Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 104.32.193.6 (talk) at 01:56, 13 April 2015 (→‎How to inform editors of a variance in WP:RS standards?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"WP:VPP" redirects here. For proposals, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals).
 Policy Technical Proposals Idea lab WMF Miscellaneous 
Shortcuts
The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.
If you want to propose something new that is not a policy or guideline, use the proposals section.
If you have a question about how to apply an existing policy or guideline, try the one of the many Wikipedia:Noticeboards.
This is not the place to resolve disputes over how a policy should be implemented. Please see Wikipedia:Dispute resolution for how to proceed in such cases.

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



Promotional username policy

After it was pointed out by HJ Mitchell in the question section of Jakec's RfA, the general practice at the UUA is to mark promotional account who haven't edited and/or haven't edited in a promotional manner with Wait until the user edits. and deny the report. However, this is not in line with the policy at WP:ISU which doesn't give any sort of provision for if an account hasn't edited or edited pages directly related to their name. If you go to the UUA this is extremely apparent, and I belive either the policy should be corrected or administrators should act in line with the policy. Therefore I propose that the first bullet point of the policy be amended to read "Usernames that are simply names of companies or groups are not permitted if the editor's edits are promotional in nature." -Kharkiv07Talk 13:13, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • The practice evidently varies because I'll block shared use usernames on sight regardless of whether they've edited. If the aim is to disallow edits which can't be attributed to a single person then I don't see why I'd wait for them to edit and then block. I disagree with the proposed changes too, if the username is that of a company or group it doesn't matter whether their edits are strictly promotional or not, shared accounts simply aren't allowed. Sam Walton (talk) 13:19, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm with Sam Walton, the proposed change muddies the policy by creating an "out" for non-promotional shared accounts, and that is contrary to the policy. I see no reason if an account obviously implies shared use that we would wait for the group to edit. Admins should enforce the policy as written. Ivanvector (talk) 14:35, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

At WP:CORPNAME there's a provision that says "A user who both adopts a promotional username and also engages in inappropriately promotional behaviors in articles about the company, group, or product, can be blocked.", is that not the opposite of WP:ISU? It says and, implying that that's required. Kharkiv07Talk 16:11, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's not at odds with WP:ISU, though, and I thought that's what you were asking about. An account with a promotional name might turn out to be unrelated and contribute constructively, so admins need to evaluate the user's edits before determining that it's a promotional account. For an obviously shared account, there's no reason to wait - shared accounts are simply not allowed, promotional or not. Ivanvector (talk) 16:22, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also commonly block shared/promotional account names with no edits or with edits related to their organization. The only time I may grant a little leeway (in the form of a warning to rename within 48hrs or face a block) is if the user has made explicitly positive contributions and retention becomes more important than strict rule application. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 16:26, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • If a username is not editing promotionally, there is no way to know the intent of the user. Also, inactive accounts are not blocked by matter of course. This is all spelled out in WP:BLOCK, which states "Blocks should be used to...prevent imminent or continuing damage and disruption to Wikipedia" (bold mine) an account which has not edited, or which is not being used anymore (recently) is neither imminent nor continuing. Also, if it hasn't done anything we don't know if it is disrupting Wikipedia. We should only block to stop accounts which we have evidence is currently disrupting Wikipedia, not by what they did some time ago and stopped doing, and not by what we guess they might do. --Jayron32 00:56, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Case : "A" using promotional name on en.wp, and he spam/promoting on other wikis, he don't get blocked on en.wp because he never made spam/promo edit on en.wp but his account got locked by m:Stewards for spamming, This idea is so useless, there are also other wikis that Instantly blocked any user with Company name attached to their account. User account name should be handled on case by case basis.--AldNonUcallin?☎ 10:43, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some editors in this discussion appear to be conflating promotional and shared accounts, but they are different (if partially overlapping) concepts. WP:ISU says that "usernames that imply the likelihood of shared use are not permitted". WP:ISU itself doesn't explicitly say that these accounts with forbidden usernames should be blocked, but the blocking policy states: "Some types of user accounts are considered disruptive and may be blocked without warning, usually indefinitely", and the bullets listing these types of account include shared accounts and "inappropriate usernames" (linked to the username policy). So I think that HJ Mitchell's statement is contrary to policy as currently written (although my main objection at the RFA was to Harry's answering a question addressed to the candidate). --Stfg (talk) 11:12, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • From my experience, accounts with promotional usernames are single purpose accounts interested in writing only one article - their own. If their company's article doesn't survive CSD A7 or G11 (and they generally don't), any block of the account is generally superfluous. On the rare occasion they do, such as User talk:Kenny Crookston, I feel a more compassionate approach is better. In that case, the editor got himself renamed and unblocked, all was well, but equally he could have said "screw this for a game of soldiers" and left. Sure, if somebody is adding blatant spam repeatedly, or is not obviously one person, or doesn't respond to polite requests to rename their account, then block them, but give people a chance first. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:45, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • If I'm reading the OP correctly, there seems to be some confusion of the fact there is a difference at the base level between what is a promotional username and what is a implied shared use. WP:CORPNAME says that a promotional username like Bob@DunkinDonuts is allowed since it doesn't imply shared use. I repeat, those promotional usernames ARE allowed per policy unless the user only edits to put up an advertisement about their local branch of Dunkin' Donuts. WP:ISU says that usernames that are just the name of a company or organization are generally not allowed unless they fall under the WP:ISU#Exceptions. While blocking clearly ISU usernames after checking for exceptions may be fine in most cases, please do realize you are accountable for your actions and blocking such a username that was grandfathered may result in unnecessary drama. I didn't read any of the other replies because I'm in a hurry, and apologize if I am repeating what someone else may have said. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 12:00, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I havn't read everything either but, Technical 13 comment is spot on. AlcoaUSA is promotional and implies shared use, so is ResearcheratAlcoaUSA "as such a post may be held by different persons at different times" while MarkatAlcoaUSA is perfectly acceptable, as the account is clearly owned by Mark (an individual). IMHO a Upol who has not edited should be blocked regardless, because at that point it does not matter how the account edits the name is still a upol. Encouraging the user to change their name is always the best way to go, blocking the upol account is a good way to help them decide if they're WP:NOTHERE Mlpearc (open channel) 18:14, 4 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • We should always consider promotional usernames in light of the idea that the person may have been or may someday be fired and may use the freedom of expression I would like all editors to enjoy to say things that might embarrass the company. When we look at a name like "MarkatAlcoaUSA" (I use this as a general example; I know of no such person or issues!), we should think, what will we say if Alcoa comes to us complaining that he said in a discussion that "personally, I think Hitler had the right idea..." or that he's on Commons posting behind-the-scenes educational images of a porn movie studio. I mean, we want editors to have a neutral point of view, which means they have to be able to have a neutral point of view, which means, if we would be at all vulnerable to giving in over claims that Mark is "demeaning Alcoa's trademark" or "misrepresenting the company" when he is being provocative, then he must not be allowed to edit with that username even if he is presently only ever saying things with a more conventional slant. Now I think we might do that with MarkatAlcoaUSA, saying that it's not our problem if one of their ex-employees decides to be embarrassing to them, but I have some doubts. Definitely it seems unlikely with "AlcoaUSA" or something more generic that we'd feel comfortable leaving the account to continue with that name, so we shouldn't let it start. In general companies should understand that by not letting an individual get his own password and right to represent the company however he wishes, we are doing the companies a favor, even if we seem to be standing in their way. Wnt (talk) 17:17, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question confuses "promotional" with "shared use", and thus cannot be answered. However, I add this case to consider: Someone creates User:Andes Development Company. It makes no edits. How do you know that this is one of the many businesses with that name rather than an obscure reference to science fiction? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:29, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Improve automated reduction of images

