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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.

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RfC - change to Wikipedia's five pillars - WP:5P

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Option A, restore almanacs and gazetteers. There is a noticeable majority of voices for Option A, something like 49 to 29. Some of these are supporting that option for procedural reasons, arguing that a discussion of 4 editors isn't enough to change such an important page. The fact that 20 times that many editors (including, as always, voices for "Option C", and "Meh" - gotta love our community) showed up here is strong evidence in support of this. So it is possible that a new discussion involving more editors will yet get consensus for something very like this change; but not necessarily, as there is also noticeable non-procedural opposition, whether supporting the explicit mention of "gazetteers", saying that our notability bar for geographical features is lower (I don't see nearly as much support of "almanacs", strangely enough), or against adding vagueness. But it is clear that the change does not have consensus in support as it stands. --GRuban (talk) 15:52, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]


Which version of the first pillar of WP:5P1 is better?

  • Option A would be to maintain the status quo and restore the longstanding phrase "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" to WP:5P.
  • Option B would be to retain the new wording "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias and other reference works." SportingFlyer T·C 15:57, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reasoning - 5P RFC

Recently, a short talk page discussion (four participants) led to the replacement of the phrase "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" with the phrase "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias and other reference works." This has been the result of a long campaign by a small number of users to try to deprecate the premise that Wikipedia functions like a gazetteer. Though the rule that geographic features can be included as long as they are verifiable and can be discussed pre-dates the addition of the word gazetteer to the five pillars, a quick search of the pump's archives shows that the gazetteer function has been a firm pillar of Wikipedia for over a decade, and I believe this change requires more community input, considering the change would likely have the effect deprecating the idea Wikipedia functions like a gazetteer.. SportingFlyer T·C 15:57, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

dlthewave supports Option B and provides this reasoning in support: *Editors supporting the change (Option B) argue that "gazetteer" and "almanac" do not reflect Wikipedia's purpose as an encyclopedia and have led to harmful editing practices including mass stub creation from GNIS and GEOnet which require massive cleanup efforts. There is also concern that the page has no formal standing, yet is being used to override actual policies and guidelines." SportingFlyer T·C 18:40, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Responses - 5P RFC

