Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)
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Starting a compilation of Wikipedia policies
[edit]I took long hours to condense core content policies into one document. By my calculations, I can retain at least 95% of the meaning of the policies, including most of their intricacies and details, by using only about a third of space that the policies and guidelines, scattered among multiple pages, now take (I estimated from raw text that the policies and guidelines I summarised have about 530 KB of raw text but under the compilation have just 173 KB - still a lot but much better).
It was a hard task and appears about as hard as working in one person to recompile the Constitution of Alabama - a ridiculously long document running at 373K words - 420K words before 2022 (for comparison, War and Peace is 587K words, and there's a good reason they publish it in volumes), but I think it is more than worth it, as people will have a unified set of policies that will be easier to read for people because there's gonna be much less of that but reflecting the same meaning. The overabundance of policies is one reason we have few new editors - there are too many rules, and then folks just randomly throw WP or MOS shortcuts not immediately obvious to the bystander, and suddenly nobody wants to join a project with United States Code-long rules and obscure jargon.
I will appreciate all feedback from you - positive or negative - and preferably some help into condensing further policies and guidelines, such as those about conduct, legal, editing etc. into one page where everything belongs.
- User:Szmenderowiecki/Attempt at compilation/Intro
- User:Szmenderowiecki/Attempt at compilation/Content
Szmenderowiecki (talk) 10:26, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- I wish you well in your endeavour, but am worried that it will fail in the end because everyone thinks that "their" sub-sub-clause is vitally important. I admit that I rarely look at policies or guidelines now, but find a few basic ideas, along with common sense, to work. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:14, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- That works for me as well (I normally look into the rules on an ad hoc basis), but then you wouldn't need all those volumes of tiny rules covering, like, 99% of cases, and yet here we are. Also, admins themselves need a clear set of rules for proper enforcement (even if you catch the gist that the persob is just NOTHERE - an essay btw - you still kinda need a more concrete reason that just "that's my hunch")
- It's like with RL: pretty common-sense that you shouldn't kill or rob anyone, or what appears common-sense like not using the army or the government to finance/securre your own reelection campaign, and yet these are codified lest anyone have an idea to bend the rules. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- This exists WP:Nutshell and I think your effort is noble but better focused on improving accessible language and navigation of existing guidelines for newcomers. Twinkle has feature to welcome new users for example. WP:Mentor finds ways to automate assisting newbies. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Just to pick one example. There's no policy that an article must have (any) sources, let alone one. Yet we consistently advise new users to create articles with multiple sources. Save the edge cases and careful readings of guidelines/policies for advanced users who want to push the margins or change consensus. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:49, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Actually there very much are two policies that prohibit articles without sources:
- Verifiability says that you should only add content that you can check against a reliable source, and that you can remove any unsourced content
- No original research says you just can't make stuff up. The only way you can have some sort of content is if it can be supported by a reliable source. Technically just have to demonstrate that the source for the passage is somewhere but if you don't provide it in the article, you can totally expect it to be removed and it's gonna be your problem.
- So yeah, it isn't said directly, but policy actually prohibits unsourced articles (and I didn't even go to the guidelines) Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:18, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- No, policy prohibits unverifiable articles, not unsourced articles. Sources are required for BLPs and anything that is likely to be challenged should include a source (but this doesn't have to be inline). An article List of uncontroversial statements of fact consisting of things like "The sky is blue", "Many people are Catholics", "The 1970s happened before the 1980s", etc could be completely fine (it would be deleted, but for reasons completely unrelated to not having sources). Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Look, I'm not making this up:
Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source
- Which de facto means that if you are adding unsourced content, you are wasting your time as any editor may come by and just remove what you wrote, tell you "lacks an inline citation, I don't care why, pics or it didn't happen" and you are gonna still default to having to add a source (and then again giving time to fix it is a courtesy you needn't, though probably should, extend; though if you have the means to fix it yourself, you should do it)
- So there's no obligation to source an article only in the most literal reading of policies. Anyone can enforce this policy provision. WP:SKYISBLUE is just an essay, although one with a pretty large following (and which totally makes sense for me, which is why there is a footnote to that effect) Szmenderowiecki (talk) 17:47, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
... any editor may come by and just remove what you wrote ...
: the operative word is may. The reality is there's loads of unsourced text on WP, much of which will take years for it to be challenged, if ever. —Bagumba (talk) 18:29, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, I think you might be interested in reading Wikipedia:Glossary#uncited and related entries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- No, policy prohibits unverifiable articles, not unsourced articles. Sources are required for BLPs and anything that is likely to be challenged should include a source (but this doesn't have to be inline). An article List of uncontroversial statements of fact consisting of things like "The sky is blue", "Many people are Catholics", "The 1970s happened before the 1980s", etc could be completely fine (it would be deleted, but for reasons completely unrelated to not having sources). Thryduulf (talk) 17:28, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- Actually there very much are two policies that prohibit articles without sources:
- Just to pick one example. There's no policy that an article must have (any) sources, let alone one. Yet we consistently advise new users to create articles with multiple sources. Save the edge cases and careful readings of guidelines/policies for advanced users who want to push the margins or change consensus. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:49, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- It has been tried before. Take a look at Wikipedia:Attribution, an attempt 18 years ago to consolidate some policies. Some very active and well regarded Wikipedians put a lot of time and effort into that proposal, but it was rejected by the community. Consensus can change, but I suspect the community remains just as resistant to change as it was then. Donald Albury 20:07, 22 August 2024 (UTC)
- So I did read the poll, and a lot of stuff that was probably relevant here doesn't apply:
- Users were complaining about lack of participation/that proposal being forced down their throats as policy - not an issue here (yet)
- Merger of NOR, V, RS didn't appeal to people - not abolishing them, just giving sections to these concepts, not a problem.
- Users complained about one massive page, or that they preferred separate policies rather than a massive policy code - well that is an issue to discuss but again it's not something that should extinguish all debate before it even starts.
- Disgusted that truth is deprioritised - kinda not applicable here, because I'm not changing the framing of policy, just condensing it.
- Change is unnecessary - again, debatable but let's have that debate in the first place
- WP-links - well, you will have them all you like. Again, something to be discussed.
