Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

Why is there such a strong bias against academics on wikipedia? I'm not going to write or improve any more scientist stubs or articles on wikipedia. It's pointless. AfD should be renamed: Academics for deletion, because that's essentially what it is. The latest trend is that anyone can claim any h-index, without citing how they did their h-index and justifying its validity for that field (which h-index depends upon), and the closing admin or editor will use that as a basis for deleting the bio.

This is why experts leave wikipedia: they're not cartoons. Their biographies are written in books and journals that are not available on-line, and if you can't find it with a google search, they're not real. Or, if you can find it with a google search, they have an h-index of 11, and they're out of her. In spite of the cautions about using h-index in the first place, in spite of the users never supporting the validity of using the h-index in that field, for that expert, or their particular search, as soon as someone quotes an h-index the scientist is gone.

I have a list of hundreds of scientists who are acclaimed world-wide, who are members of the American/French/Russian Academy of Sciences, who are in the news all of the time, who receive prestigious awards, who are red-listed as the award recipient in wikipedia, and I've been writing their articles up over the years. Although none of the articles I've submitted have been deleted, a handful of scientists on the list have been nominated for deletion. What does fighting to save them get me? Blocked for "stalking" in one of the most absurd, unsupported whines I've ever seen on AN/I.

There's no point in arguing at Criteria for Speedy Deletion that a full professorship should at least be an assumption of notability and give a decline to a speedy, because administrators are as biased against scientist biographies on wikipedia as the run-of-the-mill editor.

Why do experts in the sciences leave wikipedia? They're not wanted. No, they're chased away. Banned. Deleted. It's pointless in fighting such an ingrained bias against you.

To hell with wasting my time on articles that are not wanted.

--IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 20:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that there's a bias against articles on academics; there's probably a bias against articles on people in general (particularly living ones). The twin concerns of libel and self-promotion mean that editors look with great suspicion at new people articles, and hence they are more likely than others to get deleted. And once the deletionist enthusiasts discover that, they jump on the bandwagon and focus their efforts on those articles (presumably whatever buzz they get from seeing other people's work deleted is more easily attainable there). And of course the subjects (particularly academics, I suppose) don't have armies of fans to stick up for them as the cartoon characters do. --Kotniski (talk) 21:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree. We do have much stricter rules and behaviors about living people than anyone else. And I should say that simply being a full professor doesn't necessarily mean that the subject has inherently received enough significant coverage to establish notability as per WP:NOTABILITY. For what it's worth, I've made the same argument about leaders of major religious groups, religion being my specialty. The matter of receiving an award which generally has some sort of significant press release and/or local coverage is a real one, but if the articles reference those sources, I don't know that they necessarily get deleted. Another problem, unfortunately, is that some awards are not for the person, but for one thing they have done, when WP:BIO1E may apply and have the content about the event/action included somewhere other than a biographical article. One of the major problems a lot of academics in general have is that their notability is often related to a single event, like winning an award and/or the related action they did to win that award. John Carter (talk) 21:42, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not running into BLP concerns. What I'm running into is that AfD is about what's visible on the web, what can be googled. An academic who has been invited to write review and encyclopedia articles in his area of expertise has been certified a leading expert by others far better qualified to judge than wikipedia editors. Is this enough, that the academic has been certified an expert in his field, has noted that among scientists and others in this field, this person is considered an authority? No, it's not enough. Seldom is there anything controversial in any of the scientist articles that interest me, occasionally a geologist has been the target of creationists, and one scientist article I wrote was about a scientist involved in a notorious event written up in Science, but that's not usually the case.

I'm also not writing articles about scientists who are famous for single events. What I'm interested in is improving coverage on scientist with widespread long-term notability in their fields for major contributions to a change in the dominant paradigm. These are scientists who are well known for their contributions to a small part of science, but with long-lasting impact on the field, not single award winners.

What it comes down to, is, if the scientist has significant google coverage they're considered notable, otherwise forget it. Significant coverage does not mean google, but that's how its interpreted on wikipedia for AfD.

Yes, there is apparently a hidden award for getting articles deleted that a number of editors are striving for. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 21:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If your not on Google your not famous? Thats ridiculous. Google doesnt even cover the entire English speaking part of the Internet, let alone even 50% of the everything online. You do realize that its not like Google searches the ENTIRE internet everytime you search for something right? It searches the websites it has listed in its own personal database, which of course is not nearly everything in existance online. Not being in google does not mean the thing does not exist, person or otherwise. There are libraries, magazines, etc that can be used to show a person or thing is notable. People need to stop being so internet dependant. There is a whole world out there. Visit a museum or library and get off your asses.Camelbinky (talk) 22:11, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So it seems, "Here's my evidence: I searched Google scholar for "mesoamerica" and his name didn't appear in the first 100 hits, so I'm not at all convinced that he really is a leading expert in the subject. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)" Says an academic with an article about him that claims no notability. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are missing the point. I am happy to accept print media sources; I use Google because it's easier, not because it's uniformly the best choice. But the context for this quote is an AfD in which it is being claimed, with no evidence at all, that someone is a leading expert on X. I was asserting that we need some actual evidence to be able to verify that claim, that no evidence had been presented, and that my own attempts to turn up such evidence had failed to do so. I was also explaining what I had done to try to find the missing evidence, so that others who wanted to find it would know to look elsewhere. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:15, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What you did to find the missing evidence was search for the broadest possible criteria and when that failed to lead you anywhere declared your search as proof there was no evidence. Like I said, if I search for Cope in the firs hundred google.scholar hits on geology, likely won't find him. It's no proof he's not notable. Your search was inscholastic. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 18:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) This is a pretty confused discussion.

IP69.226.103.13's contribs tell a tale.

However, there factors that make it for academics difficult to contribute to WP - not to all academics, I know a few are comfortable to WP's style; but some find it a culture shock. Examples of the difficulties:

• WP:V is much more stringent and time-intensive than academic citation. In academic publications, points below PhD level generally don't need citation, while in WP anything above 12-year level may need a citation. Hell, I'm no academic, but in working on academic articles I often find the elementary stuff hard to source. In addition academics working on journal artciles have often offload such tasks to e.g. sub-editors or graduate students - but at WP they have to all the grunt work themselves.
• At the same academic are required to at least pretend that what Wikipedia:Randy in Boise says is worth hearing. And some Randys, while ignorant about a subject, are willing and able to use WP policies and guidelines to defend that they regard as their rights - and often a bunch of like-minded pals, who then shout about consensus.
• And Randy is much less trouble than the POV-pushing, who seem to have infinite time to spend on their obessions. --Philcha (talk) 22:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't find WP more stringent at citation than writing an academic article at all! Where'd you get that idea?! I've spent days researching a single paragraph for a publication. Wikipedia, you just need one credible reference for each statement. For a professional journal? You also have to find and cite, in some way, everyone who ever disagreed with you! No, you can't, as an academic offload to the grad student, or they get first author. I disagree that academic writing is the least bit easier than wp. It's much harder, imo and ime.

Do you mean in your last paragraph that wikipedians are at least required to pretend what Randy says is worth hearing? Yes, that, imo, is the heart of what makes writing at wikipedia hard when it should not be. Oftentimes Randy is just loud and spouting crap, or he's cleverly writing about something so obscure with big words that no on dare challenge him (Essjay and, the current one: Metamaterials). --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Speaking personally, I'd add to the above that WP is a radically different environment to work in than what academics usually experience - collaboration in academia normally consists of a small number of selected peers, all of whom have equivalent expertise (or, alternatively, where there is a clear hierarchy, such as student/supervisor or junior/senior academic). Wikipedia, by its very nature, doesn't support this - you engage with a large group of effectively random people with varying levels of expertise, and the anonymity means that no particular weight can be given to claims of academic qualifications, so hierarchies based on expertise are both undesirable and probably impossible to implement. (Hence Citizendium's alternative model). As I see it, this doesn't make Wikipedia biased against academics, so much as biased towards people who are comfortable in this environment. That said, I do occasionally see examples of bias, where academics have been accused of having a COI in their area of expertise simply because, as experts, they must have strong opinions on the subject, while non-academics with similarly strong opinions but less expertise are encouraged to edit instead. Fortunately these instances are comparatively unusual. - Bilby (talk) 22:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that collaborating with a group who are not your academic peers is what makes wikipedia readable. But, yes, it probably also makes it more challenging for a lot of academics. This can't be changed, though, because not only does it make wikipedia readable, it makes it more inclusive, except for in the area of academics. The environment does play a lot into comfort, the nastiness makes it unpleasant for everyone.

Wikipedia editors often think that "expertise" confers bias toward researchers in academia. It's the wrong way of looking at it, imo. The experts are seen as experts and more reliable because time and again they've been shown to be correct. Having to establish your expertise by the strength of references supporting your arguments is not a bad thing, and good academics have to do this their entire lives. That's how they came to be known as experts in the first place, supporting everything they do and say. The big difference is sometimes they support it with original research. This does get researchers into a bind at times on wikipedia, the NOR. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that there's any evidence of a general bias against academics on Wikipedia — at least, not in the complaint as you've presented it. It's worth remembering that any one single editor is all it takes to nominate an article for deletion. They don't need any permission, any pre-nomination review process, any formal endorsement. Any editor can say, "I think we should delete this", and up it goes on AfD. That doesn't mean that any of Wikipedia's other thousands of regular editors or hundreds of active admins think that the page should be deleted, or that they have anything against academics. An AfD nomination just means that one guy out of thousands brought the article forward for review.

In your original post above, you note that none of the articles nominated were actually deleted. No content was lost. The project wasn't harmed. The participants in the AfD (and the closing admin) apparently examined the evidence and read the discussion, and reached the correct conclusion. Though sometimes frustrating, it appears that (inasmuch as the correct conclusion was reached) the system worked. The articles (and by extension their subjects) stood up to the scrutiny of our process. Wikipedia is, apparently, resistant to misjudgments, brain farts, and even bad-faith deletion nominations by single editors. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes ec have compensations, like IP69.226.103.13's recent comment - "What I'm interested in is improving coverage on scientist with widespread long-term notability in their fields for major contributions to a change in the dominant paradigm" sounds like trouble with WP:N..V. --Philcha (talk) 22:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How could that be against NPOV? Maybe you meant something else? --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:51, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that there are two separate issues in the above: a bias against articles about academics, and a bias against academics editing on Wikipedia. I'm not sure that the two should be conflated. On the former, while I haven't often defended academics at AfD, when I have I found the standard for inclusion to be fairly reasonable given the usual BLP issues: WP:PROF may not be as inclusive as WP:ATHLETE, but the criteria seems to be fairly easy to meet for academics, although I guess it will tend to make it harder for those involved in narrower disciplines with less opportunities for large numbers of citations. - Bilby (talk) 22:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But it's not harder for athletes in sports with smaller audiences. In fact, if the criteria for prof were similar to the criteria for athlete, then any associate professor at a university would be deserving of an article. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The fact, as mentioned above that the articles are being kept means the system is working. A certain user that shall remain nameless spent gallons and gallons of ink railing against WP:CSD because a number of articles in his area got tagged, even though the speedies were declined! As also noted above, anyone can bring an article to AfD so the fact that they're brought there means very little if they're ultimately kept. By the same token, many, many articles are taken to AfD because they do not already cite sources. I'm not sure if I can remember ever seeing an article taken to AfD that was well sourced with inline citations to good sources that were cited with proper attribution. That is the standard all articles should ideally be posted with. If they're not, well we have WP:BEFORE (and certainly there is much failure to abide by that standard), but those who are seeing the unsourced or poorly sourced article on an academic, and who can't source it through Google, have done their due diligence. How can you fault them for going to AfD if the sources are not available online and they looked when the print and specialty sources have not been provided by the creator who ultimately bears the burden of verifying the content and showing notability (and is far better situated to do so). If we truly had a sourcing culture this wouldn't be an issue. Can you point to a concrete example of an article on an academic that was deleted that shouldn't have been? Until I see a trend of those, I'll take the idea there is a targeted bias with a large grain of salt.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above paragraph is the pergect summation of all the complaints against much of WP deletionism. People come, they write what they know...but they don't back it up. They just say "I'm an expert/fan and know this is true!". Then it gets put up for AFD because there is no proof that it's true and/or notable. See the problem? Sure someone may indeed BE an expert, and theoretically WP welcomes them with open arms, but how can anyone else know? Anyone can claim to be an expert in something and lie. It's, in fact, completely possible to create what looks like a real fully sourced article and it be totally fake (take User:Ned Scott/Upper Peninsula War for instance). So yeah, it's true that things are deleted when they shouldn't be, but people just do NOT want to go and actually follow WP's rules about what needs to be done. That's why there's so much bitching out there. Not because of Randy in Boise, but because people think that "anyone can edit" means "anything is welcome" when it's not. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 01:24, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is all part and parcel of not enforcing verifiability with any teeth, which would develop a culture of sourcing (but that's a monstrously large topic and beyond this conversation). No academic whose article is properly sourced will be "discriminated against". In fact, they'd never be at AfD or be tagged with A7 (and if they can't be properly sourced by the people who are best situated to do so, we shouldn't have an article on them). I so often see the complaint after the fact of an AfD or an A7 deletion but he/she/it is important/significant/notable Somehow the retort "but you didn't assert it/show it" the perfect response to my mind, that should be devastatingly effective, doesn't work. I have a stock absurd A7 example to emphasis the idea for people. I tell them an article that says: "Albert Einstein was an Austrian scientist" is a perfect A7 candidate and should and is properly deleted (if the admin has never heard of him of course).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I completely and utterly disagree (respectfully) with Fuhghettaboutit, especially the example given. We do not delete because something is a stub, poorly written, has bad grammar, isnt written in "our way". If Einstein's article was a stub that said what you wrote, then it still would be notable. Of course no one person is going to have heard of the majority of the notables included in Wikipedia.

