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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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Is it simply Wild West?

I'm looking at serious ongoing behavioral issues, and don't know where to turn. WP:ANI doesn't seem to work. WP:NPOVN doesn't seem to work (although i would encourage everyone to watch that page and check it often to help others who are asking for help!) I have found admins who act abusively, instead of helping. I'm seeing bad editing practices all over the place. I'm seeing people unilaterally, archiving talk page sections that they don't like, re-reverting that when it's restored, refusing to acknowledge that it's a problem, insisting that there is consensus when there is not, hatting talk page sections that they don't like (to shut down the dialogue), people calling other editors names all the time, people using bad dialogue (like strawman/misrepresentation and rhetoric in place of substance) and the like. I'm seeing gang-like editing behaviors, where several editors seem to work together to maintain a page in a certain point of view. I'm seeing serious takeover of Wikipedia without a genuine regard to the policies. I'm seeing so much absurd stuff going on that it seems Wikipedia (at least in some topics) is broken. There is so much edit warring instead of discussion. There is unilateral action with complete impunity. There is very little actual enforcement of policies. There is WP:POV RAILROADing. I'm sorry i can't be more specific, but i have been observing these things in general for too long now, and the arbitrtion and enforcement structures simply do not work. It's broken. There is too much pushing and bullying. Where is the respect for each other and for "the sum of all human knowledge"? Rant over. Had to get that off my chest, and hope to hear your experiences, similar or different. SageRad (talk) 21:48, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with this wholeheartedly. To be added to Sage's list, I am also perceiving an increased tolerance of editors inappropriately editing others comments - to my mind this should be a clear line with swift and strong action taken if that line is crossed. Relatedly, I am also perceiving an increase in AN/I cases being closed by non-admins. Non-admins can not take action in such closures, therefore all these closures end with no action being taken when they perhaps should. Perhaps the policy of non-admins being allowed to close AN/I discussions needs to be reviewed. I feel this would help in avoiding the Wild West scenario.DrChrissy (talk) 22:12, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I noticed that too. I'm seeing a breakdown of Wikipedia. I think we've lost critical mass of editors with integrity and so the place has been taken over by pushy people with no scruples. Attempts at getting justice in terms of following policy seems to more often than not backfire into more bullying and pushing and ganging up and piling on. It's like Wikipedia has lost its immune system and at this point is even like it has an auto immune disease and attacks good people for doing the right thing. SageRad (talk) 16:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SageRad: See related Sanger item at WP:OTR.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:34, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think you need to be honest about your own role in degrading the editing environment, rather than blaming everyone and everything else. You didn't come here to help build a reputable online reference work; you came here because you were upset about an argument you'd had on someone's blog, and you wanted to use that person's Wikipedia biography to get back at him. Your actions demonstrated petty motivations, making your high-minded appeals to Wikipedia's foundational principles hypocritical, to say the least. You were then topic-banned by ArbCom for repeatedly casting aspersions against other editors and degrading the quality of articles and sourcing. You should probably be honest about that background, rather than leaving it for someone else to point out.

In the end, you're basically someone who joined a game, tried to cheat at it, got caught, and now you run around telling everyone how stupid the game is. The game may or may not be stupid, but your motivations are so transparently self-serving that they invalidate your criticisms. MastCell Talk 16:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, there you have aspersions, a level of attempted outing, lack of assumption of good faith, and lack of focus on content, and more. I actually meant everything I said above with full genuineness. It's borne of experience. I had a nasty learning curve in Wikipedia because I found myself in the thick of toxic editors with toxic practices. It could have gone a lot smoother. I really meant what I said above, now that I fully grasp the wisdom of the policies and yet see them being wildly disregarded so often. Please rescind your aspersion. This is not a game. Too many editors view it as such and act like it is a game but it's not. This is serious work. SageRad (talk) 16:33, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's just a hobby. WIJAGH, as in FIJAGH. Unless someone has a vested interest in what the content says, in which case those of us for whom it's a hobby have to spend hours of our time protecting the project, which is why it sometimes pisses us off a mite. Guy (Help!) 16:53, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SageRad you said yourself here that you had a dispute with that blogger (and that statement makes it clear that you were violating WP:BLPCOI) and that is what got you blocked. There is no outing here; not even close. Just more self-righteous and self-deluded grand-standing. Jytdog (talk) 17:09, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The things you describe are largely the inevitable result of the need to slow the decline in editor population. We must strike a balance between good behavior and editor retention. I believe that the balance is currently wrong, and I've for some time had this comment on my user page: How much disruption must we tolerate in the name of peace and editor retention? Something's wrong here. Change the balance and you will, regrettably, lose some productive editors who are unable to behave better. In my opinion, after the word got around that things had improved at Wikipedia, those losses would be replenished more than one-for-one by editors who were better behaved and, eventually, equally as productive. That's the strategy we'd be following ... if only I were in charge around here! Mandruss For President? ―Mandruss ☎ 16:35, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I wish you were president. I believe there would be better retention of good editors if some of the worst offending editors received sanctions for their bad behaviors. Who wants to contribute their good work and energy when bullies will just come and kick down the ornate sand castles they build? SageRad (talk) 16:39, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are several talk page stalkers who lurk and attack when it suits their purposes, but rarely make content contributions. These individuals can be easily recognised. They should be identified as such and weeded out.DrChrissy (talk) 16:44, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You're too hard on yourself. Some of your edits are fine. Guy (Help!) 16:54, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Look, we can have a constructive discussion here, or we can devolve this into yet another pointless pissing match. These are real issues and any participant's motivations are irrelevant. Debate the points made and refrain from making things personal, please. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:11, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That said, readers of this thread might care to take a look at the comments being made on JzG's Talk page.DrChrissy (talk) 17:14, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That said, - That said and ignored. Your comment simply pours fuel on the fire. Others' behavior does not justify yours. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Mandruss, I must respectively disagree with your statement that editor's motivations are irrelevant. This thread (not your comment) is becoming yet another case of WP:POV railroad where the motivations behind edits are the very focus of the Wild West problem. This is why I suggested people look at JzG's talk page.DrChrissy (talk) 17:33, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well good luck with that approach, which has been used countless times and never works except as a defensive strategy at ANI. If you wish to achieve meaningful change you need to stay above the fray. Just ignore any attacks (even clearly block-worthy personal attacks) and debate the points. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:41, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough - point taken.DrChrissy (talk) 17:44, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do want to add that I have seen more and more cases in topic areas involving controversial, ideological issues that groups of editors appear to work together, often unintentionally, to maintain a specific viewpoint or eliminate counterviewpoints and rational discussions of such issues. Such groups will often rely on UNDUE, POV, and FRINGE to shut down such discussions or dismiss any counter arguments, which is not what these policies are meant to be used for for controversial subjects, as we are to document such controversies, not participate in them. These groups will often have editors that may not have, as we define it, a conflict of interest, but do have a vested interest to support a specific view or to refute a different view, which our guidelines caution people when they handle such articles. The problem that often happens is that it is difficult to separate this poor behavior from what would would normally be completely acceptable behavior in being vigilant against for a topic area that was being flooded by IPs and SPA accounts to include vandalism, false info, and BLP; this same behavior is generally needed to empower such users to combat unencyclopedic information. (case in point is the recent arbcom decision on the Indian/Pakistan topic area, where they empowered the 500 edits/30 days rule to avoid these type of accounts). There's a line here but it is very very fuzzy, and we're seeing acceptable behavior needed to handle the latter type of cases slipping more and more into other topic areas that are not as easy to deal with. There's no easy solution, since determining when this is happening requires throughout investigation of talk pages or direct experience in the situation, but there needs to be a better means to remind such groups of editors that page ownership is not acceptable practice for WP and cooperation with all editors particularly experienced ones are needed. --MASEM (t) 17:43, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment @SageRad: Sage, I'm wondering if between us we raised so many issues early in this thread that we have confused people. I think what we perhaps need to do is focus on just one of these. This is your thread and I am not attempting to hijack it, but I noticed you mentioned early on that you believe ANI is broken. I agree with you. Perhaps we should focus on this?DrChrissy (talk) 18:02, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to keep it on the whole gestalt... and not about any particular person, as was said above by Mandruss. I think this issue of general critical mass / tipping point of integrity, is interesting. SageRad (talk) 18:36, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On the one hand, I agree with User:SageRad that WP:ANI is broken, and I agree with SageRad that there is too much tolerance of uncivil editors. I agree with User:DrChrissy that there is too much tolerance of editing other's talk page comments, which should result in a caution to new editors and a swift block to non-new editors. However, SageRad is very off the mark in saying that they had a rough learning curve because they came into the thick of toxic editors with toxic practices. They came into Wikipedia as a toxic editor. Whether the other editors were toxic is another question. User:MastCell is absolutely right that SageRad came in with a very biased agenda, and then characterized advice from non-admins that their incivility could lead to a block as "threats" and other advice as "punches to the face". SageRad is right that we are too tolerant of toxic editors, including of SageRad. I agree that WP:ANI is broken, but would welcome comments from reasonable editors. I agree that editing of other's comments on talk pages should not be tolerated. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:40, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well if Robert McClenon himself feels the need to make this about individual editors rather than the issues, nothing more than an ANI thread in the wrong venue, I guess my pleas have been a waste of time. Enjoy the bickering and hat at will. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:46, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I did make comments about the issues. I agree tht WP:ANI is broken, and would welcome comments from reasonable editors like User:Mandruss on what to do about it. I did agree that altering of comments to mislead should not be tolerated. In the case that the latter is done by an admin, I would suggest arbitration and desysopping. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Robert McClenon: I don't feel I can say how to "fix ANI", exactly; I don't think I'm well versed in what people feel is broken about it; but I do have a couple of strong opinions about ANI.
First, that User X's bad behavior should not be allowed to excuse or mitigate User Y's bad behavior, and it routinely is at ANI. "Two wrongs don't make a right" may seem trite or naive to some, but it seems essential to me.
And secondly, ANI should be strictly about behavior complaints. It should not be allowed to become content dispute, and it routinely is. The minute it starts to be about content, an admin should step in and nip that in the bud as wrong venue. If anyone then persists, it should be handled as disruption. For this and other reasons, I think ANI would benefit from having at least one admin "on duty" as a moderator at all times, based on a previously agreed schedule. They could do other work at the same time, but should be tasked with monitoring ANI closely on their watchlist.
That's about all I have to say about ANI. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:08, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the idea of having an admin serve as the moderator for WP:ANI is a very good idea. ANI is just a Wild West area. Your observation about two wrongs making a right is unfortunately often the case, and that if User X's bad behavior is argued as a defense against User Y's bad behavior, both should be sanctioned. (Whether by blocks, topic-bans, or what depends on the nature of the offense.) The moderating admin should be willing in cases of clear bad behavior to block and then close the thread so that it doesn't drag on. I will add that I don't think that filing parties at ANI intend to be bringing up content issues. In their excuse, they think that the failure of other editors to agree with them on content is a conduct issue (vandalism, POV-pushing, disruptive editing). That is a further reason for a moderator who will say, "Content dispute. Take to WP:DRN or use an WP:RFC. Closed here." Also, when two-way allegations of conduct drag on, a moderator should be able to formulate a proposal that can be !voted, such as topic-ban A, topic-ban B, topic-ban both. I agree as to moderation. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So Robert, what should I/we do when an admin with many years experience has changed my edit to mislead. We are agreed AN/I is broken. I suspect that if I raised this at AN/I, the result would be that I will be blocked. What should I/we do to change this state of affairs?DrChrissy (talk) 19:50, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well either you fix it when you find it or let others fix it. A one time occurrence is not something that should be brought to ANI, if the behavior continues it should be brought to ANI and dealt with. The proper response is NOT to revert the fix so it stays in the altered state until the person who made the change fixes it. -- GB fan 12:25, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Our [[WP:Talk page guidelines state "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page (their emphasis). This sentence, or something very similar including "never", has been in the guidelines since at least 2010 so it is well established and non-contested. Why have such a strong statement if we are to then only say "oh well, once or twice won't hurt"?DrChrissy (talk) 16:51, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it does say that. Our policies also say to never vandalize an article but we don't block someone for one act of vandalism. I never said "oh well, once or twice won't hurt". I said when you find that it has happened fix it or let someone else fix it and if the behavior continues to raise it at ANI. Very few things do we say one time is enough to bring someone to ANI, that is reserved mostly for repeat offenders. You revert and warn the editor to not do it again. Like I said before the correct thing to do is not revert a fix to what you don't want, like you did. -- GB fan 18:19, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If I make a good point, it matters not if I'm making it to serve my own selfish, even illegitimate interest; it's still a good point; therefore my history is irrelevant, and to bring my history into it only serves to derail the debate. Discussions like this should go down as if all participants were here anonymously. (Note for the overly literal: I have used the first person merely as a device; I am not referring to myself.) ―Mandruss ☎ 20:22, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree. There are way too many editors who would rather discuss an editor's individual history than expand on a good point. My personal belief for this is because those editor's who divert an idea into a new direction, fear change or the loss of power. And it's very effective because I can go back 3, 5 years ago, see editors discuss the exact same issues as now, but nothing's changed! --MurderByDeletionism"bang!" 21:04, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Indeed. Let's note that i've had some contentious relations with these folks who felt the need to come along and speak badly about and to me -- and not just about me but about their perspective about me -- and this is another illustration of exactly the point i'm trying to make here because these folks who are quite outspoken all over Wikipedia and act like heavies all over the place, in my opinion, problems at ANI and in the whole functioning of Wikipedia with integrity. I seriously want this to not be about specific people, but they did make it so, and tried to derail this dialogue, and so i must say they have a history with me and not a good one. Sure, they say i'm bad, bad, bad, i'm a bad boy... Fine... I disagree and it's basically gang warfare that you're seeing. There's a gang here. They've tried to make that point before and seem to have a chip on their shoulder for me -- but i say that i have integrity and edit according to policy, more than most i know.
This really does come down to reckoning, and it take a human sense with much observation and experience, to really get down to it. When it's person A saying there's a problem, and then persons B and C come along and say "No, A is the problem here!" but according to person A, persons B and C are part of the problem although person A didn't name specific people to begin with... it comes down to observations of edits and dialogue over the long-term. It's way too easy to play the discredit game, where multiple editors with a chip on their shoulder or an agenda come along and say something mean about editor A -- poisoning the well, introducing a prejudicial air to the dialogue, etc.... and that's not cool with me. Everyone has made some mistakes in their life, and we need to see who is willing to learn and to do better, and who is just constantly a problem and causing problems. And we must remember that opinions are from a point of view, as well.
And yes, i did enter Wikipedia in a toxic environment, and learned from some of the worst in terms of behavior, and learned to act like it's the Wild West -- you grow up in a gang environment and you learn you have to act tough. Only later did i see the wisdom of the policies and that we could work better if we cooperated and acted in a civil way. It can work. But it requires a critical mass to work. We need a critical mass of editors who speak up for integrity all the time. SageRad (talk) 21:12, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I should clarify that I'm not taking sides in any disputes involving anyone present. Partly because I know nothing about them, partly because I don't care about them, and partly because they are irrelevant here, as I said above. If I make a bad point, I can be defeated by a strong counter to that point, still without bringing my history into it. I hope I've (finally) said everything that I meant. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:17, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate that, Mandruss, very much. That is the way i would like it to be, as well. I intentionally did not name any specific people or topics or articles, so that we could have a general discussion about the gestalt of the functioning of Wikipedia, and not devolve into mudslinging. Having said my piece in self-defense, i am done with specifics and back to general observations. I know you have no history with me and i don't expect you to have an opinion of me. SageRad (talk) 21:20, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hopefully we can all be learning and evolving together, and not polarizing all the time against each other. Hopefully people who have had past issues can evolve to work better with each other. SageRad (talk) 21:37, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SageRad, if Wikipedia is "broken" then it has always been broken. There never was a period of time where peace and harmony and civility reigned. You look at arbitration archives around 2005-2007 and you'll find major problems going on and unqualified editors becoming admins and going to town, blocking their "enemies". By perusing Wikipedia history you'll find that a lot of problems that used to exist are no longer the serious issues they were years ago. There have been improvements. I know that ANI is much better now than when I first became a regular editor in summer 2013 where editors would often come to discussions with pitchforks and torches. I think at some point I think you have to accept that you have Wikipedia was never some harmonious haven of writing articles, cooperation and exchange of open information, Wikipedia is flawed and has always been, just like any human being or any organization is flawed because it is made up of imperfect individuals. Expecting people, on the internet of all places, to be kinder and more thoughtful than they are in their off-line life is unrealistic.

I think you also have to accept that you are approaching this issue the wrong way. An individual, even a few organized individuals, can not change the culture of a group. People are who they are and no amount of posting on noticeboards will change that. Your best option is to focus on realistic, doable changes to policies that you think might lead to improvements, run an RfC and try to get a consensus to see if your argument has the support of the community (or at least those that choose to participate in an RfC). Yes, this takes time and effort but even Jimmy Wales can not wave a magic wand and make Wikipedia suddenly change overnight to the idyllic community that you hoped it would be. I'm not saying that this is good or bad, it's just the nature of how slowly organizations change, especially decentralized groups like the Wikipedia editing community. Liz Read! Talk! 22:03, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
↑ That. As I understand your complaint, you're unhappy at the open nature of Wikipedia and want a centrally enforced "constitution", but changing the internal structure of a project with between 3000—100,000 participants (depending on how you measure it) isn't something that will just happen because you say you're unhappy; you need to propose an alternative, and then convince a majority that they'd be better off with the alternative. As Liz correctly says, it's worth bearing in mind that despite the shrillness of the critics, Wikipedia at present is probably the least dysfunctional it's ever been. ‑ Iridescent 22:09, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think Iridescent's point is that complaining is easy, but changing things would take work and thoughtfulness. That is different from telling someone to "give up". Stellar analogy, though. MastCell Talk 01:34, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unless your monitor is exceptionally wide and your default font exceptionally small, the big arrow should be pointing at Liz's last sentence (I'm not saying that this is good or bad, it's just the nature of how slowly organizations change, especially decentralized groups like the Wikipedia editing community.), a sentiment with which I concur wholeheartedly; fifteen years of inertia isn't going to shifted just by wishing it so, and if you want major changes you need not only to identify the nature of the changes you want made, but identify a means of getting them implemented and a means of persuading people that doing so will be worthwhile. Make the quote Philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it if that suits you better. ‑ Iridescent 17:42, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why, yes my monitor is indeed exceptionally wide, and my default font is exceptionally small (6 pt)!
Here are some identified changes I'd like to see implemented.
1. Stop admin elections. Instead editors are automatically admin based on length of time (which should be within one year or less) and number of edits. Take the power away from the fascist few. Give it back to the masses and it will not be the big deal that it is right now.
2. Make it easier to lose admin rights. Wikipedia doesn’t need tenured admin. Admin rights should be something an editor loses, not something an editor fights to win.
3. Create clear rules to follow, not excessive bloated essays that have other bloated essays that counter each other. Can’t be more than 10 or 12 rules. (Even AA only has 12 steps!)
4. Greet all new editors with the rules they need to follow.
5. Anyone using cuss words gets an automatic 48 hour ban their first use. Thereafter, that editor will receive an one month ban.
6. Create a bot so that whenever one’s editor name is mentioned, the editor is notified.
7. If a subject is true and can be verified by reliable sources, it stays. Stop with the esoteric value judgements which is based on one’s knowledge (or lack there of) of a subject.
8. Eliminate the COI witch hunts. All editors show up with personal biases & POV’s. Spend that wasted time on making a neutral article. Readers only care about facts.
9. Put warnings on all medical articles.
10. Add links at the top to the best ranked sites for all the science topics. Wikipedia owes this much to the public since Google is now defaulting to Wikipedia. (Which is worse than being bought and paid for, it’s called being used!)
11. Create friendlier warnings. Do they really need to look so hyperbole? Like someone’s about to be maimed? Especially since they’re really meant to bully rather than warn?
12. Everyone gets one account only! IP’s will need to create an account if they want to edit.
13. A mass reprieve for all banned editors. This would exclude those globally banned.
14. Change page patrol to page approved.
Thanks for asking! --MurderByDeletionism"bang!" 16:31, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure you don't actually expect that 14-point wish list to pass as a package. Pick one that you feel is high is importance and stands a decent chance of passing, argue for that (a separate subsection would help), and leave the other 13 for other days. Otherwise the discussion is going 14 different ways, and nothing gets accomplished. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:21, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sort of a package deal like congress? Why not! Wikipedia needs big changes. This site has been spinning its wheels for quite some time now while not addressing issues.
fyi - If editors don't believe there is something growing more amiss with Wikipedia, check out, "The Knight Foundation grant: a timeline and an email to the board." --MurderByDeletionism"bang!" 19:23, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@ Mandruss - a very friendly reminder - I think it is frowned upon to include a user's name in your edit summary.DrChrissy (talk) 18:17, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • While there are some things that are part of the "unfixables" that Wikipedia will always have as long as we have the tagline "the encyclopedia anyone can edit", there are problems being raised here that have becoming more troubling in terms of "cliques" around controversial topics that are being used to quell proper discussion. Normally, in the past, things like dispute resolution or AN/I would be venues to at least engage in discussion when such problems occurred but as identified, I've been seeing more cases of these groups on controversial articles refusing to engage in dispute resolution, and if these groups include long-standing editors, AN is often hesitant to get involved. Mind you, the number of such cases is trifling small compared to the number of other disputes that happen every day and that are resolved as harmoniously as we can expect on WP, but it still exists and becoming more evident. And I think some of this is being influenced by the global situation in the world that align with the social conflicts that are happening across the globe and the change in media's role that work against our purpose as a neutral tertiary work (I've describe this in depth about a month ago here on VPP). --MASEM (t) 22:44, 9 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems more like as the years go past, the attempts to deal with particular personality problems have yet to be resolved. For the ones who complain about never ending chaos here, you do realize that you can always WP:FORK the entire contents of the project and create your wiki-encylopedia with whatever rules and ideas you want, right? If your ideas create a better encyclopedia, I say go for it. Otherwise, is there an actual policy discussion or proposal here? It seems like it's just "oh this place is so terrible now." -- Ricky81682 (talk) 04:28, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is some substantive discussion occurring in this thread, contribute to it or not as you wish. If you want to play the wrong venue card (which is played with great selectivity, I've noticed), go ahead, but this discussion has a place somewhere on the site (and not consigned to user space). I'd be happy to relocate the entire thread. ―Mandruss ☎ 12:03, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think one of the general areas that is being discussed here is civility. I edit in several areas and it amazes me the difference in civility in some topic areas. I have been in the situation where after taking an incivility-bashing from groups of editors who have followed me, I have moved to editing another area and despite the subject being (potentially) contentious, the editors there have behaved with total respect and civility. So, although this is not about individual editors, it is about like-minded (incivil) editors who see what others get away with, repeat this, the precedent is then set and suddenly we all have to tolerate it.DrChrissy (talk) 12:52, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree this is also what I've seen. Editors that behave as we'd expect in a friendly, cooperative manner in most other areas are a different type of person in a specific article or topic area, and this usually seems to be the result of having some type of interest in that specific topic. As as I've noted, when this is from established editors, it's hard to convince AN or others that something is out of place, often sweeping such confrontations as "a bad day" (which everyone has, no question, but makes it hard to have any action taken against such editors). --MASEM (t) 18:00, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Is there an opportunity to share these best practices in civility across communities and projects? Something along the lines of, "Hey, here's how we work and what our interoperation of civility have meant for our project." Followed by a simple checklist of what works? Maybe we can raise the tide for all boats without having to rely on Mom and Dad enforcing good behavior? Sorry for having more questions than answers. :) Ckoerner (talk) 22:41, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
At least at my experience, these lines where civility is an issue don't align with WikiProjects, though individual Wikiprojects may have had to deal with internal problems on one-off bases, and the Signpost often features Wikiproject spotlights that ID these things. The situations I see generally fall outside the individual coverage of Wikiprojects. --MASEM (t) 23:53, 10 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's easy to be civil and it's easy to not be a bully, if you're committed to doing so. It's easy to edit according to policy and to hold ourselves to high standards of integrity, if we want to. I also edit in areas that are extremely civil, and it's a wonderful experience. I want that same level of integrity and civility in other areas that are contentious, but there does not seem to be the critical mass of editors willing to stand up for civility and principles as there needs to be to change the general culture. There is instead impunity and gang behavior. Many good editors have been intimidated out of editing in such areas, and have stated so explicitly. When you do try to use ANI or NPOVN or other structure which are supposed to be the next-level way to address it, they typically result in no action or blowback action against the person making the appeal. Therefore, the system is broken in certain areas where there is contention. I think we can foster a critical mass of integrity, and the first step in doing so is to name the problem. The second step is to step up and address it. Stand up for what's right, even in small things. If an editor is repeatedly deleting other editors' comments on talk pages, isn't that a signal that they don't have the innate integrity needed to function well in discussions of possibly contentious topics? If another editor is consistently name-calling, acting bully-like, being emotionally abusive, etc... that's a signal that they are probably a source of problems. Other editors may react in the moment sometimes to those centrally problematic editors, and that's to be expected. They even know how to bait, how to get others to blow up and then use that as ammo against them. There is this stuff going on. This stuff is toxic, and drives away good editors who really do want to apply the policies like NPOV and RS to to correct goal of writing a good encyclopedia useful for the human species. SageRad (talk) 15:05, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I support your reasoning in principle. But, as I've said recently, one's opinions count for nothing if they prefer to remain silent, and intimidation tactics work. I strongly suspect that a large majority of editors would do anything to have a better working environment—anything except stick their head up so it can get chopped off. I don't think that's going to change, we can't repeal human nature, so there's no solution short of an outside entity (WMF?) stepping in, assuming control, and overriding the vocal and aggressive minority. I don't see that happening, so I'm pessimistic about such ambitious and idealistic goals. I feel we can make significant improvements in the culture with changes like what I suggested at 22:08, 9 February 2016 (and even those would be difficult to pass), but I don't see us achieving any more than that at this point. ―Mandruss ☎ 15:33, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As somebody on the other side who has been described as a bully, not by anyone in this discussion, I would like to put the other side's point of view. Many discussions seem to go on and on and on over matters where the sources are pretty clear but those arguing against them think there is some great injustice to fix, and they simply will not stop. That is where we get pointers to various WP: like great wrongs and flogging dead horses from. Yes there is some bad behavior sometimes but it is often because of exasperation because these 'polite' editors continue to disrupt Wikipedia. In my opinion it is they who drive new editors away and make things unpleasant for people who just want to edit Wikipedia according to the policies and produce a good encyclopaedia with a neutral point of view that goes by the sources and their weight. More than just dealing quickly with people who have been uncivil to each other what I really would like is a way that editors who flog a dead horse just get toned down or excluded from topics quicker rather than the endless recursive stairs of the process for content disputes. Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see you as "on the other side" from me. I think we should have a far more aggressive block schedule. If one hasn't cleaned up their act after three blocks, what they and Wikipedia need is for them to receive an involuntary 5-year sabbatical to work on themselves. They are a net negative to the project, full stop. I think we'd be surprised at how many misbehavors would change their ways if they knew that their continued editing rights depended on it. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:11, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think you'd get less blocking as a result. If admins knew that the third block would result in a 5-year ban, there would be less minor blocking as I imagine every block will be subject to gigantic amount of scrutiny based on the "now the editor only has two chances to avoid a five year block, it must be for a very good reason." You're going to get more chaos not less. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:31, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
However, I have seen cliques that stand perhaps too much behind policy as to refuse to engage in any discussions that require nuanced considerations of policy, recognizing that some policies need to have more weight than others for certain topic areas. Most commonly that I've seen is the use of UNDUE and FRINGE to eliminate counter-discussion about a topic that is contentious. Policies are meant to be flexible; there are times where editors are encouraged to and should use UNDUE/FRINGE to remove minority/fringe counterpoints (particularly when it comes to BLP), but there are times where there is need to be more accommodating if we are to remain neutral on a contentious topic. But instead, sometimes these cliques stick to the policy like glue and refuse to consider their flexible nature in areas where they need to be flexible; whether this is just a mechanical application or intentional usage to uphold a specific POV, it can be very difficult to tell, but in either case, these groups need to work with editors that bring these questions forward in a cooperative manner. It creates elitism which is not helpful for the project as a whole. And again, this type of behavior is very much a long-term phenomena, and very difficult to identify as an outsider to the conversation, or even to guide outsiders to the most relevant points. --MASEM (t) 16:25, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yep FRINGE and WEIGHT do sometimes cause problems and especially when put together. Some editors go around removing the facts about fringe topics even when it destroys Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia on the basis of WEIGHT. All you get is an article saying it is pseudoscience and lots of people have shown it is rubbish with very little about what the topic is about in the first place. It is unfortunately very easy to be cliquish and the general rule that should be followed I think is that a notice should always be placed on an article talk page if the article content is being discussed elsewhere, not just inform an editor if they are explicitly named. Dmcq (talk) 23:43, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No linkage of bad behavio(u)r

The parent discussion is useful, but too blue-sky to actually achieve change. I would like to take one of the things mentioned (by me) and frame it as a formal proposal.

PROPOSED: Confine each ANI complaint to addressing the behavior of one editor. If the opponents of that editor have behaved badly, handle that separately. Avoid linkage. Do not allow User X's bad behavior to mitigate User Y's bad behavior.

