Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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Wikipedia:Categorization policy

• 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)

Naming conventions

What's better: "History of X" or "Xsh history"? This is a dilemma that has plagued Wikipedians since the dawn of time. I have proposed a new naming convention to deal with this issue. See: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (country-specific topics). Any comments would be greatly appreciated. - Pioneer-12 00:46, 1 Apr 2005 (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)

1. If there's no Wikipedia article for something, there's always a link suggesting you should look at Wiktionary.
2. 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)

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.

1. 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?
2. An Italian politician - Italy stub or Politician stub?
3. 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)

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)

Bias: I'm an inclusionist, at least as far as article mainspace goes. When I want to know all about something, I go to WP. I don't want to have to guess beforehand, "Gee, is this important enough to be in WP?"

WP is not paper, and we won't run out of server space. It could be argued that short articles on trivial topics somehow degrade the overall quality of the project -- but -- that assumes such a measure is valid, that one could somehow add up the value of each article and divide the sum by the total number of articles.

In practice, when a user looks to find something on WP, he will find something -- article, stub, or an invitation to start a page. Whatever he takes away from the experience will represent his valuation of WP as a tool. If he searches for "notable" things, and finds much good work, he will value WP highly. If he searches for trivial items and finds nothing, he will value WP less highly. This is all that counts. — Xiongtalk 03:05, 2005 Apr 3 (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:

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

Carnildo 23:28, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1. 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.
2. 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? RickK 23:33, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

I basically agree with RickK here, except for the apparent assumption that an RfC is necessarily a step toward asking the ArbCom to step in. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:03, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

This debate is currently at Wikipedia talk:Association of Member Investigations. Please direct your comments there. — Xiongtalk 03:22, 2005 Apr 3 (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.

He's gonna get you.

• 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)

Paddu explained in length the issue. There are ten of thousands of untagged orphans. Some were recently uploaded and do not follow current rules which make tagging mandatory. However, many were uploaded before this became mandatory and in their uploaders mind, they were gfdl, since they agreed to follow gfdl when they uploaded it.

A couple of assumption should be clarified. It is not because an image is untaggued that it is necessarily a copyvio. We currently keep copyrighted images on Wikipedia. We assume we can use them under fair use doctrine. It sometimes happen we are wrong, and in this case, the board or anyone else receive a complaint from the copyright holder. The solution is generally to promptly delete the image and I can tell that in 4 years, all cases have been fixed to the satisfaction of the copyright holder. We should assume good faith from most uploaders and only delete untaggued images when someone raise a complaint about them.

In case the image is untaggued and is indeed a copyvio, it being an orphan reduces the risk of any legal complaint.

Another assumption is that an orphan image is "not interesting". It is not so. It may be that several images of the same topic already exist and not all may be put in the article. Which does not mean the ones non linked have no value. So, deleting them for having no value is not very wikilove.

Third point : we have room on our servers. If we were lacking room, I would agree we should not keep what is uncertain. But keeping these images is not hurting the whole system from a storage point of view.

Fourth point : the only case where the orphan untaggued would be likely to be problematic is when the whole content of the db is downloaded, possibly to be put on a cd rom. Here, if the image revealed itself a copyvio, we would not be able to do anything.

So, here is what I support

• tag all them untaggued orphans.
• ask uploaders to tag them
• if no answer in xx weeks, change the tag to "verified but still untaggued orphans" (or any name suitable)
• have all "verified but still untaggued orphans" excluded from downloads.

Anthere

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)

Tom's Restaurant may deserve a short article that deals with its history and other tourist information. As a NY landmark, Tom's Restaurant attracts many more visitors than the Columbine High School. Anyone may visit Tom's Restaurant because of the song or comedy, they need some information. You don't visit Columbine High School the way you visit Tom's Restaurant. That makes the school information not needed. The impact of Columbine High School to popular culture can be included in the massacre article. -- Toytoy 17:54, Mar 30, 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)

