Wikipedia:Content noticeboard/Archive8

Coanda-1910
Hello everyone! I suppose most of use are flying with airplanes sometimes, usually jet airplanes. Almost a century ago in December 1910 Coanda was trying the first jet-propelled airplane. The article about this plane and the even was stable for the last 7 or so years until a group of guys stared to change the article. Since July this article was in a constant editing, blocking, tagging without any conclusion, partially because of the administrators ignorance. Join the discussion in the Coanda-1910 talk page and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Coanda-1910_sources WP:RSN] page.--Lsorin (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The concept of WP:STABLE was cast away four years ago as unsuitable to Wikipedia's goals. There is no such thing as a stable version at the Coandă-1910 article; there is only an unimproved version which was left alone for too long.
 * The article is the subject of this extensive noticeboard discussion: Reliable_sources/Noticeboard where best sources are listed. All discussion which is specific to the article should be taken to that reliable sources noticeboard or to Talk:Coandă-1910. The conflict is under the attention of about a dozen people, and more are always welcome. Thank you! Binksternet (talk) 21:47, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Edits of the Heidelberg article
On October 1st, an editor modified the Heidelberg article in this way, I reverted the changes and tried to contact him on his discussion page. Today the same editor removed my comment on his talk page without replying and edited the article  in a little bit better way compared to last time, but still not what is expected in an article. Thanks for advising me on how to deal with that. --Anneyh (talk) 10:35, 16 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I see a pattern. I haven't seen a single constructive edit. This is primarily a behavioural problem, and I think the right approach is escalated vandalism templates followed by a report to WP:AIV.
 * As a secondary issue one could look if the topic of forced labour under the Nazis is covered in the Heidelberg article, and if not how much weight is appropriate for it. Hans Adler 11:06, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the advice. I now checked the user talk history, he was already warned up to Level 4 as of August 29th. Shall I start again with 3?
 * As for the content of the article, Heidelberg happens to be a university city, forced labour is in principle linked with industrial cities, but I'll check further, but I'll check further to find RS. --Anneyh (talk) 12:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Given the complete lack of communication other than this, just start with the highest level and go immediately to AIV afterwards. If he has been warned previously I guess you could directly go to AIV, but given the 1-month gap it might be best to issue a last warning to avoid any complications that depend on who responds to your report.
 * Yes, I know Heidelberg quite well. I don't think checking this has a high priority. I was just saying this on the off-chance that the user is one of the last surviving victims of that, in which case I would be inclined to take their input seriously no matter how confused it is. But given the Bilderberg nonsense and some other things this really doesn't seem very likely.Hans Adler 13:39, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I assumed that the editor is young and able to learn... --Anneyh (talk) 15:21, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I doubt the second part, but I guess there is no harm in trying. Hans Adler 15:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

New article and ensuing problems
Recently I started an article on Jefferson Wood. Within thirty minutes of publishing, a tag was placed on the article. I tried to discuss this on the discussion page. I brought this to the attention of an administrator who felt that the COI tag was not correct. However the original administrator and another contributor have been changing the article continously. Neither adding, only quibbling over small facts which were answered in the links provided (which were removed). I asked the administrator in one of the articles that administrator has produced, wether or not that article conformed to the standards that were being set, Wikifying the article in the process. The administrator, however, felt that the article was being vandalised. And suggested it be brought up for deletion. This is a waste of everybodies time. Of course I would like to conform to procedure, of course I can make mistakes, I am only human. But this seems to me that there those that are taking the law into their own hands and making decisions they feel they themselves do not have to conform to. That is not the correct use of administrative power in my opinion. In the past year I have been subjected to abusive, aggresive and derogative remarks. I have been pestered and threatend. Enough is enough. I am bringing this to your attention because I cared for Wikipedia in the past seven years. The credit is finished. As a formality I have placed a on this users page, explaining the reason why I have put it there. I have no stomach for this. --JHvW (talk) 22:46, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
 * When I noticed the article on Jefferson Wood had been created by JHvW I made a perhaps hasty decision that he had a conflict of interest based on the tone and his initials. I am more than happy to accept he has no conflict of interest. My other edits were routine citation requests which he has supplied. I considered his edits to Whitworths to be vandalism and reverted them. I have not been remotely abusive at any time as my edit history will confirm. Regards  Teapot  george Talk  23:14, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Persondata
Any reason why persondata is visible on David M. Maddox? I'm out of ideas. Any help appreciated. Thanks. Connormah (talk) 22:36, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There was a but no  ;-) TFOWR 22:39, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Right, thanks. Much appreciated. Connormah (talk) 23:02, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Democrat party (phrase)
Hello, I need some advice. I have commented on Democrat Party (phrase) at various times over the last six months or so pointing out what are to me obvious policy violations. I have been at every turn rebuffed by the regular editors of the article, some of whom are well respected and established editors. I am totally befuddled as to why they cannot see the issues within the article. I believe they have a POV they are pushing. I didn't want to start drama, so when they started calling me a troll, I left the article for awhile and started working on a detailed dissection of the article here: User talk:Charles Edward/sandbox (The page will give a detailed explanation of article's issues). I also created an example of what I felt the article should look like if all the issues were fixed here: User:Charles Edward/sandbox. I made three requests for the editors to submit to mediation, and all three were ignored. I made another post on the talk page of the article saying I intended to seek administrator support if they would not agree to fix the problems, and that I did not intend to argue with them anymore. Of course the first response was along the same line, that my position is invalid and has no sources. They are not going to budge. I want to fix the article and resolve the dispute. I cannot move forward without an edit war with the regular editors. What should I do to seek resolution. I am prepared to leave the article alone if uninvolved third parties tell me my allegations are baseless and without merit. Please help. :) &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 03:14, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * For starters, you can stop making the same error that others are making. There is no "they".  There are several distinct people, with several distinct positions.  Rjensen's willingness to turn everything into a discussion of you yourself should not be ascribed to anyone other than Rjensen.  You're making that error.  Others are making that error.  This doesn't lead to good discussion.  Keep the names and the people straight.  It doesn't help, moreover, that  is apparently now there just to stir up trouble.  That's already been dealt with once, on a different issue, by Dougweller.  I'm sure that it can be dealt with again. I suggest having a discussion that involves more than solely you and Rjensen.  (I see at least three other regular talk page participants that can be involved.)  Ignore 129.133.127.244's irrelevancies and insults if possible, and ask an administrator for help with that if they become such a distraction that they are a problem.  Uncle G (talk) 11:11, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * To be frank, I have already had a lengthy discussion with RJensen over the course of several days on the talk page that was totally fruitless. He is unswayable. He insists blogs are acceptable sources, he insists original research is not original research, etc. Other editors were involved in the earlier discuss, they generally agreed with RJensen at first. Then, as I clearly established the policy violations, the others became silent, leaving just me and RJensen. RJensen will not address me directly anymore. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 12:33, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I will give another go at discussing this with other editors on the page and take your advice. With that said, when and if those discussions fail, where do I need to go to have an uninvolved third party tell me (or someone else) that I am wrong. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 13:50, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Requests for comment, Third opinion, or, indeed, the user talk pages of one of those currently silent participants, who may only be silent because they are busy elsewhere. Uncle G (talk) 15:31, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks Uncle G, your advice is much appreciated. &mdash;Charles Edward (Talk 18:12, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Here's something related: Although we have "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion" in at least three places &mdash; Samuel D. Burchard (clergyman), James G. Blaine, and United States presidential election, 1884 &mdash; we don't appear to have (by name at least) the Delmonico's incident of the same day.  Interestingly, there are even sources that talk about the weather in New York state on election day, which we also appear not to have. &hellip; Uncle G (talk) 00:43, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

THEFT!!! WITH VALID CITATIONS!!! right.... at Crystal Castles (band)
I need someone uninvolved with the "conversation" at Talk:Crystal Castles (band) (that is, everyone but me and some IP who tells me I should "eat a dick") to have a look at this edit. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 22:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * i am the above mentiond "ip" the citation i have used is same citation considered valid and used on Ayo Technology page on the same subject94.168.205.120 (talk) 22:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * No it's not--I removed it hours ago. It's a link to a forum. Please read WP:RS, as I suggested to you before. Drmies (talk) 22:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

someone must have reverted your edit then as it is still listed as the citation and i also copied/pasted it from that article94.168.205.120 (talk) 22:35, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Canada
Tempers ran a little high at Canada - please take a look and discuss at Talk:Canada to help everyone reach consensus. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:13, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

List of Deadliest Warrior episodes
The episode plot summaries at this article need drastic trimming down.

While many TV shows have episode lists and plot summaries, they don't (or should not) list every action and movement in the episode - they are encyclopedia summaries of the episode and not "moment by moment" accounts of each episode.

FT2 (Talk 23:11, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Indeed. That list article has been a problem for some time now. It really seems to attract the fancruft, especially during times the episodes are aired. I see someone removed the tag you placed, I replaced it for now, but I'll probably end up just deleting all the play-by-plays. -- &oelig; &trade; 17:20, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

June 3, 1953 Alexander J Cartwright U S Congress
I need help. The above was cited to Edward Achorn, The Providence Journal, May 19, 2009. He stated that "U S Congress declared Alexander Cartwright was the inventor of baseball". I have not be able to verify the citation from the lbraries at Hawaii, Wayne State Law or the GPO. How do I get the citation validadated?

Joe G --  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.42.170.9 (talk) 10:13, 29 October 2010 (UTC)


 * If you challenge the statement and are unable to verify it you may remove it citing WP:V, or tag it with the inline template Failed verification. -- &oelig; &trade; 17:11, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

C.O.T.SS - Children of the SS
Can anyone confirm if this is a real organization? -- &oelig; &trade; 17:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

title move dispute for Jesus in Islam
Earlier the topic was discussed on incident page, it was told that it is also a content issue, hence it is reproduced here ,with further reply, please comment .--Md iet (talk) 06:56, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

There is repeated request made about involvement of admin in the matter as the issue is related with application of Wiki policies on title selection.May pl. refer the discussion on talk page of article Jesus in Islam.

Issue:

Title change is requested from 'Jesus in Islam' to  'Isa( Jesus of Islam)' as as article is related of  a person in Islam religion,where he is known by 1.8 billion people by the name "Isa" only,which is a personnel noun,cannot bre substited by any other name.

Differences;

Most reader argues only 'Most common name in English ', only and dont go in initial title selection guidelines reffered buy wiki policies.

The last comment by me in discussion is as follows;

"Here in the present case some body is just talking on "most common name" ,without going into definition of "recognisabilty' than 'Familirity, than "name' than 'common name' than 'Most common name' . Till you go step by step and just fight on 'most common name in English' and say that there is no consensus,it is very hard to digest. I want to request,Please do step by step analysis first ,with wiki policy in background and then come to some conclusion and the if opinion difference consensus will prevail. I have tried to do step by analysis in my last detailed reply #REDIRECT Talk:Jesus in Islam, please give your valuable comments on each step and if there is opinion difference we all are here to resolve"

Please interfere,give your comments on policy anlysis and suggest rermedy.--Md iet (talk) 08:48, 31 October 2010 (UTC) Matter declared resolved ,but as I could see the reply of admin just now my reply is as under:


 * We don't need to do a step-by-step analysis. Policy in this case is clear, and overrides any other external-to-Wikipedia issues you may have.  Since Jesus is the most common name for this historical person/historical figure/historical myth (whatever term you prefer), Jesus is the name we are required to use.  It's just that simple.  As a simple comparison, the Wikipedia article for the city in Italy is called Florence, despite that fact that no one who lives there, or who has ever lived there, calls it that.  Now, if you want to argue that Wikipedia policy on article names should be changed, there are places where you can do that.  But unless you can show that "Isa" is a more common name in English articles of encyclopedic level (i.e., encyclopedias, scholarly journals, very high quality news sources, textbooks, etc.), then the article can't be moved.   The only logic for moving the title would be if you were to show that Jesus shows up in encyclopedic, English sources less than 3 times as often as Isa; if you can't, all of your other (external-to-Wikipedia) arguments are moot.
 * In short, I think you're perhaps just not understanding the fact that Wikipedia operates based on a set of policies and guidelines, not all of which match people's common sense and/or local logic. In this case, what your sense/logic tells you about article titles doesn't match policy/guidelines.  There is nothing wrong with this; but, in order for us all to be able to work together, we have to operate under consensus-based policies as much as possible.  Otherwise, we'd never be able to move forward on anything but the least contentious of articles.
 * I hope this makes sense--no one is saying your ideas don't have merit in a general sense, just that within the confines of how we work on Wikipedia. Qwyrxian (talk) 09:43, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Having read through that talk page, all I can say is would you please drop it. You've been banging on about this move for months, and I don't see a single person there agreeing with you. You've been told several times that Wikipedia policy and guidelines (specifically Consensus, Article titles, Naming conventions (use English) and Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)) support the current title, yet proceeded to move the page unilaterally (which was quickly reversed). There is a perfectly good redirect at Isa. the wub "?!"  10:02, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Reply :

The fact that “ Wikipedia operates based on a set of policies and guidelines” Is only the point which I want to stress. Here there is no need to “ match people's common sense and/or local logic” as Qwyrxian  pointed out. “Since Jesus is the most common name for this historical person/historical figure/historical myth (whatever term you prefer), Jesus is the name we are required to use. It's just that simple.” This is simple for the main article on ‘Jesus’ ,but definitely not  as simple for secondary page on Islam as you concluded in one go. Where do you get criteria of ‘most common name’ phrase Qwyrxian, it is from no where else ,but from Wiki policy ‘Wikipedia:Article titles’. I want to read that policy ,step by step and do the analysis and don’t jump to ‘most common name’ phrase directly it is the only request ,I want to make. The policy says: 1.Principal criteria “The principal criteria used by editors when deciding on a title for an article include: “* Recognizability

– an ideal title will confirm, to readers who are familiar with (though not necessarily expert in) the topic, that the article is indeed about that topic. One important aspect of this is the use of common English names as used in reliable sources on the subject.”

2. If doubt on common name then;

“Common names :

Articles are normally titled using the name which is most commonly used to refer to the subject of the article in English-language [[WP:RS|reliable sources”

3. If still no agreement on common name:

“When there is no single obvious common name for the topic, as used by a significant majority of reliable English language sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering the other criteria identified above.