We use a bot to automatically downsize images. A bot decides what size an image will be, and in most cases there is no way of reverting it by users. I opened up a discussion at WT:BRFA but none of the users who approved the bot have responded.

There is very little oversight, and it means that free use images such as File:Slacker-logo-black-official-2015.png get reduced to an arbitrary 100,000 pixel guideline (which isn't even close to being policy). Read and comment on the proposals here. - hahnchen 23:25, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not hugely thrilled with the bot doing that. Though others will disagree, I think there are some cases, where having the larger image available for zooming is potentially a good thing. For example, if there is a software screenshot that someone created on their 1080p monitor and the bot reduces it to 300 pixels wide, that renders it completely pointless. I think that photos, album covers, and movie posters are pretty non-controversial for downsizing. But the rest of it? Not so much.
Resizing logos, on the other hand, is an absolutely ridiculous endeavor. I challenge anyone who disagrees to ask yourself WHY we downsize fair use images. Think about it for a minute. There are at least three reasons: (1) We don't want to replace the copyright holder's use for the image. When Warner Brothers puts a high-resolution movie poster on their website, they do so in order to attract visitors to their website. (I think that would be obvious.) So when we host the high-res version here, you no longer have to visit the movie website to download it and so we're replacing the copyright holder's purpose for their image. (2) We are building a free-content encyclopedia and don't want to be your go-to repository for non-free content. We want to wow you with our free content photos and how amazing they are, not with our photos we're using under a claim of fair use. (3) US law says that a consideration for determining fair use is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole" and so we're trying to use a lesser version of the copyrighted work.
None of those three reasons for reducing image sizes are at all applicable to logos. Resizing a logo is simply a pointless waste of time. --B (talk) 02:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. Per WP:LOGOS, Logos uploaded to Wikipedia must be low-resolution and no larger than necessary. There is no reason to have high-resolution logos on Wikipedia, certainly not in the case linked above. Relentlessly (talk) 16:58, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
What is the reason the guideline says that? It says it because it's parroting the fair use policy. While you are correct that there is no reason to have high-resolution logos on Wikipedia, there is also no reason not to. It neither helps nor hurts, either in terms of fair use law or in terms of our desire to minimize non-free content. IDEALLY, we would create SVG images from all of them (SVG images are vector-based and have no resolution). That allows the logo to be perfectly rendered at whatever size it needs to be for the article. --B (talk) 17:16, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The reason to use low resolution images is to keep our use of logos as far from the line as defined by US fair use law, which as one test is the amount of copyright-taking the unlicensed use has. The lower the resolution, the less copyright taking we do. Further, the far majority of logo use on WP is just to tie the visual look of the logo to the name the logo represents, with zero discussion about the visual aspects of the logo. It is there for identification, and nothing more. This can be done with a low-resolution image (eg no wider than 300px). --MASEM (t) 17:20, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly how does using a low-res version of a logo keep us far from the line of what is valid fair use under US law? Unlike a picture, where you derive entertainment/enjoyment/whatever from looking at the picture, and hosting a low-res version is less likely to compete with the copyright holder, that's not a thing for logos. And blindly resizing logos can have scaling problems where it winds up distorting the logo or hiding important visual elements. If we have a 1000px logo that is being displayed at 225px and the bot decides to resize it to 300px, then that can create display issues. (It's not great for a photo either, but it's potentially worse for logos.) Again, the ideal scenario is we have an svg and then all of the concerns go away. --B (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fair Use law in the US is a defense, not an affirmation of allowance of use, that is based on evaluating the unlicensed use by 4 different tests. How well all four tests overall are met is used in case law to determine if copyright infringement did occur. So, for us, we want to make sure that we keep well inside the general bounds set by these tests. One of those tests is how much of the work that we are using. If the original image is a very high resolution raster image, then rote duplciation of that image on WP could potentially be a problem legally for us as we are taking the entire image at full resolution. A low resolution version of the same image makes the fair use defense much stronger. And no, we make no distinction between logos and, say, movie posters, because the law doesn't make this distinction either. It's a copyrighted image, so we'll use low resolution raster images for all purposes, with some limited exceptions when high fidelity is needed in conjunction with sourced discussion. --MASEM (t) 18:52, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"And no, we make no distinction between logos and, say, movie posters, because the law doesn't make this distinction either." Actually it does. Factor #2 is "The nature of the copyrighted work". So while obviously copyright law does not spell out specifics, this does at least tell us that there would be different rules for different kinds of copyrighted works. Factor #4 is "The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work". Since the kind of logos we're talking about (organizational logos) have no market value (in the same way that a photo potentially has a market value), there is an obvious distinction between what might count as fair use for a photo vs what might count as fair use for a logo. Fair use of a high-resolution photo (or movie poster, etc) has the potential do damage the market value. That just isn't a thing for logos. Bot-resizing of raster logos is simply a solution that solves no problem and has the potential (even if only in very few cases) to make an image display poorly. --B (talk) 