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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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

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Thoughts on sourcing our articles from an inclusionist.

At some point I foresee a future where all articles on Wikipedia that have been around for a while are well-sourced. In fact, if you look at my homepage, you'll see a "poem" there about that future which uses the analogy of articles to sandcastles on a beach. I view having all articles sources as mostly a good thing, but I worry that anything which raises the bar for being able to contribute to Wikipedia will interfere with our ability to recruit new editors (sending them "farther down the beach"). So I have more mixed feelings than most about this.

What I'd like to do is find a good way to get there that doesn't involve deleting notable topics. As an inclusionist I don't want to see notable topics disappearing--I'd rather have them unsourced than gone (for a random example, I don't see the benefit of deleting [1]). There are about 142,000 articles that are tagged as unsourced at the moment. A drive to source them all seems somewhat hopeless given current editor numbers. But yet we did a fairly nice job sourcing BLPs once up on a time. That was done with a "source these or they will be deleted" deadline, which motivated the inclusionists, but not so much others. I'd like to propose the (very rough and not fully thought out) idea that we try to motivate the folks that want these articles sourced. And that is that if we can get the unsourced articles down to zero (or maybe 100 or something else very small?) that were created before some date (Say June 1 2022), then we add a rule that all new articles must be sourced within 90 days or they get sent to draft. All that would be left would be to clean up the articles from June 1st 2022 until the drive had finished--at the least a finite and (largely) a non-increasing set. There would have to be an understanding that good-faith contributors wouldn't PROD/AfD/etc. these articles without a serious attempt at WP:BEFORE. But given that, I think we could manage such a change in a year, maybe less.

I realize the idea is rough in its presentation. And, as I say, I bring it forward with some trepidation. But I think it is where we are going and probably where we should be going. So I'd like to get there with as little pain (i.e. deletion of notable topics) as possible. Thoughts? Hobit (talk) 15:56, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not necessary. It is convenient. Knowledge will not disappear because 100 or 1000000 Wikipedia articles are deleted, even if they are sourced. Obviously. Because Wikipedia is a tertiary information provider. Readers (who don't care about the labels Wikipedians make for themselves) will find it elsewhere, if acquiring such knowledge is valuable to them. In the case of unsourced items, we are not discussing knowledge. Knowledge involves facts, and facts need to be unambiguously shown to be so by easily accessible proof. Anything else is an opinion. Notability (not synonymous with popularity) should be factual, and this requires sources and a rationale to prove it. Imo, the phrase "notable unsourced articles" is an oxymoron, and guilty of demoting notability to POV.
But this is not meant to be negative: Wikipedia can become necessary and indispensable. The first step would be to only present information that is properly sourced. 161.221.13.10 (talk) 22:08, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
It may be worth considering, if your proposed principles would lead to Wikipedia never having existed or never growing beyond the Britannica-1911 mirror that it was in the early 2000s, that perhaps those principles are also unsuitable for guiding Wikipedia today. -- Visviva (talk) 00:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
The dichotomy between growth and quality may be a false one. But it is appealing to those who just want to post something on the internet (call it an "article") while avoiding the responsibility of backing it up. It is an easy thing to do, and one often can get away with it. So what exactly has Wikipedia grown into? Since it has undoubtedly grown. It is impossible to have it both ways. One can have a smaller encyclopedia based on facts, or the present gargantuan edifice, inevitably and rather hypocritically accompanied by occasional sterile discussion about the absence of sources. 64.18.11.70 (talk) 02:46, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
there is no replacement for a wikipedia article once it is deleted. none. with that said, not every topic or item that we cover here is vital to world knowledge. I agree that some entries could be deleted. however, if an entry actually does have value, or validity, or serves some useful purpose, then there is little point to saying that "other sources/publications/media outlets will continue to exist." of course they will, but almost all sources of information will eventually change, dissipate, go out of date, or archive older items and articles, that is except for Wikipedia. Sm8900 (talk) 14:10, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
I am hoping the above is supposed to be humorous. Apart from the idea that Wikipedia is somehow immune to entropy ("almost all sources of information will eventually change, dissipate, go out of date, or archive older items and articles, that is except for Wikipedia"), there is the fantastic statement of Wikipedia being a repository of original (and unique) research ("there is no replacement for a wikipedia article once it is deleted. none.") It is probably worse that I draw attention to this; it is not a good joke at all. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 17:02, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
that is entirely an arbitrary meaning that you are imposing. I meant there is no replacement for a wikipedia article as a reference source. unless you think an article on golf balls that appeared in the Sunday New York Times magazine in year X is somehow superior as a reference over an easily-accesible wikipedia article on golf balls.
as far as other sources dissipating, while wikipedia does not. I would invite you to visit today's website for the New York Times, CBS News, the BBC, the WSJ, ABC News, Atlantic Monthly. all of these sites--- all of them--- have articles displayed prominently today, which will be moved unceremoniously to an archive page, once they are no longer part of that publication's current issue, or a news outlets' set of current coverage for the current week. wikipedia by its nature has a topical strcuture which obviously would be based on data, and would not changed based on parameters used by media publications such as "publication date." that is simply what i meant. Sm8900 (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
What has accessibility to do with "superiority" as a reference? Wikipedia entries don't become superior just because they are easily accessible, and they reference nothing but the editors' POV unless shown to be factual by proper sourcing.
The comparison with news media is disingenuous. Wikipedia is not a news medium. And yet it employs archives of its reader-facing activities anyway. Just look at the main page. 98.7.221.81 (talk) 12:50, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
That's mostly not true. Inaccessible sources are automatically inferior to accessible sources for some purposes. The book you can't read does you no good at all, especially if you need information urgently.
You seem to be confusing (again? still?) uncited content with bad content. If you were to blank all the sources from WP:Today's Featured Article, the article would not suddenly represent "nothing but the editors' POV". It is common for substubs to be both NPOV and entirely unsourced. Good luck finding anyone who thinks that Geriatric sexology has POV problems. Its three generic sentences might be pointless, but they don't manage to provide enough content that anyone could reasonably disagree with them.
OTOH, it's possible to properly source every sentence in an article and still have the article represent the editors' own POV. It may surprise you, but sometimes the editors' own POVs are not significantly different from NPOV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:05, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
The only information that is automatically inferior is incorrect information, and the fact that information may be accessible does not make it automatically superior. When it is bad information, it may not only be useless but harmful. If one has no way of knowing whether they are getting correct information, urgently or not, it is walking blind in a minefield. Afaik not what Wikipedia purports to be. Disseminate knowledge, not probable knowledge presented as knowledge (there is knowledge about probable knowledge, that's not the point here).
The question remains: if an article has no sources how can one know that the content is good? And why bring FAs into it? They are proof of Wikipedia's shortcomings. In a proper encyclopedia any one article could/would be an FA (or GA). They would not need special qualifications and procedures to achieve the status.
Nobody disputes that heavily sourced articles can be unbalanced and biased. To be able to make that determination, sources have to exist first. Unsourced articles cannot even provide that determination; they are beyond useless in this respect. Readers should be provided with NPOV. Whether editors' POV coincides with NPOV is irrelevant and useless information, this is not about the editors. The wikitext-plus-the-supporting-references will tell the story. 4.30.91.142 (talk) 21:04, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
Even if an article has sources, how does one know that the content is good? The cited sources could all be garbage, or they could say the opposite of what the article says.
It is simply not true that you cannot determine whether an article is unbalanced and biased unless that article already contains citations. Unsourced articles can be determined to be biased. Watch Category:Candidates for speedy deletion as attack pages for a while and see if you can figure out whether or not the unsourced pages are biased. Or try a simple thought experiment. Imagine that you find an article about Joe Film with these contents:
"Joe Film is the best actor in the history of the universe. He has appeared as the most important actor in every important film produced since he was 16 years old. It is only through unremitting corruption and flagrant anti-Joe bias that he has not been given every single award at the Oscars for the last 22 years."
This article stub is completely unsourced. Are you able to make the determination that this hypothetical article is not NPOV, or do you still cling to your assertion above that "sources have to exist first" and you "cannot even provide that determination" about unsourced articles?
If you are interested in the question of how people decide whether to trust content, then I regret to tell you that, among Wikipedia's readers, the presence or absence of sources appears to make little to no difference. Humans mostly decide that an article is NPOV if it confirms their pre-existing knowledge and agrees with, or at least acknowledges, their beliefs and preconceptions. There has been substantial research on this subject, and if you are actually interested in knowing more about it, I suggest that you read up on it, rather than trying to trigger Cunningham's Law by loudly declaiming false statements here. Some of the best work has been done in the area of how people decide whether to trust something they read about vaccines, so you might start at scholar.google.com with that question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:43, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

You misunderstand. Why would anyone bother with an unsourced article? It is a waste of time trying to somehow divine if it is this or that or not. As a reader, I just want the info, I don't want to do the editors' job. If I know the subject, I have no use for Wikipedia. If I don't, I want verifiable proof that the information provided is correct. This requires sources. Whether the info is complete or neutrally presented are next steps for further discussion. As for the audience's beliefs and biases, they are irrelevant. They come here for knowledge on the subject. It should be provided neutrally based on verifiable facts. That is an encyclopedia's business. Readers can stay with their biases regardless, that is their business. 98.7.221.81 (talk) 13:21, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

This is a nice idea, but I'm not sure it's a great use of the editor community's energy. There's nothing wrong with a cleanup drive, but having done some article rescues over the years, I am pretty tired of being pressed into service to meet the demands of the deletionist wrecking crew. It's a lot more work, and a lot less enjoyable, and ultimately less beneficial to the project, to improve a random article than to improve an article in an area I'm familiar with.
As long as we're opining: If unreferenced articles are a disservice to the reader (as many have claimed, with a noticeable lack of supporting data), then the problem isn't really the comparatively small number of unreferenced articles. Rather, since the content would disserve the reader just as much if it were merged into a larger article that did have some sources, the problem is really the vast amount of unreferenced (or improperly referenced) content. And that's a problem that nearly every article suffers from, and will always suffer from as long as the article continues to grow and evolve, and can realistically be combated only by having a robust editor community in the relevant topic area. (Side note: we could solve the problem tomorrow by stripping out every sentence that doesn't have an accompanying inline citation; of course this would make Wikipedia functionally useless to the reader, which raises some questions about that whole "disservice to the reader" business.)
If we want more high-quality referenced content, we need more people. And anything that interferes with that -- for example by raising the project's real or perceived barriers, er sorry, "minimum standards" -- is only going to continue making things worse over the long haul. -- Visviva (talk) 00:28, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I get your issue with being pushed by the wrecking crew. This is why I've tried to make it so that those who really want to see every article have references would be the ones who get rewarded by getting what they want (sourcing requirements on new articles). But it sounds like we aren't there yet. I think we'll get to the point something like this proposal works out in a few years... Hobit (talk) 16:39, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
@visviva seems totally correct to me. well said. Sm8900 (talk) 14:08, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree completely with the points raised by Hobit in their initial note above. Sm8900 (talk) 14:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
By the way, I think this topic dovetails nicely with the larger topic above on this page, in the section Dealing with large numbers of articles that fail WP:N, WP:V, or WP:OR. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:47, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
The idea that data is needed to show that unreferenced articles are indeed a disservice is peculiar. Unreferenced articles are opinions. As far as anyone can tell, fiction unless proven factual by references. If the objective is knowledge dissemination, usable info based on fact, then anything that does not include factual references is a disservice. Merging unreferenced articles is a different topic, and ruminating about article quality and the need for additional or further (better) references is presently irrelevant. In order to examine references for validity, reliability, topicality, source-text integrity etc. they must first exist.
Maybe Wikipedia will become an encyclopedia in the future. Right now, it may more accurately be described as a topic/stub aggregator. 64.18.11.70 (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
Ouch! Mccapra (talk) 16:35, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
"Unreferenced articles are opinions": I invite the IP to improve the articles on Fact and Opinion, and then come back to these discussions with a better understanding of these words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:07, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
Well, fact and opinion exist independently of Wikipedia. They are not what Wikipedia says they are, especially when the issue is Wikipedia's own processes. If "fact" and "opinion" articles on Wikipedia are supported by verifiable references in a rounded, impartial, unbiased presentation, they are factual. Facts have no other quality, any one fact resides everywhere and anytime. Its appearance in Wikipedia as an article or in an article, desirable as it may be, is incidental. 4.30.91.142 (talk) 21:20, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
And yet I find zero reliable sources that say facts are only factual when they are supported by references. Hmm, maybe your assertion that citations magically turn opinions into facts is not a fact? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:45, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
I can't find the suggestion that citations magically turn opinions into facts anywhere in this discussion. I can find assertions that facts can be proven so by proper citations. And the further assertion, that in an anonymously edited internet site, that is the only way facts may begin to be ascertained. 98.7.221.81 (talk) 13:32, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
What is the point of having a WP article if it doesn't have references? If I go on here to look something up, I want to see that the statements made about it are directly supported in a way that has the potential for validation. If they are not cited, your suggestion seems to be that readers should just google those facts to find out themselves if they're verifiable...which completely obviates the purpose of the article existing on Wikipedia. Why would a reader try to source each statement themselves instead of just...googling the subject directly and finding a better resource than WP? Readers aren't the ones who should be investigating existential origins of facts; they come here in the hope a subject has been adequately, verifiably summarized such that they don't have to curate and synthesize references themselves. An unsourced article just creates a giant extra step if a reader actually wants to be informed, and is literally no better than coming across a factoid on a forum. JoelleJay (talk) 00:32, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
In 99.7% of page views, nobody clicks on any references in the article. Perhaps that's because approximately 99.7% of the time, readers don't actually need the references. Our typical reader, at least in developed countries, is looking for "What's that guy's name? It's on the tip of my tongue... Oh, right, the Wikipedia article reminded me!"
If the answer were important, I'd suggest that the reader not rely exclusively on Wikipedia, even if the material is a victim of citation overkill. When it isn't important – well, then it doesn't matter?
Notice that I'm not saying that anything should be unsourced in the mainspace. I'm only saying that uncited facts are still facts, and not opinions. The IP, on the other hand, says that "Unreferenced articles are opinions". Given a choice between:
  • It's a fact
  • Add a citation, and it's still a fact
vs
  • It's an opinion
  • Add a citation, and now it's a fact
I pick the one in which facts are facts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
  • As an inclusionist I don't want to see notable topics disappearing ... Well, as a "deletionist" (or so I've been called) I also don't want to see notable topics being deleted. That's not the point. Our only proof a subject meets a notability guideline is that sources back it up. When those sources cannot be found, there is no notable topic which can be saved. -Indy beetle (talk) 17:14, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
    Yep. But some of our unsourced articles are on notable topics. I believe others on this page in various places have indicated they'd rather just delete those than have them around. Hobit (talk) 00:35, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
  • All thoughts and recommendations are welcome, and I highly recommend that any editor who believes unsourced articles are notable to get busy sourcing them because we are swamped with a 14k+/- backlog at NPP. Keep an eye on draftified articles and clean them up, or become an NPP reviewer where you can help fix the problems we encounter on a daily basis. I'm of the mind that unsourced articles in mainspace defy our core content policies, and not be INDEXED. It basically suggests that we eliminate NPP which is our first line of defense in protecting WP from global garbage. The state of unsourced articles is an automatic fail of WP:V, WP:GNG, and potentially WP:OR and WP:NOT. I can relate to some of what the proposal suggests as I'm a bit of an inclusionist myself (& article rescue member), but I also realize the need for CSD, PROD, AfD, merges & redirects. I'm also quite certain this proposal would open our doors to spamming, uncontrollable numbers of BOT submissions and the like, but on the other hand, I imagine UPE/PE would love it – they'll get paid for doing less work. Having said that, imagine what would happen to WP's reputation as an encyclopedia if we allowed unsourced articles into mainspace? Atsme 💬 📧 12:11, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Atsme, I'm sure this has been pointed out to you already, but "unsourced" does not mean "unverifiable". Unverifiable means that no source can be found. Similarly notability is determined by the existence of sources, not whether they're cited. Our policy is and always has been that lack of citations is a fixable problem, not a breach of any core content policies, and not a reason for deletion. Hobit's proposal isn't to "allow unsourced articles into mainspace" (because we already do), it's to remove unsourced articles from mainspace after a set amount of time, if we can get the existing backlog of unsourced articles down.
      It wouldn't really affect NPP because NPP isn't there to filter articles based on the presence or absence of citations; it's a rough triage for major problems like copyvios, attack pages, UPE or lack of notability. And if you're worried about the NPP backlog (I'll panic when it hits 24k again), surely the first thing you should do is stop giving yourself extra work by making it "unsourced pages patrol" too? – Joe (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      How does one access notability without sources? If there are no sources in the article, the reviewer has to do a time-consuming search to make that judgement. This most certainly does affect NPP. The creator of an article should be the one to show the subject is notable by providing sources. An un/undersourced article would not be accepted at AFC. Why should there be lower standards if AFC is bypassed? MB 18:59, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      Yes, the reviewer does. There's no getting around that. Being able to quickly check notability by searching for sources is a basic skill required for pretty much all maintenance work in mainspace and quite frankly, if you're not willing or able to do it, you shouldn't be reviewing new pages. The same goes for AfC. – Joe (talk) 19:24, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      I think that was pretty condescending. I didn't say anything about not being willing to do it. I said it takes time, which is why the backlog is 14,000, and at present, climbing again. There is a problem; articles are being Indexed after 90 days without being reviewed and there are not enough active reviewers to keep up. People are suggesting solutions. Asking the article creator to provide sources does not seem unreasonable to me. It makes the article better (e.g. it won't get tagged as unreferenced) and it "greases" the review process. MB 21:42, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      Our policies around unsourced content haven't changed for years. They were the same when the NPP backlog was 24,000 and they were the same when it was zero. It's completely irrelevant. – Joe (talk) 13:14, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
      Joe, please help us here - to what policies are you referring: WP:V and its subsection WP:BURDEN, or WP:BLP which not only includes unsourced but also unreliably sourced? Burden states: Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. We also have WP:OR which states: Any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by a reliable source. Material for which no reliable source can be found is considered original research. The only way you can show your edit is not original research is to cite a reliable published source that contains the same material. Refer back to BURDEN. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears that your reliance on keeping unsourced stubs/articles is dependent on footnote (a) in WP:OR: By "exists", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source. Joe, do you have a link to that community discussion? MB were you aware of that footnote? It contradicts our core content policies and GNG guidelines. Think about how many articles have been deleted because of sourcing or lack of sourcing. That footnote is a disaster, and I believe it needs to be revisited. Atsme 💬 📧 14:54, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
      Haven't you and I talked about this very recently on another page? The fact that you "may" (an optional behavior) remove unsourced material does not mean that the unsourced material is unverifiable.
      Let's try this again, from the very first sentence of WP:V: In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source.
      Have you thought about that sentence yet?
      1. I take the words "verifiability means" as indicating that whatever follows is the definition of verifiability. If something meets the following definition, then it is verifiable. Do you agree, or do you have a different idea about that?
      2. I notice that the definition given for whether something is verifiable (assuming we agree on point #1) is other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. I understand the "other people using the encyclopedia" bit to mean "some, but not all, humans, except for the editor who added whichever information we're talking about". The minimum standard would be two humans, namely whoever added the information plus one other human. It would not necessarily include any human who needed/wanted to check, but it must be possible for someone who is "other" to do this. Do you agree, or do you have a different idea?
      3. The next word in the definition is "can". This means that it's theoretically possible, not that it's ever been done in any particular case. Do you agree, or do you think that the word "can" means something else?
      4. The next phrase is check that. These words mean that must be possible (see #3) for someone to see/look up/figure out/investigate/determine/double-check to satisfy themselves that a particular condition is true. If you "can" find out whether or not this condition is true, then the information is verifiable. If you "cannot" find out whether or not this condition is true, then the information is not verifiable.
      5. The particular condition in question is: the information comes from a reliable source. "Information" is understood broadly, and it might have been somewhat more expansive to say "material", but if it's in the article, it's likely covered. A source – though not ever defined in the policy – is whatever person/place/thing an editor got some information from. A reliable source – also not actually defined in any policy; we provide information on how to identify them, but not what they are, in a dictionary-type sense – is the subset of sources that editors accept as being reliable for the particular information.
      6. I hope you have agreed with me so far, because that is the end of the definition, and now we are going to get into what the definition does not say. Notice the complete and utter absence of any prescribed methodology for doing that checking. Notice the absence of words like "can check that the information comes from a reliable source that is cited in a little blue clicky number at the end of the sentence". Those words aren't there, because the definition of what "other people can check" is not limited to cited sources. Some "other people can check" some information by visiting their favorite web search engine, such as books[.]google[.]com. If "other people can use a web search" and this would determine that the information came from a reliable source, then that information  is verifiable, even if it's not cited. Sometimes "other people can check" information by going to a library. Or picking up a textbook for the class they're taking. Or
      Now, I know: it's inconvenient to have to do the checking yourself. It's much easier to say "Ooops, if there's no little blue clicky number, then it's a policy violation!" It's also much easier to assume that if the material is cited to an unreliable source, or to a source that doesn't verify it (sometimes as a result of vandalism or poor editing, the wrong source ends up at the end of a sentence), then the material can't be verified. But the actual definition doesn't support that POV, and neither does the community.
      There are multiple reasons why nobody supports that, but I'll give you just two. Here they are:
      • Only stupid people think that a sentence like "The capital of France is Paris" "can't" be "checked" in "a reliable source" unless there is a little blue clicky number at the end of the sentence, and that it magically transforms into checkable material if you add a ref tag. Wikipedia editors do not appreciate rules that treat them like imbeciles.
      • Even short, simple sentences can contain a lot of information. A philosopher would tell you that that six-word sentence contains at least the following claims:
        • France has a capital.
        • France has only one capital ("the" capital).
        • This capital belongs to or is otherwise "of" France.
        • The capital currently exists ("is").
        • The capital's name or identity is Paris.
          • Good luck trying to find reliable sources that directly support all of those claims. I'm not sure that it can be done, even for so simple and obvious a sentence. And yet nobody (nobody sensible, anyway) wants or expects a reliable source to support every single little word in the sentence; we only want to be certain that there are reliable sources, somewhere in the world, even if uncited in the article, that make the capital of France = Paris connection.
      I really think that this continued pushing for people to conflate presently uncited with unverifiable is both bad for the encyclopedia and becoming disruptive. You either need to get the policy's definition changed, or you need to quit trying to pretend that the policy's definition doesn't disagree with your POV. There's a definition of verifiability in the policy's very first sentence. The definition is not the same as "cited". The presence or absence of citations is so irrelevant that they definition doesn't even mention citations. Citations are therefore not what makes information verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:52, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
      What on Earth is time consuming about performing a search to see whether a subject has coverage in books or academic papers? In most cases it takes seconds, not even minutes. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:42, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      If only it were that simple, Joe. I'm definitely not trying to add extra work to our timesheets while struggling with a 14k+/- backlog, and that doesn't count AfC's backlog. Please rest assured that I am aware of WP:V, particularly with the clearly stated, unambiguous WP:BURDEN, and the many issues (potential or existing) that are associated with unsourced articles in mainspace. Very little of our wokeness has prepared NPP or AfC for a potential onslaught of the bot-created article brigade. The team at NPP is too busy trying to find solutions for the relentless archaic issues we deal with day-to-day, and quite frankly, some of the comments I've been reading here are rather discouraging, but that's expected from those of us at NPP/AfC who have skin in the game. Atsme 💬 📧 19:46, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      Maybe it would help if you stopped talking about "the team at NPP" and "those of us at NPP/AfC" as if you are a separate species. We are all, first and foremost, supposed to be here to build an encyclopedia collaboratively, which involves helping those who know less about policies and guidelines than us, rather than to pick holes in what people have created. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:52, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      Maybe it would help if you requested the reviewer right and did some reviews. MB 21:44, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
      How the heck did you end up claiming that referring to the group working on doing a particular task a "team" amounts to claim of being like a separate species? And NPP people aren't trying to "pick holes", they are just trying to do the job properly. The way the math works, each of the 10 most active reviewers has to manually review about 50 articles per day in their volunteered wiki-minutes just to avoid NPP sinking deeper into backlog. I'm probably typical where if the article passes the "should it be an article?" criteria (wp:not and notability) and it has lots of flaws in it, I pass it and thank or compliment the creator for the work that they did do and move on. North8000 (talk) 14:25, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
      Referring to some people as being on the team necessarily involves Othering everyone else, no?
      I think what Phil's saying is that different people might have different expectations from NPP. Phil seems to be thinking about a basic notability check: "Yup, I see that name in a bunch of articles at news.google.com, so probably notable.  Pass. Next!" Atsme seems to be talking about a far more extensive process. Even ignoring Atsme's wildly unrepresentative belief that BURDEN's permission to optionally remove some uncited information means that all uncited information is somehow a policy violation, this version wouldn't even consider whether any of the information is cited. It's like a WP:BEFORE check, or the sort of quick check you'd do if you were thinking about starting an article, not a line-by-line evaluation of existing content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:02, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
      I'd like to add: I don't share Phil's view. Why? Well, the last time I read the directions, which apparently was around 2015, the purpose of NPP, was to get identify candidates for speedy deletion.
      Note: just to identify and tag CSD candidates.
      Only to identify and tag CSD candidates.
      You could do more while you were there, and most people did, but that was the agreed-upon primary purpose. The most complicated task in the list was spotting copyvios. The [Mark this page as patrolled] button could have been renamed [Does not appear to qualify for speedy deletion] (and maybe it should have been).
      It appears that "get rid of pages that no editor could ever wish to keep" changed to "make sure everything belongs". This is where the prove-a-negative thing crept in, and where patrollers were being asked to do more than spot the worst of the worst. This is also where the idea of patrollers and a cleanup/quality-control crew got started. The expected workload went from:
      • Tag copyvios and other CSD candidates (everything else you do is gravy)
      to
      • Deal with everything that doesn't belong, no matter why someone thinks it doesn't belong (CSD + notability + blatant promotionalism + subtle promotionalism + hemi-demi-semi-duplicative articles that should be merged + everybody knows that every article on that subject from that country is written by undisclosed paid editors + the WikiProject decided last month that these lists are INDISCRIMINATE but those lists are okay + that editor's username is a little like one of the authors cited in this article + this is clearly notable but it's completely unsourced + everything that anyone could complain about)
      • Maintain high standards for article quality, especially so that nobody using Google will see new pages that are unsourced or otherwise might embarrass editors who have higher than average quality standards (because nobody wants to be the guy who let Google customers see that. We're all united in our real goal of protecting Google's customers from incomplete pages, right?)
      and, now, as of this edit by @Barkeep49 last January, the NPPer is additionally meant to:
      • Nurture new editors, without mentoring them
      I think this is unreasonable. NPP shouldn't be expected to do everything. We need someone to do everything, but I think we should go back to the system in which NPP exists to identify CSD, and nothing else is actually their problem. We stop telling NPP to protect Google's customers from bad grammar, unsourced articles, and so forth. We just ask NPP to try to prevent CSD-worthy problems from persisting in the English Wikipedia. Everything else is someone else's problem and is to be done on someone else's deadline. And maybe we rename that button to be clear about what 'mark as patrolled' really means. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:58, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree with narrowing it to the essentials. And I think that the reviewers that get any quantity of articles done (of the ~700 per day that need manual review) are already doing that. But the "essentials" include dealing with "do wikipedia policies/guidelines allow this article (topic) to exist as a separate article? And a large amount where the answer is "no" are not speedy-able. North8000 (talk) 21:53, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
Why does that question have to be NPP's problem? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:47, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
I'm open to other wording. But I think it is a core expectation that new page patrollers be able to adequately respond to newer users. What is routine for us can be WP:BITEY for new editors and making sure that balance is struck is, for me, a core part of the NPP job. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:03, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
@Barkeep49, I think that this is a manageable set of tasks for NPP:
  • decide whether each new page is CSD-worthy
  • be nice to new folks if you have to send their page to CSD
If this was all that NPP was asked to do, then I think they could manage it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
That is certainly a more managable set of tasks. But I think sending stuff to search engines which do not meet our notability guidelines has harms for us as a project and can harm the article's subjects. Doing some screen for notability has been a part of the NPP tasks from the moment an editor put the idea onwiki and removing it altogether is a bigger leap than I would make in narrowing what's expected. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:59, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
How does allowing a search engine to index a non-notable subject, between the day it is determined not to be CSD-worthy and the day it is deleted or merged away for being non-notable, actually harm Wikipedia?
I can imagine harms from an article about a non-notable subject having been created (e.g., waste of the community's time at AFD), but tell me how Wikipedia gets hurt if Google knows about its existence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Contested proposed deletions should require enough solid evidence to back up reasons