  • Support as proposer. Many editors are far more likely to behave in a disruptive manner if they can reasonably expect to be forgiven after pointing to someone else's behavior. "I'm usually not like this, but I had no choice. They made me do it. Hey I'm only human." This is bullshit. No one makes me do anything, I'm an adult and I decide how I behave. Two wrongs don't make a right, and there is no "justified" bad behavior. Don't make excuses for your behavior, and don't legitimize excuses in Wikipedia process. It has created a culture of excuses and one of the best things we can do for the editing environment is to change that culture. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:39, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Terrible terrible idea. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose So if two editors are both revert warring each other, we must have separate discussions created for each one? It's too chaotic and too restrictive. Besides, this won't stop people from using the behavior of others unless you want to spend all day policing people's rationales. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 22:28, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. It takes two to tango, and oftentimes more than that on Wikipedia. Calidum ¤ 22:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - If we were to adopt this, who ever complains to ANI first would effectively win any dispute... Even if their behavior was more serious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs) 22:51, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - per Ricky81682. I have to agree that separating the discussions between editors that act in bad faith would clog up an administrator's time. It should also be on the administrator to review the actions of all involved, not just of those being reported. Boomer VialHolla 10:19, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I have read Mandruss's explanation below and I disagree with what they say. One person's behavior does in many circumstances mean another's should be excused to an extent. We are not robots, we are supposed to use commonsense. Dmcq (talk) 12:14, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on the principle of boomerangs. It also makes any ANI threads much easier to read through and discuss when both editors can be discussed in the same "parent" thread. Separating the threads would remove easily viewable context of the editor's behaviours. I do however agree that one user's behaviour should not excuse another's through a perverse false balance. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 10:50, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - each user's behavior must be judged in context of how this user was treated, or thinks (s)he was treated, by the accusers and other users. A user's behavior can be migitated by the fact that this user was treated badly (yes, there are absolute red lines, but even crossing them may be punishable by a smaller punishment). To discuss a user's behavior without its context would clearly make this context harder to find. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:16, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Calidum nailed it. Very frequently, if not the outright majority of the time, the complaints by Editor A against Editor B are overblown and histrionic, and both editors (or groups thereof) need to settle down. Those of us who bother to try to moderate these disputes should not have our hands tied. We'd probably also have to get rid of WP:BOOMERANG, which we've long relied upon. It's also unworkable because ANI reports fairly often are about multiple editors. We shouldn't have to have five threads at once to deal with the behavior of an editing bloc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Two wrongs do not make a right. CLCStudent (talk) 18:58, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion: No linkage

Ricky81682: First, this is about ANI, not AN3. This is not an edit warring context. Also, it doesn't say we must have a separate discussion for User X, only that User X's behavior may not be used as a defense by User Y. As for your last sentence, I'm not sure what you mean. Are you referring to User Y "using the behavior of others" in their own rationalizing, or as a defense at ANI? If the latter, that may be true, they may try the defense regardless of this culture change, but that defense would be futile. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:50, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Um, actually it says quite clearly: "Confine each ANI complaint to addressing the behavior of one editor. If the opponents of that editor have behaved badly, handle that separately." So "It doesn't say we must have a separate discussion for User X, only that ..." does not appear to be an accurate statement. If you want to change the proposal then change it, but please don't try to gaslight us that we're all having reading comprehension problems.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Calidum: I don't know what that means, or why it would be an Oppose rationale here. Could you elaborate? ―Mandruss ☎ 22:50, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I mean that in many instances (though not all) both parties have contributed to the dispute; this doesn't mean they're equally guilty or that the actions of one excuse the actions of another. I fail to see how breaking out each users' conduct into separate threads helps at all. Calidum ¤ 23:04, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, thanks. I thought my !vote answered those questions. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:05, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Blueboar: Not so. If the person who was reported first was not judged to have committed actionable bad behavior, no action would be taken. But their behavior would not be excused by someone else's behavior. Regardless of the outcome of the original complaint—or even before that complaint is resolved—a complaint may be filed against the person who filed it, and that outcome may be more serious than that of the first complaint. No change except the elimination of linkage. The need to keep the complaints physically separate is simply a matter of organization. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:14, 12 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Specific behaviour

  1. Editing other's talk page comments.
  2. Non-admins closing ANI threads.

Both of these are not new behaviour, rather behaviour that was tolerated far more in the "old days". If I make a distracting spelling error why should someone not correct it? If a thread needs closing why should it not be closed? The ossification of the community has made both of these actions ones which were looked askance upon, and then (unofficially) frowned upon, and then over which people were taken to task.

My advice is, be very careful editing others' comments, and annotate anything non-trivial (indeed consider notifying the editor instead) and be careful closing ANI sections.

The reason I suggest more caution over editing others' comments is that the action is less obvious. ANI closes can be, and often are, reversed: so while it is a good idea to close "correctly" a mistake should not be a major problem.

Wikipedia is (or was) a bit like the Wild West, and where reversible actions are concerned this has stood us in good stead. Almost all the problems stem from irreversible actions. And we tend to compound this by taking more irreversible actions as a remedy.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:50, 14 February 2016 (UTC).[reply]

I think one of the problems of allowing editing of others' comments is that it blurs what could be clear line, helpful in preventing misunderstanding. I recently had a comment of mine heavily edited and it significantly changed the meaning. There were comments along the lines of "it is a single occurrence so it is not actionable". I disagree. We take action over a single edit when this breaches 1RR or 3RR. If we have a clear line that others' comments should not be edited, this can be avoided. Oh, by the way, the AN/I thread in which these changes were made was closed by a non-admin...I think this indicates why I also disagree with the second behaviour in your sub-heading.DrChrissy (talk) 15:33, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Given I've seen people use comments out of context as well to infer an entirely different meaning, this strengths the need to avoid any edits on others comments, even if it is fixing a spelling error. The only times comment editing should be allowed is to fix page-breaking or discussion-confusing layout (adding the required colons or stars for intentingindenting or moving a misplaced comment, or closing an open italic/bold format or the like), to remove BLP or copyright-violating material, or otherwise strip clear vandalism out. If its a spelling mistake or a missing word, that should be let be though you're free to tag that editor to ask them if they want to fix it. It prevents the line from where one fixes a spelling, to adding a few extra words, to changing the entire meaning of the user's post, and that's just the easiest way to prevent that slippery slope. --MASEM (t) 15:41, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Masem: Do you want to fix your spelling of "intenting" to "indenting"? Seems to be closer to what you are saying. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 02:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks. --MASEM (t) 16:23, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I occasionally fix indenting per WP:THREAD (many, many editors don't understand that simple indenting system or refuse to follow it because they disagree with it, in some cases resulting in misunderstanding of one's meaning). I've been known to remove massive bolding per WP:SHOUT, without being the local massive bolding sheriff. Inserting a blank line for readability, no problem. Correcting others' spelling is excessive, unnecessary, and potentially annoying to the writer, but forgiveable if not overdone. Anything else should be verboten, and I'd be likely to raise a bit of a stink if someone did it to me. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:27, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What MASEM called "slippery slope" is the result of applying an old excuse: that the end justifies the means. As we have many times seen in the past, this miserable excuse hides, always and only, a battle for power. Is the community really willing to mingle with this? Wouldn't be better to find an higher bank where to conduct the struggle from? Carlotm (talk) 21:14, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question I have just seen that a current thread on AN/I was opened by an editor and the same editor closed the thread as a "non-admin closure". Is this allowed?DrChrissy (talk) 18:41, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What is the context DrChrissy? (Read; provide a link please) If they are withdrawing their request/notice/what-have-you, then I'm pretty sure that is allowable in most cases. Cheers, Doctor Crazy in Room 102 of The Mental Asylum 02:12, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The closure is of AN/I "Edit-warring at Pakistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa" which is now in archive#914. To be clear, I'm not making any report of this editor (which is why I have not named them or pinged them), I just thought that actual self-closing of a report leaves the system open for gaming and abuse. By all means an editor should be able to withdraw and ask for closure, but should they really be able to close it themselves?DrChrissy (talk) 15:52, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
He pulled his own request as things had calmed down. There is nothing at all wrong with this. Also you basically named them and should have pinged SheriffIsInTown. Mrfrobinson (talk) 02:07, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I had this request open for so many days and no admin intervened to resolve the matter. Once we were done fighting and I stepped back from my stated position. I thought there is nothing wrong in pulling out this request. I had seen non-admin closures before so I thought let's close it myself so nobody else can be bothered with the closure as well but if there is a policy saying that requestor cannot close their own request then do let me know and I will refrain from that in the future. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 02:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SheriffIsInTown I saw no issue with your action at all. I only pinged you because it was mentioned above by DrChrissy who said they weren't going to name names but linked to it (which is essentially the same thing). Mrfrobinson (talk) 12:16, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@SheriffIsInTown: As I indicated above, it was the principle of the action (self-closure of a thread on AN/I) that I was raising as a genuine question, not the incidence in which you were involved. I only linked to your closure when requested. I apologise for any embarassment or inconvenience caused by my drawing attention to you. DrChrissy (talk) 14:19, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not a big deal, thank you :), i had my share of bogus blames since i joined Wikipedia, compared to those, this is nothing. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 17:21, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Who still writes articles around here?

I believe the sad reality is that many should just leave the project. Before things can get better first they have to get worse. The current editors seem not at all interested in changing their ways, things just are not bad enough. Or things are going just fine the way they are, it depends on your perspective.

I think the problems are many and obvious. There are countless ways to identify the problematic editors. For example: If you are reading this and your mind is fixated on pretending I've experienced- or physically are- the problem then you are one of them. As long as you maintain that bad faith assumption you and me can not write an encyclopedia together. -> This is not my problem. You are doing this every time you see someone raise an issue. Don't expect that on the man approach to ever fix anything.

It is like filling a bug report "that link overthere doesn't work", then getting a response like "you can still get to that page by doing A, B, C, D" Here the person who is suppose to fix the bug pretends it is the user who is having a problem. This while the person filling the bug was trying to help him.

As noted above, the Wikipedia system was bad from the beginning. There never was peace on Wikipedia nor was there sufficient effort to enforce the rules. There are these illusory pillars and edit guidelines but they are like having a law book without a police force or a court system.

It is perfectly acceptable for overly active long time editors to cite guidelines they've made up themselves. If their buddies, or shall we say, random other editors agree, then: that is what the guidelines "says" and it will be enforced the way it was imagined to work.

As an IP editor I get to see this again and again. The usual response is that I should make an account, which fails to appreciate the issue raised. It is as if I'm interested in treating the sympthom, as if it is acceptable for editors who know better to "accidentally" fabricate convenient guidelies.

But that is not all, much like any article the guidelines and pillars are written and guarded by teams of users who by understatement are really not interested at all in your participation or views. Endless debates and small tinkering will never accumulate to serious changes to any of these ideas. Those who would have agreed with your proposal left Wikipedia long ago or avoid the page like the plague. That is what WP Consensus refers to in this context.

If you can see- or think-that the small club (or shall we say cult?) controlling the guideline is wrong or insane you should really abandon the project. Do continue to edit some trivial mainspace mistakes 2 or 3 times per year or post 2 or 3 talk page comments, but limit participation to that.

Admins, the wikipedia law enforcement, can and do randomly shoot people on the street without consequences while being reluctant to enforce even the most obvious guidelines.

I've seen one editor, who I cant blame at all, with an edit history that should be described as a multi-year river of insults. I estimate he cost Wikipedia roughly 2000 users as people simply don't care for cynical and insulting feedback on their constructive legitimate effort. It was amazing to see administrators ban users on his request after they simply insulted him in return (which should be an entirely acceptable deed for a newbie repeatedly insulted by a long term user) The guy had so many insults in his name that we can hardly blame him for it. He clearly didn't know any better.

Meanwhile on a different page far far away editors are ganging up on a contributor who simply lost his cool for 1 minute.

It is hard to imagine admins not to be entirely and fully aware of these double standards.

But you wanted solutions, I find it hard to see where to begin but ok.

Lets enrich ANI by having involved parties provide links pointing at their X most recent mainspace contributions. Restoring deleted content doesn't count and minor contributions may be skipped if the editor desires it.

That way administrators don't have to read endless horror stories but they can adjust their bias to the wonderful contributions made by the user before banning her.

While the report might be valid and filling it might contribute to the project constructively: If the editor filling the report is not an active contributor his ideas about the way the article writing process should work are not based on experience. It was someone else who was trying to write an article and he chose to get in the way of that process. That choice might be legitimate, the goal of the project is certainly not to make antagonizing the writing of the encyclopedia as comfortable as possible.

The reality is that editors who are willing to do the research, make the citations and format the pages are perfectly capable of self-policing among their own. (not directly of course)

In the current paradigm vandal fighters are a precious type of users in contrast with article writers who are considered a disposable commodity. But face the music, the vandal fighter is never going to teach the new user how to write articles, all he can do is tell her how not to do it. again and again and again...

Personally it is the first thing I look for when a user is disagreeing with my contribution. I look at their edit history to see how many years ago their activity last involved article writing. If I'm impressed by their contributions I will make far greater effort tying to debate the disagreement, if there are any I respect their emotional outbursts and continue to calmly explain why I think it is valuable to the article and so on. If their contributions are laughable however, I will systemically avoid debating the art of article writing, not because I don't want to but because it is pointless. You can only have a serious discussion if participants share the same goal.

I believe administrators are very capable of making that call if they are conveniently provided with the stuff that makes valuable editors.

Ill consider against to be a vote against article writing per WP:Making Stuff Up. 84.106.11.117 (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support as proposer.84.106.11.117 (talk) 22:17, 20 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • A bit overlong but I think what you are asking for is a reputation system which works to encourage constructive edits. It is hard to stop such things being gamed and encouraging cliques of people who back each other up. However I would support efforts to find such a system as it might help greater engagement by good editors. Dmcq (talk) 13:58, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just jumping in to say I agree that there a lot of bad faith assumptions on here where experienced Wikipedians (not necessarily frequent editors) cite rules and policies without actually being too helpful or assuming that people are doing their best. Not sure the best way to fix this. I don't know if the problem is that they don't create articles; I think the problem is just that they are removed, for whatever reason, from issues certain people face. Sometimes this is because they don't write articles, but sometimes it's just becaue they've been around for a while and don't remember what it's like to be a newb. I think it's important to always remember that there are a lot of us out here who aren't Wikipedia experts but who have a lot of knowledge others' might not have, and our contributions, even if not perfect, do better Wikipedia. -KaJunl (talk) 23:43, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Public Accounts

Last year, the Public Account Movement (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:The_Public_Account_Movement) caused a stir on Wikipedia, before being driven underground. But we did not cease to exist. We believe that Public Accounts, which anybody can log into and use, will succeed in making Wikipedia into a fairer place for all. What do you think? We want to talk about Public Accounts. --The Public Account Movement Is Back! (talk) 23:58, 11 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The account has been zealously blocked, so we may never know. Perhaps more to the point we may fail to explain to this user why a public account on the existing software is a bad idea.
There are (or have been) proposals to improve the anonymity of IPs, which may answer their concern. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:56, 14 February 2016 (UTC).[reply]
Bad idea. Accounts with high levels of permissions such as Administrators or CheckUsers and such would be taken over easily. Those hijacked accounts would cause some pretty mass destruction. FiendYT 03:32, 22 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is just silly, per all of the above, and per the WP:COMMONSENSE that anons can edit – the entire IPv4 and IPv6 system is essentially a big public account. Next.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:49, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • What the previous comment said is exactly what came into my mind when I saw this idea. If one person on the account manages to gain higher privileges on that account, then it can be abused by a bad-faith or inexperienced editor. Therefore, public accounts might be a good idea, but they should never be allowed to gain additional privileges. CLCStudent (talk) 18:04, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have a question, or two:

We delete copvio mateial, rightly so.

We delete promotional material, right so.

However, consider when the copyvio material is actually posted by the copyright holder as promotional material. Have they therefore signed over the material to "commons" usage, as per the text at the bottom of every edit screen, namely 'By clicking the "Save page" button, you agree to the Terms of Use and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL with the understanding that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient for CC BY-SA 3.0 attribution' (my bold). Hence there is no longer a copy right violation since it was agreed to by the copyright holder? There then just remains the matter of making it encyclopedic rather than promotional. Eno Lirpa (talk) 13:16, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds fairly tricky. If this is indeed the case, the copyright holder basically waives any monetary claims to the uploaded material (as it is now open sourced under creative commons). This means that the uploaded materials would not only be usuable in Wikipedia, but anywhere, for any purpose, by anyone (as long as they conform to CC). This may be an unwanted and unknown consequence of the uploader (but tough luck there). However, to be able to allow this in Wikipedia we need to be 100% certain that the uploader is indeed the sole copyright holder (or at least has legal power to waive copyright on the material for ever). I am not sure Wikipedia has such control mechanisms in place; and we could get into a lot of problem if someone poses as sole copyright holder, uploads stuff, which then gets copied outside Wikipedia. Arnoutf (talk) 13:30, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but how do we know anyone has the right to cc the right to any material they post? Eno Lirpa (talk) 14:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We probably don't, and therefore should not allow this (sorry for backtracking in the thread) Arnoutf (talk) 15:34, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is a huge difference between content where, as far as anyone knows, only exists on Wikipedia; and content which is known to be on a company website, where we have reason to think that the copyright may have been legally turned over to the company (and not the person who claims to be the author), and even if not - there may be multiple authors in the company. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
When an organization identifies something has promotional material that is not enough for us to use it. The material must be specifically licensed with acceptable free license. This is very rarely the case. While I’m sure it happens on occasion I can’t recall ever running across it. Of course as suggested above but worth emphasizing, even if the material is appropriately licensed, the very nature of it being promotional means it is likely to be worded in a way that is not acceptable for an encyclopedia. ::::However, if it is appropriately licensed we can reword it and not have to worry about close paraphrasing and as long as we comply with the requirements for attribution.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:42, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The bit about clicking on the button irrevocably signing away rights has no more legal validity than a shrink wrap licence. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dilemma (BLP and CoI editing vs. reliable sources)

Today I was again confronted with issue that perhaps is very much of our time: social media representatives. I'm not sure what experiences other editors have had with BLP articles and these people, but this is an example that I came across today. The singer Barbara Hannigan has engaged some who manages her 'online affairs' according to this edit. In it, there is a reference to a separation, apparently requested by the artist. I did a quick search both in Dutch and English media outlets, but found no reference to it. Obviously this is a BLP issue and a private matter. I am tempted to blank the Personal Life section for this very reason. However, I am worried that it will cause a edit-war with the CoI editor User:VCM05 on whose page I already left a notice about conflict of interest issues. How have others dealt with this situation? Any advice is appreciated. Karst (talk) 16:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My 2 cents. These edits fall under WP:Paid and possibly under WP:COI. In any case, if so requested a reliable source WP:V should be provided. In this specific case, however, such a source may be lacking.
The source for her marriage is actually very flimsy, as it is just a few word clause in a newspaper report that is not at all about her personal life. Therefore in this specific case removal of the personal life section (basically one line) would solve the whole issue.
The way forward in this specific case may be to point the representative to above guidelines, and invite them to make a case on talk for consideration by other editors. Arnoutf (talk) 18:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I will remove the section for the time being and point to the Talk page. Karst (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Motion to allow linking to large periods in prehistory and antiquity

Because it's really inconvenient to have to manually look up terms like 8th millennium BC or 5th century in articles about ancient and natural history.--Prisencolin (talk) 04:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't clear what exactly you want to do here. Can you please be more specific? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:52, 23 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to add a line in MOS:LINKING that explicitly allows linking to large periods of time (maybe >100 yrs)--Prisencolin (talk) 01:32, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm assuming you want to amend Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking#Linking_month-and-day_or_year, I don't think that is to controversial - but suggest you post at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking, with the specific change you want to incorporate, then give it a reasonable time for comments before applying the update. — xaosflux Talk 02:41, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Too vague for appraisal. I concur with Xaosflux that this should be raised as a more concrete proposal in MoS talk. While it could be taken to WT:MOSLINK, or perhaps WT:MOSNUM which covers dates, you'll get more input at WT:MOS itself, and most non-trivial changes to MoS pages are discussed there, since the main guideline supersedes its detail pages, and they have to be kept in synch with it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:34, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive description of a book harmful to author?

I recently looked at the article for a well-known book, Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. The "Overview" and the "Summary of chapters" sections together constitute an over 10,000-word description of what's in the book. Isn't this way excessive, in terms of what WP articles normally do for synopses of books, films, etc? Moreover, isn't description at this size and level harmful to the author? If it's written well, it may hurt book sales, because people now think they know everything that's in the book. Or if it's not written well, it's going to hurt the image of the book, because it gets details wrong or it isn't written as well or misses some important themes. Yet I couldn't quite find a policy that said that what this article is doing is wrong. Is there one? Wasted Time R (talk) 00:46, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

While one might argue WP:NOT#PLOT doesn't apply to non-fiction, the nature of it still does : we should not overly reiterate what is described in the book. Highlighting major themes and points is fair, but a 10,000 word summary is overkill. --MASEM (t) 00:59, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Given the lack of direct guidance for non-fiction summaries, the best we perhaps have is MOS:PLOT, which cautions that summaries of works should not overwhelm the rest of the article, or WP:UNDUE in general which discourages unbalanced articles of any type. I agree the length of the summary is excessive. --Jayron32 01:00, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Also, per guidance at Wikipedia:Plot-only description of fictional works notes several legal cases where works with excessively detailed summaries of the parent material constituted copyright violations of the original works. --Jayron32 01:04, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just as a procedural note, its interesting to see that nearly every section of that summary in the book is from a different registered editor that effectively didn't edit much beyond that, over a very narrow time span (of a few days). I don't think it's socking (there's no signs the individual editors were blocked) but perhaps something else is going on? Class assignment? I would almost consider blanking that section just in case. --MASEM (t) 01:17, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd imagine a class assignment would use the same IP, or at least ones that geolocate to the same area, and the timing would be shorter rather than over months. But you're right; it does look somewhat suspicious. Ajraddatz (Talk) 02:06, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it could be an online class. ansh666 02:57, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Could be, though the time scale still seems a bit long. Oh well, I think that shortening the section per the reasons listed above makes sense. Ajraddatz (Talk) 03:11, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
One of the page headers at Talk:The New Jim Crow says that it was indeed part of a course assignment in Spring 2015. It would feel bad to rip out students' work, but it really shouldn't have been put there like this in the first place. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:13, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This was my class's project. As the first Wiki project I engaged in, I didn't manage it very well. Frankly, I'm surprised the summaries are still up. So, don't feel bad. In fact, other work that students have contributed since has been taken down. I use these as examples about what stays on Wikipedia and what doesn't. So, it's helpful.76.14.51.82 (talk) 15:08, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hosting class projects isn't part of this project's goals; if they want to use our site for their project, they have to live up to our rules, not visa versa. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:24, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes but that would actually require rules to adhere to. MOS (and MOS:PLOT) are best practice guidelines, the other relevant guides are essays and MOS:PLOT doesnt apply to non-fiction works anyway. WP:UNDUE is not relevant either, excessive description is not a neutrality issue unless its skewing the neutrality of the article towards one point of view or another. An excessive summary of the subject of the work the article is about is almost never going to hit that. The appropriate place would be somewhere in the MOS for summaries for writing about non-fiction works. Which at the moment does not exist that I can see. WP:Manual_of_Style/Writing_about_non-fiction probably needs creating. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:32, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it probably violates WP:Primary or wherever we say do not base articles too much on primary sources (which is somewhere in our major policies or WP:RS) and the spirit of WP:Close paraphrasing. Alanscottwalker (talk)
FYI I deleted the section per the comments above. If anyone thinks we need more policy, please propose. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:29, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unexplained abbreviations in articles?

I have noticed today this edit on my watchlist. I reverted it since I did not know what WL means (I also though the edit breaks markup, which it does not). My edit was reverted, with the comment that WL means "World leading". Whereas I am fine when my good faith edits are reverted for cause, I asked the user to add the definition of "WL" to the article. They refused to do it, saying that everybody knows what is this anyway. Now, the question is how should I read MOS: do we need the definition (or at least an active link), or the user is correct, and we should basically not care about the accidental readers who do not know what this is.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:36, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unless specified in the "Exceptions" section below, an acronym should be written out in full the first time it is used on a page, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, e.g. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Common exceptions to this rule are post-nominal initials because writing them out in full would cause clutter. Another exception is when something is most commonly known by its acronym (i.e., it's article here is at the acronym title), in which case the expansion can come in the parenthetical or be omitted, except in the lead of its own article: according to the CIA (U.S. Central Intelligence Agency).

To save space in small spaces (defined above), acronyms do not need to be written out in full. When not written out in full on the first use on a page, an acronym should be linked. An unambiguous acronym can be linked as-is, but an ambiguous acronym should be linked to its expansion. Upon later re-use in a long article, the template can be used to provide a mouse-over tooltip giving the meaning of the acronym again without having to redundantly link it or spell it out again in the main text: CIA, giving: CIA

Seems to be the relevant passages from WP:MOSABBR. --Izno (talk) 17:53, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is a list of related acronyms, including WL, at Athletics abbreviations#Records. At least some of them in that table could be linked there on first appearance. Or, and perhaps more reader-friendly, you could use footnotes, which could in turn contain links to that article section. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:14, 24 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Links or explanations for sure. Assume ignorance. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:53, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was the one who reverted it back and wrote it to begin with. It's an Athletics Page, so I assume that people reading it will understand what WL stands for in this case. Either way, there is already "World Leading" above it due to a box with the World Record, Olympic Record and World Leading times, at the time of the event. I even wrote about the Original World Leading time had been abolished due to Doping, underneath. So I don't find it necessary to again write that WL stands for World Leading. Basetornado (talk) 10:15, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Abbreviations like WL should not be used at all as they are a specialised jargon. This problem of specialised abbreviations crops up all over Wikipedia, and it need to be stamped out as much as possible. We don't need to save space, and their use makes the articles harder to understand. The target audience is not thw same as the likely writers, so we have to make efforts to change the writers' style they prefer to use. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:16, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but I still think there is no need to say what it is, because of the aforementioned uses of the words. Basetornado (talk) 12:50, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All the abbreviations in that article should be explained. I can't see what on earth is the point of putting in abbreviations like PB WL DQ SB and whatever other ones that are there without any explanation whatsoever. Lots of people would be interested in the 50 kilometers walk records but they will just be mystified by that article. This is supposed to be an encyclopaedia not a puzzle box. Dmcq (talk) 13:46, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We should also remember that we are writing for a general audience, not a specialized one. While "WL" may be crystal clear to anyone interested in athletics, its not a common abbreviation outside it, and definitely must be defined at least once. --MASEM (t) 15:07, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The original World Leading (WL) Time was abolished after Sergey Kirdyapkin was found guilty of Doping Violations. There you go. Basetornado (talk) 16:50, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to all of you for the opinions. I will try to make sure PB and SB are referenced in all articles as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:52, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm even a frequent sports editor, and have never seen "WL" outside of highly jargonistic context, and even then it was explained before it was used, e.g. a key/legend in a table. It's weird, confusing and inappropriate to just shove it into an article here. I wouldn't even use it with {{abbr}} markup without having already spelled it out earlier in an article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think there might be an opportunity for a sports abbreviations template where one listed the abbreviations and it spits out a bit of boilerplate giving explanations for the various abbreviations. Dmcq (talk) 17:24, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is Template:AthAbbr, discussed here. Pinging SFB, just in case he wants to know, what's happening here. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 17:42, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the ping Edgars. Quite a lot of work has gone into the template to reduce confusion around athletics abbreviations. Within results listings it makes most sense to use abbreviations, given space considerations and typical presentation in other media. All the abbreviations have real-world basis, although many such as A or WL are nonsense to most (conservatively I'd say all but WR and PB are nonsense to most). Among editors in the athletics project, the best result we've come to is to link to the athletics abbreviations page and describe those abbreviation and meanings in full. The template also provides a hover-over decode for abbreviations, which also works for screen readers. Sports stats can be so niche at times that a little confusion is inevitable and it's mostly unavoidable – for example, "AR" or "area record" has a very specific meaning in athletics that needs to be conveyed, but concepts like "the best legal-conditions mark set within a given event by an athlete within one of the six continental areas defined by the IAAF, such as the North America, Central America and Caribbean region governed by NACAC, but not athletes from within that region who are subjects of non-IAAF member states, or non-sovereign dependencies of states in one of the other IAAF-defined areas" aren't ever going to be easily expressed within a table, or even each article, without severely affecting focus and readability. SFB 18:44, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:26, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, {{AthAbbr}} resolves concerns I would have about use of this in a table, or infobox, or in a long string of sports stats, since it links to a glossary. It still shouldn't be used in running text, though (e.g. "A WL team, they earned a WR in 2015"), even with the template. Write in plain English any time you can, this being an encyclopedia, not a handbook of sports stats.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:37, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FYI
 – Part of the discussion below forked off to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Disputing a major BOLDSYN change

Currently there's a discussion going on here whether or not the acronym BWV should be linked on first occurence in an article. Maybe the acronym can be explained in a {{efn}}? Maybe a link in the infobox (which in the wikicode "precedes" the text in the lead section) is sufficient? --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:14, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Background and history: The article is about a Bach cantata, one of many, with their article titles construed of original title in German + BWV number, BWV being short for Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis. So far, both the original title and BWV 7 (in this example) were bolded, the former as the title, the latter as both the cantata number (we do bold symphony numbers) and as a main redirect. Some people would speak about the work as BWV 7, - it's almost a synonym. It seams particularly important to me to make the connection between the title and the BWV number by similar presentation as they are separated by (sometimes longish) translation(s). For those unfamiliar with the acronym BWV, a footnote {{efn}} explained what BWV means, which imho fulfills the spirit of the Mos to explain an acronym. The link - as required by the MoS - is prominently in the infobox, which to me is "the first occurrence" anyway. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:50, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "Some people would speak about the work as BWV 7" – can you back up that claim? As far as I'm aware no reliable source would refer to the composition as BWV 7 without also mentioning its name. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:01, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
When I wrote "speak" I meant speak, - it's colloquially abbreviated like that. - Kindly look at some arbitrary page in the book of books about Bach's cantatas (by Dürr, translated by Jones): I see many mentionings of numbers without title. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That book, like any other reliable source I know, gives the full name of every cantata it refers to by BWV number. Re. "speak", see WP:V. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:41, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"refers to by BWV number", we agree, thanks for the better wording. It supports that this number should appear bold. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 10:12, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above (now applying emphasis): "As far as I'm aware no reliable source would refer to the composition as BWV 7 without also mentioning its name." – AFAIK, in the context of a source BWV numbers are not used stand-alone, i.e. the source will always contain the name of the work. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:28, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you could explain the situation to clarify for those commenting here, and or link to the guideline discussion and change made.(Littleolive oil (talk) 13:50, 26 February 2016 (UTC))[reply]

        • For clarity, I didn't change/write a "guideline" (an exaggeration I ignored thus far), I updated a WikiProject "/Guidelines" subpage (a page clearly marked as having "essay" status), as a result of a discussion at the related WikiProject page (for the "/Guidelines" vs "guideline" ambiguity, I commonly refer to it as "guidance", unless it it is a guideline with guideline status). I also announced the update of the essay at the WikiProject talk page. Anyhow, both the diff of the essay update and the archived discussion related to that update are linked from Talk:Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7#BWV, in the sixth and seventh post to that discussion respectively. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:17, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An essay is just a formalized version of an opinion and holds no weight, so it should not be used as ammunition in a discussion. Further you did change the essay and then suggested Gerda abide by that change and that essay. I don't see any reason why she or any editor would consider the essay any more than what it is - an opinion - nor should it hold weight in this discussion. However, Rexx's comments below do hold weight and I would agree with him and Gerda that bolding BMV 7 is the appropriate way to title the article. (Littleolive oil (talk) 17:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC))[reply]

In this particular case, it's simply whether the article Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7 should have an opening sentence:

  1. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), BWV 7, is a ...;
    or
  2. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), BWV 7, is a ...

