I've noticed that it's not unusual for lists of external links to be subject to rather draconian editing because "Wikipedia is not a link farm". Often these links are incredibly useful, and the value to the end user (which surely ought to be the paramount consideration) of the articles of which they form a part is in many cases very much diminished by the enforcement of the "Link farm" policy. In my opinion there is often on Wikipedia a tension between a rather mindless enthusiasm for technical regulation on the one hand and common sense on the other. If the former were to prevail consistently over the latter then Wikipedia would not have much of a future. One might even go so far as to say that this tension reflects a deeper divide between those editors mainly interested in the "police" functions (the regulators) and those editors mainly interested in creating content. My impression is that as Wikpedia has developed many of those most deeply involved in it are more interested in enforcement than in actually writing an encyclopedia. It's not that I don't think that both are important; it's just that I think the regulatory function must be seen as of subordinate importance. At the moment content creation appears to be seen as primarily--and even properly--an activity more for new than experienced editors. Does anyone have any thoughts on these issues (i.e. either the link farm issue or the mindset that I think it reflects)? I hope my frankness will not be regarded as improper. Tillander03:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I agree that flexibility is needed. However, Wikipedia would not have much of a future if people did not mindlessly enforce "not a link farm" as articles would be overrun with external links in a month if they stopped. Johnuniq (talk) 04:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, except for the "mindless" part I agree with you. I'm just trying to say that enforcement can't just be a mechanical function. There needs to be thought, considered judgement. Thanks for your comment, Tillander04:55, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Do you have a specific example in mind? It is hard to really argue for or against the point without knowing what links are being contested. Resolute04:57, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I've not generally seen a problem with too many links being removed... perhaps only wo or three times in the many years I have been here. To the contrary, we have a rampant problem with linkfarming all over the project with too few people taking the time to do anything about it as it is. A lot of thought goes into removals of these links in most cases. Generally the people complaining about removals are the spammers who put it there in the first place or people who want Wikipedia to become something it was never intended to be. DreamGuy (talk) 02:57, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
I like the current policy as it is, saying that the burden is on the person who adds the link to convince others that the external link is encyclopedic enough to be worth including. This policy isn't "don't add external links", and it's possible that some articles will have large numbers of valuable external links, but the burden is on the person who adds the link to show that the link should be included. Pine✉08:07, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
The article in question appears to be Great Books, where there the long external links list included many links to university home pages. That is being changed by adding a list of universities, apparently violating WP:NOTDIRECTORY and other related policies/guidelines. --Ronz (talk) 16:22, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
Links take up valuable real estate. Penyulap ☏ 02:23, 4 Jun 2012 (UTC)
As I understand it , the WP:EL policy is that External links are meant to provide links to significant free resources that extend the information in the articles. This is interpreted to always include the main web site of the person or organization, it never includes websites for branches or associated groups--such information is found through the main organization website. I agree with Dreamguy & Johnuniq & Pine: the problem is not too few links being present, but too many. Personally, I remove such extraneous ELs whenever I see them, though I have not done an organized campaign about it -- other than as part of my current principal activity here, in trying to decrease the amount of promotionalism. The listing of affiliate organizations as part of an article in cases where there are many such, as the example here, is a problem. If they don't have articles, there's less of a problem: any links present are pseudo-links, and I remove them. But when they go to WP articles, they're at least ostensibly valid internal links, and the question is more whether the content is encyclopedic. We have, for example, a number of article on particular subjects listing those universities that offer graduate degrees in the subject. I don't like this--if there is an external source, that lists them, it would be better to link to it. (I don't know anyone who's tried it for popular subjects like English Literature of Mathematics, but there are such articles for some of the specialized branches of engineering.) I can see how it might be useful, and fill a need, in cases of unusual subjects; we've sometimes stretch a guideline here to accommodate areas where there's a significant information gap that we are in a position to fill. DGG ( talk ) 03:19, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Concur with DGG, Johnuniq, DreamGuy, Pine, et al. It's a linkfarm pruning non-issue. For every good extlink that is removed but shouldn't be there are 1,000 crap ones that need to be deleted. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib.15:29, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I've seen WP:EL done pretty poorly. For example, say you have a "list of episodes" article where every episode is (legitimately) on YouTube. I'd argue it would be best (by far) for someone reading the article to have links to each of the episodes as the episode is being discussed. Link farm issues seem to prevent that, making our pages (IMO) less useful. I also agree that we have too many people (and I include myself here for certain) who are worried more about policing things than making things. (My policing activity is mainly focused on policing the police in an attempt to insure we don't delete/hack away useful content.) I think this hurts Wikipedia and makes it much less than it could be. But that's the standard view of an inclusionist. Hobit (talk) 20:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Proposal on "Wikipedia is Not a Social Network"
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Conclusion: I've removed the sentence in question since there appears to be a consensus here. — foxj05:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
The sentence "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia" is widely ignored in current practice. Should that one sentence be removed from the "Wikipedia is Not a Social Network" policy? Pine(talk)10:20, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Remove My own opinion is that this sentence should be removed but the rest of the policy should remain as it is. We want people to form collaborative relationships here, but we also don't want people turning their userpages into personal blogs. I think that with the removal of this this one sentence, the policy will have a more appropriate balance. Pine(talk)10:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Comment: Do we have clear examples (diff links, etc) of people misusing said sentence? i.e., is this a theoretical or a practical problem? (Discussion on foundation-l claims it's a practical one, and I'm not saying I disbelieve it, but examples would be apposite.) - David Gerard (talk) 11:22, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
This user includes how to mix them a Martini on their page, not only does this appear purely social rather than encyclopaedia related, but their photograph doesn't even have a Martini in it! --Fæ (talk) 11:40, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
I'll note also that I'm "undecided" because I remember when that was added, in the first chronic outbreak of userboxes. If it's purely a theoretical problem, I'd be inclined to leave it there; if it's actually being overapplied, that'd be good reason to remove it at this point - David Gerard (talk) 19:54, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
Remove one person's idea of what is relevant won't necessarily be the same as another's. In my view the test should be whether the editor is also doing anything useful. Userbox wars and purges of games and "sekrit" pages are themselves more of a drain on the community than any possible benefit of keeping editors' noses to the grindstone. A clear desk policy might make sense for companies that want their staff not to build an emotional attachment to their jobs, but it is counterproductive for a volunteer community. ϢereSpielChequers04:55, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Baseball Bugs, that was sort of what I was thinking. Let me show what the policy would look like after the sentence in question is removed: "Wikipedia pages are not: # Personal web pages. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog or to post your résumé, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet or any hosting included with your Internet account. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, or amusement, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration. Humorous pages that refer to Wikipedia in some way may be created in an appropriate namespace, however." I think that is reasonable, because this would allow editors to have some creativity and fun so long as "The focus of user pages should... (provide) a foundation for effective collaboration." Pine(talk)07:05, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
A bit wordy, perhaps, but certainly in the right direction. The idea is not really to discourage socializing, but to discourage using wikipedia only or primarily for socializing, vs. actually improving wikipedia for the benefit of the readers. That narrower approach to social networking is what I tend to call "team building". You do it in real life, to establish connections - and likewise here. But if someone wants a "real" social network, facebook is the better option. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 10:13, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
The 3 edits/24hr period won't work if someone spends time and each edit is a stack of changes. I agree that the social interaction helps morale and is a net positive. My recommendation is to slot in "predominantly" which aligns userpage policy with current practice (i.e. no-one really minds if there are bits and pieces all over the pace on a userpage but there is an informal line drawn with some that are almost all off-topic WRT encyclopedia building). Casliber (talk·contribs) 20:03, 24 March 2012 (UTC)
Just wanted to add my +1 of support for this removal. If folks are concerned enough about it, I would support adding language about how Wikipedia is not a social networking site, and thus that use of the account solely as a profile may not be tolerated. Steven Walling • talk07:18, 1 April 2012 (UTC)
Support Pine's rewording, or at least the general idea of it. It reflects current practice, and also current practice as to what is considered acceptable in userpage guidelines. I think that it is somewhat difficult to define what userpages are used for, since different people use them for different purposes. However, it is generally agreed upon that userpages should not be permanent places for article-like pages, which is an implicit acknowledgement that that they should be used for more personal stuff rather than for things providing information unrelated to themselves personally or their activities.--Newquestions?03:28, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
Precisely! Support rephrase to clarify that we want to encourage things like WikiProjects and WP:TEAHOUSE even if they arise spontaneously, not discourage user page and talk page socialization unless it is deliberately or disruptively divisive, and only specifically discourage things like superfluous category proliferation. 71.215.74.243 (talk) 00:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I'll leave the above closed but note that there's nowhere near consensus to remove the line based on the above discussion. If anything the above discussion favors rephrasing the statement, not outright removal. --MASEM (t) 13:16, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
My own count is about 6 people supporting the removal with zero opposes and a few varied comments, questions, and alternatives with no consensus among them. How is it that you came to such a different conclusion than Foxj regarding the original proposal? Pine(talk)20:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I only see two for outright removal, the rest for some type of rephrasing. In such cases, removal from policy pages is not done, but there should be efforts to change the wording to consensus. --MASEM (t) 20:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
One possible rewording was removal, but that wasn't the end of the discussion and certainly there was no consensus for it, at least for a policy page. As noted below, the discussion is better suited for WP:UP to go into details; here needs to remain the summary of the accepted situation. --MASEM (t) 13:30, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Masem, you have not responded as comprehensively as I think is necessary to my question about how you came to such a different conclusion than Foxj. Since Foxj was the closer, it seems to me that the burden of proof is on you to show that the close should have been different. Wikipedia wouldn't work if anyone who showed up after a close could disagree with a close and overturn it based on their personal opinion of the close being different, because then every close could be overturned by the next editor who came by. Please provide a count of how you're counting the vote of each editor who commented above. As for the point about where the discussion should have happened, any objection should have been done at the time the RFC was active. That time has passed, and if someone wants something different than it seems to me that they need to start a new RFC on this page rather than try, after the fact, to overturn a discussion that involved many editors based on their different interpretation of policy. Pine(talk)07:29, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia discussions are !votes, so I'm not going to count. There are two options that were on the table - deletion and rephrasing. The rephrasing argument is a stronger position since that would encourage more discussion to get the phrasing correct (including, perhaps, removal). If anything, this discussion is "no consensus" split on arguments between deletion and phrasing. As this is a policy page, the default action on "no consensus" discussions is to take no action until a consensus can be reached. But I see the rephrasing discussion as favoring rephrasing based on argument strength alone, and thus more discussion should have been made before touching the policy page as well. Thus in either case, nothing should have been done to the policy page. Note that I'm not arguing the point of issue about social network aspects beyond that the better venue is at WP:UP. Just that when it comes to making changes to policy pages, stronger consensus needs to be shown. --MASEM (t) 13:04, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
At the risk of piling on, policy debates are not XfD decisions. Unlike deletion decisions (which need explicit closure), policy decisions on a wiki are always up for extension, renewal and reversal. The idea of "closing" a debate is inherently un-wiki. If a decision is made in error (and many are), the wiki-solution is to revert it and keep talking. This is the essence of Bold, revert, discuss. There is no "burden or proof" or need to appeal to a higher authority (or to a subsequent debate). If someone disagrees in good faith, we just continue the discussion. Rossami(talk)14:58, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
While I didn't comment during the now-closed discussion, I see nothing harmed by the removal, and I agree that clause is generally ignored in practice anyways. Jclemens (talk) 20:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
I missed this conversation the first time around. I'll add an explicit opinion in favor of keeping the sentence. I personally remember both the userbox fiasco and older abuses that led to the need for that clause. Even though we tolerate some personal use, the policy has always been clear that user pages are provided to us for the sole purpose of improving the encyclopedia. Social connections enhance cooperation and do improve the encyclopedia. The implication is that some personal use is allowable but there is a balance inherent in that way of looking at it. A highly productive editor who wants to blow off a little steam gets more leeway than an anonymous user who only edits his/her userpage. All that said, this is not the right place for this particular debate. The controlling policy page is Wikipedia:User pages. Changes to the allowable uses of a userpage should be debated there. The clause here at WP:NOT is a convenient synopsis of the requirement that is spelled out in greater detail there. The wording here should not be changed until and unless it has already been changed at WP:UP. Rossami(talk)21:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
The NOT#SOCIAL material is blathery enough without that line. Let's see how things work without it. If all hell breaks looks and people start treating userpages like Facebook or LieJournal, then by all means put it back. "I remember why we did this" doesn't mean it was a good idea, yet it is the crux of Rossami and Masem's objections. It's just a particularly off-kilter variant of WP:ILIKEIT. "I remember why" I drank so much I puked on the floor, but that doesn't mean I should do it again. And a lot of things have changed since the days of the trivial userboxes epidemic, Esperanza, and other "let's turn WP into MySpace" crap. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib.20:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)
"I remember why we did this" is not an argument that "I don't like it" but a reminder that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." (George Santayana, Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense, 1905). Regardless, this is not the place to make the requested change to policy. Sort it out on WP:UP first, then this page will naturally follow suit. Rossami(talk)12:50, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Putting aside my feelings about proper procedure for the moment, I looked at WP:UP. I can't find a place in the userpage policy that supports the sentence that I proposed for deletion, which seems to me is another reason to delete the sentence if it's not supported by what some of us are saying is the underlying policy. WP:UP says, "Some people add personal information such as contact details (email, instant messaging, etc.), a photograph, their real name, their location, information about their areas of expertise and interest, likes and dislikes, etc.", and "you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia", and "The Wikipedia community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants. Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. But at the same time, if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption." So, WP:UP doesn't seem to support the broad assertion in "What Wikipedia is not" that "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia", and if anything supports the idea that userpages can contain personal content so long as the content isn't disruptive or so extensive that it looks more like a personal blog. It seems to me that WP:UP as it's currently written would support the deletion of "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia" from the policy on "What Wikipedia is not." Pine(talk)05:10, 1 May 2012 (UTC)
This conversation got archived but I'm moving it back here because I'm hoping to see a response to my points here. If people don't take issue with my last statement above then I will remove "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they may be used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia" as I originally proposed, so the statement on WP:NOT will say, "Wikipedia pages are not: # Personal web pages. If you are looking to make a personal webpage or blog or to post your résumé, please make use of one of the many free providers on the Internet or any hosting included with your Internet account. The focus of user pages should not be social networking, or amusement, but rather providing a foundation for effective collaboration. Humorous pages that refer to Wikipedia in some way may be created in an appropriate namespace, however." I believe that this is consistent with the underlying policy on userpages, as I said in my last comment. Thanks, Pine(talk)09:07, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Removing the sentence takes away significant context to the NOT statement. What is probably best is to add a pointer to WP:UPYES to that statement which lists the type of content allowed on user pages (eg, "...working on the encyclopedia, such as those outlined at Allowable User Page Content."). That makes the statement more proactive to define what is appropriate, and then using the rest to point out that social networking, etc. aspects are not appropriate. --MASEM (t) 13:12, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
If you have a specific suggestion for the wording please let me know. I'm very willing to discuss alternative proposals. Pine(talk)19:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Basically, I would add one specific sentence. "Content that has generally been judged appropriate for user pages is outlined at WP:UPYES", possibly at the end. Everything else should stay as is. --MASEM (t) 19:41, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Masem, I am ok with adding that sentence, but if we keep everything else as it is then there's content on your own userpage that would be in violation of this guideline like the reference to your blog, and the sentence that was proposed for removal in the RFC isn't supported by WP:UPYES, so I see no other option than to remove it but I am open to suggestions for replacing it with something that's more compatible with WP:UPYES and with current practice. Pine(talk)07:36, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Pine, the weight of authority goes the other way. The Pillars inform the Policies which impact the Guidelines. Not the other way around. -- The Red Pen of Doom19:10, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
I believe that I accounted for that. My point above discussed making this guideline more compatible with the underlying policy. Pine(talk)19:56, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
Posting again to keep the bot from automatically archiving this discussion while waiting for a response from User:Masem. Pine(talk)03:46, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Strong support for keeping that sentence as written - a small handful of people should not be allowed to have a small discussion and suddenly declare a dodgy consensus to change the wording of a policy. Policy should be very hard to change. The more people want to justify a change to make the project less like an encyclopedia, the less those people should contribute here, frankly. There are plenty fo social networks out there if that's what you want. Wikipedia is not here to provide free homepages to people. DreamGuy (talk) 02:50, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
This is change was not done by "a small handful of people." This proposal went through the formal RFC notification process, and was mentioned on Wikipedia-l. I continue to believe that it is procedurally improper to overturn this RFC after closed and/or to overturn the close without a very strong reason. So far the best reason that has been offered is that this guideline is governed by the userpage policy, and my rebuttal to that is that the userpage policy doesn't support the sentence that the RFC showed support for removing (or in at least one person's view, rephrasing). I continue to hope that this discussion will be resolved without escalating to ANI or more formal dispute resolution. Pine✉08:10, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
To me there seems to be no justification at all for that sentence. Many user pages contain some information that isn't relevant to working on the encyclopedia (even DreamGuy's own, I note), and that appears to be generally accepted as perfectly cool. There exists no such norm on Wikipedia, so it's a lie to imply that there is. Victor Yus (talk) 08:48, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
The elements listed at WP:UPYES (allowable user page information) are pieces that while usually are personal information or the like, are deemed to help editors learn about other editors in the context of collaboration, so that we're not all blank faces. Saying who you are, where you live, what your interests are, are all good aspects for collaboration building. But going beyond that as WP:NOT#WEBSITE says, is where the problem lies and what the sentence is trying to convey. Hence why we need to point to UPYES so that editors know is considered outside this problem. --MASEM (t) 17:39, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Yes, there should be such a link. But we should also not say "only" without qualification, because that implies to ordinary people that they shouldn't mention any tidbits of non-Wikipedia-related personal information at all, which is clearly not true. Victor Yus (talk) 18:47, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
How about changing the sentence to the following, with the changes in italics. "Wikipedians have their own user pages, but they should be used primarily to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia. Limited biographical information is allowed, but user pages should not function as personal webpages or be repositories for large amounts of material that's irrelevant to collaborating on Wikipedia."? Pine✉09:14, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm a big confused.. what was the result of this discussion? I would note that I strongly support the original proposal (in red). It's rules like these that make Wikipedia such an unfriendly place and encourage people to be so hostile to one another. I would rather have a little bit of off-topic chatter in the non-article space (which I am free to ignore) than have everyone watching their words and afraid to make friends or editing buddies. Seriously, there is very little content that's "irrelevant to collaborating on Wikipedia." Surely, saying "This new video game looks sweet!" isn't directly usable in an article, but it builds a rapport with other editors that increases motivation and productivity. It's not always about immediate returns. Building community, in my view, is much more important than censoring everything we write. Censorship achieves nothing; community helps us write an encyclopedia. CaseyPenk (talk) 05:20, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
The box was closed based on a discussion of only 6 people, nowhere near enough to set consensus on policy. The rules for talk pages are set at WP:UP so any changes towards this have to be made there. UP recognizes that some personal info and the like helps collaboration, but there has to be a line drawn before non-Wikipedia-building information overwhelms things. This is not censorship, btw; WP is not the only place you can publish this information, so calling it censorship is absolutely wrong. --MASEM (t) 05:59, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
I would absolutely bring it up at WP:UP, but I already agree with most of what that page has to say. WP:UP is considerably more liberal about what we include. See here, emphasis mine:
"The Wikipedia community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants. Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. But at the same time, if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption."
