→Slowing 2% decline by new tools, new admins, new helpboxes: quick question <small> |
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There is a lot of concern about the plunge in the number of editors on wikipedia. |
There is a lot of concern about the plunge in the number of editors on wikipedia. |
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The '''number one reason for this drop is nasty editors''', many who are administrators, who [[WP:BITE]] new editors. How is this being addressed? Upload a video on youtube with one click. Try to upload a video or image on wikipedia is a several step process, with numerous steps, and your video or image will most likely be deleted. Start a new article, and within minutes, sometimes seconds, your contribution will be deleted. I think this attitude starts at the very top with Jim Wales and the committee being so worried about a potential lawsuit, they have created a company culture which squelches any fun in editing. There is an elite group of editors, created by Jim Wales, who are quite nasty to new ideas and new contributions. IF you want an example of this, watch the reaction to what I wrote. '''If you don't understand the complexities of wikipedia policy, rules, etc., and have the time to invest large amounts of time into wikipedia, your contributions will be deleted, ridiculed, or ignored.''' |
The '''number one reason for this drop is nasty editors''', many who are administrators, who [[WP:BITE]] new editors. How is this being addressed? Upload a video on youtube with one click. Try to upload a video or image on wikipedia is a several step process, with numerous steps, and your video or image will most likely be deleted. Start a new article, and within minutes, sometimes seconds, your contribution will be deleted. I think this attitude starts at the very top with Jim Wales and the committee being so worried about a potential lawsuit,<sup>[[wp:NPOV#no evidence|[disputed] ]]</sup> they have created a company culture which squelches any fun in editing. There is an elite group of editors, created by Jim Wales,<sup>[[wp:NPOV#no evidence|[disputed] ]]</sup> who are quite nasty to new ideas and new contributions. IF you want an example of this, watch the reaction to what I wrote. '''If you don't understand the complexities of wikipedia policy, rules, etc., and have the time to invest large amounts of time into wikipedia, your contributions will be deleted, ridiculed, or ignored.''' |
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The '''number two reason for this drop in editing is the complexity of wikipedia pages'''. Like technical articles, there are very knowledgeable editors who make it impossible for laymen to understand what is being written. Many of these editors of technical articles and templates attitude when they get complaints about complexity is, "fuck you, this subject is complex, and simply cannot be understood by laypeople". So like the American law, in the case of both technical articles and technical complexity, you have a small elite which controls the distribution and interpretation. This gives the power to control content for a elite few, with the exclusion of most everyone else. |
The '''number two reason for this drop in editing is the complexity of wikipedia pages'''. Like technical articles, there are very knowledgeable editors who make it impossible for laymen to understand what is being written. Many of these editors of technical articles and templates attitude when they get complaints about complexity is, "fuck you, this subject is complex, and simply cannot be understood by laypeople". So like the American law, in the case of both technical articles and technical complexity, you have a small elite which controls the distribution and interpretation. This gives the power to control content for a elite few, with the exclusion of most everyone else. |
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[[User:Igottheconch|Igottheconch]] ([[User talk:Igottheconch|talk]]) 07:30, 10 August 2013 (UTC) |
[[User:Igottheconch|Igottheconch]] ([[User talk:Igottheconch|talk]]) 07:30, 10 August 2013 (UTC) |
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:: ''<b>Disputed:''</b> On numerous occasions, [[Jimmy Wales]] has cautioned people to be more [[wp:Civil]], and he welcomes everyone to politely express opinions on his [[User_talk:Jimbo Wales|talk-page]]. Regarding a "potential lawsuit", Jimbo has stated there is relatively little worry and the Foundation can even offer guidance to improved page contents, without risk of liability for the text which individual editors choose to write. -[[User:Wikid77|Wikid77]] ([[User talk:Wikid77|talk]]) 23:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC) |
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:I agree the culture needs to change. I think [[Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia|deletionism]] is taking a toll. It's much easier to be a deletionist than an inclusionist. And parts of the MOS are over-restrictive to the point that they aren't the guides that they intend to be. Instead, they are enforced policy putting form over function. |
:I agree the culture needs to change. I think [[Deletionism and inclusionism in Wikipedia|deletionism]] is taking a toll. It's much easier to be a deletionist than an inclusionist. And parts of the MOS are over-restrictive to the point that they aren't the guides that they intend to be. Instead, they are enforced policy putting form over function. |
Revision as of 23:23, 11 August 2013
Policy | Technical | Proposals | Idea lab | WMF | Miscellaneous |
- Table of contents
- First discussion
- End of page
- New post
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.
Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.
MOS Guide conflict of interest between developers and user/enforcers
If MOS guide developers and advocates are also user/enforcers of a guide, this seems to be a conflict of interest. If the purpose of the guide is to guide, there's no way to know that the wording of the guide (the guides effectiveness) is working well if the same guide editors and advocates are also making edits to articles based on the guide. When the guide editors and advocates are the main user/enforcers, it makes the guide seem more like an excuse for like-minded editors to justify their own edits than a guide for other editors. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- What's a "MOS guide developer"? Are you suggesting that editors who are familiar enough with an aspect of Wikipedia that they can contribute meaningfully to the guidelines for that aspect, those editors should refrain from improving Wikipedia elsewhere through the application of those guidelines? That's no "conflict of interest", that's "in the interest of improving the encyclopedia". (And casting any of them as "enforcers" isn't helping.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- A MOS guide developer is someone who edits a MOS guide. A most guide advocate is someone who defends the MOS guide as is and opposes suggestions for improvement. I'm suggesting that editors who are familiar enough with an aspect of Wikipedia that they can contribute meaningfully to the guidelines for that aspect should improve Wikipedia either through improving/defending the guide, or through the application of those guidelines, not both. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Not remotely a conflict of interest. Not remotely of benefit to Wikipedia. Not going to happen... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:29, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Why? Because you say so? Oicumayberight (talk) 20:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Because what you're saying doesn't make any sense. And I can't think of a worse change to make in Wikipedia than to make a class of guideline writers completely separate from article writers. postdlf (talk) 20:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- I didn't open this discussion looking for opinions. I'm looking for facts. Fact: it wouldn't have to be two separate classes. One user could be a policy/guide developer for a particular guide while also editing articles as long as they exercised some discipline in not pointing to the same policies and guides that they have edited as justification for their article edits. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Ok, I'll bite. Where is the factual data to prove that this would lead to an improvement in Wikipedia? No opinions, please... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Logic will suffice too. Oicumayberight (talk) 21:18, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Ok, I'll bite. Where is the factual data to prove that this would lead to an improvement in Wikipedia? No opinions, please... AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- I didn't open this discussion looking for opinions. I'm looking for facts. Fact: it wouldn't have to be two separate classes. One user could be a policy/guide developer for a particular guide while also editing articles as long as they exercised some discipline in not pointing to the same policies and guides that they have edited as justification for their article edits. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:53, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Because what you're saying doesn't make any sense. And I can't think of a worse change to make in Wikipedia than to make a class of guideline writers completely separate from article writers. postdlf (talk) 20:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Why? Because you say so? Oicumayberight (talk) 20:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Not remotely a conflict of interest. Not remotely of benefit to Wikipedia. Not going to happen... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:29, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- A MOS guide developer is someone who edits a MOS guide. A most guide advocate is someone who defends the MOS guide as is and opposes suggestions for improvement. I'm suggesting that editors who are familiar enough with an aspect of Wikipedia that they can contribute meaningfully to the guidelines for that aspect should improve Wikipedia either through improving/defending the guide, or through the application of those guidelines, not both. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:17, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
Logically, the conflict of interest isn't between people wanting to improve wikipedia. The conflict is over how people choose to improve wikipedia. One might choose to make the guide more convincing, while the other might oppose attempts to make the guide more convincing and instead use the guide as a hammer when their are conflicts over their own edits in articles. In either case, we wouldn't know if the guide was convincing if mostly guide editors and advocates are making edits based on the guide. If an editor/advocate honestly wants to know if their guide is working as a guide and not a hammer, they need to test how well it's guiding people who aren't emotionally invested in the guide. They can even contribute with clarification on talk pages of articles where the guide is being applied. But once they start editing or voting on edits in articles based on the guide, they are not working in the interest of improving the guide, which could make them blind to any need for improving the guide. This could lead to inbreeding. Oicumayberight (talk) 21:18, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Adding 'logically' to a paragraph of opinions doesn't make it logical. (And BTW, I hope your reference to inbreeding was intended as a metaphor :D )AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:29, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Do you have any
opinionfacts concerning the OP's proposal, Mr Corbett, or are you just here for an argument? (cue obvious link to Monty Python sketch...) AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Do you have any
- Unless wikipedia is a dating service, it's a safe assumption that inbreeding in the context of ideas is a metaphor. Perhaps if you pointed out any logical errors or claims I've made that are impossible to support by empirical evidence, I could address what you considered to be opinionated. Oicumayberight (talk) 22:00, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Nothing you have claimed is supported by empirical evidence. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:02, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- I didn't ask if anything I said was supported by empirical evidence. I asked if it was impossible to support anything I said by empirical evidence. I asked if it was falsifiable. It's only opinionated if it's not falsifiable. Oicumayberight (talk) 22:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- I gather that the complaint underlying this thread is a belief that the MOS is "controlled" by a small "clique", who a) write the MOS guidance, then b) go out and "enforce" that guidance over c) the objections of the majority of other editors. For the sake of argument, let's assume that this complaint is accurate... In which case the solution seems obvious... all those other (objecting) editors need to band together, and work on editing (ie changing) the MOS guidance. Our policy and guideline pages are supposed to reflect broad community consensus... but that only works if the broader community gets involved... so that their consensus becomes known. Blueboar (talk) 22:26, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- If the (objecting) editors don't know that they are a majority, that won't happen. Instead you'd just have a pluralistic ignorance or silent majority. Either way, the risk of inbreeding and systemic bias remains. The only way guide editor/advocates could be certain that their guide was effective at anything more than attracting like-minded supporters with the same cognitive bias would be to abstain from applying their guide in actual edits. They could even promote and clarify the wording of the guide on the talk pages of the articles in question without crossing that line. In my opinion, that would be much more diplomatic, educational, and welcoming of participation than the way it's working now. Oicumayberight (talk) 23:01, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- An editor with "field experience" in editing articles can bring that experience to discussions about policies and guidelines. Conversely, an editor who has participated in discussions about policies and guidelines understands the reasonings behind them, and can defend and explain them when they are challenged. Therefore, it is beneficial that an editor have experience in both the development and the application of the policies and guidelines.
- An editor who has just finished a discussion can then choose a list of articles or a category of articles, and can work through them, finding and correcting articles that do not conform to the policies and guidelines (or to one particular policy or guideline). An editor who wishes to have a say in every such discussion can follow Category:Wikipedia surveys and polls and Wikipedia:Dashboard. See also the list of discussions at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-07-24/Discussion report. However, it is difficult for one person to be involved in every discussion, and we all need to accept some decisions that were made without our participation.
- —Wavelength (talk) 23:13, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- I understand that experience in both the development and the application of the policies and guideline helps. I'm thinking that the latter should precede the former. Once one learns what it is about guides that make them difficult or controversial to apply, they learn how to better word the guide to avoid confusion or controversy. It wouldn't be a conflict of interest to go from article editing mode to guide editing mode for the same guide. The risk of conflict in interest is the reverse order for the same guide. I'm also thinking that experience applying guides doesn't have to come from applying the same guides that one edits. For example, one could edit MOS:IMAGES while editing articles based on WP:LAYOUT.
- A compromise of the above would be for editor/advocates to abstain from getting involved in controversies over their own article edits based on guides they've also edited or advocated for. If someone reverts their edit, they could resort exclusively to discussing on the article talk page or move on to editing other articles. I know this would still leave the door open for WP:TAGTEAMs, but it least it would slow the inbreeding effect. Oicumayberight (talk) 23:40, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Another compromise would be for editor/advocates who couldn't get their way at Talk:Digital and then couldn't get their way at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation to abstain from forum shopping their problem to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). It would still leave the door open for anyone who agrees with the to chime in at the previous forums, but at least it would slow the slow the dead-horse-beating effort. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:57, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Way to WP:AGF. Oicumayberight (talk) 01:08, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- Another compromise would be for editor/advocates who couldn't get their way at Talk:Digital and then couldn't get their way at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation to abstain from forum shopping their problem to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). It would still leave the door open for anyone who agrees with the to chime in at the previous forums, but at least it would slow the slow the dead-horse-beating effort. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:57, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- A compromise of the above would be for editor/advocates to abstain from getting involved in controversies over their own article edits based on guides they've also edited or advocated for. If someone reverts their edit, they could resort exclusively to discussing on the article talk page or move on to editing other articles. I know this would still leave the door open for WP:TAGTEAMs, but it least it would slow the inbreeding effect. Oicumayberight (talk) 23:40, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
I think the problem here is those who would edit a "manual of style" based upon what they want Wikipedia to become, as opposed to those who are simply codifying widespread practice and trying to clean up the few exceptions that deviate from "typical" standards. The worst kinds of fights on things in the MOS (that usually spill over to here in the Village Pump) revolve around usually one or a small group of editors (often called a "cabal" by opponents) who make widespread changes to Wikipedia on a number of articles, either using a change in the MOS as justification or based upon some "policy".