• Here is my example- If X put an article up for deletion with "you didnt show it to be notable", ok, fine, X is herself then guilty of A- Being stupid for not knowing who Einstein is; and B- being to stupid to go to a library (or, ugh, do a google search). Deletion because "I never heard of him" is the most ridiculous reason to delete given that our goal is to be the most complete encyclopedia possible. If the sources showing notability exist but have not been used for the article, that is not a reason to delete; if X cares enough to spend time putting an article up for deletion for lack of notability, he better have spent due diligence researching to see if it really isnt notable, and not just basing it on the article not showing it. X needs to stick to articles she knows about and not go around putting for deletion articles she doesnt know squat about and doesnt bother to research.Camelbinky (talk) 02:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of this thread, though, stems from the fact that it's NOT always so easy to just see if someone is notable. As said above, NOT everyone is on Google. The Einstein example isn't a good one at all because of this. But if you're going to say "people should look for all sources" then we might as well just never delete anything again because it's impossible to prove a negative that sources DON'T exist. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 03:11, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's the issue. No sources is different. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 18:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• • Shorter Camelbinky: some level of WP:BEFORE should apply even in speedy deletions. "Speedy" doesn't mean that the admin can or should make the decision in less than five seconds, it only means speedier than prod and afd. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Respectfully Camelbinky I think you're responding to a strawman. My example was for A7, that is WP:CSD#A7, not AfD! and I think that misunderstanding is driving your response though I could be wrong (and of course I sometimes throw around shorthand when it might be better to be explicit). But if you did catch that we are talking about A7, then speedy criteria are lines in the sand. An article that says "Joe Blow is a scientist from X Country", makes no assertion of importance or significance and is a proper A7 candidate. Contrast this with Joe Blow is a tenured professor at _____, or Joe Blow won some award, etc—assertions of importance. This is entirely divorced from anything regarding AfD.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:12, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was talking about AfD, as I said in my post, not CSD. Similar problems there, but a number of administrators routinely decline academics when the article has at least an assertion of notability, so, imo, not as big an issue. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 04:10, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

From the list of academics and educators AfDs

1. "Self-written vanity page; don't see how this meets WP:PROF. Reads more like an academic CV, no indication that this individual is particularly notable within their field. See also this afd. "
2. "No external sources in article, can't find coverage outside of research area in reliable sources"
3. "Article with no encyclopedic content, started by User:Mkostic2, about a full professor with a low h-index (~11), and claims of being in Who's Who."
4. "not apparently notable; no sources to verify content identified"
5. "An overly promotional biography on a non-notable assistant professor of chemistry. No real evidence that he passes WP:PROF. ... The former doesn't really demonstrate notability to me, and the latter is given for one's Ph.D., so I'm not sure that qualifies either. Perhaps will be notable eventually, but this can be recreated then (with a less promotional tone)."
6. "His only published work doesn't doesn't bring up anything, he is a "visiting lecturer" so this may be borderline. Main problem is so far everything is unverifiable, possible vanity article."
7. "Autobiog - author has blanked their user page to hide the fact after COI was placed on page"
8. "Non notable surgeon in my field"
9. "This biographical article fails to meet WP:PROF as McLaughlin is described as a senior researcher and her significant is not otherwise clear. Examining Google Scholar and checking her staff page, it is not clear that the requirements of WP:PROF will be definitively addressed by later addition of available sources."
10. "Extremely non notable figure in my field. This is a vanity bio for PR"
11. "I can't find any reliable sources on google search. It is also a clear violation of WP:BLP"
12. "No evidence of meeting WP:Notability (academics): Only an associate professor, ... The fact that this is an autobiography and that the author included his full contact information leads me to think of this as self-promotion and a resume rather than as an encyclopedia article."
13. "fails WP:BIO and WP:PROF. hardly any coverage in gnews. some coverage in gscholar but nothing that seems to meet WP:PROF. "

So, vanity appears to irritate people, but vanity pages should be cleaned up. Many notable people are vane, and, on wikipedia it sadly appears quite a few think they can write well when they can't. The nominations incline, imo, toward the wikipedia editor not being able to find significant sources, like no. 3. It't not that no sources exist, but that the editor can't find any. Ask these editors where they looked, it's pretty exclusively: google. Another AfDer is obsessed with h-index, a couple are, but they don't quote how they came up with the h-index, and get belligerent when challenged about it. Here we have an editor who is a surgeon who is nominating other MDs in his field for deletion based on his say so, no other evidence necessary! Are these valid reasons for deletion? Are academics getting full process on wikipedia? No, someone who doesn't know what an h-index is, and won't say how they arrived at the one they quote, and won't relate it to h-indexes in the field, just says the h-index is low, or the google scholar appearance is low, or they know the doctor isn't notable in their field (a valid sourced reason, but not an individual editor decision, that makes it OR), just throws up articles and, by and large, they're deleted.

No big rooting section for academics on wikipedia, like game players or cartoon characters or football players. That's what is deciding what articles are in wikipedia: popularity. That's why the requirements for academics are so much more stringent than the requirements for football players, the latter are far more popular and have bigger fan clubs. They have fan club. A minor league player talked about by a professional team? He's got an article. An academic, full professor with 26 publication? Low h-index and they're out. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 03:22, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The perfect response to any of the above, is, "here's sources". I know it rankles that most pokemon character can be sourced in five minutes with Google and X tenured professor possibly can't after searching for an hour, but the point is that articles must be able to be sourced. And if those posting the articles can't or don't we are left with an apparently unverifiable subject since Google etc. is only useful for some subjects. That's not the fault of AfD.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what this IP is complaining about. Wikipedia official policy has always been that if it can't be found in 15 seconds on Google then it doesn't exist and must be reverted or deleted. Mostlyharmless (talk) 03:44, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually Wikipedia policy has always been that we are a tertiary source and should only publish material that has already been written about in the wider world and we need to show this through reliable sources. It is the wholesale molly coddling of unsourced content as sacrosanct because someone write it down that has dug us into the massive hole we face that grows deeper daily because we can't get a toehold now from the bottom of the pile.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 03:57, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Mostlyharmless.

Not correct, Fuhgettaboutit. I've started checking sources on popular culture articles. Many are sourced to fanzines and blogs. I've deleted hundreds of blogs from popular culture articles this past month, starting on the martial arts articles recently. But, yes, googlepedia = wikipedia. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 03:58, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Funny, I routinely use offline sources and have never had a single article deleted... go figure. Anyway, your examples would be easier to judge if you actually linked to the discussions. As it stands now, those are just empty statements lacking context. Resolute 04:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, see link above-originally I included a sentence about their source, it's just the list of current AfDs for academics. But, I don't get your point. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 04:06, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link. My point is this: The "googlepedia" complaint is mostly bunk in my view. The primary problem here remains the lack of sourcing. The average layperson will not have access to offline journals and texts that an expert would, they really only have what Google can tell them, and so they judge that way. If an article provides clear references to reliable publications, people are far less likely to question them, even if they can't see the citations themselves. Often, it becomes one of fixing the appearance rather than fixing the substance.

However, the reliability of sources is also a big issue from what I can see. i.e.: the majority of the Muhammad Akhyar Farrukh article is nothing more than an attempt at selling its own notability. That's going to be a giant red flag at any XfD discussion because of how it appears. But, when you get down to it, there are only three references - The first almost appears to be a Facebook type thing for academics, leading to concerns about whether the info is user submitted. The second is not independent, thus not reliable, and the third strikes me as a site that features a lot of user submitted information, again not reliable. The references in this article do not sell the notability of the individual. The article on Milivoje Kostic likewise has issues. References 2, 3, 4, 6 and 14 point to his own sites - not reliable. Ref 9 doesn't even mention him, while the rest generally point to books written or edited by other people, for which it is nearly impossible to identify whether there is any importance to what Mr. Kostic contributed. Of critical note is that not a single one of the references provided offers independent, non-trivial coverage of the individual. Basically, there is no indication that Kostic himself has been the subject of any work that meets WP:RS.

Now this is part of the beast when it comes to how Wikipedia treats reliable sources. There is, of course, a systemic bias in this regard, as pop stars and athletes will always easily gain far more media exposure than some obscure professor at a random University. That is somewhat unfortunate, but it is also not likely to change so long as the current requirements exist. Resolute 05:34, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What!? The line, "He is considered one of the youngest and top chemist in his country," isn't a big enough warning in the Farrukh article? On the Kostic article, in the AfD discussion it was found in searches that he wrote a review and encyclopedia articles. Reviews in scientific journals are invited. Frankly, wikipedia should consider that notability: that a group of experts consider the scientist enough of a leader in his field that he has been asked to be the writer of a review or an encyclopedia article. In fact, that is a criterion for how encyclopedia article writers (paid ones, not wikipedia ones obviously) are selected, part of the process is you start with a leading expert in their field. So, experts in the field consider Kostic a leader in his field, but that's not good enough for wikipedia? AfD isn't Bad Articles for Deletion, by the way. If it were, it would be a lot more popular and populated. But it's not. The scientist is notable. Experts in his field have declared that. That should suffice for wikipedia notability. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 05:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Notability on individuals for Wikipedia has always been that such people have been the subject of multiple, non trivial, independent works based on reliable sources. Frankly, I disagree that Wikipedia should break these rules for one group of individuals. Until someone independent of him actually writes about him, he is not notable under Wikipedia's terms. Resolute 05:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which makes the criteria for academics far harder to meet than for pokeman cards, because the sources where academics are written about are far smaller than the sources where pokeman cards are written about. Pokeman cards are written about all over the internet in self-proclaimed notable sites with requirements for reliability far reduced than for academics. And, the encyclopedias and journals have brief biographies of the authors of the pieces establishing their notability to the reading audience. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 05:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Don't understand how your point addresses mine at all (actually it bolsters it). Seriously though, I really want to know what that you mean when you and others say this. What deletions are you actually talking about? Avoiding speedies as well as AfD is best done done through reliable book sources and the like (and you don't need any sources to avoid a speedy). Every day at AfD we have numerous discussions about the reliability or lack thereof of fanzines and blogs and other wikis as sources and articles are deleted because of the very lack of reliable scholarly sources to cite. As for reverts, all material should be reverted if it's questionable and you don't have a good source to back up your claim. So, what is the substance to this googlepedia adage. If your point is that the majority of users wonlt go to the library to look anything up and rely entirely too much on google books, news, web I agree with you, but the rub there is that those wishing to keep content are the ones who need to come up with sources (and I'm off to bed).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that we do have problems with systemic bias, but, to put it bluntly, when someone complains they can't find sources for something, the solution is to prove them wrong by finding sources, not to complain about them. Mr.Z-man 04:24, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources aren't the only problem, so that doesn't thoroughly resolve the issue. It's the google-perpetuation, imo. If I can add a source that's not in google, someone, like David Eppstein can still argue that he did a google scholar search and couldn't find anything so the subject isn't notable. Why bother sourcing something with an offline source if the google standard is the be-all and end-all of notability for wikipedia. Everything isn't in google. If that's all that wikipedia is striving to be, support for google, why bother? That's not an encyclopedia, it's a pop culture contest. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 04:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you added offline sources to an article on AFD and observed this, or you just assuming that? If the former, it may not change their attitude, but they'll at least be wrong then and you'll at least have policy behind you. Mr.Z-man 05:02, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's why I should stay away from AfD and why I have such a bad attitude about the deletion of academics. It's a waste of time in the face of forces that take pleasure from deleting articles. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 05:05, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As others have said, it's not really that they go to AFD that's a problem, it's if they end up being deleted. You keep saying that people shouldn't rely on Google, but you haven't given a good solution as to what people should do. Again, yes we know Google isn't the be all and end all, but if someone as the article writer isn't going to take the time to search for the sources (especially if said sources may take a long time to gather), then why in the world should others do it, with the possibility they still might not find any? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 05:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why not start with the assumption that a full professor is a notable individual. The news does, that's how they find scientific color commentary. Why not enforce the deletion standards that exist and require nominators for AfD to assert one of the existing deletion criteria? --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 05:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've known full professors with very little contribution at accredited, albeit smaller, schools. Level of professional achievement is not related to notability.

