http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Fall_Off_Boy
Summary: A joke character with a similar name existed in comics fandom. The writer who put this character in the comic book mistakenly thought he was a preexisting character, and it's possible he confused him with the character who had the similar name.
The Wikipedia article is allowed to mention none of this because it assumes that reliable sources are professionally published and we can't use fanzines and blogs for information... and professionally publishing anything about a joke character whose superpower is that his arm falls off is not too likely.
(Also, previous example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley . Bradley had a dispute with a fan writer over "fan fiction" (whether it even counts as fan fiction is highly questionable). The fan's side of this dispute is available in blogs and fan sources; Bradley, being a published writer, could get her side described in sources that are reliable by Wikipedia standards. Therefore, Wikipedia only tells one side of the story.)
My first instinct would be to ask what state of mind the comic writers were in when creating these characters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matter-Eater_Lad http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncing_Boy
But really, if something is obscure enough that it doesn't get published in reliable sources, you are stuck. What I would support in such cases is an external link to a page documenting this. Kind of like further reading.
Carcharoth
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Fall_Off_Boy
Summary: A joke character with a similar name existed in comics fandom. The writer who put this character in the comic book mistakenly thought he was a preexisting character, and it's possible he confused him with the character who had the similar name.
The Wikipedia article is allowed to mention none of this because it assumes that reliable sources are professionally published and we can't use fanzines and blogs for information... and professionally publishing anything about a joke character whose superpower is that his arm falls off is not too likely.
(Also, previous example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley . Bradley had a dispute with a fan writer over "fan fiction" (whether it even counts as fan fiction is highly questionable). The fan's side of this dispute is available in blogs and fan sources; Bradley, being a published writer, could get her side described in sources that are reliable by Wikipedia standards. Therefore, Wikipedia only tells one side of the story.)
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On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Carcharoth wrote:
But really, if something is obscure enough that it doesn't get published in reliable sources, you are stuck. What I would support in such cases is an external link to a page documenting this. Kind of like further reading.
The *character* is in a reliable source, it's just that the fact that it was based off a fandom joke or that the character's "creator" thought it was preexisting are not in reliable sources.
And for the Marion Zimmer Bradley example, the *dispute* is present in reliable sources, it's just that *both sides* of the dispute are not (since only the side who is a professional author gets to publish her side professionally).
And the real point is that our reliable source concept is utterly broken when it comes to using blogs and other modern sources. Saying "if it's not in a reliable source, there's nothing you can do" misses the point. Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable source.
On 15/07/2010, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
And the real point is that our reliable source concept is utterly broken when it comes to using blogs and other modern sources. Saying "if it's not in a reliable source, there's nothing you can do" misses the point. Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable source.
Or, isn't this the point of IAR?
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Ian Woollard wrote:
And the real point is that our reliable source concept is utterly broken when it comes to using blogs and other modern sources. Saying "if it's not in a reliable source, there's nothing you can do" misses the point. Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable source.
Or, isn't this the point of IAR?
I don't think IAR is for systematic problems.
IAR isn't for a regular, predictable, situation where a generic agreed solution would be better, and not for a sourcing issue or "systematic problem" like this. More and more often there is a chance (small in any given case, large overall) that important information for an article may be blog published, so we do have a genuine issue here.
I tend to use eventualism for filling out a page, not for correcting violations of NPOV (paramount policy).I don't expect to find myself thinking *"It's not balanced and gives undue weight but eventually we might get a source that fixes it"*. That's different from extra information that we don't need. As Charles says the problem is that RS is our filter to ensure what we do say is reliable. So the question is, that information in the blog - who says it's accurate? Why would a user rely upon it?
My suggested view is to look at the purpose of RS. The aim of RS is part of a wider goal - not passing off dud information as good, and allowing users to see transparently where our information comes from. We do that to an extent with self published material. So I would be okay with a solution that extended and built upon SELFPUB. For example:
Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information, without the requirement that they be published by experts in the field or reliable sources, so long as:
1. the content is salient or NPOV would be compromised if absent; 2. the content is not published in a more reliable source; 3. the author's details and the origins of the material (authenticity) is not in question; 4. the author's position to speak to the matter or viewpoint involved is not in question; 5. the material is not unduly self-serving; 6. it does not involve claims about third parties; 7. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; 8. the article is not based primarily on such sources; 9. The material is clearly attributed to the author and the type of medium made clear (personal website, blog, etc) for the reader's understanding.