Here is an example that I am thinking of: http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_undeletion/Archive_373#Autistic_Women_%26_Nonbinary_Network

However, if you search the organization's name, most of the results are from the organization's website/social media profiles, or simply contain a trivial mention! Feel free to correct me if this is untrue. That page was restored without any sources cited as examples. Yleventa2 (talk) 21:35, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

WP:PROD is by design easy to contest. You simply have to disagree, and you don't have to state your reasons why.
If you disagree with the disagreeing, and still think the article should be deleted, WP:AFD is there for you. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:39, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
I think we should make it a little harder to contest; contesting prods inappropriately is just as problematic as inappropriate AfD nominations, but as a community we focus on the latter, not the former. To contest prods, I think we should implement a requirement similar to WP:BEFORE, where editors are required to provide sources that address the concerns and demonstrate that there is a chance for the article to survive at AfD.
This is already partially covered by policies around disruptive editing, but I think it would be beneficial to make it clear what the expectations are. BilledMammal (talk) 02:55, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
It's easy to see people contesting the contested eg. no way that source you gave would be sufficient to survive at AfD. Then what? You get into out of band disputes and no formal way to resolve it. Plus, a single source is usually not enough to survive at AfD it's more complicated. -- GreenC 03:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Yes, in some cases this would just turn what is supposed to be a low-overhead way of avoiding AFD into a low-participation pre-AFD dispute, Meters (talk) 03:09, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Ideally, the editor contesting deletion would demonstrate that the article met WP:GNG, but even if they only find one source that counts towards GNG then I think it is enough to demonstrate that it is possible additional sources exist, and a wider discussion at AfD is worthwhile.
As for disputes about whether the source counts towards GNG; those would still be resolved at AfD. This proposal would act similar to WP:BEFORE; it just makes the expectations for removing a prod clear, and if an editor consistently fails to meet those expectations then it becomes a behavioural issue. It wouldn't allow editors to reinstate the prod. BilledMammal (talk) 03:22, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
If PROD required a single source with no subjective interpretation, it might work, but as soon you allow for subjective interpretation about the source, there will be pre-AfD disputes. Both sides will game it. If no subjective interpretation, the contestant can pick any source from the article it would prove nothing other than to add some bureaucratic overhead. -- GreenC 03:34, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I would suggest the wording Editors contesting a prod are required to ensure that the article includes at least one reference that a reasonable editor could believe meets the requirements of WP:GNG.
It won't cause pre-AfD disputes, because the line If anybody objects to the deletion the proposal is aborted and may not be re-proposed would still be policy; if the prod is contested, it is contested. It doesn't matter whether the contesting editor has met the requirement, as the prod may not be reinstated. Instead, consistently failing to meet this requirement is a behavioural problem.
I see this as similar to WP:BEFORE; it doesn't matter whether the nominating editor has met the requirements of WP:BEFORE, as the discussion cannot be closed prematurely on that basis. What WP:BEFORE does it make it easier to identify when an editor is being disruptive and address that disruption, and what I propose here is intended to have the same effect. BilledMammal (talk) 03:49, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
This all seems too WP:BLOATy for my taste. Prod is supposed to be simple and low-overhead. If anyone feels that a prod should not have been removed than they can start an afd (or in some cases an rfd as proded articles are regularly redirected). Ideally prod removal should be well explained as that can help to avoid wasting time with unnecessary afds, but the last thing we should be doing is adding a whole bunch of required hoops to jump through for a process that is by design as simple as practical. If someone has a habit of botlike prod removals that's already a behavioral issue under existing policy that can be handled through established procedures. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 04:06, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Who is the reasonable editor that decides it could meet GNG? Not trying to be difficult it is a conflict trap. -- GreenC 04:22, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
It is related to this. The intent is to prevent this becoming a trap; if the belief that the source counts towards WP:GNG is reasonable, then the editor has meet the requirement, even if the eventual consensus is that it does not. It should only affect two types of editors; those with WP:CIR issues, and those who remove the prod while knowing that they have not met the requirement. BilledMammal (talk) 04:36, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
PROD is fine as is. Don't fuck with it. If you have an issue with an unsourced article that you think is not notable, and don't want to deal with the possibility that someone disagrees with you, send it straight to WP:AFD. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:24, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Not a good idea. Wikipedia as an institution doesn't do reasonable. Not only does this place have a sizeable global community that would make that tricky in the first place, but the dramaboards by their very nature turn any remotely regular participants into wikilawyers. There's always going to be some kind of "this specific circumstance is not technically covered" loophole that will be openly brandished, or "my belief was reasonable because...", or "these other people did it and were not sanctioned so sanctioning me would be unfair", etc. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 14:58, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
If an editor contests lots of PRODs inappropriately, we should deal with that editor, not destroy a perfectly fine lightweight process by introducing additional rules. —Kusma (talk) 07:50, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
In every case that i can remember, even when PRODs are being removed disruptively there has never been a consensus at ANI to sanction that editor in any way "because they don't have to provide a rationale". Which is ridiculous, really - would it really be too difficult to at least require a rationale for removing a PROD? The other problem is that it's not easy to track removed PRODs, unless I'm missing an easy way of doing it. Black Kite (talk) 08:54, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
You mean like you just did? "Not too difficult" falls a long way short of a proper rationale for such a sweeping change. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:18, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Not really. We have sanctioned editors in the past for repeatedly failing to use edit summaries when making major changes, and IMO removing a deletion tag is a major change. If you don't explain why you've removed it, others are going to think that you don't have a good reason, even if you do. It's simple courtesy to other editors. Black Kite (talk) 09:22, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
If an editor unprods every article, they will get sanctioned and/or reverted. If an editor unprods five articles, the worst thing that can happen is five AfDs. And "I am fairly sure there are sources" is a pretty universal deprod rationale that we could just assume as the default when editors don't say anything. —Kusma (talk) 09:24, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
PROD is intentionally easy to remove. I don't see that it's a helpful way forward to demand sourcing to stop an article being deleted without a discussion. The cycle of - PROD, remove, AfD - works very well. I think if you are particularly worried about an item having the PROD removed, you can simply skip that and go to AfD. Obviously it's better to have the sourcing, but PROD is supposed to be non-controversial Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:25, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree that PROD is purely a process intended for totally non-controversial deletions, the definition of "non-controversial" in this case meaning simply that no one will contest it. It doesn't matter whether the reason for contesting is an elaborate one embedded in policy and good reason; or if it's someone kicking a stone and proclaiming "I refute your PROD thus". No one is harmed by a contested PROD, not least Wikipedia.--WaltCip-(talk) 14:36, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I do spurts of WP:PRODPATROLING and can report that editor's egos are are frequently hurt when I contest a PROD. Also, in my assessment, there are many PRODs that are potentially controversial (many don't consider WP:ATD, for instance). WP:PRODPATROL is not consistently staffed so we have periods where we're deleting stuff through PROD that wouldn't be deleted at WP:AFD. ~Kvng (talk) 14:56, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Hence the importance of tagging articles with Wikiproject tags so they get flagged in WP:AALERTS. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:57, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
That might help get a few more eyes but they probably don't know much about PROD or AfD and are likely to do bad DEPRODs because of their affinity for the topic area. What we really need is editors with AfD experience watching for bad PRODs. WP:PRODPATROL is the venue we've created for this but it is not well staffed I assume because it's often contentious and thankless task due to the chaff you get from editors who are sure WP:DEMOLISH is the way to go with underdeveloped material on the encyclopedia and the ensuing time you get to spend in one of Wikipedia's unhappy places, AfD, doing followup. ~Kvng (talk) 19:01, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Perhaps we could advise (not require, but at least advise/encourage) that people who contest PRODs participate in any follow-up AfDs. I AfD'd a deprodded article as the deprodder asserted "sources will be easy to find" and, low and behold this was incorrect. I dropped a notice for the deprodder at their talk page but they gave no input. The user in question is all around productive and not a disruptive person, but it did feel like an abuse of process to contest a bunch of PRODS (this was one in a series) and then not show up at the AfD. -Indy beetle (talk) 07:06, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
    There was an article I deprodded not too long back where I didn't know whether the subject was notable or not, don't have specialist in the topic area and did not have time to participate in any follow-up AfD. I did so because the article suggested the topic might be notable but sources would likely take some finding (they could be quite old and there would likely be a lot of irrelevant results from simple google searches) so I felt that it should be actively considered at AfD where it was more likely that those familiar with the topic area and finding those type of sources would be aware of the nomination. AfD would also enable the active consideration of a merge and/or redirect, where again those familiar with the topic area are best placed to know the best target. Thryduulf (talk) 08:44, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. PROD is heavily and indiscriminately over applied currently and it is unreasonable to make them harder to remove than to apply. BEFORE is utterly toothless and largely ignored by the heaviest users of PROD so comparisons are not appropriate - they wouldn't be appropriate anyway: Sourcing an article is something that takes time and effort, AfDs and PRODs are done with half a thought and a button click. Artw (talk) 22:18, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose - if the supporters of this and similar proposals were not so often the very same editors who escalate their perceived requirements for WP:GNG sourcing, and Notability in general, beyond what policy actually requires I might have some sympathy for this proposal. As things actually are, I have none. I have also seen articles PRODded which would have been helpful as redirects - this is one of the salient advantages of the AfD process, and ought not to be circumvented. Newimpartial (talk) 22:51, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Time and time again, users sometimes go on drive-by prodding sprees, rapdily proposing dozens of articles for deletion at a time with a verbatim copy/paste deletion rationale for each article, to the point that at times, the rationale does not even match the content or topical focus of articles (e.g. citing WP:NALBUM for a biographical article). If this proposal were to go into effect, then conversely, there should then also be a requirement that Prods require enough solid evidence for their placement. Indeed, unfortunately, Prods are sometimes heavily and indiscriminately over applied, and at times, WP:BEFORE searches are obviously not being performed. North America1000 19:42, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Unsourced broadcast articles and WP:BCASTOUTCOMES

I came across this article WLUZ during page review. At the time, the article was redirected several times, as it was unsourced, but it was reverted. I sent it to Afd as it was unsourced. (I later found a references right at the bottom of the article below the template, which I never saw). When it went to Afd at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/WLUZ everybody seemed to state it was notable, due to WP:BCASTOUTCOMES. Surely an essay doesn't override notabiltiy policy or policy around sourcing. It is essentially a 5 line entry in an essay somehow overrides WP:V. There is many of these broadcasters that have never been sourced, for example, WIDA-FM. Are these considered valid? It puzzles me why you have content that is essentially copied from a website and is somehow automically notable and that bypasses policy? scope_creepTalk 21:37, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

It is not possible to determine a subject is notable unless there are sources for it. For instance, the statement "FCC-licensed radio stations are presumed notable" may justify a radio-station article only if it is accompanied by citations proving the existence of such license. As a reader, I have no idea what a "WLUZ" is or why it should be noted. Somebody put a bunch of technical and other data about it on a Wikipedia page... how did they come up with that? Btw, I assume that this is a currently licensed station. The existing reference is historical, and does not apply to the current state of affairs, so it cannot support current notability. External links are either unusable or contain duplicate info, and in any case cannot substitute actual references. One of the many below-par pages in Wikipedia. Pass. 64.18.11.68 (talk) 22:27, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
The existing reference is historical, and does not apply to the current state of affairs, so it cannot support current notability. Notability is not temporary. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:56, 18 June 2022 (UTC)
Not the issue here. One of the arguments raised for notability is the existence of an FCC license. Nowhere in that so-called article is there proof of such license. There is a reference for a license to another entity, almost 40 years ago. No proof is cited that "WLUZ" is a continuation of that entity or of the transfer of license. As far as notability is concerned, this is a historical reference that cannot be used to prove the argument for notability based on FCC licensing. 64.18.11.64 (talk) 14:44, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
Emphasizing that external links entries are not a replacement for references. 64.18.11.64 (talk) 14:49, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
No such rule. Notability does not depend upon an editor's source formatting skills. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
The "outcomes" are the just general community consensus surrounding a topic when it goes to AfD based on past precedent, but are not hardlines of course. These are just the common, well, outcomes of these particular topics when they go to AfDs. Just because an article meets some criteria in its respective outcome doesn't mean it isn't still eligible for deletion if it hugely fails GNG, it just gives more benefit-of-the-doubt/supplementation. Similarly, just because an article doesn't meet any outcome criteria doesn't mean it shouldn't be kept if it falls under other circumstances. Curbon7 (talk) 00:28, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
Comment - I have to wonder if those saying “Keep per BCASTOUTCOMES” have actually read the essay… because it clearly defers to GNG, and says that when there isn’t significant coverage we usually delete. Blueboar (talk) 11:29, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
Citing OUTCOMES in a discussion as a rationale for keeping, deleting, or otherwise for a specific article is circular reasoning. It exists to describe what happens, and does not control why that happens. We've been down that road before too with WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Perhaps every section needs a similar "this essay describes what may occur at AFD, but is not to be used as an argument". --Izno (talk) 16:06, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Certainly this discussion had brought clarity for me. I find the blind keep frustrating when they're is no policy involved. I've been there WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES as well and the train folk. I don't know how to react. Its kind of weird. scope_creepTalk 06:05, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Interactions between artist discographies and WP:NLIST, WP:NOT, WP:INDISCRIMINATE

Hi all, apologies if this is the wrong place to post this, please do point me to the right place if this is inappropriate. There is some debate in AfD recently regarding the discographies of a number of Indian singers, and I've found it hard to work out from existing policies WP:NLIST WP:NOT WP:INDISCRIMINATE how to assess the notability of these articles. This deletion discussion has had a lot of discussion, and while I'm inclined to believe deserves to be deleted, I'm unsure on what grounds we can assess whether discographies deserve their own pages. Neha Kakkar seems a relatively reputable Indian artist, but also has recorded a reported 50,000 songs. I'm not sure trying to document all that is particularly worthwhile, and WP:BEFORE doesn't seem to cover well what to do here. Some discographies like Eminem singles discography seem intuitively notable to me given all the secondary media discussing Eminem's life and how that links into the songs he's written. But I don't like the idea of trying to record 50,000 songs written anyone, Eminem included if he had written that many.

What's the right approach here?

Several of these deletion discussions are live right now:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs recorded by Lata Mangeshkar Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Bengali songs recorded by Shreya Ghoshal Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of songs recorded by Neha Kakkar

Not trying to canvass votes on these discussions, but I think there's room for WP:NLIST to be much more explicit about discographies/filmographies. What does it mean for an artist's discography to have been significantly discussed? What would that look like? BrigadierG (talk) 15:50, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Aside from the fact that the whole area of guidance regarding of lists in Wikipedia needs work..... Discographies of notable musicians seem to usually be given a pass as a sort of "sub article" to the musician's article. North8000 (talk) 16:45, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I reckon that if the discography is small, it can go in the musician's article. But if it makes the article too large, then split it off. The style of the music probably does not play a part. More important is the reliable sources. One extra concern that I have is the styling, if unusual formatting or fonts are used, then a link to the official web site, or image of the listing on the original media would be good. The discography could be a good target for redirects of non-notable albums and pieces. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:38, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia has a general list problem, which isn't limited to discographies. It doesn't help in this case that a group of editors have decided to attempt to impose a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (that NOT doesn't apply). Lists of songs should only be included when there is something to be said about the topic more than a mere "Here's a list of songs by X", and more than a copy-paste of the biography of the artist. For ex, List of songs recorded by the Beatles has detailed context about the songwriting and the evolution of the group's musical style. That, or when a reasonable amount of them are independently notable and the list can have a navigational function. I think the guidance at WP:CSC should be more thoroughly enforced, particularly for "complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group". RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:49, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Sometimes discography articles, and other types of articles, are created from page WP:SPLITS, into separate sub articles per WP:SIZERULE, part of the Wikipedia:Article size guideline page, to shorten the length of the main topical page. Unfortunately, sometimes users don't realize this, and then nominate them for deletion based upon rationales such as WP:NLIST, not realizing that it's a simple page split. Then users at AfD have to spend time explaining that page splits are allowed, that the precepts at WP:SPLIT and Wikipedia:Article size were decided upon via consensus, and that WP:NLIST does not automatically override sub articles that have been created via page splitting.
For example, at WP:SPINOUT, part of the Wikipedia:Article size guideline page, it specifically states, "Very large articles should be split into logically separate articles. Long stand-alone list articles are split into subsequent pages alphabetically, numerically, or subtopically".
Users follow the guideline to shorten page lengths, and then some of the split pages are sometimes nominated for deletion per WP:NLIST. There is a huge disconnect occurring here, and this disconnect negatively affects the encyclopedia.
WP:NLIST should include information about page splits and spinout articles, stating that such articles are not required to meet WP:NLIST per their inherent nature of being spinout articles. Also, WP:NLIST is not even mentioned at WP:SPINOUT, so editors may be being misled there about the potential fate of the work they perform to reduce article size, with the result being deletion. In other words, don't waste your time performing page splits, because there's a possibility of the time, energy and work you perform simply being deleted later. Roll the dice and see what happens.
And so, unfortunately, this bizarre vicious circle continues ad infinitum. North America1000 20:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
But no one should be splitting content into a new article if it doesn't meet notability as a standalone topic... JoelleJay (talk) 00:02, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Not true. Large article size is an acceptable reason for splitting, even if the individual sections don’t meet notability criteria on their own NemesisAT (talk) 00:21, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
but only if the new articles are themselves sufficiently notable to be included in the encyclopedia)
If one or more of the topics is not notable on its own, it may be more appropriate to simply remove the material from Wikipedia than to create a new article. JoelleJay (talk) 00:26, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
However notability depends on context. For an article or list that has been split out from a larger one, the context that needs to be considered is the larger topic not just the small one. For example if there are many sources that demonstrate the notability of say rail accidents as a whole, but none dealing with specifically with rail accidents that occurred between 2000 and 2009 that doesn't mean our List of rail accidents (2000–2009) article doesn't meet NLIST. Thryduulf (talk) 13:00, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I find that when splitting off sub-articles (especially lists) it is good practice to include an introductory paragraph or two that points back to the parent topic and repeats some of the basic info - to help establish why the sub-topic is notable. Blueboar (talk) 23:14, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
  • You assume that these lists do not meed WP:NLIST. You can assume that if you have a list you want to split from the article because of size you have two possibilities:

Either this list is notable in its own right because reliable sources about the list topic exist(I haven't checked all but they do seem to exist for at least one of the lists mentioned above, which is not a surprise) or the list can be trimmed or removed. Do not forget that reliability of sources depends on context.Lurking shadow (talk) 00:08, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

It is important to stress that NLIST does not try to assign notability to lists, only that we'd really like them to be notable, but there's no way we could actually enforce that given the amount of lists on WP. At least to me, if the list or the grouping on the list is not notable, the list should be a natural or common way that a subtopic aspect is presented in sources. And for that, -ographies like lists of songs or films a notable person has done is clearly one of those natural groupings you easily find used in general (not necessarily for the specific person) in sources. --Masem (t) 13:04, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Afd short circuited with inflammatory and accusatory statements

WP:WITHDRAWN says what needs to be done in case the user wants to withdraw. WP:NAC explains how AfD should be closed. A user has been badmouthing others and this is evident in his recent comments at AfD and closure that he has restored despite my objection to allow a neutral user to close. [2] I understand that the nom at any point of time can withdraw the nomination, but can he also close it? More importantly "Can the nominator withdraw the AfD with such bad faith accusations (non neutral closing statement)?" it appears to me as an attempt to short circuit the AfD discussion as the nom saw it not going his way. I request an uninvolved user to do a proper WP:NAC and redo the close. Since the nominator has resorted to edit warring to keep their WP:BADNAC.

(Afd participated by @Shshshsh, @Abbasulu @Visviva @Dharmadhyaksha, @DaxServer) Venkat TL (talk) 17:23, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

There is nothing which prevents an AfD nominator withdrawing their own AfD, particularly when it has been the topic of disruption and canvassing like here (including this). The proper question is "how many people making the same non-policy argument which misses the point makes it persuasive"? The answer should be "it is never persuasive". This seems to be a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS of editors thinking that stats-only song databases are somewhat acceptable, and coordinating to keep it that way (via Wikiproject pages, but also direct canvassing ex. as evidenced above). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:34, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I've seen a few cases where the nominator has withdrawn or blocked, and an admin commented that they'd let it open for the discussion to finish. RandomCanadian, I think you should have let the AfD continue. The closer would have assessed the result, and could have relisted it if needed. Withdrawing an AfD just one day after it started because you do not agree with the course of discussion up to that point is a pretty bad look. It looks like gaming, even if that was not your intent. MarioGom (talk) 17:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
What about the persistent lack-of-policy-based-arguments? It's frustrating because these discussions only seem to attract the same kind of comment coming from the exact same group of editors (all seemingly members of a few Indian-cinema-related wikiprojects). RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:56, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I am really curious to know what Indian-cinema-related (or even just India-related or cinema-related) wikiprojects you are claiming I am a member of. But that's beside the point; the whole reason for deletion sorting is that topic editors are best placed to weigh in on deletion. Your entire argument for deleting these articles has been that these lists are indiscriminate and unverifiable, which has been comprehensively debunked by multiple participants from both policy and factual standpoints. You can't just keep claiming that nobody has given arguments based in policy when multiple people have done exactly that. -- Visviva (talk) 18:14, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
It might be frustrating, but many closers do weight comments based on strength of policy-based arguments and source analysis, if present. MarioGom (talk) 19:02, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Frankly, I would re-open that AfD, because as a closer I would ignore every single one of those Keep rationales. There isn't a decent source which actually discusses the subject in that article - every single one is a database listing, from a website where it isn't clear if it's even reliable. Obviously, there may be good sourcing for such as list, but it doesn't exist at the moment. Black Kite (talk) 18:03, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    Ignoring arguments you don't like or disagree with doesn't sound like a very sound way to close a discussion, particularly in a matter as serious as deletion. -- Visviva (talk) 18:14, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    It's not about liking or disliking them. Leaving that particular AFD aside, it's not uncommon for closers to consider validity of arguments and source analysis. It's not a vote, after all. MarioGom (talk) 19:04, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    Ignoring arguments that are directly refuted by our policies and guidelines is exactly the way to close a discussion, and WP:CON says exactly that. It does not matter how many people raise their hand in agreement for something that is invalid, that has never factored in to any meaning of consensus on this website. nableezy - 20:13, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    That may be true in general (we can discuss WP:CON's unfortunate mis-evolution elsewhere), but it would be wildly misapplied in these AFDs, where many users including me have made detailed arguments specifically refuting the nominator's arguments and explaining why none of the policies the nominator invoked (variously WP:NOT, WP:V, WP:NLIST and somewhat bizarrely WP:CSC) provide a basis for deleting these specific articles. -- Visviva (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
    Finally, the voice of reason. PRAXIDICAE🌈 19:06, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I agree with Black Kite. It would be advisable to let the discussion continue be closed by a neutral uninvolved user; an admin closure would be even better — DaxServer (t · m · c) 19:08, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm sure that I've seen something to the effect that the AfD nominator may withdraw the AfD at any time provided that all the !votes so far have been Keep (or equivalent), such withdrawals (if not closed at the time) get closed as speedy keep. In this case, I see no !votes that are not keep. Anyway, this is Asha Bhosle, right? As in Brimful of Asha? She's huge in Indian entertainment. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • AfDs are del-sorted to invite users who know the topic so these users can thus give more better reasons of keep/delete. Similarly, its expected that even the AfD nominator should have basic knowledge of the topic. From the opening comments of nominator, its clearly evident that they have no knowledge of the topic as they are not sure of the songs are "written" or "first-recorded". When they gain the knowledge of Indian film industry, they can try and insinuate the knowledgeable users by raising so many similar AFDs and try to waste other user's time.
    As to the self-closure-i-am-being-harassed excuse, i am on the side that an un-involved user (admin or not) should have closed the AfD. (I wont be surprised if the same user again nominates these pages after few month/years and wastes everyone's time and then argue that old AfD was self-closed and hence they have every right to re-open!!) §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {Talk / Edits} 09:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
  • "hopelessly disrupted by the "keep singer is notable"/"keep other shit exists" bandwagon" This comment was unwarranted and borderline WP:ABF. The purpose of closing statement is to summarize the consensus (or none thereof). It is not intended to push the nominator's viewpoint. While withdrawing the nomination may be within the guidelines, making such a remark certainly wasn't. -- Ab207 (talk) 09:58, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
    @Ab207 indeed. Nominator lacks this basic understanding and yet edit wars to keep his partisan remarks. From the above discusssion I see there is a consensus to revert this closure and let an univolved admin/user close it. @RandomCanadian If you revert me and close it for a third time, you will be reported for edit warring. Venkat TL (talk) 11:32, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
    If you want to dispute the close, the correct place is WP:DRV. Personally, I see no issue with it. BilledMammal (talk) 11:37, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
  • What exactly is the policy that is being refuted/changed here? Is it a question of whether we can withdraw an WP:AfD in this case? WP:EARLY covers this. WP:WITHDRAWN says:
While the nominator may withdraw their nomination at any time, if subsequent editors have suggested an outcome besides keep or added substantive comments unrelated to deletion, the discussion should not be closed simply because the nominator wishes to withdraw it. The nominator can strike out their nom statement, and add a note about the withdrawal. Early closure is inappropriate where it appears that the withdrawal is simply an attempt to short-circuit an ongoing discussion. If the nominator appears to have genuinely changed their mind due to other views expressed, the discussion should not be considered withdrawn. Instead, consider whether to use any of the early closures below.
In essence, a withdrawn AfD should be done in good faith, being that they think they are misguided in the original nom, or that the item is now better than it was when it was nommed. It's not a rage-quit button. If there is issues of inpropriety by individual users, WP:ANI is the place. For what it is worth, WP:LISTN is the reason for or against a deletion of this page. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:03, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski yes, "rage-quit button" seems to be the perfect word for this closing statement. I am not sure what/if this needs a change of text in the WP:WITHDRAWN. As @Dharmadhyaksha predicted in his comment, I believe such an incident is likely. @BilledMammal This is a snow Speedy keep. A proper closing statement is needed here for future AfDs if Any. undoing the close and letting someone uninvolved handle the AfD, would do the needful here. The consensus is clear. starting another thread at DRV would be WP:BURO or should I copy this thread to DRV. Venkat TL (talk) 12:15, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Snow-keep would not be the correct close either - currently two admins have indicated that would ignore every single one of those Keep rationales. If you believe there is a clear consensus from this discussion and WP:DRV would be bureaucracy, then I would suggest putting in a request at WP:RFCL, as per WP:INVOLVED you should not be assessing the consensus of this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 12:23, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Absolutely correct. If you asked me to unclose and reclose that AfD as I would a normal AfD which I'd never seen before, I'd actually close it as No Consensus because, as I said above, there aren't enough policy-based rationales to make a decision on, or more likely I'd re-list it, which probably doesn't help the issue either. Are there reliable sources out there talking about her body of work? I'll bet there probably are. But hand-waving at "She's really famous, so any article about her must also be notable" doesn't work. Black Kite (talk) 12:33, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
OK @Black Kite I posted here as I was not sure what to do after getting reverted. @BilledMammal Thank you. I have posted at RFCL as you suggested. Venkat TL (talk) 12:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Policy-based rationales