But another point that's sorta under this is that we've yet to be shown a case where two things occur: there are no online sources (within a reasonable web search) provide the backing for notability, but there are offline sources that have been stated that do so. If an AFD for an academic came by and someone wishing to keep it stated, against all the cries of not being Google-able, that they had offline papers, I would assume AFD and let that person add those sources. But that doesn't see to be what is being argued here, just the issue that, when assessing notability at AFD, people use google, which is a great tool but not the end-all. If you have offline source, you need to make these known; it isn't the closer or participants' job at AFD to find these for you. At worst, if you fail to produce them in time for the AFD, you can always request userification and improve the article and then seek opinions to restore it. --MASEM (t) 05:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But it's going to happen with Robert N. Zeitlin not because there are no sources in the article (which there aren't), but because an editor searched google scholar for articles on mesoamerica and did not find Zeitlin in the first hundred hits. However, if I search google scholar for mesoamerican trade, I find Zeitlin as a reference in 4 of the first 20 hits (I reviewed less than half). His field is obscure. And, you know what, I'm not going to userfy it. The arguments for deletion are that he isn't represented in a huge all-encompassing google scholar search, so he's not notable. That's bogus. I'm tired of bogus arguments at AfD based on idiotic google searches.

Let's search geology and see if we find Edward Drinker Cope in the first 500 google results. If we don't, he's not notable. Why not use the existing criteria, reached and agreed upon by community consensus? No good, the googlepedia users must offer their google results. So, why bother getting an off-line source? That's not what's sinking the article, it's David Eppstein's lame google scholar search for the broadest category he could find to prove the professor isn't notable. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 05:53, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Again, it's not the position of those that participate at AFDs have to find sources, though it is expected they should make a good faith effort to confirm (but not establish) if the topic is notable or not - particularly the case of the nominator. If, lacking offline sources, know of a better way to search to confirm the notability, then you should provide that to help out. If you are going to write an article without any sources, this is exactly what you should expect to have to do if someonet challenges it. --MASEM (t) 06:05, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If I nominated an unsourced or unreliably sourced Pokeman card for deletion, the AfD would be closed, and I would be accused of trying to make a point. It's a double standard. Pokeman card article writers are NOT required to have reliable sources that show notability, they can quote the package materials. Anyone trying to AfD the articles for lack of notability would be accused of pointedness. If you are going to write an article about an academic and don't have iron-clad sources that's what you should expect, but if you're going to write about pop culture, use whatever you want of nonindependent sources. Because anyone who tried to challenge the article about a self-cited pokeman card would get drummed out of wikipedia. Now, an academic, get your sources lined up. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 06:29, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You do notice that we don't have articles for every Pokemon, yes? It used to be there was, but in 2006 (IIRC), it was decided that the majority didn't have notability and thus, merged to a list. However, there are some Pokemon that stand alone; the one you use as an example below has both secondary and primary. That's the same we're asking for any topic, including academics. --MASEM (t) 06:37, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) No, it's not, these cards don't have sources. It's a list made up of unsourced information. I can include the unsourced info if I put it in a list instead of an article? No, all of the information must be sourced.

Here's another ridiculous nomination for AfD. Nikolay P. Serdev, a bad but sourced article. It's going to be deleted because it was nominated for deletion by a guy who claims to work in the same field as Serdev, and claims "Non notable surgeon in my field Droliver (talk) 08:33, 22 November 2009 (UTC)."

That's the entire nomination: "Non notable surgeon in my field." The votes, and they ARE votes, are "Delete per DGG and per nom." and "Delete. Not enough for notability." That's it, delete per nom who claims to be an expert in deciding who is notable in his field or not.

That's what AfD for academics is about: it's about crap. Crap nominations by editors who want academics deleted, while the standards for inclusion of Pokeman cards in lists or articles, doesn't matter, is that you can copy the information from the package wrapper and that's good enough.

It's two different standards: one for academics, a completely different one for pop culture. And the one for academics is much more stringent because they don't have pop culture fan clubs supporting them on wikipedia.

Is wikipedia the place for knowledge on the net, or is the place for pop culture socializing on the net? As long as only the one requires reliable sources it's obvious what it is. No one would dare to try to delete a Pokeman card for non-notability by saying, "I'm an expert in Pokeman cards and this one is not notable." The AfD would be closed for what it is: bogus. But any academic put up for deletion is fair game for any deletion discussion, because no one would try to stop a bogus academician AfD based on bogus criteria, because there's no fan club.

So, I've provided two examples of academicians who are up for deletion right now, and who will be deleted based on bogus internet google search criteria and a self-proclaimed wikipedia editor expert. Would this happen with a Pokeman card? Never. A user would get banned for trying it. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 08:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem here is that, in academia, the notability of a person is judged by what (and to some degree how much) the person has written... but on Wikipedia notability is judged by a different standard... what (and how much) others have written about the person.

That said... I think this complaint is much a-do about nothing... None of the articles that IP69 is concerned about have actually been deleted. They have simply been nominated for deletion. There is a difference. All it takes to prevent deletion is the addition of a few reliable sources that will substantiate notability. (actually, just mentioning the sources at the AfD is usually enough to prevent deletion... you don't actually need to follow through and add them to the article... a flaw in our system, that has bothered me for a long time). Blueboar (talk) 22:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that it's a flaw. I would rather see a system in which the nominator goes back and adds the sources if it turns out the nomination was in error. That would provide some incentive for nominators to do their research ahead of time, instead of "forcing" other people to do it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

They will be deleted, Blueboar, so I'll look for your comment after that happens.

AfD is about scoring points for nominations, it seems to me at times. The nominators seldom back down. The doctor who has declared the other doctors are not notable according to him and that's sufficient to cause deletions isn't about to add a source when it's his stated intention to remove badly written articles about doctors in his field from wikipedia. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:03, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So... Who cares what the nominators say?... they don't determine whether an article is deleted or not, they just state an opinion... you can state an opposing opinion. And if you can find some reliable sources to back your opinion up, then the article will not be deleted. Instead of complaining ... try to fix the problem. Blueboar (talk) 01:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here, this is the reference that is considered reliable for an article on Pokeman cards, "Pokédex: Its paws conceal sharp claws. If attacked, it suddenly extends the claws and startles its enemy. Game Freak. Pokémon Gold. (Nintendo). Game Boy. (2000-10-15)." So, what is that? It looks like it's the card package or a game. Game Freak is the card publisher, Nintendo the game manufacturer, Game Boy a Nintendo game. So, for some 50 references in this article, self referencing is fine. List of Pokémon (201–220) Here's an article on one of the individual cards. Tell me these are independent reliable resources? But, if a scientist isn't mentioned in the first of 100 returns on a google search that includes the arts, the history, the geology, anything remotely related to mesoamerica, he's not notable enough for wikipedia. But this card, now, that's notable. Just try to demand reliable sources or try to AfD that article. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 06:07, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree, but the answer would be to cut the amount of pop culture material rather than reduce standards on everything else. To some extent, notability is proxy for the likelihood of a significant number of users wanting to access the information, and it's probably true that more people will look up an obscure Pokémon character than an obscure academic. Will the Pokémon character still be considered notable in 20 years? Probably not. My own pet hate is the number of articles on obscure albums by obscure bands, to which the same applies. But I can live and let live, so long as the dreadful pop culture sections don't continue to encroach on the serious articles I am interested in. In serious fields we need to apply high standards of notability and reliability. Cyclopaedic (talk) 09:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability yes, but notability? Obviously we need some kind of notability standards (Wikipedia would be impossible to maintain in practice if it could have articles on anyone or anything whatever), but I don't think we should be talking about "high standards of notability" as if they were a virtue comparable to high standards of accuracy. By "lowering" the standards of notability we actually improve the encyclopedia (by increasing the amount of knowledge it delivers), providing that the lowering can be done without total loss of control.--Kotniski (talk) 10:05, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Kotniski, this is, imo, true. And, if we accepted a standard like full professors at universities (schools offering graduate degrees) are inherently notable, then this would ease up the traffic on professors at AfD, and maybe turn the deletionist glee club to Pokeman cards. A professor who has written 36 articles and has a low h-index will still have contributed something to his field in 20 years. A minor pokeman card in 20 years won't be worth the paragraph its self-reference gets it on a list in 20 years. Which one is a useful contribution to wikipedia? The professor. In 20 years someone may still come across his/her research and want to know basically who he is. Wikipedia should be the place to go for that information. Consider it for a minute, all who disagree with me. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 18:40, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I for one despise the term "inherent notability"; what is usually meant is "these should be included despite not meeting the guidelines in WP:N", but saying "inherent notability" opens up a pointless debate over whether notability can be inherent. Look for example at the mess over roads: many editors feel that certain types of roads should be included in Wikipedia (since Wikipedia is supposed to be a gazetteer), but much has been wasted on arguing over whether they're "notable" or not (and what types of secondary sources are necessary/sufficient to establish that notability) instead of discussing the real question: "Should we include these types of roads?" I started a draft of something that might be useful at User:Anomie/Inclusion criteria, but so far no one else has been interested in helping flesh it out. Anomie⚔ 01:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We've decided species are inherently notable, without much problem on wikipedia. The discussion about common names opens up wars among the editors at animals and birds and plants, inter and intraproject wars. Every once in a while, someone comes by one of those places and suggest species are not inherently notable. The argument goes nowhere as it should.

There are requirements for reaching professorship. Not every professor is granted tenure. What is it for wikiepdia to admit that someone besides the god google can confer notability, like an institution with a vest interested in their professors? If wikipedia is to be the source of all knowledge, wikipedians should understand that means people will come here for information. If I see a professor giving a sound bite, I want to be able to find information about him or her at wikipedia. If it's an associate professor, so what. But, yes, a professor, with publications. Wikipedian deletionists have made up original, unsupported criteria for deletion, like the h-index girl who got so pissed at me she had me blocked rather than establish the notability of her pet criterion. The doctor who claims to be the one who decides who is notable in his field. The librarian who counters with his own unsupported proclamations of notability based on a related h-index. The computer scientist who decided that only the top scientist in the field at its broadest (to include artists, historians, everyone) are notable.

