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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Please clarify (talk | contribs) at 19:39, 5 February 2011 (→Clarify please: Blogs as independent reliable sources: new section). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Spirit of a rule

Hi, new to wikipedia, and I have a few questions regarding "reprimanded for violating the spirit of a rule." What in Sam Hill is that? I mean... seriously? So, one can obey all rules, but if they show opposition to a rule, or stubbornness in apologizing, they violate some undisclosed portion of a rule that says you must abide by not only the letter of the law, but the spirit as well??? That seems a tad unreasonable to punish someone for sharing a different view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Joshua Torelli (talk • contribs) 13:37, 17 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No one will reprimand you for having or stating a view... they might reprimand you for your actions. This is to deal with people who look for loopholes in our rules, and people who "game the system" by "Wikilawering" over the letter of the rules... To give the most common example: Technically, the WP:3rr policy allows for up to three reverts in twenty-four hours before action is taken... but... if you show a consistent pattern of reverting twice, and then waiting till the clock "resets" and reverting again, it can be deemed a violation of the spirit of 3rr (ie "don't edit war")... and you will be reprimanded. Blueboar (talk)
One more question, BlueBoar. I noticed articles about Christopher Columbus, and the Murder of Meredith Kercher. I'm not entirely sure of the details of the MoMK case, but on the Christopher Columbus one, it seems he had verifiable research. However, his edits were undone, and he was warned not to use the talk pages of the article to discuss his evidence? So, the discussion pages are not to discuss the article, but ways to improve the article. But what if you are trying to improve the article with verifiable facts, but your ideas aren't "popular"? How do you prove the research you or someone else has done if no one lets you? I'm seeing this all over the site, and it kind of scares me from even trying to improve the quality of the encyclopedia... It seems the admins have a little to much power..Joshua Torelli (talk)
You will probably find the answers you are looking for by reading and understanding our various content policies and guidelines... WP:Verifiability, WP:No original research, WP:Neutral point of view (especially the section on Due Weight, WP:Fringe theories and WP:Identifying reliable sources. Blueboar (talk) 23:54, 18 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The basic point to remember is that editors on Wikipedia are not qualified to peer review peoples research, all we can do is check that it has been published in a reputable place where it would have been checked. You should not need to know the details of the MoMK case, only check that what is said in the article corresponds with the citations. WP:Original research is the important one about this. Dmcq (talk) 02:05, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There has been an editor at Christopher Columbus, and Origin theories of Christopher Columbus, who uses the talk pages to discuss his own personal research, posting long arguments on his own ideas. This is original research and inappropriate for Wikipedia articles and even discussion pages when an editor seems to be using Wikipedia mainly for that purpose. I'll note he's also edited from IP addresses and other accounts, something we generally frown upon - except in certain circumstances, we prefer editors to use just one account. The idea that you can't use 'verifiable facts' to make an argument is sometimes hard for editors to grasp - basically, Wikipedia articles should reflect what other writers have said about the specific subject, and Blueboard has pointed you to the relevant guidelines and policies. If you want to write about your own research, you should look somewhere else I'm afraid. Dougweller (talk) 20:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a clarification (sorry doug, but it's an important point) using multiple accounts is not a problem in itself; it only becomes a problem when you start using the accounts in a coordinated fashion, as though they were different users. if someone wants to do some wikignome work using an IP or aseparate account, or if someone wants to have two accounts that work in broadly unrelated topic areas, there's nothing wrong with that. just so long as the two accounts don't start giving each other the glad-hand, it's not really a problem. --Ludwigs2 21:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused. From what I read, he said he was posting something other people have written about? Joshua Torelli (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Untagged pages are not essays

