Folks,
Would someone help me here? What is the current policy regarding linking
dates such as Birth and Death in biography articles?
Thanks,
Marc Riddell
At http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cool_Wall we had a complete list
of cars which appear on the BBC Top Gear "Cool Wall". I removed this
as being almost certainly a violation of copyright. It is now being
argued that reproducing the list in full does not violate copyright,
because it is not published in the show's magazine or on the website
and has been compiled by collating the lists from numerous shows. It
is further asserted that compiling the list from these shows does not
constitute original research, although there is no known reliable
secondary source for any of the data, let alone the complete collated
list
Original research? You decide.
Copyright? I think so, but what do I know?
Fancruft? Ooooh, tricky :-)
Guidance appreciated.
Guy (JzG)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.ukhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
The other day I noticed an editor replacing multiple references to a website
that has disappeared with {{fact}}, in different articles.
The other day I noticed an editor removing a number of references to a
website, with a "this site is gone" edit summary. The site has indeed left
the building, so to speak, but I'm not sure what the rule is here.
Question for the panel: is it better to just leave the links as is (with a
note that the site does not exist anymore), remove them altogether, or
replace the links with archive.org links?
In these particular instances the links were replaced by {{fact}}, which
is--to my mind--the worst of all options: it makes it look as if there never
were proper sources for the statement, or actually worse: the "citation
needed" make it look as if the statements are somehow controversial. Not to
mention that they now run the risk of being deleted.
(The issue that made me think about this is clouded by the fact that the
editor effectively removing the sources deems the originally referenced site
untrustworthy, but that's beside the larger point, really.)
Michel Vuijlsteke
On Fri, 2008-10-17 at 19:23 +0000, wikien-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
wrote:
> From: Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com>
> multiple references to a website
> that has disappeared
> Question for the panel: is it better to just leave the links as is
> (with a
> note that the site does not exist anymore), remove them altogether, or
> replace the links with archive.org links?
I, for one, would say that yoy should just do what you would do with
offline sources, there is no reason to treat online sources in a
different way: when you cite a journal it is the reader's responsibility
to go and find it in a library, not yours, as long as you give all
necessary information to locate a copy of the journal if one exists at
all, and if the journal goes out of print and all libraries of the world
somehow decide to burn all copies of that journal then it is still not
your responsibility, as an author or editor.
A dead link is like a book which is out of print. It is hard to find,
but it was published someday, so it is appropriate to cite it as long as
you include the access date (a short quotation would help too).
Your responsibility as an author is to provide proper references that
would enable one to spot the source if copies exist and to provide the
information in a correct manner (eg if the source says "a bit of it"
don't write "lots of it"). For links, as long as you cite the pages for
information that is correct and truthful and you provide proper
citations (URL, access date, etc) then you have done what is expected of
you. Noting that a link is dead or providing a link to a web archiver
is a good thing, too.
There are some systems where you can go and keep a snapshot of a webpage
for future reference. Using them is a good thing, but not necessary:
when you reference a book you don't make a snapshot of it, so you
shouldn't be required to take snapshots of webpages just because
webpages may go dead (books can be burned or become out of print, too).
However, do note that placing citations to dead webpages, or to live
webpages that soon afterwards go dead, is a way to commit undetectable
vandalism. There is no easy solution against this, unless one is
willing to not include any dead links.
Furthermore, the responsibilities of the author have to be balanced with
the rights of the reader: the reader has a right to be able to check
your work for accuracy, and citations are supposed to satisfy that
right, but with the web this system appears to be broken now (with books
and journals it was very unlikely for a paper source to disappear from
all over the world and from all libraries at once), so one could say
that dead links do not appear to be very useful for readers,
particularly those not familiar with citation systems. While the author
has a responsibility to provide sources and assist one in finding them
by providing proper publication and access dates or other information,
they are not responsible for actually keeping a copy of them or of
actually finding them themselves after an article is written, but the
reader has a right to be able to check the author's accuracy and
therefore the volatility of the web appears to be a diservice to
readers.
Perhaps the best solution would be to build a web archiving platform in
Wikipedia itself, so that all referenced webpages are stored for later
retrieval.
--
Thanks,
NSK Nikolaos S. Karastathis, http://nsk.karastathis.org/
In a message dated 11/26/2008 7:41:07 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
nawrich(a)gmail.com writes:
When the link between the student accounts was discovered recently, it
turned into a long thread at AN/I where a number of unfriendly things were
said about both the students and the lecturers >>
It's helpful if you give a link since this is likely to be deeply buried by
now in some archive.
I don't understand the problem with assigning editing Wikipedia to a
classroom.
Why not?
**************Life should be easier. So should your homepage. Try the NEW
AOL.com.
(http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000…)
2008/11/26 Michael Everson <everson(a)evertype.com>:
> I don't know whether this is a reasonable place to put this problem,
> but the articles on Ireland on en.wikipedia.org need a serious look by
> people with a neutral view.
wikien-l might be a better location; I've sent this reply there.
> Right now we've got a clique of about 10
> editors filibustering and preventing any change to the article naming
> conventions. It's driving us mad, and preventing the articles
> themselves from being improved. Somehow I think we need binding
> arbitration.
Having had a look at these debates once or twice before (and a similar
set involving the term "British Isles"), yeah, they're big and messy
and affect a lot of articles. A resolution would be good for everyone.