- Assessment of any changes and their impact on disputes - to be discussed, again. This is how rulemaking process should work.
- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - my whole point is that it is, in fact, broke, so needs fixing.
- And again, you can say "meh, we tried eons ago and it didn't work, why bother anymore" but that's gonna be a catch-22, because nothing will change without discussion, which you don't want to hold anyway.
- I believe the attitude should be "OK, let's see what you did there and if it makes any sense". It would be another thing if you told me why what I did was bullshit, which is fine. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:45, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- So I did read the poll, and a lot of stuff that was probably relevant here doesn't apply:
- FYI in addition to WP:Nutshell and WP:Attribution mentioned above, there's also WP:SIMPLE, HELP:GUIDE, and other variations listed at WP:Principles. Levivich (talk) 04:42, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- I know, but that's not the point of the compilation. What you are pointing to has a different purpose.
- Nutshell, WP:5P etc. is a post hoc summary of policies and guidelines that summarise the main goals in slogans. Just like a company saying "we want to increase the market share; we want good treatment of workers" but not saying how.
- WP:SIMPLE is a very high-level summary of policies and guidelines. It's the company analogue of saying: Good treatment of workers means paying more than the minimum wage, giving them extra breaks, paid leave and some other perks, without telling much specifics.
- The body of the policies and guidelines is like all internal company directives about pay grades, conditions of getting worker benefits, levels of compensation, powers of HR/executives etc. This page intends to clean up all this body of policies and codify them in a couple of places, grouped by category, so that we remove unnecessary bloat, as in too many redundancies and passages repeated across different policy pages, extraneous comments etc.
- We should have all of these and I don't have an issue with the first two, they are mostly fine. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, I don't feel like you're hearing what people are telling you, so l'm going to try a completely different, un-Wikipedian way of explaining this, because the previous efforts haven't worked, and maybe this will get your attention. Here's my new way:
- Hi, Szmenderowiecki, and welcome to Wikipedia! I see you've been editing for just four and a half years, and that you've made a few hundred edits at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, which I really appreciate. I don't know if you knew this, but you're in the top half a percent of contributors for all time. I also notice that you've never edited a single policy, and you have only made one small, uncontroversial edit to a guideline.
- Just so you know, most of the people who have responded to you in this discussion have been editing for 15 to 20 years, and have made between 50,000 and 170,000 edits. Also, relevantly, we've been much more active in developing Wikipedia's policy and guideline ecosystem. If you'd like to see an incomplete overview of my own policy-related work, then you can start at User:WhatamIdoing#Policies and guidelines you can ask me about.
- Now that you understand who's at the table for this discussion, I want to point out that there is an English saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Every person in this discussion has more experience than you, and every single one of them thinks that, even though your goal is laudable and praiseworthy and at least partially shared by everyone here, your approach is not likely to be successful. It is, of course, possible that you know better than any of us and that rushing ahead is a great idea, but I suggest to you that it is unlikely that all of us are wrong in urging caution and small steps.
- If you think you could slow down and get some more experience, and if you're willing to consider doing this over the space of years, then I think we could help set you up for success. For example, if we implemented this idea, that would get about 300 words out of a policy. The next step is to write a good RFC question. If you're interested in this, you could get some practical experience by helping out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't know if you realise it, and I guess you didn't mean it, but the comment has a very strong patronising "you are too young to understand" vibe which I have a hard time shaking off rn.
- I asked you for specific input in opinion and help, and I just think the folks who suggested Nutshell etc. misunderstood my intentions. I apologise if I wasn't clear. My intent is to retain the same scope and level of detail but in fewer words.
- If what you meant is to do it in increments, fine, that's an option, still I'd love some feedback if I fucked up with the text in the first place. That is valuable. I'm open to discuss it one-by-one. I will hear input from people who actually drafted policies. That was what I intended to do anyway. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:30, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
- You've dropped things, rearranged things, and changed things, and I suspect you have done this without knowing what effects any of that will have.
- For example, you've added the word secondary to the WP:GNG, and swapped in a description for the WP:SIGCOV language:
- Original: "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."
- Yours: A topic generally may have a stand-alone article or list when several reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject address the topic directly and in detail, so that editors do not have to resort to original research.
- I've been trying to get a definition of SIGCOV for years (and years), and failing repeatedly because nobody wants to admit how long (or, perhaps more precisely, how low) "in detail" actually is, for fear that some "unworthy" subject might deliberately seek a qualifying level of independent media coverage. The NOR line in the GNG is basically worthless, and AFAICT removing it would have no effect whatsoever on AFD outcomes, but the fear of making changes to such a high-visibility sentence will likely prevent us from fixing that. Your [e] footnote requires a huge amount of work (e.g., primary sources aren't always about events, sources don't have to adhere to the neutral point of view, a smaller number of high-quality sources is not automatically less indicative of notability than a large number of worse sources).
- At the time we started leaning on secondary sources (about 15 years ago), we had a lot of editors who thought that secondary was a fancy way to spell independent. You have added a requirement for secondary sources that does not actually appear in the GNG statement (though it is in the explanations). The GNG offers a conditional rebuttable presumption, which you have turned into a statement of permission (may/are allowed to have...). The GNG says that multiple sources are only "generally expected", rather than required, and you have changed that. Oh, and "several" is often interpreted, at least in American English, as meaning "four" (a=one, a couple=two, a few=three, several=four), whereas the GNG is usually looking for "two".
- Among the things you haven't resolved is whether the sources for an article must be considered in isolation. For example:
- If I have ten brief independent secondary sources, is that multiple+independent+secondary+SIGCOV, or just multiple+independent+secondary and no SIGCOV?
- If I have SIGCOV in a very lengthy, extremely detailed independent primary source, and I have a non-SIGCOV secondary source, does that add up to multiple+independent+SIGCOV+secondary and therefore notability overall, or do I have to get all three key qualities (independent+secondary+SIGCOV) in each source separately?
