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The community believes it would be more appropriate to fix the articles rather than delete them.—cyberpowerChatOffline 04:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
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.
As some will be aware, Pakistan articles are amongst the worst on wikipedia. Town and clan articles especially. Thousands of really "famous" people and places [1] I was wondering if you'd support me in a mass cleanup thing and greatly reduce the number of articles and leave only notable sourced settlements and those put on watchlists. The ones not up to scratch can be incubated or something. Its far more problematic having many of the articles than not, they attract some of the worst possible spam edits. I think we need to treat Pakistan as a special case, India too really given the large number of people with computer access and poor english but Pakistan for starters. I think the articles need strict regulation and reduced to a manageable amount which go on people's watchlists and then built up gradually with a standard of quality. It's of no use to English readers having these articles and them being plagued with crap. I'm considering organizing a mass AFD of Pakistan articles and then clean up of the more notable ones. The benefit of having Chak 68EB Dogaranwala and Trikhni with the "very famous people" and sheer "beauty" of the villages for instance, more problematic than its worth.There's too many articles to clean them all up. I think we need to strictly monitor Pakistan articles and wipe the slate clean.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 16:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I am not sure if Village Pump is the best place for you to gather support for this. Try Contacting Wikipedia:WikiProject Pakistan. But be careful. I take back my statement after seeing what you have done to Pakistan articles and discourage you from doing so. --Anbu121 (talk me) 17:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
"Seeing what I have done to Pakistan articles". Good or bad? If you call removal of unsourced poorly written info and lists of schools and "famous" local taxi drivers bad editing. Information which is poorly written and unsourced is much better being removed from wikipedia and the articles remaining as stubs, I'm sure a lot would agree with me. Decent English editors don't want to read the crap written by somebody with a poor command of English plagued with POV. I had a conversation with the 1-2 man team responsible for running WP:Pakistan a few years back and they agreed that the scope was too big for them to maintain some level of quality. Seriously, the content in most articles for India and Pakistan makes me want to leave the project, the quality is so poor. Most of them are better wiped and started again from scratch. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I hope you don't mind that I kind of cleaned up Trikhni, so you need a new example . Dr. Blofeld, do you have a list of potentially problematic articles that can be tackled? Or is this more of a go through Category:Pakistan recursively and clean it up? Legoktm (talk) 20:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I agree that articles on Indian and Pakistani villages contain many samples which belong to the worst of Wikipedia, but I think the proper way would be (along with removing obviously non-notable stuff like lists of taxi drivers) to start requesting sources. In a couple of months everything which remains unsourced can go to AfD, in small portions, so that users have a chance to source and save the articles. Many of these villages are in fact parts of some greater municipalities and can not be sourced (I nominated couple of such cases for AfD).--Ymblanter (talk) 20:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I believe the unsourced articles on Pakistani and Indians towns are far more of an embarrassment to the project than if they were missing. I think Pakistan and Indian need tighter regulation on wikipedia given the high web access and poor command of English and what is appropriate for an encyclopedia. The problem is massive. Browse through any of the sub categories of Category:Populated places in India and Category:Populated places in Pakistan. First example I found for Indian at random Kulgam. All unsourced, poorly written, only source to falling rain, a website known for containing false data which still hasn't been blacklisted for whatever reason. The slate needs wiping and writing with sources. How much of a loss would it be to have it removed from the mainspace? Anybody who has known me long enough on wikipedia would know that ideally I'd love to see GA quality articles on every village in both countries, but they are also serious crud magnets and few of our regulars here have Indian or Pakistan articles on their watchlists, most of the articles are off the radar. I believe all unsourced/poorly written Pakistan articles should be incubated and only restored once a fluent English regular on here has read and sourced it. its more damaging having many of the articles than not to wikipedia as a resource. You see what I mean and have a browse anybody, you'll be shaking your head in disbelief at the quality and wonder why you bother to edit wikipedia if it has such standards. oh and count how many times the words "famous", "beautiful" and "very" and lists of schools, "famous" local personalities, CAPITAL LETTERS and even email addresses appear in the articles.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
"Famous" is probably the best of the problems. Do we really want articles like Jayya? How much damage would it do to nuke it?.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:54, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I honestly think that zapping a few thousand of these would be helpful; there's no doubt in my mind that a blank page would be supremely more helpful than the piece of trash that is Milkyar, for instance. I don't think it'd work because too many people at AfD will reflexively state that "all towns are notable", but in these cases it's much better to start with nothing than, to borrow from Kongzi, trying to make a wall out of dung. Someone will need to give me a very good reason not to delete Jayya or Milkyar soon, because I'm perfectly ready to. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 20:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Nobody is watching 90% of the articles which look like this. You know me, I'm super keen to improve coverage but really the problem is so huge and awful we are better off nuking them and starting with sources and put on watchlists. The reason is even if wiped clean and just left as xx is a village some poor English speaking local is going to turn up at some point and readd "famous village", literacy best in Pakistan, Mohammed Fahadabad, very famous governor. Unless every Indian and Pakistan article can go on a watchlist I believe we'd be better off deleting them and making a list of deleted/incubated articles and restarted with sources and put on watchlists. Saleh Khana is "the most beautiful village in the world", "the kidney beans of Javed is are famous in the UK" (yes, everybody here knows them like the back of our hands!) and see the end note! They don't just need a cleanup they need some germ blasting powerful chemical agent on them and a fresh start.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
I am afraid just nuking them would not solve the problem. There are always people ready to fill in the red link and to create an article saying that xxx is a village 15 km west of another village, it has a school, a mosque and a carpet shop run by a respectable man. Unless we salt them of course. What we could do instead, possibly with the help of corresponding Wikiprojects, is to find the results of the census, and to create articles on the places mentioned in the census, referencing them to the results. This guarantees at least that the places exist. After that, everything else should go.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
New content of course could be strictly regulated in regards to India/Pakistan. Might scare potential editors away but generally that's probably a good thing, given what the average IP or newbie from these places produces.Sadly we need thousands of quality Indian and Pakistani editors but they really are one in a million on wikipedia. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 21:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose any special ghettoization or purge of Pakistan or India related topics. Much of the unsourced information, even the irrelevant stuff, is harmless. They are at the far end of the earth, physically and culturally, from most of us, and we won't do a better job than they can. Destroying their efforts is not progress. Even in rare cases where we find a sourced publication in the library, what does that really mean? It means that some researcher went to Pakistan for a summer, talked to the same people posting the stuff here, compared their accounts to get a consensus the same way as the occasional novice editors do when they log on here - only real difference is they slap a $79 price tag and a glossy clay paper cover on their work so we can cite it, and get a university job. Essentially, there are still remote places in the world where it is still 2001 on Wikipedia. Accept that - and accept that the answer for them is not to abandon the project, but to keep things and improve on them when they can. It might take five years, or even ten, or maybe a small revolution and a bill of rights before they're citing their own literature - so what? We can wait. You people should quit worrying about looking bad - the question is only whether we are bad, and whether we're trying to do something about it. Wnt (talk) 22:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
"Much of the unsourced information, even the irrelevant stuff, is harmless". Harmless? Here we are trying to build an encyclopedia of the highest quality, factually accurate and verifiable and it doesn't even remotely concern you that thousands of articles contain unsourced atrociously written text, full of POV, mistruths, adverts and inappropriate lists? Everybody else agree its harmless? I've had enough for today.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 22:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I have more than 2000 Indian articles in my watchlist. The problem is not with unsourced village articles, which hardly has one or two page visits per day. The major problem is with BLPs and caste articles. --Anbu121 (talk me) 22:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Support to a point. (I really hate how everything has become a vote now). I think that stubbing is much more effective than simply deletion. Each one of these edits probably took no more than two minutes: [2][3][4][5]. I think once an article has been deleted, it makes it just a bit harder to re-start an article, whereas simply stubbing them down is much easier, plus it leaves it wide-open for improvement. Legoktm (talk) 22:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. - Per Wnt. Deleting articles because they aren't high enough quality in wrong. If we started doing this, then our 4 million articles would quickly turn into 100,000 (or less). The Pakistan articles should be improved, not deleted. ~ GabeMc(talk|contribs) 00:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Come back to us when you've cleaned a few up and tell me how it goes. You'll also note that nowhere in the voluminous instructions on article creation does it say "Dump a heaping pile of shit on us so a few severely overworked people can clean up after you". The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Question. - People have accused me of this, and I want to know, since I'm really trying to learn to correct the behaviour, is BNL's comment above a decent example of badgering an oppose? ~ GabeMc(talk|contribs) 02:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Also, if you consider yourself a "severely overworked" unpaid volunteer dealing with "heaping piles of shit", then perhaps you should consider cutting back or taking a break. It's strange, some admins want to whine and complain about being so terribly overworked, but the same admins rarely want to unbundle the bit so that non-admins can help, or make RfA less hostile (read less like a hazing) and nit-picky so as to give more candidates a chance to help, Kafka-esque is quite appropriate. ~ GabeMc(talk|contribs) 02:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
No its not really badgering since this really isn't a vote/!vote/whatever. Dr. Blofeld brought up an idea that he had after noticing a certain group of articles were in horrible condition. If you want to help, great! If not, thats fine.
What Blade said had nothing to do with being an admin. Just take a look at Category:Wikipedia backlog, pick something and get to work. 98% of those don't require any advanced toolset and could be done by an IP if they wanted to help. We're all overworked since the backlog is growing with no end in sight. Legoktm (talk) 03:02, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
(ec) I repeat: As an unpaid volunteer, if you feel stressed and overworked then you should at least consider cutting back or taking a break. Or maybe just ignore those things that bother you instead of displaying a hostile and frustrated presence in discussions about the topic. When you're singling out the Pakistani articles as "heaping piles of shit", just maybe you should ignore them if they bother you that much, they will develop over time. ~ GabeMc(talk|contribs) 03:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose any special ghettoization or purge of Pakistan or India related topics...just as editor Wnt said above.
Interesting to me is how Indian and Pakistani usage of English languate is different than British/American. For example, I noticed that families advertise their daughters for marriage in newspaper personal ads describing them as "homely", which in Br/Am usage means ugly, but there seems to mean a cross between "comely" (cute) and "good home-maker". Looking at some of the wikipedia articles using "famous", i suspect that the term means "notable". I myself use "notable" adjective fairly freely sometimes in assertions to throw off deletion-minded editors who can't see the implicit notability of less obvious assertions. Looks like saying a family is "famous" within a village is a way of saying they are notable, that the mention is worth saying.
A few commenters here, 20,000 miles away, have little to contribute in the development of these articles. Like Wnt said, it is wikipedia-as-of-2001 in these areas: let them develop. --doncram 03:26, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you have misunderstood the point of this task. The point is to clean up most articles, and if there are ones that aren't to put those up for deletion via the normal processes. No one is proposing to delete hundreds of thousands of articles.
Your interpretation of the language differences is interesting. I do agree with your assessment on the word "famous" meaning "notability". However, it's important to realize that just because they claim notability, does not mean they are so. If you see what I did in this edit, I was able to remove obvious WP:NPOV/WP:V violations, while still leaving a stub behind.
PS: Fun fact, I live in the USA, and according to wolframalpha, I'm only ~8.2k miles away. Please don't make up such ludicrous exaggerations. Legoktm (talk) 06:51, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Exactly Blade, in response to "The Pakistan articles should be improved, not deleted". You go through any one of the categories Gabe, the problem is MASSIVE. The sheer state of the articles and being prone to shoddy edit if wiped clean would make it more beneficial to delete and restart with sources. Yes, we are a work in progress but c'mon the state is generally dreadfully poor and far below even the minimum of quality standards. We are supposed to be an encyclopedia.if some minimum quality can't be maintained and the article is barely legible and off watchlists we'd be better off having them removed, unless a mass cale cleanup operation can be done and all articles put on watchlists.
"perhaps you should consider cutting back or taking a break. It's strange, some admins want to whine and complain about being so terribly overworked," We care about building a half decent encyclopedia Gabe and we find what obviously amounts to thousands upon thousands of bog standard articles completely neglected and vulnerable to continuous quality degradation. As virtually nobody from India and Pakistan projects are actively working through cleaning them all up we have a huge problem which needs to be eradicated. The problem is massive and we simply cannot be expected to clean all of them up with just 2 or 3 of us. Not that we need a "wiki break" but we want a decent encyclopedia.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 09:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Like Wnt said above, its really no different then Wikipedia in 2001-2005 for some of these projects. In 2009, The Telegraph named the Beatles article one of the top three most visited Wikipedia pages. Well take a look at the Beatles article in 2002 at one year old, no cites, 100% unsourced, same at two years, three years and four years (2005). I assume all the Beatles related articles went equally neglected in that regard during that time, but they were eventually cleaned-up and properly sourced. ~ GabeMc(talk|contribs) 10:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Comparing the Beatles to some village in Pakistan, seriously.... Want to clean up User:Legoktm/Pakistan/Famous then? I've done 3 and already have a headache. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 10:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I really didn't think I needed to add that qualifer but okay: No, I'm not comparing the Beatles to some village in Pakistan. Ridiculous! The point is that the article went 4+ years without a single citation, now look at it, its one of the top visited FAs. Like I said, maybe a good case could be made for deleting all articles (with no sources) about villages under a certain population, say 100, or whatever. All I meant was, I don't think we should be singling out Pakistan related articles as being unsourced, as there are unsourced articles in every project. Look at Come from the Shadows, Songbook (Chris Cornell album), Story Untold, Kevin Toth, XHTML Modularization, From Ritual to Romance etcetera. One could argue that for every unsourced Pakastani village article there are one or two equally uncited articles from other projects. ~ GabeMc(talk|contribs) 21:13, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
The problem is we have absolutely no idea which of the villages have the population below 100, since the creators do not bother to add the population data, and most likely do not have these data. In fact, for most of the villages we are not even sure they exist. If there were some solid data available like a populated census listing all census designated places it would be already much easier. We just do not have this problem with Europe, for example. If you ever find an article on a Russian village in such state, please let me know, I will take care of it (and Russia does not even have the population data split into villages, so it is rather on the bad side).--Ymblanter (talk) 21:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I Support Blofeld's idea of clean up of Pakistan related articles and appreciate that this neglected topic area is getting attention. I suggest a list of these articles should be made so other editors willing to contribute can help. --SMSTalk 16:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure how I feel about nuking stuff like this, but to add to the cleanup pile: [6] ("beautiful"/"nice"/etc towns and villages in India/Pakistan), [7] india/pakistan articles containing many hyperbolic words, [8] "hard-working" castes, [9] "most ___ village"s in india/pakistan.... (these searches could be improved by combining with wikipedia's category tree, but this is a rough idea of some problem areas.) this list could go on and on. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I really don't think outright deletion (or "nuking" as they say) is the correct method of dealing with this. While I am aware that this problem is inherent in hundreds of articles, since I regularly surf back and forth across Pakistani village/town/settlement articles every now and then, and pretty much agree with most of Dr. Blofeld's views on the poor standards of English on these articles (this is coming from a Pakistani editor btw), I strongly believe that a massive-cleanup (in which articles are left to one-liner stubs or something) would be more productive than deletion, which is a bit of an extreme measure. As far as the English language is concerned, I think pretty much everyone here should be aware that a person who speaks Pakistani English at a basic level will never quite be as proficient as someone who speaks American English or British English at a native level. A cursory glance at List of countries by English-speaking population and the position of Pakistan on that table very aptly demonstrates the cultural differences that you will face in an English encylopedia that is open to editing for all, and where a Westerner will obviously have a much different way of spoken English than say, a Pakistani. These differences are unfortunately bound to always arise, the most you can do is just try to reduce them. Going back to the topic, a one or two-liner village stub (that has been cleaned-up) with a reference in hand is better than not having an article on the village at all. Perhaps we could generate some sort of list of all these bogus-filled articles and work through them/perform a cleanup one-by-one, and watchlist them as we go by. If this process will take months or years or whatever, so be it - I am quite convinced that deleting articles and recreating them again is not going to be any quicker. So, to summarise what I'm saying: Yes to massive article cleanup, no to nuking. Mar4d (talk) 02:48, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I quite agree, but the task is enormous and massive cleanup is unlikely. Of course I'd like to keep the articles with sourced content put on watchlists. Wish I could clone you dearest Mar4d x 1000!!! ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 14:47, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually every article needs to be dealt differently, some of them may need to be nuked, (For example an article like Jandala (princely state) (AfD) definitely needs to be deleted.) while some can be left as redirects to respective districts or may be left as one or two line article if there are enough info and sources for further expansion. --SMSTalk 07:17, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I understand. But one of my main concerns in a mass-deletion campaign is that many notable towns may end up being deleted from Wikipedia just because their articles are not quite up to notch. This is something that is not exactly a desirable outcome. That is why I am still insistent that performing a general clean-up on articles than deletion is the way to go. Mar4d (talk) 08:35, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
I think you're a bit confused. Think of this as a mass-improvement campaign. Our goal is to improve Wikipedia as a whole. If an article has POV/unsourced fluff in it, but still notable, we can get rid of that and replace it with a basic stub. If it isn't notable, it gets sent to AfD. The only difference is that we're specifically focusing on a group of articles we know are bad, so it may seem a bit deletion-ist, even though our overall goal is to improve the encyclopedia. Legoktm (talk) 08:55, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose deletion. Redirected "mohala" to expand term: These articles can be saved, perhaps listed 100 per month for other WP:GOCE editors to fix. As typical for articles on other emerging subjects, for a Pakistan town there was the word "mohala" which Google suggested, "Did you mean: mohalla?" and so I created a redirect. As with the Sikh place of worship, "gurdwara", last year, some cultural terms are revealed to be major words once the meaning is better understood. Please note, the lack of quality text is not just in village articles, but occurs in many areas, depending on the level of expertise, where experts in a subject have been just as appalled about missing details (in "Duns Scotus" or "Abelard"), as compared to casual readers appalled that village articles contain sparse data. Consider the terms "carriage bolt" (in article "screw") or "unit testing" or "simoom" (was a stub for years), which were once hollow topics, with limited details during the first 5 years of Wikipedia. Check again, in another 5 years, for the level of details about the Pakistan towns. The more readable those articles become, the more likely they will be expanded, just like those articles from 2005. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:02, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
Support deletion. I have been through some of those articles and have to agree with Dr. Blofeld's description of the situation. This is an embarrassment to WP, and this many poor articles, with no realistic hope of them becoming sourced, put a serious question mark on WP's commitment to verifiability. Verifiability policy should be applied ruthlessly.OrangesRyellow (talk) 09:01, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Support nuking. Prepare a list of all articles to be deleted, and have a bot send across a message to all the editors of those articles to salvage as many of them as they want to. All those articles whose deletion is opposed that go through AfD, while the rest shall be dumped after the regulated time period [a month shall be enough]. Stricter provisions for new articles should also slow them a bit. Also, the same must be done for people too. There are way too many 'famous' people here than we can handle. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 20:28, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Oppose I probably rewrote dozens of these, so I know that you are speaking about incomprehensible pieces of shit that should never have been on the web or Wikipedia to begin with--no illusions. However, Wikipedia has a serious anti-Pakistan bias, and I think this will look bad coupled with that existing bias. Maybe it would make Wikipedians pay attention to the small, but dedicated, group of editors entering serious anti-Pakistani bias into Wikipedia articles, quietly picking and choosing the worst of every source to shine upon Pakistan, a group of editors that are largely ignored by most Wikipedians, but I think it would simply appear as an ugly, bigger version of the pernicious anti-Pakistani bias that is Wikipedia (and so soon upon the interesting AN/I thread Wikilawyering the stain out of "Pakistan only invents terror plots"). Note, just to forestall accusations that I am accusing Dr. Blofeld of anti-Pakistan bias: the articles are pure crap, Dr. Blofeld is an excellent editor and community member, and anti-Pakistani bias is the worst of Wikipedia. -Fjozk (talk) 16:25, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Shockingly, my experience says that WP may have a strong pro-Pakistan bias...OrangesRyellow (talk) 01:03, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
There is the usual, but no other country seems to have such a successful and dedicated group of editors using marginal sources and culling only the bad information from more mainstream sources to make Pakistan look like a terrorist state. That AN/I conversation about Pakistan would not have run that way about any other country. The bias is there; it's been going on for a long time, and it crops up all the time at AN/I, but, for some reason, probably the friend packs of one of the major perps, it is entrenched and permanent on Wikipedia. Also, because of the reason these articles were created, so few editors participate in creating articles about Pakistan. -Fjozk (talk) 01:50, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
If there is no pro-Pakistan bias, please explain why we have kept so much poor quality material for so long, material-- which you yourself aacknowledge to be "pure crap" ? Why do we need material which is "pure crap", except to pander to Pakistani sentsitivities?OrangesRyellow (talk) 02:56, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The pro-Pakistan posse is creating hundred of illegible, incomprehensible articles because a pile of crap shows their national pride? Sure, you're the expert. -Fjozk (talk) 03:42, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Who created what is usually among the least of my concerns. Word acrobatics and bias accusations apart, I am yet to see a good reason to continue to host "pure crap" and "hundred of illegible, incomprehensible articles " (your wordings). If there is any good reason to continue hosting such material, please enlighten me.OrangesRyellow (talk) 06:23, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I think Fjozk's point is mass deletion won't solve the problem, or at least that part of the problem the editor refers to. The same editors, per Fjozk, will put the same stuff back in unless there is more oversight from the WP community as a whole, which this proposal does nothing to achieve. The samples of the articles posted here, however, reveal other problems: the articles on villages seemingly are on non-notable topics (since they only have a line or two, I am not sure how WP:TNT applies); the promotional articles are put in by the subjects themselves and salting would be required to stop that. Fjozk needs to post examples of the NPOV-breaking anti-Pakistan stuff to see whether it is obvious on a cursory examination; if so, I guess editors (I included) can probably just watchlist the page and revert. If it requires some deeper knowledge, I guess we are stuck. Churn and change (talk) 20:14, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately it not only requires deeper knowledge, it requires a community willing and able to discern facts: a newspaper has an article about Pakistan, it gives 10 good points and 1 bad point, adding that one bad point to an article about Pakistan without any of the good points is usually bias, systematically and repeatedly doing so in hundreds of articles is bias. I have repeatedly pointed this out; one of the editors who does this has been blocked numerous times, but, because he is the right age and gender and techno-time-on-line to be comfortable on Wikipedia, all that ever results in dozens of Wiki-buddies come in and defend his right to do whatever he wants on Wikipedia. I gave up long ago, but I will keep mentioning it, so that when it comes back and bites Wikipedia's ass, fewer editors can say they were cluelss. But, you are right, there are much bigger problems in the area of Pakistan articles, and this mass deletion will create bad will without addressing any of the problems. If these villages exist, then Wikipedia should have an article on them, as Pakistan censuses and governments generally call even the smallest villages as notably "legally recognized, populated places." To start mass deleting notable places is not a proper use of time resources. I suggest creating a subpage of the project, adding a link to it at the project page and talk page, and maintaining a list of the worst of these articles that need clean up. -Fjozk (talk) 06:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Dr. BLOFELD edits with bad English: "and then built up with standard of quality," "there's too many articles," "information ... is much better being removed"; bad references; and bad writing. Wish the serious ones had a better editor speaking for them. 130.65.109.102 (talk) 00:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I would support a cleanup campaign - whether removing crappy content from articles, or deleting articles altogether. There are thousands of articles in a disgraceful state, which reflects very badly on en.wikipedia and does readers a disservice. Some articles are OK, of course; we don't have to nuke those. I don't want any conflict with the good Dr Blofeld but I do have to point out that these articles got into such a state due to insufficient watchlisting by competent editors, which is a consequence of the mass production of many thousands of settlement-stubs, rather than letting settlement articles get built (and cared for) the same way as other articles. bobrayner (talk) 23:28, 4 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose categorical deletion, because we should have an entry for valid locations. But I totally support thorough clean-ups as was done for Jayya. As was already mentioned, the problem is even more serious for biographies. Most are either vanity or tribute articles. In that case, I would support total deletion. -- P 1 9 9✉ 15:09, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Oppose wholesale deletion: but I will echo that I encounter many of the worst India/Pakistan articles every month while I stalk around after User:28bot who faithfully logs edit tests, vandalism and just plain junk for willing editors to attempt to repair. It is true that these articles pick up a large percentage of junk edits. I visibly cringe when I click through and see the carnage some of these articles are. I hate to even make a minor edit and leave my history behind while there is absolutely nothing I can do to sort out the article. I'm around the world by 3000 miles, and have no knowledge of who's famous and who's a beauty shop operator. I'm getting more bold though (even before seeing this discussion). I've started pasting copy-edit article tags every time I make an edit and place stub tags, and have begun deleting the worst of the spam, i.e. those with telephone numbers. Yesterday, I looked through the entire Category:Hunza and on each article, as needed; placed tags, deleted junk and removed bold text, CAPS, and ads below the article end. I can begin watchlisting all I edit and go back and watchlist those I've already contributed to. In the past, I never wanted to see them again. I therefore pledge that I would sign on to some sort of project Fylbecatuloustalk 02:03, 12 November 2012 (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.
