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== RfC: Guidance on commas before Jr. and Sr. == |
== RfC: Guidance on commas before Jr. and Sr. == |
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{{archive top|Per the request on the Administrators' Noticeboard, I have read the discussion and considered the arguments on both sides. Having done so, the results are highly split, with editors supporting all proposed options. Honestly, there is no strong consensus. However, I am not able to simply say go no consensus and move on ... having reviewed the arguments, I would interpret a rough consensus in favor of '''Option 3, allowing for both uses with internal consistency'''. The internal consistency is key, and I find no arguments that adequately assess the inherent damage to the encyclopedia of allowing both options, provided that ''each article'' remains consistent. Consequently, I find it prudent to authorize the least destructive option. I will leave the final subsection open for continued discussion. If any editors have concerns with this interpretation, they are welcome to contact me on [[User talk:Go Phightins!|my talk page]]. Thank you. '''[[User:Go Phightins!|<font color="blue">Go</font>]] [[User talk:Go Phightins!|<font color="#E90004">''Phightins''</font>]][[Special:Contributions/Go Phightins!|<font color="#008504">!</font>]]''' 02:18, 14 May 2015 (UTC)}} |
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What should Wikipedia's guidance be regarding commas before Jr. and Sr.? 02:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC) |
What should Wikipedia's guidance be regarding commas before Jr. and Sr.? 02:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC) |
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[[Special:Contributions/172.56.16.178|172.56.16.178]] ([[User talk:172.56.16.178|talk]]) 03:56, 28 April 2015 (UTC) |
[[Special:Contributions/172.56.16.178|172.56.16.178]] ([[User talk:172.56.16.178|talk]]) 03:56, 28 April 2015 (UTC) |
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=== Proposal to extend the scope of this Rfc === |
=== Proposal to extend the scope of this Rfc === |
Revision as of 02:18, 14 May 2015
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RfC: Guidance on commas before Jr. and Sr.
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.
What should Wikipedia's guidance be regarding commas before Jr. and Sr.? 02:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
Options
- Option 1—no commas, no exceptions:
Do not place a comma before Jr., Sr., or Roman numeral designation. Examples: Sammy Davis Jr., Otis D. Wright II
- Option 1A—no commas, subject and source exception:
Do not place a comma before Jr., Sr., or Roman numeral designation unless it is the preference of the subject or sources concerning the subject. Examples: Sammy Davis, Jr., Otis D. Wright II
- Option 2—use commas, no exceptions:
Place a comma before Jr. or Sr., but not before a Roman numeral designation. Examples: Martin Luther King, Sr., Otis D. Wright II
- Option 2A—use commas, subject and source exception:
Place a comma before Jr. or Sr., but not before a Roman numeral designation. A comma before Jr. or Sr. should be omitted if it is the preference of the subject or sources concerning the subject. Examples: Martin Luther King, Sr., Otis D. Wright II
- Option 3—allow both, with internal consistency:
Editors may use or omit a comma before Jr. or Sr. so long as each article is internally consistent. Do not place a comma before a Roman numeral designation. Examples: Sammy Davis Jr. or Martin Luther King, Sr., but Otis D. Wright II, not Otis D. Wright, II
- Option 4: No guidance (remove WP:JR)
Note: This RfC only concerns the comma before Jr. and Sr. If the result allows for that comma, then a follow-up discussion may be necessary regarding guidance on a comma after Jr. or Sr.
Relevant recent discussions
- Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biographies#Comma_after_.22Jr..22.2C_.22Sr..22.2C_etc..3F
- Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biographies#RfC:_Comma_or_no_comma_before_Jr._and_Sr.
- Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biographies#Jr._.28again.29
- Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Closure_Review_Request_at_MOS_page
- Talk:John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway#Requested move 2 March 2015
- Talk:Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.#Requested move 1 March 2015
- Talk:Barack Obama, Sr.#Requested move 4 March 2015
- Talk:Martin Luther King, Sr.#Requested move 4 March 2015
- Talk:Martin_Luther_King_Jr.#Requested_move_18_April_2015
Pings to previous participants
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User:Herostratus User:sroc User:W. P. Uzer User:HandsomeFella User:Dicklyon User:Calidum User:GiantSnowman User:Robert McClenon User:Tony1 User:Cinderella157 User:Atsme User:Randy Kryn User:DrKiernan User:FactStraight User:Collect User:PBS User:Blueboar User:Musdan77 User:RGloucester User:Amakuru User:Hobit User:Cuchullain User:George Ho User:AjaxSmack User:Imzadi1979 User:Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) User:In ictu oculi User:MONGO User:SarekOfVulcan User:Vegaswikian User:Red Slash User:CookieMonster755 User:Tarc User:Loriendrew User:SmokeyJoe User:Chasewc91 User:Lugnuts
I'm pretty sure this attempt to ping cannot work. The mechanism requires a signature, for one thing, and has number limits for another; I did not get the ping. Dicklyon (talk) 02:24, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
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Jr. comma RfC: Survey
- 3, 2A, 1A. Both styles are widely accepted, and both should be allowed in Wikipedia. Because the comma before Jr. may in fact be the majority style in reliable sources - do your own searches and see - banning (or systematically removing) the comma is unnecessary and will be frustrating and confusing to editors. It is also counter to very regular practice on WP allowing multiple styles, as long as articles are internally consistent. See for example:
- MOS:SERIAL: Editors may use either convention so long as each article is internally consistent
- MOS:EMDASH: There are two options. Use either unspaced em dashes or spaced en dashes consistently in an article.
- MOS:DATEFORMAT: Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the more common date format for that country (month-day for the US, except in military usage; day-month for most others; articles related to Canada may use either consistently).
- MOS:NUM: In general, use a comma to delimit numbers with five or more digits to the left of the decimal point. Numbers with four digits are at the editor's discretion: 12,345, but either 1,000 or 1000.
- MOS:GNL: Ships may be referred to using either feminine forms ("she", "her", "hers") or neutral forms ("it", "its"). Either usage is acceptable, but each article should be internally consistent and employ one or the other exclusively.
- Editors should not use their worries over the proper usage of a comma after Jr. to eliminate the comma before. If, however, we do favor using or omitting the comma, we should allow for exceptions based on the demonstrated preference of the subject or sources. Dohn joe (talk) 02:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 3 or 4. As Dohn joe explained, both styles are considered acceptable. Wikipedia does not enforce consistent spellings across articles per MOS:ENGVAR (our article on tire uses American spelling, unless we want to discuss motorcycle tyres, for example). Wikipedia allows discretion on which date system to use. Those are on top of the issues Dohn joe pointed out. Also note, "written rules themselves do not set accepted practice; rather, they document already existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected," (per WP:BURO) so we should base our guidelines on comma usage relative to Jr. and Sr. on accepted practice. And that accepted practice has been to decide on a case-by-case basis, just as we do on date formats, varieties of English, etc. Calidum T|C 03:33, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- 3. Basically, follow the sources. I would not expect Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (or Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.) to be moved for the sake of conformance to a standard divorced from common usage. bd2412 T 03:46, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- Some sources do drop the comma in Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. So can we. Same with Sr., though his name more often appears without this disambiguator; it is not really part of his name. Dicklyon (talk) 04:58, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- I would actually feel a lot better about a "follow the sources" guidance here than with option 3, if people are not cool with option 1. I moved a ton of "XXX, Jr." articles on Mexican wresters, where the Jr. designation is pretty common but almost never found with a comma in sources, yet someone had gone and moved move of them to the with-comma version. Consistently omitting the comma, however, would still be preferred, as a modern and widely recommended style in most current style guides. Dicklyon (talk) 04:02, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- 1 – The last 3 editions of the Chicago Manual of Style, as well as a majority of other recent guides (according to one source quoted at the first discussion linked above), recommend dropping the traditional comma, for various reasons that have been well addressed in the previous discussions. Dohn Joe suggests that "Editors should not use their worries over the proper usage of a comma after Jr. to eliminate the comma before", but that is indeed an important worry, and a good reason to avoid commas, since, as a perusal of articles will show, it is so common for unknowing editors to get this wrong. All the guides say that if you use a comma before, you need a matching comma after (except at the end of a sentence or clause); yet even our National Park Service employees routinely mess this up. Leaving out the commas altogether will make for a cleaner and more uniform and modern presentation, more in accord with current grammar and usage guides. Dropping the comma will not be confused by anyone with attempting to change a name, I'm sure. Dicklyon (talk) 04:53, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- Of course it changes someone's name. Look at Martin Luther King, Jr. The official name of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. (notice that the official name doesn't include the comma after "Jr.", as you suggest is needed. That's one of the most useless and commonly broken ground rules in overly strict and legalistic rule books, and is rightly ignored by most sources) includes the comma. The official National Holiday named for him includes the comma. His own books printed during his lifetime contain the comma. His gravestone includes a chiseled comma, a comma which will stay on that stone and not be removed, no matter what the Chicago Manual of Style says. It was his name, and to change it goes totally against both sources and against it being Dr. King's common name. Since you unilaterally removed the comma from Dr. King's main article and many other articles with his name in the title, listing them as uncontroversial moves, and because you haven't held an RM on the Memorial or National Holiday pages, which still properly include the comma, no requested move discussion has taken place. Randy Kryn 3:14 16 April, 2015 (UTC)
- Why do so many drop the comma then, when trying to honor him? Dicklyon (talk) 04:30, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Of course it changes someone's name. Look at Martin Luther King, Jr. The official name of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, D.C. (notice that the official name doesn't include the comma after "Jr.", as you suggest is needed. That's one of the most useless and commonly broken ground rules in overly strict and legalistic rule books, and is rightly ignored by most sources) includes the comma. The official National Holiday named for him includes the comma. His own books printed during his lifetime contain the comma. His gravestone includes a chiseled comma, a comma which will stay on that stone and not be removed, no matter what the Chicago Manual of Style says. It was his name, and to change it goes totally against both sources and against it being Dr. King's common name. Since you unilaterally removed the comma from Dr. King's main article and many other articles with his name in the title, listing them as uncontroversial moves, and because you haven't held an RM on the Memorial or National Holiday pages, which still properly include the comma, no requested move discussion has taken place. Randy Kryn 3:14 16 April, 2015 (UTC)
- 1 per Dicklyon. No fuss, no muss, no edit wars. No commas. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:54, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- Wouldn't forcing every page to include commas also eliminate the fuss, muss and edit wars? Calidum T|C 22:07, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
- @Calidum: Yes. Both are solutions to that problem. The difference is small, but my preference stems from a general opinion that unnecessary things should be omitted, no matter how small. But I'd be almost as happy with unconditional inclusion — the main thing is saving editor time that would serve the project better elsewhere, and eliminating one unnecessary opportunity for editor conflict. To make a big issue of this comma is classic pedantic overthink, in my opinion. I would be the last to argue that correctness on style and language is not important in an encyclopedia, but things need to be weighed against their cost. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:57, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
- Wouldn't forcing every page to include commas also eliminate the fuss, muss and edit wars? Calidum T|C 22:07, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
- 3 or 4 - Deep-six the guideline or keep the options open per sources and common name For example, Martin Luther King, Jr. has the comma included as part of his common name, both during his lifetime and since. It appears on the covers of all of his books published while he was alive, is the official name of his Washington, D.C. Memorial, is the official name of his U.S. national holiday, and last but not least, is carved into the very stone of his grave. Since the man's grave will carry the comma into eternity (or what's left of it), I can't see how Wikipedia wouldn't use it as his official and common name. The example of Sammy Davis Jr., on the other hand, seems fine, because he removed the comma during his lifetime (see his albums). So the option should be there to use either, depending on common sourced name. Randy Kryn 23:38 15 April, 2015 (UTC)