  • I would rather be doing something constructive, but since it has been repeatedly inaccurately stated above that no policy-based rationales for keeping these articles were presented, I will take the liberty of spelling out my own rationale for keeping in somewhat greater detail. I will address each of the policies that have been adduced in support of deletion (including those that were never actually raised in the nomination, even though that is an absurd thing to expect). Here are the nominations I am addressing, which are all substantially identical, and in which I have provided substantially identical policy-based arguments, as have many others: Mangeshkar- Ghoshal- Bhosle - Malik - Kakkar
    • WP:LISTN states 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 entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. First, by the plain language of this guideline, it is not a basis for deletion. It simply provides "one accepted reason" for notability. If you think it is possible for a list to "fail WP:LISTN", you need to read the policy you claim to be enforcing. Second, even if this were a basis for deletion, it is nonsensical to apply it to the body of work of a singer who is notable for that body of work. Nobody appears to be seriously suggesting that any of the singers are non-notable, so to claim that their body of work is non-notable is dubious on its face, and there has been no evidence or argument in favor of such an extreme claim. So even if LISTN could apply in favor of deletion (it cannot), it does not apply here, because a glance at the singers' articles shows that their body of work has been discussed extensively by independent reliable sources and plainly satisfies the GNG.
    • WP:CSC is a bulleted list that begins Lists are commonly written to satisfy one of the following sets of criteria. Like WP:LISTN, this is simply an empirical description of certain accepted practices. (This sort of empirical description was the actual purpose of guidelines originally, so it's not surprising to come across these kinds of passages.) It is not worded in the exclusive terms that could support deletion, because there is no consensus that it should be worded that way. To say that any list "fails WP:CSC" turns consensus on its head and reads the guideline upside-down. At best WP:CSC would be an argument for trimming the list based on tighter inclusion criteria, but that would be a matter for the collaborative editing process, not the zero-sum deletion process.
    • WP:V requires that All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists, and captions, must be verifiable. The lists might benefit from additional inline citations, but no argument has been made that the information in these lists cannot be verified -- and certainly not that none of it can be verified, which is what would be required for WP:V to provide a proper basis for deletion.
    • WP:INDISCRIMINATE / WP:NOTDATABASE states that Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe that exists or has existed. It goes on to list some specific examples of what Wikipedia isn't (none of which apply here -- the closest one is "lyrics databases"). There is nothing about these carefully designed and structured lists that would violate WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The arguments to the contrary have been basically "I said it's indiscriminate, therefore it's indiscriminate."
    • WP:NOTADIRECTORY lists some more examples of what Wikipedia isn't. None of these apply either, but let's go through the top three.
      • Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. These are definitely not that, since each entry is contextualized with the film they appeared in (frequently bluelinked) and other important encyclopedic context.
      • Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional). ... Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are relevant because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic. These songs are certainly "associated with ... the list topic", i.e. the singer, so I guess this one speaks for itself.
      • Non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations, such as "people from ethnic / cultural / religious group X employed by organization Y" or "restaurants specializing in food type X in city Y". In this context I guess that would be somoething like "Hindi-language songs that appeared in films that also featured unrelated actor X". A list of songs that a notable singer has recorded is not a "non-encyclopedic cross-categorization." It seems unlikely that anyone would object to an otherwise identical list for a less-prolific singer, which could simply be embedded in the singer's article. So this one doesn't apply either.
    • In short, all the "policy-based" rationales for deletion are so spurious as to be indistinguishable from WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
  • Now that I've written that all up, I am curious if the admins (!) who have claimed that they would disregard my keep rationale because it was not based on policy would also disregard the above. Is the problem that my arguments are not based on policy, or is the problem simply that you don't like them? I will point out that in typing this comment, in addition to violating my own zero-reply rule for the severalth time, I have already expended vastly more effort than the nominator did in making these nominations. This is absurd when a simple glance at the cited policies and the nominated article would show that there is no basis for deletion here. A system that requires this level of effort and engagement simply for a !vote to be considered is profoundly broken. (Even setting aside the fact that most "delete" !votes on AfD, here and elsewhere, simply shout an all-caps shortcut without any reasoned justification -- or, frequently, any sign that the !voter has read the article at all -- yet are still taken seriously in closing, so this expectation seems to operate in only one direction.) For that matter, a system that privileges "policy-based rationales" over arguments based on the purpose of the encyclopedia -- which is the only reason we have policies to begin with -- is both profoundly broken and improperly exclusionary for an open and free encyclopedia. These nominations show how bad things are. AFD is destroying the project and must be either reformed or eliminated. -- Visviva (talk) 16:12, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
    To be clear, that wasn't meant to be a rhetorical question. Do I need to write a detailed textual rationale in every AFD in which I oppose deletion, in order for my !vote to be considered in evaluating consensus? Is the above enough? Do I need more? Is there a magic word I've been leaving out? -- Visviva (talk) 18:40, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
    First, yes. If you want your !vote to be considered, you need to explain your vote in the context of policy. Second, your arguments appear to flawed - for example, it is possible to fail WP:LISTN, and though failing it doesn't require the article is deleted, it removes an argument to keep it.
    However, the real issue is that you don't provide a policy based reason to keep the article. You attempt to explain why the nominators arguments for deletion are incorrect, but no one in that discussion provides a policy based reason to keep it - the only editor to try is Abbasulu, but they argue that notability is inherited, and that argument isn't based on policy which means it is appropriate for closers to ignore it. BilledMammal (talk) 02:48, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

Improper acceptance of a new proposal as policy

Hello. There was a discussion which went on for months, and it was sort of properly advertised. But that discussion was not an actual/formal RfC (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics/Archive 4#Proposal : Wikipedia:Naming conventions Indian constituencies). This discussion was later disputed at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Indian constituencies)#Proposal state, and again at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 173#Proposal for new article title naming convention - RfC or local consensus. In these discussions, at least four editors expressed their view as the proposal was put forward improperly, and a fresh RfC was advised. Yet the proposer (User:Venkat TL) continued to advertise the discussion up until four days ago (special:diff/1094440659). Later that discussion was improperly closed by User:Mellohi! as a "consensus" while there are still differing opinions about the bracketing, and capitalisation. Detailed information of proposal, and related discussions can be found at special:permalink/1095055925#Venkat TL mass page moves. I propose for a fresh AfD RfC, and the current policy to be invalidated. I will shortly notify the talkpages. Regards, —usernamekiran (talk) 06:48, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  • If you think the close was improper, at least talk with the closer before continuing to flog it in high-visibility forums. Otherwise your argument of "sticking to the process" comes off as self-serving. I also think close reviews should go to WP:AN, but you might of course know better. Hemantha (talk) 07:31, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
However, this should first be discussed with the closer, and if the closer declines to alter their close the correct location to appeal the close is WP:AN, not here. BilledMammal (talk) 09:08, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Reworded RfC on the addition of a stand-alone page creation criteria to the geography notability guideline

RFC to clarify that notable geographical topics do not need to have stand-alone articles. See Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Drafting of stand-alone page criteria for WP:NGEO, based on feedback at recent RfC. Previous proposal, withdrawn to reword it: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#RfC_on_the_addition_of_a_stand-alone_page_creation_criteria_to_the_geography_notability_guideline

Background

Wikipedia has many very short geographical article stubs. This proposal is to add a section to WP:NGEO that will clarify, in line with the existing WP:NOPAGE guideline, that information on notable geographical topics may sometimes be best included in parent articles. The draft wording of the addition to WP:NGEO is given below:

RFC

Should the following section be added to WP:Notability (geographic features)? — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 10:34, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

== Whether to create standalone pages ==

As stated in WP:NOPAGE, "Sometimes, understanding [of a notable topic] is best achieved by presenting the material on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we do so. There are other times when it is better to cover notable topics, that clearly should be included in Wikipedia, as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context." For example, a majority of a river's tributaries may meet the notability criteria defined in this guideline, but there is little to be said about most of them. In this case, we may include a list of tributaries in the river's article, with standalone articles for some tributaries and redirect articles pointing to the list entries for other tributaries. A similar approach may be followed for hamlets or neighborhoods in a municipality, stations on a railway line, and other geographical features.

Merging a short stub about a notable topic into a parent article may improve the reader experience if it presents the topic in a broader context, as long as a redirect from the stub title is maintained, with suitable categories to assist navigation. The redirect target may be an entry in a stand-alone list or an entry in a list or sub-section within the parent article. The information may be formatted as a sortable table, a bulleted list, paragraphs, or sub-sections depending on the type of content. The redirect should point to the position in the parent article that holds the merged content, which may be identified by an {{anchor}} template. Maximum care should be taken to preserve the information that was part of the stub. Examples: MacDonald River (Côte-Nord)#Lakes and Alachua County, Florida#Historic communities in Alachua County.

It is important to follow the process described at Wikipedia:Merging when merging articles, with particular care to publicising controversial proposals at relevant WikiProjects. A merge does not preclude expanding the redirect back into a standalone page if more information comes to light.

— Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 10:34, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Survey NGEO

  • Yes, as proposer Before outlining my vote, I will first mention some important aspects of Wikipedia policies and guidelines for context. Firstly, notability is not the same as stand-alone page creation criteria. From Wikipedia:Notability: [Presumption of notability] is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article. From Wikipedia:Notability#Whether_to_create_standalone_pages: Sometimes, understanding is best achieved by presenting the material on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we do so. There are other times when it is better to cover notable topics, that clearly should be included in Wikipedia, as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context. A decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic. Secondly, there is no strong community consensus or policy argument against the existence of stubs, although guidelines support their existence if and when they are capable of expansion (WP:AVOIDSPLIT: If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate article, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list., WP:STUB: A stub is an article that, although providing some useful information, lacks the breadth of coverage expected from an encyclopedia, and that is capable of expansion. bolding my own). Finally, WP:NGEO currently presumes all legally recognized places to be notable. This means that there are hundreds of thousands of articles (mostly stubs) that can be created off of a single source.
    I will now provide some arguments for why I think having specific criteria for stand-alone geo pages would be useful. To begin with, the ratio of active geo editors to geo pages is almost negligibly small. This means that not only do geo editors need to patrol many articles for them to be kept up to date or prevent misinformation, but also that large-scale misinformation campaigns or long-standing mistakes are unlikely to be caught in a timely manner (the Abadi mistranslation issue being a particularly notable mistake requiring over 13,000 page deletions). Thus, there are practical issues for the community when it comes to managing the geo pages effectively based on the current NGEO guideline. Secondly, geography stubs are unlikely to be of much use to our readers in an encyclopedic manner. Confirming that a town exists or finding out there is a town in Turkey called Afşar gives our readers very little information. Having some criteria for when to merge geostubs into their parent article or some list article could greatly improve the context and breadth of information that readers receive, without removing the information that is currently accessible as a geostub article. Finally, having more guidance on when and how to create separate articles for geographical features would be useful to new editors who don't have the experience to understand the unspoken nuances in the notability guidelines or community expectations.
    In conclusion, I think having a separate section of NGEO outlining criteria for when and how to create stand-alone pages for geographic features would be of significant benefit to the community in the future. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 10:34, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support the principal - but the proposed language is TLDR… can we summarize? Blueboar (talk) 12:44, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
    Blueboar open to suggestions :) — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 20:06, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support nothing new here. The proposal only collects existing information from other pages and adds it for user convenience. I have merged several geo stubs myself, following existing rules listed above. Venkat TL (talk) 12:54, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose because it does not add anything to the global policies. This proposal seems to be motivated by the existence of many articles about geographical features that could be merged. It's not that I am against the objective of merging in this case—I trust that the editors know what they are doing, but the policy is independent of this particular situation and it should remain neutral, even within the particular domain of geographical features. The policy says that stand alone articles, even stand alone stubs, that are forked content are fine. It depends on the situation. How to organize a topic into many articles is not fixed by the policy. It should remain like that. (See comments and discussions). Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:30, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support This is good guidance that represents current best practices, though I agree with the commenter below that it could be a bit more concise. Reywas92Talk 19:45, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment. The sentence The information may be formatted as a sortable table, a bulleted list, paragraphs or sub-sections depending on the type of content is missing a comma after the word "or"; WP:NGEO is written with oxford commas.— Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 21:51, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    Fixed, thanks Mhawk10 :) — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 22:38, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support. Consistent with other guidelines and just reiterates what is already encouraged. JoelleJay (talk) 02:05, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. After thinking about this more, I can't support the text because it's rather imprecise. A quick search through all of the Hamlets of Canada's territories (See: 1, 2, 3), appear to be either substantial articles or stubs where I get something out of it that is more than "X exists". I fear that the example using Hamlets will encourage inappropriate mergers of articles both where standalone stubs do a fine job covering the topic and where more-than-stubs may be pressured to be merged into county-level articles. On top of that, ordinary railroad stations need to pass WP:GEOFEAT#2 (require significant in-depth coverage by reliable, third-party sources to establish notability) or WP:GEOFEAT#3 (notable under Wikipedia's WP:GNG), each of which should make it more than reasonable that the article be expanded rather than lazily upmerged. The only real area where geostubs can actually have very little more published information than X exists and still be worthy of including in the encyclopedia (per WP:NGEO) is the clade of Populated, legally recognized places. If the proposal were going to simply give merging advice for those sorts of items, I might feel differently, but the proposal goes far beyond that limited scope in its merge recommendations. For the reason that I believe that the implementation of this language would be more likely to encourage editors to upmerge stubs to a parent rather than to expand existing stubs, I must oppose. — Ⓜ️hawk10 (talk) 02:25, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support, with no objection to concision or other wording tweaks suggested. Wikipedia articles should help readers first and foremost, and placing topics of which there is very little to say within a wider contextual framework does this. (Reducing editor burden for maintaining multiple pages is a plus.) While the proposed text does not create new policy, it usefully points out an application of existing policy. I am specifically inclined to support here as this practice reflects the current consensus of WP:PHILIPPINES, which after numerous AfDs and some discussion has agreed that barangays are not always best covered on standalone pages (ie. the "hamlets or neighborhoods in a municipality" example mentioned). CMD (talk) 02:28, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose The proposed verbiage does not say anything useful as it's a vague case-by-case evaluation rather than some specific guidance. And its bias against specific articles about particular places is foolish. It is generally best to have tight articles about particular places because:
    1. The scope of the topic is more likely to be clear when it's a particular place rather than an arbitrary assortment
    2. The name of a particular place is more likely to be clear and unambiguous
    3. The coordinates of a particular place are more likely to be clear and exact
    4. A picture of a particular place will be easier to agree upon
See also WP:CREEP and the KISS principle.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:56, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
Andrew, I'd appreciate some clarification on your arguments.
  1. What do you mean by "arbitrary assortment".
  2. I'm not entirely sure what names have to do with coverage of a notable location. Perhaps an example would be useful in this point.
  3. Wikipedia is not a database so being against merging (for example) for the purpose of coordinate collection seems counterintuitive to me. Additionally, with the hundreds of thousands of geostubs that have never been checked by other editors (NPP will tend to check that it's sourced correctly and passes NGEO rather than fix coordinates), I actually believe the opposite is an issue. Having hundreds of thousands of articles with negligible oversight means coordinates, if wrong, will stay on the mainpage for years on end.
  4. Why are pictures a key determinant when choosing to merge/create or not to merge/create articles? If they aren't, I fail to see the relevance of this point.
  5. In regards to creep, I strongly disagree my proposal would result in creep. Which of the criteria in the CREEP page do you think the proposal fails? Because in my mind there (I) is a very real problem of an unsustainable and overwhelming amount of geostubs with little to no context that no one can or bothers to patrol for accuracy of information, (II) the proposal would clarify how NOPAGE applies to NGEO in a way that will result in more constructive discussions on geo content curation, (III) this RfC would satisfy the consensus requirement if passed (taking into account that NOPAGE is already strongly-supported policy and the proposal doesn't create new rules but rather clarifies the relation of NGEO to NOPAGE). — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 13:40, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
    • A good example of an "arbitrary assortment" is Alachua County, Florida#Historic communities in Alachua County. This details information about a random assortment of places in an arbitrary way while not doing the same for other places in the county such as Hogtown or Lochloosa. Such chaotic clutter does not seem helpful to the reader. It is much simpler and straightforward if there's a separate page for each place. These pages will have a natural title and the coordinates, pictures and other content will likewise cohere in a commonsense way. The proposed text provides no clear guidance about this and so has no value; it's just superfluous verbiage which will make writers less likely to read any of the existing guidance per WP:TLDR. This is the key point of WP:CREEP, "...bloated pages that new editors find intimidating and experienced editors ignore". Andrew🐉(talk) 07:46, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
      I agree that Alachua County might not be the best example. I think a good example would be something like New York City#Boroughs (assuming they didn't have their own pages). The mix of images, maps, and brief descriptions follows what I'd say would be close to ideal for describing subdivisions of a populated place (I don't see coordinate information as strictly necessary encyclopedic content). What type of guidance would you hope the guideline have if the proposal is updated, Andrew? — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 08:29, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
      • Coordinates are expected in geographical topics and seem fairly fundamental. They support useful features such as the Special:Nearby function. If multiple places were forced together into arbitrary assortments then this would break that function. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:53, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per Andrew Davidson. Unfortunately vague text that lacks specificity, and which isn't likely to be of much help in real, contentious, situations. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:16, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. (1) As others have already said, this adds nothing useful to policy and is TLDS where a simple link to WP:NOPAGE would do. (2) It is a solution in search of a problem. I pay particular attention to GEOLAND articles nominated for deletion and I have rarely, if ever, seen opposition to merging a stubby village article when a suitable target exists. Much more often the problem is stubby village articles get nominated for deletion instead of doing the work of merging. The proposer has not given a single example of where a one line "it exists" page has been kept standalone rather than merged because of a misunderstanding of guidlelines. (3) The text as well as being overlong is factually wrong in a number of places. For instance, it is not true that "a majority of a river's tributaries may meet the notability criteria". Just the opposite in fact, the majority of named streams are entirely non-notable. Besides which, the guideline already gives the similar example of river islands as possible candidates for merging. The guideline also already has guidance on merging populated places. SpinningSpark 14:55, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support: hamlets or neighborhoods in a municipality, stations on a railway line cause significant problems, particularly in New Page Patrol. How do these one-line articles get notability? Just because they exist? Not on your nelly. Merging into a parent article is a proper solution. --Whiteguru (talk) 21:06, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
    @Whiteguru: The guideline already recommends merging for one-line articles that "cannot be developed using known sources". Nobody (mostly) is arguing against that. The question here is whether this monstrous verbiage of an inaccurate addition is going to help. Also, can you please open a thread in the discussion section explaining why this is such a huge problem in NPP. To me it looks like tag with "notability" or "suggested merge" and job done. SpinningSpark 07:35, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Support, while I agree that it is redundant to already existing policies and guidelines, sometimes (as is the case in this field) it is necessary to be redundant in order to highlight the fact that geographic articles do not enjoy a privileged states with regard to various PAGs on article creation, notability, and the like. I like the addition because it brings into highlight what should be best practices that years have history have taught are not usually followed in this realm. --Jayron32 14:43, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose There is nothing here that isn't already covered in WP:FAILN. There are adequate procedures to discern which geographical topics are likely to be notable, and most neighborhoods and rivers are not notable enough even to be mentioned, let alone described, in an associated article. Case in point, not all of the lakes of MacDonald_River_(Côte-Nord) are covered in that section, just the ones where nontrivial information is available (and Lake Larry should also have its own subsection as it is associated with a national park).
    On the other hand, ghost towns in the United States are usually notable if there is evidence that it was ever a legally recognized place, and this is implicity recognized in the current wording of NGEO, so the bullets in Alachua_County,_Florida, should be split finto their own articles, as is done for the vast majority of US counties. It is not clear that the content in the examples given was merged from elsewhere, or that they reflect an established practice.
    Lastly, in some countries, very small communities are not called hamlets; for example, villages in Myanmar are below the usual cutoff of legal recognition for that country, and instead each township of Myanmar has a list of villages. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 15:14, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Good thoughts there but oppose IMO it is long essay-like advice / opinion which really doesn't add anything. Also the example given is non-typical of geo articles in an important way. For the example, the next level up (river vs. tributary) is invariably more real-world notable/ recognizable and also unique (a tributary goes only to one river). Regarding an inhabited place that passes NGEO, the next level up (e.g. a township or a country) is usually more abstract, often less real-world notable, and often not unique. For example, a small town may straddle the border between multiple townships or counties. A much better idea would be to prohibit mass-creation from mere database entries. A proposal for that a few months ago IMHO passed but in reality faded awary and got a stale no-consensus close. If an editor is going to spend real time creating a short geo article IMO that carries some weight and less likel to be any big problem compared to being just one of a set of 1,000 mass creations. North8000 (talk) 15:59, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
@North8000: Re "A much better idea would be to prohibit mass-creation from mere database entries." I thought that this was already deprecated for many years. A 2009 discussion closed with a requirement that such activity required a bot approval Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 66#Proposal: Any large-scale semi-/automated article creation task require BRFA. This should still be in force unless something radical has changed that I'm not aware of. This is certainly not the only place this issue has been discussed. In particular, there have been many discussions around mass-creation of GEO stubs from the GNIS database (which has resulted in a large number of inaccurate stubs). Another one that proved controversial was mass creation of astronomical objects from databases, the vast majority of which are permanently non-notable. SpinningSpark 15:37, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
@Spinningspark: Hopefully that history (that I was unaware of) is in force. But a recent happening made me think otherwise. A few months ago we had a major proposal / discussion with lots of comments on adding wording discouraging mass creation of articles. This was not mentioned. (I ran out of wiki-minutes looking for it) It got forgotten. I thought it was a "pass" and asked for a close and the close was "no consensus" . North8000 (talk) 16:05, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
I found it. July 2021 at wp:Notability. A previous restriction on mass creation by bots was mentioned. North8000 (talk) 16:24, 2 June 2022 (UTC)
@North8000: Yes, it is actually written into policy at WP:MASSCREATE, probably as a result of the above linked discussion. Note that bot approval is required for bot-like editing using semi-automated tools like AutoWikiBrowser as well as genuine bots. Approval is never given without a community discussion supporting it for things that are not purely uncontroversial maintenance. SpinningSpark 08:04, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There's nothing wrong with the proposed language, but experience suggests that adding this as a section of a Notability Guideline (cue theme music) will inevitably lead to it be turned into an all-caps shortcut and taken to unwise extremes. Merging is sometimes appropriate, and vastly better for the health of project than deletion. But it often has significant downsides both for user experience and article improvement. To take the proposer's example of Afşar: as a reader, even the existing two-sentence stub gives me easy access to information about the village's location and population that I would have a hard time finding if it were buried in a list. And as to article improvement, tr:Afşar, Bolu, while still quite minimal, has considerably more content than the English article. So the English article is capable of being expanded -- which would be unlikely to happen if the existing information were merged into a list of settlements. Good merging requires balancing these considerations, and even small amendments to guidelines can easily upset that balance. I think the existing policies provide sufficient guidance. It would not be an improvement to have something that editors could casually cite as authority, AFD-style ("Merging 500 stubs into a single list per WP:GEOMERGE"). -- Visviva (talk) 17:38, 1 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose. If there is consensus for the spirit of the proposal, please, make it more concise, and more reliant on other existing guidelines such as WP:NOPAGE. All the subject-specific notability guidelines and other notability-related guidelines are already complex enough, and sometimes ambiguous or contradictory. MarioGom (talk) 20:04, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose adding this lengthy "Whether to create standalone pages" addition to Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features) (NGEO). There's ambiguity in the paragraph using terms such as what is "best" and "better", and it comes across as more of an opinion essay. Since NGEO is an official guideline page, this essay-like opinion would simply introduce more instruction creep into the process, and merges can still continue without the addition. Also opposing per the rationale presented by Visviva, because this type of instruction could then lead to an unfortunate predicament in which users merge and redirect stub articles that are actually expandable, but have not been expanded, as well as having a potential for being taken to unwise extremes, preventing article from being expanded. For example, let's say that user A merges and redirects, then user B comes along, restores the article and then expands it, and then User A blanks and redirects again, simply citing the all-caps shortcut on the NGEO page and leaving an edit summary stating, "no, this article is not allowed". This is inevitably the sort of thing that would eventually occur. North America1000 19:15, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussions

  • I don't like survey in a RfC that are not complementary to a discussion. The most important in a RfC is the arguments, the discussion. The consensus is best obtained through a discussion. A survey is only there to help. It does not replace the discussion. Besides, in some RfCs, the outcome is more nuanced than a support or a reject. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:57, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
    Dominic Mayers calling the section "Survey" is commonplace on wiki, in my experience, and does not impede discussion. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 14:20, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
    Perhaps it's only a question of terminology, but a separate section where people summarize their position is useful and is best kept separated from the discussion section. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:25, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Perhaps a simpler paragraph that simply says that the global policies Wikipedia:Summary style, Wikipedia:Content forking, Wikipedia:Article size, and Wikipedia:Merging, as summarized in WP:PAGEDECIDE, apply to geographic features as well would be more appropriate. My understanding is that a group of editors consider that a lot of small articles should be merged into larger articles. There is nothing wrong with that, especially if it is does not create a polemic. However, I don't see that we should duplicate what is already written in the policies to support that. It is paradoxical that the goal is to keep Wikipedia simple, but it accomplishes that by making its policy more complex with duplication. Dominic Mayers (talk) 13:57, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
  • If the intention is to discourage systematically content forking in the context of articles on geographical features, then this is not the same as the global policy. It should not be presented as an application of this global policy. It becomes then a specific policy for articles on geographical features. Some rational that is specific to articles on geographical features would have to be given to justify this more specific policy. I have not seen this rational. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:23, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    What? I'm so confused as to what you interpret the proposed addition's impact/relation with content forking is, Dominic Mayers. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 21:25, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    I don't know what confuses you. I don't see this in a complicated manner. When a topic is divided into many articles, this is content forking. It's natural and some times necessary, especially in large topics. There is nothing pejorative in the concept of content forking. It should not be confused with POV forking. Dominic Mayers (talk) 21:42, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    I understand what forking is, Dominic Mayers, I'm just confused as to what exactly in the proposed wording discourages systematically content forking as well as what "systemic content forking" is. You say "the global policy", but that may refer to any sections of the policies and guidelines. Perhaps rewording your initial comment to be less vague would be helpful in that regard. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 22:42, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    I agree that the proposed wording does not discourage forking. In fact, it seems to repeat what the global policy says regarding forking and the global policy does not discourage forking. It's just that you described separately, in your comment, a problematic situation which requires merging as a solution. I agree that the situation is confusing, but this is because there is no connection between the objective that you describe and the policy: the policy does not encourage merging (nor discourage it) and merging seems to be your goal. Dominic Mayers (talk) 23:04, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    Dominic Mayers I personally do believe that the addition to NGEO encourages more frequent and widespread merging of geographic articles in cases where it makes sense. At the very least it clarifies it as a valid editorial decision so voting to keep a geostub in an AFD "per NGEO" demands a conversation on whether merging or keeping the stand-alone article is the best way to preserve the content, which would be a massive improvement over the current state of affairs where the de facto assumption is all articles that pass NGEO deserve their own pages. In the sense of PAGs not encouraging merging, the PAGs encourage editorial decisions that benefit our mission, our readers, and our ability as editors to continue our work on the wiki sustainably. When taking decisions regarding how to present content to our readers, I think guidelines that acknowledge the existence of merging as an option are helpful to the community, which is why I proposed the addition of the section to NGEO. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 23:30, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    If you give the impression that a different policy is needed, when it's not the case, then you weaken your position: only a few people are here to discuss what you propose, the wording, etc. whereas the global policy has the support of the community at large. Unless you need to have a specific policy adapted to articles on geographical features, I don't see what is the purpose here. As a minimum, make it clear that you refer to the global policy. I still do not see the point of repeating it, but there will be no harm. What is clear is that, if you need a support from the community for merging many articles and the existing policy is sufficient, then the best way is to discuss the specific of the situation in the light of this policy, not confuse this with a discussion of the policy for the sake of improving it. Dominic Mayers (talk) 23:56, 16 May 2022 (UTC)
    Dominic Mayers I'm not proposing entirely new policy but rather an addition to NGEO that brings it closer in alignment to NOPAGE, which is part of WP:N. The issue is that sometimes when you propose merging articles based on NOPAGE, editors will reply they believe the article should be kept separate based on NGEO (see one of the AFDs I started in line with WP:BLAR), completely ignoring NOPAGE. That is why specific guidance on the NGEO guideline would be beneficial. I'm happy to discuss this in more detail on my talk page if you wish to have a conversation about it, as we are taking up quite a bit of space here. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 13:52, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
    We are not taking too much space here at all. We are discussing exactly what needs to be discussed. Yes, I would support a clarification that passing the notability requirement is not at all a sufficient criterion for a stand alone page. That seems to be your main point. In fact, if it is not already clarified at the global policy level, it should be. You could then refer to that clarification, which is or would be provided at the global level. I suggest that you limit the proposal to that. Just have this single main point. Dominic Mayers (talk) 14:33, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
  • The proposal states For example, a majority of a river's tributaries may meet the notability criteria defined in this guideline, but there is little to be said about most of them. If this is an accurate description of the situation, the guideline is problematic: it's weird that it classifies as notable geographical features about which there is little to be said. Perhaps this is the real issue at stake here. Stubs are a different thing. We create a stub when we are pretty sure there is enough to be said about the subject. If we have many stubs with little to be said on the subject and the guideline supports that, it's a problem with the guideline. I admit that I do not know much about the history of the guideline. I was summoned at random by a bot to give my comment. If this has been discussed before and the guideline remained like that, then perhaps not enough people were involved in that previous discussion or the sentence above is not an accurate description of the situation. Dominic Mayers (talk) 12:54, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
    As I pointed out in my !vote, this is completely inaccurate. The guideline supports no such thing, it says "named natural features are often notable". It does not say they are always notable, and then goes on to give named river islands as candidates for merging into the river article. It is obvious to anyone reading the guideline that river tributaries will fall under the same principle. There is no need for this lengthy addition to the guideline to explicitly state that. SpinningSpark 07:44, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
    "Little to be said" is a case of selection bias: no one has currently taken the time to find historical context, so there must not be any! One might have thought there was "little to be said" about the Jordanhill railway station until it became the 1 millionth article and, somehow, it turns out there was information out there all along. (Given that a lot of these geography articles are in non-English-speaking areas, "little to be said" also generally means "little in English.") Gnomingstuff (talk) 16:30, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

RfC question

Let's say some controversial text was added to a BLP. Then, after much discussion, an RfC was started to resolve whether the text should be included in the BLP or not. And then, there was no consensus to the RfC. In other words, there was no consensus to add the text, but also no consensus to remove it. Does the text stay or does it go? I ask this because BLPs are unique. Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:31, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

It goes, per WP:BLPUNDEL and WP:ONUS. There needs to be consensus to add the text in order to add the text. Levivich[block] 16:21, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
@Levivich: Thanks! Magnolia677 (talk) 17:22, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
In that situation, the text-in-question has to be deleted. GoodDay (talk) 22:39, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

How long does material have to be part of the article before a discussion is about removing existing material vs adding new material

Here's the scenario: an editor adds material to an existing article. Some time elapses and another editor questions the addition on the talk page. Some discussion ensues without consensus being reached. WP:NOCON states

"In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit."

