Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 2

• Village pump
  • Policy
  • Technical
  • Proposals (persistent)
  • Idea lab
  • WMF
  • Miscellaneous

Village pump (miscellaneous) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (miscellaneous). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

---

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80

'New message' talk page header {Usertalkback} in std fmt

Little thingy for those who dislike fragmented user discussions:

• {{Usertalkback}}
• {{Usertalkback|small=yes}}

(Of course the "leave me a new message" link doesn't work properly on this page.)

It follows the standard format of Wikipedia:Talk page templates, contrary to the others I found. Options and more at the documentation for {{Usertalkback}}, including a "See also" with all similar templates I found. — Komusou ^talk @ 19:48, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

P.S.: But then, if you do prefer fragmented discussions:

• {{Usertalkback|you=other|me=other|runon=yes|icon=frag}}
• {{Usertalkback|you=other|me=other|runon=yes|icon=frag|small=yes}}

— Komusou ^talk @ 23:20, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

POTY

The Wikimedia Commons is currently preparing the 2007 Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year contest. We are now requesting users for help with the translation of the contest pages to the 14 most-widely spoken languages. You can find more information about this here. If you know a language mentioned there or know someone who does, please help out!

For the Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Year committee,

Agüeybaná (talk) 02:05, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Suite Gothique

Why the "Suite Gothique" of Léon Boëllmann have this name?

Please at such questions at the reference desk, not here. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:55, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Templates and royalty

Any good idea can be turned into a bad one if you try hard enough. Templates and biographical articles seem to be an example in progress. If I look at Stephen of England, there is no point at which some template or other is not taking up part of the page. We start with {{Infobox Monarch}}, then there's {{House of Normandy}}, then a home-grown version of {{Ahnentafel3}}, then some succession boxes, a family information box which duplicates much of the ahnentafel, and finally {{English Monarchs}}. I've started a little discussion of this phenomenon at Talk:Louis V of France. If you have any view on this, do pop over and leave a note. Many thanks, Angus McLellan (Talk) 16:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

138.77.2.130 and Central Queensland Universitaly

The above Uni has said in reply to a SPAM warning the following: "Staff members - lecturers, librarians, ect - often vandalise articles in front of the students to demonstrate their belief that wikipedia is not a reliable source. The uni doesn't seem too interested in not being blocked. This varies by faculty but is more or less true of the majority." I have explained that we cannot take these edits, and will block if needed. Has anyone got any ideas on how to control this Uni? (this IP needs watching between 9am → 5pm) -- Whiteandnerdy111 (talk) 19:59, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

List of suicides

People please watchlist this article. I don't edit much anymore, but I'm looking through it, and it has just a sick amount of vandalism in it, and no one is watching it. Thanks. The Evil Spartan (talk) 00:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Disambiguous

Why does Wikipedia use the made up word "disambiguous".

Why use a word that does not exist and more importantly; why create a word when other word with the same meaning exist already? —Preceding unsigned comment added by James Mead (talk • contribs) 20:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Every network has its own jargon. I doubt if you would find "wikify" in a dictionary, either. But what word with the same meaning as disambiguous exists? Corvus cornix (talk) 22:46, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Article 2^21

For the mathematics and computer geeks among us, Wikipedia has exceeded 2,097,152 = 2^21 articles. By an extremely rough calculation (looking at the current number of articles and counting the difference back in Special:Newpages), I get cryptologist Daniel Bleichenbacher as the article in question. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 22:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

And when did we hit 2^20? :) -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 22:45, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Given that that's 1,048,576, that would have happened a few months/weeks after the millionth article, Jordanhill railway station. Given that happened in November 2006, I'd guess around late December/early January. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 23:32, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

How do we create a NEW word that represents a new concept?

I have been trying to research the correct way to create new words in English n Wikipedia that are representative of new ways of looking at and doing as a result of the new capabilities of internet technology.

What is the correct way to begin? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gutzywoman (talk • contribs) 05:27, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

In general, Wikipedia doesn't allow neologisms that haven't been used by a reliable source. Feezo (Talk) 22:22, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

(Giggle!) --207.176.159.90 (talk) 02:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Different kettle. We're talking about articles, not internal jargon. Feezo (Talk) 04:39, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I know, I just found the near-juxtaposition of the two questions amusing. --207.176.159.90 (talk) 05:02, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I keep getting email

that says someone, probably me, (not) has changed my password. Why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.231.239.206 (talk) 12:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone has tried to log into your account, and since they don't know they password, they've tried the "E-mail my password" button. This does them no good, because (a) it goes to your email address, so they can't see it, and (b) your old password doesn't get changed automatically, the email just contains a temporary password to allow you to log in to your account and change it yourself. So, essentially, ignore the emails. If they keep coming, you can see if you can do something with the information the email provides to identify the person making the password requests. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ConMan (talk • contribs) 00:21, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You say that temporary password live along with the old/original one? If so, then the reset email that is being sent, should explicitly mention that if it wasn't you (willing to reset password) just ignore the email. It happens to me quite often that someone is trying to reset my password (maybe by mistake, or maybe it is hacking attempt). The email (written in polish, my native language - haven't tried how it looks like in english) doesn't mention that the password is only temporal, and I may ignore it to keep my previous password.