Discussion on changing guidelines for loss and restoration of administrator tools
Most articles in wikipedia, especially the important ones, are far too long and too complex to be understood by the average and below-average readers, who constitute a more than substantial portion of our readers. Adding an infobox at the top of the article linking it to the corresponding 'Simple English' articles [for only those Simple English articles which are rated 'Good' or above] will help a majority of the readers to understand the topic in simple words. {If required, they can always refer back to the original article to go in-depth}
Inamos (talk) 19:07, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Infoboxes are a good thing, at least in my opinion. I am worried about linking to Simple, however, as the project is largely dead. Sven ManguardWha? 21:12, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
The implication that the majority of readers here can't handle regular English seems uncredible. I would want to see some sources before accepting that.
To the extent that "Simple English" is the 850-word vocabulary and restricted grammar of Basic English I don't see how it reduces these alleged problems of length and complexity. It may be fine for teaching English at a beginning level, but many topics require a fuller command of the language. If you try to explain complex concepts simply, using only "simple" words, you necessarily make the text longer, so there's a trade-off. If an article really is too convoluted, then that should be fixed, regardless of the size of the vocabulary used.
Simple does not necessarily mean longer. Take a look at a random important article - Violin and its simple version Violin. Which one do you think gives the information in a shorter way to a reader who has heard about a something called Violin for the first time? Some complex articles may be non-simplifiable, but those will only constitute a section of them. Even for articles requiring complex words, you can have an understandable simple version. Look how well Jupiter has done
And for the record, I said substantial, not majority. 30% is also substantial, while only 50+% will be a majority. Inamos (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
That some articles can be adapted for the use of those with limited vocabularies is fine, and I think a link like any other language would be quite satisfactory. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
You'll already find interlingual links under "languages" on the left-hand column. Simple English is one of those languages. I don't know why we'd need more than that. --PhilosopherLet us reason together. 22:42, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
Strong support I was planning to ask about it. We are not giving any consideration for Simple English. It is treated just like another language. Please give this Simple English some emphasis.
...the project is largely dead.: Actually this is going to be good for whole of the WMF including enwp. enwp is visited by a very large number of potential editors who falls out because they have got nothing to edit. Seeing the Simple allows them to contribute into it. (For an outsider, the only way to expand Wikipedia is by adding more info and correcting visible problems - which can be done easily in Simple). just after having a number of edits and days, they will learn more about this and hence become a part of the wikimedia community. After all, there are no side-effects for enwp. So IMHO, what should be discussed here is the way we should give the emphasis to Simple Discuss for the best way possible.
... why we'd need more than that: All of the languages given in the language box except the Simple are only useful to a very few part of the readers. But Simple English is helpful to all the people coming here in enwp (even to the BE 1500 people as they too can read it if they want to have a simpler version.) And no one, unfamiliar with WP, would expect a Simple English Wikipedia under the language box···Vanischenu「m/Talk」 23:36, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
This proposal is being made under the mistaken assumption that a general encyclopedia should be accessible to someone who isn't that proficiant in English. That's not the case. The majority of articles ARE fine in this respect, and the majority of articles that aren't are in depth technical topics anyway. As for 'emphasizing Simple English WP', well while I agree that it perhaps should be better known, strewing it all over EN-WP would just cause huge backlash from people. And probably look ugly. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 00:12, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I think the infobox can be presented in a way that looks good with articles. In any case, all the articles we will be adding them to for now will be the most important ones, implying that they are already heavily crammed on the top. I kindof like the way Uncyclopedia presents the link to Wikipedia articles Inamos (talk) 20:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
One thing that could possibly be done is list Simple English first, instead of alphabetically. That does not require anything but doing that. One article buries it here:
Afrikaans
Alemannisch
العربية
Aragonés
ܐܪܡܝܐ
Asturianu
Avañe'ẽ
Aymar aru
Azərbaycanca
Bamanankan
বাংলা
Bân-lâm-gú
Башҡортса
Беларуская
Беларуская (тарашкевіца)
Български
Bosanski
Brezhoneg
Català
Чӑвашла
Česky
ChiShona
Cymraeg
Dansk
Deitsch
Deutsch
Eesti
Ελληνικά
Español
Esperanto
Euskara
فارسی
Français
Gaeilge
Gaelg
Galego
贛語
한국어
Հայերեն
Hrvatski
Ido
Bahasa Indonesia
Interlingua
Interlingue
ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ/inuktitut
Ирон
IsiXhosa
Íslenska
Italiano
עברית
Basa Jawa
ქართული
Қазақша
Kinyarwanda
Kiswahili
Коми
Kreyòl ayisyen
Kurdî
Лезги
Latina
Latviešu
Lëtzebuergesch
Lietuvių
Lingála
Lumbaart
Magyar
Malagasy
മലയാളം
मराठी
مصرى
Bahasa Melayu
Mirandés
Монгол
မြန်မာဘာသာ
Nāhuatl
Nederlands
Nedersaksisch
नेपाली
नेपाल भाषा
日本語
Nnapulitano
Norsk (bokmål)
Norsk (nynorsk)
Occitan
Oʻzbekcha
पाळि
پنجابی
Tok Pisin
Plattdüütsch
Polski
Português
Ripoarisch
Română
Runa Simi
Русиньскый
Русский
Саха тыла
Scots
Shqip
Sicilianu
Simple English
SiSwati
Slovenčina
Slovenščina
Soomaaliga
Српски / srpski
Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски
Basa Sunda
Suomi
Svenska
Tagalog
தமிழ்
Taqbaylit
Татарча/tatarça
తెలుగు
ไทย
Тоҷикӣ
ᏣᎳᎩ
Türkçe
Українська
اردو
Tiếng Việt
Walon
Winaray
ייִדיש
Yorùbá
粵語
Žemaitėška
中文 Apteva (talk) 02:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
By the way, encyclopedias are not written for second graders. There is a point around the 4th or 6th grade where they become useful. Not sure where exactly. Apteva (talk) 03:01, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Yes. And a good part of their usefulness is in leading the reader — of all ages — beyond what they already know. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 19:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Your perception of what an encyclopedia should constitute does not actually make it the rule-of-thumb for encyclopedias. An encyclopedia serves as a source of information for people, and its main objective shoudl be to state all the facts as well as to ensure readiblity. Compromising understandablity on the premise of 'leading the readers' is not what an encyclopedia should be doing. Inamos (talk) 15:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
I'd support having the simple: interwiki listed at the top of the languages listing, but outside of that, I don't think we should be going out of our way to push readers over there; yes, perhaps some people don't understand it, but I'd like to actually see some justification that "more than substantial portion of our readers" are below-average readers. Sometimes we're just going to be too complex for the reader; I have an excellent grasp of English (in no small part due to it being my native tongue), and I'd be hard pressed to say that I completely understand quantum mechanics; that's not the fault of the project. EVula// talk // ☯ // 17:32, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Some articles, especially science related ones, will only be able to be simplified that much. But for most articles, there will be a lot more simplified way that the article could have been presented. Inamos (talk) 19:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
I totally agree to Vanischenu on the 'dead project' front. That is exactly how I got there in the first place Inamos (talk) 19:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
As for concerns on the 'Below-Average' readers front, I would like to draw your attention to the new 'Reader Feedback' for Wikipedia pages. [This was why I thought of this proposal in the first place].
Chess - As you can see, most of those reviews have sub standard English, implying that having a simpler article will benefit. More importantly, see these comments - 123. All three ask for simpler words, but they did not know where to get it [The Simple wiki]. Also, see these- 45678910. All of them ask for some detail or the other which is more than sufficiently covered in the article itself, or its connected articles [all of which are accessible IMO]. This obviously implies that the jargon has caused an inability to get the actual information out of the article.
Jupiter - Same logic as above. Information already present problem - 12345678910111213. Asking for simplicity problem - 123456
[I have not tried to specifically verify if all the information asked for is present or not, but certainly almost all of it is. In any case, the general case is clear. Quite a handful of our readers find wikipedia hard to cope with. I am positive other reader feedbacks should also throw up similar results] Inamos (talk) 19:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
[offtopic] Aren't we supposed to vote here? SupportInamos (talk) 19:44, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Your perception of a possible problem not an adequate basis for proposing a fix, and lacking any verification it is not clear that such a problem is general. I am sure that some readers do find Wikipedia "hard to cope with". But in failing to show how big of a problem that is, or even if it's a matter of "too many words", I do not see that your proposal would be of any use. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:08, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
We vote when there's something to vote on, Inamos. You have presented a topic for discussion, which is why there's discussion. As your "proposal" stands currently, nobody is going to vote "for" it, based on the fact that you've inadequately established that there's a problem that needs to be solved. EVula// talk // ☯ // 23:40, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
My bad. Must have misunderstood it or something. ^^ I think i did show that it was a case of people finding the wiki too complicated.Inamos (talk) 23:50, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
Some of that feedback is irrelevant. If people want it written so children can understand it better, then they don't want Wikipedia in the first place. If they want to know stuff that's in child articles, then they are too lazy to care to find the quite obvious links to child articles at the top of the section. In the case of Jupiter, some of the comments ask "who discovered it", yet right in the lead it states "The planet was known by astronomers of ancient times" -- anyone who fails to understand that simple sentence needs something else besides Wikipedia to get their info. I'm not trying to be harsh here, but really, the problem isn't with the Wikipedia, it's with people expecting the wrong thing. Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
It isn't a question of removing the completeness of an article to be replaced by an oversimplified version. There are two ways to deal with the issue that is being noted here:
For long articles or large topics, they can be covered with "Overview" or "Introduction" articles, for example Introduction to quantum mechanics exists and yet no one had to remove the more technical Quantum mechanics.
For shorter articles or more narrowly focused topics, Wikipedia could greatly benefit from additional text which explains the topic for someone without the technical expertise to understand it. Magnetic monopole does a pretty good job of this, as it includes straight-forward, easy to understand text for the casual reader, and also has the dense mathematical language for the more technically-minded reader.
Many Wikipedia articles in the technical fields, however, don't have a good balance. In general, they are written by the expert, for the expert, and usually for a very specific kind of expert, you can have a pretty good knowledge of Physics, for example, and still be lost in many of our esoteric Physics articles. --Jayron32 03:42, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Some of that feedback may be irrelevant, but to think that most of it is would be plain callousness. Its understandable that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and hence has its own standards, which may or may not match with the reading abilities of the people. But at the same time, it is by the people and for the people. If a good number of people find it hard to follow, then there ought to be something that can be done about it. Amazingly, we already have a mechanism to push that sort of balance - Allowing the outsider to Wikipedia understand articles in the same light as a Wikipedian would do for a normal article - The Simple English wiki [Personally, I do feel wikipedia as a community is way too restrictive to allow newcomers, and is inherently discouraging to any new reader/writer.] Inamos (talk) 07:25, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
If. It is not yet shown that "a good number of people find it hard to follow", let alone why that might be. Where someone's reading comprehension falls short I am fine with trying to enourage them to get better. However, the solution is not to restrict articles to a vocabulary of 850 words, but to promote interesting, well-written articles. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
I believe I already showed that a good number of people find it hard to follow. Unless anybody comments on/follows up on/disputes with my 'proof' that a good number of people do not understand it, and that its mainly because of complicated articles, I doubt there is any reason to treat that It is not yet shown that "a good number of people find it hard to follow". [If there is any rule on wikipedia which says that a justifiable claim is untrue just because nobody has checked up on that, please let me know].
There is nothing that is being done to the existing articles, so I doubt we are restricting them in any way. All that I suggest is to link to a simpler version of the article, for those who find the present well-written version hard to comprehend. What is well written may not necessarily be easy to understand, especially not for an encyclopedia. Inamos (talk) 15:52, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
If all you wanted is a link to a simpler version of the article: fine, use a language link. But what you were asking for is an infobox. And you have not shown that this alleged problem warrants action, nor that Simple English even addresses the alleged problem of complexity and length. As there are some grounds to believe your claims are invalid, it is really up to you to show us otherwise. As that seems unlikely, why not settle for a language link? ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
My error. My intention was to say 'infobox', I ended up saying link.
I do not understand what more can be done to show that this problem warrants action, other than showing that this problem exists [If there are any such avenues, please point them out and I shall try to do the necessary.] Regarding the problem of complexity and length, I think I did say about it in my comment on 20:02, 28 October 2012 (UTC). So I believe the status quo stands as that there has been shown that there is a problem [whether or not that claim is true has not been discussed, so its incorrect to assume anything on that front] and that there is nothing said which shows that there are some grounds to believe my claims are invalid [If I may have missed any arguments, do point them out. I do not read minds, so if it isn't something which hasnt yet been written (but is obvious), I failed to understand that. My apologies].
As for the language link, if it so happens that Simple English is the first link that appears among all the languages, then it is something to consider. [An infobox will be a much more preferred option though for the simple reason that it provides the much needed highlight for readers who wish to work on articles (Pretty much similar to why we have DYK on the main page) while showing them, at the same time, that there is a simpler version which they can consult should they be unable to understand the complex vocabulary of some of the English wikipedia articles.] Inamos (talk) 10:30, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
I believe you have not been persuasive here. If there is no more that you can do, then it is probably a waste of time to spin your wheels, and I would suggest that you might be more satisfied letting this go and working on some other issue (or article). ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 01:51, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
Your belief on whether or not I have been persuasive is irrelevant. What is important is whether or not the statements are correct, and whether or not the community agrees to it. I doubt I shall agree to a premature decision based on what you think.
And since you have failed to respond to my point, i believe it is now safe to assume that there does exist a 'complicated articles' problem on wikipedia that needs to be looked into. [If i am wrong, plz do tell me] Inamos (talk) 15:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Sure: you are wrong to assume that there is a problem. And I did respond to your point (here). My belief that you have been unpersuasive is based on the observation that you have not presented a persuasive case, and that (with one exception) the others here appear unpersuaded. You have not been persuasive in demonstrating the validity of your premises, or that Simple English versions would be less complicated (in my first response to you I argued that they could be longer). And even if you were correct in all these regards, you have not shown why an info box is needed to help people find Simple English versions. If you are not convinced, then ask for a poll on whether there is a "complicated articles problem that needs to be looked into." If there is a strong "no" you should consider that you are just spinning your wheels. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:39, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
Sorry but did I miss it somewhere that arguing the point was the same as proving it? You argued that the articles could have been longer too. I showed that it was not the case; not in any but a minority of the articles anyways. And I still await if you have any response to my supposed proof that Wikipedia was indeed too complex for most users - You have done nothing to actually look into the fact that it might be a possiblity that it is indeed too complex to be comprehended - Rather you have decided that whatever I say is not correct, and you ought to present opposition to it or ignore it. I frankly have had enough of this soapboxing and biting. [if I know exactly what those words mean, which I think I do]
One writer has completely agreed to my proposal; one has completely gone against it. With respect to the rest, I believe its more like 2 for and 3 against - Not indicative of either persuasiveness or non-persuasiveness.
As I said, my initial point is to show that Simple English ought to be highlighted. How it can be done so is open as it may be through an infobox or putting it at the top of the languages list. Inamos (talk) 22:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Wrong. I have not "decided that whatever [you] say is not correct". I have said that: 1) you have not shown that what you claim is correct (despite your belief that you have) or even that your premises are valid, therefore 2) it is not safe to assume the existence of a "complicated articles" problem, and that 3) I believe it is apparent that you have been unpersuasive. Note also that I am not required to supply the deficiency of your arguments.
But so what? You are free to ask to have Simple English at the top of the language list (which seems reasonable). But an infobox? I suspect that would be ignored — for the reasons I have been trying to explain to you. If you don't agree — fine, I was only trying to explain. If you think you have been adequately persuasive, and have nothing further to add, then feel free to ask for a poll. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:32, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Question - If I believe I have shown adequate proof but you believe I havent, and you do not show how it is ot adequate, how is it decided if the proof is adequate or not. More so, how do I know if my proof is inadequate at all? [Dont take it as arguing against you; I mean it as a genuine question]
I am in fact trying to ask for a poll now. It will be helpful if you allow and help me to lay down the prime points of arguments for either side Inamos (talk) 10:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
A most excellent question. In brief, people usually have to be convinced on their own terms (or convinced to modify those terms), but this can get into some heavy epistemology. When I get a few moments free I'll try a longer answer on my talk page. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think so, as I suspect the folks complaining that science articles are too difficult to understand will still have problems with that intro article. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:08, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
You might like to compare Virus on Simple (simple:virus) with Introduction to virus. It's not based on the Introduction, so both sets of editors might get something out of the comparison. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Now I've started, I may as well say more, especially about Simple. Here goes:
The opinion that many English wiki articles are far too long, and also poorly written, is in my opinion justified. That does make Simple English relevant. It only takes a minute to check out a Simple page: if it's rubbish, ignore it. Sometimes you may strike gold.
Simple is by no means dead, but it does have only a small band of regular editors. Because of that I do not put forward articles for promotion. Out of ~1200 new articles only two or three are listed as good articles. Writing new articles is more important to us than getting them promoted.
Simple is not restricted to the Basic English word lists. There is a consensus that science and other technical subjects would not be adequate if confined entirely to the Basic lists. One has to remember that Basic English was devised in the 1920s, and always was limited in its use of scientific terms. On Simple, technical terms should be linked, either to an explanation in one of our articles, or to our wiktionary. If not, they need to be explained in the text or in a footnote. Having said that, at their best our articles are shorter, simpler and often better written in terms of prose quality. At their worst, they're pathetic – but that's the way of an open-contribution wiki, is it not? Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:45, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
about pronounciation
hey guys, i have used wiki for a while now and love it. i wanted to let you guys know, in case you do not, the "pronunciations" on pages need to be auditory. in other words, if i browse a page and do not know how to pronounce whatever it is, I count on Wiki. i see the speaker symbol, and "pronunciation", after the subject name but have never encountered audio. this leaves me having to consult a second source. ONE STOP SHOP thanks guys — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.147.72.145 (talk) 06:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
If you see the speaker symbol, like in the article Paris, you should be able to click on it and hear the pronunciation, assuming that your browser allows that. If you do not see the speaker symbol, like in the article Aikido, then the IPA pronunciation is available but no audio. Apteva (talk) 20:55, 5 November 2012 (UTC)
That's effective for the 0.01% of readers who know IPA. (Disclaimer: I learned IPA in college. And then promptly forgot it.) Angryapathy (talk) 14:52, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
I have to agree here. IPA is not useful to the vast majority of our readers. I'm sure it seemed like a good idea once upon a time. --agr (talk) 19:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
There is a very, very simple solution to this - record more audio. The IPA is very useful for people who understand it, and it shouldn't be removed, but audio added as well. Thryduulf (talk) 20:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
So why did you also notify the AN/I drama board? Cannot you go tip cows if you are bored? Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like a self-contradiction to me. —Farix (t | c) 16:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
This can help in quickly understanding linked topics or peoples in articles!
Hello, I was reading an article and realized that I didn't remember what Theocracy meant and it was a link in the article, so I clicked it to go to the article on Theocracy to better my understanding of the article I was originally on. Well instead of switching to a new article or in a new tab leading to thousands of tabs, for things we need a quick definition or understanding of why not have a quick on mouse over description?
With regards, guesshurley / Brad.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.222.123 (talk) 02:51, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't know what it would technically take to do that, but that's a pretty good idea. I like your mockup as well. --Jayron32 02:53, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
It's a brilliant idea. It's done all over the web. It might get some better control over opening sentences, too, if the rollover text were simply from the opening sentence. I'm surprised en.wiki doesn't do it already. -Fjozk (talk) 02:57, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Already there. Just click on Navigation popups from My preferences/Gadgets. MalleusFatuorum 03:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Right, I have that, but it doesn't work for readers of the encyclopedia, just for editors. I was thinking the IP was suggesting it for readers. -Fjozk (talk) 03:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I see. Then why not just enable the gadget for all non-logged in users? MalleusFatuorum 04:35, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Not a good idea, I'm afraid. Anyone using a lower-powered computer (netbooks for example) or on a slow connection (dialup) would really have issues with browsing Wikipedia with popups enabled. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
Well, it does work for readers; they just need to register an account. There's no compulsion to use it for editing! I suspect turning it on for all readers would not be popular, though; only a small proportion of editors use popups, despite also being some of our heaviest readers. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
While I've used Popups forever (since 2006), I have to agree with Andrew Gray here - having a window pop up when you're hovering a link is generally unexpected behavior and can be more than a little annoying when you aren't actively trying to see what's behind the link. Those who like Popups can, of course, read Wikipedia while logged in. No editing required (though it's always recommended). --PhilosopherLet us reason together. 17:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Support anything to remove Wikipedia's ill-deserved reputation of unreliability. Being open about our faults and inviting users to fix them would be a great step in this regard. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 07:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
A cure for inconsistent information on Wikipedia
Often times on this encyclopedia, inconsistent information is found buried somewhere deep in articles. This information may be out-of-date or sometimes plain inaccurate with respect to other mentions of the same information found on the encyclopedia. To resolve this problem, I propose that all sentences with an "As of" expression should be tagged, and then sorted according to the content of the rest of the sentence by an automated program. Through a centralized interface, perhaps named Special:InfoTags, users could edit tags so that information on any one event that is mentioned in several articles is consistent throughout articles. A bot could do the final work of inputting a user's edit.
Support: I had a similar discussion elsewhere (article forgotten) several years ago, regarding populations of cities, countries, etc.. While these are all encyclopaedic information, they can only ever be absolutely correct at an instant: "The population of Tharg City is 24,000 ... no it's not, it's now 24,001 ..." etc.. There's no point in contributors spending time trying to hit these moving targets. This suggestion goes a long way to encouraging this. --Wally Tharg (talk) 20:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Things like population of a certain place will be taken care of as soon as Wikidata hits phase 2. Legoktm (talk) 20:28, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
All sentences beginning "As of" should already be tagged. Provided stats are correctly dated, I can't see any reason to force articles only to include one figure, which (as I understand it) is what you're suggesting. There are numerous circumstances when you'd want to include figures from different dates in an article. ("As of 2001 the population of the town was 75,000. As of 2012 the population of the town is 142,000, putting strain on the road network and hospital.") If I'm understanding your proposal right, this is a "solution" which will cause more errors than it solves. Mogism (talk) 20:32, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
I've seen countless articles where the information is out of date. Even if a piece of information is accurate as of 2005, there will undoubtedly have been new developments on the subject, and it is in the addition of these new details that articles so annoyingly differ. And there will be actual human users who will make the final judgment call with regard to whether a specific piece of text, and a bot will serve only to carry out their orders. It would not be necessary to remove the "As of 2005", but you could add more. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 00:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Categorizing articles into educational area/ info on educational area
Hi!
I'm really missing to know which educational subject the article I'm reading belongs in. This would make it easier for alot of younger readers where to find more information about the particular article subject. For example, right now I'm reading an article on neurons. It would be useful to know if this is an article belonging in the educational field of psychology/neurology or biology ect. In this case this might be obvious, however when reading other articles this information could be useful to gain a better way of categorizing knowledge and also to have a easier access to similar knowledge by reading books, taking courses or deciding on further educational choices in the future.