- 1: Drop the commas except where absolutely necessary. CMOS has moved forward toward dropping them, and it's a "minor typographic change" that can be made without comment and without changing the meaning of quoted text, just its stylistic presentation. It's just a simpler rule to follow than to constantly be on the lookout for missing commas following names. Imzadi 1979 → 02:17, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- User:Imzadi1979: what does "absolutely necessary" mean for you here? Dohn joe (talk) 12:54, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 1: Lets try to avoid edit wars as much as possible. No confusing or arguing on Requested moves. Also per Dicklyon's comments. CookieMonster755 (talk) 02:34, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 3: I never understood why we changed the titles and didn't just add the extra comma after the Jr and Sr. that is demanded by the arcane rule. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:20, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 3: I really want more discussions case-by-case. In fact, I found commas unnecessary usually, but I see the logics of including a comma before abbreviation (not Roman numeral). If the guideline is inconsistent, why not use policy, like WP:COMMONNAMES? --George Ho (talk) 04:12, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Why would you want more arguments on individual cases by people who don't have a firm understanding on punctuation rules in English? This is precisely why we have a Manual of Style to address these issues through centralised consensus. —sroc 💬 04:37, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Search engines ignore punctuation. Ngram Viewer uses comma to separate the search phrases being compared (I tried it, and it was unable to compare Martin Luther King Jr. to Martin Luther King, Jr., even when both phrases were enclosed in quotes). So an application of COMMONNAME would necessarily be very subjective and haphazard, resulting in (1) inevitable cherry-picking of sources, conscious or otherwise, (2) enormous amounts of editor time spent debating the question at the article level — My sources are more meaningful than yours!! —, and (3) the edit warring that will always occur until someone figures out how to genetically modify human nature. The comma is not completely unimportant, but it's not worth the cost of determining it on a case-by-case basis. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:59, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 1: It is simpler to omit commas, consistent with MOS:COMMA to avoid "excessive use of commas", follows the contemporary trend to leave the commas out (in keeping with a modern online encyclopedia), makes comma-separated lists of people easier to read, avoids needless recurring debates over whether a comma after Jr. or Sr. is needed, circumvents arguments over whether to include or omit commas in particular cases, and makes redundant checking (and arguing over) sources whether individual subject prefer the comma which should be irrelevant to a matter of house style. If we were to allow a comma before Jr. and Sr., then we would need to include additional guidance to require a matching comma afterwards as well (as style guides agree, although some editors vehemently dispute it), which would make the guideline more involved than it needs to be by simply omitting the commas altogether. —sroc 💬 04:27, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 1: It is quite acceptable for WP to make determinations on matter of style which over-ride 'personal preference' of the subject. For instance, I believe that it specifically does so in regard to capitalisation of the titles of works for instance. It is my understanding that Jr, Sr or roman numerals are not part of a person's official name (as recorded on a birth certificate) but they are distinctions added and would be part of a persons 'common name' - that by which they are commonly known. It is my understanding that the use of commas is traditionally as a paired comma but just as the first of these is often dropped, the second (in a contemporary sense) is also redundant - since it is certainly not 'spoken' as a pause. I would also observe that the full-stop is also quite redundant. The full-stop and the comma are nothing more than clutter, especially when both are used. It is also appropriate for WP to determine (as a matter of style) the preferred abbreviation for both junior and senior, though this is not the specific question here. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 4. Instruction creep. With no instruction, the default course of action is to follow the sources. I note, without actually doing careful research, that the comma is more often omitted before Jr than omitted before Sr. This is consistent with Jr becoming, in practice, part of someone's proper name, the same not commonly true for Sr. There is an an attempt here to create a false consistency between Jr and Sr. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:16, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- "Follow the sources" is not part of our style recommendations. It was in there for a while, inserted by Pmanderson and removed after he was banned, but it pretty much conflicts with the idea of having a house style, like most publishers have. Dicklyon (talk) 05:27, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- "Follow the sources" is not part of our style recommendations is a telling point. The style recommendations are at odds with the principles of the project. Why should Wikipedia have a house style? Who decides? Who decides which? Who says these decisions were previously properly made? Why not have content that reflects the sources? Why ostracize a small group of editors building content on obscure subjects that have non-standard styling? If having a house style means means conflict with following sources, then ditch house style. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
"Why should Wikipedia have a house style?"
For consistency and to avoid needless arguing on individual talk pages."Who decides?"
The Wikipedia community via consensus."Who says these decisions were previously properly made?"
The community; consensus can change and the community can decide to change any guidelines with new consensus. —sroc 💬 16:14, 18 April 2015 (UTC)- It seems to me that the MOS has provoked more arguments than it solved, and interestingly, the MOS gets tossed whenever enough editors get involved. Show me the evidence of consensus for the past decisions. Seems to me, and I've looked, that the MOS, especially its fine detail, arose as individual actions on backwater pages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
- "Follow the sources" is not part of our style recommendations is a telling point. The style recommendations are at odds with the principles of the project. Why should Wikipedia have a house style? Who decides? Who decides which? Who says these decisions were previously properly made? Why not have content that reflects the sources? Why ostracize a small group of editors building content on obscure subjects that have non-standard styling? If having a house style means means conflict with following sources, then ditch house style. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- Say that to those disputing capitalization of short words, like like and but. See Talk:Smells Like Teen Spirit. --George Ho (talk) 05:30, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- I support any instruction creep that prevents vast amounts of editor time spent on relatively unimportant details. Follow which sources? ―Mandruss ☎ 09:01, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Follow which sources? The reliable secondary sources that support the content of the article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- "Follow the sources" is not part of our style recommendations. It was in there for a while, inserted by Pmanderson and removed after he was banned, but it pretty much conflicts with the idea of having a house style, like most publishers have. Dicklyon (talk) 05:27, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think that is what Smokey means... I assume he means all the sources that support the content of an article, whether they are used as a reference or not. I have always supported the idea of a COMMONSTYLE guideline... similar to how we have a COMMONNAME provision for which names to use. That said, a "house style" is useful for situations where there isn't a COMMONSTYLE in connection to a particular topic. It could remain as a tie breaker. Blueboar (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- I mean use the sources that support the content. Not all of them, you would not use the narrowly used primary sources supporting single facts, sources that do not cover the subject directly and in depth. The sources used to support the content should already be representative of all good sources. If not, then the situation must be unusual and sophisticated, or there is a WP:NPOV problem with the sourcing. If sources that could be used to support the content are collectively different to sources that currently do support the content, then there is a much bigger problem. :::::: Someone writing a new article based on a handful of sources should be entirely justified in adopting the style used throughout those sources. Most articles only have a handful of sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:47, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think that is what Smokey means... I assume he means all the sources that support the content of an article, whether they are used as a reference or not. I have always supported the idea of a COMMONSTYLE guideline... similar to how we have a COMMONNAME provision for which names to use. That said, a "house style" is useful for situations where there isn't a COMMONSTYLE in connection to a particular topic. It could remain as a tie breaker. Blueboar (talk) 00:00, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Number 1 – heck, why not go with Chicago Manual of Style? It typically lags behind contemporary practice—but they do finally move with it, years too late. If they now say no dot, we should not be plumbing the depths of old-fashioned nonogenerian usage. I suppose my second choice, if dragged to it, would be number 3, within-article consistency. Tony (talk) 07:43, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Really? This still hasn't been settled? It indicates a major failure of Wikipedian decision-making process that such a trivial matter can drag out for so long and waste so much time. Option 1, for the reasons given by others, subject to the understanding that on Wikipedia there can never be absolutely no exceptions. W. P. Uzer (talk) 08:01, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Number 1 as per Chicago Style guides. I feel Dicklyon said it best. Snuggums (talk / edits) 08:24, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- 1. "[S]o long as each article is internally consistent..." This means that in one article a person could have the comma and in another, not (to match that article's prescribed consistency, if there is more than one "junior" mentioned in the article). Hmmm. Anyway, hate to prescribe and proscribe what other editors must or must not write, but this seems a big bone of contention. Let's settle it. On the merits, I could hardly care less which form is used. As a business matter, much better to have a simple rule that prevents arguments. (If the trend was to favor the opposite -- always requiring, rather than proscribing, the comma, that would be OK with me, and if the trend turns that way (not likely) you may consider my vote changed to support that. Herostratus (talk) 11:00, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 3 or Option 4 - I am a firm believer that facts should always be based on reliable sources. That is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia. And yes, the issue of whether there is or is not a comma in a specific person's name is a matter of fact, and not a matter of "style". Blueboar (talk) 12:29, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 1 Sources are not helpful here, since they follow their own house style guides at different times, and do not follow the alleged or supposed wishes of the bearer of the name. Older book sources mostly use the comma, newer newspaper sources do not. And none of those who bear the name is on record saying a single word about it. So, keep it simple. Kraxler (talk) 14:48, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Options 3 or 4. Typical case of MOS overreach, part of some MOS regulars' frantic drive to impose linguistic uniformity in a domain that is simply not in need of uniformity. As long as both variants are clearly legitimate and common forms in careful written English, the MOS has no business messing with our writing to dictate which of the two we should use. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:02, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Options 3 or 4 We follow the sources. If writing an article about a book titled "Martin Luther King, Jr." we shouldn't omit the comma to comply with MOS as it would them be incorrectly titled.--MONGO 15:43, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Options 3 or 4 Follow the sources. A building named after a person might not use punctuation the same way as the person, and shouldn't be forced to. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:11, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- Options 3 or 4 Follow the sources. Agree with Mongo and Future Perfect here... Ealdgyth - Talk 22:19, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 3 Given that use of commas has been in common practice, there is no reason to get rid of them now because some recent versions of modern style guides no longer recommends their use. I will also remind the editors !voting for Option 1 that Wikipedia's Manual of Style are suppose to be descriptive of common practices, not proscriptive. —Farix (t | c) 11:36, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 3 WP:UCRN would be diminished if we allow other rules to impinge. However I do not think that in many cases that it would be a big deal if a comma were excluded or added. If it is possible I would suggest a convention that after a comma related RM a moratorium is placed on similar RMs for at least a year. GregKaye 13:18, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 3 or 4. The status quo of the article prevails, and a talk page discussion should be required to switch from one style to another on any given article. --L235 (alt / t / c / ping in reply) 19:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Something akin to 2A/3/4. If it's going to be a problem, we should provide some guidance; but that guidance should be that our representation of a name should follow the reliable sources about that person. There's nothing special about the comma or II; we have the same issues with Müller/Muller/Mueller. There may be some people who, for whatever reasons of where they lived or what media covered them, are encountered with the commas missing, and definitely others who have them present. The style that is familiar to the eye when used about an entertainer may not be familiar when used about a reverend. I think though it would be very unusual to see a comma before II. Wnt (talk) 11:38, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 4, followed by 3. It's MOS instruction creep. No guidance is needed here, keep things simple and cut back the number of guidelines to memorize that are only meaningful when they clash with sources that should be primary anyway. SnowFire (talk) 15:51, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 2A, then Option 4, followed by 3 - I'd just say "Unless there is strong and clear preference among reliable sources on a subject to do so, do not place a comma before Jr., Sr., or Roman numeral designation. Examples: Sammy Davis Jr., John F. Kennedy Jr., Otis D. Wright II.". NickCT (talk) 19:14, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- In British English we don't use Sr. & Jr. much, but I'm pretty sure this comma convention is wholly unknown, & we don't use commas. Whatever is decided (hollow laugh) it should be made clear that the decision & any MOS prescription, applies only within the sphere of American English per WP:ENGVAR. On that basis, I don't care what is decided. Johnbod (talk) 01:00, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 2A or 1A followed by 3. Wikipedia should have a house style (slight preference) to deal with cases of mixed sources or too few sources and to avoid RM battles over every such article. However, exceptions should be allowed if sources (and maybe some subjects themselves) have a clear preference (=WP:COMMONNAMES). — AjaxSmack 02:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 4 (remove this section entirely), followed by Option 3. The obvious answer is to follow the sources (how does the subject render his own name? How do reliable sources render the name?), not impose some sort of ridiculous and unnecessary uniform rule or "presumption." I agree so wholeheartedly with Fut.Perf. that I will reproduce his or her comments here: "Typical case of MOS overreach, part of some MOS regulars' frantic drive to impose linguistic uniformity in a domain that is simply not in need of uniformity. As long as both variants are clearly legitimate and common forms in careful written English, the MOS has no business messing with our writing to dictate which of the two we should use." Neutralitytalk 04:08, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- 1A, 3. Prefer no-comma as it renders cleaner url, makes life easier for parsing tools but we should allow both, subject to sources. If sources support both comma and non-comma, then prefer non-comma. -- nafSadh did say 01:49, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
