Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive BH

Obfuscation
Take a look at the image to the right. Is obfuscation, via RTL, ROT13, excessive and roundabout use of, etc., appropriate for the Wikipedia project and in the spirit of the GFDL? Note that your opinion may vary based on whether the obfuscation is occurring in User space, Template space, or article space (though I, personally, do not feel it's valid for it to vary). Perhaps most importantly, is a sufficiently-obfuscated page fundamentally different from "stealth protection"? Jouster (  whisper  ) 17:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This might be besides the point of the discussion you would like, but I can't reproduce that screenshot; I see perfectly valid templates that aren't called in obfuscated manner. I haven't looked at the templates themselves. SamBC 17:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It depends on your browser's ability to support RtL text. Feel free to ignore the actual user page referenced by the image; it's just used as an example and might change at its user's whim, anyway.  The image, and what it portrays, are what I'm concerned about, along with the other examples (ROT13, crazy template hijinks, &amp;entity; codes, etc.).  Jouster  (  whisper  ) 18:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, so my initial gut reaction... if this is occurring outside the user space, then it's a very bad thing contrary to the point of wikis in general, and definitely wikipedia in particular. In the user space... meh. I'm not sure if a general point could be made for the user space, I mean, I'd prefer obfuscation not happen at all, but if it's used in the user space for any purpose other than to get away with things that are bad in themselves, I can't get worked up about it. I'll try to put a more coherent thought together later, preferably after more input from others. SamBC 19:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, at the risk of being harsh, how is the User space so very different? Users don't own their own space; it's there as an extension of the Encyclopedia.  Even if they did, they very specifically and freely copyleft their contributions in both user and article space.  The point of the GNU and the open-source movement in general, from which cultures the GFDL arose, was to avoid receiving data that you could not modify as you saw fit.  After all, that's the only difference between an executable program and its source code—one is easy to edit, one is not.  With sufficient time, resources, and skill, you don't need the source code to modify a computer program; you can do it on the bare machine code.  Here, we're deliberately making the "source code" harder to edit, starting from the simplest measure of reversing the text order, and running up to the extreme measure of heavily-interlinked templates that literally encode the page source in, for example, ROT13.  Is there a fundamental difference between doing that and "compiling" the source code into nigh-unreadable machine code, as in a program?  Would not the ethos of open source—let alone those of Wikipedia, which promote world-wide-editable source—be then violated?
 * In summary, I find little excuse for there to be permission to vary from the absolute commandment of readability and editability in the name of vandalism prevention, let alone vanity. This seems like a cut-and-dried case to me.  Can you explain your reasoning for feeling otherwise?  Jouster  (  whisper  ) 02:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I guess one way to put it is that it's just as wrong, in an abstract objective moralaity, in every case, but it's less important, or less harmful (less wrong in a utilitarian sense), in user space. SamBC 13:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You've complained about my userpage too many times. You even have uploaded 4 pictures (and one on an external website) about how my CSS — when exactly positioned — ruined the site. It's time to move on. — «  A NIMUM  »  13:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, if this is a recurrent head-to-head between you two, how about you try to get someone else in to arbitrate or mediate or something? Jouster, if this is a real problem that this is just an example of, can we have more exapmles? SamBC 13:51, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Magnus is of the opinion that everything I do is part and parcel of my agenda to discredit him, or something. As for other examples, see, for sure, and presumably others as well.  I'd love to hear something on-topic from Magnus (like, for example, a defense of the merit of this type of encoding, since he apparently thinks it helps) rather than this continued belief that everything I do is about him.  Jouster  (  whisper  ) 14:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * And is that page another example of the rtl that doesn't show up in my browser, or is there a different complaint for that one? Apologies if this sounds suspicious, I'm just trying to figure out what the problem is supposed to be. SamBC 14:10, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * [[Image:AzaToth-RTL.PNG|right|150px]]No worries! Yes, it's another RTL obfuscation.  A little longer, too, so you can really get an idea how difficult it would be to edit it.  Jouster  (  whisper  ) 14:53, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * So, let's for a moment assume that I know nothing at all about RtL text on computers (I actually know a little, but let's just assume for now). How, exactly, would a user cause their user page source to look like that? What support is required in a browser for it to then look that, and what browsers have this support? If a user sees a page source like that and tries to edit it, will their browser edit box behave RtL as well? SamBC 15:11, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * "How, exactly, would a user cause their user page source to look like that?"
 * By adding the Unicode character for right-to-left text at the beginning of the text.
 * "What support is required in a browser for it to then look that, and what browsers have this support?"
 * RtL support, in general, is required; you can get kinda-crappy versions of it in older versions of browsers, but I've confirmed these changes are effective in FireFox 2.x and Internet Explorer 7.x. It's probably fair to suspect that most other modern browsers support at least some subset of the features these two do.
 * If a user sees a page source like that and tries to edit it, will their browser edit box behave RtL as well?
 * Yes, which can be very disorienting. Typing "Hi" on a RtL-formatted text input box, for example, will cause "H" to appear, and then an "i" to appear to its left, with the cursor coming to a rest at the left of the "i".  The Unicode RtL character does not display in the text box in either FireFox or IE, though you can copy the text out of the page into a "dumb" editor, like Windows' Notepad or extensions-disabled Vim, and remove it.  Copying it into a more-sophisticated editor will often result in that application (correctly, to be fair) deciding the text is RtL, and switching modes appropriately.  Jouster  (  whisper  ) 15:35, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Examples of obfuscation. Try to remove the red text from each.  Please revert to my version when you've succeeded (or given up!):
 * Simple (RtL): Example 1
 * Text spam: Example 2
 * Complex templating: Example 3
 * Extreme: Example 4
 * For each example, please indicate where/when you feel its use is appropriate, and feel free to add any thoughts you have. Jouster  (  whisper  ) 16:59, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I have to admit that the RtL thing still utterly boggles me, on several levels. In any case, I say that none of those are in any way appropriate, ever, just that it matters less in user space; it's still wrong. I would certainly support the principle of a policy against this, but I wouldn't expect or support its being persued heavily in userspace. SamBC 17:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability and Minor Article Sprawl
First, a personal note: I'm relatively new to wikipedia, although I've been reading all the policy I can find and taking up large amounts of time doing so, which might not be good for me personally, but that's beside the point (yes, I'm waffling, sorry about that). If there has been a general discussion on this somewhere, please direct me to it.

On to the actual point. I've now read most of the notability policies and guidelines I can find, at least the consensus-accepted ones. It seems to me that there are a number of wikimedia projects that advocate the creation of large numbers of articles of generally dubious notability. I've seen this recently with rail/subway stations (which seems to have been the subject of recuring debate), TV episodes, music albums, peers/peerages and baronets/baronetcies, and probably far more. It seems to me that, while there is seperate debate on many of these issues, it would be useful if, in as far as is possible, some sort of debate went on about this sort of thing generally, hopefully leading to some sort of consensus. Then, the specific cases could be debated/decided with reference to this more general consensus.

So, does this exist somewhere that I've missed, and if not, what do people think? SamBC 14:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I, myself, have not come across any debate of this size (then again, after three months I feel I have barely scratched the surface of all Wikipedia policies/guidelines). My best suggestion for you is to sit down, think out your proposal (what you want to do, change, how to enact it, what you wish to achieve, etc.) and be bold and start it. --Ozgod 13:34, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

A fuller debate has started up at Notability, below. Please post any responses there. SamBC 22:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Television episode notability
There are a rash of articles on Wikipedia aboout individual television episodes which will never meet notability guidelines, and thus do not warrant their own article. At Episode coverage taskforce we have been working on ways to encourage editors and contributors to provide relevant episode information on list or season pages, and use individual pages for notable episodes only. Consequently, we have expanded Episode guidelines to make them more helpful and explanatory, working on a few 'how to' project pages, and also developing a review process for problem pages. In the past, unnotable pages have been merged or redirected on sight, or left mouldering with unactioned clean-up tags. This proposal provides for a tagging of problem pages, encouraging improvement, and a process for review and action (as appropriate). Come and see Television article review process and add comments on the talk page. Gwinva 07:10, 22 June 2007 (UTC) All articles on Wikipedia must conform to WP:NOTABILITY. Just because something exists, or is seen by millions, does not mean it is automatically notable. I exist. Over my life, I will be seen by millions. Does that make me notable? Television might be an easily accessible medium, but that in no way determines that everything on it is notable. Gwinva 15:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Everyone knows the old Wikipedia adage, "If it's on TV, its per se notable." Now quit whining and go back to editing please. Gatorphat 03:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Most television episodes can be potentially watched by millions, and redistributed in some other country, attracting more notice, hence TV episodes are notable for being themselves.--Kylohk 21:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Please read over WP:N, WP:V, and WP:RS. This seems to be a really big problem with people. TTN 21:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Interesting comparison (between the TV and you) Rahk E✘ my disscussions | Who Is''' ]] 02:17, 30 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Bad comparison. You are accidently seen by millions over your life time. That is a world of difference from millions of people intentionally looking at you. I'll bet that you must be a notable person for certain if millions of people are intentionally looking at you! Mathmo Talk 11:11, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, poor analogy...But existing, and being watched (out of choice or otherwise) does not make something noteable. Being commented on by many (reliable sources) does (see WP:NOTABILITY).  There are thousands of programmes on television every day; no way will they all meet notability guidelines, since not enough people care enough about them to write about them (reviews, out-of-universe production and commentary information).  ALL articles on Wikipedia neet to assert their notability.  Most programmes have enough information to sustain 'list of' or season pages, but there is not enough real-world commentary to warrant articles on EVERY episode on EVERY programme.  SOME programmes will.  SOME episodes will.  Great..lets create good pages on those.  If they don't, then let's create good season and episode-list pages. Gwinva 13:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Not that I'm advocating their removal, but what is the justification of notability for the episode-list pages? But on the subject of the episode pages themselves: has anyone considered migrating the information on pages to be deleted rather than destroying it altogether?  There are wikis geared for this kind of information... and it would beat seeing it disappear.  --MikeMaller 19:51, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I say that if there is a "rash of articles" on something, contributed by people not trying to force some agenda, and it does not meet the notability guidelines, then it is the guidelines that are at fault. 208.76.104.133 08:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That arguement doesn't work, I'm afraid. Ever watched the speed with which articles are created at Special:Newpages?  An epidemic rather than a rash...  Wikipedia has guidelines about which pages should remain...and it must continue to do so if it is to remain an encyclopedia and not an  indiscriminate collection of information.  Other wikis exist for that purpose, but not Wikipedia. Gwinva 08:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd like to add in response to the top of this section that nothing is notable just for being itself. 81.104.175.145 21:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Perhaps another way of stating this, that people might like to think about, maybe bring up elsewhere... in most categories of 'thing', should a particular only be considered notable if it is notable among such things? Obviously nations, currencies, heads of state, and so on can't meet this test, but otherwise it seems appropriate. Admittedly it fails to be objective, at least easily, but it has a certain feeling of sense, to my mind. SamBC 22:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Google Earth placemark question
What is the accepted policy for uploading a Google Earth placemark file (.kmz) to help illustrate the location of a geographic subject?

The article on Jabal al-Lawz, a mountain in Saudi Arabia that some think is the biblical Mt. Sinai, has a link to Google Maps. I'd like to add a Google Earth placemark with tilt to show the terrain of this area.

I don't find an FAQ or other policy addressing this question.

Thanks. Ghoffman 05:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Check out WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates project, they have alternate tagging suggestions that integrate with other tools, including Google Earth. - C HAIRBOY (☎) 05:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Question about decorative non-free images
Please see Wikipedia_talk:Non-free_content, where I ask whether images of book covers are acceptable in articles about their books when those articles have no critical commentary about the cover itself. Similar questions apply for album covers and corporate logos. The question whether this is a legitimate "fair use" on Wikipedia will be crucial for making decisions about deleting images with possibly unacceptable fair use rationales. It would be beneficial if a consensus on this can be documented before we begin evaluating whether images have acceptable fair use rationales.

This is only an announcement; please keep all comments on WT:NONFREE so the discussion isn't fragmented. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 00:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Please ban User:DVdm, see User talk:DVdm, especially his sect. []
rm large copydump 84.158.253.69 20:53, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you have a complaint about this user's behavior, please take it up with that user first. if that fails, use our dispute resolution process. This page is for discussing Wikipedia policy, not the complaints department. And please do not copy large portions of Talk page discussions to other pages. -- Kesh 05:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Reference Desks
I propose that anyone responding to questions posted on the reference desk be required to state their age since many of the current responses appear to be little more than guesswork as if to say "I can answer that." when in fact the response is no where near an answer but just wasted time and space. Julie Moon 09:56, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Firstly, because age has nothing to do with whether a person is capable of answering an RD question. Secondly, because sometimes the question is so poorly worded that people tackling it have to guess what the poster is actually asking. Thirdly, because while the Reference Desk is not a place for personal opinions, and answers should have some level of verifiability (not necessarily as strict as articles, perhaps), sometimes one person making a guess towards an answer (particularly if they provide a couple of appropriate links) can help inspire someone else to give a more complete answer - particularly on, say, the Mathematics desk, where one person can get from the question to a point half-way to the answer, and someone else can get from the answer back to the same half-way point. Confusing Manifestation 03:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Chicago and Philadelphia and the City,State convention
Over at the naming convention page, a discussion has been started about moving Chicago and Philadelphia back to the city, state standard. All views and inputs are welcomed. AgneCheese/Wine 05:18, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Gender neutral placeholder images
A user or group of users (apparently only on IRC) seem to have started a campaign to put gender stereotyping placeholder images which in my opinion are pointless and look worse than the original gender neutral ones. I don't really like these at all, but if we must have them we shouldn't use such ridiculous sterotyping images. Gender neutral one here Claude Bachand, female one Melissa Joan Hart, male one Christopher Lambert. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel 20:39, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks pretty pointless to me. If such images bother you, I'd suggest you list them at WP:IFD.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale required on internal wiki-stuff
Got a couple of messages form out friendly neighborhood bot betacommandbot, about missing fair use rationale for a couple of images made a while ago for the reform of the main page project. A question I have is that are a fair use rationale required for "internal" wiki-stuff. The images in question are not important any more, it's just a general question. Image:Main Page Draft 1600x1200 A.png etc... → Aza Toth 13:54, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * ..................... There should be no need for a fair use rationale for copyrights OWNED BY US! -N 13:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well... you could always put that "The WMF owns the copyright, so this can be used." 68.101.123.219 17:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

If that bot interferes with you, just revert whatever it does. It (and the owner) are both currently the subject of a number of complaints on various pages. Jtrainor 17:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Naming Conventions: Abbreviations
I decided to move this fragmented discussion here (I found a debate here after posting one here) since I think this area is appropriate and probably receives more traffic (meaning more consensus).

The debate is: should there be a space after abbreviations of two consecutive names? For example, should it be H.G. Wells or H. G. Wells? There has been no broad consensus on this, although wiki-guidelines say there should be a space.

I believe there should be a space because (1.) There should be spaces between words (2.) There's already a guideline in place, and (3.) I think it looks better.

Please use support (meaning you support the guideline in having a space), oppose, or comment for a clearer picture.


