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Discriminate/Indiscriminate

I propose a link to the essay Wikipedia:Discriminate vs indiscriminate information be added to the section on Discriminate information as available counter-discussion and opposing ideas.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Meaning of Wikipedia:NOTDIR

There's an AfD discussion going on over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of AT&T U-verse channels. It hinges on whether a list of channels is somehow equal (or "similar enough") to an electronic program guide, or else is a "directory", both cited from this article at NOTDIR.

The discussion has led me to a rather shocking discovery: Contrary to Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, which cautions that "links to other advice pages may inadvertently or intentionally defer authority to them", NOTDIR appears to defer authority to the current contents of electronic program guide and directory (databases) in the mainspace. And not only is "directory (databases)" probably not the intended target of the link (as it has been since 10 August 2006), the "directory (databases)" article itself has been tagged as unsourced since April 2007 ! Therefore, once I find the correct format, I intend to tag NOTDIR for its questionable content. --Chaswmsday (talk) 15:12, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

We are not using any definitions or guidance from the mainspace article, the link is simply there to provide a helpful definition to be clear what a directory might be but not to interprete it under WP:NOT's policy. --MASEM (t) 15:18, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

So just what are White Pages, Yellow Pages, database directories, electronic program guides or price comparision services? I don't see how it's possible to decide if content is in violation under NOTDIR without relying on mainspace article content. And editors of a mainspace article certainly should not have to worry their edits may disturb some Wikipedia Policy which in any sense defers to that article. --Chaswmsday (talk) 15:30, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Copied from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of AT&T U-verse channels: The link to main space articles is not to point policy resolution to there, but only to provide a meaning of the term. So this is just a red herring. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Common sense. No one argues "X should be deleted under NOTDIR because it fails to meet the definition of Y given by WP's main article on it." --MASEM (t) 15:37, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Then what argument is used? --Chaswmsday (talk) 15:45, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Someone suggests that the article is a type of directory not appropriate for WP, and AFD's it. Several editors respond to state if they believe that the accessment is proper using their common sense and common knowledge of what directories are or are not, and the discussion is closed based on that consensus. No reliance on any exacting definition of what a directory is ever used. --MASEM (t) 15:47, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Then cite consensus for AfD, not Policy. --Chaswmsday (talk) 15:51, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

What? You are making no sense. Our policy says, "WP is not a directory", with some examples, but we only define these by name in poliy. We make no explicit expectations or definitions of what these are to be. We let consensus decide that. The only reason we link to mainspace articles is to allow editors to get the gist of what's implied by certain terms, but editors at AFDs are free to make their own evaluation whether something's a directory or not. This is an example of why we have no explicit rules on WP: exactly what is and isn't a directory is determined by consensus, not what is written down in policy or mainspace articles. --MASEM (t) 15:56, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

You previously stated that "the article is a type of directory not appropriate for WP" (emphasis added) - a judgment call in which one infers that other "types" are valid. Next you say "exactly what is and isn't a directory is determined by consensus" - sounds like a blanket ban on "directories". Your logic is sounding rather circular and tendentious. --Chaswmsday (talk) 16:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Because, as stated at the start of WP:NOTDIR, some directories are appropriate, so there's no blanket ban on all directories. But we do not include many specific types of directories, with larger archetypes listed in NOTDIR; at AFD, consensus determines if the article is one of those archetypes and thus inappropriate for WP. There's no circular reasoning here. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

it is probably not a good idea to link from policy page to article space; particularly in cases of common words or where the article itself is sub GA standing. the articles in question appear to fail both criteria.-- The Red Pen of Doom 16:36, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Chaswmsday and Masem, what are your own definitions of "directory"? I don't want quotes from anything, especially dictionaries or policies. --George Ho (talk) 18:00, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Clarification: Would like to note that the List of AT&T U-verse channels page is no longer unsourced ans I took four seperate sources from three seperate sites (including AT&T itself) to source it. You can find them at the top of the page. I though I had removed the "unsourced" template at the top, but oh well. :) - Neutralhomer • Talk • 22:41, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

@George Ho, I'm not sure that my definition of "directory" is particularly relevant. My concerns are these:

• First, that there are, in @The Red Pen of Doom's words, sub GA articles, to which this policy would seem to defer authority. But, there is a counter-notion which holds that this policy (not guideline) can be interpreted in a loosey-goosey manner to mean whatever the editors in question prefer.
• Second, that NOTDIR ("not a directory", "not an EPG") is mis-cited as the rationale for an AfD, when the actual reasons may be from another "NOT" section, such as NOTADVERTISING, or might be just plain old WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
• Third, assuming consensus holds that a loose and semi-defined meaning for "directory" is valid within this policy, are all "List of" articles to be nominated for AfD?

Lest you think I'm being facetious, the issue that brought us here is articles under Category:Lists of television channels by company. Do we now AfD not just US TV providers, or do we do the same for providers from other nations within the category?

How about List of XM Satellite Radio channels? It's not under the same category, but its content is similar to that of the TV articles.

Three threads up in this talk page, @Masem and @The Red Pen of Doom are discussing "lists of soap opera characters", in the context of verifiable future events. Wouldn't the whole discussion be moot? Wouldn't any such list fail under a vague NOTDIR? To go slightly off-topic (but still within this policy), wouldn't such lists additionally fail under NOTADVERTISING? What is a character/actor list, other than promotion for the actors, producers and networks? --Chaswmsday (talk) 16:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

You're clearly misreading NOTDIR. We don't disallow any directory (which for me, is any means of organized tabular type information for ease of lookup and reference), but do avoid directories that don't fit the educational or academic goal of WP. (remembering that "It's useful" is not a reason to keep information). More often than not, it is directories that are controlled (in what information is to be given) by a single commercial entity that we generally disallow, which would be these cable provider lists as yes, that can start getting into NOTADVERTIZING but it's not the only reason. But we are purposely vague as to allow determine by AFD to access when an article is a directory or not. --MASEM (t) 16:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

NOTDIR is still too nebulous in meaning and shouldn't be supported by non-GA articles. Cite instead NOTADVERTISING, "not fitting the educational or academic goals" (whatever policy or guideline supports that) or consensus within the TV Project. --Chaswmsday (talk) 16:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

It's not. You are trying to find hard, exact rules and assume that just being linked is doing that; it's absolutely not. The comment above about linking to the article is very true and it shouldn't be linked, but you're asking for us to give more exacting advice where we just can't because we can't predict consensus. --MASEM (t) 17:05, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

In a policy there should be hard, exact rules. Editors who see they're accused of violating a policy tend to get freaked out. Which directories are valid and which are not, including questions of sourcing, fitting WP goals, consensus and/or how commercial a directory or list is, sound more like issues for a guideline. --Chaswmsday (talk) 17:36, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Then you're looking for something that will never exist. See WP:PG: Although Wikipedia does not employ hard-and-fast rules, Wikipedia policy and guideline pages describe its principles and best-known practices. This is why, what exactly is a directory is determined by consensus, not any exacting device. That's why we have consensus. --MASEM (t) 17:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes - it is ridiculous to suggest that policy has to cover each and every possible example of a 'directory' - though how anyone can argue that this list of numbers and channels is and less of a 'directory' than a phone book is, is beyond me. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

see also WP:CREEP - a policy cannot possibly hope to specifically cover ALL circumstances that might occur. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia:WikiProject Television Stations, any time an article dares to mention a time in relation to a news program or on-air anchor, suddenly it rises to level of a violation of the WP:NOTTVGUIDE POLICY, contrary to any consensus developed within the TV station project. I believe that an EPG is something else entirely.

Directories are really not disallowed, as this policy seems to indicate, but, per @Masem's statements, a matter of consensus. And the sub-par linked article for directory is a nasty bit of quicksand, which the participants in this discussion appear to acknowledge. Better that these be unlinked, as many of the other bullet items survive quite nicely in this policy without a link.

Given that the big, scary POLICY seems to forbid directories, it would seem more sensible that this section be moved to a new GUIDELINE. I thought this might be asking a lot, until I actually looked at Category:Wikipedia content guidelines, which currently only has 29 articles, one being Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not for things made up one day. With something like that being a guideline and not a policy, and with its other neighbors, it seems like a "Guideline on the Proper Use of Directories" would fit in quite nicely. --Chaswmsday (talk) 20:46, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Everybody says that you are wasting our time, so your definition of "directory" is relevant, partially or wholefully, in order to improve communications with each other as Wikipedia community. --George Ho (talk) 21:30, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm strongly favoring Chaswmsday's arguments that things need to change but also empathetic to Masem's points insofar as even policies need a little flexibility. It is my belief that these articles fail not because of title but because of misdefined scope; they are perceived as never tieable beyond the primary sources, when in fact there are many secondary sources available on the articles but they have been brushed aside as appropriate for other articles. If properly scoped the articles would survive. So what we need here, besides fixing the "directory" article and the channel lists, is delinking "directory" and better sampling for what a directory is. What we're dealing with in the present case is a big content aggregator and a number of big content providers and the question is whether listing their arrangements and relationships is encyclopedic. I think it's no different from the two lists of ABC television affiliates. So the policy should say something explicit about that. 12.153.112.21 (talk) 16:09, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

• The lists of ABC television affiliates are subject to a long-standing, established consensus that states that radio and television stations are notable. The pages about them are as well. The wider question about deleting "Lists of..." would need to come up for a community-wide !vote and an RfC. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIR is longstanding, established consensus. The recent AfD discussion amply shows that this is still the case. We don't need to waste more time over discussing each and every directory-style-list. Without specific evidence that a particular instance of such lists fulfills an encyclopaedic need, they should simply be deleted as outside the intended scope of Wikipedia. If someone wants to know what channel something is on, there are better places to find out... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:42, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about WP:NOT#DIR, but the long-standing, established consensus that radio and television stations are notable. That is what I am talking about. To delete anything of radio or television stations, it would need to go before a community !vote on an RfC. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 05:45, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump, please refrain from the use of belittling arguments such as "if someone wants to know what channel something is on...". I would assume that the primary intent for such an article would be to show historic and future channels (which may be lacking in the articles presently), to compare providers and to show how widely a given channel is available across all main providers. --Chaswmsday (talk) 07:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

@Masem, you stated, "More often than not, it is directories that are controlled (in what information is to be given) by a single commercial entity that we generally disallow". Question: why? --Chaswmsday (talk) 07:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Because this means the information as given has strong commercial interest to the entity, and thus our inclusion can be seen as promotional. --MASEM (t) 13:10, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, these lists are dry recitations of provided channels, lacking the boosterism and puffery of advertising. You're saying that Ōkami (promoted on your user page), with its highly detailed descriptions, is not promotional? --Chaswmsday (talk) 12:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Does this run afoul of WP:NOTDIR?

I've run into a conundrum doing WP:NPP: List of chess books (A–F). It somehow feels unencyclopedic; if we were to allow such articles as encyclopedic, all books ever produced would warrant inclusion in lists arranged by topic. And yet I don't think it violates WP:NOTDIR or any of the other guidelines I can see. Anybody have any thoughts on this? It seems like something that might be a good reference to put into someone's userspace, but in the article space it seems kind of off. --Batard0 (talk) 11:06, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

while maybe not being very encyclopedic itself, it may fall under the "navigation aides-stuff that is not inherently encyclopedic but is helpful organization tool to aid readers attempting to use the encyclopedia". Although it would probably be better served by a category. -- The Red Pen of Doom 11:37, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

We do have other such lists List of important publications in mathematics, Bibliography of India - but notice they all are based on notable works for inclusion. The problem with the chess books is that it includes all works. It would be fair to have a Bibliography of chess and put a list at the top of notable authors in the field and point readers to look at any of their works, and then for the rest only the notable books, but the current list is not appropriate. --MASEM (t) 13:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

There are 29 pages listed in Category:Chess_books. Presumably most of those books have been considered notable or they would have been AFD'd. WP:CLT speaks to the non-interchangability of categories, lists, and navigation templates, but the most relevant part to this discussion is wp:DOAL bullet 5: lists "can become bogged down with entries that cannot be reliably sourced and do not meet the requirements for inclusion in the encyclopaedia". For bibliographies, it is generally easy to find a linkable OCLC or ISBN entry to establish a given book's key data, but finding RS reviews to establish the notability of each book may be more difficult. Accordingly a simple list of books may be far more extensive than a list of articles about books. This in turn means the simple list should be comprehensive, making no value judgements about the books beyond what is verifiable in the cataloguing data (subject, author, title, language, publication date). Otherwise, the list strays into wp:OR or even wp:SYN. The simple inclusion criteria should be explained to the reader at the top of the list article or category page.LeadSongDog come howl! 17:37, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

A comprehensive list of chess books would be indiscriminate, which I think is also contrary to Wikipedia guidelines. Note also that it has been claimed that "[chess] possesses a literature which in contents probably exceeds that of all other games combined". The John G. White collection at the Cleveland Public Library has over 32,000 chess books and serials. (See chess theory.) I think people who aren't familiar with chess literature tend to vastly underestimate how extensively chess has been written about. (I think this may have been a contributing factor to the "chess is Pokémon" claim, which was naggingly persistent several years ago. Mercifully I have not encountered it recently.) I don't really think this list is appropriate as an article, but it might find a home in the project namespace. Quale (talk) 21:20, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Addition: Television series guide

I propose a new point in NOTGUIDE as a companion point to point 3.

• Television series guide - An article about a television series should discuss notable characters, but avoid listing every villain of the week unless the character is significantly notable and this is provable with sources. A full-length character article should give an overview of the character's traits and abilities, but avoid listing every one of a character's weapons, attacks, or special powers.

Any thoughts/feedback? If there are no objections I will add this to NOTGUIDE, as I feel it clearly falls in line with NOTGUIDE/INDISCRIMINATE. Some guy (talk) 19:37, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

By technical standards villains of the week are, in theory, minor characters and more often then not contribute to episode plots. Instead of giving them their own list, however, you could just merge them with episode guides and original air dates if sources can be found. More importantly, I am also not sure why attacks and weapons for characters should be left out, that is similar to making articles for superheroes and not describing what they are capable of. However, instead of listing them they could be given another paragraph. I can understand where you are coming from, although from the angle being presented it seems a little extreme (no offense). Yapool Seijin (talk) 20:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it would be impossible to describe the contents without including the characters who appear for single episodes. The level of WP should be less intense than a fansite, but fansites can be very exhaustive, which gives us room to be reasonably expansive. As long as the writing makes it clear we are being selective, we need to remember that we are here to provide information. For many types of articles, we have some precent for what encyclopedias include, but for these we are to some extent making up the rules as we go. I should add, btw, that I think it will be possible to find good print sources for a great deal of the detail we have been eliminating, based on what I've been discovering as Wikipedian in Residence at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts -- and this is not even a specialist library for video! I expect to restore some material of this nature. What I hope to do there for a few selected cases may serve as an example. DGG ( talk ) 21:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

DGG, see my reply below. I'm talking about lists of dozens or hundreds of villains of the week, not mentioning specific notable characters. The point of the proposed addition is to emphasize being selective. Some guy (talk) 00:09, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I will cuation on the language and wikilawyers. We routinely accept episode lists with short summaries for television series, even if the series isn't very notable - its generally considered part of the show's proper coverage. While your intent is clearly not focused on these, some will clearly read "television series guide" to include those. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The proposed rule is based on content such as this and this . The issue arose due to Yapool citing the lack of a policy specifically forbidding lists of mechs, enemies of the week, etc as a reason to keep a lot of indiscriminate material. My feeling is we can have a policy that matches the points about video game cruft; I don't think a comprehensive list of every one of every character's attacks or 30 one-shot villains is any more important than a list of all of the guns in Call of Duty or what have you - and Call of Duty should have the advantage as at least the guns it has are real and we could link to them. As an aside, I've never noticed articles on video game characters (Master Chief (Halo), Gordon Freeman, or Lara Croft, for example) to include an exhaustive list of all of the weapons said character uses.

