Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2011-09

generelle Orthographie von Woertern

Bitte sehr geehrte damen und Herren AUTOREN, wenn sie etwas in wikipedia schreiben , benutzen sie die richtige Orthographie, z.b. "Theils" ist falsch , richtig "Teils"! <ref>Nationalismus</ref>

gruesse reni von bifamo

innovativ consult/representant

diplingdesign, econom, projektmanager ing /scientist, international citizien und autor, poete ....

Hello,

I found myself unable to register. And that may be my own failure to understand the proper procedure in a past effort. Despite this, I'd still like to suggest a topic, and will first introduce myself as the person who authored an article that was used to footnote the Wikipedia biographies on George Lincoln Rockwell, William Pierce, and Matt Koehl. This was titled 'Pierce, Koehl, and the NSWPP Split of 1970.'

May I now suggest that someone take a look at my article 'The Origins of Pseudo-National Socialism,' as I estimate that it would be especially useful for clarifying where these three "neo-nazis" went wrong ideologcally. It's posted on the Advance Scout portion of Stormfront.org, where I moderate. And I'd also point out that Stormfront has made a sincere effort to move away from the trappings of national socialism itself due to this perspective.

Thank you,

H. Michael Barrett

What is your issue? Yogesh Khandke 21:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

code wikisource

Hello,

I'd like to discuss about the opportunity to create a "code wikisource", which would allow users to paste any source code in it, if it is compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. Which place would be suitable for this ? Regards, Freewol 08:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Please list that suggestion at New project proposals. There has been a similar idea in the past -- it is a good one, but needs some clarification and more interested people to get off the ground. SJ talk | translate   03:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Voting to prohibit non-Latin-script user names on English Wikipedia

Since this may be a Foundation issue, I'm letting you know: [1]. FuFoFuEd 00:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunate. Why is this coming up again? SJ talk | translate   20:12, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Event naming convention discussion

This isn't intended to be a vote. I am not too happy with any of these three examples and would be willing to hear what you guys think. I am particularly interested in alternate convention proposals.

Category:Events is frankly in a mess. There are entries like Meetup/London/46 or West Coast WikiConference or Wikimedia meetup Central and Eastern Europe or First Regional Conference of Wikimedia Serbia. I am not saying any of these names are bad, just that they do not follow a standard.

I'll list some of the problems with status quo:

  • It is very hard to follow what event takes place when in a chronological manner. For instance I just want to see all the events in western Europe in 2012. This is a chore to look up at the moment.
  • Currently the style is that most events are named in English. We shouldn't wish all events to be named in English as we are a very Internationalized project with over 700 wikis under the wikimedia banner.
  • Events with multi-lingual names Countries like Belgium have a cultural situation where there are two main official languages which are French and Dutch. The third official (regional) language is German. In the Flemish/Dutch part of the country French is quite unwelcome. Likewise in the Walloon/French part of the country Dutch is quite unwelcome. I do not know how either language is perceived in the German region of the country. The naming of a wiki event could cause tension. I will not even try to give examples of languages with multiple dialects or even writing styles. The complications are endless. The proposal would allow all alternate names (in every relevant language) to be a redirect on their own.

I propose that the naming of such wiki articles (not the actual events) be named in a standardized manner. I have a few ideas but not even I am sure how to handle the naming convention. I am thinking something like

  1. year/event/name example: 2011/Wikimania/Israel
  2. event/year/name example: 2011/Israel/Wikimania
  3. event/year/location/name example: Wikimania/2011/Israel/Hafia or Wikimania/2011/Israel
  4. year/eventcode/number example: 2011/WM/00007
  5. year/eventcode/name example: 2011/WM/Israel

All alternate names of the events would redirect to this page.

-- とある白い猫 chi? 21:54, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

The standard thing to do would be to have categories for the different kinds of event that you're interested in, and use the category-intersection tools to find the relevant items. So, "Category:Social meetups", "Category:Events in London" and "Category:Events in 2011" could be combined...
James F. (talk) 09:03, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that is assuming the person reading meta knows English. For something like social gatherings in a multilingual project that hardly seems right. I do not object to the use of categories but I believe such a naming convention would be a great improvement in many ways. -- とある白い猫 chi? 22:38, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Nice idea, chi. I agree standardization would be good. How about something like this:
This should make life easier to find for non-english speakers and easy to name for translators as well. SJ talk | translate   20:12, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikimedia project forked

For those who aren't yet aware of it, about half of en.wikinews' userbase forked into its own project [2] after becoming dissatisfied with Wikinews' attitudes and policies. (I've made an announcement at foundation-l regarding this.) About twice as many users have promised to support the fork than there are active Wikinews contributors.