It may be that sometimes a major style change is in order, and I'm not opposed to that either. Again, the problem comes then how it is done. It really should be something done by consensus, and for myself should involve a large number of editors. Hopefully, if changes are made, they are small and reversible. (see also WP:SOP for a similar philosophy) I take "changes of software" to include the MOS in this case or other policy guidelines as well. --Robert Horning (talk) 23:47, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
- Is this purely hypothetical, or do you have an example in mind where something like this happened? Dicklyon (talk) 14:14, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- How can anyone discuss examples peacefully? Is it possible to discuss examples without the personalities involved getting defensive and turning it into a food fight? Is there a way we can address behavioral issues without finger-pointing and naming names? Oicumayberight (talk) 18:09, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- Then being unable to recall anything like what Robert was describing (at least since 2009), I have to think this whole thing is hypothetical. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- All you have to do is check the history of the MOS guide discussions if you really want to know. But even if you were to discuss it as a hypothetical, you can still address the logic or refute the illogic of the hypothetical. That would be the proactive problem-solving approach instead of the crisis management approach or the avoid/kill the discussion approach. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I'm pretty familiar with WT:MOS, at least for the last three years, but I'm not familiar with any arguments there that fit the description of the problem being discussed here, as described by Robert Horning. Maybe you have a different description that would bring something to mind, but I'm not going to try to read your mind and tell from your "logic" whether such an odd provision would do any good, or is just something that you think would favor your side in some argument or other. Dicklyon (talk) 19:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- You are free to ignore whatever you choose to ignore. But it doesn't have to be a mind-reading exercise to determine whether or not something is logical or illogical. So far, at least 3 other members in the discussion have understood the logic behind the conflict of interest. One of them actually understood it well enough to address the conflict with a real counterpoint/alternative approach, one understood it well enough to recall how the conflict is manifested, and another member agrees with the original logic/principle aside from any manifestation of the problem. They didn't have to read my mind to see it, they only had to read the text. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:52, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I'm pretty familiar with WT:MOS, at least for the last three years, but I'm not familiar with any arguments there that fit the description of the problem being discussed here, as described by Robert Horning. Maybe you have a different description that would bring something to mind, but I'm not going to try to read your mind and tell from your "logic" whether such an odd provision would do any good, or is just something that you think would favor your side in some argument or other. Dicklyon (talk) 19:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- All you have to do is check the history of the MOS guide discussions if you really want to know. But even if you were to discuss it as a hypothetical, you can still address the logic or refute the illogic of the hypothetical. That would be the proactive problem-solving approach instead of the crisis management approach or the avoid/kill the discussion approach. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Then being unable to recall anything like what Robert was describing (at least since 2009), I have to think this whole thing is hypothetical. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- How can anyone discuss examples peacefully? Is it possible to discuss examples without the personalities involved getting defensive and turning it into a food fight? Is there a way we can address behavioral issues without finger-pointing and naming names? Oicumayberight (talk) 18:09, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- Wading back in here, I'll point out that there have been numerous kinds of discussions of this nature on the Village Pump in the past that started precisely in the way I described. I suppose you can dig into the archives if you want. I don't want to dredge up specific examples right now as it seems like this is turning into a personal attack against me right now rather than trying to carry on a discussion about the general concept. Some older discussions (certainly before 2009) I could point out include dealing with the infamous battles between those who wanted the "BC/AD" used on dates that those who wanted to use "BCE/CE" on dates. It specifically included changes to the MOS and mass changes on Wikipedia in a large number of articles and epic reverts on that one topic alone. Personal attacks and editors resigning over the issue and a great many other hurt feelings happened, where fortunately this issue has been mostly put to bed except for some occasional minor flare ups.
- I can certainly use some more recent examples including a discussion I started on this very topic less than a year ago. I just prefer to leave those discussions in the past, but I think it is the height of ignorance (literally, not knowing the history of Wikipedia) to think this has never been a problem. The Manual of Style really should be "best practices" and simply describing what is being done rather than what should be done. I don't understand why this is a hard concept to grasp. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:46, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not saying it has never been a problem. I'm saying that nothing like what you described has happened in the last three years, unless you can show otherwise. I think you're remembering arguments and then completely misconstruing how they happened, and trying to lay blame on some imagined one or a small group of editors (often called a "cabal" by opponents) who make widespread changes to Wikipedia on a number of articles, either using a change in the MOS as justification or based upon some "policy" as you put it. Of course there are editors who edit a lot of pages based on policy and guidelines. So what are getting at as a problem here? Did someone change the MOS and then go change a bunch of articles based on that? Not that I can recall, unless you count the 2011 revision to MOS:DASH, which had a huge participation and very little pushback in the end (besides from Pmanderson). Even though a few points of the guideline changed, huge swaths of articles (like the NYC Subway system articles) adhere to the old guidelines with more spacing around en dashes, because nobody felt strongly enough to push on that. Where's the problem? Dicklyon (talk) 23:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- I can certainly use some more recent examples including a discussion I started on this very topic less than a year ago. I just prefer to leave those discussions in the past, but I think it is the height of ignorance (literally, not knowing the history of Wikipedia) to think this has never been a problem. The Manual of Style really should be "best practices" and simply describing what is being done rather than what should be done. I don't understand why this is a hard concept to grasp. --Robert Horning (talk) 21:46, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- The conflict of interest doesn't only lead to unpopular changes to the MOS. It can lead (and IMO has led) to stricter fundamentalistic enforcement of the MOS and fiercer resistance to changes of the MOS. I'm not going to give examples, because it seems to be impossible to do that without it turning into a finger-pointing debate about personalities instead of principle. Once we start down that road, the road hazards never get addressed, let alone fixed. It's so much easier to blame road accidents on bad driving and bad drivers. The principle is that advocates for the status quo should be willing to abstain from editing the articles based on the specific parts of the MOS they advocate for if they really want to know if that part of the MOS is working well enough (as is) to guide anyone new to that part of the MOS in doing what was intended by that part of the MOS. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting an old establishment of MOS enforcers (almost as unscientific as traditionalism or fundamentalism) or worse, inbreeding. WP:IAR isn't enough to overcome fundamentalism or inbreeding once a WP:CABAL starts WP:VOTEing. Even if the Administrators are fair and balanced about arresting, correcting, or revoking the license of "bad drivers," it's still a far more costly burden on wikipedia to reactively police (close roads, remove bodies of victims, investigate who is at fault, write accident reports) than to proactively police (guide/enforce) this simple traffic principle. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:36, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- Comment - User:Oicumayberight has a good point. If there is really a consensus for something there should be sufficient number of supporters on a MOS guideline for it to not need the same supporters to also be the ones policing it. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:49, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- I have no idea what these concepts like policing are trying to get at. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I believe the desired conclusion is: editors who support a MOS guideline that I disagree with should not be allowed to edit articles to apply those guidelines; that would make them "enforcers" or make it "policing". (Anyone can apply MOS guidelines that I agree with; that's simply improving the encyclopedia.) Also, anyone who applies a guidelines I disagree with is a supporter of the guideline. Or to paraphrase, no, Oicumayberight does not have a good point. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Obviously JHunterJ is making a straw man argument. Nobody suggested "liking" or not "liking edits" based on the guide was any measure of whether or not the guide was working. Oicumayberight (talk) 17:40, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- This whole section is a straw man support group. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Obviously JHunterJ doesn't know what a straw man is. This section wasn't started with a misrepresentation of someone else's position. Instead it was started with a premise of my own observation. I'm not going to misrepresent my own position. So now JHunterJ has gone from ad hominem, to straw man, to red herring out of 4 posts. And JHunterJ was the first to respond. If JHunterJ thinks this discussion is so unimportant, then why is JHunterJ so involved in it? Oicumayberight (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- It's helpful to point out your errors, lest your misuse of things like "Obviously" make someone only skimming through assume you're right. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:01, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- When you find an actual accounting or logical error (rather than an ad hominem accusation, straw man, or your own red herrings), let us know. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:14, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- There is nothing correct in your assertion; it's unclear why we would need to find specific errors when the underlying premises are faulty. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:39, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- Let me rephrase that. Some editors edit the MOS and then act as if their change justifies their edits. That would be wrong, if there isn't consensus. If there is consensus, not even that would be wrong. What you are talking about is not even evidence of suspicion of a COI. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:41, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- Another argument from ignorance. Because you don't see a COI, it doesn't exist. So I guess the three people who have chimed in that have seen the COI must be delusional. Oicumayberight (talk) 02:29, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- There is no actual or potential COI "violation" in the situation you describe. There is a false appearance of a COI. And ... not necessarily "delusional", <redacted phrase>, merely unobservant. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:07, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- I don't see any relation between my comment and the argument from ignorance. There have been rare cases where someone edits a guideline and then acts on it, or makes changes and then edits a guideline to support it. They are usually stopped. If you can provide any examples of a potential COI which doesn't fall into that category. (For that matter, I frequently edit to support the removals of WP:OVERLINKs and WP:YEARLINKs, even though I think those guidelines are a bad idea. Does your argument suggest that I shouldn't do that?) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 06:22, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- No, I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't edit articles in support of a MOS guide. I'm suggesting that you shouldn't edit the MOS Guide and then edit articles based on that particular MOS guide if you really want to know if the guide is actually guiding and not just giving permission like a policy.
- Another argument from ignorance. Because you don't see a COI, it doesn't exist. So I guess the three people who have chimed in that have seen the COI must be delusional. Oicumayberight (talk) 02:29, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- When you find an actual accounting or logical error (rather than an ad hominem accusation, straw man, or your own red herrings), let us know. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:14, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- It's helpful to point out your errors, lest your misuse of things like "Obviously" make someone only skimming through assume you're right. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:01, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Obviously JHunterJ doesn't know what a straw man is. This section wasn't started with a misrepresentation of someone else's position. Instead it was started with a premise of my own observation. I'm not going to misrepresent my own position. So now JHunterJ has gone from ad hominem, to straw man, to red herring out of 4 posts. And JHunterJ was the first to respond. If JHunterJ thinks this discussion is so unimportant, then why is JHunterJ so involved in it? Oicumayberight (talk) 18:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- This whole section is a straw man support group. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Obviously JHunterJ is making a straw man argument. Nobody suggested "liking" or not "liking edits" based on the guide was any measure of whether or not the guide was working. Oicumayberight (talk) 17:40, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I believe the desired conclusion is: editors who support a MOS guideline that I disagree with should not be allowed to edit articles to apply those guidelines; that would make them "enforcers" or make it "policing". (Anyone can apply MOS guidelines that I agree with; that's simply improving the encyclopedia.) Also, anyone who applies a guidelines I disagree with is a supporter of the guideline. Or to paraphrase, no, Oicumayberight does not have a good point. -- JHunterJ (talk) 14:24, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I have no idea what these concepts like policing are trying to get at. Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Just to clarify, you said "COI violation" which may seem to some that I'm claiming that the conflict of interest I mentioned is a violation of the WP:COI policy. I make no such claim. I'm speaking of an inherit conflict of interest based on logic. But it appears that you've agreed there's a conflict of interest in your "rare case" that is "usually stopped." Even if it gets reactively stopped, there's still a conflict of interest that could be dealt with proactively. Oicumayberight (talk) 09:11, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
DVD/Blu-ray covers on episode lists
I was told the covers don't meet WP:NFCC in order to be used for episode lists and that they are unnecessary to understand the list. Should all DVD/Blu-ray covers be removed from episode lists and season lists? DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 23:33, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yes. An episode list is ancillary to the primary article, which already has (or should) an identifying image in the infobox. If there is only one season, then there doesn't need to be an episode list page, and if there are multiple seasons then how do you decide what DVD cover art to use? You may see some DVD cover art on season article, as those pages are more specific and generally contain a significant amount of information, but not necessarily for a season list (there are some season pages that are articles and some that are merely lists). BIGNOLE (Contact me) 23:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
- I also mean to include season lists, like in these cases List of Bleach episodes (season 10) and List of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 episodes. From your point, it's okay to have images on those articles? How about List of Black Lagoon episodes. Thanks. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 00:00, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I try and gauge it a bit based on how much information is there, which is why there is a difference between a season "article" and a season "list". Images are used to enhance pages and provide illustration for something to better help a reader. They aren't meant to be purely decorative. For many shows, each season cover art tends to represent a theme of that season, examples I might give would be for Smallville (see related seasonal pages: Smallville (season 1) or Smallville (season 2)). Basic list of episode pages don't really need images, because there isn't much there other than plot summaries, ala List of Smallville episodes. If you look on the latter's page, it has a free image, as basic text cannot be copyrighted. So, to answer your question, I would say that the LoE pages for Bleach, Code Geass, or Black Lagoon, don't necessarily need an image for them. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 00:06, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks. Still, since all anime episode lists are like the ones I linked to, I was hoping there would be something really concrete decided in this discussion cause I will probably start mass removing images from those lists. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs)