I don't think this can be called a crystal ball issue since that is about unsourced speculation and the article appears to be covering speculation made by a third party and not the user that added the info. That said there may be other reasons not to include the info such as but not limited to, the source does not meet Wikipedia standards for reliability WP:IRS, the projection the source mentioned is a minority view and falls outside mainstream projections WP:WEIGHT, or the person who quoted the source is making an assumption from the source which was not actually said by the source WP:SYN. That said I have no idea if any of these issues are at play but IMO WP:CRYSTAL is not the relevant issue here.--174.93.167.177 (talk) 03:29, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
Forecasts and predictions by reliable sources do not fail crystal ball issues, but one should consider if the information will be retained in the long term. Some forecasts can become historically significant (eg the Facebook IPO) but others are routine ("this company will break even in 2013") and very little is covered about it. --MASEM (t) 03:42, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree. For example, Michael Pachter makes probably two projections per week, but very few of them are notable in their own right. Yet as Masem points out, when I wrote Facebook IPO I made an effort to look at the contrast between pre-IPO and post-IPO speculation. Speculation is generally going to be notable in such cases, where the pundits were overwhelmingly wrong (I might add, it's kind of amusing to see the about-faces.. one day Facebook's going to $60 overnight, the next day it's lucky to stay above $30). CaseyPenk (talk) 03:47, 10 June 2012 (UTC)
We do not judge the veracity of religious views any more than anything else. Works presented or widely considered as non-fiction are non-fiction. DGG ( talk ) 23:03, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Comments are needed about whether or not saying that anal sex "generally requires a generous application of a personal lubricant to prevent tearing, since the anus does not have sufficient natural lubrication" is a how-to violation/doesn't belong in the lead or possibly in the article. One view is that it is unencyclopedic; the other view is that it is a medical fact worthy of mentioning. The wording has been changed since then, but comments on the matter are still needed about it and to identify just what how-to extends to. Please read the discussion, which isn't terribly long, no matter seeming like a lot to read at first, and weigh in. Flyer22 (talk) 13:24, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your post. When you say that presentation of the medical info does not have to be done in an unencyclopedic how-to fashion, I'm not sure what you mean. (My original question was essentially: shouldn't all info on WP be presented in an encyclopedic, non-advice-giving way? If that helps.)
But if you have some medical articles in mind that seem to give advice or alternately find a way to avoid sounding (possibly to some readers like they might be) giving advice please let me know what they are so I can read, compare and learn.
It would be a how-to violation if an article on sex were to offer opinions on best positions and techniques. It is obviously of encyclopedic interest to know that in "missionary" intercourse natural lubrication is usually abundant, and it is quite reasonable (and not a how-to violation) for an article on anal intercourse to mention that there is no natural lubrication so artificial means are required to avoid damage. That statement is not offering advice on how to do it, but is pertinent information to provide the reader with an understanding of what the process entails. It's like a gun article (I've just come from Brady Campaign) describing how bullets are introduced to a gun—core information for an understanding of the topic without any attempt at providing training on the topic. Johnuniq (talk) 01:41, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for trying to help with this, Johnuniq. Just out of curiosity, I've just had a bit of a look at our gun and bullet articles and I can't find anything about how bullets are introduced to a gun there. Would you call that an oversight in those articles?--TyrS02:27, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
In fact, there doesn't seem to be any advice-giving (certainly nothing comparable to "[Anal sex] generally requires a generous application of a personal lubricant") at all in the gun article. That's interesting. You might find it useful, also, to look at the smoking article, as well, to see how an article on a potentially dangerous recreational practice can totally avoid giving advice/suggestions/tips/etc and to see how profoundly this contributes to article quality.--TyrS06:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Quick question: TyrS has also expressed that the Sex positions article violates how-to, but TyrS has referred more to the images by Seedfeeder than anything else with regard to that. Any other opinions on this? The article as a whole does indeed look like a sex guide, but how else are the sex positions going to be listed and described? And are the images by Seedfeeder a violation of how-to? Flyer22 (talk) 02:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps this discussion should be moved elsewhere, it is at this point pretty well beyond the purview of this page.--TyrS02:27, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
If you mean the discussion about whether the line you debated is a how-to violation, this is exactly the right place to get input for on that. The main discussion is already going on at the Anal sex talk page, so there is no other place to move it to. The editors had the option of commenting there, and Masem did. Two others thus far have commented here. And, as you know, I have already asked Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine to weigh in, but they have not gotten back to us thus far. WikiProject Sexology and sexuality isn't that active, and the editors there who see the queries for help usually don't weigh in. WikiProject Medicine rarely weighs in on sexual topics even when it relates to a medical issue. And I have noticed that most WikiProjects tend not to weigh in these days when asked for help. That's one of my gripes about Wikipedia as of late.
If you mean the sex positions topic (or both), while the main discussion should take place at its talk page, we still might as well get opinions from the regulars here who are essentially experts on what Wikipedia is not. Flyer22 (talk) 03:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I would think there should be enough references to support that statement. It is in my opinion emphatically not what is meant by HOW_TO, which requires a much greater level of detail. It is not really possible to separate knowledge about sex from information that might lead to skill in it. DGG ( talk ) 20:58, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Is there a reason that this particular discussion is occurring at least one other location? This is unacceptable. Perhaps the initiatior of this discussion could summarize their pov in a single sentence? - Jack Sebastian (talk) 02:47, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Jack, it's pretty much resolved. The initial post summarizes both views in a small paragraph. One sentence wouldn't have done the summary justice. I posted here to ask editors to weigh in on the article talk page, just like is advised when querying opinions from WikiProjects or a WP:RfC. As you can see, two editors who have formed this policy decided to weigh in here instead. Flyer22 (talk) 05:33, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Proposed (re)edit - Instruction manuals
Having edited various sex-related articles (among others) over the last year or two (off and on, as real life commitments allow, of course) I have frequently witnessed the fact that many editors (mosly not established ones) have an even stronger than usual urge to want to offer/relay (often helpfully meant) advice on these kinds of pages.
For this reason, I recently added "sexual" to the following under WP:NOTHOW:
"...an article should not read like a "how-to" style owners manual, advice column (legal, medical or otherwise)..."
so that it read
"...an article should not read like a "how-to" style owners manual, advice column (legal, medical, sexual or otherwise)..."
The realm of sex/sexuality specifically is of a distinct nature from such areas as law and medicine, and should be included here. There is a definite need in general to remind editors that NOTHOW applies on sex-related pages, as many of the sex-related articles chromically reflect a perception (probably due to the high degree of subjectivity associated with the subject matter) that the area of sex on WP represents an opportunity to ditch basic WP quality guidelines, and this guideline in particular.
This problem (i.e. that various sex-related pages read and/or look like instruction manuals) is something that is regularly commented upon by other editors as well.
It is not desirable to edit a policy when one is relying on that policy in a discussion on another page. Your comments at Talk:Anal sex#Encyclopedic tone and WP:HOWTO make it clear that you favor a change in that article based on the wording in the WP:What Wikipedia is not policy. Trying to simultaneously discuss changing the article and the policy cannot be sustained—possibly the proposed change to the article and the proposed change to the policy are unrelated, but it is not necessary to introduce that confusion. I suggest you resolve one of the matters, then wait a week and proceed with the other, and since it looks like the article discussion started first, that's what should finish first. When discussing a change to the policy, it might be helpful to provide several links to pages where the change would be desirable because there is a general resistance to instruction creep unless there is a demonstrated need. In general, policies like this do not attempt to spell out precisely where and how they apply—per not bureaucracy, rules specify principles and it should be pretty obvious that NOTHOWTO supports not giving how-to advice in sex articles, but as seen in the article under discussion, people do not always agree about what "how to" means. Johnuniq (talk) 04:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough. It can wait until after the discussion (that I assume you are referring to) has concluded.
I haven't proposed any changes to policy before, and since my edit was based on general observations across many sex-related articles, it didn't occur to me to wait. I can see that it looks bad, though.
However, it is not only in the article under discussion that this issue has repeatedly arisen. Based on long-term observations of several sexuality-related talk pages, it actually isn't at all obvious to many contributors that NOTHOW supports not giving how-to advice in sex articles. And again, sexuality is a whole different kettle of fish to people, psychologically, than are law and medicine, and making sure that it's mentioned in NOTHOW would be a very helpful move.--TyrS05:11, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I can not see how the "or otherwise" cannot be meant to exclude sexual content. It's a catchall; it applies to any such advice. --MASEM (t) 06:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
So the specific mentions of "legal" and "medical" were, what, purely random? (And if that's the case, why not "sexual" instead of one of those? There is a demonstrated need for it. Surely it's common sense that the average person is more likely to lose perspective & objectivity over sex than over things like the law or medicine.)--TyrS07:45, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
The reason legal and medical are probably called out over any other words is that, at least in the US, there are legal ramifications if you give either type of advice in a professional manner without being of that profession and hiding that fact. Our general disclaimers protect us because they point out there's professional legal/medical council here so anything that could be construed as advice should not be considered true advice. There is nothing similar for sexual advice (outside of medical aspects). Anyone can give sexual advice because there's no "professional" aspect of it. --MASEM (t) 13:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Anyone who spends time at articles for deletion (WP:AFD) or several other noticeboards knows that there is an inexhaustible supply of editors who misunderstand or misuse policies and guidelines, no matter how clear they are. A problem with adding items to a list of what should not be done is that the list begins to look like a definitive statement of policy scope, which gives people the idea that because they want to do X, and the policy says not to do A, B or C, then X must be ok because it wasn't mentioned. It looks like there is not much involvement at the article talk page so an option would be WP:RFC (if one hasn't been held recently)—that's normally how policy develops: a wide community discussion concludes something, and that something can then be outlined in a policy. If there is significant objection on the policy talk page, there has to be another wide discussion. Johnuniq (talk) 07:16, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
(oh son of a) I got all excited about the idea of doing an RfC & I forgot that it might be bad timing given the ongoing discussion. Remembered (of course) just after I saved the RfC thingo. Tried to revert. Not sure what happened - is it unrevertable?--TyrS08:24, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't know much about RFCs. If there is still a problem, ask somewhere like WP:HELPDESK. I think you are doing the right thing to defer an RFC here because people usually want to see an actual problem first (or they should want that!). The best thing would be an RFC on the issue at the article talk. I tried having a look at that page but OMG it's dripping with POV (pain might be because you have a psychological problem!) and I don't have the stomach for the fuss. However, I stick to my view that (if properly worded), it is not a how-to violation to note the encyclopedic information that artificial lubrication is needed to avoid damage (I'll try to not repeat that here). Johnuniq (talk) 09:11, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Johnuniq, the pain part is not a POV issue, and I can't see any POV issue in the article, seeing as, in my opinion, it notes aspects of anal sex neutrally, such as mentioning why people may or may not like anal sex. Pain from anal sex sometimes being due to psychological factors is discussed in the references citing such pain. As I told TyrS, pain from anal sex is sometimes partly due to psychological factors or completely due to it, similar to dyspareunia in men or women (though dyspareunia is more common in women), and dyspareunia is mentioned in at least two of the sources about anal sex pain included in the article; this source being one of them. See the Male to male section (Anal sex#Pain); at least two of the sources don't only speak of this anal sex pain in men, and there are more on either Google Books or Google Scholar. I have started a WP:RfC about the how-to topic, although I consider it resolved, seeing as you and Masem, and I think LeadSongDog, have made it clear that it's not a how-to violation. Flyer22 (talk) 18:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Interesting, that "pain must be all in their mind" thing was one detail in intro section that I was asking if I could please see the quotes for, Flyer22. Remember? When I put the "request quotation" tag there a couple days ago and you removed it, saying it's up to the reader to find cited refs if they're inaccessible on the web.--TyrS08:47, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
That article is such a trainwreck of unreliable sources that it's premature to worry about NOTHOW. Start by fixing the source selections, within the existing rules. Eliminate the weak sources. Worry later about what to draw from the sources. LeadSongDogcome howl!07:11, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Interestingly, TyrS, you must have forgotten the fact that I directed you to other sources that clearly showcase that pain from anal sex is due to psychological factors in some cases, such as the one I directed Johnuniq to. And, yes, it is up to you to verify the sources. I made clear to you that not all sources have url links. Look at the Lesbian article again for an example on that. I also made clear that no Google Books source has every page available. It is the contributor's job to provide the title, author, date, page number and isbn. The contributor does not have to provide a quote to go along with that; most sources do not have a quote. If we went by your standard, most of the sources in the Lesbian article should be tagged with "verify" or "quote" tags since the only way to verify them is to gain access to the books. And like I told you elsewhere, "[These scholars] don't say 'if someone feels pain during anal sex, it may just be in their mind.' They state that some people feel pain during anal sex partly, primarily or completely due to psychological factors, and they have concluded this after extensively evaluating these people. [The same goes for dyspareunia.] They didn't trick these people into thinking that they have psychological hangups."