Both MOS:BOLD and MOS:BOLDTITLE indicate that the article title is to be rendered in boldface. In addition, BWV 7 is a redirect to the article (i.e. a reasonable search term), and readers expect their search term to appear in boldface as is explained in MOS:TEXT #Other uses. All three sections of MOS support version number 1 above - i.e. BWV 7 in boldface. --RexxS (talk) 17:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

According to the applicable guidance the abbreviation of the catalogue should not be separated from the catalogue number by a linebreak, so why did you remove the {{nowrap}} here? --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:41, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Citing from the guidelines you refer to:
  • MOS:BOLD: "....This is done for the majority of articles, but there are exceptions." (emphasis added)
  • MOS:BOLDTITLE: "In general, if the article's title is absent from the first sentence, do not apply the bold style to related text that does appear: The Beatles rise to prominence in the United States on February 7, 1964, was a significant development in the history of the band's commercial success. (The Beatles in the United States)..." (which is one of the exceptions)
In sum MOS:BOLD and MOS:BOLDTITLE rather recommend not to bold in this case.
Re. MOS:TEXT #Other uses: applying the "principle of least astonishment" (as mentioned there) rather indicates to not be wishy-washy about "When not written out in full on the first use on a page, an acronym should be linked." (which is in WP:ACRO, which doesn't indicate exceptions to the rule). --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:34, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Any exceptions to MOS:BOLD need to be for good reason. You have no good reason to remove the bolding on BWV 7, which is both part of the article title and a redirect. Therefore it should be bold.
The articles title's is clearly not absent from the first sentence. It is indeed the subject of the first sentence and not at all analogous to The Beatles in the United States. If you would prefer the opening sentence to read "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7, (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan) is a .." then propose it on the talk page. The exception is for when it would be unnatural to re-write the opening sentence in order to re-create the title. That is no the case here. You read the words of the guidance mechanically, but have no understanding of what the guidance means.
MOS:BOLD and MOS:BOLDTITLE absolutely recommend to bold in this case. I cannot believe that the guidance could possibly be so misinterpreted here.
Forget acronymns. They are not relevant because BWV 7 is not an acronym - it's the catalogue number of, and a searchable redirect to, the article Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7. If you desperately want to explain the acronym BWV (note that's a different link), then link it at its next (non-bold) occurrence as the guidance suggests, or use a footnote to explain it. Either way, you don't need to break the guidance on bolding article titles and redirects. --RexxS (talk) 18:54, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Um, "BWV" is the acronym, Rexx. Why would we "forget" it?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:35, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As for the removal of the no-wrap: the BWV 7 is placed so close to the start of the first line that there isn't a supported screen resolution low enough for a line break to realistically happen there. It doesn't hurt to put no-wrap in as "good practice", but it isn't needed in any likely scenario in this case. --RexxS (talk) 19:16, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Some sort of tunnel vision I suppose: on my smartphone it is near the end of the second line. So, please just follow applicable guidance in this matter, some of its underlying reasons seem to elude you. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:29, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Aye. Those of us with shite vision and phones smaller than bricks actually blow this stuff up really big; if I don't turn mine sideways, I only get |somewhere around this much material| on one line.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:35, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And WP:MOSBOLDSYN. --Izno (talk) 17:46, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
MOSBOLDSYN only applies for common abbreviations. Can you demonstrate that BWV 7 is a common abbreviation for Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7? --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:41, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I did not contest that it was relevant to this exact case, only that it was relevant. --Izno (talk) 13:47, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) That's obviously a misinterpretation of what BOLDSYN said. The exact same text is required to be boldfaced by BOLDTITLE, immediately above BOLDSYN. You can't play guideline sentence 2 against guideline sentence 1 as if they're in competition, especially when #2 is clearly an expansion on #1, not an alternative to it. You're applying a WP:COMMONNAME-derived titles rationale about what a name is, incorrectly to a style guideline on how names are presented, and as always this is not a viable approach. I agree with much of the rest of what you've been saying above and below, however.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:20, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • per Ymb (the OP), RexxS, LO, others and the need for this page: Wikipedia:ALPHABETSOUP — Ched :  ?  18:59, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:BOOMRANG seems appropriate. A person needs clean hands to come and claim that changes they made should be observed by everyone. This is quite disingenuous. Montanabw(talk) 03:43, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I guess this is two separate things now:
    • Boldface "BWV x" in the lead, per MOS We boldface significant alternative names/terms/abbreviations, especially if they are redirects to the actual title. Whether it's a common alternative name or not is extraneous (though of course it is very common [1]). Lack of frequency would be a matter for whether it should be in the lead or even the article at all. If it's rare, it shouldn't be in the lead; if it's not, it should be, where we boldface it, absent a compelling reason not to (e.g., if it's only a very slight variant of a name already boldfaced, perhaps, which we might give in a parenthetical after the near-identical bolded version). The appearance of the word "common" in MOS:BOLDSYN is not some magical loophole that can be WP:WIKILAWYERed/WP:GAMEd, since the "BVW x" would be bolded per MOS:BOLDTITLE anyway. [I've closed this wanna-be loophole, though WP:COMMONSENSE already very clearly indicated that it was not one.]. Another failed argument against the boldfacing is that is not a part of the formal title of the work, but that's irrelevant, since BOLDSYN and several provisions of BOLDTITLE would not exist otherwise. [Actually, I note below that there's also another irrelevant argument, that linking it is "clutter"; if that were valid reasoning, we would remove at least hundreds of thousands of boldfaced alt. names from article leads.]
    • Link "BWV" on first occurrence in the main prose (i.e., in the lead), per MOS. Infoboxes don't count. A) They cannot be relied upon to be first in the article; they have their own CSS class, and anyone who hates them (as many do) is liable to use WP:USERCSS to move them to the bottom of the page or eliminate them entirely. B) They are intended to be summaries of details from the article, so what is in them also needs to be in the article; a large number of previous discussions about linking, middle names/initials, and a zillion other things have always concluded the same way: Put it in the main article prose, too. [The only conventional exception seems to be supplementary material, like the taxonomic charts in {{Taxobox}}.] C) WP:REUSEs of WP article content often eliminate them; but we are also writing for that market (more so today than ever, as Web apps repackage what we write here). D) Infoboxes cannot even be relied upon to continue existing at all at such articles; the WP:CLASSICAL camp above all know better, since editwarring to remove infoboxes from composer articles turned into a WP:ARBCOM case that did not go well for the anti-infoboxers in that project, though some of them continue to lobby against their inclusion. Anyway, a standard wikilink is vastly preferable to a templated footnote that doesn't provide contextually specific info, but just regurgitates the key lead details of the linked page. Otherwise WP would have about 100 mil. fewer wikilinks and 100 mil. more footnotes. [Again, the argument below that the link is "clutter" is invalid for the reason I already gave above.]
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:26, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with bolding BWV, naturally, but not with a link at the next possibility. (We can't link from the bolded BWV.)
  1. BWV will not stand alone again in a cantata article, but will always be part of a name composed of "title and BWV", - it would look strange to me to link exclusively from BWV within such a construction.
  2. Most readers of a Bach cantata will know anyway what it stands for (like most readers know what UK stands for), they might frown at a link on the second mentioning.
  3. Those (few!) who don't know will want to know the first time, and can be helped by the footnote, which - as RexxS pointed out above - stays within the article (and in it is the link who still need it.). Have you tried BWV? (simple? easy?) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Linking to BWV 7, how could one be even discussing that? The very article is already about Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, the most specific topic. And then linking to a redirect article, that actually takes one to an ambiguous List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, how does that serve the reader? He wants to read an article on a wonderful composition by Bach, but he is advised to read a whole list of his production? 'Smart linking', eh...? Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 19:53, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Readability

For clarity, we're not discussing the difference between

  1. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), BWV 7, is a ...;
    and
  2. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), BWV 7, is a ...
    but the difference between
  3. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan),[1] BWV 7[a], is a ... ([2]);
    and
  4. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan),[1] BWV 7, is a ... ([3])
    or other possibilities (see below):
  5. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan),[1] BWV 7, is a ... ([4])
    and:
  6. Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), BWV 7, is a ...

Notes

  1. ^ "BWV" is Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, a thematic catalogue of Bach's works.

References

  1. ^ a b c Dellal, Pamela. "BWV 7 – "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam"". Emmanuel Music. Retrieved 30 August 2014.

→ My point being the general readability of the opening phrase of an article. I don't think the sequence (in #3) "Bolded title/parenthesis/footnote for parenthesis/Bolded catalogue indicator/other type of footnote for the catalogue indicator" (and all that before starting to say anything about the subject of the article) is very inviting to continue reading. I'd gladly reduce the clutter at the start of such articles. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:01, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that if we agree that BWV 7 should by bold, for various reasons mentioned above (such as the MoS if we don't make an exception - but why should we? ... and because Bach's cantatas are often referred to by their number, ... and to distinguish at a glance from the article with a similar title), your last version is not possible, so the question is reduced to: bold or not. What you call clutter is the little hint to a footnote which has been established to help readers who still don't know what BWV means. I can take it, but could also live without it. The link that you request is prominently in the infobox. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 11:56, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
ps: which adds possibility "5.", bolding yes, but no footnote, as it is in the article right now. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 12:03, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Added #5 & #6 to the alternatives above.
#6 is possible as the translation is referenced further down in the article, and content referenced in the body of the article doesn't need a footnote in the lede. So, that would be my preference.
I think it is best, indeed, to see this as a whole and not try to reduce it to bold/nobold of the BWV number. Other arguments have already been replied to, on this page, or at Talk:Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7 – would try to avoid becoming repetitive about arguments already given and repeated multiple times, but look at the new angle for its possible merits in the discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:20, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just responding to the new translation aspect:
  1. I understand that in the lead, you have to cite every quotation, which I think a translation is
  2. It may even be a copyright issue
  3. Further down in the article, sometimes even in the lead, it may be a different translation. There are always several, with different strenghts.
  4. I feel I have to clarify that the translation is not by some Wikipedia editor, but by a source, and by which source.
I don't believe the inline citation for the translation is clutter. Readers who want things clutter-free can turn to the infobox. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:04, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For clarity, we're discussing the difference between the first two. The rest is consequential muddying of the waters. Once the principles of bolding the title, and bolding searchable redirects are established, then the ways of explaining BWV become clearer. A bare link to BWV is not the best option here, because (1) it's much less obvious in that juxtaposition (as you can see in 4 and 6); and (2) it's quite easy to briefly explain it within this article (e.g. a footnote), rather than requiring the reader to navigate away from the article to read the definition. --RexxS (talk) 19:26, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Quite unclear: are you discussing #1 and #2, or #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 and #6? Also: this is WP:VPP, which means that all policies, guidelines and essays can be discussed, in particular WP:ACRO which this section is about. Are you doubting the validity of WP:ACRO? --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Re. title translation in the lead: I think the issues mentioned by Gerda can all be addressed (some may even not be an issue at all), but as I don't want to be sidetracked by this aspect I'll leave it for what it is for now. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:18, 28 February 2016 (UTC) Update: see Talk:Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7#English meaning of title for more on this aspect. --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:49, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For instance (as an example formatted for a possible inclusion in MOS:BOLDTITLE):

When the incoming redirect contains an acronym:

The Europlug (CEE 7/16) is a ... (Europlug, with CEE 7/16 as an incoming redirect)

The Europlug (CEE 7/16) is a ... (Europlug, with CEE 7/16 as an incoming redirect)

--Francis Schonken (talk) 10:07, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Option 5 is the the correct one (whether with the translation and its source or without), for reasons spelled out in detail in my bullet-comment in the parent thread. Options 4/6 is a MOS:BOLDTITLE / MOS:BOLDSYN / MOS:BOLD problem, failing to bold a significant alt. name that is a redirect to the page. (Options 4/6 are the same thing for purposes of this discussion; whether a translation is in the lead and whether it is controversial enough to require a citation in the lead [or we need one there because it isn't in the body, which would itself be problematic per WP:LEAD] are unrelated matters, for editorial consensus at an article. Option 3 is "user-hateful", pretending that we don't have good reasons to prefer simple, easy wikilinks, and it's pointlessly coding up a footnote which thwarts readers' ability to just hover the link and see what it links to; it did get the bolding right, though. Options 1 and 2 only address the bolding matter and not the "WTF does this initialism mean?" matter; #1 is the correct one on the bolding, as far as that one point goes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:26, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – per my proposal above, I've updated MOS:BOLDSYN thus --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:55, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Francis Schonken: Why would you radically change an active guideline in the middle of a dispute about its interpretation, to change it to say what you are proposing when you know that proposal is disputed in a still open VP discussion? Please self-revert it immediately.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:40, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever clarifies:

The St Mark Passion (German: Markus-Passion), BWV 247, is a ... (St Mark Passion, BWV 247)

The St Mark Passion (German: Markus-Passion), BWV 247, is a ... (St Mark Passion, BWV 247)

(etc.) --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:52, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

? Wikilinks aren't used for verification so "is already verified by the source" seems rather off-topic.
It's about whether it is clear for the average reader what "BWV" means when they first encounter it in this article.
(BTW, the Dellal reference is no longer used in the lede, but as said that has no relevance to whether or not BWV should be linked.)
WP:ACRO says: "...When not written out in full on the first use on a page, an acronym should be linked."
So, BWV, being an acronym, should be linked, thus: BWV, upon first usage on the page. There are no exceptions mentioned for this rule on the guideline page (WP:ACRO). --Francis Schonken (talk) 20:46, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can hardly see why this would be a policy based question. The text is about BWV 7, which is a synonym for Christ unser Herr zum Jordan Kam; there is no need for any further linking since that's the very article. Moreover, it'd make no sense to link BWV 7 (a specific composition by Johann Sebastian Bach) to a ambiguous list, List of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The case hardly compares with, say, linking ADHD at the first mention per WP:ACRO for the above-mentioned reasons. For example, we are not linking BMW to Bayerische Motoren Werke at the BMW 5 Series (E12) article. Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 07:08, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In this case do not put a link in the middle of the bolding, as it detracts from the bolding. But somewhere else in the article it can say that the work is 7 in the BWV catalog, with a link to it there. Though I expect that Gerda Arendt can say it in a nicer way. We have the same issue with stars and galaxies that are often found in catalogs and lists and identified with a code. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Don't see the comparison with stars and galaxies. Can you show me an example of an article that uses such a code as a comma-separated disambiguator in the article title? Also, can't follow why NGC isn't linked on first occurence in the Andromeda Galaxy article? The article does not conform to WP:ACRO in that respect. Sorry for pointing that out as a problem.
In classical music composition articles there's a long tradition to link to composer catalogues on first occurence of their abbreviation being used, usually in the lead section. I don't think that is going to change anywhere soon by stars and galaxies analogies, nor for someone initiating "user-hateful" (as they have been called above) footnotes in one particular series of compositions (Bach cantatas), a series that covers less than 20% of the compositions listed for that composer. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:11, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, "In classical music composition articles there's a long tradition to link to composer catalogues on first occurence of their abbreviation being used, usually in the lead section." Correct. Nobody wants to change that. Nobody (I assume) would bold a catalogue number of a Dvořák Symphony, not even one of the several, because they are not known by that number. However, like it or not, the Bach cantatas are known by their numbers, the cantata number equals the BWV number. Look at pages in serious literature: you will find a cantata referred to by BWV 7, to stay with the example, see [6], [7], or just look for BWV on a page like this. In such cases, I vote for a way to bold that term (your #5), if needed with a footnote (your #3), while I think a link to BWV from the bolded term gives too much prominence to BWV. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:14, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just thinking aloud here: would this satisfy both your and my concerns?
  1. Step 1: Let's make Cantata No. 7 (Bach) a redirect to Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7
  2. Step 2: Let's write the start of the cantata article thus:
    Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), Cantata No. 7 in the BGA and the BWV, is a ...
This could be done for all cantatas thus numbered in BGA (and similarly for the last few that are thus numbered in NBG editions). --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:46, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't satisfy my concerns, look at the page linked above, it would say (staying with our example) "BWV 7", not "Cantata No. 7", - "BWV 7" is something like a common name, and it is simple. Compare the TOC of this book, where you read "1.1 First Sunday in Advent: BWV 61, 62, 36". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And this compromise proposal (I don't say I'm wildly enthusiastic about these compromise suggestions, but seems the right time to consider them)?
Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam (Christ our Lord came to the Jordan), Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis No. 7 (BWV 7), is a ...
Doesn't seem too excessive for cantatas that are also known by a cantata number identical to their BWV number, satisfies all interpretations of relevant guidance, and gets rid of the type of footnote that has been qualified as user-unfriendly. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:51, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I see you want to build a compromise for me, but ...
  1. If a little footnote is user-unfriendly, how is this, holding up the readers expectation to finally get to know what all the German means, for even longer? By adding even more German? Keep in mind that s/he doesn't yet know that it is a cantata, nor by Johann Sebastian Bach, a name s/he may have never heard.
  2. I believe the duplication of the number is user-unfriendly itself. IF duplicated, the version I've seen is Cantata BWV 7. However, when the naming of the cantatas was discussed, that construction was dismissed, and the simple version chosen. We have to bold only the simple version.
  3. Do me a favour: avoid the coding nbsp; - it's user-unfriendly for someone who wants to edit. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 17:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) FYI, "BWV 7" is not a "synonym for Christ unser Herr zum Jordan Kam". So I don't know whether you understand or don't understand what BWV means in this context.
For the BMW example: I think the intro of the BMW 5 Series (E12) article is rather an example of how not to handle this (doesn't even link to the parent article BMW 5 Series from the intro, etc...). IMHO the intro BMW New Six does much better. However, please distinguish the article title and its disambiguator. All these BMW-related articles have "BMW" in the article title (before the disambiguator if any). For the Bach cantata article "BWV 7" *is* the disambiguator. We don't usually bold a disambiguator in a first sentence. E.g. the article Orlando, Florida starts with "Orlando (/ɔːrˈlændoʊ/) is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, ..." As you can see the disambiguator ("Florida") is not bolded, but linked in the first sentence. Of course for Bach cantatas there's no need to link the disambiguator as a whole (nobody contended that), only the part that may need a bit of clarification for many readers. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Francis Schonken, a quick reply:
  1. BWV stands for Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, whereas BWV number 7 is synonymous to Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam.
  2. BMW 5 Series (E12) does link to Bayerische Motoren Werke, but not in the manner you'd prefer.
  3. "Orlando (/ɔːrˈlændoʊ/) is a city in the U.S. state of Florida...", that's an WP:LINK violation.
I hope this helps! Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 11:30, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Re. "BWV number 7 is synonymous to Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam": again, incorrect, and doubting whether you grasp the BWV concept.
Re. #2: the BMW 5 Series (E12) does not link to BMW nor to BMW 5 Series from its lead section afaics. As said, I think BMW New Six a better example of how to go about this.
Re. #3: where do you see the WP:LINK violation in the Orlando example? --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:44, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Missa in tempore belli

How is this, Missa in tempore belli, with six bolded names, if for Bach just two seem too much? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:18, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To begin with, let's avoid seas of black & blue:
Missa in tempore belli (English: Mass in Time of War) is Joseph Haydn’s tenth,[1] and one of the most popular, of his fourteen settings of the mass.
This mass is catalogued Mass No. 10 in C major, (H. XXII:9),[1] and is sometimes known as the Paukenmesse (English: Kettledrum Mass) due to the inclusion of the timpani in its orchestration. However, the autographed manuscript contains "Missa in tempore belli"...
Applying the same kind of bolding to the current intro of Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen, BWV 11
[Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) (Laud to God in all his kingdoms),[2] BWV 11, known as the Ascension Oratorio (Himmelfahrtsoratorium), is an oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, marked by him as Oratorium In Festo Ascensionis Xsti (Oratorio for the feast of the Ascension of Christ), probably composed in 1735 for the service for Ascension and first performed on 19 May 1735.
Bach had composed his Christmas Oratorio, based on the gospels of Luke and Matthew, in 1734. He had composed an Easter Oratorio already in 1725. The text for the "Ascension Oratorio"...

References

  1. ^ a b The Haydn masses are sorted using chronological indices given by New Grove. The Hoboken catalogue had also placed the masses in a presumed chronological order, but further research has undermined that sequence. See Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn, ed. David Wyn Jones, Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 475. ISBN 0-19-866216-5
  2. ^ Ambrose, Z. Philip (2012). "BWV 165 O heilges Geist- und Wasserbad". University of Vermont. Retrieved 13 May 2015.
I don't think it is a good idea to start comparing with the intro of Haydn's Missa in tempore belli before someone took the effort to straighten its many issues (excessive boldface; sea of blue linking; explanatory footnote posing as reference; "abbreviating" Mass No. 10 to No. 9, disparity of italicization of the article title,...) out to an acceptable level. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:19, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I found the sea of black and blue, and find horrible. The process of expanding that article has not yet begun. I am asking you expert(s) to fix it. Who am I to say that kettledrum is not even a good translation of Pauken. It may still be widely known as Kettledrum Mass, - I don't know. My version would look like this:
Missa in tempore belli ([Mass in Time of War] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) is the title that Joseph Haydn assigned to his Mass No. 10 in C major, H. XXII:9. It is also known as the Paukenmesse (Kettledrum Mass) because timpani are used for dramatic effects. ... --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:05, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I'm concerned:
Missa in tempore belli ([Mass in Time of War] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) is the title that Joseph Haydn assigned to his Mass No. 10 in C major, H. XXII:9. It is also known as the Paukenmesse (Kettledrum Mass) because timpani are used for dramatic effects. ...
(although I'm no expert either, the "No. 10" still seems a bit odd, but it may be the Mass is mostly known under that number in English reliable sources, contrary to its number in the Hoboken catalogue)
Anyway, if the "experts" in the matter can accept the above, I'd say, by analogy,
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is the very best time), BWV 106, also known as Actus tragicus, is a church cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Mühlhausen, intended for a funeral. ...
for the Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106 article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
... only that, while most people won't refer to Haydn's mass by any number, mass no. or Hoboken number, they do refer to Bach's work also as BWV 106. In the Dürr-Jones book (compare above), the table of content reads: "Funeral: BWV 106, 157, ...". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 15:19, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is a subsection of a subsection of a topic called Linking and bolding of acronyms in alternate names in lead. The Missa in tempore belli example illustrates the principle that the acronym should be linked, not bolded. Why else was that example introduced in this section? --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:52, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Country abbreviations

Is this edit ok? The user started edit-warring over it. Thanks.--Ymblanter (talk) 20:17, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: How to word first paragraph of WP:PERTINENCE at MOS:IMAGES?

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#RfC: Which version to go with?. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:34, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Amending MOS:JR on comma usage

As fraught with difficulty as it is, the discussion concludes that our MOS should express a preference toward not using commas. Grandfathering older articles, FAs, etc., is recommended, and one should remember that the MOS is a guideline, not a policy. Nyttend's warning against rule creep should be born in mind as well. Moreover, DGG is correct in saying that there is no consensus outside of Wikipedia, and I find the overview of style guides to be less convincing than I had hoped: based on that evidence I would have spoken out against the proposal. But the editors have spoken. Drmies (talk) 02:32, 16 March 2016 (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.

Following an RfC in April 2015, the text of MOS:JR was amended to allow both the use and omission of commas around the suffix "Jr" in names. In other words, as long as an article is internally consistent, one is allowed to write either Martin Luther King, Jr, or Martin Luther King Jr. In recent discussions of the matter, it has come to light that the form with the commas, whilst traditional, has lost ground to the form without them. If one reads a survey of style guides done by SMcCandlish, it becomes apparent that eliminating the comma not only has advantages in terms of readability, but it also is nearly universally recommended across the various varieties of English. Eliminating the comma improves prose readability, fulfilling MOS:COMMA's recommendation to reduce comma usage, where it is possible. In addition, it eliminates the necessity of the matching comma, which is often omitted in error or otherwise misused.

Based on these findings, should MOS:JR be amended to prefer the use of the suffix "Jr" without commas? RGloucester — ☎ 23:34, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

  • Support – Based on the evidence provided by SMcCandlish, I see no reason to allow for the comma. Consistency is desirable, in this case. Having to work around the commas makes it harder to write readable prose. RGloucester — ☎ 23:34, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per proposer, and kudos to SMcCandlish for the solid work. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:42, 25 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support SMcCandlish's research on updated and current usage puts this baby to bed. Nice work SM. In the case of Martin Luther King, Jr., however, the name is so ingrained in history and his own personal use that in this one case it should stay. Randy Kryn 00:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support but consider it a deprecation / grandfathering approach. New articles and those now heading into GA/FA/PR review should be encouraged to used the comma-less version, but I would grandfather GA and FA articles that use the comma, allowing for consensus to change over. (eg a DATERET type situation). This would seem to enable the MLK Jr. case to be kept as is. --MASEM (t) 00:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Feature pages and MLK material do stand out as reasonable exceptions. Well said. user:Randy Kryn 00:33, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as we should attempt to matchcurrent practice. Also the use of commas in this stiuation causes confusion in lists with commas, such as references. When it comes to FA status, none should lose it over this, but on the next review, articles should be ammended to the current preferred practice. There would be no need to have a grandfather clause. We need to have one clear recommendation, and the allowed alternatives to prevent useless edit battles. Perhaps we can allow conversion to the preferred "no comma" form, and discourage the reinsertion of commas, but keep an article consistent. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:56, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The use of Martin Luther King, Jr., here is interesting because he is one such subject where the comma is universally used. I see no reason to change from the current guideline because of cases like King where the comma is used more often than not. Per our article titling policy, we use commonly recognizable names such as those with the comma. This wouldn't be an issue but for a pair of MoS zealots who have fought to add commas in places where they should not be. The prior RFC was well-attended and should not simply be discarded because a couple users don't like commas. Calidum ¤ 05:14, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not a correct claim re: MLK, as I demonstrate below. There is no recognizability issue with or without commas; you're misunderstanding what "recognizable" means. It is not even slightly plausible that someone will think "Martin Luther King Jr." is a different person (or not a person at all) compared to "Martin Luther King, Jr." I won't comment on the civility of labeling other editors "zealots", other than to make a cross-reference to WP:ARBATC#All parties reminded. Finally, WP:Consensus can change, and it often does when evidence is presented instead of just opinions. Whether lots of people gave an opinion last time has no bearing on the evidence presented this time.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:59, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So you're going after the Martin Luther King, Jr. commas again, saying there's no case for them? The case seems overwhelming. There is a memorial on the National Mall in the states which uses the comma in its official name. There is a National holiday in the United States which uses the comma. These commas are set in stone, literally. Dr. King's tomb carries the comma. This is not a case of preference over style, it is an actual situation where a man's name is set in stone. For Wikipedia to change the titles of the pages on the National Mall monument, on a national holiday, and on the other instances of agreed-upon honor and focus for this internationally recognized icon give pause to what 'exceptions to the guideline' means. Randy Kryn 12:49, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No one is "going after" MLK, and he is tangential to this discussion. Only consensus on that talk page can determine whether that article should use the comma or not, and the last time it was brought up the comma was retained. Right now, we're talking about the MoS, and whether it should express a preference, as it usually does. RGloucester — ☎ 13:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See the many mentions already posted in this discussion using MLK as an example of removing the commas, with arguments already being brought forward. So, yes, it does seem that the comma in King's name is being focused on by editors, including myself, with one in particular already strongly advocating removing that comma. I support the proposed language, with exceptions, and the King comma is such an exception that it should actually become part of the guideline language. Randy Kryn 15:28, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Um, Randy, the MLK-related evidence was produced in direct response to your own raising of MLK as a supposed smoking gun against this proposal. You're getting cause and effect backwards.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:43, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have no recollection of ever having previously commented on this matter with regard to MLK. My recent assumption (mostly because you and a few others keep asserting it without evidence – examples of the usage you like are not evidence of its dominance in current writing) was that MLK would be an exception; however, as I demonstrated below, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that its should be. But, yes, your umbrage about a particular case is definitely tangential.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:41, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. The no-commas pattern should be what MoS recommends without hesitation. We should allow exceptions for WP:BLPs (per MOS:IDENTITY, WP:SPNC, and WP:ABOUTSELF) who have affirmatively stated that they use the comma, provided that we also advise that the second comma (or terminal punctuation) must appear if the first comma is used. I do not support the notion of permitting the commas where a subject dead for 2 generations or whatever is believed to have preferred it back then, since English usage continues to evolve after people die, and 40+ years ago the commas were common. If the comma-laden style is continued here for some non-BLP case, as someone proposed for MLK, above, it should be only on a basis that a strong majority of reliable current sources, across multiple genres and registers of writing, continue do it that way. And this is not the case with MLK, sorry (see #Discussion section for proof).