- Wait for more opinions. The people at WP:FUC and WP:NONFREE will probably tell you to remove all of them....actually, they'd probably just remove the images themselves if they learned about them....they're a bit more hardcore about images than even I am. :) BIGNOLE (Contact me) 00:19, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks. Still, since all anime episode lists are like the ones I linked to, I was hoping there would be something really concrete decided in this discussion cause I will probably start mass removing images from those lists. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs)
- I try and gauge it a bit based on how much information is there, which is why there is a difference between a season "article" and a season "list". Images are used to enhance pages and provide illustration for something to better help a reader. They aren't meant to be purely decorative. For many shows, each season cover art tends to represent a theme of that season, examples I might give would be for Smallville (see related seasonal pages: Smallville (season 1) or Smallville (season 2)). Basic list of episode pages don't really need images, because there isn't much there other than plot summaries, ala List of Smallville episodes. If you look on the latter's page, it has a free image, as basic text cannot be copyrighted. So, to answer your question, I would say that the LoE pages for Bleach, Code Geass, or Black Lagoon, don't necessarily need an image for them. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 00:06, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Actually, Bignole, from an NFC perspective, I'd argue that there's an allowance, just not a clear-cut one. A rule of thumb - but not concrete - is that if you have a season's episode list and that season has a dedicated release on home media, then you can at least begin a reasonable argument on the inclusion of the home media cover art, since it would be expected that part of the coverage of the season is some broad strokes on its development and reception on its own - eg. making akin to the release of a published work. But this is not as cut and dried as, say, a movie poster. --MASEM (t) 00:24, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Are the set covers crucial to understanding the content of the article? Does the article have reliably sourced critical commentary discussing the cover and its appearance? If not, I can't see why you would need to use these images. — fourthords | =Λ= | 01:45, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- The same argument can be applied to cover art in general - a stance I personally would stand behind but know it has no consensus on WP based on past RFCs. But since we allow cover art on other works even without discussion of the art in general , I would expect the same if an episode is more about the season/set that includes critical discussion about the set and not just a straight up episode list. --MASEM (t) 02:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I would argue that by virtue of our communal agreement to abide by the policies we do have consensus for removing the media that's not in compliance. Further, do we have a policy that "allow[s] cover art on other works even without discussion of the art in general"? I know it happens, but is it codified anywhere or are we just winking and nudging each other about it? — fourthords | =Λ= | 02:43, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Cover art of a work on other works is not a usually granted allowance. You have to explicitly have discussion why the image is relevant in the other work. However, I would argue that this is not the case here. For example, Doctor Who (series 1) is a case of using a cover from the home media used to identify that season, in light that there is significant discussion (Beyond the episode list) about that season. It is effectively like any standalone release of a film or book, and thus the cover art is reasonably used here in the same manner as films and books. --MASEM (t) 03:58, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I would argue that by virtue of our communal agreement to abide by the policies we do have consensus for removing the media that's not in compliance. Further, do we have a policy that "allow[s] cover art on other works even without discussion of the art in general"? I know it happens, but is it codified anywhere or are we just winking and nudging each other about it? — fourthords | =Λ= | 02:43, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- The same argument can be applied to cover art in general - a stance I personally would stand behind but know it has no consensus on WP based on past RFCs. But since we allow cover art on other works even without discussion of the art in general , I would expect the same if an episode is more about the season/set that includes critical discussion about the set and not just a straight up episode list. --MASEM (t) 02:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
I'll take it that I can go on a mass removal spree then. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 01:49, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- You'll incur a major fightback against this if you try to do a spree. --MASEM (t) 02:23, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, I know. I'm still waiting for some consensus so I can either restore an image to one of my lists or go on a removal spree. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 02:50, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Well, unless we wait, it's no consensus either way (keep or remove). Again, I think the borderline depends on if it is more than just an episode list. In its current state, List of Bleach episodes (season 10) is just an episode list, and a cover image is not needed. --MASEM (t) 03:59, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, I know. I'm still waiting for some consensus so I can either restore an image to one of my lists or go on a removal spree. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 02:50, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
Seeing that each article is unique I would not think that it violates copyright as the images are being used to show the DVD's in question. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
- I was asked to comment here by DragonZero. Personally, I hope that we don't see any kind of mass removal spree, even though I don't think the covers meet NFCC in most cases. That may sound contradictory, but removal sprees often lead to hurt feelings and anger, as Masem implies. I've even seen people get blocked for not stopping removal sprees when asked. Much more can go wrong than go right if you try to do this. Giants2008 (Talk) 15:37, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- IMO, DVD/set covers for season articles does not pass NFCC, and the situation is not really analogous to album art. Album artwork is permitted in the article about the album, usually nowhere else. In this case here however, the articles are not about a DVD box set, they are about a season or several seasons of a television series. How the distributors packages and sold that series, and which image they chose for the cover of that isn't terribly relevant to the tv season itself. This may indeed call for a "removal spree", as I don't see how a posed picture of Aizen (yes I am a huge Bleach fan for the record) helps my understanding of season 12. Tarc (talk) 15:51, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- That same logic applies to most cover art (outside of episode lists) - that typically the cover provides very little direct understanding of the published work. Yet we (affirmatively) keep cover art because of this idea of implicit branding and marketing (I note I disagree on this point, but consensus on cover art is overwhelmingly in favor of it). Hence, the logic I present - that when we are talking about a seasonal episode list (not a multi-season list) where there is discussion about the season beyond just the episode list, we have exactly the same basic requirements that we would support cover art for any other published work. It's contrary to not allow the same allowance for cover art on season lists with a published form that we apply to any other work. --MASEM (t) 16:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- There may be something to this reasoning but it doesn't do anything towards making this sort of art more informative about episode lists. I have to agree with Tarc that the association is too weak to justify inclusion. Mangoe (talk) 18:58, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- Sorry, it simply doesn't work that way. Album art --> album is an intrinsic and historically important connection, millions of people can identify the cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit or Dark Side of the Moon without knowing a thing about either band. There has been album art that has been pored over detail by detail, inch by inch to see how it relates to the music inside if at all. So if you have a case to make that File:Charmed S4.jpg is at all related to Charmed (season 4), other than commercial packaging, I'm all ears. Tarc (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- See, that's the wrong argument. We're not including album art (under NFCI#1) because its recognizable, we're including it because it carries implicit branding and marketing. For every Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon cover, which are instantly recognizable, there's hundreds of album covers that are forgettable, yet we include them because at least the album is notable. Now, I would love to argue that we shouldn't be including album cover art unless it is the subject of discussion, and clearly that's a barrier your examples can likely met in terms of being iconic art, while those hundreds would go by the wayside, but that simply is an argument the community has rejected. And this applies to all published works - books, films, video games, TV title cards, etc. 99% of the title, we present a cover that's just there, not discussed, but consensus agrees to keep it.
- This is where it is important to make the distinction that some of these per-season episode lists are really more than episode lists but akin to standalone notable targets. Again, I present Doctor Who (series 1) as an example where we are well past an episode list, with twice as much content about the season compared to the episode list. It is, just like most album covers, an identifying image for that season and represents the branding and marketing of the standalone topic. Unlike a typical episode list (Eg List of Naruto episodes (season 1)) even where there's a home media release, this is more a stand-alone list for purposes of WP:SIZE and not so much that the season was notable, and thus that should not support a non-free cover image. I would definitely not argue that every episode list can support cover art within NFCC's requirements, but I can't agree that this is true for all episode lists, and hence any removal has to be very selective. --MASEM (t) 19:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- That same logic applies to most cover art (outside of episode lists) - that typically the cover provides very little direct understanding of the published work. Yet we (affirmatively) keep cover art because of this idea of implicit branding and marketing (I note I disagree on this point, but consensus on cover art is overwhelmingly in favor of it). Hence, the logic I present - that when we are talking about a seasonal episode list (not a multi-season list) where there is discussion about the season beyond just the episode list, we have exactly the same basic requirements that we would support cover art for any other published work. It's contrary to not allow the same allowance for cover art on season lists with a published form that we apply to any other work. --MASEM (t) 16:03, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
- Well, is there an anime list that satisfies NFC requirement? Nothing comes to mind for me. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 18:46, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- I have no idea if there is one without surveying them in detail. But knowing how anime is covered in RSs (eg nowhere as near as primetime, live action shows), I would guess that it would be exceptional that an anime season list could support such. Spotchecking a few of the most recent popular ones I know about, I'm just not seeing these to be anything more than episode lists and not about a notable home media release. --MASEM (t) 20:20, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- I want to suggest removing covers from anime episode lists then or else this trend will just continue. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 21:32, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- That's too broad and specific a stroke (at the same time). The better way to judge is by two tests: 1) that the list goes beyond just episode lists and cast, specifically into areas like production, direction, and reception (what we would expect for any published work to be considered notable) and 2) that we have a dedicated home media release of that season. Yes, most anime lists would fail this, no question but so would many other (but not all ) Western TV shows. There is also the possibility that there are anime seasons that would fall into this. So we should consider this in the broader sense of all TV and not just one genre. --MASEM (t) 23:44, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- I want to suggest removing covers from anime episode lists then or else this trend will just continue. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 21:32, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- I have no idea if there is one without surveying them in detail. But knowing how anime is covered in RSs (eg nowhere as near as primetime, live action shows), I would guess that it would be exceptional that an anime season list could support such. Spotchecking a few of the most recent popular ones I know about, I'm just not seeing these to be anything more than episode lists and not about a notable home media release. --MASEM (t) 20:20, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- Well, is there an anime list that satisfies NFC requirement? Nothing comes to mind for me. DragonZero (Talk · Contribs) 18:46, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Place for marked fringe science, alternative practice and conspiracy theories
Please take a look at Paul Pantone user talk page and his "user page" (don't know how to wiki both, because he uses %C3 so giving the full link) obviously abusing wikipedia.
This kind of page won't blow away, whatever we do. Also, IMHO the negative aspect is extremely important: For any fringe science, alternative practice, or conspiracy, it is important to bring reliable resources showing:
- why it cannot work, or why the idea is wrong
- how people are being taken advantage of through this method
- how unimportant or irrelevant issues are being emphasized and exploited to make it seem reliable
- which organizations, people and ideas involved in this idea - have been involved in other unreliable activities and especially when involved in malpractice.
In the example above, Paul Pantone's Jailing for going against a protective order given to prevent his abuse on or threat to his wife, is being portrayed as suppression of his idea, by the oil cartel.
These negative aspects of those kinds of ideas, are extremely important information for human kind, definitely more so than a third rated actor who can prove some notability for playing in some nonsense show on TV.
In other words, I think that wikipedia should have a place for fringe science and conspiracy theories, para-medical treatments and the likes, albeit giving the correct (small) weight to claims and clearly showing their apparent fallacy, while revealing their methods, according to reliable sources.
But I don't know HOW this should be done. Maybe a separate section of the wikipedia, or perhaps some markings, and a policy with guidelines for entries of this sort. Perhaps each type of fallacy should have an entry with sub entries: for our example: Fringe Science/Over Unity Engines, Fringe Science/Exhaust Energy/GEET Engine...
I know that wikipedia's current policy does not allow this. Supposedly this can lead to POV or at least POV wars. But scientific information is what we call "reliable" and "non biased" and although even in science there is never complete objectivity, we rely on it, and it is considered NPOV.
So I'm calling on you, to please discuss this openly, and help define a new policy, or maybe even some new templates and guidelines within the current policy, so that this kind of information CAN be added. Of course you may think that the current policy of ignoring this information is the correct policy, and I respect that. I'm asking for those who agree with me to please help think of a way to get this information on wikipedia, without it leading to a positive edge for those POV advocates of the idea, and while clearly conveying the (reliably sourced) negative aspects of the idea, practice or personality. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 09:19, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Pashute... Have you seen our WP:Fringe theories policy page?... it tells us when it is (and is not) appropriate to discuss a fringe theory on Wikipedia, and outlines how to do so. Blueboar (talk) 13:07, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- In any case, could WP:FAKEARTICLE apply here?-- cyclopiaspeak! 13:13, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Nominated for deletion here: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:ÆE/Paul Pantone --NeilN talk to me 17:09, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- In any case, could WP:FAKEARTICLE apply here?-- cyclopiaspeak! 13:13, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Pashute... Have you seen our WP:Fringe theories policy page?... it tells us when it is (and is not) appropriate to discuss a fringe theory on Wikipedia, and outlines how to do so. Blueboar (talk) 13:07, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- No, I did not see WP:Fringe theories policy page. Thanks!! OK, so what I'm arguing is for a change in policy on Notability. Would a Paul Pantone Geet engine pass "notability"? IMHO it should.
- One of the important headings of that page say:
- Wikipedia is not and must not become the validating source for non-significant subjects...
- Granted. But what is non-significant? Because fringe science, alternative medicine, over unity engineering and conspiracy theories are now shaping politics, changing lives (sometimes all the way to the other side), and extremely prevalent, in my opinion the whole subject needs to get a second look.