Thank you,
- Shellpeck
01:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)01:40, 16 November 2012 (UTC)~~
Between the lead, infoboxes, categories, and navigation templates, I think 99% of articles it should be obvious what "educational subject the article I'm reading belongs in". ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:36, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
I think he means a dirctory to browse through per subject. We have that GA/FA, but why not for all articles? Perhap s categorise tem by WP (project), of which every aile has at least one projectLihaas (talk) 04:48, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Search bar should be at the bottom as well
Like all modern websites, search functionality at the bottom of an article can be super helpful. After a long wiki entry, to scroll all the way up is a huge hassle to search for something else! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.238.186.43 (talk) 20:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
It's useful at the top. If you are at the bottom of a long article you can just press the home button on your keyboard. What's your reasoning for this? Rcsprinter(talk to me) @ 23:14, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
Thats a good idea, esp. for the long articles and not the frivolus ITN creationsLihaas (talk) 04:46, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
This is a great idea. A personal pet peeve. Maybe even if we put the "talk", "edit", "history" etc. tabs at the bottom as well :D. I'm still convinced we should put the signature button right next to the "save page" button.--Coin945 (talk) 10:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't know about the other buttons, but the search bar should definitely be mirrored on the bottom. Remember that some browsers (esp. mobile browsers) don't have "home" buttons. (And don't bring up the mobile skin - it's useless if you want to actually contribute.) --PhilosopherLet us reason together. 14:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Agree with having a more accessibly signature button. Right now i have to copy past it on the talk pages, and some pages dont even have it on the top (like this)Lihaas (talk) 18:15, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Here we go.Sounds like Athena. --Yair rand (talk) 15:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I like the general idea, however, I think the bar should scroll down automatically so it's always on top of the page. I saw that on a site recently and it works just perfect. 187.65.157.142 (talk) 20:18, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Of possible interest: I have proposed shutting down English Wikinews. 86.152.61.18 (talk) 01:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Propose shutting down ITN as an encouragement to creating frivolous articles of recentism./news.Lihaas (talk) 06:32, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Temporary 'unviewable' status on low-quality articles
Hello, this is my first suggestion, and I'm very new here so excuse any errors in my post. I looked a little to see if it had already been suggested, but apparently it hasn't. I don't know if any of this is possible under the MediaWiki software used here, but my proposition is that, if through consensus, an article is deemed to have inaccurate info, be too long, too short, have too many grammar errors or any other such problems, instead of deletion, it should undergo a overhaul process in which users who are not logged in cannot by any means access the article (or can only see the most recent "adequate" revision, with a corresponding template warning content may be outdated), and users who are logged in can read (the latest revision, with a warning that the article is being overhauled) and edit it. This way, we limit editor access to a bad article without either deleting it (making it impossible to edit) or leading readers to such bad quality articles.
"an article is deemed to have inaccurate info, be too long, too short, have too many grammar errors or any other such problems" is not ever deleted. Deletion happens for some very specific reasons (copyright violations or lack of any existing reliable source material are the two most common reasons) but "too many grammar errors" has never gotten an article deleted. Ever.
If we "hide" articles for being of poor quality, it is impossible for random people to find them and fix them. all of Wikipedia exists because random people found something wrong with an article and fixed it. That is, every single one of the really good articles you find at Wikipedia is only really good because some random person tripped over it and noticed "This is crap. I'm going to fix it up and make it better". If we hid the bad articles, people won't find them and get mad at how bad they are. If no one gets mad at how bad they are, they never get fixed.
Does that make sense? --Jayron32 20:06, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Proposed loophole-correction amendment to WP:CSD#A2
The current policy reads:
A2. Foreign language articles that exist on another Wikimedia project.
Articles having essentially the same content as an article on another Wikimedia project. If the article is not the same as an article on another project, use the template {{Not English}} instead, and list the page at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English for review and possible translation.
All I want to do is fix what I think is a minor loophole in the WP:CSD policy as pertains to articles written in foreign languages and already available on other encyclopedias: As the policy currently stands, you can copy and paste the text of another Wikipedia's article into one here, and, as soon as the article is tagged with the {{db-a2}}template, copy that same text into Google Translate and replace the foreign-language text with your result. The patrolling editor is faced with a dilemma: WP:TRANSLATION tells them that "Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing"; if this page were not otherwise a speedy-deletion candidate, the logical (and recommended) action would be to revert the machine translation and add the page to Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. But reverting to the original (preferred) version would require re-nomination, since the page still meets CSD. Re-nomination, though, has two problematic consequences: The re-nominating editor could easily be said to be gaming the system, since criteria for speedy deletion are meant to be narrowly construed, and it's highly frowned upon to nominate a page for deletion after making the edits that made it eligible; additionally, admins are instructed not to delete pages that have salvageable histories, and since machine translation is not a criterion, the machine-translated version would be considered salvageable. In other words, the patrolling admin has to revert to the version that is against consensus.
What I propose is simple: that a sentence be added to the end of the A2 criterion reading "This may also be used for articles that previously met the A2 criterion, and since have been unambiguously translated by a machine, with no other significant changes," or words to that effect.
I'd like to emphasize that last clause, too: Under this proposal, if you put in your machine-generated text, and then set to copy editing, so that by the time an admin looks at the page (or another user sees it and reviews the speedy deletion rationale), if you've improved it enough that it can no longer be described simply as "machine-translated," then the criterion no longer applies, and the nomination may be struck down. This is on the pattern of A3 deletion, where it's not at all uncommon for one to find that since the placement of the template, some substantive additions have been made to the article, and to strike down the nomination even if the page is still majorly in need of cleanup. (This is a pre-emptive counterargument to any charges that this amendment will result in deletions of bad pages that still deserve to be kept.) — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 02:11, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
My experience is that the translations are slowly getting better, but will inevitably look like English as a second language. If someone does do a machine translation from another language I do not see any easy way to delete the article just because of the bad translation, especially if a few words are fixed. I came across an article that was horrendously written, and found that the google translation made a great improvement.[10][11]Apteva (talk) 04:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm only talking about articles that previously qualified for A2. I don't have any problems (nor does WP:TRANSL have any) with using machine translations as a starting point for cleaning up articles that have better copies in a language you don't speak (or for cleaning up bad translations, when the machine translation would be easier to copy-edit than the human one). — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 17:32, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I would rather have no article than a version from Google Translate on en.wiki. Given different linguistics, we should not be encouraging the dumping of such machine translations in the first place. --MuZemike 07:28, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Fair point. But even as an avid speedy deletion tagger, I've always understood the hesitation the community tends to feel about proposed new criteria. That's why, unlike in the last proposal, I'm trying to be very clear about everything that this amendment would and would not do, and I'm showing how this proposal stems from extant policy, rather than being a suggestion to make a fundamental change to the bases upon which we delete articles. — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 07:34, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Prerequisite listing in appropriate articles
Wikipedia has very high quality mathematics and computer science articles, as long as you have the proper prerequisite knowledge. Otherwise, much time is spent clicking terms to understand, and being sent into a link-maze. The solution to this is where an article is of technical nature, perhaps include simple English as a header link, but absolutely include a tree of prerequisites to truly understand the article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.205.158.7 (talk) 08:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
That tree is really a wonderful idea. If all else fails we could even link to off wiki study materials provided by other non profits. (for example Khan Academy) 84.106.26.81 (talk) 20:23, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
TOC labels (open)
This section displays as "TOC labels (open)" in the TOC due to non-displayed text in the section title. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Just had a thought. Sometimes you want to quickly identify the status of something in a process - say, the completion amount of a particular day at AFD. So you go to that page's AFD log and there's a great big table of contents. Short of looking down the page there's no way to know what the status is of each item in that TOC. My suggestion: a magic word that allows the appending of text to the display of a heading in a TOC. Something like this:
== what links here ? ==
Ref Proposal: I intend to prepare course materials for a local sixth form college and could find it useful if the "what links here - tool box" option contained an alphabetical sort function.
Thanks,
Libby
:Hello, Libby! I think that pages in the "What links here" are ordered by date of creation. I agree that other sorting options would be cool, for example alphabetical, last edit and size. The software where Wikipedia runs is [[MediaWiki]]. Can anyone guide us to make the proposal? Thanks! --[[User:NaBUru38|NaBUru38]] ([[User talk:NaBUru38|talk]]) 20:43, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
::[[Bugzilla:2306]] includes a request for alphabetical sorting. [[User:PrimeHunter|PrimeHunter]] ([[User talk:PrimeHunter|talk]]) 20:59, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
== Featured template ==
Like [[Wikipedia:Featured articles|featured articles]], [[WP:FL|featured lists]], [[WP:FPO|featured portals]] and such, I propose creating a "featured template". It will have a criteria, as does other featured processes, and there will be a nomination centre to nominate your templates, as done for other featured processes. I am interested in hearing people's thoughts! Thanks, <font face="Impact">[[User:TBrandley#top|TBr]][[User talk:TBrandley#top|and]][[Special:Contributions/TBrandley|ley]]</font> 18:39, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Support''' as nominator. <font face="Impact">[[User:TBrandley#top|TBr]][[User talk:TBrandley#top|and]][[Special:Contributions/TBrandley|ley]]</font> 19:32, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
* '''Support'''. More love for templates! Choosing the criteria will be interesting, considering the incredible range of options. — [[User:Hex|<span style="color:#000">'''Hex'''</span>]] [[User_talk:Hex|<span title="Hex's talk page"><span style="color:#000">(❝</span>'''<span style="color:#900">?!</span>'''<span style="color:#000">❞)</span></span>]] 19:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
* '''Oppose''' Featured content is meant to highlight WP's best work for our ''readers''. Templates are back-end aspects that are generally invisible to our readers. There's also a far smaller set of editors that can comment on the quality of templates compared with images, lists, and articles which generally any editor can. --[[User:Masem|M<font size="-3">ASEM</font>]] ([[User Talk:Masem|t]]) 19:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
::What's wrong with having things ''internally'' featured? Which is what I understood the proposal to mean. Featuring templates to the outside world wouldn't make much sense. — [[User:Hex|<span style="color:#000">'''Hex'''</span>]] [[User_talk:Hex|<span title="Hex's talk page"><span style="color:#000">(❝</span>'''<span style="color:#900">?!</span>'''<span style="color:#000">❞)</span></span>]] 19:20, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Moral support''' But I have my concerns: featured content is intended to show the best of the encyclopedia, and templates are not encyclopedic content. Templates are part of the maintenance and navigation facilities of it. Although, the existece of featured portals makes me think that this could be a very good idea. — [[User:Hahc21|<font color="#333333">'''ΛΧΣ'''</font>]][[User_talk:Hahc21|<font color="#336699">'''21'''™</font>]] 19:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
* '''Oppose''' I pretty much agree with Masem here. The featured processes are intended for content and I do not see why a reader would be interested in a template (a reader might be interested in the information the template holds in the context of the article the template appears in, but not in the actual page in template namespace). It would be like highlighting the footnote system used in a scientific paper, when actually the content of the paper is what matters. -- [[User:Toshio Yamaguchi|Toshio Yamaguchi]] ([[User talk:Toshio Yamaguchi|tlk]]−[[Special:Contributions/Toshio_Yamaguchi|ctb]]) 20:09, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Why?''' I am not seeing the purpose here, so can you expand on what role you believe such a program would fill? I can't see any reason to support without a good rationale to go with it. [[User:Resolute|Reso]][[User Talk:Resolute|lute]] 20:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
**+1. [[User:Legoktm|Legoktm]] ([[User talk:Legoktm|talk]]) 20:15, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' - Templates are uncool, and adding them as featured content won't help. To encourage template developers for their tough work, I'd prefer to award [[Template:The Template Barnstar|The Template Barnstar]]. --[[User:NaBUru38|NaBUru38]] ([[User talk:NaBUru38|talk]]) 20:14, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''. Although the proposed featured process may be the same as others, template purpose is wholly different. Featured content is for the ''readers'' and readers don't read templates. Templates are navigational and informative guides -- back-end aspect, as Masem put it. They are neither unique in where they appear, nor are they presented on their own to the readers. Unless we modify what out featured content represents (and I, personally, don't think we should), I don't think featured status on templates should attempt to serve the same purpose. Highlighting good technical editor work can be done by numerous awards, as mentioned already. — <small> [[user:Hellknowz|<font color="#B00">HELL</font>KNOWZ]] ▎[[User talk:Hellknowz|TALK]]</small> 20:35, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
* '''Comment''' Significant discussions, over the years: [[Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2008 May 5#Featured Template]], [[Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2010 September 1#Featured Template]], [[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive P#Featured content according to namespaces]], [[Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 4#How about "Featured templates"?]], [[Template talk:Template-Class#Overhaul]], and [[Portal talk:Featured content/Archive 2]] (3 threads). —[[User:Quiddity|Quiddity]] ([[User talk:Quiddity|talk]]) 22:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Comment''' Whilst searching for the list above, I found these template given as examples; or comments on their talkpages suggesting "if there were such a thing, this would be a Featured Template!": [[Template:Solar System]], [[Template:IPA chart vowels]], [[Template:USAF]], [[Template:Islamic culture]], [[Template:Cold War]], [[Template:US War on Terror]], [NOTE: these might be drastically different than when originally pointed at as exemplary...]. Just FYI/curiosity as to what might be nominated. —[[User:Quiddity|Quiddity]] ([[User talk:Quiddity|talk]]) 22:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''', per past discussion, and comments in this thread.<br />However, two ways to recognize good template work:
*#Use them as examples in help/guideline pages.
*#Leave talkpage feedback/praise, and give barnstars to individuals.
:HTH. —[[User:Quiddity|Quiddity]] ([[User talk:Quiddity|talk]]) 22:10, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose'''. What is next, featured sentence, or featured word, or featured punctuation? Templates are simply internal features and not something that is ever going to be displayed on the main page as an example of Wikipedia's best work. [[User:Apteva|Apteva]] ([[User talk:Apteva|talk]]) 22:21, 15 November 2012 (UTC)
*:Easy now. There's no good in mocking the idea. It's been suggested many times before, and has a reasonable basis. Templates ''are'' fundamentally distinct entities, that ''could'' be judged on a series of objective&subjective criteria. As the old discussions suggest, it's comparable to asking for a Featured Disambiguation Page, or Featured Category (and equally complicated, and unlikely to ever exist). Templates are not "simply [an] internal feature", they're (usually) part of a gigantic reader-facing topic-navigation-system (with exceptions in meta/parser templates and similar). Plus not all "Featured" items are displayed on the Main Page.<br /> Anyway, please be nice. Sugar vs vinegar, and all that. —[[User:Quiddity|Quiddity]] ([[User talk:Quiddity|talk]]) 01:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' - We need less templates. Let's not glorify them. [[User:Ajraddatz|Ajraddatz]]<small> ([[User Talk:Ajraddatz|Talk]])</small> 02:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' because a template is not content, it's a directory. —<B>[[User:Torchiest|Torchiest]]</B> <sup>[[User talk:Torchiest|talk]]</sup><sub style="margin-left:-3ex;">[[Special:Contributions/Torchiest|edits]]</sub> 14:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
:A portal could be considered as a directory but yet it can be featured? --[[User:J36miles|J36miles]] ([[User talk:J36miles|talk]]) 19:02, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Support'''. Seems like a good idea from an editor standpoint. --[[User:Nouniquenames|<font color="red">No</font>]][[User Talk:Nouniquenames|<font color="green">unique</font>]][[Special:Contributions/Nouniquenames|<font color="blue">names</font>]] 04:46, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' - Templates are utility or convenience tools for editors, not readers. The whole point of featured content is to show all the readers our best encyclopedic work, and only a few would be fascinated by a template with a ParserFunctions hack that performed [[mw:StringFunctions#.23explode:|string splitting]]. <span style="font-family:Euclid Fraktur; background:white;">→[[User:Σ|<font color="#BA0000">Σ</font>]][[User talk:Σ|<font color="#036">σ</font>]][[Special:Contributions/Σ|<font color="#036">ς</font>]]. <small>([[User:Σ|Sigma]])</small></span> 02:54, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' only because it essentially ''discusses internal Wikipedia processes'', and the first rule of <del>fight club</del> is don't talk about <del>fight club.</del> I'm reminded of a notion I (and others, probably) had years ago: '''Featured edit''', in which some particularly high quality article improvement with edit summary is highlighted as Wikipedia best practice. Unfortunately, that's also <del>fight club.</del> --[[User:Lexein|Lexein]] ([[User talk:Lexein|talk]]) 03:35, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Comment'''. Since there are no major policy objections, why not just host a "featured templates" subpage in your userspace? Editors who are interested in the real technical side would be able to read it and contribute, and if it got popular enough, ''then'', perhaps you could re-introduce it as a non-userspace suggestion (but I wouldn't hold your breath on it ever being a main-page section, as cool as I think that could be).''' — <u><font color="#000000">[[User:Francophonie&Androphilie|Francophonie&Androphilie]]</font></u> ''(<u><font color="#000000">[[User talk:Francophonie&Androphilie|Je vous invite à me parler]]</font></u>)''''' 17:37, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' I think templates are useful, but trying to emphasize and promote them is a bad idea. Wikipedia is still about articles. [[User:Shooterwalker|Shooterwalker]] ([[User talk:Shooterwalker|talk]]) 20:34, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' I don't get what could make a template featurable. They're pretty basic and we already have enough of them.--[[User:Astros4477|<span style="color:#FF8C00">'''Astros4477'''</span>]] ([[User talk:Astros4477|<span style="color:#00A550">'''talk'''</span>]]) 20:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' Templates have almost nothing separating each side of their spectrum. If anything, there's [[Wikipedia:Featured topics]]. [[User:Buggie111|Buggie111]] ([[User talk:Buggie111|talk]]) 05:47, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
== Notability across Languages ==
Has data ever been collected in regard to how notability is defined across different languages (therefore cultures)? There are many things that English speakers may consider notable but that other cultures may find insignificant, and vice versa. I'm intrigued to find out if this sort of information can be meaningfully collected, and if it would be in any way insightful.--[[User:Coin945|Coin945]] ([[User talk:Coin945|talk]]) 14:15, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
'''Addendum:''' E.g. if an article is deleted in one language, is it deleted across other langauges? Maybe they all go to AFD, but only some languages agree it should actually be deleted.--[[User:Coin945|Coin945]] ([[User talk:Coin945|talk]]) 14:29, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
* ''In my opinion'' (it would be useful to know if this is shared by Wikipedia policy or not), notability is not something which is limited by geography or language, in the same way that it is [[Wikipedia:NTEMP|not limited by time]]. This gets to the reasoning behind there being language-specific wikipedias; is it because they differ based on notability of topics or to provide knowledge collection/dissemination portals which mate up with how we communicate with one another? "Wikipedia" refers to all of the language-specific 'pedias together, not to each language-specific one in isolation. --User:Ceyockey (<small>''[[User talk:Ceyockey|talk to me]]''</small>) 14:27, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
*:However, each language Wikipedia has their own policies. While of course notability isn't defined by language, one language's Wikipedia may be stricter than another in the what it considers notable in the first place. [[User:Melodia|♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫]] ([[User talk:Melodia|talk]]) 16:57, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
One example: Here, notability is defined by coverage in sources. In Wikipedia in Spanish, the discussions move to discuss if the subject "deserves" being notable or not (which is of course highly subjective, but that's the way things are done in there). In any case, remember that "notability" is ultimately a concept generated by wikipedia for wikipedia, watching but not taken from the real world out there, so the influence of regional cultures is relative. [[User:Cambalachero|Cambalachero]] ([[User talk:Cambalachero|talk]]) 18:41, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
* Is there any collation of what constitutes notability in the different language-wikipedias? A gathering of that information might be quite useful + interesting. --User:Ceyockey (<small>''[[User talk:Ceyockey|talk to me]]''</small>) 13:04, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
The only rule I think we can apply at en.wiki is that if a topic exists as a sourced-based notable topic - even if those sources aren't in English - we would consider it notable here since we don't discriminate based on the language of sources. --[[User:Masem|M<font size="-3">ASEM</font>]] ([[User Talk:Masem|t]]) 18:43, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Tye--[[Special:Contributions/208.104.133.116|208.104.133.116]] ([[User talk:208.104.133.116|talk]]) 01:45, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
:The only case of deleting articles across the different-language Wikipedias, that I know of, is in the case of hoaxes and the like. [[User:Chris857|Chris857]] ([[User talk:Chris857|talk]]) 03:36, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
:: I recall having seen a few instances at Articles for Deletion in which, for example, an article on a Russian magician was deleted on notability grounds on Russian Wikipedia and this effectively triggered a successful challenge on the same basis for the same subject on English Wikipedia. This is not common, however, and the case starts fresh at En-WP — it is not a slam dunk for deletion. [[User:Carrite|Carrite]] ([[User talk:Carrite|talk]]) 15:55, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
== Third thing {{TOCLABEL:reopened}} ==
Text
Wouldn't that be kind of handy? There would likely be all sorts of uses. The technique might need to be restricted to use outside article space only, though, I think. — Hex(❝?!❞) 15:59, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't see why you wouldn't just add the word/phrase if it's really that necessary.... --Izno (talk) 22:25, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Confused; isn't this why the TOC has numbers next to the section titles? Nyttend (talk) 23:04, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
You say "Short of scrolling down the page there's no way to know what the status is of each item". Do you realize that you can click the section title in the TOC to jump there, and click back or ← Backspace to go back to the TOC? Maybe you just misused "scrolling". Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#toc shows an example of actually adding the status to the section title. <span style="display:none">...</span> can be used to achieve what you want, but it has some issues such as changing the anchor so section links from other pages may no longer work. And unlike your example, the whole title looks the same in the TOC. As an example I added a hidden "(open)" to this section title. It is displayed in the TOC. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:46, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi PrimeHunter. I've changed the word "scrolling" to "looking" above as it seems to have confused you. You've missed the whole point, which is that having to repeatedly go up and down the page is not a good use of one's time! Unfortunately your suggestion also doesn't work, because as you note it changes the anchors and so breaks linking. Thirdly, the labels are metadata, not part of the section title; they need to be visually distinct. Having them appear as part of the links will make the TOC harder to read, which contradicts the idea of this feature. Thanks though. — Hex(❝?!❞) 11:05, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Something like this might help at the 3RR noticeboard. We have headers like 'User:Smith reported by User:Jones (Result: )' which are helpful in checking for unclosed cases. As soon as you close the case, and change '(Result: )' to '(Result: 24h)' , you are changing the section header. Any section links you have used to draw attention to the complaint now don't work any more. For example 'WP:AN3#User:Smith reported by User:Jones (Result: )' becomes dead and just becomes a link to the top of the file. EdJohnston (talk) 00:04, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi Ed - yes, exactly! — Hex(❝?!❞) 11:05, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
You use a preload to start sections there so you could generate the whole section title with a subst'ed template which inserts an anchor with the original title. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:28, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
Javascript alternative to attention-getting blocks
Hi, all, after reading this ANI thread, I started wondering why we don't have an alternative to attention-getting blocks. The first thing that I thought of as a way to address this would be a standardized bit of Javascript that could be inserted into the problematic user's common.js page. The current talk banner, while very noticeable to me, might not be so noticeable if someone doesn't know to pay attention to it, and I wonder if either a larger banner (perhaps something with "position:fixed") or a popup like alert() might do the trick a bit better. The idea would be that, when there's a disruptive but possibly good-faith editor who's not responding to their talk page, an admin could try adding this Javascript to their common.js page instead of blocking them, and removing it once the user's acknowledged the talk page. I feel that this would be a better, less bitey alternative to blocking, as it seems like many new users interpret blocks negatively, as evidenced by calling them "bans" (only anecdotal evidence for that, but there are probably diffs for it, if needed). Obviously this wouldn't be a bulletproof solution: it fails for anyone who has Javascript disabled, and there are some editors who would ignore the talk page even if they knew it was there. But I think it could be worth a try. Thoughts? Has anything like this been tried before? Writ Keeper⚇♔ 20:15, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Support it's a bit awkward, but better than a block in this case (I've done some of these before, but feel awful every time). --Rschen7754 20:23, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree completely with Rschen's comments. I won't hesitate to block if necessary, but I'd welcome another alternative, especially in cases such as "this ANI thread" in which someone's apparently editing disruptively but in good faith. Is there a way to implement this idea for all skins simultaneously? I vaguely remember that both JS and CSS only work with a single skin; if you created User:Nyttend/vector.js, I wouldn't get it because I use Monobook. Nyttend (talk) 20:35, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
common.js will work with all skins. --Rschen7754 20:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
(e/c) Beat me to it. And for what it's worth, I agree with Rschen's assessment as well; awkward as hell, but better than what we have now. Open to any and all suggestions for improvements. :) Writ Keeper⚇♔ 20:43, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
