Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 18

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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Wikipedia:Privacy

Wikipedia:Privacy is a rejected proposal about private information on the wiki. I was extremely surprised today to see that, months after it had been marked as rejected, an editor replaced the historical tag with a guideline tag with no announcement or discussion at all. I have changed it back to a "proposal". This is one of the three rejected privacy proposals (other were WP:YOUTH and WP:CHILD) that were proposed about a year ago. 20:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

From what I can tell, this was not a rejected policy, but one which never reached a vote, much like the original holder of WP:PRIVACY, Wikipedia:Respect privacy. You were right to change it back, since consensus needs to be reached before making it a guideline. In any case, despite my personal bias, I prefer the wording of Wikipedia:Respect privacy, since it is less like an essay. I'm out of active editing until certain other tends cease, but I would love to see the old policy draft taken up again by someone, there was merit to it's existence. LinaMishima (talk) 00:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Troll magnets

Do you think troll magnet articles have any place here?

I'm thinking of articles that are otherwise notable, sourced, etc., but not really that important to the encyclopedia and serve to attract all kinds of newbies, vandals, hoaxes, experiments, things that were made up in school one day, etc. For example, I was just revisiting one of my favorite Internet meme articles to find that it had yet again been defaced with ridiculous new material. But the graffiti was kind of clever, and the whole subject is ridiculous to begin with....so you just delete it and nobody gets hurt.

Sometimes I've deliberately created child articles to draw trouble away from the parent, as when separating out the "list of" article, or "controversies" article away from the real subject. The excised material doesn't make for a good article, but the fact that it is there sure stabilizes the more important one. Delete or merge it, and the main article gets in trouble again.

Do you think, overall, we would have less trouble here if we avoided coverage of certain silly subjects? Are they crumbs that attract ants to our picnic? Or do you think all these misguided editors are here for good anyway, and would just find some other articles to mess up if we deleted their favorites? Or is it just not an important issue, something we can live with?

BTW, I'm not talking about serious, necessary articles that attract trolls. But rather ones that they enjoy due to their offbeat, pop-culture, controversy, or juvenile subject matter.

Nothing special in mind, just trying to invite some discussion and see what people think. The relevance is that it comes up sometimes in a deletion or notability discussion that an article is just a place that attracts trolls. Wikidemo (talk) 23:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you think troll magnet articles have any place here?. Yes and/or no and/or really no. --slakr^\ talk / 23:10, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

One man's silly article is another man's important one. I think inclusion standards should stand on their own and be applied as objectively as possible... we shouldn't let vandals/trolls have the power to get an article deleted that otherwise wouldn't be. --W.marsh 23:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I am fond of concrete examples. can you provide any of these? E.g. a "silly" article? A "child article"? An "offbeat", "pop-culture", or "juvenile subject"? Saudade7 00:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I definitely agree with W.marsh (my original response was a little cryptic) :P. For example, George W. Bush is a troll/vandal magnet, but it definitely deserves a place here, while John is a loserface who goes to Smith High School or similar articles obviously don't. It all goes back to whether or not the article is notable and conforms to our other policies. We can always deal with troublemakers in one way or another (protection, blocking, and arbitration to name a few), so when determining what content to include or not include, we shouldn't necessarily limit ourselves to whether someone some day down the road will try to cause trouble on it. Remember, we shouldn't compromise the ideal of becoming a free compendium of human knowledge just because some 12 year old might add "penis" to a page about daisies. So, when determining whether or not to include most content, we should, as a general rule of thumb, simply imagine that trolls and vandals simply don't exist. --slakr^\ talk / 01:17, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, we wouldn't delete notable articles. One article I watch is Golden Gate Bridge and that gets vandalized all the time, as does Ratatouille (film). I'm just thinking as an editor where it's worth one's personal attention, and where we should encourage others to spend their time. In response to the question earlier, for child articles I separated List of Internet phenomena from Internet meme, and List of patent trolls from Patent troll. The first one worked - both articles have been relatively stable ever since splitting and people have taken ownership and been rather vigilant in keeping unsourced material out of the list article (though I can't say the same for the articles it points to). The second was a mess. The list article became a complete attractor for people wanting to bash companies for strongly enforcing their patents, so it got deleted. However, for a while it did deflect some of the POV pushing that was going on with the patent troll article. For silly, pop culture, juvenile, and offbeat - these topics run together, but, say, Dancing Banana, Donkey punch, and lots of stuff involving Family Guy, Pokemon, Star Wards, manga characters, etc. Not saying the latter stuff isn't encyclopedic or important but some of the 20,000 articles in each category get lots of vandalism and sandboxing. I'm kind of embarrassed to have contributed to some of the articles I did. Wikidemo (talk) 01:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[ec] I completely agree; we should gauge content on its own merits, and ignore what a troll may or may not be attracted to. I'd rather patrol fifty pages that have viable encyclopedic information on them than delete a single page just because it's a headache to maintain. EVula // talk // ☯ // 01:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I personally don't think it should prevent us from having content, but I do think it should affect the way we organize and present that content. For example, large lists and similar types of articles on heavily-vandalized subjects may be a bad idea, because as a practical matter they are harder to verify and vandal-patrol than stand-alone articles. I think some defensive practices are in appropriate and it is prudent to take our ability to detect and fight vandalism (and address OR) into account in the way we organize articles. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