- As a side issue, please discuss Paul Panton on his talk page. It was just an example. Not the topic of this discussion. Thanks פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 17:30, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Our policy regarding fringe topic notability is clear enough, as I see it. If it doesn't receive mainstream attention, it isn't notable, and doesn't get coverage. Which is the way it should be. Wikipedia has no specific 'fringe-refuting' mandate, and I don't think one is either necessary, nor something we'd be particularly suited for anyway - if it hasn't received mainstream attention, refuting it usually involves WP:OR. Leave the 'fringe fringe' to the specialists, and concentrate on dealing with the 'notable fringe' material we already have the mechanisms and policy in place to deal with. As for your suggestion that the fringe is shaping politics, it always has to some extent, and I can see no particular reason to think that things are getting worse. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:47, 1 August 2013 (UTC)
- Andy, No reason to think things are getting worse? I think many will disagree with you. There's a big difference between the once prevalent Kennedy assassination theories, vs. the Sandy Hook false flaggers and the 9-11 twin tower truthers. There never was such a prevalent and open access to an information stream like youtube and TV stations like RT TV that reach such a large public viewing, with such an impact. When Wikipedia started off, science was not viewed as "just another point of view". But more immediately apparent: quackery in the medical field was not tolerated. Today, it seems it is. These are all questions of life and death, to individuals, and to us as a society. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 15:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Are you proposing a specific change to Wikipedia policy? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:21, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
Cosplay Images
Should we seek consensus about a guideline that covers cosplay images? I have been in a few recent discussions about using them in articles that have limited images because they need to be fair use. Articles like comics and video games. The discussion about using this image in Black Widow (Natalia Romanova) was decided as no inclusion. Races of The Elder Scrolls has one that so far seems to be acceptable. World of Warcraft has the same image and we are discussing changing it on the talk page to one that matches the game better. The 'not include' arguments vary from slowing down pages, ugly format, notability, to text in articles not mentioning cosplay. IMHO many of these articles are overloaded with fair use images that can be replaced with free use ones of cosplayers for the readers to see what characters look like. The Black Widow article above has five fair use images and no free ones. Yes, I did create the two above images and one editor thinks I am trying to spam articles with them. I don't believe creating and adding images to articles that are lacking free ones should be considered spam though. I did the same with the Ajay Fry image for InnerSPACE and no one had any objections there. Images may not be as big a contribution as text but we should think of our readers. I think most would like larger free images over the smaller fair use ones we have in too many articles now.--Canoe1967 (talk) 12:57, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Our image use policy already favors free images over fair use images, whether the specific images are better or worse in a specific article is something that should be decided on a case-by-case basis. In other words, no, I do not believe we need a policy on this. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:23, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- (ec)We don't need a policy but a guideline would help. This would shorten the discussions on all the comic and video game articles that only use fair use images now. Good images of cosplayers can be found for almost all of our articles about these fictitious characters which would be a lot of repeated discussion arguments. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Cosplay is full of images that could enhance the readers' grasp of these characters. It seems a shame to just leave them taking up space on commons and not be used. We could easily cop out of writing a guideline and discuss it to death for each article or we could move forward on consensus for inclusion. It would probably be the same small group of editors in each discussion just causing less and less good faith among them. I have almost given up in those heated discussions but would discuss a guideline.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- This area is a mess. There is a real possibility that a photo of a good cosplay of a copyrighted character could by subject to the copyright of the underlying character. There have been multiple conflicting opinions from different foundation counsel, a recent one being found at commons policy and original statement which commons seems to be ignoring. In light of the copyright mess, I would say it is not advisable to replace better non-free images with fan representations which themselves may be non-free. Monty845 15:38, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The legal issues have never come to a DCMA takedown. Until then there shouldn't be any harm.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, given the Foundation hasn't said "we consider these non-free", then as long as Commons accept them as "free" for the most part (their template "Costume" notes some legal issues in some countries) then we should consider them free and available to use. Appropriateness in articles, or when they are free replacements of NFCC images, that's a different matter once we assign them free. --MASEM (t) 16:25, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The legal issues have never come to a DCMA takedown. Until then there shouldn't be any harm.--Canoe1967 (talk) 15:49, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- This area is a mess. There is a real possibility that a photo of a good cosplay of a copyrighted character could by subject to the copyright of the underlying character. There have been multiple conflicting opinions from different foundation counsel, a recent one being found at commons policy and original statement which commons seems to be ignoring. In light of the copyright mess, I would say it is not advisable to replace better non-free images with fan representations which themselves may be non-free. Monty845 15:38, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- If we have a free image, and it's fit for purpose (not "as good", not "as high quality", etc., just fit for purpose) for the subject of the article in question, we without exception use that in preference to any nonfree image. In cases illustrating a general principle or classification, like "elf" or "Jedi" or "Vulcan", an accurate, in-character cosplay depiction will be appropriate. For "Galadriel" or "Luke Skywalker" or "Spock", a cosplay image would not be appropriate, because no matter how good a cosplayer is, they're not Mark Hamill depicting the specific character in the movie. We don't need a separate policy for that, NFCC #1 already requires that nonfree images not be used when free images are available. (The concerns that such images could be nonfree are separate, and I'm by no means a copyright lawyer, but I find it a little hard to believe that a generic depiction of an archetype is covered by copyright. You can't copyright a concept, only specific implementations of that concept, so you can copyright "Superman", but not the idea of superheroes.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:57, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- That is the question that some editors can't get their head around. These fictional characters exist in comics, film, TV, video games as well as cosplay. Cosplay is the portrayal that isn't included in articles. To deny images of a cosplayed version of a character is to deny that cosplay exists as another version of it. These articles mostly have 'in popular culture' sections and cosplay is a popular culture.--Canoe1967 (talk) 17:32, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- Setting aside the legal issues for others more well versed in that : ) - But just from an MoS standpoint, I would think Cosplay versions may be used in the body of an article to show an example of Cosplay. Though I think there is a line somewhere between coplay, larping, and going to a costume party/halloween ball. Regardless of all of these, the cosplay image should never be used as the primary example image to illustrate a character for an article unless the cosplay version is the primary example. For example, the Spider-Man article would have a 2D comics image for in infobox, not someone dressing as Spider-Man. - jc37 16:53, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think all agree to the infox image being the first or an early Spiderman comic. The copyright shouldn't be an issue as commons servers are in FLA same as the en:wp ones.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:04, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I started Wikipedia:Cosplay images in articles. Feel free to help out.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- See also: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Images_for_the_lead (not just for infoboxes). - jc37 21:07, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I started Wikipedia:Cosplay images in articles. Feel free to help out.--Canoe1967 (talk) 20:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- (Reply to jc37): It depends on the article. Spiderman is a specific character, and so using a cosplay image there is inappropriate. On the other hand, many of the discussions relate to classes of characters, such as a superhero or a Jedi. In that case, a high-quality cosplay image meeting all the requirements is an appropriate free image for that article, and would preclude the use of any nonfree images. The same is not true, of course, for articles on particular characters such as Superman or Luke Skywalker, as cosplay images would not represent the actual depiction of the character and so would be misleading and inappropriate. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:11, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I saw what you said above (Mark Hamil etc.), and thought you had that covered, but nod, I agree. Though this sort of creates a slidebar from the general to the specific, so I think some of those in the fuzzy middle (no Furry jokes please : ) may need discussing on a case by case basis. - jc37 21:18, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think all agree to the infox image being the first or an early Spiderman comic. The copyright shouldn't be an issue as commons servers are in FLA same as the en:wp ones.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:04, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I just noticed that Catwoman has 11 fair use and only one PD image. Flickr probably has 1000s of free ones and we have 17 at commons.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
Incubator Portal review
As the result of a lightly-attended discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article Incubator/Platform No. 1, I have added a new portal to an article. The article is about a movie that is likely to be released in the next few months. The general problem is that people who come to the mainspace page and want to create it might not know that there is an article in the incubator where they should put their editorial efforts.
For an example, a recreation of the mainspace article happened with this article in the incubator. The new mainspace article resulted in a procedural AfD to remove the unacceptable article, that resulted in the closing admin reaching beyond the scope of the discussion into the incubator and deleting the incubated article as well. Had the incubator portal version of the page been there, two things would have been different, the editor might not have tried to create the article, and even if the article had been created, other editors could have reverted the additions. It was soon found that sock puppets created a version of this article for the express purpose of getting the topic salted, and this too would not have worked with the incubator portal version of the page in place.
Anyway, the point remains to see if the collective experience at Wikipedia notices some subtle issues here. Unscintillating (talk) 17:27, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- What you are doing here seems a bit outside the norm, and resulted in the page you created in mainspace being nominated for speedy deletion. I've declined the speedy deletion and opened a discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Platform No. 1 (2nd nomination) instead. --RL0919 (talk) 18:17, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- And I've asked you at the AfD how opening a 2nd discussion (one without an argument for deletion) helps Wikipedia. Unscintillating (talk) 18:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- AFD is the standard venue for discussing deletion of mainspace pages. Another editor had already asked for deletion, so I don't see why you think discussion there would be avoided. --RL0919 (talk) 18:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- AfD is not a general venue, it is a specialized venue that requires an argument for deletion, as per WP:SK#1. Perhaps you are thinking of WT:Articles for deletion. Unscintillating (talk) 19:26, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- AFD is the standard venue for discussing deletion of mainspace pages. Another editor had already asked for deletion, so I don't see why you think discussion there would be avoided. --RL0919 (talk) 18:47, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- And I've asked you at the AfD how opening a 2nd discussion (one without an argument for deletion) helps Wikipedia. Unscintillating (talk) 18:41, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- In order to isolate this discussion from the AfD, I've created a similar example page at WT:Article Incubator/Platform No. 1/Platform No. 1. Unscintillating (talk) 21:31, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
- The idea you have about AfD being specialised into a simple yes/no question about deletion is incorrect. "Deletion" is in the name of the venue but it isn't the only outcome of AfDs. CSDs are deliberately narrowly defined - very specific situations mandating very specific outcomes. AfD is the catchall to decide what to do in more difficult situations. To be honest Unscintillating, I think this whole issue is a bit dead; rather summed up by the fact that incubator itself is being mooted for closure altogether. The history of the project up to now indicates that whether articles end up in the incubator or deleted makes precious little difference - ultimately no one ends up working on them and they just languish in incubator purgatory forever. All this malarkey about having essentially blank articles linking to incubator pages, and dragging non-notable subjects through AfD 1, 2, 3, DRV etc. etc. is all noise and no signal. It ultimately makes no difference because the articles never get worked on anyway. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 00:03, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- The edit history for my work on the incubated article was moved into mainspace at Omar Todd before it was deleted, so administrators might not easily be able to know that my edits were being done to the incubated article, but they can see the edits, the point being that it is not correct that this article was not being worked in the incubator. Unscintillating (talk) 15:28, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Saying that, "The history of the project up to now indicates that...articles never get worked on" is refuted with Category:Articles in the Article Incubator moved back into mainspace. Unscintillating (talk) 15:28, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- The idea you have about AfD being specialised into a simple yes/no question about deletion is incorrect. "Deletion" is in the name of the venue but it isn't the only outcome of AfDs. CSDs are deliberately narrowly defined - very specific situations mandating very specific outcomes. AfD is the catchall to decide what to do in more difficult situations. To be honest Unscintillating, I think this whole issue is a bit dead; rather summed up by the fact that incubator itself is being mooted for closure altogether. The history of the project up to now indicates that whether articles end up in the incubator or deleted makes precious little difference - ultimately no one ends up working on them and they just languish in incubator purgatory forever. All this malarkey about having essentially blank articles linking to incubator pages, and dragging non-notable subjects through AfD 1, 2, 3, DRV etc. etc. is all noise and no signal. It ultimately makes no difference because the articles never get worked on anyway. Basalisk inspect damage⁄berate 00:03, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- AFD is not a specialized venue; it is a generalized venue for discussion of what to do with questioned articles in mainspace. However, at this point, the "marker" in mainspace has again been deleted, rightly or wrongly, so that there is nothing to discuss at AFD. It isn't even no content or no context. It isn't there. Anyway, I have no idea, nor do some other editors, understand why User:Unscintalling is wasting a lot of editor time trying to discuss an article that is clearly not a real article. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:04, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- As of when I post this, the page Platform No. 1 is not deleted and the AFD is still open. --RL0919 (talk) 02:07, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- The waste of time was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Omar Todd (3rd nomination). This article and the subsequent nomination are why the portal was created. That is 38,000 bytes and 57 edits of waste. Also, take a look at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Omar Todd (3rd nomination), where you will see that this AfD spawned seven additional discussions. This would not have happened if this article had existed as the Incubator Portal version. There were three (!) sock-puppet investigations. Unscintillating (talk) 13:43, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- AFD is not a specialized venue; it is a generalized venue for discussion of what to do with questioned articles in mainspace. However, at this point, the "marker" in mainspace has again been deleted, rightly or wrongly, so that there is nothing to discuss at AFD. It isn't even no content or no context. It isn't there. Anyway, I have no idea, nor do some other editors, understand why User:Unscintalling is wasting a lot of editor time trying to discuss an article that is clearly not a real article. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:04, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I have nominate Portal:Article Incubator for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Portal:Article Incubator as it seems equally as WP:TROUTish. Barney the barney barney (talk) 15:16, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Do you normally trout people working to improve the encyclopedia? Unscintillating (talk) 16:02, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- When you're doing tht you think is helpful but is actually just making a mess and wasting everyone's time, without realising this, yes, yes, yes, that's the whole point of WP:TROUT. Please wake up and smell the coffee (but don't take it personally). Barney the barney barney (talk) 16:12, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- The waste of time was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Omar Todd (3rd nomination), and the seven spawned discussions, including three sock-puppet investigations. None of that would have happened with an Incubator Portal version of the article in place. Unscintillating (talk) 17:07, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- When you're doing tht you think is helpful but is actually just making a mess and wasting everyone's time, without realising this, yes, yes, yes, that's the whole point of WP:TROUT. Please wake up and smell the coffee (but don't take it personally). Barney the barney barney (talk) 16:12, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Given that Omar Todd was deleted, I do not think you can say it was a waste of time. Barney the barney barney (talk) 20:12, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- The deletion of Omar Todd at that AfD was never in doubt, so showing that a long deletion discussion infested with sock puppets and three sock-puppet investigations were something other than waste is an argument you have yet to make. And once you have found something useful there, you need to compare it with what would have been the case if Omar Todd had had the Incubator Portal version of the article. There would never have been the AfD at all. So which is better, AfD infested with sock puppets and 3 SPI's, or no AfD? Unscintillating (talk) 21:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the explanation, which I still don't understand, but in that case I really don't care about the past history here, including that AFD. It's not important. Barney the barney barney (talk) 21:49, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Here is another case in point. I was just now in the process of adding an incubated article that had not been actively edited since 2 July 2012, Wikipedia:Article Incubator/The 4th Reich (film), to the WP:Article Incubator/Greenhouse. I noticed that it was a red link. I tracked this down and found that on 25 July 2013, it had been taken to MfD here. Not only that, the article was created in mainspace on 22 August 2012, only two and a half months after the 10 July decision at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The 4th Reich (film) to delete and then incubate the article. Note that the incubated deletion on 27 July 2013 was done with A10, "Recently created article that duplicates an existing topic, The 4th Reich (film))". Unscintillating (talk) 23:41, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Response to User:Fyre2387, who argues that portals have a more narrowly defined meaning than being used here:
- "Portals...assist in helping editors to find...things they can do to improve Wikipedia..."