I'm certainly open to improving the wording. Some guy (talk) 00:09, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose If the content is verifiable, the article in which it resides meets notability guidelines and doesn't run afoul of length limitations, there's no reason to exclude the content you dislike. In other words, no, if it meets all of the existing content policies and guidelines, this serves no encyclopedic purpose in eliminating otherwise compliant content, and if the content doesn't meet existing content policies and guidelines, there's no need of a NOT insert to trump them. There's no way to "improve the wording", because it's a fundamentally flawed proposal. Jclemens (talk) 02:34, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oh, and as an addendum, your use of WP:INDISCRIMINATE indicates you haven't internalized the difference between overly discriminate and indiscriminate. You're certainly not alone in this, but "all of X" is best characterized as trivial, while "all of this and that and the other unrelated thing" is indiscriminate. Jclemens (talk) 02:36, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Uh, NOT can exclude verifiable content that otherwise meets all other policies and guidelines. NOT's purpose is to guide the encyclopedia away from content that is otherwise not encyclopedic. --MASEM (t) 03:44, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Yes, but should it be coopted as an end-run around our established, generally-applicable content policies to enforce WP:IDONTLIKEIT-like preferences? Of course not, although it wouldn' be the first time such a coopting was attempted. NOT is for exceptional cases, and this is absolutely not one of them. Jclemens (talk) 04:48, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I do not mean that I would defend all the content of the existing articles on the series. There is such a thing a fan-site material that belongs there, not in an encyclopedia. I would probably say that for any work less than famous, un-named characters who do not have a specific key role in the storyline such as the list of animals are not appropriate content, though it might be possible to write a paragraph about them giving a few examples. It's a matter of judgment. It's impossible to put judgement into a few words as part of a policy. DGG ( talk ) 04:04, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Nor would I defend them. What I will object to is rewriting the rules for a specific case that one editor (or a vocal minority of editors) wants handled in a particular way that, now being written into policy, cannot easily be contested. Our existing content rules are sufficient and robust enough to handle these cases. Jclemens (talk) 04:51, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The existing content rules cover these circumstances obliquely at best. Could you explain why it is necessary to forbid the listing of all of the weapons or enemies in a game, but completely inappropriate to forbid listing every one of a character's attacks or all of the enemies in a television show?

I can't make much meaning of your attempt to explain how you interpret indiscriminate. If you read the INDISCRIMINATE section it doesn't address listing "unrelated" things. The type of material I'm talking about here falls mostly into "summary-only descriptions of works" and "excessive listings of statistics". The link under INDISCRIMINATE is to the notability policy. Either you have some completely alternate personal definition of indiscriminate, or I got lost in the way you worded it.

The bullet points in NOTGUIDE serve as condensed guidelines and prevent editors from having to digest dozens of pages of policy to make basic decisions on the appropriateness of content. It provides examples of content that fails INDISCRIMINATE, WP:NLIST, etc without forcing people to have to find (which is a big enough task by itself in some cases) and read all the relevant policy. I imagine that the video game rules are specifically mentioned because there are many die-hard video game fans that will fill up endless pages of endless articles with trivial information unless specifically directed otherwise. The same is certainly true of some TV fans.

Personally I think it's a bit cheap to throw IDONTLIKEIT onto this; there is a clear precedent for it and what I'm suggesting fits the general mood of NOT, even if it needs some work. Yet again, I will cite NOTGUIDE point 3, which can't be any less IDONTLIKEIT than what I'm suggesting. Some guy (talk) 05:35, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

If you're going to simply ignore the discussion from this point I will be bold and insert what I feel is appropriate into the policy. Some guy (talk) 19:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I hope you will not do that, for there is no consensus to change policy. DGG ( talk ) 01:43, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Are the lists of examples exhaustive?

I started an AfD (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of New York State Historic Markers in Monroe County, New York), and it was closed as keep. Two commenters who agreed with deletion cited this policy (specifically, WP:NOTDIR and WP:INDISCRIMINATE) as support. The closing admin, however, discounted their opinions because none of the cited examples in either of those two sections precisely matched the type of list under discussion. Are the lists of examples present on this page intended to be exhaustive, or merely illustrative? Powers ^T 14:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

• I would say that WP:NOTDIR doesn't apply because none of the seven points under WP:NOTDIR apply to the list (1-Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics; 2-Genealogical entries; 3-White or Yellow pages; 4-Directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business; 5-Sales catalogs; 6-Changelogs or release notes; and 7-Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations). Further, I would say that WP:INDISCRIMINATE doesn't apply because the list is on a specific and defined topic. See WP:DISCRIMINATE for more details.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:27, 9 October 2012 (UTC)
  • WP:DISCRIMINATE is wrong. The text of WP:NOT says "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information," not "Wikipedia is not a collection of indiscriminate information." The problem with a list that fails this policy is not that the list is indiscriminate, it's that the inclusion of it in Wikipedia reflects a lack of discrimination. WP:DISCRIMINATE ignores this distinction and says (paraphrased) 'if the list discriminates, it's not IINFO'. That's absurd, because that conclusion borders on obvious and hardly needs encoding in a basic policy like WP:NOT. Powers ^T 15:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Never have been, never will. The examples are given to describe the shape of what we're trying to say, with some explicit cases, but there are likely an indefinite number of other things that don't match what is exactly spelled out but would fit the shape and therefore qualify as inappropriate under NOT. (I'm having a similar problem with editors disputing another AFD in that something that is not explicitly listed is therefore exempt from NOT, but that's not how it works. ) --MASEM (t) 14:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps more to the point, would it be valid to say that if something cannot be proven to be against WP:NOT, then it is prima facie encyclopedic? Powers ^T 15:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

There may be other reasons to exclude an article - BLP, NOR/NPOV, etc. NOT primarily only considers the line of discriminate/indiscriminate information. --MASEM (t) 16:18, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The last sentence in the introductory matter (WP:What Wikipedia is not#NOTEVERYTHING) clearly says, "The examples under each section are not intended to be exhaustive." Deor (talk) 17:26, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Thesis repository -- not

This might be a distinction without a difference, but there should be something relating to: Wikipedia is not a thesis repository. ~E 74.60.29.141 (talk) 17:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Channel listings

Debate related to this case should be reopened, as Philippine wiki pages with channel lineups are edited. Vgyu 10:36, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:Articles for deletion/List of AT&T U-verse channels resulted as "delete", so WP:articles for deletion/List of DirecTV channels (2nd nomination) will result as "delete", as well. If that's the case, then others apply. It's already discussed in WP:VPP. --George Ho (talk) 12:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:CRYSTAL for "<year> in <whatever> Music" articles

So I found 2013 in hip hop music during NPP, which I figured is a clear-cut case of WP:CRYSTAL and PRODed it. The creator then pointed me to 2013 in American music, which I noticed had been AfD'ed at some point in early October. And the result of that was to keep it. The argument seems to be "music will be released in 2013 so this is no big deal" and so on. Point #5 of WP:CRYSTAL says, and I quote, "Wikipedia is not a collection of product announcements and rumors.". If the record or single in question has been announced through a valid source, the rumor part obviously does not apply. But are articles like these not essentially just a bunch of product announcements? Since music is in itself a product that is commercialized? Just looking for some guidance. §FreeRangeFrog 20:02, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Assuming we have a series of YYYY in hip hop music or American music, it is not a violation of CRYSTAL to start a 2013 article, since 1) year 2013 is going to happen the Mayan Apocalypse notwithstanding, and 2) there is still hip hop music being produced and shows no signs of disappearing in the next 2 musics. We know over time that that article will fill up with things other than product announcements, and therefore it's fair game to keep. On the other hand, creating "2015 in hip hop music" is definitely a problem. Consider our examples with Olympics - talking about the 2016 Summer Olympics is reasonable as there's little doubt the event will happen, but the 2020 games are way too far out. --MASEM (t) 20:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for the comment. §FreeRangeFrog 20:36, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

It still seems like this is mostly an issue for reliable sources. Note that 2020 Summer Olympics actually does exist as an article, as does 2024 Summer Olympics and 2028 Summer Olympics. The real issue here is that an article can be created if there are sufficient reliable sources to be able to talk about the subject, where as 2015 in hip hop music legitimately is redlink article as you would be very hard pressed to find anything of a reliable source talking about that topic. If the only source talking about an upcoming release is just a recording studio press release or something found on a random blog (even if it is the blog of the recording artist themselves), I would not consider those by itself to be notable or worth including. On the other hand, if there are numerous articles talking about an upcoming release such as Billboard Magazine or some other trade journal or news outlet of roughly similar kind of stature, it definitely is something worth mentioning. I highly doubt that Billboard is going to be talking about future releases in 2015, but they will be talking about stuff that will be released in February of next year as that is just a few months away. --Robert Horning (talk) 22:01, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, for this "almanac" type articles that will ultimately summarize the events that occur within the year for the given field, we just have to be reasonably sure that the field is going to continue to be significant in that year. Yes, right now, 2-3 months before that year starts, all that likely will populate the article are future occurrences which likely will be based on future occurrences. But because we are pretty confident there will be hip hop music in 2013, there's no reason we can't start populating with facts that will eventually morph into usable content as the actual year starts. I would only advice that caution be used in selecting what events to include, which the advice of avoiding 1st party press releases and using 3rd party articles makes sense. --MASEM (t) 22:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Proposed alteration to WP:SOAP

Recently I have been having a mild argument with another editor who is interested in removing official websites from articles on organizations he does not believe are "major" as the term is intended in the line from WP:SOAP Point #5: "External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify major organizations which are the topic of the article." (emphasis added).

I think this is a mistake because there is almost nothing more relevant to a company than its contact information and providing a single official homepage for an organization that is the sole topic of the article can only benefit the reader. At the same time it's clear that we don't want Wikipedia to sink under a tide of non-notable WP:SPAM, and we shouldn't necessarily be required to list URLs from blacklisted organizations. So the question turns on the meaning of the term "major". "Majority" is a relative term and as such it relies on comparison with other examples, but there is no indication here of whether the organization should be compared to others of its same function, or others on Wikipedia, or to others in general, or what. In practice this leads to subjective determinations by individual users and can easily become a tool for POV-pushing. As such, I find the term to be hopelessly vague at present.

So I am proposing that we change it to "notable". Notability has a distinct meaning within Wikipedia and it provides a bright-line test for whether a url should be included. Essentially I'm arguing that if an article on an organization belongs on Wikipedia then it deserves to list its official URL. Unless there are any objections, I intend to make the proposed alteration to eliminate the possibility of confusion caused by the vague term, "major". Please provide feedback on this suggestion if you have the time. Thanks. -Thibbs (talk) 16:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

this is how we have always interpreted it. See WP:ELYES item 1. The language here should be changed to make it consistent: Notable=the subject of the article, because the subject of an article by definition must be notable. Obviously if the EL is in some way harmful, we would not link but normally even organization links which are on the blacklist are linked by using the whitelist to make an exception. DGG ( talk ) 00:38, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Concur; making that language refer to a well-defined test would make it more sensible and more in keeping with on-the-ground maintenance practice (which should always be the goal of policy). —chaos5023 (talk) 15:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, sounds good. I've made the alteration in this edit. -Thibbs (talk) 17:11, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I see the problem, but I'm not sure that fixes it. "Notable" is not a tough test, so doesn't the change just create a problem of a very weak filter in terms of spam and trivia? Formerip (talk) 17:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

It puts the onus on properly applying notability in the first place to make sure a company should have a stand-alone article. Once that test is passed, then to deny a link to that company's page just because it's not "major" is improper. --MASEM (t) 17:24, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm. The Fortean Times passes WP:N with ease. Does it get a free pass for EL? Formerip (talk) 17:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you're possibly ignoring the last part of the rule: "External links to commercial organizations are acceptable if they identify notable organizations which are the topic of the article." So the rule here only applies to external links within the article whose topic is the organization itself. You'll notice that the Fortean Times' website is linked from Fortean Times. If you're talking about external-linking it from another article, though, then the current rule doesn't speak to that. -Thibbs (talk) 17:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Ah, OK. As you were. Formerip (talk) 17:45, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Future events in CRYSTAL section

Am I the only one for which the complicated code in the section Wikipedia is not a crystal ball shows the "2012 U.S. presidential election" as a example of a future event? If not, can someone fix it to the 2016 election? Regards SoWhy 09:24, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Someone set those to be calculated automatically using magic words and templates, so it likely won't be able to be updated until the new year. --MASEM (t) 14:30, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

I noticed this as well and updated it before reading the talk page...I commented out the code for now, since 2012 is clearly a bad example. (Maybe someone bored enough will rewrite the expression to calculate a year based on actual election date logic, otherwise it'll be valid to restore in 2013...) – 2001:db8:: (rfc | diff) 03:05, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

NOTFORPROMOTION

I added an anchor and shortcut from WP:NOTFORPROMOTION because "not promotion" isn't grammatical and "promotion" needs context to make sense. But I didn't remove the other two shortcuts; that will probably break some links. If people want to keep all 3 shortcuts and all 3 anchors, but remove one or more from the list of shortcuts displaying on the page, that's fine. - Dank (push to talk) 19:40, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

NOTFORPROMOTION was removed; I removed NOTPROMOTION instead (since "Wikipedia is not promotion" is meaningless). - Dank (push to talk) 03:35, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Judging by all the other shortcuts, prepositions such as "for" are not included. --Ronz (talk) 03:51, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that none of the other shortcuts are nonsense or the wrong word; shortcuts like "WP:NOTBLOG" mean, obviously, not a blog. "Wikipedia is not a promotion" means "Wikipedia is not a special offer". As long as NOTPROMOTION goes, I'm not fussed about what stays: WP:NOTPROMOTIONAL would at least make sense, or we could keep just the WP:PROMOTION link. - Dank (push to talk) 03:59, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

There appear to be just under 500 uses of NOTPROMOTION, so perhaps any possible confusion with the abbreviation isn't really a problem? --Ronz (talk) 17:59, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course broken English is often understood. But when you're trying to get people to take a page seriously, and I would think content policy pages would qualify as pages where we're trying to make a good impression, broken English should be avoided. Btw, I've just created the shortcut WP:NOTPROMOTIONAL, although if there's no support for mentioning it in the shortcut box, I won't. I just needed a shortcut that didn't make me cringe. - Dank (push to talk) 18:53, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it's not broken English, but just an abbreviation? --Ronz (talk) 20:20, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

"Indiscriminate" means "raw data without context", not "obscure"

At deletion discussions I've seen the wording "indiscriminate" being used to remove obscure information with few reliable sources, but that's not its meaning as explained in this policy; there's already WP:Notability to cover lack of sources. I'm adding a sentence to the section to clarify that all the examples in WP:IINFO are about not adding too much information without the context that justifies its meaning. Diego (talk) 05:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Noticing that no one commented on this, but I'll say I more or less agree with this characterization. The IINFO segment has been a bit of a source of controversy. Mostly because it IS misused, and that misuse becomes an excuse to treat this as a meaningless concept. But it does have meaning, which we can infer from the types of things that are typically considered indiscriminate info. Namely, certain kinds of data without context. Maybe not completely raw. They might be summarized and restated in more economical terms, but what's really missing is the context of multiple scholars/experts who have written on that subject. Anyway... I hope someone picks up the ball and runs with this one day, because the IINFO debates are kind of tiring. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:21, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I took a stab at this a while back at WP:DISCRIMINATE. Feel free to jump in!--Paul McDonald (talk) 01:45, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Date ranges including current year

I've been noticing some edit reverting over actor/character duration formatting when the person in question is currently with the show, but started in the current year. Whereas "2011—" is found acceptable, "2012—" is changed to "2012" with reasoning that 2012 is the present so it violates WP:CRYSTAL. Others revert the change, either without explanation, or reasoning being that the character/actor is currently with the series. I've searched many talk archives and guidelines trying to find the answer, and any help or guidance on where to ask this is greatly appreciated. I did find a discussion that suggested using prose, or "since 2012", in regards to TV show runs, however in the case I'm inquiring about, the situation is mostly specific to infoboxes or lists, and in most cases is the last in a series of durations (i.e. 2001–03, 2005, 2012—), so prose is not the best solution here. Basically my question is: does "2012—" violate WP:CRYSTAL, and/or where is the best place to ask this? Thank you! Kelly Marie 0812 (talk) 18:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

• Speaking personally, as WP:CRYSTAL has no problem with things like 2012-13 FA Cup, Eurovision Song Contest 2013 and Air21 Express (2011-present) I can see no logical reason for any issue with "2012­—" for things that can reasonably be expected to continue beyond the present year but which have no defined end point. As for where to discuss this, I don't know but WT:MOSDATE, WT:CRYSTAL or WP:VPP would not seem illogical. Thryduulf (talk) 00:57, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you - I will see what they think over at MOSDATE as well. WT:CRYSTAL actually redirects here. Thanks! Kelly Marie 0812 (talk) 19:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS somewhat deprecated

It seems to me that the insistence on enduring notability has been proven to have gone by the wayside in the wake of failures to delete articles on the various flaps and reactions to the latest American presidential campaign. There's no way that any of these can have shown "enduring notability" because time has not passed enough to show that they will endure. And indeed the prevailing side of these discussions, for keeping these articles, has disregarded that question entirely: the mere fact that they were reported on shows that they are notable, and since notability is supposedly permanent, there's no reason to consider enduring notability because it is assumed to endure.

