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question: porn images in articles

There's screenshots of the porn websites in pornhub, redTube, livejasmin, youporn, and myFreeCams should we get rid of them? --108.17.71.32 (talk) 20:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

The screenshots may be okay, but we should blur the thumbnails w/in the shots so one gets the idea that the front page is a selection of videos but without personally identifying the people or showing the porn. --Masem (t) 20:27, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I say they should be removed, or possibly blurred as Masem suggested. According to MOS:IMAGES, offensive images should only be included if "its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available". The screenshots are basically just collages of pornography, which doesn't really provide any new information since the articles already clearly state that there is porn. The only real information given by the screenshots is the general format of their homepages, and that could be given with blurred images; the nudity itself isn't informative. Also, WP:NSFW has a good list of previous discussions related to this that we should probably consider in this discussion. Sudonymous (talk) 20:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
In the case of Pornhub, blurring the thumbnails would leave only the logo in the screenshot, which we have already got in the infobox anyway. I'm with the view that screenshots of random thumbnails, blurred or otherwise, are not suitable for screenshots.--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 20:45, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
If you blurred each thumbnail in the screenshot, (in the current pornhub one, 12 separate areas that would be blurred) you would still be capturing the layout/branding facets but not showing the porn nor possibly identifible people. I am not talking blurring the full 400x250 image but just the small areas of it.
Also, the redTube screenshot must be replaced with a "stanard" screenshot, not a "long web page" shot. --Masem (t) 21:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
After looking at the listed articles, I don't see anything that is readily identifiable as "naughty bits". I suppose if someone wanted to, they could examine these screenshots (presumably with magnification) and find the pornagraphism (is that a word?) but there are far, far, easier ways to find such images. WP:NOTCENSORED is applicable as well as common sense. Anyone likely to be disturbed by those screenshots would be disturbed by the mere existence of the articles themselves. Even a "think of the children" argument is not applicable because you have to already know what you're looking at for those images to make sense as graphic. Unless you already know what porn is and looks like, those are not going to look like porn to a theoretical innocent. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I should also note that, despite the subsection title, this isn't an actual RfC as none of the steps to create one have been taken. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
How are you defining "naught bits"? Because several of those screenshots clearly show penises, which I think qualifies as "naughty bits", and even for the "tamer" pictures it's still nudity. They are literally screenshots of porn, I don't know what you mean when you say they don't "look like porn". Sudonymous (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
There is an aspect of the principle of least astonishment, and it would be expected that if one went to a page about PornHub I am going to see porn, but at the same time, there are potentially identifyable people there, and that's probably a higher concern than the pornographic elements. --Masem (t) 22:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Thinking on this more, I would even add that we need to blur or remove the images on a BLP privacy issue, more than any "naughty bits" issue. Until late 2020, at least for PornHub (and not yet proven out to other porn sharing sites), anyone could upload videos there, which allowed for videos that were released without the actors' consent. This included videos made for exploitation purposes which led to a big mess with the credit card companies and potential congressional action. Pornhub responded by removing the bulk of videos outside of those that were uploaded by those that they could humanly affirm owned and were in the videos. So what's on there now are only videos with consent of the actors, but that would only apply to PornHub post-October or so. The other sites, this is still a question. So while we still want to show what these sites layout is, we absolutely should be masking/blurring out the videos due to the dubious privacy policy involved. --Masem (t) 23:42, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
Masem, due to the extremely lax "verification" process Pornhub has (I believe it's still the case that you can create a channel, send them a picture of yourself, and then upload completely unrelated videos that do not feature you) any issues which previously existed still remain. There has been at least one known case of an underage child being listed as "verified" (so their videos would not be removed by this measure): [1]. IMO Pornhub's actions were a slight improvement but still just a PR move that makes no meaningful attempt at safeguarding or preventing child trafficking, videos of rape or non-consensual pornography. — Bilorv (talk) 09:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
All the more reason to use the same solution for all porn website screenshots, so we don't have to track down details like this. --Masem (t) 14:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Are there really any privacy issues for the myfreecams screenshot? Voluntarily put themselves on a public website. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
The question whether the people in those videos really consented to their videos being uploaded remains for any video site, porn or not porn. You can say the same about the screenshot included at YouTube or other articles. That said, I would oppose removing screenshots merely on the basis that they show nudity. As Masem correctly points out, people looking at articles about porn websites should not be surprised to find porn images there and those screenshots are already in a box that needs to be clicked on to be seen, adding another layer of protection. If any people can be identified in the screenshots (at the resolution we are using!), we should consider blurring their identifiable parts (mostly faces) but not more than that. This is an encyclopedia still after all and people should be able to find a complete description of its subjects here which includes images. Regards SoWhy 11:23, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, it would be no issue if this blurring was just limited to clearly-visible faces. As I said above, the "naughty bits" part isn't the problem as that falls into the principle of least astonishment for a site named "pornhub", and the use of a hidden screenshot helps. But we absolutely should abide by privacy of individuals in private videos even if there may be consent possibly given. --Masem (t) 14:07, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Personally, I can’t seem to identify a username in File:MyFreeCams.com-Lounge.gif and I think the face, even without blurring, is sufficiently hard to identify even if you knew the person. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I think blurring would amount to creating a new image and pretending it is encyclopaedic. We aren't (or shouldn't be) in the business of doing that. Either include the images, or exclude them, but don't doctor them. DuncanHill (talk) 11:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
A NSFW filter in my preference option (if not for unlogged, at least for logged in users) should be added so that, every user can enable/disable blurring or hiding all the NSFW images voluntarily. 103.134.25.90 (talk) 13:03, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
The problem with that is that what is and isn't "safe for work" varies by workplace, culture, person attitudes, and even context so is so completely subjective as to be useless (which images at Breast are NSFW for example?). It also requires the classification of every single image as either SFW or NSFW which, even if we stopped accepting new images right now, would be an impossible task, and as soon as there was one image that someone thought should be NSFW that wasn't tagged as such then the filter is useless. See also WP:NOTCENSORED. Thryduulf (talk) 13:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
As we are talking about live websites, there should be no problem in including a URL and excluding a screenshot. That is hardly censorship when the material is so accessible. Moreover, the screeenshot is immediately out of date compared with the 'live' version. Jontel (talk) 13:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • As I said at the Pornhub discussion, WP:NOTCENSORED is not a discussion-ending argument. The fact is that WP:GRATUITOUS is the guideline implementing NOTCENSORED with respect to things like pornographic images. What I said at the Pornhub discussion generally makes sense here, so I'll just repeat it: "Indeed, even if a screenshot is desired, it is possible to use an uncensored screenshot that happens not to include things like full-on double penetration and still delivering the same quality of information. My reading of WP:GRATUITOUS is that in a situation where we have two images, we should use the less-offensive image. And given we can make new screenshots of Pornhub pretty much at will, I think even if we decide a screenshot is desired, someone can just F5 on the Pornhub homepage until the collection of thumbnails is less offensive." Where I said "less offensive" there, it might be better rephrased as "less graphic". Yes, at a certain point we do run up against NOTCENSORED (i.e., there will be some viewers that will be offended no matter how mild the screenshot), and on some level we can get into hair-splitting, but that's not a reason to just give up and let whatever be the screenshot. Anyway, I think this issue is squarely resolved by existing policies and guidelines, namely WP:GRATUITOUS. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 22:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
    • GRATUITOUS arguably does not apply. Pornhub and the other sites are sites that allow for sharing of porn videos, and it is not unreasonable to expect to see a porn image if one was viewing a page about pornhub. (in contrast, GRATUITOUS would apply if we were talking about the vast collection of books offered at the NY Public Library and featured an image of a book with a pornographic image on its cover. Now one *can* argue that from the standpoint of the website layout, that it offers little unique from any other video sharing site that we don't need to see its layout and thus can just use the site logo/banner, but that's not a GRATUITOUS issue, that's more a non-free content facet. But I know that most editors doing work on articles about websites will argue the screenshot of the website is a required element, so this is a debatable issue.
    • We can still discuss a clear solution that reaches a middle ground on the BLP privacy issue, but I don't think we can eliminate those screenshots immediately or without discussion. --Masem (t) 22:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
      • GRATUITOUS absolutely applies. Read the guideline. Material that would be considered vulgar or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers should be used if and only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available. I am hitting the "equally suitable alternative" prong, which is independent of the arguments by others along BLP and similar lines (and is frankly directed more at the actual controversy here rather than trying to find an excuse within other policy to remove the material). If there is an equally suitable alternative, the more offensive image should not be used. Yes, there is wiggle room within what our readers consider offensive, and there's reasonable grounds for RfCs to determine this, but if we're talking about "I know it when I see it" content like a graphic depiction of double penetration (as in the Pornhub screenshot), how can we actually argue otherwise? 69.174.144.79 (talk) 23:11, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
        • I'm speaking from the view of editors that deal with covering works of media (newspapers, magazines, and websites), where they have stated repeated that showing the work's "cover" or "leading" page is of importance to the work's branding and essence - how things are laid out, the predominance given to headlines relative to other parts of the cover, etc. That in the case of pornhub and friends that their front page includes screenshots at timestamps on their porn videos is part of that sight layout, and there's no alternative way to show that (removal would not be an option from this stance). This is not my argument - I'd argue we'd probably could remove before trying other options, but trying to remove such images has been extremely difficult to argue for, and recongizing that consensus, that means GRATUITIOUS simply just doesn't apply since porn is a function of pornhub. But we can require alternative steps that eliminate the more problematic things about these images. --Masem (t) 00:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
          • I'm speaking from the view of editors that deal with covering works of media ... where they have stated repeated that showing the work's "cover" or "leading" page is of importance WP:GRATUITOUS takes that into account. Please actually read the guideline and appreciate what it means. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 01:14, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Agree with Masem on this. Per this December's exposé in The New York Times "The Children of Pornhub" we simply cannot assume those thumbnails come from videos uploaded by the copyright holder or that the people in those videos consented (or could consent) to being in them. If we could verify (per WP:V) that every person in the displayed images were over 18 at the time of recording and that the videos were uploaded by their proper copyright holders, I'd say keep them. But we can't, and there is recent evidence that we cannot safely assume informed consent. I think Masem's suggestion is eminently reasonable, though removal is also reasonable. WP:NOTCENSORED does not require us to blindly include pornography, it only says that being "objectionable" is not a sufficient reason to remove something. The concern here is more than just pearl-clutching about porn, but rather the likelihood that we're inadvertently causing harm to other people who did not consent to being on a pornography site (let alone on Wikipedia). Obscuring the thumbnails removes no encyclopedic value; the images are included to show the site layout, not the specific menu of porn they have on offer. If someone wants to know what kind of porn is on Pornhub or wherever, our images do a terrible job of that. Why look at a static image from Wikipedia (taken who knows how long ago) to try and figure out what kind of porn is on a website when you could just go to the actual website (which we link to). It's like saying we need a picture of YouTube's front page so that readers know what videos are on YouTube--absolute nonsense. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:26, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Without commenting on your other points, we don't have anything to worry about from a copyright perspective here - if we use a screenshot of a website then it will be fair use (unless all elements on the website are free content, and I'm not aware that this applies to any pornographic website and certainly it certainly doesn't apply to PornHub) so we are not claiming anything as Free. The very small thumbnails (the largest image in the screen shot was approximately 80 pixels square, the others approximately 70x30 pixels) showing a single frame of video would unquestionably be fair use for us (arguably even de minimus) even if PornHub is violating copyright; especially as all we are claiming is that this was how the PornHub front page looked on a given date, which is clearly factual and a clearly encyclopaedic purpose. Thryduulf (talk) 02:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
      • As Pornhub recently scrubbed unvetted content, wouldn't a screenshot taken now avoid vids with copyright and unwilling subject and other such problems? Hyperbolick (talk) 02:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
      • To clarify my concern isn't copyright per se but what the copyright can tell us about the other legal questions. On these sites, content illegal-for-non-copyright-reasons is often reuploaded by anonymous actors who almost certainly don't have copyright. So the lack of a clear copyright holder should raise red flags. If, on the other hand, we know the copyright holder and can verify it was uploaded by the presumable holder, then I'm much more willing to assume the content complies with other aspects of the law such as consent and age of majority laws. so I totally agree that we're not legally liable from a copyright perspective; my focus on copyright was because of its usefulness as a litmus test for the other legal aspects (though I also prefer strict limits on non-free content because of downstream re-use considerations, but that's a different conversation for a different time). As for encyclopedic value, the photo isn't simply how Pornhub looked on a specific date; it's how it looked on a specific date to a specific user. For example, as a homosexual, a screenshot of the heterosexual Pornhub front page doesn't show what it would look like to me. I'm no expert on their front page algorithm, but presumably its like any other video site where recommendations are tailored by account or IP or cookies or something that would further limit its use as a definitive archive of the page's appearance on a given date. That's why I compared it to Youtube: in neither case are we talking about a photo with unrivaled encyclopedic value. It's a photo to say "this is kinda what the subject looks like" and we need to place this discussion in that context (which applies beyond just pornographic websites as Jehocman gets at below). — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • If we are to keep using screenshots of websites, I think blurring the images from porn sites to be a good idea, especially given the recent Times expose. I imagine PronHub is not alone in hosting illegal/extremely dubious content. But I hold a somewhat more radical view altogether: I think having screenshots of websites is a bad idea in general. Websites are subject to frequent change, our screenshots are not particularly enlightening or encyclopedic, and cause more trouble than they are worth. IMO, it would be easier and more useful for us to link to archived versions of websites to provide an example instead of just a low rez fair use screenshot. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 06:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • The reason we have the pages of websites is the same reason we have images of newspaper front pages and magazine covers; they are considered encyclopedic content in terms of the work's identity and branding to display them on the WP article discussing the work in question. NFC only allows one such image by default - the current one in the article's heading/infobox - and any other such image must be substantially backed by a rationale to explain why it is needed (such as a radical shift of format that is discussed in the prose with sourcing). While arguably an archive.org link would do that job for websites, that doesn't help for an offline version of the article, which should be comprehensive. --Masem (t) 14:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • WP:NOTCENSORED means we treat the articles and content exactly the same as any other articles and content. We include the material if it is relevant to the topic and complies with other policies, and exclude it if it doesn't. If someone tried to claim the screenshots at Gov.uk and Wikipedia and Twitter were "WP:GRATUITOUS", we would ignore them and warn them for making blatantly frivolous/invalid arguments. If someone somehow came up with a Pornhub screenshot that was less porn-ish or "less offensive", that alternate image would be deliberately deceptive and therefore unusable. The purpose of the screenshot is to accurately reflect the typical site appearance. Alsee (talk) 10:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • If someone claimed those other websites' screenshots were WP:GRATUITOUS they'd be laughed at because they'd clearly not read the guideline. The rest of your argument is nonsensical. If the Pornhub website delivers a different collection of videos then it's a screenshot. The purpose of the screenshot is not to illustrate pornography. The purpose of the screenshot is to illustrate the website. The website delivered the collection of videos. It's an illustration that's no less informative. Framing that as "deceptive" stretches WP:AGF to its breaking point as well. I think you might want to reconsider your entire comment. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 21:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I don't see why screen shots are encyclopedic. The site's logo is presented and at the bottom there ought to be a link to the site, presumably to the site's Terms of Service page, or some other info page, so that a reader who arrives can familiarize themselves with the content and decide if they want to proceed. If somebody wants to see what the site looks like, they can look at it, if doing so is legal in their country. Jehochman Talk 14:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I too question the encyclopedic value of these screenshots. It’s not like there is something unique or innovative being demonstrated. I see no reason to include them, and many reasons not to. Blueboar (talk) 23:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Why have infobox pics of The Christian Science Monitor or Myspace even? Hyperbolick (talk) 23:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
      • I know this is rhetorical, but to humor you, the CSM is a photo of their print publication. Unlike pornhub, readers can't simply go to the CSM home page and see what the print cover is like because, well, it's in print not online. It is also incredibly static--unlike Pornhub whose main page changes constantly, the CSM publishes a definitive print edition weekly that is more or less uniform regardless of when or where you access it from so an archive is actually meaningful as more than just a data firehose. As for Myspace, the same arguments can be made as for Pornhub and YouTube which is why whataboutism isn't actually helpful. Have you actually looked at the screenshot there? It's pretty useless. Far more useful would be an image of how the layout has changed over time, especially since that's actually a notable part of Myspace's history. Instead we've got a blurry photo with "this is myspace" emblazoned on it as if the title and logo weren't enough to tell you that. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
        • Not everyone views WP with an active Internet connection, so we should not be making the expectation that if if seeing the website layout is essential to the reader's understanding (under WP:NFCC#8) it should be offloaded to an external URL. -Masem (t) 00:11, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Never one for censorship especially moral censorship but those screenshots actually show that there is nothing notable about the layouts. Put a title on screen, provide thumbnails, print money is repeated in every layout. For that reason, I believe the title alone is sufficient to show "integral branding" Slywriter (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

ARBPIA 30/500 - users close to the threshold

A well-known Wikipedia rule prohibits IP-users and accounts with less than 30 days of tenure or less than 500 edits from editing articles relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Has it been clarified how the rule should be interpreted if 1) an account has more than 500 edits, but subtracting deleted edits they have fewer than 500 edits, and 2) an account has more than 500 edits, but a substantial amount of those edits (~100 or more) were violations of the ARBPIA rule? I don't want to revert users who are editing in good faith if they are not in violation of the rule. ImTheIP (talk) 12:25, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@ImTheIP: in practice this is usually tied to a user having or not having "extended confirmed" permission (as the articles with the most disruption actually have this protection applied). To that end, generally only edits that are seen to be gaming the system are discounted and such editors can be reported at WP:AN where an admin may remove their ECP access and make them reapply at WP:PERM when they have non-gaming edits. Edits violating topic bans are not usually considered gaming. If you see a specific article that is covered by ARBPIA that isn't protected, you may also ask for it at WP:RFPP — xaosflux Talk 12:31, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
@ImTheIP: more strictly on one of your questions, all edits, including deleted edits, "count" here (unless they are of the gaming type and have been reviewed at WP:AN). — xaosflux Talk 12:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Good to know, thanks! ImTheIP (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: "Committed suicide" language

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The result is to not change policy, which allows "commit suicide," therefore no change is needed. In each article a multitude of word choices are allowed and editors can make editorial decisions through the normal process as to what sounds most natural, most informative and reads the best in each specific situation. A minority of editors think "commit suicide" is archaic, and if some other equal or better formulation exists and a change is made, we should not tendentiously revert it. Likewise, I would urge editors not to tendentiously remove "commit suicide" everywhere it is found. Perhaps the best idea is to see what the cited sources in each article say and follow their formulation. This will naturally cause us to track whatever trend exists in society. The issue could be revisited a year from now (to choose an arbitrary unit of time) to ensure we have the latest style, while avoiding discussion fatigue. Jehochman Talk 15:00, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Background

Currently, the status quo reflects this 2018 Village Pump discussion and this 2019 Manual of Style discussion (with a closed follow-on at VPPOL 2019) that allows for "committed suicide" if editors chose to use that language, and it is intended to add language to the appropriate MOS (MOS:BIO at minimum) to reflect this consensus. (Other past discussions include the following: MOS 2014, WTW 2016, MOSBIO 2017, MOS 2017, VPPOL 2017, WTW 2018, CAT 2019) There are external writers that suggest, in general and not just for Wikipedia, moving away from this language primarily related to mental health issues (see References below), which has led to some edit warring on articles on Wikipedia. The goal of this RFC is verify consensus on the acceptability of "committed suicide" prior to committing language to the MOS reflecting this consensus, as to eliminate continued edit warring over the term. --Masem (t) 17:05, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

References:

  • Beaton, Susan; Forster, Peter; Maple, Myfanwy (February 2013). "Suicide and Language: Why we shouldn't use the 'C' word". InPsych. 30 (1).
  • "Language use and suicide: An online cross-sectional survey". Plos One. 14 (6): e0217473. June 13, 2019. Bibcode:2019PLoSO..1417473P. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217473. PMC 6563960. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
  • Bosch, Torie (January 16, 2018). "Committing to "Committed"". Slate. Retrieved October 28, 2020.

Survey ("committed suicide")

  • Continue to allow. This is a standard phrase in most varieties of English, and it's not the job of Wikipedia to enforce a particular form of language. In a few very specific instances, when there's the potential for it to be misunderstood as carrying legal implications, I would support replacing it with something unambiguous. ‑ Iridescent 17:16, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - editors should be able to use terminology that is both common and contained in reliable sources. Additionally, list this at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, this being at least the 8th time this is being reviewed in the last 5 years. — xaosflux Talk 17:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Change I encountered this conundrum this week and am glad it’s finally being addressed. The proper terminology is died by suicide. "Committed" suicide continues the mental health stigma and insinuates that the person committed a crime like murder is, meanwhile it’s obviously unprosecutable and ultimately a personal decision. The same tiptoeing we do around here about identities should be done for mental health. Trillfendi (talk) 17:51, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - it is normal English. "Died by suicide" is horrible English. If an individual editor wishes to avoid saying "committed suicide" then "killed himself" is the proper alternative. DuncanHill (talk) 17:58, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow Wikipedia generally follows widespread English usage rather than trying to change it. "Committed suicide" is a widely used English phrase and I suspect it may be more common than any of the alternatives, "died by suicide" sounds a bit odd to me. If that stops being the case them I'm sure we can change it. "Committed" doesn't necessarily have to mean committing a crime, e.g. committing adultery. Hut 8.5 18:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    Adultery was originally a crime and continues to be criminalized in many jurisdictions including the state of New York.[2] (t · c) buidhe 18:23, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    That gives it a similar status to suicide then. Both were formerly crimes in the Western world but have now been largely decriminalised as there's a general recognition that the state shouldn't be trying to reduce the prevalence by criminalising them. Laws against adultery in parts of the United States are rarely enforced and may well be unconstitutional (according to Adultery#United States) and suicide is still a crime in some places. Hut 8.5 18:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow, as has been said already committed suicide is the most commonly used language throughout much of the English speaking world and it is not up to Wikipedia to lead in this area. Cavalryman (talk) 18:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC).
  • Allow - "committed suicide" is standard phrasing. - DoubleCross (‡) 19:42, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow, per Iridescent.-- P-K3 (talk) 19:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow. The phrase "committed suicide" is still consistently used by reliable sources thus I see no compelling reason why to completely eradicate the phrase. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 19:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Follow high-quality sources. There's a lot to unpack in here, but my overall feeling is that this idiom should be in the "sometimes permitted but never required" range, with the key point being following the sources. If the high-quality sources use "committed" (typical of high-quality older sources and low-quality sources), then it's probably an acceptable option for that article; if the high-quality sources avoid that language (typical of very recent sources), then it's not okay for that article.
    Also, I think we should never require the "committed" phrase in any article. Editors should be able to have a chat on the talk page and decide which phrase is best for that article, with the language used by high-quality sources being the key factor in the decision. If "died by suicide" sounds strange to your ear, then there are many other options. Plain old "killed himself" is also very traditional, going back centuries in English, and if I were going to select one to promote as the most direct, plain, and non-euphemistic option, it would be "killed himself" instead of either "committed" or "died by". (Why "died by"? Why not "died from suicide" or "died from complications of depression"? We don't say that people died by cancer.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    Without having yet read the references, I am strongly leaning towards this option. I am not seeing that the other !votes are based on RS, which should be the standard. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC) Struck per WP:Specialized-style fallacy. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow. The word "commit" in no way has any implication of stigma or a crime. A crime is just one of the many things that can be committed, some good, some bad and some neutral. This whole campaign against the phrase is a misunderstanding of simple English by mental health professionals who should be concentrating on our real issues rather than spending their time mangling the language with such tautological absurdities as "died by suicide". Phil Bridger (talk) 20:24, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Sometimes permitted but never required, per WhatamIdoing. There are cases where "died by" might sound more natural, for example, in a list of different causes of death or when some kind of parallelism is desired. For example, Those who didn't die by suicide died by neglect. Or, to take the first Google Scholar hit for the phrase, the article title A comparison of guilt in bereaved parents whose children died by suicide, accident, or chronic disease. XOR'easter (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow – There is a questionable objection to using "commit" because that word's association with committing criminal acts gives it a negative connotation; but one can commit oneself to doing good or make a commitment. Besides, the Prianka Padmanathan, et al., source above shows that "commit suicide" has the widest range, both negative and positive, of connotations among those supposedly most vulnerable to inappropriate usage. The phrases that tested most positively—"ended their life" and "took their own life"—are both preferable to "died by suicide" in terms of readability. Dhtwiki (talk) 20:37, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Use direct quotes: "As of 2015, the Associated Press style guide... says: 'Avoid using committed suicide except in direct quotations from authorities.'" Taken from Slate reference. [3] I think it makes sense to avoid the term unless taking directly from an RS. The American Heritage Dictionary also advises against "committed".[4] Also per MOS:MED#Careful language per Xurizurl and my 06:21, 16 Jan discussion comment. And per my 21:54, 17 Jan comment, the dictionary definition of "commit" in this sense clearly has negative connotations, in violation of WP:NPOV, which "cannot be superseded by editor consensus." Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC) Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC) add MOS:MED Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC) Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC) add NPOV Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
    ​If we're looking at the Slate source, it would be well to follow it to its concluding paragraphs:

    I respect the intention behind the ban on “commit suicide.” But I can’t support it. I don’t begrudge those who are more comfortable with “died by suicide” or “killed themselves,” but I bristle at the prescriptive nature of their objections, as though the rest of us who prefer “committed suicide” are wrong and need to catch up. “Commit” doesn’t always imply a criminal act: We commit things to memory, commit to each other and to God, commit to a college football team, commit random acts of kindness. “Commit suicide” is clean and clinical. There are no cartoon characters or inappropriate emotional responses. It is clear, matter of fact, free of emotional valence. It neither condemns nor romanticizes.

