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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). 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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Stop InternetArchiveBot from linking books

I see no consensus that IA is a generally unacceptable site to link (might be some license violations but not as a pattern enough to take Precautionary Principle). I also see no consensus support for generally adding these links across the wiki, including multiple oppositions other than license that seem stronger than the laudable goal of assisting readers, especially when converting from some other existing link. Here we have a referrendum on the BAG approval, where there were dissenting voices and part of the eventual approval was based on it seeming noncontroversial. Although the question here is "should the bot stop", the real idea I see is that it is controversial and that there is no longer consensus that it should run (wider discussion superceding WP:BRFA). Therefore the bot should be stopped but its existing edits can stand and no prejudice against future manual additions or removals of IA links by uninvolved editors. DMacks (talk) 16:03, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

(Forgive me if I'm not doing this in exactly the right place; I'm a long-time editor who has somehow never waded into the Pump yet, to the best of my recollection.)

The InternetArchiveBot, perhaps best known for adding archive links for references, has in recent months been aggressively linking mentions of books to copies of those books stored at the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive is widely viewed within the publishing industry as a pirate site when it comes to under-copyright books, and they are currently facing a lawsuit from several of major book publishers over that fact. If we accept the publishers' claims over rights as at least potentially valid, this puts the bot in violation of WP:COPYVIOEL, which tells us "If there is reason to believe that a website has a copy of a work in violation of its copyright, do not link to it."

Additionally, the bot is linking not just in references, but in the body of text (such as this example, which goes against "Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia (external links), but they should not normally be placed in the body of an article." (WP:EL)

I recommend that InternetArchiveBot (talk · contribs) be halted and not allowed to run until it is changed to no longer link under-copyright works, or until such time that the ending of the current case deems it to not be a copyright-infringing site. Cyberpower678 (talk · contribs), who is operating the bot as a paid agent of the Internet Archive, should be requested to undo all the edits that have been inserting such links (which I expect can be done largely on an automated basis.) To the degree that it does link books beyond that, the bot should be restricted to doing so within ref tags or in the external links section.

(And to make any concerns about any conflicts that I have clear, yes, I am both a writer and a publisher. I am not currently involved directly in any lawsuit, but the lawsuit does include publishers who have published my works in the past or who have bought out such publishers and may still hold publishing rights, but not for anything that has generated royalties for me in a long time.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:52, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

NatGertler, Please see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/InternetArchiveBot 3 and subsequent linked discussion demonstrating consensus supporting this task. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 15:16, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Among the five people involved in that discussion (counting yourself, a paid agent of the IA), I see absolutely zero consideration to the concern raised about how this comports with our policies regarding copyright. Its approval was based on the claim that "this task is uncontroversial", but clearly it is controversial - if not before the lawsuit, then certainly now. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Discussion of the legal minutiae can be reserved for Number One Court. This discussion related to how it affects the English Wikipedia. ——Serial # 20:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Regarding the lawsuit.. it only concerns Controlled Digital Lending which is the lending of a complete book on a 1 to 1 basis. The ability to view limited pages, as being linked here, was settled by Google Books in Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc.. The publishers lost, and most likely they will loose their case against CDL, also. But it won't be known for many years and in the mean time the legality of CDL is well supported by many reliable legal scholars and institutions. -- GreenC 15:48, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
The pages it links to include the link for "This book can be borrowed for 14 days," so yes, it's taking people to a "Controlled Digital Lending" page, even if it's not directly downloading the book immediately. In the meanwhile, I am going to ping the other people who were involved in the approval discussion. (Jo-Jo Eumerus—TheSandDoctor—Galobtter—GreenC) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:02, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
There is an ongoing legal case about CDL, just as there was an ongoing case against Google, during which time we continued linking to Google Books. -- GreenC 16:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Was there substantial discussion about doing so? (I'm honestly asking... although even if so, it's still a bit of a WP:OSE situation.) Should we be rewriting WP:COPYVIOEL so that we're only discouraged from linking to things that have already been proven in court to infringe and yet are still on the web anyway? --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm not aware of anyone arguing to remove Google Book links during the years Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. was ongoing (2005-2015). And good thing we didn't or it would have been a huge loss to the community and our readers. Internet Archive is a registered public library operating according to a legal position created by legal scholars. No court or judge has determined CDL is illegal or requested it be taken down while the case is ongoing, Internet Archive owns the books it lends on a 1:1 basis (1 book owned = 1 book lent) just like any library. -- GreenC 16:59, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, the IA has lawyers making its case, and did so even when they took actions that they have since pedaled back from. The publishers also have lawyers who have put forth a legal position. We have never, to the best of my knowledge, waited for a court ruling of infringement before removing links to material that looks to be of legitimate concern. The IA does not work "just like any library", no; libraries are generally loaning the actual items that they purchased or licensed, and not reformatted digital editions that they made without permission of relevant rightsholders. You may think that the IA should emerge victorious in this case, but that is not a given. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:13, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Internet Archive have not "peddled back" CDL .. your thinking of the National Emergency Library (NEL) closing early. NEL is not being challenged by the publishers. IA owns and purchased the physical books in most cases. For the purpose of providing limited page views it is legal to scan books as determined in the Google case and verified by the Supreme Court. The only issue here is CDL and while we may not known the outcome, the question is what should Wikipedia do. Foremost, no judge or court has issued an injunction against Internet Archive despite there being an active case looking at it. Given the precedent of what we did with Google Books during Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc. we made the right decision [by default] by keeping the links in place, it would have been harmful to Wikipedia to actively remove 100s of thousands of book links only to re-add in the future with all the disruption and errors that would cause plus lack of links to RS helping with V for a lost decade. -- GreenC 18:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
NEL is not being challenged by the publishers.??? From the lawsuit: "NATURE OF THE ACTION 1. Plaintiffs Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley (collectively, “Plaintiffs” or “Publishers”) bring this copyright infringement action against IA in connection with website operations it markets to the public as “Open Library” and/or “National Emergency Library.”" It would be inappropriate to leave the links in place only to have to remove them if and when IA loses this case, having facilitated piracy in the meantime. Links that have been added by bot can be readded by bot, should IA prevail. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
I was misinformed, struck. It is bad faith to call it piracy the legal interpretation is still open, and it wouldn't be piracy after the fact unless they operated in defiance of the law. Linking to a snippit view is completely legal, you are conflating CDL with snippit view and arguing for total removal of links despite snippit view being legal. Also see the RFC it was decided by the community not "five people". -- GreenC 19:28, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Fair 'nuff; I was citing the discussion you had pointed to earlier, not to this other discussion you now point to. However, I do not see in that discussion the voicing of the concerns I've raised. My calling it "piracy" was specifically in the context of "if and when IA loses this case", i.e., if IA has been judged to have infringed; it may not be the technical legal term, but it is an understood one. I an not conflating "snippit" view with CDL; I am noting that taking them to the snippit page also takes them to the page with a link to follow to download, as it is one and the same page. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
CDL requires signing up for an account, logging-in and the book is available on the shelf. This is why we were requested to include |url-access= in citations because of the entry barrier. There is no downloading, it's an in-browser flip-book of a scanned facsimile. -- GreenC 21:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, for people who are already logged in, it has a link to take you to the book, and for people who are not already logged in, it has links through the process to get you to the book, encouraged by the statement that "This book can be borrowed for 14 days," --Nat Gertler (talk)
What may have precipitated the court case is that during the pandemic "Controlled Digital Lending" was switched to "Uncontrolled Digital Lending" – one printed copy could be lent out digitally to any number of people simultaneously. In the last few days the control has been restored. The removal of control was justified by IA on ethical grounds (people could not go into libraries to borrow books) and not legal grounds. Their legal ground seems to me very shaky or nonexistent and they can be held liable retrospectively. CDL is another matter.[1] Thincat (talk) 17:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Leaving aside for the moment the legalities of this case, do we need online links to references in any case? If anyone is interested enough to look they can look for the cited text online or in a physical library as they please. I have seen many cases where links are provided to Google Books and the references have been removed because the particular page was not linked at the time that the remover looked, as if the reference was to the link rather than the book itself. Wikipedia should aspire to be more that just what is available on the Internet, and part of that is to educate readers that citations to academic books and papers are valid even if they are not freely available online at all times. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
And if the goal is to allow verification of the existence of the book and such publishing particulars as publication date, author, publisher, etc., there is always the fine service of WorldCat. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
You are saying we should force people to use a physical public library by intentionally removing links to online digital books so that they learn a lesson not everything is available online? -- GreenC 18:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Removing links to sources that are (currently) available online does not force people who have internet access to go to a physical library. It may force them to do some online research to find the available online copy of the book. BD2412 T 18:52, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Please note that, according to the notice he gives way down the bottom of his user page, User:GreenC is also a paid agent of the Internet Archive. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:01, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
My name is also on every edit made by the bot. -- GreenC 19:28, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, @GreenC:, your name is there. Given that this discussion is clearly leaning toward disapproval of the bot (particularly among editors not being paid by IA), you should probably pause the bot's activities until when and if a consensus is reach otherwise. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:39, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I have placed a notice at Wikipedia talk:Bots/Requests for approval#Approval of InternetArchiveBot 3 has been contested that the approval of the bot is being contested. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  • As long as right now the links are not considered illegal (by the unresolved), our act of linking to them is legal. (I suspect if Wikipedia was based in Europe, this would change greatly due to the newer copyright directive there). So now the question is more the morality of linking to something that may or may not be legal, and which has a possible effect on author some who are editors on WP. I would tend to argue that because we avoid links to sites like scribd, academia, researchgate, etc. all which have "questionable" uses of published materials, not yet proven out in any court, we probably should take the same stance here until at least we have a preliminary decision from the District Court. The current page one gets to via the magic linking of ISBN or similar numbers is fine for current purposes until we are satisfied Open Library is working within US law (and yes, assuming its legal which might disappoint authors as the Google cases had as well, we'd still want to use that resource). --Masem (t) 20:17, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree with Masem, we already apply the precautionary principle in a number of areas. While the WMF is not going to be held liable in any manner, should a court case go in a certain direction, both editors (who enable the links to the material) and the readers (who follow the links and download the material) could be in for legal troubles. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
    Is VPP really the appropriate place to discuss editors' and readers' potential legal liability related to linking to copyrighted material hosted outside of WMF servers? If we have copyright-related legal questions, we should probably request assistance from WMF legal staff. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:24, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
    Yes, copyright issues fall under policy. For example, we can't linkj to known copyvios outside WP. That's not saying this is the case now, but it is a concern. --Masem (t) 01:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I already refuse to place links to Google Books in citations because they are a commercial service and we should not give them preference over other providers of books such as Amazon. See the fever hospital DYK for a recent example. What this bot is doing seems to be link spam because it is promoting yet another rival book provider. And the fact that we have paid editors here lobbying for this is outrageous. This matter is certainly controversial. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you want to wake up to the fact that IA is also using books that have been scanned by Google, so your refusal there is a bit selective. Eissink (talk) 01:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC).
  • What is selective about an editor saying that he will link to neither Google Books nor the Internet Archive? This is treating online sources even-handedly. Linking ISBNs, which links to Special:BookSources, was decided on many moons ago as a neutral way of providing people with the ability to check the content of cited books. If the copyright status is deemed acceptable then the Internet Archive can be included as one of the many sources there. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I apologize, I see now that I have interpreted Andrew incorrect. I totally misread here, thinking that he would only link to IA. I'm sorry. Thanks, Eissink (talk) 22:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC).
  • I agree with Masem: while we haven't done anything wrong, we normally err on the side of caution (WP:ELNEVER), and should discontinue the bot linking until the situation is clear. I did raise the issue when the bot run was first approved (as did Masem). I wouldn't be prepared to say whether WMF would be held liable given recent developments in the United States, but this isn't our concern. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:11, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Even if we err on the side of caution, there's nothing to err on here - the copyright issue that's being sued over directly relates to the National Emergency Library, not with the actual lending process itself, or the storing of the material digitally. It would make absolutely no sense to stop the bot from linking based on the fact there's a lawsuit pending that's not based on the storage of the material, but rather an action taken by the company during COVID which doesn't change the underlying copyright of the material, but rather would be a violation of the distribution right of the material by the company, which has no impact on us at all. SportingFlyer T·C 01:35, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
That's simply not true. The lawsuit covers the entire "Open Library" project, including the creation and storing of the digital editions ("2. Defendant IA is engaged in willful mass copyright infringement. Without any license or any payment to authors or publishers, IA scans print books, uploads these illegally scanned books to its servers, and distributes verbatim digital copies of the books in whole via public-facing websites. ") --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
IANAL but am a person with interest in how law and the Internet interest, and did read through the suit. Keeping in mind Authors Guild v Google , "uploading scans of books to their servers" is considered a possible fair use (though I beleive this suit is outside the Second Circuit so its not clear if that ruling might apply or not), but the complication is the argument that because they have physical copies of those books, they have the right to share a DRM-tied electronic copy of those scans in a lending manner. Part of he suit does content that if you use the web-based interface for your loan, you can then make screencaps of the webbrowser and effectively make a copy of the book that way. The lawsuit documentation is set up to make assertions they believe are truthful (in what OL is doing wrong) but the judge make strike some of those statements. So just because the suit claims it is illegal doesn't mean it is illegal, yet. --Masem (t) 02:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
It's a Second Circuit case, the new one. I'm satisfied the Google case holds until otherwise shown fair use doesn't apply. (As a tangent, if I go to the library and check a book out, I can photocopy or scan the physical copy. And if I scan a physical copy of a book, someone has purchased it at some point in time.) SportingFlyer T·C 03:54, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Well, keep in mind: with the Google Books, part of the fair use determine was the display of snippet view as a key feature; further in the secondary case that followed with HathiTrust, it was also adding cases of making the whole OCR'd text available to people with disabilities (accessibility) , and for giving copies to academic faculty within the libraries systems that lost their old work but could prove they owned it at one point. The test of whether first sale doctrine applied to fair use is the big question here. --Masem (t) 04:03, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
If SportingFlyer scans an entire library book then that's an elementary breach of copyright as the entire point of copyright is stop wholesale copying of this kind. Google got away with it because they are using the copies to provide an indexing and search service and the settlement decided that this was fair use. Google does not provide the complete text of the books, if they are in copyright, otherwise no-one would ever need to buy a book again. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • The bot should continue linking. All of the concerns raised here appear to be speculative. We shouldn't link to known copyvio, but that's not the case here. I do not work for Internet Archive. Levivich [dubious – discuss] 01:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • An important thing to consider is that it's not so much about protecting ourselves (or protecting the writers and publishers) as protecting our downstream users. We can basically defend quite well against any lawsuit that might arise -- we're rich. Our downstream users aren't, and its for that reason that they're possible targets for any unpleasantness.
We basically pledge "You may use our material in your own work, with confidence that you won't be called out for violating anyone's copyrights -- most of the material is either public domain or under a free license, and that that isn't conforms to accepted allowance under fair use; at least, we aim for this and expend much effort on ensuring that it's true". So I mean if there's a question, if there's active litigation... I don't see how we can make that promise and stand behind it, if we include this material. In theory at least we could be endangering our trusting downstream users. Definitely want to be conservative on that account. Herostratus (talk) 01:58, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
That's why I want to stress that right now the choice if we keep linking should be a moral/ethical one - we know authors don't like that site and some are editors on here, and they've asked us to stop, nicely (no legal threat here). Should we stop? That's the consideration here. --Masem (t) 02:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Oh, absolutely. The moral/ethical angle is paramount in any decision, in Wikipedia no less than real life.
So... about the authors (and publishers). I mean, I'm not a huge copyright fan, but... sending an e-mail (or text) is so different, so easier, than writing and addressing and stamping and sending a physical letter that they are different things. If you're talking to a colleague and she says "I'll send you Finster's phone number as soon as I get to the office", wouldn't you be surprised to get it in the mail three days later? They're different; they just are, is all.
Similarly, is not possible that going to a website and clicking a button to download a copy of a book is a lot easier than requesting an inter-library loan (for most books), and waiting for the book to be available and shipped to your library, and slogging down to the library, and reading it there or checking it out (and slogging back to return it later)? So much easier that maybe -- maybe -- they are different things? We know that libraries lending physical books is not something that disrupts the author-publisher-bookseller ecosystem to to the degree where that system can't handle it. Can we be certain that an online version of the library paradigm won't?
If the complaints and lawsuits are frivolous, or maliciously self-serving, that's one thing. Are they? Or are authors and publishers feeling real pain, or have reasonable cause to see a realistic prospect of feeling real pain down the road if we continue down this path? They seem to be saying they are. To prove they're wrong you'd have to see the future. Can you? I can't, and I don't want us to be a party to this until we are a lot more sure that we're on the right side here. Herostratus (talk) 09:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Short version: No they are not frivolous, but they are by no means completely valid either. The argument they are a library had some weight when they were lending books out one at a time. Likewise the argument that as brick and mortar libraries are closed, they need to suspend the one-at-a-time process is a decent excuse as far as it goes. Whats going to be telling is what happens once libraries are open again. Will they go back to one-at-a-time? Will they wait for the court cases to be over? They have used the covid situation to justify their current practices, but the key point of that is they are using the current situation to justify a practice that they know wouldnt fly in ordinary circumstances. Otherwise they would have done it that way all along. This is very much a fishing expedition on their part, and publishers and authors *have* to fight it, lest they be accused of approving of it by not contesting it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:16, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Extremely Strong oppose As someone who actually knows a lot about copyright and specializes in keeping Wikipedia free of copyrighted text, the Internet Archive; ESPICALLY the books and websites they host, is essential to keeping the copyrights of poorer, less known people safe. The offsite campaign to slander them is Clout chasing nonsense under the guise of "making sure writers/publishers get their money" and should be completely ignored- although I do not fault people for being tricked into supporting this terrible campaign. Moneytrees🌴Talk🌲Help out at CCI! 02:59, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
Got it - let's just ignore writers, publishers, and their concerns about their rights being violated. They (or in my case, we) can't possibly know what they're talking about or what they're going through here; let's just ignore Wikipedia guidelines to stick it to 'em. <sigh> --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I have raised concerns about the mass removal of Google Books links in favor of Internet Archive in February, initially only because Google Books is so much easier to navigate (just scroll). And in the case that brought it to my attention, the book linked to on IA was a copy (a ripoff?) of the book scanned by Google! (Compare this book on Google to this book on IA.) It's a shame that If it ain't broke, don't fix it isn't official policy, because that could stop such nonsens immediately. Nevertheless, I decided to ask what was going on, but to my utter horror, I engaged a terrible attitude of the – paid – bot operator. I have summarized things, short, on Wikipedia_talk:Google_Books_and_Wikipedia#Unbalanced_opinion_and_faulty_arguments, where you'll find more complaints. You will also find my remarks on an IA bot on Wikimedia Commons, performing very questionable edits. And if you think this is all: it isn't. I just saw on the Dutch Wikipedia the discussion on an also very questionable IA bot that replaces working links by the dozens and tagging them as dead while replacing them for an IA link – that bot has been stopped earlier today. For those of you that think WMF might play a roll in resolving possible legal issues surrounding the linking the IA: I don't want to not AGF, but I cannot find any reason for the massive paid edits by IA bots other than that some institution is paying IA for their services, because I think they would otherwise use their resources on different things than on saving Flickr pages, the images of which have already been downloaded to Commons (and of course have the license checked already) – could it be that there is some sort of contract between WMF and IA? If so, it might be in good faith, but things seem to get rather messy at the moment. Greeting, Eissink (talk) 02:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC).
  • Very Strong oppose per Moneytrees. Signed,The4lines |||| (You Asked?) (What I have Done.) 02:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • comment - it's difficult to know everything about copyright - but I don't see how this effects Wikipedia at all. I can't see how we would need to do anything until a verdict was reached. It does seem like the case of "I support this lawsuit (and it potentially effects me off wiki if I'm reading right), so Wikipedia should also support this." Let me know if I'm way off the mark here. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Specifically: Wikipedia has a policy (WP:COPYLINK) which prohibits linking to material which is being made available in violation of copyright. The situation with the current 'library/not a library' court case is that publishers and authors are asserting the archive is hosting (and sharing freely) their books digitally in violation of copyright. The argument above is that some editors think as a precaution we shouldnt link to material that is currently being disputed in court until its settled, and other editors think we dont need to worry and should. There is also the added issue that in any situation involving copyright, there is a third group (often the more extreme end of the 'Free knowledge' activists) who think even if it does violate copyright we should do it anyway. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Do we actually have a policy on if we should change our policies due to something being in litigation? Surely we shouldn't touch it until a result is levied? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
WP:COPYLINK is our policy on it (WP:ELNEVER is also a relevant guideline). As to the wider question of 'should we do something when its status is in doubt'. No we dont have a firm policy on it. Many adhere to the Precautionary principle. Many do not. Some people like myself adhere to the precautionary principle dependant on the risk and the liability. Here the risk is if a court case goes in a particular way, and we have been deliberately linking to illegally copyrighted materials, we could be held responsible for Contributory copyright infringement - this is mentioned in ELNEVER. The key part of this though, and personally why I favour the precautionary principle, is that the WMF is protected against legal liability in almost every situation under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Individual editors are not. And in fact the WMF is required, and has done in the past, provide details of its users/editors in order that they can be held liable in a court. If it was a case of 'oh we can do it until the court case is settled' and it would be the WMF who would be sued, then I would say fuck it, they have enough money to hire expensive lawyers. As it stands, I am not willing to potentially throw another editor under the bus because of a third party website's ambiguous legal nature. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
@Only in death: (edit conflict) Even assuming the maximum, that both CDL and NEL are found illegal after final appeal, it's incredibly unlikely that they'd go after an individual Wikipedia editor who added links to IA in good faith. This would be a PR nightmare. There is no way that will happen. Large corps like JSTOR show deference to Wikipedia and its editors for their volunteer work... there's just no way that they'd sue any one of us for actions taken before the resolution of the suit. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 08:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
See my below comment. I agree they would be unlikely to go after individual random editors, however they may decide to go after individuals who have been paid. RE JSTOR - you are barking up the wrong tree with that one if you dont think they will seek legal redress if you start sharing their materials illegally. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
I am indeed familiar with the tragedy of Aaron Schwartz. All I meant to imply is that JSTOR allows our editors to access its materials for free with proper verification. So, given the public relations challenge of lodging cases against volunteers for linking to works they own before it was unquestionably illegal, other publishers are very likely to show amnesty in the same way. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 08:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Although to be fair, even in a worst case scenario, the editors pursued would be paid editors of the archive in question who is alleged to be violating copyright. So I wont massively lose any sleep over it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
Our policy on linking to copyrighted works says "However, if you know or reasonably suspect that an external Web site is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work." (Emphasis mine.) That's the realm we're in, reasonable suspicion... and that's the realm we're almost always removing such links in. We are not waiting for some legal proof of it; if we see a link to a scan of a book that isn't on the author's or publisher's website, that's reasonably suspect. (Indeed, if we waited until the results of court cases, we'd rarely have to, since the infringing copy should be removed as a result of the ruling.) That's the realm that we are in here, very reasonable suspicion - not only is IA not the authors' or publishers' website, but the publishers of a large portion of the books on the site are saying via their lawsuit that this is an infringment, a stance that many authors have echoed. So we don't even need to reach conclusions over any concern regarding whether editors can be sued; we have the basic question of "are these links within policy?"--Nat Gertler (talk) 12:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Is this really within the scope of the community's self-regulatory power, to decide a legal question like this, on how likely this lawsuit is to affect the WMF? Certainly if the WMF thought that this bot, and links to IA books, was a danger to the project, they would invoke their authority and block the bot and inform ArbCom of their decision? I suppose that as the community conceded to the bot, the community can withdraw its consent, but I don't know that it's helpful to try to get that withdrawal by appealing to the WMF, who seems content to allow the situation to continue. Have you tried requesting their intervention? Until then, I find the bot's edits useful, and think it likely that the IA will not face legal consequence from CDL. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 08:20, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per all the above. Our linking is not violating copyright nor policy, so it would put an unnecessary burden on the reader for no net gain for Wikipedia or the readers. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:53, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Dennis Brown above, who put it succinctly. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:44, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Do I understand correctly, that this bot basically forces all our articles to replace Google books' links? If that's the case, shut it off until there is an affirmative consensus (widely adverted) that Wikipedia is to be mechanically and universally replacing the links that the article authors (contributors) have provided. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Shut it off. I have commented above, but not "voted" yet. Now I am. I'm not impressed by the "oppose" arguments which mostly seem to come down to variations of "we won't be hurt by doing this, and who cares about anybody else?" or else self-serving analysis that leads to "naw, nobody's hurt if we do this." I don't believe it, and arguments like that me less, rather than more, inclined to wish to join with the people making them. Herostratus (talk) 00:12, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Pinging a WMF legal member - @Jrogers (WMF): - just an FYI about this discussion on whether linking to a potentially problematic copyright issue is of note here and if Legal has any opinion, or is happy to leave it to the Community to decide (at least as things stand). Nosebagbear (talk) 12:19, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I should have raised earlier that is that these pages that this paid-for-by-IA-bot is linking to are sales pages. IA bought out a major used book source last year, and these pages that they are linking to include a purchase link on them. To some degree, the bot is turning Wikipedia into a sales catalog for their bookstore. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:39, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
  • While the discussion is split, there looks to me to be enough objection that we cannot say that the Bot has consensus to continue making such edits. Shall we turn the bot off from making further edits until consensus is achieved? We can discuss whether to undo the existing edits separately. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:54, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
    That isn't how consensus works. If there isn't a consensus, then the status quo is maintained. This is true for all consensus based discussion here, and literally every consensus based community on the planet. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 17:50, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
Yes, and the "status quo" is the existing edit. Every new edit this bot makes is a change, not status quo. Reverting the exist edits would be against status quo, thought it's something that should be done. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:04, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Does this need to be escalated to the WMF? I think there needs to be a set of allegations that are investigated and found to be either true or not. What my reading of the situation is, is that (a) that the IA has unilaterally ignored copyright, (b) they have commissioned a bot to replace the current Google Books links, and (c) their links have purchasing options on them. If true this is worrying and the bot should be halted whilst this is investigated further. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 16:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Levivich, Moneytrees, etc. The WMF has a legal team to investigate any potential legal liability, we shouldn't make decisions based on speculative amateur lawyering. The Internet Archive is a legal entity in the same country - the same city even! - as Wikipedia's (for legal purposes) governing organization, so they are governed by the same rules. As long as they are legally open for business, there is no issue here that demands action, much less a profoundly silly one which would make the work we do that much harder. Gamaliel (talk) 16:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per most of the above, as far as IA goes, as the copyright debates are a problem for WMF Legal and until or unless they rule, it's a matter of WP policy if this is a legitimate site to which we link, and it is. "Linking to copyrighted materials" is a red herring argument, that occurs every time we link to a newspaper or any other work under copyright that can be read online. GreenC's note that the same issue occurred with Google is well-taken. We can't make the legal decision on that stuff, it's the courts' job to do so. At most, it's WMF's problem, not ours. In general, having bots that can update links to IA, Google Books, Hathi Trust or any of the other services that scan and make books available is very helpful and assists the eternal battle against linkrot. I was appalled to see one editor above say do we need online links to references? The answer, my friend is HELL YES! In general, the issue of linking is critical. "Just look it up" is a time sink, particularly for historic topics. Even if the link is to only an abstract of a journal or a snippet view of a book one has to buy to read in full, LINKS ARE CRITICAL. If you've ever worked on a major featured article with hundreds of sources, (the biggest I ever stuck a toe into was Richard Nixon), it is very difficult to find some types of works, you can't just "google it." Having a link to what might be online is extremely helpful, particularly where there are multiple possible locations. Montanabw(talk) 20:44, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I have some sympathies with Nat Gertler here. I don't think that the national emergency library is defensible and in effect did amount to mass copyright infringement, but that is over now so it is a moot point. Controlled digital lending is a different issue which I can see arguments for and against, and it is up to the courts to decide their legality. I think linking to old but still technically in copyright books from the early to mid 20th century are fine, but I can see why Nat has issues with linking to more contemporary works where real revenue for authors is at stake. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per the precautionary principle and the principle of least harm; I also have concerns about the effect of this on authors and small/independent booksellers.— Preceding unsigned comment added by CactusJack (talk • contribs) 22:21, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Levivich and others. We aren't linking to (c) violations; we shouldn't act on unresolved legal challenges (not to mention weak ones); and as Denis notes it would put an extra burden on readers for no net gain. – SJ + 02:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support halting linking to copyrighted works. WP:COPYVIOEL is very clear, I haven't seen a good argument for why it should be waived for IA. The quote about IA using Wikipedia to drive traffic to Better World Books is concerning. -M.Nelson (talk) 20:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd like to stress that the decision we should be making here should not be based whether or not OL is a copyright violation or not, but ethical/moral aspect of linking to a site that we do know that many authors (some as editors on WP) believe harms their livelihood. I fully agree that until the suit is resolved, we should presume there are no legal copyright issues but that does not prevent us from asking if we should do the right thing from an ethics standpoint until the case affirms (if it does) that OL is in the clear. --Masem (t) 20:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Why should we presume there are no legal copyright issues? That seems an aggressive assumption, and not one needed under our policies, which call for us not to link if we reasonably suspect a violation. If a publisher came on Wikipedia and requested that we remove a link because it is to an unauthorized copy of their material, we'd take that as a reason to be at least reasonably suspicious of the site we linked to. With the publishers suing IA, reasonable suspicion seems a fair description of the status. (And even if that were not an issue, we have the understanding now that this bot is intended to integrate Wikipedia with BetterWorldBooks. Would we at all accept if Amazon hired someone to write a bot linking our articles to their sales pages?) --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
      • In part to avoid this request sounding like a "legal threat" by asserting that the Open Library is "violating copyright" when nothing yet proves they do (as reason why most editors are opposing). --Masem (t) 00:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
        • That would seem to be reason not to presume there are legal issues, rather than to presume that there are not. Indeed, it would seem foolish to presume that there are not copyright issues when they are being sued in that very regard. And our standards are built around that uncertainty, which is why we avoid links if we reasonably suspect issues, rather than requiring presumption in one direction or another. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:24, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia's mission harms *many* people's livelihoods. For example, stage magicians are often very angry that Wikipedia has made well-sourced information on classic tricks easy to find. ApLundell (talk) 23:34, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Indeed, we don't make other content decisions based on claims that they would harm or benefit certain businesses financially. What's more, the harm that removing all these links would cause to Wikipedia and its readers is very concrete and direct, whereas the financial benefit that the proposer and his industry would derive is indirect and unproven. Regards, HaeB (talk) 08:55, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per precautionary principle, I think there is a decent chance that IA is violating authors' copyright and we shouldn't be promoting their links. In order to be maximally verifiable links should usually go through the page numbers and link directly to the relevant material (|p=[url #]) Even without the copyright issues, the IA links block potentially useful links to Wikipedia articles about notable books. When I examined the case of The Business of Genocide, most of the backlinks were blocked by IA links, reducing the amount of in-wiki linking that could be done. buidhe 03:31, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support I am finding loads of instances where IAbot has changed what was previously a Google Books url and the replacement is less accessible that the original, While Google Books isn't great and has its own issues re: data harvesting etc, I'd rather be in control of what I link to and certainly do not want to see my watchlist lit up yet again if ever we have to revert this stuff. Indeed, would it be easily reversible by a(nother) bot? IA seems to be a commercial operation to me, so while it operates on a different model to Google, it isn't "better" unless the content it links to is actually free to read. - Sitush (talk) 05:11, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Support stopping, and reverting previous additions by the bot.
    We should not bot-add external links like this to citations, and certainly not allow an external entity to conduct paid bot editing to privilege their service over other services. Whether or where to link a citation should be a call for the editors actually working on an article, and it should be subject to human judgement. IA also has a very dubious record on copyright (they practice the juvenile "nah nah nah I didn't hear that" stance: if they don't make any effort to discover copyvio, then copyvio doesn't exist; even before this "emergency library" nonsense) that is actively incompatible with Wikipedia's copyright policies (think ELNEVER and NFCC: linking as contributory copyright infringement may be a questionable doctrine in a purely legal sense, but in a moral and ethical sense it is disingenuous to claim we have such strict policies and then just link to a site that doesn't follow similar policies). And IAs bibliographic metadata is utter crap with zero interest in improving it (which problem I tried to raise with Cyberpower in the interest of discussing ways to improve their metadata, with literally no response, so this "relationship" is very obviously a one-way relationship: we promote their service and in return we get to promote their service).
    Also note that Cyberpower is not actually participating in this discussion. That does not suggest a great interest in addressing concerns, which is pretty, ahem, concerning for someone proposing to essentially add links to a website that paid them to do so to all 5+ million articles on the project. One can agree or disagree on levels of risk or what are acceptable tradeoffs, but no one can credibly claim that the concerns raised are not valid ones that should at the very least be addressed in some fashion. --Xover (talk) 08:26, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
    Xover, I just want to let you know that I am actively watching and will implement any changes to the bot provided there is community consensus to do so. —CYBERPOWER (Chat) 18:01, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
    @Cyberpower678: But you have no input or comments on the copyright issues raised by the thread starter, or the other concerns raised in this thread? --Xover (talk) 18:23, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Support stopping, and, per Xover, support reverting edits to date. I couldn't get worked up over the copyright issue when this RFC was first posted, but I am certainly very uncomfortable with this being done as a paid service by an outside agency. I believe I have seen this bot overwrite links to other repositories such as gbooks which really isn't on. I also think that if page editors have chosen to provide links to online copies only through the ISBN link, then that should be respected. Also, I don't much care for the clutter this is causing both in edit views and watchlists. SpinningSpark 21:13, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Use of "controversial" in the lead and beyond references to people in WP:LABEL. Dispute at the Blanchard's transsexualism typology article.