- 3 or 4 per Calidum. There really is no need to be prescriptive about this. Internal consistency, and following sources where there is a clear preponderance of one form or the other, would seem pragmatic ways to operate, but neither form is wrong, and I don't think we should have anything that forces people down one route or another. — Amakuru (talk) 10:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 1B -- Do not use the comma unless sources require it. This is an intermediate between 1 and 1A; the recent edits that changed 1A to 1 have some merit, but also some unintended consequences, in my opinion. Findings and reasoning follow in the discussion section below. 172.56.16.178 (talk) 03:56, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 1B as per an IP. Do not use the comma unless the source requires it. "Martin Luther King Jr." always, but "Martin Luther King, Jr., Library" because that is the proper name of the library. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:46, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
- Option 2 (or 2A when it is part of a pen name or stage name) “Junior” is, essentially, a clarification. “Martin Luther King, Jr.”, for example, means “Martin Luther King, that is not Martin Luther King the father but Martin Luther King the son”. The comma is supposed to create a small pause before the “Junior”, which signifies that it is indeed a clarification. If the comma is omitted, then it is like the “Junior” is part of the surname (i.e., someone whose first name was Martin, middle name was Luther and surname was King Junior). Numerals, on the other hand, are not clarifications but orderings. “Cornelius Vanderbilt III” does not mean “Cornelius Vanderbilt, that is not the first, neither the second but third of the Vanderbilt family to be named Cornelius”. Rather, it just means “The third of the Vanderbilt family to be named Cornelius”. A pen name and a stage name is not a person′s actual name, so it is not liable to such rules.--The Theosophist (talk) 00:40, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- Option 4 (3 as a backup) – There is no need for guidance on this matter. This is a waste of time. Either format is acceptable, and neither makes the encylopaedia look sloppy. The best way to stop this kind of time wasting is to remove the guidance altogether, even though I personally favour the no comma version. Let the WP:AT policy serve as a basis for changing article titles, as it should. RGloucester — ☎ 13:46, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
Jr. comma RfC: Discussion
Question: Why are Roman Numerals treated differently than Jr. and Sr. in the above options? --Jayron32 12:07, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
- It has pretty much never been the convention to use a comma before a Roman numeral. Picture "King Henry, VIII", "King George, III", or "Pope John Paul, II". bd2412 T 03:04, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
Side issue: Above, I supported deprecating the comma in a persons name, partly based on this being a common name, rather than it being part of their 'official' name. I perceive that their may be a distinction for 'places' (such as the memorial parkway above) which may or may not include a comma (or any other punctuation for that matter). My view is that an article should reflect the official name of the place (not withstanding the requirements of common name). I see no inconsistency in this, that the article about the person does not use the comma. Conversely, if a place is named without the comma, should the article for the place have a comma just because someone purports that the individual had a preference for using the comma - no. Cinderella157 (talk) 07:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)
- As far as I know, Jr. is always part of the official, legal name of a person so named, as it will usually first appear on that person's birth certificate, and will remain the legal name until legally changed. On the other hand, Sr. is rarely part of a legal name, as there will be a long trail of documents without Sr., as , Sr. only becomes necessary after a Jr., son of the father, is born. , Jr. or , Sr. (or , II, , III, , Nth) distinguish individuals in the same or collateral lines of decent, and might be considered a parenthetical (thus the second comma?), but of these, the Sr. is the only one that would never be part of the official, legal name unless a legal name change was executed. As an example, I am legally a , Jr.; my father began signing , Sr. after I was born; I signed , Jr. until my father died, but my official, legal name does, and always has, included , Jr., though I now sign only my given and family names. In the US, just try to get a driver's license, passport, or official ID without using your full legal name. Thinking of full legal name, has anyone thought of pinging newyorkbrad. Generally I support Wikipedia presenting correct form, when that can be determined, over easy algorithms. After all, Wikipedia is for people, not machines. - Neonorange (talk) 00:49, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- In many jurisdictions, there is no impediment to changing a legal name to another legal name. In the U.S., for example, your legal name can usually be changed at any time for any reason, no questions asked. So, just because it isn't the name that was put on your birth certificate doesn't mean that it isn't legal. --Jayron32 01:04, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- I think Neonorange, Jr. is onto something. A 'Sr.' has to earn the title. Jr.'s are handed it along with a crib and a rattle. Randy Kryn 1:12 17 April, 2015 (UTC)
- "Sr." is a retronym awarded when a "Jr." is born. Sometimes Jr. becomes Sr. when III is born and I is dead already, at least in the New York Times archive.
- @{u|Jayron32}}: You quibble. In the US, try getting a driver's license, passport, social security card, or other government ID; or a mortgage or deed for real property—then see how laissez-faire the official, legal name requirements are. Other jurisdictions, would, I expect, have much the same requirements for an official, legal name. — Neonorange (talk) 05:57, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- I think Neonorange, Jr. is onto something. A 'Sr.' has to earn the title. Jr.'s are handed it along with a crib and a rattle. Randy Kryn 1:12 17 April, 2015 (UTC)
- In many jurisdictions, there is no impediment to changing a legal name to another legal name. In the U.S., for example, your legal name can usually be changed at any time for any reason, no questions asked. So, just because it isn't the name that was put on your birth certificate doesn't mean that it isn't legal. --Jayron32 01:04, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- Question Is the rule to have comma after Jr., and Sr., to let us know that sentence has not really ended? If that is so, we have to add a comma after Co., and Inc., and other abbreviations too. Can someone point me to where this rule is discussed in a non-Wikipedia source. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:00, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- Answer Chicago Manual of Style: "... the function of the comma is to set off these abbreviations, so an additional comma is needed after the abbreviation if the sentence continues." The rule is not really about Sr. and Jr., it is about using a period in the middle of a sentence and adding a comma to let the reader know that this was not the end of a sentence but was an abbreviation. The people who originated the argument here at Wikipedia have been misrepresenting it. We still have to add a comma after every mid-sentence period. I think the originators of the Wikipedia rule have conflated two very different style rules: 1) The mid-sentence period rule, which has nothing to do with commas before the period; and 2) the "John Doe, Sr.", vs "John Doe Sr.", rule. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:12, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- That's a nutty interpretation. Do you add a comma after "Mr." in "Mr. Smith"? Of course not. What about if Junior was spelled out? Would that be any different? No, it would not; still need a comma after it in a sentence, if and only if you have a comma before; see apposition. Dicklyon (talk) 05:43, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- Quite so. The matching comma after "John Doe, Sr." is required for the same reason as the comma after "April 18, 2015" and "Paris, Texas"—not because the comma indicates that the sentence continues but because the commas set off the additional element which might otherwise be treated as a parenthetical remark providing clarification/disambiguation: "John Doe (Sr.)"; "April 18 (2015)"; "Paris (Texas)". In each case, the parentheses are replaced with commas, but the final comma is superseded by terminal punctuation (e.g., a full stop) at the end of a sentence. —sroc 💬 16:28, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
- That's a nutty interpretation. Do you add a comma after "Mr." in "Mr. Smith"? Of course not. What about if Junior was spelled out? Would that be any different? No, it would not; still need a comma after it in a sentence, if and only if you have a comma before; see apposition. Dicklyon (talk) 05:43, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- Reaction to comments: I have no strong opinion on the comma, but I do object to those commenters who take it for granted that the suffix is part of a person's name. West's Encyclopedia of American Law (2nd ed, s.v. "JUNIOR") says that "Jr." is merely descriptive, not a part of a person's name. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:06, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
- That's quite right, the Jr. is usually dropped after the death of the Sr., and the son of the Jr. later becomes the Jr., and the previous Jr. then becomes the Sr. and so on. Jr. should only be used if it the COMMONNAME, Sr. should only be used if the person during their lifetime used it and was known as Sr. The latter case is rather rare, but some users adds Sr. to any person who had a son with the Jr. suffix. In that case, by some not very well explained rule, the sources may be overlooked, but when it comes to the comma, heaven and hell must be moved to preserve or erradicate it. Just another timesink... Kraxler (talk) 16:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
- Try telling that to someone who has a Jr. or Sr. in their name. Perhaps in terms of grammar it isn't technically part of a name ... but emotionally it is certainly perceived as being a very important part of the the person's name. And there are certainly people who are routinely referred to by the name "Junior". Blueboar (talk) 00:06, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- I was talking about people who do not have a Sr. in their name, never had it, were never known as the "Sr.", but got it added by some overeager Wikipedian. It's not helpful to talk at cross-purposes. Kraxler (talk) 14:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- I put "who take it for granted that the suffix is part of a person's name" in my comment deliberately. My point is that since it is not an official part of the name (as a general rule in the US, which is what West's is intended to cover) there is no fixed rule. This means, from a Wikipedia editing point of view, if an editor read that John Jones died and the editor could prove that there was a Wikipedia article about John Jones Jr., it would be wrong to immediately move the "John Jones Jr." article to "John Jones". It would be equally wrong to resist such a change if reliable sources could be found indicating that John Jones Jr. had dropped the suffix. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:06, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- I was talking about people who do not have a Sr. in their name, never had it, were never known as the "Sr.", but got it added by some overeager Wikipedian. It's not helpful to talk at cross-purposes. Kraxler (talk) 14:51, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Try telling that to someone who has a Jr. or Sr. in their name. Perhaps in terms of grammar it isn't technically part of a name ... but emotionally it is certainly perceived as being a very important part of the the person's name. And there are certainly people who are routinely referred to by the name "Junior". Blueboar (talk) 00:06, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- That's quite right, the Jr. is usually dropped after the death of the Sr., and the son of the Jr. later becomes the Jr., and the previous Jr. then becomes the Sr. and so on. Jr. should only be used if it the COMMONNAME, Sr. should only be used if the person during their lifetime used it and was known as Sr. The latter case is rather rare, but some users adds Sr. to any person who had a son with the Jr. suffix. In that case, by some not very well explained rule, the sources may be overlooked, but when it comes to the comma, heaven and hell must be moved to preserve or erradicate it. Just another timesink... Kraxler (talk) 16:25, 18 April 2015 (UTC)
User:172.56.16.178's findings and reasoning on "Option 1B"
- Note: Split because of excessive length. Epic Genius (talk) 02:28, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
This book omits comma before Jr. in names, including
- Sammy Davis Jr.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.
- Richard Maltby Jr.
- Johann Strauss Jr.
- Eddie Foy Jr.
but includes comma before Jr. in show names that use it:
- George Washington, Jr.
- Sherlock, Jr.
This one omits commas from a huge number of names, including Harry Connick Jr., and like the other, includes the comma in some show titles such as Robinson Crusoe, Jr."
This book by a leading authority on MLK Jr. omits the comma except where citing a title that used it, or when listing the author's name the way it appears on the work.
