Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive T

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Village pump (policy) archive

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Recipes

What is Wikipedia policy on recipes in articles? Captain Jackson 18:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not... Instruction manuals - while Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instruction - advice (legal, medical, or otherwise), suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, video game guides, and recipes. Wikibooks is a Wikipedia sister-project which is better suited for such things. --Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not -Raul654 18:58, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikibooks has a recipie book! :-)

Not just recipes, but a whole b:Cookbook. Gentgeen 10:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Song copyrights

What's the policy on quoting lyrics in songs? Do we state copyright holders - and if so, what's the prefered format here? --Flatulus 02:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Do you mean just a line, or a full song? If a full song, don't do it. It's copyrighted material. If it's just a line or two, then that falls under fair use I think. --Golbez 02:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Do quote the authors. Usually, this is clear in context. Superm401 - Talk 03:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Cite the people who wrote the lyrics. Sometimes the liner notes don't make it clear who this is - in this case just credit everybody listed as a writer on the song. There's no standard format - you can use a footnote, put it after the quote, before the quote, whatever. Don't quote more than a stanza. Deco 08:50, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles

The talk page has recently had a question about why the {{proposed}} tag has stayed on the page for so long when the guideline portion (the front matter before the TOC) has remained stable for so long. One editor simply replaced the template with a box of his own creation, and someone else replaced it, and then it got replaced again, and I restored it. The argument is that the proposed box detracts from the page, and should not remain on it indefinitely. Should this article become a {{guideline}}? Or something else? --TreyHarris 07:31, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not list it at Centralized discussion? Consider a straw poll. My first impression is that it's just redundant, despite being well-intentioned. —Wahoofive (talk) 16:37, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Redundant with what? It's specifically not Featured Articles, for the reasons described there, if that's what you're saying it's redundant with. --TreyHarris 19:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not proposed, it's not a guideline, it's a list of good articles, and hey, it's a list! It's working, it's there. We're fine with it. No one opposes it, some people actually like it. It's FINE. Congratulations with your working project namespace page.

Now stop waving around tags in peoples faces, before you find someone silly who takes offence. *sigh* Kim Bruning 18:51, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Check the history Kim, several people have opposed this in the past (mainly because this list also adds templates to every article that's on it), hence the "proposal" tag in an attempt to get more interest. R adiant _>|< 21:55, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the goal here is to get GA as well-accepted as FA, i.e., a standard part of Wikipedia. How is that done? Walkerma 20:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

By running it. If it's useful, everyone on wikipedia will use it one day. If it sucks, it'll peter out. Kim Bruning 20:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Lists of X in (year)

Problem: We have tons of lists of politicians, religious leaders, artists, literature, etc. organized by year. While these series are nice for inflating edit count, I find organization of individual articles by year to be unmaintainable, and not very useful. I (subjectively) say not very useful for lack of imagination; I'm open to justification of utility.

They are unmaintainable because they're lists of incomplete information, blatantly duplicated across many articles, and they are neglected. Duplication of information that needs to be changed is always bad. This requires lots of human labor to do something a computer can do easily. For an example of an unmaintained series, look at List of state leaders in 18BC. The adjacent years are all practically empty.

Some individual articles have been nominated for AFD, but there was no chance that a single article would be deleted considering the "precedent" of all the other year articles.

Solution: Either this needs to be automated, or reorganized to be more maintainable. Categories are normally a maintainable alternative to lists, but the current technical features of Categories are not ideal for such lists: a political leader that ruled for 50 years would need 50 category tags. We would need a technical change to allow "range" categories.