(This means main criteria is Recognizability,and other criteria are:Naturalness.Precision Conciseness* Consistency)

As Qwyrxian said “‘We don't need to do a step-by-step analysis’  of  ‘any other external-to-Wikipedia issues you may have ’”, very correct, I also don’t want to discuss external issue, but you can’t deny discussing step by step analysis of  wiki main policy ‘Wikipedia:Article titles’ as above. Dear ”the wub”, you have listed all policy and guidelines related with deciding ‘title’ .The main wiki policy to follow is Article titles, is it OK?

All other policy you mentioned are further ‘guidelines’ policies to follow  the main  policy Article titles. These to be referred further when there is ambiguity and one is not able to decide with main criterias. Is it OK?

(Even ,Wikipedia:Search engine test,policy says ‘Search engines cannot: Guarantee that the results reflects the uses you mean, rather than other uses.’ Hence in the present case type of use is important, and not the just proof,)

“jesus’ is definitely most common name in english reliable source and it should be tittle for article’Jesus’, When there is a separate article is created for  Jesus of Islam ,it’s most reader are common Islamic men (1.8 billion)  and they know him by name ‘Isa” ,so search engine cannot reflect the use, as policy says, and you can’t accept that result blindly, here that’s why Wiki has mentioned  ‘ main criteria ‘ as ‘Recognizability ‘, And kept ‘common name’ in criteria as sub condition.’ Most common name’  in further sub section.)

Now I request to do the analysis in sequence as above (may Pl. refer my analysis done on talk page) ,and we may get the answer. If you still say it is ‘most common name’ only, I would abide by you. Please have a look in this respect as you are entrusted with responsibility of Admin and I have expectations from Admin to uphold neutrality of Wiki. I feel the present Wiki policy is reasonably framed good to accommodate this issue, else we can further discuss on policy further at other forum.--Md iet (talk) 06:00, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Requesting help with sources being misrepresented in an article
The Article in question is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MonaVie

This article was added to WikiProject Companies recently. I currently have no connections to this company however this article has been around for a few years already. I have read all the sources used for this article of this company and found that the article has quite a bit of POV. Most of the Statements in the Lead are not at all Factual or supported by the references. Here are some examples of the statements made in the article.


 * "MonaVie has been the subject of controversy, as health benefit claims for its products have not been scientifically confirmed or approved by regulatory authorities,"

There are no sources that provide any proof of the MonaVie company making any claims that were not approved by regulatory authorities. The sources state there was an independent distributor who created his own website and posted some health claims that the FDA warned him about .However the MonaVie Company was never warned directly nor did the FDA say anything about any claims the actual company had made.


 * "its CEO was previously involved in false health claims of another beverage" I cant find any mention of the CEO of MonaVie Dallin Larsen being involved in any false claims. The only facts I can see in the source articles are that he had a senior post in Usana and left the company a year before the FDA shut it down according to the newsweek article.


 * "the business plan is similar to a pyramid scheme" after discussing with some editors about the article I was told that this sentence is justified by the wording of "“Team is one step ahead of all these juice selling schemes. It is a pyramid atop a pyramid. It is selling motivational aids to help MonaVie vendors move the juice" in forbes and these statements here ”In a 1979 regulatory action involving [Amway], the Federal Trade Commission attempted to draw lines between legitimate and fraudulent pyramids. The ones that are legit focus on getting revenue from consumer goods sold to retail customers. The FTC did not, however, define ‘retail’ in that case. That leaves plenty of wiggle room for guys like Orrin Woodward; he counts the vast majority of people in his pyramid, who seemingly try but fail to make money, as retail customers.”
 * The source used mainly for calling this company a pyramid scheme was this article here http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0811/050.html The problem with using this article to call the company of MonaVie a pyramid scheme is that this source is an article about Orrin Woodwards TEAM company and not of the Company of MonaVie. And I cant find anything in the article that makes calling anything a pyramid scheme possible.


 * "and very few distributors actually make a profit" This statement may need updating with new information about the income of distributors as a few of the articles used to source this are old however one source article mentions 1% see a profit however in another article we have numbers like 45 percent and 37 percent seeing profits. about 45 percent of the company's distributors earned an annualized average check of less than $1,600, while 37 percent took home about $2,000. About 2 percent earned an annualized average check of more than $29,000, according to a company statement. And just seven of MonaVie's 80,000 distributors took home the big money, more than $3 million. This information is from 2008 it appears and the company started in 2005 so this is still a young company. It is also possible many of these distributors are merely customers who are only using the products and are not interested in building a business. New information for 2010 needs to be found to update this article however it still is only a 5 year old company.

Could we receive assistance here with checking the statements in the sources and comparing them to the statements made in the article? Thank you for taking the time to read this.DavidR2010 (talk) 22:04, 5 November 2010 (UTC)DavidR2010DavidR2010 (talk) 22:04, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

copyright problem at Cad Bane
This article was originally an unsourced plot-only article that was turned into a reasonable redirect in April of 2009. Editor User:Jhenderson777 felt it had potential and expanded and sourced the old redirect to recreate the article in an improved and quite different version, but problems arose with possible copyvio issues and the article was tagged for such.  Unfortunately, the copyvio tag gives as its only outcome the distinct possibility of a complete deletion of the "improved" article due to the copyvio concerns. That is understood... but would it not be simpler and more efficient to have an Admin simply revert the article back to its safe, non-copyvio, April 25, 2009 redirect status, thus preserving the history? Jhenderson777 would like then to continue work on his version in his userspace and not have it considered for return to mainspace until concerns have been completely addressed. Do-able?  Schmidt,  MICHAEL Q. 06:36, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Cv101. Uncle G (talk) 03:05, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

spexequedol
spexequedol is an Brasilian/Portugees neologism.

First stated by Brian from Paris, during an the 2010 Executive MBA course in Sao Paulo, spexequedol is derived from the Walloon French expression, je pige quedale, meaning I don't understand.

It has quickly been adopted by the local youth as Brasilian Potugees slang, in the same way as chopp (draft beer). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianfrombrasil (talk • contribs) 15:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

List of fictional penguins
Content is being excluded on the basis of a bizarre presumption. Due to pervasive violation of WP:OWN, the presumption is not only circular, but irrebuttable. The presumption is that, unless a fictional penguin already has a wikipedia article, the penguin is not notable. Redlinks and redirected links are strictly verboten. A list of fictional penguins that does not include Tennessee Tuxedo or Mumble has fairly gaping holes. Harumph.

These diffs tell the sad tale:


 * deletion of Tennessee Tuxedo and some less notable fictional penguins,


 * deletion of Mumble and others,


 * rerevert of Mumble, and


 * most recent deletion. These last may or maybe not notable, but the hair-trigger response surely speaks to WP:OWN.

Here are the relevant talk page discussions:


 * Talk:List_of_fictional_penguins and


 * Talk:List_of_fictional_penguins.

Review by an uninvolved admin would be helpful. David in DC (talk) 01:27, 20 November 2010 (UTC)


 * David in DC kindly informed me at my talk page that he had filed this report. I would like to present my perspective on this issue as I have invested a great deal of time in this issue and his reaction concerns me. Below I have given a full response in a collapsed frame for ease of space. I would also appreciate a third party view on this matter.

Detailed response

The lists of fictional animals articles are in terrible shape. As far as I can see there are no other users that have these lists on their watchlists. A few weeks ago I decided that enough was enough and that it was time to effect a dramatic rework/cleanup operation to tighten the lists up and prevent them from becoming nothing more than listcruft. Wikipedia is not, after all, a directory nor is it an indiscriminate collection of information. I have worked on these articles for several weeks and I am not nearly finished yet.

My first step in this self-assigned project was to refer to the two guidelines most closely on point. At WP:LIST and the related WP:LSC. From these guidelines I realized that the major problem for these lists of fictional animals - the reason they have repeatedly been brought before AfD - is that very few of them make explicit their inclusion criteria. LSC describes the three most common inclusion criteria and of these three it seemed clear to me that the most obvious criterion that should be applied to these articles is "Every entry meets the notability criteria." After altering the lede to reflect this criterion I set to work removing the entries that did not meet the notability requirement. Naturally this was a time-intensive undertaking and so, as David in DC points out, I had to operate under a set of assumptions. Specifically I assumed that an entry in the list was notable:
 * 1) if a Wikipedia article covering the character existed,
 * 2) if a subsection of a Wikipedia article covered the character, and
 * 3) if reliable sources could be offered to demonstrate notability.

Now if David in DC was criticizing these assumptions as overly inclusive then I can see that he'd have a point. After all, the mere existence of a Wikipedia article doesn't prove that it's written on a notable topic. And the existence of a subsection devoted to the character in a larger article probably allows the retention of many more entries failing WP:INHERIT than should be present in the final list. The LSC guideline further suggests that each redlinked entry must meet the burden of being "verifiably a member of the listed group," and all that my assumptions looked to was that the redlinked entries were sourced (implying notability) - I didn't even check whether the sources were reliable (or even on topic) to tell the truth... So I would agree if the argument was that my assumptions for which entries to retain was too lax. The argument that it is too strict, however, is rather baffling.

I do admit that I have the "List of Fictional Penguins" on my watchlist and that I have been reverting the addition of non-notable entries and entries that do not meet the descriptive portion of the inclusion criteria listed in the lead (i.e. that the entry link to "Penguin characters from the world of fiction"). Having spent so many many hours cleaning these articles up I do care enough to see to it that they don't degenerate to their former states. While the rework of these articles was a major headache, the level of stewardship required to maintain them is quite manageable. David in DC has repeatedly violated WP:AGF to suggest that I am trying to OWN the article, however I think he misses the point that the burden of proof for the addition of new material lies on the editor adding the material. The "bizarre presumption" David in DC characterizes as overly restrictive is actually an overly lax application of the standard threshold for inclusion of material on Wikipedia. The sorts of random speculative 'I heard it somewhere' pseudo-informative entries that have been added to these articles over the last several years had to be removed aggressively unless they could be sourced. This is true of all information on Wikipedia. I am absolutely not interested in excluding characters from this list provided that they belong on the list. If they cannot meet the descriptive portion of the lede's inclusion criteria and/or cannot meet the notability requirement then they do not belong on the list.

The addition of any new entry meeting the descriptive portion of the lede and the notability requirement would be welcome. I have told David in DC the same thing that I have told all other editors who have objected to the removal of their favorite fictional animal character from the appropriate list - if a source demonstrating notability can be cited then the character so sourced should be added to the list. Otherwise it cannot be included because it fails the stated inclusion criteria in violation of WP:LSC and WP:LIST. If the inclusion criteria is poorly constructed then I would welcome a discussion on ways to improve it. To return to the previous state of these articles, however, I believe would be a mistake.

To conclude, I wish to show the sort of changes I have made and I invite comment on these reworks: List of fictional ducks - Note that the multiple redlinks in the final version are all supported by references (that I haven't checked for reliability or relevance yet). List of fictional animals (other) - Note the extreme degree to which this list had degenerated into listcruft prior to my intervention. Subsequent to these reworks I have placed these pages on my watchlist and I have repeatedly reverted non-notable additions and additions that fail the descriptive requirements. I have required reliable source references only where the article is redlinked based on my (perhaps overbroad) assumption that bluelinks are notable. Please let me know whether these are improvements or not. I have spent a huge amount of time on these and others like them and if my edits violates Wikipedia's policies or my actions seem overly demonstrative of ownership then I will cease this sort of cleanup because I don't want to waste any more time with this tedious task than I feel is welcomed.
 * old version
 * current version
 * old version
 * current version
 * In the way of a summary, contrary to David in DC's accusations of WP:OWN violation, I am doing nothing more than acting as a steward for this article (and other formerly unmanageable lists of a similar nature). I am applying the guidelines of WP:LIST and WP:LSC to exclude entries from the list that are non-notable and that if redlinked lack a reliable source demonstrating notability. David in DC's suggestion that "Redlinks and redirected links are strictly verboten" is patently false and had he read my response at the talk page he would understand this. I have twice told him that Redlinks are acceptable if sourced for notability and any redirect that meets the basic descriptive criteria of the list is welcomed. I have been happy to engage in discussion with editors that object to the removal of their addition and I have tried to make it clear that all that is required for them to overcome the burden of notability is to provide a source demonstrating notability. I believe my actions have been entirely consistent with good editing but I would be happy for 3rd party review. -Thibbs (talk) 03:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I've re-added the two notable fictional penguins who are already blue-link redirects. In deference to the  self-appointed steward of this page, for each new entry, I've provided a footnote. The Mumble footnote comes from a footnote on the Happy Feet page, noting that the penguin opened big in the director's home continent of Australia. The Tennessee Tuxedo footnote comes from an obit of the notable penguin's notable voice actor, Don Adams. I think it's "for the birds" but I've complied. David in DC (talk) 05:02, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

In the interest of transparency I'd like to note that I disagree that User:David in DC has met the burden of asserting notability here and I am contesting his edits although I have opted to avoid a revert war with him by restoring the page once again. I have left a note for David explicating my concerns. He is an experienced editor and I believe he is acting in good faith. I would like to make sure that this problem doesn't escalate. Some third party help would be greatly appreciated. -Thibbs (talk) 06:16, 20 November 2010 (UTC)


 * David, another idea might be for you to file this concern at WP:RFC/USER since as far as I can see your issue lies with my allegedly WP:OWN-violative behavior rather than the content of the article. Even if we do get a response here, we might request an RfC. I actually think this is a very helpful discussion because if I am going to continue cleaning up these articles then I am almost certain to run into this problem again (especially at some of the more popular pages like List of fictional cats). I am rather apprehensive about the kind of resistance I might receive at some of these pages and the more my methods are reviewed and refined, the better I will be able to conduct the repair of these articles. Let me know what you think. -Thibbs (talk) 17:53, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * We're well short of RFC/U. Thibbs is also an experienced editor. His de-escalation here humbles me. The tenor of my activity thus far has been over-caffeinated. I apologize to Thibbs and to the community for the disruption.
 * If we don't get useful help here, a Request for Comment is smart. In the meantime, I'll go "hide" my insertions.
 * Thank you for leading by example. David in DC (talk) 18:07, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * FWIW I have interacted with Thibbs on the fictional birds and fictional ducks talk pages and I've found him to very reasonable and willing to explain the changes he makes. He's done some great work overhauling these pages to remove a lot of the cruft. That said, I think I agree with David in DC here regarding his specific additions. It is quite often the case that even a highly notable character does not get their own Wikipedia page simply because the editors have decided it makes more sense to discuss them in a broader context. I think Happy Feet would be a prime example of that. More broadly, I think it's fair to include any notable film/book/song/video game that is about a penguin on such a list, whereas any medium that simply includes a passing reference to one should stay off. 28bytes (talk) 18:42, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