- There are a few changes you've made that I like (e.g., putting WP:PSTS in WP:RS – I doubt the community will accept it, but it's not unreasonable), but overall I think you don't understand our ruleset well enough to know what changes you're making. Wikipedia:Policy writing is hard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:27, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm gonna try to address your points in a while. Thanks for the feedback, I'm a bit busy rn. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, just so you know, I'm always going to be interested in this. If you want to talk about how to improve our written policies and guidelines, then feel free to drop by User talk:WhatamIdoing and tell me about your ideas. It doesn't matter to me if that's that's next month, or next year, or next decade – I'd be happy to hear your ideas whenever you want to share them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'm gonna try to address your points in a while. Thanks for the feedback, I'm a bit busy rn. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- @Szmenderowiecki, I don't feel like you're hearing what people are telling you, so l'm going to try a completely different, un-Wikipedian way of explaining this, because the previous efforts haven't worked, and maybe this will get your attention. Here's my new way:
- If anything, the project would benefit from more "fresh eyes"—editors with enough experience to speak somewhat intelligently about these issues, but without so much experience that they are heavily invested in the status quo. There is a strong, almost indisputable case that current PAGs are far too convoluted and complex for the project's good. As a practical matter, the core problem is that the self-selected self-governance model, which created the problem, is incapable of addressing it. Resistance is futile; hence my semi-retirement after about ten years of futile resistance. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I would add that it's useful to hear from editors who still remember their first few edits, because a sentence that makes sense to the "old hands" isn't necessarily any good for the majority of editors. An actual majority of editors has made five or fewer edits, total, ever. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- It might be "useful" in supporting the position that
current PAGs are far too convoluted and complex for the project's good
(but I think that's self-evident). As for fixing the problem, not so much. Incremental change is never going to be enough; what's needed is massive overhaul, and that's just not going to happen under the current model. Meanwhile, the current model is sacrosanct. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:45, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- It might be "useful" in supporting the position that
- I would add that it's useful to hear from editors who still remember their first few edits, because a sentence that makes sense to the "old hands" isn't necessarily any good for the majority of editors. An actual majority of editors has made five or fewer edits, total, ever. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
- I'll confess that I rarely look at the written policies & guidelines, & mostly use them as a citation when I need to emphasize a point to another editor. I consider what they say is basic common sense, but I've been around so long that I've probably internalized all of the important points. (This is not to say that the original poster is wasting their time. The written policies & guidelines have been considered a mess for countless years.) -- llywrch (talk) 01:49, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- This is part of the reason why English Wikipedia's guidance is sprawling: a lot of additions get made because a situation arises, some people say "we should have a rule for that", it gets added with a shortcut used for jargon, and editors brandish it in future discussions. As I've written before, it would be better to address problems without creating new specialized rules. But in English Wikipedia's current decision-making environment, there is little appetite to delegate to a working group to more effectively rewrite any pages. Amongst those who like to discuss these matters, there are enough editors who want to be able to weigh in on each sentence that it's hard to modify existing guidance pages, and instead we accrete more. Writing well is hard; writing well in a group is even more so. The irony of a crowd-sourced web site is that crowd-sourcing works best for making incremental changes, but consumes a lot of editor time in discussion for larger-scale changes. Which is why the path of least resistance for modifying guidance pages (and articles too) is to add a few sentences, rather than rework the pages. isaacl (talk) 23:22, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- As a new editor, adopting this would help me contribute more effectively. I would cautiously suggest that it seems like people know too many abbreviations. Support ForksForks (talk) 22:08, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- And we use different WP:UPPERCASE for the same page/section, sometimes resulting in one editor claiming that "WP:PAGE" supports his view and the next saying that "WP:SAMEPAGE" requires the opposite, and neither of them realize that they're talking about the same page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:35, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see any substantive argument that our current P&G structure / the ability for users to peruse it is actually problematic. It should be telling that those editors generally seeing potential in this are relatively new, and those who don't are relatively experienced. That's not (just) survivorship bias, that's experience indicating that what is perceived by some newer editors as a pedagogical issue is (as stated above) actually just the inherent difficulties in learning how to do something conceptually multifaceted and difficult.
- Editing is just hard intellectually and socially, and there's no shortcut to becoming familiar with it to be found in compiling one huge document people will not be able to digest immediately versus having several documents. Remsense ‥ 论 22:18, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with
the inherent difficulties in learning how to do something conceptually multifaceted and difficult
, but I believe there are more effective and efficient ways to communicate the PAGs than our current structure. I also believe it is pretty much impossible to replace the current structure with a more effective one, having seen what it takes to add a sentence to a policy. Schazjmd (talk) 23:32, 26 August 2024 (UTC)- I think there are substantial improvements that can be made throughout each policy, or even refactoring involving multiple policies, but I think on the broadest level the modular P&G structure has no actual downsides—this isn't Justinian's code. Remsense ‥ 论 23:36, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with
- I'm all for condensing our guidance down where possible, but I have to agree with Remsense – I'm not sure the goal should be putting absolutely everything on a single page.
- There are quite a few policies and guidelines which the average editor doesn't really need to understand in detail unless they're editing in the particular area where it applies. For example, you've included our guideline on reliable sources for medical topics in your compilation, but I'd say that's not a guideline every editor needs to know in detail. For the average editor, it's probably enough to know "medical topics have stricter standards on sourcing, and if medical topics ever come up in my editing there's a page out there I can consult for more information". I don't see the benefit in trying to squeeze the details of that guidance onto a single page together with every other policy.
- Sometimes there's a good reason for guidance to be extremely detailed or unusually attentive to particular wording. Our notability guideline for companies comes to mind – it goes over what sourcing does and doesn't demonstrate notability in pretty exhaustive detail. But the details are there for good reason – there's a lot of bad actors out there who manipulate the system for commercial interests, so we need to be unusually strict and explicit about exactly how to determine notability.
- Of course, there's still a lot of cases where these caveats don't apply and we really could condense things down without losing much. My advice would be a more targeted approach: rather than condensing everything at once, work out where the low-hanging fruit is and push for changes there. – Teratix ₵ 13:11, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- This proposal reminds me of Borges. signed, Rosguill talk 13:52, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- Or rather, do you mean, the response to the proposal has reminded you of "On Exactitude in Science"?
