User:W.D./Assignments

What are the five pillars?
The "five pillars" are the fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates.
 * The first pillar tells us that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and also what it is not.
 * The second pillar states that Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.
 * The third pillar states that Wikipedia is free content, and also talks about copyright.
 * The fourth pillar is about civility and "wikiquette".
 * The fifth pillar states that Wikipedia does not have firm rules. This means that if a rule prevents you from improving Wikipedia, ignore it and do not worry about making mistakes.

The Core Content Policies
The core content policies on Wikipedia are neutral point of view, no original research, and verifiablity.

Editing from a neutral point of view (often abbreviated as "NPOV") is required on Wikipedia. Editing from a neutral point of view means representing unbiased and significant views that have been published by reliable sources, and giving due weight to all points of view. All information on Wikipedia must be verifiable - so any information unsupported by a reliable source does not belong here. The personal experience or opinion of an editor also does not belong to Wikipedia.

Reliable sources
Wikipedia uses the word source for three interchangeable ideas – a piece of work, the work's creator or the work's publisher. In general, you would expect a reliable source to be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. This doesn't mean that a source that is reliable on one topic is reliable on every topic, it must be regarded as authoritative in that topic – so whilst "Airfix monthly" may be a good source on the first model aeroplane, I would not expect it to be authoritative on their full size equivalent.

A source that is self-published is in general not considered reliable, unless it is published by a recognized expert in the field. This means that anything in a forum or a blog and even most websites are considered unreliable. One interesting sidepoint is on self-published sources talking about themselves. Obviously, a source talking about itself is going to be authoritative, but be careful that the source is not too self-serving – the article really should not be totally based on a direct source like that.

Mainstream news sources are generally considered reliable, but any single article should be assessed on a case by case basis. Some news organizations have been known to check their information on Wikipedia – so be careful not to get into a cyclic sourcing issue!

There's a lot more about what makes a source reliable here.

Discussion
If there are any questions you have about this lesson, ask away: otherwise, answer the three basic questions below.
 * I know this is slightly irrelevant to the lesson, but how do I put my status (Online/Offline) on my talk page? Thanks User Talk:Willdude123 13:12, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Please refer to Template:Statustop. Best, B  music  ian  00:35, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Questions
Please note that short yes/no answers are not acceptable.

1. Your best friend says that The Annoying Orange "is the stupidest and most boring video series ever". Can you add this to the article and why?
 * Answer:No, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should have a neutral point of view
 * Correct, great answer! B  music  ian  07:21, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

2. A blog titled "John Doe Fan Blog" states that John Doe will be going to Hong Kong on 7 July. No other source states that this is true. Can you add this to Wikipedia, and why?
 * Answer:No, since we do not know where the writer of "John Doe Fan Blog" got this information from, so it was original research

3. Is the official Facebook page of KFC a reliable source?
 * Answer: It depends, if it could be backed up by a third party then you could use it as a source.

I am satisfied with the answers. Great work! B music  ian  13:08, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

What is wikiquette?
Wikiquette basically means "wiki ettiquette", and is the etiquette of Wikipedia.

I'm just going to highlight some of the important Wikiquette items that you should try and remember. It may help you out.
 * Assume good faith - This is fundamental and I'll be going over it again in dispute resolution. Editors here are trying to improve the encyclopedia. Every single member of the community. Every one. If you read a comment or look at an edit and it seems wrong in some way, don't just jump straight in. Try and see it from the other editors point of view, remembering that they are trying to improve the encyclopedia.
 * Sign your talk posts with four tildes ( ~ ). The MediaWiki software will substitute the four tlides with your signature and timestamp, allowing the correct attribution to your comment.
 * Remember to reply to comments by adding an additional indentation, represented by a colon, : . Talk pages should something like this. Have a read of WP:THREAD to see how this works.
 * Don't forget to assume good faith.
 * There are a lot of policies and guidelines, which Wikipedians helpfully point you to with wikilinks. Their comments may seem brusque at first, but the linked document will explain their point much better than they may be able to.
 * Be polite, and treat others as you would want to be treated. For example, if someone nominated one of the articles you created for deletion, I'm sure you'd want to know about it, so if you are doing the nominating make sure you leave the article creator a notification.
 * Did I mention that you should assume good faith?
 * Comment on the edits. NEVER COMMENT ON AN EDITOR. EVER.

Discussion
Any questions? This assignment is pretty simple and so there are no additional questions that you have to answer. Please acknowledge that you are done reading the lesson so we can move on to the next assignment.
 * I acknowledge I am done reading this lesson User Talk:Willdude123 11:36, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Third Assignment: Copyright
This is probably the most important assignment I'll give, because this is the only one where failure to adhere exactly according to policy will result in an indefinite block from editing the encyclopedia – pay attention.

The GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL)
Wikipedia is as the slogan says, "The Free Encyclopedia". Unfortunately, this causes some problems when we use other materials that aren't so free, and other problems when we'd like to do something but really can't. Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License, or GFDL. This is a copyleft license that allows for the free distribution of content under certain conditions. The main terms of this license are as follows: There are other terms to the license, but those are the most important for what is done on Wikipedia. Wikipedia displays a copy of the license, which is fully protected under the authority of the Wikimedia office. Whenever we make an edit, that edit is logged in the page's edit history, as well as your contributions. When a page is deleted, contributions to that page are hidden, but are still visible to administrators or "sysops". Certain page revisions may also be hidden from public view in the event of extreme circumstances, but are still visible to those with the authority to remove them for GFDL compliance.
 * Anything licensed under the GFDL must display a copy of the license (Wikipedia's is at the link I just gave you).
 * Any "derivative works", or works based on something licensed under the GFDL, must be licensed under GFDL.
 * Content licensed under the GFDL may be modified, but must include a history of all changes and who made them when.
 * All content licensed under the GFDL must be freely available or available under "fair use".

Unfortunately, the GFDL does have some limit on what we can do. When merging pages, we cannot delete the page that is now empty, even if it serves little useful purpose even as a redirect. The contributions to that page, which provided the information that was merged out, must be kept logged so that people know where it came from and what changes were made when. This has previously caused a problem with one of Wikipedia's oldest projects, Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense. The project and its many subpages were put up for deletion and deletion review multiple times, and the most recent nomination (the 6th) finally met with success. The pages were a collection of all the random crap that gets posted to Wikipedia every day, and subsequently deleted or removed. Some of it is rather funny, some rather odd, some downright strange, but unfortunately most of it was not GFDL compatible. When the nonsense was copied to BJAODN, it usually did not include the username of the original contributor or where it came from. That problem was acknoledged by most of the editors on both sides of the deletion debate, and so consensus was to delete the 65+ subpages of BJAODN and mark the rest as historical. There are attempts being made to revive the project in a slightly more legal but hopefully no less entertaining fashion.

Problems such as those, however, are rare, as the MediaWiki software is designed to be GFDL compatible. (As a side note, the software itself is available under a similar license, the GPL.) The most common issue, and the one that most frequently results in blocks, is copyright. Any registered user can upload an image or media file. You've done this yourself, with your logo on your userpage. If they created the image, as you did yours, they can license it under a free license such as the GFDL or a Creative Commons license, or release it into the public domain (Although if you use any of those options, it's recommended to upload the image to the Wikimedia Commons instead so any language Wiki can use it.)

What is fair use?
Problems arise when people upload images that are not their own. Most images are under some form of copyright, even if it's not explicitly stated anywhere. This is usually the case with anything found on the internet. When these images are uploaded, Wikipedia must adhere to a very strict policy known as "fair use". What this basically is doing is giving us a reason to use an otherwise non-free image, on the basis that it is for educational purposes, using it has no measurable effect on the copyright holder's rights, and that we have no other alternative. The establishment of this reason is called the fair use rationale, part of a set of criteria that MUST accompany any fair use/copyright tag on Wikipedia. These criteria are:
 * A specific fair use tag (see link above) that describes what the image is.
 * The source of the image (this is usually a website, but could also be a book or magazine that you scanned the picture out of)
 * The image itself must be of low resolution. If it is high resolution, that version must be deleted and replaced with another (essentially, worse) version.
 * A fair use rationale explaining:
 * Where the image is to be used (This page MUST be in the main (article) namespace. Fair use images MUST NOT be used anywhere else)
 * That the image cannot be used to replace any marketing role or otherwise infringe upon the owner's commercial rights to the image
 * How the image is being used, in a way that fits within the fair use policy (i.e., identification purposes, etc.)
 * That there is no way the image can possibly be replaced with a free version

Only when an image meets all of these criteria may it be used. Fair use images must be used in at least one article (not "orphaned"), and articles using fair use images must use as few of them as possible. Any image that does not meet these criteria to the letter will be deleted. Any user that repeatedly uploads images not meeting these criteria to the letter will be blocked.
 * The image must have been previously published elsewhere