It makes a mockery of writing an article. It's why 40,000 editors left in the first few months: the standards are biased against non-pop-culture, and, really, AfD is about personal biases of the deletionist. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 01:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I invite the OP to make a succinct proposal for what we should do about these concerns here. So far I see a lot of heat, but very little light. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

At any rate, this discussion is probably better left to the relevant notability guideline. I'd also hazard the guess that some of the people who are being AfD'ed are notable for one event, and current guidelines frown on independent articles in that case. SDY (talk) 15:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We need to be careful deleting, while the above example is not great, I have seen articles speedied, prodded and afd'd which shouldn't have been. But there is certainly a moving marker of notability, becoming more inclusive as time goes by. And maybe in the longer term we will be able to provide automatic de-POVing and de-COIing. Rich Farmbrough, 16:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC).[reply]

Easy to see where my rant stands in your opinion, Hand That Feeds. Wikipedia should be as dynamic a thing as human culture and the web; but it's not, because of a high resistance to change. Not to change that is detrimental, but to any change. You want ranting just read the responses when I do propose a change.

Yes, I think that the notability guidelines for professors should be changed to reflect their positions in a university. A full professor at a university (an academic institution that offers graduate degrees) should be worthy of inclusion as a wikipedia article. If they have anything published in the professional literature their biography, no matter how brief, will be something that could endure decades to centuries of inquiry. Wikipedia should be the place where this knowledge is maintained. This was the original goal of wikipedia: to be the source for all knowledge. Something about this professor who wrote these 21 articles is knowledge that someone should be able to find on wikipedia. The search for that obscure pokeman card will never require wikipedia resources beyond the uncited reference in a list those treasures now hold.

It's a rant to consider that full professors at universities are inherently notable. They run laboratories, teach classes, guide graduate students, belong to boards, write curricula, monitor millions of dollars in grants they gain themselves and trusted with by the taxpayers courtesy of the NSF and NIH. In fact, they're like the CEOs of small companies, except that their results are published instead of sold. Other scientists sit at journals and read their papers and decided that, of the hundreds to thousands of journal articles received this one (out of the twenty one) is worthy of being reviewed by a jury of professional peers. That jury of professional peers then decided that the content of the article was worthy of being published. That obscure professor with the low h-index and 21 articles passed that test of his peers 21 times. Before he even got to be tested by those peers he convinced even more demanding juries of his peers to grant him millions of dollars of taxpayers' moneys to gain graduate students, study the question, and produce the research to write the results that were then certified as worthy of notability by his peers.

All this and an unknown editor at wikipedia who doesn't give references pronounces his h-index is low and his article should be deleted. Who ya gonna believe? The unknown, non-cited statement by one wikipedia editor or dozens to hundreds of professional peers who have given money and journal space and salaries at the university stating unequivocally that this professor is notable. Put your money where your mouth is: mine is on the professor.

--IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 21:10, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe, by your logic, we should also make all CEOs of small companies notable as well? We don't even consider all companies notable, much less their officers. "Dozens to hundreds" isn't the kind of notability the guidelines expect. I am related to on the order of 10 professors, some at prestigious universities, and only one of them has a Wikipedia article. He won a major award in his field and laid some of the groundwork for a major breakthrough that is part of the way we understand the natural world. That's the way it should be, we don't consider people notable just because they're accepted in their field for mundane work of decent quality. SDY (talk) 01:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let's consider this, the difference between the CEO of a small company and a university president. Do CEOs of small companies have external peer reviews of their research as a means to gain the CEOship in the first place? No. Anyone can become the CEO of a small company. Anyone cannot become a professor, it's more rigorous. Do CEOs command the attention of multi-million dollar government grant review boards with their proposals? No. The can gather venture capital money but the requirements for NIH and NSF grants and the competition for those grants are much more stringent than the requirements for venture capital money. Ventura capitaliists can give their money to anyone they want, and do what they want with the results. NSF and NIH grants cannot be given to anyone the boards want, and the research done with the money has to answer to government laws and regulations. The moneys are considered very important and desirable grant moneys, they are fought for, getting one of these grants is prestigious. What size is a small company? Well, it can be 10 employees and a CEO. What size is a university? It's huge, and, while the PI's lab may be 3 postdocs, a technician and two graduate students, the PI is tied by name to the university.

Professors at universities are not accepting in their field for "mundane work of decent quality." Not only does mundane work of decent quality not confer notability or acceptance upon a professor, it won't get them publish.

So, you've offered no comparative arguments against professors at universities. They're not accepted for the reason you offered. Every paper they write and publish in a peer reviewed journal is reviewed by a panel of their peers and approved as worthy of contributing to the body of knowledge called science or ethnography or the humanities. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 06:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting ideas that I don't disagree with, but you'll never get anywhere with it in our bureaucracy. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

;I know. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 06:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You'll never get anywhere if all you do is complain without proposing anything, that's for sure. How you intend to write an article without reliable secondary sources is problematic, and that's ultimately the sticking point: "I know that he is a truly great and good man, for he told me so himself" doesn't cut it. SDY (talk) 07:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note that "reliable secondary sources" are only required in order to pass WP:N, and WP:N is not the one and only criterion for inclusion (although it is the most commonly used). If the community decides that we want articles on all professors or on a certain well-defined subset regardless of whether they pass WP:N, then we just need reliable sources (without concern for the semi-arbitrary "primary"/"secondary"/"tertiary" distinction) to write the actual article. As this (sub-)discussion is specifically proposing inclusion criteria not based in WP:N for professors, bringing up WP:N-specific objections is inappropriate. Anomie⚔ 13:54, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've mentioned this before, but I know of numerous professors and universities/colleges with such where achieving tenure is just a matter of continuing to publish and bring in funds - the same type of job a CEO would be. There are some schools with much higher standards, but this isn't even true across all colleges within some universities. Also, using peer-reviewed publications is also not a fair comparison: some journals (Nature and Science, for example) are much more difficult to enter than, say those "Letters" type journals.

The cross-section that is needed is what level of achievement in the field is there for the academic. This is a matter of knowing can be used to show this, which is going to vary from field to field. Some fields will have much easier times to do this, say, chemistry, due to the number of academic trade publications from its user groups and professional societies; smaller fields will be very difficult, but this could imply using review papers and the like to establish it. Of course, if the field is small, and it's hard to show this, maybe the key figures should be established in the article about that field instead of a separate article. --MASEM (t) 04:00, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

CEOs of companies are not required to publish in peer-reviewed journals. I said that above. I repeat it. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But I point out that the barrier to getting an article in any "peer-reviewed" journal is very very low. I know, I've done it. It's work to do it, but it is by no means a barrier that infers notability (much like getting articles here to pass as Featured). There are some journals that invite authors - that's one suggestion they are notable - and there are some journals that have a known high threshold of quality and reputation (eg Nature) that make it difficult for non-established academics to get in (unless they co-author). But this is not true for all journals. There are also professors that get tenure and stay where they are by simply pumping out grad students through grants and the volumes of papers they publish - 100s or so - and yet make no significant contribution. If an academic is going to be notable, it needs to be based on their work in the field (not what they sign off on their graduate's papers) that we need to use. --MASEM (t) 14:25, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The other problem with the journal criterion is that it's biased against academics in the arts, where academic journals are not the focus of their careers. Take, for example, Alison Lurie. She's written a few articles but that's almost irrelevant to her notability. The problem with the quasi-proposed publication-implies-notability criteria is that it opens the door to Dr. Nathan Carberry at Whatsamatta U. because he had a paper published in Quarterly Review of Psychoceramics, a journal founded by his award-winning father in an obscure field. SDY (talk) 16:19, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) An article based solely on primary sources is by default original research. SDY (talk) 15:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The whole point of WP:OR is that we don't interpret, explain, analyze, or evaluate what is in the source, and of WP:SYN that we also don't "synthesize" original interpretation from multiple sources; we just use what the source actually contains. It makes no difference whether you're citing a "primary", "secondary", or "tertiary" source as long as you keep that one point in mind. Unfortunately, WP:OR is currently full of cruft that obscures that basic point. For example, it says of "primary" sources "Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about information found in a primary source", and about "secondary" sources "Articles may include analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims if they have been published by a reliable secondary source" (emphasis mine). In other words, the second quote says "Do not make analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about information found in a secondary source (but you can use claims that are actually in the source)", which is no different than what the "primary" source sentence states. Anomie⚔ 19:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yet Pokeman cards, comic books, and minor video game characters are included based solely on the OR of wikipedia editors extracting the information from the back of the card. That confers notability for including any number of pop culture icons. But, a professor, whose work has been analyzed and scrutinized by a panel of his or her peers hasn't a chance of getting put in wikipedia based on the wrappings of his cards. There's no synthesis necessary: he/she's published in a peer reviewed journal. Someone else has already declared the work itself to be notable enough to be published. The professor has beat out hundreds to thousands of other applicants for that professorship. A friend of mine just got his first lowly professor job right out of post-doc ship. He had a lot of anxiety from not being contacted for weeks to months from any of his applications, but the schools told him they had to cull through the hundreds of legitimate applications they get for the positions. A Pokeman card? A professor? One already has beaten out at least dozens of others for a coveted position, gotten the stamp of approval on his accomplishments by his peers. The other one could have come from 3 bored coworkers discussing doughnuts at lunch. Who knows? --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:09, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The reason why primary sources are set aside is that any use of them other than direct quotation is analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative (with some situational exceptions). Secondary sources can be condensed, paraphrased, reorganized, edited, and otherwise muddled with as long as the final product comes to the same conclusions as the source. SDY (talk) 21:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why can a primary source not be condensed, paraphrased, reorganized, edited, or otherwise muddled with as long as the final product has the same information as in the original? For example, by your metric every single plot summary of every book, movie, video game, and so on on Wikipedia is invalid because "OMG someone summarized a primary source!" (NB: WP:PLOT is a separate issue unrelated to this discussion). Again, the important point is that nothing has been added in the process of condensing etc., not what "kind" of source it is. Anomie⚔ 23:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be one of the common sense exceptions where the rule is ignored, but plot summaries can introduce all sorts of original research. For example, the plot elements that these people would consider important are probably not those that these people would, and who's to say who is right? Normally, we'd consult a reliable secondary source if there's a disagreement about the interpretation of a primary source, but in this case and in the case of the professors, we wouldn't have one to fall back on. Frankly, I'm against plot summaries as well, but I know that's a rather extreme view on a very contentious issue in our fiction articles. SDY (talk) 03:49, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that your view of OR is similarly extreme, if you really think summarizing a plot without introducing any interpretation or analysis is somehow an exception to OR. As for your Harry Potter example, to quote WP:OR: "Carefully summarizing or rephrasing source material without changing its meaning is not synthesis—it is good editing", and if you're thinking of "interpretation" you're already going in the wrong direction with your summary. Just because satanists might find different plot elements "important" for their interpretation than homosexual-fan-fiction fans, it doesn't mean an NPOV and encyclopedic summary is impossible. Anomie⚔ 04:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Biographies of most college professors, tenured professors at universities (schools that grant graduate degrees) exist. The sources may be hard to come by. Their notability is established by their position and the fact that they have notable research in peer-reviewed journals (CEOs do not necessarily). So, unlike the pokeman card and the plot summary the original research isn't in their notability, it's the lacking sources other than say the professor's academic pages that is the problem.

