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 the proposals section.
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.

Please see this FAQ page for a list of frequent proposals and the responses to them.

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About incriminating someone by mimicking a sockpuppet of them

That might have happened on Chinese Wikipedia, where an editor got his ban prolonged for using sockpuppet to avoid ban, and he later complained that someone might created that sockpuppet from a VPN which he shared with others. I think this behavior is quite noteworthy, because it seems easy to carry out and almost free of costs-- You can just go to some public computer and do edits that looks like that user (For example, if he is banned, just repeat what makes him get banned). The differences in IP and User agent could pose doubt, but sometimes people reveal their location and what user agent they use on user pages or otherwise, making it possible to pick a location near that user. Even if you don't manage to mimic those features, chances are administrators would still think it is plausible that this user has gone to this location to avoid detection. After all, are there policies about dealing with such issues? Mainly, the user would complain about someone mimicking him/her, but how do we know if that complaint is genuine?--朝鲜的轮子 (talk) 06:02, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe (but correct me if I am wrong) that on enwp most sockpuppets are blocked by the WP:DUCK test without any technical analysis. So, if someone is clever at impersonating someone else and other folks are gullible, there may indeed be sanctions against the wrong person. Does anyone know if such a thing has ever been detected subsequently? Thincat (talk) 23:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Look like edit pattern is more important. I noticed in Wikipedia:CheckUser#Guide_to_checkusers "An editing pattern match is the important thing; the IP match is really just extra evidence (or not).", which may favor the imposters. From my observations of that case on Chinese wp, 33 edits within 3-4 days(18 of those may relate to previous conflicts)can result in Checkuser saying "Likely from editing pattern"(just like DUCK).

Plus, What is common treatment for sock masters on enwp? Will you just get your ban prolonged from 1 month to 1 year because of a suspected sockpuppet with 33 edits within 3-4 days?--朝鲜的轮子 (talk) 01:47, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

• I'd take what this user said with a very large pinch of salt. It's the standard "it wasn't me" defense. It is far from impossible that this has happened; but then again, Wikipedia blocks several VPNs and their IP addresses - only usually allowing the ones through that maintain the computer's default IP. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:32, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

I guess that kind of complaint is just solved like other problems without a clear policy, we'll just debate until it's quiet... Wikipedia is not a legal system, so I think we shouldn't bug with rigid proof of something (for example, "I can prove I am out of internet/at a location different from where and when this puppet is operated").

Besides, I had a minor question about privacy: can a user accused of using sockpuppets get their own CU data? That might help them prove that they weren't using that IP at that time.(and also help them fabricate "proofs" that they aren't there?)--chao xian de lun zi (talk) 14:13, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

An accused user can't even ask for an innocence check - that is, for the CU to check the accused user and the accused sockpuppets, and see if they appear to be the same user. An accused user, armed with just his/her own data, couldn't do any better. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:49, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Abuse response/Guidelines no longer marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Abuse response/Guidelines (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Nominations for the 2013 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are open

Nominations for the 2013 English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee elections are officially open. The nomination period runs from Sunday, 10 November at 00:01 (UTC) until Tuesday, 19 November at 23:59 (UTC). Editors interested in running should review the eligibility criteria listed at the top of Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee Elections December 2013/Candidates then create a candidate page following the instructions there. 64.40.54.211 (talk) 06:50, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Does the WP:QUOTEFARM rule apply always?

WP:QUOTEFARM states "quotes...try not to overuse them. Long quotations crowd the actual article and remove attention from other information...".

Long quotation could appear as:

1. Block quotations. The quote is included in the article.
2. footnotes: in line quotes with text. The quote is included in the article source, but does not appear as a part of the article, unless while the mouse is hovering around the reference tag (or when looking in the article bottom).
3. footnotes: Explanatory notes ( seems to be the same as list-defined references). The "readable prose" does not include the quote, which is below the "readable prose", at the bottom. It appears while the mouse is hovering around the reference tag (or when looking in the article bottom).

I guess that the WP:QUOTEFARM applies for the first type only, the block quotations.

The third type, list-defined references is recommended to use in order to avoid clutter. Hence it seems like it is not related to the WP:QUOTEFARM.

Does the WP:QUOTEFARM rule applied to all those quotes types? Ykantor (talk) 19:35, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Excessive amounts of blockquoting would be a problem (in addition to singular excessively long blockquotes). Quotes that appear within references probably don't apply, but care should still be taken to respect the amount of copy-taking for them, but in terms of number of quotes, QUOTEFARM would not apply. --MASEM (t) 19:40, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to re-engage the community

I was reading MIT technology review Vol. 116 No. 6. It details the diminishing community and quality of Wikipedia. One thing it mentioned specifically was: "the loose collective [of editors] that operate a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers" (p.52).

