Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.

• If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use Village pump (proposals).
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Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequently rejected or ignored proposals. Discussions are automatically archived after remaining inactive for two weeks.

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Increased rules on articles leading to overzealous article thinning and deletion

I've been a Wikipedian for over 16 years, and I would like to comment here, that over time, many good editors have left due to exhaustion and frustration with what appears to be an ever increasing set of rules being enforced by an overzealous army of editors who seem driven by the unquenchable need to remove every bit of content that they deem unnecessary, non-notable, insignificant, or inadequately cited or sourced to degrees clearly not originally intended by the rules and guidelines. I would dare to say that Wikipedia has become a rather unfriendly place, where the police shoot first, and ask questions later. Sadly. --Thoric (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

WP has matured. Sixteen years ago, we were definitely much more maverick and open about what content we allowed but we've recognized that a lot of readers depend on us for quality research and summation, as well as trying to avoid the reputation of having 1000s of pages of Pokemon but very little on practical history. We've better focused on material that is backed by more reliable sources and less on "popular" topics which are better covered in other places. --Masem (t) 18:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm afraid you will have to give specific examples of the "increasing set of rules", the "overzealous army of editors" and the "unquenchable need to remove every bit of content." If you are just blowing of steam then so be it - everyone needs to do that from time to time but don't expect any big changes without examples of what needs to be changed. I will add, for the record, that the reference to "shooting first" would be out of line at the best of times but after the year we've lived through it is particularly vile. MarnetteD|Talk 18:40, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Just to note that IMO the Wikipedia Seigenthaler biography incident brought about the need for WP:RS and several other guidelines and policies that are part of WikiP today. MarnetteD|Talk 18:44, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

You are assuming that Editors will move from editing articles that they have an interest in, to articles on practical history. The more likely scenario is they start off on Pokemon and move on to other things. Bits are cheap. Just have a flag saying that the article is not notable and let the user be able to exclude non notable articles. And let the project people by able to split them from their stats. AT the moment the many articles keep on being searched for and deleted. Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 08:11, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm reasonably certain that this is a reaction to SMAUG and particularly Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SMAUG (2nd nomination). Bald assertions of notability from an article's primary author are not unusual, nor is frustration at having an article one cares about nominated. The difference between 16 years ago and now is that such assertions were often accepted at AfD and now AfD participants expect there to be some evidence to back up these assertions. A MUD will always struggle with the notability criteria but that is why pop-culture topics have split off into their own Wikia universes. Indeed, there is wiki devoted entirely to MUD's and one could even create their own SMAUG wiki, if one wished. But Thoric is correct that the culture has changed and it is harder to keep articles such as the SMAUG one on en:wiki. That is by the general consensus of the participants in this community. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:00, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I haven't thought about MUDs for years. I never used SMAUG (I was a Shattered Worlds fan). But SMAUG and Shattered worlds were used for AI research [1]https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-12842-4_40 Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 08:41, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

(ec) I agree that the "shoot ... ask" metaphor is misplaced; nobody dies here as a result of proper editing. Questions aren't asked because experience has unfortunately taught us that the majority of such questions go unanswered, and it adds a level of extra workflow complexity that we don't find palatable. It's much easier to revert something that is likely wrong or uncitable and let the promoter of it prove it. After all, restoration is only a click away. I'm not advocating blind reversion – a certain amount of finesse is required (and I believe, used). The fact that we are becoming more vigilant at removing trivia or otherwise unnecessary fluff, stuff that is uncited (and often uncitable), etc., is a good thing for the most part. Now, if we could just enforce WP:RAWDATA instead of supporting the recording of every poll or vote, goal or basket, pageant quarter-finalist, game show contestant, or minor supporting actor, etc., too much of which is never cited, verified, self-consistent, ... —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 19:05, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Obviously the articles, not the people, are the fatalities in this case, although I know for a fact that over the past decade, a significant percentage of original editors burnt out and departed. The problem isn't that some articles are "uncitable" in so much as becoming difficult to cite according to ever changing rules. Many "cited" articles have become "uncited" as previously acceptable sources were deemed unacceptable. --Thoric (talk) 22:22, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Articles that are deleted are not "fatalities." Considering the number of people who have died this year your continued use of such language is truly disgusting. BTW you have yet to provide examples of any "ever changing rules" that are causing a problem. Yes, sources can become unacceptable due to their actions not Wikipedia's guidelines. MarnetteD|Talk 22:32, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Sure... keep attacking me personally because not only are you guys the Wikipedia police, you're also the language police. You guys are the very reason that the two Wikipedia founders ended working on entirely new spinoff projects. Let that sink in. "No small group of elites deserves the power to declare what is known for all of us." -- Dr. Larry Sanger --Thoric (talk) 23:20, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

No one has attacked you personally even though you've leveled plenty of accusations and attacks. Seeing as how you have no desire to present evidence to act on, nor any concrete proposals to make perhaps you would be happier working on one of those spinoff projects. I've been here almost 16 years as well and still can't find any "small group of elites." Thus, your whinging on is unlikely to change anything. MarnetteD|Talk 00:19, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I mentioned our maturity. That includes not only aspects like notability, but sourcing quality as well. We're less likely to accept primary source as principle sourcing for articles nowadays since companies and others have found ways to abuse WP to self-promote themselves with primary sources, for example. This thus causes some articles that we'd have accepted a decade ago to no longer be considered appropriate here. --Masem (t) 23:36, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

I understand that Wikipedia is held to higher standards than it was 16 years ago, and I understand the need to prevent self promotion, but things have gotten to the point where rules meant to prevent abuse are being used to slice some articles down to a stub, which then gets flagged as too small to have its own article, and gets deleted without allowing a redirect to a relevant parent article, and next the parent article ends up on the chopping block (am I even allowed to say chopping block here?) Over 250 articles are removed from Wikipedia daily, such that there is a site for the express purpose of archiving them (deletionpedia.org). There is a problem here. It's not just me. --Thoric (talk) 00:14, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any examples of how sourcing guidelines (Expanded or not over the last decade) have been misapplied, in the specific context that you're here about your own project being at AFD? SMAUG was never culled down to a stub. There were a few attempts once to redirect it back in 2016, a soft delete at AFD which was restored at your request (A COI refund is a little off, IMO), and then a subsequent renomination after the only improvement you made was a copyright violation. Otherwise the article is in the same state it was in 2015, which was mostly written by you. -- ferret (talk) 00:23, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I brought it back to work on it, then was told I couldn't work on it due to COI. Are you saying the renomination was due to the copyright issue? I misunderstood one of the WP:C-P concepts, and had permission to use the content, but I can reword it (if I'm even allowed to). Most edits by anyone other than me were removed and/or reverted. There used to be an entire "MUD Task Force" at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Video_games/MUD but it's gone now, so who is even to edit articles such as this? Look -- MUDs are the historic predecessor to MMORPGs such as WoW. SMAUG earned itself a mention on Raph Koster's Online World Timeline of "significant events for the development of virtual worlds". The SMAUG codebase has been downloaded well over 100,000 times, and is used by over 5% of the MUDs listed on The Mud Connector. It's a piece of Internet history. It's non-commercial. It has many derivative works. --Thoric (talk) 01:14, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Ok, so, no, you can't provide any examples of sourcing policy or notability policy being used "against" SMAUG, other than the AFD itself. It's pretty clear that the article hasn't been "attacked" or "purged" of content in any form. In fact, the most substantial removal of content in the article's history was you in 2005. The page has been nearly static for over a decade beyond minor tweaks or template syntax/merge type fixes. The article restoration and the copyright incident occurred in October. You made no further edits from that point to improve it, and the AFD nomination didn't come until December, and the COI warning after that, since I am familiar with ROD and SMAUG and recognized your name. I'm more than adequately familiar with MUDs and MU*s and their history, having ran several myself. -- ferret (talk) 01:43, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

So a developer formerly used Wikipedia to promote his product and now comes back after a 10 hiatus of active engagement and complains that the entire project is fatally flawed because of an article about his MUD is being rightly nominated for deletion. Do I have those facts right? That's an awfully big claim to make based on one article in which you have a conflict of interest and which hasn't undergone anything like the set of alterations you ascribe. You haven't yet, despite multiple requests, provided a scintilla of evidence for your MUD's notability nor have you provided any sort of evidence for your complaints here. Do you really think this is going to be taken seriously or result in any action based solely on your evidence-free assertions? Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:41, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

The SMAUG article is certainly not representative of my work as a wikipedian, as can be gleaned by my user page. I purposely avoided work on it so as not to appear to be self promoting. It's a piece of Internet gaming history. --Thoric (talk) 01:14, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

• Having read through the above, I'm not seeing any indication that this could lead to alterations of our longstanding notability and sourcing requirements, and VPP is not the place to coach an editor who doesn't understand them. This discussion should be closed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:32, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this discussion should be closed yet. It raises a couple of important points on motivation of wikipedian editors. The criteria 16 years ago and for many years since have been strict. The point being made is not solely about notability and sourcing. This discussion could result in a new stage in the deletion process. This could introduce the concept of prompting suggestions for improving articles from the people who are unhappy with articles, rather than jumping straight to deleting, merging or redirecting them. Please let me know if this stage has been proposed before, and where, I would be grateful for a link. This new stage would result in improvements to wikipedia, and more motivated contributors. The point being raised is that the deletion process is thinning and reducing Wikipedia plus also losing valuable editors, forever. Please could we address those two separate points and come to consensus conclusions before closing this valuable discussion, thanks. Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 18:22, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

@Mediation4u:, this is already required and has been for eons. The Deletion Policy includes consideration of alternatives to deletion and nominators are expected to carry out exactly those types of checks before nominating. You may also find Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Deletion worth reading. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 18:28, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for the relevant links. I did suspect that this topic had been discussed before and I see that many wikipedians have expressed in great detail that Wikipedia should not be limited by the disadvantages of a paper encyclopedia, here >> Wikipedia:Deletion reform/Brainstorming#Remove notable requirement. There are calls for clear definitions of notability in that discussion. It is a fine line between Wikipedia's integrity and gravitas on one side, and the appeal of Wikipedia's innate eccentricity on the other side of the coin. Deletion without sufficient cause risks throwing out the baby with the bathwater and throwing out well-intentioned contributors too. Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 01:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

For instance:

Notability has been used by editors with an axe to grind. It is a way of suppressing useful information in order to give preference to a personal POV. Notability is too subjective. It hands a loaded gun to a child. Wikipedia is becoming increasingly crippled by the limiting view of some editors that it must model itself after paper encyclopediae, and mimic their limitations. The Notability criterion is one painful, destructive manifestation of that policy. --Aminorex

On one hand Wikipedia is not a random collection of information and on the other hand Wikipedia's appeal for many is that editing it and reading it should be fun. If there are more links to prior discussions, then please feel free to gather the links here. A compendium of prior consensus summaries may speed up the closing of this thread. Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 01:03, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

There's really nothing further to do in this thread. There is no true call to action or proposal. We have infrequent editors popping up in response to what I believe have been at least some offsite mentions to defend a particular topic of which the poster has an unambivalent conflict of interest. No one is rushing to deletion without sufficient cause. We have processes and procedures in place and they are operating just fine. Not a single person has mentioned how or why the process is supposedly failing in this instance, and the AFD has not even closed yet. So the complaint boils down to "how dare they even think about deleting my topic", which is simply a non-starter. -- ferret (talk) 15:23, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@Mediation4u:, it is very nearly inexplicable that you cherry-picked one editor's statements out of a discussion that was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping notability requirements and use it to suggest that there is some sort of active debate on the issue. "Many wikipedians have expressed in great detail that Wikipedia should not be limited by the disadvantages of a paper encyclopedia" is not exactly an untrue statement but many, many, many more have expressed that the "disadvantages of a paper encyclopedia" have nothing to do with notability requirements. There is a strong, lasting, and continuing consensus that we as a community have no interest in becoming a vehicle for promotional or trivial articles. Notability is the bar that intentionally keeps those out and neither you nor the thread originator have yet expressed any reason why that should change. You haven't even made a proposal for such a change. The idea that notability and AfD leads to "thinning" of the encyclopedia is belied by the actual facts at hand which show that we are at 6.2 million articles and growing, despite whatever gets removed through CfD, Prod's, and AfD. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:22, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: I concur. You have summarised, above, my conflicted position.  I am sure there are other essays and debates on this topic.  I paste a second quote, for balance. 

Absolutely not. Removing the notability criterion means Wikipedia becomes an unusable morass, not an encyclopedia. Here are five practical problems with it, completely aside from the fact that an encyclopedia by definition is selective: Spamming, vanity articles, bids for fame, it would break categorisation and also the random article feature. -- Fubar Obfusco

By way of explanation, I fell into the confirmation bias trap, which explains that a person sees the things they agree with when reading a discussion and they are blind to items they don't believe are true.   Seeing the balanced view requires an open mind. I also agree with your point that the discussion so far has generated a lot of heat and light, but nothing which moves the Wikipedia project forward. So I have drafted a small positive proposal which I will add, below. It is similar to Ferret's constructive approach to this issue. Deeds, not words (Acta, non verba). Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 23:39, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Further, we have the WP:AFC and Drafts system in place that help editors get an idea early in article creation if the article has a chance to be sustainable with the newer criteria on sourcing and notability. --Masem (t) 18:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I think this is an interesting discussion and raises a question. Is there a way Wikipedia can capture knowledge that isn't covered by our traditional sources yet might be of interest to readers. Is that knowledge "encyclopedic"? I'll offer two automotive related examples. The first might be an article like the one about the Sports_2000 amateur race car class. This is clearly a special interest article. As it stands the article has no sources. I'm sure that could be improved but many of the best resources are likely to fail WP:RS. Even some of the better sources about racing at the less than top tier are going to be iffy per our RS standards (as an example here is an article about a designer of one of the Sports 2000 cars [[2]]. Techie/geekie details about the cars are often on blogs, forums and other largely self published sources. I would find such content really interesting. I would like to know that the Swift DB1 used rocker arm front suspension with dampers actuated via a pivot link. I also get this doesn't rise to the same level of significance as many of our articles. Still, I think Wikipedia would be a more interesting place if we could have some of this "content sourced to low quality sources". Think of it something like Bloomberg vs Bloomberg Contributor. In my view it would be nice if we could separate these into articles that are perhaps of interest to some readers but not sourced to the same standards as many articles. I also understand such an allowance could easily be abused etc. Still, I think it would make Wikipedia a richer resource. Springee (talk) 19:30, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Based on the situation around the "walled garden" of the mixed-martial arts area from several years back that WPians had to dismantle, the answer to this ("can WP cover topic areas not well covered by traditional sources") is "no". In our maturity we've moved away from accepting niche sources. The MMA is one example; demoting porn actors from NBIO is another, dealing with the COI-filled world of cryptocurrency reporting is yet another. The general notability guideline is there to try to set a minimum amount of coverage and sourcing for all topics so that no topic area has the freedom to use more niche coverage or the like to be more inclusive of what it includes; we have have some exceptions to that as agreed to globally, such as WP:NPROF for academics, and stuff like WP:OUTCOMES isn't readily challenged though not formally set. But in general, if a topic field is simply not covered in depth by good sources, and the sources that do exist for that field are considered problematic, we really can't develop that content. We can get as close as possible to guiding readers where to go next short of pointing them to Fandom, for example. --Masem (t) 20:00, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Concur with User:Ferret and User:Masem. I see no problem with strictly enforcing WP:V and WP:RS. With so many reliable sources easily discoverable through Google Books as well as public and private academic databases, it's getting easier every day to find reliable sources for even the most obscure factual assertions, such as the fact that the most common generic term for a law school in the United States is "school of law." I stumbled across that interesting fact while researching something completely different, and saved a copy of the relevant article so that I could add that fact to WP several months later. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:52, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

• Proposal

My proposal acknowledges that it is the hard work of deletionists which has kept Wikipedia at the high standard it is today, holding back the flood of Pokemon articles, etc.  However I sincerely hope that incremental improvements to how this is achieved can be made.

Proposal - amend the deletion criteria to include a main aim of any deletion discussion to be:

Do not lose the contributor, educate the contributor.

Education before castigation

• Reason #1  Education

This means include educational evidence and links, do not include unsubstantiated emotive arguments which intend to demotivate the contributor(s) into submission. Taking one example of attempting to dominate the opposition on the recent SMAUG deletion thread.  I don't think weight should be given to the accusation of meatpuppetry.  Perhaps that accuser did a check, using the automated tools, and found no sock puppets were on that page.   If so, then please post that evidence.  That would be objective, useful, and educational for newbies.  Then all those in the discussion know that there are no sock puppets.  By contrast, jumping to a "meatpuppet" claim,  with no evidence provided of that, just lowers the tone of the debate in an adversarial manner.  With no evidence of sock puppets, then please conclude that many people independently hold a view which is different from your own.  This would be more rational than seeing gangs of meatpuppets acting in concert around every corner.

• Reason #2 Vicious circle

As more of the project falls into disrepair, with no active editors, then those areas become ripe for deletion too.  Hence the vicious circle of thinning and, in the long run, losing Wikipedia's raison d'etre.  No fun will mean no new editors. No new Wikipedians fighting the vandalism will mean Wikipedia is likely to exponentially implode. Anecdotally, I see more vandalism sticking now than 10 years ago. Get on over to WP:CVU and WP:SVT if you have some spare time.

• Suggested approach #1

Previous debate links instead of divisive and abrasive exchanges

If the point being made in the argument has been discussed before, and ideally has a summary paragraph which concludes the debate, then always furnish a link to that debate.  Instead of an aggressive assertion, show the contributor the links to the actual policy and also to previous debates on that point where the policy was decided. So in this case, on notability, it allows the contributor to see the discussion has been held before.  Taking as an example, in the case of the SMAUG deletion discussion, with a full understanding of notability criteria, we can find an appropriately notable page on which to merge the valuable content. 

• Suggested approach #2

Face to face test.

For instance, imagine you are at a cafe/diner/breakfast table /telephone/video recording. When making a point in a deletion debate - would you say that same statement,  in that way, to someone who is sitting across the table from you?  On the phone?  In a video post, in your own name, on public YouTube?  Hold up what you are about to say and imagine it in those situations. As well as the onus on being kind to newbies, there is also a case to be made on thinking before writing anything negative, to anyone, not just newbies.  Flame wars are an inevitable consequence of written exchanges in anonymous forums, email chains, etc.  The written word can be misinterpreted very easily.  Imagine a contributor arrives enthusiastically to become famous by writing an article about themselves, then they could be welcomed in and encouraged to find someone who is famous already and write an article about them instead. - a very different outcome to the current atmosphere.Other outcomes could include pointing them to Wikihow / Fandom / other internet wiki WP:OTHERWIKIS or blog more suited to their specific article.

Consequences

Unfortunately some appear to hold a view that Flame wars should not be taken too seriously.  It is these people who need to realise that the  consequence of this abrasive level of debate will be the death of the Wikipedia project.  While it may seem a speedy and efficient use of time to stamp someone's views firmly into the ground, the project will die by a thousand cuts.  There are other times in history when man's cruelty to man has been unbelievable.  Let's try to turn the ship around and stop Wikipedia being one of them.

There is a turning point in many Wikipedians' trajectory of contributions when they leave the project, disillusioned. 

That disenchanted, experienced, contributor will also have an impact on others they know.  Probably for the rest of their life.

Word of mouth is a powerful way to spread a message.  Bad news travels much faster and much further than positive information.  

---  luckily it is the season of goodwill, so with peace on earth as the goal uppermost in people's minds, I hope the spirit of this proposal makes its way in some form to the right places as advice and guidance for deletionists.  Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 10:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

• If anyone has examples of previous similar suggestions, please provide some links in the box, below. Thanks very much.

WP:KINDNESSCAMPAIGN Wikipedia:Dispute Resolution Improvement Project/Newsletter

Dispute resolution avenues: dispute resolution noticeboard (DRN) - dispute resolution noticeboard request form. 15 noticeboards: WP:DRN, Neutrality, Reliable Sources, Original Research, Biographies of Living Persons, Notability noticeboard, Fringe theories, Conflict of Interest, Ethnic and cultural conflicts, External links, Third opinion, Mediation Committee, Arbitration Committee

• Is anyone keen on the proposal above, in theory? If so, please mark your ~~~~ sign, below.

Any support is much appreciated. Thanks. Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 18:05, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Support --Thoric (talk) 16:53, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposal - kindmas

Revised proposal: Create a WP:RFC To publish guidance for deletionists during an annual season of good will.

It has now been 13 days since my proposal and there has been very little support for the full proposal, above. For the reasons below I have revised the proposal to only apply for a specific, annual, period during the year.

A summary of the advice to be posted annually. This for guidance in article deletion debates during a season of good will.

Season of good will announced

• Education before castigation
• Do not lose the contributor, educate the contributor.
• Previous debate links instead of divisive and abrasive exchanges.
• Face to face test.
• Be bold in editing, not in attacking.

The paragraphs in the section above give detailed explanations of these five bullet point guidelines, the background reasons and the consequences if they are not followed.

REASON FOR REVISING THE PROPOSAL

My reason for revising this proposal is that no independent Wikipedian has voted for my proposal so I must assume everyone in the two associated discussion threads are content with carrying out future exchanges in the same robust manner, due to expediency. So I have amended the proposal to make a WP:RFC for the face-to-face test and a reduction in slap down debate to be announced every December on deletionists forums, backlog drives and perhaps even a link posted on a few user pages. This cease fire hiatus will be during an advent season of goodwill. Perhaps that calm time is a good reason for abrasive deletionists to take a fortnight off and have a well deserved rest. Then kindness can prevail for that period, ready for hostilities to resume after the season of goodwill is over. Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 08:38, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Athanasius1, I do not personally believe that this proposal serves a real purpose, as it seems like the proposal is just to spread WikiLove. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 18:50, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I think you are right, in that the proposal above could be discussed further on WP:Wikilove forums. Luckily your valid point has inspired more constructive, positive steps to address the root causes in deletion debates. A similar regular review during a ceasefire period of wiki-kindness, (being kind to all, as well as the newbies). This could be during winterval, Christmas, kindmas, call it what you will. At that point, step back and see if more of the approaches below could be suggested. i.e., continuing to view the deletion process improvements in the same vein. A regular review could reduce or eliminate divisiveness wherever the inherent battlegrounds are found. Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 15:55, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposal - positive steps

An Alternate Proposal.

I went through the Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2021_January_1 and reviewed https://deletionpedia.org/en/Main_Page. The request for deletion pages are stressful, so hats off to the people who do it. Personally, I would never create a page

• Go with the Desire Paths. Change the notability guidelines to match up with what people are looking for. Search deletionpedia shows 20 % of the deletions are to do with schools . Primary Schools are not notable. Change it so kids can have their school having a page.
• Change the creation of wiki pages process to encourage the user to find out information first, but have the option to continue. So you want to create a page about a soccer player ? Have they played 50 games ?
• Get some statistics - users leaving after having their page deleted, which pages are most searched for, but don't exist
• Change the disambiguation process to allow a simple to link to a section. I think you can do it, but I have never seen it done Smaug_(disambiguation which started this thread I think has this issue
• Change the wording on Article for Deletion to article for review and possible deletion. It also refers to both the deletion policy and a guide to deletion. Choose one
• Change the approach on AfD. Its prosecutorial. A user can not canvas for support from the project page. from January 1st - see Branch_Insurance "ZXVZ, I want to apologize and will see myself out." IComparison_of_Remote_Music_Performance_Software "I am afraid to post here, as I am unfamiliar with your process.
• Make the procedure simpler, so that a new editor can understand it Wikipedia:Deletion_process. Allow the user to merge it with other articles. At the moment, the creator of the page has to wait. "Even if the article is ultimately deleted, you can ask the closing administrator for a copy of the material to reuse, and the administrator can also advise you on any further steps that you may need to perform in order to reuse the content."

Wakelamp d[@-@]b (talk) 11:17, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree with all of the thoughts above. Many thanks for this constructive review. Mediation4u ^(chat) _{nb: editing is fun} 15:55, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Extremist groups and their URL's

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

• I started two different rfc's relating to this same issue here and here, another editor suggested asking here as well to get a broader consensus. Bacondrum (talk) 21:29, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
• You might find this discussion informative. The usual first question to ask is whether something is illegal in the United States. After that, ask if it is reliably sourced. If it's not illegal and reliable sources are providing the link, hiding it from Wikipedia is theatre. Personally I think the answer is to be found in the WP:NOTCENSORED policy. How would you feel about the link to Westboro Baptist Church, 8chan, 4chan, or Charlie Hebdo? Where are you proposing we draw the line? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 23:27, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

The issue for me is that these sites are used to plan violent attacks, like terrorism etc. I feel that crosses a line that those other sites you listed don’t. Particularly sites like stormfront whose sole purpose is discussing genocide, planning racial murders, terrorist activities etc. I’m opposed to censorship, this is really a bit of common sense regarding extremist sites. As for not censored, Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines are not set in stone, as per WP:PILLARS, we can make commonsense exceptions. Thanks for the feedback and the link. Bacondrum (talk) 00:12, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• If an article is about a website then the URL is a basic fact about the website that is appropriate to put in the Wikipedia article. A link is not an endorsement and the URL is not a secret so I'm not sure what this would accomplish to justify creating exceptions to the not censored and neutral point of view policies. CapitalSasha ~ talk 23:34, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

the issue for me is the extreme nature of violence and the fact the planning such violence is connected to these sites, surely there’s a line that can or should be drawn somewhere? Thanks for the feedback. Bacondrum (talk) 00:12, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. Assuming that linking to said web site is not in violation of the law in Wikipedia's physical location (the US), it's appropriate to link to said web sites in the following situations:

1. An article about an organization should link to the organization's web site.
2. An article about a web site should link to it.
3. A statement about an organization's opinion on some topic, or on a statement they made, if appropriate to be mentioned in a Wikipedia article it may be sourced to the organization's web site.