External links to map services

Should all or some of Wikipedia's location related articles link to Google Maps or a similar map service, or should we be neutral on supporting any single service, and only use the page all coordinates link to, that has a list of all available services? More at Wikipedia talk:External links#Links to map services. --Para (talk) 13:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there already a feature in place to provide such a page? —Random832 16:55, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, all coordinates already link to a page with Template:GeoTemplate filled in, but people are still adding external links to their preferred map services to articles directly. The question then is, should there be an external links guideline in place not to add map links to articles if the service is already on the central list? --Para (talk) 11:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Creating a template

[Moved here from Help Desk.] I've created {{you}}. Is there any concern about name-space pollution here (because of the short name — it can't be used again)? And is my documentation OK? -- Ddxc (talk) 21:55, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the name. I feel it conflicts with things like {{who}}, {{what}}, {{where}}, {{when}}, {{me}}, among others. Perhaps it should be {{inappropriateyou}}? superluser_tc 2007 December 27, 03:42 (UTC)

Well it's yet another cleanup template. I've made it a redirect to {{Inappropriate person}}, and SmackBot will have to learn about it. Rich Farmbrough, 22:47 27 December 2007 (GMT).

Why use a redirect instead of transcluding the template? This way you have to write {{you|article|you}} to get the "right" result (second-person only) instead of just {{you}}. Any technical reasons for this?

Regarding SmackBot, do you mean you'd like it to replace {{you}} with {{inappropriate person}}? -- Ddxc (talk) 03:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You can do {{You}}. But yes it can be transcluded by all means. I suppose the thing is I see one or two new templates/redirects every week for the cleanup categories SmackBot maintains - and most of them are only used on one or two articles. Noetheless they all need to be maintained (I found one this week that was not converted to ambox) soI tend to look for the simplest solution.

Smackbot needs to date the template- regardless of how it implemented. Rich Farmbrough, 02:30 5 January 2008 (GMT).

Thanks for your explanations. I've change {{you}} to transclude {{inappropriate person}}; it makes the template a lot more readable IMO. If that causes undue work on your end, please feel free to revert my latest edit to both templates. -- Ddxc (talk) 03:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Jurisdiction and legality of content of Wikipedia

See also: fr:Projet:Droit et Wikipédia/Juridiction applicable

I have read Wikipedia:General disclaimer, and I have some doubts about the section "Jurisdiction and legality of content".

• Who is in charge of deciding if such section was included or not in there? The Wikimedia Foundation, or the community? Can consensus change or remove sections from the disclaimer?
• The server may be in Florida, so the law of Florida may apply, but Wikipedia is read and edited by users from all around the world. Wich is the stand of Wikipeda about other local laws? Considering just 1 foreign user, the rule is clear: I have to obey the law of Florida, as the server is located there, and the law of my own country, as a good citizen. But what if, even if respecting the law of Florida and my own country, I happen to do something that goes against the law of a third country and a user from such country claims I have made a crime?
• What about other projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, like Commons or Wikipedias in other languajes? Do those rules about Jurisdiction and legality of content change, or are they the same? Do they have the autonomy to make their own general disclaimers, like the autonomy for making consensus or policy, or are them traducted merely for informative reasons while a certain specific one remains the only official and definitive one? (like with policy traductions at Wikimedia Foundation) 190.16.11.9 (talk) 03:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Even if you make edits that obey the laws of Florida as well as the laws of your own country, you may wind up violating the laws of a third country. If you are truly concerned that this makes it risky to edit Wikipedia, you are welcome to obtain legal advice so you can personally stay out of trouble. However this is all rather abstract. Is there a specific concern? I know that an issue came up about laws against Nazi memorabilia in Germany, but you did not mention any desire to edit in such an area. EdJohnston (talk) 04:02, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

You can only reasonably be expected to comply with the laws of Florida (or California? Will the servers be moving with the Foundation?) and your own country. There is no way of knowing the laws of all countries, and there are likely to be conflicts anyway - I would think it likely that much Wikipedia content might conflict with the laws of China, North Korea, Iran, or other places. The Foundation does have servers in the Netherlands, France, and South Korea, whose laws would no doubt have ramifications for the projects hosted on them, but I don't think they're used for the English Wikipedia. -- Arwel (talk) 12:11, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The servers are remaining in Florida, and it's expected, I think, that the content will only have to follow Florida law and not California. (Not that it matters too much, since these matters are mostly federal) --Golbez (talk) 15:32, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Nazism? Vade Retro! No, it's a completely different issue. I had a discussion at another project, where admins use claims such as "their General Disclaimer says X thing, but ours doesn't" or "we shouldn't follow the law of Florida, we should follow the law of X other country instead". I think that whole discussion to be out of place, that consensus shouldn't overrun such things and that all Wikimedia projects belong to the Wikimeda foundation regardless of languaje (wich would support the idea of a general, global and beyond discussion general disclaimer). But I want to be sure of such things before going on. I'm asking here and not at such project because, being it another one, I can be sure that the answer won't be influenced by internal issues or mistaken loyalties. Perón (talk) 13:06, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

If you are aware of any projects that are actively proclaiming to ignore Florida laws, then you would probably best inform the Foundation of these people. It is important that people do this, since the foundation themselves can't read 180 languages of course :D --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:11, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation is organized subject to the laws of the State of Florida, and applicable United States federal laws, and as such only those laws apply to the Foundation (including all its projects and language versions of Wikipedia) - anybody arguing that X country's law should apply instead is arguing nonsense. Consensus does not overturn the law. What the General Disclaimer also says is that editors may also be subject to their local laws and Wikipedia is not responsible for editors who violate such laws - as a resident of England, for example, I am subject to the Laws of England and Wales regarding libel and cannot prudently write things about some people which I might be able to if I lived in Florida, even if I comply with WP:BLP. -- Arwel (talk) 13:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No legal threats may be relevant here - editors can't raise legal issues in order to try to shape an article's content to be more to their liking. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

There should be more wikilikes based in different countries, so laws tat are stupid tat become enacted in one country couldnt jeopardize freedom of information and freedom of speech WonderingAngel-aesc78 (talk) 17:16, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a couple thoughts about complying with Florida and country A's (in which you live) laws, but then country B then convicts you of a crime (or issues a judgement against you).