I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on this fork, as well as on the future of Wikinews and wiki-journalism in general. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:23, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I've been following the debate with some interest. I've believed for a long time that there is too much "content overlap" with en WP resulting in all the exciting news events appearing on WP and casual readers going there instead of WN. I would have liked to see a WP policy of not creating articles on news events until they cease to be news and have proven lasting notability. This would have gone hand in hand with encouraging those wishing to write about news events being directed to WN. Maybe WN could even have been branded as the news portal of WP. However, I can't see any of this working while the WN user base is so small and content paralysis seems to grip WN. Personally if things continue like this I can see WN ceasing, in effect, to exist in the foreseeable future. Shame. Good luck with the fork. QU TalkQu 17:35, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't share that vision of en.wn ceasing; but then, I suspect Tempo and I would disagree on what Wikinews's purpose is, what it does, and probably what it can do. (Tbh, not a debate between us I see being a useful investment of anybody's time and effort atm. Makes far more sense to let the two projects amicably go their separate ways.)
But I too wish them well with their fork. If they succeed (against all odds, but hey, volunteers like to battle the odds, it gives them a sense of purpose!), eventually it may even be possible for the two projects to complement each other in some interesting way or other, sometime down the road — but that's just speculation, of course, as the eventual successful form of the fork, if any, is hidden in the future. --Pi zero 21:44, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
Good luck, of course, with keeping Wikinews strong and healthy. I hope it grows. My concern is really driven from a feeling that there is a "general malaise" around some of the smaller projects at the moment rather than entirely specific to WN. If half the contributors left en WB, where I am most active, I'd be equally concerned for its future - its hard enough now. QU TalkQu 08:38, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Why are living persons not treated equal in German Wikipedia?

Moved from FWF. Killiondude 07:37, 15 September 2011 (UTC) See:

When comparing English WP:BLP and German WP:BLP I stumbled upon a significant difference. While living persons in English Wikipedia are equal, German Wikipedia holds that dignity, and trustable contend are only expected in article namespace. Gossip and libel are freely allowed in user namespace.

I asked myself, whether this implementation of the above resolutions is, what the board intend it for.

Now I ask You:

  1. Aren't equality and humanity basic human rights? And shouldn't they are enforced everywhere in Wikipedia?
  2. Why has Wikipedia no binding declaration on basic human rights?
  3. What will You do to protect the dignity of living persons in German Wikipedia? Will You change WP:BLP – German?

--Human Rights 07:13, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Proposal to rename wikimania wikis as a separate project series. -- とある白い猫 chi? 10:31, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Smells like a change for the sake of a change… -Barras 10:55, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

About Global Sysops ethics

I posted something about that: A proposal and a question. -- Dragonòt 21:53, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Babel extension deployment

In two days, the Babel extension will likely be deployed. I have put on Babel extension#Deployment to disable categories by default, to prevent the automatic addition and creation of categories on wikis that use a different category naming scheme. If you want to enable categories, or want to opt-out from the Babel extension, please put that on Babel extension#Deployment. (See also Meta:Babel#Babel extension deployement). Regards, SPQRobin (talk) 15:21, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Why I haven't donated to Wikipedia yet > notoriety standards / policies too strict

[Skip to the bottom if you just want to see my suggestion.]

I love Wikipedia to death, but I can't get behind your site's unrealistic standards of what makes something notable, culturally relevant or factual. These rules prevent creating articles on many valid real world subjects. Just because information is obscure, does not appear in print on paper, or was not published by a corporate source, does not make it invalid or mean Wikipedia should ignore it.

I can understand that for credibility purposes, Wikipedia might want to fact check and require references. However, by being too strict about this, you are severely limiting the value of the site to accurately document the real world.

The requirements for citing a source need to be relaxed. One should not be limited to parroting some other source in order to contribute information to the Web site.