As those who have participated in those discussions may be aware, I don't agree with this. Notability isn't permanent: some issue arise, create a brief flurry of interest, and are then deservedly forgotten. But I don't want to waste my time defending the principle if the consensus is to be indiscriminately inclusive on this point, so I've pulled the passage as being against the consensus of the project as recorded in deletion results. Mangoe (talk) 16:09, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

The international reactions to the US elections are not news items. The overall impact of the US elections have a major play across the entire world, and one would expect that the international reactions to who wins part of that coverage, even if after a few months/years those same opinions may no longer hold. But that's not news, and thus claiming this section is depricated because of those AFDs is a bogus argument. --MASEM (t) 16:23, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Hmm. I am quite openly firmly on the inclusionist spectrum, but I don't think it's appropriate to remove it. I see it differently. The outcome of such AfDs is, IMHO, entirely correct. The problem lies (again, IMHO) in the use of NOTNEWS to support such AfDs. As far as I understand it, NOTNEWS was conceived to avoid having individual articles on every single conceivable individual news report, so that we don't have a bazillion individual articles on really routine stuff like Weather in Milwaukee, 15 October 2012. Some however use NOTNEWS to justify the deletion of many things which have been subject to recent news coverage. It's good to be wary of recentism but it's not good to be paranoid or dismissive of recent events (IMHO, again).

What should be clarified is that NOTNEWS is for routine news report like weather, individual sport games, or other very run-of-the-mill things. So I think we should make the guideline clearer and much less open to arbitrary interpretation. This would avoid lots of debate, on both sides. --Cyclopia^talk 16:25, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, there's also non -routine events that are such short-term events that they don't need articles either. Take for instance the 100+ car pileup on I-10 a few days ago. Certainly not routine, and well covered, but in terms of whether WP should be covering it, not really. The impact on the rest of the world of this is so trivial that its not important for us to cover outside perhaps a mention on the I-10 article. --MASEM (t) 16:30, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

It's always difficult to define what is "trivial" or what is "impact" not. Just a few days ago I wrote a couple small articles about extinct mollusks, here and here, which I'm sure have had overall less impact on common people, despite being well documented by academic sources and as such worth of inclusion. But that's what consensus is for, I think -to get a compromise between all of us to decide what is our somewhat arbitrary line. The point is that this line should be well-defined, so that at both sides of the river we're not frustrated by battling against vague personal opinions. --Cyclopia^talk 16:38, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

This is what WP:NEVENT attempts to do, I believe. It's not going to be a hard line like many want, but I would think it is easy to split the difference on something that has no impact on the world after a day (a major car accident), and something with small but lingering effects (international responses to the US election). The in-betweens will always been determined by consensus. --MASEM (t) 16:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Eh, but WP:NEVENT is probably our most abysmally vague guideline. For example: significant impact over a wide region, domain, or widespread societal group. - what is "significant"? what is "impact"? what is "wide"? It's all so confusing. --Cyclopia^talk 16:53, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

There's no way we are able to even get more objective than that, if that's what you're looking for. If it comes push to shove that someone created an article on a news item or event and someone else doesn't agree its notable, that's what consensus is at AFD (such as the international reactions to the elections). --MASEM (t) 17:32, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Why are you so pessimist? The point is that AFD consensus is a local consensus and it is divisive, because it creates repeated bitter contrasts between what each side considers the "right" interpretation. It's a waste of politics. It also may lead to inhomogeneities and systemic bias problems. I think instead we should strive to define the most ambiguous terms in the NOTNEWS policy and in the NEVENT guideline. --Cyclopia^talk 17:38, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Because the discussion to get to NEVENT has already covered the ground of what works and what doesn't. And the issue of inhomogeneities and the like is not limited to news items - this exists across all topics as it really all depends on who shows up at AFD. Furthermore, we write policies and guidelines as descriptive, not prescriptive, and that means we can't define the ambiguous terms since their use is ambiguous at AFD and related discussions. --MASEM (t) 17:43, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, I want to try to ask on the WP:NEVENT talk page. Just to have an idea. --Cyclopia^talk 18:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict):I see the original poster's point, but in my view there's two competing visions in play of what policy is for. One, policy as a codification of actual practice. Two, policy as prescription of practice -- a view of policy as a sort of "constitution". Both aspects of policy apply, I think, in ways that are in tension. I think it's reasonable to a point for policy to prescribe a desired state, which may not always be the actual practice. If a policy is completely dead and buried in practice, then the community has voted with its feet and the policy should probably be erased. But if the policy is still in play to some degree -- still followed and upheld by at least some significant part of the community -- it's arguable that we'd need a full discussion before erasing it. I'm not sure what the case is here, so let's talk about this a bit more first. Herostratus (talk) 16:29, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

My sense is that, in practice, the policy is not in play. I took a look at Cyclopia's question as asked at talk:NEVENT, and it is getting no discussion at all in spite of sitting there for most of a week. The prevailing interpretation on various classes of event reportage, meanwhile, is that if it was reported on and someone felt the need to write an article, then a subjective evaluation of what is supposed to be important kicks in, just as Cyclopia says. Therefore whether the various state reactions to Obama's initial election are felt, somehow, to have had the sort of impact that WP:NEVENT expects, rather than there being any reportage that any of these reactions actually had documented consequences. I'm !voting against retention in these discussions precisely because that impact isn't documented, but that's not the position that has prevailed. My sense is that more local events are more likely to be, subjectively, assessed as unimportant because the hypothetical existence of consequences is less plausibly asserted. I would like some community confirmation that I'm wasting my time in opposing them on that basis, because it seems to me that policy is on my side. Either that, or I'd like the policy taken more seriously. Mangoe (talk) 19:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

We are on opposite sides on how should we interpret NEVENT, Mangoe, but it seems we both agree that there is a subjective evaluation which would be better to make objective, so in next discussions we know what's within policy and what not. Perhaps should we open a RFC, to get more eyes into this? --Cyclopia^talk 15:36, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

do not try to advance your position in disagreements by making changes to content or policies

"Not a battleground" says:

do not try to advance your position in disagreements by making changes to content or policies

There are two dubious things here:

• I suspect the text should be "content OF policies". Otherwise which content are you talking about? Content of talk pages? Of Wikipedia articles?
• "making changes to policies": - I fully understand where it come from, but I am afraid that it phrased unnecessarily restrictive. Wikipedia policies are not cast in stone, and I am pretty sure that in many cases people suggest changes when they stumble upon a reasonably serious point of contention which was not covered by a policy. Whatever the policy change comes out of it, it will advance the position of one side in dispute. Now, are you telling me that if I see my opponents abuse a loophole in a policy, I cannot work on closing it? Staszek Lem (talk) 22:38, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

First, it is "content or policies", content being article content. You don't engage in edit wars.

Generally, the statement is meant to mean that if you are in a current discussion that may be stalemated or going against your POV, you don't go to a policy page during that to make the change you want made as to make your argument in the other debate more correct. After that previous debate has been closed, it is completely reasonable to inquiry on the policy talk page that "hey, this debate just happened, but the result seems wrong, can we change this to this?" (Your loophole example is what fits here) But, keep in mind, policy is meant to be descriptive, describing what happens, and not prescriptive, so you shouldn't be doing such requests if you know it is going against the status quo. --MASEM (t) 23:02, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

We all know how difficult it today to add a single word into a policy, therefore if you managed to change the policy, then you are probably right. Hence I think this restriction is a remnant from the times of laxness and fluidity, and hence obsolete. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:07, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it means simply "don't edit war". It means don't introduce information into WP in order to cite it in a discussion, or remove it so it can't be cited (e.g. don't claim that an author is an unreliable commentator on a topic, insert "is an unreliable commentator" into the lead of the author's bio and they say "it even says so in his WP bio"). Maybe it does need clarifying, though. Formerip (talk) 23:13, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, this was my first impression too. But we all know that wikipedia is not valid reference, so the part "changes to content" of the advice is moot, hence my first question.Staszek Lem (talk) 02:07, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

There are lots of good rules that users break, especially when it comes to conduct. People edit war, but it doesn't mean we permit edit warring. People fly off the handle and attack each other, but it doesn't mean we condone personal attacks. And yes, people who find out that a policy won't let them do something might try to go ahead and change that policy. But it doesn't mean that it's a good idea. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:37, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Did you try recently to "go ahead and change that policy", just like that? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

• If the project truly follows a constructivist approach in which all policy is supposed to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, WP:BATTLE fails the reality check with the very first sentence:

Wikipedia is not a place to hold grudges, import personal conflicts, carry on ideological battles, or nurture prejudice, hatred, or fear.

Um, yes, it is. Many people are here for the sole purpose of the things BATTLE lists. The same is true for "do not try to advance your position in disagreements by making changes to content or policies". Many people try doing just that, and to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever been seriously reprimanded for it. It all begs the question, how is the normative policy which WP:NOT is written up as compatible with the idea of policy being derived from actual editing practice? I'm not holding my breath for a good answer. --78.35.240.67 (talk) 02:26, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

That is easily corrected:Wikipedia is not a place that should be used for holding grudges, importing personal conflicts, carrying on ideological battles, or nurturing prejudice, hatred, or fear. The community views these things as destructive to the primary goal of building an encyclopedia. It is not in denial about the existence of the problem behaviours. The purpose of the statement is to make it clear that they are seen as a problem.LeadSongDog come howl! 14:50, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I still disagree with the phrase. Here is a very common scenario: someone finds a loophole in a policy and makes a controversial edit. Am I supposed to:

• (a) fold
• (b) start a 20-foot-long discussion on how WP:COMMON trumps all in article talk page where nobody cares but ardent POV pushers
• (c) Go and fix the policy.

The phrase is in direct contradiction with the wisdom that guns do not kill, people do. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed WWIN section

Wikipedia will not crash the Internet (Draft 1)

Wikipedia is a fountain of knowledge. Neither we nor anyone who succeeds us can rightfully claim exclusive rights to that. Let additions and deletions continue according to our consensual guidelines. However, in the meantime we trust that our readers are smart enough to think for themselves.

Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 06:50, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't seem helpful at all at content advice at NOT, if anything replicating things like NOTPAPER. --MASEM (t) 06:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:NOTPAPER is mealy-mouthed at best. No one really pays attention to it anyway. Clarification is in order. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 07:06, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Masem, maybe a good topic for a potential namespace essay, but putting this information here isn't the solution. WP:NOT mostly involves either articles, or userspace/user comments which this doesn't seem to be. Secret ^account 07:21, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, such is life. Hopefully it made someone out there think. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 07:24, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed addition to NOT Instruction manuals

I propose adding a sentence to the Instruction manuals section, to the following effect:

It is permissible, and useful to the reader, to cite one or two reliable instruction manuals or the like, either in the Further reading (for printed material) or External links (for online resources) sections.

Citing manuals in the manner proposed here complies with the Further reading and External links content guidelines. The best place for this sentence is immediately before the last sentence, in my opinion. —Finell 21:03, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems reasonable to mention that the use of manuals is not disallowed, jut that we should not become a manual ourselves. --MASEM (t) 21:30, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Irrelevant to the purpose of this guideline. @ Masem: I don't know what is your national background, but in most democracies the Law details what is disallowed, not what is not disallowed. (Hell what I was thinking; Wikipedia not democracy :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 18:49, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Corporate headquarters telephone numbers

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I just spent three hours on the phone with a corporate behemoth and didn't get any satisfaction from their so-called customer service until I called the phone number on the first page of their latest Securities and Exchange Commission Form 10-K report and asked for the CEO's office. Then my issue was resolved in under ten minutes. Since {{Infobox company}} and {{Company template tagline}} already include website and stock symbol information which can only serve a directory purpose, and are therefore nominally contravening WP:NOTADIRECTORY, I propose that we explicitly allow for the inclusion of corporate headquarters telephone numbers. JS Uralia (talk) 21:36, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

No. Too much potential for accidents (one number swapped can be a problem for the person on the typo'd number), abuse, and privacy problems. --MASEM (t) 22:28, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

What is the chance people will swap numbers when copying from SEC filings? If that's a real problem with examples which have occurred, we can have a bot populate all the public companies because the Form 10-Ks are in xml too. I'm not sure what abuse and privacy problems you foresee. I wish we were more WP:COMPREHENSIVE with this information which is so much more demonstrably useful than the websites in cases where the corporate interests are not aligned with our readers'. JS Uralia (talk) 01:57, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Let's take your case - you wanted to contact someone in corporate for a customer service issue. While I know I've read plenty of people that have done this approach before, the fact that the corporate HQ number isn't listed means that this is not considered the main line of contacting the company about general inquires; that's what numbers on their website are for. Sure, the number was public on the SEC listing, but that at least takes some work to find and not everyone is going to spend that effort. But by making that number public, we're now making it easier for users to "bypass" the intended line of communication. Now in a more extreme case, I can see a user that happened to have access to a corporate number that isn't publically available (not even on SEC reports) putting that in place, and that would be even more of a problem.