This is more, a natural extension and rationalization of an existing norm, and puts SELFPUB on a platform with other material of a like nature. Worth proposing?
FT2
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable
source.
Or, isn't this the point of IAR?
I like the approach, but sources are more or less reliable, not absolutely R or not-R. The factors you list affect the degree of reliability, but where to put the bar so it can be used in Wikipedia will vary with different subjects, and with different purposes. (for example, the bar for documenting biographical facts about the subject is considerably higher for claims of excellence than for routine biographical details. ) Perhaps a rewording not using absolute terms might work better--NFCC has shown the disadvantages of using in an absolute sense things that need to be interpreted
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 1:31 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
IAR isn't for a regular, predictable, situation where a generic agreed solution would be better, and not for a sourcing issue or "systematic problem" like this. More and more often there is a chance (small in any given case, large overall) that important information for an article may be blog published, so we do have a genuine issue here.
I tend to use eventualism for filling out a page, not for correcting violations of NPOV (paramount policy).I don't expect to find myself thinking *"It's not balanced and gives undue weight but eventually we might get a source that fixes it"*. That's different from extra information that we don't need. As Charles says the problem is that RS is our filter to ensure what we do say is reliable. So the question is, that information in the blog - who says it's accurate? Why would a user rely upon it?
My suggested view is to look at the purpose of RS. The aim of RS is part of a wider goal - not passing off dud information as good, and allowing users to see transparently where our information comes from. We do that to an extent with self published material. So I would be okay with a solution that extended and built upon SELFPUB. For example:
Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information, without the requirement that they be published by experts in the field or reliable sources, so long as:
1. the content is salient or NPOV would be compromised if absent; 2. the content is not published in a more reliable source; 3. the author's details and the origins of the material (authenticity) is not in question; 4. the author's position to speak to the matter or viewpoint involved is not in question; 5. the material is not unduly self-serving; 6. it does not involve claims about third parties; 7. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; 8. the article is not based primarily on such sources; 9. The material is clearly attributed to the author and the type of medium made clear (personal website, blog, etc) for the reader's understanding.
This is more, a natural extension and rationalization of an existing norm, and puts SELFPUB on a platform with other material of a like nature. Worth proposing?
FT2
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable
source.
Or, isn't this the point of IAR?
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Can you explain and suggest what you mean here?
FT2
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 9:46 PM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
(Snip)
Perhaps a rewording not using absolute terms might work better--NFCC has shown the disadvantages of using in an absolute sense things that need to be interpreted
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 1:31 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
IAR isn't for a regular, predictable, situation where a generic agreed solution would be better, and not for a sourcing issue or "systematic problem" like this. More and more often there is a chance (small in any given case, large overall) that important information for an article may
be
blog published, so we do have a genuine issue here.
I tend to use eventualism for filling out a page, not for correcting violations of NPOV (paramount policy).I don't expect to find myself thinking *"It's not balanced and gives undue weight but eventually we
might
get a source that fixes it"*. That's different from extra information
that
we don't need. As Charles says the problem is that RS is our filter to ensure what we do say is reliable. So the question is, that information
in
the blog - who says it's accurate? Why would a user rely upon it?
My suggested view is to look at the purpose of RS. The aim of RS is part
of
a wider goal - not passing off dud information as good, and allowing
users
to see transparently where our information comes from. We do that to an extent with self published material. So I would be okay with a solution
that
extended and built upon SELFPUB. For example:
Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information, without the requirement that they be published by experts in the field or reliable sources, so long as:
- the content is salient or NPOV would be compromised if absent;
- the content is not published in a more reliable source;
- the author's details and the origins of the material (authenticity)
is
not in question; 4. the author's position to speak to the matter or viewpoint involved
is
not in question; 5. the material is not unduly self-serving; 6. it does not involve claims about third parties; 7. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; 8. the article is not based primarily on such sources; 9. The material is clearly attributed to the author and the type of medium made clear (personal website, blog, etc) for the reader's understanding.
