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Increasing the scope of WP:G5 vis-a-vis socking.

Withdrawn by proposer and it's snowing anyway. Regards SoWhy 16:43, 4 February 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.


There's been a few threads recently about fighting WP:UPE, most significantly at WP:TOUSL. In that thread, I argued that not only should WMF do more for us, but we should slso do more for ourselves.

The best weapon we have against such spam is deletion of the created articles. That hits the sock where it hurts. No article, no commission. To the professional sock, the continued existence of articles they create is the only currency that has value. With that in mind, I don't understand why we restrict WP:G5 (Creations by banned or blocked users) to, pages created via the sock account after the block or ban of the primary account.

I get that for things like imposed TBANs. Let's say you're making a pest of yourself writing about widgets, and eventually get a widget TBAN. The widget-related articles you created before the ban were done while you were allowed to create them. But, socking is different. You're never allowed to sock. The checkuser-block happens not when we decide you shouldn't be socking any more, but when we catch you in the act. So, why should we not be able to G5 everything the sock created, including articles created prior to being caught?

So, I propose we change WP:G5 to include deleting all articles created by the sock (subject to the "no substantial edits by others" clause), regardless of the creation date. I don't see this being a huge change, but it does push the needle a little more in our direction. -- RoySmith (talk) 05:21, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

In my view this is a huge change. We often have new large sock farms that create many, many articles, none of which is subject to G5 under the current wording but would be under Roy's proposed change, regardless of the merit of the articles.--Bbb23 (talk) 12:38, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Aside from the size of the change, do you think it's a good change to make? -- RoySmith (talk) 16:15, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • The wording could do with tidying up and clarifying in a couple of regards.
"Creations by banned or blocked users" → "Creations by banned, blocked, or globally locked users", - this is how it's used in practice, Ndwaks is a recent example.
"after the block or ban of the primary account" → "after the earliest block, lock or ban of any of the user's accounts" - the oldest, master or primary account is not always the first blocked and their creations are just as G5-able as the socks' creations. Also, when two SPI cases get merged there will inevitably be a change in the G5 cut-off date for some previously accepted or tolerated contributions.
-- Cabayi (talk) 13:34, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment This page is on my watchlist, but RoySmith this is very timely because I currently have Christopher Wilson (reporter) at RfD. It was created by banned sockpuppet VivaSlava. The problem is, it wasn't eligible for G5 because (a) VivaSlava wasn't banned at the time it was created even though sock puppeteer Charles lindberg was banned for sockpuppetry a couple months prior to this account having created it (in short, VivaSlava hadn't yet been "found out" yet and (b) because Glades12 took the view that retargeting a redirect was considered a significant edit. I'm not normally one to endorse the deletion of all content, especially useful content of sockpuppets, but this is crud. So, in principle, I support your proposal, but I also think we need to add clarity on what constitutes a "significant" edit. --Doug Mehus T·C 16:28, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Like so many things, it's difficult to define significant, and doing so is not the point of my proposal. In your specific case, I don't see anything in the history that I would consider significant enough to be disqualifying for G5, including the redirect. But, it's generally not useful to argue about removal of prod/speedy tags; if somebody disagrees, they disagree, so take it to XfD, which I see is where it already is, so in this particular case, it's a non-issue. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
RoySmith, True, and I wasn't trying to relitigate whether a G5 may have been appropriate in this case, but re-reading your nomination statement and reply, it sounds like it could've actually applied on both counts? Nevertheless, I still think your proposal is reasonable given the qualifications (you're not changing the substantial edits clause). Doug Mehus T·C 17:03, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
Not really. According to the totally awesome new Who Wrote That? script, he only wrote 53.2% of the page, so it would certainly fail the "substantial edits by others" clause. In any case, there's nothing that obligates people to delete under G5; it's just a tool that's available, and admins are expected to use common sense and good judgement when using any of the tools. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:13, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose not all sockpuppets are upe, some are normally good editors who make a bad judgement, for example there are some admins who were previously blocked for sockpuppetry but have redeemed themselves. Also, there are some blocked editors who created 600 articles or so who used a sock once or twice to violate a topic ban to take part in a discussion, but there is nothing wrong or promotional with their articles, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 19:17, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ritchie333 and Atlantic306. I agree we might need better tools for the fight against UPEs, but we need more targeted tools, not a retroactive expansion of G5. —Kusma (t·c) 22:33, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Ritchie333. Andrew🐉(talk) 00:15, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Support something like this. However, it should be proposed addressing the WP:NEWCSD criteria. G5 has always been mainly aimed at the reiterant. This is about cleanup up prior work after proving the sockpuppetry or UPE editing. A good idea, but it’s a new criteria, and should get a new code or subcode. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:29, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
I note, with disappointment, WT:Deletion_policy/Archive 48#Undeclared Paid Editor (UPE) product was archived without agreement that “UPE product” is even a contributing reason for deletion at XfD. Is a TOU violation even a reason for deletion? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:32, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm fine with this getting a new code-number, if that makes it more acceptable. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:04, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
" Is a TOU violation even a reason for deletion?" No, because the deletion policy says editing and improving are preferable to deletion. So if you can turn a biased puffery loaded spam job into a decent encyclopedic stub, you should do that instead of delete it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:10, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
In other words, you're a proponent of WP:BOGOF? -- RoySmith (talk) 14:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
That's an essay. I cited a policy. I do agree with "Persistent COI editors are unlikely to get discouraged by deletion" - which is why my "holy grail" of tackling COI and spam is to find and cite unimpeachable and reliable coverage of something like fraud or embezzlement, and hope that their nice autobiography becoming a not-so-nice biography is their just desserts. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:28, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
Well, that's why we're at VPP, to discuss changing policy. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:53, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Thought - per some of the above opposes, there seems resistance to a global ruling on socks, when the idea is made as an anti-UPE tool. So the thought comes with "what % of socks are blocked along with a designation of UPE, vs just blocked for being socks?". If it's a significant percentage then the CSD could be limited to apply only to UPE socks, if it's not significant then it would be useless. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:27, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as an extension to WP:G5. G5 is for block/ban evasion and sockpuppetry, and it's beneficial to keep that scope limited. Sockpuppetry is a particular form of abuse; undisclosed paid editing is a separate form of abuse. They are sometimes concurrent, but only sometimes. If we find someone creating pages for pay and they have not disclosed, and our efforts at education and compliance fail, we might block them, but no consensus has been established (AFAICT) that deleting a first-time UPE contributor's work is actually what the community desires. If they continue creating pages after they're blocked, then G5 already applies as currently written. If you want to have "pages created by paid editors without the required disclosure" as a speedy deletion criterion, first get consensus that the community desires deletion as a first resort in these cases (as opposed to review and redrafting, discussion, education, etc.), and only then talk about a new speedy deletion criterion. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:07, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per Ritchie and Ivanvector. Wikipedia is here to create, improve, and host good articles, not to spank bad boys in new improvised ways. HouseOfChange (talk) 17:16, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per Ritchie, Ivanvector and HouseOf Change. In all the discussions I've seen (which is probably not all of them) there has been no consensus, or even consensus against, automatic deletion of content created by proven UPE (let alone those merely suspected of it) and there has never been consensus that content created before a ban should deleted. The proposal thus fails WP:NEWCSD point 2 by a country mile. Thryduulf (talk) 16:20, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Withdrawn. I still think we need stronger tools to fight WP:UPE, and since creating articles is what they're paid for, deleting those articles to cut off their source of funding is where we should be looking. That said, it's obvious this particular proposal isn't going anywhere, so somebody should close this. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:33, 4 February 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.

RfC on mainspace use of quotation templates with big quotation marks and other attention-drawing elements

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#RfC: Use of Large Quotes in article space, and the Cquote template.

This did not open with a particular focus on NPoV concerns, but has turned that way (in short, whether colorful/flashy quotation templates pose a WP:UNDUE problem, or are simply a harmless layout choice like colored backgrounds in infoboxes).

MoS has deprecated use of {{cquote}} and similar templates in mainspace (as well as use of magazine-style pull quotes, for which those templates were intended) for years, but about 10% (and steadily declining) of mainspace block quotations are not yet using the regular {{quote}} template MoS calls for.

The RfC question is whether to change {{cquote}} to just emit {{quote}} when used in mainspace, so that so many articles do not have to be manually changed to call {{quote}} directly in place of {{cquote}}.

Counter-proposals have been made to have MoS recommend nothing about the subject at all (i.e., permit any quotation stylization anyone might want); or, alternatively, to specifically endorse {{cquote}} (which might effectively result in site-wide change of block quotation style).

The RfC has been running for some time, but needs additional input for a clearer consensus.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:43, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Establish a policy to avoid using "conspiracy theory" terminology

Our NPOV policy, imo, conflicts with our use of the term "conspiracy theory" or "debunked conspiracy theory" in many of our articles which are not even about the alleged "conspiracy theory". In addition, with the new release of The Afghanistan Papers, we have one more of many examples of U.S. government lying to the public and then using the terms in question to discourage any critical thought about whatever is being labeled "conspiracy theory". Nocturnalnow (talk) 20:43, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I would say , if there are reliable sources to support "Conspiracy theory" then use them, otherwise keep them out. I wouldn't want to see the words "Conspiracy theory " not allowed to be used here, especially if reliable sources confirm it as such, or if it's common knowledge (like the "Flat Earth Society " or the " 9-11 was an inside job" crackpots!) Necromonger...We keep what we kill 13:39, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
  • We should be hesitant to use ANY label without very solid sources to support it... but when there are solid sources, we can (and should) use them. We reflect what the sources say. When in doubt, phrase the label as opinion (ie attribute in text) and don’t phrase it in Wikipedia’s voice as being fact. Blueboar (talk) 13:51, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

The majority of the times the term "conspiracy theory" is used it is misused and not describing a conspiracy theory at all. Instead it is mislabeling a concern as such in order to denigrate the concern. So use of the term should get a high level of scrutiny. I don't think that truly reliable sources apply the term very often. Basically the same thing that Blueboar said. North8000 (talk) 14:35, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Just wondering if this "misuse" has actually been counted up, or is it hyperbole? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:48, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
  • Agree we should rarely if ever use "conspiracy theory" or "debunked conspiracy theory" in wiki-voice or as an ad hominem to describe and discredit other editors. Consider these two titles:
  • Rid, Thomas (5 December 2019). "Who's Really to Blame for the 'Ukraine Did It' Conspiracy Theory?". The Atlantic. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
  • "There's no evidence for Trump's Biden-Ukraine accusations. What really happened?". NBC News. Retrieved 27 December 2019.
The second article's title sounds far more like real journalism than the first, which sounds more like name-calling and advocacy. (Note: the second articles does have section title "Biden's response to Trump's Ukraine conspiracy theory".)
The problem with the phrase is really an ad hominem in that it conjures images of smoke-filled backroom deals with devilish spies, hitmen, gangsters, mafia and men in disguises. In reality, secret meetings are constantly taking place, out of site of the public with unknown actions to result, such as company board meetings, military meetings, and even such things like attorney-client privileged meetings, etc., and these are not called "conspiracies". The CIA indeed is constantly operating covertly, often to overthrown elected governments. United_States_involvement_in_regime_change.
What "conspiracy theory" usually means is an oft repeated claim that is unsubstantiated, difficult or impossible to prove, or has substantial evidence that contradicts it. It's better to call it simply that. What is unfortunate is that widely publicized conspiracy theories started by the govenrment, such as that Iraq had WMD's prior to the Iraq War has hardly ever been called a conspiracy theory, even though it clearly fits that definition. WMD conjecture in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Or the conspiracy theory regarding the sinking of the Maine as justification for the Spanish-American War: Propaganda_of_the_Spanish–American_War. Journalists are very selective about what they call a "conspiracy theory" and often it fits with propaganda of the party, government, or other business entities they are most closely affiliated with. Fox News reiterates claims by Republicans that any facts the Democrats try to establish for impeachment are "conspiracy theories." [1] --David Tornheim (talk) 00:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
There are conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Conspiracies seldom see the light of day, especially if they are successful (kind of like "Why doth treason never prosper,for if it does, none dare call it treason". So we can only refer to them as conspiracy theories, until per chance, somehow they see the light of day, but most assuredly conspiracies exist, and most especially in politics. Billionaires funding think tanks,senartors, congress critters and POtUS to advance causes and policies that are in their interest are conspiracies, and discussion of them is a theory.Oldperson (talk) 02:39, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
It is obviously a label that requires care in its use, but conspiracy theories are a social phenomenon, and should be covered as such where the sources warrant. How do they originate, and how and why do they spread? An article like Moon landing conspiracy theories is interesting and notable as a description of a conspiracy theory; if the article were required to attempt to treat the subject as a credible theory, it would be a WP:FRINGE argument ready for deletion.--Trystan (talk) 16:36, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree The Hunter Biden article has "debunked right-wing conspiracy theories" in the lead. This causes regular requests for changes to the protected article, because readers assume different "conspiracy theories", that are normally completely different to the various sourced conspiracy theories that are referenced in the statement. Especially as it is clear that readers do not go on to look at the sources and just see the debunked right-wing conspiracy theories and immediately start ranting about obvious bias in the article. My view is that the policy should be that these are not mentioned in the header of the article even they are a significant factor e.g. Flat Earth or Moon Landings clearly they fail sky blue and putting them into the header is undue weight. A section in the article on related major conspiracy theories is fine provided it explains what they are and why they are false. It should not be a section to describe the current political invective. RonaldDuncan (talk) 17:01, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
While we should not over-apply the term in situations where it is not warranted, neither should we avoid it where it is needed, per WP:SPADE. Any use of the term (as with any controversial term) should be handled and discussed on a case-by-case basis, but any Wikipedia-wide policies would be painting with too-broad-a-stroke and would be far too heavy handed. I would oppose any policy one way or the other. Our existing policies and guidelines are sufficient.--Jayron32 17:08, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

Topics which encourage editing more than one article

Hello, I come today because of the topic sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. This is a timely, modern, and notable topic that enjoys wide coverage in primary sources such as US news outlets, as well as secondary sources such as books. Currently, the topic is arranged across many, many articles, mainly collected in the tree Category:Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals, for instance Catholic Church sex abuse cases, Catholic Church sex abuse cases in the United States, Parish transfers of abusive Catholic priests, and in the United States, there is one article per diocese embroiled in the scandal. Furthermore, in addition to the dedicated articles on the scandal, there are many thousands of articles affected by it that may be edited, such as diocesan articles, bishops, cardinals, cathedrals, parishes, etc. I am writing because today an IP editor dropped new information related to New Jersey, and they didn't just drop it on one article, they dropped it on every single diocesan article inside New Jersey as well as the main article on US sex abuse. This is extremely unwieldy, because as a concerned editor, if I found something to contribute to this edit, I would have to track down at least 5 articles containing exactly the same text and make the same edit to them. Multiply that by the number of sex abuse cases and by the number of articles affected, and that's an onerous task to keep up with and favors disruption. What I would like to know is why are we structuring articles in a way to encourage multiplying the contribution among them, and how can we make life easy on editors who wish to find such contributions and keep them in sync with one another? Elizium23 (talk) 01:03, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any ideas as to how this should be addressed more generally? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:58, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I am not sure what you mean. I am using a concrete example but by posting to WP:VPP I intend for a general discussion (which probably falls under WP:CFORK or similar.) I am looking for answers as to how this should be addressed in general, not necessarily in this specific case (although a way forward would be helpful.) Elizium23 (talk) 05:45, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Should Template:Supplement be deprecated?

Opinions are needed on the following: Template talk:Supplement#Template supplement. It's an extension of this discussion. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 08:11, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Question about RFAs

Can an RFA be relisted like an AFD or an RM if the consensus remains unclear? Interstellarity (talk) 19:18, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

@Interstellarity: - In exceptional circumstances, bureaucrats may extend RfAs beyond seven days or restart the nomination to make consensus clearer, however, it would need be really strange, since we already have one ambiguity solving method - a 'Crat Chat. The main suggestions I've seen that it could theoretically show up is if something big came out on the 7th day or a massive shift in voting patterns started happening. Ergo Sum's case, for example, doesn't fall into either of those categories. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:24, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The relevant guidance says a minimum of seven days. I don't know that there's been any examples of this happening on the English Wikipedia in recent history, but it's happened recently on other projects and the rules here don't seem to forbid it. GMGtalk 19:25, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Also see (if not yet) Wikipedia:Requests for adminship#About RfA and its process sub-section: Discussion, decision, and closing procedures - Nabla (talk) 19:29, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure why it would be needed, unless there are a low number of votes overall. There is obviously a recent or current RFA that you are worried about, looking at both of the current ones there's over 200 votes on one, and over 150 on the other. I wouldn't consider that a "low number" of votes. I mean, if an RFA made it 7 days and got like 10 votes, that may need a relist. But neither of the current ones has that problem. --Jayron32 19:33, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I could imagine if that DDOS had hit for a longer time during an RfA, that would have triggered an extension. Nosebagbear (talk) 23:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Interstellarity, Comment I believe Ergo Sum passed RfA with 76%, which suggests a clear pass without bureaucrat discretion. Even if he had passed with 75%, my reading of the policy is that between 65-75% support is subject to bureaucrat discretion. Attaining 75% support is not "between" 65-75%, so our policy guidance suggests that, in practice, that threshold is between 65-74%. Doug Mehus T·C 00:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
Dmehus Thanks for the info. Interstellarity (talk) 00:02, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
Interstellarity, No problem, but that's just my interpretation. We could always have a discussion about clarifying that wording. That is, is the rough guideline inclusive or exclusive of 75%? We might also ask a dutiful and knowledgeable bureaucrat, like Primefac, what their interpretation of the guideline and, if all bureaucrats use that same interpretation, we may not need to refine the wording. Doug Mehus T·C 00:09, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
@Dmehus: I see where you're coming from. A technical reading of the policy would support your interpretation. However, I think a natural reading would lead the average reader to believe that "between 65-75%" means inclusive of 65% and 75%. Just my two cents. Ergo Sum 00:13, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
Ergo Sum, True, and notionally, this is just a rough guideline, as someone, in theory could pass with less than 65% if the many of the "oppose" arguments were ill-inconceived, flawed, or simply vague waves at a policy. Not sure if we've interacted before, but congratulations. Doug Mehus T·C 00:18, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
65 to 75% is construed as a rough range; it's really all about consensus (which is interpreted differently in RfAs in relation to other areas). See here. J947 (c), at 00:52, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
J947, Yes, definitely it's based on consensus. I didn't know that in such cases, the bureaucrats made public their deliberations. That's good to see. I'm comfortable with that. Doug Mehus T·C 01:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
An RFA is completely unlike an AFD or a RM in that the subject of an RFA is a human being, a fellow Wikipedian who volunteers time for this site. There is an expectation that the RFA candidate will have started their RFA at a time when they expect to be online a lot during their RFA. They may not be around for the following week, so significant extensions of RFAs need to be rare and in my view with the agreement of the candidate. Otherwise you are not treating them as a volunteer. ϢereSpielChequers 06:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Cleaning up IP users' talk pages.

Occasionally one comes across a talk page for an IP user which is full of old warnings. For example User talk:84.92.85.236 which has warnings from 2015 to 2017 and then nothing until 2020. Given that IP addresses are often reallocated and may be schools, colleges, universities or businesses is it reasonable to clean up the historic cruft? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

@Martin of Sheffield: Yes, feel free to remove the old warnings and replace them with {{OW}}. The templates exists for that reason. SD0001 (talk) 12:40, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I hadn't seen that one. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:14, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
There was a bot run last year or so that went through and deleted pre-2009 talk pages, IIRC. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 01:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Amorymeltzer, I thought we had strictly agreed not to delete talkpages with warnings and similar. Certain long-term cases are defined to an entity, and that entity used that IP years ago and then received a warning. They may now be on another IP, but that still does mean that they did get a warning before. That information is sometimes relevant, even after 10 years or more. Moreover, sometimes there are relevant discussions on talkpages that should not be deleted. Blanking or archiving and replacing with a template is generally a better option. Dirk Beetstra T C 08:40, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Amorymeltzer and @Beetstra: I do recall a a BRFA that was approved last year to unblock indef blocked IP's blocked before 2008 after an RfC on the matter, but I don't recall a bot that removed old warnings from IP talk pages being approved at any point so far. I could be 100% wrong on that, though. OhKayeSierra (talk) 09:49, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Mmm yes, that's almost certainly what I was thinking of, thanks! ~ Amory (u • t • c) 12:08, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Beauty pageants: Award with own WP article = "well-known and significant award or honor"

According to WP:ANYBIO, winning a "well-known and significant award or honor" means that the person is notable. Many beauty pageant titles are "well-known and significant" enough to merit their own Wikipedia articles per WP:GNG, multiple independent news sources that reflect public interest by covering them. Winning such a title is not excluded by WP:BLP1E unless this criterion of ANYBIO is meaningless.

I would like policy clarification whether there exists or should exist an exception to WP:ANYBIO for the special case of women who have won titles in US state or national beauty pageants that are well-known and significant enough to have their own articles. Based on the presumption that only international winners are notable, Johnpacklambert has been AfDing[2][3] and PROD-ing[4] [5][6] multiple women's articles based on a very local consensus among a small number of people at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Beauty_Pageants/Archive_7 that winners of notable beauty pageants are not notable for winning, and, with a double whammy, that news coverage talking about them in the context of their awards is excluded by BLP1E.

There are hundreds of sports awards that make young men notable (e.g. Conn Smythe Trophy for being the best player selected from 2 teams of hockey players in a finals game), and the fact that the public has traditionally more interested in praising women for beauty/talent than for sporting prowess should not be held against the young women who sought and won recognition in beauty pageants. HouseOfChange (talk) 20:31, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

  • Beauty pagent winners are not winning notable awards. This has been shown over and over again by the lack of extended coverage. We have a fairly focused number of sports awards that default make someone notable. I highly question the claim it is "hundreds." Sports coverage is out of control and our current guidleines make people with 10 minutes of play in one game notable. This is outrageous and ought not to be. However we should not use this out of control inclusion madness to create articles on beauty pageant winners who just fade into total obscurity after passing mention. I think the notion that winning Miss Vermont USA is a one event has a lot of validity. The notion that every state competition winner is default notable is just not supported by actual coverage.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:56, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • If people really want to see what the old system gave us, try and dig up the article on Sloan Bailey. I created that article and will take full blame for it ever existing, but that is what the notion that winning an award that is "notable" making someone notable woud give us.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:01, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Well known and significant is not the cut off for "notable". So having its own Wikipedia article does not make an award well known and significant. We have never agreed that every award that his its own Wikipedia article confers upon its winner notability. This is a horrible idea that would create a horrible precedent. This proposal is a mess waiting to happen, a mess so big that its scope of horror is not easily realized. This has implications for hundreds of awards that just barely scape by notability and in no way make each and every one of the people who get it notable. This is a headache waiting to happen. Our threshold for including articles on awards is not that they are significant and well known. Beyond this, the articles on Miss Florida etc. could be argued to not be about an award per se, but about a competition. This is a headache causing proposal that would open the flood gates to so many articles on people who are not by any reasonable measure public figures it just causes me to have total fear.John Pack Lambert (talk) 21:12, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
    We already have many articles about state pageant winners because people in general consider them notable. The headache waiting to happen is for someone to PROD multiple articles based on a private belief that some categories of awards won primarily by young women are less notable than similar categories of awards won primarily by young men. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
    1. I think it might help if you two took a break, and made space for uninvolved editors.
    2. The goal of every inclusion/exclusion rule is to have articles when we can write a decent one, and not have articles when we can't. WP:WHYN explains the goal. If you can write decent encyclopedia articles, with >50% of the content coming from Wikipedia:Independent sources, about someone who won a beauty pageant/played ball for three seconds/ate a bunch of hot dogs/whatever, then we should have those articles. If you can't, then we shouldn't. For borderline cases, it's a good idea to look for solutions like lists with substantial content – not merely "1965 winner: Alice Expert", but multiple sentences that provide solid encyclopedic information. Look at Wikipedia:Featured lists such as List of academicians educated at the United States Military Academy and List of presidents of the United States who died in office for two different ideas about what can be done when editors want information in Wikipedia, but not necessarily on separate pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:24, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: The test you propose (enough media coverage to create "decent encyclopedia articles" about their winners) is a practical way to determine which awards are "well-known and significant." By this test, most if not all holders of state or national beauty pageant titles would be notable. I welcome more clarity from other uninvolved editors, if any read this. HouseOfChange (talk) 19:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No exception The RfC you allude to and characterize as a "very local consensus among a small number of people" had very extensive participation and discussion by around a dozen editors who agreed nearly unanimously. Unless I'm missing something, it clearly stands — stop wasting our time with your forum shopping. Sdkb (talk) 20:51, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Sdkb please strike your allegation that I am forum-shopping. Although I have expressed my opinion on several AfDs related to this topic, this forum is the only one where I have asked for wider participation. I believe this is the correct venue for asking for clarification of policies. HouseOfChange (talk) 14:22, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
  • The idea that an award with a Wikipedia article is enough to make all the recipients notable is simply nonsensical. As one example among many, I received a Blue Peter badge, a very notable award in itself, as a child, but it would be ridiculous to say that that makes me notable. The test should be whether winning an award is usually preceded or succeeded by significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:30, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Phil Bridger you raise a very good point, and one I had not considered before, probably because I was asking only about state and national beauty pageants that have their own articles. What is your opinion of the test proposed by WhatamIdoing that an award generating enough news coverage about its recipients to create a good article is therefore notable? HouseOfChange (talk) 01:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Let's get the elephant out of the room first: Beauty pageants in general are a dying breed, and winners are not automatically notable if not otherwise combined with adequate sourcing. However, at the US level at least, a winner of a national beauty pageant would have had won a state-level pageant already, thus receiving coverage from his/her participation in two pageants, i.e. two events and BLP1E does not apply. feminist (talk) 02:50, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Half the reason why there are so many unnotable "models" with articles cluttering Wikipedia [especially Slavic ones, let's be frank] is because of the ridiculous idea that winning a rinky-dink beauty pageant that isn't Miss Universe, Miss World, etc. (ones they even bother to broadcast on television) makes them automatically notable. And then we never hear from them again unless they aggressivelyforce themselves into the public masses like Olivia Culpo–gorgeous she is, sure, she doesn't have a career to actually speak of encylopedically. If it weren't for her dating athletes, realistically no one would care to report on her because again, she doesn't have a career. A reality show appearance and SI Swimsuit Issue is not enough. She wasn't even on the cover. And that's the most "famous" pageant winner of recent times. Stop the madness. ⌚️ (talk) 16:08, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Rules for establishing cleanup template maintenance categories

This would refer more to guideline than policy, but I've been seeing how certain categories like Category:Wikipedia articles with style issues by month keep articles tagged with multiple different cleanup templates (up to 26 in that case), but other categories like Category:Articles with neologism issues keep those tagged with only one. I don't know what the standard is and couldn't find anything in documentation, only a guide on how to actually establish monthly categories.

I've been seeing some inline cleanup templates that don't put articles in any categories, and they look like they could really do with one for themselves. I've been eager to add them, but I don't know whether categories for single cleanup templates would be allowed en masse. Most seem to lazily revert to higher-level categories, and this seems to be an established (tolerated?) practice, according to the way these category pages are maintained. To me, a lot of those clumping categories look somewhat useless, because I can't ascertain whether an article inside it is dealing with, as in the above example, a {{Colloquial}} issue, an {{Essay-like}} issue or a {{Long quote}} issue. A few of that category's templates, like {{Example farm}}, place articles in more specific categories that come under Category:Wikipedia articles with style issues by issue, but most don't. I'm very eager to create independent categories for each of those templates.

Could there be a one-cleanup-template–one-category rule of thumb? When it comes to clearly related templates, like inline versions of box templates or those describing the same issue in different words, Category:Wikipedia articles with style issues has proven that you can create template-specific categories and simply place them in a broader one and allow both to sort their contents by date, effectively giving the users the option of how specific they'd like to browse. This could be established for inline vs. box templates, so one could view all articles tagged with either in the category one step above. A user might want to more rapidly fix only those articles tagged with inline templates, so they don't have to go searching for the offending statement. In case someone brings it up, I don't think the population of transclusions of each template matters when it comes to categories specifically. Templates and template-corresponding categories should be judged together. Only if a template is deleted should its corresponding category be deleted. If the only way a cleanup template can become "notable" is if it puts the very few or 0 articles it's ever going to be tagged on in a higher-level, more populated category, it shouldn't really be a template obviously, but being able to immediately know that (without advanced searching) is another benefit of my plan. I would also deal with such a case accordingly, as has been done previously. Additionally, as stated explicitly on many of these categories, an empty cleanup-template maintenance category means a job well done, and more often than not it will just fill up again anyway. Or should the status quo remain and all templates point to some existing category that vaguely fits? I want to know before I touch any of those categories or establish new ones (though I've already established one). Because, if I'm allowed, I will en masse change existing cleanup templates that dump(?) their articles in vague, high-level categories to point to new dedicated categories within their former category. This should, in theory, change nothing except add functionality (the ability to browse articles by specific cleanup template (with month added) while retaining the ability to browse them by their previous cleanup classification by stepping up levels if desired).