    -- Cabayi (talk) 09:47, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    That's just the opinion of the writer. I am just using the Slate source to quote the AP. Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    It might also be used in other things, but the specific meaning of commit in this phrase, based on its origins, refers to it being a crime.[5] NB: If you're not aware of them, Beyondblue is an Australian mental health organisation. --Xurizuri (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • (Strong) disallow: it's disappointing but unsurprising given past discussions to see not much focus on reliable sources. It is a vanity to go from "'died by suicide' sounds odd to me" to "most people must consider it odd", and one you'll be disabused of by reading the Plos One source given. “Attempted suicide”, “took their own life”, “died by suicide” and “ended their life” were, however, considered acceptable by most participants, including those who considered “commit suicide” most appropriate. The source and others give that "committed suicide" is a common phrase used, so that doesn't disqualify it from consideration, but that's not the same as us being able to use it in wikivoice. We have a tight style guide that doesn't consider acceptable most forms of slang, plenty of words that others would consider unoffensive and words that may be acceptable for people to use in their daily lives. Rather than explaining in my own words the etymology, historical connotations and what relevance this has to current connotations of the phrase I can point to InPsych. The Slate source is really about daily life and about prohibiting people from using the term to describe personal experiences. Very few people should be writing about personal experiences on Wikipedia and so this source has less weight for our purposes, which is not to say that it is irrelevant or that the author's views are not valid.
    In the CAT 2019 RfC linked above I commented, in part: As we see from Coffeeandcrumb's links and the evidence that some (not all) NYT and BBC articles are beginning to avoid the phrase, "committed suicide" is unlike "died by suicide" or "killed themselves" in that it is a very loaded term. [...] Additionally, we see above and below that the WHO, APA, APA (different one), NIMH and many others all recommend against "committed suicide". So this "we're not here to right great wrongs" nonsense is not based on the actual current state of the world, which is that "committed suicide" might be a very commonly used phrase but it's one advised against by high quality sources and guidelines, and there are several terms which are not advised against and don't share the non-neutral baggage. This all still applies. — Bilorv (talk) 21:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    You're engaging in the WP:Specialized-style fallacy. The most reliable sources for English-language usage matters are style guides, dictionaries, and the actual usage evident in modern high-quality sources across various genres. Language-change activism source material is WP:PRIMARY (op-ed, opinion, advocacy), so it is not a reliable source for anything but the viewpoint being expressed and the reasoning behind the viewpoint. No one questions that the viewpoint against "committed suicide" exists, that it is found advocated by various writers (in journalism, in psychology, etc.), nor what the beliefs behind that viewpoint are. (That said, the factual claims underlying those beliefs are sometimes incorrect, especially about linguistic matters.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    @SMcCandlish: perhaps I can make myself clearer. I view the phrase as having a specific and strong negative judgement value on those to whom it applies. If you agreed with me that the phrase held significant negative judgement and that a term without this judgement existed (and I'm sure you can think of other terms/phrase to which these premises apply) then would you agree with me that this is no such "specialized-style fallacy" but instead a necessary measure to take under WP:NPOV and (when discussing named individuals) WP:BLP? — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    See big sourcing dump below. In short, virtually none of the RS on English usage agree with you in this assessment. So your if scenario is not applicable; it's false analogy. This is not in fact comparable to something like, say, "honkies" versus "white people". There is only a narrow subset of writers making an argument for offensiveness, so it is in fact a specialized-style argument. They may actually win on this matter over the course of one to three generations, but it certainly has not happened yet, and there is no evidence it is likely to be successful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow but do not require. While there are calls to avoid the phrase, and possibly some movements against using it, these are not mainstream at the current time and it remains in common use in the reliable sources that Wikipedia should generally follow. I wouldn't be surprised if the landscape looks rather different in 10-20 years time, but for now there is not justification for Wikipedia to proscribe it - we really shouldn't be actively encouraging it though. Thryduulf (talk) 22:59, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    Thryduulf, I've seen the Ngram results, so clearly "committed suicide" is ubiquitous, but what RS using "committed suicide" are folks generally referring to? Would biographies be a good place for me to check? News sources seem to be using "died by suicide" more often. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:57, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow Good lord, hasn't this been discussed enough? "Committed suicide" is common language and can be found all over in high-quality sources. There is no need for Wikipedia to be so persnickety. ∴ ZX95 [discuss] 23:14, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - It takes a lot of commitment to commit suicide. That said - also allow other terms and usages. Trust editors to figure out what words to write in which situations. Blueboar (talk) 23:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow. It is widely used and the argument that committed implies a crime is plain wrong, one can, for example, idiomatically commit oneself to a cause or religion ("committed Christian"). Espresso Addict (talk) 00:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    @Espresso Addict, I've tried to come up with examples of committing acts, because that's the specific form under discussion, and phrases like "committing his body to the deep", committing code (for software developers), committing to do better next time, etc., aren't the same construction. So far, I have found that we commit (lots of) crimes, (some) sins (many of which either are or previously were crimes in the English-speaking world), and (occasional) random acts of kindness. Can you think of any others? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    I see what you mean; the transitive verb and the intransitive verb have diverged somewhat. Chambers gives the transitive the following definition (my numbers): "(1) to give in charge or trust; (2) to consign, send; (3) to become guilty of, perpetrate; (4) to involve (esp oneself); (5) to pledge, promise". "To commit suicide" could fall under senses (1) or possibly (2) as well as (3). But to be honest, I think this is irrelevant; it's just an idiomatic phrase that conveys the gravity of the act. (By the way, in response to your comment above, I'm extremely sensitive around suicide for reasons I'm not prepared to go into here, and I don't personally think that any form of wording helps to get around the basic facts that the person chose to kill themself without regard to the love and support that their family and friends offered them.) Espresso Addict (talk) 00:36, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    This kind of response is one of the reasons that I love talking to Wikipedia editors. You understood the grammar point and could still see the broader context. Thank you so much for posting that. I think you're right. The fact that it's just the familiar idiom is a key factor, no matter what anyone might guess about its true/grammatical/historical/etymological origin. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    WhatamIdoing, isn't the phrase "commit an act of kindness" an ironic, nonstandard use? It sounds to me like "rather than committing an act of harm, today commit an act of random kindness." Can you find another example? I can't find anything with this Google search.[6] It seems that "commit" violates NPOV.
    Espresso Addict, the definition from Chambers Dictionary which applies is "1) to carry out or perpetrate (a crime, offence, error, etc)." Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    If we were trying to write that "commit random acts of kindness" is ironic, then we'd need a source. However, it sounds very plausible to me.
    I am not sure that commit inherently violates NPOV. We might, however, need to be careful of when it's used. One person might "commit" suicide, while another might merely die that way. As an example, I think that editors might choose different descriptions for an apparently impulsive suicide by a teenager versus a carefully planned suicide by a dying person.
    Some years ago, I read about some people who survived a "jumping from heights" suicide attempt. One thing that is unusual about that method is that you are conscious and thinking, but there is nothing you can do. You can't "un-jump" when you change your mind, and you know it. All but one survivor reported regretting the decision while still falling. Perhaps editors would decide that "commit (as in an error)" could be a fair description for that situation. (I'd still personally prefer to follow the sources, because editors could agree in principle that the context and circumstances matter, but never agree on which ones warranted the "commit" language.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:11, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    The RS show that "commit" has a negative connotation. Every RS which specifically discusses the phrase "commit suicide" says so. It's loaded language which violates NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    Of course it has a negative connotation: it's suicide! Do you expect describing someone's grisly death would be a bed of roses experience for the reader? Elizium23 (talk) 04:54, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    Negative as in doing something that's wrong. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:02, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    99 out of 100 RS agree that suicide is wrong. Murder is wrong and suicide is just a special case of murder. There are, historically, repercussions for committing or attempting suicide. If we wish to remain neutral then we will observe the RS judgement that suicide is wrong and bad and not try to fake over it. Elizium23 (talk) 05:06, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow and please prevent shaming and edit-warring of others who wish to obliterate such language from the project. We follow WP:RS and decades, centuries of them have used this idiom for good reasons. Elizium23 (talk) 00:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow. By far the most common term... we are not censored nor should we advocate for a new term.--Moxy 🍁 01:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    It appears that this allegedly "new" term was in use in the 19th century. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - It's not our task to attempt to change the language, any more than it is for us to promote scientific theories which have not been accepted, or changes in the generally accepted history of things which experts do not yet have a consensus about. It's our task to use the language as we find it, and "committed suicide" is the commonly used expression. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:23, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • And, incidentally, "died by his own hand" and "took her own life" are in no way euphemistic or editorializing and should be allowed as well. They are not euphemistic because the event as described is literally true (although the use of "hand" is figurative, but not euphemistic), and they do not editorialize because neither makes a value judgment about the act. If anyone sees a value judgment there, it's being inferred by them and is not implicit in the phrase. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:30, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd be inclined to strongly discourage "died by his own hand" outside direct quotes not because it's euphemistic but because it's unnecessarily flowery, and also potentially open to misunderstanding particularly by people for whom English isn't a first language. In general, idiomatic English doesn't translate well on a global project; I could easily imagine a reader interpreting it as "he died of wounds to the hand". ‑ Iridescent 03:40, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • That's a valid point, one that's also applicable to "passed away" or "passed", which are both euphemistic and idiomatic, and which should be disallowed if they're not already. (Of course, they don't generally refer to suicide.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow, but don't require I've never seen "commit" under a negative connotation. I think "commit" is perfectly acceptable. But if the Wikipedia article originally doesn't use the word "commit", we shouldn't replace it. pandakekok9 (talk) 03:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow but not mandate, and also discourage changing to other wording for no good reason. We do not need obscure euphemisms, or overly blunt language. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow If there is consensus on a given page to use something else, so be it, but in my experience changing from the standard "committed suicide" to something else is generally an undiscussed POV edit. This reminds me of the all instances of "prostitute" must be changed to "sex worker" mindset. Meters (talk) 03:47, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow. Even if this is a wrong (I personally disagree, but that's neither here nor there), Wikipedia is not the place to right them. The 'permitted but not required' softening sounds odd to me, on account of I doubt people have been trying to require this wording -- it's simply the natural English wording used in most formal conversation and by most sources. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 04:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    Vaticidalprophet (The Bushranger who also used this argument): Doesn't the "right great wrongs" section refer to making claims that aren't supported by evidence? How is that related to the way we word things overall? Is it therefore also righting great wrongs to translate material, or to use modern terms for an illness? --Xurizuri (talk) 01:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - it's common language, Wikipedia is not censored, and we are not a place to right great wrongs historical or social. - The Bushranger One ping only 04:52, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - While I'm sympathetic to the argument presented by those sources (I don't know who wouldn't be), "committed suicide" is still, for better or worse, the common terminology, and disallowing in favor of more euphemized alternatives would be fairly heavy-handed censorship on a project that is not censored. That said, I totally agree with the above users who say wording shouldn't be arbitrarily changed to "commit", nor should it be favored. ~Swarm~ {sting} 05:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    • "I don't know who wouldn't be" -- not to get too personal, but a lot of claims in the sphere of suicide terminology (this is a prime example, but not the only one -- consider also the mentioned-in-this-thread "the cause of death is mental illness, not suicide") actually rings quite false to people with experience with suicide or its attempts/ideation either in themselves or close associates. It of course also rings true to many people, but it's not as one-sided as you might assume from reading the popular takes. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 05:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      I'm not saying the arguments ring true with every person affected by suicide, indeed the linked survey suggests that that even these people are completely divided between finding it completely acceptable and completely unacceptable. I'm just saying the arguments against it are pretty common sense and straightforward, and even if you find it to be an inoffensive term, the fact that others find it stigmatizing, upsetting or hurtful for what are pretty understandable reasons should be enough for a normal person to at least be sympathetic. ~Swarm~ {sting} 05:46, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      The notion that "commit" implies criminality is baseless, and the idea that we should be sympathetic to a misunderstanding of linguistics is confounding. Nihlus 06:05, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      Your opinion is irrelevant. ~Swarm~ {sting} 08:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      Swarm, it's not and neither is your opinion that you shared above. Do better. Nihlus 20:03, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      Actually it is, we're literally discussing the fact that people have divided opinions on this, there's absolutely zero reason for you to jump in just to declare that everyone who disagrees with your opinion is invalid. If you're proud to invalidate reliable authors and widespread opinions from people who have been affected by suicide, that's on you. But it's irrelevant to me personally and it's irrelevant to how we consider sources. And also, don't do so by saying it's because they "don't understand linguistics" when you apparently can't even conceptualize that language is fluid, subjective and always changing. Saying people who interpret words differently than you are wrong because your perception is the correct one is a psychologist's fallacy, saying it's because they don't "understand linguistics" is an oxymoron. It's nonsensical. You do better. ~Swarm~ {sting} 00:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
      I had something much longer typed out, but I think it would be a better use of your time to just read this to see why you are wrong. I also suggest you don't assume whether or not someone has been affected by suicide. 👍 Nihlus 04:48, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
And now for a straw man argument, how expected. Don't kick your argument to another person who's making it better to refute the fact that the opposing argument is irrelevant to begin with. I've literally said, multiple times now, that people have mixed opinions on this. I'm literally acknowledging that your opinion exists and is shared by others. I'm simply pointing out that your side of the argument is not pertinent to the fact that the other side exists, and is validated by the existence of reliable sources and surveyed opinions. The fact that you're so fixated on your own opinion, to the extent that you'd invalidate reliable sources and research surveys, simply because they don't agree, is, again, indicative of the psychologist's fallacy. The fact that you think the entire discussion revolves around whether you've been affected by suicide is just nonsensical. When I refer to "people affected by suicide", I'm literally referring to the linked survey of "people affected by suicide". I have no idea how you could think otherwise unless you literally didn't even look at the linked sources. This argument is bizarre and anti-academic. I'm trying to discuss sources here, you're just trying to argue your personal opinion above all else. It's unbecoming of a Wikipedian. ~Swarm~ {sting} 00:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    • To stress, the proposed wording (in the discussion below) is not meant to stress "committed suicide" as the preferred wording. It is meant to simply keep it an option on the table when editors are considering what wording to use for an article. --Masem (t) 05:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow and prefer "committed suicide" per the above. The fear of the word commit has never made sense, and it almost seems like institutions are trying to downplay the specter of suicide. Nihlus 05:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    • We're on the same team here in terms of "allow", but the fact that you're arguing that we should prefer "committed suicide" in the face of reliable sources that indicate that the term is hurtful to some is downright cruel. ~Swarm~ {sting} 04:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
      • If you want my personal story to know why I can't take your comment seriously, feel free to send me an email, but I will not entertain it with a debate here. Nihlus 04:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow, for as long as this remains a standard English usage in high-quality sources. This is essentially the exact same discussion we've hade before about euphemisms for died (like "passed away"). Wikipedia is not for advocacy of any kind, including "language-reform" activism. If some day the preponderance of future editions of mainstream book-publishing style guides like Chicago Manual of Style, New Hart's Rules/Oxford Syle Manual, Garner's Modern English Usage, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (the four most influential on our WP:MOS) say to stop using this phrase, then we should consider revising the MoS to say not to use it. Frankly, the arguments behind the idea (that "committed suicide" derives from "committed a crime" or "committed a sin") are linguistic falsehoods, a confusion of correlation for causation, and a folk etymology. All these phrases are simply normal uses of the most common sense of commit: 'to carry out a deliberate, consequential action', with an appropriate implication of contextual gravitas regarding the action in question (no one says "I committed taking a shower"). Like virtually all wording choices, this matter of how to encyclopedically write about a suicide should simply be left to editorial discretion at a particular article, but within the bounds of WP:NPOV, MOS:TONE, MOS:EUPHEMISM and MOS:EDITORIAL – it is not okay to use awful magazine and memoir style, like "took her own life" or "died by his own hand").

    PS: No, do not say "permitted but not required". That's redundant and silly, since "not required" is already implicit in the definition of "permitted". Our guideline material should not treat our editors as if they have brain damage.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

    SMcCandlish, what do the style guides you mention say? The American Heritage Dictionary recommends "death by suicide",[7] so does the AP[8] and The Guardian.[9] Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
Source dump:
Lots of detail from style guides, dictionaries, medical glossaries, other encyclopedias, etc.:
CMoS is entirely silent on it, as is Hart's. Garner's doesn't care; it's only critical of: euphemisms like Latin felo-de-se; "semiliterate" non-standard usage like "to suicide" (verb) and a bit less so "was a suicide" (agent noun); and the judgmental phrases "suicide victim", "self-murder", and "self-slaughter". He also notes the existence of "self-killing", without recommending it. Does not mention "died/death by suicide" at all. Fowler's (Burchfield ed.) has no entry on it, but uncritically illustrates use of "committed suicide" in quotes, thrice (in the "because" and "may and might" entries, pp. 99, 100, 484). No other mention of the word in the entire book is relevant (I have this one in searchable e-book form). I'm not sure where my Butterfield ed. of Fowler's is, but doubt it would be different on this, and even if it were it would be in the minority.

AHD being nearly alone (along with perhaps only the Random House Webster's database, searchable at Dictionary.com) out of all major online dictionaries to take this position is no indication that WP should follow suit. Judging from the wording similarity, these may well be merged databases now; the RH material reads almost exactly as described for AHD in the article you linked to. Anyway, AHD is the most political English dictionary. It does not have an equivalent of WP:NOT#ADVOCACY, but was explicitly founded for the purpose of engaging in linguistic activism (against the linguistic description rather than prescriptive grammar position taken first by Webster's Third New International Dictionary and many after it). The source you quote says it all, very plainly: "Responding to years of advocacy from mental-health patients and practitioners", i.e. AHD made the change to appease activism, from one particular quarter, that its editors agreed with. Cambridge University's dictionary site contradicts itself; it has a proper dictionary entry [10] that has no issue with "committed suicide" and illustrates it twice, from both of Cambridge's print dictionaries, without including "death/died by suicide". But then has a usage entry from the Cambridge Learner's Dictionary (the one for kids and ESL learners) [11] that deprecates the "committed" form, despite one of the examples of it at the main page coming from the same work. This is such an egregious editorial failure, I've reported it to their dictionary editors for review.

Moving on: WP has no reason to care what news style guides say. WP is not written in news style as a matter of clear policy, they have had virtually no influence on our own MoS, they diverge grossly from encyclopedic writing style on literally hundreds of points, they sharply conflict with each other on hundreds of points, and they're often written with publication-specific quirks as a "this is our trademark style" marketing technique (this is especially true of The Guardian and Observer style guide [sic], The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Economist Style Guide, and other per-publication stylesheets). They are effectively useless for any WP-related question except when included as additional data points in an overview of all major style guides in the aggregate, on a non-politicized question (e.g., whether to use a comma before "Jr." in a name). Since you seem to like news style guides so much, be aware that the NYT and Economist stylebooks are silent on the matter, though Reuters (as usual) parrots AP Style, down to the false linguistic claims and the recommendation of encyclopedically inappropriate emotive euphemism like "died by his own hand"

Dictionary counter-examples to AHD: Same with Lexico (the new name of the Oxford U. dictionary site) [12] (uses "commit" forms three times, not "death/died by" at all). The Merriam-Webster English Dictionary uses "commit[ted] suicide" three times in its entry, not "death/died by", though it does illustrate "ruled the death a suicide" [13]; has separate entry for "commit suicide" with no judgmental usage notes about it [14]; no corresponding pages for "death by suicide" or "died by suicide". Collins English Dictionary uses "commit" forms eleven times, including many press quotations, but "death/died by" forms zero times. YourDictionary.com: two examples of "commit[ted] suicide", none of "death/died by suicide" [15]. The Free Dictionary (Farlex) interestingly shows how recent AHD's change is, since it quotes the 5th ed. using "commit[s] suicide" twice, with not "death/died by"; quotes Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, Princeton U./Farlex WordNet, and Collins Thesaurus all doing the same [16]. Random House Unabridged Dictionary (via InfoPlease.com) uses "commit" but not "death/died by". MacMillan Dictionary uses "commit", does not mention "died/death by", though an "open dictionary" WP:UGC post at the bottom brings it up [17][18]. Good Word Guide (a usage dictionary like Fowler's and Garner's), uses "commit[s]" twice without "died/death by", and says nothing judgmental about "commit" in its notes [19]. Wordsmyth uses "committed suicide", doesn't list "death/died by". The only sources among any of these that I've seen even mention suicide as a crime are WordNet and Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (both quoted at Definitions.net entry, which uses "commit" four times and "died/death by" zero times); neither of them try to assert any etymological (word/phrase-origins) connection between "commit a crime" and "commit suicide". The Century Dictionary (quoted at Wordnik) uses "commit".

Surprisingly to probably no one but the language-change activists, medical dictionaries generally do not help the case for "death/died by". MedTerms Medical Dictionary at MedicineNet [20] and RxList [21] uses "committed", including over and over again in related article "Bipolar Disorder: Symptoms, Testing for Bipolar Depression" [22]. The Free Dictionary medical search's encyclopedic entry uses the "commit" forms 17 times, "death/died by" 0 times [23]. Merck Manual uses the "commit" forms over and over again [24][25], and also uses the "died/death by" forms a lot in the latter (mixing usage in same article). MedicalDictionaryWeb.com takes no position on the matter, and neither does OpenMD, or The Vocabulary of Loss: A Glossary of Suicide-related Terminology [26].

Other encyclopedias: Encyclopedia2.TheFreedictionary.com provides material from The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (Columbia U.), Collins Dictionary of Sociology, Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary (Gale), and less relevant works; the combined material from those named sources used "commit" forms seven times, and again in press quotations at the bottom, but "death/died by" forms only once (only in a press quote), though it has other constructions used in it also. Encyclopædia Britannica uses "commit" and not "death/died by" in its article on suicide [27], though it probably uses various phrasing including the latter in specific biographical articles.

Corpora searches (just ones using recent material) mostly can't be searched and then linked to the results, so you have to run most of them yourself. Google Ngrams shows that the "commit/committed/committing" forms massively dominate over the "death/died/dying by" forms in book publishing, and that even up to 2019, the latter barely register at all, i.e. have not been appreciably increasing, much less toward the levels of currency enjoyed by the former. News on the Web shows "committed suicide leads over "died by suicide" in online-findable news material by about a 41:6 ratio. Corpus of Global Web-Based English shows the same ~41:6 ratio again. The 14 Billion Word Web Corpus shows about and 18:1 ratio in favor of "committed". Corpus of Contemporary American English says "committed" leads by about 23 : 0.5.

Ultimately, this is a WP:FRINGE matter. It is not WP's job to avoid writing in plain English just to avoid hurting the feelings of a few people who don't know jack about etymology and who have falsely assumed that "commit suicide" is derived from "commit a crime/sin". There is no connection between these phrases other than their use of the Latinate word "commit", which has positive uses as well ("commit to our marriage", "committed to memory", etc.). The word does not imply a wrong, it just implies, well, a committed (serious-intent) decision or course of action of some consequence or importance. We are not in a position to pretend otherwise because some busybodies have a "post-truth", "alternative facts" false idea in their head, about which they choose to get unreasonably emotional. It doesn't matter for WP that AP and a few other entities have bought into this nonsense. A few other large publishers like Fox News have also bought into the idea that the Trumpist/QAnon conspiracy theory about a "deep state" is true, too, but we do not write about it as true on Wikipedia.