As a further note, I mentioned that fair use images must not be able to be replaced by a free alternative. What this basically means is, there is no way you, me, or anyone else could go out and take a picture of this same thing and release it under a free license. For example:
 * I could upload a picture of George W. Bush from the White House. Normally government works are automatically public domain, but let's say for the purpose of this discussion that the White House holds the copyright to that particular picture of the President. I can claim fair use, but the claim would be invalid because you could just as easily go to a speech Bush is giving and take a picture of him yourself. (That's what happened here) This is considered replaceable fair use and so would be deleted.
 * Person X could upload a picture of the Empire State Building from a marketing kit they distributed. This image would likely be copyrighted, and so they claim fair use. But I happen to have been to New York and have a picture of the ESB. I upload that instead and release it into the public domain. The first, copyrighted picture, is also replaceable.
 * For the article on the Monterey Bay Aquarium, I want to upload an image of their logo (visible in no great detail here). I go to their website and upload their version. This fair use is allowable, because no matter where or how they display their logo, it'll be under the same copyright. Since the simple art of scanning or taking a picture of a piece of work is not enough to justify my ownership of the rights to the image, there is no way to obtain a free version of the logo.

For a full description of the policies and guidelines concerning fair use, read WP:FU.

Discussion
If there are any questions you have about this lesson, ask away: otherwise, answer the questions below.

Questions
Although copyright on Wikipedia may be a complex topic (lol), please keep in mind that simple yes/no answers are not acceptable. 1. Name at least two situations in which it is appropriate to upload an image to Commons.
 * Answer:When you have taken the image yourself or when it is in the public domain.

2. Is Wikipedia really free? Why?
 * Answer:Yes, although it depends on what is defined by free. If it is meant by freely accessible, then yes. If it is defined as all the content is free, then no, as there are some copyrighted images on wikipedia.

3. Can you upload a press photo of the pianist Lang Lang under a claim of fair use?
 * Answer: No. A photo taken by the press would probably be replaceable by a free photo, this is called replaceable free use.

4. You find an article about a company that is a direct copy of the About Us page on their website. What would you do?
 * Answer:Submit it as a copyright problem on Copyright_problems

5. Go to any Wikipedia article and find an image that is used under "fair use". Link to the image in your answer.
 * Answer:File:USA Today Logo.svg

Great answers! As I promised before, I have granted waivers for all additional assignments. I believe you are ready to take the examination! If you want to take a look at the next assignment, you can. Great work my friend! B music  ian  11:32, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Final Assignment: Working on Wikipedia
Welcome to your final assignment! Great job for getting this far. This assignment is designed to teach you about the different areas you can work. It's a big wide encyclopedia out there.

Building
The first option is to build new articles. You know an awful lot about how Wikipedia works now, what's notable and what's not, and what are reliable sources and what are not. How about you try and write an article? Something new, something different. You may have already done this. If you can write 1500 characters about a subject, you can submit it for Did you know (DYK). Did you know is a great way to ensure your new articles are up to scratch (they need to be less than 5 days old in the mainspace, well sourced and have a catchy "hook") and the hook should appear on the front page in the Did you know section! You can also apply for a DYK if you expand the characters in an article by 5x. That can be quite tough, but it is possible.

Join a WikiProject
Have a look at your favorite articles. On the talk page, you'll often find that they have an associated WikiProject. The project is always looking for new members and will enjoy your help! They often have to-do lists and you could help out. :)

Deleting
Why not mozy over to WP:XfD? There's always debates going on about articles that might need deleting from the encyclopedia. Throw in a view! You've been reading so much theory, you'll know as much as most people. There's an page on arguments you should avoid in deletion discussions which might help you.

List of areas
There's a lot to maintain at wikipedia, and your help would be gratefully received.
 * New Page Patrol checks every single new page to see if it meets the guidelines, wikifies it, tags it and marks it as patrolled. Would be very helpful if you'd help out :) Have a read an think which you might be interested in helping out there. You may end up using your CSD knowledge, or at least propose or nominate them for deletion.
 * Articles for Creation allows for any experienced, auto-confirmed user to review new articles at CAT:PEND. Read WP:WPAFC of you'd like to join!

Help the encyclopedia move forward
There's always discussions going on at requested moves and RfC. Why not see if you can offer a point of view? The most important (supposedly) at any given time are listed at WP:CENT. Hey, you can even wander around the village pump (the encyclopedic version of the water cooler) and see if there's any general discussions you're interested in.

Discussion
Think there's stuff there you can do? Are you ready for the final exam? I have to warn you, some of these will be involved in the practical test... oh yes, there's a practical test. If you're ready for the exam, please let me know, and I'll provide you with a link to it! :)
 * With a big deep breath; I think I'm ready. How long will I have to do it? User Talk:Willdude123 20:58, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a 1 week time limit. Details here - User:Bmusician/Adoption/Exam B  music  ian  06:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)