If we go with this idea, my first suggestion for improvement is that someone with much more ability than I write up a basic piece of code with "Insert your message here", since I'd have no clue how to implement this. Nyttend (talk) 23:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I already have a few ideas; I'll do some coding. :) Writ Keeper⚇♔ 03:39, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree as well (as a proposer of an attention-getting short block which unfortunately in this case was substituted by an indefinite duration block).--Ymblanter (talk) 20:52, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Support. Would be a useful step in the right direction, I think. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:55, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Support. Anything that makes it easier to tell the difference between incompetence and bad faith is enormously useful. Who hasn't seen a new user, say, file an unblock request on the grounds that "my employer has given me permission to write this," or contest a deletion because "It's true, and you have tons of other articles about bands." We make these very clear explanations to post on their talk pages, but then we often never find out if they even read them. — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 20:58, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Support. When I make them, I rationalise attention-getting blocks by saying to myself "I'm just protecting the encyclopaedia from further disruption" but I know it's sophistry. This would be a welcome addition, increasing our ability to respond flexibly. Kim Dent-Brown(Talk) 22:12, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I would personally be nervous about using a user's .js pages in this fashion. Besides, it is not failproof; some people turn their JS off in their browser settings. --Izno (talk) 00:10, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I wasn't really sure what people would think about editing others' .js pages. It doesn't really bother me particularly, and it certainly makes me less nervous than, y'know, blocking people, but I see where you're coming from. Your second point is an acknowledged flaw, but keep in mind, this isn't supposed to be a barrier for them editing or a replacement for blocking them; my thought is that we can try this first, and if they still don't respond, whether it's because they have JS turned off or they're just deliberately ignoring, then we block them as we would've anyway, and we're no worse off than we have before. I feel like this would give us an alternative to blocking a good chunk of the time, and for the rest, we can still block and we're no worse off. Some positive for little real negative. Writ Keeper⚇♔ 00:58, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Thought (though I still wholeheartedly support this). Just spitballing here, but what about some sort of semi-block that would require users to respond to their messages before editing. This would have to be on the MediaWiki end, obviously, but the way I see it, it would be kind of like pending changes protection, but for blocks - the good-faith version of an anti-bad-faith-editor remedy. The reason I propose this is that it a) could be applied to all users, not just most of them, and b) could have an automated turnoff: The server would unblock the editor as soon as they edited their own talk page, and if their response was something like "fuck you" or "what does this mean," then it would actually be more clear that they were either editing in bad faith (in the first case) or too incompetent to "get it" (in the second case). — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 00:42, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
The downside of that, of course, is that it takes dev resources. A good idea, but a bit heavyweight for what is probably an uncommon case. Writ Keeper⚇♔ 00:58, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm thinking of throwing up a few test cases on http://test.wikipedia.org and seeing what happens. --Rschen7754 01:32, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Looks good as a start. Perhaps we shouldn't display it on the user's talk page, so they don't get confused about which page is the right one? Writ Keeper⚇♔ 04:23, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Questions about the code. Is it possible to have this JS affect pages whose URLs include &action=edit but not other pages? Building off Writ Keeper, would it be possible to exclude user talk pages (not just the talk page for the user viewing the JS, but other users') from the code? And finally, would it be possible for the JS code to work like the SOPA protest thing, i.e. covering the content of the page and leaving a "Please look at your talk page" message? If we can say "yes" to all of the questions, we might basically be able to prevent (not just discourage) these users from editing problematically without impacting their ability to read pages. Nyttend (talk) 04:43, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I believe at least the last two are possible if we get a hold of the SOPA blackout code. --Rschen7754 04:46, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes (there is a Javascript variable wgAction that is the same as the action URL parameter), yes (wgNamespaceNumber == 3 to allow all user talk edits, or wgTitle == "User talk:" + wgUserName) and yes (some annoying ads fall into this category; I have no idea as to how this is done). b:MediaWiki Developer's Handbook/Add JavaScript/Predefined variables gives more information about these variables. MER-C 05:18, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Might also be a good idea to exclude pages with the prefix "Wikipedia:Administrators' Noticeboard/", "Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' Noticeboard/", and "Wikipedia:Village pump", in addition to user talkspace. In any case of admin error, or worse, abuse (though I'm aware that doesn't happen often), you'd need to be able to ask to be un-semiblocked (or whatever it'd be called), or complain if necessary. Also, if we want to make it impossible to get around, it wouldn't hurt to switch the common.js pages from permanently protected to fully protect when deploying it (the difference being that the user wouldn't be able to edit it themselves)... is that possible? — Francophonie&Androphilie(Je vous invite à me parler) 05:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Protection of the common.js page is kind of pointless; if the user knows enough to go there to remove it, then A) we probably shouldn't be using this on them in the first place, and B) they'll probably know enough to just disable Javascript in their browser, which we can't circumvent. Writ Keeper⚇♔ 06:35, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
If the screen stops all editing then that won't happen. Plus, we can use the above variables to stop it from happening. MER-C 08:57, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
For clarity, I meant disabling Javascript through the browser, not through Wikipedia; we can't do anything about that. Writ Keeper⚇♔ 02:53, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I've added the logic to suppress the injection on a user's talk page. --Rschen7754 05:41, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Support Francophonie's idea, but only if it be possible without a ton of work that would impair usability too much. I doubt that we'd need to change the protection on these commons.js pages, since users who haven't started to use talk pages are extremely unlikely to understand .js page properties. Look at me; I've been here for six years and don't yet understand them :-) Nyttend (talk) 06:31, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Support for the above reasons given. Make it take up the entire screen and make the only way to dismiss the message is to go to the user talk page. MER-C 05:18, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Support - If multiple messages on the user talk page go ignored or unseen (such as the case in the linked ANI) then this seems like the best way of getting the users attention. I would suggest perhaps two levels. The first is automatically removed after the user visits their talk page and clicks a link (i.e. a banner over all mainspace pages with a link to their talk page where a button to remove the banner resides). That way it simply guides the user to their talk page, highlighting the efforts of other editors to contact them. If that fails then a second tier banner that requires an admin to manually remove. If the user ignores the first banner, the second can be deployed. The second should probably be more intrusive also as they have had a fair warning already. Cabe6403(Talk•Sign) 14:12, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Support Although I'd like it even better if we could create a floating editnotice for these people. One that would appear only for them on any mainspace page they'd try to edit. Or, we can resort to putting up an en with "Hey XXX!, Yeah, XXX!" "There are messages on your talk page. Go and respond to them, now! Else you run the risk of being blocked for an indefinite period of time." This editnotice could be colored purple with yellow polka-dots and jumping bunnies.Buggie111 (talk) 05:39, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Support: I'm the one who started the ANI thread over one non-communicator, and asked if this attention-getting banner would be workable. I cover a number of areas that get a lot of non-native English speaking editors; speaking as someone who edits outside my native language too, your attention gets pretty focused on what you're immediately reading/typing, so noticing that small "messages" banner is probably even less intuitive for folks focused on parsing out a language. As Wikipedia continues to gain popularity in South Asia and in Africa in areas where English is a common second-language, a non-Bitey "shot across the bow" to gain the attention of well-meaning folks would be a useful tool. I'll also second the two-tier approach (will save admins a lot of time when tier 1 does the trick) as well as prominently featuring the username at the top of the warning. Formatting it to not look like spam or an ad pop-up should also be key in design. MatthewVanitas (talk) 16:41, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Support: But just to be clear, this capability would be restricted to an admin level or above action, right? And also, if the link takes them to their user talk page, could it take them to the bottom of the page, or indicate somehow that they should respond at the bottom. Our whole top-to-bottom way of formatting threads is not all that common or intuitive to new users (at least, it wasn't to me at first). Ditch ∝ 17:14, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Editing other people's common.js pages requires admin permissions, so yes, only admins would have the technical ability to carry it out. And we could mention bottom posting briefly in the message, I suppose. We can make the link just go to the bottom section, that shouldn't be too bad. Writ Keeper⚇♔ 17:57, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to introduce the Template:Version template to Wikipedia with the goal to establish one standard for version history tables (or lists). It simplifies creation of release histories, standardizes release stages and makes the content more accessible.
Please comment on the template talk page (there already is some discussion). Thanks for your contribution. Jesus Presley (talk) 04:20, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
1000 DYK Medal
User: Dr Blofeld is about to pass this milestone. It deserves a suitable medal. Someone needs to design it, if they haven't already. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 19:57, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Of course, depending on where and when, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. OTOH, these or those are becoming scarcer all the time, and might appeal to collectors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:50, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Jimbo says he wouldn't mind your 1000th DYK being memorialized on the front page as its own DYK. See here. I'm sure some our DYK friends can make this happen. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 14:10, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
"The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is the fastest car of 2013." My word, that is fast, isn't it. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:30, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Proposed shortcut for disambiguation links
To link to the proper John Smith, we link, for example, to John Smith (explorer). But in a wikiarticle, we usually don't want the (explorer) to show, so we set the link to John Smith (explorer)|John Smith (all in double square brackets, of course). I suggest creating a notation of John Smith {explorer}, with curly brackets (braces), for use in the link instead. On display, the {...} part would not show, but on clicking the link, the reader would be directed to the proper John Smith (explorer) article.--BillFlis (talk) 13:50, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
We already have the pipe trick where typing [[John Smith (explorer)|]] will save as [[John Smith (explorer)|John Smith]]. A new syntax in the saved text is unneeded and would cause confusion. It would require changes to the MediaWiki software and a large number of programs which process wikitext. Don't mess with compatibility without good reason. MediaWiki versions are powering thousands of other wikis than Wikipedia. Wikitext is often copied directly between them. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:09, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I didn't now yet - very handy. Jesus Presley (talk) 16:15, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Nice hack! Be sure I'll use it a lot now. Thanks! --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:30, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Concise wikipedia proposal
Made a proposal at here for a concise edition of wikipedia which is formatted much like an old book encyclopedia with the bare main facts and a smallish word limit for articles as a reference point. Can't imagine all would support, but any input from anybody would be warmly welcome. The idea is for a general reference which is consistently of similar short length and quality and providing the most important facts without having to scan huge articles to retrieve them as leads on articles are very inconsistent. Please discuss there rather than here. ♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld 20:20, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm doing a Portal about car racing in the Spanish-language Wikipedia with 130 selected articles on drivers, 52 on teams, 52 on circuits, 52 on races and 26 on championships. The selections are concise (at least I tried). That could be useful. But I wouldn't do a separate project. I'd prefer the article introduction to play that role. --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:24, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
A sitewide commitment to lead and intro improvement would be more practical, IMO. An undertaking like the one mentioned in the proposal might be feasible, I guess, if it were done on a WikiProject-by-WikiProject basis, though there are many WikiProjects that are either defunct or dying. dci | TALK 01:20, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I will duplicate these at the requested location
Anna Huberta Roggendorf
Perhaps a page could be created for this entry?
Gertrude Roggendorf, in religion, Sr. Anna Huberta, was born as the second of eight children July 31 1909 in the former mining town of Mechernich in the Eifel region of Germany bordering Belgium. At 17 she entered the Congregation of the Daughters of the Cross of Liège, a sisterhood founded by the Belgians Fr. Habet & Sr. Jean Haze. After a 2 years novitiate, Gertrude Roggendorf took her first vows, taking the name Anna Huberta in religion. For some time she worked in Münster, Westphalia, in a children's home. In 1932 Anna Huberta was sent to India at the age of 23. After her eternal vows in 1934, she was made head of the St. Catherine's Home, an orphanage for girls in Bombay, then completely rundown. St. Catherine's was founded by Ida Dickenson in 1922, but when she could no longer manage it, she handed it over to the Archbishop of Bombay, who called in the Daughters of the Cross of Liège in 1927 to manage the Home. The Home moved location several times until it found its present location on a plot of land donated in Andheri. Over several years, Anna Huberta built up the St. Catherine's Home from the grassroots into a caring home housing about 1,000 girls. To give orphans and foundlings a legal status, Anna Huberta adopted thousands of them. At the beginning of the 1940s, Anna Huberta delegated responsibility to the older children for the education of the younger children. Some of these girls approached Anna Huberta with the request to be formed into a religious congregation to help her with her work and to perpetuate her mission under the motto, "A life for love." On March 27, 1942 the first members took the vows forming the Society. The members of the Society trained as nurses and as healthcare volunteers. Sr Anna Huberta Roggendorf died of lung cancer on July 5, 1973 in Shraddha Vihar, the first Motherhouse of the Society in Bombay.
The Society of the Helpers of Mary, about 300 strong, operate several facilities worldwide, such as orphanages and homes for derelict and abandoned children, leprosy homes, homes for HIV victims, Aged Homes, etc.
In the Bombay Metropolitan Region, these include the "Ma Niketan" (Mother House) on Pokhran Road in Thane, built on land donated by Ms Diwaliben Mohanlal Mehta and the extensive Mukta Jeevan Ashram (Free Life) in Vehloli near Vashind.
I have responded to this request at the poster's IP talk page. Note that this is probably not the best place for such a post. dci | TALK 01:17, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Idea for Wikipedia Community - Create an Interactive Map of Human History
Wiki info@ told me to post here as they don't answer direct emails (understandable) so here it goes...
I'm reaching out to you all as you're the pioneers and now experts of open-source information sharing/building... and this idea would need massive effort (probably help from Google, Apple or another tech company). I'm starting with you all as I hope, if the idea has any merit, I'll have a better chance of generating some interest, than the 100's or 1000's of people working on countless other things over at the tech development companies. So the idea...
The Human History Project
The shortest way I can describe it would be a completely interactive map of the world that would display the history of recorded human events. It would have a sliding time bar that would move forwards and backwards in recorded history. Depending on the level of detail (and I propose that detail be ALL history) this would almost be like mapping the human history genome. It's such a massive project I think it would need to be broken down into stages...
Stage 1 -
I'm thinking of a fairly simple interactive Google Maps program. The default map would be today's world, today's political/national borders with a timeline at the bottom of the screen. The user would be able to control the timeline, drag it from today back to the origins of history. Maybe for stage 1, the timeline is set at every hundred years... or on significant shifts of national borders (major wars of expansion). On the global scale the map would be almost a blur as tribes become city states and then kingdoms and eventually empires and nations. It might look like this, but with the whole world and dating back to the origins of time and the user has full control over the timeline, able to move it forward and backwards - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ievGPT-FaSY
Stage 2 -
You can zoom in to any continent, region, all the way down to individual city states or tribal lands. This is where the map/global/tool really takes off... and will need an immense amount of help and coordination between programming and history/archaeology folks. This will add a lot of detail. The controllable timeline will also need to be reduced from 100's of years to something closer to 5-10 years.
Stage 3 - (final stages begin, incredible complexity)
Much deeper... now that you've zoomed into very very minute areas, there are date-stamped articles on all of the major historical events of the time/geography.... EVERYTHING. The timeline is now reduced down to days (would work on a changeable scale in case you just want major events. You can set the time slide-bar to days and then see "Declaration of Independence Signed" pop up on July 4, 1776 and it links several article (Wikipedia, academic sites, books, etc) all on the subject... move it forward and you get all of the battles of the War of Independence. Move forward to 1885, say April 15th and you see a flag pop up saying Lincoln was assassinated. Now extrapolate this detail to all over the world. Every nation, kingdom, city state that ever existed. Everywhere. The Map would be offering up flags practically every day in recorded history, and everywhere.
This could also work to show a very different or unique view of human history. For example... the user moves the timeline forward and sees that China develops gunpowder around 800 AD, at the same time Charlemagne has united France and expanded its borders to include all of modern day Italy... and Teotihuacan, a once proud, powerful and perhaps the most influential city state in Americas, mysteriously falls or fades away (and rises again as the heart of the Aztec empire).
This would add very different perspective all historical events.
Stage 4 – (Massive, possibly impossible detail... but never doubt open source, right?)
You can zoom in on individual cities. The timeline now links to the significant news of the each date, perhaps citing or linking to scanned/archived newspapers for that particular city (or whatever recorded information that was the accepted historical record for that location at that time). This might be a pipedream (probably is)… but with an open source project, shoot for impossible and end up with something like Wikipedia, the most comprehensive, evolving and updating encyclopedia in human history. This project would be putting the information that we already have into full motion and making it geographically relevant and increasing its accessibility in a whole new way.
This could also, potentially, make every history text book ever written obsolete (if Wiki hasn't done that already).
So that's the rough sketch. I'm not expecting a response, but I figured I'd shoot for the moon here. I'd be happy to just to see if something like this is already in the works. Keep up the great work and thank you for your time.
-Hokie200proof
An interesting idea. If I understand correctly, the map could feature modern topography and political divisions, which would then be replaced by more historic boundaries as one moves a timeline slider backward? It would certainly be ambitious, and I am not sure if the WP community will be quick to respond, but it is truly an interesting idea for a project. A collaborative effort between WP and Google would be rather fascinating to see. By the way, if you are a user, I'd suggest signing using four WP:tildes, which is standard. Thanks for your ideas. dci | TALK 00:14, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
That's definitely a future many people are working towards. Filter all knowledge, by the Five Ws. Sliders for scale and depth. Connections to everything, with a smooth zoom to each new piece of the puzzle. Infinite canvas, plus map(s). Toggleable layers, for everything.
Wikidata will probably be a core component, of whatever this community works towards.
I would love to see more listed and/or summarized, and to know what is currently the state-of-the-art? —Quiddity (talk) 08:06, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Are there any other/related projects, that anyone can point us towards? Is there a commonname, or a distinct set of keywords, for this Map+Timeline+Database style of project? –Quiddity (talk) 20:57, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Google uses the basic idea in Google Earth, using a slider to go back in time. I've thought of a similar idea before. This could get way larger than anything that's been done before, especially if you include DCI's idea of a Wikimedia/Google collaboration. It is true though that it would be hard to get the ball rolling on something this big. Maybe we need a vote, but this idea may be good enough to push to the Foundation or even Jimmy himself if we flesh it out a little more. I know from the SOPA/PIPA blackout that Jimmy is very open to talking to editors directly about important topics. Zephalis (talk) 06:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
It's been a while I was thinking of exactly the same project. And now I find that it is more expedient to make it simplier. I mean not using the Google maps, but make a general map which is gonna change depending on the time line.
So here is my vision:
1) there is a time scroll
2) there is a zoom scroll
and what has not been said:
3) there is a general map of the world in "point of time X" where each country and each city name has a link, so by clicking on the country you go to this article, which contains a more detailed map of the country. Though what happens to the map is simply automaticaly zooming it in. Then clicking let's say on the city name, you get to the city article.
4) watching a map you can change the time period and the map will change respectively.
5) so basicaly the quantity of the maps depends on how many changes occured during the whole period of time. Adding a new city means creating a new map and locating it in it's time. Though the serious changes of the maps will not be that much... not more than 100 hundred I suppose and mostly they will be located in the ancient epoch.
The open (technical) question is: how are we going to draw the maps, because there should be a better option to mark the borders and cities. Though if no ideas appear, at least we can use some internet available maps like a basis, change them "by hand" if it is neccesary and then upload then to edit in the wikipedia.
For this a "map creating/changing facility" should be created and this doesn't actually seem to be a mass. I've already got some sketches. Whom they should be addressed to? Is there an option to upload them here? or ...?
Does anyone know what is the next step to move this project forward?
Joy Dorien (talk) 01:49, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
This section and the essay is a result of previous discussions held at The Village Pump. The prior discussion is worth reading to add some extra context. It shows initial thinking and how that thinking has moved on as a direct result of that discussion
This is a topic that concerns me. I'm raising it here to see if the community will visit WIkipedia:Cyberbullying, an essay I created some time ago, but whose relevance has been re-emphasised by the Suicide of Amanda Todd. My purpose in raising it in this forum is to ask editors to read the essay, to massage it into a suitable shape for becoming a policy or at least a guideline, and to then formalise it as such.
It should be clear to all that, though I drafted it I am not wedded to any of the words or thoughts in it. I'm hoping very much to get it more exposure and to bring wiser eyes than mine to bear on the issue. Far better than feedback here is feedback and substantive editing there, though some messages here to keep this current for a while and prevent early archival would be useful. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 23:01, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I don't think it needs to be raised to the level of policy. Cyberbullying behavior is dealt with under our civility guidelines, and especially when it becomes personal attacks or persistent harassing behavior, we have plenty of admins willing to give out long blocks. Wikipedia is rare among general public websites in that it actually has capable enforcement to prevent cyberbullying. As an aside, if you want to talk about protecting children on Wikipedia, I recommend speaking with Alison, who feels quite strongly about the issue and is a rather powerful/influential member of the community. Sven ManguardWha? 23:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
I think you may be missing some of the point. I am not particulalry interested in whether people are blocked, nor whether children on Wikipedia are protected. Those are matters handled very well elsewhere, and are a intersecting set with this issue. What concerns me is that people use Wikipedia to bully those who may or may not be editors here. I am happy to draw it to the attention of the user you suggest, and thank you for that suggestion. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 00:15, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree with you Fiddle Faddle, the almost random enforcement of civility on Wikipedia does very little to absolutely nothing about the subtle issue of cyberbullying in general (unless its ridiculously obvious). Editors can almost always get away with bullying on Wikipedia as long as they do not use profane or offensive words. Admins typically advise bullied users to just ignore the abuse until it magically goes away. I do indeed think a policy is in order and I commend your efforts. Stay strong, I predict that you will be told by many, many people that your initiative in this regard is not needed. ~ GabeMc(talk|contribs) 00:49, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
The issue is a difficult one. If folk have never seen the effects or experienced it for themselves, they tend to consider it a non topic. If they have seen it they are usually correctly horrified. The first camp is unable to handle the issue because it is alien to them. The second camp is often repulsed by it and can do nothing. The thing I hope people will understand is that Wikipedia can be used as a tool with which to bully people, people who are not even editors here. Blocking folk is fine as far as it goes, but that means nothing to the real victim, who doesn't care about our arcane processes for warning and eventually blocking someone for a few days, weeks or months. The victim is readying the rope and tying the noose. I am hoping for something concrete and constructive that cuts right to the heart of the matter, nips the perpetration in the bud in the real life of the perpetrator, and somehow gives comfort to the victim that something has been done and they are not helpless.
This stuff is subtle, insidious and really nasty. And we do not have, at present, any manner of being any good at handling the problem. "My" essay is wholly imperfect. Even when the community has worked on it it will be imperfect, but it will be a start. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 01:01, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Fiddle Faddle, I'm confused by "people use Wikipedia to bully those who may or may not be editors here". How can you use WP to bully someone who's not a WP editor? "Willy on Wheels is a ____" won't have any effect simply because he's not here anymore. Not challenging what you say; I'm simply not sure what you mean. Nyttend (talk) 04:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Let me attempt to clarify matters. I think we should set Willy on Wheels aside, though as a notorious piece of Wikipedia history.
Wikipedia is much used in education, often during lessons, as a tool to learn how to research, to use the internet wisely (unwisely?), and as a vehicle to learn how to create co-operatve projects. Homework is researched here despite our being 100% certain that we are not the end source for research. In short, kids use the site, and use it a lot.
We see edits here from time to time, sometimes during lessons, that victimise a particular named individual, the person I have styled in the essay as John Victim. We tend to revert them on sight, often issuing warnings, sometimes blocking the editor, usually IP only. That is good practice, but simply addresses the evidence of the bullying, for bullying it is, and not the outcome. We, sitting in our offices, studies bedrooms, living rooms, hotel rooms, as experienced (or inexperienced) WP editors, have absolutely no idea what is going in in John Victim's life, and can quite reasonably consider that we don't care. And we do not always have to care, nor do all of us have to care.
For those of us who care, whatever our reasons for caring, we need to know how to proceed, how to focus our care into a positive outcome. We need to know what we should do next when taking personal responsibility for acting, and at what point we should consider this to be, for example, a credible threat of personal harm and alert the WMF emergency email hotline.
Returning to John Victim, I hope the essay covers what his state of mind may or may not be. Reading the suicide of Amanda Todd one can see how cyberbullying plus her own actions and state of mind drove her to suicide. This makes me wonder if I've been able to explain how Wikipedia may be used for cyberbullying in this short answer to you. It's also not the talk pages that really concern me, but main article namespace with sniping attacks, even ones that are removed fast, perhaps even removed by the person placing them. I'm not unduly concerned about protecting editors here. We have things that do that job. I'm concerned about how material placed here affects those not here.
There is a similarity with Biographies of Living Persons, an area where we are fast, at least in theory, to remove potential libels. But we remove those from articles about the living person. There we have done our job by doing so. But, when someone attacks John Victim in (say) an article about a school chemistry project relevant topic, we have no way of following through.