  • Option A Wikipedia is not a literal gazetteer and nothing in the removed phrase supports that, but it does contain elements of a gazetteer, namely lower notability standards for geographic features than for any general article, with the intent of providing information about the world's natural features and populated places. While I understand this was done to try to reduce confusion, specifically relegating this to "other reference works" is a major change to Wikipedia's functions and implies Wikipedia doesn't function as a place where geographic knowledge is retained, especially considering the change is already being used to AfD geography articles. SportingFlyer T·C 12:54, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. There is a deletionist agenda here which is not generally supported and will enable some editors who don't like them to propose umpteen geographical articles for deletion. It's worked perfectly well up until now. It doesn't need changing. I have restored the phrasing, as the discussion on the talkpage clearly wasn't wide enough to change something so fundamental. We should obviously keep the longstanding phrasing until we have a consensus to change it, not retain the change until we have a consensus to change it back. That's doing it backwards. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B - I think the new language better reflects what Wikipedia is (and should be). I don’t agree that this language significantly changes how we should interpret policy, nor should it be taken as “deprecating” gazette type articles. (These can be included under “… and other reference works”). If the new language is accepted, any “mass” deletion nominations based on the change should be deemed disruptive. Blueboar (talk) 14:50, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. Change seems at odds with our practice, especially in the sports and geo areas. See also the pageviews for Deaths in 2021. JBchrch talk 15:10, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bad RFC - Non-neutrally-worded RFC question for the reasons given below (and additionally noting that the change has been up for more than a month without any of the doom-laden predictions above occurring). Option B if it is changed to a neutrally-worded one without the POV that this necessarily has an effect on Wikipedia being (or not being) a gazetteer (i.e., something other than an encyclopaedia). The reasoning for this is that the term "gazetteer" (which was added to 5P in a BOLD edit) being recited at 5P leads to people trying to wave it around at AFD as an argument that Wikipedia necessarily is a gazetteer, and is confusing for something that is supposed to be a very general summary. FOARP (talk) 15:48, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Newimpartial (talk) 15:52, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. While a gazetteer is a reference work, Wikipedia does WP:NOT function as a dictionary, directory, or manual which are also reference works. Therefore I think it's useful to explicitly list almanacs and gazetteers as functions of Wikipedia. – Anne drew 16:08, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A That wording has been in place since 2008, influencing the direction of the project. It should not have been removed without a project-wide RFC that found consensus to change the wording. Edited to add: I've reviewed the talk page discussion mentioned by Masem below, and it doesn't change my position that I'd want to see a wider consensus than four editors on a talk page.(end addition) Schazjmd (talk) 17:22, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Schazjmd: Regardless of what took place before, this is the project-wide RfC that you and others have asked for. Would you care to share your opinion on the proposed text or is there some other process that we should be going through first? –dlthewave ☎ 17:03, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    On the original discussion that triggered this RfC, Masem said WP is clearly more than just an encyclopedia (including what you may consider as the sum of generalist and specialist encyclopedias), and its hard to explain what those additional functions are without mentioning the concepts around gazetteers and almanacs., which I agree with. I don't see that his suggestion to instead say "other reference works" solves anything, as it is even more imprecise. After considering all of the arguments here for each option, I'm reaffirming my support for Option A. Schazjmd (talk) 22:34, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B I encourage editors to review the talk page discussion at WT:5P of why having "inclusive" language related to gazetteers and almanacs had become problematic. 5P is not a policy page but it was being cited as a policy in notability and related page retention discussions. While the new wording does not change any policy , it is more reflective of it, and specifically that WP:NOT outlines where we don't go. Eg NOT outlines we aren't a dictionary, though we do include definitions on topics that are then expanded on more (eg like En banc). While the wording at 5P had been in place for years, it does not reflect changes in relevant policy that has been made since, and the change simply removes specific terms that are misused and inconsistent with today's policy. --Masem (t) 18:49, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A - the problems likely to be caused by the new wording seem on present showing to be likely to be far greater than the problems caused by the wording as it stands. In any case this should not have been decided by a little group of four. Ingratis (talk) 19:23, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B We are an encyclopedia, and encyclopedias obviously can cover geographic topics, so there is not a point to say we have features of a different type of book that also covers geographic topics in a different way. Gazetteers may list every item that appears on the map as a sort of index, which is not really how Wikipedia operates and removal would be more consistent with actual usage. I think the mention of almanacs should also be removed because "It includes information like weather forecasts, farmers' planting dates, tide tables, and other tabular data often arranged according to the calendar." is not what Wikipedia includes either. There are other types of references called almanacs that covers sports or politics or whatever, but typically as statistical listings rather than holistic articles or lists. Reywas92Talk 19:27, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A for purely procedural reasons, without prejudice towards holding a new discussion for any future changes. The discussion was not sufficient to change long-standing guidance. I'm fine with changing it if the community decides it needs to be changed, but the discussion cannot be said to represent "the community" in any meaningful way. Return it to the way it was, hold a more proper discussion with wider participation, let it run longer, and see where it goes. --Jayron32 19:33, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A I'm the editor who added "gazetteer" those many years ago (ah, the good old days, when a sensible edit would not be immediately reverted. But I digress). The current wording reflected Wikipedia practice then, and reflects Wikipedia practice now: populated places and other geographic features do not need significant coverage in reliable sources in order to have a Wikipedia article (though many of course do have such coverage); the source cited only needs to show the place or feature exists. We can debate whether that is a good thing (the current consensus) or a bad thing (which would be a change in consensus), but the way to seek such a change in consensus is to discuss it explicitly, not to propose changing the wording of an essay. And I would point out such a change in consensus would justify the deletion of many thousands of articles. UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:44, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Except it's only legally recognized communities that are exempt from significant coverage. Physical features have a flexible requirement, but it's downright false to suggest we have articles merely if a source "shows the place or feature exists". I see no reason why a single component of GEOLAND would be embedded – very vaguely, mind you – into 5P. This would have no impact on "many thousands of articles" since NGEO controls, not 5P, but yes, there are in fact many articles that do not meet that guideline. Reywas92Talk 20:52, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Reywas92: you miss my point: it is precisely that language in NGOE that gives Wikipedia "many features of . . . gazetteers", so to remove the word from 5P without changing NGEO would create a contradiction between the two and is likely to cause confusion (because of how many articles are affected) that we have avoided for 13 years. And while writing that something is "downright false," I suggest you indicate you have looked at a sufficient number of non-populated place articles; I'll give you just two of many thousands of examples, Stoner Peak and Mount Kerr (Antarctica), that support my assertion that the presence of so many non-encyclopedic geographical features articles give Wikipedia "many features of . . . gazetteers" UnitedStatesian (talk) 14:49, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Both blatant failures of WP:GEOLAND. Just because it's hard to address the mass-production of articles that were imported from GNIS in bulk does not mean they are notability-compliant. We are not in fact a repository of every place name in existence merely because they exist. Reywas92Talk 19:02, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, the change of language does not eliminate the ability for us to function as a gazetteer within the context of NGEO, as that is still "other reference works". --Masem (t) 05:23, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    but referenced work contain, and j quote from its own article: Reference works include encyclopedias, almanacs, atlases, bibliographies, biographical sources, catalogs such as library catalogs and art catalogs, concordances, dictionaries, directories such as business directories and telephone directories, discographies, filmographies, gazetteers, glossaries, handbooks, indices such as bibliographic indices and citation indices, manuals, research guides, thesauruses, and yearbooks. So does other referenced works include all of these? If so should we have sn option C that defines what we are?Davidstewartharvey (talk) 11:13, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B While I only mildly prefer this option (and supported it when it was proposed) I am strongly opposed to the wording of the RFC which goes beyond non-neutral and into abusive of the people who proposed it. I do like "bias" towards geographic places and features regarding wp:notability because they are more enclyclopedic than a lot of common wiki topics. But this is firmly entrenched in the SNG and common outcomes listings and doesn't need the double-down of an explicit mention in the 5 pillars. Also, if it isn't covered under Wikipedia being an enclopedia, why would we want it, and if it IS covered under being an encyclopedia, why would it need an explicit separate mention.?North8000 (talk) 20:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A A consensus that has existed for 13 years, changed at a discussion of 4? Come one let's get real. Wikipedia is a gazetteer for geo articles. Everything else has to meet notability rules (still think that we need to rename that to help new users).Davidstewartharvey (talk) 20:16, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "A consensus that has existed for 13 years" False, this was added by one user unilaterally, that just didn't happen to be formally challenged for 13 years. "Wikipedia is a gazetteer for geo articles. Everything else has to meet notability rules" No, there are notability rules for geographic articles: WP:NGEO/WP:GEOLAND. Under these rules legally recognized populated places are generally exempt from significant coverage, but this is not the same as Wikipedia being a gazetteer, nor does this apply to everything under the concept of "geography". Reywas92Talk 20:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The gazetteer text has been in NGEO since before it became a guideline from 2012 and was accepted by the community when the guideline was adopted in 2014. If there were any problems or issues with it, they would have been pointed out long before now. (There's even a comment from the 2014 guideline acceptance opposing saying all NGEO does is document a long-standing exception to all notability requirements taken from the "gazetteer" function.) SportingFlyer T·C 21:25, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It is absolutely true that a long standing, unopposed edit has implicit consensus through editing and this fact is codified in policy form. What is sad is that so many editors remain ignorant of this provision or, even worse, unwilling to accept its remit.--John Cline (talk) 21:46, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A it's bad idea to introduce increasing vagueness to this ". . . and other. . . ?" What? Really? (Also see, WP:NOTDICT for policy problems with this vague wording). Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:01, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A Given that the A clause was WP:BOLDly introduced by UnitedStatesian on November 17, 2008 it may be considered a result of WP:SILENT consensus, which is weak and warrants attention. I also note that in the VP history there were several discussion referring to 5 pillars in the context of gazetteer issue. Even though not a policy, I support clarification efforts in full accordance with (presumably dead) WP:POLICY#Content policy and per opinions in the discussion below. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 21:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Thirteen years of acceptance is not weak. "Wikipedia consensus usually occurs implicitly. An edit has presumed consensus unless it is disputed or reverted." If you disagree with this policy, then bring it up at WP:CONSENSUS and get buy-in to overturn it, but you can't just state that it doesn't count as much and expect everyone to nod their head. That would be replacing consensus at WP:CONSENSUS with one person's opinion at some other Rfc, like here. Mathglot (talk) 00:09, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A for procedural reasons. I think the discussion to change was entirely in good faith and may have some valid arguments, but the idea that a change to the five pillars could be implemented on the consensus of four editors is absurd. Frickeg (talk) 22:12, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A per Frickeg mostly. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B the new wording is more inclusive, not less, as "other reference works" clearly includes gazetteers, as well as other works not previously cited such as atlases and discographies. I also agree with FOARP and North8000 that there is an unnecessary amount of WP:ABF in the "reasoning". --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 23:32, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A, and it is not a question of which is more or less inclusive, but rather accurate: the option B wording is unduly vague, and IMO opens up the door to endless litigation with BOTH sides each citing and arguing over their own interpretation of it. As to all of the various features of almanacs and gazetteers that we do not include, the longstanding wording does not say that we include every single aspect of those publications; and it is not necessary to specify that (it is, rather, common sense). Lastly, while I have no doubt those editors were acting in good faith, like others have said, a core policy based on established consensus cannot be changed per a discussion of four editors. I think the not-uncommon misunderstanding is that BOLD editing by A SINGLE EDITOR - even to core policies - is expressly permitted; however, as soon as there is a discussion between two or more editors, then any change based on such discussion is no longer a BOLD edit, and does require a discussion involving the wider community at large. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:39AF:8AB2:A850:B03D (talk) 00:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A as the best descriptive summary of Wikipedia as it exists, where geographic stubs abound :) Leijurv (talk) 02:07, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A—restore the status quo ante, which is a position that has had support, implicit or otherwise, for well over a decade. Imzadi 1979 → 02:57, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A interim, rediscuss, and a caution to the raiser - obviously, a pillar change should be CENT noticed, and possibly even watchlist noticed. I make no specific comment at this point as to whether the actual change is warranted. This RfC is also somewhat dubious in a neutrality sense. I should note that the original changing editors would appear to be acting in GF, and I do not believe represent a malign attempt to advance an agenda. And I assume my inclusionist credentials are sufficient to show I'm not part of this illusionary plot. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:48, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Nosebagbear, Added to WP:CENT. Curbon7 (talk) 01:43, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A Ain't broke, don't fix. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 13:52, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A per Jayron32, Leijruv and others. Thryduulf (talk) 14:48, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B since the term "gazetteer" has led to numerous violations of WP:NOTNEWS as well as other related and explicit policy instructions. This is sneaking reportage through the back door. The definition "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias and other reference works" is as precise as can be: An encyclopaedia is neither a gazetteer nor an almanac, unless we go Humpty Dumpty on the English language. -The Gnome (talk) 14:59, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B The Five Pilllars play an interesting role: As explained in the talk page FAQ they were originally a descriptive summary of our core P&G but have gradually become a prescriptive set of guiding principles that are sometimes seen as taking precedence over actual guidelines despite having no formal standing, adoption or review by the community.
    The odd thing about the "encyclopedias, almanacs and gazetteers" sentence is that unlike the rest of the pillars, it does not link to a policy/guideline that further explains its meaning. None of the pillars were meant to stand alone: Could you imagine if we left "Wikipedia is free content" open to interpretation and a group of editors decided that this meant we had to remove all paywall sources? Or if folks insisted that "Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view" meant that we had to give all opinions equal weight on controversial topics? When folks come along with ideas like these, we can point them to WP:C or WP:NPOV which explain in detail what these pillars actually mean. Unfortunately there is no page that formally explains Wikipedia's role as an almanac or gazetteer, so editors are left to make their own interpretations which often conflict with our actual guidelines. Although I disagree with it, I understand the point of view that we should have articles for all populated places, but too often "Wikipedia is a gazetteer" is used to shut down discussion before we've actually verified that a place is/was actually a distinct settlement. This causes actual problems when we maintain "unincorporated community" articles that are copied to various corners of the Internet before we realize that they were just rail junctions or crossroads. Although we did function as an exhaustive gazetteer at one time, the community adopted a more selective guideline for populated places in 2012 which has been strongly enforced for the past few years. I don't believe that "gazetteer" is an accurate description of what our current coverage aims to be.
    A question worth asking is "what are some features of almanacs and gazetteers that one would find in Wikipedia but not in an encyclopedia?" My answer is "None": Our minor geography articles are similar to what one might find in a regional geographic encyclopedia, and our coverage of countries is not indifferent from Britannica. There's virtually nothing in the tables of, say, Old Farmer's Almanac that would belong in Wikipedia; when we compare ourselves to The World Almanac and Book of Facts, the only resemblance is found in the Book of Facts portion. Nobody ever discusses our role as an almanac, it's just something we keep because it's been there a long time. To remove all ambiguity, I would suggest "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias." –dlthewave ☎ 16:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • This causes actual problems when we maintain "unincorporated community" articles that are copied to various corners of the Internet before we realize that they were just rail junctions or crossroads. Who cares? So a mirror site will have an article about a rail junction or crossroad; how is this an "actual problem"? Mlb96 (talk) 05:20, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B per Dlthewave, The Gnome, and others. WP:5P says they are "fundamental principles" which has a connotation of supreme policy. I've seen "WP is a gazetteer" used as a notability argument without regard to actual guidelines. MB 17:17, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B per MB, above. The gazetteer language only adds confusion. Yilloslime (talk) 17:29, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B per above: the gazetteer language only adds confusion, and is misused to argue notability. We gain nothing by having this language included. Maybe in 2008 it made sense but not today. I also agree with dl's suggestion to remove "and other reference works". Wikipedia is (and should be) an encyclopedia, and not any other type of reference work. That's what WP:NOT, our oldest policy, is all about. Levivich 18:46, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem is that we do include features of other reference works - for example, you go to any athlete in a professional league, and you'll see sports almanac-type stats, which have no place in a traditional encyclopedia. It's why it is important that we point to WP:NOT when we say "other reference works" as NOT sets those bounds. --Masem (t) 23:03, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mild preference to Option B I think the language in option B is more inclusive. --Enos733 (talk) 18:51, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - In response to those editors asking whether any changes are needed here, it is worth reviewing the recent cases with GEO articles written based on gazetteer or gazetteer-like sources, collectively involving the deletion/redirecting of tens of thousands of stub articles. These are:
  • All of these involved importing gazetteer-type information from a database en masse directly into Wikipedia in prose form. All of them were defended at one point or another by references to the mentioning of gazetteers in WP:5P.
    Some people seem to be under the misimpression that gazetteers are just encyclopaedias for geographical locations. They are not. The most commonly-used gazetteers on Wikipedia are GNS and GNIS, which consist of nothing more than statistical database entries, some of the fields of which (particularly whether a place was ever populated) can often be highly inaccurate. A gazetteer is, as our article explains, "a geographical dictionary or directory used in conjunction with a map or atlas", that is, it is literally an example of two things that Wikipedia explicitly isn't per WP:NOT.
    Option B corrects this problem by throwing the question of whether (and to what extent) Wikipedia is a gazetteer back to the community to decide. FOARP (talk) 11:31, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A The existing text is well-established while the proposed alternative seems vaguer and more confusing. The proposed change would therefore generate more argument rather than less. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:46, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. I was also really irritated by the way this change was made. It was a totally inadequate level of consensus for a change to our fundamental principles. And generally speaking, the editors involved really need to knock it off with this tactic of tipping established policies in their favour with under-advertised (if I weren't assuming good faith, I might even say "sneaky") discussions on under-watched talk pages. Policy pages document long-term consensus and conventions, they don't create them. That said, the end result is actually reads better and doesn't contradict the old understanding that Wikipedia has elements of a gazetteer (as I have tried to explain in more depth at WP:GAZETTEER) and an almanac (WP:ALMANAC needs work!) – Joe (talk) 12:12, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks Joe. I’ve got to say I actually like what you did with WP:Gazetteer and don’t think there’s ultimately a fundamental contradiction between it and WP:NOTGAZETTEER - the difference is one of emphasis. FOARP (talk) 13:29, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A because Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers and so is described succinctly. Thincat (talk) 13:52, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B, per Blueboar and Masem. And I agree with Joe Roe that the way the changes were introduced were somewhat less than ideal, but overall removing the explicit language that leads some to the implication that Wikipedia IS a gazeteer and not merely combines some features of is an improvement. There have been many cases of editors creating stubs about a place named in some government database regardless of any considerations of notability (or of English language usage). Mere existence (and often fleeting in many cases) is not a basis for a standalone encyclopedia article. older ≠ wiser 14:24, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B - There is broad consensus that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", and that Wikipedia includes elements of a variety of other reference works, so it has always seemed surprising and counterintuitive that we single out just two of those reference works to put on equal footing with encyclopedias in the wording of this pillar. I mean we include almanac but not dictionary? Strange. Reference works is more inclusive, and helps to account for the extremely blurry lines between the domains and formats of the many kinds of reference works one might see in Wikipedia: dictionaries, encyclopedic dictionaries, handbooks, guidebooks, almanacs, gazetteers, epitomes, specula, compendia, annals, summa, geographic atlases, scientific atlases, taxonomies.... It just makes more sense to talk about encyclopedias and other reference works, and I think that best reflects the broadest consensus about what we're doing here. No reason to name certain reference works and no reason to exclude. Unfortunately, there is a lot of heated disagreement about the extent to which Wikipedia should function as a gazetteer, closely related to issues of deletion and systemic bias, and I suspect this whole discussion won't go anywhere because of how the "sides" of that debate view the importance of gazetteer having made it into this language and what it would mean to remove it. Nothing should be kept or deleted based on which reference works appear on 5P, and 5P should just reflect the broadest possible consensus. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:40, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • For the record, I support Wikipedia having elements of a gazetteer and haven't been involved in any of the debates over changes to that fact. The big point is this page should summarize big picture ideas, not set the policy. Regardless of A or B, it shouldn't be the basis of keeping or deleting anything. It's a quick overview of key ideas. If the word "gazetteer" appearing at 5P is key to a particular deletion/notability argument, that argument should carry no weight (this applies to the presence of gazetteer as well as its replacement by "reference works"). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A: The vagueness introduced by Option B appears to contradict WP:NOT, and we need a clearer description of the kinds of other reference works we mean. That doesn’t mean I love the current wording, as there is clear disagreement still, but if we incorporate some aspects of gazetteers and almanacs not otherwise included in most encyclopaedias, that deserves mention. Given that this change is being used to justify the deletion of articles, we cannot simply rely on “other” doing the job. Theknightwho (talk) 17:35, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Specifying gazetteer and almanac is more in line with WP:NOT -- a page which doesn't mention either of those words even once? Even if it were true that Wikipedia includes exclusively elements of encyclopedias, gazetteers, and almanacs, "encyclopedias and other reference works" is still true. The big issue is, it's not actually exclusive. I would argue it's a greater contradiction to WP:NOT (the page which explains that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia") to give the misleading impression that it's not primarily an encyclopedia with elements of other stuff (primacy of the encyclopedia) but rather a combination of encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers (which WP:NOT doesn't mention, as I said) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 18:00, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Why would they be mentioned on a page which explains what Wikipedia is not? And I agree that Wikipedia is not exclusively those things, but if the choice is between these two, and “other reference works” includes plenty of things that definitely are on WP:NOT as exclusions, we run into a problem. The fact is that this change is being used to justify making Wikipedia more exclusive, not less, so the idea that the status quo for 13 years is suddenly a problem for not being broad enough is a little confusing. Theknightwho (talk) 18:28, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        Gazetteers are "a geographical dictionary or directory used in conjunction with a map or atlas" (that's two things that Wikipedia is explicitly not) and Almanacs are ""a book published every year which contains information about the movements of the planets, the changes of the moon and the tides, and the dates of important anniversaries"", which is another thing that Wikipedia is explicitly not. It is not clear to me why saying "here's two types of reference works we're going to explicitly call out that we include elements of" is better than just using a more general term that embraces more types of reference work that we also borrow elements of (discographies, bibliographies, filmographies, yearbooks etc.). FOARP (talk) 19:19, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      As someone who does a lot of geography cleanup, I don't anticipate this making Wikipedia any more or less inclusive. WP:NGEO would still be the relevant SNG just as it has been since 2012. However this would eliminate the confusion which arises when editors interpret "combines features of gazetteers" as "covers all verifiable geographic entities as standalone articles" as if this somehow trumps the actual guideline. –dlthewave ☎ 20:25, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A This is much more clear wording and in addition to the fact that Wikipedia does indeed serve as a gazetteer, this also includes the implicit assumption that all places (geographical locations, not any smaller organizations than that) will have significant coverage of them in local and regional sources. And that assumption is just basic common sense. Anyone arguing otherwise is being purposefully disingenuous. SilverserenC 20:45, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. We're not running up against our paper and printing budget. As the project goes forward, we would expect to add more material (as we do), not remove material. If we didn't have a gazeteer mission, now would be a time to add it. To increase the areas of knowlege which we are saving from obscurity. As always, a good solution for this stuff is "Don't like gazetter articles? Don't read them, but don't interfere with people who aren't like you". Better would be Option C, which would expand the text. "specialized encyclopedias" is too short and vague to have much power, and its ignored often enough.
