Wikipedia talk:User pages

how to find a contributor?

Am attempting to find a contributor and the guidelines for doing so are not quite clear to an older newbie brain. Help? Loonietoonie2 (talk) 00:38, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

@Loonietoonie2: As it says in the box that was shown to you when you posted here, this talk page is for discussion about improving the English Wikipedia guideline, Wikipedia:User pages ... For general help, please ask at the New contributors' help page. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:18, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Notice: This project page mentioned on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion

See Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion#Guidance added to U5. Blatant misuse of Wikipedia as a web host for the discussion. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

This doesn't mention global user pages!?

Hi. I was trying to find out about global profiles on meta-wiki, Google pointed me to User profile which has a hatnote. "For Wikipedia's guideline on its own user pages, see WP:USERPAGE." Yet this page makes no mention of global user profiles. It should prominently say:

You should create a Global user page on meta-wiki that will appear on all wikis including English Wikipedia, and then if you want you can create a local replacement on English Wikipedia with enwiki-specific stuff.

(I'm writing from my staff account, hence I won't make this change.)

The same comment also applies to Wikipedia:User page design center/Introduction, which also makes no mention of global user pages. -- SPage (WMF) (talk) 20:29, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Rephrase suggestion to WP:UP#POLEMIC

I've been witness to several instances where editors managed to circumvent WP:UP#POLEMIC. It is my suggestion to further clarify on the policy that poetic militancy (similar to "#JeSuisCouteau", "will of the people", and "my land will not be humiliated") is not permissible. Promotion of militancy (a.k.a. "Mukawama", "Jihad") is illegal in several countries, e.g., the UK,[1][2] France,[3] Australia.[4] My understanding is that "Polemical statements unrelated to Wikipedia, or statements attacking or vilifying" does not require content to be illegal. However, if paraphrases about the righteousness of militancy are sometimes passable law-wise, it does not make them right for the Wiki-project. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:13, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Rephrase Suggestions - Jaakobou

• Original:
• Polemical statements unrelated to Wikipedia, or statements attacking or vilifying groups of editors, persons, or other entities (these are generally considered divisive and removed, and reintroducing them is often considered disruptive).
• Suggested replacement:
• Polemical statements unrelated to Wikipedia, or statements attacking or vilifying groups of editors, persons, or other entities (these are generally considered divisive and removed, and reintroducing them is often considered disruptive). Poetic militancy in support of or promoting violent acts, quotes and paraphrases to raise the spirit of fight and other forms of political militant activism are not permitted.

My thoughts: A simple footnote that "poetic militancy is prohibited" was considered but whether it would be sufficient, that remains to be seen. Thus, a more expanded version came about. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:13, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

• Support - I've been part of a long argument where poetic militancy which targets Jews had supporters as well as editors not seeing the big problem. Witnessing daily stabbings and having to argue is an absurdity unfitting Wikipedia's goals. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 12:54, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support the suggested replacement, my initial thinking was that this was covered already but after discussion about it I'm not so sure. (Just noting that I also added the RFC tag). Callanecc (talk • contribs • logs) 21:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
• I don't think this is necessary. Text arguing for violence against Israelis is polemical and does vilify persons, so the guideline already advises against it. The linked discussion contains a large number of links to news stories about violence against Israelis, but only one example on Wikipedia that I can see. That example is several years old and in my opinion is polemical, although as it doesn't actually advocate any sort of violence this change wouldn't make much difference to it. If we're going to go to the point of adding several sentences to stop this sort of content then we need more evidence that it is actually a problem here. Hut 8.5 22:13, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Paraphrasing about humiliation, weapons and victory. There are several on-wiki examples but pointing them out detracts from the principle. 65 stabbings, 7 shootings, 8 car rammings.[5] In real world conflicts, encouragement of violent acts is tantamount to advocating violence. "Raise the spirit of fight" is a quote from a Taliban songwriter. @Hut 8.5: I hope you will reconsider. Adding one line to the text will not be harmful to the project. To the contrary, it would dispel any confusion.[6][7] Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 01:04, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes, that's the single example I mentioned in that comment. Stories about real-world violence against Israelis don't support a change to Wikipedia policy on user pages. If there are lots of examples of people inciting violence against Israelis on user pages and being deemed to pass POLEMIC, let's see them. (I'm not going to deem mere advocacy of the Palestinian position as an incitement to violence against Israelis. There's a difference.) Hut 8.5 07:10, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
      • @Hut 8.5:
      • POLEMIC is clear enough to me but some participants exhibit misunderstanding of the policy and purpose of Wikipedia. The arguments raised in topical discussions suggest the clarity of the policy should be improved to reduce interpretation battles. This @Nableezy: userbox, for example, is the result of quite a long discussion. Other examples exist, off course, but sampling for them distracts from clarifying what POLEMIC is and isn't. If a user names or clearly illustrates an adversary of a living breathing dispute with casualties, it should be made clear to all that this is a violation. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 10:10, 13 November 2015 (UTC) clarify Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:31, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
        • That discussion is from 2008 and appears to have resulted in a conclusion that the userbox in question was unacceptable in that form. This is hardly evidence that this wording is causing lots of battles over interpretation. I think that your wording is redundant, so the only way I can support it is if it clarifies a common misinterpretation of the current wording. For that I need evidence that the misinterpretation is actually common. Hut 8.5 16:38, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
          • @Hut 8.5:
          • I see that it doesn't persuade you that people are getting killed. (“This is for Syria”) So I have to ask, do you require more user space abuse samples or comments that miss the point of the policy? I believe there are only a few samples, but will change hurt the project? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 08:41, 14 November 2015 (UTC) +title Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 08:44, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
            • Sorry, did you really just say that ISIS slaughtering hundreds of people in Paris has something to do with Wikipedia's user page guidelines?! That's ridiculous. Hut 8.5 17:15, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
              • No. I said promotion of and support for militant activity is POLEMIC and divisive. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 17:49, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose - I dont understand what "poetic militancy" is supposed to mean. This strikes me as an attempt to say that users may only show support on ones user page for only one of two sides in an ongoing conflict, the examples cited make that fairly clear. And, if Im not mistaken, this suggestion is a fairly clear violation of an AE imposed topic ban. nableezy - 22:46, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose I would like to post "Je suis la plaie et le couteau!", translated I am the wound and the knife. This is from a Charles Baudelaire poem. There have been a few rock songs named I am the knife. Poetic militancy? I think of a more piss poor choice of wording. So are we going to ban people from quoting a song by Rage against the Machine? The rules already what the change intends to cover. The current rules focus more on intent than speech. The change focus more on speech than intent. Context is everything. Viva la Raza can be both benign and polemic. It depends on context.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 02:06, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
  • @Serialjoepsycho: I agree that intent matters most. Could you propose a phrasing that focuses more on intent (of militant advocacy) than speech? Rage against the machine quotes can be problematic (putting it mildly) if the context is akin to "#JeSuisCouteau". Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 06:51, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Little red riding hood could be used could be problematic in the wrong context. And the languages as it is right now covers exactly what you want. #JeSuisCouteau is polemic. The French phrase means I am the knife. There are possible instances where the phrase won't be, but I find it very unlikely an editor with a strong focus on WP:ARBPIA related articles would be doing anything other than making a polemic statement. Our policies are not suicide pacts, an ARBPIA editor not really going to be able to say you need to AFG because they like French poetry. -Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 07:28, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

