Wikinews:Water cooler/policy/archives/2011/January

Redirect categories

I propose to amend WN:SD#Other pages item 4 by adding the words "a redirect or" before "links", so it reads

Empty categories (no articles or subcategories) whose only content has consisted of a redirect or links to parent categories.

Although one could argue that redirect categories are already covered since the redirect isn't "content", this should make it crystal clear.

Technical background, to clarify why I want to terminate redirect categories with extreme prejudice: A redirect category causes someone viewing it to be taken to the target, but pages belonging to the redirect don't get put in the target, and HotCat even happily adds more pages to the redirect, where their misfiling is well hidden since anyone who might actually look at the contents of the redirect is automatically diverted to the target. As an example of what can happen (though not of this SD criterion), observe the eleven pages in Category:Macedonia (which I've deliberately left in situ to illustrate).

Categories with history of other content, such as Category:Macedonia, would still have to be dealt with unspeedily; but clarifying this SD point should simplify things. --Pi zero (talk) 15:44, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

• A page in the category namespace should never be a redirect. I'd guess, in the Macedonia case, once emptied and deleted it should be protected against recreation. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 16:03, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

• Just do it Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:48, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Perhaps we should have some page where we list all these obsolete categories (category:Spirituality, category:USA also comes to mind), along with {{PAGESINCAT:... magic, so we could easily check they stay deleted. Bawolff ☺☻ 21:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

We could, broadening Brian McNeil's suggestion, fully protect all these categories against creation.

There never was a Category:Spirituality, apparently. I was aware and puzzled, though, that there is a Portal:Spirituality, which is apparently entirely focused on Category:Religion. To give the portal a more general name than the category that drives it is deceptive. A portal exclusively devoted to Category:Religion should be called Portal:Religion, while a category that encompasses all spirituality should be called Category:Spirituality. --Pi zero (talk) 00:07, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Portal:religion was renamed to portal:Spirituality due to a DR. we were just to lazy to move the category. Fully protecting doesn't help all that much since people can still add stuff to a fully protected category, although i guess it could help. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:40, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia turns ten: It's time to vote

As far as I can tell, Brian McNeil is the only Wikinews user who has objected to my article, entitled "Wikipedia celebrates its tenth anniversary", because of what he claimed to be problems with style, NPOV and 'navel-gazing'. Do you think that this article is suitable for Wikinews? Please comment or vote now. --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 21:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Wikipedia celebrates its tenth anniversary is a more suitable forum for this. My opinion is that we should avoid anything that may appear to be anything but impartial ("terrorist" shouldn't be in Wikinews' vocabulary, for example). As such, we should stay away from any articles that come close to crossing the line – you implied in an edit summary that you were struggling to keep NPOV; if you edit Wikipedia regularly you shouldn't be editing the article due to conflict of interest. I certainly won't review this article, regardless of the outcome of this poll. — μ 22:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

• Voting is evil. Voting on articles, doubly so. As said above, this should never have been brought to the Water Cooler. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 23:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

• The irrelevance of voting to this has been noted.

Yes, it shouldn't have been brought to the water cooler. (Note that {{flag}} does nothing when used on the water cooler except display a space-consuming and semantically redundant box.)

For myself, the only COI problem I'd have with reviewing it would be the very important one of appearances, i.e., for my part I know I could review it objectively — and I don't think I would let appearances prevent me if I were failing it.

I'll comment on the article itself at article talk. --Pi zero (talk) 23:31, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, this is all I've got to say. --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 08:08, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Ahem. I don't know if you noticed but the Spanish and Polish versions of Wikinews have now created their own version of this article. One other thing: can you please help me with developing this article rather than criticising me? I would be really grateful to have your assistance. --Rayboy8 (my talk) (my contributions) 01:08, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Criticizing is helping, and going to some trouble to do so. It's a huge learning opportunity; I'm trying to absorb all I can from Brian's comments; and although myself I don't see a plausible path for the article to succeed, if there is such a path, a prerequisite to finding it is surely to have detailed criticism to point out the problems that must be navigated past.

English Wikinews has its own standards and values. Other language Wikinews projects may have drastically different standards and values. --Pi zero (talk) 06:24, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

That may well be the case but I don't feel that you are really helping me with the creation of this article at all.

Burma or Myanmar?

We've got half of our articles (and the infobox and portal) saying Myanmar, and half (and the WP article) saying Burma. I ran into this issue when helping out a user on IRC with Burma introduces military draft, but I went ahead an published it as-is for the time being. Thoughts? --Thunderhead ^{(t - e - c)} 06:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• The 'authorities' in the country assert it's Myanmar - that is what we should use, unless we're reporting someone else's reference to it as Burma.

So, all articles should be in category Myanmar, and usage is based on who refers to it as what. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

First off, and most importantly, international recognition of both names is hit or miss. Half the world calls it "Burma", and the other half calls it "Myanmar". Realistically this is the measure we should normally use (ie, whatever our readers call it we should call it), but both official recognition of the names and population recognition of the names are... scattershot. I just did a quick pedia such, and it claims that most English speaking countries still call it Burma. Gopher65_talk 14:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Secondly, "Myanmar" is an incredibly offensive racially charged name. I realize that there is some history behind the word, but even so the country is named after one of the ethnic groups (the one to which the high-ranking members of the military belong). This is the equivalent to if the KKK had taken over the US in the 50s and renamed it "whiteland". That's literally the level of racism we're talking about here. Personally I don't see how anyone can support such a country name. At least "Burma" is a mispronunciation of a mistranslation, so it's effectively meaningless. Gopher65_talk 14:31, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I often see it written as Burma/Myanmar in most publications I've seen. Wikinews is, as of course you know, NPOV. We must let the reader make their own decision: Myanmar is the 'official' name; 'Burma' is the name that many countries (including the US and UK) use, not recognising 'Myanmar' at all. To maintain a neutral point of view, we might wish to refer to both in articles, perhaps as 'Burma/Myanmar' on first reference, and 'Burma' on the second would be a compromise. Alternatively, Reuters' style guide states "Use Myanmar. In copy, refer to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma". AP says to use Myanmar for the country and the language. If push comes to shove, we could always have Category:Burma and Category:Myanmar and double 'em up, if we have to. Regardless, the UN said "Myanmar"; ISO plumps for "mm". — μ 17:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Blimey, that paragraph is not well written at all... — μ 17:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

One category only. Category:Burma and Category:Myanmar are each controversial choices for someone, so if that's our choice, I see no merit to changing. Another possibility is Category:Burma/Myanmar. But there should definitely be only one. Ease of maintenance is crucial for categories. --Pi zero (talk) 18:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• I find the earlier rant about racism offensive, it adds nothing to the discussion. I stand by my earlier assertion, possibly adding some clarification for the geopolitically challenged: File all articles in Category:Myanmar - it is what those in charge there self-identify as; try to use quotes to avoid Wikinews in-article labelling it, and explain as "Myanmar, formerly known as Burma". Anyone with some knowledge of the region's politics knows the leaders there are nuttier than a Ferrero Rocher factory. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:44, 13 January 2011 (UTC)