    Someone wants to know about say Senteg. Granted, only 18 people have in the last three months. Possibly because it's in Nowhere, Russia and the population is 51. Still, 18 people. They're real. They count. What is the value of telling these people "Sorry, we had this information, with a ref, categorized with it's sisters in Category:Rural localities in Udmurtia, but we decided we don't want you people to have too much information. Sucks to be you, but good luck and maybe you can find the info somewhere else -- you never know!" Assekrem, Bogomerom Archipelago, etc. What's the upside.
    Given the number of mirror sites, I would expect that most (all?) of these 18 visitors were actually just bots coming to scrape any updates to the page. The upside is not hosting non-notable (and often hoax/promo) information and not enabling/encouraging WP:MEATBOT style editing. FOARP (talk) 10:06, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    So delete them if they're hoaxes, but don't motte and bailey to argue for deleting articles that are otherwise fine. Benjamin (talk) 11:29, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's just bullshit, people should go write some articles or do other constructive work rather than trying to make Wikipedia smaller, weaker, and less iformative. I'm tired of it. Herostratus (talk) 23:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A to restore the status quo. The text is already open-ended and does not mandate that we include every feature of those works. --Rschen7754 01:19, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A Combo of status quo and a few reasons given in earlier votes Signed, I Am Chaos (talk) 01:48, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A One of Wikipedia's strengths is that the concept of an encyclopedia, gazetteer, etc. is not novel, most people already understand it (just the method of collaboration is novel). This makes it easy for people to understand what they're getting into and I prefer the original wording on that basis. Legoktm (talk) 02:11, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A I think we're really ignoring a lot of stubs existed before the 2012 change to WP:NGEO. I mean there are other ways to go about this. – The Grid (talk) 04:00, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • The issue is that some editors are using the original wording (option A) of 5P to try to argue against the changes of NGEO in 2012. The site shifted away from wide acceptance of geographical articles then, and while we still have gazetteer functions, they are not as wide as we used to have them. 5P should have been updated with the 2012 NGEO change to reflect that. --Masem (t) 05:22, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Sorry, but I'm not inclined to trust those sort of things, particularly after the SCHOOLOUTCOMES fiasco. I've seen it other times too: a few people push thru some rule, and that becomes the basis for a campaign for everybody to "follow the rule". It's politics, in the bad sense. I don't know what happened back in 2012, but I'll tell you what: if it was so defining, why are most people supporting Option A here, mnmh? Herostratus (talk) 05:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. A change to such a long-established and central piece of policy should not have been made without gaining a very wide consensus. I have found the recent trend to nominate for deletion large numbers of geographical entities extremely worrying, especially what looks like a lot like bullying in AfDs where editors disagree. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:32, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have also noticed that AfDs are often aggressive and unpleasant as well. No idea why there’s this trend at the moment. Theknightwho (talk) 05:49, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      The problem is caused when editors go through every single item in a database creating articles about every entry, regardless of whether there is anything to actually write about them, and regardless of whether the database is in fact a reliable source for what it is being used for. This creates a massive backlog of poorly sourced or even hoax articles, the creators of which are heavily invested in them not being deleted. In my experience the problem at AFD comes from an insistence that “there must be sources” for these places and the assumption that anyone who fails to find sources is simply acting in bad faith. Of course, this behaviour is defended by references to 5P. FOARP (talk) 06:18, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      I have no problem with deleting articles solely based on inaccurate databases. The problem I have observed in AfD repeatedly recently looks to me like tag-teaming between a group of editors where all sources presented are negated and all non-delete arguments are responded to aggressively. Espresso Addict (talk) 06:40, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Tag teaming implies off-wiki co-ordination. Instead, it’s just the same group of people (pro-deletion and pro-inclusion both) looking at the articles popping up on the geographical AFD notice board. The issue with sources is that so many bad sources exist because of algorithm-generated content and bad databases (primarily GNIS and GNS) but also personal blogs, personal websites, maps, wiki-mirrors etc. FOARP (talk) 06:52, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      For clarity, I did not mean to imply any off-wiki coordination. Espresso Addict (talk) 06:58, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      The strengths of the arguments are not relevant to questions of bullying. I have repeatedly observed bullying behaviour being outright justified in AfDs - even on this noticeboard - because of the perceived weakness of the arguments. That is unacceptable. Theknightwho (talk) 18:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      This sounds like something that should be addressed, probably at ANI. Do you have any diffs of the bullying? –dlthewave ☎ 05:19, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sadly this has characterised AfDs for some time. Certain editors, usually those who wish to delete, cannot accept any difference from their opinion and therefore insult, sneer at and call into question the integrity and motives of any editor who disagrees with them. Because, of course, they are the only ones who truly understand or care about the project (even if they're relative newcomers). This is a very sad state of affairs and needs to stop now. It's completely against the spirit of Wikipedia. You can disagree without the unpleasantness. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:08, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • On that note, this recent conversation on my user talk page is depressing reading. It may be that community consensus about the notability of places is starting to shift, but unless and until that shift happens, it is unacceptable that we have new editors being aggressively criticised for creating articles that up until now have been seen as perfectly fine, just because they are not plugged into wikipolitics deeply enough to know that what was utterly unremarkable last year is now controversial. – Joe (talk) 09:22, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • Absolutely. Some editors increasingly seem to see Wikipedia as an extension of social media, where users hiding behind anonymity can spout as much vitriol as they choose and not be pulled up over it. We've always had some soapboxers who've done that, but usually they got the message that this wasn't the place for it, got bored and drifted away. Unfortunately, now some editors who seem to genuinely be involved in the project are doing it to other genuine editors just because they disagree with them, especially on AfD. I do not see what is wrong with civilised discussion without it degenerating into aggression, name-calling and allegations of lying. It's very disappointing and it shouldn't happen. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:10, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
            • It seems to have become almost expected, but the recent two-pronged wave of GEO AfDs is particularly distasteful in tone. This AfD on Makhtumkala is an example - the belittling tone used against the Turkmen editor is really not acceptable. Ingratis (talk) 04:43, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
              • WP:AFD/GEO is currently a complete trainwreck, where the same handful of users seem to be nominating AFDs en masse and then voting “Redirect All”, with any and all comments by other users simply being ignored. I cannot see how this is a remotely positive direction for WP to be going in, when it is patently jumping the gun. Theknightwho (talk) 06:40, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:5P is not policy, it's a summary. --Ahecht (TALK
    PAGE    ) 23:47, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. Many aspects of Gazetteers and Almanacs fall under WP:INDISCRIMINATE, and thus it is inappropriate and misleading to state that Wikipedia holds these characteristics. To address the argument that "geographic features can be included as long as they are verifiable" and thus Wikipedia functions as a gazetteer; this is not true. WP:GEOLAND requires information beyond statistics and coordinates to exist, and articles are consistently deleted at AFD for failing this criteria. Incidentally, the inclusion of a "reasoning" section, in which this argument is contained, appears inappropriate with the potential to bias the RFC - it should be collapsed into either "discussion" or into the posters !vote, so that editors can directly respond to it and it doesn't take up an unduly prominent location.
    I would also object to the current wording of the RFC; leading option "A" with would be to maintain the status quo and restore the longstanding phrase comes across as suggestive towards it, and has already resulted in editors focusing on the process by which the change was implemented rather than the change itself. These should be changed to presenting the options, rather than providing such commentary. BilledMammal (talk) 07:04, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A, but... Are the participants in this RfC, or indeed this underlying dispute, aware WP:5P isn't a PAG? It's not marked as an essay on the page itself, but it is not and never has been a PAG. It's categorized under Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia essays, its FAQ starts with It is none of [policies or guidelines]. It is a non-binding description of some of the fundamental principles, it appears on the essay impact list alongside other essays. 5P being a non-binding essay that ultimately says what people want it to say is the subject of regular discussion. There's an interesting discussion to have somewhere about essays that are popular enough people mistake them for PAGs but have never actually been vetted and are the subject of significant criticism in ways not generally held by equivalent guidelines; WP:ATA is another, plus a politics-related essay I'm sure no one needs me to name. I'm unconvinced we need an RfC for the text of a non-binding essay, but as long as we're here, I guess I'm leaning towards option A per "if people take it seriously enough for now we should probably err on the side of caution with changes that reflect current hot-button disputes". Vaticidalprophet 09:37, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, it has been mentioned several times, both in the original discussion and here, and was the subject of a parallel disputed edit.[1] – Joe (talk) 09:46, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    SOME people are aware of this. Others basically characterise 5P as the constitution of Wikipedia. Guess which argument gets more play at AFD? FOARP (talk) 10:06, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's true that the five pillars page is not a policy, a guideline, or a constitution, but I would avoid putting it in the same category as other essays, even one like WP:ATA. Given how often it is referenced (e.g. in welcome messages to new editors), I would not be surprised if virtually every active editor on the project has read through the five pillars at least once. While it's true that many essays in project space have never actually been vetted and may not accurately reflect the views of the broader community, the five pillars is a unique exception to that. If there is an inconsistency or disagreement over its accuracy, then because of the page's high visibility, I do think it is important that we have a full discussion and get the content right. If that requires an RfC, then let's have an RfC. Mz7 (talk) 00:17, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:5P is also cited on most core vetted high-profile project pages such as WP:NPOV, WP:NOT ("Articles must abide by the appropriate content policies, particularly those covered in the five pillars."), etc., is the first thing on the policies and guidelines template, and is in the first graf of WP:POLICY (and has been since 2006). It is "popular" because Wikipedia policy surfaces and endorses it time and time again, and it's disingenuous to claim otherwise. Gnomingstuff (talk) 11:54, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A, per UnitedStatesian and others. Benjamin (talk) 11:17, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B, mainly per Ahecht and Rhododendrites, while I echo the sentiment that the reasoning for this RfC is unnecessarily poisoning the well. (I am also of the opinion that the adjoining issue of "should every geographic place have an article" is not really dependent on the gazetteer-ness of WP, given that many gazetteers just have info that could be adequately written in list format, as opposed to having 50 articles with just the exact same one sentence while notable geographic features will still have SIGCOV and be notable, but that's tangential.) eviolite (talk) 13:43, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A I stand in opposition to these changes and support the status quo ante. Wikipedia does function as a gazetteer. Something like 20% of articles are geographic in nature - historic places, rivers, provinces, mountains, cities, etc. That is sufficient to explicitly call this usage out here. A change to remove a large portion of those articles from Wikipedia would not help the project or the Internet; furthermore this would be a backdoor approach to try to change the long-standing site policy of having articles on so many historic places, rivers, provinces, mountains, cities, etc. User:力 (powera, π, ν) 17:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A + Add and other reference works including e.g. before "almanacs" to broaden then notion a bit as opposed to potentially limiting it. — Godsy (TALKCONT) 21:33, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B, but strictly per Blueboar et al. This is more concise wording that I just think is better. I don't want this to be a trojan horse for any sort of mass deletions. --BDD (talk) 23:36, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia first and foremost and we should not be putting any other roles on the same level as that - we are not an almanac, and certainly do not function as a "gazetteer", nor have we ever made any effort to function as one, nor do any of our policies support the idea that we are or could ever attempt to be one. The inclusion of those two terms also feels like it is trying to resolve thorny policy disputes over when to exclude or include geographic features by a false fiat assertion that Wikipedia is a gazetteer, which is not really the intent of WP:5P - it covers the most utterly central aspects of our identity, purpose, and methodology. "Be an encyclopedia" is that. "Be a gazetteer" or "be an almanac" absolutely is not - they are strange, idiosyncratic, and obviously controversial. --Aquillion (talk) 04:49, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A This is nothing more than an attempt by a small group of deletionist editors to create a trump card in geostub deletion discussions. The status quo has worked perfectly fine for over a decade and there is no good justifiction for changing it aside from opposition to geostubs in general. Mlb96 (talk) 05:25, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Could you explain how some editors would use the replacement of "almanacs, and gazetteers" with "other reference works" as a trump card, because I cannot see it? BilledMammal (talk) 06:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • "There was consensus to remove 'almanacs and gazetteers', so that means that there was consensus to tighten our requirements for geostubs." Something like that. Mlb96 (talk) 08:21, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • Any AfD argument based on close reading of a non-policy/summary page is a terrible argument rather than a trump card. Referencing 5P is shorthand for talking about the actual policies, and anyone who's closing discussions based on what is or is not mentioned here rather than in an actual policy/guideline should not be closing discussions. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:31, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          It was used to immediately change policy in relation to geostubs, such as here. This is where much of the concern has come from. Theknightwho (talk) 16:48, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          Which begs the questions of 1) Whether this actually changed anything about NGEO? 2) Why NGEO was referencing an essay in the first place? FOARP (talk) 22:04, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          It doesn’t matter why it was referencing it, if that is what had consensus. You seem to be holding the simultaneous views that this change is both important enough to need to happen, while dismissing objections on the basis that the change doesn’t matter. How does that make any sense? Theknightwho (talk) 00:18, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There’s nothing contradictory in saying “this is a minor change to an essay, it improves things”. Since the rules that had consensus at NGEO weren’t changed nothing more than that was needed. FOARP (talk) 07:13, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It removes the very basis for why geographical features are "presumed" notable, which had consensus by being part of the policy, and given that AfDs seem to be filed almost routinely for new GEOLAND articles this is clearly a contentious question. Theknightwho (talk) 16:22, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Since 2012, legally recognized populated are the only geographic features which have had presumed notability, and that's supported by the community consensus which was reached when the guideline was formally adopted. –dlthewave ☎ 03:59, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A I understand why this is an issue, and how it relates to WP:GEO. I'm also one of those who views 5P as a constitution of en.wiki and I think non-trivial changes here need a lot larger discussion than has been had until now. Hobit (talk) 21:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B The 'almanac' and 'gazetteer' portions bring no benefit whatsoever to the project: if a topic merits an article, this will already be self-evident from the available sources and wikipedia policies, not from a few words in an unofficial essay such as this. The added wording only casts unnecessary confusion on what Wikipedia is or is not, and encourages the gaming of its policies and guidelines: the exact opposite of what a summary is supposed to accomplish. Avilich (talk) 00:54, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A - oppose the backdoor attempt to alter longstanding Wikipedia practice. Altamel (talk) 06:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In your opinion, what would be the "front door" way to propose a change in practice? –dlthewave ☎ 04:15, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option "start a new RfC on the topic of the original RfC" rather than contorting this discussion on undoing the original RfC into something it is not. JoelleJay (talk) 19:45, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A per UnitedStatesian and Frickeg. I consider sneaking in edits to Wikipedia's underpinning philosophy as a way to backdoor in a new AfD precedent to be infinitely more "harmful" (per revised wording below) than the existence of a, let's be real, inobtrusive and low-traffic stub could ever be. (At least they're not the thousands of tourist-guide geo articles that actually do harm the project's credibility.) There are so many better places to direct all this effort. Gnomingstuff (talk) 23:04, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B: so far as I can tell, there is no dispute that almanacs and gazetteers are reference works, so at face value option B is no more deletionist than A. There is a change in connotation, sure, but I am surprised to find almanacs and gazetteers specifically mentioned at WP:5P1 in the first place. I see people describe Wikipedia as an encyclopedia everywhere I look—I know it's my go-to—but it's very rarely called an almanac or gazetteer. Of course, there's no issue with some coverage that resembles such works, but again I do not think that anyone disputes the problems with mass creation of geo stubs based on unreliable databases or other WP:IINFO behaviour. It's all a bit of a mountain from a molehill and initial talk page discussion was good enough for this simple change. — Bilorv (talk) 11:40, 24 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I dispute that problem. From a standpoint of project credibility, I would rather have 10,000,000 objective, verifiable, NPOV stubs than no stubs but plenty of "The people in this village are ugly and thieves" and such -- not an exaggeration in the slightest, I've removed enough of it to know -- and I find the latter to be a much more pressing and embarrassing "massive cleanup project." I am also not impressed with the vilification of actual good-faith work being done toward the former ("Obviously he believes Wikipedia is some geeky RPG where he's out to win Game High Score," just a grotesque thing to say about another editor) and the attempt here to end-run that into Wikipedia's core principles. Gnomingstuff (talk) 10:16, 25 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm a little bit confused about your comment, Gnomingstuff. Is it a reply to me? The quote Obviously he believes Wikipedia is some geeky RPG where he's out to win Game High Score is not something I have said, and appears to come from an unrelated ANI comment by a different editor. — Bilorv (talk) 00:37, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • I was replying to "I do not think anyone disputes that...". The ANI in question is relevant to this broader discussion, though, because it and similar ones are the real reason this change was made, and do not reflect well upon the contingent making it. I find it ironic that the change involves the page reading "Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility" given the appalling comments leading up to it. (See also the treatment of the Turkmen editor mentioned above, although in my opinion the tone of this ANI is even worse.) To be clear, I would not find the existence of stubs to be a problem even if everyone were polite about it and think the extent of "cleanup project" is wildly overstated compared to just about every other cleanup project Wikipedia has. But the context makes this whole thing especially distasteful, and should be pointed out. Gnomingstuff (talk) 08:07, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B, if only because few people will know what an almanac or gazetteer even are (and it does not help that this RfC does not link the terms). Words not understood by most readers are not helpful to define what Wikipedia is. The wording of option B, "reference works", is much more readily understood. Sandstein 17:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A - It's perfectly reasonable that Wikipedia has articles about geographical topics even if these aren't considered notable by the default criteria. --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:28, 27 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but isn't that why we have the SNG which clearly defines those specific exceptions without the vague "functions of a gazetteer" language? –dlthewave ☎ 04:15, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Charles Stewart - A gazetteer is "a geographical dictionary or directory used in conjunction with a map or atlas", so aren't we aleady engaging in exactly the kind of contradiction you describe here? FOARP (talk) 23:11, 2 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do not regard the core, scope-defining pages (i.e., the relevant part of 5P together with WP:NOT) as particularly coherent, indeed my user page has a link to a discussion in which I discuss a contradiction in how we apply WP:NOT in relation to galleries. But the abuse of these scope-defining pages at AfD is more often deletionist abuse (i.e. deletion of perfectly good reference material that complements the obviously encyclopedic articles) than inclusionist abuse (esp. having articles that we would better transwiki) so I am very cautious about changes here that would strengthen it as a weapon in the service of bad deletionist arguments. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:39, 3 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The term "almanac" is not specific, as it can refer to anything from Old Farmer's Almanac (which Wikipedia definitely is not) to a Nautical almanac (which Wikipedia probably is not) to World Almanac (which Wikipedia is). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:32, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B I'm with Sandstein: how many people even know what an almanac or gazetteer even is? For notability, we have specific notability policies and guidelines which should be used for judging the notability of articles at AfD. (t · c) buidhe 13:48, 28 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A: While honestly option B sounds better on first read, it's less clear, since while we absolutely do encompass some of the functions of an almanac and gazeteer in addition to being an encyclopedia, we are specifically not a dictionary, even though all three of those are "reference works". Loki (talk) 06:07, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A gazetteer is a geographical dictionary. Avilich (talk) 18:30, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's literally this (see picture)
And this is one of the better ones. Most modern ones are simply long/lat co-ordinates, a name, and a code. Not in any sense encyclopaedic content. Simply a directory/dictionary for geographic locations. FOARP (talk) 11:01, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Not in any sense encyclopedic content? These descriptions in the provided image sound an awful lot like the opening sentences of any article on the encyclopedia about a location ("a post village in Wyoming County" is verbatim how we'd describe a location on the encyclopedia). I find it hard to deny that Wikipedia fulfills some of the functions of a gazetteer or otherwise contains some of the elements of one.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 17:52, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The opening sentence, and even then often too brief for that - not encyclopaedic coverage. There is no significant coverage, they don't really tell you what the places are beyond their mere existence. Again, gazetteers are essentially just geographical dictionaries, and this is dictionary-style coverage of a kind that we have specifically said Wikipedia should not do. Saying "Wikipedia is a gazetteer", or talking airily about a "gazetteer function" is typically just a fancy way of saying "Wikipedia can be a dictionary when the topic is geography". FOARP (talk) 19:13, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
PS - compare and contrast the gazetteer listings with the Wiktionary article on London and the definition there: "The capital city of the United Kingdom; capital city of England. Situated near the mouth of the River Thames in southeast England, with a metropolitan population of more than 13,000,000". FOARP (talk) 19:17, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hence why the longstanding wording was "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers", not "Wikipedia is a gazetteer." Option A acknowledges that Wikipedia offers the information you could find in a gazetteer (as does your WP:NOTGAZ essay, I have a hard time understanding why you put "gazetteer function" in quotes for that reason). It does not propose turning the encyclopedia into one. No one said "Wikipedia is a gazetteer" or anything to that effect.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 20:43, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Talk of a "gazetteer function" is almost always used in the "Wikipedia is a gazetteer" sense at AFD - to defend the keeping of a one-line article sourced solely to gazetteer or gazetteer-like sources. Really we need a discussion at WP:NOT on this. In the meantime it is an improvement to remove explicit mentions of it at 5P. FOARP (talk) 08:15, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the problem is that unlike the other four pillars, 5P1 does not link to a policy or guideline that clarifies exactly which features of a gazetteer we're supposed to include. Some editors interpret it as "we aim to have a standalone article for every populated place", which is often asserted at AfD even though it contradicts our actual guideline. –dlthewave ☎ 13:32, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. I concur with Rhododendrites that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which shares some characteristics of other types of works, among which almanacs and gazetteers are neither the only two nor the top two. They should not be singled out the way they are in Option A. "Almanac" is particularly problematic. Its meaning is ambiguous, and the first of its two definitions, which focuses on astronomical tables and astrological and meteorological forecasts, has especially little in common with Wikipedia. Overall, Option A's attempt to be specific is more confusing than Option B, not less. Adumbrativus (talk) 07:11, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A per Theknightwho and the 2600 IP. Cbl62 (talk) 13:41, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option B. I'd guess that maybe .01 percent of Wikipedia users know what a gazetteer is, so this isn't even conveying information. Dan Bloch (talk) 05:36, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A. This change is an attempt to weaken the GEOLAND guideline support for articles on small communities. Such communities are always notable to the people in them (or used to be in them in the case of defunct communities). Wikipedia has no physical limit that could restrict the number of communities covered. All communities have a history behind them (although it can often be very difficult to find the information), so they all potentially have a reasonably substantial article to write. Merging into a higher level political entity is always an option for long standing stub pages that don't look like they are going anywhere. There is absolutely no benefit to the encyclopaedia in giving ammunition to those who habitually try and delete such articles. SpinningSpark 15:46, 31 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A per Hobit & Benjamin. Happy days ~ LindsayHello 17:49, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A (Summoned by bot) – for procedural reasons, and per Frickeg. Mathglot (talk) 00:13, 5 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Option A’s wording is more consistent with current practice surrounding inclusion of geographic locations. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 00:15, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion - 5P RFC

