Daniel Brandt is far from the first subject of a Wikipedia article to come along, find the article, and try to 'fix' it, edit it, delete it, or even boost themselves on it. And he won't be the last. As Wikipedia becomes more and more in the public eye, and as well-known people become more and more familiar with online things, we'll see it quite often.
We should be more prepared for this. Do we even have a page to point people at if they are themselves the subject of a Wikipedia article, explaining how Wikipedia works when it comes to biographies of living persons, and how they should engage with Wikipedia to improve articles on themselves? If not, we should.
We should also try and interact better ourselves with these people, and recognise that in most cases their intentions are not evil. They simply don't understand Wikipedia or the way it works, and thus misread and misinterpret what's going on.
For instance, just yesterday I noticed that an anonymous contributor had repeatedly removed a piece from the article on a fairly well-known author. After several rounds of removing it, the anon created a userid and removed the info again, with an edit comment that the information was inaccurate. The username was clearly based on that author's name, so I contacted them asking if they really were the author in question or if they were a fan using the author's name. The author subsequently contacted me in email and verified their identity, and we discussed the issue; it turned out that the incident being removed was one where the author had been quoted in the press as having said things they insisted they had never said.
I'm working on a peaceful resolution of this, and I'm very hopeful that it can be achieved.
What concerns me is that for quite a few users, the very idea that a notable person was attempting to remove information from the article on themselves would have made them dig in their heels about Wikipedia's rights and freedoms, the information would have been kept in the article merely to spite the person, and no doubt threats of lawsuits and the like might have resulted. We should be aware that many times, if someone is attempting to change information in an article about themselves, it is because they honestly believe it to be inaccurate. Nutcases like Brandt aren't the norm.
-Matt
Matt Brown wrote:
Daniel Brandt is far from the first subject of a Wikipedia article to come along, find the article, and try to 'fix' it, edit it, delete it, or even boost themselves on it. And he won't be the last. As Wikipedia becomes more and more in the public eye, and as well-known people become more and more familiar with online things, we'll see it quite often.
We should be more prepared for this. Do we even have a page to point people at if they are themselves the subject of a Wikipedia article, explaining how Wikipedia works when it comes to biographies of living persons, and how they should engage with Wikipedia to improve articles on themselves? If not, we should.
[[WP:AUTO]].
On 11/10/05, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
[[WP:AUTO]].
WP:AUTO addresses creating an article about yourself. It doesn't address finding an article about yourself on Wikipedia nearly so well. Perhaps I'll start such a guideline, if it turns out there isn't one.
-Matt
I agree that having the subject of an article edit that article should be avoided - unfortunately some of the wikipedians (including Mr Wales*) have edited their own article so it sets a bad precedent. I would like to see those that edit their own article encouraged to request the changes on the talk page and allow others to make the changes. my 2 cents, Jim * If you review the history you can see that nearly all of the edits I refer to here were factual clarifications and clearly not imposing a particular POV; however, we should strictly follow this guideline regardless of the nature of the change (especially when it comes to describing the history of wikipedia and other notable people who are either directly associated or have made major contributions to wikipedia) in order to provide a proper example. On 11/10/05, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Daniel Brandt is far from the first subject of a Wikipedia article to come along, find the article, and try to 'fix' it, edit it, delete it, or even boost themselves on it. And he won't be the last. As Wikipedia becomes more and more in the public eye, and as well-known people become more and more familiar with online things, we'll see it quite often.
We should be more prepared for this. Do we even have a page to point people at if they are themselves the subject of a Wikipedia article, explaining how Wikipedia works when it comes to biographies of living persons, and how they should engage with Wikipedia to improve articles on themselves? If not, we should.
We should also try and interact better ourselves with these people, and recognise that in most cases their intentions are not evil. They simply don't understand Wikipedia or the way it works, and thus misread and misinterpret what's going on.
For instance, just yesterday I noticed that an anonymous contributor had repeatedly removed a piece from the article on a fairly well-known author. After several rounds of removing it, the anon created a userid and removed the info again, with an edit comment that the information was inaccurate. The username was clearly based on that author's name, so I contacted them asking if they really were the author in question or if they were a fan using the author's name. The author subsequently contacted me in email and verified their identity, and we discussed the issue; it turned out that the incident being removed was one where the author had been quoted in the press as having said things they insisted they had never said.
I'm working on a peaceful resolution of this, and I'm very hopeful that it can be achieved.
What concerns me is that for quite a few users, the very idea that a notable person was attempting to remove information from the article on themselves would have made them dig in their heels about Wikipedia's rights and freedoms, the information would have been kept in the article merely to spite the person, and no doubt threats of lawsuits and the like might have resulted. We should be aware that many times, if someone is attempting to change information in an article about themselves, it is because they honestly believe it to be inaccurate. Nutcases like Brandt aren't the norm.
-Matt _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Jim (trodel@gmail.com) "Our love may not always be reciprocated, or even appreciated, but love is never wasted" - Neal A Maxwell ---Intersted in Gmail - let me know I have invites---
On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 23:05 -0700, Jim Trodel wrote:
I agree that having the subject of an article edit that article should be avoided - unfortunately some of the wikipedians (including Mr Wales*) have edited their own article so it sets a bad precedent. I would like to see those that edit their own article encouraged to request the changes on the talk page and allow others to make the changes.
I don't see what's so bad about having subjects of articles edit their own articles. They may be able to add information unobtainable elsewhere (after all, you can't get a much better source than the subject matter his/herself). There's the danger of POV-pushing, of course, but I don't see it as much different from fans of something editing the article(s) about the object of their fandom. We certainly shouldn't discourage anyone from editing, in my view.
On 11/10/05, Christopher Larberg christopherlarberg@gmail.com wrote:
I don't see what's so bad about having subjects of articles edit their own articles. They may be able to add information unobtainable elsewhere (after all, you can't get a much better source than the subject matter his/herself). There's the danger of POV-pushing, of course, but I don't see it as much different from fans of something editing the article(s) about the object of their fandom. We certainly shouldn't discourage anyone from editing, in my view.
The interaction between NOR and a subject's own personal experience is difficult. The danger is that the subject of an article is likely to make that article a primary source, and enter information for which there is no collaborating evidence elsewhere.
-Matt
Christopher Larberg wrote:
I don't see what's so bad about having subjects of articles edit their own articles. They may be able to add information unobtainable elsewhere (after all, you can't get a much better source than the subject matter his/herself).
If it's not obtainable elsewhere, how can it be verified? It's also very similar to original research, IMO.
There's the danger of POV-pushing, of course, but I don't see it as much different from fans of something editing the article(s) about the object of their fandom. We certainly shouldn't discourage anyone from editing, in my view.
The difference is that non-fans can in principle look up all the same sources as fans, checking the things the fans write for accuracy. If someone writes an article about their own personal experiences without any outside sources to refer to, on the other hand, how can I check it? I'd be reduced to just asking the editor "Um, really?"
I faced this dilemma a while back on the Space fountain page, wherein Keith Lofstrom, the originator of the space fountain concept, stopped by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Space_fountain and wrote up a description of the history of how he came up with it. I've asked him to copy and paste it onto his own homepage so that we'd have an outside source to refer to, until then I'm not really comfortable putting it in the article.
On Fri, 11 Nov 2005, Bryan Derksen wrote:
The difference is that non-fans can in principle look up all the same sources as fans, checking the things the fans write for accuracy. If someone writes an article about their own personal experiences without any outside sources to refer to, on the other hand, how can I check it? I'd be reduced to just asking the editor "Um, really?"
I faced this dilemma a while back on the Space fountain page, wherein Keith Lofstrom, the originator of the space fountain concept, stopped by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Space_fountain and wrote up a description of the history of how he came up with it. I've asked him to copy and paste it onto his own homepage so that we'd have an outside source to refer to, until then I'm not really comfortable putting it in the article.
On seeing the name "Keith Lofstrom", I had to re-read that paragraph a few times. He falls into a very tiny set of people who both deserve an article on Wikipedia & also know me well enough to say more than hello.
