Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 37

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Archive 30

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Archive 35

Stats and catalogs

NOTSTATS and NOTCATALOG are too heavily weighted against inclusion of tabulated data, IMHO. The first pillar states that Wikipedia "incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" as a reference work. The guideline should clarify that raw data is perfectly admissible as long as it's placed in context and includes an overall encyclopedic description. If nobody opposes I will add references to this pillar and the definitions of almanac and gazetteer to stress this point. Diego (talk) 08:29, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm not convinced we have a problem. The context is there: we include statistical data, but not in excess and not without context. Articles aren't just a lead plus a pile of statistics. If you can show me where you think it's been too heavily weighted, maybe we'd have something to discuss. But until then, it's in the "not broken, don't fix it" category. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

The first pillar isn't law. It's just a basic summary written as an introduction for newbies. Additionally, whether that description is either accurate or desirable is frequently debated (most often in connection with updates associated with the US Census). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:PLOT wasn't meant for religious information was it?

I believe WP:PLOT was created to prevent articles with nothing but summaries of fictional books. But does this include religious beliefs? Are the belief systems some believe in fact, while others are fiction? Instead of "Plot-only description of fictional works", perhaps a disclaiming saying this does not include articles about religious beliefs of any culture. Not Plot is currently an argument being used in the AFD for an article about the Buran Origin of Death. [1] Dream Focus 23:34, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

What a religion believes is a statement of fact for that religion - eg it is not our place if the Biblical flood actually occurred, but that is a facet of most variations of Christianity. We aren't starting any edit wars by stating that what religion X believes is fictitious.

That said, if I wrote an article on the Biblical flood using only the Old Testament to support it, that is an overreliance on the primary source, and that fails WP:V. PLOT would only apply if the article passed WP:V bbut there's far too much recapping of what the religious text says without third party sources, as would be the case for recapping any non-fictional narrative work. --MASEM (t) 23:42, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

And that gives me the perfect idea for how to rephrase NOT#PLOT to be less focused only on fictional works. That is, whether the work or media is of fiction or non-fiction (which would include religious texts), our articles should not either solely nor be mostly the recap the contents of that work taken from the primary source, with little to no third-party/secondary sources to support it. This is more the problem for fictional works which WAF applies, but non-fiction works can also fall into this area. --MASEM (t) 23:47, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that the theme for the three heading under "IINFO" right now? Wikipedia is not a database of primary data: lyrics, plots, statistics, quotes... all of this stuff needs context. I think we're better off leaving PLOT alone, and putting together a superheading along the lines you're suggesting. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I won't speculate on the intentions behind WP:PLOT's creation, but I think it says a story recap taken entirely from primary sources does not by itself constitute an encyclopedia article, and if taken to AfD, is insufficient to survive deletion; I imagine this applies whether that story considered completely fictional or regarded as true within one's religion. However, the article you point to is at this time entirely unsourced—a few citations demonstrating notability (or, short of that, at least the existence of this story) would be the best argument for Keep !votes. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:54, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

I just noticed the References section. Since the book Introduction to Mythology is an offline resource, some inline citations including quotations would be helpful, especially if they demonstrate notability. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:59, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Masem, I like your idea, because a "plot-only" summary of a non-fiction work is not useful, either. "Alice Expert wrote a book about geology that says..." is not really more encyclopedic than "Jane Austen wrote a novel about a pair of sisters who..."

However, I'm not sure that I'd "change" the existing text so much as I might add a sentence that says the same concept can be applied to other forms of media, including songs, video games, films, television shows, and non-fiction books. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I've just boldly added one line to address non-fiction, and to avoid any arguments, specifically called out religious texts as what is covered by that. --MASEM (t) 03:47, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm actually mostly in favor of adding the material you added. I do think it's really poorly placed though. A section labeled "Plot-only description of fictional works" shouldn't really include non-fictional issues. I'd say either A) remove the text (it probably isn't that common an issue it needs to be there) B) add a new section (which I'm not fond off because I don't think it's common), C) retitle and rewrite the current section. I'd go with A or C personally. I tried to do C, but couldn't find any language that worked. Hobit (talk) 02:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Hey folks, I don't want to get involved in your happy-little revert war, but I _really_ think we need to remove the material from where it is (as described above). Can someone either explain why I'm wrong about the issue (non-fiction in a fiction section) or suggest a way forward? Hobit (talk) 12:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The article in question wasn't about the book that listed the information, but the information itself. Listing the various belief systems of every group that ever had them, is very encyclopedia. I don't believe NOT PLOT should refer to religious texts. And if a Noble Prize winning Physicist creates a new formula, then an encyclopedic article would list what it was, taking information from the scientist's own book or scientific publication. You need to know what it is, not just read reviews of what others think about it. So I undid the recent edit. [2] Dream Focus 03:35, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
- The addition was not to prevent the addition of material of the work itself - this is infact consistent with the fictional side of PLOT in that plot summaries are appropriate parts of a comprehensive article, just as a concise discussion of the contents of non-fictional work are also appropriate. An article that is only sourced to that primary source, however, will not fly. Take the example of outlining the religious tenets - that you can't use the religious text by itself (that's all primary) but you can add third party sources that discuss these tenets in addition to the primary source on the religion. --MASEM (t) 04:34, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
  - And to be clear, this is not altering how the original article is affected. Here, again, there are third-party sources about the story, so reasonably can be expected that the story can be put into larger context in addition to the summary of the religious belief. --MASEM (t) 05:44, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
    - And one more thing: PLOT is never a reason to delete an article. More than likely either the summary of the work can be trimmed to balance the summary with the context, or there's a problem with notability suggesting moving the summary to a larger article w/ redirect. --MASEM (t) 05:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
      - Plot has been used as an excuse to delete an article. I've been in enough AFDs by now to know anything written here will be quoted as an excuse to delete something. The examples I cited are valid ones. The encyclopedia is more complete having that sort of thing in it, than not having it. The rule was made because some wanted to eliminate articles about fictional works which were nothing more than plot summaries, which were formerly extremely common on Wikipedia. There is no reason to use it to destroy actual educational content. Dream Focus 10:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
        But it is still not our place to elaborate completely on the contents of non-fiction works and not discuss anything else about it - for non-fiction, that's going to be less about its critical reception (depending on medium) and more about the role and legacy of the work. The content of the Bible, for example, is important - but we aren't duplicating them in full here - see Book of Genesis for how such would be properly structures, showing not only the content of the work but also the history of the work and its significance towards the religion in this case. If it is a published piece of material and under copyright, that's still issues with fair use (a biography of a person while filled with facts still is a creative enough effort to be protected as a creative work). And if it is out of copyright, that's what Wikisource is for. And just because a policy or guideline can be misused at AFD doesn't make it a bad policy or guideline - it is just that means people need to be more educated about it, and the misuse should be pointed out at the AFD to make sure those !votes are appropriately dismissed. Again, the reason that an article filled with plot (or in this case, with summary of the work) and nothing else is deleted not because it is failing PLOT but because it fails notability. A failure only tied to PLOT - fiction or non-fiction - while satisfying everything else is always fixable by trimming down the summary parts relative to the weight of the non-summary aspects. --MASEM (t) 10:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
        The fact remains, that no matter what you say, people will argue to delete something based on wording found on any of the guideline pages, as they have done for years now. There is no reason to add in anything they'll use, it just causing unnecessary conflict. WP:Bureaucracy sums up the situation rather well. The spirit of the rule for sources is to eliminate things that aren't notable, not to be used as an excuse to destroy valid encyclopedic content. What should be in the Wikipedia is determined by consensus in the AFDs. If someone wants to learn about any major part of any religion out there, they should be able to come to this place, created for the purpose of educating others, and find it. Dream Focus 11:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

No Dream Focus: the question is whether plot-only articles on fictional or other narrative works (whether they be fictional, religious, autobiographical, or whatever), or précis-only articles on non-narrative works, is acceptable? A corollary to that question is whether narrative topics, for which no WP:Verifiable material can be found, other than the narrative itself, should be retained in this encyclopaedia? I would suggest that the issue of whether the narrative in question was religious or secular, fictional or factual is irrelevant to the issue at hand, and that focusing on this irrelevance is WP:WIKILAWYERING. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 11:25, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
The fact remains, Dream Focus, that some people actually have respect for guidelines and policies, try to work within them, and don't spend time at AFD demanding the retention of articles that have no place in an encyclopedia. If someone wants to, they can start Everythingunderthesunwithoutusinganyeditorialjudgmentopedia on Wikia. On Wikipedia, WP:NOT exists, and editors need to learn to live within the constraints it sets.—Kww(talk) 11:53, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

You mean the guidelines that are constantly changing, weren't here for the first few years of Wikipedia's existence, that never got approved by the Wikipedia committee nor any significant number of editors, but instead were made through constant arguing back and forth by small groups of people until one side got what they want, and then used it as an excuse to erase articles they didn't like? Yeah, great. So now actual educational content you'd expect to find in an encyclopedia is being erased, while long articles about celebrities are safe because they get coverage. Civilization is doomed. Dream Focus 16:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes. That's probably the most rational response (hopefully you're joking, but given the opinions you've argued on quite a few other issues, I would not be surprised either way...)--Yaksar (let's chat) 18:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Or to put it another way, if Dream Focus thinks they can come up with a set of inclusion guideline that (i) doesn't lead to disputes that make the current ones look like a tiptoe through the tullips & (ii) doesn't have the current guidelines' unfortunate side-effect of unreasonably (to the minds of most right-thinking editors) privileging the boyfriends, pets and pregnancies of film stars, then they're welcome to try. For myself, my suspicion is that the current system is the same as democracy was in Churchill's opinion: the "worst" ... except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" (or that somebody invents). Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 19:06, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, that's basically my position. I have immense objection to notability as currently construed, with its privileging of the viewpoint of soulless organizations that exist to make people like Rupert Murdoch richer, but it's better than allowing WP:JDLI to run rampant, and I am so far unable to come up with a credible alternative. So I defend and conscientiously apply a guideline I don't like because it's what we have. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Comment I don't see that the new section is an improvement over WP:PRIMARY. In addition, it adds restrictions on the use of secondary and tertiary sources, for example, the words "a recap or summary" could be applied to literally any article about the Bible. Unscintillating (talk) 19:35, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for different policies to say very similar things, just from slightly different perspectives -- or even in one case almost exactly the same thing: "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." (WP:V) "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article about it." (WP:NOR -- you have to look real close to actually tell the difference -- I only noticed it when I did a search for one after I'd found the other). And given the amount of problems this issue causes, I wouldn't mind the extra emphasis on it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 19:46, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The "recap or summary" is about Wikipedia's content, and is saying that our article should amount to more than that. It isn't saying anything about other sources. And in any event, a source's article may contain recap or summary without being limited to recap or summary -- y'know, by containing commentary and such. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec)That is what I meant, any commentary that is not Biblically based is by definition not about the Bible (and religious people might apply terms such as heresy), so that only leaves commentary that is Biblically based, and any article shorter than the Bible itself might be argued to be a "summary". It looks like we have a bad solution in search of a problem. Unscintillating (talk) 20:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

You seem to be inventing problems based on the prospect that people will apply words in novel ways radically divorced from what anybody means by them and raising issues irrelevant to Wikipedia. Whether commentary is regarded as "heresy" is completely unrelated to its utility for Wikipedia's purposes, and the bit about commentary shorter than the Bible being "summary" is pure bean-stuffing. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:21, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

The word "heresy" was used to clarify a category to be excluded from discussion, the fact that that word has reappeared in the response, shows that the response was based on a misreading. Unscintillating (talk) 05:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

I believe Dream Focus is right: Some editors will use any means possible, including misquoting policy pages and ignoring inconvenient facts, to attempt to get a page delete.

But that doesn't change this fact: A page that says nothing more than "'The Sun is Really Big, by Alice Expert, is a non-fiction book that says...." is not a desirable addition to Wikipedia. It might become a desirable addition (exactly like a page that begins Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen, is a fictional book about..." might become a desirable addition) if suitable independent sources have been published about it, but it is not, in its summary-only form, an appropriate page for Wikipedia to have. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Replace NOT:PLOT with NOT:JUSTARECAP

Given DF's comments above, past issues with the matter, and Hobit's own suggests that non-fiction shouldn't be tied under PLOT, I would like to suggest renaming and rewriting this section to be basically under the moniker "NOT:JUSTARECAP". That is, regardless if the work (or a specific facet of the work like a chapter, book, character, setting, etc.) is fiction or not, religious, scientific, philosophical, or whatever source, our articles in WP on these are not just only a recap of the work or elements therein, but should identify context of the work, the whys and hows of its creation, and the impact it has had since its release. We know for fictional works and elements this is generally development and reception, but its difficult to qualify what works for other non-fiction, but the matter is still true: you can't just plunk down a summary of the work in an article and call it good. A summary is STILL appropriate as part of the larger article, and that's why "not just a recap" is why I propose as the main nomiker. --MASEM (t) 20:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think "recap" is the right term to apply centrally here; "summary" probably is. "Recap" is about plot and just confuses the issue when dealing with works that have no plot (non-fictional or otherwise, fiction does not necessarily have plot, cf. The Areas of My Expertise, The Zombie Survival Guide). —chaos5023 (talk) 20:28, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

NOTPLOT is just a shortcut. The policy is "plot-only description of works". I know there are detractors, but their issue isn't with the name. If someone who genuinely doesn't support it now would suddenly apply it under a new name, it might be worth discussing. But until then I think this is just lawyering around... I may very well prefer an earlier revision of the policy. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:46, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

JUSTARECAP looks like JUST ARE CAP or a misspelling of CRAP even. The current name is fine. I agree the name won't matter, as people will use it as a reason to delete articles they decide they don't want on the Wikipedia. And so far not many people have commented on the change [3]. If you prefer it as it was before, just revert it, or start a strawpoll to gauge consensus. Dream Focus 21:12, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:PLOT is just a shortcut. The current wording clears up any confusion about recaps of non-fiction:

Similarly, articles on works of non-fiction, including documentaries, research books and papers, religious texts, and reality programming, should contain more than a recap or summary of the works' contents.

If someone wants to create a WP:RECAP shortcut, I guess that's okay too, but not urgently needed. If replace means deleting the existing WP:PLOT redirect, please don't because it would break hundreds of links. / edg ☺ ☭ 01:05, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the problem here that is being solved. Do we have a diff that shows an example of the problem? Thanks, Unscintillating (talk) 03:24, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

This would be the diff you are looking for, the problem being uncertainty over whether WP:PLOT applies to non-fiction. The discussion is at #is_there_a_difference_between_.22fictional_events.22_and_plot.3F. / edg ☺ ☭ 06:23, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The one example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Buran Origin of Death, is recent. Unscintillating (talk) 16:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that people - not reading but only seeing the shortcut "NOT#PLOT", assume this means WP should not have any plot elements. That either causes some to remove plot sections from articles, or assume that this is in contradiction to consensus and should be removed. What NOT#PLOT really says is "you have to be more than just a summary". Thus, by making the primary shortcut to something that reads more like what it means (but without losing NOT#PLOT as a redirect), that will cut down the presumptions and activities from that.--MASEM (t) 06:27, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that would be a reason to post a different redirect rather than adding new material. Unscintillating (talk) 16:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

How about WP:NOTJUSTSUMMARY -- as less likely to be misread, whilst still emphasing that its not only fiction and plot summaries? Or is this too long? Regardless, I'd recommend leaving out the extraneous grammatical "A" in whatever primary shortcut is chosen. And I'd replace "fiction" with "literary works" or similar in the text, to avoid the impression that this is meant to solely be about fictional works. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 07:22, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
JUSTARECAP is too easily mis-parsed as just are cap rather than just a recap, and in fact can be easily misread as just are crap too. Not a good choice for an acronym. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Different approach: change IINFO to "Wikipedia is not a summary of primary data"

I'm not a fan of the revisions to this section since this revision by Jclemens. I appreciate that people are trying to take some of the sting out of this section. But in making it more abstract you're going to make it more prone to wikilawyering. It no longer describes what we want from this encyclopedia in plain language. We buried the point.

Might I suggest a different approach? Instead of trying to make the "plot" policy more vague and abstract, we create a new broad heading that includes plot as one example, along with the lyrics and statistical data.