> A number of us think that the most sensible proposal is to move
> [[Ireland]] to [[Ireland (island)]], [[Ireland (disambiguation)]] to
> [[Ireland]], and [[Republic of Ireland]] to [[Ireland (state)]].
> That's a compromise over an alternative, which is to move [[Ireland]]
> to [[Ireland (island)]], keep [[Ireland (disambiguation)]] where it
> is, and move [[Republic of Ireland]] to [[Ireland]]. If any of you
> would like to take a look, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ireland_(disambiguation)#Proposed_move_to…
> and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ireland#Proposed_move_to_Ireland_.28islan…
A quick summary of the background, for those who (like me) have to
keep reminding themselves of the nuances:
"Ireland" is a big lump of land northwest of France. It contains two
political entities, "Ireland" (that's the formal name), an independent
nation state sometimes known as "Eire" or (mostly in the UK) "the
Republic of Ireland", and "Northern Ireland", which is a part of the
UK. Prior to the 1920s, both were one and the same political entity,
which occupied all of the geographical island; this historical period
is described under [[Kingdom of Ireland]], etc.
Currently:
[[Ireland (disambiguation)]] - disambiguation page.
[[Ireland]] - geographical entity, primary title
[[Republic of Ireland]] - political entity
Proposal #1 above:
[[Ireland]] - disambiguation page, primary title
[[Ireland (island)]] - geographical entity
[[Ireland (state)]] - political entity
Proposal #2 above:
[[Ireland (disambiguation)]] - disambiguation page.
[[Ireland (island)]] - geographical entity
[[Ireland]] - political entity, primary title
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk
Let me clarify some things:
Saboto215 is a sockpuppet account. It is my sockpuppet. Ryan Postlethwaite
found it. Durova is correct.
I am not a meatpuppet of JB196. I know JB196's name from memory. For me to
be a meatpuppet of JB196 would require me to have communicated with him at
some point. I haven't, and have no intention of doing so. Durova thinks I'm
involved, but she hasn't said how. She may have been trying to imply that I
was a meatpuppet of JB196. She can choose to believe the truth, or not. She
seems to have chosen the latter.
I have also never communicated with Burntsauce or Eyrian, and I don't
remember ever talking to Alkivar either. I had not even heard of Burntsauce
or Eyrian before the cases, but Alkivar was quite active and I have seen him
comment on various issues. I do not know who any of these people are, and
have no intention of finding out.
What Durova is not telling is that after she said she was "signing off the
list", I sent an e-mail to the never-read gmail address nadezhda.durova AT
gmail.com. The e-mail is copied below.
--Jonas
----------------
From: "Jonas Rand" <joeyyuan(a)cox.net>
To: <nadezhda.durova(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Hello
Date: Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:18:09 -0800
Hello Durova,
I didn't realize that the name was removed by now. It must have been some
time since I read the page, as I last remember seeing the name there. I
remembered the name, and I didn't think it was a secret (as he made an edit
saying he was Jonathan Barber), but Alison removed in in 2007. I remembered
that name and then did some searching on him not long ago. I know Grawp's
name as well; that does not mean that I have ever communicated with Grawp
(indeed I have not). I don't know how these things stick in my memory,
though.
Yes, it is a mere coincidence that the date aligned with the arbitration
cases and the Eyrian thing. I have nothing to do with JB196. I know, if I
were so inclined, how I would go about contacting him (based on the search
that I did), but I don't remember the address and I would have to do the
search again. I have never e-mailed JB196, or contacted him via other means
(such as a forum). You should ask him if he's ever communicated with a Jonas
Rand.
The circumstance that I "didn't want to discuss" was that I wanted to make
the hoax more elaborate, setting up a blog network referencing "Nikita
Molotov" and advertizing the promotion. I reconsidered and thought that was
too much work, so I decided not to do it. That's it.
Jonas Rand
I recently sent an unblock request to Tiptoety, asking him to post it on the
Admins' Noticeboard, as he said he would on IRC. Durova made a comment on
it, and then she wrote a long-winded addendum to it that I really didn't get
the point of, and am unsure of how to respond to. It seems to me that she
wasn't accusing me of anything, as I could make out no clear accusation, but
why did she write all of that? For nothing? I don't think that she was
accusing me of being JB196, because if she read the long term abuse page on
him, she would see that his real name is Jonathan Barber, and that he is a
wrestling commentator who promotes himself. Then again, she's accused me of
not being as young as I say I am, and she may think that I am a made-up
person. A Yahoo! search on my name can disprove this. Any connection between
me and JB196 is purely coincidental. I have never even communicated with
Alkivar and Eyrian (who have been accused of editing for JB196), let alone
JB196, and I surely didn't "proxy" for him.
I don't know what to say in response to her speech, except that I cannot
understand a word of it.
Link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_notic…
Jonas Rand
Because myself and others have been frustrated by the lack of good
stats on the number of active editors on the English Wikipedia, I have
compiled some stats on the editing frequency on enwiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_frequency
I am going to forgo any extensive analysis for now. But I will say
that these trends mostly mirror trends seen elsewhere, with a peak in
early 2007 followed by a decline and then leveling out as we go
towards the present.
In September, 130,000 registered users and 525,000 anons made at least
one edit to an article. If you define "active editors" as those
making at least 20 article edits per month then 14000 registered users
and 6000 anons met that threshold in September.
-Robert Rohde