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Village pumps: Policy • Technical • Proposals (persistent) • Miscellaneous
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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss existing and proposed policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new other than a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.
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Contents

Deletion policy

Please take a look on my proposal for restructuring the deletion policy. The readers of this policy is often non-administrators. For them the information on alternatives to deletion is more important that the deletion rules. I also think it should be more important to try to improve the article than to try to delete it. -- Hogne (talk) 10:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

  • I don't like the idea of "Courtesy blanking", which smacks of censorship. You might want to consider adding reference to WP:USERFY to your proposal as well. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I like it; I don't think the current version does enough to stress revision and improvement over rampant deletion. Celarnor Talk to me 10:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
"rampant deletion"??!! We have over 2.5 million articles, do you want more? If anything we are too tolerant. Articles should given a period under which to comply with Wikipedia's quality guidelines, if they failed they should be deleted.
"Editor time" is a finite resource. EconomistBR 05:22, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

When to use hidden/collapsible sections

copied/refactored from the VPT archive

We really need some recommendations about when/when not to use the "hidden" code, outside of footer-navboxes.

See:

Questions:

  1. Are there any more links to relevant discussions about hidden/collapsible sections?
  2. The various hiding-templates often get used to hide content that some editors simply cannot agree on whether to display or not (see the "influences" sections in some Writer-infoboxes (e.g. William Gibson), the Ponte Vecchio experiment, the vertical navboxes linked above, etc). Is this a usage we want to encourage or discourage?
  3. What code should be used? Wikipedia:NavFrame says it is deprecated, but it is widely used by all of the hiding templates ({{Hidden}}, {{Show}}, {{Hidden begin}}, {{HiddenMultiLine}}, {{Hidden section top}}, {{Hidden infoboxes}}) none of which mention deprecation.
  4. Any suggestions as to what we should be using for guidelines? Or where we should be discussing it? -- Quiddity (talk) 04:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
My general intuition is that hidden/collapsable sections should never be used except for navigation elements. The reason is to facilitate moving articles to print form - everything has to be fully expanded in print. Dcoetzee 20:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree, while some dynamic content in articles would be nice, there's generally no reason to show/hide article text. Mr.Z-man 21:33, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
I don't know if this is within the scope of the question, but I think it's legitimate to hide the solutions of "puzzle" boxes, e.g. chess diagrams or colour vision tests. -- Philcha (talk) 21:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)
Until we have a way to show collapsed sections on non-standard browsers (eg text-to-speech) and for printing, collapsed sections should be avoided. --MASEM 01:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
CSS can define separate rules for display and printing, so that's an internal technical matter. In the case I raised, it's all done via a template, so if someone defines a CSS class "hide when displayed, show when printed" it can be applied very easily.
I've never used a text-to-speech reader. Do these have options to speak hidden text? If not, that sounds like a deficiency that the suppliers should resolve.
In any case the cases I cited are chess diagrams and colour vision tests, which would be pretty unintelligible to text-to-speech readers. -- Philcha (talk) 08:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
I would hope (though I'm not sure) that screen readers would just act as a browser with JS disabled (where all the text should show by default), though I'm not sure. Printing is still an issue though, AKAIK. Mr.Z-man 16:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)
Screen readers should be fine (as collapsing is done by JS), but that's why printing fails; I asked this before and it's not just changing the media type for CSS; IIRC, JS will react independent of the CSS media setting, so if tables start collapsed on a page, they will stay collapsed when the page is parsed for printing. We should be avoiding any collapsed media until this can be (if ever) resolved, despite the fact it can really help a page with lots of secondary information. --MASEM 16:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. I'm still not certain what the consensus is though; A few specific questions:

For hiding things like:

  • the "influences" sections in biographical-infoboxes as a standard practice (this information is not always duplicated within the article-text)
  • anything, just to avoid argument (entirely hidden infobox at Ponte Vecchio)
  • anything, to save random space (hidden timeline at Elizabeth Smart#Legal proceedings (now fixed))

are we recommending against these practices? How strongly?

To which guideline/policy page would we add any sentences related to this? (and discuss further there)

Besides the printing and usability problems, there are isolated text overlap problems (e.g. Ant infobox).

