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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (idea lab). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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Ready for the mainspace

I'm here to solicit opinions about what it means for an article to be "ready for the mainspace". This phrase has turned up in hundreds of AFDs during recent years. Here's the story:

You are looking at an article. You have determined that the subject is notable, and that none of the Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion apply to the article. Another editor says to you: "I don't think that article is ready for the mainspace".

What would you guess that the editor means? Is that consistent with our rules, such as the WP:NEXIST guideline or the WP:IMPERFECT policy? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Personally, and this is just my own opinion here, I find this "ready for the mainspace" thing a little ambiguous. As you said, as long as WP:GNG is met, an article that is properly sourced (or at least whose topic does) deserves to be in the mainspace. Not all articles are perfect, and by having an article in the mainspace, more people will see it and improve it, which is exactly the purpose of Wikipedia. It's a work in progress! Cocobb8 (💬 talk • ✏️ contribs) 19:45, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
I think it's a little ambiguous, too, which is why I'm asking. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
However, WP:DRAFTIFY clearly states that the aim of moving an article to draft is to allow time and space for the draft's improvement until it is ready for mainspace, so maybe a change to that guideline could be required to make it clearer? Cocobb8 (💬 talk • ✏️ contribs) 20:17, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
If we can figure out what it means, that might be helpful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
I would generally interpret it as "WP:N has not been shown." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:53, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Then what about you have determined that the subject is notable per @WhatamIdoing's original comment? Cocobb8 (💬 talk • ✏️ contribs) 20:02, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
If I couldn't see for myself why the other editor would say that, I'd ask. For myself, I could see saying "not ready for mainspace" for something so poorly or inappropriately written that it does a disservice to the topic and the reader (although I'd probably say specifically what my concern was). Schazjmd (talk) 20:12, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Drafts#During new page review says that it's enough that the topic is plausibly notable to draftify. An unsourced article with a claim of significance (or notability) could fit this description, not being eligible for WP:A7 but still not meeting the referencing standards for mainspace. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:34, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion, if the article draft meets all of the following it's ready for mainspace:
  • Is not being discussed at XfD
  • Would not meet a speedy deletion criterion in article space
  • Has no identified copyright, BLP, etc issues
  • Has sufficient sources to demonstrate notability
  • Has been at least minimally proof-read (perfection is not required, basic readability is).
  • Has no in-line editing notes ("need to reword this", "add more info here", etc) (excluding templates and hidden comments).
  • Has no obviously broken templates (if you don't know how to fix it, ask for help before moving). Thryduulf (talk) 21:22, 28 May 2024 (UTC) ("article" changed to "draft" for clarity Thryduulf (talk) 23:20, 28 May 2024 (UTC))
I'm not sure why you're asking in this venue. The only way to know is to ask the editor making the statement what they meant. Even if it could be done, I don't think it will be helpful to try to establish a common interpretation. Editors should be specific about their concerns. isaacl (talk) 22:15, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
It's difficult to ask hundreds of editors. Also, if everyone has their own ideas, then the phrase becomes useless. We might as well just say WP:IDONTLIKEIT in that case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:29, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
The phrase is useless on its own, as it's not specific. It sounds more like you want to revisit the criteria for deleting an article, to examine what should be considered showstopping shortcomings. Commenters in deletion discussions should be encouraged to list those shortcomings. They can optionally add that as a result, the article isn't ready for the mainspace. isaacl (talk) 22:48, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
I do not want to revisit the criteria for deleting an article. Also, if you take a look, this phrase frequently is given as a reason for not deleting the articles (but instead moving them to Draft: or User: space).
Consider Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Deletion of drafts: "If an article isn't ready for the main namespace, it can be moved to the draft namespace". Commenters in deletion discussions can listed specific shortcomings, but the deletion policy itself can't. Is this a matter of pure consensus, in which case it's nearly indistinguishable from IDONTLIKEIT (which sounds worse than it probably would be in practice)? Does it mean, e.g., what @Thryduulf said about "Has sufficient sources to demonstrate notability", in which case WP:NEXIST is no longer valid? Would a visibly broken template count as the sort of IMPERFECT thing that the deletion policy won't countenance? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
To be clear, my criteria are for moving a page from draft space to article space, not for moving a page in the other direction (where such issues as broken templates should simply be fixed). Thryduulf (talk) 23:18, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
Articles don't avoid deletion to be moved to draftspace simply because they're not ready for mainspace by someone's measure, but because someone thinks there's promise to demonstrate that the topic meets English Wikipedia's standard for having an article. There's no point in trying to retroactively figure out what others have meant by a non-specific phrase they used in the past. Moving forward, users should be asked to provide specific details, assuming that it's not already clear from context what shortcomings are being considered.
Regarding the quote from the deletion policy, I agree that ideally it wouldn't use a vague phrase. I appreciate, though, that the sentence is trying to be a placeholder to cover any scenario where the participants in a deletion discussion agreed that the best course of action was to move the article to the draft namespace. It's essentially tautological. isaacl (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
If it means "by consensus at AFD", then it should say that. We could change the deletion policy to say that.
In re no point in trying to retroactively figure out what others have meant by a non-specific phrase they used in the past, I don't agree. This phrase seems to mean something to people. You are the only editor who thinks that understanding what we want to communicate (in about a thousand AFDs, in the deletion policy, twice in Wikipedia:Drafts, in more than forty thousand pages all told). When a bit of wiki-jargon has been used tens of thousands(!) of times, I don't think that figuring out what we mean, and whether we all mean the same thing, is pointless. If it doesn't interest you, then that's fine, but please don't tell other editors that what they've been saying is meaningless.
Also, I suspect that in a substantial fraction of cases, "not ready for mainspace by someone's personal standards" is exactly what is meant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
To clarify, I mean from my view, there's no point in trying to guess at the meaning in a village pump thread. If we're serious about trying to figure it out, we should be systematic: take a sampling and ask the editors in question if they're still around. We can also analyze the discussion threads to see if there is enough context to understand. isaacl (talk) 05:05, 29 May 2024 (UTC)
This phrase is used in WP:DELPOL and WP:DRAFTIFY. The village pump is the normal place to discuss confusion that affects multiple policy/guideline/help/etc. pages.
But I'm no longer hopeful that we can have that discussion. If you look at this thread, five editors thought they had something useful to contribute. Then you started posting that you thought it was not helpful to figure out what editors mean, that it's useless, that there's no point – and nobody else has shared their thoughts since. I think you have effectively discouraged editors from sharing their their views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 31 May 2024 (UTC)
The main thing that it means to me is that most claims in the article are sourced, and that they're sourced to enough separate reliable sources to establish notability by just reading the references. Many topics are notable in the sense that sources exist out there somewhere, but implicit in the notability guideline is that the reason we're looking to establish there exist such-and-such many reliable sources about a topic is to use those sources to write the article. Any article that does not actually do this is half-baked. Loki (talk) 04:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
@LokiTheLiar, how many existing articles do you think meet the standard of "most claims in the article are sourced"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm aware that there's lots of bad articles out there, if that's what you're asking. I'd still say that the majority of articles meet that standard, and that the overwhelming majority of traffic to Wikipedia is to articles that meet that standard.
Like, compare naked butler, which doesn't meet the standard I've set here, to complaint tablet to Ea-nasir, which does. They're both small articles on obscure subjects but the complaint tablet one is totally fine. Loki (talk) 22:12, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
I believe that the complaint tablet has about five times as many sentences as the median article and about ten times as many sources. So if that's the standard, we'd probably be deleting about 90% of current articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:19, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
To put it another way: The median article is a stub. You have given a C-class article as an example that should be considered a "small article". A quick look at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Statistics suggests that my off-the-cuff 90% estimate is correct. Only about 10% of articles (excluding lists, dab pages, etc.) rate as C-class or higher. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
Stub class articles don't necessarily violate this standard. So for instance, I just found a list of stubs and clicked randomly and found Ty Barnett, which clearly meets my standard. Or have Fred Baxter or William Beavers, literally the next two articles I clicked on. All stubs of obscure people, all definitely meet the standard I laid out. Loki (talk) 04:31, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
  • ORES says the first is Start-class. I think editors might have different opinions about whether it's a long stub vs a short Start, but at 200 words/10 sentences long, it is at minimum on the long side for a stub.
  • The second is a four-sentence, four-source stub, which might put it around the median article for length, but I think it is above average for sourcing.
  • The third is also Start-class. It has 2750 bytes of readable prose and 450 words. This is about twice the length of the maximum described in Wikipedia:Stub#How big is too big? The stub tag was removed from the article during an expansion in 2006. I have corrected the WP:1.0 rating on its talk page.
Looking at Fred Baxter (the second one), would you feel the same way if it had only three sentences and three sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:16, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes. I don't care about length at all. Loki (talk) 13:44, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Are you interested in the number of sources, or the percentage of sentences with inline citations? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
Number of sources only has to be enough to meet the notability guideline. Otherwise it's fraction of claims that need to be sourced that aren't. Loki (talk) 23:39, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:NEXIST says that the number of citations required to meet the notability guideline is zero. (Per that long-standing guideline, the sources have to exist in the real world, but they don't have to be cited in the article.) There are no claims in User:WhatamIdoing/Christmas candy that need to be sourced (nothing about BLPs, nothing WP:LIKELY, etc.). Is that "ready for the mainspace" in your opinion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:51, 2 June 2024 (UTC)
In my opinion, that article isn't 'ready for mainspace' because it is unreferenced. Cremastra (talk) 00:51, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I realize that the notability guideline itself says that the sources just have to exist somewhere, and not be actually present in the article. However, it's pretty clear that the reason the notability guideline says the sources have to exist somewhere is so they can be used to write the article.
My big problem with the example article you linked is that it's not clear that "Christmas candy" is a notable subject separate from specific types of Christmas candy. I also think some of the list of examples is more WP:LIKELY to be challenged than you think. I think that for instance someone who did not know what a szaloncukor was is very likely to start out doubtful that it is Christmas candy. Loki (talk) 02:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
Do you really think I needed to consult sources to write that "Christmas candy is candy associated with the Christmas holiday season. Candy canes are one type of Christmas candy"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
No, but someone who doesn't celebrate Christmas and has lived in a Hindu/Buddhist/Muslim-majority country all their life might need to. WP:V still stands, whether you like or not. Cremastra (talk) 12:05, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:V says that it must be possible to find sources (e.g., at a library). It does not say that sources must be cited in the article, except four types of material, none of which are in this article. WP:V is not violated by having those two sentences uncited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
I would guess the editor means:
  • The article is completely unreferenced, and/or many of the claims are factually dubious
  • The article is written in English, but is barely coherent. It can be understood, so isn't gibberish, but is an embarrassment and not very helpful.
  • The article is blatantly and overtly promotional
Cremastra (talk) 20:30, 1 June 2024 (UTC)
I could also interpret "not ready for mainspace" to include glaring MOS or technical issues, like:
  • templates outputting nothing but error messages
  • external links peppering article prose
  • infobox with default values for parameters
  • entirely empty sections
  • no subheadings whatsoever, just a giant chunk of text
  • unintentional blockquotes from starting a paragraph with whitespace
  • other Wikipedia pages incorrectly formatted as references instead of internal links
  • etc
Folly Mox (talk) 14:22, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

First, to emphasize the obvious, "ready for mainspace" is a vague subjective term. Probably the only more objective term that could fall under that is "allowed to exist in mainspace" and the most universal standard for that is "likely to survive a reasonably well run AFD". And for an article (NOT article content) NPP and AFC passage ostensibly follow that. Which in turn (presuming no eggregious speedy or wp:not violations) the main criteria ends up being passing wp:notability. Many people (e.g. at AFC, during mentoring, and in this thread) set a higher standard for "ready for mainspace" which is that the content of the article and the article does not have any significant problems or shortcomings. Yes, this is a double standard, and can make AFC a somewhat rough and arbitrary path. But we need to recognize that it is only human by the person reviewing it. If somebody took an article to you that was allowed to exist in mainspace (usually a wp:notability decision on the topic) but which was in really bad or undeveloped shape, would you be willing to bless putting it into mainspace? Most people would want it to meet a higher quality standard before they would personally say "ready for mainspace". North8000 (talk) 19:21, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

  • If I'm not mistaken the "not ready for mainspace" phrase originated in WP:DRAFTIFY and has since leaked into deletion discussions. As everyone here seems to agree, it is very poorly defined phrase and, far from the low bars proposed above, I've seen new page and AfC reviewers invoke it for things like a draft not being long enough or using plain text references instead of {{cite}} templates. Rather than trying to define it, I think we should purge it from guidelines and templates in favour of listing specific problems in an understandable way. – Joe (talk) 12:35, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
    Rather than trying to define it, I think we should purge it from guidelines and templates in favour of listing specific problems in an understandable way. I agree with this. U ideally we would not move something out of mainspace or disallow moving it into mainspace unless there are problems that are all of specifically identified, actionable, adversely detrimental* and not trivially fixable (anything that is trivially fixable should just be fixed). *"adversely detrimental" means things like failed verification or no evidence of notability, not merely lacking inline sources, cite templates or being "too short". Thryduulf (talk) 12:44, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
    I suppose we could try to re-define it as "does not qualify for deletion" (either CSD or AFD), but (a) it'd take a couple years for the usage to shift and (b) there is a strong demand from a minority of the community to have ways to get rid of "ugly" (i.e., short) articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
    Following up on what @Joe Roe said about DRAFTIFY, I find this in that page:
    2a. The page is obviously unready for mainspace, for example:
    2a-i. is not a reasonable WP:STUB (e.g. has very little verifiable information, or is interchangeable with a short dictionary entry, but the definition is not good);
    2a-ii. or it would have very little chance of survival at AfD;
    2a-iii. or it meets any speedy deletion criterion.
    This was introduced by SmokeyJoe as a result of his proposal at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Archive 5#Clarification and guidance for draftification. (The original proposal was that "unready for mainspace" mean "It does not meet WP:STUB.")
    This suggests that the definition of "not ready for the mainspace" is:
    • a very short stub, containing either a bad dictionary definition or very little information in general;
    • the article is not ready because the subject is non-notable; or
    • the article qualifies for speedy deletion.
    Based on this, I suspect that the definition could be reduced to "contains less than about 20 words of encyclopedic content", because a look at Wiktionary suggests that the mode for dictionary definition length is a mere four words, and 20 words would give you one long sentence or several shorter ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
    A stub should be defined at WP:STUB, not at WP:Drafts.
    A stub is a very short article that is accepted in mainspace, despite not meeting other inclusion guildelines. They seem to be inherently acceptable topics, like natural species, capable of expansion. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:05, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
    Per WP:STUB, a stub is any short article. Generally, it is taken to be less than about 250 words/10 sentences. There are no minimum requirements in WP:STUB. Cancer is a disease – a mere four words with no sources and no other content – would be a valid stub per WP:STUB.
    WP:IDEALSTUB (perhaps that's what you had in mind?) recommends adding "enough information for other editors to expand upon it" and to avoid a {{db-nocontext}} deletion. Cancer is a disease is realistically enough to fulfill that recommendation.
    IDEALSTUB also recommends that you "try to expand upon this basic definition", so we could add something like Sometimes people die from it or It is mostly treated with surgery or drugs.
    Finally, IDEALSTUB recommends citing a source (though our policies only require this for BLPs, not for articles about diseases), so we could add a link to https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/ or some similar website.
    I don't know what you mean by "despite not meeting other inclusion guildelines". The inclusion guidelines are at Wikipedia:Notability and its friends, and none of them require any length or particular content in the articles. Cancer is a disease, unsourced, with nothing else, meets the inclusion guidelines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:24, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
    You’re referring to the sourcing requirement speaking to sources that exist, not sources currently listed. Ok, yes you are right. SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:56, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
    @SmokeyJoe, I wonder whether this list of "three" items could be shortened to two:
    • The subject is non-notable (in which case, you should usually send it to AFD instead of Draft:)
    • The article qualifies for speedy deletion (on any grounds, but particularly for {{db-nocontext}}).
    The example of "has very little verifiable information, or is interchangeable with a short dictionary entry, but the definition is not good)" is redundant with {{db-nocontext}}. But perhaps there is a different example of "not a reasonable WP:STUB" that should be retained? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
    Three is a pleasing number.
    Lists of two encourage binary thinking. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:17, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
    Sure, a great many things could be.
    I wonder whether it’s actually not a good thing to attempt to tidy up definitions of edge cases. Edge cases are messy, subjective, and cause emotional disputes. Mistakenly precise language can make this worse, setting up a conflict between rules oriented wikilawyers and new content creatives.
    Where are the actual problems that you are trying to solve? SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:08, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
    The problem I need to solve is: People use the same words to mean different things, which results in (preventable) confusion.
    The problem I want to solve is: People have significantly different ideas of what the minimum acceptable amount/type of content for an article is, which results in some preventable disputes (and some non-preventable disputes).
    For example, one editor looks at an article and says "Wow, ten sentences, nicely written, I understand what the subject is, and it's even kind of a cool subject. It's WP:NOTFINISHED, but readers will be happy if they run across it, especially if they only need basic information (which is usually the case)."
    Another editor looks at the same article and says "It's soooo embarrassing! WP:ITSUNREFERENCED so the whole thing might be made-up nonsense, and readers hate uncited articles. There's been WP:NOEFFORT to improve it. WP:WEDONTNEEDIT, and we do need to hide that WP:Garbage to protect our reputation. There's no chance of it getting deleted at AFD, but it's obviously not ready for the mainspace!"
    Some divergence is a desirable thing, but there's very little overlap between those two positions. If we're going to function well, we need to have most of us mostly agree on what the minimum requirements are for something being "ready for the mainspace".
    If "ready for the mainspace" is even a soft requirement, then we need to have a shared understanding of what that means, and it needs to be the same for both going into and getting back out of the Draft: space. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:16, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree with WAID that there is a real problem here. If you read the subpoints of WP:DRAFTIFY#During new page review, then it's clear that obviously unready for mainspace is intended to refer to a fairly narrow set of seriously problematic articles: something less than a stub, deletion almost certain, etc. But divorced from that context, "not ready for mainspace" admits a much wider range of understandings, as we've seen above. For example, the draftify script leaves the canned edit summary Not ready for mainspace, incubate in draftspace followed by a selection of prespecified reasons why the article is not ready, which include things like it needs more sources to establish notability and it has too many problems of language or grammar – a far cry from very little chance of survival at AfD. A similar message is given to the creator the explain what happened to the article. If you look at the logs, the vast majority of moves to draft use one of these canned reasons: people take their cues on what they should and shouldn't do from the UI in front of them, not the guideline. Taken out of the guideline and into scripts and other pages, the phrase "not ready for mainspace" itself has taken on a life of its own and is used to systematically circumvent the deletion policy on a daily basis. – Joe (talk) 08:12, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