· • SUM1 • · (talk) 23:17, 7 February 2020 (UTC)

Tagging Rich Farmbrough, Mr. Guye and Fayenatic london, based on their cleanup-template category-maintenance activities. · • SUM1 • · (talk) 05:43, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Tagging Marcocapelle, DocWatson42 and Oculi based on other category-maintenance activities. · • SUM1 • · (talk) 06:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I think my only activity in this area has been to implement consensus where such categories have been nominated at CFD. There have been several renamings for clarity, but I think also some merges where multiple categories were considered unnecessary – sorry, I don't remember the specifics; maybe that was only where templates were also merged. My view would be that more cleanup categories do no harm to the general reader, as they are hidden categories, and may be created provided they will actually be used by someone. – Fayenatic London 07:16, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
We are somewhat ham-fisted in this area, as a community. We have deleted cleanup templates as being too broad, and we have deleted them as being too narrow. In the latter case we may have up-merged them, but in the former we have just de-tagged tens of thousands of articles, without a serious attempt to split them out.
I would be in favour of splitting these categories, if for no other reason, as a defence against someone having the bright idea of wiping the whole thing. I hope it would result in more cleanup being done, I certainly find that recasting a sentence to be readable (or at least less un-readable) is something that requires a different state of mind from fixing a table layout issue.
I will of course be available to assist, time permitting.
I am concerned that articles now belong in too many hidden categories, and the biggest culprit here is the redundant "All articles .... " part of the hierarchy, something I tried to address many years ago.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 08:31, 9 February 2020 (UTC).
Some transclusion statistics
  1. {{Abbreviations}} 99
  2. {{Colloquial}} 8
  3. {{Debate}} 21
  4. {{Essay-like}} 4372
  5. {{Example farm}} 565
  6. {{Fanpov}} 1581
  7. {{Inappropriate person}} 148
  8. {{Inappropriate title}}, 7
    1. {{Inappropriate title soft}} 5
  9. {{Long quote}} 48
  10. {{Manual}} 418
  11. {{MOS}} 342
  12. {{Needs table}} 3
  13. {{Overly detailed}} 2601
    1. {{Overly detailed inline}} 9
  14. {{Over-quotation}} 871
  15. {{Pro and con list}} 31
  16. {{Repetition}} 77
    1. {{Repetition section}} 17
    2. {{Repetition inline}} 8
  17. {{Research paper}} 59
  18. {{Review}} 243
  19. {{Story}} 293
  20. {{Summary style}} 12
  21. {{Term paper}} 27
  22. {{Textbook}} 24
  23. {{Tone}} 8816
    1. {{Tone inline}} 272
  24. {{Too many flags}} 1
  25. {{Travel guide}} 299
  26. {{Verbosity}} 25
All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 11:44, 9 February 2020 (UTC).
Thank you both for your responses and Rich for the statistics. I will see what Mr. Guye has to say, then I may start this process. Rich Farmbrough, you may have a point with the "All articles" part, but is this really a bad thing, given the usefulness of some of these categories? What is "too many"? Articles seem to have equal or even more non-hidden categories than hidden ones (screenshot). · • SUM1 • · (talk) 13:18, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes that is another problem. Causes are two-fold in this case, American Presidents always attract a lot of categories, secondly there is a lot of cross categorisation, a better system might avoid this. All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 14:28, 9 February 2020 (UTC).
@Rich Farmbrough: Cross categorisation was another problem I was going to point out at some point. Some are easy to fix, like the numerous cleanup templates (1, 2, 3) that are placed in both Category:Wikipedia maintenance and other categories that are inside categories that are inside Category:Wikipedia maintenance, like Category:Wikipedia article cleanup.
However, some, like Category:Hidden categories vs. Category:Tracking categories vs. Category:Container categories vs. Category:Wikipedia maintenance, which have instances of each other inside each other, look more difficult to fix without a significant change in established practice. Category:Tracking categories is inside Category:Wikipedia maintenance (since 2008), which is inside Category:Tracking categories (since 2017). But I'm new; I don't know whether this an explicitly sanctioned practice or a disorganised side effect. · • SUM1 • · (talk) 16:34, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Well there have traditionally been a lot of strangenesses in the article categorisation graph, though these have been reduced somewhat over the last few years: and the "back end" cats don't receive (or indeed deserve) as much love.
But the thing I was referring to was article categories like "Male non-fiction writer" and "American Presbyterians".
All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 20:18, 9 February 2020 (UTC).
While I appreciate SUM1 tagging me in, I have no opinion on this subject. Please do keep me in mind for other subjects, though. —DocWatson42 (talk) 06:33, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
@DocWatson42: That's fine. Anything that isn't objection to my plan works for me. · • SUM1 • · (talk) 22:28, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Thank you, SUM1. I don't have a very strong opinion on this other than to say that the system could use reform. This has been a problem that has confused me in the past. Category:Articles lacking reliable references is the apotheosis of the problem. I think that it is OK to have tags discussing basically the same subject (like {{Third-party}} and {{Third-party inline}}) go to the same category, but other than that I don't have much to say other than some level of reform would be welcome. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  00:09, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Rigor in using the concept "PC" (as in Personal Computer)

"site:wikipedia.org +pc" gives 65 million hits. There are four categories, IMHO, to this: PC as a political term, PC referring to a Personal Computer, PC meaning Microsoft Windows in a positive or neutral context, PC meaning Microsoft Windows in a negative context.

Now, my issue is with the latter. In the old days, many people (even still today!) perceive what I'd call an instance of Windows as "the PC", like "the Fridge" or "the Oven". This is very convenient for Microsoft, because most of the time, when the user is stung by quirks or bugs specific to Windows, the user simply "blames the Computer" instead of blaming the current Operating System. At the same time, whenever such a box serves people "above and beyond", Windows and Microsoft get the kudos.

My suggestion

I call for a more Fair, or more Rational, or at the very least a Policy for this... I guess praxis. (Mind you, I do respect and admire Bill Gates. He's my age and he and his wife are giving gazillions to Good Causes, which many others don't!)

What would be on the level of Wikipedia's stature is, to be precise in (even "casual") writing about personal computers and differentiating them from the operating system at hand. Especially when it is obvious (at least to professional computer folk) that the PC deserves none of the blame, only the operating system. Incidentally, this is painfully prevalent in discussions relating to hazards like Computer Viruses, where the average Joe honestly believes "these viruses" are a PC thing, and not a Windows thing. (We are 20 years past The Year Two Thousand.)

Dignity

It is below Wikipedia to be imprecise, or downright common in this particular issue. I know that what I'm saying is controversial, but I ask you to really think this through.

Disclaimer

This is the two cents I have. I am not interested in arguing or defending this position. Instead, I submit this as-is, and if it is not good enough, so be it. Gwrede (talk) 22:37, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Comment

  • In attempting to differentiate between a personal computer and its operating systems you are falling into the same trap yourself. A personal computer (PC) can run many different operating systems (OS), thus you can have a Windows PC, a BSD PC or a Linux PC and probably several other types of PC/OS combination. Indeed, you could even argue that a Mac was a personal computer though given the closed ecosystem that is probably a step too far. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:20, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • At the Video Games Wikiproject, we generally avoid using "PC". Its either the operating system, or "personal computer" (though once identified for the first use , we might switch to PC later in the same article. --Masem (t) 23:40, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not entirely sure what concrete change is being proposed here, but it seems fairly obvious that we shouldn't be using the term "PC" in isolation, with no context or definition. As Masem says, "personal computer" should be fine, which would encompass all the flavours, including Mac. I suppose there is a colloquialism of saying "PC" to mean something like what's described at IBM PC compatible, which for some might imply Windows as an automatic, others not. Either way, they key is to define clearly which sense is meant and to go from there.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I am also not clear what the exact issue is, or what the solution proposed is, as related to computers. If you type PC into the WP search box there are a lot of different definitions. My view is that it is up to each article to be clear, and in formal writing you should write out what you are abbreviation in full the first time in the article, and then can use the shortened version afterwards. If articles are not doing that, they are not being clear. As commentators above note PC in the personal computer term could mean an Apple 2, an Amiga, the current Macs or what are x86 / IBM compatible PCs, and many other computers. I would disagree with @User:Martin of Sheffield's comment re: Macs, as they are a concept still a personal computer although it is easier for most people to refer to them as "Macs" (being a subset of PCs). I also note computer viruses are actually a computer-thing rather than a Windows-thing: the first virus was non-Windows based. Viruses are more associated with Windows due to many factors, not least the number of users making it a greater opportunity for mischief. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 11:51, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
  1. There's only about 60,000 occurrences of "PC" or realted terms on en:WP, not 60 million.
  2. I think we need an example of a problem caused by usage to take any steps to resolve an issue. All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 14:32, 9 February 2020 (UTC).
There are about 60K in the mainspace, and about 150K pages across all namespaces, but the search specified at the top includes non-English Wikipedia pages. I get 82M ghits on that search and about 5M if "pc" is in quotation marks.
I looked at the first page of search results for "PC" on this wiki. I didn't see any that I thought were urgently in need of a change. I think that we should be using correct terminology, and I've no objection to spelling it out, but if the statement is about personal computers, then it should say that, and if the statement is about a specific piece of software (e.g., malware affecting only Windows, or malware affecting only Adobe Flash), then it ought to say that. The volume of uses doesn't really tell you much. I'd rather see a few examples of specific recommended changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm not entirely sure I follow what policy needs enacting or changing. There are already general rules from the MOS on the use of abbreviations, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations, that seems adequate to deal with any issues of the use of the abbreviation "PC", I'm not sure we need to get to the level of granularity of legislating particular usages of individual abbreviations. --Jayron32 20:17, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

RFC on a different kind of victim's list

There have been previous discussions here about Wikipedia:Casualty lists or Wikipedia:Victim lists. People interested in that subject might also want to join the Talk:Hospitalized cases in the vaping lung illness outbreak#Inclusion criteria RFC. The article in question is largely two lists (although not using bullet formatting) of two groups of living people, i.e., those who have filed lawsuits related to their illnesses and those who have talked to newspapers about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:21, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

A few discussions that I've seen recently, particularly related to BLP, suggest that we may need to rethink categories which are based on contentious terms or labels or other types of classifications which ultimately come down to some subjective determination from reliable sources. Issues arise from these as you cannot source include in a category (whereas you can with a list), and because inclusion is typically black-or-white, without the ability to explain further, can lead to issues of where the line for inclusion should be drawn. And of course, there's the larger question if we should have these types of categories at all. Nearly all other categories we have are based on objective facts that are apparent from sourcing in the included articles (though editors may have reasons to edit-war over which "fact" is correct) and thus not an issue there. Also in consideration is that we typically don't have categories for non-contentious but still subjective-from-RSes areas, such as no category for "Films considered the best" though we certainly have a list for that.

Because of potentially how broad this could be, it does not make sense to start an RFC before knowing what the scope of issues are so that a fair and impartial RFC question can be asked. To that end, I'd like to brainstorm here to figure out how to frame the question (not try to resolve it!) for a potential RFC on the matter.

Some of the questions that I can see that should be asked would include:

  • When is it appropriate for a category based on a contentious label (such as those listed at WP:LABEL or similar classification to even exist? Are there certain lines to be drawn? Should these only be as lists where sourcing can be used to demonstrate that inclusion is warranted? Is this a case-by-case basis?
  • Assuming such a category is appropriate, how should it be named? Something like Category:Conspiracy theorists or Category:Climate change skeptics can put possibly-subjective label into implicit Wiki-voice fact, which is not appropriate if their is any question for any element of the category. Should these be named to "People considered conspiracy theorists" or something similar, which assigns that there is some subjective nature from RSes for inclusion? In cases where there can be factual inclusion into such a category and subjective inclusion (such as for hate groups which can be factually categorized by the government, or subjectively labeled by a group like Southern Poverty Law Center) should we have dual categories, named appropriately?
  • What type of inclusion requirements should be required for including persons and entities on these lists? Since we cannot source category inclusion, how crystal clear or obvious should the association be? Should there be minimum sourcing requirements? (Can 1 RS be sufficient to include, for example?) Is this also a case-by-case situation?

Again - the goal right now is not to answer these questions but to get a scope of what questions we should be asking for a larger RFC on these types of categories, and I am only looking for input into refining these or adding more questions that would be appropriate in establishing how we should handle these categories otherwise. --Masem (t) 16:00, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

  • A bit surprised to see that the OP seems to make no reference whatsoever to related available guidance such as WP:COP, WP:EGRS, WP:OVERCAT (e.g. its WP:OCASSOC & other subsections). Before embarking on an RfC I suppose it needs to be demonstrated more clearly in what sense such existing guidance would be insufficiently helpful to find consensus on concrete issues. Precisely defining lacunae in existing guidance might lead to an easier overview of which questions need to be asked. On the other hand, if it appears to be so that nobody ever looks at existing relevant guidance, there's no need to do a rewrite of these guidelines based on a new RfC, while the new guidance would probably not be read more carefully than the guidance that is already available. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:44, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Per Schonken, I as well think the problem comes not from a lack of guidance, but from the willingness of the community to be diligent in developing consensus and enforcing already existing guidance. --Jayron32 17:22, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Whether a particular WP:REDIRECT section agrees with actual practice

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see this discussion at WT:REDIRECT, on the list of (non-speedy) deletion criteria for redirects.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:56, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Adding Current template to active presidential candidate articles

This:

All of these articles are updated frequently and subject to a lot of content and citations being removed and added constantly each day. Based on the wording of the template page's information, I think it's not advised to be used, but I feel it would be best given the inherit flux of these articles. Would I be warranted in adding this to the candidates at 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates#Active candidates?--occono (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

No. Not active enough at this stage, anyway. To quote the template's documentation page: Generally it is expected that this template and its closely related templates will appear on an article for less than a day; occasionally longer. feminist (talk) 02:54, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Also too biased towards US politics. If this becomes a thing, it should be neutral with respect to the title of the office-seeker. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 04:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
The template shown is the normal Current template, just with a variable value for active presidential candidate, I didn't mean it as a suggestion for how to word such a template in general of course :).--occono (talk) 08:39, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, did not see this discussion before opening a new one at Talk:2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates#"Current" template. I also oppose, for reasons explained there. I've gone ahead and removed them all. Hydromania (talk) 08:25, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Well if it's meant as a regular 'active events' warning, they're politicians, they'll always be active for at long as they aren't retired. And even then. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:07, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose as it would require an "active politician" template as well, which all politicians technically are. Plus it is U.S.-centric. funplussmart (talk) 01:29, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. At a broad level, templates such as Template:Current are justified when an article is likely to have problems that readers should be aware of (in this case, being outdated). While presidential candidates' articles don't update instantaneously, they're updated enough that readers can expect them to be relatively current, with the exception of ultra-new content that any reasonable reader wouldn't expect to have been updated yet anyways. Sdkb (talk) 05:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Advertising important policy and proposal RfCs on the watchlist

Currently, the only two major changes to the watchlist are the monthly Signpost edition and RfAs as and when they come by. RfAs are also advertised on CENT, while Signpost isn't. Imo, to avoid keeping it empty and invite more participation from the silent majority, we should advertise policy and proposal RfCs that have had more than a certain number of participants (20?) to invite wide-reaching participants. This, ofc, only includes the RfCs that are tagged with the {{RfC}} template and thus, already open to participation via FRS. The minimum cap should allay concerns about RfCs that aren't going anywhere to come up in our watchlists. Thoughts? --qedk (t 桜 c) 08:41, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Just for additional context: note the {{centralized discussion}} template currently is used to draw attention to requests for comments that have broad effect on the community. See Wikipedia:Centralized discussion for more details. isaacl (talk) 18:05, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi there!! I'm very glad to see this topic here right now; namely, because I just posted a proposal to address this actual topic. we are right next door, at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Idea for new community workspace. feel free to come by, and to add any comments!!! thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 18:20, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Who defines "important"? If we have someone making judgement calls, it opens the door for a stream of complaints every time we don't post one; if we go with "everything more than 20 participants", we'll have a constant stream of such things as "naming conventions for New York subway stations" which are of no interest to most people. (Taking the current "project-wide topics" section of WP:RFC, if the "anything with 20 participants gets listed" rule was in place then we'd at the moment have watchlist notices for such burning issues as "Should the New Zealand naming conventions be amended to allow the use of macrons for articles written in New Zealand English?", "Should the signature parameter be removed from infobox person?", "What should be the venue for discussing Rcat templates?", "Should drug prices be listed on articles about medications?", "Is it acceptable to blank userspace sandboxes of long-term/established, but inactive editors?", "Should an SPLC classification as a hate group be automatically leadworthy?" and of course "Should The Fellowship of the Ring etc be merged into The Lord of the Rings?".) I also don't buy the "silent majority" argument; when it comes to RFCs all participants aren't equal, and any closer is going to take the opinions of those who are active in the relevant area and are familiar with the issues more seriously than a gaggle of randoms recruited via a sitenotice. ‑ Iridescent 18:27, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
@Iridescent and Xaosflux: I think we can find good "middle ground" here. If changes are being discussed to a WP:POLICY page, surely an RfC regarding that will be general enough and deserving of site-wide participation? And otherwise, a monthly "See new open RfCs here" is not an issue imo. --qedk (t 桜 c) 07:54, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I'm one of the unoffical watchlist "gatekeepers" - and agree that something that is at least useful or important to most editors may deserve a watchlist inclusion. A significant change to general editing policies such a Wikipedia:Verifiability overhaul proposal could impact most editors for example, and I think it would likely warrant both a lengthy RfC and very wide advertisement; a change to something current like what content belongs in the the introduction to this single article obviously doesn't. In the middle ground you might have meta-issues such as Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal: “are you sure” page when clicking on “log out” before logging out - and I really don't think most editors care enough that we should bother them. Notice fatigue is real, so I think this type of notice should be conservative. — xaosflux Talk 18:42, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
Maybe the advertisement that we need is one that asks people to watch CENT if they're interested in that type of discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: if we want an "always on" link to CENT on the watchlist, it could be squeezed in to MediaWiki:Watchlist-details. Something like: See also centralized community discussions. perhaps? — xaosflux Talk 23:22, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
The header of Special:RecentChanges could also possibly be used (we link things to that on meta-wiki for example). — xaosflux Talk 23:27, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
We might consider running a 1-time or once-annually recurring advertisement of the Wikipedia proposals RFCs page (among others in that set) and/or Template:Cent. That gives people an opportunity to watch those themselves rather than forcing them to have a new watchlist notice everytime a new Important Discussion is held. --Izno (talk) 04:44, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
That sounds reasonable, another option would be to get signpost to cover it at least once as it is also delivered to user_talks. — xaosflux Talk 12:19, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
I like the ideas of an annual notice and a story in the Signpost. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:44, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Smallbones: Since Signpost is more of your field. Also, @WhatamIdoing, Xaosflux, Izno, and Iridescent: are biannual watchlist notices agreeable? In any case, we can post it to the watchlist once and then if people complain, discuss this further. --qedk (t 桜 c) 17:22, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
    I wouldn't want to see it more often then that really, just don't want to wear people out so they ignore notices. — xaosflux Talk 18:21, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
    Assuming that "biannual" means "semiannual", then that's okay with me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I saw the notice and found this discussion and just wanted to say that I'm really not a fan of the current formatting. Trying to find the important link (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/All) took me four tries and that is clearly not a good user experience. I'm not really sure how to fix it nicely, but I really think the most important link should be the only one in bold. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 13:02, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm quite surprised this notice was posted based on a consensus of three editors. I don't see how any of the currently listed discussions are so important to have a community-wide notification pushed on watchlists (Iridescent's examples are an excellent illustration). Not really a fan of a regularly-repeating notification either; it's indiscriminate, not distinguishing between times when there are important discussions and when there are not. When I receive a watchlist notice, I expect an issue that needs (not merely benefits from) the input of a wide range of editors. – Teratix ₵ 13:30, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I’ve gone ahead and removed it per the above. The format wasn’t particularly helpful in that you weren’t sure what you were clicking on, and I think doing a watchlist notice for RfCs in general creates more confusion than it creates insight. We already list RfCs which are major changes in how we as a project do business on the watchlist. For anything less than that, WP:CENT is always available if it’s a big enough deal where wide impact is needed. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:50, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Iridiscent and TB; encouraging a talking shop does little to encourage wisdom. ——SN54129 14:03, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Iridescent and TonyBallioni. Many of the discussions that are currently up and were on the watchlist don't particularly rise in importance of being on WP:CENT, much less on the watchlist with the Signpost and RfAs. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 19:38, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment I also had to click all four links before concluding I had no idea what I was being pointed at and asking for a clue at help desk, who kindly pointed me here. I don't have any objection to being pointed at specific RfCs that really do need wide visibility, but this was just confusing because I couldn't figure out what it could be. I'd assume the average editor-who-can-find-their-watchlist would be even less clued in. --valereee (talk) 20:11, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The way to get more people to participate in such important discussions is to cut down on the places where they are advertised, rather than increase it. That way everyone knows which page to look at. We have WP:CENT for this purpose, and if that needs to be better advertised then it should be so, rather than have its purpose diluted. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
    I don't think it would be very controversial to add a CENT link in to MediaWiki:Recentchangestext. — xaosflux Talk 21:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to blank userspace sandboxes of long-term/established, but inactive editors?

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 debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

Hi folks. Not to specifically call anyone out, but I have noticed that some editors are wholesale blanking userspace sandboxes of established, but inactive editors, citing guideline WP:STALEDRAFT, #2. This is a bad practice IMO. Not only is it a nuisance for inactive editors for when they return, but also it encourages unhelpful busy work amongst active editors.

So my question is as follows: Is it acceptable to blank userspace sandboxes of long-term/established, but inactive editors? -FASTILY 23:36, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