And what makes your exchange with him all the more puzzling is that he was in the audience of my talk about Wikipedia this summer, & I could have sworn I mentioned the concept of "no original research" in that talk. I do know I've chatted with him a couple of times about making contributions concerning himself, & that it was a good idea for him not to do so. (I even offered him my help in working with Wikipedia.)
So I guess I let the project down by not training him well enough. My apologies to all.
Geoff
Geoff Burling wrote:
On seeing the name "Keith Lofstrom", I had to re-read that paragraph a few times. He falls into a very tiny set of people who both deserve an article on Wikipedia & also know me well enough to say more than hello.
And what makes your exchange with him all the more puzzling is that he was in the audience of my talk about Wikipedia this summer, & I could have sworn I mentioned the concept of "no original research" in that talk. I do know I've chatted with him a couple of times about making contributions concerning himself, & that it was a good idea for him not to do so. (I even offered him my help in working with Wikipedia.)
So I guess I let the project down by not training him well enough. My apologies to all.
No, I think you did fine - the only edits he made to the article itself was to remove his middle initial from the title of one of the external links because he doesn't use it himself, and since the article's not about him in particular I don't see a problem with omitting that tidbit. The rest of his contribution was to talk:, and it was very good. I just wish he'd copy it to his homepage so that I could actually _use_ it. :)
Christopher Larberg wrote:
I don't see what's so bad about having subjects of articles edit their own articles. They may be able to add information unobtainable elsewhere (after all, you can't get a much better source than the subject matter his/herself).
One problem with this, one which I have faced myself, is that information about myself which is unobtainable elsewhere is also unverifiable and therefore can't be added. Therefore, even when it is at it's best (with unverifiable speculation removed), it's still a very very strange representation of who I am. (Though it has gotten better over time as I have been more open with reporters about myself so that there's more verifiable information out there.)
I think people should generally be discouraged from editing articles about themselves, even though I have on occassion done it myself. It is a very very stressful thing to do for a person of goodwill. I've no interest in removing criticism of me or whatever, but still for the most part I prefer to just NOT READ the article about me.
But reporters are always asking me about stuff they read in that article, and if it's some totally made up original research (which happens unfortunately often), I have to admit that, well, uh, the Wikipedia article about me is just plain -wrong-. And that's embarassing too. :-)
--Jimbo
On Thursday 10 November 2005 19:10, Matt Brown wrote:
Daniel Brandt is far from the first subject of a Wikipedia article to come along, find the article, and try to 'fix' it, edit it, delete it, or even boost themselves on it. And he won't be the last. As Wikipedia becomes
more
and more in the public eye, and as well-known people become more and more familiar with online things, we'll see it quite often.
Interestingly, I had just written about this with respect to Mike Godwin and his Law.
http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/wikipedia/godwins-law?showcomments=yes 2005 Nov 14 | Godwin's Law ... In any case, the Wikipedia experience that Godwin wished to share was about the article on Godwin's Law. While modifying the article to more accurately reflect the history of the meme, some other editors objected. The trinity of Wikipedia policies is that editors should be neutral in their presentation of claims, not include original -- and potentially crackpot -- research, and provide citations such that any such claim can be verified by others. So, this story brings us to the interesting question of how does the primary source, such as Godwin, edit a related article? While recognizing Godwin's authority, one might also then challenge his neutrality and reporting of primary claims. It is not uncommon for contributors to create "vanity" edits (pages or links) that are rebuffed with these policies when the edit is not of encyclopedic merit. But what of when the edit is of merit? Are the most qualified primary sources disqualified from editing the Wikipedia article? Need a primary source published her first person claim elsewhere before it can bear upon the Wikipedia article?
On 11/15/05, Joseph Reagle reagle@mit.edu wrote:
But what of when the edit is of merit? Are the most qualified primary sources disqualified from editing the Wikipedia article? Need a primary source published her first person claim elsewhere before it can bear upon the Wikipedia article?
I've never liked [[WP:AUTO]] myself. I would be inclined to let article subjects edit the articles about themselves in the same way that anyone else is, perhaps held to a higher standard on attributing every assertion to a verifiable outside source and writing neutrally.
Sure, they can leave notes on the talk page. Which for a major celebrity is great, as plenty of people will be watching or otherwise interested in the page. But for some of these minor figures who stumble across their entries, this may be the only attention the article gets for a long while. It may also be one of the only sources of information about them on the web, and probably the most prominent -- first Google hit on their names, etc. -- and to say "no, you can't edit this article, you have to let wrong information sit there until someone bothers to come by to fix it" doesn't seem quite right, and doesn't seem like the way to establish goodwill.
As Matt posted, the nutcases aren't the norm, and they can be dealt with for the misbehaviors that make them come off as batshit crazy rather than writing about themselves. Most are reasonable people who happen to quite reasonably not want falsehoods spread about them on a top-40 website (or anywhere, really), and are just not familiar with the way Wikipedia works enough to realize that everything must be cited and NPOV. I don't see much harm in letting them edit on themselves with a little guidance, some strong prodding to cite sources, and a caution that they don't have any more authority over the content of the article than any other editor. Still vastly preferred for others to edit instead, of course, but sometimes no one else really takes enough interest.
-Kat [[User:Mindspillage]]
-- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams
But what if an article contains a widely believed 'fact' that actually is bullshit.
eg,
Michael was born in Toronto in 1956 and moved to Atlanta in 1961.
But Michael finds the article and knows that he was born in Ottawa but his family moved to Toronto some months after his birth. Plenty of internet sites say Toronto but he knows for a fact that it is wrong. Can he correct that, or does he need to produce his birth certificate to correct an error about himself? lol
Kat Walsh mindspillage@gmail.com wrote: On 11/15/05, Joseph Reagle wrote:
But what of when the edit is of merit? Are the most qualified primary sources disqualified from editing the Wikipedia article? Need a primary source published her first person claim elsewhere before it can bear upon the Wikipedia article?
I've never liked [[WP:AUTO]] myself. I would be inclined to let article subjects edit the articles about themselves in the same way that anyone else is, perhaps held to a higher standard on attributing every assertion to a verifiable outside source and writing neutrally.
Sure, they can leave notes on the talk page. Which for a major celebrity is great, as plenty of people will be watching or otherwise interested in the page. But for some of these minor figures who stumble across their entries, this may be the only attention the article gets for a long while. It may also be one of the only sources of information about them on the web, and probably the most prominent -- first Google hit on their names, etc. -- and to say "no, you can't edit this article, you have to let wrong information sit there until someone bothers to come by to fix it" doesn't seem quite right, and doesn't seem like the way to establish goodwill.
As Matt posted, the nutcases aren't the norm, and they can be dealt with for the misbehaviors that make them come off as batshit crazy rather than writing about themselves. Most are reasonable people who happen to quite reasonably not want falsehoods spread about them on a top-40 website (or anywhere, really), and are just not familiar with the way Wikipedia works enough to realize that everything must be cited and NPOV. I don't see much harm in letting them edit on themselves with a little guidance, some strong prodding to cite sources, and a caution that they don't have any more authority over the content of the article than any other editor. Still vastly preferred for others to edit instead, of course, but sometimes no one else really takes enough interest.
-Kat [[User:Mindspillage]]
-- "There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the chronicler's mind." --Douglas Adams _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 11/15/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
But what if an article contains a widely believed 'fact' that actually is bullshit.
eg,
Michael was born in Toronto in 1956 and moved to Atlanta in 1961.
But Michael finds the article and knows that he was born in Ottawa but his family moved to Toronto some months after his birth. Plenty of internet sites say Toronto but he knows for a fact that it is wrong. Can he correct that, or does he need to produce his birth certificate to correct an error about himself? lol
I suggest we say "unless there is some reason why we think he is misleading us, believe him". Unsourced accuracy actually is better than sourced inaccuracy. It's just that the wrong one conforms to policy...
Sam
I just thought of a real example. According to websites the world over the Prince of Wales's name is Charles Windsor. In reality, as his own office confirmed when it was being checked for Wikipedia, it is actually Charles Mountbatten-Windsor. We are one of the few correct sources of information on the net about it.