One idea that does not require software changes is to organize by decade instead of by year: that would increase maintainability by a factor of 10. And it would be more useful to the reader than browsing lots of year articles and manually comparing the differences. We can think about the optimal granularity for lists: obviously "List of political leaders in September 1984" would be too small, but "List of political leaders in 1000s" is too large. I think decade is the right granularity. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-25 19:20Z

I agree that we should change it to decades rather than individual years. That makes these lists a potentially useful resource, which they most probably aren't at the moment. -Chairman S. 23:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the reason why they are not by decade is in recent history, like List of state leaders in 1984, they are quite full, and doing them by decade would be more troublesome. Also, they are in many senses parts of the general year pages, like 18 BC, or 1984, and so doing them in decade form would be difficult because of that, also. I would suggest you contact the people who made the first few edits to various of them, and ask them to comment on this. Regarding automating it, that is a good idea - doing it with a bot is the customary way such things are handled on Wikipedia, you should probably mention this on Wikipedia:Bot requests. This is a good point to bring up, thanks for mentioning it. JesseW, the juggling janitor 10:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I did contact some people. The sole author of the 17 BC, 16 BC, 15 BC, ad nauseum state leader articles has effectively refused to update those pages with the information from 18 BC. Normally when I see such a thing I would fix it myself, but as I've said above, I feel that would only be perpetrating a system that is unmaintainable in the long run. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-28 00:01Z

If you are talking about this discussion;

it looks like there was some confusion in how you asked; you pointed out a simple typo that needed to be merged, and hinted(in the last part of your request), that you really wanted to talk about all those pages, but said nothing about your opinion on them; the person you spoke to misunderstood this, and responded only to the specific request that you made, not the possible offer to discuss the whole issue of List of state leaders pages. I'm glad that you contacted some people, but I don't think it was a case of anyone refusing anything - just a misunderstanding due to a less than totally clear request on your part. I strongly encourage you to post on Bot requests, asking people for ideas of ways to semi-automate the creation and maintanence of those pages, and/or coming up with such ideas on your own. This is a good point you bring up. JesseW, the juggling janitor 06:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it appeared he misunderstood in the beginning, but his final message to me on my talk page indicated to me that he was not interested in working on the other articles. (This is why fragmented talk pages suck.) Anyway I don't wish to single him out as I have gotten bored of particular pages in the past as well. I will think about a way to do it with a bot as you suggest. Thanks. —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-28 06:45Z

User:Netoholic, {{Main article}}, {{Further}}

Something odd is going on. I'm seeing a bunch of changes:

{{Main}} to {{Main article}}
{{See}} to {{Further}}

I've not seen any discussion of these changes. These are cited in various guidelines, so I'd expect there to be a lot of discussion before deployment.

--William Allen Simpson 02:16, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

PD-art vs. PD-US

Does the tag PD-art apply to photographs of art from before 1923 without life of author plus 100 years? If not, does PD-US apply to recent photos of pre-1923 art? Justin Foote 01:12, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

That depends on the nationality of the artist for copyright purposes. The photograph has the same copyright status in the US as the original work, as long as the original is two-dimensional (ie, painting, but not a sculpture; see Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp.). Pre-1923 work by American artists is certainly PD: for other jurisdictions it might be trickier, I would have to double-check the relevant laws. As for the template, {{PD-US}} fits the bill, but please give as much info as possible on the description page (artist name, date of death, date of production of the work) to help users in other jurisdictions. Physchim62 (talk) 12:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Use alternatives to SVG where possible

I really think we should hold back with the use of SVG format images. I personally hate to see them because I have to use IE and the blue background is so very annoying. Why are people pushing a format that simply isn't compatible with the browser used by the vast majority of our readers? violet/riga (t) 20:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but... works fine here both with Firefox and IE. Wikipedia actually spits out a bitmap anyway... Thanks/wangi 23:37, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Works For Me.

