikipedia is also not an information landfill. There's an article for Suzanne Vega, ... another for "Tom's Diner" ... . I don't see the need of an article for that diner (Tom's Restaurant) on the corner of Broadway and 112th Street in New York City even though that diner also appeared in Seinfield. -- Toytoy 01:49, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. Tom's Restaurant is a landmark, a place that even mild Seinfeld fans like to visit when in Morningside Heights. As such it deserves at least a stub. Certainly a 5-paragraph treatise on the quality of the food or service (both of which are lousy) is unnecessary, but the restaurant, like Columbine has had enough of an impact on popular culture that it deserves an article. GabrielF 01:58, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

... There are articles for colleges because you may want to select a college that's best for you regardless of distance. A New Yorker who lives next to the NYU may want to go to Stanford to complete his/her education. I don't see too many people who live in Long Island and go to a high school in, maybe, Brooklyn. High schools, except for some truly great ones, are not noteworthy. -- Toytoy 01:07, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Other than some magnet schools, high school articles are generally useless. These schools are local schools. You don't see a student from Tokyo in these high schools. You don't even see a student from another state, county or town over there. People in Baghdad are not sending their kids to a small school district in Colorado. The school information is not needed by the rest of us (6 billion earthlings). Any one of us may want to visit a small village populated by 10 somewhere off the shore of Congo River. But we usually don't consider to go a high school across the town. -- Toytoy 01:47, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

Exceptions

People usually say the shootings made these school noteworthy. I'll say that's totally nonsense. A shooting makes a school noteworthy only when:

The school gave each student a pistol and required them to take a shooting class.
The school weed out problem students systematically but a good student went berserk anyway.
The school has a long and proud troubled tradition shared by its students. (Alumni: famous revolutionaries, gangsters, mass and serial murderers, mercenaries ...)
The school developed a secret brain-growth potion that made students murderers.

Each school has some troubled students. This is not news. The school has to do something that caused the shooting to be any noteworthy. -- Toytoy 02:39, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

None of your points explains how having articles on high schools is harmful for Wikipedia. - SimonP 18:12, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

It may not harm but it depends on how you define "harm". Low quality school pages are similar to personal vanity pages. Let's say that we allow each "John Smith" on earth to have a personal page here. It actually does not "harm" Wikipedia. Hardware issues aside, adding six billion personal articles to Wikipedia actually hurts no one. It will not decrease the values of other serious articles such as Isaac Newton, electricity or fish. Then why do we delete these pages? An article has to be of any value to others. A high school article is neither informative nor fun. It is usually not very verifiable unless you are a student there. Otherwise, all an outsider could do is to copy information from their web site. This is bad. Will it hurt? With my definition, it may hurt. But your definition could be different from mine. -- Toytoy 18:30, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

As our donation page states the goal of Wikimedia is "a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge." This is fundamental, but it is restricted as to be useful all the knowledge in Wikipedia needs to be accurate and neutral. This can only be obtained only allowing facts that are verifiable. For the vast majority of the six billion of us there is no reasonable way to verify the accuracy and neutrality of an article written about us. However this does not apply to high schools. I have written several articles on schools and have always found that there is enough information on the public record to write more than a stub. These are schools that I did not attend and that I have never met anyone who has attended them. All the information is from official websites, newspaper archives, and published books and can thus be independently verified. - SimonP 23:33, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

There has been much discussion on the notability of schools, and, unfortunately, no consensus has been established. The arguments go on on the VfD pages daily. Rick K 23:36, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the original writer (User:Toytoy). The question is not about the value of the school, the question about the value of the article to someone who is trying to get some information or do some research. I suggest that someone wanting to reserach recent violence in schools is likely to want to look for "Columbine". Someone looking into the murders in Chicago is much more likely to type in "St. Valentine's Day Massacre" or "Al Capone" (Although I would have no objection to creating a redirect from the address if someone thinks it would be helpful.) Notice that the article is about "Columbine" not the exact address of the school. You can say many things, but using a dictionary definition of "notability" Columbine is certainly notable. Morris 00:39, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

The Columbine High School article has been there since Nov 26, 2003 with 55 edits so far. IMO, that article is still miserable. Let me explain:

School information table: The current principal's name links back to itself.
Aerial photograph
1st paragraph: Dictionary definition; street address.
2nd paragraph: Name; year of establishment; first principal.
3rd paragraph: Jefferson County Public Schools district (no article); grades; Robert F. Clement Park (no article).
4th paragraph: "Famous" alumni (nothing but three lousy dead links).
5th paragraph: The massacre.
6th paragraph: Aftermath. Links to Chatfield High School which is even less noteworthy. That article only contains two short paragraphs. 1st: dictionary definition; 2nd: Columbine's aftermath.
7th paragraph: Bowling for Columbine. That paragraph also mentions the fact that "Columbine" is of little importance in that movie.
8th paragraph: External links

There used to be a paragraph saying the word "Columbine" means dove-like. That paragraph is totally irrelevant. I removed it.

To be fair, Chatfield High School is also linked by Katie Hnida, a "famous" alumni of that school. However, her fame is not related with the school.

See, besides the massacre, what's the point of that article? It shall be merged with the massacre article. -- Toytoy 01:18, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

BEEFSTEW is a proposed rating system for high school articles. I think you guys may want to calculate the BEEFSTEW point for the Columbine High by yourself (Score 6, I guess). However, IMO, that article fails to meet requirements (F), (G), (H), (I), (J). These are the things that makes a high school actually noteworthy.

I don't think a Columbine student, alumni or faculty member would find that article of any use. In my opinion, it's purely duplicated and possibly outdated information with little hope of improvement. Nor will a journalist or a teacher looking for a job find that article useful. -- Toytoy 01:44, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

Super-users!

I created a new article about the proposal for creating Super-users, a class of administrators who would have full sysop rights, with the exception of blocking and unblocking powers. Rad Racer 00:41, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)