Every so often someone comes along and does one of those damned google searches (god but those things 'prove' such crap!) and changes the article to say he is Charles Windsor. Before those of us who constantly correct it find the change, Charles himself or William (both of whom surf the net) find the mistake. Would WP allow them to correct the error?
BTW Wikipedia HAS been read in Buckingham Palace, as I found when checking with BP about something for an article here. I mentioned us but before I even got a chance to say who what we were, the person I was speaking to came back 'oh yes. The big online encyclopædia. It is really quite good. We've seen it here.'
BTW the Queen is an avid net surfer. Who knows? She may be one of our anonymous Wikipedians. Maybe she is on this list for all we know. (If she is, Hi Ma'am!) lol
Thom
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote: On 11/15/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
But what if an article contains a widely believed 'fact' that actually is bullshit.
eg,
Michael was born in Toronto in 1956 and moved to Atlanta in 1961.
But Michael finds the article and knows that he was born in Ottawa but his family moved to Toronto some months after his birth. Plenty of internet sites say Toronto but he knows for a fact that it is wrong. Can he correct that, or does he need to produce his birth certificate to correct an error about himself? lol
I suggest we say "unless there is some reason why we think he is misleading us, believe him". Unsourced accuracy actually is better than sourced inaccuracy. It's just that the wrong one conforms to policy...
Sam _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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I've been looking at some pages and noticed that there is a haphazard application of rules on WP, specifically a failure to distinguish between mandatory and optional rules.
(a). The APPLICATION of 'mandatory' rules in INDIVIDUAL PAGES should never be a subject for a vote.
(b). The ADOPTION of a 'mandatory' rule for Wikipedia en block should be on POLICY PAGES.
3. The APPLICATION and ADOPTION of 'optional' rules in INDIVIDUAL CASES and on POLICY PAGES should be capable of being voted on.
I've come across a couple of pages tonight where notes decided that in some articles mandatory rules shouldn't be applied (usually on naming). So you find that 99 articles may follow one naming system, and one doesn't even though the MoS says it has to, because users on a page decided not to.
WP needs to spell out clearly the difference in weighing between different types of rules, and so let everyone know what is a 'must' and what is a 'may'.
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
* well I like that name * well I always use it * I personally haven't heard any other name used * the Government wants it * it will eventually become widespread * I hope it eventually becomes widespread * I think it will eventually become widespread * we should be encourging it to become widespread * I think the old name is colonial and a lot of others.
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
Yet by using criteria that clash with a mandatory rule, a page is put in a different location to hundreds of thousands of others.
One second issue: if we require 'most commonly used name in English' (or in whatever language in another Wikipedia) we need to be able to define an independent, verifiable, objective methodology for establishing what is the most commonly used name in English. A whole host of pages tonight had debates based on the 'well that's how I know him/her/it as' with no form of verification. Straight google searches are worthless because they link to accurate sites and inaccurate ones and other language sites still crop up in English searches if linked to English sites. (An example: last year someone put a dummy page on WP. I deleted it. It was complete fiction. But by then that page had been copied under licence. Now there are over eighty sites on the net that refer to a fact that someone completely made up on WP. The topic is an area i know a lot about. One read of it showed that it was a joke, not real, done obviously by someone who knew a lot about the topic and wanted to see if they could 'create' a 'fact' that didn't exist.)
We need a clearly defined criteria for sources for establishing 'most common name':
Media is key to finding 'most common name' because as they need to communicate to millions they will tend to use terminology they know their listeners/viewers will understand.
Obvious sources are * media usage in the large English-speaking countries on EACH continent * Broadcast usage and print usage * academic usage * hardcopy published usage * informal governmental usage
In terms of media, for example, that would mean checking BBC, New York Times, The Australian, Reuters, APTV, ITN (the real one, not ours!), South African television and print usage, Canadian tv and print usage, Indian TV and print usage, informal governmental usage in speeches, etc.
Formal-legal and diplomatic terminology in contrast is not guaranteed to be mass used (indeed rarely is. How many people say French Republic for France or Poblacht na hÉireann for Ireland in real life?) and so may not help us find 'most common name'.
If we don't sort out the mandatory from optional rules, and restrict votes to decision making on the latter, and Wikipedia-wide policy making on the former, then it will cause all sorts of problems as Wikipedia becomes larger. In every encyclopædia for practical organisational purposes the Manual of Style is a mandatory requirement which no editor can breach. (If they try they get the sack.) It is bad enough finding a handful of pages that are the odd ones out and are in effect 'Manual of Style'-free zones. But the more there are, the more people can then say 'well if THEY can ignore the MoS on THEIR page, why can't WE? A professional credible encyclopædia cannot be organised on the basis of everyone on each page making up their own rules. We created the Manual of Style and put enormous work into creating Naming Conventions directly to avoid such confusion and ensure maximum cross-article standards of clarity and comparibility.
Thom
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There already is such a distinction. Policy is non-negotiable (while it can be changed by site-wide community debate), guidelines are "optional", but often still a good idea to follow.
Mgm
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
I've been looking at some pages and noticed that there is a haphazard application of rules on WP, specifically a failure to distinguish between mandatory and optional rules.
(a). The APPLICATION of 'mandatory' rules in INDIVIDUAL PAGES should never be a subject for a vote.
(b). The ADOPTION of a 'mandatory' rule for Wikipedia en block should be on POLICY PAGES.
- The APPLICATION and ADOPTION of 'optional' rules in INDIVIDUAL CASES and on POLICY PAGES should be capable of being voted on.
I've come across a couple of pages tonight where notes decided that in some articles mandatory rules shouldn't be applied (usually on naming). So you find that 99 articles may follow one naming system, and one doesn't even though the MoS says it has to, because users on a page decided not to.
WP needs to spell out clearly the difference in weighing between different types of rules, and so let everyone know what is a 'must' and what is a 'may'.
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
Yet by using criteria that clash with a mandatory rule, a page is put in a different location to hundreds of thousands of others.
One second issue: if we require 'most commonly used name in English' (or in whatever language in another Wikipedia) we need to be able to define an independent, verifiable, objective methodology for establishing what is the most commonly used name in English. A whole host of pages tonight had debates based on the 'well that's how I know him/her/it as' with no form of verification. Straight google searches are worthless because they link to accurate sites and inaccurate ones and other language sites still crop up in English searches if linked to English sites. (An example: last year someone put a dummy page on WP. I deleted it. It was complete fiction. But by then that page had been copied under licence. Now there are over eighty sites on the net that refer to a fact that someone completely made up on WP. The topic is an area i know a lot about. One read of it showed that it was a joke, not real, done obviously by someone who knew a lot about the topic and wanted to see if th ey could 'create' a 'fact' that didn't exist.)
We need a clearly defined criteria for sources for establishing 'most common name':
Media is key to finding 'most common name' because as they need to communicate to millions they will tend to use terminology they know their listeners/viewers will understand.
Obvious sources are
- media usage in the large English-speaking countries on EACH continent
- Broadcast usage and print usage
- academic usage
- hardcopy published usage
- informal governmental usage
In terms of media, for example, that would mean checking BBC, New York Times, The Australian, Reuters, APTV, ITN (the real one, not ours!), South African television and print usage, Canadian tv and print usage, Indian TV and print usage, informal governmental usage in speeches, etc.
Formal-legal and diplomatic terminology in contrast is not guaranteed to be mass used (indeed rarely is. How many people say French Republic for France or Poblacht na hÉireann for Ireland in real life?) and so may not help us find 'most common name'.
If we don't sort out the mandatory from optional rules, and restrict votes to decision making on the latter, and Wikipedia-wide policy making on the former, then it will cause all sorts of problems as Wikipedia becomes larger. In every encyclopædia for practical organisational purposes the Manual of Style is a mandatory requirement which no editor can breach. (If they try they get the sack.) It is bad enough finding a handful of pages that are the odd ones out and are in effect 'Manual of Style'-free zones. But the more there are, the more people can then say 'well if THEY can ignore the MoS on THEIR page, why can't WE? A professional credible encyclopædia cannot be organised on the basis of everyone on each page making up their own rules. We created the Manual of Style and put enormous work into creating Naming Conventions directly to avoid such confusion and ensure maximum cross-article standards of clarity and comparibility.