But even if it didn't, MS is working on IE now anyway. But even if they're working on IE now, I don't care. Firefox has working-ish SVG support already, and it's a free download, so no excuse. (And the SVG support lib is free as in speech too, so MS and Opera and Apple and whoever can just use it, unless they're being contrary). Once SVG support is solid in at least one browser, we should switch to putting out SVG native, this will reduce bandwidth usage and server costs considerably. If this gets people to switch to free browsers more quickly, I won't be sorry. Kim Bruning 00:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The software renders SVGs as PNGs in articles, which I think is an excellent solution to this compatibility issue (current version of IE has some transparency problems with PNGs, but it's easy to add a background shape to an SVG if necessary). I think they should send down the original SVGs for users of browsers that do support it though, which is not the current behaviour. Deco 00:48, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, some organizations have reasons to keep Internet Explorer. Yes, it may not be necessarily wise, but hey, that's something beyond Wikipedia's control. We're on a multi-platform environment anyway, and it's not as if Internet Explorer's market share is insignificant yet. In any case, spitting out a raster file for an SVG is a perfectly fine compromise and pretty decent default behavior IMAO, even if there is some kind of server load cost associated with it. — T-Boy: (complain bitterly) (laugh contemptuously) 00:53, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Theres a simple hack to fix PNG transparency for IE... see http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/pngbehavior/pngbehavior.html ALKIVAR™

00:56, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm against any change that will require a browser switch, as every browser has serious problems (at least on Mac) and users should be able to use the one that works the best for what they use it for. I have one main browser and use three others depending on the application. -- Kjkolb 01:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Getting back to the original question - as it stands Wikipedia renders SVG files as PNG bitmaps for display, and this works well on Internet Explorer. Obviously violetriga is having a problem with something, but it's not a generic issue. T/wangi 14:31, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

And the problem is nothing to do with SVG in fact... After a bit of digging in Violetriga's contribs (note - always a good idea to give examples!) I came up with:

The second, SVG-based, one will display with a grey background on IE. The problem isn't SVG, but rather IE's handling of transparent PNGs. Thanks/wangi 14:39, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

In a case like this, the obvious solution is to stick a white rectangle behind the check in the SVG. If IE ever gets fixed, it's easy to remove. Deco 01:51, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Why would you want to put a white background? I use classic skin and it has a pale yellow background... Grey is fine. -- SGBailey 23:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

FWIW that second one shows a pale green background in my IE. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Help needed at Talk:The Song of Hiawatha

CJLippert bills himself as a knowledgable source on the Ojibwe language, and I believe him. I'm rather puzzled about what to do about a table he has contributed to The Song of Hiawatha. Longfellow used many Ojibway words in his poem, which has an appendix giving their meaning. Lippert has contributed a table comparing the spelling and meaning given by Longfellow with their modern equivalents.

Now, I don't want to be a jerk about this, but I am convinced that in fact this table does not comply with our policies on no original research, verifiability, and citing sources. I don't think there's any urgency about dealing with this and I'm not eager to delete it... but...

What is the best way to cite sources for a table contributed by an Ojibwe language expert which pulls together information from multiple published sources and his own experience? Is there a way to keep this material, comply with policy, yet not require that an individual source be given for the meaning of each individual word?

Please discuss at Talk:The Song of Hiawatha. Please approach this in the spirit of problem-solving. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Another useful user attribute

With the recent proposal to grant certain (non-admin) users access to the "rollback" tool--thus creating an additional class of non-admin users (in addition to the current 2--logged in and anonymous), here is my proposal for yet another class of users. Technically, this attribute could be considered orthogonal to the other user attributes of interest, but I would expect that any user who is an admin or higher, or who has rollback priveleges (should they be granted), would also deserve access to this new privilege:

And the privelige is this: To be able to edit Wikipedia, while logged in, from a blocked IP address.

One of the big problems with IP-blocking, and especially Wikipedia:autoblocking, is the collateral damage they create. If Joe Vandal posts anonymously from a shared IP, and gets blocked, any logged in user who also posts from that IP will be affected. While it wouldn't be a good idea to let any logged in user bypass an IP block (for obvious reasons), users who are well-known members of the Wikipedia community in good standing, shouldn't be IP-blocked when they edit while logged in.

It may be possible (or desirable) to have 2 levels of IP blocks--a soft block which is bypassable by the privelege I describe, and a hard block, which disables any edit from the IP, regardless of the user, and works like IP blocks work today. The soft block would be what gets used when dealing with ordinary vandalism (and is what would normally be generated by autoblocks); the hard block would be reserved for exceptional cases, such as known untrustworthy IPs (open proxies, static IPs belonging to banned users, spam domains, etc.)