My conclusion is that it is a common style choice to omit the comma, except when literally reproducing the title or author as it appears on a work. The observation that various publishers or authors make different style choices should not stop Wikipedia from making a style choice. Leaving it up to the whim of editors, on the other hand, seems like a chaotic idea. And trying to determine the preference of the subject seems essentially impossible. Even if a person wrote their name with a comma, as was more traditional in past years, that does not indicate that they ever considered the option or expressed a preference one way or the other. My impression is that if any significant fraction of reliable sources about them omit the comma, then it is OK to omit the comma.
As Calidum puts it, "people don't put commas on street signs", which is the logical counter to Randy Kryn's "it changes someone's name". We do not dishonor Dr. King by our choice of how to style the "Jr." qualifier to his name.
Are there any names for which a significant fraction of reliable sources do NOT omit the comma? Not that I have found so far, but they must exist; if we find them we should probably use the comma with those.
On the other hand, some sources mix it up, with who knows what criterion. This one: [1] has:
- Harry Connick Sr and Jr
- Mel Kiper Jr and Mel Sr
- Robert Downey, Jr., and Bobbie Sr.
- Cuba Gooding Jr. and Cuba Sr.
- Ray Parker, Jr., and Ray Parker Jr and Ray Jr and ...
So I'd say some sources have no style. Oddly, Robert Downey Jr. and Ray Parker Jr. sources are more than 80% without comma, yet this source added a comma for them while mostly not using the comma.
Some such as this book use a comma in the full name but omit it with the shorted Holmes Jr. and Holmes Sr. That's a style, too. It looks like over half omit the comma from the Holmes pair, so it's not clear what bd2412's objection is in "I would not expect Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (or Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.) to be moved...".
Nobody would put a comma or two in Leland Stanford Jr. University, but if you look at books that mention "Leland Stanford Jr. Museum", you find some that put a comma before Jr., some that put commas before and after, and at least one that puts a comma only after. They make their style choices, and maybe a few mistakes.
SmokeyJoe's suggestion "use the sources that support the content" is good, as long as the sources agree. When they don't, we should use our house style, which should be to omit the comma, as it has been for at least 5 years. And Randy Kryn is right that we should not modify official names such as "Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial", even though the mismatched comma makes no grammatical sense; it is not our job to try to fix that. On the other hand, "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day" is not the official name of that holiday, so we may have more flexibility in fixing that one.
George Ho's point about wanting more discussion of individual cases is hard to understand. He has restored commas to a number of articles where no cited source, or no cited source other than Find-A-Grave, uses the comma; so why did he not discuss that? It looks like Find-A-Grave has their own style (some of their contributors omit the comma from their names, but all of their grave listings for Jr and Sr use the comma); does that mean we add a comma whenever somebody dies? In Albert Gore, Sr., one source uses the comma, but the others do not; yet he moved it without discussion, even while our MOS said to omit the comma.
This WP history shows Flo Ziegfeld moved in 2011 to Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.. Why the comma? Probably because the redirect Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. already existed, in the way. Not a good reason. Our WP:JR didn't say back in 2007 not to do that, but now it's time to improve it and match the style to that of many other articles that do conform to our style guidelines.
172.56.16.178 (talk) 03:56, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
Proposal to extend the scope of this Rfc
It is proposed to amend the Manual of Style to recommend that the full stop after Dr, Cllr, Mr, Mrs, Jr, Sr and similar words be omitted. Discussion to include treatment of Ms, which is not an abbreviation of anything.
Support It is grammatically wrong to append this dot. The dot indicates that letters have been omitted after the last letter that appears in the abbreviation. These words all have letters missing from the interior of the word, not the end. I support the non - inclusion of a dot at the end of Ms, because that is useful to distinguish it from Ms. (manuscript). 156.61.250.250 (talk) 14:11, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Feel free to start a separate RfC, but it's a different issue from the current one, and would unnecessarily confuse it, especially at this point in the discussion. Dohn joe (talk) 14:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose conflating these issues, per Dohn. The scope is different and would involve further amendments to other sections. Don't confuse matters further. Start a separate RfC for that. —sroc 💬 16:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. This is an WP:ENGVAR issue; American English uses the period after those abbreviations while British English does not. Calidum T|C 21:21, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- Oppose. Per sroc and Calidum. GregJackP Boomer! 23:19, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Comment Actually, Americans are ambivalent on the issue. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 10:40, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
Restoring articles to original Language
Recently, I put up humour for a move attempt to restore it to it's original spelling. As expected, there was some jibes at different countries spellings, etc. There are many other high profile articles that were similarly changed, such as cheque and honour. It seems the argument against moving it back is either "it's been like this for a while" and "The English created the Language, thus we get to do what we want." The second part of that argument should be of course be dismissed out of hand, but regarding the first, what is the time limit for restoring what, is in effect, vandalism? Should there be a time limit? If there is no time limit, then does the policy clearly state these articles should be restored against vandalism?
Cheers ~~ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 05:40, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- Ultimately, the question for me is whether this is worth fighting over. I'm American, and prefer the American versions, but with the availability of redirects, does it really matter? Obviously questionable, new, ENGVAR moves will get scrutiny, but going back and trying to fight over old ones just seems like a waste of time. Monty845 13:13, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- The answer for all WP:ENGVAR issues should always be "If there is no compelling reason to move it, don't move it." The fact that a proportion of the English speaking world spells it differently (but not universally) OR the fact that once, many years ago, the article was under a different title, neither seem like compelling reasons. The purpose of WP:ENGVAR is to encourage people not to have debates at all about such issues and just leave it be. Generally, for a newly-created article, or one whose provenance or history is muddled a bit, or where there has been a bunch of recent changes to the spelling, we default to the initial version in disputes. But the game of playing "GOTCHA!" by digging up many-years-old versions of articles to start a new ENGVAR dispute where none had existed in all that time is a Bad Idea. --Jayron32 14:47, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- Also, since I didn't catch this in my first response, and let me bold this so it's importance is clear and unambiguous, it is not vandalism. It is not "in effect" vandalism, it is not "equivalent to" vandalism, it and vandalism do not occupy the same plane of existence. Vandalism is not "something I disagree with". Vandalism means, only means, and never means anything else except "Actions taken by someone to deliberately harm Wikipedia." It never means ANY other violation of rules or norms or any other thing which you may think is wrong. Changing to one's own preferred spelling, while it may be contraindicated by WP:ENGVAR, would never be considered vandalism. Stop using that word in any capacity until you learn what it means. --Jayron32 14:51, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- I would counter that some of it obviously is vandalism. Yes, there's a grey area between them, but something like this edit : (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sidewalk&oldid=647014038) is vandalism, but is often taken as gospel truth to those that don't like a different kind of English than their own (yes, cutting all ways). What happens when someone makes an edit like that, and then it creeps through and starts changing the whole article to that variety of English, as has happened at humour, honour etc? Should it not be restored simply because as Monty845 says, it's a waste of time? In my opinion (and of course, again, I could be wrong, please prove me so if the case) if there was the opposite creep, American English taking over BrE articles, it wouldn't stand, and there would be, well, not rioting in the streets, but many many angry characters typed upon this forum!! Yes, it's not the end of the world, but, nevertheless, obviously people care, so should there b a guideline? ~Cheers, ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 08:20, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
- When you've finished mischief making here, perhaps you'd like to jog over to Talk:Strained yogurt and demand it's returned to its original title, 'Strained yoghurt'.--Ykraps (talk) 19:01, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- Ykraps, I guess the difference there is it went through a proper move request, with discussion, as opposed to a single user arbitrarily deciding to move it. But, I'm but a simple human, same as you, always can be in error 90.194.62.161 (talk) 08:51, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
- Also, please don't take a condescending tone to your fellow editors Ykraps, I might have a different view than you, and a different focus on wikipedia, doesn't mean I don't think it is a valuable resource. If nobody did the dishes, the kitchen would cease to run.
- Ykraps, I guess the difference there is it went through a proper move request, with discussion, as opposed to a single user arbitrarily deciding to move it. But, I'm but a simple human, same as you, always can be in error 90.194.62.161 (talk) 08:51, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
Cheers, ~~ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 08:21, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
- The point I am making is that if you wish to form a policy that sends titles back to their original spellings, then that is one which will be moved. You can't have it both ways: Either we have a policy or we decide by consensus and consensus currently determines that humour stays at humour. Which is it you prefer?--Ykraps (talk) 09:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
- No, if it had been unilaterally moved without a proper request move, I would say, "of course! Move it back!" but it was moved with a proper request move, unlike humour, honour, etc. Those were moved by people who, in their own words, didn't like American spellings vs. british spellings. Humor was moved to Humour without consensus. It shouldn't need, in my opinion, a consensus to move it back, as it is simply restoring someone violating our own guidelines. Now of course, ask for consensus, it's a group effort, but the guideline I'm asking for is, is there a brightline time when what was often vandalism from one form of english to another goes from 'restoring due to WP:ENGVAR' to 'maintain due to WP:MAINTAIN'? ~~ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 22:45, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
- They may well have been moved without consensus but the consensus now is that they stay there. What you are seeking now is a page move from Humour to Humor and your argument is that a guideline trumps consensus. The validity of that argument does not concern me, although you might like to read WP:Policies and guidelines, particularly the part that describes how they should, “...reflect consensus”. What does concern me is that once that precedent has been set, it will be used to instigate further page moves. Rather than doing the dishes, as you claim, it appears instead that you are throwing them back into the dirty water.--Ykraps (talk) 22:38, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
- Just for the record, as I don’t spell yoghourt either of those ways, I have little interest in whether the article is strained yogurt or strained yoghurt. Nor do I have a strong preference for where the Humour article resides, having arrived at the page only through the blatant WP: Canvassing at Talk: Yogurt.--Ykraps (talk) 22:44, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
- I am simply pushing the issue because it has lead to so many talk page debates before, that it should have a hard and fast rule. No, it's not, on the grand scheme of the world, a big deal, but alas, too many pages have been thrown afoul of it, so why not have a rule. Also, my preferred version of yogurt is frozen. ~~ipuse 90.194.62.161 (talk) 23:36, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
- Another interesting opportunity for you to show your colours has arisen at Talk:Pajamas--Ykraps (talk) 08:19, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- Well, as I stated before, if it started as one variety of English, it should stay that way. I didn't notice you weighing in on the topic. What happened to assuming good faith, as opposed to trying to call someone out on 'their true colors', and hoping that their true colors, keep shining through. ~ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 22:36, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- I didn't call you out or say anything about true colours, I merely invited you to show your colours which you did admirably with your non-commital contribution. No, I haven't weighed in with that or any of the move requests we've been discussing here but had I have done, rest assured that my arguments would have been consistent. The article had clearly been started in British English and given what you have said here, you should have supported the move but you failed to do so.--Ykraps (talk) 23:35, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- I voted to restore to whatever the first nonstub variety of english was, you can read the talk page if you want. I didn't fail to do anything, I said, in no uncertain terms, it should be whatever it was as originally. Is that not consistent with my statements here, previous things I've voted for, etc, or are you just looking to try to undermine my credibility? cheers ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 23:18, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
- You are undermining your own credibility; all I’ve done here is highlight the problems with your proposal. I have given you two examples of articles which would return to their original titles under your proposal and on both occasions you have failed to back up your words with actions. Your vote at Talk: Pajamas which is "support or oppose" will be disregarded as I suspect you know. The non-stub clause you are now latching on to was not part of your initial proposal and is only valid, "...when no English variety has been established and discussion cannot resolve the issue". This change in policy you are seeking clearly doesn’t fit your agenda and I don’t see how you can continue to support it.--Ykraps (talk) 08:48, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
- Which two examples did you give? Strained yogurt, which was moved, with consensus, after a proper request move, and pajamas, which I said, in no uncertain terms that I would support whichever version of english, whether british English or American english that the article was written in. So, I support the move, if it was originally written in british English, and oppose the move if the article was written in American English to start, but, nobody can figure it out. Further more, I didn't vote at the move request, NOBODY votes at a move request, it's not a popularity contest, but rather, trying to figure out the consensus of the community. This is why, I'm asking for a hard and fast rule that says "if an article was started in one variety of english, if changed without a proper move request, it should be changed back." Ykraps, do you disagree with that, and why?