Who are these draftifiers? Are they sufficiently qualified/experienced? My biggest concern about NPR approvals was insufficient expectation of experience at AfD, draftifiers are t performing AfD-like decisions, but unilaterally.
The wording of the script, was there any discussion or consensus behind it.
“Not ready for mainspace”. They are very simple word. I think it might be worth an essay, WP:Not ready for mainspace.
While trying not to embarrass individuals, is it possible to show me a list of bad draftifications? SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:37, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't know where to start. I've been reviewing draftifications through WP:PERM/NPP requests, CSD R2 nominations and from the logs for years now and I'd say I come across an egregious example just about every time I look. To be clear, by 'bad', I mean something that clearly exceeds the boundaries set by WP:DRAFTIFY and/or what I understand community expectations to be, not my own. I don't want to unfairly single anyone out, but you could check my contributions to the draft namespace for a representative sample. – Joe (talk) 13:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Egregious?
Some brainstorming questions, not having looked at your contribution history yet:
Are reviewers systematically applying a higher standard to new articles than would be applied at AfD? I’ve seen that AfC reviewers do this. Could this be explained by an increased expectation of article standard, and AfD voting lagging this change? I know that some people complain about how hard it is to get article deleted at AfD.
Are bad draftifications being done by editors who are not NPRs? And are they doing bad things randomly?
Is there any sense that draftifications are being done to endorse a reviewers POV bias on what content should be in Wikipedia?
Is the problem with this page’s asserted boundaries, or with poor training of NPReviewers? Or with bias from the draftification script(s) due to them proving an easily option for difficult cases? I don’t think that anything in the fairly heavy NPR and AfC training pages instructions to read WP:Drafts. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:59, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Egregious meaning systematic enough that I feel I have to discuss it with the user and, if they don't stop, pull their NPR right. I think the rest of your questions are good ones and, although I give my anecdotal conclusion on them, I don't have any data to hand (and unfortunately I don't think anyone does, which is why this issue has been festering for years now). I do think the lack of clarity in the phrase "not ready for mainspace"—taken out of context, as discussed above—has contributed to the problem and that's why I think WAID's original question (what is ready for mainspace?) is a good one.
To suggest a concrete next step, there is a list of specific, consensus-backed things that make a page "not ready for mainspace" at WP:DRAFTYES. We could brainstorm what could be added to those, and/or consider making a separate list of things that don't disqualify a page from mainspace. – Joe (talk) 14:13, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
My impression:
  • Are reviewers systematically applying a higher standard to new articles than would be applied at AfD? – Yes. And it's not just one "rogue" editor; it's anyone who doesn't want to be seen "endorsing" or "accepting" an WP:UGLY article. You have to be willing to expend a lot of social capital to follow the written rules. This is one reason I recently suggested a "three strikes and you're out" approach to AFC: On the third time AFC rejects a submission, a bot should do a procedural nomination at AFD. There is no more reliable method of figuring out whether it will be kept at AFD than to send it to AFD.
  • Could this be explained by an increased expectation of article standard, and AfD voting lagging this change? – Yes, but I don't think that "increased" is the right word. AFD still operates on the written rules (e.g., sources must WP:NEXIST in the real world, but don't have to be cited in the article). NPP and AFC functionally reject this rule and want notability "demonstrated".
  • Are bad draftifications being done by editors who are not NPRs? And are they doing bad things randomly? – Yes, overly aggressive draftifications sometimes are done by anyone who believes they are defending Wikipedia against ugly articles, but it's not really random. It is an effort to "raise Wikipedia's quality" by forcing other editors to choose between improving the article or having it hidden from readers.
  • Is there any sense that draftifications are being done to endorse a reviewers POV bias on what content should be in Wikipedia? – I have not seen evidence of, e.g., editors draftifying articles related to geopolitical disputes. There have been times in which we see editors draftifying articles about, e.g., Bollywood actors or African politicians. This could be due to cultural differences (the normal, everyday ways of describing powerful people in some cultures looks like "pure promotional garbage!" in others) and is probably often due to WP:NEVERHEARDOFIT (with that bias applying both the subject and to the newspapers/standard sources in that country).
  • Is the problem with this page’s asserted boundaries, or with poor training of NPReviewers? Or with bias from the draftification script(s) due to them proving an easily option for difficult cases? – I don't think that training is the problem, because part of Wikipedia's notion of "training" is to watch what others are doing and follow their lead. The problem that I want to deal with is the problem of nobody knowing/agreeing on what those words mean. If we agree that ugly articles should be accepted, then the script should reinforce that. If we agree that ugly articles should be hidden, then the script should reinforce that (and WP:UGLY should be updated to say that ugly articles can be hidden in draftspace).
Joe, I like your idea of having "a separate list of things that don't disqualify a page from mainspace". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 10 June 2024 (UTC)
Me too. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:44, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
  • User:WhatamIdoing, User:Joe Roe, how about “isn’t acceptable in mainspace”? Eg1. Eg2. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:23, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    If two people argue about whether something is ready, it does seem to be a horribly subjective argument over an undefined and unimportant threshold.
    If two people argue about whether something is acceptable, one can say “it is acceptable because I accept it” and the other can say “it is not acceptable because I am not accepting it”. It goes to AfD where the decision will be made, deleted or pseudodeleted, or kept in mainspace, proving one of the two to be right. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:34, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    If two uninvolved editors disagree in good faith about whether something is or isn't ready for mainspace, I think it should be declared ready and moved to mainspace but explicitly without prejudice to AfD (obviously nothing is immune from AfD, but it should be made explicit so the psychological bar to nomination is lower). Thryduulf (talk) 13:46, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    If two uninvolved editors disagree in good faith about whether something is or isn't acceptable for mainspace, I think it should be declared acceptable and moved to mainspace but explicitly without prejudice to AfD (obviously nothing is immune from AfD, but it should be made explicit so the psychological bar to nomination is lower). SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:52, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    I think any new wording is worth a try but I'm not sure that it is sufficiently different from "ready for mainspace" to make a difference. We don't generally encounter problems when editors disagree about drafts, because the obvious course of action then is to discuss it at AfD. The problem is that the vast majority of articles moved to draftspace are only seen by two people: the creator, and the reviewer who draftifies it. Reviewers shouldn't, but unfortunately often do (not least through the wording of the automated script), imply that their 'decision' on an article is uncontestable. Even if they don't, creators, especially inexperienced ones, are often ignorant of the fact that they don't have to go along with what the reviewer says. So unless a third party happens to come across the draft, we don't get disagreement, just a creator trying to meet whatever arbitrary standard a particular reviewer has decided is required for mainspace, or just concluding that their contribution has been rejected and giving up. This is incidentally the precise opposite of what WP:DRAFTIFY and most frequent draftifiers say they want to achieve: to "allow time and space for the draft's improvement". – Joe (talk) 14:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    I think that “acceptable” is better defined, via tautology with hindsight, than “not ready”. On reflection, I think “not ready” is suggestive that it is ok to Draftify a topic that is undoubtedly suitable, cf meta:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies and extreme Immediatism.
    I think that draftification should include a mandatory link to WP:DRAFTOBJECT, both in the edit summary / move log entry, and in the message posted to the author. I agree with you concern about content creators not knowing all of the rules. SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:41, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think that wording helps much. For one thing, it implies that there is a consensus that some articles are "unacceptable", but gives nobody any idea what is "acceptable" and what is "unacceptable". WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:40, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    Acceptable means it survives AfD. Unacceptable means it doesn’t survive AfD. SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:42, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    So in the deletion policy, you wrote "If an article isn't acceptable in mainspace, it can be moved to the draft namespace" but what you mean is "If a subject isn't notable, it can be moved to the draft namespace"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:50, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    I’ve been trying to remember what I meant seven years ago with “ready for mainspace”. One thing that comes up was that reviewers were expecting citations in a BLP to be “inline”. I think I was attempting to not engage with dubious reasons reviewers were using. This was then quite a new backwater page. I am disturbed to discover my verbiage to have been copied into deletion policy and to have become common phraseology at AfD.
    WP:Drafts is not supposed to rewrite WP:N. Pages that pass WP:N are sometimes deleted. Pages that fail WP:N are sometimes kept.
    When a reviewer moves a page to draftspace, the reviewer should be justifying their action, not quoting generic statements. SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:33, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    I think the wording should be more direct regarding expectations. Taking some text from Wikipedia:Deletion policy § Incubation, it could be something like "If a recently created article shows potential but needs additional development to establish that the subject meets Wikipedia's standards for having an article, it can be moved to the draft namespace." isaacl (talk) 15:59, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    Is the rule you have in mind that the subject must not only be notable (e.g., NEXIST) but also demonstrate notability (e.g., cite multiple sources)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    Whatever is necessary to convince a consensus of editors that the subject meets English Wikipedia's standards for having an article. This doesn't necessarily require citing multiple sources appropriate for demonstrating that the standards have been met, though that would be an easier route. isaacl (talk) 18:14, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    Does the English Wikipedia have any standards other than WP:N for having an article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    Having an article, no. Having this article, yes - e.g. WP:V, WP:COPYVIO, WP:NOTENGLISH, WP:BLP, WP:G10, etc. Thryduulf (talk) 19:36, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    WP:V is not in the business of deciding whether we should have an article, in any mainspace. It's about which discrete bits of material require inline citations. Uncited material (WP:ITSUNREFERENCED) is not grounds for deletion under WP:V.
    If the article violates BLP, then it can't be moved to the Draft: space, either, because BLP applies to all namespaces. Ditto for COPYVIO and G10, which are reasons for immediate deletion and apply to all namespaces.
    NOTENGLISH has a two-week timer for deletion. It also says "Please keep in mind that drafts are out of scope for this page." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    You are missing the distinction between whether there should be an article about a topic, and whether any given individual content written about that topic is appropriate. For example, Australia is a notable topic about which we should have an article, but an article reading "Australia is land of criminals and man-eating spiders that is permanently on fire. Citation: My ex-girlfriend" should not be in mainspace. Thryduulf (talk) 20:11, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    I'm pretty sure that the hypothetical Australia example would qualify for Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion#G3. Pure vandalism and blatant hoaxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
    Possibly (it's definitely not a hoax, vandalism is debatable. Unarguably it would fail WP:V) however these are all matters that have absolutely nothing to do with notability and are relevant to whether a page should or should not be in the mainspace. Thryduulf (talk) 01:08, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
    Prcicely right. There are a lot of topics that pass GNG or ann SNG, and thus deserve to have AN article. But, that does not mean any specific attempt at creating that article is acceptable. That attempt may have serious issues with other policies and guidelines, and need a complete rewrite. Draftspace is a temporary holding pen where that rewrite can take place. Blueboar (talk) 20:05, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, as you are aware, there are other considerations than those explicitly listed at Wikipedia:Notability. That page does link in its introduction to one of the other key guidance pages to consider, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. I didn't get into it as I find it hard to discuss the entirety of Wikipedia guidance related to having an article at once, and so I linked to the most commonly referenced guidance page in this area. (It wasn't a final proposal for a different wording, just a starting point.) I appreciate you like to use Socratic questioning, but it feels like you're trying to elicit a response that you can counter with your knowledge of current guidance, rather than bringing up additional guidance to consider.. isaacl (talk) 22:58, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Perhaps some of the confusion here stems from the fact that deletion is based purely on notability, while draftification can be based on other criteria. Yet, “not ready for Mainspace” gets invoked in edit summaries as an “explanation” for both actions. Blueboar (talk) 00:39, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, plus there seems to be no agreement about what the "other criteria" are. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:46, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
    User:WhatamIdoing, I’ve noticed that “unsourced” is a reason. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:18, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
    The "unsourced" claims are probably in WP:PGCONFLICT with WP:NEXIST.
    I wonder whether the typical claim is actually "unsourced" (e.g., if it were a BLP, it'd qualify for WP:BLPPROD) or if the claim is closer to "does not contain a sufficient volume of sources that, in my opinion, clearly demonstrate notability". WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:04, 15 June 2024 (UTC)
    My opinion is that in new page review, if the page is unsourced, the reviewer should make some attempt to find sources, and if they fail to find sources, they should PROD the article (or BLPPROD) noting that they cannot find evidence of sources, and they should not Draftify, becuase unsourced content is dubious content that should be considered junk.
    At AfC, submitted drafts are routinely declined as unsourced. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:18, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
    Do you really believe that "unsourced content is dubious content that should be considered junk"? If someone starts an article on French Renaissance gardens, and it says "French Renaissance gardens were the style of gardens in France during the Renaissance", do you actually think that's worth a {{dubious}} tag? Is it WP:JUNK?
    I can imagine it being irritating for those few people who want a Wikipedia:Four Award, but that article wouldn't violate a single policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:57, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
    User:WhatamIdoing, I wrote with a few unstated assumptions. I’m assuming a new article, it is completely unsourced, no external links, a single author who is no longer active, and a new page patrollers has tried to find sources, at least by google search. The content is unverified and possibly unverifiable.
    French Renaissance gardens is the sort of article I’m imagining. Doubtless it exists, there were gardens in France during the renaissance, and it seems likely that they had a unique style. The information in the page may be true, but may just as likely be made up, embellished, oversimplified, etc. I consider this dangerous, through the process of citogenesis. Is the risk managed by draftififcation? SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:22, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
    If I found a new article or draft “French Renaissance gardens” containing unverifiable content, I would redirect it to Gardens of the French Renaissance. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:40, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
    Template:Dubious would be not applicable. That template refers to “a specific statement or alleged fact that is sourced but that nevertheless seems dubious or unlikely. The unsourced article more likely contains BLUESKY plausible stuff.
    The WP:JUNK essay is about notability. I am talking about pages that are unverifiable. I don’t agree with that essay defining junk as stuff that fails Wikipedia-Notability. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:28, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
    If it's actually unverifiable (which, as you can see from the books cited in Gardens of the French Renaissance, this is definitely not unverifiable), then the material would have to be removed. All material must be verifiable – that means that it must be possible for someone to check whether a reliable source says the same thing, with "possible" defined as including actions such as "getting help from a reference librarian at your own library" or "finding sources through Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library" – though a sentence such as the one I gave does not require an inline citation according to WP:V. For WP:V purposes, it does not require a source even if it is the only sentence in the entire article.
    It is not my experience that uncited content is "just as likely be made up, embellished, oversimplified". About half of all sentences in the English Wikipedia are uncited; in my experience, it is not true that half of them (representing a quarter of our content) is made up, embellished, oversimplified, etc. I generally find that only a small proportion of our uncited content is wrong. My impression is that the proportion of wrong-and-uncited content is not as different from the proportion of wrong-and-cited content as one might wish.
    I have given you an example of a definitely verifiable (though presently uncited) sentence about a definitely notable subject. Do we agree that "unsourced content" is not necessarily "dubious content that should be considered junk"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:38, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
    We agree, "unsourced content" is not necessarily "dubious content that should be considered junk". SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
    Another reason if seen for non notability reasons to Draftify is “COI”. Including “suspected COI”. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:37, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
    COI has no effect on non-notability. If it's non-notable, it should go to AFD, regardless of whether COI is suspected. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:39, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

Contemplation of a Proposal: Mandate edit summary linking to WP:DRAFTOBJECT in every unilateral draftification

Proposal: Mandate edit summary linking to WP:DRAFTOBJECT in every unilateral draftification.

The more I think on this years old idea the more I think it should be done. In practical terms, it is a simple thing to write into draftification scripts. For manual draftifications, these draftifiers are probably not experience and the rule is even more important. For consensus based draftifications, via AfD or informal discussion, they should link the discussion.

I suspect the rule should also strongly encourage including WP:DRAFTOBJECT in the usertalk explanation (automatic by the scripts), but not mandated due to occasional complications such as the first page author being an IP or banned user. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:33, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

I think we could realistically make this happen in the scripts, but not in manual edit summaries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:52, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
I agree, but but would it be a good idea, to make it happen in the scripts, and to encourage it in manual edit summaries? It seems to me to be an easy fix to some of the problems you’ve noted (eg newcomers being intimidated). Would it have downsides? It would not fix everything. Would you support this proposal? SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

This is the wrong place for proposals, and I would oppose it anyway, as mandating a link to an essay is a bad idea, as it gives the impression that DRAFTOBJECT is a policy without going through the policy validation process. E.g. the "you can't draftify again" part is being misused by some people to object to redraftification a priori, pretending that it isn't allowed. Often the same people who then object to an AfD because AfD is not cleanup, leaving not much room for other options to deal with very poor articles which, yes, aren't ready for the mainspace. Yes, the drafter could in theory do a complete cleanup of the article, providing coherent prose, sources, ... for a subject they know nothing about, where the sources are in a language they don't speak. Realistically speaking though, the best solution is to move the page to draft again and again until the creator or someone else with the time and knowledge to deal with it turns it into an acceptable article. Fram (talk) 10:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi Fram.
Wrong place? Yes, I know, actually I meant it as contemplation for formally proposing this. I have learned to not propose something without at least one person agreeing with me. If supported, I would start a new page tagged {{Proposal}}. SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:26, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
DRAFTOBJECT *is*, already, pseudopolicy, and the proposal would be defacto ratification.
Redraftification, excepting for WP:COI, is not allowed. It is move warring. Two people disagreeing should not move war, but should discuss, and the perfect forum is AfD.
AfD is not cleanup? No, it is not. Neither is draftification. Draftification is not for cleanup.
What do you mean by a very poor article that is not “ready for mainspace”, to ask the central question of this thread?
If there is any disagreement, it should go to AfD. I firmly disagree with you if you if you think it is ok for one editor to have the authority over another to send their work to draftspace until it meets the first editors undefined standard. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
"Pseudopolicy" doesn't exist. Draftofject isn't only about "one editor to have the authority over another to send their work to draftspace until it meets the first editors undefined standard.", it also means that a second editor may not send a page back to draftspace. And the essay gives the right to "one editor to have the authority over other editors to send their own work to main space", no matter how poor. I see no problem with this nor a reason to burden AfD with it. I moved Draft:2025 Rugby Europe Championship to draft twice because it had no sources about the topic but about different topics, but if it could be sourced to good sources it would be a notable subject. An article with such poor sourcing is "not ready for the mainspace". Jesus Calls was draftified, recreated, speedy deleted, and then recreated as Jesus calls. I draftified that one, is that a redractification? And if so, is it for some reason problematic? I redraftified Air 1 (airline) (another editor did the original draftification), why not? Same for Mangkunegara III.
As for "not ready for mainspace", things like Draft:Sahajanya (unsourced microstub), Draft:Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), Uttar Pradesh and Draft:Azad Samaj Party (Kanshi Ram), Madhya Pradesh (barely above speedy deletion), Draft:2025 in Belgium (explanation for the "not ready" statement: "So far, this contains 1 sure event only, plus speculative claims about who will be PM, links to unrelated articles, and the holidays for 2024."), Draft:San Sanana (not ready as in "No evidence of notability at the moment, chart performance section is not for this song" but being an Indian song not easy for me or many others to check for actual notability), ... Fram (talk) 13:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Taking Draft:2025 in Belgium as the example: Why did you decide that we shouldn't have that page in the mainspace?
There is no question about the notability. It would easily pass AFD, and AFC's mandate is to accept pages that will pass AFD. If Thief-River-Faller submits it to AFC, they ought to accept it immediately (assuming they follow their own rules, about which there has been some doubt).
It would also be more likely to get corrected if it were in the mainspace. So why hide it in Draft: space? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:05, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Whoever would accept that page as is would need their reviewer rights removed. "AFC's mandate is to accept pages that will pass AFD." Among many other things. Accepting pages with almost exclusively blatantly incorrect information just because the topic is notable is making Wikipedia worse, not better. The page at the moment has one correct entry, "7 – 17 August: Belgium at the 2025 World Games"; everything else is either speculation or just factually wrong for the topic. I would urge you to reread Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions, which contains a lot more than "notable = accept". Fram (talk) 21:28, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Sure, I've read that page. I even helped write it. In particular, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions#Core purpose, which says (second sentence): "Articles that will probably survive a listing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion should be accepted."
See also the second sentence of the next section: "Article submissions that are likely to survive an AfD nomination should be accepted and moved to mainspace" (bold in the original). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
All the while ignoring the detailed checklist and workflow, which give further, more detailed instructions than the (by definition) simplified summary. I see no good arguments why this page should be in the mainspace as it is now, and putting it in the mainspace while knowing about the issues (which is what you claim a reviewer should do now, if asked by the creator) is basically vandalism, deliberately and knowingly putting incorrect information in the mainspace. Fram (talk) 07:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I believe it would be best to blank the obviously wrong information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Taking Draft:San Sanana as an example, why did you choose to hide it in Draft: space instead of blanking the apparently incorrect information (KjjjKjjj, that song isn't "Falling Behind", like it says in Draft:San Sanana#Charts, right?) and tagging it with {{notability}}? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
So, if it is notable, I should keep it in mainspace. If it is not notable, I should nominate it for deletion. And if notability is unclear I should tag it with "notability", even if there are (like here) clearly other problems as well. Is there any scenario where you believe draftifications is an acceptable course? Fram (talk) 21:30, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, there are a couple of scenarios for which I would accept and even recommend draftification. The first and most obvious is when the editor(s) working on it want to take that route. The second obvious case IMO is when the subject is not currently notable but is reasonably likely to become notable within the next couple of months. For example, we know that certain events, such as the US State of the Union speech or the United States census, will continue to happen on a predictable schedule, but future events frequently fail Wikipedia:Notability (events) until shortly before they happen. If an article is created a bit too early, when we don't have enough sources/attention from the world at large, but when we also believe such sources will be forthcoming in short order (e.g., a press conference has been scheduled for an announcement), then I think draftification is better than either deletion or keeping it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't think that extremely minimal approach to draftification is shared by many, and would leave many very poor new articles in the mainspace. Something like Draft:Science Centre, Patan has now been draftified twice, which is a good thing. Would the subject survive an AfD? No idea, and as discussed elsewhere, it isn't the job of reviewers to do a WP:BEFORE check. Fram (talk) 07:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I think your extremely maximal approach to draftification, openly ignoring the only written guidance on the subject because it's "just an essay", is shared by even fewer. – Joe (talk) 11:16, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
See below, we actually have policy about this, which is what I follow. Fram (talk) 11:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
the proposal would be defacto ratification if in effect the idea is to make DRAFTOBJECT policy then that should be the proposal, rather than discussing edit summaries. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
Something doesn't have to be a policy (or even a guideline) to be linked in a tool-generated edit summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
...which should be obvious given that the current edit summary used by scripts is a paraphrase of the very same essay (Not ready for mainspace, incubate in draftspace). Apparently it's okay to use a non-policy to justify moving tens or hundreds of thousands of articles out of mainspace, but not to remind the creators that they're entitled to move it back? – Joe (talk) 11:21, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
My point had nothing to do with adding anything to the summary of automated edits. It was that if editors wanted to make suggestions for new policy they should do so. The comment I was replying to was suggesting that policy should be made via discussion on another topic. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:35, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't use that edit summary either, and if you both want a policy about draftification; WP:ATD-I: Recently created articles that have potential, but do not yet meet Wikipedia's quality standards, may be moved to the draft namespace ("draftified") for improvement. Fram (talk) 11:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Where are those quality standards defined? Thryduulf (talk) 11:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Nowhere probably, just like many things around here. Having reliable sources and intelligible prose, being factually correct, and actually being about the topic as suggested by the title, is what I (and in my experience most others who do new page checking) apply. I don't think any of these can be considered really controversial. Fram (talk) 12:01, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
This discussion demonstrates that every one of those is controversial:
  • The only requirement for sources is that they exist - if they don't exist the article should be prodded or sent to AfD, if they do exist add them to the article, if you don't know then look.
  • If there is no intelligible prose then the article should be deleted (speedy deletion criteria G1, G2, A1, A2 and/or A3 almost certainly apply)
  • If the article is factually incorrect then it should be corrected or nominated at prod or AfD (unless it's a blatant hoax, in which case it should be speedily deleted under criterion G3).
  • If it isn't about the topic as suggested by the title, then either rename the article or nominate it for prod/AfD. Thryduulf (talk) 12:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Nobody would disagree that those are desirable qualities in an article, but whether they constitute a required standard for mainspace is indeed controversial. As just one data point, the existence of {{unreliable sources}}, {{incomprehensible}}, {{disputed}}, and {{off topic}} would suggest that all of the problems you list have been tolerated in mainspace in the past. The lack of a definition of "Wikipedia's quality standards"—AKA being "ready for mainspace"—is the problem that motivated this discussion and, as the discussion shows, it leaves room for a wide range of understandings. – Joe (talk) 12:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Feel free to ping me when a policy proposal is put up for a vote. Until then, I don't think anything useful will come from continuing this discussion with you three. The requirements put up here, basically requesting the reviewers needing to do all the work the creator should have done and can do much easier, are mainly based on misreadings of policy ("The only requirement for sources is that they exist", well, no: "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. " and "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material" (bold in original). A completely unsourced article may thus be blanked (which would make it eligible for speedy deletion, not really preferable), or by draftifying it "removed" from the mainspace; and the burden to add sources lies with whoever wants it back in the mainspace, the one who "restores material". Putting that burden on new page reviewers is not acceptable (of course they may do so if they wish, but it should never be a requirement). Similarly, "If the article is factually incorrect then it should be corrected or nominated at prod or AfD (unless it's a blatant hoax, in which case it should be speedily deleted under criterion G3)" yes, it should be corrected by the creator or whoever wants the material in the mainspace. Otherwise it will be deleted. It shouldn't be brought to Prod or AfD as these are not for cleanup. "If it isn't about the topic as suggested by the title, then either rename the article or nominate it for prod/AfD." No, if you actually do new page patrol then you will encounter many cases where someone has created an article for topic X by copying their own previous creation about topic Y, and forgot to change all or most of the text. Topic X is notable, the creator is probably knowledgeable and interested in correcting this, but until then we have a completely wrong article in the mainspace (not incomplete, poorly sourced, just wrong). Speedy deleting this as a hoax is very WP:BITEy and draftifying the much more friendly, gentle solution, the middle ground between keeping the mainspace factual and the editor encouraged to continue working on it.
The approach taken by you three seems to be "we need a policy or you can not do this" (even though we have a policy encouraging draftification in such cases), and "you are not allowed to do things which go against this essay here". Oh, and "all the work should be done by the reviewers, not the creators" or (judging from their contributions) people who never patrol new pages, edit draft space, or nominate pages for deletion (like Whatamidoing and Thryduulf) I'll continue to ignore this until you get a policy that actually supports your positions, or until you get a consensus at ANI or so that I should change my approach. Fram (talk) 12:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
Most of that is not opposing DRAFTOBJECT, which is about empowering the newcomer to get their week at AfD if they want it. Opposing part of DRAFTOBJECT are a few example of something draftified twice, where WP:ATD-I rolled with DRAFTOBJECT would mean that Fram is supposed to send the bad article to AfD with a nomination to Draftify. Maybe “do not Draftify twice” is a soft rule, maybe newcomers mainspacing a draftified article do not actually mean that they want to debate it at AfD. SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
I find your (Fram's) response interesting, because underneath it, it feels like there is a question about whether Wikipedia is a collegial, collaborative project. Several of the examples you give sound like a Wikipedia-as-a-game model: Any sentence could be required to have an inline citation, so if "you" don't have "enough" (or any) inline citations, then "my" move is to capture your article. If you make the right moves, you can get your article promoted back to the mainspace, but I see my role as fundamentally adversarial: I will prevent you from sharing information until you do so in a way that I believe is appropriate, and I will not help you fix any problems you encounter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
And here I thought the singular purpose of Wikipedia is to be a factual, verifiable encyclopedia that anyone can edit. But all this time it has actually been a social platform where the real goal is to get more precious users by zealously protecting their right to publish whatever they want to the first page of Google. Editor retention above all else. JoelleJay (talk) 09:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
How the fuck are we going to maintain a "factual, verifiable encyclopedia" if we don't retain editors? – Joe (talk) 09:27, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Editor retention can still be achieved without militantly assuming every article creation is inherently encyclopedic as a standalone regardless of sourcing and content. JoelleJay (talk) 10:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Assuming bad faith, hiding their work in place that nobody will ever find it, and refusing to put any effort into even checking whether what they wrote is correct, let alone making trivial improvements to things new editors cannot reasonably be expected to master is not the way to retain editors. Thryduulf (talk) 10:31, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Perhaps not, but frankly speaking, if new editors are not either of the mindset to proactively learn those "things new editors cannot reasonably be expected to master" beforehand or of the mindset to look for help afterwards on figuring out the issues with their creation(s), how to fix them, and then try again? Chances are, you won't retain them long-term with your suggested course of action either.
Instead, you'll likely as not lose them shortly after that newness has worn off just enough that people will start expecting them to have picked up on the basics of "articles need to be factual, non-promotional, in readable English-language prose, with sources", the major policies and guidelines, and some slightly-beyond-basic skills like how to create a reference without scattering CS1 errors all over the page, edit a table or infobox without breaking it, and so on. At that point, people will stop fixing their issues for them and expect them to do it themselves—with skills and knowledge they cannot reasonably be expected to have mastered if other people have silently fixed all issues for them so far.
The solution is not "let them figure it out entirely by themselves" nor "fix it for them without even making them try". It is guidance on where they went wrong and how to do it right. And yes, depending on the severity of the issues and how long fixing it is likely to take (and how likely an editor is to even give it a try), sometimes that guidance is better done outside mainspace. AddWittyNameHere 12:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
But what happens is not "move to draftspace, teach them what they need to know, including where to get help, assist them to improve their article and welcome them as a productive editor" but "move to draftsapce where someone can delete in six months". Thryduulf (talk) 13:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, hence my won't retain them [...] either (emphasis added) and [t]he solution is not "let them figure it out entirely by themselves" nor "fix it for them without even making them try" (emphasis), i.e. if the aim is predominantly "retaining editors", then absolutely, the current method does indeed not work well for that purpose. I just do not believe the course of action suggested by you would work any better, for the reasons outlined above (and would come with an additional hidden cost: still no long-term retaining of productive editors, but an increase in workload as a result of these editors leaving a little later)
That said, I don't think the primary intended objective of draftification-as-concept is or has ever been "retaining new editors", it is "guarding mainspace from incorrect, dubiously notable and/or unverifiable, but potentially improvable, new articles while retaining the contents somewhere so that (at least in theory, as we all know that this only rarely happens in practice) someone could work on improving it without the hassle of having to get it undeleted first". It is a slightly less BITEy alternative to deletion, but also only slightly so.
That in practice it ends up being less of an alternative to and more of a delayed form of deletion is exactly where the guidance I mentioned comes in: such guidance is lacking, it should not be, and if it were not, it would work towards both objectives (editor retention/mainspace not getting flooded by New Editor's Clueless First Article) and make it a significantly less BITEy alternative to deletion that produces some actually-mainspaceable articles instead of an almost-as-BITEy-delayed-deletion that produces a heap of stale drafts to be cleared like clockwork. AddWittyNameHere 14:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
And where was it decided that mainspace needed to be 'guarded' from such things? Not to state the obvious, but this is a wiki; we don't need a special place where people can work on things. Our editing policy even explicitly states that poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. – Joe (talk) 14:19, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
And where was it decided that mainspace needed to be 'guarded' from such things? Among various places, in the WP:ATD-I section of the WP:Deletion policy, which states Recently created articles that have potential, but do not yet meet Wikipedia's quality standards, may be moved to the draft namespace ("draftified") for improvement, with the aim of eventually moving them back to the main namespace, optionally via the articles for creation (AfC) process.; the WP:DRAFTIFY of the WP:Drafts explanatory essay, which states The aim of moving an article to draft is to allow time and space for the draft's improvement until it is acceptable for mainspace; during the RfC which proposed the creation of a Draft namespace and which explicitly described one of its potential uses as a successor of the now-historical WP:Article Incubator; during the various discussions and decisions which led to the existence of said now-historical Article Incubator. AddWittyNameHere 20:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
I've heard (but not read myself) that if you want to retain new editors who add content, then one of the best things you can do is add an inline tag like {{fact}}, which they will often fix the next day.
So if you want stuff WP:Glossary#cited, hiding the whole page in Draft: space probably isn't the right way to go about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Yes, exactly this. Frankly I don't expect the editors who aren't bothered to do even the bare minimum in making their first article PAG-compliant (citing sources in any format) to have any interest in sticking around long-term. If they don't understand they need citations in 2024, despite all the hand-holding alerts and training modules available for new editors nowadays and the ubiquitousness of "citation needed" in English online discourse, then best case scenario is they're a child or geriatric person who doesn't know any better. More likely they're careless, incompetent, a vandal or amateur self-promoter, and/or don't speak English at all, and would be both highly unlikely to continue editing anyway and not the type of editor we'd want to retain regardless. A person who actually cares about contributing would put in some effort and not be discouraged by the mildest difficulty, and a person we'd want to keep around would be familiar enough with "citations" and "what is an encyclopedia" that we wouldn't need to explain very basic concepts that have been universal in secondary education for 30+ years. JoelleJay (talk) 23:45, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
@AddWittyNameHere, I'm struck by your comment about skills and knowledge they cannot reasonably be expected to have mastered if other people have silently fixed all issues for them so far. I have said for years that one of the reasons that I stuck around in the early days was precisely because an editor silently fixed wikitext errors for me. I mastered wikitext despite this (welcome) help. I probably would have quit if everything had been reverted or someone had yelled at me for making mistakes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
(@WhatamIdoing: Apologies up-front for the somewhat lengthy response, but this is about as far as I managed to condense it after four rounds of removing extra verbiage.)
Yes, I think that's a common thing for a decent portion of the editors we actually retain: autodidacts and adjacent, to whom seeing someone else do it (or reading the documentation) is enough to pick up on what to do. But that's not the way everyone learns best, or finds comfortable, or has the time and energy to spare for to engage in what is a voluntary internet hobby. "cannot reasonably be expected" was meant to be read as "not a reasonable ask of all or most new editors", not as "impossible for any and every new editor".
"Revert everything/yell at" are certainly not better, but I am not advocating for that, and I am a little puzzled that every response I have gotten in this conversation so far seems to assume I must be in agreement with the status quo simply because I see issues with a specific alternative presented. Rather, I am saying "hey, instead of assuming these are the only options, let's look at what other options might exist. How about, say, Z: neither silent fixing nor silent draftifying, but actual personalized guidance."
(The hows of that are a separate matter. On account of this message already being lengthy, all I'll say about it here is that imo, it's probably best done through a different process than (but if possible, working closely with) NPP/AfC, both because of pre-existing chronic AfC/NPP backlogs and because of different personal inclinations and skill sets between "check large volume of articles for compliance with core content policies" and "guide individual newbies through creating a single core content policy compliant article, tailoring approach to said newbie".) AddWittyNameHere 09:24, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
As a matter of efficiency (i.e., getting both decent-ish content and not scaring off the newbie; NB that this is different from the fastest way to hide imperfect content), I think that silent fixing will prove better when the newbie is in the first few edits. Most newbies don't manage to make three edits, or to edit on two different days. Purely as a practical matter, then, I wouldn't routinely attempt any personalized guidance at that stage.
The Wikipedia:Mentorship tools might be effective, but I understand that enwiki is the only Wikipedia where too few people actually want to help newcomers for that to work out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I also think that it's supposed to be a verifiable, factual encyclopedia. However, that's not a full and complete description. Consider:
  • A verifiable, factual encyclopedia produced by people working together collaboratively (e.g., if you created an article by copying/pasting a previous one, and you forget to remove something from the old article, I could blank that off-topic content for you), versus
  • A verifiable, factual encyclopedia produced by people working adversarially (e.g., instead of fixing an obvious problem, I'll hide the whole thing in the Draft: namespace).
WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
What is this "pseudopolicy" and why is it exempt from actual policies, like Policy and guideline pages are seldom established without precedent[3] and require strong community support. Policies and guidelines may be established through new proposals, promotion of essays or guidelines, and reorganization of existing policies and guidelines through splitting and merging. [...] Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy status. Adding the {{policy}} template to a page without the required consensus does not mean the page is policy, even if the page summarizes or copies policy. and Wikipedia has a standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines. and The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material and Because a lack of content is better than misleading or false content, unsourced content may be challenged and removed.? JoelleJay (talk) 08:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
I’m not sure what the point in the green stuff is, but pseudo policy is something that is in practice as policy but without being documented. The most obvious pseudo policy is the guideline WP:N, which is not policy, but is enforced as policy through WP:DEL#REASON#8 (used to be #6). SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:56, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
The thing that bothers me about quoting "The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material" in this context is that it seems to mean "Editors are supposed to magically know that I wanted an inline citation for that, even before I saw the page, so they should have provided one in advance of me actually WP:CHALLENGING the content, but since they didn't read my mind, the content should be hidden until they (a) find where I've hidden it and (b) fix it up well beyond the level of adding a source, but so that an AFC reviewer will feel comfortable publicly endorsing it".
That's not really what the policy says, but it appears to be what's meant in the specific context of draftification. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Fertiliser