I'm also concerned that some readers will completely tune-out [show] links, because at a glance they look just like [edit] links, down the right edge of the page. -- Quiddity (talk) 01:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand the question: we already have a guideline (and I note that none of the pages linked above considered that it's already dealt with at MoS) ... do people just forget that we have a Manual of Style when they're off discussing Wiki-wide style issues on individual template pages?

Scrolling lists and boxes that toggle text display between hide and show are acceptable in infoboxes and navigation boxes, but should never be used in the article prose or references, because of issues with readability, accessibility, printing, and site mirroring. Additionally, such lists and boxes may not display properly in all web browsers.

Agree with Mr. Z-man, already addressed at MoS, which is where the discussion should occur anyway. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Thank you! That's what I was looking for. It took 3 weeks to get that answer! And for the record, no, I haven't had time to read/reread all 200+ guideline pages recently...
On further analysis, it appears that section did not mention hidden-text, until you added it on Aug 27 2008. Please don't be condescending just because we don't all watchlist & scrutinize the same pages that you do... :)
I will transfer this thread to that talkpage in a few days. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia ads

i was perusing Jim Wales's user page and saw his wikipedia ad template. I thougth wikipedia did not have ads? What is the deal? Bilodeauzx (talk) 04:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Strong consensus throughout the history of Wikipedia has been shown against the inclusion of for-profit advertising. The use of banners to advertise on-Wiki efforts, however, has generally not met such opposition, and is generally considered ok as long as they do not become obtrusive (and given that Jimbo keeps his user page open to editing, it's reasonable to say that it's ok to have a few such ads there). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't like it though. I think this might be a way for Jim to "backdoor" some paid advertisements on wikipedia before we knew it. First on userpages, next on articles. A paranoid conspiracy maybe, but it just doesn't sit well, and I dont think i'm alone in that regard. Those banner ads look just like google banners. Bilodeauzx (talk) 05:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, apart from them appearing on his user page - what exactly have these ads got to do with him? They're community made and are included on Template:Wikipedia ads. There are even instructions there for hiding them. Nanonic (talk) 06:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia has an excellent article on this topic. See Slippery slope#The slippery slope as fallacy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The ads are only for Wikipedia related stuff. You won't see a ad advertising a product of anything. Techman224Talk 03:06, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

What's the deal with the 'There is no picture' templates?

When I look at articles about people, I often see things that say something like 'We don't have a picture'. For an example, see Ann Robinson. It seems to be due to:

  • Replace this image female.svg

We don't put 'work in progress' or 'under construction and I think that is just as silly. If there is no picture, then just... er... don't put a picture... What is the deal? Lightmouse (talk) 14:27, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Probably to prompt new users /readers to upload them... –xeno (talk) 14:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

These are, as of a few weeks ago, officially discouraged in the Manual of Style. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. I looked at Wikipedia:MOS#Images but couldn't find the discouragement. Can you provide a reference please? Lightmouse (talk) 15:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Just remember that discouraged =/= an encouragement to remove them all. –xeno (talk) 15:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Seems pretty synonymous to me. Which ones do you think should not be removed?--Kotniski (talk) 16:06, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
The ones that are already in place. Basically, there's no need for a bot to mass-remove them all. –xeno (talk) 16:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
So are they considered a good thing or a bad thing? Or are some good and some bad? In any case I don't see how their desirability can be dependent on whether they were added before or after some arbitrary date. --Kotniski (talk) 17:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
If we don't remove the ones that are there, people will keep adding more—most people base article style on what they see in other articles. Darkspots (talk) 17:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Last I heard, there was a consensus that the current images are ugly but no consensus on what to do about them. Anomie⚔ 18:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
See also Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Image placeholders for further reading. --Sherool (talk) 20:02, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Can somebody point me at the reference in the MOS please? Lightmouse (talk) 22:34, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah those templates are stupid, esp. when the silouhette figure looks nothing like the actual subject of the article (a white middle class westerner). Bilodeauzx (talk) 02:32, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

See: Proposal to deprecate and remove images that say 'this is not an image please add one'. Regards Lightmouse (talk) 12:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

New proposal - provisional adminship

See discussion here (permanent link). Jehochman Talk 08:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Legislature - 500 members // Admins of Wikipedia are the Executive Branch