It is not WP's job to create more comprehensive coverage of a topic where it does not exist before. Companies purposely publish specific numbers that they expect contact through, it is not our "job" to work around that. --MASEM (t) 03:02, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Who should we serve, our readers or the corporate desires to keep customers with issues from the people with the authority to solve them? Is the encyclopedia intended to help readers solve problems or to maximize the profits of shareholders? If someone posting a secret phone number is a problem, then require sources just like we do for any other questionable information. I don't think we're going to have a lot of people posting secret phone numbers, when the SEC-listed phone numbers, which are required by law to be available to reach corporate executives or their staff during business hours, are easily available. JS Uralia (talk) 14:10, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I imagine most of us here are intelligent enough to know that pinging the corporate office can help us get past intransigent customer service, but I would agree that since this is in most cases not a widely published number, we should follow suit and not publish it, unless of course it appears in multiple reliable sources. Wikipedia's goal is not to help anyone "stick it to the man", it is to provide already widely reported information, not to do original research from SEC filings. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:17, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

"Original research from SEC filings"? Really?!? They are multiple sources because the same numbers are required to appear on the first page of Form 10-Q every three months. Since they come out in XML format, it would be easy to make a bot that updates any changes automatically for all 30,000+ SEC registered companies. It's not about sticking it to the man, it's about preventing the man from sticking it to our readers. JS Uralia (talk) 15:43, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The phone number on a SEC filing is usually the line/extension of the person to be contacted to confirm and discuss the filing and may or may not be the corporate head. Making the assuming that it is for purposes of putting this on a WP page as a contact # for a company is original research. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

The phone number in a SEC Form 10-K or 10-Q is required to be the direct line for the corporate headquarters from which any of the corporate executive officers or their immediate staff may be reached during normal business hours. I'm sorry, but I don't understand how those multiple SEC government document sources could be considered unreliable since they are authored by the corporation and published by the executive agency. Nor can I understand how including those telephone numbers could ever be considered original research. JS Uralia (talk) 00:18, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

It may be that the company doesn't want the average consumer to contact the company via that number. We have no idea to that point. Yes, it's a public number, yes, anyone can find it, but we absolutely should not promote that number as a key contact point for the company, particular if you are talking about the intent for readers to bypass normal customer service channels. It just simply isn't our place. Should we publish the phone numbers of notable people that may not be obvious but in publically available documents? Absolutely not and the same extends to corporations. --MASEM (t) 00:38, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Neither, at least as you put it. We're supposed to be summarizing information. We are not a consumer service to help readers find ways to contact a company. To that end, we don't publish details that are not encyclopedic, one being telephone numbers as those can and will change. (Web sites appear to have more permanence, and are meant as the company's public front display). --MASEM (t) 15:18, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Then why do we include stock symbols which can and will change? Is it more important to raise money for corporations than to help readers obtain reasonable service from them? JS Uralia (talk) 15:43, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Stock ticker information is not about raising money for the corporation - they provide historical performance of the company that we as an encyclopedia cannot completely cover. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

While I sympathize with your argument and believe that it's a laudable goal to want to help consumers contact corporations, that is simply not among the goals of this publication. We are writing for a general encyclopedia, not Consumer Reports or any other consumer advocacy organization. Nor do we want to become a consumer advocacy organization.

I appreciate your suggestion and how you have handled but I join my colleagues above in writing a polite "no thank you." ElKevbo (talk) 00:36, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Concurring: Our mission is provide encyclopedic information. That does not extend to helping companies find new clients or for clients to find and/or contact suppliers. There are plenty of other sites that do that and we do enough already by providing the companies' web sites. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:46, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it is our place to provide WP:COMPREHENSIVE reference information in the interests of our readers. Saying otherwise is like telling a reference librarian that they shouldn't help those who come to them with questions when the answers might not be perfectly aligned with the interest of the corporations that the questions are about. Therefore I have made this question an RFC to gather wider community input. JS Uralia (talk) 15:21, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose adding the numbers. An organisation's telephone number is trivial and serves no encyclopaedic purpose; that's what a business directory or telephone directory is for. If you asked a reference librarian for a telephone number they'd tell you to look in the telephone directory... QuiteUnusual ^TalkQu 18:57, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

having been a reference librarian for many years, most reference librarians in a public setting simply find and give this sort of information, if the requests do not become persistent or abusive. The best practice, as I was taught and as I taught my students, is to give the information, and also explain briefly & tactfully how the patron can find it themselves. I cannot see any conceivable reason why a phone number is less encyclopedic than a physical address or web site url, and WP provides both. DGG ( talk ) 04:26, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

You do not need permission if you want to do this. It's a wiki. Anything not specifically prohibited is allowed. So go to it. Herostratus (talk) 04:51, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

• Support If such a phone number is officially public, it's reasonable information to put on: just like DGG says, it's no different from an URL or physical address. Private numbers are another issue, obviously. --Cyclopia^talk 11:34, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
  • There's a huge difference between the website of a company which they have put up themselves with the intent of making the information widely available to the public, and a number that may be publically searchable but not with the intent of being the main contact point. Or to take the example further, lets say that Consumer Reports (which generally promotes the idea of Executive Carpet Bombs to get proper help on customer support issues) reports the key exec numbers but which aren't reported by their SEC filings or websites? Should we include those? Seriously, this is a breech of privacy issues that could extend to private individuals if the same logic is used. --MASEM (t) 16:37, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
    • That's why I wrote officially public. --Cyclopia^talk 19:50, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
      • And knowing the vigor some editors have, this piece will be challenged and ignored to justify the inclusion of any number that can be verified. Again, the abuse that I mentioned above. --MASEM (t) 20:14, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Telephone numbers don't belong in articles, period. (And what a reference librarian would do or not do is not relevant. That's why we have a reference desk instead of shoving every bit of information that someone might be interested in into articles, in contravention of WP:NOT.) Deor (talk) 19:41, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Plain clutter. Too risky with typo's and vandalism. The Banner _talk 05:47, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose as unnecessary trivia that could very easily be vandalized, not to mention the harassment random people could get if the phone number is wrong. RedSoxFan2434 (talk) 18:30, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - not needed, as we already link to the company's website, and provide quite a bit of other uniquely identifying information about the company. We include phone numbers only in articles about phone numbers, where the number itself and discussion of it appears in independent reliable sources. In addition to the above editors' concerns, phone numbers change frequently, especially customer service phone numbers. As an encyclopedia, filtering out transient information is part of the job, sticking with the permanent is best. If consensus ever moved to providing phone numbers, I would think only the company's main phone number would be listed. --Lexein (talk) 19:28, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose for the reasons already set forth by Deor, RedSoxFa2434, The Banner, and Lexein. The fact that JS Uralia is even raising this frivolous proposal indicates that he or she doesn't understand what an encyclopedia is, let alone what it is not. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:50, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - Wikipedia is WP:NOT a phone book, and there is no encyclopedia-specific reason to have this. The reasons given by JS Uralia for this proposal are completely counter to what Wikipedia is for. On top of that, I've already seen people putting up web sites and posting on other sites numbers that are supposedly for a specific company but go to a scammer who wants your credit card info. Opening up Wikipedia to be a place to list contact numbers would give these scammers a lot easier access to a larger audience. DreamGuy (talk) 01:07, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Providing information which will help people to bypass useless call centres and multiple-choice loops is a laudable aim and someone should do it, just not Wikipedia. Formerip (talk) 01:24, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose phone numbers in articles in general. Unless a company's phone number is itself discussed by secondary sources, either as a critical part of the company/branding or because it came to be at issue somehow, I don't see any reason to have it in articles, and I certainly don't see any reason to include numbers the company does not normally put out to the general public. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:26, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

There are exceptions. I think this is acceptable, for example. Formerip (talk)

• Sometimes - I think we should only give one piece of contact information for each business, since people can usually find the other contact information through the first one. On top of that, we should always prefer a website above other types of communication. In the few cases where the company does not have a website or any online presence to speak of, then I think it's appropriate to put a phone number, if it can be established through reliable sources that this is their official public phone number. Granted that there are very few companies without an Internet presence these days, but I think this should still be the standard. —JmaJeremy✆✎ 05:15, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. I've said what I think in a comment further up. If a company is a 'behemmoth' there will be enough sources out there to obtain contact to it. If it hasn't, it's probably not notable enough for a Wiki page anyway. We're an encyclopedia, not an advertising agency or a consumer watchdog project. Makes me blue in the face enough already having to clean up corporate pages for free. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
• oppose a corporate telephone number is not encyclopedic information at all. we certainly do not need to be attempting to maintain such non encyclopedic trivia. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• oppose - non-encyclopedic, violates WP:NOT#DIRECTORY; if other items in an infobox template violate NOT#DIRECTORY, then per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS we may want to remove them too. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:52, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• oppose the link to the official website should be enough for users to find it for themselves, wikipedia is not a phone book. MilborneOne (talk) 18:27, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per everyone above. We don't do phone numbers on Wikipedia. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose reluctantly, as I am on the whole an inclusionist. But it's a vast amount of work for a very small use case and has the potential for all sorts of contention. And I would not normally think of wikipedia if I needed a phone number. If we start including them we should really verify them, and take complaints about them and, as someone said, there already sooooo much cleanup that needs doing...no. Elinruby (talk) 00:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Request for assistance in solving a crime

HMS_Endurance_(A171)#Witness_appeal seems to go beyond the ambit of an encylopedia, and in any event is unlikely to lead to much. Kablammo (talk) 00:23, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I removed it as unsuitable. It was added on 23 November 2012 in this edit by an IP who made no other edit. Johnuniq (talk) 00:45, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Supposing the website were legitimate, would such a link be acceptable in the external links section? With some nondescript title like "investigation website". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:53, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The edit was posted from Liverpool rather than North Carolina, where the crime occurred. It is doubtful that the post was made by officials investigating the crime. Kablammo (talk) 02:56, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

I would say no, Bugs: we are here to provide information, not as a form of social media for persons doing investigations (it's an odd version of WP:NOBLECAUSE, really). --Orange Mike | Talk 13:37, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The term "walk-throughs" is somewhat ambiguous in its current context

In the section, WP:GAMEGUIDE, the first item in the list currently has the sentence: This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, game guides, and recipes. A search through the archives of this page reveal that the the term "walk-throughs" was used exclusively (unless I missed something) with regard to game instruction. Walk-throughs are very useful for expositions of such things as, e.g.:, communications protocols when explaining how communication sessions are transacted; or for explaining how various dance steps differ from one another.

My suggestion is to move the term down into the third section (Video-game guides) or to rearrange the sentence as follows: This includes tutorials, instruction manuals, game guides/walk-throughs, and recipes. Sparkie82 (t•c) 23:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I made the edit -- took the former approach to avoid a slash (/). Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:31, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, arguable, the "walk-throughs" you describe are the equivalent of how-to guides, which we also don't allow (to a degree). --MASEM (t) 06:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Concur with Masem: walk-throughs are another way of doing a how-to, which has no place here. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The suggestion was to specify what a walk-through is. I believe the intent of the guide (based on all of the discussion in the archives) is to exclude from WP detailed, move-by-move instructions on game play. I agree with that. Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:37, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

A walk-through of a communications protocol is a completely different form of exposition from a walk-through of a video game, and is certainly not a how-to. A walk-through of the steps of a dance might be a how-to, or it might not, depending on the style in which it is written. That is why there was a need for specificity. Sparkie82 (t•c) 06:37, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Propose adding guidance on etymology sections

Wikipedia is dying a slow death by cruftification. Part of this cruftification is the widespread proliferation of lengthy, mind-numbing (and often dubious) etymology sections. Etymology sections are certainly useful in many cases, for example, California or polka dot, but for the majority of articles, the etymology of the title simply isn't notable or encyclopedic. There is no reason we need to explain the etymology of matriarchy or prayer. This sort of material belongs on Wiktionary, not Wikipedia.

To help address this problem, I would like to propose adding the following guidance to the WP:NOT#DICT section:

Wikipedia articles are not:
...
4. Etymology guides. Wikipedia articles should not include lengthy information on etymology unless that information is notable in its own right, i.e. reliable sources other than dictionaries discuss the etymology. Non-notable etymology information should be put on Wiktionary instead.

Thoughts? Kaldari (talk) 23:31, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if these are necessarily bad, but I can see that including the etymology ala a traditional dictionary seems out of place. (eg your example of matriarcy actually seems ok, but the prayer one is just thrown in). If anything, I would simply group this concept with NOTDICT as opposed to a new point altogether. --MASEM (t) 23:52, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess matriarchy isn't a good example. I was mostly including it as an example of excessive length. I think a shorter etymology section for matriarchy might be appropriate per the sources that compare its usage with patriarchy. Kaldari (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I will agree, however, with the clarification that Binksternet notes below: if you are just pulling the etymology from a dictionary to include, with no other rationale, that's inappropriate. If secondary sources, however, call out to that specifically, then its probably okay. I still think this can be said within NOTDICT without adding an additional point. --MASEM (t) 00:09, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any suggested wording? I thought about trying to add it into the main wording, but it seemed overly specific. Kaldari (talk) 07:00, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Not sure, though it would fit as a sentence following what's in NOT#DICT #2, something like "furthermore, the etymology of a word should not be included unless it is covered by non-dictionary sources." but that's not 100%. --MASEM (t) 07:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

I support this clarification or guidance. It is not a very high bar, that is, plenty of existing article etymologies will be able to stay in place because of discussion in non-dictionary sources. Binksternet (talk) 23:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The proposal as it stands is far too over-simplified. I would argue that there are fundamental differences to be observed between, for instance:

1. common English words, such as prayer (where etymology normally doesn't belong);
2. loanwords from other languages and technical terms formed from classical roots, such as matriarchy (where basic etymology should normally be included)
3. proper names such as placenames (where etymology very often is interesting).

We also should keep in mind that editors will often be less than well-informed what the term "etymology" means in the first place, so the proposal may have chaotic effects if applied in an equally poorly-informed fashion. Many sections labelled "etymology" in articles simply aren't etymology at all.

Another point of objection: while I can see the thinking behind the "coverage in sources other than dictionaries" idea as a notability criterion, this wording may easily be misunderstood as if it were meant to discourage the use of dictionaries as sources. That would be disastrous, because dictionaries are very often the only truly reliable source available. In many domains, such as placenames, horribly bad amateur pseudo-etymologies abound in what would otherwise be more or less decent sources. Encouraging users to seek out those at the expense of specialized dictionaries would be extremely counter-productive. Our problem is not really that we have too many etymology sections; it's that we have too many bad etymology sections. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:28, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The point of trying to find other sources outside a dictionary is to show that there is interest in the origin of the word when talking about the topic. Or, and perhaps too simply: the etymology of a word or term is effectively trivia, but as with trivia, if it is discussed by other sources, that makes it useful to include (avoids the undue weight nature of trivia). I agree that using, say, OED, to support etymology when it is appropriate to include should not be discouraged, we just don't want people to include it just because other articles include it. --MASEM (t) 14:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

If we start delineating which types of words should have etymology and which ones shouldn't, we will end up with a very long list, and of course each of the items on that list would probably have exceptions. Besides, who can agree on what constitutes a 'common word' vs a 'loanword' or 'technical word'? For example, is oxygen a common word or a technical word? Having a simple test—is the etymology discussed outside of dictionaries—should cover all the cases fairly well and minimize arguments. As to the concern that the implementation would be chaotic, it couldn't possibly be more chaotic than our current practice, which is all over the map since we have no guidance on it at all. Regarding the concern that we might discourage editors from citing dictionaries, what if we added the following note to the proposed guideline: "This guideline is not intended in any way to discourage the citation of dictionaries for etymology information."? Kaldari (talk) 18:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with this, and now I think it's better to have a new bullet to address the fact that "Entymologies that have gained noticed from sources other than dictionaries are appropriate to include." in addition to recommending Wikitionary for where best to place them. --MASEM (t) 18:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say we should "start delineating which types of words should have etymology" on this policy page. What I am saying is that there are such differences between types of topics, and determining which articles ought to have etymology info is a complex content decision that must be handled on a case-by-case basis. It needs to be left to content editors and decided on individual article talk pages, and is just not suitable for such an over-simplifying top-down regulation on a central top-level policy page. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:01, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. Does not belong here. Please find place to discuss your suggestion in WP:MOS pages. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
  • As best I know, no MOS even approaches talking about inclusion/exclusion of etymologies. WP:NOT#DICT is the right place for the discussion. --MASEM (t) 18:52, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
    • This isn't really a style issue, it's a content issue, which is exactly what this guideline is supposed to cover. Would it help if I removed the word 'lengthy' from the proposed wording. That seems to be the only thing that is stylistic. Kaldari (talk) 18:53, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
      • I struck the term 'lengthy' from the proposal. Does this address your concern? Kaldari (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
      • This is not the content issue; this is the amount of content and its presentation issue. Please see a randomly-clicked topic-specific MOS: "Plot summary sections should be concise and an integral part of the article. Three or four paragraphs are usually sufficient for a full-length work, although very complex and lengthy novels may need a bit more. Shorter novels and short stories should have shorter summaries." - this just begs rephrasing to fit 'Etymilogy' section. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
      • @re: "no MOS even approaches talking " - a good time to start, then. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:11, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
        • No, this is not about presentation of information. This is about whether to include information, period. I fail to see what relation this has to article style. Kaldari (talk) 22:16, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
          • OK, Sorry I was not clear enough. I oppose it as content issue; on the other hand I see it as a reasonable issue to cover un MoS. After you stroke out a single word it became even worse for me: wiktionary and wikipedia are different wikis with different rules. It particular, wikt lacks consitent referencing. Also, please present an evidence of grave abuse and harm for wikipedia coming from etymology so that we have to heap in a yet another law. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:19, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Oppose I. Cruft is a POV term. What is one person's cruft is another person's essential information, and "unencyclopedic" is a circular and subjective argument. II. Etimologies are just another type of relevant information about a subject. Provided it is well sourced and the etimology section is not given excessive weight in the article, there are no reason for them not to stay III. In any case, it has to be discussed on WP:MOS, as correctly pointed above. It has nothing to do with NOT policy. --Cyclopia^talk 22:06, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