 * Well I think it looks better without a space, but regardless, it should be how it is commonly used. For example, if H.G. Wells novels list him, rather, if the book publisher(s) use a space, then I think he should use a space. For example, per a discussion here, J.R. Chandler, a character on All My Children, has no space. Also, per a discussion here, the title of The Doors album L.A. Woman is also without a space as that is how it's spelled on the album cover. I'm not arguing for no space (though I prefer it), I'm citing examples of how its not as cut and dry as consensus would prefer. Pepsidrinka 21:50, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * There should be a space [support] unless there is a really good reason for there not to be a space. (The reasons for the examples given are likely dubious, but I'm not going to get involved with those articles myself.) — The Storm Surfer 03:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As with the debate over American/British English, I say go with the most appropriate version for the subject. As listed, if the author's name has spaces on his novels, use the space; if not, don't. -- Kesh 03:30, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, there should be no space (looks better without it) unless the it's clear that the subject of the article more commonly uses a space. So I guess I would say Oppose unless the person uses a space. TJ Spyke 05:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I'd also oppose. I think it's best to use the most common form found for the name. Similarly, you see U.S. and UK (quite often next to each other like that). Kevin Judson 13:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * One of the reasons U.S. is favoured over US in Wikipedia is that the first is not confused with us by the search function. — The Storm Surfer 00:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you may want to consider Edward Estlin Cummings; authors probably don't generally have as much say in how their names are printed as you may think. — The Storm Surfer 00:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but you can't enact a guideline through a majority vote, and certainly not on the village pump.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this is one of those things we ought to do one way or another consistently. Whether or not to use a space between the initials of T. S. Eliot is entirely within the purview of a publication's style guide. We don't need to open a thousand cans of worms by making it a matter for competing google tests and accusations of POV. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:37, 8 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with GTBacchus: this is a purely stylistic issue. I also agree with (1) and (2), both of which are reasonable arguments. I think (3) should not be used as a reason, as both it and its counterargument (as given by T. J. Spyke TJ Spyke) are questions of taste that are unlikely ever to reach any kind of consensus (cf. WP:BIKESHED). Personally, I think it looks better with a space, but I don't think that that's any reason to produce, retain or discard a style guideline. --Stemonitis 06:46, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is the kind of issue for which an arbitrary decision is better than a perennial debate. Do we have statistics on which of the two is the most prevalent?  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Lists of aircraft serial numbers - best transwiki?
WikiProject:Aircraft is currently considering what to do with lists like Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress serial numbers. A number of broadly similar lists have been created by the one user, but no-one else considers them to be encyclopedic. To put it in perspective, if this particular list were ever finished, it would be a list of some 12,000 serial numbers. Nevertheless, this list and others from the same contributor are well-researched, verifiable, and sourced, and it seems to me to be a shame to simply delete them out of existence. I'm wondering whether there's another wikimedia project where they could usefully and appropriately be transwikied to? --Rlandmann 21:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Is the list sourced from several different references, or are the sources in general agreement? If it is the first then the editor may have to consider if WP:OR applies, and if it is the latter then is it possible to just link to the source material (presumably Government or Manufacturers) statistics. Obviously if someone has taken some time and effort over this it would be a shame to lose it... Is there a WikiDirectory or WikiList somewhere? LessHeard vanU 21:52, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

The material has been collated from a variety of places, but I don't think that OR applies, because they're all secondary sources. I'm sure that the "bones" of the list of serial numbers exist somewhere out there, but these lists go a little beyond that into including brief notes on the fate of the individual aircraft (where known), their radio call signs, names, and other minutiae. A truly noble effort - but (a) not encyclopedic, and (b) probably a bad precedent for the next person who wants to create a list of the chassis numbers of every Model T Ford built (or serial numbers of Sony Playstation 2s, or whatever). --Rlandmann 23:09, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I concur with both points, it isn't encyclopedic (it isn't descriptive, and it doesn't explain) and it is a very worthy effort. Is it possible that it could be placed on an enthusiasts site (if they will except the GDFL lisence) and then be referenced from the main article? I'm not certain how reliable it would be as a source (since interWiki links aren't) but a third party host might be acceptable. Hmmm, perhaps a link to a warbird site generally that would agree to host the info?
 * Perhaps the best thing to do is AfD the article, get consensus on its fate, if deleted have the main contibutor(s) move it to their userspace and then see what can be done with it. I am sure some warbird/USAAF/B-17 site would be pleased to host it. LessHeard vanU 23:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems like a candidate for Wikia, no? Or possibly WikiSource?  Still don't understand that project, to be very honest.  Jouster  (  whisper  ) 23:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I've been wondering about a new Wikia project as one possibility, but would prefer to find an existing project to slot it into, if possible. WikiSource is only for free primary source documents. (So, for example, if the USAF had at some point generated a list of all B-17 serial numbers, this would be acceptable there, in its original unmodified form) --Rlandmann 00:29, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Is this the sort of thing WikiSource would accept? --Carnildo 02:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This does sound like something that belongs in WS, yes (although I am unsure of their inclusion policies).  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  12:52, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

intellegent scholars hassled off by losers
I read once that there was this policy set up because really intellegent scholars would come onto wikipedia and be hassled off by losers. Anyone familar with this policy? 69.153.81.182 00:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Civility... although it doesn't only stop intelligent scholars from being hassled by losers, but also losers from intelligent scholars, and everyone in between. Sancho 00:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Citizendium? --tjstrf talk 00:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh how I LOVVVEEE wikepidia, Instant gratification thanks User talk:tjstrf and User_talk:Sanchom :) 69.153.81.182 00:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Opps, spoke too soon, this isnt what I am looking for :( there was an Arbcom case some time ago, 2004 or 2005...wondering if policy came out of it... 69.153.81.182 00:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, that was more or less the theory behind the founding of Citizendium. There isn't actually a policy that states what you are asking about, though there are certainly proposals regarding them (Expert retention and linked pages.) We also have some rules that dictate when and how you may cite yourself, which I think are part of the WP:COI policy.
 * In general though, if by "hassling" you mean "not letting the professor add stuff just because he says it's true", we do allow that. Even if you are a professor, or for that matter a "professor", you must keep to the same standards of verifiability and referencing as everyone else. --tjstrf talk 00:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There were just edit wars, if I recall. I looked through Arbitration policy/Past decisions and couldnt find anything in particular. Thanks for your time User talk:tjstrf. Ha--thanks Expert retention is perfect.69.153.81.182 00:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Scholars should hold themselves not to the same standards but to higher standards, because they have access to libraries and journals that often are not readily available to others. What "hassles" scholars is not the fact that they're expected to provide sources. Instead it's the fact that Wikipedia is too often like the wild west, where the ability to shout the loudest, swing the hardest, and outlast the other fellow counts more than the quality and depth of one's sources. Raymond Arritt 00:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * "Wikipedia is too often like the wild west, where the ability to shout the loudest, swing the hardest, and outlast the other fellow counts more than the quality and depth of one's sources." That's true but that's democracy for you. But as Churchill said: "Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."--Svetovid 23:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * And finally, Tendentious editors and Disruptive editing.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  07:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Age of unreferenced
The discusion is continued at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification

A discussion is underway at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability that in part suggests the use of the Wikitionary tag to be used on new unreferenced articles (newer then January 1, 2007)  which reads

The rationale being at some point Wikipedia needs to start enforcing WP:V and WP:OR currently the rebuttal's center on encouraging use of references without actually removing unreferenced material. Jeepday (talk) 13:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The discusion is continued at Wikipedia talk:Requests for verification

User pages of IP addresses
Vishwin60 and I have been having a discussion on his talk page, and we'd like to get some more opinions. He mentioned in a comment that he thinks it is against policy for IP addresses to have user pages (later clarifying this to except redirects to the talk page), but I disagreed. He pointed to Anonymous user, but I don't think this actually disallows them - it just mentions why they are impractical in most cases. There are several examples of static IP address with user pages that have been started for them (because they are technically incapable of it), which then took to editing said user pages themselves. (Obviously I don't remember them off the top of my head, because they are comprised of numbers, but I will look around.) We'd like a third opinion on whether policy forbids IP address userpages. Picaroon (Talk) 19:23, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Or even should forbid these types of pages. But yeah, we'd like at least a third opinion on this. ( [ →] zel  zany  - review) 19:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Wasn't this a theme/code page for an IP's talk page?&mdash; trey  jay–jay 01:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I see no reason why they shouldn't be fine for static IPs. There really isn't a point to creating one for a dynamic IP. Prodego  talk  05:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with you on dynamic IPs. However, static IPs also change from time to time, like mine (like this to this and finally to this).  Wouldn't userpages for static IPs, based on that, be illogical as well? ( [ →] vish  win60  - review) 16:36, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If your IP address changes, then it's not static. --Carnildo 00:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * All IP addressess change/get reassigned at some point. Furthermore, the main reason why some IPs change more often than others is that it's a proxy server (not necessarily open) or a berserk router.  In my case, it's just a normal routine reassigning of my IP. ( [ →] vish  win60  - review) 01:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No. Should, for example, the IP address for the webserver at the company I work for change, heads would roll.  You seem to be confusing static IP addresses, where you've got a contract that says this IP address won't change, with semi-static IP addresses, which don't change very often. --Carnildo 01:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Returing to the original point, userpages for even semi-static IPs are illogical in every which way. Even userpages for static IPs wouldn't make sense either, since who knows when somebody else will use your IP when you move out of that residence? ( [ →] vish  win60  - review) 02:09, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * IP addresses are not reserved in Wikipedia. Everyone is also User:127.0.0.1, although we won't see that.  (SEWilco 04:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC))
 * I apparently don't care about localhost. If IPs aren't reserved, then that's another reason why IPs shouldn't have userpages. ( [ →] vish  win60  - review) 12:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Usurping a user name that is currently indefinitely blocked
I am interested in changing my user name, but I found out that particular user name has been indefinitely blocked, and he has an empty contribution log. Is it still possible to ask for a WP:USURP?--Kylohk 13:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * For one, why is it blocked? One of the main reasons for not having any contributions is that it may be inappropriate. If it's a sock puppet or something, it may be possible. It would probably be better to ask one of the bureaucrats over there. TTN 13:21, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't know why it was blocked, but according to the block log of User:A, he's been blocked for more than a year now. That's the only thing on his log.--Kylohk 13:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess this answers your question. TTN 13:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * How odd. I suspect the account does have edits, but they are deleted. -N 14:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Why would you want a user name that has been indefinitely blocked? It  might come with a bad reputation attached.  Cardamon 00:16, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's obvious that he doesn't want a user name, he wants user name A. At least whatever reputation it has is obscured enough that he didn't find it.  (SEWilco 04:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC))
 * Based on this, the user made a claim to be some famous person, so they were indefblocked pending confirmation of that. Which I guess was necer revieved. -Amarkov moo! 21:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

User Contact
I know that this proposal is almost certainly going to get shot down in flames, but I will float it out anyway.

The general policy of anonymity of editors, which most (but not all) follow, means that there is no way of contacting an editor except through the project user talk pages or through e-mail. It is not uncommon for editors to make quite close relationships, without either party knowing anything personal about the other. And if that is their mutual wish, fine.

But sometimes editors vanish unexpectedly and without warning, as User:Coelacan appears to have done, to the distress of his adoptee; and as User:DocEss did a few months ago, to my personal distress.

My proposal: that a register be formed of contact details of all editors; to be held in the office under strict security, and details to be released only by senior wiki officials (bureaucrats? stewards? Jimbo?) and only on the presentation of absolutely irrefutable reasons by editors whose identity can itself be verified, by e-mail or other means to be agreed.

It seems to me that there are rare occasions when the sudden and unannounced absence of an editor can cause serious concern, And I feel that some way of avoiding this situation could be considered. I welcome comments. --Anthony.bradbury"talk" 23:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Get in touch with editors you are in close contact with by email or other means before they leave, and you'll be set.  Λυδ α  cιτγ  03:04, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * To some extent there is comfort in the anonymity of Wikipedia. If someone can piece together my identity based on tidbits of information scattered about my userpage and/or contributions - good for them. Should someone suddenly decide to up and depart the project; that is their decision, despite what void it may leave. If an editor wishes to leave some way for them to be contacted it is up to their discretion; otherwise I am a little uncomfortable with the idea of a "database" of Wikipedia Editor contact info floating around in an office. Or hard drive. --Ozgod 05:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I have to agree with the above sentiment - anonymity is an important factor for a lot of editors, and the possibility that personal information might become available without their explicit permission would turn many away from the project. I could see some utility in an opt-in only system, where interested editors could supply contact information for just such a use, but I suspect that it is far simpler to have interested editors leave contact information with a trusted editor for "emergency use". Ark yan  &#149; (talk) 19:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Arkyan, you actually are onto something with the opt-in idea. On the preferences page, there could be an 'opt-in' page where users are free to share information with which they are comfortable. When someone goes to 'pull' a master list, this information could be utilized. It's really not a bad idea, especially if it's voluntary. the_undertow talk  21:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Scrolling Reference List
A discussion is occuring at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources about whether that guideline should be edited to prohibit the use of scrolling reference lists in articles. One of the reasons advanced for this prohibition is that if such an article were printed, valuable information would not appear in the printout. I solicit your comments. --Gerry Ashton 23:52, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Free image marked for deletion
I have added a picture to a page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Proofstep.gif). I have asked the permission to its author. I have mentioned the name of the author, the site of the author, the license ( a free one ) and incredibly the image is marked to be deleted. Simply I don't understand. --Frédéric Liné 06:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You should be asking this on the commons, but I'll help you. You have not added the appropriate license template, and the commons bot caught you. Find the template that matches your license and add it. Problem solved. Something like "creative commons". — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I did it for you. Next time remember to pick a license out of that little box on the upload page. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you it's very nice of you. --Frédéric Liné 06:45, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Renominating for deletion
Is there a policy or general standard for how soon an article can be renominated for deletion after it has survived an earlier AfD? I ask because List of atheist Nobel laureates (bundled with similar lists) was nominated for deletion only 2 days after it survived its first nomination. It just seems way too soon to revisit this issue. What is the policy or standard in such cases? Nick Graves 19:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * An AfD I closed was recently renominated the next day - the majority of !votes were "close, too early, don't be silly". Figure a month, at least, barring some explosive change. Wily D  19:19, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Lists might be problematic; with articles there is always the possibility that the subject will become considered less notable, the references become less compelling, or the general editing make it a poorer piece. With a list you may have to wait for the classification to fall into (more) dispute. If the contents remain the same (or are simply expanded or contracted), as does the perception of the worthiness of the classification, then any relisting will likely to bring the argument that there has been no material change since the last AfD, with the possibility of the nominating editor been accused of shopping for a more sympathetic audience. The upside is, of course, that once a list has been deleted per AfD it is unlikely ever to be "improved" enough to be bought back. LessHeard vanU 20:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking 2 days would be too short except if the discussion was perhaps closed prematurely or if it's a very recent event (as sometimes people tend to get too emotional). However in this specific case a quick look tells me there is no problem. The list was nominated for deletion but many people felt it was unfair to delete it since the other lists exist (which is a poor argument anyway WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS)). Therefore the lists were nominated together so that this could be evalutated. Indeed, I would argue renominating it so soon while addressing the concerns is far better then waiting 6 months. This way, all the people who participated in the first nomination are likely still interested, rather then 6 months later when people may have moved on. (Obviously renominating something every 2 days is a different matter). Nil Einne 21:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It matters whether the previous discussion was "no consensus" or an obvious "keep". Such issues are more frequently taken to deletion review rather than relisted immediately, but in this particular case more discussion doesn't seem to be problematic. Note that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and hence we have no strict rules governing relisting.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:34, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree a deletion review would have been better, especially since keep because WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS should have been ignored by the closing admin anyway IMHO Nil Einne 10:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Either way, consensus can change. Some articles which have been kept after previous AfDs have been deleted. However, I do think deletion review is a good idea if the AfD has ended recently.--Kylohk 13:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Nationality
First of all, apologies if this has been discussed here before, but this is something I have come across many times and would like to discuss this to try and put a stop to the edit warring that is occurring.

There are many articles about Scots on Wikipedia - some sporting infoboxes have a nationality tag and in the case of anyone born in Scotland, their nationality is British, as Scotland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Many times I have seen their nationality set to Scottish with a Scottish flag alongside. In my eyes, this is wrong. Nationality is about which sovereign country you are from. If we allow autonomous communities to represent someone's nationality then that means including Quebec, Catalonia, Valencia, Bavaria, Walloon et al.