• I agree, for example in Colchester, England you would not put in an article called The Stanway School (a comprehensive) while there is an article called Colchester Royal Grammar School as that school is selective and one of the best performing English schools. It does attract students form Tokyo and Hong Kong. TAS 16:30, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Eton College is absolutely a must for an encyclopedia. Britannica has it. Encarta has it. Wikipedia has it. This high school is even more important than most universities in the world. It's the cradle of British aristocracy. Most of us cannot visit Eton, let alone to become a student. But we need to know something about Eton to understand the United Kingdom. As to the other end of the spectrum, I don't think we need these articles. -- Toytoy 18:07, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Noteworthy high schools

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. RickK 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)

I think the BEEFSTEW rating system is way too inclusive. IMO the only criterion that can make a school notable is the notability of its alumni. I would propose that a school have an article if and only if one of the following applies:

• at least 10 current or former pupils are notable enough to have biographies at Wikipedia, or
• at least 5 current or former pupils became notable for a positive accomplishment (i.e. neither murdering people nor getting murdered should count) while they were at the school, or
• at least 2 current or former pupils became notable for a positive accomplishment directly related to their work at the school (for example if at least two students independently won a Nobel Prize for their science fair project, that would certainly make the school notable, as it would reflect positively not only on the students themselves but also on the teachers and the level of education).

--Angr 20:14, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There are currently 51 personal articles listed under Category:Old Etonians. Quite a few are long articles. Many of them have more than 3 interwiki links. Lots of them were biographed in the 1911 Britannica (some possibly had been included since 1768).

Eton is a great school. Why so few? Many Old Etonians were simply not categorized. If all Old Etonians are listed, that category will surely contain several hundred articles. This is what I called noteworthy. I agree BEEFSTEW is too inclusive. But to be fair, I think the "at least 2 current or former pupils" test only is more than enough to weed out worthless high schools. Wikipedia is not paper. We have the loosest standard to include articles. Just two positive and school-related alumni biographs is more than enough. If a school's alumni don't usually advertise their own alma mater, we bear little if any burden to help them do so. -- Toytoy 03:35, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Eton is noteworthy enough for an article. It meets the first criterion listed above. --Angr 06:28, 31 Mar 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)

Map policy

Do we have a de facto policy on using CIA maps for countries in the absence of better quality maps produced by the Wikipedia community? User:Kelisi has been replacing the maps on several countries with what I believe to be clearly inferior maps (albeit with more detail). Please enter the debate on talk:Panama Jooler 08:31, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A list of Kelisi maps: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&target=Kelisi&hideminor=0&namespace=6

Kelisi maps are really ugly. LSD-induced colors with typography on crack, I have to say so. But his maps contain much more information than these nice-looking CIA maps. If anyone wants to fix it, an afternoon with Adobe Photoshop or any other comparable tools can at least fix the colors. You cannot easily add so many place names on the CIA maps. -- Toytoy 09:34, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

These maps do have shortcomings. Appearance is a problem, but so are the rights; the file format is also difficult -- we do not want to try to fix these in Photoshop; trust me on this. I don't think Kelisi has much experience either on WP or in graphic design, but he's onto a resource and has time and willingness to exploit it. I'm going to try to work with him on this. Okay? — Xiongtalk 04:13, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

Series templates

I've noticed lately a tendency to slap series templates (for example Template:Anarchy, Template:History of Spain onto articles that are not actually part of the series (although they are more or less related). I wouldn't think this was appropriate, though it is not insane. Is there any policy on this? If not, we should form one: this shouldn't be a matter of individual editors' caprice. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:11, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

• Isn't there something on that in the pages on series templates? Anyway, series templates are to navigate the listed articles. If the article isn't listed in the template, I don't see any problems in removing it. Mgm|^(talk) 09:00, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
• I must admit to having comited this sin. The article in question was list of parties contesting the UK general election, 2005/06, which isn't on the {{PoliticsUK}} template (and I don't feel it should be) but is very strongly related to the article UK general election, 2005/06, which is a part of that series.

I think most people who reach the list of parties article will have come from the general election article, and if they are navigating through the series then they might appreciate being able to follow it further; however I am prepared to be convinced otherwise if people disagree with my theory. --Neo 10:20, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Method Engineering Encyclopedia

Method Engineering Encyclopedia is not a standard Wikipedia article, and it strikes me as being out of place. The subarticles, too, do not conform to Wikipedia style. But this looks like a genuine effort in good faith, and could be worthwhile if the right place or format could be found. What to do? What to suggest? --Woggly 10:56, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Wikibooks? Smoddy (_t^g_e^c_k) 12:18, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I do not immediately find that the articles depart significantly from WP style; there are two obvious problems with the work as a whole:

• The technical topics covered may be beyond the level of a general-purpose encyclopedia.