We would change IINFO to Wikipedia is not a summary of primary data. Or something similar. The overall point would be congruent with the policy at WP:Verifiability, that we don't base articles entirely on primary sources. We combine primary data with what's been said by independent secondary sources to provide context, interpretation, and a neutral assessment of its significance. If you look at the heading, we already have plot, lyrics, and statistics under "IINFO". It seems to me that "not a summary of primary data" is already the policy in practice, but that it's been misnamed and miscategorized. It also seems to me that's what people are trying to achieve here by rewording the NOTPLOT point, but my proposal would achieve the same thing without losing the specificity we had a week ago. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:45, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Support. This is the chewy center that the forest of examples is trying to approximate. Bringing this point into obvious congruence with WP:V and WP:N, which both indicate that we shouldn't have articles based solely on primary sources, and WP:NOR, which states that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, seems like it would clear up a lot of confusion and allay concerns. —chaos5023 (talk) 01:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Its the right step but that one sentence is missing a word or phrase. The issue I see happen is that people read anything like this (here "is not a summary of primary data" and take it that it excludes anything like that in any part of an article. We do summarize primate data, but the point is that articles should not only be this information - it needs third-parties and secondary sources to put it into context. We need a single sentence that can't be taken the wrong way. --MASEM (t) 01:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

"Wikipedia articles do not consist only of summaries of primary sources"? —chaos5023 (talk) 01:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Glad there's support for this idea. I meant it in the same sense that Wikipedia is not a newspaper, or not a dictionary. Articles might define things like a dictionary or break down events like a newspaper. But what we really mean is Wikipedia articles are not dictionary definitions, or Wikipedia articles are not newspaper articles. Really, Wikipedia articles are not summaries of primary data. I'm just following the form seen in the rest of WP:NOT. I'm open to almost any language. It's the spirit of the idea that I support, and that's already part of Wikipedia practice and policy. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:33, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not solely a summary of primary data" would follow the overall NOT form, and hopefully the "solely" would act to head off the confusion Masem refers to. —chaos5023 (talk) 02:47, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is that that Wikipedia does summarise primary data. Examples include sports results, astronomical data and geographical data. I've seen numerous examples of this kind survive at AFD and so it is not a general policy that we exclude such. The way it works in practise is just down to the balance of power between the editors who like the data and those who loath it. This is quite wrong because personal tastes are contrary to WP:NPOV but so it goes. Warden (talk) 05:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
- That's the point that the wording of the first sentence or header is going to send red flags even though the actual prose of the statement is in complete alignment with this (that we do incorporate summaries of primary sources - just not without context). --MASEM (t) 05:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
  - For the sake of consistency, it's probably best to follow the language that's been at WP:V as close as possible. And then to make it clear that we're talking about the whole of a Wikipedia article, not trying to limit all inclusion of primary data, we would use the language not too different from "Wikipedia is not a dictionary". Just a thought. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:24, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Support. This is not perfect, but is much, much closer to the rule we actually want than NOTPLOT. I suggest something like the following:
- Wikipedia is not a mere summary of primary sources. As noted above at #Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files, Wikipedia is not a mere collection of raw primary source material. Additionally, Wikipedia is not a mere summary of primary source material. Although primary sources are permitted as references, all articles at Wikipedia must refer to secondary or tertiary sources, which provide context and analysis beyond the raw primary data. Common examples of articles violating this principle include articles consisting entirely of plot summaries of fictional works, articles consisting entirely of summaries of the lyrics of a song, and articles consisting entirely of summaries of primary statistical data. Some types of articles, like lists of towns or geographic locations based on primary sources, are exceptions to this rule.
How's that? (I admit the wording of the leading phrase, is awkward, but it does have to fit into the convention of this page...) For a shortcut, I suggest ~~WP:NOTPRIMARY~~ or WP:MERESUMMARY. Dcoetzee 18:58, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Question for clarification–How would this affect list articles, which are best if they do rely on primary data almost exclusively, for instance Timeline of town creation in the Hudson Valley or List of incorporated places in New York's Capital District, both of which may have secondary sources but the first example could easily be done only with primary sources of the actual laws that made each individual town. A hypothetical "List of islands in the Connecticut River" could easily be done with just primary data I suppose (maps are not OR, this has been discussed before, though if we are going to get off track with that example for that reason then ignore it). If this could even slightly cause problems for such list articles perhaps we should at least have on record in this discussion that the wording is not intended to cause such problems (if that's the consensus) if we dont want instruction creep to cause actual wording to reflect it, but do want something on the record.Camelbinky (talk) 19:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
This is a good point. I agree that that type of article is acceptable and I'm trying to come up with some kind of clarification that makes this clear, but I couldn't, so I just added a note that says: "Some types of articles, like lists of towns or geographic locations based on primary sources, are exceptions to this rule.". Dcoetzee 22:36, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

I like the "mere summary" phrasing and WP:MERESUMMARY shortcut. WP:NOTPRIMARY should be WP:NOTSECONDARY though; what Wikipedia is not-being here is a secondary source. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:07, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm okay with it. Personally, I think we should all just agree on the spirit of the suggestion, and work out the wording through BRD (until we hit any big road block). Shooterwalker (talk) 22:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Support: wording & WP:MERESUMMARY shortcut. I do however agree that we need to make clear that navigational aids, such as disambiguation pages and lists of topics are appropriate. Though this does not replace the need for articles on main topics -- I find the (recently discovered) fact that Counseling simply redirects to List of counseling topics to be somewhat problematical. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 03:52, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Oppose This is not policy because Wikipedia contains large amounts of summarised primary data such as sports results, election results, astronomical data, geophysical data, &c. The poster boy for this stuff is List of minor planets: 123001–124000 as this data summarises robotic radar astronomical findings in a mechanical way. I've seen attempts to try to delete such and they failed. Warden (talk) 14:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
- Such lists would be supported on the concept that they are spinouts of a major topic, and the data would be too great in size to include within the body. That is, we are still asking for context for the summary of the primary data, it doesn't need to be in the article, but the relevence of why we are summarizing that information needs to be clear from somewhere. --MASEM (t) 15:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
- ROFLMAO! Does anybody genuinely believe that removal of such data-diarrhoea as

this...

...is a bad thing? How such a data-dump serves any encyclopaedic purpose, I don't know. (How it is comprehensible to anybody who would not already have easy access to such data is likewise a mystery.) Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 16:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Because WP is more than just an encyclopedia, we are also have elements of an almanac and gazetteer, and-- well, I don't know the proper name for what a catalogue of celestial bodies would be, but I don't see why we wouldn't include that. The context, "minor planet", is definitely something we'd cover in the first place. --MASEM (t) 16:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Almanac, gazetteer, and ephemeris? Yeah. There's clearly consensus, demonstrated persistently at AfD, that Wikipedia being a secondary source for certain specific types of content is okay. We should try to document that. I'm not clear on how. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

There's always been the question in my mind of what WP "is" compared to how we approach WP:NOT. I would think a guideline level statement would be something to strive for, that IDs the types of primary-sourced articles (akin to the above minor planets, but also would include things like geographic listings, sports results, etc. that are commonly accepted despite lacking apparent "encyclopedic", tertiary-source value, because we are more than just an encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 16:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) But it provides no useful information about any of these 283k lumps of rock. To be bluntly honest, even the raw output of a random number generator would be more widely useful than this. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 16:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

They provide the basic information of what they are called, who discovered them, and when they did. They should do more: they should for every item in the list, link to the original report. That's the purpose of an encyclopedia: to briefly describe the world and provide links for finding more information. The physical and the cultural world are both significant. Some people may not care about minor topics, which is easily solved by not reading about them. In the opposite direction, if the information is missing, there's no such easy solution. Two-thirds of the encyclopedia is about things I would never read unless compelled to, and sometimes wish didn't exist in the first place. It's probably the same for everyone here, but the items are different. Why bother about asteroids if you don't want to? Why bother about plots if you don't want to? I personally am interested in both, but I think no less of someone who isn't. (Though if they are not interested in some topics we may have relatively little to talk about personally). DGG ( talk ) 20:13, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Oppose As Warden said, things like that do belong in the Wikipedia. Those who understand it will like the quick reference. They may get less hits than pop culture items, but are clearly educational. Don't try to change a rule to destroy something you don't like. Dream Focus 16:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Really Dream Focus, and how many of "those who understand it" do you actually know? I would suggest not a single one. "As Warden said, things like that do belong in the Wikipedia" = 'like Colonel Warden, I assert (because I sure as hell don't have any facts to back it up) that EVERYTHING belongs in Wikipedia.' Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 16:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

IIRC, I voted to delete in one of those minor planet AFDs. My point is that, like it or not, they are still here. Per WP:NOTLAW, "Written rules do not themselves set accepted practice. Rather, they document already existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected.". Policy statements are invalid if they do not correspond to current practise. Warden (talk) 18:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Policy statements are meant to help shape "accepted practice", based upon wider principles rather than merely reflecting an accumulation of the detritus of often ad-hoc decision-making of accepted practice. That is the difference between policy and a mere 'common outcomes' document. It is also the difference between an encyclopaedia with a strategy and one blown like a leaf in the wind. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 18:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

What I just quoted is long-standing policy. You have no mandate or authority to "shape accepted practise" by editing policy pages. You have no leadership role and so you do not get to dictate strategy. What is required here is evidence of actual practise not wishful thinking. Warden (talk) 21:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

And the "what should be accepted and what should be rejected" clearly enunciates a desire for a forward looking strategic vision, of what the community, as a consensus, thinks it "should be", rather than simply allowing the accumulation of past practices to confine it. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 06:26, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

No, the point of policies and guidelines is not to reflect what was, nor what some subset of editors think should be accepted. The point of policies and guidelines is to document what is currently accepted. Forward-looking strategic vision is the job of the Wikimedia Foundation, not individual editors. Thryduulf (talk) 14:43, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Except, we are being forward thinking by documenting a scenario that, via common practice, is accepted but is otherwise not written down (that is, from the original point, detailed summaries of a primary narrative work are generally discouraged). As a few fringe cases in AFD have tried to argue unsuccessfully against that point, it seems worthwhile to clarify it. --MASEM (t) 15:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't describe updating the written guidance to match current common practice as "forward thinking". Thryduulf (talk) 19:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

When an argument that is counter to current unwritten policy, and starts to become used (and refuted) more often, the forward thinking is getting that unwritten policy down on paper, so to speak, to avoid that becoming a larger problem. --MASEM (t) 20:49, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

This is already policy. WP:PRIMARY says "Do not base articles entirely on primary sources." If no one can come up with a better wording, then we should just copy and paste the policy at WP:OR. I'm pro-consistency, and against anything that would create a walled garden where one policy contradicts another. Also keep in mind that WP:POLICY is supposed to describe best practices, not to provide legalistic cover to any commonly practiced violation of policy. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
- Yeah, that I can't agree with. Policy is supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive. Since the actual practice of the encyclopedia is that its okay for us to be a secondary source for some types of content, policy is responsible for reflecting that, not contradicting it because of anybody just not liking it. As far as I know, the content types where this has been clearly demonstrated are geographic locations and NRHP buildings. Possibly there are more. There may be an abstraction that collects them, like "subjects where good, standard primary sources are available and there is no serious question of Wikipedia being used for promotional purposes". But we should be figuring these things out. —chaos5023 (talk) 02:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  - I don't disagree with anything you just said. To me, most of those articles are compatible with WP:PRIMARY because there's most certainly some reliable independent source somewhere that has talked about that real world location. For someone to have not written about it, it would have to be completely undiscovered or made up. But I'm comfortable making that a clear exception to the rule. Shooterwalker (talk) 06:39, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
  - Chaos, "descriptive" does not mean that you cannot provide direct, clear instructions, including words like "do not" or "you must". WP:COPYVIO is no less a properly written policy because the nutshell begins with the sentence "Do not add content to Wikipedia if you think that doing so may be a copyright violation". If the actual recommendation from the community is "do not ever do this", then the policy can and should actually say that. It is not appropriate to disguise that kind of direct order in soft, verbose "descriptive" language.
    What we actually mean when we deprecate "prescriptive" policies is this: WP:Nobody reads the directions anyway, so don't delude yourself into thinking that you can change practice merely be re-writing an advice page. "Do not violate copyrights" is as true a description of the community's real policy as you could wish to have. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Wha?

What's the deal with this edit? This appears to be a very major rewriting of an important policy page by an anon editor. It's his 12th edit this year and his first since early June (since its an anon I don't know how much of the editing history truly devolves to the same person, but there's about 50 edits overall). It's very unusual for an anon, especially one with a spotty editing history, to make major changes to a policy page, and while this sort of the straddles the line between "strongly frowned upon" and "flat-out forbidden", his edit summary points in a general way to a spirit of some claimed consensus which I don't see on the talk page. So I reverted it. Herostratus (talk) 05:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia IS a democracy?

Why do you say that it isn't so? Our article on the topic says that in a democracy, "all eligible people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives," and I think Wikipedia qualifies. One could even say that we are a deliberative democracy, as acknowledged by meta:Wikipedia power structure. Ragettho (talk) 03:21, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

It could perhaps be more precisely, though obscurely, phrased as "Wikipedia is not an ochlocracy and is not purely majoritarian", the latter being the most common conception of democracy; if a majority of participants were to vote "Keep - I like this!" at an AfD, an admin would still be within their rights and WP norms to close said AfD as Delete. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

You imply there a hierarchy of admins versus normal editors (and perhaps implying casual readers make up the common herd), which I am sure is not quite what you mean, but it reads that way. The point I think you make, and I would agree with, is that herd voting doesn't make any difference, one very reasonable argument counts for far more than 100 people saying "oppose". I certainly on some articles have completely changed my opinion because of a well-reasoned and sensible argument by another editor, for example at Botanical Gardens I was initially very much opposed to having this article changed, the editor User:Granitethighs explained his reasoning well and I changed my tune, and ended up subbing it for Good Article, which it now is. So I think it would be reasonable to say, Wikipedia is not a democracy. I would perhaps, without undue perphrasis as you say, it is a meritocracy?

My sincere best wishes as always Si Trew (talk) 06:32, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, we strive to be a meritocracy; in practice, we're a work-in-progress on that front... Admins in my example are more just a mechanical element of the "voting process" in use here. Though to your pro-democracy point, admins are elected via a roughly majoritarian voting process. --Cybercobra (talk) 06:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I've tried to clarify some things on the relevant section, mostly by saying that Wikipedia isn't a majoritarian democracy. Unfortunately it looks like much of the section will have to be rewritten, once we figure out exactly what kind of democracy we don't strive to be. The power of each contributor to edit, comment, and participate makes this project a democracy of some sort. Personally I still like to call ourselves a "deliberative democracy". Ragettho (talk) 15:42, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

We mean "democracy" in the common sense of the word, and everyone knows what it means, based on the common "X is not a democracy" usage. This is a simple policy, not a treatise on the different kinds of democracies. It's best to avoid pedantry. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:08, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Agree. In particular, Wikipedia does not bureaucratically spell out exactly what kind of democracy is referred to. Things on this site need a reason related to improving the encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 00:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Memorial

Hi folks there is a disagreement at Talk:Battle of Lima Site 85/GA1 over what is a memorial. I am doing the Good Article review and suggest listing the names of 12 men killed in the battle in the article is a memorial. It also only lists the casualties of one nation not both of them involved. Another editor suggests otherwise, any guidance or advice welcome.Jim Sweeney (talk) 11:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

This talk page is for discussions regarding the Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not page content. I think you might do better to ask at the Wikipedia:Help desk. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:55, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks will transfer there. Jim Sweeney (talk) 17:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a Court of Law

I would like to propose that the following section be added:

Wikipedia is not a Court of Law

Wikipedia has no legal or quasi-legal role, and our articles, particularly those discussing court cases etc need to reflect this. Wikipedia articles are not:

Summaries of evidence.. We do not need to report everything that one side or other in a dispute considers relevant.

Summaries of law.. We must reflect what reliable sources consider the legal position, not what we ourselves consider to be the case.

Verdicts. We must not attempt to reach a conclusion regarding legal matters, either in article content, or on talk pages. Any such discussion is liable to be a violation of Wikipedia policy (WP:BLP etc), and may also have legal implications for those involved in the discussion. Any article or talk page material that violates this should be deleted immediately.

None of this is anything more than a restatement of core policy, but sadly I have seen much evidence to suggest that it needs to be explicitly stated. Far too many Wikipedia articles, and article talk pages in particular, become quasi-judicial arenas, with 'evidence' being picked over, 'law' being determined, and 'verdicts' being reached, entirely contrary to our intended purpose. Any thoughts? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:04, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Oppose, instruction creep–WP:Policies and guidelines is quite clear we dont have policy that is restatement of another policy. This is already covered elsewhere, as the proposer already states "none of this is anything more than a restatement of core policy".Camelbinky (talk) 19:52, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough, but you could say that about most of the other sections on the project page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I see your point regarding that WP:NOT is a list, some of which can be found elsewhere. However I still find it too be too much instruction creep of being so detailed regarding what is already considered to be violations of OR, NPOV, and BLP. Pages and policies with more exposure and teeth than WP:NOT.Camelbinky (talk) 20:04, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a highly relevant addition. Instruction creep doesn't apply as this is already policy, just introducing it where it is relevant in WP:NOT, in an easily understandable way.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:50, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

The problems with WP:NOPRICES

The policy of not including the MSRP/RRPs of products like iPod Touch or PlayStation 2 is idiotic and arcane. Prices are not simply trivia because they often put the product and the market in context. Ignoring price as though it's an irrelevancy does not reflect reality where price concerns strongly effect the development and sales of a product. It's especially irksome on articles which include obscure technicial details but no price information.

For example, would someone who has never heard of the iPod Touch understand why there are multiple models with different amounts of disk space from the article which does not include any price information whatsosever?

In addition, the policy is applied inconsistently, since articles such as History of the Amiga and ZX Spectrum (rightly) discuss prices throughout. I suspect that the practice of avoiding prices is biased towards recent products. -93.97.122.93 (talk) 18:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. The actual language is "Product prices should not be quoted in an article unless they can be sourced and there is a justified reason for their mention". Sourcing shouldn't be difficult in the sort of case you're talking about, and making a product's position in the context of its market comprehensible sounds like "a justified reason for their mention" to me. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:38, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The followup sentence is "In general, if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on the price of an object instead of just passing mention, this is an indication that its price may have encyclopedic significance". I believe this is unclear and sets the barrier too high, and is subsequently used as justification for excising price information from articles throughout Wikipedia. I believe including the MSRP of such products is usually appropriate and isn't merely 'trivia'.

For example, on the iPod Touch talk page: 'Where are the prices? Under guideline WP:NOPRICES, street and retail prices are considered trivia items'. -93.97.122.93 (talk) 19:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Please answer these questions- how is price helpful for the AVERAGE reader? Prices often change and can be different according to market (across the US but also worldwide and we are INTERNATIONAL, we dont just put the price in Hoboken, New Jersey; we would need the price of, say an iPod Touch in Costa Rica as well if we are going to have the American price). Would an average reader understand why there are different version of iPod Touch with different levels of disk space you ask, yes they would know why, because Apple wants to make money at different levels of customers, price doesnt help. It's like asking, would an average reader know why Cadillac, Jaguar, or BMW have different models of cars with different packages if we dont show the prices.Camelbinky (talk) 22:13, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Right, and also prices are volatile and so that's just another thing to need constant updating (or that would be inaccurate, and thus worse than nothing, if not updated). Also, price information is the sort of thing that product-pushers are likely to want to include. Neither of these are deal-killers, but they are both contraindicative for including prices. Herostratus (talk) 23:46, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

It's helpful for the average reader because it puts products in context.