This is more, a natural extension and rationalization of an existing
norm,
and puts SELFPUB on a platform with other material of a like nature.
Worth
proposing?
FT2
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable
source.
Or, isn't this the point of IAR?
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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1. the content is significant to the purpose of the article, or NPOV would be compromised if absent; 2. the content is not published in a more reliable easily available source; 3. the author's details and the origins of the material (authenticity) is not in significant good-faith question; 4. the author's position to speak to the matter or viewpoint involved is not in significant good-faith question; 5. the material is not unduly self-serving; 6. it does not involve claims about third parties, except to the extent the author is authoritatively able to provide them. ; 7. it does not involve claims about events not having a reasonably direct relationship to the subject; 8. the article is not based entirely or almost entirely on such sources, and there is substantial third party verification of key claims. 9. The material is clearly attributed to the author and the type of medium made clear (personal website, blog, etc) for the reader's understanding.
These modifications i wording are made to address sourcing problems which have in fact occurred and require flexibility in their resolution
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 4:53 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Can you explain and suggest what you mean here?
FT2
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 9:46 PM, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
(Snip)
Perhaps a rewording not using absolute terms might work better--NFCC has shown the disadvantages of using in an absolute sense things that need to be interpreted
On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 1:31 PM, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
IAR isn't for a regular, predictable, situation where a generic agreed solution would be better, and not for a sourcing issue or "systematic problem" like this. More and more often there is a chance (small in any given case, large overall) that important information for an article may
be
blog published, so we do have a genuine issue here.
I tend to use eventualism for filling out a page, not for correcting violations of NPOV (paramount policy).I don't expect to find myself thinking *"It's not balanced and gives undue weight but eventually we
might
get a source that fixes it"*. That's different from extra information
that
we don't need. As Charles says the problem is that RS is our filter to ensure what we do say is reliable. So the question is, that information
in
the blog - who says it's accurate? Why would a user rely upon it?
My suggested view is to look at the purpose of RS. The aim of RS is part
of
a wider goal - not passing off dud information as good, and allowing
users
to see transparently where our information comes from. We do that to an extent with self published material. So I would be okay with a solution
that
extended and built upon SELFPUB. For example:
Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information, without the requirement that they be published by experts in the field or reliable sources, so long as:
1. the content is salient or NPOV would be compromised if absent; 2. the content is not published in a more reliable source; 3. the author's details and the origins of the material (authenticity)
is
not in question; 4. the author's position to speak to the matter or viewpoint involved
is
not in question; 5. the material is not unduly self-serving; 6. it does not involve claims about third parties; 7. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; 8. the article is not based primarily on such sources; 9. The material is clearly attributed to the author and the type of medium made clear (personal website, blog, etc) for the reader's understanding.
This is more, a natural extension and rationalization of an existing
norm,
and puts SELFPUB on a platform with other material of a like nature.
Worth
proposing?
FT2
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 7:57 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
Sure there's something you can do: fix the definition of reliable
source.
Or, isn't this the point of IAR?
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On Sun, 18 Jul 2010, FT2 wrote:
So I would be okay with a solution that extended and built upon SELFPUB. For example:
It's a nice try, but it still has the limitation to not being about third parties. We clearly can't just do away with that completely, but it needs to be relaxed somehow.
On 18/07/2010, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
IAR isn't for a regular, predictable, situation where a generic agreed solution would be better, and not for a sourcing issue or "systematic problem" like this. More and more often there is a chance (small in any given case, large overall) that important information for an article may be blog published, so we do have a genuine issue here.
IAR is a rule that was written early-on in the Wikipedia because particularly then, the rules weren't very good, and this was intended to allow the Wikipedia to proceed before better rules could be drafted.