I'm in no way stating that we should not mention that someone is from Scotland, but as far as their nationality goes, describing someone as a Scottish national is plain wrong. Scottish nationality has not existed since 1707 when the United Kingdom was formed with the Acts of Union. People from the United Kingdom are British citizens, as described on their passports. I believe that stating otherwise is not NPOV, due to having political undertones to do with independence movements.

I would like to suggest that Wikipedia policy be amended to state that a person's nationality must refer to a sovereign state. Readro 22:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose proposal. If a person self-identifies as Scottish, that would be their nationality. Scotland does have its own national parliament, I believe. Badagnani 22:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * But Scotland is not a sovereign state. How far do you take it? If someone self-identifies as, say, Gallifreyan, it would be daft for an encyclopedia to list that as their nationality. Readro 22:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither is Northern Ireland but a lot of people don't consider themselves British there as well as others not considering themselves Irish.It has been and still is to an extent a highly charged political situation so if somebody self-identifies as just being from Northern Ireland that should be allowed .Garda40 22:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the important distinction should be the self-identification. If, for example, John Smith self-identifies as being Scottish, instead of British, then Wikipedia could indicate as such. If, however, John Smith does not express any public preference, then Jane Doe (Wikipedia editor/Scottish nationalist) should not be permitted to change "British" to "Scottish". Thoughts? --Ckatz chat</font&gt;spy  23:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * But the problem I see is that how far do we take it? One former NASCAR driver self-identified as being from the Confederate States of America. Should that be allowed too? What about Québécois? In my opinion, we need an unbiased criteria to discern what is allowable, and limiting acceptibility to sovereign states is the obvious choice. Readro 00:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In the absence of any strict criteria that define a 'nation', we must simply use our common sense: if a significant number of people identify themselves as having a certain nationality, then that nationality exists. I admit 'a significant number' is still vague and undefined - but self-evidently, the millions of people who identify themselves as 'Scottish' would qualify (see Scottish people), while the tiny minority who call themselves 'Confederate' or 'Gallifreyan' would not. Terraxos 08:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a debate that frequently crops up outside of Wikipedia. Often, it's about whether or not Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland qualify as countries. The nationality slant is new to me, I must admit, but I think that the same applies to this also. Technically, of course, people from these respective countries are British - they are British subjects. However, I think self-identification is very important. It's not fair for people to suggest that Scotland isn't a real country or nationality when, under the same criteria, England isn't a real country and English isn't a real nationality! For some reason, you never hear that argument levelled at us (I'm English) as if we're somehow different or above that (most persons respond with: "Well of course England is a country!". Therefore, if it can be determined what nationality someone identifies themselves as, I think that is what should be stated. Blaise Joshua 12:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Some people don't care. Some people would care very much.  Scotland is a country, it has a parliament, it has its own banknotes.  Many Scots describe themselves as Scottish first and "British" last.  This isn't just about some Scots being Pro-Scottish, it's about some Scots being vehemently anti-English.  It's easier, and nicer, if we allow people to use either.  With maybe wikilinks to relevant articles about Scotland and Britain so that people can learn the difference.  I know that trying to 'force' the use of a nationality will cause very many megabytes of bad-tempered discussion and edit-warring, just for "Scottish" vs "British", let alone any other nations.   Dan Beale  12:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Your examples are not the same. You are describing areas of a country (Quebec etc) not countries. Scotland is a country within a union (the United Kingdom of... etc a United Kingdom of seperate nations). It is described internally and externally as a seperate country and is recognised as such. It is governed by UK paraliment but it has borders, seperately printed bank notes (although the same currency), a seperate parliment, a seperate eduation system, a seperate health care system, a seperate flag and NATIONAL teams for sports (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are seperate nations in the World Cup and Commonwealth games for example. They are not described as regions but as nations. This was raised in the news when Cornwall tried to compete in the Commonwealth games seperately). It may not be a fully autonomous country currently it is still a country not a region or a state. AlanD 16:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Moving beyond self-identification for the moment... in articles about historic personages the Scottish ID in an infobox may well be absolutely appropriate. Certainly for anyone living prior to the Act of Union in the early 1700s. Blueboar 18:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm just not convinced that, as a matter of encyclopedic integrity, we can take self-identification as our absolute here. If two people can be born to the same parents, grow up in the same house, live in the same places, hold the same nationality and passport, but still end up with one being 'British' and one 'Scottish', 'Welsh' or 'English', then that information is more or less meaningless.
 * Scotland does have a parliament, but it's a subordinate body of the Westminster parliament - Scottish regions are still represented in Westminster on the same basis as English, Welsh and Northern Irish ones. Bodies on not entirely dissimilar lines have been proposed for the regions of England, but no-one would have then said they were each a separate country.  Bank notes are printed by several banks in Scotland; but they are not legal tender in the technical sense - the only legal tender in Scotland is Royal Mint coins, which are the same across Britain; and in practice, Scottish and English notes are equally accepted in all regions.  It has a flag; but then so do Cornwall and various other regions.
 * I'm also not sure it's consistent with how we treat areas in non-English-speaking parts of the world. The Basque region, for example, has its own borders, its own flag, its own parliament, even its own president.  Many of its residents would identify very strongly as Basque, not Spanish.  Yet we still begin the article on Juan José Ibarretxe with "Juan José Ibarretxe Markuartu (born 15 March 1957)[1] is a Spanish politician."
 * The problem with recognising someone as belonging to the 'Confederate States of America' is not that not very many people identify as being from there; but that no international body recognises its existence. Similarly, Paddy Roy Bates may identify himself as Sealandish, and even issue passports, but we should still consider him British because no country or international body recognises Sealand as a nation.
 * I would have thought that we are best sticking to internationally-recognised nations for determining nationality; and for all international purposes, the nation is the United Kingdom. No-one holds a Scottish passport; no nation has a Scottish embassy; no-one represents Scotland to the UN.
 * This is no slight on Scotland, which is a very important cultural entity - and, of course, for pre-1707 citizens, "Scottish" is entirely appropriate; but I think that, if our designations of nationality are to have any meaning at all, they need to be based on internationally-recognised nations - what passport the person would be recognised under; not self-identified nationalities. Self-identifications can of course also be mentioned if they are sourced; but if one person with a British passport is identified as 'British', another should not arbitrarily be identified 'English' or 'Scottish'.
 * Mohamed Al-Fayed is another example that springs to mind. "Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed (Arabic: محمد الفايد ) (born 27 January 1929) is an Egyptian businessman and billionaire."  He has lived in Britain for many years, and would like to consider himself British; he has applied several times for citizenship.  Because it has not yet been granted, however, we call him Egyptian.
 * If we do not have an absolute, verifiable standard for nationality such as this one, then it seems to me that we are making our information on nationality more or less useless, by not applying the same standards of verifiability and NPOV to nationalities that we expect from the rest of our data. TSP 20:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would say that the "self-identification" argument is not the point. Unlike the other places you have raised the status of Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales as seperate nations within a union is not something that is contraversal it is commonly accepted. I honestly cannot see the problem here. The UK is a union of nations not states or regions. Seperate nations that are accepted and defined as such. I return to the "national" football teams and so forth as just minor proof of that. Plus I doubt very much if you were to go out on the streets of any British town and ask the question "Is England a country or a region?" that you'd get many responses for the latter, if any.AlanD 21:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think I would have said that England was a country but not a nation; but use of all these terms tends to be ambiguous. What it isn't, however, is a sovereign state.
 * The problem with using nationalities which do not correspond to internationally-recognised, passport-issuing states is the lack of verifiability. Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh to parents from Glasgow; is he Scottish?  I don't think most people would consider he was, but there's no definitive standard.  On the other hand, Greg Rusedski was born and grew up in Canada - so why do we call him British?  Because that is now his citizenship.  For sovereign states, we can verifiably establish someone's nationality, by establishing their citizenship.  For countries within a sovereign state, we have no such standard, because English and Scottish people alike (since 1707) have British citizenship.  (The UAE presents similar challenges.)
 * The constituent countries do play separately in some sports (but not, for example, in the Olympics) - sporting nations are often formed for reasons of history or fairness rather than recognised national boundaries - for example, no-one believes there is such a nation as the West Indies, but still it has a cricket team; and similarly, the Ireland national rugby team fields players from two nations - Irish players from the Republic and British players from Northern Ireland. There may be a case in sporting infoboxes for employing national team identifiers rather than nationalities - which would also mean that, in that context, Tony Cascarino, for example, would be identified as Irish, even though he has always been a British citizen, because there we are determining what national team they play for, not what their nationality is.  That's fine, as long as we define what we mean by displaying a particular flag, and as long as it is a matter of verifiable fact.
 * The fact that someone comes from Scotland, or considers themselves Scottish, is important, and should absolutely be mentioned; just as it should be mentioned if a Spaniard is from the Basque region, a United Arab Emirati from Sharjah, or indeed an American from Texas. For defining nationalities for lists and infoboxes, though, I think we should stick to verifiable nationalities: that is, the sovereign state (or states, in the case of dual nationality) which issues the person's passport.  TSP 10:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe that if you stick to the above suggestion, TSP, you will lose a core element of someone's biography. To take myself as an example, I was born in Ireland to English (or British, if you prefer) parents. I spent my formative years in Ireland before my family moved back to England. Then, in adulthood, I returned to Ireland. However, during all of this, I have only ever considered myself to be English, despite the fact that I have two passports and two citizenships. On what's been suggested, it would be as correct for you to describe me as Irish as it would be to describe me as British. However, I have English parents, English heritage and English culture - as much as I love Ireland, I don't consider myself Irish and none of my Irish friends and family would consider me to be Irish. While this is somewhat clearer cut because Ireland is not part of the UK (neither, technically, is N.Ireland). I believe that if you only describe someone from Wales, say, as British, you are withholding very important biographical information on that person's culture, heritage, identity and background. What is much harder, and this has been mentioned, is where the line is drawn. Many, many people consider Wales, Scotland, etc, to be individual countries. I may be opening myself to criticism of my ignorance here, but I don't believe the Basque region is (generally). Now, gentlemen, I don't really think I have anything more to add to the above discussion. However, this can be a very contentious issue and I should commend all of your for discussing it so peaceably! Best regards from the beautiful island of Ireland : o ) Blaise Joshua 11:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not saying that any information should be left out. If you were born in England, that is a verifiable and important fact.  If you live in England, that is a verifiable and important fact.  If you call yourself English, that is a verifiable and important fact.  But for nationality, there's no rule for which of these, if any, adds up to your being English; it becomes a matter of the editor's opinion.  We can definitely say, though, that you hold British and Irish citizenship.  I expect that Greg Rusedski's family and friends consider him Canadian; but nevertheless, he has taken British citizenship, so we call him British - with, of course, extensive mentions of the fact that he was born and brought up in Canada, his father is Ukranian-Canadian, and there is controversy over him taking British citizenship; but nontheless he did take that citizenship, so he is British.  This rule is, from what I have seen, applied everywhere else in Wikipedia; so it should be applied for Britain too.  If the citizenship they hold is British, the person is British, not Scottish, English or Welsh.  It should absolutely be mentioned, if we know, where a person was born, where they live(d), and any cultures with which they self-identify; but these don't add up to a verifiable nationality.   TSP 11:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * That is exactly my point TSP, although maybe you phrased it better! It would remove the ambiguity from British biography articles. If English and Scottish nationalities are allowed on Wikipedia then there will be edit wars where no party is in the wrong. With a rule, then this grey area can be eliminated. It would be OK to state that someone was English or Scottish, but when describing their nationality they should be described as British. Of course, for pre-1707 individuals, English and Scottish nationality would be allowed. Readro 12:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok... but is nationality the same as citizenship? An Englishman may be a British citizen but his nationality may be English. AlanD 18:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As a further point, someone who has multiple citizenships, or lives in another country now, may self-identify as being of a different nationality. A person born in the USA, but living in Australia under a visa may self-identify as Australian even if they do not have formal citizenship and spent most of their life in America. It's not a clear-cut issue, so I think the original proposal does not hold up well. -- Kesh 18:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No, it holds up fine in this instance as they can self-identify as whatever they want, as long as it is a citizen of a sovereign state. In your example, either one of Australian or American would be OK, as Australia and the USA are sovereign states. Stating that they were a national of entities that are not sovereign states, such as Queensland or Florida would not be allowed though. Readro 20:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would have said that we should consider them as being nationals of whatever nation they hold citizenship of. We should note if they choose to self-identify as belonging to another nation, but if they do not actually hold citizenship of that nation we should not consider it their nationality.  If we are going to consider someone to be Australian based on self-identification, we might as well consider people to be citizens of the Confederate States of America based on self-identification.  TSP 10:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If your proposal were to go into effect we could never identify anyone as being a Kurd, for example, or the Korean runner who had to compete for Japan in the Olympics prior to World War II (can't remember his name now), would have to be listed as Japanese, even though he was Korean. Corvus cornix 03:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No, that's not the case. Stating that someone is a Kurd is fine, as long as when explicitly referring to their nationality a sovereign state is used. The Korean runner could still be called Korean because Korea was still a sovereign state, but it was under Japanese rule. Readro 09:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Nationality is a very personal characteristic, hugely important to many people. I am hesitant to tell Scots (for example) that they must register as Britons; my English friends, after all, refer to themselves as English, not as British. I don't consider it my right - nor Wikipedia's - to tell people what flag they should associate with their homeland, heritage, or self-identity. The "sovereign state" argument holds no water with me. Why not just ask people to input a longitude and latitude? This sidesteps the issue of citizenship and nationality entirely, and just identifies people by geographic location. 67.189.48.7 20:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would agree to some extent. However, when your English friends refer to themselves as English are they instantly "corrected" by someone else telling them they are British? The problem that exists on Wikipedia is the constant back-and-forth editing of articles which means some articles have people going from English to British and back again many many times. Without a rule to stop it, this silly edit warring will continue. This is why there needs to be a rule. Readro 20:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this debate may have got a bit confused due to people using themselves as examples. We're not talking about user pages here; so we're not generally telling people what they may self-identify as.  We're talking about encyclopedia articles.  This means, firstly, that in the majority of cases (considering that we're talking about several hundred years worth of people, not just current celebrities) we won't have a sourced self-defined nationality.  It also means that we need to deal with what is verifiable.  That's really why I want to escape from subjective definitions, and say definitively, "When we identify someone's nationality, in a list or with a flag by their name, what we mean is the sovereign state they hold (or at their death held) citizenship of."  I think this is the only standard we can hope to apply with any sort of consistency.
 * What sources do we have for what nationality, say, Byron considered himself to have? Even if we DID have sources where he called himself 'English',  how would we know he didn't at other times or in other contexts call himself 'British' (or even 'Scottish')?  We can't go and ask him, and even if we could, that would be original research.  If we do have sources where he mentions the matter, we can't know that they are comprehensive and represent his full views.  His citizenship, we can establish and state as a fact; anything else, I don't see how we can in most cases offer anything other than our opinion.
 * As ever, sourced facts about how people identify themselves, their ethnic origin, or anything else, are useful and can be mentioned in the article; but in a list, or for a flag set in an infobox, where we are saying "We will identify every person with a nationality, that they may be compared with other people", I think we need to have some standard for what we mean by that, or the information is of no use at all. TSP 01:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, to reside in Scotland and vote in Scottish elections, you must be British. IE an English person has the same rights in Scotland as a Scot, because they are both British. As does a Scot in Wales, or a Welshman in London (I'm not going to touch Ireland!) They are represented overseas by a UK embassy, they die in Iraq under the Union Jack. They are all British. I believe that is what is meant by "nationality" in the info box, and for the sake of consistency that is what we should put there. If an individual identifies with an ethnic group or a separatist movement, then that can and probably should be mentioned elsewhere in the article. --Michael Johnson 10:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Scotland and like are not ethnic groups or separatist movements (at least in the way you imply above). Consider they have football teams that compete in international tournaments (World Cup). Last time i checked this was not true for Quebec. David D. (Talk) 15:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That is purely because of the history of football, and the fact that there is a special rule (article 10.5 of the FIFA statutes) for the home hations. Otherwise there would have to be a unified team, as article 10.1 states that there can only be one football association per country. Readro 16:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the problem here is some people see the word "nationality" and think "citizenship," while others see the word "nationality" and think "a people having a common origin, tradition, and language." It's a relatively modern conceit that nationality and statehood are the same, few would have had trouble with this distinction during the imperial era when many states comprised multiple nations, or during the feudal era when nations might host many states. If the "Nationality" box is intended to convey citizenship, it should be re-named "Citizenship" to avoid ambiguity. Otherwise, it is not only unfair but inaccurate to conflate the two. Jmputnam 15:08, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * So, what do you think 'Nationality' means; and how do you neutrally and verifiably establish what someone's nationality is? TSP 15:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would say "nationality" refers to the nation (racial, tribal or cultural group -- "nation" refers to birth, Latin nasci, to be born) to which a person belongs, rather than to the state (political entity) which governs that person. If you want neutrality and verifiability, "nationality" simply isn't a good term to use.  Refer to their statehood or citizenship if you want a more objective term. Jmputnam 07:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Legally, that would be the member of the United Nations to which an individual is recognised as belonging, i.e. for an Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman, Irishman, Cornishman, or British person that would be the United Kingdom. You will note that I have included British as a distinct different citizen of the United Kingdom that has no reference to the old Countries, principalities or Duchies previously mentioned. A great many British people do not originate or identify themselves with the constituent countries, for their ancestors were very recently from parts of the old British Empire/Commonwealth (or Europe or the rest of the world). Per the example given above, it would be ridiculous to identify Greg Rusedski from the part of the UK he resides in; he is British. This matter of historic country verses nationhood needs to be treated very sensitively when dealing with some members of British society. LessHeard vanU 12:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say that sensitivity is a problem because Wikipedia is not censored. The problem is that as it stands, it is acceptable to say that an individual's nationality is that of their constituent country or British. Which one is correct to use? It can get reverted back and forth with no one being in the wrong. I feel there ought to be a rule. I have no particular preference as to the decision, but I think something ought to be done to settle this lengthy editing conflict. Readro 15:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * How about we have a rule to get rid of the info boxes. If this kind of pedantry is what we get from them they are not worth the trouble.  I seem to recall there was a massive fight over which flags should be on the geographical infoboxes too.  What a waste of time. David D. (Talk) 15:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (EdConf) It is an awkward problem that, frankly, doesn't have a good solution. For example, I am English, and I am British, and I am European. The first is not a matter of citizenship, but is a matter of nationality, while the last is a matter of citizenship but not of nationality. Nationality and citizenship are distinct, if related, matters. To be really pedantic, British Nationals weren't citizens at all until relatively recently, we were in fact subjects, at least as British law defined it.
 * Why not mark them as both nationalities? I assume this is what's currently done for people with joint citizenships. SamBC 16:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Referencing blogs
So I don want to sort through a pile of policy articles so is it OK to reference a prominent blogger that has "pondered over" a matter in a political allegation? I mean a prominent blogger has assumed something and is it OK to mention that this particular blogger assumed this and actually include it in an article (of course giving full credit the blogger, i.e., referencing the blogpost). Thanks! 354d 20:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:V, WP:RS and WP:ATT/FAQ (Historical, but relevant) . Much better if you do find out for yourself.  Adrian  M. H.  21:08, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Short answer... no, blogs are not reliable sources. Longer answer... it depends.  Seriously, this is an issue that does not enjoy complete consensus from the entire community.  There used to be a firm "no blogs" policy... but certain exceptions have gained acceptance.  You are going to have to read the policies and guidelines to sort out if a specific blog will be acceptable in a specific article to back a specific claim that is phrased in a certain way. Blueboar 14:53, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think it may sometimes be borderline, if the blog belongs to the actor or musician. Such as in Jackie Chan, I mentioned his intentions, starting with "According to his blog,". If you quote his blog and use the blog as a reference, I don't think it would be much of a problem.--Kylohk 13:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOR and free images
Over at Wikipedia talk:Non-free content, User:Mosquera posits that No original research forbids the use of many free images because they have never been published anywhere. I invite those familiar with NOR to comment. Wikipedia talk:Non-free content. Thank you.  howcheng  {chat} 21:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Do we have to? :) Oh brother.... Garion96 (talk) 21:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As images are usually used for illustration rather than verification, there is really no valid reason to invoke WP:OR. This is certainly a new interpretation of the policy!  Adrian  M. H.  21:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Extension to dispute resolution: Supervision process