The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Resolved. Ladies and gentlemen, Wiki_brah is BANNED. Don't enable him; report him to a checkuser and block on sight. -Jéské (v^_^v Kacheek!) 08:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Note: Thread started by sock of banned user. Darkspots (talk) 07:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I recently perused last summer's lengthy "RFC on Arbcom," and, although it is wholly unclear what action (if any) will be taken as a result, one controversy in particular that stood out is the question of how involved Arbcom should be in formulating (as opposed to interpreting) policy and guidelines. Is Arbcom "legislating from the bench"? If not, should they be? My question is simple and goes to the heart of the issue: does Wikipedia even have a "bench" OR a "legislature"? If not, should it? With this as my overriding question I came up with some points of discussion, some of which segue into new policy issues, and so on. Being new on wikipedia, I might be wrong about some of my underlying facts, but if I am, please let me know.

1. Arbcom is doing a fine job in doing what they were meant to do, that is, to settle major disputes on a case-by-case basis. Arbcom was never meant to craft policies or regulations, only to interpret them. Currently, policies and regulations concerning sensitive topics are drafted by the foundation, with no community input. Policies regarding everything else are drafted by the "community" itself on an ad hoc basis -- basically, whenever they "feel like it," after some user comes up with a good idea that gains support, is voted on, and becomes the norm either by acclamation on one of these message boards, or by custom.

2. This current system of drafting policies and guidelines is too chaotic. If simply anyone can propose a policy change and start a discussion, then marginal or redundant ideas will simply drown out the good ideas and nothing will get done. For instance, how many times in the last 2 months has a user proposed reforming the wikipedia date conventions? Furthermore, how many times has the same issue come up of making some perennial proposal official, like the latest post about "WP:Honesty" being made a guideline? This current system is unproductive and given to trolling and Wikipedia needs at least a modicum of procedural regularity in the task of formulating policy. The way wikipedia has grown over the years has made its current model not scale well. Direct democracy might work in a small community, but usually doesn't in a large nation.

3. The official power to propose, draft, discuss, and vote on policy should be the sole province of a Wikipedia Legislature. Members of this Legislature should be elected by the community in any fair and democratic manner the community chooses. The model used by the Arbcom elections seem (to me) like a good system for voting. The term of the Legislators should be long enough to foster continuity and not lead to "constant campagining" but not so long as to foster oligarchy -- I'm thinking two to three year terms. The size of the Legislature should be large, but not too large -- perhaps about 500-600 members, the size of the House of Commons or the US Congress. The Legislature presumably would internally select or elect its own governing structure, with a "Speaker" or "President pro tem," who might have a cabinet, or committee chairmen, under him.

4. The Legislature would be the only place where binding policy proposals and voting would be done. All this would be done on-wiki, in public, and the community would be allowed to comment and lobby all they want, but their views would not be binding. This would be a republican form of government better suited for the size of wikipedia.

5. Due to the potential conflict of interest that would arise between "enforcing" policy (by the admin wing) and creating policy, done by the Legislature, members of the Legislature could not have the admin bit. Existing admins who get elected to the Legislature would have to surrender their admin bit. Furthermore, this would keep the Legislators from being distracted by sysop/cleanup duties so they could concentrate on law-making and policy.

6. The Admins of Wikipedia have been compared to the executive branch. However, many admins have outstripped their role to simply enforce policy and have become quite a power in themselves. I propose two minor reforms to the admin group, one, that a hierarchy be created within the admin group, with 5-10 regular admins reporting to a superior admin (like a group leader or gruppenfuehrer) and two, that we go back to the old system where admins were not allowed to unilaterally block a user for anything other than rampant and obvious vandalism. In order for an admin to block a user for "disruption" or some other vague faux pas, the block first should be approved by his group leader, or better yet, the block would be provisional until it is reviewed by a lower "court" of sorts, which would be formed under the aegis of Arbcom.

7. The system I just proposed would rationally separate the powers of the wikipedia community into discrete "executive," "legislative," and "judicial" branches, as opposed to the amorphous groups we have now who share traits of all three. A side benefit of this plan is that it would create hundreds of new and exciting positions of responsibility within wikipedia apart from just "admin."