109.186.67.148 (talk) 09:39, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

• I agree completely with everything 109.186.67.148 says above. We have an established set of guidelines at Wikipedia:External links that have been developed and refined over the years and I can't see any justification for arbitrarily going against them. Thryduulf (talk) 14:08, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, we should link. It's like a cross between a zoo and a Holocaust museum. I wholly endorse our readers browsing these zoo animals. The link is useful educational material, and per WP:NOTCENSORED we do not delete useful educational material just because someone finds it objectionable. Alsee (talk) 17:34, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• Little bit confused whether forum shopping is occurring here. Wouldn't the proper thing be to link to the talk page discussion rather than holding two..three separate discussions that are all likely to end the same way... WP:NOTCENSORED Slywriter (talk) 17:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
• Comment re - Not censored - From WP:EXT in particular WP:ELBURDEN

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

clearly WP:NOTCENSORED is not a mandate for inclusion. Bacondrum (talk) 03:17, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Indeed it isn't a mandate for inclusion, but it is a mandate for not excluding. Wikipedia:External links makes it clear that a link to the official website of the subject is a normal thing to include on the article - this is the mandate for inclusion. Wikipedia:NOTCENSORED makes it clear that being objectionable is not a reason to exclude it. This does not mean that the link must be included, of course, just that any argument not to must be made on other grounds. Thryduulf (talk) 10:14, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, they should be linked like we do in every other article. I think zzuuzz put it very well. It is not our job to decide what groups are worthy to be treated like every other. There is also the argument that such an arbitrary mandate is a slippery slope. PackMecEng (talk) 03:59, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Support disincluding URLs for sites of groups/organizations that are primarily engaged in violent behavior and similar, especially when those sites are used to promote violence or recruit for the organizations. Wikipedia "isn't censored" but there's no reason to WP:PROMO hate groups, especially violent/terrorist ones. IHateAccounts (talk) 22:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

  Linking to an originations official website is not an endorsement of the group or their activities, as such it is not promotion of said group. PackMecEng (talk) 00:06, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Severe organisational issues

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

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

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

Hey, Sdkb thanks for assuming the best, I assure you I had no ill intention. So, what should I do now? Bacondrum (talk) 21:12, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Bacondrum, we need to centralize the discussion at a single place, which should probably be here. There is already a bunch of discussion at the other two pages, though, and we don't normally move RfCs from one page to another (plus the !votes from the Stormfront one are mildly tainted even if they're moved). Hopefully some others will weigh in and we can form a meta-consensus about how to proceed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:20, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the call-out, Sdkb. I think Bacondrum's position is perfectly reasonable but, giving this some additional thought, ideally it should be addressed in WP:EL rather than on some ad hoc basis. I think the best way to best way for them to proceed would be to end all the pending discussions and to start a new one at WT:EL, proposing a change to WP:ELOFFICIAL. Notices of the discussion at Talk:Proud Boys, WP:TERRORISM, etc. would seem appropriate. R2 (bleep) 23:42, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for all the helpful suggestions, I'll close the rfc's and open a new discussion at WP:EL tomorrow morning when I've got some free time. Assuming we are all agreed that's the best way to approach this?. Cheers. Bacondrum (talk) 23:39, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Nah, here is fine. Splitting the discussion makes 0 sense. --Izno (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: active violent extremist websites (hate groups)

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

---

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

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

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

• Option D added because bundling up providing the URL in an article about an organization with other links to the organization is not helpful, as User:Slywriter and others says below. Note the date of this addition; from the rationales, several people saying B below appear to support this option. Bishonen | tålk 09:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC).

• A I've come across links on wikipedia to recruitment and propaganda sites linked to neo-Nazi and terrorist groups. I understand that Wikipedia is not censored, but I feel like some common sense can and should be applied when linking to sites run by groups like Iron March and Stormfront (website), Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Al-Qaeda etc. Stormfront for example has a link to its website in the article, this website has been used to plan numerous lethal hate crimes and mass killings since 1995. Once an account is created one can easily find discussions on planning genocide and mass shootings at the site and many such brutal acts have been linked to the site. Again, I know that Wikipedia is not censored, but as always other considerations apply and WP:NOTCENSORED is not a mandate for inclusion, surely we can apply some common sense in these cases? With such extreme groups, do we really need to/should we link to their recruitment and propaganda pages? I personally think there's no reason to add links that serve to WP:PROMO hate groups, especially violent/terrorist ones. Stormfront's purpose is recruitment and propaganda for white-supremacist hate groups and the coordination of violent/terrorist incidents, that alone make their website much more than merely offensive, it's dangerous and they are involved in the most serious of criminal activity including terrorism and murder. Same with Al-Qaeda, the KKK, ISIS etc. I think it would be reasonable to exclude such extreme sites. I understand groups like the Hells Angels have engaged in criminal behavior and we still link to their sites, but their site is just pics of men riding bikes, some history, wedding photos, it's not used to plan mass shootings. I'm personally firmly against censorship in almost all cases, but I also think it is reasonable to draw a line with these particular kinds of sites, to define what a reasonable person could expect to be too dangerous, too violent, too extreme for inclusion. Look forward to hearing what you think. Bacondrum (talk) 00:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• B no (except sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the United States). There is no reason to disregard WP:NPOV, WP:NOTCENSORED or the established guidelines at WP:EL, as explained by multiple people in the multiple discussions preceding this one. Thryduulf (talk) 02:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Thryduulf So it'd be okay to link to say the pedophile advocacy websites run by groups like Vereniging Martijn, Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity and Pedophile Group, or do we have some cases where we apply editorial discretion and others where we don't? Keeping in mind that many crimes planned and committed via extremist groups are also illegal. Bacondrum (talk) 06:45, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bacondrum: We should link those, but it seems we're not? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Actually Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity already had the website linked. I added archive links (because dead url) to the other two. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bacondrum: I'm not familiar with those groups, but if (a) they are notable enough to have an article, and (b) they have a website that is legal to access in the United States then we should absolutely be linking to it like we do for any other official website, because anything else would be contrary to NPOV. We should also be quoting them with regards to what they say about themselves and it is not unlikely that one or more of the citations supporting such statements will come from their website - and where that is the case there is no conceivable reason not to link it. Exactly the same applies to any other organisation or group regardless of what any editors' personal opinion of them. Thryduulf (talk) 12:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Clarifying now that option D has been added that I still think option B is the correct one and I strongly oppose option A and oppose options C and D. Whether to include a link to any organisation on articles that are not about that organisation is already determined by WP:DUE and WP:EL. These policies are, correctly, blind to any personal opinions one or more editors' personal opinions about that organisation. Applying any new policy will undermine the existing ones (which nobody has indicated there are any actual problems with), likly be confusing, possibly contradictory with those policies and incompatible with NPOV and NOTCENSORED. Thryduulf (talk) 19:12, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Thryduulf: I'd like to understand your opinion a bit better if I can. You say that we should exclude content that is illegal to access in the United States. Is it illegal to link to illegal content? My understanding is "no" but I could easily be wrong. If I'm not, then what's the purpose of this rule? To prevent serious harm to readers? Then why only the U.S. and not Canada or South Korea or Austria (all countries without stringent governmental internet censorship like China or North Korea)? — Bilorv (talk) 13:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Brief answer, servers are in the United States and subject to US jurisdiction. Under US law, really only child pornography meets this bar as other illegal content is generally not unlawful to merely view (Drugs, Assassins for Hire, etc). Slywriter (talk) 13:44, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

There are also servers in Amsterdam and Singapore. isaacl (talk) 19:52, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Why only the US? The servers are in the United States and the WMF is a United States organisation the project is subject to United States law. IANAL but AIUI, if a website subject to US law knowingly links to content that is illegal to access then the operators of the website (and/or the person that added the link) is guilty of a criminal offence (unless they take action to remove it as soon as possible after they become aware of it). It is definitely illegal to link to child pornography, I think (some?) copyright violations might be as well, and there is or was something about content that bypasses or maybe ways of bypassing "effective" digital rights management restrictions (although there is an argument that any DRM which can be bypassed is not "effective", see also AACS encryption key controversy) Thryduulf (talk) 14:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

• C, but only because question is partially malformed. At a miniumum when a website is the direct subject of an article we should be including the web address as part of the info box or external links and not subject the link to further scrutiny(without hyperlink, if others feel such a pause is a benefit to readers). For groups, we should generally include the link if the website is a significant source of information about the group. Any other tangentially related pages should never see the link added. To the argument of common sense, nothing is common about sense, least of all when related to political ideas. While the most extreme cases might make sense to most rational editors and readers, it remains a slippery slope that can creep into pages that are merely objectionable to some editors/readers. Slywriter (talk) 03:05, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bacondrum: in re-reading the RfC policy, it does not require stating what specific policy pages are being modified, so the RfC is not malformed from a technical perspective. Concern would be what exactly is being modified? Would these addressess be banned from citations? Info boxes? External links? Is a new blacklist/edit filter to be created for affected sites?

To clarify the C, support unhyperlinked versions being used; also support limiting the use to no more than one place on the site (Info box or External Links on the article page specifically about said group/website) Slywriter (talk) 16:53, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• A, Yes we should disallow links to sites used to recruit for, encourage or coordinate violent acts of hate. WP:RS can be used to describe what the sites contain without having to give them promotional linking. If the site or organization is defunct, there will still be plenty of WP:RS that can describe what the site was and how it was used. "Slippery slope" arguments are a logical fallacy, in any case. IHateAccounts (talk) 03:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Usually a fallacy, not always. As a current MOS RfC shows, when paths to advocacy are opened on wikipedia, advocates will travel down the path as far as it will take them. And this rule is general enough that Nationalist, AP2 POVers, and other pushers can apply it to groups they don't like. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter.(If this should remain in my comments, feel free to refactor) Slywriter (talk) 03:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

"advocates will travel down the path as far as it will take them" based on what evidence? Logically fallacious and not assuming good faith. Bacondrum (talk) 04:22, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

"One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter." @Slywriter: I don't really care how self-deluded individuals (whether racial supremacists, anti-LGBT terrorists, women's health clinic bombers, or otherwise) who commit acts of violent terrorism see themselves or convince themselves that their terrorism is "right". I think the appropriate thing for wikipedia to do is not to link to the websites where they recruit, organize, attempt to radicalize their followers, and plan their attacks. Per Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary,_secondary_and_tertiary_sources, SECONDARY WP:RS ought to be the norm for articles. In the cases of these groups, their websites are meaningless primary sources that contribute nothing of worth to the articles. Further, wikipedia shouldn't be in the habit of feeding them new recruits by including a quick "go here to the group's recruiting website" link. IHateAccounts (talk) 16:07, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Determining which groups are "terrorists" or "self-deluded individuals" is original research and contrary to NPOV. Personally I'd rather not give direct links to the websites of radicalising organisations that engage in state-sponsored harassment of minority groups like the UK Conservative Party and would encourage links to organisations that campaign for teenagers' access to gender-affirming medical treatment but another editor would regard this as censorship of right-thinking politicians and be horrified at the thought of providing a recruiting link to an organisation that sets out to harm children. Now imagine how bad it would get when you add religion into the mix. Providing a link to the official website of an organisation is not an endorsement of that organisation but simply a factual link so the reader can find out more information should they choose to. However, once you start omitting links to certain organisations because you disagree with some or all of their methods, goals, politics, religion, morals, etc. then the links you do choose to include do become an endorsement of that organisation - this endorsement is contrary to NPOV and immediately gets you into trouble with organisations that oppose the ones you endorse. Even if this proposal were desirable, there is simply no possible way that it can be done objectively. Thryduulf (talk) 16:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

"Determining which groups are "terrorists" or "self-deluded individuals" is original research" - No, it's something that can be sourced to WP:RS in most cases, and certainly something that can be decided by an RFC on the talk page for a particular group if necessary. IHateAccounts (talk) 01:07, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@IHateAccounts: You seem to say above that "violent terrorism" is inherently wrong. This puts you at odds with historical violent terrorist groups including instigators of the French Revolution, the suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, Malcolm X supporters etc. The U.K. government show signs of considering Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as terrorist groups. Let's say they say this in an official capacity. Is this then good reason to withdraw external links to these groups? — Bilorv (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bilorv: I think you're engaged in a false equivalence there. I'm unaware of suffragettes having done something equivalent to (for example) bombing women's health clinics or assassinating medical doctors. And it appears you didn't read your Guardian article past the headline... you'll need far better sourcing to make the claim that the UK is somehow about to name peaceful environmental protest groups "terrorist". IHateAccounts (talk) 14:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

@IHateAccounts: I'm afraid that's provably incorrect. Suffragettes attacked communication channels that consequently injured postal workers, including bombings; they attempted and sometimes succeeded in committing deadly arson; they knowingly put their lives in danger (sometimes losing them) as part of public stunts. We document some of this in the lead of suffragette. Unfortunately both the education and public perception around this are horrifically whitewashed. The suffragettes used violence of the kind you talk about. It is different in that (I believe) the violence was morally compelled (and hence justified/acceptable) rather than morally disgusting. But "morally justified" is not part of the definition of terrorism—it may be part of the subtext but if so then it's inherently POV to use "terrorism" as a criterion.

I have read the Guardian article I link in full three times. Next time, it is a more polite assumption to think that you do not fully understand my position rather than that my position is that of an illiterate nine-year-old. I haven't assumed that of you. I'll read your comment instead as: "I do not see how your claim is relevant given that the UK is not about to name peaceful environmental protest groups 'terrorist'". And then politely reply that the intention behind my message was to pose a plausible event that could occur in future, rather than to describe the future confidently; and as evidence that the event is plausible I name four separate historical movements which the governments at the time categorised as "violent terrorism". — Bilorv (talk) 15:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

This conversation doesn't really seem to be taking into account the scale of the issue at hand. RS may maintain a contemporary consensus on whether groups are good, or bad, or justified, or unjustified -- they don't do so consistently across the range of decades, and what's being proposed here seems significantly beyond the scope of what "just trust the RSes" can support. Is the IWW still a terrorist organization? The US Justice Department sure thought they were one in 1918, when over a hundred of them were imprisoned for conspiring to hinder the draft in World War I. That's to say nothing of the mind-boggling complexity of establishing a project-wide list of all the "good guys" and "bad guys" in every country and updating it constantly (note that, for Americans, the Mujahideen were the "good guys" for a while, and later became the "bad guys"). Is there any compelling reason to think that this massive undertaking would even be possible, and if so, that it would be desirable? jp×g 16:12, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• C: If the link is genuinely relevant to the article, we shouldn't avoid it solely because it's used for recruitment of extremists. We ought to have some trust that our audience is savvy enough to understand what Stormfront is and why they're bad. That being said, I think we should only include such links when they actually convey relevant and useful information: while a link to the WHO's web page is fine to include in the external link section of the WHO website, I don't think that we should put a link to Stormfront on the page for Stormfront because of the possibility, however slim, for real world harm. In practice, I think there are very few situations where a link to a website like this is appropriate for the external links section. (But for example, I can easily imagine situations where we need to cite something said on Stormfront, and in that case we shouldn't not cite relevant information because it's on a hate site.) Forgot to sign, this was from Loki (talk) 21:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• A (exclude): no encyclopedic value in including these sites. ----K.e.coffman (talk) 04:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• strongly endorse B (C when other concerns are involved). We link to the official website of a subject, we even whitelist pages specifically for that. We are not excluding porn sites because there are people that think that we should not link to them, we are not excluding illegal download sites because people can illegally download material there, we are not excluding shock sites because they can shock people, we are not excluding third-world country job sites because they could be hiring for sweatshops. Excluding this is just being more catholic than the pope himself, and is a slippery slope into implementing the opposite of WP:NOTCENSORED. (the only thing I could agree to is that we link to a neutral landing page, not necessarily to the root of the domain). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 05:42, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I have no issue with linking to porn sites, consenting adults can do what they want. As for Piratebay, downloading a few movies is a very different crime to perpetrating a mass shooting or racially motivated murders, a fairly blatant false equivalence is being drawn there. Sites like Stormfront have been linked to literally hundreds of murders and mass shootings. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/29/stormfront-neo-nazi-hate-site-murder-internet-pulled-offline-web-com-civil-rights-action. As for NOTCENSORED, it's a moot point, we use editorial discretion all the time, the burden for justifying inclusion lies with those adding content...besides wikipedia:ignore all rules. The explicit purpose of Stormfront is recruiting, propaganda and preparation for violent extremist acts including a number of real life mass shootings, many racist murders and a number or terror attacks - that sets it apart and warrants a frank and open discussion about an exceptionally horrific site - there are limits to everything. Sure most Jihadist groups don't have official websites, but if they did I don't think there'd be any question about not linking to places where they plan attacks and recruit etc. We provide all relevant information, I don't see how the url is particularly important to an encyclopedic entry, I don't see how it is useful for anything other than promoting the group and directing traffic there. I think there's a social and moral responsibility not to promote violent extremists in anyway, intentional or not. I'm sure we can all agree they are exceptional, it's not mainstream discourse, it's not merely a far-right YouTube conspiracy video. What is the purpose of including the url to such violent extremist groups that outweigh concerns and dangers surrounding violent extremism and terrorism? I can't see any. Bacondrum (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

but if they did I don't think there'd be any question about not linking to places where they plan attacks and recruit etc

I agree, there is no question such a place should be linked if the subject is notable enough for inclusion. How can we write about nasty shit if we are bound by a you do not talk about nasty shit-rule? It's similar to attempts to ban Mein Kampf. It's better if people can see and judge the incoherent bullshit for themselves. By making it a mystery we'd only fuel the imagination, which is more likely to cause people to fantasize about it as some ideal place. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:45, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

But no one is saying there shouldn't be an article about the subject, that's a false equivalence. No one is saying we can't write about nasty shit, we have an article about it. Bacondrum (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

The purpose of the URL in an article about a website is so that readers know what site we're talking about and can visit it for themselves. We aren't going to remove links from GunBroker.com or People's Liberation Army on the off-chance our readers might consequently engage in some repressive murders, because Wikipedia is not censored. ----Pontificalibus 07:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Um, gunbroker.com is a perfectly legal gun shop, and the People's Liberation Army? That's China's regular army. Are you attempting to bamboozle me? It's not a false equivalence, there's no equivalence at all, completely random examples. A much fairer equivalent would be groups like Vereniging Martijn, Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity and Pedophile Group, we don't link these groups websites for very good reasons. It's common sense. Bacondrum (talk) 08:01, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

You might not see an equivalence, but if we start removing external links that might cause people to commit crimes, then other people certainly will. How would you respond when a user removes our external link on United States Army Recruiting Command citing the US's murderous and illegal occupation of Afghanistan? Of your examples, we do provide an external ink to the second one, an archive link to the first one as the site is no longer online, and the third doesn't have a verified site.----Pontificalibus 08:39, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bacondrum: That's China's regular army. Are you attempting to bamboozle me? In Soviet Russia, China bamboozles you. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@Bacondrum: But no one is saying there shouldn't be an article about the subject, that's a false equivalence. We're not removing the ISBN (which like a URL is an identifier) from Mein Kampf. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 08:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

yeah, well mein Kampf’s ISBN doesn’t take you to a violent extremist website where hundreds of racist murders have been planned, mass shooting etc. a ridiculous comparison, IMO Bacondrum (talk) 08:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

That's the point - it's a ridiculous comparison in your opinion. It is a perfectly legitimate comparison in my opinion - both are censorship by removal of direct access to content some editors personally dislike. Should we remove links to 4chan where racist and transphobic attacks have been planned? What about websites where Black Lives Matter protests were/are planned? What about websites where antifascist direct action is coordinated? What about websites that facilitate access to abortions? Where you draw the line is unavoidably subjective and so not just shouldn't but cannot have any place on a neutral encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 19:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• B I agree with Beetstra. We should include links where relevant, like on Stormfront (website) or when a particular discussion there makes headlines. In case of sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the United States (Thryduulf) we should provide the address without link (http://nastyshit.example.com/) or link to the Internet Archive version if the harmful part isn't included there. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:45, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  Alexis Jazz, No, with the latter I disagree. If you put http://nastyshit.example.com/ in a text form, there will still be people who copy-paste it and get infected with malicious scripts or trojan exploits. Those link should be completely out of the document and an html-comment (<!-- <comment> -->) should be there explaining why there is no external link. A much safer way is to link to a former archive of the website which was not infected through archive.is or wayback. Same goes for some other totally obfuscated sources (I am very much against text-only .onion links, seen the problems we had with people changing official .onion addresses, putting back the text-only varieties is just going to land people in trouble as one cannot check). Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:14, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Beetstra: I think the domain should be included in some form for identification purposes. Whether that's by writing "nastyshit dot example dot com" or http:nastyshitexamplecom (try copy pasting that) or some other way I don't really care much. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:08, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  Alexis Jazz, not for material that is posing a risk for the people following the link. Those are blacklisted for a reason, and any form of evasion is a blockable offense. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 13:48, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

  Beetstra Okay, but if a reader is reading an article and they think it's about nastytrojan.example.com, how could they know it's about nastytrojan.example.com and not something else? Or even editors, would they have to guess what it's about? Could we provide a checksum or something? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 09:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

  Alexis Jazz, except for articles on websites itself, we hardly ever in depth discuss the website of the subject and hence generally we discuss a subject and knowing whether the website is named blah.com or blahblah.com is not important (the name is just a handler, the website is actually an IP). Where the name of the website needs discussion you'll indeed run into a problem.

  Wikipedia unfortunately does not have a mechanism to protect information (we can protect a whole page, not one word on it - we could protect a template that transcludes the data, but then you can still change the transclusion-code). That could have been done with WikiData, but it is not implemented there either (you can, again, protect the whole page on WD, not one item, and then you can still here chose not to use WD -- IMHO a massively missed chance on WD, especially for immutable or sensitive data). You can checksum the data, but no-one is going to check the checksum, and then still the checksum can be changed with the data. The closest you can get is through the AbuseFilter. Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:22, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• B We provide external links so that our readers can visit the site having read our article on the topic. It is not our role to provide a curated web experience or attempt to prevent crimes by withholding information.----Pontificalibus 08:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• D. I don't see the point of us making it just a very tiny bit more difficult for readers to find the website for the Proud Boys, for instance. Their site is the second Google hit (the first being Wikipedia's article, naturally). We should follow the general principle of providing the URL for the organization that's the subject of the article, unless of course it's blacklisted. As Pontificalibus says above, we're not in the business of providing a curated web experience. Bishonen | tålk 09:55, 3 January 2021 (UTC).