Notified: [[centralized discussion]]. Curbon7 (talk) 01:45, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • So much text in this RfC but I fail to see the significance. First, the page in question is basically an essay. Second, the change doesn't make Wikipedia a gazetteer or stop making it a gazetteer. Seems like much ado about nothing. Am I missing something? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:07, 20 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is that the very status of 5P is also unclear, with some people treating it as a kind of constitution of Wikipedia. The mention of gazetteer within it is then treated as an unquestionable and unchangeable endorsement of the idea that Wikipedia should have separate articles on every single geographic location regardless of notability. FOARP (talk) 04:38, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Wikipedia combines many features.. Exactly which are those "many features" ? deserves a linked article describing those specific 'many features'.
Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Bad RFC

  • Please replace the RFC question with a neutrally-worded statement. Particularly no change to 5P could "officially would deprecate the idea Wikipedia functions like a gazetteer" because 5P is not a guideline/policy, or source of guidelines and policies, but instead "a non-binding description of some of the fundamental principles" per the WP:5P talk page. Even if it could the change does not do this (and does not not do this) because a) gazetteers are an example of reference works and b) there was never any consensus that Wikipedia has a "gazetteer function". FOARP (talk) 15:31, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that a neutral statement is needed. It also needs to be briefer, and ended with the filer's signature. Right now, legobot is unable to copy anything over to central listings due to the length of text before the first signature. @SportingFlyer:, how about just

    Which version of the beginning of WP:5P1 is better?

    • Option A would be to maintain the status quo and restore the longstanding phrase "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" to WP:5P.
    • Option B would be to retain the new wording "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias and other reference works."
and then your signature at the end? Firefangledfeathers 15:44, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The option B wording is not "new" (it's more than a month old). Preferred wording is:
  • Option A WP:5P1 should be changed back to the pre-11 November 2021‎ wording: "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers".
  • Option B would be to retain the post-11 November 2021‎ wording "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias and other reference works."
— Preceding unsigned comment added by FOARP (talk • contribs) 15:52, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Firefangledfeathers: fixed per your edit. The wording is absolutely new - one month versus 13 years of consensus... SportingFlyer T·C 15:58, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. I would still encourage you to remove ", which officially would deprecate the idea Wikipedia functions like a gazetteer". Removal would add some neutrality and I've also had a recent experience of differing understandings of 'deprecate' leading to confusion in an RfC. Firefangledfeathers 16:03, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I obviously dispute whether there ever was a consensus for the BOLD edit that included the term “gazetteer” in 5p. FOARP (talk) 16:05, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Firefangledfeathers, done. FOARP Text that's spent over 13 years on a well-regarded page among lots of discussion is a pretty clear consensus. SportingFlyer T·C 16:07, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. And adding to what SportingFlyer said above, an editor is not required to get consensus before he makes a BOLD edit; if their edit is undone, THEN they need consensus to restore it. But if multiple editors are discussing a change, they are expected to open the discussion up to the wider community. I don't think that's codified anywhere, and any such changes made out of process tend to be viewed as illegitimate. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:907D:4451:8F72:3CE1 (talk) 01:56, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The wording is worse than non-neutral, it attributes false motives to the people who proposed and supported the change.North8000 (talk) 19:56, 17 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It does no such thing. We are all human, and groups of humans can make mistakes just as readily as individuals. Regarding the neutrality of the RFC wording...my own opinion on that matter (and this ain't directed at any of you, or anyone else in particular, because it gets thrown around at RFCs constantly) is that it is an entirely pedantic and dogmatic thing to fuss over: because in EnWikiland, these discussions must be proposed neutrally, but then the proposer gets to immediately give their own response, which on the one hand nullifies the neutral forming but on the other hand provides transparency..then those other kinds of discussions dont need to be worded neutrally, and the proposer still gets to vote upon posting. It all seems very arbitrary and IMO has very little bearing on the results. (Note, I'm not referring to RFCs that are set up in such a way as to game the outcome) 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:907D:4451:8F72:3CE1 (talk) 01:42, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree about the need for total neutrality on the proposal text. This is an extraordinarily important RfC: It's about the very definition of what Wikipedia is. And, SportingFlyer, when more than one editor protests about a non-neutral wording, perhaps you should take heed and take out any potentially controversial phrasing. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 14:48, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Reasoning section needs to be rewritten. We have editors !voting based on process concerns related to the original change instead of giving their opinion on the proposed text, and I think the framing has a lot to do with it. –dlthewave ☎ 17:00, 18 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    • See prior discussion here.

    • Editors supporting the change (Option B) argue that "gazetteer" and "almanac" do not reflect Wikipedia's purpose as an encyclopedia and have led to harmful editing practices including mass stub creation from GNIS and GEOnet which require massive cleanup efforts. There is also concern that the page has no formal standing, yet is being used to override actual policies and guidelines.
    • Editors opposing the change argue that Wikipedia has functioned as a gazetteer for many years, that the current language has long-standing implied consensus and is widely cited, and that the proposed change would lead to improper deletion of verified geographic features. There is also concern that changes to 5P require broader community consensus, which led to the opening of this RfC.
    Collapsing non-neutral notice. See rewrite above.
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

    Recently, a short talk page discussion (four participants) led to the replacement of the phrase "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" with the phrase "Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias and other reference works." This has been the result of a long campaign by a small number of users to try to deprecate the premise that Wikipedia functions like a gazetteer. Though the rule that geographic features can be included as long as they are verifiable and can be discussed pre-dates the addition of the word gazetteer to the five pillars, a quick search of the pump's archives shows that the gazetteer function has been a firm pillar of Wikipedia for over a decade, and I believe this change requires more community input, considering the change would likely have the effect deprecating the idea Wikipedia functions like a gazetteer.. SportingFlyer T·C 15:57, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

    Second. We need a neutrally-worded RFC statement. Reverting changes as it is undesirable to change the RFC mid-flow would be understandable if it had not already been changed multiple times. FOARP (talk) 20:09, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why would we spell out what the arguments for and against are before the RfC? That's what the RfC is for. This reads like a closing statement – written before the RfC is closed, by editors deeply involved in the dispute. SportingFlyer's "reasoning" section describes their reasoning for starting the RfC and in that sense it is fine. If people want to oppose because process was not followed, that's their call. I mean, honestly, the three of you taking issue with this have had plenty of input into this discussion already, can you please just step aside and let others form an opinion about it on their own? – Joe (talk) 20:38, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It is normal to have a brief, neutral summary of the discussion that led to an RfC, which is what I have written. It is not normal to have a statement like "This has been the result of a long campaign by a small number of users" which effectively poisons the well. The question here is whether we should change the wording, not whether or not the proper process was followed prior, and I think that the closer would be well justified if they chose to throw out !votes based on that premise. –dlthewave ☎ 20:50, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • SF's and Dl's reasoning paragraphs should be moved to under their respective !votes in the survey section. The RfC should have a neutrally worded question (which it currently does), followed by the survey section, where everyone writes their reasoning. This is our way and there's no reason for there to be a reasoning section containing non-neutral arguments in between the neutral statement and the part where everyone makes their arguments. Levivich 21:43, 19 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Both options problematic

    Having come back to this after some time, I see the same issue with both options. Both tend to imply that WP goes beyond being an encyclopedia, because otherwise those similarities would be properties of encyclopedias in general. And general encyclopedias of the past have not tried to also be almanacs, nor gazetteers. If anything, the proposed rewording is worse, because it leaves open-ended the scope of the project. I would rather see the phrase in question replaced with a succinct definition of "encyclopedia". Mangoe (talk) 18:45, 31 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I mentioned in my !vote that it may be better to leave it at "general and specialized encyclopedias" since Wikipedia is indeed an encyclopedia, and any other roles that we fill aren't significant enough to go in a summary of our fundamental principles. This is also the only sentence in the Five Pillars that doesn't link to any sort of policy or guideline for clarification, which means that it's going to be open-ended no matter how we word it. One solution would be to write a "What Wikipedia Is" page that could be linked to. –dlthewave ☎ 17:36, 1 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Support: "..write a "What Wikipedia Is"..
    Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 08:20, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia:About Dege31 (talk) 12:59, 4 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Please close

    This has been open for more than 30 days with large participation. Can somebody close this? North8000 (talk) 22:39, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    RFC on WP: SPS and WP: BLPSPS

    There is a current discrepancy between how WP: V covers self published sources for BLP's and how WP: BLP covers self published sources for BLP's.

    The current text on WP:V (at WP:SPS) is 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.

    The current text on WP:BLP (at WP:BLPSPS) is Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article.

    The key difference being WP: V says "as third-party sources" and WP: BLP saying "as sources of material".

    The question is should we change the text of one to match the other, and if so which one.