  • Yes. But, there should be a reason. The obvious reason from the words is that the content of the sandbox is "stale", as in no longer true. This is not just "old". Other reasons include dubious content that is turning up on internal Wikipedia searches. This really should be the exception, but far better to blank mildly problematic material than to seek its deletion where WP:ATD would favour blanking.
A hyperactive gnome who has taking to blanking inactive user's sandboxes indiscriminately should be asked to stop. I think that users over-policing others userspace are doing a net disservice to the project. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:44, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
The reason should be a good reason, and possibly a very good reason. "Old" is not a reason. Per User:Graeme Bartlett below, any possible use is adding content to mainspace is a very good reason to not blank. Userspace is No_Index-ed, so blanking serves only to hide the content from people searching userspace with the internal search engine. Mildly inappropriate things, like a list of a child's school friends, is good to be blanked. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:19, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
I think these blankings should be required to use {{Inactive userpage blanked}} or {{Userpage blanked}}. The first is very gentle with not even a hint that the page was inappropriate. I think it is well used for blanking possibly childrens' personal information, or a promotional draft topic. The second has a very subtle implication that something was inappropriate about the content. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:35, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@SmokeyJoe: postings of childrens' personal information should be referred to WP:OVERSIGHT. — xaosflux Talk 02:44, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
User:Xaosflux, what if it is just a list of names? "I like to play Fortnite with my friends, Joe, Jill and Jack". Personal, but not identifying. Their being children is presumed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
We usually take "personal information" to be shorthand for non-public personal information and are usually extra accommodating for minors - that example alone wouldn't need suppression, but if anyone is in doubt feel free to refer to OS, we'd rather say "it's fine" then miss something. — xaosflux Talk 03:32, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) I'm not sure how this meets WP:RFCBEFORE, and qualifies for having bot pings for wide range of editors, which has a non-negligible fatigue factor on an volunteer project. Having said that, with no context at all, no, these people should go do something actually productive instead. This is probably top five of the silliest things you could do on Wikipedia that has no impact on our readers whatsoever. It has little to nothing to do with actually building an encyclopedia. GMGtalk 23:46, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @Fayenatic london: Stop it. Save the Foundation the fraction of a fraction of a penny by blanking a user talk page when it literally makes no difference to anyone ever. You will die. You have a limited amount of time to contribute to this project. Use it to do something that actually matters even a tiny bit. GMGtalk 23:53, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
  • no blanking for being stale is not a reason. Perhaps there could be another reason to blank if the page was harmful in some way. However old abandoned userspace drafts may still be turned into articles, and I have actually done that in the last few days. If they are blanked then no one will bother with this small chance of benefit. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:01, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No (unless the sandbox page violates a policy). That is useless editing, especially when there are so many actual problems in actual articles that need fixing. Sandboxes are not necessarily, and often are not, "Unfinished userspace drafts" (quote from STALEDRAFT). Often they are experiments with code, samples of things that editors want to keep around, or examples that are being used as a demonstration to inform a talk page discussion. They may look like drafts, but unless an editor can read minds, there is no way to know. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:43, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No - not without very good reason, but then shouldn't we be looking at a rationale for deletion, not blanking? Looking at my multitude of chaotic subpages, a few could certainly do with a darned good sort out and tidy up, but I don't think that's reason enough to blank them if I stopped editing. There are a few gems in there that someone might find of use, and the rest are, like me, 'mostly harmless'. The contents would still be there in the history of the blanked page (assuming you didn't mean 'deletion'), so what would be the purpose of blanking content? I can't see any reason to do it unless it was breaching one or other of our content policies. I'm quite OK with deleting individual elements that are causing disruption, say to how Category content is displayed (e.g. {{adopt me}} templates in sandboxes or remaining on user pages of long-inactive editors.) But only if we were to agree that it was OK to blank the entire user and talk pages of all inactive or deceased editors, would it then be fine. But would we ever agree to do that? Nick Moyes (talk) 01:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No. Why on earth would anyone be sifting through sandboxes? One shouldn't be blanking inactive user's pages, why would you do it to their sandboxes? I think some calling out is in order, actually. Especially if it is being done on a wide scale. Ifnord (talk) 02:05, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes. More under WP:STALEDRAFT point 4 (which requires that there be problems with it, like BLP, reliability, or promotional stuff) than totally arbitrarily... but almost any draft is going to have one of those problems, since if it didn't it wouldn't still be a draft. Wikipedia isn't a web host and we should discourage people from leaving things like those there, especially since there is a small risk that they could be mistaken for an article if linked to directly. Also, with regards to the "those people should find better things to do" argument - keep in mind that the implication of this RFC is that we would then devote administrative effort to policing them and stopping them from doing such blanking, which only makes the problem worse. If the blanking is at worst harmless (and serves some useful purpose for the reasons I mentioned), I don't see the value to adding red tape forbidding it, especially since we absolutely want to blank seriously problematic stuff and trying to get stricter about requiring that it be problematic would be wasting even more editor time and arguments over stuff that doesn't matter. Blanking is easy, lightweight, and harmless. (Also, this RFC is a waste of time and the idea of starting it to prevent people from wasting time blanking stuff probably deserves a trout. If people think the whole issue is a silly waste of time, then we're better off dropping it and not worrying about what anyone does to stale drafts as long as BLP issues and promotional material isn't left up.) --Aquillion (talk) 02:22, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I have blanked some user pages including sandboxes because they contained blatantly promotional material but in general no, people should not blank such pages without a good reason. If someone is doing this and they persist after having this discussion drawn to their attention, they should be blocked. Johnuniq (talk) 02:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Meh I'm not seeing a strict policy discussion that needs to be had on this as some sort of standalone rule. I think it would be bad form for anyone to do this just because or in any sort of non-trivial volume. That being said, in most cases I think it is fine on a small-scale case-by-case nature; though outright blanking would be less desirable than at least placing a {{Inactive userpage blanked}} template. — xaosflux Talk 02:28, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
    One case where I think this is normally OK is for a user primary sandbox (e.g. User:User/Sandbox but not User:User/SomeTopic) that contains general non-encyclopedic things (like abandoned fake big brother graphs that I have no idea why people make, or an obvious resume dump) - as a preferred route over dragging the page to MFD. — xaosflux Talk 03:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
    In the context of this questions though, I wouldn't expect established/long-term users to have this sort of cruft there. — xaosflux Talk 12:56, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Generally, no. Some possible reasons for exceptions appear above. Johnbod (talk) 02:54, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No There are valid reasons to blank user pages, but inactivity should not be a factor in any circumstance. SportingFlyer T·C 03:43, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No – not just for inactivity; only if there is a reason (like copyvio, BLP vio, etc.) – Levivich 04:45, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes for duplicate articles, and other pages causing additional maintenance work e.g. when checking red links: WP:FAKEARTICLE which says "Userspace… should not be used to indefinitely host… old revisions… or your preferred version of disputed content". Blanking or redirecting is the standard approach set out at WP:STALEDRAFT, and avoids taking up other editors' time for an MFD. The positive reason for blanking is to save checking backlinks after deletions. XFD processes require cleanup in their wake, and should not give rise to more work for Wikipedia:WikiProject Red Link Recovery. That is to say, if when checking backlinks I find a userpage, I blank it so that it no longer links to categories/ templates /anything else that might be deleted; then, if those do get deleted/renamed there will be one less incoming redlink from a userpage to be checked. If the editor is long gone, I just blank the page following WP:STALEDRAFT; if the last edit was more recent, I sometimes first update the red link, and then leave an explanatory edit summary such as [7]. What has given rise to this "unhelpful busy work" – has an editor complained in a case where I omitted to leave an explanation? – Fayenatic London 14:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
    • My actions are also consistent with WP:ABANDONED #Guidelines. The many editors asserting here that "there is no reason" have probably not spent much time doing cleanup of red links after XFDs. – Fayenatic London 23:05, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
    • As more editors are naming me as a problem, I'm trying to remember what else I have done in the past that might have annoyed anyone. If the user is active, I usually just update the linked categories after renaming, although I might then blank the page if it's duplicate content as required under WP:FAKEARTICLE. There have been cases when I found backlinks coming from a couple of drafts by the same user, and then I checked what else the editor left behind, in case (i) any of it is suitable to be submitted for assessment as a draft article, or (ii) any of it is problematic as BLP. Apologies if I have then taken action with other junk that should have been left alone. – Fayenatic London 10:01, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No... I have never understood the rational behind STALEDRAFT. If something in userspace is problematic, I agree that it should be removed (deleted or blanked). But the question of whether the user is active or inactive is IRRELEVANT to that determination. If there are valid reasons to delete or blank material in userspace then remove it... there is no reason to wait until the user becomes “inactive”. If, on the other hand, the material is acceptable for userspace while the user is active, it should still be acceptable when the user becomes inactive. There is no NEED to remove it. It’s not like we need to free up the space for someone else. There is no harm in letting it just sit there in userspace... forever. Blueboar (talk) 15:20, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
That said - I would be open to further discussions on what should (and should not) be allowed in userspace. Perhaps we do need further limitations on what userspace is used for (or, to put it another way, limitations on HOW we use userspace). The point being that any limitations agreed to would apply to ANY userspace page... active or inactive. We need to eliminate the idea that something can be “OK while the user is active but not OK if the user leaves.” Focus on the material (and why it is problematic), not the active/inactive status of the user. Blueboar (talk) 16:43, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Blueboar, We already have Wikipedia:User pages which covers what userspace is for (and what it's not for). -- RoySmith (talk) 17:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I know... my point was to say that I would be open to amending that page if people think there is something not covered there already. However, the idea that the acceptability of MATERIAL in userspace should be based on the active/inactive status of the USER is ridiculous. Blueboar (talk) 19:16, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No. There is absolutely zero value to blanking a userspace sandbox. If it's objectionable for some legitimate reason (WP:BLP, WP:copyvio, WP:attack, WP:G11, WP:U5, or maybe a few others) then it should be deleted via WP:CSD if applicable, or WP:MfD otherwise. If it's just stale, who cares? It's causing no harm in userspace. I've got stubs in my userspace that I haven't worked on in over 10 years. I'd be really pissed if anybody blanked them. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:06, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No. At least not without some very good reason to do other than the fact that they're old and the user is inactive. — TransporterMan (TALK) 18:27, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No. I see some assumptions above that these are all drafts and the stale draft criteria should apply, however user sandboxes are not the preferred location for drafts, and may people use their sandboxes for other things besides drafts. There is no reason to blank someone's coding experiments, test page, page of lorem ipsum text, or whatever else people are using their sandbox for. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:40, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Of course it's not acceptable unless there is some other reason, such as spamming or WP:BLP violation, for removing the content. Don't people have anything better to do? Phil Bridger (talk) 18:54, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes with a reason. I sometimes do this after cleaning up after closing TfDs. Say an editor use their sandbox to test a template that is getting deleted/merged then blanking the now useless page is a good way to remove the page from Special:Wanted templates when it gets deleted. It's a useful tool when cleaning maintenance categories with basically zero costs. Systematically going through sandboxes is of course not appropriate. ‑‑Trialpears (talk) 23:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Who cares. I wouldn’t waste my time doing it, but I also think those who waste their time objecting to it should find better things to do. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:39, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No unless within policy. Many good points have been made above, particularly GMG—Fayenetic, you're wasting your time and ours. @TonyBallioni: to be fair, if someone wasn't already wast[ing] their time doing it, there world be no need for others to waste their time objecting to it! 🐤 ——SN54129 08:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Perhaps we might add a speific CSD criterion, so that unambiguously unwanted pages can be removed, but others must be referred to MfD, and useful content can be rescued? We might also consider the case of sandboxes of deceased editors, and separately those of banned users. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:00, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No, we already have adequate policy to deal with stuff where there is a need to remove it. Deletion or blanking of otherwise uncontentious sandboxes has no benefit, and might deter the return of some of our long missing editors. Worse it prevents the process of honouring deceased Wikipedians by completing their drafts. ϢereSpielChequers 16:19, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No primarily because, as stated in the OP, "encourages unhelpful busy work amongst active editors" Wikipedia already has too many nannys running around doing things like this. We need to discourage that. --Jayron32 16:25, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Wait (or NO) - perhaps I've misunderstood what's going on, but isn't MfD the correct venue for this, or at least tagging it and letting an admin decide? No editor should take it upon themselves to blank anything, and I don't believe an admin would just blank a page without justification. Atsme Talk 📧 16:30, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • This is a bizarre question. One wonders what the upside is. It's like, "Dear Abby, Is it okay to go through someone else's trash and collect certain kinds of trash so I can put it in my trash? No? OK thanks" -Jordgette [talk] 18:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No, as a general rule, allowing for (a few) exeptions, some listed above already. Because there is no net good, space is not a problem, indexing is not a problem. We should have a policy on inactive users, such that after long, really, really long inactivity, as in "presumably dead", allowing (forcing?...) user space to be cleaned up and usernames to be freed up. - Nabla (talk) 19:24, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, if the following are all met: 1. The page has something on it that is causing it to appear in maintenance lists, content categories, what-links-here links from multiple pages that could be deleted etc (so blanking it will save editor time), 2. The page appears to have been unused/abandoned (e.g. no significant inlinks and page not edited for 12 months or user not edited for 6 months), 3. A curteous message is left, and 4. The user doing the blanking is in good standing.  Blanking a page is not deletion; the page can easily be viewed/revived. Taking the page to MFD would use up more editor time (and bytes). It might be helpful if the blanking editor explained what led them to the page. DexDor (talk) 19:44, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No – User sandboxes vary in the type of material they contain, so whether they could be assessed as drafts much less as stale could end up being an overly subjective determination. Additionally, I don't see how going to the effort of blanking sandboxes benefits the project in any way. If they contain inappropriate categories or something, those could simply be removed by themselves. Master of Time (talk) 22:56, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No - There's just no benefit whatsoever. This is one of the maintenance tasks people engage in that I just don't understand. I get digging through userspace looking for spam, copyvios, defamatory content, made up topics, etc. but if you don't find that, why are you messing with sandboxes? Just move on. Especially if it's someone who has clearly demonstrated they're here in good faith. Nobody will ever see these sandboxes/drafts other than the creator and people looking for things to blank/delete, so why bother. (so yes, my "no" extends past established users to anyone who makes a good faith attempt to improve Wikipedia, or who uses their sandbox to experiment in order to better improve Wikipedia). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:26, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment - Here is my concern: that the result of this RfC, which is "no" to the point of WP:SNOWing, will be used to say "I would've blanked instead of taken to MfD, but that's not allowed anymore." We already see fairly regularly sandboxes taken to MfD that do not qualify for deletion but are nonetheless deleted "because we're already here" -- taking away one of the alternatives to deletion may exacerbate that problem. Probably best dealt with through a separate discussion, I know, but thought I'd express it here. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:29, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
I agree that the consensus is close to SNOW... but my take away is a bit different. People seem to be agreeing that “editor is no longer active“ isn’t ENOUGH to justify EITHER action (blank OR delete). People are saying that there has to be a more substantive reason to act. If there IS a more substantive reason then blanking is still sometimes an option. Blueboar (talk) 20:10, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
  • No the only theoretical benefit to the encyclopedia is if the sandbox has something seriously wrong with it such as a BLP violation, copyright violation etc and with an established editor that's unlikely. Otherwise all this accomplishes is to annoy the editor if they ever return to activity. I would suggest that anyone tempted to waste time doing this instead tries one of the many more useful tasks out there. Hut 8.5 14:56, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Sometimes/What's the occasion for this RfC? There are a bunch of straw man arguments that editors shouldn't be blatantly patrolling to blank userspace drafts, but is that something that's currently happening, and if it was, was there ever any question that sort of patrolling is unproductive? I've WP:STALEDRAFT blanked userspace pages when processing post-XfD/merger cleanup tasks (ensuring redirects point to the right location, deprecated files/categories are updated in articles, articles using the right template, etc.) and it's often the case that a userspace draft is a copy of an old version of an article (with few edits) and that the editor is not just "inactive" but hasn't been back in years. These drafts will accrue many maintenance edits when they're plainly not in use and likely will never be—they're forgotten copies or aspire to be. Is this RfC really to say that we should continue processing those articles during maintenance instead of taking a second to put them out of circulation? Is it an actual problem that users are having active drafts blanked and that they return, unable to find them again? Having trouble seeing the actual issue here except a growing consensus that stale userspace drafts should not be touched apart from extreme circumstances. I just don't see how that added friction benefits anyone. As a content contributor who keeps maintenance work to a minimum, it certainly doesn't benefit my workflow.
I would suggest clarifying to allow userspace blanking as a last resort (before MfD) when the article has no potential mainspace or communal draftspace use and the user is reasonably inactive (e.g., several years). This is not that different from the extant stale draft guideline. czar 15:41, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Sometimes per User:Czar. I've seen much of the same. I find old drafts of articles currently in mainspace that have been left behind for years, sometimes with the editor having been gone just as long. Yet these drafts are still edited, mostly by bots but not always. MB 17:35, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Only if there is an other reason aside from it just being not used for a while. >>BEANS X2t 13:36, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Use common sense - if it would probably be deleted at WP:MfD the editor should ask himself: Which is better for the project, to send it to MfD or to be bold and blank it? Reasons to take it to MfD have been raised above (e.g. stale draft, etc.). Also, if is is causing real technical problems that can't be easily worked around, which is better for the project, to edit it so the technical problems go away, or blank it? Note that "the redlink problem" that Fayenatic london raised at 14:39, 23 January 2020 (UTC) is an annoyance if you are checking things by hand, but not a reason to blank or edit another user's page. If an editor is checking things with a script he can reprogram the script to ignore user sub-pages. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 20:45, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
    I'm not aware of a script to check backlinks, so checking is all by hand (although if this identifies bulk changes to be made, yes they could be done using e.g. WP:JWB). Note that it would often be welcomed for some user pages to be updated, e.g. renaming an entry listed under "categories that I created". Redlinks bring other pages to light that should be blanked under guidelines e.g. WP:FAKEARTICLE. – Fayenatic London 22:09, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
  • It depends and use common sense per User:davidwr, who is on point and says it best, in my view. Generally, drafts should be kept unless there is evidence that the editor has long since abandoned or retired from their account—generally, my "rule of thumb" is any draft or sandbox which has gone unedited in at least 5 years and the editor has shown no sign of activity in at least four of those years. BD2412 said it best in the Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Jakefrdrck/sandbox, which closed as "delete," in his comparing it to the real life scenario of the care for their former desk of a long-departed employee. So, in short, my preference is leave as-is until such time the editor has demonstrated they have no intention of returning. Then it can go to MfD, closed as "delete," and WP:REFUND should apply in most cases should they return and wish to undelete their long-stale drafts. --Doug Mehus T·C 21:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Only if there is a very good reason. IMHO, other users' userspace pages should normally not be tampered with, with the obvious exception that user talk pages are open for appending to anyone who wants to discuss anything (within limits) with the user in question. If a user's sandbox page is causing no problems in main space, category space, etc., leave it alone, no matter how long it has been unchanged. If it does cause problems elsewhere, or if it violates policy (e.g. by being blatantly racist, child-porn, copyvio, etc.) then act as the circumstances require. For a mild problem, leave a message on the user's talk page and see what happens. For a serious problem, the page may have to be blanked or even revision-deleted. For an extremely serious problem, the user's account might even have to be cancelled (after due process). But IMHO a page should not be blanked or deleted for "just" having existed for a long time in an apparently inactive user's own sandbox. — Tonymec (talk) 01:15, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes - A less tedious process than deletion for promotional content (although CSD may be efficient enough when very blatant) or stale drafts for technical reasons (they turn up redundantly during routine cleanup operations for instance). Turning it into a redirect is often a good solution. Also easily reversible by any editor who may find it useful, so courteous and convivial. If the issue is important like BLP or copyright violations, blanking is not sufficient and we have better processes like CSD, REVDEL... If it's a non-redundant and potentially useful "lost draft", then it can be moved to main or draft space or brought to community attention (MfD, noticeboards, etc). —PaleoNeonate – 22:56, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes if per DexDor. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:16, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No Follow what it says, move it to Draft. Jerod Lycett (talk) 22:00, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No. If it is potentially viable mainspace content, move it to draftspace. If it's' worse-than-useless junk, take it to WP:MFD. If unsure, leave it alone; userspace is cheap.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:00, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment The blanking of sandboxes for "staleness" and the debate on why some editors think this is a productive action is the type of insanity which leads some people to stop caring about being part of the production of an encyclopedia. I gnome these days because I do not care to be part of a beaurocratic exercise in pettiness. If you are not directly producing or supporting the creation of content, then I wonder what Wikipedia is for. LessHeard vanU (talk) 22:47, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No Unless there is some obvious reason to delete it (non-free content, BLP violations, etc.) — and in that case, it can be sent to MfD instead or CSD if urgent, blanking it would only annoy the user if they return. Why would people be sifting through inactive editor's sandboxes anyway? 173.251.14.133 (talk) 12:17, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No While I might buy into an inactivity clause for deletion (but not blanking), there is no reason for another editor to be editing another's userspace. The busy-bodies involved in this practice should be booted from the project. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:15, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No What possible virtue is there to this? I would also second Chris' comments above. Andy Dingley (talk) 23:32, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
  • For cause only If it's a BLP without adequate sourcing or other obviously problematic material with little chance of being improved, sure, but otherwise I don't see how the current wording of STALEDRAFT applies. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:33, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No. I agree, let their user pages remain as they are. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:54, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No. Apart from common-sense exceptions (problematic material, abandoned duplicates of old revisions of articles, blatant POV forks, tests of old templates, etc.), userspace pages should not be meddled with, regardless of age. This has the potential to drive away returning editors, and risks throwing away useful content if done at scale. I really don't see the maintenance benefits: there are very few cases where that's needed (like removing mainspace categories, but this should be done across the board irrespective of age), and if editors find themselves inclined to edit in userspace in order to clear some gnoming tasklist, then they'll normally be much better off adjusting their workflows to ignore userspace altogether. – Uanfala (talk) 10:55, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No While the arguments in favor as to save time checkign back links etc are compelling, leave em alone. There should be a notice at the top of all sandboxes to the tune of "this is a sandbox not an article" if the material is not being worked on in a timely manner, but no need to find busy work. Thanks,L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 04:22, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No - Such blankings are generally pointless. In rare cases where the content poses a problem, the templates suggested by the guideline are useful. "In rare cases, if the content is particularly problematic but does not quaify for speedy deletion, consider blanking and applying these templates" would be better wording for #2 of WP:STALE. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 00:44, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No, unless they violate policy in some way (WP:POLEMIC, etc.). Sometimes good editors leave who have good sandbox drafts which contain good information no matter what state of completion they are in. There's no reason to blank sandboxes or edit other people's user subpages unless policy is being violated. Softlavender (talk) 04:55, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  • No, with the already mentioned exceptions of policy violations. If the presence of outdated links, templates, etc on these pages is thought to be a problem, I could see just wrapping the whole thing in "no wiki" tags and saving it as pure text. --Khajidha (talk) 23:10, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Revert blankings done due to inactivity?

  • I read a consensus above that blanking due to mere inactivity is not supported, and further maybe, that inactivity is not even a contributing reason for blanking a usersubpage. I take that to imply that the user of {{Inactive userpage blanked}} is disapproved of. Does this mean that the ~4000 uses should be reverted? In contrast, {{Userpage blanked}} is intended for inappropriate content, borderline and not CSD-worthy, although the wording is gentle; it may be used on inactive user's userpages but inactivity is not the reason for use. There are several hundred transclusions of this template. I see no reason to revert the use of this template, because this template should only be used where there was some reason not including inactivity. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:27, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Support. Softlavender (talk) 04:56, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose blanket reversion of edits that were made to fix a problem (such as incorrect categorization). If the user wants the page back (and in 99% of cases they probably don't) they can easily get it back. If for some reason an editor still thinks the page should be "live" they should (1) make sure they don't reintroduce the problem and (2) explain (i.e. in edit summary) why they think the page should be live. Inactivity shouldn't itself be a reason for blanking a page, but it may be a reason why blanking a page (for other reasons) is better than other options (such as asking the user to fix it themselves). DexDor (talk) 07:38, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Dexdor. If an editor wants a page back, then can just revert without requesting help from anyone. We should not put back the errors that led to the blanking in the first place. If a page is currently blanked, then the action was obviously uncontested. MB 16:47, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose What's done is done; and I don't see combing through places where this happened in the past as a useful activity. Let's just all agree that moving forward, we aren't going to do this, and leave it at that. --Jayron32 12:55, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
  • It Depends - I can accept a “what’s done is done” approach, as long as the practice stops. I agree that it would be pointless to revert the thousands of pages that were blanked on good faith prior to this discussion. However, now that we have a consensus saying that blanking due to inactivity isn’t the right thing to do, any future blanking of this sort should be reverted when found. Blueboar (talk) 13:22, 17 February 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.

Talk page length

Hi there,

Just want to tell y'all we're discussing the guideline (or "rule of thumb") that talk pages should be archived when over 75 kB, over at WT:Talk page guidelines#guidance on talk page size.

Feel free to chime in! Best regards, CapnZapp (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Ding-a-ling! EEng 11:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Atsme Talk 📧 14:17, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
as you said on my talk page, you have selected me specifically as the first editor to challenge about this, and I believe you had said something on 21 February about giving me a two week period to see if I wanted to do something about it? . DGG ( talk ) 07:53, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Align checkuser/oversight block policies with established practice

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.
Clear consensus to implement the proposed changes. Note that the email directions (per the discussion) have also been updated to avoid OS-related matters being sent to the general functionaries list. Primefac (talk) 02:40, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

In a recent arbitration case, it came up that our policies use inconsistent language to describe checkuser and oversight blocks, specifically whether a block marked as a checkuser or oversight block "should not" or "must not" be modified by administrators without access to those tools. Without getting too into the weeds on specific rationale (I will add a discussion section) I propose the following changes to the blocking policy and to the local checkuser policy: Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:40, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

To the blocking policy:

  • From the section WP:CUBL: "Without first consulting a CheckUser, administrators should must not undo or alter any block that is specifically identified as a "checkuser" block, such as through the use of the {{checkuserblock}} or {{checkuserblock-account}} templates in the action summary.[1]"

References

  1. ^ Non-CheckUsers should must not review CheckUser blocks that require access to CheckUser data, e.g., when an editor is professing innocence or is questioning the validity of the technical findings in any way. Administrators may still decline unblock requests that are made in bad faith, are more procedural in nature, or are off topic.
  • From the section WP:OSBL: "Appeals of blocks that have been marked by an oversighter as oversight blocks should must be sent to the functionary team via email (functionaries-en@lists.wikimedia.org) to be decided by the English Wikipedia oversighters, or to the Arbitration Committee."

To the local checkuser policy:

  • From the section "CheckUser blocks": "These blocks must not be reversed by non-checkusers. Administrators should must not undo nor loosen any block that is specifically called a "CheckUser block" without first consulting a CheckUser."

Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:40, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Support

  1. Support as proposer. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  2. As this is the obvious intent of the current wording and has been the practice for years. I don’t think this even needs an RfC, but sure. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:02, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  3. Support.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  4. Support, but, I would like to hear from checkusers about the possibility of language that better defines when a Checkuser block is made, as opposed to an ordinary block by a checkuser. eg. Is it a checkuser block merely because the checkuser looked at some technical checkuser evidence? Is it a checkuser block when the checkuser relied upon checkuser evidence that should not be disclosed? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:30, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    A CU block must be designated in the block form/log as a CU block, e.g., checkuserblock-account.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:37, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    Yes, know that, and that seems clear enough. Perhaps a bluelinked "CU block" would be even more clear, if needed. The question is: How does the CU decide whether to designated it as a CU block? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    That question has nothing to do with this RfC.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:18, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    I think it does, because it goes to the notion that someone might IAR unblock a newcomer because they infer that the CU slaps CU Blocks willy nilly. Clarifying what the underlying reason for CU blocks can be, I think is desirable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    I'll respond to this in the discussion section. It's relevant IMO, but I don't think any changes to the policy are necessary in this regard. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  5. Various organizations disagree on whether shall or must is better, but I think we can agree that should isn't must. Current practice is must, so a fine change. I don't think we need an RfC either, especially as must is language that will soon be adopted by ArbCom. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 18:39, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  6. Support as a purely grammatical change. The wording of a rule should unambiguously describe the intent. If the intent is "must not", then the rule should (must, even) say, "must not". -- RoySmith (talk) 20:03, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  7. Support – reflects commonly applied and accepted practice. Mz7 (talk) 02:22, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  8. Support per RoySmith -- common sense grammatical change. Puddleglum 2.0 19:01, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  9. Support Seems sensible. --TheSandDoctor Talk 09:44, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  10. Support if there is confusion then this needs to be rewritten to make if clear. Sydney Poore/FloNight♥♥♥♥ 17:30, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  11. Support - clarity is desirable. Cabayi (talk) 19:53, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  12. Support – Wikipedia's policies rarely strictly forbid anything, but this is a reasonable exception. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 18:46, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
  13. Support I just made the same exact changes to BLOCKPOL without realizing we have a RfC open regarding this. This should have one of those "consensus by editing" moves but either way, a no-brainer. Thanks to Izno for pointing out the RfC. -qedk (t 桜 c) 19:24, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
  14. Support that has been de facto policy, might as well have the policy reflect reality. ~~ Alex Noble - talk 08:19, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  15. Support clarity is better and this has been a de facto policy. Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 10:36, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  16. Support, why not? >>BEANS X2t 13:31, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  17. Support and suggest WP:SNOW close. EllenCT (talk) 20:12, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
  18. Support This makes complete sense to me. -- Dolotta (talk) 19:37, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
  19. Support Per above. -FASTILY 19:46, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  20. Support per all of the above. OhKayeSierra (talk) 11:38, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  21. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 12:55, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
  22. Support It would make more sense to apply IAR for cases that were innocent mistakes or other rare exceptions rather than have more open ended wording and apply IAR when it is not properly followed. Mkdw talk 21:14, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Should not is preferable. Every hard and fast rule has casualties. See for example the de-sysopping of Bish. All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 13:59, 9 February 2020 (UTC).
    What desysopping of me would that be? I don't seem to have noticed it. Bishonen | talk 14:12, 9 February 2020 (UTC).
  2. Oppose: this strikes me as a similar case to office actions, but Wikipedia:Office actions reads, Wikimedia administrators and others who have the technical power to revert or edit office actions are strongly cautioned against doing so. Indeed, we can make the same argument that an office action should almost never be undone because it is made with private information that the reversing admin does not have access to, yet the community has still supported reversal of office actions in some cases. I imagine it'd be snowing in the other direction were this proposal about office actions rather than checkusers. I guess the important difference here is that the community trusts checkusers and distrusts the WMF. Well I'm with you on the latter, but not the former. We have a largely outstanding cohort of very trustworthy checkusers and oversighters, but I do not trust them all. Of course, when it comes to actually reverting a CU block, the reverting admin should have a very strong reason why it is an exceptional case that warrants it, and they should understand that there will be consequences to their actions to all involved. — Bilorv (talk) 11:49, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  3. Oppose I also thing the "must not" is an overreach. It opens the door to people playing "gotcha" with good-faith admin actions, and this just opens the door to more harassment of admins from people with axes to grind in general against the admin corps. Should not is strong enough, as there should be some common-sense wiggle room in any rule of this nature. I personally have no intention of undoing checkuser blocks willy-nilly, but I also see this change in wording to be not beneficial to the project. --Jayron32 20:25, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
  4. Oppose; in general agreement with the sentiments expressed above, given my perception that with all the trolls, hackers and bad actors lurking on the Internet, checkuser determinations cannot always be made with absolute certainty. We should allow some wiggle room for April Fools' 'zillas and good-faith alternative accounts which may have been absentmindedly not identified on a timely basis. wbm1058 (talk) 13:51, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
  5. Oppose due to a necessity for clarity in emergency situations. If a CheckUser/Oversight account is obviously compromised, for example blocking every admin on the site and adds penis.jpg to all the infobox templates, I wouldn't want anyone hesitating for even a few minutes before deciding to WP:IAR and undo the blocks anyways to fix the problem. A few minutes is an eternity in internet time and if God-forbid a CU/OS account was compromised it should be abundantly clear to all admins that it's appropriate to undo these types of blocks in emergency situations. Aside from this caveat though, I'm in favour of the language change. But I'd very much like a specific exemption be made for emergency situations where it might not be possible to immediately get a CheckUser/Oversighter/ArbCom. Chess (talk) Ping when replying 06:28, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • The rationale for restricting management of checkuser- and oversight-blocks to administrators with access to the tools is that the blocks are based on private information, and more specifically that the private information directly contributes to the reason for the block. An administrator who cannot review the private information cannot assess the block simply because they don't have all of the information. The Arbitration Committee published a statement many years ago explaining all of this in better terms than I can, and the policies also refer to former checkuser Mackensen's much more to-the-point advice here.
It's come to light more recently that some users believe the Committee's use of "should" in their statement, and its use in the policies, implies that there are circumstances where an administrator can adjust such a block if they believe they have a good-faith reason to do so, without having first consulted with the blocking checkuser/oversighter (i.e. without having ascertained all of the facts). That is generally the case with normal administrative blocks of course, where all of the circumstances are public (to other administrators at least), but we need to make clearer that it is not allowed for blocks that clearly indicate that private info is involved. Hence these four brief but significant proposed substitutions. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 18:40, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Oversight block questions should probably go to the oversight-en-wp(at)wikipedia.org list, not the functionaries list; just as check user blocks go to the check user list, not the functionaries list. Additionally, these can go to ArbCom list. — xaosflux Talk 19:00, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    If either a CU or an OS wants to refer up, they can engage the functionaries teams as needed. — xaosflux Talk 19:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    I think that’s dated from before the practice of automatic review of OS blocks. Probably could be reworded to refer to ArbCom since requesting a re-review of something that’s already been reviewed within minutes of happening is a bit redundant. Also noting I don’t think we need an RfC to do what I suggested. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:15, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    L235 changed that section from "email the oversight list" to "email the functionaries" just this past November, noting that the oversight email list does not accept emails from non-oversighters. However, anyone can email oversight by emailing User:Oversight, and there's a form for it at WP:OVERSIGHT, so maybe this should be fixed - oversightable matters really shouldn't go to the functionaries, although that's better than, say, posting at WP:AN. The section was changed to "email oversight" (from "email Arbcom") back in 2016 ([8]) supposedly as a result of an Arbcom motion but the motion is not linked. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:08, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
    @Ivanvector: the os-l list doesn't, but anyone can email oversight-en-wp(at)wikipedia.org and it will send it to the OS team via OTRS. — xaosflux Talk 17:48, 1 February 2020 (UTC)
  • @Ivanvector: There is a section of the blocking policy that lists cases in which unblocking would "almost never be acceptable": Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Unacceptable unblocking. I've been thinking that something to the effect of When the block is explicitly labelled as a CheckUser or Oversight block, without the permission of a CheckUser or Oversighter should be added to that list. Mz7 (talk) 19:42, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • The note/reference change is internally inconsistent. The admin "must" not review but "may" decline? I think the "must" should remain a should in that case. --Izno (talk) 19:56, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Hmm, maybe so, but I think not really. The meaning of the "may" decline bit is (I think) meant for unblock requests which are clearly inappropriate. Like say a checkuser-blocked account uses an unblock request to write 36 capital letter Os bookended by two capital letter Ps, any admin (or non-admin, for that matter) should feel comfortable declining that. But no action can be taken on any reasonably good-faith unblock request without input from the blocking checkuser. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 20:12, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
      • Right, but at that point the admin has "reviewed" the request in question and made a decision as to its legitimacy (which is part of unblock requests--the other major part is whether the request is sufficiently convincing). I don't mind going the other way with it--and leaving all unblock requests with a CU behind it solely to CU-review, but if that's the case then the casual administrator should have nothing to do with it. Alternatively, we can reconsider the use of the word 'review' in this context without some qualification up front--allow the casual admin to review and reject (only) frivolous requests, and the CU to review and reject/accept non-frivolous requests. --Izno (talk) 21:23, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
    • I don't think that section needs any changes. Frankly, I don't think it's relevant.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)
  • @SmokeyJoe: regarding when to mark a block as a checkuser block, the Committee's 2010 statement included: "Checkusers are reminded that because designating a block as a "Checkuser block" means that it cannot be reviewed on-wiki or on unblock-l, this term should only be used when confidential information has been used in the blocking decision." The policy doesn't contain language quite this strong, but it's generally the guidance we rely on. "Confidential information" is deliberately vague; essentially, any time a checkuser makes a block based on information that could not be discussed publicly (per the privacy policy, or related policies) it is marked as a checkuser-block. Conversely if the block is based only on info that is available to any other admininstrator, we don't mark it. We're advised not to use the tool at all in cases where a block can be made without its use or where we don't expect it to have any benefit. Checkuser blocks should be limited to private information gleaned from the checkuser tool; if checkusers are coming across private information in other forms we should be passing it up to oversight or arbcom, just like any other admin. I do realize it can seem at times like some checkusers are slapping "CU block" frivolously ("willy nilly" as you put it) but in any case that it's come up as far as I'm aware, it's been proven (privately, because privacy policy) to not be the case. If a checkuser were using the templates inappropriately, it's abuse of the tool and the permission can be revoked. The only instance that I know of of a checkuser being removed because of abuse was detected by other checkusers, not from a public complaint, and it was not because of marking blocks inappropriately.
To hopefully answer your question, the community should trust that checkuser-blocks are only being used in instances where private information is involved, where the reason for the block cannot be discussed publicly, and that's pretty much the extent of what that template means. But all blocks, including checkuser-blocks, are subject to outside scrutiny - checkusers have a mailing list for discussing private matters, arbitrators all have the same access we do and can review the logs, and complaints to the committee about private-information blocks are handled quickly, as the Committee's statement says. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 13:34, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
All I will say is that the above is Ivanvector's opinion and the not the opinion of all CheckUsers--Bbb23 (talk) 13:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
Haughty. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
This is all based on various users' statements about the policies and my experience of best practice both on and off Wikipedia in handling confidential info, but it is certainly fair to say that this is my opinion and may not be held by all checkusers. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:11, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
Remember most people think stabbing yourself in the foot is a bad idea, but it is certainly fair to say that view may not be held by all. PackMecEng (talk) 19:15, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
the community should trust that checkuser-blocks are only being used ... where the reason for the block cannot be discussed publicly,. Is that a minority opinion? Why should the community have this trust? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
  • I welcome the RfC. Policy should not be lifted from ArbCom statements, because ArbCom is not supposed to make policy. A confirmation RfC fixes the problem. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:38, 30 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Somewhat furthert to the above, but feel free to move this or advise me to move it elsewhere if it's off topic. I was just looking through Category:Requests for unblock and found an unblock request from a user who has been CU blocked. Their page is tagged with the template Template:Checkuserblock-account. The template warns that "administrators undoing checkuser blocks without permission or the prior approval from a checkuser risk having their administrator rights removed". Right, so, I don't want to do that.
The question has to be, however: why am I seeing this unblock request at all? It's like I'm deliberately being given enough rope to hang myself.
My suggestion would be that CU block templates must always be used when the block is "technical", and these templates should ask users who wish to appeal to use not Template:unblock but some new template (CU-unblock?), which would put unblock requests into a different category. I and my non-CU admin colleagues would have no need to ever look at the category, would be blissfully unaware of what goes on there, and would as a result be much less likely to find ourselves in front of ArbCom trying to explain why we accidentally undid a CU block. --kingboyk (talk) 10:52, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
Hrm. {{Checkuserblock}} says that an account should post an unblock request to the talk page. The default MediaWiki:Blockedtext that all blocked accounts see defers to Wikipedia:Appealing a block which points to the general {{Unblock}} template. Some rewriting would be necessary, I think (and shortening). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:16, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
CU blocks may be declined by any administrator. In addition, many administrators add value in their decline by saying things about the behavioral evidence that supports the block. Sometimes, the unblock request raises issues that an administrator may wish to discuss, including wondering whether the block is misplaced, in which case they can ping the blocking CU with questions. I block many socks, sometimes 50 at a time. I obviously don't keep all of them on my watchlist. Nor am I one of those admins who handles the unblock request category, so often a ping is the only way I find out that a user has requested an unblock. Although this often creates more work for me, I feel it's part of my job, so to remove that component would not be helpful to the process.--Bbb23 (talk) 14:21, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
"CU blocks may be declined by any administrator". Good point, Bbb23. I'll get my coat. -- kingboyk (talk) 07:56, 4 February 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.