Blanchard's transsexualism typology (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Blanchard's transsexualism typology#"Controversial" in lede. A permalink for it is here. The discussion concerns not only whether or not "controversial" should be used in the first (lead) sentence of the article, but also whether or not "controversial" applies beyond references to people in WP:LABEL. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 23:13, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

RfC on an addition to the Manual of Style

There is a proposal for a new subsection on ecclesiastical titles being conducted at MOS:BIO that editors are encouraged to participate in. --Slugger O'Toole (talk) 20:10, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Notablity Not Inherited Giving Fuel To A Deletion Storm

This is an issue that few care about, but I would argue is causing real damage to Wikipedia. Amongst its zillions of pages are those of minor royal and aristocrats, which have been laboured over by those with the fascination for the genre. They amount to millions of manhours. Those pages –– created by a small army of editors –– are being successively submitted to Pages For Deletion, where they very often disappear –– for the reason that few of the editors who created them, monitor those pages. It only takes a handful of persons with a grudge against elites -- either for politics or personal reasons -- to succeed in the task. And these editors can be very young: certainly some appear very callow. Yet the information being lost can be highly valuable, particularly for journalists and scholars, who are often stumped when they have to write about a current obscure aristocrat or royal, and have no idea of their familial connections.

In deleting the pages, these small cabals cite a string of Wiki policies, including WP:GNG WP:NOTGENEALOGY, WP:NOTEVERYTHING, and particularly WP:NOTINHERITED. The last is particularly faulty and defies common sense. In the real world, notability is commonly inherited by association. Why is policy defying logic?

I note that Jimmy Wales has said he believes obscure genealogical information can be useful. Well, dur. I believe there needs to be a policy review on this matter, and some leeway given to enable these pages to exist. It's really unfortunate to see so much valuable information being deleted weekly simply due to personal ideology or a personal grudge. And I fear it's going to accelerate. Pages detailing white euro historical elite families are particularly vulnerable in the current climate. And given few care about them, except those who create and edit them, and the journos and scholars who access them, they make easy prey. The policies need to be looked it to make it make harder for those with a vendetta for such pages. ClearBreeze (talk) 18:35, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Do you propose a solution other than deletion? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:39, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
This might be a good reason for you to set up a wiki elsewhere for documenting such folks. Nobility is not notability, and if the nobility is inherently worthy of note, then they should be able to meet WP:GNG. The assumption that they must be worth of note because their father was worthy of note because his father was worthy of note because his father was worthy of note because... just falls on its face. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:19, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • WP:NOTINHERITED is indeed commonly misunderstood and misused. It is part of the essay series "Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions". It only applies to arguments to avoid. Very few people actually make this argument, I have never seen it happen. So long as a topic has sources, this essay does not apply. The essay is saying, you must show sources you can't only rely on its relationship with others. It doesn't mean that children or wives of notable people ca not be notable themselves. Yet, this is how it is applied 99% of the time. -- GreenC 19:21, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    Thank you @GreenC. That's useful comment. As that policy page is being grossly misinterpreted, I'd suggest it requires a better executive summary at its head of one sentence stating exactly what you have said. However, there is another problem. Just because some people are inherently notable, doesn't necessarily provide lavish sources. Half the town can turn out for an obscure aristo euro wedding or funeral, but the sources might be three in a lifetime, and local at that! Yet the fact they can draw crowds for these singular events is indicative that they are notable to a great many. Notability by way of birth is an utterly different notability to achievement notability or celebrity notability: it might involve lives of almost total seclusion, but it doesn't mean these people aren't notable, and are unworthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Just ask the villagers of a french town about the local Duc or Vicomte. They may like him; they may hate him; but he matters! And then you go looking on Wikipedia looking for information on his line, and find it's gone, because a few students in Peoria with chips on their shoulders deemed him unworthy of digital existence. ClearBreeze (talk) 19:58, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
It has become a meme. The word "inherit" reinforces it - fitting neatly into Wikipedaia's egalitarian merit-based ethos. It can be appealing to a sense of fairness that many who take part in Wikipedia are seeking. One option is create a counter essay and every time someone posts a link to it, post a counter-link. -- GreenC 20:38, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
GreenC, Thank you for your comment! In my experience, WP:NOTINHERITED is so notoriously misinterpreted as applying to CSD as well as XfD that I actually wrote about it. And it still is occasionally misinterpreted. The way some people have acted, you could be forgiven for thinking that WP:ATD is a figment of my imagination! Adam9007 (talk) 20:47, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • But WP:NOTINHERITED seems to speak quite directly to the argument being made here, not in the manner of "this title is inherited from the father", but in what that piece says about inherent notability. CB seems to be making the argument that the problem with these deletions is that "All viscounts (or whichever title) are notable", and that essay addresses the problems with "All _____ are notable" statements. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:34, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    @NatGertler: Not merely "all viscounts", but all people who would have been vicounts had the title not been legally abolished before they were born. --JBL (talk) 20:45, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Here are the articles that CB is on about: Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1944–1977) Countess Donata of Castell-Rüdenhausen Wilhelm, Landgrave of Hesse-Philippsthal-Barchfeld Princess Marie Cécile of Prussia and then also Line of succession to the former Austro-Hungarian throne. --JBL (talk) 20:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    I hadn't started editing yet in 2007 but this all reminds me of WP:PTEST. --JBL (talk) 20:14, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    In this situation, wouldn't redirects to main articles just turn the topic area into a NOTGENEALOGY state? We already seem to have a lot of tedious genealogical tables sprouting up using some template I've only seen recently. (Perhaps the template has existed for years and someone has just recently discovered it, mind). We're also seeing a lot more coats of arms, which seem sometimes to be dodgy because their sourcing is not clear and likely involves some synthesis. - Sitush (talk) 20:25, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    @Sitush: Redirecting to main articles would reduce the number of places the genealogy cruft accumulates, but I agree with you that it would require active maintenance of the main articles to prevent excessive genealogical silliness taking over. (Honestly my comment was mostly meant as a joke, as in: Pokemon are fictional creatures, with rules about which ones are stronger and which ones evolve into which other ones or whatever; just like nobility of the Kingdom of Prussia or Austro-Hungary post 1918 are fictional creatures, with rules about which ones have which titles and which ones begat which other ones.) --JBL (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) In my experience, we seem to have a lot of articles about minor members of aristocratic families etc that are sourced almost entirely to things like Debretts, Who Was Who and thepeerage.com. Such sourcing leaves them wide open to deletion because those sources are effectively just directory entries. Absent a decent-length obituary in a national newspapers etc, they're going to struggle to be kept. Certainly, genealogical websites won't help them, nor findagrave, nor family histories. - Sitush (talk) 20:05, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    • We do? Examples please. I'm always amazed how few articles we have on, for example, English duchesses from the 18th century, when they really were a power in the land. Baronets who just hung around their estates or clubs instead of doing something notable were purged years ago, not long after Pokemon figures with no agent. The current hunting ground is members of, or people married, into former major royal families (Prussia/Germany, Austria etc). We've never had articles on "minor members of aristocratic families" who did nothing else, & it is myth-making to claim otherwise. Johnbod (talk) 02:22, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
I assure you I am not making a myth but, equally, I have very little interest in the subject and do not take notes. I will let you know as I find them but a good hunting ground would be Indian royalty from the princely state period. The most recent European example I noticed has been within the last week so I will check my contribution history to see if I edited it, in which case I will be able to point you to that also. - Sitush (talk) 07:03, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Notability means that there are sufficient reliable sources to write an informative article about a person. In most of these cases there aren't. What's particularly bad is when a non-notable person receives press coverage for minor offenses such as DWI or marijuana possession. The best way to handle these subjects is to have articles about their families if they were notable. Beyond that, the fans of former nobility can consider setting up their own project outside Wikipedia. TFD (talk) 20:22, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
As others have pointed out, the problem—if there is one—is not WP:NOTINHERITED, it's the misunderstanding of WP:NOTINHERITED. A proper argument citing that policy would mean that purely being related to an important person does not make the relative important; other evidence of notability is needed. If that other evidence is lacking (WP:GNG sufficient characteristics, for example), then the article needs to be deleted. "Jimmy Wales has said he believes obscure genealogical information can be useful." Ok. I would also find a section on each article of every town listing every available restaurant "useful" , but that doesn't mean it actually belongs in an article. -Indy beetle (talk) 21:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Three points. 1. There seems to be a consensus developing in the discussion that misinterpretation of some Wiki policy pages, most especially that of Notability, requires their pages to have better upfront summaries. @GreenC 's on Notability here was a lightbulb moment. 2. @GreenC in his linked essay makes the point: "there is a consensus that a strong connexion with something notable is indeed a credible claim of significance." This actually goes to nub of the problem: if that's the consensus, then a descendant still bearing the title and kudos of the ancestor, and who is perhaps considered *quietly* notable in public life, is not accorded the same respect on Wikipedia. Which brings me to point 3. I noticed when reviewing some of the foreign aristo pages for deletion that the majority weighing in seemed to have zero knowledge of the individuals in question. So pages laboured over by persons often with a great deal of knowledge of the topic, are being deleted by persons with zero knowledge. Yes, that's how Wiki democracy works, but generally most commentators proposing deletion have *some* knowledge of the topic. So specialist pages on obscure personalities are particularly vulnerable to deletion. (Some commentators complained they couldn't find source articles, but appear not have known how to correctly format the foreign title or the positioning of the multiple names to better bring them up in a foreign News search.) And the end point? That the checks and balances for the Deletion of such pages (as per Point 1) need to be stronger. ClearBreeze (talk) 22:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Regarding your point 2, the essay is Adam9007's, not GreenC's. It's about claims of significance, which are a consideration of speedy deletion criteria, not about notability. Schazjmd (talk) 22:36, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, yes, ta! ClearBreeze (talk) 22:46, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
In order to consider an article for deletion, editors do not need to have any knowledge of the person beyond what is in the article. If the article provides them with zero knowledge about the subject then it should be deleted. There may well be a lot of people who know a great deal about the subject but unless that information has been published in reliable sources, we can't add it to the article. There are about 50 to 100,000 nobles in France alone today,[2] so maybe a million or so people with claim to some form of hereditary title. TFD (talk) 01:53, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
See WP:BEFORE section D. Check for more sources before nominating. -- GreenC 02:04, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
FWIW: the OP has now been indeffed. --JBL (talk) 12:16, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

category

Maybe the letter came to the wrong address, please send it to the right place.

My name is Crosstor. As of 2007, there are 108700 edits, 22000 articles, few Wikidata on the Esperanto site, few articles and edits on the Hungarian side, I also have a name on the English side. Check for!

New categories have been created on the Esperanto site, which offends the Hungarians.

Example: eo: Bálint Balassi was a Hungarian Renaissance poet. Category: Naskiĝintoj en Zvolen more Kategorio: Naskiĝintoj en Slovakio laŭ urboj more Kategorio: Naskiĝintoj en Slovakio more Kategorio: Slovakoj. The Hungarian Renaissance poet became Slovak. This category line should be solved so that in the end there are Hungarians as well. Bálint Balassi could not be Slovak, as he wrote in Hungarian, Slovakia did not exist either. I suggested deleting or revising the category. The result of the vote was a draw, so everything remained the same. Original talk: [[3]] I am waiting for the answer on the Esperanto page.

--Crosstor (talk) 14:26, 20 July 2020 (UTC) [4]

@Crosstor:You seem to have discussed this and failed to come to consensus at the Esperanto Wikipedia. This is the English Wikipedia, a separate project with its own, unrelated ways of handling categories. We have no jurisdiction over the Esperanto or Hungarian projects, so you will need to find another way of resolving this dispute there. ~ mazca talk 14:58, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia User with Danish language

Know somebody who can improve English and Danish Wikipedia pages (mainly about politics)? Wname1 (talk) 18:35, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Wname1, this query will find all native Danish speakers with near native speaker knowledge of English. [5] Vexations (talk) 19:01, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Policy and guidelines icons

I've proposed a change to the checkmark icons/colors used for policies and guidelines at Template talk:Wikipedia policies and guidelines#Colors because the colors, and therefore the identically-shaped checkmark icons, are too hard to distinguish from each other, even for normally-sighted people. I'm hoping the change could be fairly easy to implement (navbox and a couple of other templates used on individual policy and guideline pages, though I haven't dug that far yet). Comments invited. (or should it be discussed here? If so, I'll set pointers there to here.) —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 22:30, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

  • Support either changing the color scheme to something that is easier to distinguish or changing one or both of the icons so that they aren't the same checkmark (I would focus the discussion here, fyi). « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 23:30, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong support - the current set up is super inaccessible and an icon change is much needed. Ed6767 talk! 01:11, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment if we're going to make a change, let's solve as many problems as possible. A simple change of color from two nearly-indistinguishable-to-many to two distinguishable-to-most-but-not-all isn't enough to make this accessible for people who have low-vision but don't use screen readers. Why not just use G and P instead of a meaningless symbol color-coded in a meaningless way? —valereee (talk) 12:38, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure why icons are needed here at all, but if we are going to have them, have something distinctive and meaningful like (guidelines) and , or simpler (policies). Those examples would need some work to be suitable for a small size, but you get the idea. SpinningSpark 13:10, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment How about something like a scroll with a bright green (#008000) "P" on it for policies and two vertical lines with a black G between them for guidelines?
  • Oppose. The reason we use those checkmarks isn't that they look good on {{Wikipedia policies and guidelines}} but that they look good on {{Policy}} and {{Guideline}} and it makes sense to have only one set. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:11, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
  • General support, since the blue is definitely too close to the green. But I'd caution that changes to things like this are best done comprehensively, rather than as one-offs, since the design needs to work as a package (I think there's an essay about this, but I can't find it). Are there other symbols that are derived from the current checkmarks, or symbols that use their same coloring? Are any of the color schemes in this area (including also things like the fact that purple is our color for humor) documented anywhere? (Probably not, sigh...) For modifying here, the simplest way to do it would just be to tweak the shade of green and shade of blue to move them farther apart; no need to get fancy. If we do do a more complex redesign, though, start from first principles: the important thing to communicate visually is that both guidelines and policies are vetted norms with some authority, but policies are even stronger than guidelines. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:04, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    Also, courtesy pinging Awesome Aasim, who has worked before trying to start an effort to standardize Wikipedia's utter mess of project-space graphic design standards. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 00:08, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Question: at the size the icons are currently at, are they quite distinguishable? Because inline on the talk page on the white background, I could not distinguish the color. But when I normally see the policy/guideline checkmarks as they are, I can see them quite fine. I would be opposed to a black checkmark as it would not catch the reader's attention as well. Red and orange would be catchy, but is usually associated with danger. I can't think of any other good colors right now, so maybe we can leave it as it is? Or we could use brighter colors like this green and this blue? I honestly do not know... Aasim 00:31, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    As mentioned a few times in the past about theses icons - they do not meet accessibility rules for color blind-readers and should be removed all together. Let try and have a mature looking project and start removing all the child like graphics all over. Do we want children editing here or an academic community. --Moxy 🍁 12:45, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    I only have a problem with the black because it does not match the aesthetics of the site. Also, black makes it seem very ominous and it can be a bit confusing. We have had the green/blue system for a long time, and while I am not opposed to change, I do not think the colors should be changed just like that. I cannot think of any other good colors to change this to. And the other icons that have been proposed do not look aesthetically pleasing (as if someone won first place in a contest or something like that), which will also cause a bit of confusion. Since I cannot think of anything else, I vote Oppose for this proposal. Also, I think the checkmarks are supposed to provide a level of redundancy to make it easier to identify policies and guidelines, and they are almost never used alone when describing policies and guidelines. The color is kind of relevant, but they can just tell that the thing is a policy/guideline by reading the message box description. Because of this, I do not support this proposal. Oh, and for the extended policy/guideline table, I think it would be good to maybe add a P to one of the checkmarks and a G to another of the checkmarks. Look at what we did with our padlocks. We decided to add letters to them and make them flatter. Why can't we do the same here? Aasim 18:49, 16 July 2020 (UTC) Change my vote to conditional support. Stronger colors are supposed to catch your attention more. Look at the color of these emoji checkmarks: ✔✅☑ (at least on Windows). One is this sort of bright green, another is this white on green, and another is this blue on green. And that is a pretty strong blue as well. So and may be the way to go. Or and . But we need stronger colors to make them more distinguishable against a purple background. Aasim 19:10, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Weak support, while I have no difficulty telling the symbols apart, the proposed design is clearer. (I have put the changes in the extended content below) Danski454 (talk) 18:41, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
    • @Danski454: The green checkmarks in the navbox didn't get changed (though the key below did). —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
      • There is something weird going on with c:File:Check-green.svg. The 512x512 px PNG shown on that page when I go to it shows a medium-green (#008000) check. Some of the other size PNG renderings show the same color, while others, like the 240 px show a bright green check (#00FF00). The latter is the color used below in the key for the 15 px "proposed" one at the bottom of the navbox while the 17 px checks shown within the navbox are rendered with the darker green. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 22:14, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
      • Fixed. See below. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 23:25, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment I would not object to a strong blue instead of per Awesome Aasim's comment. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:00, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Extended content
Current
[[Category:Wikipedia {{{1}}}s|Village pump (policy)/Archive 159]]
Proposed
[[Category:Wikipedia {{{1}}}s|Village pump (policy)/Archive 159]]
  • Comment MOS:COLOR very clearly states Ensure that color is not the only method used to convey important information. Especially, do not use colored text or background unless its status is also indicated using another method such as an accessible symbol matched to a legend, or footnote labels. Otherwise, blind users or readers accessing Wikipedia through a printout or device without a color screen will not receive that information.. This discussion needs to go away from just changing colors and move to changing symbols. The checkmark has no underlying meaning towards policies and guidelines. The graphic should be changed to a P and G, which can be differentiated. Then the colors don't have to change. I am sure someone can do better, but see {{Wikipedia policies and guidelines/sandbox2}} for an example. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 14:50, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
They do have WP:ALTTEXT – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 16:47, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Finnusertop, which works well for people using a text reader, as long as they remember that a green checkmark is for guidelines and blue is for...oh, wait, which one is which again? And of course for people who know there's an alt text. Oh, and for people not using mobile devices that don't render the alt correctly. Let's make this less of a puzzle to remember. There is zero reason not to use a G or P. We can put the checkmark over the G or P if you want to make it pretty, but function is more important than pretty. —valereee (talk) 17:07, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
@Valereee: In this case, the two alt texts read "Guideline" and "Policy", respectively. We can always find scenarios where any of the accessibility features do not work, so it's about balance. And to find the right balance we look at the guideline. And the guideline does not necessiate anything further than is already implemented now, so I'd say we're already balanced. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 17:31, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Finnusertop, in which case? Everywhere in this discussion I'm seeing alt text that just gives the file name. —valereee (talk) 18:18, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
@Valereee: {{Wikipedia policies and guidelines}} – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 18:23, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Finnusertop, that's a single template, and how do the checkmarks even provide info? The green checks -- which if there were any reasonable thinking would be at minimum linked to Green for Guideline instead of Green for Policy -- don't get automatically linked that way. What are these checkmarks doing for us other than...I can't actually think what they're doing for us other than cluttering up the page. —valereee (talk) 18:44, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Sigh, this is what you're going to get when you poll preferences instead of what's actually in the policy or guidelines. I prefer the green and blue checkmarks, you prefer a green G and a whatever P. And yes, you can add alt text "Policy" right next to "This page documents an English Wikipedia policy" in {{Policy}} and "Guideline" right next to "This page documents an English Wikipedia guideline" in {{Guideline}}. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:08, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Updated proposal