@Bishonen: As a hypothetical example, if a notable person was killed and mainstream media would write that the murder happened after the killer discussed harming the victim in a thread on nastyshit.example.com, would we not be allowed to link the thread in question? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 11:20, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Assuming the thread was legal to access in the United States, yes we are allowed to link to the thread in question. Whether we should is entirely a matter for the consensus of editors on the relevant article(s) to determine whether inclusion is WP:DUE and useful. Any option in this discussion other than B would hinder making that judgement. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• (Update: B) D/C/B (in that order). I cannot think about a valid reason for linking Stormfront website other than in the external links section and the infobox of its article. On the other hand, other usages should already be covered by other policies and guidelines. That's why while I'm leaning to D, I'm not sure there's a need for any policy change. --MarioGom (talk) 13:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • @MarioGom: D and C are policy changes (as is A). If you believe the existing policies are correct (which your comment suggests) then you should be supporting option B. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Thryduulf: Yeah, you're right. I've changed my !vote. Basically I think D/C is the right thing to do... given the already existing policies, so there is no need to introduce a new one. --MarioGom (talk) 20:44, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• D in general with reasonable exceptions. Our disclaimers already give warnings that external content is not under WP's control and users are taking responsibility for following such links, and as we aren't censored, there's no reason not to link to them as we would with any other website. I can see exceptions being made if the front page of the group is a hate-speech spewing insult to all readers, but most of the time, these groups do not present their extreme views as direct as media sources tend to present them, and instead try to project themselves as legitimate organization, even if buried among the pages are hate-speech filled mantras and the like. Only in the case where the site is basically page after page of hate speech should we not link to these. Of course, with "D" here, this is only appropriate when on the page about that organization and as a standard link to that organization, and no where else. --Masem (t) 16:38, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
  • You haved bolded option "D" but your comment indicates that you are actually supporting option B - all external links are already subject to policies about when it is appropriate to link to them: WP:NPOV, WP:EL and WP:DUE. These are basically: only when they are the subject of the article or there is another encyclopaedic justification. Thryduulf (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Nope, its consistent with "D". By default, on the page about a entity, a link to that entity's site is appropriate. Would we link to it as a reference which is the other use for external links? Given these are primary sources that would be outright rejected for reliability outside claims about themselves (being hate groups, etc.) they would never be used in any other article for a reference outside their own article, and even on the entity's article, we'd use them very sparingly. So I'm supporting "D" based on how these links can effectively be used. --Masem (t) 23:23, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• D, more or less. There might be other cases as well. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:11, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• C, what is the definition of 'extremist group'? Please define your terms before asking questions like this. Elizium23 (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
• B If legally accessible websites in the US where Wikipedia servers are hosted per NOTCENSORED. If they have actual terrorist content, then almost always the DOJ/FBI will seize the website's infrastructure and this would be a moot point. Many European countries however have stricter blacklists that ISPs have to oblige. But let's be honest here, the Proud Boys and ISIS aren't exactly organizations of the same caliber... which brings the problem on what kind of reasoning this kind of curation would be based on. While this proposal may be aimed towards far-right or Jihadist sites, it isn't a hypothethical question whether you should also block extremist sites of other varities -- NYT Aug. 25, 2017: Germany, in a First, Shuts Down Left-Wing Extremist Website. --Pudeo (talk) 22:19, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't argue that links to sites like the Proud Boys should be omitted automatically, on a policy basis. But obviously things like snuff sites and child porn sites should be and are specifically prohibited from inclusion. I'd argue that sites like Stormfront that are connected to hundreds of murders should treated is the same manner , same for Jihadist recruitment sites for groups like ISIS. Everything has a limit, surely there are limits on the extreme nature of content offsite we can link to. Bacondrum (talk) 22:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

• C.5 Mostly D, but I could see the need to use it as a reference to verify something said about the group in another article. --Jayron32 15:47, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Or something the group has said about the subject of a different article (be that a person, place, organisation, event, religion, ...) or something published on the organisation's website by or about a person associated with the organisation who is independently notable. Thryduulf (talk) 13:26, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• B/D. I consider B and D to be essentially the same since D is already part of our WP:EL guideline (and I doubt anyone !voting for B supports loosening the rules for violent extremist or hate groups). Essentially I agree with Pudeo. Our job is to educate, not to restrict or censor. We identify hate or extremism but it's not our job to tip the scales towards it or away from it. There is real encyclopedic value in providing an organizational link per WP:ELMINOFFICIAL, no matter the nature of the organization. And haters will will find those websites regardless of whether we link to them. By excluding these ELs, we effectively degrade the utility of the encyclopedia (however slightly) and make a symbolic but nearly invisible statement against hate. A more effective way for the community to make a statement against hate would be something like WP:DISCRIM. R2 (bleep) 18:01, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• Comment while I personally lean towards option "B" (it simply could become a nightmare & lead to poor quality articles banning any links to the websites of hate groups), we may be forced to rethink our policies on this if Section 230 is repealed or rewritten. So any decision here may prove moot. -- llywrch (talk) 18:44, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
• B-An unbiased open platform for information should not exclude links to websites unless they contain malware. People should have the opportunity to learn about these groups by reading what they say about themselves. Display name 99 (talk) 01:03, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• B There's no way this will be equally applied to all hate groups by editors. Gamaliel (talk) 01:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• B The criteria for exclusion are too subjective; just imagine the drama that trying to decide whether this applies to Hamas is going to cause. --RaiderAspect (talk) 08:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Notice that wikipedia doesn't link to recruitment websites for groups like the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Crying about "Hamas" is either a slippery slope fallacy or a red herring. IHateAccounts (talk) 15:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@IHateAccounts: Please don't describe other editors' comments as "crying about" things. jp×g 16:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

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

• This is a hard B > D and no other options. I am fairly certain D is how it basically works today; sites like these end up on the spam blacklist just by virtue of the fact they are trash, but we do allow whitelisting usually under WP:ELMINOFFICIAL where the organization is notable or there is a particular link that might be useful on a specific other page. This is fundamentally just more WP:BADSITES agitating, and we've been over that before. --Izno (talk) 22:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
• B. To copy my position from Talk:Stormfront (website)#URL: This is clearly not a matter of endorsement -- and to posit is as endorsement would be fundamentally harmful to the very idea of Wikipedia. The argument that linking to a website via Wikipedia could cause public harm is instantly risible, a claim on a similar tier to 'violent video games cause real-world violence'; the idea of someone becoming a neo-Nazi (let alone a neo-Nazi murderer) solely because they followed an article's link to Stormfront is bizarre, more a moral panic than an argument. There are real discussions to be had about people being radicalized and recruited, and they have nothing to do with Wikipedia links. The idea they do indeed serves as an opportunity for the people radicalizing and recruiting others, considering how powerful the "we're being unduly censored" message is. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 14:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• B because anything else requires conflicting subjective political opinions to be taken into account, and NOTCENSORED of course. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:26, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• B Even if it were a good idea to exclude links to Stormfront and Hamas, what if you have some fairly unknown Islamic guerilla somewhere in India? Do we endorse the (far-right) Indian government's view and exclude their links or do we make an exception for this particular extremist group? ImTheIP (talk) 23:03, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

I think we would resolve it by local RfCs, like the one we currently have open for Stormfront Talk:Stormfront_(website)#URL. I struck my vote after multiple objections to broadly the original RfC question was worded. It is possible to define a scope more narrow than "extremist groups" without excluding political opinions. Murdering people at a suburban shopping mall because of a subjective political opinion is a crime. From the A vote rationales the rationale is about groups giving lazy links to groups with an extensively documented track record of radicalizing people that have carried out murders (like Stormfront). If it's going to be read expansively to include guerilla warfare in India we better hash it out more in local RfCs.Spudlace (talk) 09:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

• B, since an organization's website is relevant encyclopedic information. Readers who learn about an extremist organization are better informed when they are able to identify the website associated with that organization. There is value in being able to determine whether a statement is made on a notable organization's official channel, regardless of the purpose of the organization. If there are issues that would cause a link to the website to violate the external links guideline or another relevant policy/guideline, the article can simply mention the domain name without linking it to the website, i.e. example.com. — Newslinger talk 23:31, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
• B It is relevant enclyclopedic information. Plus these types of things always get applied with an uneven standard for POV purposes. North8000 (talk) 01:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• B/C. ImTheIP makes one of the best points in the discussion: we do not want to endorse the Indian government, for instance, because this is non-neutral. We should not endorse any government—such a thing is non-neutral. The contrapositive (informally, "opposite way around of saying this") is that we should not condemn all extremist groups. As for "hate" groups, such a term is inherently non-neutral to define. I comment above that instigators of the French Revolution, the suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, Malcolm X supporters and others were considered domestic terrorists, extremist groups and hate groups both by the relevant state and by the consensus in reliable sources of the time (at least initially). While this argument should not be taken too far, it shows that excluding all extremist content is a political decision (i.e. POV).
  The only arguments I consider valid for exclusion of an external link that would otherwise be included are the following: content is illegal to link to under U.S. law (where servers are held); and content violates the principle of least astonishment (WP:ASTONISH/WP:GRATUITOUS). For instance, I supported the removal of the link to 8chan based on a specific documented case of a person finding child pornography immediately after viewing the link and it causing severe unexpected distress. This is, yes, in the context of the article mentioning that the site has been known for hosting child pornography in the lead; and yet, it still violates WP:ASTONISH, because the infobox can be the first thing someone reads and the link followed before a single word of prose is read. So I do see there being a low bar to exclude something via WP:ASTONISH, because readers have a reasonable expectation that links on Wikipedia do not lead to certain types of highly distressing content, but I support arguing this case-by-case based on the particular article prose, landing page and type of content on a website. — Bilorv (talk) 20:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• B. We should link. It's like a cross between a zoo and a Holocaust museum. I wholly endorse our readers browsing these zoo animals. The link is useful educational material, and per WP:NOTCENSORED we do not delete useful educational material just because someone finds it objectionable. It is not an endorsement, promotion, or advocacy, to link to the subject of an article.
  Regarding option D, I expect there would rarely be reason to link such sites outside their own article. However WP:ELBURDEN means such links can be removed and generally only restored with consensus. That renders option D worthless at best. The only effect of option D would be to create a conflict if there were a consensus-view that there was good reason for that link. Alsee (talk) 23:26, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• B The slippery slope is plain to see. Would we be allowed to link to the official sites of governments that have been accused of sponsoring terrorism? How about sites of political groups that officially deny they're connected to terror, but are accused of it - say Sinn Fein, or the PKK? How about Black Lives Matter? --GRuban (talk) 23:44, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
• B per Thryduulf, Pudeo, GRuban and many others, WP:NOTCENSORED should apply and if we go down this path we will inevitably run into WP:NPOV issues. Cavalryman (talk) 01:19, 8 January 2021 (UTC).
• C - Identical concern to Elizium23. While I would like to reduce WP's usefulness to outfits like Stormfront, I can't support a positive measure here in the absence of an objective criterion for the words 'extremist' and 'terrorist'. It really is the case that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. I'd prefer an ad-hoc page-by-page concsensus to any of A, B, or D. — Charles Stewart (talk) 06:28, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
• C - Community consensus should weigh them individually. On on hand, we've got WP:CENSORED and WP:NPOV, on the other hand, we've got WP:SOAPBOX and WP:NONAZIS. Assessment will depend heavily on context and so I can't say B, the need for some education or citation instances will also preclude A, so C it must be. ~Gwennie🐈｟💬 📋｠ 08:05, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
• B (except sites containing malware, malicious scripts, trojan exploits, or content that is illegal to access in the United States/California) - when we say "Not Censored" we can't then say "except when it's unpleasant". I've included the exceptions for the truly egregious cases, but the whole point is that we aren't reliable. So we include links to our sources, but if you were researching a topic about an organisation, you couldn't claim to have done a proper review as a researcher without actually taking a look at it yourself. That is why we give the links, because our responsibility as source of information that enables confirmation of our content demands no less, however much we may dislike some outcomes of that. On a less policy-based side, I also find that having these sources is one of the best ways to counter it - we deny a soapbox here, because the distraction outweighs the benefits, but actually seeing the depths which some can fall to is the best way of countering their more publicly distributed messages. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:34, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• C: I think editors, page by page, should weigh whether an active link like that actually adds encyclopedic value to the pages that it appears on. All of the claims of WP:CENSORED should be measured against WP:NOTDIRECTORY. I think active recruitment links would add little useful & encyclopedic information to most pages. (For that reason, I also lean towards D as well.) —Wingedserif (talk) 17:01, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• A/C let's not kid ourselves that people do try to manipulate Wikipedia for search engine optimization, and we shouldn't allow fringe sites to exploit Wikipedia as a promotional tool. Wikipedia articles are highlighted by Google, and Wikipedia is consistently one of the most visited sites in the world. People target Wikipedia to promote all kinds of nonsense, knowing that when they help their google ranking it will be without the context of a Wikipedia article. It's the same reason that we are much more careful around articles about WP:HOAXes, where somethnig has become notable for being verifiably untrue, and that doesn't mean we promote that either. Wikipedia isn't a promotional tool for hoaxes, defamation, or incitement. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
• D. While it's true that Wikipedia is not censored, WP:NOTCENSORED does not mandate inclusion; and as external links outside of articles about their subjects, such links are almost always going to fail WP:ELNO point 2, as well as raising reasonable questions regarding points 4 and 11 (promotional links and personal websites.) On the other hand, even as far as the concerns raised above go, excluding in case D is unnecessary because anyone reading our article for such sites already knows about them, so it's not really promotional or likely to help them recruit anyway. They are absolutely not likely to pass WP:RS, so they can't really be used in non-EL contexts, either. --Aquillion (talk) 00:15, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• D its better to mention all information about them. Championmin (talk) 09:28, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• B/D: yes, include a link in the article about the organization. Linking in other situations should presumably be rare but might sometimes be appropriate under WP:ABOUTSELF. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:42, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
• B/C/D. There is obviously such a thing as editorial discretion, and I cannot imagine any compelling reason to link to, say, Stormfront on any article aside from Stormfront; I certainly would not complain if someone removed random links to that site. At the same time, I don't really see why this necessitates a general policy; unless there is some rampant issue of people citing www.hitler-is-great.com as a RS (from perusing people's arguments here, there isn't), does it really matter? Then we have the issue of "endorsement", which I think is greatly overstated. Is anyone really going to read our article on al-Qaeda and decide that they're great? And if someone is really that disturbed, are we really going to keep such a person from joining al-Qaeda by refusing to link to their website? I mean, I don't like them any more than you do, and it is true that editing Wikipedia is the only weapon we have, but I think the best way to use it is to accurately document all of the bad stuff they do. Speaking of which, our role is to inform and educate people. The number of people researching this for a wholesome and productive purpose vastly outstrips the number of people trying to join their ranks, by orders of magnitude. For example: the pageview statistics from January 12 show that al-Qaeda got 6,389 views that day... whereas this article estimates that "as of July 2020, al Qaeda had between 400 to 600 fighters in Afghanistan". That is to say, in twenty-four hours, between 12 and 15 times as many people viewed the article as there are members of the organization. Clearly, their conversion rates are not very high! So, okay -- maybe it isn't a pressing issue, and maybe it wouldn't actually accomplish anything, and maybe it would hurt researchers more than it helped guide wayward souls, but it wouldn't inconvenience us, would it? Well, I think it would do that, too. There are some obvious issues with a bright-line policy: the governments of Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe and China have been responsible for lots of bad stuff popping off, are we to refuse linking to their websites as well? What about Israel and Palestine, whose governments, I am given to understand, mutually regard the other as extremely bad? Are we supposed to come up with binding, project-wide opinions about every issue in world politics (that somehow manage to include all of the "bad guys" and none of the "good guys")??? It doesn't seem necessary, useful, realistic, or practical to me. jp×g 15:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• C. The problem with "A" is that it is ill defined. Everyone can agree that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization, but what about the Islamic Republic of Iran? What about Bill Ayers?

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

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

  So does that mean you are against option A? PackMecEng (talk) 02:35, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

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

Is there an existing policy or guideline on circular reporting, and if not, how may one be added?

Circular reporting is "a situation in source criticism where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from only one source". This may occur for example when one book makes a claim (the veracity, context, and coverage on the claim being another matter), and some other books may repeat the claim and cite the original book, including both direct citations and indirect citations (book cites another book that cites the original). This provides the illusion that the claim is independently made by each different source, when in fact there was only one original claim, and the other works simply cite that. Essentially, there's only one actual and original source for the claim.

Is this covered in any Wikipedia policies already? If not, why may that be, and what can be done to change it? Thanks!

PS: I know about the circular reporting template, but it is specific to sources that use Wikipedia as a source and isn't a formal guideline. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 22:35, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps you are looking for WP:CIRCULAR? I think that covers much of it from a policy standpoint. PackMecEng (talk) 22:37, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, WP:CIRCULAR is confined to using Wikipedia articles as sources. Is there a policy regarding the more general case described in the opening comment, or can WP:CIRCULAR be extended to cover it? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 23:11, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I suppose possibly WP:USEBYOTHERS partially covers that, from a reliability standpoint. I'll keep looking. PackMecEng (talk) 23:21, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Saucysalsa30, WP:CITOGENESIS has information about specific incidents occurring here and how they were handled. Elizium23 (talk) 23:38, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Saucysalsa30, Wikipedia policies are forged to assist editors with things that occur on Wikipedia. The behavior of sources citing other sources is rather beyond our ken, and not something that a policy will be written about.

There is a great deal of discretion given to editors insofar as our use of reliable sources, when and if a consensus determines them as reliable. I can foresee that if a given source is known for believing a fact that was reported by only one unreliable source, then transitively we could judge it as reliable. But single-source reporting comes up so much, and is not inherently unreliable, so I don't see how we could adequately defend against all cases of it.

Sometimes you have a source and it is the only definitive scholarly source on a topic and others "stand on the shoulders of giants". Other times, you have a source that is fringey or dicey and asserts something and other less-dicey sources pick it up, and it is "blessed" into the common knowledge that way. Once again, I don't see a way for Wikipedia as a body to defend against these things.

We are here to summarize reliable sources, and part of that job includes determining which sources are and aren't reliable, but when we get down in the weeds of determining the provenance of individual facts, that is just beyond our ken; we summarize and move on. Elizium23 (talk) 23:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23 Thanks for the response. For clarification, WP:CITOGENESIS is also specific to circular reporting with respect to Wikipedia itself. The deeper question is why is this considered a problem everywhere else in reporting, but not in Wikipedia? More pertinent, if we aren't to be concerned with sources citing other sources, then why do WP:USEBYOTHERS and other guidelines exist that are specifically concerned with sources citing sources? That is, is this a contradiction?

With regards to the statement, "Other times, you have a source that is fringey or dicey and asserts something and other less-dicey sources pick it up, and it is "blessed" into the common knowledge that way," this is inadvertently dangerous. If for example one book trivially has a couple sentences in a footnote making a completely novel claim and gets picked up in other works, how is that situation handled? I understand other issues such including trivial mention and WP:CONTEXTMATTERS are at play here that may not qualify such content as encyclopedic information, but specifically with regards to the circular reporting how would that be handled given Wikipedia already appears to be concerned with sources citing sources? Thanks. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 00:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I would assume if a fact can be shown to be circular it then editors could discount sources that used that fact as relevant. I think the problem is proof. As an example, the infamous Pinto memo and Ford's deciding it was cheaper to pay off burn victims vs fix the Pinto. Anyway for many years that was common knowledge and all one had to do was point at an early Mother Jones article for proof. This universal understanding was widely referenced but never actually happened. Yes, the Pinto fires did and there was a memo but only much later and with strong academic sourcing and we confidently say the original story and those who repeated it were wrong. So if a modern source were to reference the claim we could show the narrative is false and discount the source per our current policies. Springee (talk) 00:44, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Springee Agreed, and the proof of sources using an original source is certainly present if the downstream sources say X with a citation to the original source which claimed X. My question is in line with your assumption: is there a policy related to that and if not, why can't one be made? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 00:58, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Saucysalsa30, I am daunted by the kind of editorial burden you propose to lay at our feet. We already have trouble keeping up with the deprecated sources and evaluating them at WP:RSN. There are millions of sources, how can we possibly categorize and evaluate enough of them to make a dent? Now you're proposing to slice and dice each fact and its provenance. What structures do you propose to put in place to handle this? This is why a policy is unwritable. The task is Sisyphean. Elizium23 (talk) 01:12, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Saucysalsa30, I would say that a primary problem on Wikipedia is that facts are uncited. Not that they are unverifiable, just nobody knows what source would support a given fact. That's a visible and marginally solvable problem: place {{citation needed}} tags and someone will do the groundwork.

A secondary but even graver problem here is that facts are cited but the sources doesn't actually support the facts! We often rely on casual readers to stop and say "hey, I read this source and it doesn't say what you say it does." {{failed verification}} tags are used in this case, and get used far less often, simply because checking all sources in an article is a job for a WP:GAR and you know how many articles never, ever make it to GAR.

So now you're asking us about a related problem that isn't even on Wikipedia. It's not our problem. If sources are bad and cite another bad source and somehow that is generated into citations in a good source, it's beyond our ken to handle it. The best we can do is discover such shenanigans and red-flag the sources that caused the havoc and track them all down and strike them from our articles and then pray it never happens again. It's editorial discretion. It's the operation of consensus on RS, I don't see how a policy could be written for it. Elizium23 (talk) 01:18, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

There is a maxim Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth. Perhaps it is germane to your query. Elizium23 (talk) 01:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23 Sorry if it came across as I was implying I was asking to create more work for people, but it appears this is a misunderstanding. I'm not asking anyone to do anything or for every individual source in Wikipedia to be checked. For example, an individual editor can demonstrate out evident circular reporting on a given statement or claim within an article, and discuss it just as they can point out other issues just as is regularly done on Wikipedia. This would require checking closer to 5 sources, not millions. A guideline or warning regarding circular reporting can help editors in such content discussions.

As noted, Wikipedia already has guidelines that are concerned with sources citing sources. Do such policies need to be removed from Wikipedia? Some guidelines exist to post cautions and necessitate multiple sources on the topic like WP:REDFLAG. Why can't a warning guideline be similarly provided for identified general circular reporting (like the Wikipedia circular reporting), other than that it may theoretically create more work for editors? A guideline on that would help bring alignment on content discussions and if anything, prevent more back-and-forths and create less work.

Take this example: A statement on Wikipedia has 3 sources. There's the original source to make a claim: let's say an otherwise unsubstantiated fringe/redflag novel claim in an appendix. The other 2 sources directly cite the first source, but add nothing extra and evidently are not independent from the original source regarding the particular claim. An editor can write, "I know there's nothing covering this otherwise novel claim except a sentence in an appendix and this is not encyclopedic information for X, Y, Z reasons, but other sources cite it!" How would you handle this situation? Do you focus primarily on the underlying issues of the poor quality content to begin with, or do the additional non-independent sources add weight? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 02:09, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

If source 1 is the "origin source" for this, and sources 2 and 3 are merely duplicating its claims there still may be value to use sources 2 and 3 if source 1 is not a typical reliable source but sources 2 and 3 are very strong reliable sources that give weight to source 1. So for example, there was a recent story broke by Axios (website) related to Chinese spying in the US which is not quite the best RS in the world for that type of information, so if that was the only source reporting on it, I'd be careful. But the story was quickly picked up by multiple quality RSes like Washington Post and SF Chronicle, which to me give weight to say they considered that story reliable enough to include. In incorporating that information, I'd be careful to attribute to the originating source (source 1) but still included the sources that implicitly acknowledge the validity of the story. On the other hand, if sources 2 and 3 are at the same quality or less than source 1, they are doing nothing to help here so their inclusion is just extra weight. --Masem (t) 02:20, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Masem. For my better understanding, let's say in this scenario that Washington Post and SF Chronicle were not writing independently from Axios, such that instead they directly cited Axios and didn't independently report the story. Also, hypothetically the Axios article was reporting on something entirely different but in an offhand random remark mentioned the Chinese spying (which may have RS/VER issues such as CONTEXTMATTERS and REDFLAG), and SF Chronicle and WaPo did nothing more than copy-paste from the Axios article regarding the offhand remark on Chinese spying? How would it be considered in this scenario? To clarify, I'm focusing more on the content itself and how it is used and treated, rather than who the publisher is. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 02:44, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

If it is clear a literal copy/paste, I would not consider the WaPost/SFC as usable sources from the primary one. For example, this is the situation all the time with Assoc. Press news. So for example, this is an AP-first story [3], which is sent on wires to other papers and picked up there. Most papers will properly identify it as a wire story from the AP (eg [4]) and so there's no point in using that second source if we have the AP source already, the second source is not helping. --Masem (t) 04:37, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Masem Thanks for the clarification, much appreciated. Is there an editing guideline regarding (not including WP:NEWSORG but more general to include books and other publication types), or is it left to editors' discretion? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 04:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Not aware of any explicit guideline, this is one of those that comes from common sense + editing experience. --Masem (t) 20:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Masem Agreed with that perspective. Do you think some form of guideline under RS or VER should be created to help service as a caution to editors regarding this case? This is essentially what my initial comment was pointing towards. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 02:33, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Saucysalsa30, it seems like a narrow special case. We generally don't try to legislate something unless it becomes contentious and outside the bounds of common sense for editors. We rely on a lot of common sense in judging sources, their reliability, and the genesis of facts. Can you document whether this is a pervasive problem? Is it particularly troublesome in sources which are cited by Wikipedia? Do you have stats? Elizium23 (talk) 02:44, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Elizium23 Yes, it's not excessively common like type situations, but more like WP:NN which is not so common and not as clear-cut. The scenario I am describing in this section I've seen demonstrated by other editors or demonstrated myself ~10 times. I fully agree on common sense but as the saying goes "common sense isn't common". I don't believe there's stats for sourcing issues on Wikipedia, as there isn't an automated system or algorithm that would be capable of identifying such things like how many articles don't meet notability criteria but don't have the notability template. I understand your point though.

Given you're a very experienced editor, regarding this scenario, how would you handle it? If you point out, "There's one original source making this claim in a sentence in an appendix and this is not encyclopedic information for X, Y, Z reasons, and any other sources available on this particular claim almost-verbatim or verbatim copy-paste and cite the original", common sense says the dependent sources are frivolous. But what would you do if someone else says, "But still, other sources cite it"? Thanks. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 04:48, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

First, let me say I've never ever encountered this in my 13 years of editing. Admittedly, I haven't spent any appreciable time checking up on these things.

I would handle it by handling each source on their independent merits. If the fact could not be found elsewhere and the original source failed WP:RS then I would remove the fact with the source. Then I would evaluate the auxiliary sources. Am I positive they obtained the fact from the first source? Could it be possible that they researched or corroborated it? It depends on whether it's an important fact or an insignificant one. Evaluating each aux source and reporting this whole affair to WP:RSN and I would be essentially done with it. Elizium23 (talk) 04:57, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

But is there good reason to leave any ambiguity, if we all agree that it is inherently a bad practice to use such sources for controversial information? So when such a situation does occur here, editors will have some policy to point to, instead of just hand-waving about it being bad practice in all other media. FunkMonk (talk) 20:57, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

FunkMonk Precisely. If it's all common sense and editors will know what to do and it's bad practice everywhere in other media outside Wikipedia, why leave it to unnecessary ambiguity and arguments? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 05:42, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@FunkMonk, we don't create this policy now, because

1. Adding more words to our impossibly long policies when we don't have a practical problem is always WP:CREEPy.
2. This problem is easily solved by normal editing, and specifically by editors remembering that three sources:
   1. Alice said ____.
   2. The Washington Post said that Alice said ____., and
   3. The San Francisco Chronicle said that Alice said ____
      do not magically add up to "____ is true".
3. It's very hard to write this and not run into serious problems with POV pushers, who will then argue that statements from reliable sources that don't say "____ is true and I promise that I fully investigated this myself and did not get any of this information from Alice, whom I consider to be utterly unreliable" actually came from Alice even when the claim is not attributed to Alice.
4. Some factual claims should always come from the same central source. Consider, e.g., the reported revenue for publicly traded companies. Who are you going to believe: The CEOs, who will go to prison if they lie about the revenue, or anyone else in the world?

While I think it's useful for editors to be aware of this problem (which is called the telephone game, not circular sourcing), we don't need a policy that encourages editors to distrust reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing A couple of your points are good, but point 1 is not pertinent, as you could easily make that case to eliminate about 90% of Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and not allow anything else. At least this scenario is considered a serious issue in all media outside of Wikipedia and it's an oversight if anything that it isn't covered here. Also the idea here is this would be a guideline on an existing policy, rather than its own policy, so much less WP:CREEPy.

Point 2 is exactly what everyone else in this thread is saying: if it's such a common sense thing, then why leave it to ambiguity and unnecessary arguments?