@Serialjoepsycho:

Perhaps using examples with tiny quotes was unclear. The sources themselves[8][9][10] were meant as example which names or clearly illustrates an adversary of a living breathing dispute with casualties. On wiki, paraphrases about Jews, Israeli settlers and Zionists are theoretically clear violations of policy. Pragmatically, it takes long discussions and some participants exhibit misunderstanding of policy and purpose of Wikipedia. How would you phrase it to reduce confusion and long discussions? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:09, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't be interested in reducing long discussions and I'm not really seeing much more confusion than other conversations on how a rule should be interpreted and applied.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 11:28, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

The only place that "#JeSuisCouteau" appears anywhere on Wikipedia besides where you, Jaakobou, have written it is an article on a stabbing attack. Users having such a quote on their userpage does not appear to be a problem. What you are trying to do, rather obviously to anyone aware of the history, is remove things that dont celebrate an attack on a civilian. Something like a quote from Frantz Fanons The Wretched of the Earth where he writes about rising up against a colonial oppressor, and yes rising up violently. But you already tried and failed to get such a thing prohibited. So now, in a basic appeal to extreme argument, you raise something more menacing that isnt even an issue on any userpage. nableezy - 19:29, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment - I received an email by Jaakobou about this discussion, but to be honest, I don't even have a clue what it is about. LjL (talk) 17:04, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Clarification - I am notifying French editors following the recent terrorist attack development about the existence of this thread. The issue raised here is that of pro-terrorist polemics getting support on wikipedia user space. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 17:07, 14 November 2015 (UTC) Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 17:12, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

From the above two comments it sounds a whole lot like there's some inappropriate notification in violation of WP:CANVASS.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:05, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Note to closer:It sounds like... Hell that's exactly what it is. Since email was used to contact an undetermined amount of users and there's no way to determine the amount of users canvassed then there's no way to determine which users to exclude and there's no way to determine a consensus. Any consensus should be voided and read simply no consensus as it's impossible to determine the consensus now.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:19, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

User-notifications can easily be inappropriate if you call out to your wiki-clique in secret but this is not the case.[11] We've had very few participants. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 22:36, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

You have targeted an undetermined amount of people thru email. This is stealth canvassing. Based on your comments and the diff provided, you have targeted people based on their sympathies to France and due to the recent terrorist attack there. Targeting their emotion is certainly not neutral, appropriate notifications require neutrality. Targeting as you say "Your wiki-Clique" is also not neutral. So you have stealth canvassing, campaigning, and vote stacking. All of which are inappropriate. This has compromised the consensus decision making process.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 22:51, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

a) Mangling my words is inappropriate. b) French people are aware of the subject matter and are neutral. c) Pro militancy editors are not neutral. They know who they are but won't properly disclose that here. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:11, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