Ian Woollard wrote:
On 18/07/2010, FT2 ft2.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
IAR isn't for a regular, predictable, situation where a generic agreed solution would be better, and not for a sourcing issue or "systematic problem" like this. More and more often there is a chance (small in any given case, large overall) that important information for an article may be blog published, so we do have a genuine issue here.
IAR is a rule that was written early-on in the Wikipedia because particularly then, the rules weren't very good, and this was intended to allow the Wikipedia to proceed before better rules could be drafted.
IAR is cool. Basically it encapsulates that wiki work is for people who can operate in free-form environments. I think your interpretation might be agreed by those many Wikipedians in 2010 who fundamentally think "rules" are a Good Thing. I have some problems with that approach, because it's a working environment where things do not need to be Fordist, and initiative and the guts to hold out for the right result are to be encouraged. The interaction with RS is certainly problematic, though. We know RS is not entirely respectable in detail, but at a nutshell level it does represent what we want to do. It allows us to proceed ... in other words it needs to be read in spirit rather than letter.
Charles
On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
it's a working environment where things do not need to be Fordist, and initiative and the guts to hold out for the right result are to be encouraged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fordism
Which bit of Fordism are you referring to here (if that is what you meant)?
Carcharoth
This is a point comon to all codification.
For those who have clue about wiki, yes. For the many who don't, are learning, do not want to be bitten, might be over-aggressive in adding/criticising/removing, or want clearer guidance, we have detailed policies that capture key points.
So while ideally IAR does the trick in practice for mass editing it could help. Especially where it interacts with our core content policies (and RS -> Verifiability -> core to encyclopedic quality) the guidance may help a lot in the cases it comes up.
Expanding SELFPUB from an anomalous exception to a principle will help.
The wider principle is that if the originator of an online post is able to be confirmed (author is not spoofed, publication on own website or one controlled by him/her, etc), and has some kind of position to speak to the point (salience, significant to article or NPOV), then we have enough to say "X says Y" and the fact that X chose to say Y on a blog or self pub website is not really an impediment.
FT2
On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
IAR is cool. Basically it encapsulates that wiki work is for people who can operate in free-form environments. I think your interpretation might be agreed by those many Wikipedians in 2010 who fundamentally think "rules" are a Good Thing. I have some problems with that approach, because it's a working environment where things do not need to be Fordist, and initiative and the guts to hold out for the right result are to be encouraged. The interaction with RS is certainly problematic, though. We know RS is not entirely respectable in detail, but at a nutshell level it does represent what we want to do. It allows us to proceed ... in other words it needs to be read in spirit rather than letter.
Charles
Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Carcharoth wrote:
But really, if something is obscure enough that it doesn't get published in reliable sources, you are stuck. What I would support in such cases is an external link to a page documenting this. Kind of like further reading.
The *character* is in a reliable source, it's just that the fact that it was based off a fandom joke or that the character's "creator" thought it was preexisting are not in reliable sources.
Why is this any different from any other kind of "arcana"? And do people really lose sleep over this sort of thing? There must be a huge amount of insider-like knowledge associated with politics, sport, business, whatever. If we wait until this becomes "information" - is documented in at least some literature about the area - that should be fine. Most specialist areas have at least a magazine. I don't think simply multiplying instances where at the margin the content policy works as it is intended to by itself undermines its purpose.
Charles
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
Why is this any different from any other kind of "arcana"? And do people really lose sleep over this sort of thing? There must be a huge amount of insider-like knowledge associated with politics, sport, business, whatever. If we wait until this becomes "information" - is documented in at least some literature about the area - that should be fine. Most specialist areas have at least a magazine. I don't think simply multiplying instances where at the margin the content policy works as it is intended to by itself undermines its purpose.
The Internet is available to hundreds of millions people. I think that disqualifies anything on it from being insider information.
And the policy isn't working as it's intended to. The reliable sources rule isn't supposed to rule out arcana. We have rules that are actually about arcana to handle that. (Though I'm not sure exactly what the reliable sources rule is for. It's not, of course, about truth.)
And even this excuse doesn't work for the Bradley example. Having only one side of a dispute because one side of the dispute is a published author and can more easily get her side published in a reliable source certainly isn't "arcana".