Stop putting Roud index numbers in the lead of folk songs

Every article on a folk song (e.g. Cotton-Eyed Joe) includes a sentence like this one in the lede: "In the Roud index of folksongs, it is No. 942."

This sentence contains essentially zero information. It takes up valuable space in the lede. We should stop doing this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2620:0:1045:18:7160:6E50:4F33:28C4 (talk) 08:07, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

My topic-ignorant and knee-jerk reply to that based on your example is Yeah! Remove or possibly move to an info-box if it's helpful to someone. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:48, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Or use as an EL, like we do with imdb. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:35, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Roud Folk Song Index is valuable information for those interested in the topic. Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:37, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
It may be valuable information, but surely not so valuable that it should go in such a prominent position in the text of each article. It should be treated in the same way that an ISBN for a book is, as an infobox item. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Do I understand it correctly that for the given example, [9] would be the right link? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:51, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Roud indexes are useful and important. Perhaps more time should be spent paying attention to MOS:LEAD: "The lead section ... It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:39, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Tell it, brother! I've fixed the heading. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:03, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
There was nothing wrong with the heading. "Lead", "lede", and "introduction" all mean the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
I, for one, find the spelling "lede" affected and exclusive of people who don't know newsroom jargon. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:10, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Comparison to the news-style lead, it is not an inconsequential difference like, say, heading and header. There is nothing wrong with highlighting the distinction via the "lead" spelling. There is also nothing wrong with using one word for something, since doing so facilitates clear communication. New editors needn't and shouldn't be required to learn that lead, lede, and introduction refer to the same thing; there are plenty of barriers to entry without silly things like that. I personally would draw a line after correcting a heading, which I did here, but before correcting a comment, which I refrained from doing here. But I'll never accept the implication that editors are being anal when they assert and defend the Wikipedia spelling per the guideline. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:00, 26 February 2020 (UTC)
I think you are reading far too much into the statement "The lead paragraph (sometimes spelled "lede") of newspaper journalism...". It notes the other spelling; it does not say that the other spelling means something completely different. We do still have a few editors who insist that lede means teaser, but that's not what the dictionaries say: "The introductory portion of a news story, especially the first sentence." (American Heritage), "The introductory paragraph(s) of a newspaper or other news article." (Wiktionary), and "the first sentence or short portion of an article that gives the gist of the story and contains the most important points readers need to know" (Grammarist). You can read more about the non-difference between a journalistic lede and a journalistic lead at Merriam–Webster's blog. Should Wikipedia have a journalistic lede/lead? Well, I think we should be writing introductions to encyclopedia articles, but to the extent that we have articles on current events, then we probably should have traditional journalistic leads/ledes at the top. That means getting the who-what-when-where into the first sentence and keeping the most important facts at the top. IMO there shouldn't be teasers (which is one type of "buying the lede", a phrase that almost never uses the lead spelling) in any Wikipedia article. (Header and heading are importantly different, and confusing those two can harm WP:Accessibility.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
You've missed some of my points. Bottom line for me is that there are better reasons to use one word than to use three, and that one word is "lead". (I also oppose incorrect use of "heading" and "header", for some of the same reasons. I was searching for a contrasting example and perhaps didn't search long enough.) ―Mandruss ☎ 01:22, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
If you want to settle on a single word, then I recommend "introduction", which will be familiar to just about anyone who had to write a paper for school. "Lead" is jargon from the newsroom, no matter which decade's spelling you happen to prefer for it. (The lede spelling gained popularity right about the time when the bigger newspapers stopped using Lead (metal) for their typesetting.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Nah, I'll settle on "lead", since (in my experience, which is as incomplete as anybody's) it has far wider acceptance than "introduction". I only rarely see "introduction" coming from experienced editors. Thus the road to consistency is considerably shorter for "lead". ―Mandruss ☎ 06:00, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, my mistake. I had thought that since your objection was "New editors needn't and shouldn't be required to learn that lead, lede, and introduction refer to the same thing", that you actually cared about minimizing the amount of jargon new editors have to learn. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:42, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
"...significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:09, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
This seems like something that should be sent straight to the infobox, or, better, wikidata AND the infobox. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 21:12, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, seems a perfect fit for an infobox. PackMecEng (talk) 21:14, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
I think inside the box as well. --A D Monroe III(talk) 22:03, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

RfA Consensus

The crat chat for Money emojii's RfA has brought up two areas that it seems like some discussion from the community might be productive. For both these discussions it's important to acknowledge that RfA is not strictly a vote but obviously does have numbers attached to it in a way that other consensus exercises do not. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:08, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Discretionary Range

Different crats seem to interpret the discretionary range differently. For some it seems to be a sliding scale, the closer to 75% the more likely they are to find consensus, the closer to 65% the less likely they are to find consensus. For others it appears that there is a rapid drop-off after 75% in likelihood to find consensus. There might be other ways not capture by these two philosophies. How do you think the discretionary range should be considered by crats? Barkeep49 (talk) 23:08, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

  • Get rid of it and set the minimum support needed at 69.5% and anyone above passes and anyone below fails. The current Gathering of the Elders methodology is unfair to both the community who voted and the candidate. We essentially have a House of Lords deciding what arguments they think are strong when the fundamental criteria is trust. I’m sorry, but someone who was highly trusted 15 years ago but is inactive now shouldn’t be able to say whether or not my reason for not trusting someone is good. Hell, not even newly elected crats should be able to do that. Who is anyone to be able to tell me that my reason for not trusting someone with the tools “isn’t strong”. That’s insulting and every crat chat is basically a super vote since there is not a policy that defines the minimum requirements to be an admin. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
    This is something I've been musing about for a while. I made a relevant comment way back in April 2017, and I think it's worth repeating here. The English Wikipedia has no official requirements to become an administrator (WP:ADMIN#Becoming an administrator). There are no documented community norms for becoming an administrator; many editors have their own ideas about what the community norms are, but nothing is set in stone. As a result, when an RfA within the discretionary zone heads to bureaucrat discussion, the job of "assessing consensus" becomes difficult. We generally don't want administrators to be selected based on a numerical vote; we want RfAs to be decided based on "the strength of rationales presented" (WP:RFA#Discussion, decision, and closing procedures). Yet unlike closing something like a content RfC or an AfD, bureaucrats have no official standards that would inform their decision.
    Instead, they are left to make a judgment based on their own experience, having observed and judged RfAs in the past. The way we've designed the system (i.e. with no official documentation in policy of what community standards for adminship are), it's no surprise that some editors think bureaucrats are "supervoting" and some editors think bureaucrats are "assessing consensus". The editors who are making the arguments that the bureaucrats are saying "weigh less" or are "weaker" will obviously disagree with them about it, and unless a vote is so totally off the mark that any reasonable Wikipedian would disregard it, it's not really clear who is in the right here because we have no rigid RfA standards. The reason we call it the "discretionary range" is because the result of the RfA is up to the bureaucrats' discretion, and as far as Wikipedia policy goes, the bureaucrats can exercise that discretion however the heck they want. Mz7 (talk) 00:26, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    To be fair, we do consistently get a handful of ridiculous arguments in almost every RfA (off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure someone voted support in the most recent RfA with the justification everyone agrees after quite a few people had opposed). A patch of middle ground between Tony's no discretionary range proposal and the status quo would be to instruct crats to only discount baseless votes (or alternatively, votes with clearly absurd rationale if we want to preserve people's ability to vote without giving a reason) and then just assess whether the adjusted total passes the 70% mark. signed, Rosguill talk 00:40, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    You and Tony make good (albeit different) arguments about no requirements, etc., but as a counterpoint, trust and confidence of the community isn't in practice significantly more vague than some of the standards used in other consensus-based discussions. The whole reason we have terms like deletionist and inclusionist is because most of the time there is a contested AfD, a judgment call being made by participants. Even bright-line "rules" like NFOOTY can get argued about! I'd counter that, much like with sysops at XfD, if bureaucrats are deciding what makes a strong argument based on their beliefs, they are doing it wrong. In both cases, they should be attempting to assess the consensus present in the discussion, taking into account the community standards.
    A good closer should happily consider arguments they do not like because the community does. There's an argument in your comments for stricter bureaucrat activity or participation requirements, even for bureaucrat recall, but outside of that I think half the issue is all the work we've done to turn RfA closer and closer to being a vote. The smaller the discretionary zone, the more scrutiny we get when we end up in it. Either it should be a 100% vote, which as noted has recently been handily dismissed, or we should let bureaucrats do their job. Either way, it would definitely be a good idea to see if we can't define some standards (beyond the above) for folks to point to. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 10:56, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • There are candidates who attract controversy at RfA because they've displayed inexperience or poor judgement at some point in the past, and there's candidates who attract controversy because they've worked in difficult areas long enough to make enemies. This second set, of which I'd consider myself a member, consists of people that would very likely be turned away from running at all if they didn't know that some sort of reasonableness filter would be applied to !votes. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

The ultimate problem is we're trying to tease out the relative value of the pros versus the cons for a candidate by examining the net opinions expressed by individual commenters. (For example, we see the bureaucrats trying to evaluate the significance of the concerns raised and weigh them against the positive qualities of the candidates.) I had proposed a reform where the request discussion would be structured to produce a weighted list of pros and cons. However, it didn't garner much support. isaacl (talk) 02:01, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

  • Along the same lines as Tony, just dump it. The arguments presented by the bureaucrats in their fabled 'crat chats are completely arbitrary -- and that's no fault of their own. "Good arguments on both sides, but I think the balance of the community is for promotion." "The supporters acknowledge and refute the opposing arguments." "The concerns of the opposers are more substantial than the supporters." Those are three statements that I just made up on the spot, but they could apply to any RfA, and they are all completely devoid of objective meaning, and just reflect the opinion of whoever is making the comment.
I think there should be *some* bureaucrat discretion exercised over things like troll votes, meatpuppetry or sockpuppetry, etc. But when it comes to figuring out whether an RfA has passed or not, let's set a strict numerical standard and keep to it. We intentionally don't have set standards for adminship, so there is nothing objective to measure the strength of arguments against, hence the pickle 'crats are placed in. -- Ajraddatz (talk) 03:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC) (expanded 03:45, 25 February 2020 (UTC))
  • Different crats seem to interpret the discretionary range differently. Thank God for that. The 'crats are humans and not algorithms. This obsession with numbers is a bad thing. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:18, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • One distinction between a deletion discussion and a RfAnything is that we have detailed inclusion criteria - known otherwise as "notability guidelines" - and other policies that govern when a page can stay or go. Thus such discussions tend to be analyses of how the policies and guidelines apply to the page in question more than votes about people's opinions. So sometimes a deletion discussion that by headcount is evenly split ends with a clear consensus for a particular course of action (and sometimes it is even closed against the wishes of the majority of participants). At RfAnything conversely we don't have detailed promotion criteria in the form of a policy or guideline that says "(don't) promote if <foo>" and much depends on the inherently subjective concept of trust. In such a place headcounts are more important even though strength of argument isn't completely unimportant. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:05, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Most of the discussion here seems to be about the discretionary range itself, but I think Barkeep49 was more specifically asking if and how 65.1% and 74.9% should be treated differently. Basically, what is the function that defines behavior between 65% and 75%, acknowledging that 0-65 and 75-100 are defined by y=0 and y=100? I think my rephrasing it that way is a little misleading, though, since the whole point of the discretionary zone is "here's where we need to think," and not "let's tally." Maybe 74% should be more likely to succeed than 66%, but the region should encompass all of the non-obvious percentages, so within the range the percentages alone shouldn't do the talking. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:06, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • To answer Barkeep's original query, I am inclined to push for the "sliding scale" interpretation, with a hint of Amory's caveat. The discretionary zone is for interpretation to occur, primarily on the comparative strength of reasoning. If that interpretation decided the reasoning quality was equally good, then I could see 73% passing and 66% not, but if was the key word. In effect, it should factor in, and at a sliding weight, but the primary !vote reasoning is what's most important. Nosebagbear (talk)
In quick response to the others, I think retaining CRATCHAT is preferable, and the common reasoning used by crats is acceptable. It absolutely isn't objective. However, the reason why RfBs are so tough are because we are in effect saying "yes, we have sufficient trust in your subjective interpretation to utilise it". I think cases missed out by an objective limit would cause more Community unhappiness and damage then the current set-up. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:44, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Alternatively, we could not throw the baby out with the bath water, just because we just had an RFA which was very tight. However you cook the rules there will always be a case which is on a knife-edge, bang in the middle of what you regard as your fail to pass zone but the principle of WP:CONSENSUS applies nonetheless. I personally think it's preferable to have a group of trusted and experienced arbiters when it comes to such a line-call, rather than leaving the whole thing to the tyranny of numbers. The current system allows for crats to fail someone on 80%, if there are some horrendous egregious things raised in the oppose, and it also allows a pass on 60% if a whole load of crappy opposes are there. Although such cases would be highly unusual, I think it's correct that they are allowed to exist.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • With the greatest respect for TonyBallioni, I disagree pretty strongly with his point of view above and agree with Amakuru. Those trusted "elders" help ensure the outcome doesn't get derailed by poor quality discussions -- which is exactly what we try to do in other potentially contentious, though usually less well-attended, discussions like deletion. They mitigate against the risk of an even more "unfair" outcome: tyranny of the loud, of the page-watchers, of the borderline-canvassed. A few years ago, we we plagued by RFA !voters with axes to grind, idiosyncratic criteria, and joke/pointy commenters. It's great that the community has matured past that (there are disagreements as to criteria, but much more healthy ones) and we're fortunate that recent, even discretionary-range RFAs have generally coalesced around very reasonable support and oppose argument which just different people weigh differently. But it's healthy to have someone taking a look for when that would not be the case in particular.
To Barkeep's question, I think a discretionary range of 65 up to 75 means promotion at 65 is tenable only if a sizable number of the opposes are weak, inscrutable, not explained, etc. Nonpromotion is tenable at 75 only if there are major, relevant concerns raised in the discussion that supporters have really not engaged on or acknowledged. What happens bang in the middle I'm quite happy to leave to the bureaucrats; the sky won't fall either way. Martinp (talk) 17:42, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
As I stated elsewhere, going back to five years before the RfC that expanded the discretionary range, there are very few RfAs that run to completion and end up in that range. I believe this indicates that the discussions in most RfAs are sufficiently convincing to either drive support above 75%, or below 65%. Recall that participants in RfAs are self-selected, and so are unlikely to be a representative sample of the entire editing population. Thus it's hard to consider the relative percentages as an absolute indication of relative support.
Due to the rarity of outcomes in the discretionary range, I think the best inference that can be made is that the arguments put forth and independent investigations performed failed to identify an obvious consensus in either direction. We just don't have enough data to determine if a 72% support percentage is significantly different than a 68% support percentage, for example. So I don't think either the sliding scale model or the cliff model works. I think during the RfA, the community needs to be encouraged to discuss the specific tradeoffs between pros and cons of the candidate, so the bureaucrats can have a basis to understand how to weigh the candidate's characteristics. isaacl (talk) 18:15, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Trendlines

Relative levels of supports and opposes can rise and fall over the course of the 7 days. When should/shouldn't RfA trendlines be used as indicators of consensus? Barkeep49 (talk) 23:08, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

  • In general I think a vote cast on the first day of an RfA should have the same weight attached to it as a vote on the last day and so, as a rule, trendlines should not be considered when evaluating consensus. However, there are definitely situations where "new" information could come out towards the end of an RfA which would make trendlines important and relevant. These would be the exception and not the rule and so I would expect that only in an occasional crat chat (which are already rare) would consideration of trendlines be appropriate. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:08, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
    That sounds like a fair summary that I would agree with. If something comes to light on the last day, and causes a sudden large spate of opposes and switches, that is something to consider. But, as I said several times, I think the trendlines should have been mostly ignored in the Money emoji RFA. The two major issues - content and maturity - were both brought to light on around the second day of the RFA, so it's not as if the early supporters had no time to think about it and reconsider.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:13, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
    This is definitely the viewpoint I'd agree with. The CRATCHAT also had an admin give an example of where their support % went up by 10% in the last day. While a less clearcut example than the "late negative news" example, I could see this also being relevant (e.g. a common objection was proved to be based on inaccurate information, or they save Jimmy's life on day 7). Nosebagbear (talk) 11:38, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Trendlines are meaningless and to say that the votes (and yes vote, because it is a vote and not a discussion and we’re lying to ourselves every time we say otherwise) of the people who come later are more important than the votes of the people who come earlier. As someone who is frequently one of the first supports because I recognize most names that run and don’t really have to dig that often, the idea that my voice is less important than the voice of someone who opposes on the last day really bothers me. It’s dismissive and insulting to people who are the early supporters to assume they would have opposed if they had known what someone else said. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:38, 24 February 2020 (UTC)
    Your perspective is valid, but I find it frustrating when several dozen editors rush to support a candidate during the early hours rather than waiting to see if any objections will be raised against the candidate. RfA isn't a race. Sure, there's no need to wait if you are familiar with the candidate, but is that the case for all early voters? It may not be fair to assume that these early voters would have changed their rationales if they had been aware of information that came to light after they voted, but it also isn't justifiable to assume that none of them would have changed their minds. Rather than being meaningless, trendlines are useful in demonstrating how later participants felt about the evidence raised during the discussion. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 00:02, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    Various proposals (including one of mine) have suggested having an initial discussion period without support/oppose opinions being put forth. The main sticking point is in order to allow once-a-week editors to support or oppose, the request for administrative privileges would have to run longer than a week, and there's not much support for that. isaacl (talk) 01:05, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Taking trendlines into account encourages strategic !voting, and as such would be a terrible thing to do. It's also offensive to many early !voters to downgrade their opinion, even while acknowledging the reality that some editors drop immediate and potentially not-well-researched "support" comments. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:44, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I wonder if the best way to handle the question of trendlines would be to stop extrapolating data, and instead leave borderline RfAs open until they are outside of the discretionary range. – bradv🍁 00:51, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    That would be brutal on candidates in a process that is already more strenuous than it should be. It also doesn't account for the possibility that a discussion could peter out or otherwise reach an equilibrium in the discretionary range, in which case the discussion would stay open until the candidate gives up, effectively making our success cutoff 75%. signed, Rosguill talk 00:57, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    Rosguill, that's a fair consideration, but there's also the possibility that the community would reach a decision sooner than the crats would. Particularly in our most recent example. – bradv🍁 00:58, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    It's not just the length of the process, it's that the candidate is expected to be able to respond to questions while the RfA is open. I imagine it's not exactly pleasant to wait for the 'crats to deliberate on whether you get the bit or not, but I would personally prefer that to another several days of answering questions in a public hearing. signed, Rosguill talk 01:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    Rosguill, in theory, that could be resolved by closing the questions after a set time, such as seven days. Not sure if this solution would be practical, but it's a thought. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 03:01, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    I like to think of an RfA as a snapshot reading at a moment of time, and so I think it shouldn't be any longer than needed to get a reasonable sampling of community opinion. I don't think extending it indefinitely is a good idea, as the process itself can increasingly bias the results the longer it runs. For example, you may get candidates withdrawing or commenters withdrawing their opinions in the name of unity to stop rancorous disputes. Or the whole limbo period may become extremely politicized, with both sides canvassing far and wide for sympathetic opinions. Let's see if more guidance on determining consensus can be worked out. isaacl (talk) 01:20, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • A potential solution to how to remove trendline assessment while still addressing the knee-jerk support phenomenon would be to only open voting a few days into the RfA, giving people time to research candidates and ask questions before voting begins. signed, Rosguill talk 01:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    In addition to the concern I mentioned previously on extending the length of an RfA, as I recall some were not convinced having a discussion period would stop blind support opinions. (I still think it would be good to have some minimal baseline discussion available before commenters started weighing in with support or oppose opinions.) And, well, if someone feels they have all the necessary information at hand already to provide an opinion whenever the opinion phase starts, why shouldn't they be able to state their views? The willingness to revise their opinion based on further discussion is the key characteristic needed, though that's a much tougher issue to address. isaacl (talk) 01:27, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    @Isaacl: something to consider, but off the top of my head I'm not certain that would be a good idea... the discussion period might end up a little like WP:ORCP, with people coming up with unduly negative points in the discussion phase, but worse than ORCP because it would be right there on the RFA itself. And the candidate then having to sit there nervous while the voteless discussion unfolds, with no supports to evidence that the RFA is a good idea. Early withdrawals might become more common without the validation of a spate of supports when the RFA kicks off.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:27, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    I don't think it will be any different than what happens now, except without a "Support", "Oppose", or "Neutral" heading above the discussion points. Editors would raise all the pros and cons they are considering. isaacl (talk) 17:45, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    I probably agree with Amakuru on this, but at the very least, requiring participants to return to an RfA, possibly more than once, would likely lower the number of !voters; I don't think that's a good thing. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 19:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
    I don't see any difference once the opinion phase begins. A participant can pick any time at that point to participate once, much like today. If they want to come back and review any subsequent discussion, that's up to them. isaacl (talk) 22:04, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Weighing a trend in favour or against promotion gives additional and undue weight to the side that is trending. If we are still operating under the assumption that RfAs are decided by consensus and the strength of the arguments, then those arguments should be able to be evaluated independent to the direction that the wind is blowing when the RfA ends. The trend is a shadow on the cave wall compared with the essence of the arguments being made. (though, as I mention above, I still think that without set standards for adminship we should do away with this notion of consensus and arguments and just move to a numerical standard) -- Ajraddatz (talk) 03:43, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • [cross-posting from Money emoji's crat chat] ...Everyone has a chance to assess the candidate in the 7-day period, it is absolutely possible that the assessment made in the later opposes has already been taken note of by the earlier supports and taken into account. As a crat, your job is not to second-guess the votes made earlier as if they made an incomplete assessement simply because the later opposes raised a certain issue. There is absolutely no evidence to your statement that earlier comments retain value, if they did, by your very own logic, this RfA would have an increasing trendline throughout, since that's how it started off, however it did not, proving your logic untrue by contradiction.
  • By saying, this trendline is giving me some idea about consensus, you are automatically reducing the weight of the votes placed earlier on, even if the votes placed earlier were more researched and well-formed, simply because a crat's "opinion" is that the trendline matters, Xeno got it exactly right the first time. If the trendline matters, we might as well all vote in the last one hour since that's all that should count anyway, but we don't, because every vote should count on their own merits, and not when they were placed. I wish this were down to a difference of opinion but it is simply not fair to those in this RfA who casted their vote with due diligence and exaggerates the view of the pile-on opposes which may or may not have any merit to them. And as usual, I'm open to clarifications. --qedk (t 桜 c) 06:53, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • The problem with trendlines is that they can mean a lot of things. Including nothing. If a lot of people are switching their !votes that might be useful, but a "trend" in and of itself is a weak reason for doing anything. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:34, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Trendlines are useful for one thing: finding inflection points. If something has been trending down or up steadily, or not varying much, then whatever. If, however, there is a fairly steady state until a piece of evidence comes out, and there is a massive shift, that is useful information. The trend isn't important, and it should not be the reason for success/no success, but it can be a useful tool for identifying when such an inflection point has happened. In practice, that sort of thing is almost always negative and usually happens early enough for candidates to withdraw, so the investigative utility is quite rare. (All this is noting, of course, that percentages before the first, say, 20 or 30 !votes should be ignored) ~ Amory (u • t • c) 11:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • In most RFAs, we're nowhere near the discretionary zone. Even if we are, strength of the arguments will be (at least to the bureaucrats) persuasive. I'm not against them considering trend in those rare cases which are getting close to coin-toss decision zone, and agree that when they do look at trend it is worthwhile to also look at reaffirmations of earlier supports or opposes. Martinp (talk) 17:44, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Trendline is only relevant if there is a major shift late in RfA, with vote rationales heavily citing freshly revealed information. That said, I think 24-48 hour extension could be better option in such situation.--Staberinde (talk) 17:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • In a vacuum, trend lines shouldn't be used since polling is not a substitute for discussion; in practice it's more difficult to give a hard-and-fast rule because sometimes polling is useful. Amory summarizes my view well and is a useful TLDR. If you want the nitty gritty, see User:Wugapodes/RFA_trend_lines. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:51, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

RfA Consensus/Crat Chat: General Comments

I think you mean this discussion Alanscottwalker. I would suggest that since we have settled that it's a consensus process knowing how we interpret things does matter, hence the two questions I threw out. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:05, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Actually that's archived poorly, that came after a bunch of other discussion about how Crat's should weigh in the Chat, which spawned discussion about how to rejigger the RfA process and the Crat process. Long story short, the gist whether good or bad was discretion means what crats say, it's their discretion Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:15, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Hypothetically a person could - and IMHO should - pass RfA with << 50% support if it was obvious from the support and the person's wiki-history the person would be the best administrator ever but the naysayers were there to grumble about trivial or irrelevant things. If he got 500 "nay" votes merely because he used American English instead of British English on his own user page, for example. This will never happen of course. Likewise, a person with 98% support could and probably should be denied adminiship by a Crat if it came out 2 hours before the close that his IP-only sock-farm was repeatedly abusing other Wikimedia projects, even if he never abused the English Wikipedia or the projects it depends on such as WikiData or the Commons. Again, I don't expect such a thing to happen but it could. However, for this reason we need to allow some 'crat discretion and we need to keep in mind that "early participants" may not see late-breaking information [particularly information in the last 12-24 hours] that would cause them to reconsider if they saw it. I do not mean to suggest that "trend lines" are always valuable - frequently they are not. But it does mean "the reason behind the trend" may be very valuable in some cases. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 17:32, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Use of polling in American Politics editing

WRONG VENUE
A discussion like this belongs on the reliable sources noticeboard, as it is one over the reliability of certain types of sources.(non-admin closure) Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 18:05, 13 March 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 have a proposal for a change to Wikipedia policy / guidelines (maybe a change to Manual of Style guidelines or Reliable Source guidelines). I want to propose something along the lines of: "When possible, use aggregate polling rather than individual polls". I've noticed that the tendency of some editors to use individual polls when aggregate polls exist creates unnecessary headaches, edit-warring and tendentious editing. The big issue is that editors may cherry-pick (whether intentionally or not) individual polls that are consistent with a particular narrative even though these polls are inconsistent with other polling. I've seen this in both 2016 and 2020, as well as in individual congressional races. There is no upside to using an individual poll when there is aggregate polling on the exact same issue. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:42, 13 March 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.

