Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

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The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals pages, or - for assistance - at the help desk, rather than here, if at all appropriate. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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The imminence of The Great Paywall

The New York Times is moving to a restricted model where access will be paywalled after a certain point. This follows similar moves by the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, and in the current advertising climate we can expect this practice to become more prevalent.

This presents a serious issue to accessing reliable sources in the future, which we may not be able to do much about (WP:REX-type initiatives notwithstanding). It also threatens our reader's access to existing hyperlinks we use as references and external links. The question arises, how do we steal their content while we have the chance pre-emptively protect the references to guarantee their future use? Is mass-archiving through WebCite for instance a feasible or even legal course of action? Thoughts, comments, suggestions welcome.  Skomorokh  21:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not meant to happen until 2011 and I wouldn't hold my breath. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Nevertheless, this is a model that is extremely likely to be adopted by some major content providers, and we need to formulate a response to mitigate damage to the infosphere our articles feed upon.  Skomorokh  22:22, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Fortunately, most libraries still offer complete archives of major and local newspapers for free. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 22:43, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Mass archiving isn't feasible: New York Times pages are already protected with <meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOARCHIVE">, and so are other major news websites like http://www.ft.com, http://www.economist.com, http://www.timesonline.co.uk and http://www.telegraph.co.uk. I pointed this out ages (well, months) ago and AFAIK no-one cared.... Pointillist (talk) 22:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Personally I don't see a big problem with it. Anything that drills it into people that a source can legitimately take effort to track down - buying or borrowing a book or periodical, or subscribing to a website - is a good thing. Too many pages have an over-reliance on pages a quick Google turns up. I've seen definitive sources replaced by amateur sites simply because they were easy to "verify", and seen challenges to the validity of sources where one side has not even consulted the source in question. You can go the other way of course: a long out-of-print book may not be a good sole reference for a controversial point, but people need to realise they are expected to put some effort in and that the best references may well not be freely available. CrispMuncher (talk) 22:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes this is a serious drawback. In Canada it is quite common for the media to remove articles from the web within hours/ days of publishing. This makes it very difficult to hold any subjects of articles accountable, and is a serious threat to democracy. Just my $.02 Ottawahitech (talk) 22:49, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It would all still be verifiable, so I don't see overwhelming worries. As for shutting off free access to the content of a privately owned website, let them have a go, it's their website. Gwen Gale (talk) 22:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

100% agree that reliable sources don't need to be available online for free. Nevertheless, a reduction in the breadth of sources is not good for article creation or maintenance. Contributors who don't have access to free online reliable sources will (a) use unreliable sources instead, (b) use no references and expect other editors to find sources, or (c) cease contributing. - Pointillist (talk) 23:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

NYT is going broke. They might not even make it to 2011. Either way, markets have a way of filling such gaps. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

AFAICS the market is moving back to a paid-access model. In the UK only three incontrovertibly reliable news sources still allow archiving (BBC, Guardian and Independent). From what I am hearing, the growing trend for Wikipedia to report on breaking news stories is not winning us media friends, either, which is a shame as it isn't a core part of the encyclopedia's mission anyway. - Pointillist (talk) 23:23, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

They're not "incontrovertibly reliable" but I know what you mean (they can be taken as such, more or less, for a general reference encyclopedia). The whole news market is shifting and will carry on doing so. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Much ado about nothing, really. This should actually prompt a bit better, or at least more deliberate and reasoned, research. Besides that, paywalls becoming widespread should finally return much needed profitability to some of these companies.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 23:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It likely won't, but I agree this isn't much of a worry. Gwen Gale (talk) 23:50, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the library card is your friend. Wikipedia is way too dependent on lazy research. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:52, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

We're too dependent on newspapers in particular. It's good practice for historians to use newspapers to get accounts from a particular period of history. But we should be citing the historians, not the newspapers. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:10, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