    As for BLPs, simple examples of them using commas are insufficient, since we don't know if they're doing it out of preference, or because someone told them it's "correct", or someone actually edited it after they wrote it (very few celebs directly and personally maintain their own official websites and such). It's entirely reasonable for our house style, like any other professional-grade publication's house style, to go with its default rule, absent unusual circumstances that genuinely warrant an exception. Being consistent on this would be, well, consistent with our approach to similar matters, e.g. J. K. Rowling despite the house style of her publishers being "J.K. Rowling"; and so on. GA/FA articles are not magically exempt from changes, especially minor conformance tweaks most readers will never notice. The idea that GAs would be exempt that but FACs would not is self-contradictory, since the typical FAC candidate is already a GA. Any sort of "all style matters at my FA should be up to me" territoriality is not useful in a collaborative editing environment. And the analogy to WP:DATERET is faulty; it has nothing to do with GA/FA status, and is about cases where MoS has no preference (in this case, there would be a MoS preference), and defaulting to what was used in first major revision if consensus cannot be reached, which has nothing to do with obeying the demands of much later revisers. It's just completely unrelated to FA protectionism, on multiple levels.
    PS: Maintenance note: We should probably move the Jr/Sr/III stuff and MOS:POSTNOM to be juxtaposed, since many readers are going to think of them as the same thing, and also put these right next to the initials section, which wasn't even in the same MOS page for some reason (see merge proposal here.
     — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:59, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support – for the reasons given by others, for me especially because it would be good to not have to get into fights about whether and why a comma is required after the "Jr". Unless someone can provide a substantive response to what SMcCandlish had to say about the use of MLK Jr, it also seems like the opposition to the proposal is a bit reflexive. AgnosticAphid talk 19:30, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It is either no commas, or comma always both before and after, the latter being gramatically technically the more correct but not by popular convention. Also note for consistency it should be the same as IV after name etc. no commas at all as it is now. Technically Junior Joe Citizen == Joe Citizen, Junior, and The Fourth King Freddy == King Freddy, The Fourth, == King Freddy IV . . . Aoziwe (talk) 13:10, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – I have used the comma all my life but now see the light and the freedom not using it allows. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 13:48, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Don't force more rule creep on us. Allow the editors of a page to use common sense instead of preferring one valid use over another. Nyttend (talk) 16:33, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Valid" according to what? Virtually all RS on present day English indicate the usage is obsolete, in both American and non-American publishing. What some plaques and street signs put up 30 years go say isn't really relevant, but seems to be the principle basis for the argument that certain cases should be exceptions. It's just weak. We're already contemplating than any BLP who insists on a particular usage would get it (we'd also honor that for someone like Jennifer 8. Lee who uses a digit for a middle name, or someone who insisted on being referred to as "II" rather than "Jr[.]"),  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:46, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and thanks to SMcCandlish for their research. I don't see how changing this is avoiding "common sense"; if style guides and standards worldwide indeed prefer one use over another, we should go where they're going. Ironholds (talk) 04:32, 29 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support—per SMcCandlish and RGloucester. Tony (talk) 01:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Actual US publications usually still use the comas. There is no actual standardization, and trying to be prescriptive about such things, until there is consistent external consensus that only one form is acceptable is wasted effort. What we need to work on is content. DGG ( talk ) 05:00, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What we need to work on is content. - Agreed, and the less time we spend debating whether to use the commas or not in a given article, the more time we have to spend on content. The common sense thing to do is to choose a house style and use it. Those who can't be bothered needn't be bothered; that's not a problem, someone else will come along and fix it per the house style soon enough. (There are many gnome-type editors who are good at that sort of thing and not so good at much of anything else; they lack the time and/or the interest to master the labyrinth of content policy. There is nothing wrong with giving them a way to contribute.)
In my opinion, the choice for the house style is fairly arbitrary, as long as it has a significant amount of support in the authoritative sources. From what I can see, no-comma has more-than-significant support. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:01, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – a quick survey of articles with "Jr." in the title finds that very few use commas consistently and correctly, except those that I and a few other editors have recently fixed. Fixing them to not use the comma is much simpler and cleaner, which is the point that most style guides make. And as The Elements of Style points out since the 1979 edition, the restrictive nature of Jr. being part of the name logically calls for no commas. There is no good logical basis for the "traditional" use of commas, so it's not a bad idea for us to get away from that tradition and follow all the modern advice instead. Dicklyon (talk) 03:27, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Among all the other obvious advantages that editors have listed here now and elsewhere before, it's the small things that get in the way. In my mind is the possessive form with the Jr./Sr. construct: For instance, "John Smith, Jr.'s, mother and father ..." is a cluttered mess, and of course the style guide survey referenced before and now takes into account all these little intricacies of the language. I can barely withhold my glee that the commas should be on the precipice of eradication. Fdssdf (talk) 07:30, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (JR on comma usage)

We must remember that the WP:MOS is a guideline, that there are always exceptions. As I proposed it above, the MoS would express a preference for the comma-less version. It would not be a blanket proscription or prescription. RGloucester — ☎ 00:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, I do think I'm advising as a guideline with this with common sense exceptions. The reason I call out as a grandfathering aspect for existing quality articles because we don't want editors edit warring MOS issues (which happens, welcome to Wikipedia) on quality pages citing MOS as "policy". If we include language that grandfathers in existing quality articles, then there's no basis for edit warring at all. And along as the language to be added say "comma-less 'Jr' is preferred", that further enforces the guideline, exceptions-allowed nature. (To that end, I do wonder if we need a "MOSRET" guidance that applies across all of the MOS akin to DATERET, in that when the MOS presents optional approaches, that edit warring over the different options is not appropriate at all.). --MASEM (t) 01:35, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Edit warring is never acceptable, though. That's why we have WP:3RR. Regardless, the MoS states clearly in the lead "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can make the issue moot". This has always been part of the MoS. Editors behaving in such a manner are not acting in line with the MoS, they are just acting poorly. What I meant above was that what you say here is implied by the MoS and its status as a guideline. RGloucester — ☎ 01:42, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Um, Masem, a "MOSRET" to freeze style that consensus has determined isn't what we want, and keep it in articles we think are good would a) irrationally defeat the purpose of MoS, which is to consistently present our content; b) thwart the very consensus by defying it; and c) make the good articles worse, by including style we've concluded is substandard in them, on purpose. So, 3× unworkable.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:59, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SMcC, perhaps you are missing that the lead section of the MoS includes the equivalent of a "MOSRET", as I cited above. Of course, this only applies in cases of optional styles, and is subject to consensus, just like DATERET, RETAIN, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 13:51, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not missing any such thing. I'm directly opposing this particular attempt to create another *RETAIN or *VAR as poorly thought out in three distinct ways.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with stating a "preference" is that it quickly morphs into "the rules"... And people start trying to enforce the preference as if it were "a rule". Better to bluntly say "both styles are acceptable. If you wish to change the style, state a reason on the talk page, discuss the issue with other editors, and respect consensus. Edit warring over commas is considered disruptive. Blueboar (talk) 02:17, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have to wonder if major newspapers, etc., experience so much resistance to their manuals of style. I seriously doubt it. Is it the fact that we're not getting paid that frees us from having to be consistent on style? If so, I fail to see the connection. We're supposedly aiming for professional-quality work, paid or not, and professionalism is generally taken to include consistency.
      As far as I can tell, this whole MOS-conflict thing boils down to people with poor attention to detail being offended when people with good attention to detail "correct" "their" work (as contrasted to each of us simply contributing what we can to the project based on our personal skills).
      Damn, I've gone all meta again. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:51, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Of course other style guides don't see this much resistance. The collaborative editing nature of WP means that many participants automatically think that their style notions are 100% as good as anyone else's, even when theirs is based on opinion, but someone else's is based on a shipload of research. What Blueboar seems to be missing is that this isn't a proposal to state in different wording that both styles are mutually acceptable (we already have that statement, based on inadequate research around a year ago); rather, the proposal is to recognize that a detailed survey of nearly every major style guide in existence concludes in a real-world consensus strongly against the comma usage, and that MoS should go along this with this, having no internal reason to prefer the commas, and several reasons to avoid them. (The only potentially notable style guide I didn't have on hand for this was Penguin Handbook, and Dicklyon has that, so we can ask him to add a cite to what it says.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:59, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • many participants automatically think that their style notions are 100% as good as anyone else's - I'll have to take your word for that. It's been my impression that many simply feel that style consistency isn't important enough to be concerned about, which is something entirely different. It's anti-professionalism, a relative of anti-intellectualism, similar to a recent U.S. president's deliberate mispronunciation of the word "nuclear". ―Mandruss ☎ 23:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          • Not to mention "Soddom Hussain". Yes, that anti-intellectual element is very thick in the mix, too. It just tends to be less problematic than the "what I was taught in middle school Hoboken in 1983 is the only correct way to write and I will campaign to the death until MoS says what I want or it is destroyed" stuff. The "I don't care" people really, well, don't care and eventually drop it. The GREATWRONGS ones don't. The main result of the WP:DGAF attitude is people just write as they will and gnomes, bots, and AWB clean it up later. This is generally how it goes with all of our guidelines, which the truly average editor never reads any of.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:57, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • SMC, I just noticed your question of a weak ago, so I took a look at my Penguin Guide to Punctuation, 1997. The chapter on commas does not mention "Jr." but has a long section on one of four use categories, the "pair of bracketing commas", that appears to apply. They suggest using a pair of commas to set off "weak interruptions", and state that if you can take out that comma-delimited interruption and still have a sentence meaning what you intended then you've done it right. At the end they mention "Remember you don't have to set off a weak interruption with bracketing commas, as long as the meaning is clear without them, but if you do use bracketing commas, make sure you use both of them." The also have a bit on restrictive vs non-restrictive, which implies that if the Jr. is needed to specify the intended person (that is, that it's restrictive), then it should NOT be set off with commas, since dropping it would not leave the meaning unchanged. I've seen other guides that apply this logic specifically to "Jr.", but in this one you have to read between the lines. I might have a newer edition at work, but that library is in boxes for a move right now. Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • I found one more you didn't have: the American CSE's 2006 Scientific Style and Format. They say no comma; so I added that to your list. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is not the case that "Martin Luther King, Jr., ... is one such subject where the comma is universally used"; not even close. A Google News search on "Martin Luther King, Jr" reports back a mixed bag of results, that is actually dominated by comma-free usage, even in American sources [8]. I'm often suspicious of news searches, but in this case, the journalism style guides and the more formal ones are in agreement, and this is reflected in a Google Books search [9]. The books search reports more comma usage than the news search does, since it includes older works, of course. But if you take time to look at them, you can see that the comma-free cases are predominantly newer works. In the first 10 pages of books results [I don't have all night for this!], all comma-free cases are 2004 or newer, except two dating to 1999, while the comma-bearing cases often date to the 1960s to early 2000s, though a few were as recent as 2015. No one is making a case that the comma usage is extinct yet, but it is very clearly no longer the majority usage, even in American publishing. A general Google search of the Web (i.e. including unreliable sources) also shows strongly mixed usage, as a point of "ground truth" on what people are doing in English more broadly [10], just in case someone wants to make the "those are just ivory-tower sources, and everyone really still uses the commas" argument. Nope, they don't. In short, there is no case to continue using the commas with MLK, certainly not on the incorrect basis that "the comma is universally used".

    But, if it had turned out that sources did overwhelmingly use the commas with MLK, WP would, too. MoS already regularly makes "the style is unusual but the whole world goes along with it" exceptions for such cases; cf. iPod, Deadmau5, DaimlerChrysler, CC Sabathia, etc. So, WP:DONTPANIC.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:59, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    The wall of texts seem to being built again (ten feet higher this time?) to try to convince editors that Dr. King's name is not his name, although it is recognized on the National Mall, on the calendar which honors his birthday with a holiday, on his tomb, and on all of his books. This one exception does not seem unreasonable, and probably should be actually mentioned in our style guide. Randy Kryn 13:00, 26 2016 (UTC)
    Your response to a well-researched and thoughtful comment is "too long, didn't read"? Why bother? AgnosticAphid talk 19:26, 26 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course I read it, and please reread my response. Dr. King should be a common sense exception, as a National Day, a National Monument, and King's own preference (there's a comma on the man's books, and on his tombstone, which is a pilgrimage site for people from around the world) all contain the standard and historically accurate spelling of his name. Randy Kryn 00:59, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Already addressed that. Those are all random, isolated usage examples, decades old, that do nothing to disprove that current, reliable sources on English deprecate the comma style almost without exception, and that modern RS for MLK in particular are also dropping the commas. "Dr. King should be a common sense exception" is not common sense, it's special pleading without sufficient evidence to back it up, and since I already showed that the evidence is against it, it also constitutes WP:IDHT a.k.a. "proof by assertion". I'm going to pre-decline to engage in any further circular debate with you. Either produce a new argument or stop rehashing already-deflated ones, please.

    PS: I checked, and the main source of "Martin Luther King, Jr., Day" with commas appears to be WP's own article on the topic [11]. Book sources are mixed, with newer sources dropping the commas (and many that do not have ungrammatically forgotten the second one, indicating low-quality editing) [12]. Same results for news sources [13]. It is conclusively disproven that "Martin Luther King, Jr.", with comma, is the preferred usage, much less near-universal. It's simply a decreasingly surviving old usage not favored by modern sources, and which frequently leads to punctuation errors, which is the entire point of this RfC to begin with. But go ahead and call my evidence "test-walling" again.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:19, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    You say that "Those are all random, isolated usage examples, decades old,". The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was dedicated in 2011. Randy Kryn 10:18, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Your smoking gun is one random isolated example that's not quite so old? They're all still just cherry-picked instances of the usage you like, not reliable sources on how to use English, nor even aggregate search results through publications. I recognize that you feel strongly about this one, from a traditionalism standpoint. As I said above, my original assumption was that this was a case where conventional usage was overwhelmingly in favor of the commas, but the facts don't lie. I'm not cherry picking anything. I've been through an enormous source pile on this (which I began with the expectation that there must be some nearly 50/50 split on comma usage for "Jr", generally, given the "fan base" that usage has on WP). I find that almost every RS says "no commas". Then I've given you raw feeds of "Martin Luther King, Jr" searches, with the comma just in case. The results – books, news, and Web (to the extent we care about the last of those) – show the comma being abandoned, and that commaless usage now dominates even for MLK, the more so the newer the sources are. And this is no sudden, recent change; here's Google News results from all of 2003, again with very few commas [14],. I don't know what else to tell you. I was surprised, but I believe what the evidence tells me when there's this much of it. I certainly can cherry pick prominent examples for you – [15], [16], etc. – but it wouldn't add anything to my data; it's all already in the first page of general Google hits. The comma usage is generally found in establishments like the King Institute that are not recent, in unreliable Web sources, in Wikipedia itself which is spreading not reflecting the comma usage, in newspapers even more recalcitrantly traditionalist than the New York Times, and in older works like Enc. Britannica.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:39, 2 March 2016 (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.

Post-RfC clarification; closure dispute

As stated below, disputes about RfC closures belong at WP:AN. Arguing it here accomplishes little and AN will provide a broader perspective on whether the close was appropriate. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:58, 21 March 2016 (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.

Closer noted that "Grandfathering older articles...is recommended." But no editor suggested anything about "older" that I can find. Did I miss something? Looks like only one editor mentioned grandfathering at all. Wondering why closer, who states he is against this proposal, throws that in. Could we not get a neutral closer? Dicklyon (talk) 03:31, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like only one editor mentioned grandfathering at all. - Actually two, one for and one against, hardly a consensus either way. I'd like to see the close modified to remove any mention of grandfathering. I personally feel that it doesn't make a lot of sense to exempt an entire class of articles from discussion about whether they should deviate from house style as to these commas. The argument for grandfathering said something about avoiding conflict, but how does it avoid conflict to provide for grandfathering for "older" articles without clearly defining "older"?
Nobody is saying that we're compelled to fix all articles now, or even at a particularly high priority; only that an editor should be able to remove commas from any article unless local consensus is to keep them. No-consensus should default to house style, not status quo. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:02, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. What's the point of having RfCs if you can just WP:FORUMSHOP your way until you get an answer you prefer? It was pretty clear that editors wanted to reflect real-world usage and allow both options. Come on, WP. Dohn joe (talk) 16:49, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The language "Grandfathering older articles, FAs, etc., is recommended, and one should remember that the MOS is a guideline, not a policy" is welcome as a way of not having controversial page moves. I would think that most pages would be changed without controversy. The items most mentioned, by myself and others, are the Dr. King pages, where moves would create undue arguments. It seems a fair close. Randy Kryn 23:45, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You're seeking peremptory protection for MLK, from an RfC that was not about MLK. There is no reason that MLK or any other articles should be exempted from discussion and consensus (discussion, not political maneuvering, is how Wikipedia is designed to work). Any page moves will follow, or not, from that discussion.
As to the more general picture, aside from FA's, how would we identify those articles that enjoy this protection? Are we going to create a new template for their talk pages? Who would decide which articles get the template? As I said previously, any favored-class protection would create at least as much conflict as it prevented.
I stress again that a RfC close should reflect the consensus, if any, and there is no consensus for grandfathering anything. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:49, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • There were sixteen "votes" in here. Three editors, or maybe two and a half, in one form or another spoke out for a kind of grandfathering: Masem and Randy Kryn, obviously, but really also RGloucester in their exchange with Masem--the careful observer will have noticed that RGloucester cites the MOS which appears to leave this kind of leeway. That equally careful observer may note also that Graeme Bartlett makes mention of "the allowed alternatives", which is just vague enough to make me think that he's thinking of other, already existing articles: "grandfathering". But I am also thinking of the objections by DGG (that there is no firm rule outside of Wikipedia) and Nyttend (who refers to common sense). This is not a presidential election where you choose one party or another; it is an RfC, the conclusion of which should reflect not the votes but a consensus on serious subject matter. You are welcome to challenge this, of course, but it would be nice of all y'all did so politely. As a professor of English literature and linguistics, I understand that everyone gets in a tizzy over some commas, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't treat each other with respect. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 01:18, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am a little amazed at the editorial tone taken in the closure window. The MoS desperately needs a definitive ruling on this issue one way or another — not murkiness that will result in another RfC in six months. There is a mountain of third-party style evidence supporting the removal of commas and a hill supporting their remaining; there is a majority of editors here against the commas and a minority for them. As mentioned by other dissenters, the grandfather issue was not close to consensus, and only a couple editors mentioned it explicitly (because it was not central to the RfC). So adding closure caveats that were not fleshed out well during the RfC is in poor form from my vantage. There was nearly a consensus for one side of the debate, and third-party styles, for the most part, advise for that majority side. I remain baffled. Fdssdf (talk) 04:29, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This close needs to be reviewed at WP:AN, especially given the additional display of activism and bogus WP:P&G rationales [17], like confusing this with ENGVAR/CITEVAR, when three of us requested that it be clarified, at his talk page. I wasn't even aware of all the additional requests for clarification above, and objections to numerous aspects of the close, until just now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:37, 21 March 2016 (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.

Overwriting original files with derived versions on Commons

The idle servant, 1655, painting by Nicholaes Maes. Original photograph taken by the National Gallery (UK) on the left, digital enhanced version giving false colouring on the right.

I welcome more feedback from Wikipedians about the damage done to Wikipedia articles when images are overwritten on Commons. This became a major issue for BLP portraits being overwritten with pornography a couple of years ago, as it was a route for vandalism that was virtually invisible on Wikipedia. In this case, a user has been systematically overwriting photographs of historic paintings with false-colour enhanced versions, in some cases radically changing the appearance of the Wikipedia articles these are used in, so that the image being displayed looks entirely different to what you would see of the painting in a gallery or museum, and radically different from the way the institutions represent these paintings in their own catalogues. Some of the files overwritten in the last few weeks have been used in long established Wikipedia articles for several years. When the files change on Commons, Wikipedia editors are not alerted by their watchlists as the article on Wikipedia that uses the image literally has no new edit.

The Commons discussion is at Commons:Administrator's noticeboard and a table of photographs overwritten this year is included.

There is a related policy on Commons (c:Commons:Overwriting existing files) but I do not believe there is anything similar on Wikipedia and as far as I am aware, nobody has suggested that Wikipedia watchlists should be adapted to alert users to these types of cross-project transcluded overwrites. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 12:57, 27 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting problem. But your example photo pair is a complete mis-representation of what happened, as you can see by looking at the history of the left one. And I would argue that the recent overwrite by the poor dark version from the NPG made matters worse. For 10 years there was a better brighter version in use on en.wp – not the one you show, and not modified from the NPG image – and we should go back to that one. Dicklyon (talk) 16:12, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is reasonable to expect that Wikipedia readers would expect an article about a 400 year old painting, to be illustrated with a photograph of the painting that shows what they would see, if they were stood in front of the original and it were nicely illuminated. Artificially brightened and saturated digital derivatives might have their uses, such as for a simple reproduction for a teeshirt, but they are not 'encyclopaedic' nor do simple digital tweaks represent how the painting would have appeared 400 years ago. As for returning this image in use on the English Wikipedia to the 2006 version a quarter the resolution, this appears to be an amateur flatbed scan from a printed exhibition catalogue (based on the EXIF data), the image shows a lot of distracting surface reflection and earthy browns are saturated to become terracotta red, so going backwards would not be an improvement for almost any viewer. --Fæ (talk) 03:21, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's your opinion. And even if we decided that it's reasonable to try to convey the dimly lit impression that a visitor would get, how do we know that that was the intent of the image that the NPG, or any other source, posted? In this case, it's just a crappy too-dark image. There's no good reason to portray a painting that way, in my opinion. Also no good reason to aggressively color balance it to a too-blue state as Jan did. The originally posted version of that one on the left was the best of all, imho. Or we could make an intermediate adjustment from the NPG version that would be not so dark, and not such a bad color in either direction. I'll do that, and you can see if you like it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Did that. The one you see on the left above is now a "reasonable" rendering of that painting, imho. Dicklyon (talk) 03:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The original version (this) is bloody awful. Like a cheap printing in a child's book rather than a serious attempt to reproduce the artwork. But it is clearly a different photograph to the one Jan overwrote it. And that's just absolutely wrong. As wrong as overwriting File:Paisley Abbey (11610930694).jpg with File:Paisley Abbey from the west - crop.jpg. I have reverted the edit by Dicklyon. Professional art photographers use colour calibration charts (like this). So if the photo is a bit warm/yellow then I guess that's how the painting is. You might prefer a more "neutral" colour balance and you might prefer a brighter photo but then it's no longer the photo taken by the National Gallery. It's your derivative work. Upload to a new file. Convince Wikipedia editors to use your variant if you like, but please respect the professional work. -- Colin°Talk 08:50, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we can respect the professional work and assume that's the version that the NPG prefers, perhaps (though that's a guess). If someone uploaded a professional or official image and said that's what it is, we should leave it as such. But that's not what happened here, where the "official" one has come as the second overwrite. Why were not either of the other versions respected? OK, we all agree that neither one was great, but nobody has yet criticized my attempt at a better version, except to say that it's not the "official" one; we can agree on that. I'm not keen on getting into an argument about how best to adjust this image, just pointing out that the logic of overwriting a pretty good image with a dark "official" version is twisted here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:18, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I agree that images should not be replaced with "enhanced versions". If the photo is new, it should have another name. --NaBUru38 (talk) 14:41, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Images are replaced by enhanced versions all the time; see my edits on commons. Some more nuanced guidance on when this is to be discouraged would be more helpful. Dicklyon (talk) 03:36, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Global rollbackers and suppressredirect right

The global rollbacker right currently includes the ability to suppress redirects on page moves. See m:Special:GlobalGroupPermissions/global-rollbacker to see every right in that group. On enwiki, this right is only held by bots, admins, and 'crats. This difference was recently seen in action with this this move. Courtesy ping for Hazard-SJ who performed the move.

I am proposing an addition to the global rights policy regarding this discrepancy. Global rollbackers should not suppress redirects on enwiki as that right is not granted to the local rollback group. It is less of a problem in this instance, since the userspace page could have just been tagged U1 anyways, but in the future I feel like this should be said somewhere. --Majora (talk) 04:00, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that if you target a right assigned to a global group that isn't also assigned within the related local group, you may as well target them all, such as markbotedits, which allows the use of rollback without having the reverted edits showing up in recent changes. Regardless, however, the current policy says that "[g]lobal rollbackers can use their rights by default...", and I think that any global rollbacker (or any member of any other global group) should use some level of common sense when it comes to using any rights which they have been assigned when they aren't specifically disallowed by policy (as is the case here). I understand that the right was not assigned from local consensus, but then again, neither are the other global groups. Of course, local consensus can overrule the use of such global rights, but I certainly think that in such trivial cases such as your example (that move was indirectly brought up in the BRFA before being done), moves within own userspace, or even moving recently self-created pages accidentally created with an incorrect name, it should be fine to allow the use of such global rights. On the contrary, pages created by others having no consensus (or otherwise obvious reason) to be moved without leaving a redirect behind should probably not have their redirects suppressed by a global rollbacker in most, if not all cases, as that would be a bit more controversial. Just my opinion,  Hazard SJ  04:33, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Putting in a recommendation that leaving redirects so that people accessing the old page can find the new one is a good idea seems fine for me. An outright ban means that wholly unnecessary redirects - the one in question here seems like it would be - will need manual deletion, so I think no.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:47, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In my mind, the potential downside risks outweigh the minor benefits of saving an admin from a quick U1/G7 deletion once in a while, but a separate discussion can be held at WT:GRP if people feel strongly about including a self-created/single-author pages exemption. –xenotalk 10:50, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Technically speaking, I am not seeing any risk at all, full stop. Adding a redirect if it is warranted is trivially easy, and a prominent "X moved Y to Z" note is left whenever suppressredirect is applied.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are risks, but perhaps not as pronounced as they may seem. The biggest concern for me would be accidental misuse of the right that goes unnoticed. Global rollbackers are highly trusted users, who have passed a mini-RfA on meta to use that toolset across all Wikimedia Foundation projects. I can't remember a single case of intentional abuse over the 6 years I have been active in global work - not that writing a sentence in GRP would stop intentional abuse, since they still have access to the rights. That said, while communities cannot opt out of global rollbackers, they are fully able to stipulate that the rights are to be used for counter-vandalism only. That is the purpose of the group. Ajraddatz (talk) 19:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Setting aside any potential risks of accidental misuse, the local community has not seen fit to grant this ability outside the three usergroups that hold it (despite proposals being advanced for same, if I recall correctly), so gaining it through global channels and then using it 'outside the jurisdiction' of the global badge does not seem appropriate, even if used innocuously as in the presenting example. If the community decides otherwise, I would be fine with a U1/G7 exemption but not before the consensus is established. –xenotalk 03:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The right is quite powerful and could be abused (deletion through the back door, basically), so if it is to remain with the user group, guidelines for its use should be created (e.g. only to be used in cases of obvious vandalism, etc.). –xenotalk 11:24, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    100% agree, enwiki should stipulate that globalrollbackers only use this for obvious vandalism. — xaosflux Talk 14:51, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I assume that the primary purpose of the global rollbackers is to fight cross-wiki vandalism. If they find a global vandal who does page move vandalism, they should be able to clean up without needing to find their way through our policies and templates. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:43, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gendered categories

What is the policy on gendered categories? Say we have categories for "Actors from Ruritania", "Male actors from Ruritania", and "Female actors from Ruritania". Would Matilda von Hentzau appear in both "Actors from Ruritania" and "Female actors from Ruritania"? DuncanHill (talk) 15:34, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Current guidance is at WP:EGRS. First, you'd need to establish there would be any need for gendered categories "Male actors from Ruritania" and "Female actors from Ruritania"; then you'd need to make sure whether or not the parent "Actors from Ruritania" category would be diffusing or not (WP:FINAL RUNG would exclude it in many cases). See also WP:GENDERID which may be relevant for the example you're mentioning. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:53, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I would reverse that... first I would ask about the parent cat: Is being an "Actor from Ruritania" (regardless of gender) really a defining characteristic (or is it a form of over-categorization)? Certainly being an "actor" is defining... and perhaps being "from Ruritania" is defining (I am less positive about that)... but, I have to question whether the intersection of being an actor and being "from Ruritania" is really defining. The two characteristics do not really have much to do with each other.
That said... Assuming the answer to this preliminary question is "yes, the parent cat is defining"... I would take a common sense approach to the question of creating genderized sub-sub-categorization... I would ask: Are there enough articles in each sub-sub-category that sub-sub-categorization by gender makes sense? If there are very few articles in the broader "Actors from Ruritania" sub-cat, then it makes makes no sense to divide the parent sub-category up into gender based sub-sub-cats. If "Actors from Ruritania" is a very large cat, it may make sense to do so (I say may... because we also need to examine how many articles would end up in each of the resulting gender based sub-sub-categories. If one of the resulting gender-based sub-sub-cats is tiny, it is kind of silly to create a separate gender based sub-sub-cat for them). Blueboar (talk) 16:18, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about focussing my answer on the "gendered" aspect (which seemed the gist of the (hypothetical?) question), Blueboar is of course correct that the "from Ruritania" aspect may lead easily to categories rejected for overcategorization too. Yes and indeed there are still a host of other guidelines and policies that are to be reconed with (and which neither Blueboar nor I mentioned thus far) before the actor would be categorized in any of the categories mentioned thus far: WP:BLPCAT, WP:COP, WP:MOSBIO, etc. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:31, 28 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Only in the subcategory. See for example Category:American actors, or most sport categories. Prevalence 05:20, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What about Wikipedia:Gender identity? What if the actor does not identify as either male or female, but as transgender? Do we need a cross sub cat for every gender identity? I suggest that for both NPOV and GI non bias there perhaps should be no sub cats, or even no top cats, by gender in Wikipedia at all ? Or if we do we must sub cat by all GI categories? Food for thought? Aoziwe (talk) 20:48, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If we need to subcategorize by gender, i.e. sources treat gender as important in that area, then those who identify as neither male nor female can be categorized in the parent category alone. Alternatively, I believe "non-binary" is a neutral term. Fences&Windows 16:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Stale userspace drafts