RfC notice: proposal to delete all of MOS:JOBTITLES

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#RfC on removal of MOS:JOBTITLES. This is a proposal to delete an entire section of MoS rather than continue trying to come to consensus about some unrelated disputes/confusions involving it. This could have an impact on at least hundreds of thousands of articles (resulting in reintroduction of capitalization of all job titles at any occurrences).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:19, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

This is a completely inappropriate and misleading canvassing attempt. There is a proposal, after widespread unhappiness with the present guideline and neverending disputes caused entirely by its flaws, as well as no progress towards any kind of consensus replacement, to acknowledge that the current text doesn't have (and/or arguably never had) consensus and to wipe the slate clean before working on a replacement from scratch. SMcCandlish claiming that this is happening "rather than continue trying to some sort of consensus" is interesting from someone who has adamantly personally opposed even the concept of trying to amend the guideline to try to resolve some of the years of conflict it has caused. The Drover's Wife (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
I neutralized the heading per TPG. Edit section to see original. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:02, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC for perceived WP:OR and misrepresentation of sources

Hello, I've opened an RfC, for a dispute in which @M.Bitton: has accused me of WP:OR and misrepresenting sources. We've been discussing it here. I adjusted my contribution in an attempt to make is more policy-compliant and address this user's concerns, but this user continued to revert my edits, and we have not been able to reach consensus. This is an issue that I believe affects WP:Systemic bias, Wikipedia:SBEXTERNAL, WP:Ignore, and other topics. I invite you to take a look and comment, and refer other editors who might be able to advise. Thank you. إيان (talk) 04:25, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

oh boy-- Japanese name order

Did anyone else see https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/23/media/japan-abe-shinzo-name-intl-hnk/index.html ? Think we are about to start a new era, ha. -CoronaEditor (talk) 23:47, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

You may be interested in the recent efforts to replace surname clarification hatnotes with footnotes. It's currently off the ground for Chinese, Korean, and Spanish names, but we still need someone to implement it for Japanese names. Sdkb (talk) 10:46, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

How do I make sure only policy-based arguments count?

I am currently participating in a discussion where most participants put forward arguments not based on Wikipedia policies (they are based on their convictions, their understanding of facts, but have no relation to the policy). In the past, I have been in these situations, when a closer would just go with the majority. How do I generally avoid this? I personally find the situation ridiculous, right now it is 3 non-policy based voters against two policy-based.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ymblanter: could you link to the discussion? El Millo (talk) 19:12, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I could, but would'nt it be canvassing?--Ymblanter (talk) 19:16, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Depends on the discussion, depends on the argument. And WP:IAR is also a policy. All in all, see WP:1Q and go from there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:21, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, but if I start following WP:1Q I should probably completely retire from the Wikipedia and Talk namespaces.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:54, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I would have thought that you have enough experience to know this, but if what you fear happens then discuss things with the closer, and only then, if you still think that the discussion has been closed incorrectly, raise the issue with the wider community. Why are you asking about something that will probably not happen? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:51, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
It happened to me in the past, and to be honest discussions where arguments are not policy-based are really tiring.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:54, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
I can only give my personal perspective as an editor who does NAC's occasionally. I've certainly seen discussions with internal comments on argument quality. If I see an editor replying to every opposing !vote to state why those !votes should be discarded, I have a couple of reactions. First of all, I tend to suspect the multi-replying editor of WP:BLUDGEON but then I try to put that aside and look at the !votes they've highlighted more closely. Both parts of that reaction can be counter-productive from the POV of the multi-replier and may actually strengthen the side they oppose. Instead of doing that, a general note somewhere towards the top of the discussion (just underneath the RfC question, perhaps) may be a better approach. It should be neutral and not personalize the discussion. E.G.: "Although all comments here on this question are welcome, opinions on the RfC that clearly identify applicable policies or cite supporting reliable sources are more helpful than ones which merely express personal preference." There is ample support for such a statement in our policies about talk pages, RfC's and closing discussions. It also signals to the closer and any subsequent participants the direction of the discussion. If that isn't proactively helpful then discussing the issue with the closer after its over is the next best idea. I hope this helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:49, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, a good advise in general, however, in the discussion I had in mind I was already accused in harassment and obviously had to stop responding. I will wait for a closer.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:24, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
Ymblanter, I'm pretty sure that arguments based on (verifiable) facts would be policy-based arguments. However, it appears that the discussion deals with disputed facts. Were you around for the Gdansk/Danzig naming war? (See Talk:Gdańsk/Vote and approximately every other discussion in the talk page archives from the creation of Wikipedia until at least the end of 2005.) It might be useful to settle a broad rule, e.g., that the names of all places in Ukraine will always follow a specified standard (e.g., always what a particular atlas or government agency uses). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. No, I have not been around in 2005, and never come across the discussions - I thought I would go and read it before replying, but at the time it does not look realistic (some people get free time because of this COVID situation, but we actually have to work more - and not that I was completely free before it all started). Here we have established - well, not a policy but at list a manual, and the discussion refers to it. The problem is that this is the area where there are a lot of driveby editors - who just know the TRUTH and do not really care about our policies as soon as they are not align with the TRUTH. They are much more numerous that people who established the manual, and some of them are perfectly reasonable Wikipedia editors in other areas, but immediately stop being reasonable as soon as they enter these ethnic battles. This is of course a general problem (we just recently had Poland being highlighted by an arbcom case and a number of blocks and bans), exaggerated here by the fact that very few editors care at all - and those who are policy-driven are a small minority.--Ymblanter (talk) 19:38, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

On some (rare) occasions, my comment has been "Note to closer" rather than "keep" or "delete". In the note, I make the point out that one side has the clear policy advantage, and it's not a vote. I did this recently, and it worked! The closer applied BLP to delete the article alth0 the large "vote" was pretty much a tie (which usually defaults to no decision). This is pretty rare tho. Usually if policy -- V, RS, BLP, NPOV -- prescribes or proscribes something, that carries the day anyway. Herostratus (talk) 02:26, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

thanks, a good tip--Ymblanter (talk) 17:36, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Dates in maintenance templates

Hi there, currently (and apparently for thousands of articles) @Dawnseeker2000: has been changing the dates on maintenance templates in articles. For example. Another example. I was under the impression that original dates are retained in maintenance templates so we can tell at-a-glance how long the article has been thusly tagged. It also seemed to me that "updating" the date to the current will lose information and falsify this history with an artificially younger date. Correct me if I'm wrong here. I attempted to modify these dates back to the original ones but I am being reverted. Other editors have been by his talk page with the same issue before, so I am not getting anywhere. Comments? Thoughts? Elizium23 (talk) 07:23, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

That is standard, albeit rather confusing. The meaning of the date in {{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}} is that all the dates in the article were checked and found to comply with dmy in March 2020. Someone looking at the article in April would not bother checking the dates again, but in a year they might. There have been discussions on that, and suggestions that some name other than date should be used, but the complexity has not been welcomed. Johnuniq (talk) 08:20, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
Johnuniq, that makes perfect sense to me, so if Dawnseeker2000 had brought that up, I might have believed him already. Thank you. Elizium23 (talk) 08:27, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
That makes a lot of sense. Where it doesn't make sense is when that's done (and it is done) in citation needed articles. Doug Weller talk 05:32, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC about edit warring and vandalism on the yearly April Fools page

Hello, I created a RfC for the edit warring and vandalism that has been occuring on the individual yearly April Fools documentation pages since 2017 and have gotten way too out of hand in the past two years. 107.77.173.61 (talk) 10:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Moving articles to draft space

When should articles be moved from main space to draft space?

I regularly see this being done, for a variety of reasons, often for clearly notable subjects, and am concerned that it is, in effect, "deletion by stealth" - it removes the content from our category system, breaks inbound links, and causes the content to be de-indexed by search engines. If no-one notices, then the content is later speedily deleted without community review.

There are no notifications (other than possibly via watchlists) to the initial author or other contributors, no discussion and no prior warning; and no guidance to new editors on how to appeal such actions. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:24, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Just as a note, when I move an article to draft space, it is either pursuant to a deletion discussion (which is reasonable notice to the community), or I have left a note on the author's talk page telling them what needs to be fixed for it to be restored to mainspace. I think that should be the standard. BD2412 T 13:31, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I would only move an article to draftspace after an AFD discussion takes place, and consensus supports doing so. Are there other situations when people are doing so? Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree that unilateral draftification is essentially stealth deletion. Maybe what we need is a process similar to WP:PROD, which at least gives some level of review. If it happens as part of NPP, I'm not so worried, because at least in that case you're pretty much guaranteed the original author is still around and paying attention. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:28, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Pre-RfC: introducing factual errors regarding coronavirus closures.

I am preparing an RfC, and would like advice of the wording and where best to post it. Let me describe the problem and ask for suggestions as to what solution, if any, I should propose. I would also be open to suggestions as to how to solve the problem without an RfC.

The problem:

We have been having a productive discussion at Talk:Knott's Berry Farm#Status during Covid-19 which convinced me that a prior consensus exists to not add infobox entries to the pages of major amusement parks closed due to the pandemic. Alas, that prior consensus has led some editors to deliberately introduce factual errors into Wikipedia as seen at this edit[10] changing "closed" to "operating" despite the fact that it says right at the top of https://www.sixflags.com/stlouis] "Six Flags Over St. Louis is CLOSED until mid-May.".

So, how do we solve this problem?

Pinging User:Ms784, User:GoneIn60, User:Epicgenius, User:JlACEer. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:22, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I think this boils down to whether temporary service disruptions or closures, for any reason, should be mentioned at all, not just in amusement parks but in general. If an RFC is indeed created (which in my view would help solve a lot of these ambiguities), it would have to deal with whether WP:NOTNEWS applies in these cases, and also whether WP:LOCALCONSENSUS can be used to override an individual policy.
The specific problem, in the case of many amusement park articles, is that many amusement parks are closed during the weekdays/closed altogether outside of their regular operating season. One may argue that a month-long closure may be notable enough to include if it is sourced, but one may also argue that per NOTNEWS, we shouldn't even be including minor incidents at all. Any potential RFC would have to take into account all of these potential arguments, since this seems to be covered by existing policy, though the extent to which it's covered is not too clear. epicgenius (talk) 23:32, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
How would you address the problem of factual errors being introduced as I documented above? Let Wikipedia contain information we know to be false (Six Flags St. Louis is still wrongly listed as operating instead of closed)? That can't be the answer. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:55, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Wikivoyage exists, and would be a much more suitable place for things like parks being closed iirc Upsidedown Keyboard (talk) 23:49, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Guy Macon, let's look at it from another perspective. When a seasonal park is closed for the season, or even for a weekday, we do not also change the status to "closed". Otherwise we would change the status every time a seasonal opening is delayed, or the park has to be closed for some emergency. I think that if an RFC is held to discuss the status of an amusement park in the infobox, it should be held at the page of WikiProject Amusement Parks. Otherwise, an RFC somewhere else would be ramming a consensus down the throat of a wikiproject that doesn't agree with the decision. epicgenius (talk) 00:09, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree. I also wonder if WP:NOTDIRECTORY applies for changing that status for temporary, seasonal, other closings. I think it boils down to is the location permanently closed or is it open for business.ms784 (talk) 00:31, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Should this become an RfC (not clear yet whether it should) I would oppose posting the RfC in WikiProject Amusement Parks, but instead would post a prominent notice there to wherever we post it (possibly Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes). Ramming a consensus of the Wikipedia community as a whole down the throat of a wikiproject that doesn't agree with the decision is often the point of posting an RfC. See WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Now it may very well be that the arguments made by the Wikiproject members prevail -- as I said before, I personally find them to be compelling -- but as it stands a consensus that appears to have been arrived at on the WikiProject Amusement Parks pages is being used to violate our WP:V policy on the Six Flags St. Louis page. That sort of thing needs to stop, but there are several other ways to fix it, such as simply not mentioning open/closed status in the infobox. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:35, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Guy Macon, I think not mentioning the open status in park infoboxes is a good idea, and it seems to already have a rough consensus. If a park is permanently closed, it will be marked as such in the lead. If not, then there is no problem with a temporary/seasonal closure. epicgenius (talk) 22:47, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment – First, a disclaimer. While I have worked extensively on amusement park articles, I'm not strongly tied to any particular WikiProject. I'm probably just as active at WP:FILM as I am anywhere else. As for where the RfC is housed, that shouldn't matter. By its very nature, we are soliciting opinions from across the entire Wikipedia community. The result is the result regardless of where it's documented.
    The status parameter in the infobox is misleading. It is meant to represent a long-term designation only. If a park or ride is closed for an entire season (or for several months beyond what is expected), we would update the status accordingly. Same if the status change was permanent. Maintenance and seasonal closures wouldn't be tracked. The COVID-19 situation affects everything, and therefore in my opinion, the closures would not fall into the classification of "beyond what is expected". We would simply leave it alone.
    The problem, of course, is that inexperienced editors or even veterans unaware of how that parameter is typically treated, would see "Operational" as a field that needs updated. After all, it's not technically active. It's a battle we've been having long before the pandemic. After years of trying to tweak it and educate others, I've come to the conclusion that editors simply don't agree on what is considered "long-term". Either that or the drive-bys don't stick around long enough to discuss. It may be time for us to bring this in line with {{Infobox company}}, where instead of tracking all the active statuses, we only track when something is "defunct". The dates of opening and closing are already parameters that can be entered, so truthfully saying something is opened or closed in a separate status field is essentially redundant. It would definitely simplify things and avoid confusion with newer editors. Just a thought. --GoneIn60 (talk) 03:40, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment - I have also considered that the status parameter might be more trouble than it is worth. I would not be opposed to removing it from the infobox. The long-term status should be apparent in the introductory paragraph if it lists a park or attraction in the past, present or future tense.—JlACEer (talk) 03:47, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, JlACEer. I was just about to amend my comment by saying that the status should be apparent in the opening paragraph of the lead, usually in the first line. --GoneIn60 (talk) 03:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
@JlACEer and GoneIn60: that would actually be a great idea: not including the status when the park is still operating and not defunct. If a closure is notable enough for the lead, it will be in the lead. If not, then we are not misleading our readers but we aren't also violating NOTNEWS. epicgenius (talk) 04:19, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Side note – I'm going to ping Ahecht as well to this discussion. He has been instrumental in tweaking the infobox code. If we propose something that isn't really feasible, I'm sure he'd let us know! For example, there may be situations where the opening or closing year is "Unknown". We might have left that blank and simply relied on the status parameter. If status goes away, however, can we insert "Unknown" into the opened or closed fields? Is there an issue with supplying a non-numeric value? I know some of those values tie directly into category creation. For example, Son of Beast is in the Amusement rides that closed in 2009 category, but that category isn't explicitly listed in the article. The year in the closed parameter is auto-populating the article into that respective category. --GoneIn60 (talk) 04:09, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm fine with listing the theme parks and attractions as operating while closed for the pandemic. The status field is generally not for temporary closures, and we don't update the infoboxes of amusement parks when they are closed during the offseason. To use the example above, Six Flags St Louis was closed January 1st through March 27th anyway, but we didn't update the infobox to say "closed" then. The park is physically there, the company is still in business, they have just suspended their operating season temporarily (see also WP:NOTTRAVEL). If anything, just update the "Operating season" field to indicate the planned reopening date.
I'm not sure removing the field is the best idea. That will just push the temporary closures problem to the "Closing date" field, not eliminate it. There is also a small technical hurdle to removing the "Status" field, as it's currently used for categorization. I think a better solution would be to just hide the status field if the ride is listed as "Operating", making it less of an attractive nuisance. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it's possible that the issue migrates from status to closed, but we could look at renaming the closed parameter to "Defunct" or something similar that makes it obvious this is for permanent closure only. So at least on a revert, we don't have to point to an infobox template for an explanation; it's self-explanatory. --GoneIn60 (talk) 20:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Wp:ZT

I took a look, and found that if you want to do self-harm, you will be blocked. What if we give them the suicide help number to help em, and don't Block them? New3400 (talk) 16:21, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

The thing to do is described at Wikipedia:Responding to threats of harm. Doing so will get the person helped. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:35, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I see that WP:ZT did not link to that page where a reader could be expected to find the link. I have fixed that. Phil Bridger (talk) 07:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Clarification / MOS policy

OP stated that he was advised to come here with this. I would like to see that diff, but I doubt any competent editor advised him to come here to complain about how he's being treated by an admin. More likely, the advising editor had something very different in mind. Setting aside the question of whether the complaint has any merit, there are appropriate venues for it and this is not one of them. I would refer the OP to WP:ADMINABUSE. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:15, 4 April 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 am trying to clarify a valid matter / issue / question. Long story short ... some administrator is threatening to block me. Advising me that I need to "just drop the issue". (See here: User talk:Joseph A. Spadaro#April 2020.) In my opinion, I have a valid / reasonable / legitimate question. Currently, unanswered / unresolved. A question designed to provide improvement (namely, consistency and uniformity) for the encyclopedia. In his/her opinion ... my valid questions are ... quote ... a "pointless quixotic waste of time". And -- again -- I believe this treatment is from an administrator. The User Name is User:Cullen328.

I believe that I have a valid question. Someone please tell me, where is the appropriate page to go to? I have been sent "round and round" to different places ... only to be told by an admin (User:Cullen328) that I am "wasting everyone's time". And -- because they don't agree with me -- I need to "drop the issue" ... or else be blocked. And that my question is "disruptive". (It's a question about commas and the MOS, for cripe's sake.) I have a reasonable and valid question. And I'd like an answer. How do I accomplish this? I was advised to come here (among other places). Is this the right page? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:47, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

:Prior discussion can be seen here for clarity. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:51, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Are you asking if this is the right page to ramble and waste more time? If so, the answer is no. I looked at your talk and the advice you received is correct: stop wasting people's time. If you have a substantive question related to policies and guidelines, post it in a new section. Johnuniq (talk) 23:04, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Joseph A. Spadaro, you are not just wasting people's time, you are also smearing the name of an editor who gave you some solid advice. You look like you're forum shopping not just for some comma issue, but to get someone to look into Cullen's behavior which, as far as I can tell, has been above reproach. So here is my advice: you can discuss commas until someone shuts down that discussion, someone other than me, but what you can not do is mention Cullen's name, ping him, or in any other way suggest that Cullen has acted inappropriately, because he hasn't. If you can not stick to this simple rule, I will be happy to block you until you comply. Drmies (talk) 23:36, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Why is everyone being so rough in here? He's got plenty of experience and clearly good intentions. If this is supposedly so unimportant then why does the MoS mention it in the first place? It takes so little time to just state your opinion on the matter, whether in favor or against. It's also a discussion that can prevent many others when it comes to not acting in accordance with what the MoS says. El Millo (talk) 23:33, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Please don't extend this to a forum discussion on how-to-be-nice. If you have an opinion on the issue, state it. Johnuniq (talk) 00:22, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
I have already. I agree with Joseph that we should either do as the MoS says or change what the MoS says, not something in between. And that goes for every case similar to this one. El Millo (talk) 00:30, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Facu-el Millo, the Manual of Style is a guideline, not a policy. It is not dogma. The lead section of the Manual of Style says, "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." As far as I know, the MoS does not address the intricate details of usage of commas in article titles, but please correct me if I am wrong. The common sense judgment of several editors who have expressed an opinion is that this dispute is trivial, pedantic and a waste of editor time. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 03:15, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Some of the detractors seemed to really care about it staying as it is. The discussion at WT:MOS felt like genuine and non-trivial, with two sides arguing for what they thought was correct. If it's trivial, why were they so against changing it? Just letting him change it would certainly end the discussion on Joseph's side. I think those who care can continue discussing it, maybe just solve it with a simple and informal Support or Oppose. What might've been excessive is how Joseph started spreading it through multiple pages, maybe it made the discussion look bigger than it actually was. El Millo (talk) 03:45, 4 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.

Are policies being used to the detriment of Wikipedia?

Okay, continuing to drag this discussion on is not appropriate. OP has been pointed to the places that he needs to change guideline/policy. --Izno (talk) 15:09, 21 March 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 would like to continue a discussion I started earlier, see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 152#Are policies being used to the detriment of Wikipedia?. Recently I worked several hours to add some recent research on Parkinson's disease to the article on it. Immediately it was reverted by one of the guys whom I complained about earlier, a group of editors who put watch-points on huge numbers of articles and whenever anybody edits those articles they immediately check to see whether, in their opinion, it conforms to the rules of Wikipedia. So in this case, it was reverted on the grounds that the references were either primary or "predatory". "Primary" means they were research articles in peer-reviewed journals, and "predatory" means that they come from those scurilous popular science magazines like (in this case) New Scientist. I am told (on Talk:Parkinson's disease) that we have to wait until someone publishes a review article (not a research article) in a peer-reviewed journal! The policy cited is Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). So if that policy really means that we cannot put the exciting research of the last year into the article, well then, I think the policy should be changed. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 17:21, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

I would recommend you pursue any further discussion about a discrete guideline at that guideline's talk page, in this case WT:MEDRS. I would further comment that you will need to have better rationale than you have provided here and previously for any change in this regard, and you will need specific changes that you would like to make to specific sections of that guideline. Good luck. --Izno (talk) 17:35, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I do believe that policy is meant to stop exciting research of the last year being added. It's on purpose and for what many consider good reasons. One is that exciting research of the last year is often at least partly wrong. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:35, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
As noted by Izno, this is not the right forum to pursue these questions. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:30, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
this is absolutely the correct forum to pursue these questions. That’s what the village pump is for. I’m amazed that you’d say it isn’t.
Please carry on with this topic. —Sm8900 (talk) 10:59, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
This is a generally correct place to discuss this topic, but guideline change, unless you are starting a request for comments, is almost always better discussed at the talk page of the guideline in question. It is a correct forum, but only minimally so. --Izno (talk) 15:58, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
if you need to cover information that is not covered in a journal, try looking to see if it is covered in major newspapers, rather than just online publications like Live Science. -Sm8900 (talk) 11:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
Major newspapers are often not considered good enough per WP:MEDRS either, but context matters. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:45, 9 January 2020 (UTC)


I prefer to have a discussion here rather than on the talk page of the policy about "reliable medical sources". I want the input of the general public, not some clique of guys who made that policy! Now, concerning what user Gråbergs Gråa Sång has written above, it may be that some things reported in the last year turn out to be partially wrong, but we can still report the research! If we were to exclude everything from Wikipedia about which there is any shadow of doubt, then there wouldn't be much left. Our readers deserve to know what's goin' on in a field, not just the established, conventional wisdom. And Sm8900, the popular science source I used is not "Live Science", it's New Scientist, which is a print magazine that has been going for more than sixty years. It is "the world's most popular weekly science and technology magazine" (see [11]). Eric Kvaalen (talk) 05:45, 13 January 2020 (UTC)
Didn't ping Gråbergs Gråa Sång and Sm8900. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 11:42, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
hi. Thanks for the reply! That’s good to know. Sm8900 (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
@Eric Kvaalen: Concerning the "predatory" bit, this is not because you have used New Scientist for a source (which would fail being a WP:MEDRS-compliant source), but rather because you used MDPI and Frontiers journals, which have various problems. Calling them predatory is a bit too extreme (Zefr has a propensity to do that), but they are not reputable venues, and again, do not satisfy WP:MEDRS. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:03, 23 January 2020 (UTC)


@Headbomb and Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Thanks for the explanation of "predatory". But I still don't know what journals that I cited are considered suspect. And in any case, I disagree with this idea that someone can come along and delete all my work just because he thinks that some of the journals referenced are "predatory" and some are "primary". We want our readers to have up-to-date information on the research that has been done. Or more to the point, our readers want that! Right? I don't think that Zefr considered each statement that I made and referenced, and decided that each one was too doubtful to tell the readers. I think he just hit Undo. Either these guys, like Zefr, are enforcing incorrect interpretations of the policies, or the policies need to be changed. (I'm not pinging Zefr, because this is not meant to be an argument just about what he did in this case. It's a general problem, with several guys doing it.) Eric Kvaalen (talk) 05:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