I'm not sure how, but the discrepancy in the rendered color of c:File:Check-green.svg has been fixed and is consistently the darker green now. I propose (at least) changing usage of to (c:File:Check-lime.svg) for policies so it is better distinguished from the that is used for guidelines. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 23:25, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Harassment solutions RfC

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Harassment solutions. EllenCT (talk) 19:22, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

RfC - Excerpt

Hello - a seasoned editor and I were talking about a specific article and they stated “That's because some people apparently decided that it's okay to transclude parts of articles into other articles rather than just rewriting it. While this barely makes sense in cases where things are updated regularly, I think it overall causes an issue for editors, but I think that'd need to be taken to an RFC to be ended. Specifically it's transcluded at Electoral results for the district of Goulburn with the template: {{Excerpt}}”
An editor reverted my edit back to {{Election box begin no party no change AU | |title = <includeonly>[[1861 Goulburn colonial by-election|</includeonly>1861 Goulburn by-election<includeonly>]]</includeonly>{{hsp}}<ref name="Green Goulburn 1861 by-election">

The person I’m speaking with is @Jerodlycett: who can maybe shed more light on this and explain it better. I’m relatively new and have only been working on correcting errors in articles.

Please feel free to correct the title or anything else as I have never done this before.

Thanks, Bakertheacre Chat/What I Baked 06:07, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

You can find a bunch of information at Wikipedia:Excerpts and related pages. Courtesy pinging Sophivorus. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 09:45, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
My issue is with accessibility. This makes it harder to access the section(s) to be edited as you expect if you press Edit to be able to edit what is shown. The page @Sdkb: links to above states Excerpts are often useful in sections that link to a more specific article using {{Main}}. I've for the most part not actually seen that to be true, there is no Main link, which would reduce a large amount of the accessibility issue. Further part of an article (usually the lead section) has overall not been true from the use I've seen of it, it's usually a table of some sort. I specifically feel that the usage of transcluding a table that is unlikely to ever be updated (the results of a 1968 football game, or an election of the same year)) just uses up parser calls. My basic proposal would be that Excerpts should be limited to lead sections, and that usage of them should require something like This section has been transcluded from [[Article]]. This would reduce the number of clicks that a disabled editor needs to use to discover and edit something. The limit of only lead sections and the mandatory link to the main article can be considered separately, as the link would be the main way to solve things (as it can link to a section). Jerod Lycett (talk) 15:37, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
I'll leave the initial comment up, but be aware the user Bakertheacre was evading a block.ThatMontrealIP (talk)

RfC on whether certain sources are considered to have a conflict of interest

There is a request for comment on whether certain sources ("articles by any media group that [...] discredits its competitors") are considered to have a conflict of interest. If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability § Does Footnote 9 still have consensus? — Newslinger talk 06:41, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to mass-create category redirects to resolve ENGVAR variation in the spelling of "organi[sz]ations"

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories#Organi[SZ]ations_category_redirects. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:48, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Make Biting Newcomers A Blockable Offense

REJECTED
This discussion concerns the question of whether the blocking policy or banning policy should explicitly mention biting newcomers as a rationale for blocking (presumably in the section "WP:BLOCK#Common rationales for blocks"). The community rejects this proposal. Many editors pointed out that the blocking policy already mentions gross incivility as a valid block rationale, and a user who is persistently biting newcomers may already be dealt with under that policy. Some editors felt that adding biting may unnecessarily complicate the policy and inadvertently encourage administrators to use blocks more frequently in situations where alternatives to blocking might have resulted in a better outcome. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 00:38, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I've noticed that on the WP:BLOCK/WP:BAN there is no rationale that allows a user to block another user because of biting. Biting newcomers is just as bad as attacking or harrasing another user, as both can lead to the victim possibly leaving Wikipedia. As said in WP:BITE: "New members are prospective contributors and are therefore Wikipedia's most valuable resource. We must treat newcomers with kindness and patience—nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility." A user that scares away newcomers should not be allowed to continue to do the same to other new users. The point of blocking is to be preventative; this would prevent future attacks. I also suggest that we increase number of levels of warnings for Template:Uw-bite (we could make the template a multiple level template [eg. Template:Uw-bite1, Template:Uw-bite2, etc.]). P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 15:28, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Comment: I don't really see why this needs to be a separate block reason. If someone is doing this to the extent that it merits a block it would fall under harassment or general disruptive editing. Spicy (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Do we want to wait until it gets to that point, though? P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 15:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
P,TO 19104, do we want to invent a new bureaucracy to beat people over the head with if they are trying to manage abuse? It is trivially easy to see how your proposal would be exploited by trolls, and difficult to see what it adds to existing policy. Guy (help!) 16:08, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
@Doniago: Mainly blocking... sorry for the confusion with the title.
  • Oppose - we already have systems in place for systematic abuse. These things go to ANI or another suitable venue for a block or a topic ban. A three-strikes policy for being poor to new editors isn't helpful, and likely get used to get experienced users in hot water over what could be a declined AfC nomination Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:36, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the last thing Wikipedia needs is even more bureaucracy. −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 18:39, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - indeed, support eliminating BITE entirely. There's no indication we are in need of new editors, and cleaning up after incompetent newcomers who have no desire to learn, or even improve Wikipedia is a significant factor in the burnout of solid competent editors. Most times when I see BITE cited it is by either PAID or SPA editors. We make a product here; this isn't a social club. John from Idegon (talk) 18:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
    I think the proposal is 100% wrongheaded, but I can't let pass There's no indication we are in need of new editors. Everything else you said I completely agree with, but that's just absurd. EEng 15:18, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Any offense which would rise to the level of "blockability" for biting the newcomers would fall under patent incivility.--WaltCip-(BLM!Resist The Orange One) 18:57, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per JzG's comment and per WP:CREEP, but with that said note that I already do block users who go out of their way to be uncivil to newcomers. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:59, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
It is not just those who go out of their way to just be uncivil, it is also the people who show repeated patterns of being harsh or mean to newcomers. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contributions) 22:45, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
I will clarify that this isn't the case for all contentious topics. Even though there's DS for pseudoscience, we have to put up with the RGWs at evolution and creationism related articles because even if the majority of drive-by young earth creationists are simply never going to be productive, they're not peddling anything that's inspired people to shoot up family restaurants. Ian.thomson (talk) 22:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Moral support (but opposed to this proposal) We need to do better, but this is not a step along that path.S Philbrick(Talk) 22:30, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment I think most biting falls below the level of blocking or banning. Trying to use those tools to counter it would only lead the biter to dig in and ultimately claim vindication. More constructive would be providing feedback: "Hey, maybe you were over-the-top in the way you responded to that new editor." It's easy to reinforce the view that biting is justified because it makes the bad editors go away. It's a lot harder to see the good editors we are losing because they just needed a bit of civility and guidance.--Trystan (talk) 23:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose this is like using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut. There are plenty of bad faith newcomers where I edit who would try to weaponise this. Plus WP:CREEP. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:24, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose, surely this would be covered under WP:CIVIL anyway, and I feel as if this could easily be misinterpreted and result in unjust blocks. Ed6767 talk! 00:36, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support idea, oppose proposal - Yes, biting newcomers should be taken seriously. But in those situations where a block is the right move, one can already be applied under existing policy (civil). Levivich [dubious – discuss] 06:11, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support idea, oppose proposal. We do need to take biting newcomers more seriously than they do, but this well-intentioned proposal is not going to get achieve that. Bitiness needs to be taken to AN/I sooner than it is and admins there need to act on it more harshly but if blocks are necessary they can already be applied - we just need to be better at doing so. Thryduulf (talk) 13:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Support idea, oppose proposal, per Thryduulf. The big story of the past year is that we need to take WP:CIVIL more seriously. We're making progress there, but more needs to be done. As Thryduulf and others have pointed out, we've already got the tools, we just need to use them. It's more of an cultural education thing than needing more rules. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Often you can't tell someone is a newcomer. The ones that aren't really new would use this as a club to promote...whatever they're promoting.Jacona (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
I definitely agree that we need to take civility more seriously! Jacona (talk) 16:00, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose we need to worry far less about civility and far more about toxicity. That's especially true of new users who, in a significant number of cases, aren't really new,b but are here to cause trouble, promote causes or advertise shit. We need to be kind and pleasant, but sometimes telling them forcefully they're wrong, they're being stupid or their proposal is idiotic is the only way to get through to them that they're, well, wrong, being stupid or their proposal is idiotic. Sugar coating stuff just gets people addicted to the coating. So no, no more bureaucracy. But be nice to other people, or fuck off. Nick (talk) 17:23, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as the classic solution putting out a small ad for a problem. If someone BITEs so often that we need a policy on it, then, well, we have that already. And if it's not frequent enough to draw attention to it then a policy probably wouldn't address it. And that's before the opportunities for wikilawyering over who qualifies as a newb begin: 6 weeks? 6 months? With less than X-edits? Etc... ——Serial # 17:25, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose and Nick put it better than I could. It's just going to be weaponised and make it harder to deal with actual problems. The proposal has my moral support, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:43, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose first-time offenses can be generally admonished without using the block button, and any further incidents can be treated as normal incivility, up to and including an ArbCom case. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 05:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose, Nick sums up my thoughts exactly. Cavalryman (talk) 08:04, 29 June 2020 (UTC).
  • ANI levels only—defined as urgent, chronic or intractable—c'mon, give 'em a break for first or minor offenses. Long-term? Okay that's a CIVILITY issue. I oppose the idea of a 4 level uw for BITE; I rather see something like {{uw-ew}} and {{uw-ewsoft}} where the soft one is for first time or minor offense and the uw-ew, the "hard one", is for ones that would be a general warning or for borderline ANI level biting. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 20:20, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Despite claims to the contrary this would be a punitive block since there is no way to know how a given editor will treat the next newbie that they come into contact with. If there is an ongoing pattern then a report an AN/I with evidence will lead to a block. MarnetteD|Talk 15:58, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose But biting the newbies is fun, their knees always seem tasty. -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 16:03, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - We already have WP:Civility for intractable rudeness and I don't want to be sanctioned for occasionally chomping on a new editor who is clearly WP:NOTHERE. -Indy beetle (talk) 01:48, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Undermining WP:NPOV through Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Please participate in this discussion.--Seyyed(t-c) 05:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Admin activity grandfather clause/grace period

It's highly unlikely that consensus to add a grandfather clause or grace period to the admin inactivity policy will emerge in favour of the proposal. (WP:SNOW) --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:32, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the following sentence be temporarily added to Wikipedia:Administrators#Restoration_of_adminship (in the "over two years with no edits" bullet)?

Adminstrators desysopped on or before November 4, 2019 may be resysopped if they have made at least one edit in the last three years (rather than two years), as long as they file their resysop request before 00:00 UTC on October 1, 2020. This means that admins that meet these criteria and were desysopped for inactivity may be resysopped if they have edited in the past two years (rather than one year).

In addition, admins that would have been eligible for resysop under the pre-2019 rules should be notified of the 2019 rule change and the existence of this grace period.

This is in response to a question raised at a resysop request on WP:BN. Hopefully this RfC will clear up confusion on this and any future similar cases. Feel free to suggest wording changes. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:59, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

  • Support idea, don't add to policy. While we can argue over whether admin activity requirements should be stricter or looser, when we do implement them we need to make sure we do so properly and fairly. In this case, there was simply no discussion of a grace period or what would happen to existing ex-admins. As the bureaucrat activity RfC (where there was discussion about a grace period) showed, how and whether to implement a grace period can be highly contentious, so it is unreasonable to assume that everyone who !voted in favor of the proposal would also be in favor of having the policy apply immediately and retroactively with no grace period. When we desysopped those users we told them of the prevailing policy at the time, and to change that with no notification feels sneaky. Defending it with "the wording said so" feels like fait accompli to me, since that's not what everyone explicitly !voted on (the exact implications were not presented to them for consideration). This notification/grace period should have been done in November/December 2019, but better late than never. We don't need to add it to policy explicitly, we can just ping the affected users with a relevant message on their talk page and email. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:14, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
    By the way, I support replacing the current requirements (which are arbitrary and easy to game) with 500 actions of any kind every 5 years, of which 100 must be admin-related, to be evaluated at the end of every month. At the 4-year mark, we would notify any admin who did not make 500/100 in the last 4 years to increase their activity in the next year or risk losing their adminship. We would begin implementation of this policy with a mass notification to all current and former admins so that everyone is aware, and anyone who is currently non-compliant has a year to make it up. This would be the perfect solution for admins affected by the November 2019 RfC as well, because we'll just give them their bits back upon request and they will have a year to demonstrate that they really deserve the tools. If they really increase their activity, they'll keep the tools, and if they don't, they'll lose them. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:20, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
    @King of ♥: That argument is fallacious: it is equally true that it is unreasonable to assume that everyone !voting were in favour of a grandfather clause. Even more so in fact, since it is in direct contravention of the actual text of the policy as enacted, and you need much stronger evidence to support inventing policy not authorised by the actual text than to merely apply it as written. Especially when there was no discussion there supporting "some kind of grandfather clause" and merely a failure to reach consensus on the specific terms. --Xover (talk) 06:00, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    It contravenes the actual text of the message that was sent to affected users in 2018-19. I'm not saying that everyone would have supported a grandfather clause; rather, if there is no explicit discussion of something, we default to the interpretation that results in the least change. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:04, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    @King of ♥: Refresh my memory… Was the text of that message discussed by and !voted on by the community in an RFC? --Xover (talk) 06:35, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    It reflects previous policy which was of course enacted in an RfC. I consider it a duty to notify users when things we told them are no longer true. As Ched said at WP:BN, "Of course I'm from a day and age where a person's word was his/her bond; and that's kind of an obsolete concept these days." -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:41, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    It is quite literally an obsolete concept. "My word is my bond" is fine if you're mediæval feudal nobility; but on a 21st-century global collaborative project, "Ched"'s word binds nobody to nothing. Not even "Ched" themselves, because such personal-honour based rationales are in direct conflict with a consensus-based project. Don't get me wrong, I understand the intent and appreciate the sentiment (thus why the user name is in scare quotes); but when the community enacts a new policy, "Ched" will have to break their word if it conflicts with that policy. Blindly honouring your word under those circumstances is actually disruptive. If the policy change was insufficiently or misleadingly communicated to those affected then that's an opportunity for learning, but otherwise tough noogies. --Xover (talk) 07:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Per Xover: dictum meum pactum is indeed a noble concept: but it is just that—a concept. And while it may have/had standing in real life, it's not an "obsolete concept" on Wikipedia for the simple reason that it could never apply or have applied to a crowd-sourced community. ——Serial 10:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Like the sentiment, but don't add to policy. Jack doesn't seem to be gaming, but there are some sysops that will game it. That those gaming it mess up and forget to do a qualifying action, then get desysopped, is a blessing, and they should not be resysopped. Some show what I feel is blatant contempt for the community, especially in the presence of vocal opposition to their resysopping. Just give crats some discretion on the inactivity rules. If it's an admin who made no attempt to game the rules (although they easily could have), and they say they're back, crats should be able to AGF and give it to them. If it's someone who has been making token edits/admin actions since '07 just to retain their admin status, tell them to go to RfA instead. Any codified exemptions will just be gamed. As will a grandfathering clause, especially considering most admins who will be desysopped under that criteria will be pre-nov 2019 admins, so this explicit grandfathering makes that policy change slightly moot. The intention of that inactivity RfC was probably not to make requirements immediately harder for admins confirmed under the current, harder RfA process, and give existing admins a free pass for a few more years. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:28, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose the RfC didn’t include a grace period and likely would have failed if it had included one. The intent was to prevent admins from returning under these circumstances, not to allow older admins an opt out for a year after the proposal passed. This defeats the entire point of the RfC. Additionally, as this was in the admin newsletter at the time, no further notice is needed. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:32, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per TonyBallioni. It's regrettable that some inactive admins were counting on the ruleset they were familiar with and have not kept up with community policy changes during their inactivity, and I'm not intending to imply any malice on anyone's part, but the RfC was settled how it was specifically to prevent inactive admins not keeping up with policy changes from getting their tools back and inadvertently running amok. If we're going to carve out an exception to policy any time someone who wasn't notified falls on the wrong side of it, why bother having a policy at all? Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 22:44, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't see why we would need different rules for different people. The admin tools are not an entitlement; they belong to the community and are entrusted only to those who use them for the benefit of the project. – bradv🍁 22:52, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose I may have supported this if it had taken place at the same time as the imposition of the new rules, but it's too late to correct a perceived error in a November 2019 policy change in July 2020 * Pppery * it has begun... 23:01, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as well. I agree with Bradv above that we do not need different rules for different people. Let us also remember that we are not barring these returning editors from re-acquiring the tools, merely that they no longer meet the requirements for automatic restoration. They are welcome to avail themselves of the usual process at any time, just like any editor. CThomas3 (talk) 23:15, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't agree that some admins are more equal than others. Admins are expected to keep abreast of policies governing their position. That some of them do not is not evidence that the system is flawed, but to my mind reinforces the very reason these controls were put into place to begin with. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:22, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per TonyBallioni ,Bradv and Beeblebrox.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 23:23, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose while this is a volunteer project, it is nevertheless incumbent upon those with advanced permissions to stay up to date on the policies that govern their ability to hold those permissions. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 23:54, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose basically along the lines of Tony/Ivan/Brad. We need to find ways to welcome back editors and reinvest them in the project. We do not need that way to be by giving them administrative toolset. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:45, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose & Snow Close This was supportable months ago, but is a little stale at this point. -- Dolotta (talk) 02:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Indeed the present state of affairs is regrettable but I think that making this change so many months after the policy was changed would be inherently unfair. --Rschen7754 02:47, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose The ongoing gaming of the system is bad enough as-is. Why should we make it any easier? -FASTILY 05:13, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose The mere fact that we now need a new RFC to enact the policy from the last RFC as written demonstrates clearly why we can't keep grandfathering in the old regime. By all means bring up perceived negative consequences of the enacted policy to check whether they were actually intended or if the community wants to modify the wording; but when the `crats and sysops (who were the overwhelming majority of those discussing this at WP:BN) resorts to counting angels on the heads of pins to avoid applying the policy as written to a specific case it is a clear sign we can't permit anything less than a bright-line rule.
    Dear mop wielders: I love you all to death for the work you do for the project, and all the crap you wade through so the rest of us don't have to. That gets you my deepest gratitude and respect. That gets you a sympathetic hearing when you occasionally mess up, as we all do from time to time. It does not give you any special treatment: having the bit is not a "privilege" that it would be "unfair" to take away. If I am inactive and policy changes while I am not paying attention, I get no notification or grace period, and there is no grandfather clause for me. Why in the world would there be one for admins? Activity requirements are there to make sure those with the tools are up to date, and removal of the tools for inactivity is not "punishment". "Fairness" is not a relevant factor unless they started paying admins while I wasn't looking.
    @Jackmcbarn: Here's a hypothetical for you: what'd happen if you withdrew your resysop request at BN and instead filed an RFA? I'd support you. --Xover (talk) 06:33, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    @Xover: At this point, it definitely looks like I am going to end up doing a second RfA. (Though certainly not now; I'd definitely wait a few weeks before doing that.) As for withdrawing my original request, I feel like at this point enough discussion has happened that it's probably better to let it conclude with a real consensus one way or the other, so that we don't have to start this all over again if another inactive admin returns in my same situation. Jackmcbarn (talk) 20:39, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the above. I'm not sure why we are going to such great lengths to rollback progress that has been made. Nihlus 06:57, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
    Someone must have accidentally clicked that darn "rollback" button on our progress, isn't it annoying how easy it is to hit? GeneralNotability (talk) 20:23, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The intent of the RFC was to ensure that only administrators who were at least reasonably familiar with the current rules and norms of en.wp were automatically able to return without a new RFA. That intent is not served by this proposal. Thryduulf (talk) 09:31, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The fact that the an admin hasn't edited in almost 3 years is exactly why this policy is in place. --Gonnym (talk) 09:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as, notwithstanding the near- Wikilaywering of Ironside proportions :) and however unintentionally, this flies in the face of the spirit of the previous RfCs which deliberately restricted barely or inactive admins from automatic restoration. ——Serial 10:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • information Note: The proposer had closed withdrawn this proposal at 12:18 UTC today, however I think that letting it remain open for at least 48 hours before declaring precipitation would be appropriate, and re-opened it. –xenotalk 12:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose If anyone thinks anyone else needs a notice than do it, don't stand around saying someone else should give them notice of public discussions and policy they should be intimately familiar with, especially for a group of users, who are expected and entrusted to be on-the-ball. It's largely a trust issue and on the pedia trust is demonstrated in the doing. Trust is not built by carving out this or that special user treatment. But more so, yes, welcome back, it's great of you to rejoin -- trust the community, as you are asking the community to trust you, and please, put your application to them as the community has requested. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:44, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose the RfC which passed this had no grandfather clause and I don't see any good reason to add one. The view of the RfC was that people who had been inactive for this long shouldn't have administrator tools granted without a new RfA. This applies regardless of whether the admin was notified or not, and if someone needs the notification in order to make the tiny number of edits to avoid a desysop then that is an example of the type of case the rule is intended to deal with. The resysop criteria are already both very complicated and very generous. Hut 8.5 20:02, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It was an honest oversight to not consider either grandfathering or notifying all potentially affected admin. This happens frequently, so we depend on Crats or admin (in other situations) to use their best judgement. In the middle of a slightly heated (but very productive) discussion with Jack at BN, that makes this the wrong time to change. I'm not fixed as to whether the Crats should or should not resysop, I trust them to do whatever prior consensus would say to do. I am against muddying up the policy with language that only applies for a short time, for a handful of people. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:55, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Absolutely not. ~Swarm~ {sting} 03:58, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. As others have suggested, I think it was a mistake to not directly inform potentially affected inactive admins when the change was made. But the bigger mistake, which some people still don't seem to have grasped, is that we changed the rules in a way that made it immediately impossible for some affected inactive admins to do anything about it even if they had been informed. As a way around that, I think a grace period (or something similar) should have been included. But with so little time left before it becomes moot anyway, and the very small number of admins potentially affected (I think Jackmcbarn is the only one who's been caught like this, in the seven months it's been in force), I don't think we should go back and change it now. If there are any more similar cases, the crats can deal with them. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:48, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • @Pythoncoder: I understand that you want to withdraw this proposal but the reasoning should be more clear in doing so. I've amended this to a SNOW close, hope that's fine with you. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:32, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal to demote Wikipedia:Anarchism referencing guidelines to essay

Consensus to Delist as guideline and convert to essay which can now be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Anarchism/Referencing. General consensus was most frequently based on insufficient community vetting. There were also concerns about nicheness (including some rebutting statements) and conflicting with overriding verificability requirements. The essay may be resubmitted for consideration as a guideline so long as clear notification to the broader community was made (most generally done either by Village Pump and/or WP:CENT listing). Nosebagbear (talk) 12:47, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Thread retitled from "Found a niche guideline that was never widely vetted".