    Option A No change to either policy text

    Option B Change WP: BLP to match WP: V

    Option C Change WP: V to match WP: BLP

    Option D Some other change

    --Kyohyi (talk) 15:05, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • Withdraw/close. Why are we having this RfC? Where is the WP:RFCBEFORE? This appears to be an obvious fix (self-published sources by an article subject are routinely used for non-contentious information about themselves) and KoA fixed it.[3] There are no counter-arguments - indeed no discussion at all I can see. Thus, this looks like a purely bureaucratic RfC. Alexbrn (talk) 15:11, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Current BLP policy explicitly forbids self-published sources on BLP's unless they are from the BLP. The change you just made on BLP implicitly allows self published sources as long as they are not used as a third-party source. That is a policy change and should get consensus first. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:20, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    So the problem is what? Third-party use is excluded so ... ? Alexbrn (talk) 15:28, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The change is that non-third party use of self published sources on BLP's is going from being explicitly forbidden to implicitly allowed. That's a change and should get consensus first. Since this is something that affects policy that has discretionary sanctions tied to it, local consensus shouldn't be enough. Hence the RFC. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:35, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    How's it a change? Third-party sources are prohibited in BLP, just with different wording. Could you give an actual concrete example of something you think would now be allowed that wasn't before? Alexbrn (talk) 15:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, it doesn't say third-party sources are prohibited in BLP. In all actuality third-party sources are the preferred type of source. What do you think it means to use a source as a third-party source? Is it a Voice issue? The general policies that surround Third-party sources say that articles must be based upon them. Not that we can't use non-third party sources. There is no general prohibition to using non-third party sources, so this change now allows self-published non-third party sources. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, it doesn't say third-party sources are prohibited in BLP. ← third-party SPS, since this is what we're discussing. It says "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people". I repeat: could you give an actual concrete example of something you think would now be allowed that wasn't before? Alexbrn (talk) 15:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Just about any self-published source. Again, what does it mean to use a source as a third-party source? Non-third party sources are not forbidden anywhere on Wikipedia. The text doesn't say "never use Third-party self-published sources". Third-party self-published source would be a description of the source, "never use self-published source as a third-party source" is a description of the source, and a description of how it can't be used. Which implies there is a way it can be used. So how do we use third-party sources vs. non-third party sources? The only policy is that we can't base our articles on non-third party sources. This change no longer forbids use of self-published non-third party sources on BLP's. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "Just about any self-published source" ← no, only non third-party usages are allowed. I'm trying to understand what you think has changed by asking for an example. For the third time, please, just an example of a source/claim that you think would now be allowed that wasn't before. Alexbrn (talk) 16:37, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Alright, over at BLPN the Thacker discussion. What text in policy now forbids the useage of the Novella sources. I again ask the question, what does it mean to use a source as a non-third party? --Kyohyi (talk) 16:48, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "What text in policy now forbids the useage of the Novella sources." As Paul Thacker is a living person, and the 'Novella' sources are by Steven Novella, from Steven Novella's blog, hosted by NESS - an organisation Steven Novella is president of, both the text of WP:V and WP:BLP which you have quoted above prevents their use. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Congratulations, you've identified a self-published source as a self-published source. Now get to the part where we talk about what does it mean to use a self-published source as a third-party source. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah I'm out on this. This is either deliberate trolling or a failure to understand on a basic level, and I am uninterested in finding out which. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:31, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • (after edit conflict) Kyohyi, as Alexbrn's question seems to be worded in a way that you do not understand, let me ask it in a different way. Is there any difference between a third-party source and one that is not written or published by the subject of the article? Phil Bridger (talk) 16:52, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kyohyi: Novella's is an SPS and it's usage wrt Thacker would be third-party. So, contrary to policy exactly as now. Alexbrn (talk) 17:06, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If Novella is in dispute with Thacker about something, Novella and Thacker become first and second party to each other with respect to the dispute. Novella is not a third-party in that instance. They are potentially a person with an axe to grind. In this case with Thacker. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    How's that relevant? This is about sourcing, not imagined legal disputes with their distinct terminology. I put it to you, you simply cannot produce an example of what the wording change, would change. This RfC should be withdrawn or closed. Alexbrn (talk) 17:32, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Whether or not a source is third-party is now relevant because you've added it as a usage requirement to the policy text. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:36, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Third party and self-published are not the same thing. See WP: IS and WP: USESPS. --Kyohyi (talk) 16:59, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, we all know that, but it is not the question. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    A source from a person who is in conflict, or put another way whom has an axe to grind with the article subject would not be third-party. Especially if they are writing about the the topic in which they are in conflict. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "A source from a person who is in conflict, or put another way whom has an axe to grind with the article subject would not be third-party" ← yes it would. And if self-published would not be allowed for biographical content about a living person. Alexbrn (talk) 17:39, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    No it woulnd't because they are both parties to the dispute. A third party could be someone else commenting on it, but the two parties themselves are not third-party to each-other with respect to the dispute. The text in WP: V would allow that, the Original text in BLP would not. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In a (legal) dispute there may be "second parties". But this is about sources. The concept of a textual "second party source" does not exist on the English Wikipedia or in writing generally. If somebody is unaffiliated with a source it is a third-party source in respect to them. This is explained at WP:Third-party sources. Alexbrn (talk) 18:03, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm am more than willing to drop this if you can provide a single argument which can be linked to that would refute this argument here: [[4]]. (Specifically that SPS can be used) I say this because I know this is going to be argued on BLP's and the BLP version is explicit in what it forbids. Whereas the WP: V version needs interpretation and reasoning. Mind you, I don't agree with the argument I linked. --Kyohyi (talk) 18:45, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think it makes sense. But anybody arguing that you can use a SPS as a third-party source for biographical content about living people, is wrong on every front. Alexbrn (talk) 18:58, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    It might not make sense, but can you disprove it. Changing the text to match WP: V would mean we would have to rely on the interpretation of third-party in WP:Third-party sources to have the same effect as the original text WP: BLP. Third-party sources is an explanatory supplement, which has all the same weight as an Essay. So we go from relying on the text of a policy to having to rely on the text of the policy and the text of an essay. --Kyohyi (talk) 19:56, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Nonsensical things are not amenable to proof or disproof. If "third-party" is too difficult for some readers there may be merit in having the BLP text at WP:V too. Alexbrn (talk) 20:00, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I've noticed this too about Kyohyi's lines of comments and others trying to insist there are issues with V and R policy language on SPS sources in BLPs. It comes across as hand-waving that something is going to drastically change if we follow existing policy language the community has always been following, yet with no concrete examples provided (instead shifting the burden to others). It seems so odd that there's such a hard push against policy, yet when pushed actual issues that would justify C votes, nothing. KoA (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Kyohyi, maybe it would help if you made it clear who made that comment you just linked, or maybe even asked them what they were talking about instead of insinuating things and running with it so far as to start an RfC? There's a reason why Alexbrn said it didn't make sense, because you were taking me way out of context.
    The niche use I was alluding to in that case is described in WP:BLPPRIMARY: Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions . . . That language is in part why the community uses the independent/third-party language because it stresses the need for those kinds of sources, especially when an SPS is going to be mentioned significantly in a BLP in terms of WP:DUE. There are plenty of examples of that in articles when outside sources deemed an SPS said something noteworthy for the subject. KoA (talk) 03:09, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    My apologies for getting the exception you were going for wrong. However, under current wording on BLP, primary self-published sources would not be allowed. BLPPRIMARY says may, so sources which are primary but not self-published could be allowed under current BLP. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:13, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    BLPPRIMARY is policy and explicit that primary sources are possible to be used regardless of SPS or not when there is another accompanying appropriate source. Again, you're missing what our guidance is actually saying overall and kind of tilting at windmills as a result. That confusion could have been addressed at the policy page itself instead of launching a premature RfC. All other guidance in this subject is linked to focus on independent/third-party sources because we do have that very limited use where SPS can be cited according to policy and in long-standing practice. KoA (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Since BLPRIMARY subjects itself to BLPSPS (note "subject to the restrictions in this policy" BLPSPS is a restriction in BLP) I find it hard to believe that it allows something that BLPSPS forbids. --Kyohyi (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Option A. A dictionary definition of third party e.g. "a person or group besides the two primarily involved in a situation, especially a dispute" appears to suggest that a person in a dispute with the BLP subject is not a third party. I thank Kyohyi for bringing this up. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:53, 12 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option C: Originally I read those two sentences as meaning the same thing, under the interpretation that a third-party source was simply one not published by the subject, and was consequently going to vote for Option A. However, upon closer reading of WP:INDY, it seems like the wording in WP:V would technically also allow us to use self-published sources if they are engaged in a dispute with a BLP, which is obviously dumb and not intended. The wording in WP:BLP avoids this and so we should change the wording in WP:V to match it. Loki (talk) 05:50, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • C per Loki. The two intend to say the same thing but BLP says it better than V. We should avoid the use of the confusing jargon "third party", which means different things in different contexts. Levivich 16:37, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • While I think C is better than B (meaning, BLP's language is better than V), I would also be OK with D something else that said the same thing in a simpler way, such as "Don't use WP:SPS for WP:BLP content unless it's WP:ABOUTSELF." Levivich 19:21, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        ^ This. That's basically what we mean. (Only, for clarity, that's "content about a BLP", not "content that happens to be in a BLP article but which isn't itself about a BLP". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:36, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        Shouldn't pretty much all content in a BLP article be about the BLP? And if we've broadened what we can have in a particle BLP to be beyond the BLP itself should we allow self published sources that aren't by the BLP? --Kyohyi (talk) 14:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        "BLP content", which (WAID is right) is better said "content about a living person", doesn't only appear in a BLP article. There are non-BLP articles that still have "BLP content". Hence, WP:BLP applying on all pages, not just biographies. I think it's conceivable but rare that a BLP article might properly use some EXPERTSPS source for some fact that is not about any living person. (In these situations I always remind myself that the breadth of Wikipedia's topical coverage is far wider than my imagination, so it's nearly impossible for me to conceive of all possible situations.) Levivich 15:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        My concern is running into guilt by association and coatrack issues. Generally per WP: OR we have to include sources that are related to the topic of the article. In this case we're talking about a biography of a living person, so do we really want to include self-published content not about the biography on that biography? The opposite end would be if the article is not a biography, but has biographical information of people related to the article. I suppose it depends on how much of an article is a BLP, and how much is not, but I think if we present it primarily as a BLP we should keep to BLP sourcing. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:53, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        There are two potential holes in the policy wording:
        • Content in a BLP article that isn't (directly) about the subject of the article
        • Content in a non-BLP article that is about a living person.
        Both of these happen frequently, when we write about events, organizations, scientific research, products, etc.
        The second is easily handled: whenever you are writing about a living person, then you follow BLP standards no matter what the rest of the page is about. "Alice Expert discovered the genetic mutation" in an article about a disease – BLP standards for that sentence. "Paul Politician condemned the state of the world" in an article about a social problem – BLP standards for that sentence. Experienced editors already know this and do this.
        The first is not actually that difficult, but it might be harder to notice. Imagine an article about a famous politician or business person. The article will mostly be about the person (e.g., early life, education, personal life, things they said or did). However, some parts of the article might need to include relevant context, so that the reader can understand what's going on. An article about a senior politician, for example, might need to say something about the state of the country's economy, which isn't BLP content, so that particular bit needn't meet BLP standards. An article on a university professor might need to say something about how well the academic's theories were received, which isn't BLP content. An article about someone who invented a product might need to say something about whether the product is any good, or whether the company was successful, which isn't BLP content.
        It is not really unusual to have an article that is approximately half about a person and half about the band/company/book/thing they created. That's okay. Coatracks are a problem when the content that is hanging on to the ostensible subject obscures the real subject. We're happy to have an article that is about both Fiona Famous and her Famous Foundation; we are less happy to have an article titled Famous Foundation that is 90% about food insecurity. We've got an article about Food insecurity; we don't need a dumbed-down version of that information under another title. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • D - I have long felt that these clauses are both written - and, more importantly, interpreted - too broadly. I would support them if they were limited to sourcing controversial BLP material, or if they were limited to sources in dispute with a (BLP) subject. But currently these clauses prevent us from directly citing in memoriam blog posts about colleagues, and even ban self-published expert analyses of living authors' professional contributions (the latter may or may not be an intended reading of WP policy, but it is definitely used that way). So I would like to see both passages reined in, rather than setting one the same as the other. Newimpartial (talk) 16:49, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Am I missing something It looks as though we are discussing changes in at least one if not two of our major policies. Without mentioning it at either policy's talk page or WP:CENT. Am I right? Doug Weller talk 16:47, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      My apologies, I have added RFC notices to both policy pages. However I have no idea how the CENT template is supposed to work. --Kyohyi (talk) 17:51, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I listed it at WP:CENT. Levivich 19:18, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option C The clauses are intended to mean the same thing, but I agree with Loki and Levivich that C is clearer. If it's ever proposed, I would support (D) changing both to an imperative, such as "Self-published sources can only be used as a source of material about the person who wrote the source" (obv. word-smithing needed, of course). Schazjmd (talk) 18:06, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • This RFC and the related situation has a lot of issues and should probably be terminated. Maybe start by opening a discussion at WP:VER about adopting the BLP wording (Option C) North8000 (talk) 18:22, 13 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I made the original edit that triggered this, and I'll agree with others that this should probably be withdrawn/closed due to failing WP:RFCBEFORE. I won't have much time if any to respond to this more in-depth until the weekend. It honestly comes across more as steamrolling between blanket reverting already accepted clarifying language in policy even if they only disagreed with a small part of it in addition to jumping to a premature RfC. I do especially find it odd how even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer policy was reverted without any mention of it since, which is a pretty strong indication Kyohyi is rushing too much and glossing over a lot in the rush to make an RfC before there could be any input on its formation.
    When I was making the edit over at BLP, that was just intended as basic clarifying language that had already been adopted as policy on SPS's for years. Nothing to significantly change either policy, and if anything, strengthening the policy through clarification the community had accepted as policy. The whole point of the language at WP:SPS policy is answering why self-published sources don't have the standing to be used as independent or third-party sources, so it's unclear why editors would want to weaken BLP policy when both WP:SPS and WP:RS/SPS policies are already clear and stronger by using that language. WP:INDY (a high-quality supplement that is practically cited as a guideline) is clear on why we need to rely on good independent/third-party sources, as well as the nuances of that language. KoA (talk) 02:36, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    As an afterthought, let's play devil's advocate for a bit though and assume that the text clarification at BLP actually was altering policy on the page. In that case, reverting the change would be violating established policy at both WP:R and WP:V on SPS's in BLPs. If two different policies disagree with you about including the third-party/independent language, that's a major issue in trying to claim any sort of consensus, much less the extremely high bar of proof needed of actual issues two change two other policies that's lacking here. KoA (talk) 02:53, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option C/D. I would remove this wording: "unless written or published by the subject of the article". It is very common that someone publish highly promotional materials about himself; some of that can be even a misleading information. Let's say the current place of work can be incorrect, etc. One needs strong 3rd party RS for BLP. That is the idea. While using self-published views by an expert on the subject of their expertise can be OK in many cases, I do not think that using self-published self-promotional materials is OK. My very best wishes (talk) 23:41, 14 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option C/D. I think that the BLP wording may be a little clearer, especially for people who aren't sure how to go about Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works. However, I think that BLP's "unless written or published by the subject of the article" wording is overly restrictive. Imagine an article about a crime, e.g., Theft of Alice's sandwich from the office refrigerator. We would normally include a statement from any accused, e.g., "Bob denied stealing Alice's lunch", even if that denial is cited only to a social media post. The current BLP language technically says that you cannot use a self-published denial from Bob, about Bob, because "the subject of the article" is an event, not a person. That does not align with actual practice. The language should be changed to something like "unless written or published by the subject of the material". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option C/D: I take Newimpartial's view here, more or less; absent that, I'm sympathetic to WAID's. It's fairly absurd that we can't cite memorials on a university blog, to give one of the former's examples. (It's a lot worse a BLP violation to list a dead person as living for years, at the top of their search results, in the most prominent forum about their life, than to cite the SPS of someone who knew them well and can confirm their passing.) Vaticidalprophet 19:35, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Can you give examples of BLP subjects who are notable, who died, and for whom we had no sources about their death except an SPS source? I didn't realize this was something that happened. Levivich 19:36, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        • "As far as we can tell someone is dead, but the RSes are absent" happens often enough to have come up barely a month ago, with reference to other cases as well. Both referenced cases there are just ones involving Wikipedians and their friends, so unusually likely to make it to high-profile backstage areas. It's a perennially tricky subject that tends to get wrapped up in both SPS issues and BLPPRIMARY issues. Vaticidalprophet 19:44, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
          • Thanks. Does this just happen with the death of BLP subjects or does it happen with other key facts, too? I'm wondering what kind of "D" language would cover this issue. Levivich 20:09, 15 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    One caveat with university "blogs" is that they often aren't actually blogs in the traditional sense. The third sentence of WP:BLPSPS covers this in the context of news orgs using blog in a slightly different sense (for better or worse), and the same model applies to many universities even if it's lesser known. It would really depend if it's a personal blog vs. the university owned one that would generally have oversight. KoA (talk) 01:05, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    University "blogs" might not be blogs in the traditional sense, but they are not the same as blogs by a news org. A university blog might be best classified as a press release. You can {{cite press release}}, and you can {{cite blog}}, but you can cite them only for information about living people who could be considered "themselves". For organizations (everything from the most storied of academic organizations down to the scummiest of snake-oil sellers, and encompassing every kind of for-profit and non-profit organization in between), we normally interpret "themselves" as including anyone who works for them. Thus you can cite a self-published, self-interested source that says "Big University is delighted to announce that Prof. I.M. Portant has discovered that water is wet" about the living person, I.M. Portant, but you cannot cite such a source about people not belonging to the organization (e.g., "thus proving once and for all that his rival, Author Itative of Little University, is all wet").
    Back to the example here, one could cite an official university source (whether that's a blog managed by the publicity department or a press release, but perhaps not a social media post by a fellow colleague) to report the death. I wouldn't recommend using such a source for glowing information.
    If you are interested in this subject, then do please read Obituary and make a mental note about the difference between "a news article" and "a paid advertisement". Everything at, e.g., Legacy.com and its competitor falls into the second category. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This is probably going on a tangent at this point for this RfC, not I'm not referring to university press release style blogs, but actual news (typically science news or educational material) they put out. Usually that's through extension.[5] Often times they'll also mention retirements, deaths, etc. of researchers at the university, though that can vary. That's a very different setup than say a researcher's personal lab blog that really is often more of a personal blog. KoA (talk) 04:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    This is still information written by the university and that the university makes available to the public. It is still self-published by the university. Fortunately, we interpret instances of an employer writing about the employer's own employees (e.g., a university self-publishing a message about an employee's retirement or death) as an instance of ABOUTSELF. Those sources are just plain old self-published blogs and are acceptable sources for any BLPs who are part of the organization that is writing and publishing the material about themselves.
    A WP:NEWSBLOG is not a blog that contains news. A NEWSBLOG is a publication by a normal news media organization that happens to use a blog format (or at least that they prefer to market as a type of blog). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, the type of university news blog posts I am describing are what you just described for news organizations. Still mostly a tangent for this specific topic though, so maybe something best discussed on talk elsewhere if it interests you. KoA (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Just for clarity: the equivalent sort of publication, posted on the website of any organization that is not a news media organization, does not qualify as a NEWSBLOG under Wikipedia's rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:07, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • B followed by A and D. Insisting on C across all other policies instead of changing the single line at BLP is just WP:NOTBUREAU as others have mentioned, and weakens or ignores BLP policy itself. I didn't consider it a big deal, but still helpful, when I made that edit at BLP originally, and opposition to it (C), seems to be glossing over our inter-related policies and missing key details. Tl;dr at the bottom for skimmers.
    Here's what is added to the BLP page (italics) + the IS wikilink when it matches the language at all other policy pages that say what we do with SPS sources at BLPs: Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer, unless written or published by the subject of the article.[6]
    There's nothing wrong with the long-standing accepted language at WP:V and WP:R policies, and it only strengthens the single line at BLP that doesn't use it. Withdraw/close is really my first choice above for being so out-of-process with WP:RFCBEFORE at the BLP page and attempts to avoid even starting discussion, but it doesn't hurt to clarify what policy actually says here instead of the skimming past what the actual history was.
    Functionally, it doesn't change anything in policy implementation by adding it to BLP for those that actually read through the web of connected policies, but it gives clarification behind the why of how SPS are an issue, and adds stronger language about it not mattering who the SPS was written by. I'm also amazed people have been trying to remove the expert, professional researcher, etc. bit from BLP when it was added too. Here's actually what the policies say:
    • V policy at WP:SPS: 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. Noting that V is a core content policy, and is generally considered stronger than other non-core policies and can't be overridden so readily.
    • R policy at WP:RS/SPS uses the same language except it says independent sources instead of third-party. WP:IS is one of our main policy supplements (really surprised no one has bumped it up to guideline yet) making it clear we generally treat third-party/independent as interchangeable on Wikipedia. The take home message there instead of someone hyper focusing on the language is we want sources that are independent and distanced from events or primary sources, regardless of BLP or not.
    No one should be opposed to stressing why third-party/independent sources are so important. What that language stresses is that SPS sources don't have the standing to be considered distant or independent enough, so they are functionally treated like primary sources. Anyone who's worked in WP:MEDRS areas would know what kind of aversion I have to primary sources, so the wild claims that already existing policy is going to allow widespread SPS's across BLPs is pretty unsubstantiated. As other's have said responding to those claims, since you can't use an SPS source as a third-party source, then what exactly are you going to use it as? Hint, you're not going to be able to just plop an SPS in to a BLP so easily, and that's why functionally nothing changes aside from strengthening against possible wikilawyering by having more explanation the community has already approved in policy.
    What existing policy does is essentially reduce SPS's to primary sources we already can't use carte blanche in any plain meaning. The reason why V and R policy use the independent/third-party language though is both because SPS don't meet that, but also because BLP policy does have a carveout that the community regularly uses, WP:BLPPRIMARY: Where primary-source material has been discussed by a reliable secondary source, it may be acceptable to rely on it to augment the secondary source, subject to the restrictions of this policy, no original research, and the other sourcing policies. If something mentioned by an SPS, and another reliable source mentions it in a WP:DUE manner, the SPS can be cited alongside the secondary source as verification/supplement in that limited fashion. This is already how the community approaches this issue.
    That's why C would be a dead-stop no because it would conflict with other policies, including parts of BLP. That's how the independent/third-party language links into to many other core parts of our editing policy and creates a solid web of strong BLP policy instead of having a single line of BLP that some people may focus on while ignoring the other parts of policy that discuss it.
    Tl;dr for B.
    1. Multiple policies use stronger language than BLP (including core content policies that have higher standing), and the single line in part of BLP is largely the lone wolf of policies commenting on BLP SPS's.
    2. It's longstanding approved policy language that only adds clarification to BLP and shouldn't be controversial.
    3. Third-party/independent only strengthens why SPS use is restricted.
    4. If someone disagrees with B's language (though I'm open to things like D), that means they're disagreeing with what practically every other policy on BLP SPS's have to say and is an extremely high bar to overcome.
    5. BLP policy itself actually does allow SPS citation in very limited instances when secondary sources are involved, so technically current BLP language isn't technically correct in that one line. B fixes that while adding stronger language.
    6. B has already been policy for years and hasn't caused the widespread SPS use some C !votes are claiming since it doesn't change what we functionally already do.
    7. This RfC's formation really isn't suited for tackling what lead to this or focused enough to manage widespread D options. KoA (talk) 00:58, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • No change required because both sentences already say the same thing. 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. [i.e. independently written ['third-party'] SPS are not acceptable sources for BLPs] vs. Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article. [i.e. SPS are not acceptable sources for BLPs, unless they are written by the subject of the BLP themself (and, one would hope, to avoid issues with WP:PRIMARY, also mentioned in an independent secondary source as well) - i.e. if they are not "independently written"]. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:24, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    As already addressed above, your parenthicals aren't quite accurate. SPS sources are not acceptable independent standalone sources, but they can still be cited in niche uses, namely through WP:BLPPRIMARY. The only reason I bring that up is to avoid kneejerk wikilawyering that comes up when people sometimes cherry-pick the single line from BLP policy and ignore other parts of BLP policy or other policies where the mere presence of an SPS, even if with accompanying secondary citations, is an automatic revert for them. KoA (talk) 17:53, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Honestly, that was also my impression of all this after I initially updated the single line in BLP to match other parts of BLP and other policies on this subject (option B technically). The push against that, especially adding existing language about being an expert, well-known professional researcher, etc. not being an exception to it, really seems to running afoul of WP:NOTBUREAU policy. In all my time doing copyediting or matching up language on policies/guidelines, I've never seen anyone try to undo uncontroversial changes essentially because that exact a language wasn't used in that exact line of policy even though the exact language exists elsewhere in policy. KoA (talk) 18:14, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Phil Bridger: Seeing that you wrote your comment mentioning "current wording" after the BLP status quo ante wording had been restored, that looks like support for Option A. If I misinterpret, please contradict. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:52, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    My statement is in support of closing this discussion and getting on with editing the encyclopedia, which is none of the options above. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:57, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option C. Clearer than the current WP:V wording (even if both are intended to mean the same thing) and reflects widespread current usage and consensus. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:55, 25 January 2022 (U(UTC)