Point 3: Actually in practice, POV pushers actually abuse the opposite of this. They may even even acknowledge the circular reporting going on, yet say "But other sources cite this claim so it must be necessary to include!" If there was a simple guideline in place to point them to, it would resolve disputes immediately.

Point 4: And if the claims are not factual or reliable coming from the central source or the source is not reliable even admitting to contain "rumors and stories" (remember, reliability is not only the publisher, but also the author and work itself), which is what this is about?

While related, telephone game is different from circular reporting, which is the problem at hand here. "we don't need a policy that encourages editors to distrust reliable sources." Then why is much of WP:RS and WP:VER conditions specifically about mistrusting and being careful with superficially "reliable" sources or context of sourced material? Saucysalsa30 (talk) 03:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Point #1 is pertinent for all discussions about expanding policies until we have demonstrated that multiple separate editors (i.e., not just the same editor causing multiple disputes) have actually been unable to resolve disputes in a reasonable manner. Wikipedia is not a system of laws and rules, no matter what it must look like to someone who has only made a few hundred edits, and most of those in articles under Wikipedia:General sanctions/Post-1978 Iranian politics. We have no evidence that there actually has been a significant number of "unnecessary arguments" about this. Therefore, this is not the time to be writing down extra rules.

(I have seen Point #3 argued, even in the absence of written rules saying that it should be avoided, so you will not tell me that it does not happen.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Who is the "we" here? You? Because this matter has been brought up other times by others. Not sure who you're referring to nor do I know what that project page is anyways, but if it's to me, then it's rather discourteous to demean someone simply because they refuted your points. And to repeat, I'm not suggesting rules or laws. I'm not sure why you brought that up. Saucysalsa30 (talk) 06:07, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Masem, Springee - what are your thoughts about the media giants and the way they're grouped in this article? There's a box just above the social media links at the end of the article that's labeled Sources, and it gives a list of the RS used to gather the info. Atsme 💬 📧 00:50, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

RFC: "Committed suicide" language

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

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

---

Background

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

• Additional prior discussion: VPPOL 2018 — xaosflux ^Talk 17:42, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
  • That's the very first wikilink above :) --Masem (t) 18:43, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    • Oops, there were sooooo many of them! — xaosflux ^Talk 19:34, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

References:

• Beaton, Susan; Forster, Peter; Maple, Myfanwy (February 2013). "Suicide and Language: Why we shouldn't use the 'C' word" (PDF). InPsych. 30 (1).
• "Language use and suicide: An online cross-sectional survey". Plos One. 14 (6). June 13, 2019. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217473. PMC 6563960. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
• Bosch, Torie (January 16, 2018). "Committing to "Committed"". Slate. Retrieved October 28, 2020.

Survey ("committed suicide")

• Continue to allow. This is a standard phrase in most varieties of English, and it's not the job of Wikipedia to enforce a particular form of language. In a few very specific instances, when there's the potential for it to be misunderstood as carrying legal implications, I would support replacing it with something unambiguous. ‑ Iridescent 17:16, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - editors should be able to use terminology that is both common and contained in reliable sources. Additionally, list this at Wikipedia:Perennial proposals, this being at least the 8th time this is being reviewed in the last 5 years. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Change I encountered this conundrum this week and am glad it’s finally being addressed. The proper terminology is died by suicide. "Committed" suicide continues the mental health stigma and insinuates that the person committed a crime like murder is, meanwhile it’s obviously unprosecutable and ultimately a personal decision. The same tiptoeing we do around here about identities should be done for mental health. Trillfendi (talk) 17:51, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - it is normal English. "Died by suicide" is horrible English. If an individual editor wishes to avoid saying "committed suicide" then "killed himself" is the proper alternative. DuncanHill (talk) 17:58, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow Wikipedia generally follows widespread English usage rather than trying to change it. "Committed suicide" is a widely used English phrase and I suspect it may be more common than any of the alternatives, "died by suicide" sounds a bit odd to me. If that stops being the case them I'm sure we can change it. "Committed" doesn't necessarily have to mean committing a crime, e.g. committing adultery. Hut 8.5 18:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  Adultery was originally a crime and continues to be criminalized in many jurisdictions including the state of New York.[5] (t · c) buidhe 18:23, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  That gives it a similar status to suicide then. Both were formerly crimes in the Western world but have now been largely decriminalised as there's a general recognition that the state shouldn't be trying to reduce the prevalence by criminalising them. Laws against adultery in parts of the United States are rarely enforced and may well be unconstitutional (according to Adultery#United States) and suicide is still a crime in some places. Hut 8.5 18:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow, as has been said already committed suicide is the most commonly used language throughout much of the English speaking world and it is not up to Wikipedia to lead in this area. Cavalryman (talk) 18:46, 14 January 2021 (UTC).
• Allow - "committed suicide" is standard phrasing. - DoubleCross (‡) 19:42, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow, per Iridescent.-- P-K3 (talk) 19:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow. The phrase "committed suicide" is still consistently used by reliable sources thus I see no compelling reason why to completely eradicate the phrase. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 19:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Follow high-quality sources. There's a lot to unpack in here, but my overall feeling is that this idiom should be in the "sometimes permitted but never required" range, with the key point being following the sources. If the high-quality sources use "committed" (typical of high-quality older sources and low-quality sources), then it's probably an acceptable option for that article; if the high-quality sources avoid that language (typical of very recent sources), then it's not okay for that article.
  Also, I think we should never require the "committed" phrase in any article. Editors should be able to have a chat on the talk page and decide which phrase is best for that article, with the language used by high-quality sources being the key factor in the decision. If "died by suicide" sounds strange to your ear, then there are many other options. Plain old "killed himself" is also very traditional, going back centuries in English, and if I were going to select one to promote as the most direct, plain, and non-euphemistic option, it would be "killed himself" instead of either "committed" or "died by". (Why "died by"? Why not "died from suicide" or "died from complications of depression"? We don't say that people died by cancer.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  Without having yet read the references, I am strongly leaning towards this option. I am not seeing that the other !votes are based on RS, which should be the standard. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:28, 14 January 2021 (UTC) Struck per WP:Specialized-style fallacy. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:10, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow. The word "commit" in no way has any implication of stigma or a crime. A crime is just one of the many things that can be committed, some good, some bad and some neutral. This whole campaign against the phrase is a misunderstanding of simple English by mental health professionals who should be concentrating on our real issues rather than spending their time mangling the language with such tautological absurdities as "died by suicide". Phil Bridger (talk) 20:24, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Sometimes permitted but never required, per WhatamIdoing. There are cases where "died by" might sound more natural, for example, in a list of different causes of death or when some kind of parallelism is desired. For example, Those who didn't die by suicide died by neglect. Or, to take the first Google Scholar hit for the phrase, the article title A comparison of guilt in bereaved parents whose children died by suicide, accident, or chronic disease. XOR'easter (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow – There is a questionable objection to using "commit" because that word's association with committing criminal acts gives it a negative connotation; but one can commit oneself to doing good or make a commitment. Besides, the Prianka Padmanathan, et al., source above shows that "commit suicide" has the widest range, both negative and positive, of connotations among those supposedly most vulnerable to inappropriate usage. The phrases that tested most positively—"ended their life" and "took their own life"—are both preferable to "died by suicide" in terms of readability. Dhtwiki (talk) 20:37, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Use direct quotes: "As of 2015, the Associated Press style guide... says: 'Avoid using committed suicide except in direct quotations from authorities.'" Taken from Slate reference. [6] I think it makes sense to avoid the term unless taking directly from an RS. The American Heritage Dictionary also advises against "committed".[7] Also per MOS:MED#Careful language per Xurizurl and my 06:21, 16 Jan discussion comment. And per my 21:54, 17 Jan comment, the dictionary definition of "commit" in this sense clearly has negative connotations, in violation of WP:NPOV, which "cannot be superseded by editor consensus." Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC) Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC) add MOS:MED Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC) Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC) add NPOV Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  ​If we're looking at the Slate source, it would be well to follow it to its concluding paragraphs:

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

  -- Cabayi (talk) 09:47, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  That's just the opinion of the writer. I am just using the Slate source to quote the AP. Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  It might also be used in other things, but the specific meaning of commit in this phrase, based on its origins, refers to it being a crime.[8] NB: If you're not aware of them, Beyondblue is an Australian mental health organisation. --Xurizuri (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• (Strong) disallow: it's disappointing but unsurprising given past discussions to see not much focus on reliable sources. It is a vanity to go from "'died by suicide' sounds odd to me" to "most people must consider it odd", and one you'll be disabused of by reading the Plos One source given. “Attempted suicide”, “took their own life”, “died by suicide” and “ended their life” were, however, considered acceptable by most participants, including those who considered “commit suicide” most appropriate. The source and others give that "committed suicide" is a common phrase used, so that doesn't disqualify it from consideration, but that's not the same as us being able to use it in wikivoice. We have a tight style guide that doesn't consider acceptable most forms of slang, plenty of words that others would consider unoffensive and words that may be acceptable for people to use in their daily lives. Rather than explaining in my own words the etymology, historical connotations and what relevance this has to current connotations of the phrase I can point to InPsych. The Slate source is really about daily life and about prohibiting people from using the term to describe personal experiences. Very few people should be writing about personal experiences on Wikipedia and so this source has less weight for our purposes, which is not to say that it is irrelevant or that the author's views are not valid.
  In the CAT 2019 RfC linked above I commented, in part: As we see from Coffeeandcrumb's links and the evidence that some (not all) NYT and BBC articles are beginning to avoid the phrase, "committed suicide" is unlike "died by suicide" or "killed themselves" in that it is a very loaded term. [...] Additionally, we see above and below that the WHO, APA, APA (different one), NIMH and many others all recommend against "committed suicide". So this "we're not here to right great wrongs" nonsense is not based on the actual current state of the world, which is that "committed suicide" might be a very commonly used phrase but it's one advised against by high quality sources and guidelines, and there are several terms which are not advised against and don't share the non-neutral baggage. This all still applies. — Bilorv (talk) 21:49, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  You're engaging in the WP:Specialized-style fallacy. The most reliable sources for English-language usage matters are style guides, dictionaries, and the actual usage evident in modern high-quality sources across various genres. Language-change activism source material is WP:PRIMARY (op-ed, opinion, advocacy), so it is not a reliable source for anything but the viewpoint being expressed and the reasoning behind the viewpoint. No one questions that the viewpoint against "committed suicide" exists, that it is found advocated by various writers (in journalism, in psychology, etc.), nor what the beliefs behind that viewpoint are. (That said, the factual claims underlying those beliefs are sometimes incorrect, especially about linguistic matters.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: perhaps I can make myself clearer. I view the phrase as having a specific and strong negative judgement value on those to whom it applies. If you agreed with me that the phrase held significant negative judgement and that a term without this judgement existed (and I'm sure you can think of other terms/phrase to which these premises apply) then would you agree with me that this is no such "specialized-style fallacy" but instead a necessary measure to take under WP:NPOV and (when discussing named individuals) WP:BLP? — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  See big sourcing dump below. In short, virtually none of the RS on English usage agree with you in this assessment. So your if scenario is not applicable; it's false analogy. This is not in fact comparable to something like, say, "honkies" versus "white people". There is only a narrow subset of writers making an argument for offensiveness, so it is in fact a specialized-style argument. They may actually win on this matter over the course of one to three generations, but it certainly has not happened yet, and there is no evidence it is likely to be successful.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow but do not require. While there are calls to avoid the phrase, and possibly some movements against using it, these are not mainstream at the current time and it remains in common use in the reliable sources that Wikipedia should generally follow. I wouldn't be surprised if the landscape looks rather different in 10-20 years time, but for now there is not justification for Wikipedia to proscribe it - we really shouldn't be actively encouraging it though. Thryduulf (talk) 22:59, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, I've seen the Ngram results, so clearly "committed suicide" is ubiquitous, but what RS using "committed suicide" are folks generally referring to? Would biographies be a good place for me to check? News sources seem to be using "died by suicide" more often. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:57, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow Good lord, hasn't this been discussed enough? "Committed suicide" is common language and can be found all over in high-quality sources. There is no need for Wikipedia to be so persnickety. ∴ ZX95 ^[discuss] 23:14, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - It takes a lot of commitment to commit suicide. That said - also allow other terms and usages. Trust editors to figure out what words to write in which situations. Blueboar (talk) 23:29, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow. It is widely used and the argument that committed implies a crime is plain wrong, one can, for example, idiomatically commit oneself to a cause or religion ("committed Christian"). Espresso Addict (talk) 00:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Espresso Addict, I've tried to come up with examples of committing acts, because that's the specific form under discussion, and phrases like "committing his body to the deep", committing code (for software developers), committing to do better next time, etc., aren't the same construction. So far, I have found that we commit (lots of) crimes, (some) sins (many of which either are or previously were crimes in the English-speaking world), and (occasional) random acts of kindness. Can you think of any others? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  I see what you mean; the transitive verb and the intransitive verb have diverged somewhat. Chambers gives the transitive the following definition (my numbers): "(1) to give in charge or trust; (2) to consign, send; (3) to become guilty of, perpetrate; (4) to involve (esp oneself); (5) to pledge, promise". "To commit suicide" could fall under senses (1) or possibly (2) as well as (3). But to be honest, I think this is irrelevant; it's just an idiomatic phrase that conveys the gravity of the act. (By the way, in response to your comment above, I'm extremely sensitive around suicide for reasons I'm not prepared to go into here, and I don't personally think that any form of wording helps to get around the basic facts that the person chose to kill themself without regard to the love and support that their family and friends offered them.) Espresso Addict (talk) 00:36, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  This kind of response is one of the reasons that I love talking to Wikipedia editors. You understood the grammar point and could still see the broader context. Thank you so much for posting that. I think you're right. The fact that it's just the familiar idiom is a key factor, no matter what anyone might guess about its true/grammatical/historical/etymological origin. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  WhatamIdoing, isn't the phrase "commit an act of kindness" an ironic, nonstandard use? It sounds to me like "rather than committing an act of harm, today commit an act of random kindness." Can you find another example? I can't find anything with this Google search.[9] It seems that "commit" violates NPOV.

  Espresso Addict, the definition from Chambers Dictionary which applies is "1) to carry out or perpetrate (a crime, offence, error, etc)." Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:10, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  If we were trying to write that "commit random acts of kindness" is ironic, then we'd need a source. However, it sounds very plausible to me.

  I am not sure that commit inherently violates NPOV. We might, however, need to be careful of when it's used. One person might "commit" suicide, while another might merely die that way. As an example, I think that editors might choose different descriptions for an apparently impulsive suicide by a teenager versus a carefully planned suicide by a dying person.

  Some years ago, I read about some people who survived a "jumping from heights" suicide attempt. One thing that is unusual about that method is that you are conscious and thinking, but there is nothing you can do. You can't "un-jump" when you change your mind, and you know it. All but one survivor reported regretting the decision while still falling. Perhaps editors would decide that "commit (as in an error)" could be a fair description for that situation. (I'd still personally prefer to follow the sources, because editors could agree in principle that the context and circumstances matter, but never agree on which ones warranted the "commit" language.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:11, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  The RS show that "commit" has a negative connotation. Every RS which specifically discusses the phrase "commit suicide" says so. It's loaded language which violates NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:29, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  Of course it has a negative connotation: it's suicide! Do you expect describing someone's grisly death would be a bed of roses experience for the reader? Elizium23 (talk) 04:54, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  Negative as in doing something that's wrong. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:02, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  99 out of 100 RS agree that suicide is wrong. Murder is wrong and suicide is just a special case of murder. There are, historically, repercussions for committing or attempting suicide. If we wish to remain neutral then we will observe the RS judgement that suicide is wrong and bad and not try to fake over it. Elizium23 (talk) 05:06, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow and please prevent shaming and edit-warring of others who wish to obliterate such language from the project. We follow WP:RS and decades, centuries of them have used this idiom for good reasons. Elizium23 (talk) 00:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow. By far the most common term... we are not censored nor should we advocate for a new term.--Moxy 🍁 01:56, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  It appears that this allegedly "new" term was in use in the 19th century. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow - It's not our task to attempt to change the language, any more than it is for us to promote scientific theories which have not been accepted, or changes in the generally accepted history of things which experts do not yet have a consensus about. It's our task to use the language as we find it, and "committed suicide" is the commonly used expression. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:23, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• And, incidentally, "died by his own hand" and "took her own life" are in no way euphemistic or editorializing and should be allowed as well. They are not euphemistic because the event as described is literally true (although the use of "hand" is figurative, but not euphemistic), and they do not editorialize because neither makes a value judgment about the act. If anyone sees a value judgment there, it's being inferred by them and is not implicit in the phrase. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:30, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• And, of course, there's nothing wrong with saying "X killed herself", "Y shot himself", "Z jumped off a building to her death" etc. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• I'd be inclined to strongly discourage "died by his own hand" outside direct quotes not because it's euphemistic but because it's unnecessarily flowery, and also potentially open to misunderstanding particularly by people for whom English isn't a first language. In general, idiomatic English doesn't translate well on a global project; I could easily imagine a reader interpreting it as "he died of wounds to the hand". ‑ Iridescent 03:40, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• That's a valid point, one that's also applicable to "passed away" or "passed", which are both euphemistic and idiomatic, and which should be disallowed if they're not already. (Of course, they don't generally refer to suicide.) Beyond My Ken (talk) 22:11, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow, but don't require I've never seen "commit" under a negative connotation. I think "commit" is perfectly acceptable. But if the Wikipedia article originally doesn't use the word "commit", we shouldn't replace it. pandakekok9 (talk) 03:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow but not mandate, and also discourage changing to other wording for no good reason. We do not need obscure euphemisms, or overly blunt language. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow If there is consensus on a given page to use something else, so be it, but in my experience changing from the standard "committed suicide" to something else is generally an undiscussed POV edit. This reminds me of the all instances of "prostitute" must be changed to "sex worker" mindset. Meters (talk) 03:47, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow. Even if this is a wrong (I personally disagree, but that's neither here nor there), Wikipedia is not the place to right them. The 'permitted but not required' softening sounds odd to me, on account of I doubt people have been trying to require this wording -- it's simply the natural English wording used in most formal conversation and by most sources. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 04:25, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  Vaticidalprophet (The Bushranger who also used this argument): Doesn't the "right great wrongs" section refer to making claims that aren't supported by evidence? How is that related to the way we word things overall? Is it therefore also righting great wrongs to translate material, or to use modern terms for an illness? --Xurizuri (talk) 01:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow - it's common language, Wikipedia is not censored, and we are not a place to right great wrongs historical or social. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 04:52, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - While I'm sympathetic to the argument presented by those sources (I don't know who wouldn't be), "committed suicide" is still, for better or worse, the common terminology, and disallowing in favor of more euphemized alternatives would be fairly heavy-handed censorship on a project that is not censored. That said, I totally agree with the above users who say wording shouldn't be arbitrarily changed to "commit", nor should it be favored. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 05:18, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • "I don't know who wouldn't be" -- not to get too personal, but a lot of claims in the sphere of suicide terminology (this is a prime example, but not the only one -- consider also the mentioned-in-this-thread "the cause of death is mental illness, not suicide") actually rings quite false to people with experience with suicide or its attempts/ideation either in themselves or close associates. It of course also rings true to many people, but it's not as one-sided as you might assume from reading the popular takes. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 05:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

    I'm not saying the arguments ring true with every person affected by suicide, indeed the linked survey suggests that that even these people are completely divided between finding it completely acceptable and completely unacceptable. I'm just saying the arguments against it are pretty common sense and straightforward, and even if you find it to be an inoffensive term, the fact that others find it stigmatizing, upsetting or hurtful for what are pretty understandable reasons should be enough for a normal person to at least be sympathetic. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 05:46, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

    The notion that "commit" implies criminality is baseless, and the idea that we should be sympathetic to a misunderstanding of linguistics is confounding. Nihlus 06:05, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

    Your opinion is irrelevant. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 08:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

    Swarm, it's not and neither is your opinion that you shared above. Do better. Nihlus 20:03, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

    Actually it is, we're literally discussing the fact that people have divided opinions on this, there's absolutely zero reason for you to jump in just to declare that everyone who disagrees with your opinion is invalid. If you're proud to invalidate reliable authors and widespread opinions from people who have been affected by suicide, that's on you. But it's irrelevant to me personally and it's irrelevant to how we consider sources. And also, don't do so by saying it's because they "don't understand linguistics" when you apparently can't even conceptualize that language is fluid, subjective and always changing. Saying people who interpret words differently than you are wrong because your perception is the correct one is a psychologist's fallacy, saying it's because they don't "understand linguistics" is an oxymoron. It's nonsensical. You do better. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 00:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

    I had something much longer typed out, but I think it would be a better use of your time to just read this to see why you are wrong. I also suggest you don't assume whether or not someone has been affected by suicide. 👍 Nihlus 04:48, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

And now for a straw man argument, how expected. Don't kick your argument to another person who's making it better to refute the fact that the opposing argument is irrelevant to begin with. I've literally said, multiple times now, that people have mixed opinions on this. I'm literally acknowledging that your opinion exists and is shared by others. I'm simply pointing out that your side of the argument is not pertinent to the fact that the other side exists, and is validated by the existence of reliable sources and surveyed opinions. The fact that you're so fixated on your own opinion, to the extent that you'd invalidate reliable sources and research surveys, simply because they don't agree, is, again, indicative of the psychologist's fallacy. The fact that you think the entire discussion revolves around whether you've been affected by suicide is just nonsensical. When I refer to "people affected by suicide", I'm literally referring to the linked survey of "people affected by suicide". I have no idea how you could think otherwise unless you literally didn't even look at the linked sources. This argument is bizarre and anti-academic. I'm trying to discuss sources here, you're just trying to argue your personal opinion above all else. It's unbecoming of a Wikipedian. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 00:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• • To stress, the proposed wording (in the discussion below) is not meant to stress "committed suicide" as the preferred wording. It is meant to simply keep it an option on the table when editors are considering what wording to use for an article. --Masem (t) 05:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow and prefer "committed suicide" per the above. The fear of the word commit has never made sense, and it almost seems like institutions are trying to downplay the specter of suicide. Nihlus 05:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • We're on the same team here in terms of "allow", but the fact that you're arguing that we should prefer "committed suicide" in the face of reliable sources that indicate that the term is hurtful to some is downright cruel. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 04:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
    • If you want my personal story to know why I can't take your comment seriously, feel free to send me an email, but I will not entertain it with a debate here. Nihlus 04:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow, for as long as this remains a standard English usage in high-quality sources. This is essentially the exact same discussion we've hade before about euphemisms for died (like "passed away"). Wikipedia is not for advocacy of any kind, including "language-reform" activism. If some day the preponderance of future editions of mainstream book-publishing style guides like Chicago Manual of Style, New Hart's Rules/Oxford Syle Manual, Garner's Modern English Usage, Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (the four most influential on our WP:MOS) say to stop using this phrase, then we should consider revising the MoS to say not to use it. Frankly, the arguments behind the idea (that "committed suicide" derives from "committed a crime" or "committed a sin") are linguistic falsehoods, a confusion of correlation for causation, and a folk etymology. All these phrases are simply normal uses of the most common sense of commit: 'to carry out a deliberate, consequential action', with an appropriate implication of contextual gravitas regarding the action in question (no one says "I committed taking a shower"). Like virtually all wording choices, this matter of how to encyclopedically write about a suicide should simply be left to editorial discretion at a particular article, but within the bounds of WP:NPOV, MOS:TONE, MOS:EUPHEMISM and MOS:EDITORIAL – it is not okay to use awful magazine and memoir style, like "took her own life" or "died by his own hand").