Could the donation banner encourage vandalisim

I have noticed a recent rise in vandalisim since the donation banner was put up and I believe the donation banner might have something to do with it. I believe that this banner puts mischeivious thoughts into the heads of the vandals. When they see the banner and the great quotes, they are even more motivated to destroy the project. Perhaps Wikipedia:The Motivation of a Vandal might give us some answers. Your thoughts? Marlith ^T/C 01:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it is the weather, or wind direction doing it? Just kidding, but I wouldn't think the banner would make people want to vandalize. - Rjd0060 (talk) 02:59, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Google Book search links

Do we have a policy on including a link to a Google Books search within a reference? For instance, on List of animals displaying homosexual behavior, many of the refs look like this:

Bagemihl, Bruce (1999), Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity: Fruit Fly., St. Martin's Press, p. 3, ISBN 031225377X, retrieved 2007-11-20

I think the link might have originally brought you to the specific page referenced, but it doesn't seem to do so now. Anyway, just curious as to whether those links were accaptible, were a copyright vio, or what. If possible, could a reply be posted on my talk page? Thanks! -- SatyrTN (talk | contribs) 16:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

It's a book cite, so the links are entirely optional. I personally prefer not to use them, but I don't think we have a policy on them; perhaps we should. --Golbez (talk) 16:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

FYI, the original links generally don't work unless the search was very specific looking for a phrase within the book that would then direct you to the first page that the terms appeared. In the above case we have converted almost every link to the Harvard format so only the bibliography still has a link. I personally much prefer we keep at least some link to any book when possible in hopes that others can verify the research and potentially expand on same. Benjiboi 22:12, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

If wikipedia is not a dictionary, how come we keep seeing pronunciation guides at the top of the pages? Is it because the Encyclopædia Brittanica does something like that? The pronunciation guide is less than helpful for me, as I haven't memorized the pronunciation glyphs. So it's just so much disruptive text in the lead. (Sorry.) — RJH (talk) 17:36, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

That's because an encyclopedia is more than a dictionary. In other words there's nothing wrong with a WP article containing dictionary information as long as it's particularly significant for the topic and as long as that's not the only thing that the article contains. In fact several articles contain discussions on the etymology, pronunciation or spelling of a word -- take a look at Hogmanay, yoghurt and Celts -- and that's fine because all three of those articles also contain discussion on other aspects of their main topic. The only place where there's a problem is with an article which contains only dictionary information, or where the dictionary information is not that out-of-the-ordinary. You wouldn't expect a pronunciation guide in the Land article for instance. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:12, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

• What you call pronunciation glyphs is actually called IPA and I totally agree they are no help at all. That's why I recommend people to provide sound pronunciation files wherever possible. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:16, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Editorial banners at the top of pages are annoying and irrelevant to subject matter

I don't know if other people feel the same way but I find the complaint banners that frequently appear at the tops of pages to be annoying, distracting and irrelevant. These banners are for example: COI (conflict of interest), Cleanup (article needs cleanup), Citation (article needs more citations), sources etc, etc, etc. These editorial banners belong in the comments on an article, not in its text.

Frankly I think these editorial comments/complaints don't belong at the top of the page. They are distracting and really don't have anything to do with the topic. When I go to a topic I want to read about the topic, not read some wannabe editors opinion about the article's shortcomings. These banners remind me of "site under construction" notices on amateur web pages. Well, guess what? The whole web is "under construction", we don't need a message to inform us of that fact.

If an armchair editor thinks an article needs more evidence the proper response is to provide it instead of whining about a lack of evidence. In all honesty you could put a "Citation" complaint on every single article in the Wikipedia, so they are somewhat meaningless I think.

I realize that page editors can put these notices wherever they want so there may be no easy way to direct them, say to the bottom of the page where they may be less distracting.

Perhaps, the best solution would be to relegate the use of these editorial banners to the comments page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.248.107.194 (talk) 20:19, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The reason why these banners are put on the article page and not the talk page is because if there's a major problem with the article e.g. it's unsourced, it's important for the reader to be aware of this so they know not to rely on the article too heavily. Tra (Talk) 20:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

That's a legitimate comment for a couple of the banners - unsourced, NPOV - but only a couple. It's no good for the wild proliferation of banners that slap-happy style nazis toss around - there aren't enough section headers! it needs to be longer! it needs to be wiki-style! it needs more semi-colons! (OK, I made up that last one). I heartily agree with the above anonymous IP's comment; they are a blight and a real obstacle to readers. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 20:49, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL. Corvus cornix_talk 22:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tra here. I cannot think of one that isn't useful. They are a great way to categorize pages that need work. I know, there could be a way to categorize it without the big banner, but that wouldn't work as good. This is because those banners encourage users (especially new users and IP's) to do the work on the page that the banner suggests. Only the "more experienced" users know that all they have to do is go to Category:Articles with unsourced statements since November 2007 to see a list of articles needing references, etc.. - Rjd0060 (talk) 05:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

They often are used that way on purpose. The NPOV tag, in particular, provides a legally permissible avenue for an obstreperous editor to deface an article that doesn't support his POV. Raymond Arritt (talk) 05:27, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. If the person who put the tag on the article doesn't explain their reasoning on the Talk page, then it should be removed immediately. But if they're discussing the POV problem on the Talk page, then the tag should stay until there is a resolution. If there is no resolution, then there should be an RfC filed. Corvus cornix_talk 22:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I can see the point of most of the banners, but I also feel that they are too big, and æsthetically they are a disaster. Not enough emphasis is put upon æsthetics in my opinion. An encyclopædia which is pleasing to the eye will be better respected and more enjoyable to use. DuncanHill (talk) 05:35, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I must admit some of the banners are annoying and I almost always try to eliminate when there is a small pile of them. However, I do appreciate them signifying that this article is flawed in some way (even it it's just tone is off) and should not be considered complete but more accurately under construction. If you feel one is unwarranted then remove it and add a note to talk page that if re-added should be accompanied by actual talk of what needs to be addressed. Sometimes items are tagged then forgotten or it could be an editor venting POV. Benjiboi 22:13, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I kill the trivial ones (subjective issues like perceived lack of wiki style) and watch the article ... not once have I seen somebody show up soon after and replace the banner, questioning the disappearance on the Talk page or in the Edit Summary. This tells me the ugly things are usually slapped down by passers-by in place of editing, not as a spur to improve things.

Except for banners that warn readers about the reliability of an article (not just its tone or style or completeness), I believe banners should always be placed on the talk page with a good Edit Summary, alerting other editors to their presence. That way they won't interfere with readers but will display your concerns to those who wish to do some editing.