No problem, David. I'm glad we were able to work things out. As I said before, I think that a discussion about these issues is important and I am glad that you brought it up. The kinds of repairs I have been making do tend to dramatically shorten some of these lists and as I don't have any expertise in the topics of the lists I am bound to make a few mistakes. As 28bytes suggests, I tried to give a more step-by-step introduction of changes at the List of fictional birds and I had tried to ensure that everyone understood what I was doing and what my intentions were. I've always considered "List of fictional penguins" to be an sub-article of "list of fictional birds and so I had not been very clear about my actions on the talk page of the penguin list. I think the best take-home lesson I can gather from this is that I should document my activities more clearly on all pages - even pages I consider sub-articles. Again, these discussions are very helpful to me. There are no hard feelings on my part, and thank you for the apology. Cheers, -Thibbs (talk) 19:46, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

David's use of the term "self-anointed steward" to describe Thibbs is not collegial, bordering on a personal attack. We are all self-appointed stewards of the Wiki. The use of 'anointed' for 'appointed' is an insult. Let's cut the snide insults and stick to discussing the topic, not the editors involved. Binksternet (talk) 20:54, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Advice accepted and acted upon, with prior version hidden. David in DC (talk) 21:23, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

Geo tag errors
I need help reverting (or verifying before removing) / the geo tags that this user has placed. Unfortunatelly, thank to this wonderful lack of attention, and a culmination of various other things, (an Inviation via Facebook), I ended up in the wrong part of town. 20 minutes late for Handel's Messiah. Best regards. --CyclePat (talk) 05:21, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
 * If you feel there is a general problem with this user's contributions, you should probably take it up with them in the first instance. You might find they are keen to fix it, especially if you phrase your request more civilly, and with more detail about the specific problem.  Cheers, Bovlb (talk) 21:57, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Vermonster "records"
An editor keeps reverting the Vermonster article to reinsert a records section. I think it's pretty clear from the talk page that there is consensus that this is not appropriate. The editor was participating in the discussion while continuing the reverts for a while but once third and fourth parties came in and disagreed with his or her point of view, he or she stopped participating in the discussion but continued to occasionally revert. Please help or point me in the correct direction. Blafard (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Education_in_Singapore
Hi, I'm looking at this page and the 'disputed factual accuracy' tag has been up for two years even though there are no disputed statements flagged anywhere in the talk page or in the content. Can the tag be removed if there are no explicit outstanding issues? Brythain (talk) 18:35, 23 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The justification for the tag was given on the talk page. Apparantely a user takes issue with the criticism section which has remained unchanged since the tag was placed. You can be bold and remove the tag if you really believe it's unwarranted, but it's always best to discuss it with the user first. Although it seems that IP user has gone inactive and is unlikely to see your reply. -- &oelig; &trade; 08:14, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Relisted move request
I opened a move request at Talk:Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) Hall No. 148 which was just relisted for not generating sufficient discussion. Could we please get some more opinions on the subject? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 15:23, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

dieffenbach
Ernst Dieffenbach is credited with the appellation Dieffenbachia which is elsewhere attributed to J.F Dieffenbach of Schoenbrunn.Where is the truth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.49.183.205 (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Atilla Engin
I would like for an uninvolved editor to have a look at Atilla Engin and its recent history. Fusion is the future, for reasons unknown, reverted the changes I made. For starters, they have the lead saying that the subject is "a Turkish American fusion jazz percussionist, drummer, composer, arranger, conductor, performer and educator," which in my opinion is an altogether too-long list of professions, many of which cannot be claimed to be relevant due to lack of references. Fusion of the future is, judging from their contributions, a relatively new editor with a somewhat wikilawyerish attitude but a distinct lack of knowledge of our guidelines, and their style is rather verbose. I could go in detail, but I think the differences between their version and the one they undid is clear. That they reverted my edits willy-nilly should be clear from the fact that they managed to wikify the word "goal"--look for it. Drmies (talk) 04:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)


 * There's more background at the talkpage of that article; lots of advice (including a couple of third opinions) on content, style, reference formatting etc– all pretty much ignored despite the gazillion bytes of text there. I believe that this is possibly a problem of editor competence rather than wilfulness. pablo 13:33, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

United States diplomatic cables leak
Hi. We've got a classic herding cats problem on United States diplomatic cables leak. Basically, we have editors literally dumping document items into lists instead of writing an encyclopedic article about the leaked doucuments. Because there are 251,287 documents in total, this cannot continue. On the talk page, I've proposed that in order to get the structure and focus of the topic under control, we should start by analyzing the five major secondary sources in use, comparing and contrasting their coverage, noting what they have common and where they differ, grouping shared topics of importance and highlighting less important ones in a separate stack. Meanwhile, the lists grow longer, and the prose is slow to develop. Once in a while an editor figures it out and takes us two steps forward, and then another editor comes along and takes us three steps back. So the question is, how can we best structure this article and maintain a qualitative approach when many editors are only concerned with quantity. If someone could take an honest look at the article and make suggestions on the talk page, that would be helpful. There's also the problem of using primary sources (like the WikiLeaks cable links) instead of relying on the secondary source coverage. Viriditas (talk) 16:54, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah
Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya was the third son of Ali, the fourth Moslem caliph and first imam. He declined to join his half-brother Husayn's expedition that ended at Karbila, and remained in Hejaz until his death in 700 A.D. Someone is adding material saying first that he escaped from Karbila by sea! and reached northern Burma and married the local queen and died and was buried there. I reverted this as provable poppycock. It is now back, without that geographical impossibility but describing Ali as one of the Umayyad caliphs of Damascus. Ali ruled from Kufa; he and the Umayyad caliph in Damascus were deadly enemies. The trouble is, the contributor claims the authority of a book published in Tehran. I mentioned this problem at the WikiProject Islam/Muslim History Task Force site, asking for expert help. I ask again here. J S Ayer (talk) 17:29, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Template talk:Ethnicity in Mexico
is removing sourced content about the way in which racial categories in Mexico related to social class because he finds it offensive, but he does not produce any sources to the contrary. He keeps reverting to his prefered version in spite of the fact that I keep producing new sources. The situation could use some third perspectives.·Maunus· ƛ · 18:44, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

andy mcnab and kym jordan book,war torn is missing from book listings
hi the andy mcnab and kym jordan book,war torn (2010) is missing from book listings,on the andy mcnab site -cheers peter —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.239.116 (talk) 11:23, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Mdvanii
I think this needs some attention. See Help_desk.  Chzz  ► 02:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Vector Marketing
Vector Marketing is in need of people to assist in reviewing the latest major change. A lot of content was changed and it appears to have issues with WP:SOAPBOX WP:RS and the editor who made the major edit is claiming that I am WP:OWN ing because of my concerns. Phearson (talk) 01:47, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

IP vandal (?) changing numbers in TV articles
I noticed on recent changes a few days ago [this IP] changing statistics and years and in one or two cases removing sources. No activity since December 24 and I am not absolutely sure it's vandalism (not at all my field), and no warnings, so the big advisory box at Administrator intervention against vandalism stopped me posting it there, but I wanted to bring it to someone's attention since I suspect all the edits may need to be reverted. Yngvadottir (talk) 04:25, 26 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Looks like recently they've continued, changing figures without citing their sources. This could be a form of sneaky vandalism but I'll WP:AGF, I've left a message on their talk page asking what their sources are. -- &oelig; &trade; 13:03, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

File talk:Woodridge.jpg
An anonymous user just made this addition on File talk:Woodridge.jpg: "live at 1308 steenrod ave. and i would persoily like aa diefferant pictur used." It appears that the file (a CC-by licensed picture) is of this user's home and that he/she would prefer that we not use their house on Wikipedia as an example. I don't know if we have any policy or past practice with this kind of issue, but I wanted to surface the issue here to get it in front of more editors so that this can be looked at from a legal and/or policy perspective. Zachlipton (talk) 06:14, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China‎
Censorship. I added material from NY Times about Chinese Politburo behind computer hacking program. It was removed without a good explanation here. I restored it. I have concerns about censorship.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 13:18, 3 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not censorship. It was an issue of undue weight and appears to be solved.  There is a link to the Operation Aurora article in the controversies section.  Recommend closing/archiving this thread. Viriditas (talk) 05:44, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

How Do i suggest a Page about a known American Artist Olan Montgomery when you dont have one?
Is there a way to suggest and ask for a page on the American Artist Olan Montgomery known for his works of people like Courtney Love and others written about by many magazines and even on MTV.com when Courtney bought his work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.108.91.191 (talk) 09:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Olan Montgomery.·Maunus· ƛ · 09:19, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Tahash
This guy is intent on writing a book and it seems no one has the inclination to stop him. There's original research (mentioned at WP:NORN with no repsonse), primary sources, article ownership, excessive irrelevant detail, you name it it's in this article which growing by the day. Personally I think we need to start over with this article, but I'm done trying so hopefully some other editor's would like to take a look. --Pontificalibus (talk) 23:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow. I agree. Original research. Excessive irrelevant detail. Unencyclopedic material. What is that? It looks like text from a religious book which goes into an obscure subject that possibly only a few are interested in. Why is the subject notable? I think people have gotten carried away with this particular subject -- they're so close to it -- that they can't see that it really doesn't belong here. It gets fairly good readership -- 100 per day? Or is this the primary writer doing most of the edits? Clearly I think this calls for administrator attention, which is above my pay grade. But I agree. The best course is for the writer to publish his material as a Google knol, and then have a short, factual, article in Wikipedia with an external link to the knol. Then everybody will be happy. If he won't agree to this, or if it results in battling, then I support a PROD.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 04:08, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I suggested the book thing to him, but he doesn't listen. If you can see a way to take this further, please do. I have tried engaging with the author and I can't get him to agree with anything, so he will surely contest a PROD having put in so much work. I considered AfD but it would be argued that is not a solution for bad content. Perhaps the guy needs a ban or something, or maybe just several people to tell him this is not appropriate. So yeah it would be good to get some admins involved, if you know of any that fancy taking this on. --Pontificalibus (talk) 09:37, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * He's been writing to me on my talk page. I'm trying to persuade him to go for the WP article --> Google knol arrangement (I try to explain on my user page). Let's see what happens. The other thing I recommend is contacting individual administrators and seeking their support one-on-one; perhaps one or two may be interested and know what to do.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I was asked to take a look at this--and I think this is actually a rather remarkable work,though not as it stands a article compatible with the way we usually write Wikipedia articles. I find a minimal amount of POV-- just a few expressions that should be worded less positively. What some others see as OR, I see rather as  careful summary, not prohibited SYN.  Almost every is referenced, except a few sections near the end. There is in some places a good deal too much detail; there are some parts that are essentially background.  A considerable amount of good could be done by copy-editing, since it will help in this long a discussion to have things stated in the shortest  understandable length. and I will start it.  S considerable amount can also be done by moving material, or simply linking to existing material: the article was written so it would be read alone, but Wikipedia articles are hypertext, and assume that people will know to follow  cross-reference links.  My attitude is a little different from some of what has been said above:   Wikipedia needs more articles like this (or at least somewhat like this), and writers with this high degree of both knowledge and skill.  In the conventional world, writers often tend go on too expansively, but they get dealt with by an editor. On the web, in most situations, one can write at whatever length & manner one chooses. But here  at Wikipedia,writing requires at least the willingness of the writer to accept editing.  Many experts can do this, or at least soon learn how to do this. Where there has been difficulty, is with expert editors who do not understand that the nature of the medium required accepting  other people's changes; many leave rather than adapt, but some  stay and fight tenaciously over every individual word. I have a considerable amount of experience here with both types. I will work with this editor; I  will assume he learns our ways; I know how to convince him if such is possible, and what to do otherwise. The field is not one where I am an actual expert, but it is one where I am an informed hobbyist, and I understand what is trying to be said.    DGG ( talk ) 01:41, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks DGG for looking in to this. I'll defer to your judgment for the time being since you're much more experienced than me. My concerns essentially are: notability, original research and undue weight. I spelled them out on Talk:Tahash. My sense is the other contributors don't listen, and my advice has been greeted with derision and sarcasm.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:18, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Request for Redaction of Grossly Offensive Material / Libel
I'm not sure if this is allowed but I am petitioning here for the redaction (revision deletion) of two grossly offensive edits to the BLP article, Bobby Seale, from the edit history of the article - especially as one of them is highly libelous and the other was extremely racist.

Specifically, the two edits in question are:
 * Racist Edit
 * Libelous Edit

The IP editor responsible for those edits then reverted them as seen here. I'm asking for them to be stricken from the article. They serve no purpose for historical reference in the editing of it other than for a bigoted edit / potential trolling attempt. That said, this would specifically fit under WP:RD2 and WP:RD3. ⒺⓋⒾⓁⒼⓄⒽⒶⓃ ②  08:43, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I've revdel'd the edits. For future reference, these requests should be made at WP:ANI. -- &oelig; &trade; 19:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I'll keep that in mind from now on. ⒺⓋⒾⓁⒼⓄⒽⒶⓃ  ②  21:43, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Criticism of Muhammad, a page of profane insults not criticism.
The Criticism of Muhammad page is written as a "history of" insults, slander and defamatory statements, not a page of criticisms regarding merits and faults of the work or actions of an individual. most of these statements don't specifically mention any incidents they simply are profane statements which do not enrich or add to peoples knowledge just that simply these people made these derogatory statements throughout history.

here are a list of some of these remarks,
 * "the madman" or "possessed"
 * "a devil and first-born child of Satan"
 * a "wicked impostor", a "dastardly liar" and a "willful deceiver"
 * "a terrorist,"
 * "tyrant" a "pervert"
 * a "demon-possessed pedophile"
 * a "mass murderer and a pedophile"
 * a misogynist, a rapist, a pedophile, a narcissist, a lecher, a torturer, a mass murderer, a cult leader, an assassin, a terrorist, a madman and a looter

[how can you offer an apposing point of view when dealing with these indavidually would require a page on its own, its little more than name calling]

This page is also in violation of the content spin out and forking policy which states "If a statement is inadmissible for content policy reasons at an article XYZ, then it is also inadmissible at a spinout [Criticism of XYZ]]" Therefore, any content that wouldn't be allowed in the Muhammad article shouldn't be allowed there. As None of these remarks present an argument they are simply labels and this is the foundation of what a criticism is, It is difficult to find an apposing point of view since they contain no context and you don't know what they are referring to so you are left making assumptions. The POV:forks states "if the word "criticism" must be used, make sure that such criticism considers both the merits and faults, and is not entirely negative (consider what would happen if a "Praise of..." article was created instead)".