I. Yes 'cruft' is POV, as is my entire argument. I think it's pretty normal for talk page discussions to include people's point of view. Unencyclopedic is not a 'circular and subjective argument'. Wikipedia is not the world's first encyclopedia. Show me a single encyclopedia on earth that commonly includes etymology for regular English terms. II. Then why don't we include dictionary definitions as well (and everything else listed on WP:NOT)? It sounds like you are arguing to delete this guideline page entirely. III. This has absolutely nothing to do with style. Just because people are misusing the style guides to add content guidance doesn't make it correct. This proposal is appropriate for WP:NOT#DICT because we are explaining that Wikipedia is not an etymology dictionary. Why do you feel this is related to style? Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

People are not "misusing" style guides. People are not wanting to split hair into 3 different manuals whenever unnecessary. Did you notice how striking a single word from you suggestion changed it from style guideline to content guideline? Staszek Lem (talk) 23:19, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• "Yes 'cruft' is POV, as is my entire argument." You don't get it. Points of view on how to build the encyclopedia are fine. But you're not supposed to decide arbitrarily what goes in and goes out of the encyclopedia, that is, you're not supposed to do it only according to your own personal tastes. That would be non neutral, and we are neutral. You are supposed to make those editorial decisions with some objective criteria. That you personally think etymologies are "cruft" is not such a criteria. What if tomorrow I decide that all brachiopods are cruft, because well, I don't like their silly shells? Now, one of the sane things of this place is that we have roughly objective criteria for deciding what should stay in this place, and it is WP:N for articles, and WP:V for content, with WP:UNDUE for relative weight. That's the gist of it. WP:DICDEF only means that we shouldn't have articles made only of dictionary-like definitions, not that we should remove everything which can conceivably be in a vocabulary.
• Unencyclopedic is not a 'circular and subjective argument' . Yes it is. Why is X unencyclopedic? Because it's not on an encyclopedia. Why is not there? Because it's unencyclopedic. You see the circle? Now, the point is that we don't follow the judgement of other encyclopedias to make WP: show me another general encyclopedia that commonly includes Simpsons episodes, for example. We follow sources: we are not made of dead trees but of electrons, so we don't need to make too tough decisions on that.
• It sounds like you are arguing to delete this guideline page entirely. It sounds like you are fond of slippery slope logical fallacies. No, the page makes sense and it should stay: but it's not a proxy for "WP is not what I personally think is silly".
• This has absolutely nothing to do with style. Yes it has. It's about content balance. --Cyclopia^talk 23:54, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• Content balance falls under WP:UNDUE which is NPOV, which is part of policy and nothing to do with style. (The stlye issues would be, if inclusion of etymology was a standard thing, about where to include it on the article and formatting and styling issues related to its presentation). --MASEM (t) 00:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
  • You are overstretching WP:UNDUE. "Etymology In/Out" has nothing to do with NPOV, which UNDUE is part of. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• If no source, except a dictionary, discusses the etymology, it is undue for us to include it. It is akin to trivia - factual information but with little relevance to the encyclopedic topic. --MASEM (t) 01:44, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
  • First, you are making a yet another logical fallacy. Of course if a single obscure "a dictionary" defines it then it may or may not be undue. However etymologies are found in the dictionaries, indicating importance, hence quite due. Second, again, you are misinterpreting UNDUE. UNDUE is about a balance of conflicting viewpoints on the same issue, not about importance of a single undisputable fact. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:58, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• The circular arguments a bit unfair here, as we actually have an associated dictionary project that is much better suited for the content without any concern about inclusion requirements. --MASEM (t) 00:08, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
  • No it is not much better. It is different. In fact, it is worse about etymologies in many respects. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:42, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Masem, I suspect you did not notice my request which sits at the root of the origin near the source of all our policies, so I am bulletting it out:

• Please present an evidence of grave abuse and harm for wikipedia coming from etymology sections so that we have to heap in a yet another law. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:04, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• As I see it, a dictionary is a subset of an encyclopedia with a different manner of presentation. WP is supposed to be more than a dictionary, and it should discuss the subject of the article. But the way something is named & the reasons for it are relevant enough to understanding the subject--it's sometimes the basic part, or it in some cases as national epithets can be the main point of a controversial article. We want to understand all facets of a subject, including where the word for it comes from. A dictionary is oriented exactly the opposite: it wants to present the information about the word, including just enough about the meaning that people will understand what the word is used for. In some case, as my example of national epithets, that can be quite lengthy.
  • If you believe a dictionary is a subset of an encyclopedia, I'm clearly wasting my breathe. Dictionaries and encyclopedias are completely different beasts. Dictionaries are about words. Encyclopedias are about the concepts those words represent. If you believe a dictionary is a subset of an encyclopedia, does that mean you oppose all of the wording under WP:NOT#DICT? Kaldari (talk) 04:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

But more than theoretical considerations, there is practice. English Wiktionary's word of the day is mango. Compare the etymology there with the etymology in our article on mango. The enWP does it immensely better. Of course, there are many more words in Wiktionary. Many of them are synonyms or near synonyms, like virgule correspond to see also's in WP. Many of them are concepts or other non-concrete things which are very hard to write articles about, such as vociferation. But when we have a full article that devotes some effort to the etymology, it's almost always better. I'd encourage all articles to include one when it makes sense to do so and require it of FACs. They could normally use the wiktionary entry as a starting point; but only a starting point. DGG ( talk ) 03:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia does things better than all of the sister projects since it has hundreds of times more editors. That doesn't mean we should just move all of the content here and close all the sister projects. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It should consist of concise summaries of information about a given topic. It shouldn't be a random collection of information and trivia. What we keep out is just as important as what we include. Kaldari (talk) 04:35, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

The point is that calling etymologies "trivia" is your own personal POV. Many scholars, since Plato (cfr. Cratylus) maintain that the etymological roots of words often, instead, have immense importance to understanding the information about the topic these words represent. If an etymology is well sourced, there is no objective reason to leave it out completely. --Cyclopia^talk 11:49, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I understand the desire/perspective of keeping a separation between the content that "belongs" in Wiktionary vs Wikipedia, but the edge cases are too diverse and abundant for it to be simple. There are a number of different parts to the disagreements, all of which have gradients, and not fine-lines.

1. Ease of reading/etymology in lead sentences - See insightful (from both perspectives) examples and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary/Draft RfC on words#Etymology in lead. I'm still very frustrated by that "herpeton" example, which remains unfixed...
2. Etymology as main content - We have a few well-written articles that are entirely about etymology, eg Wicca (etymology), Etymology of Edinburgh, Etymology of Denmark, Chemistry (etymology), Hippie (etymology), and a few dozen more. Most of those are articles that were split-out of the primary topic, for reasons of Size. It's a case of the abundant sources&information being reflected in correspondingly dense articles.
3. Utter separation/Subsets/overlapping content - For raw historic/citable evidence, see a draft-list at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary/Draft RfC on words#Table of evidence. Practically/philosophically, it's...
4. Why Wiktionary was made - I drafted this response to someone at WT:NOTDIC, a few months ago, but didn't end up posting it anywhere. [I've followed this disagreement for too many years, so that's a very condensed summary of certain longrunning aspects.] It needs to be understood, to see where we all agree.

I hope that helps, and hope that you read everything, including at least a glance at every linked item in #4. –Quiddity (talk) 05:40, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose If you want to go after cruft be my guest, but I'm baffled how anyone can believe that etymology sections are cruft. They aren't extraneous junk sections, they are deeply connected with the heart of the subject. A reader cannot fully understand a word without knowledge of the history and origin of it. An encyclopedia can explore etymology much more deeply than a dictionary can. In the two articles you link, Prayer and Matriarchy, the etymology sections are not appropriate in a dictionary, they are too long and detailed. They are appropriate for an encyclopedia and we should welcome them.

• I also note you're misapplying the notability guidelines by using them to judge material within articles. ThemFromSpace 03:29, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: This no etymology rule in the current text is absurd as applied especially to the evolution of social/cultural/political movements where the meaning of words are changed, often purposively. Sure, in every day words like "Sky" and "Blue" and "dog" it is unnecessary. But in words reflecting complicated developments with an interesting history it may be necessary. Crappy etymology sections should just be cut down to a paragraph in the lead, or elsewhere, or eliminated entirely. Let's not throw the puppy out with the bathwater. CarolMooreDC 19:17, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment can we ensure that some distinction is made between etymology and toponymy? The latter, which is essentially the etymology of place names, does have value in settlement articles (if well sourced, of course) and I'd hate to see us throw out the baby with the bathwater if the consensus reached is a general opposition to etymological information in articles. --Bob Re-born (talk) 23:56, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

• Note: See this new proposal Proposal on clarification on etymology at Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. CarolMooreDC 17:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose I can't even imagine restricting encyclopedic content on an article/topic which satisfies all Wikipedia conditions for existence as an article. North8000 (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - Proposals should be framed in a neutral fashion. No valid consensus can come out of this discussion because of the bias in the proposal. Jojalozzo 14:39, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

• Opppose – Any individual article in which the etymology is overly detailed or otherwise out of control can be handled on that article. I don't think we need a more restrictive policy on that type of content, and I haven't seen it come up as a major problem in the articles I've worked on. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 19:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Record label music catalog

The article for the record label La-La Land Records is mainly a catalog listing of every album they released along with info such as the catalog number, release date, etc. I deleted it as a violation of WP:NOTCATALOG, but the editor then went and restored it saying that it doesn't violate any policies. Any comments would be appreciated. –Dream out loud (talk) 01:27, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

That is absolutely a violation of WP:NOT#CAT, and I'm also a bit worried that the editor's only contributions over the last two years have been strictly to that article. --MASEM (t) 03:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

After having been removed once again, an IP user reverted the removal. I went in and removed it and the IP user reverted it again and told me to re-read WP:NOTCAT because it does not violate the policy. I wouldn't be surprised if the IP is the same user who created the list. I don't want to start an edit war, so I'd like some other editors to handle this. Thanks. –Dream out loud (talk) 19:55, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTCAT is only against sales catalogs with information for conducting business, not discriminate lists. If the collection doesn't contain sales information, in turns into a mere list of enumerated items. Just delete the columns Catalog, Limited? and OOP/Sold Out and what remains is a valid navigation list. Diego (talk) 22:07, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Changes on the page

I've just updated the page to reflect the new consensus that wikipedia can be used as a blog. The consensus was on these two pages by a wide margin of 16 to 1 ( I was the odd one out ). Since we all know conensus can change, I've taken the liberty of updating to reflect that new consensus.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  12:13, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Reverted, obvious WP:POINT edit. Don't do that again. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it's not point, it was the consensus, as I demonstrated.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  13:04, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

That local consensus applied to one particular case of limited autobiographical info, not to the contents of this policy page. Diego (talk) 13:54, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I agree that it was local, but it directly contradicted the existing policy. So, I merely updated the policy to reflect this change in thought.  KoshVorlon. We are all Kosh ...  14:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

There is no change in thought. "Ignore all rules" has always been one of the most important policies, but it doesn't invalidate the rest. And I'm not even sure the example above contradicted current policy. In any case, your edits to prove a point are a bad idea. Diego (talk) 15:25, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Launch Date Prices Supplied By Official Company

It would be incredibly useful to include such details as as the years pass, we lose track on how much something originally was and how much it has depreciated over time. Articles like hotdog state approximately how much the prices were at its time of production and so should any other new product. This would help many people find a centralized place to see what the company had charged for their product from day 1 and how the price had an impact on the company's sales for the year it was released. I understand not listing the price of the product from individual third-party companies nor listing the current price of a product (as you can clearly find that out by going to the company's website) but the official launch price of a product should be listed for reference sake. I wanted to know how much something costed years ago when it was released and I can't find any information about it and if Wikipedia had this information it would save me a ton of research. I find this information extremely encyclopedic as much as how much someone weighs when they were born, or how many seeds a plant produces when it starts reproduction. Launch price should be included as long as its sourced! 69.114.239.195 (talk) 04:52, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Unless the price is discussed in depth as related to the product (eg the iPhone's pricing has been a point of contention), such pricing details are non-encyclopedic. --MASEM (t) 05:00, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The IP editor has a point - a product's price at launch on the first market where it's released is historical information - just like units sold, release date, etc. So there is a "justified reason to mention it" like required by WP:NOTCATALOG; the information will be valuable for research 30 or 100 years from now. Note that similar statistics are already listed for companies (revenue, total assets, equity are connected to "price"); I don't see a reason why initial price shouldn't also be done for products. The point of "not a sales catalog" is to avoid including tables of prices by vendor or market that could be used for advertising or promotion; but an entry in the product infobox would not suffer from that problem. I would support adding a "launch price in release market" parameter to the infobox template for this long-term purpose. The requirement of direct coverage in sources is still needed for prose commentary in the article's body, but for infobox stats, verifiability has always been enough (for launch price that still would require a reliable source, not a seller). Diego (talk) 13:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not historical information - unless it is a point of discussion. Again, an example where price is important to include would be the iPhone/iPad pricing, or even the upcoming MS Surface tablet, where pundits have discussed if that's too high a price. If a product is released with no fanfare about its price, our inclusion of that would be trivial.

(You also then start to get into several problems with an infobox parameters beyond this: you'll have different prices by region, and you'll have different options to be priced, and then you'll have the different between the MRSP and what its actually being sold for, and -- further, I would suspect this information would become unverifiable over time - the only place verifying a price for an item being a vendor store, and that dynamic price may not reflect the issue). --MASEM (t) 14:38, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

There are workarounds against that problem - including only the baseline product without extras, only on the market(s) where the product is first released... nothing that hasn't been dealt with in biographies, video games, books or dvds, where more complex stats are handled (number of partners for people, years of release for different versions and markets of games...).