Seems clear to me that if the material was questioned within hours or a couple of days of it being added, the policy would be to remove the material due to a lack of consensus to include it. OTOH, if the material had been up for a couple of years, the material should be retained as there is no consensus to remove it.

My question is: what is the time period that must elapse before the default result becomes keep instead of remove?

I'm not expecting a precise answer, like "exactly 23.57 fortnights", but some general guidance on how to apply this policy.

(note: I framed this as an addition to the article, but it would equally apply to modifications or deletions. I focused on additions for simplicity)

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr swordfish (talk • contribs) 13:52, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

  • It depends… in an actively edited article with lots of contributors, a few weeks is usually enough time to say that there is a “silent consensus”. In an article that has little activity and very few editors, that time frame can extend to years (consider the possibility that the objecting editor might well be the first editor to even look at the article after the material in question was added.)
Time is actually a really poor measure of consensus… A much better measure of “silent consensus” is the number of editors who have contributed to the article between the initial addition and the desired change. Blueboar (talk) 14:16, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
In the case at hand, 35 distinct editors in the last 30 days. 19 days elapsed between the "bold edit" and initiation of discussion on whether to accept it. Edge case? Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:29, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Definitely agree that it is a combination of time and number of editors from unique editors. Something added 10 years ago but where only one editor has made updates in the meantime - even in the dozens or hundreds - should not be taken that the edit from 10 years ago had consensus. Masem (t) 17:17, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
"Silent consensus" is as poor of a measure as time, unfortunately. Articles often rack up a lot of procedural edits, minor spelling edits, bikeshedding over content, etc., while blatant issues elsewhere get buried. I regularly have to dig through literal thousands of edits to find the source of something questionable from the early 2010s (or earlier!) and confirm that it is, in fact, vandalism. This includes high-profile articles -- just the other day I fixed an instance of possible reference vandalism on Background and causes of the Iranian Revolution that had been there since God knows when (it was grandfathered in through several separate merges and I lost the thread around #3). This is a relatively small case but they have not all been this small. Gnomingstuff (talk) 17:10, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I have no idea where anyone would get the idea there is a time period. Anyway, that and related matters have been discussed recently in a WP:V thread "Get consensus" objections to text citing to Consensus policy. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:22, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
    Perhaps "time" is not the right word to use here. At some point circumstances change and the default transitions from "revert" to "keep". Any help in evaluating what/how circumstances need to change to make that transition cheerfully accepted. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 16:25, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
    Thing is… the circumstances change depending on the specific article and the specific material in question. There is no “one-size-fits-all” rule to this. What really should happen when there is “no consensus” is that everyone goes back to the drawing board… they call in new people (who might come up with a solution no one had thought of yet). Everyone keeps discussing the material and offering compromises … until a consensus emerges. It will probably be something that no one “cheerfully” accepts… but something everyone can grudgingly accept. Blueboar (talk) 17:03, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
  • The question is a little vague. Let's say that the "discussion" on the talk page is an RFC along the lines of "Should (some material) remain in the article?". And that discussion produces nocon. I'd be taking the view that the material ought to stay in those circumstances. But not necessarily in other circumstances. Selfstudier (talk) 17:08, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
How long something has been in an article is meaningless. See WP:HOAXLIST for examples of hoaxes and/or false statements which existed in articles for more than 10 years before being removed. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:22, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Mr. Swordfish, no algorithm has been developed yet that can determine what belongs in an encyclopedia article. There are some areas, this being one, where human intelligence is still way ahead of machine intelligence. You have couched your question in generalities without indicating which article you are talking about, but you can only get a straight answer by identifying the particular article. Wiikipedia deals with specific cases rather than such generalities. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:08, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
@Mr swordfish, ironically that line was added to NOCON – which is a summary of other policies, not a making-new-rules-here section – by an editor who has since been indef-blocked for edit warring. It contradicts the older WP:ONUS (which says you must have a positive consensus to include sourced content, not merely the absence of a consensus to remove it), and does not account for all of the complications. What if editors can't agree what to do, but they also can't agree on which version is "the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit"? It's not always clear. What if editors are struggling to form an agreement, but the choices are "new version that is definitely legal vs old version that might be a copyright violation"?
I think it should just be removed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the historical perspective. Seems to me that a "policy" that's difficult to apply in practice (i.e how long is enough to make the default "keep" vs. "revert") is not as effective as a simple a positive consensus to include sourced content is necessary to include it, not merely the absence of a consensus to remove it. And it seems like the advice in WP:NOCON can be used tendentiously, and if what you say about the editor who added it, it may have been added to facilitate tendentious edits.
Maybe what's at WP:ONUS is too simple in practice, but I'd support that in favor of the verbiage at WP:NOCON. This probably isn't the proper venue for that discussion, and the immediate issue that I was dealing with has been resolved so our work is probably done here. Mr. Swordfish (talk) 01:13, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

UCoC Training Update

I know that many members of our community were against mandatory UCoC training for all admins. There is an update on this. The UCoC Revisions Committee, of which I am a member, has revised this to limit mandatory training to one module (of 3) and only for those who would serve on the Universal Code of Conduct Coordinating Committee (U4C). Importantly this is only an agreement for now. After we finish these revisions it will go to the community for feedback, before it is truly "finalized" (I put it in quotes because it is unknown whether there will be another ratification vote or not after the revisions committee finishes).

As the revisions committee has been operating under a different set of confidentiality expectations than the original enforcement guidelines committee, I have been able to keep a blog detailing what work has been happening. A friend accurately pointed out that I gave this blog too boring of a name so I thought it worth noting this first major decision in hopes that more people who might be interested will follow the work there. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:15, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

MOS lead discussion

There's a helpful discussion underway at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section#Seeking_consensus_for_table_modification, please take a peek and offer your input. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:54, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Restricted mass-creation of articles

Proposal: The creation of articles in a rapid fashion is much more likely to produce inaccurate or useless pages. Everyone is restricted to create 4 articles per 24 hours and 10 articles per week without approval at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval. This includes pages that were created outside mainspace and then moved to mainspace by the same person.

Unreferenced articles created as part of an unauthorized mass creation of articles may be speedily deleted.

Article creations before this proposal passed are not considered to be unauthorized unless the community decides otherwise. Lurking shadow (talk) 16:04, 1 July 2022 (UTC)


This came up in a current arbitration case. Mass creation of articles should be held to a higher standard because it is more likely that the article creator didn't take time to fact-check the articles. This also addresses WP:FAIT problems. Speedy deletion of referenced articles is not authorized because you can at least check the sources for accuracy.Lurking shadow (talk) 16:09, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Most of the articles, and certainly the users, you'd be restricting with this are entirely unproblematic. (For reference, here's some data that I was asked to produce at that arbitration case.) —Cryptic 16:26, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
I fail to see the benefits of this proposal. The Banner talk 23:16, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
It is not often that I write more then one article a day but why should manual production of articles need bot-approval? I can save up my drafts until I have 12 articles ready to publish but that still does not make me a bot. This sounds like using a nuclear bomb to destroy a fly. This proposal causes too much collateral damage. The Banner talk 11:36, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
I would oppose this; creating large numbers of articles isn't an issue, what is an issue is bot-like article creation where an editor works through a database and creates near-identical articles sourced only to that database. This proposal would prevent the second but would also prevent the first and as Cryptic points out there are many editors who are productively engaged in the first (for example, Davism0703). In addition, the second is already banned under WP:MASSCREATE and WP:MEATBOT. BilledMammal (talk) 01:27, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I can think of several scenarios where people might well exceed four articles a day or ten a week. For example Sportspeople at the Olympic Games and politicians after a General Election. Focus on quicker detection of those who create lots of problematic new articles, we don't need new rules and procedures to stop the creation of valid new articles. ϢereSpielChequers 14:54, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
Oppose - I have created many more than 10 pages in a week before; it should be encouraged to create articles, not need to apply for additional perms. Poor creation of articles is a behavioural issue, not something to restrict. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 18:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Bot creation of articles is prohibited on en-wiki, anyway, so why you'd use BOT PERM anyway is beyond me. But even regular humans could exceed this easily. FAIT just does not apply, because any article is going to need to pass NPP anyway. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:19, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose - this looks very draconian to me. Unless you can show that articles created by human beings (as opposed to bots) in contravention of your proposed policy are generally a problem, this proposed policy is bad. Animal lover |666| 00:43, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the comments. It is probably a bad idea. Sorry.Lurking shadow (talk) 03:42, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Modifying WP:NOT, MOS:WORKS

See here for a proposal to modify WP:NOT and MOS:WORKS. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 01:02, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Educate me please.... index article versus SET index article

I am interested in our stand-alone lists and improving our P&G as it applies to such articles. One thing that confuses me is the concept of stand-alone list articles that are indexes versus those that are set indexes. Is there a difference? If so, could someone please, with baby- handling gentleness, walk my tiny brain through a few examples? Thanks very much, and apologies that I'm unable to figure this out for myself. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

There are various index articles about specific subjects which are types of set index articles (see Category:Set index article templates). - Donald Albury 23:07, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
I think you probably want these: Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists and Wikipedia:Set index articles — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 09:13, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
What a weird mental blockl; I had already read those off and on for a while and the concept isn't at all hard. Wonder why it took so long to make sense? Thanks both of you; NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:50, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Why is pending changes review an exclusive right?

Any autoconfirmed editor can copy a pending change into their own edit, but they can't approve the change or edit on top of it. Why's that? Since pending changes protection is about vandalism, it seems unlikely that a random editor would approve a bad edit by an IP. Galagora (talk) 19:50, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

To clarify, an editor making a change is always editing the latest version of the article in question, including all pending edits. As you allude to, this edit will also become a pending change until it is reviewed by a pending changes reviewer. isaacl (talk) 20:20, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
But can't an editor edit an old version of the article and copy the pending change over? Galagora (talk) 20:59, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
If the editor just wants to include all pending edits, there's no need to manually copy anything. Editing the current version will include all of them. If they want to leave out some pending changes, then they can start with an older version. This is the same as with any article that is not under pending changes protection.
Pending changes protection only alters what is shown to non-logged in users; it doesn't affect editing. A non-reviewer can't make their edit visible to non-logged in users. After one pending change is made, all subsequent edits are pending changes until a reviewer reviews them. isaacl (talk) 23:11, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Ah, I was thinking of it like Git, where if you branch off of an old revision you get a new history with all the edits after that revision gone. So your edit would be the next edit after the old revision. But actually, basing your edit on an old revision just undoes all the subsequent changes in your edit, instead of discarding them from the history, so your edit still goes to pending changes review.
But I still don't understand why only a select group can review pending changes. It seems like a simple thing that any editor can do. Galagora (talk) 14:10, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
"unlikely that a random editor would approve a bad edit by an IP". It's wonderfully optimistic but I'm afraid that's far from the case - random editors do all sorts of unhelpful stuff (when they're not being helpful or harmless). Just being autoconfirmed is not incredibly different from being an IP editor. There are some editors with thousands of edits who don't have a clue. At least with a manually assigned right there is some sort of sanity check. -- zzuuzz (talk) 14:21, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
But now we have a situation where an autoconfirmed user can vandalise the article themselves, but, as soon as an IP makes an edit (good or bad), any of the autoconfirmed user's edits can only show after review. So there's no protection from autoconfirmed vandalism until an IP happens to make an edit. Galagora (talk) 14:33, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Helps to think of this from some use cases, for example:
  1. There is a good page with PC1
  2. An IP makes some small vandalism (like changes a date)
  3. A good faith editor comes by the article (not in response to recent changes review, etc) and adds something useful to it like a new paragraph
In this use case, the bad vandalism is still there, and readers are still being protected from being exposed to the bad edit. Someone that knows what their doing about review pages will eventually get to the page in the backlog and hopefully discard the vandalism, keep the good addition, and make the page live for readers. Now with all of this being said, @Galagora are your questions about the protection policy answered? — xaosflux Talk 14:30, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
OK, that makes sense. You can edit the page without vouching for the pending changes beforehand. This answers the question, thanks. Galagora (talk) 14:37, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Also @Galagora, as to why the decision was made to separate it into an exclusive right, using xaosflux's scenario, a reviewer in that situation would be prompted to screen any previous unreviewed edits for vandalism, which is a task they have opted in to. However, if every autoconfirmed user was prompted to review past edits for vandalism, a large majority would probably have no interest in doing so and would just approve their own edits without checking the rest of the article. The system just makes more sense if it's limited to actual anti-vandalism volunteers. But I do remember at the time it was rightfully acknowledged as taking rights away from the community, and there was a clear intent PCR was to be viewed as re-granting rights that autoconfirmed users used to possess by default: the right to review any edit and the right to make any edit. For this reason, the user right is essentially granted to any editor upon request. Granting guidelines are minimal. In the beginning, it was granted to many active editors without request, for that reason, it was viewed as reinstating existing rights that the community is entitled to. So you have to opt back in to the role, but anyone can opt in. ~Swarm~ {sting} 15:54, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
  • PCR should autogrant with autoconfirmed or at the same time extended confirmed . I would say bundle, but that would remove the ability to remove it from people who don't want it (the watchlist banner it gives you might be the single most annoying design feature on Wikipedia. I have CSS to remove it.)
    The whole theory behind PCR is that it restores to autoconfirmed users the ability they have always had — to grant edit requests. Theoretically pending changes is a lower form of protection than semi-protection, so PCR is supposed to be granted liberally because it makes no sense to have a lower form of protection have a higher standard of review. I think Mz7 started a discussion about this a while back, but can't remember. Honestly, we should just get rid of pending changes all together; it creates more problems than it solves most of the time, but barring that, we can streamline giving people the right to review them. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
    TonyBallioni, autogranting CRASH status is, and has always been, a nonstarter. It's brought up every so often and always gets shot down on the grounds that PCR requires a fair bit of knowledge of what is and is not vandalism - something an autoconfirmed user won't have and something an XCP user doesn't need PCR to help enforce. (Disclosure: I refuse to accept the CRASH userright and refuse to edit or watch pages under CRASHlock.) —Jéské Couriano v^_^v a little blue Bori 21:36, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
    Less damage than can already be done with autoconfirmed since by definition semi-protection is more sensitive than anything with pending changes. TonyBallioni (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure what you mean by "CRASH", but if that simply means the process of reviewing pending changes, then Tony's idea is definitely not a nonstarter. A while back, I did indeed float this idea on the idea lab village pump. While I ultimately didn't start a formal RfC for the proposal, I don't really think the idea was shot down. I am still quite sympathetic to the idea, and I suspect I would probably support a proposal to autogrant it with extended confirmed.
      PCR is by far the most lightweight right that administrators can grant. Note that it only grants the ability to accept pending changes—anyone can reject pending changes by reverting to the last accepted revision (such a revert would be automatically accepted). Because of this, the amount of disruption caused by misuse is quite low (much lower than rollback, where misuse of the tool can alienate good-faith editors). While PCR does require some common-sense knowledge on what is and is not vandalism, WP:RPC#Acceptable edits expressly states It is not necessary for you to ensure compliance with the content policies on neutral point of view, verifiability and original research before accepting. Virtually all editors who are not novices should have the competency to review pending changes, and this is reflected in our established practice of granting PCR to virtually every non-novice editor that requests it at WP:PERM. Mz7 (talk) 07:04, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Changes to BLP 3RR exemption

FYI: Wikipedia talk:Edit warring#Making WP:3RRNO point 7 more specific. Levivich (talk) 15:08, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Archiving references

(I'm not entirely sure if this is the correct place for this discussion, but I think it is the most relevant.)

So I personally try to make sure to keep all my additions and edits properly referenced, but it's frustrating when looking at pages (especially about older events) to try to go through to a link and find it doesn't exist anymore. Even more frustrating is when you try to find an archived version of it and there isn't that either. I was wondering should we add a policy to archive references when adding them? I.e. for each reference you add, you need to go into an archiving website (for example archive.ph or Wayback Machine) and make sure there is an archived version (and if there isn't, save one). Perhaps having this as general policy is too much, but at minimum it should be in my opinion a requirement for Good Pages and Featured Pages (as well as filling out the "archive-url" parameter).

Alternatively, I know there are bots/tasks which fill-out bare references, so perhaps this would be a good task for an automated process, to scour Wikipedia and save archived versions for references that don't have them?

Waiting for your thoughts and suggestions, -- SuperJew (talk) 14:58, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

@SuperJew: Have you had a look at InternetArchiveBot? You can also manually run it (I personally try to run it on pages I come across from time to time using the handy link in MoreMenu) — TNT (talk • she/her) 15:08, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I've seen that bot occasionally add an archivelink. But as far as I understand is what it does is add an archive link if there is an archived link already in the databases and doesn't actively archive the web page. Or does it? Anyways would be happy to hear more about the suggestion to have this as part of policy. -- SuperJew (talk) 15:14, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
It'll actively archive the links (would recommend selecting Add archives to all non-dead references (Optional) so that it'll make an archive copy before the link dies!) — TNT (talk • she/her) 15:22, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
IABot does not create new archives in the WaybackMachine. -- GreenC 15:47, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • There is a program called NoMo404 that monitors the EventStreams for additions of new URLs on Wikipedia (on any language and project). When it detects a URL, it captures that page into the WaybackMachine. This system has been running since about 2015, although there were some earlier systems and site scans. It should happen within 24hrs at most. There is no guarantee to captures everything however so it might a good idea to verify after a few days. Older links are the most trouble since many have long since died and have no archives anywhere. -- GreenC 15:47, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
@TheresNoTime and GreenC: Thanks for your answers. Okay the IAB and MoreMenu are great! Loving them :) I do think most of the pages I had problems with were before 2015, so that computes. I think, on the technical side I got good answers :) The remaining question is if we should have policy that Good Pags and Featured Pages must have archived links on all references (all pages is too much of a stretch since we still have pages which are unreferenced or have bare references). --SuperJew (talk) 16:07, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
At a minimum it would be wise policy every link in GA/FA is verified to have at least one if not two archives available somewhere. That doesn't mean archive links need to be in the article, today, but at least available for future use. Two because for example WaybackMachine will sometimes take archives offline at owner request so what exists today might not in the future (a very small percentage). Other general options are archive.today and ghostarchive.org .. we recently lost the entire webcitation.org provider which was the second largest on Enwiki for a while these things can (and probably will) happen with smaller single-owner sites. -- GreenC 16:44, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
It might be a good idea for someone to voluntarily do that, but I would not make it a requirement. Editors are regularly surprised to discover that GA doesn't even require consistently formatted references. The actual rule for citations in Wikipedia:Good article criteria is "Dead links are considered verifiable only if the link is not a bare url. Using consistent formatting or including every element of the bibliographic material is not required, although, in practice, enough information must be supplied that the reviewer is able to identify the source." This is because GA is about writing a decent article and very much not about following every jot and tittle of the MOS or engaging in the kind of polishing that is most efficiently done by a specialist with a script. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: So in your opinion, a good article is an article with information which can be false and there's no way to verify it due to it being sourced to a dead link? --SuperJew (talk) 19:04, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
In my opinion, Wikipedia:Good articles are the articles that meet the Wikipedia:Good article criteria.
I have also discovered that it is sometimes – perhaps even frequently – true that there are ways to verify information even if the cited URL is a dead link, or even if there is no citation at all. I suspect that you would agree with me that there is a significant gap between "it's not necessarily quick and easy for me to verify this information because the link is dead" and "there's no way to verify it". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • I do not support mandatory archiving. For one, we already fail to force people to properly format their references. Requiring them to do something which requires more technical knowhow and the use of outside tools is not going to improve anything. The bot itself has issues with picking its archive links; earlier this month me and another user were collaborating on an article, and the other user activated the bot. The bot did a lot of heavy lifting but repeatedly added an archive link for a Google books reference I had used, problem was it was using an archived version of the Korean Google books page that also did not include any preview of the actual text, making it utterly garbage for verification purposes (which is why we archive stuff in the first place). -Indy beetle (talk) 16:44, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
    I understand your point and it's why I said all pages is too much of a stretch since we still have pages which are unreferenced or have bare references. However, regarding GA/FA, I think it could be a smart requirement. And the reviewer would of course go into the archived page to verify it, as the reviewer goes into references to verify them. -- SuperJew (talk) 17:05, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Although Wayback Machine is a useful archiving tool, it is not perfect. I have several times encountered situations where snapshots disappeared permanently without explanation. As the retention policies are unclear and afaik largely non-public, such incidents are practically impossible to forecast. Granted that they seem rare, the possibility is still there, in which case a second archive would make sense. But requiring archives may not be the best option, and could backfire. Some editors could understandably balk at the work required and avoid adding the URL instead. Or even the entire citation if it depends on a URL. 68.173.78.83 (talk) 00:20, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

I resist mandatory archiving because I encounter editors to see WP:PLRT, and possibly other policies, as license to run IABot – which in user mode adds all archive links, not only where it detects the originals have died, which it does when it runs by itself – on pages they are apt to have no other interest in curating. When the useless additions amount to tens of thousands of characters, I'm likely to revert, and sometimes have to explain myself to an unhappy editor. Is adding all archive links the default mode for a user-initiated IABot run. Can it be changed? Should the preventing-link-rot policies be regarded as encouraging massive bot runs, or do they, as I interpret them, suggest that the tool be used only by those actively checking the results (as by those first creating the citation) and limited in the number of citations changed at any one time? Dhtwiki (talk) 23:30, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Why is it a problem to add an archive link to a page which currently is live? -- SuperJew (talk) 03:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Such a reversion seems unwarranted. Archiving pages while they are live is the entire point, no? I've seen people do that on pages I frequent, even if they have no other interest in the subject. In contexts where link rot is particularly common (either due to bad web hygiene or censorship, or both, in the case of articles about e.g. contemporary Chinese issues), that should be especially welcomed. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 00:32, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
10 years ago I would have agreed with you about the 10K files, but space is so cheap even with WPs massive amount of users
There doesn't seem to be a current number on Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia - Wikipedia, but at a guess maybe 20 TB and 50GB of text. So, why don't we keep our own archive as a back up for the Internet archive? Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
The Wikimedia Foundation and the Internet Archive are "long-term partners.Google and the Internet Archive are the first customers to pay for commercial access to Wikipedia content (a correction in the article states that the Internet Archive does not pay for access to Wikipedia content.) I seriously doubt that the Foundation will let the Internet Archive go away without ensuring the archives will survive. - Donald Albury 15:47, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
If you're running IABot and it's adding lots of archive links, how are you sure that you're preventing link rot if you're not checking the archive snapshots?, which I doubt very much people are doing, thus creating a false sense of having solved the problem, as well as undermining the need to check references periodically and artisanally, realizing that links go away due to website reorganization as much as websites dying. And setting up the extra links as clickable events must take a considerable amount of time, especially on underpowered machines, such as a netbook I was using, which took an inordinate amount of time to render articles with over, say, 500 references. So, it's not just what Wikipedia servers can handle or even assuming that everyone has broadband. Dhtwiki (talk) 06:04, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
Which is why I've started adding archive links (including having IA archive a link if it has not already done so) to citations when I add them. Ideally, we want a link to an archived page that is as close to the date the material supported by the cited source was added to the article as possible. And when I try to recover a link using the Wayback Machine, I do try to verify that the archived page does look like it supports the material in the article. All of that slows me down, but I have long given up any idea that I can save Wikipedia by myself, and just content myself with what I can do. - Donald Albury 17:52, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Geographic sourcing bias on Wikipedia