19:17, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yet, if visual elements of the logo are not the subject of discussion, there is absolutely no reason to use a 1000px version when a 300px version (which is the largest that will be displayed inline in nearly all cases) will serve the exact same purpose - simply to help connect the visual logo to the entity to the reader. So it makes no sense to change the rules for logos and create a way for people to game the system for other works. (For example, I can easily see people arguing things like video game covers should be treated as logos to ask for larger images). We are not here to offer pretty , non-free pictures, unless they are absolutely necessary to discuss in conjunction with the text. --MASEM (t) 20:25, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Let's be clear what I am talking about. I am only talking about automated bot resizing of PNG organizational trademark logos. None of these concerns are applicable if you have any kind of scanned image. I don't think that a 1000px should be preferred over the 300px - rather that it doesn't matter. What does matter is that you only want to resize things at most once. If we have a company logo and we're going to display it in exactly one article at 240px and an svg is unavailable to us, then we should take the camera ready logo from the company's website, resize it to 240px, and upload it at 240px. That's fine. But what isn't fine is when we take a 1200px image, resize it to 1000px, a bot drops it to 300px, and then we're really using it at 240px. So it's getting resized three times and losing detail potentially each time. --B (talk) 20:35, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Because of how thumbs works, and the rather strong insistance that we don't format to pixels but to the page to allow users and device to set the image size, we are always going to have the "last step" resize that we cannot avoid, and may introduce some raster reduction artifacts. The issue is when people do upload an image at 1000px or 1200px which needs not be anywhere close to that size for WP's purpose. That needs to be resized to ~300px to meet policy and the expected use. If the bot reduces the larger to the small image with poor artifacts we can always reup a version that is manually resized right, but I've yet to see a bot produce a smaller version that has these types of artifacts. --MASEM (t) 20:42, 2 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • A lot of the discussion above is off topic and to do with general non-free guidelines. The point I'm making, is that there is no oversight of this bot. This bot removes information from Wikipedia, there is no way anyone would allow something to happen like that without oversight had it been text content, but it gets away with it because it's images. The examples here show free use images being irreversibly downgraded, it shows images that are barely resized at all, a process that does nothing but introduce artifacts. - hahnchen 12:27, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Again, it's not the bot's fault that editors decide to tag an image at 0.15MP for reduction. That's a problem with editors being far too picky about NFC which does not have those requirements. You should be calling out those editors that are being hard-nosed, though as noted, having a soft level where the bot should not operate even if the non-free reduction tag is present would help to prevent this type of misuse. But it still ends up being a human problem, not a bot problem. --MASEM (t) 04:03, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      • A bot that reinforces and magnifies bad editing is defective by design. You could have a bot that rev-deleted {{citation needed}} content from BLPs, and it would work as designed, but it places too much trust and not enough oversight on editors, and so would be defective. - hahnchen 11:52, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like somebody's trying to have it both ways. It's perfectly OK for the bot to reduce anything to 0.1 megapixels without human intervention, but it ought to be up to us poor fallible creatures to try to decide when the reduction is actually insignificant? Nonsense. Just program the damn bot not to try to reduce any file that is under 0.2 megapixels. It's not like the number is etched in stone, or in law, somewhere. This would give editors some incentive to hand-reduce the images with more attention to artifacts, in order to get a little extra resolution out of them. Wnt (talk) 17:28, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would completely support a limit like that. The old DASHBot wouldn't resize anything smaller than (I believe) 0.16 megapixels, but the current Theo's Little Bot only uses a 5% threshold, meaning that it would reduce a .105 megapixel image to .1 megapixels, which is not only pointless but severely detrimental to image quality (see Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Theo's Little Bot for the relevant discussion). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:43, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The point is the bot does not work unless a human tags the image. This is not a fully automated task, and were that the case, I would fully agree that that's a bad thing. But because the bot is responding to the human tagging of an image, it is the human judgement if the image was missized to start with. And that's when you get bad cases - like if a 0.15 mp image is tagged. If the same editor is doing this, that's a behavior problem to be dealt with, not blamed on the editor taking advantage of a pre-approved bot task.
I'm not against a "won't resize" threshold, or some additional parameters that take more human interaction that demonstrate competence in knowing when a resize is necessary/appropriate, but does need to be like 0.15 or 0.2 mp where the bot should not do anything (beyond remove the tag and note it doesn't operate at this level). --MASEM (t) 21:57, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To make a less radical change, I'll amend my above threshold to the 0.16 mp status quo ante. If an editor wants an image below that reduced, there is sufficient risk of a bad tradeoff between artifacts introduced vs. resolution reduced that he or she should do it manually. Wnt (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality in articles

We should aim to use neutral words in articles way WP:NPOV. It's important to state no one's opinion at all but rather the true facts backed up with sources. So, for example words such as 'good', 'excellent', 'wonderful' should be avoided but also negative terms like 'bad', 'horrible', 'annoying' are also should best avoided.