That's also true. Most newspapers are even more unreliable than some historians. Gwen Gale (talk) 00:13, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The NYT will be using a metered approach. i.e., the articles will be available but one can only read a limited number of NYT articles free per month. If NYT follow the FT.com approach and still allow access to archives with the metered approach, there isn't really much difference to today. Darrell_Greenwood (talk) 00:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Newsday's go at a paywall was an utter bust, 35 subscriptions. Gwen Gale (talk) 01:00, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

We had the same problem on the french Wikipedia and we are now providing an archived version of external references through the Wikiwix website. Those extra links are not saved in articles, but are generated by a script. Those archives are generated when links are added and are never updated to match the content of the reference when it was added. Addition of those links was result of a community decision. For example [1] the four link. Pmartin (talk) 17:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Health care

I’m not sure who would be the appropriate person to address with this question – I would greatly appreciate any suggestion as to who this should be sent to?

I have been working on the health care reform issue as a volunteer with Organizing for America and have been amazed and horrified at the power of pro-industry forces to conduct a campaign of disinformation so effective that it has derailed meaningful health care reform at a time when 45,000 Americans die each year from lack of access to health care.

At the same time, I have found it difficult to get really balanced and truthful accounts of what is happening, and end up relying on progressive news sources which makes me uneasy because I don’t know how much bias there might be in their coverage.

For a democracy to thrive, there needs to be ways for citizens to become easily informed in what is really going on, along with easily available mechanisms to dialogue with others and participate in the political process.

I am wondering if there is not a way for Wikipedia to play a role, beyond being the wonderful source of basic knowledge that it is. Might it be possible for Wikipedia to launch a venture aimed at ‘civic knowledge’, with panels of people on all sides contributing to a truthful, factual array of sociopolitical realities, with divergent opinions noted in a concise way that is easy for readers to follow and understand.

For example, there could be a description of key provisions of the Senate health care proposal, with a panel of volunteers making sure that all the objective facts were correct, and panels of volunteers from different political orientations summarizing a succinct interpretation of those facts, in a few paragraphs. A split screen could be employed with the key objective facts on one side and a list of links to brief interpretation summaries on the other side.

Perhaps in providing something like this, Wikipedia could become a central institution in the democratic process, which so needs renewal at this point, especially in light of the Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance.

I would very much like to know if this is something Wikipedia could explore, or if it is something that has already been considered.

I would be very grateful for any response you can provide to this request.

Thank you!

Judy Morgan Austin, Texas —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.174.66.178 (talk) 22:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Translation... you want us to shill for Obamacare. Sounds like astroturfing to me!Thelmadatter (talk) 23:59, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi Judy. Welcome to Wikipedia. There is an article entitled Health care in the United States. I haven't read it, but if you think it needs more detail or lacks balance, discuss it in the talk page - and maybe try your hand at editing the article. It is serious fun, and really hones your rhetoric, diplomacy and logic, especially on controversial political topics. Check out the discussion behind anything to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict! Anthony (talk) 09:32, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

We're an encyclopedia, not a political lobby group. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 15:19, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I just noticed Health care reform in the United States. That's what you're looking for. Anthony (talk) 16:46, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

But please read WP:COI before you edit. Woogee (talk) 23:28, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

data.gov.uk launches, has wikipedia compatible license (cc-by-3.0)

Lots of yummy UK data is now released on http://data.gov.uk/ Much to my amazement the terms and conditions say:,

"We have aligned these terms so that they are interoperable with any Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence. This means that you may mix the information with other Creative Commons licensed content to create a derivative work that can be distributed under any Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence."