And, yes, LeadSongDog, I mentioned some of the weak sourcing in the article, and that I will be replacing some of the sources with higher-quality sources. I certainly didn't add all those sources, and, in my edit summaries, I've stressed not relying on books that are sex guides, but the article doesn't consist of mostly unreliable sources. Some of these sources are from medical and/or health sites which pass WP:MEDRS, in addition to scholars who are experts on the topic, and peer-reviewed articles. And to be clear, I know from extensive research online and in libraries that there are not a lot of high-quality sources out there about anal sex that isn't exclusively focusing on men who have sex with men. Most of the high-quality sources that are available on anal sex outside of men who have sex with men is what you see in the Prevalence section of the Male to female section, and even some of those sources need to be replaced with the original sources. And there certainly is not a lot of research on women pegging men/performing some other anal sex act on men or anal sex among lesbians/women who have sex with women. So sources such as Bend Over Boyfriend (I was lucky to find the National Institutes of Health source) and The Whole Lesbian Sex Book will have to suffice for that. Flyer22 (talk) 10:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Please take a closer look at wp:MEDRS. Peer-review does not make a primary source secondary. For PubMed-indexed journals it is easy to determine if a source is secondary. Indeed the search tool can apply filters for you to only show "Article types" that equal "Review", "Systematic Review", or "Practice Guideline" articles. While there is a limited role for primary sources, they must be used with great circumspection. This article isn't even close to that. Of course it has many other issues, but that's the first one to address. Quit worrying about the lede, once the body is fixed, the lede will follow.LeadSongDogcome howl!15:01, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
LeadSongDog, it's clear from this comment by me that I know that "Peer-review does not make a primary source secondary." I am saying that secondary sources are not the only acceptable sources by WP:MEDRS, per its lead and Wikipedia:MEDRS#Choosing sources, that some of the medical and/or health sites pass MEDRS, and that there are not a lot of high-quality sources about anal sex outside of men having sex with men. I am speaking as a person who knows from experience (having extensively researched it). I also point out that there are some things in the Anal sex article that WP:MEDRS does not apply to, and that therefore satisfy the default WP:SECONDARY policy. Anal sex is a sexual article. Not a medical article. It only has some medical aspects. This is why, last year, WP:MEDRS removed its WikiProject tag from most articles dealing with sexual activity. For something like why some gay men prefer anal sex and others prefer frotting, for example, WP:MEDRS need not apply. For information noting that some lesbian women engage in anal sex and others don't, for whatever reason, WP:MEDRS need not apply. Felice Newman, who wrote The Whole Lesbian Sex Book, is basically an expert on human sexuality (whether one simply wants to refer to her as a sex educator or not), obviously including lesbian sexuality specifically, and qualifies as a source that can be used for noting the existence of anal sex in the lesbian community. Some lesbian scholars have referred to that book. But, of course, I did not only rely on her for the lesbian information I included. I also added sources such as this one. It's a good book documenting sexuality among heterosexuals, gay men and lesbians, those in between, and studies. I've located studies because of this book. But, from what I can see, it only includes one line about anal sex among lesbians. It obviously isn't a high-quality source, but this is the type of difficulty I'm talking about in trying to gather high-quality sources, especially the secondary-source type of sources, about anal sexual activity outside of men who have sex with men. It's usually decent/good primary or secondary sources that are not of a medical nature, medical and/or health site sources, and professional books written by experts in the relevant field. I know what needs to be done with the Anal sex article. I'm just noting that non-medical/non-research sources are acceptable for some of the material in this article and that there are sourcing limitations. Flyer22 (talk) 19:07, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Respecting the relevance of articles and the rules of groups
I exactly know "Wikipedia will not remove content because of the internal bylaws of some organizations that forbid information about the organization to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations."..but being an outsider of an organisation or group doesn't at all mean that Wikipedia is totally free and unrestricted to publish what, by any means whether text information or objectionable images, not only harms that group and its adherents, but also conveys a misleading picture about them; it can even be irrelevant to the topic, which Wikipedia is strongly against.
For instance, depictions of prophets in Islam-related articles must be removed as its rules state, and this will never detract from its informativeness or being self-contained, as these are easily acheived through well-written text. This doesn't include writings and arts.
In another examples, we should respect the readers who, when they open articles like "Tattoo" or "Adam and Eve", run into nude images which are irrelevant to the topic, push them to stop searching on Wikipedia, and is noway common sense.
Thus before inclusion in the first place, content should be scrutinised by simplest common sense as Wikipedia says in Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means; I am not saying filtering as it is often unavailing and inaccurate.
Of course, there is no reasoning at all in adding such plain images in articles that are complete without them; anyone with the smallest intelligence can, without any of them, fully understand what a tattoo and body art mean, and also how our first parents looked like (although they weren't always nude as the Renaissance depictions describe).
Within Islam depictions of prophets are forbidden, and similarly ,as it is supposed to, Wikipedia should respect such perspectives; or why an article about them was made in the very beginning? Why does it only abide by particular laws and ignore others it should follow as well?—Mohamed 151995 (talk) 03:53, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
You may find the answers at Talk:Muhammad/FAQ useful, as they address many points you bring up. This also has instructions for setting your browser up to suppress any images that offend you from being displayed to you. However, since Wikipedia is not censored, we do not remove relevant images from articles solely on the basis that they might offend. SeraphimbladeTalk to me06:23, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
I read that FAQ and of course I exactly know my religion and that a certain doctrine, Shi'a especially in Iran , is not forbidding it..but, as I said earlier, this is about respecting every group however major and minor. In fact the Sunna are the major one, which brings about consensus among Muslims all over the world. Mohamed 151995 (talk) 06:43, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
I didn't centre my proposal on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) alone but I have also written about nude images outside their relevant positions. Actually we have to respect the Sunna group which says to censor, and I am not talking about calligraphy which is very highly encouraged in Islam. Mohamed 151995 (talk) 07:02, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Not being able to meet previous discussions is not my fault, and I think Wikipedia is open to make a point at any time and to anyone, indeed. Mohamed 151995 (talk) 07:29, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Did these communities include sides concerned with the issue - I mean aware of what they discussed? Mohamed 151995 (talk) 07:33, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Okay, I meant that community and I am new one of them. Please, answer my questions. I am not getting any point from you so far. Mohamed 151995 (talk) 07:40, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
You really need to click on Wikipedia is not censored. Its final paragraph says "Wikipedia will not remove content because of the internal bylaws of some organizations that forbid information about the organization to be displayed online. Any rules that forbid members of a given organization, fraternity, or religion to show a name or image do not apply to Wikipedia because Wikipedia is not a member of those organizations." I think that covers your area of interest pretty well, but probably not to your satisfaction. HiLo48 (talk) 07:45, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand your question. The editors involved in the RFC were certainly aware of the controversy surrounding showing images of Muhammad. I find it difficult to believe you carefully read through the entire RFC in such a short period of time. --NeilNtalk to me07:47, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Fine. I oppose your change. Text is fine as is as it means that Wikipedia is totally free and unrestricted to publish what it wants, only subject to its own policies and editor consensus. --NeilNtalk to me07:59, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Might I suggest, sir, that if something offends you, you not look at it? I will look at whatever I please. You have exactly the same right. Quit trying to force your beliefs down my, and others throats. Gtwfan52 (talk) 08:10, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
If there is something here that offends you, you always have the option of NOT LOOKING. If that same something isn't here and I want to see it, I can't. Your proposal limits peoples options; the status quo does not. Please quit trying to dictate what others can see; it is not your place. Gtwfan52 (talk) 08:22, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict)And in answer to your above, I think the responses you've gotten here should demonstrate to you pretty clearly that Wikipedia is not censored does indeed enjoy consensus, as did the request for comment on the very topic of the Muhammad images. If you don't want to look at them, either follow the browser configuration instructions or go read or edit something else, we have millions of articles to choose from that don't display any Muhammad images. But you're not going to ensure that the rest of the world can't look at them, because we do not censor based upon groups' internal bylaws or potential offense. We said the same thing when some psychologists argued with the display of Rorschach test images, we say the same thing every time someone objects to an image of a body part in the article about that very part. SeraphimbladeTalk to me08:31, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Take another look at WP:IAR as a whole. It is not there for you to cherry pick just the individual points you like and ignoring the rest.
It also isn't there as an end run around RFCs. There was one on the topic that seems to have spawned this, you've been pointed to it. It's also been point out to you that editing contrary to that RFC is disruptive. As is trying to force another similar RFC at this time.
As structured, Not Censored works and does not need to be tinkered with. Yes, there are some exceptions, things that will be pulled rather quickly. But that is because they run afoul of the laws in effect where the physical serves are or very specific Wikipedia policies.
On its face, what you are suggesting would be "BLP for organizations". It's doubtful that such a concept would gain much support. Especially when it appears to be coming from a singular set of edits being prevented.
You should also realize that other editors will start with what you propose here and look at both your user talk page and your edit history. Not mentioning the situation that brought you to this point, or avoiding terms associated with it does not prevent others from seeing them.
One last observation: Trying to remove image based on "It's an affront to the religion", "It's offensive", "We don't reveal that", or similar tends to get shot down. However, asking "Is this image really necessary?" can work. Will this get rid of all of them? No, but it may reduce gratuitous use.
Follow up to J Greb's excellent points: I suggest when dealing with such a hot-button issue, ask "Is this image really necessary?" on the article's talk page first and wait a while for any response before removing the image. --NeilNtalk to me08:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
That would likely invite pages of comments. Is anything really necessary? Maybe "is this image useful" would be a better question? Jim1138 (talk) 09:05, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Which image in which article? You have removed several images in several articles without any comments as to why you were doing that. All of them were reverted and all were in Islamic articles or a section relating to Islam. It's been mentioned above that you should look more at is a particular image necessary/uesful. For example look at Islamic view of Noah. I would question why it is necessary to have a Biblical image of Noah in an article discussing Islamic views. Now I'm not suggesting that you just up and remove the image, doing that will ensure someone reverts you quoting WP:CENSORED, but that you start a discussion on the talk page. While I don't agree with your efforts so far, they appear to be an attempt at censorship, I would be interested in hearing a valid argument on removing non-Muslim created depictions of people associated with Islam.
To other editors who have made reference to the Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Muhammad images. I don't see that the RFC any bearing on this discussion nor on what Mohamed 151995 has been doing. The closers remarks make it quite clear that they are only referring to image of Muhammad and how they apply to the article about him. The RfC does not concern itself with images of Muhammad in other articles nor with other images that some Muslims may find offensive, such as the ones of Mary that Mohamed 151995 removed. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 10:13, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
While the RFC did only center on that one page, remember that it bore out from an ArbCom case Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Muhammad images, and while that itself was again only focused on the specific page, the general rules of thumb apply around in the case of image use in similar cases. We go for the principle of least astonishment but at the same time we aren't censored nor need to appease any group over any other. --MASEM (t) 13:14, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
Expand GAMEGUIDE to include all other types of games
As a result of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters, there are some that are taking a word-for-word reading of GAMEGUIDE (which presently only mentions video games), and saying it doesn't apply to more traditional games (in this case, a pen and pencil game). I would argue , as many did in said AFD, that the intent of WP:NOT easily extends to cover all types of games, not just video ones. As such, if people are going to play a IDIDNTHEARTHAT approach, we should explicitly adjust GAMEGUIDE to apply to any type of game - video, board, cards, etc, as well as assuring that the list given is non-inclusive. --MASEM (t) 14:25, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I have tried that line of argument at AFDs for articles about chess openings and it was unavailing. See List of chess openings to understand the extent to which the moves and tactics of that game are documented here in fine detail. Those chess opening articles are the direct equivalent of walkthroughs of videogames but they are kept and maintained regardless. The real rule which seems to determine the outcome of such cases is WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Citing of policies such as WP:NOT is just wikilawyering in support of the personal POVs. Warden (talk) 15:40, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
I will agree that there are some game mechanics that do receive coverage of more than just being a game mechanic. (For example, I cannot imagine an article on chess not explaining the move sets of each piece, given how much literature there is to the topic). At the VG project, we note that there are some specific game elements that do get detailed coverage outside of elements like strategy guides (take, for instance, gravity gun), so GAMEGUIDE is not meant to stop all discussion of specific gameplay mechanics (video game or otherwise), just understanding that going into depth on these is generally not encyclopedic. In the case of your chess openings example, here's a prime case that calls out to using a sister project, maybe Wikiversity, to include that information. The fact that there are numerous chess openings, or that certain notable players have been credited with them - that's encyclopedic. The full list and details? No. (There may be notable chess openings that deserve an article on WP, but I can't say for sure). A more modern example for non-video games is Power Nine, nine specific Magic the Gathering cards that have received considerable attention primarily for creating power decks waaay back in the first releases. This doesn't mean we list every magic card, but can point out specific examples as appropriate. --MASEM (t) 15:58, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
Also to add: like all other WP policy, WP:IAR applies. My primary concern is that people say "Oh, it only says video games, there's zero application to this board game". I'd rather see arguments go less wikilawyer and go "Yes, this might be a problem under GAMEGUIDE, but this board game is well covered by sources that this article on its mechanics is likely okay". --MASEM (t) 16:02, 14 May 2012 (UTC)
This is coming up again at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Magic: The Gathering keywords (3rd nomination). The problem is, I recognize the GAMEGUIDE language as something I wrote for the VG project (give or take a few edits), which, reasonably, got pulled into WP:NOT. The problem is that when it was pulled into here, it wasn't expanded to be more general - read "applying to all types of games" - and thus people are arguing "keep" based on this little technicality. I would think that between everything else around GAMEGUIDE in WP:NOT and the intent of GAMEGUIDE that it should apply to all types of games, real or virtual. --MASEM (t) 13:47, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Video game guides. An article about a computer game or video game should summarize the main actions the player does to win the game. But avoid lists of gameplay weapons, items, or concepts, unless these are notable in their own right (such as the BFG9000 from the Doom series). Detailed coverage of specific point values, achievements, time-limits, levels, types of enemies, character moves, character weight classes, and so on is also considered inappropriate. A concise summary is appropriate if it is essential to understanding the game or its significance in the industry. See WP:VGSCOPE.
Which is pulled pretty much directly from the Video Game project guidelines. It is proposed to have this expanded to all types of games - board, card, even sports, etc., in the following manner:
Game guides. An article about a game (such as board games, card games, sports, and video games) should summarize the game rules and main actions the players can take to win the game, but should not fully recreate these. Articles should not list out every game piece, card, items, or concepts, unless these are notable in their own right such as gravity gun, or list of chess terms. Detailed coverage of specific point values, movement rules, unit statistics, and so on is also considered inappropriate. Specific strategies for winning games are inappropriate unless such strategies themselves are considered notable (such as the hail mary pass). A concise summary and limited examples are appropriate if it is essential to understanding the game or its significance in culture.