 * This relates to a problem that's been on my mind a great deal the last year, since I first came across a certain banned editor....

I've been looking at a kind of serious article dispute that's sadly not uncommon, and where (for various reasons) current dispute resolution processes don't work well, or quickly enough. A number of articles are train-wrecked by this scenario, and a number of positive editors driven away.

The basic notion would address situations where a period of editorial supervision is better suited, rather than mediation or arbitration. These situations happen, and WP:DR doesn't handle it well right now. When they do, a disproportionate amount of damage is done to the project and to its editors. In some cases, I think we need a dispute resolution avenue that doesn't need to go to arbcom, that's supervisory rather than judicial (somewhat like Mentorship), and which is accessible much earlier on as one of many dispute options.


 * Unlike other interventions, the intervention here would be to enforce the establishment of good editorship, in an environment where AGF cannot be assumed, and create a more level playing field for a neutral and objective approach to become established by editors who are prepared to respect Wikipedia editing policy. Evidence of appropriateness would be required for acceptance, and it would not be accepted if mediation or arbitration was in progress.


 * In this sense supervision would parallel mediation; both take place over a medium period of time, but where RfM requires and assumes good faith, supervision is explicitly designed for disputes where good faith is dubious or not to be assumed. Where mediation looks to editors to understand policy and work together, supervision addresses directly editors who persistently refuse to edit in a policy-compliant manner.


 * I might be stepping into a minefeild, but I think a page creators should have the right to request major revisions be discussed before making. A tag could be put on the page "Mod", and when revising people would copy that section to the discussion page, and then show the proposed changes such that changes show the original section and the proposed changes, then a discussion can occur about accuracy, referencing, etc, before the page was added. If the Talk:"section name" is the same as the Main page:"Section name" then a tag could automatically appear in the main page "section under proposed revisions see:link to discussion page. If the page creator desires not to moderate then he/she could leave it open for admistrator discretion.

See Article supervision proposal (further notes on its talk page). Views welcomed. Looking to see whether others have noticed similar situations, and would support this as a useful option and approach, within existing dispute resolution processes. Examples available.

FT2 (Talk 09:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Seeking a specific policy or guideline that covers...
... what consensus is not. The basic gist of it is "just because they are doing it in that article over there, it should not be taken as a given that it is necessarily right to do it in this article over here", or "look, they're doing it here and here and here" does not mean that it is necessarily the right thing to do, at all.

Does anyone know which guideline or policy I mean? Thanks! Jo ie de Vivre ° 17:57, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Perhaps WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS? Kind of relevant, though only an essay. We probably do need a guideline on what consensus is not, too :) Cheers, Moreschi Talk 17:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's it exactly! Jo ie de Vivre ° 18:05, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Noticeboard with more eyes needed
Fringe theories/Noticeboard could do with some more people commenting and keeping an eye open. Editors from a humanities background are especially welcome (you maths and science fellas do a pretty good job of monitoring fringe theory editing already). Cheers, Moreschi Talk 16:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it a policy decision to keep this category on Talk Page
Having this category added through and on Talk page makes it less visible, is there some policy decision behind this. Vjdchauhan 19:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC).
 * The reason for the talk page categorization is that it is considered a type of meta-data, as the populating template is placed more for the sake of policies like WP:COI than because it has encyclopedic relevance to the article. Many of them are not notable for being Wikipedians, but rather a notable individual who by happenstance is also a Wikipedian. --tjstrf talk 19:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Can we have sub-categories as well
There are around 900 identified notable Wikipedians can we have several subcategories of this category based on occupation/nationality as well. Again is there a policy decision to have one flat and large category of 'Notable Wikipedians'. Vjdchauhan 19:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC).
 * Following from my above comment, this question should have a pretty clear answer: since the template links you directly to their account, and they can put themselves in all the Wikipedian categories they want to from there, there's no pressing need to subdivide the main category. It might someday become useful to subdivide by, for instance, living and dead, and I could see a useful division by former and active as well, but these aren't mainspace categories, and breaking them down by the normal conventions of nationality or profession wouldn't be particularly useful to their intended purpose. Hope that answers everything for you --tjstrf talk 19:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

User talk subpages?
Smcafirst requests that people not add a message to his talk page, but only to one of his subpages, or "I will not reply to you since I assume you are a bot". Is this acceptable, since it means that nobody can bring up the "you have new messages" box for him? --NE2 22:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * At first glance, that seems unnecessarily standoffish, because I cannot see a good genuine reason to want to do that, but he does at least have some sort of system behind it and he will still (presumably) notice new edits on his watchlist.  Adrian   M. H.  22:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * However, it can be important to get in touch with someone quickly, for instance if they're doing something wrong and need be told to stop. --NE2 22:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I cannot see any significant time difference between seeing the notice and viewing one's watchlist. Zero, if your bookmark happens to be your watchlist. This editor's approach is a bit unconventional and perhaps a little bit unfriendly, but I see no major issues in it and (as far as I know) he has a right to do it that way. He is not alone in that approach, either.  Adrian  M. H.  22:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If I told him on his talk page to stop doing something, like a current AWB run, and he ignored it and continued, could I request blocking if his edits were harmful but made in good faith? --NE2 22:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you believe the user is abusing AWB, you can presumably ask an admin to temporarily suspend his AWB access, until he can be contacted. However, if he's expressed a preference as to where to contact him - it can't hurt to simply contact him at the requested location.  --Tim4christ17 talk 04:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a hypothetical situation; essentially you're supposed to be able to tell a user something so he sees it next time he loads a page. I only load my watchlist once or twice a day; others presumably have similar habits. --NE2 04:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Presumably if he's asked that comments be put on a subpage, he's also making sure to check the page with regularity. I know that I check my watchlist several times a day - and when performing an AWB run or when engaged in a discussion, I check the list several times an hour.  --Tim4christ17 talk 04:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a hypothetical. If I needed to contact the user I'd do what they wanted.  If they don't respond "quickly enough" I'd add a linked tickle on his main Talk page.  But maybe Talk pages will behave differently by the time it actually happens, so I'd have to instead tickle the Wikipedia logo on his page so his warbler would wake his anteater.  (SEWilco 04:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC))
 * I agree that his system is potentially confusing and may discourage users from contacting him/her. But I would have to disagree with the 'new messages' issue. As far as I'm aware, there is no requirement that you check new messages regularly (except for admins perhaps). I for example occasionally chose to ignore new messages if I'm not in the mood and indeed at one time ignored my new messages for several weeks for a reason I won't go in to. Obviously if you are doing something wrong then you could be blocked because you did not read the warnings. But in most cases, for experienced users this is unlikely to be the case. If a user is for example, repeating a mistake, provided they look into the edit history and an article's talk page they will usually be aware if for example, something is reverted because of BLP Nil Einne 21:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This is not really a good idea. He is making it difficult for others to communicate with him, for no good reason that I can see. I'd suggest he change his setup. Difficult communication tends to needlessly escalate disputes.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess I fail to see why we're dictating how he manage his user talk page on the grounds that there could hypothetically be a problem of some sort. WP:BURO -- leave him be until there's actually evidence of a problem, no? --JayHenry 05:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

This seems to me to be an easy AGF issue... He has done nothing wrong, we are busy assigning motives and personality traits to this user because he wants to organize his talkpage a certain way. Comply with what he asks for; if he starts acting like a WP:DICK in his editing, respond accordingly, but I see no reason not to assume this is simply a way he wants to manage his filing system, and find no reason to think that he has some ulterior motive or is himself an undesirable. This works for him; comply with his request, and assume he has his good reasons for his system. --Jayron32| talk | contribs 04:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair use image template question
I happened across the template just now, and I was wondering if the template applies only to shows directly produced/created by Cartoon Network, or if this was to be construed as a blanket template to be used for every show broadcast on Cartoon Network. I ask because I am in the middle of updating all my uploaded fair use images, and having uploaded several from shows broadcast on Adult Swim, I would like to know if I can use this template as an additional fair use claim. For the record the shows I have uploaded pictures from are Fullmetal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and several different Mobile Suit Gundam broadcasts on both Toonami and Adult Swim. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * From the template text: "created and/or published by Cartoon Network and/or Cartoon Network Studios or its assignees or by whatever company or corporation that produced said content and was (re)broadcast by Cartoon Network". My emphasis for highlighting purposes.  Adrian  M. H.  18:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Mandatory categorization of new articles
I want to bring up the proposal at Enforce inclusion of categories, which has been sitting around for a while. I believe much of this proposal could be implemented without a software update. Perhaps it would be possible to add a message to the "new article" page, instructing the user to include a category (e.g. near the "save" button). It would be even better if the wikicode for a category was also added automatically to the edit box on all new pages. I have heard that administrators can edit these boilerplate pages, but I am not sure of the extent of their powers.

I think the best way to do this would be to use a template similar to Afd3 starter (shown when URL is, for example, ), which asks users to provide a general category code on articles for deletion. New articles would be placed in Category:New articles or a subcategory.

Categorization of new articles would help with a couple issues:
 * Orphan articles which are created and then lost for long periods of time would not be quite as lost.
 * Sorting into proper subcategories would take place more quickly.
 * The maintenance load at Category:Category needed would be distributed to more users.