Compare the Criticism of Muhammad page with the Criticism of Noam Chomsky page and its obvious this page is sub par and not up to the standard of normal wiki content which often occurs when a page is primarily dedicated to documenting profane and defamatory statements as apposed to presenting a criticism which appeals to an individuals intellect.

I also don't think it meats the criteria of the "Wikipedia:Criticism" page. Ibn kathir (talk) 20:15, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * After a quick and superficial reading of the article I think I agree. However, the problem may not be so much what the article mentions, but the fact that it mislabels defamation and demonisation as "criticism", thus pretending it is founded in fact rather than mere enmity.
 * The reception and perception of Muhammad in the West throughout the centuries is clearly a notable topic that deserves an article. But this article picks out only negative statements. As one of two subarticles (positive and negative) of a full article about European Muhammad views this could arguably make sense. But apparently that's not what we have here, and to make things worse the article appears to give fake credibility to the defamations.
 * (By the way, you used a nowiki tag and did not close it. I removed it, and I also had to remove the 4 tildes of your signature, because they would have been displayed as my signature otherwise.) Hans Adler 21:17, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

ok thanks. I agree with you remarks its a more precise statement of what i was trying to get at, its one thing to deal with issues as a matter of history and another to present them the way its been done here. What can be done then, i have tried to discuss the issue but other editors view these comments as valid criticism. Ibn kathir (talk) 21:24, 7 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The solution is clearly to get more editors involved. By coming here you have done the right thing. And RfC or a post on WP:NPOV/N might have been an even better, but we can still try these methods if the present post doesn't draw in enough uninvolved editors. I have put the article on my watchlist, and I am planning to get involved in its talk page. But at the moment it's probably best to wait for other editors' opinions. Hans Adler 00:06, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

ill post on that notice board as well, thanks for the suggestions.Ibn kathir (talk) 03:04, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with Ibn kathir and Hans's comments. The article compare's poorly to at least two other Criticism of religion articles I looked at. Criticism of Muhammad really seems to be "collection of bad things said about a religious figure", and at least one of the figures (currently second-to-last in the article, titled "A demonstrator against the Park51 project in New York City, showing a caricature calling Muhammad a "pedophile"", with the cartoon being that of a pig with a face made up of a combination of a bearded human face wearing a Keffiyeh with a Star and crescent) is patently offensive. JoeSperrazza (talk) 16:16, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Earthcore
At the abovementioned page, there is a debate going on between the event's organizer and another user who doesn't seem to like Earthcore much. There's some debate over whether to include a passage about controversies, which can be found at the bottom of the talkpage there. The sourcing appears (to me) to be somewhat dubious, but I'd like more experienced people to have a look. Could I get an extra set of eyes or two on this? There are already a couple rather large screeds of text, and it's be great if someone could step in before the ranting gets too out of control. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 15:13, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I did a brief look over. What I gather is: (1) Earthcore was a cool Woodstock-like music festival in Australia in natural places (mountains) (2) it's discontinued (3) the event's promoter is an active participant in the WP article (against COI policy) (4) there's fussing about controversies such as who paid whom etc. Do I have the basic picture right? If so, my sense is: let the thing sit for a bit; mark calendars; in a few months revisit the article but insist that every line have a reference, and any line which doesn't have a reference be removed. If people won't agree to that, then we need to get an administrator to block people with COI interests.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's basically it; the only complication is that the event's organizer seems to have (at least somewhat) valid points about the sourcing. I'm not great at analyzing obscure music sources (I come from the high world of Rush and Def Leppard fandom, where I have enormous reams of information to work with), and being American I know nothing about this subject, so I'm hoping someone a little more familiar with these topics here can sift through it. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 07:14, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool about your musical expertise. Generally my sense is problems come in articles such as these when material is added without valid references, or when material with valid references is removed. By sticking to sources, and working within what journalists say about a given subject, the result is usually competent and good. And I don't think it matters what country you're from.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 07:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If interested, here's a great way to quickly find acceptable sources. Open this link in your browser. For Earthcore as a subject, click on "music" or "entertainment" or "Australia" possibly. Suppose you choose music. Click on music publications. Build a list of music sources. For example, Rolling Stone magazine has a url of rollingstone.com so it goes in your list. Here's my list: (site:spin.com OR site:rollingstone.com OR site:pastmagazine.com OR site:billboard.com OR site:relix.com OR site:downbeat.com OR site:jazztimes.com OR site:jazzreview.com OR site:jazziz.com OR site:jazzimprov.com OR site:allaboutjazz.com OR site:smoothjazzmag.com OR site:culturekiosque.com OR site:jazznow.com OR site:chicagojazz.com OR site:hothousejazz.com OR site:jazzinsidemagazine.com OR site:jazzbanjo.com OR site:latinjazzmagazine.com OR site:justjazzguitar.com OR site:jazzmagazine.com). Save this line to a file so you don't have to figure it out each time. Next, do a browser search, copying the entire line (site:spin.com ... ) along with "Earthcore" in quotes. So if any of these acceptable sources have written about Earthcore, you've got a good reference -- usually -- although occasionally junk comes up such as blogs. At this point, I'll have two screens -- left side with a text editor file (for jotting material with references) and the right side the sources. I copy-and-paste urls, dates, article titles fast. In little time, you'll have great material which is objective, on target, relevant, and good. Strive to have each line have a reference. Using this technique, I revamped the article Dating, and it only took me a day or so to find stuff.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 07:45, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

File sharing
This article on a contentious topic looks like huge amounts of content have been systematically stripped out and deleted over time. Compare last version 2008 and current version.

The summary of file sharing technologies and their evolution is deleted, the economic impact debate is deleted, public perception is deleted, and attacks on P2P networks are deleted.

Some of this was moved to peer-to-peer file sharing, but p2p is only one type of file sharing (see also file hosting services) and this information affects all file sharing, not just the one method.

I'm reluctant to simply reinstate because I don't know what was removed for good cause and what was stripped without good cause. The deleted content needs eyeballs and consensus. FT2 (Talk 09:47, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

IP Failing to Understand Sourcing Policies
I would appreciate it if someone could review Talk:S-Video and provide feedback, or point me in a proper direction to bring attention to this (the article doesn't seem to fall under the auspices of any projects at this time). I don't believe the IP (who also reported me at 3RR) understands Wiki policy regarding sourcing of material, but no other editors are getting involved either thus far. In my opinion the editor's coming perilously close to violating NPA as well, but I feel a third party opinion would be vastly preferable to taking action myself when I'm the target. Thank you very much for your time. Doniago (talk) 02:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It would be helpful if you would tell which article there is the controversy about.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 02:29, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Er...I included a link to the discussion above. The article itself is S-Video. Doniago (talk) 02:51, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you tried WP:Third opinion? (sorry I don't have a comment on the issue) -- &oelig; &trade; 03:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't believe that's an applicable solution as more than two editors are involved. An admin referred me here as an alternative. Thanks for the suggestion though. Doniago (talk) 03:32, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Carr Van Anda
Carr Vatel Van Anda is a duplicate article of Carr Van Anda - I don;t really have time to clean this up, can anyone get these merged? Connormah (talk) 23:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅--Tomwsulcer (talk) 03:12, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Fabio Barzagli
I would like someone to have a look at Fabio Barzagli and the recent edits, especially of this kind, by. I have a gut feeling that they are all-too involved with the subject, but that's beside the point. In edit summaries I have tried to explain the problems with the content (basically, unencyclopedic tone--note the beautiful daughter--and lack of sources), and I will post another note on their talk page, but the editor seems not to want to look at those or act on them. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 18:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 19:40, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The article is at AfD now--Articles for deletion/Fabio Barzagli. Drmies (talk) 21:52, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

On the Thomas Jefferson page, there is a dispute with regard to Jefferson's actions on slavery. I added sourced text to the article's lead, and two editors removed it, never offering any verifiable sources (historians, article etc) for their claims my edits were erroneous. I've attempted to address the concerns of the two editors whilst keeping the proposed text accurate by proposing alternatives, and supplying the sources on which they are based. The editors seem not to be familiar with said sources (very important ones), and appear to claim they don't need to be. The article's lead had no mention of Jefferson's involvement with slavery or Hemings until I added it, and now there is resistance to anything I propose no matter what sources I use. I sincerely ask for a neutral party to read the discussion & help all sides to reach an accurate compromise that will ensure the article (which gets thousands of hits daily) treats the subject matter fairly, which I do not feel is possible at the moment. Any help is appreciated. My apology, this is the link to the discussion: Ebanony (talk) 17:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

World Heritage Sites in the Americas
I'm not a very frequent editor and I've never taken anything to the administrative level before, but I'm having a problem with an IP at the List of World Heritage Sites in the Americas page. The user is adding maps to the page that I consider disruptive to the layout and not particularly helpful for the reader, so I reverted his edits for the time being and asked that people contribute to a thread on the discussion page about whether the maps should be included or not. So far only one other user and I have voiced our opinions there, and we're both against the maps. Still, the IP has been readding the maps to the page, and most recently added "I gave my reason in the edit history, ****head. Who do you think you are?" I reverted that edit too, because they had inadvertently erased some subsequent edits with it. Because emotions seem to be running high, though, I wanted to ask some advice. Am I going about this in the right way? Is my understanding of the use of the discussion board correct? Is there anything I could be doing to get more people to contribute to that thread? And is this even the right place to be asking these questions? Thanks for your time.Chouji Ochiai (talk) 17:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes you're going about it the right way, definitely, and this is the right forum to bring something like this up. But to get wider participation and even more eyes on that thread, you can start a Request for comments, just follow the instructions at that page. Personally, I feel the maps are a nice touch, although I very much disagree with the IP's incivility and the edit-warring that's going on. -- &oelig; &trade; 22:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Overall, I think the IP's edits help the article, but the attitude (and insult) definitely don't. I left a pointed note to the IP to use the talk page and not insult other editors.  Ravensfire ( talk ) 22:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for your advice (and for some long awaited input on those maps)! I'll start on the request for comments now. In the meantime, it seems that the IP has again reverted the edit and deleted those of other editors caught in the crossfire. I'll try to salvage the unrelated edits and just leave the maps up for the time being. Thanks again! Chouji Ochiai (talk) 05:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Image copyright question (File:Tavisupleba Video Montage.jpg)
An image I uploaded some time ago — File:Tavisupleba Video Montage.jpg — was recently deleted (see ). This image was being used at Tavisupleba (an article about the current national anthem of ex-Soviet Georgia).

I believe the image's free rationale is valid — or at least that it ought to be reviewed by people who are familiar with the copyright laws of the former USSR and/or of present-day Georgia. The relevant provision mentioned in PD-GE-exempt says that copyright does not apply to "official symbols of state (flag, emblem, anthem, award, monetary symbols, other official signs and symbols of state)". Since the image in question is a collection of screen shots from a music video version of Georgia's national anthem, this provision would seem (so I would think) to apply in this case. I'll concede that I might be interpreting this particular copyright exemption too broadly, but I would like to ask the opinion of experts on this issue. Rich wales (talk · contribs) 22:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

St. Bernard (dog)
There's a slow-burning content issue at this page that hasn't become an all-out edit war, but needs some outside attention. For the backstory, you can see this link to RSN. Even after this, there's still one SPA who's intent on pushing this claim about a Swiss St. Bernard purportedly named "Benedictine Daily Double"; one need only look in the recent edit history of the article to see. The sources being used were either explicitly rejected at RSN or have only passing mentions of this dog that look suspiciously like almost direct quotes from Wikipedia. I really don't want to get drawn into an edit war, and I've removed this from the article twice in the past two weeks after initially removing it wholesale (per my comments on the talkpage, which are still there), so could some kind editor have a look? The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 15:13, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree with your ideas about sourcing. Let me know how to help.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:29, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The Brainyhistory source is patently useless; it's user-submitted content with little if any editorial control. The Dogs Monthly link is a bit better; it does look to be a reliable source, but on the other hand it's a one-sentence mention with no background on how this information was documented or where the author knows it from. I can't quite find something to grab onto for why I don't like it, but it nevertheless doesn't strike me as really substantive proof of anything. Fluffernutter, previously known as Chaoticfluffy (talk) 03:45, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's what bothers me about this; I honestly think that the Dog's Monthy magazine got its information from Wikipedia, because that sentence is very similar to the one that was in the St. Bernard article in October 2009 (when that featured breed piece came out). The revision as of October 1, 2009 is here, for comparison; note that the statement is completely unsourced. That brings up the issue of circular sourcing, and even if it's correct it doesn't say "Benedictine Daily Double" as one user claims (which on its face sounds ridiculous for a dog's name in Switzerland).  I don't want to assume bad faith, but I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't another Slow Blind Driveway situation where someone inserted something into Wikipedia and now it's gotten circulated around the Internet.  Of course, I might be totally off on this; thoughts? The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 04:13, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Update; to discuss the DogsMonthly source, I've opened a thread at RSN, specifically WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Comments about the sourcing can go there, and more general discussion about the subject can go here.  Just for my part; exceptional claims require exceptional sources.  Claims of "the largest recorded dog" fall under exceptional claims, and the sources here don't appear nearly as compelling as those used to back the claims in the English mastiff page.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 19:10, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Now there's a discussion at RSN about the brainyhistory.com source in general, and it seems that's going the same direction as the first time it was brought up. So the question is; should this "Benedictine" claim be in the article at all, or should it be removed entirely? I think the latter (given that it only seems to appear in tertiary sources which are either entirely unsourced or are almost certainly circular sourcing), but I want to get some kind of consensus once and for all. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 14:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * For what it is worth, The Guinness Book of Records has twice recognised St Bernards from the same kennel, whose names each contained "Benedictine", as being the world's heaviest dog, but both these dogs' weights were superceded by the weight accepted by Guinness for the Mastiff Zorba. The name "Benedictine Daily Double" never appeared in Guinness, nor did it appear on the internet prior to the controversy on Wikipedia about the world's heaviest dog being a Saint Bernard called "Benedictine". Collieuk (talk) 14:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Update; I requested a 3O at the talkpage, and the opinion given was to remove the Benedictine claim from the article. I think we're done here.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 03:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Frank O'Connor short story collections
Although the author is notable, I'm not familiar enough with him to ascertain if all these short story collections are notable enough by themselves to warrant separate articles. It's just that most of these articles in their current state, such as Domestic Relations, and Crab Apple Jelly, are really unimpressive, and I'm thinking maybe they should be merged together into something like a List of works by Frank O'Connor. -- &oelig; &trade; 02:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with your assessment; a merger might be best.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:04, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree as well. It doesn't seem like merging to the parent would be best, so a merge to a new target as you suggest seems to be the best of both worlds. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 15:07, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Booker Huffman
Ok, there's an issue with this article. Peeps keep wanting to title a section ending with (2011-present), which in my view is not grammatically correct. I have changed it twice, and it was changed back twice. What can be done to ensure that the correct phrasing (2011) is kept intact?  ArcAngel    (talk) ) 22:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Fastenal (and maybe other articles)
This is regarding a content dispute I have with Fleetham in Fastenal and potentially other articles. I thought I might ask here for advice on how to resolve this conflict in a cool manner. The issue is the inclusion of information from a work condition survey in the lead of the article, and full details can be seen at the the talk page. A third party neutral opinion was already provided. However, Fleetham considers it "uninformed" and chooses to ignore it. Fleetham's latest response was that "[my] opinion doesn't come into play". I am seeking advice on how to resolve this. Best regards. --Muhandes (talk) 07:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I've been asking Fleetham for the reference on the Level 3 Communications page to be taken out of the lead. I'm not yet sure whether my opinion comes into play or not. Other articles where the "worst place" sentence is in the lead paragraph are Gibson Guitar Corporation, LexisNexis, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, The Hertz Corporation, AutoZone, Spherion, Dominion Enterprises and Rain Bird. - Ttwaring (talk) 16:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)