Having seen some of the talk pages about articles, I have to agree.

So my proposal is this: The bureaucracy is ran top down, and a number of the long term administrators and senior editors have become so engrained in the culture of Wikipedia and rule, yes, rule is the correct term, with a style that deters newcomers. Jimmy Wales should revoke all administrator privileges from every administrator.

The slate would be cleaned, the trenches that were dug during the nascent Wikipedia experiment would be filled in, and people who actually care about the site in the present time, not the past, would be reinvigorated. An additional benefit would be to eliminate the Fiefdom-esque behavior of some of the administrators who rule over Wikipedia. When everyone is equal again, your advancement depends on your merits, nothing more.

So there is my proposal. I estimate it has precisely 100% chance of going nowhere, but it sure would be interesting to shake things up again here and breathe new life into the system.

96.255.149.31 (talk) 00:13, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

If think that´s a reasonable estimate, starting with that Jimmy Wales can´t do that, and if he tried, he would (for the good reason of acting like a dictator) be metaphorically hung, drawn, and quarted. Well, probably metaphorically. I´ll agree it´s probably harder to get new stuff into Wikipedia nowadays. Much is already here in some form, and Wikipedia has become more selective as to what is reasonable content. And that is part of what makes Wikipedia valuable to readers, in my opinion. I´ve seen examples in other discussions that indicates that the argument that Wikipedia is worse than it was has been around for a long time. I´ve come to belive that part of this is that Wikipedia (to an editor) becomes a bit like the hobby or long-running tv-show that you used to like. You get fed up after awhile, possibly regaining interest later. Or not.

The diminishing quality argument interests me. What areas in Wikipedia mainspace did the magazine identify as being worse now compared to for example 2, 4, or 8 years ago, and how did they determine that? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:14, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

The Foundation wouldn't allow it for a start - not just because vandalism would destroy a huge number of articles once vandals knew they wouldn't be blocked, the PR firms would have a field day, libel and copyright violations would be rife, and Wikipedia would become junkapedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dougweller (talk • contribs) 16:55, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• Heavy Oppose There's no scenario which every administrator is desysopped and then chaos would not immediately follow. KonveyorBelt 17:16, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia bureaucracy is similar to the US Congress right now. The approval rating for Congress in the US is something like 10%. But when you ask people about their congressman approval jumps to 50%. Lots of people think Wikipedia is too bureaucratic. But if you start asking them if they support specific rules you're going to get lots of positive answers. So if we started over in terms of policies and processes, you'd probably end up with something substantially similar to what we have now - rules for what gets included, processes for getting rid of bad content, rules for dealing with problem users, and processes to give users extra rights. Certain things might be improved (though if you exclude experienced users and all their institutional knowledge of what has already been tried, this is less likely), but they'd serve the same purposes.

I hope you will do more research than than one often-inaccurate, overly dramatized article. In general, Wikipedia is a much, much looser collective than that indicates. The real problem preventing structural improvement is not some group of entrenched users trying to "rule" things their way. The real problem is simply inertia. Any major change requires a huge referendum and the longer that process takes, the more the result trends toward "no consensus, continue with the status quo."

There are numerous articles to work on here that are not "ruled" by anyone. I recently started improving an article related to my specialty that hadn't seen any substantial human edits since 2009. There are over 1.8 million articles that haven't been edited at all in at least 6 months. Mr.Z-man 18:31, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

You lost me at The bureaucracy is ran[sic] top down. I'm trying to think of another large organization that is less top down than this one, and I'm not coming up with any. Do you use the term differently than usual?--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:41, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

This is the article: [1] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:06, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

I joined Wikipedia less than a year ago, and I must say that 95% of the editors and 100% of the admins with whom I have interacted have been supportive and helpful. While the some of the other 5% may have been somewhat patronizing and/or dismissive, no one except one brand new user has been rude or bossy. A lot of the talk pages that I read are about people discussing changes that will make Wikipedia easier to use or more friendly, and I have already seen several such changes take place. I guess I am not seeing a problem here. —Anne Delong (talk) 19:44, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