For example, a search for "Mark Prindle" turns up nothing. Although he is a well known music journalist who

  • has interviewed hundreds of noteworthy individuals (who themselves are documented in Wikipedia), and
  • whose name can be found in many many OTHER Wikipedia articles, and
  • who has been repeatedly featured on TV (Fox's "Red Eye"), and
  • has many visitors to his Web site & followers on Facebook, etc.

evidently he is just not famous enough for Wikipedia. Several people have tried to create an article on the subject of "Mark Prindle" and it has been repeatedly deleted. Wikipedia lets Paris Hilton have an entry. Wikipedia lets the Unabomber have an entry. Wikipedia even lets Sanjaya from American Idol (whose 15 minutes of fame are pretty thin compared to markprindle.com's 15-year presence with its thousands of record reviews) have a page. What's wrong with this picture?

Over the years, I have tried to enter articles on various bands, magazines, and noteworthy individuals, only to see the majority of them deleted because they weren't noticed by Time Magazine or the New York Times. As it stands, subjects like the 80s/90s central NJ music magazine The Splatter Effect, the Philadelphia avante garde indie band The Tibetan Bowlers, and music journalist Mark Prindle, are doomed to be forgotten if Wikipedia were to triumph as the de-facto document of the history of planet Earth.

So you have to be mainstream famous to be in Wikipedia? I just can't justify giving money to an organization that supports such elitism in the media.

The whole point of "wiki" is supposed to be collaboration, which implies that we are all participants and worthy of inclusion. One of the great benefits and potentials of the Internet is that it allows the public to circumvent traditional media channels and BE the media, so that no one all-powerful entity controls the flow of information.

As such, I would propose the following change: Rather, why not assign a "credibility score" to each article, so you can allow articles on obscure topics. That way, instead of deleting articles that could not be verified or do not pertain to a mainstream subject, readers can at least access the information, with a caveat that it is not necessarily "bona fide". For deletions, the only content you really need to restrict and delete would be slanderous or libelous information. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.97.224.10 (talk) 22:16, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

I have taken the liberty of forwarding your very reasonable suggestion to a more suitable forum: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) -- OlEnglish (Talk) 04:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Referendum

The referendum on the image filter doesn't have the feel of a referendum but more like a vote of affirmation for policy already formed.

  • The text on the main page of the referendum is worded in such a way that supports the idea rather than presenting the filter in an unbiased and neutural way.
  • The FAQ section is completely one sided and biased and does not incorporate any of the multitude of problems exasperated users have towards the image filter.
  • The discussion page is not hilighted in any way (but listed in the bottom right of the box AFTER the results tab (why is it at the bottom of the list in the box on the right side???), users are not invited nor suggested to take a look at the discussion before they make their vote and the discussion page is very easy to miss.
  • The referendum main page seems designed to inform users about the positive aspects of the filter and send a user on voting and nothing more...despite a large amount of dissent by other users.
  • The question is not clear. It is difficult to give a firm NO to the idea of the image filter.
  • The discussion page is absolutely loaded with problems, questions and complaints about the referendum and the image filter by many users and almost none of these are being addresed by anyone.

How could this be called a referendum and why is the discussion about it being relegated to the bottom of a box? Why is discussion and a presentation of both sides not being encouraged? I don't get it. --Shabidoo 05:37, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Shabidoo, I believe there were originally two separate ideas: a referendum to determine support (see the very first text describing it) and a poll to capture a more structured body of feedback than had emerged from the wiki discussions last year, including input from readers and casual editors (who would never find their way to Meta. they're not reading this discussion). Somehow these two ideas were mixed together in a way that ended up being confusing - with the poll called a referendum, and not asking the central referendum question (whether or not we should develop a filter) which most first-time participants wanted to answer.
As to discussion and presentation of both sides -- that's certainly needed. We should design any future surveys to encourage such discussion in addition to any quick-answer questions. Discussion/presentation is how we have run smaller RFCs in the past on Meta: and it was certainly a more effective and satisfying process. However some people feel that secret ballots make for a more effective survey for important votes, and some feel that wiki-votes are not accessible to readers who do not generally edit, whereas a straightforward poll/form is moreso. We are looking for a way to share the individual comments that were made this time. I think we should be able to use a combination of these methods to realize the advantages of both sorts of processes: perhaps letting voters opt to make their vote/comments public, which would post them simultaneously to a wiki discussion. SJ talk | translate   03:35, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Your comment seems to imply that the referendum is not being organised in a fair and balanced way, and that therefore the results are unlikely to validly reflect the opinion of the Wikipedia community. If that is what you mean, then I agree.