Plot summaries on wikipedia are disasters. I've corrected some OR in plot summaries of satires and dystopias on wikipedia. I had a good laugh with some English teachers at school a while ago: they can always tell which kids copy from wikipedia versus which kids copy from SparkNotes: at least the SparkNotes plot overview plagiarisms are factually correct. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:35, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

be aware that a close paraphrase is also copyvio. It is necessary to change the organization as well as the wording. DGG ( talk ) 00:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of close paraphrases, I was going to pull an example of the bad plot summaries on wikipedia versus sparknotes from Catch-22, a familiar satire, but the wikipedia plot is plagiarized from sparknotes. Or vice versa, I would guess, except that usually the wikipedia plot summaries are wrong. I'll find another example. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 07:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• [unindent] I have a concrete proposal: (1) Anyone who has written a book or article in a scholarly journal or widely circulated magazine may have an article in Wikipedia. (2) Any author who is mentioned in Wikipedia must eventually have an entry in Wikipedia. (3) Whenever someone opens a biographical article for editing, there should appear a warning "Please do not create or expand articles about yourself, your relatives, your boss, or anyone close to you. You may of course edit such articles for accuracy or wording."
  Points (1) and (2) should hold especially if the author is not otherwise notable. On several occasions I spent a lot of time searching Google for information on authors of papers cited in Wikipedia. One example was "Raj Sharma", author of a book on carbides and hydrides published in India. His book is the only source I could find that asserted the existence of lead carbide, a compound which by most other textbooks does not exist. The book seems authoritative, but I could not find any information about the author on Google. In several other cases, after much serching I found only the person's affiliation and full name. That was the case, for example, of Hans-Werner Wanzlick, who made an important contribution to a specialized field (and has the Wanzlick equilibrium named after him), but is hardly visible in Google. If Wikipedia had entries on those persons, even minimal ones ("Pofessor at X university since 1969"), it would have saved me (and presumably many other people) a lot of fruitless work.
  Saying another way: "notable" should not mean "meritorious" but simply "likely to be looked up by Wikipedia readers". If the past is any guide, a paper in a scholarly journal is going to sit in libraries and to be read for centuries to come. The Wikipedia articles that cite those papers too, hopefully, will be read for decades to come. Some readers of those articles will want to know more about the authors. Why should Wikipedia purposefully disappoint those readers?
  All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 15:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Number 1 is already taken care of (anyone may have an article, but they don't necessarily get one). Number 2 is completely impractical, and such a proposal would require changing our notability policy. You're welcome to discuss it on that talk page, but I doubt you'll make any headway. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 23:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes, the proposal is to change the WP policy with regards to who may and must have an article in Wikipedia. The name "Notability policy" is already biased - it assumes that the criterion must be "notability" of some sort. No, I don't have the energy to take it up on the other forum, sorry. People who read and contribute to policy pages like this one, it seems, are either nearly-burned-out editors like me (and perhaps the other user above), who are just venting their frustration; or people who enjoy discussing policies, rules, and procedures; who naturally are not very receptive to the idea of having *fewer* rules and *fewer* procedures. Sorry for the bother, and all the best --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 01:09, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Actually, what's being proposed is more rules, ie. "Make an exception for professors, they always get articles. Also, I would suggest you refrain from framing things as the poor new proposal folks versus the policy-happy regulars. We're all here to make the encyclopedia better, we just disagree on how to do so. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

[Moving proposal on auto-ban for deletions to a separate section, below. --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 16:42, 9 December 2009 (UTC)][reply]

• Yes to the naysayers at wikipedia always. No matter how useless it makes maps to have no names when you click on them, no matter how silly and poorly written and unsourced the pokeman card articles, no matter how bad a FA picture on the front page is, anyone cannot contribute to improving any area of wikipedia. Yes, why bother trying to make wikipedia a useful resource on the internet, when there's always someone to support the useless status quo? --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 17:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  Just out of curiosity, what's up with the preoccupation against Pokemon?
  — V = I * R (talk to Ω) 17:58, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:POKEMON. The essay even links an AfD that addresses the exact same question being raised here. SDY (talk) 18:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not exactly the same. I'm not saying that because a minor pokeman card is notable a tenured and published professor is also notable. I am saying that the standards for academics is much higher than the standards for pop culture topics creating a bias against professors, and a bias for inclusion of articles on popular topics such as pokeman cards. While the pokeman cards can be found in a list, a professor with 13 published articles that are still quoted from, if only in a minor way, in 200 years will have disappeared from knowledge. Who was this person? You see it in the sciences all of the time, doing research in an area and trying to find information about the author of other research. You don't see, however, the search for information about each and every style of pot made by a famous potter (the pokeman creator), but, rather, researchers expect to find little information, and publish it compiled in a book (list). The scientist, though, is not found in a list. He/she's an individual. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:11, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mozart was the pop culture of his day, and people finding and cataloging and documenting his compositions is definitely nontrivial. The main reason I'm opposed to the proposal, though, is that if a page about a Pokemon is wrong, it's really not a big deal. If a page about a living person is wrong, it can have real consequences, especially for people who generally fly under the radar. If the professor wants to have a page, there are plenty of other Web 2.0 ways to do it that have much better editorial controls. SDY (talk) 23:28, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not against pop culture articles. I'm against double standards. I'm not for attack articles. I'm against double standards. I'm not for vanity articles. I'm against double standards. I'm also against OR, and en.wiki, when it comes to articles about academics is the king of OR. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 01:18, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There will always be a double standard for WP:BLP articles, since they're held to higher demands than other articles. Frankly, the better counterexample is all these minor and forgettable footy players we have articles on, but a professional athlete is by nature a rather public profession, so it's more the WP:NPF issue. I guess you could easily argue that there's a triple standard: normal articles, living people, and non-public living people. The group you're trying to add generally falls into category #3, as very few academics are public people. There are exceptions, of course, like Noam Chomsky, but most stay within their own field and out of the public eye. SDY (talk) 03:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pokeman was a random choice. I could change the example each time, but it doesn't matter. The principle applies to many pop culture topics: multiple articles based almost entirely on primary sources, such as the wrapper, the game box, whatever. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an academic and I don't think any serious academic should be wasting her or his time on Wikipedia. Wikipedia, like communism, was an apparently good idea that just does not work in the real world. For every expert, there are a hundred self-important hyperactive dullards with barnstar collections and admin privileges, just waiting to give you grief and promote disinformation. 88.213.44.205 (talk) 11:33, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you have to find articles without any of them around and sneak edit. As soon as one of them gets near: you're dead, time to move on. Sad, but true. Physics used to be an area of general excellence on wikipedia. Between the deletionists and the amateur owners that's no longer true. It's a garbage dump now. --IP69.226.103.13 (talk) 23:33, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hogenakkal Falls is already on record as being one of the lamest edit wars of all time, and I as a participant have to agree to that. However, there is now a question which I think might deserve some attention and possible policy or guideline clarfication. The idea is proposed at Talk:Hogenakkal Falls#Possible need for a consensus on a general policy that we have some sort of explicit guideline or policy regarding what to do with alternate names in other scripts which themselves have some degree of notability. Particularly for areas which have had several different types of scripts dominate, or in areas where multiple scripts are in use today to varying degrees, I think that it would make sense to have some sort of guideline or policy regarding how to deal with such matters. Unfortunately, I haven't got a clue which if any extant policy or guideline would be the best place to propose such a matter. Any opinions, on either the porposed guideline/policy or which extant one would be the best place to propose such a change? John Carter (talk) 16:00, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, as one of the members of the aforementioned lame-men club, it would be a very tricky situation. In all honesty, what extra information does writing the same place name in different languages impart? For the example quoted (Hogenakkal falls), it is still Hogenakkal in both Tamil and Kannada although the word for falls might vary. It would be informative only if it gives a pronunciation guide rather than just the script - which most might not be able to read. As for the ones who can read the script, there are links to those languages Wikipedia to read further. Having said that please let me not be misinterpreted that am implying that alternative language scripts have no use, but rather my point is "I’m not aware of any of such rationale".

In case those scripts being there do have a purpose - is it the language of jurisdiction or the language which contributes to the etymology of the name needs to be spelt out? If there is going to be a uniform rule covering all articles, are we leading to another type of edit war where people can fight over the etymologies. Moreover, what do we do for countries like Indonesia where the name is derived from two languages (Greek and Latin). As for Hogenakkal falls article, I would say that both scripts staying there doesn’t harm anyone (at least would help avoid a bit of edit wars). But to use that as a global norm will only lead to complications. And now that’s my POV. :D Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 09:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Local location names in local scripts should be included, as per Japan.

If people can't agree on where to have it in the lede, move the details to the etymology section, per Wikipedia:Lead section#Alternative names.

Refer to Wikipedia:WikiProject Waterfalls#Article Structure (and ask at its talk) for further info. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As we do for any person whose name may be in his/her's native language in addition to English we can have the article's name in the ledge in both English ( for the universal info / as this is wiki en ) & the local name Tamil should be more than enough . If people want to try other language's like Hindi & Kannada then i too want New Delhi ( cuz we have the parliament there which is common to all the official languages of the nation ) & Bangalore ( cuz we have a sizeable amount of tamil's living there ) in Tamil . Kindly understand that i'am not biased but trying to say that the universal law must be applied or let the universal law change if it goes here alone .--Doctor muthu's muthu ^{wanna talk ?} 17:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should clarify that I was thinking in this particular case of locations which are, effectively in either political or linguistic border regions where more than one local script may be in current use. Obviously, Indian names are the ones which prompted this discussion, but I rather doubt they are the only ones facing this question to some degree or other. I do think having some sort of clarity as to how to deal with such situations might be useful for potentially several articles. John Carter (talk) 14:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think Japan is a good example where it makes sense to have native script in the article. The country is not called Japan in Japan, but Nippon (if am right). If we apply that to Tamil place names, it would make sense for places likeJaffna and Batticaloa which are known in Tamil as Yazhpanam and Mattakalappu. These places are always writen in the "alternate" name in the local language (Tamil) in these regions. Whereas, for cases like Hogenakkal it is still Hogenakkal in Tamil (the official language of the region) or Kannada (the root language of the name). The script give no information what so ever as far as I can see. As I said earlier, I might be completely wrong. Nevertheless, I would like to know why am I wrong. Cheers Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 19:27, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Probably it is a good idea to have a global norm on this issue, but the norm cannot be merely on what alternate sits on the article and what doesn't, but should start from the first question "does the article need alternate scripts in the first place". First let us make sure we understand that alternate names /= alternate script. May be breaking down the issue into smaller questions will help deciding on the "alternate name/script" issue. I have used examples mostly from South Asia.

Q1. Does the place in question have English language alternate names (as used by the English media)?

Example 1: Varanasi is also known as Benares. Both the names mentioned in the article lead.

Example 2: Bangalore was recently christened officially as Bengaluru. This makes the latter an English name as well. But the name Bangalore is still predominantly used in the media. This is an alternate name in English and hence the article on Bangalore says also known as Bengaluru. This is in contrast to Chennai which was earlier called as Madras in English. Although some English media (including the BBC) uses Madras to refer to this city, Chennai is more commonly used. Both names are mentioned in the lead.

Q2. Is the place in question known by a different name locally?

Example 3: Batticalao is locally referred to as Mattakalappu in Tamil. Although Mattakalappu is not an English name, it is the name used by the locals and thus deserves to be added to the lead. Since is it not an English language name it also needs to be mentioned in the native script.

Q3. Is the alternate name non-local and non-English?

Example 4: India is referred to as Kaek in Thai. So Kaek can be India’s alternate name. But since it is non-local and non-English, it really doesn’t need to be added to the article.