• I have just finished my first year of active editing, and my experiences have been mixed, with the problems not coming from top-down bureaucracy. I am sure there is no "typical" experience given the size of WP and the degree of interest (or disinterest) in various topics. My interests are very specific and narrow; which has had the unexpected result of my being the major contributor to several articles, adding the major content with only wordsmithing and grammar correction by others. There are general articles in The Arts that could use some attention, but I am not prepared to tackle them because I cannot improve them alone, and there does not appear to be any sustained interest. Or perhaps the online culture discourages most potential editors in the arts and humanities. FriendlyFred (talk) 04:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• I'm still waiting for an example of articles whose quality has deteriorated in comparison with a few years ago. Speaking as someone who started editing near the begining, article content is definitely better than it was in, say, 2002. Or 2003, 2004 & I'm betting 2005-2007. I suspect what's happening is that people are looking beyond the usual, high-trafficked articles at the ones on more esoteric subjects & discovering that they're not as good. (I'm encountering that, & fixing those I can.) As for the problem of "a crushing bureaucracy", I figure that's just another way of saying "there are a lot of hostile editors on Wikipedia who revert edits". Which is true, & sometimes they're right in reverting the edit. And every editor encounters them. And lastly, I bet if there was a sweeping de-sysopping & re-authorizing of Admins, assuming that no vandals, PR flacks or POV-pushers exploited the ensuing chaos (as Dougweller points out above), I bet Wikipedia would end up with less than half the Admins needed to perform the administrative chores that keep it running--which would leave things worse off. -- llywrch (talk) 20:34, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• Anybody is free to start up a new encyclopedia based on Mediawiki, 96.255.149.31. Be our guest. Just about all your assertions in your proposal are questionable or nearsighted. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:59, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Why are deleted articles "oversighted"?

I understand that some article are genuinely oversighted. By why are other deleted article not available for inspection as a historic record, and whose content could be incorporated elsewhere, including a record of user contributions and discussion. --Iantresman (talk) 16:46, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:PERENNIAL#Deleted_pages_should_be_visible. --cyclopia^speak! 16:50, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that, very useful. --Iantresman (talk) 16:53, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Block Vandals After 3 Warnings, Not 4

Currently, vandals must be given 4 warnings before they can be blocked from editing. However, I feel it would be much more effective to block them after 3 warnings. After being warned 3 times, a vandal making a 4th edit will be doing it fully aware that they are causing disruption and I don't see how a 4th warning should be needed. Users edit warring are blocked after 1 warning and 3 reverts - why can't we make it similar for vandals (whose effects are arguably worse than edit wars). I would propose we do this by replacing the level 2 warning with level 3 and the current level 3 with level 4. That way, users still receive a gentle warning the first time they vandalize and are still warned twice that they will be blocked if they continue. However, it will make it easier to remove editors who only want to vandalize the site. Oddbodz - (Talk) (Contribs) 20:07, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

4 warnings then block is not actually a rule, more of a general guideline with the 3rd being stern and the 4th being "this is your last warning". But there is nothing to stop a vandal being blocked (or reported to AIV) after 3, 2, 1 or even no warnings. Sometimes a vandal is clearly not here for any other purpose, so there is no reason to mess about waiting for them to be warned 4 times.--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:20, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

It is not a "MUST" it is guideline. Sometimes they get blocked after one warning, sometimes they never get blocked. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 20:21, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

As per the others, there's no such requirement that vandals receive four warnings before being blocked. FWIW, my understanding of the current warning system is 1- Good Faith, 2 - No Faith, 3- Bad Faith, 4- Bad Faith/Final. I'm quite content to make my first warning a 3 if it's unambiguous vandalism. DonIago (talk) 20:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• Block them after a single warning. Leaky Caldron 20:26, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Speaking as an abusive admin I would say you've a bit overcautious there Leaky, I've often blocked before they make an edit, just in case--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:29, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree vandals should be blocked sooner. Vandals know they're vandalizing. If it's apparent straight away that the editor isn't here to edit, it would be best to just block them as soon as they've made their intentions known. And if it is a library or school IP, let their admins know. They know who has logged in and can maybe help stop it, or slow it down, at their end. Malke 2010 (talk) 15:38, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

user with older accounts with prior misconducts. How do we know?

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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1. Recently I posed in wp:ae#Pluto2012 concerning user:Pluto2012 conduct. Had I known that one of his previous accounts* was probably blocked**, I could have replied positively for the question of his prior conduct problems. Is there a method to know a user prior misconducts under his other accounts?
2. An administrator user:Zero0000 wrote: There are valid reasons for suppressing the earlier names of that user which you don't know about. I will block you if you expose that again. It reminds me the Stalin era. Is it true?