"Not ready for mainspace" is pure "I don't like it"-ism

if an article is:

  • in some form of English
  • has at least one citation
  • meets notability guidelines
  • is not an attack page
  • is not vandalism
  • is written in good faith

it *is* ready for mainspace. it does not need to be draftified.

It can be tagged to the skies. It can be ignored in NPP for months or years. It does not need to be put into a box labeled "go away you suck". New articles and new users are awkward teenagers that need a little patience and encouragement and many of them *will* grow into beautiful competent adults. Sending them away to reform school in the mountains is just avoiding dealing with our own discomfort with our own flaws and imperfections. NPP should ideally be a "gates wide open come on in" group of greeters who are there to welcome new articles and new users to the party. "Hi here's a cocktail. It's crazy up in here. Here's the syllabus and another cocktail and a cookie and also a kitten. Don't mind them, that's a WikiProject, they're kindly fanatics."

Shitty articles are good actually. Shit is fertilizer. Shit is rich in nutrients and promotes growth. Scrubbing the world of shit reduces cholera transmission but also increases the prevalence of autoimmune disorders. There's got to be a balance.

Anyway, IMHO, "not ready for mainspace" is mean and vague and more harmful than helpful. Even the worst article that meets the standard above should be greeted with a compliment sandwich: "Thank you so much for contributing to Wikipedia! Your passion for this topic is so evident. I wanted to let you know that that according to our current guidelines, this article may be [list top 3 problems here]. Let me know if you need any help resolving these issues. We really appreciate you contributing to the sum of all human knowledge. There's so many topic domains that still need attention and we so appreciate your participation in growing the project."

Anyway, please enjoy the snacks and thanks for coming to the party. jengod (talk) 16:46, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:FERTILIZER should be blue! – Joe (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
done. Let's groooooooowwwwww! jengod (talk) 18:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Meh… I’m now considering writing a contrary essay, and calling it WP:Prune the weeds. Weeds need to be pruned in order for a healthy garden to grow. Blueboar (talk) 18:41, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
I would very much like all Wikipolicies to be presented as a series of (increasingly unhinged?) rambunctious garden metaphors, and would like to be pinged at the creation of each entry in the series please and thank you. :) jengod (talk) 18:57, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
Keukenof, said to be the most beautiful garden in the world, requires an awful lot of maintenance. The best Wikipedia articles, in terms of maintaining volunteer sustainability, are spontaneously maintained and updated by passing readers. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:30, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
This is operating under the assumption that a primary purpose of Wikipedia is cultivating a social community that effusively courts all potential new users, even when it comes at the expense of encyclopedia quality and requires established editors to take time away from editing to mentor newbies. That's fine for the people who want to do that, but a huge proportion of editors are mainspace-only and so would not know about or care to participate in any kind of newcomer-welcoming behavior regardless of whether "building a community" was an actual WP goal, and would interact with newcomers the same way they always would with any other editor they encounter. Meanwhile I would guess a large percentage of those who do get involved in Wikipedia-space are only there for reasons directly related to improving the specific pages or topics they're working in rather than a desire to be part of a broader "Wikipedia movement" or to socialize or do outreach. These are the editors who have their individual motivations for expanding articlespace, enforcing content rules, molding the PAGs, etc. towards what they think the encyclopedia should be; why should they be forced into additional social roles, beyond what is needed for civil discourse between colleagues, in furtherance of the WMF's or other people's agendas for "Wikipedia the Institution", that are not actually backed up by empirical evidence showing they'd have the intended effect, and for which it isn't even clear how the intended result would improve the encyclopedia? JoelleJay (talk) 01:52, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
For User:WhatamIdoing especially, I was coincidentally listening to a radio program interviewing an academic horticulturist, who was asked for the definition of a weed: “A weed is a plant that you don’t like”. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:08, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
@JoelleJay, I think you have identified two key points of tension.
The first is that some people are doing things that don't meet their stated goals. For example:
  • They say that their goal is to comply with policies, but they take actions directly against the Wikipedia:Editing policy, which says Wikipedia is better off when it has more information instead of less.
  • They say that they want more citations added to articles, but they take actions (e.g., moving pages into Draft: space) that reduce the likelihood of that happening, and don't take actions (e.g., adding {{fact}} tags to newly created articles) that would increase the likelihood of that happening.
The second is that some people are preventing other editors from doing the work that they'd like to do. This, I think, is why we have discussions such as this one. For example, if Alice moves the page into Draft: space without a redirect, that reduces the chance that Bob has for mentoring the new editor, because when articles disappear, new editors are less likely to edit again. If Bob's going to be able to do his work, Alice needs to be a little slower at hiding the WP:IMPERFECT and WP:UGLY articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't know how you're getting any of that from what I said, at all. 1. Per our editing policy, Because a lack of content is better than misleading or false content, unsourced content may be challenged and removed, so just no to the first bullet point. 2. This is a nonsensical dichotomy that isn't worth addressing. 3. Literally every edit is "preventing other editors from doing the work that they'd like to do", just because YOU have decided it's "worse for the encyclopedia" if "Bob" doesn't get a chance to mentor someone doesn't mean this is objective fact, and it certainly doesn't mean it's objectively better that "Alice" doesn't get to remove unsourced and potentially false or misleading junk from the encyclopedia, or that it's "better" if we prevent her from "doing what she wants to do" by forcing her to do more than "consider" options other than removing the material. The author of the content certainly wasn't prevented from "doing what they wanted to do" despite failing to comply with core content policies. If Bob is so worried about draftification hurting a new editor's feelings, then it's up to him to be faster at NPP, or to watch Alice's contribs, so he can insert himself as a mentor for this hapless noob; it's certainly not Alice's responsibility to prioritize Bob's goal of "retaining editors who didn't put even minimal effort into reading our rules" over her own immediate goal of "improving encyclopedia quality". JoelleJay (talk) 00:44, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
  1. Per the start of the paragraph from which you quote, Wikipedia summarizes accepted knowledge. As a rule, the more accepted knowledge it contains, the better. NB that "uncited" is not the same thing as "misleading or false content".
  2. What is a nonsensical dichotomy?
    • I never said that it's better for Bob to get what he wants. I only say that the conflict between Alice's actions and Bob's desire result in these conversations. Alice might be right. Bob might be right. Probably both of them are right sometimes and wrong sometimes, and probably they even agree that Alice really ought to draftify some (worse) pages and Bob really ought to mentor newcomers on some (better) pages. What we won't get is Alice and Bob conflicting with nobody ever starting these l-o-n-g and repetitive discussions about whether the line is drawn in the right place. This symptom (the discussions) indicates that not everyone in our community has the same idea about what's best. This symptom does not mean that either Alice or Bob is wrong.
    • Note that I never said anything about the quality of the article Alice is draftifying; there is no reason to believe that it contains any "false or misleading junk". Most unsourced pages don't, and many long, heavily cited pages do. Citations are not a magic incantation that protect articles from containing false and misleading junk.
    • Your proposal that Bob "be faster at NPP" is non-functional. Nothing Bob can do – whether seeing the article first, or editing it, or contacting the original author – can prevent Alice from draftifying the article whenever she thinks that's the best action.
    • WP:Nobody reads the directions. If your baseline for promising new editors who are "worthy" of mentorship is that they read all, or even some, of the directions before WP:Being bold, then Wikipedia will not outlive you.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Diagram

I made a diagram that visually translates my understanding of what the phrase "not ready for mainspace" means. What do you think about it? (The boundary between the "not ready for mainspace" and the implied "not unready for mainspace" is the line between the grey and greenish block in the background.) —Alalch E. 16:14, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

That looks reasonable to me, with the caveat that it is difficult to accurately detect all LLM content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
"Raw LLM" is not a reason to do anything and doesn't belong in this discussion or on this diagram. If it has no problems then it belongs in the article space, if it is a copyvio then it needs to be deleted, if it has other problems (bad grammar, no reliable sources, etc) then it needs to be treated identically to a human-written page with those problems. Thryduulf (talk) 22:00, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
I don't think that 'Raw LLM' means the ordinary dictionary definition. I'm assuming it means 'Whopping great mess of nonsense, usually including made-up citations to non-existent sources'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
A page that is a "Whopping great mess of nonsense, usually including made-up citations to non-existent sources" should be fixed (if possible) or deleted (if not). Whether it's in that state because of a human author, an LLM-author or a combination of both is completely irrelevant. The problem is that it's a mess, not who authored it. Thryduulf (talk) 23:35, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I agree, but I understand that many reviewers believe that it's expedient to shift the mess out of the way while you figure out whether it can be (or will be) fixed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:05, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
It's not currently possible to use an LLM to generate text that doesn't have problems from Wikipedia's point of view. The available models are incapable of generating citations to real, relevant reliable sources, incapable of fact checking, and all their output is of legally ambiguous copyright status. Therefore, if someone uses LLM output without taking steps to address those problems (hence "raw"), it is automatically not mainspace-worthy. If the technology ever improves to the point where it could plausibly generate something we could use directly, then I agree we should evaluate it as if it came from a human, but since that's currently science fiction I think the practice of moving unedited LLM output to draftspace is sensible. – Joe (talk) 10:01, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
Again, that it was written by LLM is irrelevant. If something has problems those problems should be dealt with by whatever means is most appropriate to the specific problems that it has. e.g. if it has no real, relevant reliable sources then the problem is that it has no real, relevant citations not that it was written by an LLM. Thryduulf (talk) 11:58, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
+1 Donald Albury 13:22, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
If something has a 100% chance of causing articles with mainspace-disqualifying problems, I think it's utterly immaterial whether we say we're removing it from mainspace because of the problems or because of their cause. – Joe (talk) 16:25, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
I've not used LLMs myself, but someone showed me one recently that provides a list of real citations. My guess is that it's a type of Retrieval-augmented generation (first you retrieve real sources; then you apply LLM to their contents). The idea seems to be both to minimize hallucinations and also be able to check for them afterwards.
If the result is not an 'accidental' copyvio, and it is providing real sources that actually verify the contents, is that still a 100% chance of mainspace-disqualifying problems? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
@Joe I couldn't disagree more. We should only be removing things from mainspace for articulated reasons that are directly relevant to why it is unsuitable to be in mainspace. Who wrote it is only relevant if it is being speedily deleted under criterion G5. Even if 100% of things user:Example has written are A7 failures, we remove their newest contribution for being A7 failures not because it was written by User:Example. The distinction is important because otherwise we would be deleting their next contribution even if it is about a very clearly notable topic. Thryduulf (talk) 16:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
This is a tangent, but I asked for some information about newbies' first edits, and it appears that if the first edit is to create a page, a third of those will get deleted within the first week. Longer term, the result depends on the namespace: User: space pages mostly get retained past that point, but ultimately 95% of Draft: space pages [if created as the newly registered account's first edit] get deleted. There's lots more over there, for anyone who is interested. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
I think it's pretty relevant whether text was authored by LLM vs human, especially for niche complex topics. At least with human-written text if something is confusing or problematic there's the possibility of asking the author to clarify what they mean, or how they drew a particular conclusion from a given source, or why they weighted one source more than another. With an LLM there is no possibility of the "discuss" part of BRD, because neither the LLM operator nor the LLM itself can answer "why did you summarize this in this way". We can't backtrace their rationale from the sources they use because there is no rationale that would be meaningful to humans. What happens when an LLM is contributing a bunch of content in like Hodge theory, where very few people have expertise? How comfortable are we letting that content stand when we know it's been generated to look very plausible, but could easily contain significant errors only experts would detect? Comfortable enough to allow it on a few pages? What about an arbitrary number of pages? JoelleJay (talk) 01:29, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Absolutely none of that is specific to LLMs. Any content can have any, some or none of those problems regardless of author. Address the actual problems with the content not unverifiable personal suppositions about how or why the content might or might not have been created. Thryduulf (talk) 02:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
In answer to: How comfortable are we letting that content stand when we know it's been generated to look very plausible, but could easily contain significant errors only experts would detect?
Apparently we are comfortable enough with this that we still let anyone edit any sort of technical, niche, or complex material, even if they have no expertise. See Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia for a small sampling of the times when that's caused problems. Those cases were generated by bad-faith humans, but the only difference I can see between a bad-faith human and a good-faith human with an LLM is the potential volume for the latter. (The good-faith human with an LLM even has a chance of getting things right.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
@Thryduulf: It's true that we could judge content purely on its merits and get a similar result but, in practice, editors that are active in checking content for problems find it labour-saving to consider contextual information like who or what created the article. I understand that you object to this in principle—not just with LLMs but also with COI edits—but I don't understand where this principle comes from or why it's important to preserve. I'm genuinely interested to learn. – Joe (talk) 06:45, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
Contextual information is useful for helping to evaluate the content, but it is the content that we are evaluating not the contextual information. Ultimately the only thing that actually matters is the words on the page. If the words on the page are bad then they should not be in Wikipedia (i.e. they should be fixed or removed), if they are good they should remain. This is true regardless of who wrote them, how they were written and why they were written. Thryduulf (talk) 09:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
This principle appears in places such as Wikipedia:Comment on content, not on the contributor. It's also the principle behind the POV and COI article templates: the time to remove {{COI}} is when the article is fixed, not when the accused editor has been either declared innocent or ejected from the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:20, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
The measure of a ban is that even if the editor were to make good or good-faith edits, permitting them to edit in those areas is perceived to pose enough risk of disruption, issues, or harm, to the page or to the project, that they may not edit at all, even if the edits seem good.
Anyone is free to revert any edits made in violation of a ban or block, without giving any further reason ... the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.
Given we have consensus that LLM-generated content is unreliable, and multiple editors have been blocked/banned for repeatedly adding "raw LLM" text, why shouldn't material that is identifiably "raw LLM" be considered the product of a banned editor and reverted without discussion even if it isn't obviously bad? The LLM is functionally just as banned as the editors who use it, therefore any content it generates can be presumed likely to feature the same issues that led to it being deemed unreliable. JoelleJay (talk) 04:06, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
The LLM is functionally just as banned as the editors who use it Where is the consensus for this? The only discussion I recall came to the opposite consensus - i.e. it's not LLMs that are bad it's bad output from LLMs.
any content it generates can be presumed likely to feature the same issues that led to it being deemed unreliable. again, citation needed. If the content it generates has issues deal with those issues, if it doesn't then there is no problem. Thryduulf (talk) 08:15, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
What part of Large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, are unreliable. is unclear? As the raw output of LLMs is consistently inaccurate/fake enough for there to be consensus that LLMs (/their output, whatever) are unreliable, and that any news media created via LLMs is also unreliable, that raw output should not be added to mainspace. Editors whose natural product is routinely that inaccurate, hallucinatory, and/or nonsensical would be blocked, and editors who repeatedly introduce raw LLM content would also be (and have been) blocked.
Therefore, in situations where it is identifiable (e.g. retaining "I am a large language model" or "regenerate response" in the most obvious cases), or where its origin is otherwise strongly suspected (e.g when a portion of an edit contains hallucinated sources, then the whole edit should be treated as LLM-generated), raw LLM output can be removed immediately the same way we permit deletion of edits by banned users, even if the (rest of the) content isn't blatantly problematic. JoelleJay (talk) 20:46, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
It's perfectly clear but also perfectly irrelevant. We care about the problems with the output, we don't care about the input or the method because they don't matter. If the sources are fake we delete it because it has fake sources - it's irrelevant whether they are the product of human, machine, both or neither. Thryduulf (talk) 21:00, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
We should reject bad content because it's bad content, regardless of the way that bad content came into being.
The problem with "reject raw LLM" is that it's mistaking the cause for the effect.
If the LLM creates a sentence like "The capital of France is Paris" – a statement that is given in policy as an example of a statement that is so obviously factually correct that it will never require an inline citation – and an editor drops it in a relevant article with an edit summary that says 'copied and pasted with no changes from my LLM', then that's "raw LLM output" but neither wrong nor against the spirit or letter of any present or past rule (including copyvio, as that sentence is not copyrightable). We should accept that particular instance of "raw LLM output" because there is nothing wrong with that specific edit.
But if a human creates a sentence like "The capital of France is London", then we should reject that, because it's factually incorrect.
The simple and accurate rule is "reject bad content and accept good content", not "reject LLM content, which is good in a certain percentage of cases, and accept human content, which is bad in a certain percentage of cases". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
We endorse deleting any content added by socks, especially from socks that we know make subtle shit up or do copyvio, so yes, we do care about the origin of an edit even if it is not immediately apparent that it is bad. JoelleJay (talk) 04:06, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
If the text is so good that we cannot tell it is a LLM output, and all content is verified, we may as sell keep it. But I had a case recently where the content looked like LLM, and references were all fake, and content was unverifiable, I deleted it as a hoax, but it had me fooled as it is a real thing. Maybe that was a bit harsh. (Kamafugite) Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:50, 4 July 2024 (UTC)
If the references are all fake and the content unverifiable then it shouldn't be in mainspace (whether AfD, speedy deletion or draftification is best will depend on specifics). Whether an LLM was involved in its creation in any way is indeed completely irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 09:57, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Some kind of reminder at AN/I

This is not a joke proposal.