These changes should address larger issues that GAMEGUIDE presently has as written. --MASEM (t) 19:40, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Threaded discussion
Strong Support-I strongly agree. The same guidelines for video games should apply to other games as well. An article that contains in-depth information on obscure football strategies would be as unencylopedic as one that contains a complete Pokedex.--YutsiTalk/Contributions21:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - Most of both of those are fine, but Wikipedia should not list steps for players to win a game -- any game, video or otherwise. That is WP:NOT at all what an encyclopedia is for. It's not even close. A bunch of people writing up subset guidelines for subsections of the encyclopedia should not get to inflict those policy violations on other areas of the project. Just because people who are primarily interested in video games more than writing an encyclopedia think something is cool to them as fans doesn't mean we throw out the entire concept of what an encyclopedia is for. If you want that kind of stuff, take it to some fan guide on Wikibooks or a wiki devoted to that particular game. DreamGuy (talk) 02:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
I'm not stating that every single step towards winning is appropriate, but the conditions to win. For chess, taking the opponent's king; for most sports, having the highest score at the end of regulation play; for video games, to defeat all the enemies. But anything much more details is a problem to avoid. --MASEM (t) 17:34, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Many computer games, and other games also, are played in very similar manners, and explaining what the person does does not necessarily provide any distinctive or useful information. What is distinctive about most games is precisely the setting, and the details--all of which is actually the sum of the characters and their actions. DGG ( talk ) 02:15, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing about those aspects in this guideline. We aren't disallowing anything about setting/plot/characters, before or after. It is specifically going into highly detailed aspects of gameplay. --MASEM (t) 02:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
support there is nothing inherently more encyclopedic about excessive details about a board or other type of game than video games -- The Red Pen of Doom10:58, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Comment Good and needed general idea. But trying to be that prescriptive/detailed is bound to not work out well. North8000 (talk) 13:50, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Support A game is a game is a game. Wikipedia is WP:NOTHOWTO in details, so broadening GAMEGUIDE to counter fine-print wikilawyering is the right approach. – sgeurekat•c08:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Support A useful contribution towards cutting down the surplus of unencylopedic content that exists on Wikipedia. Thom2002 (talk) 18:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
Likely nothing: like chess, football/soccer is widely covered around the world, and even many of the specifics of the game appear to have detailed coverage. (Even Laws of the Game (association football) is sourced to its history, and soemthing like Penalty kick which talks about strategies to defending against it is based on sourced examples , though still is a bit afoul of this). As best as I can tell, however, we're not reprinting the entire rule book here. --MASEM (t) 13:08, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose due to the inclusion of "sports" to the new proposal. Looks like a backdoor attempt by a noted anti-sports editor to shoehorn restrictions into an unrelated guideline. I could buy adding card and board games certainly (assuming such a guideline does not already exist there), but cannot support the current proposal as worded. Resolute18:57, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Comment on the proposal not the person. Second, please look at what I wrote for Association Football above - I see no problem with how that is currently presented given the equivalent weight of sources behind the sport. --MASEM (t) 21:46, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm commenting on motivation, and my opposition stands. Sport has its own guidelines, and you should not be trying to sneak such restrictions into place without involving the relevant projects. Resolute21:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
You'll notice the only place notified of this was on this page and the RFC page. Comment on the proposal, not the proposer. --MASEM (t) 22:29, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose pretty much for the same reasons as Resolute. This definitely looks like a backdoor attempt to sneak in restrictions into an unrelated guideline. I can agree with the card and board games, but sports should not even remotely be in this one. -DJSasso (talk) 12:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
For one, this is not an "unrelated guideline", this is project-wide policy which already does apply to anything within sports. Secondly, the focus of this is on the rules and how the game is played, and nothing about players themselves, teams, seasons, etc.; this is focused on the rules and strategies of the game that are otherwise not discussed in depth by sources. For the case of sports, this is basically saying, avoid recreating the rulebooks in favor of overviews of the rules backed by sources when possible, as already demonstrated in association football. Sports is a competitive game, just like board and card games; the same logic to how we cover "how the game is played" needs to be used here, just with the sensibility that the rules of most sports are discussed in greater depth in reliable sources than the rules of most board or card games. --MASEM (t) 13:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose this change for now unless sports is not included -- I think that, as written above, the proposed guideline extends too far given the relatively limited areas where this RFC was mentioned. While I understand, appreciate, and largely agree with Masem's argument directly above, I think that explicitly including sports in the guideline without a wider notice distribution (including at least the more prominent sports projects) is setting us all up for yet another drama-fest. Guidelines work best when they are descriptive of the best practices, and when possibly affected sub-communities feel that input was not only solicited but taken seriously. Guideline changes, even minor ones, usually turn into long-running drama nightmares if affected sub-communities are surprised by them, and if the proposed changes seem to be prescribed to them "from on high" from the sub-community that works on guidelines. I'm not saying that this is true in the current discussion, but why not extend the discussion and go for a guideline change with wider support that will stick? -- ArglebargleIV (talk) 13:22, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
Provisional support, and suggestion: This is a good idea, at heart, especially including board games, but as others have noted it will raise problems if it includes sports (which under most definitions also includes non-athletic games that are subject to professional competition, including even chess and poker). It has other wording problem, such as "should not fully recreate these", which probably only has a clear meaning to the person who came up with it. Another case is "strategies for winning games"; it should simply be "game-playing strategies" (the "Hail Mary pass" isn't a strategy for winning a game of American football, but simply for advancing and hopefully scoring a touchdown, which here and there might actually win a game). Suggestion: Rather than just oppose this, it would be more useful to propose a narrower and clearer rewrite. The fact that tabletop and card collecting games get a "free pass" for gamerwanking geekery in their articles here, because this passage only applies to the video versions, is unfortunate and needs to be fixed. We also do need clearer guidance against detailed strategy-guide writing, including for sports. The chess project in particular is really pushing it (see dominance of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style by ueber-geeking over the description syntax for chess moves, as an example; there are few places in WP where any such nitpicking could be encyclopedic, and even where this is the case, a strong argument can be made that plain English should be used, not codes impenetrable to non-experts). On the other hand, we don't want things like Glossary of poker terms or Cue sports techniques, as some examples, to be "banned" by GAMEGUIDE; their content is actually encyclopedic. — SMcCandlishTalk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib.14:58, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
The key point regarding sports when I envisioned this is that this includes all forms of sports from professional sports to amateur/casual activities that are played without any organized profession. Furthermore, it's important that we distinguish the cases where the coverage is only come from primary sources (the rulebook for whatever game it is and observation) and from secondary sources; the former is strongly discouraged, the latter is desirable. In the sports venue, most professional sports will have lots of coverage on the secondary sources regarding the rules (particularly with rule changes) so there should be no problem there. But if there's the casual activity that's equivalent to Calvinball, with no real coverage of how it's played and just its existence, we can summarize the rules but shouldn't be going into too much detail. This same logic has to apply to all types of rule-based competitive activities, but the same logic applies: chess and poker, even Monopoly, are well covered, but not all games like Dominion, Cosmic Encounter, etc. Effectively, this is meant to be the equivalent of NOT#PLOT for competitive activities. --MASEM (t) 15:19, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Perhaps I'm just in an especially inclusionist mindset at the moment, but this is a bad idea. This could be used to remove (say) chess and go opening moves, etc. We really don't need to further restrict what Wikipedia covers. Pretty soon the paper encyclopedias will have more and broader coverage than we do. Expand Wikipedia, let it reach the heights it was originally envisioned to reach. Don't start clipping things out for no real purpose. We can cover these topics in a fully sourced an accurate way. We should. Hobit (talk) 21:06, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
I dont see how you see your prediction about chess moves. The proposal explicitly states "unless these are notable in their own right " - chess moves have gazillions of third party sources providing extensive detailed coverage from hundreds of years of publication to easily pass notability in their own right. -- The Red Pen of Doom21:20, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Almost all notable video games have detailed third-party game guides and yet still contend with this policy as it is. Chess is special because of its long history and being a part of our collective culture. But it is only a matter of degree of coverage, not existence. Hobit (talk) 21:38, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
The reason that VG's don't go into detail about gameplay despite the wealth of information from game guides is that game guides are primary sources (They may be attached to reviews but the context of the game is nearly always primary). Like NOT#PLOT, having a lot of information from primary sources is putting undue weight on that facet. When secondary sources come into play to talk about elements, that's more reasonable , and hence why only a handful of common video game terms actually have coverage in secondary sources and have articles for them. The same easily can be applied to chess openings: with the history of the sport, there appears to be more than enough coverage of most openings to justify that. --MASEM (t) 21:49, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Masem, how is a game guide written by a third party a primary source? And if it is a primary source, how would the same rule not apply to (say) books on chess? Hobit (talk) 23:29, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
The "primary/secondary/tertiary" axis is a different axis than "first party/third party". A straight, no-commentary recap of a movie or television episode by a newspaper or magazine is a third-party primary source because it is simply retelling the original source without transformation. The secondary source aspect is when that information is one-step removed, adding commentary, interpretation, meaning to the primary source. So gameguides are generally primary sources from third-parties - they aren't providing criticism of the game (in general), just the aspects of how to play it. Some guides may be a bit speculative ("You've got to spend the 20 hours grinding to get this awesome weapon!") but even then that level of detail is usually not appropriate. Books on chess from what I recall offer more than just "well, this is Standard Opening #1", and often explain the history, why it was named that way, and important matches where that set of moves won or lost the game. Same with sports and other games; I point to Association Football as an area where I see no issue with how the rules are covered right now on WP because of the detail of coverage of the rules in secondary manners from other sources. Note that I'm not applying the same thoroughness we expect from notability via secondary sources, but just something more than simple repetition of what's there. --MASEM (t) 23:42, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
You do realize that most video game competitions have coverage of this nature these days. That is coverage of who did what and why. Certain strategies and the like are covered in great depth. Yet this policy is already used to exclude such coverage by Wikipedia. Other than the "no one would do this to chess, it's too important" argument (which is accurate IMO) this does open the door to deleting such text. Eh. Hobit (talk) 01:52, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
A single random video game published today probably gets on the order of roughly 25-50 reliable secondary sources (in terms of reviews and development information that reflect on how the game is played). Chess, a single specific board game, probably has on the order of 1,000s of secondary sources about the game itself (exclude results, players, etc.). Association Football, on the other of 10,000s of the same order. We summarize information to the degree that these types of sources are available. That's why GAMEGUIDE begs for sourcing to get into detail. When its there in spades, it can be covered in depth. --MASEM (t) 02:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose because it includes sports. Including sports would have the tendency to confuse readers who are looking for a quick yes / no answer. In other words, if I'm writing an article on cricket (assuming the article isn't already written), I would glance at WP:GAMEGUIDE and think "oh, okay, I won't include any information on the rules or equipment or scoring." If sports rules are generally encyclopedic, they're generally exempt from WP:GAMEGUIDE. This seems like an attempt to extent influence where it is not due. I would also add that many board / card games often sell tens of millions of copies, whereas many video games sell fewer than 100,000. So the scale is very different, and I'm hesistant to include card / board games under this same umbrella. The cases are simply very different. To be honest, I'm not a huge fan of WP:GAMEGUIDE as it's currently written, because video game mechanics are more valuable than Wikipedia gives them credit for. But that's another issue. CaseyPenk (talk) 01:31, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
First, popularity/sales do not matter to WP; it's how much sourcing there is. And if you see the above discussions that led to this addition, it is very obvious that all competitive activities that have a set of rules need to be treated in the same manner: if the rules aren't covered in great depth in non-primary sources, WP's job is not to recreate those rules to great depth. --MASEM (t) 02:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Generally, popularity and sourcing are going to go hand in hand. So generally, sports (which tend to receive much higher academic/media coverage per article) are going to have well-sourced information about their rules, while video games (which often lack meaningful coverage) are going to lack such information. Clearly there are exceptions on both sides, such as M-drop (unsourced stub) and Ocarina of Time (featured article) But I'm more concerned about the big picture than the niche cases. CaseyPenk (talk) 08:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Generally, but not enough to make a rule for it. Judging by my own work/experience, a small indie title that is a media darling but sells just under a million can receive much more coverage than 5+M selling AAA titles if its just yet another iteration of the series for that game. WP is based on the weight of sources, so that's why when something is backed by a plethra of sources like most sports and centuries/decades-old games like chess and poker, we can easily say that the sourcing supports fair summary coverage of the rules (and of course that they are extremely popular). --MASEM (t) 13:27, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Comment I think some of the opposing voices are not fully engaging with Masem's argument. That is, that major and even many minor sports will not be affected by this change, as their rules are covered in depth by secondary sources. This change only affects those games whose rules and strategies are not covered in depth by secondary sources. In many ways, this is simply a clear application of the principles at WP:V. Thom2002 (talk) 07:53, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Not sure if you were implicating my comment, but the reason I oppose including sports is because, generally, they won't fall under this policy (as you say). Yes, technically, it makes sense for WP:GAMEGUIDE to cover every single game in existence. But in practice, it just confuses editors to address such a niche topic, and distracts from the essential point. I think the spirit of the current rule is very reasonable - it's targeted at the main 80% (video games) and allows editors to use common sense about the other 20%.
To use a specific example, imagine you are a beginning editor with no idea about policy. You add a game guide to Tetris: Axis (a somewhat obscure game) in good faith, and then an editor reverts it and points you to WP:GAMEGUIDE. You don't have hours upon hours to devote to studying policy, so you glance at bullet point #3 and skim the text. It says "game guides" are not allowed, and you'll be sure to remember that. Then you go and edit chess but wait.. they talk about specific moves and strategies on the page! So you delete the "Rules" section in good faith. Obviously that would be counterproductive and would be similarly reverted. This is an entirely plausible situation. Let's not assign undue weight to an obscure problem.