A)That's not mangling your words, that is what happened. Take it to WP:ANI if you don't like it. B)You can't target a specific group of people because you feel they will side with you, that's not neutral. C) There's no COI for the ill-defined "pro-militancy editors". They have nothing to disclose.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 23:20, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

ISIS, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Taliban, Boko Haram et al. supporters should clearly disclose that. How can you write that there's no conflict of interest here? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 23:37, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

The same way pro-life and pro-choice supporters can. Or republican party supporters and democrat party supporters. Or Palestinian supporters and Israel Supporters.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 23:51, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

(I'm not even actually French anyway... LjL (talk) 02:26, 15 November 2015 (UTC))

You now that doesn't even matter?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 02:38, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Well, above I was basically called French. Maybe I don't like being called French? LjL (talk) 02:40, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Lol, My apologies. What I meant by it not mattering is French or otherwise an inappropriate notification remains inappropriate.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 03:39, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Fair point. LjL (talk) 16:12, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment This seems like a solution proposed that is postulating there is a problem without providing any examples of what it objects to. Can you provide some pages that would be affected by this change? I don't advocate changing policy for symbolic purposes if it isn't solving an actual problem that currently exists. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 21:21, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Comment.

'Poetic militancy in support of or promoting violent acts, quotes and paraphrases to raise the spirit of fight'

There would be some merit in this were the proposer not an inveterate propagandist and who has reentered the encyclopedia framing all of this as a defense of one party in a conflict, as if Wikipedia's language must take into account the suffering of one side and be motivated by horror at the evilness of the other. Poetic militancy is one of the most laughable pieces of phrasal ineptness I've come across in many years. I guess the rest of the sentence means that if any page has quotes like the following, they should immediately be removed (sigh of relief from worried unilateral victim propagandists for one party to the dispute)

• Raphael Eitan, Palestinians are "drugged cockroaches".
• Naftali Bennett, “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there’s no problem with that.”
• Ofer Winter, “I raise my eyes to the sky and call out with you ‘Shma Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. The Lord God of Israel, make our way successful. … We’re going to war for your people Israel against an enemy that defames you.” telling his troops they were going to war “to wipe out an enemy” who “curses and defames God.”
• Moshe Ya’alon, we are going to hurt Lebanese civilians to include kids of the family. We went through a very long deep discussion … we did it then, we did it in Gaza Strip, we are going to do it in any round of hostilities in the future
• Eli Ben-Dahan, Palestinians are beasts, they are not human
• Rabbi Shmuel Derlich,the chief army "chaplain" in the occupied territories, Rabbi Shmuel Derlich, issued his troops a 1,000-word pastoral letter enjoining them to apply the biblical commandment to exterminate the as "the enemies of Israel."

Amalekites (Palestinians required to be killed on the basis of halakhic law)

• Rabbi Avichai Rontzski, made "a rabbinal edict against showing the enemy mercy" that was distributed in booklet form to men and women in uniform."
• Rabbi Benjamin Blech ((Jimmy) Carter’s cancer is the divine edict for his anti-Semitism.
• Baruch Marzel, “Death to Arabs,” “A Jew has a soul, an Arab is a son of a whore,” and other similar malicious slogans (There is no co-existence with cancer,
• Moshe Feiglin, only innocents in Gaza are the IDF soldiers. We are not in a police operation to capture a crime family. We are in a national war, fighting for the existence of the State of Israel.They sanctify slavery and death. We sanctify liberty and life. They are the savages of the desert who came to Israel looking for work from the ‘Zionists’ – and we foolishly gave them parts of our Homeland
• Ayelet Shaked (Palestinian) are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.

Which I could readily supply in hundreds of other infamous forms of incitement language from senior Israeli figures, then these would be cancelled as inadmissible, rather being evidence of a problem? Nishidani (talk) 10:46, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Are users using them on their user page?-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 19:08, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

• Leaning oppose. Not that poetic militancy is OK, but because the existing has served very well for a long time and that stability has benefit, and that the addition may be no more than creep. Militancy unrelated to Wikipedia is not tolerated, whether or not it is poetic. I have never seen a MfD dispute arise from a misunderstanding of Wikipedia:User_pages#POLEMIC. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:14, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
  • @SmokeyJoe:
  • Militancy unrelated to Wikipedia is openly tolerated by a few users and admins. One admin said "not illegal", allowing militancy promoting polemics to stand. Another reverted(!) admin action to keep anti-Israeli content. A third admin thought it serves a purpose of illustrating the editor's POV. Pending the outcome of this review, I will know if I can or can't link to these. Note that review explains how two of the participants here are among the tolerated exceptions. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 13:32, 16 November 2015 (UTC) +militancy promoting Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 13:34, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

How do you distinguish your own 'militancy' as an advocate for Israel from the militant activism you perceive in those who disagree with you?Nishidani (talk) 14:11, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

@Nishidani:

Q: Aren't you tired of promotion and legitimization of violence against civilians? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 14:53, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk: The Hidden Wiki

The recent revision of this Article, does not make sense.

Birdymckee (talk) 05:25, 13 November 2015 (UTC)Birdymckee