For a real-world example example, look at the BMW Mini and Toyota Yaris. On paper, they are very similar products: they are both supermini-class cars. If you include price information, the reader be able to infer that they are aimed at different markets. The BMW Mini is a premium product, and that's reflected in its higher price. You would struggle to understand that from the current Wikipedia article.

I agree that some standards would need to be drawn up, but they are resolvable issues. For example, only showing typical MSRPs at product launch, significant price drops, and from primary sources. For cars, it would be for their base version only. It also would be inappropriate for consumable products such as toothpaste or soft drinks.

Reasonable rules could be drawn up for which prices to include, for example the prices of the three biggest markets (often USD, EUR and JPY) plus the home market of the company. Arguing that we can't include all currencies and therefore we should include none seems to fall for the bifurcation fallacy. Frankly, any currency would be better than the current situation.

Finally, I do realise that Wikipedia is international. I suggest you do the same before blindly assuming that everyone is in the US, because I'm in the UK. -93.97.122.93 (talk) 00:44, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

No one has assumed anything: the scenario presented above was just an example to show how including a price is not quite so simple. I would add that informing readers of the value of products is outside the scope of an encyclopedia. Yes, some would find it convenient to have a (reasonably reliable) list of prices and suppliers attached to products so they wouldn't have to bother with the fluff presented by Google, but prices are too ephemeral and location dependent (and promotional) for Wikipedia. Johnuniq (talk) 01:40, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that Wikipedia becomes a price comparison site like Kelkoo with lists of prices and suppliers. My argument is that it's often appropriate to include product prices in order to tell a coherent narrative about a product, especially since price is a core aspect of product design. I don't see how adding launch prices to the Jaguar CD or Toyota Celica articles would do anything but improve them. -93.97.122.93 (talk) 03:00, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Pricing is often irrelevant; varies enormously from place to place; and is just plain not encyclopedic content. We have enough trouble keeping track of major information, without having to say "this iPod model was retailing for $X on May 17, 2011 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but €2X on May 19, 2011 in Ljubljana." --Orange Mike | Talk 16:38, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Pricing is often highly relevent when discussing products because products are designed with price points in mind. The fact that Wikipedia often doesn't acknowledge that price matters is, in itself, a bias.

You've also adopted the all-or-nothing bifurcation fallacy. I'm certainly not suggesting every price in every location be listed. That's patently silly.

All I'm saying the price is a important piece of information that helps understand markets. See my BMW Mini/Toyota example above. Without prices, it's hard for a reader to get a mental model of how superficially similar products are aimed at very different market segments or put products into historical context.

If you want another exmple, look at the Amiga 1200 and the NeXTcube. Without prices, it's very difficult for readers to understand the core differences between the products.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to saying that Apple's MSRP for the Xgb iPod in Y was $Z USD. Or Toyota's MSRP for the model X from Y was ¥Z. Or the Jaguar CD cost $Z. It should be possible to get that information from primary sources, and it's arguably more relevent than stating that a product contains an ARM11 620 MHz processor or has X horsepower.

Price is important and is often perfectly encyclopedic. I find it absurd that people aren't actually replying to my arguments but are falling back on "it's unencyclopedic" (without actually explaining why) or "We can't include all prices and all stores" (when there's perfectly reasonable ways to filter inappropriate and appropriate pricing) -93.97.122.93 (talk) 17:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Not only is it unencyclopaedic, as Orangemike states, but it is also a potential magnet for edit-warring and POV-pushing by involved parties. Understate your prices, overstate your competitors, and drum up trade... AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:43, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Current & retail pricing would be a ref-spam magnet in addition to being problematic for all the other reasons stated above. I do think there is a useful encyclopedic purpose for historical MSRP at the time of a product launch, such values can usually be referenced from reliable sources and being tied to the launch of a product - they don't change. --Versageek 17:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
- I'm glad that you essentially agree. For the third time: I'm not suggesting including prices from retail. I'm suggesting including MSRPs with citations from reliable sources like manufacturers/reviews and limiting the prices to major markets (in practice, this would usually be the USD and the Euro). This involves clarifying this guideline and creating a new policy.

This would eliminate the absurd situation where many articles have MSRPs ommited for arcane reasons that cite this guideline, and would enshrine the common sense practice that is used in many existing articles. -93.97.122.93 (talk) 17:41, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Prices are relevant when comparing systems. For instance, Gameboy list what the competition cost, to explain one of the reasons why it sold much better. Mentioning the cost of CD-ROM drives when released, and then when they started to sell better, would help explain why this technology didn't take off straight away. And this is the English language Wikipedia. Mentioning of how much it cost in a nation that doesn't speak English makes no sense at all. Also, America is a huge market, largest economy in the world. Most major things are marketed here after or at the same time as the homeland they were made in. So its valid to list what it cost in dollars. Dream Focus 17:29, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
- If the price is discussed extensively in independent sources, then we can include it. The best way to do that is not to say "MSRP of US $___ on August 1, 2011 in the USA". Normally, the best way to do that is to provide context: "The initial cost of This Printer is less than That Printer, but the cost of ink cartridges is far higher, resulting in a higher total cost of ownership for This Printer" or "The Lexus brand is more expensive than the Toyota cars, which are produced by the same manufacturer and often have similar underlying designs." That information is meaningful to everyone, not just to people trying to figure out if they've saved up enough money to buy the item yet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
  - That would have to be sourced which is all the guideline says. Dmcq (talk) 20:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The guideline says more than that prices have to be sourced. There has to be a legitimate overriding reason (notability) for the inclusion. I dont see the car analogy as providing any notability for the inclusion of any prices. I dont need MSRP listings to tell me that my Jaguar X-type competes against a BMW 3-series and not a Chevrolet Lumina or Kia Amanti (even though it may be every Kia owner's dream that it does). The verifiable and secondary sourced information regarding an item's packages (or in the case of my Jaguar, the name itself) often will give the reader all the information they need to know "this is a pricey product". As for being encyclopedic... show me one encyclopedia that has price points in it! I love when people say "well, it's encyclopedic" and yet they are talking about something that has never been done by Encyclopedia Britanica. Show me if I'm wrong.Camelbinky (talk) 23:22, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Prices are often useful, especially for topics that are historical or foreign to readers. The price difference between a Model-T Ford and a Packard is a significant fact, but for someone who wasn't alive then it isn't obvious. However prices should not be included as a matter of course, such as in infoboxes, or taken from strictly from primary sources. I think the current policy language is adequate. Will Beback talk 23:33, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Where prices are notable as a matter of marketing history (Model T prices vs. prices of other cars) etc. then the prices are certainly a valid part of the article. The history of electronic devices is filled with pricing choices and marketing decisions which greatly impacted how things turned out ... and where the pricing did impact how well a product was received, then it certainly is reasonable to include the information. WRT the EB claim made above ("never been done") -- see [4]. The article absolutely includes the pricing. Collect (talk) 23:52, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Fundamental problem with pricing currently, versus the examples some (like above) have raised of historic pricing, is that prices vary wildly from place to place and from currency to currency. In addition, seldom is the case that product pricing figures in secondary, non-connected (ie not press releases or sourced from press releases exclusively) reliable sources, because it is often not a noteworthy aspect of a product in terms of the product itself. There are some exceptions, for example, the OLPC_XO-1 from the One Laptop per Child project (which we even have a redirect with a price in the name $100 Laptop, in which the pricing in itself is a goal of the product and central to what makes the product notable, but generally speaking pricing is not a reason for the existence of a product - so there is no reason to include this information on an encyclopedia.

I think the problem is not that prices are not to be included or not, it just the inclusion of them in an encyclopedic fashion and following our rules is something for which there are few opportunties. The Model T article is an excellent example in this sense, because I cannot recall a single example of WP:NOPRICES being raised in opposition to usage sucha as that in the a article - every time I have see it use is when COI editors or product fanboys want to put prices of current products as if wikipedia were wikicatalog. In that sense, WP:NOPRICES has so far served its purpose well, with no exceptions that I know of.--Cerejota (talk) 05:53, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Perfect?

Not to troll. But, Is Wikipedia perfect? Randnotell (talk) 16:13, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

No, since no human is perfect noting created by a human could ever hope to be perfect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.66.186.54 (talk) 19:00, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Why do you ask? - Denimadept (talk) 19:03, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Isn't the objective of an encyclopedia to answer questions?Randnotell (talk) 19:48, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Actually the purpose of the talk page is not general discussion but discussions for changes and or alterations to the article is in this case policy etc. So unless this question somehow relates to the policy page in question this is not the place.--76.66.186.54 (talk) 20:15, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Ahh, but I already made the change, and it was deleted. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. At a certain point, all questions are unanswerable. But if I upset you, I am sorry. I acknowledge my bias, and seek to minimize it. And all of you should, as well.Randnotell (talk) 21:07, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia wet? Is Wikipedia a bird? Is it a swimming pool? Is it delicious? Shooterwalker (talk) 22:51, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

No, but some of its contributors might be. Jclemens (talk) 23:01, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

The Wikipedia may not be perfect, but parts of it are excellent. Herostratus (talk) 23:25, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Content vs. content

"There is no practical limit to the number of topics Wikipedia can cover" ... "and what should be done, which is covered in the Content section below. Consequently, this policy is not a free pass for inclusion: articles must abide by the appropriate content policies, particularly those covered in the five pillars."

This is completely misleading: what content, what inclusion ? The content of the encyclopedia measured by the included articles ? Or the (misinterpreted) content of articles measured by included words ?

Most people will read content as article content, but WP:NOTNEWS is a WP:Notability topic, and that is not article content measured in words, but encyclopedia content measured in articles. --POVbrigand (talk) 08:52, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not soft pornography

Wondering whether there might be an addition to the NOT page with a line to the effect that Wikipedia is not soft pornography. In the talk page of physical attractiveness it is going a bit far, but I was looking for this page to come up with a rule about this, but didn't find it.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 09:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is also not a hat, or a piece of garden trellis. -mattbuck (Talk) 10:14, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

It would probably be too difficult to document everything that Wikipedia is not. However, I removed that section of the talk page as unhelpful since while it was dressed as a "suggestion", it was closer to trolling. Johnuniq (talk) 10:27, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Figured. Just wondering. And while Wikipedia may not be a hat, I've noticed that I never get rained on while doing it. :) --Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:IG explains the policy about galleries. Basically you'll need a reasonable explanation of each picture, galleries per se have no place in Wikipedia. You can put a gallery into commons though and reference it at the end of the article. For instance Origami has a gallery in its article but they illustrate a number of different things and have proper captions and there is an explanation at the top of what it is in aid of. Anything larger would be pushing the boundaries. There's lots more things at commons and there's a reference to it at the end of the article. Dmcq (talk) 15:57, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanx.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 18:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS

Ever since I have been editing wikipedia, over 7 years now, I have been encountering WP:NOTNEWS used in a variety of ways, sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully, to affect editing behavior, and in particular deletion discussions and BLP issues (in those it is usually a conjoined twin of BLP1E). Maybe its because I a proclivity and interest on current events, but I have often been involved in such discussions. Often times, I could see the point, and !v for delete or non-inclusion, but also the opposite way, and often in related topics (for example, voting for delete in the article on the perpetrator of a killing, but not the killing itself). Lets also not be disingenuous, and just like there are deletionists and inclusionists, there are anti-recentists and recentists. You can tell anti-recentists because they reply to everything with WP:NOTNEWS or with "We have WikiNews for a reasons" or some such, and recentists by "But there a are gazillion hits in google!" or "Its all over cable news!!!!" or some such. Generally I am amused by either if they are !v with me, and annoyed if they are not, but don't have a general opinion on allowing recent events other than they should be included if they have encyclopedic value under consensus, in other words, I oppose speedy delete of recent events, essentially how the process stands right now is fine by me.

So, you ask, why I am writing here today. Well, the reason is that I feel that WP:NOTNEWS is not very clear as to the intent of itself, as many other sections in this page are, and this leads, in my opinion, to misleading use, and often unclear objections to the inclusion of recent events. It also has a "see also" to Notability (events), but doesn't summarize how doe snot being a newspaper, and the notability criteria for events connect, which can lead users to not understand the inter-dependency of the two, in particular to new users.

The AfD archive are full of unsuccessful AfDs for articles that while breaking news when started, obviously had encyclopedic worth at the time they happened (I won't list examples because they are too numerous, but can provide a few). Wikipedia is full of articles that consist solely of frequent news items put together (such as hurricane seasons), regardless of the notability of these articles itself, and regardless of how recent these events are. We have consistently highlighted in the Annual Report recent events and newsworthy of encyclopedic inclusion (some of the articles featured in the Annual Report were subjected to AfD in their early hours), and consistently include articles in our Main Page (and consider it a badge of honor to the involved editors!) even when the events in question are hours old.

So there is a confusing (in my view) lack of clarity in WP:NOTNEWS and even a contradiction between how the community views WP:ITN and how it treats current events in general. In my opinion, this confusion can be mitigated and reduced, by some rewriting or the inclusion of an explanatory essay, or both.

This is how it stands now:

Not all verifiable events are suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Ensure that Wikipedia articles are not:

Journalism. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories. Wikipedia is not a primary source. However, our sister projectsWikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be primary sources. Wikipedia does have many encyclopedia articles on topics of historical significance that are currently in the news, and can be updated with recently verified information.
News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. While including information on recent developments is sometimes appropriate, breaking news should not be emphasized or otherwise treated differently from other information. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews. See also: Wikipedia:Notability (events)
Who's who. Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic. (See Wikipedia:Biographies of living personsfor more details.)

This is a possible rewrite template, with explanatory essay in the see also:

Not everything that is published in news sources, even those considered reliable sources, is included in Wikipedia, althought some recent events are suitable for inclusion as encyclopedic articles, not news articles.

Ensure that Wikipedia encyclopedic articles are not simple:

Journalism. Wikipedia does not offer first-hand (on-scene reporting) news reports on breaking news stories, even if this reporting is otherwise verifiable. Wikipedia does have many encyclopedia articles on events currently in the news, or for which news reports are the main source of information, and can be updated with recently verified information - but this is different from journalistic articles that simply inform about a newsworthy event. Wikipedia is not a primary source, nor is it intended to collect information from primary sources. However, our sister projectsWikisource and Wikinews do exactly that, and are intended to be primary sources and to collect information from primary sources.
News reports. Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events when including encyclopedia articles of news events. While including information on recent news is not forbidden (and is part of of what we include in the main page), breaking news is not treated differently than other information and must satisfy the requirements for inclusion in the notability guidelines for events as well as conform to all the other editing policies and guidelines for content. While news coverage can be an useful source material for encyclopedic topics, the newsworthy nature of events do not automatically qualify them for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports scores, police blotter, or the daily life of celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia, while major scientific achievements or discoveries, deaths of notable figures, major crimes of an uncommon nature, assassinations of notable figures, major earthquakes and climate events, and other globally significant events could meet the criteria for notability and inclusion if properly sourced and verifiable. Timely news subjects not suitable for Wikipedia may be suitable for our sister project Wikinews, and editors are encouraged to include such news in there rather than in the encyclopedia.
Who's who. Even when an event is notable, individuals involved in it may not be. Unless news coverage of an individual goes beyond the context of a single event, our coverage of that individual should be limited to the article about that event, in proportion to their importance to the overall topic. (See Wikipedia:Biographies of living personsfor more details.)

--Cerejota (talk) 07:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much everything you want to add or address is why WP:NEVENT was created - because it is difficult to understand when an event is going to significant enough to merit an article. It is never a good idea to say that certain classes of events always merit articles, because there's always exceptions, and/or when you start saying certain events should get articles, people will try to justify a smaller event should fit into that. For example, you state "major earthquakes and climate events" get articles, but this is only usually true if there are very significant human effects - the quake in Japan, for example, pretty much is obvious with the magnitude and loss of life - not to mention its after affects - but then there can be 6.0s in California that no one bats an eye to because while major, there's minimal loss, and then of course there can be huge quakes in the middle of the oceans that have no effect to those on shore. And I remember how some want to catalog any plane crash that results in the loss of human life - even if it is just a solo pilot or a handful of people in a small prop-plane - to be a notable event.