I have little knowledge of how difficult this would be for the developers to implement.

Thoughts? --EngineerScotty 19:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

See bugzilla:3706. --cesarb 20:10, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

sources of promotional material

This question was placed on my talk page, but I don't feel comfortable giving a definitive reply. Does someone here feel conversant enough in this matter to reply? (RJFJR 00:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC))

OK, i finally have a question! As discussed at Wikipedia:Fair use, posters and DVD covers found at such places as the IMDb may be considered fair use at low resolution. I have found hordes of posters for tokusatsu films at other sites, e.g. The Official Godzilla Site and GojiStomp (a fan site). May i assume the same guidelines for borrowing (and, possibly, shrinking) images from such sources?—Crazilla^{talk|contribs} 21:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Policy on Biographic Articles

Several previous comments could be merged into a discussion of biographic policy. Which people are of sufficient public interest to make a biographical article desirable? Should living and historical people be treated differently? Should the subject, family or friends have control over the material.

I suggest that a concept of public figure can be used with reasonable success. For an enclopedia this probably does not include everyone who has been in the news for 15 minutes, but would include anyone who has been substantially public over a period of time, or who is a significant figure in an event that is of significant importance. John Wilkes Booth only did one thing of interest, but he should have an article.

I also suggest that a standard of good taste must be used, but individuals cannot control public discussion of their actions. The public has a right to publish articles critical of public individuals, such as politicians, writers and industry figures. A company or individual has a right to protest inaccurate articles, but not to veto truthful bad publicity.

I think a policy could have a general statement of principles and a list of helpful examples. It would make sense to have a list of reasons that are and are not sufficient to justify an article.

For example, I would suggest that an article is justified for every person who has every been a supreme court justice. I am not sure if an article is justified about every person who has been nominated for the supreme court. (Timely question, I hope.)

I think there would be a long list of easy cases: every head of state, every four star general, every supreme court justice, every nobel laureate etc.

Other cases would require more thought and discussion.

Cre 16:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

We have WP:BIO and WP:BLP which would seem to address these issues. Physchim62 (talk) 16:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

A guideline that addresses most of your comments already exists at Wikipedia:Notability (people). Other guidelines that touch on this issue are Wikipedia:Vanity guidelines and Wikipedia:Autobiography. --Allen3 ^talk 16:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Creative Commons content

Can content that is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license by submitted to Wikipedia? I would have thought not because of the "only under the terms of this License" and "You may not sublicense the Work." parts under Restriction but IANAL.

Apologies if this is already covered somewhere, but after searching for an hour I couldn't find it any of the obvious places. AlistairMcMillan 19:37, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

No. Written works must be compatible with the GFDL. Image use is somewhat more liberal, but must be sufficiently free to allow for commercial reuse (and the possibility that we might want to generate income by selling CD or books derived from Wikipedia content someday). Becauase of this cc-by and cc-by-sa are acceptable for images, but cc-nc is not. See Wikipedia:Image copyright tags if you are interested in more details about images. Dragons flight 19:58, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia NPOV and privacy

I write this as an objective visitor, touching on a potentially contentious issue in this community. Nevertheless I've decided to make my point here and it will either be accepted and discussed, or rejected and pushed away.

It seems to me, and I think it is the right time while the Google supoena is in the collective conciousness of the internet community, that Wikipedia needs to outline its boundaries in regards to privacy of the individual. I don't believe it is a reasonable enough argument to say "This is of interest to a sum of people, and therefore it belongs in an encyclopedia". This logic is a red herring, and I believe it contains flaws, which I will attempt to illuminate.