In example: Mosquitoes are considered an annoyance to many. This is an opinion, so it should be replaced by something like, Mosquitoes are (length) long and weigh (weight) and lay eggs. Any questions? Antiv31 discuss 00:28, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We already have this enshrined in policy. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch which covers exactly this, as well as all sorts of other words we try not to use. --Jayron32 01:45, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Those words are fine so long as they are attributed to the person/organization who said them rather than treated as facts. The following is a bad sentence: "The game is bad". The following is a good sentence: "Editor of Rolling Stone said the game was bad". --Izno (talk) 20:57, 5 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It is interesting to me that you would pick the mosquito as an example of how not to use negative adjectives. Some researchers claim that the mosquito is responsible for the majority of infectious disease related deaths on the planet. It would be hard to put a positive spin on that.
  Bfpage |leave a message  15:14, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Requesting feedback on a new reliable sourcing essay

Motivated by some recurrent questions and misunderstandings at RSN, I've written an essay about reliable sourcing guidelines. The intent is to supplement policy pages (which are very bullet-point oriented) with guidance on identifying which policies are at the crux of an issue in a given case. I could particularly use feedback on two questions:

  • First, is what I've written an accurate reflection of policy? Some of the things I say are, by design, divergent from instances I've seen of policy applied in actual practice; however, they should adhere to policies as written and as applied in best practice.
  • Secondly, is it helpful? The hope is that someone having read it would be less likely to (innocently) engage in policy shopping or forum shopping out of ignorance, and instead cut to the heart of the matter.

Here is the essay. Rhoark (talk) 00:33, 7 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhoark: After reading your essay, I think it is an accurate reflection of the policy. I find it helpful because it is very thorough in interpreting the policy. It even gives example of how various mediums are explained in the policy. Hope this helps. Sam.gov (talk) 22:43, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for a large-scale merge and splits in ARBPIA area

I made a proposal to refactor many (at least tens of) articles dealing with timeline of Israel-Palestine conflict. I would like as many people as possible to comment to be sure that there is no major objection. “WarKosign” 14:24, 9 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Should another move request at Hillary Rodham Clinton be permitted?

It has been noted at Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton#Fair notification of pending RM that some editors intend to file a new move request within the coming weeks proposing to move Hillary Rodham Clinton to Hillary Clinton. Since 2007, there have been nine move requests made for this article (including one proposal to move to Secretary Clinton and one to move to Hillary (politician). Of the requests that have been made, six were fully considered, and three were speedy-closed. Following the most recent request, closed by a three-admin panel in April 2014, a moratorium was put in place by consensus of the community, prohibiting any further move requests until February 2015 and placing a minimum content threshold on move requests made until February 2017. At the time, it was argued that a potential candidacy by the subject might shift public perceptions of the subject's common name.

However, following the placement of that note, an editor has stated:

After a point this just becomes like an AfD, when partisans nominate and re-nominate and re-nominate an article year after year, hoping that the Wiki-Slot Machine will come up in the combination of editors and closing admin(s) that will produced the result that they already think should happen. This is gaming the system.

gaming the system is something that we as a community do not permit, so if the community in general feels that permitting another move request to be made does, in fact, constitute "gaming the system", then such a request should not be allowed. I therefore request a determination of the consensus of the community as to whether a new move request should be permitted.

It is important to dispose of this issue before any new move request is initiated. If the community agrees that a request should not be permitted, this will prevent the initiation of an improper request. If the community agrees that a request should be permitted, this will allow the discussion to focus on the merits of the request itself, and avoid tangential discussions about whether the discussion should be permitted. bd2412 T 19:07, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support allowing a new move request at Hillary Rodham Clinton