- The notion that one condenses a vast network policies to a simplified reference document, a map if you will, is well-founded (and as others have pointed out, a similar concept exists already in explanatory essays WP:Nutshell and WP:SIMPLE). Many objections posted here seem to be that currently the simplified essay does not accurately represent every single paragraph of every single policy accurately.
- Fwiw, I think a complete from-scratch attempt at simplified reference document every few years, to be measured against whatever already exists, is a good thing. As people choose to direct new editors to one version or another, or as new editors opine on one or another, maybe something appears completely superior. Or not -- we have a bunch of independent ways of presenting the basic P&G. Currently you can choose to link from between 5 or more independent general editing tutorial portals for newbies (WP:NEWBIE, Help:Introduction, Wikipedia:GLAM/Beginner's_guide_to_Wikipedia, WP:MAN, etc.).
- An explanatory essay is not new policy, and as long as it is in userspace it does not require consensus. I frankly think some of the behavior so far has been disappointing to the spirit of VP: when someone asks for feedback on a work in progress here, then we should at minimum be constructive. (And to be sure: any feedback with a tldr of "don't do this" or "nobody wants it" or "put your effort somewhere else" is the opposite of constructive.) SamuelRiv (talk) 20:59, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
In the news
[edit]I enjoy reading the news in the "in the news" section of the home page of Wikipedia. It has the kind of hard news I like: tornados, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, etc. from around the world. But new stories don't come out very often. The current "cycling" item is now 10 days old. Can't we get a top story each day? Ifyoucrydon'tlose (talk) 20:06, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- There are some nominations in the queue (see WP:ITNC) but these haven't been posted as they either haven't found to be appropriate topics for ITN to feature, or the article lacks the quality needed to be featured on the main page. As WP is not a newspaper, ITN should not be considered as a news ticket and we don't have an obligation to keep fresh stories there. Of course, more nominations for stories that meet the criteria can always help, but it should be forewarned that there is usually a high bar related to significance of the stories to be posted. — Masem (t) 20:17, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- Discussions at In the news are largely composed of a group of regulars who have their own ideas about what is "significant" enough to be posted to the main page. I largely avoid ITN because my one experience attempting to nominate something there was extremely frustrating and I don't think it's worth wasting my time updating articles with breaking news stories that editors will randomly find "insignificant" for idiosyncratic reasons. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:42, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- I see that "in the news" is not a newspaper and it is not a newspaper ticket. So what is it? Ifyoucrydon'tlose (talk) 23:41, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- Its primary purpose is to point readers to Wikipedia articles that discuss the people, places and events that are in the news. These articles will (ideally) give readers the background information to better contextualize and understand what they read/see in news media. Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- That's a good description and I thank you for that.
- One small note: If you hover over and click on "Ongoing", you can get a list of previous items.
- Same with "Deaths".
- But if you hover over "In the news" you cannot get a list of previous items. Ifyoucrydon'tlose (talk) 10:14, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
- Its primary purpose is to point readers to Wikipedia articles that discuss the people, places and events that are in the news. These articles will (ideally) give readers the background information to better contextualize and understand what they read/see in news media. Blueboar (talk) 12:30, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- The only thing that WP:ITNSIGNIF says is:
Anything else is subject to who shows up. If non-regulars chose to change the outcomes, there is no current guideline-based reason why present trends couldn't change. Until then, what you are seeing is the will of the "regulars". —Bagumba (talk) 10:29, 30 August 2024 (UTC)It is highly subjective whether an event is considered significant enough, and ultimately each event should be discussed on its own merits. The consensus among those discussing the event is all that is necessary to decide if an event is significant enough for posting.
Tags for this (fairly new) WikiProject are being mass-added to practically every article imaginable that is tangentially related to the 2010s — every sporting event in the 2010s; every film, TV show, and video game released in the 2010s; every Super Bowl, solar eclipse, election, notable death, and session of Congress during the 2010s, and so forth. Here's a sampling of the flood of edits that are flooding my watchlist (and likely others). Is this really necessary? To begin with, it's unclear whether a WikiProject should have a scope this large, or if this is attainable (if so, a bot should be assigned to handle mass-tagging). The WikiProject page explicitly states, The WikiProject is and will be involved in thousands of articles.
There's no WikiProject equivalent for other decades or centuries, so we're in uncharted waters. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:01, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- @DukeOfDelTaco: could you please explain your thinking? Other than a discussion a few months ago about the scope of the WikiProject, this WikiProject seems to be inactive. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:11, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- On a related note, we've been talking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Council about the process for creating new WikiProjects. Please join the discussion of you have any ideas about how to support groups of editors without having non-groups (e.g., one editor who hopes that If you build it, they will come) creating and inevitably abandoning a bunch of pages and templates. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:15, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies if my edits have been overbearing or troublesome, I'll make sure to stop with any further edits. To explain my reasoning, I found the concept of a WikiProject with goals like these to be interesting, so I thought it would help to participate by expanding its scope. I understand that there are countless articles that could qualify as relating to the 2010s, but it honestly made the challenge more enticing. Again I apologize for the flood of edits and clogging up your watchlists, I will make sure to end the expansion and mass edits and I wouldn't be opposed if the WikiProject ends up being removed. DukeOfDelTaco (talk) 01:31, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- To be clear, I am not targeting you specifically; you aren't the first and only person to mass-add these tags for WikiProject 2010s, but you are the most recent person to do so. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:55, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- No worries. I think it's laudable to try to resurrect a WikiProject, but tagging random articles probably isn't the best way to do it. The best way to get the project up and running again would be to find some other editors (maybe @TrademarkedTWOrantula, who revamped the 2010s page a few months back) who are willing to help narrow the scope of the project and focus on crafting some initial tasks. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:03, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- I, um, kinda lost interest in the project altogether... sorry, going back to this WikiProject gives me bad memories of who I was back then :( TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 03:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- Well, then ... if the project is inactive, then the tags should definitely not be mass-added to thousands of articles in a bot-like fashion. Even if the project weren't inactive, I still don't think a WikiProject should have a scope this broad. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:08, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- I, um, kinda lost interest in the project altogether... sorry, going back to this WikiProject gives me bad memories of who I was back then :( TWOrantulaTM (enter the web) 03:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
- I think given that it's inactive, and there's no prospect that participants in the project will come to a consensus regarding narrowing its scope, there would need to be some sort of higher level of consensus to deactivate it and avoid having people tag random articles with this WikiProject going forward. On the other hand, as long as mass tagging isn't occurring, I don't really see the harm with tagging this WikiProject inactive and moving on. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:11, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