- The problem is, how do we give a potential editor information that a topic has a draft in the incubator? What if instead of the portal, we had the same message, "The English Wikipedia does not currently have an article on this topic", but use the Talk page to report the existence of the incubated article? Unscintillating (talk) 04:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- Using the talk page helps, but it is Portals that exist as pathways from reading Wikipedia to editing Wikipedia. Unscintillating (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- The problem is, how do we give a potential editor information that a topic has a draft in the incubator? What if instead of the portal, we had the same message, "The English Wikipedia does not currently have an article on this topic", but use the Talk page to report the existence of the incubated article? Unscintillating (talk) 04:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia has a "to do" list that reads, "Here are some tasks you can do:...*Add {{WikiProject Wikipedia}} to articles in our scope." Unfortunately for this discussion, Portal:Wikipedia is the main page. Is there a similar portal for using on mainspace articles? Unscintillating (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Issues with Civility Enforcement
The policy on civility is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia, but is inconsistently and incompletely enforced. There are two principal issues. The first is that certain editors, who are known as excellent content creators, are commonly almost given a free pass from complying with the policy. (I am not only referring to a particular editor whose unblock was handled badly, but to other content creators who are habitually uncivil to other editors. The second, and perhaps more serious, issue is that the policy on civility is written clearly, in two parts, but that typically only one of those parts is effectively enforced. Part 1 of the policy forbids personal attacks, profanity, and other obvious breaches of civility. Part 2 states that certain other types of behavior are equally serious. They include taunting or baiting an editor, possibly in order to provoke him or her into a personal attack or gross profanity, lying about another editor's views, and quoting another editor out of context (in order to misrepresent his or her views). There are complaints at the civility talk page that baiting and lying are not dealt with; only the resulting personal attack is dealt with. It occurs to me that one reason for this problem (failure to enforce the second part of the policy, whose offenses preceded the violation of the first part of the policy) is that the noticeboards, WP:ANI and WP:AN, are not the best forum for looking into issues where there are multiple user conduct issues. The noticeboards are supposed to close issues quickly, based on "community consensus", which can be a will-o-the-wisp when there is no real consensus. Such cases, where an editor provoked another editor, should be sent to the ArbCom, which has an evidence-gathering process, and which does not require consensus because the ArbCom actually votes. Is this forum an appropriate one to discuss better enforcement of existing policy? There is nothing wrong with the policy, but there is something wrong with its application. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:11, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- The problem is that "baiting" claims are perniciously used by people who don't believe that they have to treat others respectfully as a means to disclaim any responsibility for their own actions. Every incident of gross and abusive behavior towards others was instigated by others, who baited them, even if the "baiting" behavior was merely having the gall to hold a different opinion or was a polite request to tone down prior incivility. Baiting is usually an excuse to allow people to treat others like shit with no consequences, and little else. --Jayron32 01:59, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree that that is often true. If an editor is being baited or taunted by another editor, there are appropriate means to respond, which do not include personal attacks. They do include responding on the article talk page, responding on the talk page of the user who is doing the baiting, various forums for resolution of the content dispute that is being interfered with by the conduct, and, if necessary, a user conduct Request for Comments. I agree that a few editors do not think that they have to treat other editors with respect. As I mentioned, some of them get off easy. However, the personal attack should not be dealt with in a vacuum. It may indeed be a case of two editors who have a long-standing hostility to each other. Such long-standing conflicts may be better dealt with by the more deliberative resolution of the ArbCom than at the noticeboards, at least if previous steps in dispute resolution have been tried and have not ended the conflict. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- By the way, Jayron32, on the Internet, no one knows that you are being sarcastic. I had to read your statement: "Every incident of gross and abusive behavior towards others was instigated by others" twice before I realized that you were quoting sarcastically the attitude of the uncivil editors. I agree that that is a common "bad attitude", but I had to read it twice to recognize that you, Jayron32, were not giving them a free pass. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I originally identified habitually uncivil editors as an editor retention issue, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention. I said that habitually uncivil editors may discourage the retention of new editors by creating a hostile workplace. I don't have statistics, but I would guess that the frequency of incivility in Wikipedia is in particular a barrier to retention of new female editors, contributing to the known gender gap. There, and at the civility talk page, I encountered the arguments that you quote. I largely agree with Jayron32, but I still think that the noticeboards are not the right forum to deal with continuing conflict between editors, and that if previous procedures have not resolved the issue, the ArbCom should be the final tribunal. The noticeboards do not deal effectively with habitually uncivil editors who are known as content creators (and so have fan clubs at the noticeboards), and those editors are intimidating to new editors. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Jayron - you are ignoring Robert's primary point, which is that there is more than one kind of uncivil behaviour, and one form of it, the insidious, provocative stuff that doesn't involve naughty words, generally goes unpunished. By trying to downplay it you really are proving his point. HiLo48 (talk) 02:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not downplaying anything. I'm merely noting that arguments of "baiting" are the refuge of those who wish to be exempted from the consequences of their own choices. No more, no less. Yes there are many ways to be incivil, and none should be given a free pass. --Jayron32 03:37, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- I mostly agree with both posters. On the one hand, an editor who is "baited" or "taunted" should not be given a free pass when he or she responds with a personal attack. On the other hand, the baiting or taunting should not happen in the first place. Both require blocks or other enforcement action. In general, cases where baiting or taunting is met with personal attacks are cases of long-standing hostility between two (or three or four) editors. Part of the problem is that the noticeboards are now the usual forum for dealing with such issues, but are not a good forum for looking into the underlying issues, because of the need to close cases quickly with a "consensus" as to the length of the block (and when an uncivil editor with a reputation as an excellent content creator has a fan club asking for a free pass for him). I mostly agree with both posters, but submit that the ArbCom is a better forum for dealing with editors who war because they dislike each other. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:12, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
I'm just going to come out and say it: if you are "popular" and a well-known attendee on some big wiki project or a message board regular or whatever, WP:CIVIL just plain doesn't apply to you. Any serious attempts to enforce it will lead to a massive screaming whinefest on WP/ANI from your supporters and you will get off with no more than a slap on the wrist. Except in the most blatant of cases, being an unpleasent ass is not a punishable offense unless you're some nobody no one cares about. Jtrainor (talk) 04:33, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
Issues with Other Policies
- Actually, I wonder if there are many policies that are not "inconsistently and incompletely enforced"..? For example, would you say that WP:NPOV (another "pillar") is enforced completely and consistently (including WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE)..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 16:43, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- On those two specifically... yes, I would say they are consistently and completely enforced... although that enforcement is often a slow process. At any given moment an article may contain UNDUE material... but eventually it will be addressed.
- As to the issue of "baiting"... it does occur... the important thing is how you respond to it. There is no excuse for "rising to the bait" and returning incivility for incivility. Admins do know that when someone complains that they are the "victim" of personal attacks, the editor making the complaint might well be doing something to cause those attacks. And if an editor develops a pattern of "always the victim... never the perpetrator", the complaints can boomerang back on the complainer ... the "victim" will be seen for what he/she really is... a subtle manipulator who is just as disruptive as those who rise to his/her baiting. It just takes a bit longer to identify the problem. Blueboar (talk) 17:37, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- As to NPOV, I agree that it is inherently slow and tedious to achieve. There are articles that remain out of NPOV for years, but those are typically cases of individual articles (often of interest to only a few editors), not cases of systematic limitation or bias in enforcement. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:12, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- As one who routinely attempts to consistently and completely enforce WP:NPOV, I submit that it's one of the areas that leads to provocative behaviour. Attempting to remove blatantly POV material can often lead to quite intense confrontation. I've been taken to ANI more than once by people who don't like their POV being removed. They rarely suffer any real consequences, and waste an awful lot of everybody's time. HiLo48 (talk) 18:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- In such case one could say that civility is also enforced consistently and completely. After all, incivility does stop - eventually. Because human endurance (or life expectancy) has limits.
- As far as I understand, the "consistency and completeness" was meant to include chasing away (or forcing to obey) the users who refuse to be civil. And in that case, how soon (on average) is an editor who does not even pretend to try to follow WP:NPOV or WP:FRINGE or WP:NOR chased away..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:40, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe Martynas should restate his or her points, because they appear to be something of a word game. The retention time of editors who do not even try to follow WP:NOR is shorter, in my experience, than those who do follow all of the content guidelines but do not follow WP:CIVIL. Long-standing issues about neutral point of view and fringe theories do sometimes go on for a long time, but they reflect the lack of consensus in the Wikipedia community. Such controversies become particularly heated when there is a consensus in the scientific community or other mainstream community, but a non-trivial following for the fringe views in Wikipedia, or (worse) where there is a non-trivial following for the fringe theory in the United States as a whole (or presumably some other Anglophone nation). Examples include homeopathy, Scientology, and creationism. In those cases, the problem is not that we don't enforce the policies about non-consensus views and non-neutral points of view, but, more basically, that we can't decide what are fringe views. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:20, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Well, I suppose we could argue about suitableness of claiming that homeopathy is not fringe, but I have a better counterexample.
- I hope you'll agree that Seventh Day Adventism is not that extremely popular. And yet, look at Talk:Vicarius Filii Dei and its archives, or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Willfults. Do you see evidence of numerous bans for "POV pushing" or something related..? No..?
- And concerning your statement "In those cases, the problem is not that we don't enforce the policies about non-consensus views and non-neutral points of view, but, more basically, that we can't decide what are fringe views."... The problems in this case and in case of civility seem to be mostly the same:
- There are too many editors who do not want the policies to be enforced (sometimes they would also be banned if the policies were enforced).
- The majority of the editors who could intervene do not care enough to enforce the policy. It might be because the issue is too unclear or too minor. Or too unpleasant, or too "dangerous", or requiring too much work.
- On average the "visible" community in English Wikipedia tends to be lenient and "Libertarian". So, we often get lots of talk about "second chances", "productive contributors", "lynch mobs" and "admin abuse" when policies get close to being enforced. Even when a user who cannot communicate in English is asked to leave.
- I think you will agree that in many cases those problems are the reasons for lack of enforcement of civility. I'd say they are the same problems that prevent the enforcement of other policies as well. And no, I do not know a good solution. It is slightly easier in Lithuanian Wikipedia where we try to chase away undesirable editors sooner, before we get a "critical mass" of them, but it seems to be too late for that here... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:52, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Well, there can't be a scientific consensus about religion. A man or woman has a right to his or her own beliefs. One does not have a right to one's own scientific facts, even if free speech permits one to be wrong about them. Science, where there is a collective process for determining truth, and religion, which is about beliefs about truth, are two different spheres. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:24, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- Er, I don't think I understand your position. You say that trying to pretend that homeopathy is not fringe does not violate WP:FRINGE, as things are not clear there, and now you say that scientific matters are clear..? Anyway, it doesn't have to matter that much... First of all, the fact that papal tiaras have no inscription "Vicarius Filii Dei" is, well, a scientific fact, easy to check. Second, that was not my only point, nor my main point. Do you actually agree with my explanation why our policies are not enforced with all harshness one would expect..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe I wasn't clear. I meant that it is the consensus of the scientific community that homeopathy is fringe, and so not labeling it as WP:FRINGE violates scientific consensus. The problem is that, although there is a scientific consensus that homeopathy and creationism are fringe, there isn't a consensus in Wikipedia. There isn't a consensus and will never be a consensus in the United States or most other Anglophone countries about religion. There is a consensus in the United States that there will never be a consensus about religion. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:42, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- Er, I don't think I understand your position. You say that trying to pretend that homeopathy is not fringe does not violate WP:FRINGE, as things are not clear there, and now you say that scientific matters are clear..? Anyway, it doesn't have to matter that much... First of all, the fact that papal tiaras have no inscription "Vicarius Filii Dei" is, well, a scientific fact, easy to check. Second, that was not my only point, nor my main point. Do you actually agree with my explanation why our policies are not enforced with all harshness one would expect..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- In other words, just as I wrote, this problem with enforcement of WP:FRINGE is analogous to problem with enforcement of WP:CIVIL: we have too many editors who do not want them to be enforced, too many editors what would have to be chased away while enforcing them. And, unfortunately one needs some effort to see that those editors are undesirable.
- And once again - I don't think there is a good solution. Maybe some "admin abuse" and increase of administrator independence (as opposed to administrator accountability) might help to chase the right amount of undesirable editors away... Not that we seem to be moving in that direction... Maybe you could get something from Wikipedia:Wikiheresy (but that essay does not have consensus support)... Or maybe you can persuade yourself that it doesn't matter that much, as WMF will destroy Wikipedia's community soon enough anyway (see Wikipedia:VisualEditor/RFC - [1] - and related pages for more details)... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:45, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Martynas Patasius: Several of your comments above are an excellent summary of the situation, thank you. Some text you were replying to clearly springs from inexperience—religion is not part of FRINGE because it's not fringe, and whereas various people including scientists have criticized it, there are no scientific studies on whether various religions are "true". By contrast, homeopathy is known to be junk because testable claims are made (drinking this expensive water will cure disease), and those claims are known to be false and contrary to all known science (and science keeps computers humming and airplanes flying, so it's rather more than an alternative viewpoint). Johnuniq (talk) 01:32, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- I mostly agree with Johnuniq and with Martynas, as long as we understand that we are talking about science and pseudo-science, and not religion. There are a core of editors who don't understand the policies on WP:FRINGE. Actually, some of them don't understand, and some of them do, except that they differ from the scientific consensus as to what is fringe. They agree in principle that fringe science should be tagged as such, but they disagree on their particular variety of fringe science. That is, they think that homeopathy is not fringe, or whatever. Another possibility is that they really don't want the policies enforced, as mentioned. In any case, as Martynas says, the English Wikipedia is perhaps an overly tolerant culture with respect to fringe posters, as well as to uncivil (sometimes even vicious) editors who are good content creators (of non-fringe material). Also, the English Wikipedia has a subculture of editors who whine about abusive power-hungry admins, while Martynas makes the point that perhaps stronger administration is needed to get rid of the persistent fringe posters. There is no simple obvious solution. We just have to keep editing and trying to improve the encyclopedia. Thank you for your comments, Martynas. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:09, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Martynas Patasius: Several of your comments above are an excellent summary of the situation, thank you. Some text you were replying to clearly springs from inexperience—religion is not part of FRINGE because it's not fringe, and whereas various people including scientists have criticized it, there are no scientific studies on whether various religions are "true". By contrast, homeopathy is known to be junk because testable claims are made (drinking this expensive water will cure disease), and those claims are known to be false and contrary to all known science (and science keeps computers humming and airplanes flying, so it's rather more than an alternative viewpoint). Johnuniq (talk) 01:32, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
"Edit source"
I don't like the new "Edit source" labels everywhere. "Edit" was just fine.Nankai (talk) 09:09, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:VisualEditor/Default State RFC, you are not alone.--Canoe1967 (talk) 09:25, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- This is a side effect of the new Visual Editor project. I'd agree that a simple "Edit" is preferable, but it may not be so easy to revert back if there is to be two different methods to edit a page. I suppose you could argue that the raw wikitext editor should be the default "Edit" button and the Visual Editor ought to be something different. I think most folks will get used to the current situation (with the "Edit Source" as the only button on talk pages), but it will take a little bit of time. For myself, I really don't care one way or the other. --Robert Horning (talk) 09:29, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Nankai, you are definitely not alone. A lot of editors who have tried the new Visual Editor have decided that they don't like it. You can turn it off, and go back to using the old edit buttons (look in your Preferences... its kind of hard to find, but there is an "opt out" box there somewhere.) Blueboar (talk) 17:45, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- Preferences, edit tab, bottom of the page, tick the disable while in beta.--Canoe1967 (talk) 18:00, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
- We're kind of in a transition mode now. Eventually, the Visual Editor "edit" will (hopefully) do what article editors need, and the "edit source" will be the optional choice. Right now, though, a lot of people will want both. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:13, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
Describing article issues in the article?