In simpler words, the alternate script would make sense only when accompanied by alternate names. And the alternate names make sense only when it is English/local language. Place name etymology should sit in the right section where it needs to be. If the local name and the English name are the same, there is no need of alternate scripts. Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 11:27, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not sure that this requires a change in policy, more like using common sense. The name Hogenekkal is of Kannada origin, the place is on a linguistic border, use common sense and have both. Now, the article of course appears to have an interesting history with quite a bit of nonsensical edits, but this one appears logical, it's not an alternate name, it's just addition of the name in the script of etymological origin/language with a sizable population locally. And on the other front, why is the Tamil script required in the caption for the infobox image? -SpacemanSpiff 17:38, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm fine with having both. But the question is, what extra information does the alternate scripts give to English language Encyclopedia? For a person who can't read Tamil or Kannada, it wouldn't make any sense of those scripts being there. And for those who can, there is a link in the right to read the langauges. As I said, it is very likely that am missing the point. But can you or anyone please explain me the common sense of why we have other language scripts if they are pronounced the same as the English language name. Sorry am not trying to be a pain. Cheers Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 21:21, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If we go with "there's no point in having other scripts", I'm completely fine, but that's not our policy, we have regional scripts for the name in most articles. However, in this particular case we have one script based on the geographic territory but not the one which the name is derived from. Common sense dictates that the script for the language the name is derived from should be included (as is Sanskrit text and IAST for many Sanskrit derived words in different articles). Having only the geographic territory script, but not the etymological roots script is not neutral, it should be either both or nothing, and we don't need to modify policy to address such anomalies. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 21:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I can't agree more with you about having both in case we are to have the scripts. This issue with scripts doesn't stop with Hogenakkal falls article. FYI, when it comes to issue like this I would rather be an inclusionist. Although small the time I spend in Wikipedia, I have come across other editwars in articles on Rajinikanth and Periyar E. V. Ramasamy on the same issue of adding other langauge scripts. Once again the languages were Tamil and Kannada (here, here and here). At that point I did not know about Village pump and hence tried to start a discussion here. Later CarTick (Docku at that time) brought up the same issue on the worth of having other language scripts. I think John Carter is trying to get this sorted for good (sorry John if am putting my words into your mouth). All the drivel I have written here is to make the point that Hogennakkal entry is not a sore thumb, but to the contrary the issue had been going on - although subtle - for a long time now. Its better sorted to avoid anymore edit wars. Cheers Wiki San Roze ^†αLҝ 06:24, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In most cases, these script wars generally tend to be irrelevant. While I don't agree with the solution arrived at on Rajinikanth, it's harmless. The same thing happened on R. K. Narayan where birthplace and scripts were constantly changed, but a talk page discussion ended it, in his case it was pretty straightforward, he was Tamilian, his contributions were in English and a wee bit in Tamil, so the fact that he lived in Karnataka for half his life shouldn't affect scripts. Either ways, I think these discussions are best solved on the talk page, increasing policy lines will just complicate things further. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 06:44, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose extending this topic to every articles talk page would only add vandalism & heated debates which was happening for ages , when there is an article in kannada i fail to see a reason to why we have to add the name's in other language's , when a Russian article is given a [Tamil]] translation then we may add Russian & English to it which is fair cuz the article is a translated stuff but this article is a tamilnadu based one & hence addng the alternative languages may not be necessary .Then why dont we extend the topic to bangalore ( with a sizable tamil population)?? --Doctor muthu's muthu ^{wanna talk ?} 10:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're still missing the point, the name is a Kannada name. -SpacemanSpiff 06:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

not the fullname ...but only a part of it , "kal" is the same in both the languages ...ok then Madras was a Portuguese origin did we have the portuguese translation in the title ?? , trying like this would be fair [1] but anything more would invite nothing but edit fight which has happened since ages in this particular article . ok then what major difference would it bring ??--Doctor muthu's muthu ^{wanna talk ?} 19:07, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BAN currently says "Wikipedians are not permitted to post or edit material at the direction of a banned user, an activity sometimes called "proxying", unless they are able to confirm that the changes are verifiable and they have independent reasons for making them." Would it be helpful to provide a mechanism for banned users to make editing suggestions, with policy amended appropriately? What I have in mind is {{editsuggestion}} - working as {{editprotected}} does. This would be a way for banned users to make suggestions which others may or may not wish pick up. Apart from the actual useful contributions gained (particularly relevant for users banned for behavioural reasons), it would reduce the attractiveness of socking, and increase slightly the long-term chance of banned users being able to come back, with increased maturity and a record of making useful suggestions picked up by others. Rd232 ^talk 01:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification: I conceived the {{editsuggestion}} as something that would need to be added to the user's talk page, as the only relevant place the banned user can edit. Rd232 ^talk 01:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I whole-heartedly support this suggestion, as someone who probably will be banned eventually anyways :-). But a much better suggestion is- how about we stop caring about "behavior" problems and ignore those like me who get heated and pissed at the ignorance and "rudeness" of others? If we cared only about encyclopedic material and not about drama and ignored drama and stopped blocking people for simply being people then Wikipedia would be better. "OMG! Someone called another person a name! I must do something!"; we have no police and shouldnt be proactive, only reactive if there is a complaint. I do alot of good work, its easier to get banned from Wikipedia than it is from AOL, Facebook, or Myspace and this place is not a networking or chatting site. If you see two people "fighting", ignore it instead of getting involved (which will probably only feed the flames anyways; just as in real life). We shouldnt need this suggestion because we shouldnt ban at all anyone who is a good contributor; but since we do ban good contributors with good ideas I guess we do need this suggestion and I support it. Bans and blocks should be reserved for those who do not contribute good edits at articles and only for that reason; anything else is immaterial; if you dont hurt the encyclopedia then you should be allowed to continue. You have the right to ignore me right now for instance.Camelbinky (talk) 01:33, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not persuaded that we're sufficiently desperate to have these users' contributions back — especially when users have been banned for 'behavioural reasons'. If their conduct and interactions with other editors have been sufficiently unpleasant, obnoxious, or atrocious that they've drawn a full-on ban for them, the remaining editors who have had to put up with their abuse, insults, harrassment, incivility, or wikilawyering probably don't want to see them continuing to pop up. Let's be honest — it isn't that difficult to not get banned from Wikipedia. (Really, it's not particularly difficult to avoid ever being blocked.) To pull a ban, you have to be a long way over the line; either you're an unrepentant spammer, or you're completely failing to behave with the minimum common sense and courtesy expected of a functional adult.

For potentially-redeemable cases, we have the Standard offer. I don't think we need to be any more flexible than that. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Standard offer is an essay - and one I've never heard of. And wouldn't giving banned users an outlet make that offer more effective? I take your point about the abuse, but if such a mechanism existed, nobody would have any duty to listen to the abuse, which would be solely limited to their user talk page. oops I didn't mention that! In addition, the existence of this mechanism would make the threat of locking the user talk page more of an actual sanction, and give more incentive to users to behave themselves, both to prevent locking, and to give people a chance to care about their suggestions. Rd232 ^talk 01:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ten of all trades- are you saying that because someone is arrogant, rude, or obnoxious (which I dont think should ever be a reason for being banned, it isnt even a reason to get kicked out high school, at least those decades ago when I was in HS) then someone else who has been on the receiving end of that abuse is going to not want to see good contributions from that rude person? Really? If someone "wronged" me in the past and I saw them doing good constructive edits I would not only forgive and forget I'd be happy that, hey I dont like the guy (or girl) but at least they are good for the encyclopedia and the encyclopedia is better for having them around even if they piss me off. User:Dmcq and I have had our differences, but I see that the user has done some good things at policy discussions lately and while I still dont agree eye-to-eye on alot of fundamental ideology I respect and admire many things lately, though I'm sure Dmcq might be surprised to read I feel that way and that I dont "hate" him. This idea that you cant say you hate someone, you cant show your feelings or frustrations or give an attitude back to those that give you attitude is ridiculous and is trying to control fundamental human nature. If someone contributes good material, allow them to contribute good material and ignore everything else. You dont have to listen to them if you dont want to. Most issues I see result from admins and others trying to "reform" by warning and continuing a discussion instead of walking away. If someone says "I dont feel like discussing it" then dont discuss it! Most things blow over quietly and quickly if left alone instead of making a big deal and pointing things out. Isnt that what most mother's tell their children?Camelbinky (talk) 04:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why thank you, but I disagree with you on this too. I always try and design systems as I describe it so it wouldn't matter if I was run over by a bus. I see no point in having a ban where the person then goes around pestering people to put in things that they were probably getting hassled about anyway before with personal attacks or whatever. Wikipedia is big enough to survive without such contributors and there is usually provision to try letting them edit articles again eventually. The whole point is stop disruption and allow work to continue on the encyclopaedia in an orderly manner. Dmcq (talk) 10:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How would letting people post to their own talk page be disruptive? They can do that anyway. This is just a mechanism for organising that, and explicitly permitting people to act based on suggestions made in this transparent way (dollars to donuts we already have this happening in a non-transparent way). Rd232 ^talk 13:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If people want to write constructively on their user page I don't see that's a problem. However the original poster was looking for some other mechanism which implies a way of getting out of the box, presumably to put some note onto the talk page of an article as I can't see any other place they'd find somebody interested. Wikipedia can live without the contributions for a while, it isn't going to fall in a heap without their contributions and there's no need to bend over backwards when most banned editors are back again in no time flat. What worries me far more is editors getting away with gross incivility because they have made valuable contributions. They spoil the environment and cost wikipedia potential new editors. High editorial ability is not correlated with boorishness as far as I'm aware, an environment where incivility runs riot is not one that such people will wat to be associated with. Overall I believe civility is more important than the contributions of an individual good but uncivil editor. Dmcq (talk) 13:35, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Er, I'm the original poster, and that's not what I meant. I clarified above that the mechanism would be a way of identifying particular "suggestion" notes left on the user's talk page only. The technical solution proposed requires that anyway, since the banned users are blocked and can't post anywhere else. The comparison with {{editprotected}} was for the way that template creates a mechanism to review such notes (which in that template's case are left on article talk pages). Rd232 ^talk 09:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, {{Helpme}} would have been a better comparison; {{editsuggestion}} would just be a more specialised form of that. Technically easy, the discussion is here because it needs a change in policy to permit it. Rd232 ^talk 12:23, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Boorish behavior should be excused or ignored by competent and good contributions seeing as how "boorish" behavior has nothing to do with an encyclopedia. We need to worry only about contributions to articles and not about how someone words. Some of us dont have "people skills" and trust me in the real world many of the best minds havent had people skills. Look at Tiger Woods and cheating, Phelps and smoking weed, Einstein and cheating (or lack of commitment, and lack of caring about his own children), Clinton and cheating, Nixon and... morality. Good contributions can come from people who hate other people. Who cares? This isnt a social networking site and we dont all have to be friends and pretend to all get along to do good work. In fact the majority of drama around here stems from people not minding their own business and prolonging disagreements that should just be ignored and dropped. The only thing things like the Wikittequete board, AN/I, and ArbCom do is perpetuate and continue drama. How does someone calling another editor "an idiot" or worse hamper anyone's ability to add information to an article? However, ACTIONS such as reverting someone for no reason, committing vandalism, continual inclusion to an article of false information, violation of BLP policies, violation and disregarding consensus' reached, and such ARE disruptive of articles and people's ability to edit and should be the ONLY reason to be blocked. This is an encyclopedia, not Facebook; and it is harder to get kicked off Facebook for uncivil behavior than it is on Wikipedia.Camelbinky (talk) 23:04, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and the idea that banned users suggestions wouldnt be listened to anyways is not true; if I were to be blocked tomorrow I guarentee that suggestions and sources and information I put on my talk page would be used. If there's anything I'm good at its researching and adding good information to an article. And that is the only thing that matters on Wikipedia. The content you put into articles; and not anything else. Editors and especially admins would do well to remember that. Personally I think this proposal should be expanded to allow blocked users to edit any subpages off their userpage so they can continue to make sandbox articles that others can then bring to mainspace. I also guarentee if I was banned every single article I created that way would be snatched up. So, really if someone was like me, and got banned, but was still seen as a great asset...why should they be banned? Because some people get "offended"? That's their problem, not the encyclopedia's.Camelbinky (talk) 01:24, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Under the current system users listening to your whilst-banned suggestions could get in trouble. I'd be fine with the subpage idea, as long as it was something that could be turned off if abused (like editing your own talk page, if abused). Rd232 ^talk 12:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually an idea that I had been considering proposing myself, so I obviously support it. A major burden on the wiki is banned users returning to make legitimate contributions. If there were a way to let them contribute productively while removing the possibility of disruption (if they abuse the template they can have talk page editing disabled), it would help significantly. The Wordsmith^Communicate 04:34, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose Banned users have been banned for a reason, and offering them redemption just doesn't work because it encourages them to stay involved in the project. If we have taken the step of banning them, we don't want their help and we should encourage them to move on to something else. SDY (talk) 06:19, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  And yet Wikipedia:Standard offer is an essay which is not infrequently cited. Rd232 ^talk 23:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The proposed idea is essentially digital meatpuppeting, which isn't that much different than the socking that the standard offer rejects. SDY (talk) 00:58, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No it isn't - see Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppets. Quoting and bolding key points: "Do not recruit meatpuppets. It is considered inappropriate to advertise Wikipedia articles to your friends, family members, or communities of people who agree with you for the purpose of coming to Wikipedia and supporting your side of a debate. If you feel that a debate is ignoring your voice, remain civil, seek comments from other Wikipedians, or pursue dispute resolution." Rd232 ^talk 09:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Names and literal meanings aside, and on the most basic level, this is editing-by-proxy. Banned should mean no editing at all, regardless of how it is done. They wouldn't have been banned if their presence was felt to be helpful. A distinction could be made between people banned for vandalism and mischief or civility issues as opposed to those who are banned for trying to use the site to push an agenda. Those who are banned for tendentious editing should not be encouraged to recruit someone else to continue the edit war for them. SDY (talk) 11:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