1*The user:Pluto2012 old names are user:Ceedjee, user:Noisetier, and more.

2**see [2] , [3]. Ykantor (talk)

Ok, you win. You are indeed a horrible editor. (Casual readers need not mind this allusion to a different conversation.) Neither of the abandoned accounts Noisetier and Ceedjee are blocked. Moreover, Pluto even admitted to being Ceedjee in his first edit. Now go away and read Wikipedia:Clean start. Zero^talk 15:32, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

if this is correct: "Prior to "retiring" and asking to be blocked, the user was warned he needs to leave the topic area, or be blocked. If he wants to be unblocked he needs to request it, and agree to leave the topic area." than Pluto should not edit the Arab- Israeli conflict articles. So why he is editing (and cheating etc.) those articles? ???? Ykantor (talk) 19:33, 15 November 2013 (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.

Non-consensus without valid counter-points

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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I realise that Wikipedia asks for consensus but can someone really just sit there and say they disagree without offering valid counter-points or even debating the issue? The site seems to be full of kids who can't debate an issue and just sit there shaking their head.Z07x10 (talk) 09:44, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes but certainly been discussion, note the user has tried gaining a consensus for his point on the article talk page (more than once including an RFC and a bit of an edit war), Requests for mediation, ArbCom, DRN and has so far failed to gain support for his edit. Perhaps the question is how many times can a user raise the same point on different boards before it gets disruptive. MilborneOne (talk) 10:06, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Plus, three posts here to Village Pump. Man this is getting old. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

It's getting old because you have no valid counter-points and hate looking stupid. What you regard as 'secondary sources' are reprints of primary source information as explained on the sources article page, which I've linked for you several times. If consensus is simply a vote then I recommend that the consensus article page be edited to clearly state that so people don't waste their damn time with reasoned debate.Z07x10 (talk) 15:30, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

You think I look stupid do you? Please read WP:NPA. Dbrodbeck (talk) 19:20, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Counter-points have been raised in discussions on various forums, yet Z07x10 won't accept any result other than that desired by him. He refuses to accept consensus and so forum-shops his view, with the result that this becomes consensus by attrition as most editors simply grow tired of arguing with him. It is a minor point and Z07x10 should simply accept that he doesn't have consensus and move on and make useful contributions elsewhere Mztourist (talk) 04:16, 18 November 2013 (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.

question about WP:MOS

I'm interested in changing policy/guideline so that Wikipedia uses a capital D when referring to Deaf culture and the Deaf community. At this time, I'm looking for help with how I can best present arguments that will provide a productive discussion. What are several arguments I can make that are consistent with policy/guidelines in this area? What are the policy/guidelines that would need to be changed to make this happen? Thanks. Malke 2010 (talk) 15:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Here are a few sources that use the capital D in that context:

• New York Times Magazine: Defiantly Deaf.
• Massachusetts Dept of Health: Understanding Deaf Culture
• List of articles Journal of Deaf Studies
• The Deaf Way]
• Penn State University guidelines Scroll down past the video for definitions. Malke 2010 (talk) 17:20, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think it's not really an MOS issue. MOS:CAPS is clear that we avoid unnecessary capitalization. But when there is a particular community or culture referred to by a proper name we capitalize it. So you just need to clarify when that's the case. Do that not by pointing at the various random uses, but rather at authoritative sources that explain the usage, such as the NAD who quote a book explaining "We use the lowercase deaf when referring to the audiological condition of not hearing, and the uppercase Deaf when referring to a particular group of deaf people who share a language – American Sign Language (ASL) – and a culture. The members of this group have inherited their sign language, use it as a primary means of communication among themselves, and hold a set of beliefs about themselves and their connection to the larger society. We distinguish them from, for example, those who find themselves losing their hearing because of illness, trauma or age; although these people share the condition of not hearing, they do not have access to the knowledge, beliefs, and practices that make up the culture of Deaf people." This is kind of distinction that the capitalization is good for, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 17:51, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Frankly I would be opposed to such a change unless three was clear evidence from reliable sources showing that such usage was not merely prevalent but dominant in either general or academic sources. Nationalities and ethnicities derived from or considered as comparable to nationalities should be capitalized, other groups generally should not in my view. DES ^(talk) 17:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