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Rebuttal:
SMcCandlish, I see that Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary includes, "commmit suicide, a phrase used to mean 'to kill yourself', which is now considered offensive because it suggests that doing this is a crime."[28] The Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary does not include this idiom and has apparently not updated its examples. Dictionary.com advises: "However, the phrase commit suicide is discouraged by major editorial style guides, mental health professionals, and specialists in suicide prevention. The verb commit is associated with crime (in the justice system) and sin (in religion). Using such moralistic language deepens the emotional pain surrounding a suicide. The verb phrases to die by suicide and to end one’s life are now preferred over the common expression commit suicide."[29] It appears that this has been a change over just the past few years, and many sources have not caught up yet. We have three dictionaries, news style guides, and the American Psychological Association recommending against "commit suicide". Shouldn't we avoid "commit suicide" per WP:MOSMED#Careful language, and WP:Manual of style/Words to watch which states: "The goal is to express ideas clearly and directly without causing unnecessary offense. Do not assume that plain language is inappropriate"? "Committed suicide" is just an idiom which causes unnecessary offense. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
I already covered the fact that Cambridge's two dictionaries contradict each other (and the one you like even contradicts itself: some of the "commit" examples are from Cambridge Advanced Learner's, not from Cambridge Academic; maybe you missed that?). It's not dispositive of anything in this discussion, it just rules out that particular dictionary site as helpful either way on this question. "Using such moralistic language ..." – repeating the assertion that "commit" is moralistic doesn't magically make it so. The WP:SNOWstorm here clearly disagrees with you, as do the vast majority of RS material on English usage. That was the entire point of this sourcing run, which took many hours, so I find it very disappointing that it just did not make a dent in your viewpoint advocacy. [sigh] The verb commit is also associated with forming and affirming relationships, diligence, principle and integrity, and various other positive things. I'll leave it to you to look up that word in every available dictionary, since hardly anyone else here is having confusion about this, so the work will not be a productive use of my own time. "It appears that this has been a change over just the past few years" – Google Ngrams and other corpora searches shows no such change taking place at all. (And I can anecdotally tell you that I first encountered this "commit-is-bad" argument back in the late 1980s! It is not new at all.) What has actually happened is some linguistically ignorant busybodies have made some noise, and a tiny handful of players in the mainstream publishing industry (AHD, AP, Reuters, Guardian, and a couple of others) have bought into it uncritically, while all the rest have ignored it as nonsense. It's highly instructive to look at the those which have done so: AHD expressly exists as the last bastion of prescriptivism in major dictionaries; it is an overtly political work. The newswires and the news publishers who use them are utterly dependent on advertising dollars, and thus are extremely averse to giving offense to any category of persons for any reason, whether the reason has any basis in reality or not; they are vastly more tolerant of, more promotional of, euphemistic circumlocution than any other type of publisher (which is one of many reasons that WP doesn't use news style). And "an idiom which causes unnecessary offense": This argument is made all the time with regard to everything listed at MOS:EUPHEMISM, and the argument always fails. This is in no way a special case. WP is not the World Feelings Police, and is not in a position to "clean up" the English language to never be possible to give (fallacy-based) offense to anyone. Listen to the actual suicide survivors (in both senses) on this very page. They are telling you they do not find this offensive. If you Google around off-site for similar debates you'll find many, many more of them. What you'll also find is social-sciences nerds making arguments that the term is offensive, i.e. acting in loco parentis as "allies" of people who did not ask for their advocacy. There are comparatively few relatives of suicided persons or survivors of own suicide attempts, who are activists against the phrase "commit suicide". Someone-somewhere-may-be-offended can be true of virtually anything, and it does not have an effect on how WP writes; we change how we write when English usage in the aggregate has provably changed. Not before, and certainly not in an effort to cause that change to happen or go faster.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, WP:MOSMED#Careful language says that we should avoid terms like "drug abuse" because for one, the term "carries negative connotations", and we should avoid saying that people "suffer from" or are "victims of" illnesses because of the implications. The policy also says we should defer to what "Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer". Do typical style guides speak to these concerns? If they do not, we should not expect them to inform our decision about "commit suicide" either. Note that even AHD defines the noun epileptic as "One who has epilepsy" without a usage note against it,[30] even though our policy does advise against its usage. Even though style books don't mention every term, Chicago Manual of Style does have a section on "Good usage versus common usage", which applies. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
The policy also says we should defer to what ""Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer"" is fine, but the point you are ignoring but which is being made by many people here is that those who have been most directly affected by suicide are almost all in favour of retaining "committed suicide", the advocacy for change is primarily coming from onlookers. There is no evidence that anyone has actually been stigmatised by "committed suicide" and the people who the guideline says we should defer to clearly have no desire to create such a stigma by proscribing a common phrase. Thryduulf (talk) 12:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
The RS which comment on "committed suicide" say it is problematic. The opinions of editors here are WP:OR. The cited survey states that while "commit suicide" is acceptable to many people effected by suicide, many "People bereaved by suicide have highlighted that the word 'commit' is most commonly used in conjunction with a criminal act, resulting in a negative connotation of immorality... Consequently, use of the phrase 'commit suicide' in the media and in academia has been discouraged...." "The scores for 'commit suicide' were most variable...'took their own life', 'died by suicide' and 'ended their life' were however considered most acceptable. We argue that academic and media guidelines should promote use of these phrases."[31] Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:52, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
It's odd to leave out this part, emphasis mine: Opinion about the phrase “committed suicide” was most divided amongst people who had been affected by suicide through someone they knew (3; IQR = 1–5). Those who had been affected by suicide solely through their own experiences more commonly found it to be acceptable (4; IQR = 3–5) compared with those whose experience of suicide was exclusively through work or volunteering (2; IQR =1–3). This entire conversation just feels like people trying to be politically correct for the sake of being politically correct, including the not-so-reliable "reliable" linguistically ignorant busybodies, as SMcCandlish put it. Nihlus 22:20, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Kolya, I decline to argue in circles with you until the end of time. You are engaging in false dichotomy and false equivalence. "Drug abuse" carries "negative connotations" because "abuse" has nothing but negative connotations. This is not true of "commit" which has a wide range of connotations, including positive and neutral ones. You're effectively pretending that there can only be "offensive" and "not offensive" but this is silly. Pretty much everything is offensive to someone somewhere (usually for unsound reasons, as in this case). "Offensive to some small sliver of the population" does not equate to "offensive" in the meaning of our guidelines and with regard to how WP should write. I have outsourced you by an order of magnitude. Virtually no reliable sources on English usage are critical of "commit[ted] suicide". Of the few that are, one is self-contradictory, one is an explicitly activistic, prescriptivist work, and the rest are known for bending over backwards to appease as many sensibilities (and thus advertisers) as possible, even at the expense of clarity.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:24, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
Possibly every reliable source, every dictionary, says that commit means to do something (wrong). Lexico: "Perpetrate or carry out (a mistake, crime, or immoral act)."[32] That violates NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
A quick 2¢, which is: the majority of these sources do not include specific guidelines on the term "committed suicide" (if we're excluding the ones argued against), but simply contain the words uncritically in tangential entries. Also, we should be careful referring to standard dictionaries for usage, since they are concerned with descriptive definitions, which is not quite equivalent with usage. —WingedSerif (talk) 15:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow I lost an uncle and two cousins to suicide, and if anyone asked me how one of them died, I would say that he or she "committed suicide", with tears in my eyes, and a big lump in my throat. This is common English language usage. Wikipedia is not a place to campaign for language reform. We follow reliable sources, not lead them. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 07:37, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow saying "died by suicide" is PC snowflake do-goodery at its worst. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 09:21, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    User:Lugnuts that's not actually an argument. 1) why is it PC snowflake do-goodery, 2) why is that bad?, 3) this RfC isn't even about died by suicide, it's about committed suicide.
    It's clearly an argument against euphemistic language, even if a poorly phrased one. And this is about "died by suicide" and every other alternative to "committed suicide", so your argument that Lugnuts is not actually making an argument, is not actually an argument. That is, your pretense to not understand someone's reasoning is not an actual rebuttal, it's just hand-waving.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - Suicide is the person's last act of their own volition. Switching from an active to a passive voice ("died by suicide") frames the act as if it were an accident rather than a choice. COMMIT ; -- Cabayi (talk) 13:03, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    I understand, but this RfC is just about the word "committed". We can still say "killed themself", "ended his life", or "chose death by suicide rather than..." Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    Suicide isn't a heroic act where you take back power. It is a symptom of mental illness. --Xurizuri (talk) 14:31, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    Not always. Goering and Himmler, for eample, commited suicide to escape justice. Hector MacDonald commited suicide to avoid disgrace. Suicide is not always a symptom of mental illness. DuncanHill (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    the overwhelming majority are related to mental illness. Being able to name a handful of exceptions does not refute this. --Xurizuri (talk) 01:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    And none of this has anything to do with whether "committed suicide" is conventional, contemporary English in high-quality sources (hint: it is).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Change. As per MOS:MED#Careful language, "Choose appropriate words when describing medical conditions and their effects on people". Within the context of the section and the "for more advice," on that point, appropriate means medically accurate and not expressing negative/disparaging attitudes. If one goes to the recently released version of the linked guideline, it more specifically states: "strive to use language that is free of bias and avoid perpetuating prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes in their writing". A fair number of guidelines and self-advocacy groups, and some other statements such as in the background section of this discussion, recommend that commit suicide should be avoided as it is negative/disparaging/prejudicial/demeaning. (Beginning of this sentence was changed after feedback, it was previously: As suicide is almost universally a consequence of mental illness) People with mental illness are overwhelmingly more likely to experience suicidality/attempt suicide and cause of death is as close as you can get to a basic field of medicine, I believe that this should be treated as falling under MED. And so, that we should use non-stigmatised language. Also, WP is for the people that are reading it, and a lot of people have been affected by suicide. The experience of the user isn't irrelevant. In this situation, it's not about offense, it's about the experience of being literally harmed by the way something is discussed. For example, someone who has experienced childhood abuse would really really struggle with seeing the persistent use of a phrase that implies that they were at fault for having been abused (because that's what commit suicide implies - that it was within the person's control and that they have done something wrong). I'll admit that the harm that is incurred isn't huge in this case as it is a super common term in general, but there is reason to modify behaviour here that isn't just "people don't like this". I personally feel very strongly about this term being inappropriate outside of WP as well, and I am not a proponent of "just go with what an article uses" - we copyedit material in many ways. Also, a genuine request for clarification, doesn't WP:COMMONNAME only apply to article titles? Or is there another policy/guideline that states to use the most common terms? --Xurizuri (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.09.031 - systematic review of guidelines for public messaging around suicide, one of the findings is that there was majority agreement to avoid committed suicide. (Note: the purpose of these guidelines isn't necessarily to reduce stigma or general harm, typically their goal is to reduce rates of suicide. I still believe these to be relevant as they are a reasonable guide on what the literature supports as appropriate.) --Xurizuri (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    The last sentence of the "results" section of that paper is is telling: "none provided empirical data that could help support or refute any recommendations". I have (as a mental illness sufferer [and I chose that word carefully] who has known fellow-sufferers who have killed themselves) not seen any surveys of those of us who supposedly undergo this stigma that show that "commit suicide" is considered in any way disparaging or stigmatising. This argument about language is simply a cover-up that avoids proper research into what really concerns us. Psychiatry is a difficult business, largely and understandably based on trial and error, and such side-shows only lead to less research being done into the real issues of mental illness. Listen to the people with mental illness, not those who earn money by pretending to know about it. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:50, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    I have wondered whether this recommendation might be an effort to reduce the shame and stigma experienced by some friends and family members. In that case, the recommendation could be a valid recommendation, even if we had incontrovertible evidence that it had no effect on any person who is considering suicide or who has attempted suicide in the past. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    How about friends and family members who find the use of this kind of pussy-footing euphemistic "look at me I am so caring" language painful? DuncanHill (talk) 00:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    "Don't use committed" does not necessarily translate to any specific language, pussy-footed or otherwise.
    (I associate pussy-footed-ness with a very specific situation: a dangerously slick staircase at a professional ballet company, and their efforts to keep their younger dancers from running loudly downstairs. That picture fits into our efforts to "dance around the subject".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    Telling people not to use "committed suicide" is pussy-footing around it, and does seem to me to be far more to be about making the person using the language feel good about themself rather than any real concern for the victims. I think @Phil Bridger: put it very well above "This argument about language is simply a cover-up that avoids proper research into what really concerns us. Psychiatry is a difficult business, largely and understandably based on trial and error, and such side-shows only lead to less research being done into the real issues of mental illness." DuncanHill (talk) 00:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    "As suicide is almost universally a consequence of mental illness"[citation needed] -- now that, I do find offensive. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:46, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    My apologies Espresso Addict, I worded the statement slightly incorrectly; I struggle with conceptualising risk. People with mental illness are overwhelmingly more likely to experience suicidality, and to attempt suicide. I have struck out the previous statement above, and replaced it with that. And the requested citations, all meta-analyses published within the past 5 years: [33] [34] [35]. Finally, may I ask for clarification on how me not providing citations is offensive to you? If you are being genuine, I would appreciate feedback. If not, why are you bringing offense into this at all? No one in this thread has stated that the issue is offense, the issues put forward are stigma and harm. --Xurizuri (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    I don't argue that people with mental illness are more likely to attempt suicide, but the converse that "suicide is almost universally a consequence of mental illness" is, as far as I know, completely incorrect; what I find offensive is the implication that anyone who commits suicide or experiences suicidal ideation must have a mental illness. If you can't see why that might potentially be offensive then I can't help you. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:55, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    Phil Bridger, the research is about whether certain ways of discussing suicide increases or decreases the risk of suicide in the general population. Is the claim you're making that this is not worthwhile? Further, our opinions on what research is and isn't worthwhile is both OR and irrelevant to this particular discussion. Further, it's a new field; this is how many of them start, with theories. It is a problem that they aren't tested, but unless you can find something else, it's the best we can go on. And you are not the only one with lived experience. --Xurizuri (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow This is actually ridiculous. Why would we change a good grammatic statement to a bad one? Lettlerhello • contribs 18:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    @Lettler, do you think that "He killed himself" or "The cause of death was suicide" are ungrammatical sentences? I don't.
    The RFC question doesn't even mention the phrase died by suicide. There is no proposal to require any specific phrase. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow as per above and because otherwise we're entering WP:NOTCENSORED territory. — Czello 19:08, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow as per (WhatamIdoing) sometimes permitted, never required. This perennial discussion came about as I sought to resolve the ongoing edit war at Robin Williams, that had spilled over at times to Lewy body dementia, before his 70th birthday in July 2021, where his article will be in focus. I initially approached this dilemma as not caring which way it was resolved, as long as it was resolved, but what convinced me that this was not a black-and-white, either-or situation was this Slate article. After reading the Slate article, I went back to see what language Williams's widow used, and decided to respect her use of language. Through that, I discovered that there were plenty of options for not using "committed suicide", while not resorting to the ungrammatical "died by suicide". At both dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Lewy body dementia (LBD), that involved simply recasting of sentences: DLB, LBD. The solution I found allows those articles to still use the words committed suicide should there be another notable suicide involving Mr. Lewy, where the family and sources have a different preference. There are plenty of ways to reflect reliable sources without restricting our choices, and we don't need to disallow the choice of "committed suicide". We can respect families and reflect reliable sources without outlawing any individual choice, by simply re-casting sentences. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow and mark as a perennial discussion that shouldn't be reopened without a good reason. Yes, there are some advocacy groups that are offended by this language (for reasons that I personally don't see as a very convincing interpretation, although my personal preferences are irrelevant). No, that isn't enough to "ban" a perfectly valid construction that is used normally and without ill intent quite commonly by both writers and readers. Even if it wasn't common, that still wouldn't be reason to discourage or forbid it anymore than thousands of other constructions whose popularity might wax or wane with time, some of which are also sometimes accused of leading to hostile interpretations whether accidentally or not. SnowFire (talk) 00:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - per many, many arguments above. I'll just point to SnowFire, Czello, and Cabayi in particular. --Khajidha (talk) 13:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - excising a phrase from the encyclopedia is a drastic remedy that should only be taken, if at all, when there is a clear consensus among reliable sources that the phrase is unacceptable. See, e.g., WP:NOTCENSORED. I just don't see that consensus here. "Commit" has a neutral denotation ("to carry into action deliberately") and a connotation that is subject to reasonable dispute by people of good faith. Taking a side in that dispute would compromise Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality. The MOS should only forbid phrases that standard English usage already forbids, and, whether one likes it or not, standard English usage still permits this phrase. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:08, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow "commit" is the verb that collocates with "suicide". That's just standard English grammar. Most complaints I see about this usage are based on the flawed comparison to "commit a crime", which is facially ridiculous. Just because we use "make" for "make a cake" and "make a joke" doesn't imply that cakes are a joke. The fact that some activists push to eliminate this usage, and that some newspaper style guides have gone along with it, shouldn't affect Wikipedia in any way. Editors should generally use the standard and most common verbal constructions. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 02:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow. While the list of institutions and organizations that have come out against the usage of the phrase "commit suicide" is rather impressive, most of those organizations (WHO, APA, NIMH, etc) have recommended against the phrase "commit suicide" in their role as advocacy groups seeking to prevent suicide. Advocacy groups and their opinions are unimportant to this discussion regardless of who they are. What matters is what important style guides have had to say on this matter. So far I've only seen that the AP stylebook has recommended against the usage of the phrase "committed suicide". This is one style guide used mostly for primary sources (newspaper articles are mostly primary sources regardless of what editors at AfD believe) in only one country. I'd like to see this ban on the usage of the phrase "committed suicide" supported by several other style guides representing a variety of English speaking countries before I could support this change. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 06:27, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Require "committed suicide". My brother committed suicide, as well as others I have known. Not sure why anyone would think changing how its worded makes any difference. "Died by suicide" should not be tolerated. 899 articles currently use it already, people keep edit warring that in. You can't just "allow" you have to make it "required" otherwise people will just keep edit warring nonstop. Dream Focus 14:50, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow as normal English usage. If there is a rational reason not to use it in a specific context, discuss giving relevant reasons and evidence in that context.· · · Peter Southwood (talk): 14:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Disallow Wording should be neutral and the trend in reliable sources is away from using the verb "committed." See for example "The words to say – and not to say – about suicide" (CNNhealth June 11, 2018.) Under common law, suicide was a felony with legal consequences to the offender and their family. The offender would be buried at a crossroads with a stake driven through their heart and their property forfeited to the Crown.[36] Since that is no longer the case we should not falsely state that someone committed a felony. TFD (talk) 15:45, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow because we write in common/normal English, as said so many times above; if there is a specific reason not to use it in a specific context (vague, because i can't think of one), then that's certainly allowed, but generally we should not forbid common usage. In reply to the argument immediately above, we are not stating "that someone committed a felony", exactly because it isn't (most places) any more; happy days, LindsayHello 16:06, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow but discourage "Committed suicide" is common terminology so it shouldn't be outright forbidden per se. But die(d) by suicide / die(d) due to suicide / die(d) from suicide are all grammatically correct, straightforward and neutral, and should be preferred IMO. Some1 (talk) 19:23, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Problem is... on WP, saying something is “preferred” quickly becomes interpreted as a mandate to mass-edit to that option. That just leads to more drama. Blueboar (talk) 20:20, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Disallow To "commit" suicide is to suggest something criminal or immoral. The terminology should be consigned to the history books wherever possible. Language and attitudes have moved on, Wikipedia must reflect that. doktorb wordsdeeds 22:23, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - Its not our place to decide what language people use- we're not here to do activism. Leave this to the natural evolution of language and actual activist efforts, please - until that language has actually been stopped from usage (be it hate speech laws or otherwise), its not our place to make that change. Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 02:11, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow per SMcCandlish – it's not at all obvious that the negative connotations of "commit" in the sense of "commit murder" also apply to the phrase "commit suicide". Absent a clear consensus that the phrase is non-neutral, editors should be permitted to use it. – Teratix ₵ 02:22, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Follow the sources, use the phrase used by sources. If sources say "committed suicide", "suicided", "killed himself" or whatever, use what the sources use, follow the sources, Wikipedia does not lead. NB. sources must use the phrase, as suicide is emotive and sensitive sometimes, especially when unclear, and Wikipedia should not lead with the judgement. If in doubt, use "died". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow. I definitely do not agree with preferring "died by suicide" in close cases; that strikes me as a PC euphemism, whereas Wikipedia is supposed to prefer straight talk. If anything, we should prefer "killed him(her)self", which is simply factual, and cannot be argued to imply a crime (in jurisdictions where it's not in fact a crime). That at least respects the agency of the individual. --Trovatore (talk) 03:42, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Follow recent sources. Wikipedia should not be on the vanguard of language change, but our pages are not editors' personal blogs and there is no need to "let" anyone write in "their voice." I am not sure where the change stands at the moment but we should be open to preferring "died by suicide" as this phrase becomes preferred in recent publication. In particular, I oppose closing this discussion with prejudice against future discussions as it seems that this is a rapidly changing area of language and the situation may well be different in the future. CapitalSasha ~ talk 05:16, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow or require. This is one of the few issues on which I fully concur with User:SMcCandlish. It definitely should be allowed because "commit" is still by far the predominant usage and WP core policies reflect a long-running tradition that Wikipedia follows, never leads. I am on the fence as to whether to require. User:Dream Focus raises an excellent point that we may need to require "commit" in order to end edit wars over this issue. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow - the "evidence" presented is pretty clear that "committed suicide" is a pretty median, middle of the road term. We see one editorial arguing we should change it (and rather disingenuously to boot!), one survey of people on the acceptability of language where it falls right in the middle of the "euphamism to deliberately shocking" continuum - i.e., it's neither a euphemism nor shocking, but a pretty middle of the road expression. And one editorial that argues (though largely from a personal perspective) that the arguments against using "committed" are all obvious hokum. "Killed themselves" might also be generally acceptable - though that phrase is very slightly ambiguous as it can be used when it's an accident, but it's always specified it's an accident. So, either of those are probably fine, and anything else would probably need a really compelling arugment for why you're using a euphemism. WilyD 14:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Follow the sources, especially recent ones. We should generally follow the lead of the sources in reflecting this sort of thing. Aggressively substituting one term for another when the consensus of the sources is clear is a WP:NPOV violation - but this goes in both directions; "we're going to avoid 'committed suicide' even if the sources use it" is trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, but so is "the sources are wrong to be changing their language and we need to push back against it." We follow, we don't lead. --Aquillion (talk) 17:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow I would guess that this is the most common term for the act. An acceptable alternative, probably favored by MOS:WORDS, would be "killed himself/herself". The alternative "died by suicide" sounds off in the same way it sounds off to say that someone "died by patricide" or "died by infanticide". Same goes for "suicided". ("John Doe matricided" vs. "John Doe committed matricide" or "John Doe killed his mother") I can accept that the word "commit" is usually followed by something negative (though not always...you can also commit funds or troops or commit acts of kindness) but I don't see that as sufficient reason to disallow the word here. ~Awilley (talk) 18:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Follow the sources: "Committed suicide" does seem like the phrase the average reader is most likely to understand, but I wish this thread made better use of the main style and usage guides. Their silence on the specific term "committed suicide" shouldn't be used as a bludgeon for the use of the phrase, especially when it's combined with dismissal of news style guides, which do have an enormous, general audience and suggest that the term's use is changing. (In this, I agree with User:Aquillion.) Aside: This is an odd case for applying MOS:MED, because it's hard to define what a "patient-perspective" would be here, even if it's to maintain WP:NPOV. —WingedSerif (talk) 19:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow or require I don't know if there's precedent for requiring a certain phrasing, but this is the source of many pointless edit wars. While "died by suicide" is becoming more common in the media, it's still nothing more than a euphemism, and there is nothing wrong with the phrasing "committed suicide". From some of the statements above, this looks like another one of those things where people try to tell other people that they should be offended by something that doesn't offend them. Natureium (talk) 20:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow but absolutely, completely, do not require. Making it compulsory is nonsensical. We follow the sources. If all, or the majority, of the sources aren't using "committed", then we obviously shouldn't either. Example: Scott Hutchison. Doesn't use the word, and even if you type "Scott Hutchison committed" into Google, you get very few hits from RS. The majority of descriptors from RS are of the style of "took own life" or "died by suicide". Black Kite (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow based on standard English. It should also be noted that "killed himself" would include accidental self-caused deaths; and "died by suicide" would include innocent bystanders who died along with the person who committed suicide e.g by causing a vehicle with other people to crash. 217.132.240.72 (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Continue to allow This is the standard English phrase, and it also disambiguates by accidental deaths caused by a person's own actions. Dimadick (talk) 22:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • WP:SNOW. We can continue discussing this, and other silly things that MOS:MED purportedly mandates via WP:LOCALCON, but this RfC has made its point. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:18, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
    • NOT SNOW: this RFC needs a careful close with a well-written rationale by an experienced admin RFC closer. The matter has come up over and over, to the point of disruption, and even as it is snowing, denial and misunderstanding continues at individual articles. The RFC should run its course and the closing rationale should be tight so that disruptive arguments do not continue across multiple articles, as they still are in spite of the snow here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
    • This is an excellent point actually, and hits on a serious problem: How someone died is not and should not be treated as a MOS:MED issue unless there is some technical expertise needed to properly explain the death. That someone committed suicide, died of a heart attack, died in a car accident, etc. is not something that requires careful explanation in the overwhelming majority of circumstances. This would be like extending WP:MEDRS sourcing requirements to cover things like uncomplicated cause of death. Come on. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 18:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow but do not require, it's common and normal terminology. Stifle (talk) 14:10, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow unless and until some major milestone occurs with this sort of thing, like all the mainstream style guides picking it up and keeping it for more than one edition. Or something like that. I guess my point is that the sources presented as giving support for this move are both extremely recent (in linguistic terms) and not reflective either of actual usage or actual practice by prescriptivist authorities. If this was coming from someone like Bryan A. Garner, I could see our MOS (at best) deprecating the phrasing. But even then I think it shouldn't be banned. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Allow – and I don't buy the shaming argument, either; if it's something they wanted, and not coerced, then where is there any shame? Is it worse than "killed themself"? Okay, then use "killed themself". "Died by suicide" sounds oddly passive, with no agency, as if we don't know who did the dastardly deed. Certainly couldn't be *them*, that would be, umm, shameful! But bottom line, as with everything, is the availability of plenty of reliable sources; that should settle the question. Mathglot (talk) 08:58, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Follow the sources, especially recent RS. Don't require a single term and don't prevent future discussion, because this is a dynamic situation that editors will want to be aware of as part of their NPOV when updating BLP articles after someone dies. Although we follow but don't lead on language change, the MOS should acknowledge that a variety of terminology is used, and that to maintain NPOV best practice is to follow the terminology used in recent RS. IndigoBeach (talk) 13:20, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion ("committed suicide")

General discussion

  • What alternative wording is proposed? GiantSnowman 17:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    • This RFC was developed over a while on my talk page (See User Talk:Masem#Williams with help of @SMcCandlish, SandyGeorgia, WhatamIdoing, and Izno:.
    • The language that MOS-fu master SMcCandlish has proposed for MOS:BIO as a starting point is (with the given footnote):

      • When writing of a death by suicide, use any of a variety of encyclopedically appropriate wording choices found in modern reliable sources for biographical subjects. In particular, no consensus exists against the use of committed suicide on Wikipedia. But avoid euphemistic and editorializing expressions, such as died by his own hand or took her own life. Editorial discretion is otherwise left to the consensus of editors at a particular article.{{efn|Previous RfCs and other consensus discussions include: [Cite all those old discussions here.] Euphemistic wording about suicide is common in journalism, but Wikipedia is not written in news style and does not follow news stylebooks. As in most matters, contemporary nonfiction books from major academic publishers provide better models for tone and usage in encyclopedic material.}}

    • This is based on the above noted past discussions, this RFC is to affirm this has broad community consensus. --Masem (t) 17:15, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
      • This RFC can't be used to support that proposed change. The RFC is worded as "should phrasing X be permitted"; but that change would involve insert wording saying alternate phrasing Y is discouraged, which is not the question asked here and not the one most of the respondents have weighed in on. Allowing something is clearly not the same as encouraging it, and definitely not the same as discouraging alternative phrasing - that proposal is completely different question and will (at this point) require a separate RFC. If we want to know the answer to "should we discourage died by his own hand or took her own life" then we'll need a separate RFC for that. --Aquillion (talk) 17:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    • And in terms of other forms that are not "committed suicide", that are not euphemisms that we had identified "died by suicide", "died from suicide", "killed himself", "cause of death was suicide", "suicided", and a few other versions. But key is that what form is free to editors to select, ideally bases on what the RSes say; the key is that status quo would not be to eliminate the use of "committed suicide" as an option. --Masem (t) 17:20, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
      Masem, on the contrary, "died by suicide" seems highly euphemistic to me! To take a literal reading, I would have to believe that suicide is some kind of monster, illness, or machine that ran over the poor unfortunate soul! Elizium23 (talk) 00:23, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      • We are not at this point considering any other specific language outside the concerns over the wording around "committed". If in practice, editors feel that "died by suicide" is a euphamism in the specific article usage, they are not required to use that version, as there's at least four other options they may consider even discounting "committed". All we are concerned with are when editors challenge the use of "committed suicide". --Masem (t) 05:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • See Suicide terminology. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:21, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Why the new RfC? Weren't the 2018 and 2019 discussions clear enough on this matter? – Teratix ₵ 14:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Arguably yes, those discussions should be sufficient but as this keeps coming up (editors removing "committed suicide", this RFC to confirm that this has wide en.wiki support gives us a place to cement it in MOS, and then a pointer to this RFC to show this wasn't a decision made by a couple editors so that we don't have to continue to redebate it (the fact so many debates have happened shows a need to make this final). --Masem (t) 14:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
      • But the wording of the RFC doesn't support the proposed text! Allowing phrasing X is obviously an easier question to ask then "should we discourage phrasing Y"; but this RFC only covers the first. Depending on the outcome of this one, we would need a more specific RFC asking whether eg died by his own hand or took her own life should be allowed as well before inserting language discouraging them. --Aquillion (talk) 17:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
        • Except that those phrase fall under clear euphemisms which established MOS disallow unless as part of quotes. In other words, without this RFC, those phrases should alread be considered inappropriate to use, so in terms of this RFC closing in favor of supporting the allowed use of "committed suicide", it would make sense to just remind editors that these euphemisms - which already are not appropriate - should be avoided as well. --Masem (t) 18:01, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
I think the above suggestion for MOS:BIO is much too long. In particular, the "not news style" is irrelevant, and always reminds me of all the fight we had to have, years ago, to convince the MOS mavens that burying the lede is not considered a good thing in news style. I think we should consider a single sentence: Although some external style guides recommend against it, the phrase committed suicide is not banned in Wikipedia articles. We can expand later if editors can't figure out what "not banned" means for their articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Agree, because "less is more" is always a good solution, and per my "allow" !vote above; there are so many ways to resolve this without over-legislating it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:52, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm not really seeing arguments in favor of the acceptability of "committed suicide" besides it being the common term. It seems to me that it should be avoided based on similar existing WP:MOS recommendations:
WP:MOSMED#Careful language

The term drug abuse is ... and carries negative connotations...

...

Choose appropriate words when describing medical conditions and their effects on people... Avoid saying that people "suffer" from or are "victims" of a chronic illness or symptom, which may imply helplessness: identifiers like survivor, affected person or individual with are alternate wordings. Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer person-first terminology—arguing, for example, that seizures are epileptic, people are not. An example of person-first terminology would be people with epilepsy instead of epileptics... For more advice, see Guidelines for Non-Handicapping Language in APA Journals.

From the American Psychological Association, "Tips for grieving adults, children, and schools dealing with a death by suicide.": "Choose words carefully. To protect peers who may also have suicidal thoughts, avoid phrases such as 'She’s no longer suffering,' or 'He’s in a better place.' Instead, focus on positive aspects of the person’s life. Avoid the term 'committed suicide,' and instead use 'died by suicide.'"[37]
WP:Manual of Style/Words to watch

Clichés and idioms are generally to be avoided in favor of direct, literal expressions.

While "commit suicide" is a direct, literal expression, it is just the familiar idiom.
Also, "died by suicide" is grammatically correct; consider: "Although he died by self-slaughter, in a criminal's cell...." (1851, [38]) "If it appears that he died by self-murder, Finding in the inquisition shall conclude...." (1894, [39]) Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:21, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Kolya Butternut, I believe there was one comment above that felt "committed" had an appropriately formal gravitas. (I have wondered how many "allow" votes are actually "it doesn't matter as long as it's not 'died by suicide'" votes.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    I can speak only to my "allow" !vote. To me "died by suicide" feels a slightly unusual construction, as in I would likely notice the actual words used whereas with "committed suicide" the words (as opposed to the meaning) would rarely consciously register. I would not go so far as to say it was jarring, unlike using "suicide" as a verb which definitely is jarringly unusual. It ("died by suicide") is more akin to reading "gay" used with the meaning "happy" rather than "homosexual" or something written in the mid-20th century that uses clearly gendered language in a way that we just would not write today - clearly understandable but equally clearly unusual in contemporary formal English. Language changes, and I would not be surprised if in the future the "committed" form is the one that feels outdated, but that future is on the order of decades away and entirely WP:CRYSTAL. Wikipedia does not lead language change, it follows language change. Thryduulf (talk) 03:32, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Per WP:EUPHEMISM, I would contend that we are prohibited from using "died by suicide" because there is no reason for its existence other than to be a gentle euphemism glossing over the fact that suicide is, by definition, a deliberate action (whatever the frame of mind or mental health of the subject); if one's death is not deliberate then it is not classified as suicide. "Died by suicide" removes the stigma of "committed" because it is euphemistic and papers over the harsh reality of the grisly action. Elizium23 (talk) 06:31, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
    This discussion is limited to the appropriateness of "committed suicide". As I said above, this term is inconsistent with WP:MOSMED#Careful language. Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:03, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
    MOSMED is relevant to medical topics. If it was relevant to all topics it would be MOS. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 14:55, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
    "Committed suicide" is misleading because suicide is no longer considered a criminal offense that one can commit. As I stated above, suicide was a felony punishable by burial at a crossroads with a stake driven through one's heart and one's property forfeit to the Crown. We should get away from medieval terminology. Incidentally, death by suicide is not a euphemism. The death certificate will say "Cause of death: suicide." It does not put the cause of death as "unlawful suicide." In comparison, in cases of murder we could refer to "unlawful homicide." TFD (talk) 15:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
Flawed argument... The verb “commit” is not limited to crimes. For example, one can “commit an act of kindness”. For another: When someone dies, we “Commit their body to the grave”. There are other uses of “commit”... some have positive connotations, some negstive negative connotations, and some have neutral connotations. Blueboar (talk) 16:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
The definition of "commit" in the sense "commit suicide" is:
  1. Cambridge Dictionary: "to do something illegal or something that is considered wrong", for example: "She tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists." [40]
  2. Lexico: "Perpetrate or carry out (a mistake, crime, or immoral act)", for example: "he committed an uncharacteristic error". [41]
  3. American Heritage Dictionary: "To do, perform, or perpetrate", for example: "commit a murder". [42]
  4. Wiktionary: "To do (something bad); to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault", for example: "to commit murder". [43]
  5. Chambers Dictionary: "to carry out or perpetrate (a crime, offence, error, etc)." [44]
There is a clear negative connotation to the word used in this sense which is a violation of WP:NPOV. NPOV "cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus." Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2021 (UTC) added Chambers Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
User:Blueboar, I think the grammar answer is above in a comment about transitive verbs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:18, 18 January 2021 (UTC)\
The negative connotation isn't on the word "commit", it is on the word "suicide".--Khajidha (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • As I said above, if we're going to consider whether died by suicide is allowed (or discouraged), we will need a separate RFC. This RFC is worded specifically along the lines of "should we allow phrasing X", which is generally a trivial question per WP:NOTCENSORED; especially given how many people cite WP:NOTCENSORED in their replies, it would be absurd to turn around and use the results here to say "alternate phrasings Y and Z are discouraged." This RFC doesn't ask which term we should use, or ask editors to weigh in on one to encourage; it merely asks the question of whether one particular option out of the various terms that can be used is allowed. That's a softball question, but also not really one with many policy implications outside of refuting the relatively few people who are trying to argue that "committed suicide" must automatically be replaced everywhere it appears. --Aquillion (talk) 17:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • This exactly. See my talk page (per above) for how this RFC was crafted to be as simple as possible around the "committed suicide" language which was clearly the point of issue, and where we have clear past discussion to establish a reason to have this RFC. Any other extension would require a new RFC. --Masem (t) 17:43, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

To me, "died by suicide" is odd, because it lacks agency. It's the suicide equivalent of "mistakes were made". Nobody actually *did* anything, mind you; there are simply all these unfortunate circumstances lying around; regrettable, so regrettable. Mathglot (talk) 09:04, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

List of references

Can editors please list references here in one place that could be used to determine responses to this RfC? --Hipal (talk) 16:51, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Policies, guidelines, and supplements cited:
WP:Specialized-style fallacy (essay)
MOS:MED#Careful language
WP:Manual of style/Words to watch
WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS
WP:NOTCENSORED
WP:NOTADVOCACY
MOS:EUPHEMISM
WP:NOTNEWS
WP:NPOV
Initial references:
  • Systematic comparison of recommendations for safe messaging about suicide in public communications[45]
  • Non-RS discusses OED eytomology, etc.[46]
  • American Heritage Dictionary (interview).[47]
  • Dictionary.com usage notes[48]
  • Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary[49]
  • Beyondblue, an Australian mental health organisation[50]
  • Associated Press[51]
  • American Psychological Association[52]
  • CNN[53]
  • Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Mental Health, Office of the Surgeon General, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, American Association of Suicidology, Annenberg Public Policy Center. Developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization, National Swedish Centre for Suicide Research, New Zealand Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy)[54]
Most of them. SMcCandlish lists many which do not speak to its usage or use the term without comment. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:17, 17 January 2021 (UTC) (essay) Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC) added NPOV Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC) add Kolya Butternut (talk) 08:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • In regards to "Following the sources" we do not follow sources which say "X passed away on Y date." We do not follow sources which use WP:PEACOCK terms. Per WP:EUPHEMISM, we are prohibited from following sources which say "X died by suicide." Elizium23 (talk) 04:19, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    "Died by suicide" is not a WP:EUPHEMISM. Suicide means intentional self-killing. "The word died is neutral and accurate." Commit suicide is a loaded term which implies that the act is something wrong. We are to "Try to state the facts more simply, regardless of the common idiom. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:44, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    • ”Commit” in “commit suicide” does NOT imply that the act is wrong... it implies that the act is deliberate. Blueboar (talk) 17:21, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
      That is not accurate; there is confusion over which definition applies. Awilley, the synonym for commit is do (something wrong). "Do funds" or "do troops" is not the right meaning. "Commit an act of kindness" is the only contradictory example provided, and it appears to be tongue-in-cheek. Every single RS which discusses the term commit suicide says it has a negative connotation. Consensus cannot override NPOV. Unless RS are provided which say that "commit suicide" is neutral, we have to go by the dictionaries and recommendations which say that at the very least "commit" implies a "negative" act.
      I only have access to the Archive.org versions of the OED, but Etymonline states "Sense of 'to perpetrate (a crime), do, perform (especially something reprehensible)' was ancient in Latin; in English it is attested from mid-15c."[55] Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:56, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
      The fact that one of the senses, a negative one, is old doesn't tell us anything about other senses (and the ancientness of them is irrelevant anyway). What matters is what the current, 21st-century-English definitions are, and you will see from the huge ol' sourcing dump I did above, Blueboar is entirely correct. The principal definition one can boil out of all of the major modern dictionaries is that commit in this sense means 'to decide or act deliberately, especially upon a matter of consequence'. This entire debate is very much like people arguing over the meaning of integrity, with one small subset of people utterly convinced it can imply only one thing (e.g., wholeness/completion), and everyone else pointing another and much more common sense, but that minority just not being willing to hear it. I think we all know how this will go, and it's why this RfC has been a WP:SNOWBALL from the start. WP is not a place for prescriptivist agitation about what things "should" or "must" mean and to whom, much for less misuse of that notion to try to force all other editors to write differently, to write around that one interpretation as if it were the only possible one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:41, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
      You're mistaken on which definition applies, but this can be easily corrected. Please cite a specific dictionary definition which you're using so that we can clear this up. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Die by suicide is not precisely the same thing as commit suicide. If an airplane pilot intentionally crashes the plane he's flying for the purpose of ending his own life, then only he committed suicide; however, everyone on the plane died by/from suicide. 217.132.240.72 (talk) 22:05, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
      • This whole argument is completely backward. We don't have a negative perception of suicide because we use "commit", we use "commit" because there is a negative perception of suicide. --Khajidha (talk) 12:06, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

"Commit suicide" as an idiom

Espresso Addict and WhatamIdoing, it sounded like you felt that the definition which matters is limited to the idiom "commit suicide" rather than its component words. In that case we must examine the RS and WP:PAG for the idiom. I've found two definitions, Cambridge which states "a phrase used to mean 'to kill yourself,' which is now considered offensive because it suggests that doing this is a crime",[56] and Merriam-Webster which gives a neutral definition.[57] The words "now considered" lead me to think that Cambridge's definition is more up-to-date. Previously cited dictionary usage notes[58] and also the American Dialect Society write that "to commit suicide" suggests a criminal act.[59] Are you also seeing that the weight of the RS say that "commit suicide" is non-neutral?