The only time I've seen article issues discussed with non-template text in an article is when a CSD or PROD is explained. Today, I came across this in a BLP. Do we actually want this? If not, why is there a reason parameter in the template? --NeilN talk to me 00:13, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- The "reason" parameter was added to {{BLP sources}} last December, following this discussion. There are other templates that use the parameter, such as {{cleanup}} and {{copyedit}}, and yes, people sometimes abuse it by making lengthy comments that really belong on the talk page. But the parameter does serve a valid purpose, so I'm not sure what could or should be done to prevent this abuse – maybe impose a character limit? DoctorKubla (talk) 06:44, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- I've moved the comment in question to the talk page. Reasoning in such templates is intended to consist of brief comments, not entire paragraphs. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Short or long
After a discussion at commons I discovered linguistic description and linguistic prescription. Dictionary says they exist in either form. I haven't read encyclopedia yet to see what flavour they are. Has this been codified to make this a short discussion or do we need a policy consensus in a long discussion? Are we an apple or an orange?--Canoe1967 (talk) 02:40, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
- It seems we are both. "...article is able to treat it in more depth and convey the most relevant accumulated knowledge on that subject..." from encyclopedia.--Canoe1967 (talk) 03:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
Japanese song and album titles
At WT:MOS-JA, I have made several attempts to reverse a decision made five years ago regarding the use of the tilde to mark subtitles in Japanese media (1, 2, 3). I had made several attempts to clarify things at WP:MOSTM and WP:AT (archive) but made no headway due to the vast differences in pages and no opinions.
To summarize this previous debate, in Japan song and album titles often include subtitles that are variably marked with the tilde (full width or half width) or the wave dash or sometimes hyphens. The only media considered reliable sources on this would be in Japanese, so there is no true way to determine English usage and all of the Japanese usage is ignored in favor of pushing the house style. The current practice of the manual of style is to eliminate these methods of demarcating subtitles in favor of those found for English language recordings. This means that a song titled "W-B-X ~W-Boiled Extreme~" in Japan is located at the title W-B-X (W-Boiled Extreme) on the English Wikipedia and an album known as "BEST〜first things〜" in Japan is at Best: First Things here. At least in the former case, the shift causes problems internally when there are other versions of the song such as shorter edits or instrumental versions, resulting in "W-B-X (W-Boiled Extreme) (Instrumental)" used in articles. There are also songs that are written in this form without the "title" portion, with something like "~Foobar~" being parsed as just "Foobar" on Wikipedia. As the Japanese manual of style is all that is preventing this, as no other manuals of style propose such a change (I've been invariably told that WP:MOSTM does not govern song titles, but it also states that one should choose forms that have existed in use rather than make up new ones), I believe that this aspect should be eliminated as it causes too many problems (at least one editor in a recent requested move thought that the parentheses meant that the page was being disambiguated and pushed for a shift to marking the subtitle with a colon) and generally does not match practice for Japanese media. This will not just cover songs with titles written in English to start with, but all articles with song titles written as "Foo ~Bar~" or "Foo -Bar-" in Japan.
A somewhat related issue also deals with multiple manuals of style conflicting, being WP:MOSTM and WP:CT. The song universally referred to as "Journey through the Decade" had its article moved to Journey Through the Decade per WP:CT, despite the capitalization of "through" never being used in any media relating to the song. Again, no English media has discussed the song, so all Japanese sources are ignored because the song's title is written in English. If no one refers to the song styled as "Journey Through the Decade", why should the English Wikipedia?—Ryulong (琉竜) 08:01, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
- Just my personal opinions on the matter, but hopefully I'll learn whether I'm in the majority or not with this: In Japanese media titles, the wave dash/tilde is either purely decorative or used in the same manner as a normal dash or parentheses. If a title has no coverage in English-language sources, editors should apply our MOS using their best judgment (which, to me at least, means removing or replacing those characters). Either way, though, it would be great to get a solid consensus on this point. —Frungi (talk) 09:38, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
So did I pick a shitty time to request input on this?—Ryulong (琉竜) 21:14, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Usually the "~" is replaced by "-" as its usually decorative, but thats a minor issue and doesn't stop us from adding it in the kanji whenever there's a nihongo template present. Not a strong subject of WP:TRADEMARK and WP:CT shouldn't be used so strictly when it comes to capitalization. For example: "Live A Live" should have the A in miniscule, however there is mention of it in English sources with capital "A" and the A in the title is relevant enough to be capitalized. Also in other times, the dashes/tildes are just their way of using colons. Example: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is originally written as "CRISIS CORE -Final Fantasy VII-" so the safest way could be "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme". Also i don't think WP:MOSTM and WP:CT covers specific tracks of an album, I'm sure those can be written exactly the way their presented.Lucia Black (talk) 18:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- I have songs in my collection with both ~ and - in them (although one of those cases parentheses would be used normally). How would we deal with songs like that?—Ryulong (琉竜) 19:26, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Considering the "dashes/tildes" are just another form of expressing subtitle in japan, they could be replaced entirely with just one colon to replace the tildes if both tildes and dashes are present (i'm assuming the dashes are used more appropriately than the tildes). The name change to add parenthesis was not the best ideas as now it looks more like a disambiguation and not really a great substitute. But this is mainly on how it'll be expressed in prose. Example if it was titled "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme" in prose it could be written as "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme (written as W-B-X ~W-Boiled Extreme~)" and from then on (in prose) refer to it as "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme" the tracklist can still be refer to it as "W-B-X ~W-Boiled Extreme~".Lucia Black (talk) 19:40, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Colons are not used for song titles though.—Ryulong (琉竜) 19:44, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- they can still be referred to the original intended version in the tracklist, just not in prose and the title. It's not a huge issue.Lucia Black (talk) 20:05, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Colons are not used for song titles though.—Ryulong (琉竜) 19:44, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Considering the "dashes/tildes" are just another form of expressing subtitle in japan, they could be replaced entirely with just one colon to replace the tildes if both tildes and dashes are present (i'm assuming the dashes are used more appropriately than the tildes). The name change to add parenthesis was not the best ideas as now it looks more like a disambiguation and not really a great substitute. But this is mainly on how it'll be expressed in prose. Example if it was titled "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme" in prose it could be written as "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme (written as W-B-X ~W-Boiled Extreme~)" and from then on (in prose) refer to it as "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme" the tracklist can still be refer to it as "W-B-X ~W-Boiled Extreme~".Lucia Black (talk) 19:40, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- I have songs in my collection with both ~ and - in them (although one of those cases parentheses would be used normally). How would we deal with songs like that?—Ryulong (琉竜) 19:26, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Usually the "~" is replaced by "-" as its usually decorative, but thats a minor issue and doesn't stop us from adding it in the kanji whenever there's a nihongo template present. Not a strong subject of WP:TRADEMARK and WP:CT shouldn't be used so strictly when it comes to capitalization. For example: "Live A Live" should have the A in miniscule, however there is mention of it in English sources with capital "A" and the A in the title is relevant enough to be capitalized. Also in other times, the dashes/tildes are just their way of using colons. Example: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII is originally written as "CRISIS CORE -Final Fantasy VII-" so the safest way could be "W-B-X: W-Boiled Extreme". Also i don't think WP:MOSTM and WP:CT covers specific tracks of an album, I'm sure those can be written exactly the way their presented.Lucia Black (talk) 18:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
It may be common among practice among western naming but overall not odd to use colons in an album title or even a song. its too subjective at the moment to follow that.Lucia Black (talk) 20:16, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- It is odd in western music but that is not the point. My point is that tildes should not be forbidden.—Ryulong (琉竜) 22:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- So you're proposing that we allow tildes onto naming conventions? I thought this was a discussion regarding how we determine a more western name.Lucia Black (talk) 22:25, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- How the hell did you determine that was the case?—Ryulong (琉竜) 22:30, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Just how the discussion was spiraling. Some of the earlier issues you brought up look quite fixable. I think we found a normal solution to it. But if you insist that tildes must be kept, then that is fine. It's not the biggest issue out there and doesn't cause too much harm other than chaging it back to more eastern formats, but thats what redirects are for.Lucia Black (talk) 22:36, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- How the hell did you determine that was the case?—Ryulong (琉竜) 22:30, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- So you're proposing that we allow tildes onto naming conventions? I thought this was a discussion regarding how we determine a more western name.Lucia Black (talk) 22:25, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Over-warning
As a constant user of Wikipedia and sometimes minor contributor, I think policy needs to shift on marking up entries with warnings. Wikipedia is beginning to look like a bandaged up animal, stickers all over it that amount to disclaimers. As a user, I have seen many well-written, non-commercial entries flagged up so much with [citation needed] that they're barely readable. Some folks should be looking through all these flags and warning banners and clean them up a bit.
Let me put it this way: If an article is written with footnotes and a particular statement does not contain a footnote, the reader knows that the author's comment is not substantiated. So what really need to be caught are particularly egregious unsupported statements, not just have a field day marking up stuff. You don't want Wikipedia to start looking like a bunch of corrections and incompletions. Editing also means clipping out the "provisos" and cleaning things up. Some of the banner warnings have been out there for several years.
Consider the article on Preludes (music) that I happened upon yesterday. The banner warning that it does not contain sufficient citations has sat out there since 2009. As a reader , as opposed to an editor, the banner is like a red flag that's something wrong with the article. There isn't really. The article is straightforward. Many have cleaned up bits of grammar and contributed. No one, so far as I can see, has doubted the veracity of the essays contents. Yet the warning label sticks.
The policy of requiring citations for every statement is being applied so strictly that such a large percentage of articles contain them that a reader is forced to either ignore them altogether or consider whether most of Wikipedia is unconfirmed poppycock. By applying a standard that contributors to Wikipedia seem unable to rise to, the editors seem to be implying that it is just that, a collection of poorly supported assertions.
Does anyone know the actual percentage of articles that currently bear banner warnings and "citation needed" flags? I am completely in accord with the in cases where there is significant difference of opinion or dispute. But, to my mind, this has gotten out of control. It's far too much easier to flag something is "not meeting Wikipedia standards" than it is to actually fix the problems in an article. The end result is an "encyclopedia" that seems to have nearly as many disclaimers as articles! I urge Wikipedia editors to increase their efforts to clean up articles, especially ones with long-standing banner warnings. Perhaps a policy could be devised where warnings are periodically reviewed and strategic decisions made to a) drop the article as inadequate b) fix the its flaws or c) drop the warning label. There are many cases where this third alternative might well be the most appropriate solution.
MacRutchik (talk) 02:11, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- First, we don't need a citation on every statement, and in fact encourage avoiding that as much as possible. But we do require inline citations reasonably close to the statement quotes so the reader can find information. Second, Prelude (music) is in terrible shape as it cites only two things: freedictionary.com (which is no way a good source), and another encyclopedia. The article is clearly appropriate but it lacks citations and references that are needed to be of quality. That's why we have those warnings so that the reader is both aware that sourcing may be weak or non-existant, and to encourage them to help improve on that. There are no problems with warning messages like this as long as they call to the reader to help repair. --MASEM (t) 02:22, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the banner disclaimers. However, the tagging of statements that are obviously true and relevant seems a bit excessive. I doubt some of these statements will ever be sourced because the statements are such common knowledge within a field or culture, no professional author will risk sounding sophomoric and verbose by stating the obvious in the same way that an encyclopedia would state it. Some words and concepts are defined only by the context in which they are used. Some words, synonyms, and concepts never transcend casual conversation in published statements. And even when they do, very few editors will take the time to dig up such statements, just to have them rejected as sources because they aren't word-for-word quotes. IMO, If someone puts a "citation needed" flag on a statement, they should at least open a discussion on the talk page for their reason to doubt the accuracy or the neutrality of the statement. Oicumayberight (talk) 04:56, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- There is no "policy of requiring citations for every statement". See WP:MINREF for a summary of the actual requirements. If you see an article tagged (with any tag) that is outdated, inappropriate, or otherwise undesirable, then please remove it. I've spent hours cleaning out {{unref}} tags on articles that actually contain references. There are a lot of people who like to add these tags. We need people like you to remove them when they're no longer appropriate. See Category:Articles lacking reliable references (45,000 articles), Category:Articles with unsourced statements (320,000 articles), Category:Articles lacking sources (235,000 articles; in the past, up to 20% of these have been incorrectly tagged), and Category:Articles needing additional references (224,000 articles). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- How do you define a statement as "obviously true"? What's obviously true to one reader may not be obviously true to another; we provide citations to eliminate this element of uncertainty. If no editors can or are willing to provide citations for a statement that has been challenged, then it's my opinion that the statement should be removed from the article until such time as that changes. Furthermore, as Wikipedia is intended for general readership, it is not to my mind acceptable to say "this is common knowledge within this field". Articles should be written and sourced so that they can be reasonably understood regardless of whether a reader is a specialist in said field. I think it's more "sophomoric" to refuse to adjust one's writing style for general readership when I believe it's clear that that's the intended audience of Wikipedia; WP is not a technical/specialist publication. Anyway, I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but in my opinion you shouldn't add unsourced information to a WP article (or refuse to provide a source when information has been challenged) unless you're prepared for the information to be removed precisely because no sources are being provided to back it up. I also don't think it's reasonable or productive to mandate that when adding a CN tag the editor start a Talk page discussion; the simplest resolution is to simply provide a source and moot any possible argument. DonIago (talk) 18:56, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- That's the ideal. But in reality, there are many cases where neither is happening for a long time. Sources aren't being provided just because a CN tag is added. Nor are the unsourced statements being removed. My guess is that the statements aren't being removed because they are obviously true to whomever reads the article. Sources aren't being found because well-known authors aren't in the business of stating the obvious in the way that it would be stated in an encyclopedia. At best, well-known authors only imply in their writings what would otherwise be made explicit in an encyclopedia article. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- WP:Overtagging might be interesting to some of the people here.