@Eric Kvaalen: Several people are tackling several different problems in several different ways, some with more tact than others, some with poorer arguments than others. So unless you give us other situations, it is hard for anyone to generalize anything and give you broader advice. However, one thing that should be clear is that WP:MEDRS has to be followed when WP:MEDRS-covered claims are being made, and that Frontiers Media and MDPI journals generally don't qualify as WP:MEDRS-compliant sources, regardless of if one considers those journals and publishers to be fully predatory like the garbage from OMICS Publishing Group, or merely 'questionable/unreputable'. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
@Headbomb: But what I've been trying to say is that I don't think the "MEDRS" (medical reliable source) policy is good, if it excludes putting in the research that I put into that article. I'm not asking for advice. I'm asking people to think about what kind of articles we want in Wikipedia. If you would like more examples of the same sort of problem (not just with medical articles), see the older thread that I mentioned at the beginning. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 17:05, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@Eric Kvaalen: "If it excludes putting in the research that I put into that article." That's exactly what the policy is designed for, see WP:WHYMEDRS. We don't want such research featured in Wikipedia, because it is too early, too erratic, and too unreliable in the evidence chain for Wikipedia. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:29, 2 February 2020 (UTC)
@Headbomb: Yeah, well, that's your opinion. The question is, does the reading public agree with you? I doubt it. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 16:47, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
What the reading public wants is irrelevant. This is what the community wants. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:15, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
Let's avoid making assertions about what "the community" wants. We don't all the same opinions about everything, and it appears from this discussion that at least some part of "the community" also wants to take the suspected preferences of the reading public into account.
Eric, I'm not going to say that we're perfect, or that we don't go overboard sometimes. Some of us would really like to exclude anything except solid Evidence-based medicine (which sounds fine until you realize that's about 50% of regular, conventional medicine, that there's more to medicine and medical conditions than objective facts, and that "the community" rejected the proposal to elevate the scientific point(s) of view over all of the non-scientific [that word means "arts and humanities and law and business and stuff", not nonsense] POVs years ago).
In general, it's my experience that mentioning a big media sensation in an article, in a very small way, is not an unreasonable way to reduce edit warring and get a compromise that editors can live with until the media hype dies down. But in other cases, I think it's easier just to play the game their way. So they don't want you to cite a "primary" peer-reviewed research paper on whether having an appendectomy reduces the risk of Parkinson's? Fine: cite PMID 31713092, which is a review article instead. You can do this by finding the paper you'd like to cite at PubMed – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30381408 – and then looking for the box on the side that tells you some other papers that are citing it. Start with anything in that list that's tagged with a blue "review" label and see what they say. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:54, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
@Headbomb: The policy specifically says that newspapers are valid, depending on circumstances. allowing mainstream media is one way to make sure we are expanding as a genuine resource. --Sm8900 (talk) 16:52, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
@Sm8900: the policy specifically warns against using newspapers to make WP:MEDRS claims or determine the WP:DUE-ness of scientific coverage. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 09:05, 10 February 2020 (UTC)


@WhatamIdoing: Thanks for the suggestion! @Headbomb: I'm amazed that you say that what the reading public wants is irrelevant, and that the only thing that matters is what "the community" wants! Who is this community anyway? Those who managed to get their opinions cemented into Wikipedia policy? We're not editing Wikipedia just for ourselves, or just for the pleasure of enforcing the rules. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 08:42, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Eric Kvaalen, it seems to me that the opinions of the reading public can readily be discounted when that population does not intersect with the one participating and forming consensus on Wikimedia projects. This is why: because Wikipedia is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" and therefore any sufficiently interested reader of Wikipedia can become an editor of Wikipedia with little effort. If anyone in "the reading public" feels strongly about a point of policy on Wikipedia and wishes to effect change, then the way to do this is to become editors and have their voices heard. Otherwise, the opinions and tastes of the nebulous, amorphous, "reading public" can never be known well enough for us to form policies and guidelines in the first place. That's why it doesn't matter, because it's too difficult to measure and it's easy enough to become an editor, and therefore, part of the community. Elizium23 (talk) 08:49, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Not only that, but if you made a poll that asked the scientifically illiterate general public questions about science, you will end up with answers that don't reflect the opinions that matter. If I asked people "Should legislators make laws mandating that doctors warn parents against the dangers of mercury in vaccines and their links to autism prior to vaccination", I would get "Oh yes, I don't want my child to get autism!" from a significant portions of them. So yes, what readers "want" is irrelevant here. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:51, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Eric wrote: We're not editing Wikipedia just for ourselves, or just for the pleasure of enforcing the rules.
Some of us are. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but, for better or worse, it's a true thing. Not everyone is as selfless and idealistic as you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
@Elizium23: Of course theoretically anyone can become an editor of Wikipedia. But there are milliards of people who just use Wikipedia as a reference. When they want to know about Parkinson's disease, they go to the Wikipedia article on Parkinson's and read. They're not gonna start arguing on the policy pages in favor of putting the latest research results. In fact, they will have no idea that the latest research results have been deleted from the article because of some policy about not using primary sources! (Or "predatory sources".) But they would certainly be offended if they knew. And Headbomb, I'm not advocating putting in nonsense about vaccines or whatever. I'm talking about the latest scientific research. WhatamIdoing, thanks for the compliment! Eric Kvaalen (talk) 12:39, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Unless the latest scientific research has been vetted through reviews and meta-analysis, it is not ready to be featured in encyclopedias, because primary research−, especially in biological sciences, is not reliable. Again, see WP:WHYMEDRS Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:15, 28 February 2020 (UTC)
Headbomb, I just don't agree with that policy. Wikipedia is not meant to be a place where only iron-clad truths are mentioned, like the Pythagorean theorem (in Euclidean space!). We can and should tell people what the latest research in medical fields is. And I also don't agree that just because some research has been published as a primary source it should be considered unreliable! Of course, the researcher may be lying, or something like that. But let's not be ridiculous. Even if it's not a primary source we can't be absolutely sure that it's true. So why should we make a rule saying that primary sources are out and secondary sources are in? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 20:51, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
See WP:1AM#When you know that the consensus is against you. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:54, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
@Headbomb: I don't know that the consensus is against me. We have a couple people here, like you, who think I'm wrong, but that's certainly not a representative sammple of what you call "the community", nor of course of what the public wants. Really, whom is Wikipedia for? Just for people like you? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 05:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia is for everyone, edited by everyone, and governed by consensus and policies like WP:DUE and WP:MEDRS. It is not a specialist's encyclopedia aiming to document every individual single paper ever published, every research dead end, and every piece of science by press conference/press release. See WP:WHYMEDRS for details, for the eleventy billionth time. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:59, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
We do sometimes go a bit overboard, though. We've seen editors try to remove all mention of common treatments for medical conditions on the grounds that there isn't sufficient scientific evidence behind them. It's still an encyclopedic fact that these things get used, even if they're under-researched. Only about half of conventional medical treatment is currently backed by decent scientific evidence. We should have all of medicine in Wikipedia, not just they've finished researching. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
We should have all of medicine that has undergone a scientific review, not simply all of medicine that was ever published or been the subject of one-off research. In 2019 a vaccine against cancer based on Protein X was studied by Smith et al.<ref>Primary source</ref> types of claims is exactly what we don't want. What we want is a critical evaluation of the research, ideally systematic reviews, that discuss what was studied and places it in a proper context. That is Multiple studies have investigated Protein X as a possible vaccine for cancer. As of 2019, results have been inconclusive due to poor control and methodology.<ref>Independent review</ref> is what we want. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:58, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
We really do need to have some way of reporting research that has been accepted by reputable bodies such as the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Cancer Research UK or the (UK) Medical Research Council but not yet accepted by WP as sufficiently reviewed. Quoting WP:MEDASSESS or WP:NOTADVICE may enable WP to protect itself against negligence suits, but it doesn't help non-medics trying to understand the often obscure jargon of professionals. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 18:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
@Kirbanzo: I agree and I've opened an RfC that deals with this issue here, with discussion that happened here. I invite you to take a look and comment. إيان (talk) 03:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
If my above comment would considered canvassing, please ignore. This is my first RfC and I'm trying to publicize it. إيان (talk) 04:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Ian, I think the other guy in your discussion is very unfriendly and bossy (as is typical), but in the part I redd (the discussion is very long!) I think I would have to agree with him that your addition was not 100% sure, based on the source you gave. Maybe it could have been reworded to be acceptable. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 12:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Kirbanzo, it would be nice to just "ignore the rules", but you know, they'll just revert that if you do! Even if it just breaks their interpretation of the rules. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 12:31, 21 March 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.


Let me bring in another example pertaining to the question "Are policies being used to the detriment of Wikipedia?". A friend of mine who doesn't believe in Evolution sent me a link to a YouTube video of a discussion with three scientists or philosophers. I wanted to know more about one of them, Stephen C. Meyer, so I looked to see whether there was something on him in Wikipedia, and there was. The second sentence said, "He is an advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design." I thought it was entirely gratuitous to "inform" our dear readers that "Intelligent Design" is pseudoscientific, and I saw that the talk page consisted of long arguments about the presence of that word. So I took the word out. I ask you, which version is better, for an encyclopedia, "He is an advocate of the pseudoscientific principle of intelligent design", or "He is an advocate of the principle of intelligent design"?

Well, within about an hour a user with a pseudonym something like "Eagle Eye Jack", who obviously had a Watchpoint set on this article, revertted what I had done and wrote a pleasant note on my talk page, "Information icon Please refrain from making unconstructive edits to Wikipedia, as you did at Stephen C. Meyer. Your edits appear to constitute vandalism and have been reverted. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. Repeated vandalism may result in the loss of editing privileges. Thank you."

Now, I was considering reverting his revert, and then doing it again after he reverts that, after which he wouldn't be able to revert without breaking the Three Revert Rule! But that would still be "edit warring", which is against the rules. So the article stands as it is, with the staus quo protected by rules. Someone wrote a comment in the text saying <!--Do not change or remove the word "pseudoscientific" without reaching consensus on the talk page first-->. Well, why should one side get its way if there's no consensus? The other side could just as well say that you can't add the word "pseudoscientific" until there's a consensus!

When I do "Show preview" of this edit, I see that Izno has closed the discussion. What gives him the right to do that? He's a partisan in the discussion.

Eric Kvaalen (talk) 06:53, 22 March 2020 (UTC)


According to my count, there were five people supporting me and three against when Izno decided to close the discussion (only a couple days after the last contribution). Eric Kvaalen (talk) 09:40, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Image Relevance

There is a case currently at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard involving drawings that may represent certain medieval historical people for whom no contemporary likenesses exist, and an issue concerning image relevance and whether the representations are encyclopedic. My own opinion is that the guidelines need to be clarified to establish that a representation of a historical person is encyclopedic if it has been significantly used in an existing reliable secondary or tertiary source. Where should any discussion of clarifying the guidelines be conducted? Any question about any specific image of any specific person should be discussed on the article talk page for the person, and dispute resolution applies if necessary. Where should the guideline be discussed? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:45, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

I feel it's going to be a section at MOS:IMAGES (its equivalent type of advice as the other parts in the first half of that MOS, though that whole first half seems less MOS-y and more on selection, but...). There's probably a more general way to say this, though coming from the DRN, we should consider that if a work that is an RS for us includes an historical of something that we know no modern scholar could have documents directly but makes the claim that it is what it represents, then we should reasonable accept that claim. That's the same principle that we use to include images of extinct animals and artists' renderings of far-away planets. --Masem (t) 06:01, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Refs in templates

While looking at Template:COVID-19 testing it occurred to me that all those refs show up in the References section of the transcluding article, and may duplicate or, in <ref name=... cases may conflict with other refs there. This is not presently a problem in the case of this particular template, which is transcluded by only one article. I've seen this elsewhere, however, and I've put refs into at least one template myself, and it is a potential problem. It occurs to me that a policy seeking to avoid this might be a good idea. One possible approach which comes to mind would be to require that refs generated by templates appear in a reference group with a name related to the template name. An example from the template I was looking at might be:

<ref name="italy-dpc" group="COVID-19 testing refs">{{cite web |url=https://github.com/pcm-dpc/COVID-19/blob/master/schede-riepilogative/regioni/dpc-covid19-ita-scheda-regioni-20200406.pdf |format=PDF |title=Aggiornamento 06/04/2020 ore 17.00 |date=6 April 2020 |publisher=Dipartimento della Protezione Civile |via=GitHub}}</ref>

Articles transcluding templates which produce references would then need to make provision for reference groups produced by templates which they transclude. In the case of the template I've exampled, that might be a dedicated ref group below the table.

Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:54, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

You probably don't need a separate group, just name the reference with the name of the template as in COVID-19 test template italy or w/e. But my general position is that you shouldn't be transcluding references just about ever. You have probably done something not quite right if you are (and I know of the accepted exception or two). --Izno (talk) 14:47, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Izno, creating a unique ref name with the word "template" is a much simpler solution, and will be just as effective. I have gone through thousands of pages trying to fix the backlog of reference errors, and there is a 0% chance you would run into duplicates using Izno's suggestion. Also, Izno, could you expand on your last point? I don't know anything about policies or conventions regarding transcluding references, but I encounter them a lot in the errors I mentioned above. --Secundus Zephyrus (talk) 16:10, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) (inserted)
  • The template I exampled has 127 references, so naming a (single) reference with the name of the template won't work in that case or in the general case where multiple references from a template are possible.
  • WP:V says in part: "All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including [...] and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." It seems to me that we're in a sort-of catch-22 situation here with templates making assertions which need inline cites and a clumsy situation re transcluding refs providing said cites.
  • I agree that transcluding references (putting references in a template which can be transcluded, rather) is not a good idea. Can you suggest a better idea for honoring V re assertions contained in templates?
I didn't realize that problems with transcluded refs were so common -- I imagined that this was a rare problem, not a common one. This is VPP. Should a policy suggestion which suggests a solution to what seems to be a problem which is apparently not infrequently seen be considered? Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:34, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
(end insertion)
It is common for templates to created named references. See Category:Templates that generate named references. There are no policies about references in templates or how to handle references in sections of articles that are transcluded into other articles. They do cause reference errors when the templates or transcluded sections change, making errors that are very hard to track down and fix. That's why I created the above category. A partial solution is to give template references unique names, and only if they need to be named. Then not reuse tham in the articles, accepting that there will be duplicated references occasionally. In the meantime when I work on broken reference names my edit summary often includes the phrase "hate transclusions". StarryiGrandma (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Expanding my suggestion a bit, if my suggestion were followed (and made policy to give it teeth and to justify fixes to incorporate it into noncompliant templates), it could be fleshed out to put that reference section with the default group name directly following the transcluded template and also to allow an optional parameter (perhaps named something like ref_group) which, if provided, would pass a group name into the template from the transcluding article and would override that default -- allowing a reference section with that passed-in group name to be located as desired in the transcluding article. This is all top-of-the-head from me -- I'm happy to defer to better ideas. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 20:49, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
Hmmm... There is no WP policy on templates. Perhaps I should shift this suggestion to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Templates. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 21:24, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

(added) Discussion of this has continued at Wikipedia talk:Templates#Refs in templates. More eyes on that and participation in discussion there would be useful. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 07:39, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC on fair-use vector graphics

Here is an RfC on converting fair-use raster images to vector graphics: Wikipedia talk:Non-free content/Archive 70#RfC on converting fair-use raster graphics to vector graphics as it relates to criterion 3b. Thanks! – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:24, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Redirect every term given as a synonym in an entry

For example, the article of million starts: 1,000,000 (one million), or one thousand thousand,... However, neither (one) thousand thousand redirects to the article. Therefore, I propose, for the sake of coherence, to redirect all the terms given as synonyms in entries themselves. --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

In a large part of the world one thousand thousand is 10 lakh, not a million. And I'm sure there are similar concerns with many of the synonyms given. This is really something that should be considered in each specific case, rather than a general "one size fits all" policy being created. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:22, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
WP:JUSTDOIT. --Izno (talk) 19:25, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Names of infected persons?

I reverted this edit which introduced to the article the name of the first person infected by COVID 19 in the Netherlands. I think I remember that we have a policy somewhere that such information about non-public persons should not be in the articles. I was reverted back (notably, by a user who has a total of 5 contributions) with the reasoning that since this info is public it can be in the article. Could somebody point me out to an appropriate policy? Thanks.

I undid the edit again with a link to Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Presumption in favor of privacy. WP:NOTTABLOID would likely also apply since the name of an individual infected outside the country under discussion isn't useful encyclopedic information. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:33, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, precisely what I needed.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Calls for political action in geonotices/watchlist notices

Are geonotices such as this one (requested by EllenCT, added by Deryck Chan, full request here) appropriate? It requests users to "Please send email asking the US government to require open access to federally supported research." My opinion is that no, it is not okay to use Wikipedia for political activism, regardless of how noble the cause. I've asked for removal, but I doubt the geonotice request page gets much traffic, so in the mean time, I think this is probably worth bringing up here to get some wider input. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:49, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure "making stuff free" is really a political position. I mean, if the government of Montenegro announced that it was considering releasing all it's official works into the public domain, I think that would normally be a pretty uncontroversial thing we could probably get behind. GMGtalk 13:54, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Asking users to urge their government to implement any kind of policy is exactly political. This is something that reasonable people might disagree with. And it's an extremely slippery slope that you're saying it's okay to start down. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:00, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, I'm not a particular fan of slippery slope arguments, and I've not exactly made it a secret that I personally and publicly disagree. GMGtalk 14:05, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
This isn't about what you think the WMF should or shouldn't do. This is about specifically urging editors, on their watchlists, to carry out political action – action that some of those editors probably disagree with. That you happen to agree with it doesn't make it okay to do. I'm pretty firmly against the death penalty, but I'd be appalled at a watchlist notice that urged me to email my senator about an upcoming vote to abolish it. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:12, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, and we're not a project working to abolish the death penalty. We are a project working to make knowledge more free and more easily available to the public. GMGtalk 14:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I’ve removed it. Political notices (and anything writing to the government is political) have historically been controversial and should not be added without clear consensus in a widely visited discussion forum. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Hi. Thanks Deacon Vorbis for opening the discussion and Tony for unloading the geonotice. I do think the combination of the prior discussions (WLN discussion, CENT discussion, GN discussion) have established consensus (at the time) that a geonotice about this OA for US publicly funded research issue was an appropriate course for action. However, I appreciate Deacon and Tony's objection. I believe we ought to address two issues in this discussion: (Ping other users who participated in the previous discussions about this geonotice: @Visviva, Xaosflux, Redrose64, Ymblanter, Trialpears, SnowFire, L235, and SD0001: Deryck C. 14:57, 11 March 2020 (UTC))
    1. Should watchlist notices imploring editors to take part in off-wiki advocacy be forbidden in general? (Let's avoid the terms "political" and "government", too vague and overloaded)
    2. If the answer to (1) is that some advocacy messages may be allowed, should we post a geonotice about the message in question (a US-targeted geonotice advocating editors to campaign for an Open Access policy for US state-funded research)? Deryck C. 14:40, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
      On (1): I don't think such notices should be permissible unless we're talking about serious threats to the project's continued functioning. --Yair rand (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I have noted Yair's objections[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] and consider them to be utterly without merit. EllenCT (talk) 11:02, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • My response to 1 is simple: yes, off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. Blueboar (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • As far as WLN's go - I'd say we would need a very strong consensus to do something like that, less then say a sitenotice, but more then cursory support. — xaosflux Talk 15:17, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Our editors from e.g. Elsevier can just as easily dissent. This is something the movement has been trying to achieve since the 1980s, so I've asked Jimmy Wales for his leadership on this. EllenCT (talk) 16:03, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
    • If it is something that the movement (read: the WMF) want, they have the means to use their meta headers to do that themselves, which they've done in the past. Its just that for the en.wiki community and related to the geonotices, my impress is that the collective group of editors is not considered part of that movement. Unless it is something that is fundamentally going to alter how we would interact with en.wiki (the SOPA/PIPA blackouts, and even then that was a bit of teeth-pulling to get the community to go through), the community is generally far too broad to use that for political directives. --Masem (t) 16:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
      • "The movement" can't mean the WMF, or anything Wikipedia-related, because Wikipedia (and even the world wide web) didn't exist in the 1980s. I am at a total loss to understand what movement this is that I am supposed to have signed up to. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
      • Yeah, I was referring to the union of the community and the Foundation, not the Foundation, which seems like a wet noodle politically these days. EllenCT (talk) 16:27, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
        • But "the community", if you mean by that the community of Wikipedia editors, also did not exist in the 1980s. What are you talking about? Phil Bridger (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
          • There was a large movement of people dedicated to the ideals of free knowledge before Wikipedia ever existed, you know. I'm not sure having a coherent rallying point has helped them advance principles (even as practice is orders of magnitude beyond what anyone had hoped) as this discussion shows. EllenCT (talk) 16:43, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
            • You are making a category error here. This is an encyclopedia, not a rallying point. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
              • And the Bastille was just a building? The point I am trying to make is that so many of the idealists have been caught up by the success of Wikipedia and in focusing on it, which is spectacular, they in many cases have lost sight of and the ability to act on broader movement goals, which is shameful, disappointing, and cause for pessimism. EllenCT (talk) 17:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
                • I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm not here to be part of a grand movement on free knowledge. I'm just here to build an encyclopedia. creffpublic a creffett franchise (talk to the boss) 20:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
                  • Why not both? EllenCT (talk) 20:50, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
                    • There is certainly a subset of editors at en.wiki that would consider themselves part of the free/open source movement, no question, but it is certainly no true that all editors of en.wiki consider themselves part of this, and that's why we as the body of en.wiki editors have to be careful about politicizing on the open source movement. The WMF as a body is in that position - promoting the open source stance is 100% within their mission, and so if they feel this is appropriate to push to all wikiproject, they can do that. There are ways to make sure that interested editors on WP see this potential to comment and petition for open access to federally funded research papers, such as through the Signpost and the Village pumps, and you should certainly post there. But, I do know from several past watchlist notices that editors on en.wiki absolutely do not like it when politized issues are forced on them via this mechanism within en.wiki. --Masem (t) 01:13, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with the removal of the notice. Promoting political advocacy on Wikipedia (with "political" meaning the normal definition of "relating to government policy, legislation, or electoral activities") should be avoided except when dealing with very serious direct threats. --Yair rand (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't have any problem with geonotices being used for political action calls (it's certainly a better fit than using WP:CENT, since no discussion is really being asked for, nor would Wikipedia internal dicsussion matter anyway). And I entirely agree with GreenMeansGo that more government-funded work should be unequivocally and unilaterally be placed in the public domain with no qualifications and no need to research on a case-by-case basis. My main worry for this specific proposal is what I brought up at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#Request_for_Information: Public_Access_to_Peer-Reviewed_Scholarly_Publications - I'm not sure this call to action will be effective, and if it is effective, its impact may not be what proponents expect. I would much prefer it if there was some way to make clear that the Wikipedia community's position is to support making more data publicly available in a positive and "we'll help out" manner, but not to be a negative bludgeon to be used as an excuse to defund or refuse to fund projects. (Since the exact nature of "make your data public" is inherently squishy and will vary project to project, it is exceptionally easy for a biased administrator to simply declare that a project isn't open enough if it's in a field the approver finds distasteful, or they don't like the proposer, or anything.) Of course, per my linked comments, even if only erudite emails supporting the "good" use case were sent, it will be easy enough to use such emails as an excuse for the commission to do whatever it wants, and Wikipedia is an inadvertent accessory to it. Or to ignore them completely. BUT: even if it's decided to hold off on this geonotice, I hope this won't be taken as "precedent" to never do this, as there are lots of open-access to information causes that a geonotice would be a good & valid case for. SnowFire (talk) 20:29, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment: because the OSTP solicitation does not limit comments to US citizens, nationals, or residents, I have opened meta:Requests for comment/Ask the US government to require open access to federally sponsored research. EllenCT (talk) 21:41, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • The idea that Wikipedia is, should be, or even could be wholly apolitical doesn't parse for me, so I don't understand the broader objections here. I do find SnowFire's reservations fairly persuasive, however; this a bit different from a notice-and-comment rulemaking situation where there is a specific policy proposal on the table, and it's not clear that contributor time would be very well spent on this. But beyond the specific matter at hand, I hope this might serve as a catalyst for thinking about how the project and its people might best engage with these kinds of policy issues generally (to the extent people find it worthwhile to do so). In particular, it would be nice to be able to leverage the wiki process to draft extensive, collaborative comments that individual editors could then sign on to (or fork) if they see fit. Perhaps some kind of quasi-Wikiproject would provide a suitable workspace, or perhaps Meta would be preferable. In any event, there is probably some nontrivial thinking that needs to be done about what form this sort of thing should (and shouldn't) take. -- Visviva (talk) 06:40, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • My opinion is that advocacy (see direct calls to action) notices visible to readers need to address topics that directly threaten the Wikimedia movement and open knowledge in general, like the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market Article 13. Watchlist notices, visible to logged in editors, have a lower threshold, and but should generally be informational (e.g. The US Government is soliciting comments concerning about Public Access to Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Publications, Data and Code Resulting From Federally Funded Research. The commenting period will close on March 16.) rather than beg editors to take specific actions (Please email them taking position X). Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • RFCing as any results from this discussion would have sitewide impact. Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 18:37, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Political lobbying is inappropriate There are some that confuse their personal political aims with whatever they think is good for this website. They don't speak for me and have no business using the aggregate here as leverage to change gov't policy. The spaces we use to coordinate our encyclopedic efforts are not bulletin-boards for the open source movement. If you want to advocate here, write an op-ed for The Signpost. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:25, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. Cavalryman (talk) 23:07, 12 March 2020 (UTC).
  • Off-wiki advocacy is dangerous to the reputation of Wikipedia. It crosses WP:NOTADVOCACY. Where is advertised in a targeted way, eg geopolitical targeting on user-secret watchlists, not transparent to the casual user, that is especially dangerous. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:23, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @SmokeyJoe: I struggle to understand this viewpoint. Compare if World Book or National Geographic put out a notice that they were considering releasing all of their content under CCBYSA 4.0. Is that political? Does it make it political that it's a government agency rather than a private company or a non-profit? Do we care? Is there some way where more knowledge more free for more people can somehow not align with our mission? GMGtalk 00:20, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • User:GreenMeansGo. World Book or National Geographic releasing all of their content under CCBYSA 4.0 is a matter for them, and that would be a perfectly normal notice. That is not remotely on par with enticing your volunteers, through a secret notice to them, to write to politicians. Wikipedia or WMF getting involved with knowledge-related public matters via public notices, with official authorization, would always be OK. A watchlist notice, not officially signed off, enticing to volunteers to advocate externally, not OK. {{User:GreenMeansGo/wmf-pd-userbox}} is good, it is a user statement, it is publicly posted. A hidden, co-ordinated, timed, campaign to recruit editors to write to politicians is not remotely the same thing. The Wikimedia Foundation should actively lobby regional and national governments to release their official works into the public domain, sure, but openly, not by using hidden Wikipedia features to fake a grassroots campaign. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:12, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • @SmokeyJoe: Wikipedia is a grassroots campaign, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy are not politicians, they are career public service bureaucrats and scientists. GMGtalk 01:50, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • No. Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia. A grassroots campaign is when unaffiliated individuals individually become motivated, before the coalesce. A fake grassroots campaign is like this was, hidden messages to an audience rallying them into a secretly co-ordinated, but ostensibly spontaneous action. Astroturfing. Co-ordinated targeting of a message to government's bureaucrats is undeclared lobbying. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:13, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Totally inappropriate, and Tony was completely right to remove it. I'm genuinely baffled that at least some normally sensible people could possibly have thought this would ever have been appropriate. ‑ Iridescent 02:11, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Endorse removal Off-wiki advocacy for geonotices is unacceptable unless it's a direct threat like arguably SOPA was. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:52, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Remove to be on the safe side. May not be a problem now in its current form, but could cause problems later if we allow it. (Sorry!) >>BEANS X3t 13:33, 13 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by BEANS X3 (talk • contribs)
  • "Political" doesn't mean anything, or equally, everything is political. We're on a mission to make a great deal of knowledge free and openly accessible to everyone on the planet—an expressly political goal which some governments oppose (Censorship of Wikipedia) and others are maybe more supportive of. To that end, things which aid our goal can be acceptable (Wikipedia blackout anyone?), but of course this doesn't mean that anything political is acceptable. I'm worried about the framing of this issue, not with the particular notice's removal, which I endorse. The opening statement's sentence it is not okay to use Wikipedia for political activism, regardless of how noble the cause is simply false because Wikipedia is political activism. — Bilorv (talk) 21:05, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
    @Bilorv: Supposing that we use the word "political" with the normal definition of "relating to government policy, legislation, or electoral activities" (because, you know, that's what it means)... Surely you would agree that it is at least not the sole purpose of Wikipedia to deliberately influence such things one way or another? I don't quite understand how to interpret "Wikipedia is political activism", regardless of one's position on this. In practice, we have in the past conducted political advocacy in response to serious direct threats to Wikipedia, but not in any other situations. Would you agree that Wikipedia's primary purpose is not to sway an election or influence government policy or legislation? --Yair rand (talk) 18:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
    Your definition of political excludes many political ideas e.g. libertarianism or anarchism (where there may not be a government at all). As for "not sway[ing] an election", well, it's simply not a concern of Wikipedia. If we point out the science on climate change then we may be swaying electoral opinion on a climate denying politician. I'd agree that our primary purpose isn't to directly swing elections, but I don't believe I ever said that it was; rather, I said above that I don't support the banner that was added in this particular case. — Bilorv (talk) 20:23, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Endorse removal. Seems silly to have to !vote on this imo. Using Wikipedia for political activism is inappropriate, plain and simple. -FASTILY 04:44, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden Wikipedia should stay away from political dispute unless they're a direct threat. --RaiderAspect (talk) 10:41, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Not dire enough to be permitted - I have backed advocacy efforts (including being on the losing side), such as joining it-wiki on blacking out over the EU's most recent copyright (et al) law changes. I, however, am in line with RaiderAspect above - we have a limited amount of impact, and we do better if we reserve it for avoiding major negatives rather than gaining smaller positives. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:52, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Endorse removal. It's "just" a watchlist notice, not a sitewide banner, but it's still at least a watchlist notice. The page is fully protected to prevent misuse, and this was misuse for a political cause. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 20:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment. To me, the general idea is simple: we must not get involved in "political party politics"; we must get involved in spreading knowledge and that is "politics in general". There is a wide gray area in between, great care should be take. Stuff as "write to you Congressman abou X" are generally not be done. Because it is most like "party" politics, and because this is not the USA's encyclopedia - Nabla (talk) 09:52, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Remark. The rationale for this call expired on March 16. EllenCT (talk) 04:21, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Support advocacy. At its highest aspirations, Wikimedia is a global movement whose mission is to bring free educational content to the world. Wikipedia is inherently part of this project, and to say that it is not the community's place to participate in politics because it's "just" an encyclopedia is blatantly forgoing our mission.
Regarding the need to appear unbiased, if users think we're biased in favor of open access, so be it. We are. We should not let trying to create an impossible appearance of impartiality get in the way of our core mission. Wikipedia is among the most-read texts in English; as a collective, we have considerable power — we might as well use it to further our cause. Not using it, upholding the status quo, is as much of a political statement as using it.
Consider the extreme. If a bill to delete Wikipedia was under consideration, I'm sure the reader would have no qualms in Wikipedia taking political action. Beyond legislature explicitly saying it is intended to delete Wikipedia, whose to say if political doings will have a positive or negative effect on the project? Whose to say if the potential effect is significant enough to warrant action? It ought to be the community. There is precedent for this in the protests against SOPA and PIPA. As Wikipedia has taken major action for major political causes, it should also take minor action for minor political causes. The determination of whether or not political advocacy is important enough to the project that Wikipedia should take action ought to lay in the hands of the community. userdude 08:39, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Support advocacy. Wikipedia exists in the real world and is not unaffected by politics, and its existence is in many ways inherently political. A blanket ban on advocacy would be illogical. Regarding the scope of such advocacy, I would support some amount of advocacy for causes that benefit Wikipedia as a whole (for example, it could be arguable that broader internet access is clearly in Wikipedia's interests), although going as far as supporting specific election campaigns and such would obviously be unprecedented and likely untenable barring extroadinary circumstances. That said, it would probably be difficult to create and legitimize a process for such advocacy (given that there have only been a few instances of it in the past), and the consensus here seems to be in the opposite direction anyway. Jc86035 (talk) 17:10, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. Notwithstanding the objections on the basis of neutrality, I completely disagree with the position being advocated here. This is a terrible idea. It will jeopardize the interests of research institutions as well as research that's not considered in the political interests of whichever government is in power.--WaltCip (talk) 11:45, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden; this was wholly inappropriate, and Tony was quite right to remove it. Setting aside the slippery slope argument (which is, in fact, valid in this case and in many cases), WP:SOAP controls: "This [policy] applies to usernames, articles, draftspace, categories, files, talk page discussions, templates, and user pages." I would advise all editors to write "geonotices" into this, too. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 21:06, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. As above. Use the notices when appropriate to inform select readers of the encyclopedia, but not to push political agendas. — MrDolomite • Talk 15:04, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden - I have never been a fan of Wikipedia and the WMF promoting political viewpoints on-site (particularly during the European copyright thing a few years back), and while I understand that some here feel strongly for doing so, personally I feel that it goes against Wikipedia's purpose and mission of being a free, open, and neutral knowledge resource for all. Promoting any form of advocacy here just doesn't seem neutral enough for me and in an article sense would violate NPOV. If the WMF wants to push for its causes, then they have alternative outlets to do so including their own blog. I just don't think Wikipedia itself should be used for such purposes. Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 23:40, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Off-wiki advocacy should be forbidden. I'm shocked that anyone would even suggest such a banner, let alone add it without strong consensus. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a free content advocacy organisation. Regardless of how worthy a particular cause is, Wikipedia should not be used for any purpose except building an encyclopaedia. Mobilising users for off-wiki activism is wildly inappropriate. Modest Genius talk 12:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Endorse removal. I agree with the OP (User:Deacon_Vorbis), "it is NOT okay to use Wikipedia for political activism, regardless of how noble the cause." And I would add that the moment we make one exception, *we open the floodgates* to all kinds of advocacy/political activities that will dilute if not overtake the true original purpose of Wikipedia, that of being an encyclopedia, period. The last thing we want is Wikipedia losing its independence to "special interests" from lobbysts, thinktanks, foundations, corporations, political parties, political movements, popular twitter-hashtag campaigns, or even governments. I also support User:John M Wolfson emergency-exception rule: to allow activism only for saving Wikipedia from certain and imminent doom. History DMZ (talk)+(ping) 11:26, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, we've already set the precedent w/r/t SOPA/PIPA that some off-wiki political activism is OK. In addition, Wikimedia is fundamentally a free content advocacy organization. That's why Wikipedia was licensed under GFDL and continues to be licensed under the CC-BY-SA. Copyleft is a political movement to counter copyright and it's foolish for us to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that Wikipedia isn't political. If we wanted to be apolitical we'd license under CC-BY or even CC0. I'm saying this because many editors who are opposing this proposal are doing it under the premonition that Wikipedia has been neutral or is neutral with respect to political activism relating to copyright. This is just not true. The purpose of Wikipedia has always been the promotion and advocacy of free content by creating an encyclopedia of human knowledge founded on copyleft principles. Most of our contributions to Wikipedia are political for this reason, because unless you're willing to release your contributions under a non-copyleft license you're actively participating in the creation & promotion of free content. Plus there's the numerous edit-a-thons for underrepresented women, the WP:GGTF, etc etc. All of these involve on-wiki political advocacy that we allow.
I do believe that there are lines that should be drawn. The content of our articles themselves need to be free of political advocacy despite their distribution being a political act. We should continue to remain neutral everywhere in the article space. We should be focusing on our core mission of promoting and spreading copyleft content. The watchlist notice that was proposed may or may not fall into that. That's a matter for community consensus to decide and I believe there's a lot of discussion we can have in that regard. But many of the !votes I'm seeing here are under the impression that Wikipedia is intended to be non-political or that the overall Wikimedia project is neutral with regards to "free knowledge". That couldn't be farther from the truth. We've always been political and it's foolish to refuse to acknowledge that. Chess (talk) Ping when replying 06:30, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Support informational notices, like Headbomb's example. But only for core issues like open access (noting those views above that Wikipedia's very existence is tied to principles like free information, free participation, and techniques like copyleft licensing). Oppose specific instructions like "write to your congress(wo)man", partly because it's offputting to community members who hold different views, and partly because it leaves us open to criticism for Astroturfing as SmokeyJoe argued. Sorry, EllenCT, I do believe that this is a worthy cause, and truly appreciate your efforts. Pelagic (talk) 00:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a pressure group. Attempts to leverage Wikipedia's name and credibility for non-encyclopaedic purposes really need to be out of bounds. Stick to the task we're WP:HERE to do.—S Marshall T/C 13:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Support per Headbomb. There are some actions political leaders across the world take (or consider taking) that may impact the core mission of Wikipedia where direct advocacy may be necessary. I also agree that there are times where informational notices may be more appropriate. I am not sure which body should vet (and reach consensus on either calls to action or informational notices) - but that is another subject. --Enos733 (talk) 15:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm leaning towards no except for matters which are likely to directly impact Wikipedia's functioning and viability. E.g. SOPA/PIPA, Article 13 - yes, net neutrality - no. If there's a lot of support for things that we happen to be a part of like open access and FLOSS movement I would support that too, but the problem is that I'd support it because these happen to be my interests (as well as WP's). That's a slippery slope towards supporting more and more tangential matters that we the editors mostly tend to agree on, which is basically what WP:NOTADVOCACY should guard us from. Daß Wölf 22:47, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Endorse this specific removal, as it is merely something that would be nice to have. However, I am in favor of political advocacy when it concerns proposed legislation which could pose an existential threat to Wikipedia's operations, such as laws forcing content providers to remove information when someone complains or give up private user data to the government. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