I'm clear that every editor will not want to follow through, too. This is for those who see the need to follow through, or choose to make it their part time duty. The great majority of our folk here have no interest at all in such matters.
Have I come anywhere near answering your question? Fiddle Faddle (talk) 10:04, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
You have; I previously thought you meant schoolchildren who were editing. Basically, Jane Victim writes "John Victim is a ___" on some random page (although more likely the article about the school or other thing nearby) and makes sure that it's seen by John or some of their mutual acquaintances before we remove it? I've not come across this very often, but at least once I've followed your advice and emailed the Whois institution. Perhaps we should note that Whoisn't always accurate, even when it comes to these matters; 137.86.162.138, which was the "at least once", is registered to the Wyoming Community College Commission, but it was actually a kid in elementary school. I'm leaning toward supporting what you're proposing. This type of bullying is definitely vandalism, and even if we ignore the real-life issues at stake (and I'm not suggesting that we should), we can view your proposal as a means of vandal-fighting. Meanwhile, I agree that we can perform a kind of public service by following your proposal. Just please don't attempt to have it made policy; we wouldn't have any good reason to penalise an editor who doesn't make such a report. Nyttend (talk) 14:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I am unconcerned about the 'strength' of instrument we make it. I assume you would wish to aim for a guideline, since one must allow editors to walk away from a situation like this if that is what they prefer to do, and to walk away unworried by any feelings of some potential sanction against them for so doing. Such sanctions must not exist. Indeed, were they to exist they create their own climate for cyberbullying! Were this concept/process, call it what you will, to be some sort of level of mandatory then some of the joy goes out of being here and being part of this. I'd certainly hope we can elevate it beyond being a simple essay and the community can take ownership of it and create something even more appropriate than my initial work.
Yes, you have now a perfect understanding of an imperfect situation. And you see clearly that what we perceive as vandalism can easily be perceived by others as sufficient bullying to cause them to self harm. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 15:42, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
There have been some extremely useful and sensitive edits made so far. Those who have read the initial draft are likely to find the current state somewhat altered and to their interest. It;s easy to see how, as the initial drafter, I had a reasonable idea but was standing far too close to it to bring it towards completion. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 08:47, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
This is good stuff. I support this discussion and this effort. I hope we will continue to make basic human dignity a cornerstone of all of our policies that touch on the lives of people, whether readers, editors, or neither.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:00, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I like this essay. We could add it to the welcome messages to guide editors away from writing articles that could cause problems like those described. I think it's a step forward from the {{BLP}} tags on the talk page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I think I would not shy away from writing articles that are relevant here under any circumstances, though I approve of your caution. The BLP area is well covered, and I think we do not need to add it to that area at all. The people who are the general target of cyberbullying are not usually notable enough to warrant articles. The bullying is almost a 'drive by attack' placed transiently in an article, usually removed on sight as vandalism by editors here, but potentially not before it has done damage. Nyttend has it very clear earlier in this thread. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 18:23, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I smell guideline creep. There are already Verifiability requirements for Biographies of Living People. There are already behavioral guidelines for harassment of other editors. There is already policy and strict enforcement for vandalistic and defamatory editing. We don't need to sit around a campfire and sing "Kumbaya" with a 3,000 word essay, these matters are already addressed and resolved under Wikipedia's vast set of guidelines and policies, in my opinion. Carrite (talk) 15:49, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I think you may be missing almost the entire point. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 18:17, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Timtrent, I must say I admire your patience with the missing the point of your essay by seemingly a good 50% of people that read it! As a minor side point, if it really is pushing 3000 words in length, it's probably more because I added to it my thoughts on possible problems with reacting to incidents in the way your original draft recommended. I'll try and add some brevity to my additions tonight, if I get chance.
I think your salient point is that we are treating things by default as "just run of the mill vandalism", that we should be treating by default as "could be cyber-bullying". (After all, "John is gay" added to a random page about photosynthesis or common U.S. civics topics is not covered by any current policy or guideline about "defamatory editing".) The implications of treating these things differently start with a possible impact on the workload of the oversight team, so I'll mention it to them as well.
I disagree with Carrite's opinion that all of this is currently "resolved" by existing policy and guideline, even if I have my doubts as to how exactly that should be fixed. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 21:04, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I think the only way to help those who miss the point is to exercise patience. They exemplify the fact that we 'live' in a protected bubble when editing Wikipedia on a regular basis. We shoot down vandalism on sight and think we have done the full job. And we may have! We remove BLP violations and have, probably done the full job. What we fail to look at is the real world implications of what happens here.
You have grasped the salient point. And your edits to the essay have, probably, improved it substantially. I think that is not for me to judge them, but I am grateful that the community is starting to own it rather than my mothering it. Now I can say I fathered it! Fiddle Faddle (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I have been known to revdelete some of the things you talk about if I feel it was a result of cyberbullying. Cyberbullying can be distinguished from the run of the mill "Foo is gay" sorts of vandalism. It often is posted over a string of pages that are related to one local area. I have doubts about if the examples that you posted fall under the OS policy and I have further doubts that it run of the mill vandalism is worth the extra effort of removing from public view. I do not think that we should alert schools unless there is a long term problem. --Guerillero | My Talk 21:41, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
I understand where you are coming from, and I applaud your revdeletion of some of the things. I understand your thoughts on spotting a trend. Might you consider editing the essay to reflect this area?
The point in time when we should consider contacting a school is hard to determine. Thank you for pointing that out. Again, in the essay, might you consider adding the basis of your thinking for when the tipping point is reached? Fiddle Faddle (talk) 22:31, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately, with the Fae case, cyberbullying pretty much became a legitimate, perhaps the most important tool of Wikipedia policy making. We give someone no slack at all for being taunted repeatedly and incessantly for their participation, and any attempt they make to preserve their privacy from the taunters is grounds for an indefinite ban. For most Wikipedia participants, the only useful advice to be given now is to zealously safeguard their anonymity - to abstain from campaigns for offices which by right belong to the bullies and their enablers, to avoid using free programs for access to resources like Highbeam, to spurn campaigns for donation or events like Wikimania, to strip EXIF data from all uploaded photos (even though this is grounds for deletion of anything controversial) and avoid uploads of anything too personal, etc.
Nonetheless, in the narrow context of school bullying, we can thwart a few threat models which do not have any political clout. For example, a school bully only needs to put up "XX XX is YY" type insults as vandalism in some backwater article, and people searching for that person's name will see it; mission accomplished. You could have an automated script look for the XX XX or even some of the more juvenile YYs that rarely come up in encyclopedic contexts. Wnt (talk) 15:19, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
The Fae case was more than deeply unpleasant. Our policies here are meant to protect people such as Fae and appeared not to in the smallest way. I;d like to leave that aside in this discussion, but only because we are meant to have ways of protecting editors such as Fae. So I feel it is out of scope here in many ways, though a useful example of what can go horribly wrong.
I like your approach with a BOT concept. Are you able to develop that and consider adding this good suggestion to the essay;s talk page in order that it is forever associated with the essay? Fiddle Faddle (talk) 19:39, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
That's not even remotely what the Fae...an abusive editor who got precisely what he deserved...case was about. Wnt is a vocal friend/supporter of Fae, and his take on the matter is about as slanted as one can get. Regular editors such as myself and many others who did not want to see LGBT themes in every obscure article they could get their hands on were the ones that needed protection. Tarc (talk) 19:21, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
That is why I want to leave it aside. Please let us stay on topic. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 19:37, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Er, you don't get to go off-topic and then demand others don't follow, I'm afraid, especially when blatant mistruths ("Fae needed to be protected from cyberbullies") are uttered. Tarc (talk) 22:14, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
Reading through the essay, I don't think it is suitable to be a guideline in its current form. First, it is important to be clear that editors are expected to follow guidelines. While failing to follow a guideline is not likely to be immediately actionable as a user conduct issue, an editor who regularly fails to follow a guideline without good cause is going to criticized, and continued failure to follow it will likely end up being treated as an actionable user conduct issue. The second issue is that the essay provides insufficient guidance on what need not be treated as bullying. Cyberbullying can be a really bad thing, and can cause very real harm, but at the same time, I don't think it is reasonable to treat every act of vandalism that names an individual as a full on case of cyberbullying. There are I think 3 ways to handle that; first the essay could be changed to include factors to distinguish cyberbullying from ordinary vandalism, second the essay could not try to define cyberbullying and focus only on how to respond once an editor decides that conduct is cyberbullying using what ever metrics they judge appropriate, or third, it could remain an essay. An essay can still be extremely influential without being formally elevated to guideline. Monty845 18:05, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
This is valuable input, thank you. I'm open to all ideas that bring this to the community's attention and allow us to consider any action we take. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 19:31, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
This is really much ado about nothing. If an editor is harassing another editor, deal with it under the policies currently in place. Stop the instruction creep. Tarc (talk) 19:21, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm afraid it is painfully obvious that you failed to understand the topic under discussion. We already have sufficient processes to deal with the area about which you speak. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 19:31, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
I'm afraid it is painfully obvious that you are crafting a solution in search of a problem. Tarc (talk) 22:12, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
The thing is, there is a problem, though a relatively small one here in the global scheme of things compared with sites like Facebook. The problem is nothing to do with editors harassing other editors. That area we have processes to deal with. I don't mind if you don't get it, not at all. The problem I am looking at is the use of Wikipedia to bully or harass those not part of what one might loosely call 'the Wikipedia family' of editors. Now this is only important for those for whom it is important. Those who do not, can not or will not see the issue need be unconcerned because it will not affect them in any negative manner, nor require or cause them to do anything to which they are averse. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 00:48, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
I think this is a case where the heart is in the right place, but I'm not sure that there is any means to enforce the process outlined in the page. Remember that Wikipedia is entirely run by volunteers. If a volunteer runs across an example you have listed as cyberbullying, we have no means to compel them to follow the procedure you have outlined. Are we going to sanction editors who simply revert and do nothing further? Again, what you describe may be an ideal way to handle the situation, but codifying it as guideline or policy implies that we expect editors to follow it unless then can explain specifically why they shouldn't, and I'm not sure that we can do that for something like this. --Jayron32 13:07, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
I would be most unhappy with compulsion of editors to do anything. What I hope to achieve is to give them a template which they may choose to follow, one that allows them the absolute freedom not to act, but shows them what to do and what to consider when acting. If making it a guideline, surely a loose definition in itself, compelled folk to act that would be a shame. I do not believe that it is mandatory to follow a guideline, since it is just that, a guideline. If it must remain as an essay, so be it. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 17:35, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
tiny edit to keep this ftom being archived for a few more days and to get more input. Fiddle Faddle (talk) 15:42, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
I think everything has been said that needs to be said. This proposal has its heart in the right place, but there's no way to actually enforce it beyond what we already do. It's fine as an essay, but there's no point in making it a guideline, much less policy. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:31, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Bureaucrat rights discussion
I have started a RFC regarding allowing bureaucrats to remove the bureaucrat bit, and regarding the regranting of the bureaucrat bit (to bring it into line with the recently-passed policies for administrators). Please see Wikipedia talk:Bureaucrats#2012 bureaucrats RFC. --Rschen7754 01:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Deprecetation of the {{peacock}} template?
Hey, I was just thinking that the {{peacock}} template should be deprecated because it basically means the same thing as the {{advert}} template. Articles that are written like an advertisement usually contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting identifiable information (which is what Wikipedia's "peacock" policy means). So, instead of the {{advert}} template looking like this:
Right, we should keep {{peacock-inline}} because it will be needed so that editors can place it in the specific points in articles where there are peacock terms. The new {{advert}} will let other editors know that the article is written like an advertisement and contains peacock terms. Therefore, they will start looking for areas in the article with the {{peacock-inline}} tag and start doing their work. Interlude 65 21:01, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps {{puffery}} should be repurposed to mean the same thing; it's unlikely that most people adding the tag are solely referring to WP:Wikipuffery. — Arthur Rubin(talk) 09:09, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, the {{puffery}} template should also be deprecated; it pretty much means the same thing as the {{advert}} and {{peacock}} templates. Interlude 65 21:56, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
Pro Support. Maybe a parameter can be added to the {{advert}} template to specify how the article disqualifies, thus hinting to peacock terms, puffery and/or actual advert articles written by affiliates with the subject.
Oppose whilst there is an overlap it is not complete. It is certainly possible for fans to write an article using peacock terms without the article itself being spam - there may in fact be nothing connected that is commercially traded. we have two groups of editors here, those who deliberatly or otherwise are trying to use Wikipedia as free advertising, and those who haven't yet grasped NPOV. Having different templates enables us to communicate the appropriate messages to those two distinct groups of people. Also the proposed composite template is significantly longer and therefore more intrusive. ϢereSpielChequers 16:10, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Maybe a rewrite of the "peacock" template is in order; there is lots of "peacock" language which isn't strictly advertising. Maybe some alternate wording would help rather than deprecation. --Jayron32 16:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. Agree with WereSpielChequers on this on. Articles by fans can be written with a lot of peacockery without any real intention of advertising. And adverts can be written with no peacockery. I think both templates serve a specific role, and when they do overlap, just using advert is fine. Puffery on the other hand seems like the blend of the two and probably can be deprecated. — HELLKNOWZ ▎TALK 17:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. The {{advert}} template implies that the article attempts to portray a product or company that sells those products in a subjective manner, and it seems to be limited to those two subjects. On the other hand, {{peaock}} is just a general statement about language used, not pointing out anything specific such as products. The overlap seems minimal; and if anything, {{advert}} should be merged into {{peacock}}. CharmlessCoin (talk) 17:13, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
All of the details can be found at the BRFA and I'm looking for consensus here on this task. Thanks. Thine Antique Pen (talk) 15:20, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
This is about changing ==Sources== to ==References== in articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:09, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Standardization of U.S. Supreme Court case articles
P.S. I tried advertising this discussion at Template:Centralized discussion, but the entry was rejected. If anyone knows of other places where this discussion should be advertised, please let me know or feel free to post there yourself!
Did you post to the main WT:MOS page? Did you start a style RFC? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Making Wikipedia earn Money
Hi,
I would like to propose a solution as I think the content as it is currently available should remain free and the same, BUT wikipedia should be more independent from donations.
we should have an interactive way of accessing this content in a members section: more intuitive, accessible and fun to go navigate around or to download content. This section would be available through a monthly membership fee.
I have a few ideas on how to make this happen, let me know if you're interested!
That'd kinda kill the whole "free encyclopedia" deal. The site is as intuitive and accessible as everyone can agree on and as coding allows. Downloading content is already not a problem: see the "print/export" bar on the left hand side of the page. To charge for what should be a free improvement would be unethical.
If, however, you have ideas on how to improve the site as a free site, we'd like to hear them. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:11, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Hey, Hadrien, thanks for the idea! I can only speak for myself, of course, but I think I can safely say that this wouldn't go over so well with the broader editing community. One of the principles that Wikipedia was founded on is the idea of free-as-in-freedom; restricting people's access to content or features doesn't align with that principle. Plus, the idea of separate "classes" of editors is one that the community already decries, and I think that introducing a concrete separation between "free" and "premium" members is only going to make that worse. Not to mention that that means the Wikimedia Foundation (which dirves the development of Wikipedia's software and receives the donations) would have to devote a large portion of their current resources into developing it, at the expense of the encyclopedia proper. So, thanks for the thought, but I don't think it would work. Writ Keeper⚇♔ 16:14, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi guys! I see what you are saying. No worries.. Well the ideas I had in mind were more in the targeting of the information which the user is looking for. Here we just have a search bar. Why not have a tool where you can scroll and select Years or period / domain (litterature, music, art, history, science etc) / geographic location (as narrow as a town and as wide as the world).
The system would then pull all of the information corresponding to your search. This would serve for presentations, research, etc.
Let me know what you think!
Hadrien
Why not make that free for all? Also, that would be hard to implement. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 20:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
You're free to make a separate site that does what you propose, and even charge for it, so long as you follow all licenses. But that would completely external to Wikipedia. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I think it would be a great idea, and it should be workable, especially when Wikidata comes around. It might be better to discuss it on WP:Village pump (technical) or even at meta
Support per Hadrien. My idea of premium is "logged-in users", and my idea of free is "anon IPs". Gotta get to TVTropes. YellowPegasus (talk • contribs) 23:50, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Usonian Vs. American
Thank you for your suggestion, but since "American" is the commonly used term, it's the one we'll use. – PhilosopherLet us reason together. 20:13, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
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.
Dear Sirs,
I am one of the many readers that enjoys enormously your webpage and I deeply thank for the monumental effort you have done developing such a knowledge source.
Although widely spread and even accepted by many, there is a mistake when referring to people or events of the United States. On most articles it is used the word American which literally means from America (the continent)
instead of USONIAN, which is the correct word when referring to an event, person or place from the United States . American is to the American continent as Asian is to the Asia and European is to Europe.
Certainly, all Usonians are Americans but not all Americans are Usonians. Hope this note can help to improve even more the quality of Wikipedia.
No one ever, ever uses Usonian. Ever. Even you. --Golbez (talk) 16:23, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi Alberto, American also means citizen of the United States and is most commonly used.
a·mer·i·can/əˈmerikən/
Noun:
A native or citizen of the United States— Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.244.217.50 (talk • contribs)
I'm from the United States, and I've never heard the word "Usonian" before. I do understand that "American" can refer to anyone or anything from the Americas North and South, but "Usonian" is not something applied to the US in general. Looking into it and finding the article Usonia, the word appears to only be a pet peeve of Frank Lloyd Wright, and not any actual common parlance except when describing select houses Wright made. Ian.thomson (talk) 16:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
I've only heard of USAian as an alternative. Though estadounidense in Spanish actually works well unlike most English attempts. Chris857 (talk) 16:48, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
"Usono" is Esperanto for the United States of America, and "Usonano" is Esperanto for what most of my fellow citizens of the U.S.A. persist in referring to as an "American". "Usonia" was, as has been stated, Wright's coinage, and has no other common useage. --Orange Mike | Talk
Seeing the OP has a Spanish-looking name, it may be worth pointing out that there is a cultural issue involved here (which confused the hell out of me as well originally): in the English speaking world, there is no such continent as “America”. They consider it to be two continents, “North America” and “South America”. Link: Continent#Number of continents.—EmilJ. 16:58, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
In Spanish, they're welcome to call us Estadounidense. In English, they'll have to settle for American. --Golbez (talk) 17:23, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
A lot of people seem to not understand - 'America' IS the name of the country just as 'Mexico' is the name of the country south of it (officially, United Mexican States). Calling someone an American is not only perfectly acceptable, it's also the extreme preferred term (so much that I can't think of any other). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 17:23, 4 December 2012 (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.
A wikimedia project for original works publication
As wikimedia doesn't provide yet a wiki to publish orginals works (essays, novels, songs, etc.) here is a proposal: Wikikultur. I hope some people here may be interested. --Psychoslave (talk) 16:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Sounds awesome. I do think that Wikiculture is a better name though. I'd love to know more about the project.--Coin945 (talk) 17:08, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
How about "Wikreati" or "Wikreamus"? However, this project doesn't fit the definition of "educational content" that the Wikimedia Foundation requires. It should be a totally separate project, perhaps at Wikia. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:54, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
I think the biggest problem with publishing original works is establishing notability. That is why wikisource only takes items that are already published. Apteva (talk) 03:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes. It used to be that when publishing was physical and expensive and only a fraction of "works" could be published, editors (publishers) could be selective. Now any kind of crap can, and is, "published", and readers are swamped. What is needed is not more publication, but more selection. Or at least some way of rating notability. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Notability is a concept on Wikipedia. There's nothing stopping original work being done on a wiki. Other wikis don't abide by "notability". Indeed, that's part of the point of Wikiversity, I'm told. (That said, I think this falls outside of the Wikimedia Foundation's remit.) —Tom Morris (talk) 15:06, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
images used on the Wikipedia:Reference Desk should be counted as being used in articlespace for purposes of IFD
While I was away a bunch of images I used to ask questions on the Reference Desk (dating some years back) were deleted without my knowledge. The reasons for their deletion included "bad JPG" and not perfectly following the guidelines for chemistry drawings, and not being used in the article space. These are ridiculous reasons when the images were created to ask a Reference Desk question. Why should an image used to ask a question on the Wikipedia:Reference Desk be deleted for not being in articlespace? It makes no sense, do people intentionally want to break the Ref Desk archives. There are tons of other Ref Desk images that have been deleted simply because IFD doesn't seem to recognise the existence of the Reference Desk. John Riemann Soong (talk) 05:15, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like some people need to be reminded about what is and is not a valid reason for deletion. Unfortunately, some people are too caught up in "cleaning" things that don't really need cleaning. Anomie⚔ 03:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
I think, other than the people who frequent the reference desk, most editors don't really care about the reference desk. Just a hunch. —Tom Morris (talk) 15:10, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Creative Commons is turning ten!
Should we put up a site-wide banner related to Creative Commons's 10th anniversary, should we do something else to mark the date, or should we not do anything? If we decide to do something, then how will we do it technically?
Creative Commons, an organization that makes free content licenses (Wikipedia is published under one of them) is turning ten years old this week. Will we be doing anything? David1217What I've done 04:32, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Toast to their good work and carry on creating Creative Commons-licensed encyclopedia articles, manuals, news articles, photographs, dictionary entries, travel guides and so on...? —Tom Morris (talk) 15:13, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Seriously, though, Put it in On This Day on the main page Adam Cuerden(talk) 15:35, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Good idea. Has the Creative Commons article been featured yet? If not, maybe someone could take a look at nominating it. CharmlessCoin (talk) 15:46, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't know, I was thinking something like a banner to draw attention to the fact that Wikipedia is freely licensed under the CC-BY-SA. David1217What I've done 22:50, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Anyone up for working on that? CharmlessCoin (talk) 05:55, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Creating wiki-torrents
The storage and dissemination of data in the form of torrents can solve several problems at once:
Decentralized storage of data that will provide invulnerability Wikipedia in case of any problems with the central servers.
Offload server.
In some cases, much faster access to some resources, especially large.
Unlike Wikipedia resources from other types of distributed resources of the torrent is that the objects of Wikipedia (articles or parts of articles, attachments) may be changed to the original source (central server). Therefore, wiki torrent client should receive notification of a change of objects handed out, and in the event of changes exclude the object from the distribution until it is updated from a central server. Data integrity of the torrent system is checked by computing the hash stored files. In the setting of a wiki torrent client, you can specify limits on the amount of data storage and upload speed, CPU load. In accordance with user central server caches the user's computer a piece of data.
Probably reduce the load on the central server will significantly reduce the cost of maintenance for the Wikipedia community. In addition, in the event of data loss central servers (up to destroy the central server) and the problems of recovery from backups Wikipedia will continue to operate successfully. Caches of data stored in user, you can quickly re-create the temporary (and in the case of destruction of central servers even permanent) central server.
Weak Link offers: development of methods for handling web-browser to the torrent networks. Likely to have to develop a browser extension that allows for accessing the resource Wikipedia (page file) to request the resource (and its components) in the first place in the torrent network, rather than on a central server. But it is preferable to do without extensions, for example using a client-oriented tools java: java on, there are several projects working with torrents (for example, Java Bittorrent API). Or, the ability to download the requested resource object can provide installed on your computer wiki torrent client. Needless browser extension can be used as a Wiki-BitTorrent client.
--Lebedev IV (talk) 22:54, 7 December 2012 (UTC) originally posted on talk page at 22:47, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
This proposal has no relation to Wikipedia. You can try proposing it on meta.--Ymblanter (talk) 22:53, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
This is not a decision for English Wikipedia to make. You need to propose it on Meta, although I can't imagine the WMF surrendering control of the servers. Mogism (talk) 23:09, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Hi, I've opened a proposal to redesign our image policy structure at WP:VPP#Image use policy. All input welcome there. Grandiose(me, talk, contribs) 19:58, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
This is one of those things I would link to on Twitter, therefore displaying Wikipedia's need for a tweet button.67.142.179.23 (talk) 21:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Use Twitter's official Share Bookmarklet to share any webpage, removing the need for code on every website. (see bookmarklet for more info) —Quiddity (talk) 22:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)
Sharebox is a script that reorders your toolbox. It adds new buttons that make it easier to mail, print or share an article on Facebook, Twitter or another linksharing service. You must have an account to add Sharebox to the sidebar. See User:TheDJ/Sharebox for more information. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)talk 15:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Worth noting that there's a rabid anti-Twitter anti-Facebook link button sentiment among a good number of people in the community. The Sharebox is as close as you're going to get, the community simply won't tolerate anything further. Sven ManguardWha? 21:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
But, don't ALL of those 8 communities have users that want to add links directly into the toolbox, and probably the 54 other links in the sublink, too....? (Sharebox uses code from addthis.com which offers 325 services from a single button!)