Firstly, it must be realised that the regular contributors of Wikipedia, of which predominantly all of you are, are a closed community. You are a very large community, but you exist independantly from the collective conciousness of 'general' society. Secondly, this collectivism is further concentrated by the very design of Wikipedia. By that I mean, the like-minded or polarised swarm on a particular topic, and thus give it energy and life. This is a good thing -- this is what creates great articles, allows the process of refinement and drives Wikipedia. And a side-effect of this is that an article can become, at times, inflated for what it is. This is of course a subjective comment, but look up some anime series articles or other subcultural influence articles to see the overstated and obfuscated effect of the collective 'importance' that is placed on some articles.

Even that is not my issue. But it leads me to it, in regards to privacy of the common individual.

I refer to two examples, the Daniel Brandt article and the Brian Chase article. They are perhaps intrinsically linked, but they are how I came to see this side of Wikipedia after using it for many years. Due to the controversy surrounding one of these particular figures, I'd like to make clear that I have never been in contact or any interactive context with either of these figures beyond reading and absorbing the text that flows around these names. And in order to keep the responses to this on topic, I'll refer more to Brian Chase.

In the first instance, it is overwhelmingly clear that Daniel Brandt does not want his article on Wikipedia. In the second, Brian Chase certainly never asked, wanted, or imagined that he would be the focus of an article. He is, of course, the archetype everyman afterall. And yet both these men have articles. And so I ask why. The common response, so I can gather from the resulting delete/keep votes is the argument I paraphrased earlier -- "This is of interest to a sum of people, and therefore it belongs in an encyclopedia".

But this negates the very real issue of moral obligation. If someone does not want their article on Wikipedia, is it morally right to oblige? What constitutes a public figure? In assessing that constitution, should it be taken into account the inherent closed-circle collectivism of a non-mainstream community? Should it then be assessed whether the agenda of the community affects the reasoning towards these articles?

I chose these two examples because they outline what I see is a dangerous precedent, and one that should be openly and objectively discussed. David Brandt "critisied" Wikipedia. Brian Chase inadvertantly brought the integrity of Wikipedia into the temporary spotlight. And it is impossible to remove the motivations that spawn from a community that has this put onto them, from the objective assessment as to whether there is to be a need for the article to exist.

My strong contention is that these articles are a violation of the basic principles of privacy. This is further reinforced by the shift of power that places the opinion of one person into the subjective hands of potentially thousands. When the swarm surrounds the article, and the polarization process occurs, an angle is thus formed. So Brian Chase (hypothetically) the church going family man who enjoys his old Beatles LP becomes Brian Chase (Wikipedia hoaxer). It is of course undeniable that he placed a hoax on wikipedia. But by process of selection, the internet now knows him through the black and white context of being, essentially, stupid. Nevermind important factors such as intent or awareness. This information will concievably be retrievable instantly for the rest of his life. As a result, the mass concencous has a prepacked opinion of this man, and that will affect his day to day work and personal life.

Please assess the ethical and moral implications of this. Put yourself in that situation if it makes it easier.

I believe this man does not warrent enough importance to have his own article. But that is my opinion. Where is the line drawn? I believe this article made it to publication because of the link with Wikipedia. This inflated the relevance to the community, and thus it was assessed as relevant to the broader community. Secondly, it was not balanced with the moral and ethical repercussions that would affect this man.

Unlike a traditional encyclopedia, Wikipedia has no real issues in regards to space. This has positive consequences. But it does effect the relevance when writing about living persons. If extrapolated, one can assume that these types of articles will continue to grow. These men are not famous. They are not prominent outside of the Wikipedia community. They do not deserve their own articles, regardless of the role they have played in Wikipedia history. They are noteable to you. Indeed, these articles exist because the people that make the focus of them have touched on Wikipedia history in some way. But does how does this balance with the ethical and moral obligations such a community should possess? And doesn't, in a holistic sense violate the communities rules of NPOV? I believe Wikipedia should assess whether it has exercised a communal POV in these cases, and in doing so with no major opposition, has not felt the need to place checks on themselves.