Even better, of course, is to make the improvements you think are needed instead of just telling other people to make them. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 00:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Well in a perfect world encyclopedia prose would spew forth from our fingers in complete publishable format complete with refs, images and links galore. Luckily life is not on auto and we are human prone to shortcomings and imperfections. Also we were all new here at least once so talk pages presence let alone standards for tagging and editing is a learning curve. Within reason I find tags on articles helpful and provide direction for those wishing to help but unsure how or where. Tags tucked onto the talk page are thus lost on any editors who don't know of or use talk pages which seems to be a good percentage of editors. Benjiboi 08:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree that these banners have gotten out of hand. I was at Cat yesterday, and was bemused to learn that its introduction is too short.

A little while ago, there was a big to-do about spoiler-warning templates. The primary arguments against these were that they were unprofessional, unencyclopedic, and distracting and unnecessary to most readers -- and they were eventually all removed. I think the same arguments hold for a lot of these cleanup templates.

It's true that a highly-visible cleanup template is a good way to motivate editors (or prospective editors) to actually clean up a page. But it's not the only way, and when the proliferation of templates becomes onerous to the (much larger number of) readers who aren't going to actually clean up the page, it's time to find some other mechanism(s) for organizing our cleanup tasks. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

First of all Benjiboi it would be spelled PROS not prose whicth if you look it up right at this very site prose is some poetry term. However, I have to agree with both the starter of this topic and (in reverse order) Ummit, the two Anons above him, Mr.Brooks, Half with Benjiboi, and Mr.Duncan. It just seems for starters, a very large amount of the POP. probably already knows what a cat is whitch would make an intro worthless. Then moving on to books, last I checked if you were looking for a plot summery the chances are very good that you will find at least some of the plot a bit farther ahead. So we should now that there are going to be spoilers when read a Snypopsis. I could rant more but, I was just using examples. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 (talk) 03:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

What could a technical solution look like?

1. Add stylesheets to all the templates that indicate the "importance-level", e.g. "critical" (deletion notices etc.), "important" (NPOV etc.), "style";
2. Show only critical & important notices to readers;
3. Make it easy for registered users to adjust their preferred visibility level.

Thoughts?--Eloquence* 04:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• I like the technical solution Eloquence proposes here. The whole point of putting the banners on the article is to make them visible. When a tag is stuck to the talk page of the article an editor who comes across the article by chance is unlikely to notice and thus fix the shortcomings mentioned in such a tag. Allowing users to set visibility levels would be an excellent solution that satisfies all parties. - Mgm|^(talk) 18:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Spelling question

Ok this has been bugging me for awhile, seeing as I'm currently doing spell checks everywhere. I've noticed on my Firefox, whenever it says "realise" or any other word that can use S or Z, it highlights the S version as a spelling error. Whenever I switch it to "realize", the highlighting disappears. So do we have like a set policy on S or Z in certain words?

Also, same question applies for "honor"/"honour", or "glamor"/"glamour". Whats the preferred way (I know "our" is Canadian...I think...but Firefox highlights any word with our as a spelling error". Vampire Warrior 16:14, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

This has been a debate since the beginning of wikipedia - if the article involves with a British twist, the article uses British spelling; if it's an American twist, it uses American spelling. So it's "colour" in The Beatles but "color" in The Doors. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 16:43, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

You can install other dictionaries for Firefox, to match British, Canadian or Australian spelling. See [1], or right-click in this edit box and choose "Languages->Add dictionaries". You can switch between installed dictionaries to match the article you're editing, also by right clicking in the edit box.-gadfium 19:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling) and the guidelines cited there. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:49, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

This is one of several reasons why spellchecker use (especially automated spellchecker use) is problematic on Wikipedia.

Most spellcheckers are either British or American, or have a British mode versus an American mode. Depending on the mode they're in, they either say that the British spellings are "correct" and the American spellings are wrong, or vice versa. But the English Wikipedia uses both spellings almost interchangeably, so any given spellchecker is going to be wrong something like half the time.

(Me, although I'm an American, I've come to the belief that British spellings are not "wrong", nor are American spellings necessarily wrong Over There. They're just different, that's all. Sorta like dominos vs. dominoes.) —Steve Summit (talk) 16:30, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Voting Opened for Stewards Elections

The 2007 Wikimedia Foundation steward's election has been opened for voting, see meta:Stewards/elections_2007 to participate. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

How long to Repeat an article

Just Wondering. With the 2101000+ articles on Wikipedia how long do you think to just hitting over and over again to come back to the article you started on. PROVIDED THAT YOU NEVER REPEAT AN ARTICLE UNTIL YOU HAVE SEEN THEM ALL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 (talk) 03:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

What? - Rjd0060 (talk) 05:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Let me get this straight, You want to start on an article, randomly look at other articles, thrn end up on the article your started. However as you are not allwed to repeat an article until you have seen them all and ending up on the article you first started on is a repeat then the anser has to be at least 2101000+ jumps. Theresa Knott | The otter sank 07:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Are you referring to the random page feature? It would take quite a while to get the same article twice these days. Graham87 09:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You got it Knott however, if you had allready seen each and everyone then it would not be a repeat. BTW. Yes Graham I am referring to the random page feature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 (talk) 15:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course, the random page feature does not implement a cycle. Each time you ask for a random page, it picks... a random page, just like rolling dice or spinning a Roulette wheel. So if you were to visit Special:Random 6,925,376 times, you would certainly get many articles multiple times, and some articles not at all.

The math is easy enough: to visit 6,925,376 articles, assuming you could visit one per second, would take 6925376 ÷ 60 ÷ 60 ÷ 365 24 = 5.3 years 80 days. [Huh. I would have thought it'd be longer than that.] —Steve Summit (talk) 16:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC) [edited 23:32, 25 November 2007 (UTC)]

HMM, 24 days so if you incoperate 9 hours of sleep (Why would anyone want to do that.) and each day is 24 hours (Ok 23 and 59 Minuets) it means it will add 9 hours per day so 24 days equals 576 hours and you multiply 9 and 24 to get 216 Whitch when add to 576 hours equals 792 hours to incoperate 9 hours sack-time. This when coverted into days equals by division equals 33 days. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.64.27 (talk) 23:55, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

But of course that is only if you never repeat a page.