In an ongoing discussion, I was pointed to Wikipedia:Anarchism referencing guidelines. Upon investigation, I cannot find any evidence that this purported guideline was ever approved by a community-wide consensus. Quite the opposite.

The page was upgraded from a proposal to a guideline here in 2009. The "statements on talk page" referred to must be this discussion. It's a very short and local discussion of 3 editors. One says, It's been in at least unofficial use for a long time now, and another says, I tagged it as official then. See what happens from there. And so it has sat with seemingly little scrutiny for over 10 years (although there were some complaints last year on its talk page here).

Some concerning quotes from the supposed guideline:

  • dictionaries and encyclopediae should not be considered authoritative on anarchism (Encyclopedias are not authoritative?)
  • If a source is a scholarly work and is not contradicted by similar or primary sources, it should be considered trustworthy, and may be represented as fact. (Letting primary sources overrule scholarly work?)
  • Reference works that deal specifically with politics, philosophy, or other areas related to anarchism often suffer from the same problems as general reference works. (So reference works about politics are somehow a problem about a political philosophy?)
  • though many of the websites listed below are operated by credible organisations, have editorial oversight and publish material authored by third parties. (But no one outside the topic area has verified this.)
  • Because the vast majority of anarchist writings are published online and in zines, articles on anarchism are likely to rely more heavily on these sources than would be acceptable for most other Wikipedia articles. (Sounds like inappropriate exception-making. If good sources cannot be found for material it should not be included at all.)

I tend to think that this should be delisted as a guideline and turned into an essay (as well as moved to a title that does not imply it is a guideline), much as other WikiProjects have similar essays, absent evidence of wide approval. Same as was done with WP:POG (although that later became a big discussion to be properly listed IIRC, which failed). Use by Support from people within a niche topic area alone is too much of a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to call it a guideline, on par with, say, WP:RS. Crossroads -talk- 17:04, 29 July 2020 (UTC) clarified Crossroads -talk- 17:45, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks... I agree with DELIST. Blueboar (talk) 22:10, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Delist - As no need for special requirements that I can see. Also there was not broad community support for promotion. I agree with the idea of demoting to an essay in WikiProject Anarchism. PackMecEng (talk) 04:09, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • WP:SNOW support. No broad community vetting in (or at least advertised at) a central project discussion space = nothing that qualifies as (or should be tolerated to purport to be) a guideline or other policy page. Hard stop, end of story. This is a good catch and follow-up on the part of Crossroads regarding this. In a converse light, whoever made this illegitimate promotion needs to be made aware of how inappropriate and out accordance with our most basic policies (those pertaining to codifying community consensus into policy itself) this action was. Snow let's rap 04:37, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Support delisting - Master Of Ninja (talk) 10:09, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose deletion. Delisting OK I don't think the problems Crossroads identifies with the content are really problems once read in context and would oppose deletion. Articles on anarchism-related topics that become newsworthy (e.g. Antifa (United States) or A.C.A.B.) often suffer because of the issues these guidelines identify, and so I think the material is useful. However, if the text has not been through the rigorous community process required for guideline status, delisting makes sense. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Delist and convert to essay. This was proposed and became a guideline on Sept 1 2009, and the process seems legitimate (although more of a local consensus than general consensus). This kind of fine grained guidelines is really not needed when existing policy is all that is needed to determine sourcing. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 11:12, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment Crossroads notes that 3 editors were involved in the discussion leading to its listing. In case people have the impression just 3 editors were involved in the writing of the page, it is worth having a look at the page stats which show 33 editors, the main ones being Skomorokh, Richard Blatant, Aelffin, NTox, Malik Shabazz and Netoholic, some of whom are still active editors, hence my pinging. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:17, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment: the consensus to delist seems clear, so I don't feel the need to weigh in on that, but I oppose deletion (which, to be fair, I don't think anyone has proposed) and support maintaining as an essay. An additional point in favour of delisting, which I'm surprised hasn't been raised, is that academic work on anarchism has become much more prominent and voluminous since 2009. The guideline's points about mainstream media coverage of anarchism may still hold true, descriptively if not prescriptively, but there are many more good scholarly sources available now than when it was written. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 12:33, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • information Note: I've re-titled this section and notified the Anarchism WikiProject, especially as it has been suggested to move the page under their project. –xenotalk 12:48, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Demote per nom and lack of community endorsement, but leave it where it is unless WP Anarchy wants to move it themselves. There are nearly 2,000 pages in Category:Wikipedia essays (not counting its 44 subcategories) and the vast majority of those are top-level Wikipedia: space pages (not user or WikiProject subpages). No reason to move it unless WP Anarchy wants to. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:34, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
    If demoted, the present title might give the mistaken impression that someone is linking a guideline when referencing it. –xenotalk 15:43, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
    Yes, and most essays aren't WikiProject-specific like this one is. Crossroads -talk- 17:10, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Delist and I'd suggest moving it to a subpage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Anarchism. As noted several parts of it contradict widespread consensus and practice. Although WP:ARGH is a nice shortcut. Hut 8.5 17:50, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Delist Per Demote, a guideline may be re-classified as an essay if it no longer conforms with editorial practice. In this case it conflicts with Reliable sources. TFD (talk) 19:11, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Delist per all. Too niche (without adequate justification) for a guideline to begin with, and with concerning content per above. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 06:16, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Delist. While I'm not entirely against an SNG here, the fundamental premise for the existence of this one is fake. It is not true that there is a shortage of reliably published sources on the topic in the early days of Wikipedia; gbooks has literally hundreds of results from 20th century books.[6] and there are quite a few from the nineteeth century also.[7]. There can sometimes be a basis for an SNG setting special criteria for notability (WP:PROF is the classic example) but anything that tries to weasel out of the reliable sourcing guidelines has to go. SpinningSpark 09:58, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Am having problems logging in

Moved to Wikipedia:Help desk § Am having problems logging in
 – Not the purpose of this page. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:27, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

RfC: if a list exists in a non-English Wikipedia the corresponding English list should be allowed to use Wikidata for its tables - withdrawn as badly worded

WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn by proposer. (non-admin closure) OhKayeSierra (talk) 07:59, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I propose that if a list exists in a non-English Wikipedia the corresponding English list should be allowed to use Wikidata for its tables. This would have the advantage that the same structured data would not have to be updated in several different places. I would use it on List of active coal-fired power stations in Turkey. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:10, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Is this table in tr.wikipedia drawing its information from Wikidata? Is the information in that table drawn from reliable sources that can be verified? Those are two questions that I would need answered before offering my opinion on the matter. -- llywrch (talk) 20:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
The table in tr.wikipedia is not currently drawing its info from Wikidata but it is tagged as not meeting standards (probably accessibility for a start) and also has the tag "Bu maddenin daha doğru ve güvenilir bilgi sunması için güncellenmesi gerekmektedir." which means that it needs updating. I hope reasonably soon to have the Wikidata in a better state than the tr.wikipedia table. I believe the sources are generally reliable (I will be checking details later) except the CO2 emissions which are much too generalised estimates. So before adding the carbon footprint to Wikidata I need to think more about that particular point. Chidgk1 (talk) 05:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
To echo the above, different language wikipedia's have different sourcing requirements. Lists on ENWP are required to be sourced in line with ENWP's policies and guidelines, not tr.wikipedia's. So while the list *may* satisfy the requirements, we cant automatically say 'yes we can use wikidata' since wikidata is even more unreliable than the various language-wikipedias when it comes to reliable sourcing. It routinely contains information imported from the various wikipedia's that may be reliably sourced in one language, but not another. Only in death does duty end (talk) 20:57, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps I wrote the proposal too vaguely. I am not proposing 'yes we can use wikidata' for every international list in English - that should be for editors to judge and argue the case on the English talk page for a particular international list. Can I now amend it to read "if a list exists in a non-English Wikipedia the corresponding English list should not be technically blocked from using Wikidata for its tables" or would I have to submit a new RfC? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:37, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Thats actually an entirely different question that can suffer from the same core issues. If a list article is notable on ENWP, and another wiki has the same list whose data is on wikidata, you can use the information from wikidata, but you have to check it conforms to ENWP's policies. You can use something like User:ListeriaBot to pull the data to your sandbox then verify it before putting it in the article. What you cant do is automatically pull the Wikidata list directly to articlespace - due to the issues with reliability, sourcing etc already mentioned. If you want to propose a change to allow pulling data directly from wikidata into articlespace, I very much doubt you will get consensus to do that. Ever. Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:48, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
I am not saying that Wikidata has to be used just that we should have the option. The data should be more reliable in some cases as it should be less effort to keep up to date. In many cases, as many say, the Wikidata will be unreliable - editors can judge for particular lists which is best.Chidgk1 (talk) 05:51, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • 'Oppose ... and can we please have a moratorium on suggested uses for Wikidata, on this page and indeed throughout the site. They're popping up all over the place eg: one recent proposal to integrate in citations is/was open. It isn't fit for purpose and will not be for years at the rate it is progressing, plus there is no commonality of standards. - Sitush (talk) 00:20, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose, I am generally a proponent of Wikidata, but there are so many issues with this proposal (among non-yet-named ones: what prevents me to create any list on the Lak Wikipedia where there are no regular users ) that the proposal is a complete non-starter.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:06, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps I wrote the proposal too vaguely. I want editors to use human judgement - so in the case above another editor would presumably revert your change if you were trying some kind of trick. Can I now amend it to read "if a list exists in a non-English Wikipedia the corresponding English list should not be technically blocked from using Wikidata for its tables" or would I have to submit a new RfC? Chidgk1 (talk) 06:46, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support The manually updated lists here are often poorly maintained, using Wikidata to maintain them would significantly improve their completeness and reliability. That's particularly the case for international topics where the Wikidata content is in use in those language Wikipedias and being expanded by those language communities. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 08:34, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose, Sitush summed up my thoughts. Cavalryman (talk) 09:07, 28 July 2020 (UTC).
  • Oppose we need to be reducing, not increasing, our reliance on Wikidata. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 10:14, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Conditional support - i.e. support if the data is sourced, either at Wikidata (ideally), the other wiki or here (I don't know how this would work, but if it does it should be allowed). It should also be noted that this is entirely independent of the notability of the list: the existence of a list on another wiki and/or presence of data on Wikidata does not demonstrate notability for en.wp purposes any more than the absence of such a list demonstrates non-notability. Thryduulf (talk) 10:24, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
I will be sourcing on Wikidata Chidgk1 (talk) 05:59, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
I believe this exception makes sense because it is only about tables in multi-language lists. I don't want to waste my time trying to argue a general case. In this case I will ensure the sourcing meets both tr and en guidelines. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:04, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as a watering down of en-WP sourcing requirements, which are stricter than those at either wikidata or most other language wikipedias. Cross-wiki collaboration and research-sharing is good in principle, but unfortunately there's so many wikipedias with so many different standards of referencing and content that blindly pulling data between them will tend us all towards a lowest common denominator. -- Euryalus (talk) 08:11, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
I am certainly not suggesting doing anything blindly - editors need to check the quality of sourcing very carefully before using Wikidata for any particular list. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:22, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose- Wikidata is riddled with inaccuracies and I would be very wary about using it for anything. Reyk YO! 10:03, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Wikipedias (whether English or other languages) are not reliable sources - neither is Wikidata - there is no shortcut for editors actually evaluating and checking the sources themselves. Wikidata does not know whether lists on other Wikipedias are sourced, it does not know whether any sources that are used meet en:wiki's requirements for reliable sourcing, and it does not know whether the source has been correctly used (and data has not been changed since the reference was added). All this requires human editors to check.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:18, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
I absolutely agree that human editors are needed to check refs - I am a human. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:03, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - WD is a very useful tool, but this isn't how you use it. If for example, we were interested in filling out information on rivers in Gabon, it may stand to reason that French Wikipedia, and in-turn Wikidata, are more complete in their coverage than the English Wikipedia. In that case, a tool like PetScan is extremely helpful in using WD to quickly identify missing articles and/or list entries, where we can then find sources and include the information here. In many cases, without these kinds of cross-wiki comparisons using WD, we would often not be at all aware that we are missing coverage of particular notable subjects. Women in Red for example has been doing this kind of thing for a long time now.
    But merely using WD as a source for blindly copying information just doesn't fly. That's not anything particular about WD. We do similarly for all sister projects where information is unsourced, or where we cannot as individuals read and verify the sources that are provided. GMGtalk 11:31, 1 August 2020 (UTC)
I understand what you are saying but I am not talking about "blindly copying information". Editors still need to use their human judgement and in many cases will judge that the Wikidata is not good enough. Of course the quality of Wikidata may change over the years but most lists need to be checked every few years anyway, so at that point the editor can check whether the Wikidata has improved enough to be used or deteriorated enough to be removed. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
Forgive me if I misunderstood then. If you're just talking about "storing" the information in WD...I mean...you do still have the problem of people using sources in languages they don't speak. We've also had problems with this sort of thing before. In a more perfect world, where WD is maybe more integrated and more people were comfortable working across projects...In the real world? It has tended to mainly open up avenues for clever vandalism.
Foreign language sources can be difficult without Wikidata - when I was reviewing an English article about an event in Mexico I could easily read the Spanish language sources with Google Translate but had no idea if their publishers were reliable as I don't know the country.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:19, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Probably no way to put this with out offending somebody, but the English Wikipedia has a bit of a reputation for being project-centric, and not necessarily always playing nice with others. It sometimes feels like pulling teeth just trying to get English editors to upload their images to Commons instead of storing them locally. You wanna talk about the proportion of editors that are comfortable with WD to do anything more than bare-bones linking the articles they create?..The "pool of people" there starts to get pretty small pretty quick. In the court of public opinion, people just aren't going to trust WD, and there's likely little to nothing anyone can do to change that in the near term.
So the best way to use WD tends to be "whatever way people can't tell you're using WD even though you are." GMGtalk 11:30, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per GMG. There's no issue with using either Wikidata or other-language Wikipedias to identify potential reliable sources or as a double-check that an English Wikipedia article hasn't missed something out, but there are no circumstances in which another wiki should ever be used as a source in its own right. ‑ Iridescent 05:55, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose As Iridescent says, we can reuse useful sources from Wikidata or other language Wikipedias, but the mere existence of information in Wikidata or other Wikipedias has nothing to do with whether it should be acceptable in English Wikipedia. Meters (talk) 06:12, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
I am not saying that if data exists in Wikidata it is acceptable - that should be for editors to judge for each list. The problem is that reuseing sources and keeping them up to date across languages can be very time consuming. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:30, 2 August 2020 (UTC)
But that is exactly how this RFC is worded. If it's in Wikipedia in another language then English Wikipedia can use the Wikidata. Period. No mention of evaluating sources on a case by case basis. That would be an absolute nightmare. Meters (talk) 06:43, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Oppose Hell no. Wikidata can't even be trusted to get the short descriptions right. Importing information without a citation is a terrible idea and even worse is allowing it to be changed through edits on another wiki which aren't on our watchlists. SpinningSpark 08:52, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

  • oppose - it sounds like someone trying to automate creating lists articles. Whilst using wikidata to update lists might be sometimes something worth looking into - this suggests that we should create lists because they exist on other projects. That doesn't fly, because we still have notability guidelines for lists.
I entirely agree that a list might be notable in a foreign language but not English. In no way am I suggesting automating creation of new list articles.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:32, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Surely this also runs into a paradox, in that if an article doesn't exist we create with wikidata... But then the list exists, where we wouldn't usually base on wikidata. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 06:28, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps I phrased my proposal badly - I am not proposing any change to creation of new list articles. Chidgk1 (talk) 06:35, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I HEREBY WITHDRAW THIS PROPOSAL AS BADLY WORDED - it seems some people misunderstand what I am trying to do. I may try again with a better worded proposal in a few months time.Chidgk1 (talk) 06:44, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (WMF)/Archive 1 § Update on Status Labs from Foundation Legal Team
 – RoySmith (talk • contribs) 15:03, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC on warning level template categorization of talk pages

Should the tracking categories left by "lower" level warning templates (example below) be included when a "higher" level/order warning template of the same base template are already present on a talk page? Should a bot remove "lower" order warning categories (but limited to the same base template)? --TheSandDoctor Talk 18:48, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

To be clear, this isn't intended as something that would be mandatory, I am just asking if it would be acceptable for a bot to clean this up.

Example:


Support

Oppose

  1. I prefer them not being removed. This let's me see whether an editor followed a reasonable warning path Nosebagbear (talk) 12:20, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
  2. Per Nosebagbear. It is imperative that a user knows what path of editing the user to be warned has been on. Bingobro (Chat) 12:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  3. Per Nosebagbear. I'd like to add that some warning templates use a generic warning for their level 4, and if categories were removed like the proposal suggests, that's some useful information lost. Bowler the Carmine (talk) 04:58, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • In my opinion on this, this is rather moot duplication that isn't necessary. --TheSandDoctor Talk 18:47, 22 July 2020 (UTC)
  • I can see the advantage of keeping it this way; for instance, automated detection of whether a l4 warning was issued after a l2 warning, or whether someone went straight to l4. I can also see, however, that it'd make navigating those categories a bit of a pain. I'm not seeing an obvious way of reconciling those two immediately, without some horrifically complicated system of categories like "users with l1, l3 and l4 warnings from July 2020". Anyone who has more of a clue might well be able to come up with one, though! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 19:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Move request discussion: Title for the Suicide of Kurt Cobain article

Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Suicide of Kurt Cobain/Archive 1#Requested move 27 July 2020. One thing it concerns is interpreting the WP:Article title policy. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 02:47, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Note that there are two things going on with respect to this title, one being a conspiracy theory that the subject didn't kill himself, and the other being a broader question of whether the ~40 "Suicide of..." titles in Wikipedia are appropriate. BD2412 T 03:20, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
As I mentioned in the move request, I think there should be a guideline on this. I note that there is an article, Death of Adolf Hitler, who committed suicide. There was speculation after his death that he was still alive, although it was soon relegated to the fringe. TFD (talk) 19:27, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
There is related discussion on this at Wikipedia talk:Requested moves#"Shooting of" or "Killing of". Lev!vich 16:42, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Change icons

There's a proposal for this, so I'd like to put a topic here for getting a consensus.Ahmetlii (talk) 12:58, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Ahmetlii, see the proposal's talk page. It's a meritable concept (although debatably not the highest-priority), but it needs a lot more development before it'll be ready to formally put forward to gather consensus for implementation. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 11:46, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Ahmetlii, Ideally, the idea lab should be used to flesh out ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time, and only posted in policy when they are close to ready for an up or down decision. In practice, proposals in the policy section will generate further discussion but if there's a lot to be worked out, it shouldn't be done here. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:39, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC Announce: medical advice

There is an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Reference desk/Guidelines/Medical advice#Does this page reflect community consensus that would create a new policy and would change our existing policy regarding when editors are allowed to delete other editor's comments. I am not implying that this change would be good or bad; that's for the community to decide. More input from experienced editors would be helpful. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:40, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Renaming files to correct technical errors

Please comment on Wikipedia talk:File names#Addition of criterion. (Jonteemil's proposal, not mine) — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 19:07, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Problems with the WP:NOTHOWTO policy

RfD nominators and !voters are citing WP:NOTHOWTO to delete redirects that contain a tone of how-to guide (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3). Some redirects were deleted, other did not because of the counter-arguments that WP:NOTHOWTO only applies on articles. In order to settle this dispute, we have to discuss about what extent the WP:NOTHOWTO policy applies. --Soumya-8974 talk contribs subpages 10:39, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

It's about creep. If we allow 'how to' redirects, then carte blanche is given for an astronomical amount of articles to have similar redirects. You then might have editors tailoring prose towards that alternative title, and users will start typing 'how to' into the search engine and before we know it we've become a how-to guide. The onus is on us as editors to define Wikipedia as it is intended; an encyclopedia. Zindor (talk) 11:46, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
WP:NOTHOWTO applies to content (articles, yes, but also categories, templates, files). Redirects aren't content. That said, redirects are supposed to reflect the content found at the target, thus we often delete redirects when no mention of the redirect subject is found at the target (or not anymore). Since Wikipedia is not a how-to guide, none of these redirects will ever reflect the content at the target so, indirectly, I'd say WP:NOTHOWTO does apply to redirects. But also, creating redirects starting with "how to" seems massively silly. No reasonable person would search a paper encyclopedia for a given topic by looking under H for "How to". I think it kind of insults our readers that we think this would be necessary. I think there is a need for a guideline change here, to prevent the eventual mess of which Zindor warns. --Bsherr (talk) 14:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
I think this is on point. It is not that a redirect "how to (do something)" pointing to a the relevant topic is against the NOT#HOWTO policy, just that it would invite far too many "how to" redirects. While redirects are cheap, they should be reasonable search terms for an encyclopedia not for Google, and such redirects should be removed simply for being beyond scope. --Masem (t) 14:30, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
Exactly. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:40, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
We are doing a disservice to the greater community if we are trying to get Google to direct people who see a "how to" to our page which, per our guidelines, does not contain one. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:35, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
I mean, I agree that we don't want Google cataloging the "How to" directs on the basis of NOT#HOWTO, just that its a bit nuanced to say that the deletion reason for removing the redirects is NOT#HOWTO. It's part of the reason, just not *the* reason. --Masem (t) 17:54, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree with the posts and reasoning above, we should not have those. An sosuch is not solely dependent on WP:NOTHOWTO. A couple more ways to look at it. Articles are not clearly not to be "howto" so a redirect that says that is wrong. Or, if one claims that the articles combined with the pointers together is a "how to" guide, the the pointers are violating WP:NOTHOWTO. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:04, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

To put it differently, if the article is not a how-to guide, then a redirect claiming it is is incorrect and shouldn't exist. If an article is a how-to guide, then the article needs fixing. In neither case is a redirect implying that it's a how-to appropriate. S Philbrick(Talk) 20:37, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Oppose both a blanket ban and a blanket go on "How to" redirects, per WP:CREEP. Such redirects should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. I note that this discussion seems to have been created in response to this TfD. Nardog (talk) 04:56, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

What would be the kind of how-to redirect that would pass the test outlined above? --Bsherr (talk) 20:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Problematic redirect from MOS namespace to a WikiProject essay

While responding an RfC a short time ago, I discovered that MOS:ALBUM and MOS:ALBUMS both redirect to any essay on WikiProject Albums, rather than to an actual subpage of MoS. This seems problematic in that it seems to be bootstrap the local consensus of editors at that project to the state of something that has gone through a WP:PROPOSAL process (albeit the relatively weak form of that process employed for style guidance), when in fact it is just an essay. It's also a cross-namespace link of the type that is typically not allowed (although the redirect policy does contemplate cross-namespace linking for MOS, that exception is clearly for WP links coming into MoS, not searches for community vetted style guidance going out to WikiProjects.