--Eliyak T · C 08:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I can see this being troublesome. New users might not know what category to put a page in. Sure, it's wasy sometimes (ER being a tv show is a given), but other times it's not. This would just make trouble for unexperienced users. Not that it's an entire;y bad proposal, but perhaps a bit too forceful in its implementation. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 08:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * In the case where the user doesn't know what category to use, the template could default to either Category:New articles (my preference) or Category:Category needed. By the way, EBay comes to mind as having a user-driven category system. --Eliyak T · C 08:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * With what you suggest, this isn't something you'd need a software change for. This is what bots do. They tag uncatted articles, giving them cats, albeit useless ones. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 09:02, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, that's the point- to harness the power of the users (who ostensibly are more intelligent than bots) to alleviate some of the backlog in Special:Uncategorizedpages, and push the articles into more specific cats where those who are interested can find them more easily. --Eliyak T · C 09:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * A related matter is the sorting of new articles into subject areas, as done by User:AlexNewArtBot. This allows Wikiprojects to be aware of (almost) all new articles in their area. Thanks to this bot, I've been able to cast at least a quick eye over every new article related to New Zealand for the last few months, which includes giving it an appropriate category and doing a bit of cleanup when required.- gadfium 09:25, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you for doing that! I know there's a guy who does the same thing for articles on lakes, and there are probably dozens of other people like that. It's really a best case scenario for Wikipedia if someone is watching new articles on a topic they know about, and will fix basic problems new articles often have. The problem is not all topics have someone watching... stuff on science for example, seems to be really likely to fall through the cracks if not created by someone who really knows what they're doing. --W.marsh 15:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Bad categories can be worse than no categories. I'd rather see a long requested feature implemented: a way to get a random list of uncategorized pages. Right now, in Special:Uncategorizedpages, it's hard to get past the A's.--agr 10:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with agr, unfamiliar users adding the completely wrong category could cause a lot of clean up work that is harder to find than an uncategorized article which can easily be tagged by a bot and dealt with by WikiProject Categories/uncategorized, it would be much harder for a bot to find items which were just in wrong categories or only one high level category (i.e. Category:Living People). I do think an automatic tag of "New Article" might be a good idea as it would bring more attention to new articles that need work however if it ended up staying on for months or years with nobody seeing it then it wouldn't be doing anyone any good. It's a good idea overall, just I think it won't solve the problem entirely. Stardust8212 12:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I logged in today to contribute a little something (I've been an off-and-on contributor for several years). Came here and learned about Special:Uncategorizedpages and thought I'd have a go at reducing the backlog. The first thing I noticed was an article on the Flintstones, you know, the animated cartoon. Imagine my surprise to find that neither 'animated cartoon' nor 'cartoon' was a valid category. Looking further, I learn there are dozens of subcategories under Animation, including "cartoon physics". On other Flintstones articles there are similarly multiple categories such as 'Flintstones characters', '1960 introductions' (whatever that is), 'Mascots', 'Fictional gamblers' (!), 'Fictional Eagle Scouts',  'Fictional Freemasons', 'Fictional prehistoric characters', etc, but not a single category relating to cartoons or animation. So, back to the point of this discussion, I find it astonishing that someone wants to force people to assign categories as if it's some easy thing to assign a category correctly. IMO, categories are just as out of control as those endless variations of minutely fine-graded stub markers ("This Fictional Prehistoric Freemason article is a stub. You can help the Wikipedia by expanding it"). It's simply impossible to enforce categorisation if every contributor is free to make up their own as they go. There is only one way to solve it and that is to lock down the categories and publish easily-accessible guidelines for how to use and apply them.  Aelfgifu 15:39, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a common criticism that doesn't really have much basis. When I add uncat to a new article and the creator addresses it, half the time they spend a few minutes and categorize it better than I could have. The worst case scenario is someone just puts something in generic categories, like an article on a school added to Category:Schools. Still, those categories tend to be watched by people who'll fix the categorization and other issues. I've never, ever seen someone just add incorrect categories to get rid of the tag. --W.marsh 15:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I still support the idea of a "warning screen" for uncategorized, unreferenced, unformatted and/or orphaned new articles. Most people creating these articles don't know they'll be problematic, but people could still create the article, they'd just know what the problem(s) are. We have articles that sit with cleanup tags for years... often the person who creates them is perfectly able to address the issue, they just leave before they realize there's a problem. --W.marsh 15:46, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That sounds like it might be a good idea. How, and in what form, could it be implemented? A link to help pages? Could it occur only when the relevant items are missing (maybe not possible in practice) or would it appear every time?  Adrian  M. H.  16:20, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Probably something like "Your article has been created, but we detected the following potential problems, that may threaten it's ability to be improved quickly or even stay around on Wikipedia" with better wording. Then mention the problems and link to help pages. Obviously this would require some coding, so it'll probably never happen... but if the devs had to work on cleanup backlogs for a few days, it would be a lot more likely :-) --W.marsh 16:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Notability
I could make this very long, but I'll make it short and sweet. Why are bus stations, subway stops, and train stations notable enough for inclusion. there are almost never sourced, and are very short. for example, see Yishun Bus Interchange. A few are well known, such as the NYC subway, but everyone else violates WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS and makes articles for every little non-notable station and stop, many of which don't even exist anymore (Calvert railway station). I just find this to be getting quite ridiculous. Reywas92 Talk 18:16, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It is just indiscriminate inclusionism with no thought to the criteria on a case-by-case basis. I'm not certain what can be done to reduce it, apart from further increasing the AFD backlog.  Adrian  M. H.  19:31, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There was an AfD run on each entry in List of masts that had an article in attempt to remove all the "This tower is 536 feet tall." articles. A Deletion policy/Masts was even created to speed things along and there were many mass AfDs. The even got rid of List of masts. I think they are still fighting the good fight on that one, however. -- <font face="Kristen ITC"><font color="Blue">Jreferee  (Talk) 19:54, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I tried to get some discussion on this just a couple of days ago at above, with little response... but I do think it's quite a problem. Either there needs to be some sort of consistent standard for these various sprawls, or notability can practically go hang. I tried to approach the issue tentatively on a few railway stations, and was told that "all railway stations are notable", without any decent reference. In fact, there seem to be several wikipedia projects supporting such behaviour. I just want to know - are such things acceptable, or not? Or rather, should they be? SamBC 21:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Not only will removing such cruft swamp AfD, or PROD, or Speedy Delete in the short term but it will also overwhelm the ability to remove it in the future, as well meaning (and many not so well meaning) editors will add it back in; "Hey, lookee, there's no article on the old station that was pulled down back in the 80s... Well, there is now!" Really, the best that can be done is to make it a reasonable stub so that it is at least up to presentation standard and it is not recreated in a poorer version. LessHeard vanU 21:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * For articles on groups of objects - subway stations, train stations, etc., I'd suggest combining them into the article about the system, and making them redirects. I did this with University Students' Cooperative Association, with a controversy over only one of the 23 houses (I kept house articles on one existing and one defunct house, and got complaints about one other.) It might be worth making a table within the article, or a "list of __ stations" article instead, if there's a decent amount of information. Keeping the original articles as redirects limits the problem LessHeard outlines. User:Argyriou (talk) 21:56, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would certainly agree with the use of redirects for all instances that aren't independently notable, and information moved to a central page. In the case of, for example, railway stations, then their may well be a full article for each network or system, or possibly even line, depending on notability/amount of worthwhile information; this article could contain all the moved information. However, based on prior experience, this is not going to happen successfully without 2 things:
 * A policy supporting it.
 * A major mobilisation of volunteer effort.
 * I would personally support and participate in both, and I have some free time coming up, having just finished my degree and waiting over the summer before starting a master's. SamBC 22:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would support those too. Part of this is that I hate seeing us *brag* that there are so many articles and such, but really, a lot of it is crap.  I know that most of these sprawls (a great word for it) are easily categorized and are accessible to find.  For the indiscriminate collections of train stations, so often the same material is repeated over and over, listing would be a great option.
 * Additionally, I occasionally see one-lined articles on an obscure town telling only where it is. I've read that "all geographic places are notable", but there is no point in having one sentence on it.  Eventualists will say that an article on a town will surely grow, but I say to delete it and recreate it when new information does arise.  I suggest implementing a minor version of a policy from the German Wikipedia, that there should be a minimum length for articles.  Well, there's more to say, but I hope you understand.  Thanks!  <font style="background:#7FFF00">Reywas92 <font style="background:#00ff7f">Talk 22:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem is the birdwatchers. We have an article on every godforsaken state route in Alabama, and there are road geeks who will kill rather than merge the damn things back into one article. We have well-fleshed out articles on all 493 Pokemon characters. That kind of energy will rise up in defense of their collections of articles. There exists enough documentation (somewhere) to provide references for everything, and without a big tightening up of the notability guideline, someone will find two newspaper sunday-supplement articles to establish notability.


 * The one proposal I'd make to tighten up notability is that press coverage must come from outside the area - the subject must be located outside the newspaper's normal circulation area. For example, San Francisco Bay Area high schools wouldn't be notable if the only sources were Bay Area newspapers. Local politicians would only be notable if they get coverage outside their constituency. Pokemon characters would only be separately notable if the character is mentioned in something other than the Pikachu Press-Democrat. Roads would only get the nod if they were discussed in papers which didn't use the road for their delivery routes. But that's a pipe-dream. User:Argyriou (talk) 22:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that would be a part of a proposal. If someone can come up with a non-pejorative title for a proposal, I'll start a draft in my userspace, and then invite anyone interested who supports the essence of the proposal to collaboratively edit it into something really good. Then we can actually 'formally' propose it. SamBC 22:49, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Further to the above, I've started what is currently a completely skeletal proposal at User:Sambc/wip/Sprawl Control Policy Proposal. Feel free to use the associated talk page, but I'd lie to fill in some material before opening it for collaboration. SamBC 01:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The proposal is now at a point where I'd really appreciate feedback. Thanks. SamBC 02:52, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And I'm now inviting active collaborative editing from ayone who supports the essence of the proposal. If you're against it in principal, then just wait until we feel it's ready to present formally and then oppose it. SamBC 03:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Another huge problem is that people who don't like these articles spend ages talking about them, while people who do like these articles spend that time creating them. And there are projects that aim for "comprehensive coverage".  Looking at Bus Routes we see there is good quality information that covers with width and depth of the subject.  They have nice free images.  They're very good articles, but they're also complete cruft.  This makes it hard to delete them; people say "they're good articles, a lot of work has gone into them" or some such.  I don't know if I have a problem with good quality articles about non-notable subjects.  I do have a problem with bad articles about trivial subjects, and there are very many of those sub-stub level unsourced, poorly spelled, un-verifiable articles about a person or thing that is both recent and minor.  Dan Beale  14:17, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I suspect one reason 'we' spend ages talking about these articles is that we get virtually nowhere in trying to actually get them merged/deleted. I'd really like to get some of the groups working on such 'universal coverage' in on the discussion, especially to find a way of getting the above proposal into some sort of shape where it is acceptable to them. SamBC 14:48, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Reliable and unreliable sources
At two sections of WP:RS we need more voices to reach a consensus. More detailed explanation of what is a 'reliable' and 'unreliable' sources were recently merged from WP:ATT, addressing issues such as whether particular sources such as newspapers or academic books are reliable or not, but now some users are removing the newly added sections. More comments on whether they should stay or not are needed.18:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Can a user request to be banned?
I would actually like to request to be banned for 2 months. I have a bar exam in 9 days and I should be studying for this exam. Is that possible? If it is, please do so, this forces me to study :) Travb (talk) 18:01, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Banned, no. Blocked, generally no (see Blocking policy). There's the option of using the "wikibreak enforcer", which essentially prevents you from logging in (see here and follow the instructions on the page). Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 18:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Just ask Tom Harrison for the short-term block, and he'll do it for you in a friendly way.   MortonDevonshire  Yo  <font color="#ffffff"> · 19:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Somehow the concept of a lawyer not having enough self control to avoid logging in when there are more important things to be worrying about is mildly concerning.ALR 21:14, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Are you kidding me? A lawyer with no self-control is much more likely to win at closing with a dramatic, yet arbitrary point. Trust me - I watch TV. I look forward to Travb asking for remand helping me with my contract litigation. the_undertow talk  06:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The wiki crack is addictive, I've been sitting at my computer for the last twelve hours, hitting refresh on my watchlist every five seconds, and I'm still doing it. --MichaelLinnear 21:57, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Black Falcon.
 * ALR, I laughed about your comments so hard. Actually drug addiction and alcholism is rampant with lawyers. So I guess many of them have addictive personalities like me.
 * If it makes you sleep better at night ALR, this wikipedian will probably never actually practice law (My whole reason for this diploma is I want to live abroad for the rest of my life). No one will mind one less lawyer :) All I will get out of this three years of hell is a $100,000 fancy looking diploma and tactics I can use to edit war on wikipedia.
 * wikicrack....LOL, we should make a wikipage.
 * Morton, thanks for your help and kind words. I dont think we will cross paths to edit war again. I have grown tired of politics. I will see Black Falcons excellent suggestion first: WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/WikiBreak Enforcer then I will give Tom the priveledge of booting me. I thought tbeatty was the one who was an admin.Travb (talk) 04:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/WikiBreak Enforcer doesnt seem to work :( I dont think Tom would boot me because of Blocking_policy Travb (talk) 04:12, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You've been blocked. Use  on your talk page if you want back. —  xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  06:13, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of jokes
A debate has sprung up over inclusion of a cute math pun about Bring radicals, and I think we're in need of policy clarification. Should a humorous cartoon be used to supplement article content? Please pitch in on the talk page with any insight. I've re-started the discussion at the bottom with a summary of points made thus far. ~ Booya Bazooka 12:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Define External Links Spam
Vote Responses: Spam:          Valuable External Links:

I have tried repeatedly to add what I consider to be valuable external links to related wikipedia content. The links are to online recreational topographic maps of the geographic area covered in the wikipedia article. However, many editors have erased the external links and have threatened to ban me from Wikipedia for spamming, while other topics have retained my external links as relevant info. This has been disturbing to me, because the online maps that I have linked to are original content and valuable resources.

Please see the following links and respond to the content as Spam or as a Valuable External Link as a vote at the top of the page.

All of the following links are for geographic areas within Connecticut.

Rivers

Connecticut River: []

Housatonic River: []

Ten Mile River: []

Sandy Brook: []

Nepaug River: []

Saugatuck River: []

East River: []

Hammonasset River: []

Coginchaug River: []

Quinnipiac River: []

Farmington River: []

Willimantic River: []

Hockanum River: []

Hop River: []

Blackledge River: []

Salmon River: []

Jeremy River: []

Yantic River: []

Eightmile River: []

Shetucket River: []

Natchaug River: []

Mount Hope River: []

Trails

Appalachian: []

Metacomet: []

Mattabesett: []

Hop River Bike Trail: []

Airline Bike Trail: []

Pachaug Trail: []

CT Trail Directory: []

State Forests

Cockaponset State Forest: []

Pachaug State Forest: []

Rock Climbing

Main Rock Page: []

Bradley & Ragged Mountains: []

Lamentation Mountain: []

Cathole & East Peak Mountains: []

Sleeping Giant State Park: []

West Rock Ridge: []

Chatfield Hollow: []

Pine Ledge: []

Whitestone: []

Deer Cliff: []

Saint John’s Ledges: []

Beech Rock: []

Diamond Ledge: []

Campground Map

[]

CT Cycling Routes

Statewide: []

Canaan: []

Kent: []

Washington: []

Litchfield: []

Burlington: []

Milford: []

Wallingford: []

Valley-Shore: []

Mystic: []

Storrs: []

Windsor: []

Farmington: []

New Hartford: []

Thank You for Your Help, Czimborbryan


 * Adding a large amount of links to many pages (especially when the links are to the same website) is widely considered as spam. Since Wikipedia is based on consensus, not voting, a vote for whether these links are spam is largely irrelevant.  This time around, add the links to the talk pages of the articles and let other people add the links.
 * Did that help? ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 01:38, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * All of those pages – indeed, that entire site – seem plagued by issues with layout and formatting. Viewing in either Opera or Internet Explorer shows serious problems.
 * Take this randomly chosen page from the list above. The image is too large to be viewed comfortably in a web browser window on any reasonably-sized monitor (1118 x 2140 pixels).  This might be excusable if the intent was for the user to print the map for use (though even then a better solution would be to provide a screen-sized map and link to a larger, printable, version), except that the map suffers from compression artifacts.  Small text and symbols are difficult or impossible to read.
 * The text information to the left of the map runs over the edge of the coloured region in which it ought to be contained, hindering readability. The title of the map is misspelled ("Appalachion").  On opening the page, the top third of the screen is consumed by two panels of Google text ads, which may well be what pushed the editors involved to the conclusion that this effort was spamming.  The site's homepage needs to be drug out into the street and shot.
 * In any case, USGS topographical maps are available online through a number of sources, including free ones. See, for example, the USGS's National Map site.  TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:02, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Also, Wikipedia is not a travel and recreation guide. I don't have the cite for that, but I'm pretty sure it isn't.  If you decide to add a recreation-based feature as a standard item to a bunch of different articles about geographic locales, you are really enforcing a private style guide for those articles and taking them in your own direction.  That in turn might step on the toes of a wikipedia project that has its own ideas about what articles should look like.  Wikidemo 05:02, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikidemo, I think you have WP:NOT in mind. If it doesn't apply, it should. And I agree with TenOAT that these aren't "valuable" maps of the areas in question. When it can be assumed for most of our audience adequate or better sources are at hand (while users in the UK, for example, may not be able to get their hands on a USGS map, I expect that their local library would have comparible alternatives), we can be more picky about the submissions. -- llywrch 22:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Wikidemo, there are actually thousands of examples of articles in Wikipedia that are recreational guides. See Appalachian trail, Rock Climbing > List of climbing areas... Czimborbryan 12:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * TenOfAllTrades, spelling errors and fromat problems do not preclude a source from being valid.  If this reasoning were applied to Wikipedia, many of it's articles would be deleted.  As for problems with the above map, all that you have to do is scroll over the area you would like to highlight and then click the label for a clear zoomed view (directions explain this on the page).  Furthermore, USGS maps do not have accurate layouts for nearly every trail labeled because the trails have changed routes several times throughout the decades.  CTXGuide had mapped these areas using GPS to created very accurate online maps.  Just compare the USGS maps of the Appalachian Trail through Connecticut VS the ones on the resource above and you will see major route differences.  This accuracey is essential for research. Czimborbryan 12:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

FYI - There have been some changes made since I had first posted this inquirey. I stopped placing external links on articles posted by other editors because they were being deleted anyway. I decided to just keep these links to posts that I had made myself. For more information, see my talk page. Czimborbryan 12:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Nationality
First of all, apologies if this has been discussed here before, but this is something I have come across many times and would like to discuss this to try and put a stop to the edit warring that is occurring.