More realistically, if there are m pages, and you have hit repeat page n times, the probability of a particular page having been hit exactly r times will tend to a Poisson distribution,

$P(r|n)={\frac {\mu ^{r}e^{-\mu }}{r!}}\,\!$, where μ = n/m

so the chances for any particular page of it having been hit 0 times will be

$P(r=0|n)=e^{-{\frac {n}{m}}}$

and the total expectation number of pages that have been hit 0 times will be

$\lambda =me^{-{\frac {n}{m}}}$

The actual number k of pages that have been hit 0 times will (I think) also be Poisson distributed,

$P(k|n)={\frac {\lambda ^{k}e^{-\lambda }}{k!}},\,\!$

So the probability that all pages have been hit, i.e k=0 will be

$P(k=0|n)=e^{-\lambda }=e^{-m\,e^{-{\frac {n}{m}}}}$

The median time is defined by the number of draws it is likely to takes for this probability to come up to 0.5; so

$e^{-m\,e^{-{\frac {n}{m}}}}=0.5$

which gives

$n=m\ln({\frac {m}{\ln 2}})$

Putting m = 2,101,000, this works out to give a median n = 14.92 m, so n = 31,400,000

I was actually expecting it to come out at a bit more than that; so I may have lost a factor somewhere, or slipped up with one of my assumptions... Jheald (talk) 01:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

You must be a professor. This is my thanksgiving break and looking at that makes my head hurt! However the worst part is that it makes very little sense at all as I stink at math.--Rengaw01 (talk) 04:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm just saying that with 2,101,000 pages, if you were reading pages at random, I think you would have to keep on hitting the "new random page" button until you had read each page on average 15 times, if you wanted to get the chances that you had read every single page at least once to reach 50/50. Jheald (talk) 08:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Input needed on template merge at TfD

Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 November 27#CompactTOCs merge and rename needs further community input. There is no dispute there or anything, it's just that it is a multi-template merge of some complexity, and it has not (probably because of said complexity) garnered any comments all, pro or con, so far. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Make a Suggestion

Hi,

Where can I make a suggestion for Wikipedia Improvements?

The Helpful One (Talk) 17:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, this would be a good place! Although, if your suggestion would better be included in Village pump / proposals, Village Pump / policy, or Village Pump / technical, feel free to leave it on one of those. - Rjd0060 (talk) 22:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikimedia Foundation among World Economic Forum's 2008 Technology Pioneers

Hi! As has been posted on the main page's talk page, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has chosen the Wikimedia Foundation as one of the 2008 Pioneers of Technology. 38 other organisations or companies have also been selected for the list of pioneers. If interested, read the full story on Wikinews. Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject level triple crown awards

A proposed triple crown for WikiProject The Simpsons.

Here's an idea to help the WikiProjects with their good article and featured article drives: special edition project level triple crowns. In order to qualify, a project needs to have five members who qualify for a standard triple crown based on contributions within the project's scope. Several editors can share credit for the same GA or FA if they each put enough into a collaborative effort.

Once a project comes close to qualifying, contact me and I'll design a special award as thanks for your efforts. Happy editing! Durova^Charge! 21:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Can I request an article be constructed?

I have seen the name of a producing group called "Chris and Drop" numerous times within Wikipedia pages of musicians, but i cannot find more inforamtion about them. They were cited on the page of Dutch Singer Ninthe, Amerie, Lupe Fiasco, Nikki Jean, Cassidy. How would one go about requesting that an article be written about them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lelaninavarro (talk • contribs) 22:51, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

You could try Wikipedia:Requested articles. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration Committee Elections December 2007

Voting for the 2007 Arbitration Committee Elections has officially begun. Visit the Voting page for more information. Thank you. - Mtmelendez ^(Talk) 00:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Any Orkut users?

I am wondering if there is any Wikipedia users of Orkut who can help. The article Ezhava seems to have been listed on some Orkut forum with the forum moderator there directing people to edit the article here to a particular unsourced version. See the WP:AN discussion, and I've requested a link from both User:Vvmundakkal and User:125.99.225.216. I don't know if that's enough but if someone could explain to them that making up sources (saying things came from books when they didn't), reinserting the same POV text repeatedly, and recreating deleting articles are generally not helpful here? There is a discussion somewhat at Talk:Ezhava but it requires them to actually discuss the article, not simply insult everyone and leave to edit war again. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 09:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it has sort of been dealt with but we have some fun coming along. Discussion here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 07:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

deathnote "fonts"

what kind of font is used in the "L", "M", and "N" in the Death Note manga? —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiDragon295 (talk • contribs) 22:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Legal Ownership of Posted Material

I'm looking for a policy I can post on our own local Wiki (using Wikimedia) regarding ownership or lack thereof of info / material posted onto a Wiki. Does anyone know where I might find such a policy, e.g., that the site is public domain and free for use / citation, etc.? If you have any suggestions, please post them on the TALK page. Thanks. --Pdmawiki (talk) 19:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Copyrights is the closest to what you're looking for. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The short answer is: you remain the sole copyright holder of any contributions, but by submitting to Wikipedia agree to irrevocably license your contributions under the GFDL. Dcoetzee 19:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

(In the case of en.wp) With the added footnote condition of "GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts". And irrevocably mean "parties who have received copies, or rights ... under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance", otherwise the rights granted are terminated automatically. KTC 16:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Because you're creating your own wiki, you decide what the terms of use are for your site. Legally, Americans which write text or create images own the copyright when they create it. You have to make your users let you use their work under some sort of agreement/contract/license. This English Wikipedia has chosen the GFDL; Wikinews has chosen a different license. What you choose is an issue between you and your contributors. -- SEWilco 16:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Article / discussion / edit this page / history

Article / discussion / edit this page / history

As you know, every article has a set of four links that are typically labeled as shown above. But these links actually lead to a set of six related pages, not four. That's because two of the links, when used, silently change the meaning of the other two. Selecting "discussion" not only brings up the talk page, it also causes the "edit this page" to edit the talk page and the "history" link to show the talk page history. Conversely, selecting "article" not only brings up the article, it causes "edit this page" to edit the article itself and the "history" link to show the article's history. But the "article" and "discussion" links always point to the article and the talk page respectively, no matter which of the other five pages you're on.