There should have been a clear and balanced vote about the principle of tagging images that may be objectionable, before asking any questions on how this feature should be implemented. The Board of Trustees has outstepped the boundaries of its competence by misrepresenting a fundamental decision about the future of Wikipedia as a mere functional enhancement.--Lieven Smits 08:51, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes. And everyone else (except those exasperated users) is simply silent about it...both here and on the talk page of the referendum, no matter how much users scream and complain. Are they just quietly waiting for the results so they can hear what they want to hear and sweep all the dissent under the carpet? --Shabidoo 13:05, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
A vocal minority. Everyone else happy with the idea goes ahead and votes and ignores the massive talk page that would be a clear case for use of LiquidThreads. – Adrignola talk 20:00, 26 August 2011 (UTC)


While I agree that there were issues with the "referendum" I believe the issues were these:

  • The referendum links went through wikimedia.org logins. The greatest numbers of possible voters have logins with wikipedia.org. (Eventually someone added a message to the top of a talk page to somewhat alleviate this (the main page was locked). I imagine the link issue reduced the participation in the referendum considerably.)
  • Regardless of the outcome of a referendum, implementation must meet local laws in various countries.
  • Regardless of the internal organizational structure, the organization should somehow have a conscience that cares about what it does to people (including minors and those who don't want to see pornographic images). Industry standard (and legal standard in many places) is to not dole out inappropriate images unless the user has expressly indicated that they are not a minor and actually wish to view unfiltered images. Even this could have moral and legal issues. Wikipedia has for a long time been even more radical than this; if you look up a sketchy topic, you're likely to come across a sketchy image--regardless of who you are. (Some wiki editors even are so twisted that they try and put up inappropriate images whenever and wherever they can; others try and fight these twisted rogues).
  • The questions were about as clear as mud--two people of nearly opposing views on a specific question were very likely to answer exactly the same way. I believe questions should be asked in a way that allows for a clear understanding of the people's opinions (within the bounds of what's legal and possible).

I believe that implementation of new rules should square with three tenets:

  • is it legal?
  • are we acting in a caring and responsible way by doing this?
  • does it fit the general consensus of users?

Inappropriate images don't really educate in any way that matters. What they do is hurt the people who see them by inviting them to degrade their thoughts from what is good and decent to what is base and inappropriate. They deal in a rough way with that which should be considered sacred. --Peter Bright 15:43, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

I feel there should be an interlangual, high prioritized vote for the logo on wiktionary, having come to a no results outcome was a waist of time. The vote should be majority yes. No 60% and over for a yes. Spesh531 03:44, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Checks and Balances in the Articles for Deletion Nomination Process in Wikipedia

There needs to be better checks and balances in the process of how articles are currently nominated for deletion, to prevent notable topics from being deleted without actual qualification per Wikipedia article deletion guidelines. This is a significant problem, because it is very likely that notable topics are being injustly deleted. It's easy to nominate an article for deletion and then type five or six words and wait to see if an article will be deleted, whereas it takes more time to refute nominations. Perhaps there should be more sophisticated criterion to nominate articles for deletion. As it is now, anyone can nominate any article without providing a just rationale for doing so, and can instead simply base the nomination upon basic, generic and inspecific statements such as "doesn't pass general notability guidelines", while not specifically stating which parts of the guidelines they are supposedly referring to. If nobody comes along to correct an injust or baseless nomination, the article is then deleted based upon unqualified, general statements that don't actually correspond with the required source searching per WP:BEFORE prior to nominating an article for deletion. This definitely makes it very easy for people to censor Wikipedia, for whatever subjective reasons. Here's how it's done: an article is nominated for deletion and an AfD entry is created, a generic rationale is provided to misqualify the deletion without actually checking for reliable sources to establish topic notability. Afterward, if nobody comes along to correct the faulty nomination, the article is deleted. It's also easy for people to message one-another to delete articles, often per an "as per nom" rationale, while disregarding the actual notability of topics. If nobody comes along and provides an objective analysis to refute the deletion of an article in which the topic is actually notable, nominated per generic statements and without the required source searching prior to nomination, then the article disappears. Hopefully Wikipedia can introduce better checks and balances to prevent this type of easily accomplished, simple censorship. One idea is to include a requirement prior to article nomination for deletion in which the nominator has to state, or check-box on a template, that they've performed the required minimum search in Google Books and in the Google News Archive required by WP:BEFORE, and in Google Scholar for academic subjects, as suggested in WP:BEFORE. This would be a simple addition to the AfD nomination process that would add significant integrity to the process, and would also encourage users to follow the proper procedures.