    RfC: Abolish the current version of NSPORTS

    Original question:

    Abolish the current version of NSPORTS. This page, far from being rules of thumb which some editors choose to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to keep an article, does not help the decision process, but actively hampers it. Examples are countless of one group of editors (whether it be football, olympics, or plenty of others) arguing that an article should be kept because (correctly or not) its subject "passes N[some random sport]" or that "sportsperson from long time ago, there WP:MUSTBESOURCES"; and others correctly arguing that the existing coverage is not sufficient to write an encyclopedia article (as opposed to a database entry). This leads to needless conflict, pointless AfDs and DRVs, and above all bureaucratic waste of time. Abolishing this guideline and falling back directly to GNG would also help in reducing issues of WP:BIAS and the disproportionate amount of (usually white, male, European) sports figures that are included, as well as make policy more understandable to newer and more experienced editors alike by avoiding issues of WP:CREEP. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 16:13, 19 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Sorry, everyone. I hope this quick split didn't cause any edit conflicts for anyone. This discussion is approximately the length of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Your comments are still wanted (honest!), but novel-length RFCs need to be split off of this page, especially when they've only been open for a week and are still growing by the hour. The RFC bot will update links soon. Please go to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Sports notability to continue the discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:26, 26 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Support I think it is high time we applied GNG to sports people. I also think we need to avoid mass redirecting in cases where we determine people are not notable. To my mind a subject specific guideline should be used to guide us in cases where GNG would lead to over inclusion, not to include articles that do not pass GNG. For example, without the oolitician notbility guideline we might on GNG grounds keep any article on any politician who ran for an office at a level that would have multiple papers writing substantial articles. We have instead decided that it is not reasonable for us to include every past failed candidate for national legislatures. In the sports criteria too often the bars have been set insanely low. We finally tightened the Olympic guideline to medalist. However this is still sweeping a lot of people who barely have any coverage. Yet, we still have a whole slew of other guidelines, such as the one on Equestrians, that say all Olympic competitors are default notable. For cricket we allow articles on anyone who played in a " First class match" even though we know many such people we know nothing on outside of the match reports. For some sports we will include anyone who played one game in a fully professional league. Beyond the low inclusion bar these guidelines lead to people creating and leaving for years articles that say virtually nothing about the subject. It means the project is drowning in articles not backed by reliable sources. We need to change things. Scrapping the guidelines entirely would be a good start.John Pack Lambert (talk) 04:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposal expanded

    For those with this page but not the Sports notability subpage on their watchlist, two new sub-proposals have been added since it was split off. One of these has been SNOW-closed, but the other would welcome your input. BilledMammal (talk) 05:16, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Allow new edits to talk page archives

    REJECTED
    Clear consensus against this. PrimeHunter (talk) 06:35, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    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.

    Archived discussions on Wikipedia talk pages and centralized discussion boards come with the boilerplate advisement urging editors not to add new replies to archived discussions. This is not a policy or a guideline (at least not one mentioned here), but is still a rigorously enforced community norm.

    I believe this advice no longer holds. I believe the original purpose of this advice was intended to avoid the possibility of newbies inadvertently posting replies where they have little possibility of being read. However, this is less of a problem now. Logged in users have had the ability to @mention editors since 2014. Also Discussion Tools, a beta feature (Preferences → Beta features), allows logged in users to subscribe to replies (This even works on archived discussions. I checked.). There are times where it would be entirely appropriate to keep a thread open without unarchiving; for example, when an editor is informing participants in a certain WP:TECHPUMP discussion that a bug has been resolved. I suggest that the wording on talk page banners be softened to advise that archives are not regularly monitored, that edits to archives should be reserved to those of a housekeeping nature, and that new queries would be better addressed in a new thread. Schierbecker (talk) 23:29, 20 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Not necessary. The reason old threads are archived is because usually, the discussion has run its course (and many of the editors might simply not be interested in the topic anymore, or, if its from quite a while ago, they might not even be interested in Wikipedia anymore). In almost all cases, it is more helpful to start a new thread than to comment on an archived one (and if need be, reference can always be made to the old one). Threads being too rapidly archived on high activity pages can be solved with either an adjustment of the archiving time, or the well-placed use of {{dnau}} if this only applies to rare cases. Note that, in practice, none of this prevents the usual non-controversial minor fixes to archived threats, and a change on that ground would be unnecessary, either. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:30, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Occasionally it is appropriate to restore a discussion from the archive if it was still ongoing when the archiving happened, or it would benefit from formal closure (e.g. to know what follow-up action needs to be done). See WP:VPPRO#RFC: New PDF icon for a discussion where I did that - consensus was clearly for some action but it got archived before that happened so I restored it from the archive, requested formal closure and then proceeded to start the next step. Thryduulf (talk) 02:02, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • No. Discussions that drag on and on drive away good editors because only the truly invested care enough to argue forever. Johnuniq (talk) 02:23, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • No. This is a bad idea. Archived discussions put long-simmering disputes to bed, and force the community to move on to more important productive things. Allowing edits to these would mean that no discussion is ever gone, and a massive amount of editor time would be wasted on zombie disputes which are already resolved amicably. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 15:45, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Commenting on a thread in an archive would not be helpful or welcomed. The usual approach is to make a comment in an appropriate venue, and link to the archived discussion, or if the discussion was recently (and perhaps prematurely) archived, to unarchive it. That is what currently happens, and it works fine. Archived threads are not watched, and only occasionally and randomly read, so participants to the discussion would not be aware of a new comment unless they were pinged. If an addition to an archived thread would be of interest to only one or two people in that discussion, then a comment directly on their user talkpages would be appropriate. If the addition is perceived to be of interest to the majority, then rather than awkwardly pinging everyone involved to come to a discussion which would largely be unseen by the rest of the community as it would take place in the archive, it is far better to unarchive the discussion, or start a new one. SilkTork (talk) 11:21, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Users sometimes find decades old discussions in the archives from a search and want to comment. Often, these are way out of date and the problem they are addressing has long been solved in the actual article. This also happens on the main talk page of articles that have very low traffic, and hence discussions that were opened years ago. I don't think it is helpful to encourage people to waste there time replying to such stuff. SpinningSpark 18:03, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • No way! - this destroys the entire point of an archive: to preserve the record of the prior discussion. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:11, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • No. Certainly not. Archives are just that, archives of a discussion that has finished. Any new information should be addressed by starting a new discussion, linking to the archived discussion, or in a minority of cases moving the archived discussion back to the relevant talk page. We should not be relying on new-fangled social-media-inspired things like "pinging" to guess which editors are currently interested. We should use the tried and tested method of watchlists to make sure that anyone who wants to see a discussion does. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • No Absolutely not. Once consensus has been reached, that consensus is documented in the archive. Consensus can change, but not by changing the record of the discussion. It requires a new discussion, so that we can refer back to previous outcomes. Vexations (talk) 19:05, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • No - the refactoring of old discussions in the way described by Silk Tork allows old issues to be reopened with a lower risk of the kind of incivility Shibbolethink fears that is genuinely damaging to the productive mission of the encyclopedia. It might be possible to make our archives more accessible but this exact change I'm pretty sure would not be an improvement. — Charles Stewart (talk) 19:12, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose: There've certainly been times that I wanted to get in the last word. I can't think of many occasions (if any) where it was necessary that I got in the last word. Ravenswing 05:55, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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.