Why do some Wikipedia editors believe that popular western sources are the only independent sources deserving of consideration for determining the notability of subjects? In a deletion discussion about Patrick Lancaster, an editor is claiming that the lengthy treatise by Zabrorona on the subject is not journalistic, and other editors support this saying there are no independent sources. The subject is very specific to Ukraine and Zabrorona is a very high-quality independent source from Ukraine, and I tried getting community input on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard as advised by Wikipedia:Reliable sources, but no response so far. If independent sources from the west are the only ones that can be trusted, then millions of articles on notable Tatar musicians, Indian shamans, and Indonesian politicians are likely missing from Wikipedia. IntrepidContributor (talk) 09:58, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Define "independent" sources and provide examples of such purported sources in Wikipedia articles. 172.254.222.178 (talk) 11:28, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I don't think "independent" needs more than a dictionary definition. There are many examples of non-western independent sources being used in Wikipedia, like Kompas, a local Indonesian newspaper. The problem is that there seems to be a prevailing view that these sources are not high-quality enough to establish notability on subjects, like in the example above. IntrepidContributor (talk) 13:50, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Don't mean to sound obtuse, but when it comes to sources, "independent" needs explanation. Is the source "independent" of the various viewpoints on a particular issue? That doesn't mean that it should be thought of as reliable relative to the issue. It may not adhere to any POV, but still have a POV of its own. That would be an "independent" viewpoint, and as unreliable as any other POV. 50.75.226.250 (talk) 15:03, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
If the definition of independent really needs further clarification, then let's make it specific to Zabrorona and Patrick Lancaster. Is there any reason you think Zabrorona shouldn't be considered as a reliable enough source for determining (along with Vice) the notability of Lancaster? Other editors could cite other examples. IntrepidContributor (talk) 18:23, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
To give a considered answer, one would need to learn about the subject and the reporting on it. Have no time for this now, but in general, there is no such thing as a "reliable source", no person/organization owns that holy grail in toto or in perpetuity. There can be a reliable reference. Reliable references depend on both the wikitext presentation and the choice of sources. There may be widely disseminated and commented upon propaganda from a [biased?] source. That would make the propaganda notable. The wikitext could give an example, citing the [biased?] source, in a neutral manner. But although this is factual, it is misleading. Contrary examples (if any) to the propaganda should also be provided, with their own sources, also in a neutral manner. That may also be factual, but is incomplete. In order for the reader (the uninterested observer) to have the full picture, include verifiable information that one or all sides may be biased. If other sources provide a more truthful accounting of the issue, they should be included too, with some explanation regarding their status. 68.132.154.35 (talk) 21:17, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
If you didn't have the time to look into the example, perhaps you shouldn't have replied. IntrepidContributor (talk) 17:26, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
If we are going to share opinions about what other people should or should not do, perhaps you should not attempt to elevate your pet interest to a general issue of supposed site-wide "bias" in a crude attempt to attract eyeballs. You were done the courtesy of responses, anyway. So there it is. 104.247.55.106 (talk) 13:23, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
What is the policy that you are suggesting needs changing/discussing? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:07, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Having read WP:GNG once and now twice, I don't think it needs any changes. I guess the problem is just that one (and now two) editors believe the Zabrorona article is not "Independent of the subject," claiming it is an advertorial when it is clearly not. IntrepidContributor (talk) 17:31, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
It is a very tricky problem, and I'm not sure if there is any easy solution. Because Wikipedia is fundamentally a western web site (for both better and for worse), thus it is near on impossible to get rid of that inherent bias which is built into Wikipedia's DNA and instead have a truly 100% NPOV. As anything which differs slightly from the western "consensus" will easily be discarded with accusations of "pro-Arab" / "pro-Russia" / "pro-China" / etc as most western editors lack the flexibility of mindset to see from all the other perspectives so as to arrive at where the neutral perspective should fall upon. If someone can only see from a western perspective they will of course quite naturally perceive the "middle position" (i.e. their "neutral point of view") to fall right in the middle of the western viewpoints, and in the process totally ignore all other viewpoints. Mathmo Talk 16:55, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
This is a pretty thick stack of assumptions, opinions, and generalizations for such a short paragraph. 68.132.154.35 (talk) 21:20, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Perhaps if Arab, Russian and China had more Freedom of the press the we would have more reliable sources from those countries. My issue is with second "tier" reliable sources from lower "caste" countries that are being ruled out for establishing notability of subjects on English Wikipedia. IntrepidContributor (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
" then millions of articles on notable Tatar musicians, Indian shamans, and Indonesian politicians are likely missing from Wikipedia"
You are absolutely right. Mathmo Talk 17:01, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Yup. Just watch AfD lately, watch Bangladesh and Sri Lankan articles that are undoubtedly notable going down the toilet because there’s not anyone on the English Wikipedia to defend them. I helped save one or two, but don’t have the energy to save them all because it’s not my expertise. It’s not the deletionists expertise either, but if you just want to destroy some articles, they make an easy target.Jacona (talk) 14:53, 17 July 2022 (UT
No on wants to "destroy articles". What people want is articles built around information which is trustworthy. Being silent on a subject, especially a BLP, is better than being untrustworthy on said subject, and for subjects for which no one can produce any verifiable information from reliable sources, then what does it do to have an article? If the sources exist (in any language), then there's no reason to delete an article, but if all we have is the word of the article author or a fan of the person in question saying "trust me", then that's not enough to create an article at Wikipedia. No one, meaning not a single person, prefers deleting articles. However, being willing to concede that unverifiable text does more harm to Wikipedia and to the subject of the article than no next at all is key. --Jayron32 18:28, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
I've gone about six rounds on this subject with a long-time wiki-friend (fortunately for me, someone who is patient with my pedantry and obsessiveness about this), and I have the following quick comments.
  • The IP is basically wrong, about basically everything. For one thing, WP:BIASED sources are allowed. Also, we already have a definition of Wikipedia:Independent sources. As a first approximation (to a first approximation, the entire universe is made of Hydrogen), a source is independent when it is not paid for running that content.
  • Some editors have a personal opinion about how a trustworthy source should "sound" or because their website has the Right™ Look and feel. This is as untrustworthy as believing that one computer system is more advanced than another because it has prettier lights on front panel, but the effect is real. These editors believe that independently ascertained facts will never be presented in a silly, fawning, outdated, or otherwise "inappropriate" (for their own culture) way. They're wrong (sometimes), but convincing them might not be worth your time.
  • One really practical, if occasionally difficult, way to deal with this sort of "I've never heard of it, so it's bad" problem is to make lists and articles about the sources. Editors react differently to a source they know nothing about and a source with a Wikipedia entry that says something like "weekly print newspaper founded in 2018 with certified circulation of 12,453". Zabrorona was founded by some award-winning journalists; that's a point in its favor. It also accepts native advertising, which is a big problem (unless all of those paid advertisements are clearly marked as "Advertising" – because otherwise, how would we know which ones are paid advertisements and which aren't?).
WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Another interesting case. Will the new Ukrainian and Kazak sources I just added to Anatoly Levin-Utkin be enough to establish his notability? IntrepidContributor (talk) 19:43, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

MOS section on intro material for lists

I made a series of edits [3] which I intended to better explain established practice for the intro section on lists. No changes to actual practice were intended. I'd appreciate some other eyeballs checking it over, to make it better (or catch my goofs). Thanks. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 13:23, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Similarly, I tried to add existing practice in a new subsection at WP:Stand-alone lists#Documenting selection criteria. Again, no changes in practice were intended. Please review. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:38, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Those edits look pretty good to me; thanks for taking on such a thankless task. I am a bit concerned however, that the new "Documenting selection criteria" section, as currently worded, appears to create a new expectation that editors seek consensus before establishing list inclusion criteria. I don't think we should have anything that would discourage an individual editor from boldly creating a new list and defining some reasonable initial criteria for it, while recognizing that those may later be disputed or refined by other editors. Given how much of Wikipedia has tumbleweeds blowing through it these days, it can be hard just to find anyone to reach consensus with; and additional barriers don't help the situation. (Of course, many Wikipedians would invoke WP:EDITCON, and rightly so, but that's not what "establishing consensus" would usually be interpreted to mean, especially given the subsequent reference to the "document where consensus was established".) I have proposed some alternative wording on the talk page. -- Visviva (talk) 17:50, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
The "new list" angle is a really good nuance, thank you. I answered at the source venue. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:56, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

FYI Proposal Ver 2 just went live here... NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Directions please

I am having difficulty finding the policy or guideline about proposing policy edits to gain advantage in an ongoing content dispute, and/or the obligation to alert participants in the content dispute about the policy proposal. Where the heck is it? Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

The relevant policy is WP:AGF and WP:NPA and WP:POINT. If you want to discuss it further, I'll do so in ANI/AE/ARBCOM but not here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:56, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
All three of them discuss editing policies to gain advantage in content disputes? I’m just looking for explicit discussion of that topic in P&G. Once I find the pertinent explicit P&G then I’ll decide whether or not to do anything else. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm uncertain (haven't looked for this specifically) but you might look at WP:GAMING NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 03:12, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
I don’t see anything there about this particular issue, nor in the associated talk page or its archives. Please let others respond if they know where I can find the pertinent rule. If you respond then other editors may assume the question has been answered. Thanks. Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:17, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
There's probably nothing written down, and I hope so. We don't have rules for everything. First of all, it's not clear if you think that proposing edits to policy in the middle of a dispute is a good thing or a bad thing. I think that the answer is "could be either". So the rule would basically have to say "Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no, use your common sense". A cogent essay on the question would be good tho.
We recently changed the MOS in the middle of a dispute which we were having with a author... he was wrongly misinterpreting the MOS to say something that it didn't or anyway shouldn't, but it was a little unclear. So we cleared it up right then, and problem solved. Other times editors will propose policy changes for bad reasons and they'll get shouted down -- and if they don't, if they have consensus for the change, what's the problem? Herostratus (talk) 13:30, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
For one thing, if there’s a content dispute at article talk, and an editor goes off to change a pertinent guideline or policy, might it not be wise to require that that editor say something about it at article talk, and conversely mention the content dispute at the policy’s talk page (and/or Village pump)? Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:56, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
@Anythingyouwant, the sentence you are seeking is in WP:PGBOLD: "Editing a policy to support your own argument in an active discussion may be seen as gaming the system, especially if you do not disclose your involvement in the argument when making the edits".
(Mind the gap between "editing a policy" and "proposing a change on the talk page".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Great info, thanks. I spent a huge amount of time looking for that. I was never particularly good at finding things in real life too, but still, maybe I’ll sprinkle some links to that policy. Cheers, Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)!
Of course for it to apply, there needs to be a showing that the proposed changes were intended to alter the determination of consensus at the article content dispute, but I'm only mentioning that here just so we're all on the same page. This isn't the place to go into that debate.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:27, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
There's also ArbCom precedent, to wit: "While edits to policy pages are often prompted by specific editing experiences, it is inappropriate to alter policy pages to further one's position in a specific dispute." Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm sure Anythingyouwant is familiar with that finding. MastCell Talk 00:59, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
  • We have just installed a hatnote about this here. I will comment now about the 11-year-old quote from MastCell (which I barely remember). It seems a bit more stringent than WP:PGBOLD about which we just wrote the hatnote. Hopefully that discrepancy can be dealt with easily. My current interest in the matter does not stem from what happened 11 years ago, but rather from this. Regarding the policy edit I made 11 years ago, I cited that revision of policy weeks after I edited the policy with an appropriate edit summary (“A bold addition, pertinent to an article I edited today”), and weeks after another editor had revised my policy change edit. Back in 2011, when ArbCom made the statement quoted here by MastCell (and when I edited the policy that led ArbCom to make that statement), the pertinent part of WP:PGBOLD was exactly as it remains today. I don’t know whether the ArbCom statement quoted by MastCell takes precedence over WP:PGBOLD or vice versa, especially since ArbCom did not apparently evince any awareness of WP:PGBOLD. It would be unfortunate if WP:PGBOLD leads Wikipedians to think that the governing Wikipedia position on this matter is different from what it actually is. I don’t remember whether I relied in 2011 upon having seen WP:PGBOLD or not; even if I was able to find it, I told Arbcom that the word limits were being exceeded and that I wasn't obliged to address the excess accusations (ArbCom evidently didn’t think much of that argument as they never mentioned it). I also pointed out back in 2011 that I viewed my policy edit as a clarification rather than change in policy, and years later I encountered an editor who confirmed in my mind that my policy edit was basically already implied by the policy. So, if anyone here is interested in editing WP:PGBOLD in reaction to the 2011 ArbCom statement that MastCell quoted, now you have some more background about it, and you’re also now aware of why I could be biased despite my best efforts to write clearly and frankly. Anythingyouwant (talk) 10:52, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: I've wearily and patiently let you cast aspersions at me over this long enough. Please give it your best shot at WP:ANI or WP:DROPTHESTICK. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:14, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Oy, have I accused you of anything in this entire section titled “Directions please”? This whole section was started so I could find a pertinent policy. Now I have the policy thanks to User:WhatamIdoing who quite properly pointed out that we should “Mind the gap between ‘editing a policy’ and ‘proposing a change on the talk page’.” I am not aware that you have edited any policy about list criteria, so clearly you’ve not violated WP:PGBOLD, and I don’t really care right now whether ArbCom has a stricter policy. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:24, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Message to Author When New Article Is Draftified

This concern is about the message that is posted on the user talk page of the author of an article that is moved to draft space by a reviewer. A New Page reviewer who moves a new article to draft space normally does so with a script that posts a message including

It needs more citations from reliable, independent sources. (Information that can't be referenced should be removed (verifiability is of central importance on Wikipedia).

The problem is that new articles are draftified for at least two different reasons. The first, which is what the canned message is oriented toward, is a sourcing or verifiability issue. The second, which is also a common reason why new articles are draftified, is a notability issue. The article has reliable sources, but they don't provide significant coverage to meet general notability, or they don't satisfy a special notability guideline such as musical notability. This results in unhelpful guidance to the author. The author may then reference-bomb the draft and resubmit it, without addressing the notability issue. The message that is used is not consistent with the standards that are normally applied by New Page reviewers in moving articles to draft space. It is correct for many articles that have inadequate sourcing, but it is not correct for adequately sourced articles that do not establish notability.

I just declined a dispute resolution request at DRN filed by an author whose article was moved to draft space and then declined. The article was a BLP of an Israeli musician, and the references were to reliable Israeli newspapers. The article didn't establish musical notability. The author said that the sources were reliable. The sources were reliable, but the article didn't establish notability. The message was profoundly unhelpful. This is a common problem.

I see four possible solutions:

  • 1. Instruct New Page reviewers that they should only move an article to draft space if the sourcing is inadequate. Instruct New Page reviewers that they should propose the article for deletion or nominate the article for deletion if there is a notability issue that is not also a sourcing issue.
  • 2. Instruct New Page reviewers to rewrite the draftify message when moving an article to draft space for notability reasons.
  • 3. Reword the canned message, either to expand the explanation of why articles are moved to draft space, or to include advice to ask the reviewer for guidance.
  • 4. Enhance the draftification script to provide a choice of messages.

Any option is likely to create more work for reviewers. My opinion is that, in any case, the canned message should include advice to ask the reviewer for guidance. Reviewers should be willing to explain why they have taken an action that new authors do not like. I don't recommend option 1; reviewers should be able to move an article to draft space for notability reasons even if it has references that don't establish notability. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:27, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Let's have a tool like the XfD interface, where the draftifying editor can choose a basis from a dropdown menu. BD2412 T 02:09, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
Can we not just include that into User:Evad37/MoveToDraft instead of creating a whole new tool? Curbon7 (talk) 04:38, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon this is pretty broad, which specific policies and/or guidelines are you proposing changes to? If editors are poorly communicating with other editors, coaching them may be sufficient - sounds like the major issue is related to people just needing to review and follow WP:BITE / WP:DTTR? Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers may be a better forum to go over general improvements to NPR processes. — xaosflux Talk 13:11, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

For articles which require GNG, the routine needs to be for the zillion editors to find and include GNG sources, or give it up if they don't exist, and draft is a suitable place to work on that when the article doesn't have them. By saying "only AFD these" (with the current wp:before routine) you are (possibly unintentionally) proposing shifting the entire "search for sources" job from editors to the already-buried NPP'ers who are trying to handle the reviewing and disposition workload of about 1,000 articles per day. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:38, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

User:North8000 - Either you misread what I wrote or I didn't write it clearly. You said that I was, perhaps unintentionally, proposing shifting the entire search for sources job from editors to NPPers. No. Please notice that I said that I didn't recommend option 1, and that is because it will create more work for reviewers. I had to list option 1 for completeness, because it is what is consistent with the way the script leaves the message on the user talk page. I don't like option 1, for the reasons that you list, but it is consistent with the current tools. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: Yes, you're right. I missed that. Sorry 'bout that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
Editors can amend the standard text to reflect the reason for draftifying in any case, and right there in the box it says in big red letters to vary the text as appropriate. I agree it would be easier to have a default text that focused on notability rather than verifiability as an option. Mccapra (talk) 05:00, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
User:Mccapra - I am aware that editors can amend the standard text. I have very seldom seen reviewers do that. I am not sure that reviewers consider the wording of the draftify message to be important, or think about whether to rewrite it. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
What I think we should agree is a part of the solution is to add language to the standard draftify message saying that the author can ask the reviewer for guidance. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:02, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
That would be good, yes. Mccapra (talk) 07:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree with that, but it would also help if the automessage included tickbox options for reasons for draftification. Ingratis (talk) 08:22, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Even just deleting the default message and saying "insert message here" would be an improvement. IMO the default message is too specialized and too bitey. It also implies something which is incorrect which is that they are not allowed to move it out of draft themselves. North8000 (talk) 13:22, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

There is an open request to provide a formal draftification option within the NPP Page Curation tool. Until the WMF allocates more resources in support of NPP, that probably won't be implemented very quickly. If it ever is, this new tool should certainly incorporate good messaging options. Until we get a new tool, it would be easier to just reword the default message. MB 01:40, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Comment editors are free to alter the language within the drafting tool. I have been adding a message within the text, so an editor can cut and paste, or delete and type. I know it takes a few extra minutes, but it works. Bruxton (talk) 23:12, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Manual of Style - Postnominals in Biographies

I have posted on the talk page at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biography to propose a refinement on the policy on postnominals, which would lead to some postnominals being removed from the lede and infoboxes of articles. Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biography#Fellowships_by_subscription,_e.g._FRSA

I made this change [4] but this was reverted by another editor who felt more discussion was needed. Please participate in the discussion if you are interested. Historylikeyou (talk) 11:59, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I did not feel that "more discussion was needed". I felt that any discussion was needed. This editor, who had a previous total of exactly 17 edits, made a unilateral major change to MOS without the slightest bit of WP:CONSENSUS, and then proceeded to mass-implement his change by mass-deleting certain postnominals from British biographies. See WP:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Newbie mass deleting postnominals from British biographies (current permalink [5]). Softlavender (talk) 01:30, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

New essay - Prefer truth

Please have a look at my new essay, Wikipedia:Prefer truth. Sennalen (talk) 22:57, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Define "truth". —Jéské Couriano v^_^v a little blue Bori 23:03, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
The top value of a Boolean lattice Sennalen (talk) 23:24, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
As Pilate asks, We both have truths...are mine the same as yours? Schazjmd (talk) 23:28, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
I mean, wasn't the point of that kind of that Pilate was a bad guy with his everything-is-relative shtick, and that Jesus was the good guy cos some truths are universal periodt? Asking. Herostratus (talk) 04:51, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIRECTORY has an RFC

WP:NOTDIRECTORY has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. BilledMammal (talk) 04:32, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Hello. I was wondering, whether it is possible to post a picture on wikipedia (upload on commons) by marking the owner/author of given picture with a link

to a Flickr page where the uploader of the picture says it is copyright free? (CC4.0). Xәkim (talk) 09:08, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:01, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

My new policy proposals on voting Trolls

The discussion on FourPaws's "new policy proposals on voting Trolls" is moot as FourPaws has been blocked indefinitely for excessive trolling. This obviouslt makes discussion difficult and unfair given they are blocked, but also makes continuing the existing discussion impractical as FourPaws is now regarded as a troll and the initial discussion, based on them not being a troll, no longer makes sense. Nick (talk) 18:56, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

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

I was directed here by some very kind people who gave me their patience. Thank you! Recently, people were very eager to brand me as a troll for only 3 edits I've done in the admin crat voting process. If people are so paranoid and trigger-happy over outlandish opinions for voting rationale as "trolling" we should increase the requirements beyond extended confirm users since clearly the edginess over trolling is so justified because of rampant trolling. We should also make a "Committed Troll List" for people who have gain extended user rights but have been branded by the community as "trolls" or "trolling" with a watermark of no more than 3 "bad" or "trolling" edits as extended users since I was judged by the community as a troll by my last 3 edits out of 1000+. People who get listed as committed trolls (for their dedication to being a troll after 500+ edits) should lose their right to vote in admin-crat processes just like irl felons. If my ideas are bad then people need to stop throwing "trolling" like a slur in these discussions just because an opinion is out of place or they think something is "dumb". For context read the replies to opposing votes 11 and 8 on DatGuy and Shushugah admin polls and my talk page for insight. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FourPaws (talk • contribs)

  • Ironic proposal that sounds like trolling itself. PRAXIDICAE🌈 16:38, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
  • While the OP itself does not appear to be serious, there is, I think, a serious issue here. To refer to a !vote or other contribution to discussion as "trolling" is to say that it should be disregarded from the outset. But if "trolling" is extended to good-faith contributions that we simply disagree with, there's a problem. A determination of "consensus" that begins by excluding principled dissent is obviously invalid. "Consensus" does not mean "consensus among those who agree with the status quo." -- Visviva (talk) 17:24, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
    Oh dear I forgot to sign. I'm 100% serious. If my point somehow takes away from the validity of my proposal then Wikipedia's ears are wide open shut. I am seriously irritated with being dismissed as a troll and so if people are so scared of trolling on every corner here is my solution. FourPaws (talk) 18:46, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
    I have a different solution, and have applied it. Problem solved. GeneralNotability (talk) 18:48, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Considering your evidence for any of this is a video by John Stossel [lol] complaining that admins have power of final draft [lol] and that, gasp, some of us are openly left-wing [lol] really doesn't turn me from the "trolling" aspect. But, Poe's Law is a harsh mistress. --Golbez (talk) 18:50, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal to allow draftifying articles more than 90 days old when entered into New Page Patrol

Currently there is a ban in place that prevents draftifying articles more than 90 days old without consensus. This ban had wide support and is a really good idea. There is an edge case where this rule becomes problematic. Older articles that would not pass the modern NPP rules get dumped into the NPP backlog if someone makes any sort of edit to the article. A great example of this is the article The Way Between the Worlds. As it stand this article has no references and is one sentence long with an infobox. The article is important when taken into the context of it's authors work. A lot or reviewers wouldn't want to send this to AfD because it has value and merit. But it needs some work, it needs to be sent to draft where it can be worked on and improved. Under the current rules we can't send articles like this to draft our only option is to send them to AfD.

I think a fair adjustment to the rules would be to keep the ban of draftifying articles more than 90 days old without consensus unless the article has been sent to NPP due to age. This would allow NPP the flexibility needed to salvage older articles in need of attention without running into administrative roadblocks.

It is very important to note that I am only talking about this one possible edge case and not any sort of overhaul of this rule. If we removed this rule then there could be a flood of drafts and that is 100% not what I want here. Dr vulpes (💬 • 📝) 10:02, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

  • Why don't you take to AfD, and get consensus to draftify it? Jeepday (talk) 12:59, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
    Yeah that's kind of the only option that you can do in this case. In my other reply I mentioned that my intention here is to find a way to save articles instead of just punting them over to AfD. But if the current system is the best then I'll withdraw the proposal. Dr vulpes (💬 • 📝) 22:57, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
  • It's a decent idea to allow draftification of articles that have legitimately languished in the NPP queue for longer than 90 days, but The Way Between the Worlds is a bad example since the reason it was in the NPP queue was that a different person draftified it out-of-process and I reverted. Finally, you misses the option that was the eventual fate of the article: redirecting. * Pppery * it has begun... 14:23, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
    The Way Between the World was just the article that I stumbled on and your right it isn't a very good example. I guess redirecting could work in a fair number of cases, I don't always like redirecting an article when it's in that gray area between draftify and redirect. But if that and sending articles to AfD is the best way to handle it then it is what it is. Thanks for pointing out the idea for redirect, it's one of those things I knew was an option in these cases but when brainstorming it just didn't come to me. Dr vulpes (💬 • 📝) 23:01, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
  • The NPP project shouldn't get an exemption from globally agreed to guidelines just because they can't do the things they want to do in the given time frame. Also, one of the main reasons why the 90 day limit was put in place was to prevent the draftification of articles that had very little chance of improvement in draftspace due to e.g. the authors long ago moving on to other things. Iffy★Chat -- 16:54, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
    Yeah I see your point. Part of my thinking here was rooted in the idea of trying to find a way to save articles instead of just punting them over to AfD. Is there some of option that I haven't thought of or is this really the best path forward? If the current system is the best then I'll just withdraw this. Dr vulpes (💬 • 📝) 22:55, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
  • I sometimes think we need two distinct “Draft” spaces… the current one for new articles, and another for older articles that have potential but don’t yet meet our standards. Call it the article “fix-it shop” or something. Sending articles needing a fix to the “fix-it shop” would be an option at AFD. The “fix-it shop” would not be under NPP, so would not impact their backlog. And with no backlog there would be no need to have an automatic deletion time limit. These “drafts” would simply sit there, on the shelf in the shop, until someone volunteers to fix whatever needs fixing. Once fixed, they move it back to Mainspace. Just an idea. Blueboar (talk) 23:22, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Long story short, this really need to be revisited in a significant way; the 90 days causes many problems and prevents many solutions. Even changing it to 6 months would mostly solve the problem. North8000 (talk) 19:46, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Terminology for undocumented immigrants

This appears to have been started from a position of US politics rather than Wikipedia policy, and has largely continued in that vein. While there was an early attempt to look at Ngrams, it quickly got lost in debate over which settings should be used. The rest of the discussion seemed more concerned with justifying jumping on the euphemism treadmill (or not) than with figuring out which direction the treadmill was actually going. Further discussion here seems unlikely to go anywhere useful.
If someone wants to restart discussion on the topic, I'd recommend you take the time to draft a proposal strongly grounded in shifting usage in reliable sources, with specific attention to what language is being replaced (e.g. just "illegal immigrant", not "illegal immigration") and what it's to be replaced by (which it seems will likely vary by context, e.g. unauthorized entry versus overstaying a visa), rather than focusing on vague appeal to US politics. Anomie⚔ 12:30, 11 August 2022 (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.