it's not "editing-by-proxy". It's providing an onwiki channel for transparently making suggestions, which may or may not be acted on, depending on whether anyone bothers to look and whether they think the suggestions are any good. Currently there is no such onwiki channel - however there are many alternative channels (most obviously email to Wikipedian friends, actual meatpuppetry via RL friends, and outright socking). Is this mechanism better or worse than that? PS if you're talking about "recruiting" to "continue the edit war" then you really seem to be missing the point. The channel is supposed to be an open and transparent means of providing information which can be evaluated by many people, not just whoever the banned user has contacted by email. Any users choosing to act on such suggestions would remain responsible for that decision, and could be held accountable because the suggestions would be onwiki. Rd232 ^talk 12:08, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't agree, but I concede that it can be seen several ways. Out of curiosity, what happens if said banned user uses this limited editing ability solely to engage in personal attacks and other incivility? Do we ban them from being banned? SDY (talk) 17:32, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, then we reblock with talk page editing disabled, the same as we do for abuse of the {{unblock}} template. The Wordsmith^Communicate 17:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing that that will happen with no small frequency, given the editors I've dealt with who have later been banned. Burning out the mop-wielders dealing with people whose bad faith has already been demonstrated doesn't seem helpful, but I guess most of them have pretty thick skin to begin with. SDY (talk) 18:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support the proposal. Meatpuppets are a complete different thing, as this system would be transparent and wouldn't involve consensus-building topics (well, it seems as a logical side-effect, but users using this system should refrain from involving themselves in controversial edits). MBelgrano (talk) 14:05, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I would oppose this. If a banned user wants to, on their own, contact someone to make an edit, they can do so. We don't need to go out of our way to assist banned users after they've already wasted so much of our time. Mr.Z-man 21:49, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "If a banned user wants to, on their own, contact someone to make an edit, they can do so." - as I understand it, currently this would be held against both the banned user and the user acting based on the banned user's prompting, regardless of the merits. Hence the issue of changing policy to permit this, when through an appropriate, transparent mechanism. Scroll back to my initial post on why we should go out of our way to create a simple mechanism like that to give banned users an outlet - an outlet which then may or may not be effective (needs people to monitor it) - but worst case it has no effect, in which case it's surely not doing any harm. Rd232 ^talk 22:13, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, in the worst case it gets more disruption and trolling than useful edits and becomes a net negative. Mr.Z-man 22:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how. The banned user can only post to their talk page, and anyone picking up their suggestions is responsible for that decision and subject to the same sanctions as they would if it were their own information. And the option of locking the user talk page remains. Rd232 ^talk 19:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, many of you know me. I am (egotistical) and a good editor, I dont vandalize, edit war, make bad articles, or otherwise disrupt or ruin articles. In fact with help from several editors I have made lots of great articles, expanded others, and turned crappy ones into great ones. I dare anyone to show that my editing of articles has been a negative. My personality though, to those that piss me off because in my opinion their views are bad or I just dont think they are good editors, is harsh and not tolerant of them and can get mean and abusive. So, if I'm banned is it a net negative that I'm not able to contribute? Hell freakin yea; would allowing me to create subpages where I can continue to create new articles and list sources and information I have found for others to use and put into mainspace be a net positive? Hell freakin yea. Yes, as with anything there will be those who abuse the new system, those will be ignored and their suggestions not picked up even if the priveledge isnt taken away of editing their talk page and subpages. Being banned for incivility doesnt make your contributions bad. It means you dont work well with others you find annoying. Guess what? Neither did Einstein, Bill Gates, Richard Nixon, Robert Moses, and most of the most successful men (and women) who have ever lived. People are annoying, some of us dont have the ability to deal with them and we get snippy snappy and we bite. Allow good contributors to contribute if you are going to continue to ban for incivility. Which you shouldnt, because its ridiculous and unnecessary; I can say worse things to my boss' face and not get fired than I can on Wikipedia (and why? Cuz I'm damn good at work too, and good work DOES excuse bad social skills in the real world).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Camelbinky (talk • contribs)

This isn't just an encyclopedia, it's also a community for building an encyclopedia, and a community cannot function without basic civility. You can't have it both ways. If you're skilled at editing articles there is no excuse for not being able to edit your personal comments appropriately. Pillar 4. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

When you are rude to an editor you are rude to a volunteer and a potential finacial contributer to the project. Speak to folks the way you want to be spoken to, or better yet the way you want folks to speak to your grandmother. People are here because they want to work on an encyclopedia, a few words of encoragement and constructive criticism can go a long way in nurturing productive editors. BTW, I have fired productive workers who disrupted the harmony of the workplace with bad attitudes. Happy Holidays to all.J04n(talk page) 13:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most banned users, especially by the time they're banned, are not especially good content contributors. That's usually the reason we finally lose patience, when we notice that they're being disruptive but they also haven't contributed anything useful in months. Mr.Z-man 17:43, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To reiterate the above, we don't edit in a vacuum. Because this is a collaborative project, the manner with which we interact with one another can have a beneficial or detrimental effect on the project. Which is not to say we should (or do) cater to those with the thinnest skin. I doubt any online forums are completely lacking in snark or sarcasm, and even the most level-headed among us are still human. But if someone is banned because of their conduct, it was obviously recognized as a significant and continuing problem by a significant number, and the loss of that one banned editor shouldn't be viewed as a net loss. Such editors have been declared impossible to work with constructively, and threaten to drive many good editors away if they are suffered to remain. No one is so indispensable to the project that they get free rein to be an asshole. postdlf (talk) 18:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's an argument for banning people if necessary. How is it an argument against providing a mechanism to organise/evaluate thoughts banned users may still contribute on their user talk page? How is it an argument against permitting other, non-banned users to pick up any useful info provided in this transparent manner and run with it as they see fit? Rd232 ^talk 19:16, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was responding to Camelbinky's post, not to anything you wrote. Notwithstanding that, I would think a ban means the community has decided that user has lost the chance to "share his thoughts" after many such opportunities proved unfruitful. postdlf (talk) 01:03, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In summary, I don't think we should waste our time creating a system to enable people who enjoy wasting our time to waste more of our time. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would say "creating and maintaining a system" but otherwise I agree totally. SDY (talk) 12:57, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ILLEGIT has the following to say:

Editing project space: Alternate accounts should not edit policies, guidelines, or their talk pages; comment in Arbitration proceedings; or vote in requests for adminship, deletion debates, or elections.

As an admin, I maintain a declared alternate account (User:Nyttend backup) for use when I'm on public computers, so that my main account's password can't be stolen by keylogging or by my forgetting to log out when I'm done. Should I interpret this statement to say that I'm not allowed to participate at AFD or RFA when I'm using a public computer? Between the name of the account and the content of the userpage (essentially nothing more than "this is an alternative account of Nyttend" and "please tell me if this account starts to misbehave"), there's no way that anyone could be deceived into thinking that Nyttend backup is anyone but me. Accordingly, is there any good reason that I shouldn't be allowed to participate in discussions with my backup account? Nyttend (talk) 00:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd say as long as it's _really_ clear (and perhaps "Nyttend Alt Account" would be a clearer name) it would probably be fine, though I'd suggest it should be avoided when possible. Obviously both accounts should acknowledge each other, and in anything controversial you might want to clarify it's an alt account being used for security in the sig. My 2 cents. Hobit (talk) 04:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I agree with Nyttend, that language is bad (and fairly recent). The rule is about creating confusion and duplication by using undisclosed accounts. There should be no problem using both "Nyttend" and "Nyttend backup" editing projectspace as long as you aren't confusing anyone into thinking these are different people. Dragons flight (talk) 09:06, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• I think that the primary concern is using both of your accounts in the same vote-oriented process (e.g., RfA). But as to which one to use -- who is to say which is the 'real' account, after all? If the names weren't so obviously similar, you could reduce some confusion by giving identical signatures to all of your accounts (and thus being visibly "Nyttend" in all signed discussions), but I think this unnecessary in this instance. As a more general comment, I also don't see any good reason for saying that editors shouldn't be allowed to edit, e.g., WikiProject pages (which are in the 'project space') or similar pages from alt accounts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I think the solution to this would be to use identical signatures, but to append "(public computer)" to the alt account. As long as you're not trying to mislead anyone, and the accounts are linked, and they're not both voting, it should be alright. The Wordsmith^Communicate 23:15, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Should AWB be used to remove wholesale words listed in WP:Words to avoid? The specific case here is the use of AWB to remove every instance of "untimely" preceding "death". While "untimely" does have POV connotations which has earned it a place in the words to avoid list, it does alter the meaning of the statement to remove it. The revised statements no longer communicate that the death was premature. Related discussion here and here. Gigs (talk) 19:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IMO yes, but the last occasion something similar was tried under AWB, to my knowledge, led to this discussion and the parking of the issue as an unfulfilled feature request. So good luck with it. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:20, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the discussion link. As luck would have it, the same user recently did a mass change with AWB to change all instances of "passed away" to "died", so I guess history really is repeating itself. Gigs (talk)

That is what AWB is for. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:08, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As long as care is taken to not replace it when used in quotes, I see no problem with this. Fram (talk) 09:25, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

← Please note that the "AWB" part of this discussion is irrelevant. No one (to my knowledge) has suggested that this be included in AWB's typo fixes or general fixes, or that an AWB bot be set loose to do it. AWB is just a tool which helps to perform tasks faster, easier, and more accurately. Similarly, the discussion linked to above is not relevant to this issue, as it was about changing "passed away" to "died" as an AWB typo fix. AWB does not currently do that, and I wholeheartedly agree that it should not.

As for the real question of whether the edits should be made, rather than repeat myself, please see my comments. Short version: yes, with care.