@Dicklyon:, I wasn't sure if I could use NAD.org because I didn't know if it would be considered as a primary source. This is why I included those random sources from the established entities like universities, state health depts., etc. The Penn State link has a definiiton I thought would be helpful. Malke 2010 (talk) 18:46, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Bear in mind the differences in practice. For example, I see that the British Deaf Association uses capitalisation for both words eg Deaf Community, the Royal Association for Deaf people capitalises Deaf but not people, Action on Hearing Loss (which as the Royal National Institute for the Deaf is the senior UK charity) appears not now to like the term deaf at all. All will insist they are correct and no doubt argue passionately why that is so. --AJHingston (talk) 18:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

@AJHingston:, Yes, I've noticed that elsewhere. But I don't think any source I've found capitalizes both Deaf and People. It's always Deaf culture, Deaf people, Deaf community. @DESiegel:, perhaps a general source would be newspaper MOS? Newspapers seem to be like indicator species of changes in usage. They seem to be the first to lead the way. Malke 2010 (talk) 18:53, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes many newspapers have house style guides or the like, when several major such works are in agreement on such a change it might be worth considering. When general style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style endorse such a change, that would add weight to the argument. But I would want to see this be at least the modal form in common use, or else completely dominant in general academic use, before I supported the change here. I would completely disregard any sources from the deaf community itself as a matter of advocacy, until others use this form generally, Wikipedia should not, in my view. DES ^(talk) 19:05, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that such an approach would find strong objections from within the community, and they would argue from precisely the reverse position. Think of the debates over terminology with regard to other groups. The point I was making is that any attempt to impose style rules, including Chicago which would not be accepted everywhere including the UK as the last word anyway, is to get WP involved in yet another high profile dispute which helps nobody and especially not WP itself. --AJHingston (talk) 21:01, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

My point is not to impose any one guide as definitive, I used Chicago merely as an example. But if multiple well-respected guides, of which Chicago might be one, adopt such a usage (capitol D in Deaf community and the like) that would be good evidence that such a usage was common and should be followed by Wikipedia. I am not arguing for any change or imposition here, I am arguing that the status quo should not be changed without clear evidence of widespread and/or authoritative use outside the deaf community. We have existing style guidance at MOS:CAP, I think it should not be changed on this point without much more and clearer evidence than I have seen to date. Use in a major general style guide would be one possible form of such evidence. There could be others. DES ^(talk) 21:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

• Use of uppercase Deaf is well established within the Deaf community.Harvard University Press, 1988 Also see Deaf culture. Outside that community, I did locate Colorado Department of Human Services regulation 12 CCR 2516-1: Deaf (uppercase). -- Jreferee (talk) 20:27, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

As WP uses HTTPS, should (some) external links, too?

`Tis to merge the open discussions at TT:YouTube, TT:OCLC, TT:Wayback, HT:CS1, WP:VP/M, et al. and finally find consensus.

In an effort to ensure readers' privacy, Wikimedia has enabled HTTPS support almost two years ago and is about to activate HTTPS by default in the near future. This begs the question whether Wikipedia should also care about whether our readers follow (some of) our external links on HTTPS.

This, of course, does not concern every external link, but only those that offer HTTPS support. In particular, I am talking about the Internet Archive and YouTube. The latter offers both HTTP and HTTPS for years. Our {{YouTube}} links to https://www.youtube.com/. The Internet Archive, which is arguably the most-linked repository on Wikipedia, recently switched to HTTPS by default. Basically all links to it from Wikipedia are still, of course, http://.

So should we, as Wikipedia gradually switches to HTTPS, also convert those external links? The most plausible options is implementing protocol-relative links.

Options on how to do this, although not the main concern of this discussion, are plenty. First of all, we could modify all the various external links templates, from {{YouTube}} to {{Wayback}}. Second, since quite a lot of those links are implemented in CS1 citation templates, we could add a nifty Lua module that takes http://www.youtube.com/ and http://web.archive.org/ link for HTTPS or PRU. And finally, there's always the bot option for the remaining links.

But, like I wrote, this is not so much about the how, but more about the whether at all. I'm in support of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bender235 (talk • contribs)