Wowzers! --h2g2bob (talk) 01:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

The usefulness of this is limited by the fact that data.gov.uk doesn't seem to hold a lot of the data itself but links to other sites. For example, health map Wales links to www.infoandstats.wales.nhs.uk, the terms of which are clearly not CC-BY compatible. Still, it's nice of them to make a gesture. - BanyanTree 07:03, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

PD image question

Does anyone know the answer to this? Do images claimed as PD on Wikipedia have to be PD in the U.S., or is it enough that they be PD in their country of origin? I'm not talking about the Commons, which is discussed here. I'm asking only about Wikipedia. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 03:30, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Found the answer, thanks to Jappalang, which is yes, they have to be PD in the U.S., per WP:IUP#Public domain. SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 04:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Should images uploaded before 2004 have disclaimers?

I left a note on that topic at Wikipedia_talk:GFDL_standardization#Images_uploaded_before_2004 but maybe it is not a place others look very often so just wanted to leave a note here.

My thought is basicly that if disclaimers was first introduced in February 2004 then an image uploaded before could NOT have disclaimers. Example File:Ac.adamattemple.jpg. --MGA73 (talk) 12:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Ethics of using long-abandoned userspace drafts

I recently created the redirect Cecil Godfrey Rawling to point at Cecil Rawling, and while checking "what links here" for the redirect, I came across User:David Kernow/List of Royal Geographical Society Gold Medal recipients (20th century). I went to that user's talk page to tell them that a redlink on their list had turned blue, but they have not edited since June 2007. At some point, I might be interested in taking the list that he started and finishing it and moving it into article space. I would leave a note on his talk page first, and also try e-mailing him, but if I get no response to either of those attempts, what should I do? Carcharoth (talk) 01:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Nobody truly owns anything on Wikipedia, not even user space pages. You can take the page and move it into article space. It is not a nice thing to do if somebody is working on the draft, but for a user who left years ago I see no problem. --Apoc2400 (talk) 14:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you could credit him/her in the edit summary or Talk page when you incorporate it. Anthony (talk) 09:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

In fact you must credit the user in the edit summary if you incorporate creative content (such as prose) to legally comply with our licensing. If its just adding list items, then it's only polite to do so. :) – Toon 16:36, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, the page itself should just be moved into mainspace with the prior edit history serving as attribution. –xeno^talk 16:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Failing that, copy, and put a link to the original attribution on the talk page. --Kim Bruning (talk) 16:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC) +imho, userspace drafts should be banned, and deleting drafts in mainspace should be banned for the first 7 days of the draft... unless obvious vandalism. This would improve the wiki-effect considerably

Kim, all mainspace articles are drafts. WP:NOTFINISHED. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 16:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Problems with citation templates

They seem to have become part of the landscape. The problems associated with their use are being discussed here. Tony (talk) 11:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

More general, already somewhat advanced discussion already in progress at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Wikipedia Citation Style --Cybercobra (talk) 12:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

userpage for selfpromotion?

Resolved

 – User page deleted as spam. – ukexpat (talk) 01:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Is it accepted, that User:Crystal Phuong uses his userpage for advertisement? - as far as I see she is active in several electronis platforms to become known, and she has no other contributions. Some of her picture are qualified as "unsourced" in the commons Plehn (talk) 21:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly an unacceptable use of a user page, now tagged for speedy deletion. – ukexpat (talk) 21:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOTMYSPACE seems like it could definitely apply here. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

New tool to generate citations from Google Books

Reftag

I have made a web tool that automatically makes a citation based on a Google Books url. Input a URL for a book, and the tool will pull information such as title, authors, publisher and isbn from Google Books. It will also produce a {{cite book}} template that can be copied and pasted right into an article. As a web tool, no installation required.

The tool is here: http://reftag.appspot.com/

The tool will also check if the authors have articles on Wikipedia, which can be put in the authorlink= parameter. For convenience, there is a preview area that shows what the citation will look like in an article.