Why do people care about Category:Stale userspace drafts? Shouldn't drafts be left alone? What happened to so fix it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.72.96.74 (talk) 09:05, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I am wondering why we even have a category for userspace drafts. The point of categorization is to a) help readers navigate Wikipedia and find pages they might want to read, and b) help editors navigate Wikipedia to find pages they might want to edit. However, we don't want readers to read drafts in userspace ... and we don't want editors to edit stuff in another editor's userspace (without permission from the editor who "owns" the page). In other words... no one should be pointed to drafts in userspace (except the user who "owns" the draft, or those who he invites to work with him). So why do we have a category that does this?
Are we perhaps confusing drafts in userspace with potential articles that are in Draftspace (ie drafts that are part of the Articles for Creation process)? Blueboar (talk) 13:08, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Were you before Articles for Creation and G13 were created? We had the Article Wizard which helped create pages in userspace but there was no systematic mechanism for review abandoned drafts. G13 isn't "ha, you didn't edit this in the specific time period we set up, delete now!" but more like "if this wasn't ready yet and no one has improved it for six months and the AFC reviewers and the deleting admin don't think it's likely to go anywhere and don't care to work on it, it should probably be deleted with the ability to ask for a refund to organize the project." The Wizard pages are located at all the categories within Category:Userspace drafts created via the Article Wizard by month (about 39.4k pages). People also started up Category:Userspace drafts just to see old, old drafts and there's only about 7.4k there. The stale category is a terrible way to actually review those but it is somewhat more accurate than the category that's based entirely on when the draft was created (versus when it was last edited). The point is, without G13, AFC would be flooded with the same volume (thousand of pages a month, the Wizard gets half that and it's not even the main system for new drafts). I think people simply are not realizing the volume of new page creations that exist here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:56, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See my question at WT:User pages#Why do we even have the WP:STALE provision. I really don't see the point of reviewing "abandoned" drafts? If Wikipedia seems to be missing an article on a notable topic, any active editor can simply create one. Who cares whether some other editor attempted to write one, years ago, and gave up on it? If the topic isn't notable, who cares if there is an aborted draft sitting dormant in userspace... no one is going to see it. Blueboar (talk) 20:24, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Would you then remove G13? It's the same policy except more explicit for current drafts and not old ones? Have you seen the volume of G13 deletions that happen daily? Do you actually we would be able to function if AFC couldn't get rid of those pages? You're talking about hundreds if not thousands of pages just out there a day. (A) The vast volume of this kind of low-importance, low-maintaince drafts overwhelms people actually interested in working on drafts or finding them. If the argument is "don't do that", fine but there are people interested in, telling them it's all a waste of time repeatedly isn't enjoyable either. (B) There's no reason these pages will be dormant forever and so people are going to end up reviewing and finding the pages for attacks, for images, if there's templates they will be changed, redirects have to be undone, etc. (C) Not all mirrors actually pay attention to the no-index requirement for userspace drafts. There's actually a few that show up in their SEO rankings. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 21:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Depends on how much has been drafted an how well. We have no need to preserve 5-year-old outlines with no content, especially if they're in userspaces of editors who've been inactive for years. By contrast, I have articles I haven't finished yet that I will eventually, that have sources and some well-developed material, but some gaping holes that await finding sources to patch them. Some of these are older than five years. In one case, someone else wrote the article before I got around to it and I merged mine, but most of them are obscure enough that this is unlikely, yet genuinely notable and encyclopedic. We definitely do not need a "one-size fits all" approach to this. There are also going to be cases where a user-space draft of an in active user is already a perfectly valid stub, and should just be mainspaced.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I can see that userspace pages might need to be reviewed ... but why is the review (and thus the category) being based on STALEness? The age of the userspace page has nothing to do with whether the content of the page is appropriate or not. Blueboar (talk) 12:44, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's not. It's the simplest way to dissect the drafts by month to distinguish between drafts of active users and (possibly drafts of inactive users. It's a backlog that requires review. Hell, you could null edit every page and it would empty the category. I could have organized by the project by pulling every month's categories but I thought alphabetical was a better way and it is easier to pull the entire thing from one category. If your objection is to how the project is running (and I do have some issues with it), that's for the drive's talk page. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:24, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Standard offer - proposal to make guideline

I've started an RFC on whether or not WP:SO should be made into an actual guideline, considering it is already a de facto one. Please feel free to join in on the discussion at the proposal's talk page. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 13:04, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Info boxes

Why are some infoboxes in the article and some in templates like Template:PBB? Can we move all infoboxes off the articles? The pages look much nicer without all that guck — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.72.99.76 (talk) 18:35, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You will have to be more specific... which specific infobox, in which specific article prompted your question?
In some cases, it may be that the article's topic area does not have an infobox template that can be used (no one made one, so editors hand-craft their own infobox as needed). In other cases, it may be that there is an infobox template for the topic area, but for some reason editors have decided that it does not fit with a specific article (and so they use a hand-created infobox instead of the template). We are intentionally flexible about such things. An inflexible cookie cutter approach is almost always a bad idea. Blueboar (talk) 20:04, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I do think that we should move towards having infoboxes as outside templates, as it keeps the wikicode of the article easier to understand. If you look at Hydrogen, for example, you can see there are a few one-line template calls, followed by an empty line, followed by wiki-prose. If someone wants to use that article to undrstand wiki-text, or someone who wants to edit the beginning of the wiki-prose, can do so relatively easily. Compare to Dongxiao South Station, where the user would need to scroll down over a scren of source code before they reach the wiki-prose. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:10, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Meh... it does not really bother me to have to scroll past source code... it's no different than having to scroll past a lot of text to reach the specific paragraph I want to edit. Scrolling is simply part of editing (and if scrolling really bothers you... you can jump past both the code and text by judicious use of your computer's "find" function). Blueboar (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What kind of case are you talking about? Even for a one-article infobox that people cannot re-use on any other article, it should be coded with the {{Infobox}} template. It sounds like you've run into one that was accidentally substituted and spat all of it code into the article. If you tell us where this is, we'll fix it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:49, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
When I'm talking about Dongxiao South Station, I am talking about an article which uses {{Infobox station}}, not a substituted template. On this article (and many others), this means that a user will have to scroll though the entire infobox (over a screenful) before reaching the wikiprose of the lede. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have to do a lot of scrolling to get past the infobox code when I look at that article in edit mode... What kind of device are you using to edit? Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the editor means they don't want to see the rendered infobox in the content of the page. If this is the case, they need to add the following to Special:MyPage/common.css:
table.infobox { display: none; }
or some more customized CSS to do something else, like move it to the bottom of the page.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:21, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Blueboar, there are more important considerations than minimizing scrolling, like minimizing complexity, integrity of old revisions, etc. Templates often have higher protection than the articles that use them. I usually use my browser's Find function to eliminate the need for any scrolling at all, regardless of what precedes my target location (and that reduces eye strain too).
But the OP's comment, The pages look much nicer without all that guck, makes me wonder if that's what they are talking about in the first place. An edit window is not a page. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:03, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, my attempts to find out what the issue really is haven't come to much either. I think the editor is objecting to the content of the infobox.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:21, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested Changes to Wikipedia

  1. Everyone must get at least one warning before their first block.
  2. If a block is for an action specific to one type of article, then the block should not apply to other types of articles.
  3. Wikipedia needs to make its suggestion page easier to find.
  4. There should be software that lets users automatically create a response to a specific edit and put it in that user's talk page that a specified heading that describes the edit.
  5. Create a way where Wikipedia users (who volunteer) or experts on the subject (who volunteer) would check facts on subjects like math for validity before not allowing the facts to be posted on Wikipedia pages.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:2C1:C003:EF7A:4C87:C488:5851:C0EA (talk) 03:17, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

1) Pretty much everyone does get a warning before their first block, unless they're obviously a sockpuppet of a blocked user, or maybe if they're doing something they should know is outright illegal, or it's obvious that they created the account only to troll.
2) Too cumbersome to program and apply. We do have topic bans, which are similar, but require either community consensus or discretionary sanctions and kind of operate on the honor system (though they can be enforced by admins with blocks). Also, this would really belong as the technical village pump.
3) The village pump (which is the closest thing we have to a suggestion page) is linked in the Community Portal, found at the left hand side of the non-mobile version.
4) That's reinventing the wheel. We already have user talk pages (where it's up to the user leaving the message to name the heading) and diffs.
Ian.thomson (talk) 03:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but it would be very convenient for me and probably a lot of other users if there was a way where it would create a new section with an appropriate title automatically.2601:2C1:C003:EF7A:A1CB:CF40:7068:3225 (talk) 00:35, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Pros: There would be a button that one could click to add a talk page section with a link to that edit.
Cons: Redundant (simply click "New Section" on someone's talk page and include a WP:DIFF in the message), unnecessary (you already need to leave a message explaining the issue), requires reprogramming the site (not simply to add the button, but deal with section titles with links in them either displaying or linking incorrectly)
Ian.thomson (talk) 01:07, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  1. It wouldn't work: a block can immediately follow a warning, and if it couldn't that would mean a block-free period, an invitation to some to double down.

    Rather more practical, and necessary, would be the other way around: Everyone with, say, three warnings must get a block. The disinclination of admins to block mischief-makers is a problem mentioned by several people further up this page in WP:Village_pump_(policy)#Is_it_simply_Wild_West.3F, and is my experience. Even if the first block is only for one day it has to happen, otherwise these warnings are toothless.

  3. No. "Blocking is a serious matter", this would make it less serious.
  5. Rather like a suggestion I put recently on my user page.

    6. BalCoder (talk) 14:45, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mandatory blocks after X warnings wouldn't work either. If it were automatic in software, that would be wide open for abuse. Otherwise, no admin can be required by the rules of Wikipedia to use their tools in any manner. Admins could and would apply something like jury nullification. BethNaught (talk) 15:04, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

School naming standard

Many if not most school names are non-unique, and there should be a naming standard for disambiguating non-uniquely named schools. List of high schools in California shows some high schools disambiguated more locally than necessary, by city and state even though they are the only high school by that name in the state, and others are not disambiguated more locally than necessary, i.e. by state only. For example, the following schools are disambiguated by city and state even though they are the only high school by their respective names in California (or at least the only one listed in List of high schools in California):

The following California high schools are disambiguated by state only:

We have the same problem in Tennessee. The following schools are disambiguated by city and state even though they are the only high school by their respective names in Tennessee (or at least the only one listed in List of high schools in Tennessee):

The following Tennessee high schools are disambiguated by state only:

For both states, both lists could be much longer, and the problem exists for other U.S. states. (Note that articles purporting to list all high schools in a state may include entries with piped links and redirected names and may be incomplete.) If there is a school naming standard, please point to it. If there is not a school naming standard, it should be created and it should appear in Wikipedia:Article titles. —Anomalocaris (talk) 06:46, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DISAMBIG says to disambiguate only as necessary to define the object of interest (WP:CONCISE defined a different way). I don't see a reason to have a naming convention--just apply the already-available guideline/policy by moving the relevant articles. --Izno (talk) 12:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I actually just checked the 4 California high schools disambiguated with city names; Skyline High School has a red-linked school in an other California city; the other dab pages don't list any other city in California which has such a school in it. Similarly, the Tennessee schools appear, based on their respective dab oages, to be unique within the state of Tennessee. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:58, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that (at least at one time), the "official" place for this discussion is, or was, Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (U.S. schools), and the discussion petered out more than 8 years ago, in February 2008. The main proposals then were:
  1. Use state to disambiguate first, and adding the city only when needed
  2. Use city and state to disambiguate even if the name is unique within the state
  3. Use city and state to disambiguate names that don't name the city; use state to disambiguate names that do name the city
  4. Use city and state even for schools uniquely named ("pre-emptive disambiguation")
I believe that choice 1 is best; it is most consistent with Wikipedia in general. —Anomalocaris (talk) 01:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Works for me. Maurreen (talk) 03:54, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CITEVAR and policy compliance

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Instruction creep in WP:CITEVAR. The relevance to VPPOL is that some wording in the guideline has been interpreted by some as being non-compliant with, or encouraging behavior non-compliant with, multiple policies. Other editors disagree and believe the language is being misinterpreted in that regard.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:09, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

School addresses RfC

Is the physical address of a school a viable parameter? This might also have broader ramifications in regards to using physical addresses for other institutions like businesses and buildings. Trackinfo (talk) 21:35, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Citing Kindle e-books without "Locations" rather than page numbers?

Hey! Any idea how I can do this? I've been citing my Jewish Study Bible from time to time over the last three months, but I have not yet been able to figure out how to format my references.[18][19] Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:29, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Look here and here. It may also be that someone else has newer hints. Carlotm (talk) 03:41, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Proposal to make unnecessary spoiling clearer in the WP:Spoiler guideline

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Spoiler#RfC: Proposal to make unnecessary spoiling clearer in the guideline. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Appeal of the CheckUser tool

Dear all Wikipedia users,

I would like to release a statement that will argue to eliminate the CheckUser tool from both the English Wikipedia and the global Wikimedia Foundation. I understand that this will require a major change in the WMF software and will require intervention of Jimbo, but there are several reasons why I strongly feel that the tool should become history.

Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. When a user registers an account, it is said that registering hides your IP address. It makes no mention of the CheckUser tool. To me, that's deceiving. Also, a user's IP address and physical location is private. I don't think it's right for another user who may have no connection whatsoever to the subject, to be able to find private information that could compromise the user's security without that user's permission. In this case, I would be for keeping CheckUser in place, but only if the policy could be altered to require that the user's permission must be granted first.

I am also strongly aganist the deletion of {{Checked by CheckUser}}, because now Checkusers cannot notify their subjects. This just adds on to my argument. Now, something that is already a potential privacy issue is now being done without permission or even general knoweledge of the subject. I definitely feel that it is wrong. I don't see any problem with users using multiple accounts, and why it would need to be determined that they are the same person. Many people on other websites use multiple accounts, and those sites equivelent to Wikipedia's ArbCom does not scrutinize it at all.

Regardless of what others think, I will continue to stand my ground and am willing to take this matter directly to Jimbo himself if needed. This is a matter of user privacy above all else. 50.153.133.28 (talk) 01:13, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If everybody in the world suddenly agreed to stop socking and stood by that promise, we wouldn't need Checkusers. Instead, people get around one of the only tools we have at our disposal to maintain some semblance of sanity on the project, blocks. You can stand your ground all you want. You can take it to Jimbo, although you might want to read Wikipedia:Appeals to Jimbo first. You can scream it from the rooftops. This isn't going to happen. And as for the "permission first" requirement. How many people illegitimately socking do you think are going to give their permission? None. As to to "you weren't notified that checkusers existed" part of your speech perhaps you should have read the privacy policy that is linked at the bottom of every single page on this project. It is clearly shown there and it explains that they have access to your private information. So do Stewards by the way and I don't see you petitioning to remove that group. If you want to start a policy discussion regarding something that has even a slim chance of happening please go right ahead. This isn't one of them. --Majora (talk) 01:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@ User:Majora, Please do not be rude and do not mock users who do things in good faith. This editor actually states a good point, for the most part. It is true that the registration form does not make you agree to any policy, including the privacy policy. Though no one ever reads that crap anyway when registering, wouldn't it be wise to have a little banner at the bottom of the registration form that says "I agree to Wikipedia's Terms of Use and privacy policy." That way people cannot register unless they check that little box. That way, people like this IP address proposer would not be "screaming" about this stuff "from the rooftops." Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, do you realize the admins on other website that you visit have access to your IP address, user agent, screen resolution, etc. without the need of a checkuser tool? Your activity on the web is not all that private unless you use an anonymizing proxy, and even that doesn't guarantee it.- [[user: MrX|Mr]X 01:36, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Checkusers will often notify people whom they've checked. The notification will often be associated with one or more account and/or IP blocks; they're called checkuser blocks. No template is required. Incidentally, User:Jimbo Wales has checkuser permissions, self-granted. I'm fairly certain he won't be agreeing with the OP. Risker (talk) 02:06, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not withstanding what Majora has said, I'm sure that we'd all be interested in hearing what solution you propose to preventing socking and other forms of abuse that doesn't involve looking at user's technical data. Lankiveil (speak to me) 02:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC).[reply]
  • First, removing CheckUser would not require any massive software changes (the line including the CheckUser extension in the Wikimedia core would need to be removed or inactivated), and the consent of Jimbo would do absolutely nothing. The reality is that Wikimedia a) needs to have a tool to associate accounts with IPs to prevent disruption, and b) takes much less information than other websites and gives it to a much smaller group of users. Your privacy is safer on Wikimedia than it is on Facebook, Google, or any other major website, both in terms of what is collected and what is revealed. There are also totally legitimate uses for alternate accounts, and if you use them properly, there will (usually) be no nosy checkusers looking at your IP. Ajraddatz (talk) 08:25, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What is the problem with socking? The way I see it, a block is a warning. A simple warning that basically says "What you did was incorrect and you should consider changing". I've seen many users who have been blocked, thought about it, apologized, and still were denied by some admin. I think that those users have the right to create another account and, as long as the new account does not make the same disruptive edits as the original account did, not be blocked. I am not suggesting appealing the sockpuppetry policy altogether, but I just feel that it should be less strict. This all comes down, in my opinion, to a change in the administrator policy. Something to the effect of "If an admin reviews a user's unblock request, and the content of the request can be identified as a sincere apology, they are to unblock them without further discussion other than approval of the blocking admin, out of fairness to the user". 50.206.149.166 (talk) 16:19, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A block is not a warning though. It is an action to prevent further disruption to the wiki. The warnings come before that and should be taken more seriously than they are by users who end up blocked (else they wouldn't be blocked--misuse of tools is actually not the epidemic that many would suggest it is).

You may be interested in WP:CLEANSTART. --Izno (talk) 16:42, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If blocks are being used as punishment, then something is going wrong. They should be technical actions to stop further disruption, nothing more. If there is clear evidence that the blocked user will stop their disruptive behaviour, then unblocking is certainly possible - but that's a big if, and can be hard to tell from a few sentences on a talk page. The issue with most sockpuppets being used to evade blocks isn't that they are just evading the block, but that they are continuing to engage in the patterns of disruptive behaviour that got them blocked in the first place. Otherwise, it can be quite hard to tell who is or isn't a sockpuppet without a behavioural connection. Ajraddatz (talk) 18:06, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think you may be confusing a temporary"block" with a permanent "ban". Blueboar (talk) 18:18, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Who are you talking to here? Nobody has said block when they meant ban, from what I see. Ajraddatz (talk) 19:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the user was more likely referring to an indefinite block than a permanent ban. Also, as the other IP said, what if the sock puppets don't engage in disruptive behavior? What if the users has learned from their mistakes, but been denied unblock, and starts editing constructively under a sock puppet username. What do we do then? 50.153.132.20 (talk) 19:45, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Your entire argument what if the sock puppets don't engage in disruptive behavior vanishes in a puff of smoke because we don't run indiscriminate Checkusers. If someone is socking and they get Checkusered it's because they did something to warrant a Checkuser. If someone has been blocked for disrupting a specific topic, then being recognized immediately gravitating back to their problem area may be sufficient grounds to Checkuser. If someone wants a Cleanstart they are REQUIRED to edit in new areas and avoid old disputes. Stay the heck away from whatever got them in trouble in the first place. Alsee (talk) 20:50, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Like Alsee says, checks are run when there is some sort of evidence to suspect that the user is a sockpuppet. If the "sockpuppet" account is productively editing in a different area and not being a nuisance, then most likely nobody will find out. If they are discovered, then I imagine it would be dealt with by an admin on a case-by-case basis, considering both the block evasion but also WP:IAR if the encyclopedia is benefiting from it. Ajraddatz (talk) 21:54, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Counter Proposal

I propose that we do the following:

  • Retain the current three-month limit that information that can be accessed by the CheckUser tool before being deleted.
  • Retain the current system where only the most trusted users have CheckUser, all uses of the CheckUser tool are logged and can be reviewed by other CheckUsers, and those who abuse the tool lose it.
  • Increase the accuracy and reliability of CheckUser with techniques such as panopticlick.
  • Start a conversation about what information we should gather and retain for readers of Wikipedia vs. editors of Wikipedia. Our current privacy policy says "We actively collect some types of information with a variety of commonly-used technologies. These generally include tracking pixels, JavaScript, and a variety of 'locally stored data' technologies, such as cookies and local storage." In my opinion, for readers (not editors) of Wikipedia this information should be anonymized (assigning a random identifier and severing any connection with a particular username of IP address) as it is collected.

--Guy Macon (talk) 02:34, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I assume that you know this, but in case others don't, CheckUser can only see edits and logged actions, but nothing from users simply reading the site. ​—DoRD (talk)​ 02:43, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I assumed that, but not having the CheckUser right I wasn't sure. Thanks! The thing is, even if Wikipedia doesn't reveal information about readers to CheckUsers, the privacy policy specifically says that they may use tracking pixels, which means that info about readers is gathered (for several good reasons). Any cop who is able to convince a judge to sign a warrant can see that information, and if some criminal offered a bribe or made a credible threat to the right WMF staffer or his family, he could see it too. That's why the information should be anonymized as it is collected. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agree per Guy Macon, info about readers is gathered to make data-informed decisions about website activity, if I'm not mistaken. Sam.gov (talk) 22:31, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on the above a bit, if when Sam.gov reads a page and Wikipedia gathers information to make data-informed decisions about website activity (which is fine) there is no need to retain either the username Sam.gov or the IP address he is using. They can save the data under the name 86B1B5FBE4737813BBDDD168D244893BB04B59B4817496060B13BE316ED44CEA (which is a SHA256 hash of "Sam.gov") and gather all the statistics they want about what the user known only as 86B1B5FBE47... reads on Wikipedia. The SHA256 hash cannot be converted back to reveal "Sam.gov". --Guy Macon (talk) 00:35, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sure it can. Just do a SHA-256 of each entry at Special:Listusers and see which one matches. Anonymizing data is a lot harder than most people think. --Carnildo (talk) 02:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You are right, of course. Total brain fart on my part. (Note to self: next time, smoke crack after editing Wikipedia...) --Guy Macon (talk) 03:27, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to expand a bit on my error above. I have no idea what I was thinking. What I should have said is that we should encrypt user data using something like AES, not a hash like SHA256, with access to the key strictly controlled. Then, when the time comes to delete the data, destroying the key makes the data and any backups or copies inaccessible. This, of course, solves a completely different problem.
For those interested in anonymizing user data, here are some interesting links:
http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/commentary/securitymatters/2007/12/securitymatters_1213
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/your-secrets-live-online-in-databases-of-ruin/
http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/05/anonymize-data-limits.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+oreilly%2Fradar%2Fatom+%28O%27Reilly+Radar%29
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1450006
--Guy Macon (talk) 20:37, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Counter counter proposal

Heaya WMF! We love that you take reader privacy so seriously! We were wondering if it could be even better. We were talking about tracking pixels, locally stored data technologies such as cookies and local storage, anonymizing/hashing/encrypting/deleting reader data. We decided to simply ask if you'd be interested in looking over the matter, seeing if there is any more you could do on your end. That would be awesomesauce! Thanx!

Amendment to our Username policy

NOT DONE
There is clearly no support for implementing this. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:44, 19 March 2016 (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.

According to WP:UNCONF, our current policy on confusing usernames says that such names are "are highly discouraged but which are not so inappropriate on their own as to require action". This statement is extremely vague as to what defines a username as "confusing" or not.

As such, I am proposing that usernames which meet a set of given criteria be blocked immediately, regardless of the user's edits. On Wikipedia's username policy talk page, I have quoted a policy that is already enforced on the Dutch Wikipedia as follows:

De volgende namen zijn niet gewenst: *Namen die moeilijk te onthouden kunnen zijn, waaronder: **Namen met daarin een reeks van meer dan 6 cijfers; **Willekeurige reeksen letters als "DGLJDLGKSKJALKDJFA"; **Andere willekeurige combinaties van tekens;

Translation of the above:

The following names are not wanted:

  • Names that could be difficult to remember, including:
    • Names which contain a series of more than 6 digits;
    • Random letter sequences like "DGLJDLGKSKJALKDJFA";
    • Other random combinations of characters;

This is further iterated in the Dutch version of our Uw-ublock template, and seeing several users blocked for this reason on NLWIKI (many of which have made no edits to the wiki, like this user, this user, and this user) among many others, I thus propose that this policy be extended to the English Wikipedia. Any comments?

Best, <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 21:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose, rules creep. Our current situation handles it better: one of those usernames can be brought up for discussion, and the community can decide on a case-by-case basis. If a user with one of those names is editing disruptively, then the blocking administrator can add the confusing name as a behaviour item that suggests intent to disrupt.
    That said, if we want to expand WP:UNCONF to list those as examples of confusing user names, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't. However, we're just adding them as examples of confusing usernames, not prohibiting them outright. —C.Fred (talk) 21:37, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. There is no need to remember usernames, therefore no need for a policy prohibiting them. We allow IPv4 addresses, which are just a bunch of numbers, and IPv6 addresses which are long strings of hexadecimal characters. Nobody needs to remember them. -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:38, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I needed to do some testing with an account that Wikipedia would see as a new user (nonautoconfirmed ), so I created User:TestAccountZboxx3R7ql001, which would violate the proposed "Names that could be difficult to remember" rule. It would have been silly to pick a username that someone might find desirable some day and want to use. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:03, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I tire of this perennial proposal. There is a reason I use a random string. There is no reason that I (or anyone else) shouldn't be allowed to use a random string. jps (talk) 00:17, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

information Note: Hi everybody. Please note that I brought up this topic in response to noticing a piece of vandalism committed by Bob12345678909876543211234567890 (talk · contribs), a name which obviously meets the criteria used by NLWIKI to be treated as "confusing" and lead to a block. The editor did not make any more edits since then, but was nevertheless blocked by Alexf, using the Uw-vaublock template which explicitly states that his username "is a blatant violation of our username policy". Based on this discussion and where it seems to be going, it seems like you are arguing that this is not a blatant violation of our username policy. Is this the case, or do you change your mind now? <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 02:00, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not at all. It meets both the letter and spirit of WP:UNCONF - a confusing name in combination with other behavioral problems. Bob123whatever isn't a blatant violation by itself, but as soon as he starts vandalizing articles, username policy means he gets that much less leniency before blocking. —Cryptic 02:08, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Something to keep in mind is that, following the SUL finalization, all accounts truly are cross-wiki accounts. Usernames that look nonsensical in one language are perfectly reasonable in other languages. It is probably best to avoid inflexible rules for usernames. Risker (talk) 03:35, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

 Comment: And here we go again: Wikipedia talk:Username policy has just been vandalized by Djdjdjhdhdyu (talk · contribs) - another name that would imply disruptive editing, and another reason to implement the rules above in our username policy. <<< SOME GADGET GEEK >>> (talk) 20:23, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No change in policy is needed to block a vandalism-only account. User blocked. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:32, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose IMO the example names are easier than the foreign-character-set names of some valued contributors. (Hebrew, Japanese, whatever.) With cross-wiki SUL accounts we want to apply extra care to minimize conflicts with other language name policy.
I do agree that a blatant garbage-name is a strong contributing indicator of irredeemable bad faith after vandalism or other disruptive behavior has occurred. If the user creates a throw-away account with a random garbage name, that's an invitation for us to throw it away. Alsee (talk) 20:32, 12 March 2016 (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.

Rechallenging the right for any type of school to have its own article!

This should be a long discussion, because I want my proposal that took one hour to write to actually mean something at least. I have not seen previous discussions of this sort of thing that establish this guideline, but I know that they exist, or else this guideline would not have come about. Currently, the great majority of elementary and middle schools in the United States only have redirect pages to their school districts, even though they are clearly notable by Wikipedia's GNG in my personal opinion. From what I can tell, people who create articles about "just regular ol'" middle schools or elementary schools immediately have their articles blanked and replaced with a redirect, which I personally don't think is fair. However, articles about high schools somehow are not even looked over, and are pretty much assumed to be notable, even though in reality the high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools generally have just about the same notability level. I have many oppositions to make to this guideline slash unspoken rule in this very long statement. I personally believe that (sorry to be blunt) this community tendency is very unfair, inconsiderate of the lurkers of Wikipedia, and ultimately, even if ever so slightly, hurtful to the community. All of my arguments are listed here:


Argument 1: There have been literally thousands of people who have come to Wikipedia in search of an article about an American public middle or elementary school, and are left looking at the school district's article. I imagine a majority of them were (at least in the back of their heads) disappointed and wanted more information about the schools themselves rather than their school district. Yes, I do agree that school districts should have their own articles too; that's pretty much a no-brainer. This leads into Argument 2.

Argument 2: However, I don't believe that articles about school districts do or should contain all the necessary information about the schools as a whole, and they're not exactly supposed to either. A school district article is supposed to give a general overview about the school districts, including a list of its schools. However, just that list does not generally describe all the aspects of the schools themselves that an article about those schools would describe in more detail. In a nutshell, school district articles are supposed to describe details about the school district, and school articles are supposed to give school-specific details, and redirecting people to an article about a school district is therefore incredibly unhelpful to readers. Significant information in articles about middle or elementary schools may include the history of the specific school, incidents that happened in that school, notable alumni/former pupils, etc.