G5 - an alternative approach?

Recently I've been made aware of the distaste with which many editors view G5 speedy deletion despite recognising its necessity. G5 is necessary to WP:DENY sockpuppets. Without it there is no way of enforcing blocks or enforcing the wiki's policies. It's not been my experience that there is much good content lost. Most sock-created articles are spam or UPE repeatedly created by sock-farms who plough on like moths at a light bulb. But there's clearly a regret at the loss of good content and an alternative for that situation is desired.

Deryck Chan reminded me of a G5 last year where RHaworth deleted the article, then restored just those revisions which were not contributed by the sock. It struck me at the time as a neat way of squaring the circle. This approach to G5, where the contents are worth perserving, looks to satisfy all the requirements, that sockpuppets are denied and yet the content is preserved. Thoughts? Cabayi (talk) 15:05, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

  • I agree with this approach. Where other editors have edited a page after it was created by a banned editor, we should endeavour to enforce G5 by revdel / deleting and restoring only edits not made by the banned person, as long as there are no attribution concerns. Deryck C. 15:16, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
    I should probably add some context: this issue mainly concerns redirects. In the G5 discussion last year that Cabayi talked about, he opined that a redirect, by its nature, whether created directly or as the consequence of a page move, wouldn't contain "substantial edits by others" to exempt it from G5. I personally disagree with this interpretation because this leaves us with no way for another editor to "claim responsibility" for a redirect. If at some point in future, the creator were found to be a sockpuppet of a banned editor, the redirect must be deleted. The solution proposed here is a good compromise: if a redirect was found to be created in contravention of a ban but another non-bot editor has subsequently tagged a redirect or changed its target, we should revdel / delete+recreate the redirect as if the next editor had created the redirect. This both satisfies WP:DENY and preserves the editorial intentions of editors who worked on a page / redirect that was originally created by someone who should've been punished per G5.
    We can amend WP:G5 thus: Where the creation is a redirect that was subsequently edited by another user, consider using revision deletion to remove only the revisions made by the blocked or banned editor. --Deryck C. 15:45, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
    Deryck Chan, Strong oppose. We have lots of wiki-gnomes who, in good faith, try to improve poor articles. So, the work flow will become, 1) create spammy article, 2) wait for a well-meaning gnome to improve it, 3) the original revisions get revdel'd but the title remains, 4) collect your commission.
    The only way to break the cycle is to delete the title, because that's what determines whether the spammer gets paid or not. See also WP:BOGOF. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:13, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I think that the approach is both reasonable and not mandatory. The important thing to remember about all of these tools is that these are things that are available to the community to fix problems as they happen, but we should not be tied to these tools insofar as no admin should feel forced to enact any solution they don't feel is necessary or useful. One may do these things. One should never must do them. --Jayron32 15:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I support this, but mind that removing contributions in this way may violate attribution. If any of the sock's material is kept in the article, we have to keep the history. I've done this only once, for a page that was edited by multiple accounts of the same banned hoaxer, and only otherwise edited by editors reverting them, for a period of several years. There were zero constructive contributions in that time; I checked every diff. The history was absolute garbage. I did that as a G6, though, not G5, and in response to a specific request on the article's talk page. I'm not going to say which article it was (WP:DENY; the deleted history was moved somewhere else anyway) but if you've been around SPI much in the last couple years you probably already know which case it is. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 15:55, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I was originally confused by this, but if it's pertaining to redirects, that seems fine. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  • It's been over a week and we seem to agree on the approach proposed here. I have added the sentence I proposed above to WP:G5. If anyone feels we should work the attribution requirements into the policy page they should go ahead and do that too. Deryck C. 12:46, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I disagree somewhat. Quietly reverting all of a banned (or blocked or whatever) editor's edits since the ban/block is enough of a denial, and hiding the banned edits from general view, even when they are not actually harmful to the project, may create attribution problems (as mentioned). Glades12 (talk) 05:30, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Does an article that is made by a sockpuppet of a blocked editor and was removed per G5 have copyright? If it was recreated should it be attributed to the blocked editor when it is recreated with the same content? because if we should attribute then there is no reason to delete it. If we need to enforce the block on blocked editor we should not give them any copyright of any content they create. If a blocked editor made an article through a sockpuppet, then that article content can be recreated with the same content and without attribution.--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 19:55, 24 March 2020 (UTC)
It's not a question of whether we can give them copyright. By entering the material here--by publishing it on the web in any manner--they own the copyright. What you are arguing is that we should not respect their copyright. I can see the practical advantages of doing this, but I think it goes against one of the fundamental principles of the encyclopedia . DGG ( talk ) 20:14, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
  • If I were a trolling sock, I'd be absolutely delighted that I can make experienced and esteemed wikipedians bend over backwards in order to expunge any trace of my name. G5 is there to help deal with non-constructive creations by editors we've given up assuming good faith in. It's not a weapon of mass descruction against the socking enemies. If a sock's creation is bad – G5 is there to spare us the trouble of going to the deletion venues. If it's good keep it and move on. We can't keep the content but erase the attribution, because copyright law, and if the whole issue is just to do with redirects (which should not be subject to copyright), then why bother? Redirects are too insignificant for anyone to care about. Revdeling the creation of a redirect could potentially act as a deterrent for the small minority of socks who are socking out of narcissism, but it won't do anything for the rest, and it will make the redirect's history confusing – in perpetuity – for every good faith editor who will look upon it. – Uanfala (talk) 22:28, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
    @Uanfala: I don't understand why you felt the need to revert my edit to WP:G5 - none of the new comments relate to redirects? Deryck C. 12:49, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
    The new comments were expressing general disagreement, though you're right that they did not specifically say anything about redirects. But any addition to the policies will need some sort of explicit consensus, and I'm not seeing that here. And my own opinion – which I've expressed above – is squarely against that addition: the action recommended there is at best an instance of pointless busywork that will do nothing to deter most socks, and under a less generous view it's positively harmful in obfuscating histories. – Uanfala (talk) 13:01, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
    @Uanfala:: I'm afraid you've completely misunderstood the intention of that addition. Without that new line, G5 regulars like Cabayi have interpreted G5 as "redirect creations by banned persons must be deleted even if other editors had subsequently edited the same redirect, because there is no scope for a 'substantial edit' on a redirect". That specific provision for redirects gives editors an option to denying recognition for the banned person without deleting' the whole redirect. We could alternatively specify that G5 does not apply to redirects created by a banned person that had subsequently been edited by another editor. Deryck C. 16:11, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
    I wasn't aware that the central issue was about what counts as a substantial edit. I would expect that to be a matter of common sense: an edit is substantial or not partly relative to what is being edited: a one-word change in an article will probably not be a substantial edit, a one-word change to the text of a redirect means retargeting, which is as major an edit as it can get in this context. If there's a general way to clarify the meaning of "substantial", then that would be good, but we shouldn't enumerate specific cases, because the logic applies more broadly (to templates or to dab pages, among other things).
    However, my original point still stands. Apologies for restating it yet again, and still more apologies for apparently not having expressed it clearly enough earlier. The proposed addition to the text of G5 was the following: Where the creation is a redirect that was subsequently edited by another editor, consider using revision deletion to remove only the revisions made by the blocked or banned person. [20] Recommending this sort of action is a terrible idea – we don't go around breaking the encyclopedia just so we can spite the socks. First, because it will not deter any socks except the exceptionally tiny minority (of whom I haven't ever encountered an example) who sock for the glory of seing their name in the history of redirects. Second, deleting relevant information – like who created a page and what it looked like upon creation – is not helpful. This obfuscates the page history and it gets in the way of all kinds of maintenance tasks (Imagine the sock is later discovered to have created a number of seemingly plausible but actually misleading redirects. How would you then clean up after them if you can't track down their contributions?). – Uanfala (talk) 17:01, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Deryck Chan, Uanfala, the proposal, as I thought it was proceeding (and what RHaworth did in the example which prompted this) was (my words)...

If a sock creates an article which is converted to a REDIR without substantial contributions by others, it may be deleted and just the final revision (the REDIR) restored.

The point was spurred by having a G5 request declined on the basis that the conversion to a REDIR was a substantial contribution. If anything, this approach is a guideline for handling G5s within the current policy, while avoiding the all-or-nothing extremes of expunging everything or keeping everything. Cabayi (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • @Uanfala:: Your rationale would support a blanket prohibition against G5-ing redirects created by banned persons but which were subsequently tagged by an editor in good standing. The case examples that started the redirect part of this debate were about a number of redirects of plant names; a sock created them and a number of other editors tagged them and started linking to them from other articles because they're common names of subspecies. A few months later, someone discovered that the creator was a sock, and Cabayi and others tagged all of them for deletion, justifying their case at DRV by saying "subsequently edited" is not possible for a redirect. You two evidently disagree on the common sense on what counts as a "substantial edit", so we ought to write down a clear guideline. Deryck C. 17:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
    Your rationale would support a blanket prohibition against G5-ing redirects created by banned persons but which were subsequently tagged by an editor in good standing. – Yep! By this stage it appears that the actual issue at the bottom of it all is not about what counts as a substantial edit, but about whether deleting sock contributions is obligatory or merely optional. Leaving aside WP:DENY (it's an essay that's very helpful for dealing with certain kinds of socks, but it's only an essay and it's only helpful for dealing with certain kinds of socks), we've got pretty solid guidelines in the blocking policy at WP:BLOCKEVASION: This does not mean that edits must be reverted just because they were made by a blocked editor (obviously helpful changes, such as fixing typos or undoing vandalism, can be allowed to stand), but the presumption in ambiguous cases should be to revert.. If a contribution has been endorsed by a good-faith editor, or otherwise vouched for, taken responsibility for, or simply undone (as in the case of an article being turned into a redirect), then there's absolutely no need to do anything. – Uanfala (talk) 19:42, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
    If you wanted to "deny recognition", then renaming the sock might work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • G5 as applied to redirects is a bit of a quandary. Suppose a sock creates a redirect that obviously should exist, and there is no other suitable target or way for any other editor to modify the redirect in a constructive way. Usually, when a banned user creates an article on an obviously notable topic, the solution is to delete the article and rewrite it from scratch. But here a redirect created from scratch would be identical to the one created by the sock. So which one do we prefer: 1) allow the redirect to stand, allowing a sock contribution to show up that they shouldn't have been allowed to make; 2) delete the redirect and recreate it immediately, which erases traces of the sock but also wastes editors' time which could arguably be giving the sock more recognition than they deserve; 3) delete the redirect and don't allow recreation, which is cutting off our nose to spite our face? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:29, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Mention terms that redirection to an article

For example Quartern redirects to Gill (unit), but it's not indicated anywhere in the article unless one searches for the term Quartern itself. I propose adding in articles all their redirections --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:01, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
There's no need for readers to see what redirects there are to a given article: there can be quite a lot of them, including redirects for minor modifications, misspellings or typos. Editors can see the list of redirects to a given article by clicking What links here and then following the link from there. If a redirect targets an article, then the article should be set up so that it's obvious to readers who've followed the redirect (WP:SURPRISE): the redirect term should be mentioned prominently in the article (or be an obvious modification of a term that is mentioned). And if the redirect is ambiguous, then the article should have a hatnote linking to the other uses of the term. Turning now to the specific article in question, Gill (unit) doesn't make a mention of quarterns, maybe it could: I'll leave that to others. However, the redirect isn't optimal as quartern may refer to a quarter of any number of other units of measurement. It could be turned into a disambiguation page, but that might be too far into WP:NOTDICT territory, so instead I'll boldly redirect it to the Wiktionary entry. – Uanfala (talk) 13:26, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Oh, if you meant a page should list every term that redirects to it, then as just mentioned, that's already available via "What links here"; nothing more is needed. If you're just complaining about a redirect not being mentioned at the target, then WP:SOFIXIT. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
No, I think you had it right the first time. It is not unusual for someone to think that if a term redirects to a page, that the term needs to be mentioned in the page, e.g., every possible brand name, in every language, country, and year, for all generic drugs. If you've looked in at WP:RFD recently, you'll see that people routinely nominate redirects for deletion because the (current, and usually incomplete) version doesn't mention the redirects they found by name. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Articles which include extensive non-English translations

Hello, I am curious about the policies surrounding non-English text hosted on the English Wikipedia. As you can see from the above examples, some items have been the focus of extensive and indiscriminate inclusion of foreign-language translations of a phrase or a passage or a whole book. This is often unaccompanied by a reliable secondary source. What is the Wikipedia policy on including foreign-language texts, how extensive can they be, and is it not important for them to cite a reliable source so that anonymous IPs coming later cannot tweak them until they say "Your mother was a hamster"? Elizium23 (talk) 03:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
Hmm, I wonder if such a list is even encyclopedic, or whether it might be better suited for a project like Wikisource or Wiktionary. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:20, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
They would have to be notable as a cohesive grouping, methinks. Perhaps an article might be appropriate for stuff such as the Lord's Prayer, but even that ought to be reliably sourced. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:06, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
In the case of the List of translations of the Paschal greeting, d:Q2359665 might be the right place for them. For the Psalms, I clicked around on half a dozen of the articles in that navbox, and about half of those had the original Hebrew text plus an English translation, and the other half didn't. This doesn't sound either extensive or indiscriminate to me. I think these songs should be treated the same as other songs whose lyrics are in the public domain and weren't originally written in English, e.g., Wiegenlied (Brahms)#Lyrics and Cielito Lindo#Lyrics. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Famous people editing Wikipedia?

Back in November 2019, a YouTuber by the name of JackSucksAtLife made a video where he edited Wikipedia. The edits were not constructive and were reverted, but a horde of fans rushed to keep the edit on the page, semi-protecting the article and other pages involved. (following video, also note his talk page which have also been slightly touched by fans)

Should there be a policy on famous people editing Wikipedia (outside of the usual editing policy)? Please note that most famous people that come to edit Wikipedia (does not include Wikipedians that have articles on themselves, as most of them are established editors) have no clue about the policies or guidelines when editing.

Thoughts appreciated! dibbydib (💬) 07:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

What would you propose should be different about policy for famous editors (leaving aside the question of whether JackSucksAtLife is famous) from that that applies to other editors? Phil Bridger (talk) 07:25, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
In this case, Jack doxed himself by accidentally revealing his IP address in the first video (the edit is still online, I found it earlier which prompted me to propose this). I suggest an oversight of the edits made public by the famous person (in their uploaded media), regardless of exposed IP or not (waves of fans). Pages shown in media uploaded by the famous person should also be semi-protected for 1 month due to the waves of fans. This should probably not interfere with the vandalism and blocking policy.
The main focus of this policy should not be about the famous person themselves, rather their fans. The way Wikipedia handled the situation on Jack was generally very good, and this should most likely be the standard for situations like these. dibbydib (💬) no idea what i'm doing 07:43, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't see how this has anything to do with being famous, or even the individual. What the issue was, is that someone edited wikipedia publically, and thus gave away who it was who made the edit (which would have also been true if logged in). We shouldn't treat any editor differently, regardless of who they are. If Jay-Z was to edit wikipedia, should we do anything differently? No. If he was to put it in a music video, and his username was found in the song - would this be a problem? Probably. This is a reactive issue, and not something a policy would be able to fix. What's more, we shouldn't be assuming any IP of an editor is likely to be any worse, simply because someone with fans edited a page. If there's vandalism, we fix and protect. This cart should rarely come before the horse (our articles on coronavirus notwithstanding). Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:07, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I was trying to make a point that most famous people bring, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a wave of fans onto the site, and this should be met with some set response. This should probably be treated with the same caution and response as raids on Wikipedia. dibbydib (💬) no idea what i'm doing 22:05, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I think in many cases they probably are treated the same as board invasions. The blocking and protection policies have enough latitude to deal with things like this. As for rev-deletion, in some extreme cases vandalism has been removed en masse, but like fixed term protection lengths, I don't think a policy mandating such things is necessary. Admin discretion is usually better. -- zzuuzz (talk) 22:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Dibbydib, we have a policy on this and it's WP:MEAT. Sometimes we can localize the site where editors are colluding to cause disruption, and sometimes we simply infer that there is some collusion because the editing patterns match but the CheckUsers show they are unrelated.
I remember other instances, such as Stephen Colbert's call to his fans, or malamanteau on the xkcd comic. We're totally used to this stuff. Elizium23 (talk) 04:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
John Oliver has had a few articles that he suggested needed attention :-) I like to think that any and all of us who edit the 'pedia are famous - each in our own way of course ;-) MarnetteD|Talk 21:00, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

RFC on finding aids

There is an RFC on inclusion of finding aids in external links at Wikipedia talk:External links#Request for comment on finding aids. Finding aids are often inserted by SPAs in a spam-like manner, but some editors support their inclusion. An explicit ruling in guidelines is needed. SpinningSpark 08:43, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Notability of elections

In my capacity of a new page patroller, I am more and more often come across articles XXXX election in xxxx. An example today is 2018 Garden Grove, California mayoral election. It is about elections of a mayor of a city with 170K population. The elected mayor is arguably not notable (and we do not have an article about him anyway). Is there a limit at which we should stop? Not pinging the article author, because it is not necessarily about this article (if it were, I could have just AfD it), but about the general principle. All these articles, from the top level (general country elections, not necessarily in the US) are typically sourced either to some media reporting the results, or even to databases. With a very few exceptions, no attempts have been made to go beyond the table of the results and a couple of sentences in the intro. Pinging @Number 57: who I know is an expert in election articles.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:36, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