It probably has bugs and may not be compatible with all browsers. Comments bugs and ideas are welcome here or on my talk page. For example, is the big table of text fields too overwhelming? --Apoc2400 (talk) 22:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It's rather too small, but I'm anal about references. ;) If you're worried about usability, just make two interfaces: plain for mere mortals, and the real one for me. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 23:01, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Article in French

I have a pdf article in French that I would like to use as a source for a dermatology-related article. Is there anyone that could help me translate it? ---kilbad (talk) 22:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Some of the Wikipedians listed at Wikipedia:Translation/French/Translators should be willing to translate French Wikipedia articles into English. I guess you could ask some of them, even when you want to translate non-Wikipedia article. Svick (talk) 23:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

RFBAG

I am currently standing for BAG membership. Your input is appreciated. ⇌ Jake Wartenberg 02:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Acronyms

I have considered this for years.

New Editors complain a lot about abbreviations, and it is really annoying to have to look up what editors are talking about.

I have a simple solution. Simply create a template and add a 1 to most of the common abbreviations. The template would have the full name.

Instead of typing:

[[WP:AGF]]

you type:

{{WP:AGF1}}

....1 extra character, and : WP:Assume Good Faith would be on the page.

If necessary we could have a bot scour wikipedia to change the acronym templates to full titles.

Of course, no would be required to use this. Ikip 10:18, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Go for it. I don't see the need in adding "1" to the title, but that's a side issue.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 10:27, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Good idea. I think the "1" is necessary because {{WP:AGF}} would transclude the whole WP:Assume Good Faith page. --Apoc2400 (talk) 11:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

How about, instead of having to look up the abbreviation, they click on the link to actually see what the policy/guideline/essay says. Too many people make arguments based on the title of a policy, rather than what its content actually is. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 12:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Let me ask you this though: Is that really a bad thing? After all, our policies and procedures are not supposed to be a Tome of Rules. If some people utilize their own viewpoints when a policy concept arises it seems to me that should be descriptive to the rest of us.
— V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 14:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

So then why are they quoting (and linking to) policy and guideline pages, if they're trying to express something different to what they say? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 00:21, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

(*insert ZOMG people should stop quoting pages int he first place! Never use them on my talk page! Blah blah blah! Rawr! here*)...ahem, anyway, not a bad idea. Certainly, I imagine you're free to make such templates, it's more a matter of getting people to use them, I think. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:48, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

An index would be nice. I did this for {{cite xxx}} some time back since I used it so much. You should probably bring this up at Wikipedia:Help Project. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 18:46, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Is WP:Alphabet soup what you mean by index? OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Coach Station or coach station?

I don't pretend to know enough about this really to go and start making reverts and changes, but an editor is changing many many bus and coach stations to lower case titles. The biggest coach station I know is Victoria in London - this though, has managed to remain Victoria Coach Station.

As this is the name of the station, capital C and S for Coach Station seems justified in the title. Newcastle coach station, Bristol bus station, Birmingham coach station to name a few, have all been changed recently. A quick search of google would suggest that most sources, newspapers included, use capital letters to denote coach stations. National Express website also uses capitals for their coach stations, ie. "Bristol Bus Station".

Also, is it a tad controversial moving all these pages without any mention or discussion on the articles talk pages - I know that in cases of train stations, ie. Talk:Birmingham New Street railway station, where "railway" has been added against consensus, and Station changed to station, it has kicked up a bit of a storm as the actual name of the station is "Birmingham New Street Station"... "If it ain't broke don't fix it" or "fixing something for the sake of fixing it" comes to mind.

Any thoughts? _Will^dow (Talk) 17:22, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

With regard to railway stations there is a long established naming convention for these articles that a few users complain about with regard to a few specific stations. None of them ever seem to want to discuss the naming convention, let alone to build a consensus to change it. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK stations).

I am not aware of a similar convention for bus stations, but certainly for Bristol, Victoria and Nottingham (the only ones I'm familiar with) usage is consistently capitalised. Thryduulf (talk) 18:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Instruction creep discourages newbies

As a new editor, and one probably not as versed in wikitools/scripting/etc. as others, I find that the process for adding Redirects for Comment, Articles for Deletion, and other basic tasks on Wikipedia is not user-friendly and discourages new editors from participating in improving the encyclopedia.