Thom
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Unfortunately it isn't implemented. Any attempt to point out that something is mandatory uses produce the response 'lets vote on it'. Or even worse 'lets vote to stop mandatory rules applying on this page.'
MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote: There already is such a distinction. Policy is non-negotiable (while it can be changed by site-wide community debate), guidelines are "optional", but often still a good idea to follow.
Mgm
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
I've been looking at some pages and noticed that there is a haphazard application of rules on WP, specifically a failure to distinguish between mandatory and optional rules.
(a). The APPLICATION of 'mandatory' rules in INDIVIDUAL PAGES should never be a subject for a vote.
(b). The ADOPTION of a 'mandatory' rule for Wikipedia en block should be on POLICY PAGES.
- The APPLICATION and ADOPTION of 'optional' rules in INDIVIDUAL CASES and on POLICY PAGES should be capable of being voted on.
I've come across a couple of pages tonight where notes decided that in some articles mandatory rules shouldn't be applied (usually on naming). So you find that 99 articles may follow one naming system, and one doesn't even though the MoS says it has to, because users on a page decided not to.
WP needs to spell out clearly the difference in weighing between different types of rules, and so let everyone know what is a 'must' and what is a 'may'.
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
Yet by using criteria that clash with a mandatory rule, a page is put in a different location to hundreds of thousands of others.
One second issue: if we require 'most commonly used name in English' (or in whatever language in another Wikipedia) we need to be able to define an independent, verifiable, objective methodology for establishing what is the most commonly used name in English. A whole host of pages tonight had debates based on the 'well that's how I know him/her/it as' with no form of verification. Straight google searches are worthless because they link to accurate sites and inaccurate ones and other language sites still crop up in English searches if linked to English sites. (An example: last year someone put a dummy page on WP. I deleted it. It was complete fiction. But by then that page had been copied under licence. Now there are over eighty sites on the net that refer to a fact that someone completely made up on WP. The topic is an area i know a lot about. One read of it showed that it was a joke, not real, done obviously by someone who knew a lot about the topic and wanted to see if th ey could 'create' a 'fact' that didn't exist.)
We need a clearly defined criteria for sources for establishing 'most common name':
Media is key to finding 'most common name' because as they need to communicate to millions they will tend to use terminology they know their listeners/viewers will understand.
Obvious sources are
- media usage in the large English-speaking countries on EACH continent
- Broadcast usage and print usage
- academic usage
- hardcopy published usage
- informal governmental usage
In terms of media, for example, that would mean checking BBC, New York Times, The Australian, Reuters, APTV, ITN (the real one, not ours!), South African television and print usage, Canadian tv and print usage, Indian TV and print usage, informal governmental usage in speeches, etc.
Formal-legal and diplomatic terminology in contrast is not guaranteed to be mass used (indeed rarely is. How many people say French Republic for France or Poblacht na hÉireann for Ireland in real life?) and so may not help us find 'most common name'.
If we don't sort out the mandatory from optional rules, and restrict votes to decision making on the latter, and Wikipedia-wide policy making on the former, then it will cause all sorts of problems as Wikipedia becomes larger. In every encyclopædia for practical organisational purposes the Manual of Style is a mandatory requirement which no editor can breach. (If they try they get the sack.) It is bad enough finding a handful of pages that are the odd ones out and are in effect 'Manual of Style'-free zones. But the more there are, the more people can then say 'well if THEY can ignore the MoS on THEIR page, why can't WE? A professional credible encyclopædia cannot be organised on the basis of everyone on each page making up their own rules. We created the Manual of Style and put enormous work into creating Naming Conventions directly to avoid such confusion and ensure maximum cross-article standards of clarity and comparibility.
Thom
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On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Unfortunately it isn't implemented. Any attempt to point out that something is mandatory uses produce the response 'lets vote on it'. Or even worse 'lets vote to stop mandatory rules applying on this page.'
You seem to be having difficulty comprehending the difference between rules (which are mandatory) and how they are enterpreted in each instance (which is clearly not policy-defined).
Sam
I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing what mandatory means. It means 'the criteria for forming a judgment must be as defined'. You seem not to understand that votes on mandatory issues on individual pages cannot overturn mandatory rules. They set one set of criteria and one set of criteria only for decision taking.
A review of pages shows that some users on some pages are creating their own personalised criteria in place of the mandatory criteria and making decisions that completely conflict with the mandatory requirements of the MoS, based on their own made up criteria. That is not allowed under MoS rules.
I don't think, Sam, you grasp the issue.
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote: On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
Unfortunately it isn't implemented. Any attempt to point out that something is mandatory uses produce the response 'lets vote on it'. Or even worse 'lets vote to stop mandatory rules applying on this page.'
You seem to be having difficulty comprehending the difference between rules (which are mandatory) and how they are enterpreted in each instance (which is clearly not policy-defined).
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On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing what mandatory means. It means 'the criteria for forming a judgment must be as defined'. You seem not to understand that votes on mandatory issues on individual pages cannot overturn mandatory rules. They set one set of criteria and one set of criteria only for decision taking.
A review of pages shows that some users on some pages are creating their own personalised criteria in place of the mandatory criteria and making decisions that completely conflict with the mandatory requirements of the MoS, based on their own made up criteria. That is not allowed under MoS rules.
I don't think, Sam, you grasp the issue.
I don't think, Tom, you grasp my point.
The MoS is the list of rules. The rules say that the most common name must be used. The enterpretation is situation-specific. In your opinion, Ivory Coast is more common. In others', it is Côte d'Ivoire.
*That* is a reasonable line to take.
I happen also to disagree with the naming convention, but I am happy to follow it.
Note that I am not agreeing that "they asked for this" is the correct line to take.
However, to recognise that other people have valid opinions might help you. Caveat: the MoS does not dictate what opinions are valid.
Sam
the MoS does not dictate what opinions are valid.
It says it explicitly. Most common name. All one has to is example independent sources involved in communication to English speakers from a wide geographic sources to establish the facts clearly.
US: Uses Cote d'Ivoire more than usage. A review of major publications, source books, broadcasters, communication documentation, etc pulls usage in ratio of approximately 75:25 Ivory Coast:Cote d'Ivoire.
Africa: Majority uses Cote d'Ivoire. Ivory Coast on sources is used by around 25%. The higher echelons in society tend to use C d'I. Sources used by ordinary populations show much more usage of IC.
Europe: Overwhelming majority usage among English sources for Ivory Coast. Cote d'Ivoire primarily used by French speakers. Other languages translate the name into their own language, and use neither the English nor French name in most cases.
Australasia: Overwhelming usage in English for Ivory Coast.
UK: one major publication, uses Cote d'Ivory. All others either use Ivory Coast exclusively or predominantly. Most style books recommend IC, not C d'I.
South America: Usage primarily of IC.
Under MoS criteria, the result could hardly be more clearcut. Only one continent uses C d'I, and even there not universally. All overs use Ivory Coast either overwhelmingly or exclusively. In random sampling of sources by state, many countries not merely do not use C d'I generally but never seem to use it anywhere other than in Letters of Credence and at the highest level of diplomatic contact. Diplomatic usage does not match MoS criteria because diplomats amount to an insignificant proportion of the electorate and their usage rarely gets outside each country's small diplomatic community of no more than a few hundred. Even within that community diplomatic usage is restricted to work and does not reflect actual human usage of individuals when outside their diplomatic functions.
It is one of the clearest open and shut cases imaginable. Put in ordinary language, the ordinary English speaker on the planet uses Ivory Coast not Cote d'Ivoire. Those that use the latter are aware of the former. Those that use the former are rarely aware of the latter. Under MoS criteria the only place the article can be placed at is Ivory Coast. But as the vote shows, most users aren't using MoS criteria but deciding on personal whims such as 'I like it', 'that's what I hear', 'it is what will become popular', and the even more POV 'we should help encourage its usage'. None of that fits the criteria of the MoS and means that that one article is in a different location to 99% of other such articles on WP, which follow most common usage, not personal agendas.
Thom
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Clearly I am not an ordinary English speaker. Thank you for making this clear to me. My life will proceed in a dramatically improved manner on account of this.