In regards to plot summary
[edit]Works, from films to books, usually have a "plot" section, detailing its plot. However, I believe that they should be used only if there are reliable, secondary sources that summarize it. Without them, such sections become original research. So, we should make a policy where plot summary sections are only allowed in an article in the presence of reliable sources. 2804:14D:72B3:98F5:0:0:0:1F51 (talk) 19:55, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
- I do not support this. Almost everything we do is summarizing or selecting from other sources. The work we have an article on is a reliable source for its own content. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:58, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
- It's not original research, the work itself is the primary source. This is addressed at MOS:FILMPLOT, WP:PLOTCITE, and MOS:PLOTSOURCE. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
- That. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:30, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not particularly fond of the practice, but it was already embedded in WP when I started editing 19 years ago. Not worth tilting at that windmill. Donald Albury 21:31, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
- It's not original research, the work itself is the primary source. This is addressed at MOS:FILMPLOT, WP:PLOTCITE, and MOS:PLOTSOURCE. InfiniteNexus (talk) 20:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
Formatting of election pages - external links and pseudoheads
[edit]After noticing US election pages having potential issues with WP:LINKFARM/WP:NOTDIR and MOS:PSEUDOHEAD, I crafted some personal WP:AutoWikiBrowser find/replace rules to replace the semicolon pseudoheads with apostrophe-bolded versions and to switch the polling external links to wikilinks with references. I thought my edits were perhaps a bit WP:BOLD, but consistent with policies, provided readers with internal links to learn about the pollsters, and preempted expansion of columns when {{webarchive}} was placed directly into the tables to address dead links. A small subset of recent edits were reverted (e.g., [1]) and my attempt to discuss the issue with the reverting editor was met with my message being blanked from their talk page. I have found no guideline or policy to permit the types of pseuodoheads being used nor to include extensive tables of external links of polls, and this formatting may be more pervasive than I first realized. I had seen some of the election pages tagged with {{External links}} and I have since found that another editor brought up similar concerns about external links on WT:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. The RfC appears to have some support that extensive external linking is contrary to policy, but the discussion had few participants and several suggested to discuss at Village Pump, hence why I'm first posting here. I agree with User:Mikeblas's assessment in the RfC that "No explicit consensus has been discovered here, so the status quo is apparently just replicated behaviour counter to the site's policies." Is there consensus or guidance to allow such formatting of election (or other) pages? Is this the appropriate place to discuss this? Thanks, Ost (talk) 16:40, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- I think there are some issues with that user regarding Ownership of content, WP:COMMUNICATE, and civility. It seems like you're experiencing some of the same issues. There's no telling why your edits were reverted. I think they enhanced the article by replacing raw links to references (particularly to PDF files) and corrected formatting issues. Given the policy-breaking behavior issues, maybe WP:ANI is the next step.
- Issues with link farms in election articles remain. As the article age, the links are rotting often becoming usurped to nefarious purposes. It's not hard to find articles where half of the campaign sites are dead links. I don't think the RfC was ever closed; it was just moved to an archive in the talk page of the project. (It is my first and only RfC, so maybe I was meant to do something differently.) -- mikeblas (talk) 18:47, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- If your good faith edits are being reverted and the editor isn't responding, I agree that AN/I seems to be the next step. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:49, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Mikeblas, official websites that have gone defunct should generally be replaced with an archived copy (if one is available). Compare these:
Joe Cunningham (D) for Congress (archived copy)
Joe Cunningham (D) for Congress Archived April 22, 2019, at the Wayback Machine Archived – we don't add bibliographic information like dates
Joe Cunningham (D) for Congress[dead link] Archived April 22, 2019, at the Wayback Machine Archived – we don't add maintenance templates like {{dead link}}
- WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. But how do you know? I read WP:ELDEAD and it didn't seem to have any specific recommendation other than "dead URLs are of no use". (Well, obviously.) -- mikeblas (talk) 21:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- WP:ELCITE says not to add extraneous information (e.g., archive dates).
- As for how I know, I helped write WP:ELLIST. We talked specifically about the benefits of replacing campaign websites with archived copies. Mass replacement of US election websites, in articles of the "2024 [office] election in [place]" type, on the day after the election, was something we thought would be great. It shouldn't be anything fancy, just a simple link showing the campaign website as it was at the end of the campaign election. (@GreenC, perhaps you'd be interested?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: Bots like WP:IABOT are typically not updating links to the simple archive link; they generally use {{webarchive}} or similar formatting like your second link. I think it would require a change in bot behavior or manual cleanup to change them to the formatting that you indicate is preferred. It would probably also be good to list your examples in a policy or guideline. —Ost (talk) 22:11, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. But how do you know? I read WP:ELDEAD and it didn't seem to have any specific recommendation other than "dead URLs are of no use". (Well, obviously.) -- mikeblas (talk) 21:36, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Mikeblas, official websites that have gone defunct should generally be replaced with an archived copy (if one is available). Compare these:
- If your good faith edits are being reverted and the editor isn't responding, I agree that AN/I seems to be the next step. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:49, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Ost316, does WP:ELLIST answer your questions about external links? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Also, as a general reminder, whenever you have questions about external links, please take them to Wikipedia:External links/Noticeboard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @WhatamIdoing: Thank you for the reminder of that Noticeboard; I was following the suggestions at the RfC and did not consider that location to start the discussion, especially as there was also MOS concerns. However, this discussion can be moved there or split if it is more appropriate. —Ost (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for also pointing out WP:ELLIST, though I don't believe that it answers the question because it states that "This section does not apply if the external link is serving as a citation to a reliable source for a stand-alone list entry that otherwise meets that list's inclusion criteria." That guidance may be valid for a minority of my edits that included links to debates (and I was open to further discussing those links and changing my edits), but the vast majority of the links are to polls which appear to be verifying the information in the table (i.e., serving as a citation). To me, the guidance also isn't clear on when it is permissible to include a list or table external links; it explains how they can be formatted and gives examples of political candidates, software, and websites, but it does not explain what makes a list acceptable to contain a links for entries (although the websites one may be self-evident). I don't think that most lists of movies, for instance, contain lists to the official websites for the movies. —Ost (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- @Ost316, keep reading that section until you get to the last paragraph:
- In some cases, these links may serve as both official links and as inline citations to primary sources. In the case of elections or other one-time events, it may be desirable to replace the original links with links to archived copies when the event is over.