Also, consider that per WP:IDIOM, idioms should be avoided in favor of direct, literal expressions. Pinging Masem from Talk:Robin Williams discussion. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:16, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

We don't want idioms that are metaphorical ("piece of cake") or casual ("take it easy"). There's another meaning for idiom that is closer to Formulaic language, and I think that this phrase falls into that broader meaning.
I think there are differences between British and American sources on this point. I understand that the anti-suicide groups in the UK have been very active in opposing this phrase for some years now, so it would not be entirely surprising if there was a difference between the dictionaries, too.
Also, you keep saying that it's POV to imply that suicide is a crime, but what if the suicide being mentioned in the Wikipedia article actually was a crime? Wouldn't it then be non-neutral to imply that it wasn't a crime? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
It sounds like you do not want to discuss what the RS actually say about "commit suicide" and whether it is a neutral term for intentional self-killing. Perhaps someone else would like to discuss the Dictionary.com usage notes[60] and the American Dialect Society's comments,[61] among the dictionary definitions?Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:22, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
I can certainly discuss the sources; for example, Dictionary.com says that "commit suicide" is the most common phrase (editors in this RFC seem to agree), but that the phrase originally referred to committing crimes and sins, and that "language that criminalizes the act is insensitive". The American Dialect Society's members at the end of 2017 voted to declare fake news their word of the year and die by suicide their most useful word of the year. They also voted on a favorite emoji (🧕 that year), a favorite hashtag, a favorite euphemism, and half a dozen other things. They didn't even write a complete sentence about "die by suicide", so it's not really an informative source.[62]
I want to add that you aren't just asking for people to follow the sources. You are asking editors to adopt the values of the sources. Specifically, you are asking editors to agree that because the origin of the phrase is in criminal law from a few centuries ago, that the phrase is inherently and permanently associated with crimes, and that only bad or ignorant people believe that suicide is a crime (or some other similarly serious bad thing, e.g., a sin). This argument requires editors to adopt linguistic prescription.
Here's a different example: The origin of the word weird is tied up in pagan religion and supernatural beings. Do you feel it would be non-neutral to describe something as weird in a Wikipedia article? Prescriptivism is a model in which weird will always be about magic and can never be about strange pop culture things like Adult Swim or Trout Mask Replica, and committing suicide will always be about crimes and sins, and can never be just the most common phrase that English speakers use to describe one fact about how someone died. Some editors have said here that they don't buy the argument about the phrase being permanently tainted by its origin. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
This discussion is digressing from the main points of the RS and its length will discourage others from participating. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Dictionary.com's usage notes state, in part: "the most common way to express the idea of taking one’s own life uses the noun suicide in the expressions to commit suicide.... However, the phrase commit suicide is discouraged by major editorial style guides, mental health professionals, and specialists in suicide prevention.... Using such moralistic language...."[63] Dictionary.com states that the term is moralistic, i.e., non-neutral. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:06, 21 January 2021 (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.

Putting this decision into the MOS

I think that a short note about this outcome should be included somewhere in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. But where? Here are some candidates:

There may be other good options. I think it should only go in one guideline page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:03, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Racist commonly used names?

Hiroyuki Nishimura's infobox has gone through a low boil edit war of sorts for a while. Someone, usually a new editor, will add racist, but commonly used names for him on 4chan, and more experienced users will remove it. I'm wondering if other editors wouldn't mind commenting on this situation from a policy perspective. Should we acknowledge the names "gookmoot" and "Hiroshima Nagasaki" on Wikipedia? I'm leaning towards no, or at least it we do, not so prominently, but these names do appear in reliable sources. Seeing them appear and disappear repeatedly makes me think wider discussion is needed. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 20:20, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Psiĥedelisto, I checked the sources, and most of those names aren't in the sources, and most of the sources don't mention any of those names. I'd suggest we delete the whole section. Vexations (talk) 21:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
@Vexations: Well, that was easy. That's part of the problem with having edited a certain page for a while, I forget what I did and didn't check. Thank you. I'm not against another editor removing the section, but I did the more conservative WP:PRESERVE-ation because I'd be surprised if those names aren't in other sources. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 14:35, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed change to wording at WP:CONSENSUS

Would suggest to add "WikiProjects (linked at the top of article talk pages) can also be contacted for their input." to the beginning of the second paragraph in this section. Seeking input before making the change, as this is an official policy. --Gryllida (talk) 06:31, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

United States House of Representatives Elections by state

Are they rated as the overall quality of each individual election, or as List-Class? Obviously states like VT, ND, SD, MT, and others that only have 1 representative are rated as quality, but for states like New Jersey and California, should they be rated as List-Class or as the quality of each individual election? Is it different by state - NJ gets an indepth but CA is rated as List-Class because there are so many? Theleekycauldron (talk) 02:27, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

This sounds like the sort of question that would be best asked at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elections and Referendums. Thryduulf (talk) 13:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Extremist groups and their URL's

Hi all, do we link to or display the URL's of websites used by extremist groups to plan violent crimes like terror attacks and recruit members? Like at the nazi website Stormfront (website)? I don't think we should. Is there a standing convention or consensus on dealing with these kinds of sites? Thanks in advance. Bacondrum (talk) 21:25, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

The issue for me is that these sites are used to plan violent attacks, like terrorism etc. I feel that crosses a line that those other sites you listed don’t. Particularly sites like stormfront whose sole purpose is discussing genocide, planning racial murders, terrorist activities etc. I’m opposed to censorship, this is really a bit of common sense regarding extremist sites. As for not censored, Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines are not set in stone, as per WP:PILLARS, we can make commonsense exceptions. Thanks for the feedback and the link. Bacondrum (talk) 00:12, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • If an article is about a website then the URL is a basic fact about the website that is appropriate to put in the Wikipedia article. A link is not an endorsement and the URL is not a secret so I'm not sure what this would accomplish to justify creating exceptions to the not censored and neutral point of view policies. CapitalSasha ~ talk 23:34, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
the issue for me is the extreme nature of violence and the fact the planning such violence is connected to these sites, surely there’s a line that can or should be drawn somewhere? Thanks for the feedback. Bacondrum (talk) 00:12, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not censored. Assuming that linking to said web site is not in violation of the law in Wikipedia's physical location (the US), it's appropriate to link to said web sites in the following situations:
  1. An article about an organization should link to the organization's web site.
  2. An article about a web site should link to it.
  3. A statement about an organization's opinion on some topic, or on a statement they made, if appropriate to be mentioned in a Wikipedia article it may be sourced to the organization's web site.
109.186.67.148 (talk) 09:39, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree completely with everything 109.186.67.148 says above. We have an established set of guidelines at Wikipedia:External links that have been developed and refined over the years and I can't see any justification for arbitrarily going against them. Thryduulf (talk) 14:08, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, we should link. It's like a cross between a zoo and a Holocaust museum. I wholly endorse our readers browsing these zoo animals. The link is useful educational material, and per WP:NOTCENSORED we do not delete useful educational material just because someone finds it objectionable. Alsee (talk) 17:34, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Little bit confused whether forum shopping is occurring here. Wouldn't the proper thing be to link to the talk page discussion rather than holding two..three separate discussions that are all likely to end the same way... WP:NOTCENSORED Slywriter (talk) 17:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment re - Not censored - From WP:EXT in particular WP:ELBURDEN

    "This guideline describes the most common reasons for including and excluding links. However, the fact that a given link is not actually prohibited by this guideline does not automatically mean that it must or should be linked. Every link provided must be justifiable in the opinion of the editors for an article. Disputes about links can be addressed through the normal dispute-resolution process, particularly at the external links noticeboard. Disputed links should normally be excluded by default unless and until there is a consensus to include them."

clearly WP:NOTCENSORED is not a mandate for inclusion. Bacondrum (talk) 03:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Indeed it isn't a mandate for inclusion, but it is a mandate for not excluding. Wikipedia:External links makes it clear that a link to the official website of the subject is a normal thing to include on the article - this is the mandate for inclusion. Wikipedia:NOTCENSORED makes it clear that being objectionable is not a reason to exclude it. This does not mean that the link must be included, of course, just that any argument not to must be made on other grounds. Thryduulf (talk) 10:14, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, they should be linked like we do in every other article. I think zzuuzz put it very well. It is not our job to decide what groups are worthy to be treated like every other. There is also the argument that such an arbitrary mandate is a slippery slope. PackMecEng (talk) 03:59, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Support disincluding URLs for sites of groups/organizations that are primarily engaged in violent behavior and similar, especially when those sites are used to promote violence or recruit for the organizations. Wikipedia "isn't censored" but there's no reason to WP:PROMO hate groups, especially violent/terrorist ones. IHateAccounts (talk) 22:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
    Linking to an originations official website is not an endorsement of the group or their activities, as such it is not promotion of said group. PackMecEng (talk) 00:06, 3 January 2021 (UTC)


Severe organisational issues

There are unfortunately some severe organisational issues here that we need to resolve first if we hope for this discussion to have any precedent-making power. There are three active discussions happening about this: the one here, the RfC about Stormfront (which violates WP:RFCNEUTRAL), and the RfC at Proud Boys (which is asking about the general question, not Proud Boys specifically, and is therefore invalid per WP:LOCALCON). Together, these are a WP:TALKFORK/WP:MULTI violation.

To @Bacondrum: We all have a learning curve, so I don't fault you if this is your first time hearing about the shortcuts above, but you will have a much easier time getting your policy proposals to succeed in the future if you familiarize yourself with them.

To everyone else: Skimming the discussions, I'm quite disappointed to see that, apart from Ahrtoodeetoo, almost no one has been addressing these problems (despite there being plenty of experienced editors at these discussions who have surely identified them), instead jumping to discuss the content question and allowing this to sprawl into a mess. When there are problems with an RfC, those need to be resolved before the content question is discussed, or the RfC will be invalid and the consensus process will break down. This is not a new problem, and editors need to start doing their part to put the needs of the project over their personal desire to proclaim their opinion on a hot topic. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:06, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Hey, Sdkb thanks for assuming the best, I assure you I had no ill intention. So, what should I do now? Bacondrum (talk) 21:12, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Bacondrum, we need to centralize the discussion at a single place, which should probably be here. There is already a bunch of discussion at the other two pages, though, and we don't normally move RfCs from one page to another (plus the !votes from the Stormfront one are mildly tainted even if they're moved). Hopefully some others will weigh in and we can form a meta-consensus about how to proceed. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:20, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the call-out, Sdkb. I think Bacondrum's position is perfectly reasonable but, giving this some additional thought, ideally it should be addressed in WP:EL rather than on some ad hoc basis. I think the best way to best way for them to proceed would be to end all the pending discussions and to start a new one at WT:EL, proposing a change to WP:ELOFFICIAL. Notices of the discussion at Talk:Proud Boys, WP:TERRORISM, etc. would seem appropriate. R2 (bleep) 23:42, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Cool, thanks for all the helpful suggestions, I'll close the rfc's and open a new discussion at WP:EL tomorrow morning when I've got some free time. Assuming we are all agreed that's the best way to approach this?. Cheers. Bacondrum (talk) 23:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
Nah, here is fine. Splitting the discussion makes 0 sense. --Izno (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: active violent extremist websites (hate groups)

Just so everyone is aware, I have carefully re-reviewed Wikipedia:Non-admin closure before writing this closure.

That being said, on with this close...

The Internet is increasingly being used more often as a recruitment tool for violent extremist (and even terrorist) groups. Many users are looking towards our current guidelines and asking if Wikipedia is doing enough to combat this trend.

For the purposes of this close, I see Option D as adding links to recruitment and propaganda sites for extremist groups (ie neo-Nazi sites, Jihadist and other terrorist groups) to WP:LINKSTOAVOID; Option A doing the same as D but also adding there is no exception for WP:ELOFFICIAL. Options B and C are less clear for different reasons. Option B is primarily a vehicle for people to oppose Option A with, and Option C is a catch-all third option for a variety of different opinions. This is not my personal interpretation of these options but explanation for how commenters themselves seemed to view them.

My conclusion is that there is no consensus for Option D at this time. However, there is consensus against Option A.

Personally, I considered the arguments for Option D more persuasive than the arguments against it, but many who voiced statements against it rightfully pointed out that WP:ELNO already contains criteria which would already prevent many of the most problematic sites from being included as external links. Consensus could be re-examined if a follow up RFC is brought to WT:EL, though.

See also: this sister closure.

Regards, (non-admin closure) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 00:27, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

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

Should we exclude links to recruitment and propaganda sites for extremist groups (ie neo-Nazi sites, Jihadist and other terrorist groups)

  • (A)Yes
  • (B)No
  • (C)Maybe (In some cases)
  • (D) Include the URL in our article about an organization, but nowhere else

Bacondrum (talk) 00:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  • Option D added because bundling up providing the URL in an article about an organization with other links to the organization is not helpful, as User:Slywriter and others says below. Note the date of this addition; from the rationales, several people saying B below appear to support this option. Bishonen | tålk 09:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC).
  • A I've come across links on wikipedia to recruitment and propaganda sites linked to neo-Nazi and terrorist groups. I understand that Wikipedia is not censored, but I feel like some common sense can and should be applied when linking to sites run by groups like Iron March and Stormfront (website), Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Al-Qaeda etc. Stormfront for example has a link to its website in the article, this website has been used to plan numerous lethal hate crimes and mass killings since 1995. Once an account is created one can easily find discussions on planning genocide and mass shootings at the site and many such brutal acts have been linked to the site. Again, I know that Wikipedia is not censored, but as always other considerations apply and WP:NOTCENSORED is not a mandate for inclusion, surely we can apply some common sense in these cases? With such extreme groups, do we really need to/should we link to their recruitment and propaganda pages? I personally think there's no reason to add links that serve to WP:PROMO hate groups, especially violent/terrorist ones. Stormfront's purpose is recruitment and propaganda for white-supremacist hate groups and the coordination of violent/terrorist incidents, that alone make their website much more than merely offensive, it's dangerous and they are involved in the most serious of criminal activity including terrorism and murder. Same with Al-Qaeda, the KKK, ISIS etc. I think it would be reasonable to exclude such extreme sites. I understand groups like the Hells Angels have engaged in criminal behavior and we still link to their sites, but their site is just pics of men riding bikes, some history, wedding photos, it's not used to plan mass shootings. I'm personally firmly against censorship in almost all cases, but I also think it is reasonable to draw a line with these particular kinds of sites, to define what a reasonable person could expect to be too dangerous, too violent, too extreme for inclusion. Look forward to hearing what you think. Bacondrum (talk) 00:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B no (except sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the United States). There is no reason to disregard WP:NPOV, WP:NOTCENSORED or the established guidelines at WP:EL, as explained by multiple people in the multiple discussions preceding this one. Thryduulf (talk) 02:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Thryduulf So it'd be okay to link to say the pedophile advocacy websites run by groups like Vereniging Martijn, Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity and Pedophile Group, or do we have some cases where we apply editorial discretion and others where we don't? Keeping in mind that many crimes planned and committed via extremist groups are also illegal. Bacondrum (talk) 06:45, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
@Bacondrum: We should link those, but it seems we're not? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Actually Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity already had the website linked. I added archive links (because dead url) to the other two. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
@Bacondrum: I'm not familiar with those groups, but if (a) they are notable enough to have an article, and (b) they have a website that is legal to access in the United States then we should absolutely be linking to it like we do for any other official website, because anything else would be contrary to NPOV. We should also be quoting them with regards to what they say about themselves and it is not unlikely that one or more of the citations supporting such statements will come from their website - and where that is the case there is no conceivable reason not to link it. Exactly the same applies to any other organisation or group regardless of what any editors' personal opinion of them. Thryduulf (talk) 12:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Clarifying now that option D has been added that I still think option B is the correct one and I strongly oppose option A and oppose options C and D. Whether to include a link to any organisation on articles that are not about that organisation is already determined by WP:DUE and WP:EL. These policies are, correctly, blind to any personal opinions one or more editors' personal opinions about that organisation. Applying any new policy will undermine the existing ones (which nobody has indicated there are any actual problems with), likly be confusing, possibly contradictory with those policies and incompatible with NPOV and NOTCENSORED. Thryduulf (talk) 19:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
@Thryduulf: I'd like to understand your opinion a bit better if I can. You say that we should exclude content that is illegal to access in the United States. Is it illegal to link to illegal content? My understanding is "no" but I could easily be wrong. If I'm not, then what's the purpose of this rule? To prevent serious harm to readers? Then why only the U.S. and not Canada or South Korea or Austria (all countries without stringent governmental internet censorship like China or North Korea)? — Bilorv (talk) 13:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Brief answer, servers are in the United States and subject to US jurisdiction. Under US law, really only child pornography meets this bar as other illegal content is generally not unlawful to merely view (Drugs, Assassins for Hire, etc). Slywriter (talk) 13:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
There are also servers in Amsterdam and Singapore. isaacl (talk) 19:52, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Why only the US? The servers are in the United States and the WMF is a United States organisation the project is subject to United States law. IANAL but AIUI, if a website subject to US law knowingly links to content that is illegal to access then the operators of the website (and/or the person that added the link) is guilty of a criminal offence (unless they take action to remove it as soon as possible after they become aware of it). It is definitely illegal to link to child pornography, I think (some?) copyright violations might be as well, and there is or was something about content that bypasses or maybe ways of bypassing "effective" digital rights management restrictions (although there is an argument that any DRM which can be bypassed is not "effective", see also AACS encryption key controversy) Thryduulf (talk) 14:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • C, but only because question is partially malformed. At a miniumum when a website is the direct subject of an article we should be including the web address as part of the info box or external links and not subject the link to further scrutiny(without hyperlink, if others feel such a pause is a benefit to readers). For groups, we should generally include the link if the website is a significant source of information about the group. Any other tangentially related pages should never see the link added. To the argument of common sense, nothing is common about sense, least of all when related to political ideas. While the most extreme cases might make sense to most rational editors and readers, it remains a slippery slope that can creep into pages that are merely objectionable to some editors/readers. Slywriter (talk) 03:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
@Bacondrum: in re-reading the RfC policy, it does not require stating what specific policy pages are being modified, so the RfC is not malformed from a technical perspective. Concern would be what exactly is being modified? Would these addressess be banned from citations? Info boxes? External links? Is a new blacklist/edit filter to be created for affected sites?
To clarify the C, support unhyperlinked versions being used; also support limiting the use to no more than one place on the site (Info box or External Links on the article page specifically about said group/website) Slywriter (talk) 16:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • A, Yes we should disallow links to sites used to recruit for, encourage or coordinate violent acts of hate. WP:RS can be used to describe what the sites contain without having to give them promotional linking. If the site or organization is defunct, there will still be plenty of WP:RS that can describe what the site was and how it was used. "Slippery slope" arguments are a logical fallacy, in any case. IHateAccounts (talk) 03:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Usually a fallacy, not always. As a current MOS RfC shows, when paths to advocacy are opened on wikipedia, advocates will travel down the path as far as it will take them. And this rule is general enough that Nationalist, AP2 POVers, and other pushers can apply it to groups they don't like. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.(If this should remain in my comments, feel free to refactor) Slywriter (talk) 03:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
"advocates will travel down the path as far as it will take them" based on what evidence? Logically fallacious and not assuming good faith. Bacondrum (talk) 04:22, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
"One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter." @Slywriter: I don't really care how self-deluded individuals (whether racial supremacists, anti-LGBT terrorists, women's health clinic bombers, or otherwise) who commit acts of violent terrorism see themselves or convince themselves that their terrorism is "right". I think the appropriate thing for wikipedia to do is not to link to the websites where they recruit, organize, attempt to radicalize their followers, and plan their attacks. Per Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources, SECONDARY WP:RS ought to be the norm for articles. In the cases of these groups, their websites are meaningless primary sources that contribute nothing of worth to the articles. Further, wikipedia shouldn't be in the habit of feeding them new recruits by including a quick "go here to the group's recruiting website" link. IHateAccounts (talk) 16:07, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Determining which groups are "terrorists" or "self-deluded individuals" is original research and contrary to NPOV. Personally I'd rather not give direct links to the websites of radicalising organisations that engage in state-sponsored harassment of minority groups like the UK Conservative Party and would encourage links to organisations that campaign for teenagers' access to gender-affirming medical treatment but another editor would regard this as censorship of right-thinking politicians and be horrified at the thought of providing a recruiting link to an organisation that sets out to harm children. Now imagine how bad it would get when you add religion into the mix. Providing a link to the official website of an organisation is not an endorsement of that organisation but simply a factual link so the reader can find out more information should they choose to. However, once you start omitting links to certain organisations because you disagree with some or all of their methods, goals, politics, religion, morals, etc. then the links you do choose to include do become an endorsement of that organisation - this endorsement is contrary to NPOV and immediately gets you into trouble with organisations that oppose the ones you endorse. Even if this proposal were desirable, there is simply no possible way that it can be done objectively. Thryduulf (talk) 16:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
"Determining which groups are "terrorists" or "self-deluded individuals" is original research" - No, it's something that can be sourced to WP:RS in most cases, and certainly something that can be decided by an RFC on the talk page for a particular group if necessary. IHateAccounts (talk) 01:07, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
@IHateAccounts: You seem to say above that "violent terrorism" is inherently wrong. This puts you at odds with historical violent terrorist groups including instigators of the French Revolution, the suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, Malcolm X supporters etc. The U.K. government show signs of considering Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as terrorist groups. Let's say they say this in an official capacity. Is this then good reason to withdraw external links to these groups? — Bilorv (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@Bilorv: I think you're engaged in a false equivalence there. I'm unaware of suffragettes having done something equivalent to (for example) bombing women's health clinics or assassinating medical doctors. And it appears you didn't read your Guardian article past the headline... you'll need far better sourcing to make the claim that the UK is somehow about to name peaceful environmental protest groups "terrorist". IHateAccounts (talk) 14:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
@IHateAccounts: I'm afraid that's provably incorrect. Suffragettes attacked communication channels that consequently injured postal workers, including bombings; they attempted and sometimes succeeded in committing deadly arson; they knowingly put their lives in danger (sometimes losing them) as part of public stunts. We document some of this in the lead of suffragette. Unfortunately both the education and public perception around this are horrifically whitewashed. The suffragettes used violence of the kind you talk about. It is different in that (I believe) the violence was morally compelled (and hence justified/acceptable) rather than morally disgusting. But "morally justified" is not part of the definition of terrorism—it may be part of the subtext but if so then it's inherently POV to use "terrorism" as a criterion.
I have read the Guardian article I link in full three times. Next time, it is a more polite assumption to think that you do not fully understand my position rather than that my position is that of an illiterate nine-year-old. I haven't assumed that of you. I'll read your comment instead as: "I do not see how your claim is relevant given that the UK is not about to name peaceful environmental protest groups 'terrorist'". And then politely reply that the intention behind my message was to pose a plausible event that could occur in future, rather than to describe the future confidently; and as evidence that the event is plausible I name four separate historical movements which the governments at the time categorised as "violent terrorism". — Bilorv (talk) 15:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
This conversation doesn't really seem to be taking into account the scale of the issue at hand. RS may maintain a contemporary consensus on whether groups are good, or bad, or justified, or unjustified -- they don't do so consistently across the range of decades, and what's being proposed here seems significantly beyond the scope of what "just trust the RSes" can support. Is the IWW still a terrorist organization? The US Justice Department sure thought they were one in 1918, when over a hundred of them were imprisoned for conspiring to hinder the draft in World War I. That's to say nothing of the mind-boggling complexity of establishing a project-wide list of all the "good guys" and "bad guys" in every country and updating it constantly (note that, for Americans, the Mujahideen were the "good guys" for a while, and later became the "bad guys"). Is there any compelling reason to think that this massive undertaking would even be possible, and if so, that it would be desirable? jp×g 16:12, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • C: If the link is genuinely relevant to the article, we shouldn't avoid it solely because it's used for recruitment of extremists. We ought to have some trust that our audience is savvy enough to understand what Stormfront is and why they're bad. That being said, I think we should only include such links when they actually convey relevant and useful information: while a link to the WHO's web page is fine to include in the external link section of the WHO website, I don't think that we should put a link to Stormfront on the page for Stormfront because of the possibility, however slim, for real world harm. In practice, I think there are very few situations where a link to a website like this is appropriate for the external links section. (But for example, I can easily imagine situations where we need to cite something said on Stormfront, and in that case we shouldn't not cite relevant information because it's on a hate site.) Forgot to sign, this was from Loki (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • A (exclude): no encyclopedic value in including these sites. ----K.e.coffman (talk) 04:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • strongly endorse B (C when other concerns are involved). We link to the official website of a subject, we even whitelist pages specifically for that. We are not excluding porn sites because there are people that think that we should not link to them, we are not excluding illegal download sites because people can illegally download material there, we are not excluding shock sites because they can shock people, we are not excluding third-world country job sites because they could be hiring for sweatshops. Excluding this is just being more catholic than the pope himself, and is a slippery slope into implementing the opposite of WP:NOTCENSORED. (the only thing I could agree to is that we link to a neutral landing page, not necessarily to the root of the domain). --Dirk Beetstra T C 05:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
I have no issue with linking to porn sites, consenting adults can do what they want. As for Piratebay, downloading a few movies is a very different crime to perpetrating a mass shooting or racially motivated murders, a fairly blatant false equivalence is being drawn there. Sites like Stormfront have been linked to literally hundreds of murders and mass shootings. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/29/stormfront-neo-nazi-hate-site-murder-internet-pulled-offline-web-com-civil-rights-action. As for NOTCENSORED, it's a moot point, we use editorial discretion all the time, the burden for justifying inclusion lies with those adding content...besides wikipedia:ignore all rules. The explicit purpose of Stormfront is recruiting, propaganda and preparation for violent extremist acts including a number of real life mass shootings, many racist murders and a number or terror attacks - that sets it apart and warrants a frank and open discussion about an exceptionally horrific site - there are limits to everything. Sure most Jihadist groups don't have official websites, but if they did I don't think there'd be any question about not linking to places where they plan attacks and recruit etc. We provide all relevant information, I don't see how the url is particularly important to an encyclopedic entry, I don't see how it is useful for anything other than promoting the group and directing traffic there. I think there's a social and moral responsibility not to promote violent extremists in anyway, intentional or not. I'm sure we can all agree they are exceptional, it's not mainstream discourse, it's not merely a far-right YouTube conspiracy video. What is the purpose of including the url to such violent extremist groups that outweigh concerns and dangers surrounding violent extremism and terrorism? I can't see any. Bacondrum (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
but if they did I don't think there'd be any question about not linking to places where they plan attacks and recruit etc
I agree, there is no question such a place should be linked if the subject is notable enough for inclusion. How can we write about nasty shit if we are bound by a you do not talk about nasty shit-rule? It's similar to attempts to ban Mein Kampf. It's better if people can see and judge the incoherent bullshit for themselves. By making it a mystery we'd only fuel the imagination, which is more likely to cause people to fantasize about it as some ideal place. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:45, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
But no one is saying there shouldn't be an article about the subject, that's a false equivalence. No one is saying we can't write about nasty shit, we have an article about it. Bacondrum (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
The purpose of the URL in an article about a website is so that readers know what site we're talking about and can visit it for themselves. We aren't going to remove links from GunBroker.com or People's Liberation Army on the off-chance our readers might consequently engage in some repressive murders, because Wikipedia is not censored. ----Pontificalibus 07:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Um, gunbroker.com is a perfectly legal gun shop, and the People's Liberation Army? That's China's regular army. Are you attempting to bamboozle me? It's not a false equivalence, there's no equivalence at all, completely random examples. A much fairer equivalent would be groups like Vereniging Martijn, Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity and Pedophile Group, we don't link these groups websites for very good reasons. It's common sense. Bacondrum (talk) 08:01, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
You might not see an equivalence, but if we start removing external links that might cause people to commit crimes, then other people certainly will. How would you respond when a user removes our external link on United States Army Recruiting Command citing the US's murderous and illegal occupation of Afghanistan? Of your examples, we do provide an external ink to the second one, an archive link to the first one as the site is no longer online, and the third doesn't have a verified site.----Pontificalibus 08:39, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
@Bacondrum: That's China's regular army. Are you attempting to bamboozle me? In Soviet Russia, China bamboozles you. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
@Bacondrum: But no one is saying there shouldn't be an article about the subject, that's a false equivalence. We're not removing the ISBN (which like a URL is an identifier) from Mein Kampf. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
yeah, well mein Kampf’s ISBN doesn’t take you to a violent extremist website where hundreds of racist murders have been planned, mass shooting etc. a ridiculous comparison, IMO Bacondrum (talk) 08:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
That's the point - it's a ridiculous comparison in your opinion. It is a perfectly legitimate comparison in my opinion - both are censorship by removal of direct access to content some editors personally dislike. Should we remove links to 4chan where racist and transphobic attacks have been planned? What about websites where Black Lives Matter protests were/are planned? What about websites where antifascist direct action is coordinated? What about websites that facilitate access to abortions? Where you draw the line is unavoidably subjective and so not just shouldn't but cannot have any place on a neutral encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 19:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B I agree with Beetstra. We should include links where relevant, like on Stormfront (website) or when a particular discussion there makes headlines. In case of sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the United States (Thryduulf) we should provide the address without link (http://nastyshit.example.com/) or link to the Internet Archive version if the harmful part isn't included there. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:45, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
    Alexis Jazz, No, with the latter I disagree. If you put http://nastyshit.example.com/ in a text form, there will still be people who copy-paste it and get infected with malicious scripts or trojan exploits. Those link should be completely out of the document and an html-comment (<!-- <comment> -->) should be there explaining why there is no external link. A much safer way is to link to a former archive of the website which was not infected through archive.is or wayback. Same goes for some other totally obfuscated sources (I am very much against text-only .onion links, seen the problems we had with people changing official .onion addresses, putting back the text-only varieties is just going to land people in trouble as one cannot check). Dirk Beetstra T C 10:14, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
    @Beetstra: I think the domain should be included in some form for identification purposes. Whether that's by writing "nastyshit dot example dot com" or http://www.disney.com#nastyshit(this domain contains nasty shit)example(this domain contains nasty shit)com (try copy pasting that) or some other way I don't really care much. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:08, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
    Alexis Jazz, not for material that is posing a risk for the people following the link. Those are blacklisted for a reason, and any form of evasion is a blockable offense. Dirk Beetstra T C 13:48, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
    Beetstra Okay, but if a reader is reading an article and they think it's about nastytrojan.example.com, how could they know it's about nastytrojan.example.com and not something else? Or even editors, would they have to guess what it's about? Could we provide a checksum or something? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
    Alexis Jazz, except for articles on websites itself, we hardly ever in depth discuss the website of the subject and hence generally we discuss a subject and knowing whether the website is named blah.com or blahblah.com is not important (the name is just a handler, the website is actually an IP). Where the name of the website needs discussion you'll indeed run into a problem.
    Wikipedia unfortunately does not have a mechanism to protect information (we can protect a whole page, not one word on it - we could protect a template that transcludes the data, but then you can still change the transclusion-code). That could have been done with WikiData, but it is not implemented there either (you can, again, protect the whole page on WD, not one item, and then you can still here chose not to use WD -- IMHO a massively missed chance on WD, especially for immutable or sensitive data). You can checksum the data, but no-one is going to check the checksum, and then still the checksum can be changed with the data. The closest you can get is through the AbuseFilter. Dirk Beetstra T C 09:22, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B We provide external links so that our readers can visit the site having read our article on the topic. It is not our role to provide a curated web experience or attempt to prevent crimes by withholding information.----Pontificalibus 08:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • D. I don't see the point of us making it just a very tiny bit more difficult for readers to find the website for the Proud Boys, for instance. Their site is the second Google hit (the first being Wikipedia's article, naturally). We should follow the general principle of providing the URL for the organization that's the subject of the article, unless of course it's blacklisted. As Pontificalibus says above, we're not in the business of providing a curated web experience. Bishonen | tålk 09:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC).
@Bishonen: As a hypothetical example, if a notable person was killed and mainstream media would write that the murder happened after the killer discussed harming the victim in a thread on nastyshit.example.com, would we not be allowed to link the thread in question? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
Assuming the thread was legal to access in the United States, yes we are allowed to link to the thread in question. Whether we should is entirely a matter for the consensus of editors on the relevant article(s) to determine whether inclusion is WP:DUE and useful. Any option in this discussion other than B would hinder making that judgement. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • (Update: B) D/C/B (in that order). I cannot think about a valid reason for linking Stormfront website other than in the external links section and the infobox of its article. On the other hand, other usages should already be covered by other policies and guidelines. That's why while I'm leaning to D, I'm not sure there's a need for any policy change. --MarioGom (talk) 13:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • D in general with reasonable exceptions. Our disclaimers already give warnings that external content is not under WP's control and users are taking responsibility for following such links, and as we aren't censored, there's no reason not to link to them as we would with any other website. I can see exceptions being made if the front page of the group is a hate-speech spewing insult to all readers, but most of the time, these groups do not present their extreme views as direct as media sources tend to present them, and instead try to project themselves as legitimate organization, even if buried among the pages are hate-speech filled mantras and the like. Only in the case where the site is basically page after page of hate speech should we not link to these. Of course, with "D" here, this is only appropriate when on the page about that organization and as a standard link to that organization, and no where else. --Masem (t) 16:38, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
    • You haved bolded option "D" but your comment indicates that you are actually supporting option B - all external links are already subject to policies about when it is appropriate to link to them: WP:NPOV, WP:EL and WP:DUE. These are basically: only when they are the subject of the article or there is another encyclopaedic justification. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Nope, its consistent with "D". By default, on the page about a entity, a link to that entity's site is appropriate. Would we link to it as a reference which is the other use for external links? Given these are primary sources that would be outright rejected for reliability outside claims about themselves (being hate groups, etc.) they would never be used in any other article for a reference outside their own article, and even on the entity's article, we'd use them very sparingly. So I'm supporting "D" based on how these links can effectively be used. --Masem (t) 23:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • D, more or less. There might be other cases as well. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:11, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • C, what is the definition of 'extremist group'? Please define your terms before asking questions like this. Elizium23 (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B If legally accessible websites in the US where Wikipedia servers are hosted per NOTCENSORED. If they have actual terrorist content, then almost always the DOJ/FBI will seize the website's infrastructure and this would be a moot point. Many European countries however have stricter blacklists that ISPs have to oblige. But let's be honest here, the Proud Boys and ISIS aren't exactly organizations of the same caliber... which brings the problem on what kind of reasoning this kind of curation would be based on. While this proposal may be aimed towards far-right or Jihadist sites, it isn't a hypothethical question whether you should also block extremist sites of other varities -- NYT Aug. 25, 2017: Germany, in a First, Shuts Down Left-Wing Extremist Website. --Pudeo (talk) 22:19, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
I wouldn't argue that links to sites like the Proud Boys should be omitted automatically, on a policy basis. But obviously things like snuff sites and child porn sites should be and are specifically prohibited from inclusion. I'd argue that sites like Stormfront that are connected to hundreds of murders should treated is the same manner , same for Jihadist recruitment sites for groups like ISIS. Everything has a limit, surely there are limits on the extreme nature of content offsite we can link to. Bacondrum (talk) 22:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • C.5 Mostly D, but I could see the need to use it as a reference to verify something said about the group in another article. --Jayron32 15:47, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Or something the group has said about the subject of a different article (be that a person, place, organisation, event, religion, ...) or something published on the organisation's website by or about a person associated with the organisation who is independently notable. Thryduulf (talk) 13:26, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B/D. I consider B and D to be essentially the same since D is already part of our WP:EL guideline (and I doubt anyone !voting for B supports loosening the rules for violent extremist or hate groups). Essentially I agree with Pudeo. Our job is to educate, not to restrict or censor. We identify hate or extremism but it's not our job to tip the scales towards it or away from it. There is real encyclopedic value in providing an organizational link per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, no matter the nature of the organization. And haters will will find those websites regardless of whether we link to them. By excluding these ELs, we effectively degrade the utility of the encyclopedia (however slightly) and make a symbolic but nearly invisible statement against hate. A more effective way for the community to make a statement against hate would be something like WP:DISCRIM. R2 (bleep) 18:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Comment while I personally lean towards option "B" (it simply could become a nightmare & lead to poor quality articles banning any links to the websites of hate groups), we may be forced to rethink our policies on this if Section 230 is repealed or rewritten. So any decision here may prove moot. -- llywrch (talk) 18:44, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B-An unbiased open platform for information should not exclude links to websites unless they contain malware. People should have the opportunity to learn about these groups by reading what they say about themselves. Display name 99 (talk) 01:03, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B There's no way this will be equally applied to all hate groups by editors. Gamaliel (talk) 01:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B The criteria for exclusion are too subjective; just imagine the drama that trying to decide whether this applies to Hamas is going to cause. --RaiderAspect (talk) 08:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Notice that wikipedia doesn't link to recruitment websites for groups like the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Crying about "Hamas" is either a slippery slope fallacy or a red herring. IHateAccounts (talk) 15:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
@IHateAccounts: Please don't describe other editors' comments as "crying about" things. jp×g 16:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