Basically, NEVENT provides the right advice on waiting to make an article on an event except in the most obvious of cases. Wikinews serves for those that want to have new topics to stay absolutely current, the material able to be brought back into WP if it turns out to be notable. Or there's nearly always existing articles to drop info into. More importantly, it is impossible to tell as an event is breaking if it is truly notable or not, and we cannot easily give catagorial advice to that. The expansion of NOTNEWS proposed does not help towards this. --MASEM (t) 08:30, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Since I read you and pretty much agree with what you are saying, what do you like or dislike of the proposed new version? I am curious because I see no contradiction, yet you do not express support for the change--Cerejota (talk) 20:25, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Calling out specific types of events that will likely merit articles, for one, because that is simply not true. We don't for example routine create articles on major scientific breakthroughs - since this then usually requires peer review and development towards practical application. Take, for instance, the recent discovery of evidence of water on Mars. Certainly a major breakthrough - but we don't have an article for that specific discovery (we do have Water on Mars that covers the general background of all the research done towards that. Whenever you call out a specific allowance that can have an article, people will want to game that to make their pet topics fit the bounds even when deletion is the obvious answer. --MASEM (t) 20:41, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

We not only have an article about this discovery but it is highlighted on the front page in the section In the news. NOTNEWS is clearly not a coherent policy and so should be spun off as a separate guideline or essay. Warden (talk) 20:59, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

My mistake that we have that, but -- at same time, there's no reason to have a separate article about it yet. Warer on Mars is still small enough to include this. --MASEM (t) 22:45, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree the current version might be unclear, open to misinterpretation and wikilawyering. But not a fan of the proposed changes. Agree with Masem. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:46, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

One little piece of the puzzle would be the Speedy Incubate for breaking news and future events. It is a poor use of editors' time to AfD and DRV such articles, when the notability of the event is in flux. Previous discussion has suggested that events need to incubate for two weeks to allow the weekly news magazines time to weigh in. Unscintillating (talk) 22:21, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

...Except that "speedy incubate" would either be ineffectual (if a redirect were created) or would remove it from our readers' view without explanation. I think we need a better way to deal with breaking news which lacks current enduring value, but will probably have clear notability when the dust settles. Consider the shootings in Norway: does anyone seriously believe that there won't be enduring commentary? Thought not. Then there are clearly non-notable events, like local county fair rabbit-raising prizes, which are unequivocally within the "routine coverage" that NOTNEWS actually discusses. The problem is finding the line between the two, and adjudicating that in a way that doesn't confuse or alienate readers or editors who want to contribute to such a topic. Jclemens (talk) 22:54, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree fully. That is why I try a re-write proposal that tries to narrow that line a little more. We always leave wiggle room in content policy, to allow for WP:CCC etc, but I feel that in this case, we have too much wiggle room, and too much focus on what cannot be included, rather than on what can. This creates confusion. For example, in the 2011 Norway attacks AfD, WP:NOTNEWS was the main argument for delete. And at face value, it wasn't an invalid argument. But I think we can codify that major mass killings are generally notable enough for inclusion, and that would save the community the loss time of spurious SNOW-closed AfDs that happen almost every time a breaking news article happens. There has to be a way to reign-in the knee-jerk. Perhaps my proposal is not it, but lets come up with something, its obvious the current state of things is less than ideal. --Cerejota (talk) 23:20, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Again, we have Wikinews for exactly these type of breaking events that has no discrimination on notability, just proper sourcing. When the event is determined to be notable, it can be drawn back into WP with simple transwiki copies. Encyclopedias are not meant to be news-reporting services; ITN is sorta the antithesis to it but we tolerate it because we do want to be up-to-date as possible (one of the benefits of being NOTPAPER), and it draws eyes to improved articles about new world events.

And again, there are clearly events that within minutes after they occur, we know they are notable, the shootings in Norway, the Japanese earthquake, etc. to name a few. These are exceptions. The impact of an event normally takes time and reporting energy to understand if it has enough impact to make an impact beyond those directly affected by it. (This does not diminish the ability for the event to be covered at WikiNews) More often, the event may be part of a larger chain of events that are better covered as that overall chain (eg United States debt ceiling crisis is a good example of many smaller events - none notable on their own - contributing to the larger picture.). It is better to Wikinews or userify a potential article on event until there is some assurance how best to cover it. This is exactly why NEVENT was created, to stem off immediate creation of event articles before it can be assessed as a truly notable event. --MASEM (t) 23:36, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll just interject to point out that transwikiing to Wikinews is not permissible due to license incompatibility (WP requires Share-Alike but WN disallows it). --Cybercobra (talk) 00:00, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

We can, however, take Wikinews back into WP, which is what I'm suggesting. --MASEM (t) 00:05, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Interesting perspective, and explanation of purpose behind NEVENT - however, that is not how things have been working for some time now, and in fact never quite worked like that. For example, if we took that view, WP:ITN would have to be broken up and that section of the Main Page removed - and that's a snowstorm keep. However, this conversation leads me to think that part of the problem is that some editors think in terms of article creation, and other editors in terms of content into existing articles. Both are covered under NEVENT and NOTNEWS, but the difference is not made clear in either. I am barking up the wrong tree here?--Cerejota (talk) 03:27, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikinews is for editor-reported news, NOT for aggregation of news stories from media outlets, right? I haven't touched Wikinews ever, but I understand that to be its key feature--in which case, editor reporting and editor aggregation of news form two incompatible goals. For editors to be contributing their own experiences, OR would have to be fundamentally changed. Jclemens (talk) 03:56, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

You ought to tell WN that. There seems to be precious little actual journalism taking place there, and the majority of the creations are aggregation. Most of the embedded WN links in our articles point to such articles, where WP actually does a better and more complete job. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:27, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

This discussion seems to center on the issue of new articles about ongoing news events. However I also see NOTNEWS used to prevent updates to existing articles, which I don't think is its intent. For that reason I think it'd help to clarify this clause. Will Beback talk 03:53, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Avoiding recency bias in articles is a valid concern... but it's not NOTNEWS that governs that. UNDUE seems much more applicable. Jclemens (talk) 04:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

An addendum to the NOTNEWS section, noting that WP is NOTPAPER and can be up-to-date in real time for existing topics when news stories break, may seem appropriate. --MASEM (t) 04:02, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that WP:NOTNEWS has the purpose to avoid creation of unnecessary articles. It should not be (mis)used to delete article content. I can provide examples if needed. Is my understanding correct ? If so, than maybe it is not clearly enough stated in the policy.--POVbrigand (talk) 08:02, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:N#NCONTENT. This means WP:NOTNEWS cannot be used to delete or refuse content from an existing article. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:32, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Since that is not current practice, maybe we should note that? I mean if it really is the consensus.--Cerejota (talk) 15:46, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

User_talk:Matt_Lewis#London_Riot_AfD and the AfD that prompted it (two days after another AfD so procedural keep was in order) is prima-facie evidence we need to reform NOTNEWS ASAP. --Cerejota (talk) 23:14, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. I think it's not so much that NOTNEWS isn't wrong, but that some editors (not a large number) mistake it as implying "we don't cover breaking news" (which is bollocks). I think it is completely fair to say that NEVENT, a consensus-agreed guideline, accurate captures the fine line between a breaking and a notable news event. It is a fine line, and to try to quantify it any more than NOTNEWS does will create a lot more arguments and gaming than our situation now, where it is easily to have the individual discussions with specific editors that misread it. --MASEM (t) 00:02, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I understand your point, and I agree that the principles are sound, in other words I completely and unequivocally agree with all that you are saying on the principles, but I disagree that the wording in NOTNEWS as it stands is effective in describing the fine line, and in making sure that the notability guideline be in the forefront of discussion. You could say, without really lying, that recent events is a large part of my wikipedia editing and I have never seen NOTNEWS used correctly in an AfD. Ever. I have seen NEVENTS used correctly, even when I disagreed with the position (both for deletion and for keep). Generally the usage I have seen for NOTNEWS is a hidden WP:IDONTLIKEIT or WP:IDONTKNOWIT, a clear WP:GAME issue - which invalidates in my view the objections concerning WP:GAME issues if the wording is changed. I think a rewrite will fix that, and draw a attention to the existence of a fine line, rather than a blanket prohibition, which is what we see now.--Cerejota (talk) 03:32, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I totally agree the wording needs changing. Here is another example I came across today. NOTNEWS needs to make it explicitly clear that many news events are worthy of an article. Also, the shortcut is partly at fault - how many people quote it without actually reading the content. It needs to be renamed to a succinct version of something like WP:NOTALLNEWSISNOTABLE.--Pontificalibus (talk) 22:46, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you. The Virginia earthquake is a good example. If an earthquake like this happened in the West Coast of the USA, in wouldn't be notable. However, as I just saw, The quake was one of the most powerful on the east coast of the US since 1897, according to USGS records, matching the strength of a tremor in the state of New York in 1944. If that is not notable, can you tell me what is? There is difference between we not being news, and we not covering any current events. The anti-news cabal is much more disruptive, with their useless AfDs that get SNOWy endings (when something SNOWs so consistently, it is clear you are barking up the wrong tree) than the "lets put in all news" people that used to plague the wiki years ago and sometimes still shows up. Why? Because the anti-news cabal are generally good faith eidtors with a deep involvement in the project, well versed in policy and procedure, who nevertheless have a deep ideological aversion to current event articles, whereas today most current event articles get created by new editors who don't have a clue. I think we need to recognize this reality and adapt policy accordingly, and this is not done by changing one word here and there. I made a proposal a while ago in this thread, why are we not moving forward?--Cerejota (talk) 02:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

How much damage did it cause? Did people die? Did it destroy power plants? Did it affect the nation's economy? We don't know right now. The fault in that region is notable, and this event can be discussed there, but there's no current reason to make an article for the quake itself until its long term implications are know. It's news, its interesting, but that's it. --MASEM (t) 03:18, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

That said, I see there is an article and has survived a speedily-closed AFD, but right now it reads like a newspaper story, completely appropriate for Wikinews, but not for WP. Maybe there's coverage that will come in the next few weeks as the damage is assessed, but given it appears most structural, I'm not really seeing any likelihood of this being a significant disaster - as some have said, CA residents would be "meh" on a 5.9 quake. I have serious doubts most will remember this quake by the end of this year.

We are an encyclopedia; Wikinews is a news-reporting site. When we find the news that has long-lasting impact (such as the Japan quake earlier this year) we recognize it as a notable event, but we should not be creating articles until that bar is cleared. --MASEM (t) 03:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

The wording of WP:NOTNEWS needs to reflect current practice and consensus. Wikipedia works well in covering breaking major news events, and as that AfD clearly demonstrated articles such as this are invariably kept. I'm sure articles about trivial news events are often deleted, but it's clear the WP:NOTNEWS policy is being cited inappropriately. We just need to ensure that the wording of WP:NOTNEWS doesn't preclude creating articles about current events. If Obama were assassinated tomorrow I'm sure the assassination article would be at AfD with the WP:NOTNEWS rationale (lasting impact not demonstrated in sources yet, he's not the only head of state to be assissinated etc...) but we all know the article would be kept.--Pontificalibus (talk) 18:43, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

NOTNEWS does not block creation of such articles, and that's why I boldly added the intro text to the section to assure that we do allow current events. What more people need to take is the advice given in WP:NEVENT is that caution should be always be used before creating an article about a current event. 2011 Virginia earthquake, 24hr later, reads as newspaper coverage of the event, and I doubt we'll know for several days if this really passes NEVENT. We shouldn't be rushing to create these, but even if someone creates it, we shouldn't be evoking NOTNEWS to try to remove it immediately. In my ideal world, we would not allow the creation of articles on events no sooner than a week, barring consensus-agreed cases, thus allowing better clarity if the event is truly notable after a week has passed. That's never going to happen, so the next best is to request both those creating and those wanting to delete current event articles to be patient. --MASEM (t) 18:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Work toward deprecating the use of the NOT#NEWS/NOTNEWS shortcut for NOT#NEWSPAPER

Given the past discussion, I think there's reasonable consensus that part of the current event problem is the moniker for the shortcut, NOT#NEWS/NOTNEWS which, as read by itself, seems to discourage current events. Instead, there was general agreement that WP is not a newspaper. I have made bold edits to put NOT#NEWSPAPER as a clear shortcut (it always was in an anchor), but I would like to depreciate (not remove) the NOT#NEWS shortcuts, hoping that deals with a portion of the above problem. --MASEM (t) 04:30, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm not especially sure there was a serious problem outside of a few fringe misinterpretations. But this can only help. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

It's more the newbie misconception that prior discussion seems to suggest to avoid. That is, if I'm a new editor, I make an article about a current event, and I'm told tersely that "fails NOTNEWS", I'd be scratching my head as it seems counter to being not a paper work. On the other hand "NOT#NEWSPAPER" is exactly right - we're not a newspaper, and is the best clarity on how WP's coverage of current events should be handled. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd prefer this. Make NOTNEWS a soft redirect to NOT#NEWSPAPER, which in turn redirects to the real policy section. Jclemens (talk) 22:55, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Also a good idea, for the sake of newbs. Shooterwalker (talk) 00:15, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Great idea. I'm sure many people who cite policy shortcuts at AfD don't actually read the entire policy. For this reason shortcuts should not be easily open to misinterpretation. Removing NOTNEWS from this page and making it a redirect would be a start in encouraging people to cite WP:NOT#NEWSPAPER instead.--Pontificalibus (talk) 15:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

this is an awesome idea!--Cerejota (talk) 17:08, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Implemented per WP:BOLD--Cerejota (talk) 17:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Click on WP:NOTNEWS to see.--Cerejota (talk) 17:33, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

modified not news

WHile I think more work is needed, I removed the "see also" in NOTNEWS and put this in its place:

This section applies to inclusion of content in existing or new articles or lists, not the creation of new articles or lists. For applicable guideline on article or list creation regarding notability, see the notability guideline for events and the general notability guideline. This policy section shouldn't be used in deletion discussions as it doesn't apply at all to article or list creation, just to content.

I also changed "articles" to "articles or lists" to better fit the language used by the notability guidelines.

I think it reflects the consensus that this section is not applicable to creation, but to actual contents. --Cerejota (talk) 00:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I've reverted because NOTNEWS does apply to new articles; we talk about notability of events, and that's everything about new articles. --MASEM (t) 01:04, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

That is not the sense I got from the above discussion, including your own contribution, so I am puzzled. Can you elaborate? I am not reverting as I edited under a presumption of SNOW, which was obviously mistaken. --Cerejota (talk) 03:12, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't support the change either. Masem is right that it does apply to entire articles focused on a brief news event, or person who appeared in such an event. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Isn't that covered by WP:NEVENTS?--Cerejota (talk) 03:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

NOTNEWS is the oversight that NEVENTS works under - that we can be rather current and incorporate same-day news items about topics but we are not neither a breaking news source (we shouldn't be rushing to create content until the details of the event can be assured to be accurate) nor a generic news source (not all events make for encyclopedic articles or content). NEVENTS specifically covers when it is appropriate to create articles on news events. --MASEM (t) 03:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree, but my point is that the section doesn't convey that, or at least doesn't in a way that reduces the need to spend time not editing actual articles.--Cerejota (talk) 06:00, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

It must be clearly stated in NOTNEWS that the policy cannot be used to delete inclusions of news reports / media coverage from an article.

Example: see here how an editor misused NOTNEWS to delete a section on media coverage on a current topic. My solution didn't need wiki-lawyering, made the article better to read and didn't throw away the sources. The correct complaint from the editor should have been that the section was just not nice to read to which I fully agreed and therefore reworked it. --POVbrigand (talk) 10:56, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

If you consider that I misused policy, then take it up at the appropriate place. For the record, you are completely misrepresenting what happened regarding the Energy Catalyzer article, and NOTNEWS was only peripheral anyway - as anyone reading the talk page discussion will see. What was objected to was a long list of every reference, however trivial, of the E-Cat in media sources being imposed on the article for no better reason than to imply greater notability than merited for this fringe topic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:59, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Yea, have to agree with Andy; NOTNEWS isn't the issue there, its the straight-up inclusion of a section of "these sources have mentioned X" without any other context. Sources that discuss X should be incorporated as references in the text that discuss the topic. There's no NOTNEWS problems here. --MASEM (t) 13:22, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, yes, there's absolutely no NOTNEWS problem there, so why oh why was it brought up in the discussion then ? If NOTNEWS is about creation of an article why was it brought up in a discussion on content of an already existing article ?

@Andy, the NOTNEWS was indeed peripheral, but according to the policy there was no reason to bring it up at all. The same for notability. Notability is about creation of articles, not about content of existing articles. "for no better reason than to imply greater notability than merited for this fringe topic." I don't know what policy you're aiming for there, but Notability is for creation of articles not content. --POVbrigand (talk) 17:05, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Shortcuts

I have removed the addition of two shortcuts (WP:BEEP and WP:BLEEP) as unnecessary. While choice is good, it can be overdone, and displaying too many shortcuts is not helpful because it confuses people who merely want guidance on what to do. There are lots of redirects to this page (and others) which are not listed as shortcuts; examples: WP:ADVERTISING, WP:NOTSOAP, WP:Notusenet, WP:RANT. If there is a reason for needing extra shortcuts listed, please explain before adding them. Johnuniq (talk) 13:43, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's fine; we had to purge the # of shortcuts given a few years ago - that doesn't mean the redirects don't work, just that if we included every NOT shortcut, we'd have pretty much a whole separate page for that. --MASEM (t) 13:48, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

CV and résumé

Why does WP:NOTCV not direct to the same place as WP:RESUME? CV is the Brit English term for what Americans call a résumé, so they should go to the same section. NOTCV at present goes to the section about directories etc. Peridon (talk) 14:19, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:RESUME was created as a redirect to the essay Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not the place to post your résumé, and this 08:29, 29 May 2011 edit changed it to redirect to Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a blog, webspace provider, social network, or memorial site, but that was reverted. That seems reasonable to me, so I removed shortcut WP:RESUME from this page. I also removed WP:NORESUMES as unnecessary because WP:NOTRESUME exists (and because WP:NORESUMES points to the essay). I removed WP:NOTCLOUD because the shortcut template (thankfully) only takes 12 shortcuts, and NOTCLOUD was created in June 2011 and appears unused (nothing links to it). I moved WP:NOTCV from the "Wikipedia is not a directory" section to "Wikipedia is not a blog..." (with NOTRESUME).