I'd like to propose some kind of reminder/checker that automatically runs at AN/I, in the style of [1]. Actually reading it back to the user is good, but a given user's computer probably doesn't have the sound turned on all the time, so a pop-up dialogue box, with a five-second delay before the user can click "continue" would probably work too. Something like this:

Here's what you just posted to AN/I:


Yes, post this comment.Wait, go back.


Thoughts? Cremastra (talk) 20:05, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Having a delay for every single reply can really make things really annoying. You also have all the different userscripts for replying (CD, Factotum, etc.) that to make that warning appear to every one of them would be really hard. Aaron Liu (talk) 22:41, 16 June 2024 (UTC)
Forced preview was a feature(?) in the early days of the visual editor. However, it previewed the entire page, which would be a terrible experience at ANI.
There's another Wikipedia (Korean, maybe? I can't remember) that does something like this for all posts to their village pump. I don't think it shows your comment. It's more like a message that says "This is the village pump, which is not for random chatting". I don't know for certain how they set it up, but it might be implemented with the 'warn' setting in Special:AbuseFilter. That method would probably work on (almost) all tools. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
I avoid ANI as much as possible but I like this idea, and I'm very impressed by this design. That's some legendary Wikitext work. Toadspike [Talk] 07:49, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
We could just have it restricted to popping up for comments that contained the string shit, piss, fuck, cunt, twat, hell, damn etc. jp×g🗯️ 00:27, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I like this idea. Pecopteris (talk) 00:31, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
And that could be easily done with an edit filter (I think). Cremastra (talk) 01:07, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Why those? Scunthorpe problems aside, profanity is only very mildly correlated with the actual problems at ANI. —Kusma (talk) 11:59, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Well: a script to detect if someone's saying "asshole" takes fifteen seconds to write, whereas a script to detect if someone's being an asshole takes fifteen years of dedicated research. jp×g🗯️ 20:01, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I think we should have a script that detects if people are using a predetermined list of insults and offensive words on non-articles and asks if you actually want to post this, flags it as a potential NPA violation, and maybe even prevents posting for non-autoconfirmed users. Dronebogus (talk) 12:20, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

New shortcut

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T369993

A recent "feature" on article pages (PC, Chrome) is an indelible box near the top left of article space, giving access to the list of headings. This is an unhelpful irritant to someone who simply wants to read an article, as it obscures the first words of several lines. Assuming it's a useful feature, can it be made minimizable or semi-transparent and becomes opaque when moused-over ? Doug butler (talk) 15:02, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing this in Firefox or Chromium on Linux, logged in or logged out, using monboook, vector or vector2022 skins. If it is something that's from Wikipedia rather than your browser this is a question that's better suited to the technical village pump or phabricator than this board. Thryduulf (talk) 15:20, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Screenshot with table of contents expanded
@Doug butler, are you seeing something like this, at the top of World? This screenshot shows the table of contents covering up part of the first paragraph. If you click the button right next to the =World= title, it will collapse. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks, exactly that box, functions the same, but on article space, covering the first three or four letters on the first two or three lines of text (Vector (2022) everything vanilla standard). When an article is opened, the three dotted lines symbol is there alongside the title of the article, then appears (as my problematic box) as soon as I scroll down sufficiently that the title line is goes off-screen. Doug butler (talk) 23:40, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
@Doug butler, please try this link:
https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Katharine_Viner?safemode=1
The safemode=1 bit will screw up the infobox formatting, but don't worry about that. Just see if that fixes the problem or if the problem is unchanged. (I expect it to be unchanged, but the answer will tell us who to contact about getting it fixed.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:15, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt reply. Behavior of that box exactly as before. Doug butler (talk) 00:24, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Then I think we want @SGrabarczuk (WMF) and @Jdlrobson from the Web team. You said you're using Chrome on a PC. What version for Chrome and for Windows?
Does this behavior change if you change the size or zoom of the window/screen? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Windows 10 Pro 22H2 installed 25 July 2020 on Lenovo 4205 laptop i5
Chrome is up to date:
Version 126.0.6478.127 (Official Build) (64-bit) Doug butler (talk) 01:12, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
To clarify, my problem box remains in the same position on the screen as I scroll down through the article, so it masks just the leftmost three or four letters on the top two or three lines, assuming "Small" text selected. The box remains the same screen size with "Standard" or "Large" text selected. Size of the box increases and decreases proportionately with text size as Ctrl+ or Ctrl- invoked. Doug butler (talk) 01:01, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
This is included within Vector 2022 when the screen size is too small for a sticky header. To make the button semi-transparent unless hovered, add the following CSS to your personal CSS for Vector 2022:
#vector-page-titlebar-toc {
  opacity: 50%;
}
#vector-page-titlebar-toc:hover {
  opacity: inherit;
}
I'll see if I can create a patchset for this. Aaron Liu (talk) 02:49, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Actually, add the following as well if you want it to be opaque when extended:
#vector-page-titlebar-toc:active {
  opacity: inherit;
}
Aaron Liu (talk) 03:15, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
I've opened the task, submitted the patch, and attached a {{tracked}} before the opening... ask. Aaron Liu (talk) 03:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
I might leave CSS alone and report back ? Should I subscribe to the task ? As you can tell, I'm not at all HTML-savvy. Doug butler (talk) 04:25, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
You don't have to subscribe to the task, but you're welcome to.
If you don't feel any need to have this solved urgently, then you could do nothing, and perhaps it will get fixed for everyone on an upcoming WP:THURSDAY. If you want it fixed sooner than that, then updating your account files will fix it just for your account. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
It was an inconvenience, is all, and another week is not a problem. Thanks all for taking it seriously — most impressive service. Doug butler (talk) 10:30, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Redefining ECP

Once again concerns about ECP being too easy to work towards have been raised at AN. My concern with this is that we are WP:BITING good faith editors who see the requirements and, not knowing that we don't want editors working towards them, decide to do so through productive and good faith edits.

Rather than repeatedly taking such editors to AN or ANI, or otherwise sanctioning them, the best solution is to change our requirements so that even if an editor chooses to work towards them we can have faith than they have obtained a minimum level of understanding and competency. As a simple and conservative change towards this, I suggest that to obtain ECP an editor must have:

  • 500 edits outside of draft and user space (noting that articles written in draft or user space but moved to article space will be considered article space edits)
  • 200 of which are more than 250 bytes

Implementing this can done with a simple adminbot, which would check whether users have met the requirement and grant them ECP if they have. Users who have already been granted ECP will be grandfathered in.

@Iskandar323, Amayorov, EggRoll97, Swatjester, Starship.paint, Sean.hoyland, Selfstudier, and XDanielx: Notify editors who participated in the recent AN discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 20:56, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I know there have been concerns about me gaining ECP in less than a week, but I must say that it certainly wasn't easy. It took me around five days of non-stop editing and learning, practically without taking a break except for sleep.
But anyway, I think yours is a great suggestion! Is there some concept like a cumulative edit to a page? Because otherwise a user could simply insert-delete a wall of text multiple times to meet the requirements. Amayorov (talk) 21:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I'd say a user inserting and deleting a wall of text would be blocked as WP:NOTHERE before they get to ECP. Also, I genuinely don't think non-stop editing for days without taking breaks except for sleep is healthy. Not in terms of your edits, but in terms of actual health. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:05, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I agree with this. I'm not concerned about editors who obtain ECP through bad faith edits, as they are easy to identify and there is no WP:BITE issue in sanctioning them for it. BilledMammal (talk) 21:10, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
I agree that a qualitative strengthening of the requirements would be beneficial. I mentioned the spirit of the 500/30 rule before, and in my mind, the spirit is indeed to build up both editing experience and community and guideline familiarity. This actually helps editors who are interested in getting into contentious topic areas in the long run, as it ensures that they begin editing in such areas on a more solid footing and are less likely to inadvertently run afoul of the brighter red lines. The measure ignoring user spaces would improve the qualitative bar a little, though I wonder if it is enough. I might also exclude talk, since chatting in talk, especially with the more recent reply function, often really isn't anything akin to editing. Also, I have certainly seen disruptive users rapidly racking up edits through very vapid or actively disruptive talk page contributions. I totally agree with the 200x250 part –assuming it is feasible to implement. However, I might also add a further dimension, and that is time. The 30 days rule only requires that an account exist for 30 days, but I think the original spirit of this was that an editor edits for 30 days. Again, if practically implementable, it would be good to tighten this to 30 days in which actual edits were made – a metric that, again, would provide some assurances that a user has spent a decent amount of time actually becoming familiar with everything. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
If we're using an adminbot to apply the rights, almost anything is feasible.
Personally, I would prefer to see some talk space participation, as collaboration is an important part of editing. Adjusting how the 30 day rule works could be useful, although I'm not sure how you propose this is done - perhaps the clock starts after the 100th edit, rather than when the account is registered?
One thing to keep in mind is that previous discussions suggest that the more complicated the requirements are the less likely they are to be supported by the community, which is why I've kept them simple this time. However, we could always run an RfC with multiple options? The status quo, a conservative option, and an ambitious option? BilledMammal (talk) 21:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
Even the clock starting from the first mainspace edit would be an improvement – so 30 days since an account nominally goes active in mainspace. This would weed out accounts that just boot up to sniff around, play around in the sandbox, comment in talk and gentrify their own user pages, among others. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:54, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there perhaps another way to frame this? I'm not opposed to the general idea of using a minimum edit size as a proxy for edit quality, and why that works neatly from an automation standpoint, but it's not without it's problems either. But it seems to me that the real problem we're trying to solve for is edit count abuse that leads to post-confirmation problems on ECR articles, specifically. Communicating expectations of editors is good, but we can take a step back and look at the reason why that expectation arose -- it's not really about the 500 edit requirement and what they did to meet it, it's about demonstrating that one knows how to play by the rules and can edit constructively with others (particularly AFTER their 500th edit). Now, let's say we had a hypothetical user who achieves ExC status through 500 meaningless, insubstantial edits -- but then goes on to have a productive career subsequently and either never edits on ECR articles or does so only in a constructive and harmless manner. Is that user a problem? No. More importantly, is the fact that the user gamed the system to get their ExC status a problem, if they're not actually displaying any problematic behavior? IMO, no. So, separate from the above discussion about edit size and counting active editing days instead of account age, what I'd like to see, is a way that specific problem users (and ONLY them, not every single extended confirmed editor) can be reported and have their pre-confirmation edits put up for review if they're behaving badly post-confirmation; with the result of having their extended confirmed status be revoked if necessary. I'm assuming that would take the form of a new noticeboard, but possibly could already be covered by an existing one? I hope I'm explaining it clearly enough. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 23:28, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

If the goal is to expect constructive contribution from people before they can get ECP, then no automated way of assigning it will be sufficient, as it will still not show constructive ability to collaborate. Any set of "metrics" one can define, including edit count, days active, edits in certain namespaces (such as Article or Talk), size of edits, etc. will either be gameable just as easily as it is now, or will result in it being unnecessarily difficult to obtain to prevent that gaming. Only if there is truly an issue with the current way (assign it automatically after 30d/500 edits), then the only real other option is for it to be assigned manually, such as by request on a permissions noticeboard (or a new board set up for "experienced confirmed editor" confirmation or similar). I do not believe that is in the spirit of the ECP, however, which was intentionally not supposed to be a "trusted editor" but just a "second level autoconfirmed". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:15, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
I tend to agree with Berchanhimez's rather pessimistic view. ECP apparently can't do what it was hoped it could do, with the exception, in my view, of reducing the temperature on talk pages by excluding fire-starters. More comments later... Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:30, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
Other comments.
  • I'm unconvinced that we are WP:BITING good faith editors. I think they trickle into contentious topic areas organically and don't even notice ECP because they will already have crossed the barrier editing the millions of other articles in good faith. In other words, they don't have an objective that is inconsistent with the Universal Code of Conduct. It would be great if there were a whole bunch of good faith editors out there who wanted to join the PIA topic area for example, but I'm not seeing it, before or after ECP was implemented. In reality, I think it is more like a cloud of people with no intention of complying with the prohibition against 'Systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view'. ECP doesn't appear to help them gain the ability to leave their biases at the door before they enter contentious topic areas.
  • re: "is the fact that the user gamed the system to get their ExC status a problem, if they're not actually displaying any problematic behavior? IMO, no." I think the answer to this question depends in part on whether Wikipedia requires editors to be honest, to comply with all policies or only some policies. Editors with a "criminal record" that removed their right to be here are more likely to game the system, more likely to make an effort to appear to be a constructive editor, at least for awhile, until their problematic behavior manifests again and the block->sock cycle restarts. Many of the numerous blocked editors are very experienced editors, they are pretty good editors if you ignore their dishonesty, advocacy, racism, ultranationalism or whatever peculiarities they have that get them into trouble. One of the objectives of ECP was to increase the cost of entry for editors who employ deception via sockpuppetry. There is no evidence that it does that, not as far as I can tell anyway. This is a very significant issue because it means there are two classes of editors, and only one of the classes is affected by sanctions, the class that does not employ deception via sockpuppetry. So, for me, "if they're not actually displaying any problematic behavior" is not a very useful test in itself if honesty matters, and it doesn't really tell me anything useful about the value of ECP. Certainly, in PIA, we are dealing with many experienced ban evading editors with a good understanding of the content rules who unfortunately choose to behave like sociopaths. But maybe honesty doesn't matter because it is not enforceable in practice. Wikipedia could make that decision, that we no longer care whether you are using sockpuppetry to evade a sanction because you are generating decent content some of the time. Sean.hoyland (talk) 06:41, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
    I think the answer to this question depends in part on whether Wikipedia requires editors to be honest, to comply with all policies or only some policies.
    My problem with this is I don't think they are breaking any policies by "gaming" ECP. We tell them that they need 500 edits and 30 days tenure to edit; we don't tell them that working towards that through productive edits will be seen "gaming" the system.
    There is no evidence that it does that
    This is part of what adding the minimum byte size will do. It's harder to make large productive edits than it is to make small ones; it will make it harder for editors game ECP, or it will make them more likely to do it through unproductive edits, which will make them easier to catch. BilledMammal (talk) 04:50, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
    Byte size is not the best thing either though. Many things, such as templates (with parameters that are not used but valid parameters for the template), references (which can be 250 bytes on their own in some cases), and a plethora of other "trivial" contributions can be over 250 bytes. And things under 250 bytes can be productive edits too. I would be against a byte size rule for automatic granting - at that point, it needs to just be moved to be granted by administrators after evaluating the edits. Because any size of edit you come up with will be just as easy to "game" as it is now, and would prevent legitimate editors who don't meet it from getting it. That's why I think the only options are leave it as is, or to move it to no longer being granted automatically at all - if "gaming" truly is a concern.
    Personally, I don't see gaming as a concern - because ECP is not to say whether an editor is productive or not - just that they've at least spent more time here than the 4 days/10 edits for autoconfirmed. Even if they gamed it, so what? If they are disruptive, we have processes to deal with that already (such as Arb Enforcement for Contentious Topics, AN(/I) for other behavioral issues, etc.) and I have seen no evidence that those areas are failing to deal with problematic editors. Ultimately, I feel the people arguing to make it harder to get misunderstand its purpose - which is not to segregate editors into productive/non-productive, but is to merely make sure someone who is still brand new can't just hop in to certain pages/topic areas. It's in the name - extended confirmed. A confirmed/autoconfirmed editor is not someone who is guaranteed to be productive - they're just someone who has not made an account an hour ago and has at least some experience with the edit window so they're less likely to "accidentally" delete text or mess something up because they don't understand the edit window. Likewise, EC is just that, but with a bit longer and a bit more edits under their belt. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 05:32, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
    Hear hear. Curbon7 (talk) 06:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
@BilledMammal:, I agree that people are not breaking any policies by "gaming" ECP. For interest, for your minimum byte size considerations, some plots of the first 600 (or less) edits for a few editors who were blocked as socks. The signals are quite diverse. Sean.hoyland (talk) 13:47, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
I think they [good faith editors] trickle into contentious topic areas organically and don't even notice ECP because they will already have crossed the barrier editing the millions of other articles in good faith. Many (maybe even a majority, though I can't say for sure) high edit-count editors who work in ECP areas tend to limit their edits almost exclusively to these areas, sometimes on a daily basis for years on end. We certainly don't question the extent of these editors' good faith on the basis of where they choose to spend their editing efforts. I don't see why we can't extend the same courtesy to new editors. For example, in your first 500 edits, you made changes to articles which are today ECP. As far as I know, nobody questioned your good faith on the basis of the areas where you chose to start editing. We should continue that with new editors. spintheer (talk) 06:00, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
@Spintheer:, I understand this way of thinking, but "I don't see" is not a good state to be in when you are under attack and thinking about countermeasures. Here is an example where you would have been wrong over a thousand times just for one person employing deception via sockpuppetry to edit in the PIA topic area. Here's another, and another, and another, and it just goes on and on, dishonest people exploiting weaknesses in the ways we guard content. To slightly correct the record for your entertainment, in my case, although it long predated the Arbcom ECP remedy, lots of people questioned my good faithiness, made all sorts of dumb and confusing accusations together with a sprinkling of the occasional threats of violence. But it makes no difference to me whether people question my good faith. Good for them, everyone should question everything all the time, including everything they believe to be true about the world and themself. Assuming anything, including good faith, tells me nothing useful about an editor. The relevant question for me is whether a person is complying with the rules, all of the rules, including rules against advocacy and the use of deception. There need to be countermeasures. There is agreement on that at least. There need to be countermeasures because the strength of the attractive force that content exerts on editors is apparently, in a large number of cases, inversely proportional to their capacity to comply with section 3.3 of the Universal Code of Conduct. I don't know what those countermeasures should be. ECP is not an effective countermeasure. AGF is not an effective countermeasure. Quite the opposite. It is something that is exploited. Rules need to deal with the unpleasant reality rather than a faith based optimistic model of Wikipedia. Sean.hoyland (talk) 08:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
I would like to see new measures tested, alternatives or additions to ECP, things that try to address root causes. Unfortunately, I lack the imagination to think of them.
e.g.
* A test that ensures that an editor understands that they must comply with section 3.3 of the Universal Code of Conduct all the time i.e. they understand and accept that they can't convolve their biases with content, regardless of whether it is in good faith or bad faith.
* A place to report non-compliance with section 3.3 that handles reports as routinely as reports of non-compliance with things like revert rules, civility rules etc.
* Routine frictionless use of checkuser in contentious topic areas i.e. effectively make fishing a countermeasure (I'm sure there are arguments against this that I would probably find unconvincing).
But tweaking ECP wouldn't hurt. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:24, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
@Sean.hoyland, UCOC 3.3 is the section about "Deliberately introducing biased, false, inaccurate or inappropriate content" and "Systematically manipulating content to favour specific interpretations of facts or points of view" (among other things). Are you mostly concerned about POV pushing?
On the assumption that you're thinking about that (and not, e.g., about 3.3's prohibition of hate speech), then I think that it's important to remember that one person's POV pushing is another's genuine attempt to help Wikipedia.
If the article seems too "red" to you, then you try to make it more balanced. And the next person thinks your version is too "blue" and tries to make it more balanced ...which now looks too "red" to you again. This is 100% good-faith editing. It's not all editing in compliance with the community's own POV about what "color" the subject Really™ Is, but it is good-faith editing, and nobody's exploiting anything here. We're all just trying to do our best.
If we keep at it, with just a little intellectual humility (like many Wikipedians, I am confident that I am always right; also, I have been wrong in the past, and it might happen again) and a little willingness to learn (huh, I never thought about it from that angle before), then we usually end up with a better article than if we kick out all the editors who disagree with us or challenge the article's neutrality. Sometimes that's hard. Sometimes we're in the wrong space emotionally to see beyond our own POV. Our needs can overwhelm our ability to understand someone else's view.
But those needs can be managed. We can have a group writing an emotional subject like Mother that includes editors with every type of parents as well as every type of family member themselves. We end up with a better article than if we leave the article entirely to the starry-eyed would-be mother, or to the child abuse survivor, or to the father. What we can't do, though, is do that work without going through the effort of working with other humans. https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news talks about an approach to moderating group chats that I think is very similar to our aspirations. The net result is that it's a long game that requires a lot of investment in individual education. Every single editor has to be brought through the process: "Oh, I see. You think this, because you are looking it at from the POV of poverty. Okay, I'm looking at this subject from the POV of personal fulfillment. Can we find a way to fit both of these views into the article?"
I think we keep hoping for a model of "everyone can edit, but it won't be a big, time-sucking, energy-draining endeavor". This is not realistic. Democracy does not have a monopoly on being "noisy and messy and complicated". Wikipedia is all of those things, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing:, well, don't get me started on modelling the dynamics of the system over time or I'll be here all day.
  • I'm mostly concerned about the consequences of there being 2 classes of editors - a class that must follow the rules because sanctions have consequences for them and a class that is unaffected by rules because they reincarnate in sock form. The existence of 2 classes has a significant impact on the dynamics of the system at all times scales, at a particular article at a particular time for example and over long time scales.
  • I'm also concerned about POV pushing, not because I have opinions that differ from other people or because of something like a community POV. A reason POV pushing is significant for me is captured by the notion of genetic drift, because just like allele frequency, the incremental corrective processes that move the content dot towards policy compliance, are critically dependent on population size. I don't believe that the population size is large enough to do that in the PIA topic area for example in many cases. And this is another area where the existence of a class of disposable accounts can have a influence on the dynamics. 
  • There is the idealized spherical cow type model of the dynamics of Wikipedia. I understand this is the way many people think about things like neutrality and completeness in Wikipedia, as an emergent property of the system. It's an optimistic model and perhaps it is a good first approximation in the majority of cases over long time scales. But what I would say is, if someone thinks they have a decent model of the dynamics in Wikipedia, it probably doesn't work in the PIA topic area. The dynamics are more complicated and diverse, noisy and messy as you say.
  • Simple optimistic models have all sorts of assumptions that are not always valid e.g. 
  • The notion of a shared objective function, that the system has a single attractor, that individuals acting in good faith are all trying to nudge things towards it. This is observably not the case, and we know that because we can observe efforts to push content up the hill, away from what sources say.
  • That we are dealing with individuals where there is a one-to-one mapping between an account and a person. Neither of these things are true in all cases. There is account sharing and coordination between account holders to push the dot up the hill to a preferred location inconsistent with policy. We know this is the case. 
  • That the dynamics moves the content dot towards policy compliance over time because of the interactions of many competing agents. Maybe, but what we also observe is instabilities rather than gradual movement towards an equilibrium, again, often because of the existence of 2 classes of agent. These instabilities manifest as things like rapid transitions of content between 2 states via edit warring, over the presence or absence of a word for example.
  • As a general point, it's probably true to say that nobody can control the dynamics. They're too complicated and we're not that smart. Attempts to steer things in a direction will probably fail. What can be done though is to try to control what we have the power to control, the behavior of individual agents, the editors, to make sure that they follow the rules, all of the rules, in the hope that what emerges is okay. I look to other complex systems made up of many interacting agents that are meant to have a shared objective function but in fact have complicated competing interests, social insects in colonies where the queen mated with many different males for example. There is misalignment between the interests of subsets of workers. How do they deal with this conundrum? They invest a great deal of energy in worker policing to make sure everyone is following the same set of rules. Sean.hoyland (talk) 07:06, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
Sean, I agree with basically everything you say, except that I prefer to use a Spherical frictionless chicken in my models. ;-)
  1. We already have two classes of editors: Those of us with social capital, and everyone else. Disposable accounts are a thing, but they are primarily a thing for spam, rather than geopolitical POV pushing, especially when non-ECP editors get kicked out of discussions
  2. One of my concerns about the ECP approach is that it reduces the size of the pool that could edit PIA articles. IMO we need some limits, but we might actually benefit from more editors there, rather than fewer. See Template:Registered editors by edit count – click to Table 2 if you want to see the numbers calculated against those who have made 1+ edits, rather than those who managed to figure out Special:CreateAccount. BTW, while 14 million accounts have made 1+ edit ever, only about 800K made 1+ edit last year, and about half of those never came back after the first day. User:WhatamIdoing/I am going to die compares this against what it would take to replace an editor like me.
  3. I think you are right about not everyone prioritizing the same goals in exactly the same ways. In other areas, I have seen editors make decisions based on a desire to influence sources. For example, years ago, some editors were upset with a source about Chemotherapy. The source wasn't wrong (i.e., chemo is vital for some forms of cancer and has limited value for others), but they were upset about the overall value (specifically, chemo is vital for uncommon forms of cancer and has limited value for common forms, which means that the "median" patient probably gets a smaller benefit than they believe they're getting). They were doubly upset that since the Wikipedia article started citing this paper, the paper had been cited several more times in the formal literature, and they suspected that these authors were finding the source in the Wikipedia article. So we removed it, because editors wanted to influence future sources. OTOH, I don't think this was a case of trying to push content up the hill, away from what sources say. I think it was an attempt to push the content towards "alignment with the sources I happen to be familiar with" (e.g., an oncology textbook that emphasizes the importance of chemotherapy as one part of a comprehensive treatment plan, but never tried to calculate the isolated benefit of just the one part).
    I assume that the same thing happens in many areas: The politician wants the article to say "known for freedom" instead of "known for conspiracy theories"; the company wants the article to say "fourth largest producer of widgets" instead of "responsible for the massive pollution scandal"; and presumably everyone on all sides of PIA want their side to be held up as the One True™ Righteous Cause. But I still think that the article will be better if people from all those sides talk it through, than if I get to decide on my own what the article(s) will say. (There's an open question about whether we will be better off, as these conversations are doubtless wearing and sometimes painful for the community members involved, but I am convinced that WP:YESPOV is correct about what's best for the article.)
  4. Strict rule enforcement is also wearing and sometimes painful, and I'm not sure that it's always humane. When someone is terribly upset, it might be better to gently and privately encourage them to take a break than to sanction them for experiencing reasonable emotions. Right now, we likely have people editing PIA articles who are mourning family members, and many more who are a little more distantly but still significantly affected. When people are being told that their lives don't matter because they have the 'wrong' ethnicity, religion, or nationality, we can't expect them to be totally impersonal about it. The 2024 United States presidential election is being written by editors who are afraid about what will happen if the wrong guy gets re-elected, based on sources written by authors who are afraid about the same thing, and we expect this to just get worse. We have some young trans editors who are very upset about the Cass Review, which looks like a harbinger of a worldwide shift in the way gender care has been handled, and they're watching this unfold and doubtless thinking that the very thing they valued most when they were trans teens is being denied to the next generation, just because it has only been proven to be very, very, very wanted by the trans teens, which the establishment doesn't care about, and not proven to have certain practical long-term outcomes that the establishment does care about. We could kick all of these affected people out of these articles, but (a) that leaves us with a smaller population working on them, (b) it leaves us with fewer voices for certain POVs, (c) we'll probably end up with worse articles as a result, and (d) it doesn't seem very kind – or effective, when you think about the socking problem – to tell people to go away from the thing they most care about.
WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:02, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Is this intended only for AI area? ECP is broader than that, although AI is Arbcom specified.Selfstudier (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