I would support adding a sentence at the end of bullet point #3, to the effect of "This policy also applies to games generally (including board games, card games, and sports) which lack reliable sources that discuss their rules." CaseyPenk (talk) 08:45, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Support: Like Thom2002, I'm a bit puzzled by the arguments of people who oppose this. The spirit of the guideline already applies to all articles about games, this is just an attempt to close loop holes. It feels like some people have got nightmarish visions of all team sheets being deleted, and game rules being wiped. Its not. Text like a full player-by-player description of the moves that made Carlos Alberto's goal in the 1970 World Cup final, would not be subject to this policy (even more so if the current WP version actually used the hundreds of sources that are available for it). Masem, I think you may need to provide examples (actual blocks of text on this page) to clarify things and allay, what I think, is a big misunderstanding by some. - X201 (talk) 09:05, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
I am thinking that I need to start by being positive as to what we already use, reminding that we summarize and not duplicate, and that we avoid undue coverage of rules/strategies when backed only by primary sources. I understand the concerns from the sports side that this could be read to limit their coverage, but that's not the intent, the "rules" side of the sports project seem generally appropriate in what is discussed relative to the weight of sources as they are right now. But we want to make that type of coverage is spelled out as what we want and that the same type of coverage in that much detail rarely can be supported by, say, a video game with much much fewer detailed sources. --MASEM (t) 13:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose the rules as written would prevent us from listing all the cards in a deck, or the name of all the chess pieces. As a more realistic intermediate example, should we or not say what each the places is on a Monopoly board? I'd say very strongly yes; we should provide detailed descriptions. es of important things. One of the things we are unreliable and inconsistent at is providing coverage proportional to importance. DGG ( talk ) 23:00, 15 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - I know the commentary has rolled on with respect to the revision, but I thought I'd drop my thoughts here before I go to digest that. I don't think the wording is functional as a policy. AFAICT, WP:GAMEGUIDE exists because game guides are a "thing" for video games, and the creation of game guides is a particular problem. Further, other sorts of games play out differently and their elements have different potential notability impacts. A D&D creature, for example, often has entire books written about it, which is a far cry different from a creature than only appears as a damage rating, a health rating, and an animation. These things really have to be evaluated on their own merits, and we already have these tools in place (usually WP:GNG) to do this. I don't think creating a single policy to cover all games that will take different shapes will help produce a better WP.-Sangrolu (talk) 20:17, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Again, the key thing that people seem to be missing is what sources allow us to do. To DGG's statement, there's numerous volume on chess, so we certainly would be able to list out the pieces, explain nearly all the rules, and even go as far as talk specific strategy elements like certain openings and closings due to that. The argument that GAMEGUIDE exists for the video games because of their nature is true, but we have to consider that there are similar guides coming for the new "classics" of board/tabletop games (Magic the Gathering for one). The GNG is a good metric but the problem is that through game guides for video games, the lists we agree we shouldn't keep would be notable because the game guides list these out providing the "secondary" coverage in how it applies to winning the game. We need something a bit stronger than just the GNG. --MASEM (t) 21:14, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Oh, I understand that, and that's something I considered myself. The example I thought of, Magic: The Gathering enjoys numerous third party websites covering the game in great detail. Even as an occasional M:tG player, I don't think covering individual cards is something we should be doing here. But if you looked at the right sources, you would find articles covering individual cards. If that's something the MtG wikiproject wants to create guidance on, then so be it. If coverage of third party products is that significant, then perhaps I should let it be. As it stands, WP:GAMEGUIDE is being used to justify the WP:IDONTLIKEIT of folks who don't want to see D&D creature articles on WP. That's not something that we should be codifying into WP:NOT. Either the individual articles have enough notability to stand alone or they do not. The consensus can decide that, and attempting to alter the scope of WP:GAMEGUIDE strikes me as an end-run around consensus. Getting back to the fundamental point, the proposed policy fails to cover all cases giving sources their due credit. Though the revised policy is better, I still have reservations with it and think there will never be a one-size-fits-all policy that fairly covers all the bases of all sorts of games you might care to apply it to. I'll even go further and say, I believe that WP:GAMEGUIDE (i.e., WP:NOTMANUAL bullet point #3) should be trimmed down or removed in it's entirety. WP:NOTMANUAL bullet point #1 says everything that needs to be said to cover more generic cases, the specifics of bullet point #3 seem more like guidance from WP:VG. - Sangrolu (talk) 12:45, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
To recap your last point: what is GAMEGUIDE did come from WP:VG, and in fact its language I wrote. Now, who moved it to here, I have no idea, but the ideas are still completely in line when we consider NOTMANUAL, NOTHOWTWO, and NOTPLOT.
Notability is one measure but itself recognizes that it is not the only measure for inclusion; failing WP:NOT can override the allowance for inclusion by WP:N/GNG. For example, there's probably 1000s of sources that tell you how to make chicken noodle soup, but we would never have an article on how to make soup based on that. We can broadly summarize the typical preparation in an article about chicken noodle soup, but never outline the specifics. This would apply to "notable" game play elements. Magic the Gathering is a great example. I would not be surprised that with a bit of effort through strategy guides that every card could be made notable, but almost always based on its strategic use. But that basically is against the grain of GAMEGUIDE, and certainly against NOTHOWTO. If there was more about the card beyond its use in the game (how was it developed, how did it impact the metagame/card values (re Black Lotus), etc.) then a brief section on its strategic use would be appropriate, but if the only thing we can say "well, here's the card's abilities, and this is how you should play it", we shouldn't have an article about that card even though it passes the GNG; that's great for a MTG wiki, but not an encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 13:09, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
It's interesting that I agree with just about everything you say, but yet still don't think this should be policy. :) I guess I'm honestly confused that you see that this is just elevated guidelines for WP:VG, but you still want to make something resembling that for with a broader scope. I agree that there should not be articles describing how to make chicken noodle soup, but I also think we don't need a policy saying that. I see what you are saying with respect to the limits of WP:GNG, but where GNG fails, it seems WP:NOTMANUAL #1 pretty much covers it. The problem with making a more exhaustive listing of "thou shalt nots" to be applied broadly is that a single editor can use it to fight against a consensus in cases where the consensus sees that an article merits coverage and should stand, but the closing admin generally follows policy over consensus. - Sangrolu (talk) 13:30, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
What started this whole this you can see at the AFDs above. It is not that these articles weren't deleted but that in the arguments, people specifically said "Oh, GAMEGUIDE is only about video games, it doesn't cover tabletop games". Now, to a point, I would completely agree that GAMEGUIDE is unnecessary when we have NOTMANUAL (#1), but I would point out that on the AFDs in question, those same editors would likely reject the use of NOTMANUAL to apply to tabletop games for the same reason, it doesn't specifically call them out. Based on cases like this, I strongly believe we need a GAMEGUIDE that covers all types of games in a manner that NOTMANUAL#1 doesn't exactly specify. As to the point about AFDs, the reason to include here is not to introduce a new rule but to document what I believe is established consensus on such articles; when the arguments at AFD come down to one editor reiterating GAMEGUIDE verses many saying "this passes WP:N", its the fact that GAMEGUIDE should have the weight of global consensus behind it, and with the fact that WP:N gives way to WP:NOT when conflicts arise. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Strong Support - Because too many editors find WP:NOTEVERYTHING too vague and because WP:INDISCRIMINATE apparently only applies to indiscriminate lists of statistics and not indiscrimininate lists of facts, I strongly support this effort to limit fancruft and discuss only those topics that have gained notability outside of the circles of fandom (i.e., have generated impact in the wider gaming world or have even had an impact on real life). I support this effort whether sports are included or not but I would like to say that the less wordy it is the better. The more sentence clauses you add to your guideline, the more likely some wikilawyer is going to find a loophole. Look at how the inclusion of the clause 'computer game or video game' has led to this discussion. People follow the letter of the law in order to violate the spirit of it.--Joshuaism (talk) 13:38, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Here is a recommended rewording:
Game guides. An article about a game (such as board games, card games, video games, and sports) should summarize the game rules and main actions and strategies the players can take to win the game, but should not fully recreate these. Detailed coverage of specific point values, achievements, levels, movement rules, unit statistics, and so on is inappropriate, but a concise summary is appropriate if it is essential to understanding the game. Individual articles should only be created for game peices, cards, items, creatures and concepts that are notable in their own right (such as Pikachu and the bag of holding). All game related articles should establish the notability of its topic through an exploration of its significance in the gaming industry as a whole, or its significance in wider culture.
At least since the Poképrosal went through, concensus has pretty much established that lists of non-notable items can be acceptable so long as they follow the guidelines for lists. Wikipedia:FICTION pretty much sums up what works for a list of items here. Although it is just an essay not a guideline, the actions that have preserved the D&D monster lists pretty much establish that this is operating policy right now. While I feel that it is beating a dead horse to state that individual articles require individual notability (the basic definition of WP:NOTABILITY) it apparently requires mention here because many editors seem to ignore the spirit of the guidelines and need to have everything spelled out for them when it comes to their favorite pasttimes. Please share your opinions of this proposal. Thanks! --Joshuaism (talk) 14:42, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Support: I think that there is nothing inherently different between a video game and a board, card or similar game, so I believe that it is more than appropriate to change the current wording to include such games. Describing all possible details about a game should not be appropriate for Wikipedia no matter the medium in which said game is played. Jfgslo (talk) 22:09, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Support: normally, WP:GNG should be enough. But after the "List of D&D monsters" AfD, some need to be told specifically what they can include or not, so I support the inclusion of board games, cards, etc. There is absolutely no difference -besides the medium used- between tabletop RPGs and console RPGs, no reason then to exlude D&D and the likes from WP:GAMEGUIDE. I leave other contributors to decide whether or not sports are concerned by this, but in the light of all the AfDs we currently have on D&D monsters, inclusion of tabletop RPGs and other non-video games is a necessity.Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:20, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
For most of the recent D&D monsters you have nominated, WP:GNG has been an issue, so I don't see that expanding the guide as being that helpful in this case. Further, I strongly disagree that there is "absolutely no difference" between tabletop RPGs and CRPGs. Tabletop RPGs actually very typically provide substantial literary content and should be regarded more akin to elements from novels that singular enemies you just fight in a typical console RPG. But this is somewhat aside the point. It has already been illustrated that the GAMEGUIDE bullet 3 is text elevated from the VG wikiproject, and I'm not so sure that that should be in WP:NOT. Each should be judged by its own merits. There might be some CRPG creatures that have sufficient notability that they need not be quashed by such an arbitrary ruling.- Sangrolu (talk) 12:42, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Except that there's no third-party or secondary sourcing of that claimed "literary content" for tabletop RPGs. And even for novels we never list out every character or flesh them out in detail without the recognizition from third-party/secondary sources. The question one has to ask is if that information would ever be of value to a person that's never played D&D or will likely ever play it, but must understand the nature of the game. Understanding there are monsters, yes. Understanding they are borrowed from numerous mythos as well as unique creations for this, yes. A detailed description of the monster from the source books? Not really. --MASEM (t) 13:11, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Rewording based on issues raised above
Wikipedia is not a rule book or game guide: Articles about competitive activities such as sports, board and card games, and video games, should not reiterate how to perform the activity but instead should provide a summary of the activity's rules and strategies for playing backed by reliable sources, as to provide context for the remainder of the article. The level of detail should be weighed by the available of third-party and secondary sources. Many professional sports and decades-old games like Association football, chess, and poker have numerous sources that allow more detailed discussion and breakdown of specific rules and strategies. On the other hand, more contemporary games, particularly video games, often lack detailed coverage of the rules outside of the game's manual or rulebook and third-party guidebooks; in such cases, anything more than a short summary of the general rules and means to play the game is considered undue weight. As such, articles should generally avoid listing out every exact rule, card, playing piece, character, weapon, game level, or monster unless coverage of these elements are backed by non-primary sources, though one or two examples for clarity can be useful. Specific game rules, strategy, or elements that have received their own notable coverage, such as the hail mary pass, Dead man's hand, the Power Nine, beholder or gravity gun, can be broken into their own article and discussed in detail.
Addressing the issues that this could target sports the wrong way. Basically, a game's rules should be attributable to the level of coverage those rules have; this reflects how nearly all articles about such games are presently handled (sports - lots of coverage and therefore a good deal of rule summation across multiple pages; video games - one or two paragraphs.) --MASEM (t) 19:38, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
I have concerns about listing Power Nine and beholder as example articles as both are almost entirely sourced to primary documentation/primary source and are just the kinds of articles that we DONT want to be encouraging. If they were re-written first to be good examples of the use of third party sourcing, then OK. -- The Red Pen of Doom20:09, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
I think you're taking the wrong tact. If people think sports are a special case, don't try to fold it into the video game guide guideline. Not to say we couldn't come up with a whole new abstract policy that covers all games and competitions, but that would betray the pragmatism and incrementalism that makes Wikipedia so effective. I would oppose this proposal just because it's clumsily trying to leap forward, instead of achieving less disagreeable results through much smaller changes. Change it as little as possible. Remove "video", list a wider range of games, and leave sports out. The less controversy the better. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
That's part of the problem is that if we treat sports as a special case, because there's a point where there are competitive organized non-athletic competitions (like chess and poker) which otherwise have similar coverage to sports and yet we're asked to treat them differently? There is no line between these in an encyclopedia, but like much of everything else on WP, its all about sourcing. Again, Association football isn't in danger of losing coverage of how the game is played, because the field is well sourced. On the other hand, something like Frisbee Golf, a notable (and even organized sport) with very few sources probably doesn't need much more than what it currently offers as a half-page of rules for the game. The same dictomy exists between chess and, say, the Game of Life. And again, this is only covering the rules; there's nothing about players, specific games, tourneys, championships, leagues, teams, seasons, etc. Again, the idea is to try to provide what the equivalent of NOT#PLOT is for anything that can be described by rules - we shouldn't be focused on pinpoint accuracy about the rules but about getting the concepts across in a summary manner. There is no reason this cannot apply to sports and games of all types. --MASEM (t) 22:12, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
As of now, we have WP:NOT policy on video game guides. As far as the current version of WP:NOT is concerned, sports is already excluded from that policy. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Remember the multiple discussions on how notability applies to lists? We spent a lot of time arguing over the special cases, and it threatened to derail the discussion entirely. Instead, we left that stuff out for the time being. And now we have a pretty good consensus that's resolved a lot of problems, even if those special cases haven't been addressed (because they're both rare and controversial). I don't see why we don't just extend the video game guide policy to card games and board games and leave everything else the same, until a later discussion. The alternative is that we argue until there's no consensus, and just leave the policy as is. Shooterwalker (talk) 06:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree that we should save sports "until a later discussion." While I would personally vote against it, I think a card/board only proposal would stand a much higher chance of approval. Perhaps we should pursue the more limited route first and find at least a little consensus. CaseyPenk (talk) 07:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Shooterwalker. Sports are not synonymous with games and I do think the media treats them differently; sports are generally legitimated popular culture while games represent various sub-cultures or niches. And I'll reiterate my belief that we should expand this policy as little as possible. I dislike negative or condemnatory policy and I think a "game" or just "video game" scope does most of what we need it to do already. CaseyPenk (talk) 03:45, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Taking out sports is "easy" but it also avoids the issue. Clearly, if sports was taken out and left to expand the video game to cover any type of game, there doesn't seem to be a problem, but that means we should figure out how to include the sports issue. If that can't be resolved, then we can fall back to adding card and board games. (That said, if anyone has an issue with expanding to card/board games, that needs to be stated now and that should be focused on).
But the issue that I see when all is said and done are that sports and board/card/video games are similar in that there are an explicit set of rules, and just like WP:NOT#HOWTO, WP:NOT#PLOT and generally following WP:UNDUE, our goal is not to reiterate those exactingly but to summarize to the level of detail that other sources give them. This rule works across the board; all professional sports are discussed in detail so there's issue with the detailed coverage of the rules. On the opposite end, video games get coverage but rarely to go into the specifics of gameplay, so a few paragraphs is all that matters. This logic works for all existing coverage that we have, save for the outliers that were identified prior to this RFC. This is particularly true when we consider the coverage of chess and poker which are quasi-sports in that there is professional competition leagues for these, and while not having the same number of sources, are effectively equivalent to any individual-based sport like golf or tennis, save that we're replacing athletic skill with intellectual skill. If we agree that chess and poker are fine under this expanded statement, I cannot see how the jump to sports cannot be made easily. --MASEM (t) 14:56, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Shooterwalker's views above and recommend to leave sports out of this for now. Having consensus that WP shouldn't allow excessive game guide-y material for board games and card games is enough progress at this point in my eyes. Looking back at the bumpy history of NOT#PLOT, I warn against trying to achieve too much in one step no matter how well-intended and thought-through it is. Let sports be discussed at a later point in time. – sgeurekat•c15:12, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
... all I'll really add to this discussion is that I'd caution against anything that would make this policy more limiting OR more open to game guide material. I'm all for applying it equally to different types of board games. But this policy describes an observable practice when it comes to video game weapons/levels/move lists. I'd hate to see that practice change because of some change in wording that wasn't thoroughly discussed. (I'm okay with having that discussion, but let it be separate from the question of whether to include board games and card games.) Shooterwalker (talk) 06:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
Tentative support - I think that we'd all like the wording tweaked some, especially in regards to the examples (but that could be a separate thread, I suppose). For one thing, I'd like "monster" changed to "creature" to deal with potential future arguments. But otherwise, I think that this is the way forward. - jc3700:32, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The non-sports version
If sports are going to cause that much of an issue, as suggested, then sticking to the "games" aspect:
Game guides. An article about a game (such as board, card, tabletop, and video games) should summarize the game rules and main actions the players can take to win the game, but should not fully recreate these. Articles should not list out every game piece, card, item, or concept, unless these are notable in their own right such as gravity gun, or list of chess terms. Detailed coverage of specific point values, movement rules, unit statistics, and so on is also considered inappropriate. Specific strategies for playing games are inappropriate unless such strategies themselves are considered notable (such as gold farming). A concise summary and limited examples are appropriate if it is essential to understanding the game or its significance in culture.