The page Wikipedia:Naming conventions (immigration) has been archived with no resolution. As-is, it notes that the AP Stylebook suggests the term "illegal immigrant;" however, as of 2013, this is no longer true.[1] Joe Biden's administration in 2021 has moved to the term "unauthorized noncitizen." This has made the issue more clear than it was during the prior discussion. Direct quotes should use the exact wording quoted; for non-quoted text, I suggest it is not appropriate to describe certain human beings as "illegal." John Moser (talk) 05:34, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Which would be a valid point if that was what was being done here. "Illegal immigrant" is an exact parallel to "illegal operator" as used in cases such as this: https://casetext.com/case/us-v-crisp-10 . --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:21, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
There was a Village Pump proposal in 2014 thread Guideline for terminology on immigrants.There was a WP:WTW proposal in 2017 thread The term "illegal alien". Both failed. Good. My favourite refutation was that we don't call football players "wide receivers" as a pejorative about their wideness. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:08, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm glad you cleared that up. To my non-American ear "wide receiver" sounds like a rather obscene sexual term. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:53, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
A lot of Americans make jokes about that, too. Not to mention the "tight ends" on the same team. Even "full back" has possibilities for innuendo. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:59, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
The term exists in Canadian football too. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Fun stuff. If the term "wide receiver" were used while locking up, deporting, and denying rights to wide receivers; if it were used for decades as a racist dogwhistle; if wide receivers themselves had been advocating against the term for many years; if many mainstream style guides had moved away from the term "wide receiver"... but Wikipedians preferred to outright mock it anyway, then yes it would be quite similar. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:22, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Context matters. The refutation was of the argument that if an adjective appears before a noun that is derived from a verb, it cannot be referring to the meaning of the verb (if I understood the argument correctly). Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
No, the argument was that referring to people as "illegal" is dehumanizing and unencyclopedic, and puts us at odds with the reliable sources that we're charged with reflecting. It's a pretty compelling argument. MastCell Talk 16:39, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
It seems like WP:MOS#Vocabulary has this covered pretty well: since the term "illegal immigrant" is (a) contested, (b) not the most common usage in reliable sources, and (c) not generally used by the people to whom it refers, there is unlikely to be any good reason to use it outside of direct quotes. -- Visviva (talk) 16:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

The new AP guidance basically said to avoid noun-ifying people as illegal immigrants. Instead to describe it in terms of the illegal action, and presumably only when that aspect is relevant. It doesn't push for "undocumented" and notes that that ambiguous term obscures the point that it is used to "specify"....that the entry or presence is illegal. North8000 (talk) 17:28, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

There are two problems: The first problem is that while you might find broad consensus that a term is preferred (or better avoided) in basically all instances, Wikipedians are extremely reluctant to codify an explicit preference or ban some term. Yes, "illegal immigrant", "illegal alien", and "illegals" are all denigrating language about immigrants for a wide range of social, historical, and legal reasons. That this is the case isn't actually controversial -- the controversy is whether to do anything about it. One of the most common arguments in favor (apart from "I don't like it when people tell me the words I use are offensive") is that they're still used by some official sources. While styleguides and the various sources we consider reliable are increasingly phasing out the language, it's true that they do still appear in various official documents (although less and less -- US immigration enforcement had to stop using it last year, and they were one of the last hold-outs). What's not controversial is that the groups affected by these terms (not limited to people who crossed a border illegally) aren't fans.
The second problem is the lack of an obvious replacement. "Undocumented immigrant", "unauthorized migrant", "person who crossed the border illegally", etc. -- people have different preferences, and there are legitimate criticisms that e.g. "undocumented" is imprecise. Without an obvious replacement, it's again hard to codify. I'd support a proposal to say that Wikipedia doesn't have a preferred formulation but that the three I listed above are discouraged, and would be happy to furnish a pile of sources which explain it (won't get too far into it here). Ultimately, there are a lot of reasons not to use the term, and not a lot of great reasons to use it. Who knows, maybe enough people will be on board, but I'm pessimistic. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:22, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

That sounds sensible. Getting broad agreement for that formulation may, as you indicate, be difficult. - Donald Albury 22:05, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes, a formulation would be tricky, but Rhodedendrites proposal looks good. Doug Weller talk 07:04, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
If the proposal is to discourage "illegal immigrant", it doesn't look good to me. Wikipedia articles Illegal immigration, Illegal immigration to the United States Economic impact of illegal immigrants in the United States Illegal immigration to Canada etc. exist and there's no proposed alternative. The word "undocumented" appears for Wikipedia articles too (I don't know of a proposal to discourage it); however, although "illegal immigrant" seems like it may be in decline when I look at Google Ngrams, it still beats "undocumented migrant" by that measure. Certainly I don't agree with Rhododendrites that it's "denigrating language about immigrants", it very specifically is language about illegal immigrants, that's not merely a hint, it's shouting for all the world to see that if there's an objection it's about the illegality. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:12, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Turning the smoothing off on Ngrams shows a more accurate picture: [6]. They're off by less than 0.000001%, a virtual tie, and if they were nearly equal in 2019, they probably already crossed by 2022, given the very strong trendline over the past two decades. The last illegal immigration RM appears to have been seven years ago. I wonder if the result would be different today. Levivich (talk) 15:42, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Should we use Ngrams? Apologies for copying this text by User:Wee Curry Monster
A) Ngram being used to defend the position. When it comes to capitalisation Ngram are not an effective or reliable means of establishing usage in the literature. [7],[8], [9] Not only are they ineffective but can be easily manipulated. You see if you use my Ngram [10] it shows Copper Head Culture as the predominant term.
B) The only reliable means of establishing usage is a literature review.
Doug Weller talk 15:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure what capitalization has to do with what we're talking about here, but those Ngram examples are being manipulated by changing the smoothing setting: they are set at 10, 40, or 50, all of which are extremely high values; the best value is 0 (if you want recent trends); the default is 3 (good for long term trends). Set the smoothing to 0 and all those charts show the same thing. It's true that Ngrams aren't the be-all and end-all, and they can be manipulated, but they're accurate for what they show. Levivich (talk) 16:08, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
I would never suggest you don't use Ngram without smoothing the data, small values if you want to see short term trends, larger values if you want to see long term trends. 10 isn't high for looking at long term trends say 50-100 years. 1 or 0 is rather too small in general. 3 is rather too small for long term trends but I would recommend it if you wanted to look say over a decade. It is explained much better here. I'm not saying you shouldn't use Ngram for trends in language usage but trying to argue for trends in say capitalisation its very vulnerable to the point of being useless. If you wanted to compare one phrase against another it can be very nuanced. I would say whilst they can be helpful in guiding research, they can for example be used to search for sources in a particular timeframe, I don't think they are a substitute for reviewing sources to find trends in the literature. WCMemail 16:27, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Looking at the particular topic posed, you can observe some trends. In American English, [11] undocumented immigrant has recently overtaken illegal immigrant. In British English, [12] the reverse is true there is poor take up of the use of the term. Combining the two [13] illegal immigrant remains the predominant term. I don't think its as simple as recommending terms not to use, since there are significant variations per WP:ENGVAR. Imposing a term common in one English language variation that is uncommon in another is a recipe for conflict. WCMemail 16:41, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Indeed. In Canada arguments have involved the word "irregular". Disclosure: I removed a claim about Canadian usage in the Illegal immigration to Canada article because that cited source said no such thing. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:31, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
The term "illegal immigration" should be fine, since it's calling the immigration illegal, not the immigrant. An action that is contrary to established law can be legitimately called illegal, but labeling a person as illegal is problematic. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 22:01, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Comparing ngrams assumes the terms are roughly equivalent in both denotation and connotation, and that we're simply choosing which is most common. That's not the case here. "Retarded" and "retard" are still more common than "[intellectually/mentally/developmentally/adjective forms of these] [disabled/handicapped/noun form of these]. In American English, "Eskimo" is still more common than either "Inuit" or "Yupik". But our articles on these subjects aren't at the more common ngram. Why? As with "illegal immigrant", the many reasons why these terms are problematic are easily accessible with a simple search. The idea that because a term is offensive in one English-speaking country but not others we must default to the latter, as though the alternatives are unintelligible or the meaning for the former is irrelevant, is nonsensical (nevermind that a significant plurality of enwp readers are from a country where it's offensive). I will grant that "illegal immigrant" certainly has wider acceptance in 2022 than the two examples I gave above, but the fact remains that it's an offensive term to a large number of people. When we have the choice to use one of many different terms for the same thing, and some distract from the content because of loaded connotations, what reason is there to choose it? I don't think "people commonly use it" is sufficient in that context. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:20, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't actually see it as an offensive or problematic term and it certainly isn't where I reside. You are obviously passionate about this for some reason of which I am not aware. I am not so I will go forth and find something more useful to do with my time. I will observe if you impose a solution upon a group who do not share your world view it rarely ends well. You have a nice day now. WCMemail 17:33, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
I don't actually see it as an offensive or problematic term and it certainly isn't where I reside. You are obviously passionate about this for some reason of which I am not aware. Let me make you aware: because the term is offensive or problematic in many parts of the world, even if it's not where you live. It's offensive in American English, which is the predominant variety of English. Levivich (talk) 17:36, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
It's offensive in Canada, too. There's horrifying things in our past like the Eskimo Identification Tag System. There's a reason people don't use words like that. I realize now that this thread is mainly about illegal immigrants, that one example just really jumped out to me, likely because I started Project Surname. But my opinion is that using "illegal" to describe human beings is also offensive. It's not a crime to exist. Clovermoss (talk) 17:53, 19 July 2022 (UTC), edited 18:01, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
for some reason of which I am not aware - I'm passionate about not insulting large groups of our readers, and prefer to use terms that aren't quite as loaded and distracting where possible. I hope it's possible here. It's strange to me that it not being a problematic term where you live is reason to dismiss the idea like some fringe POV rather than an opportunity to research and learn how/why people consider it an offensive term elsewhere. I'm unsurprised that it doesn't come up much outside of North America, but it's also really easy to google. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:14, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

A good general rule is to avoid "noun-ifying" people by some attribute without a pretty strong reason. But when the context makes illegal vs. legal status important, "undocumented" won't do because it is ambiguous / does not convey the status, PC ness aside. North8000 (talk) 17:44, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Per Visivia and Rhododendrites above, it seems reasonable to proscribe the pejorative "illegal" formulation when used to describe a person (and all such variants), but not to prescribe other such uses. When describing a specific person in a biographical sense, "phrasing such as "illegally entered" or similar would be okay, as it describes an action, but we shouldn't use the terminology "illegal immigrant" or "illegal alien" or similar to describe a person in a biographical sense. I'm less concerned about the formulation in a general, non-personal usage, such as merely describing the concept, though I am not unconcerned; I'd prefer a less pejorative and more neutral terminology that doesn't carry the baggage that "illegal immigrant" carries, but the alternate terminology, such as "undocumented" or "unregistered", suffers from similar problems. I'd be willing to concede that a non-emotionally-charged term doesn't exist, but that also means we need to be careful when using the term in a biographical context, to the point of avoiding it. Which is to say, that unless someone can propose a reasonably-well-used neutrally regarded formulation, we're probably stuck with article titles like Illegal immigration to India, however we should still basically never encounter something like "John Doe was an illegal immigrant". --Jayron32 17:58, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is precisely the situation where Wikipedia shouldn't have any guidelines. Wikipedia is a big, diverse place and a term some people have grown to disfavor may be perfectly common in non-pejorative usage in other areas. In my opinion, there is nothing pejorative about saying someone is in a country illegally (what illegal immigrant means); it is simply a statement of fact (with no clear, undisputed replacements). That being said, I understand reasonable people disagree. To me, that's exactly the sort of situation where Wikipedia should let local consensus or an individual writer determine usage. Zoozaz1 (talk) 23:46, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that that is a good summary of it. My only note is as with other areas, we should avoid negative nounification of people without a really pressing reason. We generally do say "Joe Doe is a race car driver" we shouldn't say "John Doe is a dog kicker" without a really pressing reason even if one can wikilawyer in the "dog kicker" using a non-existent urban legend policy.North8000 (talk) 12:54, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
Disagree that it's a good summary. there is nothing pejorative about saying someone is in a country illegally betrays not having put in any effort into learning what the debate is even about. Nobody disagrees that there is nothing pejorative about saying someone is in a country illegally. "It's not offensive to me" while making no effort to learn why anyone considers it offensive (or even what we're talking about) doesn't negate the fact that it's problematic for large groups of people, and to completely dismiss that with an "agree to disagree" when there are other options is... not ideal. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:33, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
I suppose one could say that anybody who is breaking a law might be offended by the "illegal" term. The avoidance of the term for this particular case relates more to American politics. Nevertheless there's no reason to use the term unless the legality is relevant to the sentence / text it's used in. `Even then, avoiding nounifying is a good goal. North8000 (talk) 16:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
I suppose one could say that anybody who is breaking a law might be offended by the "illegal" term - Yes, if people who park where they aren't supposed to were called "illegal parkers," including when they parked legally but stayed too long, or when they had no say in where they parked, and if "illegal parkers" were frequently used in a racist context about specific groups of people, then it might be analogous. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:31, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
My perspective is that we ought to be tolerant of different perspectives because of how hugely diverse Wikipedia is. I fully understand that some people are offended by "noun-ifying" the term. They should be able to write on Wikipedia as they wish. Others view it as a neutral statement of fact; they should be able to write how they wish as well. The ideal, to me, is not forcing one perspective on another for what is ultimately a fairly harmless debate. In clearer cases were the term has not gained mainstream, non-pejorative acceptance (such as "illegals") there is a much better case for discouraging a term, but the term illegal immigrant is still used neutrally and non-pejoratively in many contexts. Zoozaz1 (talk) 18:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
This isn’t actually a harmless debate when it involves real people who are or could be identified. Doug Weller talk 18:12, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
My point is that calling a person an illegal immigrant instead of saying that they are in a country illegally (or vice versa) is ultimately fairly (not entirely) harmless in the grand scheme of things. Zoozaz1 (talk) 18:21, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
So individuals don’t count, only some sort of “grand scheme”. You could excuse a lot of things with that. Doug Weller talk 18:46, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
We need to operate by a logic that's more sophisticated than "well, some people don't think it's offensive or imprecise, so it's A-ok for Wikipedia". That would allow for absolutely any terms considered offensive as long as some people simply say "it's not offensive". The only really relevant question is how prominent the view is that it's offensive or otherwise problematic. I'd argue that when members of the group it refers to nearly uniformly object to it, when major media outlets pointedly stop using it, when it's explicitly excluded from various organizational and institutional handbooks... maybe it's not a good basis for policy to just go by "well Zoozaz1 on Wikipedia says it's no big deal". Adding: This is feeling like wheel-spinning, and I'm taking up too much of this section, so I'm going to duck out of this thread unless/until it comes time to !vote on something (or if anyone wants help putting together a proposal). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:31, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
I'll just say this then. I certainly don't think every offensive term someone considers neutral should be allowed. But if that term has been and continues to be (if less so recently, as you highlighted) used often in mainstream sources and society as a whole in a non-pejorative fashion, then I believe we should tolerate it for the sake of pluralism. Zoozaz1 (talk) 19:27, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
But is it used in a non-pejorative fashion? Many newspapers here in the UK use the term "illegal immigrant", but in my experience it is nearly always used as a pejorative, to turn people against the people described as such. We should be following better sources than newspapers. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:04, 21 July 2022 (UTC)
Usage of terms in Wikipedia should reflect usage in reliable sources. Since rs have mostly stopped using the term "illegal immigrant," so should articles. If one wants to be pedantic, it's not clear that any of these undocumented workers are in the U.S. illegally until that has been finally determined by a court. IOW, we don't know if they are "illegal immigrants" until they are deported, in which case they cease to be illegal immigrants. TFD (talk) 16:29, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

IMO, this is more about American politics than it is about offense. I have many friends from south of the border (some here illegally) and spend a lot of time with them including in their homes. They don't nounify people by their legal status and legal status is not used in conversations where it is not germane, but don't hesitate to use the term "illegal" when referring to legal status, including for themselves. BTW I started making the distinction between politics and offense when I learned they do consider the politically fashionable term "latinx" to be an insult to their culture which proudly uses gendered nouns. North8000 (talk) 20:03, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Interesting reading here. The author discusses the pejorative use of "illegal", noting that there are claims that the term is a "dog whistle" for racist profiling. One interesting point is the author's statement that entering the US without prior authorization is a criminal offense, while staying in the US after one's visa has expired is a civil offense, a difference that calling all people residing in the US without current authorization "illegal" obscures. - Donald Albury 22:53, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

They seem to be saying that somethings that are illegal are a "civil offense" and thus can't be called illegal and that unless it is "criminal" it can't be called illegal. There is such a thing as civil law (which is a basis for court actions by individuals) but I've never heard of "civil offense" and suspect that there is no such official thing. Even parking illegally is illegal.North8000 (talk) 03:55, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
That's a good one. North8000 (talk) 12:35, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
Almost. See below.
First, I agree with you (North8000) and Ahecht that the action is illegal, not the person (e.g., illegal publication would refer to breach of copyright, but I don't think it is common to label someone an "illegal publisher"). It's understandable, though, that media enjoy grammatical shortcuts, therefore it will be easy to find sources that use the identifier.
Second, and my main point, is that the awkward term "unauthorized noncitizen" mentioned by the OP is more accurate. I'm not a fan of Uncle Joe Biden but his terminology fits better with an article I read saying that a large fraction of "illegal immigrants" (something like 40% or was it 60%?) are people who entered *legally* but overstayed their visa. In that sense, they are (or should be IMO) categorized differently from people who never followed the law. Some countries are flexible about that, to one degree or another.
Third, as an additional point, a lot of these people aren't immigrants -- the do *not* intend to stay forever, only long enough to earn a bundle and buy a house (or whatever) back in their home country. Many people on working visas have similar motivation but they legally applied for their status, which is designated "non-immigrant" in DHS categorization. Martindo (talk) 20:41, 2 August 2022 (UTC)
Whatever new term we use will be considered a pejorative in ten years as Wikipedia's inclusion of the term will ensure its entrance into common discourse and its inevitable misuse. If this is about specific people, avoid the term and state the facts. John Doe is a best selling author who entered Fooland without a visa and was subsequently charged with entering Fooland without prior authorization. On use when discussing the topic in general no real opinion as labels do not change facts. Just as someone who is homeless/unsheltered/unhoused is still suffering from a lack of stable residence and using one label or another may make others feel better but does nothing to actually change the individual's circumstances. Slywriter (talk) 21:11, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

As a side note, the 2006 page called Wikipedia:Naming conventions (immigration) probably needs to be moved to a more appropriate page title. Our Wikipedia:Naming conventions are about what we put in the article title (e.g., Illegal immigrants in India, which is a redirect), not in the body of the article. The failed proposal on that page is largely about what to write in the article ("Bob was suspected of being an illegal immigrant"). If it had been successful, it probably would have ended up as a subpage of the Manual of Style, but since it wasn't, it might be better to give in a simpler name that doesn't imply any connection to any system of policies or guidelines. Does anyone have any ideas? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:56, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I guess the edge case is when the sentence cries for noun-ification, and status is essential to the sentence. Like "the state police were issuing tickets to speeders" vs. "the state police were issuing tickets to persons violating the speed limit". North8000 (talk) 22:07, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

My strong preference would be to push for policy which avoids the term "illegal immigrant" especially and specifically because of its pejorative, racist, and tactical use by right-wing American politicians for many decades now. The term cannot be NPOV regardless if we find it grammatically convenient. We should move away from it to make sure that wikipedia does not implicitly support language which does the bidding of white nationalists. Protonk (talk) 22:12, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

This argument is pretty emotional rather than neutral. There are certainly pejorative terms in use by right wing conservatives in the United States but this is more descriptive than pejorative. “Unauthorized” or “undocumented” is more euphemistic snd doesn’t describe what is being discussed. “Illegal” is in violation of the law. “Unauthorized” could mean a person has violated a parental curfew or some rule or regulation, not necessarily that he has broken a law and could face a legal or civil penalty. “Undocumented” says nothing at all about the law, policy or rule that has been broken. None of the above implies in any way, shape or form that the mere existence of a particular person is illegal or unauthorized. Obviously any discussion of the topic needs to include specifics such as the relevant laws, the penalties for breaking them, the number in violation, etc. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 18:30, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
There is a long-running push in the United States by right-wing figures to ensconce phrases like "illegal immigrants" and "illegals" into public discussion. Acceding to that is accepting and promoting their point of view. It's, frankly, intellectually debilitating to pretend as though we are having a "logical" discussion by starting from premises which benefit one side over the other. Any discussion on the topic needs to ignore the pettifoggery and tendentious appeals to detail that accompany this position. Protonk (talk) 19:06, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

“Illegal immigrants” or “illegal immigration” seems to be a clear and appropriate term. It describes group who are in the country without following the immigration policies of that country. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 13:00, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Many people do not see those as neutral terms.("Words Matter: Illegal Immigrant, Undocumented Immigrant, or Unauthorized Immigrant?") - Donald Albury 15:51, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
I prefer clear language over euphemisms. If the subject being talked about is the legality of their presence in a certain location, “illegal” is the correct terminology. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 16:32, 8 August 2022 (UTC)
Is someone who shoplifts an "illegal shopper"? Is someone who drives faster than the speed limit an "illegal driver"? Is someone who jaywalks an "illegal walker"? Is someone who cheats on their taxes an "illegal taxpayer"? One could probably find occasional usages like this but they are uncommon, and if the "illegal X" construct is so rarely used except for the phrase "illegal immigrant", one has to suspect that it's not normal English usage, but is constructed to deliberately stigmatize the person, to imply that the person, rather than their crime, is illegal. CodeTalker (talk) 02:44, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
Actually, illegal alien has been the traditional legal term and I would assume illegal immigrant was at one time thought more polite and less likely to bring to mind UFOs. It is at least less euphemistic than undocumented or unauthorized immigrant or migrant or citizen, etc. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 04:23, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

An "illegal immigrant" is someone who has been formally deported from a country or banned from entry. For example if I commit a crime while overseas and part of my release orders me to not return, if I return then I am an illegal immigrant. For me to enter the county is by its nature a crime. An undocumented immigrant is an immigrant without documentation. For example, if you have ever been part of the process of filing an H1-A visa in the US you'll understand why so few people do it and work without it. Is this illegal? technically yes. If you are caught is part of your release banishment? no. These terms are important as we saw in the US in the 1980 when the government offered amnesty, they offered amnesty to undocumented immigrants not illegal immigrants. Dr vulpes (💬 • 📝) 10:11, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Each country has different laws regarding immigration and most have a process to apply to enter legally, something that is not guaranteed and might indeed be complicated and take years if it ever happens. Someone who does not follow the law and crosses the border anyway is in the country illegally and might be deported somewhere down the line. Whether or not it’s a civil or criminal penalty, it’s still illegal. That’s the common understanding of an illegal immigrant. An undocumented immigrant could just as easily be someone who had papers but lost them or left them at home due to war or natural disaster or some other crisis. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 10:25, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
This kind of argument is unpersuasive. We do not, as a rule, refer to people who break laws as "illegal-X"--we don't have "illegal drivers", "illegal politicians", "illegal merchants". There are cases where we use descriptive nouns for people who break specific kinds of laws (murderers, smugglers, and so forth) the usage stems from historical use and not some blank slate review of what laws might have been broken in the course of events up to now. It's also wholly unpersuasive to enter into a conversation where people are talking about language which 1. dehumanizes people and 2. supports a particular point of view and push up one's glasses on the bridge of the nose and say "well, actually there were laws that were broken so therefore this particular term is permissible." the fact that you produce "an undocumented immigrant could just as easily be someone who had papers but lost them or left them at home due to war or natural disaster or some other crisis" makes the even more farcical. Someone who "had papers but lost them" is just as much in violation of immigration laws as someone who never had them in the first place--same with someone seeking refuge from a war or crisis (which is what almost ALL of those "illegals" on the US/Mexico border are doing) who doesn't go through an official process for seeking refuge. Protonk (talk) 19:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
If someone had papers at some point, they would presumably not be in violation of the law. Neither would someone who has a valid reason to apply for asylum under that country’s laws. If someone crosses a border illegally because he finds it simply too onerous to follow the country’s procedures, that’s illegal immigration and he is the textbook description of an illegal immigrant. “Illegals” IS a pejorative that I would assume would be unacceptable to most editors. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 20:32, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
This is an imagined distinction. further, it is beside the point. You still have to come to grips with the fact that this language is dehumanizing and (more important for the work of an encyclopedia) implicitly supports the POV of one side in the debate. Protonk (talk) 20:40, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
The other suggested terms are euphemisms that do not explain what is being discussed. I also don’t think illegal immigration is dehumanizing. Bookworm857158367 (talk) 21:56, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
It's dehumanizing. Let's follow our policies and standards, rather than personal opinions against them. --Hipal (talk) 22:08, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
Obviously you don't. But that's immaterial. It is ALSO not as important a consideration for an encyclopedia than the other argument which you completely ignored: that use of this terminology is by its nature not NPOV because it is the chosen phrasing of parties to the controversy. Protonk (talk) 01:51, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Ok let me try to explain what I was talking about slightly differently. You can't just label a person as being illegal, a person can not be illegal. It does not logically flow to have a human be illegal. The legal term used in the United States to label any non-citizen is alien. Anyone who either entered the country without going through immigration services OR someone who entered the country the country legally as a non-immigrant but remained after their authorized period of stay is labeled an "illegal alien". Note there are two things going on here, the first is someone who arrive and enter the country without documentation the other entered the country with no intent to immigrate (or immigrated under fraud) and stayed. There have been attempts to change this from illegal alien to undocumented foreign national, I personally believe this is a good idea and makes sense but this law did not pass because Congress. Courts have made this distinction calling foreign nationals who are undocumented and victims of a crime an undocumented immigrant (page 12) but they also use both terms interchangeability so the entire point is messy. I searched govinfo for a federal case that would better support my previous comment but couldn't, I was able to find some state court cases but I'm not opening up that trash can of worms plus immigration is a federal issue not a state issue in the US. Therefor my previous explanation was not correct and inaccurate, I was more wrong than right. I still think there is a very very limited class of peoples where an argument could be made that the label "illegal immigrant" would apply where if they were fraudulently in a country and were terrorists, nazis, and people who recruit child soldiers (8 U.S. Code § 1227 4cdf). As for the vast 99.999% of people living undocumented in places around the world. They're undocumented immigrants or undocumented foreign nationals but not illegal immigrants. Dr vulpes (💬 • 📝) 01:56, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://blog.ap.org/announcements/illegal-immigrant-no-more
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.

User:Nightscream

Not the proper venue. Editor conduct issues of this type are best discussed at WP:ANI. Editors may benefit from pursuing the other options listed at WP:Dispute resolution before filing an ANI report, however, and are greatly encouraged to do so. — Ixtal ( T / C ) ⁂ Join WP:FINANCE! 20:34, 11 August 2022 (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.


User:Nightscream is making huge deletes on some pages, has anyone reviewed these? Is there a hatnote that says "recent huge delete needs to be reviewed and/or cited" ? ...0mtwb9gd5wx (talk) 09:56, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Not appropriate here. I've notified Nightscream, see no evidence of this, and do see evidence that the OP is a problematic editor. Doug Weller talk 10:26, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
See User talk:Jimbo Wales#Moving uncited material to talk pages after a month (permalink) and User talk:Nightscream#Tagging uncited material (permalink). In that, I said that systematically removing potentially good material from articles would be a problem. This is not the page to discuss an editor but a couple of example edits might be discussed. The conflict is in the interpretation of WP:Verifiability which says "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed." I assert that such removal would be fine in association with the development and general improvement of a particular article, but would be disruptive if interpreted as support for an editor to systematically remove good material from the encyclopedia. Johnuniq (talk) 10:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
Please explain how any material can be described as "good" if it is not verified. 71.247.146.98 (talk) 11:49, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
THANK YOU. But you're not going to get an answer from to that question from Johnuniq. I've repeatedly asked him how one can determine if material is "potentially good", a completely subjective label without any basis in reason, and which is not defined anywhere in WP policy, and he's repeatedly chickened out of answering this, because he knows that he can't answer it, and that acknowledging this would cause his entire position to crumble.
But by all means, prove me wrong. One more time: By what objective criteria do you know that the material in question is "good material"? Simple question. Can you please give an answer, or at least explain why the question is not a relevant or reasonable one in this discussion?
And they are not "deletions", 0mtwb9gd5w. The material is fact-tagged, and after a month, I move the material to the article's talk page, complete with the diff showing where each passage was in the article, with the intention that this would spur others to restore it with the required citations (which indeed it does, as seen in multiple examples: [14][15], one of which you yourself provided --- the one entire section of uncited material you added notwithstanding), while also contributing to those articles myself [16], as I've been doing since I started editing here in 2005. Calling them "deletions", while omitting what I just described, may convey a false picture to those who come to this discussion, and is not in the best spirit of honesty. Nightscream (talk) 13:46, 11 August 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal to change how list criteria are documented

There is a proposal for changing the way list criteria are documented in stand-alone lists. Please feel free to join in the discussion here. Thanks! — hike395 (talk) 11:59, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Someone has proposed a change to Wikipedia:Image use policy

Linked discussion is closed. — xaosflux Talk 20:47, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

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

I'm not sure whether this should have been proposed here or if the talk page is adequate but given the broad attempt at changing said policy, I believe that just the talk page discussion is inadequate. You can find the discussion here and based on the wording in this edit and should not include any major obstructions unless the subject is notable for them. As long as the subject is still identifiable, minor obstructions may be included (e.g. Jacksepticeye holding a microphone to his mouth). I apologize if this is not the correct place to notify interested editors. PRAXIDICAE🌈 20:45, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for flagging it here. To save anyone the need to click through, I'm just letting you know here that I've closed it per WP:SNOW - the community is clearly opposed to the change. WaggersTALK 13:15, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC on naming conventions and Articles regarding districts and Councils

An RFC has been raised regarding Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Geography.

Davidstewartharvey (talk) 07:16, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Notability (sports) Basketball guideline proposal

Hello. I am seeking wider community input for a discussion taking place at the Notability (Sports) talkpage. There is a proposal to add a new SNG to the Basketball guideline of Notability (Sports). The discussion is an RFC. Here is the link to that discussion [17].---Steve Quinn (talk) 19:52, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Consistency

According to http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&search=%22later+George+IV%22 the phrase "later George IV" appears in over 100 articles. Sometimes it appears bracketed, sometimes preceded and followed by commas, at others without punctuation marks. Should it appear in the same way in all articles? Is there any policy generally on consistency? Mcljlm (talk) 12:19, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

No, there's no general policy on consistency and we don't seek to impose it at that level. Indeed, there's a family of articles I'm working on now that are far more inconsistent, and there's nothing wrong with that. I can't imagine the variation you describe is causing the readers any problem and I would hope that Manual of Style guidance isn't required to resolve any current disputes over it between the editors of any of those 100+ articles (so long as no-one makes changes solely for the sake of consistency across articles, of course). NebY (talk) 13:03, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
The WP:OTHERCONTENT essay-bit is a little related. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
If you are looking to get some sort of informal guideline regarding (UK, or especially European) nobility formatting, or even just a handful of specific royal conventions (I've been inkling to get some guidance on the various countries' stylings of Charles V for a while), I would take your link and some specific suggestions to one of the relevant WikiProjects: Britan or Europe (that's an exclusive or, and don't you forget it! -- unless you're in NI), and/or Royalty and Nobility (I recommend posting in one, and cross-posting a link to the discussion in the other). SamuelRiv (talk) 04:27, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Letter-like unicode characters in quotes and cites

Sometimes websites (and particularly people posting things on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook etc.) use unicode characters that resemble plain Latin characters, substituting these for their "plain" equivalents purely for typographic effect. Examples include:

There are websites which offer cut-and-paste translation into all of these, so it's easy for someone to do (without any arcane unicode knowledge, and with no ill-intention).

It strikes me that these are readability and accessibility problems when that text is copied into Wikipedia articles (either as quotations, or as the titles of references). I'd love to know what a screen reader makes of all of the above. I chanced upon Mateusz Malina today, which references a Facebook page than uses Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols purely for bolding. I'd be inclined to simply rewrite the text in the plain Latin characters, but I'd like to cite the specific part of the MOS that covers that. Which is a problem, as it seems WP:ACCESSIBILITY and MOS:CONFORM are silent on the topic.