There are many articles about Scots on Wikipedia - some sporting infoboxes have a nationality tag and in the case of anyone born in Scotland, their nationality is British, as Scotland is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Many times I have seen their nationality set to Scottish with a Scottish flag alongside. In my eyes, this is wrong. Nationality is about which sovereign country you are from. If we allow autonomous communities to represent someone's nationality then that means including Quebec, Catalonia, Valencia, Bavaria, Walloon et al.

I'm in no way stating that we should not mention that someone is from Scotland, but as far as their nationality goes, describing someone as a Scottish national is plain wrong. Scottish nationality has not existed since 1707 when the United Kingdom was formed with the Acts of Union. People from the United Kingdom are British citizens, as described on their passports. I believe that stating otherwise is not NPOV, due to having political undertones to do with independence movements.

I would like to suggest that Wikipedia policy be amended to state that a person's nationality must refer to a sovereign state. Readro 22:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose proposal. If a person self-identifies as Scottish, that would be their nationality. Scotland does have its own national parliament, I believe. Badagnani 22:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * But Scotland is not a sovereign state. How far do you take it? If someone self-identifies as, say, Gallifreyan, it would be daft for an encyclopedia to list that as their nationality. Readro 22:36, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Neither is Northern Ireland but a lot of people don't consider themselves British there as well as others not considering themselves Irish.It has been and still is to an extent a highly charged political situation so if somebody self-identifies as just being from Northern Ireland that should be allowed .Garda40 22:45, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps the important distinction should be the self-identification. If, for example, John Smith self-identifies as being Scottish, instead of British, then Wikipedia could indicate as such. If, however, John Smith does not express any public preference, then Jane Doe (Wikipedia editor/Scottish nationalist) should not be permitted to change "British" to "Scottish". Thoughts? --Ckatz chat</font&gt;spy  23:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
 * But the problem I see is that how far do we take it? One former NASCAR driver self-identified as being from the Confederate States of America. Should that be allowed too? What about Québécois? In my opinion, we need an unbiased criteria to discern what is allowable, and limiting acceptibility to sovereign states is the obvious choice. Readro 00:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * In the absence of any strict criteria that define a 'nation', we must simply use our common sense: if a significant number of people identify themselves as having a certain nationality, then that nationality exists. I admit 'a significant number' is still vague and undefined - but self-evidently, the millions of people who identify themselves as 'Scottish' would qualify (see Scottish people), while the tiny minority who call themselves 'Confederate' or 'Gallifreyan' would not. Terraxos 08:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a debate that frequently crops up outside of Wikipedia. Often, it's about whether or not Wales, Scotland and N.Ireland qualify as countries. The nationality slant is new to me, I must admit, but I think that the same applies to this also. Technically, of course, people from these respective countries are British - they are British subjects. However, I think self-identification is very important. It's not fair for people to suggest that Scotland isn't a real country or nationality when, under the same criteria, England isn't a real country and English isn't a real nationality! For some reason, you never hear that argument levelled at us (I'm English) as if we're somehow different or above that (most persons respond with: "Well of course England is a country!". Therefore, if it can be determined what nationality someone identifies themselves as, I think that is what should be stated. Blaise Joshua 12:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Some people don't care. Some people would care very much.  Scotland is a country, it has a parliament, it has its own banknotes.  Many Scots describe themselves as Scottish first and "British" last.  This isn't just about some Scots being Pro-Scottish, it's about some Scots being vehemently anti-English.  It's easier, and nicer, if we allow people to use either.  With maybe wikilinks to relevant articles about Scotland and Britain so that people can learn the difference.  I know that trying to 'force' the use of a nationality will cause very many megabytes of bad-tempered discussion and edit-warring, just for "Scottish" vs "British", let alone any other nations.   Dan Beale  12:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose - Your examples are not the same. You are describing areas of a country (Quebec etc) not countries. Scotland is a country within a union (the United Kingdom of... etc a United Kingdom of seperate nations). It is described internally and externally as a seperate country and is recognised as such. It is governed by UK paraliment but it has borders, seperately printed bank notes (although the same currency), a seperate parliment, a seperate eduation system, a seperate health care system, a seperate flag and NATIONAL teams for sports (Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are seperate nations in the World Cup and Commonwealth games for example. They are not described as regions but as nations. This was raised in the news when Cornwall tried to compete in the Commonwealth games seperately). It may not be a fully autonomous country currently it is still a country not a region or a state. AlanD 16:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Moving beyond self-identification for the moment... in articles about historic personages the Scottish ID in an infobox may well be absolutely appropriate. Certainly for anyone living prior to the Act of Union in the early 1700s. Blueboar 18:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm just not convinced that, as a matter of encyclopedic integrity, we can take self-identification as our absolute here. If two people can be born to the same parents, grow up in the same house, live in the same places, hold the same nationality and passport, but still end up with one being 'British' and one 'Scottish', 'Welsh' or 'English', then that information is more or less meaningless.
 * Scotland does have a parliament, but it's a subordinate body of the Westminster parliament - Scottish regions are still represented in Westminster on the same basis as English, Welsh and Northern Irish ones. Bodies on not entirely dissimilar lines have been proposed for the regions of England, but no-one would have then said they were each a separate country.  Bank notes are printed by several banks in Scotland; but they are not legal tender in the technical sense - the only legal tender in Scotland is Royal Mint coins, which are the same across Britain; and in practice, Scottish and English notes are equally accepted in all regions.  It has a flag; but then so do Cornwall and various other regions.
 * I'm also not sure it's consistent with how we treat areas in non-English-speaking parts of the world. The Basque region, for example, has its own borders, its own flag, its own parliament, even its own president.  Many of its residents would identify very strongly as Basque, not Spanish.  Yet we still begin the article on Juan José Ibarretxe with "Juan José Ibarretxe Markuartu (born 15 March 1957)[1] is a Spanish politician."
 * The problem with recognising someone as belonging to the 'Confederate States of America' is not that not very many people identify as being from there; but that no international body recognises its existence. Similarly, Paddy Roy Bates may identify himself as Sealandish, and even issue passports, but we should still consider him British because no country or international body recognises Sealand as a nation.
 * I would have thought that we are best sticking to internationally-recognised nations for determining nationality; and for all international purposes, the nation is the United Kingdom. No-one holds a Scottish passport; no nation has a Scottish embassy; no-one represents Scotland to the UN.
 * This is no slight on Scotland, which is a very important cultural entity - and, of course, for pre-1707 citizens, "Scottish" is entirely appropriate; but I think that, if our designations of nationality are to have any meaning at all, they need to be based on internationally-recognised nations - what passport the person would be recognised under; not self-identified nationalities. Self-identifications can of course also be mentioned if they are sourced; but if one person with a British passport is identified as 'British', another should not arbitrarily be identified 'English' or 'Scottish'.
 * Mohamed Al-Fayed is another example that springs to mind. "Mohamed Abdel Moneim Fayed (Arabic: محمد الفايد ) (born 27 January 1929) is an Egyptian businessman and billionaire."  He has lived in Britain for many years, and would like to consider himself British; he has applied several times for citizenship.  Because it has not yet been granted, however, we call him Egyptian.
 * If we do not have an absolute, verifiable standard for nationality such as this one, then it seems to me that we are making our information on nationality more or less useless, by not applying the same standards of verifiability and NPOV to nationalities that we expect from the rest of our data. TSP 20:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would say that the "self-identification" argument is not the point. Unlike the other places you have raised the status of Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales as seperate nations within a union is not something that is contraversal it is commonly accepted. I honestly cannot see the problem here. The UK is a union of nations not states or regions. Seperate nations that are accepted and defined as such. I return to the "national" football teams and so forth as just minor proof of that. Plus I doubt very much if you were to go out on the streets of any British town and ask the question "Is England a country or a region?" that you'd get many responses for the latter, if any.AlanD 21:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think I would have said that England was a country but not a nation; but use of all these terms tends to be ambiguous. What it isn't, however, is a sovereign state.
 * The problem with using nationalities which do not correspond to internationally-recognised, passport-issuing states is the lack of verifiability. Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh to parents from Glasgow; is he Scottish?  I don't think most people would consider he was, but there's no definitive standard.  On the other hand, Greg Rusedski was born and grew up in Canada - so why do we call him British?  Because that is now his citizenship.  For sovereign states, we can verifiably establish someone's nationality, by establishing their citizenship.  For countries within a sovereign state, we have no such standard, because English and Scottish people alike (since 1707) have British citizenship.  (The UAE presents similar challenges.)
 * The constituent countries do play separately in some sports (but not, for example, in the Olympics) - sporting nations are often formed for reasons of history or fairness rather than recognised national boundaries - for example, no-one believes there is such a nation as the West Indies, but still it has a cricket team; and similarly, the Ireland national rugby team fields players from two nations - Irish players from the Republic and British players from Northern Ireland. There may be a case in sporting infoboxes for employing national team identifiers rather than nationalities - which would also mean that, in that context, Tony Cascarino, for example, would be identified as Irish, even though he has always been a British citizen, because there we are determining what national team they play for, not what their nationality is.  That's fine, as long as we define what we mean by displaying a particular flag, and as long as it is a matter of verifiable fact.
 * The fact that someone comes from Scotland, or considers themselves Scottish, is important, and should absolutely be mentioned; just as it should be mentioned if a Spaniard is from the Basque region, a United Arab Emirati from Sharjah, or indeed an American from Texas. For defining nationalities for lists and infoboxes, though, I think we should stick to verifiable nationalities: that is, the sovereign state (or states, in the case of dual nationality) which issues the person's passport.  TSP 10:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I believe that if you stick to the above suggestion, TSP, you will lose a core element of someone's biography. To take myself as an example, I was born in Ireland to English (or British, if you prefer) parents. I spent my formative years in Ireland before my family moved back to England. Then, in adulthood, I returned to Ireland. However, during all of this, I have only ever considered myself to be English, despite the fact that I have two passports and two citizenships. On what's been suggested, it would be as correct for you to describe me as Irish as it would be to describe me as British. However, I have English parents, English heritage and English culture - as much as I love Ireland, I don't consider myself Irish and none of my Irish friends and family would consider me to be Irish. While this is somewhat clearer cut because Ireland is not part of the UK (neither, technically, is N.Ireland). I believe that if you only describe someone from Wales, say, as British, you are withholding very important biographical information on that person's culture, heritage, identity and background. What is much harder, and this has been mentioned, is where the line is drawn. Many, many people consider Wales, Scotland, etc, to be individual countries. I may be opening myself to criticism of my ignorance here, but I don't believe the Basque region is (generally). Now, gentlemen, I don't really think I have anything more to add to the above discussion. However, this can be a very contentious issue and I should commend all of your for discussing it so peaceably! Best regards from the beautiful island of Ireland : o ) Blaise Joshua 11:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not saying that any information should be left out. If you were born in England, that is a verifiable and important fact.  If you live in England, that is a verifiable and important fact.  If you call yourself English, that is a verifiable and important fact.  But for nationality, there's no rule for which of these, if any, adds up to your being English; it becomes a matter of the editor's opinion.  We can definitely say, though, that you hold British and Irish citizenship.  I expect that Greg Rusedski's family and friends consider him Canadian; but nevertheless, he has taken British citizenship, so we call him British - with, of course, extensive mentions of the fact that he was born and brought up in Canada, his father is Ukranian-Canadian, and there is controversy over him taking British citizenship; but nontheless he did take that citizenship, so he is British.  This rule is, from what I have seen, applied everywhere else in Wikipedia; so it should be applied for Britain too.  If the citizenship they hold is British, the person is British, not Scottish, English or Welsh.  It should absolutely be mentioned, if we know, where a person was born, where they live(d), and any cultures with which they self-identify; but these don't add up to a verifiable nationality.   TSP 11:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * That is exactly my point TSP, although maybe you phrased it better! It would remove the ambiguity from British biography articles. If English and Scottish nationalities are allowed on Wikipedia then there will be edit wars where no party is in the wrong. With a rule, then this grey area can be eliminated. It would be OK to state that someone was English or Scottish, but when describing their nationality they should be described as British. Of course, for pre-1707 individuals, English and Scottish nationality would be allowed. Readro 12:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok... but is nationality the same as citizenship? An Englishman may be a British citizen but his nationality may be English. AlanD 18:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * As a further point, someone who has multiple citizenships, or lives in another country now, may self-identify as being of a different nationality. A person born in the USA, but living in Australia under a visa may self-identify as Australian even if they do not have formal citizenship and spent most of their life in America. It's not a clear-cut issue, so I think the original proposal does not hold up well. -- Kesh 18:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No, it holds up fine in this instance as they can self-identify as whatever they want, as long as it is a citizen of a sovereign state. In your example, either one of Australian or American would be OK, as Australia and the USA are sovereign states. Stating that they were a national of entities that are not sovereign states, such as Queensland or Florida would not be allowed though. Readro 20:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I would have said that we should consider them as being nationals of whatever nation they hold citizenship of. We should note if they choose to self-identify as belonging to another nation, but if they do not actually hold citizenship of that nation we should not consider it their nationality.  If we are going to consider someone to be Australian based on self-identification, we might as well consider people to be citizens of the Confederate States of America based on self-identification.  TSP 10:00, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If your proposal were to go into effect we could never identify anyone as being a Kurd, for example, or the Korean runner who had to compete for Japan in the Olympics prior to World War II (can't remember his name now), would have to be listed as Japanese, even though he was Korean. Corvus cornix 03:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
 * No, that's not the case. Stating that someone is a Kurd is fine, as long as when explicitly referring to their nationality a sovereign state is used. The Korean runner could still be called Korean because Korea was still a sovereign state, but it was under Japanese rule. Readro 09:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Nationality is a very personal characteristic, hugely important to many people. I am hesitant to tell Scots (for example) that they must register as Britons; my English friends, after all, refer to themselves as English, not as British. I don't consider it my right - nor Wikipedia's - to tell people what flag they should associate with their homeland, heritage, or self-identity. The "sovereign state" argument holds no water with me. Why not just ask people to input a longitude and latitude? This sidesteps the issue of citizenship and nationality entirely, and just identifies people by geographic location. 67.189.48.7 20:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I would agree to some extent. However, when your English friends refer to themselves as English are they instantly "corrected" by someone else telling them they are British? The problem that exists on Wikipedia is the constant back-and-forth editing of articles which means some articles have people going from English to British and back again many many times. Without a rule to stop it, this silly edit warring will continue. This is why there needs to be a rule. Readro 20:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this debate may have got a bit confused due to people using themselves as examples. We're not talking about user pages here; so we're not generally telling people what they may self-identify as.  We're talking about encyclopedia articles.  This means, firstly, that in the majority of cases (considering that we're talking about several hundred years worth of people, not just current celebrities) we won't have a sourced self-defined nationality.  It also means that we need to deal with what is verifiable.  That's really why I want to escape from subjective definitions, and say definitively, "When we identify someone's nationality, in a list or with a flag by their name, what we mean is the sovereign state they hold (or at their death held) citizenship of."  I think this is the only standard we can hope to apply with any sort of consistency.
 * What sources do we have for what nationality, say, Byron considered himself to have? Even if we DID have sources where he called himself 'English',  how would we know he didn't at other times or in other contexts call himself 'British' (or even 'Scottish')?  We can't go and ask him, and even if we could, that would be original research.  If we do have sources where he mentions the matter, we can't know that they are comprehensive and represent his full views.  His citizenship, we can establish and state as a fact; anything else, I don't see how we can in most cases offer anything other than our opinion.
 * As ever, sourced facts about how people identify themselves, their ethnic origin, or anything else, are useful and can be mentioned in the article; but in a list, or for a flag set in an infobox, where we are saying "We will identify every person with a nationality, that they may be compared with other people", I think we need to have some standard for what we mean by that, or the information is of no use at all. TSP 01:26, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, to reside in Scotland and vote in Scottish elections, you must be British. IE an English person has the same rights in Scotland as a Scot, because they are both British. As does a Scot in Wales, or a Welshman in London (I'm not going to touch Ireland!) They are represented overseas by a UK embassy, they die in Iraq under the Union Jack. They are all British. I believe that is what is meant by "nationality" in the info box, and for the sake of consistency that is what we should put there. If an individual identifies with an ethnic group or a separatist movement, then that can and probably should be mentioned elsewhere in the article. --Michael Johnson 10:16, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Scotland and like are not ethnic groups or separatist movements (at least in the way you imply above). Consider they have football teams that compete in international tournaments (World Cup). Last time i checked this was not true for Quebec. David D. (Talk) 15:52, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * That is purely because of the history of football, and the fact that there is a special rule (article 10.5 of the FIFA statutes) for the home hations. Otherwise there would have to be a unified team, as article 10.1 states that there can only be one football association per country. Readro 16:05, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that the problem here is some people see the word "nationality" and think "citizenship," while others see the word "nationality" and think "a people having a common origin, tradition, and language." It's a relatively modern conceit that nationality and statehood are the same, few would have had trouble with this distinction during the imperial era when many states comprised multiple nations, or during the feudal era when nations might host many states. If the "Nationality" box is intended to convey citizenship, it should be re-named "Citizenship" to avoid ambiguity. Otherwise, it is not only unfair but inaccurate to conflate the two. Jmputnam 15:08, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * So, what do you think 'Nationality' means; and how do you neutrally and verifiably establish what someone's nationality is? TSP 15:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would say "nationality" refers to the nation (racial, tribal or cultural group -- "nation" refers to birth, Latin nasci, to be born) to which a person belongs, rather than to the state (political entity) which governs that person. If you want neutrality and verifiability, "nationality" simply isn't a good term to use.  Refer to their statehood or citizenship if you want a more objective term. Jmputnam 07:34, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Legally, that would be the member of the United Nations to which an individual is recognised as belonging, i.e. for an Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman, Irishman, Cornishman, or British person that would be the United Kingdom. You will note that I have included British as a distinct different citizen of the United Kingdom that has no reference to the old Countries, principalities or Duchies previously mentioned. A great many British people do not originate or identify themselves with the constituent countries, for their ancestors were very recently from parts of the old British Empire/Commonwealth (or Europe or the rest of the world). Per the example given above, it would be ridiculous to identify Greg Rusedski from the part of the UK he resides in; he is British. This matter of historic country verses nationhood needs to be treated very sensitively when dealing with some members of British society. LessHeard vanU 12:54, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say that sensitivity is a problem because Wikipedia is not censored. The problem is that as it stands, it is acceptable to say that an individual's nationality is that of their constituent country or British. Which one is correct to use? It can get reverted back and forth with no one being in the wrong. I feel there ought to be a rule. I have no particular preference as to the decision, but I think something ought to be done to settle this lengthy editing conflict. Readro 15:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * How about we have a rule to get rid of the info boxes. If this kind of pedantry is what we get from them they are not worth the trouble.  I seem to recall there was a massive fight over which flags should be on the geographical infoboxes too.  What a waste of time. David D. (Talk) 15:37, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * (EdConf) It is an awkward problem that, frankly, doesn't have a good solution. For example, I am English, and I am British, and I am European. The first is not a matter of citizenship, but is a matter of nationality, while the last is a matter of citizenship but not of nationality. Nationality and citizenship are distinct, if related, matters. To be really pedantic, British Nationals weren't citizens at all until relatively recently, we were in fact subjects, at least as British law defined it.
 * Why not mark them as both nationalities? I assume this is what's currently done for people with joint citizenships. SamBC 16:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Confused about image copyright
I'm sorry if I put this in the wrong help section, I'm new :-)