8. Thank you for your time. Your comments are welcome.

9. Bilodeauzx (talk) 02:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it the first of April already? My, how time does fly. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:46, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
support - Brilliant idea. Wikipedia Legislature would give a lot of legitimacy and stability to Wikipedia's policies.
Wikipedia does lack a Legislative branch. The current model of policy creation is indeed "chaotic".EconomistBR 05:03, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
(Though I disagree with this specific proposal, I can't help myself)
Sounds like a capitol idea : ) - jc37 05:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Wow, I agree we need a new way to create/modify/remove policy, but modeling our process based on American government bureaucracy isn't it. 500 members? Most discussions would be so lucky to get that many people involved. You do realize we only have about 1000 active admins and a few thousand very active users? This presents several solutions to problems that don't exist. ArbCom is currently doing a terrible job of what they're supposed to be doing. They're moving at a glacial pace as of late. "basically, whenever they 'feel like it,'" - You do realize this is a wiki run entirely by volunteers? The vast majority of things are done whenever someone feels like it. The ArbCom elections are one of the worst processes we have on Wikipedia. One of the primary reasons I have no intention to run for ArbCom ever is the elections. "In order for an admin to block a user for "disruption" or some other vague faux pas, the block first should be approved by his group leader, or better yet, the block would be provisional until it is reviewed by a lower "court" of sorts" - Um, why? What problem is this supposed to be solving? Is there rampant block abuse that we can no longer trust any admins to block for anything other than blatant vandalism? While not every block is ideal, this is like killing a fly with an ICBM. Mr.Z-man 06:41, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
That's not how the Legislative works, there would be no discussion. Members would vote. Majority would be needed for minor changes and 2/3 majorities for major changes.
The Arbcom is overloaded since Wikipedia's Judiciary body is too small, worse policies can be ignored because of the fact that they don't legitimacy. EconomistBR 18:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
YHBT; HAND. Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/JeanLatore. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:13, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
  • A unicameral legislature may not provide sufficient checks and balances. I think this proposal would make more sense with two houses. The upper house might be composed of admins elected by other admins, while the lower house could be made up of editors elected by "district" - each district or cohort defined by when the editors signed up (so everybody who started April 2007 would vote together). Elections should take place every year or six months. I think if we structure this right we'd be able to focus the community's attention fully on governance and away from wasting time on editing. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:02, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
support. I also support this proposal. I really think something should be done about policy creation. The process needs to be streamlined and organized. EconomistBR 02:14, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Disagree I personally think this flies in the face of WP:consensus, and is more creep. In my view: Admin's aren't some form of the judicial branch, they're trusted users who have demonstrated that they can be given powers to deal with problems which may arise. Fraud talk to me 04:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes consensus simply can't be reached speacially regarding policy creation. Everybody has an idea. A Wikipedia Lesgislative would smooth out the whole process while giving legitimacy to the process. EconomistBR 23:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I was brought here by my Brazilian friend above. I agree with him and have a practical and useful proposal for how this body would efficiently deal with the issue of administrative recall as well, if anyone wants to hear. FFDiempredome (talk) 23:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC) FFDiempredome (talk) 23:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
If consensus can't be reached, then I would question whether we should be looking at re-jigging the system so that we reach consensus. I would question whether we need more policy anyways. Fraud talk to me 04:00, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Very interesting idea, although I doubt we could get 500 admins together for the plenary session. Also, I don't know about the idea of reporting to a gruppenfuehrer. Lazulilasher (talk) 04:30, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
It was that the members of the legislature would not be admins. I think the idea has potential of the "Will BeBack" above, although voting by cohort might not be feasible, as we would need cohorts of equal size -- the voters who registered in April 2006 would be far fewer than those registered in April 2009, for instance. FFDiempredome (talk) 23:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, this is how I think the touchy situation of administrator removal can be formalized and made more efficient, using a wikipedia legislature:

This Legislature probably would have several committees. The committee that dealt with admins might be something like the "Legislative Committee on Community Relations" (because admins are a large part of the public face of the wikipedia government).

First, it would take a member of the Committee becoming aware of a alleged breach by a Wikipedia admin that called for de-sysopping. He could become aware of it from the media (either the signpost or the real life media), his own personal knowledge, or by petitions or communications with individual wikipedians.