I was about to remove the directs and put these up for speedy delete (or find a more appropriate target for the directs), but two factors gave me pause. First, it should be pointed out that the essay does go out of its way to be quite explicit in it's first paragraph that is is in fact only an essay (though not every reader in a hurry might necessarily see that, and it's quite possible to link to a subsection while still using the MoS handle, bypassing that important disclaimer), and 2) it's been a while since I've worked in style guidance, and I couldn't be 100% this hasn't become a trend--that is, where no formal style guidance exists yet, linking the MoS shortcut to a WikiProject essay, so long as that essay is clearly marked as such. I've looked for evidence of such a trend, but found none and my strong inclination is that these MoS shortcuts ought to be removed to avoid any possible confusion/invocation of these "rules" as standing community consensus in disputes, but there is a "better than nothing" devil's advocate argument to be made here, so I decided to get some community feedback first. Thoughts? Snow let's rap 02:04, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

This sounds like it is conflating at least two issues:
  1. Does (and should) the WikiProject Albums essay enjoy consensus on a par with other manual of style guidance?
  2. Are the redirects appropriate?
The second question is one for Redirects for discussion (they are not speedily deletable as WP:R2 explicitly excludes redirects to the Wikipedia namespace), but the answer will likely depend on the answer to the first question. It seems prudent therefore to answer that question before dealing with the second. I'd suggest that the best place for that discussion would be the essay's talk page with notifications to WT:MOS or vice versa. Thryduulf (talk) 09:52, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • MOS redirects should redirect to the MOS, not to an essay. It's fine for them to have a WP redirect, but a MOS prefix is just misleading, whether that was intentional or accidental. Some essays genuinely do have widespread consensus, but they still shouldn't be given the status of a guideline, even by way of a redirect, unless they have acually been through a community consensus building process. SpinningSpark 15:59, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • A temporary solution would be converting the MOS pages into soft redirects, with a disclaimer present about the linked page being an essay. MOS:ALBUMS isn't linked a lot, so deleting that wouldn't cause many broken links. MOS:ALBUM however is used a lot in discussions, so maybe a softer approach like i mention might be best. Hopefully someone proposes the essay soon for community approval as a guideline Zindor (talk) 16:34, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • An essay shouldn't have a "MOS" style redirect. If the essay has the community consensus it should be moved from the WikiPoject page into the MoS. In any case, a MOS redirect should not point to anything other than Manual of Style pages. --Gonnym (talk) 16:47, 15 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree that MOS: should only refer to MOS. There could be a useful MOS page listing essays and local consensus pages, but that would be a different thing. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 19:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC).

Hyphens and African Americans

I'm asking here because I don't know where else to ask. The AP style guide has removed the hyphen this year in African American and other hyphenated dual identities.AP tackles language about race in this year’s style guide Columbia Journalism Review Why has not Wikipedia followed this practice? I thought Wikipedia followed the AP style guide, but no? Such articles as the one on Barack Obama and virtually every other article using African America as a descriptor use the hyphen, e.g. African-American history. Thanks, Krok6kola (talk) 13:30, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia has its own Manual of Style (MoS), which is certainly influenced by AP and other well-known style guides, but does not necessarily follow them completely. In this case, per MOS:IDENTITY, the term most often employed by recent reliable sources should be used. You might try asking at WT:MOS to see whether there is consensus that the unhyphenated variant meets this criterion already, but it may be necessary to wait and see which style is most commonly adopted. But if AP has switched its guidance I'm sure there will be more institutions that follow. – Teratix ₵ 14:07, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Wikipedia has its own style guide, the front page of which you'll find at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. That style guide, like Wikipedia itself, is built by consensus, and is influenced by other style guides but not dependent upon them. I'm not quickly finding guidance on this specific question; MOS:HYPHEN talks about our use of hyphenation in general but doesn't delve specifically in the -American issue. If you think this should be changed, the best place to suggest a change would be Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, which is where such things get thrashed out. Please be aware that even if we change the guide, it will likely take a long time for that change to be absorbed into the existing articles (one cannot just blanket search-and-replace the term, as there are things like quotes from printed works or proper names like National Association of African-American-Owned Media which we would not want to change.... but eventual change is created by starting now. --Nat Gertler (talk) 14:10, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Honestly I'm a bit surprised that we're using "African-American", as in my experience the unhyphenated form is much more common and thus would satisfy the requirement of following RS's usage. I do note that we appear to use "African-American" when we're describing African American things, such as African-American literature, whereas for people and the ethnic group as a whole we appear to use African American. I don't know if this speaks to a particular trend within style guides or if this is just an idiosyncrasy that we adopted. Searching on Google trends, the unhyphenated form is far more common. I unfortunately wasn't able to do a particularly thorough search on Google Scholar because their search engine appears to automatically interpret the hyphen as equivalent to a space, but there appears to be plenty of use of the unhyphenated form, even when used as an adjective. signed, Rosguill talk 14:26, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Another data point: surveying the titles in the citation section of African-American literature and doing my best to avoid double counting, I see 4 "African-American" vs 10 "African American", as well as 11 "Black" and 1 "Black American". signed, Rosguill talk 14:33, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and notified WikiProject African diaspora of this discussion. signed, Rosguill talk 14:36, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Why is this an issue? This is hardly an issue over appropriate naming. I'm open to evidence to the contrary, but whether or not to use a hyphen seems unlikely to be a sensitive issue in racial matters. Rather, it is just a matter of style, and on style issues we should follow our own style guide whatever the sources are doing. We wouldn't, for instance, start writing article titles in title case instead of sentence case just because that's what a source is doing. MOS:HYPHEN isn't prescriptive on this, but it seems quite keen to hyphenate compound modifiers. SpinningSpark 14:53, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
hm, looking at MOS:HYPHEN, the instruction never insert a hyphen into a proper name (Middle Eastern cuisine, not Middle-Eastern cuisine) would seem to suggest that we shouldn't hyphenate African American. signed, Rosguill talk 15:12, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Well, that's seeing "African American" as a single proper name, rather African as an adjective modifying American, which is one way of viewing things, but not the only way. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:27, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for all the responses! AP style guide, MLA style guide, and Chicago Manual of Style add call for no hyphen.[8][9][10] And I never see African American hyphenated in real life. But there seem to be strong positions on Wikipedia to keep it, even though, as you say above, there is no actual policy about this specifically. Barack Obama is called the first African-American president, which redirects to African American but those that control the article prefer to keep the hyphen. I don't want to get embroiled in discussion on the manual of style pages here on Wikipedia as I don't have the stomach for that kind of thing anymore, but thanks so much for providing feedback on my question. Krok6kola (talk) 17:17, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

So this was WP:FORUMSHOPPING? Chris Troutman (talk) 16:12, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
@Chris troutman: No. I asked somewhere else and they told me to bring it up here. I knew it would be useless. Krok6kola (talk) 15:15, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
I don't think this is an issue. Hyphenated or unhyphenated—it's all the same. And we have an article Hyphenated American. To me that suggests that hyphenation is OK. Bus stop (talk) 17:44, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Isn't this purely a matter of grammar—or more specifically, of parts of speech? The hyphen is not present when "African American" is a noun, and the hyphen is present when it is an adjective, as I think NatGertler was explaining above. A person is an African American (no hyphen, as the phrase is a noun) but has African-American ancestry (hyphen, as the phrase is an adjective). You can see this convention in use in the African Americans article, among other places.
The above example with "Middle Eastern" is not analogous, because the Middle East is a place (unlike "African America"), and both "Middle" and "Eastern" are always adjectives; the corresponding noun phrase is "Middle Easterner". I see that the Associated Press is now using "African American", unhyphenated, as an adjective. I can embrace this change as a descriptivist, but I think the current (now previous?) convention is/was merely based in grammatical rules. Armadillopteryx 20:32, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Rfc: Proposal to make this part of the content guideline

WITHDRAWN
Withdrawn by proposer. (non-admin closure) StellarHalo (talk) 05:54, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I believe we should make the following an official part of the content guideline: Wikipedia is not in the business of debunking misconceptions. We report an aggregate of what experts in whatever field report. Even when the received wisdom in some field is obviously one huge misconception, we faithfully report it – but if there are enough counter voices, we report these as well.

Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth kind of says this already by saying [Wikipedia's] content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors. Even if you're sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it. If reliable sources disagree, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight. However, it is only an essay rather than a guideline. So, I propose what I wrote above be added word for word to either Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, and/or WP:BIASEDSOURCES.

Based on what I have seen long-term editors here done and said in the past whenever this came up, I am going to guess that my proposal will encounter significant opposition but I will not be singling out anyone specifically. However, I do believe that when it comes to certain subjects especially those that are social constructs, an encyclopedia should not give undue weight to a certain authority (e.g. a government of a sovereign state) without including other points of view. Anyway, please present any rationale for your position. StellarHalo (talk) 07:25, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

  • There is some kind of point in there, but I would oppose it as it currently stands. Some things are widely accepted to be misconceptions and we should certainly be reporting the debunking information in those casses. A good example is perpetual motion machines. All scientists believe these cannot work for reasons of fundamental scientific principles, but some of them can be fiendishly difficult to see why they don't work. A prime example of this is the Brownian ratchet. Our article would be so much poorer if we weren't allowed to debunk it. At the other extreme, we would be entirely wrong to debunk New Age spiritualism, or just about any religion. In the middle are articles on investment schemes believed to fraudulent or novel theories of mind. What we do depends on what reliable sources are saying. This is more an issue of WP:UNDUE than WP:V. Really, I'm struggling to think of an example of a topic that is "obviously one huge misconception" but for which no counter sources can be found. It sounds like these topics were not notable in the first place and should not have been given an article at all. SpinningSpark 10:20, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I can easily see how wording like "experts in whatever field report" and "received wisdom in some field" would immediately become FRINGE magnets. There are plenty of fields where reasonable experts disagree. But there are some "fields" that are entirely nonsense from beginning to end. When we write about Crystal healing or Ghost hunting, these are not fields where legitimate experts are engaging in reasoned debate. These people are only experts in the sense that your eight-year-old neighbor Charlie is an expert on Sunnyville, except Sunnyville is the town he built in Minecraft. Just because he's memorized all the street names doesn't make any of that information into "wisdom".
At some level yes, reliable sources will tend to come from experts and we will tend to prefer those sources. But we don't engage in the kind of epistemological relativism that would lead us to say that... some dude named Roger has spent the last 20 years looking for the ghost of big foot, and so Roger is the foremost expert in his field. Therefore we need to "receive Roger's wisdom", when in reality, Roger is just an air conditioner repair man, who thinks that he can talk to ghosts with his battery tester, and just because he is an expert in a bunch of made up stuff nobody cares about, doesn't actually make him into an expert, doesn't make his hobby into a field, and doesn't make his battery tester a form of wisdom. GMGtalk 11:00, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
"...bunch of made up stuff nobody cares about" – are you talking about mathematicians? SpinningSpark 11:15, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
I think we can probably make an exception for Roger or Charlie in the case that their hobbies somehow put a man on the moon. As it turns out, people boarding a plan or taking a medication actually care very much about mathematics, whether they know it or not. GMGtalk 11:38, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm opposed to this proposal. It comes off as overly aggressive and pointy, and other existing guidelines and policy already deal with the matter sufficiently, such as WP:V, WP:UNDUE, etc. --Jayron32 13:39, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose also - Jayron put it well. We already have policies in place that work and this is more or less a shortened version of WP:UNDUE. Doug Weller talk 14:17, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose also. In addition to what is mentioned above, a major cause of discrepancy between received wisdom and expert opinion occurs when information becomes outdated. (WP:NOTFALSE) We went through this some years back when an American politician made a complete hash of the story of Paul Revere. It was agreed that we did not need to report her version, nor debunk it, regardless of how widespread the misconception was. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:47, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per others who have pointed out that policies regarding this already exist. MarnetteD|Talk 21:54, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Clarification: As you guys have said, my proposal came across as too vague and general. For that, I apologize. Just to be clear, I am not intending for this to be used for the inclusion of any kind of fringe pseudoscientific theories. Rather, I am focused on making sure social constructs are not determined my governments and laws alone and that our articles on them should be able to be in direct conflict with national constitutions. After all, social constructs only exist because enough people treat them as such and governments alone cannot arbitrate their legitimacy since the latter are social constructs themselves to begin with. For example, the the talk page for the article on the city of Kiev shows that people have been fighting over the article name for 13 years straight. Even though the government of Ukraine has insisted that it is officially Kyiv and the Kiev City State Administration even sent an official letter to the WMF asking for the names to be changed, the reason article still calls the city "Kiev" is because that is still how most English-language sources would refer to it. Not exactly NPOV obviously but there is not much you can do in a dichotomy and WP:COMMONNAME is prioritized. Some of the sources that I am specifically concerned with include the New York Times, Le Figaro, Huffington Post, The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle, and maybe Shashi Tharoor to name a few. I would like to utilize them and I wish to avoid editing disputes with any user who considers going against the written official laws or constitutions to be "perpetuating inaccurate delusions". If you guys are interested in knowing which users seem to believe this, I will not hesitate to name-drop some of them. StellarHalo (talk) 22:12, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2020 July 21#Is this directly stated somewhere in Wikipedia's official guidelines? and Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive 1069#How do I build a consensus and official guideline on controversial contents? for other examples.
@StellarHalo, if all of the disputes you're looking at involve geography and royalty, then I believe that there are narrower "rules" established for both of those. The start of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) may be helpful, and perhaps Wikipedia:Naming conventions (royalty and nobility)#Hypothetical, dissolved and defunct titles would be handy as well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
It seems discussions had already been had while I was not around. Oh well, I will just have to proceed with my edits and rely on the existing guidelines and policies for defense instead of strengthening my position first. StellarHalo (talk) 04:20, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Withdrawn If you guys believe that the existing policies and guidelines are enough to justify the use of reliable sources in going against laws and constitutions and make my proposal unnecessary, I will trust you guys. StellarHalo (talk) 05:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deprecation question

I am not sure if this has been discussed before (if so, please point me to the discussion). Given that the standards for External Links are slightly different from the standards of reliability for citing information... Can a website that has been deprecated for use as a source be included in an “External Link” section? Blueboar (talk) 01:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

  • Yes, although it depends on local consensus. For example, the RfC for Crunchbase (RSP entry) concluded that the website is not appropriate for citations in most cases, but is appropriate for external links. If we have an article on a deprecated source, an {{Official website}} link for that site would be an appropriate external link, as explained in WP:ELOFFICIAL. For other cases, external links to deprecated sources might not be appropriate per point #2 of WP:EL § Links normally to be avoided (WP:ELNO), "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints that the site is presenting." Ultimately, it depends on what the consensus is for the particular article that the external link would be placed in. — Newslinger talk 03:04, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • I think it depends on the reason for deprecation. Are we talking Breitbart-level bullshit? Hell no, we should not be endorsing such sources with backdoor references by putting them in the external links section. Are we talking like stuff which is low-reliability, but not actively terrible, like perhaps personal blog posts or stuff like that? I think that's still a usually no, but I'd be willing to let that be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. We need to draw a line between "actual unmitigated bullshit we should stay away from at all costs" and "probably harmless but otherwise not great as a source" stuff. The first should basically never be cited, the latter may have some limited use in external links in a few cases.--Jayron32 19:03, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
Blueboar, that's WP:ELMAYBE #4. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Blacklist amzla.com ?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200817091001/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07B8JDNSK/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1597655401&sr=1-3&keywords=battery+operated+fan&m=AUMDRMI8Z0GDO
0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 06:26, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
Please propose new additions to the spam blacklist at MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist. Goose(Talk!) 02:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Should it be a requirement that WP:PAID editors "must" use the WP:AFC process to publish articles?

Please see Wikipedia talk:Conflict of interest#Should it be a requirement that WP:PAID editors "must" use the WP:AFC process to publish articles? and comment. –xenotalk 12:26, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#RFC: mentioning the names of magistrates when writing about convictions

I have a query about WP:ONUS, see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#RFC: mentioning the names of magistrates when writing about convictions. It would be great to get some feedback. After reading the WP:RFC page, it seems this is probably the best place to publicize my RFC. Hope this is a reasonable place to do so! - Chris.sherlock (talk) 06:23, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Is there a consensus here?

This RfC has been going on for 9 days, and it followed a discussion that went on for 12 days. Many editors have commented and many edits to the disputed part were made. Just when it seemed we can see a consensus at the end, I was informed that there is no consensus there.

I have three questions:

  • Is there a consensus there?
  • (if yes) How can the consensus be apparent beyond doubt?
  • (if no) How can consensus be achieved here?

Thanks. Aditya(talk • contribs) 01:24, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

You already asked this at AN. Why'd you ask it here? Jackmcbarn (talk) 01:26, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
Not sure where it is more appropriate (I also asked at the Tea House). An advice from any forum would be helpful. Aditya(talk • contribs) 02:21, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
Aditya Kabir, to avoid WP:TALKFORKs, it's most helpful to post discussions in a single place, and then use {{Please see}} for any additional locations where it might be relevant. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:10, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
@Sdkb: Thanks. This was for my own education, and not attempted as a TALKFORK. There have been some more learning at the Tea House too. But the question "How can a consensus be apparent beyond doubt?" is something I am still looking an answer for. There surely is some mechanism that ensures that. Otherwise, anyone can claim that there is no consensus (and start the process all over). Aditya(talk • contribs) 06:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Navboxes in the lead

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Sidebars (navboxes) should NOT be used in the lead. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:55, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

RfC on adding a definition of "self-published source" to WP:V

At WT:Verifiability#RfC:_Definition_of_self-published_works, there is an RfC to decide whether a particular definition of "self-published source" should be added to WP:V. Comments are welcome there. Zerotalk 13:41, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Request for comment on Notability essay on awards and medals

Essay: Wikipedia:Notability (awards and medals)

There were three recent AfDs ([11], [12], [13]) which were closed as no consensus and contained some controversial claims about "state awards are always notable". In addition one of these AfDs was cited by BD2412 as an example of a difficult close at a general AfD discussion.

I would like comments on this essay and improving it in order to help discussions at AfDs. Thank you.

  • Improving an essay won't really help clarify the question unless you want to submit it as an explanatory supplement to an SNG. While there are some essays we use as shorthand in AfD, in terms of actually showing that notability is being met (or not), they don't have any value. If people are using it as binding, that's its own issue Nosebagbear (talk) 09:01, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

There is an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion#RfC on shopping malls and notability guidelines regarding guidelines and the notability of shopping malls.

Question: Should existing guidelines be clarified (or a new guideline created) to provide more guidance between what is considered routine run of the mill coverage and what coverage will establish notability?

Thank you.   // Timothy :: talk  01:08, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Which is my home wiki?

I have most edits in here, but my account was created on meta. So which is my home wiki? -- PythonSwarm Talk | Contribs | Global 08:53, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

The system thinks it's where your first edit it. For the rare cases where an editor or the community wants to know, they mean your most active locale Nosebagbear (talk) 09:52, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
Confusing ... I have a "house" icon at Special:CentralAuth/GhostInTheMachine but you do not PythonSwarm. Neither does Nosebagbear. — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 12:44, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
It may be that the centralauth system automatically merges accounts when they are created. -- PythonSwarm Talk | Contribs | Global 03:58, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

What is the current status of moving Wikipedia to CC BY-SA 4.0?

Hi all

I'm trying to find where Wikipedia (not sure if this would be different for different language version) is with moving from CC BY-SA 3.0 to 4.0. I remember a few years ago the WMF board agreed or decided (I'm struggling to remember the details and cannot find anything written) that Wikipedia should move to the new license, but that there were legal issues to work out. Does anyone know:

  • What stage the process is at, if there is a page describing it or a Phabricator ticket or something
  • Where the board agreement might be
  • Any other relevant info

I'm really interested in this because there a re large number of organisations publishing text under the 4.0 license which currently cannot be used on Wikipedia.

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 15:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

John Cummings, There was a community consultation on a proposed TOU ammedment at meta:Terms of use/Creative Commons 4.0. The board was updated a few days after the discussion closed, but I could find no further developments. JSutherland (WMF), you were involved in that process; did anything happen after the 2016 discussion? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 17:20, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
@AntiCompositeNumber: thanks very much for the info. @JSutherland (WMF): is there a phabricator ticket or something that explains the progress? John Cummings (talk) 08:39, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
John Cummings, for those of us not in the loop, what are the pertinent differences between 3.0 and 4.0? {{u|Sdkb}} talk 06:35, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
https://creativecommons.org/version4/#:~:text=Version%203.0%20included%20a%20provision,verbatim%20reproductions%20of%20a%20work John Cummings (talk) 08:39, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
The most important "change" is that CC BY-SA licenses only allow distribution under the current or newer license. So, 3.0 material can be imported to a 4.0 work, but 4.0 material can not be imported to a 3.0 work (which is the current unfortunate situation alluded to in the opening post). – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
@Finnusertop: am I correct to say then that if Wikipedia changed to a 4.0 license then both 4.0 and 3.0 licensed text from other sources could be imported into Wikipedia? John Cummings (talk) 10:47, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Just to add that I'm in a similar situation to JohnCummings, potential to work with an Education partner who've openly licensed some biographies, but on a 4.0, so can't currently import that text. Would be interested to hear of any developments! Lirazelf (talk) 08:37, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

I've created a Phabrciator ticket to track the issue here https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T261200. Thanks John Cummings (talk) 12:33, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

policy on women and children killed by their spouse/father?

Hi This has been raised with regard to Murder of Hannah Clarke who was murdered by her estranged husband. Should Wikipedia have her referred to in the article as "Hannah Baxter", the name used in the Murdoch tabloids? There seems to be a growing idea in society that wives and children murdered by their husband and father should *not* be referred to by his surname posthumously because he murdered them. PAustin4thApril1980 (talk) 21:13, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Surely the question is what name did she call herself immediately prior to the incident? Since she was estranged she might have reverted to her maiden name; but if she, and the children, were called Baxter at the time we should respect her choice. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:44, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Her married name was Baxter but she and her children are buried under her birth name of Clarke. PAustin4thApril1980 (talk) 22:00, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
Could also be argued that the relevant bit is what reliable sources refer to it as. They seem to have a bit of split (within, not just between) them as to what to do in cases like this. I suspect we'll probably enter a local consensus bit at some stage, but I feel the majority probably remains on not using maiden names. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:58, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
I would ask for a source that there is a growing idea in society in this direction. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:45, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Stick with WP:COMMONNAME and let reliable sources sort out how to refer to people. We're not in any position to weigh up questions of self-identification or the wishes of the deceased's friends and family. --RaiderAspect (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
As above, WP:COMMONNAME in reliable sources. If she was reported as Hannah Baxter then she should be referred to as Hannah Baxter. Wikipedia is not in the revisionism business. We report facts as they are, not as some would like them to be. I would also point out that's it's not just the "Murdoch tabloids" which call her Hannah Baxter; the Guardian and the BBC (neither known for any sort of right-wing bias) do too. It does appear that in her case she probably had reverted to her maiden name and her name may earlier have been misreported, but that doesn't mean every woman murdered in these circumstances should be referred to by their maiden name by default. It depends on the reliable sources. As to the children, their surname presumably was still Baxter, whatever their mother may have wanted it to be. It's not up to one parent to pick and choose what underage children's surnames are. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:30, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
The article cites a source that has this footnote: "This story previously named the children's mother as Hannah Baxter. The Queensland Police Service has since informed media she had legally been using her maiden name ‘Clarke’ and no longer used her married name of Baxter."[14] We should follow that lead. Fences&Windows 17:31, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

The only policy we should have on this is "follow the sources". In most cases that will mean using the WP:COMMONNAME but it allows for exceptions where there is a specific reason to follow a minority option (e.g. there is a reliable source indicating the subject's clear wishes are/were something other than what the majority of sources are using). It is not our place to right great wrongs, especially when it is not clear that the status quo is actually a wrong in all cases. Thryduulf (talk) 13:16, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

A Universal Code of Conduct draft for review

Cross-posting from the Village Pump WMF, see post there :) Patrick Earley (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

The maintenance of categories, lists and info boxes

Hoi, it is well known that some English Wikipedians are not a fan of Wikidata. It is why I propose a mechanism that will only flag information that needs updating but will update information at Wikidata and where updates are accepted. The idea is simple; many categories are defined for their content.. There is even a Wikidata property for it. A category should contain all articles that fulfill its specific definition eg "educated at Harvard" or "faculty of Harvard". When an editor checks a category, it will be flagged that there are missing entries. When an editor checks an article, it will indicate missing categories. It is then for the editor to act upon it.

I am working on a project to include data on cabinet level politicians in Africa. I find that much of the English Wikipedia needs work. An example is the Moroccan minister of Health who is indicated as the incumbent but already had two successors.Typically the content of English Wikipedia is really good and it is where I go first for content. However, because of categories in other Wikipedias I notice the missing information and use those Wikipedias as a source and complement the data that I have.

I blogged about it, I have thought about it for a long time. I understand where some do not want to import information from Wikidata but this is exactly the opposite. In this way there is a tool that helps you find the information that is out of date, incomplete. It is up to you to make English Wikipedia as good as it can be.