• First of all country A (assuming it is a country with laws similar to the US/France/UK) would probably not honor a ruling by country B since they have no jurisdiction over you (in-personam jurisdiction in the US). Despite all the talk of international cooperation, when it comes to jurisdiction over their citizens - countries are very stingey - see Pinochet - where Britain refused to extradite someone who wasn't even a UK citizen - thus you couldn't be extradited or face other consequences of Country B's ruling. Just don't go visit country B ever.
• Secondly, should Country B initiate a lawsuit, you could probably challenge it under country B's jurisdictional rules - since none of the acts occurred in their country you would have a strong challenge - and could challenge without making a personal appearance in many countries.
• Thirdly, you have the weight of public opinion in your favor. Should country B ever do such a thing, it would surely make the news. And despite the fact that everyone says that the judiciary is independent - it is not - and can be influenced by world opinion.
• Fourth, if you have a specific example, such as I edit X which I know is hate speech in B, and I like to vacation in B, so I'm concerned. I would seek competent legal counsel on the issue, or don't edit X.

--Trödel

Actually if you or wikipedia defames person X in country B, countries B's laws may very well apply since wikipedia is made available to people in country B and therefore reputation of person X in his or her country B is affected. Of course, this judgement won't be enforcable unless wikimedia has assets in country B. But it's still important to consider. See defamation for more info (particularly the section under Australia law which highlights similar precedents have been set in English law and other countries) Nil Einne (talk) 16:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Licensing for picture?

User:Adbay (talk) recently uploaded a picture of Casper, Wyoming — Image:Casperskyline.jpg, which has no licensing tag. It admits to being uploaded from the photo library of the Casper Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. This page has a listing: "Feel free to use these various images of Casper for promotional or personal use." I don't deal much with images, other than uploading self-created pictures with PD licenses, so I don't know: is this a Wikipedia-suitable license? Nyttend (talk) 00:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

This license does not appear to allow modification. Wikipedia:Media Copyright Questions would be a better place to ask in the future. —Random832 05:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Definitely this license isn't 'free' It doesn't appear to allow modification or commercial use. For that matter even non-commercial non-promotional use probably isn't allowed. Imagine if I used it in my promotional campaign for the save 'Casper Area campaign' (hypothetical environmental group targetting the Casper Area Convention and Visitors Bureau) I'm doubful they would stand for that. Perhaps I could use it under fair use or similar laws in under countries but definitely not with the license they gave by itself Nil Einne (talk) 17:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Undeletion policy

A disturbing state of affairs: There is absolutely no guidance in any currently existing project page on when it is inappropriate to reveal content of deleted edits. There is no policy to stand by, no way to know you won't be emergency desysopped if someone doesn't like what pages you're looking at. I think we need a policy in this area. —Random832 05:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

It's called common sense. If you think it's a bad idea, don't do it. --Carnildo (talk) 06:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Common sense doesn't work. What if you don't think it's a bad idea? What if you're not going to do it, but get punished for even considering it (this is the version of the Everyking story that I heard)? —Random832 15:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

If you're referring to Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-09-05/Everyking desysopped, I believe the money quote is After a post ... in which he discussed offering deleted article revisions containing personal information to an indefinitely blocked user .... So I'd say that you're safe if you (a) don't post about deleted edits that you've read and are thinking about doing something with it, particularly if (b) the deleted edits deal with personal information, and even more particularly if (c) you're thinking about offering the information to a blocked user.

Plus there is relevant policy here: when an admin hides an edit, another admin revealing that information to a regular editor (blocked or not) is essentially a wheel war. There needs to be consensus among admins that the hidden information was hidden by error before it's appropriate to undo the first admin's action. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:10, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, I think it should be fairly obvious that there is a difference between a junk article deleted because it was not noteable and information deleted from an existing article (which usually implies that it was deleted because it was bad). Also I would hope most admins would be clear in the deletion log in the event it done because of personal information or the like. E.g. if the deletion log says 'gross invasion of privacy of a non-noteable LP' then it's probably not a good idea to send it to anyone. If the deletion log says 'autobiography from a non-noteable living person' then it's probably okay. If unsure, try ask why the user wants it or just take a quick look at the information yourself (if it says XYZ was lives in 1, Mickeysoft Way, Washington and his phone number is (555) 555-5555 and he enjoys banging ABC even though he's married to DEF then don't do it). Of course most of the worst stuff should be oversighted so if you see it still there, I suggest you may want to request this anyway Nil Einne (talk) 17:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

A policy proposal: WP:No credential policy

Both WP:Ignore all credentials and Credentifial verification were rejected, which is completely contradictory. So, currently, there is no credential policy.

The lack of a credential policy can confuse newer users, who may think wikipedia policy is that we should either blindly accept credentials or attempt to verify them. Credentials are such a big issue and, per the Essjay controversy and the WP:Expert rebellion, they have the potential to cause a great deal of harm, so there should be some kind of specific description of what Wikipedia policy is on the issue. Since there currently is no policy, the lack of a policy page implies WP:No credential policy. But that doesn't help confused new users nor does it settle disputes over credentials.

