Talk:Wikipedia policies

Translation of official policies to local language versions of wp and their binding force

The policy pages on en.wp have a template that says that "This page is an official policy on the English Wikipedia. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow." If a policy (or a guideline) becomes biding as the result of acceptance among local editors, then a policy that has been accepted on one language version of wikipedia is not necessarily an official policy on other language versions of wikipedia as well unless it is accepted on each language version locally and independently. If so, everytime you want to introduce a new policy from en.wp to your local wikipedia, you not only have to translate it to your local language but also propose it for adoption as a new policy. Is this understanding of mine correct?

en:Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines also says that a policy is officially binding if it is issued by Jimbo, the Board, or the Developers. In such a case I suppose that the policy is binding on all the language versions of wikipedia, whether with or without acceptance among local Wikipedians. If so, it would be helpful for the editors of other language wikipedia to designate which policies are from Jimbo and which are adopted as the result of local consensus. Hermeneus 07:22, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

No, whatever en:Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines says applies only to English Wikipedia. If "Jimbo, the Board, or the Developers" want to apply policies to other wikis, then they need to say so.

In particular, projects like Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikisource, and Wiktionary cannot accept policies that require all pages to be encyclopedia articles. --Kernigh 20:30, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

But is there not a set of some very basic policies (like a constitution) that must exist on every language version of Wikipedia (such as NPOV)? A new language Wikipedia does not start as a completely blank slate, does it? Hermeneus 23:38, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

A related question is how much discretion is allowed to each language version of wikipedia in adopting policies. Some policies and guidelines differ between different language versions. For example, the Japanese wikipedia does not accept fairuse images because of the restriction of local copyright laws. The German wikipedia enforces more selective content guidelines that reject small stubs and articles on fictional characters. But there must be a certain limit to the discretion, as it is inconceivable for anything that has the title of "wikipedia" to have policies that go directly contrary to such fundamental principles as NPOV, no original research, and verifiability. But then again it's not clear exactly which ones are so fundamental that they are not subject to change no matter what and which aren't. Hermeneus 03:22, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Just found out that Help:How to start a new Wikipedia seems to have some info on this issue. Hermeneus 04:16, 7 March 2006

Sorry to come to this so late. I would say that each project is allowed to have their own policies, but as a start you should consider that the policies of the larger Wikipedias have been thrashed out by a lot of people and battle tested. Thus they're probably pretty useful as a start. Other Wikipedias could decide that they will take those policies as binding and then modify them or the other way around. - Taxman 00:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem with Japannese site is that translation takes precedent over discussion. There are hardly any active debate going on in Japanese wikipedia site regarding policy and guideline. In fact, japanese wikipedia is currently engaged in translation catch up cycle with english wikipedia site. It is hard to grasp what is or what is not official policy in japanese wikipedia because some translation of policy get update while others outdated policy or guideline are left untranslated. Vapour

What is Wiki Process

Like Hermeneus, I'm currently trying to clarify the question of policy and guideline in Japanese wikipedia. My approach is to understand it from the source, which appear to be Foundation Issues. Only thing which didn't make sense to me was The "wiki process" as the final authority on content. When I used search function to look for "wiki process" in wikipedia, I was directed to the article about wiki . So, does it mean the final "authority" on content is whatever which is produced as a content by wiki (as a software)? However, in English Wikipedia page, process is defined as a central and organized way of doing things, generally following certain policies or guidelines (e.g. the "deletion policy" tells us how the "deletion process" works). So would I be correct in saying that "wiki process is a way of doing things following wikipedian policies and guidelines"? But in that context, "ｗikipedia process" is more appropriate term. Vapour

I decided that the foundation issues page was nonsensical, and added a {{personal opinion}} tag. "Wiki process" most likely refers to the steps of clicking "edit this page", editing the text, and clicking "save page". However, such a process is not necessarily a "final authority" on content. --Kernigh 07:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Is it really just a personal opinion of UninvitedCompany? Hermeneus 02:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Can Non-English Wikipedia diverge from Key Policies?