This is not a big deal, but it is a mildly confusing design, and it ought to be possible to do better. If the present behavior of four links really is the Right Thing, then one simple possibility would be for the wording to change so they read either

• article / discussion / edit this page / history

or

• article / discussion / edit discussion page / discussion page history

as applicable.

This is in keeping with the way "edit this page" changes to "view source" when you don't have permission to edit, and "article" changes to "project page" when you're viewing a project page.

Of course there is one other difference as well: talk pages have a "+" link to add a new item, and article pages don't. As this is less than transparent, I would also suggest that if changes are being made, then "+" should become "add item" or "new item".

Yes, of course it's possible to get used to the present design. I'm sure everyone who's likely to read this is thoroughly used to it. But please try to look at these links like someone who isn't familiar with it, and see if on reflection you don't agree that they're confusing.

Discussion page

Another thing I think is a bit confusing is the use of the word "discussion" in these links. I don't see it as a big deal whether they're called talk pages or discussion pages, but I do think it's confusing when almost everything else in Wikipedia that talks about them calls them talk pages, even the talk page URLs use the word "Talk", and yet the link that points to them reads "discussion".

I'm sure this has been discussed before, or perhaps talked about :–), but since I'm talking about rewording the link names, this seems a good time to raise the point again.

I can see that a link marked "talk" by itself might also be confusing, but "talk page" might fly. Or maybe even "talk page (discuss this article)".

The other alternative, of course, is to drop "talk" altogether and use "discussion". Then many templates such as POV and Citecheck and Pp-dispute and Expert and Story would have to be changed, and so would pages like Wikipedia:Template messages/Deletion and many others that speak of "talk pages". Personally, I'd see rather the briefer word survive.

Project page

Still another confusing wording is "project page". This is fine for pages that actually are at the center of something that might be called a project, but it doesn't really apply to forums like the Reference Desks or the Village Pump. However, I don't have a good suggestion for a better wording.

--207.176.159.90 (talk) 03:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Some advice

• Be succinct. A common reaction to long posts is to ignore them.
• Don't combine multiple subjects in a single post. If you have three things you want to discuss, post them separately, and sign each, so that other editors can respond to each separately. It's really a pain to have three conversations going simultaneously.
• Read the instructions at the top of a page before you post on that page. In this case, the relevant instruction is The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please try to post within policy, technical, proposals or assistance rather than here. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

• There's a limit to succinctness. A common reaction to short posts saying that something could be improved is to ignore them and imagine that because you're used to the present arrangement, it must be okay.
• There was only one subject: improving the wording of the links in question. However, I agree that it would have been better to sign each section separately so that responses could have been posted within them. Since they have been posted below, I've added a subheader "Responses" to set them off.
• I was not asking for a policy change, describing a technical problem, making a specific proposal, or asking for assistance. If I wasn't assuming good faith, I'd say that assuming I hadn't read the introduction was presumptuous or condescending or something.
• I will now shut up and let people discuss changes if they want to.

--207.176.159.90 22:15, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Responses

I think you have some very good points. I would support changing discussion to talk and changing the '+' tab to something that gives some indication of what it does.

The thing is, most of what you're suggesting has been raised before, and people have said that the word 'discussion' is used to discourage people from using talk pages for chatter (I'm not entirely sure how it does that, but that's my opinion) and '+' is used so that the tabs don't get too long (since user scripts and admins have extra tabs).

As for changing the edit/history tabs depending on which page is active, I don't think that's possible with the current software. Tra (Talk) 23:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The "+" tab seems the easiest to fix: change the default, and provide personal css or JavaScript (or, best of all, a checkbox in one of the tabs in "my preferences") that will change it back to "+", for those who want the classic look. Wikipedia is very configurable; there is no reason why a minority (if that's really the situation) should need to force a cryptic tab label onto a majority who find it confusing. The tab label "add new section" would be one character longer than "edit this page"; if that's too long, then "new section" clearly still is better. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:07, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way, the discussion I was referring to is here. Tra (Talk) 00:37, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the pointer. I find the discussion about the "+" tab, last June and July at the page you linked to, disappointing for three reasons. First, the new text for the "+" tab that was tried, then abandoned - "Leave a Comment" - was a poor choice, since it's NOT appropriate for leaving a comment within an ongoing discussion (that is, within an existing section). Something like "+ new section", which would have retained the "+" as part of the tab label, would have been a much better alternative. Second, the arguments for retaining "+" seem to me pretty much to come down to "it works for me, and other experienced editors, and it's obvious to me what it does, so therefore it should be to obvious to pretty much everyone else - leave it alone." (I've always thought that when some people are saying "It's obvious to everyone" and some people are saying "It's not obvious to everyone", that the "NOT" people win, by definition, but ... ). And third, the editors opposing the change didn't address, at all, the ability for them to customize the label back to "+" if that made them happy, while leaving the tab with the best possible wording for inexperienced editors.