- Oicumayberight, I think that the typical reason that sources aren't being found is because nobody is actually looking for them. Finding and adding sources for material added by someone else is not what most WP:VOLUNTEERS want to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- The way sources get scrutinized, I don't blame editors for not wanting to look. It's not difficult to find sources when the article is about a piece of work, historical event, or biography. But when it's about emerging concepts, techniques, or skills, it's very difficult to find word-for-word quotes that support any editors description of the concept, technique, or skill in a way that flows with the article. And then you run the risk of plagiarism if you include too many quote from the same author. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:47, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- That's the ideal. But in reality, there are many cases where neither is happening for a long time. Sources aren't being provided just because a CN tag is added. Nor are the unsourced statements being removed. My guess is that the statements aren't being removed because they are obviously true to whomever reads the article. Sources aren't being found because well-known authors aren't in the business of stating the obvious in the way that it would be stated in an encyclopedia. At best, well-known authors only imply in their writings what would otherwise be made explicit in an encyclopedia article. Oicumayberight (talk) 19:31, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- I'm just going to jump in by saying I think MacRutchik raises a very good point. I do think we over-use tags. And I've certainly seen people throw tags on articles seemingly because they don't like them (AfD fails, turn around and tag the article for 5 things including notability). But even when those tags are placed in good faith and for good reason, it isn't all that uncommon that the problem will be fixed and no one will remove the tag. Or, as I have on my homepage:
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hobit (talk • contribs) 19:24, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- I love the above tag! Next time I make an article from scratch I will slap that tag on myself straight from the beginning, see if anyone notices. It does bring up a valid point though, we have too many editor's who think they are doing an enormous duty to Wikipedia by going around and slapping tags and some how this makes them a great "crusader". And inevitably arguments ensue when tagged material sits languishing and when it finally is removed and someone yells about it being removed out comes WP:BURDEN and arguments over how much burden really should be on those adding and how much on tagging. Really I would love to see a push to rewrite burden to put more of a burden on those who tag to actually research first and do some work, instead of simply encouraging them to do so. If we put an actual work burden on these people who are tag happy then maybe they will actually start contributing instead of only pointing out others problems and hoping a third party fixes it.Camelbinky (talk) 19:33, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- Wait, burden suggests tagging it rather then deleting it outright. It makes no sense to tell me, the guy who is disputing the claim, that I need find the citation for it... Would it be better if we depricated the citation needed tag, and just immediately removed contentious, uncited claims? Monty845 19:40, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- It has been seen that most editors who add citation needed tags are not actually disputing the veracity of a claim, they are simply saying that something is not sourced.[citation needed] Regardless, yes, you should take 2 seconds out of your "busy" life to do a quick google search and see if the sentence or statement can be found in a source. If you have time to spend going through articles find unsourced statements and tagging them then you have time to search quickly for some sources. Or is this some contest where you would rather tag 100 things in a day instead of taking time to find and add sources to 10 things and tag an additional 10 you couldn't quickly find sources? Yes, 100 looks bigger and better than 20, but which way of doing things truly adds to Wikipedia's betterment?Camelbinky (talk) 19:54, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- You make a number of claims in this paragraph that I'd be curious to see citations for myself. In any case, if you're going to accuse tagged editors of nefarious motives for tagging without, allegedly, bothering to try to determine whether sources exist, should you not also fault the editors who were too "busy" to provide sources to begin with? DonIago (talk) 20:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- I guess it depends on if you are either deletionist or inclusionist. A deletionist would say yes. But it's easier to be a delitionist. Oicumayberight (talk) 20:08, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- You make a number of claims in this paragraph that I'd be curious to see citations for myself. In any case, if you're going to accuse tagged editors of nefarious motives for tagging without, allegedly, bothering to try to determine whether sources exist, should you not also fault the editors who were too "busy" to provide sources to begin with? DonIago (talk) 20:01, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- It has been seen that most editors who add citation needed tags are not actually disputing the veracity of a claim, they are simply saying that something is not sourced.[citation needed] Regardless, yes, you should take 2 seconds out of your "busy" life to do a quick google search and see if the sentence or statement can be found in a source. If you have time to spend going through articles find unsourced statements and tagging them then you have time to search quickly for some sources. Or is this some contest where you would rather tag 100 things in a day instead of taking time to find and add sources to 10 things and tag an additional 10 you couldn't quickly find sources? Yes, 100 looks bigger and better than 20, but which way of doing things truly adds to Wikipedia's betterment?Camelbinky (talk) 19:54, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- Wait, burden suggests tagging it rather then deleting it outright. It makes no sense to tell me, the guy who is disputing the claim, that I need find the citation for it... Would it be better if we depricated the citation needed tag, and just immediately removed contentious, uncited claims? Monty845 19:40, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- (ec)Is the problem the tags or the lack of tag cleanup? That's either to fix the problems or remove the tag when it is no longer needed. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:37, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- Tools are good. We have a bunch of great tools at Help:Citation tools that automate referencing. We should encourage everybody to have a look here, and try at least one tool. It could help improve our quality if people used these wonderful tools. 64.40.54.64 (talk) 03:59, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Added {{fact}} to statement by Camelbinky, not because it is not sourced, but because I dispute the accuracy of the statement. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:20, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Android image app
This Android app helps you find geo-tagged Wikipedia articles that don't have images, by distance!. Commons started a project on it. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Unvisited_app I haven't got a clue how many projects should be made aware of this so I thought I would drop a note here.--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:05, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
- Wikified sample from a custom request.--Canoe1967 (talk) 04:12, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Removal of Account Creator user right
There is currently a request at WP:AN to remove the Account Creator right from several editors, based on an RFC found at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_permissions/Archive_4#Use_of_account_creator. There was sufficient ambiguity about some of the terms used there that I wanted to request clarification from the community about what the standards for removal should be. Monty845 15:49, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
Account Creation Interface
Editors who have been granted the Account Creator right for work with the Account Creation Interface should have it revoked when they lose access to the interface
- Support
- Support: The entire purpose of this right is the ability not be obstructed by limits set on most users to create accounts. If they ACC member is not creating accounts due to inactivity or suspension or what-have-you, then they don't need the right anymore. Should they become active again in the project, then they should be able to earn the right back. All of the "other stuff" allowed by this right are perks, and should not stand as a reason to have the privilege alone. If all that they want the right for is to do these extra things, I suggest to them that they put in an RfA as I'm sure that being trusted enough for this right would likely assist (if they were using it correctly) them in there RfA attempt (or sink them if they weren't). Technical 13 (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Support the entire reasoning for granting the right (the pre-requisite) is that they're either an active member on ACC, or part of an educational program. If you're not hitting a threshold for creating accounts - why do you need the flag? Dusti*Let's talk!* 16:51, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Support - The Account Creator flag is for just that, anyone needing editnotices edited, use {{edit protected}} or a new template can be created, {{edit-notice}} or something, or open a RfA and edit your own. Mlpearc (powwow) 02:13, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Support for reasons already elucidated here. Account Creator is Account Creator - if you aren't using it to create accounts, then you don't need it. If there is really that much demand for a user right that allows editing editnotices and overriding the title blacklist, a new one should be created that grants the tboverride permission but not the account creation ratelimit override or the antispoof override permissions. Granting Account Creator for the sole purpose of allowing editing editnotices is an unnecessary security risk. --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 10:50, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose
- Oppose, unless their ACI access was revoked for abuse. We trusted them enough to give them the right in the first place, these aren't random untrusted members of the community. If their ACI access was revoked for abuse, then I would support removing not only +acctcreator, but any other abusable user right they hold. Kevin Gorman (talk) 16:05, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Inactive adminitsrators are desysoped regularly despite being trusted members of the community. The Account Creator flag contains two user permissions that are highly abusable, the account creation ratelimit override and the antispoof override. If one is no longer involved in a project that requires mass creation of user accounts, why do they need the Account Creator flag? Much like the procedural desysoping if inactive sysops, it's a matter of security, not distrust. --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 10:50, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- -clears throat- Rollback is highly abuseable, it's not revoked based on inactivity. In fact, both rollback and reviewer include extra permissions relating to AFTv5 (including hiding things from public view), should we remove those if the only reason I use either right now is for that? ~Charmlet -talk- 01:03, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Your last sentence is gramatically unclear, so I'm afraid you will have to clarify before I can properly answer it. But I will answer your first sentence with a question; why is sysop removed for inactivity? --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 09:02, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- -clears throat- Rollback is highly abuseable, it's not revoked based on inactivity. In fact, both rollback and reviewer include extra permissions relating to AFTv5 (including hiding things from public view), should we remove those if the only reason I use either right now is for that? ~Charmlet -talk- 01:03, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Inactive adminitsrators are desysoped regularly despite being trusted members of the community. The Account Creator flag contains two user permissions that are highly abusable, the account creation ratelimit override and the antispoof override. If one is no longer involved in a project that requires mass creation of user accounts, why do they need the Account Creator flag? Much like the procedural desysoping if inactive sysops, it's a matter of security, not distrust. --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 10:50, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose: First off, I'm not sure what the point of removing rights is if they're not being abused. Second this proposal doesn't take into consideration the use of the right. An editor can still be using the right without using the ACC tool. — Bility (talk) 18:15, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Bility - read the section you're !voting in - this is the section for where the right is given only because of the users activity with ACC - educational use is below. Dusti*Let's talk!* 18:54, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- I didn't mention anything about educational use. — Bility (talk) 21:33, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- There are only two valid reasons to hold the Account Creator flag - ACC use and Educational use. See the flag description. Dusti*Let's talk!* 01:38, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- I didn't mention anything about educational use. — Bility (talk) 21:33, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Bility - read the section you're !voting in - this is the section for where the right is given only because of the users activity with ACC - educational use is below. Dusti*Let's talk!* 18:54, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. What's the harm in having the flag if you're not abusing it? Eric Corbett 21:40, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. The
accountcreator
userright and the ACC interface are (almost) completely seperate - getting ACI access is not a guarantee or a reason to ask for the ACC userright. Likewise, people can obtain the ACC userright without being involved in the ACI (education program, or other reasons where they'd need to create accounts). Furthermore, this has the side effect of allowing them to override some blacklists (titles) and edit page notices - something that they should be able to be trusted to do.If this is going to be done, a better question to ask is "should the ACC userright and the ACI access be one and the same?" ~Charmlet -talk- 02:18, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. If they did something to violate their trust at ACC, we'd probably already have grounds to revoke their accountcreator flag. If not, then they're still trustworthy (see my oppose at #Edits who have the right for other reasons). Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Comments
- Strong Oppose The ACI seems like an attempt at more bureaucracy (referencing the fact that within the tool they have their own hierarchy of admins). Permissions on Wikipedia should not be linked to any outside tool. The tool is a great idea but is just that, a third party tool. Mike (talk) 13:57, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Educational Institutions
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.
Editors at educational institutions granted the right should have it revoked if they have not created enough accounts to hit the limit in a certain time period.
- Support (please indicate a time period)
- Oppose
- Strong oppose unless they are totally no longer active in outreach work. I may not hit the cap very often, but when I do, it could really screw up an outreach event if I didn't have it. I'm sure I could find an admin/acctcreator within ten minutes, but in a situation where I may only have an hour, that would make the entire outreach event significantly less effective than it would've been. There's no harm in leaving acctcreator on the account of people involved in educational outreach. It's also worth noting that in some educational settings it may be necessary to create more similar user names than would be possible without acctcreator, depending on the anonymity policy of the institution. Kevin Gorman (talk) 15:55, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose: Although I think this one a finer line. I think that if they are actively creating accounts, the right shouldn't be taken away regardless if they are creating "enough" accounts to reach the threshold or not.
- Oppose: Projects with institutions aren't always scheduled so the right may be needed at any time. Even scheduled projects, like a class that recurs every semester, might skip or might have intervals longer than any specified time period. — Bility (talk) 18:26, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. Seems a bit petty. Eric Corbett 21:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. Solution in search of a problem. ~Charmlet -talk- 02:19, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. There might be a year between subsequent outreach activities, there might be several occasions in a row where attendance is low or people already have accounts, and the right might be revoked on the very day when I'm on the road to a place where I need it, and cannot react. I also don't see any harm keeping this minute privilege, and no indication that it has ever been misused. --Pgallert (talk) 02:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose - The only time an Account Creator flag granted for educational purposes should be revoked is when the user in question is no longer involved at all with the educational institution. --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 10:51, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Comments
- If I understand that correctly, just because the accountcreator hasn't reached the limit personally, does not mean those accounts could have been created. For instance, if I have seven people behind one IP and let six create accounts themselves, then I will have to exercise my right only on number seven and have only one creation in my log, but that account could not have been created without my help, from that IP. --Pgallert (talk) 02:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
Edits who have the right for other reasons
Editors who have never used the right for Account Creation should have it revoked even if they are active in the community and have used the right for other purposes without causing problems.