Setting aside sarcasm, it appears you still can't grasp that *anyone* might disagree with you. Cope with it.
The MoS is clear-cut. So are many Wikipedia rules. As I said before, the only thing needed to make a decision is that the community really really wants to do something. NPOV rules. NOR rules. CITE rules. Everything else is incidental, and unimportant.
You are continuing on and on about the same thing. Please stop. You are persuading no-one.
The day Wikipedia puts policy above community is the day I leave.
Sam
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
the MoS does not dictate what opinions are valid.
It says it explicitly. Most common name. All one has to is example independent sources involved in communication to English speakers from a wide geographic sources to establish the facts clearly.
US: Uses Cote d'Ivoire more than usage. A review of major publications, source books, broadcasters, communication documentation, etc pulls usage in ratio of approximately 75:25 Ivory Coast:Cote d'Ivoire.
Africa: Majority uses Cote d'Ivoire. Ivory Coast on sources is used by around 25%. The higher echelons in society tend to use C d'I. Sources used by ordinary populations show much more usage of IC.
Europe: Overwhelming majority usage among English sources for Ivory Coast. Cote d'Ivoire primarily used by French speakers. Other languages translate the name into their own language, and use neither the English nor French name in most cases.
Australasia: Overwhelming usage in English for Ivory Coast.
UK: one major publication, uses Cote d'Ivory. All others either use Ivory Coast exclusively or predominantly. Most style books recommend IC, not C d'I.
South America: Usage primarily of IC.
Under MoS criteria, the result could hardly be more clearcut. Only one continent uses C d'I, and even there not universally. All overs use Ivory Coast either overwhelmingly or exclusively. In random sampling of sources by state, many countries not merely do not use C d'I generally but never seem to use it anywhere other than in Letters of Credence and at the highest level of diplomatic contact. Diplomatic usage does not match MoS criteria because diplomats amount to an insignificant proportion of the electorate and their usage rarely gets outside each country's small diplomatic community of no more than a few hundred. Even within that community diplomatic usage is restricted to work and does not reflect actual human usage of individuals when outside their diplomatic functions.
It is one of the clearest open and shut cases imaginable. Put in ordinary language, the ordinary English speaker on the planet uses Ivory Coast not Cote d'Ivoire. Those that use the latter are aware of the former. Those that use the former are rarely aware of the latter. Under MoS criteria the only place the article can be placed at is Ivory Coast. But as the vote shows, most users aren't using MoS criteria but deciding on personal whims such as 'I like it', 'that's what I hear', 'it is what will become popular', and the even more POV 'we should help encourage its usage'. None of that fits the criteria of the MoS and means that that one article is in a different location to 99% of other such articles on WP, which follow most common usage, not personal agendas.
Thom
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-- Sam
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Setting aside sarcasm, it appears you still can't grasp that *anyone* might disagree with you.
No. I expect professionalism not amateurishness. This is meant to be an encyclopædia, not a colouring book.
The day Wikipedia puts policy above community is the day I leave.
The day when Wikipedia decides that it is simply a place for people to chat on talk pages and is not a professionally run encyclopædia is the day when most people will leave. You don't seem to have noticed but a lot of people on Wikipedia do kind of think things like accuracy, standards, NPOV and verifiability matter more than treating the site as some sort of fancy-coloured chat room.
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On 11/18/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Setting aside sarcasm, it appears you still can't grasp that *anyone* might disagree with you.
No. I expect professionalism not amateurishness. This is meant to be an encyclopædia, not a colouring book.
Hang on, are you trying to say that Côte d'Ivoire looks *amateurish*??? I would hardly describe Britannica, World Book, the US government, and such organisations as amateurish. This isn't an argument for Côte d'Ivoire, by the way, just saying how ridiculous your point is.
The truth is that this part of Wikipedia policy is written in a way that makes looking amateurish highly likely.
The day Wikipedia puts policy above community is the day I leave.
The day when Wikipedia decides that it is simply a place for people to chat on talk pages and is not a professionally run encyclopædia is the day when most people will leave. You don't seem to have noticed but a lot of people on Wikipedia do kind of think things like accuracy, standards, NPOV and verifiability matter more than treating the site as some sort of fancy-coloured chat room.
That's a strawman. I never attacked NPOV or any of the other tenets you mentioned.
NPOV is vital to the community. Verifiability is intrinsic to NPOV. No-one would say that accuracy isn't a good thing. But naming conventions? *Naming conventions*? Are we really going to say that a naming convention is more important than the community?
Come off it.
-- Sam
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:Are we really going to say that a naming convention is more important than the community?
If you want to create a credible encyclopædia and not a semi-literate, semi-credible, semi-accurate joke. YES.
If you simply want to be in a community, go to a chat room.
Thom
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On 11/19/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
If you want to create a credible encyclopædia and not a semi-literate, semi-credible, semi-accurate joke. YES.
This is rather disproportionate, don't you think? I am rather surprised that a little debate of which of two names for a small African country should be used, either of which would be quite IMO acceptable as an article title, is creating this much heat. Wikipedia will not seem more or less literate, credible or accurate because we use [[Cote d'Ivoire]] instead of [[Ivory Coast]], or the other way round.
As many people have pointed out, 'Use common names' is a general GUIDELINE for Wikipedia, which we do not, in fact, follow completely. Many subject areas, supplementary naming conventions, or WikiProjects define naming conventions that do not follow Use Common Names.
-Matt Brown
On 11/20/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:Are we really going to say that a naming convention is more important than the community?
If you want to create a credible encyclopædia and not a semi-literate, semi-credible, semi-accurate joke. YES.
If you simply want to be in a community, go to a chat room.
I'm not talking about the happiness of the community, I'm talking about its decisions.
I think you have this debate out of proportion.
-- Sam
Tom Cadden wrote:
No. I expect professionalism not amateurishness.
Your point is well made. Your interpretation of the rules should be enforced on all Wikipedian editors who are being paid. Amateur ones should be exempt.
Ec
Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
Tom Cadden wrote:
No. I expect professionalism not amateurishness.
Your point is well made. Your interpretation of the rules should be enforced on all Wikipedian editors who are being paid. Amateur ones should be exempt.
Ec
I agree most emphatically. Wikipedians who act unprofessionally should have their pay cut dramatically, if not fired outright. I think we should have iron-clad policy to this effect.
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Tom Cadden wrote:
It is one of the clearest open and shut cases imaginable. Put in ordinary language, the ordinary English speaker on the planet uses Ivory Coast not Cote d'Ivoire. Those that use the latter are aware of the former. Those that use the former are rarely aware of the latter. Under MoS criteria the only place the article can be placed at is Ivory Coast. But as the vote shows, most users aren't using MoS criteria but deciding on personal whims such as 'I like it', 'that's what I hear', 'it is what will become popular', and the even more POV 'we should help encourage its usage'. None of that fits the criteria of the MoS and means that that one article is in a different location to 99% of other such articles on WP, which follow most common usage, not personal agendas.
Stating your case more forcefully doesn't qualify as evidence. Since you don't describe your sources of information, it's impossible to tell whether you are talking about current usage or past usage - use of old documents will by definition skew results to an old name, and we would then be required to still use "Zaire", "Upper Volta", etc until the pile of new documents outweighed the pile of old ones.
Stan
On 18/11/05, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Stating your case more forcefully doesn't qualify as evidence. Since you don't describe your sources of information,
As far as I can tell, the sources of information are users of the English language, of course. Well, excepting encyclopedias, since for some reason encyclopedias don't count. Or people who, in their professional life, deal with the names of countries, since they're diplomats and diplomats call countries by the name they ask people to use, which shouldn't count. Or the Economist, because, well, they're the Economist and a bit funny in the head. Or anyone who also speaks French. Or anything produced by the US Government. Or, indeed, regional sources. Or English-speaking Ivorians. Or the United Nations. Or any result from a google search, because they're horribly unreliable except when they get the right answer. Or any "myths" about what people may use.
So, basically, any major source except the ones which use Cote d'Ivoire, since we've just proven they don't count, use Ivory Coast, and anyone who remembers Cote d'Ivoire in common use obviously needs their ears tested and is really just voting to suspend policy for their own nefarious reasons anyway.