  1. Support. The moratorium has expired, and there are an additional year's worth of data points to consider. bd2412 T 19:10, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support consensus can change, though this does seem awfully frequent, there is no harm in it happening again. I didn't know this was a debate, having joined Wikipedia after the most recent request, but will definitely participate. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 19:12, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support - the restriction on move requests was clearly defined and has clearly expired. Wikipedia is a collaborative project; we must prefer discussion to unnecessarily restrictive bureaucracy. Ivanvector (talk) 19:16, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support - that restriction has expired, and WP:CCC. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:31, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support. Quite clearly, a decent majority of editors believe there is a problem with the current title. This will become even worse when Clinton starts her presidential campaign. The moratorium has expired and it is now time to sort it out. 31.54.156.31 (talk) 19:36, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support The current title has never had consensus and banning discussion is no substitute for a collaborative process. Timrollpickering (talk) 20:24, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support - Per Cwobeel. Expired and WP:CCC. NickCT (talk) 20:27, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support As others have said consensus can change, the moratorium has expired and the last discussion ended as no consensus, not a consensus for the current title. Davewild (talk) 20:29, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support Consensus can change and it's very much necessary that it can change to better suite the needs of the encylopedia. WP:NOTBURO as well. Tutelary (talk) 21:18, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support with the caveat that the moratorium returns immediately upon the results of this one being enacted. There's no harm in an occasional discussion and a consensus check. But the last batch of move requests seemed to be an attempt by some to "win" their side of the dispute by brute force. That helps no one. So, the logical solution is to allow a one-time check, and then return to a moratorium for another year or so. --Jayron32 21:22, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Jayron32:, in fairness to the editors who have initiated the previous discussions, almost all of them were started by editors who were not aware of the previous discussions. This just happens to be a topic for which editors coming across it are inclined to think that the title needs to be changed. It will probably continue to be. bd2412 T 21:59, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support - There doesn't seem be a valid reason for not allowing a move request discussion now. I don't think that gaming the system is a factor at all.- MrX 21:28, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support allowing the Requested Move discussion, Oppose the proposed Requested Move destination. — {{U|Technical 13}} (e • t • c) 21:52, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support Outside the US the current title just seems odd (maybe inside too). Johnbod (talk) 21:57, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support. Consensus (by any reasonable standard) was in favor of the move at the most recent request. Maybe when Hillary Clinton runs for president again as "Hillary Clinton" people will drop the notion she prefers something else. Calidum ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 22:42, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks like Hillary Clinton is running for president, as Hillary Clinton. So what's the rationale for not allowing this again? Calidum ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 00:58, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support. I don't know anyone or any publication that calls her (or has called her in the past couple of decades) Hillary Rodham Clinton, nor do I know any other notable Hillary Clinton with whom she might be confused. As someone said above, consensus can change, and WP:COMMONNAME can change. If some extraterrestrial investigates the remnants of human history thousands of years from now, there will still be a redirect from HRC if they get confused. Softlavender (talk) 01:34, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, that's just not true. Today's New York Times, front page, first sentence, for example. Tvoz/talk 04:41, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Check the headline. Softlavender (talk) 08:03, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support. I oppose the move to Hillary Clinton but also oppose stifling debate. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 01:51, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support GregKaye 15:47, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support. I asked myself here, what would Rand Paul do? Rand Paul would champion the First Amendment, and the right to freedom of speech and debate. And that is just what I will do here, today. Blessings! Pandeist (talk) 04:12, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Support The conditions specified in the moratorium have been met as we are past Feb 2015 and she is in the news again with fresh coverage. For example, The Economist led on her this week in the edition I have here. They have an extensive editorial and profile which go on for pages but they don't use the name Rodham once nor refer to the name as being any kind of issue. Rodham's day has past and it's time to move on. Andrew D. (talk) 08:16, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Support. The old moratorium has expired and I see no reason to retroactively extend it. If a move should happen can be discussed at the RM, of course. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:13, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Support. Consensus can change, and the request is not unreasonable on the face of it, as most of the world knows her as "Hillary Clinton". -- The Anome (talk) 18:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Support. The moratorium has ended. Why are we unreasonably prohibiting discussion? Even if one opposes the page move, they can say so in a new RM. Banning RMs is a waste of time, so why not just make a new RM already? Epic Genius (talk) 20:06, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Support seems like a no-brainer that the current location is not the common name.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:09, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Support, of course, as consensus has never ever ever determined that the name should be HRC Red Slash 21:06, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support I think that rehashing this a waste of time, and in a vote would vote against a move, but I will not vote to oppose debate and community decision making, as doing so is the thin end of a wedge.--KTo288 (talk) 21:21, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Support allowing the discussion. I do not think this !vote needs any further qualification.--John Cline (talk) 23:04, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose allowing a new move request at Hillary Rodham Clinton