<strikethrough>* A One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter but this is an encyclopedia. We should not link to groups that advocate for murder of any persons (unlawful killings) for political agendas. The statement itself is an ode to the subjectivity of political opinion but it doesn't mean we have to include all these groups that advocate unlawful killings only because some exceptionally controversial outlier case of a quasi-state actor exists. We can and should just exclude linking of all groups that advocate for unlawful violence, especially those like Stormfront with a documented history of providing a platform for planning criminal violence Spudlace (talk) 21:33, 5 January 2021 (UTC)</strikethrough>

  • This is a hard B > D and no other options. I am fairly certain D is how it basically works today; sites like these end up on the spam blacklist just by virtue of the fact they are trash, but we do allow whitelisting usually under WP:ELMINOFFICIAL where the organization is notable or there is a particular link that might be useful on a specific other page. This is fundamentally just more WP:BADSITES agitating, and we've been over that before. --Izno (talk) 22:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B. To copy my position from Talk:Stormfront (website)#URL: This is clearly not a matter of endorsement -- and to posit is as endorsement would be fundamentally harmful to the very idea of Wikipedia. The argument that linking to a website via Wikipedia could cause public harm is instantly risible, a claim on a similar tier to 'violent video games cause real-world violence'; the idea of someone becoming a neo-Nazi (let alone a neo-Nazi murderer) solely because they followed an article's link to Stormfront is bizarre, more a moral panic than an argument. There are real discussions to be had about people being radicalized and recruited, and they have nothing to do with Wikipedia links. The idea they do indeed serves as an opportunity for the people radicalizing and recruiting others, considering how powerful the "we're being unduly censored" message is. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 14:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B because anything else requires conflicting subjective political opinions to be taken into account, and NOTCENSORED of course. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:26, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B Even if it were a good idea to exclude links to Stormfront and Hamas, what if you have some fairly unknown Islamic guerilla somewhere in India? Do we endorse the (far-right) Indian government's view and exclude their links or do we make an exception for this particular extremist group? ImTheIP (talk) 23:03, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
I think we would resolve it by local RfCs, like the one we currently have open for Stormfront Talk:Stormfront_(website)#URL. I struck my vote after multiple objections to broadly the original RfC question was worded. It is possible to define a scope more narrow than "extremist groups" without excluding political opinions. Murdering people at a suburban shopping mall because of a subjective political opinion is a crime. From the A vote rationales the rationale is about groups giving lazy links to groups with an extensively documented track record of radicalizing people that have carried out murders (like Stormfront). If it's going to be read expansively to include guerilla warfare in India we better hash it out more in local RfCs.Spudlace (talk) 09:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B, since an organization's website is relevant encyclopedic information. Readers who learn about an extremist organization are better informed when they are able to identify the website associated with that organization. There is value in being able to determine whether a statement is made on a notable organization's official channel, regardless of the purpose of the organization. If there are issues that would cause a link to the website to violate the external links guideline or another relevant policy/guideline, the article can simply mention the domain name without linking it to the website, i.e. example.com. — Newslinger talk 23:31, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B It is relevant enclyclopedic information. Plus these types of things always get applied with an uneven standard for POV purposes. North8000 (talk) 01:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B/C. ImTheIP makes one of the best points in the discussion: we do not want to endorse the Indian government, for instance, because this is non-neutral. We should not endorse any government—such a thing is non-neutral. The contrapositive (informally, "opposite way around of saying this") is that we should not condemn all extremist groups. As for "hate" groups, such a term is inherently non-neutral to define. I comment above that instigators of the French Revolution, the suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, Malcolm X supporters and others were considered domestic terrorists, extremist groups and hate groups both by the relevant state and by the consensus in reliable sources of the time (at least initially). While this argument should not be taken too far, it shows that excluding all extremist content is a political decision (i.e. POV).
    The only arguments I consider valid for exclusion of an external link that would otherwise be included are the following: content is illegal to link to under U.S. law (where servers are held); and content violates the principle of least astonishment (WP:ASTONISH/WP:GRATUITOUS). For instance, I supported the removal of the link to 8chan based on a specific documented case of a person finding child pornography immediately after viewing the link and it causing severe unexpected distress. This is, yes, in the context of the article mentioning that the site has been known for hosting child pornography in the lead; and yet, it still violates WP:ASTONISH, because the infobox can be the first thing someone reads and the link followed before a single word of prose is read. So I do see there being a low bar to exclude something via WP:ASTONISH, because readers have a reasonable expectation that links on Wikipedia do not lead to certain types of highly distressing content, but I support arguing this case-by-case based on the particular article prose, landing page and type of content on a website. — Bilorv (talk) 20:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B. We should link. It's like a cross between a zoo and a Holocaust museum. I wholly endorse our readers browsing these zoo animals. The link is useful educational material, and per WP:NOTCENSORED we do not delete useful educational material just because someone finds it objectionable. It is not an endorsement, promotion, or advocacy, to link to the subject of an article.
    Regarding option D, I expect there would rarely be reason to link such sites outside their own article. However WP:ELBURDEN means such links can be removed and generally only restored with consensus. That renders option D worthless at best. The only effect of option D would be to create a conflict if there were a consensus-view that there was good reason for that link. Alsee (talk) 23:26, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B The slippery slope is plain to see. Would we be allowed to link to the official sites of governments that have been accused of sponsoring terrorism? How about sites of political groups that officially deny they're connected to terror, but are accused of it - say Sinn Fein, or the PKK? How about Black Lives Matter? --GRuban (talk) 23:44, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B per Thryduulf, Pudeo, GRuban and many others, WP:NOTCENSORED should apply and if we go down this path we will inevitably run into WP:NPOV issues. Cavalryman (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2021 (UTC).
  • C - Identical concern to Elizium23. While I would like to reduce WP's usefulness to outfits like Stormfront, I can't support a positive measure here in the absence of an objective criterion for the words 'extremist' and 'terrorist'. It really is the case that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. I'd prefer an ad-hoc page-by-page concsensus to any of A, B, or D. — Charles Stewart (talk) 06:28, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
  • C - Community consensus should weigh them individually. On on hand, we've got WP:CENSORED and WP:NPOV, on the other hand, we've got WP:SOAPBOX and WP:NONAZIS. Assessment will depend heavily on context and so I can't say B, the need for some education or citation instances will also preclude A, so C it must be. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 08:05, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B (except sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the United States/California) - when we say "Not Censored" we can't then say "except when it's unpleasant". I've included the exceptions for the truly egregious cases, but the whole point is that we aren't reliable. So we include links to our sources, but if you were researching a topic about an organisation, you couldn't claim to have done a proper review as a researcher without actually taking a look at it yourself. That is why we give the links, because our responsibility as source of information that enables confirmation of our content demands no less, however much we may dislike some outcomes of that. On a less policy-based side, I also find that having these sources is one of the best ways to counter it - we deny a soapbox here, because the distraction outweighs the benefits, but actually seeing the depths which some can fall to is the best way of countering their more publicly distributed messages. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:34, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
  • C: I think editors, page by page, should weigh whether an active link like that actually adds encyclopedic value to the pages that it appears on. All of the claims of WP:CENSORED should be measured against WP:NOTDIRECTORY. I think active recruitment links would add little useful & encyclopedic information to most pages. (For that reason, I also lean towards D as well.) —Wingedserif (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
  • A/C let's not kid ourselves that people do try to manipulate Wikipedia for search engine optimization, and we shouldn't allow fringe sites to exploit Wikipedia as a promotional tool. Wikipedia articles are highlighted by Google, and Wikipedia is consistently one of the most visited sites in the world. People target Wikipedia to promote all kinds of nonsense, knowing that when they help their google ranking it will be without the context of a Wikipedia article. It's the same reason that we are much more careful around articles about WP:HOAXes, where somethnig has become notable for being verifiably untrue, and that doesn't mean we promote that either. Wikipedia isn't a promotional tool for hoaxes, defamation, or incitement. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
  • D. While it's true that Wikipedia is not censored, WP:NOTCENSORED does not mandate inclusion; and as external links outside of articles about their subjects, such links are almost always going to fail WP:ELNO point 2, as well as raising reasonable questions regarding points 4 and 11 (promotional links and personal websites.) On the other hand, even as far as the concerns raised above go, excluding in case D is unnecessary because anyone reading our article for such sites already knows about them, so it's not really promotional or likely to help them recruit anyway. They are absolutely not likely to pass WP:RS, so they can't really be used in non-EL contexts, either. --Aquillion (talk) 00:15, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
  • D its better to mention all information about them. Championmin (talk) 09:28, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B/D: yes, include a link in the article about the organization. Linking in other situations should presumably be rare but might sometimes be appropriate under WP:ABOUTSELF. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:42, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B/C/D. There is obviously such a thing as editorial discretion, and I cannot imagine any compelling reason to link to, say, Stormfront on any article aside from Stormfront; I certainly would not complain if someone removed random links to that site. At the same time, I don't really see why this necessitates a general policy; unless there is some rampant issue of people citing www.hitler-is-great.com as a RS (from perusing people's arguments here, there isn't), does it really matter? Then we have the issue of "endorsement", which I think is greatly overstated. Is anyone really going to read our article on al-Qaeda and decide that they're great? And if someone is really that disturbed, are we really going to keep such a person from joining al-Qaeda by refusing to link to their website? I mean, I don't like them any more than you do, and it is true that editing Wikipedia is the only weapon we have, but I think the best way to use it is to accurately document all of the bad stuff they do. Speaking of which, our role is to inform and educate people. The number of people researching this for a wholesome and productive purpose vastly outstrips the number of people trying to join their ranks, by orders of magnitude. For example: the pageview statistics from January 12 show that al-Qaeda got 6,389 views that day... whereas this article estimates that "as of July 2020, al Qaeda had between 400 to 600 fighters in Afghanistan". That is to say, in twenty-four hours, between 12 and 15 times as many people viewed the article as there are members of the organization. Clearly, their conversion rates are not very high! So, okay -- maybe it isn't a pressing issue, and maybe it wouldn't actually accomplish anything, and maybe it would hurt researchers more than it helped guide wayward souls, but it wouldn't inconvenience us, would it? Well, I think it would do that, too. There are some obvious issues with a bright-line policy: the governments of Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe and China have been responsible for lots of bad stuff popping off, are we to refuse linking to their websites as well? What about Israel and Palestine, whose governments, I am given to understand, mutually regard the other as extremely bad? Are we supposed to come up with binding, project-wide opinions about every issue in world politics (that somehow manage to include all of the "bad guys" and none of the "good guys")??? It doesn't seem necessary, useful, realistic, or practical to me. jp×g 15:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • C. The problem with "A" is that it is ill defined. Everyone can agree that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization, but what about the Islamic Republic of Iran? What about Bill Ayers?

It gets murky in a hurry. Therefore, this should be left up to editorial judgment. Adoring nanny (talk) 13:11, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  • D, leaning towards B. But still editorial judgment will play a role in things. Abeg92contribs 19:25, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • A. No encyclopedic value. We should not drive traffic to violent hate groups. Where there is no consensus if that's what the group is, we don't need to act, but the principle should be stated. It is possible we'd need a tighter definition of what we are excluding, but we can work on that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:02, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B. The purpose of Wikipedia is to share information, not suppress it. Anyone who is serious about informing themselves about such groups will wish to see their websites. If Wikipedia wishes to exert a positive influence regarding these groups, the way to do that is to include critical views and coverage of relevant events on their articles i.e. to share information. Practically, there will be endless arguments about characterising non governmental forces: "one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter". Jontel (talk) 10:35, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B there is already enough censorship on this allegedly uncensored encyclopedia. Ludost Mlačani (talk) 16:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • 'INCLUDE all links. We don't censor at wikipedia, obviously slippery slope problem. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • B Wikipedia is not for censorship. If someone wanted to join the Jihad, they would anyway. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SlatSkate (talk • contribs) 18:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
  • D or C WP:ELPOV "On articles with multiple points of view, avoid providing links [..] that give undue weight to minority views." If somebody wants to go to a website to be indoctrinated, they will do that. But why should Wikipedia help those sites with recruiting by providing direct links? Wikilinks to our article about them are the better way. Those will contain the link to the site, but also reliable information. Those who cry "censorship!" all the time: do you have a problem with providing reliable information? --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:16, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
  • A or C: This requires Wikipedia to determine what a hate group is, instead of just classifying based on reliable sources. Even if we were to 100% determine that a site is a hate group, i still believe that Wikipedia shouldn't censor it. Theleekycauldron (talk) 02:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
    So does that mean you are against option A? PackMecEng (talk) 02:35, 1 February 2021 (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.

When are endorsements notable?

This has been discussed multiple times; Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_164#RfC_on_inclusion_criteria_for_lists_of_political_endorsements was held in late 2019. Now that the presidential election is over, it seems time to re-visit it.

Looking at the Joe Biden endorsement pages post-election, I feel that the current behavior is excessive. Some of the references seem clearly insufficient (Sam Gooden is sourced only to a Joe Biden campaign event virtual flyer, which wouldn't meet criterion number 2). Another example, this Axios piece is used as a reference for many of the 80 people who signed an open letter, including people such as Yi Cui (scientist), Ruth DeFries, and Jeremy Nathans who aren't mentioned in the Axios piece itself. Finally, we have a Fox News piece on donations, which sources people like Larry Lucchino and Patty Jenkins based solely on donations, which is against criterion 3.

The problem is that none of these people are important or relevant in this context. This is an agglomeration of trivia that is inappropriate. And the current guidelines seem unable to prevent that. What is to be done here? power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:37, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  • Yeah... Lists like this are a classic example of WP:RECENTISM. It takes time to know if an endorsement is significant to a political campaign (or not). Ideally, we would hold off on highlighting ANY endorsements until we know which were significant and which were not. I would suggest a culling and then a merger with the broader 2020 presidential election article. Blueboar (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • I'd agree that we need to be more selective. DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Leave it for now while people calm down and send the whole thing for deletion in six months' time. Thincat (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Good lord. I'm not an American, so maybe I'm missing something, but do any of these actually mean something tangible? I realize notability doesn't expire, but this seems ridiculous. Matt Deres (talk) 15:45, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
    @Matt Deres, I think the answer to your question is "no". Most endorsements in the US seem to be the equivalent of putting a sign in front of your home saying that you support X or Y. There is no money or anything else attached to it. In practice, I think that the politicians hope that people will vote based on identity, like "I support education, and a group of teachers endorsed this one, so I'll vote for this one." Or, in the opposite case, if a group you disagree with endorses something or someone, then you might vote the other way.
    It seems to me that a complete list of endorsements might be more of a Wikidata thing than an encyclopedia article. There might be an encyclopedia article possible on the subject of the role of endorsements in an election, in which you would write summaries like "most medical and teachers' groups endorsed Biden or stayed silent" or "Christian nationalist groups endorsed Trump", but I don't think that a raw list is an encyclopedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing I don't know enough about Wikidata to comment on whether this belongs there or not, but it seems like something worth exploring. I don't think the lists (there are multiple similar articles) belong here; personally, I think they fail WP:INDISCRIMINATE, though the third bullet point does suggest they're acceptable. To me, the scale is simply beyond reason. Surely a reliable source has compiled and summarized this stuff so that we can report on the trends and special cases rather than immense walls of names. What is the utility of it? Matt Deres (talk) 16:58, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
@Matt Deres, I think the way you'd handle this at Wikidata is that you'd go to the entry for Joe Biden (or his campaign?), scroll down until you find "+ add statement", and then add a statement "endorsed by", put in the endorsing org's name, add a ref, maybe add a qualifier (time period, or for what purpose?), and repeat. It might be possible to set up a reciprocal item, so that you could do the same thing at the notable endorsing org's record. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:58, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem is not one of us lacking the rules, but lacking the horsepower. When it comes to endorsements by Joe Biden, there are thousands of Americans deeply passionate about the candidate (don't ask me why...) who rush to slap every tweet they can find and D-list celebrity saying Biden's name in the list. There are much fewer editors with the patience to watch this crap accumulate on a daily basis and find good sources for the ones which are covered in big publications and throw out the rest. I tried this a little at the Bernie Sanders page in the primaries, but it's just so much work.
    We could perma-semi-protect pages like this (when they're attracting significant attention), but then we will miss out on noticing lots of significant endorsements. That might be preferable, however, to a bloody long list where plenty of people who have not publicly endorsed a candidate are misreported as having done so (based on an immediately-deleted tweet where they say "I liked Joe's hair, it makes me laugh"), which is both a BLP violation and a useless piece of cruft that I fail to believe anybody could find useful.
    If we were anywhere near to solving the problem that most of these lists of poorly sourced content flat out fail all editorial policies we have, let alone the three criteria the 2019 RfC established, then we still might find the lists too hard to navigate because they've got an unsurprising list of 200 Democratic local representatives endorsing the Democratic candidate, but I don't think that's problem #1 to solve. — Bilorv (talk) 00:17, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Overhauling MOS:CAPS#Peoples and their languages

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see:

Summary: When WP:Manual of Style/Proper names was merged away (into MOS:CAPS, MOS:BIO, MOS:TITLES, etc), the tiny one-sentence "Peoples and their languages" section ended up in MOS:CAPS, yet said nothing about capitalization at all, despite the site having evolved norms in this regard. I've attempted to concisely codify the basics (something I meant to do at merge time, about two years or so ago, but forgot about).

Second (and kind of dependent on this section even becoming relevant to MOS:CAPS in the first place), it has been proposed that the results of a recent RfC on [b|B]lack and [w|W]hite be integrated into MOS:CAPS, at this section, and I have drafted language to do that, reflective both of pre-existing permissiveness for lower-case or upper-case, and of the specific result of the RfC (to not use Black but white in the same material).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:11, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Anyone can edit? - I am finding it increasingly difficult.

As an older editor (both in age and in “years editing WP”), I am becoming increasingly concerned by the amount of automated doo-hickies (templates, phabricators, T1234 thingys etc. etc.) one is expected to understand in order to edit articles. I know I am not being very specific in raising this concern (that is because I am not very tech savvy, so I don’t even know enough to complain accurately)... essentially It just feels like we are shifting from “The encyclopedia that anyone can edit” to “The encyclopedia that those with enough technical expertise can edit”. Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 18:27, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