 * At this point Fleetham says he "Will repost lead mention as you're not compromise-minded", which means back to edit warring. I could really use some advice as how to resolve this. --Muhandes (talk) 13:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Benihana lawsuit
There has been a relatively slow edit war in Benihana, mostly by a variety of anon IPS, to insert and remove a section concerning an alleged lawsuit filed by Benihana against a blogger. As all the citations in the section are to blogs maintained by the person being sued, and 2 out of 3 cites are to Arabic-language pages, I deleted the section once myself. Now, it has been added again. I will not delete again, but would appreciate other eyes to determine whether the section should be there. -- Donald Albury 00:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I do not see any reason why "Lawsuit" section should be removed from the article. The first three sources are reliable ones: "kuwaittimes.net", "arabianbusiness.com" and "gulfnews.com". However I do believe that the rest of the sources are not valid. Therefore it could be reduced to one or two sentences based on just the reliable sources. *** in fact  ***   ( contact )  20:04, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have just requested it to be semi-protected, due to high level of vandalism by different IPs. *** in fact  ***   ( contact )  14:51, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Spark (fire)
There's currently a rather heated discussion going on at Talk: Spark (fire) regarding whether the title of fire is an appropriate way to describe an article about "small heated particles of material," or whether that title is inaccurate because it only really refers to a small portion of what the article covers. What's really needed in this discussion are editors who are knowledgable in the field of science and can provide helpful and accurate info for the discussion. Thanks!--Yaksar (let's chat) 09:36, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

please remove messanger mohammed photographs from the page
Its a humble request to you wikipedia people to prophet mohammed's photographs from page. in islam photo of any live person or thing is haram.and the photo of prophet mohaammed is insult of him. so I request you please remove all photographs and cartoons of prophet mohammed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.4.176 (talk) 16:45, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No. Wikipedia is not censored. Period. For further information, see: Talk:Muhammad/FAQ -- Orange Mike  &#x007C;   Talk  17:12, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Does the number of images in an article (or their very inclusion) depend on the practice of sources?
Ok, I don't really know where to post such a question but I think this is a good starting place. There is a heated discussion on Wikipedia_talk:Hardcore_pornography_images between me and on the subject: Is it common practice to decide if we put images or not in an article by looking if and how many images do RS put on the subject? More precisely: if the majority of sources don't depict images of X, do we actively avoid to include images of X? I am personally convinced, from experience and lack of knowledge of any guideline/policy that says so, that the answer is a resounding "no" and the very notion strikes me as bizarre (example: academic papers, which by far and large are the majority of sources, and for sure the most authoritative, do not include artistic reconstructions of exoplanets: but we actually do regularly) but the other editor seems to be convinced otherwise (and wants to put it on the essay as if it was plain truth, while to me it strikes at plain falsity). Can someone clarify the matter?

Also notice that I do not intend to discuss if it should be so or not: this is another -interesting- matter of opinion, nor I want to discuss if sources help us understand if a given image reflects the article subject or not (of course they do). The crux of the matter is if decisions like "sources do not include images of X often, so we don't too, even if good images are available" are common practice or not here and now. Thanks! -- Cycl o pia talk  02:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * We don't have much in the way of proscribing the regulation of any free content (provided it meets WP:IUP; it's non-free content that has the strings attached. No article needs images, but it'd be a point of content whether images as you suggest for the article above would not be "shocking" and just there to draw attention. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 12:52, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Uh no, I'm not suggesting images for the essay. The crux is that Jayen466 is implying quite clearly in the essay (and saying explicitly in the discussion) that we already do that (counting images in sources and deciding if and how many images we put) for all other articles, and therefore applying it to sexual articles is a natural extension. His argument is explicitly detached from the specifics of the topic, and also one could for sure argue anyway that it should be the case (for this kind of articles or for others). But my concern is to see it presented as if it was already normal practice and policy. Is it or not? -- Cycl o pia talk  13:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

There is a requirement that images should be pertinent and encyclopedically relevant. We wouldn't fill an article on Paris, say, with photographs of Paris kerbstones. Why not? Because reliable sources on Paris would not do so either. We use drawings as well as photographs of birds and flowers, because reliable sources do so. This does not usually need stating, but we do it nonetheless.

When it comes to hardcore pornography, shock images, images or videos of extreme violence and the like, we should do as reliable sources do that cover these things. We should be neither more nor less libertarian than real-world publications written for a gender- and age-mixed readership in our article illustration. I think this follows quite naturally from our basic content policies. I have no time for people who would like to impose a personal preference on Wikipedia that is a fringe – or completely absent – position in real world publishing. -- JN 466  19:37, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If it's matter of "should" and "think", then it's settled. I only object to presenting opinions as facts. -- Cycl o pia talk  19:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec) I agree with you in point, Jayen, but it's worth mentioning that "what the sources say" often does not actually work as an adequate benchmark (at least not alone). Take for example pretty much any subject on fiction or an element thereof. Many times we use critical commentary to justify non-free images, but in fulfilling WP:NFCC it often requires editors to do their own searching or synthesizing of content that would best meet the requirements. Has any other source had that image or ones like it? Maybe not. @Cyclopia, I wasn't saying that the issue of images in the essay was a problem, I was just pointing to the "shocking" element as germane to the particular issue. At the end of the day, though, it's just an essay. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 20:00, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * My problem is not with the essay itself, I don't want to see hardcore images either. My problem is that I gave three good reasons in the other discussion why reliable sources might not include images on a subject (custom, availability, practicality) which do not apply to Wikipedia. There are plenty of good reasons not to use hardcore images. Lets not use one which is against common sense (do I have to remove images from articles because the sources I used could not use them?) --Muhandes (talk) 20:05, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Many reliable sources are often censored, which we are not. We are not the same as those sources. What follows naturally from our content policies and guidelines is that every subject almost always has at least 1 image when possible to help identify the subject.--Crossmr (talk) 22:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You see, there's the rub. These sources are not censored, they apply editorial judgment. You are advocating a policy of no editorial judgment, where any free media we have goes onto the relevant Wikipedia page. You want Wikipedia to adopt an extremist position that you would not be able to implement if you worked for any reputable real-world publisher.
 * There is a difference between censorship and editorial judgment. We have freedom of speech. There is nothing to prevent the New York Times or The Guardian from printing the goatse image, or putting a gang bang video on their website. The reason they don't do it has nothing to do with censorship. -- JN 466  09:28, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * By your own argument, this is not a matter of reliability but of judgment. There is nothing compelling us to the same judgment calls. You suggestion in essence means that Wikipedia must adhere to the moral (or worse, practical) judgment of some editor, which I find a very bad idea. We should not include hardcore images because we find them unhelpful, shocking, etc. not because someone else does. --Muhandes (talk) 10:15, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I am not saying that we should follow the judgment of any particular publication's editor, but that our judgment should in some NPOV manner reflect the judgment of the complete pool of sources available to us. In other words, that we should strive to be representative, rather than extremist, in our illustrations, just like we try to give representative overviews in our texts, presenting points of view in proportion to their prevalence. Such decisions about "representativeness" are, according to our core policies, always made on the basis of sources, not on the basis of individual Wikipedians' judgments. -- JN 466  12:55, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is another place where we differ. You see the existence of an image as a point of view, deserving neutrality and representativeness. I see an image as a tool of illustration, nothing more. But even to your view, I still maintain that sources may choose not to use illustrations as a matter of availability, custom, or practicality, not only judgment. These do not apply to us at all, which was my original concern. Just to make it clear, I am referring to the idea in general, not to its application in the case of hardcore pornography. --Muhandes (talk) 13:33, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That is not quite accurate. I don't see an image as a point of view. I share your view that it is a tool of illustration, and nothing more. I am also aware that sources may choose not to use illustrations at all, for reasons entirely unrelated to their appropriateness: many academic books for example simply do not feature illustrations at all. But in any given area, we would do well to ensure that our style of illustration does not depart systematically from that of reliable sources. For example, a medical article should have the kind of photograph commonly found in medical textbooks; we should not use an image that is deliberately shocking, unless that kind of shocking image simply goes with the territory and is commonly used in reliable sources. Our article on goatse should not have the goatse picture if it is very clear from looking at sources writing about it that they don't include the picture; not because it is unavailable, but because they choose not to. (We can provide a link to it instead, so that people who have read about and still want to see it can.) Similarly with the Nikki Catsouras pictures; we had them in the article at one time, I believe, and then got rid of them because it was extremist to have them when no reputable publication discussing the case would print them. -- JN  466  14:18, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Simply put, in your own words, if "many academic books for example simply do not feature illustrations at all" I don't see why "we would do well to ensure that our style of illustration does not depart systematically from that of reliable sources". Let me put it another way. I think it is good to follow the reasoning of reliable sources for not including images, if we agree with it. But if the don't agree with the reasoning then it shouldn't be followed. In the case of hardcore porn we agree with the reasoning of reliable sources. In other areas we might not. What the essay now says is that no matter what the reasoning is, we should follow it, to which I don't agree. --Muhandes (talk) 16:38, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Our community demographcis are very strongly skewed, unrepresentative of the general population for whom we write. Community judgment can be off-mainstream; see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:People_using_vacuum_cleaners for example. Recourse to reliable sources is in line with core policies and should be available as a failsafe in Wikipedia; otherwise we may one day end up with CC-licensed beheading or bukkake videos on our pages and become an extremist rather than mainstream educational source. -- JN 466  19:27, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * As you did not addressed my main concern, that the reasons for not including images might not apply, I am left unconvinced. --Muhandes (talk) 06:40, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You say that in the case of hardcore pornography, you agree with the reasoning of reliable sources, and that is the only area the essay addresses. I'd say there is more than one way to skin a cat, and it doesn't really matter by which thought process we arrive at a conclusion, if the conclusion is the same. Cheers, -- JN 466  15:41, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I thought I made it clear before, I agree with the conclusion, and I even agree that in this case it stems from the same reasoning RS use. I just think that having a paragraph that says this is the practice in all fields is dangerous. Cheers. --Muhandes (talk) 18:02, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Tweaked and restricted as an argument applying to this specific area. Best, -- JN 466  18:11, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Errrr, shouldn't we be looking at other encyclopedias? To see if they use images in entries of similar size.

Also, RS can have different goals than wikipedia's goals. Also, the number of images might be determined by the cultural background of authors, trying to please or attract potential readers, government rules and censorship, costs of including photographies in the text, limitations in how pages they can afford to print, etc. We have our own goals and restrictions, and we should adapt the number of images to them.

Speaking of which, the current criteria for inclusion is "Pertinence and encyclopedic nature"?, with stuff like "inform readers by providing visual information" and "utility and educational value". This is not related to the abundance of images in sources, and we would make a disservice by abandoning our goals in favor of random goals and restrictions that have never been valid for our articles.

And about including offensive material, we already have WP:IMAGE andOffensive material. Stuff like "Material that would be considered vulgar or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers should be used if and only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available." Again, no relationship with appearances in sources.