Next, the legislator would propose to the entire committee to form an ad-hoc subcommittee to investigate the circumstances of the admin's alleged malfeasance. The committee chairman would schedule a discussion and vote by the entire committee on forming an investigative subcommittee, including the parameters of the subcommittee, such as which members would sit on the subcommittee, and how much time the subcommittee would have to investigate. If the chairman does not approve scheduling of this vote, then the individual members of the committee as a whole can force a vote on the formation of the subcommittee with a majority of votes of the committee, presumably taken as a special vote during a meeting of the committee as a whole.

Next, if the committee approves the formation of a subcommittee to investigate, then this subcommittee shall hold public hearings on the matter, take testimony from wikipedians, academics, and whomever else qualified to comment on the matter.

At the end of the "hearing" stage of the investigate special subcommittee, the committee as a whole will schedule a status hearing to inquire as to the progress of the subcommittee's report on the administrator under investigation. At these status hearings the subcommittee can keep the committee informed of its forthcoming report.

Once the subcommittee finishes their report it shall be published and reviewed by the committee as a whole. The report shall consist of factual findings of the investigative subcomittee, any evidentiary attachments deemed appropriate, and most importantly a recommendation to de-admin the subject of the probe or not. The Committee chairman will then schedule a debate and vote on the report and recommendation of the subcommittee.

At the discussion preceding the vote in committee as a whole, the factual basis and recommendation are subject to amendment and modification by individual members of the committee. At the closing of the debate period by the committee chairman, the committee will vote on the recommendation, factual basis, and attachments. If the package passes by majority vote, it will be forwarded onto the legislature as a whole. If the pakcage fails, the committee chairman can choose to re-schedule discussion or dismiss the matter as failed.

Once the recommendation to de-sysop and factual basis are forwarded to the legislature as a whole, the body will schedule a vote yay or nay with no further amendments allowed. This would be a simply "up or down" since of all the discussion at lower levels.

If the recommendation passes a vote of the entire legislature, the matter is forwarded to the Arbcom, who will have to accept jurisdiction and make it their top priority until it is resolved. The case will be captioned "Wikipedia v. name-of-admin." The factual basis published by the legislature can be considered in the decision but Arb Com can engage in its own fact finding if it chooses. If the Arb Com agrees that the admin should be de-sysoped, then their decision is final, with the legislative subcommittee, the committee, the legislature as a whole, and the arbcom all having said the individual is unfit for admin power.

There will be no right of appeal from this final decision. Jim Wales should not be allowed to contravene that many layers of community governance.

On a related note, this simple process can be adapted for many other uses in Wikipedia. FFDiempredome (talk) 01:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there a limit of one Wiki_brah sock per topic? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:25, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm getting on the blower to a CU. -Jéské (v^_^v Kacheek!) 06:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
oppose - Your proposal would turn the Wiki Legislature into a too powerful branch with oversight and overrule powers. Worse it would undermine the position of the Administrators who would have to answer to Legislators. The Wikipedia Legislative should deal only with policy creation, in order to streamline, speed up and legitimize the process, nothing more.
Administration oversight and overrule can be carried out by administrators themselves, I see no problem in that, there hasn't been huge abuse of power on the part of the administrators to warrant such a drastic change. EconomistBR 03:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

It's just a check and balance type thing. It would only recommend desysopping to arbcom. FFDiempredome (talk) 03:50, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Begone, JeanLatore, and take your bureaucracy-creep and sock hamper with you. -Jéské (v^_^v Kacheek!) 08:23, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Image:Idealisticgreece.png

This is making separate in the Balkans. Please look there and do something... Thanks *** Эɱ®εč¡κ *** ...and his friends 16:40, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I take it this has to do with a political border dispute. The image is not being used in any articles at present, but does exist on a user's page without explanation (although there is a suggestion there as to what it's about). It's not worth worrying about at this time. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 22:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Hm, someone's trying to revive the Megali Idea? (By the way, the designer has forgotten to balkanise the Balkans; Yugoslavia is in one—slightly reduced—piece.) Waltham, The Duke of 01:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Arbitration Policy - proposed updating

By popular demand (I don't think), a proposed revision and updating of the Wikipedia:Arbitration Policy can be found at Wikipedia:Arbitration policy proposed updating. Comments on all aspects of the policy and related issues are welcome on the talkpage. Thank you. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:05, 11 October 2008 (UTC)


All my external links were removed

Today a I added links to my site which I considered relevant and informative to the main topic. All of them were removed.