It would have to be all areas - I don't think there is a reasonable way to separate it. BilledMammal (talk) 20:02, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
I'm not sure this would make much of a difference. The "half in the mainspace" rule will likely make no significant difference, as editing the mainspace is what newer editors do. The "big edits" rule can be gamed; just hang out at RecentChanges for a few days to find blanking vandals, or run a script to add citation templates to articles. Two or three copies of {{cite web}} will usually produce the desired number of bytes.
ECP originally wasn't based on any sort of evidence that 500 was better than any other number, and this is also not based on any sort of evidence. I suggest that you collect some numbers. For example, we know that during 2023, about 800,000 accounts made 1+ edits (new and old accounts together). We also know that very few of those 800,000 editors have achieved ECP status. Can we figure out how many editors achieved ECP in 2023, and then how many would have done so, under the proposed rules? The first should be pretty straightforward; just figure out how many people in this list created their accounts during 2023. It's probably a bit more than half a percent of those who edited at all, so I'd expect an answer around 4K or so. I'm not sure what it would take to check the new requirements, but you only have to check them for the people who achieved ECP last year, because the ~795,000 editors who either already had it, or who didn't manage to make 500 edits yet, wouldn't be affected by these changes anyway.
If very few would be affected, then what's the point? It'd just be rearranging the deck chairs. But if a lot of editors would be affected, we will have to ask ourselves whether we truly want our small percentage of eligible editors to be even smaller. Our dispute resolution processes are built on the principle that when we have problems like POV pushing, we generally need more eyes on the situation, rather than fewer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
I ran some queries. There were 1968288 accounts created in 2023 (UTC), excluding any blocked with the "hideuser" option. 487317 have made at least one edit since creation (note that edit may have been in 2024). 1776 have edited at least 500 times since creation, 1773 more than 500 times. 1691 are currently extendedconfirmed; this link currently shows those 1691, plus the first from 2024 and the last from 2022 (note it displays the creation dates in your configured timezone rather than UTC). There are 106 accounts with at least 500 edits that aren't in the group, presumably most because they haven't made a 501st edit since reaching the 30 days. The 21 accounts in the group without 500 edits were manually granted extendedconfirmed. Anomie⚔ 13:40, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks. Is there any way to test those 'new' (2023) extended-confirmed accounts against the proposed rules, without having to do it manually? It's possible to do 2K if we have to, but that could easily take a week of full-time work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:49, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Sure, someone could write code implementing whichever checks are proposed, and then run that list of users through the check. The above discussion is a bit too TL;DR for me personally to want to try to extract what the proposal(s) is/are though. But as a quick check, it seems 401 of the now-1693 extendedconfirmed accounts registered in 2023 have made fewer than 500 mainspace edits, and 235 have made fewer than 500 edits when excluding only the User and Draft namespaces (294 when also excluding User talk and Draft talk). Here's a query listing them: quarry:query/84853. Anomie⚔ 12:07, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
Thanks v much for putting some numbers to this. Selfstudier (talk) 12:16, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I recently corrected a dead link where the only change needed was to change the scheme from HTTP to HTTPS. It should be possible to write a bot that will automatically check each dead link with an http scheme and test whether changing the scheme to https resolves the issue. I'm not sure whther the process should be fully automatic or require using the Mark IV eyeball before confirming the changes. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 08:49, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This seems like a good idea. I wonder if it would be possible to incorporate into an existing bot that scans for and fixes dead link like InternetArchiveBot operated by Cyberpower678 and Harej? Thryduulf (talk) 09:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
User:GreenC may also be a botop interested in this problem, but I do see a potential major issue, in that bots are generally incapable of determining whether a link is truly live: custom 404s and redirects to domain roots return "live" HTTP codes similar to a fully functional link that supports a cited claim. This would definitely be a task that requires supervision, to avoid changing link status from dead just because HTTPS returns a custom 404 instead of a pure HTTP code to the same effect. Folly Mox (talk) 14:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
I already do this with WaybackMedic at WP:URLREQ on a per domain and per request basis.
It's actually very rare for a http to be dead and a https live. It can also happen in reverse for example http://static.espn.go.com/nfl/news/2003/0722/1584068.html works but https://static.espn.go.com/nfl/news/2003/0722/1584068.html gives a security error due to a misconfigured site, although if you "accept the risk" it will work, but then brings up a slightly different page. The variety of problems with URLs is infinite, and most of them have problems, mostly related to this kind of stuff: WP:LINKROT#Glossary
Anyway, if there is a problem with a domain, report it to URLREQ. -- GreenC 14:26, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The CS1 and CS2 templates have parameters to associate a URL with a text parameter, e.g., |section-url=. Typically these are derived from |url= by adding a fragment, e.g., #page=foo for a page within a PDF. It would make editing easier if there were a more compact way to express such URLs. Two options would be

  1. Allow, e.g., |section-url=#fragment, as a request to use the fragment with the |url= value prepended.
  2. Add new parameters, e.g., |section-frag=fragment, |section-PDF-page=pageno.

What's the best path forward? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:07, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This can create problems elsewhere with tools when the URL is abstracted. The problem of abstracting URLs occurs in 100s if not 1000s of specialized templates that most tools do not support (there are too many) and thus bots and tools don't maintain the URLs, creating link rot, failure to account, etc.. It's almost always best to state URLs in literal form so standard tools can access them. -- GreenC 16:05, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
That sounds more like an argument for than an argument against. Having the URL path on only one parameter solves the problem of, e.g., updating |url= but forgetting to update |section-url=.
A similar problem occurs when a page number is specified as an external link; updating |url=https://path does not automatically update [http://path#page=PDF-page printed-page], although in this case a solution seems less obvious. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:54, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
Note that |section-url= is an alias of |chapter-url=, and chapter urls are not always on the same web page as the main body of the document being sourced. If one were to implement a shorter syntax of this type, you would not need new parameters as you propose, the hash character should be signal enough, as it is an invalid character in the content of a url that lacks a fragment. Mathglot (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
I meant for the two options to be mutually exclusive in regards to each specific parameter.
Yes, a leading hash is not valid in a URL, making it trivial to distinguish between a URL and a bare fragment. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:45, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
Have you already looked at Wikipedia:Citing sources#Links and ID numbers, which includes information about multiple ways to link to specific pages, giving examples for PDFs and Google Books? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:18, 19 July 2024 (UTC)
I use CS1 and CS2 templates, and using |url=url with |title=title seems cleaner than using |title=[url title]. I do use explicit external lenks for, e.g., |page=. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:45, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Automate suggesting wiki links?

One of the ways articles are discoverable is through wiki-links. Sometimes I come across articles that reference specific people or events, and there exists Wikipedia articles with exact matches to the inline text. This could also be a gamified task for new editors to look at proposed wiki links to be matched with inline text. It should reuse the existing visual editor interface as much as possible. Given the possibility of false/sloppy matches, these types of edits could be marked for multiple reviews, while still enable new editors to make constructive edits and have fun at it.

The main challenges I foresee are: implementing such a suggester and possibly encouraging excessive linking or worse, incorrect wiki links. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 14:09, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

What you describe is almost exactly Add a link, a feature developed by the Growth team. There is a discussion about turning it on at English Wikipedia as a test, feel free to join it. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 14:24, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Resources on severe mental illness pages

For example, on the pages for “Eating Disorders” and “Anorexia Nervosa” include a section about what hotlines and organizations are available for eating disorder treatment in predominantly English-speaking countries. It’s very likely that struggling individuals may come to wikipedia to learn more about what they’re dealing with, and how someone can access information about treatment is objectively relevant to the topic. Ju1c3machine (talk) 09:34, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm often one to call out "that's not what Wikipedia is for", but I actually agree. Considering it purely from the perspective of building an encyclopedia, treatment and how people seek it is a legitimate aspect of its coverage, and an article is incomplete without it. I'd also say that these sort of resources are relevant external links that would be appropriate to include at the bottom of their article—maybe even in their own subsection under external links if applicable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:52, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
Might be worth perusing a recent (2022) discussion on adding suicide hotline numbers to related articles, as it seems pertinent. Link to discussion Schazjmd (talk) 22:59, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
One question is, who would be responsible/liable if a reader suffers harm from following a no-longer valid or malicious link from such a page? That is why we have disclaimers on pages about medical topics. Donald Albury 23:09, 24 June 2024 (UTC)
If a link becomes invalid, how is that any different from other links being caught and updated by editors? Wiki isn't providing services so there's no liability issues- same as if the Yellow Pages contained a hotline that went out of order. Ju1c3machine (talk) 13:49, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
How does one decide which organisations are worthy of having their hotlines mentioned? There are far too many organisations for these issues to include all of them and having to subjectively decide on them is bound to cause more problems than it is worth. Where would you even include it either, anywhere near the top would cause issues with those who simply want to read an article and if they're at the bottom they'd be quite useless. Traumnovelle (talk) 08:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
For Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, it would be possible to be comprehensive. A list of several hundred short items is not unreasonable.
Within an article, editors should use the ordinary methods of determining article content. For example, what was the first or most historically important service? "____ became the first charity to offer helpline services via SMS texting" is appropriate encyclopedic content.
Second, once you look outside the suicide/crisis category, there are often very few of these services. For example, the US appears to have three hotlines for eating disorders: two general ones, and one specifically for insulin-dependent diabetics. That's it. The UK appears to have one. It would not be difficult to construct a sentence that says something like "In the UK, free support services, such as a helpline, are offered by the charity Beat". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:50, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
There are more than 50 English speaking countries. Also having to choose which services are mentioned by name is obviously problematic, especially if it isn't already summarised in a secondary source. Traumnovelle (talk) 03:42, 22 July 2024 (UTC)
There are only about 35 countries where English is the main language spoken, and most of them do not have any hotlines or other specialized resources for people with eating disorders. For example, Grenada in an English-speaking country, and the way you decide whether to mention Grenada's eating disorder group is: You can't, because they don't have one. They don't even appear to have a suicide crisis hotline. List of suicide crisis lines attempts to be comprehensive, and we only have about half the countries listed.
I really don't think that controlling the amount of content will be that hard. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

section break 1, mental health topic

Personally, when seeing this, I was curious what other encyclopedias that exist in part/whole online do regarding this, so I went to a few to check. Let me preface this by saying I don't think it's a valid comparison to compare Wikipedia to a print encyclopedia for something like this, because we aren't ever complete and that's okay in part because we are online and perpetually being improved and updated. My opinion and analysis of policies/guidelines is after the list:
  • Encyclopedia Brittanica - suicide suicide resource box on the side of the page, depression (psychology) crisis information within the first paragraph, no information on article "bipolar disorder", no information on article "schizophrenia".
  • Encyclopedia.com - suicide basics discusses suicide hotlines existing but no specific links/numbers, depression again discusses their existence, and recommends checking "telephone books' [...] Community Service sections [... or] calling emergency services (911 in most places) but this is at the bottom of this long page. Has an article on "crisis intervention" that doesn't list specifics or how to find. Nothing on article "substance abuse". Of note, however, is that some of these articles have "resources" sections that do list specific phone numbers and/or websites for organizations providing hotlines.
  • The Canadian Encyclopedia - suicide info at top of article, mental health nothing in article, but links to a couple hotlines in the external links section at bottom of page, Suicide among Indigenous Peoples in Canada info at top of article.
The biggest issue people have with us including them is "scope" or similar. These arguments necessarily reference what Wikipedia is not - either directly or through essays/etc. Relevant policies, guidelines, and essays that have been referenced before or likely to be referenced now are below - along with my analysis of why they don't preclude mental health information from being provided on pages:
  • From WP:NOT: Advertising, marketing, publicity, or public relations... or issuing public service announcements - nobody's asking for "public service announcements" style of information. What people are asking for seems to be similar to what The Canadian Encyclopedia publishes on their articles directly about suicide. Also from WP:NOT: Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. Listings such as the white or yellow pages should not be replicated. - this is referencing actual lists that are not encyclopedically relevant, not what's being requested here.
  • From WP:ADVOCACY: Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia which aims to create a breadth of high-quality, neutral, verifiable articles and to become a serious, respected reference work. - as shown above, many encyclopedias do publish resources as part of their encyclopedic mission. Also from Wikipedia:Advocacy § Identifying advocacy: Some editors come to Wikipedia with the goal of raising the visibility or credibility of a specific viewpoint. It may be a hypothesis which they feel has been unduly dismissed or rejected by the scientific community; it may be alternate or revisionist interpretation of a historical event or personage; it may be additions to an article about an organization to portray it in a positive or negative light. The essential problem is that these goals conflict with Wikipedia's mission. Wikipedia is not a venue to right great wrongs, to promote ideas or beliefs which have been ignored or marginalized in the Real World, or to be an adjunct web presence for an organization. Wikipedia cannot give greater prominence to an agenda than experts or reliable sources in the Real World have given it; the failure to understand this fundamental precept is at the root of most problems with advocacy on Wikipedia. - resource information is not advocacy by any definition. The only applicable part of this could be "an adjunct web presence for an organization", but even that doesn't really apply, since nobody is advocating for any specific organization to be represented, but general information. The potential for the resources to be used to advocate for specific organizations can be handled through guidelines on how the specific information displayed is to be selected, where it is to be displayed on the page, and carefully selecting which pages they do display on.
  • No Righting Great Wrongs is also commonly referenced - but it doesn't apply here. You might think that Wikipedia is a great place to set the record straight and right great wrongs, but that is absolutely not the case. While we can record the righting of great wrongs, we can't actually "ride the crest of the wave" ourselves. - there is no "record" attempting to be "set... straight", and in fact, we wouldn't be "rid[ing] the crest of the wave ourselves". Many encyclopedias that are online include these resources already, and in fact many non-encyclopedia websites do too. We would be following, not leading, in that sense.
  • The 5 pillars - Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. - again, as showed above, encyclopedias do contain this sort of information sometimes.
  • Wikipedia:No disclaimers - A disclaimer in a Wikipedia article is a statement or warning that the article is not appropriate, suitable, or guaranteed for some specified purpose. - again, not what's being requested here. While some may desire for these notices to include a statement about what is included in the article, that is not what the basis of this is about. Again, see The Canadian Encyclopedia - a simple statement To reach the Canada Suicide Prevention Service, contact 1-833-456-4566. would suffice, even without the first sentence they include about the content of the article.
  • Wikipedia:External links - External links normally should not be placed in the body of an article. Nobody is proposing they be placed in the body of the article, but instead in a header or infobox style. And to note, infoboxes already allow external links in them, so there's a huge precedent for external links not being relegated to the bottom of the page when placing them at the top is more useful to our readers. Some acceptable external links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy. Pretty clear that this is "further research..." and is "other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in the article".
  • Arguments are also made that the information may become outdated, become malicious, not work when a reader clicks them... but these sorts of arguments don't affect our ability to put other external links in articles, even in the infobox. As always, Wikipedia is never finished, and these notices could be crafted in a way that allows (trusted) editors to update them when necessary. And that's actually the benefit of an online, everyone-can-edit encyclopedia over a print one - a print encyclopedia would not be able to be updated on the spot if/when resources change. Hence why I do not think comparing us to print encyclopedias here is reasonable - because they do have this as a valid reason to not put information into their print versions.
  • Last thing I'll address in these bullet points is the question of liability that Donald Albury brings up above. To make a slight correction, we do not have disclaimers on medical articles - but the reason we don't is the general disclaimer at the bottom of every page on the wiki. We also have the medical specific disclaimer, but that isn't actually linked directly from the bottom bar, and per our guidelines on disclaimers, shouldn't be linked in specific articles either. If those disclaimers suffice to protect us from liability from pages that explicitly detail current medical practice, and even more so, pages like crisis hotline, rape, suicide, and more to have external links to, phone numbers for, information about, and images that reference them now... then those same disclaimers will protect us if the same information is presented in a different manner/place on the page. If this sort of proposal is further developed, it would be prudent to confirm with legal the wording/etc to ensure they're aware - but they've really never prior regulated the wording of content in that sort of way.
To be quite honest, this is a stylistic decision, and only a stylistic decision. Not an issue of whether it's encyclopedic or not, because other online encyclopedias do include this information at least sometimes (and again, we follow, not lead). Not an issue of whether a link would violate our policy on external links, because such links would meet the three criteria listed there: Is the site content accessible to the reader? Is the site content proper in the context of the article (useful, tasteful, informative, factual, etc.)? Is the link functioning and likely to remain functional? (emphasis mine). It's not trying to right a great wrong, because there is no "great wrong" being righted, this would be purely informational in nature. It's not a disclaimer, because nobody's suggesting this be simply be a warning about what follows in the article (which would be a disclaimer), but to more prominently place relevant and helpful information towards the top of the article in some way. Not advocacy, because nobody is suggesting we advocate for anything - providing this information at the top of the article(s) in question would serve an informational purpose for our readers. While it's certainly within us editors' discretion as a community here to decide "we don't want to provide this information", there's really no policy reason that we can't. And even if there was, If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. Wikipedia exists to be an encyclopedia - "A comprehensive reference work (often spanning several printed volumes) with articles" - and to provide useful articles for readers... in a way that the reader will understand and find interesting. Whether we want to admit it or not, some readers will be directed to Wikipedia when they are searching for information about suicide, mental health, rape, etc. and currently, the primary place they will see it is the very end of articles in External Links - which does not serve our readers who will in a time of distress see a long article and likely never make it to the EL section. For all of the above reasons, I support further discussion, and workshopping of an infobox or top-banner style notice to be placed on pages that would provide this information. I would be happy to workshop some examples of formatting if it would be beneficial to this discussion or an eventual RfC, but I would need others to input on the best way to provide geographically relevant information - is it that the banner links to a separate page (whether in article space, project space, or elsewhere) that contains resources by country/location? Or is it the use of geo-notices as proposed here? Or is there another way that wouldn't require the user to click through to a separate page? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:00, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
"Whether we want to admit it or not, some readers will be directed to Wikipedia when they are searching for information about suicide, mental health, rape, etc. and currently, the primary place they will see it is the very end of articles in External Links" That's funny. I would have thought that the primary place they would find such information is the articles themeselves. If I were looking for help, therapy, treatment, etc for such things, I wouldn't go to the article about them. I would do a search for "suicide helpline" or "rape crisis center", etc. Sorry, but you still fail to show that WP:NOT doesn't apply. User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:26, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
It's completely reasonable that someone that suspects they may have a mental health problem may do research about it to see if it really does line up with what they're experiencing. Providing this information in no way detracts from the usefulness of Wikipedia- the only possible effect is positive. Ju1c3machine (talk) 13:47, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
That's not what the original poster is asking to add. That's what should already be in the article. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:07, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I am the original poster- I'm saying that if someone is researching a condition, it might be because they're thinking they have it, so including resources would be helpful. Ju1c3machine (talk) 14:31, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Which are you looking to add 1) details about the disorder to "see if it really does line up with what they're experiencing" or 2) places to go for an actual diagnosis, because these are different things. The first is encyclopedically relevant, the second isn't. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:46, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm asking to add resources such as official government sponsored hotlines, because if someone is on the page for a mental illness they think they might have, where to find treatment is relevant and helpful information. Ju1c3machine (talk) 17:57, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
No, the most likely effect will be that more people will rely on Wikipedia to give them information about helplines, etc., rather than on more relevant and more complete websites. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:32, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
As mentioned before, news sites commonly include hotlines at the end of articles about suicide- I don't think anyone has drawn the conclusion that they should head to the NYT for mental health information. Ju1c3machine (talk) 17:58, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
We're not a news site. What they do is completely irrelevant. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:41, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
What IS relevant is that other online encyclopedias do, as mentioned above. Ju1c3machine (talk) 16:04, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