1. Even the simplified 3 steps for AFD is not actually three steps as each step contains three actions within each step. Nine steps to simply say "Maybe the community should look to see if this article is legitimate" seems too burdensome and likely from instruction creep. (Surely, at one time, to nominate an article only required a step or two or maybe really only three.)
2. Secondly, Redirects seem to be an area of high abuse - at least to my limited experience. I went through the process to remove the redirect of Fossils to Fossils (band) - a relatively obsure Australian rock band, assuming that most people who search Fossils are looking for an article related to paleontology. Also, Galactic map redirected to Homeworld. Now, VINCI (referenced in computational linguistics computational_humor) redirects to VINCI (French construction company). I am not interested in going through the process again of editing both the redirect page, the RfC page, notifying interested parties, and other requirements to SIMPLY bring this redirect up for community discussion. Furthermore, it seems illogical to have both a DISAMBIG and REDIRECT page for the same topic - as in the case with VINCI.
3. I know that a Deletion bot has been proposed and rejected - although I could not follow the discussion as to why to reject due to jargon in the proposal's discussion. Again, new users only want an easy way to start a discussion on an article/redirect, not an easy way to directly delete content.
4. I suspect there may be some type of script which already automates the process, but there isn't enough information on using scripts on wikipedia for the average user to make this a viable solution to the issue.

I wasn't sure how or where to post to get the community to look again at addressing the problem of getting new editors more involved the encyclopedia by making it easier for them to do simply tasks like RfC. If anyone can help me understand the community consensus on not wanting to make this task easier, please provide input or links to relative previous discussions. If this posting was put in the wrong area, please move to appropriate page. Thanks! 172.130.48.125 (talk) 20:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

You know, 172.130.48.125, I am a very old editor, having been editing since 2001, and I completely agree with you. Instruction creep has been awful over Wikipedia's lifetime. But the good news is that you don't need to pay too much attention to it. I have never read 3 steps for AFD and as a result have no idea of the "correct" method of deleting an article. However I have always gone by the policy that if I do something and get it wrong, someone else will fix it or tell me how I should fix it. This has stood me in good stead when it comes to the more arcane bits of wikiprocess. Of course it's a good idea to have a vague idea of how the process works but as long as you use commonsense, be polite to others, know what Wikipedia is -- and what it is not -- and understand the general idea of NPOV, you can leave most of the rest of it to people who care about "getting the details right". At least that's what I have found. True you may get sarcastic comments about it, but "water off a duck's back", I say. Keep your understanding high-level. Don't sweat the small stuff. Editing should be fun, so stick to doing stuff you enjoy and avoid stuff you don't. Then you'll get on Just Fine. -- Derek Ross | Talk 21:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Ad 4. There is Twinkle that makes nominating articles (and redirects, and other stuff) for deletion easier (among other things).

Ad 2. If you think a redirect is incorrect, you can be bold and just fix it. You don't have to ask the community for input. It certainly makes perfect sense to have disambig page and redirect for very similar topics. I guess that using VINCI with all caps for something other than the construction company is unusual, so the redirect makes sense. Also, I did not find any mention of the word “Vinci” or similar on computational linguistics.