Finally, to illustrate the problem, we compare a sociological paper in a journal with a educational book written by the same expert in sexology. The paper will only have graphics, but the book might have all sorts of illustrations depending on the targeted readership. Which one are we going to use as guidance? They have different images because they have different goals and restrictions. We should do the same, use our own criteria, criteria that fit wikipedia's goals and restrictions. --Enric Naval (talk) 19:45, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * First, we cover many things not covered by other encyclopedias, so looking at other encyclopedias is often not an option. The 2005 goatse poll resulted in overwhelming consensus not to display the image, although the omission of the image did arguably cause the article to be "less informative". However, the decision was in good agreement with the practices of reliable sources, who would discuss the image, but not print it. The danger with community-based standards is analogous to the problems that we avoid through WP:NOR. While we cannot base our image use on any one particular RS, we should not be an outlier in our image use either, compared to reputable sources. -- JN  466  21:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

A mess of WP:Content Forks
. The problem with The articles listed above the tag are Scoped  in a way that makes them redundant to at least one other in the list above. Requester opens up the floor on how to re-scope these so they are not all excessively redundant of each other.
 * These are intertwined with each other
 * (Redirect List of wars by death toll)
 * (Redirect: List of natural disasters by death toll)
 * These two below are fine on their own but are in part duplicated in the above
 * (Redirect: List of genocides)
 * These two below are fine on their own but are in part duplicated in the above
 * (Redirect: List of genocides)
 * (Redirect: List of genocides)

The Resident Anthropologist (talk) 19:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Comments/Opinions/Suggestions
I don't think these articles are redundant at all. As I recall, "List of wars and disasters", "List of battles and other violent events" and "List of accidents and disasters" were all originally part of the "List of wars and disasters" article, and the consensus after a long discussion was to separate them into different articles. If they are re-merged we are just going to get the same complaints as before. The articles do in fact deal with discrete topics, and it makes logical sense to keep them separate. Gatoclass (talk) 16:17, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

AfD the lot?
Also mentioned this at WP:HD, where I was asking where to ask this, but here seems appropriate. I've just found this list and the category 'Baloch tribes'. All the articles seem nonsensical to me but there are a good 100 or so, so I'd like at least a second opinion on what to do or if I'm missing the point of them. Thanks Stu.W UK (talk) 04:00, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Uninvolved Admin available for an RfC close?
Could I get an uninvolved admin to parse through and formally close this RfC? Consensus seemed pretty clear. It should be fairly easy. Thanks, NickCT (talk) 20:04, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:25, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
 * You're the man Sarek. Thanks! NickCT (talk) 20:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Views of Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement; appeal to uninvolved long-standing editors
The article Views of Lyndon LaRouche and the LaRouche movement has a long history of fractious editing, involving socks of previously banned editors, and administrators who are involved with same (either in sympathy or conflict).

Previous RFCs have largely attracted either people already involved with the article, or editors who gave their two cents and then departed without changing anything on the page. That is why I am raising the issue here rather than making another RFC.

I would greatly appreciate some fresh perspective on this article, and ideally for lots more established editors to add it to their watchlist, and add good content. What are the thoughts of this noticeboard's readers on the article as it currently stands?

Many thanks, BillMasen (talk) 19:03, 7 March 2011 (UTC)


 * I just looked briefly at the lead section, comparing the version before you edited to the current version, and it looks like it has suffered under your control. I am a longtime editor but I choose not to punch the tar baby that this appears to be. Binksternet (talk) 04:41, 8 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Dealing with LaRouche socks does indeed make this a tar baby! If I wanted to control the article, I wouldn't be asking for the community's input. I'm sorry you can't help. BillMasen (talk) 11:48, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Gosset's 1908 original paper on Wikipedia's "Student's t-distribution"
The original subject paper as given under "Notes" in the above site has some well known errors and typos. I have some clarification and correction to that original paper that might be helpful to the new user and I propose that they might also appear in the "Notes" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dschruben (talk • contribs) 16:50, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Help -Shmuley Boteach
- Through the years there has been a single user account who has vandalised this account and noone watched it closely - now a few editors have edited and a single user account has vandalised a few times. Can a block be placed so any edits can 1st be discussed ? Please assist as dont know how or where to report these things Jonathangluck (talk) 23:31, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Need a bit of help
See User talk:HIGPA for context. I need someone with at least a rudimentary knowledge of Group purchasing organizations to have a look at the proposed changes of this editor. They all look pretty good from what I can see, but I'd like another opinion and/or some assistance on this one. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 04:50, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

A Faustian bargain
Incredibly, The Wikipedia article on "A Faustian bargain" fails to mention the most famous literary work inspired by the "pact with the devil" legend, namely, Goethe's Faust. Or the most famous musical work, Gounod's opera "Faust" based (somewhat losely) on that drama. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.236.233.10 (talk) 09:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * You're probably looking for the subarticle Works based on Faust, which is linked in the parent article's "see also". Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ( talk ) 19:48, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

User Insists on inserting doubtful fact and refuses to provide citation
In the House of Saud article, a user named user:Mni9791 insists on inserting the following statement: "The ruling faction of the family is primarily led by the descendants of Muhammad bin Saud and the daughter of Shaykh Muhammad bin Abdul-Wahhab" (dispute part in bold). I have repeatedly asked for a citation (any citation!) for this piece of information (which, btw, I know is false) to no avail. Instead, the user simply reverts. When I asked him on his/her talk page, he/she asked *me* to provide a source (as if the burden of proof was on me!). Another user, user:Electronscope44 intervened to revert on his/her behalf citing this chart which says absolutely nothing about their (false) claim. This seems to me to be about the most basic and clear-cut case you can get on Wikipedia:

1) user A inserts dubious fact, 2) user B reverts due to lack of citation, 3) user A re-inserts dubious fact and refuses to provide citation, 4) repeat ad nauseum.

I am truly at a loss here and would appreciate some intervention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.118.142.226 (talk) 21:22, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Update: he/she has finally added a source. Problem is, it doesn't actually support the claim he/she is making (it's also an unreliable source on the subject, but let's leave that aside for now). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.118.142.226 (talk) 22:01, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

WP:MOS, WP:Albums content
I'd like to ask for help with a troublesome editor, Markelmitchell, who makes unconstructive edits to numerous WP:Albums articles on a daily basis, particularly to track listings by adding boldface, small scripts, and other unexplained, unnecessary content changes, such as to In My Own Words (one of too many to cite, see user's edit history). I've posted warnings at his talk page, but he has not responded and has continued with disruptive editing. Asked for another editor's assistance, who gave me advice that has lead me to here, after failed AIV report, as somewhat of a last resort. Not sure where to go, so what can be done? Dan56 (talk) 23:30, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I have also posted the previous paragraph at WP:ANI. Dan56 (talk) 00:23, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Template layout
I need some help deciding on what to do on an edit. There's not really a dispute between me and the other editor, more like a misunderstanding.

Below is the conversation I was having with User:Msalmon. "= Dancing with the Stars Template =" -   - Hey, I see you changed the two line format I had for the template. Is there any reason behind this? My thoughts are that Kendra on a line by her own is singling her out for no reason. The 2 lines evens the contestants out. - Compare our revisions with the revision article view. You'll see what I mean -The Wing Dude, Musical Extraordinaire (talk) 23:00, 19 March 2011 (UTC) - : Because you don't need it on two seperate lines (see previous seasons), and what do you mean by singling out Kendra? --MSalmon (talk) 10:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC) - ::Take a look at the template. By removing the on-purpose two line format, there are still two lines, but Kendra is on her own line. My impression is that makes Kendra somehow better or more special than the other contestants. -The Wing Dude, Musical Extraordinaire (talk) 17:10, 20 March 2011 (UTC) - :::Hey, I apologize, I'm not sure I completely conveyed what I meant. Why should any of them be singled out? Putting Wendy on her own line doesn't fix the problem from before; it's the eaxact same problem. -The Wing Dude, Musical Extraordinaire (talk) 02:33, 21 March 2011 (UTC) - ::::Sorry, but I don't understand what you are getting at, none of them are singled out it is just the fact that it looks better on one line rather than two --MSalmon (talk) 09:44, 21 March 2011 (UTC) - :::::When I look at the actual template, I see that though a single line was attempted, there were too many contestants, so the line spilled over into another below it. Don't look at the template as though you were editing it. Look at the template that everyone else sees it. I know you try to do on one line, but it spills over into another, leaving Wendy in her own line. Now do you understand what I'm saying? -The Wing Dude, Musical Extraordinaire (talk) 16:30, 21 March 2011 (UTC) - ::::::Yes, but you should leave it if it goes onto another line because it doesn't fit into the box. --MSalmon (talk) 17:35, 21 March 2011 (UTC)"

What I was trying to say to him was that the template Template:Dancing with the Stars (Season 12) has the contestants listed in two lines even though it was meant to be one. As it stands, there is one line with many Wikilinks (11 or 12 I think) and one line with 1. I think format-wise, 2 lines that are as even as they can be would be best. When I see the template as it is now, I think that the name on the bottom line is special somehow, but she's just like the other names.

I would've gone to third opinion on this, but this conversation wasn't on the template's talk page.

Any thoughts? -The Wing Dude, Musical Extraordinaire (talk) 02:32, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

References for date pages
Need some ideas on how existing pages about events in particular years (ie, 341 BC, see talk page) will be populated with references. There many such pages, probably all with interesting tidbits of info, but seriously lacking references.

It requires a large-scale approach. What do we do about it? No smart-arse comments, please, about 'why doncha add the refs yerself', because I'm not currently serving a life prison sentence with nothing else to do.

Regards Peter S Strempel  &#124;  Talk   06:06, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Lyndon LaRouche ideology section
There is a dispute at Lyndon LaRouche on how best to present an aspect of LaRouche's ideology. Would any editors be available to read through the following two versions of the "History as a struggle between Platonism and Aristotelianism" section and provide feedback as to which one they prefer?


 * History as a struggle between Platonism and Aristotelianism, version dd. 6 March
 * History as a struggle between Platonism and Aristotelianism, version dd. 25 March

Thanks. -- JN 466  09:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:Hungary–Slovakia relations
Hi! There seems to have been a rather heated edit war over at Hungary–Slovakia relations over whether the article should include information about the relationship between Hungary and Czechoslovakia. It looks like an RFC was opened, so I hope other editors could weigh in. Forgive me if this is the wrong place to post this, and feel free to tell me if there's somewhere this notice would be more helpful. Thanks!--Yaksar (let's chat) 20:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Steve Clark on the list of Gibson Players
List_of_Gibson_players is a page with a list of players of Gibson guitars. Some editors feel strongly that he meets the listed criteria (certainly more so than other players on the list), and some editors do not.

There has been a discussion on the talk page which isn't getting to an amicable resolution, and could perhaps do with some outside influence and advice?  Heywoodg 20:31, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

WWII Sorrento
So you report the Hotel Excelsior was bombed to ruins in April 1945. Check your calendar and I think you will find the allies were way north of sorrento in April 45. What a terrible waste of time for this misinformation you publish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.149.222.183 (talk) 05:10, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

What to do re Wikmedia-associated cheesecake pic at Fan service?
Resolved, see bottom of thread. Herostratus (talk) 18:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to go with this, but seek advice. The short version: the image shown here is in the article Fan service, it indicates that the Wikimedia Foundation is somehow associated with fan service, and since that's not true, it shouldn't be in the article. I haven't had much luck convincing the denizens of this particular article on that, though.

Here's the long version. We do know for certain neither Wikipe-tan nor individual loose puzzle pieces are copyrighted by the Foundation or any entity. Neither Wikipe-tan nor individual loose puzzle pieces are registered trademarks of the Foundation or any entity.

After that it gets a little fuzzy and a lot hangs on one's interpretation of "derived". I do see that the logo from which the puzzle pieces are (IMO) derived is copyrighted by the Foundation:. This Foundation document says that "[N]o derivative of the Wikimedia logo can be published without prior approval from the Foundation".

Trademarks are usually registered, but there is such a concept as an "unregistered" trademark. (R) or ® represents a registered trademark and (TM) or ™ an unregistered trademark. I have no idea how an unregistered trademark is considered a trademark, but though IANAL I would assume it is through use and acceptance. The article Unregistered trade mark says that "In the United States, registration... is not required to obtain rights in a trademark. An unregistered mark may still receive common law trademark rights". The Lanham Act proscribes trademark dilution; whether that comes into play here I can't say, and so forth. It's complicated, I guess.

I don't know the exact legal meaning of "derivative" or "publish" but just using the plain English meanings, I think it's pretty clear that the puzzle pieces are clearly from the logo. Right? I suppose it could be argued (and has been, on the article talk page) that the puzzle pieces are not a "derivative of the Wikimedia logo" but just some random puzzle pieces that, by coincidence, Wikipe-tan happens to sport. However, that would be pretty transparently disingenuous, I think.

This Foundation document says "We encourage the use of the Wikimedia Marks [for entities] to show their association with the Foundation and its projects...", which raises the question, To what extent is the Wikimedia Foundation associated with fan service, or at any rate is willing to be perceived or considered as associated with fan service? "To a pretty small extent" would be my guess.

Anyway... I would say this: a lot of people, upon seeing the image, would likely be put in the mind of "Oh, it's the Wikipedia Girl!" or "Oh, look, the Wikipedia puzzle pieces!" or something. Right? I don't know about the legal terms, but "thing that is likely to be taken some fraction of reasonable people as being associated with a particular entity" would likely be considered a "mark", I guess. IANAL.

As a thought experiment: if the girl's headpieces were the American Airlines logo instead, would that be OK? Alright, that would be a copyright issue, but suppose the headpieces were not copyrighted or registered but did lead people to think "Ah! American Airlines!". Would that be OK? I wouldn't think so, especially since it's a fan service picture. I don't see the difference between American Airlines and the Wikimedia Foundation here, or why the Foundation should be treated with less consideration.

I would think that this is a pretty clear-cut case, and we should certainly err on the side of caution, just as we would do for American Airlines or any other entity. However, I'm not sure exactly where to go with this. I'm not really getting anywhere with the people who populate the article's talk page. Herostratus (talk) 04:56, 2 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I see that you are continuing your forum shopping since you were not able to gain a consensus on either the article's talk page or an ANI to have the image remove the and was unsuccessful in having the image deleted from Commons. —Farix (t &#124; c) 19:42, 2 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Herostratus just Drop the stick already! Wikipedia consensus is against you, commons consensus is against you , there is no need to take this anywhere else as it now appears to be in bad faith. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:21, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually refuting -- or even addressing -- the arguments would be preferable to name calling. An accusation of bad faith is a pretty serious charge. I am not forum shopping but simply moving up the dispute resolution ladder, and I'm not done. Herostratus (talk) 07:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the use of the image is original research. The artist Kasuga did not indicate that this image was fan service, nor did anyone else who was in a position of reliable source. Binksternet (talk) 12:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree with Binksternet. -- JN 466  00:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


 * How is it possible for a Wikimedia project to infringe on a Wikimedia Foundation trademark? -- Kraftlos  (Talk | Contrib) 11:53, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * It's entirely possible. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and thus a publication like any other, for these purposes. That we are an arm of the Foundation is not actually very important for these purposes. We have permission to use Foundation marks for illustrating articles for which they are directly appropriate - for instance, if (for some reason) we had an article Wikipe-tan this image could be used, I think. But we couldn't use the Wikipedia logo to illustrate the article Globe for instance. At least, I'm pretty sure that's how it works; IANAL. Anyway I have request in to the Foundation to clarify this. Herostratus (talk) 00:34, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment Additional talk (made before the creation of this page) can be found here Talk:Fan service. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 01:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I did get a reply from a Foundation legal person, which in its entirety was:
 * ''"Generally, per our trademark policy, you are not supposed to produce modified versions of any of the Wikipedia trademarks. However, this usage could arguably be considered as fair use."