There's no definition of what levels of election are deemed notable, only precedents from AfD. However, I'm not entirely sure whether there is any consensus for US local elections. For the UK, mayoral elections of smaller places tend not to have their own article, but results tables are listed in the article on the mayor (e.g. Mayor of Mansfield#Election results). I'd suggest in cases like Garden Grove, California, it might be worth doing something similar, or if the list is too large to fit on the page about the mayor, have a separate List of mayoral elections in Garden Grove, California. Cheers, Number 57 08:23, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Thank you. This is not my first priority, but I will have a look.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • While this is not necessarily helpful, I do not think there should be a hard and fast rule. On one level, in our discussions about WP:NPOL, there is an assumption that the electoral contest is (or may be) notable, even if the candidates are not. Thus, the standard about the race is meeting WP:GNG. On the other hand, if the only content is a table of results and no context of why the race has (I would suggest at least state or region wide) significance, then it would be better to have a broader page about all election contests for that jurisdiction. (Note - I am a firm believer that all elections for a national legislature are significant). --Enos733 (talk) 20:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
  • My own, uninformed opinion is that elections for mayor (or equivalent) of major cities is notable. (What constitutes a "major city" I'll leave for another discussion.) As for local elections, they are notable if more than one notable person is in the election; if it's only one such person, we should merge it into that person's article. If it is more -- or we have a series of local elections with notable people, we should merge them into one article. (That way we are also showing historic trends, which IMHO is notable in itself.) -- llywrch (talk) 22:03, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The question is whether we have sufficient references to write an article (not directory entry) about the election. That would mean more than just run-of-the-mill coverage about tallies and the candidates; the references would need to discuss the significance of the election and examine it in reasonable depth. I am sure that some mayoral elections meet that standard, and I'm also sure quite a lot don't. It would, as always, be a case-by-case determination; there is no case where "All X are notable". Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
  • In many cases, I think that the main question is how much text (not counting lists of names or tables with election results) can be written. If the answer is less than about 10 complete sentences, then it's probably better to have a list-like article on Mayoral elections in Hometown (subdivided by century or decade, as the volume dictates) than to have WP:PERMASTUBs that say little more than "Alice and Bob were candidates. Alice won again." Looking at the example, it has five sentences. The page about the 2016 election has six (remarkably similar) sentences. The page about the upcoming 2020 election has four familiar-looking sentences. In fact, the whole thing feels less like a thoughtfully written article and more like spreadsheet-based mass page creation, in which some database has been plugged in to create sentences that name the candidates and puts machine-friendly details into an infobox, but doesn't include important facts like the candidates' positions or what the major campaign issues were or why the election matters. Overall, this rather robotic content feels like it belongs on Ballotpedia instead of here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree that there should not be a hard and fast rule. For instance, I've started spinning off various NYC election articles from New York City mayoral elections, and Chicago has articles on all of its mayoral elections, even if some of them are a bit stubby. Those are major cities, however, so perhaps something like Garden Grove, California, could have a list as suggested above, as could somewhere like Peoria, Illinois, whose mayoral and city council election articles were merged into municipal election articles in 2019. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 23:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
  • The general notability of elections *and* politicians needs to be considered hand in hand. That is, if we're making the presumption that a politician at a certain government level is notable, then the election for that position should be presumed notable too, and vice versa. This, I believe, would only extend to national and sub-national elected positions by default. Anything lower, notability would have to be demonstrated by the notability of the position (of which the mayor of New York/Chicago/LA would often qualify). But where the position or election is just not normally notable, like, say, the election of a mayor of a 5000 person town, we should not be covering that on WP at all. --Masem (t) 01:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
    Notability is not inherited, from politician to election or vice versa. There could well be cases where a politician is notable but the election not (especially if it was uncontested or a clear runaway from the beginning), and can easily be briefly covered in a list or in the article about the notable politician. And similarly, an election could be notable perhaps due to some highly publicized attempt at fraud, but the candidates in it not much so. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:11, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
    What I trying to say is that if we're going to define some presumed notability for elections and/or elected officials, that presumption should end at the same level, with my gut telling me it would be for sub-national (state, province) elections. A lower-level election, or a lower-level elected official official may certainly be notable on its/their own without the other being notable, and absolutely correct that this is where inherited notability does not apply; just because an elected mayor is notable does not make their election notable. But in terms of presumed notability, clearly national elections (and those elected in national elections) can be readily shown notable, and the bulk of sub-national and those elected in that are easy to presume notability (which can be challenged later) are well documented. At any other level of gov't, this one-to-one notability equivalency does not exist, so I don't think we can presume notability of any election results nor elected officials at any other level across the board. --Masem (t)
  • WP:N establishes a standard for inclusion. If the subject's only claim to N is being a child of x, then no. Having said that, it is probably worthy of inclusion (more as passing mention than anything more) in the article about x, possibly in the infobox rather than in body text or as a stand-alone article. Atsme Talk 📧 19:27, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I would like to thank everybody for the replies (I have given up at some point and stopped checking this thread, and was pleasantly surprised today by the level of the discussion). I agree that we can not have policies for everything. There are some cases which are clearly notable (like national eletion, or I would be suprrised if there is a single NYC mayor election which is not notable), and a lot of things in a grey zone, with notability to be established according to WP:N. My question is more like can we have a bright line showing that some elections are, as a rule, not notable and should be merged in the upper level articles? Of course if by any chance a 2021 mayoral election in Grand Junction, Colorado would become a subject of several Pulitzer Prize pieces, it would become notable anyway - bur short of this, may I merge all articles on such elections into one, or should I start a merge request in every single case, or should I forget about it and start doing smth nore productive?--Ymblanter (talk) 14:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'd say national elections and referendums will always be notable. Elections in states (or equivalent) in federal countries are probably almost always notable as they elect people to legislate. Below that, it's very hard to draw a line. In some countries subdivisions are generally at least roughly same size, so you can draw a line there, but in others there seems to be huge variations. As there is no notability standard at present, we're in a bit of a case law situation, where previous AfDs are usually used as a judgement of what is and isn't notable.
One thing I would stress is that in some places we have too many unnecessary articles. A key example is US states where there are simultaneous elections for multiple positions (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, State House, State Senate, comptroller etc) and people have created separate articles for all of them, most of which are simply a three line introduction and a results table. They could all easily be covered in a single article, which would also improve the notability of the overall subject. We should only have separate articles when the main article becomes large enough to split (for most countries that have simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections, we usually manage with a single 'general election' article). Number 57 15:30, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
No objections to a bold merge in the local council instance being discussed, and I agree on the first part of Number 57's comment directly above. I disagree with the second part though. Usually statewide American races (all the ones listed) are notable in their own right with plenty that can be said about them, especially if they're competitive, and having the articles to encourage more than results-level content is a good thing. As for the state legislatures - dividing election articles that contain results by house of parliament is not an uncommon thing in elections for bicameral legislatures because otherwise they articles absolutely sprawl. This is particularly strongly the case for American elections due to the primary process which makes these list double as long as for Westminster system elections. The Drover's Wife (talk) 13:08, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I have no problems with articles being split when they are large enough. I just don't think its useful having multiple stubs that could be covered in a single article until someone has added detail. I'd also say large lists of results are usually better being split of into specific "Results of" list articles rather than cluttering articles that could be more prose-based. Number 57 15:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
To answer Ymblanter's question, I for one would have no problem with BOLD mergrs and redirects, as long as they are confined to the same year's elections within the same jurisdiction (e.g., in some federal systems, municipal elections would be most appropriately merged to the state/provincial level but not higher, while in non-federal systems the national level might be the appropriate target). This can't be one size fits all, of course: some local elections undoubtedly are individually notable. Newimpartial (talk) 15:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I was actually more thinking of merging 2018 Garden Grove, California mayoral election into Garden Grove, California mayoral election. U am afraid 2018 California mayoral election might be an overkill.--Ymblanter (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't see how that would work, since one of the ways people navigate these articles (I suspect one of the main ways) is through categories like "2018 California local elections". Also, places that fail notability for one local election (or might be argued to do so; see above) might fail notability in all, whereas California's 2018 elections are undoubtedly notable even though only the larger jurisdictions might necessarily be independently notable. Maybe a slight rethink? Newimpartial (talk) 21:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, since I didn't recognize the change of venue, I will now repeat what I said here: in my opinion *all* elections of public officials *anywhere*, that are reported by reliable sources, ought to be documented in WP. This is a case where NOTPRINTENC is the decisive factor: the idea that some electoral results are "notable" or "encyclopaedic" and some are not strikes me as ethnocentric (since those making this argument at deletion almost never consider non-English language coverage when they discuss notability) and a complete misunderstanding of what an online encyclopedia is, or can be. I would add to this the observation that, in this case, the widespread creation of articles based on year of election and political geography, usually at the national or state level, is useful practice since it allows navigation by temporal and geographical categories which longitudinal articles would not. Newimpartial (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
Somewhere on the WMF we should document that, but whether that is on en.wiki is unclear. I don't know if that is WikiSource, a different WMF sister site or something yet explored, but we should have a site that is for raw, documentable data (election data is prime, but stuff like COVID infection numbers from WHO/CDC, etc) would be exactly how do to this. That still leaves the question of when en.wiki would have an article on that election, but the data of all elections of government officials can be thus documented. --Masem (t) 22:06, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I am late to this debate but I just want to underline support for what Number 57 has said about UK elections. We have agreed, as a project, a workable compromise with local elections, and the wider project seems to tick along quite nicely because of it. One example to look at is 2017 Lancashire County Council election. Each and every single election result probably would not be notable and the article would be unwieldy. By using a summary format, the results are published without "drilling down" to individual candidates' names', all of whom would probably fail GNG. As N57 says, Mayoral elections (outside London) tend to feature in the authority pages rather than stand alone, where the thread of deletion would be greater. It's not perfect, and I doubt any system is, but I think the UK project has found a good enough compromise between "encyclopedic" and "adhering to policy." doktorb wordsdeeds 05:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'll also add that we generally don't have articles on elections in U.S. counties, either individually or in bulk (there are exceptions, of course, but we don't have, for example, 2018 Oklahoma county elections). That's probably because such elections would be both too arcane to have individual articles (again, in general) as well as too unwieldy to condense into one statewide page. This seems to suggest that presentation considerations are also in play with election pages. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 09:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC: unifying the WP:COIN instructions with the WP:OUTING policy

The header at the conflict of interest noticeboard and the outing policy have conflicting instructions regarding whether individual administrators may receive off-wiki evidence of conflict of interest/paid editing: the COIN header says that off-wiki evidence should be sent to functionaries, whereas the outing policy says that off-wiki evidence may be sent to individual administrators, functionaries, ArbCom, or the WMF. Which of the two is correct, and how should the other one be changed to reflect policy? creffett (talk) 21:23, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello folks, this is an extension of a discussion at WT:COIN (here), moved here for greater visibility/input. Below is a copy of my message there:

The header says the following regarding outing: Be careful not to out other editors by posting personal information here... If private information is needed to resolve COI editing, and if the issue is serious enough to warrant it, editors can email paid-en-wp@wikipedia.org with the evidence, or email any functionary for advice. That implies that outing information should only be sent to functionaries/arbcom. However, the practice I've seen has been that off-wiki evidence may be privately sent to administrators (not just functionaries). This is supported by WP:OUTING, which says: Nothing in this policy prohibits the emailing of personal information about editors to individual administrators, functionaries, or arbitrators, or to the Wikimedia Foundation, when doing so is necessary to report violations of confidentiality-sensitive policies (such as conflict of interest or paid editing... Only the minimum information necessary should be conveyed and the minimum number of people contacted (emphasis mine). Thoughts on how to resolve this discrepancy? I agree that there are times when functionaries or ArbCom should be brought in, but I personally feel like the day-to-day issues at COIN can be handled by patrolling admins and so we should be saying as much in the header - my usual practice is to comment on a report to the effect of "I'm aware of off-wiki evidence that this editor is engaging in UPE and can provide it to admins on request."

In short, the problem is that the COIN header suggests that off-wiki evidence should only be sent to paid-en-wp/functionaries, but the outing policy says that you can send off-wiki information to individual administrators as well in these situations. I'm looking for one or two things: consensus about to whether to amend the COIN header to say that evidence may be sent to individual administrators, and if there is consensus, suggestions for how to word the change. I apologize if I've messed up any step in this process; I've never filed an RfC before, so if I've done anything wrong, please let me know. creffett (talk) 13:08, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

  • So, for those who have good memories, I spent a substantial portion of my time 2016-2018 dealing with this stuff. It’s how I first got into SPI. Stuff has changed a lot since then. We recently had a training call with multiple CUs and several of us commented that we’ve gotten the 30 account sock farms largely under control and what we have left is freelancers and white label outfits outsourcing their stuff to contractors and the like.
    This means that currently CU is largely useless against paid accounts as, well, they are usually different people hired by the same person. That means most CUs hate dealing with this because the data is a mess and at best you get  Possible most of the time. I’m 100% for individual administrators blocking without consulting us, but I don’t think off-wiki information is really needed. Most of these blocks can be based on WP:NOTSPAM and are obvious to anyone who has worked in this maintenance area for ages. We don’t need to know who someone is to spot them as a spammer.
    All that to say: of course admins should be making these blocks. Just make them as spam blocks instead of sock or PAID blocks. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    It's not just the spammers I'm concerned about, it's the people who don't or won't declare COI who can be shown to have one. For a general example, I've seen cases where someone is editing a page about a specific organization, a minute on Google will clearly show that the username matches the real name of someone in a position of importance in that organization, but directly connecting the two on-wiki would run afoul of the OUTING policy. creffett (talk) 15:09, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Creffett, WP:BLOCKEVIDENCE is also relevant here. The community has rejected the idea of individual administrators placing blocks based on private evidence, so even though that evidence can be sent to individual administrators for information or advice, the actual block should be performed by a functionary. Such blocks are directly reviewable by ArbCom. – bradv🍁 15:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Bradv, thanks, I wasn't aware of that policy. That seems to at least partially disagree with WP:OUTING, since OUTING doesn't mention anything like that (and I'd say that listing "individual administrators" with functionaries, ArbCom, and WMF can be read as "these are all equally valid options"). I'll add that the blocks that I've seen are usually phrased as "suspected UPE" or the like, rather than "UPE proved by off-wiki evidence," but that's getting into semantics. creffett (talk) 16:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Creffett, right, so basically UPE blocks imposed by regular admins should be based on onwiki evidence, such as a refusal to answer questions about a COI, recreating an article that's been previously deleted as UPE, etc. If you've found their upwork profile and want them blocked based on that, email Arbcom. – bradv🍁 16:54, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Having talked with bradv a little more about this, I'm not sure that I agree "send off-wiki evidence to ArbCom" is the best answer to the problem, but I concede that it is what policy says right now. We are still left with a problem, however - WP:OUTING disagrees with the COIN header and WP:BLOCKEVIDENCE (or at least can be read as being more permissive about who to send information to), so something still needs to be changed to unify them. creffett (talk) 21:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Creffett, I'm not sure I see this as a discrepancy. Blocks based on private evidence are not subject to peer review or review by the community, and those are reserved for functionaries within their respective roles. It is not a violation of the OUTING policy for that information to be sent to admins who are not functionaries, although they are not permitted to impose blocks based upon it. They can, however, perform investigations, provide advice, and refer the matter to ArbCom or functionaries if a block becomes necessary. The advice given at COIN is therefore correct. – bradv🍁 22:15, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    I will concede that perhaps the BLOCKEVIDENCE policy is not being adhered to by all administrators, is not properly understood, or is simply out of touch with current practice. It may be worth revisiting whether instead it should say that individual admins can block based on private evidence, but must immediately forward that evidence to ArbCom. I think that would be a suitable compromise, and to a certain extent would represent the current practice. – bradv🍁 22:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Bradv, I like that. I agree that COIN is correct (though it could potentially be expanded to say "functionaries or ArbCom"), my concern has shifted to the outing policy (since it seems to be the odd one out) - it says that evidence can be sent to individual administrators but doesn't mention WP:BLOCKEVIDENCE, and I think it could be misinterpreted as also okaying blocking based on that private evidence (at least, I read it that way, which is why I started this whole thread). creffett (talk) 22:57, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    TonyBallioni, I'm glad this thread has come up. I was active patrolling WP:SPI for a while, but was basically told my efforts were unwelcome there. Since then, I've been hesitant to do much in that area, mostly to avoid conflict. As a recent example, it's pretty clear to me that Midwestlogic and Abundantnrichaf, if not socks, then some variation on meat, COI, UPE, etc. I was going to open a SPI case, but one of them is stale, so I didn't see much point and I just moved on. -- RoySmith (talk) 15:33, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
  • @Creffett: what is your brief and neutral statement? At over 2,700 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The RfC will also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Redrose64, oops. Like I said...first time doing an RfC! Thanks for pointing that out, will leave my existing comments where they are but add a brief and neutral summary immediately below the rfc template. creffett (talk) 21:17, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
    Thank you --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
  • What if we interpreted the apparently conflicting instructions to mean that non-admins can email any sort of appropriate offsite evidence (COI, block evasion, meatpuppetry) to anyone with the power to block, but that blocks must be still connected to some sort of onsite behavior (even if that behavior is "block evasion" or "undisclosed paid editing"), and (to prevent offsite evidence from being carte blanche to block) individual admins must submit the offsite evidence to ArbCom (or paid-en-wp if relevant) for review...?
When I find offsite evidence of paid editing, I first throw a uw-paid warning at the user with a header like "you must disclose your employment." If any of their next few actions are to fully declare their COI, I delete my records of the evidence and leave them alone (except maybe providing further guidance on article creation). If they continue promotional editing while either ignoring the warning, dishonestly denying a COI, or stalling with bad-faith and stupid questions (e.g. "how is it paid editing if I'm an unpaid intern [for the PR firm that was hired by the subject]?"), I block with reasons like "undisclosed paid editing," "refusal to disclose COI," or "promotional editing," and immediately email the offsite evidence to paid-en-wp before deleting it from my records (used to send it to Arbcom until I found out about that other email address). Although paid-en-wp doesn't respond, when I used to email the evidence to Arbcom, their response was always the sort of "ok, thanks" that suggested that they don't have an issue with individual admins carrying out the block so long as the offsite evidence is sent in for review.
In other cases of offsite evidence (usually meatpuppetry by WP:Lunatic charlatans), I've tried to goad them into admitting as such where possible so I can block them on that onsite evidence (ain't no policy requiring me to inform them of Br'er Rabbit). If that doesn't work or isn't an option, I've either emailed ArbCom or else only used the offsite evidence to know who to keep an eye on for onsite behavioral evidence. Ian.thomson (talk) 00:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
That's sort of a variant of Please be a giant dick. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Dedication v location RFC on Commons

There is an RFC on Commons about if churches, pubs and other buildings should be sorted by name or location which might affect how its done here, which seems to be mixed for churches but location for most others. See Commons:Commons:Village pump#Defaultsort for UK buildings RFC. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

"Reading before commenting" addition made to WP:Talk

Some here might be interested in commenting on this and this addition to WP:Talk. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines#Proposal: add a line in the good practices section advising reading before commenting. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:12, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Presumably the opposers are obliged to refuse to read anyone else's comments before participating? Nosebagbear (talk) 20:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

First user to be blocked

Out of curiosity, who is the first ever user to be blocked on Wikipedia? SpinnerLaserz (talk) 03:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

The old logs, which mostly go back to 24 NOvember 2003, are at Wikipedia:Block log. However, the first few entries at Wikipedia:Block log/Archive1 are a bit garbled. It wasn't possible for admins to block user accounts until September 2003; before then, blocks were carried out by developers. Graham87 13:08, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
The really ancient history is at Wikipedia talk:Bans and blocks. It appears that the first users banned from Wikipedia (back then "no action" or "total ban" were the only options) were DW and Lir, although it's not entirely clear; as Graham says, logs weren't kept in pre-MediaWiki days. ‑ Iridescent 13:29, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
I'd forgotten about that page! The old list of banned users takes us back a little further, to TMC (November 2002)and apparently 24.150.61.63 (or 24 for short) in June 2002. Graham87 13:42, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Are they, I wonder, officially still blocked? TMC, for example, has a massive sign on their user page announcing that they have been banned per ruling of administrators, Jimbo Wales and/or the Arbitration Committee—and for good measure, presumably both Popes—but strictly, of course their bock log is empty. ——SN54129 13:51, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Probably re the user. I don't know for certain though, because the database block list only goes back to February 2004. Graham87 14:09, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Yes. Block logs didn't carry over from UseModWiki to MediaWiki, but the bans remain in place until they're appealed, the same as topic bans imposed before the introduction of partial blocks remain in force even though there's no technical limitation. I suppose there's a theoretical debate over whether because very early bans had "appeal to Jimbo" as the only way they could be lifted, whether the community could lift them, but we'll cross that bridge if we ever come to it. ‑ Iridescent 14:11, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Just to clarify: MediaWiki (or Phase III software) has been in use since July 2002. It's predecessor was Phase II software, which came after UseModWiki. Graham87 14:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Just because it took me a ridiculously long time to figure this out: the ban of 24 was in April 2002 per this revision (1018919012, the Unix time associated with the IP address, is 01:03:32, 16 April 2002 (UTC). Also see this mailing list thread and the very last entry in Wikipedia:Historical archive/Rules to consider, which was started by Jimbo, almost definitely in response to 24. Graham87 16:47, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Maybe the timestamps aren't all that precise ... oh well, April 2002 is good enough for me. Graham87 17:15, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
And as for actual accounts, the ban on H.J. (September 2002) was before that of TMC, per User:H.J./ban (admin access only). Graham87 17:35, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks everyone! (Apologes, I'd forgotten I'd asked this question, but very interestng the ole archaeology is too!) ——SN54129 17:43, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm surprised to learn that UseModWiki even had blocking ability, given its relatively primitive abilities with respect to stuff such as deletion, etc. I presume based on the conversation above that any block logs from the UseMod days, if they ever existed, are gone for good barring any sort of Starling-style discovery (although a deletion dating to January 2001 survives in the Starling logs, albeit without the associated users).
    To answer OP's question: the earliest block I could find (via this diff) was a block of an undisclosed IP by Larry Sanger by at latest 25 February 2002; using relative timestamps of the latest block on that diff, I presume that that block occurred around 20 January 2002, which would date it before Phase II software, if that's unreasonable then perhaps later in January; the earliest explicit IP was 204.210.25.127 by Tim Shell approximately 30 days later (again, per relative timestamping). The earliest contributions of that IP date to March 2002, so the offending diffs are sadly lost to history.
    If not too BEANSy, I wonder what's the oldest block still in force. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 07:01, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    Found an older one; this Nostalgia Wikipedia page of blocked IPs dates back to 18 October 2001, where 64.192.12.xxx is mentioned as a blocked IP. On another page he is described as a "fart boy ... persistent and irritating". – Teratix ₵ 07:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    @John M Wolfson and Teratix: I'm using unixtimeconverter.io to convert the Unix timestamps, and it appears that each revision of that "blocked IP's" page shows blocks made *after* the date of the revision. Something is really weird with the timestamps on the page; this is mentioned at Wikipedia talk:Blocked IPs. The earliest date of a block on that page is 26 February (UTC) and the second-earliest is 28 March (UTC) (which lines up with the contribs of the 204.210.25.127 IP. In the 21 March 2002 database dump, the blocked IPs page has only one entry, the Larry Sanger block on the unspecified IP ... I've just imported that revision into the enwiki history; it's listed as the second edit, but I can't do very much about that. See nost:Wiki Administrators for info about admin access in UseModWiki; I'd forgotten that it also had the ability to do blocks. Also, the blocked IPs page on the Nostalgia Wikipedia is on this site at Wikipedia:Historical archive/Blocked IPs. I'll add a link to it from Wikipedia:Block log. Graham87 07:52, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
    Ah yes, back when editors of a fortnight were equipped with a lasso, three bottles of whisky, and a stetson, and told to go admin! Nosebagbear (talk) 09:33, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
    Whatasec. I was an admin back then. No one ever told me we got free booze. (I never even got a crummy t-shirt.) Is it too late to demand my ration? -- llywrch (talk) 22:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

A landing page just for our {{citation needed}} type banners

We are currently sending our readers and potential editors to Help:Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup/1 in many of our WP:TMCLEAN templates(-i.e {{unreferenced}} Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources.). As seen here by our page view stats we have a big problem that the vast majority of our readers dont click on the action button that leads them to the how to page of the tutorial. We have learned over our many years that modules (see more on next page) format is not retaining readers - thus in this case potential editors are not even making it to the page about how to add sources as the link in the template indicates/implies they will find. The information in the module tutorial is great but noone is reading it. I am simply propose that we make a landing page page for just these templates so the info is available on one page without having to click -load and view 6 pages (that is clearly not working well). I would have no problem with simply copy pasting the info from the module tutorial like User:Moxy/Landing page for adding sources or any one page layout style. What do others think here? (full disclosure - I think all modules are a very bad idea if we want to retain readers and gain editors)--Moxy 🍁 14:56, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I really like that page of yours, Moxy. It's clean and easy to follow. Looking at the cleanup templates, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of consistency in the "help" pages that they link to, and several of the links are actually outdated. Besides the page that you linked to, I see links to Template:Refref/core, Help:Footnotes (some of them even try to link to a nonexistent "How to use" section), Wikipedia:When to cite, and even Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check (now WikiProject Reliability, in either case not helpful at all in terms of learning how to improve things). Ironically it appears that our cleanup tags need cleaning up themselves. Would really support a push to have a consistent "help" page for each of the templates in the boxes in the issues with style of format category, in addition to the unreferenced/unreferenced section tags you mentioned. bibliomaniac15 17:14, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
I agree that it'd be good to use a single page for this. The only thing I'd suggest is that the page transclude the Help:Intro pages rather than just copying them, so that as the Help:Intro pages get improved over time, the new page won't fall out of date (out-of-date pages is the issue we're trying to address in this thread, after all). If it's alright with you, I may code that in a bit. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 19:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I like it too, but isn't it redundant to WP:REFB, which already exists for showing beginners how to provide citations? Could we work on the existing pages rather than create yet another new page? --Jayron32 19:50, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
But what page to fix or redirect to new content? Transclution could work but it does stifle updating and causes the parent pages to be full of coding that most have no clue what's it's for and may cause mobile view problems. Been fighting the removal of include only & non-inclusive tags for years...it gets daunting having to explain why they're there. I am up for anyhing that will help our readers and gain potential new editors. The current linked page has proven ineffective in its current form format.--Moxy 🍁 20:35, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
@Jayron32: Totally agreed on consolidation. WP:REFB is terrible, though (see the discussion at its talk). We also have WP:EASYREFBEGIN. We need to just bite the bullet and do the work to merge and then delete some of these. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:15, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
So let's make this easy....why don't we just add what's at User:Moxy/Landing page for adding sources that is just a copy of the multiple page tutorial in an easy format with a TOC to WP:REFB and direct the templates to that page. Then we can discuss other links.--Moxy 🍁 23:17, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

WP:1RR and what counts as one revert

I would like to discuss the logic of WP:1RR, and whether things need to change. Currently, you are allowed to perform an "unlimited" number of edits in a row, each "reverting" unrelated things in an article changed by independent users, until a different user makes some sort of edit, even if it's also completely unrelated. Until some user makes a change, all your consecutive edits done to unrelated areas of the article count as one single revert. If a user makes a change to something completely unrelated in the article, suddenly you are not allowed to continue your editing spree. I feel it is a bit counter-intuitive to be allowed to keep reverting different, unrelated things in an article just as long as someone else doesn't change something else.

Since this has been very confusing for me and many other editors (causing unnecessary tension), what I would like to suggest is that the rule is expanded to clarify consecutive edits that revert clearly unrelated content count as several reverts. Of course some people might start arguing what counts as "clearly unrelated" – nonetheless I think this change would improve the behaviour of certain people on Wikipedia, control the pace at which content is reverted and keep things a bit more under control. I would like to know what other editors think about this. Thank you for reading! BeŻet (talk) 08:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps I am not understanding the issue, but I don’t see all that much difference between an editor doing several sequential (selective) reverts, and the same editor choosing a previous version and reverting to that in one single edit. The end result is essentially the same. Blueboar (talk) 13:17, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Sure, but I'm more concerned about how one editor can very quickly revert several unrelated things at once, done by several users, which can be more disruptive than reverting a single thing. Therefore, I would expand the proposal to say that, if a single edit reverts two or more clearly unrelated things, that counts as several reverts. BeŻet (talk) 15:51, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
If we were to say that then the principle of WP:1RR (or WP:3RR) could easily be gamed. I prefer not to go into details, so as not to give anyone ideas they might not have already had. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
But I guess my point is that it already can be gamed, depending on what you believe the point of WP:1RR is. If the point of the rule is to control the pace of change, it does not prevent massive, potentially disruptive changes from happening (by disruptive I mean potentially triggering multiple discussions on the talk page). So what is the goal of the rule, and how does it differ from the goal of WP:BRD? BeŻet (talk) 18:26, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
1RR is used to prevent edit wars on highly contentious pages. BRD has the same goal, but it's a general approach rather than something that is enforceable. I don't think slowing the rate of changes is an objective of either. – Joe (talk) 21:34, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
I think my proposal retains the goal of preventing edit wars, but additionally introduces a control of pace. I don't think the mechanic I'm criticizing prevents any edit wars either: the fact that you can revert several people and several different changes doesn't prevent edit wars from happening. BeŻet (talk) 21:44, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
For reference, please read the various conversations pertaining to this: Talk:Joe Biden#WP:1RR, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard#WP:1RR, User talk:Nihlus#WP:1RR. Nihlus 17:33, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The key issue seems to be whether reverting two users in one go (whether in one edit or in consecutive edits) counts as one or two reverts. I think it would be ludicrous for the following to not hold: 1) consecutive edits by the same user should count the same as one edit by that user; and 2) intervening spelling/grammar fixes should not affect the counting of reverts, unless the dispute is over spelling/grammar. The logical conclusion is that one edit by a user is the same as multiple edits by that user with unrelated changes in the middle. Note that I don't necessarily think that one edit counts as at most one revert, nor am I advocating the opposite; I am interested to hear more opinions on this matter. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:54, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The rule implies that if between your two edits someone introduces a tiny typo fix, your two edits are now two reverts. I assume that if contested, and admin would probably side with the reverter. Nonetheless, I think if those two changes were about two unrelated things, the situation enters a grey area. BeŻet (talk) 21:47, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
The purpose of the reversion rules is to prevent edit warring. Accordingly, the sole relevant question is whether a given reversion is repetitive of an editor's previous reversion or not. --Bsherr (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
So how does this differ from BPR? BeŻet (talk) 21:40, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
Keep the current rules. You can revert as much or as little as you want, in one big edit or piece-by-piece. I see too many bad situations otherwise. The worst issue is that we don't want the inevitable unproductive meta-argument over what can or cannot be included in the one revert.
Note that one way to try to (potentially productively) break a logjam is to re-write some-or-all of the article from scratch. At that point it is largely subjective whether any given portion was "reverted". Under 1RR each person may try replacing the entire article.... once. Then they have to give everyone else a day to consider and respond. Alsee (talk) 02:02, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
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