Case closed!
[And I wonder *why* I get irritated about this debate...]
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
As far as I can tell, the sources of information are users of the English language, of course.
That's what the MoS requires.
Well, excepting encyclopedias, since for some reason encyclopedias don't count.
US Enclopædias follow different MoS rules to WP which are based on their need to sell product in target markets in the country in question. We don't have to base our conduct on someone else's MoS, nor do we need to take business strategy into account in naming. And as we are not American we do not have to reflect American attitudes on the issue.
Or people who, in their professional life, deal with the names of countries, since they're diplomats and diplomats call countries by the name they ask people to use, which shouldn't count.
Diplomatic usage is not the standard the MoS sets. That is most common uage. Even diplomats would not claim that their professional uage is aimed at communication with the mass market but that their own grouping. If one followed diplomatic usage then EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY ARTICLE on wikipedia would have to be renamed.
Or the Economist, because, well, they're the Economist and a bit funny in the head.
No. Their target is not mass usage but business usage.
Or anyone who also speaks French.
They are irrelevant under the MoS.
Or anything produced by the US Government.
This encyclopædia is not American, must less owned by the US government.
Or, indeed, regional sources.
Wikipedia is not a regional source a worldwide one. Worldwide usage is what is required to be followed under the MoS.
Or English-speaking Ivorians.
English readers around the world, not just English speaking Ivorians, read Wikipedia.
Or the United Nations.
Uses diplomatic language.
Or any result from a google search, because they're horribly unreliable except when they get the right answer.
Complete garbage. Google searches have proved themselves unreliable on thousands of pages. Targeted samples of independent worldwide, English-speaking communication sources provide more accurate answers.
Or any "myths" about what people may use.
The standard is professional statistical analysis, not 'well I only use 'x' so obviously I am typical of the rest of the world.'
So, basically, any major source except the ones which use Cote d'Ivoire, since we've just proven they don't count, use Ivory Coast.
Not so. Independent factual sources, reviewed statistically, are used to set standards. There was no way of knowing what they would prove until they were analysed.
Case closed! It has been for weeks. The evidence from sources worldwide is so conclusive as to be overwhelming. Worldwide, most common usage is Ivory Coast by a mile. Cote d'Ivoire is restricted to narrow target markets in regional areas and is not worldwide and much of the world it is not used at all.
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Where sites allowed, all the usage measured was focused on the last five years. In newspaper usage, some US newspaper usage was measured as in what they used in 2005. Individual documents from the State Department were picked that dated from the last three years. (Many were from the last six months.) One European newspaper's usage was reviewed from 1st May 2005 to 1st November 2005. In fact some evidence (not included in the calculated) suggests that usage of Cote d'Ivoire peeked around 18 months after the government demand that it alone be used. News agencies probably tried to use it, found their readers rejected the usage, and returned to the usage their readers understood.
New names are introduced all the time. Their impact usually follows one of a set of routes:
* immediate adoption * slow adoption over time * immediate rush to adopt, followed by a quick abandonment * equilibrium between old and new versions. * failure of a new term to take off and its eventual dropping.
Most usage when examined suggests that Cote d'Ivoire seems to have been either 3 or 5, depending on the source. Even the Economist, which championed its usage primarily because its largest market is among the business community who might be investing or interested in investing in the state, and so who in the magazine's eyes needed to use the government-preferred name, has started to return to Ivory Coast. Even the US State Department in the last two years has returned to using Ivory Coast in all but the most formal diplomatic discourses. Speeches by among others the Secretary of State, which are aimed at the media and so at the public, use Ivory Coast predominantly. Cote d'Ivoire's usage is largely restricted to private inter-state and Letter of Credence usage.
Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote: Tom Cadden wrote:
It is one of the clearest open and shut cases imaginable. Put in ordinary language, the ordinary English speaker on the planet uses Ivory Coast not Cote d'Ivoire. Those that use the latter are aware of the former. Those that use the former are rarely aware of the latter. Under MoS criteria the only place the article can be placed at is Ivory Coast. But as the vote shows, most users aren't using MoS criteria but deciding on personal whims such as 'I like it', 'that's what I hear', 'it is what will become popular', and the even more POV 'we should help encourage its usage'. None of that fits the criteria of the MoS and means that that one article is in a different location to 99% of other such articles on WP, which follow most common usage, not personal agendas.
Stating your case more forcefully doesn't qualify as evidence. Since you don't describe your sources of information, it's impossible to tell whether you are talking about current usage or past usage - use of old documents will by definition skew results to an old name, and we would then be required to still use "Zaire", "Upper Volta", etc until the pile of new documents outweighed the pile of old ones.
Stan
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Sam Korn wrote:
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
I have no difficulty whatsoever in knowing what mandatory means. It means 'the criteria for forming a judgment must be as defined'. You seem not to understand that votes on mandatory issues on individual pages cannot overturn mandatory rules. They set one set of criteria and one set of criteria only for decision taking.
A review of pages shows that some users on some pages are creating their own personalised criteria in place of the mandatory criteria and making decisions that completely conflict with the mandatory requirements of the MoS, based on their own made up criteria. That is not allowed under MoS rules.
I don't think, Sam, you grasp the issue.
I don't think, Tom, you grasp my point.
The MoS is the list of rules. The rules say that the most common name must be used. The enterpretation is situation-specific. In your opinion, Ivory Coast is more common. In others', it is Côte d'Ivoire.
I don't think that the word "must" appears in the rule.
Ec
On 11/19/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
I don't think that the word "must" appears in the rule.
Fair point. It wouldn't really matter if they did anyway, because that's why IAR was created: to get around overly legalistic points.
-- Sam
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
I've been looking at some pages and noticed that there is a haphazard application of rules on WP, specifically a failure to distinguish between mandatory and optional rules.
...
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
WP:NC is "policy", which means it is official. But the page does carry this proviso:
"It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules written in stone. As Wikipedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate. But when in doubt, follow convention."
It's interesting to note that all of the individual naming conventions, for example [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)]], are specifically tagged as guidelines, and not policies. Although they carry much weight, they nevertheless fall into your category of the rules that "may" be followed.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
The Manual of Style is mandatory but is being overturned in once off cases as though it was purely a matter for local decision, not Wikipedia-wide policy. Instead of debating policy, this 'once off' page by page policy making is producing a mess. Efforts to point out the difference between mandatory and optional usually produces a 'no. We'll vote here on what rules to follow on this page' response, with those pointing out mandatory rules accused of 'highjacking' pages!
Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote: On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
I've been looking at some pages and noticed that there is a haphazard application of rules on WP, specifically a failure to distinguish between mandatory and optional rules.
...
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
WP:NC is "policy", which means it is official. But the page does carry this proviso:
"It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules written in stone. As Wikipedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate. But when in doubt, follow convention."
It's interesting to note that all of the individual naming conventions, for example [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)]], are specifically tagged as guidelines, and not policies. Although they carry much weight, they nevertheless fall into your category of the rules that "may" be followed.
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On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
The Manual of Style is mandatory but is being overturned in once off cases as though it was purely a matter for local decision, not Wikipedia-wide policy.
From [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2]]:
2.2) The Manual of Style is a set of guidelines governing appropriate editing on Wikipedia. Editors are expected to follow the Manual of Style, although it is not policy and editors may deviate from it with good reason.
I think you misrepresent the import of the Manual of Style.
Kelly
Incorrect. As it makes clear, it is governing appropiate editing styles, and used to prevent inappropriate editing style. 'Good reason', which is a term used in official reasoning on Wikipedia and elsewhere, sets a high bench mark which means 'an convincing and conclusive argument that in this one case an exception may need to be made'. It which does not cover arguments like 'we I like this', and 'I think this probably will at some stage in the future become the most used term, therefore we should push it here'. That is just POVing and is not remotely near the standard 'good reason' requires.
Kelly Martin kelly.lynn.martin@gmail.com wrote: On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
The Manual of Style is mandatory but is being overturned in once off cases as though it was purely a matter for local decision, not Wikipedia-wide policy.