The main point to clarify about the IP's comment is whether such single point is too much under NOTCATALOG. What were the initial reasons why price where singled-out from any other kind of data? And, do those reasons apply to a non-evolving, smallest possible sample? That should be the gist of this discussion - everything about style is for the different Wikiprojects or MOS talk pages to decide. Diego (talk) 15:10, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Prices change based on time, location, and exchange rates. It's too much of a moving target to include for all products. Sometimes the MSRP is not a known data point (which if anything that's what we'd want to report), making these impossible to verify per WP:V. It is not so much NOTCATALOGUE as it is NOT#IINFO (or RAWDATA). Again, there are prices that have encyclopedic value when they are noted by other sources and critique them in that manner, and that's what we should use to guide when price inclusion is appropriate. --MASEM (t) 15:19, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The proposal is for the initial price in the release - so it isn't a moving target at all. If the criterion is that the price has received third-party commentary, there is a wide range of products where that price point is admissible - almost all popular electronic devices will qualify, as their prices are regularly compared against other devices in the same range of features. Those comparisons of initial prices could regularly appear at "reception" sections for products, as they satisfy the current wording of NOTCATALOG - you don't need an iPhone-level degree of coverage. Diego (talk) 15:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

That (mentioning price in reception sections) is completely fine as long as its not just a mention of price but price relative to something else (price-to-features? price compared to similar products? It's an easy metric to met, just as long as its more than "MSRP: $299.99" from the source). Or in another case I know about, a game developer released a major title at half the normal cost of going games, which was attributed to its ultimate popularity. Discussion as part of the article, price can be mentioned. But as a regular infobox feature, I can't support that due to variability and the like. --MASEM (t) 15:42, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Please review WP:RAWDATA (Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information). Unless sources are discussing price, it's not a notable or encyclopedic aspect of the topic. Jojalozzo 14:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

If that was a strong reason against information like the one proposed, we wouldn't have infoboxes at all. Note how WP:RAWDATA calls against excesive use of stats - one single data point is hardly excessive. In most cases we're talking about one single number - infoboxes currently hold much more information without people complaining. Diego (talk) 15:10, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

The point is that the information in infoboxes is supported by consensus to be encyclopaedic. The initial price point or a product is rarely notable, and when it is it is always because it has been significantly discussed by reliable sources and what we are reporting is that discussion about the price not the price itself. Discussion requires prose, not a figure in an infobox. Thryduulf (talk) 19:16, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• How much something costs is basic information, more important to the characterization of the thing as any only single property, One thinks about an automobile differently if it costs $20,000 or @200,000; this can be expressed in approximate words, but numerals were invented for the very purposes. What us prohibited is detailed pricelists, giving all the variations and options: it is correct to say that the basic model of something costs about $500, or that a company makes jeans that sell for between $100 and $200, but not in either case for every model. Historical series are of interest also. It is of major technological and socioeconomic importance: that when the first IBM PC was released it cost as much as an automobile but that the functional equivalent now costs 1/20 as much: I deliberately wrote it in a clumsy manner rather than using what we really need, which is numbers. What NOT prohibits is indiscriminate information. What an encyclopedia is supposed to consist of is information discriminated for its importance. In general, for anything; when there's a question about whether we should more or less information, we should give the greater: the readers can ignore what isn't wanted; they cannot construct what isn't given. DGG ( talk ) 07:15, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
  • Sometimes this is true for prices, and that is when the prices are commented on by others, eg such as the historical prices of computers relative to cars. But bare prices without comment are not appropriate for an encyclopedia that purports itself to be global and timeless in nature; a spot MSRP number, by itself, is interesting but otherwise useless towards that. Even if we stuck with what is called the MSRP for a product's core model and in the major English-speaking regions (NA and Eur/Aus), this is not always a known value and for sake of completing an infobox table, for example, people will resort to poor sources to justify this number. It is better to avoid the issue altogether, and allow prices to be discussed when there is reasonable discussion about prices to start. --MASEM (t) 14:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
    • I will disagree with your general sentiment. I think it is very useful to note how much an item cost in its initial (or largest) market when it was launched, particularly if there are reliable sources which can provide that information such as an advertising flier or even more significantly if it is mentioned explicitly in news articles about that product. Having that launch price in an infobox with a reference to the reliable source from whence the price was originally quoted is not only useful but I think it would be an interesting bit that readers would be interested in seeing as well. This isn't indiscriminate information but something very significant to that particular product. This isn't a spot MSRP, but the launch price... or the price when it was finally discontinued which may be of some relevance. To quote an article where prices are used in several places within the article, see Ford Model T, as the price itself was quite significant to the story of that automobile. I don't understand the objection here or why this is a bad thing. --Robert Horning (talk) 16:19, 4 February 2013 (UTC)
      • Again, I stress the problem is that you have several different markets and products with numerous options that make nailing down what MSRP should be used impossible. I would never recommend the use of promotional ads, unless put out by the company making said product, for such prices. If pricing of an item is important to affect some aspect of it - number of sales, critical review, etc. - sources will likely report it and then we can put that price in context, but without context, it become a random number for most readers of little value. --MASEM (t) 16:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

this is to some extent true of almost all data. We're editing, not copying, and can use judgment and selectivity. Taking a price at random is wrong, and sop is including every possible price and model variation. When you find a price in a third party publication, it too is likely to be specific to that particular local area. For almost all consumer products, btw, there is an excellent third party source: Consumer Reports--we could include very extensive details if we used them fully (the problem is more products sold by negotiated contracts; I am quite familiar with the difficulty of doing it in the publishing industry) The rule is the same as other details: include key information from the main areas where the product is sold. CR, for example includes the base price of an automobile and gives the overall range for the available variations; base price is not a meaningless concept.) Of course it takes judgement. and so does everything else here. DGG ( talk ) 01:52, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

re changes to Wikipedia is not a directory

An editor is wanting to change this text (in the Wikipedia is not a directory section):

• Changelogs or release notes. An article about a product should include a history of its development and major improvements; creating a list of all changes to software or hardware between each minor version violates other precepts of this policy.

to this:

• Changelogs, release histories or release notes. An article about a product may include a prose history of its development and major improvements. Tables or lists of changes should not be included be avoided; instead, significant changes should be merged into – and contextualised in – the product's history. Note that, in addition to being unencyclopedic, lists of changes and releases are also unsuitable for inclusion in Wikipedia articles as they're usually drawn – often verbatim – from primary sources.

and other editors have objected. I don't have an opinion on this, but since the burden is on the editors favoring the change, let them make their case here. Herostratus (talk) 16:36, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• I agree with the change. We have articles like iOS version history which is far too detailed for WP. Yes, with something like iOS, "major" changes and added features can be documented here (eg "Version X introduced applications such as A, B, and C and fixed longstanding complaints with application D") when noted by secondary sources. But most of the time the nitty gritty details are pointless to include. --MASEM (t) 17:26, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

What counts as "major" depends on the importance of the product.I'd accept much more detailed content for IOS than for a relatively unknown Linux utility. I consider the amount of detail in the present IOS version history article only a little excessive. And, although I generally dislike table presentations--I find this particular table a relatively useful one--the main fault is not using the table format properly -- when it is used, extreme conciseness is essential. What is really needed is condensation: similar issues can be grouped, especially when they are only increased speed, and bug fixes; in general I'd only include individual bug fixes if the bug itself received significant attention. The sort of detail that says, for example "Slight redesign for text messages. Font & time-stamp layout." (in IOS 5.0) or "New white themed UI for dial pad." (in 6.0), are examples of what is not needed here. I see no objection to using primary sources for this--for programs like IOS there will be detailed secondary sources, but not for less important programs. Product details like this is one of the things for which the manufacturer is an acceptable source. And lists are rarely copyvios=--although abbreviation and grouping will deal with any possibility here. The change is much too overdetailed and specific and inflexible for something which is policy. This is more of a detailed style issue, where the wording has to include "usually" or "often". DGG ( talk ) 23:49, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how a content policy can be "too specific", but it's clear that it can be too vague. Are you really suggesting that the old, cryptic wording ("creating a list of all changes to software or hardware between each minor version violates other precepts of this policy") is better? The purpose of this page is to clearly state what Wikipedia is NOT and why, not to find a wording vague enough to allow the policy to be easily circumvented.

chocolateboy (talk) 23:11, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

iOS version history has the perfect level of detail for its topic, which is the list of versions of iOS with a small note about the features and bugs by each one; it provides a clear sense of the speed at which the OS is improved. If the change is intended to make that article crippled, I oppose the change. One other thing that Wikipedia is not is a paper encyclopedia; there's no practical limit to the text it can store, and no reason to exclude that level of detail when needed. Of course this level of detail should only be held for systems where the version history itself is notable enough for a stand-alone article; but where it is, I see no reason under NOT to avoid exposing the topic in as much detail as needed. Diego (talk) 07:14, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

One other thing that Wikipedia is not is a paper encyclopedia; there's no practical limit to the text it can store, and no reason to exclude that level of detail when needed.

This line of argument is clearly addressed and rejected in the article:

Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, but a digital encyclopedia project. Other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page, there is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover, nor the total amount of content. However, there is an important distinction between what can be done, and what should be done, which is covered in the Content section below. Consequently, this policy is not a free pass for inclusion: articles must abide by the appropriate content policies, particularly those covered in the five pillars.

The established prohibition against changelogs and release histories is of a piece with the other prohibitions in the Wikipedia is not a directory section, and the rewording introduces no new policy. Issues with — and improvements to — the iOS version history article should be discussed on its talk page or in an AfD rather than here (as it currently stands, the vast majority of its content is unsourced).

chocolateboy (talk) 08:48, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

We're discussing iOS as an example of the problems the change to policy would cause. The proposed wording is introducing concerns of style ("Tables or lists of changes should not be included"; "changes should be merged into product history") in a policy, that should be about principles and motivations. The only reasons exposed are "unencyclopedic" and "drawn from primary sources", which have never been considered valid reasons to exclude content. Diego (talk) 10:56, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

We're discussing iOS as an example of the problems the change to policy would cause.

If it's a legitimate article under the old wording (which, again, is questionable given the fact that the vast bulk of it is unsourced), then it's legitimate under the new wording (and vice versa). The policy itself -- Wikipedia is NOT a changelog/release history -- hasn't changed.

The only reasons exposed are "unencyclopedic" and "drawn from primary sources", which have never been considered valid reasons to exclude content.

Rather than reinventing or disputing the core principles of Wikipedia here, (again) please read the article itself (specifically WP:NOTDIRECTORY) and WP:PRIMARY for the "valid reasons" for the exclusion of material that is unencyclopedic or drawn from primary sources. If these "precepts" are still not clear — even after the rewrite — then the solution is to make them clearer, not to obfuscate or remove them.

chocolateboy (talk) 16:43, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

I'ld favour a change from "... article about a product should include a history ..." to "... article about a product may include a history ...", but I'ld oppose the other proposed changes. I don't think we should be prohibiting tables from articles about products. The iOS article is a little be too much, but clearly some tables are useful. LK (talk) 11:09, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd clarify the cryptic line "violates other precepts of this policy" with an elucidation of what other precepts are violated (the only relevant one I can identify is the call to not base articles on primary sources only). As long as the list of changes can be properly explained, with secondary sources explaining the context and impact each release has, I don't see a problem with having a detailed list. Diego (talk) 11:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

We're a tertiary source, and should be summarizing data, not replicating it. We are not the last site on the Internet for information. We're also a generalized work aimed to be used by all readers. A detailed changelog list is only of specific internet to a subset of users of that product, and while any other reader can read the list to understand in broad strokes the changes to the software, the detailed list is doing them a disservice. Instead, running prose that provides in summary the major changes - highlighted by third-party sources - along with references to where one can read the more detailed list is better suited for serving all readers. This is an example of a case where we need to remember that an encyclopedia can be detailed but should not be as detailed as the primary sources as part of its tertiary nature. (This is why we have NOT#PLOT, NOT#GAMEGUIDE, NOT#TEXTBOOK, etc.) --MASEM (t) 14:30, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd clarify the cryptic line "violates other precepts of this policy" with an elucidation of what other precepts are violated (the only relevant one I can identify is the call to not base articles on primary sources

... which is the very change that has been made. The extent to which primary sources can be used is a topic for the WP:PRIMARY article, not here.

chocolateboy (talk) 17:07, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Editors misapplying WP:NOTHOWTO

Every now and then, I see an editor misuse the WP:NOTHOWTO part of the WP:NOT policy, with editors thinking that any, or almost any, description of how something is done is a WP:NOTHOWTO violation; they don't, or often don't, distinguish between a description of how something is done and text that is telling readers how to do something. While both aspects can obviously be the same thing, they can also be different. WP:NOTHOWTO touches on that. It states the following: "While Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places and things, an article should not read like a 'how-to' style owners manual, advice column (legal, medical or otherwise) or suggestion box. This includes tutorials, instruction manuals, game guides, and recipes."

Like I stated, some editors seem to not fully digest the part of the policy that states, "While Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places and things..." A recent example is seen with this diff-link contrasted with this one. A beneficial piece of information (clarification) that appears to be missing from the WP:NOTHOWTO policy is actually next to it. It's in the reference which, among other things, tells us that "describing to the reader how other people or things use something is encyclopedic; instructing the reader in the imperative mood about how to use something is not."

I suggest that the "describing to the reader" part of the reference be taken out of reference format and stay positioned as text at the end of the "This includes" line, so that this aspect of WP:NOTHOWTO is clear to editors. The ones misusing the WP:NOTHOWTO policy are clearly overlooking this aspect. Even though I never misused the WP:NOTHOWTO policy, I have even overlooked that piece of text because it is in reference format instead of plain text format. Flyer22 (talk) 04:53, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support. If it's being misinterpreted fairly frequently, then emphasizing that wording and bringing it up to plain tetxt should help. —C.Fred (talk) 05:06, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
• I'm concerned that the level of detail and direct instruction at Methamphetamine#Synthesis and Substituted amphetamine#Synthesis are inappropriate. They go into specific synthesis steps, and link to actual syntheses. There are specific instructions for which steps need to be heated, what kind of catalysts to use, and common pitfalls. Isn't MDMA#Chemistry a more appropriate level of detail compliant with WP:NOTHOWTO? Please see Talk:Methamphetamine#WP:NOTHOWTO for a detailed discussion about those particular articles. This article from the Journal of Adolescent Health says, "online instructions for methamphetamine manufacture are a notable public health risk that could promote the illicit manufacture of the drug." Josh Joaquin (talk) 05:14, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
  • As one versed in chemical synthesis, the level of detail given in the WP articles are far cries from a detailed synthesis route, and what we're giving there isn't a public threat (we're missing reaction conditions, ratios of components, etc.) --MASEM (t) 05:42, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
    • Where is the line between describing the syntheses in general terms and describing them with just enough information to be more harmful than the complete syntheses? I mean, addicts get desperate and I'm sure some of them are going to try things without ratios, greatly increasing the risks of toxicity and fire in many cases. Who expects to learn what steps need to be heated and which catalysts to use when they consult an encyclopedia about a drug? I don't see how that kind of detail helps any imaginable reader. This looks absolutely obsessive and anti-social to me. Are there any other articles about synthetic chemicals that aren't highly addictive drugs which describe their synthesis in even a tenth as much detail? Josh Joaquin (talk) 08:38, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
      • Its the same type of information available in the public literature, if not less detailed. Just as we aren't a medical advice work (part of our disclaimer) we are also not a judge of appropriate use of the material or if people take that material and do harm to themselves (again in our disclaimer). Again, this is so far from a realistic "how to" on synthesis (our article on TNT goes into more detail than these! but even then that's barely enough to do it right). Breaking Bad is more informative than our articles on how to do the process, and even there that's heavily diluted and missing several steps. What's in both example articles is completely reasonable for an encyclopedic analysis of the chemical. --MASEM (t) 15:34, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
        • Okay, well, do we have any such detailed synthesis information for substances that you wouldn't want the people in the apartment next to yours making? I trust you when you say it's not enough to work, but I just think it's more reasonable to describe the routes in a less step-by-step fashion. Josh Joaquin (talk) 20:22, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
          • But this is far from a step by step fashion, from a chemistry POV. These are basically saying: "you make cake by mixing milk, eggs, flour, sugar, and water", instead of "you make cake by adding a cup of milk, 2 eggs, 2 cups of flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 2 cups of water, mixing well, pouring into a pan, and baking at 400 degC for 30 minutes". And people can do stupid things without this (eg, igniting a liquid propane tank). --MASEM (t) 21:03, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
            • That's exactly what I want: list the precursors, so if someone comes across what might be a meth lab, they can tell whether it likely is. That is an objective good for many readers. Why do we need any information on intermediate reactions, which steps the catalysts are used in, or which steps to heat? Who does that help? Josh Joaquin (talk) 21:35, 9 March 2013 (UTC)
              • Seriously? No, you're completely misunderstanding WP's purpose. We're not here to help people identify meth labs, in the same manner we're not here to help them make meth. We're here to academically describe what meth is and the general way it can be made - allowing readers to understand why certain OTC drugs have to be regulated. --MASEM (t) 23:00, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and altered the text to my above suggestion, per it being clear from above that this clarification is needed.