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

  SMcCandlish, what do the style guides you mention say? The American Heritage Dictionary recommends "death by suicide",[10] so does the AP[11] and The Guardian.[12] Kolya Butternut (talk) 10:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Source dump:

Lots of detail from style guides, dictionaries, medical glossaries, other encyclopedias, etc.:

CMoS is entirely silent on it, as is Hart's. Garner's doesn't care; it's only critical of: euphemisms like Latin felo-de-se; "semiliterate" non-standard usage like "to suicide" (verb) and a bit less so "was a suicide" (agent noun); and the judgmental phrases "suicide victim", "self-murder", and "self-slaughter". He also notes the existence of "self-killing", without recommending it. Does not mention "died/death by suicide" at all. Fowler's (Burchfield ed.) has no entry on it, but uncritically illustrates use of "committed suicide" in quotes, thrice (in the "because" and "may and might" entries, pp. 99, 100, 484). No other mention of the word in the entire book is relevant (I have this one in searchable e-book form). I'm not sure where my Butterfield ed. of Fowler's is, but doubt it would be different on this, and even if it were it would be in the minority. AHD being nearly alone (along with perhaps only the Random House Webster's database, searchable at Dictionary.com) out of all major online dictionaries to take this position is no indication that WP should follow suit. Judging from the wording similarity, these may well be merged databases now; the RH material reads almost exactly as described for AHD in the article you linked to. Anyway, AHD is the most political English dictionary. It does not have an equivalent of WP:NOT#ADVOCACY, but was explicitly founded for the purpose of engaging in linguistic activism (against the linguistic description rather than prescriptive grammar position taken first by Webster's Third New International Dictionary and many after it). The source you quote says it all, very plainly: "Responding to years of advocacy from mental-health patients and practitioners", i.e. AHD made the change to appease activism, from one particular quarter, that its editors agreed with. Cambridge University's dictionary site contradicts itself; it has a proper dictionary entry [13] that has no issue with "committed suicide" and illustrates it twice, from both of Cambridge's print dictionaries, without including "death/died by suicide". But then has a usage entry from the Cambridge Learner's Dictionary (the one for kids and ESL learners) [14] that deprecates the "committed" form, despite one of the examples of it at the main page coming from the same work. This is such an egregious editorial failure, I've reported it to their dictionary editors for review. Moving on: WP has no reason to care what news style guides say. WP is not written in news style as a matter of clear policy, they have had virtually no influence on our own MoS, they diverge grossly from encyclopedic writing style on literally hundreds of points, they sharply conflict with each other on hundreds of points, and they're often written with publication-specific quirks as a "this is our trademark style" marketing technique (this is especially true of The Guardian and Observer style guide [sic], The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, The Economist Style Guide, and other per-publication stylesheets). They are effectively useless for any WP-related question except when included as additional data points in an overview of all major style guides in the aggregate, on a non-politicized question (e.g., whether to use a comma before "Jr." in a name). Since you seem to like news style guides so much, be aware that the NYT and Economist stylebooks are silent on the matter, though Reuters (as usual) parrots AP Style, down to the false linguistic claims and the recommendation of encyclopedically inappropriate emotive euphemism like "died by his own hand" Dictionary counter-examples to AHD: Same with Lexico (the new name of the Oxford U. dictionary site) [15] (uses "commit" forms three times, not "death/died by" at all). The Merriam-Webster English Dictionary uses "commit[ted] suicide" three times in its entry, not "death/died by", though it does illustrate "ruled the death a suicide" [16]; has separate entry for "commit suicide" with no judgmental usage notes about it [17]; no corresponding pages for "death by suicide" or "died by suicide". Collins English Dictionary uses "commit" forms eleven times, including many press quotations, but "death/died by" forms zero times. YourDictionary.com: two examples of "commit[ted] suicide", none of "death/died by suicide" [18]. The Free Dictionary (Farlex) interestingly shows how recent AHD's change is, since it quotes the 5th ed. using "commit[s] suicide" twice, with not "death/died by"; quotes Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, Princeton U./Farlex WordNet, and Collins Thesaurus all doing the same [19]. Random House Unabridged Dictionary (via InfoPlease.com) uses "commit" but not "death/died by". MacMillan Dictionary uses "commit", does not mention "died/death by", though an "open dictionary" WP:UGC post at the bottom brings it up [20][21]. Good Word Guide (a usage dictionary like Fowler's and Garner's), uses "commit[s]" twice without "died/death by", and says nothing judgmental about "commit" in its notes [22]. Wordsmyth uses "committed suicide", doesn't list "death/died by". The only sources among any of these that I've seen even mention suicide as a crime are WordNet and Chambers 20th Century Dictionary (both quoted at Definitions.net entry, which uses "commit" four times and "died/death by" zero times); neither of them try to assert any etymological (word/phrase-origins) connection between "commit a crime" and "commit suicide". The Century Dictionary (quoted at Wordnik) uses "commit". Surprisingly to probably no one but the language-change activists, medical dictionaries generally do not help the case for "death/died by". MedTerms Medical Dictionary at MedicineNet [23] and RxList [24] uses "committed", including over and over again in related article "Bipolar Disorder: Symptoms, Testing for Bipolar Depression" [25]. The Free Dictionary medical search's encyclopedic entry uses the "commit" forms 17 times, "death/died by" 0 times [26]. Merck Manual uses the "commit" forms over and over again [27][28], and also uses the "died/death by" forms a lot in the latter (mixing usage in same article). MedicalDictionaryWeb.com takes no position on the matter, and neither does OpenMD, or The Vocabulary of Loss: A Glossary of Suicide-related Terminology [29]. Other encyclopedias: Encyclopedia2.TheFreedictionary.com provides material from The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (Columbia U.), Collins Dictionary of Sociology, Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary (Gale), and less relevant works; the combined material from those named sources used "commit" forms seven times, and again in press quotations at the bottom, but "death/died by" forms only once (only in a press quote), though it has other constructions used in it also. Encyclopædia Britannica uses "commit" and not "death/died by" in its article on suicide [30], though it probably uses various phrasing including the latter in specific biographical articles. Corpora searches (just ones using recent material) mostly can't be searched and then linked to the results, so you have to run most of them yourself. Google Ngrams shows that the "commit/committed/committing" forms massively dominate over the "death/died/dying by" forms in book publishing, and that even up to 2019, the latter barely register at all, i.e. have not been appreciably increasing, much less toward the levels of currency enjoyed by the former. News on the Web shows "committed suicide leads over "died by suicide" in online-findable news material by about a 41:6 ratio. Corpus of Global Web-Based English shows the same ~41:6 ratio again. The 14 Billion Word Web Corpus shows about and 18:1 ratio in favor of "committed". Corpus of Contemporary American English says "committed" leads by about 23 : 0.5. Ultimately, this is a WP:FRINGE matter. It is not WP's job to avoid writing in plain English just to avoid hurting the feelings of a few people who don't know jack about etymology and who have falsely assumed that "commit suicide" is derived from "commit a crime/sin". There is no connection between these phrases other than their use of the Latinate word "commit", which has positive uses as well ("commit to our marriage", "committed to memory", etc.). The word does not imply a wrong, it just implies, well, a committed (serious-intent) decision or course of action of some consequence or importance. We are not in a position to pretend otherwise because some busybodies have a "post-truth", "alternative facts" false idea in their head, about which they choose to get unreasonably emotional. It doesn't matter for WP that AP and a few other entities have bought into this nonsense. A few other large publishers like Fox News have also bought into the idea that the Trumpist/QAnon conspiracy theory about a "deep state" is true, too, but we do not write about it as true on Wikipedia.

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

Rebuttal:

SMcCandlish, I see that Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary includes, "commmit suicide, a phrase used to mean 'to kill yourself', which is now considered offensive because it suggests that doing this is a crime."[31] The Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary does not include this idiom and has apparently not updated its examples. Dictionary.com advises: "However, the phrase commit suicide is discouraged by major editorial style guides, mental health professionals, and specialists in suicide prevention. The verb commit is associated with crime (in the justice system) and sin (in religion). Using such moralistic language deepens the emotional pain surrounding a suicide. The verb phrases to die by suicide and to end one’s life are now preferred over the common expression commit suicide."[32] It appears that this has been a change over just the past few years, and many sources have not caught up yet. We have three dictionaries, news style guides, and the American Psychological Association recommending against "commit suicide". Shouldn't we avoid "commit suicide" per WP:MOSMED#Careful language, and WP:Manual of style/Words to watch which states: "The goal is to express ideas clearly and directly without causing unnecessary offense. Do not assume that plain language is inappropriate"? "Committed suicide" is just an idiom which causes unnecessary offense. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC) I already covered the fact that Cambridge's two dictionaries contradict each other (and the one you like even contradicts itself: some of the "commit" examples are from Cambridge Advanced Learner's, not from Cambridge Academic; maybe you missed that?). It's not dispositive of anything in this discussion, it just rules out that particular dictionary site as helpful either way on this question. "Using such moralistic language ..." – repeating the assertion that "commit" is moralistic doesn't magically make it so. The WP:SNOWstorm here clearly disagrees with you, as do the vast majority of RS material on English usage. That was the entire point of this sourcing run, which took many hours, so I find it very disappointing that it just did not make a dent in your viewpoint advocacy. [sigh] The verb commit is also associated with forming and affirming relationships, diligence, principle and integrity, and various other positive things. I'll leave it to you to look up that word in every available dictionary, since hardly anyone else here is having confusion about this, so the work will not be a productive use of my own time. "It appears that this has been a change over just the past few years" – Google Ngrams and other corpora searches shows no such change taking place at all. (And I can anecdotally tell you that I first encountered this "commit-is-bad" argument back in the late 1980s! It is not new at all.) What has actually happened is some linguistically ignorant busybodies have made some noise, and a tiny handful of players in the mainstream publishing industry (AHD, AP, Reuters, Guardian, and a couple of others) have bought into it uncritically, while all the rest have ignored it as nonsense. It's highly instructive to look at the those which have done so: AHD expressly exists as the last bastion of prescriptivism in major dictionaries; it is an overtly political work. The newswires and the news publishers who use them are utterly dependent on advertising dollars, and thus are extremely averse to giving offense to any category of persons for any reason, whether the reason has any basis in reality or not; they are vastly more tolerant of, more promotional of, euphemistic circumlocution than any other type of publisher (which is one of many reasons that WP doesn't use news style). And "an idiom which causes unnecessary offense": This argument is made all the time with regard to everything listed at MOS:EUPHEMISM, and the argument always fails. This is in no way a special case. WP is not the World Feelings Police, and is not in a position to "clean up" the English language to never be possible to give (fallacy-based) offense to anyone. Listen to the actual suicide survivors (in both senses) on this very page. They are telling you they do not find this offensive. If you Google around off-site for similar debates you'll find many, many more of them. What you'll also find is social-sciences nerds making arguments that the term is offensive, i.e. acting in loco parentis as "allies" of people who did not ask for their advocacy. There are comparatively few relatives of suicided persons or survivors of own suicide attempts, who are activists against the phrase "commit suicide". Someone-somewhere-may-be-offended can be true of virtually anything, and it does not have an effect on how WP writes; we change how we write when English usage in the aggregate has provably changed. Not before, and certainly not in an effort to cause that change to happen or go faster.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC) SMcCandlish, WP:MOSMED#Careful language says that we should avoid terms like "drug abuse" because for one, the term "carries negative connotations", and we should avoid saying that people "suffer from" or are "victims of" illnesses because of the implications. The policy also says we should defer to what "Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer". Do typical style guides speak to these concerns? If they do not, we should not expect them to inform our decision about "commit suicide" either. Note that even AHD defines the noun epileptic as "One who has epilepsy" without a usage note against it,[33] even though our policy does advise against its usage. Even though style books don't mention every term, Chicago Manual of Style does have a section on "Good usage versus common usage", which applies. Kolya Butternut (talk) 12:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC) The policy also says we should defer to what ""Many patient groups, particularly those that have been stigmatised, prefer"" is fine, but the point you are ignoring but which is being made by many people here is that those who have been most directly affected by suicide are almost all in favour of retaining "committed suicide", the advocacy for change is primarily coming from onlookers. There is no evidence that anyone has actually been stigmatised by "committed suicide" and the people who the guideline says we should defer to clearly have no desire to create such a stigma by proscribing a common phrase. Thryduulf (talk) 12:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC) The RS which comment on "committed suicide" say it is problematic. The opinions of editors here are WP:OR. The cited survey states that while "commit suicide" is acceptable to many people effected by suicide, many "People bereaved by suicide have highlighted that the word 'commit' is most commonly used in conjunction with a criminal act, resulting in a negative connotation of immorality... Consequently, use of the phrase 'commit suicide' in the media and in academia has been discouraged...." "The scores for 'commit suicide' were most variable...'took their own life', 'died by suicide' and 'ended their life' were however considered most acceptable. We argue that academic and media guidelines should promote use of these phrases."[34] Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:52, 17 January 2021 (UTC) It's odd to leave out this part, emphasis mine: Opinion about the phrase “committed suicide” was most divided amongst people who had been affected by suicide through someone they knew (3; IQR = 1–5). Those who had been affected by suicide solely through their own experiences more commonly found it to be acceptable (4; IQR = 3–5) compared with those whose experience of suicide was exclusively through work or volunteering (2; IQR =1–3). This entire conversation just feels like people trying to be politically correct for the sake of being politically correct, including the not-so-reliable "reliable" linguistically ignorant busybodies, as SMcCandlish put it. Nihlus 22:20, 17 January 2021 (UTC) Kolya, I decline to argue in circles with you until the end of time. You are engaging in false dichotomy and false equivalence. "Drug abuse" carries "negative connotations" because "abuse" has nothing but negative connotations. This is not true of "commit" which has a wide range of connotations, including positive and neutral ones. You're effectively pretending that there can only be "offensive" and "not offensive" but this is silly. Pretty much everything is offensive to someone somewhere (usually for unsound reasons, as in this case). "Offensive to some small sliver of the population" does not equate to "offensive" in the meaning of our guidelines and with regard to how WP should write. I have outsourced you by an order of magnitude. Virtually no reliable sources on English usage are critical of "commit[ted] suicide". Of the few that are, one is self-contradictory, one is an explicitly activistic, prescriptivist work, and the rest are known for bending over backwards to appease as many sensibilities (and thus advertisers) as possible, even at the expense of clarity.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:24, 19 January 2021 (UTC) Possibly every reliable source, every dictionary, says that commit means to do something (wrong). Lexico: "Perpetrate or carry out (a mistake, crime, or immoral act)."[35] That violates NPOV. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:18, 19 January 2021 (UTC) A quick 2¢, which is: the majority of these sources do not include specific guidelines on the term "committed suicide" (if we're excluding the ones argued against), but simply contain the words uncritically in tangential entries. Also, we should be careful referring to standard dictionaries for usage, since they are concerned with descriptive definitions, which is not quite equivalent with usage. —WingedSerif (talk) 15:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow I lost an uncle and two cousins to suicide, and if anyone asked me how one of them died, I would say that he or she "committed suicide", with tears in my eyes, and a big lump in my throat. This is common English language usage. Wikipedia is not a place to campaign for language reform. We follow reliable sources, not lead them. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:37, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow saying "died by suicide" is PC snowflake do-goodery at its worst. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 09:21, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  User:Lugnuts that's not actually an argument. 1) why is it PC snowflake do-goodery, 2) why is that bad?, 3) this RfC isn't even about died by suicide, it's about committed suicide.

  It's clearly an argument against euphemistic language, even if a poorly phrased one. And this is about "died by suicide" and every other alternative to "committed suicide", so your argument that Lugnuts is not actually making an argument, is not actually an argument. That is, your pretense to not understand someone's reasoning is not an actual rebuttal, it's just hand-waving.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow - Suicide is the person's last act of their own volition. Switching from an active to a passive voice ("died by suicide") frames the act as if it were an accident rather than a choice. COMMIT ; -- Cabayi (talk) 13:03, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  I understand, but this RfC is just about the word "committed". We can still say "killed themself", "ended his life", or "chose death by suicide rather than..." Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:09, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  Suicide isn't a heroic act where you take back power. It is a symptom of mental illness. --Xurizuri (talk) 14:31, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  Not always. Goering and Himmler, for eample, commited suicide to escape justice. Hector MacDonald commited suicide to avoid disgrace. Suicide is not always a symptom of mental illness. DuncanHill (talk) 20:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  the overwhelming majority are related to mental illness. Being able to name a handful of exceptions does not refute this. --Xurizuri (talk) 01:54, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  And none of this has anything to do with whether "committed suicide" is conventional, contemporary English in high-quality sources (hint: it is).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:47, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Change. As per MOS:MED#Careful language, "Choose appropriate words when describing medical conditions and their effects on people". Within the context of the section and the "for more advice," on that point, appropriate means medically accurate and not expressing negative/disparaging attitudes. If one goes to the recently released version of the linked guideline, it more specifically states: "strive to use language that is free of bias and avoid perpetuating prejudicial beliefs or demeaning attitudes in their writing". A fair number of guidelines and self-advocacy groups, and some other statements such as in the background section of this discussion, recommend that commit suicide should be avoided as it is negative/disparaging/prejudicial/demeaning. (Beginning of this sentence was changed after feedback, it was previously: As suicide is almost universally a consequence of mental illness) People with mental illness are overwhelmingly more likely to experience suicidality/attempt suicide and cause of death is as close as you can get to a basic field of medicine, I believe that this should be treated as falling under MED. And so, that we should use non-stigmatised language. Also, WP is for the people that are reading it, and a lot of people have been affected by suicide. The experience of the user isn't irrelevant. In this situation, it's not about offense, it's about the experience of being literally harmed by the way something is discussed. For example, someone who has experienced childhood abuse would really really struggle with seeing the persistent use of a phrase that implies that they were at fault for having been abused (because that's what commit suicide implies - that it was within the person's control and that they have done something wrong). I'll admit that the harm that is incurred isn't huge in this case as it is a super common term in general, but there is reason to modify behaviour here that isn't just "people don't like this". I personally feel very strongly about this term being inappropriate outside of WP as well, and I am not a proponent of "just go with what an article uses" - we copyedit material in many ways. Also, a genuine request for clarification, doesn't WP:COMMONNAME only apply to article titles? Or is there another policy/guideline that states to use the most common terms? --Xurizuri (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2018.09.031 - systematic review of guidelines for public messaging around suicide, one of the findings is that there was majority agreement to avoid committed suicide. (Note: the purpose of these guidelines isn't necessarily to reduce stigma or general harm, typically their goal is to reduce rates of suicide. I still believe these to be relevant as they are a reasonable guide on what the literature supports as appropriate.) --Xurizuri (talk) 14:20, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  The last sentence of the "results" section of that paper is is telling: "none provided empirical data that could help support or refute any recommendations". I have (as a mental illness sufferer [and I chose that word carefully] who has known fellow-sufferers who have killed themselves) not seen any surveys of those of us who supposedly undergo this stigma that show that "commit suicide" is considered in any way disparaging or stigmatising. This argument about language is simply a cover-up that avoids proper research into what really concerns us. Psychiatry is a difficult business, largely and understandably based on trial and error, and such side-shows only lead to less research being done into the real issues of mental illness. Listen to the people with mental illness, not those who earn money by pretending to know about it. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:50, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  I have wondered whether this recommendation might be an effort to reduce the shame and stigma experienced by some friends and family members. In that case, the recommendation could be a valid recommendation, even if we had incontrovertible evidence that it had no effect on any person who is considering suicide or who has attempted suicide in the past. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  How about friends and family members who find the use of this kind of pussy-footing euphemistic "look at me I am so caring" language painful? DuncanHill (talk) 00:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  "Don't use committed" does not necessarily translate to any specific language, pussy-footed or otherwise.

  (I associate pussy-footed-ness with a very specific situation: a dangerously slick staircase at a professional ballet company, and their efforts to keep their younger dancers from running loudly downstairs. That picture fits into our efforts to "dance around the subject".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  Telling people not to use "committed suicide" is pussy-footing around it, and does seem to me to be far more to be about making the person using the language feel good about themself rather than any real concern for the victims. I think @Phil Bridger: put it very well above "This argument about language is simply a cover-up that avoids proper research into what really concerns us. Psychiatry is a difficult business, largely and understandably based on trial and error, and such side-shows only lead to less research being done into the real issues of mental illness." DuncanHill (talk) 00:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  "As suicide is almost universally a consequence of mental illness" -- now that, I do find offensive. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:46, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  My apologies Espresso Addict, I worded the statement slightly incorrectly; I struggle with conceptualising risk. People with mental illness are overwhelmingly more likely to experience suicidality, and to attempt suicide. I have struck out the previous statement above, and replaced it with that. And the requested citations, all meta-analyses published within the past 5 years: [36] [37] [38]. Finally, may I ask for clarification on how me not providing citations is offensive to you? If you are being genuine, I would appreciate feedback. If not, why are you bringing offense into this at all? No one in this thread has stated that the issue is offense, the issues put forward are stigma and harm. --Xurizuri (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  I don't argue that people with mental illness are more likely to attempt suicide, but the converse that "suicide is almost universally a consequence of mental illness" is, as far as I know, completely incorrect; what I find offensive is the implication that anyone who commits suicide or experiences suicidal ideation must have a mental illness. If you can't see why that might potentially be offensive then I can't help you. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:55, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  Phil Bridger, the research is about whether certain ways of discussing suicide increases or decreases the risk of suicide in the general population. Is the claim you're making that this is not worthwhile? Further, our opinions on what research is and isn't worthwhile is both OR and irrelevant to this particular discussion. Further, it's a new field; this is how many of them start, with theories. It is a problem that they aren't tested, but unless you can find something else, it's the best we can go on. And you are not the only one with lived experience. --Xurizuri (talk) 02:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow This is actually ridiculous. Why would we change a good grammatic statement to a bad one? Lettler^{hello • contribs} 18:01, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Lettler, do you think that "He killed himself" or "The cause of death was suicide" are ungrammatical sentences? I don't.