• The introductory page is in a tone I can only describe, for a lack of any better phrase, as distinctly German Authority. It describes the group of articles as as "supplement" to WP, under Brinkkemper's "supervision", and of course we do not tolerate private projects.

• The image of "Prof. Dr. S. Brinkkemper" is of course unacceptable, as is the little Utrecht U. flag up top.

There is, though, much good work here, and we can use it -- once thoroughly integrated.

Suggestion: Introduce Professor Doktor Herr Brinkkemper to Wikireality. Remove his image, the UU flag; mercilessly edit content. Do not put the pages up for VfD or otherwise take them through any formal process. Assimilate them. Dumb them down, if you like. Exercise your rights as editors.

When Brinkkemper realizes the stuff is out of his control, I predict grumbling in tones that will incite editors -- please don't respond in kind. Try to understand who you are dealing with. He may walk off in a huff, true. But I am not sure he will listen to reason without a good preliminary dunking. — Xiongtalk 04:52, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

• I've been bold and turned this into a WikiProject, Wikipedia:WikiProject Method engineering, since that is what it is. Uncle G 23:56, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

Citing Wiki in an online test

I want to use extracts from Wiki in online tests assessing students' English proficiency. Our online system generates random test forms from a large item bank. All candidates get different questions and only see the extracts for the brief moment that they are answering the question. It is not practical to provide links back to Wikipedia directly from the extracts because the candidates are not allowed to surf the Web during a test for obvious reasons. Would it meet the requirements of the license to explain on all candidates' home pages that extracts used in our questions come from Wikipedia, and tag the extracts with a Wiki label in the same way that an extract taken from Reuters would simply be tagged 'Reuters'? If not, can you suggest a better way?

• I forgot to sign my request for comment. --Gleavd 13:25, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• • One thing to note -- be careful to give an eye-over on the Wikitext before you hand it to your students -- unfortunately, not everyone on our site has good grammar/spelling/style. --Improv 16:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • You neglect to say what country you are in. If you are in the U.S., then (as long as you give that minimal citation) you are clearly within fair use. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:52, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia may not be a good choice as an example of English form. We have few hard standards and all content is subject to constant change. Britsh and American usage is freely mixed at times. Before you could use confidently our text as an examplar, you would have to edit it yourself to be assured of conformance to whatever standard for which you plan to test. You may as well just write the text yourself. — Xiongtalk 08:17, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

How to change capitalization in an article title?

I just submitted an article on the American poet Rod McKuen, yet Wiki posted it as "Rod mckuen," (lower-case "M") even though this isn't how the name appears anywhere in the text. Can I simply change the name?

Thanks!

--LanceHawvermale 23:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Normal procedure is to use the "Move this page" link found on the side or bottom of the page, but there's already an article at Rod McKuen. I've merged the two and turned Rod mckuen into a redirect, but there's still a lot of cleanup needed -- the original article at Rod McKuen wasn't in very good shape. --Carnildo 23:53, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quality Control

Hello there,

Wikipedia was my favourite till I came to know that anyone can edit most of the documents and the change reflects on the page immediately. What is stopping anyone from posting rubbish, or worse posting "their individual views" on subjects. If this happens (maybe it is happening), then what degree of quality control do we have on the material available from Wikipedia. I am a researcher and I want to make sure that every information I gather is reliable. Thanks for your time.