An example:

To this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highlands_Hammock_State_Park

I added the link: http://epicroadtrips.us/2006/winter/highlands_hammock_state_park/

Why was this considered innappropriate? -Mike

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.163.168.102 (talk) 23:39, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:External links#Links normally to be avoided, in particular "Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a Featured article." The photos might make it slightly unique, but generally sites containing simply photos are not linked. --NE2 23:44, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

My site contains more than just photos, have antother look. I strive to make my travel pages of real use and value to the veiwer. This is why I try to add good offsite material such as that from WikiPedia in addition to my own original material. -Mike

And much more importantly, you write "I added links to my site" (emphasis added). See Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy, Wikipedia's External links policy and WP:How not to be a spammer. -- Mwanner | Talk 00:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

"My" is a personal site, correct? So, regardless of the value or pertinence of the information they cannot be added? Does this mean only .gov, .edu and .com sites can be added? This is confusing to me. - Mike

I'm very disappointed. I actually living adjacent to Highlands county, and looking at his contributions, his photos on the site are better than any of the external links [1] [2] [3] [4] and he gave a neutral description of the park, and he quoted the source. This guy is an asset to wikipedia and I hope he'll consider releasing his pictures under the GNU license and will share them with us, if we haven't driven the guy off. This guy isn't a spammer, he's a potential gem to our community if we can treat him fairly and demonstrate the rules we use and guide him into following our complicated set of rules. Also, Mike, we too are volunteers trying to build a useful, encyclopaedic body of knowledge. Hope you will give this another try. Ask any questions on my talk page, (I'm not really as knowledgeable as everyone else, but I'm friendly and patient). Just click here and I'll try to be of help. Sentriclecub (talk) 07:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement! -Mike

I don't see the responses as unfriendly, or likely to drive the original poster away. He asked some questions, and got the right answers. I'm sure he will appreciate your additional advice and offer to help. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 09:43, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I may not be driven away, but current policy disallows me from adding any of the material I think might be useful to WikiPedia users because it is from "my" site. How, then, am I going to be able to add content? This policy seems unnecessarily rigid and counterproductive to achieving the goals of WikiPWedia. -Mike

On the contrary, you may add photos and text to Wikipedia's articles. We are looking to create excellent encyclopedia articles, not short articles followed by long lists of links to other websites. If you spend much time reading Wikipedia articles, you will come to appreciate the reason. Please read Wikipedia's External links policy; it has been written by the users of the encyclopedia with the intent to make the articles better. -- Mwanner | Talk 12:47, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
It is a tough thing to operate. Those articles which you helped contribute to, would absolutely love your attention. Try to put your stuff directly into the body of the article. To add pictures, the best way is to create a free flickr account at http://www.flickr.com and upload your photos and select the license option called "creative commons share alike" and then simply come to my talk page, and I'll upload them to wikipedia commons (which is a little bit complicated) and I will absolutely do the process for you. Would love more articles about nature on here. Highlands Hammock is a beautiful place, so peaceful and relaxing, just reading the article again this morning was soothing, and viewing the pictures and remembering the catwalk trails and chirping birds, I felt the ambience of the park right from my computer seat! Add content straight to the article, your summaries should go directly into the body of the wikipedia page, and those pictures would be excellent and are much better than the current ones in the gallery. Hope you'll help our articles on parks. If you need any more help, ask here or my talk page. Sentriclecub (talk) 15:02, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't matter how lovely the park is, or how wonderful the website is. Bad advice is being given when you recommend that Mike put his "stuff" directly into the body of the article, especially if this refers to text as well as pictures. There is a copyright notice right at the bottom of his web pages. An editor would be right to remove anything copied from that site, for apparent copyright violation. Learn the rules, and understand why they exist; it's all explained in help pages cited in previous replies. The niceness of the subject matter doesn't give it exemptions. --A Knight Who Says Ni (talk) 02:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
If Mike himself is holder of the copyright there is not necessarily a problem. Only be aware that if you copy stuff into Wikipedia you give free use license to all, which will seriously damage any claims to the copyright of your other sites. Arnoutf (talk) 02:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
So far, there is no evidence that Mike is interested in adding anything other than links to his own website. -- Mwanner | Talk 11:43, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I am interested, but distracted and busy at this time. When you all get the copyright issues sorted out, let me know. There seems to be differing opionions on this. -Mike —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.163.168.102 (talk) 16:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Breiding Please wait because I'm going through the appropriate channels to make sure you have an accurate and confident understanding of our policies. Please check back to this page within the next 48 hours, or considering creating an account with us so we can leave you messages on your talk-page (which is better and more reliable than email). Just so you know how important you are to our community, I've spent the last two hours trying to find some help for you, and arguing with the users A Knight Who Says Ni and Mwanner as the three of us are in discussion of the applicable rules. We lose a lot of great people like yourself because our anti-spam measures identify you as a false-positive, and hope you can forgive our measures. Since we are run entirely by volunteers, and have lots of bots to help us with our job, we are only human and make plenty of mistakes from time to time. Sentriclecub (talk) 21:40, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Alert re German abuse of system