  1. Oppose - This is like an AfD where tendentious editors try year after year after year (Israel and the apartheid analogy comes to mind) to roll the dice and hope for the right lucky combo of supportive votes + closing admin(s) that will give them the result that they desire. At some point you have to stop and say "the community has spoken, and is tired". This is one of them. Tarc (talk) 20:05, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose, albeit not strongly, but the community's collective time is its most precious resource, and should not be squandered in this manner. Newyorkbrad (talk) 21:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Adding that since consensus is emerging to proceed with an RM discussion, Jayron32's suggestion above his merit. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:12, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose as there seems to be no new information on the subject, and a consensus has never before emerged. This is shaping up to be one more discussion just like past discussions, with all the same information and arguments. Omnedon (talk) 15:06, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I would object to an RM being made between titles "Hillary Clinton" and "Hillary Rodham Clinton". However, if a move was made to "Hillary Clinton" and, for whatever reason, editor's wanted to request a move to a title such as "Hillary", I would not object. GregKaye 21:04, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose- Unless and until there is a significant development concerning Hilary Rodham Clinton's name(for example a name change), having another RM citing the same google hits and ngrams, citing the same policies(both pro and con) is a colossal waste of everyone's time. There simply is no justification for another RM right now. A solid, policy-based decision just over a year ago by an uninvolved 3-admin panel should be enough for editors to understand that any RM should have be after such a significant event, not before. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 02:39, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose - A gross waste of time. This has been discussed over and over again, always with the same result. The encyclopedia needs work and this is a squandering of resources, again. Tvoz/talk 04:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose' - Old news and per most everyone in this section. Mlpearc (open channel) 04:48, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose, nothing has been presented that doesn't show this as a complete waste of time. Nakon 04:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose – This is an amazing waste of time. This kind of repeated RM should not be encouraged. It is essentially shopping for a result. I agree that discussion shouldn't be shut down. However, in this one case, a group of editors has made it their goal to change the title of the article, and will not rest until it is changed. There is no reason to encourage this kind of behaviour. If an amazingly significant development occurs that would necessitate a change, that's one thing. No such thing has happened. Do not encourage this kind of timewasting behaviour. Re-establish the moratorium. RGloucester — ☎ 05:45, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose - despite the fact that I would have supported an RM had I known about it, per COMMONNAME. If this Google Books Ngram Viewer doesn't win the COMMONNAME argument, nothing will, and being right doesn't justify a bite at the apple once a year. Things don't change that much in a year. Give it another year, and ping me for the RM then. Thanks. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:45, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose – I know WP doesn't embrace stare decisis as a guideline per se, but as a practical matter I believe it has some value. There are some major political articles where I was on the losing side of content or phrasing disagreements that had much discussion a few years ago, but the main prevailing editor has since left the scene and no one probably is paying much attention to it now. I could go in and change the article to what I wanted back then, but I haven't done that. What was settled then should stay settled, keep moving forward, don't look back. I believe the same applies here. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:26, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose serves no factual or practical purpose, is simple disruption, we have plenty of redirects and we should not be driven by the subjects own changing whims upon the matter. μηδείς (talk) 19:18, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • This has nothing to do with the whims of the subject. It has to do with the name that most commonly comes to mind when people look for the subject, and factors like WP:CONCISE. Even longstanding titles can change if consensus changes. bd2412 T 19:56, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose. The facts that have, each time, led to the article staying at "Hillary Rodham Clinton" have not changed. She believes her name to be "Hillary Rodham Clinton" and the most reliable sources have long included "Rodham" on first reference. (Her signature online includes Rodham. Her website is at hillaryclinton.com for brevity, but her shortlinks are using the hrc.io domain. Brevity alone, though, isn't — and shouldn't be — our only consideration.) Wikipedia works when we have lots of editors improving things. Wikipedia doesn't work when we retread the same argument repeatedly, and we're getting painfully close to a dozen contentious trips down the same path. It's a mistake. Justen (talk) 21:59, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is the community allowed to consider whether the launch of a high-profile campaign under a specific name constitutes a new piece of information with respect to the utility of that name as a title? bd2412 T 22:07, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Please provide a link to the prior move discussion / start of moratorium. Dragons flight (talk) 19:41, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other than the generic "consensus can change" and the possibility that public preferences might have evolved, am I correct in thinking that there is no specific event or major new piece of evidence driving an interest in a new discussion? For example, Hillary didn't suddenly come out and unexpectedly say "I wanted to be called X going forward"? Dragons flight (talk) 22:16, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Having a new discussion at all was initially proposed by an editor who was not aware of the previous discussions, apparently based on the current state of Google results and returns from other search engines, and the creation of a new http://www.hillaryclintonoffice.com/ website. There has not been a single massive event or seismic shift in treatment, although the results do show a continued shift across sources at different levels towards excluding "Rodham". It's sort of like the story of the frog sitting in pot of water that's slowly being boiled - there's no sudden change that signals the shift, but the frog gets killed anyway. Of course, all of this excludes the real elephant in the room, which is the campaign announcement supposedly happening on Sunday. If it becomes clear that the subject will prosecute a campaign under the name, "Hillary Clinton", this will only exacerbate the confusion expressed by those who are unfamiliar with her maiden name. Since that event is likely to happen before any RM is actually filed (and since that was part of the contemplation for the original moratorium) the question of a "specific event" is likely to be moot by dinner time on Sunday. bd2412 T 22:35, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the answers. I think I understand the context now. For a humorous aside, if you click "Contact" at the new website you mentioned, the title of the form that appears is "Contact the Office of Hillary Clinton" but lower on the same form they give the mailing address as "Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton...". In other words, both the long and short form of her name appear nearly simultaneously on that part of her website. Dragons flight (talk) 01:47, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That inconsistency is actually fairly common with respect to this subject - boldly and publicly presenting a shorter form, and in less noticeable ways presenting a longer form. That is one reason, perhaps, why many editors have considered conciseness and commonality as overriding factors. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:27, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is Hillary running for president or not? There seems to be a frenzy of excitement in anticipation. Allowing unfocused anticipatory frenzies onto the article talk page is disruptive. Please keep time sink discussions on subpages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:46, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Now is not the right time, as there is too much anticipatory excitement not conducive to calm discussion. I suggest waiting about four weeks. whether she declares or not, that decision will be discussed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:53, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the intention is to wait at least a week for more to refine the request and let the smoke clear. Calidum ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 14:20, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question: I get the impression that this is somehow considered politically contentious. I could understand Wikipedians arguing about WP:COMMONNAME and all the finer points of all our policies. But why, if my impression is correct, is this seen as remotely real-life politically contentious? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:15, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's weird, isn't it? I do think it's possible that the longer name is more used by her critics than her supporters, for whatever reason. But I seriously doubt the outcome of the election will depend on whether the article is at HC or HRC.
However, Wikipedia being such an important source for people to find information that may influence their choices, we can expect conflict over anything that seems to have the tiniest possible impact on those choices for the next almost 19 months. That environment is unlikely to be one conducive to the best approach to our encyclopedic mission. For that reason it would be nice to settle this one now and say, not once and for all, but at least until after the election, which is what I said in the "moratorium" section. Honestly, though, not that it's really going to help — there's a certain amount of energy people are going to spend at WP on what they perceive will make it more or less likely for her to be elected, and I suppose it might as well go into the article title as anything else. --Trovatore (talk) 19:44, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Double or nothing for both sides, whatever is decided the results should apply to the daughter articles and categories too; for example Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, 2016, where the short form is used in the title and the long form in the article. The last thing we want is for whoever loses this to take the fight to other articles.--KTo288 (talk) 21:55, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my issue with this vote (this one about whether to have the discussion). We basically are having the vote about the name too. Anyone who wants to keep the current name is going to say that there shouldn't be another discussion, and anyone who wants a change will be for another discussion... EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 00:19, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's entirely true. Some people have !voted to allow a discussion while specifically stating that they oppose the move. However, this discussion was necessary because some opinions were expressed that there should not be a new move discussion, and it is important to settle that procedural question on its own merits, so that it does not interfere with a discussion of the applicability of WP:AT to the article title itself. bd2412 T 00:37, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Moratorium following any new Clinton move discussion