  The RFC question doesn't even mention the phrase died by suicide. There is no proposal to require any specific phrase. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• Allow as per above and because otherwise we're entering WP:NOTCENSORED territory. — Czello 19:08, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow as per (WhatamIdoing) sometimes permitted, never required. This perennial discussion came about as I sought to resolve the ongoing edit war at Robin Williams, that had spilled over at times to Lewy body dementia, before his 70th birthday in July 2021, where his article will be in focus. I initially approached this dilemma as not caring which way it was resolved, as long as it was resolved, but what convinced me that this was not a black-and-white, either-or situation was this Slate article. After reading the Slate article, I went back to see what language Williams's widow used, and decided to respect her use of language. Through that, I discovered that there were plenty of options for not using "committed suicide", while not resorting to the ungrammatical "died by suicide". At both dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Lewy body dementia (LBD), that involved simply recasting of sentences: DLB, LBD. The solution I found allows those articles to still use the words committed suicide should there be another notable suicide involving Mr. Lewy, where the family and sources have a different preference. There are plenty of ways to reflect reliable sources without restricting our choices, and we don't need to disallow the choice of "committed suicide". We can respect families and reflect reliable sources without outlawing any individual choice, by simply re-casting sentences. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow and mark as a perennial discussion that shouldn't be reopened without a good reason. Yes, there are some advocacy groups that are offended by this language (for reasons that I personally don't see as a very convincing interpretation, although my personal preferences are irrelevant). No, that isn't enough to "ban" a perfectly valid construction that is used normally and without ill intent quite commonly by both writers and readers. Even if it wasn't common, that still wouldn't be reason to discourage or forbid it anymore than thousands of other constructions whose popularity might wax or wane with time, some of which are also sometimes accused of leading to hostile interpretations whether accidentally or not. SnowFire (talk) 00:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - per many, many arguments above. I'll just point to SnowFire, Czello, and Cabayi in particular. --Khajidha (talk) 13:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - excising a phrase from the encyclopedia is a drastic remedy that should only be taken, if at all, when there is a clear consensus among reliable sources that the phrase is unacceptable. See, e.g., WP:NOTCENSORED. I just don't see that consensus here. "Commit" has a neutral denotation ("to carry into action deliberately") and a connotation that is subject to reasonable dispute by people of good faith. Taking a side in that dispute would compromise Wikipedia's reputation for neutrality. The MOS should only forbid phrases that standard English usage already forbids, and, whether one likes it or not, standard English usage still permits this phrase. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 01:08, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow "commit" is the verb that collocates with "suicide". That's just standard English grammar. Most complaints I see about this usage are based on the flawed comparison to "commit a crime", which is facially ridiculous. Just because we use "make" for "make a cake" and "make a joke" doesn't imply that cakes are a joke. The fact that some activists push to eliminate this usage, and that some newspaper style guides have gone along with it, shouldn't affect Wikipedia in any way. Editors should generally use the standard and most common verbal constructions. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 02:26, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow. While the list of institutions and organizations that have come out against the usage of the phrase "commit suicide" is rather impressive, most of those organizations (WHO, APA, NIMH, etc) have recommended against the phrase "commit suicide" in their role as advocacy groups seeking to prevent suicide. Advocacy groups and their opinions are unimportant to this discussion regardless of who they are. What matters is what important style guides have had to say on this matter. So far I've only seen that the AP stylebook has recommended against the usage of the phrase "committed suicide". This is one style guide used mostly for primary sources (newspaper articles are mostly primary sources regardless of what editors at AfD believe) in only one country. I'd like to see this ban on the usage of the phrase "committed suicide" supported by several other style guides representing a variety of English speaking countries before I could support this change. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 06:27, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Require "committed suicide". My brother committed suicide, as well as others I have known. Not sure why anyone would think changing how its worded makes any difference. "Died by suicide" should not be tolerated. 899 articles currently use it already, people keep edit warring that in. You can't just "allow" you have to make it "required" otherwise people will just keep edit warring nonstop. Dream Focus 14:50, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow as normal English usage. If there is a rational reason not to use it in a specific context, discuss giving relevant reasons and evidence in that context.· · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Disallow Wording should be neutral and the trend in reliable sources is away from using the verb "committed." See for example "The words to say – and not to say – about suicide" (CNNhealth June 11, 2018.) Under common law, suicide was a felony with legal consequences to the offender and their family. The offender would be buried at a crossroads with a stake driven through their heart and their property forfeited to the Crown.[39] Since that is no longer the case we should not falsely state that someone committed a felony. TFD (talk) 15:45, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow because we write in common/normal English, as said so many times above; if there is a specific reason not to use it in a specific context (vague, because i can't think of one), then that's certainly allowed, but generally we should not forbid common usage. In reply to the argument immediately above, we are not stating "that someone committed a felony", exactly because it isn't (most places) any more; happy days, Lindsay^Hello 16:06, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow but discourage "Committed suicide" is common terminology so it shouldn't be outright forbidden per se. But die(d) by suicide / die(d) due to suicide / die(d) from suicide are all grammatically correct, straightforward and neutral, and should be preferred IMO. Some1 (talk) 19:23, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Problem is... on WP, saying something is “preferred” quickly becomes interpreted as a mandate to mass-edit to that option. That just leads to more drama. Blueboar (talk) 20:20, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Disallow To "commit" suicide is to suggest something criminal or immoral. The terminology should be consigned to the history books wherever possible. Language and attitudes have moved on, Wikipedia must reflect that. doktorb _words^deeds 22:23, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - Its not our place to decide what language people use- we're not here to do activism. Leave this to the natural evolution of language and actual activist efforts, please - until that language has actually been stopped from usage (be it hate speech laws or otherwise), its not our place to make that change. Kirbanzo ^{(userpage - talk - contribs)} 02:11, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow per SMcCandlish – it's not at all obvious that the negative connotations of "commit" in the sense of "commit murder" also apply to the phrase "commit suicide". Absent a clear consensus that the phrase is non-neutral, editors should be permitted to use it. – Teratix ₵ 02:22, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Follow the sources, use the phrase used by sources. If sources say "committed suicide", "suicided", "killed himself" or whatever, use what the sources use, follow the sources, Wikipedia does not lead. NB. sources must use the phrase, as suicide is emotive and sensitive sometimes, especially when unclear, and Wikipedia should not lead with the judgement. If in doubt, use "died". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow. I definitely do not agree with preferring "died by suicide" in close cases; that strikes me as a PC euphemism, whereas Wikipedia is supposed to prefer straight talk. If anything, we should prefer "killed him(her)self", which is simply factual, and cannot be argued to imply a crime (in jurisdictions where it's not in fact a crime). That at least respects the agency of the individual. --Trovatore (talk) 03:42, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Follow recent sources. Wikipedia should not be on the vanguard of language change, but our pages are not editors' personal blogs and there is no need to "let" anyone write in "their voice." I am not sure where the change stands at the moment but we should be open to preferring "died by suicide" as this phrase becomes preferred in recent publication. In particular, I oppose closing this discussion with prejudice against future discussions as it seems that this is a rapidly changing area of language and the situation may well be different in the future. CapitalSasha ~ talk 05:16, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow or require. This is one of the few issues on which I fully concur with User:SMcCandlish. It definitely should be allowed because "commit" is still by far the predominant usage and WP core policies reflect a long-running tradition that Wikipedia follows, never leads. I am on the fence as to whether to require. User:Dream Focus raises an excellent point that we may need to require "commit" in order to end edit wars over this issue. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow - the "evidence" presented is pretty clear that "committed suicide" is a pretty median, middle of the road term. We see one editorial arguing we should change it (and rather disingenuously to boot!), one survey of people on the acceptability of language where it falls right in the middle of the "euphamism to deliberately shocking" continuum - i.e., it's neither a euphemism nor shocking, but a pretty middle of the road expression. And one editorial that argues (though largely from a personal perspective) that the arguments against using "committed" are all obvious hokum. "Killed themselves" might also be generally acceptable - though that phrase is very slightly ambiguous as it can be used when it's an accident, but it's always specified it's an accident. So, either of those are probably fine, and anything else would probably need a really compelling arugment for why you're using a euphemism. WilyD 14:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Follow the sources, especially recent ones. We should generally follow the lead of the sources in reflecting this sort of thing. Aggressively substituting one term for another when the consensus of the sources is clear is a WP:NPOV violation - but this goes in both directions; "we're going to avoid 'committed suicide' even if the sources use it" is trying to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS, but so is "the sources are wrong to be changing their language and we need to push back against it." We follow, we don't lead. --Aquillion (talk) 17:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow I would guess that this is the most common term for the act. An acceptable alternative, probably favored by MOS:WORDS, would be "killed himself/herself". The alternative "died by suicide" sounds off in the same way it sounds off to say that someone "died by patricide" or "died by infanticide". Same goes for "suicided". ("John Doe matricided" vs. "John Doe committed matricide" or "John Doe killed his mother") I can accept that the word "commit" is usually followed by something negative (though not always...you can also commit funds or troops or commit acts of kindness) but I don't see that as sufficient reason to disallow the word here. ~Awilley (talk) 18:17, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Follow the sources: "Committed suicide" does seem like the phrase the average reader is most likely to understand, but I wish this thread made better use of the main style and usage guides. Their silence on the specific term "committed suicide" shouldn't be used as a bludgeon for the use of the phrase, especially when it's combined with dismissal of news style guides, which do have an enormous, general audience and suggest that the term's use is changing. (In this, I agree with User:Aquillion.) Aside: This is an odd case for applying MOS:MED, because it's hard to define what a "patient-perspective" would be here, even if it's to maintain WP:NPOV. —WingedSerif (talk) 19:50, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow or require I don't know if there's precedent for requiring a certain phrasing, but this is the source of many pointless edit wars. While "died by suicide" is becoming more common in the media, it's still nothing more than a euphemism, and there is nothing wrong with the phrasing "committed suicide". From some of the statements above, this looks like another one of those things where people try to tell other people that they should be offended by something that doesn't offend them. Natureium (talk) 20:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow but absolutely, completely, do not require. Making it compulsory is nonsensical. We follow the sources. If all, or the majority, of the sources aren't using "committed", then we obviously shouldn't either. Example: Scott Hutchison. Doesn't use the word, and even if you type "Scott Hutchison committed" into Google, you get very few hits from RS. The majority of descriptors from RS are of the style of "took own life" or "died by suicide". Black Kite (talk) 20:58, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow based on standard English. It should also be noted that "killed himself" would include accidental self-caused deaths; and "died by suicide" would include innocent bystanders who died along with the person who committed suicide e.g by causing a vehicle with other people to crash. 217.132.240.72 (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• Continue to allow This is the standard English phrase, and it also disambiguates by accidental deaths caused by a person's own actions. Dimadick (talk) 22:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
• WP:SNOW. We can continue discussing this, and other silly things that MOS:MED purportedly mandates via WP:LOCALCON, but this RfC has made its point. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 05:18, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • NOT SNOW: this RFC needs a careful close with a well-written rationale by an experienced admin RFC closer. The matter has come up over and over, to the point of disruption, and even as it is snowing, denial and misunderstanding continues at individual articles. The RFC should run its course and the closing rationale should be tight so that disruptive arguments do not continue across multiple articles, as they still are in spite of the snow here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
  • This is an excellent point actually, and hits on a serious problem: How someone died is not and should not be treated as a MOS:MED issue unless there is some technical expertise needed to properly explain the death. That someone committed suicide, died of a heart attack, died in a car accident, etc. is not something that requires careful explanation in the overwhelming majority of circumstances. This would be like extending WP:MEDRS sourcing requirements to cover things like uncomplicated cause of death. Come on. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 18:58, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow but do not require, it's common and normal terminology. Stifle (talk) 14:10, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow unless and until some major milestone occurs with this sort of thing, like all the mainstream style guides picking it up and keeping it for more than one edition. Or something like that. I guess my point is that the sources presented as giving support for this move are both extremely recent (in linguistic terms) and not reflective either of actual usage or actual practice by prescriptivist authorities. If this was coming from someone like Bryan A. Garner, I could see our MOS (at best) deprecating the phrasing. But even then I think it shouldn't be banned. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 02:08, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
• Allow – and I don't buy the shaming argument, either; if it's something they wanted, and not coerced, then where is there any shame? Is it worse than "killed themself"? Okay, then use "killed themself". "Died by suicide" sounds oddly passive, with no agency, as if we don't know who did the dastardly deed. Certainly couldn't be *them*, that would be, umm, shameful! But bottom line, as with everything, is the availability of plenty of reliable sources; that should settle the question. Mathglot (talk) 08:58, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• Follow the sources, especially recent RS. Don't require a single term and don't prevent future discussion, because this is a dynamic situation that editors will want to be aware of as part of their NPOV when updating BLP articles after someone dies. Although we follow but don't lead on language change, the MOS should acknowledge that a variety of terminology is used, and that to maintain NPOV best practice is to follow the terminology used in recent RS. IndigoBeach (talk) 13:20, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Discussion ("committed suicide")

General discussion

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

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

  • This is based on the above noted past discussions, this RFC is to affirm this has broad community consensus. --Masem (t) 17:15, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
    • This RFC can't be used to support that proposed change. The RFC is worded as "should phrasing X be permitted"; but that change would involve insert wording saying alternate phrasing Y is discouraged, which is not the question asked here and not the one most of the respondents have weighed in on. Allowing something is clearly not the same as encouraging it, and definitely not the same as discouraging alternative phrasing - that proposal is completely different question and will (at this point) require a separate RFC. If we want to know the answer to "should we discourage died by his own hand or took her own life" then we'll need a separate RFC for that. --Aquillion (talk) 17:20, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
  • And in terms of other forms that are not "committed suicide", that are not euphemisms that we had identified "died by suicide", "died from suicide", "killed himself", "cause of death was suicide", "suicided", and a few other versions. But key is that what form is free to editors to select, ideally bases on what the RSes say; the key is that status quo would not be to eliminate the use of "committed suicide" as an option. --Masem (t) 17:20, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

    Masem, on the contrary, "died by suicide" seems highly euphemistic to me! To take a literal reading, I would have to believe that suicide is some kind of monster, illness, or machine that ran over the poor unfortunate soul! Elizium23 (talk) 00:23, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

    • We are not at this point considering any other specific language outside the concerns over the wording around "committed". If in practice, editors feel that "died by suicide" is a euphamism in the specific article usage, they are not required to use that version, as there's at least four other options they may consider even discounting "committed". All we are concerned with are when editors challenge the use of "committed suicide". --Masem (t) 05:02, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

• See Suicide terminology. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:21, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
• Why the new RfC? Weren't the 2018 and 2019 discussions clear enough on this matter? – Teratix ₵ 14:24, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Arguably yes, those discussions should be sufficient but as this keeps coming up (editors removing "committed suicide", this RFC to confirm that this has wide en.wiki support gives us a place to cement it in MOS, and then a pointer to this RFC to show this wasn't a decision made by a couple editors so that we don't have to continue to redebate it (the fact so many debates have happened shows a need to make this final). --Masem (t) 14:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
    • But the wording of the RFC doesn't support the proposed text! Allowing phrasing X is obviously an easier question to ask then "should we discourage phrasing Y"; but this RFC only covers the first. Depending on the outcome of this one, we would need a more specific RFC asking whether eg died by his own hand or took her own life should be allowed as well before inserting language discouraging them. --Aquillion (talk) 17:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Except that those phrase fall under clear euphemisms which established MOS disallow unless as part of quotes. In other words, without this RFC, those phrases should alread be considered inappropriate to use, so in terms of this RFC closing in favor of supporting the allowed use of "committed suicide", it would make sense to just remind editors that these euphemisms - which already are not appropriate - should be avoided as well. --Masem (t) 18:01, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the above suggestion for MOS:BIO is much too long. In particular, the "not news style" is irrelevant, and always reminds me of all the fight we had to have, years ago, to convince the MOS mavens that burying the lede is not considered a good thing in news style. I think we should consider a single sentence: Although some external style guides recommend against it, the phrase committed suicide is not banned in Wikipedia articles. We can expand later if editors can't figure out what "not banned" means for their articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Agree, because "less is more" is always a good solution, and per my "allow" !vote above; there are so many ways to resolve this without over-legislating it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:52, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• I'm not really seeing arguments in favor of the acceptability of "committed suicide" besides it being the common term. It seems to me that it should be avoided based on similar existing WP:MOS recommendations:

WP:MOSMED#Careful language

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

...

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

From the American Psychological Association, "Tips for grieving adults, children, and schools dealing with a death by suicide.": "Choose words carefully. To protect peers who may also have suicidal thoughts, avoid phrases such as 'She’s no longer suffering,' or 'He’s in a better place.' Instead, focus on positive aspects of the person’s life. Avoid the term 'committed suicide,' and instead use 'died by suicide.'"[40]

WP:Manual of Style/Words to watch

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

While "commit suicide" is a direct, literal expression, it is just the familiar idiom.

Also, "died by suicide" is grammatically correct; consider: "Although he died by self-slaughter, in a criminal's cell...." (1851, [41]) "If it appears that he died by self-murder, Finding in the inquisition shall conclude...." (1894, [42]) Kolya Butternut (talk) 06:21, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

• Kolya Butternut, I believe there was one comment above that felt "committed" had an appropriately formal gravitas. (I have wondered how many "allow" votes are actually "it doesn't matter as long as it's not 'died by suicide'" votes.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

  I can speak only to my "allow" !vote. To me "died by suicide" feels a slightly unusual construction, as in I would likely notice the actual words used whereas with "committed suicide" the words (as opposed to the meaning) would rarely consciously register. I would not go so far as to say it was jarring, unlike using "suicide" as a verb which definitely is jarringly unusual. It ("died by suicide") is more akin to reading "gay" used with the meaning "happy" rather than "homosexual" or something written in the mid-20th century that uses clearly gendered language in a way that we just would not write today - clearly understandable but equally clearly unusual in contemporary formal English. Language changes, and I would not be surprised if in the future the "committed" form is the one that feels outdated, but that future is on the order of decades away and entirely WP:CRYSTAL. Wikipedia does not lead language change, it follows language change. Thryduulf (talk) 03:32, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

• Per WP:EUPHEMISM, I would contend that we are prohibited from using "died by suicide" because there is no reason for its existence other than to be a gentle euphemism glossing over the fact that suicide is, by definition, a deliberate action (whatever the frame of mind or mental health of the subject); if one's death is not deliberate then it is not classified as suicide. "Died by suicide" removes the stigma of "committed" because it is euphemistic and papers over the harsh reality of the grisly action. Elizium23 (talk) 06:31, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  This discussion is limited to the appropriateness of "committed suicide". As I said above, this term is inconsistent with WP:MOSMED#Careful language. Kolya Butternut (talk) 11:03, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  MOSMED is relevant to medical topics. If it was relevant to all topics it would be MOS. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:55, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

  "Committed suicide" is misleading because suicide is no longer considered a criminal offense that one can commit. As I stated above, suicide was a felony punishable by burial at a crossroads with a stake driven through one's heart and one's property forfeit to the Crown. We should get away from medieval terminology. Incidentally, death by suicide is not a euphemism. The death certificate will say "Cause of death: suicide." It does not put the cause of death as "unlawful suicide." In comparison, in cases of murder we could refer to "unlawful homicide." TFD (talk) 15:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

Flawed argument... The verb “commit” is not limited to crimes. For example, one can “commit an act of kindness”. For another: When someone dies, we “Commit their body to the grave”. There are other uses of “commit”... some have positive connotations, some negstive negative connotations, and some have neutral connotations. Blueboar (talk) 16:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)

The definition of "commit" in the sense "commit suicide" is:

1. Cambridge Dictionary: "to do something illegal or something that is considered wrong", for example: "She tried to commit suicide by slashing her wrists." [43]
2. Lexico: "Perpetrate or carry out (a mistake, crime, or immoral act)", for example: "he committed an uncharacteristic error". [44]
3. American Heritage Dictionary: "To do, perform, or perpetrate", for example: "commit a murder". [45]
4. Wiktionary: "To do (something bad); to perpetrate, as a crime, sin, or fault", for example: "to commit murder". [46]
5. Chambers Dictionary: "to carry out or perpetrate (a crime, offence, error, etc)." [47]

There is a clear negative connotation to the word used in this sense which is a violation of WP:NPOV. NPOV "cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus." Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2021 (UTC) added Chambers Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:00, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

User:Blueboar, I think the grammar answer is above in a comment about transitive verbs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:18, 18 January 2021 (UTC)\

The negative connotation isn't on the word "commit", it is on the word "suicide".--Khajidha (talk) 20:21, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• As I said above, if we're going to consider whether died by suicide is allowed (or discouraged), we will need a separate RFC. This RFC is worded specifically along the lines of "should we allow phrasing X", which is generally a trivial question per WP:NOTCENSORED; especially given how many people cite WP:NOTCENSORED in their replies, it would be absurd to turn around and use the results here to say "alternate phrasings Y and Z are discouraged." This RFC doesn't ask which term we should use, or ask editors to weigh in on one to encourage; it merely asks the question of whether one particular option out of the various terms that can be used is allowed. That's a softball question, but also not really one with many policy implications outside of refuting the relatively few people who are trying to argue that "committed suicide" must automatically be replaced everywhere it appears. --Aquillion (talk) 17:32, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• This exactly. See my talk page (per above) for how this RFC was crafted to be as simple as possible around the "committed suicide" language which was clearly the point of issue, and where we have clear past discussion to establish a reason to have this RFC. Any other extension would require a new RFC. --Masem (t) 17:43, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

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

List of references

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

Policies, guidelines, and supplements cited:

WP:Specialized-style fallacy (essay)

MOS:MED#Careful language

WP:Manual of style/Words to watch

WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS

WP:NOTCENSORED

WP:NOTADVOCACY

MOS:EUPHEMISM

WP:NOTNEWS

WP:NPOV

Initial references:

• Beaton, Susan; Forster, Peter; Maple, Myfanwy (February 2013). "Suicide and Language: Why we shouldn't use the 'C' word" (PDF). InPsych. 30 (1).
• "Language use and suicide: An online cross-sectional survey". Plos One. 14 (6). June 13, 2019. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217473. PMC 6563960. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
• Bosch, Torie (January 16, 2018). "Committing to "Committed"". Slate. Retrieved October 28, 2020.

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• Systematic comparison of recommendations for safe messaging about suicide in public communications[48]
• Non-RS discusses OED eytomology, etc.[49]
• American Heritage Dictionary (interview).[50]
• Dictionary.com usage notes[51]
• Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary[52]
• Beyondblue, an Australian mental health organisation[53]
• Associated Press[54]
• American Psychological Association[55]
• CNN[56]
• Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute of Mental Health, Office of the Surgeon General, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, American Association of Suicidology, Annenberg Public Policy Center. Developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization, National Swedish Centre for Suicide Research, New Zealand Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy)[57]

Most of them. SMcCandlish lists many which do not speak to its usage or use the term without comment. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:17, 17 January 2021 (UTC) (essay) Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:47, 17 January 2021 (UTC) added NPOV Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2021 (UTC) add Kolya Butternut (talk) 08:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

• In regards to "Following the sources" we do not follow sources which say "X passed away on Y date." We do not follow sources which use WP:PEACOCK terms. Per WP:EUPHEMISM, we are prohibited from following sources which say "X died by suicide." Elizium23 (talk) 04:19, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  "Died by suicide" is not a WP:EUPHEMISM. Suicide means intentional self-killing. "The word died is neutral and accurate." Commit suicide is a loaded term which implies that the act is something wrong. We are to "Try to state the facts more simply, regardless of the common idiom. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:44, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

  • ”Commit” in “commit suicide” does NOT imply that the act is wrong... it implies that the act is deliberate. Blueboar (talk) 17:21, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

    That is not accurate; there is confusion over which definition applies. Awilley, the synonym for commit is do (something wrong). "Do funds" or "do troops" is not the right meaning. "Commit an act of kindness" is the only contradictory example provided, and it appears to be tongue-in-cheek. Every single RS which discusses the term commit suicide says it has a negative connotation. Consensus cannot override NPOV. Unless RS are provided which say that "commit suicide" is neutral, we have to go by the dictionaries and recommendations which say that at the very least "commit" implies a "negative" act.

    I only have access to the Archive.org versions of the OED, but Etymonline states "Sense of 'to perpetrate (a crime), do, perform (especially something reprehensible)' was ancient in Latin; in English it is attested from mid-15c."[58] Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:56, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

    The fact that one of the senses, a negative one, is old doesn't tell us anything about other senses (and the ancientness of them is irrelevant anyway). What matters is what the current, 21st-century-English definitions are, and you will see from the huge ol' sourcing dump I did above, Blueboar is entirely correct. The principal definition one can boil out of all of the major modern dictionaries is that commit in this sense means 'to decide or act deliberately, especially upon a matter of consequence'. This entire debate is very much like people arguing over the meaning of integrity, with one small subset of people utterly convinced it can imply only one thing (e.g., wholeness/completion), and everyone else pointing another and much more common sense, but that minority just not being willing to hear it. I think we all know how this will go, and it's why this RfC has been a WP:SNOWBALL from the start. WP is not a place for prescriptivist agitation about what things "should" or "must" mean and to whom, much for less misuse of that notion to try to force all other editors to write differently, to write around that one interpretation as if it were the only possible one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:41, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

    You're mistaken on which definition applies, but this can be easily corrected. Please cite a specific dictionary definition which you're using so that we can clear this up. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:28, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

    • Die by suicide is not precisely the same thing as commit suicide. If an airplane pilot intentionally crashes the plane he's flying for the purpose of ending his own life, then only he committed suicide; however, everyone on the plane died by/from suicide. 217.132.240.72 (talk) 22:05, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
    • This whole argument is completely backward. We don't have a negative perception of suicide because we use "commit", we use "commit" because there is a negative perception of suicide. --Khajidha (talk) 12:06, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
      • And even THAT is incorrect... we use “commit” to establish intent. “Commit” means “to do or act deliberately”. It takes commitment to commit suicide. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs) 21:56, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

"Commit suicide" as an idiom

Espresso Addict and WhatamIdoing, it sounded like you felt that the definition which matters is limited to the idiom "commit suicide" rather than its component words. In that case we must examine the RS and WP:PAG for the idiom. I've found two definitions, Cambridge which states "a phrase used to mean 'to kill yourself,' which is now considered offensive because it suggests that doing this is a crime",[59] and Merriam-Webster which gives a neutral definition.[60] The words "now considered" lead me to think that Cambridge's definition is more up-to-date. Previously cited dictionary usage notes[61] and also the American Dialect Society write that "to commit suicide" suggests a criminal act.[62] Are you also seeing that the weight of the RS say that "commit suicide" is non-neutral?

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

We don't want idioms that are metaphorical ("piece of cake") or casual ("take it easy"). There's another meaning for idiom that is closer to Formulaic language, and I think that this phrase falls into that broader meaning.

I think there are differences between British and American sources on this point. I understand that the anti-suicide groups in the UK have been very active in opposing this phrase for some years now, so it would not be entirely surprising if there was a difference between the dictionaries, too.

Also, you keep saying that it's POV to imply that suicide is a crime, but what if the suicide being mentioned in the Wikipedia article actually was a crime? Wouldn't it then be non-neutral to imply that it wasn't a crime? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

It sounds like you do not want to discuss what the RS actually say about "commit suicide" and whether it is a neutral term for intentional self-killing. Perhaps someone else would like to discuss the Dictionary.com usage notes[63] and the American Dialect Society's comments,[64] among the dictionary definitions?Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:22, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

I can certainly discuss the sources; for example, Dictionary.com says that "commit suicide" is the most common phrase (editors in this RFC seem to agree), but that the phrase originally referred to committing crimes and sins, and that "language that criminalizes the act is insensitive". The American Dialect Society's members at the end of 2017 voted to declare fake news their word of the year and die by suicide their most useful word of the year. They also voted on a favorite emoji (🧕 that year), a favorite hashtag, a favorite euphemism, and half a dozen other things. They didn't even write a complete sentence about "die by suicide", so it's not really an informative source.[65]

I want to add that you aren't just asking for people to follow the sources. You are asking editors to adopt the values of the sources. Specifically, you are asking editors to agree that because the origin of the phrase is in criminal law from a few centuries ago, that the phrase is inherently and permanently associated with crimes, and that only bad or ignorant people believe that suicide is a crime (or some other similarly serious bad thing, e.g., a sin). This argument requires editors to adopt linguistic prescription.

Here's a different example: The origin of the word weird is tied up in pagan religion and supernatural beings. Do you feel it would be non-neutral to describe something as weird in a Wikipedia article? Prescriptivism is a model in which weird will always be about magic and can never be about strange pop culture things like Adult Swim or Trout Mask Replica, and committing suicide will always be about crimes and sins, and can never be just the most common phrase that English speakers use to describe one fact about how someone died. Some editors have said here that they don't buy the argument about the phrase being permanently tainted by its origin. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

This discussion is digressing from the main points of the RS and its length will discourage others from participating. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:52, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Dictionary.com's usage notes state, in part: "the most common way to express the idea of taking one’s own life uses the noun suicide in the expressions to commit suicide.... However, the phrase commit suicide is discouraged by major editorial style guides, mental health professionals, and specialists in suicide prevention.... Using such moralistic language...."[66] Dictionary.com states that the term is moralistic, i.e., non-neutral. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

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

Putting this decision into the MOS

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

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biography
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles

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

Templates in categories

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.

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Should this kind of template be included in this category? Eurohunter (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

No. See WP:CAT#T. --Izno (talk) 18:48, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

@Izno: Thanks. Eurohunter (talk) 19:26, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

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

When are endorsements notable?

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

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

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

• Yeah... Lists like this are a classic example of WP:RECENTISM. It takes time to know if an endorsement is significant to a political campaign (or not). Ideally, we would hold off on highlighting ANY endorsements until we know which were significant and which were not. I would suggest a culling and then a merger with the broader 2020 presidential election article. Blueboar (talk) 01:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• I'd agree that we need to be more selective. DGG ( talk ) 05:01, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Leave it for now while people calm down and send the whole thing for deletion in six months' time. Thincat (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
• Good lord. I'm not an American, so maybe I'm missing something, but do any of these actually mean something tangible? I realize notability doesn't expire, but this seems ridiculous. Matt Deres (talk) 15:45, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

  @Matt Deres, I think the answer to your question is "no". Most endorsements in the US seem to be the equivalent of putting a sign in front of your home saying that you support X or Y. There is no money or anything else attached to it. In practice, I think that the politicians hope that people will vote based on identity, like "I support education, and a group of teachers endorsed this one, so I'll vote for this one." Or, in the opposite case, if a group you disagree with endorses something or someone, then you might vote the other way.

  It seems to me that a complete list of endorsements might be more of a Wikidata thing than an encyclopedia article. There might be an encyclopedia article possible on the subject of the role of endorsements in an election, in which you would write summaries like "most medical and teachers' groups endorsed Biden or stayed silent" or "Christian nationalist groups endorsed Trump", but I don't think that a raw list is an encyclopedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing I don't know enough about Wikidata to comment on whether this belongs there or not, but it seems like something worth exploring. I don't think the lists (there are multiple similar articles) belong here; personally, I think they fail WP:INDISCRIMINATE, though the third bullet point does suggest they're acceptable. To me, the scale is simply beyond reason. Surely a reliable source has compiled and summarized this stuff so that we can report on the trends and special cases rather than immense walls of names. What is the utility of it? Matt Deres (talk) 16:58, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

@Matt Deres, I think the way you'd handle this at Wikidata is that you'd go to the entry for Joe Biden (or his campaign?), scroll down until you find "+ add statement", and then add a statement "endorsed by", put in the endorsing org's name, add a ref, maybe add a qualifier (time period, or for what purpose?), and repeat. It might be possible to set up a reciprocal item, so that you could do the same thing at the notable endorsing org's record. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:58, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Historical Significance factor

Hi, I understand that Wikipedia rules are a common set of standards that have been agreed on by a majority, however I am more confused than ever.