The result is that WP:RESUME points to the essay, and WP:NOTRESUME and WP:NOTCV point to the section in WP:NOT which mentions "résumé". Johnuniq (talk) 23:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Not about truth

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." This idea grew out of a section in the original NPOV that said that neutrality is not about truth, before this particular page existed. (There is an essay WP:Truth and I just added the original essay on neutrality and truth to it). What do people who watch this page think of adding to the content section of NOT "Wikipedia is not about truth?" This is not an official proposal - I just would like an informal poll here. If people who regularly watch this page think it is a good idea, then I would ask for an RfC and announce it widely. The question is, is it even worth holding an RfC? I believe that if the people who regularly contribute to this page are against it, there would be no point. Slrubenstein | Talk 10:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

Whack!

You've been whacked with a wet trout.

Don't take this too seriously. Someone just wants to let you know that you did something silly.

You should know better than supporting the meme that Wikipedia publishes claims we know to be false as fact, if only they are verifiable. Especially now that there is momentum to finally get rid of it at WT:Verifiability and WT:Verifiability/First sentence, with involvement of Jimbo Wales. Some recent quotations from him (all currently on his talk page):

"We do not say that the earth is flat, even if sources can be found for it. We use editorial judgment. We are not transcription monkeys, merely writing down what sources say. We want to only write true things in Wikipedia, and we want to verify them."

"Sometimes we come to the sane judgment that a particular matter is settled. Sometimes different people will disagree on how settled a matter is, and this leads to conflict. But 'verifiability, not truth' does nothing to soothe those conflicts."

"The New York Times could print a dead-serious story tomorrow claiming that the world is flat, and we would assume that their printing processes were hacked, or that they are making some kind of joke, or... well there are many alternatives, but none of the serious alternatives would involve the earth being actually flat, and we all know that, so we wouldn't write it."

"We want verifiability and truth. And relevance. And proper weight. And some other things besides!"

This is not an WP:Argumentum ad Jimbonem. This is a demonstration that your timing is poor. Hans Adler 11:10, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I am suggesting that this is a more appropriate place to explain the point that on the Verifiability page. Given how long people have been arguing over this, I had hoped that an alternative might help resolve some of the conflict. But I deliberately asked for feedback before making a formal proposal - no need to bring out the trout if you think it is a bad idea, why not just say it? Slrubenstein | Talk 18:06, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary. But I don't think it's a bad idea either. Verifiability-not-truth is a pretty core principle and has settled more debates than my-side-is-true. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that is an appropriate use of {{trout}}. I don't see it in good humour. Slrubenstein opinion is in good faith and he is welcome to make any suggestion at any time. His suggestion here was at my request on my talkpage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

That principle is already present in NOT. See WP:NOT#Content, "In any encyclopedia, information cannot be included solely for being true or useful" and WP:IINFO, "As explained in the policy introduction, merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia". In fact, a good deal of the largest section (==Content==) is an expansion on that theme. I'm not convinced that we should create a single subsection for it. If you think it needs to be represented more strongly (which I kind of doubt, but perhaps you disagree), then I'd suggest expanding the introductory remarks at the top of the ==Content== section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:51, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

There is no problem with what is already present. But what Slrubenstein proposed ("Wikipedia is not about truth?") is optimised to support precisely the misunderstanding that a lot of people are currently trying to address: That Wikipedia knowingly publishes patently false claims if only they are "verifiable" in our technical sense. Slrubenstein turned "verifiability, not truth" into something that has all the disadvantages of the phrase in even stronger form while not having the advantages, and proposed it for inclusion into a different policy at a time when there is a good chance that the disadvantages of the original phrase will be addressed in the original location.

If Slrubenstein did this intentionally, then it's extremely bad form. If not, then it was a huge blunder. Either way the trout was appropriate. Hans Adler 23:07, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing, I am proposing adding something to NOT that goes beyond the section you quote, so i see this as different.

@Shooterwalker, I appreciate your comment. I obviously agree with you that this is a core idea. The question - for those of us who agree it is a core idea - is where best to explain it among our policy pages. Traditionally it has been explained on the Verifiaibility page. I am proposing that it fits in better, and therefore can be explained more clearly, on this page instead of on the Verifiaibility page. I do not expect everyone to agree ith me, of course, but that is what talk pages are for.

@Hans Adler, you are simply saying that you and I disagree.

You believe that to say that Wikipedia is not about truth means that we might willingly publish false material. I believe that when people say "Wikipedia is not about truth" they mean that "it is not about truth-or-falsity;" that is, there is another alterntive to "not truth" besides "false." You do not accept this.
I believe that if we editors of an encyclopedia belive that we can explain the uncertainty principle, or the wave/particle controversy, or if we can have an article explaining different meanings ascribed to Miby Dick, or if we can explain the theory of evolution, then I am certain that we can explain this time-hallowed princi[ple of Wikipedia. You do not accept this.
I believe that one reason why the argument over this continues at the WP:Verifiability talk page may be because that is not the most appropriate place to explain this principle. If so, explaining it here may help resolve the problem. You do not accept this

Fine, you are allowed to disagree. The difference between you and me is, I believe that we can disagree in good faith. You seem not to be able to tolerate a different view. I consider that a pity. Slrubenstein | Talk 12:54, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

That's about where I stop agreeing with you. The value of the phrase is "verifiability, not truth". This page would obviously put a lot more weight on the "not truth" part when we really need to keep it in the context of verifiability. WP:V is definitely a better place for it than here. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:22, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough - it was just an idea! Slrubenstein | Talk 13:55, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

No worries. I have no weapons or fish. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:19, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

WP:NOTHOWTO and deletion

Is there any possible way to emphasize in this section that it is referring to the way an article is written and is not referring to actual article content? For that matter, it might be easier just to add that it has no relation to notability and, thus, should not be used as an argument for deletion. It's been used a lot lately in AfDs and while a few users point out that NOTHOWTO has nothing to do with the notability of an article, a bunch of users keep on trying to use it that way. This needs to be rectified somehow. Silver seren^C 05:34, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

The thing about this is that Wikipedia says it is or isn't something because it says so and it will delete any reference taht says oterwise. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy because it says it isn't. If someone says it is, then that will be deleted, as will this post probably be deleted without any record left of it. It is not the truth of the matter, but rather the truth that they want us to know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.116.212.32 (talk) 17:15, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Silver seren, I don't understand what you mean by "it has no relation to notability and, thus, should not be used as an argument for deletion". Arguments based on notability are far from the only reasons for deletion; and affirming WP's status as an encyclopedia rather than a cookbook, a soapbox, a business directory, or any of a multitude of other things is what this page is all about. A how-to article doesn't belong in an encyclopedia, though it may be perfectly acceptable elsewhere, and citing WP:NOTHOWTO as a rationale for deleting it is perfectly acceptable. Deor (talk) 17:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

In a certain sense, you are correct, but that doesn't mean that there aren't topics that would technically be a "how to" that are also good Wikipedia articles. Two examples that were recently at AfD and kept (where delete voters were primarily using NOTHOWTO as their arguments) would be Origami techniques and Jewellery cleaning. The thing is, if an article is written about a topic that is clearly non-notable, such as how to clean your sink, there are deletion arguments that should be used against it, but NOTHOWTO isn't one of them. Most often you would want to just merge it to the related article (such as sink, to continue my example). The whole point of NOTHOWTO, as it is currently written even, is about how an article is written, not the content. If it's written like a how-to guide, then that's one thing. But some of these articles that a few users are applying it to aren't. Silver seren^C 00:15, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The articles being kept, means this argument was not successful, which means the policy is clear to most users and the correctly saw those articles as not falling under NOTHOWTO. I really dislike changing policy that is not broken.--Cerejota (talk) 02:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Neither of those are "how to"s; they are not step by step guides, but instead a broad overview of the possible means of doing these activities. --MASEM (t) 03:01, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

and that was clear to the majority of the AfD participants, which means the policy is clear as it stands.--Cerejota (talk) 03:39, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I understand that, but as we all know from unclear policies, there is always a significant chance that a good article will fall through from misapplied things such as this. All i'm asking is if there can be a sentence of clarification so that it's more clear. I'm not asking to change the policy whatsoever, i'm just asking for clarification of the existing policy. Silver seren^C 03:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

This risk of a good article falling on the cracks and getting deleted exists no matter what the policy is, and what you propose is quite radical, as NOTHOWTO is a perfectly good reason to delete an article, if actually met. Bad deletions are sually fixed via DRV. If an article is so orphaned that no one defends it, then it is probably a good thing it got deleted, regardless of adherence to policy or not. --Cerejota (talk) 03:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I completely and utterly disagree with your last sentence. There are plenty of perfectly worthwhile articles right at this very moment that have no users watching them. That doesn't change anything at all. Silver seren^C 23:02, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

What sentence are you proposing to add? I don't think you can rely on notability to establish the worthiness of an article about techniques. I'm sure I could significant coverage in reliable sources on how to clean a sink, but that's why we need this policy.--Pontificalibus (talk) 08:40, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Except that the policy as it is currently written doesn't even say anything about deletion, it says "Wikipedia articles should not read like". And a lot of the time where it is quoted in AfD discussions, the articles in question do not read like the things listed here. Silver seren^C 23:02, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Ergo, the problem is people that take articles that may partially seem like HOWTO readings to AFD. I would argue that most articles that truly fail HOWTO can be improved to avoid the detailed instructions and instead talk about the general approaches (We wouldn't need a recipe to say what chicken soup is, but generally the type of ingredients and its common preparation methods). Having articles that read like HOWTOs should be fixed first before being taken to AFD. If users continue to take such articles to AFD, then that's time for an RFC/U on them, but it doesn't require language at NOT to be changed. --MASEM (t) 23:13, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Alright. I just wanted to bring the issue to people's attention, since it seems to have become a much more regular occurrence at AfD for some reason. I'm not sure exactly why. Silver seren^C 01:46, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Why do new people never read this?

Seriously, people these days are like bulls in a china shop. As soon as they see Wikipedia, they're like "OMG A TEXT SITE U CAN EDIT LOLOLOLO" and they put down stupid crap like "This section was written by *NAME HERE* :)" or "I changed it because it doesn't match my opinion!" Are people these days really this ignorant and ready to ignore all rules? 66.59.49.88 (talk) 16:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Please read WP:BITE. --Cerejota (talk) 22:56, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok. 24.60.143.195 (talk) 13:03, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Spelling it out

I see this entire policy, and its sections, used incorrectly all the time at AfD. What about if we hat note the policy sections with a standard message? Something like these:

(If you got here via a shortcut, please read WP:WHATISTOBEDONE before you act on this policy in any way - deletion is not the only option.)

I think making clear that deletion is not the only option, is a helpful reminder.--Cerejota (talk) 23:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

You could argue that any delete vote that points to any policy should be tagged with ATD or BEFORE. If people are putting an unmeritted use of NOT in AFD, simply point out that most clauses in NOT are not reasons to delete but to improve. Arguably, the only NOT clauses that would be cause for deletion are towards user pages that follow NOT#WEBSITE; and the only other policies/guidelines that demand deletion are WP:N, WP:BLP, and WP:COI. Everything else can be fixed. --MASEM (t) 23:14, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I disagree a bit (hear me out before facepalming!) - there are things like MEMORIAL and HOWTO that often cannot be fixed, as are a lot of WP:NEVENTS that fail NEWSPAPER. Feel me? If I hear you correctly, instead of the same hat note, we should have different ones specific to the section? I could support that - but I am afraid that saying what you are saying would be seen as taking sides in the Eternal Battle Of Teh Wikipedias: Deletiontrons vs Incusiobots, Part 42. :)--Cerejota (talk) 23:34, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

I guess I'm saying: if we put a caution on here - section specific or otherwise - we might as well put it on every other policy and guideline that is misused to progress a deletion argument. And really, that's not necessary because if one is putting an article to AFD or commenting on such, it is completely reasonable to expect that they know the AFD process that that BEFORE/ATA are highly suggested steps, and that improvement is always better than deletion. But those that fail do so aren't going to stop and read any caution on warnings they're accustomed to using, so it likely won't change much.

This is not to say that if there is really any specific NOT category that is overly misquoted at AFD as a reason for deletion, we can stamp "This is not a reason for deletion" to be absolutely clear. I know I've seen people go "Fails NOT:PLOT" as a deletion reason, but failing NOT:PLOT is a reason for trimming or improvement or merging, never outright deletion. That said, I don't see it used enough to require a specific callout for that.

I would not, however, be opposed to a generic header section that says "Many articles that fail WP:NOT can be improved, either through additional editing or merging, instead of deletion." --MASEM (t) 00:18, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

I would say a fair few of them would qualify as impossible to improve. IINFO, for one. A List of people born in Arizona to mothers named Irene cannot be improved upon. There's some others like GAMEGUIDE which if they are essentially an article about the stategy to beat a game cannot be improved upon either.陣内 _Jinnai 01:13, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Masem: WP:WHATISTOBEDONE already basically says that - and if it doesn't we can fix that :). SO what is your specific opposition to the hat note?--Cerejota (talk) 01:16, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

My problem is that you want to add a catchall message to each section when really it is advice that applies to nearly every policy and guideline save for the handful that do call for deletion of articles - it is not just NOT that is the issue. Making it specific to NOT ignores the larger issue that really, BEFORE and all that is advice anyone participating at AFD needs to be aware of; tagging NOT with your language isn't going to solve the issues for those that already chose to ignore BEFORE. --MASEM (t) 11:12, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

How to handle unidirectional associations

I'm struggling to find a content guideline that answers this question: if WP:RSs on topic A note that A is associated with B, then of course, an article on topic A can note the association; but if RSs on topic B do not note the association, then, in context of B, should the association be regarded as off-topic (or trivial) and hence not be included in our article on B? Help/suggestions/pointers welcome. Uniplex (talk) 08:47, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Often not, but sometimes we will want to use such information to flesh out an article. It's a matter of judgement and of consensus at the article's talk page. Conflicts around this most often occur in cases when A falls under WP:FRINGE. That case is decided by WP:ONEWAY. Hans Adler 08:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply! WP:FRINGE obviously reflects the principle, but it would useful if the principle were expressed more generically somewhere, to be able to act as "first port of call" for edit summaries (and hopefully reduce the amount of talk page discussion) relating to identification of such off-topic/trivial material in the general case. Uniplex (talk) 09:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You could write things like "WP:UNDUE in analogy to WP:ONEWAY". Hans Adler 13:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that might well cover it—I'll give it a go. Thanks. Uniplex (talk) 14:14, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposing some language regarding WP:NOTCENSORED

Ironically, the language in WP:NOTCENSORED can be mis-used to essentially censor certain discussions on articles, so I'm trying to include a common sense "we don't delete it on objectionability alone, but that doesn't mean it isn't something worth talking about."

This is a bit of a fallout from a discussion at talk:pregnancy, and in short it's an application of no absolute rules to a specific rule. The specific discussion has gone off the deep end, since it involves some very strong differences of opinion about whether a particular image has anything special to add to an article. If not, the desire of some editors is to include a less striking one that would, arguably, serve just as well without ruffling feathers. SDY (talk) 21:42, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Your edit would still not help with the Pregnancy discussion, since the image discussed does add to the content. I hadn't noticed before how strongly worded this section is. I guess I took it for granted that those wanting to remove the image weren't directly going against policy. "Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness but on whether it is appropriate to include in a given article." Seriously, I should read things better, I was made to feel radical for being much less radical than that. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 22:01, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

We disagree strongly on whether that particular image adds to the content, but that's an article-specific issue to that article that shouldn't be involved in the policy discussion. This is mostly a clarification that not all removal of objectionable content is censorship. Reading through it again, the basic idea of what I'm trying to add is there, it's just not very clear that "appropriate" can and should include discussions of objectionable content. It comes down to whether "is it objectionable?" is an argument to avoid in discussions of content. SDY (talk) 22:15, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

"just not very clear that "appropriate" can and should include discussions of objectionable content" That looks like a flat contradiction of what is there now, which says "Discussion of potentially objectionable content should not focus on its offensiveness." So a major change. That's probably why Dreadstar suggested putting it here, it's a major change. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 22:35, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The distinction is between "Should not focus on" as opposed to "should not consider." Again, big picture and ignoring the specific dispute on the other article, if we can cover the same information without being offensive we should do so. It should be obvious that the policy shouldn't prevent editors from challenging offensive material, especially when it can be replaced by something inoffensive. For example, replacing descriptions of the 9/11 hijackers as "Muslim Terrorists" with "Al Qaeda agents" is arguably censorship since we're avoiding offending people through careful word choice. Would you argue that that word replacement is inappropriate because the change is primarily being driven by a desire to avoid giving offense rather than a change in information? The way some are spinning the policy, it sounds like being offensive is perfectly acceptable so long as there is no other reason to change the content. The primary reason (i.e. the "focus") would be on the potentially offensive word choice, and I think it's perfectly appropriate for editors to discuss and change gratuitous offensive content, even if the offensiveness is the only objection. SDY (talk) 23:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