    Blocked from the Spanish language Wikipedia: questions

    Hello. I hope this is the appropriate place to ask this. I mostly edit and have edited here in the English language Wikipedia but occasionally also make edits on the Spanish, Hebrew, and French language sites (much more rarely, in a narrower range of areas, and for not as long). But I recently found that I had been blocked from the Spanish language page for 8 months for "long term abuse", here: https://es.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Especial:UsuariosBloqueados&wpTarget=%23644778

    This is to me shocking and confusing because I have never engaged in that and also never seem to have gotten a notification when it happened or saw any kind of investigation mentioning me there (I'm not sure what the policy is on that). Does it mean they think I am a sock puppet or sock master? (I am not.) I do not know but it is very distressing. I have been editing, mainly here on the English language site (I am a native English speaker living in and from the US) for longer and on a wider range of topics, and I believe I could be described as being in good standing. I am don't understand what I could have done on the Spanish site to cause this. I just now submitted an unblock request there. One question I have is whether this might cause me to be blocked on this (the English) site or others (such as the French) where I am not currently blocked (or affect my ability to edit on those/these sites). I am quite worried and not sure what to think about this. Any help is appreciated. Thank you Skllagyook (talk) 21:15, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    You have not been blocked. The link in the above shows a large range of IP addresses that have been blocked, presumably for long term abuse. That happens when you share an ISP with a bunch of abusers. You need their equivalent of WP:IPBE which appears to be es:Wikipedia:Exentos de bloqueo a IP. Johnuniq (talk) 22:14, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Johnuniq: Thank you. That is a relief. When I tried to edit it said I was blocked. For some reason I thought (though I'd read) the phenomenon you described above only applied to IP users that edit without an account, which I don't do (but I'm really not very tech savvy). Where in the link is the range of IP addresses? I can't seem to find it. I will try to pursue the exemption using the link you provided. In your opinion, should I also cancel or delete my unblock request? Thank you again. Skllagyook (talk) 22:28, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If my understanding and google translate are correct, then an unblock request is the way to go, though you may wish to make explicit in it that you've not been personally blocked, but just sideswiped by a hard IP one. The block is on 2607:FB90:0:0:0:0:0:0/33, which is the range 2607:fb90:0:0:0:0:0:0 to 2607:fb90:7fff:... 109.255.211.6 (talk) 23:10, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    To @Johnuniq: and the IP user who replied above: Thank you. I added that to the unblock request, and included the links above (and asked whether I should request an exemption per the second link). I posted the unblock request to my personal Talk page there (on the Spanish Wikipedia). Is that the correct place to post it? Skllagyook (talk) 03:57, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Your Spanish talk page is es:User talk:Skllagyook. That is the place to ask for assistance although you may need to wait patiently. Johnuniq (talk) 04:17, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    To my untrained eye it looks like you've covered it there. As Johnuniq says, it may take as long as it takes, but hopefully the es admins will get to you in due course, possibly with questions or clarifications. Good luck in your quest. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 04:40, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    To @Johnuniq: and the IP user. Thank you both. Skllagyook (talk) 05:51, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Johnuniq: Also where in the link/page (that I gave above) is the range of IP addresses you mentioned? Thank you. Skllagyook (talk) 06:10, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    That's in the boxes at the bottom, in the second one from the left. "Destino \\ 2607:fb90::/33 (discusión)" Assorted online tools will expand that out to an interval of IPV6s for you. BTW, the perp whose shrapnel you're getting hit by seems to be: Wikipedia:Long-term abuse/Dog and rapper vandal (or else there's a coincidence of IPs between them, at least). 109.255.211.6 (talk) 06:42, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you.Skllagyook (talk) 12:10, 23 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Criteria for Speedy Draftifying

    Hi everyone, I recently found out a proposed policy change being drafted 6 years ago on which no work has been done since. Under this proposal, CSD criterion A1, A3, A7 & A9 would become Criteria for Speedy Draftifying. I find this proposal extremely helpful for newcomers if enacted, as newcomers (which I was one about 18 months ago), lack understanding of Wikipedia's policies and Speedy deletion of their hardwork causes them to perceive WP as a hostile platform and we miss out on whom could've become a great editor in the future. For example, unreferenced articles aren't speedy deleted as there might be scope for improvement (see WP:Perennial proposals § Delete unreferenced articles), and deleting it was perceived as biting newcomers. Here too, A1, A3, A7, A9 could be considered as biting too, in contrast to draftification which allows them to improve their article while they continue to learn new rules and apply them accordingly. I would like to propose it here, so that other editors can comment to amend or expand on this proposal, and if it gains consensus, it be enacted. The said proposal in its detailed form can be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Reforming Wikipedia/Draftifying. (If this proposal belongs to WP:NEWCSD, consider moving it there and please ping me too.) Thanks! ---CX Zoom(he/him) (let's talk|contribs) 11:58, 24 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I understand the core of your proposal to be the following (copied from here): A1, A3, A7, and A9 would no longer be valid reasons for speedy deletion, but they would become valid reasons to immediately draftify an article. This is not a good idea. New page patrollers already have wide latitude to draftify any new article they believe has some potential merit, but for whatever reason doesn't meet the standards for mainspace at this time—see WP:DRAFTIFY and WP:ATD-I. However, there are some new articles that are about topics that are simply not suitable for Wikipedia, and it is often clear that we should not be encouraging further development on some of these articles. This is especially true for A7 and A9, as no amount of editing can overcome a lack of notability (I'm aware that A7 and A9 are not about notability, but rather a "credible claim of significance"; this is, however, a lower bar than notability). By draftifying, we would often be wasting the new editor's time and the community's time. Instead, to mitigate the biting effect of the speedy deletion, we should encourage new page patrollers to encourage the new editors to read help pages like Wikipedia:Your first article after they request speedy deletion.
    As for A1 and A3, you do have a point that ideally such new articles should be draftified if it is clear that the new editor is here in good faith but doesn't really know what they are doing. Fortunately, with the advent of WP:ACPERM (which was not a thing when the historical proposal you mentioned was first conceived), the frequency of A1- and A3-qualifying articles has dropped significantly, since brand new non-autoconfirmed editors are forced to use draft space before creating articles directly. Still, I think it would be beneficial to preserve administrative discretion in A1 and A3 cases—oftentimes, we should be encouraging new editors to edit existing articles before taking on the challenge of writing a brand new article. Mz7 (talk) 06:46, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we need some concrete numbers. I agree that some ventures are unsalvageable, but it's not a big problem if recourse becomes more to draftify than to delete. Drafts get deleted automatically after 6 months of no work, and the editor usually stops working if they too realise what they're making isn't fit for the project. I'm not sure how much of a strain this would be on contributors, so I don't have a concrete opinion on this proposal yet.
    I can't say correlation is causation, but I've seen new editors often ending their contribution if what they've done is quickly tossed. Competence is required, yes, but no one is proposing standards to be lowered. You say that we should encourage new editors to edit existing articles instead of writing new ones, but at the end of the day, volunteer work is self-directed. As such, we should try getting as much benefit out this as possible. So I think this proposal may help. Dege31 (talk) 19:48, 30 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In my opinion, if a patroller is not sure whether a topic has potential then they should be neither marking it for speedy deletion nor sending it to draft space. The latter in most cases is just a sentence to slow death by G13 – new editors don't often watchlist stuff and even if they do, they don't often return to Wikipedia to check their watchlist. If the article is grossly problematic then it should be sent to AfD where it can be investigated more thoroughly, otherwise, better to leave it in mainspace where there is at least a hope that an interested editor might stumble across it and improve it. Sending to draft should only be done if we are sure that the creator or another editor is going to work on it in the near future. Draftifying as a backdoor deletion method is academically dishonest. SpinningSpark 16:02, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "AFD is not cleanup". If an article is grossly problematic, but the topic may be notable, it is better to send it to draft space (where it has 6 months) than to AfD (where either it will be deleted after 7 days instead, or the nominator will be berated for using AfD for cleanup). Perhaps we "should" use AfD for cleanup, but arguing that people should do that "now" when it goes against AfD policy is not good advice either. We just have a big hole between draft and AfD where problematic articles can pollute the mainspace for way too long. Fram (talk) 16:10, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Then I withdraw the suggestion to send to AFD. I can't agree that draft is the solution for potentially notable articles for the reasons I have given. And CSD should only be applied to articles the reviewer is certain about. SpinningSpark 17:48, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with Spinningspark about the problems with this proposal for A7 and A9 and I'm similarly unsure about A1 and A3, but what about A11, concerning 'Obviously invented' material? This material is typically better quality and the problem that draftspace is the best solution for is CoI editing. — Charles Stewart (talk) 22:44, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      The problem A11 is addressing is not COI. The editor clearly will have a COI, but that is not a criteria for speedy deletion (or any deletion for that matter). The problem being addressed is that the topic has just been made up/invented by the author and consequently cannot possibly be notable. It should be deleted if you are sure of this, and if you are not sure, it should not be sent to draft to die. If you are not willing or equipped to do a proper investigation, then leave it alone until someone comes along who can. SpinningSpark 23:21, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Bulk move request: "Equestrian" at the Summer Olympics

    An RfC about the above matter is currently ongoing at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Sports#"Equestrian"_at_the_Summary_Olympics. Your participation would be welcome. Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:17, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Mandatory retirement/maximum age for admins?

    This is clearly not going to happen. Thryduulf (talk) 22:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    The recent failure of theleekycauldron's RfA has demonstrated that once again the community will as a practical matter deny adminship to anyone an unemancipated minor in their native country notwithstanding policy's deliberate silence on this issue. No matter ... a discussion for another day.

    But this has gotten me to thinking ... if we have a de facto minimum age for admins, with project-space essays arguing for and against, there is no reason we shouldn't be discussing what our maximum age for admins should be. Advancing age, after all, can be as much a detriment to the judgement we value in admins as adolescence.

    We have not discussed this issue, as far as I can tell, because we really haven't had to face it yet. Most of us are not at the point in our lives where every moment is a senior moment. But Wikipedia has been around for two decades, and it looks like it will be around as long again, at least (Certainly we all work for that). It has carried many of us from one phase of our lives to another, as everything else around us has changed or may have changed.

    And as the march of time continues it is only fair to stop and consider that we the core members of the community will not ourselves last forever. I may not feel old a little past the half-century mark, and I can certainly see myself at this point giving another 20, perhaps 25, good years to Wikipedia, but ... at some point, barring the development of mind-uploading technology or something else sufficiently singularitarian there will come a time when I and my cohorts here will have to consider whether we still have what it takes to handle the tools; we won't be the first and we sure won't be the last, either. Or, worse yet, some circumstance may force this on one of us, and the community may have to consider an emergency desysopping of someone it never would have imagined so needing that even a year or two earlier.

    We have a handful of Wikipedians who identify as being over 80, and while some of them edit regularly and productively it does not appear that any of them are currently admins (Bduke cited his age as the reason for resigning the tools about 15 months ago) It does not appear that anyone in their 90s currently edits. We have had a couple of self-identified centenarians in the past; one seems to have been trolling and was blocked over a decade ago, the other edited minimally a few years ago and, judging from the userboxes, also may well have been a troll.

    At what age might we want to mandate that admins retire? It would be a good idea if the community considered this issue well in advance of matters coming to a head over something regrettable, and having to make a decision on something with long-term consequences in the hot rush of a crisis as we have wound up too often having to do. Daniel Case (talk) 04:34, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    As you mention, I made my own decision on resigning the tools, but I am not sure how we can advise others. Maybe there are places where we could suggest that admins aged over 65 (retirement age in my country) should reflect every year or so whether they are still up to using the tools in a sensible way, but I do not see obvious places to do that. We do not ask admins how old they are when appointed so we can not do it automatically, but maybe we should ask new admins how old they are and store it for use over the years. --Bduke (talk) 04:51, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • Well ... trying to draw any sense from the festering mess that is RfA has been a mug's game for fifteen years or more; able and worthy editors have been shot down for "rationales" a great deal more threadbare than being a minor. But I've a couple thoughts. First off, Daniel, aren't you being a little bit pointy in muttering about the implied injustice in turning down a potential admin on the grounds of age, and then turning around and suggesting mandatory desysopping on the grounds of age? Secondly, we're all aware of the long-term hemorrhaging of admins. There may be surer ways to provoke both mass resignations of current admins and deterring prospects to step forward than to require that they all submit verifiable proof of age, but none that comes to mind offhand. Ravenswing 05:07, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think simply raising topics for discussion is what WP:POINT is aimed at. I allow that TLCs's age wasn't the only issue that tanked her RfA, but I am not sure that the issue of that one userspace page title would have generated quite so many opposes had she been in her mid-30s.

    But I still think if we are going to deny people the tools on "too young" grounds, we cannot then dismiss offhand any idea that there might also be a "too old". And I think Bduke's resignation shows that it will be a real issue in years to come. Not soon, but not inevitable. Daniel Case (talk) 05:16, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and we are not handing out driver's licenses, voter registrations, permission to buy alcoholic beverages or forcing airline pilots to retire. We should assess candidates for administratorship and older existing administrators the same way: What is the evidence that this person is consistently acting in the best interests of the encyclopedia? I am rapidly approaching age 70 and am acutely aware of the disabling effects of aging which I have witnessed among my own relatives. But I am also aware that these disabilities develop far earlier in some people and far later in others. I have lost several relatives to Alzheimer's that became evident in their 70s or early 80s, but had another relative who was fully lucid and rational at age 97. If my judgment deteriorates. I would expect negative feedback from experienced good faith editors and in my current frame of mind, I would resign the tools. If my judgment became so seriously impaired that I refused to retire, I would expect that ArbCom would remove the tools, and I encourage them to do so. We have a shortage of administrators, and I am pretty productive. So, should I lose the mop at 70? 75? 80? When? Implementing any such proposal would require mandatory disclosure of the date of birth of all adminstators and candidates, and I truly doubt that the community wants to go down that path. Cullen328 (talk) 06:17, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Daniel Case: Cullen is right. How were you planning to prove how old all of us are? Without outing? Doug Weller talk 12:52, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Doug Weller: Many of us (myself included, as that phrase of course implies) do voluntarily disclose our ages. Certainly an admin candidate who doesn't does not have to. But people have asked anyway at RFAs (and if they find other evidence suggesting the candidate is a minor, they immediately use that as evidence the candidate is dishonest and therefore ought not to have the tools). If we're serious about not letting age discrimination be a factor in how we choose admins, we ought not to count any oppose !vote that solely uses the candidate's age as a justification. Daniel Case (talk) 20:30, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    @Daniel Case: Now that you’ve said this, is it possible that the reason you’ve made this suggestion is basically to make a point about Theleekycauldron’s RfA? Doug Weller talk 20:36, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    As we don't have a working mechanism to promote new admins, I don't think we should introduce mechanisms that could lead to active admins losing their bit. —Kusma (talk) 06:35, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    At least, we promoted one new administrator today. Cullen328 (talk) 06:41, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Net loss of three this week I believe. —Kusma (talk) 06:58, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    My grandfather retired at age 90, having sworn he wouldn't work a day past his ninetieth birthday. By contrast, my ex-wife's mother (previously a sharp and incisive woman) contracted Alzheimer's at age 60 (two years younger than I am now), was institutionalized at 62, and dead of it at 64. No doubt many of us could come up with similar disparities within our own experiences. Ravenswing 08:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    theleekycauldron's RFA failed because of lack of editing experience (less than a year), not because of their age per se. Some also mentioned lack of maturity in their opposes, but these were based on the editor's behaviour, not on their age. On a quick skim through I didn't see anyone opposing on the grounds of age, but I'll admit I could easily have missed some. User:Ilyanep became an admin at the age of eleven so as an objective fact we do not have a minimum age for admins. SpinningSpark 07:20, 2 February 2022 (UTC) (full disclosure: I'm 68)[reply]
    Ilyanep was made admin in 2003, when they had only a month's tenure and <300 edits. That RfA could hardly be any less useful in establishing whether the community in 2022 has a minimum age it will accept for admins. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:55, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    TBH I agree that how people's mental faculties age varies widely. But ... imagine hypothetical situations where an admin starts acting bizarrely and out of character, and we may question whether letting them retain access to the tools for the near term is a good idea. Do you not think that this would get a lot more consensus more quickly if the admin was in their 80s than their 30s? (This actually did happen with one admin who was in his 20s at the time, that I know of; he got the tools back without an RfA a couple of years later and this has not happened again). Daniel Case (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose Given that there is no requirement for any editor to reveal their age - a principle I wholeheartedly support, and am willing to defend to my last breath - it is simply impossible to actually implement this idea. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:29, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Not impossible, I suppose. Just ruinous to attempt, and suicidal to the project to implement. Quite aside from this factor: how many of our administrators come from nations that are repressive, which restrict/ban Wikipedia altogether, or which have state apparats monitoring edits? Requiring that they submit proof of age would abolish any vestige of anonymity ... unless, for instance, Wikipedia wants to change its policy on editing-via-VPN (and thus making life delightful for sockers the world over).