You are in charge of a powerful tool. But articles about science and history are very different to biographical entries. Especially so when it comes to living persons. And even more so when it comes to living persons of little cultural or historical relevance outside of the Wikipedia/internet community. I believe the Wikipedia community needs to have a meaningful discussion about this. Focus on the articles that spring up involving the "little people" -- people that outside of your community have no cultural or historical relevance -- and decide on where to draw the line. "Rational"/Logical thought argument has been the general response. So now it is time to look at these articles from a moral and ethical perspective, strongly taking the effect on the subject into account, and their inability to do anything about it.

You'll forgive me for signing without a username. 210.10.166.48 13:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Those people were written up in mainstream press outlets such as the New York Times. We didn't publish any personal information about them that was not already public; it's not like we published their home address, Social Security number, or things like that. And, while it's true that Wikipedians are a community and might, on the whole, have values or perspectives not exactly matching the "outside world", it's not really a "closed community" either, since it's open for anybody to join, much more easily than is the case for typical other communities. *Dan T.* 19:54, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

User hints he will delete content on Monday night

A dispute is brewing at Talk:Canadian federal election, 2006 that could use some attention.

Canada is having a national election on Monday. The polls close at 7:30 PM EST in Newfoundland, 8 PM in the Atlantic Time Zone, 10 PM in the Eastern, Central and Mountain time zones and 10:30 PM in British Columbia.

Under Canadian law, it is illegal to publish or broadcast results from any district in a way that makes them available in a place where the polls are still open. For example, a local TV station in New Brunswick can announce results at 8 EST, but the national network cannot announce the results to Manitoba.

Because the Internet is available everywhere, it's illegal to publish results from anywhere on the Internet before 10:30 EST. A guy in Canada was fined $1,000 for doing that in 2000.

However, Canadian censorship laws do not mean anything to Wikipedia, which is not based in Canada. (Theoretically, a Canadian could be held liable for posting results to Wikipedia, but I suppose the only way a prosecutor could find out who the user is would be if he was a user with an IP address for an ID.)

In the past, Wikipedia has ignored censorship laws of other countries, including Canada. Last year, there was a period of a few days in which it was illegal to publish some information on the sponsorship scandal. People did anyway on Wikipedia.

User:E Pluribus Anthony has hinted that he will revert any attempts to post results before 10:30, even if the information comes from reputable sources. To me, this is vandalism.

How should this issue be dealt with? -- Ray Oiler 01:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

You shouldn't have to do anything. Someone like you will revert the deletions, he'll revert again, you'll all talk about it on the talk page and come to a consensus. There's no reason this has to involve the rest of Wikipedia. We do not have to my knowledge any policy for or against this, nor really need one, and I don't think anyone's going to get in trouble by posting the content if that's what they decide to do. Deco 01:04, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I would add that he only gets three similar reverts before being subject to a block. I agree that in principle it's up to each Wikipedia editor as to how or if they want to participate on the page. The servers are in Florida, USA and are presumably protected by US first amendment rights (PS I'm not a lawyer). Wyss 01:12, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a can of worms, and not likely to make an impact here. I doubt this will result in anything more than a temporary dispute between Wikipedians, but Wyss, I think you're missing the point. The US has specific reciprocity agreement with other countries which cover the mutual acceptance of the laws other countries pass, in exchange for the acceptance of US law outside the US. Canada is the US's biggest trading partner, and has the most agreements between these two countries. This includes but is not limited to areas of law such as Copyright, Criminal Codes, etc. Although those treaty’s don’t trump the US Constitution within the US, the Constitutional protection of free speech does not extend to non-Americans especially if they are outside of the US. So if Canada passes a law not to publish its election results until such and such a time, and that law is covered under one of the reciprocity agreements (and I'm fairly sure it is, for Canadian election law is governance), Wikipedia can be made to honour it, as long as it wasn’t an American publishing the results. You shouldn’t rest so heavily on your Constitutional protections not knowing international law. LinuxDude 08:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