So, I propose the policy WP:No credential policy. A "policy that there is no policy" is silly in nearly every case (I.E. Wikipedia: No policy on leprechauns), but it seems to make sense in this one exceptional case, because it would be informative to new users, settle disputes, and encourage consensus. Otherwise, every time there is a dispute, people make false assumptions about Wikipedia policy, new users ask the help desk, and other users seek arbitration, while it's not even clear how the administrators themselves should respond. Zenwhat (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

There is also Wikipedia:Credentials (rejected proposal).

I suggest an information page - say, Wikipedia:Editor credentials - which explains that there is no consensus in favor of any formal credential policy, mentions rejected policies, mentions relevant essays such as Wikipedia:Credentials matter and Wikipedia:Credentials are irrelevant, and provides a bit of (neutral) background information (and links) on what lead up to the proposals in 2007.

Writing an information page is a whole lot easier than getting consensus that something is policy, and is almost as useful. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I support the view by John Broughton. An information page can be written even by one editor and easily agreed upon - and Zenwhat has a very good point that some new users may be indeed confused about the credentials policies we (don't) have. Pundit|utter 01:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree as well. At least explaining the situation will help educate users who are confused. I would go as far as saying it might be a briljant idea :D --TheDJ (talk • contribs) 01:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I still think we should have a policy that says that all editors must make up fake credentials... we could have a contest to see who gets the most creative! :>) (Oh ok... maybe not) Blueboar (talk) 01:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not contradictory at all. It simply means that the proposed guidelines were not something Wikipedians could reach a consensus on. A different proposal might work. -- 68.156.149.62 (talk) 02:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Also these were to some extent, diametrically opposite proposals. People don't actually have to always be at opposite ends of the spectrum sometimes they can come in between. Nil Einne (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

There already are policies and guidelines on how we deal with credentials, it is called Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. If we respect those polices then those with higher education can just show their work by citing their claims. Problem solved. 1 != 2 18:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. Verifiability and sources are about something else. As I understand the problem now, some users may be confused about the fact that it is not clear, whether a) Wikipedia cares about the editors' credentials b) credentials presented on userpages are verified. Your proposal does not solve anything in this. Pundit|utter 18:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The very existence of those two policies makes it clear that we should not use credentials as weight in a content dispute. If someone claims credentials it is not relevant unless they can cite sources. 1 != 2 19:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, don't forget about WP:Credential ban. There were so many different proposals after the Essjay debacle I'm surprised no one made a nav template. Mr.Z-man 20:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. Zenwhat's point is not about the problem of experienced editors not knowing the guidelines, but about clear and accessible information for newcomers. Communication in communities plays crucial role and miscommunication should be avoided - I can find some sources to support this claim, if it is disputable. Pundit|utter 20:25, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Pundit, it's partially both. It's partially for newcomers, but it's also for experienced editors who may try to claim that there is an "official policy" on credentials based on their interpretations of existing policy. So far, there is no such consensus, such that in any disputes involving credentials, people need to simply agree to disagree and can only invoke policy up to a certain point, since there are differing interpretations and no consensus on what the "official" interpretation should be.

Anyway, I created the page at WP:No credential policy. I also turned WP:Credentials and WP:Credential verification into redirects to that page, renaming those pages WP:Credentials (proposal) and WP:Credential verification (proposal). If anyone wants to fix the broken links that created, I would appreciate it. If not, I'll be working on it steadily myself. Any proofreading of the article, improvements upon it, etc, are also welcome. Zenwhat (talk) 02:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

You are right in the first paragraph. Per the page - great job! I added one sentence: Any information about credentials displayed on user pages is by its author only, as Wikipedia does not have procedures of verifying them. as I think that Essjay case proved some users may be mislead by assuming that everything that's on Wiki (including e.g. userboxes used on personal pages) is credible. Pundit|utter 02:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

• It seems to me that any future policy that establishes any deference to claimed and verified credentials has to be compliant with WP:No original research. It seems to me that WP:NOR requires anyone claiming to be a subject field expert to back up their assertions on content disputes by the same authoritative, verifiable references as the rest of us.

If an individual is a subject field expert, and they want to comply with our proscription on contributors publishing original thought, they'd have to offer the same authoritative, verifiable references as the rest of us.

The Citizendium experimented with a two-teired system. All contributors had to verify their identities, prior to editing. Contributors who had genuine credentials to be considered subject field expertes were allowed to publish original thought. For what it is worth tying contributors to a real world identity did wonders for civility.

If we were ever to consider recommending extending any extra credibility to wikipedia contributors who claim to be real life experts, I would want those experts to have been required to follow the Citizendium example, and to publish their verifiable resume. I would strongly recommend that we not add verifying the credentials of those claiming to be experts to the duties of the OTRS committee. Similarly, I would strongly recommend that we don't establish a confidential credentials committee to work in parallel to the OTRS committee.

The main reason why real world credentials suggest real world credibility is that real world experts who make a public opinion put their real world reputations on the line.