Also, why does every website that someone uses, need to independently implement these custom buttons, when a bookmarklet provides equal functionality but without the need for distracting-icons/additional-javascript/tracking-cookies...? Are people just unfamiliar with bookmarklets? You never need to scan a page, looking for the "share button"! It's always in your browser! Sincerely curious, —Quiddity (talk) 21:51, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Because a lot of people are not technically savvy enough to use bookmarklets. They may seem easy to you, but that's from your perspective as a computer user with advanced skills. — Hex(❝?!❞) 16:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
Rabid? Care to rethink that word? Some people simply recognize the damage that power tools for gossip can do, both to Wikipedia and to real living people. Hence wp:ELNO #10. LeadSongDogcome howl! 21:52, 19 November 2012 (UTC)
Putting links to posts on social media into articles is not the same thing as having a link to post articles to social media. Also, describing Twitter as a "power tool for gossip" is a gross underestimation of one of the most powerful information-sharing tools ever invented. — Hex(❝?!❞) 16:14, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
You can get closer than share box. By rebuilding sharebox as an open sharing platform. That just takes a lot of time to develop. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
NO, for the same reason you wont see youtube videos. There cant be any promotion of multinationals on Wikipedia. Not even if they would pay the 100 million such a deal would be worth. 84.106.26.81 (talk) 20:05, 20 November 2012 (UTC)
This is again a misunderstanding. There can't be an exclusive promotion of a multinational. See also the landing pages for ISBN and coordinates, which provide multiple options for these identifiers, including a.o. multiple multinationals. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
There's no need for a tweet button. Almost every browser has an add-on function to give users one-touch Twitter services. Or you can copy and paste the URL to Twitter yourself. Or you could use an App on your phone to send the article to Twitter. There's no need for a Wikipedia button doktorbwordsdeeds 11:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
As the Doktor says, you can always cut and paste. The "rabid" opposition to these perennial proposals is not just the contempt many of our active users feel towards efforts to degrade Wikipedia from a reference work to a bastardized social media venue; but also a principled opposition to privileging some specific instance of social media at the expense of all competitors present and future. Why Facebook and not MySpace? Why Twitter and not some European or Chinese equivalent? We do not want to be lured into the trap of picking winner and losers among competing multi-billion-dollar multinational corporations. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:59, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Again, there is no reason why any such thing has to be exclusive. It is very well possible to program a solution that tailors to multiple outlets dynamically. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:13, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
I agree that Wikipedia should help readers share the content. But social network buttons help them monitor traffic, and Wikipedia should prevent that. --NaBUru38 (talk) 18:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
That's only if you use THEIR buttons. There is however no reason to use their buttons, you can built your own. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 09:13, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
If that's so, then I may agree with doing an extension that allows sharing. --NaBUru38 (talk) 20:37, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
Why is it problematic for social networks to monitor traffic to and from Wikipedia? There aren't any commercial services associated with Wikipedia that I know of (with the exception of some paid mobile apps to browse it, perhaps) but none of these are large enough of a threat to our independence to waste time in making a new framework rather than integrating with the existing one. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 02:23, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Wikimedia's privacy policy indicates that IP addresses of logged-in users and the pages that any particular person reads are not revealed except in limited circumstances. Having a web bug on each page that allows Facebook et al. to record that information is a violation of that. Anomie⚔ 13:00, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
Your interpretation of the privacy policy leads to one believing that running the services Facebook et al. at the same time as Wikipedia would be a breach of the privacy policy. It's not, and putting Facebook buttons on Wikipedia entails the exact same thing. We wouldn't want to be in a legal gray area, though, and I will concede that to you.
In any case, it's possible to block analytics from other websites with the addthis.com engine, apparently. This should suit your interpretation of the privacy policy if "no analytics" means what I think it does. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wer900 (talk • contribs) 01:20, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
Hi strawman! I never said that someone cannot have Facebook and Wikipedia open in two different tabs. Or even that anyone may not install a user script for their own account that adds links to Facebook, Twitter, and so on. All I said is that we cannot add these links for anyone who has not specifically opted in (e.g. by adding User:TheDJ/Sharebox to their common.js, or by enabling a Sharebox gadget should one be created) if these links make any accesses to non-WMF sites until explicitly clicked by the user. Even addthis with "no analytics" is still providing a wealth of information to addthis. Anomie⚔ 04:22, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
This is exactly what I had in mind. Keep the Facebook/other services' "like" links, but don't make liking/tweeting/pinning/whatever an automated action - require explicit authorization by the user (in the form of a click). To the best of my knowledge this is how social plugins work.
I'm actually kind of soft on this. I'm not for promoting multinationals. But we may as well make it easier for users to promote Wikipedia, even if multinationals are involved. Even as the 5th largest website, I don't think we make it friendly enough for readers to share, and reach the widest possible audience. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:36, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
This is completely true. By 84.106.26.81's definition of "supporting multinationals", even being listed on Google would could as "supporting multinationals." Wikipedia's extreme conservatism and lack of pragmatism in ensuring the survival and renewal of its editing community will be its undoing if it is not resolved. Adding links to Twitter, Facebook, and other recognized social networks (without payment to or receipt of funds from the companies) will, far from selling Wikipedia to multinationals and being the beginning of the end for an open and unbiased encyclopedia, will enliven this project and lead to a new renaissance, attracting an entirely new editing community. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 02:21, 26 November 2012 (UTC)
See WP:PEREN#Share pages on Facebook, Twitter etc.. While "share" and "tweet" buttons would be useful and convenient for many users, there are several complications to using them on Wikipedia. For example, we are and ought to be entirely non-commercial with no outside affiliations or endorsements. A link with the logo for Facebook, Twitter, or any other outside site could give the impression that Wikipedia and/or the Foundation endorse or are affiliated with these sites, and/or vice versa, regardless of whether this is the case. How about this: We could add a drop-down "Share" menu that would list sites/services alphabetically with no corporate logos, colors, or other such identifying marks. This may be something to keep in mind the next time we change our interface. szyslak (t) 08:16, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
The contents of that drop box would themselves need to be open. I.E. All such sites would need equal and free opportunity to get their link in that dropbox, otherwise we would forfeit our neutrality. If that was practical then I would envisage it working by having another tab in user preferences where you could choose which networks you wanted to appear in your dropbox. I'm not convinced that the necessary investment would be justified, but that is how it could be done without us picking particular sites to collaborate with. ϢereSpielChequers 16:22, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Because they are idiotic. If you want to link something, copy the URL and post it. It works on every social networking service, every blogging platform, everywhere. Let's see: I don't want to share something on Twitter, I want to share it on my own blog. So, are you gonna add "Share on Tom's Blog" as an option, just for me? —Tom Morris (talk) 14:59, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose We're not Encyclopedia Britannica. We're Wikipedia. PhnomPencil (✉) 09:08, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose, for the reasons above. Bookmarklets may be too complicated for some users, but if copy and pasting is overly complex for them, so probably is a web browser, which means they're not here to start with. The user is free to install whatever third-party widgets they may like, but we shouldn't be taking sides. So, to answer the original question: The tweet button is at Control-C followed by Control-V (in the vast majority of OS's), or wherever else you'd like to install a widget to put it. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 09:40, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Simple HTML editor for the "E-mail this user" function?
Hi all,
Whenever I use the "E-mail this user", I find myself confuzelled by how to add links to articles, editors and external resources. This is 2012, almost 2013, and yet the "E-mail this user" still generates messages in plain text. HTML formatting
functionality in posting messages has been around for, I dunno, since 15 years ago, maybe?
Text font, size, colours and other chrome would be good too, but would not be, ahem, a mission-specific core business requirement.
Surely this should be a cinch for the developers to code?
--Shirt58 (talk) 10:57, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't see it as a high, or even medium priority. I use the email this user for contact with someone who isn't active on-wiki. I don't think extensive off-wiki discussion about wikipedia related issues ought to be encouraged, but if you must do so, then do it through a proper email address. Letting someone know that they should look on-wiki for something can be done with plain text. We have dozens, if not hundreds of better uses of developers' time.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 15:54, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. Plain text is plenty for a short notification. Developers could be working on plenty of other things. CharmlessCoin (talk) 19:33, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Email should be text/plain. HTML is for webpages. —Tom Morris (talk) 09:55, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
For once, Tom, I find myself in complete disagreement to you. That argument is positively antediluvian and simply does not reflect the reality of modern email. — Hex(❝?!❞) 14:31, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose too much trouble to have to go through for something that would probably just result in spam, vulgarity, and excessive images (or perhaps even a combination of the three...). —Theopolisme 14:31, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Considering that in some corporate email systems, hmtl emails tend to get blocked or mangled, it's probably better to stick to plain text.Nigel Ish (talk) 15:08, 8 December 2012 (UTC)
Strong oppose - HTML in e-mail is for people who write business letters with crayons, felt-tip markers, glitter and stickers. --Orange Mike | Talk 05:54, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. I don't feel the need to get more HTML email than I already do, and already tend to delete email with significant use of HTML on sight. If you need to put a link in an email, you copy and paste the link, and if I want to see it, I copy and paste the link into my browser. How hard is that? Email is supposed to be plain text, not LOLOMGZORZ PICTURES and whatever the hell else. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 05:58, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose for all the above reasons. We want less html email not more. --Bduke(Discussion) 06:02, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
What you mean "we", Kemo Sabe? — Hex(❝?!❞) 14:33, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Oppose HTML in e-mails, like ClipArt on posters, is best left to people who don't understand the complexities of the real world doktorbwordsdeeds 06:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
oppose: my e-mail spam filter thinks html tags are a good indicator of spam. let's keep it so - Nabla (talk) 00:05, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Fundraising
Dear Wikipedia,
I believe that you can increase your fundraising effectiveness. If you just had a Bar/Meter there will be a sense of accumilation by watching the fund requirements being fulfilled. For extra boost, use a volumetic flask with extra small base. Danger: a base too wide and large will depress us all. Preferably, the base is already filled with funds already raised, indicating the hard part is already over. Also, make sure the flask or fancy meter is not intrusive; a good spot could be under the wikipedia globe on the left side of the website. Also it may not be optimal to place the flask inside the "please help" tab since most people will not be motivated enough to click it.
Every day/week you should change the color indicating how much money was donated so that everyone can compare to the previous days. Each color should be at least 1/2 an inch tall to show that progress is being made.
What you can also do is take the amount of funds recieved, say one day's worth and take an average so that each minute or second it seems like people are donating to our beloved wikipedia. Not only that, raise 2-4x more than needed so you can have some accumiliation. (unless insolvency gives you all a thrill.)
Good luck with your endeavors and thanks for wikipedia! If you do decide to take this advice, I would be very grateful to know whether this tactic was successful and how much it increased donations.
Sincerely,
Hsaadat
Removed
I think it's a neat idea. I always wonder how close we are to meeting our goals, or even what our goals are. CharmlessCoin (talk) 20:05, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
The app seems to be about two weeks out of date... and that's when it's making sense. Right now, it's telling me we've raised $22M... as of eleven months ago (January 15), which it asserts is "day 61" of the fundraiser. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:44, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
That's not what I'm seeing. It shows that as of "Day 27 of 2012 Fundraiser" "2012-12-11", the "Cumulative total (USD)" is $18,900,967.46. --Yair rand (talk) 04:05, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like five blind people describing an elephant. It is showing three years and depending on where your cursor is, you can get a result from any of the days of any of those years. Apteva (talk) 05:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Took me a moment to realise that, all the bits you look at (i.e. total, cumulative total etc) are on the left/centre while the year is far right. I didn't notice it was changing between three years at first. Cabe6403(Talk•Sign) 13:29, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Apologies if this is the incorrect place to put this discussion, but I am uncertain as to how to proceed when trying to set up a task force under a WikiProject that is rather inactive (and therefore, it's unlikely I can gauge the amount of interest / appropriateness for the suggestion). So the following is taken from the talk page of WikiProject Poetry (found here):
The Canterbury Tales is one of the most important collections of stories in the English language. And it's also in an absolutely dire state on Wikipedia. Many of the articles are poorly-written stubs, inconsistent with one another and lacking much good information — or seemingly a way forward.
I propose that we set up a task force that would help to coordinate the improvement of articles relating to The Canterbury Tales (27 altogether); since I've proposed it, I would be willing to start setting up the framework and other admin business.
As one who is currently visiting a modern translation of the collection, I'd be much obliged to partake in this program. I would suggest you expand it to coverage of Chaucer as well, as some articles regarding him are in need of attention. dci | TALK 01:56, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
See WP:REVIVE. Basically, in this instance, you and your wikifriends stage a "friendly takeover" of the main, inactive project, and it "just coincidentally happens" that the newly revived group focuses on the area that interests the (new) members. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
That's great DCI, I have continued the discussion on the WikiProject Poetry page. Thanks for the input WhatamIdoing; so, in essence, there's no need to go about with the formalities of creating a separate task force when this would be the bulk of the main project's activites. Okay, that makes sense. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 13:11, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Sidebar Addition
I am writing to inquire about a small problem I ran into with Wikipedia, and I will try to present my issue in a way very easy to comprehend (*context*, *problem*, *suggestion*).
Context*:
The present tools in Wikipedia are very advantageous. Upon reading an article, it is common to click on a hyperlink of a keyword that is not fully understood. Once then this keyword is understood from reading its article, the reader can go back to the original article to continue reading. I will use this tool often. However, upon using this tool and reading another article to better understand the first article, I find myself needing to read a third article just to understand the second
article. I hope this makes sense to you. I'm sure it is a common occurrence among people using Wikipedia.
Problem*:
This aforementioned process will happen to me often. However, the process will repeat until I have many Wikipedia tabs open within my browser. I've noticed that this noticeably slows down my laptop. Also, cycling through tabs can be slightly inconvenient. Though this is not a huge problem, I realized it is one with a simple and easy solution that I was hoping Wikipedia might incorporate within its design.
Suggestion*:
Instead of having multiple tabs open within a browser, it would be nice if Wikipedia conveniently kept track of the links users opened from in an article. This information could then be displayed on the sidebar of Wikipedia's web page in a tree data structure format.
I realize this idea is already present in Wikipedia in the button View History. But my suggestion is to do with optimization and convenience. And the View History button load a new page to show you your past pages, and they aren't in hierarchical order. Hierarchical order meaning -- pages are listed under the pages that the user hyper-linked to them.
For example, if you were previously researching baseball the other day and ran out of time but didn't finish, it would be nice to be able to continue researching baseball by logging onto Wikipedia and viewing the hierarchy of pages you viewed.
ex.
Baseball
batter
Babe Ruth
bat
bases
home plate
pentagon
Your consideration and any feedback would be greatly appreciated
First, View History does not do what you think it does. Struck the incorrect statement off.
Second, it sounds like a great idea!!! Being a ferocious reader, I know how irritating it is to have my computer slow down due to me having too many browser windows. We could have a tool similar to what the nominator said so that one need not keep hundreds of tabs to keep track of everything one sees. Some minor tweaks to that will make it absolutely reader-friendly (like removing links you dont wish to see from that list etc) TheOriginalSoni (talk) 12:16, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Clicking on a link should not open a new window. It just goes to the article and you uyse the back button on your browser to return to the old article. But improving the usability of Wikipedia in this respect would be helpful; unfortunately, it would probably require Mediawiki level changes not local ones. Rmhermen (talk) 01:37, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Discussion has slowed and consensus was unanimous, so I've gone ahead and actioned the proposal. Steve Zhang. 12:35, 13 December 2012 (UTC)
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 propose closing the Geopolitical, ethnic, and religious conflicts noticeboard. It is a useless (by "useless", I mean no negative effects will happen if it is closed), and it is relatively inactive. For a dispute resolution noticeboard, even if there is a thread, the actioning on the thread takes too long, if at all. The disputes in the area of the noticeboard is also being "absorbed" by other noticeboards, such as AN(/I), DRN, MedCom, and ArbCom (I am not proposing to merge the noticeboard into these, but stating that it is already). In all, the noticeboard is just more bureaucracy. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 23:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
Support Any disputes can be handled by DRN, which seems to work fairly well. This is an underutilized board, and people who post there expecting useful results are frequently disappointed by the lack of attention. Having them use an actual working noticeboard, like DRN or 3O or something may be better. --Jayron32 00:38, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Support. The volume of related complaints/problems is better handled at an active noticeboard or dispute resolution mechanism such as those described in the above comments. dci | TALK 01:07, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Support Even with the current existence of the noticeboard, disputes are usually handled through the normal DR process. CMD (talk) 02:33, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Support because I also think it's more or less redundant and means bureaucracy Jesus Presley (talk) 16:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Support, we've had far too many noticeboards for quite a while. Impossible to keep track of all of them. Fut.Perf.☼ 16:10, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Support Didn't even know this existed. Doesn't look like it is effective at all, many threads were never responded to, we have plenty of other noticeboards, etc. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Support. As others have stated above, I never even knew it existed. It appears to be extremely inactive; quite pointless, and yes, "useless". Statυs (talk) 01:05, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Support This has reports from March gone unanswered and not viewed much. Totally stagnant, so I think we can shut this down. Reminds me of WQA, just a more extreme example. Thekillerpenguin(talk) 04:55, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Support. There has been a confusing proliferation of noticeboards over the years, see the size of {{Noticeboard links}}. This one is barely used, and any threads could be better handled elsewhere. I see no reason not to close it. the wub"?!" 13:18, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Support Reducing clutter of inactive noticeboards is a great idea. Dan653 (talk) 21:35, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Support - Wow, I've missed a lot. Definitely a step in the right direction towards streamlining DR. StevenZhangHelp resolve disputes! 11:06, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Implementation of closure
This seems a likely successful proposal. If it is successful, what would we do with the page? Mark it: Historical? Historical with soft redirect? Redirect? If redirect, where to? --Izno (talk) 02:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
I think it shouldn't be redirected elsewhere, but just marked historical. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 11:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Just mark it historical, and tag it with a hatnote directing people to other venues. --Jayron32 18:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Might not hurt to lock it afterwards, just for the folks who ignore the banner (or misunderstand it) from posting there and expecting a reply. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 22:35, 3 December 2012 (UTC)
Redirect it to ITNC. That's where most of them occur. —WFC— FL wishlist 10:00, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
WP:ITNC? Is that what you mean? --Izno (talk) 16:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
See wikt:facetious. Come back when you have more questions. --Jayron32 03:04, 10 December 2012 (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.
Wikipedia coverage of recent teenage suicides
I don't have time to make a detailed proposal, but can I draw the community's attention to Suicide of Amanda Todd. This concerns a Canadian teenager who appears to have committed suicide last October following cyber-bullying on the internet. The case attracted wide-spread sympathy and is certainly notable enough, especially following an intervention from the Canadian PM, to merit an article.
Presently however, following an AfD on grounds of single-event notability, the article, its very title, focuses on her suicide rather than on Amanda herself. My worry is that this may not be responsible given the potential for teenage copycat suicides. Guidelines for the responsible reporting of suicides are published in various countries. These are a set prepared by the Canadian Psychiatric Association. Its three lead recommendations concern 1. Details of the method 2. The word "suicide" in the headline 3. Photos(s) of the deceased. I have just deleted a reference in the article to the means employed (the Talk page discussion queried why Canadian newsapapers did not give details of the method apparently unaware that Canadian media guidelines prevent them form doing so), in so far as "suicide" is in the title of the article this can be said to transgress the headline recommendation, while the article carries two photos of Amanda. There are also arguably issues with "Admiration of the deceased", "Romanticised reasons for the suicide" and "Simplistic reasons for the suicide".
With some 50% of teenagers (in the UK, no doubt similarly elsewhere) reportedly experiencing on-line harassment and cyber-bullying, I judge the problem acute. There have been some truly dreadful epidemics of teenage copycat suicide in the UK and elsewhere. I suggest the article title is restored simply to "Amanda Todd", that details of her sucide method are kept out of the article and that that images of her are removed at least in the short-term future.
A search on Wikipedia article titled "Suicide of [a named individual]" show that there some 12 articles with this title, of which 9 appear to relate to cyber-bullying of teenagers. I have posted on the Talk page my concerns about that.
In Suicide of Amanda Todd a Wikipedia administrator appears to have determined that the article should be "non-biographical", whatever that might imply. In my view the article, on the contrary, should be a straightforward biographical notice. Amanda Todd's life is either notable or not. JaniB (talk) 17:54, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia isn't censored. But I agree that the article should be renamed as Amanda Todd. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:45, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
It might be useful to frame the discussion around the wider (and narrower) questions of;
Given the reasoning above, should all similar articles generally be renamed to remove the "Suicide of" that has often been added?
Given the reasoning above, should all articles about teen suicides avoid mentioning the method of suicide, even where this is widely covered in reliable sources in some countries? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:50, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion we should not single out suicide for special treatment. Consider Murder of JonBenét Ramsey, Killing of David Wilkie, or Shooting of Trayvon Martin. In each case the individual was notable only for the occurrence, and the article is about the occurrence. Should we rename them to be the name of the victims? As for the mode of suicide, we should reflect the coverage in reliable sources, if they discuss it, then it should be in the article, if they don't then it shouldn't be. Obviously there is room for discretion depending on how many do and don't cover it, but we should not censor our coverage beyond reflecting what the potentially censored sources are saying. Monty845 20:07, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
This renaming thing is not a good proposal at all and is contrary to what we try to get away from in this project, these in-the-news one-event people. Amanda Todd as a person is not in the slightest bit notable, but the event itself has been deemed notable by our editors. And really, it isn't even the suicide itself that's a big deal, kids cap themselves every day. It is the aftermath and ensuing controversy about those alleged to have baited and blackmailed, and those who outed the identities. Tarc (talk) 20:25, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
It is precisely because "kids cap themselves every day" that Wikipedia has a duty of care, and especially so when it seeks to brand itself as an educational resource (in fact, I believe, enjoys charitable status in some countries such as the UK on the basis of the claim). I sympathise myself with the view that Wikipedia is not a newspaper, that it shouldn't seek to report every news story of the day. But the fact of the matter is that it generally does and in this case Wikipedia, which is not an homogenuous entity, takes on the character of other social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter commenting on the events of the day and ought therefore to hold itself to the same journalistic standards as does the main stream media.