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 5:11 AM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
<snip>
And even this excuse doesn't work for the Bradley example. Having only one side of a dispute because one side of the dispute is a published author and can more easily get her side published in a reliable source certainly isn't "arcana".
There is a similar distortion of the record as "seen on Wikipedia" in terms of images as well. I've long held the view that it is important to present a balanced visual record of a subject in a Wikipedia article, both in terms of what is presented in the article and what is linked to elsewhere (including galleries of images on Commons and external links).
One of the problems, though, is that the founding principle that content must be freely licensed has resulted in large swathes of images being declared forbidden (because you would need to pay to use them and you couldn't freely redistribute them). There are also freedom of panorama considerations that lead to many images being excluded that many people not familiar with how this varies from country to country expressing surprise that pictures of modern statues and buildings in public places in some countries are not allowed on Commons.
What this results in is a strange absence of some pictures you might expect to see in an article, and a preponderance of images from free sources (such as the US government, the Australian government, and various other source). But for some countries, this is missing. Thus some articles that you would expect to see illustrated by images from the history of that country are instead illustrated by whatever can be found in free sources from other countries, or very old images rather than more recent ones.
So people looking at the images in Wikipedia might notice an absence of certain types of images and a preponderance of pictures from US sources instead. Most of the time this is not a problem, but in some cases I think it can distort the record. Kind of like breaching NPOV for the visual record. The balance can be redressed by including external links to other images from other sources, but it still feels like rather than selecting the *best* pictures to illustrate something, the images chosen are the best of the *free* images. My view has always been that if there is a better, non-free image, it should be mentioned in the article and linked to in a reference or external link, not just ignored until it becomes free.
This is why I was saying that information in borderline sources could be mentioned in an external link or a footnote or as an aside in a reference. Of the three, I think providing an external link and letting the reader follow it and make up their own mind is best.
Carcharoth
On 16 July 2010 08:53, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
One of the problems, though, is that the founding principle that content must be freely licensed has resulted in large swathes of images being declared forbidden (because you would need to pay to use them and you couldn't freely redistribute them). There are also freedom of panorama considerations that lead to many images being excluded that many people not familiar with how this varies from country to country expressing surprise that pictures of modern statues and buildings in public places in some countries are not allowed on Commons.
This is a problem that, in large part, eventualism will solve. I say that because our hard-arsed policies relating to free content have *directly* caused the freeing of quite a lot of content that wouldn't have been otherwise. Indeed, the US government bias you note has been a most useful thing to point out to countries that don't free up government works.
en:wp does allow quite a few historic images under fair use. And no, they're not safe. But we're in this for the long haul, not a pretty page today.
- d.
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 11:43 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 16 July 2010 08:53, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
One of the problems, though, is that the founding principle that content must be freely licensed has resulted in large swathes of images being declared forbidden (because you would need to pay to use them and you couldn't freely redistribute them). There are also freedom of panorama considerations that lead to many images being excluded that many people not familiar with how this varies from country to country expressing surprise that pictures of modern statues and buildings in public places in some countries are not allowed on Commons.
This is a problem that, in large part, eventualism will solve. I say that because our hard-arsed policies relating to free content have *directly* caused the freeing of quite a lot of content that wouldn't have been otherwise. Indeed, the US government bias you note has been a most useful thing to point out to countries that don't free up government works.
en:wp does allow quite a few historic images under fair use. And no, they're not safe. But we're in this for the long haul, not a pretty page today.
It is an interesting point that being hardline about copyright puts pressure on some organisations and governments to reconsider their laws and regulations. But there is an element where Commons (and to a lesser extent Wikipedia) is seen as acting like the copyright police, overextending and throwing out (for lack of information) pictures that may well be public domain. The solution there is to knuckle down and find that missing information, or help people find that information. Too often, though, I've come across an attitude of "well, you can't prove it is public domain, so delete". That is a cautious and safe attitude to take, but it is not an attitude that actually helps when trying to identify and free up new image sources.