Sam

See Wikipedia:Replies to common objections-gadfium 03:26, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The "absurd idea" that anyone can edit anything is what's produced this entire encyclopedia actually, which was "your favourite" until you realised how it was made and decided that actually you didn't like it after all. Why not judge us on our merits rather than your preconceived ideas about how an openly editable encyclopedia must be incapable of producing anything of value? I recommend reading the replies to common objections as linked to above, our own article on Wikipedia, and our Frequently Asked Questions — Trilobite (Talk) 10:36, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I find it really interesting that there is a discussin of AD/BC vs. CE/BCE that sounds as if the very future of Wikipedia is on the line... yet when someone raises perhaps the most thorny issue of Wikipedia, he is dismissed in an incredibly smarmy and condescending manner. Especially considering he was pretty damned respectful in his manner of addressing us. 69.171.36.2 21:05, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, I'm all in favor of being polite (although I am not always as polite as I would like). But while Sam raised a thorny issue, he didn't bother looking at the page that was specifically written to address that very question. His question also reads somewhat like an attack on the very foundation of the community, which is always guaranteed to raise feelings - especially when it's an area where the community really is vulnerable. Our reliability is not perfect (although it's better than it looks like it should be) and lots of us are not too happy with that fact. So when you say something that sounds like an attack on that point, it's liable to touch a nerve and get an impolite response. --Andrew 05:40, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

Sam, he's right. You ought not have been subjected to that. You asked a reasonable question; you deserve a reasonable answer. The short answer is: You cannot trust anything you see here (or anywhere else, for that matter).

You need to check out some key materials, starting with our disclaimer. I'd suggest that you browse the site a little before drawing any conclusions. If you plan to post many comments, I suggest you create a user account; it's free, easy, and you never get spammed -- indeed, you don't even have to provide an email address. But it's nice to have a name when you're talking in a room. — Xiongtalk 08:31, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

Playing along with April Fool's Day?

I shouldn't have to worry about distinguishing between what's accurate and what's supposed to be a joke when I visit Wikipedia. This April Fool's Day revision is tacky, and compromises the integrity of a database that's already coming under fire for being editable by anyone. Grossdomestic 06:22, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

THANK YOU! Exactly what I've been saying for two days now. How do we tell vandals not to vandalize the encyclopedia when we're encouraging it? RickK 06:35, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

I say ban April Fool's Day. Chamaeleon 07:54, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. Please remove the bogus stories from the front page and anywhere else where it has propagated. Jooler 08:34, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree as well. These things are only supposed to be up for the first half of the day and taken down at noon (see April Fools Day). Since Wikipedia works on UTC, this would mean that it is past time to remove this stuff. I'll do it in one hour if somebody does not beat me to it. --mav 17:53, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's database has no "integrity", nor should we commit the folly of Colonel Blimp. On average, our content is of high quality; but any given item may be rank foolishness. A deliberately foolish Main Page is a salutory warning to readers, especially those who get angry once they discover the joke. I say, let it stay up for a week. — Xiongtalk 08:41, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

Anno Domini -> Common Era

Would it not be more neutral and politically correct to use CE instead of AD when citing dates? Just a thought, but I know some people get edgy reading "AD"

"AD" is overwhelmingly standard and therefore neutral. "CE" is a bizarre innovation with a certain agenda behind it and therefore not neutral. It's Politically Correct, but incorrect politically and otherwise. But anyway, I think this has been discussed. Chamaeleon 18:57, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chamaeleon has hit the nail on the head. →Raul654 19:02, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

Ditto, jguk 20:45, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

CE/BCE is overwhelmingly standard in academia, and AD/BC has christian connotations and origin. I therefore prefer CE/BCE, and use it for new articles. --Improv 22:11, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If true, I think it is rather sad (both in the traditional (upsetting) and modern (pathetic) meanings) that academics do this. One should surely reference dates in whichever calendar is natural for those people present, adding extra details for clarity if needed, for instance: The founding of [something Islamic] occured in XXX AH (YYYY AD under the Christian calendar). --Neo 22:28, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

(But note that the usage should be AD CCYY.) Noisy | Talk 08:24, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), both AD/BC and CE/BCE are acceptable names for the era, and the Islamic calendar is perfectly appropriate provided dates are also given in the Julian or Gregorian calendar. The AD/BC versus CE/BCE issue has been discussed several times at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) (see the archives). The current MoS is a mostly acceptable compromise between the two extreme points of view so well caricatured above. Gdr 22:30, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

The use of CE/BCE is more academic and therefore more encyclopedic and appropriate for WP. They're both still based on the life of Jesus, but given the choice I'd go with the more academic version. Paradiso 09:48, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Setting aside aside for a moment the superiority of the metric system, why do you suppose we call our unit of linear measure the "foot"? It no longer has anything to do with any king's hoof. But we call it a foot because we called it a foot last year, last decade, and last century. It's pointless to squabble over it.