Ever since April this year, only Admin have been allowed to post articles and improvements in German Wikipedia. Joe soap is only allowed to submit drafts for their approval. This autocratic policy, it seems to me, is completely contrary to the founding principles of Wikipedia. I have protested in no uncertain terms within the system, but have merely been threatened with blocking -- or, alternatively, with being made 'one of the gang'. In my view, the leaders of the international Wikipedia project should be requested to withdraw the Germans' privileges until the policy is changed -- including the privilege of calling themselves 'the free encyclopaedia'. I'd make the request myself if I knew where to send it (replies to my personal page, please). I hope others will join in.

Otherwise I fear that this may be the beginning of the end, and we shall start, as in the 1930s, to see the lights go out all over Europe... --PL (talk) 10:56, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

That seems like a worrying development; according to German wiki it is a try-out of the flagged revision system see their page in German Anyway this may not be the best place to discuss. Arnoutf (talk) 12:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. In that case I should like to know what is!

It states that the new system of markings is designed to increase the reliability of articles and to give readers a better idea of their quality -- which sounds laudable enough. There are three categories:

1. Neither inspected nor checked out

2. Inspected, but not guaranteed for accuracy

3. Inspected and guaranteed by specialist

But first of all an article or revised version is treated merely as a draft or project (Entwurf), and doesn't appear as an article as such until the above assessment has been carried out by a 'Sichter' (actually, not quite an Admin, but a co-opted old hand). I can understand why this appeals to the tidy German mind, but it loses all the spontaneity of the traditional policy and is open to a great deal of abuse, as well as more or less guaranteeing a whole lot of ‘inspected idiocies’ that no specialist is prepared to pronounce on. Certainly ‘’I’’ am not, under these circumstances! --PL (talk) 15:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

You're talking about the FlaggedRevisions extension, it's being trialled on the German Wikipedia with the full support of the Foundation. If you don't like the way they're doing it, you need to discuss it on the project itself. This is the English Wikipedia and is completely separate, we have no power to make German admins do anything. --Tango (talk) 15:29, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
You can discuss it on EN as well, see Wikipedia talk:Flagged revisions. Mion (talk) 16:24, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Looking at option 2 and 3, maybe the DE wikipedia should interwiki with Citizendium -:) Mion (talk) 16:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I'd just like to set one thing straight: the original trial phase for FlaggedRevisions on de.WP has ended. There was a with a majority in favor of continuing to use it. I wouldn't argue with anyone who still wants to call it a trial -- nobody knows if it will really work, after all -- but it is no longer the original trial which was basically started without asking the community. --Tokikake (talk) 10:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Question about the vote, the 80 or 90 % good IP editors were they invited ? I see only registered users. Mion (talk) 12:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Interesting vote. With at most 59.3% in favour this seems like a majority vote, but not even a 2/3 majority (e.g. needed in many countries for constitutional reform) let alone anything near consensus (where weak consensus usually requires at the very least 75% majority). As Wikipedia is not a democracy I am very, very sceptical about the procedure followed at German Wikipedia. I think to be able to make such a dramatically important decision forv each editor on a project based on a mere majority vote (ie no consensus), each and any editor, admin or IP who has ever contributed to that specific project shoud have explicitly been invited to vote with the clear message that failing to vote within a reasonable time span (let say a few months) would have serious consequences for their editing abilities. Without such normal procedure for any democratic vote the definitely non-consensus (only 59% majority) outcome should not have been taken as authorative. Arnoutf (talk) 12:39, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
No opinion on the issue (besides the fact we're the English Wikipedia and can't make the German Wikipedia do anything), but free in "the free encyclopedia" refers to free content, not freedom of speech/action/whatever. x42bn6 Talk Mess 13:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like