Argument 3: Who in the world said that these middle and elementary schools "generally don't meet Wikipedia's GNG", while high schools "tend to meet GNG"? That makes no sense to me, because how are high schools any more or less notable than middle or elementary schools? Okay, so high schools do tend to have sports teams, and high schools would more often be mentioned by celebrity alumni than the celebrities' middle or elementary schools, but I believe the rationale that "middle and elementary schools tend not to meet GNG" is that they are not known for any two notable events. Well, if you think about it, regular high schools don't really have anything that special about them. I mean take Mauldin High School for instance. Sure, it's got sports teams and several notable alumni. But in the end, what's great about it? It's just another high school. If I searched for 5 minutes of high schools in random places, I could find high schools with around as many notable alumni and a sports team. So how does it stand out from the rest? Not really too much. Plus, middle and elementary schools tend to have gymnastics programs as well, and bands, and drama programs, and field trips (outings), and mascots, and notable alumni, so it's not like pre-high schools are useless and have nothing unique or special about them either, but the question still stands, what's really so special about any of these schools? Well, if most public schools tend to fall under the same boat of actual notability levels, why not just include articles about them all? I will give you examples of two schools out of the rest of the 20 thousand or whatever schools in the United States that I think should definitely have separate articles:

As you can see here, both of these schools have plenty of news and a few possibly useable book results that could merit an article, especially under an "Incidents" section (in Mauldin Middle School's case). Both of these schools do not fall under WP:ONEEVENT, as there are actually several news articles about various events that happened and that were related to these schools. These also come from various news sources, which establishes their notability further as there are not just one news website that the articles are relying on. These schools also tend to have their own websites, webpages, or sections of district websites, which definitely supply primary sources to be balanced out with the secondary sources.

No offense, Wikipedians; I am not talking about all articles as a whole, but most school and school district articles that I've seen on Wikipedia personally were not very well written at all and were often stubs, and content is therefore poorly cited. This tends to be because the local schools or districts are of very low importance to the general project, so there's also very low interest in editing. I could personally infer that critical Wikipedians who saw previous middle or elementary school articles may have confused poor citing with the article actually not being notable; that's why you don't assume.

Argument 4: I know what a few of you might be thinking; child protection and child privacy is a concern. I agree; yes it is. The fact that middle and elementary schools all educate students who are purely minors may have possibly been a contributing factor to Wikipedia's "redirect middle or elementary school article immediately" guideline. It is true that information about minors can be an issue in the case of BLP guidelines, but if something about a child was truly notable enough to be mentioned on an article, then so be it. It is also said that, since Wikipedia relies on reliable and visible external sources, the public would have already mentioned the minor, and Wikipedia's ultimate purpose is to "sum up the world's information" so to speak, so it is allowed to use any seeable source and sum it up where necessary. So child privacy is a completely different issue and should not be worried about in the case of creating articles about schools.


In conclusion, if this guideline is changed, which I'm very, very much hoping that it will be, WikiProject Education will be working its butt off trying to get these middle and elementary school articles all done, because of the inconvenient guideline that Wikipedia has presented to us editors for so many years. I am a very busy person, but I would be thrilled to help the project by making as many school articles as I can and as well as I can. I think that, by allowing middle school and elementary school articles when notable (which it's pretty obvious when they are), it will help the Wikipedia project and community so much and will make this encyclopedia more open and more informative for our readers. Thanks for your attention. I'm hoping to get a lot out of this. NOTE: I may add more arguments if I feel I've forgotten something. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 04:08, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (school articles)

I'm not familiar with this unwritten guideline you refer to, Philmonte101, so I can't comment on it, but if it does have to do with protecting children, I'm partly sympathetic to its existence and cause. To the point I want to make: High schools are where children become adults; where they begin to decide the future path of their lives; where they begin to conduct meaningful school work that helps show them how their brains work best and what interests them; where they begin to analyze the world and the people around them and how their behavior impacts those people. Elementary and middle schools, for most students, do not have this impact. I admit that I'm shooting from the hip here and that what I've said is completely anecdotal, but I think it translates to many people. I also admit that it's probably irrelevant — completely irrelevant — to Wikipedia articles, but there you have it.
As for Argument 1: People who are disappointed with the lack of elementary and middle school content can go directly to the school's Web page. Wikipedia, as you well know, is not the only source of information, and it is not meant to be the source of all information — only encyclopedic information. If elementary and middle schools are deemed to be encyclopedic, so be it. As for Argument 2, I agree mostly. District articles should describe the districts as a whole in mostly broad terms, and school articles should be the location for depth about specific schools. As for Argument 3, high schools tend to be much larger than elementary and middle schools, and school size directly impacts budget size. The bigger a school's budget, the more coverage it's likely to receive from the media, and the more coverage the media gives to a large-budgeted school, like a high school, the more secondary sources exist. Also, high school sports are more widely covered by the local media (giving articles about them far more secondary sources). Ditto with alumni references. You listed a couple schools for which you found references, and those should be examined on a per-article basis, just like any other Wikipedia article. As for Argument 4: Imagine the children themselves logging onto an IP account and inserting libel. Of course, this already occurs on Wikipedia, and the toddlers and children at elementary and middle schools can engage in this now on other articles, too. However, they might be more inclined to search out their own elementary or middle school article and make unconstructive edits. This is only a hunch, though. If the toddler-induced vandalism went far, suppression might be necessary. Fdssdf (talk) 06:47, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Philmonte101 and Fdssdf: Not sure who did this, but please do not "bump" the post by moving it to the end. --Izno (talk) 12:31, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Izno: I'm not sure what you mean. What I am sure of is that if I did break some policy about pump posts, it was not done with intent. Fdssdf (talk) 17:34, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the "unwritten" guidance on school articles is at WP:OUTCOMES; attempts to make a school notable guideline have always failed. It suggests that perhaps it is time to rethink how we handle high schools as to match how we require elementary/grade schools to show outside notability as well. --MASEM (t) 15:02, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have never understood why schools don't need to establish notability. Not every little institution deserves a mention in an encyclopedia, not sure how schools got this special treatment to begin with. We should tighten our standards for high schools, not loosen them for elementary schools. HighInBC 17:39, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The relevant essay is Wikipedia:Notability (high schools) which is pretty much a guideline. This does not include junior or primary schools where mere existence and proof of that in a newspaper is not enough for inclusion. Dmcq (talk) 19:04, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with most of the comments. We give high schools some leeway, but that does not mean they should not (in principle) meet reliability guidelines. I see no reason to extend this to other schools, nor to change the current discretionary decision to keep many high schools. So my suggestion would be not to change current status quo. Arnoutf (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Huge hole in this entire topic: 1 This website is not the American Wikipedia, 2 Schools exist in every country on earth, even countries that no longer exist had educational institutions for children.
I dislike WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES because it is a self fulfilling prophecy and a circular argument "high schools are notable because high schools are notable". Consequently questioning the notability of any high school is effectively forbidden because people use SCHOOLOUTCOMES as a weapon to premptively shut down any discussion of the notability of any high school. While (most) American high schools may be notable it is certainly not true of high schools almost anywhere else. Amaricans (and perhaps Canadians too) are practically unique in the way they make a fetish of high school sport. Even the smallest "Anyburgh High" is practically guaranteed regular coverage of its sport in the "Anyburgh Gazette", whereas in many other countries school sport is only of interest to the immediate school community and consequently gets very little mainstream media attention. High status private schools in the Anglosphere are an exception, but run-of-the-mill government schools outside of North America can exist for centuries without a mention in the press. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 20:03, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the policy is very black and white and steering toward different directions. "All high schools, keep. All middle or elementary schools, delete. Because of what we generally saw before as notable and not notable." It does make sense for geographical locations, since many people would want to look up their hometown CDP on this site and everyone knows that. So if we just made it so that "All schools with at least a mentioning in three different media sources can pass as notable." or better yet "All schools that are verified to exist somehow merit their own articles," then they would fall under the same boat as geographical locations, because really, if you boil it down, elementary and middle schools are places on the map. I think it's strange how school districts are automatically accepted as geographical locations when they are not actually geographical locations, but governmental entities; a group of different schools in one region, while schools actually are geographical locations with exact coordinates. Sure, I think school districts all merit articles too, but definitely the schools should. And also, User:Fdssdf, the problem with people just going to the school websites is that the school websites are almost guaranteed to be biased towards that school. From what I know working at several different schools, staff and administrators will purposefully keep away from speaking of any kind of incidents unless it's important to the students, for instance an emergency, because kids at high school age and middle school age are known to gossip quite a lot about incidents such as these. So, Mauldin High School's website wouldn't have anything on their History page noting last year's annoying bomb threats. Mauldin Middle School's website wouldn't mention the well-covered incident of a physical education teacher being detained for years of child pornography distribution that depicted hundreds of his own students, unless it was in an apology note or something. It definitely wouldn't be on an immediately reachable part of the site, such as "About Us" or "History". These kinds of things are what Wikipedia is supposed to tell; it balances the goods, the bads, the okays, into one large sum of neutral and unbiased information. School websites wouldn't do this. And incidents are just one example of reasons a school websites are almost always at least somewhat biased. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 21:42, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • From my perspective, people threw in the towel years ago and allowed all secondary schools to have articles. I don't think even this was a good move. School articles are notoriously out of date (and any updates are almost invariably done by people with a clear COI - students, employees, school boards), they're incredible vandalism and BLP violation magnets, and a significant percentage barely meet GNG (if they do at all). The overwhelming, vast majority of elementary schools do not meet GNG. Those few that do will qualify for an article on their own. I will note that the BLP violations and other materials that I have cleaned up and suppressed on school articles is amongst the most vicious and cruel that I have seen just about anywhere on this project, directed most frequently at identified, named students. We really don't need to open those doors to grade school kids as well. Risker (talk) 22:59, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:Risker Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. All the drama and vandalism you speak of should be irrelevant to the content of the encyclopedia itself. In other words, the amount of vandalism or possible COI on a page should not determine the right to existence of that page. Vandalism and attacks and such can always be removed, and even have the revisions deleted. Anyway, I'm almost completely inclusionist; I'm all about making this encyclopedia as complete and informational as possible. Many here will naturally disagree, as they have deletionist points of view. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 23:25, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Philmonte101, you have failed to address my other major point, which is that the overwhelming, vast majority of elementary schools do not meet GNG. You may think it's a minor point to have people brutally and viciously abused on this website, but those of us who actually deal with it know that there's a lot more to it. I'll also note that Wikipedia is not a directory, listing every possible bit of information under the sun. There is rarely sufficient useful information about individual elementary schools that is not already published on the website of the schoolboard; in fact, that's often where all of the information comes from. That is also why most "articles" about elementary schools redirect to the schoolboard or the town. There are simply not enough independent reliable sources to establish sufficient notability to pass GNG. Risker (talk) 00:05, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly oppose There aren't any rights per se in Wikipedia. It's not a democracy. Our WP:GNG policy has worked well for a long time, and as Risker already noted, the vast majority of elementary and middle schools don't come close to meeting it. Just because someone looks for a piece of information on the Internet does not mean Wikipedia needs to cover it; that's precisely why the WP:NOTADIRECTORY policy exists. OhNoitsJamie Talk 00:47, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Most don't come close to meeting WP:GNG". You don't give sufficient enough reasons for me to believe you. Many of these US schools at the very least have been around for over a century. If someone digged around enough online and in books, eventually some notability could be established. Take the examples I gave on the first post:
Please explain to me how on earth these two schools have "no sufficient notability." They have extensive coverage in books and media. I haven't even done full research, and I still found an extensive enough amount of sources to put into an article. Sure, there's nothing special about them, but schools are still locations where a lot of people go, so they should absolutely have articles if they have the same amount of notability as those listed above. FOR instance, an article about Green Springs Elementary could say in the History section that it used to be one of the segregated schools. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 02:08, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Philmonte101. I've done a lot of work in local newspapers across the US and they ALL give a lot of attention to local public elementary and middle schools. They write about graduation, new buildings, new staff, and local funding all the time. The schools get coverage in published county histories as well. That meets our rule: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list. Rjensen (talk) 02:21, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
But it should be remembered that a topic only covered by local sources typically fails the notability guidelines (local sources however can enhance a topic notable at a larger scale). See the essay WP:LOCAL for how this matters. --MASEM (t) 02:25, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is no rule that says local newspapers are weak sources--the notability rules have no such "local" factor. WP:LOCAL explicitly says that if the RS provides enough info then a Wiki article is justified. Public school issues in smaller cities and towns are typically very well covered by local reporters in the local newspapers because of open board meetings and open budgets; editors like these stories because many subscribers are graduates or send their kids to that school and read the story. Local private schools, on the other hand, may get much less coverage because they do not disseminate information. Individual elementary schools in the big city rarely get much newspaper coverage so they will seldom qualify. Wikipedia's goals include more editors at work, and working on material they know more about is a very good place to start. Rjensen (talk) 05:09, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Local sources are dependent sources - not in terms of financial or the like, but simply in terms of interest. This is how WP:ORG (the notability guidelines for organizations) are set up. Specifically, coverage in works aimed for a local audience is not sufficient per WP:AUD. Otherwise, this same logic begs that local businesses also would readily classify for articles, which of course doesn't work. --MASEM (t) 05:26, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No-- local newspapers are typically part of a regional chain, and are institutionally independent. For example they rotate reporters in from other cities. the WP:AUD is satisfied by having multiple independent sources, such as two papers or regional television news programs that do their own reporting on local schools. I just gave a series of workshops on editing for Wikipedia using local resources, with an audience of mostly librarians from various schools in Montana and rural Missouri. I can report a strong interest in developing better local coverage. Wikipedia is embarrassingly weak right now, comprising mostly demographic data dumps from the census, and maybe some weather bureau reporting. I'm all in favor of writing about Notre Dame and Yale but we have a duty to the 99.9% of our potential audience who have a strong interest in learning about their public schools in places they live and in places they are thinking of moving to. Rjensen (talk) 06:25, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hold on. Do you honestly believe that *anyone* is going to consider Wikipedia the place to look to find out about the public schools in places they're thinking of moving to, let alone 99.9% of the potential audience? We should do our very best to dissuade such thinking, Rjensen, not encourage it. We are already a genuinely AWFUL reference source for the majority of schools that have articles on Wikipedia. Nobody except people with COI seems to have any interest in maintaining these articles; they are in pitiful condition. There seems to be a lot of magical thinking that goes on about articles that people want to create but have no particular interest in maintaining; they become someone else's problem. We need to stop thinking this way. Risker (talk) 08:57, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
User:Risker Again; the issue of maintaining the quality of an article has nothing, and I mean nothing, to do with the notability of the topic. That's like saying "Most articles about websites are biased or poor-quality, so we shouldn't include any of them." (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, all deleted because of this action, making thousands of readers confused) Or something similar. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 10:01, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Don't put words in my mouth, Philmonte101; that is not at all what I said, which is that elementary schools should not be considered automatically notable enough for an article; that is what you are arguing for in this thread. Since it seems I have not been able to word my replies to you in such a way that you aren't misunderstanding them or mischaracterizing them, I will respond using the same example as you have used above. Not all websites are notable enough for Wikipedia. In fact, our threshold for websites is significantly higher than the one for schools right now. To use a slightly different example: Not all streets are notable enough for Wikipedia. We're not the place to keep information on every street in the world. We're not the place to keep information on every school in the world. We're not the place to keep information on every website in the world. We restrict ourselves to the notable ones. Risker (talk) 14:39, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There is no 'right' for anyone or anything to be in and encyclopaedia. The only thing they have a right to is what they pay for or what the law demands. They don't and can't pay to be in Wikipedia and the law has not demanded that anything or anyone has to have a Wikipedia entry. They have to have some notability. And may I also note that short succinct arguments that make a clear point are more likely to convince editors to make exceptions to the notability policy. Dmcq (talk) 11:59, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't favor "inherent notability" for anything, so I certainly don't favor it for schools. That should include all schools, but in practice, it's very difficult to challenge an article on a high school or above, even if there isn't really much of any reference material out there. But we certainly should not start expanding it. If a given elementary or middle school really does have sufficient reference material available for a full article about it, write that article and cite those references. As always, that doesn't mean blurbs or name drops, it means substantial, reliable coverage by independent sources. If it doesn't, we shouldn't have such an article, because we don't have the appropriate material from which to write one. That should be the standard in all cases. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:52, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I oppose the prejudice I support WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES as it saves unnecessary time in debates in AfD. Some people don't get that message, I've fought the debates and have won every time by producing sources. Of course I believe in WP:BEFORE. I previously proposed that people who don't get that message, in this kind of case or other cases, those who bring unnecessary AfDs should be penalized. Bad dog. I lost that proposal. At least these challenges on an individual basis should be brought to AfD and maybe someday we might find a school so obscure that nobody can prove it existed. Poof, it loses at AfD. What perturbs me are the number of cases where WP:Speedy is used to sneakily evade the sunlight of a debate but to still achieve the result. Most of the time those disingenuous editors are not caught. I think editors who have a history of misusing Speedy should be banned. As far as middle schools and elementary schools, lets have the debate. Many article attempts are poorly sourced junk. Poof. But I have seen well written, well sourced articles about middle schools that are summarily squashed, frequently using the speedy technique. The debate rarely is allowed to happen. If it does go to AfD, the logical solution is to merge to the school district or superior entity. But merging invariably loses the majority of content about that school, reducing it to a single line only validating its existence. Valid, sourced information about that school just disappears. Knowledge is precious, that is why wikipedia exists. Our standard is WP:GNG. Let the debate happen. Maybe we will establish over time, a criteria that will set the standards for lesser schools to prove their notability and to be allowed to be included. A giant "No, not never, no how" prevents that debate, that evolution from happening based on prejudice. Trackinfo (talk) 18:29, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - That outcomes are routinely used to dictate outcomes (and to chill/preempt discussions) is a seemingly intractable problem for AfD. I mean I get it -- it's a time saver. But that's what SNGs are supposed to be for. Instead, we have a pseudostatistical hodgepodge that's wielded with the authority of an SNG, and enjoys a self-perpetuating circularity. I totally agree that in most cases, high schools are notable. But they shouldn't be automatically notable (and technically they're not -- it's just that way in practice), and I'd oppose any expansion of that effective free pass. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 19:13, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per Risker and Rhododendrites. Doug Weller talk 20:39, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The present policy has one key advantage: it sorts out the articles unambiguously. It would be great if we could agree on similar standards elsewhere; I would support any effort here even if I did not like the result because the arguing is not worth the trouble. What harms WP is not a large number of trivial articles. What harms wikipedia is promotionalism and misue of the site. The effort spent in deciding just who or what should be covered would much better be spent in improving the quality of articles. Remember , V and NPOV are key policies essential to an encyclopedia ; the exact detail of what we have articles on doesn't in the end make that much difference. DGG ( talk ) 05:14, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What harms WP is not a large number of trivial articles. What harms wikipedia is promotionalism and misue of the site. Well said. Trackinfo (talk) 20:08, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The reason these schools should have articles when having even close to sufficient amounts of references is because the district articles currently are supposed to include information about schools in a list, apparently. Well, in my opinion, that information does not belong in a district article. Though school districts do manage the schools, the school district is a different institution or entity. Plus, like I said, which no one is addressing, the districts are much less important to readers than the schools themselves most of the time. Much less people end up going to the district headquarters than to the schools themselves. People want to know about schools, and much less about districts, so someone next please address that point. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 20:20, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Proposal fundamentally misunderstands policy. Yes, there is a problem with closers treating SCHOOLOUTCOMES like a policy, but nothing here addresses that. A school article can be kept if it passes WP:GNG; this has consistently been interpreted to mean in-depth coverage in independent, reliable, and no-local, secondary sources. Local newspaper are presumptively reliable for WP:V purposes but they nothing to help establish notability. Otherwise, every other 7th-grader in small towns would have an article here, because the local papers have nothing better to write about other than who won last Sunday's spelling bee.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:30, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Side matter: Schools and ONEEVENT

  • Please discuss this issue below that line and the one above it separately. I also must note that I've read a couple of different former elementary or middle school articles that became redirected. All of the ones that I saw, even Sandy Hook Elementary School, were stub articles with almost no useful content and no references. This seems to confuse editors into thinking that school articles like those are 100% not notable. Well, here we have it! That may just be the reason why we have made the policy in the first place. If you see an article like Green Springs Elementary School (Ohio), which may not have anything particularly special about it, it still gives sufficient references to various different points about that school, including history, technology, and architecture. Green Springs Elementary School (Kansas), however, fails notability because of a literal case of WP:ONEEVENT.

    About Sandy Hook. Has anyone ever put it into their heads that maybe it wasn't WP:ONEEVENT? What about the mentioning of the various attempts to rebuild the school? What about the history of the school disregarding the shooting? What about its architecture, design, cultural elements, possible notable alumni, staff, or former pupils, etc.? By the way, all of the information I just stated should not be in an article about its school district. Things that should be in school district articles are a list of its schools, history of the district itself (mostly office stuff and whatnot), notable incidents related to the district (i.e. treasury theft, etc.), information about the school district office if notable such as architecture and history etc. If the school is actually (not just assumably) WP:ONEEVENT, or you can't find various enough sources, then it must be redirected to the school district. All of this is my ideal of a perfect standard for judging school articles. Now you fully understand and can quote me according to this. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 20:32, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

    I see no reason to treat school district articles any different than any other WP:SUMMARY/WP:LIST style works: When it gets too large, remove the information to another article; conversely, if it' s not too large, and the individual subtopic cannot show notability, merge it to the list/series/whatnot. This is a pretty typical treatment of articles on Wikipedia. --Izno (talk) 11:13, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm agreed exactly with Izno.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:30, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Full-length films/videos in articles

There is an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Videos#RfC: Full-length films/videos in articles seeking to establish consensus on what we should do with full-length films/videos in articles about those films/videos. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 21:39, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC venue question

Since the start of the video RfC that I posted above, Alsee (most vocally -- there are a couple others now) has noted that because the discussion is located at Wikipedia talk:Videos, which is an information page rather than a guideline, it can have no project-wide effect.

If it were on an article talk page, say, a WikiProject talk page, I would understand, but whatever it's classified as right now, Wikipedia:Videos seems to me the most relevant place to have a discussion about the use of video in articles. That it is an information page doesn't, to me, mean it's a poor choice of venue but that it's woefully underdeveloped and in desperate need of this sort of discussion in order to take steps to develop it. Another obvious choice is WP:NOTREPOSITORY, but while that will need to be discussed/updated to address more than just textual content regardless of this discussion, that page is for broader, site-defining rules than for setting forth guidelines for when it is or is not appropriate to use certain videos in certain kinds of articles. So as far as quasi-"official" venues go, that leaves, it seems, image-specific pages like MOS:IMAGES and WP:IUP or this page.

There are other considerations for this RfC, but I want to ask this specific question: is it not enough for an RfC to be at the most relevant projectspace talk page? For it to have site-wide effect, would this question need to be on this page? If so, why wouldn't it be enough to post it here and elsewhere, including centralized discussion? Again, we're not talking about an RfC in some obscure place -- it's an obvious location, it just happens that our guidelines on the use of video need work. My hope is that this is a step towards working out real guidelines. If I was wrong in my choice of venue, the RfC should certainly be withdrawn. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:04, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

5 of the last 8 commenters are advocating a more appropriate venue and/or improved drafting of the question. It's time to pull the plug and get a fresh start. Alsee (talk) 19:50, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In reality, any RfC that will have a wide-reaching impact on the encylopaedia should be held here, as this is a public forum that is widely-watched and isn't in any sphere of influence. It is a neutral space, whereas many project pages are not. Of course, this isn't a rule of any kind, and RfCs arise all over the place in an organic way. However, I tend to find that the ones conducted here get wider input, and seem to get on better. RGloucester — ☎ 19:55, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Alsee, you've been peppering me with messages telling me to withdraw it ever since the RfC opened and started veering towards option (B). You raise some good points, and I want to be crystal clear that I don't think you're acting in bad faith, but you are among the most vocal/visible proponents of option (A) on multiple pages, and I don't know yet if the thrust of your argument to withdraw (concerning venue) holds water yet. That doesn't mean you're not right or that you're pushing a POV (and I agree with you about (A), after all), but it does mean that because I simply do not know if you're right, I want to get other opinions. If you're right, it makes sense to withdraw. So that's why I'm here -- to get other people's opinions and see if I should consent to withdraw.
But here, as elsewhere, you're trying to frame the question to convince others and to pressure me using these figures about what # out of # people say. On my talk page you said "Since I first raised the issue, it is now 4 out of 7 people objecting to the validity of the RFC", and here "5 of the last 8 commenters..." But these numbers appear to be misleading. here is a diff of ALL edits following your request. There are indeed 8 people who have weighed in since then, and I only see three who share your concern about venue: Crisco 1492, OpenFuture, and Nigel Pap (whose "if the result is simply changing the guideline then this RfC won't have much effect" seems based on the presumption that you are correct rather than an independent assertion). So 3 of 8 since you raised your objection, not 5 of 8. Add to that the 5 preceding your objection who likewise did not themselves object, and the total is 3 of 13 people sharing your concern about venue (not counting you and me).
But I'm not trying to get into a debate over numbers or saying that the concerns of those 3 people (and yourself) aren't important. Quite the contrary. That's why I'm here. Again, if you're right and the RfC can have no real effect, I would consent to it being closed early. My point is that I would like to get other people's opinions about the appropriateness of the venue without you trying to poison the well with e.g. this "5 of 8" business, which is both inaccurate and irrelevant to the question at hand. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:08, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding "commenters are advocating a more appropriate venue and/or improved drafting of the question" Me, Crisco_1492, Nigel Pap, OpenFuture, Mendaliv(misconceptions section), RGloucester here. That was 6 out of the 9 people in a row discussing the topic, although now it's 6 of 11. I'm sorry if I'm "pressuring", but starting fresh is more productive than dragging out something that isn't going to generate a viable result. Alsee (talk) 01:32, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, there's no hostility here. I want to work together to get this done right. I'm a bit of a policy/RFC wonk, I've done a fair number of closes. I've done a few preemptive closes of RFC's that weren't going to be productive, with zero objections. I was really hoping you'd withdraw it immediately to minimize the mess. Coincidentally I almost preformed a preemptive close a day before your RFC, here, but I accidentally got involved on the page before I saw it. I brought in admin to do the early close. The reason I was counting out the objections is because a good closer isn't going to issue a consensus when a significant number of people are making a reasonable case that there's a problem with the current RFC. They'll just say to start again with a better RFC. That just delays things by an entire month. Yuck. Alsee (talk) 01:59, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Anything that appears at {{centralized discussion}} is a valid community result, regardless of page. Doubly true for anything on watchlist notices. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 04:26, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This was a problem, in my opinion, at this recent RFC, which fortunately got seconded by a second RFC at MOS Images which cured the question of the project-wide legitimacy of the first RFC. My opinion, for what it's worth, is that the venue of a RFC to create policy or guideline shouldn't make any difference so long as (1a) notice of it is properly distributed (which would include at the Village Pump and at any existing policy or guideline affected by it, (1b) that notice makes clear that policy or guideline (or at least a rule of project-wide applicability, which amounts to the same thing) is being formed, and (1c) the RFC itself also makes that clear or (2) the RFC is at an existing and relevant policy or guideline page, in which case 1a-1c should not be needed, though they may be advisable if the change is important enough. The sentiment has been expressed, with which I mostly disagree, that any RFC that happens anywhere even without the additional notice I mentioned above should be able to form policy or guidelines if enough editors respond to it. Frankly, I think that's a formula for unnecessary drama. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 16:45, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments wanted on Video RfC: Full-length films/videos in articles

Agree with Oiyarsbepsy - its listed as a centralized discussion. Moreover, just draw notice to it for more comment like I just did for more input. Comments wanted at Wikipedia talk:Videos#RfC: Full-length films/videos in articles Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:02, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Video games and historical figures

Duplicate discussion. While this thread was opened as a general topic, most of the material is forked discussion from Talk:George Washington#Video games are part of the Wikipedia encyclopedia culture, and should centralize back there if specifically about that article.