- Polls should be formatted with
<ref>...</ref>
tags (or whatever system is used in that article, e.g., {{sfn}}). - If you look in 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in South Carolina#Results, you see this table:
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Republican | Nancy Mace | 216,042 | 50.6 | |||
Democratic | Joe Cunningham (incumbent) | 210,627 | 49.3 | |||
Write-in | 442 | 0.1 | ||||
Total votes | 427,111 | 100.0 | ||||
Republican gain from Democratic |
- and if you look in 2020 United States House of Representatives elections in South Carolina#External links you see this list:
- Official campaign websites for 1st district candidates
- Joe Cunningham (D) for Congress[dead link] Archived April 22, 2019, at the Wayback Machine Archived
- Nancy Mace (R) for Congress Archived
- What we recommend with ELLIST is that these be combined, e.g., through the addition of a column in the middle of the table adds something like "Official website" or "Campaign website" or even just [2]. Then most of the ==External links== section can be removed. After the election, a link to "ElectAlice2024.com" can be replaced with a simple archive link.
- I add that we assumed that, for most articles, only the official websites for the main candidates would be appropriate, but there is no actual rule prohibiting editors from using their judgement to include more, if they really believe that would constitute an improvement for the article. I mention this because every country is a bit different, and we did not want to make a one-size-fits-all rule for such a diverse system. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
- Linking to archived copies of campaign websites for long-past elections (as opposed to live campaign websites in current elections) makes them essentially a historical primary document, appropriate for a bibliographic-style entry in a Further Reading section.
- If it is the case, as others are implying, that every modern election page should have the archived campaign websites of all candidates linked, then perhaps a specific repeatable template should be used for that, such as within an infobox. But that should have some sense to it, and not just be fit into columns of whatever table is available. SamuelRiv (talk) 07:21, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- When the page has many WP:ELOFFICIAL links (e.g., defunct campaign websites), then it's more sensible to put them in a list with the candidates' names, instead of duplicating the list. The options are fundamentally like this:
WP:ELLIST recommendation | Duplicative separate lists |
---|---|
Candidates
|
Candidates
Further reading
|
- I prefer the non-duplicative list, and the longer the list of official links gets, the more I prefer it. How about you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for all your insight and explanations. I especially appreciate that polls should use the pages' referencing format, but the clarity over other ELLIST recommendations are also very good to know and understand. —Ost (talk) 18:21, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- I prefer the non-duplicative list, and the longer the list of official links gets, the more I prefer it. How about you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:45, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
References
- ^ "2020 Statewide General Election Night Reporting - Results". South Carolina Election Commission. November 10, 2020. Retrieved November 11, 2020.
Should we stop using Wayback Machine and Internet Archive?
[edit]The following is copy-pasted from Wikipedia:Teahouse#Should we stop using Wayback Machine and Internet Archive?:
- What about U.S. government web pages, or other public domain content? Ss0jse (talk) 21:51, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- I mean, what about using Wayback Machine archives of U.S. government web pages or of other public domain content? Ss0jse (talk) 21:52, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- A question on changing policies would be more suitable for policy over at the Village Pump, but I see no reason for this to have any effect on us here whatsoever. The case here was very specifically about controlled digital lending. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 22:23, 5 September 2024 (UTC)
- Okay. Ss0jse (talk) 14:54, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
No. This judgement is completely irrelevant to the Wayback Machine, and not significant for any of the other ways we use the Internet Archive. In practice all that it will mean is that a small number of links in references/external links to books in their library might be broken. In the case of external links we'll just remove them if there is no other copy available. In the case of references then it doesn't affect the content at all, it just becomes slightly harder (but not impossible) to verify - we cite offline references all the time, and they are even explicitly allowed by policy. Thryduulf (talk) 15:14, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- +1 This is a legal determination for the WMF Office to make. This is not legal advice, but I agree with Thryduulf's reading of the case. As an aside, I'm not hopeful SCOTUS will take this case up. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:43, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- This has some slight relevence, at least to the degree that we cannot trust IA's own evaluation of the legality of their efforts (although that has been true for a while.)
- One thing we should consider doing is altering the reference templates so that the Archived link only appears if the url-status is set to "dead". It seems to my not-a-lawyerly eyes to strain fair use claims when we are giving people that link to serve as a way around a paywall for commercially available copyrighted material.
- Wikipedia for too long has treated IA as a sole good, without concern to copyright statuses, nor to the fact that they have been paying editors to skew Wikipedia toward them, in part to encourage used book sales. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:57, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
This has some slight relevence, at least to the degree that we cannot trust IA's own evaluation of the legality of their efforts ...
The issue in this case was one of first impression and IA had a lot of amici briefs filed in support of their legal position, including the Wikimedia Foundation.- In any event, this case is solely related to IA's digital book lending program, and the court will likely order IA to remove the offending books. Wayback has been around for a long time and as far as I know none of the big media orgs have ever sued over it or indicated that they will sue over it. It's premature to start deprecating Wayback links or limiting their use. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:14, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- So should we rewrite WP:COPYVIOEL to say it's a-okay to be linking to sites that violate the copyrights of others, so long as they have not yet been specifically sued for the copyright violation we are linking to? IA is a confirmed piracy site, it just seems to be the one we pretend is okay because they put "Archive" in their name. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:44, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Confirmed piracy according to whom? The US copyvio suit was resolved with a negotiated judgement, and there's an injunction on them lending these classes of books. Violating the injunction results in strictly defined penalties. If believe they are violating the injunction, you may wish to contact the parties' counsel to confirm -- I'd guess that'd be a faster and more reliable confirmation of copyvio than WMF counsel, since the original parties are motivated financially to enforce each potential violation.