- Support
- Support: As I said above, no-one should have the "Account Creator" right "solely" for the "other perks" it offers. If that is all they want to use it for, there is no reason they shouldn't put in an RfA and get the rights to do such things correctly. Technical 13 (talk) 16:27, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Have you ever, er, read an RfA? RfA itself is a pretty big reason not to put in an RfA... Kevin Gorman (talk) 23:58, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- STRONG Support If you're not creating accounts using the account creation flag you do not need the right. Dusti*Let's talk!* 16:53, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Would you equally argue that an administrator who's never edited an abuse filter ought to have that right removed as well? Even though perhaps all they do is to view the hidden filters? Eric Corbett 00:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- That has no validity to my argument Eric. The flag itself is called the account creator flag. The use of it is self implied. If individuals want to use the individual permissions for a purpose other than account creation, perhaps a new flag needs to be made. Dusti*Let's talk!* 01:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- If you don't like the name then why not propose a different one you feel more comfortable with? Eric Corbett 02:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- It's not about the name, it's also about the permissions. Why do you need the account creation ratelimit override permission and the antispoof override permission if you have absolutely no involvement with any account creation processes? Those are highly abusable permissions and this presents an unnecessary security risk. So, I'll answer your question with a question: Why don't you propose a new user group that only grants the tboverride permission (which would allow editing editnotices, etc.) but not any of the account creation-related permissions? --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 10:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- If you don't like the name then why not propose a different one you feel more comfortable with? Eric Corbett 02:22, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- That has no validity to my argument Eric. The flag itself is called the account creator flag. The use of it is self implied. If individuals want to use the individual permissions for a purpose other than account creation, perhaps a new flag needs to be made. Dusti*Let's talk!* 01:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Would you equally argue that an administrator who's never edited an abuse filter ought to have that right removed as well? Even though perhaps all they do is to view the hidden filters? Eric Corbett 00:40, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Strong support - If you have absolutely nothing to do with account creation, holding the Account Creator flag is an unnecessary security risk as this grants two highly abusable permissions: Overriding the account creation ratelimit, and overriding AntiSpoof. But, seeing that being able to edit editnotices and override the titleblacklist is useful outside of account creation, I propose that a new user group be created that only grants the tboverride permission, but not any of the account creation-related permissions, therefore closing the security hole. --FastLizard4 (talk•contribs) 10:56, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose
- Oppose. By other reasons I assume you mean stuff like editing page notices. If an editor is otherwise well trusted and wants to have access to acctcreator just so that they can edit pagenotices, I honestly don't see it as a big deal. Kevin Gorman (talk) 15:58, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose. Administrators have several rights that many of them never use, so what's different here? Eric Corbett 21:37, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- What is different here is there is no community led RfAC to get "Account Creator" right. If they want to have several rights they don't want to use just so they can edit editnotices, then they should put in an RfA and go for admin. Technical 13 (talk) 22:45, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose: No reason to remove the right if it's being used and isn't being abused. It's also currently the only way to get editnotice editing rights without becoming an admin. — Bility (talk) 21:42, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- ... which is the only thing I've ever used it for. Eric Corbett 21:45, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- I believe that if it is not being used to create accounts, then it is being abused. So, that being the case, Bility seems to agree that it should be removed if they are not using it to create accounts. Technical 13 (talk) 22:45, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Why are your beliefs relevant, particularly when they have no basis in common sense or logic? Eric Corbett 22:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- On the flip side, while choosing to ignore the fact that you are attacking me claiming I lack any common sense or logic, why would my beliefs be any less relevant? Bottom line, if you are only using the right for the perks and not to create accounts for which it was designed, then you are abusing the right and should have it removed. Technical 13 (talk) 23:30, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Nice, you figured out how to compose a loaded question without a question mark. — Bility (talk) 00:04, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Why are your beliefs relevant, particularly when they have no basis in common sense or logic? Eric Corbett 22:47, 9 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose I honestly don't see why this bothers people. As far as I know, the people who got this right specifically to edit page notices were given it by people who knew that that's what it was for. I don't think that could by any reasonable logic be called "abusing the right". —Soap— 04:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oppose - Using a tool you have been given by the standard process is not abuse - period. Thus, there is no reason to remove it. If you hate it, start an RfC to remove the
tboverride
right from the set - as it's the one (iirc) that allows editnotice editing. However, saying that someone who uses a right they are given through standard process is an abuser is wrong. ~Charmlet -talk- 21:45, 10 August 2013 (UTC) - Oppose - Not using something that you were trusted with at one point doesn't make you any less trusted with it. Jackmcbarn (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- Comments
- Please don't go removing it from AnomieBOT II (talk · contribs) until a migration path is in place. Thanks. Anomie⚔ 21:52, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think AnomieBOT II could be an exception to the rule for the fact that it is a bot and its master is an administrator. So, there is no additional security risk there. Technical 13 (talk) 12:27, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Why wikipedia is losing editors
- Please redirect this to the correct section if this is the wrong section to discuss this. and notify me of the move.
There is a lot of concern about the plunge in the number of editors on wikipedia.
The number one reason for this drop is nasty editors, many who are administrators, who WP:BITE new editors. How is this being addressed? Upload a video on youtube with one click. Try to upload a video or image on wikipedia is a several step process, with numerous steps, and your video or image will most likely be deleted. Start a new article, and within minutes, sometimes seconds, your contribution will be deleted. I think this attitude starts at the very top with Jim Wales and the committee being so worried about a potential lawsuit,[disputed] they have created a company culture which squelches any fun in editing. There is an elite group of editors, created by Jim Wales,[disputed] who are quite nasty to new ideas and new contributions. IF you want an example of this, watch the reaction to what I wrote. If you don't understand the complexities of wikipedia policy, rules, etc., and have the time to invest large amounts of time into wikipedia, your contributions will be deleted, ridiculed, or ignored.
The number two reason for this drop in editing is the complexity of wikipedia pages. Like technical articles, there are very knowledgeable editors who make it impossible for laymen to understand what is being written. Many of these editors of technical articles and templates attitude when they get complaints about complexity is, "fuck you, this subject is complex, and simply cannot be understood by laypeople". So like the American law, in the case of both technical articles and technical complexity, you have a small elite which controls the distribution and interpretation. This gives the power to control content for a elite few, with the exclusion of most everyone else.
The coding for wikipedia has become progressively more and more complex. Particularly templates. Most templates are a complex jumble of template, on top of template, on top of template. With numerous parsers. A great example of this is Template:under Construction. I have been editing wikis for almost a decade, with hundreds of thousands of edits, and I don't understand this template. Even if I did, this template is protected, so only administrators can edit it. Again, this complexity gives the power to control content for a elite few, with the exclusion of most everyone else.
No amount of window dressings such as changing the skin appearance and even more technical fixes will fix the destructive company culture of Wikipedia. I think only a change of leadership will change how Wikipedia runs, and bring back editors and that will never happen.
Igottheconch (talk) 07:30, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- Disputed: On numerous occasions, Jimmy Wales has cautioned people to be more wp:Civil, and he welcomes everyone to politely express opinions on his talk-page. Regarding a "potential lawsuit", Jimbo has stated there is relatively little worry and the Foundation can even offer guidance to improved page contents, without risk of liability for the text which individual editors choose to write. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree the culture needs to change. I think deletionism is taking a toll. It's much easier to be a deletionist than an inclusionist. And parts of the MOS are over-restrictive to the point that they aren't the guides that they intend to be. Instead, they are enforced policy putting form over function.
- A change of leadership isn't necessary as long as leaders are willing to hear complaints and address them logically instead of just letting the consensus stamp out dissent. Wikipedia is aware of its Wikipedia:Systemic bias. The culture can be changed through WP:Essays. But if you change leadership without changing culture, the new leaders eventually give in to the prevailing culture. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:00, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- BTW Igottheconch, I don't doubt that wikipedia is losing editors, but are you using any statistics to measure how severe the loss of editors is? Oicumayberight (talk) 20:11, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- @ Oicumayberight, I too would like to see hard numbers relating to the perceived problem of lost editors. Yes, I come across many discouraged editors, but I vaguely remember posting a question about this problem at someone's Requests for adminship (where hopefully those in-the-know hang out), and getting a big yawn. XOttawahitech (talk) 19:08, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- First of all, about "nasty editors". They exist, but I see no reason to think that they are only nasty to new editors... Although I am not sure we mean the same thing with "nasty"... There is nothing "nasty" about deletion or criticism.
- Second, Wikipedia's editors must enjoy being criticised. Thus they must not feel offended when their contribution is rejected. Yes, there are many people who do not enjoy being criticised. They should be chased away - gently, but firmly. It will hurt less in the long run. Otherwise some of them become those "nasty editors"...
- Third, "Like technical articles, there are very knowledgeable editors who make it impossible for laymen to understand what is being written." - do you have an example of someone actually trying to write in the way that is "impossible for laymen to understand"? Remember, it is hard to write in the way that is easy to understand. Not everyone can do it. If you know how to write something in a way that is easier to understand (and without sacrificing any precision, neutrality, scientific style etc.), then, perhaps, you should actually do so instead of complaining..? Or maybe you can explain how that can be done (in the same talk page, in an essay)? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:47, 10 August 2013 (UTC)
- A third reason - all the easy (and fancy) stuff has been written - we do not miss editors for hot stuff like Boston Marathon bombings and so on, but its diffucult to add anything to e.g. acetophenone, but it wasnt in the beginning 2002, 2005, 2006, 2010... Christian75 (talk) 10:41, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree - the subjects of the vast majority of submissions at AFC are biographies, current/recent events and organisations. There are very few new articles about "things" - substances, species, places, etc. coming through the system - even though there are still many gaps in those "categories" e.g. we're still lacking a few million species articles and thousands of villages are not "on our maps" yet either. For some reason most newbies shy away from writing about Jasus frontalis, Cymodocea rotundata or 3-(2'-spiroadamantane)-4-methoxy-4-(3"-phosphoryloxy) phenyl-1,2-dioxetane and instead prefer to write about non-notable garage bands or their cousin who was once mentioned in a school newsletter for scoring a goal in extra time in a 4th XI match against a neighbouring school. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- This may relate to what is being discussed here. Oicumayberight (talk) 18:14, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- I agree - the subjects of the vast majority of submissions at AFC are biographies, current/recent events and organisations. There are very few new articles about "things" - substances, species, places, etc. coming through the system - even though there are still many gaps in those "categories" e.g. we're still lacking a few million species articles and thousands of villages are not "on our maps" yet either. For some reason most newbies shy away from writing about Jasus frontalis, Cymodocea rotundata or 3-(2'-spiroadamantane)-4-methoxy-4-(3"-phosphoryloxy) phenyl-1,2-dioxetane and instead prefer to write about non-notable garage bands or their cousin who was once mentioned in a school newsletter for scoring a goal in extra time in a 4th XI match against a neighbouring school. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 12:32, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Igottheconch , as someone who has tried to contribute dozens of articles (and categories), I too speculate that deletions and deletionists are a deterrent to many. I do not object to criticism as some here have suggested, but I do have a problem dealing with bot-like editors who leave loads of canned templates on my talk page, informing me in wiki-language that my contributions are sub-par and forcing me to spend the majority of my wiki-time defending my creations, instead of working on adding more articles or improving others.
- People in the real world get cash compensation for their work to show that they are being appreciated. What compensation do we offer volunteers here? XOttawahitech (talk) 18:54, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- @Igottheconch: You know, this might have been an interesting concept if it weren't the exact same argument/thread that gets recycled every few weeks. It takes a very special kind of editor to sit down and create/edit/maintain the content we have, and a very few people are going to have that level of commitment and ability. Also, in the ideal world we'd have an article about everything in the world, but in the real world we have to accept that some things are not yet (or never will be) notable and covered enough to justify coverage in Wikipedia. So same arguments over and over leads to editors who might have been on your side to be burnt out on the question even being asked. I also observe that for such a relatively new editor (Less than 500 live edits) you seem to have a percieved grasp on what Wikipedia needs to do. Hasteur (talk) 23:22, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
Slowing 2% decline by new tools, new admins, new helpboxes
The monthly editor-activity stats have confirmed a long-term loss of editors; however, for 3 years, the rate has slowed to only ~2% per year. Meanwhile, we are on the verge of great new tools, after the installation of Lua script, and continued support for wp:gadgets at wp:PUMPTECH. In a sense, the VisualEditor has impressed some users (to the extent the bugs have been fixed), while shocking some former editors, and Lua is probably the main improvement for the power users, as their tools and templates are being rewritten much faster. When people insert cite templates, those edit-preview about 13x faster as now Lua-based templates, allowing the whole page to reformat 2x-3x faster than before March 2013. Plus, we have barely begun to explore the power of Lua to detect copy-edit problems instantly as edit-mode templates. As for nasty attitudes, many newly appointed admins seem to be more centrist to offset the wp:BITE actions of prior admins. Also, the wp:Teahouse is continuing to show civility, while steering new people into the "encyclopedia" mindset. More people should visit there, offer answers, and notice the ambiance. However, to overcome the complexity of pages, more work must be done; even Jimbo has advised to set standards to limit the extreme template/page complexity. I wrote essay "wp:Data hoarding" after seeing a city page with 2 climate tables (an extra table for hilltop rainfall), where they could have merely said the hilltop got n% more/less rain than the lower town or such. For truly complex problems, I have proposed wp:helpboxes (like: {{wikitext}} ) to condense complex options into a box-style reference card format, because some templates have over one hundred parameters (many rare), and people forget the major "30" parameters to use in most pages, lost in an ocean of template /doc text (see instead helpbox: {{convert/help}} ). The Help:Math page shows over 150 options for the math-tags plus Template:Math, and helpboxes for them could focus on perhaps the top 40 options for most users to edit math articles and update a formula or equation. Anyway, encourage more mellow people to become admins, as they are part of our "new leadership" in progress. But we need standards to limit template complexity. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:02, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- One tiny question only related to the message above, where are these monthly editor-activity stats and is this a drop on the english wikipedia or across all projects? ·addshore· talk to me! 23:22, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
गुगलवा
एक छोटा सा गाँव जिसके आस-पास 2 अन्य गाँव भी है। इन 3 गावों का समूह बरसों से उपेक्षित ही रहा है। संसाधनो के नाम पे यथार्थ मे कुछ नहीं लेकिन सरकारी दस्तावेजो मे सायद बहित कुछ हो । — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akrajput8373 (talk • contribs) 14:04, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
- From Google translate:
- Guglwa
- Which is a small village near the two other villages. These three groups of villages has been neglected for years. But in reality nothing on resource names in official documents to be something Bhit Sayd.
This appears to be a question about an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:42, 11 August 2013 (UTC)