@Blueboar:, I am probably of the same generation and have edited about as long as you, and I don't share that experience. I don't pay any attention to anything tracked in pahbricator and I don't even know what "T1234 thingys" are and I edit in about the same way as I always have. I do use templates but those aren't really much of a burden if I remember to check the documentation before once I screw something up before I press "Publish changes". I'm not trying to deny your lived experience but I don't feel that the technical savvy needed to edit has changed greatly in the last decade or so. I'm sorry that's not of more help. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:15, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
(after edit conflict) I don't know if I can say I'm "older" at 62, and I count myself as pretty tech-savvy, having worked in technical areas of IT from 1980. I deliberately avoid the more technical areas of the project (the only village pump page that I don't have watchlisted is the technical one) but am concerned that we seem to have a significant number of editors who seem to think that technical IT expertise has some relation to knowing what should be done in an encyclopedia. My greatest concern is that there are so many editors, including admins, who seem to believe that the reaction to a bot not editing according to consensus should be anything other than immediately closing down the bot until the situation is sorted out, although they would apply this principle to a human editor. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:19, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
There's an established process for bots and consensus. That process is described in BOTPOL. They aren't treat like human editors because they aren't human editors. That's not to say the process is perfect or not in need of any reforms, though, but it does explain your question about why admins don't block contrary to policy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I guess it depends on what kind of articles (generic) you like to edit and how much they rely on templates or other more advanced markup. Most editors will appreciate it if you at least use some citation templates, but you can probably get by with bare references as long as you don't mind others changing them later. If you're thinking about maintenance tasks like page patrol, yeah, some of those rely on tools or need careful attention to follow all requisite steps. isaacl (talk) 22:35, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree that the amount of automation has steadily increased over time, but the purpose has been to reduce the amount of technical expertise required, so we can spend more time on the article writing. My experience with the kids in university classes has been that they are less technically savvy than the older generation. They don't look at how a web page is constructed any more. (Why would you? It's probably all full of CSS.) Nonetheless, we also have an educational mission, so in that spirit, everyone is obligated to learn. Working with bots, templates and Lua modules isn't so hard. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:16, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Working with bots, templates and Lua modules isn't so hard.: I believe the average editor can get by without having to worry about bots and Lua. Automated bot edits can be configured to not show on watchlists, and their edits shouldn't be treated any differently than if they were made from a human. Templates might be less avoidable, as most use them for citations, and almost every page has an infobox. Help pages can be spruced up if non-technical editors can identify gaps they are experiencing.—Bagumba (talk) 05:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Couldn't agree more. You don't need to worry about them. You can use the templates without knowing how they work. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Of course way back when I was new, it did take a while to figure out how those {{...}} worked and where the hell to get the proper syntax.—Bagumba (talk) 11:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • The problem isn't that people can use templates and the like without knowing how they work, the problem is that it ahs become much harder for many people to fix issues in templates, infoboxes, ... in a specific article. E.g. modules are a step remote from templates. People used to be able to look at the template name that was used, type that into the infobox, and then see the actual source; now they will see some invocation of "something" without any indication that this is a Lua module, which is then much harder to parse for many people. Similarly, all the stuff that is taken from Wikidata may seem to make life easier, but in reality is a big black box for most editors, and if they do goover there, they have trouble finding out what they are supposed to do (e.g. creating a new reference there is a lot harder). So yes, there have been some developments which have made editing, understanding what happens, fixing (some) errors, ... increasingly difficult for a lot of people. Fram (talk) 11:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    Fram, I think such complication is necessary of any mature organisation or project. Complexities always develop which are inaccessible to some. No single person will be able to comprehend and efficiently operate in every area of the project. Most people don't need to be able to understand Module:Convert, for example. If they have an issue, they can pop it onto the talk page and it's someone else's problem. Using Lua modules is hence as simple as templates, assuming they're well documented and well designed. As for Wikidata, there's an editing pencil in infoboxes but I happen to think it looks a bit ugly.
    (re below) I don't think stuff like {{authority control}} is creating an editing complexity, but it is bloat. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Re. Wikidata, see something like the template CiteQ, which is extremely easy until you need to change anything (or need to create a new reference). AT List of woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer, the current reference 7 reads " Willy Kurth, ed. (1927). Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer. Foyles. ISBN 0-486-21097-9. OL 18383602M. Wikidata Q101542418." (with the necessary links). It is generated by {{Cite Q|Q101542418}} A 1927 book by Foyles. The title is a link to a Hathitrust version, [64], but this is a 1946 version published by Crown publishers. The OL (Open Library) link[65] goes to a 1927 version, but published by Dover Publications, not by Foyle. And the ISBN is for a 1963 version, published again by Dover. The intention of CiteQ is that you can reuse the reference over articles, languages, ... If I now change the Wikidata version to be about one specific version (so same year, publisher, ID numbers,...), will I break any uses of this reference? E.g. cases where page numbers are added, which aren't necessary the same in all these versions? I don't know, and I have no way of knowing it either as far as I know. I have already changed a few CiteQ uses on that article to standard references, but they are creeping up everywhere. Fram (talk) 13:20, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
This is exactly the sort of thing that I am talking about... what the hell does “Cite Q|Q101542418” mean? I have no clue how you get the text of the citation that appears in the article from that string of gobbledygook. There is no way I could edit this if I needed to. It is not something I have the skills to figure out. Blueboar (talk) 13:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I think the corollary to that is that most new editors would find {{Cite book|editor-last=Kurth|editor-first=Willy|year=1927|title=Complete Woodcuts of Albrecht Dürer|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.32106006231002|publisher=[[Foyles]]|isbn=0-486-21097-9|ol=18383602M}} just as impenetrable and be just as lost about how to edit it. There's no way around having some structured data in our articles (citations for example), but tools like VisualEditor and Wikidata/{{Cite Q}} are an attempt to make it so the average editor doesn't have to work with it directly, and so reduce the technical barrier to editing that you complained about above. They're not perfect and I certainly agree that we need much more approachable interfaces for editing Wikidata (e.g. one just for bibliographic entries), but it seems a step in the right direction. – Joe (talk) 14:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
How so? If in this example, you wanted to change "Foyles" to "Dover publications" or whatever, you actually see Foyles in the code you posted, and can simply replace it. Not so in Q12512121564. I have gone back to the same example article, List of woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer, and opened it in Visual Editor (which is still so sloooow). The reference I discussed above is defined inside a table. So I go to the table, and try clicking on the [7] indicating the source. No luck, I open the table instead. Some very precise double clicking seems to do the trick eventually, but even then I can't do anything. Now, I want to copy that reference to elsewhere in the same article, but make a new version with a specific page number. Oops, I can't do this in VE (copying a reference is just anoher instance of the same ref, without the option of making a new ref from it), and shouldn't do this in Wikidata (or do we want a specific Qnumber for every page in a book?). So I try adding a new reference instead. Someone told me that simply adding an ISBN is sufficient, but the results are hardly satisfactory, with lots of double comma's in the reference so produced (e.g. "Others: Kurth, Willy, 1881-1963,, Dodgson, Campbell, 1867-1948,, Welsh, Silvia M.,). So, once again, lazy editing tools producing unsatisfactory results but being hailed as superior anyway. I'll stick to wikitext and continue opposing both VE and Wikidata (as used on Enwiki, not as a separate entity). Fram (talk) 15:14, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Have you tried the VisualEditor recently? I find it works very well for writing and working with simple templates (citations, infoboxes, etc.) – Joe (talk) 11:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    Thank you, but shudder, no. I loathe that thing. Citations are for me much easier with the wikitext editor. And it doesn't address any of the issues I discussed. Fram (talk) 12:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    I was responding to Blueboar, not you directly, sorry for the threading confusion. – Joe (talk) 13:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    No problem. Fram (talk) 13:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    I would agree with Fram. I too prefer to edit using the wikitext editor (I like to see the full text of a citation written out when I go into edit mode). Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    Blueboar, It's my hypothesis that a number of editors, especially those who had mastered the intricacies of adding references with the wiki text editor, checked out an early version of visual editor and were very turned off. I sympathize with that view, because I tried it early, found it lacking, and didn't use it much for a while. However, I came back to it, and find that many of the bugs have been worked out. While I still find the need to use both editors, I almost exclusively use VE for adding references and it is much better on the occasional time I need to add a table. I understand that once you've mastered the ability to add a reference manually, VE doesn't count as much of an improvement, but the ability to drop in an ISBN and spit out a properly formatted reference is a godsend. S Philbrick(Talk) 14:52, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • It's obviously feature creep and software bloat. It's a sign of the times that the billionth edit was to add an {{authority control}} template to a non-notable stub using AWB. That was just busywork – gaming the system to boost edit count. Editors who enjoy grinding naturally like using tools to amplify their activity. Writing carefully researched and cited encyclopedia text is much harder to automate and so it's not done. Another typical symptom of the problem is using an automated tool like Twinkle to drop a tag on an article rather than actually fixing the issue. Such tools tend to bias activity towards brute-force fixes like deletion rather than activity that is difficult to automate such as writing and editing. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Reading some of the comments has me thinking... perhaps part of the problem is that that I am very TEXT oriented, and WP is becoming more and more DATA oriented. Using templates and automation does make it easier to update DATA in articles, but it makes it very difficult to write and edit TEXT. Blueboar (talk) 14:13, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure what policies/guidelines you are trying to discuss here Blueboar, but WP:BOLD and WP:IAR have a long, strong history. I've told others before if you want to write about something but don't know all the nuances of the templates/markup/etc - then just write it! Use references, if you don't format the references in a way that others like they can just go refactor them. If someone says something like "you should use template:x instead of a bare reference" take it or leave it! If someone makes some template-heavy-reference that is a pain to deal with, ignore it and just put in a reference you actually used however you want. Don't edit war with someone who wants to come behind you and update the markup - move on to something else you actually care about! We need good faith editors making constructive articles and article improvements as much or more than we need the references to be in a shiny markup if it is in the way of brilliant prose. — xaosflux Talk 15:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
      • That is great advice for when someone is adding new info or creating new citations ... my difficulty is figuring out how to edit/amend existing info and citations. The more we rely on templates and coding to generate text (whether it be the text of an infobox, the text of a citation, or the running text of an article), the harder it is to fix/amend that text when something needs fixing/amending. Blueboar (talk) 18:27, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
@Blueboar:, is there an example that you can point to of a cite or template that you feel is too obtuse? The concerns you express are feeling a bit abstract and nebulous at this point. I can think of examples where I've had trouble (e.g., I have come to despise the opacity of Wikidata inclusions) but I don't know if you are referring to similar things. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Sorry to not be more specific. I suppose this is more a generalized sense that I am increasingly unable to contribute as fully as I once could... rather than something inspired by a specific example. Wikidata is certainly contributing to this, but it goes beyond that. I will try to find other examples.
I raised my concern here because I was not sure where else to discuss it (and because I know this page has lots of people watching it). I don’t even know if there IS a remedy... I just wanted other editors to know how I felt. Something has changed in the way WP operates, and I am saddened by it. Blueboar (talk) 19:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
I think I know what you mean -- for me, it does take time sometimes to figure out how to add to a template/table etc so it renders the information it should, and with more different templates/tables etc. sometimes I just move-on and the improvement is does not get done, at least by me. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:41, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • If you were learning how to edit templates, you would start with something simple, and work towards more complex patterns. That's how a textbook would be organised. But for the editor who comes from editing an article and wanting to change something, then you might well be jumping in the deep end. The templates, like the articles, have tended to become more detailed over time, due to precisely this process. There is quite a few You might be confronted by one of those templates that makes you recoil. It took some time, but I managed to get the rocket engine template to call the nuclear reactor one as a module. Persistence pays off. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Blueboar makes some valid points, in my view – and I'm a retired computer science academic, competent in both the template language and Lua (I converted most of the WP:Automated taxobox system).
    • One problem is that automation = obscurity. Consider citations. A citation written out as text is easily comprehensible and editable. Given that the parameter names are meaningful, a citation written out inside a citation template is also reasonably easily comprehensible and editable. A citation created by {{Cite Q}} is neither easily comprehensible nor easily editable. It's particularly problematic in my view when templates here use data from elsewhere, particularly from Wikidata, which has to be edited in a very different way. There should be much more community discussion before such templates come into use.
    • Another problem is the complexity of templates/modules, as they are expanded to do more tasks, and do them better. Increasing modularity is good in software terms (or so I used to teach), but creates issues for editors here – one Lua module now often services multiple templates, making changes to it considerably more difficult to make safely. All this results in a shrinking of the pool of editors who are willing or able to edit templates/modules. I'm not sure whether there is a solution to this problem, but we should be aware of it. I think that in some areas we are dangerously dependent on a small number of editors.
Peter coxhead (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Agreed with Blueboar. It's worrying how many of our most frequent editors began editing in 2010 or earlier. Because these editors will not all continue in decades to come. We need a new generation of Wikipedians and the ones we're recruiting are too technical-oriented (or politics-oriented). The learning curve is just so steep to be able to improve content with no technical background. To you, ten changes in ten years just means you have to learn one thing a year. To a new user, this means another ten things to add to an existing twenty before they can just fix the bloody date in article prose from "February 4" (a mistake) to "February 5". Or more accurately, it means that the user can't fix the date, gives up and never tries to edit again. New users don't get a voice in our conversations, because they're not here. Just the people who are so familiar with our existing workflows that they have absolutely no idea what the new user experience is like. We also forget that most people are reading on mobile and can only edit on mobile, particularly those in Africa, Asia or South America who are only just getting access to the internet. It will soon be harder than the Labours of Heracles to change "February 4" to "February 5" on a smartphone when the content is transcluded from the table on another article, which invokes a template, which invokes Lua, which invokes Wikidata, which wants you to type in flawless mm/dd/yyyy format without explaining this. Can you imagine stumbling through this process when you've never even heard of the Wikipedia namespace or found WP:5P yet? And don't forget the reference (which has to be cited in a completely different way) or you'll be reverted immediately by a long-term editor who can't distinguish your edit from subtle vandalism. — Bilorv (talk) 01:03, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
  • The main thing I do on Wikipedia is vandalism fighting, specifically of longstanding vandalism. Two frequent pathways to vandalism becoming longstanding are vandalism to references (at least in my experience, a lot of the "fixed vandalism from 2010" comes from people inserting obvious vandalism into refs) and vandalism grandfathered in from other articles. Things like CiteQ that pull copy from Wikidata seem like a ticking time bomb for both. (After seeing this entry it took me literally 5 minutes to find (and revert) several instances of obvious Wikidata vandalism that were there for some time.)- I know Wikidata has a counter-vandalism project but I'm not sure how active it is compared to here. Gnomingstuff (talk) 04:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Concerns over Wikidata vandalism (which I share) have been the main reason the community has opposed Wikidata integration in most forms. It's worrying to see things like CiteQ bypassing our filters by being introduced without, so far as I can see, consensus and widespread discussion outside of the techno-centred communities which are much more likely to favour it. There was a quite negative closure at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 September 15#Template:Cite Q in 2017 but since then, what's changed since that makes CiteQ acceptable for transclusion on, at present, 44,000 pages (mostly articles)? — Bilorv (talk) 23:22, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

MEDLEAD

More input is needed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#MEDLEAD. Crossroads -talk- 06:49, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

So is WP:COSMETICBOT not policy anymore?

I guess this is the right place to put this, since it's a policy-related question. My watchlist has been completely bombarded with seemingly cosmetic bot edits lately, to the point that it's really rendering part of the idea behind a watchlist useless, as it makes it very hard to keep track of edits I would actually want to monitor. For instance, this edit (it's to an article since-deleted by PROD, so only admins can see it, but the edit is by Monkbot, is marked as cosmetic, and simply consists of changing the parameter |accessdate in {{cite gnis}} to |access-date). I watch all articles that I PROD, to see if the PROD gets contested and I may need to follow up with AFD. Monkbot made that same edit to a large number of articles I had PRODded and watched, making it much more difficult to keep track of these PRODs. So what is clearly a meaningless cosmetic edit (accessdate vs access-date isn't an error and has no impact on output) is creating the sort of situation that we have (had?) WP:COSMETICBOT for - the large numbers of automated make it needlessly difficult to actually keep track of changes, and why are articles up for deletion the sudden targets for cosmetic edits anyway? Or stuff like this or this. What are those really accomplishing. And just not showing bot edits in my watchlist isn't an option I'm comfortable with either, because of stuff like this, where a bot went around making link changing edits where there was a valid editorial reason for the human-chosen links.

Sorry for the TL;DR rant, but I was pretty sure that COSMETICBOT was still policy, but wound up being very confused and annoyed when all of a sudden 30-odd percent of the changes appearing on my watchlist were seemingly-cosmetic bot edits. Even the ones working on Category:CS1 maint: ref=harv are essentially cosmetic edits, given that that category says up at the top The CS1 maint: ref=harv message is not an error message., so removing |ref=harv isn't really a particularly useful edit. I'm seriously considering adding {{bots|deny=monkbot 18}} to pages I'm actively watching so I can actually monitor useful changes to those articles without everything being gummed up. Hog Farm Talk 06:07, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Hog Farm. There is a (quite long) discussion about this at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#Monkbot 18. — The Earwig talk 08:24, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
The short answer is: The bot has been fixing problems that don't currently appear to make a difference, but which will make a very visible difference (broken refs all over the page) in the fairly near future. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:20, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to elevate the contents of MOS:ACCESS as policy.

Currently, the entirety of the Manual of Style is considered guideline. However, MOS:ACCESS infringements impact the usability of Wikipedia, and its accessibility. I propose that MOS:ACCESS be elevated above the level of guidelines, and more stringently enforced in mainspace and in wikispace.

There has been a recent proliferation of articles infringing MOS:ACCESS, particularly among COVID-related articles with statistics charts. Needless to say, access to information about an active pandemic should not be obstructed due to poor adherence to the Manual of Style. This troubling trend of flouting MOS:ACCESS should be nipped in the bud, before it becomes so widespread that fixing it is nearly impossible and Wikipedia's famed level of accessibility becomes permanently degraded.70.52.144.5 (talk) 16:05, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Practically everything in MOS should be a guideline, because, well, they’re guidelines. Elevating MOS:ACCESS to policy won’t fix the particular issue you’re referring to anyway. Suggest discussing those graphs on their relevant talk; I suspect the limitations are a mixture of technical and needing someone who’s willing to do the work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
No technical limitations. Not ALL of the statistics charts on those pages infringe MOS:ACCESS, just a subset. The way the non-infringing subset are done is therefore the way they all should be done, to adhere to MOS:ACCESS. That makes the continued infringements of MOS:ACCESS, which have now drawn comment from at least 3 users, willful ones. Ridiculously, one of those users was actually asked to fix it on one of the affected pages themselves by uploading images and editing the page, despite their being an IP user and thus unable to upload images, and that particular page being semi-protected so not editable by IP users. Someone else would therefore have to do it, yet no-one would, even though requests for (non-vandalizing) edits to semi-protected pages from IP users are supposed to be honored.70.52.144.5 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
The "someone else" may have to a be a future you. Register an account, wait 10 days, fix it. - Ryk72 talk 23:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
Ridiculous. Your response obviates the whole purpose of semi-protected edit requests. Furthermore, those COVID pages were fine up until January 8. Someone else's edits broke MOS:ACCESS (and particularly MOS:PRECOLLAPSE). Why should I be expected to clean up their mess? I don't even have the relevant expertise. I have little familiarity with the markup used around here. I can fix a typo or add a bit of information here and there, but it would take me weeks to learn enough to be able to fix what whoever broke it could fix in five minutes. If this was a simple matter of personal preference I might simply give up and let the more knowledgeable editor have it their way, but this is not a simple matter of personal preference. It's a matter of a flagrant violation of an important guideline. What that other editor did is WRONG and should not be allowed to stand. What I can't understand is why I can't seem to find anybody who agrees with me! If there was a broad consensus that, say, MOS:PRECOLLAPSE was obsolete, presumably it wouldn't even be there on the MOS:ACCESS page anymore. Since it is still there, there must be a large silent majority who agree with me. So why will none of them speak up?!70.52.144.5 (talk) 16:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)
The MOS as policy would essentially require prior knowledge of the MOS before contributing to Wikipedia. That is to say, not writing in a MOS-compliant way could be seen as disruptive. Go ahead and stringently enforce the guideline that it is. Barring an exceptional reason, reverts done to MOS-compliant edits will be viewed as disruptive. Primergrey (talk)
That's not what a policy is. People violating policies or guidelines they don't know about has always what we've had IAR and BITE for. --Izno (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
Regardless of what a policy is or is not, the OP certainly seems to think a "promotion" to policy would make MOS-compliant editing more "enforceable". Primergrey (talk) 20:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
It won't, though. This is a common misconception about Wikipedia:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
But then again, it might. As the page you linked to is "a supplemental page, which is an even more ambiguous group...supplemental pages generally have a limited status during deliberations as they have not been thoroughly vetted by the community." Primergrey (talk) 17:58, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
No, it won't. Changing the label at the top of the page does not magically result in people reading it and changing their behavior. Even in a long-standing, high-profile policy, it often takes many editors two years to notice that the best-practice has been changed. (When was the last time you read all the policies? Never? Right. Neither did anyone else, so of course you don't know what changed in them last month.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:02, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
"No, it won't." Armed with that level of prescience, you ought to just tell everyone what result this thread will yield, and save them all some time. I'm talking about perceptions, which, given the blurriness of things, are pretty much all anyone has to go on. (And I have read every policy and guideline over the course of my time here. Less clarity was imparted than I had expected.) Primergrey (talk) 18:16, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Over the span of many years, a few editors (including myself) have probably read all, or nearly all, of the policies. But if you're not doing that frequently, then you won't know what's changed.
It does not take prescience to know that changing a policy does not magically equip editors with these necessary and complex skills, or to know that people whose current personal opinion falls into the "benign neglect" range will not suddenly become advocates for adding accessibility features to data tables. Approximately 148,000 registered editors have made at least one edit in the last month. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Data tables tutorial gets five page views a day. That means that for every person who looks up the right way to do it once, 999 other editors aren't doing it at all this month (and that assumes that nobody ever reads the page more than once, which isn't realistic). Slapping a policy tag at the top of the page will not change that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
More forum shopping. See the links I supplied in yesterday's attempted RFC: WT:WPACCESS#Since many editors treat Manual of Style content as mere ignorable guidelines, MOS:ACCESS content should be clearly made non-ignorable policy. --Izno (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
Not forum shopping. Escalation. And quit stalking me. Your opinion, that MOS:ACCESS should simply be thrown overboard because it's suddenly less convenient to apply, has been made adequately clear, and it is clearly incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.52.144.5 (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
MOS:ACCESS is explicitly a guideline because "it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.". Not liking the answer you've been given every time you've asked will not and cannot change that. Thryduulf (talk) 21:46, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
Concur with every named user above who has replied to the anonymous IP address editor. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:44, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
MOS:PRECOLLAPSE should probably be regarded as obsolete. CSS and JavaScript are fairly universal. Turning off CSS requires special plugins in many browsers nowadays. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
It's actually still a problem. Dropdowns/collapses are busted on the mobile site, for example. They either hide totally, or auto-expand, one or the other depending on the class. Creates an awful UI experience when infoboxes, for example, use collapses with a mass of content in it. On mobiles, that infobox appears under the first paragraph of the lead, auto-expands, and then becomes a very long scroll. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
(sigh) Is it really necessary to remind everybody of https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/No-JavaScript_notes again? Up to 7% of the user base can't see many of the statistics charts on the affected COVID articles. There are devices with browsers that don't support Javascript. There are security reasons to disable or whitelist it. Anyone arguing that MOS:PRECOLLAPSE is obsolete is arguing that people should be forced to let Wikipedia run code on their machines or no charts for you. Code that "anyone can edit"! That code will become a very tempting target for bad actors to modify, and probably already is. Basically, when a user lets a site run Javascript, any attacker there has already achieved the hardest step: getting remote code execution. They're now just one or two local privilege escalations away from cracking root ... 70.52.144.5 (talk) 19:01, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Not everyone can edit global site JS, only the WMF/devs and intadmins. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
So, there's a small barrier to access, not unlike the case with editing a semi-protected article. 70.52.144.5 (talk) 18:37, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
The rest is paranoia with no basis in reality, there is no known bug allowing gaining root access by executing JavaScript in any popular browser. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
Poppycock. Ten seconds of googling sufficed to find these recent incidents:
That's the trifecta, an exploitable Javascript-engine zero-day in each of IE, Chrome, and Firefox, the top 3 browsers outside of Apple's expensive little gated community. All three of them during 2020, so recent. If these happened yesterday, another one could crop up tomorrow. 70.52.144.5 (talk) 18:37, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
The fact is that you’re going to have a very tough time on the internet in 2021 without enabling JS, a suboptimal browsing experience on many popular sites and others not allowing access entirely (eg React/SPAs/etc). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
That is true, and it is also very, very bad. And it is mostly for ulterior motives. A lot of those sites are serving static text and images as the bulk or even the entirety of what they provide to the end user, which does not technically require any client-side scripting. (Rather like an encyclopedia site, come to think of it.) But anyone who's blocking their scripts is blocking their ads, so they are motivated to force people to allow their scripts. A good and wise site operator would just fall back to good old-fashioned 400x40 JPEG ads but way too many site operators are greedy jerks instead. Of course, Wikipedia has no such motives, since it doesn't appear to be ad supported, which makes the concerted effort certain editors are making to force Javascript down users' throats after all these years all the more baffling, as there does not seem to be a motive for doing so. Yet there is clearly a huge amount of resistance from certain quarters to any attempt to keep Wikipedia functional for non-JS users, to the point of some of the pro-forcing-JS-use faction feeling the need to try to stifle any debate of the topic at all, and to follow members of the anti-forcing-JS-use faction around the site to pester them. It's very odd.
P.S.: Simply deleting everything I wrote yesterday because you disagree with it is NOT a mature way to debate an issue. Please don't do that again. 70.52.144.5 (talk) 18:37, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
I am sympathetic because the casual discrimination against the disabled that crops up when people ignore and/or argue against *some* elements of MOS:ACCESS is frustrating. Fortunately the WMF, in one of its rare occasions of doing something correctly, has a nondiscrimination resolution which supersedes local policies. The problem with MOS:ACCESS is it handles two different types of accessibility issues. Those related to technical accessessibility (eg browsers that lack CSS/JS support) and those that address disability based access (colourblindness, sight-impaired etc). The former should certainly not be a policy, the latter probably should given it crops up often enough that editors ignore it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:40, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
The distinction you're trying to make, apparently with the intention of carving out an exception that will give the pro-shoving-JS-down-everyone's-throats faction license to operate, does not really exist. Device capabilities and disability are not independent -- consider things like screen reader software or text magnification features. These things (and lots more) are designed to work with plain HTML and, in some cases, images and other commonplace material. Replacing any of these with scripts that attempt to do anything fancier, without appropriate no-script backups, is likely to screw them up. This is part of a more general adage: the more you overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain. 70.52.144.5 (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Lacuna in SPS:BP policy - think it needs an update urgently to address think tanks, advocacy organizations, academic group projects

I believe the self-published source policy regarding biography of living person articles - WP:BLPSPS - needs clarification urgently. The context is that I'm involved in a relentless tug of war about the inclusion on the Douglas Murray (author) page of an academic group research project titled the Bridge Initative[66] which is meant to address Islamophobia in the public space and is maintained by Georgetown University on a BLP article. It does not seem to be contested that the Bridge Team[67], to whom the articles are credited, is highly distinguished, including professors John Esposito Farid Hafez and Susan L. Douglass, the human rights lawyer and commentator Arsalan Iftikhar and a host of others, nor that it has been cited by other RS's[68][69][70][71][72][73][74] Nobody has been able to distinguish Bridge in evidentiary terms from advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. However, several people have pointed to sections in editorial policy like this one:

Per WP:USESPS: "Self-published works are those in which the author and publisher are the same."

Self-published material is characterized by the lack of reviewers who are independent of the author (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of contents.

Per WP: V:"Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer".

Bridge articles are written by a team and attributed to them, just as articles written by advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Innocence Project and so on tend to be. Articles on controversial BLP subjects feature articles from these groups as a matter of course: see the pages for Milo Yiannopoulos,[75][76][77][78], Richard B. Spencer[79] and Lauren Southern[80] for example. However, a literal reading of currently policy could exclude them as "self-published sources", and potentially exclude anything that doesn't have a person with the job title of "editor". It needs to be clarified whether the above are "self-published" sources or whether they are acceptable for BLP articles. I don't believe those who wrote this policy sincerely intended that this would be the interpretation and I believe it is contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the existing policy, but believe the policy needs to be urgently updated and clarified to state whether think tanks, advocacy organizations and academic projects are "self-published" and whether they are acceptable for BLP articles. Noteduck (talk) 08:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, WP:SPS would be a problem only for WP:FRINGE think-tanks, not for notable groups of mainstream academics. E.g., Bart Ehrman's blog (full professor, world authority on the Bible, writing under his own name) could be used as WP:RS (not very high quality RS, but RS nonetheless, for less controversial stuff). Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
The concern is about content on BLP's specifically. They want our definition of self-published changed so they can add think tanks, advocacy organizations, and academic projects as content on BLP's. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Springee and Kyohyi, nice of you to join me. Tgeorgescu, it's worth noting that despite the widespread presence of the SPLC and the ADL on controversial BLP pages, WP: V does state "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer". This doesn't appear to leave any exemptions for experts no matter what level of renown. I can't imagine those who wrote the policy intended to exclude those sources - or are think tanks, advocacy groups, academic projects etc not "self-published sources"? Am I missing something? Noteduck (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
This is becoming obvious FORUMSHOPing. This question was extensively discussed and you didn't get the answer you wanted. Springee (talk) 11:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
Springee, there is an obvious lacuna (or simply a norm of violating policy) in Wiki's SPS:BPL policy. I'm on this page to get it clarified and amended if possible - if you don't have anything helpful to add then don't add anything Noteduck (talk) 21:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
I disagree: This appears to be a genuine inconsistency in how WP:BLP is written or applied. :::::@Noteduck: Have you placed a notice at some of the places where editors familiar with BLP will see it e.g., WP:BLPN, WT:BLP? ElKevbo (talk) 21:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm fine with opening the discussion but I think it's problematic when an editor is actively involved in a dispute over this exact fact to then open this discussion without informing the original discussion. Given some of Noteduck's other behaviors this certainly looks like simple forum shopping. That said, Noteduck has since notified the other discussion. There is at least one SPS discussion I'm aware of which took place here [[82]]. VP is probably not the best place for this though it would be a good place for a notification. Springee (talk) 22:30, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment - upon a review of the related discussions, in which I am not INVOLVED, I would like to corroborate that this does seem to me to represent a lacuna. The SPS prohibition for BLP articles - which makes sense in and of itself - seems to me to be too broad. While we should not allow feuds even among highly espected experts to be reflected in WP articles when sourced only to their blogs, it seems to me that at least some of the following should be allowed on BLPs: (1) SPS from acknowledged experts as references for uncontroversial matters of fact; (2) attributed judgements from relevant experts (individuals and groups), sourced to self-published or other sources where editorial control is not fully separate from the author or authors; (3) authoritative judgments using references by respected organizations that are responsible for their own publications. I'm not sure what exactly what the path would be to recognize some or all of the above as valid for BLPs, but I do believe it would benefit the encyclopedia to do so, by enriching the published content without taking any risks of harm to BLP subjects through poorly-sourced claims. Newimpartial (talk) 21:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Comment WP:USESPS is not a policy nor a guideline, it's not been vetted by the community; its statement "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of reviewers who are independent of the author (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of contents" makes almost no sense, if it's read to make unusable the sources that organizations and universities publish. Publishers do not typically send articles and books out-of-house to be vetted by independent person's unpaid by the publisher, and thus, without a coi (academic journals perhaps are the only publishers who seek those not-employed-independents to review in peer review before publication). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure who that freestanding comment was intended to address, but my (immediately preceding) comment was about WP:SPS - which is a policy - and which states, Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. That was what I for one was criticizing as, ahem, lacking necessary nuance. Newimpartial (talk) 22:52, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
My comment was not indented because it was not a reply to you, it was a reply to the OP. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Is this notice board with this opening the property venue for this discussion? This is a reasonable question when taken out of the context on which it was raised. As I noted, it was discussed before but there was no resolution. I would suggest closing this discussion and raising it neutrality on the WP:V or WP:RS talk pages. Springee (talk) 23:29, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker and Newimpartial, thanks for your responses. ElKevbo, I did take it to WT:BLP and it raised a bit of argument and went nowhere - there doesn't seem to be consensus anywhere.[83] There was a BLPN thread which is relevant a few years back in which a few editors, including Kyohyi contested that the SPLC's Hatewatch blog should not be treated as an RS for BLP pages, partially on the grounds that it was an SPS, but they overruled.[84] Nonetheless the current policy still seems very unclear. When it comes to think tanks, advocacy groups and group research projects on BLP articles, in my opinion three propositions are possible:

  • there is an ongoing pattern of non-adherence to editorial policy on Wiki, evidenced by the frequent use of these groups (especially the SPLC and ADL) as sources on pages related to controversial BLP subjects
  • there is a lacuna in the SPS policy, and the policy needs to be clarified to make it clear these sources are permissible in at least some instances
  • think tanks, advocacy groups and research groups (if group projects) are not "self-published sources" for the purposes of Wiki policy

In my opinion the second proposition is most likely correct, and the current definition is contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the policy. What do others think - am I missing anything? Noteduck (talk) 10:04, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Considering reliability of sources at the level of publisher causes issues. - Ryk72 talk 12:48, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
I think these concerns about SPLC and ADL are misplaced. First, they often deal with groups, rather than individuals, and groups are not subject to BLP rules. Second, we usually cite a newspaper or magazine article that says that the SPLC or the ADL put the group on a list, rather than citing their own publications directly. If you see someone citing SPLC's own publications to claim something specifically about an individual BLP, then please go visit your favorite web search engine, find an independent news article that says the same thing, and replace the source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Comment My take is that a lot of editors don't follow how policy defines a self-published source. I do think our policy partially buries the definition (by putting it in a note, and not in the main body of text), but it does exist on WP: V. Per V "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of content.". Groups which have a specific POV, like think tanks, advocacy organizations, and research groups have an inherent conflict of interest with regards to their POV. This means that any internal review process also has a conflict of interest, and we would need to see that there is a review process that is not beholden to the aims of the group to justify that they are not self-publishing (something akin to an independent editorial board). To make an example that ties into this situation. Georgetown University has the bridge project, and it also has a University press. If the bridge project were to publish it's findings through the university press then it would not be self-published, but the bridge project's content published on university pages that it controls are self-published. --Kyohyi (talk) 13:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

  • To my mind, the core of the issue here is distinguishing the difference between a source that is being used as a reliable secondary source to support a statement of fact, vs citing that same source as a PRIMARY source for a noteworthy and relevant statement of opinion.
For example: let’s say that the SPLC had concluded that a BLP subject is a “racist”. That conclusion is certainly relevant and noteworthy... and it should be mentioned in the subject’s article. However, that mention should be phrased as BEING an opinion, attributed in text to the SPLC, and not stated as fact.
If our policies are not allowing us to state relevant and noteworthy opinions, when phrased AS opinions, then we need to amend our policies.
If, on the other hand, our policies make it harder to state opinions as if they were fact, then our policies are working as intended. Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
Well to me, it seems like we should be following WP: V closer. Within SPS there's a sentence "Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources.". When we rely on independent sources to cover content from advocacy groups, think tanks, and academic groups it makes the POV nature of such groups more apparent. Further making it obvious that such things are opinions and should be attributed. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
I for one don't accept that "facts" and "opinions" can be distinguished cleanly, at least not in the way that has been suggested here. For one thing, sources on the continuum between pure SPS and independent publication often document "facts", rather than "opinions", in my view. Examples include tabulated data put out on a researcher's blog or microblog, or a first-person account of email correspondence. A statement of these may not be accurate (or verifiable) if it is does not meet independent standards, but it is nevertheless a factual claim rather than an "opinion", and for non-BLP topics we do allow sources self-published by recognized experts to be considered reliable.
On the other hand, I also do not accept inflating the scope of "opinion" to include all judgments so that none of those are considered facts. QAnon is an antisemitic conspiracy theory - to me, that is an objective fact. Quibbling about the underlying judgment required to make that factual statement seems to me, in theory but also in practice, to lead to an absurd degree of FALSEBALANCE and relativism thanks to the dubious assertions that all statements resting on judgments are "opinions" and that opinions are never objectively true (or that they should never be presented as such in Wikivoice). Balderdash. Newimpartial (talk) 14:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)
I've felt that a better way to handle this is to look at what others say about the information the source is providing. For example, the SPLC says on their website "Mr X is a racist because they felt Southern Fried Rabbit was funny". Now we have an article about Mr X. Should we include this claim? Well if the NYT said, "the SLPC said Mr X is racist because..." then I think weight has been shown. However, if no RSs have picked up on this claim then I would say no, it doesn't have weight. I guess that isn't a question of reliability though it would certainly have to be presented as the SPLC's opinion. In this way I would be treating the SPLC as a typical opinion source. I think <pb>Newimpartial's comment about the gray scale between fact and opinion is valid. Some facts are very objective (the house is 2 stories tall), some are semi-objective (the house is Georgian style architecture), some are quite subjective (the house is ugly). It's not always easy to decide if a source is reporting facts or reporting on their analysis of the facts (the speech meant X). <pb>Anyway, I think the core question here is where is the SPS line. My feeling aligns with Kyohyi, any time the "editorial staff" is not independent it should be treated as SPS. News organizations are supposed to address that. University projects are different. I'm sure some are very careful but where is the line? How do we decide this is a careful one vs a lab with just one student and one professor publishing their opinion on the lab website? What if this is a bigger lab with more collaboration? They all have the same issue so long as they don't have an independent reviewer. BTW, this discussion should really be moved to a proper forum. Springee (talk) 15:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia's definition of a self-published source is: Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of content. It is completely bonkers. A journalist working at a news paper does not have their work subjected to independent reviewers. Editors are not independent reviewers. Even if they were, editors mostly spell and grammar-check whatever the journalists write, they neither have the time nor the knowledge required to fact check the content. So given Wikipedia's rules, every article in every news source ever written is self-published.