If a new move discussion occurs at Hillary Rodham Clinton, then the result of that RM should be accepted as the definitive one for now, and no additional requested moves should be allowed at that page during the subsequent year to foreclose any disruptive attempts to repeatedly reargue the question.

I have come from the future!!!I come from the year 2793 to remind you that you all have better things to do than have yet another move discussion about this page, given the zombie apocalypse that is coming at you in a mere two fleen cycles. Honestly, I can't believe anyone wants to waste more time on this. You now have a discussion about whether to have a discussion (about something that will have no impact on the google ranking of the page in question). This will be followed (perhaps) by the discussion authorized by the present discussion (in which there is a sub-discussion discussing the need to ensure that any subsequent discussion is deemed the definitive discussion), but if the subsequent discussion doesn't foreclose other discussions, then there will be more discussions. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY KNOCK IT OFF!!!!!!!!! Wikilove to all!!!! BUT PLEASE STOP!!!! There's lot's to do at Wikipedia:WikiProject The Horse Is Dead, Dead I Tell You!! David.thompson.esq (talk) 02:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
No one is holding a gun to your head making you debate this. If you feel it's a waste of time, find something better to do. Calidum ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 03:06, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Have to agree with Calidum. Your attention-getting and hyper-dramatic posts on every single discussion even remotely concerning the situation says more about you than it does about people actually trying to come to a consensus on what's best for the encyclopedia. You're free to take the article off your watch list; since you've never edited it and never opined substantively (except to complain) on the talk page, that seems the logical thing to do if lengthy or repetitive discussions bother you. I for one personally find your posts on the pages disruptive, especially since you use all caps, lengthy redlinks, 36-point type, and multiple exclamation marks. Softlavender (talk) 08:17, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I would be careful about automatic processes here. If the current RM is put together well and runs without major hick-ups, it may be reasonable to have a new moratorium. But I don't want a situation where someone proposes to move the article to "Hillary (exalted being)" or "Rodham (dog poo)" and thus forestalls legitimate discussion on a technicality. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:16, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not long enough. A one-year moratorium just shifts the debate into the heart of the presidential campaign. Have it out now, and then accept the result until after the election. --Trovatore (talk) 16:37, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. New evidence may be established, and more people may !vote or change their opinions. Epic Genius (talk) 20:08, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support but agree with User:Trovatore, an 18 month moratorium, to prevent this coming up again in the middle of the campaign.--KTo288 (talk) 21:14, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Regardless as to the length of the moratorium, debate on the article's talk page should be permitted. A moratorium, if there is one, should be only regarding article moves, not discussions over whether there should be or should have been such a move. SMP0328. (talk) 21:28, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • support There's really no reason for constant reassessment of the name of a prominent article. Mangoe (talk) 21:57, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This is just impeding progress. For the same reasons we should allow one now, we should always allow them, as long as they are not obviously disruptive, or providing few bits of new evidence. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 00:17, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Modify all unencrypted links to Chinese servers

I am seeing reports that China's government has deployed a "Great Cannon" system that hijacks unencrypted http: sessions to deliver a malware payload to users who visit websites on the Chinese network. Note that the interception occurs not against a few opponents of the government - though it has been pointed out that the system could be altered so that some specific targeted person would receive swapped-out packets whenever he visited any web site - rather, 1.75% of all visitors to Baidu and other sites received a payload that had been altered at a national level. [1] The result of this alteration was a DDOS against GreatFire and Github.

My understanding is that current Wikipedia practice is either to remove or render unclickable links that would take a reader to a malware site, and the conclusion to be drawn from such reports is that any site in China is essentially a malware site, or can be converted to one at a moment's notice without the operator's knowledge. Unless, that is, you use https, maybe (there is an ongoing issue regarding China's ability to issue certificates...)

Presently, our article Baidu links to the company's site as https://www.baidu.com/ , which for the moment has not been shown to be a link going to be hijacked. But the first reference is to http://ir.baidu.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=188488&p=irol-govmanage . As I understand the publications above and at Great Cannon, for five days anyone clicking that link had a 1.75% chance of being enlisted into a DDOS attack on Github.

The obvious proposal then is:

  • 1) Somehow go through all of Wikipedia and identify every link to a site in the People's Republic of China.
  • 2) Somehow check all of the http: links to see if https: delivers the same document.
  • 2a) If https: works, convert the link to https:
  • 2b) If only http: works, convert the link to a text that cannot be followed by a simple click.
  • 3) For all the China links, insert a small, brightly colored Malware advisory that leads to a page advising users of the Great Cannon threat.