Also, Josh Joaquin has been indefinitely blocked as a sockpuppet and already-banned/indefinitely-blocked editor. Flyer22 (talk) 00:36, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTFANZINE

This was brought up 6 years ago Archive_9#Not_a_fanzine but nothing happened. I'd like to move it forward. I have just stumbled across Jessica Sanchez which contained more than 75000 characters of tosh when I arrived. Mostly a breath-by-breath account of her journey through American Idol 11. It was already tagged for {{overly detailed}}. First pass I plan to chop out at least 40000 bytes. Second pass will consider what's left, but I'd like a better argument than WP:DISCRIMINATE.

Similarly for non-notable sports stars - wp shouldn't be a repository of names of people who ever kicked a ball in their lives, nor their managers, it should primarily be about notability.

I realize the fanzines, or at least e-fanzines are a relatively new phenomenon. I propose WP:NOT keeps up-to-date by including WP:NOTFANZINE so people will know what's in, what's out.

John of Cromer in Philippines (talk) mytime= Thu 07:14, wikitime= 23:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not paper; if reliable sources consider American Idol 11 relevant enough to provide a well-sourced detailed account, the proper process is to split into a new article the topic that was noticed by so many media. Notability and WP:WEIGHT are the core policies that keep uncontrolled growth in check; we don't need yet another WP:NOT addition that could justify removing half of the content from all current articles. Diego (talk) 06:54, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that's not true; multiple sources covering the same event without additional commentary about the event is excessive primary sources, and would fail something like NOT#PLOT. Excessive discussion about the appearance of a reality show contestant's performance is inappropriate; consider that for famous actors that are notable for specific roles in films, we don't endlessly discussion that character within the film or the actor's article beyond maybe a paragraph in most cases (if the character's notable, then more discussion may be appropriate there). So the concerns above, at least towards the sourced article, are absolutely true. Do we need another NOT, though, I'm not sure, as I think that falls under UNDUE. --MASEM (t) 14:08, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Masem keeps saying that, but it's simply not correct. Diego's is the more accurate view on secondary sourcing. Jclemens (talk) 04:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Again, per our WP:PSTS, we use the concept of "transformation" to determine if a source is primary or secondary. A recap of a reality TV show without commentary is not transformative, and is primary. That said, for performance-based reality TV, most recaps will go into some editorial consideration of the performance. But even then, an overly detailed breakdown is UNDUE coverage, regardless how many sources there are. --MASEM (t) 05:38, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

They are undue for the main article, but if there are enough secondary sources about the recap then a new split article can be created for it; so there's no reason to NOT have that content i.e. to forbid it by policy. Diego (talk) 07:25, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Not really, but this becomes less a direct policy issue and "where exactly we draw the line" that goes by consensus. I take the view that if, by choice, we consider most regular season pro sports games to be generally non-notable despite large levels of most primary/some secondary coverage, then the same self-selection applies to other fields. For television shows, this is recognizing that while several series do have individual episode articles, most don't necessary warrant that despite recaps of the episodes the next day. When it comes to reality TV, even moreso separate episode articles simply don't happen. Articles about reality show contestants should not seen as a way to bypass that. --MASEM (t) 14:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• There is no shortage of space. You should not delete something simply because you think the article is too long. Only remove specific content that doesn't belong there, don't go rampaging about chopping things just to make the article smaller. Dream Focus 17:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Except policy does say we can do that, as outlined here at WP:NOT, at WP:UNDUE. We're here to write an encyclopedia, not a fanzine as noted. --MASEM (t) 17:37, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
    • A fanzine is written from fans content. We already have that covered under WP:OR and WP:RS, no need for a new policy at all. Diego (talk) 07:27, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
      • I agree that I don't think a new statement is needed, but if people cannot see how the American Idol section of Jessica Sanchez is in excess detail (Beyond what the show page even covers), or don't understand how UNDUE and a overall reading of NOT apply here, then maybe we have to specifically spell it out. --MASEM (t) 14:14, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
        • Who says the consensus is not to document TV shows, games and series? Detail is only removed when there are no secondary sources for it and the article depends only on primary sources, not because those topics are inherently non-notable. The problem with spelling this out is that people tend to not read past the title's policy to see what the consensual conditions actually say.
        • This happened to NOTNEWS, DICTIONARY, INDISCRIMINATE, HOWTO, and the most colorful entries in WP:ATA; in those cases people oppose the inclusion of content by linking to a policy that doesn't actually support their arguments against that kind of content. The policy then is quoted as support for what is essence an IDONTLIKEIT situation, which is undesirable but unfortunately just too common with WP:NOT. Diego (talk) 16:38, 22 March 2013 (UTC)
          • Consensus says to what degree we document, even if there are a plethora of secondary or even just third-party sources, remembering that our purpose here is to summarize topics, not be the ultimate resource for them. For example, coming from video games, I can assure you that just considering sources, we could write strategy guides for most AAA games based on reliable secondary and third-party sources, all within the core content policies of V, NOR, and NPOV. But, as a whole, we've decided that being a game strategy guide is not part of WP's function, and thus don't include this content until the strategy itself is an encyclopedic topic (this itself led to GAMEGUIDE) Similarly, if you look around reality TV shows, while the various seasons are documented on the season page, the individual episodes - despite good coverage - are not broken out into separate articles, and coverage of each episode are to highlight details as relating to the overall competition. In this case, I can't point you to any facet of NOT that this decision came out of - it just happened as these shows progressed, a result of natural consensus. Heck, I don't know where any centralized discussion of this happened; I'd suspect that one editor started a format, and others dropped and followed suit, and best I know, no one has challenged this on the need to expand out more.
          • What does this mean to the issue at hand? If we have a consensus-based decision that certain content, while meeting V, NOR, and NPOV, is just not appropriate encyclopedic content (which may or may not be documented at NOT), that decisions extends to all such articles - in this case the "career" of a reality show contestant as being part of a reality show. The amount of detail that the above article has far exceeds what the actual show page has, and in terms of other reality show contestants, is simply far too much detail despite the sourcing that's possible. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I guess you're looking at the version after I edited out 1500-2000 words! It was full of standing ovations, reactions of each judge, quotes from each judge, and there were more than 75 citations. John of Cromer in Philippines (talk) mytime= Sat 09:47, wikitime= 01:47, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Yea, that was way too much but even its present state, the overly-detailed tag is appropriate. Given that we have an article about the show that goes into week by week detail, the detail on the person in regard to her performance should be her placement and any major highlights. --MASEM (t) 02:04, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

• there is a continuum between fans and general readers. The criterion is whether the material would be of interest only to the sort of fans who would seek out and read fanzines, not merely people who like the performer or the work,and want to find out a reasonable amount of information about it. I agree the the Sanchez article as it stands seems to me ridiculous detail, but I might not think so if I were a regular viewer of the show, or knew her music. Certainly the earlier version is absurd. I think that indicates the difference between what we should and should not accept. Since we do not know who might come here, and we write for the entire english-speakign world, our bias should be towards inclusion. DGG ( talk ) 04:37, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I disagree

I disagree with the WP:NOTGUIDE standards. Anyone else agree? I mean, I think Wikipedia is great with gaming guide information. Helps me find the wiki pleasant and meaningful. I support allowing gaming guide content. There is no reason there shouldn't be. Gaz and Gaming Fan (talk) 00:21, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

No, there are other sites that are better suited to be game guides. WP is meant for the average reader that may need to learn about video games but never play them as part of their research. --MASEM (t) 01:07, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Is there any EXE wiki software which allows me to make my own wikis? That can help me. 50.132.1.173 (talk) 01:10, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The MediaWiki software is free, and there's plenty of sites, like Wikia, that will let you start your own wiki. --MASEM (t) 01:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The answer is MediaWiki, just as written above. BUT: you wrote that awkward "EXE wiki software" phrase, which must invariably mean that you have not a smallest clue about HTTP, HTTP servers, scripted language interpreters (like PHP, Perl, or Ruby) WWW technical internals, and IP networking altogether. So you better start researching all that stuff before you try to make a bite that is too big for your mouth. You know: you don't mess with wikis if you don't even know what an HTTP server is or how PHP works ontop of it. Good luck. 95.220.128.68 (talk) 15:17, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Discussion

In August 2011, a small discussion about deprecating WP:NOTNEWS occurred. As far as I can tell, only a handful of people participated in this discussion and it was not taken to WP:RFC. It seems clear to me that the use of the shortcut has not deprecated at all in the years I've been using Wikipedia. To put it in perspective, NOTNEWS was viewed 1575 times in the last 90 days and has 5474 links despite the soft redirect, against NOTNEWSPAPER 1199 times in the last 90 days and 820 links. The redirect has been reverted back and forth through out the year. I'm not entirely sure how phasing this redirect shortcut out would clarify the usage as it only points to Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia is not a newspaper which is a policy. I agree that it is commonly misused, but I don't see that as the redirect's problem, and more a lack of editors having actually read the policy. "Deprecating" it would only cause a lot of editors who regularly use it an inconvenience and I don't see many people stopping using it, or a reduction of people misusing the alternatives like WP:NOT#NEWS (which if "NOTNEWS" was unclear, how NOT#NEWS is clear). As such, I strongly believe a straw poll amongst the community as a whole, must and should be had, before changes to such a commonly used shortcut be made.

• The word is "deprecate", not "depreciate".  Unscintillating (talk) 13:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Mkdw^talk 20:06, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Straw poll

Phase out/deprecate WP:NOTNEWS and rely on alternatives such as WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:NOTNEWSPAPER?

• Oppose - Phasing it out will likely not reduce the use of the shortcut since it's easy to remember and people have been using it for years, but more importantly, I don't see what phasing it out would actually accomplish when we have WP:NOT#NEWS... Mkdw^talk 05:35, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose  WP:NOT#NEWS has the same problem as WP:NOTNEWS, so it is not an alternative.  Wikipedia can and does publish news.  On the other hand, we are not a newspaper.  Unscintillating (talk) 13:31, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Support A baby step in the right direction. I've not seen any arguments against the direction. And since most uses are misuses, making it less convenient may be good. North8000 (talk) 16:15, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. The link to WP:NOT#NEWS will not fix the perceived problems with WP:NOTNEWS. Binksternet (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
• Comment  [1] is a current WP:NOTNEWS vs. WP:NOTNEWSPAPER case.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:06, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per mkdw. Niteshift36 (talk) 12:56, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• oppose any phase out There is no evidence to support the claims that the majority or even a substantial minority of the time it is "misused". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Nothing wrong with shortcut. A shortcut is a shortcut. WP:NOTNEWSPAPER may just as well be misused/musunderstood in exact same way. People who slap alphabet soups without reading the policy in question should not have last word in wikipedia language. When in doubt, one always has a right to ask "Please explain which clause of the policy you have in mind". And when further explanation refused, bare alphabet soup may be ignored. In other words, (ab)use of shortcuts actually makes people to talk (and hopefully to learn). Staszek Lem (talk) 17:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• (RfCbot invite) Oppose It is used, it is useful. If you have a problem with people's understanding of a policy that they've linked to, you need to bring it up at the discussion. Scapegoating the redirect is like blaming the road engineer for a drunk driver. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 23:26, 6 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - Misusing a redirect is an issue with the editor, not the redirect. WP:NOTNEWS seems to be used more often as a redirect than WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:NOTNEWSPAPER, that's why it seems to be the issue, because it's the one used. "Phasing out" redirects will become an issue of whack-a-mole, because then some other shortcut will be "misused". This isn't a solution that fixes anything. - SudoGhost 01:00, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mkdw and SudoGhost. JohnCD (talk) 01:32, 13 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per above arguments. I don't see a single good reason to support this. The shortcut should be released from "soft" redirection earliest possible. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 02:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per Staszek Lem, whom I quote: "Nothing wrong with shortcut. A shortcut is a shortcut" with total concurrence; and per TRPoD, Vanisaac, Mkdw and SudoGhost, all of whom have good arguments. Finally, I agree with Paine Ellsworth, that "The shortcut should be released from 'soft' redirection earliest possible." yoyo (talk) 15:58, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Note

This discussion was listed for 30 days at WP:RFC under Wikipedia technical issues and templates and Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Censorship addition

Comments welcome about [2]. Seems like an ok addition to me, although I am not sure if it is really necessary (WP:CREEP). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:08, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Following Marek's contributions at the time of that edit, it appears borne out of an ANI issue where Marek seems to be in a minority position compared to others. Trying to force the addition to mold the policy to their wishes is inappropriate so it shouldn't be added until consensus is gained. As for the addition itself, it seems CREEPy to me too. It doesn't fit the style for NOT. Maybe its a civility thing instead. --MASEM (t) 05:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree, through I think editors motivations are irrelevant. I would like to focus on whether the addition is useful or unnecessary. So far it does appear that there is no consensus for the inclusion... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:15, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, as the person who reverted them, my edit summaries stand as my opinion. VolunteerMarek was, in my opinion, soapboxing and trying to make a WP:POINT about their position re Delicious Carbuncle. Their additions would make a good start to an essay, but I completely object to their unilateral attempts to modify a content policy into a tool to advance their position with respect to Wikipedia's internal politics. Resolute 13:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't appreciate having my additions labeled as "SOAPBOXING" or "POINT"y. Yes, the addition was done right after the DC discussion. However, this is actually the normal way that this process works: a particular event at Wikipedia exposes or highlights a deficiency in existing policy and then someone goes and changes it. That's how all Wikipedia policies have evolved (actually, for a lot of them the process hasn't even been this benign but nm). So please drop the "SOAPBOXING" and "POINT" objections and at least address the addition itself.

On that note, let me note that in virtually all real world instances of "no censorship" it always applies first and foremost to the ability of "citizens" (who in this case would be Wikipedia editors) to be critical of the institution they're a part of (Wikipedia). All that other stuff about being allowed to post porn or defamatory material about people is secondary. Well, octorary or something. Volunteer Marek 18:18, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

You are of course free to disagree with my characterization, but that does not make it incorrect. And I did address the addition: It is essay material. One editor's views on how we should treat our internal political squabbles. Resolute 23:45, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. We all work to improve this encyclopedia. Let us remind ourselves that we often label things "constructive criticism" and/or "tough love". The former is an oxymoron and the latter is, at best, a sad misnomer. I find the comments added to this policy to be ideas that are already in place without having to insert them into a policy page. I agree there are some things that are best said in essays. The controversy here seems to be not over the content of what Volunteer Marek wants to add, but merely over whether or not it needs to be added. It shouldn't and it doesn't. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 18:43, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't see anything in the NOTCENSORED section which would address the issue of internal self-criticism, not being subject to censorship. Hence, it does in fact need to be added, though I can see the logic behind moving that section from its present position to the "Community" heading. I also have trouble understanding your second sentence (who's we? how often? what's the relevance of this?), or for that matter, why you think that the phrase "constructive criticism" is an oxymoron (that claim seems to imply that all criticism is nonconstructive by definition, which is obviously not true).Volunteer Marek 19:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

No need for you to say you're sorry, because what you say is true, correct; there isn't anything in that section that would address the issue of internal self-criticism not subject to censorship, and as I said, nor should there be.

...who's we? how often? what's the relevance of this?...

"We" as I used it refers to everyone who believes, or who has ever believed, that criticism can be constructive. I used "we" because I include myself, as at one time I myself believed that was so. I used "often" because I see it a lot. I've noticed that many people appear to have an unshakable belief that their critical assessments will lead to improvement, and they may not even entertain the prospect that they might be wrong. As for relevance, I included it to help explain why I disagree with you; I don't disagree with what you wrote, but I do disagree with the need to include it as policy.