Thanks, GerardM (talk) 07:53, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

GerardM How would this work from the ordinary Wikboipedian's viewpoint? In concept it looks like it could be a useful tool. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 10:41, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Given that local edits are possible .. It would add a template on the article, the category. From the template you find what it is that can be done. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 11:59, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
GerardM, similar to Peter, I'm not sure how this would work from a technical perspective, but I like the general idea of it. I've been recently working on an alumni list page, and I've had to use PetScan to try to compile lists of potentially missing entries for the many pages that were categorized but not part of the list article or vice versa. That sometimes worked, but sometimes didn't, and it was a slow manual process. Having more advanced/integrated tools to make sure that entries make their way from |alma mater=Harvard College in the infobox to "educated at"-->"Harvard College" at Wikidata to Category:Harvard College alumni to a listing (if appropriate) at List of Harvard College alumni would be extremely useful, and that same network presumably applies to many other topics as well. My understanding is that Wikidata is meant to ultimately serve as the main repository for that kind of information, but it's not quite there yet. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:06, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
I just updated many "educated at" "Harvard college" in Wikidata based on the info in the category. This is easy enough given the statements in Wikidata for its category. I prefer a bot who runs regularly for en:categories that apply. It will be possible to learn using query what articles are not on the category. Thanks, 14:41, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

User talk page archiving?

Is there any official policy on requiring users to archive their talk pages? I've seen several instances over the years of users with exceptionally long user talk pages (100's of messages), who have resisted all polite suggestions that they set up archiving.

In one case, I cajoled the user into allowing me to set up archiving for them. In second case, another admin came along and set it up for them, against the user's wishes. The arguments are always the same: "It's my talk page, I'll do what I want with it", vs "The needs of the project trump your personal preferences". There's one of these brewing now. I'm not sure where things stand policy-wise, so I'm not sure how to proceed. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:29, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:OWNTALK is quite plain on this, The length of user talk pages, and the need for archiving, is left up to each editor's own discretion. So no, forcible archiving of user talk pages should not be done. SpinningSpark 15:07, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
What about for really long ones? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 17:11, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Emir of Wikipedia, same rule. You can friendly suggest that the talkpage length is posing problems, but that is it. Dirk Beetstra T C 19:37, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
  • There is no “rule” mandating archiving. I am someone who takes that to the opposite extreme - I treat my user talk page like I would voicemail... instead of archiving old messages, I simply delete/blank them (I only keep stuff I want to respond to). Managing one’s OWNTALK is up to the individual editor. Blueboar (talk) 20:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
  • With modern browsers, the chance of a user's talk page becoming so large as to cause legitimate technical issues has dropped significantly. If a user's page *is* becoming so large as to cause identifiable problems, and they're being wilfully dismissive of concerns, then they're likely guilty of something more general like disruptive editing. There isn't an explicit policy about very long talk pages, but there are plenty of guidelines about failure to work collaboratively with others. We should generally be encouraging concerned users to ask nicely, and taking action if the editor is deliberately ignoring legitimate concerns. ~ mazca talk 21:26, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
    Not everyone is able to use modern devices or browsers, and scrolling through long talk pages on a mobile device can be quite difficult. I disagree that editors who haven't agreed to shorten their talk pages are likely guilty of poor behaviour. There are many long-time, experienced editors with lengthy talk pages, including a current arbitrator, who for various reasons prefer to manage their talk pages in that way. I agree there is no consensus agreement for further measures beyond encouragement. isaacl (talk) 21:56, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

RFC: Multiple roles for active arbitrators

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
There is consensus in this discussion that current members of the Arbitration Committee may not simultaneously serve on either the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee or the ombuds commission. A minority of editors opposed with respect to the T&S Case Review Committee; some argued that because membership in that committee is non-public, enforcement of this proposal will be impractical, and others argued that there is no need for the restriction because many of the cases reviewed by the T&S committee will not necessarily involve the English Wikipedia (enwiki arbitrators can then recuse on cases where they might have a conflict of interest). On the other hand, most editors in this discussion felt that separation of the roles is necessary to avoid conflicts of interest; many editors found undesirable the idea that an editor who heard a case once on the Arbitration Committee could be able to rehear the same case as a member of the T&S Case Review Committee. Finally, a few days ago, the Arbitration Committee passed a motion which enacts an internal procedure that is consistent with the result of this RfC. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 22:29, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Background:

  • In July 2020, the Wikimedia Foundation began seeking volunteers for the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee. The role of this committee is to serve as a sort of safety valve, allowing a small group of community members to help review decisions regarding office actions taken by the Foundation, adding an appeals procedure to what was previously not subject to appeal of any kind. Membership in this group will be secret as well as all internal discussions and processes. This committee will report only to the Foundation Trust and Safety department.
  • There is another body known as the Ombudsman commission which investigates issues regarding advanced permissions such as checkuser, oversight, and other issues involving the Access to nonpublic personal data policy. This group's membership is not secret, but its proceedings are. Other than occasional public reports with anonymized data, they report only to the WMF Board of Trustees.
  • The goal of this proceeding is to determine whether membership in either of these bodies constitutes a conflict of interest for current members of the English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee, as they may be asked to review cases in which they were involved in their role as arbitrators, or even to review the actions of fellow arbitrators, and there is no way for the community to know if they are doing so, and if there is a conflict, to determine whether active arbitrators should be barred as a matter of policy from simultaneously serving on either of these other bodies.

Case review committee

Should currently serving arbitrators be barred from concurrently serving on the Trust and Safety Case Review Committee?

It should be noted that a question regarding whether the foundation would respect such a restriction was posed, and a foundation representative indicated they would respect it. [15]

Support (Arbs and case review)

  • Support as proposer. I fully understand the need for this committee to be so secretive, but I feel there is an inherent conflict with the possibility that someone banned by arbcom may later be subject to banning by the office, and an active arb would likely already have a pre-formed opinion on the matter that could deny the appellant a fair hearing. We could ask that they recuse in such cases, but since we wouldn't even know who is on the committee there would be no way to know if they really did. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:23, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support as reasonable proposal per Beeblebrox and with the confirmation of meta:Special:Diff/20262061 in mind. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 17:44, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Makes sense to me. While I don't generally like creating unenforceable rules, I feel the linked confirmation from the foundation addresses that concern. * Pppery * it has begun... 18:18, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support - alliances and prejudices are difficult to overcome, even for the best of the best. T&S must be completely detached, although I have no objection to (and encourage) ArbCom seeking input from T&S when they are faced with difficult decisions that may be influenced by alliances or preconceived notions about someone in the community. Atsme Talk 📧 20:29, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Weak support While I understand the need for the membership of this committee to be secret, I don't like the idea of creating rules that can't be enforced by the community. That being said, while I believe that any current arb would act with integrity and recuse themselves if they believe a conflict-of-interest exists, it's far better to remove the issue entirely with this proposal. OhKayeSierra (talk) 21:14, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support—ok, it's difficult to enforce, but I do think that WMF will hold to its promise. This will act as a failsafe against COI issues and help keep the committee fully independent. (t · c) buidhe 21:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support It is a conflict of interest to hear an appeal to a case you've already heard. Because the T&S committee membership is secret, it is impossible to know who would have such a conflict of interest and when. If the committee membership were not secret, I think we could afford to be more lax since we could handle conflicts of interest on a case-by-case basis, but if that is not possible, we should not create an opportunity for conflicts of interest to appear. Enforcable or not, we should make clear that this is the community expectation and trust that our arbitrators will respect our local policies even if the WMF does not. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:08, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support, just makes sense. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 01:13, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support our elected Arbs could be compromised if brought into secret WMF cooperation. Chris Troutman (talk) 13:58, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support, though more on the grounds of the weight of caseload and availability. Stifle (talk) 14:01, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per COI concerns. ——Serial 14:34, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support wholeheartedly. Arbs are already overloaded and stressed. Even if there were no COI issues I would support most anything to limit Arbitrator workload and stress. EllenCT (talk) 21:14, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. First for the obvious reason that it's unenforceable. More particularly, because this is intended to be a small group, and the Arbitration Committee regularly refers certain user issues to the WMF. This could potentially give someone who is a member of both groups two kicks at the can in relation to user management. As well, I really wonder about any arbitrator who feels they have an extra 5-10 hours a week to take on this task. Many arbitrators would be excellent candidates once they have completed their term on the Arbitration Committee. This overlap is undesirable and unnecessary. Risker (talk) 22:26, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Per Risker. It's an obvious conflict of interest, and with no transparency for the T&S committee (which is understandable, given the issues that they address) it would be easy for an arb to gain too much power over users. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 23:51, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per Risker, especially due to the conflict of interest it presents. 0qd (talk) 23:59, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Unlike my !vote for OC - because this relates to users that often have made edits to English Wikipedia (as the largest wiki), it is harder to determine when recusal should happen. What do we do with editors who were WMF banned for edits across several wikis including enwiki? What if ArbCom received complaints or internally discussed the user's behavior but chose not to act? With this combination it would be harder to compartmentalize. --Rschen7754 02:41, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support Makes sense on the merits, not convinced by arguments over unenforceability. While my trust in the WMF is not particularly high, I do not think they would blatantly lie when they said they would respect a community prohibition. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:08, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support due to possible COI, I disagree that it is unenforceable (The T&S committee would know who its members are anyway). I can see a strong case for cooperation and communication between the entities however Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:32, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support for conflict of interest relating to cases referred to WMF by Arbcom, cases made by others against Arbcom members, and cases made under the Office Action catch-all clause that "community actions have not been effective." Presumably "community actions" includes Arbcom actions, forcing any sitting arb on this review committee to evaluate actions taken on the basis that they and their colleagues weren't up to the job. Better for both arbcom and future complainants to keep the processes separate. -- Euryalus (talk) 05:31, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
Without getting overly conspiratorial there's also the prospect of people seeking office actions because they feel that "community actions will not be effective," which is effectively their vote of no confidence in Arbcom's ability to handle the complaint. It would raise unnecessary conflict of interest concerns to have a sitting member of Arbcom reviewing an office action which only occurred because the complainant didn't want Arbcom to deal with it or even know it had been made. Can't say I support this kind of application of office actions - on any wiki with a functioning dispute system, office actions should be restricted to substantive cross-wiki and/or legal matters (eg. child protection). But we seem to be on a path toward more WMF involvement in community disputes, so there it is. As above, while new processes evolve its better for all concerned if the en-wiki Arbcom and the WMF's alternative structure can communicate with each other while avoiding direct overlaps in personnel. -- Euryalus (talk) 07:34, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per the obvious conflict of interest. I might add that I don't like the super-secret nature of this new committee. Just tell us who they are. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. The Arbitration Committee this year alone has given itself way too much power and way too much overreach in terms of how to handle administrators' conduct and what the consequences should be. The last thing we need is them tag-teaming with T&S in overreaching even further. Softlavender (talk) 07:37, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support - The WMF says they'll respect this local rule, and the OC will be able to verify whether it was been complied with (unclear how this could be communicated back to ArbCom, but there will be independent verification). Makes sense to me, per what Risker says. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 15:33, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong Support per Atsme and Softlavender, although per the opposes by TonyBallioni ad Andrew Davidson would probably be unenforceable, and because history has shown that both the WMF and Arbcom members sometimes have personal vested interests. This still leaves the entire movement with the conundrum Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:40, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support: the reasons above seem to make this quite a common-sense approach. The only objection I could think of myself is that hypothetically, what if there weren't enough people qualified, experienced and responsible enough to be on the T&S Committee that were not current arbs? I concluded that this is very far from being true because the whole structure of Wikipedia eschews such monopolies on power. Someone on both committees would have a huge amount of power for a site that I see as fundamentally decentralised. The main strength of Wikipedia's community is that most people who do good stuff are not admins, most admin actions are heavily tied to community consensus and there are very few rules imposed from up on top. It is also a major weakness in many ways, but that's another story. — Bilorv (talk) 19:30, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support COI concerns. Even if the community cannot enforce it, I would generally trust the WMF that they would respect this. wikitigresito (talk) 11:56, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support – this is not at all unenforceable as T&S knows the makeup of both committees, and it makes sense to let them know the community's preference on this issue. I would encourage former arbitrators and functionaries to volunteer for this role, but no one should serve on both committees simultaneously due to the many conflicts of interest that would arise. (Incidentally, the need to recuse from certain ArbCom discussions would compromise the integrity of the membership of the CRC.) – bradv🍁 04:09, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per Beeblebrox, Wugapodes and others. A separation here makes sense. - DoubleCross (‡) 15:28, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per Beeblebrox. If this ombudsman committee becomes a thing, it should be comprised of people who are uninvolved in the behind-the-scenes elements of arbitration. Suffice it to say, that includes committee members. Kurtis (talk) 06:19, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support' Consider theat this will be the highest level of review possible, it's especially important thattherebe no chance whatever of a COI. DGG ( talk ) 18:51, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per Beeblebrox, Wugapodes. Given the potential COI issues these roles should certainly be separate. –Davey2010Talk 16:53, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Oppose (Arbs and case review)

That's why (as noted above) I got them on record saying they would respect any such local rule well before proposing this. [16] Beeblebrox (talk) 16:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. I’m still generally skeptical of unenforceable rules from a community perspective. If we can’t verify that the rule is being followed; I don’t really like the idea of having it. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:47, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose This committee is appointed by the WMF and their legal staff in particular. The solicitation expects volunteers to have credentials and "Credentials in this case refers to community background - have you been an administrator? A member of an arbitration committee?" In other words, they seem to be specifically looking for people like admins and arbs. If other people don't think that's a good idea then that's just too bad as the people who are appointing this committee will be deciding. Anyway, anyone who is active on Wikpedia in any capacity might have a conflict of interest and so the issue is unavoidable. I suppose they will be looking for the sort of respectable and responsible people who will recuse when appropriate. People like arbs, who commonly recuse from cases already. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:11, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose largely per TonyBallioni: a rule that cannot be audited cannot be enforced, and an unenforceable rule is pointless. Overall I don't understand the value of a reviewing body so secretive that we can't even know who is a member; frankly I think the community should demand that at least one (maybe more) current arbitrators should be on this secret committee, for some measure of accountability, even if we can't know which specific arbitrators are selected. Otherwise this all reads as sinister to me, like the WMF is going to start disappearing editors they have dirt on, and point to review by this secret review board as justification for whatever actions they take. I don't like it. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 14:31, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
    that we can't even know who is a member I guess the idea is that some people may not be willing to sign up to possible personal abuse for controversial decisions. Second concern is a good point, but I'd note that regardless of whether this proposal passes or fails, it won't stop that. Even if arbs are allowed on the committee, if what you say is the foundation's goal, they'd just not pick any arbs to be on the committee. Since the membership is private, nobody would know if an arb is on it or not. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:50, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose utterly unenforceable because a member of the review committee can't even tell you if they have ever been on the committee in their lives --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 19:47, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
I think the agreement os that the will be allowed to say if they choose after 6 months since they've left the review committee. DGG ( talk ) 18:49, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This proposal is too much enwiki centered. In fact, the vast majority of cases this committee will be dealing with are not going to be much related to enwiki. In a small number of cases, in which a committee member has participated as a member of ArbCom, they can just recuse themselves. Ruslik_Zero 20:36, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Support idea, oppose proposal. I don't care if they're on both committees. However, we should have a policy that if they dealt with a case on one committee, they recuse from duties involving it in another. —Mdaniels5757 (talk) 20:15, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose - case review members who are ARBCOM members should have to recuse themselves from any case they've already handled (most likely recusing as ARBCOM members), but an absolute severance reduces a valuable pool unnecessarily. There's likely to be very few cases where this is an issue so a small overlap is causing a major consequence. Since the WMF has stated they'd respect such a restriction, I'd suggest making a policy that required recusal, with failure to do so grounds for removal from the case review committee. I believe Ombudsmen will know the identities, they could be tasked with overseeing if there are concerns about the WMF lying, for some reason. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:26, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
there's a sufficient volunteer pool since it includes the people who have formerly been arbs. DGG ( talk ) 18:49, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Anyone who is suitable to serve on the review committee will, by definition, be smart enough to know when they need to recuse - and the potential for such a conflict of interest to arise applies nearly equally to everybody not just current arbitrators. There is no need to arbitrarily reduce the pool of such members when doing so will not solve the problem (if indeed there is one) it attempts to. Thryduulf (talk) 08:29, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Rislik0. Why should we prohibit an experienced member of the English Wikipedia community from helping one of the hundreds of other wikis under the Wikimedia Foundation umbrella? -- Dolotta (talk) 21:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per my comments in discussion. This is a proposal that fails to actually get to address the issue proposed, imo. Past arbs can be on the council, even though they might've served on the case (and it's just as likely for it to have been a past arb rather than a current), whilst current arbs are disqualified fully. There's no inherent COI I can see. The real way to address the problem is to make the question "should arbs involved in a case be prohibited from hearing it on the review committee?" (and asking the WMF to enforce, as with this proposal). Both would be equally enforceable (which is possibly "both equally unenforceable" depending on your wikipolitical views), but this one would actually address the problem posed. I don't see this proposal being helpful as such, and feel it's damaging whilst trying to address, in a roundabout fashion, an unlikely problem. If it's a problem, address it head-on. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:27, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose provided they are allowed to and are expected to recuse for CoI. If we cant trust them to deal ethically with CoI problems we should not be electing them to Arbcom in the first place. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 10:15, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Arbs and case review)

So this committee reviews T&S decisions? Have there been cases of T&S taking action against active arbitrators before? If not, realistically, the only conflict of interest would be if this committee is reviewing a case that was also heard before ArbCom? So, have there been cases of T&S overriding ArbCom decisions before? Since this temporary body only reviews T&S actions, the scope of COI seems limited to me. As a matter of principle, I don't see why ArbCom itself isn't able to review T&S decisions, but since it isn't I don't immediately see the issue with an arbitrator serving on this committee too. It doesn't seem like the majority of their cases would be reviews of arbitrator action / cases previously heard at ArbCom. Aside from that, this would cause competent candidates to have to choose between that committee and ArbCom. I think there's an overlap in skills that would make a person competent to serve on either body, so is this limitation not an issue? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:02, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't know that there has been a case of T&S overriding arbcom, but there have certainly been cases where arbcom has banned someone and they later went on to get an office ban as well. That's where the concern comes in, when that person appeals to this top-secret committee it could be a case of an arb reviewing their own decision. I'd like to think they would have the integrity to recuse in sucha case, but with the committee being a total black box, the only way to even be kind of confident it won't happen is to prohibit dual membership. Note that former arbs are not included in this proposal, so there'd still be a large body of qualified people who could apply. It is a global group so it's not as if everyone has to be from en.wp. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Speaking of former arbs, there's automatically a problem there too? Of possible COI scenarios, there's a decent chance the arb on the original case was from a previous term. This proposal wouldn't fix that issue? Short of a proposal to disallow allocating cases to people who were arbs on the case (whether current or former) I think this COI issue would still exist ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 14:43, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
I am puzzled by this concern. Arbitrators hear appeals all the time as part of their work. We see Arbs accept appeals from banned users who they voted to ban. The CRC is different in that it's reviewing foundation work and seemingly only for error (rather than WP:SO type appeals) but arbs review their own decisions on the regular. So I can appreciate the separation of power type argument but the idea that arbs would have an insurmountable bias seems at odds with what we normally expect of arbs (and how, on the whole, I see them act). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 14:55, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Going on from my oppose above, why not just require recusing in crossover cases. The WMF have said they'd respect a restriction, so why not make one that has people removed from the CRC if they fail to recuse when hearing it as an arb? If we think that simultaneously both an arb and T&S will lie on the matter, the Ombudsmen have sightline into both, and I think between those three things, and the seemingly small overlap, that should mitigate any issues without bringing in problems. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:35, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Ombudsman commission

Should currently serving arbitrators be barred from concurrently serving on the ombudsman commission?

Support (Arbs and Ombuds)

Oppose (Arbs and Ombuds)

  • Meh meta:Ombuds commission says As a general guideline, it is best that ombuds avoid conflicts of interest as much as possible, particularly by avoiding routine use of CheckUser or oversight access and not processing complaints on the projects on which they are very active editors. To me, that would mean that Ombuds-arbs would only have to recuse from cases involving (ab)use of CU/OS tools. I don't see any problem with Arb-buds telling people to stop edit warring over tree shaping or whatever. Arbitrators often have wide experience with CU/OS tools and how they're supposed to be used, so I think their input on Ombudscom is useful, and we shouldn't discourage it. It's also my understanding that the ombuds don't actually do that much. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:38, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose All of us would need to recuse from all EN Wikipedia-related business anyways, so this is based on a flawed sense of how the OC works --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 19:44, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Guerillero - enwiki is not the only wiki so there is likely enough work to do with handling complaints from other wikis. I don't think this is a wise decision because of the workload of the combined committees - but not something for us to legislate from enwiki. We also risk going into WP:CREEP territory here - should we make a policy saying that current arbitrators cannot be stewards? enwiki crats? etc. --Rschen7754 02:42, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
The key difference in my mind is that we can see what stewards and crats are doing. We have no way of knowing what ombuds are doing. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:41, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
I also think a sitting arb wouldn’t pass a steward election even if they wanted to run. Both from the anti-en.wiki crowd and by en.wiki people who don’t like the idea of someone being both. That’d get you to 79.9% or less pretty fast. I know that’s not the same as a policy against it, but it’d be very hard to overcome. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:45, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
I'm not so sure about this for stewards - a global lock of an account with a fairly bland summary might not be noticed, and CU/OS actions are generally not visible. They also have a private mailing list (where there are discussions on borderline cases) and escalation route to WMF. --Rschen7754 06:18, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Arbs and Ombuds)

General discussion of multiple roles for arbitrators

Just a general note that there was some internal discussion among the committee members regarding this, and the consensus was that it would be best if the community decided this issue. If these proposals pass, they could be implemented by adding a few lines at Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures describing the new restrictions. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:23, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

Umm...@Beeblebrox: Wouldn't this constitute an amendment to ArbCom policy which would require majority endorsement by the committee, majority support with at least 100 editors participating, and exactly one partridge in a pear tree? GMGtalk 16:37, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
I think if we do it through procedures instead it doesn't have to go through all that. That's my read anyway. Beeblebrox (talk) 16:41, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Selection and recusal are ARBPOL. Procedures are only changed by committee majority anyway, not community consensus. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:43, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
I think you only need a committee majority or community majority with 100+ supports. And 12 partridges in 1 pear tree. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:42, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, doing this as an amendedment to ARBPOL via the 100 support method is probably best. Beeblebrox, do you have an objection if I change the votes to numbers instead of billets? TonyBallioni (talk) 16:45, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
Could we not just yet? I really didn't set it up that way, maybe we take the temperature here, and if it seems like it has a reasonable chance of passing through that rather arduous process, then we go that route, probably with a dedicated subpage. Not much here gets 100 votes, up or down. We'd probably need a sitenotice in addition to using CENT. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:15, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
The committee is free to make up whatever procedures it wants, including limiting committee members from assuming other roles, but then of course it can rescind them whenever it wants, too. isaacl (talk) 19:40, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
That's more or less why I went this route and not the full policy amendment route, which is far more involved. There was some talk of just doing this ourselves but in the end more arbs were in favor of soliciting community input first. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:25, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
Comes down to whether or not the community is willing to leave the documentation of the restriction to the discretion of the committee. In both cases, as long as the Wikimedia Foundation knows and respects community consensus, then the Arbitration policy is moot, anyway. We should ensure that the Wikimedia Foundation is aware of any agreed-upon restrictions and that it is documented in their procedures in an appropriate location. isaacl (talk) 20:21, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand why this is a question for EN wiki. Shouldn't the prohibition (or not) apply to all Wikipedias? Otherwise we get a situation where EN arbcom members cannot be on the committe but members of a different language arbcon can be? Please clarify. RudolfRed (talk) 23:04, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

forgot to ping proposer @Beeblebrox: RudolfRed (talk) 23:05, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
The short answer is that each project makes its own rules. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
(And most projects don't have ArbComs. GMGtalk 14:19, 4 August 2020 (UTC))
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inviting Wider participation of the community on AfDs I've nominated, they will determine the future of the cricket notability guidelines.

I've nominated a few articles for deletion, whose outcome will determine the cricket notability guidelines which is currently being debated. Editor's over there are waiting for some AfDs to end so that they can understand the wider community consensus regarding those guidelines.

I've posted this here to invite wider participation from the community and not just those related to the cricket project since I believe a lot of poor quality articles are unnecessarily hanging around Wikipedia.

I believe this is an appropriate notification per the guidelines on the canvassing page.

Thanks!