Svick (talk) 21:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x2 The basic problem is that MediaWiki, the software running Wikipedia, has few features besides those strictly necessary/useful to run a general-purpose wiki when Wikipedia is also an encyclopedia wiki with community processes; through the clever use of templates, we've been able to jury-rig process and community features onto the wiki structure. On the positive side, this means these arose quickly and organically without requiring developer intervention. On the negative side, this means usability of these is less than stellar since they're jury-rigged and the software has no special support for them to simplify their use. With regard to your specific difficulties, you might want to try the WP:Friendly script which automates AfD filing. --Cybercobra (talk) 21:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Speaking only about AfD, I think the mild technical barrier at least slows newbies down from getting into something they wouldn't, if they knew more about it. Flame away. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Ad 3. User:DeleteAsstBot wasn't approved because there were serious concerns that it could be abused (i.e. someone could easily nominate thousands of articles for deletion using it). Svick (talk) 21:24, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Also the kind of thing I was getting at. Gwen Gale (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi 172.130.48.125. I've left a welcome message on your talk page. Initially we encourage newcomers to improve existing articles, e.g. fixing spelling/grammar, rewriting for readability, or removing unconstructive edits. If you wish to add new facts, please provide references so they may be verified, or suggest them on the article's discussion page. Changes to controversial topics and Wikipedia's main pages should usually be discussed first. If you are a new user, I suggest you delay working on RfCs and AfDs until you have a body of properly-referenced article edits under your belt. As for redirects, if you are the contributor who previously edited from 172.162.5.137, there are some technical issues that it takes experience to learn (e.g. that List of fossils is not the same as List of Fossils) but this is not really anything to do with rule creep and wouldn't be helped by more automation. Hope you enjoy your editing here. - Pointillist (talk) 22:10, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

File:Venezuela (orthographic projection).svg

The Venezuelan-only POV that parts of Guyana belong to Venezuela is being used in this map as if it is an established fact. The Venezuela article needs a more NPOV map. Am I wrong here? Woogee (talk) 00:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

The same problem occurs in the map being used for Argentina re the Falklands. Shouldn't these maps at a minimum be labeled that claims to the areas mapped are disagreed with? Woogee (talk) 00:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I thought it was pretty clear from the lighter green color for disputed areas. Is that not enough? Ntsimp (talk) 14:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It seems problematic to me to be including disputed territorial claims in the "main map" used on these articles. In the case of Guayana Esequiba, the territory is occupied and governed by Guyana and the Venezuelan claim is not recognized by the international community. The same can be said with regards to the Argentina/Falklands situation. I find the Argentina map further problematic, what with the inclusion of the Antarctic territorial claim; the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France, Norway, Australia and Chile all have territorial claims in Antartcica but these claims are not displayed on the map used in their respective articles. Only Argentina's article has the map including this territory, and in doing so smacks of a nationalist POV/boosterism. It would be my preference that disputed territorial claims not be displayed on a country's main map (the one used in the infobox/at the top of the article) at all. Shereth 14:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

top rolling papers

im older user of top and its papers my eyesight suffers just a sugestion how about making the glue side easier to see mayby a color change? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.114.120.213 (talk) 03:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Um, we don't make rolling papers, we're an encyclopedia. You would seem to be in the wrong place. OrangeDog (τ • ε) 13:22, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Charlotte High School (Punta Gorda, Florida)