Just one comment, gold mining is not really a strategy to win a game, but rather to succeed in it. Otherwise, the exclusion of sports makes a lot of sense. CaseyPenk (talk) 17:07, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Your heart is in the right place, but I have many concerns. A game like chess, which has hundreds of scholars writing about it over the span of centuries, might warrant a glossary of terms. But that's the exception that shouldn't become the rule, and most video games don't even have a fraction of the coverage that chess has. I'm also concerned that the new wording removes a lot of topics of concern (including "weapons", "types of enemies", "levels", "character moves"). One more concern is that broader multi-game strategies like gold farming are outside the scope of this policy. The game guide policy is about how we cover individual games, and it should go without saying that game mechanics that transcend an individual game (like dice rolling, control pads, scorekeeping, experience points...) are often topics that can support a good encyclopedia article that's more than a recap of primary sources. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:13, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
For the first part, then , we have to focus on how much coverage there is from secondary sources vs primary. I think specific lists of concern can be addressed in project-specific guidelines (eg WP:VG/GL lists out such things to avoid), so we don't need to be as explicit here. As for gameplaying/winning concepts that span multiple games, that can still be a problem, typically if all that's being done is just defining the term without significance. For example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kiting (video gaming) is the AFD of a deleted article on a gameplay strategy in VGs, which (checking as an admin) was mostly sourced to primary works to described different ways that technique could be done. Counter that to Quick Time Event which does describe several different ways this gameplay mechanic manifests itself, but through secondary sources that iterate that. To me, the gold farming article is similar to the latter, as an example of something we want to have articles about without being a game guide - it is about a strategy to succeed in a game, but it only briefly touches on the step-by-step actions for it. --MASEM (t) 23:26, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
IMO, articles like "Kiting" are best dealt with under "Wikipedia is not a dictionary". Again, it's not that Wikipedia is starting to resemble a guidebook so much as it's resembling a quick entry with a few sentences. (Also, adding "... and limited examples" to the policy seems to run counter to this concern.) For the most part, the "not a guide" part is really good at eliminating obvious "how to" data about step-by-step instructions. A bigger "not a guide" concern is those lists of weapons and levels, and I think taking them out of the policy make it less clear. I'm just saying, the policy has been working for a while now (see Category:Video game locations and Category:Video game items), and it would be a shame to break something that's been working, all in the name of progress. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:37, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
For the issue of terms, I'm open to any examples of an article that reflects a gameplay concept/strategy that is appropriate for WP. Gold farming seems very appropriate because it actually has a real-life concern. Regarding removing of specific types of lists, we shouldn't be worried to a great degree of enumerating every type of list that shouldn't be present. For one, specific wikiprojects can enumerator those better, which the VG project already does, and we just need to provided pointers to that. But remember that my point of proposing this was because people said "Oh, GAMEGUIDE just talks about video games, my board game obviously doesn't apply"; the change is to make sure these are covered and to provide practical examples of board/card game concepts that shouldn't be enumerated, and if we were to do that along with every video game list, this would be a rather long section. We need to hit on the flavor of what enumerations are wrong, and refer readers to more specific advice at ;Wikiprojects. My intent is definitely not to allow enumerations that the current wording discourages. --MASEM (t) 13:11, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
I respect that you don't want the policy to get too bloated, and we probably don't need to explicitly state all the kinds of game stuff that doesn't need to be listed. But "levels" and "weapons" are really important, and if it's all the same to you I'd rather not remove those two words for the frequency that they become an issue. There's plenty of other bloat in your policy change, and a lot of it adds more confusion than clarity. I'd personally leave the "strategies for winning games are inappropriate" part out. "NOTHOWTO" makes this plainly obvious, and then you complicate it by talking about the notability of gameplay terminology. Again, this policy is about how we cover individual games without delving into guide-like material, and not about how we cover gaming as a whole. I'd also take out the "limited examples" part: obviously you might use an example to explain a gameplay element, but if you give an inch then people will take a mile. The main point of this policy is to reduce the number of game articles that are filled with lists. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:10, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
I think that the formulation in italics above is absolutely spot on and will be very useful in steering the right line between encyclopedic and non-encylopedic content. Thom2002 (talk) 23:09, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Comment. I would just like to make sure, irregardless of the exact word, that there is agreement that the type of lists of game elements that the current GAMEGUIDE gives should apply to "board, card, tabletop, and video games" as a group, when there is lack of sourcing for supporting such a list? The sourcing argument is what allows something like list of chess terms to remain. As long as there's agreement, then we should just make a quick list of various game elements as example (not fully inclusive) of lists to avoid and get the right language. I don't want the specific word choices to be the stumbling block here, just that when we say GAMEGUIDE, it applies to the above mentioned game types and not only just video games. --MASEM (t) 01:04, 16 June 2012 (UTC)
Sort of related to the point I was trying to make above... this policy exists BECAUSE the sourcing guidelines aren't always enough. There are lots of third-party sources that can say "the weapons in this game rock", and "the level design is superb". Just because there would be enough to write a thin but verbose lead, that doesn't suddenly give a pass to 50kb of information about the weapons pulled from the instruction manual or even a copyright licensed third-party guide. The policy against gameguide material is NOT simply a restatement of the general notability guideline applied to games. What allows something like a list of chess terms to exist has very little to do with finding a couple sources like "Kotaku has suggested that chess terminology is 'essential to understanding the game'." The reason that chess gets that level of coverage in Wikipedia is because every one of those terms are widely covered in centuries of sources, and each term would be notable by itself, and that it was best to arrange them in a glossary than to have a WP:DICTDEF article for each one separately. The chess glossary meets a much higher standard, and is more the exception than the rule for game articles. To put it more succinctly, the GAMEGUIDE policy needs to be a standard that is separate or (dare I say) more than mere notability. Shooterwalker (talk) 06:06, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Straight up solid strong OPPOSE - Sports is a game. And to suggest that "media approves sports more than some other game" is just biased WP:OR in the worst way. For one thing, consider the seen importance of the international chess games during the 50s and 60s (see also Chess#Post-war_era_.281945_and_later.29). And i don't think giving chess and poker an exception as well is the way to go. What about Blackjack? What about board games like Monopoly (game) or Diplomacy (game)? I understand that everyone is scared to death that Wikipedia will become a gameguide-like site in reference to the zillion video games out there. but wouldn't the answer to that just be to limit such things based upon referencing? As noted above, there's a rather big difference between noting information about video games like Zork or Pong, than some fly by night shareware game that someone cobbled together last night in their basement. - jc3700:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
There's no exception needed here (and we're already not talking about sports anymore). If non-primary sourcing exists that goes into those details, then we can cover those details in accordance with UNDUE. Hence we can have full coverage of things like chess and poker while fly-by-night games still can have a basic summary of the rules. --MASEM (t) 00:29, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Disincluding sports is a very bad idea. What about tabletop sports like Table tennis? And how should we then define LARPing? And how about actual (not table top) wargaming? Or for that matter, jousting? And also consider that we're now entering and era of controllers where people are physically interacting with video games through much more than pushing buttons on a keyboard or game controller. How should we separate playing baseball with friends on your Wii, and playing baseball with your friends in your backyard? We shouldn't be in the business of deciding what games' information is and isn't "allowed". A game is a game is a game. And so as I said above, to try to treat different games differently with a series of arbitrary exceptions is just a bad idea. - jc3700:41, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Given the strong opposition to including sports in the first place, we need to make baby steps. We address how to work the issue with what are games in the traditional sense, and once that's in practice, we can then figure out how to address sports or other more physical-based activities. Right now, in terms of talking about rules and gameplay, I'm not seeing the same issue with sports as I previously pointed out with board/tabletop games (where people were saying GAMEGUIDE as it exists didn't apply to these types of games and thus allowed to have such rules lists). --MASEM (t) 00:50, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I understand what you're trying to accomplish, and kudos for trying.
"Given the strong opposition to including sports in the first place" - I count three people. And three people can't trump NPOV/OR/V/RS/etc. Just because certain sports may have become popular in the current era, doesn't make them any less "games". We're writing an encyclopedia. And I can guarantee you that I have reference works which specifically call baseball, football, soccer, basketball, and so on: "games" - going back decades, and in some cases, hundreds of years. As a matter of fact, the guys who wrote the rules for some of these even called them "games". Here are some more examples: horseshoes; shuffleboard; curling - I have owned table top versions of all of these, and several others. For example there was a rather cool table top basket ball game made back in the 50s - that I picked up second hand - which was not unlike the modern game of quarters. What about rock-em sock-em robots? How about minesweeper - a video game which has a timed element for which there has been sports-style tournament level play? And Chess - Did you know that chess is listed as a sport when funded by schools in the US? And not too long ago I saw dominoes as a sport on a sports channel, due to it's increasing popularity internationally. And mentioning jousting above, how about polo? Or other racing games such as motorcross? And haven't the Olympics been called the Olympic games? And so on and so on. But anyway coming back around, how about Wikipedia itself? Game#Types lists sports as a type of game. Let me put this another way: If this is done without including all games, but rather merely using some arbitrary split, such as disincluding "sports" games, then this section itself would be contrary to Wikipedia policy and would need to be removed. Which defeats the purpose of what is being attempted here, I believe. And by the way, it occurs to me that this is an interesting point to be made about GAMEGUIDE as it stands now. So yes, this needs fixing, but no, setting arbitrary exceptions based upon what appears to be personal preference should not be done. - jc3701:17, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
That's why I'm saying "baby steps". I think most agree that GAMEGUIDE as it stands now (for video games) encapsulates policy appropriate. We had a problem with board/tabletop game editors saying "oh, it doesn't explicitly say this for tabletop games, ergo it doesn't apply" even though it effectively is a summary of policy. But I'm not seeing any problems with articles on rules about sports (understanding there is a blurred line at some point) in that their coverage is fairly outlined and detailed under the concept of UNDUE. If there were problems with sports rules articles, yes, I would definitely being trying harder to include them in this, but it's baby steps. Let's fix the obvious problems, and if in the future we find sports articles going out of whack, let's recircle the discussion. --MASEM (t) 01:26, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
No. Because of where we are having this discussion. Subjective personal preference belongs in an MoS guideline. And the comments in the section previous to this one clearly reinforce how much this is about personal preference. This isn't some MoS guideline on what we should and shouldn't include in certain game articles. This is WP:NOT. And so this page has a wholly different kind of weight. This page is supposed to be how we define the encyclopedia itself in general. Hence the problem. This NEEDS to apply to all games or none. Period. Otherwise, this section will need to be split from WP:NOT entirely (which is really what should happen now - immediately). - jc3701:38, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Remove makes no sense since the current wording, and the expansion to board/tabletop games, is current practice globally and accurately reflects what WP is not. This same unwritten practice also pretty much works across the board for sports games (in that, most sports rule articles would not fail this given that there is sourced coverage of the rules), but there's editors that see this as an attempt to stave off sports coverage. That's a losing battle right now, but we should update to reflect something that is still known to have consensus. If it was clear that GAMEGUIDE was outright rejected, I'd agree it should be removed, but that's no the case. --MASEM (t) 01:51, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
We have policies and guidelines when to use dashes or disambiguating phrases in titles, we have MoS on what should be included in an infobox. This is no different.
But ok, I took a look at the section as it sits on the page now. And I challenge anyone to tell me why sports is an exception which should not fall under Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, textbook, or scientific journal
And I'll thumb my nose at any small-minded POV pushing personal attacking person who accuses me of being anti-sports. I played sports games while in school, and enjoy the playing of games regardless of what the tableau or venue is. To discriminate against certain games is simply wrong, and more importantly it is unencyclopedic.
Also, it might be fun to define the word "sports".
From Sports#Definition: "The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources, with no universally agreed definition. [...] They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports) or primarily animal supported (such as equestrian sport)."
Soooo, per that section, if we disinclude sports, we're disincluding every game.
Again, the result of trying to appease what looks an awful lot like personal preference POV pushing (by setting an arbitrary split between game types) merely causes this to not meet with NPOV scrutiny. And last I recall, the triumverate of NPOV/V/OR do trump all other policy, including WP:NOT. - jc3702:15, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think the goal of our concerns was POV-pushing. Many of us see this as a practical issue rather than a theoretical one - that is, a case where literal application of WP:GAMEGUIDE to sports might do more harm than good. As I stated before, I think applying WP:GAMEGUIDE to sports would harm the spirit of WP:N by introducing a niche issue into policy. On a "postmodern" level if you will, I agree that sports is a loosely-defined genre; however I think the common understanding of sports as intense physical games suffices for most policy-related purposes. CaseyPenk (talk) 05:24, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
The question that is begged is, what is the envisioned harmed that a "literal application" of GAMEGUIDE, in the sense of what articles would be targetted for deletion or change? Remember, a key factor of the suggested GAMEGUIDE is that if the rules or game concept is the subject of significant sourced discussion outside of primary sources, it likely can be discussed in great detail. --MASEM (t) 05:55, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I see harm not in the long-term degredation of sports articles (an unlikely scenario given the number of rabid sports fans on Wikipedia). I see harm in the many short-term AfDs and good-faith but "incorrect" edits that would occur. In other words, the process would be mildly hamstrung and new editors would be confused. While all is (more or less) well that ends well, I think people glancing at GAMEGUIDE should only have the very most pertinent information presented to them. Including the word "sports" in this policy allows editors to glance at it, rush to conclusions, and make possibly inappropriate edits. CaseyPenk (talk) 06:09, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
How is that not true of every single policy and guideline on Wikipedia? And If someone is misunderstanding policy, that's usually sorted out fairly quickly. Then there's a flurry of editing to "fix" the wording of the policy in question and life goes on.
I did read the proposed text, but I think we disagree about how editors will interpret it. The sentence, "Many professional sports [...] have numerous sources that allow more detailed discussion and breakdown of specific rules and strategies." comes only after 74 words of introduction. I simply don't see casual editors reading 74 words to get to the nuanced part of the policy. They are most likely to read the first sentence or two and go with their gut. Based on the first two sentences, one's gut might very well tell one to delete the rules section of chess. I suppose we disagree about the "cut-off point" at which editors stop reading the policy. CaseyPenk (talk) 06:56, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
You just disproved your own point though. The word "sports" doesn't even appear til (you said) 74 words in, and when it does, it's clear as you note. You can't have it both ways. Either they do read that deep and see sports, or they don't and don't.
This of course presuming that we should actually consider policy this way. If we did, I can think of quite a few policies, including V/OR/NPOV etc. which would fail your presumption about editors. And needless to say, I really don't see us throwing those texts out due to some shadowy concern about confused "glancing" editors. And by the same token, that argument really should have no weight here either. - jc3707:23, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
WP:NPOV and the like are applicable to every page, so they must be exacting and complete. This is a policy that would apply to maybe 100 sports articles, so I think it's reasonable to make some concessions for people who don't have all day to edit Wikipedia. CaseyPenk (talk) 07:35, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
That was a point I was making when discussing this with masem above. That this doesn't belong at WP:NOT.