...that claim seems to imply that all criticism is nonconstructive by definition, which is obviously not true

"Obviously"? What has become strikingly obvious to me over the years is that criticism is not only "nonconstructive", it has a tendency to destroy. Those who think that criticism can be constructive are actually relying on "hope". They hope that whatever or whomever they criticize will rebuild to make things better. That doesn't always happen, nor does it mean that criticism can be, even in the long run, constructive anymore than it is right to give credit to the lumberjack and his saw for the new growth of trees in the forest or for the tool shed my brother and I built in my back yard. Make no bones about it – criticism destroys, and none of us can accurately predict the future of what is criticized. We can only hope that, as we go along and make improvements to Wikipedia, we will build it (and rebuild it where necessary) into a greater and wiser reference work. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 06:02, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm not here to debate semantics or philosophy with you, but no, "constructive criticism" is not an oxymoron, and no, not all criticism is "destructive".Volunteer Marek 13:17, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not here to debate semantics or philosophy with you...

Nor am I with you. I merely answered your questions as you put them to me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to have gotten the wrong idea about me. I don't mean to say that criticism is bad, that criticism does not have its place, for example in the ideas you set forth in your reverted addition. I happen to agree with those ideas. I just don't agree that a policy page is the place to express them. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 21:58, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

• Why would a policy need to say "Pointing out the shortcomings of Wikipedia, if done constructively, is a valuable endeavor..."? People point out such things all the time, with varying degrees of constructiveness. The proposed wording is redundant, and is nothing to do with WP:NOTCENSORED (where it was inserted). Johnuniq (talk) 22:05, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Redundant with what? Volunteer Marek 23:17, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't think "constructive criticism" is at all an oxymoron. It's the only kind of criticism I actually welcome, as in "this is fine but it would be much better if you ...". Destructive criticism is the worst kind. John of Cromer in Philippines (talk) mytime= Thu 07:20, wikitime= 23:20, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Yup.Volunteer Marek 01:25, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The proposed text is redundant because people do criticize Wikipedia, and there is no need for a policy to give permission for an activity that is obviously good (policies do not try to list everything allowed, or everything prohibited). Johnuniq (talk) 00:21, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

That's not what the word "redundant" means. Again, "redundant" with what exactly? What you are struggling to say is that the "practice is common place". Which is true. But that's exactly how Wikipedia policies become policies - they reflect common and best practice on Wikipedia. Which is another reason why the addition should go in.Volunteer Marek 01:22, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

The biggest problem with the addition is that it is about "talking about Wikipedia on Wikipedia". I don't care about the issues of criticizing aspects of the work that likely led to this addition, but this has zilch to do with WP content, and WP:NOT is primarily a content policy. This is not an issue this page is set to discussion. --MASEM (t) 14:20, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Rename header "Content" for older browsers

We need to rename the one-word header "Content" for access in some older web browsers. The page-section id names "top" and "content" are reserved in Wikipedia pages to position the screen display to top-of-page. However, the uppercase header "==Content==" is treated as a lowercase match to <div id='content'> as top-of-page in older browsers (such as IE7-IE9?), and so "Content" should be renamed to "Content of Wikipedia" (or such) to allow navigation by "#Content of Wikipedia" in older browsers. Otherwise, "WP:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Content" navigates to top-of-page rather than to the section name "Content" in some older browsers. Please respond Support/Oppose below. -Wikid77 00:04, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

• Support rename. I think "Content of Wikipedia" seems a good alternative header name for that section. -Wikid77 00:04, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Putting an invisible character somewhere in the section heading should be sufficient to distinguish it from the reserved name "content". E.g. this edit by Paine Ellsworth added a soft hyphen to a heading. (Rather than pasting the soft hyphen directly into the wikicode as Paine did, I'd suggest using ­ so the symbol is visible when editing the code.) – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 00:39, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

  The soft hyphen did solve the problem of clicking on "Content" in the TOC or using the suggested shortcut, but unfortunately it was still just a bad bandaid. Even the use of the html code may go unnoticed and someone may try to link to that section like this – [[WP:What Wikipedia is not#Content]] – and some browsers would then be taken nearly to the TOP of the page, instead. As Redrose64 noted in this conversation, all that is necessary is to replace any instance of "Content" as a single-word section header with an appropriate replacement title. This html "id" code appears to exist on every page on Wikipedia. It doesn't matter what namespace you're in; if the word "Content" is all alone in any section header, it will cause problems in some browsers. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 19:05, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

How about "Contents"? John of Cromer in Philippines (talk) mytime= Sun 09:34, wikitime= 01:34, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Apologies to all as I may have jumped the gun before catching up to this discussion. I renamed the section a little while ago to "Encyclopedic content" and installed "Content" into the Anchor template. Feel free to use another name. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 05:03, 24 March 2013 (UTC)
PS. I also retargeted the shortcut.

• Support renamed header. I think "Encyclopedic content" is an excellent alternative header name for that section, as it puts emphasis on the word "encyclopedic" for what it entails. -Wikid77 11:01, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

  Thank you, Wikid77! I had hoped that would be an acceptable improvement. – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 23:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Just in case anybody's interested, the "old browser" theory is a washout. I just upgraded to IE10, and tested a link I have to the "Content" anchor on this page (anchored to the "Encyclopedic content" section). IE10 still takes me to very near the top of the page instead of to the anchor. <sigh> – PAINE ELLSWORTH ^CLIMAX! 21:19, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Do claims of financial "bubbles" violate "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball"?

The digital currency known as Bitcoin has recently been labeled a "bubble" by financial outlets. On the one hand, the bubble, if it exists, has yet to burst. On the other, some financial outlets in question may be considered notable publishers. Should claims of financial bubbles always be considered overly speculative for Wikipedia? The discussion about the Bitcoin bubble is located here. Shawnc (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

If reliable sources are speculating about a bubble, it is appropriate to note that reliable sources are speculating about a bubble, in proportion to all coverage per DUE, in the appropriate article(s). Jclemens (talk) 02:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Yup, as long as we are using reliable (and likely 'highly reliable') sources that state that directly, it's not crystal-balling even if it doesn't happen. --MASEM (t) 15:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The key point is that Wikipedia doesn't make predictions, but we do report notable predictions made by others. Thryduulf (talk) 17:19, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Family trees as articles?

Do we do family trees as articles, as someone created today as Baldwin family, about the acting brothers and their spouses and kids?

Aside from that general concern, virtually none of it is cited, and it seems as if claims of marriage and of number of children and children's name and birth years violate WP:BLP without citing. What do other editors here think? --Tenebrae (talk) 22:40, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

This issue must have arisen in the past, and I hope someone will point to a discussion. My immediate reaction is horror—there are 8 blue links in Baldwin family, but at least one of those needs to be deleted (Ireland Baldwin: "noted for her height of around 186cm ... keen user of ... Twitter"). I see we also have Gaye family, Gordy family, and Jackson family—they are not quite as unsuitable for Wikipedia, but the mentions of related people is very doubtful. Johnuniq (talk) 23:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

If they have notability as a family and there are reliable sources discussing that then I don't see a problem with having a family article. Very occasionally I can see that something like a combination set index article and human name disambiguation page would be appropriate where there are several related people who have individual notability and are known as being related but there is little else to say about them. Other than that, family should I think just be mentioned in sections of the articles about the notable people. These need to be substantially prose rather than just a family tree - Freud family is okay imo but the second half it pushing the line, certainly I don't think we should have anything more family-tree like than that. The Baldwin family family tree would probably be better recast as a collapsible template that is transcluded onto the articles about the notable family members (I'm thinking something conceptually similar to the route diagram templates used on railway and canal articles. Thryduulf (talk) 00:22, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that prose would be the correct procedure, with rare exceptions. An article should not indiscriminately include living but non-notable people who happen to be related to a notable person. I asked for opinions at WT:Biographies of living persons#Family trees. Johnuniq (talk) 00:51, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

A number of non-historical articles (yeah - royal families get trees for good reason) have "family trees" generally to promote the fact that a living person is related to another living person who is also notable, or to a dead person. Generally that are less than worthless, and based on ancestry.com or the like and not on a secondary published reliable source. I agree that such "trees" should be deprecated entirely as outside rational scope of the encyclopedia. And that this should be clearly stated in the policy here. Collect (talk) 12:43, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree - Kennedy family is no different than the other articles mentioned above, and it looks like a very good article, so there's potential in this format, as long as the relations are sourced reliably (I agree that user content from ancestry.com doesn't cut it, but compiling relations from news and books would be OK). Maybe the tree structure should be replaced by the "list of generations" style of the Kennedy family article, but that's a minor detail. Diego (talk) 12:57, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

An imagemap picture - which can be reused across articles - would seem to be a better approach than a standalone article for family trees. It's basically a glorified navbox. There are cases if the family is notable (the Kennedy on seems reasonable) and the tree can also be included there, but with the Baldwins, for example, the family notably seems more a butt of jokes rather than a notable topic on its own. --MASEM (t) 13:50, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Not an investigatory agency

Following a number of edits at the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings article, I suggest the inclusion of the text of WP:NOTFBI on this page. See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). -- The Anome (talk) 10:04, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

• I proposed WP:NOTFBI as a bit of a joke after a particular suggestion which was well-intentioned but fell afoul of WP:NOT. The proposed text is obviously more serious than my original throwaway line and is worth considering, I think. Maybe also WP:NOTPOLICE? Stalwart111 10:38, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

NOTPOLICE as a subpart of NOTFBI, as, while Wikipedia may be mistaken for an investigatory body, it will never be mistaken for a body with powers of arrest. Sophie means wisdom (talk) 14:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Abuse of NOTAFORUM regulation

NOTAFORUM regulation is frequently abused by admins who just want to delete some opinion they don't like in the talk pages,like here This was a constructive post about the page. Do something to prevent this practice from being used.94.70.67.53 (talk) 12:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

In general, our own opinions or povs aren't supposed to count for much when it comes to improving the article, but opinions of sources do. But your post does seem to be making a point about the article quality so it probably should not have been deleted. The editor who deleted it does not seem to be an admin, they seem rather to be one of our Eastern European editors. Things like this get abused all the time, and I don't know what can be done, other than to revert the deletion and reinstate the valid comment about the article. Til Eulenspiegel /talk/ 12:55, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Under WP:TALKO, such an edit should definitely not have been reverted. Reatlas (talk) 13:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

That's a good approach, but one that is not practical for some topics (and Republic of Macedonia is part of such a topic, as can be seen by the "The Arbitration Committee has placed this article on probation" box at the top of the talk page). The comment was essentially an unactionable complaint, and my guess is that the complaint has been aired frequently, and by a variety of editors over a prolonged period. There is no good way to handle some talk pages because if complaints were kept, they would escalate and make the page unusable for article development. Johnuniq (talk) 03:46, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

It didn't help the comment began with a sarcastic jab at admins (that already sets a bad tone), but it should have been kept with a comment followup pointing to MOSMAC, not outright removal. --MASEM (t) 04:31, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Not trying to be difficult, but why? On this page, or on the talk pages of many articles, WP:TPO should be followed. However, on a page where (I assume, from the Arbcom notice) nationalistic wars have been fought, TPO is just an excuse to misuse the page. Each time we are kind to a passer by who wants to vent, we also add to the workload of good editors who have to deal with the problems. It's very difficult to judge where to draw the line, but some articles need to be controlled much more harshly than others. Johnuniq (talk) 04:58, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm not talking that admin action is needed, just trouts. The link to MOSMAC is buried in the headers so it is easy to miss, so allowing one rant asking a reasonable question is fine, but if the user persisted, then removal of unhelpful comments is permitted. But it is a very grey line without having tracked all the history involved. --MASEM (t) 05:06, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Instantly deleting someone else comment isn't assuming good faith. If the editor has shown signs of disruptive editing or flogging a dead horse, then we can take it to WP:ANI and get him banned under the sanctions. If he/she hasn't, then there's no reason why WP:TALKO shouldn't apply. While there's no need to be kind to everyone who wants to stubbornly argue their case, this is going too far. Reatlas (talk) 06:14, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that's the theory. Anyone who has spent time on such a page knows the value of WP:DENY. It is not helpful to dot all the bureaucratic i's on some talk pages. Johnuniq (talk) 06:57, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Look,i just wrote my opinion about what has to be done. Didn't even touch the articles. Wiki is the most popular public encyclopedia, with heavy responsibility and the mentioned actions suggest censorship.Also,it is my view that in MOSMAC opinions were insufficiently represented,with the people in charge provocatively biased till today.Of course they're going to be biased,this is a hot issue. 94.70.67.53 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.70.99.93 (talk) 12:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

NOTCHANGELOG wording. Why are all tables banned?

I am concerned with the wording of NOTCHANGELOG as it is being used to justify deletionism of content created prior to this policy rather than to encourage the conversion of table based representation of the history of a software into prose. I understand that we should not copy the changelog for every version of a software, but in articles where this does NOT occur, instead only major version release dates and current versions are put into a table in a way FAR DIFFERENT from the official changelog and not drawn verbatim from primary sources, I fail to see how this is a "directory" in spirit, rather a different way of organizing information that is in a table format. In cases like this, WP:NOTCHANGELOG should not be used as a justification for outright deletion by an editor who just moves on without bothering to convert the information into prose. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 20:22, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

We're not here to simply catalog changes that occur in software - other sites (primary sources) do that better for us. As an encyclopedia, our goal is to consider if the changes in the software are significant to be discussed in an encyclopedic manner, considering the broad strokes that a piece of software undergoes rather than the nitty gritty, which is what tables of change logs tends to promote. Using prose is better since you can then go on to explain the significance of the changes likely with major version numbers to the general reader (for example, I forget which iPhone update it was but it was the one that screwed up the alarm functionality, or more recently the messed up Apple Maps application). Nitty gritty changes will not be of interest to our average reader, but we can certainly link to sites that detail these for those interested. --MASEM (t) 20:35, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Are the shortcut links in ALL CAPS intimidating?

Does posting them in edit summaries conflict with Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers ?Tehw1k1 (talk) 10:41, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Caps does seem a bit shouty, doesn't it. Perhaps, in dealing with newbies, we should pipe the link. Sophie means wisdom (talk) 11:09, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

It's standard practice to designate a shortcut from a normal text/links in discussions. --MASEM (t) 13:47, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Do non-allcaps links always properly redirect to the all caps shortcut? The few I've tried all work (eg. WP:Agf, WP:Bite, WP:Bold, etc). Oh, nope, they've all just got independent redirects, eg WP:BITE versus WP:Bite.

Ahh, here we go: WP:SHORTCUT#How to use a Wikipedia shortcut: "when using the URL method (or when making links) it is generally necessary to match the capitalization of the shortcut itself."

I agree that the visual clarity of the link is increased by having it in allcaps, plus it hints that the wording is an acronym/abbreviation/initialism (in contrast to the full title, versus the nutshell, versus the full-text. All of which carry different weight and connotations in wording). But when communicating with newcomers it might be good to have title case as a suggested informal option. The capitalized "WP" somewhat carries the hint that it is an abbreviated title.

Note that the section below, WP:Shortcut#Readability does mention using pipes to avoid confronting newcomers with a wall of incomprehensible jargon (For which WP:OMGWTFBBQ is the best explanation). –Quiddity (talk) 18:00, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Good points. Piped links would defeat the whole idea of shortcuts. Maybe just saying "please click WP:ETC for further info, thanks" on reverting would read as nicer and less curt. Tehw1k1 (talk) 18:54, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

No, it does not. It's akin to acronyms like SCUBA or VTOL, which are generally written as all-caps without intervening periods. Jclemens (talk) 05:24, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Many of them are not acronyms. Its not clear how someone new to wikipedia would come to interpret them that way. A few even touch on sensitive situations, such as WP:NOTMEMORIAL Tehw1k1 (talk) 17:11, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

What you need to do is just exercise your judgement about how to link to the page you need to reference in the individual circumstances. Sometimes the all-caps shortcut will be fine, perhaps even best, at other times it wont be and you should link the actual page title or pipe the link. Imho this is just common sense and doesn't need to be explicitly articulated in policies or guidelines, particularly as no wording we could come up with would get it right in every situation. Thryduulf (talk) 17:22, 6 June 2013 (UTC)