We state that articles have to have not ability set out in the rules and associated accepted essays. However this means we have articles which will be lost that have historical significance, as sigcov is not there and the articles are covered more by smaller snippits. Surridge Sport is the current example which I picked up from a current AFD. They were a big supplier of sporting equipment right upto the 1990s, supplying some of crickets biggest stars. There is little significant coverage, however anyone who watched cricket will know of their equipment, especially the Jumbo and Turbo cricket bat's.

Another example is The Cambridge Working Group. Again little sigcov but historically very significant as it influenced the US Federal authorities to stop certain research, which stood in place for three years.

My request is can we have a caveat in place, where editors can discuss historical significance at AFD, and if enough multiple sources are available, can be applied, much like WP:Basic is for individuals? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 10:23, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

If subjects truly have historical significance, why would there be no significant coverage available? – Teratix ₵ 12:16, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

Historically something may have been significant, but coverage may have been smaller. For example The Cambridge Working Group does not have an article totally directed at itself, however it has been documented in many scientific articles about bioscience and vaccines how this group did bring about the memorandum federal authorities brought in that stopped research. The group there is historically significant for forcing a change in policy. In the other case I gave Surridge Sports were historically active prior to the net, but in articles since regarding cricket bat's they are discussed for the innovations (the Turbo for instance) but it is not in depth coverage about the company themselves.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 13:08, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

For Surridge Sports – if the company has received little significant coverage but their products have, what's wrong with simply having articles on their products, if they are what is notable? Similarly, if Cambridge Working Group itself received insufficient coverage but the policy change did, what's wrong with simply discussing the group's influence on the policy change, in some other related article? Just because a subject doesn't satisfy a notability standard doesn't mean it can't be discussed in Wikipedia articles at all. – Teratix ₵ 08:33, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that the answer to your question is for the same reason that if an academic has received little significant coverage but their research has, some editors think it's wrong to merely mention their research in relevant articles about their subject-matter expertise, instead of having a biography of the person.

The question for me, as always, is how much of an article you could write if you were required to build that article exclusively from Wikipedia:Independent sources (not the owners, not the business, not the product brochure...) that directly address the subject in some detail (let's set "more than one full sentence about the business" as the floor for this). If you are reasonably certain that you could only write (and source) a couple of sentences about the business under these restrictions, then it may be an "important" business without being a "notable" one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:37, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I am not arguing for minimum referencing and stub articles that are pointless. The example I used Surridge Sports, has been in existence since 1867, but by 1993 was swallowed up by Dunlop-Slazenger pre net. When you look at other sport equipment companies their siqcov is post net. Surridge Sports has a huge amount of small evidence which shows that it was once a major player. If this was an individual people could argue the WP:Basic rule. In the AFD for Surridge Sport the following comment was made:

"Delete Wikipedia does not, currently, have any rules regarding the historical importance of a subject versus its notability guideline. I wish it had because a lot of articles that would be considered to have historical importance may have been saved. That being said, as it currently is, this subject does not meet the basic notability requirements. We can say that there must be something out there because of its prominence within the sport, however, whether we believe it is there or not does not supersede the guideline policy. Does not receive SIGCOV in independent and reliable sources as per WP:N. If a suitable location for redirect or merge can be presented then I wouldn't be opposed to that route. --ARoseWolf (Talk) 16:34, 11 January 2021 (UTC)" Davidstewartharvey (talk) 07:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Can I create an inline cleanup template?

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.

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Is there a policy prohibiting regular editors from creating inline cleanup template like {{Citation needed span}}?

I would like to create {{Request quotation span}} because the current {{Request quotation}} is unable to flag a specific piece of text that needs a quotation.

If the policy prohibits regular editors from creating inline cleanup templates, I would appreciate if an editor with the privilege could help create it. --Matt Smith (talk) 02:56, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Matt Smith, there's no policy prohibiting it to my knowledge; feel free to boldly create that template. Sometimes template creation can be tricky, but there's limited risk when you're creating a new one compared to modifying one already in wide use. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:12, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice! I'll go ahead and do it then. --Matt Smith (talk) 04:12, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

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

Crystal balls

I think Wikipedia should take a harder line against crystal ball gazing, particularly in the current world situation. Take the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It didn't happen last year. It might not happen this year. Why are we creating article about events before they have happened? We already have a longish article on the Second impeachment trial of Donald Trump, even though its start date is unknown.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:22, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I think the problem is that this is not as easy as saying get rid of all of these articles. In the example of the second impeachment is that he has been impeached, it is not that it had not been voted on by Congress. The Tokyo games are also another example that is not normal. The covid pandemic has caused a cancellation, but normally it would have happened, and details of the games, like the venues will be announced before the games happen. However I do agree when we get an article about the F1 season before it has even been announced the actual provisional race list, or a movie that has not been released, that these are just way to early. But I think we don't need to change the rules, just keep the current AFD process and let the community decide.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 06:44, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with @Davidstewartharvey:, I don't think you can have a hard and fast rule unless you have it as no crystal at all, so it is better to just leave it to editors judgement and the AFD process. Funny enough your example for 2020 Tokyo Olympics, I had a look at when it was started. It was created on the 15th March 2005, 15 years before it would have been held. Though an event like that, all the information and bidding process, would have likely passed WP:GNG long before the open ceremony. So the notability of the upcoming event that the article maybe about, would have a lot to do with if the article stays or not. NZFC^(talk)(cont) 07:33, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand what impeachment is. The second impeachment of Donald Trump has already occurred. What is yet to occur is the senate trial on the charges. --Khajidha (talk) 11:33, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

With regard to the Tokyo Olympics, it would be better to call the article "Preparations for the Tokyo Olympics" (or something like that). With regard to the trial, all that information could be (and basically is) contained the the impeachment article already. The guidelines state: All articles about anticipated events must be verifiable. The problem is that in reality the future isn't verifiable. Most people would probably have averred that the Tokyo Olympics would have gone ahead last year. They would have been wrong. Equally, people will say that Trump's trial will go ahead. But, in my opinion, we don't know that. Apart from the Tokyo Olympics, four Games have been cancelled. By my calculations, that's means about 9% of all Games have not occurred in the year scheduled. So when you say the situation with the Tokyo Olympics is "not normal", I would reply that it's a situation that occurs about 9% of the time. Most people would probably say that the Olympic Games is an event that can be predicted with certainty, but in fact the probability is about 91%. Across all articles that are created on the basis that the event will "certainly" occur, we could guesstimate — for argument's sake — that around 10% of of those events won't occur. And that's a huge amount of articles.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

The relevant distinction is that the word "verifiable" in the context of Wikipedia doesn't mean readers should be able to check that our predictions are true, but rather readers should merely be able to check that the prediction was previously published in a reliable source (see Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth). In this sense, information about the future can be verifiable, in Wikipedia's sense of the term. Mz7 (talk) 03:33, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

In other words, the word "verifiable" doesn't actually mean "verifiable" in its normal English sense, but is a piece of Wikipedian jargon. Not a good way to right an article. In addition, sources deemed "reliable sources" are not reliable predictors of the future. They did not predict Trump's win in 2016; they did not predict COVID-19; they did not predict Brexit; they did not predict that the Tokyo Games would not be held in 2020. They are not reliable, so why rely on them? But, in reality, despite the language used, they are really reporting announcements, rather than actually making predictions.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:52, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I apologize for the jargon, but I do think Wikipedia's current approach to future events is reasonable. I also feel like you may have answered your own question: our articles aren't making unverifiable predictions about the future, but rather reporting on verifiable statements that other people have made about the future. Reliable sources have reported that the 2020 Summer Olympics are now scheduled to take place in July 2021, and our article merely repeats this verifiable fact. Yes, we can never be 100% sure about the future (heck, sometimes we can't be 100% sure about the past, e.g. if there is a dispute about the historical record), and our readers know this too. We can trust that our readers are intelligent enough to conclude from the fact that an article is about a future event that some of details surrounding its planning may change as new information comes in. Mz7 (talk) 09:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think the relevant policy at WP:CRYSTAL is already sufficiently clear about these situations and doesn't need clarification: Individual scheduled or expected future events should be included only if the event is notable and almost certain to take place. The Olympics and the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump are both events that are systematically scheduled and generally almost certain to take place—Tokyo 2020 is very much the exception rather than the norm, and even if the event is cancelled, the cancellation in itself would be such a notable event that we would almost certainly have an article on it anyway. WP:CRYSTAL is more about cracking down on unverifiable speculation, such as having an article about Star Wars: Episode X before any reliable sources have begun to seriously discuss such a project. Wikipedia can and does report on verifiable speculation about future events that have been well-documented in reliable sources, even as far into the future as the ultimate fate of the universe. Mz7 (talk) 03:14, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
  • What does "almost certain to take place" mean? 91% certain? Or less? How do we calculate this? Shouldn't events occurring during this COVID-19 period be considered less certain to occur? Are events involving old people less certain due to the heightened chance of death? I don't understand your logic on the topic of Tokyo 2020. It is not difficult to create an article. We do not need an article on Tokyo 2020 to pre-exist in order to have an article about its cancellation.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:52, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
    • There is no point worrying about rare events. Dozens of pages are deleted or renamed every day and it is no big deal if it turns out that a couple of future olympic games articles need to be moved. The point of WP:CRYSTAL is that it is not satisfactory to create an article about a future event if there is nothing verifiable to say about it. Johnuniq (talk) 23:55, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
      • So WP:CRYSTAL is redundant because the issue is covered by WP:V, WP:GNG etc???--Jack Upland (talk) 06:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
        • Jack Upland, there is a certain combination of being pedantic and dogmatic that is not at all a good look. If either the Super Bowl or the Olympics or both are cancelled, then the corresponding articles will be updated almost instantly. As for the second impeachment trial of Trump, the news about that is flowing rapidly and it is 99.9% certain to happen. As The Beatles sang: "Let It Be". There is no chance that you will prevail on this point. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
          • Sorry to be pedantic, but the trial is not "99.9% certain to happen". Many Republicans think the trial should not go ahead and might try to vote it down. America is beset by civil disorder and a pandemic. Trump is an old man and might not survive the week. To say there is only one in a thousand chance that the trial will not occur is downright wrong. It is better to be pedantic than downright wrong. You are not pedantic.--Jack Upland (talk) 07:21, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The Constitution requires that a trial take place once the House sends the Article of Impeachment to the Senate. Trump may not be convicted but he will be tried. On the broader point, none of the examples under discussion are anywhere close to crystal ball territory. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 16:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

A few accessibility-driven suggestions for FA article status

Hello - sorry if this is the wrong board, but I believe I'm in the right place for this. I've got a few accessibility-driven suggestions for articles being proposed for FA status.

I've been pottering around Wikipedia adding language tags and alternative image captions for a while now. My point is that I really haven't seen much of a drive for adding them as part of improving the status of an article; they seem, unfortunately, like an afterthought. Considering that we haven't changed the design of the Main Page since 2006 for its accessibility, the fact that basic edits for accessibility and the appraisal of article standards haven't been married together seems like a missed opportunity.

There are WikiProjects that deal with this, that's true; there's the wider WikiProject Accessibility, the partially-active WikiProject Usability and the now-inactive WikiProject Writing Captions. But outside of that? There's no mention of accessibility standards on FA article criteria, and there's no mention on FA review criteria. I apologise if I've somehow completely missed something. But these accessibility standards don't seem too standardy.

As someone who's disabled - I don't use a screenreader, but I'm autistic and have ADHD - and as someone who's been through higher education, it can often feel as though you're expected to handle your issues yourself; as though disability and accessibility issues are a thing only tackled by those who need them, and not really touched upon, or touched upon in a cursory manner, by those who don't. What I propose would, I think necessarily, forcibly bring accessibility standards to the fore for Wikipedia articles.

Disabled people already have to plan their way around the world - will this bus have a wheelchair ramp, will this shopping centre have disabled toilets - and Wikipedia should be a place where they don't have to. We've all fallen down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. Imagine having to plan your way around that. Imagine, all of our finest articles, put together by our finest minds, inaccessible. If we're not going to change the Main Page's design for 15 years because of accessibility, we can change our FA article standards because of accessibility.

I can, and have, added language tags to a single large article of an afternoon. It's boring work, but it doesn't take that long, and they are necessary, moreso than you'd think. French terms? Oh, well maybe, since this is English, it won't be so bad - nope. My parents' SatNav manages to butcher the word Calais, and we barely live across the Channel. Imagine how well a screenreader does with, say, Japanese language terms, or tonal languages like Mandarin?

(Also, can I add - adding language tags is fun. It sounds silly, but it is. You learn little bits here and there about different languages, and the different writing systems they use and why. I managed to answer a question on University Challenge about Hangul because I'd added language tags in Korean the day before. In the far-off future where we can meet in pubs again for quizzes, you may net yourself a point or two.)

This does not mean retroactively stripping all FA articles of their status, as my admittedly uneducated guess is that consensus would deem that a step too far. However, a check on the Talk page - some kind of banner or header, "This article has FA status and has been checked for language tags and alternative image captions/This article has FA status but has not been checked for language tags and alternative image captions/This article has FA status but does not have language tags and/or alternative image captions", or words to that effect, may be an option.

For FA articles undergoing review, accessibility could be a 'soft' criteria of some kind - counted against the article, but let go, under the impression that it will be fixed while the article is undergoing review. If an article is going to be suggested for FA review, its alt captions and language tag status should be brought up on the Talk page and hopefully dealt with then. I don't know. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable than me can come up with something to that effect.

Maybe it sounds like puzzlingly and absurdly minor criteria; that implies it is a minor fix. We have guides on the inclusion of alt captions, we have guides on the inclusion of language tags, it's very basic housekeeping, much like deleting doublespaces within article text, outside of infoboxes and galleries. (I would have brought up doublespaces, but to my knowledge, someone brought up a doublespace-removing bot once, and it got shouted down for reasons I can't remember. Thought I'd steer clear of that here.)

Anyway - apologies if this is completely in the wrong place and I've entirely missed the mark. I hope this makes sense! --Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 19:26, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

• There was a discussion a while back making accessibility a part of the FA criteria, but it was decided that the existing criteria implied accessibility for current and future FAs; nevertheless, there are FAs dating back to 2001 that haven't been thoroughly reviewed in a decade or more. Perhaps a taskforce can be set up for checking FAs and such reviews can be marked down on the talk page banner. (Also, for screenreaders you should use

  <em>

  tags rather than italic markup for emphasis). – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:17, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
• I want to say that alt text usually gets caught during the image review. Certainly the captions are scrutinized. Other bits of accessibility could maybe use a checklist, but maybe that's general truth. "Tables: are simple, headers have scopes; Lists: no LISTGAPs; Foreign words: Marked up with {{lang}}... Etc." --Izno (talk) 23:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
• I'd say most of this is already brought up, certainly the altext for new FACs. Personally, I add to any articles I write, but if you have any suggestions for WP:ACCESS issues I don't know about, let me know and I'll encorporate them. IMO, it should be a standard at GAN as well. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:33, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

question: porn images in articles

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

The screenshots may be okay, but we should blur the thumbnails w/in the shots so one gets the idea that the front page is a selection of videos but without personally identifying the people or showing the porn. --Masem (t) 20:27, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I say they should be removed, or possibly blurred as Masem suggested. According to MOS:IMAGES, offensive images should only be included if "its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available". The screenshots are basically just collages of pornography, which doesn't really provide any new information since the articles already clearly state that there is porn. The only real information given by the screenshots is the general format of their homepages, and that could be given with blurred images; the nudity itself isn't informative. Also, WP:NSFW has a good list of previous discussions related to this that we should probably consider in this discussion. Sudonymous (talk) 20:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

In the case of Pornhub, blurring the thumbnails would leave only the logo in the screenshot, which we have already got in the infobox anyway. I'm with the view that screenshots of random thumbnails, blurred or otherwise, are not suitable for screenshots.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 20:45, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

If you blurred each thumbnail in the screenshot, (in the current pornhub one, 12 separate areas that would be blurred) you would still be capturing the layout/branding facets but not showing the porn nor possibly identifible people. I am not talking blurring the full 400x250 image but just the small areas of it.

Also, the redTube screenshot must be replaced with a "stanard" screenshot, not a "long web page" shot. --Masem (t) 21:23, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

After looking at the listed articles, I don't see anything that is readily identifiable as "naughty bits". I suppose if someone wanted to, they could examine these screenshots (presumably with magnification) and find the pornagraphism (is that a word?) but there are far, far, easier ways to find such images. WP:NOTCENSORED is applicable as well as common sense. Anyone likely to be disturbed by those screenshots would be disturbed by the mere existence of the articles themselves. Even a "think of the children" argument is not applicable because you have to already know what you're looking at for those images to make sense as graphic. Unless you already know what porn is and looks like, those are not going to look like porn to a theoretical innocent. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I should also note that, despite the subsection title, this isn't an actual RfC as none of the steps to create one have been taken. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

How are you defining "naught bits"? Because several of those screenshots clearly show penises, which I think qualifies as "naughty bits", and even for the "tamer" pictures it's still nudity. They are literally screenshots of porn, I don't know what you mean when you say they don't "look like porn". Sudonymous (talk) 21:53, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

There is an aspect of the principle of least astonishment, and it would be expected that if one went to a page about PornHub I am going to see porn, but at the same time, there are potentially identifyable people there, and that's probably a higher concern than the pornographic elements. --Masem (t) 22:30, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Thinking on this more, I would even add that we need to blur or remove the images on a BLP privacy issue, more than any "naughty bits" issue. Until late 2020, at least for PornHub (and not yet proven out to other porn sharing sites), anyone could upload videos there, which allowed for videos that were released without the actors' consent. This included videos made for exploitation purposes which led to a big mess with the credit card companies and potential congressional action. Pornhub responded by removing the bulk of videos outside of those that were uploaded by those that they could humanly affirm owned and were in the videos. So what's on there now are only videos with consent of the actors, but that would only apply to PornHub post-October or so. The other sites, this is still a question. So while we still want to show what these sites layout is, we absolutely should be masking/blurring out the videos due to the dubious privacy policy involved. --Masem (t) 23:42, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Masem, due to the extremely lax "verification" process Pornhub has (I believe it's still the case that you can create a channel, send them a picture of yourself, and then upload completely unrelated videos that do not feature you) any issues which previously existed still remain. There has been at least one known case of an underage child being listed as "verified" (so their videos would not be removed by this measure): [67]. IMO Pornhub's actions were a slight improvement but still just a PR move that makes no meaningful attempt at safeguarding or preventing child trafficking, videos of rape or non-consensual pornography. — Bilorv (talk) 09:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

All the more reason to use the same solution for all porn website screenshots, so we don't have to track down details like this. --Masem (t) 14:08, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Are there really any privacy issues for the myfreecams screenshot? Voluntarily put themselves on a public website. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

The question whether the people in those videos really consented to their videos being uploaded remains for any video site, porn or not porn. You can say the same about the screenshot included at YouTube or other articles. That said, I would oppose removing screenshots merely on the basis that they show nudity. As Masem correctly points out, people looking at articles about porn websites should not be surprised to find porn images there and those screenshots are already in a box that needs to be clicked on to be seen, adding another layer of protection. If any people can be identified in the screenshots (at the resolution we are using!), we should consider blurring their identifiable parts (mostly faces) but not more than that. This is an encyclopedia still after all and people should be able to find a complete description of its subjects here which includes images. Regards SoWhy 11:23, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it would be no issue if this blurring was just limited to clearly-visible faces. As I said above, the "naughty bits" part isn't the problem as that falls into the principle of least astonishment for a site named "pornhub", and the use of a hidden screenshot helps. But we absolutely should abide by privacy of individuals in private videos even if there may be consent possibly given. --Masem (t) 14:07, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I can’t seem to identify a username in File:MyFreeCams.com-Lounge.gif and I think the face, even without blurring, is sufficiently hard to identify even if you knew the person. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

I think blurring would amount to creating a new image and pretending it is encyclopaedic. We aren't (or shouldn't be) in the business of doing that. Either include the images, or exclude them, but don't doctor them. DuncanHill (talk) 11:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

A NSFW filter in my preference option (if not for unlogged, at least for logged in users) should be added so that, every user can enable/disable blurring or hiding all the NSFW images voluntarily. 103.134.25.90 (talk) 13:03, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

The problem with that is that what is and isn't "safe for work" varies by workplace, culture, person attitudes, and even context so is so completely subjective as to be useless (which images at Breast are NSFW for example?). It also requires the classification of every single image as either SFW or NSFW which, even if we stopped accepting new images right now, would be an impossible task, and as soon as there was one image that someone thought should be NSFW that wasn't tagged as such then the filter is useless. See also WP:NOTCENSORED. Thryduulf (talk) 13:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

As we are talking about live websites, there should be no problem in including a URL and excluding a screenshot. That is hardly censorship when the material is so accessible. Moreover, the screeenshot is immediately out of date compared with the 'live' version. Jontel (talk) 13:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