- With the injunction, we can be reasonably sure that book-lending that was considered to violate copyright in this judgement has all been removed. Furthermore, linking to the book does not violate copyright nor can it reasonably be considered to facilitate violating copyright (certainly now). The IA's action that was violating copyright in the NEL was controlled digital lending, which usually requires some kind of login to the site, and regardless can be (and is) deactivated site-wide. The NEL is gone, and our existing NEL book links should be fine as long as they continue go to some bibliographic info and are not otherwise broken.
- Furthermore, even if IA admitted that its NEL was a "confirmed piracy site" or piracy operation (which they didn't, and keep in mind IA has not been charged criminally unlike something like megaupload), it does not make sources outside the NEL part of that operation (the scope of the lawsuit is only NEL book lending). SamuelRiv (talk) 18:06, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- According to both the court decision that their use was not fair use, and the appeals court confirmation.
- With the injunction, I can confirm for you that they are still offering unauthorized electronic editions to which I own the copyright, so no, we cannot reasonably assume that the problem has been addressed.
- The fact that IA hasn't admitted themselves to what they did does not obviate the rulings, nor should our standard be "avoid linking only to sites that have announced themselves to be pirates, yar har har." The idea that we should assume that even on a site that has already had identified piracy, we should assume that all their other files are okay is ludicrous. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:53, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If your copyrighted materials are not now or were being offered in context of the NEL or controlled digital lending, then the case this past month has no relevance to you. If you have a direct copyright violation complaint, US law allows you to request removal from host websites, and you can see IA's procedure for it. Every major content-hosting site has DMCA takedown procedures, and every such site has had copyright-violating material be struck, legitimately, after such procedures were followed per applicable law. Such procedures, followed with such violating content, do not make such sites (like Youtube, Twitter, etc.) a "confirmed piracy site" in any meaningful manner. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:27, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I know that the pirate site has a set of hoops they've put up in order to request that they stop one little piece of their piracy, and I've also seen them ignore that before. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If they ignored your request to remove your copyrighted content, then speak to a lawyer, because you can cash in. But if this thread is no longer about NEL content then I don't think there's anything to discuss. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:45, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, I know that the pirate site has a set of hoops they've put up in order to request that they stop one little piece of their piracy, and I've also seen them ignore that before. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Are you or your publisher a plaintiff in the suit? If not, the injunction doesn't cover your works. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:34, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Also, if IA were a piracy site, they would just move their servers to a country where they didn't have to listen to the US courts. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:36, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- But the copyright laws do themselves cover my works. If we want to remove all restriction from directing people to pirate sites, we should say so up front. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:53, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Nobody is proposing removing all restrictions regarding pirate sites, but nobody, including you, has provided any evidence that IA is a pirate site. Thryduulf (talk) 21:00, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If large groups of rightsholders suing them, and multiple court rulings against IA is not sufficient for you, here is them offering an electronic edition of a book that I hold the compilation copyright as well as publishing rights on, my name is right there on the cover, and I am telling you that I have not licensed them nor anyone else to create an electronic edition of that book. I've seen a lot of links deleted for WP:COPYVIOEL before, and I have trouble thinking of any for which the evidence was greater than court rulings and copyright holders objections. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:11, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If you're a publisher you should be aware of, or have counsel to advise you on, the relevant laws in your jurisdiction on libraries, inter-library loans of ebooks, and something if you are a member of a class settlement (or else whether you are covered by the AAP). Wikipedia talk pages are not the place to seek legal relief. (Comic relief, on the other hand, ...) SamuelRiv (talk) 00:01, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- If large groups of rightsholders suing them, and multiple court rulings against IA is not sufficient for you, here is them offering an electronic edition of a book that I hold the compilation copyright as well as publishing rights on, my name is right there on the cover, and I am telling you that I have not licensed them nor anyone else to create an electronic edition of that book. I've seen a lot of links deleted for WP:COPYVIOEL before, and I have trouble thinking of any for which the evidence was greater than court rulings and copyright holders objections. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:11, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Nobody is proposing removing all restrictions regarding pirate sites, but nobody, including you, has provided any evidence that IA is a pirate site. Thryduulf (talk) 21:00, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If your copyrighted materials are not now or were being offered in context of the NEL or controlled digital lending, then the case this past month has no relevance to you. If you have a direct copyright violation complaint, US law allows you to request removal from host websites, and you can see IA's procedure for it. Every major content-hosting site has DMCA takedown procedures, and every such site has had copyright-violating material be struck, legitimately, after such procedures were followed per applicable law. Such procedures, followed with such violating content, do not make such sites (like Youtube, Twitter, etc.) a "confirmed piracy site" in any meaningful manner. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:27, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- So should we rewrite WP:COPYVIOEL to say it's a-okay to be linking to sites that violate the copyrights of others, so long as they have not yet been specifically sued for the copyright violation we are linking to? IA is a confirmed piracy site, it just seems to be the one we pretend is okay because they put "Archive" in their name. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:44, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- No. (Put aside that the proposition as worded fundamentally breaks WP itself.) The negotiated settlement has been in force for nearly a month now, with an injunction on the books at issue (which is a small subset of the total books that IA has available.) Furthermore, in my editing here, I have seen a full book-edition-in-copyright linked on IA library as a reference maybe... a couple times at most? The vast majority is non-lending books out of copyright and/or out of print. That is reinforced by how citations work in WP, and how our citation template works, passively encouraging more openly accessible means of verification (e.g. searchable passages of books as opposed to limited-time lending of entire books). SamuelRiv (talk) 16:33, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Not at all, per all of the above. Cheers! BD2412 T 17:04, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Internet Archive has been in compliance with the lower courts injunction and settlement for quite a while. See "What the Hachette v. Internet Archive Decision Means for Our Library" (Aug 2023) for the archive's official statement. -- GreenC 18:52, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- GreenC is a paid agent of the Internet Archive, something which he should probably raise whenever he journeys into conversations like this. (It can be verified down at the bottom of his user page.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- That does not alter the factuality of his comment in any way. Thryduulf (talk) 19:13, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- The factuality of his statement (to whatever degree it has; it's not something they're backing up with a reliable third-party source) does not obviate that they are a paid agent of the organization and should identify themself as such in such a discussion. As you have a conflict of interest, you must ensure everyone with whom you interact is aware of your paid status, in all discussions on Wikipedia pages within any namespace. (WP:UPE) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:01, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- And you're a writer and a publisher, as stated on your user page, so you're not neutral on this topic either. Anomie⚔ 03:45, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- That does not alter the factuality of his comment in any way. Thryduulf (talk) 19:13, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- GreenC is a paid agent of the Internet Archive, something which he should probably raise whenever he journeys into conversations like this. (It can be verified down at the bottom of his user page.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Not our job to make an such a determination. If the office wants to tell us to not use IA, they can do so.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:14, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If and when "the office" tells us that, how will I find out? Ss0jse (talk) 23:23, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- In the extremely unlikely event that the WMF office decided to ban the use of the Wayback Machine, there would be:
- If and when "the office" tells us that, how will I find out? Ss0jse (talk) 23:23, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Outrage
- Panic
- Riots
- ???