- You are undermining your own credibility; all I’ve done here is highlight the problems with your proposal. I have given you two examples of articles which would return to their original titles under your proposal and on both occasions you have failed to back up your words with actions. Your vote at Talk: Pajamas which is "support or oppose" will be disregarded as I suspect you know. The non-stub clause you are now latching on to was not part of your initial proposal and is only valid, "...when no English variety has been established and discussion cannot resolve the issue". This change in policy you are seeking clearly doesn’t fit your agenda and I don’t see how you can continue to support it.--Ykraps (talk) 08:48, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
- I voted to restore to whatever the first nonstub variety of english was, you can read the talk page if you want. I didn't fail to do anything, I said, in no uncertain terms, it should be whatever it was as originally. Is that not consistent with my statements here, previous things I've voted for, etc, or are you just looking to try to undermine my credibility? cheers ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 23:18, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
- I didn't call you out or say anything about true colours, I merely invited you to show your colours which you did admirably with your non-commital contribution. No, I haven't weighed in with that or any of the move requests we've been discussing here but had I have done, rest assured that my arguments would have been consistent. The article had clearly been started in British English and given what you have said here, you should have supported the move but you failed to do so.--Ykraps (talk) 23:35, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- I am simply pushing the issue because it has lead to so many talk page debates before, that it should have a hard and fast rule. No, it's not, on the grand scheme of the world, a big deal, but alas, too many pages have been thrown afoul of it, so why not have a rule. Also, my preferred version of yogurt is frozen. ~~ipuse 90.194.62.161 (talk) 23:36, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
- No, if it had been unilaterally moved without a proper request move, I would say, "of course! Move it back!" but it was moved with a proper request move, unlike humour, honour, etc. Those were moved by people who, in their own words, didn't like American spellings vs. british spellings. Humor was moved to Humour without consensus. It shouldn't need, in my opinion, a consensus to move it back, as it is simply restoring someone violating our own guidelines. Now of course, ask for consensus, it's a group effort, but the guideline I'm asking for is, is there a brightline time when what was often vandalism from one form of english to another goes from 'restoring due to WP:ENGVAR' to 'maintain due to WP:MAINTAIN'? ~~ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 22:45, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
- The point I am making is that if you wish to form a policy that sends titles back to their original spellings, then that is one which will be moved. You can't have it both ways: Either we have a policy or we decide by consensus and consensus currently determines that humour stays at humour. Which is it you prefer?--Ykraps (talk) 09:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
Cheers. ~ipuser 90.194.62.161 (talk) 22:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
It is very difficult to either agree or disagree with you because you keep changing your mind about what it is you want. You initially asked for a hard and fast rule that changes titles back to their original form. Under your initial proposal, "strained yogurt" and "pajamas" will return to "strained yoghurt" and "pyjamas", and your "Yeah but..., no but..." arguments will count for nothing! Now, presumably because that rule doesn't fit your agenda at those articles, you are seeking provisos such as, "first non-stub version" and "only if it wasn't moved with a proper move request". If you keep going you will eventually end up with the policy we currently have! I am undecided whether I would like a hard and fast rule and came here to see how it might work, but you have been less than helpful in that respect. Also I could do without a lecture on consensus from someone who seeks to overturn it just about everywhere he goes.--Ykraps (talk) 08:59, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, let me make this perfectly clear. If a page is moved from one style of english to another, without a move request, when does WP:MAINTAIN and WP:ENGVAR shift from the original style of english to the new style? That is, if a page is started in british english, and someone moves it to American English without a move request, or anything, and nobody notices it for a while, should it be moved back to british english, or should it stay at American English? That is the question. I encourage anyone, not just ykraps, to reply, to the question at hand. ~~cheers, ~ipuser90.194.62.161 (talk) 07:27, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- The short answer to that is, when consensus says so. Please understand that the policies and guidelines are written in the same way as individual articles; by a tiny proportion of editors, sometimes with consensus and sometimes unilaterally. As I said earlier, guidelines follow consensus. If people continue to kick against the guidelines, the guidelines are wrong but obviously this doesn't happen overnight and so we are constantly in a state where at times, consensus seems at odds with policy!--Ykraps (talk) 08:19, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- Also could you do the British the courtesy of spelling it with a capital letter? You have used lowercase twice above and here [[2]], here [[3]], here [[4]], here [[5]] and here [[6]]! They can't all be typos, particularly as you have managed to capitalise American on each occassion. This could be seen as indicative of a hidden agenda, which is something I have not yet ruled out.--Ykraps (talk) 08:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- Look at pajamas now. There is the same argument going on, but with a page moved from British to American english. This argument will be perpetual, when should a page that has been moved WP:BOLD (as someone there said) be considered stable, and when should it be reverted? If it's been stable for one week? One month? One year? One decade? Or do we say "Regardless of length of time, it was in violation of the guidelines, so, it should be back" That it was I'm trying to debate, not my capitlisation. So should there be a guideline that says when to move, or when it's been too long? Often, people canvass to make their own consensus, to make a page move where they want (which is not above board, but does happen). ~~cheers, ipuser 94.14.222.249 (talk) 08:00, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, let me make this perfectly clear. If a page is moved from one style of english to another, without a move request, when does WP:MAINTAIN and WP:ENGVAR shift from the original style of english to the new style? That is, if a page is started in british english, and someone moves it to American English without a move request, or anything, and nobody notices it for a while, should it be moved back to british english, or should it stay at American English? That is the question. I encourage anyone, not just ykraps, to reply, to the question at hand. ~~cheers, ~ipuser90.194.62.161 (talk) 07:27, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Proposal to change the focus of pending changes
Some years ago, pending changes were introduced on an experimental basis. A subsequent RfC voted to end the experiment, but pending changes are still with us. Some administrators take advantage of this fact by putting more articles in. Most of the work on Islamic calendar, for example, is done by IPs, but since it was put in pending changes (for no good reason) editing has stopped. I suggest we enforce the RfC and that all articles currently in pending changes be taken out.
This will mean that pending changes reviewers (who I take to be everyone who is autoconfirmed) will have nothing to do. I therefore propose that IPs be given back the right to start articles for an experimental period of six months on a pending changes basis. That is to say, their articles would not be publicly visible until the text had been approved by an editor.
Technically, I suppose that what would happen would be that the article would be created and accessible as normal, with the usual edit and history tabs. The text created by the IP would appear in the edit box but would not be seen publicly (the article would appear as any page does when it has been blanked). Editing would be as normal for pending changes, with the first edit to be publicly visible being the first edit by an autoconfirmed editor. Normal deletion policy would apply.
Where an editor tags for CSD he may find it convenient to make the offending text publicly visible to assist those following up. Either way, if there are no objections an administrator will be along about fifteen minutes later to delete. Every article started in this way will automatically remain within pending changes for one month after creation.
There are two big advantages of this proposal. Article growth went well from inception until just shy of the five million mark, when it stalled. This proposal will put it back on track. It will also result in an infusion of new blood. Wikipedia is haemorrhaging editors. It desperately needs new ones. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 14:46, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- Isn't that essentially AfC? Kharkiv07Talk 15:06, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- The difference is that you can put something in AfC and it hangs around for months so most people don't bother. Under this proposal you are in the driving seat so a lot more people will add worthwhile content. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 15:48, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- As is, most articles created by newcomers are deleted quickly without discussion, a situation which I believe to be very BITEy, and possibly is a significant cause of Wikipedia "haemorrhaging editors"; move the permission to create articles a bit farther back, and the situation will become worse, not better. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:28, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- The difference is that you can put something in AfC and it hangs around for months so most people don't bother. Under this proposal you are in the driving seat so a lot more people will add worthwhile content. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 15:48, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- I'm confused by your proposal for a few reasons. First, IP editors can still edit with pending changes, in effect it is a weaker version of semi-protection which BLOCKS all IP editors. I would suggest moving many semi pages to pending changes actually and strongly oppose removal of pending changes. As for AfC, it works. Reviewing a new article is a process, more so than a simple pending changes button, and does take a little longer. And third, only users with the Pending changes reviewer can review the pending changes, even though any auto confirmed users edits will be accepted. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 23:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- You seem to have missed the series of RFCs that reauthorized the use of pending changes protection (level 1 only). Monty845 23:43, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- The last RfC decided that PC was wanted and it was up to editors to decide how to implement it. To date there has been no consensus on this so there is no mandate to put Islamic calendar (or any other article for that matter) into PC. PC seems to be very complex - there are at least two levels of it and SlimVirgin said she didn't understand it. I think it is too complicated. Given that here in March there was a consensus that PC should not operate for an extended period all that is needed is a week of semi - protection where necessary to drive the vandals away.
- Od Mishehu says that "most articles created by newcomers are deleted quickly without discussion". That's a failure by the established editors. They should work to bring the articles up to standard, not delete them. This is why IPs should be allowed to create articles - they then get the benefit of all the other editors who know something about the subject adding sources and content. That is the essence of crowdsourcing.
- Replying to EoRdE6, AfC takes months and is permanently backlogged. With direct article creation other editors can come in and get the article on the road to GA status in a few days. You see articles like the Charlie Hebdo massacre which within just a few hours of creation are full of content and sources. The system of creating stubs giving experts the opportunity to come in and build a full length article has worked well.
- There is a proverb "If you want a job done do it yourself". AfC relies on getting other people to post the content to mainspace. It's a form of action by proxy which is proven to be inefficient. The British government in 2002 experimented with postal voting - included was the local council election in my area. There were no polling stations (no electronic voting here - today is the general election and everyone takes printed ballots, fills them in and posts them into the ballot box). The voters had to fill in the ballot papers then give them to the postmen who had to give them to the council. Needless to say the experiment was not repeated.
- It's the same everywhere. We got supermarkets from America - before then shoppers queued at the grocer's while he picked their selections off his shelves. Now checkout operators have been done away with and customers scan their shopping themselves - no more queuing. No more queuing at the public library either - readers return and renew their books themselves at self - service kiosks, resulting in a more efficient use of their and the staff's time. Self - service machines are at railway stations - everywhere you can think of. Introduction of AfC was a retrograde step. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 11:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- I suggest you take a reread of Wikipedia:Protection_policy#Pending changes protection and Wikipedia:Pending changes as you are mistaken. The closing statement of the last RFC which dealt with the issue is quite clear Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC 3.
There was very strong consensus to enable the use of Pending Changes throughout all namespaces
- and further
The consensus on this was fairly clearly against having any specific criteria, but a significant minority expressed concern that its use is less well-defined than is the use for conventional protection methods; if enormous inconsistencies with application are seen upon implementation, this may be a topic worth revisiting
- and at the end
As with the previous RfC, assessing the usefulness of what gained consensus here will require some monitoring. The same time frames (1 month for obvious problems, more for subtler issues) seem to fit with everything in this discussion as well. It appears that after this and the previous RfCs, we have the necessary framework to roll out Pending Changes, and we know what aspects of its use will require the most monitoring and later attention.
- So no we aren't waiting for the community to come to some sort of agreement on how to use it. (There were earlier RfCs which also dealt with when to use PC1.)
- Of course, if you feel that PC1 is being in ways that are unhelpful in some instances, you're welcome to start a properly fleshed-out RfC on the matter, but I strongly urge you to talk to others about this before hand, and make sure you actually otherstand what the history is, otherwise your RfC is unlikely to do anything useful. (As it stands, you're failing to follow information I had sort of heard before, but to be honest had mostly forgotten by now and only properly relearned by actually reading the PC page and following the links to the RfC has lead to your proposal being sidetracked by this unnecessary discussion.) Now if you feel the admin's closing wasn't an accurate summation of the RfC consensus, or if you feel that the RfCs had insufficient participation compared to earlier RfCs, you could try to dispute that, but relitigating stuff after 2+ years rarely works well.