I don't feel this warrants an RfC at this point, but I would like to get some opinions informally in a public venue.
A historical figure appears as a character in a video game. Does that fact alone warrant a mention of that game in a "Popular culture" section of that person's bio article? Or, must there be something else to provide enough weight for inclusion? If so, what?
Is there any guidance specifically related to this, such as inclusion criteria for "Popular culture" sections?
This stems from this article talk (permalink), which so far lacks a quorum for consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:02, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:MISC for guidelines for this area - though not specifically for the example of "appears in a video game". TBH & IMO, that someone appears in a video game seems about as relevant as them appearing on a t-shirt - which is to say, not at all of note ... on which basis, I think you'd need some exceptional reason to add mention of the videogame appearance in the historicl person article. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:13, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This issue arose on George Washington, when an editor noted that Washington played a role in several video games, and Mandruss reverted using WEIGHT as his argument. There are independent RS to source the statement. There is nothing controversial about the facts--the issue is whether any such role is worthy of mention in the "Popular Culture" section of the Washington article. I certainly think it is--video games are a major part of popular culture in 21st century (and indeed Wikipedia has 32,000 articles on them.) WP:MISC is about lists of miscellaneous facts and clearly does not apply. Video games are an integral part of popular culture, not trivia. One person can make a t-shirt--it takes hundreds to make a game and thousands/millions of customers to find it of interest. Rjensen (talk) 01:19, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Video games or not, the guidance for an "in popular culture" section or article should be if secondary sources note the appearance of the figure in the newer work. I would say this applies to video games just as much as any other work. --MASEM (t) 01:24, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Masem: Would, say, a catalog or listing of video games and their characters qualify as such a secondary source? ―Mandruss ☎ 01:26, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh ffs. Whereas it is important that there is a secondary source to back up a fact included in an article, that fact that there is a secondary source does NOT of itself make the fact sufficiently weighty to be of merit in the article. --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:30, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An appearance should never be listed as merely an appearance. The point of Popular culture sections is to: "explain the subject's impact on popular culture rather than simply listing appearances", to quote a maintenance template that probably most such sections ought to be tagged with. If an appearance is exemplary in illustrating a subject's impact on popular culture – and reliable sources treat it as an exemplar – then it can be thrown in. If not, it's just trivia. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 01:33, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)No, secondary requires analysis or transformation of information. For example, for better or worse, the inclusion of Washington as a villain character in the game "Assassin's Creed 3" was noted and criticized by a number of sources [20], so that would be secondary (transformation from just the simple fact he's in the game). --MASEM (t) 01:36, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Mandruss deleted the entire "popular culture" section. It noted Washington's role in 5 =different games such as Assassin's Creed III --and linked to our articles on those games. We have thousands of articles on video games and none on t-shirts for a reason. Mandruss has been unable to explain his strong opposition to video games--saying in his edit summary he will accept "Historical film and TV portrayals, maybe. Computer games, no. MAYBE films??? And exactly why not--he is unable to say. Rjensen (talk) 01:38, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WTF? That was my take on the situation, and I don't pretend to know everything about this. That's why I opened this. Why are you focused on my arguments, when there are more experienced editors here saying that (1) at least most of the two of the three entries probably shouldn't be included, which directly opposes your arguments, and (2) the mention of AC3 should include a discussion of the impact? ―Mandruss ☎ 01:46, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Mandruss reverted several editors at George Washington and was unable to justify his position at Talk:George Washington. So he moved the discussion here and still cannot defend his blanking a whole section on popular culture. Rjensen (talk) 02:01, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Still focused on me, and this is not the venue for editor behavior complaints. For clarity, this is the "whole section" that I "blanked". ―Mandruss ☎ 02:07, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Duplication of proposal already under discussion at Talk:George Washington#Video games are part of the Wikipedia encyclopedia culture.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:14, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: In the case of the George Washington article, there is no "long list of minor or unimportant references" to justify the "article with "In popular culture" template. Simply placing the reference to three video games, with sources, in the "Legacy" section avoids placing the information in its own section. The introductory analysis, "George Washington as a prominent historical figure in world civilization and as a military commander is recognized in several modern video games." --- is sufficient to explain the significance of the references. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 11:16, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No opinion, but the issue at hand is much larger than George Washington—starting with these recent contribs. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:33, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Then, without any objections, I take it that Mandrus now concurs with the proposal for the George Washington article until the larger issue is resolved to the contrary, --- As all expressed reservations have been answered, it may be that the George Washington proposal now serves as a model for the broader solution. It avoids the artificially narrow "popular culture" section, it is sourced, with few prominent examples (three), couched in an analytic perspective to avoid a mere listing of trivia factoids.
The figure of George Washington in Civilization V is featured in Gergo Vas' review of “The most Memorable Presidential Cameos in Video Games at [21]. Fox News published a story on a fictionalized King Washington as villain in Assassin’s Creed III at [22] George Washington is noted as appearing in the 2005 Age of Empires III on page 82 in the PediaPress “George Washington” discussion of “Cultural depictions of George Washington” including movies, television, coins and currency.
James Paul Gee in his book (p.56) “Why Video Games are Good for Your Soul: Pleasure and Learning”, notes that “These imaginings and visions — really perceptually-based simulations in your mind—are what give meaning to a fact like 'George Washington was the first president of the United States’", whether than scenario is with a King Washington as some called for at the time, or a George Washington "in civilian clothes bickering with legislators.”
George Washington is discussed as a character in Age of Empires on page 70, Empires III on page 148, and Assassin’s Creed on page 160 in Winnerling and Kerschbaumer’s “Early modernity and video games” and on page 73 notes, “Concerning Early Modernity, the player reflect the semiotic system and thereby gives insights in his historical consciousness…” TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 09:40, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say I concur with anything, I said I have no opinion on your proposal, which at that time was only for the GW article and now has become a proposed model. I am interested to hear how others feel about treating video games as legacy on a wide scale, and your first proposal is only 24 hours old. If the concept is not accepted for wide application, I don't know why the Washington article should be exempted.
Regardless, if impact relevant to the article subject can be sourced and summarized, there's no reason the entry can't be included in a Popular culture section; there has been no objection to that from me or anyone else (with the possible exception of Tagishsimon). ―Mandruss ☎ 10:30, 14 March 2016 (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.
A similar topic was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trivia sections#Deprecating the "In popular culture" heading. There was another one or two of similar bent by SMcCandlish right around that time period as well. --Izno (talk) 11:28, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Mandruss and Izno: There is no reason to revert reliably sourced information by an academic publication at Wikipedia. There is no attempt at the George Washington article to “deprecate the “In popular culture” template heading. The issue at the George Washington article has morphed in response to unsourced abstract objections, it now revolves around academically sourced information specifically related to the legacy of George Washington as a leader of civilization, a prospective King of America, and as a military commander.
George Washington in popular culture is discussed as a character in Age of Empires on page 70, Empires III on page 148, and Assassin’s Creed on page 160 in Winnerling and Kerschbaumer’s “Early modernity and video games” and on page 73 notes, “Concerning Early Modernity, the player reflect the semiotic system and thereby gives insights in his historical consciousness…”
Tobias Winnerling holds a doctorate in History and is on the faculty of the Dusseldorf University, Austria. “Early Modernity and Video Games" is published by the academic press, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2014 [23]. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:46, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm almost convinced that an RfC is needed on the general question, the topic of this thread. You're making this an extension of article talk, and that was never the intended purpose here. You're also posting duplicate comments in both places, and I'm not going to follow suit by duplicating my replies. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:10, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Very well, I agree with you that the encyclopedia articles should not be cluttered with factoid lists which are not related to the subject by sourced publications. The first posting at the George Washington article was not substantially written in narrative form, nor was it adequately referenced. I agree with your initial reversion. However, now that the initial posting has been amended with analytical context and academic referencing, we will proceed with reliably sourced information by academic publications for the George Washington article. You will find me an ally at the proposed RfC on the general question requiring analysis and reliable academic sourcing to include elements of popular culture, otherwise lists of factoids do not rise to the notability threshold. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that a piece of trivia can be sourced does not mean it must be included, if that's what this forked debate is about; see WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE, WP:V, MOS:TRIVIA, etc. Re: The original question: A historical figure appears as a character in a video game. Does that fact alone warrant a mention of that game in a "Popular culture" section of that person's bio article? Or, must there be something else to provide enough weight for inclusion? If so, what? – If there is such a section, the game is notable, and the character is a significant feature of the game, it's probably sufficient. But such sections, especially as lists, are strongly discouraged. They should instead be rewritten as prose treatments of the subject in fictional works and other cultural contexts. E.g., we might have a paragraph on filmic portrayals of a historical figure and how they diverge from historical reality, and round it off with mentioning some video games in which the figure is a major character. That serves an encyclopedic purpose. A list of appearances by a figure as a character in every known fictional work in which {s}he appears is precisely the kind of indiscriminate trivia WP:NOT is about.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:48, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We are agreed with Mandruss. The fact that an historical figure appears as a character in a video game does not alone by itself warrant a mention of that game in a “Popular culture” section of a bio article. The section may be established as “Legacy”, “Historical reputation” or “Popular culture”. If the game is notable, and the character a significant feature of the game, it must be written in into the prose narrative in the context of of fictional film and documentaries, commemorations, stamps, coins and memorials in the names of places and schools. The reference should be a verifiable published work recognized as a scholarly reliable source. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:54, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Same duplication of proposal already under discussion at Talk:George Washington#Video games are part of the Wikipedia encyclopedia culture.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:14, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Example: George Washington in the popular culture of video games is featured as a prominent historical figure in world civilization and as a military commander in Age of Empires III, Civilization V and Assassin's Creed III (as a counter-history King). These games are discussed in Winnerling and Kershbaumer’s “Early Modernity and Video Games” explaining that "the player reflects the semiotic system and there by gives insights in his historical consciousness.”[1]

  1. ^ Winnerling, Tobias and Kershbaumer, Florian. “Early modernity and video games” ISBN 978-1-44-386234-9, p. 70, 106, 148, 160.

TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 06:54, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, sorta. There are serious problems with that prose, which I addressed at Talk:George Washington#Back to video games.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:04, 21 March 2016 (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: Merging pop-culture material from George Washington article to the side-article for that

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Legacy of George Washington#Section merge.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:04, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Simple English, etc.

Is there any other Simple WPs excluding the English version? If negative, is there any raised idea for creating one (or some) more Simple versions for the other WPs, e.g. German or French? Thank you. Hamid Hassani (talk) 17:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is currently only a Simple English Wikipedia. There have been proposals for simple German and French projects in the past (see this proposal for example), but none of them have passed despite numerous attempts. I voted for the last Simple French proposal, but I can't find it now. I'd be open to them myself, but I think there would need to be a clear indication of the potential use for such a project, as well as the potential for it to reach a critical mass of contributors in order to have usable content. Ajraddatz (talk) 18:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm personally somewhat against there being a Simple English Wikipedia, since simple English isn't really a separate language or even dialect. But I don't think I could even get close to winning a debate to delete the wiki. There could be a separate website, where articles are written in simple wording in all languages. Philmonte101 😊😄😞 (talk) 18:16, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Compared to English Wikipedia, Simple English gets 0.002 times as many page views, has 0.005 times as many active editors, and has 0.02 times as many articles. If we make an optimistic assumption that you get similar ratios, simple versions of some of the other larger languages may be viable. However that is "viable" as in "it's comparable to some of the tiny obscure language wikis that exist". You'd be in the ballpark of Telugu wiki. And that's assuming you do attract enough attention to get it rolling. Alsee (talk) 07:28, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's the catch, and none of the other simple project proposals have been able to demonstrate that (simplewiki barely does). There's always the possibility, but with a decade of failed attempts I doubt it will happen any time soon. Ajraddatz (talk) 08:07, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that simple english is not really a language but is just limiting vocabulary to the most commonly used words. What simple english really is is a junior encyclopedia that is oriented to seventh graders, instead of college and professionals. There has always been a market for junior encyclopedias, and we do need to create ones for each language, but not by calling them simple, but instead calling them what they are - junior encyclopedias. The name of simple english needs to be changed from simple to wikijr and in long form "Junior Wikipedia". In French it would be something like "Jeune Wikipedia" and frwikijr. While simple says it is "for everyone! That includes children and adults who are learning English", it is pretty dumb to create an encyclopedia for that, which is why it has never taken off. Apteva (talk) 16:53, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thats not really the entirety of it however. Simple English is meant to convey information in simple enough English that anyone with a basic vocabulary can understand and get to grips with the subject. While this may include readers who are juniors, it is not (meant to be anyway) a Junior encyclopedia for people who lack the intellectual capacity to understand subjects, merely the vocabulary. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is the fundamental problem with simple.wiki — it's based on a false premise. The theory is that the content is not to be dumbed down at all, just expressed in simple language.
The false premise is that this theory is realizable, which it just isn't. Oh, to some extent it is; there is definitely writing that uses insider jargon for its own sake, and it is an improvement to remove that. But that's just as true in the regular English Wikipedia.
In general, though, the idea that you can express complicated ideas in simple language and not lose anything is just wrong. Technical terms exist for a reason, and the reason is that they are the clearest and simplest way to express their referents. If you want to learn a subject, you need to learn its language along with it.
So basically I don't think simple.wiki is ever going to work, on its own chosen terms. They may not want to dumb down their articles, but they inevitably will.
The Junior Wikipedia idea, on the other hand, strikes me as something with possibilities. I'm a little surprised that something like that doesn't already exist (or maybe it does and I'm just behind the news?). --Trovatore (talk) 01:49, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can read "simple English" - as used by simple: - but I can't write it. My natural tendency always takes over, I write what seems normal to me, but I read it back, think "this isn't simple", and don't save. One barrier is that I don't like to think that I'm "talking down" or otherwise using a patronising tone. Sometimes I read one of their articles, think "this grammar can be improved" - my problem is then one of "does the existing grammar fall within the definition of 'simple', and does my desired change do so also?" If the former does but the latter doesn't, why change it? My contribs there are few, and don't give any indication of the number of unsaved edits. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:59, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In order for that to happen, there would have to be people who speak the language who are willing to open that Wiki. CLCStudent (talk) 18:08, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's an insightful observation.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:39, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are multiple current proposals, to see the list, or make additional, please stop by meta:Requests_for_new_languages. — xaosflux Talk 00:30, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • There's no question they would be useful, for major languages with a large as-a-second-language userbase (I would add Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Russian, before either French or German, frankly). It really is a problem of insufficient number of interested editors to form "critical mass" for such projects to be functional.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:47, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Schools and notability

Hello. I have a question about consensus regarding the notability of schools. I recently nominated a school article for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Good Shepherd English School, because I felt that the school did not meet our notability requirements, but also as a bit of a test case. The AfD has been closed as snow keep, after some editors pointed to WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, which suggests that secondary school articles are typically kept. Now, that page is not presenting a policy or guideline, but rather summarising typical results of AfD discussions. Isn't closing an AfD as keep because an essay says that such AfDs are typically closed as keep a case of circular reasoning, though? How would one challenge this consensus? If I try to challenge WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, then editors there can reasonably point to all of the recent AfD keeps, but some of those articles are clearly being kept precisely because of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. It would be interesting to hear other editors' thoughts on this. How and where would one go about challenging this consensus, for instance? Cordless Larry (talk) 16:18, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree entirely about the circular reasoning; in fact, as it happens, i was thinking about this exact circular issue just the other day, but i don't really see a way around it, without a large consensus that it is not the best way to do things. The issue, i suspect, is that many people would like their school to have an article, but without the summary they are not likely to. I don't have a good solution; i imagine raising it here and there will probably not do anything other than cause people to point out how long-established this outcome is, whether it is right or wrong; cheers, LindsayHello 16:33, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments, LindsayH. I guess my thoughts are that if there is indeed such a consensus, then this should be written in the notability guideline for organisations, rather than being left to a page that summarises what usually happens, but is actually being used as a guide to what should happen. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:40, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This discussion is related to #Rechallenging the right for any type of school to have its own article!. --Izno (talk) 16:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
So it is, Izno. It was stupid of me not to check and see that. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've made it clear more than once that I disagree with the consensus inregards to schools but as far as I know nothing can be done really, Some schools here are poorly sourced and IMHO should be deleted or atleast face deletion but I (like many others) know it'd be closed as keep regardless of notability so in the long run it'd be a waste of time, Personally I would like to see it changed but I know it'd never happen but anywho that's just my 2¢. –Davey2010Talk 16:49, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I respectfully submit that there is no such consensus. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is an essay, not a guideline, and so does not represent consensus. On its face, it only appears to describe what has previously been decided. For that reason, User:Cordless Larry and I would suggest either that the AFD be re-opened and to run for at least 7 days, or taken to Deletion Review as a good-faith misunderstanding of an essay as a guideline. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:14, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It does not make the consensus; it records the consensus. Pretty much every secondary school article has been kept for years now. In what way is that not a consensus? You may not agree with it, but it doesn't make it any less valid. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose I'm not so concerned with challenging the consensus for now, so much as challenging the circular reasoning and the principle that a summary of typical AfD outcomes is being used to justify AfD outcomes. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:57, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Robert McClenon, Sorry I've only just seen your repliy, I've reverted and relisted the AFD and have cited the discussion there aswell, Thanks, –Davey2010Talk 19:32, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)@Davey2010: In order for this to happen, it would require people closing AfDs to stop regarding WP:OUTCOMES as a guideline rather than an essay, and to treat arguments which rely upon exclusively as any other poor "other stuff exists" argument. You closed the discussion that started this section as a snow keep even though there were two people supporting deletion (including the nominator), and three people saying keep, and you used the closing rationale "All sec/high schls are keep per SO". That is a much bigger problem than people using it as their argument because you're making the argument valid, effective, and giving it practical guideline status. With a guideline, it can suffice to say "satisfies WP:NALBUMS #2". But we have no such guideline for schools. Let it be proposed as a guideline if there is consensus to do so. I suspect, however, that there is only enough support to make any movement in either direction seem like, as you put it, a waste of time. If you don't want people to treat an essay like policy, don't validate its use as policy. Outcomes can inform but not dictate future outcomes. (I'm directing this at you, Davey, but only because of the context in which this issue is coming up this time). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:25, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's an extremely good point .... I simply close them as if I don't someone else will and if it doesn't get closed the keeps tend to pile on (I've purposely left these open before and all that's happened is more keeps have piled on and more editors got ratty with the nominator ....), I know this may sound stupid but I've never thought of it as in "I'm validating the policy" - I just close them without much thought ....., Yeah I guess me closing these at times isn't at all helpful despite my best intentions..... –Davey2010Talk 17:35, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for engaging with this constructively, Davey2010 and Rhododendrites. Here's an idea: how about we re-open that particular AfD, point out that WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is not a guideline, and see what happens in the rest of the discussion? Is that possible or desirable? Cordless Larry (talk) 17:43, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You ask whether we should re-open that particular AFD. Do you mean to revert the closure, which is generally considered disruptive, or do you mean to request Deletion Review? I don't see a need for the Ignore All Rules of re-opening arbitrarily, because that is what DRV is for. I agree as to appealing. For the time, I would suggest that all school AFDs that are closed, either as Keep for secondary schools simply citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES or primary schools as Delete simply citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES should be appealed to DRV. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:31, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My idea was that Davey2010 could revert their own closure, Robert McClenon, which wouldn't seem disruptive to me. Anyway, it was just an idea and a left-field one at that. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:42, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it is not disruptive for a closer to revert their own closure. Has the closer been pinged? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:44, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, in the comment above your first one, above. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Outcome Essays in General

In general, we have a number of outcomes essays, which, on their face, merely state what the usual results of AFDs are. However, they are often cited by !voters both to Delete and to Keep as if they were guidelines, and are sometimes cited by closers as if they were guidelines. This, as User:Cordless Larry points out, is circular reasoning. We need to approach this issue in one of two ways. Either we need to elevate the essays to the status of guidelines, or we need to add language to the essays stating that, since they are only essays and not guidelines, they may not be cited by closers, and citing them by participants in deletion discussion has no strength of argument. If we want to elevate them to the strength of guidelines, we can either change the language in them, or we can merge them into existing guidelines, such as corporate notability guidelines. If we wish to have them continue to be only essays, then caveat language should be added to them that they may not be cited by closers and any citations to them should be ignored by closers (and citing them by closers is an error that can be appealed by DRV). There are several outcome essays that are similar, such as one about clergy, but the school outcomes one is the most controversial. We need to do one of two things, to upgrade the outcomes essays to guidelines, or to clarify that the outcomes essays may not be cited. Robert McClenon (talk) 18:45, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have found that it sometimes helps to address the OUTCOMES issue, right up front, in the nomination. Acknowledge the existence of the "presumption", spell out your attempts (and failure) to find sources, and explain why the specific topic in question is an exception to the usual outcome. This establishes that you are aware of the norm, and are acting in good faith in your nomination. Blueboar (talk) 20:43, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The argument that is made when these are challanged is tha on Wikipedia policy follows practice, and so if in many cases all schools are kept, that demonstrates a consensus to do so, dn a guideline merely documents that consensus. i don't really agree, but that is the argument that makes this non-circular. DES (talk) 21:15, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • DES, what if people are arguing against deletion solely because of what the outcomes page says, though? Then, the page isn't reflecting consensus, but informing it. Cordless Larry (talk) 21:23, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clarification is the answer. This is the correct approach: "we need to add language to the essays stating that, since they are only essays and not guidelines, they may not be cited by closers, and citing them by participants in deletion discussion has no strength of argument." There's no way these would be elevated to guidelines if attempts to elevate even WP:AADD and WP:BRD have failed. So, don't launch process with the knowledge that it will be a waste of time, just edit around the problem. And yes, it is a real problem. I'm dealing just today with a admin who cited an essay in a recent close and refuses to clean up the close, or revert the closure, and is taking a very hostile attitude about it. I'm considering closure review at WP:AN, despite the drama that entails. We need far fewer closes like this, based on opinion instead of policy reasoning.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:17, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Clarification/caveats as suggested. This has always seemed to me to be a form of ownership and sometimes an attempt to override policy/guidelines in specific areas. Doug Weller talk 13:58, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Caution I see little gain in upsetting the apple cart in such a thing of peripheral effect, and great risk of harm from new wars in largely settled matters, spilling out and replicating across the pedia (time suck, after time suck, upset user, after upset user, another issue sucked in, after another issue) - as they sometimes do (think infobox wars). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:44, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find this discussion rather funny. Since there had to have been consensus to put the outcome on the page in the first place, they should show the broad community consensus from even before they were added to the outcomes page, which is why they are cited as arguments - it's not circular reasoning at all. (And yes, in my opinion they should be guidelines, not essays.) ansh666 22:55, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Claiming that citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is a circular argument shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the AfD process. It is not a circular argument at all. It is simply shorthand for: a consensus already exists so why are you bothering us with yet another AfD on a secondary school? Sometimes we just have to accept that consensus is against us and get on with other things; sadly those who don't like secondary school articles seem incapable of doing that. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that each individual outcome is just that... An individual outcome. The fact that schools A through Y were all deemed notable has no baring on whether school Z is notable. An OUTCOME essay can be mentioned in the context of discussing the likelihood of notability, but not in the context of "proving" notability. The essay that counters the various OUTCOME essays is OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Blueboar (talk) 14:14, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And, yes, each individual school does stand on its own merits. The OUTCOMES page merely documents the consensus that secondary schools are presumed notable if they can be verified to exist. It isn't a "get out of jail free" card for all secondary schools. ansh666 22:46, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that's not really true. OUTCOMES describes cases where the topics are generally kept because of consensus, and not necessarily because they are presumed notable; if it was the latter we would have already figured out an appropriate subject-specific notability guideline to drop this presumption into. OUTCOMES encourages circular reasoning because it is based on consensus upholding previous consensus, a feedback loop unto itself and extremely difficult to self-correct, and this is despite the cautions it gives to !voters and closing admins to not weigh too heavily on what OUTCOMES says it should be used for. --MASEM (t) 22:59, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how "consensus upholding previous consensus" is a bad thing - sounds to me like that's how consensus is supposed to work. ansh666 10:42, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Viewing edit history/old talk pages on deleted articles?

I recently learned that there is no way to view the edit history or old talk pages for deleted pages (unless I guess you are an admin?). This seems contrary to the "Wikipedia spirit" in a way. I asked this on the help desk and everyone said, why should everyone be able to see a deleted page, in that case what's the point of deleting? That argument doesn't make sense to me. Why should be able to see ANY edits then? If someone adds non-notable/reliable content to an existing page, anyone can go look at the history. But for some reason if there is a whole article that's not notable/reliable, no one can view it.

Reasons why this might be useful to be able to view: - If I'm adding an article myself, and someone already added it in the past but then it was deleted, it may be helpful to see that someone tried already and possibly see discussion on a talk page about the issues with the article, or read the article to view its issues in order to avoid them, etc. - Maybe an article wasn't notable in the past, but now it is, and some of the information in the old article would be useful to have rather than needing to rewrite everything. Fake example: Let's say there is a complex physics theory that right now is really new and up and coming and not notable. Then two years later, it becomes notable due to a lot of press about it. Two years ago, someone went through and summarized all the complex math/science/technical jargon into a great encyclopedia article, but it was deleted for not being notable. That information is all still valid, but now it's notable. But the fact that no one can copy/paste that previously written article delays the creation of a new article, or maybe doesn't delay it but results in a poorer quality article because the technical jargon is hard to summarize into an encyclopedia article and takes a lot of effort. - Transparency - why can't I see old deleted articles' history if I CAN see old deleted content on existing articles? Even just from a curiosity standpoint. - Let's say two articles are merged into one and the old article is deleted. I disagree with this and I want to see the discussion as well as the old article's page history and talk page, so I can see whether the merger seems appropriate or not and form my own opinion. Sometimes this discussion might exist on the merged-into article's talk page, but it may not all be there, and in any case, being able to actually see the deleted article could be useful. Also let's say that later, notability changes over time dictate that it might be a good idea to unmerged, but everyday users can't actually see the old article and thus it may need to be unnecessarily rewritten from scratch (related to points above).

Would like some clarity around the reasons for this. Thanks! -KaJunl (talk) 22:47, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion is not only done for non-notable reasons. Attack articles are deleted for libel reasons. Copyright violations are deleted for legal reasons. Nonsense and vandalism is deleted for obvious reasons.

Even in terms of non-notable deletions, why would you want to view it? You wouldn't want to copy that information anyways. It was deleted for a reason. Mirroring or going off of that data will just result in another deletion. This discussion has been talked about dozens upon dozens of times. Non-admins being able to view deleted content is not going to happen for the reasons above and many more. For more information on this perennial proposal see this. --Majora (talk) 23:01, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link, I'm glad to know this has been discussed and I'm not alone here. I'm sure I'm being a pain, but I still think it warrants further discussion. To answer your question, I believe I gave a reason above - maybe I would want to copy it, because maybe it was deleted for not being notable but now it is notable. To your point about attacks/copyright.. I could buy this, except much of that, when it happens in an existing article, does remain visible to the public, so I don't understand why deleted articles are any different than deleted edits (which are also deleted for a reason). I'll shut up now and let anyone else chime in who cares; otherwise I'll accept (for now) that my viewpoint is the minority. But I just wanted to voice my opinion on this. -KaJunl (talk) 23:50, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@KaJunl: It is possible to ask an admin to send you the text of an article that has been deleted so you can take a look at it provided that there are not legal implications to its deletion (attack, copyvios, etc.). As for seeing it in other articles please notify an admin whenever you see something like this. Edits that rise to the level of attack can be removed under revision deletion criterion RD2. Copyright violations can be removed under RD1. The deletion of articles is only done when there is nothing left to salvage. If the article is new and there is no history that could be useful. Revision deletion is used when there is useful history that can be reverted back to. Once reverted the offending edits can be removed. --Majora (talk) 17:21, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • @KaJunl: If an article was deleted for non-notability reasons, and the notability situation has changed, and you think the deleted stub may have had useful content, you can request the deleting admin to restore it to your userspace for re-drafting purposes. This is a routine request and usually honored, unless the admin looks at the deleted version and sees that it was unsalvageable, or contained problems like copyvios, that cannot be undeleted.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:34, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The two comments above are quite correct. As to the larger issue of viewing deleted content, there's actually nothing we can do about that even if we did want to. The Wikimedia Foundation has repeatedly made it clear that they will not approve of the granting of the right to view deleted content to anyone who has not gone through WP:RFA or an equivalent process. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Beeblebrox (talk • contribs) 19:24, 21 March 2016‎ (UTC)[reply]
KaJunl You said "I'm sure I'm being a pain" - no, this is a great question. Some of the other respondents are suggesting that libel and copyright violations are common reasons for deletion, but actually, deletion for non-notability is the more common reason. Sometimes in these cases, the talk page will have useful conversation which ought to be preserved, but when the article is deleted, then so does the talk page. If it happens that later the article is recreated, and the topic really is notable, then often the old talk page discussion is forgotten and this is a bad thing.
The best practice would be that when a deleted topic is recreated, then all old talk page discussion ought to be restored and posted in the latest iteration. Currently if someone wants to do this, then they can get the old records by messaging an admin for undeletion, but this is not a standard practice. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I am generally happy to restore any article I deleted to a draft on request provided it does not meet one of the more severe speedy deletion criteria such as G10 or G12. Even then, I am happy to give a brief summary of the article's history (eg: "I can't restore the article as it was a confirmed copyvio of [link]"). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are lots of reasons why editors would want to see deleted revisions. For example I once had someone asking why a particular diplomat had been deleted per A7; I was able to explain that I didn't know if the deleted article was about the same person or someone else of the same name, but as it had focussed entirely on his career as a "pro" skateboarder I would ignore it when writing about the diplomat. In my view the solution is for all established, clueful editors to become admins. Our declining number of admins is a problem, and the solution is to appoint more. ϢereSpielChequers 14:48, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Logo galleries allowed in Wikipedia??

Does anyone have any opinions about logo galleries in Wikipedia?? Look at WSTR (FM). I'm sure the station has had a number of logos historically. There's a wiki that IS about logo galleries, namely http://logos.wikia.com , which has all of the station's logos. Look at http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/WSTR_(FM) if you don't believe me. Perhaps all Wikipedia articles that have corresponding articles at the Logos Wiki should have appropriate links. Any opinions?? Georgia guy (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If there are non-free logos involved, these galleries are disallowed, unless there is discussion of each logo presented (such as why there was a change, who designed it, what it represented, etc.). If the logos are just being presented because it was an old logo, and the image is non-free, that fails NFCC#8 and are routinely removed. If all the past logos are free (likely PD-ineligible) that's a different story, but I would generally agree that the external wiki makes more sense to link to than to spam these logos in articles without comment. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To bolster that: Per MOS:ICONS and MOS:IMAGES and various discussions that their talk pages, it is generally undesirable to use the <gallery> feature without good reason, and just showing a bunch of old logos is not a good reason.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:12, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
pilin' on I agree with both Masem and SMcCandlish. Note the qualification of non-free. If the logos have been freely licensed, I could support a gallery as providing useful historical information.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:27, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • comment - if the logos are protected by trademarks, they are not free. If all protection has expired and they are verifiably in the public domain, then it would be ok. Atsme📞📧 16:13, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, that's not true. Trademark is different from copyright. For example the File:Boeing full logo.svg Boeing logo is not copyrightable (fails threshold of originality in the US), but remains trademark. We treat it as a free image with the understanding that we're using the logo respectfully and not trying to create confusion in the market (which as an encyclopedia would be very hard for us to do). --MASEM (t) 16:18, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tackling vandalism

File:Banksy, Hewlett Road, Cheltenham (1) (geograph 3944289).jpg
Some people like this "vandalism", you know

I don't spend much time bothering with vandalism - it occasionally crops up on my watchlist and I revert it with a disinterested yawn. Very occasionally, I will block without bothering to leave any template or notice. I think WP:RBI and WP:DENY are good practices to follow. Anything more than this is diverting my attention away from improving the encyclopedia.