Please place responses regarding this matter here on this Article Rescue Squadron Discussion page below, rather than on my personal talk page. In this manner, other users can view and respond to responses. Thank you. Northamerica1000 07:36, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Note: There's also a discussion currently occurring regarding this topic at: Wikipedia talk: Articles for deletion - Checks and Balances in the Articles for Deletion Nomination Process. Northamerica1000 14:42, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Image filter on Wikisource

I have started writing a RFC for whether the image filter should apply to Wikisource. Requests for comment/Image filter on Wikisource. Before any voting or comments, I would like some time for the community to develop arguments, for and against, like the German Wikipedia process. John Vandenberg 01:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

help me plzz

I am doing a project involving CMS mediawiki. but I have a problem in my wiki, the table of default does not appear, and the edit bar is very poor, please is to improve? Template:Info/Software

Maybe it is Mohamed Aden Ighe 14:45, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Protesting Stewards elections

I protest that wikimedia spurns users' privacy. Electing new stewards means more people can get users' privacy information. It increases the risk for information leaking. Therefore, the stewards' group should not be renewed and expanded.--Coekon 23:21, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Your argument is backwards. Stewards temporarily take Checkuser rights to deal with problems on projects with no local Checkuser. The alternative would be for every small project to have two or more CUs. Therefore, having Stewards reduces the number of people with access to privacy information and, because they are elected by the whole Wikimedia community there is greater oversight of their appointment and work than individual project CUs. QU TalkQu 21:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

what about "Wiktionary Logo" (see above)

hello ; I'm a new User here, not very skilfull in these pages, links, propositions ; I have the sensation of having watched everywhere for finding this "Wiktionary Logo" announced by Spesh531, but I did'nt find anything ; would you help me ? thanks in advance, Buster Keaton 16:20, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Wiktionary/logo/refresh/voting would be a good starting point QU TalkQu 21:54, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

thanks for the answer ; I looked at Wiktionary/logo/refresh/voting, but it seemed to me that the subject "Wiktionary Logo" (the definitive logo ?) is not yet proposed (last answers were given in 2010) ; would you give to me any precisions about this vote ? (maybe in my ignorance of beginner I've understood nothing) ;
I have another question : I saw today, in the bandeau "Please help translate the 2011 fundraiser" in the top of the page, a logo "Foundation Wikimedia" (is "logo" the right word in this case ?), written in orange and pink very pale, inside a lot of different small words in other colours ; I take the liberty to give my opinion on it (I hope the creator of this "written drawing logo" will not be hurted, I simply give my opinion) : I find that the style of this "written drawing logo" is not suitable for Foundation Wikimedia whom the graphic style is very very strong ; it seems to me that you have to respect the strength of style of Foundation Wikimedia and its Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and so on ;
thank you in advance for your attention, yours, Buster Keaton 21:34, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

2. Stewardwahl 2011

Hallo, Entschuldigung, dass ich in Deutsch schreibe, mein Englisch ist leider nicht so gut. Ich habe bei den Guidelines für die Stewardwahl auf meta.wikimedia.org den Link zur Überprüfung der Wahlberechtigung für die 2. Stewardwahl 2011 in diversen Sprachen korrigiert[3]. Der Link verwies auf die Überprüfung der Wahlberechtigung für die 1. Stewardwahl 2011 im Januar dieses Jahres.

Ich habe die Befürchtung, dass durch die falschen Verweise etliche Benutzer aus den verschiedenen Wikis nicht an der aktuellen Wahl teilnehmen, da sie denken, dass sie nicht stimmberechtigt sind.

Kann die Wahl unter diesen Umständen noch weitergeführt werden? Gruß -- Stefan1973HB 21:47, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Is there a list of texts on the Hindi Wikisource that the community wants?

I have access to the library of the Indian Institute of Technology which houses quiet a few Hindi Texts.

However, I have no idea which texts are the ones requested on wikisource as of now. Looking out for books and performing a research on their copyright status as well as legacy will be a not so straight forward task for me.I'd much appreciate it if you could put me in touch with some one who has been involved with the Hindi Wikisource so that perhaps I could check out if the library has the requested texts or not.

--Thewinster 15:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Thewinster. I think there is no list of wanted texts at Hindi Wikisource yet. As far as I know, all texts previously published on paper, and else under public domain else under a free license compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0, are wellcome at Wikisource. -Aleator (talk) 21:06, 28 September 2011 (UTC)