(copied from the WP:RD/L per suggestion)

I'm sometimes missing something when reading a WP article (an easy example: Granophyre) and the subject pronunciation is described in IPA. I look at the the IPA symbols and have no idea how to pronounce the subject. Am I in the minority about this? Would it be non-encyclopedic to include a sounds like descriptor? When I encounter this situation would I be diminishing the article to include "sounds like" in small print? Is reading IPA so prevalent that I'm a "dinosaur"? I've seen some articles that include both IPA and "sounds like" but I'm uncomfortable about adding the "sounds like" as I've not found any guidelines. My personal opinion is that the less educated (non-IPA) folks who want to reference WP ought to at least be able to pronounce properly without jumping through IPA hoops so, both should be included -hydnjo talk 02:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I feel the same way, but there are two problems with "sounds like" methods. First, it's easy to find examples that work for your own dialect of English and not someone else's -- "caught" may or may not sound exactly like "cot", "merry" may or may not sound exactly like "marry" and/or "Mary", "whine" may or may not sound exactly like "wine". Second, there are some sounds in English where there's no combination of letters that clearly represents that sound and no other. For example, suppose someone's name sounded like "thin" except with the "th" pronounced as in "that", and you were writing an article about that person -- how would you write a "sounds like" for that name?
In fact the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation) recommendation is that IPA should always be used, but it is acceptable to supplement it with "sounds like" methods if you are careful to avoid problems. --Anonymous, 03:24 UTC, October 12, 2008.
This would be a good discussion to post at the Village Pump (or wherever appropriate), because while I do understand IPA and appreciate it, no single IPA transcription can represent every English dialect. I find it especially annoying that some of WP's articles contain the RP IPA while other contain General American. Perhaps we could begin a project to complement every IPA transcription with a Merriam-Webster-like, WP-approved pronunciation?--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 03:51, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
That no transcription system could apply to all dialects is an issue that has been brought up in regards to our transcription conventions laid out at WP:IPA for English (very close to what you've suggested). Take a look at the talk page there. I think the inconsistancy has more to do with the sheer size of Wikipedia and the inability of frame-pushing transcription homogenizers to keep up than with a standard that accepts variation. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all for your time, attention and thoughts. Given that, I think I'll just add a phonetic pronunciation where I deem appropriate and not feel badly about it. If I get rv'd I'll not war - one unpronounceable at a time I say! ;) hydnjo talk 23:25, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

(end of copy)

Another problem with the sounds like is that not all foreign sounds (and hence names) can be constructed from Enlish sound. For example I have no idea how to represent something like schaap (Dutch for sheep) in english sounds like (the ch here is the typical Dutch guttural g (some kind of growl/scrape sound in the back of the throat (something like the Welsh "ll" combination, and the aa combination is an open vowel, a longer and rounder version of the a sound in Defra...). I have no idea of any word in English that uses these sounds completely Arnoutf (talk) 03:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

If I had to write schaap phonetically in English, it would wind up as skop, which would only be close. I've been writing pronunciation guides for Dutch Christmas carols for some of the English-only members of a caroling group, and I've found that k is the best transcription for ch and g if I want them to sound intelligible. Fortunately, the Dutch singers add enough of the gargly noises to compensate.—Kww(talk) 03:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a Movie, Book or TV Guide

Should Wikipedia become a one stop Movie, Book or TV Guide?
Please make your views known at WT:NOT#Wikipedia is not a Movie, Book or TV Guide. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:32, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Template coord missing placement centralised discussion

To note: there is a centralised discussion of the placement of {{coord missing}} here. The issue: should it be in article or talk space? --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

LyricWiki

I can't think of another case where we forbid links to a Wikia-based Wiki, but this seems like we should. Isn't this an entire Wiki devoted to wholesale copyright violation?—Kww(talk) 20:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It sure looks like it to me. WP:EL specifically says, If you know that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work.. Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 21:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't appear to be hosted by Wikia. Mr.Z-man 16:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Arbitration enforcement (|talk|history|links|watch|logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 18:51, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

False alarm, inline category disabled. MBisanz talk 19:02, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
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