In short, I think the discussion was ineffective, and in no way should be taken as a definitive decision that the matter is settled. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 14:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

The "discussion" label does help to reduce confusion with inter-user chat features which exist on some web sites. You might also notice that on Wikinews there are separate comment and collaboration tabs; the collaboration page is for editor chatter. -- SEWilco 16:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

School Administration Help

Our school is trying to deal with Wikipedia vandalism internally (looking at logs etc), and I'd appreciate any advice as to whether we're missing any technical aspects of WP that we can use to help prevent vandalism. At the moment, all we've been able to do is subscribe to an RSS feed of changes to our talk page which, while useful, doesn't really help. Is there, for example, a feed from Special:Contributions that I haven't found? Or any other MediaWiki functionality that we (as school staff and owner of the IP address) are missing? Many thanks, Alexlmuller 11:48, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I tried adding "&feed=rss" to the end of an IP's Special:contributions page but that didn't produce a feed of IP changes. You might try asking in Village pump (technical) if there is a way to get an RSS feed of an IP's contributions. This idea is also not mentioned in the list linked to at the bottom of WP:VANDAL; you might instead ask in WT:VANDAL. -- SEWilco 16:18, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

GFDL / CC announcement

(From foundation:Resolution:License update)

“ Whereas the Board seeks to respond responsibily to longstanding community concerns about issues of compatibility between the GNU Free Documentation License and the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license, as well as to continue longstanding traditions of strong community input and control over major decisions affecting the projects, and

Whereas a long period of discussion and negotiation between and amongst the Free Software Foundation, Creative Commons, the Wikimedia Foundation and others has produced a proposal supported by both the FSF and Creative Commons to modify the Free Documentation License in such a fashion as to allow the possibility for the Wikimedia Foundation to migrate the projects to CC-BY-SA, and

Whereas, Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) would like formal support for this license change,

It is hereby resolved that:

• The Foundation requests that the GNU Free Documentation License be modified in the fashion proposed by the FSF to allow migration by mass collaborative projects to the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license;
• Upon the announcement of that relicensing, the Foundation will initiate a process of community discussion and voting before making a final decision on relicensing.

”

-- KTC

This is huge, pretty huge. I am guessing dual licensing would be an option if both licenses are made compatible. It would be really good, although I am slightly pessimist right now :( -- ReyBrujo 20:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Armwaving aside, what they can do is ask the FSF to make the next version of the [S]GFDL more like CC-BY-SA, and ask CC to produce a license that's more like the next version of the [S]GFDL, and eventually, once the two are close enough, switch to [S]GFDL-[somefutureversion]+CC-BY-SA-[somefutureversion] licensing. But that's not what the announcement says. Cynical old me wonders whether people realised that "Please don't hold your breath: Wikimedia may switch to dual licensing when the FSF get round to releasing the version after next of the [S]GFDL" isn't much of headline. Even Slashdotters couldn't get excited by that. Angus McLellan (Talk) 22:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

That's OK - right up to the last step. When someone contributed something to Wikipedia, they were agreeing to the terms of the GFDL - one of which is that they agreed to trust the GNU folks to put out new revisions of GFDL that wouldn't be too horrible. So when a GFDL appears that happens to be compatible with CC, that's OK and if future versions of GFDL happen to track the CC license verbatim, that's OK. But actually adding the CC licensing terms to Wikipedia also allows for the possibility that the CC folks might change their license at some time in the future. The problem is that nobody has yet agreed to confer on them that trust. So unless the change to the GFDL also says that future versions of the GFDL may be updated by the folks from Creative Commons, the licenses are not strictly compatible and may not be interchanged in that way. Personally, I have no problem with relicensing my work under GFDL - but there is no chance on earth you'd get written agreement from every single contributor. IMHO, we should encourage GNU to undertake to maintain CC compatibility off into the future - but we can't simply add CC licensing to Wikipedias' current contents. SteveBaker 15:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

It will be necessary to see exactly what the updated GFDL says. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Announcement of forthcoming book -- feedback wanted

I just sent this to the mailing lists as well:

I'm pleased to announce that four Wikipedians -- myself, Charles Matthews, Ben Yates and SJ Klein -- are writing a book about using and understanding Wikipedia, tentatively titled "How Wikipedia Works". It will be published by No Starch Press in early 2008.

This guide will be focused on helping readers understand Wikipedia and helping new editors contribute. We hope to include enough detail to make it a useful reference for current contributors as well. (Note that this is a different project from the O'Reilly book that was discussed earlier on the lists).

We welcome community feedback and ideas, and hope to make this a truly community-based work. There is a project page here. We'll add detail there over the coming weeks, and have asked for feedback in some specific areas. Please do contribute and send us your thoughts and ideas.

Some details:

• The book will be licensed under the GFDL and an online version will be available. (No Starch has been a great partner in this and has been very supportive of open licensing). Where the book reprints on-wiki documentation, the authors of that documentation will be credited.
• We're primarily focusing on the English Wikipedia, but there will be brief sections about the sister projects and Wikipedias in other languages, so we definitely welcome feedback and ideas from those communities as well.
• A portion of the authors' proceeds will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation.

If you have any questions, concerns or ideas, please let me or one of the other authors know. I'll be updating the project page with progress information as we get closer to publication. Best, -- phoebe/(talk) 18:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Namespace 0 pages deleted per month

Hi. Some statistics of namespace 0 deleted pages from last logging-dump available. Come on deletionists! You have to delete ~50,000 pages this month ;) --Emijrp 20:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

December 2004	3097
January 2005	11446
February 2005	11459
March 2005	15603
April 2005	16406
May 2005	18712
June 2005	18387
July 2005	21952
August 2005	25607
September 2005	24700
October 2005	33984
November 2005	33615
December 2005	27460
January 2006	25706
February 2006	24693
March 2006	30824
April 2006	33467
May 2006	43050
June 2006	37393
July 2006	35812
August 2006	41188
September 2006	44055
October 2006	56181
November 2006	57680
December 2006	54718
January 2007	59734
February 2007	59603
March 2007	59376
April 2007	60147
May 2007	58817
June 2007	48186
July 2007	43802
August 2007	44194
September 2007	44063

WP:CIVIL. Please correlate numbers of pages deleted with numbers of pages created per month. Corvus cornix_talk 18:28, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't. But that about deletionists was a joke. Don't Panic! --Emijrp (talk) 19:16, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added an image from User:Dragons flight/Log analysis; that page also includes graph based on a sampling (NOT a log) of when new articles were created, based on articles still in existence as of a date in September 2007. So that graph has net figures for new articles, not gross figures (that is, it counts survivors, not births).