Is there anywhere else in MOS that covers this?

If there isn't, I'd suggest there should be. Something to the effect of "if the original text uses <the above wacky stuff> to substitute for Latin characters solely for typographical effect, and the intended Latin text is unambiguous, convert the text into the equivalent Latin characters".

Thoughts? -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:48, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms - e.g. Ｔｒａｎｓｌａｔｅ - in addition to deliberate typographical effect, you sometimes see this in text from Japanese or Korean sources, likely where the person creating the text wasn't a confident English speaker, and wasn't aware that the text they were creating would be so odd. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 13:57, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
@Finlay McWalter well, for page titles: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Also, as this is the English Wikipedia, articles should be written in English, spelling words with those symbols instead of letters isn't English. — xaosflux Talk 14:04, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I'd certainly that's the case for titles and the text of the article. But we do have quotes in foreign languages many places. I'd think the matter of translating these from pseudo-english to actual-english would be uncontentious. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 14:10, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
If you are looking for a Manual of Style entry that says "Articles in the English Wikipedia must be written in English", I don't think I can help you there (See also: Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue.). The "cover" of our encyclopedia (Main Page) does say: This Wikipedia is written in English. I also can't point you to a MOS that says "Words used in articles must be spelled correctly", see again WP:BLUE. Spelling words using such symbols is not considered correct spelling, so in general they should not be included in articles. If the symbols themselves are especially noteworthy of the subject, they could quoted in article prose (which should explain why they are noteworthy, and be reliably referenced).
Regarding actual foreign language quotes, see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Foreign-language_quotations — xaosflux Talk 14:38, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
  • This seems like a solution in search of a problem. Unless and until you can produce BOTH of the following two conditions 1) Places in wikipedia where this is being done and most importantly 2) Where you have been prevented from fixing the problem yourself, then there is not any reason to do anything about this. Can you give examples of these sorts of problems, and can you demonstrate, with diffs, how you are not able to fix them yourself? --Jayron32 15:28, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Is MOS:CONFORM what you are looking for? A quotation is not a facsimile and, in most cases, it is not a requirement that the original formatting be preserved. Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment provided that doing so will not change or obscure meaning or intent of the text. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 07:38, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
  • In the absence of any real and significant problems changes to existing guidelines are premature, see WP:BLOAT. 74.73.224.126 (talk) 15:51, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Way to spill the WP:BEANS. I already got to ruin Help:Link once by finding nightmare anchors in template help archives – I can't wait to see how well wiki code handles Zalgo! SamuelRiv (talk) 22:52, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Authors' works lists

I came across some edits that used citation templates for scholarly footnotes in author bibliographies, gave ISBN numbers and other information where they were not important or could be disruptive as pointed out in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of works, resulted in clearly substandard layouts (to my eyes at least) like

  • —— (1999). Slapboxing with Jesus: Stories. Vintage. ISBN 978-0375705908.

from my third link below, and generally didn't conform to standard in most articles about authors (see for example Paul Auster, Honoré de Balzac, Günter Grass (albeit with ISBNs steering towards certain editions), Henrik Ibsen, Toni Morrison (same as Grass), Joyce Carol Oates).

I tried to give some first aid to these lists and explain why, but got them all reverted (almost) without comment. So i wonder what others think about this. Does the MOS/Lists of works need to be revised, for example, including the difference between a works list item and a scholarly citation made clearer?

Pertinent articles: [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

Thank you. 151.177.58.208 (talk) 23:41, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

MOS:WORKS does say {{Cite book}} may be used to format bibliography entries Schazjmd (talk) 23:58, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
Template:Cite book#Display options discusses using author-mask, etc. MOS:WORKS#ISBNs suggests using them. Adakiko (talk) 00:05, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
In Victor LaValle, the editor has chosen to use author-mask=2 which results in the long line. If author-mask=0 is used, there is no line. Perhaps suggest that option on the article's talk page? (Personally I think it looks much better without the line.) Schazjmd (talk) 00:07, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Both as Schazjmd says and year shouldn't be first. A literary work isn't a piece of research that may be inaccurate in a year. Plus all the things pertaining to an exact edition of which there may be or be going to be several and which aren't important to finding the work anyway (unless, exceptionally, the work is revised, and then a "revised edition [year]" or similar will usually suffice). That too is quite another thing with research. 151.177.58.208 (talk) 00:14, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
When author-mask=0, the year will no longer be listed before the title. Schazjmd (talk) 00:19, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Ok, thanks. The technical side isn't my thing. 151.177.58.208 (talk) 00:20, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
The year of first publication is important, because someone might want to know which book came first, or to know something about the general time period. It really does matter whether a literary work was published in 1938 or 1998, and there are authors whose careers span more than 50 years.
In general, both the year of publication and the ISBN would ideally be for the first edition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:13, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
=== 1 ===
I usually try to use the 1st ed, particularly hardcover version if it is released first; otherwise, I use the first paperback. If it is released only in ebook format on the day of publication, I use that ISBN. I also often write out that it's 1st editi like this:
Some people might think it looks "weird", though it is as systemetized as possible. It leads to less anomalistic structures or punctuation mistakes and standardizes the order and what comes first. it's always author, year, edit, imprint, isbn of the ed listed. It gives the optimal amount of info about the novel, etc. in the shortest compact amount of space.
Please let me know if any of this does not make sense or is incorrect usage of the parameters in cite book. I would like to avoid misusing parameters.
=== 2 ===
When it comes to using mask=2, I prefer it since it makes the year and names of the work align with each other in the listing. Having the author name in every single line is redundant, in honest opinion, and I only have authors visible if a co-author is involved, like this:
In this case, the article author is Sarah Monette, with co-author Bear.
I see that some find the line looking bad or unattractive. Is that a consensus among most people? Does anyone know? I think it looks fine and result in less space wasted by author name listed again.
=== 3 ===
Another question is ISBNs. obviously, there's multiple ways to display ISBN, and I've always liked 13-digit over the shorter one, and I type / display only 1 dash. Which is preferable?
The 10 digit version became essentially obsolete after 2007 as far as I've heard. So for works before 2007, should we be using 10 or 13 digit?
Adding all the dashes to a 13 makes it cluttered, except I know that it's useful to some people since it indicates registrant and location of publication. Infobox standards suggest use the dashes like here http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Template:Infobox_book. So practically and aesthetically, overall, how important are dashes?
=== 4 ===
Additionally, I'm interested in page numbers. Normally, citations discussing a particular part of say a scholarly journal would say the page numbers that are relevant. I find it might be a useful way of saying how long the work is like this:
  1. —— (1990). The Moonbane Mage (paperback ed.). DAW. pp. 1–254. ISBN 978-0886774158.
however, I realize that this might not be accepted, since a) that is use beyond the original intent of pages; and b) print size and number of words per page can vary. Any recommend on the use of this parameter would be helpful. Create a template (talk) 09:11, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
and sorry it should be 978-0-7653-2470-2 Create a template (talk) 09:23, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: please note I did not say the year of (first) publication could be omitted. I said it shouldn't come first. 151.177.58.208 (talk) 14:53, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
@Create a template: in the articles I linked to (or for Oates a link from that), and many others, as per a moment ago, you can see how it's usually done.
That includes being done without ugly and unnecessary extra lines after the item dots (let alone semicolons, which don't even belong in a listing. Perhaps colon is what you, like many others nowadays, are after, but that too is unnecessary here). What you mean by "author name listed again" I don't understand. In the works list of an article about a certain author, of course you needn't list neither the name of that author nor a placeholder for it again before every work. Therefore, in many of your own edits and examples, the author isn't what comes first, but the year. As you can see from most articles here (and similar mentions in other places), for literary and artistic works the expected "first" is the title. When they are not actually used and (foot)noted as references, that is.
As for edition, it's the first that counts. Not ever the first paperback unless there's no bound one before. Same goes for revisions if there are any.
Reasons against ISBN numbers are given both in the MOS page and by me. Have you read them?
I, at least, think it's bad netiquette undoing serious and explained edits without explaining. 151.177.58.208 (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
Contrast the above entries with the current state of co-author Elizabeth Bear#Published works eg (with header codes replaced by boldface)
Novels
The Jenny Casey trilogy
  • Hammered (January 2005, Bantam Spectra)
  • Scardown (July 2005, Bantam Spectra)
  • Worldwired (November 2005, Bantam Spectra)
...
The Iskryne series
  • A Companion to Wolves, co-written with Sarah Monette (October 2007, Tor)
  • The Tempering of Men, co-written with Sarah Monette (August 2011, Tor)
  • An Apprentice to Elves, co-written with Sarah Monette (June 25, 2015, Tor)
I find this far less noisy and much easier to read, and I suspect it's easier for editors too. NebY (talk) 15:57, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the point is that MOS:WORKS permits multiple ways of formatting an author's list of works. Generally, when multiple ways of doing something are acceptable, an editor who wants to change one acceptable method for a different method should discuss it on that article's talk page first to make sure there are no objections. Schazjmd (talk) 16:08, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: agree. And, perhaps, the editor might look how it's done in other articles and outside Wikipedia and give a thought as to why. But let's discuss this here then? 151.177.58.208 (talk) 16:53, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
We also have the problem of stating the obvious, because what's obvious to one person isn't for another and if it's considered obvious in circles that engage in whatever the subject is (literature in this case), it can be hard to argue for just because it's obvious.
Case in point (which I mentioned above): repeating the author's name or providing a placeholder for it for each item on a works list for the article's subject. I wonder if the MOS page editor who stated that citation templates are permissible for a works list meant that such a repetition also should be – and if, then neither I nor common usage agree. Same for year-before-title. 151.177.58.208 (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2022 (UTC)
The CS1 templates have a number of capabilities/advantages over simple unformatted text, but it should be used "properly" to employ them all without detracting from others. First is metadata, which would require the explicit filling out of the author name, and then author-mask if desired, for every field, to be useful. Metadata may not be all that important for a simple list of an author's works on an author's page (since a researcher wouldn't likely want to cite/mine an author page in that way), but doing it correctly may still be helpful for those parsing it. This also precludes a simple wrapper template that omits author info, or uses a dummy -- however it would (might? currently checking on that) make viable a wrapper for a list of a single author's works which simply duplicates the author's (or any other) fields on each entry, with appropriate masking. CS1 also offers nice language features and data checking. But if none of that's really necessary, a non-CS1 template of this simplicity would have less overhead and be significantly easier for novices to maintain. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:12, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
You are quite right: researchers go elsewhere for their info and an encyclopedic article shouldn't be encumbered with technical overhead that precludes both easy reading and editing. Like other places, everything else (including an agreeable layout) can't be sacrificed for a few very technical aspects for a few users or instances. – If author's name (and similar) is that important in some technical ways, is it possible to make a special template for this kind of lists, reasonably easy to use for the non-nerd, meriting recommendation on the MoS page, containing some device that adds the name automatically only when it's needed? Takes it from the head of the page, for example? 151.177.58.208 (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry, that's not what I said at all. Wikipedia is used extensively by researchers, both meta and directly, as well as in LIS, AI training, and live data mining. Getting CS1 to implement low-overhead metadata was a critical development. I'm simply saying that biography pages specifically, in a section that simply lists the author's works specifically, does not necessarily have much to offer from metadata alone if they're templated. That does not mean they shouldn't be templated. CS1 still has fairly low overhead. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:22, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

pre-RfC mass-article creation discussion has begun

As part of the Conduct in deletion-related editing case, the Arbitration Committee decided to request community comments on issues related to mass nominations at Articles for Deletion in a discussion to be moderated and closed by editors appointed by the committee.

Workshopping for the first of two discussions (which focuses on mass article creation) has begun and feedback can be given at Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Requests for comment/Article creation at scale. As previously announced, Valereee and Xeno will be co-moderating these discussions.

For the Arbitration Committee, –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 16:33, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard § pre-RfC mass-article creation discussion has begun

Dispute Resolution and Limited English

I have a question about a situation that sometimes arises either at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard or in other forums where dispute resolution is being attempted. The question is what can be done when an editor clearly wants to resolve a dispute in a collaborative manner and is trying to discuss the issues, but it is clear to a third party that the editor does not have enough of a command of English either to understand the details of the issues or to explain what they see as the issues. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:34, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The immediate case in point is an article that was moved to draft space, and then its author requested discussion at DRN, which I declined because discussion could take place via the Articles for Creation draft process. I am not identifying the dispute because I am not asking for advice about the specific case. (I expect I will get advice about the specific case anyway.) The question is what should be done when the author or proponent clearly wants to discuss, but at the same time is clearly having difficulty understanding the English. This issue more generally extends to other cases where an editor is trying to discuss an article, but does not know enough English to understand explanations from volunteers. One guideline is Do Not Bite the Newbies, but how do we tell an editor that they do not know enough English, without biting them?

Standard advice includes trying to tell the editor to edit the Wikipedia in their first language, but some editors really really want to edit the English Wikipedia, even though they don't know as much English as they think that they know. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:34, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I have an update that doesn't affect the underlying question. In the specific case in point, the author is an American. They seemed, over the Internet, to have a problem communicating in English. That problem is not due to lack of command of English. However, I have also previously encountered editors at DRN who have wanted to engage in moderated dispute resolution, and have not been able to communicate effectively in English. So I still have a question how to deal with editors who are having difficulty with English, in working on an electronic product that is in the English language. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:39, 9 August 2022 (UTC)
I've seen some disputes that sound similar. An editor with certain forms of severe dyslexia, for example, might find it difficult to communicate in writing. In my experience, discussions with people who cannot communicate with at least moderate fluency in writing are frustrating to all concerned, and eventually the editor leaves (voluntarily or otherwise). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 13 August 2022 (UTC)
It can be difficult. We all want Wikipedia to be a welcoming, inclusive place and I think we try hard to do that. But ultimately this whole project is about writing a comprehensive and comprehendible, detailed, balanced, accurate encyclopaedia in the English language. In addition, the project is 21 years old and in that time we've covered most of the easy stuff and are mostly left with the trickier, more intricate details or difficult subjects to cover. Now more than ever, competence is required. WaggersTALK 13:23, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
Came here to say the same thing. Putting that into words that aren't bitey can be challenging, though. I don't think I've had a situation quite like what the OP is talking about, but if I got into that position, I suppose I would try to lay it out for them, as gently but directly as possible, on their talk page. If it's not a non-native speaker, as seems to be the case here, it becomes even more delicate of a process. Matt Deres (talk) 16:55, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
I understand that a lack of decent command of English or many severe forms of dyslexia may make it nearly impossible to work collaboratively on English Wikipedia. However, at the level Robert McClenon is asking about it seems to be getting at issues of a bit more complexity. There's obviously quite a bit of research into the interaction, and conflict, between individuals at different language competencies, and it might help to have someone more familiar with this work weigh in. I do want to note (as noted in the abstract of Cohen 2001) that plenty of editors may be coming in with perfectly workable communication skills in a technical field (such that they would be a valuable WP editor on such articles, even collaboratively), but as soon as the environment switches to something like dispute resolution which inevitably gets wordy and lawyery (even if we pretend we don't), the effectiveness of communication can quickly break down. So are such editors simply to be discarded, as several commenters above are suggesting? Is the heated lawyery dispute resolution really the only possible way in which such situations can be resolved, and those not capable of participating in the most nonproductive of transfer of bytes on WP servers are disqualified from the project?
Some effort would have to be made by a small group of editors, two or three maybe with the help of an admin, to work out some general procedure for notifying an admin if such a situation is suspected, positively identifying such a situation, then eventually a summary judgement with pre-arranged simple means of communicating, in a much more visual and concise manner than the walls of text that are our policy pages, the limitations set, should there be some. As I'd imagine it off the top of my head, a temporary partial topic ban would be the most likely outcome in practice if the judgement is positive, but I'm sure people figuring it out and testing it would create something more robust.
I laughed out loud at Waggers's final line. Maybe their watchlist needs more variety. Try hitting the "random article" button from time to time. SamuelRiv (talk) 05:12, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Yup. If anyone ever wants some easy wiki work to do, hit me up. Absolutely no shortage of work, including time-consuming and mind-numbingly repetitive but extremely easy, 'round the Lepidopteran corner of the wiki... AddWittyNameHere 06:13, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Doesn't matter if they really really want to edit English Wikipedia: competence in written English communication is an absolute requirement, and frankly in my view it's insulting when people try to edit articles in a language in which they do not have sufficient proficiency. I would feel I was being culturally offensive if I tried to edit another language project without having command of that language. If I don't understand the words on the page, it would be extremely egotistical of me to think I could possibly improve them. If I tried, I'd just be wasting the time of that project's volunteers, and risking misinforming the project's readers. It's real harm. And so if someone told me to stop editing in that other language wiki, I wouldn't think that was rude or uncalled for. At this point I think we have all the world's major languages covered, there's no need for anyone to edit in a language they don't speak fluently. Levivich 21:18, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Thought experiment: in a CIR article, would you be more offended by an editor leaving behind any of these common ESL mistakes (that can be cleaned by any passing IP editor), or by making basic mistakes in the subject material itself?
In real cases, lots of our articles benefit (or potentially benefit) from native speakers of non-Romance languages, or who have access to non-Western offline libraries, and many editors in this pool could potentially fail your "absolute requirement". Since I've heard general agreement in other threads that more effort should be put into developing conflict management strategies on wiki, I can't see why language discrepancy can't be a part of what's developed, at the very least as part of a wider scope of alternative needs. Obviously there are plenty of cases where a particular user's edits to an article are generally counterproductive, and as those go beyond just language issues we're still really talking about conflict resolution in practice and the improvements needed, and not just some flat new policy (that would still in practice come down to a Talk page impasse and an admin intervention). SamuelRiv (talk) 17:06, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
I've made contributions to wikis whose language I don't speak. There are things that anyone competent in wikitext can do, at least in a left-to-right script. I'll bet that @Levivich could empty w:ht:Kategori:Paj ak lyen fichye kase without knowing a word of Haitian Creole. (It's an error category for articles that used to have pictures in them, but the image has since been deleted from Commons.)
Even if you don't know the language, you can sometimes make useful content edits, too. If the subject is Joe Film, and there's no image, you can add an image and then copy and paste the article name for the caption. You might not be able to write "Joe Film at the debut of his 2019 blockbuster film" but you can manage to copy and paste "Joe Film". There are editors who seem to do this as their main activity, and they end up improving dozens of Wikipedias. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

North Korea: reliability of sources

A long while back, I made an RfC on the source Daily NK. In the discussion, we discussed how sources are generally unreliable when it comes to the topic of North Korea due to the country being so closed off, so much so that even reliable sources like New York Times often reports false information on the topic. Here is an excert of the closing admin's remarks:

The Daily NK has been shown to be wrong multiple times; however, it has noticeable WP:USEBYOTHERS by some of our most reliable sources, not to mention the South Korean government, which you'd think would be the most interested ... For the area of North Korea we should treat all sources with a great deal of skepticism ... Certainly we don't use Daily NK alone for information in Wikipedia's voice, but does that mean "don't use" or "use with attribution"? It has to depend on the specific instance. That's not going to be an easy rule to follow, but a) we don't really have the option to write nothing about a nation of 25 million people that regularly makes front page international news, yet b) to be absolutely safe we'd basically have to do that, because there are no good sources. DailyNK seems as good as any, which isn't very. (There are plenty of worse ones!) We are here to present the world's knowledge, and the world talks a lot about North Korea, but what it says is often wrong.

In the discussion, it was brought up that perhaps there should be an addition to policies or guidelines, such that it addresses these specific issues. In particular, if it is the case that there are no reliable sources on something that needs to be covered (in this instance, modern internal affairs of North Korea, but would generally apply to things that are closed off or treated in a secretive manner), generally unreliable sources may be used without attribution, albeit with great caution.