If we had a confidential committee, like OTRS, that confidentially confirmed that those who claimed real world expertise had real world credentials, that would still allow "experts" to use their credentials irresponsibly. What protection would we have to prevent an individual whose real world law degree was confidentially verified from making pronouncements on intellectual property law, when they were only a tax attorney or real estate lawyer, in real life, when they had no more genuine expert understanding of intellectual property law than you or I? Geo Swan (talk) 13:43, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Task of the Day

Based on a discussion on WP:AN located here about fair use images tags done by bots, and the pending fair use deadlings from the Foundation, I've started this proposed policy/project/change at WP:TODAY. Please check it out and weigh in. The specifics as discussed above about a run for the Images problem we have is at Wikipedia:Task of the Day#Early 2008 trial run. Lawrence Cohen 16:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Understandable language is essential

Policies and guidelines need to be written in plain language anyone can understand. See Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content#Not_a_valid_objection. Tyrenius (talk) 07:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Who's "anyone" in your opinion? I see nothing in that statement that a simple search or wiktionary link would not correct. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 08:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not an opinion. It's pretty obvious that the text should communicate easily and clearly to wikipedia editors for whom it is written. Tyrenius (talk) 01:27, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

See my reply back there. Please let's keep the discussion in one place, either here or there. I suggest there. Carcharoth (talk) 09:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The ugly advertising at the top of every page

It appears there's no way to dismiss the ugly ad on the top of each page. Could somebody edit it so that it can be hidden? How long is it going to be there, anyway? Corvus cornix_talk 23:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I could not even find a class marker for it to take it out with my monobook.css. If anyone can figure out how a monobook.js or monobook.css hack to get Wikipedia to stop trying to sell me coffee mugs I would appreciate it. 1 != 2 23:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The extended deadline was supposed to end two days ago. But of course, they still didn't get all the money they wanted. As long as money continues to trickle in (and it is) they'll want to keep it there. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 23:24, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I figured it out.... • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 23:31, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Great! Thanks Anakin. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:55, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Egypt is going to copyright... antiquities

[1]. Am I a total idiot? Or did the BBC do exactly zero research on this article? Will this law not be totally ignored in every country in the world with PD-old requirements (i.e., all of them except Egypt)? The US laws have been upheld countless times to this effect that anything pre-1923 is not copyrightable. The Evil Spartan (talk) 01:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks like it only applies to the production of replicas, not photographs. Even if it did apply to pictures, I think this would be more of a commons issue. IIRC, en.wp uses US PD laws except when applying to works of another country. Mr.Z-man 04:42, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

In black and white: "Mr Hawass said the law would apply to full-scale replicas of any object in any museum in Egypt."

This isn't a concern for us. Maybe for those people with the giant Sphinx in Vegas, but that's their problem. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 04:54, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's going to be a roadblock to future creation of Wikistatues, the statues which anyone can carve. -- SEWilco (talk) 05:45, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Ha! Indeed it would. That's ok though, with all the vandalism it wouldn't be an exact replica anyway. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 07:26, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

What with restoration of the ravenges of time and the work of statue vandals (see Laszlo Toth), even the real things aren't exact replicas of what they once were. Sort of a head-scratcher. Applies to living people, too. And, one supposes in the case of Egypt, also to dead ones. And the reputations of dead ones. "Sentator, you're no Jack Kennedy." But even Jack Kennedy isn't Jack Kennedy.... SBHarris 08:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

It sounds more like they're going to patent them (in much the same way that you can patent typefaces, but you can't copyright them). I don't know anything about international patent agreements. superluser_tc 2007 December 27, 01:11 (UTC)

alas the dangers of selfishness, greed and foley! how much has copyright hindered progress of humanity? i really wonder whther its necessary or not... maybe if ter was no copyrite protections likewise ppl would be less deterred to use someone elses ideas but at the same time ppl wouldnt have an incentive to work on an idea. restriction of freedom should be done wisely for if its not, human soul itself becomes endangered. i think ther should be wikipedias based in different countries so if one country enacts stupid laws they shouldnt negatively affect or jeopardize the human mind tat the net is becoming with the positive progress it comes withWonderingAngel-aesc78 (talk) 16:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind one important fact: Egypt is a low-income country, & to provide needed services to their citizens they need to maximize the revenue from every resource they have. And one of their most important resources just happens to be their national heritage -- ancient Egypt. There is nothing wrong in the intent of this proposed legislation. The problems will be in its implementation, & due to the fact that so much material from ancient Egypt has become embedded in popular culture, obtaining this revenue will be easier said than done. -- llywrch (talk) 17:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

• The underlying justification for providing protection to patent holders and copyright holders is that aiding them in making a profit from their inventions is believed to be in the public good. We want inventive people, who are capable of making new, useful inventions, to profit from their earlier inventions, so they can finance further new, useful inventions.

So, Dr Hawazz, does providing patent-like protection to Egyptian antiquities benefit the Egyptian public? Yes, if funds raised by it do help maintain those antiquities. Does getting authorities in other countries to enforce that patent-like protection on their citizens, protect the public good in their country? I think this is much more questionable. Would it be better if the funds raised by this licensing was spent under the supervision of an International Commission? Unlikely. Just look how notoriously corrupt the International Olympic Committee is.

Patent holders often forget they are only granted patents because it serves the public good.

During the beginning of the SARS crisis there was an anti-viral drug that it was believed could keep front-line health care workers from getting infected and passing the infection on to other patients. Allan Rock, Minister of Health, personally contacted the firm that had the right to distribute that drug in Canada, and was informed that the firm could not make the hundred thousand doses of the drug that he requested available.

So Rock issued a request to all the pharmaceutical companies in Canada, asking if they could produce the doses Canada required. The original firm went ballistic, only they had the right to make or sell this drug in Canada, and they threatened to sue everyone in sight.