Also, for what it's worth, namespace 0 deletions include deletions of redirects, which might have started life out as an article, or might not have. And some articles are killed off via a redirect, which doesn't show in transactional statistics. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

New category

Anyone want to create Category:Manufacturers? The subcategories are ready-made, but for some reason nobody thought of it. It's a very tedious job unless someone can program a bot to do it. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 15:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, why does it take a bot to add parent categories to a group of category pages? (And if it really is a job for a bot, why not post at the bot requests page?) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:57, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Want to make article

I want to make a request to make a new article about Jimmy Napitupulu. I want to make it in Wikipedia, but I'm afraid that I thought that I made a vandal. Please help me. Thank you. Albert@Indonesia (My User Talk Page Shortcut here) —Preceding comment was added at 06:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Do it! Be bold! I will proofread if you'd like.Sukiari (talk) 10:08, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

merge?

I wonder if Angioma and Hemangioma are the same thing and should be merged? Hovev (talk) 11:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't look like it. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 17:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Illustration project

--PaperclipedMime (talk) 21:02, 5 December 2007 (UTC) I apologize if I am spamming the Village Pump (*snicker* still can't get over that...), but I don't really know where else to ask. Does anyone know anything about the illustration project that Wikipedia is sponsoring that is going on right now? Artists can submit illustrations for specific articles that Wiki needs, and the staff will pick the best ones and post them, but I'm not really sure who to contact on that one or where I could even get more information on the project. Help please?

Project proposal; acceptance by the Board. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

--PaperclipedMime (talk) 02:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)Thank you very much for your response. If I could ask two more questions, that would be great. First off (and I realize that this makes me sound like a noob) but is there a special program for SVGs, or is that just another type of file (I just found that part a bit confusing as I've never encountered the term before). Also, is there an available list of illustrations that need to be done? Again, thanks for the help.

Check out Scalable Vector Graphics, that might answer your questions about the .svg format. And see Wikipedia:Requested pictures. Corvus cornix_talk 19:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

deeper

Let's dig a little deeper. Underneath the edit that started this section, I see an assumption: that actions of editors must be "justified." It was written, in particular:

Actions should not follow policy; rather, policy follows actions. The right thing to do in a particular situation, whatever it may be, is totally independent of policy.

This is, of course, true, there is no fault in it. As far as it goes. But actions do not take place in a vacuum. They take place in an environment where there is precedent and shared understanding, and without this, a community cannot grow and develop intelligence, except for the raw, a-priori, and individual intelligence of its individual members. And then it was written:

When it becomes clear that most of what is now termed "policy" is in fact not, IAR will become useless--because actions, orthodox or not, will be justified on their own merits.

"Policy" is, in fact, a defense of an action as reasonable on its face. It is not a defense of the ultimate value of the action. There is a big difference. First of all, if there is no policy, then every action is easily subject to challenge, and, as a group grows in size, the challenges will multiply. We have elected, as a community (or those with decision power decided) to entrust certain powers to what are called in other organizations "trusted servants." These powers are essentially police powers, and, because of the familiarity with the situations, I will now describe admins as police. The police, in a healthy society, have no punitive power, they have only the power to "serve and protect," as is the motto of a local police department, and it is regrettable when they act otherwise. Nevertheless, if a police officer acts according to established policy, the action is defensible, unless the harm of it is blatant and irreversible, and any reasonable person would have recognized this. But there is more. Police officers are also given discretion. This is the public version of WP:IAR. Where action is required that is outside of policy, but is necessary or appropriate *for the public welfare," that action is lawful, and if the action is challenged, a showing that the officer reasonably believed this would be sufficient to protect the officer from disciplinary consequences. Again, for public servants, the *legal* standard is WP:AGF. Wikipedia is not as different from normal society as we sometimes think. Courts do, in fact, have a standard that, by common law, supercedes written law ("policy'), it is called "public policy," as a basis for decisions. When a court cites "public policy," it would be acknowledging that it is making a decision that is contrary to law or precedent, in the public interest based on the facts of the case. This, then, if sustained, becomes new policy through precedent.

We entrust administrators with a difficult task that can be expected to raise hackles. If an administrator does actual harm, absolutely, it should be challenged. If the action was contrary to policy, it's also appropriate to expect the action to be justified at least to the level of the intention involved. A controversial action should naturally be reviewed to see if policy is adequate. Policy, properly, is a living thing, not fixed to whatever current statements comprise it. But so too is, properly, the discretion of administrators. It is well-known that police must have discretion if they are to effectively protect the public. No set of policies can anticipate what an officer will face. There is, however, a question of the limits of discretion. We have come, in public society, to recognize a balance between discretion and policy, and, increasingly, for an officer to detain and arrest on a mere hunch has come to be considered contrary to policy; but this is controversial, for it conflicts with the protection of the public.

However, what if the action of the officer does no harm? Or the harm done is reversible?

We have a situation where ongoing harm is being done to Wikipedia by disruptive editors and sock puppets. To maintain the project in the face of determined and continual attack by such is becoming an increasing burden. I believe that there is a way to make this more efficient, but the tools to do it are not in place. Until then, we need, in fact, some set of users to be vigilant against what are actually worse than vandals. Vandalism is easy to detect and not controversial. But a POV-pusher is another matter. Such people create edit wars, but, more seriously even, they harm newcomers. A sock puppet is often an experienced Wikipedia user, a wikilawyer, and skilled at presenting "policy" justifying abusive edits that can completely snow a newcomer. If there are no other experienced editors defending an article and the newcomer, many simply go away. It even happens when there *are* experienced users helping, for some newbies will disappear at the first deletion of the edit that took them a long time to put together, gone in a flash. Experts, who don't have time to go through complex wikipedia process, go away in disgust.