Should there be an addition to policies or guidelines in regards to this, whether using the logic I have conveyed or using a different path of logic? Or perhaps a different set of actions should be taken, or this concern is already adequately addressed by policies and guidelines? TheGEICOgecko (talk) 18:09, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I can't remember where I saw this, but I recall editors asserting not too long ago in a source discussion about NK (unfortunately, I think it was located on a talk page about an NK-related article and thus can't find it) that despite the popular perception of NK as a hermetically-sealed state totally inaccessible to outside reporting or research, that hasn't really been true since the 90s, and high quality research is available in scholarly publications. I'm not a subject matter expert on NK, but a quick glance at Google Scholar results for articles about NK published in the last decade appears to confirm this. There may still be cause to doubt normally-reliable English-language journalistic RS on NK, or to use Daily NK for uncontroversial subject matter, but my sense is that NK is not significantly less accessible to RS than other countries with minimal press freedoms such as Uzbekistan or Russia, and may actually be more accessible than other countries such as Eritrea or the self-proclaimed DPR/LPR. signed, Rosguill talk 18:33, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
I think this whole idea of "generally unreliable" needs to be re-worked from the ground up. Being from a "closed off" society does not make a source "generally unreliable". If that were the case, then all historical sources would be generally unreliable, because there's no society on Earth so "closed off" as one that requires time travel to visit it.
Think about that source. There are many things that we would not want to use it for ("The Glorious Leader announces that poverty has been eradicated"). There are also many things that it's useful for ("On Monday, Lee Kim was appointed the new Minister of Foo").
Consider the equivalent in any struggling or repressive country. Maybe you will think of Cuba or Venezuela. Maybe you will think of Iran or Syria. Maybe you will think of the difficulties of reporting associated with Ukraine–Russia crisis. It doesn't matter what the specific situation is. As a Wikipedia editor, you take the publication (newspaper, government press release – it doesn't really matter for this purpose), you look at its context and reputation (hmm, you get jail time for "insulting the monarch" in Thailand; might want to take that into account, if the subject is criticism of the Thai government), and you figure out whether this source is strong enough to support the thing you want to write about. If it is, it's "reliable". If it's not, find another.
Something isn't reliable if it could be used for anything or everything. It's reliable if a good editor would accept that for the specific claim. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:43, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
I get what you're saying, but "generally unreliable" is only a general description of the reliability of a source. Of course a source should be used as if it were reliable, regardless of how reliable the source generally is, if it can be determined to be reliable in that specific instance. And no, being closed-off isn't a particular requirement to make a source generally unreliable, me mentioning the closed-offness only describes the problem rather than implies that it inherently causes a problem, closed-offness does not inherently make something unreliable. Historical sources are only considered reliable if experts come to a consensus that it is reliable (or something of the like that externally gives the source credibility). The fact that it is historical means it probably should be treated with a great deal of skepticism, without any external/secondary credibility. With the topic of North Korea, the case is the same, any source talking about the topic should be treated with automatic skepticism, rather than assumed general reliability, as one might be able to do with New York Times. TheGEICOgecko (talk) 06:24, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
I just used the Daily NK thing as context, but what I'm proposing isn't specifically about North Korea. If it is the case that North Korea is not nearly as inaccessible as people generally believe, I assume there are other topics, less broad than that of a whole country, that would also fall under this category of there being no reliable sources, despite it being a topic that needs to be mentioned? I'm not particularly familiar with topics that have sparse public knowledge, but perhaps things that are classified? Or what a user mentioned in the Daily NK RfC, "What are conditions inside of China's Uighur camps, for example? Or how many Russians died in WW2? Or in the Gulags?" TheGEICOgecko (talk) 06:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
In theory, that problem doesn't exist. If a point is not mentioned in any reliable source, then that point is automatically undue and mentioning it would be a violation of NPOV. And now that I've told you that you're completely wrong and that the problem doesn't exist, let me give you about a thousand examples of this problem on wiki:
  • MEDRS declares all primary scholarly sources and all mass media to be basically unreliable; and yet we still have articles on Category:Experimental drugs, some substantial fraction of which cannot be sourced to MEDRS's ideal.
  • See also all COVID-19 articles, especially when considered from the start of the lockdowns in March 2020: no proper peer-reviewed secondary sources in academic journals for 99% of the content, barely any truly independent secondary sources (especially about vaccines and the efficacy of each government's actions), and yet we decided that we needed a huge number of articles on those subjects.
In other cases, there are things we feel "needs to be mentioned" but which cannot be sourced to a "generally reliable" source. Consider, e.g., birthdates (or at least years) for most BLPs. Self-published posts to social media are not generally reliable sources. If you are writing about a typical notable-but-not-exactly-famous person, like a business owner or a typical professor, the only source for the birthdate is: whatever the subject posts on the internet. NPOV would tell you not to bother putting that in the article (because it wasn't important enough to independent sources to mention it, so we shouldn't), but some editors still feel like a biography needs to include that information. Is a statement that "Today's my birthday" on Twitter a reliable source for objective facts? Not "generally", but it is "actually" reliable for this purpose, because editors actually do accept that as a strong enough source for that statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:01, 16 August 2022 (UTC)
I guess what I was trying to say is for the instances when there is no reliable source, even when generally reliable sources cover it. But I think you sort of implicitly answered that too: policies and guidelines on the matter uses the term "reliable sources", not "generally reliable sources" (since Perennial sources is only an essay). So if I'm interpreting NPOV, RS, etc. correctly, if there were to ever be a time a topic is extensively covered by all the news organizations, and if it can be determined that all of the sources are reporting in an unreliable manner, then the topic should not be covered, or it needs to be covered but only with attribution or something of the sort. TheGEICOgecko (talk) 14:57, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
I have been thinking this year that we need an actual definition, of the sort that would be approved by a professional dictionary editor, for the term reliable sources. So far, I'm thinking that the definitions are:
Reliable source
A source that experienced Wikipedia editors accept as being appropriate and adequate support for the specific statement in question. For example:
checkY A specific tweet from Donald Trump's Twitter account, to support a statement that he tweeted something.
☒N A chemistry textbook, to support a statement about Donald Trump's use of Twitter.
Generally reliable source
A source that experienced Wikipedia editors would probably find useful for writing an article, or at least a substantial paragraph, about the main subject of the source. For example:
checkY An organic chemistry textbook.
☒N Anything on Twitter.
So far, we've avoided having definitions. We tell people how to identify a reliable source, but not what it is. I think we need this partly because of the rise of RSP, which re-uses the "reliable" language to it means something different. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:00, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Your definition is by community norms, elucidated through example. That is ('by definition') a definition defined solely by praxis, as in how to identify a reliable source.
And I'll accept that there are a sizable number of people in the world who find dictionary-style definitions illustrative in themselves. But only if they'll accept that there are a sizable number who find exactly the opposite. There's a reason it's a comedy meme (TvTropes). SamuelRiv (talk) 20:16, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
@SamuelRiv, I think that "by community norms" actually is our definition, and I'm concerned that not owning up to this (in the form of writing the real definition in the official documentation) leads people to assume that there is, somewhere, a different, consistent, objective, "better" definition – maybe even one that could be turned into an algorithm, so that Friend Computer could tell you whether the source you cited is reliable. If we write down that "reliable source = whatever sources we accept for a given statement", then (after the usual two-year lag for people to notice) people might stop saying "But it can't be reliable, because it's biased!" (or self-published, or non-independent, or in a newspaper, or whatever). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
And this might stray a bit off topic, but if I accurately described Wikipedia policy, should WP:DAILYNK be changed? Or is there a reason it is still sound reasoning that is in line with NPOV? TheGEICOgecko (talk) 15:10, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
Yeah it should probably be changed. I'm not seeing it as a good source if it's the only source for a fact. If there are other sources, and we are reasonably confident that they have independently checked the fact rather than credulously taking NK Daily at its word, that's different. But then you can use them instead. So, some other observations:
Yes, it us correct that most all sources are less reliable than you probably think. But we have to use something.
Persons are generally poor sources for information about themselves, as they are not a neutral observers and are subject to wishful-thinking memories (or sometimes flat spin or cherry-pick facts). Regarding birthdays specifically, Stan Kenton, Gene Tierney, Jackie DeShannon, and Mariah Carey are four people I know of who either thought their birthday was different than it really is, or else played cute with their birthday for professional or personal reasons. In all four cases forensic digging was required to get the right date. I'm sure there are many more. Birth certificates reliable for our standards, but can (rarely) be wrong also.
WP:RS correctly notes that there are only two sources that are assumed (not proven) to be probably reliable for a given fact: sources with robust independent fact-checking operations (such as Der Spiegel for instance) or that are known to have been independently fact-checked, and peer-reviewed academic journals. Everything else is up for discussion.
The "attributed, but not given in our voice" can be a bullshit workaround. "According to [source], John Smith is a mountebank" has, basically the same impact on many readers as "John Smith is a mountebank". Kind of like "I'm not saying it, I'm just saying that a lot of people are saying it". Sometimes attribution is OK, but a lot of times not.
Some of the things I would like or need to know about Daily NK before considering it reliable are
  • How many fact-checkers do they have? How good are they? How much time are they given to fact-check articles, and how do they do it? Are they genuinely independent -- that is, can or cannot an editor overrule them? (Granted, this is hard to find out for most any publication. Sometimes you can make an educated guess.)
  • What's their business model? What does their target audience want from them (for instance, the target audience of the The Economist expects them to get their facts right or else they'll stop subscribing; is NK Daily using that sort of business model)?
  • Do they have any agenda? Do they have a motive to spin or cherry-pick facts?
And more, but those are some key questions. Are the answers to these questions satisfactory, and do we know these answers with a sufficient level of confidence?
If there is any fact that the is reported inn NK Daily and not elsewhere, we should leave it out. Yes I know sometimes we really want to report some fact that we consider important, that is important, and we consider NK Daily to very likely be correct on this fact, but "very likely" is below our bar for reporting facts. Herostratus (talk) 01:18, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
And for problems with self-sourceing for birthplaces, see Talk:Burt Reynolds from 2007. Donald Albury 14:36, 19 August 2022 (UTC)
@Herostratus wrote Birth certificates reliable for our standards, and I would finish that sentence "...but their use is banned by WP:BLPPRIMARY.
We don't actually require fact-checking. We especially don't require "independent" fact-checking (which almost doesn't exist, for any reasonable definition of "independent"). I think editors would do better to focus on the line in WP:RS about whether the source is "an appropriate source for that content". State-controlled media is a very appropriate source for some content (e.g., names and titles of various state officials). It is a very inappropriate source for other content (e.g., the motives of states they're in conflict with). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
[Re: "...but their use is banned by WP:BLPPRIMARY"]: It's a wiki, nothing is "banned" that improves the project, see the core and founding rule WP:IAR. Not using birth certificates is obviously silly, and I ignore anything that tries to make me do silly things, and I recommend it.
[Re: everything else]: Alright. Yes, the requirement for fact checking is not absolute. (There is independent fact-checking, in publications where, by policy and culture, the fact-checkers don't report directly to the editors and have the final say on what goes in, or a least the power to make their case fairly; and the peers in "peer-reviewed" are also independent and able to make their rulings stick, or are supposed to be.)
Yeah state-controlled media is pretty good. If the main paper in Dictatorland says that Pinckey Pruddle has been made Minister of Defense, you can be pretty sure that that has been stone cold verified (cos if not, and it's wrong, somebody is going to get shot). As is often true, we don't know what their internal fact-checking operation is actually like, but we can deduce that it must be sufficiently rigorous for our purposes.
But the Daily NK isn't state media. It's a private organization. Its article says "Its sources inside North Korea communicate with the main office using Chinese cell phones"... well I mean if they get a call saying that Kim Jong-un was spotted on a train heading to China, Daily NK can use that if they want. Can we? No, not even close. Maybe the caller didn't see what she thought she saw, maybe she misunderstood where the train was headed, maybe she didn't see it but was told it by a person whom she considers reliable but got it wrong, or whatever. If it was the New York Times reporting on Justin Trudeau flying to Mexico, we can be confident that they have checked this with the Canadian government and/or otherwise fact-checked it. The New York Times is not going to publish "Trudeau Making Mexico Visit" based on what one person thinks they saw at the airport.
Not only that, but come on: agenda, much? Daily NK looks to be a fine publication. But I mean they're anti-North Korea. If they're not publishing or withholding or polishing or spinning or accepting items to fit their agenda, that violates what they're about. They might not do it anyway, but I'm not sufficiently confident of that, knowing people.
Again, we are talking about if NK Daily is the only source for our fact. Sorry, but I can't as a general rule have sufficient confidence that the fact is almost surely true. Heck, even the New York Times and everybody else gets things wrong often enough. Of course there are exceptions, but really the only exception I can think of is that the fact has also been verified somewhere else. Herostratus (talk) 02:49, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
I disagree; IMO not using birth certificates is very sensible. There is no way to know be certain that the "Robert Smith" in the birth certificate is the same Robert Smith the article is about.
I feel, overall, like you might not be very familiar with the practical side of fact-checking processes. I think you might be interested in reading articles like these: [23] [24] WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Well, we can't always trust our feelings. I've read those articles and many others, and I rationally believe that I know what I'm talking about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs)
First, RSN is not the determinant of WP policy, not even when they "deprecate" a source. It is Essay-equivalent. Second, the MOS and guides to citations don't yet detail how to do secondary citations, which is a pity. In cases where something like the NYT cites NKD, then you do a secondary citation: "NKD, cited in NYT" or if you prefer, "NYT, citing NKD". RSN recently affirmed this for another deprecated source. Whatever you think of NKD or any other source with similar dubiousness, if a mainstream high-quality news outlet is using them as their sole primary source in their reprinting (as in, "according to NKD reporting" is on every single line), then you do a secondary citation.
As for other cases, such as for example an article about some random off-street in Pyongyang, can you use NKD as a source to note that there is a pothole? Other editors vehemently disagree, but I think this is the exactly thing where WP:ContextMatters should apply. A more important example is for quotations from government officials and agencies -- surely state and propaganda media are fine sources for what some general said to them was their public position, even if he had a position of significant power over them. Is an official statement printed in a popular newspaper somehow not the public position of a government official or agency? It is performative. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:01, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
I think you're conflating RSP and RSN, which is understandable. But I do want to quibble that, when a consensus of editors in an RFC determine that sources are reliable or unreliable, that does have the binding power of editors' consensus, and is not equivalent to an essay. The board itself simply summarizes a binding consensus, and is not itself a policy. Andre🚐 23:18, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
The RfC said that NK News was not reliable. That does not mean that when their reporting is cited in reliable sources it cannot be mentioned. If for example, a NYT article says, "according to NK News, Kim Jong Il cuts his own hair," we can say, "according to NK News, Kim Jong Il cuts his own hair." We just cannot report it as fact. There is no reason why Wikipedia articles should assign greater certainty to claims in NK News than American news media does. TFD (talk) 04:11, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree. Generally reliable sources can be used for truth. Generally unreliable sources can't necessarily be trusted, but that doesn't mean they can never be mentioned and attributed in the appropriate context. They just can't be used to cite the truth of a statement. Andre🚐 04:19, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Yes, I suppose. However, caution here. As a practical matter, the difference between "Smith has declared bankruptcy over 20 times" and "According to the Daily Unreliable, Smith has declared bankruptcy over 20 times" [and with the ref being "Daily Unreliable, cited in National Reliable") is probably lost on most readers: the reader comes away thinking "Wow, Smith has had a lot of bankruptcies". Sometimes this is used to put something before the reader for sketchy reasons, with the deniability of "well, we're not saying it in our voice".
If the New York Timesreports a fact from NK Daily, have they made phone calls to Korea, or had a local reporter or stringer go and double-check that it's true. I dunno, and "who knows?" is not a very good standard for considering reliability. The New York Times has a different business model than we do, and for all I know their policy is "enh, probably true, print it, if it's wrong we can issue a correction". I don't know. But they do have to usually publish facts pretty quickly, I guess, and their overall top goal is to sell papers. It'd different for their own reporting, they do have some sort of fact-checking operation for that I am pretty sure. Herostratus (talk) 21:59, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
I agree to a point, but I think for a source like the NYT that we consider generally reliable, if they will report "According to NK Daily, blah blah," I think we can report that according to the genrel NYT, NK Daily blah blah. That seems unlikely to burn us. Andre🚐 22:01, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
There's an audience who views CNN as reliable and Fox as not, an audience who views the reverse, and a comparably large audience who only has an opinion on Dainik Jagran versus Dainik Bhaskar. The point of inline in-prose attribution to a notable outlet or author is not because we presume the reader to have familiarity with their reputation (if that reputation is relevant they are wikilinked or their work is described further in text) -- it is primarily to detach a potentially opinionated, nebulous, controversial, unconfirmed, etc. claim to the reputation of a notable person or institution. Whether the reader wants to explore that reputation further is up to them, but that attachment to something notable both strengthens the justification for including the controversial claim, in that someone's reputation and/or career prospects are on the line, and also provides the claim with implicit caveats in wikivoice per the tone of prose the encyclopedia has already established. All this, again, is independent of whatever prior knowledge the reader may or may not have about the source, or whether or not the reader chooses to look into the source further. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:13, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
If the NYT publishes attributed statements, then the assumption is they have some credibility unless the NYT article says they don't. While Wikipedia editors cannot distinguish between true, credible or false claims in unreliable sources and cannot engage in fact-checking, professional journalists can.
Incidentally, a lot of information in news reporting comes from unpublished unreliable (per Wikipedia) sources. For example, an article might say "according to a State Department official," or "sources have told the NYT." Notice the wording an Al Jazeera article published yesterday, "Risk of leak at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant: Operator":
Ukraine’s state energy operator said
Energoatom said
The agency said
Russia’s defence ministry said
The ministry said
It said
Reuters could not verify the battlefield report.
Recent satellite images from Planet Labs showed
Regional authorities also said
said Valentyn Reznichenko
Energoatom said
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said
Zelenskyy warned
Officials said
Ukraine has claimed
Moscow, for its part, accuses
Even if we wait until historians attempt to determine the facts, there will still be gaps. But we couldn't write a balanced article without mentioning unconfirmed information.
TFD (talk) 13:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC at Wikipedia talk:Categorization

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categorization § RfC: should templates and template categories roll up into related content categories. —⁠andrybak (talk) 23:35, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

"Demoting" patent nonsense to an info page

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Patent nonsense#RfC on "demoting" to information page. HouseBlastertalk 02:32, 12 September 2022 (UTC)

Has Wikipedia policy ever shifted toward inclusion?

I am curious if there are any points when PAGs that previously excluded content have changed to include it. For example, has a notability guideline ever been successfully amended to extend notability more broadly than it previously did? (My hypothesis is "no, never", but I'd be very interested in falsifying that.) Just curious if any examples come to mind. Many thanks in advance! -- Visviva (talk) 17:10, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

The general notability guideline has been stable over the years (and a quick note that guidelines and policy have different specific meanings on Wikipedia). I'd have to do some research to see how it's changed but since it's been stable I don't think it's shifted in any meaningful way either towards or against inclusion. But if I really understand your question, the recent changes to NSPORT were a shift away from inclusion, but likewise SNGs have been added (though admittedly none since 2011). Existing SNG criteria are also sometimes expanded, such as when more women athletes were presumed notable under NSPORT as the number of women's leagues increased (though obviously this is a bit complicated now with the overall change to it). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:23, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
Thanks! I will need to add some nuance to my thoughts on what SNG creation signifies. -- Visviva (talk) 17:30, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
You really have to examine when a specific SNG was created. Some predate the GNG, but others were written as a reaction to GNG (laying out alternatives to GNG)… while a few were written to reinforce GNG. Some are more inclusionist in their criteria, others are more exclusionist. The most stable ones tend to aim for a practical middle road: too inclusionist for some editors, while at the same time being too exclusionist for others. Blueboar (talk) 20:10, 10 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Another factor is that there have been several inclusion regimes that have never been supported by actual SNGs, just sort of unstated agreements. I think this was the case with the view that every winner of a US state level Miss America or Miss USA pageant was notable, it seems to have been presumed and implemented without actual support. The same seems to have been the case with all competitors in the Olympic Arts Competition, I have never seen anywhere where people were extending the same rules that apply to sports competitors to arts competitors, but in creation of articles there was the same assumption of default notability. The discussion of the Olympic notability guidelines assumes we are talking about sports competitors. The fact that the arts competition was ended in 1948, 74 years ago, in part because it was not reaching the level of acclaim that the organizers wanted, makes it likely that lots of people do not even know it ever existed. I didn't until I happned on some articles on competitors. There are probably lots of other examples. Some of this may come about because in addition to SNGs, which say various things and position themselves with regard to GNG in various ways, we also have other statements on inclusion that look sort of like SNGs, but are not quite SNGs.John Pack Lambert (talk) 12:53, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
  • What is the best way to go through the full list of currently accepted SNGs?John Pack Lambert (talk) 13:00, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
    Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines Ductwork (talk) 14:24, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
  • There was a time when many SNGs were written rather willy-nilly, and many of them seemed to endorse creating new articles for which no reliable source content could actually be found. In recent times, this has been started to be reeled back in, to ensure that we can actually have an article whose content is based on reliable sources, and not just mostly empty sub-stubs on subjects that meet some arbitrary criteria. The basic inclusion criteria has always been "Does enough reliable source content exist out there (waves vaguely at the entire universe of knowledge) to be used to help us write a reasonably well-written and comprehensive here at Wikipedia". SNGs were an attempt to circumvent that process, a way to start a new article about some subject for which no attempt needs to be made to determine if enough reliable source material even exists to support a reasonable article. Recent history has thankfully started to reel that in. --Jayron32 14:30, 12 August 2022 (UTC)
  • For what it's worth, of course we are going to be more inclusive as we move forward in time. We don't have a deadline, like say aiming to be one by 2030 (except for new events and developments). We've done most of the really notable stuff, and the pretty notable stuff, and the somewhat notable stuff, and the barely notable stuff. Time to move on to the hardly notable stuff and the marginally notable stuff. That means lowering our standers, to include more material and make the internet suck that much less. Herostratus (talk) 02:57, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
    I don't think we've written articles about all the "really notable" subjects yet. Italian Renaissance sculpture was created only a few months ago. French Renaissance sculpture doesn't exist yet, nor does Spanish Renaissance sculpture, English Renaissance sculpture, Dutch Renaissance sculpture, or German Renaissance sculpture. These are all "really notable", if you measure that status in terms of something which whole books have been published about over the course of many decades. I think this is a pretty common situation. Once you get out of the "really popular" subjects (e.g., Star Wars, professional football), I think that many such holes exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:31, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
Well, fair point. But still. Herostratus (talk) 22:08, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
I still think Herostratus makes a good point because the notable subjects are indeed strictly limited even if they are not all done yet, and so the shift must inevitably lead toward more inclusive since the stated goals of Wikipedia also include "...free access to the sum of all human knowledge." "...that contains information on all branches of knowledge." it seems inclusion is a foregone conclusion, and arguments that I always hear mainly from deletionists with needless worry about "endless this" or "endless that" make no sense at all to me because even when we run out of the notable stuff we will follow through to the logical conclusion that even less notable stuff is limited, and finite. There is no "endless this" or "endless that". It's just an imaginary "problem" to "solve". Some people wrongly identify me as an inclusionist by the way I talk, but I'm not. I'm just against hard core deletionism. I find it to be most harmful. Hardcore inclusionism is also harmful, but I only see it manifest on articles, where it is easy to dispense with, whereas I see deletionism manifest in policy, where it takes diligence, and an act of congress to sniff it out, and set it right so I think deletionism is far more harmful. Huggums537 (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Our standards have raised considerably since I've been here. Especially through 2015ish, the running theme of FA after a few years is that they either improve with the times or they get delisted (which is why I find FA OWNers' typical interpretations of FAOWN hilarious, but that's for other threads). Bot-created stubs have been largely cleaned up, and although if I weren't dormant at the time I would have vehemently opposed AfC, the research and implementation have held up. There's a lot to worry about with the future of Wikipedia (for my part I think the editor retention issue and ingroup mentalities are hand-in-hand at the top of the list, though probably only the former matters, since more editors would make the ingroup people matter less), but a decline in standards is not one of them. A decline in quality by other metrics and definitions, however -- politicization/moralization, single-track options to editing and conflict, editorX over UX (not exactly new behaviors, but not acceptable with how ubiquitous a resource WP is) -- that I will definitely hear out. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:38, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
For what it's worth, of course we are going to be more inclusive as we move forward in time. I have to say that I really don't think this is true unless there's a major sea change. We are actually becoming far less inclusive, with a number of non-guideline but still widely applied (and even some that were written into guidelines) notability standards being quashed by RfCs. For example, once we considered pretty much all railway stations, all secondary schools, all degree-awarding institutions, all Olympians, all top-flight sportspeople and all generals, admirals and air marshals to be notable and pretty much every AfD on these topics was closed that way. That is no longer the case and the fact it is no longer the case is endlessly crowed by the deletionist lobby. So no, sadly this is not true at all. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:07, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
It has been necessary to restrict what topics are included due to either on popular culture topics that can be endlessly sourced to primary material but not secondary works, excessively detailed news coverage, or due to those b trying to ask WP as a promotional source. Most other changes in notability have been a result or the mass article creation leave unexpandable stubs, we have a long way to go in covering more academic material since we are a volunteer project and academic subjects are lacking. We also know that they are minority groups underrepresented on AP that we are limited by sourcing that we are seeking the means to expand. So there are areas we want more inclusion, while we are still more deletions in others.Masem (t) 02:25, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
  • 'Neither an inclusionist nor a deletionist be' is the basic precept for the approach to notability and quality of sources by New Page Reviewers - their task at least, is not hardcore one way or the other. Their work is significantly constrained however, by some SNGs that favour inclusion under the flimsiest of interpretations of sources that support notability such as by the massive fan base for the world's favourite field sport (outside the US) that will outvote any motion to get its SNG tightened up, and I'm not as convinced as tJayron32 that 'this has been started to be reeled back in'. The natural tendency of the clean-up workers is also to perceive, to their sorrow, the Foundation's policy/philosophy as being 'quantity is more important than quality' and hence the salaried devs' reluctance to service the tools that makes the reviewers' work less depressing.
While the sheer number of articles is something to boast about and may attract donations, the obverse is that the increasing complaints and jokes in the media about the reliability of Wikipedia may well be putting other donors off. Atsme, a lead NPP tutor, sums it up well with her “It's better for us to have 5,500,000 quality articles than 6,500,000 that include a million garbage articles. Funders donate because they are expecting some level of quality in what we publish.” I think NPPers and anyone else who is familiar with the content of the daily submissions of new articles will quickly concur that all advantages brought by the 2018 ACPERM policy have since been lost through the increase in the availability of broadband connectivity and the drop in prices of mobile devices.
Not all the traditional encyclopedic topics have been exhausted yet; as WhatamIdoing suggests, 'many such holes exist' but as basically a technology company for hosting the corpora, the Foundation is ostensibly developing what has become its main goal rather than developing the genuinely required software needs of its encyclopedia editors and attending to the community's appeals for tools for its quality supervisors. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:54, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm of the mind that the WMF needs to make more quality sources readily available to editors, especially AfC and NPP reviewers, and content creators. We are expected to determine whether or not a topic is notable based on the cited sources and coverage via what means? A Google search? And what happens if we don't use the right combo of keywords, or the needed material is in a book, or it is in an archived news article, or paywalled journal? Using geographic feature as an example, what are our expectations of widespread coverage for named, obviously notable, geographic features? Should we automatically assume named geographic features are not notable if they fail SIGCOV, and swoosh them away at AfD? I think not, but at the same time, I don't think we should automatically include articles about every named sandbar around the globe. On the other hand, if a particular group of named sandbars on major rivers in different states are known to provide critical habitat for migratory endangered species, then should we only include an article about the endangered species and a little section about the sandbars, or would those named sandbars be notable as standalone articles? I think the latter, as long as those named sandbars are verifiable and can be cited to at least 1 or 2 sources upon article creation. NEXIST would then apply because there's a high likelihood that a group of biologists and researchers have documented important information about those named sandbars in their respective state resource publications, or perhaps USF&WS has published something about them, and what the public needs to know; it could even be something as simple as a USF&WS sign at the location that makes it noteworthy. There may also be a bit of coverage by local news, so where do we draw the line for "adequate coverage" and notability? Is it a general belief that all editors who focus on "cleaning up the pedia of non-expandable stubs" actually know what resources to access in order to expand a stub if they are not familiar with that particular topic? There are many notable topics that have not received widespread coverage as say a celebrity, or sports personality, a disaster, or a scientific break-thru, but that doesn't make them any less notable. We have a finite number of writers/reporters/journalists/researchers and publications in our global talent pool, and they cannot possibly cover everything on a global scale. We should also not overlook potential historic significance of a topic which means we need access to old newspapers, and the like.
  • WP:TWL has been moving in the right direction relative to securing more free access to important sources for us, and deserve accolades for their efforts, but free access is still limited which means you may end up on a waiting list. It is time for WMF to shake loose of some funding or at least bargain for more access to paywalled resources so we can properly do our jobs. I have mentioned the paywall issue more than once on Jimmy's TP several years ago before it became the issue it is today. Not all NPP reviewers and serious content creators can access Nature, or PNAS, or JSTOR along with a host of other resources behind paywalls, so how can we properly determine WP:N if we cannot access the necessary sources? What exactly is needed to establish "adequate coverage" when common sense tells us a topic is indeed notable? Some of our guidelines actually work in that regard at AfD, including WP:CONTN, WP:NEXIST and SNG, but they need more clarity and clout, not the opposite as some have suggested. SIGCOV should not be the sole determining factor for notability because there are far too many topics that are worthy of being noted or attracting notice. We also need to craft a specific policy to ward off questionable mass deletions (ArbCom is inching closer toward an RfC on this topic) and pay closer attention to the benefits of SNG because of the nuances that require critical thinking skills and common sense in lieu of a simple binary approach per SIGCOV and GNG. After all, WP is supposed to be the sum of all knowledge. Atsme 💬 📧 10:40, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
    Can you give an example of what sources you want access to? The Wikipedia Library is quite broad Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 10:51, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Hi, Wakelamp, Sam just mentioned a few that are back in. I don't know about the access possibilities but the AVMA Journals - American Veterinary Medical Association, I presume we now have access to The Veterinary Journal via ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier? A sideline thought might be access to The Kennel Club and American Kennel Club libraries, and NYTimes, WaPo and WSJ which are behind paywalls. As often as WP cites those news sources, one would think they would be happy to give verified WP editors free access considering we generate a substantial number of the clicks to their online publications. Atsme 💬 📧 15:11, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
    I thought the NYT times was there via Newspaper? I would like the WSJ as well, plus [The TImes]] - have they been vetoed because they are Murdoch? My wishlistalso includes full access to the whole of google books through an agreement with the Author's Guild (??) :-) And scanning of more libraries in other countries . and....:-) ~~~ Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 15:40, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
    Internet Archive has so much stuff it's hard to comprehend, it exceeds what Google Books does, example. They are scanning thousands of books a day. Some will say copyright, but for research on notability it doesn't matter because links are not required to cite a work. -- GreenC 02:08, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
  • @Atsme: Thanks for mentioning TWL :) We're working hard to add more publishers to the library, and we've just added both SAGE and (re-added) Elsevier, which are huge collections of content, available immediately to all eligible users. In terms of NPP, since the minimum standards for being a new page patroller are 90 days and 500 edits, almost all patrollers should meet the eligibility criteria of 180 days and 500 edits for the library, meaning they can access Nature, PNAS, JSTOR, and many other collections, without any waitlists at all. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:18, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
  • Hi, Samwalton9 – it is always good to hear from you, and thank you for the wonderful news & update! Dating back years ago to when I first volunteered as a TWL coordinator, I have considered it a lifeline for WP. I can't imagine what we'd do without it. I think it was Science Direct that I needed access but now that Elsevier is added back, I'm good to go. Thank you for all you do!!! Atsme 💬 📧 15:11, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Maybe not on topic, but I think the English Wikipedia needs to prioritize bringing unsourced or under-sourced stubs up to a minimum level of quality before worrying about expanding coverage. At the very least, let us try to raise existing articles to a minimum standard of quality faster than we add new poor-quality articles. I have an example of the problem with letting poorly sourced sub-stubs sit around for years, described at User:Donald Albury/The rescue of a sub-stub biography. This is not the first poor-quality article that I have expanded, but it was particularly egregious in how much it had wrong about the subject. That it sat around for more than ten years with so much misinformation in it is an embarassment to Wikipedia. - Donald Albury 16:52, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

There are 1,773 Category:All unreferenced BLPs, and why we're not batch-moving them to draftspace, I don't know. There are another >100,000 Category:All articles lacking sources and >430,000 Category:All articles needing additional references. I remember a recent discussion about this and there was no consensus to batch move these out of mainspace, as I recall. Levivich 19:27, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
Who is "the English Wikipedia" that should do this, if not us? And what if I decide that my own WP:VOLUNTEER efforts are best spent doing the opposite?
I fairly often see editors who have made "only" dozens, rather than tens of thousands, of edits who are adding sources to existing content or adding new material plus a source. I wonder what we would find, if we compared the contributions of the editors in this discussion against the ideal of expanding and sourcing existing articles. My own contributions today have likely removed more sourced text than I added. Several people in this discussion haven't expanded or added a source to an article in a long while. In fact, several haven't touched the mainspace for days – or months, in at least one case. I have heard that one of the Wikipedia's has a WP:NOTHERE concept that expects 30% of all edits to be in the mainspace. It's not a hard-and-fast rule (e.g., you don't want to ban someone who solves problems with templates), but their idea is that Wikipedia needs more getting the work done and fewer people who do little except tell others what they ought to do. I suspect that many of us here would be in trouble. I suspect that, if you look at the last several years, you'd find that three-quarters of my edits were outside the main namespace. If you didn't count non-content-oriented edits (e.g., formatting edits, WP:AWB runs, etc.), then perhaps a large fraction of the Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits editors would be consider "not here" to write an encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 28 August 2022 (UTC)
The juxtaposition here is a bit odd since Donald Albury has 50,000+ edits of which 60% are in mainspace, and created 300+ pages in main... Andre🚐 21:36, 1 September 2022 (UTC)
You and I, on the other hand, would not fare quite so well. Only 24% of your edits were in the mainspace last month (Donald's score was 49%). But beyond the number of edits, I feel like we (we, the core community; we, the people who hang out at the village pumps) tend to say things like "The English Wikipedia needs to do add more references to under-sourced articles", and we will all solemnly agree, but then we don't add more references. We agree that somebody ought to do that, and then we go back to the edits that we enjoy, like tagging articles written and sourced by other people so they'll know we found their work deficient. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
I typically average only 30% in mainspace, but I do spend a lot of my edits nowadays expanding and editing references and expanding text, and recently I've cleaned up a few articles that were languishing for years. Still, I agree that there's no shame in being a gnomish editor, or spending a lot of time in discussion and meta land, or only uploading files, or mostly reverting and blocking vandals, or whatever it is volunteers want to do. I do agree though with Donald's point as well that there is plenty of work to do improving existing articles, though it's not always the most exciting or glamorous work. Andre🚐 23:54, 3 September 2022 (UTC)
This may be contributing to a pissing contest, but I think I am in a position to call for improving sourcing in existing articles, as that is a lot of what I do. (As an aside, the percentage of my edits that are in main space is fairly high because I don't post much on project pages like this.) Now, I understand and appreciate that editors contribute in different ways, and no one can be forced to do something they don't want to do, but I think we can say that some ways of editing do not improve the encyclopedia, especially if they create unnecessary work for other editors. It is policy that everything in an article must be verifiable from reliable sources. Failure to provide citations to sources creates problems for readers and other editors. I will look for and add sources when I have time and the resources, but I will also tag unsourced material when I feel that it is important to do so, and I do not have the time and/or the resources to find suitable sources. People may want to ignore it, but there is the principle that the burden of providing sourcing for material lies on those who want to keep in the encyclopedia. Donald Albury 15:12, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure this is a good or productive way to view debates over our content policies - it's a bit WP:BATTLEGROUNDy. But as someone who has edited since 2004, one thing I'd point out is that prior to the broad adoption of the WP:GNG, it was not uncommon for people to argue that certain subjects or topics were inherently non-notable, regardless of the sources produced for them (or at least to demand sources far beyond what the GNG now requires) - "not notable" was a sort of vague, often hard-to-answer WP:AFD argument that people would make for all sorts of reasons. The GNG set a clear threshold, which made that less common (and made it easier to answer an assertion that something isn't notable.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:33, 4 September 2022 (UTC)
    This still happens all the time. The arguments that boil down to "GNG doesn't count anymore because we don't want this kind of article in the encyclopedia" are rampant enough to basically be de facto policy. Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:04, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
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