Many seemingly POV editors (most coming from Punta Gorda, Florida based IP addresses) seem to object to the "Criticisms" section at Charlotte High School (Punta Gorda, Florida), which basically just points out, with references, what Charlotte High School is commonly known for. It's been on the article for quite some time, and has never been contested by an experienced editor. I've even seen it mentioned by members of Tarpon related Facebook groups (some actually agreeing with it). The problem is I'm POV myself, so perhaps a neutral party could provide an opinion in this matter, or make suggestions? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 20:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• I'm not suprised there are objections. It's a section filled with weasel words, with vague sweeping statements attached to references that don't even come close to being reliable sources. For example, much of the statements are referenced to "Greatschools Inc.", a website anybody can contribute to (making it unsuitable as a source). The link lists 20 "Parent Reviews", some a few years old. Even if it were a reliable source, twenty views is not representative to an institution for nearly two thousand students. On top of that, many of them state "Submitted by a student". This review gives you an idea of the value of the source: "Posted April 26, 2008: I'd give this one a much lower rating, but since I've never attended this school directly, and it is indeed the rival school, I'm gonna be fair and rate this one as average. If you're wondering how I can rate this, it's because I know people that go there and ..." Quite.
  It violates at least two core content policies WP:NPOV Tooltip Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and WP:V Tooltip Wikipedia:Verifiability. It doesn't surprise me for a moment some online forums contain people chatting about a high school with some thinking it "sucks" and some that it's "peachy"; neither particularly belongs in the school's article. I'm sorry to be so blunt. Really, the section has nothing salvageable. My only suggestion is to make sure it doesn't make its way back into the article. I see no reason for any standalone Criticism section. What's needed is for the article to accurately reflect reputable third-party sources as well as primary ones, such as the State Dept. of Education, without undue weight, giving a balanced treatment of the topic. –Whitehorse1 22:46, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
  • The problem with school articles in general is that we tend to sugar coat them with a wall of achievements, and Wikipedia becomes sort of a free advertising service for educational facilities. Both this article and Port Charlotte High School included something negative about the institutions at one point, and now neither of them do. PCHS made GA status with the criticisms in place without contest until a POV editor from Charlotte County insisted on its removal. The same is now occuring on CHS's article. If you don't mind a bit of WP:OR, I can tell you from experience that CHS has long been criticized by students and parents of that school for their academics as seen at Greatschools AND Urban Dictionary. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 20:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Yea, well, "Opinions are like..." I have to agree with Whitehorse1, based on a breif glimpse at the article history. Wikipedia:Criticism sections contains generally good advice, which is directly applicable here, as well. Criticism sections are not "against the rules" or anything, but any opportunity to integrate their content into the other content should be taken, and some should just be removed. Besides that, in this specific case, the assertions in the criticism section in that article ought to be easily sourcable to local news, if they are indeed legitimate concerns.
      — V = I * R (talk to Ohms law) 21:09, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
      • I'm beginning to agree that integration would be a better option, but the likely WP:COI user that first removed the section without discussion has now removed the brief mention in the academics section. I'll look for a news source (I think I remember it being mentioned in the Sun, don't remember which edition). PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 23:40, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Problem with "quintuple"'s origin

I've asked a question at the bottom of Talk:Tuple that nobody bothered. Some expert please respond. Georgia guy (talk) 23:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Britain Loves Wikipedia

Britain Loves Wikipedia, a free photography competition / scavenger hunt, launches this Sunday at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and then runs in 21 museums across the UK throughout February! Full details are on the WMUK blog, and http://www.britainloveswikipedia.org/ . If you're around the UK this next month, then please come along and join in. :-) Any questions, please let me know. Mike Peel (talk) 23:20, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Naming of the Cantonese (Yue) article

We're just doing the runaround at Talk:Cantonese (Yue) and desperately need outside editors, since the article wildly gets renamed every which way every other month.

70.29.210.242 (talk) 04:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Over-sourcing?

I've noticed a few articles that make such heavy use of inline citations that they create readability issues. One example is here, where in one case 51 citations are used in a 200 word paragraph [final paragraph]. What would be a good way to deal with it? I don't have access to most of the sources to see if they're necessary or not, and bringing it up on the talk page hasn't proved very useful. Is there a common practice to dealing with issues such as this, or is it simply not considered an issue? There's also the issue that the section relies almost entirely on primary sources, which seems to be the reason there are so many of them, primary sources backing-up primary.. Rehevkor ✉ 05:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, you were right with that example, the section is drowned with cites and just looks ugly and unreadable. There is the option of directing editors to Wikipedia:Citation overkill, which is currently proposed Wikipedia policy.. -- œ^™ 06:38, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Sometimes that's what it takes. The number of citations is not problematic, the layout is. Give me a couple of hours to fix it. Paradoctor (talk) 07:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Fixed the worst offenses, want me to do more? ;) Paradoctor (talk) 08:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