There's no "general assumption" that untagged pages in WP space are essays. There's information pages, noticeboards, old untagged projects, policy proposals, etc. I'd venture to say that most essays are tagged. Most of the untagged things are not essays. Gigs (talk) 15:11, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with Gigs on this. I think the sentence in question is trying to address the status of untagged pages (by noting that an untagged page has the same "unofficial" status that an Essay has... or at least not the same "official" status that a policy or guideline has)... but it mixes up two distinct concepts. Not all untagged pages are Essays, and not all Essays are untagged. Blueboar (talk) 15:40, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree 100% with Gigs. -- Ϫ 17:14, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree—and in fact, the very next paragraph ("Other pages") makes the necessary point. This sentence is just confusing in the Essays para. I've deleted it. PL290 (talk) 17:29, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good edit... resolves the issue completely. Blueboar (talk) 17:35, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
But, unfortunately, re-creates the original problem. We need a statement that amounts to "the fact that a page is in the WP: namespace, and hasn't been tagged as an essay, doesn't mean that you are required to follow its advice." WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No one is "required to follow" anything. The Policies para says that that all users should normally follow policies, the Guidelines para, that editors should attempt to follow guidelines, the Essays para, that consensus has not been established and they do not speak for the entire community, and the Other para, that the other pages in the Wikipedia: namespace are not policies or guidelines, although they may contain valuable advice or information. Nothing more to say. PL290 (talk) 19:44, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RfC notice

There is a RfC at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#RfC on the relationship between the sourcing policies and guidelines that partially impinges on the content of a section here: Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Conflicts between advice pages. Tijfo098 (talk) 11:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, SlimVirgin would like each of the content guidelines to contain a sentence that says, in effect, "If this guideline conflicts with a policy, then the policy (always) takes precedence, and this guideline should be changed to match the policy." It would be a direct contradiction of this policy, which says that all inaccurate and broken advice pages should be fixed to match the community's current consensus, regardless of whether the pages are labeled "policy" or "guideline". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oddly, however, attempts to fix guidelines to match policy—something the spam text specifically encourages—here and here for example, are swiftly reverted (see here and here). It would appear that only good policies count and unknown to the rest of Wikipedia (which regards this page as one of the key procedural policies) this policy page has apparently been abandoned. One guideline page even had a little edit war over the issue (original edit, restored, restored, restored). Which is strange, because policy is quite clear on the matter: "If policy and guideline pages directly conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so that all of the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice." Sigh. Colin°Talk 18:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe anything but a short reference to the policy being supplemented is needed. This policy explicitly says 'maintain scope, avoid redundancy'. This policy says what should be done about things like this, it should not be repeated in every guideline and policy. Redundancy leads to bits contradicting each other when one changes and bloats policy and guidelines with irrelevancies. People just want to read them, and see what they say, if there is a contradiction they'll start saying something anyway. Dmcq (talk) 10:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Naming guideline regarding label?

There's an absence of consistency in the naming of Wikipedia policies and guidelines concerning whether the label "policy" and "guideline", whichever is applicable, appear in the page names. Are there concerns about remedying the inconsistency by adopting one format or the other? I'd propose a guideline that the label generally be omitted, unless doing so would cause ready confusion with other pages. I expect that the label is generally immaterial to people viewing the page, since most are there for the content itself without considering its authority relative to other pages, and the heading on the page itself suffices in providing that information. Agree? Disagree? Cheers. --Bsherr (talk) 20:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Very well. Added to the policy. --Bsherr (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clarify please: Blogs as independent reliable sources

In the discussion about The Affiliate Marketing Awards at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Affiliate_Marketing_Awards SummerPhD states, "At present, this article has 9 sources. However ALL of them are either theaffiliatemarketingawards.com or blogs. This article needs substantial coverage in independent reliable sources to meet notability guidelines."

In the Internet Marketing industry which includes Affiliate Marketing, all of the notable independent reliable sources I can think of ARE blogs:

Blogs such as these ARE our "independent reliable sources", aren't they? Most high quality sites today including major media sites are blogs:

We need clarification of what blogs qualify as independent reliable sources and which do not. As TomSF100 added in that discussion "They may be blogs but they are corporate blogs. Adrants is a blog with editoral guidlines — Preceding unsigned comment added by TomSF100".

Some blogs are promotional; some are associated with businesses; and many of us write the truth in our blogs as we see it - unhindered by having to kowtow to advertisers. Blogs are not all the same and ethical bloggers are different than run-of-the-mill bloggers.

Please clarify for us what information you favor on Wikipedia and which is a waste of time because it will be summarily deleted anyway. We do not wish to waste your time nor our own.

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