Wikipedia talk:Forum for Encyclopedic Standards

knock knock-- this project alive or dead?
Anybody home? There were new posts by another Wikipedian today, but a three month gap before that. User:Jmabel had a comment that went unaddressed for a month (looking at the edit history of this page). Is this project alive or dead?? Looks useful, but looks deceased to me. --Ling.Nut 21:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Seems to be inactive doesn't it. I've tagged it as such; if that doesn't bring folks out of the woodwork assume it's dead. --kingboyk 19:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I just joined. I will be coming here quite a bit, but the learning curve is quite steep, and
 * it's taking a lot of time to familiarize myself with the project. But I'm no easy quitter.
 * I'll be coming here a lot. Richiar 18:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I try again
Encyclopedic standards include honesty. I have been observing several very common practices: Putting a notice that part of the article has has been copied from XXX, and not indicating what part Putting a notice that part of the article has has been copied from XXX, and copying the whole thing intact, without saying so. Not putting a notice, but doing likewise this is being done from Public domain sources, and is indeed legal, but it borderline in terms of ethics, non-encyclopedist in nature, and is taken outside WP as an indication of our lack of seriousness. When was there last a discussion of this? I try here because it is being ignred everywhere. Perhaps I should design a cateogry box, and use it///

Encyclopedia of Earth

 * Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Encyclopedia of Earth. I also think that it makes sense to investigate the approach taken by EOEarth it terms of standards, if they have it described elsewhere.  `'mikka 23:44, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Now at Village pump (proposals)/Archive. - Jmabel | Talk 01:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Starting Quality Management Project
I haven't heard any negative responses, so I will proceed with opening up the quality management project based on the above discussion. Richiar 15:45, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I was working on an communication model but it seemed quite confusing, even to myself, so I thought it was best to just remove it to a workspace on my user site for now. Richiar 04:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Active, merely quiet
I've been working on items related to this project, I've just had nothing to say here. As far as I'm concerned the project is active, although not discussing much. (SEWilco 20:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC))

Encyclopedic Standards and Article Validation
This Forum seems to have come to the attention of the "Article Validation" section of Wikipedia. As I reviewed the section "Article Validation", there seems to be similar concerns to the ones here, but I couldn't find any organized discussion. So, I am putting a link here: for others to see. In the meantime, I am active in trying to develop some kind of encyclopedic standards format that is practical, and I will be here biweekly if not weekly. I continue to be active in working on this. Richiar 20:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to peer-review nominations for editorial review
I have a serious concern: a recent article I consulted had a bright blue box "An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article doesn't satisfy the notability guidelines...".

OK, fine. Someone with the label "editor" thinks that this article "doesn't matter". He (or she) is entitled to his (or her) opinion. But why do I have any reason to think the "editor" has any interest in this area? If I didn't care about math or physics, maybe I'd mark the article on the Lorentz transformation as "doesnt satisfy MY notability guidelines".

Back to my point: the "editor" is entitled to his/her opinion, but I question two facets of Wikipedia:


 * Why should someone with the term "editor" get to establish this bright blue box?
 * Why should the editor's name be withheld? If this editor has a passion for squelching articles on a particular topic, then his/her bias might show through, and such nominations for "doesn't matter" should be discarded summarily, or at least peer-reviewed.

Proposals:


 * Nomination for such markings should be reviewed by an editorial panel. If 5 editors on a random panel of 10 agree that an article is questionable, perhaps only then should the article be nominated for talk
 * When used, the legend of the box should be changed to "editor [EditorsName] has expressed...".

Thanks for your consideration.... Harasty 13:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)


 * My view has always been that everyone is an editor. It is the responability of the person that would like to keep the material to assert the notability of the article subject. If the article does not do it well enough that the editor reading it is convinced, then it automatically represents a need for discussion.
 * Regarding the box having the editor's name in it, if you check history, the edit summary should show who it is that flagged it. Why should that matter though? If you simply go to the talk page and cite the notability, you are entitled to remove the tag at that point. Slavlin 15:02, 30 March 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 here that the proposed standards advocate 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? Thanks for any assistance you can provide. --Yksin 19:07, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Does someone really need a policy to know that plagiarism isn't acceptable? I didn't quite get that from reading the allegation.  It looked more like vociferous agreement.  Yes, we need to show quotations as quotations.  Yes, we need to attribute them (if only to anon).  Yes we need to cite the secondary reference they're drawn from.  See Attribution.  You'll note there is nothing that excludes public domain content from needing attribution of quotations.LeadSongDog 22:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

When to reference - a plea for more guidance and rigour
I'm a new member who happened here after searching for advice about a problem I have recently become involved with. There is a long-running dispute on Talk:Second city of the United Kingdom about when to add references to a table that eventually people agreed might be a good idea to draw up with a view to partly resolving a series of edit-wars. My considered view is that, if one is being serious about one's endeavours in aiding wikipedia to become a serious encyclopaedia, then one should encourage people to reference material as they go along. I've arrived at this position after advising PhD students for many years and also after contributing to paper encyclopaedias. After a series of very early disasters, involving writing notes and not keeping a list of one's references easily to hand as one writes notes about them, I routinely advise people to add references as they add facts and claims to wikipedia. However, some have objected to this, and state that when one just planning out a possible article, one doesn't have to. My point is that of course, one doesn't have to, but one would be strongly advised to do so, or risk end up losing content in any article just because one kept insufficient notes. The fact that these notes are collaborative, on a talk page of wikipedia, and may be challenged by others seems more reason to advise that one does keep one's references up to date, updating as one finds them. I'm also finding that some think that citing a different wikipedia article as an appropriate reference for claims is sufficient here. I think these issues need spelling out much more clearly in the guidelines or advice for editors as I have read them. Can I ask what people's views are on the general issues I raised here? DDStretch   (talk)  17:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I suspect you're preaching to the choir. My personal preference would be a change of process that would provide for completing the citations BEFORE drawing on them.  I'd also like to see a mechanism to more vigourously protect against the deletion of citations (perhaps in the vein of Previous versions of this article also drew on the following references:  Granted that's all captured in the history, but it's hardly obvious to a casual reader.LeadSongDog 22:25, 21 August 2007 (UTC)