    Ultimately, I think anything of the sort is a solution in search of a genuine problem. Ravenswing 08:20, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I did not suggest requiring proof of age. I grant that it might be implicit in my wording, but it was not my intent and I would oppose requiring that. Daniel Case (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Even if this were a good idea, this is not going to be enforceable. One's age is personal information that we cannot and should not compel editors to reveal. Moreover, advanced age does not always result in impaired judgment. We should continue to require evidence that an administrator has actually disrupted Wikipedia before removing their access, especially considering that the project is currently in need of additional administrators. Mz7 (talk) 08:55, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • We need to trust that the community will act appropriately if and when an admin progresses past the age of reason and isn't acting rationally anymore. If we stop trusting admins to give in the mop when they realize they're not up to the tasks anymore or the community to take the mop away when it's evident the time has come, the essential trust that underlies adminship here is broken and it all breaks down. On a small aside, and as I mentioned in the RfA, summarizing the opposes as merely and unilaterally age-based is inconsiderate both to the actual concerns raised by the opposes and the deep admiration many of them described for the candidate's work so far. It's an easy and attractive rationalization for the ever-increasing standards at RfA, but I don't think judging it that way is beneficial. Just my two cents, of course. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 09:50, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "We need to trust that the community will act appropriately if and when an admin progresses past the age of reason and isn't acting rationally anymore." Agreed, but that hasn't happened yet as far as I know. And I am—yes—not sure it would at the moment. Daniel Case (talk) 20:23, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Yet where an admin or candidate has chosen to disclose their age, it is considered by some if they are a minor, regardless of whether it can be shown to be a factor in their judgement. And they don't even have to deliberately do it ... people at RFAs have been known to pull up random diffs from talk pages that suggest the person is a minor in order to justify an oppose.

    If an admin candidate disclosed that they were over 90, say, I'd like to see how many people would use age to justify an oppose then. Daniel Case (talk) 20:23, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    I would oppose an upper age limit for the same reason as I oppose a lower age limit. The only factor should be a user's actions, not age. Obviously unenforceable too and it's disappointing to see a 16-year-old picked on because they chose to disclose their age. NemesisAT (talk) 13:39, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    +1 Daniel Case (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. Daniel Case (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Even setting aside the impossibility of effectively enforcing this, mandatory retirement is appropriate for positions where either a) even one mistake is fatal (e.g. driving, pilots, etc.) or b) it is nigh impossible to remove someone from the position through popular objection in the event of consistent bad decision making by the incumbent or where there is insufficient regular oversight to ensure that mistakes are caught in time. Neither of these conditions are true for admins. signed, Rosguill talk 16:21, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Close this as trolling People are spending time commenting on this in good faith, unaware that Daniel Case is just trying to make a point, and this is not an actual proposal. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:05, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      Which may be whe he hasn’t answered my direct question about this. Doug Weller talk 21:18, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Snow close I'm having a hard time seeing this as a good faith proposal, it seems very WP:POINTy to me. Time to put this discussion out of its misery. --Ahecht (TALK
      PAGE      ) 21:09, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose. I don't actually think this was trolling, but either way, I'm happy to add one more snowflake to the pile. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:14, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose Even if there was support for mandating minimum/maximum ages for administrators, there is no practical way to ascertain the age of any editor. You could ask everyone to just tell us how old they are, but obviously that's not a particularly fool-proof method. Even if you required every admin to send in a picture of their government-issued identification, there is no way to know whether that ID actually belongs to the editor, or if it's the ID of one of their parents, or older sibling, or friend. Besides which, asking WP editors to positively identify themselves would likely cause a drastic drop in editor count. If you're looking for ways to drive even more editors away from running for adminship, requiring them to submit proof of their identity would be at the top of the list. I oppose setting any minimum/maximum ages for anything on WP. However, if someone volunteers their age, that doesn't mean we're not allowed to use that information to make decisions and form opinions. If someone running for adminship says they're 7 years old, I'm going to oppose based on that information. If that same 7 year old doesn't volunteer their age, I'm confident that the community would find enough evidence in their editing patterns to determine that they're not mature enough for the role. Same goes for people of advanced age. If someone volunteers that they're 115 years old and they're an admin, we might want to have a community discussion about whether that person should still have access to admin tools. If that same person doesn't volunteer their age, I'm confident that we'd find evidence of their declining mental acuity in their editing patterns, and that should be sufficient to recommend a desysop. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 21:19, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Close this as trolling: I rather resent Daniel Case having claimed uptopic that he was setting forth a serious discussion, instead of trolling us with a deliberate straw man, and then hitting us with "Exactly." This merits a trout slap, and possibly will provoke some healthy skepticism the next time he makes a proposal. Shame. Ravenswing 21:21, 2 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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.

    Updates on the Universal Code of Conduct Enforcement Guidelines Review

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    Hello everyone,

    The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees released a statement on the ratification process for the Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) Enforcement Guidelines.

    The Universal Code of Conduct (UCoC) provides a baseline of acceptable behavior for the entire movement. The UCoC and the Enforcement Guidelines were written by volunteer-staff drafting committees following community consultations.

    The revised guidelines were published 24 January 2022 as a proposed way to apply the policy across the movement. There is a list of changes made to the guidelines after the enforcement draft guidelines review. Comments about the guidelines can be shared on the Enforcement Guidelines talk page on Meta-wiki.

    To help to understand the guidelines and process, the Movement Strategy and Governance (MSG) team will be hosting Conversation Hours on 4 February 2022 at 15:00 UTC, 25 February 2022 at 12:00 UTC, and 4 March 2022 at 15:00 UTC. Join the conversation hours to speak with the UCoC project team and drafting committee members about the updated guidelines and voting process.

    The timeline is available on Meta-wiki. The voting period is March 7 to 21. All eligible voters will have an opportunity to support or oppose the adoption of the Enforcement guidelines, and share why. See the voting information page for more details.

    Many participants from across the movement have provided valuable input in these ongoing conversations. The UCoC and MSG teams want to thank the Drafting Committee and the community members for their contributions to this process.

    Sincerely,

    Movement Strategy and Governance

    Wikimedia Foundation

    Xeno (WMF) (talk) 03:26, 4 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Do rules deserve to clear, unclear, or what?

    For example, WP:NFCC#8 is supposed to be clear, which is what I've perceived for years. However, from what I've seen, minimal interpretations seem to allow some content to be kept more than such interpretations should or shouldn't. Or, the whole "contextual significance" thing has been hotly debated and interpreted differently. Also, I am seeing a latest proposal on NSPORTS, yet I don't feel like participating there right now. Sometimes or most of the times, I have sought for clearer and stricter rules because I like to follow, but then WP:NOTBURO comes into play as well. So are WP:PAG and WP:IAR... and WP:NOT... and WP:5P. I've been advised and advised to seek consensus, but I know for a fact that most proposed rules haven't succeed very much or at all mostly due to instruction creep or whatever else I couldn't describe. Well, some proposed rules have received consensus and succeeded. Also, WP:consensus comes into play as well, but I had been unsure whether to trust what has formed a consensus... Maybe I'll try to trust or follow the consensus or something. I just like things simple, tidy, and whatever. Getting into complicated situations, like drama of unclear rules, have stressed me out sometimes or a lot. George Ho (talk) 11:47, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    One of the things I learned as a student of linguistics is how much native speakers of a language can disagree on what a simple word means. No matter how much you try to clarify the wording of a statement, there will be people who understand it differently than you do. One reason law courts use such stilted language is that the legal meaning of the set phrases has been hammered out in repeated legal rulings. In Wikipedia, we have to settle for a statement meaning what a rough consensus of participating editors say it means. - Donald Albury 16:19, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    "settle for a statement"... When I attempted that a few or several years ago, there were just I and another editor, and no other people participated or were interested in what was discussed. To this date, I haven't bothered drafting a proposal on the same issue. Maybe situations vary as always? --George Ho (talk) 17:44, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Reality is not simple and tidy, so Wikipedia, which needs to reflect reality, cannot be simple and tidy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:48, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Well... Reality is described in many ways. I guess same for Wikipedia, which is, indeed, in the real world. George Ho (talk) 23:26, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    See WP:ENGVAR for another example of this, where there is a dispute over whether it applies to toponyms as well as vocabulary, spelling, and grammar. BilledMammal (talk) 00:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    On This Day

    No policy changes are needed for this, OTD is one of least bureaucratic processes for Main Page content. Editors are welcome to contribute to the pages, preferably with some lead time so that experienced admins can review them before they get protected around the time they are displayed. Further directions and guidance for this area is available at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries. — xaosflux Talk 16:46, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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

    I propose that the 'On This Day' section of the Main Page should be open for nominations, and Wikipedians should reach concesus on what to post. Hcoder3104 (talk) 14:22, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Feel free to edit Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/February 10 or (perhaps better) add suggestions on the talk page (and so for every other date). Fram (talk) 14:34, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, per WP:NOTBURO, the process is working as is, @Howcheng: does a very good job of keeping things working smoothly, and WP:ERRORS tends to catch any obvious problems before or shortly after posting. What is broken with the process that would require adding additional levels of bureaucracy? --Jayron32 15:16, 7 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    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.

    Ban draftifying articles more than 30 days old

    Pretty much the title. The community has discussed this before, but draftification is not meant to be a backdoor to deletion. We've had discussions on this before where we've made it clear as a community old articles shouldn't be draftified without discussion.[7] However, the spirit of this consensus has been completely ignored in practice. Recently, I undid the draftification of Dancing satyr, an article created in 2004 that was "draftified" by a patroller and received practically no work on it. This is inappropriate. Here two created in 2005 including one that went through the original AfC process in 2005: [8] [9] Here's some more made in 2006: [10] [11] [12] I could link dozens of extremely old articles being draftified with practically no discussion whatsoever, simply by searching Special:NewPagesFeed, switching to the Draft namespace, and sorting by "oldest" unsubmitted.
    For the reason that we have really old articles being draftified by many different reviewers, I think we need to make our expectations clearer about what "new articles" means in the context of draftification. I like to propose that anything over a month old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD. Reviewers do not appear to be interpreting the intent correctly and we need a firm rule on the matter. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:42, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    • Support as proposer. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 22:42, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose no, just because an very poor article is 31 days old, if someone might want to work on it to get it up the minimum standards I can't see any reason to refuse letting an AFD for example close as "Draftify". — xaosflux Talk 23:07, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @Xaosflux: This proposal doesn't ban that. I'll bold it in the statement so it's clearer, but the actual proposal is "anything over a month old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD" All I want to ban is draftification of old articles WITHOUT community consensus. If someone wants to AfD an article and it closes with draftify that's totally OK. But right now patrollers are draftifying decade old articles that have 0 chance of being worked on. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 23:46, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      @Chess: thanks, from the title, and the "pretty much the title" it didn't seem like as much as a carve out as a new brightline. I've struck my oppose, and don't have a strong opinion on it otherwise. I wouldn't support a "ban" on bringing an article back to draft if the authors agreed on it though, nor require them to AFD themselves. — xaosflux Talk 23:50, 8 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support, if the creator of an article that they are the only substantial contributor to is not prevented from draftifying their article under this. We have several procedures by which an article can be deleted; silently moving them to draft space is not one of them. BilledMammal (talk) 00:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose as written, I would support a longer period, such as ban moving articles older than 90 days to draft without an AfD decision to do so. I think 1 month is too short; not all new articles are reviewed in the first 30 days. Schazjmd (talk) 00:12, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. Will streamline Wikipedia processes and reduce backlogs. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:13, 9 February 2022 (UTC).[reply]
    • Oppose as written, I would support a longer time. Wikipedia:ATD-I says this process should be used for "newly created" articles. I have seen other discussions where editors consider six months or less to be "newly created". I would agree with that or at least three months. 30 days is too short. MB 00:28, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose as written there is generally a backlog of several months at NPP and it can easily take three months for a new article to be reviewed, though a shorter period is normal. 90 days would be more workable for this proposal than 30. On a separate point re the very old articles that have been draftified - if a very poor article was created in 2005 it might have been redirected in 2009. Along comes someone in 2022, undoes the redirect and makes no improvement. The article then goes into the NPP queue and may be e.g. completely unsourced. I agree that draftification in this kind of case should follow an AfD decision. Mccapra (talk) 00:41, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose as written raise to 90 days, and I'll gladly support this. This is easily my biggest pet-peeve on Wikipedia, and having to go through User:SDZeroBot/Draftify Watch every week and slap over-zealous reviewers is getting really annoying. Curbon7 (talk) 01:04, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support as modified so that articles may be draftified on initial review or otherwise in the first 60 days. Robert McClenon (talk) 04:02, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support as modified I'm fine with 60 days or any longer period under 6 months. Certain editors have been massively misusing draftification as a method to force articles onto AfC. If you think an article isn't notable, then PROD it or nominate it for deletion. If it is notable, but is lacking references or anything else, we have tags and templates for that. Draftification is an incredibly lazy action to take, trying to make the article somebody else's problem. SilverserenC 04:10, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose as written - I've supported the longer timeline below Nosebagbear (talk) 09:54, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support I have also been concerned about draft being used as a means to delete the article without the scrutiny of AfD. NemesisAT (talk) 10:01, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    See Chinese Wikipedia CSD O7:
    O7: Abandoned Draft.
    Any drafts that is being idle for 6 months
    • The "Draft" means:
      1. All pages in the Draft namespace; or
      2. Userpages with the {{AFC submission}} template.
    • When determining the last edit time of the draft, maintenance and bot edits should be ignored.
      Wiki Emoji | Emojiwiki Talk~~ 11:44, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Proposal to ban draftifying articles more than 90 days old without consensus

    Since most of the people opposing have supported a longer period, I'd like to propose that anything over 90 days old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD. I'm putting this in a separate section so we can get more clarity on what the consensus is. Chess (talk) (please use {{reply to|Chess}} on reply) 04:53, 9 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    RFC about Draftifying old articles

    I'm not sure if Legobot "requires" a new section to do its dark bidding, so starting a new section to be safe, and someone more well versed with the bot can probably edit this section/tags accordingly.

    This is a RFC on the Village Pump Policy, started by User:Chess. The proposal is 'I'd like to propose that anything over 90 days old should be ineligible for draftification without consensus at AfD. More details and explanations, as well as current !votes can be found above.

    Soni (talk) 11:33, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Why RFA/RFB use a voting system?

    Hi, I am a Wikipedian from the Chinese Wikipedia. Chinese Wikipedia, when the community is just created, applied a lot of English Wikipedia policies. Nowadays, for some reasons, the Chinese Wikipedian Community is having a lot of differences from the English one, thus a lot of policies is no longer suit the Chinese Wikipedian Community. For example, some Wikipedians are thinking of "Why RFA/RFB uses a voting system while other roles (for example, Rollbackers) uses a simple consensus system?"


    However, Jimbo Wales said that sysop is just like normal Wikipedians:

    Becoming a sysop is not a big deal.
    — Jimbo Wales, [WikiEN-l] Sysop status


    So, why does RFA/RFB use a voting system, that's different from the other roles? Wiki Emoji | Emojiwiki Talk~~ 11:26, 10 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&oldid=1071008924"