But for argument's sake, let's say that an "editorial process" at a news paper means that the source is not self-published. Then we have the following bizarre situation: whatever Amnesty publishes on their website is "self-published" but the exact same content published in the organization's monthly members' magazine is not self-published because the magazine has editors! ImTheIP (talk) 11:13, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, you are right that would be bonkers and bizarre. And, it's only not bonkers, if it's applied as a type or example of publishing, although it would be limited to a very small subset of what Wikipedia universally sees as not self-published, that is, it has peer review as the example. But almost no publishers do peer review (and not just in news) and Wikipedia definitely does not require that, at all. In addition, the language of "characterized" also suggests that the sentence is not complete as an example; elsewhere in that footnote quoting the University of Chicago it says "any Internet site that does not have a specific publisher or sponsoring body should be treated as unpublished or self-published work." That's what Wikipedia basically does. It was also suggested before your comment that we look for an "editorial board", which also makes no sense, no editorial board, at practically any publication reviews any piece before it is published.
Also, construing policy as making Wikipedians accept that which is demonstrably not true, ie, that there is no publisher separate from the author is bad encyclopedia writing. When a reporter writes for The New York Times, they are not self published, When an academic writes for Georgetown University, they are not self published, When a researcher writes for ADL, they are not self published. Not only do those publishers (New York Times Company, Georgetown University, ADL) regularly have the publisher rights, they always have the publisher liabilities. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:32, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
I agree that the sentence, although it is not, and does not claim to be, a "definition", needs to be fixed.
However, @ImTheIP is wrong about his claim that newspaper journalists and editors aren't independent. If you write a story for the local newspaper, and the editor rejects it, then that has no effect on the editor's paycheck, right? If we adopt the standard that anyone working together in a publication venture is self-published, then everything is self-published: every book, every journal article, every newspaper. (Also, newspapers actually do pay independent reviewers on occasion.)
The bigger problem that I see with this sentence is that it says the reviewer is "validating the reliability of the content". I probably wrote that, and it's maybe true in a technical, Wikipedia-centric sense (the presence of an editor who is not paid by the author is what causes the source to meet the standard that WP:V calls "meaningful editorial oversight" and that WP:RS calls "independent editorial oversight and peer review"), but it's not helpful for understanding the concept of a self-published source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
I've attempted to improve this by changing that sentence to this:
One characteristic of self-published material is lack of reviewers who are independent of the author (those who are not hired and fired by the author, and whose employment does not depend upon agreeing with the author).
I've also added a short table of examples. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Bumping this discussion Alanscottwalker, ImTheIP Springee Newimpartial Blueboar Kyohyi etc. We all seem to agree that the currently policy is hopelessly vague and unhelpful - how to go about changing or clarifying it? Noteduck (talk) 23:37, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree that the current policy is either hopelessly vague or unhelpful. I think that you need to stop for a moment and think about what's being asked. Move out of the (pseudo-)academic realm for a moment. Imagine that Apple Inc. – a place with far more lawyers than any think tank, and a more tightly controlled website than most organizations in the world – decides that it wants to say something about Bill Gates of Microsoft fame on its website. The website's contents are written by Apple and published by Apple. Apple is not a traditional publisher, and they're not going to the trouble of sending their content to a traditional publisher. Should editors be allowed to cite Apple's own website to talk about a living person?
And if your answer there is no, then why would you want a smaller organization to be able to do what you ban Apple from doing? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:58, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
To follow up on WhatamIdoing's example: Apple's website is a reliable source for what it is saying on topic X, but it isn't (absent other evidence) a reliable source to establish that its statements on topic X have sufficient due weight to be included in a Wikipedia article on topic X. The same goes for think tanks: there needs to be some third-party evidence to support that the think tank's views are sufficiently significant to be included in an article. isaacl (talk) 23:07, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
This is my feeling as well. Springee (talk) 23:40, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

PROD and articles that share a title with articles that were previously deleted at AFD

Ok, so we know that articles that have been previously discussed at AFD are not eligible for PROD. But what if it's a different article created at the same title as an article that had previously been deleted at AFD?
Two scenarios:
Scenario A
Someone creates a bio of a singer named John Smith. The singer John Smith is found to be non-notable and the article is deleted. Time passes. Someone creates a bio of an actor named John Smith, this is a totally different subject but since they share the same name, if someone tries to PROD the John Smith article, it gets thrown into Category:Proposed deletions needing attention as an "D: Article which has undergone an articles for deletion Discussion".
Since this is a totally different article about a totally different subject, one would think it would be Prodable. This article has not been previously discussed at AFD, but since it's in that category, someone will come along and remove it.
Scenario B
There is an unsourced essay like article that is deleted at AFD. Some time passes. Someone comes along and creates a new article about the same subject but it is a totally different article. This new article is not subject to WP:G4 deletion because it is not a "sufficiently identical copy" of the deleted page.
Scenario B differs from Scenario A in that although it is a different article it is about the same subject. This article has not been previously discussed at AFD, but this subject has. Assuming Scenario A should be proddable, should Scenario B be proddable?

For the record, this discussion was inspired by Garden real estate, which fits scenario B, and which I prodded but which was deprodded by Spiderone. However, I would like this discussion to be about the policy more generally, and if we need to clarify the policy any.

So, should articles which fit Scenario A be subject to PROD? If so, should articles which fit Scenario B also be subject to PROD? If the answer to both is yes, how can we amend the Wikipedia:Proposed deletion policy to clarify this? ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 21:56, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Scenario A should definitely be PRODable as it should be treated as a totally different article. Scenario B is a tricky one. I think if someone voted 'keep' in the original AfD then that would count as some amount of opposition to deletion of the topic, which would make it ineligible for any non-controversial deletion, which PROD is. If it was deleted unanimously at the old AfD and someone then created an article again on the same topic but with totally different content, then I'm not sure. In the case of Garden real estate, I removed the PROD in good faith on the basis that I believed that it being recreated so soon after its previous deletion by User:Willow4 could be perceived as 'contesting the deletion' and hence make it ineligible. Spiderone(Talk to Spider) 22:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I have had two articles prod, one I saw and removed, which I was repremarnded for by another editor only for several others come in and point out the article fulfilled notablility, and another which was deleted before I saw the prod, and when I challenged the editor who deleted admitted that the prod was then wrong and so the article was recreated. My issue is the Prod is really a pointless system, as several afds that I have viewed have shown, and the examples given by User:ONUnicorn has provided. I think Prod should be dropped and AFD the only way to go. Let a concensus of editors put the case for and against, and if it is bad normally a mass of delete, and that way we won't get these silly incidents that just poke fun at how silly prod is. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 22:07, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • If any article was worthy of a PROD, it's Garden real estate. It's existed for over thirteen years with precisely zero sources, it's mentioned anyway in Niche real estate, and most of its basic content is copied from here. I would just redirect it to Niche real estate and have done with it. To get back to the point though, yes - anything in Category A should be able to be PRODded. If I was going to do it myself I'd PROD it anyway, remove the category, and edit the template to inform the potential de-prodder that the previous AfD was not about this subject, but that's quite a lot of hassle that most people wouldn't think of doing. Black Kite (talk) 22:20, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • In case A, if a PROD tag was removed when it's clearly for no reason other than the old article, it may be restored (whether the old timestamp may he used, or it needs a new timestamp, depends on how long the tag was gone). 217.132.229.147 (talk) 23:35, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
  • In Scenario B, that shouldn't be PROD-able. At that point, I would want an explicit consensus to be determined if the article has a new iteration on the same topic. Scenario A is PROD-able as everyone else said. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 05:41, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Agree that scenario A is a completely different article and is okay to PROD. Also agree that B is a bit more complicated and that complicatedness, to me, means that PROD is not suitable. Unless it's an easy CSD for defamation or something, what's the harm in putting it through AFD? If it gets deleted again, the name can be WP:SALTed to prevent a third occurrence. Matt Deres (talk) 14:26, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I think that in order to address a tiny sliver of cases, you're looking to complicate the rules for PROD, which exists specifically to be simple - no article done by PROD could not be deleted in some other manner. The benefit to be gained by addressing these edge cases is not worth making a new series of tests to make part of the process and thus discourage its use. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:16, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Edit requests

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Edit requests. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 14:18, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikidata linking

Why EPWP users do not linking their articles to Wikidata or even worse, they creating new items instead of linking to already existing items? Eurohunter (talk) 12:48, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Because Wikidata has issues, and does not mesh with WP policies and guidelines. Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
@Blueboar: There is no any problem to add new item or chceck if item already exists and connect. Eurohunter (talk) 13:47, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
Linking is done from Wikidata, so I think you are asking why English Wikipedia editors don't also spend their time editing Wikidata. There are probably several reasons, but the main one is probably because they are busy editing English Wikipedia. Most people here only edit this wiki. For most people, Wikidata is a wholly different concept from an encyclopaedia. Personally, I find the site unfathomable. It's like it was work designed for bots (which sometimes appear to be struggling). We do have an information page: Wikipedia:Wikidata which you're welcome to improve. The advice basically amounts to "know that an article exists in Swahili". That's not very credible for a variety of reasons. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
@Zzuuzz: But previously you used interwiki so? It's just 2-3 clicks so what is the problem? Eurohunter (talk) 14:43, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
All sorts of people used to add interwiki links, often editors from other wikis (or usually, bots from other wikis) and not the main authors. In other words, it was done as if it was done from Wikidata. Finding articles in other languages is not always an easy task. And again referring to the information page, "if you cannot find a concept under a certain name, it still may exist under another name. Hint: use unique identifiers from related databases to confirm that a concept does or does not exist". Most people would be like, "I'll just write the article". -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:56, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
  • @Eurohunter: Wikidata certainly has issues, but I disagree with some of the others above that it's a "wholly different concept". Once it addresses its vandalism/referencing challenges, it will be a fantastic resource to centralize and automatically update certain types of information. Regarding the specific issue you raised, I'd suggest raising it at wikidata:Wikidata:Project Chat, where you'll get engagement from people much more likely to know how to solve the problem. If you find a specific instance of a duplicate, see wikidata:Help:Merging. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 21:10, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Disambiguation cross-references

In the disambiguation page Pitt-Rivers, there is a list of people who happen to be from one family. Some names recur (EG George). I recently edited it to change "* Michael his son" into "Michael George's son". Is there a preferred way of identifying WHICH George in such a page? -- SGBailey (talk) 09:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Maybe append the (birth-death) dates to the name? — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 12:13, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
I've done that at Pitt-Rivers. What do you think? -- SGBailey (talk) 12:49, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
That helps with the confusion, but I would not use the sub tags — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 22:59, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Clarification to Template:POV

At this article talk I and Julian Brandon came to conflict over wording of Template:POV#When_to_remove. I think it would be appropriate to change this wording from

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. You may remove this template whenever any one of the following is true:

  • There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved.
  • It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and no satisfactory explanation has been given.
  • In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

To this:

This template is not meant to be a permanent resident on any article. You may remove this template whenever any one of the following is true:

  • There is consensus on the talkpage or the NPOV Noticeboard that the issue has been resolved.
  • It is not clear what the neutrality issue is, and either none or only an unsatisfactory explanation has been given.
  • In the absence of any discussion, or if the discussion has become dormant.

The template should not be removed if there is an active ongoing discussion in which "the issues are resolved" consensus has not been reached.

Please confirm and if you think it is an OK change then please implement it in the template page. --Gryllida (talk) 22:40, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

What problem would be solved by this change? Arguing with an SPA about an article on the president of an authoritarian regime is never going to be easy and I do not see how an adjustment to the description of the POV tag would help. Re the proposal, the original looks good to me—it is simple and clear. I don't know how to handle an SPA with unlimited time but forcing a tag on the article is not the solution. Johnuniq (talk) 23:00, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
At what stage would it be appropriate to force a tag onto the article? It currently is of rather poor quality. Gryllida (talk) 23:14, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't think it is ever appropriate to force a tag into an article. Bear in mind that while it might be desirable to have rule that a good editor can force a tag when arguing with an SPA, such rules won't fly and there cannot be a situation where an SPA can force a tag by persistence. Asking for help at noticeboards is all we can do. Johnuniq (talk) 23:20, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Okay, good to know. Thanks for the response. Gryllida (talk) 23:29, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Bad idea. Would just be a means of permanently tagging an article that a POV pusher doesn't like. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:22, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Hi Hawkeye7. Thank you for your reply. Good correction to my initial interpretation. I didn't do this before and just picked it up in the helpme queue, would rather get to the finish of it somehow. With the tag off to be fair it might require a bit more editing. Again, appreciate the tip. Gryllida (talk) 23:46, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
Isn't a lack of an explanation also an unsatisfactory explanation? --Izno (talk) 01:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Hi Izno. In this case, the other contributor argued that satisfactory explanation was given, but they also instantly resolved all issues listed in this explanation. This is adorable and brilliant. Their fix, however, lacked some depth; some issues remained; and I can't afford to reply to them instantly to detail. That leaves the article in a bad state, without a tag, for however long it takes someone to either re-articulate or fix the remaining issues. For a BLP I find this a bit disturbing and my first thought, initially, was that the tag got to stay. (For this particular incident, I've made a draft version in my sandbox, which has some of these issues fixed at the cost of breaking the article flow, and is not publishable; then I invited the other contributor to finish it up; so far, no response.) Gryllida (talk) 02:56, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Remove the second condition altogether.
  • if no clear reason exists, people are going to hash it out on the talk page. The tag should remain up until people figure out it was a drive-by tag. Then, the first condition becomes true (consensus exists that the article meets NPOV), and someone should remove the tag.
  • if neither a clear reason nor a discussion exists (very few interested parties), the last condition is true, and someone should remove the tag.
If the tag exists to notify readers of an active discussion about an article's neutrality, the first and last bullet points suffice, and the middle unneeded. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 05:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Knockout brackets in sports events

In tennis, snooker, and other events commonly decided in a knockout format, it is common on wikipedia for people to enter the flag of the country of the winner before the winner is known. For example, here you can see a Czech flag entered in round 4, event though the 3rd round match between Karolina Pliskova and Karolina Muchova hasn't taken place yet (as I write this). I've tried explaining that it's confusing, it looks unprofessional, no reputable sports publication does it, it makes about as much sense as entering "Karolina" in the next round, it takes no account of possible double disqualifications, or both players being sick or withdrawing or otherwise unable to play etc... but still people do it, and revert it whenever I raise these points, sometimes using "other stuff exists" type arguments. (It's often IP's who do this). Usually the issue is resolved within a few days when the match actually takes place, meantime the article looks like crap.

Maybe the MOS needs a section on how to report knockout results from sports events? Maybe I'm like a grammar pedant who reacts with horror to "different than", but those anticipatory flags irk me. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 09:15, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that that example is not good. To be honest, it looks almost like a loading error, where the name has not populated for some reason. If this is indeed not just a one-off, I'd support deprecating that kind of thing. Matt Deres (talk) 20:38, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
Look at that article's history and you can see what happens if you raise the issue, they just revert without even putting up an argument or even an edit summary. No BRD, nothing. I'm tempted to add "Karolina" to the player's name for round 4 but that would be just a little too WP:POINTy. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 00:13, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't know whether it's written down but adding known flags is the accepted practice for tennis. It must be exceptionally rare that nobody advances from a scheduled match. I followed tennis for many years and don't recall it ever happening. There were a few tournaments where the final was never played due to rain delays but that is irrelevant here. I support adding the flag but definitely not a partial name, and I have never seen it done. Most publications don't use flags or write nationalities in draws so the issue is not relevant for them. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:59, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Sounds like Appeal to tradition to me, a fancier name for "other stuff exists". MaxBrowne2 (talk) 01:04, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
If the "other stuff" is not selected examples but a well-established practice then it's how Wikipedia works, and often the basis for making it an official guideline. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:10, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
Obviously it would be ridiculous to enter "Karolina" before the result is known. That's the point. By the way Karolina won. I think she's from the Czech Republic. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 02:40, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I don't think it needs a MOS section specific to this issue. WP:CRYSTAL is sufficient reason to exclude the flag. - Ryk72 talk 02:43, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
I agree with the OP that we shouldn't be pre-populating flags in this type of situation. If people generally do this, they should stop. power~enwiki (π, ν) 02:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

The television coverage tends to pre-populate the flags when showing the draws as well. Regardless, it's not a big issue. It's never more than a few days between matches. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 02:57, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

  • I also agree flags shouldn't be pre-populated, we don't need to add it to MOS because it's already specified in CRYSTAL, and if it's been done in the past it should stop. Levivich harass/hound 04:37, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
    WP:CRYSTAL includes: "Individual scheduled or expected future events should be included only if the event is notable and almost certain to take place". It is almost certain that if two players are set to meet then one of them will advance. We don't need a published reliable source to make that "prediction". It's not certain the advancing player actually plays the next match but if they withdraw with injury before that match then their name and flag will remain in the draw for the match. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:32, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
    CRYSTAL then goes on to say "Avoid predicted sports team line-ups, which are inherently unverifiable and speculative." Levivich harass/hound 17:40, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
    A predicted sports team line-up is not a prediction about which teams will play but about which players will be selected for a match by a team. Such speculation is hardly comparable to predicting that one of the two players will advance from a tennis match and not change nationality before the next round. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2021 (UTC)
I'd argue this also has some crossover with WP:LIVESCORES which is also against consensus, but a difficult thing to actually get the community to fulfil. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 17:46, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I personally think that results should be presented for a complete match, and not a partial result. Filling in the country before the match is done is a partial result. Additionally, it doesn't provide any info that readers can't infer for themselves. isaacl (talk) 23:10, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

  • I think this is much ado about nothing. Would I populate the flag early.... no. Would I put in the scores before that match is complete...no. But the news does both and it's really really difficult to police that sort of thing when an hour later it will fix itself. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:05, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
    An hour later is not really a big deal (although it still shouldn't be done). Sometimes though matches can be days or even weeks later - that is a big deal and should be reverted if done. We are an encyclopaedia not a newspaper, television broadcaster or other sports reporter. Thryduulf (talk) 21:33, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Evaluating WP:NEXIST

There is a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Notability#WP:NEXIST that might be of interest. Thank you CapnZapp (talk) 15:34, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Notability and stand-alone lists of sports accomplishments

I stumbled across a notability issue recently in stand-alone lists of sports accomplishments, specifically cricket statistics. See, for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of international cricket five-wicket hauls by Lance Gibbs. There has apparently been a great deal of debate recently at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket which does not appear to have resulted in a consensus. Rather, to the contrary, it appears to have generated enough dissension and hard feelings to provoke editing restrictions and for editors to leave editing that project or retire completely. I hope that by bringing this to the wider community, some clarity may be achieved. Time will tell if that hope is justified or not, I suppose.

Relevant standard

All appear to agree that the relevant standard is WP:NLIST:

Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list.

The issue appears to be in how to interpret this standard in the light of the available coverage for cricket centuries and five-wicket "hauls". An apparent WP:LOCALCONSENSUS that 25 centuries or some indeterminate number of hauls by one player is justification for a stand-alone list has been mentioned multiple times in recent AfD discussions but multiple discussions at WP Cricket do not seem to have pointed to any place where such a consensus was first formed (e.g.:Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket/Archive_84#Steve_Smith_stats Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket/Archive_85#Unanswered_question_since_2015 Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket/Archive_85#What_to_list_and_not_list Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket/Archive_88#Lists_of_International_Centuries Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Cricket/Archive_86#Discussion_on_List_of_fifers/centuries_by_ground:_keep,_delete_or_merge_by_country?. The closest appears to be this discussion which resulted in a consensus that a list of either of these accomplishments for a particular venue requires ten or more entries but is not the same question.

Notability in practice

The actual application of the relevant standard in terms of demonstrable outcomes at AfD is extremely variable. AfD discussions of "List of international cricket [five-wicket hauls/centuries] [by/at] [X]" articles that were closed between Sep 1, 2020 and now shows the following distribution:

  • Keep: 2
  • Delete: 62 (including 2 large multi-AfD's)
  • Merge:9
  • Redirect: 7
  • Draft:0
  • No consensus: 0

There are currently fourteen such AfD discussions open, all started by Störm. This may be an attempt to establish an consensus through WP:OUTCOMES that has so far eluded the Wikiproject. When the Multi-AfD's are included, then deletion is the overwhelmingly most common outcome (87%). When only single-article AfD's are considered, this shows that recent practice is appx 41% in favor of merging such articles and 32% to redirecting. The disparity in these results argues in favor of a discussion forming an explicit consensus.

Proposal

A clear standard for this type of list article is apparently lacking. Either the Cricket Wikiproject or a Notability Guideline should include something similar to the following:

"List of" articles for cricket sports accomplishments such as centuries or fifers home runs are only considered notable if there are independent, reliable sources that significantly discuss the accomplishment in question for an individual or a venue as a group or set. Such sources should be more than mere statistical listings and the data should be put in context with referenced explanations, if necessary.

This text is an attempt to create one such clear standard for this type of article that complies with the Core Content Policies, the General Notability Guideline, and other relevant standards. Please state a preference for the proposed standard for "List of five-wicket hauls/centuries" type articles or propose an alternative. While this particular proposal is occasioned by a cricket-specific issue, there may also be reason to think that such a guidance that applies more widely in sports may be advisable. Thank you for your time and attention. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 20:49, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Modified per below. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:10, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Notability discussion

  • I appreciate the idea here, because these controversial cricket AfDs are becoming a problem, but your proposal is cricket-specific. Most editors don't care about cricket, and if you make a solely cricket-related proposal at a general noticeboard, most of the participants are going to be the same editors that are grinding against each other already. It may be that we can come up with an actual proposal to cover sports statistics better, but it feels like this is just another attempt to litigate the same cricket notability standards that nobody seems to actually agree upon. We already have a notability criterion for standalone lists, and to be honest I think that mostly covers these cricket stat lists in most of the way you're proposing - have reliable sources discussed "Johnny Cricketplayer's five-wicket hauls" as a group or set? If not, probably not a good standalone list. ~ mazca talk 23:24, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
@Mazca:, I brought it to this board specifically because the previous participants appear to have been unwilling or unable to come to some agreement on the issue. I acknowledge your point about broader applicability, though, and mentioned it above. I've made a slight adjustment to make that clearer. Thanks for the feedback. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:13, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
@Eggishorn: I think that minor adjustment is a significant improvement, yeah, as I think the emphasis of any attempt to gain general consensus here needs to remain general to avoid being bogged down in per-sport exceptions. I don't think there's a good argument for arbitrary run thresholds, etc, in cricket granting notability beyond that general principle of "being discussed as a group or set by reliable sources". I absolutely agree with the idea of deciding global thresholds for sport statistics - we just need to make sure it's not some specific solution for cricket. ~ mazca talk 02:44, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Considering at a broader level beyond cricket, I think these types of records at the individual player level may be far too much, per WP:NOT#STATS - even if there is good coverage of this from sources. While certainly the five-wicket haul seems like a notable achievement that is documented and thus a list like List of cricketers by number of international five-wicket hauls, documenting down to the specific player/each individual point of achievement seems far too much. I would say the same for an article like List of milestone home runs by Barry Bonds (while obviously List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders is a fair list to keep). --Masem (t) 23:31, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I have been involved of several of the AFDs surrounding cricket. There seems to be a lot of anger amongst those who to delete, and those who want to keep. The main bone with deletists is that list of stats are WP:NOSTATS, that these lists are not not encyclopedic and Wikipedia should not have statistics that can be found elsewhere, or that these lists are not encyclopedic as there is not enough prose and to much stat. The keeps are saying this is a vendetta after a failed RFC change to WP:NCRIC. My own personal view has been to merge these into the main article, and I have voted as such on 9 that I have seen, which all ended in the 9 merge, and I have posted to others that have been raised that this was the case. The lists are not exhaustive lists, they are for international 5 wicket hauls or centuries only, which are important milestones in cricketers careers and are revered by fans alike. Just look at the coverage surrounding Joe Root in Sri Lanka and India. This is why delete is wrong. My rational is that who is going to search for a List of International Five Wicket Hauls? I wouldn't, I would just go to the Wikipedia page for that player. My other rational is that it's not a ball by ball record for their whole career, just what is regarded as being the highest accolade in cricket. That's my viewpoint on the subject.

My beef is the wording "Notability guidelines also apply to the creation of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group". The group is the issue. We have Editors who believe they are the only people who have the right to decide what is notable for Wikipedia, they forget the second part "or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list." They also believe that they should set out what should go on a list. So for example, a nation wide company is not allowed in a list or national retailers because they don't have a page on Wikipedia. Sorry for the rant.

Anyway, the problem I see is that if we have a separate subject specific list for cricket, where will this lead us? It will go mad and every editor with bones to pick will be requesting there own list requirements for each subject Area! Keep it as it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidstewartharvey (talk • contribs) 00:10, February 6, 2021 (UTC)
@Davidstewartharvey:, I think I have miscommunicated and I need to clarify some things in response.
  1. As I said, I stumbled across this because I troll through AfD's that are not closed occasionally and I haven't been involved previously. I think that it is because of the animosity that you mention that this needs to be handled outside the Wikiproject.
  2. Although this is proposed because of what I found through the cricket AfD's it is not about cricket articles. It is about list articles for stats in any sports. That's why I titled the section "Notability and stand-alone lists of sports accomplishments" and not ..."cricket accomplishments"
  3. Thanks again to Mazca for prompting a clarification to the actual proposal to make the above point clearer.
  4. The wording you object to is not my wording. It is a direct quote from the long-standing notability standard that should already have been followed in all AfD discussions of these list articles. The fact that it has not been followed in such discussions is the reason I am trying to propose a clarification.
I hope that clarifies some things. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:00, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

POVFORK? Deletion of these types of lists can happen in sports (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of 40-plus point games by Michael Jordan). The main issue, generically and not sports-specifc, is a grouping that seems to meet WP:LISTN, as it's currently written, when most of the items themselves are not notable. In sports, it's often a list for a player of all games where they met a single-game threshold. However, the games themselves are generally not notable. This is different than when we have a list of players that met a milestone, where most of the entires are players who are notable. IMO, these types of lists of non-notable entries are WP:POVFORKs. It's not notable enough to warrant the bloat in the bio, so a standalone of the stats listing is created instead. Lists of non-notable entries is not unique to sports. There's plenty of lists like List of killings by law enforcement officers in the United States, January 2020, a grouping of individually non-notable entries.—Bagumba (talk) 16:22, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

  • Something else to consider... a sports statistics list may not be notable enough for a stand alone article, but may well be appropriate to include as part of a related article. For example, a list of the top cricket players by number of centuries might well be appropriate in the article on Century (cricket). And it might be appropriate for the Michael Jordan article to include a list of his highest scoring games. Blueboar (talk) 17:05, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
    For NBA bios, an FA would typically mention the top games in prose with proper context, and not repeat them with an embedded stats list.—Bagumba (talk) 01:55, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
So, this seems a part of the standard "Expand->split->merge" cycle that we get all the time:
  • An article grows to where it is too big, so it needs to be split up by topic. This is standard practice.
  • The split off article gets someone who complains that it should never have been split in the first place, and it gets deleted.
  • The information has to go somewhere, so it gets put back in the main article.
  • Rinse and repeat
Either the information belongs at Wikipedia, and if so it shouldn't really matter where it goes as long as it doesn't make articles too big or too small, OR it fails WP:V or WP:UNDUE and as such shouldn't be at Wikipedia at all. Without saying whether or not the information does belong, if it actually does, and it's too much to put in the parent article, I see no problem with a split-off list article. If it doesn't belong at Wikipedia at all, the point is moot. --Jayron32 18:51, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
Exactly. I typically think AFD is a poor place to resolve these because that forum is biased towards binary keep/delete results, and encourages judging articles in isolation when obviously these are part of a larger whole, notwithstanding the formatting into a separate page. Resolving whether a split should be maintained requires understanding of all of the interrelated content and pages, and depends on some familiarity with the subject matter to determine what is relevant and what level of detail is valuable to a reader on different subtopics. And there's also WP:ATD. postdlf (talk) 19:29, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
@Postdlf:, unfortunately, it appears that AfD is exactly where this issue is being "resolved" because the relevant Wikiproject reached a stalemate. Do you agree that the proposal should be made an explanatory supplement or something similar? Thanks. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:45, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
No, it seems like a subject-matter specific legislation of LISTN, which is already far too often misread as necessary rather than merely sufficient. If there's a "stalemate" then apparently there's no consensus in that Wikiproject against such lists. I also don't see why it's worth wasting anyone's time trying to get rid of them. postdlf (talk) 21:17, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
For Jordan, it would be monotonous to enumerate every one of his 40-point games in his bio. Per WP:ONUS: Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and that it should be omitted ... The AfD there said not to have a standlone list either.—Bagumba (talk) 15:59, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Desysop Policy (2021)

I have opened an RfC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Desysop Policy (2021) to discuss establishing a community based desysop policy. All are invited to comment. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:46, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

WP:VANISH, WP:CLEANSTART, and privacy concerns

I am in a public-facing field where harassment and doxing is common, and have witnessed it happening to many of my colleagues in the past several years. As such, I've tried to do basic identity hygiene, closing old accounts, attempting to get taken off people search, and otherwise removing any information that can be linked to my identity. (I realize this sounds paranoid, and I'm sorry I can't be more specific.)