In Japanese wikipedia, "Wikipedia is not censored" in "What's wikipedia is not" is written as "Wikipedia is not censored to protect minor" (ウィキペディアは未成年者を保護するための検閲をしていません).[1] Accordingly, Japanese wikipedia seems to apply a lot of self censorship not required even by Japanese law. Not reporting of real name and photo of juvenile criminals, not "outing" of Korean Japanese celebrities, not reporting the name of victim of crime are few examples I have noticed. This seems to be the case even if such information can be obtained from some press media which don't follow this self censorship. And Japanese Wikipedia do not utilise Fair Use (probably in accordance to Japanese Copyright law). I also suspect that, possibly, in Arabic or Persian Wikipedia, they may censor material which may offend religious or social sensitivities. In Germany/Austria or other European wikipedia, they may censor certain Nazi materials. I believe Wikimedia is only subject to Florida law. Can each wikipedian alter no-censorship policy (copyright or otherwise) and/or other key policies by consensus? Are "Wikipedia is not censored" or other key policies meant to be universally applied to all wikimedia? Vapour

The self censoring of the japanese Wikipedia sounds very sensible to me. 84.164.111.211 17:10, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Exposure of detailed data with which you can identify a person who committed climes or infringed in their minor is clearly violation of the Article 61 of Act of Juvenile under Japanese jurisdiction[2] . As for adults, such exposure is still possible to fringe both Civil and Criminal Acts as libel, exposure of crime history of people after they come back to the society and his or her crime history is not known among the person according the judgement of courts. Shortly it is either criminal act or law fringement, not "self-censorship the law doesn't require". Since most of editors are supposedly under Japanese jurisdiction as well readers, and past judgement of Japanese courts said the victims of those fringements can sued people who use the server run in a place out of Japanese jurisdiction, such warnings are benefical for the community and Foundation. Some cases are admittedly overreactions, but you cannot force them to try the border of legal action against their will and intention. --Aphaia 12:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Are the English Wikipedia banning and blocking policies binding for all languages?

Are the English Wikipedia banning and blocking policies mentioned on the content page binding for all the language editions? Itayb 07:36, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

No. — Timichal 07:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

1. Thanks.
2. Could you prove your claim, please?
3. Then what is this meta page all about?

Itayb 07:48, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Every Wikipedia is free to have its own policies (however, they have to respect basic principles, more or less listed on en:Wikipedia:Five pillars). I can't exactly prove it; a sufficient proof might be it works like that for years and no one has complained about it. Anhd as the header says, this page is meant to define the similarities and differences between the different Wikipedias, regarding their power structure, procedures and rules. — Timichal 07:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.

Itayb 07:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Timichal wrote: "they have to respect basic principles, more or less listed on en:Wikipedia:Five pillars". And what if they don't? How are these principles enforced? Suppose (and this is not merely a hypothetical example), that i think one of the basic principles of Wikipedia, say NPOV, is breached by one of the language editions in the sense that one of this language edition's guideline pages advocates, say, a nationalistic point of view. How am i to handle this case?

Itayb 08:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Translating Policy and Guideline Pages from English to Hebrew in my WikiMedia user account

I would like to start a translation project of the policy and guideline pages of the various Wikis to Hebrew and from Hebrew to English. This initiative is intended to facilitate comparison between the current Hebrew policies and those of the other editions. The current administrators at the Hebrew Wikipedia regard this initiative negatively. Therefore i would like to start this project in my WikiMedia user account. Can i go ahead and do it, or do i have to get a special permission from somebody? -Itayb 21:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Importing En policies to Chinese (zh) wikipedia

I am currently dealing with the issues that what status the imported policies and guidelines (especially from En) should have in Chinese Wikipedia. I proposed that they should have status equivalent to proposals and only after a discussion towards consensus, they could (or fail) become official. -下一次登录 15:04, 2 February 2007 (UTC)