This is somewhat equivocal ("arguably be considered"), but that is typical and proper for a lawyer to do absent exhaustive research, and so I think it's safe to say the Foundation probably doesn't have a problem with using this image in this way. So nevermind. Herostratus (talk) 18:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Franklin child prostitution ring allegations
This is only the latest dispute and editors have tried to work with Phoenix and Winslow despite his aggressive attitude, threats and using OR to support his viewpoint for more than three months (see Talk). He has been warned about this behaviour several times but after a final attempt at resolving P&Ws concerns he is now indicating his unwillingness to accept anything but a unanimous consensus for any edit made by anyone other than himself which basically will result in an article that reflects a single editors viewpoint. In regards to the current dispute, the article should not focus on a single aspect of the story to the exclusion of others. The embezzlement case and the Bonacci lawsuit are both major parts of the overall scandal that all RS sources cover in connection to the allegations. As usual P&W exaggerates to support his view by implying almost 1/2 the article was devoted to the embezzlement and Bonacci sections. In the "wordy" Apostle12 version that P&W objected to, those two sections made up 16% of the article which is not 1/2 of the article as P&W implies and not the "mountain of WP:WEIGHT" he claims. I reverted Apostle12 myself to the earlier page and requested in Talk that we discuss edits to avoid P&Ws edit warring but he continues to revert to his prefered text and now suggests other editors create new articles for those sections so we only need to have links to them in this one. As P&Ws editing is basically content disputed by a single editor rather than stricly abusive behaviour I would appreciate any advice on how to proceed if this dispute resolution fails to resolve P&Ws problematic editing. Wayne (talk) 05:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Whenever WLRoss describes what's going on at that page, the reader really needs to seek out the other half of the truth. Here's the other half. There are only two or three people actively editing the article and I'm one of them. For such a small group, how does one achieve consensus without unanimity?


 * The sections of the article that WLRoss has so vigorously tried to expand are precisely the sections that provide fuel and oxygen to conspiracy theorists and political extremists, including Lyndon LaRouche and his less than completely rational followers, Anton Chaitkin and Webster Tarpley. It should come as no surprise that all three of these gentlemen figure prominently in the second half of the article, as the legend grew through their efforts.


 * The title of the article is "Franklin child prostitution ring allegations." The subject allegations, according to the grand jury (which conducted an exhaustive investigation), were "a carefully crafted hoax." None of the accused was ever indicted for any crime related to child prostitution. However, here's what happened to the four accusers:


 * Two of them recanted their accusations.
 * A third was indicted for perjury due to his allegations, but was found incompetent to stand trial.
 * The fourth, Alisha Owen, was convicted on eight counts of perjury and served 4-1/2 years in prison.


 * Conspiracy theorists like to tell the lurid tale of a grand jury investigation, and then a perjury trial that were sabotaged to protect the alleged child prostitution ring. These alleged flaws at trial were reviewed by an appellate court and the guilty verdicts against Alisha Owen were affirmed. The prosecutor was not fired, the judge was not removed from the bench, the Supreme Court did not choose to review or reverse the decision, and the governor did not grant Alisha Owen clemency in any way. The results of the grand jury and the perjury trial have to be treated as the majority opinion, and the claims of a flawed trial and flawed grand jury proceeding must be treated as either a minority or fringe opinion, per WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT and WP:UNDUE.


 * The conspiracy theory aspect of the story, the embezzlement case, the Bonacci lawsuit and the tales being told by LaRouche, Tarpley, Chaitkin and others, are not being excluded as WLRoss claims. They take up the entire second half of the article. Far more space and weight than what Wikipedia normally provides for a minority/fringe opinion. And WLRoss still wants more space and more weight. Again, the name of this article is "Franklin child prostitution ring allegations," not "Franklin embezzlement case" or "Paul Bonacci lawsuit." The overwhelming majority of reliable sources focus on the child prostitution allegations, their failure to produce an indictment, and the subsequent unraveling of the hoax and perjury conviction of Alisha Owen. That is where the lion's share of the weight belongs.


 * WLRoss would prefer to employ an unreliable source written by so-called "investigative journalist" Nick Bryant, as the principal source for the entire article. The fact that no reputable publishing company would touch Bryant's book speaks volumes. Instead, it was printed by a tiny, fringe publishing company whose mission statement practically screams, "Conspiracy Theories R Us." I suggested taking it to WP:RSN, which WLRoss describes as a "threat." At RSN, the previously uninvolved editors who reviewed this situation unanimously agreed that Bryant is an unreliable source and cannot be used. Failing to get the support he needed at RSN, WLRoss took this matter to WP:NPOVN; failing there as well, he has now washed up on the shores of CNB. A clear case of forum shopping if ever there was one. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 17:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The reply Phoenix and Winslow just made is a good example of his editing behaviour."Quote:'The sections of the article that WLRoss has so vigorously tried to expand are precisely the sections that provide fuel and oxygen to conspiracy theorists and political extremists, including Lyndon LaRouche and his less than completely rational followers, Anton Chaitkin and Webster Tarpley. It should come as no surprise that all three of these gentlemen figure prominently in the second half of the article, as the legend grew through their efforts.'" The reason these "gentlemen" figure prominently is that Phoenix and Winslow insists they be given prominence and expanded their mention. I had never actually heard of LaRouche before reading this article and have yet to read anything by them. I suspect their involvement is rather minimal as they appear to have only printed it in the Executive Intelligence Review magazine. Regardless of their involvement, it is disingenuous to block reliably sourced relevant and factual content because it may "provide fuel and oxygen to conspiracy theorists." The last paragraph of Phoenix and Winslows argument is nothing but a straw man argument using outright lies and exaggeration to support it.
 * The material Phoenix and Winslow disputes is actually taken from the court documents themselves and the findings of the Nebraska Franklin committee, all of which are government instrumentalities, so that what Phoenix and Winslow says are "claims of a flawed trial and flawed grand jury proceeding" have considerably more weight than if an investigative reporter had made the claim. This disputed content is mostly names and findings by the judge. In fact only last night Phoenix and Winslow deleted two sentences: King was later declared mentally incompetent to stand trial and sentenced to a 5-year term on each charge to be served consecutively in a Colorado federal prison, replacing it with he was later sentenced to three consecutive 5-year prison terms and he deleted [judge] Urbon stated that King had been served the court summons in prison and could have responded... using the edit comment "It's longer. It adds unnecessary WP:WEIGHT to the civil case. The criminal cases are more important."
 * Nick Bryant is NOT used as a source in the article so should not be used to support his case here.
 * A mission statement that says they publish "well-researched and well-written books with but one key “defect”: a challenge to official history" is not neccessarily screaming "Conspiracy Theories R Us."
 * At the RSN, the uninvolved editors DID NOT unanimously agree that Bryant was an unreliable source. Little more than a majority of the editors agreed that Trine Day was an unreliable source, and that was after Phoenix and Winslow left messages on other editors talk pages to get more involvement after originally failing to get consensus. Despite several requests, NONE clearly commented on whether Bryant himself was an unreliable source. The proposed edits using Trine Day were only Bryants claims that were also supported by primary sources that were not online (his book provided photocopies of the primary sources).
 * Phoenix and Winslow stated, Quote:Failing to get the support he needed at RSN, WLRoss took this matter to WP:NPOVN; failing there as well, he has now washed up on the shores of CNB. The NPOVN was a totally different subject than that of the RSN and the result was a "win" NOT a failure with Phoenix and Winslow being the only editor voicing support for his view.
 * This CN being on a separate subject from that of both the RSN and NPOVN negates any claim of "forum shopping" and in fact are attempts to get Phoenix and Winslow to work with other editors and hopefully modify his behaviour.
 * I never described going to RSN as a "threat." In fact, replies by Phoenix and Winslow in Talk usually include some variation of "take your argument to the noticeboard" if you dont like my edit, so isn't that an invitation? What I am describing as threats are the following: "I am reverting all this garbage" "I grow weary of dealing with people who seek to compromise the integrity of this encyclopedia" "I will not apologize for stopping you, and protecting the Wikipedia project from you" "I have also refrained from reporting you at WP:ANEW and WP:ANI, which is an enormous courtesy; if you think I've been discourteous, wait till you've been kicked around and insulted by those people" "You already got your second blockquote from the Franklin Committee report. Take what you can get and be done" which coupled with his aggressive language are more offensive than they first appear. When he was asked to modify his behaviour he replied, quote: "Report me to WP:WQA."  Wayne (talk) 09:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


 * WLRoss and his partner, Apostle12, have repeatedly edit warred in favor of the use of an unreliable source (Bryant) as the principal source for the article. They have repeatedly edit warred in favor of presenting the minority/fringe/conspiracy theory viewpoint (the grand jury was compromised, the jury trial was rigged, Lawrence King was engaged in child prostitution and ritual human sacrifice, etc.) as the majority opinion, or at least equal to the grand jury finding on the child prostitution allegations ("a carefully crafted hoax") and the eight jury verdicts against eight-time perjuror Alisha Owen (guilty as hell). Because they have chosen not to reverse or modify these findings, or take any action to mitigate them, these findings are supported by the Nebraska state legislature, the Nebraska appellate court and supreme court, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the governor of Nebraska. Therefore they must be treated as the majority opinion per WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT and WP:UNDUE.
 * WLRoss and his partner have repeatedly edit warred in favor of inserting the words "with minors" into a description of sexual activity — activity which "probably" happened according to the grand jury, but never involved minors. At worst, it involved young men in their late teens, past the legal age of consent. Those two little words, "with minors" are worth their weight in cyanide. They are pure poison. They change a decription of behavior from merely scandalous (sex between unmarried consenting adults) to a Class X felony (sex with children). The person they are falsely describing as having sex with children is a living person. Those two words are completely unsupported by any reliable source. I have repeatedly deleted them and either WLRoss or his partner in this endeavor, Apostle12, has repeatedly added them back in.
 * He distorted what really went on at RSN because there was very little response at first, and because he did not ever achieve consensus. As the person seeking to add or restore material, the burden of proof was on WLRoss per WP:V, not on me. Therefore I never had to achieve consensus. In order to make the results perfectly clear, I solicited opinions from several other editors whom I had never seen or spoken with before, but they appeared to be regulars at RSN and therefore would be knowledgeable about WP:RS requirements. Each and every one of them sided with me, and against WLRoss.
 * He described NPOVN as a "win" but the only person supporting him there, besides his partisan desire to identify Lawrence King as a Republican in the article lede (which was supported by Will Beback, a previously involved editor), was none other than his good friend Apostle12. No previously uninvolved editor came to support WLRoss at all. None of the many, many other edits WLRoss wants to make received any support at all from anyone, other than Apostle12.
 * WLRoss claims, regarding LaRouche, Tarpley and Chaitkin, "they appear to have only printed [their conspiracy theory] in the Executive Intelligence Review magazine." Clearly he is not fully familar with the history of this scandal or this Wikipedia article, since the article has consistently mentioned a book by Tarpley and Chaitkin, packed with conspiracy theories from cover to cover, called The Unauthorized Biography of George W. Bush.
 * I lost my patience with these two, and I have repeatedly apologized to the community for that. They aren't just POV-pushing. They're POV-pushing on behalf of a conspiracy theory and an act of libel. They violated WP:BLP repeatedly, and exposed Wikipedia to the threat of civil liability, not to mention yet another scandal. They persistently misrepresent facts, developments in this discussion, my conduct, and more importantly our most vital Wikipedia policies. I respectfully ask any editor here to kindly express your opinion on this matter, and I await your reply. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 14:35, 8 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I am no longer editing the article in question because editor Phoenix and Winslow repeatedly makes claims that are false, he refuses to work collaboratively with other editors, and he relentlessly asserts ownership.
 * Since I and the other editors have reminded him on multiple occasions that what he writes in these pages is often false, and since we have amply demonstrated exactly why what he writes is false, his continued expression of such assertions becomes evidence of bad faith. For a long time I assumed good faith on Phoenix and Winslow's part; regrettably, I can no longer do so.
 * The above statement is quite typical of Phoenix and Winslow's distortions. On multiple occasions Phoenix and Winslow refers to WLRoss and me as partners ("WLRoss and his partner, Apostle12","WL Ross and his partner", "none other than his good friend Apostle12", "either WLRoss or his partner in this endeavor, Apostle12"), as if to imply that WLRoss and I are somehow in collusion, or operating as a "tag team."  This is untrue: Only three editors are currently active in writing this article; that two of us find Phoenix and Winslow's attitude intolerable does not make us "partners" or even "friends."  I have worked collaboratively on this article with WLRoss, sometimes agreeing with his edits, sometimes not. I have never colluded with him.  I contacted him once to inquire how we might work more productively with Phoenix and Winslow, then I contacted him a final time to complain that I could no longer tolerate working on this article because of Phoenix and Winslow's attitude.
 * Particularly disturbing is Phoenix and Winslow's continuing untrue assertion that the phrase "with minors" has been repeatedly added to the article. This phrase was added before Bryant was eliminated as a source, and it is amply supported by Bryant.  Phoenix and Winslow did a massive revert, referring to the series of associated edits as "garbage."  The material was reinstated, then Phoenix and Winslow reverted again.  When Bryant was eliminated as a source, Phoenix and Winslow, for the first time, pinpointed the phrase "with minors" as unsupported by the remaining sources, which was correct.  This fact was acknowledged, the phrase was removed without contest, and no attempt was made, either by WLRoss or me, to reinsert it. Never, not once, much less "repeatedly."
 * I have never before made a "bad faith" accusation, and I have never before felt that another editor should be sanctioned for bad faith. I am making that accusation now with respect to editor Phoenix and Winslow. Apostle12 (talk) 08:32, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * To clarify a claim Phoenix and Winslow has just made."'these findings are supported by the Nebraska state legislature, the Nebraska appellate court and supreme court, the U.S. Supreme Court, and the governor of Nebraska. Therefore they must be treated as the majority opinion'"While members may have their own opinions, the findings can not be said to be supported by the Nebraska state legislature as the investigative committee they appointed condemned them. It is also erronous to include the Nebraska and U.S. Supreme Courts as they made no rulings on the case. The Nebraska Supreme Court did have a peripheral involvement in that they appointed the judge for Owens perjury appeal hearing at the request of Owens lawyer and they also ordered that the Grand Jury findings be removed from the official records for "procedural violations." While the findings may be a "majority" opinion, the findings of other courts and legally constituted committees can not be classified as "fringe" and the article should not exclude mention of these opinions as Phoenix and Winslow has proposed. Wayne (talk) 17:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Phoenix and Winslow also stated: "the article has consistently mentioned a book by Tarpley and Chaitkin, packed with conspiracy theories from cover to cover." The article is six years old, the mention was first included two years ago and was a single sentence until a year ago. As far as I can tell, book extracts have never been published anywhere and nothing from it has been used in the article and despite not having read it I dont believe it should be, yet P&W insists it be given a prominent mention in the lead as well as article body. I have no idea why he considers it so important. Wayne (talk) 18:17, 9 April 2011 (UTC)


 * While members may have their own opinions, the findings can not be said to be supported by the Nebraska state legislature as the investigative committee they appointed condemned them. The committee consisted of five members. The Nebraska state legislature consists of 49 members. The 44 members who were not on the committee did not pass a resolution condemning the findings of the grand jury.