No I would argue that the word replacement is more specific and accurate. We can change the wording under current rules. If the word choice were less accurate or something, then we shouldn't worry about who's offended. I would change something to be less offensive so long as there was no other detriment to the project, but not otherwise. I don't really think we need a rule change to allow that though. Anyway, it looks like it would open a can of worms wikiwide to me, but I'm interested in what others have to say. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 01:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I like the addition of "solely" and "but objectionable content should not be retained solely because of this policy". One would think this was obvious, but it's not. I've seen one RfC where the proposition was "Objectionable, and also factually incorrect" and one where the proposition was "Objectionable, and also below our standards for artistic quality", and in both cases the RfC was closed as "Keep" based partly or solely on reading WP:UNCENSORED such that it requires objectionable material to be retained even if similar unobjectionable material wouldn't be. Not sure why this is, but it may have something do to with a feeling that we should make a point of including certain material, maybe to expand the boundaries of human freedom or something. That's a defensible proposition on which people can reasonably disagree, but it has nothing to do with this policy, and it'd be good to clarify this. Herostratus (talk) 05:57, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I went to add this in but SDY already did it. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 16:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Is that really a good change, or does it just open up the door to incessant wikilawyering and opinion on who, exactly, is making an argument on “solely” something. If an argument has been made that a 'keep' vote is ‘solely’ on the fact that someone is nude…who decides if that’s true? It weights the deciding factor on those who say it’s ‘objectionable’ in the first place…it’s totally skewed. Might as well scrap the whole thing, and totally censor WP…to whoever is the majority rule; in this case, to whomever finds something 'objectionable'. Dreadstar ☥ 09:54, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Censorship is a nebulous thing, and it seems like we should allow editors to make sensible decisions about whether something is gratuitously offensive. Honestly, we do, there's already clear language in the policy for extreme cases, e.g. links to shock sites. I don't particularly care for the language I proposed, but it should be clear that editors can make a decision about removing content without someone playing the WP:NOTCENSORED card to game the system and retain things that make no sense. As Hero points out, that exact problem has happened, where content with no redeeming value has been kept, solely because someone claimed that removing it would be censorship. The question is: do we trust our editors, or do we want to severely restrict their ability to make decisions about what's appropriate for the article with narrow and inflexible language? SDY (talk) 10:22, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I returned the policy to the longstanding version till consensus develops. Of course all parts of policy have been abused. But Dreadstar is also right that any change in a policy like this has to be seen in the light of how it might be abused. There are all sorts of ways to decide to keep or reject content besides offensiveness. I would question whether we need the criterion of offensiveness at all if everything is otherwise running properly. The word "solely" does open the discussions up to using offensiveness as a criterion. There's a great deal of offensive content on WP, and if that's a legit factor, I'm not sure what would happen. I'd like to hear people's opinion on how that possibility could be abused, and not informed just by the Pregnancy article. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 18:18, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Having worked on several articles that deal with more sexual terms and related articles, the images themselves are generally the thing that comes up the most as being "offensive". The text rarely evokes any commentary, unless the few out there who just question why we even have an article on such stuff.陣内 _Jinnai 22:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

I think that's mostly because the text changes much more rapidly, and it's easy to rephrase or switch order of things. Images are generally harder, because many of them can't realistically be changed. At any rate, this particular policy is still problematic in my mind, but trying to change it amidst a ~~debate~~ ~~argument~~ pissing match of an RfC is unlikely to be helpful. There are times when potentially offending a reader is unavoidable, and we have to allow for that, but we shouldn't be encouraging people to have offensive content in articles when it serves no purpose. SDY (talk) 01:23, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I take back anything positive I said about changing this policy, per further reflection [5]. It's just right the way it is. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 22:59, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, I have no opinion except that the policy should probably not be changed until the issue is resolved, if it is at all. I will say every time an argument has come up about "its objectionable" has at most moved the image from the lead, but not removed it entirely and only then on a few occasions. There have been images removed/replaced, but they have all required more of a reason beyond that and "shock value" argument.陣内 _Jinnai 01:38, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Right. SDY, all content has to be justified on its merits per BURDEN, if anyone were to cry NOTCENSORED to defend the indefensible, would it really be current phrasing of policy that's the problem? B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 02:42, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Exactly what I'm talking about. Honestly, just summarize that into the policy and I'd be satisfied. In my opinion, "shock value" and offensiveness detract from the merits of a piece of content, but what I've been hearing suggests that they cannot even be considered in the discussion of merit or lack thereof to meet that WP:BURDEN expectation. Is this the intended meaning of the policy? SDY (talk) 02:53, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

It's true, but how do you phrase that? You know that we're writing policy for when reason and honesty breaks down. So how would you phrase such a thing so people wouldn't say "we have two equal pictures but one is shocking so we shouldn't use it" while being dishonest about the fact that the merits of the pictures are actually not equal? I would wonder if we should leave it to consensus and RfCs, where people would reject or accept the shocking image but state their reasons as something other? Okay, just tell me how you would phrase it where it wouldn't be abused. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 04:48, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

The way it's written now it's not clear what's expected or desired. The policy is clear on objectionable content that has obvious utility to the article, such as the Jyllands-Posten thing. The image is clearly offensive to a subset of readers, but it's something that a large subset of readers is very likely to want to be able to see and judge for themselves. It's obviously relevant and there aren't reasonable alternatives. That's easy.
The RfC clouding this discussion is harder, where editors disagree over the utility of the content, not just whether it's objectionable. There's a lot of WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT that goes into these discussions, and the challenge for a well-written policy is giving someone who's closing one of these discussions useful guidance on what matters and what does not. For example, does the availability of equivalent (presumably defined by consensus) non-objectionable material force any conclusion? Is the likelihood that it would be seen as objectionable or the likely amount of offense (e.g. disapproval vs. rage) important? I think part of the solution might be to write an equivalent to WP:ATA for these types of discussions and leave the policy vague rather than overtly prescriptive, with a line added to the current text of something like "if editors disagree on whether the content is appropriate, apply WP:BURDEN and WP:CONSENSUS, and consider WP:ESSAYABOUTNOTCENSORED." SDY (talk) 06:38, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Or maybe a special section on images. The current policy is geared to text. BURDEN is geared to text also, and using BURDEN will have people asking for sources proving an image is relevant. Are you saying something like "Given a choice between images of equal quality which convey an equivalent amount of useful information, the one judged to be least offensive should be chosen. However, Wikipedia should not deny the reader relevant visual information in order to avoid offense"? Or some other text which talks about the principles. B^e——C_ritical_{__Talk} 16:45, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I dislike doing seperate sections for iamges, but I feel in this case its justified. "Shock value" and "Objectionable" need to be made clear that isn't a reason for removing an image alone (except in very rare cases for shock value, such as an image of a bloody murder scene in an article like Murder). BURDEN doesn't play a role there. What does is relevancy to the article's text.

I'll also note for drawings and the like their have also been arguments in several of those cases that a drawing is considered OR unless you can point to a an independent reliable source that says its not, which requires violating WP:CIRCULAR if the image was made for intended use at Wikipedia. I mention this because it also comes up that some of those same people then argue that since their can be a free replacement, but that you can't find sources saying the drawing is a drawing of XXXX then it has to be removed and WP:OI doesn't apply, thus wanting to remove all images entirely. These arguments have mostly only really happened pages dealing with more sexualized content (to varying degree). In a number they involve WP:Wikipe-tan, but not always. I've seen people argue that for images she's not used in.∞陣内 Jinnai 23:14, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Types of Information

Can someone clarify this sentence please: "Although articles should begin with a good definition and description of one topic, they should provide other types of information about that topic as well". What is meant by other types of information or more specifically, "types of information"?--Alperen (talk) 08:20, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I could speculate, but I have no idea what that means as far as restricting or demanding article content. I guess it means that you can write an article about Ulysses S. Grant, POTUS, and still have content about him being a General who was allegedly fond of the firewater? Still, it's so vague that it's essentially meaningless. I'd recommend just cutting it out of the policy and seeing who objects. Once and if anyone does protest, they can probably explain what it was meant to say and we can rewrite it. SDY (talk) 16:29, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Absent evidence of a problem, we should be conservative about changes. Changing "types of information" to "information" would be OK, though. It means the same thing and saves two words. Would that help? Herostratus (talk) 17:40, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

The problem, as far as I can tell, is that it doesn't mean anything, and that removing the entire statement would have the same meaning as retaining it. SDY (talk) 21:24, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see, it would make a lot more sense if we removed the "and description" from it. Once you "describe" something, you are already in the domain of the "other information" that an article ought to contain in addition to just defining what it's about. We should also remove the italics from "one topic". I don't know what that emphasis is trying to do there. Maybe somebody wanted to make a valid point with it, but whatever that point is, it seems to be orthogonal to what this whole passage is about. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:35, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I think it's clearer now, however I think that we should keep the wording "if possible". So it should go like: but if possible articles that contain... I suppose that "a good definition" is enough to start an encyclopedia article. Any views on that?--Alperen (talk) 17:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd suggest normally is better & more flexible in both directions than if possible -- unless by definition is meant something as vague as saying what the article is about--which is any case is necessary to avoid speedy deletion as "no context". I do not think everyone here would accept a definition as sufficient for an article--it's enough to prevent speedy deletion as "no content", but that's a much weaker consideration. Myself, I think an article can be written about anything that can be called by a distinctive common noun, but I'm not sure about consensus on that. DGG ( talk ) 22:58, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not ... a social network

WP is not a social network like Twitter, Facebook, etc. But it is a social network in that articles are edited cooperatively and communally. Particularly in the case of disagreements or other contentious issues, WP talk pages are the forum where these issues are discussed. And what about the various WP projects? Don't those depend on the mutual communication/agreement/cooperation of participants? For these reasons, I would argue that Wikipedia is a social network, but one that is not like others. -- kosboot (talk) 20:57, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Communication such as on talk pages is absolutely necessary, but via social network, we're talking about things like blogs, keeping track of friends, etc. that are normally associated with Facebook and the like. --MASEM (t) 21:09, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

This isn't a semantic game. It's a statement that the purpose of Wikipedia is to build an article, not to socialize. Any socialization that happens here is for the purpose of building the encyclopedia. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:49, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a playing ground

I propose to add this very important information, for those who think they can use Wikipedia for entertainment. Note: this should be a serious encyclopedia, shouldn't it? Alex^{discussion ★} 21:55, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

No. People read Wikipedia for entertainment all of the time. There are even games which involve following Wikipedia links between subjects looking for "degrees of separation" between seemingly unrelated topics. All of the editors here are volunteers, we do this because we want to. It is likely that many of our editors (including myself!) see contributing to Wikipedia as a form of recreation or "entertainment". That doesn't mean we are not serious about our contributions to the project. --Versa geek 20:00, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

we normally do accept games to a certain extent, when they do not become so extensive as to detract from working on the encyclopedia. Personally,when on Wikipedia I prefer the game of chance that is our XfD processes, but that's just me. DGG ( talk ) 20:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

We also have competitions for editors to improve Wikipedia. Competitions are a form of game.∞陣内 Jinnai 21:47, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Primarily, I meant using editing privileges (especially for users who have increased access level, eg. rollback) for fun. (Some of users might get rollback right – reverting all edits in a roll by last editor of the page in a single click as fun, and therefore they could start playing with that. But, that text can be added in WP:ROLLBACK.) This category can contain those edits that are kind useless, but don't meet WP:TEST or WP:VAN criteria. Alex^{discussion ★} 19:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't see this as adding anything that WP:BATTLEGROUND doesn't already deal with. A little competition and fun can be helpful. Used in the wrong way it's an aggressive move or a nuisance. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:48, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a debate forum

That needs to be added. There are several articles, many of them about religious subjects, that end up documenting a debate. It starts with providing various opinions on a subject, which may or not be appropriate for the article. But then there will be responses to those opinions from some given perspective, and then possibly responses to the responses. This is completely inappropriate. If it makes sense to document referenceable opinions on a topic, then do so, but it is inappropriate to then describe how one can shoot those opinions down. If a debate on some subject is well known then create an article such as "History of the Quran Debate" or something. I see the value in documenting the facts of a debate, but not in an article that is supposed to be documenting facts about some topic that is not related to debate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.167.49.116 (talk) 10:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Articles on highly contentious topics (religion, global warming, evolution vs creationism) are nearly always going to have a debate-style of approach, though I agree that documenting as statement, response, counter-response is bad form, and instead better to group the opinions of one side into one larger section. However, nearly all the same sources would be used. I don't know, however, if this is a persistently large enough problem to be a "NOT" statement, and more a guideline of how to write on topics that are subject to large volumes of sourced opinions from each side. Arguably, I would see people mistreating this to also apply to talk pages where most consensus discussions are debates by necessity. --MASEM (t) 12:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest that this isssue is not an item for WP:NOT, but rather for a guideline, WP:Covering a debate. Do we have one? Debated are indeed inherent in many encyclopedic topics. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 16:20, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Changelogs

KelleyCook (talk · contribs) removed the bullet point about changelogs earlier today, about three hours after one of his/her articles was nominated for deletion. Personally, I think this is a no-brainer, as the spirit would violate NOT's ideas about cataloguing and indiscriminate information anyway, but there are a worrying amount of glorified changelog articles (see, the AfDed articles)... Sceptre ^(talk) 20:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Without commenting directly on the AFDs, this was something that was spun out of the guidelines that have been used by the gaming wikiproject for a while now. In some instances it might be reason to remove an article. You might also consider reducing the coverage of the versions down to something more like a summary than a complete changelog. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:46, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

To describe the history of a piece of software you have to have some description of how it has changed over time. For commercial reasons the release dates of software and the introduction of features have become quite significant, and such milestones in the software's history can be notable and are worth documenting. Major, complex pieces of software like operating systems usually have thousands of changes between versions, and obviously listing every single change is inappropriate, but a condensed list selected by editors is worthwhile and provides a valuable reference by showing a condensed history that is (ideally) free from marketing gloss and hype.

The only past discussion I could find about changelogs is here, and I agree with the editor who said "A brief summary of versions is appropriate. Listing individual bugfixes as they appeared in v2.08 build 1037 is obviously over the top." I suggest a tighter definition of "changelog" along these lines.

I think the previous wording, "avoid a complete step-by-step record of every release or update", was too broad. The current wording, which was incorrectly tagged as an Undo, is slightly better, but should be more explicit about the suggested level of detail, giving examples. The wording "violates other precepts of this policy" is too vague, if it is indiscriminate say so. Dcxf (talk) 00:04, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

It's actually still pretty indiscriminate to include bulk text of changelogs even if you are selectively pulling only the biggest changes. I would almost argue that the better way to look at these articles is that they should be changelogs as viewed from the standpoint of third-party/secondary sources. A new feature introduced to an OS update that is caught on by sources is appropriate to include. A significant bug fix that can only be sourced by pointing to the change log is not. We're an encyclopedia, and we should be summarizing the changelogs over time, examining it as a history/timeline, than a routine "version number and here's what changed" role. --MASEM (t) 00:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

For example, looking at the iOS version history article, for example, 4.1, the important changes, such as Game Center and HDR for the iPhone 4, it's lost in all stuff about iPhone 3G bugfixes. Same for iOS 5: there's a lot of stuff no-one really uses given equal prominence to the Notification Center and Siri; indeed, background changes to Safari get more bullet points than the introduction of a groundbreaking voice control app. Hence, the proposed text:

Release notes and changelogs: An article about a product should only discuss changes that have likewise been discussed in reliable secondary sources. New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics, and bug fixes, unless notable in themselves for fixing a major software flaw, should not be discussed.

Sceptre ^(talk) 01:47, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this approach--the excessive detail has concerned me, and without a rule, it's been difficult to get rid of it consistently. DGG ( talk ) 01:18, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Also strongly agree with this approach. This also reflects best practices on good/featured articles. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:41, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, but there should not be a need to differentiate between features and bug fixes in the guide: WP:DUE weight applies in both cases. Uniplex (talk) 05:12, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

I'll put in two cents: I really like being able to see changelogs on wikipedia in the well known, easy to read wikipedia format. The deletion note on the iOS page is what brought me here. I agree that the level of detail might be inappropriate, but deletion would be a shame and, I think, against the principle of the site. To me the contents on that page is relevant information. Glaux (talk) 10:55, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

What is "well known easy to read wikipedia format"? By default, Wikipedia generally formats into prose, not tables. And like on that iOS page (which you note people are not saying should be deleted but should be radically rewritten) there's a lot of people arguing usefulness and the like, but "usefulness" or "utility" are not reasons to break the nature of WP as a tertiary, summarizing source. --MASEM (t) 12:36, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

"New features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics": this seems too vague and could be interpreted in any number of ways. If I say that a new feature was added am I being abstract or specific? I suggest something like "Briefly summarize notable new features rather than describing every detail of their implementation". Also I don't think the requirement for secondary sources will help much for major packages like iOS as there are reliable sources that will happily list all the changes in great detail, e.g. [6]. I think a determined editor could source almost everything on the current list, so this policy would entrench the current version rather than shortening it. Dcxf (talk) 19:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

The intention is that we say something like "Siri is a natural language processor for the iPhone 4S which replaces the Voice Control app in previous versions and is integrated into most of the device's stock software", instead of going all the way down the feature list (it can text people, make appointments... and tell you where to hide a dead body). Sceptre ^(talk) 08:04, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that is the best example. As a major feature in a major OS, it probably would warrant more detail, but not everything. (I was about to say we could probably justify an article on it, but there is one already, though I think it could use more detail. ) DGG ( talk ) 01:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I am still not happy with the wording, but is a specific policy for changelogs even necessary? Since we seem to have established that a blanket ban on changelogs per se is not desirable, isn't everything else already covered by WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:DUE, WP:V, etc? I don't think the policy as written would "fix" the iOS version history article, so perhaps we should leave that up to editors. Dcxf (talk) 22:38, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Also not happy with the wording (e.g. "the abstract" also means "the lead"). You're right inasmuch that if folk take on board the policy, this entire guideline is not necessary. However, a list of specific "don'ts" is often more accessible to newcomers than a list of general "dos". Uniplex (talk) 05:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's a stab at some wording:

Product release-notes and ‘changelogs’ are primary sources of information, so their content is not in general suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia articles. An article on a product (or, if it has been split, a sub-article) may discuss the product's (version) history, but such information should be obtained from discussion by secondary sources and be in proportion to their treatment of the overall topic. Alternatively, a stand-alone article on the version history of the product might be created, providing that the topic of the product's version history (distinct from that of the product, or individual product versions) meets Wikipedia's topic notability guideline (and the content is sourced accordingly).