From [[Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2]]:
2.2) The Manual of Style is a set of guidelines governing appropriate editing on Wikipedia. Editors are expected to follow the Manual of Style, although it is not policy and editors may deviate from it with good reason.
I think you misrepresent the import of the Manual of Style.
Kelly _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Incorrect. As it makes clear, it is governing appropiate editing styles, and used to prevent inappropriate editing style. 'Good reason', which is a term used in official reasoning on Wikipedia and elsewhere, sets a high bench mark which means 'an convincing and conclusive argument that in this one case an exception may need to be made'. It which does not cover arguments like 'we I like this', and 'I think this probably will at some stage in the future become the most used term, therefore we should push it here'. That is just POVing and is not remotely near the standard 'good reason' requires.
To quote you: incorrect. A good reason can be "we really really want to".
qv HHGTG
Sam
G'day Tom,
Incorrect. As it makes clear, it is governing appropiate editing styles, and used to prevent inappropriate editing style.
Speaking of editing styles, do you think you could: a) stop top-posting, instead interweave your points with those of the people you're replying to, as per proper Internet custom b) set your email client to wrap your text
These two things would go a long way towards making your posts more readable, and perhaps their message better-received. Perhaps.
Cheers,
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Incorrect. As it makes clear, it is governing appropiate editing styles, and used to prevent inappropriate editing style. 'Good reason', which is a term used in official reasoning on Wikipedia and elsewhere, sets a high bench mark which means 'an convincing and conclusive argument that in this one case an exception may need to be made'. It which does not cover arguments like 'we I like this', and 'I think this probably will at some stage in the future become the most used term, therefore we should push it here'. That is just POVing and is not remotely near the standard 'good reason' requires.
Look, I wrote the snippet from that ArbCom ruling I quoted a few moments ago. And I assure you that the above explication is not what I had in mind when I wrote it. Nor do I think my fellow Arbitrators felt the same about it when they voted to include it in the ruling.
Kelly
On 11/18/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
The Manual of Style is mandatory but is being overturned in once off cases as though it was purely a matter for local decision, not Wikipedia-wide policy. Instead of debating policy, this 'once off' page by page policy making is producing a mess. Efforts to point out the difference between mandatory and optional usually produces a 'no. We'll vote here on what rules to follow on this page' response, with those pointing out mandatory rules accused of 'highjacking' pages!
I pointed this out earlier, and so did Kelly Martin, but I think it needs pointing out again:
WP:NC is marked "official policy", which means that it is one of the "policies that are widely accepted and that everyone is expected to follow".
Each of the individual naming conventions, such as [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)]], are not official policies. They are clearly marked as "guidelines", which means they are "less rigid rules of thumb that are generally accepted by consensus to apply in many cases".
So it is mandatory to consider the naming conventions, since the WP:NC page is official policy. However, it is not mandatory to actually implement each of the conventions, since they are merely guidelines.
-- Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com
Stephen Bain wrote:
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
I've been looking at some pages and noticed that there is a haphazard application of rules on WP, specifically a failure to distinguish between mandatory and optional rules.
...
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
WP:NC is "policy", which means it is official. But the page does carry this proviso:
"It is important to note that these are conventions, not rules written in stone. As Wikipedia grows and changes, some conventions that once made sense may become outdated, and there may be cases where a particular convention is "obviously" inappropriate. But when in doubt, follow convention."
It's interesting to note that all of the individual naming conventions, for example [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names)]], are specifically tagged as guidelines, and not policies. Although they carry much weight, they nevertheless fall into your category of the rules that "may" be followed.
It follows too that if flexibility is written into the policy then that flexibility is as much a part of the policy as its more specific terms.
Parallel to that we also have on [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English)]] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_%28use_English%29
Some cases are less clear-cut. There is a trend in part of the modern news media and maps to use native names of places and people, even if there is a long-accepted English name.
Ec
Some cases are less clear-cut. There is a trend in part of the modern news media and maps to use native names of places and people, even if there is a long-accepted English name.
Actually that is a trend largely though not exclusively associated with the American media. English speakers outside the US, for example, do not say or hear Turino for Turin.
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On 17/11/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
Of course, there's also a significant number that are opposing based on the fact that they consider the other name to be the most commonly used in English. Repeatedly waving the strawman that people are voting to ignore the MoS, or that they all somehow are incapable of understanding what a manual of style is, doesn't help in the least.
Again, please assume *some* good faith on the part of people who disagree with you. It costs nothing and saves on everyone's blood pressure.
-- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
On 11/17/05, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
Of course, there's also a significant number that are opposing based on the fact that they consider the other name to be the most commonly used in English. Repeatedly waving the strawman that people are voting to ignore the MoS, or that they all somehow are incapable of understanding what a manual of style is, doesn't help in the least.
Yes but looking at the evidence show that position is not logicaly suportable
Again, please assume *some* good faith on the part of people who disagree with you. It costs nothing and saves on everyone's blood pressure.
No reason to assume that thier argument are remotely valid though.
-- geni
Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote: On 17/11/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
Of course, there's also a significant number that are opposing based on the fact that they consider the other name to be the most commonly used in English.
Which is why an independent evaluation procedure is needed to establish independently verifiable facts. Right now much of the debate on various pages seems to be based on
* I believe that it is the most common name
even when independent evaluation proved unambiguously that it isn't.
Repeatedly waving the strawman that people are voting to ignore the MoS, or that they all somehow are incapable of understanding what a manual of style is, doesn't help in the least.
Arguments such as
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
are all 100% contrary to WP's Manual of Style. Yet they are how people vote to decide to ignore the mandatory rules of the MoS. Either the MoS is mandatory or it isn't. If it is, then votes to ignore it on grounds that conflict with the MoS are invalid.
Again, please assume *some* good faith on the part of people who disagree with you. It costs nothing and saves on everyone's blood pressure.
The expressed reasons for many of the votes show no reason to assume good faith, when people willfully make decisions in open disregard of the rules thousands of other Wikipedians follow.
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I believe this is called MoSolatry. It isn't healthy. Rules (on Wikipedia at least) really are made to be broken.
Sam
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote: On 17/11/05, Tom Cadden wrote:
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of now.
Of course, there's also a significant number that are opposing based on the fact that they consider the other name to be the most commonly used in English.
Which is why an independent evaluation procedure is needed to establish independently verifiable facts. Right now much of the debate on various pages seems to be based on
- I believe that it is the most common name
even when independent evaluation proved unambiguously that it isn't.
Repeatedly waving the strawman that people are voting to ignore the MoS, or that they all somehow are incapable of understanding what a manual of style is, doesn't help in the least.
Arguments such as
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
are all 100% contrary to WP's Manual of Style. Yet they are how people vote to decide to ignore the mandatory rules of the MoS. Either the MoS is mandatory or it isn't. If it is, then votes to ignore it on grounds that conflict with the MoS are invalid.
Again, please assume *some* good faith on the part of people who disagree with you. It costs nothing and saves on everyone's blood pressure.
The expressed reasons for many of the votes show no reason to assume good faith, when people willfully make decisions in open disregard of the rules thousands of other Wikipedians follow.
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On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
One second issue: if we require 'most commonly used name in English' (or in whatever language in another Wikipedia) we need to be able to define an independent, verifiable, objective methodology for establishing what is the most commonly used name in English.
We have a set of criteria. We apply these in the ways that seem best to us. It's called "consensus" decision making. What it doesn't involve is shoving your opinion down the throats of those who disagree. Nor does it involve repeatedly making the same point. If people didn't notice your point the first time, fine, repost it. What you got last time was people *disagreeing* with you. Unless there's a really really good reason, there's no need to make this mailing list even more bitter by raking through problems that have just been discussed at length.
I don't think there are any objective methodology in Wikipedia. Everything is governed by common sense. This is clearly less inflammatory than forcing your opinion on others.
Sam
Tom Cadden wrote
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
Including, which you don't mention, this: "A republic of West Africa, Côte d'Ivoire lies on the Gulf of Guinea." From the Encyclopedia Britannica, which pays people to get it right.
Enough wikilawywering already.