section break 2, mental health topic

I don't see an issue with making a cat hall page to list "recognized" resources for mental health type issues, with "recognized" being either official govt resources (like 988 for the Suicide hotline) or from expert, well known medical organizations in that area. Since these can vary by country, a separate page makes sense, and which could be highlighted by a color keyed navbox. Masem (t) 14:21, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I definitely agree that we might want to limit resources to those that are official/government funded instead of random organizations. Ju1c3machine (talk) 14:32, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
How many official/government contact points are we talking about? There are 193 members of the UN plus a few other generally recognized sovereignties, some breakaway states, a number of dependent territories, and many sub-territories (states, provinces, etc.), each of which may have their own resource contact points. So, do we concentrate on providing contact information only for political units with large populations? Sending people to on-line contacts which do not have a local presence will often not be enough. In some places, directing people with problems to official contacts may not be the best way to help them. Maintaining all of that information (protecting it from link-rot, vandals and well-meaning but ill-informed editors) is going to require work from volunteers (edit-protection or pending changes may help, but is not perfect). I am afraid that, based on the typical level of maintenance in Wikipeida projects, a page such as proposed here will end up giving unusable or even harmful information to people seeking help. Donald Albury 16:28, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
For article content, when the full list isn't feasible, we usually focus on large English-speaking countries plus anything with significance (the oldest, the biggest, etc.).
For external links, we would normally link to a web directory instead of maintaining anything ourselves (e.g., https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/suicide/suicide-prevention-hotlines-resources-worldwide for suicide hotlines). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
If this is on a separate list page, there is no reason not to include them all. One or multiple tables (organized by continent) can make for easy navigation. Subpages could be made for North America (US states and Canadian provinces) and any other country where there is such significant lower level govt involvement. — Masem (t) 16:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I was thinking that keeping it to English-speaking countries would be enough, considering this is English Wikipedia. Ju1c3machine (talk) 18:02, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
That would cover more than 50 different countries. Traumnovelle (talk) 04:30, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
Is there a limit to how many countries we can provide information on? Ju1c3machine (talk) 12:07, 21 July 2024 (UTC)
I like the idea of a separate page or a template similar to a navbox, but I think that should only be a partial solution. Again, many articles already include resources (of varying quality and number) at the bottom of the page in the external links section. So adding more resources even further down on the page doesn’t really improve anything here. Maybe I misunderstood you? But I’d prefer it to be an info box style template (whether above, below, or incorporated into the info box if the article had one) with a sentence inviting people to click a link if all they want to see is the resources without having to scroll the article. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:56, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
On the original idea, of having a section (or paragraph) in articles about various organizations/crisis lines, I think it's a good idea. If the article is organized along the suggested WP:MEDSECTIONS plan, then it would usually go under ==Society and culture==. For example, an article about suicide could mention 1-800-273-8255 (song).
In terms of ==External links==, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#External links has recommended for years that local/city organizations be excluded (because even if we think it's great that one city has a support group meeting on Thursday mornings for that kind of cancer, that's really not useful information for the rest of the world), and that either a small number of national/international groups be considered for inclusion, or a link to a good Web directory (which does not have to be Curlie, and often shouldn't be). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
  • This is becoming a WP:Perennial proposals issue, but I have several reservations about this practice, however well-intentioned. The evidence of the effectiveness of suicide hotlines is inconclusive.[1] Any endorsement of this health intervention is non-compliant with WP:MEDRS. The inclusion of such resources could a) be taken as condescending by people who have these conditions or b) could encourage faulty self-diagnosis, which would be very problematic. Encouraging the reader to think of their subjectivity as a potential victim of an illness can have deleterious psychological effects. Further, as Donald Albury notes, the work of actually verifying that any given hotline, even if government-sponsored, is actually sincere in its mission and serves to help those who call it represents a massive amount of volunteer effort on a global scale, with a very real risk of sending people to crisis lines that will cause them harm (due to insufficient patient privacy protections, due to inadequately trained personnel or ideologically rather than scientifically-driven therapy practices, etc.). The framing of this entire question feels like a response to a school-assembly PSA: why depression and anorexia? Why not schizophrenia, or BPD? What about illnesses that are not primarily mental, but which almost certainly see a significant amount of traffic from people who suspect that they've contracted them, such as gonorrhea or COVID? Crisis hotline disclaimers are a feel-good solution in search of a problem, and we will certainly find a can of worms' worth of problems if we implement it. signed, Rosguill talk 17:09, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
    OP here- you might note that the original post uses anorexia as an example- if there are help lines for BPD and schizophrenia then I think those should be added as well. I"m not weighing in on physical illnesses because that's very clearly a matter for doctors, and it's a bad-faith argument to compare the two. "Here's where people that have this can get help'" is in no way condescending or encouraging self-diagnosis, and I'm pretty confused on how you drew that conclusion from what I said at all. Ju1c3machine (talk) 18:06, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
    I agree that it needs more discussion on what article(s) or topics this would display on. But the mere fact that discussion and hashing out are needed shouldn’t preclude a proposal from moving forward. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:57, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
    I thought so too, so I added WP:PEREN#Add prominent links to crisis hotlines on relevant articles a few days ago. We'll still have to let this one play out though. Anomie⚔ 01:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
    I think that was premature. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
    I think it was warranted after the previous discussion in April, following the two in September 2022, following the one in 2019. I just didn't get around to it then. But once this one goes the same way with respect to banners or notices in the lead, we can re-add it. 🤷 Anomie⚔ 23:03, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
    But will it? So far, I see nobody objecting to adding some information about the existence and work of support organizations in the body of the article. I think that means there is support for including that information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:51, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
    I recommend reading section 3 of this discussion, there are definitely notable arguments against from @Chaotic Enby and @AddWittyNameHere. Ju1c3machine (talk) 04:16, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
    I didn't reply under section break 3, but I am very much not opposed to adding information about support organizations in a verifiable and WP:DUE encyclopedic way. What I take issue with is a list of miscellaneous external links, but that's something else. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 04:23, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
    Whoops, sorry, just woke up and operating pre-coffee over here. I do think that having a separate page of resources sorted by country is the best solution at this point, but I do feel like it's going to spiral into me creating wiki articles for each organization and their work/history eventually... Ju1c3machine (talk) 04:37, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
    That would be amazing, that's how the encyclopedia grows! Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 04:48, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
    Perhaps you should re-read what I actually wrote, below and there and at Wikipedia talk:Perennial proposals, instead of setting up a strawman? Anomie⚔ 10:46, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
The idea needs some workshopping and refinement, but I support in principle. The page/template would need to be 30/500 protected at minimum, but full or templateeditor protection would be preferable because it would be a definite target for trolls. It might also be worth opening a dialogue with the Foundation to see if they or Trust & Safety might want to give some input. They might even have some resources or a grant for maintaining it. The WordsmithTalk to me 17:19, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Pages aren't protected preemptively, and trolls are virtually never extended-confirmed so I don't see what full protection would bring in this case, except making it much harder to add new entries assuming the proposal goes through. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:25, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Articles are usually not pre-emptively protected, though there are some exceptions like Today's Featured Article when it's on the Main Page. Other high-risk pages like the Main Page itself are protected, and we have an entire guideline allowing high risk templates to be pre-emptively protected on a case-by-case basis. Regarding the WP:NOT argument, I think there's a valid WP:IAR exemption that can be justified on humanitarian grounds. The WordsmithTalk to me 17:42, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Today's Featured Article is only preemptively protected because previous TFA were repeatedly targeted, and is still only semi-protected. The only preemptively full or template-protected pages, high-risk templates are protected because they are transcluded on tens of thousands of pages and can cause immediate widespread damage to the encyclopedia, while not needing regular updates. A list of information on many organizations will definitely need regular updates, while not being transcluded to the same scale as citation or infobox templates, so full protection is very much not needed. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 18:20, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Sorry, but this still falls under WP:NOT. You have still not demonstrated why Listings such as the white or yellow pages should not be replicated. does not apply here, especially with the proposal of making separate pages for this information. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:29, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Information on organizations that treat or provide assistance with a disease is objectively relevant to the Wiki pages aimed to provide information about that disease. Even if that were not the case, I also agree with The Wordsmith on there being a valid exemption to the rule for humanitarian reasons. Ju1c3machine (talk) 18:10, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
See WP:NOTIAR. As pointed by multiple people above, it is not even clear that this would be an improvement to begin with, let alone an improvement to our purpose of being an encyclopedia, and making an exception for "humanitarian reasons" would open the door to a lot more non-encyclopedic stuff that could be justified on the same grounds (humanitarian fundraisers, advocacy groups, etc.) Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 21:02, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I'd like to point out the post from bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez above- I agree that is is an improvement to our purpose of being an encyclopedia, given that other encyclopedias include this information. Ju1c3machine (talk) 10:05, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
We don't follow what other online encyclopedias do. Both of the ones mentioned also include quizzes but we aren't adding those. Traumnovelle (talk) 08:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
I addressed this in my comments above. Encyclopedias exist to serve their readers. And sometimes this means we bend the “not a white pages directory”, whether in lists with links to our own articles or lists with external links. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:59, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
While, yes, encyclopedias exist to serve their readers, that doesn't mean that anything that is potentially useful has to go in an encyclopedia. Lists with links to our own articles aren't anything like a white page directory, and I don't think anyone here would object that a list of notable helplines wouldn't be encyclopedic. But a standalone repository of phone numbers/external links, while useful for some readers, wouldn't be more encyclopedic than a software changelog. WP:USEFUL is not an argument for IAR. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:59, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
Anything can be an argument for IAR - if it's an improvement. You say it's not encyclopedic, then why do other online encyclopedias generally include them on at least some pages - see above? Further, nobody is suggesting that the list be put in mainspace. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:33, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I strongly oppose including any kind of out-of-band helpline links, both for the practical reasons already identified (vetting that they are legit; keeping them up to date; normalising the expectation that Wikipedia is a place to get medical advice) and because there is very limited evidence these things are helpful, and the possibility that they are actively harmful, causing ideation that may not otherwise have crystallised. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:41, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I can see your point behind causing ideation for something like suicide, but don't see how that relates to other topics, like eating disorders or bipolar disorder. Seeing a phone number for either of those isn't going to make someone 'start' being bulimic or bipolar. Ju1c3machine (talk) 09:46, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm not saying that a phone number is going to cause a mental illness, just that mental illness, generally speaking, is a complex phenomenon and its contributing factors are not well understood. I think it is at least plausible that reading an article which is written in a dispassionate, detached, neutral tone, will have a different psychological impact to reading a warning notice that personalises the interaction by suggesting that you might want to call this number if you are affected. This isn't a peer-reviewed comment. It may be an unfounded concern. But this proposal is a public health intervention, so I'd want to have a steer from a medical authority of some sort that it isn't going to cause more harm than good. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:20, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Note - I sandboxed the easiest method of doing this at the top of the page - adding to the infobox either above the image or at the bottom of the infobox - I don't really like either of these ideas since I think that it makes the statement less prominient than it should be, but you can see them here. Of note, I didn't expect WP:Mental health resources to be a blue link. It's a soft redirect to meta:Mental health resources. So it appears that Trust and Safety has already gotten rid of any liability concerns through the normal disclaimers/etc. And obviously it can be maintained, as they are doing it. I think the mere fact this page exists and has been approved by Trust and Safety means that any argument based on "we can't keep it updated" can be put to rest permanently. It would be ideal to have a version of that page adopted to the English Wikipedia however. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:31, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
I like the sandboxed version (and think at the bottom of the box looks better than at the top from an aesthetic point of view), but that then raises the issue of having to create another page to link to for each illnesses' resources- instead of this just being acceptable to add to a page, it would require creating an entirely new page and linking it, which seems like a bit bigger of a project than I originally intended for. That being said, I really do like the way that Wikimedia's page is formatted, and wonder if it would be possible to create one page for helplines and link to individual sections that are relevant for each topic. Ju1c3machine (talk) 20:44, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
In this case, it could be good to have it outside of mainspace (possibly in projectspace instead), and a hatnote at the top of the page would be a more elegant solution than an infobox, as the latter is intended to summarize information. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 20:47, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
A hatnote would be an option, but then you run into issues of "what if a page already has a hatnote"? I know some pages have long hatnotes, but this should really be separate from a hatnote for disambiguation, redirect, etc. reasons, as it's completely separate. I was going to try to sandbox a new "infobox" similar to the topic navigation boxes that show on suicide and other topics, but after everything moved to modules (which is great, don't get me wrong) I really can't be arsed. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:29, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
@Berchanhimez, your sandbox's infobox says:
"Help If you or someone you know is considering suicide, you can find resources to help here".
Why not a simple, ordinary link to "List of suicide crisis lines", without the WP:YOU-style writing? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:02, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I'm happy for anyone to edit it to be better, but I don't think a simple link to a list without a sentence isn't going to be what is ideal here. If that's all people are okay with it's better than nothing I guess. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:52, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Hoffberg, Adam S.; Stearns-Yoder, Kelly A.; Brenner, Lisa A. (2020-01-17). "The Effectiveness of Crisis Line Services: A Systematic Review". Frontiers in Public Health. 7: 399. doi:10.3389/fpubh.2019.00399. ISSN 2296-2565. PMC 6978712. PMID 32010655.
  • Oppose I support anyone applying for money at meta:Grants:Start to develop this idea. Here and every other time this has been proposed, I feel that the early ideas are more harmful than good. Problems include
    • English Wikipedia is a global service, but there are no crisis support services that are global. There are not even enough regional support services to be satisfactory.
    • Services are not neutral. Many of them take positions on ethics and values. For example, some crisis hotlines may advise people that their lives will be better if they quit being LGBT+. We should not recommend an external service without having a process to report and evaluate them.
    • Wikipedia is not prepared to recommend products and services. If we start doing this, then certain organizations get government, foundation, and other funding and while others do not. Organizations will pay staff to persuade Wikipedians, sponsor Wikipedians to travel, send their staff people to conferences, talk about the partnership in the media, and advise the wiki community with expertise that is difficult to evaluate. Managing endorsements requires staff, and the first step is not to make endorsements to see what happens.
Again, I support the development of the idea, and someone should apply for a grant to develop all the reasons for and against. Bluerasberry (talk) 14:56, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Very good point, especially regarding the non-neutral position that Wikipedia would have to take when recommending services. These are not comparable to external links, which are just showing links where relevant information can be found, without recommending the services provided in these links.
It's not even a question of "managing endorsements would be complicated". Managing endorsements would make us fundamentally non-neutral. We shouldn't be recommending products and services to begin with. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 16:02, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
A free-to-use government-sponsored emergency hotline is neither a service nor a product. All of the arguments above can easily be handled by just providing official resources. Additionally, the anti-LGBT hotline falls under WP:FRINGE and isn#t relevenat to the current discussion. Ju1c3machine (talk) 16:07, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
A free-to-use government-sponsored emergency hotline is neither a service nor a product. It is, by definition, a service. And anti-LGBT hotlines are relevant to the discussion because, sadly, some countries' official resources are anti-LGBT. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:16, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
This is a proposition about hotlines on mental illness articles- what mental illness would need an anti-LGBT hotline? Ju1c3machine (talk) 11:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Some countries consider LGBT people to suffer from mental illnesses. You very likely don't want to call a government hotline in Qatar to effectively turn yourself in for being gay. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:41, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I believe that falls under WP:FRINGE. Additionally, there isn't a specific psychology page for homosexuality as a mental illness. Ju1c3machine (talk) 12:51, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
WP:FRINGE or not, if you're recommending government hotlines, that's the kind of stuff you risk having in more than a few countries. And given that the readers we link the hotline to will likely trust it enough to share personal details (even if just for the needed context), some of them will actually risk ending up in that situation, with the hotline possibly blaming their LGBT identity as the cause for their condition, even if they didn't reach the hotline through a specific "homosexuality as a mental illness" page. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 14:33, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
That's definitely something to keep in mind, but I think the discussion should surround what criteria we are used to provide resources that are safe for users instead of "here's why we should scrap the whole idea". Ju1c3machine (talk) 21:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

section break 3, mental health topic

I agree that if there's interest in the idea, the Foundation should be consulted. Normally I'm very opposed to integrating them further into enwiki processes, but this area seems like it would be a logical place for that. Trust & Safety may have even considered doing this already, and might be willing to share and research or insight they have. Maybe they'd even be willing to take care of maintaining the list. It seems like this discussion is to figure out whether there's some interest in the overall idea that's worth developing further, and I think there is. The WordsmithTalk to me 16:41, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Any advice on how to move forward from here? This is my first time suggesting something like this on wiki, I'm not super up to speed on what the correct process is. Ju1c3machine (talk) 17:10, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
You wait for there to be a consensus here. IMO it's likely this will turn out much the same as previous times this sort of thing has been brought up: between the questionable impact of helplines and the need to be global, something at the top of the article or in the lead beyond a hatnote like we have on Suicide (pointing to Suicide prevention) is unlikely to be accepted. Similarly, a listing within an article is unlikely to overcome WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a directory. OTOH, a well-written section in the articles (or standalone article, if independently notable) about types of prevention or support would probably be accepted. Anomie⚔ 01:52, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I think we need to operate on the principle, "first, do no harm". I have not seen any WP:MEDRS-compliant source that says whether such helplines are helpful or harmful or neither. I myself suffer from a mental illess (two in fact) and, though I don't claim to speak for anyone but myself, can see that it is by no means self-evident that helplines, or the promotion of them, actually help. Yes, they provide a nice warm glow to the people that operate them or volunteer for them, but I would probably be adversely affected by the suggestion that I should call one. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:26, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
I too have mental health issues (+autism, which in my case brings with it a good few issues that do at times interact with my mental health issues), and while I am also not claiming or attempting to speak for anyone but myself, I can confirm your statement beyond a "would be": suggestions of calling a helpline/crisis line have in the past adversely affected me (by setting off an anxiety attack or flashback, mainly), and my experience with actually using such services a handful of times has varied from "slightly helpful" to "harmful". AddWittyNameHere 06:33, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I'd like to reiterate (again) that I'm not advocating for the "random volunteer tells you to not commit suicide" type hotlines, I'm advocating for the "hello I think I need to get help for my eating disorder, can you please help me make an appointment with a provider in my area" type hotline. Ju1c3machine (talk) 06:54, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
@Ju1c3machine: I know you are. (Though not everyone in this discussion is, on both sides). That said, those sorts of hotlines would still adversely affect me, simply because they break down the barrier between "abstract concept" and "this (could) apply to me", which is what such hotlines/their mentions within the relevant contexts are based on: someone realizing "this applies to me" and which leads to either realizing they need help (the type of hotline you advocate for) or spiraling and needing more acute intervention (which the other type of hotline is supposed to provide, at least).
I can absolutely see how that would be helpful in a lot of cases, but at least for me personally, that "barrier-breaking" is more likely to do harm than good. By turning an abstract, distant concept (which, sure, I know happens to apply to me too) into something about me, first and foremost (that happens to apply to other people too) may bring on the "this is talking about me, remember that time when you [...] oh and that perfectly describes that other time when [...]" spiral of flashbacks depending on my state of mind at the time.
Of course, my experiences are my own, and like I said, I can see how it would be helpful in plenty of cases. But that it can do harm alongside good is something I feel should be weighed into decisions. AddWittyNameHere 07:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I can see your point, but also think that it has potential to do a lot of good- for example, I have ARFID, and a suggestion on the page to get help might have saved me a lot of struggle instead of thinking that my eating disorder was just "how I am" or "picky eating", and something worth getting help for. Not to get too personal, but my delay in getting help has lead to being diagnosed with heart disease, likely as a consequence of malnutrition- something that could have been avoided if I had known where to go to get help for it sooner. Ju1c3machine (talk) 12:03, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Likewise, I can also see your point. It has potential to do both good and harm, alongside what's likely the greater bulk of cases—folks to which the issue described does not apply, particularly—in which it has negligible to no impact at all. I do wish there was a better way to figure out how much harm it would prevent vs cause, but if wishes were fishes...
So, barring that, my main reason for mentioning the point (both here and elsewhere in the section) is to ensure that its potential for causing harm alongside preventing it is taken into consideration, in part in whether this is a good idea, but especially in, if it is decided it is a good idea, what way to implement this and what group of articles to apply it to.
(As for too personal, I think sometimes getting personal in discussions about matters like this and accessibility concerns can be pretty useful by illustrating how a change could be/have been helpful (or harmful) in a non-hypothetical manner.) AddWittyNameHere 04:44, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Does it change anything that there's a Trust and Safety approved list on meta already that we link to from WP:Mental health resources already? Pinging both User:Bluerasberry and User:The Wordsmith to ensure they both see that they've already started a list, and merely linking to that list (if nothing else) would almost certainly not be something they'd want to give "more" approval to. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:41, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
I've also added a note to the talk page of the meta page for anyone with experience in how this page is used, or from the WMF, to comment here if they so desire. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:43, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
@Berchanhimez: WMF Trust and Safety is great for what they do. They should not change anything.
However, when resources are scarce and the Wikimedia user community wants something versus the Wikimedia Foundation wanting something different, then T&S is going to side with the WMF. In general, T&S prioritizes protection where the WMF as a corporation could be legally liable. T&S do not prioritize lower level safety issues, and if for example, we had democratic governance, then most Wikipedians would vote to eliminate the common familiar problems and not the rare emergency problems. I am not saying that democracy is good or bad in this case, just that the majority of requests/votes would be for things that T&S does not do.
It is not appropriate for the Wikimedia community to freely edit that page on meta. Some pages on meta are sort of owned by WMF staff, and that is one of them. I support that page being there, but it being there does not indicate universal consensus to endorse driving traffic to it or its contents. When a lot of WMF staff edit a page then editors get scared away from raising criticism or concerns or problems.
Again, I support anyone applying for a grant to document all the social and ethical issues that come from making crisis referrals to organizations outside of our platform, and to just take this seriously. Bluerasberry (talk) 18:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
I don’t think we’d necessarily need to edit that page or maintain a local copy - even just linking to that page directly in the hatnote (or whatever is decided) would suffice. I can’t really tell what your opinion is - at first, it was reading as that it’s “not possible” to make such a page, but Trust and Safety already has done so and apparently they’re not concerned with the liability from it at all, nor linking/directing to those specific organizations. I’m not suggesting that page is evidence of a consensus - that’s what this discussion is for - but that page is evidence that Trust and Safety has already thought about the issue of “which organizations” and our liability and decided that they are either non-issues or can be properly managed by them vetting the links. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:28, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