On a more general note, the article borders on self parody as an example of geeky fanboy wikipedia overload ... it is, after all, important to know that a comic book writer "has not shied away from criticizing or disagreeing with prominent liberals and Democrats,[127] including Bill Clinton,[128] Al Gore,[110] Hillary Clinton[129] Michelle Obama[130] and Caroline Kennedy.[113]" That whole article could use a little work with delete keys, - DavidWBrooks (talk) 17:07, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Count me out on that one, I enjoyed his stint on The Incredible Hulk. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 17:51, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Excellent, cheers Paradoctor. Mucho improvo. And in response to DavidWBrooks, I agree that there are indeed issues, but would need to be dealt with very carefully. Rehevkor ✉ 18:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed - as we have to do when adding details about Rahm Emmanuel's opinion of John Romita vs. Jack "King" Kirby. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:45, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Extra participants requested

I've posted a requested move at Talk:List of mass murderers and spree killers by number of victims: Mass murders#Requested move; requested moves tend to get very few participants, so I'm asking for a few extra commentators on this one. Thanks.--Father Goose (talk) 20:02, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Indiana Department of Homeland Security Racial Profiling pdf

I came across this pdf produced by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security for racial profiling and found that in it, and found that the vocabulary section on page 3/4 are copied from wikipedia, yet there is no attribution to Wikipedia or even a mention of it...

The purpose of the pdf is "To research positions related to the topic of racial profiling post September 11, 2001 with a primary focus on citizens of Middle Eastern descent, and to give an informative speech."

It uses 7 terms from Wikipedia: Racial Profiling, USA PATRIOT Act, Bigotry, Internment, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, The War on Terrorism.
(For those who can't count)

1. Racial Profiling
2. USA PATRIOT Act
3. Bigotry
4. Internment
5. Terrorism
6. Counter-terrorism
7. The War on Terrorism

The following is excerpted from the pdf.

• Racial Profiling is the inclusion of racial or ethnic characteristics in determining whether a person is considered likely to commit a particular type of crime or an illegal act or to behave in a “predictable” manner.

• The USA PATRIOT Act, commonly known as the “Patriot Act”, is a statute enacted by the United States Government that President George W. Bush signed into law on October 26, 2001. The contrived acronym stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (Public Law Pub.L. 107-56). The Act increases the ability of law enforcement agencies to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records; eases restrictions on foreign intelligence gathering within the United States; expands the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities; and enhances the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expands the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, thus enlarging the number of activities to which the USA PATRIOT Act’s expanded law enforcement powers can be applied.

• Bigotry- A bigot is a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices, especially one who regards or treats members of a group (e.g. a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance. Bigotry is the corresponding mindset or action. The term bigot is often misused to pejoratively label those who merely oppose or disagree with the devotion of another. The correct use of the term, however, requires the elements of obstinacy, irrationality, and animosity toward those of differing devotion.

• Internment is the imprisonment or confinement[1] of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) gives the meaning as: “The action of ‘interning’; confinement within the limits of a country or place”. Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction between internment, which is being confined usually for preventive or political reasons, and imprisonment, which is being closely confined as a punishment for crime.

• Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. One form is the use of violence against noncombatants for the purpose of gaining publicity for a group, cause, or individual.[citation needed] At present, there is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts that are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.

• Counter-terrorism (also spelled counterterrorism) refers to the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.

• The War on Terrorism (also referred to as the Global War on Terror is the common term for the military, political, legal and ideological conflict against what the effort’s leaders describe as Islamic terrorism and Islamic militants, and was specifically used in reference to operations by the United States and its allies since the September 11, 2001 attacks. The stated objectives of the war in the US are to protect the citizens of the US and allies, to protect the business interests of the US and allies at home and abroad, break up terrorist cells in the US, and disrupt the activities of the international network of terrorist organizations made up of a number of groups under the umbrella of al-Qaeda.

It should be noted that some government documents use wikipedia as a source, and thus should not be used as a reference.

Should the pdf attribute wikipedia as per the Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License? Anybody have any thoughts on this?Smallman12q (talk) 18:10, 30 January 2010 (UTC)