WP:NOT is about the encyclopedia as a whole.
But if we're going to discuss certain coverage concerning games in Wikipedia, then it should be all games, not some arbitrary grouping of some arbitrarily ascribed subset of games.
That aside, you still haven't dealt with the problem with this statement: "however I think the common understanding of sports as intense physical games suffices for most policy-related purposes." - "Common" according to who? How is that not pushing your own personal POV? It clearly is not represented in references, it's just your presumption. (And is even contraindicated in the article on sports.) So following the actual references, all the games being discussed fall under the definition of "sports". If you disinclude sports, then you will be left with no policy on this. - jc3707:52, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm going by the most general definition. So, when I Google "sports definition," here is the first definition I find on the first result: "Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively." I agree that this would be suited to a more narrowly-tailored policy or guideline. CaseyPenk (talk) 08:45, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Who's splitting hairs? I'm going by the definition from the verifiablereliable sources, you're going by your own subjective opinion, and the only support you've provided so far is some wiki site, which doesn't meet our reliability criteria. - jc3714:14, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Worrying that editors will start to prune sports articles because they stop reading a whole 100-someword policy paragraph half-way through and make changes based on the half they did read, is an inane concern; if editors did that with any type of regularity, they would be blocked for disruption. My question still asks, given that if GAMEGUIDE did apply to sports but noting that detailed coverage comes from detailed sourcing, what sports-related articles would be at risk (assuming any wide definition of "sports")? --MASEM (t) 12:32, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose - I share the opinion stated in Hobit's first comment. In my words: An increased restriction about what Wikipedia covers, as proposed here, brings no benefit for the project as a whole. So let us not do it. Daranios (talk) 15:10, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
This type of information is already supposed to be limited by NOT#MANUAL and NOT#HOWTO. This is put clarity on the fact this limitation does exist for the area of games. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
That might be taken as too much navel gazing and self-depreciating. I think we want to be a reliable source, and we want editors to edit towards that (but until then, we're not), while everything else here is things we want editors to steer completely away from regardless of when or how. --MASEM (t) 00:35, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Indeed, we seek to be the most reliable source around, and in some cases we are, but we are a wiki, ergo we are vulnerable to vandalism. -- Brangifer (talk) 01:07, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I fear you may not get my point. With the exception of the exceptions specifically named in the link, Wikipedia will always, by definition, be an unreliable source, in the sense that wikis can never be considered reliable enough to use as sources. Just as you wrote: "we want editors to steer completely away from ..." using Wikipedia as a source. That doesn't mean that the content isn't correct, but that they are wikis, and thus are changing and vulnerable. The only way we can ever change that is if we protect articles after a certain point in their development, so they are "certified" reliable, stable, and protected. We need to add this. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:19, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I surely wish we would "protect articles after a certain point in their development, so they are 'certified' reliable, stable, and protected," but Jimbo and the Wikipedia community at large isn't likely to let that happen. The same goes for requiring that people register with Wikipedia before being allowed to edit it, which would significantly cut down on its vandalism. Protecting our articles in this way doesn't mean they couldn't be updated if/when new information comes along. It's such a shame to see an article make it to WP:GA or WP:FA status and deteriorate soon after that, or eventually.
But back to BullRangifer's original question, it's already mentioned at WP:Verifiability that we can't use mirror sites of Wikipedia as reliable sources. It does seem a little humorous to straight up state "Wikipedia is not a reliable source," especially here at the policy page, but BullRangifer does have a valid point. It's relevant to point out here that we are not a reliable source (not all of the time or maybe even mostly anyway) and therefore should not be used as one when sourcing Wikipedia articles. Flyer22 (talk) 06:48, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Again, it's a very subtle difference in play. When we say "WP are not a newspaper" or any of the other ones, we are trying to guide editors away from editing like we are one; it is a concept/philosophy that we are setting for ourselves. When we say "WP is not a reliable source", that's a reality/fact of life - but we don't want to discourage editors from editing, and instead act as if we were a reliable source and edit towards that. We don't want to include this on a page that is meant to describe elements we don't want editors to consider. ---MASEM (t) 13:37, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I think the underlying issue is not that we are a wiki but that we are an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are, by definition, tertiary sources. We never use any encyclopedia as a source if there are more direct sources available. And since Wikipedia has a pretty good sourcing policy, that means we always can go the the underlying source. (And for those unsourced articles where we can't, well, those are untrustworthy by definition.) Rossami(talk)14:32, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't state that we "never use any encyclopedia as a source if there are more direct sources available," Rossami. Encyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica are often on Wikipedia as a backup source -- that is, they are often placed beside a more reliable source. And we use dictionary sources all the time, even though dictionary sources are restrictive, and sometimes general, in their definitions. I would state that encyclopedias are better than dictionaries. And in contrast to Wikipedia, encyclopedias such as Encyclopædia Britannica are written by more experts. But I do understand what you and Masem are getting across. I just wanted to note that I see the validity in BullRangifer's query. Flyer22 (talk) 17:58, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
An old and well-established axiom here
I get the feeling that this idea is new to some. In fact it's an old and well-established axiom here. It's a no brainer. This isn't a matter of whether Wikipedia is reliable or accurate, but a RS we can quote, which is a different matter entirely. We have always considered Wikipedia to NOT be a RS for several reasons, it being the most open wiki of all being a primary one. Open wikis are totally out here. We never use them as RS. I was rather surprised that we state that Wikipedia is not a RS elsewhere, but not right here, of all places where it should be stated clearly.
Here are two places that discuss it, including the disclaimer itself:
Yes indeed: as editors we treat it as an unreliable source for the purposes of this policy concerning how to write on Wikipedia. Of course the aim of all this is that Wikipedia, by using reliable sources, will be reliable for people to use. But as Wikipedia editors, we are aiming to achieve this, and not to assume that it is already so. That would be silly. So of course we should not be sourcing our information for Wikipedia, from Wikipedia. See WP:Circular.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:03, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
There's no question that "WP is not a reliable source" is an axiom. But the problem is, that's not advice we want to give on this page, which is geared towards outlining specific page styles or writing purposes that we need to verve people away from; however, we want to aspire to be a reliable source. Effectively, its a statement about our sourcing policies and thus makes sense at WP:V or WP:RS, but not on WP:NOT. --MASEM (t) 13:33, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I'm with Masem. This is a policy on editing and community conduct. Blending in advice to our readers isn't useful here. Anyone reading a policy page doesn't need it. Anyone who is just an average reader won't see it. It's just not what our policy pages are for. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:07, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Now I'm beginning to see Masem's point. It's that this particular policy page isn't the best spot for this. I thought Masem was objecting to the idea itself. The first comments tended in that direction. So.... I surrender! -- Brangifer (talk) 06:10, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
Fan Page policy?
There's nothing on here that states anything about fictional character pages. For example, many fictional character pages are written as if they were real people, and focus very little on the out-of-universe development of the characters. I just think there needs to be a more specific policy developed for fictional character pages. When I go to a fictional character page, I don't need to know what nickname his mother calls him, his fictional birthdate, or all the subjects that he's got a fictional doctorate in. Wikipedia is not a fansite, and shouldn't be treated as such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.252.35.93 (talk) 03:29, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article size#RfC: Should the rule of thumb for article size refer to readable prose size or markup size? about article sizes. The guideline is practically all about something called prose text size which doesn't include lists or references or a lot of other things. I thought the rule of thumb at WP:SIZERULE was the markup size as edited or given in the history but seemingly not, many huge list articles would come out as being tiny according to it. This policy refers to that guideline in WP:NOTPAPER and only mentions download size which depends mainly on markup size and not prose text size. So there is currently a problem with this policy pointing at that guideline. Dmcq (talk) 13:09, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Given there's still discussion at sizerule, I think if it comes down to both prose and markup size being important, we can add a line about avoiding long prose for sake of tiring out the reader. But let's see what results from that discussion first. --MASEM (t) 13:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
When the policy at the "Wikipedia is not censored" section is being violated and simply editing the article or posting at the talk page fails or is unavailable, what procedure remedies censorship? This is especially relevant when censorship is not labeled as such by the editor/s doing it and their motivation is therefore relevant, for which diffs can be evidence, and I am attacked for wanting to add the content that I think is being censored (my additions are sourced and their view is not). I can bring up other issues (such as the ban on personal attacks) but I want to address the censorship specifically. Is there a procedure for bringing it up? No rush. Thank you for suggestions. Nick Levinson (talk) 21:20, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
There have been many occasions when people have claimed that NOTCENSORED means their edit should be retained, but I don't recall ever seeing such a case where the edit was in fact helpful. The purpose of NOTCENSORED is to prevent due encyclopedic information from being removed purely because someone believes the material is shocking. When there is a dispute, the tedious procedures of WP:DR need to be followed. Johnuniq (talk) 02:11, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Not Indiscriminate - rename?
Should we include a definition of "indiscriminate" within this section (i.e. random/indistinct)? For years now I've seen people describe lists and statistics which fall within very specific criteria as "indiscriminate", when they probably mean "non-notable".
Maybe we should rename this section to avoid this common mis-usage: a more accurate description of what that section covers is "Wikipedia is not an exhaustive collection of information". We should also tighten up the link between this idea and that of notability (which is its core basis). SFB18:21, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
The basis for this (and notability) is the first pillar (WP is an Encyclopedia). While I agree that some criteria could be added or a rewording in general, I think you would want to read it as "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" and start from there. --Tgeairn (talk) 18:37, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
In fact, the section is often cited in very counterintuitive ways: "List of New Yorkers hit by meteorites in the 1970s? INDISCRIMINATE!" When, in fact, the hypothetical article (which had better be a red link when I save this...) is not indiscriminate at all, but rather an overly narrow, detailed article that simply won't have enough content to give a reader a good feeling for the subject at all. Based on how IINFO was used in the "X on twitter" discussions, it's clear to me that many editors are using IINFO as a synonym for IDONTLIKEIT, because the articles under discussion were in no way indiscriminate. Jclemens (talk) 03:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Indiscriminate works both ways: it can be used to describe a grouping whose's membership is far too big to be useful for WP (such as all people with the first name of John). But it can also be used to describe groupings with far too narrow a definition, or a definition, in aiming to achieve a limited set, is far too awkward a group. Again, "X on Twitter" is a good example of too narrow a definition, based on the discussion from VPP, because it focuses on a single application when there's a better broader topic that one should start at. It is sometimes hard to dissect IINFO from IDONTLIKEIT arguments, but there are very legit reasons to retain IINFO, beyond just the fact it overlaps with IDONTLIKEIT. --MASEM (t) 03:12, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Apologies if it sounded like I was arguing the whole thing should be abolished; I think the existing three sections work reasonably well under that header, but the shortcut is being expropriated (much like NOT#NEWS was) in ways that run counter to the actual wording of the policy. I'm all for clarifying and tweaking the existing policy, to eliminate the IDONTLIKEIT loophole. Jclemens (talk) 04:29, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
A definition would be good, it seems like the loophole exists because IINFO is the one thing on WP:NOT defined, er, negatively, I guess you could say. Actually it's a double negative, it just says 'Wikipedia is discriminate', without a real indication of what kind of thing is discriminated against. When a policy says 'is not a guidebook', we have a basic definition of what a guidebook is in this context, even withough being exhaustive. Anyways, one thing I notice that might connect the examples listed in IINFO, and works in conjunction with that pillar mentioned earlier when I think about it, is basically that other resources do it better/having it on Wikipedia doesn't help anyone. That is to say, if Wikipedia has an article on something, it'll show up in the first few results on google. And I think IINFO could be a test of something like 'is the Wikipedia page anymore useful in providing general/collected knowledge than the other results?' For example, If you wanted a list of the zeroes of the riemann zeta function, that page exists to a degree of precision that would be obnoxious in a Wikipedia article (http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/zeta_tables/zeros1) and provides no context or related information, which is fine on that page that's not an encyclopedia, but if you made a page List of zeroes of the Riemann-Zeta function with the same content, that'd easily fail IINFO (if we're ignoring a tendency towards the academic), despite being verifiable, essentially notable, and clearly being a very specific collection of information. Similarly we don't have Addition table, where the article is just an addition table; same lyrics. The obvious examples of indiscriminate information ('people named john'), is where creating a comprehensive article on the topic is impossible; the examples given, though, seem to indicate cases where making a comprehensive article under the topic is, essentially, pointless. We could list all the verifiable and notable information about '4+7' in an article, but in the end it's not really anymore useful than Google calculator, and none of the information would have any real bearing on any of the other information. Darryl from Mars (talk) 07:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Another way of saying it is not that the content of a title is indiscriminate but that the inclusion of the title itself shows a lack of discrimination. Wikipedia is first, foremost, and only an encyclopedia. If someone adds a blob of data that one would not normally find in an encyclopedia, then it doesn't belong here either. Rossami(talk)13:56, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
So I think this comes back to my main point: this section is describing something useful, but the heading is not appropriate. I stated exhaustive because that seems to be the point of the three examples covered: exhaustive listings of primary sources. If that is not the purpose of the section then the bullet points should be amended to reflect that. Some of the examples mentioned above are already adequately covered by the "manual/guides" section. The faux example that Jclemens cites is a typical example of mis-usage; it only makes reference to the title, which has little connection with the three actual points it tops. SFB19:52, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I agree that "indiscriminate" is itself a little "indiscriminate". I've often asked people to suggest a different name for this, or to try to put this term in different words. But there's wide disagreement about what this means. Some people think "indiscriminate" means "not notable", and so Wikipedia articles should be "not not-notable", but that's silly considering we already have a notability guideline. I've personally suggested that indiscriminate is about how people extract information from sources in verifiable but "original" or "interpretive" ways. In fact, the three examples there now (plot summaries, lyrics, and statistics) are all about people going to the primary source and quoting excessively. But not everyone will agree with my analysis of this policy. I'd be interested to see what people think is the spirit of this policy, because it's been persistent and useful, but occasionally finds itself applied in vague situations. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:22, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Great history lesson. On that note, I think the "true meaning" is to be found by looking at what those examples have in common, instead of trying to parse the "indiscriminate" title added after the fact. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:32, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Uncle G's points remain true. The only relevance of "indiscriminate" on this page is to the bold aspect of point 1 of the separate WP:NOTDIR section. We should remove it from the current section. The basis of the points in the current WP:IINFO section is "Wikipedia is not an unabridged collection of primary sources without commentary". That is to say, summaries or listings of primary sources should only be present when they contextualised by relevant encyclopaedic commentary (cited from critical third-party sources). Does anyone else have a different or better reading? SFB16:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
There's a problem in that it leaves open lists compiled from secondary sources but without commentary taken from those sources. In addition, there are sometimes appropriate unabridged lists taken from primary sources without commentary that are completely acceptable on WP (eg, arguably List of Nobel laureates). The idea is right - but again reflects the concept that "indiscriminate" is in the eyes of the beholder and very difficult to define. --MASEM (t) 17:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
The issue of how this relates to lists could either be addressed in an additional point, or with some tweak to the proposed language. Lists or collection type articles are where the confusion most often arises; whether it be that the list is too specific and narrow (so the article title or inclusion criteria becomes the point being discussed), or the list is too general (see my sample AfD). A proactive wording to address both might be "Wikipedia is not an unabridged collection of material without reliable third-party commentary indicating the notability of that material". I'm not thrilled with the wording, but it's a start. --Tgeairn (talk) 17:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
See, I think trying to identify a phrase that deals with the three listed cases is the wrong step, because those three cases aren't the only application of what could be indiscriminate information, they're just common cases to qualify under it. We have to recongize that "indiscriminate" is coming from one of the five pillars, and so that's a word we have to live with. --MASEM (t) 17:50, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I think that is a separate issue. The link in five pillars should either be changed to WP:Notability or it should be removed entirely – the text in the five pillars was introduced in 2006, based on additions here two years previously. That is to say, this policy does not come from the five pillars, it came from here! The current section describes a different issue, but is relevant.