Uniplex (talk) 07:42, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

- Dismissing primary sources is not going to fly well, they actually may be suitable for specific information. The point that Spectre's change is is to address the fact that we summarize info, not flatout repeat it, and thus should distill the key change features from what secondary sources say are important. --MASEM (t) 13:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

They're not dismissed: the text says "in general", but if we're not trying to steer people away from including wads of primary sourced info, then maybe we don't need the guideline. Uniplex (talk) 13:38, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

The simpler way to say this, in not so many words is "Discussion of the history of a software production should not include text from changelogs or patches verbatim, but should be summarized and filtered based on coverage from secondary sources." That's pretty much it. --MASEM (t) 13:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I support the opinion that while primary sources are not to be dismissed altogether, the secondary sources must be the basis for decision what is included and what is not, and how the feature description must be summarized and further evaluated. I.e., the secondary sources must decide which information is encyclopedic. There is no reason to turn wikipedia into a product billboard. After all, everything must be easily found in the product website (if not, then the product support sucks). Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 16:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

While Sceptre's proposal is reasonable, the phrase "features and functionality should be discussed in the abstract rather than the specifics" is a way too abstract guideline. What is "abstract"? Have you had a change to read patent specs where definitions are as abstract as possible, to increase patent coverage? I would suggest a more direct advice: "Descriptions of functionality ("features" is functionality, right?) must be reasonably summarized, omitting technical details not essential to the understanding of the feature". Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 16:01, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Except that, at times, specific technical details may be the core part of why something's notable. I don't know of a specific example, but lets say on change in a changelog increases allowed memory use from 256 mg to 1 gb. By itself that's a technical detail with no relevance to a non-user of the product. If, on the other hand, third-party or secondary sources comment that the increase of memory to 1 gb drastically improves performance in a manner that can be related in an abstract way that the non-user can understand, that may be a detail to keep. More often than not, however, I think the results of summarizing such articles would be the new features added, as opposed to changes on old features. --MASEM (t) 16:14, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, a possible correction: "...not essential to the understanding of the feature or of its importance". On the second thought, no correction is needed: if an independent party assers an importance of a fact, then this fact deserves incorporation regardless this policy. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Changelogs vs version or release history

An important distinction needs to be made between a changelog and a version history (or release history). I've seen many people confuse these two and attempt to use parts of WP:NOTDIR's Changelogs or release notes as justification for removing encyclopedic content, but while the two concepts are related, they serve very different purposes.

A changelog usually contains detail of each change made between each version. A version history usually just contains version numbers and release dates (and sometimes a summary or notes of major or important changes). It is a normal convention here on Wikipedia to summarise or include a version history for larger software programs with a significant history. A few such examples include Emacs#Release history and Mozilla firefox#Release history (also History of Firefox).

To give another real-world example with which I'm very familiar, the detailed Changes* files in Eggdrop's software repository are changelogs, while the Versions file is a version/release history. I'm familiar with these because a number of years ago I "volunteered" months of my time to comb through email and software/patch archives for this project in order to compile this information. While I had to build the version history from scratch using the various archives, many of the changelogs existed in various parts in past releases and patches, but still had to be brought together and unified in a common format.

The motivation for this work was two-fold. One, without it, the history of the project was buried and mostly inaccessible to most people because it was not readily available online. Two, without the changelogs, proper attribution was not being given to those whom had contributed their time and knowledge to the project.

As hard as it might be for many of us on Wikipedia to imagine, I caught some flack for "volunteering" my time on this. A number of others who sometimes contributed to that project thought I was "wasting my time" on something unimportant and would have preferred I work exclusively on bugfixes (which I've contributed in the past as well). I was also attacked here on Wikipedia by this guy and a couple of his friends after he tried to track down projects I had contributed to outside of Wikipedia, and tried to use that to attack me here on Wikipedia. (For those curious, most of it has since been documented at the top of my talk page.)

To get fully back on the original topic though, version histories are encyclopedic and usually worth noting in an article, but there would be little value for most readers to include complete changelogs. Due to editor confusion, the Changelogs or release notes WP:NOTDIR entry which was added on 24 February 2011 in revision 415608718 either needs to be removed or clarified so that well meaning editors don't end up trying to remove encyclopedic content because they think the inclusion of a version or release history conflicts with Wikipedia policy. If this can't be clarified soon, in the interest of preventing edit wars and avoiding the loss of encyclopedic content, I'll remove this newer addition myself per WP:BRD until we can figure out how to keep such an addition to WP:NOT from conflicting with longstanding practice. --Tothwolf (talk) 15:43, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Self-promotion of academics on Wikipedia

Greetings. I received an interesting email at the end of the summer from Sage Publishing, who produce many top-tier journals (at least in my area of Communication and Media). On their "10 Ways to Increase Usage and Citations of Your Article", the first suggestion is to "Contribute to Wikipedia". They write:

"We recognize that many students are increasingly using Wikipedia as the starting point for their research. If there are pages that relate to themes, subjects or research that your article covers, add your article as a reference, with a link to it on SAGE Journals Online. If there isn’t a page in existence, why not create one? You can find out how here."

This seems a little dicey to me. Sure, published journal articles make good citations for Wikipedia articles and add credibility to content, but it just seems to me a bit too close to home for academics to be, in essence, using Wikipedia for professional self-promotion. I'm interested in hearing what others think? UOJComm (talk) 18:04, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I like it, and am always glad to see academic interest in editing Wikipedia. Since the articles should be reliable(being published in Academic journals) and since no particular point of view is being expressed I think this has more potential to bring in new editors, activity, and sources the encyclopedia than it does harm. If someone is self promoting in a harmful way then we have current methods for handling that.AerobicFox (talk) 19:59, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Im good with it as well- so long as the new editors are up to date on policy and Coin. Id certaintly like to see more enduring science articles than all the video game related ones that flood wiki. Ottawa4ever (talk) 20:48, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm okay with it too if they follow the policies in a fairly reasonable way. Dmcq (talk) 21:44, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

It is OK, as long as everybody will be made aware that nothing is cast in stone, that everything must be judged by notability criteria, that publication in a peer-reviewed journal is not an ultimate truth. It will be good to have more contributors, but when academics and their students will flock here, some articles may turn into chaotic collections of scentific trivia, which must be periodically refactored. But this may happen with every topic, see eg, the #Changelogs discussion. Possibly, new wikiepdia guidelines will be due. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 16:15, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

What What Wikipedia is not is not

The guideline contains a wise phrase "Wikipedia is not any of a very long list of terrible ideas." Unfortunately it is at the very end, in the "And finally..." section. That is probably why there are so many failed suggestions to expand this policy. Therefore first of all, I would suggest to move this caveat to the preamble of the page.

Second, I think that "And finally..." gives a somewhat wrong, if indirect, advice: "Almost everything on this page made it here because somebody managed to come up with some new bad idea that had not previously been anticipated". If some smart-ass managed to do something stupid here, I don't think that this would be the reason to immediately document a ban on this new kind of stupidity. Therefore the preamble must include a phrase to the end that this policy documents common misconceptions about what and how wikipedia must be written.

In other words ,

"What wikipedia is not" is not

a list of all pranks done to wikipedia
a list of all text and data formats other than encyclopedic format
a list of all human behaviors other than writing encyclopedia

and finally, it is not a crystall ball on how people may screw up writing wikipedia.

I would also suggest to put a note to this end on top of this talk page as well. Muslim lo Juheu (talk) 18:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

RfC on "verifiability, not truth"

There is an RfC here on whether to remove from the lead of Wikipedia:Verifiability that "the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true."

[insert begins here]

Note: the link above should read that the RfC can be found at Wikipedia_talk:Verifiability#RFC - Compromise proposal re first sentence Unscintillating (talk) 19:38, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

[insert ends here]

The RfC is likely to close in a few days so if you want to comment, please do so soonish. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^{TALK|CONTRIBS} 01:15, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

The proposal is a lot more complex than just removing the line ... but you can read it and the rational for it at the RfC... in any case, I echo SV's call for you to come and comment. Blueboar (talk) 02:34, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

What Wikipedia Is

Would it be correct to say, based on the information I have found on this page and on others, this:

Wikipedia is an organized compendium of knowledge. The knowledge contained in this compendium is fairly notable.

DCItalk 21:48, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Good idea to start on the main missing policy "What Wikipedia is". But while the article subjects are notable, the individual pieces of information in the articles are not necessarily notable. North8000 (talk) 10:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Engaging articles on notable topics. Uniplex (talk) 11:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

What WP:NOTCENSORED is not

I'm starting this discussion in response to a dispute on WP:ANI over the use of images on the Muhammad article. This discussion is not about that particular dispute (although you can read it here if you want the grisly details). It's about what I see as a growing misuse of WP:NOTCENSORED. I think it's time we agreed on exactly what that policy means.

Here's how I see it: WP:NOTCENSORED simply means that Wikipedia is not subject to any formal censorship. There is no 'censor body', such as the FCC, the BBFC or the Comics Code Authority, controlling what appears on Wikipedia; there is no equivalent of the Hays code restricting what content we can include. The only restrictions we are formally subject to are the law in the state of Florida, and WP:OFFICE actions. Beyond that, in principle, anything goes. (There are additional restrictions we've imposed on ourselves, such as the requirements of WP:BLP, but not because any outside body has forced us to do so.)

Some people seem to take NOTCENSORED much further than that, to mean something along the lines of 'content must not be removed solely for the reasons of being offensive to someone', or even 'offensiveness is never a legitimate reason to remove content'. I don't think the policy says anything of the kind. All that NOTCENSORED means is that there are no rules requiring that offensive content must be automatically removed, as copyright infringements and libellous material about living people must be. But it doesn't mean that content can't ever be removed for being offensive, providing there is a consensus to do so.

The policy page currently states '"being objectionable" is generally not sufficient grounds in itself for removal of content.'; but in reality, on several occasions images and text have been removed from various articles for being offensive or objectionable, where there was a local consensus to remove them, and that will continue to happen in future. (The only specific example I can think of at the moment is goatse.cx, but I'm sure it has happened on other articles as well.) Perhaps what the policy means is that offensiveness on its own is not enough, and content should only be removed where it is both offensive and of no educational value. But even if so, the offensiveness of the content is still a relevant factor to its removal.

Here's the TLDR version: that an image, or any other content, is offensive to many is not necessarily grounds for its removal from an article. But in some cases, it can be; and if a consensus of users agree that certain content is so offensive it should be removed, then it should be removed, and NOTCENSORED would not prevent that removal.

Please add your comments below. And remember, this is not about the specific Muhammad images (which I actually support including, for what it's worth), but the general principles here. Robofish (talk) 17:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(Or, the even shorter, pithier version: 'WP:NOTCENSORED is not the First Amendment'.) Robofish (talk) 18:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Regarding religious "offense" (for violating a religious edict, as the case you point to is about), it does indeed exactly say that. Last paragraph. With no waffle words like "should not". Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 18:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
- Nonsense. If you have a warranty on your reading comprehension, send it back and ask for a new one. Hans Adler 18:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
One cannot simply disconnect the various factors. They are, in order of causality, (1) a religious edict forbids those of certain sects of the Islamic faith from making or viewing such representations, (2) some from those sects believe such an edict applies to everyone, (3) their offense is over the fact that we are violating their understanding of their religious edict. They are all interconnected, and cannot stand alone when trying to make an unbiased point or argument on this matter. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 18:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Completely agree that we do not censor images unless legally bound by law or by the Foundation (eg child porn). But also agree that a consensus of editors can consider that an image may be inappropriate for an article despite the fact that it would otherwise be uncensored from the previous state. It would also behoove editors to consider appropriate community standards and chose images of least shock value if there are choices. --MASEM (t) 18:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

One final note: people seem to forget that WP:CENSOR does not magically invalidate other policies and guidelines that must be applied, such as bias, undue, relevance, rs, etc. This is why I see nothing wrong with wp:censor as it is. Whether image or text or quote, all of those (and others) must be applied in conjunction with wp:censor - not separately. That raises (in my mind) only one question... for those who do not realize that this is already addressed in numerous other policies that work in conjunction with each other, is it an issue where we need to clarify that which they should already know, or an issue of competence in respect to them not understanding the most basic policies that "control" Wikipedia? If people deem that the policies are so overwhelming that it is reasonable to not understand that they must be applied together, then yes, we need clarification. Otherwise... in my opinion it's a competence issue. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 18:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

"Perhaps what the policy means is that offensiveness on its own is not enough" - that is precisely the argument that has been made in this specific case. What ends up happening is advocates of censorship in this case engage in circular arguments, basically making the claim that "these images have no value because Muslims are offended". And no matter how many people opine that there is value, such arguments are inevitably ignored as if they were never made or the goalposts get moved in a bid to place an unreasonably strict burden of proof on one article that does not exist on others. The end result is always the same, however: requests for removal are predicated on offensiveness alone, with no legitimate additional argument. So in that sense, the argument that "your being offended is irrelevant" is accurate, because that is not sufficient to justify a special exception. After all: WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY BE OBJECTIONABLE (emphasis, Wikipedia's own) Reso lute 18:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

And ironically, though numerous other articles with similar "false" representations have been pointed out, and a Community-Wide RfC to address the claimed issue has been suggested, such is ignored or swatted aside, leaving these effortssingularly motivated towards "special case exception for this article" to avoid applying policies uniformly to it (as is done with other bios). Ironically, the page already has a bunch of special case exceptions, such as (on the talk pages) the massive disclaimers, the FAQ, the instructions on how not to view the images, the removal of all images of Muhammad in the top 1/3 of the article, the explanations of policy on the talk page and so on. It is time we stop adding more special case exceptions to this topic - or we pass a policy that treats all other such topics equally (which will of course destroy Wikipedia). Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 19:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(ec) No. What happens is that advocates of humiliating Muslims engage in circular arguments, basically making the claim that "the value of these images musts not be examined / is enormous because Muslims are offended". These images are atypical for Islam (the obvious context of the article on Muhammad) and therefore misleading about the traditional iconography of Muhammad. Since a legitimate purpose can barely be construed, the inevitable effect is the impression of deliberate breaking of Muslim norms on a key article, perhaps the most important article, on Islam. If that's not tantamount to deliberate humiliation of Muslims, then I don't know what is. Hans Adler 19:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

"These images are atypical for Islam (the obvious context of the article on Muhammad)" - No, that is a single potential context. Personally, I believe the obvious context is that Muhammad was a historical individual, and view him in the same light as other major historical figures. Consequent to your poor assumption on how people view this topic, you have led yourself into the bad faith argument that "humiliating Muslims" is a motivation. Of course, the "we must not offend" position is dominated by bad faith out of necessity, because it is an untenable position if one does not attempt to demonize their opponent. Consequently, that argument can safely be discarded as the fallacy it is. After all, we provide tools by which Muslims can respect their own beliefs without infringing on that of others. Reso lute 19:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Taking your claims of the context in which you see Muhammad at face value, for the sake of the argument, it is clearly at odds with the reception of Muhammad in reliable sources -- even after discarding all those that were written from a Muslim POV. Hans Adler 20:09, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Psst... the images came from reliable sources (check the sourcing and informational captions). And ironically, in the display on Islam, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is showcasing various similar images. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:21, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

We should probably also make this part of the policy, since it's currently just in the editing guideline. Nothing should be retained out of fear that removal might be considered censorship. Honestly, I'd prefer rephrasing WP:NOTCENSORED into something like "Wikipedia allows controversial and offensive content where useful" instead of making it about "censorship", since the c-word is very loaded language to the American ear. Offensive content is a bit like fair use content: it has a place in the encyclopedia because sometimes there is no adequate substitute, but it should be used reluctantly and replaced when not needed. SDY (talk) 19:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

That is all very utopian, but who are you to tell me what is offensive? Who am I to tell you the same? How many people have to agree that something is offensive before it is considered so? More to the point, I don't consider these images offensive in the least. That opinion does not contradict the fact others feel differently, but why should their POV overrule mine? Reso lute 19:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

That is already covered in Wikipedia: Offensive material which already says don't cause undue offense. Undue offense is putting an image into an article that doesn't need to be there since it will cause undue offense (i.e. the image from dante's inferno was on the muhammad article and removed for undue offense.) It does however also state that if we are not creating undue offense then there needs to be an alternate reason for removing the image otherwise it falls under the purvue of WP:NOTCENSORED. Tivanir2 (talk) 19:28, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with this comment, and would just add that when balancing factors that weigh in favor and against the inclusion of an image, the offensiveness of the image should be weighed minimally. Monty ₈₄₅ 19:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So, you are proposing clarity to wp:censor for things already in numerous other policies? As I said, if it's that confusing, I'm supportive of such.
As for the word "censor", I think it should stay. Clearly, we have had numerous issues of attempted censorship by numerous religious organizations, governments, corporations and individuals. There is no other more accurate word to use. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 19:29, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I'm coming late to the party, but having read through the discussion to this point, I'm going to agree with SDY, to a point. However, a better phrasing might be "Wikipedia allows controversial content where such content's value to inform a casual reader overrides the potential to offend, as determined by WP:CONSENSUS." --Alan the Roving Ambassador (User:N5iln) (talk) 19:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Don't be gratuitous is already covered, true, but it's being missed, because WP:NOTCENSORED is being abused to force the retention of dubiously valuable content where it is easily demonstrated that it can and will be considered offensive. The arguments have revolved around "preventing censorship" instead of "writing a better article." As for Reso's question of "why should their POV overrule mine?" the obvious answer is that you are an editor, they are the reader, and we write the encyclopedia for the readers, not for the editors. SDY (talk) 19:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not being gratuitous. The in depth explanations I go into about policies and guidelines for new and/or confused editors (including short breakdowns on my "Adoptee Guideline" page) will support such. As will the numerous times I've bugged more experienced editors to review such to ensure my understandings are correct (I think one or two such editors are active right here, for that matter). Not complaining about the "gratuitous" comment - fully aware it'd take digging through my activity here to realize such isn't the case, so it's an understandable mistake.