section break 4, mental health topic

Is there a way to get WMF's opinion on the idea? Ju1c3machine (talk) 18:50, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
The WMF can do whatever they want on MetaWiki, but having a corporation-vetted list of services masquerading as an encyclopedia article is not what Wikipedia is for. There isn't even evidence that it would be helpful, let alone that it would be a justified WP:IAR improvement to the encyclopedia. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 19:05, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Nobody is suggesting this would “masquerade as an encyclopedia article”, so statements like that are less than unhelpful. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:22, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
How is including a relevant link to an existing Wikimedia page "masquerading as an encyclopedia article"? Ju1c3machine (talk) 05:40, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I wonder whether the people supporting this proposal would advise people with cancer or heart disease (or arthritis - I have never considered suicide as a way out of my mental problems, but I would do just about anything to get rid of the pain when my arthritis flares up) to phone a well-meaning amateur rather than seek professional help? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:11, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
I can see this point being made for suicide crisis lines, but the types of resources I had in mind are the kind where you can call and someone helps walk you through finding professional help in your area. Ju1c3machine (talk) 19:14, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
@Ju1c3machine: In List of countries by English-speaking population, India, Pakistan, and Nigeria are top 5. It would be disappointing if we did not recommend good services to them but designed our support to refer people in other countries. It is a challenge to find regional services in those places. Bluerasberry (talk) 19:22, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
Taking Nigera as an example, it took approximately 30 seconds to find a list of government-sponsored hotlines. Ju1c3machine (talk) 05:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Wow! It's almost like there are ways to find this information that are already available and are much better at it. -- User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:19, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Wow! It's almost like that's not the point of the proposal, and that consolidated information should be available from the page itself for easier access to those needing help. You can't argue both "we can't do this because the resources are hard to find" and "we don't need to do this because the resources are already super easy to find somewhere else", that's absurd. Ju1c3machine (talk) 04:18, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Show me where I argued that these things were hard to find? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:43, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
The person that replied before you argued that it was hard to find resources, which I disproved, and then you said we don’t need to because it’s easy to find resources. Since when does “you can find this information somewhere else” mean that it doesn’t belong on Wiki? Ju1c3machine (talk) 08:14, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
People with cancer aren’t at risk of dying imminently by suicide if they don’t find another path forward. Your suggestion comes closer to a general “medical disclaimer” that’s explicitly not appropriate on Wikipedia. Offering people an option other than “keep looking at articles about depression/suicide until you do it or get tired of it” isn’t the same thing as “contact your doctor to discuss medical concerns”. Attempting to make that analogy minimizes the urgency of suicide prevention. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:24, 26 June 2024 (UTC)
People with cancer aren’t at risk of dying imminently by suicide if they don’t find another path forward. - they well might. Cancer comes with elevated suicide rates, particularly when the prognosis is poor and/or quality of life is significantly, long-term impaired—concerns about the former and ways of hopefully tackling the latter are both better discussed with a doctor than an amateur volunteer without access to your medical information.
Offering people an option other than “keep looking at articles about depression/suicide until you do it or get tired of it” isn’t the same thing as “contact your doctor to discuss medical concerns”. Going to be a little more explicit here about my mental health/experiences with mental health crises than I would otherwise be: in my case, that "offered option" would increase rather than decrease the risk I am at.
From experience, if not actively struggling, looking at [clinical representations of/distant mentions of] suicide and depression with or without mention of hotlines is unlikely to set off my suicidal ideation and related matters.
If I am struggling, however, without such hotlines it makes it a distant and clinical concept, which has helped me distance myself from such thoughts a time or two. On the other hand, with hotlines (and especially when those are directed at the reader) provided, it breaks the barrier that makes it an abstract concept and turns it into "something I might feel tempted to do/could do". Which tends to make my ideation a lot less abstract and my intrusive thoughts more intrusive. (That my experiences with crisis lines are a mixed-leaning-negative bag including two cases that set off my anxiety if reminded of them at the wrong time does very much not help there)
Of course, I am just one person, and my personal experiences don't apply to everyone. I'm not saying "it is harmful to me, therefore it must be harmful in general". But there does seem to be a tendency (in general discourse, not you specifically, nor even this discussion specifically) to gloss over the fact that the presence of such reader-directed hotlines might cause some people harm, too. It might well be that on the whole, that harm of their presence is outweighed by the harm of their absence—but that's impossible to determine without first taking into account that there is harm on both sides of the coin. AddWittyNameHere 07:18, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
I'd like to ask that that discussion stays on topic to my original proposal, which was to add resources for where someone can find treatment options for mental health problems, not suicide hotlines themselves. My suggestion was prompted by friends of mine with mental health problems wishing there were easier ways to get help- in some countries, there are easier ways to get help, and I believe adding them might help make those options more widely known, especially when (as mentioned before) someone is reading Wikipedia to learn more about a condition that they didn't know was the reason behind their maladaptive behavior. Ju1c3machine (talk) 11:39, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
This is the sort of thing Google (or any other search engine) would be much better for than Wikipedia. -- User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:17, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
Suicide hotlines are easy: We can link to List of suicide crisis lines, which already exists (for more than a decade), already is sourced, etc., and we're done.
I think the more interesting area is non-suicide social support. So to answer the question from @Phil Bridger, I would recommend a peer-led support group to people with cancer. People with cancer who join peer support groups tend to live longer and have better quality of life than people who don't. Support groups are mentioned, e.g., in Breast cancer#Society and culture. Note that it doesn't say "If you live in Ruritania, contact the Ruritanian Cancer Support Group"; instead, it has encyclopedic information about the earliest support group for breast cancer. Someone could expand that article content if they wanted to; the result would probably say something like some are organized through hospitals and there are a bunch on social media. It might even touch on the practice of having separate support groups for women who are highly likely to survive vs those at risk of treatment failure and death.
I don't know if there are similar groups for heart disease. Part of what seems to make a peer-led support group work is having everyone more or less in the same situation, so it might not be "heart disease", but instead for people with a specific type of heart disease.
But overall, I would recommend the "well-meaning amateur" in some instances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 27 June 2024 (UTC)
add resources for where someone can find treatment options for mental health problems Using your Anorexia nervosa example, what specific resources or links would you add? Some1 (talk) 01:57, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Resources that I had in mind when I posted the proposal (not meeting the criteria of 'maybe we should stick to government-sponsored organizations' because I don't have time at the moment to do research and I happen to know of these off the top of my head) would be NEDA and ANAD, whose hotlines connects individuals with treatment options (ANAD was the first ED hotline to exist which I think is also a neat fact to stick in an article somewhere), EatRight, which has a directory of nutritionists and dieticians (who are an essential part of recovery, as people with EDs need a very specific diet to avoid refeeding syndrome), NAMI, which provides general mental health group support, and Eating Disorders Anonymous, which might be a helpful tool for someone who doesn't need traditional inpatient treatment. Ju1c3machine (talk) 04:32, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
Slightly more awake addition to this: Eating Disorders Anonymous is also a good resource for those who can’t access inpatient treatment, but it’s an option many in ED communities are completely unaware exists, so I believe linking that one specifically would have a rapid positive impact on those affected, especially for users in the US (where it can be prohibitively expensive and/or not covered by insurance) and the UK (where I’m less familiar with the topic, but believe there are also some issues there with waiting times and quality of treatment facilities). Ju1c3machine (talk) 06:03, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
  • I have to confess that I have never really understood the overall meme of mental health hotlines. You see them in a bunch of cases (notoriously, near the ends of subway platforms). My main experience with them is that they are obnoxiously and insistently slathered over my screen if I try to look something up which happens to be tangentially related to a contentious mental health topic. The impulse is very easy to understand, as it's a syllogism you see all over the place: "suicide is a tragedy, something should be done about tragedies, and this is something". Here is something to consider: many of our readers get to Wikipedia by way of a search engine. If you search for "suicide" you're already forced to scroll past a full screen's worth of paternalistic lecturing from Google LLC, so are we actually providing any benefit by making our readers sit through a second one after they click the Wikipedia link? jp×g🗯️ 00:43, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

If you don't believe me, here is what you see when you Google "suicide" (I am in California so your results may vary):

Help is available
Speak with someone today
88 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Languages: English, Spanish
Hours: Available 24 hours
Call 988 Text 988
Chat Official website
Learn more • Feedback
Connect with people you trust
From International Association for Suicide Prevention · Learn more
If you’re struggling, it’s okay to share your feelings. To start, you could copy one of these pre-written messages and send it to a trusted contact.
Reach out Contact a loved one Express your feelings
When you get a chance can you contact me? I feel really alone and suicidal, and could use some support. I don’t want to die, but I don't know how to live. Talking with you may help me feel safe. Are you free to talk? This is really hard for me to say but I’m having painful thoughts and it might help to talk. Are you free?
For informational purposes only. Consult your local medical authority for advice.

After this, there are three videos hoisted to the top of the results: "Suicide: Facts & Misconceptions You Should Know", "How Do I Ask For Help If I’m Thinking About Suicide?" and "Teen Suicide Prevention". All of this takes up about a full screen on a normal computer. Then you scroll down past another screen or so of offically-approved links to suicide hotlines (one from the California State Portal, one from the CDC, one from the NIH, and then one from the WHO). Only then, after Google has diligently eliminated all possible sources of legal liability (e.g. repeated CYA disclaimers about "consult your local medical authority") do they permit the Wikipedia link to appear. I copied the full text content of the search results page into a reading-time estimator, and it gave me 1:54. This means that someone who clicks on the link to Suicide from a Google search does so after having spent nearly the entire runtime of Led Zeppelin - IMMIGRANT SONG.mp3 having helpline numbers shoved in their face. Are we really, genuinely, helping this person, or are we just making ourselves feel better, at the cost of diminishing their ability to read the article? jp×g🗯️ 01:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is suggesting something intrusive that would diminish someone's ability to read the article. The suggestions I've seen so far are a hatnote style one line at the top which would likely be in italics, or an addition to the infobox, or a small box above/below the infobox with a page of resources linked to from it. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:07, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
If you read the conversation, we are talking about a small link to mental health resources for issues that are not suicide. I would appreciate it if this conversation would stop getting derailed by what I was unaware is a controversial topic. I recognize that there are mixed opinions on suicide resources and warnings, which are numerous- this is not the case for other mental health issues, such as eating disorders, or this conversation wouldn’t be taking place. Ju1c3machine (talk) 04:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't say it's getting derailed. Suicide is the option that has the most pre-existing consideration within Wikimedia Foundation projects (see WP:Mental health resources) and is also the one with the most correlation in other encyclopedias/etc. Yes, it's divisive, but those opposing them for their "efficacy" are opposing all mental health resource links for their efficacy from what I can see. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 05:36, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I don't see a lot of evidence that people are thinking about anything except suicide. In fact, I added a link to Diagnosis of autism#External links a couple of weeks ago. It's about mental health. It's a resource. It's a link. There's been no opposition, and I expect no opposition (assuming nobody decides to be WP:POINTY after I mention it here). I'm hoping that some readers, particularly high school students writing the predictable paper for health class, will click the link and learn something (e.g., that the diagnostic process for autism involves fairly ordinary personality-type quizzes). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:45, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
That's a good data point, but I think the original proposal was for them to be more prominent (i.e. infobox, a box above/below the infobox on the side, a hatnote, etc) rather than relegated to the bottom of the page in EL. I agree that putting them as EL isn't generally considered controversial. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 05:54, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
Ju1c3machine's original proposal here was to have a directory of information in a section within the article. You jumped in early on and started advocating for a prominent "call to action" at the top of the article. Then WhatamIdoing jumped in with some more status-quo options (e.g. external links that could comply with WP:EL and in-article coverage in line with WP:DUE rather than against WP:NOTDIR) but also refuses to accept that people can make a distinction between those and yours.
To my eyes, the rest of the discussion seems to have been supportive of WP:DUE and WP:EL, and opposed to top of the article calls to action and to article-space directories other than the already-existing List of suicide crisis lines. Whether the line on more subtle hatnotes has moved from the very subtle one approved in Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 161#Proposal to add suicidal disclaimer at Suicide is unclear. Anomie⚔ 11:23, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I believe that people can make a distinction between different forms. However, I don't believe that putting an oversimplified line in WP:PEREN that says the community has a consensus not to "Add prominent links to crisis hotlines on relevant articles" will result in people making that distinction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
You believe people won't read more than the heading of anything, so if it's not possible to state as a soundbite then it's not possible to state at all. Anomie⚔ 10:36, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
I do not believe that.
I do believe that most people do not read things closely.
I do believe that most editors will not read past the headline when they believe that the headline has told them the whole story, and especially if they want the contents of an oversimplified headline to be the whole story.
See also all the people who see an WP:UPPERCASE shortcut and assume that they know what the policy says – even if the linked page isn't a policy and says the opposite of the shortcut (e.g., WP:VOTE and WP:NOTAVOTE, which point to the same essay; WP:DEADLINE and WP:NOTDEADLINE; WP:NOTWINNING and WP:WINNING; and so forth). This is not a unique problem. The whole internet has problems with people only reading part of the story, and then going out to assert that they really know what's going on because they read – well, not the whole article, but the headline, one caption, and half of the first paragraph. We have a rule against relying on news headlines if you haven't read the whole article, and against relying on abstracts if you haven't read the whole journal article; we would not need those rules if busy people could be relied upon to read the whole thing every time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
So which is it? We can't add it to WP:PEREN if we can't reduce it to a soundbite because people won't read more than that, or we can add it to WP:PEREN because we have rules against not reading the whole thing and hundreds or thousands of existing rules that already require reading the whole thing to get right? Anomie⚔ 13:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
You can't add your summary to PEREN because you don't have consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
Because exactly one person (you) objects, for no reason you can support? 🙄 I don't think that's how consensus is supposed to work. But if you're going to be like that, I suppose we can waste time with an RFC about it after this discussion too closes with consensus against a prominent top-of-article call to action. Anomie⚔ 11:22, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
We could equally say that "exactly one person (you) supports". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:00, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
You could say that, but you'd be wrong. At least one other person here has supported adding it to WP:PEREN. Anomie⚔ 02:38, 18 July 2024 (UTC)
I went with suicide, because it's the one thing where the argument is strongest for including some kind of hatnote or warning label. For e.g. anorexia or bulimia, the case is quite a bit weaker, since there is not a possibility that the person is imminently about to die -- they have just as much time as anyone else, they just have a mental disorder. They are just as intelligent as anyone else, too, and I don't see why we need to give them additional hatnotes on top of an article that's already about the disorder (we don't have hatnotes at the top of bandsaw that tell you to wear safety glasses, or gas metal arc welding that tell you to make sure your ground clamp is connected, et cetera). People with anorexia can read, yes? If you Google "anorexia", you already get reams of stuff about how to get help and where to get help and here's a helpline and et cetera. The intended demographic of this intervention seems extremely small: people who have a mental illness and desperately need help for it, who are wise enough to be reading a Wikipedia article, but not wise enough to be able to type "[name of disorder] help" into a search engine? jp×g🗯️ 07:24, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I think the important thing to remember is that, while yes, many people treat Google as a first source of information, our articles are linked to throughout the web. For all we know, someone's reading an article on some blog somewhere that has a link to our article on suicide, and it may not even be a clear link (perhaps it was an easter egg link on that site). Many people also do use our interwiki links and/or search bar to get to articles directly, rather than dealing with the ads/promoted links on Google/other search engines. Sure, I don't think anyone going to the Canadian Encyclopedia is so internet unsavvy that they can't go to Google and type in "X help". But that's not why their hatnotes exist. It's because people arrive at articles they don't intend to, or that they may have intended to but only after going down a rabbit hole of seeing things that have triggered them to be thinking about committing suicide. Let's use an example - someone hears a nice Avicii song that they enjoyed, and they come to look up the album/song on Wikipedia. They then click the article about Avicii, because they want to read more about him - without even thinking about suicide. In reading our article, they read about his suicide, and that gets them to thinking about it. There isn't currently a wikilink to suicide in his article that I can see (though there maybe should be?) - but they now, thinking about the topic of suicide and seeing that a musical artist that they enjoyed committed suicide, happen to go to our article on suicide, in a time of distress. Not because they came to Wikipedia thinking about suicide - they came here for information on a song/musician. But they ended up on our article about suicide nonetheless. That is the "intended demographic", and for those with mental illness, going down those rabbit holes that lead to researching suicide or self-harm is all too common. It costs nothing for us to add a prominent but not intrusive list of resources for them to use if they want to stop going down that rabbit hole but can't do so on their own. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 08:05, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
This is really well worded and a great descriptor of why I made this proposal, thank you! Ju1c3machine (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
"they have just as much time as anyone else, they just have a mental disorder"
Eating disorders have the highest mortality of any mental illness. This is being proposed because an issue I struggle with isn't very well known and I didn't realize help existed for it, let alone that it was a problem that I needed serious help with instead of just being a 'personality quirk'. I'm not sure why you think reading an article on one of the most popularly used websites on the internet makes you 'wise', but no, for a lot of these resources googling doesn't really provide resources or help- it's just WebMD summaries of how to spot early signs of those issues in kids, because god forbid those kids not figure out there's a name for what's wrong with them until later and want to fix it. Ju1c3machine (talk) 16:48, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
I note that there have been over a hundred responses to this, but only one (this one from Rosguill) has come with a WP:MEDRS-compliant source, and that was inconclusive and about suicide prevention lines, which we are told is not the subject of this discussion. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:01, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Adding categorisation for Image supported templates

When editing an article with Template:Image requested or Template:Photo requested, I noticed that there was no clear way to find the associated categories with the article.

For example, Category:Wikipedia requested images of cars is added automatically to all articles with "cars" as parameter in Image requested, and Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Paris is auto-added to all articles with "Paris" as the parameter. But there's no way to go from Talk:Gameloft and see the template there and find the category for Paris.

I think this linking would be very helpful. Any editor interested in finishing one Requested Image from Paris will likely be able to help with other articles in Paris. But there should be a clear link given from talk pages. Starting discussion here because both templates affect 250K+ articles. I'll move to another venue (which?) if it looks like a good idea overall. Soni (talk) 04:14, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Isn't there a list of categories at the bottom of the talk page? Aaron Liu (talk) 15:54, 28 July 2024 (UTC)
@Soni, the very last cat at the bottom of Talk:Gameloft is Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Paris. Is that not what you want? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:22, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
You are both right, I somehow missed that in all 3 talk pages I was looking at. Thank you.
I still think it might be helpful to put a link in the template itself, but it's more trivial. Soni (talk) 02:24, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
I think that is feasible, and I wonder whether Xaosflux could do it. He's made some other edits to that template. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Could MOS:TMRULES be amended to avoid conflict with WP:COMMONNAME, esp for contemporary artists and their works?

To tl;dr it – Many contemporary artists [esp. musicians, and esp Korean pop groups] consistently use exceptional stylization (non exhaustive example: ALL CAPS) for the name of their groups and/or works. It has become commonplace for sources to observe these exceptional stylizations. Conventional interpretation of MOS:TMRULES has created an untold number of articles of where Wikipedia often sticks out as the only online resource that doesn't observe these exceptional stylizations. I believe I can make a compelling case, one by one, to amend these article titles to observe the exceptional stylization. Does this have to carry on as a one-by-one where the compelling case must be made each time, or could a policy change streamline / reduce the workload?

Longform: I think Wikipedia struggles, and will continue to struggle, with the name of artists who prefer exceptional stylization ('exceptional' in the Wikipedia sense of the term). For a specific example, a lot of Korean music groups have come to prefer stylizations which break grammatical conventions. Typically, there are artists who will style their name in all caps even though it doesn't stand for anything, such as ARTMS. There, I created a move request with what I believe is a compelling argument to move from Artms to ARTMS, but I would not consider this a one-off.

As I discuss on the talk page of IVE (group), a myriad of other Korean groups come to mind, limited to, but hardly inclusive of Le Sserafim, Twice, Artms, Blackpink (re: LE SSERAFIM, TWICE, ARTMS, BLACKPINK – all consistently observed as such officially and in most sources). These artists don't incidentally use all caps stylization, they are all consistently using this stylization on social media, on streaming services, in album databases, etc. Looking back retroactively, even defunct Kpop groups like Loona were actually consistently using all caps stylizations not as a branding idiosyncrasy, but in effect, as their name. The problem as I'm suggesting it, is that Wikipedia is currently the odd duck out for a number of articles – the argument as I've made for ARTMS can consistently be made for a number of these groups. When I search these groups up Wikipedia is often showing up on the first page of search results, and is typically the only result that does not honor the allcaps stylization. My impression is that MOS:TMRULES is in place to avoid Wikipedia being beholden, or being seen as beholden, to any branding concerns or marketing interests of any entity, but in this topic area Wikipedia just ends up looking bizarre. Still, I think there are some decent questions and points of possible disagreement with how to best interpret the policies that currently exist – i.e. posts by Wuju Daisuki in the IVE group talk page. It is a bit ambiguous how to reconcile MOS:TMRULES, MOS:BIOEXCEPT, MOS:IDENTITY in some of these cases.

Another matter to consider: on top of all this, many of these groups will also have works with exceptional stylization. Again, ALL CAPS stylizations are typically the case, but albums like DALL (officially <Dall>, regardless of the fact the album artwork stylizes the title as the full title), (+_+) (actually [+ +], this is an acceptable title given technical restrictions but gives you an example of how varied these titles can be), Ive Switch (actually consistently stylized as IVE SWITCH), the song Unforgiven (Le Sserafim song) (actually always stylized as UNFORGIVEN, and again, always stylized as LE SSERAFIM) – it isn't just that Wikipedia will be exception in how it chooses to name groups in this category area, but also how it names their works, output, etc. A number of the music labels also consistently prefer exceptional stylization and are consistent with this stylization even in minutiae like fine print of legal documents.