During WW2 jeeps turned out to be extremely useful, but the IP rights were owned by a small firm that couldn't meet even a small percent of the demand. So jeeps were made, under license, in the factories of regular automobile companies. Some sources hint the Pentagon threatened to nationalize the design if the IP holders didn't license their design. Note Rumsfeld made the opposite choice during the Iraq war, when a small firm had the exclusive right to apply an armor kit to the US military's humvees. Rumsfeld respected their IP rights, didn't force them to license their kit to Ford or GM, and, as a result, GIs continued to die in unarmored vehicles as that firm only provided a trickle of a few kits per month. Geo Swan (talk) 14:46, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Transcluding article content from talk pages

Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement has apparently made it a style guideline that certain infoboxes in articles their project is involved in should be placed on a subpage of the article's talkpage, and then that talkpage is transcluded into the article. Is this acceptable? --Carnildo (talk) 02:00, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

In short, yes, because there's no better way to accomplish this. The infobox data is used more than one way in more than one place, so a traditional one-use infobox doesn't work. The data is instead placed on a separate page, to be transcluded and formatted as necessary. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 02:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You said on a subpage of the article's talkpage, but as I read the style guideline, it's on a subpage of the template's talkpage. If I'm reading the guideline correctly, I think it's appropriate. Subpages of article talk pages, on the other hand, aren't a good idea except for temporary proposals and for archives. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The guideline states as a subpage of the article's talk page. Eg. Talk:Kirtland Temple/data. Taemyr (talk) 16:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, Carnildo was right: they use a subpage of the article's talkpage. Example: Talk:Los Angeles California Temple/data. That's not in "Template talk" namespace. There's only two letters difference but a "Temple" is no t a "Template", they use the temple's talkpage.

As for the whole idea: this is wrong on many levels. Don't include talk page content in main namespace. There's a usability problem. There's a problem with notability of some of the data in the /data model (e.g. WP:NOT tourist guide). There's a problem with Verifiability (the actual references aren't copied to main namespace). WP:NOT#DIRECTORY (don't abuse any namespace for such endeavour). Etc. As far as I'm concerned: a no-no. Definitely.

Re. "there's no better way to accomplish this". Sure. There's a namespace that's designed for content you want to transclude: it's called Template namespace. For instance, you could start with making a Template:LDS Temple or Template:LDS data. Then make as many subpages of such template page as you like, for instance Template:LDS Temple/Los Angeles California Temple or Template:LDS data/Los Angeles California Temple. That doesn't solve the other issues I mentioned, but technically there shouldn't be a problem. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Although it may be that not all the content should be kept, I think that's a subject for a different thread. As to where to put the content, I've never been in love with putting it in talk subpages, even though I created most of them. The idea was started before I came along by either Trödel or Bytebear, I think. In the old discussion here, I proposed moving the data to template namespace and using a naming convention like [[Template:St. George Utah Temple data]], which I still would support. I don't see anything wrong with Francis's proposal either. Not many people cared at the time I originally brought it up, so I dropped it.

I'm not aware of any other wikiproject that uses this kind (or any kind) of shared data storage, but I think others could benefit from a generalized policy. Projects like Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Congress could use something similar to keep data synchronized between tables on Current members of the United States Congress and the individual members' article pages. I have seen problems with data being contradictory there. – jaksmata 18:22, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Re. "Although it may be that not all the content should be kept, I think that's a subject for a different thread": no, as you know from the link you offered above (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement/Temples#Namespaces), that was the excuse used there for keeping such template data in talk namespace:

I decided not to use the Template namespace because I wanted to avoid having to defend the temple data templates from being deleted. Some templates are deleted based on arguments that I think could apply to the temple data so rather than take the chance that they could be deleted I elected to propose using the Talk namespace where those arguments would not apply. [...]

Plain and simple: an attempt to evade content policies. I can't see how you came to fall for that.

Must we really start listing such transcluded talk pages at MfD before members of the LDS project start to work out sensible solutions? Indeed some of that content is not suitable for Template space. Nor is it for Main namespace (where it is intended to be at least partially transcluded). Neither for talkspace. It was just a trick to keep WP:NOT type of content (e.g. "cafeteria = Full" ^*) in an unconspicuous place as long as possible, mixed up with useful data that could go in main namespace templates.

So what LDS project people need to do is (step 1) purge this type of pages from WP:NOT-like content; (step 2) start moving thus purged transcludable content to Template namespace. I'm serious about testing this via MfD to see what the broader consensus would be. --Francis Schonken (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I've posted a note at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement#Using subpages of article talk pages to store information for templates. I don't see why the WikiProject folks would object to (2), except that it's more work - but it's work caused by a bad initial decision. As for (1), that seems to be a matter for a separate discussion. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:46, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, reading the above, I can see the reason for the original decision; partly that's because (if I understand the discussion) the thought was to create a "template" page that wasn't a template but is data. I think that any data pages should be subpages, but subpages of the template that use them, not top-level template pages. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I championed and implemented the original structure - but always felt that it was better placed in the template namespace so I am ok with moving them to that the template namespace. At the time there was a big push to delete any template that was only referenced on a few pages and subst them in instead; but that defeats the purpose of the structure - which is to allow the data to be entered in once and updated in one location. The data on the different mainspace pages were not consistent prior to that. --Trödel 20:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

PS - the decision not to use the Template namespace has nothing to do with an attempt to avoid WP:NOT but to avoid deletion because of the discussions regarding transclusion vs substituting for templates used on few pages. --Trödel 21:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