Regarding other points raised above, I would certainly say that "Suicide of" titles should be renamed to the name of the individual and this soley because of the issue of responsible reporting of suicides. Regarding "Murder of" I don't see an issue. On the other hand I don't really see why these articles should not be named after the individuals concerned. Concerning the mode of suicide and images of the deceased, my suggestion is that these are scruples which should be observed in the short-term. In the long-term, when the suicide has ceased to exercise the imagination of the public and there is correspondingly no appreciable risk of copycate suicides, then they can be inserted. JaniB (talk) 21:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
This is an online encyclopedia project. It is not hand-holding, it is not therapy, it is not here for your emotional needs and well-being. Kids aren't going to be any more or less likely to commit suicide because of how the project covers these events. The assertion that it does or would is patently ridiculous. I will strenuously oppose any attempt to rename that article. Tarc (talk) 22:27, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
I feel that we are doing something immoral if we did not make these changes. While WP:NOTCENSORED is a policy, this doesn't mean that we can use it as a blank check to override WP:DICK. This is not even a political/religious topic - in such topics we should remain impartial rather than pandering to the sensibilities of any one group. This is, however, a topic where there exists scientific evidence that "Suicide of" articles lead to more suicides if not dealt with properly. As an encyclopedia we should cover all salient details, but excessive glamorization of suicide leads to it. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 00:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Replying to Tarc, in the matter of an on-going news story such the Amanda Todd suicide, Wikipedia is effectively a social media site as a glance at the Amanda Todd talk page establishes. For example you demonstrably cannot edit the Amanda Todd artcile to any siginificant extent without first gaining peer support on the talk page. That the project is an online encyclopaedia project might (but I frankly doubt it given that editing it is open to all) carry some weight were a family of a suicide victim to launch a privacy suit or such like against Wikipedia, and Wikipedia defended itself on grounds of innocent dissemination or the equivalent in the relevant jurisdiction, nevertheless individual editors would remain liable. You assert that teenagers aren't any the more or less likely to commit suicide because of the way it covers these events, but you cannot know that while your demonstrably cavalier attitude to the possibilty of "kids capping themseleves" suggest you neither know nor care what the facts really are. The truth is the facts are straightforward. There have been some desperately tragic epedemics of teenage copycat suicides and the evidence strongly suggests that irresponsible coverage by newspapers and internet sites have been a factor. That is why bodies such as the Canadian Psychiatric Association publish the guidelines it does, and why newspaper in Canada observe them. Presently the Amanda Todd article is significantly in breach of them. JaniB (talk) 00:17, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Added: I see you have reverted my edit at Suicide of Amanda Todd deleting the means Amanda employed and stressing the coroner's court caution that the investigation would be long and complicated. You claim that Wikipedia is not governed by Canadian or any other national guidelines. These are the American guidelines prepared by the Surgeon-General. JaniB (talk) 01:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm not aware of any evidence that says that not reporting means of suicide does anything to reduce its incidence. In fact, concealing suicide has been shown to be counter-productive in some situations. In my country, Australia, governments and media have been moving away from the idea of hiding-the-truth-in-order-to-protect-the-children. "The kids" discuss suicides in full detail on social media. I've seen it first hand. And Wikipedia is not censored. Can those wanting censorship on this issue produce evidence that it achieves anything at all? HiLo48 (talk) 21:41, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
What you're proposing to change is WP:BIO1E. Which I suspect is being cited in the AFD mentioned by the OP. --IznoRepeat (talk) 22:38, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Freedom of speech trumps protection of life? Really? I accept that the facts, about the effect of this, should be checked, as proposed above. But I note that blanket affirmations that WP should not be censored regardless of consequences is inhumane. I doubt any of the editors stating such thing wish to live in a country where the right to freedom of speech is more important than the right to life. I doubt there is such country. - Nabla (talk) 22:44, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
I am proud to live in a country where the right to freedom of speech trumps the entirely speculative fear that some individuals may misuse certain otherwise innocuous information to harm themselves. There is always a balance between the risk of direct, concrete harm, and freedom of speech, but here the scales fall squarely in favor of speech. Monty845 22:51, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
Monty845, in your country freedom of speech if more important the life? I doubt it. That was my question, not if there may be news about suicides. - Nabla (talk) 21:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Nabla, can you produce evidence that censorship of suicide stories achieves anything at all? HiLo48 (talk) 00:34, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Hilo48, I do not claim that censoring news about suicide has whatever effect. I simply stated my opinion that some people already proclaiming that WP should not be censored *no matter what*, apparently value freedom of speech in a absolute way, above any possible effect on life; I think they are not looking at the whole picture . And that seems to be wrong, no? Yourself questioned if there is some data about the effect of suicide related news; thus I presume that if data proved there is a effect, then you would agree with suppressing some information about suicides, right? I feel exactly like that - Nabla (talk) 21:44, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
I feel that in general, an event involving a person (e.g. "X of John Doe") should just have the article at the name of the person, unless the person already has their own article. Yes, we do want to be focusing on the event, which is notable, rather than the person, who is non-notable. And I don't think anything should change content-wise in what we do with regards to WP:BLP1E. But I just feel that naming something "Suicide of Amanda Todd" rather than "Amanda Todd" smacks of being overly pedantic. -- King of♥♦♣ ♠ 01:33, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
........between 1984 and 1987, journalists in Vienna covered the deaths of
individuals who jumped in front of trains in the subway system. The
coverage was extensive and dramatic. In 1987, a campaign alerted
reporters to the possible negative effects of such reporting, and suggested
alternate strategies for coverage. In the first six months after the campaign
began, subway suicides and non-fatal attempts dropped by more than
eighty percent. The total number of suicides in Vienna declined as well.1-2
Research finds an increase in suicide by readers or viewers when:
• • The number of stories about individual suicides increases3,4
• • A particular death is reported at length or in many stories3,5
• • The story of an individual death by suicide is placed on the
front page or at the beginning of a broadcast3,4
• • The headlines about specific suicide deaths are dramatic3 (A
recent example: "Boy, 10, Kills Himself Over Poor Grades")
where there are numbered references. The issue not about censorship and you should know better to suggest this in Wikipdia forums. JaniB (talk) 01:36, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
I think what you're missing, while trying to prove this effect, is that it doesn't, in the end, matter if you can demonstrate it or not. If someone's suicidal, they're going to find a way to do it. If they happen to read about a particular method in the paper, sure, some might try that way. I doubt reading about a suicide encourages those who were not otherwise intending suicide to suddenly decide to end it all—I went and looked at the article, and I certainly do not have a sudden desire to kill myself. That aside, a lot of information on Wikipedia could potentially be misused. That does not mean we leave it out or redact it. Our goal is to be accurate and neutral, and we cannot do that if we start the habit of removing information someone could potentially misuse. That is the exact meaning of Wikipedia is not censored.
For some history on discussions like this, you might want to have a look through the archives of Talk:Rorschach test, as we have addressed such issues before, and have ultimately decided that if information is relevant to an article, well-sourced, and acceptably licensed, we will use it, even if some assert it could be harmful to do so. Similarly, if the title is appropriate (and I see no reason it is not, this is a textbook one event case, which should be titled as an event rather than a pseudobiography), it will remain. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 02:01, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
First of all it's not about you and secondly the issue is here specific to articles commencing "Suicide of ...", of which there are 12 such in Wikipedia, in turn 9 of which refer to teenage suicides contingent on cyber-bullying or internet harrassment. Unlike articles commencing "Murder of ...", "Disappearance of ...", these titles, and in the case of Suicide of Amanda Todd some of its contents, are in violation of journalistic standards accepted by the main stream media in the US and Canada, certainly in the Netherlands as well, and no doubt in many other nations (Hong Kong, for example, has its own guidelines here). Were we talking about historical figures there would be no issue, but we are not. In the case of Amanda Todd, her passing was less than two months ago and investigation into its cirumstances are ongoing. It follows that Wikipedia is reporting current events in her case and is thus essentially acting as a social media site commenting on the affairs of the day. Passing over any legal considerations in relation to possible privacy suits and the like, it is increasingly accepted that social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter can't claim the right to free speech unhindered by the kind of regulations main stream media are obliged to abide by. The editor Tarc above would apparently claim that Wikipedia does have that right, but I rather think the Wikipedia Foundation on reflection would judge that it does not, especially if its mind were concentrated by a lawsuit.
That you don't have the desire to kill yourself after looking at the article is not an issue. I frankly don't understand what your point can actually be, but copycat suicide nevertheless is a real issue taken seriously enough by the Canadian and US pyschiatric professions to merit publishing these guidelines. People do kill themselves in sympathy with figures like Amanda Todd and her article, whether a pseudobiography or otherwise, should be sensitive to the fact and abide by sensible guidelines, of which the most important is to remove the "Suicide of ..." in the article title. Call it "Death of ..." if you will, as the guidelines would recommend. JaniB (talk) 03:16, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
That's simply not going to happen. It is an encyclopedia article on a girl that killed herself, nothing more. Your amateurish, armchair psychology shtick regarding what you think people will do if they read articles like this is just...sad. Tarc (talk) 03:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Calling the article "Death of Amanda Todd" seems to me a sensible compromise in line with the guidelines, especially since a coroner's court has yet to rule on the circumstances of the death. I note that you apparently don't think so. Your remark "amateurish", "schtick", "sad" and so on amounts to a personal attack and I ask you to cease and desist. JaniB (talk) 04:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
"Compromise" implies that there are roughly equal sides who are at an impasse and need a way to move forward. It seems more like this is pretty much a lone crusade by you, so there really doesn't seem to be a pressing need to make any such change. Tarc (talk) 05:14, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) JaniB, "...especially if its mind were concentrated by a lawsuit", is a legal threat. Those are disallowed, because of their chilling effect on discussion. I won't block you for it, both because I'm involved in the discussion and because you may have been unaware of this policy, but now that you are aware, I ask that you either withdraw the threat or refrain from editing if you are planning to take such action. If there were a legal issue, we have a very competent general counsel, and I'm sure he would advise us of such.
That aside, I suppose you're calling the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation incapable of following these supposed "journalistic ethics" from Canada? They apparently are, "suicide" is right in the byline here: [12]. My comment that I don't suddenly wish to kill myself was to demonstrate that no, the presence of "suicide" in a title does not have some magical impact, and that those killing themselves in a "copycat" manner are likely those who were already contemplating or planning suicide anyway. You'd do those people a lot more good spending your time volunteering at a suicide-prevention or cyberbullying education group than you would tilting at this windmill. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 05:31, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
OTOH, having an involved administrator threaten with a block is, evidently, something that improves the quality of discussion. Yeah, right... - Nabla (talk) 21:56, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Nabla, you may wish to re-read my comment. I believe you missed a "won't". SeraphimbladeTalk to me 16:39, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
No I did not. You threatened with a block. You "won't" do it *only* because you are involved, but you so imply that someone else, not involved, surely would. That is a threat.. hmm, intimidation, may be better expression, whatever.. You could perfectly well remind of the rule, without showing off the gun. - Nabla (talk) 01:00, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
Of course that wasn't a legal threat. Of course I know legal threats are a big no-no in Wikipedia. I recently completed a very intensive course in it and other social media. I'm threatening no-one. I was simply pointing out that the prospect of a lawsuit might persuade the Wikipedia Foundation to take a rather less exalted view of its rights than the editor Tarc does. The page you cite from CBC is within the guidelines. The word 'suicide' is not in the headline, certainly the byline but not the headline. It doesn't detail the suicide method and there are no images of Amanda. The article is restrained and is not exclusively about Amanda and in fact Amanda is mentioned only incidentally. That's very different from Suicide of Amanda Todd. JaniB (talk) 07:47, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
It looks like several of you haven't read the guidelines conveniently linked above by Wer900. I recommend having a look at them. Among other things, they summarize the evidence that reporting suicides has a measurable, proven effect on increasing suicides and specifically on increasing copycat suicides.
Many (but not all) suicides can be prevented. Most suicides are not committed by a determined person who will kill himself one way or the other. Suicides are largely method specific (if I can't do it by ___, then I won't do it at all) and are very impulsive. The typical suicide attempt involves less than five minutes between the first thought about committing suicide and the attempt. That's why making people go to two drug stores to buy enough over-the-counter drugs to kill a person has been so effective at cutting the suicide-by-poisoning rate in the UK. By the time the person gets to the second store, he's changed his mind.
So, yes, I think we can take reasonable, ethical steps to reduce our (IMO minor) contribution to the suicide rate. We can do that by providing general information rather than detailed instructions on methods; we can eliminate sympathetic statements about how it's baffling and tragic and everyone is sad (a desire for sympathy of the "Pore Jud Is Daid" type is motivating to some would-be suicides, and besides, it's not encyclopedic); we can even delay adding material until it's firmly established, rather than trying to keep up with all the breaking news; we can be strict about long-term notability and excluding flash-in-the-pan media frenzies. There are many things we can do that will produce less damage and better, more encyclopedic articles. Just changing the article title, however, is likely to be unimportant. The media guidelines aren't about whether you label something as a suicide; they're about whether you make killing yourself sound like a way to meet emotional needs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:30, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
You're still asking Wikipedia to censor itself. That's a pretty radical departure from core policy. It would need to be very thoroughly justified, and strictly defined. I've had too many debates with conservatives terrified of nipples to want any more arguments over what a guideline means. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs) 2012-12-05T07:52:30
I am certainly not asking for censorship, unless you think that omitting unencyclopedic glurge and stopping people from using the English Wikipedia as a memorial website is "censorship". Removing emotional garbage like "She was such a beautiful, sensitive girl that everyone loved and we all miss so much, and nobody can understand why she committed suicide" happens to be simultaneously good for public health and for the encyclopedia. Ditto for avoiding detailed descriptions of just exactly how many pills the person swallowed or exactly which anatomical point he aimed the gun at. It is not censorship to do what's good for the encyclopedia, even if it happens to also have a positive side effect in terms of public health. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Replying to WhatamIdoing: yes, interesting post. Thanks for that. What I'm asking is that Wikipedia accepts there is an issue with copycat suicide, especially amongst teenagers, and is seen to behave responsibly. At present this proposal affects just nine articles, of which only one Suicide of Amanda Todd is really at issue because it is topical. The question of having the word "suicide" in the title arises from the guidelines. I really can't see what the issue can be with my suggestion that such an article is given the title "Death of ..." until at least the coroner's verdict is in confirming a suicide. The passion this proposal has engendered amongst those who responded here is extraordinary. To be attacked in this way, accused of engaging in censorship, of making threats, to be called comical and sad, engaged in a personal crusade, is deeply upsetting and profoundly unsettling. JaniB (talk) 11:26, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
In my limited observations of your contributions to Wikipedia you have challenged, at various times, WP:VERIFY, WP:TITLE and WP:CENSOR. And then you wonder why your provocative posts are met with strong response and derision. If you want to lead with your chin you have to expect the occasional blow. WWGB (talk) 12:33, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, limited. Since opening my account I have edited (from memory) at the Featured Article of the Day, Christopher Tappin, Suicide of Amanda Todd, Pussy Riot, Tracy Chapman's Talkin' 'bout a Revolution,North Wales child abuse scandal and Emel Mathlouthi. I contributed the framework for a very substantial expansion of Metock case and I'm currently preparing a similar article on P v S and Cornwall County Council, a landmark ECJ gender discrimination decision protecting the employment rights of transexuals, the first of series of aticle starts and expansions planned by myself and colleagues of ECJ and ECHR decisions (interested readers searching for these edits may need to search on my old username "FrontBottomFracas", an ironic puff at Pussy Riot whose upcoming appeal I propose to edit for Wikipedia, and which I changed after a complaint it was borderline offensive). That I "challenged" those policy documents is your spin and it arises because I wished to include the day of Amanda Todd's date of birth i.e. "27 November 1996" (from memory) rather than "November 1996" that was cited, arguing that it was multiply sourced in literally hundreds of tribute websites. In the end I had to take it to a successful RfC to have it included. Perhaps you would like to offer an opinion about my proposal rather than engage in a personal attack. JaniB (talk) 13:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
"Hundreds of tribute websites" do not constitute reliable sources.
The RfC was only "successful" because her date of birth was coincidentally published in a reliable source.
If you consider my comment to be a "personal attack" it also goes to your oversensitivity. WWGB (talk) 13:27, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
1.1 The point of my "challenge" of verifiability was that her date of birth was entirely uncontentious and thus didn't need citing by a reliable source. Moreover I remarked it was very likely to be reported in newspapers as Amanda's birthday neared at the end of the month and vigils were held, as proved to be the case.
2.1 The RfC was successful against strident opposition from you and others demanding no mention at all be made of her date of birth because the start editors supported it, because an independent editor supported it and because, as I predicted, Amanda's birthday was noted in newspaper reports of her vigils.
3.1 Of course you're attacking me, at the very least you are grossly uncivil, and I ask you to cease and desist. JaniB (talk) 19:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
I propose to complete my edits here by citing Death of Kurt Cobain. Here we have a case of an event that was widely publicised as a suicide at the time and decided as a suicide at coroner's court. Nevertheless doubts subsequently surfaced that it was a suicide and not misadventure, and so we have "Death" rather than "Suicide". A coroner's court has yet to rule on Amanda Todd's death. There was a press release that a preliminary investigation has determined it a suicide, but the coroner stressed that it would be a long and complicated investigation. A verdict of misadventure is still possible. Another reason to prefer "Death of Amanda Todd" rather than "Suicide of Amanda Todd".
I thank respondents for their comments. JaniB (talk) 13:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
We have a Wiki-word for that; WP:OTHERCRAP. In Cobain's case, yes, he did kill himself, but the real notability there wasn't with the actual act of suicide. It was that a famous and influential person had died, and the minor conspiratorial controversy surrounding the death. A better analogy to Cobain would be the Death of Michael Jackson. For this girl here, the suicide itself and the aftermath of the blackmail story is the be-all and end-all of the person's notability. Tarc (talk) 13:38, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. If Todd had died in her sleep or been killed by a bus, her death would not be notable and there would be no article. Her death is notable solely because of her suicide, perhaps as a consequence of social media. If you take out the suicide, you take away the notability and the article has no raison d'être. WWGB (talk) 13:56, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
Just wanted to chip in that I agree with both of the above. The title of the article properly reflects what aspect of the subject is notable and should not be changed. —Torchiesttalkedits 14:20, 5 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm open to either, so long as the title matches the information. I believe the current understanding is that she did in fact commit suicide, and that there wasn't any verifiable conspiracy or foul play going on, so Suicide of Amanda Todd should be the current title. CharmlessCoin (talk) 00:02, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but the fact of the matter it has yet to be ruled a suicide by a coroner's court. The court has stressed that their investigation will be a long and complex one (this should have been reported in line with guidelines, but my edit to this effect was reverted by Tarc). It might still prove to be misadventure. Suicide games are a common feature of suicide ideation and unfortunately they sometimes lead to a death. There are, moreover, BLP issues because Amanda is recently deceased (the guidelines explicitly mention notable suicides) and I shall be referring the issue to a BLP noticeboard in due course after testing opinion here about policy, when at the same time I shall notify the Wikipedia Foundation of the situation.
Of course Tarc has no right nor basis to dismiss as '"crap" the real possibility that Cobain's death was misadventure. JaniB (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Jesus fucking christ, how naive does one have to be to think that a girl who, after being attempted blackmail to strip for a stranger, makes a video of herself holding up placard after placard saying "help me", "i am alone" etc...who happens to wind up dead a short time later is anything BUT suicide? How naive does one have to be to think that a guy with chronic stomach pain, drug dependencies, depression, and who left a fucking suicide note just accidentally put a shotgun in his mouth and accidentally hit the trigger? "Misadventure", my ass. Tarc (talk) 05:19, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
This is not about your own private (and obscene) convinctions in the case. JaniB (talk) 14:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing "private" about acknowledging the reality of an event (a suicide) and ridiculing conspiracy theories ("misadventure") about the event. Also, there is nothing obscene about profanity. Your comments above were enough to piss off any reasonable individual here. Tarc (talk) 15:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
It does not matter what the coroners court has or has not ruled on. What matters is what the reliable sources say. If the reliable sources are limited to suicide, and likely suicide buy still under investigation, the title being suicide is entirely reasonable. When reliable sources start reporting that it was not suicide, and there is a conflict between sources, then maybe death of is appropriate. To be clear though, differing levels of hedging relating only to suicide as a cause of death is not enough. Monty845 05:35, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Well in general the 'reliable source' argument would indeed have point, Monty. But this is about reporting a current event and reliable sources are thus perforce newspapers, and then we run against the impasse that responsible newspapers, the ones likely to be reliable, will be abiding by the guidelines and downplaying the suicide angle and in particular not headlining "suicide". What has actually been reported was that a preliminary investigation indicates a suicide, but it was stressed that the case was likely to be long and complicated. Finally the issue of care over suicide contagion must take precedence. Do you know of the Bridgend suicide incidents in the UK involving up to 79 teenagers. There have been similar cases in the Netherlands as well and no doubt eveywhere. It's a real and pressing problem.
The issue is the treatment of teen suicide and copycat crime. As responsible encyclopedia writers, if we knew for a fact that there was going to be one more suicide in the world simply because we titled the article Amanda Todd suicide or Suicide of Amanda Todd instead of simply Amanda Todd, it is a no brainer to choose Amanda Todd. That is what this thread is all about. Apteva (talk) 07:32, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
You continue to overlook the fact that Amanda Todd, as a person, is not notable. Her premature death, and its circumstances, are the only notable issues here. Remove the suicide statements and the article fails any reasonable test of notability. It's just another "teenage girl was bullied" story. WWGB (talk) 08:54, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
I have no idea who "you" refers to, but I know that I am not overlooking anything. I am saying that if we can save one teen suicide by naming the article Amanda Todd, and calling it a premature death at her own hand instead of a suicide it is worth doing. Apteva (talk) 09:21, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
And which other things do we stop discussing here because they're not nice, and could influence others negatively? I'm really uncomfortable with that concept. Real thin end of the wedge stuff. HiLo48 (talk) 09:31, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Nothing, and not this either. It is only how we cover the subject. WP is definitely not censored, other than stuff that is illegal. Apteva (talk) 09:53, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Based on long precedent, BIO1E cases like this are named for the event rather than the person. In this case, the suicide of Amanda Todd. While I am not personally opposed to discussing whether that is appropriate on the macro scale, I am not interested in arguments for a specific article that rely on appeal to emotion fallacies. And in this specific case, the entire article is about the girl's suicide and aftermath of it. Retitling the article does not "soften the blow", and I am decidedly unconvinced that doing so would prevent a copycat event. Resolute 15:37, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
But this is a news story. The investigation is ongoing and the article is a news story and not an encyclopaedic article. It cannot be encylopaeidic because the only possible reliable sources presently are newspapers or reliable web sites and so any article by Wikipaedia is no more reliable than these are and these incidentally, in Canada and the United States at least as in many other nations, are bound by the guidelines. Thus to assert boldly that Amanda'a death is a suicide is an abuse of what is actually reported, which is uniformly that a preliminary investigation indicates suicide, but that is not the same as ruling Amanda's death a suicide and it might still, for example, go to a misadventure, perhaps a suicide fantasy game that went tragically wong. Whether Wikipeida should be doing articles like these is the real issue, nevertheless as reporter Wikipaedia has a duty of care in the the matter of copycate suicides, the more so since ordinary readers might imagine it is encylopaeidic. Have a look at the Bridgend suicide incidents in the UK and consider that cyberbullying, what was involved in Amanda's care, is reported as affecting some 50% of UK teenagers. It must be an issue, indeed an accident waiting to happen. It's all very well for Tarc to dismiss the risk with the cavalier observation "kids cap themselves all the time", but I'd like to see him justify that position to the grieving parents of Bridgend.
Of course I have to accept that BIO1E is established community consenus but this is a single issue within that context and incidentally a BLP issue as well since it concerns a recently deceased person and where suicide is expressly cited. In due course I'll be taking the issue to a BLP notice board as well. JaniB (talk) 20:31, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
As responsible encyclopedia writers, we are obliged to provide the information as reliable sources report it. Not to protect people from information, or attempt to foresee what future sources will say. I think the only issue here is the title of the article; and even then, only based on the question of was the death was in fact a suicide. The reliable sources we have say that it was, therefore, the title should stay be as is. The far more general Amanda Todd title implies that she was notable. She was not, and still is not. What is notable, is her supposed suicide, and the reactions to it. CharmlessCoin (talk) 15:33, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
Thoughtless copy-paste from source X is responsible; thinking about the consequences of your actions is irresponsible? Instead of calling each other irresponsible, maybe we could agree that we have different views on what we are responsible for and how. - Nabla (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
This proposal arises from an absurd conflation of newspaper headlines and prime-time news reports, with the mere titles of a microscopic handful of articles. The actual likelihood of a suicide-prone teen stumbling on one of these articles and being influenced in any way are so infinitesimal as to make it embarrassing to think that we are actually talking about it seriously. --Orange Mike | Talk 06:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm not really concerned about the eleven or so other "Suicide of [a named person]" articles, which are now historical. Page stats show that Suicide of Amanda Todd is currently being viewed at around 15,000 to 20,000 times a day with a peak of about 40,000 views, in all somewhere around a million views over its lifetime. It's not about suicide-prone teenagers accidentally stumbling on a page but about learning suicidal behaviour from a role model as, for example, detailed here. Wikipedia prides itself on being the reference source for many individuals, very likely for most teenagers. Teenagers will know that Amanda was a victim of cyberbullying and apparently killed herself after posting a harrowing vido about it on YouTube. They turn to the Wikipedia article and they find all that repeated at length and in clinical detail as far as the fact and mode of the suicide is concerned. From the source quoted:
These recommendations represent the consensus of suicide experts at several federal agencies as well as private foundations based on the research literature and theories of behavioral contagion. The statement suggests that reporters not give suicide stories undue prominence in newspapers or television news broadcasts.This includes avoiding sensational headlines that focus on the suicide, avoiding prominent placement in the newspaper or news broadcast, and avoiding detailed descriptions of the method. In addition, the recommendations call for a balanced description of suicide victims so that the victim is not presented as a model for those considering the same act. Finally, the recommendations suggest that whenever possible stories include the important role of mental disorders such as depression and substance abuse as precursors to the act. This information about the victim’s background not only provides context for the act but also opens the possibility for information about treatment. Nearly all of the mental disorders that precede suicide are treatable, and if vulnerable individuals sought care rather than focusing on suicide as a solution to their problems, many suicides might be prevented.