Also, please note that characterizing me as removing "every instance" of "untimely" and changing "all instances" of "passed away" is not true. I only make the change when it's appropriate. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 10:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't doubt your good intentions. The AWB part is not irrelevant; AWB is only supposed to be used for non-controversial changes that don't change the meaning of text. What you have been doing is both of those. You are right in that the earlier discussion was slightly different, but the discussion isn't irrelevant, the same concerns apply. There is no way that you can judge the context of these when you are doing 6 of them per minute. 10 seconds is not enough time for you to decide whether the passage is losing meaning by the removal of words. If you were doing these slowly and replacing "untimely" with "young" or "early" when it's more appropriate, or something else that, then we wouldn't be here. Gigs (talk) 13:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think untimely always means young or early or even unnatural or unexpected. Besides which, young is incapable of being defined in this context. Untimely is always pov and unencyclopedic unless it is part of a title or quotation. Kittybrewster ☎ 14:17, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia: the only encyclopedia in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year. A systematic quest to erase the existence of certain words in the encyclopedia is very different than simply having a style guide discouraging their use. Gigs (talk) 14:34, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bad idea in almost every respect. AWB is only tolerable because most of its edits are non-controversial (e.g. a blank space before a comma). The idea of having the Usage and Style Police (USPol) patrolling articles in general for perceived lapses in style, taste or judgement is abhorrent. That's very different from keeping an eye out for profanities, obscenities or racial epithets that are a strong indicator of malicious vandalism. Let the editors decide, and if someone's who's reading the article for some other reason dislikes some euphemism, let it be hashed out on the Talk Page. If there be an Almighty, then perhaps all deaths are untimely, or all are timely, or some are timely and others untimely. And a death can be untimely for a group of people that the decedent has affected, or even for the decedent himself or herself, e.g. just at the point of finishing a masterwork or reconciling with an estranged loved one or leaving prison after exoneration from someone else's crime.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shakescene (talk • contribs) 05:44, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agree: A bot should never, ever be changing "content", as in the actual text or wording of anything. Never. Period. Just because things are words to avoid doesn't means they're words that should be essentially enforced by oversight. The words are occasionally appropriate in some contexts, or used in normal conversation, as well. I'd revert any and all edits I ever saw performed on my edits in this way. This would most certainly never get wider community acceptance, either, given there have been several recent incidents of SmackBot operators sneaking in a change in reference formatting in articles and the bot being shut off immediately after discovery. General consensus was that even that is far too much involvement of a bot into the actual text or code of an article. ♪ daTheisen(talk) 06:53, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Datheisen, to be clear, we aren't talking about a fully automated bot, we are talking about semi-automated AWB-assisted edits. IMO many of the same concerns apply, but I wanted to point that out so that no one is confused. Gigs (talk) 14:30, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gigs is breaching WP:CANVASS. Kittybrewster ☎ 10:02, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I notified the previous participants in related conversations in a neutral way. The discussion here had stalled so I solicited input from a few editors who had interest in the topic. This is not improper canvassing. Gigs (talk) 14:18, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It seemed to me (on almost no information) to be a neutral notification. I don't think that I or Baseball Bugs was notified in the expectation that I or he would necessarily agree with the proposal, which we don't. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think any pattern should be set for the unthinking removal of "untimely" as in "untimely death." I don't approve of the phrase, but it is always possible that an instance can arise in which that phrase is perfect. Bus stop (talk) 14:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with that. Using any sort of automated or semi-automated process to remove particular words is to open a can of worms. It should remain up to editorial judgment. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I've been invited to comment here: Removing such terms in a fully automated way (with bots or the "typo fixes" list) should be an absolute no-no, I think we can agree on that. I'm not so sure about semi-automated removal. In the end, everyone is responsible for the edits that he/she is making, whether AWB was used or not. Care must be taken not to make any mistakes either way. --Conti|✉ 15:23, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think a better solution would be to have a bot look for this pattern and then record all articles where this happens (on a user subpage?). Then a real person can manually look through and fix it where necessary. The Wordsmith^Communicate 16:22, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I dislike even that approach. It's not the kind of thing that should be trawled for blindly. If someone actually reads the article and comes across a jarring, clumsy or inappropriate phrase that doesn't fit the context, he or she can edit it with the backing of a previous consensus on Words to Avoid. Other editors can explain why they disagree with that point of view, or what makes a particular death untimely. —— Shakescene (talk) 19:26, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bots are supremely able to take reasonable prose and make it unreadable. When it comes to choosing precise words, I suggest a human is superior to any bot with an automatic response to seeing a particular set of letters. Collect (talk) 23:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with the above comments against the use of bots or tools like AWB to alter language in a way other than fixing obvious typos. Individualized editorial judgment is always a must for phrasing choices rather than drive-by mass editing.

On the issue of "untimely" as a word choice, there may be better ways to express it, but what it most clearly communicates to me is that the death was substantially before the life expectancy for that individual's demographic at that time in history. So if used in that sense it isn't subjective. postdlf (talk) 16:40, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In which case it would need to be supported by a WP:RS. Kittybrewster ☎ 00:52, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We don't require sources for every statement on Wikipedia, only "quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged..." (per WP:V) and I think it's pretty clear that this policy envisions challenges being issued by a human editor, not a bot. --agr (talk) 01:46, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's appropriate to use semi-automated processes to remove words listed in WP:Words to avoid or any similar value-judgement editing. I'd like to see bots/AWB/scripts limited to specified and approved tasks that editors have agreed are completely non-controversial, (and when necessary thoroughly discussed, as for example the current date delinking bot runs.) --Kleinzach 00:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are those policies written by Wikipedia's lawyer(s)? How would one go about having part of one rewritten so its meaning is clear, where it does not appear to be clear at present? WP:LINKVIO is being discussed at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Scribd_links.3F and it seems like something WP's lawyer(s) should address, not Wikipedians guessing at what the correct legal course of action is. Wikipedia_talk:Template_messages/User_talk_namespace#Suicide_response_template_needed is something that seems like it should be run by a lawyer too. Шизомби (talk) 20:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Could point them out to Mike Godwin. Fences&Windows 02:13, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Responses to threats of suicide should be drafted by a lawyer. I like that. ;-) Reminds me of the story of the doctor who stopped by an accident and treated an unconsious person beside it - and was later sued for treating them without their consent. Dmcq (talk) 14:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Add your take on our policy pages to the Policy Report in the Signpost. - Dank (push to talk) 14:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Week of Dec 21-28: WT:Biographies of living persons#Signpost Policy Report

I'm putting forward this new idea to implement targeted flagging on low-watched BLPs. It avoids the complicated proposal of WP:FRPR and does not need massive development delays. Please look and comment on it.--Scott Mac (Doc) 16:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Subject specific Notability Guidelines (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This one as well. (Incidentally, if redirecting to category pages, it seems you have to put a colon before "Category:" to stop the redirect showing up in the category.)--Kotniski (talk) 08:08, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I found an image online, that I'd like to use in an article. It's a pre-1900 photo of a US subject. That makes it public domain. I found it at a US university's historical society website, and the image is stamped with their name. What's the protocol? Do I ask them for an unstamped version? Do I use this one until then? Do I Photoshop out their name? -Freekee (talk) 04:06, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried finding the same image on a different website, one that might not have their logo stamped on it? Which is pretty dickish of the university to do. If its something like a postcard alot of times you can find those on eBay because someone is selling it, I've found alot of images that way. The photo may be in archives of the Library of Congress (a link to the LOC and how to use their images is at this wikiproject). Sorry cant answer your question though.Camelbinky (talk) 04:58, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the tip. I've added the site to my bookmarks. It didn't help me out this time, though. -Freekee (talk) 03:51, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have a question, since the documentation on {{holdon}} doesn't mention it. Who is allowed to remove the template? I ask since I tagged a hold on to a CSD candidate, and the CSD nominator deleted my hold on after I added it.

70.29.211.9 (talk) 05:43, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you quite done complaining about every little thing all over the place? It was removed by accident. Chill out and try some good faith or eggnog or something. I'm doing so in not suspecting you are not just some random IP that you keep plastering pointless and silly complaints all over the VPs everywhere.-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:46, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reverted 2 edits by 70.29.211.9; Rv; IP doesn't know what he's talking about. using TW does not seem like an accident to me. [2] I do apologize for making a mistake on the restore of my hang-on though. And why is it silly? Shouldn't there be mention about who is allowed to remove the hold-on? I'd like to know regardless of why you removed it, who is allowed to remove it and when, since it would be informative. I thought I'd ask some third parties on the issue of talk page archival as well. 70.29.211.9 (talk) 05:56, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Its removed by the deciding admin if they decline it. It can also be removed by anyone if it lacks an explanation (i.e. someone just put the tag with nothing with it), or if the page is not actually under CSD. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:59, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A talk page does not have its own talk page, so it was attached to a {{tmbox}} beneath the {{holdon}}, which you also removed when you reverted my hold-on. It is evident in edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Primeverse/Archive_1&oldid=333920137 . So you removed it because you didn't see the tmbox? 70.29.211.9 (talk) 06:03, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Once the holdon template has been added to a page marked for speedy deletion, there are 2 possible outcomes for the administrator: either he declines deletion and removes both templates, or accepts it and delete the page if the original rationale was correct (as pointed by the template itself, "holdon" is not binding, and doesn't prevent from deletion an otherwise clear SD page). I hardly see a reason to remove just the holdon template and keep the other: all possible circumstances for it (like no explanation, unacceptable explanation, etc.) are up to the admin to check. Even more, the user who placed a speedy deletion template to a page should never remove a holdon template added to it: it may be conceived as some kind of edit warring in order to get a page deleted by concealing to the admin the disagreement about the deletion MBelgrano (talk) 18:25, 25 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MBelgrano, perhaps you can answer this since I havent had an article of mine put up for deletion in two years and so am not well versed in the matter- a speedy deletion is for deletions that are uncontested if I understand correctly, wouldnt a holdon template mean that it is now contested and should go to AfD instead of the Admin making a unilateral decision? Wouldnt that be the best way to settle a dispute instead of one Admin making the decision based solely on two individuals explanations (or lack thereof).Camelbinky (talk) 03:43, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, if a page can be speedily deleted or not is determined by fitting or not the Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion. The choice is of a "black & white" kind, if an article falls in the "shades of grey", then there's no speedy deletion. There may be deletion anyway, but with other non-speedy process. Chech A7 for example. A speedy deletion isn't denied simply if the creator opposes, but if he opposes with a credible reason. This isn't about hand-raising, have in mind that, except for tests, no deletion is truly uncontested: for each page in wikipedia there's at least one user (the creator) that thinks that such page should exist. MBelgrano (talk) 04:09, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I didnt think about it that way. Thank you, that was very informative. I like learning new things. Very interesting.Camelbinky (talk) 04:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On 18:08, 6 December 2009, on Wikipedia talk:No original research I suggested that WP:PSTS should be a separate guideline, rather than a section of WP:NOR. This got some approval on the talk page, including at Wikipedia talk:No original research#Renewing the call to move PSTS, so I have created a draft page at User:Yaris678/PSTS. Take a look! I'd like to know what people think. Yaris678 (talk) 14:24, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As the author of "Renewing the call" thread pointed to above... I obviously approve of this proposed move. Having WP:PSTS as part of the NOR policy has repeatedly resulted in editors mistakenly concluding that citation to Primary (or Tertiary) sources is in some way "not allowed"... that material cited to anything but a Secondary source is automaticlally OR... when that is not the case. Furthermore, moving the section to its own policy or guideline page will allow us to expand into other areas that impact or are impacted by source typing. Blueboar (talk) 21:49, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PSTS should stay in WP:NOR, as it derives solely and directly from WP:NOR, and is extremely important to building articles. However, it could be abbreviated and linked to a guideline, "Wikipedia:Interpreting WP:PSTS". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I said something similar on the NOR talk page, linked to above. I certainly wouldn't object to also creating a separate guideline, though. I wouldn't use a name utilizing abbreviations though. I would recommend something like Wikipedia:Classifying sources.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 22:35, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think in practice there isn't much difference between my proposal and SmokeyJoe's. I haven't explicitly stated this before but I will now: Under my proposal WP:NOR would still mention primary, secondary and tertiary sources briefly. It would also link to the new page on the subject. Yaris678 (talk) 22:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a {{Main}} link to the current section on NOR would almost be mandatory. I don't think that the current section within NOR ought to be summarized or shortened at all though, as it's a central component towards understanding the NOR concept.
— V = I * R (talk to Ω) 22:43, 27 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ω, I disagree with you there. For example, there wouldn't be much point in defining primary, secondary and tertiary sources in WP:NOR when anyone who is unsure could go to the new page. Yaris678 (talk) 00:05, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you read the whole NOR document then the section on PST sources fits in directly with the other content. As a matter of fact, that section should probably be indented one more level to become a sub-section of the "Using sources" section (or somehow better integrated into that sub-section). It's inclusion in it's present form is vital to understanding the whole document. That being said, a separate document specifically about Using/Classifying/Interpreting sources for use on Wikipedia is easily supportable, and should probably include much more detailed information which pulls together components of WP:NOR, WP:Verifiability, and WP:Reliable Sources. All three are closely related when it comes to sources.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 00:24, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

just saying thanks and stuff,wikipedia`s policy of secondary source listing makes it really easy for me to research state law statutes.....And other important stuff

Also i dont see why people complain about the notability requirement,if they want to see that info so bad,why dont they make there own website or something,freewebs is pretty easy to use....Anyways,thanks for the informative info wikipedia community ^^