Tgeairn: bear in mind that notability is a guideline, not a policy (which is what we should be discussing here). Masem: that list of Nobel Laurates became suitable for inclusion by the addition of commentary and context. A bare list of uncontextualised names alone would arguably fall outside our definition of what Wikipedia is. SFB18:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
(e/c) I think indiscriminate is a corollary to WP:V "Wikipedia must be verifiable, but because other policies and guidelines also influence content, verifiability does not guarantee inclusion." - just cause we have a source doesn't mean it should be in an article or be an article.-- The Red Pen of Doom18:06, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
That could be said about a large number of things on the "NOT" list. "Not an indiscriminate collection of information" could be used as a header for all but one of the current content sections (not censored being the exception). SFB18:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
That fits in with indiscriminate, but again it doesn't fit in with the rest of the information already there. User:Randomranboldly introduced that line into WP:DIR. I've been similarly bold and moved that to the more appropriate "Style and format" section. That concept has little to do with Directory-style entries. SFB19:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Be bold, not reckless! Change the policy links as well if you are going to do that. Why not point INDISCRIMINATE to Content, where I've moved NOTEVERYTHING? It is a good contrast to NOTPAPER and deserves top billing like NOTPAPER has. --Joshuaism (talk) 21:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
(undent) I think you guys are offering a closer description of what IINFO is truly about at its spirit. I'd just like to get there without being nearly so wordy. I also think that it's a bad idea to shift the goalposts to "notability", since WP:NOT and WP:N are supposed to be two different things. I'm tempted to say "Wikipedia is not a database", but I think the distinction between a knowledge base and a database might be too subtle. I'm also tempted to say "Wikipedia is not a summary of singular sources", but I'm not sure that makes it clear that we write about a source using what other sources have said about it. I could even say "Wikipedia is not a summary of primary data", but we do summarize primary data, as long as it has context from other sources. "Wikipedia is not a collection of single source summaries?" "Wikipedia is not a database of recaps and quotes?" "Wikipedia is not a book report?" I'm at a loss for words. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:31, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
'Wikipedia is not TiVo'? 'Wikipedia does not have hypergraphia?' 'Wikipedia doesn't have to write it down unless someone could learn something from it'? 'Wikipedia is not a bad book report'? I enjoy this train of thought a bit too much,.. Darryl from Mars (talk) 04:13, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
I've realised there is a broad overlap between the three points in "Indiscriminate" and points three and four of WP:NOTREPOSITORY. I think a sensible solution would be to move points one and two of WP:NOTREPOSITORY into WP:NOTDIR, because these are their most obvious bed-fellows. This would leave the points of "mere collections of public domain material or other source material" and "mere collections of media files". These two points have much more in common with our three in IINFO. With the links gone, the newly merged five points could come under Wikipedia is not a repository of primary sources or media files. Images are media files so we can drop that from the title regardless; mirror is redundant too because a mirror would simply take the form of an on-wiki repository anyway (being that repositories are independent of their sources). What make ye of this proposition? SFB17:36, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
That proposal has the most potential yet. I agree there's an underlying spirit that unifies these concepts: Wikipedia doesn't have articles that are purely images, lyrics, quotes, plot summaries, or tables of data. Probably needs a bit more discussion / a few more eyeballs on it before we figure out exactly how to move forward. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:34, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Realistic view on WP:NOTNEWS
Could we please be a bit more realistic with the NOTNEWS section and policy. I mean a huge number of articles on Wikipedia is entirely based on a news story or news overall. To say that Wikipedia is not news is wrong. Im being realistic here.--BabbaQ (talk) 10:39, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
All history of course begins as news. Our meaning is that we do not cover it when it is only ephemeral news; we cover it when there is likely to be continuing historical interest or continuing cultural impact. DGG ( talk ) 03:27, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Re: "continuing historical interest or continuing cultural impact". That is a really good summary, IMO, and I wonder if that phrase should be included in the guidelines for WP:NOTNEWS or WP:EVENT. Location (talk) 03:39, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
I am pretty sure that the "enduring" factor is what covers that aspect. (there was even discussion a few months ago on including that). --MASEM (t) 04:33, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Continuing historical interest sounds nice, but would probably lead to a lot of Wikilawyering about "well, I'm still interested in this minor controversy from 5 years ago that no one talks about anymore, therefore it's not just news to me." Enduring covers it just fine. If someone wanted to add "continuing cultural impact", I'd be okay with that, because we can measure that with coverage in reliable third party sources. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:28, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Forum / Knowledge Sharing Platform
I think Wikipedia makes a good meeting point for people interested in discussing knowledge - and some kind of easily-accessible forum format or commenting system can serve as an educational and perhaps eventually a research platform of its own, greatly acellerating conventional research. Does anyone know of anything at all approaching this - save for perhaps Khan Academy? Personally I'd like to see a mashup of Wikipedia and a service such as DISQUS, except each comment can be tagged on four levels, or split up, or filed appropriately by the crowd so as to be useful yet not wasted. Dagelf (talk) 15:18, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
This is a perennial proposal and generally rejected. We're building an encyclopedia as a tertiary sources, and thus not enabled to introduce new information that may come from this research. --MASEM (t) 15:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
Overwhelming consensus to keep the parsha articles and work on improving them to conform with WP standards
OBJECTION and Oppose Mann jess's "proposal" above because:
This debate is dangerous and seeks to promote the views of a determined minority that seeks to "end run" a much larger debate that has still not been concluded on WP, see Wikipedia:Religion: "The proposal is definitely still in development and under discussion, and has not yet reached the process of gathering consensus for adoption...It is the purpose of this proposed policy to create a new subset of rules, and interpretations of policies, on Wikipedia that apply solely to religious articles, since there are fundamentally different burdens of proof and reliability of sources within the scope of faith and religion. Scientific standards are meant for physically testable or provable things. Religion often has concepts and beliefs that cannot be subjected to proper scientific scrutiny, due to the non-physical or spiritual nature of belief...While acknowledging scientific principles of proof and testability, Wikipedia also realizes there is a realm where these principles cannot be utilized in the traditional sense. Religion is one of these areas..." (please read in full for the complexity involved here.)
It is just a weak duplicate of the veritable and well-known WP policies of WP:NPOV as well as WP:NOTSOAPBOX and this "proposal" just comes off as picking on one group of editors over others.
After all, editors of science or science fiction or writing about countries or any topic do not get extra clauses made up when some articles are not up to snuff.
Just imagine the following being a "proposal": "Wikipedia is not a pro scientism/evolution/humanism compendium. Articles on scientific/evolutionary/humanism topics should be written from an encyclopedic standpoint, summarizing science's/evolution's/humanism's views in a neutral and understandable way to a reader outside of science/evolution/humanism POV. Articles should not be written in a way to teach or promote scientism/evolution/humanism to its adherents."
Furthermore, if any policy is to be formulated here concerning all religion editors on WP, then all the WP religion editors should at least be informed, via the various WikiProject religion pages, if there is in fact a need to single them out for this type of (for lack of a better phrase) and insult to their WP intelligence who should know that when anything is written on WP, then all such writing and editing must adhere to WP:NPOV in particular.
In addition, the gratuitous "straight jacket" being proposed for religion editors exclusively forgets one of WP:FIVE, the fifth pillar: "Wikipedia does not have firm rules. Rules in Wikipedia are not carved in stone, as their wording and interpretation are likely to change over time. The principles and spirit of Wikipedia's rules matter more than their literal wording, and sometimes improving Wikipedia requires making an exception to a rule..."
Thus there is an overwhelming WP:CONSENSUS to Keep all these articles and it is unfair to try overturn that consensus to negate that by jumping to here in an a very obvious attempt at moving the goalposts by those who could not get their way via the normal and conventional means at the talk pages and the AfDs. IZAK (talk) 08:09, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Izak, please stop trying to polarize the discussion in this way. This is becoming a problem. Did you even read the discussion above? No one (myself included) is trying to delete the parsha articles. Editors here are trying to find a way to fix the problems therein and make them the best, most comprehensive articles they can be. I didn't start this section, or request an addition to this page, and I've contributed as little as possible to its formation. Most of what you've said above has absolutely nothing to do with what's being discussed. I mean, evolution... really? Please try to keep comments on topic. Thanks. — Jess· Δ♥09:01, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Mann jess, it is you who is polarizing by seeking to make a "motion to close off this debate" when the consensus runs overwhelmingly against you. I gave examples from "scientism/evolution/humanism" to illustrate the absurdity of trying to impose sanctions on any one group of editors over others. Your words above are not aimed at the parshas, this discussion was unjustifiably brought here AWAY from any of the 54 parshas, by John Carter to try a "quick fix" and HE has expressed his wish, often quite brutally, that if he had his way, he WOULD delete all the 54 parsha pages because as he has made it very clear that from HIS POV they are essentially irredeemable. Whoever the closing admin will be of this tiresome discussion, I am placing on the record that the clear consensus has been overwhelmingly against basically ANYTHING you and John Carter have proposed, be it about content or deletion or anything else to deal with the parshas, judging from your own words and actions. IZAK (talk) 09:11, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Sure. I'm polarizing the discussion by working within consensus, adapting changes to input from other editors, and asking questions to understand opposing opinions. Don't put quotes around things I didn't say; no one made any such motion, least of all me. Please start working collaboratively. We've received a lot of helpful input above. It would be nice if that discussion could continue productively. Be involved if you'd like, but this isn't helpful. — Jess· Δ♥10:16, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Man jess, I am reading as best I can, and I do not see any real consensus in your favor that would also take into account the previous consensus to leave well-enough alone, or at least not butcher the parsha articles to the point where they have no connection with their origins within Judaism. I have basically had nothing to do with these articles since User Dauster (talk·contribs) has been developing them the last seven years, but I was aware of them being too bloated and needing fixing, not a "sex change" type of fix making them into something they are not, but a "modification" within the policies of WP while remaining true to their original meanings and contexts as examples of Judaism. Can you point out areas of agreement about how to change these articles to satisfy all the parties concerned that I am overlooking, I would be most appreciative. Also note, that just as there are policies that define What WP is not, there are always similar policies for any other field of knowledge and valid articles about What Judaism is not or What Christianity is not or What religion is not could be documented and written. Thanks, IZAK (talk) 10:54, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
IZAK, if you were reading the best you could, you would also presumably have read WP:CONSENSUS and would know consensus can change. Basically, the entirety of the above statement seems to be beating a dead horse. I personally believe this attempt at derailing the conversation with the long-winded comment above and the continued personal aspersions on the part of one editor could reasonably be seen as violations of WP:TE. If IZAK wishes to advise those parties, he is free to do so, provided he also advise everyone else who has ever been edited religion articles or otherwise ensure that he does not selectively advise only certain editors who might support his opinions, which would be a clear violation of WP:CANVASS. The possibility that there is potentially other content is also, as per policies and guidelines, not particularly relevant. And placing quotes about things others did not say could reasonably be seen as being an act of dishonesty, which could be seen as a serious violation of WP:CIVILITY. And, no, I don't think that editors who are irrationally driven by their own POV will ever agree to anything other than total concession to their POV. We are not obliged give equal weight to the opinions of individuals whose positions are primarily based on their own problems adhering to WP:POV. I also believe that the section title here is a clear and obvious distortion of the current reality, as there is not currently the overwhelming consensus IZAK seeks to falsely indicate there is. John Carter (talk) 14:55, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
John Carter—before initiating "Is wikipedia a devotional compendium" on this page, you presented very similar arguments at "Articles for deletion/Noach", and "Talk:Chayei Sarah". Your two previous efforts concerning "parsha" articles were rejected. The result of the "Articles for deletion/Noach" was "Keep" and you met considerable resistance at "Chayei Sarah", which is also a "parsha" article. There are 54 "parsha" articles listed at this table. Your charge seems to be that these articles are "devotional". Do you have to demonstrate that? You have to quote text from "parsha" articles and then you have to make a case that the text is "devotional". Why should I believe that these articles are "devotional"? And why are you trying to change policy? Should you be tampering with policy? At actual "parsha" articles, knowledgeable editors have voiced opinions considerably at variance with your own. Bus stop (talk) 20:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
To be fair, I started the AfD, not John. The AfD was plagued with quite a bit of socking, possible canvassing, and voting, but as far as I can distinguish, consensus was that the articles have considerable problems, but they should be kept, improved and expanded with encyclopedic content. Along with help from Jasonusa, I removed and refactored a few of the articles after the AfD to bring them up to our standards. I received no opposition (and even some help) until IZAK reverted my efforts without discussion. I posted on the talk page, and received no attempt at discussion for days, until IZAK explicitly canvassed a number of editors and edit warred to remove them again. The "considerable resistance" at Chayei Sarah can't exactly be taken at face value considering that context. Frankly, I've run out of energy debating these issues there, because the level of discourse is so far from being collaborative, it would be an uphill battle every step of the way. If you want to gauge the communities actual opinion of these articles, an RfC would be the next step to discuss which specific areas need improvement and how. Anyone who wants to start one is welcome to, but until then I'd urge you not to make assumptions about consensus on the basis of a short, slanted, "battleground" discussion which drove at least 2 editors away in frustration. There are problems here; I might be wrong about what those problems are, but I think at a minimum more discussion is required. — Jess· Δ♥21:10, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
Jess—you say that they "have considerable problems"[2] but you have to show that. I object to 54 "parsha" articles characterized as "devotional". This thread opened from the get-go with 54 articles characterized as being "devotional". That has to be demonstrated. Probably that has to be demonstrated by providing samples of text accompanied by arguments. You have to present your case, which must convince others, that these articles are "devotional". If I wanted to convince a group of editors of a broadly based flaw in an article I would extract an appropriate length of text and I would provide commentary on the text I extracted. It is not up to others to show that the "parsha" articles are not "devotional". A person takes an initiative to write an article. If it isn't outright vandalism or obviously something offensive to prevailing sensibilities (whatever that might be) then we should be assuming there is something of value in it unless a convincing argument can be made that there is a glaring problem in the article that up until that point had been overlooked. The problem is that no one ever tried to convince me that these articles were "devotional". I was told they were "devotional", but do I have to accept that? We should not be starting from here with the assumption that "parsha" articles are "devotional". That has to be proven. That has to be demonstrated to be so and the onus is on those arguing that position in relation to "parsha" articles. Bus stop (talk) 02:00, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I never said they were devotional (though I don't disagree). Other editors have already provided specific text. I'm actively trying to stay as much out of this discussion as possible, since the amount of bad faith and combative flack I've gotten for my efforts thus far has been overwhelming, and I'd like other editors to discuss the Parshas without my direct involvement. My replies here have been targeting specific issues, and trying to facilitate discussion, nothing more; I don't have a "case" to present. I'm only asking that you examine and consider the context of the previous discussion without jumping to conclusions that consensus has been derived or that John is facing "considerable resistance" to his views. We'd need a broader discussion not plagued with violations of policy to determine that, and so far, that's not what I've seen. — Jess· Δ♥02:09, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Someone is going to have be wp:bold. That's the only way we are going to be able to punch through this wall...(taps fingers on desk), because the alternative is modifying policy as there is consensus to keep all 54 articles. Otherwise, we are at a stalemate, no matter how much further this argument goes. — Jasonasosa04:09, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Stalemate is a stretch. From the outside, this discussion looks like there may have been a chess game going on, until two colorblind spectators sat on the board, insisted there are no red pieces in checkers, and wont move until it's proved otherwise to their satisfaction. Darryl from Mars (talk) 04:29, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