The idea that the American legal system would go along with subpoenas of IP addresses from the Wikimedia Foundation in an attempt to help the Canadian government enforce its censorship law is completely out of the realm of possibility. There have been several instances of Canadians using American-based websites to skirt Canadian publication bans, as in the case of the Bernardo trial, the Gomery inquiry and that mass murder in BC. In each case, the American publishers relied on information from Canada. But Canadian prosecutors never even thought of trying to take action against the Americans or trying to pressure them to find their Canadian sources. If an American court ever were to acquiese in a foreign government's attempt to enforce censorship laws, the outcry in the U.S. would be enormous. That's why it's never happened and never will. -- Ray Oiler 01:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

You make me think there are some aspects to this which would be even more murky than I thought and also, I should have been more thorough in my remark. I for sure was thinking more in terms of Americans (US citizens) posting to a US server. Obviously a Canadian posting un-anonymously from anywhere, or even anon from Canada (maybe even the commonwealth, I don't know) would be breaking the law. The point you make about Wikipedia's general liability is interesting and I'm not a lawyer but ultimately I don't think the Canadian government can effectively shut down a server in Florida which is carrying content which is legal in the US, whatever the source. However let it be said, even I wouldn't rely on my own opinion here without knowing more. I should add, given my own affection in principle for the rule of law and my sympathy for the spirit of this Canadian one, personally, I wouldn't participate on the page. But then, I'm not a Canadian who might be anxious for information Monday night! Wyss 13:24, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Another note -- be careful about throwing the word "vandalism" around. I'll agree with you if you say that it's inappropriate for him to revert the changes, but vandalism has a specific meaning and this does not fit. --Improv 14:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

"Censorship" seems a fairly harsh word for the situation as well: the results will be freely available after 22:30 EST (03:30 UTC on Tuesday). The extent to which content providers are protected by the First Amendment against cases brought in foreign countries is not at all clear, as the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit demonstrated recently in the LICRA v. Yahoo! case (note that this case has now been going on for five years). I would suggest placing a banner at the top of the page explaining that results cannot be published until the polls have closed and that any purported results which are added should be treated as unverifiable speculation. Physchim62 (talk) 14:46, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that "censorship" actually fits (although it is of a very mild form with little possible harm) -- it is government supression of the publishing of information that the press would (presumably) like to print, which meets my basic definition. Personally I see little harm in people publishing reports of information people have, so long as they include a source. Verifiability of information does not always imply the same time scope as the censorship -- instead people must wait until the end of the elections to verify the data (although whether it is the data or that the source said it is the important part of verifiability is an open question). In any case, I don't think we should be thinking about the Canadian law or trying to respect it, but there may be unrelated good policy reasons (verifiability-related or not) that should affect how we handle this) --Improv 16:26, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

See my comments on the election article's talk page for my critique of the template. Regarding the LICRA v. Yahoo! case, you appear to have taken it well out of context. That case was filed by Yahoo in California in an attempt to overrule a French court's decision. Yahoo lost in the appeals court not on the issue of free speech but on the technical issue of whether or not the company had standing in the court. -- Ray Oiler 01:05, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Something like Template:ElectionResultsCA, for example. The Foundation seems OK on this problem, as the offense requires intent (s. 495(4)(d) Canada Elections Act), but any editor posting results is liable to a fine of up to C$ 25,000 if the Canadian authorities can find them. Physchim62 (talk) 15:40, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

I've nominated that template for deletion as a blatant violation of WP:NLT. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 05:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

This template should not be used. Provided no citizen of Canada posts the results, there is no risk here to anyone. Canadian criminal law cannot be enforced in the United States. It is a fundamental principle of U.S. law that one jurisdiction will not enforce the penal laws of another, let alone when to do so would violate the First Amendment. Another issue is whether you actually think it plausible that Canada would even attempt to reach across its borders to restrict the free speech of a U.S. citizen or U.S. based company. Postdlf 01:25, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