I invite you to review Suicide of Amanda Todd and consider to what extent this article complies with these recommendations by experts. The exercise should hopefully make you feel less embarrassed about taking it seriously. JaniB (talk) 10:14, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
I see Mike that you are a Wikipedia administrator, one of the 400 most active Wikipedia editors. I would really appreciate an opinion on my proposal that the article be renamed "Death of Amanda Todd" until such time as a coroner rules it suicide and that the contents be made guidelines compliant as a precaution against contagion suicide. Why would that threaten Wikipedia's integrity? JaniB (talk) 10:49, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
You're trying to take away information to protect people. Regardless of what experts have or have not said on the topic, that's a slippery slope, especially here on Wikipedia. I'm still strongly opposed to the idea. The reason we have the information we have there, is because it's been found in reliable sources. If there is suddenly a conflict between sources in regards to what happened, then maybe this could be considered.
In regards to your last comment, "teenagers will know that Amanda was a victim of cyberbullying and apparently killed herself after posting a harrowing vido about it on YouTube. They turn to the Wikipedia article and they find all that repeated at length and in clinical detail as far as the fact and mode of the suicide is concerned," I don't really know what you expect the article to be. It's about her suicide, so of course we would give information on it. Take a look at Budd Dwyer, where not only does it go into far more detail than the Todd article, but it also provides a link to an unedited video where one could watch the event take place. Glancing at the talk page, you can see that no controversy has ever been brought up about it. As I stated before, it's not our job to protect people, it's our job to put encyclopedic information out. CharmlessCoin (talk) 19:40, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)JaniB, we are not censored, no matter why and how you think we should be. Really, me and Tarc usually are like day and night, but for once we completely agree: This has been called by all RS a suicide, and as such the title stays. There is a quote I have on my user page, by WhatamIdoing (talk·contribs): "Wikipedia really, truly does not care what the real-world consequences of distributing verifiable, educational information are (or might be). Someone else may have a problem with Wikipedia providing 'potentially harmful' educational information -- but we don't, full stop." Our job is reporting information correctly. If people have a problem with this, that's their problem, not ours. --Cyclopiatalk 19:42, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
Jani, to respond to your question to Mike (here) and to me at the BLP page (I'd like to try to contain this at one place), an administrator's opinion on a content matter carries no more weight than any other editor's does. Admins are neither permitted nor responsible to make binding content decisions. It may be that an uninvolved admin comes and closes a discussion, such as a deletion request or content RfC, but that must be an admin who is uninvolved in the matter, and must reflect the consensus of the discussion (or that no consensus formed, if that's the case), not the admin's personal viewpoint. I'm speaking here as an editor, and of course, having participated in the discussion, it would not be appropriate for me to close it or determine its outcome. That being said, I do see a pretty strong consensus that if reliable sources have called the death a suicide, we follow suit rather than "second guessing" them. That's covered by our restrictions on original synthesis. As to the title, since it is explicitly the fact that the death was by suicide which made it so notable, we entitle the article accordingly. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and so newspaper guidelines do not apply here, any more than guidelines on how to write a college admission essay or a textbook would apply to encyclopedia articles. I think what you're failing to see is that, while you evidently feel very strongly about this subject, and I think your motives are good ones, it is not going to gain consensus. Generally speaking, we do not redact information on the grounds that publication of it could harm "someone out there", if a specific target of concrete potential harm cannot be identified. Finally, since reliable sources have overwhelmingly called the death a suicide, there's no issue of such concrete harm here for the family. The sources have already made their determination, and they have legal and fact-checker teams. Apparently, those have overwhelmingly considered it acceptable and non-libelous to definitively call the death a suicide. We can't and don't just say "No, you're all wrong", when there is a clear consensus among high-quality reliable sources. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 23:35, 9 December 2012 (UTC)
What makes Amanda's death so notable Seraphimblade is that she apparently killed herself after self-publishing a heartbreaking and shocking account of her cyberbullying on YouTube, not the fact of her suicide. As Tarc so sensitively observes above, "kids cap themselves all the time". Arguably "Cyberbullying of Amanda Todd" would be a better title if we were genuinely seeking common ground here. I'm not arguing for the redaction of information. Just for its responsible reporting, and it remains the case that Amanada Todd's death has only been provisionally determined to be a suicide. Meanwhile there are very cogent reasons for reporting the facts of her death very circumspectly given the danger of copycat suicide, particulary so given that the cyberbullying of teenagers is now so common. Wikipedia's freedom of speech is already very constrained by its self-regulatory regime of only reporting reliable sources (newspapers certainly are not restrained in the same way). I can't see how its integrity would be damaged by it observing the same guidelines reliable sources observe in reporting suicides. JaniB (talk) 02:35, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
I can't speak for the other editors involved in this discussion, but I'm not seeking common ground. The death has been deemed a suicide by every source we have, so that's the title we use. You are in fact arguing for a redaction of information. While I will not go find the exact words, I believe you wanted to remove how Todd carried out her suicide. We aren't reporting on anything, we're an encyclopedia. Our content absolutely needs to be verified by reliable sources. A previous editor here dropped this quote, ""Wikipedia really, truly does not care what the real-world consequences of distributing verifiable, educational information are (or might be). Someone else may have a problem with Wikipedia providing 'potentially harmful' educational information -- but we don't, full stop." It doesn't matter if there is a risk of a "copycat suicide," it's not our job to care about that. As I've stated here before, we only worry about getting information out that can be verified. Which is clearly what's been done with the Todd article. CharmlessCoin (talk) 03:25, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Very well said. HiLo48 (talk) 03:32, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
It's a news article and Wikipedia should care. JaniB (talk) 08:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
If "the cyberbullying of teenagers is now so common" then it is no longer notable. Hence the title "Cyberbullying of Amanda Todd" has no particular merit; it is her subsequent suicide that tips the issue towards notability. WWGB (talk) 04:25, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Well that's so. What about "Cyberbullying and subsequent death of Amanda Todd"?. JaniB (talk) 08:09, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
If you feel the article should be retitled, there's a process for suggesting such. As this discussion makes clear such a proposal is likely to be controversial, I would advise using the "potentially controversial moves" process. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 10:18, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for this Seraphimblade. I'm aware it's bad form to abuse the renaming facility and I wouldn't dream of doing it without acieving some kind of consensus for it. In fact I have no intention of making any edits of any sort there any more because they are instantly reverted by the folk who live there. I tried to edit for the birthday, for 'see also' cases, and for an external link to a FindAGrave tribute site, all of them reverted at once. A final attempt to delete the details of the mechanism of death, not released by the coroner nor reported by the Canadian or US mainstream press, and also adding the important qualification from the coroner that this was going to be a long and complicated investigation, was also reverted by Tarc after seeing the discussion here. But that was very much within the guidelines. Another recommendation in the guidelines is to avoid giving an unbalanced view of the case. And just today another edit has been made diluting the mental illness aspects of the case. It's impossible now not to read the article without forming the conclusion that Amanda killed hereself directly as a result of the bullying, and not because of an illness such as depression for which there is a known suicide risk, no doubt exacerbated by the bullying but nevertheless the point is not to encourage an overly romantic view of the 'reason' for her death. The truth is most suicides are accidents, a five minute impulse that precipitates you into eternity without leave for regret and Wikipedia should take care not to encourage it in those who are vulnerable.
I really have no more to offer. If I see posts willing to discuss constructively how to implement sensible guidelines on the responsible reporting of recent siuicides in Wikipedia, I will respond if I can contribute. Otherwise I'll let it go. I should have liked to have heard again from Orange Mike (was that really it Mike?)
I thank all who contributed in good faith here. JaniB (talk) 14:14, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Jani, as others have said, I'm just a guy with a Mop-and-Bucket. But for what it's worth:
the consensus is that we have no, repeat no, reason to believe that this is other than a suicide; the article title is fine.
I am the father of a teenager; I do not make these statements lightly or without long thought (part of why I took so long to respond). --Orange Mike | Talk 21:43, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
Mike, thanks for this. As indicated above I'm wasted here. I might suggest what I would like to see as guidelines on my Talk page later. I would like to see Amanda's inquest first (or rather what is published about it, the inquest itself is unlikely to be published) and the teenage suicide stats in Canada and the USA for this period of time when they are collated. Brieflly I think WP:BDP should establish that recent suicide articles should be entitled "Death of ..." until such time as a coroner rules a cause of death, and then link to a policy document WP:Responsible Reporting of Recent Suicides outlining Wikipedia's policy. The preamble of that should make clear that an article covering a recent suicide can never have any sensible pretensions of being encyclopaedic so long as the inquest remains unpublished, and must therefore be considered a news report that ought to abide by guidelines published by the Surgeon General given that Wikipedia's servers are established in the USA.
I resent these accusations that I attempting to censor the fact of a sucide. I am doing nothing of the sort. I am just asking that the fact be reported responsibly within guidelines that main stream media abide by. Wikipedia can never be freer than the press and publishing houses that service it. So long as these remain free and uncensored then I suggest Wikipedia has no cause for anxiety. JaniB (talk) 02:26, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Arbitrary Break, recent suicides
Personally, I think that this discussion has an impact beyond its original subject matter of teenage suicides, and should be the starting point for a new interpretation of Wikipedia policy. So many individuals here think that the purpose of NOTCENSORED is specifically to offend the sensibilities of various political, religious, or ethnic groups that are not the majority of Wikipedia editors (white Christian males). Living comfortable lives as members of the majority ethnic group in liberal democracies, many Wikipedia editors fail to realize that their edits have a farther-reaching effect that can cause communal violence and hatred in less-developed parts of the world. While I do believe that we should do our duty in ensuring that our articles fulfill all necessary encyclopedic purposes, I see no value in deliberately adding material beyond this whose sole purpose is to incite and inflame. That Wikipedia is not censored should be held in comparison both with WP:DICK and the actual impact that Wikipedia has on the world. We should, by all means, fulfill our encyclopedic purpose; but I don't think that there is any (moderately interpreted) religion on this earth or otherwise sane value systems that espouse deliberate incitement of communities because of some twisted view on the right to freedom of speech.
Now watch me be pelted with tomatoes for stating that in material that incites hatred and division, we should fulfill our encyclopedic purpose and no more. We should not pander to any one group, but we should not inflame them more than necessary either. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 03:23, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
In re "white Christian males": I believe that "Christian" is probably wrong. White and male, yes, but the majority of editors are probably in the non-religious category (including atheists, agnostics, and those of a non-specific spirituality). You could accurately add "single" and "childless" to your description. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree that this is probably true. However, after you account for unspecified spiritual, agnostic, atheist, and Christian individuals, there is only a small section of the community left. That is, excluding temporary flamers who log on to fight currently ongoing military conflicts on the front of Wikipedia. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 04:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Regarding the "deliberately adding material beyond this whose sole purpose is to incite and inflame sentiment, that echoes exactly the anti-image crowd from the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Muhammad images earlier this year. Then, as now, some people need to get it though their heads that the desire to provide information unfettered and uncensored is NOT...let's make that crystal-clear; N-O-T...the same as purposefully wishing to inflict offense on another person or group of persons. Offense is at times simply an unavoidable side-effect of free-flowing information. Tarc (talk) 03:45, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Tarc, I think that you are merely echoing the mindset of the majority of the encyclopedia that thinks that its editing has no implications whatsoever when this is simply not the case. Given the dominance of this encyclopedia by a single (no pun intended) and largely monolithic group, which may or may not have experienced the true diversity of religions, cultures, and ethnicities on the planet and which certainly does not incorporate these into its editing community, I think that it is largely ignorance of these diversities among people that causes editing, which may not seem particularly problematic to a member of the white male Christian/agnostic/atheist/unspecified spiritual European/North American crowd, but which would certainly have a ripple effect on other peoples. I see this as out of ignorance, which is of little harm if it can be swiftly corrected. But to continue to prop up your mentality that "we don't want to harm anyone" despite the fact that you probably are is, in my opinion, little different from climate change denial. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 04:49, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Wer900, I am not "echoing" the "white male Christian/agnostic/atheist/unspecified spiritual European/North American crowd", I am proudly a member thereof. People being possibly offended are of no importance to me whatsoever, and if you click that RfC and read through the data, the overwhelming majority of this project is of a similar mindset. Freedom of information trumps the possibility of offense, every time. Tarc (talk) 12:58, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't believe that we should leave out materials offensive to some persons because it is offensive, but I don't think that we should add material that is offensive just because we have an edit button and a NOTCENSORED policy. As for "freedom of information trumps the possibility of offense, every time" just think about yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater and how your statement applied to that situation would clearly cause more injury and death. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 23:40, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
And just where did anyone here say that we have to add such material, because I sure as hell didn't say that. This is the same wrong-headed rhetoric that comes out from people like you at times like this, accusing others of wanting to retain potentially offensive material on purpose. We also see the same misapplication of the Shouting fire in a crowded theater metaphor. I have yet to see anyone ever cite that metaphor correctly, as they invariably leave out the point that Oliver Wendell Holmes was making about a person who falsely shouted such a thing in a crowd. Tarc (talk) 00:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that the Wikipedia editors that add incendiary material are mean-spirited but are rather ignorant over what constitutes incendiary material. Wikipedians should not be afraid to add controversial materials but there is no need to go overboard with adding these, especially where violence is likely. My point in using the fire metaphor was not to apply what Justice Holmes said but the fact that we should not deliberately cause harm to people. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 03:44, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
Of course we shouldn't try to incite people, but we shouldn't shy away from adding content when we find it. The Holmes comment is a great quote, so long as people don't forget the "false" part of it. CharmlessCoin (talk) 13:59, 12 December 2012 (UTC)
I can't speak for anyone else, but I certainly recognize there are consequences. There are countless things on Wikipedia that are capable of being misused and causing harm. Even seemingly innocuous knowledge can result in harm, for instance, by providing information about the abuses the government of a country is known to have perpetrated, it may have a tendency to contribute to unrest in some small degree. Now we can try to decide constantly on a case by case bases which risks of harm are big enough to justify censoring, but it would be a constant struggle. And the outcome would likely strongly reflect the demographic leanings of the editor base. Or alternatively, we can say that we just wont consider it when it comes to content decisions, knowing that harm can and will be done, but believing that providing un censored information is valuable enough to outweigh the harm. We don't include things with a purpose offending, just as we don't exclude them to avoid offense. I think we are pretty good at not censoring things offensive to the "Christian/agnostic/atheist/unspecified spiritual European/North American crowd" as well. Monty845 05:18, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
As another approach, I have always been concerned about the implications of titles like Death of X, which I consider a triumph of sensationalism over encyclopedic principles, although the people who advocate it call it the triumph of accuracy about title structure and BLP's NPOV. They're wrong to think it encyclopedic--it is just the opposite. If The Death of X.Y is the only article we have on person X.Y, the significant part of the title is the identity of X.Y., and it is not relevant whether his life or death is what made the person notable. If X.Y. is a writer, and his notability arises from his writing , the article is properly titled X.Y., for that is the entry point and what anyone would look for and the natural way to organize material. (If X.Y. is not just notable but truly world-famous, we might have break-out articles on his biography and his works, but that;s similar to the case of Michael Jackson.) The name is what anyone would look for, that's how anyone would think of the article in a reference work, that's how an encyclopedia would be made. Calling it the Death of X.Y. is what a tabloid would do, and what would differentiate a news source from a work of reference.
I have never advocated any degree of censorship, and I would include details of suicide methods and the like, just as I would include candid coverage of human sexuality and sexual images. But I would want to include these because we are an encyclopedic work of reference, and it is appropriate for us to maintain a certain amount of dignity and responsibility. I would never sacrifice accuracy for the sake of avoiding consequences, but I would use careful presentation as the way of not provoking consequences. Harm will come to people, and it may come because of the nature of events, but we should not magnify it by our presentation more than necessary. The recounting of suicide and of crime can lead to imitation, the description of dangerous devices may lead to their construction; this is unavoidable, but orienting our presentation to the lurid or dangerous details is avoidable. They must be included, they should not be featured. There is no contradiction between telling the truth and social responsibility. There is however a contradiction between individual & social morality & responsibility, with reckless manner of description and presentation. Honest people describing horrible things write so the horror will be known and understood; just as they do not hide it, they do not over-represent it. Writing about difficult things take care. The tabloids and to a considerable extent even the more responsible news media are skilled at emphasizing horror and using it for merchandising; we need to be equally skilled at handling it and using it to distribute knowledge and understanding. BLP is an essential principle, and I can not work with people who ignore their common humanity: the details must not get in way of the meaning of the principle--that's legalism triumphing over humanity. DGG ( talk ) 05:41, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Your paragraph on "Death of X.Y" is pretty interesting. Think we could expand the scope of this discussion to include that? CharmlessCoin (talk) 06:11, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Really excellent point, DGG, on the lack of logic in titling sensational Biographical articles with "Death of....", "Suicide of....", etc. If it's a subpage of a larger article, such as Death of Osama bin Laden, then it makes sense. Otherwise, it makes no sense. The absurd conclusion of the current approach would be to retitle every other Biographical article about someone's life to "Life of....". First Light (talk) 06:24, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I agree with that, but on the other hand I can see how the death of someone non-notable can be a notable event, especially with the outcry in social media, like in Todd's case. It would be difficult to determine on a case by case basis, and then there's WP:VICTIM which could also cover some of the "Death of X" articles. CharmlessCoin (talk) 06:36, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
DGG conveniently overlooks the guideline WP:BIO1E: "the general rule in many cases is to cover the event, not the person". Todd never was, never will be, notable. It is the event (her suicide) that is relevant here. WWGB (talk) 10:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
@DGG: brilliant reasoning (even if I may not agree 100%) - Nabla (talk) 23:59, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I really doubt that a serious encyclopedia like Britannica has articles titled "Suicide of..." and rarely if ever "Death of...." Maybe Encyclopedia National Enquirer would do those "Suicide of...." articles. First Light (talk) 06:40, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
Todd would never appear in EB. Period. And that's the problem: wannabe reporters who seek to include marginal news stories in Wikipedia. WWGB (talk) 10:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
I understand that Wikipedia is sensationalist/tabloid not just in titles but in content, approach, and tabloid level "reporters." But if EB did have an article about Amanda Todd, it would be titled simply "Amanda Todd." First Light (talk) 15:37, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
DGG, you make an interesting point, as you often do. Here, though, I have to disagree with your first argument. The article in question is not about Amanda Todd, because we do not have sufficient material to write a full biography on her. It is, rather, about the suicide of Amanda Todd. That makes that title much more accurate. In the case of almost all one-event biographies, that's the case. As to the "lurid(ness)" aspect, I would agree with this in principle, but I think NPOV would already instruct us not to be unduly lurid or to cause offense just for the sake of it. Conversely, however, it would also instruct us not to leave out relevant, well-sourced details on the grounds of "harm". That's the current balance we tend to strike, and I think it's the correct one. SeraphimbladeTalk to me 06:01, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm in complete agreement that we should never purposely attempt to incite any group or individual. However, it needs to be made perfectly clear (as I believe the consensus above reflected), that we will continue to publish information that could be deemed offensive or dangerous, as long as it's of encyclopedic value and can be verified. In part of Monty's above statement, he suggests that going through these sorts of cases and evaluating the "risks" of each case could be a way to handle this. I'm a little worried where that would leave us. I understand that we should always have a discussion over whether material was purposefully meant to incite, but I'm opposed to evaluating the "risk" that certain knowledge may carry, for fear that it could turn into a form (however minor it may be) of censorship. CharmlessCoin (talk) 06:03, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
this article shoulda been deleted outright on event and not-the-news grounds. --216.66.108.218 (talk) 16:10, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
The Local Embassy
I think it's time this topic is revisited. The Local Embassy is an unfortunately-named apparatus designed to facilitate aid to "international users". There are a myriad of reasons why this "embassy" ought to be renamed or wholly remodeled; although this is evidently a Wikimedia project and could be extended to other wikis, change regarding this should be initiated here.
The main page could be of some assistance to users, I suppose, but there is really no introduction to the page or explanation of what precisely it is. All that exists is a blurb that says "this is not a real embassy", but it's written in English and in all probability will be ignored by someone desperately needing consular assistance.
The amount of queries regarding diplomatic services on the talk page, plus an earlier proposal to rename the page, greatly outweighs any requests for assistance.
Most English Wikipedia editors can speak English fluently, at any rate, and probably don't need a great deal of assistance if they come from countries where the vernacular is not English.
And now to the page's biggest problem—the name. Something entitled "Embassy" is inevitably going to draw the attention of certain persons searching for help with passports, visas, etcetera. They often reveal a load of personal information, as well.
The page receives slight but reasonable amounts of traffic; these rarely extend to the talk page, which receives ery few. Given that the content on the project page itself can be helpful, deleting the entire "embassy" probably isn't the best solution.
The last proposal to rename or to delete the entity never got anywhere because it didn't receive enough feedback, and essentially died on Wikimedia.
Currently, the Local Embassy is in need of a rename and some revisions. I would suggest renaming the page "Interlingual coordination". Although kind of bulky, redirects could be created featuring names more accessible to non-English speakers; as mentioned above, "international editors" on Wikipedia are likely fluent in that particular tongue. At any rate, a change will be preferential to the status quo regarding the project. dci | TALK 00:44, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
I would suggest starting a discussion on Meta as well, noting the meta:Embassy page and how this general concept relates to the other Wikipedias and Wikimedia projects. The reason for calling it an "Embassy" was not to think of the government services but rather as a way for different projects to coordinate actions and initiatives that cross from one wiki to another. In other words this is going into the broader usage of the term. There was the view there would also be "ambassadors" of each wikimedia project who would represent that project in other languages and places who could be contacted to help with trans-wiki issues.
While English is a common trade language throughout the world and many people do speak English as a second language even if it isn't a primary language, I wouldn't count out the need to have access to resources for people who simply don't speak English at all. This aspect of Wikipedia can be very useful.
More importantly, I don't mind seeing a sort of reboot of the embassy concept, even if it is renamed. Note that the purpose of this page is not to be a place for people who speak English but rather for somebody who isn't fluent with English seeking to do something important on en.wikipedia.
As somebody who has worked on trans-wiki issues in the past, I'll say that these pages can be invaluable. There really does need to be somebody who can exercise good judgement and be able to understand cross-cultural issues that befit a good diplomat. Issues that come up that require multiple language editions of Wikipedia to coordinate their actions really do need the skills worthy of any sort of negotiation done at the United Nations. --Robert Horning (talk) 02:16, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
I do not disagree with your comments. Further, I have no goal to delete the Local Embassy, but I think that the name is needlessly confusing. Yes, diplomacy is a must, but it's beneficial not to have occasional queries regarding consular services. dci | TALK 02:48, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Fully support renaming I just went through the talk page history from 2009 yesterday, it was completely sad and hilarious. It's true, there were times more misguided posts than actual requests for help regarding Wikipedia; and what's also true is that one too many people posted personal or contact details. Then there were the foreign-language posts that no one knew what to do with, they could've been either Wikipedia-related or similarly misguided like the rest of them. Another thing to consider is that there have probably been times more people who never even posted but were probably confused by the "Embassy" page and wasted their time trying to figure out what it is and what to do. — Jeraphine Gryphon(talk) 11:05, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
Support remaming to something relating to languages (non-english assistance?). Also, the pages of the embassy could be in more languages although it would be impractical without an extension. ~~Ebe123~~ → report 11:25, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
. Dr. Blofeld, do you have a list of potentially problematic articles that can be tackled? Or is this more of a go through Category:Pakistan recursively and clean it up? Legoktm (talk) 20:12, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
Pro Support. Maybe a parameter can be added to the {{advert}} template to specify how the article disqualifies, thus hinting to peacock terms, puffery and/or actual advert articles written by affiliates with the subject.
Sharebox is a script that reorders your toolbox. It adds new buttons that make it easier to mail, print or share an article on Facebook, Twitter or another linksharing service. You must have an account to add Sharebox to the sidebar. See User:TheDJ/Sharebox for more information. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 15:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)
Removed