• No we shouldn't. Note that the default switch of internal links to https drew significant objections and was delayed on those grounds, note thst the statement you reference says that "A number of countries, China being the largest example, completely block HTTPS to Wikimedia projects, so doing a hard-enable of HTTPS would probably block large numbers of users from accessing our projects at all. Because of this, we feel this action would probably do more harm than good,..." Switchign our links would amout to a hard-enable for outgoign links to particular destinations. Unless a destination will not accept http links, I don't see a good reason to do this at this time. DES ^(talk) 22:31, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
  • comment There have already been at least two significant discussions on this issue quite recently. Starting a third one seems rather like forum shopping. DES ^(talk) 22:31, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. This would make every link more data-intensive and slower to load, cause ELs to fail completely on many corporate networks, kill the links for countries which block HTTPS, negatively impact reader privacy in countries which treat visiting HTTPS sites as a sign of suspicious activity, and piss everyone off as watchlists are jammed with tens of thousands of changes, all in pursuit of the dubious belief that HTTPS is a huge benefit. By my count this is at least the third place you've forum-shopped this and you've had the same answer each time. Mogism (talk) 22:37, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose As I have pointed out on several other pages, not everybody is using https: for Wikipedia. Some are unable to do so, others choose not to. If a website offers access via either http: or https: we should provide protocol-relative links so that readers are not inconvenienced by having the protocol switched unnecessarily. If the site allows either form but immediately switches people from one to the other (like Google switches people from http: to https:), that's their business; we should not pre-emptively force one protocol to be used when it is not necessary to do so. Links should be considered on a site-by-site basis: are the http: links to a given site actually broken? If so, fine, let's switch them to https: - but if they still work, why bother? If the site really want visitors to use https: they can set up their own redirection in the same fashion as Google (that's if they have not done so already). --Redrose64 (talk) 23:14, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose As several editors have noted, https does not work for everyone, and it can be slower. This is not Nannypedia where we must change as many external links to https to "protect" readers. If clicking an http link is going to cause trouble for someone, the fact that some small fraction of Wikipedia's external links use https will not save them because the next website they visit will probably use http links. The default protocol for accessing Wikipedia is totally irrelevant to the question of whether external links should be routinely changed to https. Johnuniq (talk) 00:37, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Use HTTPS links for HTTPS only sites, protocol relative links for sites that support both HTTP and HTTPS, and HTTP links for sites that don't support HTTPS at all
  • support: It's folly to force a user to either HTTP or HTTPS, unless there's a technical reason for doing so. In cases where a target site supports HTTPS only there's a strong technical reason to use HTTPS links: at best the site will redirect the user from HTTP to HTTPS, leaking their privacy for no good reason, and in the worst case the link simply won't work. For sites that support both HTTP and HTTPS, the link should be based on which protocol the browser is currently using (hence protocol relative URLs). If we don't use protocol relative URLs in that situation, we're leaking the user's privacy. If a site is HTTP only it's really obvious that HTTP links must be used. You may note that we use protocol relative links internally. Bottom line: stop politicizing this topic; it's completely a technical issue and this proposal is the correct technical implementation.--Ryan lane (talk) 23:42, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
  • support: Using only HTTPS links would severely degrade access for editors with only Dial-up Internet access. Also there are browser extensions (such as the EFF's HTTPS Everywhere) that enable HTTPS on capable sites, so we don't need to force it ourselves.--Auric talk 23:51, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. This is the only sensible solution. — Andrew Garrett • talk 00:00, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support. If a user has real problems with HTTPS, they'll be reading Wikipedia in HTTP, so this won't cause them any problems. And users who prefer HTTPS will have their lives made easier. -- Ypnypn (talk) 01:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, per Mr. Lane, an operations engineer for the Wikimedia Foundation. Killiondude (talk) 02:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Support Ryan +1 --Jeremyb (talk) 04:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:SUBTITLES

It is now part of WP:naming conventions (books), but there are non-book titles with subtitles. Should this be a stand-alone guideline? --George Ho (talk) 07:28, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• @George Ho:, there were talks about this back when I requested that the shortcut be freed so that it could become a redirect during this requested move proposal. It seems that at this point, there's no objections to it being a "stand-alone guideline"; it's just waiting for someone to write it. Steel1943 (talk) 03:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• I think there was also an idea to edit WP:Long titles to be converted to a subtitles guideline. Steel1943 (talk) 03:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Google Books wins landmark fair use case ... how will this affect Fair Use policy here at Wikipedia?

Recently, Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. 2nd Circuit court decided in favor of Google in their fair use case regarding Google Books (See ""Google’s Book-Scanning Is Fair Use, Judge Rules in Landmark Copyright Case". I'd really like to see Wikipedia be less paranoid about using copyrighted works under Fair Use, and increasing the amount of copyrighted works that people are able to include in articles. So I was wondering: what ways, if any, do you all see this ruling enabling a more permissive Fair Use policy here on Wikipedia? 2601:8:9F80:A76:688E:6B85:BC4C:9BFD (talk) 07:17, 18 November 2013 (UTC)