PPS - after reading my comments from around that time, I realized I haven't always felt that way, though I am guessing that Jaksmata's comments on the talk page last April influenced me because I didn't remember that I felt the other way earlier. I am interested in keeping the pages consistent and making them easy for those unfamiliar with table structure to edit. That is my goal. I think the implementation does both of those things. --Trödel 21:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

But please get rid of the WP:NOT content to which the Temple template invites, for instance "cafeteria = Full" should be removed per WP:NOT, and then I'm not even going into the details of other WP:NOT content included in these templates (regardless of whether these data are eventually used in mainspace or not). --Francis Schonken (talk) 17:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I've moved all the talk sub-pages to template namespace under {{LDS Temple}}. I've started a discussion there for what not to keep. Feel free to comment there. – jaksmata 02:07, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Googlefiability vs. Verifiability

I wrote an essay on this after dealing with it twice in the last 24 hours. In the first case, someone asserted that because they found references on scholar.google.com that such references automatically demonstrated credibility. In the other case, the opposite was true: Dharmic religions has been renamed Indian religions simply because the former term is not widely used on scholar.google.com. This is despite the fact that any expert on the matter knows that referring to "dharmic" religion as "Indian" is extremely inaccurate. Sikhism is Middle-Eastern (scholars regard it as the influence of Hinduism on Islam, during the Islamic occupation of India), Mahayana Buddhism is Asian, and then there are groups like Hare Krishna, which originated in the west. All of these claims of mine can be verified by books, some of which I own myself. Saying "but its not on google" is not a valid defense.

So, I wrote this: User:Zenwhat/Googlefiability. Your opinions are welcome. Zenwhat (talk) 19:35, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you're absolutely right. There is no basis for thinking that appearances on Google are a sign of existence or notability. Printed scholarly sources are indeed preferable than online sources, even if one does use Google Scholar. Google itself is not necessarily a reliable source! :) I think you would be within your rights to edit according to your printed sources using the appropriate citation templates at WP:CITET, these scholarly sources are superior to Google results. Ekantik ^talk 19:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I posted this same essay over at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Googlefiability vs. Verifiability. If anybody thinks it's a good policy or guideline proposal, please say so. As it stands now, WP:Verifiability doesn't mention the fact that search engine hits can be deceiving, so the arguments "but its on google" and "but its not on google" are going to continue. Zenwhat (talk) 19:57, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

You are right 100%, but don;t expect that being right about that is going to change people's behavior. An irrational person, by definition, is not open to being convinced by reason. Have fun being right on that, its a great essay, but even if WP:V is changed, don't expect any AFD discussions to change because of it... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:02, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Of course you're right that just presence on google or scholar.google is not a proof of notability (although a big number of hits may be an indicator). However, if you're referring to me and I am this "someone", I believe you're totally misinterpreting what I wrote. I gave you 5 sources that are indisputably valid, and only added that they were in top 10 of my first search in scholar.google. If anything, it proved that finding reliable resources on the topic we discussed was easy. Pundit|utter 00:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

If you haven't seen it, try WP:GOOGLE. Dragons flight (talk) 00:32, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I haven't seen it. Thanks. My essay is unnecessary. Bookmarked. Zenwhat (talk) 01:17, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Google hits don't translate to notability in a straightforward way; however, understood properly they are certainly an indication of notability. Google results are clearly a valid, and common, source of evidence used in deletion discusisons and other article-related discussions. The essay is correct in pointing out that google scholar and google search are not for verifiability. Obviously, they are not proof of anything and may not be cited in article space (except perhaps some odd cases like articles related to google bombing). But we need to be clear that verifiability only applies to factual claims made in article space. I don't think the essay is really necessary because WP:V says as much; however, if it comes in handy it's a nice plain language statement that one can point out to inexperienced editors. Wikidemo (talk) 06:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Why are Google results considered a "valid" and common source of "evidence", leave aside their usage in deletion discussions? Under what circumstances could search engine results be considered "valid" for an encyclopaedia? Ekantik ^talk 23:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Because they point to stuff. If there is stuff out there, chances are you can find it with google. If there is a lot of stuff out there, google will find a lot of it. Let's say there's an article about a company neither you nor anybody in the discussion knows nothing about, but the company CEO has an uncommon name. You can't tell me, for example, that a well-worded narrow news search - say the union of the company name, the CEO, and city where it is headquartered -finding 1,800 results with the first two pages being directly on point substantive articles in New York Times, Forbes, and the Economist, tells you the same in terms of likely notability of the subject as a broad search for the name of the company that yields exactly zero results. That's some rather powerful evidence that, like everything, has to be taken in context and interpreted. Wikidemo (talk) 02:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Still, if someone is claiming an article is unverifiable, the burden is on you to show sources exist if you want it kept. Just saying "Google isn't complete, there might be a book or journal reference somewhere out there just not yet indexed" isn't really enough. --W.marsh 02:47, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Ekantik, they can't be used as source material, but as Wikidemo said: "They point to stuff." W.marsh: You're right that's how policy is defined. However, in practice, because of the hordes of inclusionists on Wikipedia, the argument "But it's on Google, so we might be able to find a source eventually!" tends to be pretty effective. Zenwhat (talk) 16:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I dunno, almost every time I've seen push come to shove, articles that don't have reliable sources, regardless of Google Web Hits, get deleted. The classic example is Gay Nigger Association of America - which had the ultimate hoarde of defenders, but is long gone due to lack of sourcing. The one real exception is the very narrow class of articles about Wikis, like Wikinfo, or language editions of Wikipedia, that seem to perpetually get a pass from having to show substantial coverage in reliable sources. But we've improved a lot from 2-3 years ago where yes, 10,000+ Google web results meant an article would be very hard to delete. --W.marsh 23:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

New correspondence and confidentiality proposal, WP:COFF

I'm try to drum up discussion of Wikipedia:Correspondence off-wiki, proposed to deal with confidentiality concerns for off-wiki correspondence, after it became an issue in an Arbitration Case. The proposal is meant to approach the issue from the opposite direction of a now rejected proposal, Wikipedia:Private correspondence, which would have made all correspondence confidential by default. Any comments or suggestions are welcome. -- Kendrick7^talk 20:07, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Is Encyclopedia of Earth a valid source?