- There were two followup RfCs, Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2013 and Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2014, which concerned PC2 and ultimately came up with criteria for the use of PC2, but no actual consensus to use PC2. These don't of course affect the use of PC1, for which in the absence of clear evidence consensus has changed, we stick with the older RfCs which showed there is consensus to use PC1.
- Nil Einne (talk) 15:11, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Your example also seems fairly poor.
Perhaps Islamic calendar may have had useful IP edits, but it also had many that were reverted (which look to be more or less the same edit from a persistent IP hopper). I didn't look in to these enough to say if the reversions were proper, simply that they happened therefore whether before or after PC, IP edits were being rejected.
More importantly perhaps, the time frame here is insufficient to tell us anything about pending changes, particularly if you look at the logs or edit history carefully. On 13 April, both PC1 and semi protection were applied with the PC1 due to expire on 13 July and the semiprotection on 27 April. My thoughts and a search confirmed via Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 March 18#Pending changes and Semi-protection simultaneously that this works and is evidently done sometimes when it's felt that there is an acute problem that needs to be dealt with via semiprotection for a short time, and a chronic problem that needs PC1.
Without commenting on whether this was the case for Islamic calender, this means it was impossible for IPs to directly edit from 17:36 13 April to 27 April. So there's a fair chance the absence of IP edits for this period had nothing to do with PC1.
So really all you're talking about is from 27 April until now. In that period, we had 3 IP edits. 2 were rejected, 1 accepted. Again without commenting on the appropriateness of any of these edits, unless we were getting an average of 1 useful IP edit on average every 3 days or so (which it doesn't look like we were), it's difficult to useful conclude things were so much better before PC1. You simply lack sufficient data to be able to make any conclusion about a reduction of helpful IP edits. And at the very least, the editor who kept making the same change which I think lead up to the semiprotections and PC1 seems to have left for now.
BTW, for the avoidance of doubt and confusion, I should mention I'm aware editors who haven't been auto/confirmed are affected as well, I just used IPs for shorthand and since it's also harder to spot such editors.
Nil Einne (talk) 15:59, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- I think that the proposal that an article should go into PC just because a lot of IPs don't edit it is misconceived. The Islamic calendar is hardly a mainstream subject. Your comments on PC generally are a joke. About twenty years ago the local council proposed to demolish a housing estate and being short of cash proposed to sell off the land to a private developer. To do that, it needed the consent of the tenants. It assured them that the estate would not be sold if the majority were opposed. The tenants kept asking for a ballot but the council ignored them. Finally the ballot papers arrived, and the tenants were dismayed to see that their votes would be rolled up among those of tenants on other estates which were going to be refurbished. This followed an "opinion poll" conducted by a survey company which doorknocked to ask the tenants what they wanted for their estate but did not ask the key question Do you want your estate to be sold or not? The council's ballot paper was craftily worded - not "Do you want your estate to be sold?" as discussed in literature and meetings but "Do you want your home to be sold, meaning that the tenants' views would be submerged amongst the views of all the tenants on other estates who were going to get new kitchens and bathrooms instead of seeing their homes reduced to rubble.
- Same here, there was a lot of discussion about how pending changes might work, but no discussion of whether its reenablement would be a good or bad thing. Since pending changes is a dead loss, let me reformulate my proposal. IPs would be able to create articles just as before Siegenthaler with one exception - edits by non - autoconfirmed editors would only become publicly visible when the page was first edited by an autoconfirmed user. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 13:21, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
- Your example also seems fairly poor.
Why are...
Indefinite blocks so common? It's really hard to find a user in the block log that doesn't get blocked indefinitely, and many unblock requests are refused, which effectively means once you are indeffed, you don't have that great of a chance of coming back, unless you seemingly force yourself to change, which...doesn't seem genuine. I know indefinite means "however long is needed for the user to address the issue", but... I've heard of at least one case where a user displayed he understood the reason and wouldn't repeat what he did but got banned anyway. I think, with the exception of already-banned users + socks and sock masters, we should start toning down the indefinite blocks and removing many stale blocks that have been around since 2004. I'm sure some accounts would, just like IP addresses, stop vandalizing after a 24 hour halt. Indefinite blocks may be justified if a user gets blocked for the same disruption about 3-4 times in a row, but that should be it. Zeke Essiestudy (talk) 01:07, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- If a user registers an account and then proceeds to make four contributions and all of them are malicious, do you think they'll come back and be constructive? Kharkiv07Talk 01:26, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- Here's another not-so-secret fact. Let's say you created that account, and went on a vandalism rampage, and got blocked right away, as just happened. Lets say that like, a week later, you come to your senses and say "You know what, I'd really like to help out at Wikipedia. That whole vandalism thing I did was pretty stupid. Let me just create a new account and be helpful from now on". You want to know what happens to you? Nothing. You get to keep being helpful. No one at Wikipedia bothers you, no one has any reason to suspect you had an earlier account which vandalized a bunch of stuff. Literally, it's like you didn't make the first mistake. No one will ever know. So, if you want to be useful, just be useful. If you just want to be a pain in the ass, expect swift blocks. The end result is entirely up to your choice and no one elses. --Jayron32 01:42, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- A lot of good editors started with vandalizing edits. And often, some good faith edits may look like vandalism, new editors learn from mistakes. Many editors start by testing the reliability of Wikipedia. Now if an editor goes on vandalizing, tens or twenties or more deliberate vandal edits, that user is definitely disruptive. Block indef is often abuse of power and bad for growth of Wikipedia community. We cannot eliminate block indef, but we shall definitely LIMIT where block indef can apply. I think: sock (puppets and masters) can be block indef. Deliberate vandals can be long term blocked (3-4 months or a year). - nafSadh did say 02:55, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- Personally, I think we should gve vandalism-only accounts a 24 hour block the first time, indef the second. I doubt, though, that many of them would come back for the second round. I think that the main problem of indef blocks is that we are probably quick to block meatpuppets, frequently working from a single school or work place (and therefore indistinguishable by checkuser) as sockpuppets. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 02:59, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- I do think the second time block should not be indef either, rather long term. SPI is also a big issue today. They can be wrong and abused. nafSadh did say 03:36, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- Every time I check WP:SPI, it's a mess. There are currently 70 reports. The entire table is bigger than my entire monitor. I have a good feeling some of these reports wouldn't HAVE to exist if there weren't as much indef blocking going on. In fact, if indef blocks were less common right now, SPI would be easier to clean after all of the current reports are checked. Zeke Essiestudy (talk) 03:49, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- I tend to agree that overdoing indef blocks can easily cause a boat to the size of SPI - for two reasons: Firstly, creating an account is so cheap that many users, if stopped by a block, will simply wait 24 hours, create a new account, and continue where they left off. Secondly, when we block meatpuppets as sockpuppets, we are, at the same time, giving them a reason to want to "get back" at us, and telling them how to do it with the block reason. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu
- There's too much indef blocking going on. I propose that indefinite blocks should only be used when;
- The user is banned from Wikipedia
- The user has a username problem
- The user disrupted Wikipedia in a specific way 4 times in a row (1st block = 24 hours, 2nd block = 72 hours, 3rd block = 1 month, 4th block = indefinite)
- The user is a blatant sockpuppet
- We might be (pretty much) banning users that may eventually flourish into amazing contributors if they aren't blocked. Zeke Essiestudy (talk) 18:50, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
- If someone I indef blocked for unambiguous but routine vandalism came back a day later, and made a good faith request for unblock, acknowledging they had vandalized, and promising to edit constructively going forward, I'd be happy to give them another chance. So many unblock requests are junk. They argue that there was nothing wrong with what they did when it was clearly in violation of policy, or they attack people. But a strict blocking rubric is not the solution. If someone has filled a page with libel, they should not get a chance to do it again the next day on the same account. Likewise for editors who vandalize with tons of hate speech. We may be a bit too eager to block new accounts in less clear situations, but your proposal goes way too far in the other direction. Monty845 19:07, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
- There's too much indef blocking going on. I propose that indefinite blocks should only be used when;
- I tend to agree that overdoing indef blocks can easily cause a boat to the size of SPI - for two reasons: Firstly, creating an account is so cheap that many users, if stopped by a block, will simply wait 24 hours, create a new account, and continue where they left off. Secondly, when we block meatpuppets as sockpuppets, we are, at the same time, giving them a reason to want to "get back" at us, and telling them how to do it with the block reason. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu
- Every time I check WP:SPI, it's a mess. There are currently 70 reports. The entire table is bigger than my entire monitor. I have a good feeling some of these reports wouldn't HAVE to exist if there weren't as much indef blocking going on. In fact, if indef blocks were less common right now, SPI would be easier to clean after all of the current reports are checked. Zeke Essiestudy (talk) 03:49, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- I do think the second time block should not be indef either, rather long term. SPI is also a big issue today. They can be wrong and abused. nafSadh did say 03:36, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- Personally, I think we should gve vandalism-only accounts a 24 hour block the first time, indef the second. I doubt, though, that many of them would come back for the second round. I think that the main problem of indef blocks is that we are probably quick to block meatpuppets, frequently working from a single school or work place (and therefore indistinguishable by checkuser) as sockpuppets. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 02:59, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- A lot of good editors started with vandalizing edits. And often, some good faith edits may look like vandalism, new editors learn from mistakes. Many editors start by testing the reliability of Wikipedia. Now if an editor goes on vandalizing, tens or twenties or more deliberate vandal edits, that user is definitely disruptive. Block indef is often abuse of power and bad for growth of Wikipedia community. We cannot eliminate block indef, but we shall definitely LIMIT where block indef can apply. I think: sock (puppets and masters) can be block indef. Deliberate vandals can be long term blocked (3-4 months or a year). - nafSadh did say 02:55, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- Here's another not-so-secret fact. Let's say you created that account, and went on a vandalism rampage, and got blocked right away, as just happened. Lets say that like, a week later, you come to your senses and say "You know what, I'd really like to help out at Wikipedia. That whole vandalism thing I did was pretty stupid. Let me just create a new account and be helpful from now on". You want to know what happens to you? Nothing. You get to keep being helpful. No one at Wikipedia bothers you, no one has any reason to suspect you had an earlier account which vandalized a bunch of stuff. Literally, it's like you didn't make the first mistake. No one will ever know. So, if you want to be useful, just be useful. If you just want to be a pain in the ass, expect swift blocks. The end result is entirely up to your choice and no one elses. --Jayron32 01:42, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
Countdown clock
Some pages have a countdown clock to some event, e.g. New Horizons#Current_status. Is such a countdown appropriate for an encyclopedia article? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:16, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think presenting it the way we are presenting it is necessary or encyclopedic, but I don't see a problem with the clock itself. Can always take it to WP:TFD if you don't agree with its existence, for wider community consensus. --Izno (talk) 19:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think we should have things like a countdown to the year 2016 or a countdown to the 2017 US presidential inauguration, etc. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 20:09, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
This is now at Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2015_May_11#Template:Countdown-ymd. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:16, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
Disambiguation
Is this okay? BlueworldSpeccie (talk) 17:54, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- This is a set index, not a disambiguation page. Set index maintenance is normally done by the appropriate WikiProject, so if you still have concerns, they would be best addressed by WikiProject Comics.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 7, 2015; 17:57 (UTC)
- Okay. Thanks for responding so fast. BlueworldSpeccie (talk) 18:10, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
WP:AT – proposed update regarding Precision, Conciseness and Disambiguation
See Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Combined proposal.
Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Comments on #Combined proposal, tx. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:54, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Articles on Schools exempt from WP:A7
You will have to forgive me, I am returning to an active status being only moderately active for several years. Yesterday, I was looking through WP:AFD, and came across theAFD for British International School Lagos. When I went to the page at the time [7], it was 3 lines long, referencing only its own website with no assertion of notability. I closed the AFD as [{WP:A7]], an organization with no assertion of notability, as I would have with any other article with the same amount of information and same quality of references. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools @WhisperToMe: asked me to review it, citing an essay summarizing past WP:AFD decisions about schools. Since then, the article has been expanded, but not for the better of the project, not as a result of the editor, but as a result of the lack of actual notable references available. For example, the following was added "...the school had difficulty finding qualified German teachers, so the possibility that the school would have to cancel its German classes existed...". At the end of the day, I believe this passes a WP:DUCK of not being appropriate for Wikipedia. I suspect that, if asked if the above quote came from either a.) and encyclopedia, or b.) from the minutes of a PTA meeting, that many would choose the latter.
The underlying issue here is not one of the editor, who has made an WP:AGF attempt to find and cite articles to bring it up to standard, but will never be able to because of the nature of schools, of which, a huge majority will never pass the WP:ORG notability requirements. In a domain of articles where one can make a very strong case that a most of the subjects will fail WP:ORG, why then is it exempt from WP:A7? If there is something that I am missing here, I would appreciate somebody clearing the air. Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 18:46, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you, Chris. The relevant page for common outcomes is here: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes#Schools. See to see past high school AFD discussions, which have largely stopped after 2010.
- Significant sourced content about a school from a secondary source that is independent of the subject and is non-routine coverage helps the school pass WP:GNG. Of course the page does say ""Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption, not a guarantee, that a subject should be included. A more in-depth discussion might conclude that the topic actually should not have a stand-alone article—perhaps because it violates what Wikipedia is not, particularly the rule that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information."
- Chris, in Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Schools you said "Not all content in books are notable. " - According to WP:GNG the content does not count towards notability if it's not independent of the subject and/or if it's "routine" news coverage. If it's not of a routine nature, and it gives significant coverage, and is independent of the subject, it counts towards notability
- WhisperToMe (talk) 18:57, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
A couple of things, Firstly, not all content that we can attribute to a source is notable, we need to use some common sense here ( the header of WP:GNG states "...It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply...".). Secondly, the argument "This is the way it has been done for some time" so, it is ok to keep doing it is also dangerous. Both of these use words to skirt the actual issue at hand, that most schools are not inherently notable. Chris
- It's not about the content per se. It's whether there is "the subject has received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability." (see Wikipedia:Notability#Article_content_does_not_determine_notability) In fact "notability" doesn't apply to article content at all (Wikipedia:Notability#Notability_guidelines_do_not_apply_to_content_within_an_article). It's strictly a matter of whether the topic is appropriate for inclusion or not.
- It's true that often things "always done" are not automatically something that should be done. The reality is that the question of whether senior high schools are inherently notable has been brought up many times before, and people in a community who have dealt with an argument many times before oftentimes don't want to spend more time and energy rehashing it again. Often people want precedent to continue and spend their time/resources tackling new problems or simply writing articles.
- WhisperToMe (talk) 19:16, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- What I am saying is, there is nowhere where it is said that they are "inherently notable", and anybody acting on that assumption is grossly mis-informed. Notability needs to be asserted, and having a loophole where "any article in this class is automatically notable" takes all the responsibility off of the creating editors to use their best judgement when creating an article, and requires significant resources from the community to address them as exceptions to the rule, when there is no rationale foundation for it's existence. Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 19:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- It de facto says that they are presumed to be automatically notable (unless no source is able to verify their existence which is different from something not meeting WP:GNG) in the common outcomes page. As for editors' judgment, when they see numerous articles about senior high schools in various countries around the world they will judge that they too should start articles about schools/their own schools/other schools. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Our job in deletion processes is to assess the notability of the topic, not the sources. We assess the independence and reliability of the sources, Chrislk02.
- What I am saying is, there is nowhere where it is said that they are "inherently notable", and anybody acting on that assumption is grossly mis-informed. Notability needs to be asserted, and having a loophole where "any article in this class is automatically notable" takes all the responsibility off of the creating editors to use their best judgement when creating an article, and requires significant resources from the community to address them as exceptions to the rule, when there is no rationale foundation for it's existence. Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 19:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- There is a difference between "inherent notability" and a "strong presumption of notability". The second is a very useful tool in deletion debates, and that presumption definitely exists regarding secondary schools.
- There is a widespread working consensus that degree-awarding secondary schools are presumed to be notable, and that with sufficient effort, acceptable sources can be found. For example, Two hours spent in a library in Lagos would almost certainly produce many good sources about the British International School Lagos. The vast majority of articles about secondary schools are kept if brought to AfD. Let a group of editors debate and discuss the topic. If the article is a hoax, or about a home school with a handful of students, then it will be deleted.
- Accordingly, I strongly oppose any speedy deletion of articles about secondary schools. Most articles about primary schools should be redirected instead of being deleted. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:40, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Now, this may be a separate consideration and not entirely about notability. The reason why I support senior high school articles, aside from the fact that in several cases one is able to write well-sourced articles about such institutions, is that they are a way of attracting young people who may be future Wikipedia editors. Often people want to write articles about their interests. Many students at first are immediately interested in their schools. One can let them play around and work on such articles, and they can "graduate" to other and more serious topics as they grow older and become more experienced. Senior high school and university levels are in general good places for editors since they often have enough free time to contribute and are well educated enough to be productive editors.
The reason why I support the current status quo regarding senior high schools (presume automatic notability in most cases), and likewise with other "presume automatically notable" subjects, is that it streamlines the process of article acceptance and greatly reduces the burden on new Wikipedia editors. As you know user participation has been slumping and there is a concern of retaining editors. Often people have less time and energy than one may expect, and they need to be able to meaningfully contribute to Wikipedia on a casual editing basis. Putting too many hoops in front of editing will choke the flow of new editors. In theory an editor who sees his/her page get speedied should learn from his or her mistakes, read up on policies, do a better job next time, etc. Instead in reality many people simply quit due to frustration. I understand that editors want Wikipedia to be an encyclopedic, comprehensive resource, but that must be balanced with the interests of the general public and the need for an accessible way to become a new editor. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:44, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- So, an article about a school that is 3 lines long, with no assertion of notability is treated different than an article about a non profit that is 3 lines long with no assertion of notability? Where do we draw the line? The entire argument is based on the most faulty of logic, and honestly, it opens a very dangerous door for arguments such as "based on common outcomes of AFD's about school where most are kept, we should keep this article about a school that is at AFD" Nowhere is notability asserted, and use common sense, an article about a small school in Nigeria that could not find a German teacher at some point is not encyclopedic, plain and simple. Using all of this backdoor rationalization does not change that. Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 19:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- The status quo is that being a degree-awarding senior high school "is a statement of notability" and makes the article ineligible for speedy. If any door is open, it's been open for at least five years, if not longer. I do understand that "because it's the way it's always done" isn't always a good argument, but it does somebody well to study previous discussions and consider whether he/she is going to bring something new to the recurring argument. WhisperToMe (talk) 19:53, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- I am asking, where outright is there a community wide consensus that says schools "presume automatic notability"? I have researched the issue and cannot seem to find where that was established? Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 20:08, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes/Archive_2#Proposed_amendment_to_schools seems to be where the wording was last changed and set to its current state. Do you want to invite User:Terriersfan (now User:Just Chilling) to the discussion to clarify this? WhisperToMe (talk) 20:20, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- So, an article about a school that is 3 lines long, with no assertion of notability is treated different than an article about a non profit that is 3 lines long with no assertion of notability? Where do we draw the line? The entire argument is based on the most faulty of logic, and honestly, it opens a very dangerous door for arguments such as "based on common outcomes of AFD's about school where most are kept, we should keep this article about a school that is at AFD" Nowhere is notability asserted, and use common sense, an article about a small school in Nigeria that could not find a German teacher at some point is not encyclopedic, plain and simple. Using all of this backdoor rationalization does not change that. Chrislk02 Chris Kreider 19:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- This discussion is confusing "exempt from speedy deletion" as being the same as "automatically notable". There is a lot of gray area between those two extremes; nothing is automatically notable. Speedy deletion is for articles which have no hope of being kept, for various reasons. There is a long-established pattern that articles on secondary and higher-level schools are frequently demonstrated to be notable in deletion discussions, so much so that an automatic exemption from WP:A7 actually benefits the project by saving a large number of articles from needing to be undeleted and preventing biting of newbies. That doesn't mean they can't be deleted at all; WP:G3 applies if the school doesn't exist, and any article on any school can be taken to AfD. Ivanvector (talk) 20:42, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- I would not say that school articles are "exempt" from speedy deletion under A7... I would instead say that A7 rarely applies to school articles - however, "rare" is not the same as "never". I would say that before saying that a school does meet the A7 deletion criteria, you almost have to prove the negative... and lay out the case for deletion (ie demonstrate that the school is one of the rare cases where it does meet A7). And, as long as you are doing that... you might as well send it to AfD anyway (ie skip the speedy). Blueboar (talk) 21:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- A7 specifically excludes Educational Institutions. So unless we are talking about a hoax, which is deletable under G3, its hard to imagine how a school would not be an educational institution. Of course you can always bring it to WP:AFD or make a WP:PROD, but it will be exempt at the speedy deletion stage. Monty845 02:04, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
Speedy deleting old pages
I've noticed lately that a number of very old articles are being speedy deleted, and I suspect some of them date from times when referencing and proving notability requirements were looser. A case in point is Dean Roberts - the subject is definitely notable enough for an article but notability wasn't proved in the article as it only referenced one allmusic.com page. If the article was AFD'd or PRODed it would have given the small number of WPNZ volunteers a chance to find proper references and improve the page. I'm guessing the page was over a decade old as I remember referring to it about 8 or 9 years ago. Therefore I propose that speedy deletions be restricted to pages created in the last few years. -- haminoon (talk) 22:34, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Actually the material appears to have been added in 2013. There is an interesting history with some issues of where the dab page belongs. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:55, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Any way A7 should not have applied as the person was a member of a band with a Wikipedia article, a claim of importance. So this could be challenged with the deleting admin. Chrislk02 Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- The system for challenging speedy deletions is opaque - why only the deleting admin? Why can't any admin undelete it? And how can a non-admin make a case when they can't see the page? The above page was tagged at 2am NZ time and deleted at 3am. If a NZer wants it to be reconsidered they could be having a frustating to-and-fro conversation with an admin in another time zone for several days. I fail to see why any article over five years old would ever need to be speedy deleted. -- haminoon (talk) 01:57, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Are you sure about 2013? The Google cache shows a 2010 tag. This is another problem with speedy deletion - it makes it very difficult for non-admins to talk about what was on the page. -- haminoon (talk) 23:05, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Pretty. The history before that was page moves with the dab page and deletes. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:02, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Its possible the history wasn't moved properly when it was moved to and from Dean Roberts (musician). The 2006 snapshot is essentially the same as the slightly updated 2015 snapshot. -- haminoon (talk) 01:57, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Pretty. The history before that was page moves with the dab page and deletes. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:02, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Any way A7 should not have applied as the person was a member of a band with a Wikipedia article, a claim of importance. So this could be challenged with the deleting admin. Chrislk02 Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:01, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
Another example is Somaly Mam Foundation, an 8-year-old page of a clearly notable organisation. It was speedily deleted with no discussion or warning. -- haminoon (talk) 23:14, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Are you sure? From the convoluted history it appears you replaced everything with a redirect on April 21. Note that also deleted the speedy tag for spam. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Am sure. I put the redirect in after it was speedy deleted because other pages still linked to it. See the deletion log. -- haminoon (talk) 01:23, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Note that there are still many articles linking to Dean Roberts and no redirect has been made - another reason why speedy deletions of long-established articles is a bad idea. A slower process would allow editors to do the job properly. -- haminoon (talk) 01:28, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- The 15 or so links to the article have been deleted by another editor now. -- haminoon (talk) 23:40, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Are you sure? From the convoluted history it appears you replaced everything with a redirect on April 21. Note that also deleted the speedy tag for spam. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:13, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- COMMENT - If an article has been speedy deleted for not properly establishing notability, and you think the deletion is in error (and that subject actually is notable) ... nothing prevents you from creating a new article on the subject - one that actually does properly establish notability (and thus won't be deleted again). Blueboar (talk) 16:00, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- COMMENT - I'm with haminoon on this and support the concept that articles beyond a certain age should simply not be eligible to be speedied, but will always have to go through a prod or an AfD. Rather than a particular age, we could alternatively tie this to "articles first created before 200x" to reflect that notability criteria were much less stringent in the early days. Speedy deletions put editors who are not admins at a distinct disadvantage (can't see history, hard to argue the point of something that you last saw several years ago, etc) and it's always easier to improve something existing than starting from scratch, and for that reason, I disagree with Blueboar's view. Schwede66 18:29, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- To reply to both of you, speedy deletion under Criteria A7 is separate from notability, though it shares a similar goal. Under A7 the requirement to avoid deletion is that the article make a credible (believable) claim of importance. No references needed, doesn't need to meet any notability criteria. Any article that has ever passed any version of any notability criteria should be able to survive A7. But I do agree that A7 should not be used on old articles, as its very rare for an article several years old to actually fail the criteria. However many other CSD Criteria can and should be used no matter how old the article is. G12, G10, G3 and G9 all have important policy considerations that require they always be available for things that slip through the cracks. Likewise G6, G7, and G8, when applicable, make perfect sense to apply to articles of any age. I don't do much with F criteria, but many of them are designed around older files too. Its really only the A criteria that would make sense to time limit. Monty845 18:50, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Comment while I agree with you in principal, this is the wrong forum for changes of policy such as this. Personally I think that the best solution would be a PROD process, with the date extended for a day per month of article existence and compulsory notification of creators. Stuartyeates (talk) 22:27, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- What is the correct forum? -- haminoon (talk) 23:40, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Not 100% sure. I'd start with a draft RfC (because if you get the first one wrong you start building up resistance to your idea) in your user namespace, then ping participants in this conversation for initial feedback, then an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion with a note about it posted to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard (since it's administrators who do make the calls on speedies) and back here (because this is where the conversation started). Stuartyeates (talk) 08:43, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
- What is the correct forum? -- haminoon (talk) 23:40, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- I undeleted Dean Roberts after the deleting admin came back from the weekend and had no objection. I have however been unable to find references to get it to meet the WP:BIO/WP:MUSBIO notability guidelines. Help would be appreciated if anyone can find any good references, before the attention here ends up getting it deleted at AfD. Monty845 20:25, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
Is citing the definition of a dictionary an original research
Hello
I'm not sure this is the right place for the discussion, please forgiev me and show me the way to the correct place in this case.