Should we do this now or wait for additional attacks? Should we do this to all Chinese links or just links known to have been hijacked? And oh yes, what's the best way to go about actually doing the "somehow"s above? Wnt (talk) 14:25, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Let's do it now. It doesn't just affect Chinese users, it also affects anyone else trying to go to a Chinese website. This is worrying. If only http: works, we should turn it into regular text instead of wikitext. Epic Genius (talk) 20:18, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Subpage for repeated content

What is the current thinking about using "subpages" for repeated article content? To be specific: after noting that all the list articles at Lists of endangered languages use the same list of definitions of the relevant terms, I found Wikipedia:Transclusion#Pages with a common section, which seems to explicitly sanction placing these definitions in a "subpage" and transcluding that page into the relevant list articles. I did this, and then looked around a bit more and found a lot of apparent disagreement about whether such subpages are a good or bad idea. (I couldn't find a relevant passage in the MOS, since searches for "subpage" and "subpages" just turned up dozens of instances referring to subpages of the MOS itself.) Should I be doing this differently? Not at all? Note that the "not at all" option is somewhat problematic, since (1) the definitions are the exact ones used by a specific organization (UNESCO) and thus need to be the same across all relevant articles, and (2) the URL used to cite the definitions needs to be kept up to date on all the articles (it wasn't, resulting in an old URL that didn't actually work — this is one reason I made the changes I did). So, what's the current thinking about this kind of "subpage" usage? If the basic concept is acceptable, but not using "subpage-style" titles, I suppose I could move Lists of endangered languages/UNESCO definitions to UNESCO definitions of language endangerment (or whatever!) to make it more like a legitimate, stand-alone article. (??) - dcljr (talk) 22:31, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If it remains a subpage, perhaps Endangered language/UNESCO definitions (see Endangered language#Defining and measuring endangerment) is a better location for it? - dcljr (talk) 22:39, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Subpages aren't actually needed at all, you can make use of WP:ONLYINCLUDE. Place the content you want transcluded between <onlyinclude>...</onlyinclude> tags in one article, and then you can transclude that section in another article like a template, but with a colon before the article title (i.e. {{:Article}}). For example, the infobox at Fremantle Prison is in between <onlyinclude> and </onlyinclude>, and History of Fremantle Prison transcludes it using {{:Fremantle Prison}}. - Evad37 [talk] 04:46, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The fundamental issue is that the content is structured wrong. You shouldn't need to repeat the content (and this is mainspace content, not template-space content) across N number of pages. We're working on the web, where one should hyperlink to a definition or similar. It sounds like your idea to make the definitions their own page may be a good one, but beware WP:N and WP:DICDEF. There may be another page where the definitions are suitable. (Subpages in the mainspace [using a slash] are not permitted per WP:Subpages.)

As for Evad's comment, that is possible, but I find it always to be a bad idea. The practice is unfamiliar to a lot of people, and taking the content up the quality ladder would surely see it removed. But additionally, main space pages should be for content that isn't repeatable across broad swaths of pages. I could probably hunt down a policy/guideline reference which excludes that practice from the mainspace. --Izno (talk)

WP:POLEMIC

There is a flaw in point #3 namely when it comes to sock lists:

"Users should generally not maintain in public view negative information related to others without very good reason. Negative evidence, laundry lists of wrongs, collations of diffs and criticisms related to problems, etc., should be removed, blanked, or kept privately (i.e., not on the wiki) if they will not be imminently used, and the same once no longer needed."

My Question

What does "imminently used" mean here and how long should sock lists in user-space be allowed to remain on Wikipedia? I want to post this example: User:Montanabw/Duck box that dates back to February 22nd.

What is a sock list?

Sock lists are lists placed in user-pages that link diffs made by editors to potential socks. For example under User:Beenhereforwaytoolong/possible socks there are these type of edits: User:Newuser8776 - <diff here> looks very much like User:Sockme's edit, we all know that User:Sockme used multiple socks and is indef banned so be wary of User:Newuser8776.

Proposal - We should add to the guideline about what to do when it comes down to possible sock lists in people's user-pages. My proposal is to set a time limit on how long content can be stored to use as evidence in an SPI case. Further, I also want to add to the proposal that users MUST be informed if they are placed on any list a user is making about them regarding an SPI. Sock puppet cases are serious, users should have a say if someone is building a case against them. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 20:08, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How to inform editors of a variance in WP:RS standards?

Recently while editing an article I was informed via the talk page that the article was:

"[...] an article on a recognized academic topic of study, with several editors familiar with the academic work who follow and protect the article." (emphasis added)

and that:

"It's an article on a scholarly topic that has been researched and defined within the field of sociology. So, this article requires a higher level of sources than opinion stories [by journalists from Time Magazine, The NY Times, and Al Jazeera]." (emphasis added)

While I do not necessarily object to the concept of higher standards for some topics, I am wondering how this variance in WP sourcing standards is to be communicated to average editors to prevent them from wasting effort making contributions based on otherwise acceptable standards but not for certain articles? Are there any written guideline(s) and/or template(s) that we can put at the top of such an article? Also by whom and how is it determined when such a variance of WP:RS is applicable? 104.32.193.6 (talk) 23:06, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so much that some topics have a "higher" standard... it's that the type of sources that are most appropriate for an article will depend on the topic. Articles on topics that fall within an academic field would appropriately rely heavily on academic sources (and much less on media sources). Articles on current events would appropriately rely mostly on news media sources. Pop culture topics would rely on media sources that cover pop culture... etc. We always look for the highest quality sources... but what qualifies as "highest quality" will vary from topic to topic. Blueboar (talk) 01:04, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, that even makes sense. But... the core questions still stand. How can this concept of "most appropriate" sources be communicated to editors stumbling across an article that they have not previously visited? Are there written guidelines on this concept? Are there templates that can be added to such articles (or article talk pages) to declare thes need for such sources (and the disqualification of normally acceptable sources)? Who decides / how is it decided when an article rises to the level of needing such specialized sources? 104.32.193.6 (talk) 01:56, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)&oldid=656208330"