I noticed we're getting links to eoearth.org in the references of some articles, often to the correspondingly article. Should they be allowed as a valid source? They don't state inline references for any of their articles so we can't determine the original sources, so the way I see it, they should only really be used as a reference if we trust their editors more than ours. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 22:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

You could say the same about any magazine or newspaper. "The Encyclopedia is a free, fully searchable collection of articles written by scholars, professionals, educators, and experts who collaborate and review each other's work." Seems good enough to me. -- Kendrick7^talk 23:04, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Ah never mind, I found a discussion on it from Village Pump archives: [2]. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 00:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Possibility of non credible death report for Christine Finn

On the Christine Finn page, it says that she's dead, people have added that information who are unregistered, but it's information that's been put up on the actress's IMDB page, and there isn't anything in any news paper to indicate that she's died. She has been an actress who's been in some TV series of historical importance in TV, and if she has recently died, one might think there would be some news about it such as an obituary in a main newspaper or even the local papers around the town where she was reported to have died and I have found nothing and none of the Quatermass or Thunderbirds fans have any clue about her death also, and some wonder if it is a hoax report

Do you think that I should I keep the death statement or delete it until something a little more definite comes along?

username: Wmmvrrvrrmm Tuesday January, 8th, 2007 5:50am (GMT)

Nuke on sight if unsourced. -Jéské ^{(Blah v^_^v)} 06:27, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a load off my mind

username: Wmmvrrvrrmm Tuesday January, 8th, 2007 15:28pm (GMT)

Can "In popular culture" and "trivia" sections be made more acceptable?

In a recent discussion at WP:TRIVIA, a user pointed out an ironic contradiction between that guideline and the Main Page. Basically, WP:TRIVIA says that trivia sections are discouraged because they are an indiscriminate lists of disconnected facts, but then on the Main Page there is the "Did you know..." section, which is an example indiscriminate lists of disconnected facts.

There is a great deal of disagreement of what constitutes trivia, since the judgement of the "value" of a particular fact is subjective. Editors are divided about whether "In popular culture" articles and sections constitute trivia, and whether this type of content is inappropriate for wikipedia. However, it seems clear that some users find this kind of sort of tangential connection between articles interesting, since it is in common use on the main page, and also because users continue to contribute to these sections in articles.

It is interesting to note that the section on the Main Page is quite small, only a few (6 or 7) items displayed, with the option of clicking to show more. It think this contributes to its acceptability, because some of the criticism against trivia/in popular culture lists is that they are excessively long and can grow to dominate the text in an article.

One suggestion from that discussion was to make some sort "smart list" to present this type of information; when a page is loaded, generate a list with a handful of items from a larger list, and give the user the option of clicking to see the entire list. I think this would be an interesting solution to apply to these sorts of lists (more so to "in popular culture" type lists rather than trivia list). However, since this would be a significant change to the presentation of this type of information, and there is already debate about the acceptability of this kind of information, then I think there should be a larger discussion about the technical and policy related aspects of this solution, and if it is a good idea. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 22:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The "trivia" on the main page is actually a collection of notable facts that are sourced in the articles they reference. The trivia that many wikipedians object to in articles is a collection of non-notable information about a topic which doesn't add greatly to an understanding of that topic. This question is comparing apples to oranges. Karanacs (talk) 17:10, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, the comparison was more of the starting point of the thought, and the "smart lists" was supposed to be something that could make long discriminate lists more acceptable. In general I am thinking more about IPC lists than trivia lists, because IPC lists are generally sourced (or are drawn from the primary source), and they tend to be discriminate lists in that you cannot add just anything to those lists. I have seen instances where the lists have been removed because they are deemed "too long", or they "detract from the coverage in the rest of the article". I can ascribe these views to no one in particular, but it does seem to suggest to suggest that part of the problem with these lists is that they suffer from poor presentation, and then get removed. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 19:56, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

All content should be shown on the page, not hidden to require a click. This isn't a solution to the problem and people who are stern on IPC will surely disagree to it being encouraged.

A major concern isn't that they're long, but that they're unsourced. I'm not sure about your claim that IPC lists are generally sourced. Anyway, if every item in a long list is verifiable by a secondary source, and the list itself can be argued to be encyclopedic (not a loose association), then the list should be perfectly acceptable. –Pomte 23:37, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

So if sourcing is the major issue, then what about items that come from the primary source? Many IPC lists are statements of "surface facts" about NovelX, MovieY or SongZ. I have heard mixed things about the sourcing criteria for items like this. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 23:48, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I'd rather not have a citation than have one to the primary source. For most items, it's already stated in exactly which episode or song the reference appears, so adding a citation to that does nothing. I've used this approach for Cultural references to the novel The Catcher in the Rye. –Pomte 02:22, 9 January 2008 (UTC)