Charles
On 11/17/05, charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
Including, which you don't mention, this: "A republic of West Africa, Côte d'Ivoire lies on the Gulf of Guinea." From the Encyclopedia Britannica, which pays people to get it right.
They have a different MOS to us.
-- geni
As has been pointed out repeatedly, the MoS does not say 'do what Brittanica does' Brittanica is a business-orientated hardcopy encyclopædia which follows governmental usage to avoid offending native populations because it needs them to buy their product. It is called sometimes 'Strategic Naming'.
They follow their own MoS. We follow ours. Ours is not business based but based exclusively on the most common name principle. Objective evidence shows that the most common name of that state, as evidenced by surveys of communication vehicles worldwide, is 'Ivory Coast' by a ratio of 85:15 over Cote d'Ivoire.
They have to follow their MoS which follows 'Strategic Naming'. We have to follow ours, which follows 'Most Common Name'. Under our MoS the name we are obliged to place the name at is Ivory Coast. Their MoS, following their criteria, produces a result that is irrelevant to us.
charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote: Tom Cadden wrote
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
- well I like that name
- well I always use it
- I personally haven't heard any other name used
- the Government wants it
- it will eventually become widespread
- I hope it eventually becomes widespread
- I think it will eventually become widespread
- we should be encourging it to become widespread
- I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
Including, which you don't mention, this: "A republic of West Africa, Côte d'Ivoire lies on the Gulf of Guinea." From the Encyclopedia Britannica, which pays people to get it right.
Enough wikilawywering already.
Charles
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"Tom Cadden" wrote
As has been pointed out repeatedly, the MoS does not say 'do what Brittanica does' Brittanica is a business-orientated hardcopy encyclopædia which follows governmental usage to avoid offending native populations because it needs them to buy their product. It is called sometimes 'Strategic Naming'.
They follow their own MoS. We follow ours. Ours is not business based but based exclusively on the most common name principle.
[[Wikipedia:Wikilawyering]]: "Wikilawyering is attempting to inappropriately rely on legal technicalities with respect to Wikipedia:Policies or Wikipedia:Arbitration."
'Wikilawyer' is pejorative; 'policy wonk' is not.
If blindly insisting on 'following policy' makes the English Wikipedia factually worse, and offends our community members, and offends 'native populations' (my God, do people still express themselves like this?) why the hell should we do it? Making 'exclusively' a universal override is wikilwayering.
Charles
charles matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote: "Tom Cadden" wrote
As has been pointed out repeatedly, the MoS does not say 'do what Brittanica does' Brittanica is a business-orientated hardcopy encyclopædia which follows governmental usage to avoid offending native populations because it needs them to buy their product. It is called sometimes 'Strategic Naming'.
They follow their own MoS. We follow ours. Ours is not business based but based exclusively on the most common name principle.
[[Wikipedia:Wikilawyering]]: "Wikilawyering is attempting to inappropriately rely on legal technicalities with respect to Wikipedia:Policies or Wikipedia:Arbitration."
'Wikilawyer' is pejorative; 'policy wonk' is not.
If blindly insisting on 'following policy' makes the English Wikipedia factually worse, and offends our community members, and offends 'native populations' (my God, do people still express themselves like this?) why the hell should we do it? Making 'exclusively' a universal override is wikilwayering.
Charles It comes down to the simple option: amateurishness or professionalism. You may think an amateurish make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach is OK. Many on Wikipedia find it Wikipedia's biggest flaw. Accuracy is not "making the English Community" it is knowing what you are doing. Frankly what you seem to hold up as a model is 'WikiIncompetence', You don't seem to have noticed that Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopædia, not a tabloid. Encyclopædias have standards and if Wikipedia wants to be respected as a source book and not become an internet joke it has to have standards. Just because you have problem with definitions, professional organisation and encyclopædic standards does not mean that everyone has.
Thom
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On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden thomcadden@yahoo.ie wrote:
It comes down to the simple option: amateurishness or professionalism. You may think an amateurish make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach is OK. Many on Wikipedia find it Wikipedia's biggest flaw. Accuracy is not "making the English Community" it is knowing what you are doing. Frankly what you seem to hold up as a model is 'WikiIncompetence', You don't seem to have noticed that Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopædia, not a tabloid. Encyclopædias have standards and if Wikipedia wants to be respected as a source book and not become an internet joke it has to have standards. Just because you have problem with definitions, professional organisation and encyclopædic standards does not mean that everyone has.
Get this: Wikipedia is no less respectable for using the French name than for using the English one.
And please turn automatic line breaks on in your email program.
-- Sam
Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
Get this: Wikipedia is no less respectable for using the French name than for using the English one. If its agreed code of rules says to follow one set of criteria, and hundreds of thousands of articles are written following it, and some choose to abandon the agreed standards and 'do their own thing' different to the rest of the pages, then Wikipedia's credibility as a sourcebook will plummet. The language is irrelevant. The only thing relevant is whether the terminology used is what readers would use. It has been unambiguously proven that in that one case the French name is rarely used except in one continent, and for hundreds of millions of readers is never used and unknown. Showing contempt for them by saying 'we're going to use the site to push one name because the government tells us to, irrespective of your needs' does not help WP's credibility. And as WP gets bigger and more famous, its need for credibility is central. If its credibility suffers through lack of professionalism then WP will soon find that its media coverage will turn from positive and negative, and everyone's hard work in trying to make a real as opposed to joke encylopædia will have been in vain.
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Editing you own article is not forbidden but is strongly discouraged. There is no problem with Charles or William correcting an error of this nature anonymously. A problem could arise if they begin intensive editing in order to remove negative information or add positive information. As the article is watched there is little danger of plainly false negative information remaining anyway. In more ordinary situations, as no one may be watching the article false negative information may linger for a very long time and the temptation will arise to remove it themselves or try by complaining to get it removed. If basically the only published material about a person is some negative incident they are in a bad fix. Other facts about them are not sourced or notable.
One usual problem of autobiographical articles is not present here. Charles is notable so the vanity page problem doesn't arise. Their problem is quite different. If they are caught editing their pages especially with respect to point of view they will look bad, not dignified, and dignity is their prime asset.
Fred
On Nov 16, 2005, at 10:53 PM, Tom Cadden wrote:
I just thought of a real example. According to websites the world over the Prince of Wales's name is Charles Windsor. In reality, as his own office confirmed when it was being checked for Wikipedia, it is actually Charles Mountbatten-Windsor. We are one of the few correct sources of information on the net about it.
Every so often someone comes along and does one of those damned google searches (god but those things 'prove' such crap!) and changes the article to say he is Charles Windsor. Before those of us who constantly correct it find the change, Charles himself or William (both of whom surf the net) find the mistake. Would WP allow them to correct the error?
BTW Wikipedia HAS been read in Buckingham Palace, as I found when checking with BP about something for an article here. I mentioned us but before I even got a chance to say who what we were, the person I was speaking to came back 'oh yes. The big online encyclopædia. It is really quite good. We've seen it here.'
BTW the Queen is an avid net surfer. Who knows? She may be one of our anonymous Wikipedians. Maybe she is on this list for all we know. (If she is, Hi Ma'am!) lol
Thom
Tom Cadden wrote:
But what if an article contains a widely believed 'fact' that actually is bullshit.
eg,
Michael was born in Toronto in 1956 and moved to Atlanta in 1961.
But Michael finds the article and knows that he was born in Ottawa but his family moved to Toronto some months after his birth. Plenty of internet sites say Toronto but he knows for a fact that it is wrong. Can he correct that, or does he need to produce his birth certificate to correct an error about himself? lol
I know this posting is a bit old, but I just wanted to say something here. People always act like there are only two possibilities. In this case, the perceived two possibilities are either the article says "Toronto" or the article says "Ottawa". If you think about it, though, you'll see that if hundreds of sources on the Internet say Toronto it makes perfect sense to state explicitly that those websites are wrong. This will show a reader that the author of the Wikipedia article -- whether it be that very Michael or not -- is aware of the fact that other sites claim "Toronto" and that the author still thinks Ottawa is right. That's much more convincing than just seeing it say "Ottawa" and all other easy-to-find sources say "Toronto", which makes it look much more like a simple mistake.
Timwi