Unfortunately Wikipedia presents a problem in this regard. I made my original account in late high school/early college, when I was not in such a public-facing field. I know for a fact that the username, though not my name, is traceable to my real-world identity and, with some work, vice versa, and given that the account has somewhere in the tens of thousands of edits, I'm sure there are plenty of breadcrumbs there to other past usernames, communities, and identifiable information in the wrong hands. In an ideal world for me, the account would be nuked from orbit or at least renamed to something unique to Wikipedia.

Nevertheless, if I am reading them right, WP:VANISH and WP:CLEANSTART seem to be mutually exclusive. I don't recall being involved in any vandalism, blocks, major conflicts, or anything that would contribute to a negative reputation, and to my knowledge was in good standing. (The "I don't recall" and "to my knowledge" isn't me trying to evade anything, just that I don't remember everything that happened ~15 years ago as a high school junior.) I have no intention of using the old account, as that'd defeat the entire purpose, and as my username implies I am mostly interested in behind-the-scenes improvement, rather than any kind of subject matter-specific editing. (Which is also less traceable to my identity.) But nevertheless the options seem to be leave Wikipedia altogether, or live with the fact that my old info is just going to sit there indefinitely like a ticking time bomb.

So, I was wondering if the mutually-exclusive part of the policy could be revisited, at least for people whose clean start is for privacy, not reputational issues. It seems relevant that Wikipedia is over 15 years old at this point, the policy was created towards the beginning, and the average person's life circumstances change a lot more in 15 years than in 5 or so. It also seems relevant that online harassment is quite a different beast in 2021 than it was in 2007 and has grown to an extent that few people predicted at the time. Gnomingstuff (talk) 10:37, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Clean start does appear to apply for privacy concerns. You do not have to have a problematic record to use it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:03, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Clean start can be used for any reason other than evading scrutiny. The reasons listed in the lead section are just examples of the most common situations not a prescriptive list. Thryduulf (talk) 12:20, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
I did get that part (considering, well, the fact that I'm doing it and all); this is more in reference to the WP:VANISH note "Vanishing is not a way to start over with a fresh account. When you request a courtesy vanishing, it is understood that you will not be returning. If you want to start over, please follow the directions at Clean start instead of (not in addition to) this page. If you make a request to vanish, and then start over with a new account, and are then discovered, the vanishing procedure may be reversed, and your old and new accounts may be linked." Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:37, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
A 2¢ that I do think there should be an alternative to the two current options, for cases like this or for people who are undergoing active online harassment. —Wingedserif (talk) 23:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
Gnomingstuff What you're getting at has been discussed extensively, and I suggest you read some of the early discussions, especially c2:WikiMindWipeDiscussion, meatball:RightToVanish, and meatball:RightToLeave which are external discussions that influenced our early drafts of VANISH and CLEANSTART. Allowing something like vanishing for editors who want to disavow or hide their previous contributions can actually be counterproductive. For example, the problem with allowing c2:WikiMindWipes is that they have a Streisand effect. An account and its edits used many years ago isn't going to be noticed or easy to find. What will make it easy to find is flooding the recent logs with reverts, renames, and redactions. I say this having been in a similar situation (see questions 8 and 9 in my RFA) and with sympathy. In an ideal world for me, the account would be nuked from orbit or at least renamed to something unique to Wikipedia. Accounts in good standing can request a rename to just about anything they want, so if you simply wish to have the old name changed you can make a request by following the steps at WP:RENAME; Vanishing just uses a particular pattern to indicate that the user has decided to leave us forever and never return. In general though, even vanishing won't resolve the issue of breadcrumbs. Your talk page signatures will still be there. The rename log will still be there. The content of the edits will still be there. Modifying them will just bring hundreds of pages to the top of recent changes and admin action logs all singling out your information. It seems counterintuitive, but abandoning an old account is one of the best ways to ensure it doesn't get found. We have over a billion edits to millions of pages; finding things is hard, even when you know what you're looking for. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:04, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Apologies, I'd checked the talk pages for both projects and didn't notice anything recent. Some clarifications: When I say tens of thousands of edits, it's with the caveat that the majority of them were cleanup, wikifying, that sort of thing. I doubt anyone here would even remember me at this point; I wasn't super memorable. I'm also not that concerned about somebody finding me from Wikipedia (which, as you mention, is highly unlikely, though probably possible if someone knows enough about me) but the other way around, finding my profile here from my username (which would be easy). Of course it'd take some effort to dig through those tens of thousands of edits, but the kinds of people who harass people online unfortunately overlap with the kind of people who'd do that (or just grep it). Gnomingstuff (talk) 01:11, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: you might also be interested in this conversation. You brought the VANISH draft over from meta in 2007, and I remember you participating in a related discussion at AN a few months ago. No pressure though if you don't have much to say. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:06, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I’m likely going to advertise this on the functionaries list since we literally just had a discussion about this topic. My general sense is that it’s better just to abandon an account because if you’re an established user vanishing just brings more attention to it. That’s what I did when I abandoned my account I created as a teenager to create this one. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:09, 18 February 2021 (UTC)
  • The gist of the recent functionary discussions Tony mentioned is that vanishing is inconsistently performed and misunderstood by many users. Personally, I would like to see it deprecated entirely. One common misunderstanding is that if you have disclosed personal information with your account, vanishing will make it private again. It won't. It obscures your former username to a limited extent, but anyone familiar with Wikipedia can find it and link it to all your previous contributions in less than 10 seconds.
We're probably overdue a conversation about how we can help people keep personal information private in this day and age, but we have to remember that Wikipedia is not a social media site, it's a publisher of free content. Retiring a Wikipedia account isn't like asking Facebook to delete your profile and all the information it has about you. It's more like writing a novel, then asking the publisher to remove your name from the cover after it's in shops. They're going to say "sorry no can do, but next time you can use a pen name". That's the space Wikipedia has to work in too. We can probably do better at warning people about the consequences of disclosing personal information under a CC BY-SA License, but we can't unring the bell if they do. – Joe (talk) 08:57, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
"but we can't unring the bell if they do." Wikipedia (ENWP) and by extension the WMF can unring that bell if they want to. It chooses not to. Material released under a CC BY-SA license may be kept against the wishes of the person who posted it but there is no legal obligation that requires it to be (except those rare cases related to attribution). ENWP cites the CC license as a reason for not deleting personal information, but its a matter of policy and process. And policy and process can be changed. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:30, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
No, it can't. Even if it were practical to expunge say, a talk page signature with someone's real name from the history of thousands of pages (it's not), it's impossible for enwp or the WMF to do anything about the hundreds of mirrors, archives, database dumps etc. that have replicated that signature across the web. Copyleft licenses by definition relinquish control over information the moment it is released. – Joe (talk) 09:54, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
Again yes it can. It chooses not to (in the first case). Its technically trivial for a qualified database engineer to replace that sort of information. The main problem the WMF has is that its technical staff couldnt code their way out of a paper bag. And in the second, that argument is essentially 'other people will keep it, so we might as well too'. Again that is process issue, not a legal requirement. That a license relinquishes control over material does not then dictacte how that material *must* be used. Or even kept. "It would be difficult and we couldnt make other people do it" is not a valid rebuttal to the suggestion that we dont do it. People are generally not going to care if crappy little mirror with maybe 1000 views a month has the potential that their personal info might be seen, when ENWP with its millions of views will guarantee it will be. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:02, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
That's a lot of assumptions. Let's take a common story: I'm worried that someone, let's call them my nemesis, could use my Wikipedia contributions, associated with my real name, against me. I vanish this account and persuade someone at the WMF to run a query to remove my name from millions of page versions and log entries replicated across god knows how many database instances (invalidating the attribution chain and edit history of tens of thousands of pages on the way). After that, my nemesis googles "Joe Roe + Wikipedia" and finds, in the first page of results, a mirror like this. Ah, they think, I did have a Wikipedia account. They go to http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Special:Contributions/Joe_Roe and find a red link, but no problem, put https://web.archive.org/ in front of that address and you get a permanent archive of all my contributions. So all that work to bend the third pillar and make me disappear was undone in about thirty seconds.
Or another common story. I don't have a specific nemesis, but I regret associating my contributions with my real-life identity and do the same vanishing and transparency-breaking database procedure. Someone sees a talk page comment signed User:Renamed user XYZ and gets curious about who it is. In the first few pages of XYZ's contributions, they see that they're an archaeologist interested in the Near East and statistical computing, who lives in Denmark. Those four diffs alone narrow it down to maybe 2-3 people in the world and again a quick google search will establish it's probably me. Is it "trivial" for a database engineer to identify those sorts of incidentally-disclosed clues to someone's identity? Bearing in mind that two of those diffs are to articles, not talk pages? And one isn't mine, it's another user (appropriately) alluding to personal information I've disclosed elsewhere?
I'm not denying that we can do things (vanishing, oversight) to make it slightly harder to find personal information on Wikipedia, but presenting these kludges as solutions to privacy concerns is dishonest and potentially dangerously misleading. What we need to do is make it crystal clear to people, from the beginning, that everything they do on Wikipedia is in the public sphere. And that in an emergency, they need to take steps to protect themselves beyond what we or the WMF is capable of. – Joe (talk) 11:01, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
What is dishonest is your continued insistance that it cant be done while relying on 'well it would be kept elsewhere so we might as well not'. It exaggerates the edge cases. Firstly absolutely no talk or user page contribution on ENWP is necessary to be kept at all. And while yes archive sites *may* archive some material, this is not universal. You also appear to have a basic misunderstanding of Attribution. Attribution is required on ENWP for material kept on ENWP. It is not necessary, or in fact required in any form, for ENWP to keep an attribution record chains simply for the purpose of third parties who may use material copied from ENWP, when that material has been removed/deleted from ENWP. The onus on the third party to attribute correctly. If it breaks for them, that is not our problem. The point of removing personal information is not to make it completely impossible to identify someone, it is to make it significantly more difficult to do so and to eliminate the casual dissemination of personal info. The attitude of 'well since a significantly dedicated person with lots of time on their hands could jump through 15 hoops to get it means its pointless' is both lazy thinking, irresponsible, and violates any number of data protection principles in various parts of the world. What we need to do is change the attitude that other peoples personal information is fair game forever just because it was decided in the past that was what ENWP should do. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:30, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
I think the focus on attribution misses the point. As brought up in c2:WikiMindWipeDiscussion, while anyone is free to remove content, anyone is free to add content as well. If someone goes around removing their signatures, they will quickly get reverted by the community. We have two options then: convince everyone to not do that or convince admins to start blocking people who revert modifications to talk page archives. Both of those are uphill battles, to say the least, and if there is any controversy we risk bringing the personal info squarely into the spotlight at AN, completely negating the privacy benefit of a mindwipe. Going beyond that, we cannot guarantee privacy once the information has been posted, and pretending to do so is irresponsible if not unethical. Even if we were to allow revision deletion of edits by vanished users, we risk increasing the potential visibility and harm. There are people and robots which watch our deletions. An easy way to get their attention is to have a nicely organized, compact section of log entries that correlates page redactions with a rename. We could have those log entries redacted too, but redacted log entries are even more conspicuous than revision deletions. Even if we did agree to allow this, such operations take time and are error-prone. If anything is missed, the whole process could have been pointless, and even if we are perfect, the time it takes from start to finish is more than enough time for mirrors to preserve the information beyond our control. Now, at this point, we've succeeded in eradicating the editor's personal info from our servers, sure, but we've also painted a huge target on their back as every deletion log watcher begins to wonder why hundreds of log entries were redacted without explanation. They then go to mirrors and find all the info they need and then go post about it on Wikipediocracy for some bad faith actor to find later. Have we succeeded in helping the editor? Did all our work protect anyone from harm? Is this a situation we should encourage anyone worried about their privacy to put themselves into? No on all counts. Let's go one step further and try to fix the fundamental issue: logs. That's the domain of the MediaWiki project, not EnWiki, and getting devs to change the software to eliminate any kind of logging will likely be even harder. The software is built around transparency, and we would need substantial buy-in from that community to have them change their primary principles. Are these edge cases? Maybe, but vanishing is an edge case in the first place. Security systems which ignore edge cases are not secure, because exploiting edge cases is exactly how you defeat security systems. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:48, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
This is kind of where my "it's now been 15 years" remark comes into play; that's a very long time both in terms of developments regarding Internet privacy and in terms of life stages. Editing in high school/college is one; another very plausible situation is that someone might take a job requiring extensive background/security checks, or a job with risk of being fired for off-work activities like grade-school teaching, that was not on their radar over a decade ago. "Everything you do is in the public sphere" is all well and good in hindsight. The concern about edits being conspicuous is valid and something I don't have a good answer to. The only thing that immediately comes to mind is a system that automatically anonymizes usernames after X period of inactivity (which, of course, could be undone should the editor decide to come back), but that doesn't solve the log issue above so much as drown it in noise, and I imagine people might have other objections to it. But at the very least, the current policy ("leave it or leave," essentially) has room to be loosened. Gnomingstuff (talk) 02:41, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
  • Re Gnomingstuff's problem, I recommend abandoning the account without any drama (no further edits, no "retired" tag or other farewell message). After a delay, start a new account with no mention of the old account. Or, if your particular situation would be helped by vanishing (renaming) the current account, do that per VANISH. However, the advice above is correct, namely that vanishing is a very flimsy mechanism that is easily undone. Ignore the instructions about connecting your new account to the old. Instead, send an email to Arbcom (see User:Arbitration Committee) briefly explaining the situation and telling them you have created the new account (which you would reveal) without linking it to the old account in order to avoid harassment. Johnuniq (talk) 00:59, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
  • @Gnomingstuff: Just to be clear, "courtesy vanishing" is just a rename to some random nonsense, userspace deletion, and possibly the deletion of irrelevant meta discussions about the user themselves, which most people don't have to begin with anyway. It doesn't do anything beyond that. Your signatures will still be there and they will still link to your renamed account. You can still rename your account to some random user name, delete your userspace, blank your talk page, and then do a clean start. You'd be achieving the exact same thing, the only difference is that your rename would have to be "carefully chosen" rather than random characters caused by slamming your hands on the keyboard. ~Swarm~ {sting} 01:43, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
  • We should have a hygiene-vanish process where an old account gets renamed and a bot searches-and-replaces signatures from the old name to the new name. Some trusted authority who've signed NDAs like arbcom or maybe OS or CU (or T&S) can administer and keep a record for any copyright or other legal-related needs. This won't be 100% deletion because the old name will still be in old revisions and that's unavoidable, but at least it'll make it so searching for the old name won't bring up any results. And that option should be open to any editor in good standing. Levivich harass/hound 08:08, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Umm, no. First, wide-scale editing is disruptive, particularly in archives where "this hasn't been touched" is a good indication of the archive's integrity. More importantly, such changes would draw massive attention with the certain result that dozens of people would notice that User:X was renamed User:Y, and a non-trivial number of those would be sufficiently curious to investigate the background. Finally, if someone ever wonders why they can't find the editor they planned to harass, they can simply look in the bot's contributions for a permalog of all vanished users. Wikipediocracy and other troll sites would quickly set up a system to translate the bot's contributions into a handy table: X was renamed Y on such-and-such date, with a comments section for any gossip they can find. Johnuniq (talk) 09:35, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
      • The bot can delete its own edits. Heck it doesn't even have to be a bot, this can be done "server-side" and not be logged at all. We can think outside the box. We can prioritize privacy over watchlist disruption. Levivich harass/hound 15:03, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
        If it was done without logging then someone would just write a bot or script that compared the public dumps to pick out the changes to signatures. Consider also comments like the one above that begins Re Gnomingstuff's problem. No signature changing process will remove that and many breadcrumbs would be left. While you could go through and change all instances of "Gnomingstuff" to "Vanished user XYZ1234" with very few false positives, you definitely could not do that with usernames like "Swarm" or "Joe", nor for user's whose names get abbreviated - not all instances of SV relate to user:SlimVirgin, my username is sometimes shortened in discussions to "Thryd", "Thry", "Thr" or even just "T" when that is unambiguous, plus there are many different misspellings of it. There is literally no way to put the genie back in the bottle and any attempt you make to do so will just draw attention to whatever it is you are trying to hide. The Streisand effect is real and inescapable. Thryduulf (talk) 16:24, 20 February 2021 (UTC)
        • On the other hand, if somebody malicious were to google "Thryduulf" looking for dirt, it would be much harder to find it if the only references to you were "Thryd". (Or even virtually impossible; googling site:wikipedia.org "thryd" -thryduulf turns up nothing identifiable.) This is where I think we're talking past each other. Some people in this discussion seem mostly concerned about people involved in Wikipedia discovering a real-world identity. My concern is people outside Wikipedia identifying a Wikipedia profile, given a username. Gnomingstuff (talk) 06:16, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
          Where we're talking past each other is that your concern isn't clear. Above, you raise the concern about extensive background/security checks, but now you're raising concerns about cursory google searches. These are different problems, but the common problem being ignored is mirrors. If you google "wugapodes" the first page of results returns this mirror of my userpage and this mirror of my talk page which contains my signature and the signatures of many other people. It even contains this Wikipediocracy thread where people discuss my Wikipedia contributions including my previous username. If I delete my userpage, rename myself, mind wipe all my signatures, change the database, and so on and so forth, we cannot take down those pages. The mirrors are legally entitled to continue displaying that content for all time, and I gave them that right when I hit publish. The Wikipediocracy thread isn't even a mirror, yet it contains far more personal information in a localized space than all my Wikipedia contributions. Those people watch our deletion and redaction logs constantly and there are multiple threads on Wikipediocracy discussing deletions and redactions, including links to unredacted archives. We could delete the entire encyclopedia to protect my privacy, and it will have absolutely no effect on any of that. We can build whatever convoluted system for post hoc anonymization we want, and you will still not be protected from the most basic of google searches, let alone an extensive investigation. It is irresponsible to pretend otherwise.
          We can consider how to better protect anonymity going forward, but the reason you have not gained much traction so far is that you are not grasping the uncomfortable reality that a lot of the information you want hidden is on servers we do not control. Unless you have an idea on how to force other people to give up their legal rights to republish our content, you will not be able to scrub your history from the internet. That is sad, and as Joe said above we can do a much better job of making that fact clear to contributors, but we cannot change the past with wishful thinking. I appreciate Levivich's suggestion, and even the WMF is working to better anonymize IP addresses, but it boils down to security theatre. Neither of those efforts would stop a mirror from hosting the usernames or revision content, and so we would be rewriting our own history and creating large amounts of work for volunteers in order to give the illusion of security with no actual security improvement. That is irresponsible, and I will not advocate lying to contributors about our ability to protect anonymity. I am on record advocating for strong rights to vanish, and I care deeply about online privacy. But we cannot improve our privacy practices if we cannot acknowledge the reality that nothing is ever truly gone on the internet especially when you irrevocably allow others to republish it as much as they want. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
          This is all true but "truly gone" isn't the relevant standard. Imagine if Twitter said, "We won't allow you to delete your Twitter account because even if you deleted it, it would still be available on mirrors and archives, and the deletion would draw more attention to the account than just abandoning it and starting a new one." I mean, you'd think they'd let the user make that decision! I think there are some aspects being overlooked. First, the plain truth that Wikipedia is a database and it can be changed without creating any kind of public log entry. (Volunteers won't be the ones doing that, it'd have to be a WMF employee or contractor, so it wouldn't take up volunteer time.) And while it's true that even such a change won't eliminate all traces of the removed name, and will be noticeable by anyone who takes the time to thoroughly investigate, and may even be discussed at WO, all of that pales in comparison to having something on Wikipedia.org, which is a top-10 website. "Wugapodes" is a poor example of this, because it's a unique word. Try Googling "John Smith". The first couple results are Wikipedia.org, and then there are many, many pages of results before you see a Wikipedia mirror, much less Wikipediocracy.com. So removing "John Smith" from Wikipedia.org is a HUGE benefit if you're trying to hide "John Smith" from the internet, even if "John Smith" remains on mirrors, and even if they talk about him on some obscure web forum. And it should up to John Smith to decide whether he'd rather have Wikipedia.org be the #1 search result, or have some internet sleuths deduce that "John Smith" was removed from Wikipedia by, e.g., comparing database dumps or log entries, and talk about it on WO. We ought to have some process to wipe, even if the process isn't perfect, and we should let the user decide about Streisanding risks rather than deciding for them. $100 million a year is enough to pay for the development and execution of a privacy protection policy that allows people to remove things from Wikipedia. I think the much more difficult question to answer is what that policy would look like, and what the safeguards would be to prevent misuse. Levivich harass/hound 07:09, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
          Firstly, we can argue about what is and isn't a good example, but my understanding is the concern was about an attacker knowing a username, not a legal name. I would argue that on a scale of "uniqueness" most usernames on EnWiki fall closer to "Wugapodes" than they do "John Smith". Leaving that aside, the method of security demonstrated by your "John Smith" example is the exact method we already use: rename the account and let it get lost in the noise of more recent edits, see meatball:PracticalObscurity. That said, I don't think arguing about examples and counter examples here will actually get us anywhere productive. I want to focus on what you say here: "truly gone" isn't the relevant standard. Then what is the relevant standard? I don't mean that rhetorically, I'm curious what we're trying to prevent because we need to know what we're trying to protect if we want to build an effective protection system.
          My understanding is that we're considering an attack where bad-hat actor Bob knows Alice uses the handle xXxAlicexXx and is trying to use that fact to find out more information about Alice. We have sensitive data which Alice posted here under that handle, and we want to prevent Bob from (1) finding out that Alice edited here and (2) finding the sensitive data Alice published here. For (1) a standard rename is just as effective as "deleting" the account, especially if the rename log entry is redacted. For (2) our oversight policy allows pretty liberal use of the tool for hiding personally identifiable information--and the logs are hidden from all but the most trusted users. Given that, what's left to hide? What other standard are we going for other than "truly gone"? I brought up that standard because that seemed to be what was left, but it wouldn't be the first time I overlooked something.
          Lastly, there are a lot of differences between Wikipedia and Twitter, but ignoring most of them, tweets are atomic. You can delete a tweet without having to disentangle it from any other tweet. With a list of tweets (i.e., a profile), you can delete them all programmatically (by bot or script) without materially altering any other tweet in the database. This is not necessarily true of edits or contributions pages, and anyone who has used the "undo" button on an old edit knows this problem. Consider: Alice adds the text "I like puppies" and Chuck later comes by to change it to "We like puppies" and then Daisy changes that to "We like kittens and puppies". Now Alice wants all her contributions deleted and scrubbed...how? The fundamental content Alice added is still there, and even some of the original words. If we just removed the commonalities we would be left with "We kittens and" so we need something more robust than reverting whatever text Alice added that's still on the page. Will we have a human review and resolve every single conflict? Do we also revert Chuck and Daisy despite their changes being good and helpful to building an encyclopedia? Do we just delete Alice's username but leave the content up causing licensing problems later on? These are hard problems that twitter will never have to face when deleting a profile. Now consider a talk page thread: Alice makes a comment and Ethan replied directly to her. Will Ethan's comment just be a reply to nothing? What if Ethan quoted Alice or mentioned her by name (i.e., pinged her)? Will we modify Ethan's comment, or even delete it outright? What if Ethan doesn't like the decision and adds Alice's comment back under CC By-SA so that his comment retains its context? Will we edit war with Ethan? Block him for trying to make sure his comment is seen in proper context? We're not Twitter, and deleting content is not trivial, especially old content. We can come up with answers to these questions, but other people may have wildly different opinions on what is correct (I imagine this is what you meant by I think the much more difficult question to answer is what that policy would look like so I say this for the sake of others).
          Developing a consensus answer acceptable to the community will be hard, especially when the practical benefit is limited. I agreed with Joe above that we should focus on prevention not because I think it is the ideal solution, but because it is the most effective solution that we can build consensus around. For example, in edit-a-thons I advise new Wikipedians to not use their real name, especially women, because of the potential for harassment and difficulty of retraction should they regret the choice later on. Our essays at Wikipedia:Personal security practices and Wikipedia:Guidance for younger editors do a really good job of describing risks and prevention strategies users can take; making those more visible to logged out and new editors would help prevent contributors from publishing information they may later want to retract which is a more effective harm reduction strategy in the long run. We already link to Wikipedia:On privacy, confidentiality and discretion at Special:CreateAccount, but adding reminders in the edit window or in welcome messages can also help. How volunteers spend their time is up to them, but I think focusing on intermediate steps we can take now is a better return on investment. It might even help people be safer on websites other than our own. — Wug·a·po·des​ 09:29, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
          Then what is the relevant standard? "Off the top page of google results" is one possible standard. "Less visible" is another possible standard. It's hard to argue with "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure", and I agree with you that that's the place to focus, but I also think we should do what is being asked in the OP, which is to allow WP:VANISH for users who want to WP:CLEANSTART (as opposed to only for users who do not want to return). Levivich harass/hound 21:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome to rename your account the traditional way, and then CLEANSTART afterwards. Beyond that, I agree with the sentiment above: anything more is either technically impossible, or is likely to draw more attention to you and your edits. power~enwiki (π, ν) 23:13, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Even this discussion may already have drawn attention of the kind you wish to prevent. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 06:46, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

RfC on editnotice policy

There is an RfC at Wikipedia talk:General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 #RfC on use of COVID-19 editnotice to answer the question "Should admins have the ability to place the General sanctions/Coronavirus disease 2019 editnotice template on pages in scope that do not have page-specific sanctions?" --RexxS (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Announcement: (essay) WP:SOLDIER deprecated

Any regular of AfDs will surely have encountered this when discussing military figures. Per a recent RfC at the WikiProject Military History discussion page; it's been found to be inappropriate and there was consensus to deprecate it. Just letting you know in case you end up upon it still being cited in relevant discussions.

For WikiProject Military history,

RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:50, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Caitlyn Jenner

Discussion about the pronouns used at the Caitlyn Jenner article belongs at, and is happening at, Talk:Caitlyn Jenner. Discussion of the general case belongs at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style but there is no appetite here for change. Thryduulf (talk) 10:10, 2 March 2021 (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 seems to be a concerted effort to keep male pronouns from Caitlyn Jenner, even when they refer to Jenner pre-transition. I cannot find any instances of the pronoun "he" in the section referring to his olympic career, including in cases where omission of the pronoun would be grammatically incorrect, such as "Jenner watched teammate Fred Dixon get injured in the 110 meter hurdles, so took a cautious approach to the hurdles and discus." There is no pronoun between the bolded words when there should be. Jenner was indisputably male before 2015, so he should be referred to as such when concerning his Olympic career. The current situation also possibly counts as WP:CENSORSHIP as there may have been a deliberate purge of male pronouns. Gender changes are not retroactive. 053pvr (talk) 05:24, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Without making any judgement on the whole of the above (other than that this may not be the best place to discuss it), i will point out that the quote objected to is perfectly proper English and, indeed, has evidently been thought through carefully in order to remain good usage and yet not use the potentially objectionable pronoun; happy days, LindsayHello 07:15, 28 February 2021 (UTC) Adding ping, which i missed; happy days, LindsayHello 07:16, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
One place to start is Wikipedia:Gender identity#Retroactivity. There have been several conversations about this over the years. The current consensus may not be agreeable to everyone but it is not censorship. MarnetteD|Talk 07:23, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
@053pvr: There appears to be an active discussion going on at Talk:Caitlyn Jenner which you started, so you should be quite aware of. That discussion has not yet played out, indeed you made this post here 14 minutes after you started the prior discussion. This looks like WP:FORUMSHOP. The existing guidance is at MOS:GENDERID, which states "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise." If you wish to see it changed in general for all articles about transgender people, I suppose you could start that discussion, but I would not see it happening. The existing guidance was arrived at through many months of discussions from a wide swath of the Wikipedia community, and while consensus can change, and you're entirely free to start a discussion to change the existing guidelines, I wouldn't recommend it as you are unlikely to see any consensus to change it. --Jayron32 17:39, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Part of the advice that's developed in dealing with transitioned people that were notable before transitioning like Jenner is that if pronouns can be avoided, they should be, as that eliminates the confusion and debate over what gender terms to use, even in a case like Jenner where at that point Jenner was running an official male event as a male. The wording given seems like a perfect way to remove a pronoun without confusing the actors in that sentence, for example, and thus a clean way of handling that. --Masem (t) 18:07, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
Without starting into policy, the idea that we must adjust pronouns depending on the time period being referenced is bizarre and, to me, reads like an excuse to use the incorrect pronouns. A person, as they exist in the present, has a personhood that encompasses the entirety of their personal history. If they currently go by one pronoun, that pronoun should be used in the past, because it is still referring to the person as they exist in the present. We might say "she had an athletic career" because we are talking about a person who exists now, who uses she/her pronouns. Given this, I particularly don't appreciate he/him being used by the editor above in their message. I also dispute that anybody can be said to be "indisputably" male or female based on assumption, especially if they later went on to come out. BlackholeWA (talk) 23:30, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
BlackholeWA, I one hundred percent agree with you, every word. Jorm (talk) 23:41, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
These poor abused horses... EvergreenFir (talk) 00:08, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
Meh... the horses are dead, they don’t feel the beatings. Blueboar (talk) 00:35, 2 March 2021 (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.
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