Wikipedia is bleeding from these thousand cuts a day. This is what we must balance against an allegedly overaggressive protection against sock puppetry. Further, the alleged harm to a newbie from being unjustly blocked is ameliorable. The very climate that requires administrators to "justify" their actions increases the need for admins to come up with strong reasons, which then can be offensive, and, indeed, drive a newcomer away. Blocking is not and should not be presented, ever, as a punitive action, and the message received by those with blocked IP or account should never accuse, and it should thoroughly explain how to appeal, all that, *and it should apologize for the inconvenience and encourage the user to help fix the situation.* There is no harm in apologizing to a miscreant, they can't bank it.

To me, Durova committed no offense at all. We need more like her, though I'm not sure we deserve it yet. She made an error. But if the police never make errors, they aren't trying hard enough to protect the public. The questions, properly, should have been, when her action was challenged, "Did she have reason to believe that her action was needed for protection of the project and its users?" "Is there any evidence that she used her police power to advance a personal agenda, i.e., to block users selectively because she disagrees with their POV or opinions." "Could her error have been made by a competent person?"

If, *starting with a presumption of WP:AGF*, the answer to all these questions is "Yes," then she should stand in no need of defense, and the only question would be whether or not policy was adequate to guide her.

The question of secret evidence is a huge red herring. Police action, ultimately as the situation deepens in complexity and the increasing sophistication of those who would abuse our freedoms, requires secrecy to be effective. The demands that the content of a private, off-wiki mailing list be provided are utterly unreasonable. The future of Wikipedia actually depends on the freedom of private speech, it will become increasingly important, and it's the only ultimate protection against increasing bureaucratic control. We cannot tell whether or not what is on that list is interesting, boring, represents an evil conspiracy, or was entirely benign and helpful. And, quite simply, it is not our business. Durova, when her action was challenged, apparently felt it necessary to note that she had not taken the action alone, but this, in fact, was irrelevant. She was responsible for her own action, and if it was worthy of de-sysopping, she'd be the one, not anyone whom she asked *privately* for advice or support. A *very* important part of freedom of speech is the protection of privacy. Without it, free speech, ultimately, becomes severely constrained. Private speech is *irrelevant* to Wikpedia policy.

Durova is to be *congratulated* for not carrying her burden alone, but nobody has seriously proposed that a private list of concerned people should be a mechanism in policy. Absolutely, it is not adequate for review of a block; however, the only immediate question with a block should be whether or not it should be maintained. Whether the administrator erred or not is *irrelevant* to that question. In my view, the *worst* problem here is that an administrator reviewed an unblock request and denied it. I've seen far more errors, far more serious in effect, from the denial of an unblock than from blocking. I'd suggest that, instead of leaping to conclusions based on some idea that an administrator should be supported by denying the unblock, administrators not respond to unblock requests unless they can unblock. It's pretty bad when an innocent user gets blocked, requests unblock, and gets a denial instead of the request starting some process where the evidence will be reviewed by more than one or two persons. If I were a newbie, and I were wrongly blocked, and I saw that my request started a process of review that was founded on AGF, I'd say that I'd probably be gratified, not offended. I'd see that the community was trying to protect everyone, including me.

The harm of a block, in itself, is small, except to true POV-pushers, who *must* protect that article they worked so hard to get the way they want. And even these should be able to recruit a meat puppet -- even legitimately -- if what they want to keep in or out is legitimately so. There is *far* more harm from sock puppets, who aren't polite to newbies, insult them, tear up their edits, and generally drive them away, quoting policy as the wikilawyers they often are -- and some newbies have no idea about Undo or even History, no idea what to do against a determined and unrestrained sock puppet, who fears no consequences. Socks are cheap. To learn the guidelines takes a long time, to navigate the process for reporting suspected sock puppets is forbidding and confusing, and it is really easy to get it wrong in some way, to then be chided by a less than helpful admin. Yes, Wikipedia has problems, but I believe they can be resolved. I have experience as a chair under Robert's Rules, for a large assembly with inexperienced members, and my duty as chair, as I understood it, was not to simply rule a member out of order, but also to explain to the member how the member could do what the member plainly wanted to do. "Protect and serve." --Abd (talk) 19:46, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, blowing all your fancy words aside, the facts of the matter are that Durova and others were/are on a witchhunt to defend Wikipedia against a nebulous 'threat' that hasn't been shown to exist from unspecified parties using specious evidence and completely disregarding AGF in the process. Don't try to portray Durova and his/her accomplices as some kind of great heros here. Jtrainor (talk) 20:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment, Jtrainor. However, I don't think that ABF is going to help Wikipedia or those who make those assumptions. I likewise don't think that one example of an error made in interpretation of evidence translates into a pattern, nor is acting diligently to protect Wikipedia (which means protecting Wikipedia users) from sock puppets, a "witch hunt." Sock puppets are not witches, some are legitimate users and legitimate socks, but there are also far too many abusive socks and far too few working to prevent damage, which is not to *articles* as much as it is to *users,* and especially newcomers. As to Durova, who acted alone (and merely informed a larger group, the famous mailing list of victims of wikistalking), she had no "accomplices" in the incident in question, and, yes, she is a heroine. It took courage to do what she was doing, it took courage to promptly admit her mistake, it took courage to resign, and it took courage to remain mostly silent in the face of a torrent of vituperation from many, not responding to abuse with abuse.

"Disregarding AGF?" I have been computer conferencing, what we used to call it, since the mid 1980s, and I've seen few examples as clear as this of the pot calling the kettle black.

--Abd (talk) 06:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Durova banned an innocent man, and the motivations and evidence, such as it was, showed that it was completley unjustified in any way. One does not assume good faith when there is none. Jtrainor (talk) 06:42, 9 December 2007 (UTC)