For the page on "How to stop an exploding man" (Heroes season finale) I though it would be useful to have a picture of Sylar's blood trail leading to the manhole cover. So I captured an image by putting it on Movie Maker and using the image capture tool. What license do I have to upload this file? I uploaded it (its Image:Blood-trail.jpg) and it says that it will be deleted within a week, what do I do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Camydoga (talk • contribs) 19:06, 17 July 2007


 * Responded on poster's talk page. Mango juice talk 20:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Deleted pages and the GFDL
OK, this is perhaps more of a pondering than a serious problem, but if you'd join me in a train of thought....

So, there's a page; it's got a history and authors list, as the GFDL requires. It goes through a deletion debate, and gets merged - with a note saying where the content is merged from, so the authorship trail can be traced back (to the old page, which is now just a redirect) - fine. Next, a new article on a closely-related topic is created, and the redirect is moved to that. Then the new article gets AFD'd, and deleted, along with the redirect. Along with it goes the article history; non-admins can no longer see those earlier versions, and find that attribution information for information which is still in the encyclopedia. Isn't this a GFDL violation?

In practice, not a huge issue in this case - it's just a paragraph or two and they've probably been rewritten heavily since; but it would still be nice to have that article history (and the talk page history). Can it be restored? Does the GFDL require that it be restored? Even if not, should it be? TSP 22:45, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I suspect that's something for the foundation to ask their lawyer. SamBC 22:47, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Depending on the situation, merges can be turned in to redirects. In order to satisfy GFDL a list of authors needs to be maintined, but not a list of what words came from what authors, so another option is to copy the edit history to the talk page of the merge target. —  xaosflux  <sup style="color:#00FF00;">Talk  03:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Or, we could just undelete the redirect. GFDL compliance is important but it's very rare that it causes a problem that can't be easily solved.  Mango juice talk 12:22, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've undeleted the redirect, whacked a R from merge on it, although thanks to the quirks of redirection the template message won't show, and I've undeleted the talk page, added a note on GFDL compliance and Oxbridge there. Figure that covers it. Steve block Talk 12:29, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a tabloid
is there a wikipedia policy known as "wikipedia is not a tabloid" or similar... with guidelines that say to not dig up embarassing personal or private information about a living person and post it in their article?--Sonjaaa 15:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Biographies of living persons, relevant quote may be An important rule of thumb when writing biographical material about living persons is "do no harm." Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid; it is not our job to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. Biographies of living persons (BLP)s must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy. Hope that helps, Steve block Talk 16:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Renominating for deletion
Is there a policy or general standard for how soon an article can be renominated for deletion after it has survived an earlier AfD? I ask because List of atheist Nobel laureates (bundled with similar lists) was nominated for deletion only 2 days after it survived its first nomination. It just seems way too soon to revisit this issue. What is the policy or standard in such cases? Nick Graves 19:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * An AfD I closed was recently renominated the next day - the majority of !votes were "close, too early, don't be silly". Figure a month, at least, barring some explosive change. Wily D  19:19, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Lists might be problematic; with articles there is always the possibility that the subject will become considered less notable, the references become less compelling, or the general editing make it a poorer piece. With a list you may have to wait for the classification to fall into (more) dispute. If the contents remain the same (or are simply expanded or contracted), as does the perception of the worthiness of the classification, then any relisting will likely to bring the argument that there has been no material change since the last AfD, with the possibility of the nominating editor been accused of shopping for a more sympathetic audience. The upside is, of course, that once a list has been deleted per AfD it is unlikely ever to be "improved" enough to be bought back. LessHeard vanU 20:36, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Generally speaking 2 days would be too short except if the discussion was perhaps closed prematurely or if it's a very recent event (as sometimes people tend to get too emotional). However in this specific case a quick look tells me there is no problem. The list was nominated for deletion but many people felt it was unfair to delete it since the other lists exist (which is a poor argument anyway WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS)). Therefore the lists were nominated together so that this could be evalutated. Indeed, I would argue renominating it so soon while addressing the concerns is far better then waiting 6 months. This way, all the people who participated in the first nomination are likely still interested, rather then 6 months later when people may have moved on. (Obviously renominating something every 2 days is a different matter). Nil Einne 21:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * It matters whether the previous discussion was "no consensus" or an obvious "keep". Such issues are more frequently taken to deletion review rather than relisted immediately, but in this particular case more discussion doesn't seem to be problematic. Note that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and hence we have no strict rules governing relisting.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:34, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree a deletion review would have been better, especially since keep because WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS should have been ignored by the closing admin anyway IMHO Nil Einne 10:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Either way, consensus can change. Some articles which have been kept after previous AfDs have been deleted. However, I do think deletion review is a good idea if the AfD has ended recently.--Kylohk 13:17, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The absurdity of not using multiple primary sources
When did history become citing previously printed material? Primary sources attempting to add accuracy to an item, regardless if there were 700 of them all in absolute agreement on one fact, would be kicked off by an ice cream scooper in Iowa. This entire enterprise is useless. Link2dan 18:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * um... ookay.... --Golbez 18:32, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Using multiple sources that add credibility is much more accepted than using one's userpage as a resume ;) the_undertow talk  20:06, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The problem with primary sources is that they require you to interpret them. I'm sure you are highly qualified for this task, but I question the judgement of that ice cream scooper i Iowa ;). --Ybbor<sup style="color:green;">Talk 13:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't diss the ice cream scooper! From meeting wikipedians in real life, I've learned that people have the most amazing and even useful hobbies and can spend inordinate amounts of time on some specialism. A famous example in 20th century history (not someone I know ;-P ) is this swiss patent clerk who used to dabble in physics. --Kim Bruning 16:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a shame if history articles are being hampered by people not allowing sensible use of primary sources, especially when there's so much recentist cruft that uses only primary sources. :-( Dan Beale  10:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's what an encyclopedia is, a compendium of relevant human knowledge, not an attempt to create new knowledge. If you read up on the policies and essays they present a very cogent and convincing argument for that.Wikidemo 13:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Scrolling Reference List
A discussion is occuring at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources about whether that guideline should be edited to prohibit the use of scrolling reference lists in articles. One of the reasons advanced for this prohibition is that if such an article were printed, valuable information would not appear in the printout. I solicit your comments. --Gerry Ashton 23:52, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Free image marked for deletion
I have added a picture to a page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Proofstep.gif). I have asked the permission to its author. I have mentioned the name of the author, the site of the author, the license ( a free one ) and incredibly the image is marked to be deleted. Simply I don't understand. --Frédéric Liné 06:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You should be asking this on the commons, but I'll help you. You have not added the appropriate license template, and the commons bot caught you. Find the template that matches your license and add it. Problem solved. Something like "creative commons". — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:36, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I did it for you. Next time remember to pick a license out of that little box on the upload page. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you it's very nice of you. --Frédéric Liné 06:45, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem. — Someguy0830 (T | C) 06:49, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Attribution requirements and the GFDL
I'm bothered by the "Do not copy text from other websites without a GFDL-compatible license" warning which appears on edit pages. Shouldn't have something that will also remind them to attribute the source if they do copy such GFDL text? BenB4 21:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's kind of rare that people do this... we usually catch it through WP:SCV and add an attribution. --W.marsh 00:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Should/could deleted articles be copied to userspace pages?
I've seen this frequently, an article is deleted at AfD and one of the editors wants to keep the article (for themself) copies it to one of their userspace pages.

Sometimes people in AfD discussions have asked to keep a copy in their userspace, but others have told them they can't because when an article is deleted it shouldn't remain on Wikipedia, including userpages. I saw one editor who asked the deleting admin to copy the article onto the editor's userspace page, but the admin refused and said he would only email the article to him because the deleted article shouldn't exist anywhere on Wikipedia. I'm not bothered either way, I'm just interested because I follow AfD a lot but there appears to be confusion over what the policy is (excluding anything to do with GDFL, which is mentioned sometimes when people say "delete and merge", because the edit history needs to be kept when merging). I've just registered an account, but I've been editing for a few months as an IP. Loopgains 19:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * No, deleted articles should be userfied upon a reasonable request. The reason should have something to do with improving Wikipedia, generally so work can be done to address the problems that got it deleted at AFD. Content that shouldn't be undeleted obviously includes copyvios and WP:BLP or otherwise possibly libelous stuff. But other than that, if an admin won't userfy a deleted article on a reasonable request, I don't think they really know what they're doing. --W.marsh 21:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I agree with W.marsh. We shouldn't have deleted articles sitting around as "mementos" but if the plan is to rework the article into a form that will survive a future AfD, by beefing it up and adding reliable sources, for example, there is no reason not to let an editor keep a copy in his or her user space. -- DS1953 <sup style="color:green;">talk  21:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Slight disagreement. We DO have deleted articles sitting around as "mementos": WP:BJAODN :)-Andrew c [talk] 21:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Per WP:USER, you can use userspace to work on articles in progress, but you shouldn't be using just to archive deleted content. Dragons flight 22:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

DYK standard
It seems rather unusual that such a controversial article as smoking could've appeared in the DYK. The "selection" section in Did you know doesn't say much about the standard. It seems that few people care about that. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 03:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This should probably be on Wikipedia talk:Did you know but anyway... there are 5 days to object any nom at T:TDYK, any reasonable, unaddressed objection will keep an item off the main page. It's not perfect, but it's a decent system. The more people who want to spend some time screening articles - the better. Admins doing DYK - who are a thankless and long-suffering bunch who only get noticed when they screw up - give the articles a quick read-through but they're not robots, they do make a few "mistakes". Nevertheless, Wikipedia is a work in progress and a major point of DYK is to get extra eyes on promising new articles, sometimes that means eyes that see a problem with it, and that's good too in its own way. That's just how I size up the situation. --W.marsh 03:55, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I'll just go ahead and respond here: WP:SOFIXIT. The whole purpose of DYK is to draw attention to new articles that need improvement.  And so what you've actually found is an example where DYK has done an excellent job of bringing attention to an article that needs it.  The article has already made dramatic improvements toward balance and could be a featured article in very short time.  Bravo to DYK for doing such an excellent job! --JayHenry 05:32, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Marsh and Henry, thanks for your replies. You've your points, and I didn't really mean to "complaint", but I confess I'm sometimes confused by the DYK standard. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:52, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The DYK standard isn't perfection... that an article was on DYK doesn't mean it's certified as high quality. It just meant no one objected within 5 days and someone cared enough to add it to the template. I don't really think there's much support for a change, but again, the more people who can look at articles in the DYK queue, the better. It's all about getting extra eyes on new articles. --W.marsh 13:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Notification for deletion of pages on watchlist
Let's say I'm watching the page Foo. If Foo is deleted, I don't immediately see this in my watchlist. I will only see this if I go into the "full watchlist", but it doesn't show in recent changes (even if it was just deleted). I think we should be able to have immediate notification when a page is deleted. I think it is rare that a page is deleted, but for new pages that a user is watching, this request is reasonable. Timneu22 00:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well that's a long-requested feature, but it's software-level so we can't really do anything here, you'd have to talk to the Devs. Not really my area, but I think the relevant request is here --W.marsh 13:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I thought it was software-level, but doesn't that get discussed here? Where does it? Thanks... Timneu22 14:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Uh, in the link I provided, with the developers. --W.marsh 20:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed change to AfD process
To try to improve the signal-to-noise ratio at AfD, I have posted a proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy that would require initiating a discussion on an article's talk page prior to initiating an AfD discussion. The reasons behind this proposal are in the discusion at the link above, and a previous discussion linked from there. Additional input from the community is requested in that forum. Dhaluza 13:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Recent change of copyright policy
Recently, ChrisO changed Copyrights in this edit. Prior to his change, the policy was:


 * The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear, and Linking to the Wayback Machine, for example, is an acceptable external link on Wikipedia.