In other words, rather than try and make decisions *now* (which discourage people), it is better to direct resources to finding the necessary information. I've lost count of the number of deletion discussions on Commons where people speculate on whether something is in copyright or not, and then instead of saying "actually, we don't know and don't have enough information, delete until and unless more information is found", they say "not free, delete" (making the assumption that because the information is not there, that this proves it is copyrighted).
Carcharoth
Carcharoth wrote:
It is an interesting point that being hardline about copyright puts pressure on some organisations and governments to reconsider their laws and regulations. But there is an element where Commons (and to a lesser extent Wikipedia) is seen as acting like the copyright police, overextending and throwing out (for lack of information) pictures that may well be public domain. The solution there is to knuckle down and find that missing information, or help people find that information. Too often, though, I've come across an attitude of "well, you can't prove it is public domain, so delete". That is a cautious and safe attitude to take, but it is not an attitude that actually helps when trying to identify and free up new image sources.
OTOH it can be defended as an attitude of scholarly type. We want to know where our information comes from. We should be concerned about the provenance of historical images, also. It is now so easy to fake images in certain ways (as I hardly need tell you) that a degree of care in asking for background is going to pay off.
Charles
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 1:47 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Carcharoth wrote:
It is an interesting point that being hardline about copyright puts pressure on some organisations and governments to reconsider their laws and regulations. But there is an element where Commons (and to a lesser extent Wikipedia) is seen as acting like the copyright police, overextending and throwing out (for lack of information) pictures that may well be public domain. The solution there is to knuckle down and find that missing information, or help people find that information. Too often, though, I've come across an attitude of "well, you can't prove it is public domain, so delete". That is a cautious and safe attitude to take, but it is not an attitude that actually helps when trying to identify and free up new image sources.
OTOH it can be defended as an attitude of scholarly type. We want to know where our information comes from. We should be concerned about the provenance of historical images, also. It is now so easy to fake images in certain ways (as I hardly need tell you) that a degree of care in asking for background is going to pay off.
Oh, I absolutely agree that provenance and sourcing information is essential for all images, and more should also be done to verify images people claim they have taken themselves, as well as ones they claim are "old". But where someone uploads an image and doesn't provide the necessary information, the right time to ask for that information is at the time of upload, not months and years later (as is sometimes the case on Commons and Wikipedia). And where the uploader might not know what information to provide or look for, and where the upload forms confuse them, those who know what is needed should be helping. One problem on Commons being the different languages.
Carcharoth
Ken Arromdee wrote:
On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
Why is this any different from any other kind of "arcana"? And do people really lose sleep over this sort of thing? There must be a huge amount of insider-like knowledge associated with politics, sport, business, whatever. If we wait until this becomes "information" - is documented in at least some literature about the area - that should be fine. Most specialist areas have at least a magazine. I don't think simply multiplying instances where at the margin the content policy works as it is intended to by itself undermines its purpose.
The Internet is available to hundreds of millions people. I think that disqualifies anything on it from being insider information.
My experience on working on BLPs exactly contradicts that. You find postings to BLPs often consist of "well-known" "facts" that have been publicised using the Web, but are positive PR or attack material designed to harass, and not reliably sourced at any point in their life-cycle, though there will be "insiders" who know the truth of it all.
And the policy isn't working as it's intended to. The reliable sources rule isn't supposed to rule out arcana. We have rules that are actually about arcana to handle that. (Though I'm not sure exactly what the reliable sources rule is for. It's not, of course, about truth.)
Correct, in the sense that the assertion "this is true because I know it to be" appeals to authority. That the policy is not working out as intended is what is required to prove here.
And even this excuse doesn't work for the Bradley example. Having only one side of a dispute because one side of the dispute is a published author and can more easily get her side published in a reliable source certainly isn't "arcana".
You are shifting ground there, of course. It is true that in a sense we have subordinated NPOV to RS, by saying we are not going to allow vague assertions that there is more than one side to a story, only things we can verify.
Charles
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
You are shifting ground there, of course. It is true that in a sense we have subordinated NPOV to RS, by saying we are not going to allow vague assertions that there is more than one side to a story, only things we can verify.