As for the readers/editors comment, I agree - but I think you are misapplying it. The vast majority of our readers do not follow any Islamic traditions or beliefs (language barrier, vast majority of Muslims not living in the US, specific Wikis in their languages and/or countries, etc). Thus, the vast majority of our readers (contrary to what may be perceived from the vocal minority) couldn't care less about this issue. I can provide the demographics if you like - they're on Wikipedia in one of the religion articles on my Watchlist as well as the "Wikipedians by religion" category (also on my watchlist). Thus, by your own argument, we're back at non censoring due to religious beliefs. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 19:44, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

"because WP:NOTCENSORED is being abused to force the retention of dubiously valuable content" - that is disingenuous. NOTCENSORED is being cited to explain why simply being offended is not a valid argument. And that is separate from the fact that I strongly disagree with the opinion that the images are "dubiously valuable content". So far, the only reason put forward to challenge the value of the content is "it offends", which is a circular argument. Reso lute 20:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to add something to NOTCENSORED, clearly indicating that while NOTCENSORED does not prevent the inclusion of questionable material within an article, consensus can decide to avoid the use of questionable material that otherwise meets all content inclusion policies on per-article bases. --MASEM (t) 19:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Someone already thought of that in less ambiguous terms (ie: it's already there) "Content that is judged to violate Wikipedia's biographies of living persons policy, or that violates other Wikipedia policies (especially neutral point of view)[...]" Anyway, in this particular issue, that's already been hashed and rehashed, including with RfCs that went image by image and a stop at the Village Pump. The end result of weighing in exactly that (which always applied, new resolution or not) is what you see at the article now. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 19:54, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I have to agree with Tivanir2. Different articles should have different expectations of what kind of imagry should and should not be there based on shock value. For a topic on the depreciation of Muhammad in the media, one should expect to see such images. A general topic about Islam, probably not. A topic about Muhammad himself, possibly, but not nessasarily. In none of those should a picture of dante's inferno be placed. Maybe in an article about the historic definitions of Muslims by Christians, but even then not necessarily.

Changing it to allow "objectionable" to be a key factor would not only affect articles like those, but a lot more articles where the images do have a clear benifit to the reader (and the fact that they find them distateful may in fact drive home the point that the RS commentary says) and without those images there the quality would suffer.∞陣内 Jinnai 19:55, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)In part, all I think it needs is a statement that objectionable content can be removed when there's no consensus that it's useful for the article, and screaming "censorship!" does not overrule consensus. I agree that offensiveness is a minor consideration in a relative sense, but WP:NOTCENSORED should not be a valid argument for retention of material by itself and we should steer editors towards "It's useful for the article" as the defense against "the image is offensive" instead of jumping straight for the policy. SDY (talk) 20:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(to SDY) Exactly the reason why, after numerous consensus, an RfC and a Village Pump attempt, the images have remained. That would make this a "non-issue" then. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Is there a specific proposal for a change to NOTCENSORED here? I will likely oppose any change that gives greater weight to people's feeling of offense. The problem in most instances is not that material is intrinsically offensive; instead, some people choose to take offense. I doubt there are good reasons to cater to those choices. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 20:01, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

No material is ever intrinsically offensive. Someone always has to choose to take offence. That's just the way it works. --FormerIP (talk) 22:33, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

There may be one forthcoming - or more disruptiveness on the Muhammad/Images talk page. The gist does seem to be that a few editors are suggesting such, even though it hasn't been ironed out. This is in relation to the new resolution (already included in the top of wp:censor) and applying it in just such a fashion. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

That is actually what we are trying to point out. In one of my more aggresive posts on the subject (sorry to keep bringing it up but as the reason its being discussed it is the perfect example) I pointed out the top front page wasn't a picture of the danish cartoon bomb hat muhammad. I also pointed out we didn't have explicitly offensive images, since the only reason they are being objected to is they are of the muhammad (in the biography.) If the editors were trying to be offensive there are dozens of pictures out there that can be used to actual try to offend anyone. Besides a religious proscription there is nothing offense about any of the images at hand, so that falls perfectly under WP:NOTCENSORED in my mind. But then as I have pointed out I am also willing to remove pictures from the article that don't add value or support unless of course we want to change the article to have a reason to include them. Tivanir2 (talk) 20:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

"the top front page wasn't a picture of the danish cartoon bomb hat muhammad" -- correct, but surely not for want of trying. The Muhammad article always insults Muslims exactly up to the point that it can get away with it. For some time this included a painting of Muhammad in hell. Hans Adler 20:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Those who wish their religious beliefs to trump my quest for scientific, artistic and historic knowledge always offend/insult me exactly up to the point that they can get away with it. Hmmm... works both ways. Guess we should turn to policy to see what to do. Oh, yeah, prohibition on catering to any religious belief, and goal of increasing scientific, artistic and historic information. Hmmm... ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Umm actually it is for the fact that we don't try to offend. As I already pointed out the Dante's inferno pictures were removed for being needlessly offensive in the article. That is why people supported they be removed in the first place. I reiterate that if the image was in any biography, and depicted anyone else, this entire point would be moot. The only reason it is in contestation now is because people are bringing in religious views covered under NOTCENSORED. I am fairly certain the editors that are using NOTCENSORED would come down quickly and harshly on anyone assuming the bomb hat muhammad image would be appropriate for the section. Pictures of him preaching to his congregation (one example) are every bit as acceptable as any other religious figure under the same exact circumstances. Tivanir2 (talk) 20:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I addressed WP:NOTCENSORED while explaining exclusion of specific content over at the archive of Talk:Goatse.cx. Paraphrase: "No, WP is not censored, but there are several sound policy and consensus-based reasons to exclude some content, including BLP, article type, and practicality, without having to resort to the usual reasons for censorship." --Lexein (talk) 12:39, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Straw poll

We might consider an RfC, but just as a general "sense of the senate" approach. If you want to, give a yea/nay or short comment in the blocks provided.

This is not specifically about the Muhammad article, which is in an WP:IAR situation anyway where general policy may simply not be applicable. Other articles have had similar problems in the past, and this is about the policy in general.

Offensiveness as argument

Complaints of offensiveness should be:

(Option 1) Completely disregarded ~~or treated as disruption~~.

Disregarded yes disruption no. The only reason to take in offense is if something is needlessly offensive which is already posted under other policies such as offensive material. Tivanir2 (talk) 20:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Struck the last half, as it is a different argument than the first half. That said, "this is offensive" is by definition a POV argument, and lending weight to such arguments violates a core policy. This is, of course, the same problem that moots option 3 on the third question about this policy overall: You simply cannot lend weight to the argument of offensiveness without first changing NPOV and the content disclaimer. Reso lute 23:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
This is the option that I think is closest to my view, which is that offensiveness should be considered ever so slightly, but not as much as option two would suggest. If there is any decent argument in favor of inclusion then offensiveness should be totally disregarded. Monty ₈₄₅ 23:40, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Concur with Monty. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:22, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
We should never be in a situation where a relevant, notable, verifiable fact is omitted from Wikipedia because it offends somebody. Arguments about offence should be in the same category as about aesthetic or stylistic considerations, which must be subsidiary to arguments about factual content. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:19, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 2) Valid arguments that might tip the balance of already discussed alternatives.

(Option 3) Valid arguments that are worth discussing in themselves.

Not particularly compelling arguments, but not disruptive or inappropriate to consider. SDY (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually, options 2 and 4 also sound OK. The only thing that's clearly not appropriate is option 1. Hans Adler 20:44, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
--FormerIP (talk) 22:43, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Could also go for options 2, 4 and 7. --J N 466 07:38, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 4) An indication of a serious problem that requires attention.
(Option 5) Simply an indication that the editor may be unfamiliar with wp:NOTCENSORED. Consider {{welcome}}.

Added option 5. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:57, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
This. I've seen several editors who were not familiar with this and often putting up {{censor}} for appropriate pages cuts down on those issues raised 90%. There are a few who still complain, but at least they try to raise something better than they object.∞陣内 Jinnai 21:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
.That we do not adopt someone's view of what WP should be, is no reason to be pre-emptory about it, but should rather be seen as an opportunity for explanation. DGG ( talk ) 00:32, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 6) Disregarded if religion is the only basis for the claim. As a secular encyclopedia, Wikipedia should not consider religious objections in its editorial policy. This should not be taken as a license for images which are intended to attack rather than illustrate: lack of censorship does not justify intentional attack.

—Kww(talk) 00:02, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
While the religion related images are the most hotly contested, there are a variety of other offensive images that are disputed. Why should we make a special exception that would allow more offensive images if they are religious, and be more restrictive when dealing with images offensive for other reasons? Monty ₈₄₅ 05:30, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Religious views are completely irrelevant to an encyclopedia. If you can indicate another class of completely irrelevant lines of thought, I'm willing to reword to encompass them as well.—Kww(talk) 22:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
The WMF Executive Director, Sue Gardner, disagrees: m:Image filter referendum/Sue's report to the board/en. She specifically mentioned Muhammad's images as an application of the new image filter. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 23:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
She reports that it was mentioned in survey replies about a voluntary filter, not that she recommended filtering it or would support their removal.—Kww(talk) 02:37, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 7) examined carefully to ensure the material is important for an understanding of the topic (relevant), as well as in conformity with other policies.

If this were done, no one would be complaining hers. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 01:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Though I might reword to examined and weighed as to how an issue is treated in any article, but 'not' whether the issue is treated at all in any article. "Other policies" always are usable as an argument, and need not be appended here. Collect (talk) 12:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Censorship as argument

The argument that something should be retained per WP:NOTCENSORED with no other supporting arguments (i.e. why the content is good for the article) should be:

(Option 1) Completely disregarded.

If the fact that something is offensive is the only reason to include it, then obviously it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a shock site. Hans Adler 20:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Per wp:MYSPACE, there are all kinds of things that don't belong-being disgusting doesn't change thatLeadSongDog come howl! 21:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
If they can't come up with a decent reason then it doesn't belong. This does not mean pointing to policies/guidelines (as the person could be a newbie), but if they cannot to come up with some other reason then it is clearly shock value if not vandalism.∞陣内 Jinnai 21:13, 3 November 2011 (UTC) <
Yes. If the only reason for retaining content is "we don't censor" then it has no place in the encyclopedia. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:11, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
NOTCENSORED isn't an argument in and of itself, it's a stern rebuttal to other poor arguments. (WP:COMPREHENSIVE is another such rebuttal.) Relevance or educational value are proper arguments that the NOTCENSORED side should typically cite. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:26, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Quite. If it fulfils no clear educational purpose and is without precedent in reliable sources, it's just as bad as OR. --J N 466 07:39, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
"NOTCENSORED" has been vastly overused - it is not, in itself, a valid argument for much at all. Collect (talk) 12:18, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

You find no value in the notion that censoring is something to refrain from? Nomoskedasticity (talk) 12:23, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The meaning on WP was that people should reasonably expect that editors will have material which any given reader may dislike in any given article. It was not intended at any point to thus be extended to "no matter what the material is or the reason for its use, editors can not exercise reasonable editorial judgement as to its value in the article." Editorial discretion about any material found objectionable has always been part and parcel of what "editors" do. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:47, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 2) A valid argument that might tip the balance of an existing discussion.

If the utility of the content is unclear, lack of consensus should leave existing material intact. SDY (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

- That wasn't the question, was it? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
  - I guess I wasn't clear. The stance I'm taking is that potentially offensive content shouldn't be removed without a consensus to remove it. In the case of a deadlock, WP:NOTCENSORED would trump WP:BURDEN. SDY (talk) 21:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
    - Not you, it was the question that was unclear. "...something should be retained per WP:NOTCENSORED with no other supporting arguments ..." suggests articles could be random collections of stuff, purely by dint of that stuff being offensive to someone. There has to be much more than just some reason to consider content belongs in a specific article: it must be all of relevant, reliable, verifiable, etc. Being offensive simply has no bearing on those reasons.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:27, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
      - I wrote the question, so I get blamed either way! ^^; Anyway, the point of the question is figuring out how much weight the WP:NOTCENSORED argument gets in content disputes, particularly with conflicting policies (e.g. verifiability, neutrality, etc...). The article where I encountered this issue had an image in the lead which had generated complaints, and attempts to replace it with a less interesting image were met with cries of censorship. The question is: how much weight does that cry of censorship get? It's hard to phrase into a succint question, and an actual RfC would require a better wording, but I'm just trying to get a sense of where we stand. SDY (talk) 21:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
        The weight it receives is totally dependent on the justifications of those who are arguing in favor of removal. If someone wants to remove an image claiming that it violates NFCC, and I argue WP:NOTCENSORED with nothing more, I deserve a {{trout}}. If someone is arguing that the image is offensive, and should be removed to avoid offending people, but has not made any other arguments, my argument of WP:NOTCENSORED with nothing more should be compelling. Monty ₈₄₅ 23:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
        This is exactly what I'm trying to get a sense of. It's a question of whether "offensive" can be answered with "notcensored" alone. The alternate view is that "offensive" requires a justification for inclusion. SDY (talk) 00:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
        If there is not also an argument that what ever is being held offensive lacks value, then I would say yes, offensive can be answered with notcensored. If the argument is the inclusion is either totally or nearly useless, and its also offensive, then notcensored would be an insufficient response without more. Monty ₈₄₅ 00:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
(Option 3) Valid arguments that should be a focus of discussion.

(Option 4) Compelling arguments that force a conclusion over consensus.

(Option 5) Anyone who attempts to apply notcensored to the exclusion of other policies should be invited to review the policies they are breaking by doing so.

By following this, options 1-4 become moot. Ignoring all other policies while solely using notcensored is actually against policy (multiple policies). ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
The validity of a WP:NOTCENSORED argument is too circumstantial to support the other options, but I think this one is correct, even if it doesn't fully answer the question. Monty ₈₄₅ 23:59, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

The current policy

The specific policy in the section WP:NOTCENSORED on this project page is:

(Option 1) Perfectly clear as it is.

As Wikipedia works by applying all policies as well as relevant guidelines to each article (as opposed to one at the exclusion of the rest), the policies are perfect as is, since others need to be applied in conjunction, such as fringe/undue, bias, COI, censor, balance, pov, relevance, sourcing and others. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Sufficiently clear - but unfortunately worded as to confuse readers (I think this makes sense) Part of it is there to tell folks "don't worry - everyone may well be upset at 'something' in articles" and the other part then states the policy that material must be relevant to the article (which other policies actually require) and conform to an ill-defined but WMF provided buzzword of "least astonishment" (?) which I fear is the major problem out of our control. Can anyone here really state what that term means in practice? Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:24, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
It's fairly clear. Option 4 is stupid - there's a difference between a policy being unclearly worded and a policy requiring significant skill, knowledge, and judgment to apply; the former is bad but the latter often inevitable. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:23, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 2) Unclear and should explicitly state that offensiveness is not a meaningful concern.

~~#With the exception of just shock value and vandalism, it should not be a concern.∞陣内 Jinnai 21:19, 3 November 2011 (UTC)~~

(Option 3) Unclear and should explicitly state that offensiveness is a meaningful concern.

By linking to the editing guideline regarding gratuitous content. SDY (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I agree. Or incorporating the spirit of that guideline into policy. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 02:19, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
Actually, it is clear, but it has not been proofed against overinterpretation due to wishful thinking. This should be done. Hans Adler 20:47, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
--FormerIP (talk) 22:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 4) Unclear and should remain so.

Added option 4. Clarity just feeds trolls, enables the wikilawyers, and is ultimately futile. Trust that the community will continue to recognize a good argument when it sees it.LeadSongDog come howl! 21:11, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
Most reasonable of options presented thus far. As I note above, options 3 and 5 are moot. Placing meaningful weight on what offends someone is a violation of NPOV. Reso lute 23:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
It's vague enough it allows wiggle room to eliminate things that go against good judgement. Again common sense should rein when dealing with things in this realm so we don't have knee jerk reactions with it but it should be a viable defense against sanitizing things for any particular group: political, ideological or any of the others. Tivanir2 (talk) 23:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
I feel comfortable with how it is applied now, I think trying to be more specific will limit flexibility. Monty ₈₄₅ 23:56, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
A good argument for change lacking, I support the status quo. --Cybercobra (talk) 11:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

(Option 5) Unclear and should explicity state that offensiveness is meaningful concern in some articles and meaningless in others based on what the article's subject matter.

Changed this after I struck my last statement. This is mentioned, but in a vague manner and not made explicitly clear that what may be objectionable in one article may be fine in another and vice versa simply because of what the article is about.∞陣内 Jinnai 21:22, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Questions

Um, what? That proposal misconstrues many things. No one is arguing to ignore other policies (yet the implication exists). The last question is also ambiguous in that it implies things either contrary to policy or not applicable because of policy. ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:26, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to modify the questions or add other options. I'm just trying to get a sense of where people stand. In particular, I want to move this away from a discussion about Muhammad, because that is its own hot place down under. SDY (talk) 20:29, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Got it. Sorry about that. I've added one more option and a comment in one of my responses to an existing one. Best, ROBERTMFROMLI | ^TK/_CN 20:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm assuming that the option 4 on the third question is not "policy should be incomprehensible" but "policy should not be prescriptive." Do those who support that option think the policy is not likely to confuse readers, but desirably vague, and should remain unchanged? SDY (talk) 00:13, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Egads, the formatting of this straw poll or whatever it is now is quite a fractured clusterfuck. I don't see how the slightest bit of "sense of the senate" can be plucked form this, and it has only been a few hours. Tarc (talk) 00:22, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
- Yep, it's nigh useless. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 13:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)