- PROFIT
- voorts (talk/contributions) 23:31, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If the office (see WP:OFFICE) decided to ban linking to a site (regardless of which site and why) they would communicate that to us officially by posting on Meta (as I can't imagine such a ban applying to only one project) and cross-post it to various places on large projects. Editors would then disseminate that message elsewhere - you can guarantee that someone (whether the WMF or an editor) would post it to WP:AN for example. If the site is notable then it wont take long before the article is updated to reflect the ban and you'll see the decision discussed in countless internet forums and probably news publications too. Thryduulf (talk) 00:14, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- Note that books listed as "borrow unavailable" to the public are still permitted if the user suffers from a visual impairment that necessitates access to digital copies. See https://archive.org/details/printdisabled&tab=about?tab=about. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:12, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- That's under a long-standing exception in U.S. copyright law for providing accessible copies of works to blind, visually impaired, and print-disabled readers. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:20, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Agree with Thrydulf's assessment here. Wayback (normal archiving of URLs) isn't touched by this, and this only makes book copies on Internet Archive in question, which I've always felt was going to be a problem. Masem (t) 00:10, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
CSD X4 criterion proposal
[edit]Per WP:NSPORTS2022 Proposal 5 and the subsequent update to WP:SPORTSCRIT, there is consensus that sports biographies are not subject to WP:NEXIST and are automatically subject to deletion if they do not contain at least one source demonstrating significant coverage in the article. To this point, cleanup has been slow as a courtesy to AfD. I propose CSD X4 so the articles can be addressed without causing a significant backlog. X4 would only apply if there is unambiguously no source to demonstrate significant coverage in the article, meaning borderline sigcov would still need to go through AfD or PROD. Articles sourced entirely to databases or passing mentions would qualify for X4 deletion. X4 would be an alternative to mass AfD nominations, which will be the likely outcome if no action is taken. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:24, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- I don't read the close of NSPORTS2022 as saying that such articles must be deleted, but rather that for an article to be created it must have at least one source with SIGCOV. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:32, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- A bit odd that this isn't at WT:CSD and that WT:CSD wasn't notified. I went ahead and notified them. –Novem Linguae (talk) 21:49, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you! I considered this the most "central" location and went to notify other places, but I got distracted after adding it to COIN. I have no objections if anyone thinks this should be moved to WT:CSD. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:51, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Firstly new CSD criteria should be proposed at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion (I'll notify them for you) and should demonstrate that they meet all four requirements listed at WP:NEWCSD. My first impression is that this would fail at least point 1 (objective) because what coverage counts as "significant" is subjective and whether coverage meets that standard is frequently a matter of disagreement at AfD. AIUI there is also frequent disagreement about what counts as a database and whether database entries are always non-trivial coverage. Thryduulf (talk) 21:52, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Edit: I won't notify WT:CSD as Novem Linguae did that while I was typing! Thryduulf (talk) 21:53, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Speedy deletions are for situations where the deletion criterion is clear and the deletion of articles meeting that criterion is uncontroversial. Past discussions of sports stubs have made it obvious that both of these conditions are not met here. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Given the above feedback, I suppose we can close this as WP:SNOW and I can just start submitting AfDs as needed? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:58, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- You can also use PROD. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- I regularly see athlete articles prodded, in the list at WP:PRODSUM, often in large batches. I haven't been keeping track of how successful the prods are but I think it's a good thing to try first before resorting to an AfD. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:08, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- All right, thank you. I do feel a little silly now that the points above have been raised. I'm just working through the NPP backlog right now and trying to find some sort of way to make it more efficient when sorting the good from the bad. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:10, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If it's for NPP, the other possibility for handling undersourced articles is draftification. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:13, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- Yes but hopefully not as a way for backdoor deletion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:18, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- If your goal is efficiency or a minimum of drama, I think that you should not try to delete any "borderline" cases. Using WP:PROD on egregious examples, with a good explanation and a link to the requirements, isn't likely to earn you many wiki-enemies. However, trying to remove (by any means: AFD, PROD, Draft:, etc.) any subject for which SIGCOV is perhaps a matter of judgement is not likely to win friends and influence people. In particular, I suggest turning a blind eye towards any subject that someone could claim as SIGCOV under WP:100WORDS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
- If it's for NPP, the other possibility for handling undersourced articles is draftification. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:13, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- All right, thank you. I do feel a little silly now that the points above have been raised. I'm just working through the NPP backlog right now and trying to find some sort of way to make it more efficient when sorting the good from the bad. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:10, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- I regularly see athlete articles prodded, in the list at WP:PRODSUM, often in large batches. I haven't been keeping track of how successful the prods are but I think it's a good thing to try first before resorting to an AfD. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:08, 6 September 2024 (UTC)
- You can also use PROD. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:03, 6 September 2024 (UTC)