After it, the policy became:


 * The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear. However, links to the Internat Archive (Wayback Machine), which is an officially recognised library, are acceptable external links on Wikipedia.

Key words here are "for example": prior to the change in policy, it stated that it was acceptable to link to any Internet archive, such as any of those in Category:Web archives. After the change, only Internet Archive's Wayback Machine became acceptable, and links to other archives must not be added to articles and should be removed. Note that this applies to archives of singular websites (a.k.a. web mirrors).

I think that this change of policy is unwarranted and that the policy should be changed back. And, in any way, that a wider discussion is needed for it. Nikola 01:18, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you are both right and I have tentatively edited the policy page accordingly. The prior version was poorly phrased.  It is a run-on sentence with two only slightly related sentences linked by the word "and."  Linking to the wayback machine is listed as an example of the US copyright status being unclear...just doesn't make sense syntactically.  I hope mine is better.  I agree that the new version made it sound like the Wayback Machine is the only approved archive, and I fixed that by using "such as."  I think that's better than "example" because it's not an example per se.  I cannot see how the editor would disagree with these changes.  He/she claims the edits do not change policy.  If that's the issue then it's merely a stylistic concern and one does not get into edit wars over style.  My bigger concern was the insistence on claiming that the Wayback Machine is an official library and linking to a newspaper article purportedly supporting that contention.  That made me do a double-take, and I was wondering if ther was some new policy I had missed about Wikipedia designating things as official libraries.  It turns out the article is about a piece of California legislation declaring them an official library.  That's nice, but it's neither here nor there in terms of Wikipedia policy.  It's an inappropriate extermal link.  If someone wants to discuss that feature of the IA, it's fine for the article about IA.  So I removed the link.  I hpe that satisfies both sides.  Is this really a live issue?  Does it make any difference in terms of actual external links being made?  Has it been discussed elsewhere at all?  Wikidemo 01:48, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * For the sake of comparison, my revised version reads:


 * The copyright status of Internet archives in the United States is unclear, however. It is currently acceptable to link to Internet archives such as the Wayback Machine. -- Wikidemo 01:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, the backstory is that I was blocked by Chris for linking to an Internet archive which was not the Wayback Machine (before he changed the policy). Nikola 07:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The more accurate backstory is that you were blocked for repeatedly linking to material which you know was a copyright violation (User talk:Nikola Smolenski). You do yourself no favours by misrepresenting the circumstances of your block, which was reviewed and agreed with by two other admins. -- ChrisO 00:59, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Request for Comment regarding ALF, Alf, primary topic, and appropriate disambiguation standards
A WP:LAME edit war, in which I have gotten involved against my better judgment, raises some issues relevant to the intersection of disambiguation and some other policies. Your comments are welcome at Talk:ALF.
 * 05:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Quoting public domain sources
I came here way of researching the allegation by an editor in an article I'm involved with that it is unnecessary to put quotation marks around quotations of public domain material so long as the public domain source is cited. Such plagiarism would result in a very poor grade in high school or college paper, but I'm having a rough time finding any official policy that Wikipedia might have on it. I do see at the Forum for Encyclopedic Standards that the proposed standards advocates Honesty, by properly indicating just what it is that is taken from a public domain source &, if it's the entire article, saying so. -- a standard with which I wholeheartedly agree. But can anyone point me to current Wikipedia policy about quotation of PD sources?

By way of background, in the article at issue (fully protected article Battle of Washita River; see also Talk:Battle of Washita River), it was discovered that there were a lengthy quote from a copyrighted source that was not in quotation marks (which has since been removed by an admin as a copyvio); but that there was also an lengthy quotation from a PD source with no quotation marks that had originally been sourced, but its source removed through sloppy editing during an edit war.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide. -- Yksin 19:24, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * You're correct. Any quotation – public domain or not – should be set off with quotation marks or indented in a clearly defined block of text, along with a proper footnote or reference.  While copying blocks of public domain text into Wikipedia doesn't expose anyone to a legal risk (no copyright infringement has taken place), failure to use quote marks and cite appropriately certainly carries a moral risk.  Plagiarism is absolutely to be avoided in this, as in any, scholarly work.
 * Of course, the best solution in many cases is to paraphrase and rewrite the material in Wikipedia style. Few public domain sources are appropriately written for a general encyclopedia (though short passages are sometimes relevant primary source material). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a very interesting topic. TOAT - your answer is compelling. I would assert that it is also important to attribute quotes the the proper sources (PD or not) because if I were to use a quote without citation, it would be implied that the work (quote) is my own. the_undertow talk  21:52, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your replies. I also found this, in WP:CITE, You should always add a citation when quoting published material, and the citation should be placed directly after the quotation, which should be enclosed within double quotation marks &mdash; "like this" &mdash; or single quotation marks if it's a quote-within-a-quote &mdash; "and here is such a 'quotation' as an example." For long quotes, you may wish to use Quotation templates. --Yksin 23:09, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I find the "copied text" markup useful on talkpages, but find it doesn't sit so well within articles. LessHeard vanU 18:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Pictures of identifiable people
As an encyclopedia containing nothing but editorial content, in almost all cases we are not required to obtain model releases to be able to use pictures of identifiable people. Sadly, however, there are many uses of such photographs which are prohibited or subject to legal action when a release has not been obtained. For example, a model release would be required to place a Wikipedia picture of a person on front of a cereal box. Is this a problem analogous to the fact that we don't allow non-commercial restrictions in our images' licenses? &larr;BenB4 06:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Naming of US cities
The current guideline for the naming of cities is badly in need of change, especially in regards to the United States section, but attempts to build consensus have stalled at the talk page. Please take a look at the discussion and give your opinion.  Λυδ α  cιτγ  02:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

User talk subpages?
Smcafirst requests that people not add a message to his talk page, but only to one of his subpages, or "I will not reply to you since I assume you are a bot". Is this acceptable, since it means that nobody can bring up the "you have new messages" box for him? --NE2 22:32, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * At first glance, that seems unnecessarily standoffish, because I cannot see a good genuine reason to want to do that, but he does at least have some sort of system behind it and he will still (presumably) notice new edits on his watchlist.  Adrian   M. H.  22:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * However, it can be important to get in touch with someone quickly, for instance if they're doing something wrong and need be told to stop. --NE2 22:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but I cannot see any significant time difference between seeing the notice and viewing one's watchlist. Zero, if your bookmark happens to be your watchlist. This editor's approach is a bit unconventional and perhaps a little bit unfriendly, but I see no major issues in it and (as far as I know) he has a right to do it that way. He is not alone in that approach, either.  Adrian  M. H.  22:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If I told him on his talk page to stop doing something, like a current AWB run, and he ignored it and continued, could I request blocking if his edits were harmful but made in good faith? --NE2 22:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If you believe the user is abusing AWB, you can presumably ask an admin to temporarily suspend his AWB access, until he can be contacted. However, if he's expressed a preference as to where to contact him - it can't hurt to simply contact him at the requested location.  --Tim4christ17 talk 04:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a hypothetical situation; essentially you're supposed to be able to tell a user something so he sees it next time he loads a page. I only load my watchlist once or twice a day; others presumably have similar habits. --NE2 04:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Presumably if he's asked that comments be put on a subpage, he's also making sure to check the page with regularity. I know that I check my watchlist several times a day - and when performing an AWB run or when engaged in a discussion, I check the list several times an hour.  --Tim4christ17 talk 04:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a hypothetical. If I needed to contact the user I'd do what they wanted.  If they don't respond "quickly enough" I'd add a linked tickle on his main Talk page.  But maybe Talk pages will behave differently by the time it actually happens, so I'd have to instead tickle the Wikipedia logo on his page so his warbler would wake his anteater.  (SEWilco 04:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC))
 * I agree that his system is potentially confusing and may discourage users from contacting him/her. But I would have to disagree with the 'new messages' issue. As far as I'm aware, there is no requirement that you check new messages regularly (except for admins perhaps). I for example occasionally chose to ignore new messages if I'm not in the mood and indeed at one time ignored my new messages for several weeks for a reason I won't go in to. Obviously if you are doing something wrong then you could be blocked because you did not read the warnings. But in most cases, for experienced users this is unlikely to be the case. If a user is for example, repeating a mistake, provided they look into the edit history and an article's talk page they will usually be aware if for example, something is reverted because of BLP Nil Einne 21:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * This is not really a good idea. He is making it difficult for others to communicate with him, for no good reason that I can see. I'd suggest he change his setup. Difficult communication tends to needlessly escalate disputes.  &gt; R a d i a n t &lt;  09:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess I fail to see why we're dictating how he manage his user talk page on the grounds that there could hypothetically be a problem of some sort. WP:BURO -- leave him be until there's actually evidence of a problem, no? --JayHenry 05:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

This seems to me to be an easy AGF issue... He has done nothing wrong, we are busy assigning motives and personality traits to this user because he wants to organize his talkpage a certain way. Comply with what he asks for; if he starts acting like a WP:DICK in his editing, respond accordingly, but I see no reason not to assume this is simply a way he wants to manage his filing system, and find no reason to think that he has some ulterior motive or is himself an undesirable. This works for him; comply with his request, and assume he has his good reasons for his system. --Jayron32| talk | contribs 04:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT

 * Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not - Many users at Articles for deletion are advancing this section of policy as grounds for deleting lists. This seems to be a case of WP:Point to me, and is not something the guideline at all intends. Well over 90% of lists would face deletion given this interpretation.


 * Ah, the old "Deletionists vs. Inclusionists" debate... some would argue that well over 90% of lists should face deletion. This is an difference of opinion that is not going to be resolved anytime soon. As a general comment, I have noticed that those lists that are focused on a clearly stated reason for existance, include citations and brief exposition on each item, or a clear structure (for example: listing their items in chronological order) tend to survive attacks by the "deletionists", while those that are nothing more than a list of links to other articles tend not to survive. Blueboar 17:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * As long as a list satisfies the criteria at WP:LIST, it should be fine. If it doesn't, then...  Well, WP:NOT is there for a reason. -Chunky Rice 22:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't tell you the amount of lists that follow the guidelines set up by WP:LIST that come up for deletion all the time. The arguments? They range from WP:Listcruft (an essay), the list will never be complete (wtf?), WP:NOT (which says except lists!), on and on. I'm just tired of neanderthals that are told over and over what policy and guidelines state yet continuously nominate lists that follow all criteria with one of these bogus ass rationales above. It gets old, and the same "pack of deletionists" have been using them forever. Hell, some just say, delete per WP:NOT. Nothing more, just per WP:NOT. Lmao. And that counts as a vote. It kills me. If someone can't take the time to explain their vote, it should not count. (Mind meal 10:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC))
 * I vote with the deletionists on this one as WP:Categorization is a lot more useful method of sorting related articles together. Take for example the random List of accounting topics, which are covered under Category:Accountancy or Category:Accounting stubs. However, I could support the inclusionists on this, if a delete proposal is not backed up with a check to ensure that a useful category exists to take its place, then this may be grounds to disallow the AfD. --Gavin Collins 16:13, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed guideline: Plagiarism
A few days ago I posted here about quoting public domain sources and plagiarism. Now I'm proposing a policy or guideline about it. Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style & join in discussion. Thanks. --Yksin 00:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Manual of style: capitalization of titles
In the sentence "Bush ran for president.", should president be capitalized? Manual of Style (capital letters) says "Titles such as president ... start with a capital letter when used as a title (followed by a name)... When used generically, they should be in lower case: "De Gaulle was the French president."" Is president here a general use of the word, similar to "Bush was the American president", or an abbreviation to the title "President of the United States"? How about "Bush was president."? Can the Manual of Style please be made more explicit about this particular case? -Pgan002 04:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If it was capitalised surely it would imply that Bush was literally 'running for the President' instead of competing in an election? Couldn't the issue be avoided by saying that he 'competed for the presidency'? Lanfear&#39;s Bane
 * Well, in parallel with what I am told below about institution names, president here could be an abbreviation for "the office of the President of the United States". The issue cannot be avoided in all cases because there are far too many uses and Wikipedians.  I would like to understand the correct usage and clarify the Manual of Style. -Pgan002 00:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

User warnings.
Why does editors have the right to remove warnings? - Flubeca Talk 16:58, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Probably to allow for bad faith or otherwise unjust warnings, I guess. I would prefer them to stay, except when bad faith is obviously at work, but consensus seems to support this particular freedom.  Adrian  M. H.  17:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Warnings remain in the page history, and thus cannot truly be removed at all!. --Kim Bruning 17:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course, but it would be far more preferable if we did not have to check the history (particularly time consuming if the relevant summaries were vague). That may lead to a succession of low-level warnings without the appropriate escalation.  Adrian  M. H.  18:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * This is one reason that editors placing warning are advised to include in the edit summary the type and level of the warning; they can then all be seen at-a-glance on the history page to enable appropriate escalation. SamBC 18:32, 18 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Because trying to force users to keep warnings has historically led to some fantastically innane edit wars and escalations in conflict about the warnings. This is especially true when the issue associated with the "warning" was a good faith mistake that has already been resolved, and yet third parties uninvolved in the initial dispute would edit war to protect "warnings" that serve no purpose but to "shame" a newbie.  We tried forcing people to keep warnings but the weekly threads at ANI about massive warnings related edit wars was not worth whatever advantage there might be in perserving such an archive.  Dragons flight 18:29, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It whould be better if they had to leave a when the blank it - Flubeca Talk 16:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The situation should be handled differently depending on whether it is an IP address or a username. As an IP address, there is no guarantee that the human removing the warning is the same as the human it was intended for; IP warnings are tracking activity from an IP address NOT from any one human, and thus should NOT be removed.  From a username it is a different situation; if the user heeds the warning and corrects their behavior; then there is no reason to leave the Scarlet Letter warning on their talk page; doing so violates good faith and discourages editors to grow and become better.  If the user does not heed the warnings, they are permablocked post-haste, and so the point becomes moot. --Jayron32| talk | contribs  05:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it a policy decision to keep this category on Talk Page
Having this category added through and on Talk page makes it less visible, is there some policy decision behind this. Vjdchauhan 19:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC).
 * The reason for the talk page categorization is that it is considered a type of meta-data, as the populating template is placed more for the sake of policies like WP:COI than because it has encyclopedic relevance to the article. Many of them are not notable for being Wikipedians, but rather a notable individual who by happenstance is also a Wikipedian. --tjstrf talk 19:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Can we have sub-categories as well
There are around 900 identified notable Wikipedians can we have several subcategories of this category based on occupation/nationality as well. Again is there a policy decision to have one flat and large category of 'Notable Wikipedians'. Vjdchauhan 19:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC).
 * Following from my above comment, this question should have a pretty clear answer: since the template links you directly to their account, and they can put themselves in all the Wikipedian categories they want to from there, there's no pressing need to subdivide the main category. It might someday become useful to subdivide by, for instance, living and dead, and I could see a useful division by former and active as well, but these aren't mainspace categories, and breaking them down by the normal conventions of nationality or profession wouldn't be particularly useful to their intended purpose. Hope that answers everything for you --tjstrf talk 19:51, 23 July 2007 (UTC)