 * It is also erronous to include the Nebraska and U.S. Supreme Courts as they made no rulings on the case. They could have heard the case but they declined. Supreme Courts have the option to do that. If the case had demonstrated some gross miscarriage of justice, I'm sure that either the Nebraska Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court (or both) would have heard the case.


 * they also ordered that the Grand Jury findings be removed from the official records for "procedural violations." I'm sure you can cite a reliable source for that, Wayne. Please do so.


 * While the findings may be a "majority" opinion ... There is no "may" or "maybe" about it. Those findings are definitely the majority opinion. Thanks for finally recognizing that fact.


 * ... the findings of other courts and legally constituted committees can not be classified as "fringe" ... Please don't mislead other editors. No other court made any findings, and there was only one committee of five people, so don't call it "committees." By the way, in stark contrast to the five people on the Franklin Committee there were 23 people on the grand jury who called it a "carefully crafted hoax," and 12 people on the trial jury who convicted Alisha Owen on eight counts of perjury, beyond a reasonable doubt, in addition to the 44 members of the Nebraska legislature who were not on the Franklin Committee and chose to do nothing.


 * ... and the article should not exclude mention of these opinions as Phoenix and Winslow has proposed. What you're engaged in here is called a strawman argument, Wayne. I have never suggested that this minority/fringe opinion should be excluded. I just don't believe it should be given any more weight in the article than it already has, which is about half of the article.


 * ... nothing from it has been used in the article and despite not having read it I dont believe it should be, yet P&W insists it be given a prominent mention in the lead as well as article body. I have no idea why he considers it so important. Conspiracy theorists Lyndon LaRouche and his less than completely rational disciples, Anton Chaitkin and Webster Tarpley, are all notable enough to have Wikipedia biographies. LaRouche, in fact, has a very lengthy Wikipedia biography. Nick Bryant is not and does not. Clicking on these links to the Chaitkin and Tarpley biographies leads us to mentions of the "unauthorized biography of George W. Bush." Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 09:00, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

You are making my case for me.
 * members who were not on the committee did not pass a resolution. Exactly why you cant claim they sided with the Grand Jury. They chose the committee to decide on their behalf.
 * They could have heard the case but they declined...If the case had demonstrated some gross miscarriage of justice, I'm sure that either the Nebraska Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court (or both) would have heard the case. They "declined" so you cant use them. "If" is WP:OR, without significant public pressure to do so, the Supreme Court rarely gets involved if state prosecutors have decided no miscarriage occured.
 * I'm sure you can cite a reliable source for that, Wayne. Please do so. It's mentioned in Decamp and Bryants books and we cant use them, but no one has disputed the fact.
 * Please don't mislead other editors. No other court made any findings. The Civil court case you want to exclude made a finding.
 * there were 23 people on the grand jury who called it a "carefully crafted hoax. Only 12 were needed to make the finding. A juror admitted during the trial to being close friends with one of the accused (its in the court transcript) and the jury foreman had serious conflict of interest issues, having earlier had pedophilia charges dropped after his employer, who was on the Franklin credit union board, paid damages to the victims. Two jurors later signed affadavits claiming the jurors were manipulated (mention of which P&W deleted). The jury may have made the correct finding but it is not unassailable.
 * I have never suggested that this minority/fringe opinion should be excluded. Quote: "I encourage you to create separate articles for those topics and write as much as you choose to write about them. And we can link them here. But this article is principally about the child prostitution ring allegations, and the fact that they turned out to be a "carefully crafted hoax." I agree, the article is "principally" about the allegations but "the fact that they turned out to be a carefully crafted hoax" is only one significant opinion, not the only one.
 * Conspiracy theorists Lyndon LaRouche and his less than completely rational disciples...are all notable enough to have Wikipedia biographies. And how does this make what they say notable for the lead in an unrelated article? Wayne (talk) 16:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Nobody's paying attention to your logical fallacies, misunderstandings of the law, misrepresentations of judicial and legislative procedure, and other inaccuracies Wayne. Please stop. The majority opinion is that Lawrence King and all the other victims of this unbelievably vicious hoax are innocent of the child prostitution charges, and remain innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt; that the one default judgment specifically avoided any judgment on the merits of the case; and that Alisha Owen is guilty as hell of eight counts of perjury. You cite alleged "facts" and claim that no one has denied them. That's not how it works here at Wikipedia, where you have an affirmative burden under the terms of WP:V and WP:RS which you failed to sustain. The FACT that it was a "carefully crafted hoax" isn't "only one significant opinion," it is THE majority opinion and Wikipedia policy requires that it must be given weight, space and section header accordingly. The minority/fringe opinion is a minority/fringe opinion, and giving it half of the article space is already far too much per WP:WEIGHT. Wikipedia policy forbids giving it any more space. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 17:32, 10 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually I'm quite sure lots of people are paying attention Phoenix and Winslow. Most especially they are  paying attention to your dismissive attitude.  Telling another editor to stop presenting perfectly logical arguments (even if preceeded by "please"), insisting that facts are not facts (though I agree we lack sufficient sourcing to include the fact that the Nebraska Supreme Court ordered that the Grand Jury findings be removed from the official records for procedural violations), asserting that Wikipedia policy forbids giving any more space to opposing viewpoints (as though you are the final arbiter of such matters)--these displays of arrogance, coupled with disruptive editing, are exactly why many of us have chosen not to participate in editing this article.  We are indeed paying attention, especially as your tone becomes more strident, and your voice louder, as you continue to defend the indefensible.  Apostle12 (talk) 19:00, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Take a break
Whew! You guys need to take a break. A request has been made before this noticeboard, that I am unsure about, and a heated back and forth debate has just been brought here from the talk page. This is not the place to carry on a battle. I haven't even been able to look at anything because of the verbiage, and I am sure this will be a problem for other editors, if any are interested in even being involved. In the absence of any BLP or copyright violations I would suggest a cool down period. Otr500 (talk) 02:13, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

This has been ongoing for several months with several short "cool down" periods. P&W has been the only dissenting editor of the four that have been editing the page recently, the other three do not always agree with each other but either work out a compromise or leave the edit out. The text P&W objects to is reliably sourced and everyone has avoided anything that could be seen as unduely "conspiratorial." The disputed edits, if P&W had left them in, would add only 2% to the article size at most and are primarily concerning the Committee findings and Civil case. Other editors have tried to address P&Ws concerns without much success. Basically his argument is that the article should not include anything that reduces the weight of the Grand Jury findings or implicates Republicans. The main problem is that P&W insists that with only four editors, consensus must be unanimous. We just want him to work with the other editors as he does occassionally make valid points. Hopefully we will get more comment here from uninvolved editors. Wayne (talk) 14:54, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I apologise for commenting more than should normally be neccessary but Phoenix and Winslow keeps making statements containing detail beyond what is needed to support his case that are also often incorrect so I felt it needed to be addressed for editors not familiar with the case. I'll make one more statement that hopefully lays out the problem before taking that cool down :-).
 * Again, Wayne has inaccurately described what's going on here. Will Beback only edits the article occasionally and has not stated a position on the many expansions of minority opinion that Wayne has advocated. Generally Apostle12 shares Wayne's belief that the minority opinion deserves more space and weight than the majority opinion, but Apostle12 recently announced he is no longer editing the article. I'm all for taking a break from this article, as I've said, I just don't have the time to baby-sit this article but these two are persistently editing in favor of giving the minority/fringe opinion greater and greater weight, and violating several Wikipedia policies as collateral damage, notably WP:RS, WP:BLP and WP:V. Even if these two had consensus, policy is more important than consensus. During the course of the article's six-year history, the phrase "carefully crafted hoax" has been added and removed no less than 11 times. "Conspiracy theory" or "conspiracy theorist" has been added and removed no less than nine times. Mentions of Alisha Owen's perjury conviction have also been added and removed multiple times. Generally, the same people who want to remove or minimize "carefully crafted hoax" and the perjury conviction (even though they are both court findings and have the force of law) also object to characterizing the minority opinion as "conspiracy theory," and prefer to present it as the majority opinion. Accounts that have been banned from Wikipedia such as Fairness And Accuracy For All share this position with Wayne and Apostle12. I make no accusations, but I find it peculiar. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 21:01, 11 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not accept Phoenix and Winslow's assessment that I believe "the minority opinion deserves more space and weight than the majority opinon." In fact I see no way accurately to ascertain which point of view might be considered "minority" or "majority." Following the publication of the Franklin Committee's final report, which condemned the Douglas County Grand Jury findings, polls indicated that 70% of Nebraskans agreed with the Franklin Committee's assessment--perhaps this offers some hint as to which might be considered the "majority" point of view.  My personal opinion is that both points of view should enjoy thorough and accurate exposition in the article so that readers may decide for themselves.


 * In addition, I am quite sure that neither Wayne nor I have ever advocated the removal, or minimizing, of Alisha Owen's perjury conviction. At most we have advocated the addition of relevant facts regarding her trial and conviction.


 * Phoenix and Winslow has, finally, backed away from his early insinuations that all those who are concerned about the Franklin case must be "conspiracy theorists." Even more disturbing were his previous insinuations that those who are concerned about the Franklin  case must be disciples of Lyndon LaRouche.


 * Now Phoenix and Winslow levels yet more insinuations. For a fellow who claims to be "mak(ing) no accusations," he lays down some very heavy insinuations regarding "Fairness and Accuracy for All."  Perhaps Phoenix and Winslow might profit from familiarizing himself with the terms "ad hominem attacks," "guilt by implied association," and  "covert hostility"


 * For the record I have never even heard of "Fairness and Accuracy for All," and I can categorically state that I have never had anything to do with this account. How about you, Wayne, since Phoenix and Winslow's insinuations were aimed at both of us?  Anything "peculiar" going on here?Apostle12 (talk) 03:43, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Disruption
Would you guys please look at the amount of useless comments since my suggestion. This is still not the proper location to continue battles. I will comment on the article talk page. Otr500 (talk) 09:29, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * You have to admit that it is difficult not to reply when Phoenix and Winslow continually exaggerates the nature of the edits and by implication accuses the current editors of making POV edits that were actually made before any of us started editing the page. Wayne (talk) 14:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Not to respond to a serious allegation is to imply acquiescence. I will not up the ante, however I feel it is necessary to respond. Apostle12 (talk) 15:38, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

It seems we have gotten a little sidetracked from the actual content in dispute and I can see that it is looking confusing as to what actually are the disputed edits. The following is the content (two sections) that is being discussed here that we should be focusing on. The edits disputed (and deleted) by Phoenix and Winslow as being WP:FRINGE, WP:WEIGHT and WP:UNDUE are in bold text. I have also placed this on the talk page to aid discussion as Otr500 has suggested above.

[Lawrence King convictions] Lawrence King faced 40 charges relating to the collapse of the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union and the embezzlement of $38 million from the Franklin credit union. In 1991 the court accepted a plea bargain, dropping 37 charges with King admitting guilt to three. King was later declared mentally incompetent to stand trial and sentenced to three consecutive 5-year prison terms. According to the New York Times, Democratic Nebraska state senator Ernie Chambers stated King's involvement in the Franklin scandal was "just the tip of an iceberg, and he's not in it by himself." The Times also reported Chambers claimed to have heard credible reports of "boys and girls, some of them from foster homes, who had been transported around the country by airplane to provide sexual favors, for which they were rewarded." But the grand jury never called King as a witness, and he was never indicted or convicted for the alleged sexual crimes against children.

[Bonacci Case] On February 1, 1991, former Nebraska State Senator John DeCamp filed a civil suit on behalf of Paul Bonacci. The suit named Lawrence King, the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha, '''the Omaha World-Herald, now retired Omaha World-Herald publisher Harold W. Andersen, the Omaha School District, former Omaha Police Chief Robert Wadham, and others. The Bonacci suit alleged that King and the other named defendants had forced Bonacci to participate in a child-prostitution ring that involved satanic rituals and orgies with other boys and girls.''' The federal judge removed the diocese from the lawsuit, ruling that the archdiocese could not be expected to "know what individual priests had been doing" in Boys Town and an appeal against the removal failed. The other named defendants were cleared, leaving only King to stand trial.

Bonacci won a default judgment of $800,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages in the civil action against King. King was in prison at the time, having been sentenced in June 1991 following his conviction in the criminal case. Urbom stated that King had been served the court summons in prison and could have responded, but that there was "no indication he [King] wanted to dispute this." The judge declined to consider the merits of the petition's allegations, stating that the failure of King's attorney to respond to the charges "has made those allegations true as to him."

The default judgment was awarded February 14, 1999 by U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom. An appeal of the default judgment was filed, but was dropped in January 2000. King was released from prison April 10, 2001. Wayne (talk) 16:19, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for clarifying. I believe the edited material should be reinstated as it is relevant and accurately sourced. Apostle12 (talk) 19:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I'lll address this on the article Talk page, since the one uninvolved editor said that's where it should be resolved. Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 19:54, 13 April 2011 (UTC)