I'm disputing *whether verification polices make any sense*. Responding that anything not allowed by the policy is just a "vague assertion" because it hasn't been verified, is circular reasoning.
On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
Summary: A joke character with a similar name existed in comics fandom. The writer who put this character in the comic book mistakenly thought he was a preexisting character, and it's possible he confused him with the character who had the similar name.
The Wikipedia article is allowed to mention none of this because it assumes that reliable sources are professionally published and we can't use fanzines and blogs for information... and professionally publishing anything about a joke character whose superpower is that his arm falls off is not too likely.
Put the character on a comics Wikia with all the desired information and have Wikipedia link to it. Presumably a Wikia on comics can establish its own reliable sources list to allow comic fan journals (or what have you).
If your desire is to overturn a central plank of Wikipedia policy - verifiability - then it would probably be wise not to present a "joke comic character" and a "fan fiction" dispute as plausible grounds to do so.
en.User:Bodnotbod
On 16 July 2010 18:38, Bod Notbod bodnotbod@gmail.com wrote:
If your desire is to overturn a central plank of Wikipedia policy - verifiability - then it would probably be wise not to present a "joke comic character" and a "fan fiction" dispute as plausible grounds to do so.
Indeed. Particularly when the second case is a BLP, which has much harsher application of the verifiability rules than (say) comic fan articles.
- d.
On Fri, 16 Jul 2010, Bod Notbod wrote:
Put the character on a comics Wikia with all the desired information and have Wikipedia link to it. Presumably a Wikia on comics can establish its own reliable sources list to allow comic fan journals
We'd then have Wikipedia linking to something that's an unreliable source by Wikipedia standards.
If your desire is to overturn a central plank of Wikipedia policy - verifiability - then it would probably be wise not to present a "joke comic character" and a "fan fiction" dispute as plausible grounds to do so.
It's not a "fan fiction" dispute in the sense that you imply. It's about a published author claiming that there was a fan fiction dispute and being able to have only her side of the story on Wikipedia because the "fan fiction" author cannot publish her side in a reliable source.
If you really think it's unimportant because it's about fan fiction, then we shouldn't mention it at all. That's no excuse to mention one side.
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
Put the character on a comics Wikia with all the desired information and have Wikipedia link to it. Presumably a Wikia on comics can establish its own reliable sources list to allow comic fan journals
We'd then have Wikipedia linking to something that's an unreliable source by Wikipedia standards.
See point #4 here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:EXTERNAL#Links_to_be_considered
I would suggest that gives you justification.
It's not a "fan fiction" dispute in the sense that you imply. It's about a published author claiming that there was a fan fiction dispute and being able to have only her side of the story on Wikipedia because the "fan fiction" author cannot publish her side in a reliable source.
I'm not sure if this will fly but...
If the fan fiction author has their own website on which to publish their side I don't see why that would not be a reliable source. It would be a reliable source *for* *their* *side* *of* *this* *argument*. Provided the fan fiction author's site is not used as citation for anything other than their role in this story, I feel this would be acceptable. I am far from sure whether others will agree with me, though.
It might go more smoothly if the fan fiction author's name is mentioned in the reliable sources in question and the fan fiction author's site is www.name-mentioned-in-the-reliable-source.com.
If you really think it's unimportant because it's about fan fiction, then we shouldn't mention it at all. That's no excuse to mention one side.
Importance is only an issue because you've suggested that we review our entire commitment to reliable sources over it but I'm *hoping* I may have given you a solution there which makes such a review unnecessary.
On Fri, Jul 16, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
Put the character on a comics Wikia with all the desired information and have Wikipedia link to it. Presumably a Wikia on comics can establish its own reliable sources list to allow comic fan journals
We'd then have Wikipedia linking to something that's an unreliable source by Wikipedia standards.
See point #4 here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:EXTERNAL#Links_to_be_considered
I would suggest that gives you justification.
Although on further investigation there is point #12 here, which rather puts a dampener on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:EXTERNAL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided
Hmmm. I see your problem. I'm tempted to say that the "normally" might give you wiggle room. And to avoid the problem of the Wikia content changing I assume it's possible to link to a specific page version. Good luck.