Iitianeditor (talk) 17:46, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

  • @Iitianeditor: That's arse about face. Individual AFDs do not determine the future of guidelines. They determine whether or not articles are within the current guidelines. To change guidelines (or their status) a discussion directly about that guideline is required. Also, if you wish people to participate in a discussion(s) then you really need to link to it(them). SpinningSpark 19:11, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
    Spinningspark well, we do all try to the best of our abilities. Thanks for your suggestions, why don't you implement them yourself? Also please read the cricket notability discussion which I can't be "arsed" to link. Iitianeditor (talk) 19:53, 10 September 2020 (UTC)
    And how is he supposed to find that? You've picked the wrong sort of cricketers to start with. The soft underbelly is old pre-Wisden English players we don't have any stats for. Johnbod (talk) 02:16, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
    There are editors who believe that guidelines are best developed from the ground up: see what people agree upon by consensus in deletion discussions, and then propose a corresponding update to the guideline, so that the proposal discussion should go smoothly (I believe TonyBallioni and Bagumba are two examples). Personally I generally like having a discussion amongst the interested parties to reach consensus and alter the guideline accordingly, but I understand why those who feel that guidelines should be descriptive and not prescriptive prefer doing it the other way. isaacl (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. New editor mass nominating related articles at a rate of more than one per minute. If this is an attempt to change the guidelines, these should just be speedy closed, because that's not how it works. As for "arse about face", that's a first for me. Not sure I get it even after googling. Presumably it's intelligible in the parts of the English speaking world that care about cricket? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:20, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Rhododendrites, I think what he means is bass ackwards. But, yeah, their editing history so far is, um, atypical for a new user. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:40, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I more or less figured out the meaning after looking it up. Just never seen it before. But thanks for translating into the [American?] equivalent. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:42, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
See wikt:arse about face. SpinningSpark 08:43, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I have a sneaky suspicion about whose sock this guy is. If I'm right, this whole thing is a false flag operation. Suppose, arguendo, that you like the crappy overly permissive cricket guidelines, would like to lock them in forever, and also have no ethics. One way to go about this is to make a bunch of rapid fire nominations while loudly trumpeting that this is a referendum on WP:NCRIC. By singling out just one country and making nominations at a rate of million a minute, you guarantee that the nominations will fail and that- by extension- will make WP:NCRIC more unassailable. Reyk YO! 10:25, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
    Reyk, we need to be specific to open an SPI. Otherwise it's just fishing. Can you be more specific? Glen (talk) 11:31, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Pre-RFC: Minor change to LINKSTOAVOID and ELOFFICIAL

This is an informal discussion about a proposed rules change. It -- or a modified version of it -- may or may not become an RfC, depending on the reception.

Proposal:

WP:LINKSTOAVOID lists various links to avoid, carving out an exception for links to an official page of the article's subject. See WP:ELOFFICIAL.

I propose that we modify this to disallow external links to the following, even if they are official pages:

  • Sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, etc. We don't want someone to follow a link from Wikipedia and get infected with malware even if someone puts the malware on an official link.
  • Sites that offer medical advice that are unambiguously harmful to the reader. Imagine if Cinnamon challenge, Salt and ice challenge or "drinking bleach will ward off coronavirus" had official webpages saying how safe they were. We wouldn't want to link to them even if they were official links.
  • Links to temporary internet content. Any website would be stupid to make a temporary page their official page, but the capacity for stupidity on the internet is limitless, so I am adding this one for completeness.

--Guy Macon (talk) 03:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

  • Support the first two bullets. Like Whiteguru, I don't know what you mean by "temporary internet content". If this is supported, both ELNEVER and ELOFFICIAL should be updated with matching language. Schazjmd (talk) 14:41, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
    • Is #16 at WP:LINKSTOAVOID not clear? If so, it should be made clear. Was I not clear about the fact that I am talking about #16 at WP:LINKSTOAVOID? If so I apologize for not being clear on that. That's one of the good things about pre-RfCs. they smoke out unclear questions before they make it into an RfC. (Oddly enough, everything I write seems perfectly clear when I read it, and I always agree with myself. Go figure. It's almost as if I am blind to flaws in my own writing...  :( ) --Guy Macon (talk) 16:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
      Huh, had never really focused in on #16 before. Now that I have, I have no idea what it's intended to prevent/forbid or how to identify a site that meets that description. Sorry, I don't get it. Schazjmd (talk) 16:59, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
      I think #16 is addressing things like drop boxes and test pages, neither of which can be legitimately considered a subject's official site. This just seems like pointless bloat to the guidelines. If anybody ever does do that we can deal with it with common sense. SpinningSpark 17:14, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
      Spinningspark, I think a prime example would be a Snapchat post. It is there for 24 hours and then gone. Don’t bother to put that post as an external link, even if it is relevant, detailed etc. (Already unlikely). If the post in itself is notable it should be archived on an internet archive and ‘preserved’ (if possible/allowed). Or not linked. Dirk Beetstra T C 19:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
      I find it hard to believe that anyone has ever tried to use snapchat as an "official" site. But even if they have, it's so disappearingly rare that we can deal with it on an individual basis. It's complete bloat to have a special rule for it. SpinningSpark 21:20, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
      We see people try to ruleslawyer direct links to stores into articles by claiming "This store page is my official site!" often enough that it's no longer surprising. The answer to Snapchat is the same as these: WP:ELOFFICIAL's "The linked content primarily covers the area for which the subject of the article is notable.", i.e., you can only do that if you're notable because of that sales page or specific Snapchat image. —Cryptic 00:06, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
      Spinningspark, in fact, the rule is not intended for the official website Dirk Beetstra T C 04:57, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
      The proposer explictly says this change is because ELNO makes an exception for official sites. SpinningSpark 06:58, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
      Spinningspark, for malware, the ELAVOID is not current practice and hence indeed should be updated. My practice is to blacklist them globally on sight in order to protect readers (asking questions later, removal of the rule is easy). Situation is however quite rare. A simple request at WT:EL or a discussion there would have been enough. Dirk Beetstra T C 12:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
  • The cleanest way of doing this is to state in WP:ELNEVER that official sites are included and add (or in the case of malware move from ELNO]] items we never want to see. I agree with others that "temporary" is hard to define, and probably pointless to try. All content on the internet is temporary. SpinningSpark 15:58, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • I do think that we need some real examples of where this has actually been a problem. The examples given are all made up and don't really have official sites (alright, Donald Trump has an official White House profile and he really did suggest drinking bleach, but I don't think even he is dumb enough to put it on the official page). I would be against adding new rules just for the sake of new rules that might come in handy one day. SpinningSpark 16:05, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. In fact I think we should look at expanding the spam blacklist policy (which already allows blacklisting of malware sites) to include dangerous health disinformation. We are lagging behind even Facebook here. Linking to anti-vaccination, AIDS denialist, COVID contrarian or other health disinformation sites when they are the subject of an article is a false balance issue: like linking to climate change deniers as primary sources when we describe the overwhelming evidence in third-party sources that their specific claims are full of shit. When sites contain information which is clearly and unambiguously identified by RS as dangerously wrong, linking to the site is not a service to the reader, it is the exact opposite. You do not need to visit Natural News or Mercola to see for yourself how batshit insane they are. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:16, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Support, wholeheartedly agreeing with Guy's statement just above mine. XOR'easter (talk) 23:55, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Support for the first two. For the third should some sort of archiving be recommended? For example allow temporary links if the contents are archived somewhere such as the wayback machine? PaleAqua (talk) 00:03, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Support 1 & Oppose 2/3 - 1 I thought was actually already the case and a no brainer to clarify with policy. The other two not so much. 2 because Wikipedia is not the place to right great wrongs and 3 because I am not really sure what that means. PackMecEng (talk) 02:35, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
  • The first case is already covered by the existing guideline - it states "If an official site is serving malware, its URL should be hidden until the website is cleaned up". Thus there is nothing to change. The third case I don't see much value in. We have no examples of this arising, but if an official site disappears, we simply remove our link - that is the organisation's problem rather than ours. If it is replaced with an unrelated site, we also remove our link. It is no different to how we would handle any offical site. It is the second case which is a problem. In the case of the examples, there is no offical site, so it is a solution looking for a problem. However it seems likely that the extreme "unambiguous" examples are not what this is targeted at. The actual result, I suspect, would be that the definition of "unambiguous" will become a gray area. Is the official site of a documentary covering a controversial health claim unambiguous? What about the official site for a TV series discussing superfoods? Or an author known for fad diets? This runs straight into WP:NOTCENSORED. I'm concerned that we'll rapidly find ourselves on a slippery slope. - Bilby (talk) 03:44, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
It is true that WP:ELOFFICIAL says
"Web sites sometimes get hijacked or hacked. This is often done to serve malware. If an official site is serving malware, its URL should be hidden until the website is cleaned up."
but it is also true that WP:LINKSTOAVOID says
Except for a link to an official page of the article's subject, one should generally avoid providing external links to... Sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the United States.
...and it is LINKSTOAVOID that I am proposing modifying. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:58, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
I guess it seems to me that if WP:ELOFFICIAL already covers this, and we're talking about official site links only, then I'm not sure what change is needed. Maybe you intend to duplicate WP:ELOFFICIAL in the lead of WP:LINKSTOAVOID? Wouldn't it just be better to leave WP:ELOFFICIAL to explain the exceptions to its coverage, as it done now? I'm still not seeing any need for a change to incorprate a rule that is already clearly specified. - Bilby (talk) 05:08, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure that an online art installation that is deliberatly impossible to link to is the best example of an official link that would fall under the rule. - Bilby (talk) 05:08, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
That's just a silly example. The official site of a work of art is not the work itself. In this case the official site is actually [https://d0n.xyz/project/permanent-redirect/ here] (not linked because it's blacklisted for some reason) which does not appear to have changed significantly since January 2018. SpinningSpark 09:14, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

This is basically a change request for WP:ELNEVER:

  • I agree adding bullet 1 to ELNEVER, preferably to be blacklisted on meta. For ELOFFICIAL that bullet point is NOT to be overridden with the whitelist. We generally list the official link, but there are exceptions.
  • Bullet point 2: if an RSN/community consensus shows that the site is generally too unreliable to be used for it will be blacklisted. That is not an ELNEVER in itself, though evading blacklisting is under ELNEVER. If the website is in itself notable, a neutral landing page can be whitelisted for use as official link. That is just current practice. (using that link elsewhere to use it to point to it for sourcing reasons is ELNEVER defined 'blacklist evasion' and a blockable offense).
  • Bullet point 3: being temporary content is for regular external links a problem, as 'next week' that info does not exist anymore. Think a snapchat post which is removed after 24 hours. If that is by chance the official link of the subject of the article (a notable snapchat post) where it would disappear after 24 hours, then that would be a good case for an archive link to that post to preserve 'the official link'. Also that is general practice, many defunct organisations do not have an official link anymore (or worse, it has been usurped), many campaign websites do not exist anymore (or are overwritten with a next campaign). Generally the advice is to use an archive link to the last relevant state.

So, Guy, I don't know what you wanted in this brainstorm. ELOFFICIAL almost always conflicts with ELAVOID (for companies ELOFFICIAL links to a website that we ELAVOID because it primarily exists to promote or sell a product, and quite some notable organisations have their ELOFFICIAL websites ELNEVER blacklisted). We try to solve most of these cases with common sense/amicably, and though some things that are done are better codified elsewhere (one mentioned here: malware), I don't think that this proposal is helpful, and as can be seen, results in unnecesary confusion. --Dirk Beetstra T C 19:14, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I see nothing confusing with moving malware from the existing ELNO "except for official links, these are links to avoid" guidance with the existing ELNEVER "these are links to always avoid" section. This brainstorming was an attempt to see if there is a consensus for moving any of the other things listed at ELNO to ELNEVER. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:57, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
Guy Macon, the confusion is that you start your story linking ELAVOID to ELOFFICIAL, while the guideline is excepting ELOFFICIAL from ELAVOID. Don’t use temporary content, except if it is the official link (though common sense would hopefully make you find a solution), don’t link to sites which are factually incorrect, except if it is the official link of the subject. Don’t link youtube channels, except if the channel is the subject of the article. Don’t link to malware (report it to WT:SBL instead), currently except if it is the official website of the subject (you rightfully identified that this was a problematic case).
If you would have left out the ELOFFICIAL from the initial suggestion, it would have become a discussion whether malware sites, temporary content or grossly factually incorrect websites should be ELNEVER, and you would have gotten an answer. Basically all three are a no, malware should be globally blacklisted turning it into an ELNEVER, grossly incorrect websites go through a community discussion (typical at RSN), get blacklisted and turn into an ELNEVER, and the third one should be ‘frozen in time’, but it is not the type of material that would ever get blacklisted except for gross spamming/abuse, which would be strange if it is dead a day later. The ELOFFICIAL discussion may then kick in in some rare cases where they overlap, but that has generally be resolved independently. But it has nothing to do with e.g. the discussion whether malware sites should be ELAVOID or ELNEVER. Dirk Beetstra T C 05:46, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Resolve the inconsistency between WP:DRAFTIFY and WP:ATD

There is consensus for option 1, i.e. the idea that moving articles to draft space is generally appropriate in only two cases: 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created. Specifically, the consensus here is that the policy at WP:ATD-I should be updated to be consistent with the advice at WP:DRAFTIFY.
Many editors expressed concern that unilateral draftification in situations other than the two above is similar to a "backdoor to deletion" because very few editors review and improve random drafts, and after six months of inactivity, dormant drafts are automatically deleted via WP:G13. (Note: my reading of this discussion is that the phrase "backdoor to deletion" is not a judgment about any editor's good faith, but rather a mere description of a situation.) Instead of unilaterally draftifying an unsuitable-for-mainspace article that is not newly created, editors should instead nominate the article for deletion, e.g. via WP:PROD or WP:AFD. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 21:26, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

WP:DRAFTIFY seems to allow draftification in only two cases: 1) if the result of a deletion discussion is to draftify; or 2) if the article is newly created. In addition, WP:DRAFTIFY's calling out of "backdoor to deletion" seems bad-faith-accusatory. On the other hand, WP:ATD has no such limitations; the WP:ATD-I section simply says articles that are not ready for the mainspace can be draftified, with the implication that an article that has sat unsourced (or inadequately sourced) for years could nonetheless be draftified, and/or that an article with a WP:PROD/WP:BLPPROD tag on it could be draftifed without discussion. I am seeking consensus here on Option 1: WP:DRAFTIFY's more limited approach (and rewrite WP:ATD accordingly); or Option 2: WP:ATD's more permissive approach (and rewrite WP:DRAFTIFY accordingly). UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:31, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Support Option 2 Look, I'm a pretty strong deletionist, but my view here is that six months in draft space, with a AfC template that is applied by the draftify script, can often be better than seven days with a WP:PROD tag (or even less time with an A7 tag): draftifying can have a higher likelihood of resulting in a viable article (and the creator is more likely to see the user talk notice before the article is deleted/more likely to use the draftspace going forward). This advantage is even more likely since the script adds the draft's talk page to any relevant WikiProject's Draft-class category, and the projects can make review of that cat part of their regular workflow. Of course, adopting this option would not require draftification, just have it as an available alternative. Pinging @Bradv:, with thanks for making me aware of the inconsistency. UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:32, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Option 1 Draftifying is a "backdoor to deletion". Any user who can move a page can draftify any article that isn't move protected, the redirect left behind is deleted via CSD WP:R2, and 6 months later, the article now in draft space is deleted by CSD WP:G13. With all other deletion methods, objecting users can easily see the article and the deletion notice and raise their objections, and the deleting admin must be sure the deletion criteria are met before deleting. With draftifying, the only way any user could object is if they knew of the article's existense before it was draftified, or if they were notified of the draftification. The AFC template doesn't solve the problem either unless someone submits the draft to AFC, which in the case of draftified articles, should be treated as an objection to the initial draftification and moved back to mainspace (and possibly WP:AFD). Iffy★Chat -- 16:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
I think I would support some kind of hybrid option based on the reasonableness of the above two options. 1) I like the draft system because it allows for more time to work on articles before they hit the main space and get tagged for deletion immediately. The ability to draftify a bad article is useful. 2) I don't like if articles are draftified against the creator's wishes without discussion. IF a creator requests it or IF it is draftified as the result of an AFD discussion, I consider that OK, but draftifying without the knowledge of active editors, it can lead to the kind of abuses noted by Iffy. If and only if the creator and other significant contributors to an article are made aware of the nature of draftification (removal from the main space, no redirect left behind, could be deleted if left dormant for 6 months) then it's a great system. --Jayron32 16:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2, because it's less bureaucratic - I mainly use it as a much kinder alternative to G11 / A7, both of which are issues that age does not fix. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:30, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2. The accusation that draftification is backdoor deletion is not well-supported. I have seen several instances of draftified articles being improved and restored to mainspace. Generally, an article that is draftified and then later deleted is one that could not be improved, because the sources never existed or developed to allow it to exist in mainspace. To be sure, though, I have created Category:Content moved from mainspace to draftspace to track content moved to draftspace from mainspace, to distinguish it from material originating in draftspace that was merely never promoted. BD2412 T 16:39, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for adding the cat, perhaps you can also put a bot request so the pages from User:JJMC89 bot/report/Draftifications/monthly are automatically categorized there. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:54, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
"The accusation that draftification is backdoor deletion is not well-supported"... except for Guy saying, nine minutes before your comment was posted (so you probably didn't see it), that he uses draftifying as a way to get articles deleted in a "kinder" fashion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2. I don't think of draftifying as a sneaky deletion, but rather as a second chance for an <insert>newly-created</insert> article that is unsuited for mainspace in its present state. If send-to-draft wasn't available, I suspect many/most would just be nominated for deletion (whether speedy, prod, or AfD). I like RoySmith's suggestion of notifying projects, for articles that have any. edit to add after following comments I only think of sending to draft when it's a newly created article; I wasn't aware of it being done to established articles, and it doesn't seem like a useful option at that point. Schazjmd (talk) 17:42, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 If it's not suitable for mainspace and the article was not recently created, it should go to AFD not draft space. The community has the right to discuss what should happen to established articles, and there is potential harm in unilaterally draftifying (i.e., removing from mainspace without a redirect) articles which have been around more than a trivial amount of time. The page may be linked externally or readers may have see it and expect it to be there when they come back. Draftification is only appropriate for recently created article with rare exceptions. This is the point of DRAFTIFY's language about not being a "backdoor" to deletion, not accusations of bad faith. If something should be deleted, we shouldn't wait 6 months to do so, and if the article has been around a while, we should not remove it from mainspace unilaterally. Draftification isn't a "soft" delete, and it shouldn't be used as a substitute for our deletion processes. Given that it removes reader facing material without any review, we should be more restrictive with its use cases, not less. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:28, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 per Wugapodes. Draftifying articles as an alternative to deletion should only be done for brand-new articles where the author is still available to work on it, or in cases where someone asks to put it in draftspace so they can fix it up to avoid deletion. Otherwise we're just quietly disappearing articles without any review. – bradv🍁 19:37, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
    • Those concerns can be eliminated with the implementation of the correct monitoring structure. A category tree of monthly mainspace-to-draft moves and a triage report of drafts in that category set to be deleted for inactivity would do it. Bear in mind, of course, that if an article with a stack of maintenance tags at the top is moved to draft, and no one notices, that means that no one considered it important enough to pay attention to that development in the first place. BD2412 T 20:23, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
      • That just creates yet another group of pages and categories that people need to monitor. If an established article is not suitable for mainspace it should be improved or nominated at AfD, where there are existing, well-established reporting and monitoring structures that allow the opportunity for community review. Remember that this process is available for all articles, not just those with "a stack of maintenance templates". Yes AfD is overloaded, but the solution to that is not to loosen standards of deletion. Thryduulf (talk) 20:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) Option 1 per Wugapodes and Bradv. Draftification should be an option at AfD though if someone asks for it to placed there so they can work on it. Option 2 could see any article, however good or bad, sent to draftspace and then quietly deleted 6 months later without anyone really being aware of it. For this reason I'd also like to make it mandatory to inform all editors with significant contributions to an article of it being moved to draft space, regardless of why it is so moved. Thryduulf (talk) 20:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • MIXED OPINION - 1) New articles that have potential (but don’t currently pass muster) can be draftified without the need for AFD. Proper notification should be given to the creator and any contributors. 2) Older articles can be draftified, but only as a result of consensus at AFD. Appropriate notifications should be given, but this should be flexible (presumably some contributors were notified of the AFD, and so were already following the discussion... no need for further notification). Blueboar (talk) 20:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Though I always hesitate to increase bureaucracy, draftifying pages that won't have anyone edit them is definitely bad practice. If that means more AfD's, so be it. I think drafification should be used sparingly, and mainly on new pages (or for paid trash). It should only be used on old pages when it is assured that there is an editor who will save the article. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 21:43, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Best to let the Community consider it properly, even if it ups the AfD count a bit. I think PRODing is used too rarely, but in any case, the negative consequences are less severe with option 1. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:51, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1. Moving to draft space for "incubation" inevitably means eventual G13 deletion if it is an old article. This really is backdoor deletion. The idea that someone is going to notice and work on it in draft is simple fantasy. Its best chance of someone improving it is an editor stumbling on it through an incoming wikilink. If it really doesn't belong then AFD is the correct process. Deletion by default because it is not "upt to scratch" is definitely the wrong process. SpinningSpark 01:10, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1. If the page isn't notable, it's better to deal with the problem directly. If it is about a notable subject, then we shouldn't risk it being "accidentally" deleted six months later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2 per JzG -- less beaurocratic and there is more room for variation in application. The draft space is meant to house new articles per WP:DRAFT as well as (to a certain extent) those needing incubation because of the need for improvement. Per WP:WAFC, the WP:AFC process (which the used draft space as a part of) is to peer review new articles. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 00:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Draftification is deletion from the outset because the entry in mainspace is deleted using the delete function and shows up as such in the deletion log. Proper deletion processes are therefore required. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:27, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 I agree, many use draftification to try to eliminate articles without going through the proper process. I've had that happen to me, and then just moved it back to mainspace, pointing out it had reliable sources confirming it meant the notability guidelines. There is no reason to let people have a backdoor to deletion. Dream Focus 17:03, 25 August 2020 (UTC).
  • Comment Looks like the discussion os dying down; I'll request closure shortly. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:40, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 at least with prod, CSD and AFD the deleted edits remain in mainspace. Lots of things get deleted from draftspace that would not meet the CSD criteria, and many that I think would survive AFD. ϢereSpielChequers 10:14, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 I too have seen articles moved on notable topics that would pass AFD, and while certainly needing improvement, were better than other mainspace stubs that have existed for years. They are more likely to be improved in mainspace. MB 14:36, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Send an old article to the AfD instead of draftifying them. In AfD, the community can decide within some couple of days if the article can be improved or deleted. But for new articles that shouldn't exist in the mainspace, I don't see anything bad if they're sent to the draftspace. —Nnadigoodluck🇳🇬 14:52, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
Edit: mixed feelings. Content should be preserved whenever possible. Benjamin (talk) 22:24, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
@Benjaminikuta:, except I'm concerned that we aren't really upping the preservation rate this way, just having it deleted a bit slower and without any substantive review Nosebagbear (talk) 13:05, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
@Benjaminikuta: option 1 preserves more content than option 2. With option 1 there is a requirement to do a WP:BEFORE prior to nomination which means that only content that has a likelihood of deletion gets nominated and there is a community review immediately afterwards that ensures content that should be kept is not deleted. With option 2 content that may or may not be worth keeping is shunted off to draft space only to be deleted six months later without anyone looking at it. Thryduulf (talk) 13:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Userfication is fine if it is going to an active user who is actually going to work on it. But if it is going to a creator who is long gone off Wikipedia, then it is just another way of sending the article away to die without a proper review. Besides which, pages should not be userfied on the whim of one editor. That's actually worse than moving to draft. It should only be done for articles that have failed at AFD or meet some CSD criterion. SpinningSpark 14:09, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Draftspace is slightly more trawled by users looking for good drafts. However, a draft in userspace exists indefinitely unless action is taken upon it, while a draft in draftspace is deleted after six inactive months (see G13). Thus draftspace may lead more quickly to a removal from public view; WP:DUD. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 21:38, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
"Draftspace is slightly more trawled..." Not really, there is close to zero probability of an article in draft being reviewed unless it is actually submitted to AFC. But userfication should only be done at the request of, or by agreement with, the user concerned. It should never be in the spirit of a teacher handing back a piece of work with the comment "must try better", and absolutely never if there is a low probability of the user actually working on it, or even noticing it has happened. SpinningSpark 09:13, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1. Draftification is a unilateral move that doesn't require admin oversight, so there should be a very low bar for overturning it. Draftifying a new article gives the creator a chance to either improve the article so that it is ready for mainspace, or to contest the draftification, in which case a formal deletion process should be used. When an old article is draftified it's much less likely that anyone will notice it, even with the new tracking categories - an article being listed in a category doesn't have the same immediacy as an active editor receiving a message on their talk page. If an old article clearly doesn't belong in mainspace it should not be difficult to get it deleted through PROD or AFD; if it has issues such as being undersourced, promotional, etc. but doesn't qualify for deletion then it should be tagged or fixed, not moved to draftspace where it will almost certainly be deleted in six months' time. Spicy (talk) 15:38, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2, restricted to when the author is still around which is what I have sometimes been using--not as a softer approach, but as one that sometimes can be more likely to be noticed. There are people patrolling material added to drafts, and an effort is made to clear up the ones that are improvable. In the course of the 6 months, typically several reviewers will have looked at the draft. I know that I, personally, check everything within my scope that is. about to be deleted via G13: I do rescue perhaps 5% of them, but the other 95% are well gone. Furthermore, if an article is eleted via G13, it is normally very easy for the author to ask for it back; that is not he case after deletion via AfD. DGG ( talk ) 02:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 2, restricted to when the author is still around. After reading this discussion, and after reading DGG's input I agree with Jayron and DGG, including the caveat. Their input addressed my concern that dratifying a years-old article might be sending it to the grave yard. I have draftifyed articles in the past and didn't have a problem with it, until this discussion. For me, draftifying was not about side-stepping the deletion process. But it seems there are others who think this is so, and this should be taken into consideration.
As long as we are not side-stepping deletion, then I am OK with the status quo for reviewers. It does take some of the load off AfD. I agree that article authors should be notified, and if we can set this up as an automatic process, like what happens when I propose CSD, PROD, and AfD, this would be helpful. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:57, 4 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 - It is essentially backdoor deletion after six months when an article is draftified, given the current state of G13. Furthermore, it is potentially indefinite exclusion of potentially viable content from the sight of our readers on a whim (without any community checks, e.g. AfD). Draftification of a mainspace page should be extremely limited; the text at DRAFTIFY is better guidance. If something survives in the mainspace for several months or especially years, it should not be unilaterally removed. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 21:34, 5 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1. I have long criticized the practice of removing content from the mainspace by way of draftifying for the reasons mentioned above. And whatever those in favor might argue, once a draft is removed, the chances it will be deleted after six months per G13 are extremely high, thus making it indeed a backdoor deletion without any real oversight. In prior discussions, I had compiled a list of such moves and it was pretty extensive (can't find them all at the moment but quarry:44979 for example lists 10,000 such moves done by script within the last 11 months alone). I'm pretty sure that most of those never were moved back. Yes, draftifying can be an alternative to deletion, but only, if deletion would otherwise be the only possible outcome. Currently we have hundreds of moves made just because of the article being "undersourced" (these are examples from the last two hours(!) alone: [21] [22] [23] [24] [25][26] [27] [28] [29] [30]). Admins should be able to draftify if they believe the creator is able and willing to improve the article and if the article were otherwise eligible for speedy deletion (G11, A7 etc.) but not just any user who goes around thinking something needs more sources. At the very least, draftifying without the creator's consent should be treated as the deletion it actually is. Regards SoWhy 12:19, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
  • Option 1 Unless it is a new article with the author still around, or unless someone at an AfD agrees to take it on, it is just going disappear into the void and get deleted after six months.-- P-K3 (talk) 13:07, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Discussions for discussion