Real life is full of oddities, and the part of real life that is the way we speak about the world around us is often peculiar and littered with anachronisms. I agree; we should change the calendar era -- not merely to rename it, but to date from the only event of true significance since the dawn of recorded history: the day upon which human beings from the planet Earth first set foot upon another body (1969 Jly 20, Old Era). That day should be the zeroth day of the zeroth month of the zeroth year of the Era of Humanity. While we're at it, of course, we'll rename the months to honor people we actually care about -- Newton, Einstein, Clarke, Hawking -- 13 months, each 28 days long, with a leap day every year, or two if we feel it's necessary. Weekdays will honor virtues, such as Truth, Justice, and some clever word that represents the manifest destiny of the human race to explore and colonize the universe.

Meanwhile, just to keep the trains running on time, I suggest we don't muck with the current system, not even to agree with scholars trying to muck with it. The mob almost tore Pope Gregory apart, demanding the days of their lives he stole from them. I don't want to be the one to stand in the financial district and tell the office drones that, not only can they not thank their gods, they cannot thank them for Friday. — Xiongtalk 09:01, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

categories and subcategories

What is the WP policy, if any, on placing both a category and its subcategory onto the same page? For example: placing [[Category:Photography]] as well as its subcategory [[Category:Photography companies]] into the same article?

I believe that categories are always helpful as long as they are relevant. So I like to place as many relevant categories into an article as possible to help direct readers to what they are looking for. Paradiso 09:58, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Generally speaking an article should not be in both a category and its subcategory, see Wikipedia:Categorization (although this is not policy, merely a guideline). This is partly because subcategories are actually more useful in grouping together similar articles, categories tend to be very broad, and also because categories can become very crowded with, sometimes, only tangentally related articles. Rje 13:46, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Poll: Speedy criterion: "non-notable"

Controversy brews over whether "non-notable" is a criterion for speedy deletion. Before voting, consider if something you created might be thought "non-notable" by Someone.

Poll is open at: Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Poll: Speedy criterion: "non-notable". — Xiongtalk 01:10, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

Laudative styles

A number of individuals, certain political or religious leaders in particular, as well as many nobles, have a certain style. For instance, Rainier III, Prince of Monaco is styled "His Serene Highness"; the Pope is style "His Holiness"; Tony Blair is styled "The Right Honourable" (as member of the Privy Council). Note that those title carry some semantic content; the Pope's expresses that he is particularly holy, and Blair's expresses that he is particularly honourable.

The problem is, not everybody agrees that the Pope is holy and Blair is honourable. There are about 1 billion Catholics out of a population of 6 billion, thus it is quite probable that a wide majority of the world's population does not regard the Pope as particularly holy.

Of course, we may take the point of view that such titles are mere courtesy titles with no real semantic content.

Note, however, that there may be cultural differences playing here. In some countries, many official functions have styles (judges are called "Your Honor", etc.) and thus people do not pay attention to them. In other countries, official functions do not have styles, and thus people, not used to such kind of formulas, may pay more attention.

So I wonder what the Wikipedia policy should be. I note that John Paul II styles him "His Holiness" but that Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama is not styled. Maybe we should also strive to make this policy consistent and not favor such or such religion or leaders. David.Monniaux 07:50, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I believe current policy already deprecates such honorifics. — Xiongtalk 09:03, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

When is it appropriate to apply a person's laudative style(s) to their name?. I think most would agree to a very general policy or guideline to consistently use all titles or styles that come with a political office. This cannot be a strict policy because using especially long styles may at times hinder readability. For example, as Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie’s official title included “King of kings, Lord of lords, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Root of David.” All titles and styles should be mentioned in the appropriate articles but not every time the name of the person appears. This might also go for professional titles and earned or honourary degrees (such as Doctor). This only makes articles more informative. Paradiso 09:18, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There is a difference between stating the titles and styles in the introduction to the article in an informative manner, and using the styles. See the difference between:

The Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953), commonly called Tony Blair, is a British politician. He is currently Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, having served as Leader of the Labour Party since John Smith's death in 1994.

and

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953), commonly called Tony Blair, is British politician. He is currently Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, having served as Leader of the Labour Party since John Smith's death in 1994. As a member of the Queen's Privy Council, he is styled "The Right Honourable Tony Blair".