• As I said at the Pornhub discussion, WP:NOTCENSORED is not a discussion-ending argument. The fact is that WP:GRATUITOUS is the guideline implementing NOTCENSORED with respect to things like pornographic images. What I said at the Pornhub discussion generally makes sense here, so I'll just repeat it: "Indeed, even if a screenshot is desired, it is possible to use an uncensored screenshot that happens not to include things like full-on double penetration and still delivering the same quality of information. My reading of WP:GRATUITOUS is that in a situation where we have two images, we should use the less-offensive image. And given we can make new screenshots of Pornhub pretty much at will, I think even if we decide a screenshot is desired, someone can just F5 on the Pornhub homepage until the collection of thumbnails is less offensive." Where I said "less offensive" there, it might be better rephrased as "less graphic". Yes, at a certain point we do run up against NOTCENSORED (i.e., there will be some viewers that will be offended no matter how mild the screenshot), and on some level we can get into hair-splitting, but that's not a reason to just give up and let whatever be the screenshot. Anyway, I think this issue is squarely resolved by existing policies and guidelines, namely WP:GRATUITOUS. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 22:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • GRATUITOUS arguably does not apply. Pornhub and the other sites are sites that allow for sharing of porn videos, and it is not unreasonable to expect to see a porn image if one was viewing a page about pornhub. (in contrast, GRATUITOUS would apply if we were talking about the vast collection of books offered at the NY Public Library and featured an image of a book with a pornographic image on its cover. Now one *can* argue that from the standpoint of the website layout, that it offers little unique from any other video sharing site that we don't need to see its layout and thus can just use the site logo/banner, but that's not a GRATUITOUS issue, that's more a non-free content facet. But I know that most editors doing work on articles about websites will argue the screenshot of the website is a required element, so this is a debatable issue.
  • We can still discuss a clear solution that reaches a middle ground on the BLP privacy issue, but I don't think we can eliminate those screenshots immediately or without discussion. --Masem (t) 22:44, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
    • GRATUITOUS absolutely applies. Read the guideline. Material that would be considered vulgar or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers should be used if and only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available. I am hitting the "equally suitable alternative" prong, which is independent of the arguments by others along BLP and similar lines (and is frankly directed more at the actual controversy here rather than trying to find an excuse within other policy to remove the material). If there is an equally suitable alternative, the more offensive image should not be used. Yes, there is wiggle room within what our readers consider offensive, and there's reasonable grounds for RfCs to determine this, but if we're talking about "I know it when I see it" content like a graphic depiction of double penetration (as in the Pornhub screenshot), how can we actually argue otherwise? 69.174.144.79 (talk) 23:11, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
      • I'm speaking from the view of editors that deal with covering works of media (newspapers, magazines, and websites), where they have stated repeated that showing the work's "cover" or "leading" page is of importance to the work's branding and essence - how things are laid out, the predominance given to headlines relative to other parts of the cover, etc. That in the case of pornhub and friends that their front page includes screenshots at timestamps on their porn videos is part of that sight layout, and there's no alternative way to show that (removal would not be an option from this stance). This is not my argument - I'd argue we'd probably could remove before trying other options, but trying to remove such images has been extremely difficult to argue for, and recongizing that consensus, that means GRATUITIOUS simply just doesn't apply since porn is a function of pornhub. But we can require alternative steps that eliminate the more problematic things about these images. --Masem (t) 00:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
        • I'm speaking from the view of editors that deal with covering works of media ... where they have stated repeated that showing the work's "cover" or "leading" page is of importance WP:GRATUITOUS takes that into account. Please actually read the guideline and appreciate what it means. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 01:14, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• Agree with Masem on this. Per this December's exposé in The New York Times "The Children of Pornhub" we simply cannot assume those thumbnails come from videos uploaded by the copyright holder or that the people in those videos consented (or could consent) to being in them. If we could verify (per WP:V) that every person in the displayed images were over 18 at the time of recording and that the videos were uploaded by their proper copyright holders, I'd say keep them. But we can't, and there is recent evidence that we cannot safely assume informed consent. I think Masem's suggestion is eminently reasonable, though removal is also reasonable. WP:NOTCENSORED does not require us to blindly include pornography, it only says that being "objectionable" is not a sufficient reason to remove something. The concern here is more than just pearl-clutching about porn, but rather the likelihood that we're inadvertently causing harm to other people who did not consent to being on a pornography site (let alone on Wikipedia). Obscuring the thumbnails removes no encyclopedic value; the images are included to show the site layout, not the specific menu of porn they have on offer. If someone wants to know what kind of porn is on Pornhub or wherever, our images do a terrible job of that. Why look at a static image from Wikipedia (taken who knows how long ago) to try and figure out what kind of porn is on a website when you could just go to the actual website (which we link to). It's like saying we need a picture of YouTube's front page so that readers know what videos are on YouTube--absolute nonsense. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:26, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Without commenting on your other points, we don't have anything to worry about from a copyright perspective here - if we use a screenshot of a website then it will be fair use (unless all elements on the website are free content, and I'm not aware that this applies to any pornographic website and certainly it certainly doesn't apply to PornHub) so we are not claiming anything as Free. The very small thumbnails (the largest image in the screen shot was approximately 80 pixels square, the others approximately 70x30 pixels) showing a single frame of video would unquestionably be fair use for us (arguably even de minimus) even if PornHub is violating copyright; especially as all we are claiming is that this was how the PornHub front page looked on a given date, which is clearly factual and a clearly encyclopaedic purpose. Thryduulf (talk) 02:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • As Pornhub recently scrubbed unvetted content, wouldn't a screenshot taken now avoid vids with copyright and unwilling subject and other such problems? Hyperbolick (talk) 02:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
      • See Bilorv's comment above - how "well" Pornhub's checks are are in question. --Masem (t) 02:53, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • To clarify my concern isn't copyright per se but what the copyright can tell us about the other legal questions. On these sites, content illegal-for-non-copyright-reasons is often reuploaded by anonymous actors who almost certainly don't have copyright. So the lack of a clear copyright holder should raise red flags. If, on the other hand, we know the copyright holder and can verify it was uploaded by the presumable holder, then I'm much more willing to assume the content complies with other aspects of the law such as consent and age of majority laws. so I totally agree that we're not legally liable from a copyright perspective; my focus on copyright was because of its usefulness as a litmus test for the other legal aspects (though I also prefer strict limits on non-free content because of downstream re-use considerations, but that's a different conversation for a different time). As for encyclopedic value, the photo isn't simply how Pornhub looked on a specific date; it's how it looked on a specific date to a specific user. For example, as a homosexual, a screenshot of the heterosexual Pornhub front page doesn't show what it would look like to me. I'm no expert on their front page algorithm, but presumably its like any other video site where recommendations are tailored by account or IP or cookies or something that would further limit its use as a definitive archive of the page's appearance on a given date. That's why I compared it to Youtube: in neither case are we talking about a photo with unrivaled encyclopedic value. It's a photo to say "this is kinda what the subject looks like" and we need to place this discussion in that context (which applies beyond just pornographic websites as Jehocman gets at below). — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• If we are to keep using screenshots of websites, I think blurring the images from porn sites to be a good idea, especially given the recent Times expose. I imagine PronHub is not alone in hosting illegal/extremely dubious content. But I hold a somewhat more radical view altogether: I think having screenshots of websites is a bad idea in general. Websites are subject to frequent change, our screenshots are not particularly enlightening or encyclopedic, and cause more trouble than they are worth. IMO, it would be easier and more useful for us to link to archived versions of websites to provide an example instead of just a low rez fair use screenshot. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 06:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • The reason we have the pages of websites is the same reason we have images of newspaper front pages and magazine covers; they are considered encyclopedic content in terms of the work's identity and branding to display them on the WP article discussing the work in question. NFC only allows one such image by default - the current one in the article's heading/infobox - and any other such image must be substantially backed by a rationale to explain why it is needed (such as a radical shift of format that is discussed in the prose with sourcing). While arguably an archive.org link would do that job for websites, that doesn't help for an offline version of the article, which should be comprehensive. --Masem (t) 14:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• WP:NOTCENSORED means we treat the articles and content exactly the same as any other articles and content. We include the material if it is relevant to the topic and complies with other policies, and exclude it if it doesn't. If someone tried to claim the screenshots at Gov.uk and Wikipedia and Twitter were "WP:GRATUITOUS", we would ignore them and warn them for making blatantly frivolous/invalid arguments. If someone somehow came up with a Pornhub screenshot that was less porn-ish or "less offensive", that alternate image would be deliberately deceptive and therefore unusable. The purpose of the screenshot is to accurately reflect the typical site appearance. Alsee (talk) 10:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • If someone claimed those other websites' screenshots were WP:GRATUITOUS they'd be laughed at because they'd clearly not read the guideline. The rest of your argument is nonsensical. If the Pornhub website delivers a different collection of videos then it's a screenshot. The purpose of the screenshot is not to illustrate pornography. The purpose of the screenshot is to illustrate the website. The website delivered the collection of videos. It's an illustration that's no less informative. Framing that as "deceptive" stretches WP:AGF to its breaking point as well. I think you might want to reconsider your entire comment. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 21:47, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• I don't see why screen shots are encyclopedic. The site's logo is presented and at the bottom there ought to be a link to the site, presumably to the site's Terms of Service page, or some other info page, so that a reader who arrives can familiarize themselves with the content and decide if they want to proceed. If somebody wants to see what the site looks like, they can look at it, if doing so is legal in their country. Jehochman ^Talk 14:48, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
• I too question the encyclopedic value of these screenshots. It’s not like there is something unique or innovative being demonstrated. I see no reason to include them, and many reasons not to. Blueboar (talk) 23:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Why have infobox pics of The Christian Science Monitor or Myspace even? Hyperbolick (talk) 23:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
    • I know this is rhetorical, but to humor you, the CSM is a photo of their print publication. Unlike pornhub, readers can't simply go to the CSM home page and see what the print cover is like because, well, it's in print not online. It is also incredibly static--unlike Pornhub whose main page changes constantly, the CSM publishes a definitive print edition weekly that is more or less uniform regardless of when or where you access it from so an archive is actually meaningful as more than just a data firehose. As for Myspace, the same arguments can be made as for Pornhub and YouTube which is why whataboutism isn't actually helpful. Have you actually looked at the screenshot there? It's pretty useless. Far more useful would be an image of how the layout has changed over time, especially since that's actually a notable part of Myspace's history. Instead we've got a blurry photo with "this is myspace" emblazoned on it as if the title and logo weren't enough to tell you that. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
      • Not everyone views WP with an active Internet connection, so we should not be making the expectation that if if seeing the website layout is essential to the reader's understanding (under WP:NFCC#8) it should be offloaded to an external URL. -Masem (t) 00:11, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
• Never one for censorship especially moral censorship but those screenshots actually show that there is nothing notable about the layouts. Put a title on screen, provide thumbnails, print money is repeated in every layout. For that reason, I believe the title alone is sufficient to show "integral branding" Slywriter (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Changing the Name of Articles for deletion to Articles for notability verification

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.

---

Can we change the Name of Articles for deletion (Afd) to Articles for notability verification/Proposal for notability verification/notability test? I am proposing because the title makes most of the user misunderstood of wikipedias' point of view, it is first impression of negativity, if we change it in first impression of positivity, it will help all the new and old contributors mentally to achieve their goal in more ease and friendship. 103.134.25.90 (talk) 12:57, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

• I think not. Solution looking for a problem. It's been with Wikipedia for nearly 20 years and so have a great many regular users and admins. To change it now would cause more confusion than it would save. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• The proposed name would be a bit misleading. Articles aren't necessarily deleted because they fail a notability standard, e.g. they might be a WP:POVFORK of an existing article, a marginally notable BLP subject might request their deletion, etc. – Teratix ₵ 15:00, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
• No. Flailing Notability is not the only reason for nominating an article for deletion.
• I have not seen it suggested in a while... but a somewhat perennial suggestion used to be to rename AFD as “Articles for Discussion”... I am NOT suggesting that we do this now, just reminding people that renaming AFD has been discussed in the past (in case anyone wants to search the archives to read those threads). Blueboar (talk) 15:56, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

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

Racist commonly used names?

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

Psiĥedelisto, I checked the sources, and most of those names aren't in the sources, and most of the sources don't mention any of those names. I'd suggest we delete the whole section. Vexations (talk) 21:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

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

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

I believe the self-published source policy regarding biography of living person articles - WP:BLPSPS - needs clarification urgently. The context is that I'm involved in a relentless tug of war about the inclusion on the Douglas Murray (author) page of an academic group research project titled the Bridge Initative[68] which is meant to address Islamophobia in the public space and is maintained by Georgetown University on a BLP article. It does not seem to be contested that the Bridge Team[69], to whom the articles are credited, is highly distinguished, including professors John Esposito Farid Hafez and Susan L. Douglass, the human rights lawyer and commentator Arsalan Iftikhar and a host of others, nor that it has been cited by other RS's[70][71][72][73][74][75][76] Nobody has been able to distinguish Bridge in evidentiary terms from advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. However, several people have pointed to sections in editorial policy like this one:

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

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

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

Bridge articles are written by a team and attributed to them, just as articles written by advocacy groups like the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Innocence Project and so on tend to be. Articles on controversial BLP subjects feature articles from these groups as a matter of course: see the pages for Milo Yiannopoulos,[77][78][79][80], Richard B. Spencer[81] and Lauren Southern[82] for example. However, a literal reading of currently policy could exclude them as "self-published sources", and potentially exclude anything that doesn't have a person with the job title of "editor". It needs to be clarified whether the above are "self-published" sources or whether they are acceptable for BLP articles. I don't believe those who wrote this policy sincerely intended that this would be the interpretation and I believe it is contrary to the spirit if not the letter of the existing policy, but believe the policy needs to be urgently updated and clarified to state whether think tanks, advocacy organizations and academic projects are "self-published" and whether they are acceptable for BLP articles. Noteduck (talk) 08:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, WP:SPS would be a problem only for WP:FRINGE think-tanks, not for notable groups of mainstream academics. E.g., Bart Ehrman's blog (full professor, world authority on the Bible, writing under his own name) could be used as WP:RS (not very high quality RS, but RS nonetheless, for less controversial stuff). Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The concern is about content on BLP's specifically. They want our definition of self-published changed so they can add think tanks, advocacy organizations, and academic projects as content on BLP's. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• Note, this question is related to a current RSN discussion here [[83]]. Springee (talk) 11:58, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

Springee and Kyohyi, nice of you to join me. Tgeorgescu, it's worth noting that despite the widespread presence of the SPLC and the ADL on controversial BLP pages, WP: V does state "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer". This doesn't appear to leave any exemptions for experts no matter what level of renown. I can't imagine those who wrote the policy intended to exclude those sources - or are think tanks, advocacy groups, academic projects etc not "self-published sources"? Am I missing something? Noteduck (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

This is becoming obvious FORUMSHOPing. This question was extensively discussed and you didn't get the answer you wanted. Springee (talk) 11:19, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Springee, there is an obvious lacuna (or simply a norm of violating policy) in Wiki's SPS:BPL policy. I'm on this page to get it clarified and amended if possible - if you don't have anything helpful to add then don't add anything Noteduck (talk) 21:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I disagree: This appears to be a genuine inconsistency in how WP:BLP is written or applied. :::::@Noteduck: Have you placed a notice at some of the places where editors familiar with BLP will see it e.g., WP:BLPN, WT:BLP? ElKevbo (talk) 21:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm fine with opening the discussion but I think it's problematic when an editor is actively involved in a dispute over this exact fact to then open this discussion without informing the original discussion. Given some of Noteduck's other behaviors this certainly looks like simple forum shopping. That said, Noteduck has since notified the other discussion. There is at least one SPS discussion I'm aware of which took place here [[84]]. VP is probably not the best place for this though it would be a good place for a notification. Springee (talk) 22:30, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

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

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

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

My comment was not indented because it was not a reply to you, it was a reply to the OP. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

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

Alanscottwalker and Newimpartial, thanks for your responses. ElKevbo, I did take it to WT:BLP and it raised a bit of argument and went nowhere - there doesn't seem to be consensus anywhere.[85] There was a BLPN thread which is relevant a few years back in which a few editors, including Kyohyi contested that the SPLC's Hatewatch blog should not be treated as an RS for BLP pages, partially on the grounds that it was an SPS, but they overruled.[86] Nonetheless the current policy still seems very unclear. When it comes to think tanks, advocacy groups and group research projects on BLP articles, in my opinion three propositions are possible:

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

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

Considering reliability of sources at the level of publisher causes issues. - Ryk72 ^talk 12:48, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

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

• To my mind, the core of the issue here is distinguishing the difference between a source that is being used as a reliable secondary source to support a statement of fact, vs citing that same source as a PRIMARY source for a noteworthy and relevant statement of opinion.

For example: let’s say that the SPLC had concluded that a BLP subject is a “racist”. That conclusion is certainly relevant and noteworthy... and it should be mentioned in the subject’s article. However, that mention should be phrased as BEING an opinion, attributed in text to the SPLC, and not stated as fact.

If our policies are not allowing us to state relevant and noteworthy opinions, when phrased AS opinions, then we need to amend our policies.

If, on the other hand, our policies make it harder to state opinions as if they were fact, then our policies are working as intended. Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Well to me, it seems like we should be following WP: V closer. Within SPS there's a sentence "Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources.". When we rely on independent sources to cover content from advocacy groups, think tanks, and academic groups it makes the POV nature of such groups more apparent. Further making it obvious that such things are opinions and should be attributed. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:32, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I for one don't accept that "facts" and "opinions" can be distinguished cleanly, at least not in the way that has been suggested here. For one thing, sources on the continuum between pure SPS and independent publication often document "facts", rather than "opinions", in my view. Examples include tabulated data put out on a researcher's blog or microblog, or a first-person account of email correspondence. A statement of these may not be accurate (or verifiable) if it is does not meet independent standards, but it is nevertheless a factual claim rather than an "opinion", and for non-BLP topics we do allow sources self-published by recognized experts to be considered reliable.

On the other hand, I also do not accept inflating the scope of "opinion" to include all judgments so that none of those are considered facts. QAnon is an antisemitic conspiracy theory - to me, that is an objective fact. Quibbling about the underlying judgment required to make that factual statement seems to me, in theory but also in practice, to lead to an absurd degree of FALSEBALANCE and relativism thanks to the dubious assertions that all statements resting on judgments are "opinions" and that opinions are never objectively true (or that they should never be presented as such in Wikivoice). Balderdash. Newimpartial (talk) 14:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I've felt that a better way to handle this is to look at what others say about the information the source is providing. For example, the SPLC says on their website "Mr X is a racist because they felt Southern Fried Rabbit was funny". Now we have an article about Mr X. Should we include this claim? Well if the NYT said, "the SLPC said Mr X is racist because..." then I think weight has been shown. However, if no RSs have picked up on this claim then I would say no, it doesn't have weight. I guess that isn't a question of reliability though it would certainly have to be presented as the SPLC's opinion. In this way I would be treating the SPLC as a typical opinion source. I think <pb>Newimpartial's comment about the gray scale between fact and opinion is valid. Some facts are very objective (the house is 2 stories tall), some are semi-objective (the house is Georgian style architecture), some are quite subjective (the house is ugly). It's not always easy to decide if a source is reporting facts or reporting on their analysis of the facts (the speech meant X). <pb>Anyway, I think the core question here is where is the SPS line. My feeling aligns with Kyohyi, any time the "editorial staff" is not independent it should be treated as SPS. News organizations are supposed to address that. University projects are different. I'm sure some are very careful but where is the line? How do we decide this is a careful one vs a lab with just one student and one professor publishing their opinion on the lab website? What if this is a bigger lab with more collaboration? They all have the same issue so long as they don't have an independent reviewer. BTW, this discussion should really be moved to a proper forum. Springee (talk) 15:17, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

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

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

Indeed, you are right that would be bonkers and bizarre. And, it's only not bonkers, if it's applied as a type or example of publishing, although it would be limited to a very small subset of what Wikipedia universally sees as not self-published, that is, it has peer review as the example. But almost no publishers do peer review (and not just in news) and Wikipedia definitely does not require that, at all. In addition, the language of "characterized" also suggests that the sentence is not complete as an example; elsewhere in that footnote quoting the University of Chicago it says "any Internet site that does not have a specific publisher or sponsoring body should be treated as unpublished or self-published work." That's what Wikipedia basically does. It was also suggested before your comment that we look for an "editorial board", which also makes no sense, no editorial board, at practically any publication reviews any piece before it is published.

Also, construing policy as making Wikipedians accept that which is demonstrably not true, ie, that there is no publisher separate from the author is bad encyclopedia writing. When a reporter writes for The New York Times, they are not self published, When an academic writes for Georgetown University, they are not self published, When a researcher writes for ADL, they are not self published. Not only do those publishers (New York Times Company, Georgetown University, ADL) regularly have the publisher rights, they always have the publisher liabilities. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:32, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

ARBPIA 30/500 - users close to the threshold

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

@ImTheIP: in practice this is usually tied to a user having or not having "extended confirmed" permission (as the articles with the most disruption actually have this protection applied). To that end, generally only edits that are seen to be gaming the system are discounted and such editors can be reported at WP:AN where an admin may remove their ECP access and make them reapply at WP:PERM when they have non-gaming edits. Edits violating topic bans are not usually considered gaming. If you see a specific article that is covered by ARBPIA that isn't protected, you may also ask for it at WP:RFPP — xaosflux ^Talk 12:31, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

@ImTheIP: more strictly on one of your questions, all edits, including deleted edits, "count" here (unless they are of the gaming type and have been reviewed at WP:AN). — xaosflux ^Talk 12:34, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Good to know, thanks! ImTheIP (talk) 13:17, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

So is WP:COSMETICBOT not policy anymore?

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

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

Hi, Hog Farm. There is a (quite long) discussion about this at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard#Monkbot 18. — The Earwig ^talk 08:24, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Proposed change to wording at WP:CONSENSUS

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

• No objection - but given that many WikiProjects are essentially dormant, it may not make much difference. Blueboar (talk) 16:44, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

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

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

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

Practically everything in MOS should be a guideline, because, well, they’re guidelines. Elevating MOS:ACCESS to policy won’t fix the particular issue you’re referring to anyway. Suggest discussing those graphs on their relevant talk; I suspect the limitations are a mixture of technical and needing someone who’s willing to do the work. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

No technical limitations. Not ALL of the statistics charts on those pages infringe MOS:ACCESS, just a subset. The way the non-infringing subset are done is therefore the way they all should be done, to adhere to MOS:ACCESS. That makes the continued infringements of MOS:ACCESS, which have now drawn comment from at least 3 users, willful ones. Ridiculously, one of those users was actually asked to fix it on one of the affected pages themselves by uploading images and editing the page, despite their being an IP user and thus unable to upload images, and that particular page being semi-protected so not editable by IP users. Someone else would therefore have to do it, yet no-one would, even though requests for (non-vandalizing) edits to semi-protected pages from IP users are supposed to be honored.70.52.144.5 (talk) 17:52, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

The "someone else" may have to a be a future you. Register an account, wait 10 days, fix it. - Ryk72 ^talk 23:24, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

Ridiculous. Your response obviates the whole purpose of semi-protected edit requests. Furthermore, those COVID pages were fine up until January 8. Someone else's edits broke MOS:ACCESS (and particularly MOS:PRECOLLAPSE). Why should I be expected to clean up their mess? I don't even have the relevant expertise. I have little familiarity with the markup used around here. I can fix a typo or add a bit of information here and there, but it would take me weeks to learn enough to be able to fix what whoever broke it could fix in five minutes. If this was a simple matter of personal preference I might simply give up and let the more knowledgeable editor have it their way, but this is not a simple matter of personal preference. It's a matter of a flagrant violation of an important guideline. What that other editor did is WRONG and should not be allowed to stand. What I can't understand is why I can't seem to find anybody who agrees with me! If there was a broad consensus that, say, MOS:PRECOLLAPSE was obsolete, presumably it wouldn't even be there on the MOS:ACCESS page anymore. Since it is still there, there must be a large silent majority who agree with me. So why will none of them speak up?!70.52.144.5 (talk) 16:11, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

The MOS as policy would essentially require prior knowledge of the MOS before contributing to Wikipedia. That is to say, not writing in a MOS-compliant way could be seen as disruptive. Go ahead and stringently enforce the guideline that it is. Barring an exceptional reason, reverts done to MOS-compliant edits will be viewed as disruptive. Primergrey (talk)

That's not what a policy is. People violating policies or guidelines they don't know about has always what we've had IAR and BITE for. --Izno (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Regardless of what a policy is or is not, the OP certainly seems to think a "promotion" to policy would make MOS-compliant editing more "enforceable". Primergrey (talk) 20:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

More forum shopping. See the links I supplied in yesterday's attempted RFC: WT:WPACCESS#Since many editors treat Manual of Style content as mere ignorable guidelines, MOS:ACCESS content should be clearly made non-ignorable policy. --Izno (talk) 17:48, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Not forum shopping. Escalation. And quit stalking me. Your opinion, that MOS:ACCESS should simply be thrown overboard because it's suddenly less convenient to apply, has been made adequately clear, and it is clearly incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.52.144.5 (talk) 17:59, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

• MOS:ACCESS is explicitly a guideline because "it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.". Not liking the answer you've been given every time you've asked will not and cannot change that. Thryduulf (talk) 21:46, 31 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Concur with every named user above who has replied to the anonymous IP address editor. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:44, 1 February 2021 (UTC)
• MOS:PRECOLLAPSE should probably be regarded as obsolete. CSS and JavaScript are fairly universal. Turning off CSS requires special plugins in many browsers nowadays. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

  It's actually still a problem. Dropdowns/collapses are busted on the mobile site, for example. They either hide totally, or auto-expand, one or the other depending on the class. Creates an awful UI experience when infoboxes, for example, use collapses with a mass of content in it. On mobiles, that infobox appears under the first paragraph of the lead, auto-expands, and then becomes a very long scroll. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

United States House of Representatives Elections by state

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

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

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

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

@Blueboar:, I am probably of the same generation and have edited about as long as you, and I don't share that experience. I don't pay any attention to anything tracked in pahbricator and I don't even know what "T1234 thingys" are and I edit in about the same way as I always have. I do use templates but those aren't really much of a burden if I remember to check the documentation before once I screw something up before I press "Publish changes". I'm not trying to deny your lived experience but I don't feel that the technical savvy needed to edit has changed greatly in the last decade or so. I'm sorry that's not of more help. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:15, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) I don't know if I can say I'm "older" at 62, and I count myself as pretty tech-savvy, having worked in technical areas of IT from 1980. I deliberately avoid the more technical areas of the project (the only village pump page that I don't have watchlisted is the technical one) but am concerned that we seem to have a significant number of editors who seem to think that technical IT expertise has some relation to knowing what should be done in an encyclopedia. My greatest concern is that there are so many editors, including admins, who seem to believe that the reaction to a bot not editing according to consensus should be anything other than immediately closing down the bot until the situation is sorted out, although they would apply this principle to a human editor. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:19, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

There's an established process for bots and consensus. That process is described in BOTPOL. They aren't treat like human editors because they aren't human editors. That's not to say the process is perfect or not in need of any reforms, though, but it does explain your question about why admins don't block contrary to policy. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I guess it depends on what kind of articles (generic) you like to edit and how much they rely on templates or other more advanced markup. Most editors will appreciate it if you at least use some citation templates, but you can probably get by with bare references as long as you don't mind others changing them later. If you're thinking about maintenance tasks like page patrol, yeah, some of those rely on tools or need careful attention to follow all requisite steps. isaacl (talk) 22:35, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the amount of automation has steadily increased over time, but the purpose has been to reduce the amount of technical expertise required, so we can spend more time on the article writing. My experience with the kids in university classes has been that they are less technically savvy than the older generation. They don't look at how a web page is constructed any more. (Why would you? It's probably all full of CSS.) Nonetheless, we also have an educational mission, so in that spirit, everyone is obligated to learn. Working with bots, templates and Lua modules isn't so hard. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:16, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Working with bots, templates and Lua modules isn't so hard.: I believe the average editor can get by without having to worry about bots and Lua. Automated bot edits can be configured to not show on watchlists, and their edits shouldn't be treated any differently than if they were made from a human. Templates might be less avoidable, as most use them for citations, and almost every page has an infobox. Help pages can be spruced up if non-technical editors can identify gaps they are experiencing.—Bagumba (talk) 05:26, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Couldn't agree more. You don't need to worry about them. You can use the templates without knowing how they work. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Of course way back when I was new, it did take a while to figure out how those {{...}} worked and where the hell to get the proper syntax.—Bagumba (talk) 11:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The problem isn't that people can use templates and the like without knowing how they work, the problem is that it ahs become much harder for many people to fix issues in templates, infoboxes, ... in a specific article. E.g. modules are a step remote from templates. People used to be able to look at the template name that was used, type that into the infobox, and then see the actual source; now they will see some invocation of "something" without any indication that this is a Lua module, which is then much harder to parse for many people. Similarly, all the stuff that is taken from Wikidata may seem to make life easier, but in reality is a big black box for most editors, and if they do goover there, they have trouble finding out what they are supposed to do (e.g. creating a new reference there is a lot harder). So yes, there have been some developments which have made editing, understanding what happens, fixing (some) errors, ... increasingly difficult for a lot of people. Fram (talk) 11:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Have you tried the VisualEditor recently? I find it works very well for writing and working with simple templates (citations, infoboxes, etc.) – Joe (talk) 11:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• It's obviously feature creep and software bloat. It's a sign of the times that the billionth edit was to add a {{authority control}} template to a non-notable stub using AWB. That was just busywork – gaming the system to boost edit count. Editors who enjoy grinding naturally like using tools to amplify their activity. Writing carefully researched and cited encyclopedia text is much harder to automate and so it's not done. Another typical symptom of the problem is using an automated tool like Twinkle to drop a tag on an article rather than actually fixing the issue. Such tools tend to bias activity towards brute-force fixes like deletion rather than activity that is difficult to automate such as writing and editing. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)