Though it is probably the easiest area by which myriad examples can be found, it shouldn't really be something that is only going to be relevant to Korean groups. Much of my music library is comprised of works published from the early 2010s and later, and I suppose you could attribute the internet(?) to an interest in breaking the conventions of how artists have usually titled works. The patten (musician) article correctly observes that the non-capitalization is the consistently observed stylization of the artist, and the body of the article documents correctly that most of their albums are stylized in all caps. However, the article for ESTOILE NAIANT is Estoile Naiant, though the overwhelming majority of sources observe the all caps stylization [Tiny Mix Tapes], [RA], [FACT], [Apple Music], etc. This is not a one-off. As many labels go digital and many artists primarily work and publish online, it seems like they have more interest in creating titling which happen to potentially conflict with MOS:TMRULES, but thanks to the free flow of information online, they can enforce this stylization, and satisfy WP:COMMONNAME.

(Aside: Those factors which have contributed to a rapid increase of exceptional stylizations are effectively entrenched at this point, and so I except this to become increasingly common as time goes on. Then as an alternate consideration: as it becomes easier for brands to enforce or otherwise affect consistent use of preferred stylization across sources reporting on them, is TMRULES altogether an archaic policy which attempts to enforce a traditional encyclopedic mode which is not relevant to the 21st century?) 122141510 (talk) 17:26, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Notice of this discussion added to Wikipedia talk:MOS and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks. Schazjmd (talk) 17:41, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it's in Wikipedia's best interest to try and follow by default what is essentially marketing stylization, because that's ultimately not a COMMONNAME issue but a styling one, and our Manual of Style takes precedence. Arguing it on a case-by-case basis is absolutely preferable to trying to turn Wikipedia's articles into BLɅϽKPIИK by default. We're an encyclopedia, not an extension of a marketing effort. (Beyond this, trying to do a carveout for this would have logical knock-on effects to a ton of Wikipedia's coverage, for example how some artists present their songs with all-lowercase titles.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:49, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
It is a COMMONNAME issue at this point – Wikipedia is typically the outlier. I would characterise MOS:TMSTYLE as presuming the artist or their works will not be successful in enforcing or affecting their preferred stylization when they are discussed in reliable sources. I don't know when exactly, but sometime in the last 10-20 years that presumption has become wrong more often than it has become right, and it's easy to see how the internet has led to interest in all this.
Regarding BLACKPINK vs BLAϽKPINK, I'd consider it more of an edge case than completely undermining the point I'm bringing up. That is, I think the default question editors should have to reach a consensus is not "should Wikipedia document them as Blackpink or BLACKPINK?" but "should Wikipedia document them as BLACKPINK or BLAϽKPINK?" I'm essentially objecting to where the WP:ONUS is in this matter. 122141510 (talk) 18:06, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Oppose – we shouldn't make it easy for anyone to get away with ALLCAPS capitalization, since that's just a cheap marketing gimmick. Gawaon (talk) 18:01, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Too common to be reasonably characterized as just cheap marketing gimmick, and since an overwhelming majority of sources accept these stylizations anyways – whether ALL CAPS, all lower case, or otherwise – Wikipedia is going to observe them because they end up becoming the common name anyways. I really think that this is a question of whether compelling argument or not could be made to move hundreds of articles, something can be done to manage the active workload, backlog, and change the parameters for future titles. I could knock off a series of move requests this week and see how it goes if it isn't going to be taken as too WP:POINTy. 122141510 (talk) 18:22, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
I'd add a "citation needed" to that. A news search for "Le Sserafim" includes quite early hits such as [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], all of which use the normal case form. Marketing material will of course, and by definition, use the marketing gimmick form – independent media and anybody else, not necessarily. Gawaon (talk) 19:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Yeah I think @122141510 might be a little too focused on one specific corner of media, whereas "publications precisely replicate the formatting the band does" isn't really extended to a lot of other media (for example, films do a ton of specific weirdness with their titles, and outside of very exceptional cases, we don't tend to follow it.) Also, COMMONNAME very much doesn't speak to stuff like ALLCAPS formatting, it's talking about choosing article naming more generally. I don't think the comparison of "do we call this species by its common or scientific name" really relates to the question of "do we respect marketing ALLCAPS for k-pop groups". Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:19, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
It's incorrect to narrow this down only to kpop groups. I've focused on them by way of example that should be understood to be non-exhaustive, and a below comment points out there's another concurrent move request regarding a US group which is fundamentally the same problem and – I assert – coming to an (imo) incorrect consensus that contradicts with the consensus currently forming for a move request I submitted. It would only be a lack of familiarity by which we might assume this will only be Korean pop music. 122141510 (talk) 19:32, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Under MOS:BIOEXCEPT and MOS:IDENTITY, living subjects of articles are entitled to exceptional stylization if groups clearly and consistently use an exceptional style, and an overwhelming majority of sources use the same exceptional style. It doesn't have to be all of them. An argument already exists for these moves – I'm asking to streamline that, and also expand the scope just a bit to observe that their works are in effectively the same boat – Wikipedia is avoiding stylization out of an excess of caution, and is out of step with sources and the common name as a result.
I'd assert that something to the the effect that if an artist consistently styles themselves and/or their works with an exceptional stylization and they've pushed that exceptional stylization to a plurality of streaming services or music stores, they're likely to be able to successfully enforce or otherwise assert their stylization across an overwhelming majority of sources and satisfy those criteria, and effectively become the COMMON NAME by which they and/or their works are referred to as.
I am assuming linking these won't run afoul of canvassing – especially since you don't appear to agree – but if you disagree with the premise, I'd actually encourage you to take a look at the one aforementioned move request I submitted and mentioned already Talk:Artms#Requested_move_25_July_2024, and another I just became aware of by way of this page Talk:DNCE#Requested_move_19_July_2024. If the former in particular is successful, it could effectively serve as a template for a series of move requests I could submit which would be limited only by time available to me, but I'd rather reach a point of 'per X' or some other kind of 'QED' by being able to point to a policy – the same way the latter move request, despite being fundamentally the same circumstance, is currently looking like it will reach a consensus to reject exceptional stylization by simply citing MOSTM without anything inherently mandating considering the COMMONNAME before they cite it; flawed consensus that prioritizes an incorrect reading of MOSTM over COMMONNAME has already occurred. 122141510 (talk) 19:21, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Except that for most bio cases, like kd lang, the request isn't to shift to all caps but sonething that remains clearly readable in running prose. Shifting a name to ALLCAPS where that is not an established initialism makes articles harder to read, and that's part of why the MOS presscribes it this way. Masem (t) 19:30, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Harder to read? This isn't a personal attack, but may I ask how old you are and/or roughly what generational cohort you are a member of? I can readily imagine it's harder to read for older individuals, but if it was that much harder to read for a younger audience, they wouldn't be consistently observing it on their fan sites, fan wikis, SNS, etc. and journalists would avoid it in the bodies of their articles and/or the titles of their articles. I've never known teenagers or young adults to be big sticklers for observing brand conventions if they don't have to – hence, maybe, why it's still Lego and not LEGO. Is there some policy where consideration for what some editors might find hard to read should be prioritized over the common name? AFAIK the only limitation along those lines would be technical restrictions, but I understand that as primarily being because Wikipedia couldn't render certain titles anyways, even if editors could reach a consensus to do so otherwise. 122141510 (talk) 19:38, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
It's not just a generation thing, we serve the global readership that understands English, which includes those where English may be a secord or third language. Throwing ALLCAPS names around that aren't there to simplify a larger proper name (like for NASA or EPA) is unnecessary when the same info can be present in normal case and is far easier to read by the worldwide readership.
Also the COMMONNAME point here is not yet shown. Marketing material is not the same as the reliable sources we try to judge COMMONNAME on. Masem (t) 19:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
I simply don't believe that all caps are harder to read to the extent we'd have to override common name, regardless of whether the user's first language is English or not. I have only perused the abstracts or skimmed a few research papers, but maybe the first time we read something in all caps – like COMMONNAME(!) – we might find it difficult to read, but we quickly get used to it and it is no longer as distracting or difficult to read. I don't trefer to COMMONNAME, MOSTM, etc. in all caps to make contributing to Wikipedia harder for any editors who might have reading difficulties, and I doubt you do either. I'm not sure I appreciate what point you're trying to make. I read your argument almost like making an argument for localization? I'd oppose changing Lavrentiy Beria's name just because a plurality of people for whom English is their first language cannot read or pronounce his first name correctly? 122141510 (talk) 19:53, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
Your argument: "These artists are doing something silly for no reason and their fans have glommed onto it. Wikipedia should too."
Our answer: "No." --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
There are plenty of other things I think are ridiculous which Wikipedia has entire series of articles on, and I'm sure you might feel similarly about other article(s), but insofar as what we're discussing here, I object to reducing my argument such that artistic expression is something artists might do that is silly for no reason, or that fans have 'glommed onto' their expression. Please don't put words in my mouth. My argument is Wikipedia isn't observing the common name and incorrectly reading MOS:TM. 122141510 (talk) 13:52, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
It's lettering, not artistic expression. It's a pure sylistic thing, so their choices are completely irrelevant. We have a style guide of our own to follow. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:15, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
  • MOS:TM already covers this, stating:
”… Wikipedia relies on sources to determine when an unusual name format has become conventional for a particular trademark; only names that are consistently styled a particular way by a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are styled that way in Wikipedia.”
In other words, the guideline already tells us that we should follow COMMONNAME, by looking at how independent reliable sources format a trademarked name in their running text.
That said… there are two key words in this instruction: the first is independent… we don’t look at promotional material, album covers, etc, as these are not independent. The second key word is consistently. We need to establish that there is indeed a non-standard presentation that is COMMON. A few sources presenting the name in a particular format is not enough. We would need to establish that most (if not all) of the independent sources do so. That is rare. Blueboar (talk) 14:33, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
I think I agree most of what you're saying. We only disagree on how rare it is – I don't think it's rare at all. Maybe trying to raise the issue proactively is causing people to underestimate and won't really go anywhere. Is there a particular number of successful RMs I might need to submit before I can make a case to editors? Or should I just keep submitting them and instead of assuming it will be a problem, someone managing the WP:RM workflow might flag it instead? I don't know the best approach here, but I guess I'll just start submitting more of them. 122141510 (talk) 19:22, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
That’s up to you… but my advice would be to go very slowly. If you truly CAN establish that a significant majority of independent reliable sources consistently use some particular styling, that should support moving the article. But… be cautious. You don’t want to earn yourself a reputation for filing unsubstantiated (and therefore disruptive) RMs. Blueboar (talk) 20:00, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
Let me be a little clearer about this. You absolutely do not want this to happen:
So if you are going to make a claim that we need to change the title because it is "commonplace" to use all caps, you need to first determine whether it's actually common, instead of being common inside your filter bubble, or common primarily on social media, or only within a particular category of source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
I'm conscious of that. The amount of effort involved there is quite gargantuan but it is probably better, as Blueboard suggested, to go slowly. I've identified four relevant articles at this time;
  • Artms, where there is virtually no source that does not render the group as ARTMS. I submitted the RM and expect it to achieve consensus.
  • DNCE, where there is virtually no source that does not render the group as DNCE. I did not submit the RM which is attempting to move away from the stylization (against sources), and it's not obvious if it will or will not achieve consensus. I'd like it to be a good example to demonstrate the problem is hardly limited to kpop, but even if there is consensus to retain the current stylization, it may form around something else – so I'd almost have to make a WP:POINT of finding a non-Korean group to use as example.
  • Ive (group) is taking my first bite at the apple of an RM which failed previously, but was not a well-argued RM imo. The RM I've submitted is an interesting edge case where I upfront identify 3 sources which do not observe the IVE stylization – I hope editors will be able to argue for or against along the lines as I've suggested (what is 'almost never' in TMRULES? are we obliged to consider IDENTITY the way I've asserted we are?) but of course aren't obliged to do so.
  • Estoile Naiant has virtually all sources but a single aggregate website observing the consistent ESTOILE NAIANT stylization. The RM I've submitted (which I've linked to another output from the same artist) is beneficial as I'm [1] demonstrating the case is hardly unique to kpop – the artist of the output in question is a British electronic artist, and probably more relevantly [2] testing whether consensus can still form in the absence of any considerations regarding TMRULES/IDENTITY or any other considerations under BLP/etc.
All my rationale focuses primarily on pulling an exhaustive number of examples by which the common name might be determined. In common with all is identifying how the group and/or their work is styled on multiple streaming services – I think I've already said it, but my assertion would in effect be if an artist consistently styles themselves and/or their works with an exceptional stylization and they've pushed that exceptional stylization to a plurality of streaming services or music stores, they're likely to be able to successfully enforce or otherwise assert their stylization across an overwhelming majority of sources and satisfy those criteria, and effectively become the COMMON NAME by which they and/or their works are referred to as. I believe Wikipedia could eventually be able to come a conclusion to generally assume that that is the case, and the onus should be on editors to demonstrate that it isn't. (Failing that, I read it as Wikipedia is willing to be blissfully wrong until editors are willing to put in a non-trivial amount of work/time to demonstrate the standard case? I don't know.) Thanks for yours and @Blueboar's advice. 122141510 (talk) 03:21, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
You mention streaming services, but I wonder how much of that usage is truly "independent". Do people at the service make editorial decisions or does the site simply accept values from the digital files provided by the artist and display those? In a physical analogy, are we looking at a table of records with an official band poster hanging over it or are we seeing a table of records with a sign made by the store employees? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:46, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
They aren't independent at all, and hence irrelevant when it comes to determining what reliable independent sources do. Gawaon (talk) 16:51, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
What we are looking for are sources that would mention the subject in running text. Blueboar (talk) 18:54, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
And not just copies of press releases from the band, their manager, their publicist, or their label. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:56, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
There's no reason to assume 'reliable independent sources' would intentionally deviate from the conventional way of referring to these groups. More often than not Wikipedia is only the webpage on the front page of search results that doesn't observe the stylizations, regardless of what else populates the first page. As I mentioned, I take this interpretation as meaning Wikipedia are willing to wrong (on purpose? to prove a WP:POINT, maybe? MOSTM doesn't give editors a carte blanche to ignore the COMMONNAME) until other editors are willing to put in a non-trivial amount of work/time to demonstrate the standard case. 122141510 (talk) 00:35, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Oppose. Why on earth would we repeal a rule, the entire point of which is preventing promotional over-stylization, just because someone is unhappy that it's interfering, exactly as intended, with them using promotional over-stylization? This is part of a push to force ALL-CAPS style on a bunch of (especially South Korean girl-group) music stuff to mimic logos and other trademark stylizations. But not doing that is the entire purpose of MOS:TM, and related material at MOS:CAPS (especially MOS:SIGCAPS and MOS:ALLCAPS), MOS:ABBR, WP:NCCAPS, etc. The proponent is claiming in these cases that the "almost never written except in a particular stylized form" standard has been met, but in every case it is for bands or albums for which no signficant body of native-English sourcing exists at all, just marketing materials, tertiary junk like discography databases, entertainment-news sites with explicit house style to mimic trademarks as closely as possible to please their entertainment-industry advertisers, and Korean, Indian, and other foreign media, with very few exceptions. It simply is not possible for there to be an English-language RS norm to write some band name as FLUFFR when almost all of the tiny number of sources either are not by native English speakers, or are themselves promotional. (In fact, there's so little non-trivial, independent, and actually reliable sourcing that WP:AFD on WP:N grounds is probably warranted for most of them.) Even some of the Korean media outside the entertainment-specific spheres are not going along with these over-capitalizations (i.e., the normal sentence-case usage is very easy to find, in especially pertinent and more independent sources). The proposals also badly fail WP:CONSISTENT policy, in being directly counter to all the other prior RM decisions about such matters.

Next, the heading's question is bogus. There is no conflict with WP:COMMONNAME, which is a policy about what overall name to use (which might be styled various different ways depending on our style guidelines) when there are two or more completely different names. COMMONNAME (part of WP:AT) is what tells us to use David Johansen and redirect from Buster Poindexter rather than the other way around. It has nothing to do with stylization of the name, never has, never will, or MOS simply could not exist (at least not as anything ever applicable to titles, but of course we rely on MoS literally every single day at RM). AT policy and the naming conventions guidelines dependent from it defer to MoS on style questions over and over; this is a system and it works fine. The only "problem" with it – that some individuals can't get the excessive and promotional stylization they desire for the topic they're a fan of (or sometimes a CoI actual representative of) – is no problem at all but is the actually intended benefit to the project in the first place. The sore confusion that MoS is somehow "in conflict" with COMMONNAME is frequent enough (and always has the same answer) that it probably needs to be listed at WP:PERENNIAL, along with several other "trot this out for re-re-re-hash at MoS again" hobbyhorses.

PS: It's also extremely bad form, verging on disruptive, to open up a slate of RM discussions (inclucing here, here, and , Talk:Estoile Naiant#Requested move 30 July 2024, that I know of so far) and then simultaneously run a VP thread asking the same question in hopes of "WP:WINNING" one way or another. That's a combination of WP:FORUMSHOPPING (specifically the "asking the other parent" version) and WP:FAITACCOMPLI, as well as contrary to WP:MULTI and WP:TALKFORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:21, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

As far as your comments on bad form, I clearly stated my logic and intention. The four requests are different from each other in significant ways, and I notice you did not actually seem to read or speak to the differences in your near-copypaste responses to the four requests (you also asserted incorrect information in some of your responses). As far as everything else you've said, if it's the case that Wikipedia is regularly the only online resource which does not refer to things by their proper name, and the apparent rationale for this is MOSTM, then MOSTM is coming into conflict with COMMONNAME. You've chosen to take as overly hostile an earnest effort to correct a systemic error with this encyclopedia and accuse me of this that and the other, but in this conversation I've made clear I see this as tip of the iceberg. If I was meaning to be disruptive I would've submitted dozens of requests already. Your inability to read and then throw a fit is so typical of this website anymore. 122141510 (talk) 05:44, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
  • ALLCAPS is in most cases pure commercial boosterism. I see no reason to allow this on WP. Tony (talk) 07:13, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
    MOSTM (as currently written) accounts for all of this in its first paragraph. We don’t reject all caps, leet lettering, and other odd stylings… but we are very reluctant to accept them.
    IF (and this is a huge “if”) the vast majority of independent reliable sources consistently present a name in all caps, then we know that presenting the name in all caps has transcended mere commercial boosterism. It becomes common usage. Then, and only then, should we accept it.
    It takes A LOT of time and effort to establish that the styling has transcended commercial boosterism, but WHEN it has, the guideline says we should accept it. Blueboar (talk) 11:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Moving Wikipedia:Vital articles proposals to the Village Pump

I find Vital articles system to be very useful. However, the engagement in Wikipedia talk:Vital articles seems limited. For example, proposals at Wikipedia talk:Vital articles/Level/3 usually seem to have less than 10 votes. Wouldn't we get more engagement if vital article proposals are moved to here? There can be an additional tab on top in the Village pump. At the very least, the top 3 levels could be discussed here. Bogazicili (talk) 21:30, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree that discoverability and participation are issues that affect much of the Wikipedia talk: namespace, but I don't think the solution is to start creating new Villages Pump for individual WikiProjects. Folly Mox (talk) 21:41, 29 July 2024 (UTC)
@Folly Mox I agree. And I'm afraid I don't find it very useful and am not sure how reliable/objective it is. Doug Weller talk 11:12, 30 July 2024 (UTC)
@Bogazicili, do you find that those ~10 editors are making bad decisions? If not, then you've already got enough people involved.
I understand the idea of wanting "more", on the emotional side. If I think something is important, then why isn't everyone else showing up? Having a lot of participants validates my belief that this is important. It's like getting a lot of 'likes' on social media: my discussion has 50 people in it, so that means it's important.
However, the point of those discussions is to make decisions, not to help us feel like we're involved in work that other people find important. Google used to put prospective candidates through 12 interviews. However, the answer rarely changed after the fourth interview. [2][3][4] The opinion of just four interviewers was enough in 95% of cases. Eventually, they decided that it was silly to have three times as many people involved as they actually needed, even if those people wanted to feel important. Their hiring process is no longer so burdensome, and is just as likely to make the right choice.
So I ask: Do you really think that we truly need more editors to answer a question about which subject to list? Or are the folks there already doing a fine job and already able to make good decisions? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, yes, they sometimes make bad decisions. For example, I found some of the responses here nonsensical: [7]. To me, trains and climate change being both Level 3 is ridiculous. Bogazicili (talk) 17:22, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
I don't think those are unreasonable choices. Car and Ship are level 3, so Train probably should be level 3, too. That's what they chose. I understand your desire to have Climate change be level 2, on par with Earth, Climate, and Geology, but I also understand their decision to keep it on level 3, on par with Weather, Earth science, Atmosphere of Earth, and Pollution. It was not an unreasonable choice, even though it's not the one you wanted. I'm not convinced that involving more people would have changed the outcome. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Solar system and moon are both level 2, so sometimes something that would be in a subcategory is on the same level with a parent article. I also didn't say involving more people would change the outcome. I am not sure why you felt the need to say that. What I am saying is this: as a principle, core Wikipedia-wide discussions should involve as many people as possible, and should be done on more frequently used places like the Village Pump. Bogazicili (talk) 17:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
Just to give a contrarian (and personal) opinion… I really don’t give a rat’s ass about the various article rating systems. I pay no attention to them.
Now, I do understand that there are editors who LOVE rating articles. I have no problem with that. You do you. I think you are waiting your time, but it’s no skin off my teeth. Just don’t waist MY time with it.
So… I would be very annoyed if the Village Pump was suddenly cluttered up with discussions about article ratings. That wastes my time. Better to have these discussions take place out of sight, on a dedicated page where I can ignore them. End rant. 😉 Blueboar (talk) 20:25, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
It would be in a different tab, so not sure how that'd "waste your time" unless you click on the tab. Bogazicili (talk) 13:14, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
My apologies if I misunderstood. I thought you were proposing to move all of this to one of the existing VP pages. Blueboar (talk) 19:31, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
I don't disagree with the principle that many editors should involve themselves in core Wikipedia-wide discussions, but would not characterise as such the importance shuffling within WikiProject Vital articles. Folly Mox (talk) 22:56, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Worth touching on WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE on the editing screen?

Since new editors very often start out by directing their primary attention toward the lead and infobox—on some articles sometimes receiving almost all their attention—I wonder if it wouldn't be worthwhile to mention very briefly that most information one puts there should be mentioned in the body of the article itself also. I feel bad reverting for this often, and if a chunk of new editors notice this before making their first edits, they may feel better able to continue contributing as they'll get bonked less by moody folks like yours truly.

Even so, I'm not quite sure we can justify it. For one thing, many (most?) will not immediately know what an infobox or lead section are. One would have to write it as a short addendum to

FYI
 – Content that violates any copyrights will be deleted. Encyclopedic content must be verifiable through citations to reliable sources.

I understand the sections of the MOS in question (MOS:LEAD, MOS:INFOBOX) are not core site policy on the same level as WP:COPY and WP:V. Still, might be worth brainstorming. Anyone got any miracle technical writing to share? Remsense诉 07:25, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF) might be able to tell us whether an infobox-related note has been contemplated for mw:Help:Edit check.
More generally, if someone adds good information to the infobox, and that material should also be in the article (because, no matter what INFOBOXPURPOSE says, that's not always the case), why do you choose to revert it, instead of copying the material to the body of the article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:56, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
I wasn't listing all possible remedies since we all know how editing works here in the lab—I could've just said this but I mostly just meant to say "requires additional work and interference by other editors, whether reverting or revising." Remsense诉 21:47, 1 August 2024 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing, what we have considered so far is on mw:Edit check/Ideas, which is open to more ideas. Trizek_(WMF) (talk) 09:13, 2 August 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for this by the way, @WhatamIdoing and @Trizek (WMF). Remsense诉 19:07, 3 August 2024 (UTC)
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