U.S. courts will not enforce foreign judgments if they are deemed to violate public policy. For instance, there have been several instances where they refused to enforce libel judgments made under British-derived law on the basis that these did not meet the stringent requirements of the First Amendment. See [1]. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 05:04, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, there is a public policy exception to the recognition of foreign judgments generally, but when the foreign judgment imposed a criminal sanction, the penal law exception applies per se without the court having to even consider policy. Postdlf 05:10, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
  - That template is nothing to do with US Courts. Why are you bring US Courts or US Law into it. It was simply information to Canadians, who probably don't even know their own law. Surely this discussion should be NPOV, which means not discussing that template in terms of US, East Timoran, or Uzbeki law. Nfitz 06:30, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
    - We're discussing policy issues. WP:NPOV isn't at question here. Your statement above would justify slapping disclaimer templates on virtually every single article in Wikipedia. First, let's put disclaimers on all articles related to Tibet, Taiwan, and Falun Gong telling Chinese citizens they could get in trouble for reading/posting there. Then let's put disclaimers on all Nazi-related articles telling the Germans and French they could go to jail for posting a picture of a swastika. And then we can put disclaimers on all pages with photos of unveiled women saying that they violate Saudi Arabian law and that no Saudis should read those pages. Where does it stop? My answer: According to Wikipedia policy and guidelines, particularly Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates and Wikipedia:No legal threats, it doesn't start. We nip this in the butt right now. Crotalus horridus (TALK • CONTRIBS) 07:36, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
      - Actually, Commons:Template:Nazi symbol has been around for more than a year now (it's getting a bit long, but that's the Commons for you). The French don't risk jail, just a €1,500 fine and the withdrawal of the right to bear firearms. Physchim62 (talk) 12:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
    - I have no idea what NPOV has to do with anything here. Wikipedia is based in the U.S., so it's only natural that U.S. law would be of chief concern to Wikipedia because that's the only law that Wikipedia must follow. Individual Wikipedians must take responsibility for themselves when it comes to their own country's laws and use Wikipedia at their own risk. Laws from nation to nation vary so much that as Crotalus aptly pointed out, we'd end up putting warnings on just about everything. Postdlf 07:43, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
      - NPOV is relevent here, because all these people not involved in the debate, are suddenly quoting US law; yet none of the people involved in the debate ever mentioned the US. Besides, the template is neither a disclaimer, nor a threat. Nfitz 08:03, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
      - The part of the template which is most objectionable is "Editors who post such purported results are breaking Canadian law." No one outside of Canada's jurisdiction is breaking Canadian law by publishing these results: to break a law, one must be subject to it, and Americans are not. If the template were rephrased to apply to Canadians only, it would be correct, but problematic, as others have pointed out, given that peculiar laws in many countries would require a disclaimer on nearly every page here. Xoloz 18:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Would it not be sensible to put a paragraph on the page about elections in Canada about this law, and why it exists? To me it seems a very reasonable law to have, and it seems a fundamental part of Candian elections. Don't prhase it as a warning, but as part of an encylopaedic article informign people about elections in Canada. Thryduulf 11:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe an article about similar laws across the world: I know France has one. What should we call it? Election blackout laws? Physchim62 (talk) 12:07, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea. In Britain it is also illegal to broadcast results/exit polls/etc until the polls have closed. Perhaps call it Election reporting restrictions? Thryduulf 12:50, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

We still have a fundamental problem here. The User orginally the source of this discussion, is still implying that he will remove results before 10 pm Eastern. Current discussion at Talk:Canadian federal election, 2006#Removal of early results. While I personally feel that a well-worded warning template is appropriate, and that Canadians shouldn't be flouting the currrent election law (no matter how unjust), I also don't think anyone should be removing apparently valid results in a vigilante fashion. Not sure anything can be done about this until it starts happening this evening ... except more talk. Nfitz 16:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

People are missing the point. Why is Election Canada have such ban? It is because it does not want the posting of election result influcing on people of whom to vote in western Canada. reverting those result, IMHO, is not censorship but rather, as not to influence on people whom to vote. SYSS Mouse 14:17, 24 January 2006 (UTC)