There is a difference between titles and styles. Titles are offices, qualifications etc., presumably granted by some authority. The title of John Paul II is "Pope"; the title of Rainier III is "Prince of Monaco". This is descriptive. However, there are some styles that carry some laudative attributes, like "holy", "honourable", "serene" etc. That's another problem.

Academic titles such as "Doctors" are less of a problem, since they correspond to an academic qualification. It is not implied that doctors are more honourable, or intelligent, or have other qualities.

My position is thus that we should list the appropriate titles and styles in the introduction, but not use the styles if they imply some kind of subjective quality ("holy", "honourable", etc.) David.Monniaux 09:47, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Such titles and lauditives are usually depreciated in article titles, but I see no problem in using them in the article itself. Mgm|^(talk) 09:51, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

In the United States (or at least in New York) all elected officials are introduced as "The honourable..." in formal occasions. For instance, if I'm inroducing my local state assembly member to someone, I would say "...the honourable Jonathan Bing..." but I would not consider that to be part of his name, in an encyclopedia article. For the pope (for example) I might call him "his holiness" if I was meeting him in person, but not if I was refering to him in an article. So I support the suggestion. Unfortunately, it is hard to draw the line between titles and "styles". What about talking about "The first lady"? That is very common usage, but it isn't a formal title either. Morris 13:26, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

"First lady" is a de facto title, in my humble opinion. "Duke of Edinburgh" is a de jure title. "His lordship..." or "the honourable..." are styles. David.Monniaux 18:25, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree (with David Monniaux). I would suggest (for example) removing "The right honourable" from the first sentence of the Tony Blair article, and instead mentioning somewhere in the article: Blair is introduced as "The right honourable..." on formal occastions.Morris 18:44, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

To clarify my comment above, I agree with David, and suggest changing the Tony Blair article (and others) more-or-less as he suggests in his example above. I suggest a different word than "styled". "Styled" is not used in that sense in American english (in my experience). I would guess a typical New Yorker would read "Blair is styled..." would think we meant "Blair dresses in the style of ...". Well, maybe I exagerate, but you see my point. Morris 01:35, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Webster (an American dictionary) says on "style": "Mode or phrase by which anything is formally designated; the title; the official designation of any important body; mode of address; as, the style of Majesty.". However, I agree that this is not a meaning that most people would think of. David.Monniaux 05:09, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The term is commonly found in North America in the (usually derogatory) phrase "self-styled," as in "he is a self-styled expert on English." Paradiso 05:22, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Votes for disambiguation??

Samurai Clinton seems to be in the middle of creating a new process for marking pages to be disambiguated, including a voting process. See Template:VfDis, Category:Pages being nominated for disambiguation and Wikipedia:Votes for disambiguation/Super Mario Bros.. (He hasn't yet built a Wikipedia:Votes for disambiguation to collect all the entries.) Is there any need for this? Is there controversy over building disambig pages -- why not go ahead and do it instead of calling for a vote? Being bold is all well and good, but a new process like this should be discussed. I'm leaving a note on his user talk page asking him about it and pointing him here. FreplySpang (talk) 18:37, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, there's no need for this. Any user can move a page himself and create a disambig page. If there's already an article at the destination, we already have Wikipedia:Requested moves to deal with that situation. Votes for disambiguation would be superfluous. Rhobite 20:40, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)

That's what I thought. Okay, now he's created Wikipedia:Votes for disambiguation too, but the only links to it are right here. It says, in part, "Votes for Deletion can shock and cause confusion, and Votes for Disambiguation are less dramatic." But no less confusing! Is there something we (you? I?) ought to be doing about this? I see that you and a couple of others are keeping an eye on him. FreplySpang (talk) 22:37, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I immidiately interpreted the idea as follows: Theoreticaly it may be controversial whether page X should live at X, or X (Y) especially when X is a redirect (One of the silliest examples I can think of was United States) with X as a disambig (United States (disambiguation)).

However the issue should surely be sorted out on the talk page of the article in question, and if debate gets too heated, isn't there Wikipedia:Requests for comment, Wikipedia:Requests for mediation and as a final resort Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration... i.e, this idea is not needed. --Neo 22:45, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)