Hopefully this will be of some use. I have created Wikipedia:Discussions for discussion as a place for discussion closers to discuss their opinions about how pending discussions should be closed, particularly in difficult cases. This is intended to be distinct from merely requesting the closure of a discussion, or for reviewing discussions that have already been closed. Fingers crossed that this proves useful and productive. BD2412 T 06:35, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Who will the would-be-closers going to be in discussion with on that page? I predict it will be mostly with partisans in the original discussion who think it should be closed according to their preference. Also, I don't see how closures can be discussed without referring to arguments made in the original, which will invite counter-arguments etc. So, despite the intention, difficult discussions will just repeat themselves here despite the intention. Maybe it could work if editors who voted in the original discussion are not allowed to participate in the closure discussion. Zerotalk 07:00, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Discussions for discussion sounds like one of those peculiarly Wikipedia things, like List of lists of lists. Reyk YO! 10:07, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Don't forget the list of lists that do not contain themselves . –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 11:53, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Bertrand Russell would approve. Reyk YO! 13:10, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
@Zero0000: My hope would be that the noticeboard develops its own community of interest, like frequent RM and XfD closers, who will be the ones to respond to issues raised based on their experience. BD2412 T 20:23, 12 September 2020 (UTC)
Reyk, yikes, how has that page survived five different AfDs? It clearly serves no useful function for readers whatsoever as it has no content focus. Aymatth2 seems to be the only participant in the recent one speaking reason. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:54, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
This is certainly an interesting idea. I think there are a few underlying questions that we'd want to ask before deploying it widely. First, since it's basically equivalent to panel closes, are panel closes something that we want more of, even for discussions less prominent than e.g. the Fox News RfC? Second, I think Zero0000's idea of banning !voters from participating warrants some consideration, since otherwise it'll be a mess of people trying to argue underlying merits, and it's impossible to collapse those fast enough. Third, panel closers often do their work, if not entirely off-wiki in secret, than at least hidden away in userspace. There's benefit to transparency, but for closes, it's also helpful to be able to present a unified authoritative front, and having a prominent noticeboard where the sausage was made could lead to issues.
Overall, I think there's certainly room for improvement in the way closes are done. A recent bad NAC of an RfC I started but that I'm not sure I'm invested in enough to bother bringing to AN has gotten me thinking about ways we might want to reform the system. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:08, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Locality categorization by historical subdivisions

While there is significant support for limiting the categorization of current localities by historical subdivisions in some way, no clear criterion emerges to do so systematically.

The consensus is to stick with the status quo (option C), by using common sense to assess on a case-by-case basis whether the categorization of a page reflects a relevant historical fact rather than a cataloguing attempt.

− Pintoch (talk) 11:50, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Question: What should the general rule/principle/guideline be for categorizing current localities by historical administrative subdivision in Central and Eastern Europe? There are quite a few articles of cities and towns that have been categorized not only in which administrative subdivision they currently are in, but also by the former subdivisions.

Typical example: Eišiškės, a small town in Lithuania, is in these categories: Category:Cities in Lithuania, Category:Cities in Vilnius County, Category:Šalčininkai District Municipality, Category:Vilnius Voivodeship, Category:Lidsky Uyezd, Category:Nowogródek Voivodeship (1919–1939). The first 3 categories reflect the current administrative subdivision. Vilnius Voivodeship was a subdivision in 1413–1795. Lidsky Uyezd was a 2nd-level subdivision sometime between 1795–1915. Nowogródek Voivodeship (1919–1939) was an inter-war subdivision.

General options:

  • A: categorization should be limited - by what? Whether it is referenced in the article? How long the subdivision lasted? How large the subdivision was? To the 1st-level former subdivision? To how recent subdivision was? Etc?
  • B: categorization should not be allowed (i.e. current localities should be removed from the former subdivision categories; historical information could be preserved in a different venue like a separate list or an addition to the locality article or something similar to the "historical affiliation" box as in Görlitz#History)
  • C: status quo; no general rules; specific issues with individual categories should be addressed at WP:CfD

22:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)


Major concerns with such categories:

  1. WP:OR/WP:V: many of the locality articles do not even mention or reference former subdivisions. In Eišiškės example above, only Nowogródek Voivodeship is mentioned in the article body (added by me 12 years ago without a reference). What is the basis to claim it was in the Lidsky Uyezd? An editor looking at a map? Finding out former subdivisions is not always straightforward, particularly for smaller towns or for older subdivisions – some medieval regions did not have well defined borders, while in more recent years administrative border adjustments are frequent.
  2. WP:NONDEF: if many of the articles don't even mention the historical subdivision, it cannot be the defining characteristic (which is the central goals of the categorization system).
  3. Confusion for readers: in the example of Eišiškės above, could you tell which of the 6 categories is for the current and which is for the former subdivision? (this could be somewhat alleviated by better category names)
  4. Clutter/maintainability: Görlitz lists 23 different countries/states (not to mention subdivisions) that it was a part of. Should all of these be represented in a category? If not all, then which ones?

Examples of categories: just some samples from different countries. Category:Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia (did not have well-defined borders), Category:Republic of Central Lithuania (has other valid historical articles mixed in with current localities), Category:Telshevsky Uyezd and Category:Minsky Uyezd (2nd-level subdivision), Category:Lithuania Governorate (subdivision that lasted 5 years), Category:Ținutul Nistru (existed for 2 years), Category:Belastok Region (short-lived WWII subdivision), Category:Province of Catania (subdivision renamed in 2015), Category:Localities in Western Moldavia (without digging, can't tell whether current or historical subdivision), Category:Province of Westphalia.

Why this RfC? There were some CfD discussions over the years (ones that I am aware Aug 2015 (delete), Sept 2015 (delete), Oct 2015 (no consensus), Apr 2017 (no consensus)) but they did attract much attention (unlike AfD, CfD rarely attracts outsider attention), yielded inconsistent results, and did not hash out what should be done with these categories in general. And these categories keep proliferating. Therefore, looking for a broader principle-based discussion here, rather than individual consideration of specific categories at CfD.

Side note: some locality articles have "historical affiliation" boxes (example: Görlitz#History), though in some others it was removed as "nightmares" or "LISTCRUFT". And a user got blocked for adding them (and refusing to communicate).

Pings to users I came across editing related categories/CfD discussions (some might be inactive): User:Pamrel, User:Sabbatino, user:The-, User:Poeticbent, user:Lekoren, User:Biruitorul, User:Marcocapelle, User:Oculi, User:Peterkingiron, User:RevelationDirect, User:Dahn, User:Carlossuarez46, User:Laurel Lodged, User:Ejgreen77, User:Hugo999, User:Aleksandr Grigoryev, User:Piotrus. Notices posted to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Categories, Wikipedia talk:Categories for discussion, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Former countries, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ukraine, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Romania, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Moldova. Apologies if I missed anyone or any project. Renata (talk) 22:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Opinion poll: Locality categorization by historical subdivisions

Please place your !vote here.

A: definitely should be limited to may be current immediate subdivision and may be the historical in which a populated place was established. For the "historical affiliation" box mentioned above for Gorlitz, it should be avoided as a spam as it simply fails the Manual of Style for flags WP:MOSFLAG and infringes on original research WP:OR due to political speculations. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2020 (UTC)
Aleksandr Grigoryev: I thought about it, and I don't think it's a workable solution. Many places don't have a specific founding date and they are just mentioned in written sources in year x, or even more broadly in century y. Plus what makes the first subdivision so special? Further, I don't think it's maintainable. If you think about it, it still means that there will have to be categories for all historical subdivisions of that region as localities were founded/mentioned in different times. So, for example, there will have to be a category for Vilnius Voivodeship that contains localities founded/first mentioned in 1413-1795 and for Lidsky Uyezd that contains localities founded/first mentioned in 1795-1915. But then, it's likely that someone will decide that the category on Lidsky Uyezd is not comprehensive and start adding articles purely by geographic location. Renata (talk) 03:15, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
A (Current Subdivision and Historical One at Founding) I'm with Aleksandr above, the current geographical subdivision and the original seems reasonable. So Marseille would be both in the current French subdivision and be noted as a former Greek colony. (I don't want this approach to throw out all historical/former city categories beyond subdivisions though: Category:Former national capitals and Category:Populated places along the Silk Road both seem defining.) RevelationDirect (talk) 00:31, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
C. This is far too broad a question and these things badly need to be determined on a case by case basis. Some of the above shouldn't have locality categorisation in this way. Some of them should. The idea that we can answer them on a global basis with reference to a handful of subdivisions in eastern Europe is the sort of discussion that leads to all kinds of ridiculous situations when applied to local situations in places nobody was giving thought to. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:54, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
The Drover's Wife: not really looking to write any policy here, but just to get a rough idea/consensus from the wider community on what categories should or should not be present in locality articles. It would be very helpful if you could expand on your comment "Some of the above shouldn't have locality categorisation in this way. Some of them should." -- which should (not) and based on what criteria? Even if just considering the examples listed above. Renata (talk) 01:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
I am woefully under-educated about the history of this specific region and I'd hate to give pronouncements on things I don't understand well enough to have a sensible opinion. I'm just extremely cautious of a discussion like this creating a rule that then gets applied to completely different circumstances in other places. The Drover's Wife (talk) 03:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
B (A if we have to): Limited to current subdivisions only, as has been the long established practice; bio articles relevant to the polity itself are also currently placed in the category named for that polity -- it is Category:People of medieval Wallachia, but not Category:People from Saac County (i. e. a defunct county in said Wallachia). This avoids a massive overcrowding. I don't see when populated places would be placed even in articles pertaining to those polities, let alone their subdivisons; only nostalgia and irredentism can be the driving factors here, and neither is encyclopedic. Current subdivision also establishes a neutral standard: populated places that were once in Romania are categorized by their current subdivision in Ukraine, but the same standards would apply to localities in Romania that were once in Hungary. Dahn (talk) 05:46, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
A or B, one could say "A, because we should allow this if a historical subdivision is a defining characteristic of a locality", but in practice it never is a defining characteristic, so A and B are very similar. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:47, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
A. Current and historical are enough. Historical division/subdivision should at least be mentioned in prose before including it. In addition, as already noted by other editor, the "Historical affiliations", including the mentioned problems, should be removed, because it is unsourced, trivial, and just takes up unnecessary space of the page. – Sabbatino (talk) 11:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Sabbatino: Can you clarify which "historical" is enough? All of the examples above are "historical" so you are not actually limiting to anything. Renata (talk) 15:56, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
Country and first level division (governorate, state, province, etc). – Sabbatino (talk) 13:05, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
C I'm with The Drover's Wife on this. It's unwise to make policy decision on such a broad front. Examples can be listed of multiple short-lived political entities to which a city may have been attached over many centuries; it would probably be excessive to make the city a child of all of them. Cities changed hands multiple times in the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand some administrative sub-divisions, while practically defunct, nevertheless remain on the statute books. For example Thurles (civil parish) is in the ancient barony of Eliogarty. While Eliogarty no longer has a practical administrative function, it has never been legally abolished. I would not like to see Thurles being removed from Category:Eliogarty. In summary, such thingsare best decided on a case-by-case, CFD basis. Laurel Lodged (talk) 11:36, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
@Laurel Lodged: As per your own comment, the barony in question still exists, in some definition, and the first verb in Eliogarty is "is". This is therefore an irrelevant example to this particular discussion, equivalent at best to including cities and towns in their traditional or cultural region. Dahn (talk) 10:03, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
C Per The Drover's Wife above. I believe handling this on a case-by-case basis and category-specific CFDs is the way to go.--Darwinek (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I have narrowed down the geographic focus of the RfC just to Central and Eastern Europe (because that's really where the issues are). Ping to editors who already commented, in case that changes their thoughts: Aleksandr Grigoryev, RevelationDirect, The Drover's Wife, Dahn, Marcocapelle, Sabbatino, Laurel Lodged, Darwinek. Renata (talk) 16:09, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

  • No Change in View Based on the limitation of scope to the discussion. RevelationDirect (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment - CFD Piecemeal Approach A CFD discussion is just as likely to suggest a global approach as this discussion might suggest a case-by-case approach. The area I have concern with is the subcategories of Category:Districts of East Germany, where we categorize literally every populated place that used to be part of the GDR by former region, which doesn't seem remotely defining to me. If I nominated that tree for deletion, it's likely to come up why I'm not nominating the Lithuania examples Renata provided. Does anyone see a difference between those two examples? RevelationDirect (talk) 19:24, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure why it would come up. It doesn't follow that that what might be appropriate in one situation must be appropriate to another in a completely different geographical, political and historical context because they're both abolished institutions. If you think the German and Lithuanian ones you've both mentioned are equivalent and that they suck, nominating them both is a much better outcome than attempting to make global policy affecting thousands of situations you haven't considered. If you're preferring the few-heads global policy attempt because you think you're going to lose a CfD on the two (I don't know, this is emphatically not my area of knowledge in the world), that should tell you something. The Drover's Wife (talk) 20:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure anyone can name a situation when categorizing by past subnational entity would benefit anyone. Mind you, we're not talking about examples such as "Ancient Greek colonies" or "Former capitals of...", none of which actually refer to a subdivision. We are talking about subdivisions for all purposes defunct, and the type of info one would be able to recover from the article and/or a map. Nobody would benefit from having Places in modern-day Turkey grouped under their former Ottoman vilayets, though the article on both the place and the vilayet should include references to one another, at least once theyre both developed. Dahn (talk) 09:59, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
        • ...unless someone was trying to find out what happened to the cities that were once within a particular Ottoman vilayets. I'd expect that to be unusual, but I can imagine it happening (at least for larger cities). (That sounds like a great school assignment: "Pick one of the Ottoman vilayets we've been talking about this week, figure out what it's biggest city was, and find out what's happened to that city since then.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
          • @WhatamIdoing:: Except we are not a teaching aide (leaving aside that "go on wikipedia and click two links" isn't really a proper assignment at all). Dahn (talk) 14:02, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
            • Whether it's "proper" is going to depend on the context (e.g., age of the students and whether this is meant to be an important assignment or just a few minutes' homework). I do not say that we have to accommodate that reader. I only say that when billions of people have access to Wikipedia, the odds are high that at least one reader would sincerely appreciate whatever seems unimportant to any given editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:02, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
              • @WhatamIdoing:: The main point is that we're not here to offer that kind of assistance. Dahn (talk) 05:33, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
                • We should be here to provide every type of encyclopedic information. Some of our tools for doing this are pretty awful at the moment (consider, e.g., the necessity of Category:18th-century British women writers, when it'd be better to have a way to record the simple facts of "18th-century", "British", "women", and "writers" and let the software combine them). The same general type of system could be used for geography: Here is the location, and now give me a list of every relevant Wikipedia article. It'd be clunky to do this with just categories, but I hope that in the future, people will be able to look up any the patch of dirt and see all of its history, from well before being absorbed into the Ottoman empire, through the creation of the province/vilayet system, to the end of the Ottoman empire, and what's happened since then. I think that helping people understand history is consistent with our goals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
                  • @WhatamIdoing: One can understand the point of having women who lived in the 18th century and practiced a certain trade, and were of a certain nationality, in a standalone category, however: the encyclopedic relevance of having articles placed in defunct administrative divisions is entirely unproven, and unargued -- beyond "it would help hypothetical students perform a hypothetical inane assignment with even more ease". What we do have from the above is your hope that we should all embark on this "patch of dirt" pet project (which, btw, is an immense task you unload on anyone writing articles on such topics, without offering them the option to refuse -- since once this is a standard, everyone will be expected to follow it). Instead of simply dreaming of how interesting it would be to have that goal materialized, you could consider that it has no objective use, while demanding a lot of work from "someone else". Dahn (talk) 06:38, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
                    • I don't think so. We already put {{coord}} in articles about geographical areas, and Special:Nearby already lets you find articles within a certain distance of your location. Wikivoyage (and other projects) is using Wikidata, Commons, and/or OpenStreetMap to mark territories (e.g., Alpine County#Communities – the region, not just a single point within it). It doesn't seem impossible to take that existing data and using something similar to Special:Nearby to find all the articles that are within that arbitrary shape, rather than all the articles that are within a certain radius of a single point. None of this would require any extra work from editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd go with B, with the usual allowance for exceptions in exceptional cases. This is a classic list role. All the problems that afflict using a category for this information would disappear if using a list. A list is also much easier to maintain and add any necessary qualifiers to (as might be needed for example if administrative boundaries shifted during the relevant historical period). As a bonus, a list is also much more likely to attract the attention of contributors with relevant historical expertise. I can see no reason why the approach would be different from one geographical area to the next; the arguments with respect to Central and Eastern Eurperiodically I ope would seem to apply equally well in any other geographical context. -- Visviva (talk) 04:33, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • C. I'm not sure why this is such a contentious issue. If the town existed in the past as part of a former subdivision, why would it be inappropriate to note that? It actually sounds fairly useful; if I were trying to find out what was the extent of and former municipalities in, such-and-such of a now-defunct province, the categorization of places into such categories seems like a natural way to do that. --Jayron32 18:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    • @Jayron32: Because it adds a million categories that could be simply replaced by lists in/alongside articles, and because it serves no purpose other than to satisfy dreams of lost glory? Dahn (talk) 14:04, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm leaning C (no particular rules). I'm not sure that every little village that was once part of the Roman empire should be categorized that way, but Vienna was the capital of multiple empires/nations, and it seems odd to limit its categorization to only the most recent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:00, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • C. Should be treated case-by case basis, and the text must support categorization, with valid refs. In fact it is often important to know who belong where at a particular time, and periodically I am thinking about adding a kind of timeline template to articles about locations. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:07, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • C (A if we have to): Definitely not B. When talking specifically about Central and Eastern Europe, some places actually have more connection to their former subdivision in terms of historical importance than their current one, so it would be strange not to categorize them by their former subdivision. Ejgreen77 (talk) 11:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
  • A/C Some of these categorisations (and not only for former east European areas, it goes for the whole of the world) are utterly confusing (at least in my opinion). There are objects that are categorised by current areas where the organisation never existed in that current area (organisations (in the most broad sense of the word) that have been discontinued well before the current area where they would have been if the organisation still existed existed (intentionally confusing sentence)). I had to look, but 1962 Northern Rhodesian general election was once categorised in Category:1962 in Zambia where Northern Rhodesia was renamed in 1964 to Zambia (this one has since been fixed: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 June 18#1935 establishments in Zambia; however, there is still Category:Elections in Zambia on the article ...). Within the volatility of the 'countries' in Europe in the past, there are many cases where things happen to an organisation while they are in A, then country changes to B and something else happens, country changes again, to C, and they stop existing, and if they would now still have existed they would now be in D ... Categorisation in these cases should be limited (A) and well thought through (which is basically what should happen now: C). --Dirk Beetstra T C 06:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • C I'm with User:Staszek Lem on this one: if referenced text in the article supports the historic categorization (and thus it's presumably appropriate text that does not violate WP:UNDUE), then the cat should stay. But if no referenced article text supports the category, then the categorization is the result of original research and should be removed. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:16, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Unarchived to request closure at WP:ANRFC. Cunard (talk) 00:58, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Naming convention policy for articles about subject's death?

So, lately, I've seen good number of move requests pertaining to the titling of articles involving the death of its subject, such as "Death of...", "Killing of...", "Murder of...", etc. Just wondering, do we have a naming convention policy about the best/preferred way to title these articles? If we do, I cannot find it. Steel1943 (talk) 20:07, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

You're probably looking for this recent discussion. --Izno (talk) 20:21, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
Ohh yeah. Steel1943 (talk) 20:37, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
@Steel1943: See also Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Women in Red#Jayne MacDonald and wider women's issues. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Facebook (or Instant Messengers) Wikipedia:Canvassing

Supposed users form a hidden group on Facebook or Whatsapp, how can we deal with the canvassing if they orientate and vote biasedly in some discussions? Alphama (talk) 03:07, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there's a firm "solution" here, it depends on situation. You can add a template, note likely off-WP canvassing in the discussion, ask for admin-attention, etc. If there's a closer, it's up to them to include the canvassing in the closing statement. Here's a couple of examples: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malcolm Kendrick, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Z. Williamson (2nd nomination). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:00, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
I once had a conversation, about a matter that was at WP:ANI, with a fellow editor. We we travelling in a car, on an English motorway, at around 70mph. How do you propose we should deal with people who canvas in such circumsatnces? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:33, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Are discussions on the unofficial m:Telegram groups or the m:Discord servers considered canvassing? I think the only logical way is to focus on the nature of the speech and intent rather than the platform. -- Fuzheado | Talk 19:31, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Notability guidelines for geographic features

Some users believe that WP:GEOLAND is far too broad because it leads to the creation of thousands of unsourced stubs about villages in certain countries. See Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(geographic_features)#Populated_places for more details. WP:NGEO is all around barebones compared to other notability guidelines, so we will need to establish specific criteria for everything. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:24, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Which other users do you speak for? Phil Bridger (talk) 15:35, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
WP:GEOLAND does not lead to unsourced stubs. Sloppy editing leads to unsourced stubs. When unsourced geostubs come up at New Page Review they are sent back to draft. We do have a large number of older unsourced geostubs but the issue there is finding anyone who wants to take on the work of sourcing them. No change of policy will solve that for us. Mccapra (talk) 15:53, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
We absolutely should be giving more leeway to geographic features than some other areas. Geography is a fundamental thing an encyclopaedia should be doing and we should be covering it to the deepest level possible. Geography is generally neutral and free of the promotion and spam of the real problem areas; people, organisations, and products. Those are the areas that need extra rules, not geography. No geo article that verifiably exists should ever be deleted, at worst per WP:PRESERVE they can be merged somewhere if there really isn't enough information to expand them (which also doesn't require extra rules). As for "uncited stubs", its next to impossible to get uncited anything to stick nowadays. The vast majority of problematic geo stubs were created years ago by automated processes from unreliable databases (mostly tracing back to GNIS), and large swathes of them have been brought to AFD. That sort of mass creation by bot is no longer being done and it is highly unlikely that a bot will ever be approved in the future for such a task. There is no need for new rules for that either. SpinningSpark 16:51, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
IMHO, stubs about villages -- which can reasonably be shown will never be expanded into full articles due to lack of reliable information -- should be merged into the article on the next level of local government. (To use a US example: village -> county. An Ethiopian example would be: village -> woreda.) -- llywrch (talk) 21:18, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Merging is fine, but what we don't need is more encouragement to take these articles to AFD. There are already too many nominations of the "I don't think this village is important and I'm too lazy to merge or expand it, so let's just delete it instead" kind. There is no excuse for deleting verifiable geographical information. If it is not viable as a standalone, and there is no suitable merge target, that probably means there is a big hole in our coverage and we should create a stub for the higher level structure specifically to include the information we have. Whatever, don't delete, and don't create more guidelines leading to deletion. SpinningSpark 13:48, 18 September 2020 (UTC)
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