in Role-playing game terms#R, we can read
- Race: A character's species, ethnicity, type, or other description of their physical and cultural heredity. Role-playing games often include fantasy races, mutants, robots and other non-human types.
This imho obviously extends usual definition of a race, e.g. in wiktionary:race#Etymology 2
- A group of sentient beings, particularly people, distinguished by common heritage or characteristics
- A population geographically separated from others of its species that develops significantly different characteristics; an informal term for a subspecies.
(although in the first definition, "sentient beings" could be wide enough to enclose positronic brains). Am I right or am I flawed by the fact that I'm not a native english speaker?
If I'm right -- and even if I'm wrong, the problem could be for another topic --, can I then cite a definition of the dictionary and mention this discrepancy, or would it be considered as an original analysis of primary sources and thus an original research?
cdang|write me 09:53, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
- Anyone can edit Wiktionary so it shouldn't be used as a source per WP:USERGENERATED. Furthermore, the lead of Role-playing game terms is clear that the shown meanings are in the context of role-playing games. Words often have different meanings or nuances in different contexts so citing a "discrepancy" with a reliable dictionary would also be bad, unless that dictionary specifically talks about the meaning of "race" in role-playing games. Such games are full of supernatural and fictional beings so it's hardly surprising if the terminology doesn't adhere strictly to the common usage for real beings. And we certainly don't want users going through Category:Glossaries and point out whenever a field gives a new or modified meaning to an existing word. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:33, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for your answer. I used the Wiktionary because I don't know reliable online English dictionaries and don't have a paper English dictionary with me (I'm not a native English speaker); but the question is about any reliable dictionary, online or paper.
- I agree with you that the definition of some words is different in fictional works and in common usage, the question is: is it possible write that it is different, just refering to the definition of a reliable dictionary, or would it be considered as an original research? (The aim is not to point out every word in the glossary; but it can be relevant in some cases.)
- cdang|write me 07:54, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
- OK, maybe I could be a bit more specific. I wrote the article Character race. It was a draft until a few hours, and was accepted sooner than I expected (I won't complain (-: ). The aim of my question was to clarify a point to be sure it would be accepted, but my question remains.
- I wrote : "The term “race” is even broader than the usual meaning, as it also includes extra-terrestrial beings, vegetal beings — e.g. the Aldryami in Glorantha (1978)[6], the Sylvanians in Fantasy Craft (2010)[7] — and robots — e.g. Artificials in Fantasy Craft or the Forgeborn/Dwarf-forged optional race in 13th Age (2013)[8]."
- Notice that I even didn't cite a dictionary (which would be a primary source). Can I write this without a secondary source stating this ?
- It may look ridiculous as this, because this statement is quite obvious. But obviousness is a valid arguument for Descartes, it is not for Wikipedia. And, believe it or not, this statement caused me some problem in the French wiki, on the same topic.
- So, is it the same on the English WP? Would someone add {{refneeded}} or is the statement acceptable as this?
- cdang|write me 20:29, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
- WP:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue. In cases like this though, citing a definition to a defining source would be appropriate, I believe. So yes, you can cite a dictionary (like Oxford or Merriam-Webster, or a game’s rulebook). —174.141.182.82 (talk) 22:42, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
- OK, I'm a bit paranoid then (-:
- I realise that the main problem is not on the content of the article itself, but on the language. The english word "race" was initially translated as race in French; in French, it was used for both humans and for animals (means "breed"). In the early 1980's, when D&D was first translated in French, this was still accurate, although a bit outdated. But things evolved, essentially pushed by the bad memories of the WWII and the evolution of genetics. A 1991 French dictionary already notes that the notion of race "is to be rejected" for humans (but still give the definition, which is OK because we need to understand outdated texts). Now the consensus is that race can only be used for "breed", and is banned for humans (we use ethnicity or type instead); the word race was even banned from the laws which punishes racism (16 May 2013, [8]).
- So it is obvious to me (as the skye is blue) that "race" has become a faux ami (see table below), but well, this is quite new, and there is no source that really states "race is a faux ami", all I have are dictionaries. And thus it is obvious to me that the title of the French article cannot be "race" and I used the word peuple (people) instead. But as the word "race" is still widely used in role-playing game rulebooks in French, I don't have a secondary source citing "people" (but have some primary ones), and "race" is what comes up with Google, so many claim that the notion of "people" does not exist in RPG and that it is an original research of mine. See the point?
- So, that does not concern the English WP, but I wanted to explain why I asked that silly question. Sorry for the disturbance.
- cdang|write me 12:31, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
- WP:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue. In cases like this though, citing a definition to a defining source would be appropriate, I believe. So yes, you can cite a dictionary (like Oxford or Merriam-Webster, or a game’s rulebook). —174.141.182.82 (talk) 22:42, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
Modern English | Modern French |
---|---|
race | éthnie, type |
breed | race |
Limits on promotional lists
Some types of items, such as entertainment industry awards, are largely inherently promotional in nature. Since we don’t want to unduly promote things on Wikipedia, should we have guidance, perhaps at MOS:SAL, instructing to be more selective in listings of such items than we may be with other types of lists? (Note: There is some discussion of this question in a narrower scope at WT:FILM. I don’t know whether we do need a rule like this; that’s why I’m asking the community. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 23:50, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
(clarification copied from a reply below) What I mean by this question is, should we only list the likes of the high-profile Golden Globes or Academy Awards, or Pulitzers, or the Nobel Prize in Literature? Or should we list every single verifiable award (including frivolous ones)? Every notable award? Only awards that meet some yet-to-be-determined threshold? Or are our current guidelines sufficient for editors to make case-by-case judgements without issues? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 23:33, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
- Recognition is not promotion. Things like the Golden Globe Awards and the Academy Awards are widely recognized and accepted as significant accomplishments within the film industry. It is not promotional to note who wins such awards anymore than it is for the Nobel Prizes or the Pulitzer Prizes or anything else. Just because Wikipedia contains information about commercial ventures does not mean it is promoting those ventures. --Jayron32 10:54, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
- I'm assuming the nominator hoped people would read the very long discussion on that page so did not go into more detail regarding this issue. The issue is this (again, please read the long discussion as I won't do justice by summarizing it): should stand-alone list articles regarding awards (that was the original issue) list -all- awards that a given subject has received or notable awards only. What are notable awards? Awards that have or should have (but currently don't) a Wikipedia article (and thus satisfying notability guidelines). Why should we limit them? Because if a local elementary school gives an award to actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and it was covered by some local newspaper, should an article such as List of awards and nominations received by Philip Seymour Hoffman add that award to the list. The side not wanting to add non-notable awards cited WP:CSC#1 ("Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future. This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate list, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers. Many of the best lists on Wikipedia reflect this type of editorial judgment.") as adding non-notable awards to such a list serves only those non-notable organizations which as a consequence become notable not because of what they do, but because they have Wikipedia mentions. --Gonnym (talk) 11:08, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
- I don’t think anyone’s of the opinion that we shouldn’t list awards like the Golden Globes or Academy Awards, or Pulitzers, or the Nobel Prize in Literature. But should we only list awards of that caliber? Should we list every single verifiable award (including frivolous ones)? Every notable award? Only awards that meet some yet-to-be-determined threshold? Or are our current guidelines sufficient for editors to make case-by-case judgements without issues? That’s what I meant by my question here. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 23:06, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
- I'm assuming the nominator hoped people would read the very long discussion on that page so did not go into more detail regarding this issue. The issue is this (again, please read the long discussion as I won't do justice by summarizing it): should stand-alone list articles regarding awards (that was the original issue) list -all- awards that a given subject has received or notable awards only. What are notable awards? Awards that have or should have (but currently don't) a Wikipedia article (and thus satisfying notability guidelines). Why should we limit them? Because if a local elementary school gives an award to actor Philip Seymour Hoffman and it was covered by some local newspaper, should an article such as List of awards and nominations received by Philip Seymour Hoffman add that award to the list. The side not wanting to add non-notable awards cited WP:CSC#1 ("Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future. This standard prevents Wikipedia from becoming an indiscriminate list, and prevents individual lists from being too large to be useful to readers. Many of the best lists on Wikipedia reflect this type of editorial judgment.") as adding non-notable awards to such a list serves only those non-notable organizations which as a consequence become notable not because of what they do, but because they have Wikipedia mentions. --Gonnym (talk) 11:08, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
- We should rely on WP:notability and other long-standing guidelines. Awards that get in-depth coverage in independent third party reliable sources get articles. Note that 'local person wins obscure award' coverage is not in depth coverage of the obscure award but of local person. Those articles can be expanded (with lists of winners, lists of judges, etc) where those are found in reliable sources, as per WP:Article size. Breaking out by year or category requires than each year or category has received in-depth coverage in independent third party reliable sources. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:56, 13 May 2015 (UTC)