Submissions/Article Talk Pages as a Control Mechanism for English Wikipedia Articles

From Wikimania 2013 • Hong Kong

After careful consideration, the programme committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2013 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no.
3002
Subject no.
C1
Title of the submission

Article Talk Pages as a Control Mechanism for English Wikipedia Articles

Type of submission

Presentation

Author of the submission

User:Hindustanilanguage

Country of origin

India

Affiliation

Independent Wikimedia Foundation Projects Contributor

E-mail address

Send an email to Hindustanilanguage straightaway!

Username
Hindustanilanguage
Personal homepage or blog
Abstract

This presentation highlights the growing use of talk pages a mechanism for controlling English Wikipedia Articles.

Detailed proposal

English Wikipedia has the largest number of contributors and is viewed as probably one of the most Standard Wikipedias. It is in this context, the English Wikipedia community has evolved a mechanism of discussing the proposed content of the article on the Article Talk Pages before its inclusion into the articles in order to avoid edit-warring situations. It also helps in overcoming nasty stuff from being part of encyclopedic articles. One such example of it was an edit in the article on Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist of a group of militants took part in the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India. According to a widely, and probably universally acknowledged fact reported in the Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Hindu and even Dawn (published from Pakistan), Kasab was hanged at Yerwada jail in November 2012 in Pune in the western state of Maharashtra after Indian President Pranab Mukherjee rejected his pleas for mercy. However, an IP edited the article with a reference quoting a radical Pakistani newspaper saying that Kasab could have died from Dengue and not from hanging.This edit was immediately removed with a discussion placed at the article talk page for its inclusion/exclusion. As of now, it has not been included in the article. And hopefully, this, and other such gossip or rumour-based stuff will stay away from Wikipedia with the active involvement of the community. A similar is the case of 2012 Delhi Gang Rape Case where despite discussions about the identity of a female physiotherapy intern victim on the article talk page, the responsible editing culture on English Wikipedia ensured that name of gang rape victim does not form part of the Wikipedia article for obvious reasons underlying in the situation.

Track
  1. WikiCulture and Community


Length of presentation/talk
25 Minutes
Language of presentation/talk
English
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?

Yes, if Scholarship is approved.

Slides or further information (optional)

The proposed presenter has contributed to/ edited several hundreds of articles on the English and Hindi Wikipedia. He contributed to over 53 articles on the Hindi Wikipedia including the entire category related to State AIDS Control Societies in India He has also He is also a filemover, images-uploader, templates-translator and files-categorizer on Wikimedia Commons.

Special requests


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  1. Risker (talk) 21:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  2. CT Cooper · talk 23:11, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
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