With this in mind, I have been concerned for some time about things like the Counter-Vandalism Unit Academy. Putting aside the name sounds like something the Government would give to something once called Counter-Vandalism Secondary Modern, this really does seem like a solution in need of a problem and is giving too much attention to what should be a low-key task done with the minimum of fuss. Any time we are spent in a lather of managing those who screw around is not improving content. In particular, I think templating clear and obvious vandals is a complete waste of time, and would be interested in any evidence that such warnings are actually successful in making people suddenly stop and make good faith edits. My experience shows that somebody who is only interested in bad-faith contributions will never show any sign of repentance and reformation, so why bother? I am concerned about things like a "leaderboard" that seems to be "making important what one can measure" and appears in my view to go against the philosophy that Wikipedia is not about winning.

So what can we do? The obvious thing is to make our automated tools such as ClueBot do more of the grunt work. When we process vandalism, do we add the reverted material to a Bayesian filter corpus that allows the bot to be even more effective and minimize false policies? If not, why not? ClueBot isn't perfect - I've seen it revert good faith edits (in all cases they were made by IPs with no edit summary) and logged false positives. We should be delegating out boring, repetitive work to machines wherever possible, leaving the humans to do the creative job of writing content. I'd also like to ask people to think about whether they have an effective audience before they hit their "template spam" buttons, and I would question admins who refuse to block unless somebody has got a particular "quota" of warnings. Save your warnings for the good faith but disruptive editors.

This property has been officially tagged as problematic, but that won't make it look nice

I don't hope to get the CVUA dismantled tomorrow and all editors redistributed to working on improving articles to FAC, but I thought I'd lodge these thoughts here and see what people have to say about it. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 10:50, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree with you, but unfortunately one of the most important guidelines of Wikipedia is for whatever reason WP:AGF (and by extension WP:BITE, though both technically don't apply to vandalism), which your thoughts seem to be a bit short on (probably for good reason). As long as people think that matters, there's no chance of this reality becoming accepted. ansh666 11:54, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hopefully most people can tell the difference between vandalism and for instance a teenager without social graces who is trying to contribute and might have got things wrong. The problem is that there are quite a few editors who can't really tell the difference and need rules to guide their actions. Dmcq (talk) 12:29, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure it's exceeding rare, but I once saw a vandal-turned-contributor. I used that case as the subject of a canned RFA question I used to ask about second chances. –xenotalk 13:43, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I don't expect there to be many vandals who reform and become good editors. I have met three former vandals over the years, but I think in all cases it was more a matter of growing up rather than being reformed. But I don't see the multiple layers of vandalism warnings as being there for the genuine vandals. I see them as protecting the people who make honest mistakes, both in editing and in identifying vandalism (my only smartphone edit could easily have been seen as vandalism - my thumbs being too big for the keys on my smartphone). Yes we do get goodfaith editors who mistake editing disagreements with vandalism, and it is easier for everyone if they start off dishing out level 1 warnings. I suspect we could dispense with one or more levels of warnings, and I've often blocked people whose first edit or three was blatant and unmistakable bad faith vandalism. But I'd be loathe to tamper too much with that system, not least because it works better than many systems we have, but also because of the unexpected. It is only a year or three ago that we had a major problem with visual editor being rolled out too early, and many newbies making goodfaith edits that looked like vandalism. For example users of Visual Editor would unintentionally delete entire infoboxes simply by hitting backspace. To my mind the crazy thing is that we go straight to blocks for editwarring whilst giving multiple warnings for vandals, I think the logic there is that we don't have systems to monitor edit warrers through multiple warnings. But it is a damaging anomaly. As for improving Cluebot and the edit filters, that has been going on for many years now, at some point we might hit a wall and I think we are already at the point where putting more obscure logic into the edit filters would slow everyone's save times. ϢereSpielChequers 14:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What really gets my goat is things like this, this, this, this (four templates warnings inside half an hour) and topped off with a report on AIV, seemingly without any thought that the newbie might have difficulty communicating or using the increasingly arcane and outdated user interface. And that's from a highly experienced former administrator no less! Okay, I deleted the article in question, but there was no need to sound like Robocop and falsely accuse someone of vandalism, was there. And this is just one example I found this afternoon. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:49, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah Newpage patrol. That's been a newbie biting and problematical area for years. See WP:NEWT for some interesting conflicts about that. I don't think that Special:RecentChanges is quite as bad, and I'm pretty sure that most vandalism and most AIV reports come from edits to existing articles rather than the creation of new articles. Where I see a problems at recent changes are in our handling of goodfaith but unhelpful edits, and true but unsourced edits. We also have a problem that a small minority of vandalism slips through unnoticed. If we had wp:flagged revisions as the German language Wikipedia does then we could be sure that every newbie edit was looked at at least once, as it is some are looked at many times and some not at all. ϢereSpielChequers 17:06, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've just had a situation recently where I've identified a persistent non-IP vandal, who previously had what appears to be constructive edits some years ago, but for a period of the last 6+ months made minor edits to introduce errors on 20+ pages -- changing figures, minor facts, that kind of thing. I've level 2 warned, they've returned to make another vandalised change, and I've final-warned. What's to stop the user just changing accounts, and continuing their infrequent subtle vandalism? With that kind of pattern, should I just final warn immediately and AIV thereafter? My reading is I can't; my gut is I should. Advice would be appreciated. Thanks, ~Hydronium~Hydroxide~(Talk)~ 12:24, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The Academy is pretty well defunct as can be seen from "List of available trainers" and the page history. On the general point, what is being recommended? - that vandals should be left to vandalise without let or hindrance, damaging important articles temporarily or indefinitely? or that they should be blocked on sight? Most of us who sometimes revert vandalism don't have our own block button, so need a procedure for informing admins of recurrent offenders. If it became normal to send a first offence to AIV without prior warning then AIV would be swamped. Four warnings as standard may be too many; but warnings (a) will discourage some offenders so they don't continue, (b) inform good-faith users of shared IPs that someone else there is misusing their Wikipedia access, (c) make the problem visible to other editors. Yes vandalism does need to be correctly identified but I'm not seeing a specific policy improvement that Ritchie's concerns are pointing to. Keeping a tight lid on the less sophisticated forms of vandalism is important to protect the work of the content creators, and is likely to always need a large element of human judgement: Noyster (talk), 19:57, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to do away with including world leader responses to terrorist incidents

In the aftermath of the 2016 Brussels bombings, we have encountered a recurring dispute, namely: is there any use to be had in lists of world leaders' responses to high profile terrorist attacks like this? In the case of the Brussels attack, we have ended up with a separate article, Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings. There are several other articles like this (see the relevant category here:[24]). Now, while it's all well and good that Obama, David Cameron, Shinzo Abe, etc., have condemned the attacks in Brussels, did anyone think they wouldn't? Does anyone need to read the "response" article to know what the responses are going to be? I would argue that they don't. And consequently, the responses aren't notable. At the very least, all of them aren't notable. If we want to write something like "the attacks generated condemnation from world leaders", fine, but do we need the specific press release from the Latvian government? The response pages quickly become a collection of quotes and tend to promote a form of political pageantry. I would argue that that's not the purpose of Wikipedia. Now, I've never proposed a policy change before, so I welcome assistance/corrections in wording or procedure, but here it is.

PROPOSAL: We adopt a policy by which the responses from world leaders to high profile terror attacks are not notable and (a) don't get their own articles and (b) don't take up large sections of the article about the attacks themselves. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose This oppose is based on the consensus at every one of the AfDs that have taken place regarding the matter. I understand that editors don't like the lists, but if done properly with prose they do pass WP:GNG. Please address each AfD, and the arguments already hashed out. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:12, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Previous AfD discussions should not be considered decisive here. AfD is a blunt instrument. There the question is: Should we delete this material entirely or not? The consensus from those discussions is, indeed: No, we should not delete it entirely. The present question is different. It is: given that we have this material, what is the best way to present it to our readers, and how much of it, in general, is it appropriate to include in the Article space? Cmeiqnj (talk) 15:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've seen this in far too many articles, and agree that its kudzu-like. A list of tangible responses, such as sending money, aid relief, police, military, or the like, or even a country's offer to help investigations - something beyond just a quote - are reasonable to include, but just a bunch of quotes condemning a terrorist attack, or supporting a region hit by natural disasters, or the like, feels like puffery and violates WP:QUOTEFARM even if it seems the articles pass GNG. This is not to say that a few choice quotes aren't reasonable to include, summarizing such down to a few sentences. --MASEM (t) 15:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neither support or oppose The issue is that we're trying to fix a problem that requires a scalpel, and this proposal is using a chainsaw. It's a similar problem across Wikipedia in all sorts of issues. The issue is this 1) A good, well written article will often have a few representative examples of something important to the subject. For example, a famous song may have a few well known cover versions of that song which it is appropriate to include in the article. 2) People who lack proper discernment think that a "few well chosen representative examples" means "a complete, total, and unabridged list of every example possible." Thus, in my example above, people note "Hey, this article about a song has cover versions listed. I did a search at AllMusic and found 1,278 other cover versions. I should list and wikilink every one of those!" We need some balance and perspective to say that not all representative examples are equal and that we can have some discernment in choosing which examples to include, and which ones probably don't bear mentioning. If the president of a neighboring country, or a leader of a major world power, makes a statement, that's possible useful to include. We don't need statements from leaders of micronations unrelated to the conflict, however. --Jayron32 17:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Statements made by politicians (especially if they are leading nations) are by definition notable as they create policy. Consequently, I oppose the establishment of a blanket statement that reads "reactions of world leaders are not notable". It is true that for most of us it is not even remotely possible to realise and understand what significance each of these statements has; and rightfully so: This would require in depth knowledge and understanding of each country's political landscape, its internal and external affairs and even if some of us have it, it is certainly biased by our own political stances. For all the above, I consider that such statements are notable and should be recorded in an encyclopaedia as a statement of a fact. In line with Wikipedia's policy against original research, I also oppose to the selection by any group of well-intended editors to create a prose based on what they consider notable and what not. Rentzepopoulos (talk) 17:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually such statements are generally not notable, per WP:RECENTISM and WP:NOT#NEWS; they are stated and then get little coverage after the fact. Such statements don't create policy if they are not backed by any type of actual action (see my !vote above - it's one thing to send aid or offer intelligence services, its another to simply show respects). This type of information is fine over at Wikinews, but in the long term, these statements offer little understand by themselves of the original event. --MASEM (t) 18:41, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • How does a statement like "Prime Minister Kenny Anthony has expressed his shock and sadness at Brussels attacks" (taken from Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings) require "in depth knowledge and understanding" of the political landscape of Santa Lucia to understand... ? Wikipedia is not an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information, and statements of fact are not necessarily notable (WP:EXIST). If you need to do academic-level research to determine whether a political statement is significant or not, it's probably not (for Wikipedia, at least). —Nizolan (talk) 02:50, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unsure - This is a tough one. I agree with the WP:RECENTISM and the WP:NOTNEWS stances, but I think a select few of those articles are notable and should be kept. Reactions to the September 11 attacks comes to mind. I suggest an alternative in which these reactions articles can be kept depending on the notability of the main articles, and I'm not talking about Brussels notability; I'm talking about 9/11 notability. Parsley Man (talk) 19:08, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • In taking the 9/11 article, there's three sections that are just lists of reactions (which is what most of these other articles are). Nearly all of those sections, from a first look through, could be reduced to a paragraph or two summary statements. Eg, we don't need a line item for each city/country where vigils were held, but a sentence stating that vigils were held all over the world would be right in line. Similarly the section on the reaction from the Muslim countries could be reduced to a handful of paragraphs. The sections about the US's reactions, which are all prose, is what I would expect from such reaction articles; the list format that many of these use is rote reiteration without any effort to summarize, which is a problem with these articles. --MASEM (t) 19:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Full support - I've tried to address this on specific articles in the past and usually got major pushback. Responses by world leaders are marginally notable at best during the immediate aftermath. In the long run, 99.9% are wholly unremarkable. Should one of those 0.1% of responses actually make it beyond the first two weeks of the news cycle and become something memorable, it should be included. But deal with those rarities when they occur. Moreover, they run afoul of WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:QUOTEFARM. They add nothing to the understanding of the topic or event. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:14, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Agreeing with InedibleHulk below, my support extends to any catastrophe (shootings, bombings, airplane crashes, elder god attacks, natural disasters, etc.) EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:03, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Damn that Shinnok! Damn him with all my thoughts and prayers! InedibleHulk (talk) 20:07, March 23, 2016 (UTC)
  • Support The standard condolences never change in any substantial way. Yay freedom and kindness, boo terror and death. And the reaction to those is never anything special. They're just published, republished and repeated the next time. Burn the standalone lists and limit reactions in articles to those which do something (legislation, bombing, concerts, so on). And call that section "Aftermath", to not suggest it's a place for that hollow stuff. I'm somewhat OK with hearing from the leaders of the victim and perpetrator parties. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:15, March 23, 2016 (UTC)
My support also applies to mass killings (usually shootings or earthquakes) that aren't called terrorism, but evoke the same general responses. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:47, March 23, 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. These articles usually include nothing substantial that is of encyclopedic value. The fact that world leaders condemned a particular terror attack can be summarized in 1-2 paragraphs in the respective article; it does not require an entire article on its own. --bender235 (talk) 19:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I've argued thus at several articles, including that for last year's Paris attacks. They end up being lengthy lists of platitudes. If, perchances, a leader veered from the normal response then that might be worthy of inclusion but otherwise we can summarise international reactions simply by referencing one decent news source - they always talk of "the world condemning ..." etc. - Sitush (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good idea, bad policy. Jayron32 said it well. Our enforcement of WP:NOTNEWS is also generally spotty. A part of the problem is that Wikinews seems to be mostly dead, so all the news stays here on Wikipedia. —Kusma (t·c) 20:51, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Kusma:, despite calling NOTNEWS bad policy, would you be opposed to a proposal of changing the wording on WP:NOTNEWS item #2 to While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Similarly, condolences and statements in response to catastrophes and deaths typically do not qualify for inclusion. ... (emphasis added to proposed addition)? Even if enforcement is spotty, we can try to improve the policy itself. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:19, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This looks like a good addition to me as well. —Nizolan (talk) 03:27, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support For the reasons already stated. Firebrace (talk) 21:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose over generalization to label all statement responses by world leaders non-notable. Spirit Ethanol (talk) 21:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Whereas I fully share the sentiment and understand where this proposal comes from, I do not see any way it could be implemented. We could state in the policy that no reactions may be added to the article - but then it does not make sense, because it is reasonable to add at least reactions of involved states, and possibly unusual reactions (for example, I added to the above article the reaction of the spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry - she basically said that the attacks are the results of the EU double standards policy). If we allow such reactions, it can not be formalized. If it can not be formalized, people will add them anyway, and it will cost the community more time to police such articles that to let them have the lists. The situation is similar with the galleries: WP:GALLERY is very clear on what can be added to the galleries, and 99% of the galleries in the articles are counter to the policy, however, if you remove a gallery from the article, you can be sure in three years it would be back does not matter what the policy says.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:44, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Can't a formal written rule have formal written exceptions? The unusual is generally noteworthy and reasonable people should want to hear from involved (or representative) parties in any subject. I think the spirit here is just editing out the echoes. There's no such thing as "waste", from a storage sense, but not even NSA money can buy a server that gives readers more time in a day. Every second we spend reading what we've read already is a second we ignore better, fresher things. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:32, March 24, 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose I understand the sentiment, and appreciate that articles can become loaded with material of little value; but in writing about incidents in years long past, these have been extremely useful in expounding differing perspectives. Weeding out the redundant ones can be done as part of the regular editing process. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • If they were written in prose rather than as a list, this would make sense. And I can understand that the days/weeks right after an event, one is going to gather these all up and a list is by far the easiest way to organize them in the short term. But after some time, I would expect weeding out and converting to prose, doing necessary grouping of common-themed reactions. If 20 countries all offered condolences to an event, and nothing more, you don't need 20 lines of reaction, but a single sentence. In most cases, having separate articles is unnecessary - I wouldn't flat out call them POV forks but they lean towards that since nearly all reactions to these types of events are in solidarity of the country affected. In terms of this proposal, I wouldn't say that reaction articles should be disallowed, but they should be strongly discouraged and favoring tight summary prose to avoid all other issues identified. --MASEM (t) 23:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hawkeye7, I can understand, as a historian, why quotes might be useful in expounding different perspectives. However, the issue here is in large part that the quotes generally all expound the same perspective. - Sitush (talk) 08:59, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Semi-support, largely per Sitush and Ymblanter. I don't really see a benefit to adding every reaction from every figure, but involved, directly related, and unusual reactions do have encyclopedic value. ansh666 01:02, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support we need some sort of guideline which will prevent indiscriminate lists of quotes from appearing on Wikipedia. It sets a band precedent and grows out of control. Quotes and reactions articles are absolutely fine when their aim is to use prose, but such large indiscriminate lists should be the job of Wikiquote. See my post at Talk:Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings#Transfering to Wikiquote where I have explained the best course of action. I would propose adding the following to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists: Jolly Ω Janner 07:31, 24 March 2016 (UTC) [reply]

    An indiscriminate list of quotes from notable people and parties responding to an event is not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Instead consider using prose to summarise the main points from each side and compile quotations at Wikiquote.

  • Support. Nothing wrong with a couple of relevant statements, integrated into prose, from directly affected nations, but these lists of identical reactions from every country in the world serve no purpose. DoctorKubla (talk) 11:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support for reasons outlined when I created this thread. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 23:23, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I put together an essay a while back, Wikipedia:Reactions to... articles aka WP:REACTIONS, to summarize the takes on these articles. Edits welcome. Fences&Windows 00:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: World leader reactions are entirely predictable; the entire section could be replaced by "the usual people expressed the usual sentiments". --Carnildo (talk) 01:42, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with the important qualification that responses from world leaders are not inherently notable, which responds to many of the criticisms above. A selection of responses should of course be included, preferrably in prose format, but unless there's a very good reason I don't see why a generic statement from a country on the other side of the globe merits inclusion in the respective Wikipedia article. —Nizolan (talk) 02:46, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Or on the other side of the border, for that matter. But if a giant fish swallows Aruba, it would make sense to hear from the Netherlands. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:38, March 25, 2016 (UTC)

Proposal for new admin probationary period

In the ongoing RfA for Widr‎‎, I read a suggestion from User:ArnoldReinhold that made good sense; i.e., an Assistant Admin position to try out someone like this who has worked hard on the project but only in a few specialty areas. Why not? Perhaps a probationary period for all new admins would prove helpful, and may even encourage more editors to become admins. Atsme📞📧 16:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ArnoldReinhold - pinging in hopes this one will work. Atsme📞📧 01:17, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is a WP:PEREN topic for WT:RFA if not this forum. --Izno (talk) 16:47, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal resurfaces every year or so. What it misses is that:
Historically, problematic new admins are the exception; If anything the risk of needing to desysop peaks at three years experience. Probationary systems make much more sense for new drivers as risk of accidents etc peaks for new drivers.
While there are very few opposes to Widr, (currently that RFA has over 90% support), the most common reason for opposing in that RFA is that a small minority of RFA !voters want to see more significant content contributions such as a GA. A probationary adminship system is irrelevant to such opposes.
RFAs that narrowly fail do so for various reasons, but for experienced candidates the most common reasons are either that they aren't trusted by the community to show the right sort of temperament, or their tagging shows that they would be likely to misuse the tools. If a candidate is sloppy in their deletion tagging then it is fair to assume they would be heavy handed with the deletion button. A probationary system isn't going to help resolve that and could even be gamed.
Probationary systems typically require either some level of tools to be withheld during the probationary period or some supervision of edits by a more experienced person. But for the proposed "probationary admins" the former misses the point of the opposes and the latter generates extra work to no useful purpose.
There would be a much stronger case for a further unbundling, we've had several unbundlings over the years and I think most accept them all as successful. ϢereSpielChequers 17:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WereSpielChequers to help me better understand, are you suggesting limited access to certain admin tools for new admins during a probationary period, or that we wait for them to make a mistake and then limit or .... ?? Atsme📞📧 17:53, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Atsme, I'm trying to list the main reasons why a probationary system is a bad idea. Whether that probationary system involves extra scrutiny or a limited toolset, it isn't something I'd suggest or that the community would eventually be won over to. ϢereSpielChequers 17:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that most concerns with admin actions happen after a long period of time, rather than initially. If anything, a system for recalling admins makes more sense than a probationary period. But this is a subject which has been discussed to death before. Ajraddatz (talk) 19:13, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure it has, but the sad part is that to date discussion hasn't resolved anything and the stalemates continue, appearing to be support for the status quo, which isn't working, either. We are still experiencing a lack of qualified admins, the ones we have are overworked, few editors have the desire or incentive to brave the onslaught at RfA so I'm open to suggestions for improving the situation rather than comments about how all suggestions have failed. Perhaps it is time to investigate exactly why they failed without rehashing old arguments. It doesn't matter if similar proposals have been discussed to death, what matters is that nothing has changed and the situation is critical not to mention unsustainable which leaves us with the same overworked admins doing all the work. Who can blame them for losing patience? Can we please at least try to work toward positive change? I have a feeling that no matter what is proposed, there will always be the nay-sayers for whatever reason and because of that, editors are discouraged to investigate any further, much less try to make positive change. Just saying. Atsme📞📧 19:52, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem here is that you have in no way made a compelling argument that this would lead to more qualified RFA candidates stepping up. You've said that "perhaps" it might do that without even clearly explaining why you believe this to be true. I'm sure everyone participating here would love to see positive change, but this idea has been repeatedly, strongly rejected by the community and you have presented nothing new that could potentially change that. This is not the way to make a policy proposal, or at least to make one that has a chance of succeeding. (I've written an essay on this suject based on my own experiences with trying to get policy changes implemented here that may be of some help) Beeblebrox (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for pointing me to the essay, Beeblebrox. If/when the time comes for me to actually make a proposal, I will definitely refer to it. I thought this forum was for discussing proposals not making them which is why I tossed out the idea that another editor had mentioned, at least that's what the following lead me to believe: 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.. Perhaps I misunderstood its intent? Atsme📞📧 03:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I realize that proposals of this sort have been made many times and rejected. I made the comment in the RfA because I thought it was an example of a situation where an Assistant Admin option would be useful. The candidate had an excellent record of hard work maintaining Wikipedia, but had only limited experience in content creation. That was in no way the candidate's fault. Wikipedia is a sprawling project and it's great when someone finds a niche they enjoy and puts a lot of effort there. My view of an Assistant Admin position is not so much a probationary assignment, but one that could be given out more freely, while limiting the most draconian powers, such as long term blocks or highly controversial closes, granting enough powers to clear backlogs and the like. If such a position existed it could have been awarded to this candidate long before now. I am think of Assistant Admin as an appointment that would be renewed periodically, with nomination to full Admin a separate step after a few years of sustained participation and demonstrated good judgement. Some assistant admins would work at it for a while and then lose interest in the effort and that would be fine. RfA's have become high drama in too many cases. Wouldn't it be better if candidate Admins had a record of administrative actions to review? What is the downside, exactly?--agr (talk) 03:50, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

does WP:V apply to drafts

It's come up at MFD quite a bit that WP:V applies only to mainspace and on that basis, essentially statements in drafts and userspace drafts that are unverifiable (or just plain not verified at all) is irrelevant for determining whether a page should be kept, deleted or not. This seems counter to WP:BLP which applies to all namespaces. The proposals to demand that a draft apply WP:GNG and other notability standards is another matter but it seems like a glaring hole to state that I could create a page in my userspace that is completely unverified and as long as it's never in mainspace, nothing can be removed for lack of verification. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WP:V should not apply (short of any BLP) to drafts, but in considering stale drafts, the lack of verification (and inability to show via searches such verification could be added) should be a factor in the deletion of such drafts. I would not expect a 2-week-old draft without citations to be considered a possible deletion candidate, but a two-year-old one (which hasn't been worked on for two years) to be a possible candidate. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What about, say, a four-year-old claim on what was the most read newspaper by Congolese people in the world? Since A7 doesn't apply either, is any significance asserted sufficient to keep an article on an ongoing basis, even if there's no evidence that the fact is true? I agree on the two-week example, I'm just trying to wrap my head into a sensible way to figure these out that isn't ridiculous on either end. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 19:31, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, No. If most of the statements in a draft are not only unverified but demonstrably untrue, then it might be deleted as a hoax. My view is that staleness should not be relevant, and that a draft should only be deleted if there is no reasonable possibility that it could become a valid article: if it is about an inherently un-encyclopedic topic, or if reasonably comprehensive searches have shown that there is no notability, and the nature of the subject shows that there is no reasonable possibility of any future coverage. For example, a long-disbanded garage band that never received any significant coverage could be deleted, while a draft about an up and coming musician who is not currently notable but might eventually become notable should not be. Of course, copyvios and attack pages should be deleted promptly, and the BLP rules apply to drafts (although I could wish otherwise), as do the rules against blatant spam. But beyond that, I see no value in such deletions. DES (talk) 19:43, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
WP:V should apply to content in drafts in the same way that it applies to content in article space. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate web host, and drafts aren't meant to be placeholder articles for things that might become verifiably notable in the future. We can and should be lenient with drafts (excepting the usual BLP caveats) but the goal is for drafts to become articles, and if info in a draft is challenged and no source can be found, it should be removed, just like in article space. If a draft is demonstrably unverifiable, why would we let it languish? Ivanvector 🍁 (talk) 19:58, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Religion in biographical infoboxes

See also Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Ethnicity in infoboxes for ongoing RfC to remove |ethnicity= from infoboxes for similar reasons.

Proposal: Should we remove from {{Infobox person}} the |religion= parameter (and the associated |denomination= one)?

  • Religion would be covered in the main article body, with context and sources (if included as relevant at all, per consensus at the article).
  • Permit inclusion in individual articles' infoboxes (through the template's ability to accept custom parameters) if directly tied to the person's notability, per consensus at the article.
  • Permit inclusion in derived, more specific infoboxes that genuinely need it for all cases, such as one for religious leaders.

Rationale: This would be consistent with our treatment of sexual orientation and various other things we don't include in infoboxes that are matters which may be nuanced, complex, and frequently controversial. The availability of a parameter encourages editors to fill it, whether they have consensus to do so or not, regardless of instructions in template documentation to gain consensus first; new and anon IP editors generally do not read documentation, they simply see a "missing" parameter at article B that they saw at article A and add it.

While written for categories, the concerns of WP:CAT/R and WP:NONDEF may be logically applicable here, since the context-free data in infoboxes serves a categorization/labeling purpose, not an expository one; their reasoning is frequently applied to navbox templates, at least informally. So is that of the WP:BLPCAT policy, which explicitly covers them, and lists. Per WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, WP:LAWYER, and WP:GAMING, if the community's consensus is to avoid certain kinds of arbitrary, contentious, or factually questionable labelling, this consensus must not be evaded by moving the label to a different spot on the page in a different wrapper.

Procedural notes: I'm listing this at VP because RfCs at the infobox template talk pages tend to overrepresent the views of infobox template editors and those who argue about these templates frequently, and I think this deserves – requires – broader input, considering reader needs, encyclopedic purpose, editorial community strife levels, etc. I think matters like this also very directly relate to the resistance against including infoboxes in entire categories of biographical articles, but I'm not going to leave pointers to this RfC at every wikiproject on the system; VPPOL exists for a reason. PS: If anyone really wants to, the places to look for any previous RfCs or other discussions on this parameter would be the archives of this page, of Template talk:Infobox person, Template talk:Infobox, Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes, and Wikipedia talk:Notability (people) (all of which have already been notified of the current discussion, and the similar one on the |ethnicity= parameter.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:26, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments for / against

  • @Curly Turkey: Because of broken indenting (please fix it, per WP:LISTGAP), it's not clear to whom your comment is addressed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Too nuanced to be covered by a single infobox parameter. Of course it can (and should) be extensively discussed and explained in a good biographical article (where relevant) but it isn't necessarily helpful in an infobox. --Jayron32 02:09, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • There are many things which are "[not] necessarily helpful" in some cases; we don't use that as a reason for preventing them in all cases. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:28, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • The issue is not "should religion ever be mentioned". It's whether the infobox is the appropriate place to mention it. I posit it is not, largely because the infobox does not allow for nuanced explanation or discussion of what is often a complex issue. The article text is a fine place to discuss religion. This is not a refusal to include text about religion in articles. It's a note that the infobox is usually not the place to do so. --Jayron32 01:58, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - it is controversial enough to deserve discussion if it is notable. If it isn't notable, then like sexual orientation and the other elements not included in infoboxes for the same reason, it becomes trivia. There are some cases where religious affiliation might be important but not notable for the individual, such as with British politicians in the 16th-19th centuries, but in those cases too where it is relevant it can be explicitly discussed in the article. Ajraddatz (talk) 02:11, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom, with clarification. We should not avoid things simply because they are contentious. We should avoid things that are unjustifiably contentious—bikeshed, essentially. ―Mandruss ☎ 02:15, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (or Oppose) We say where people were born, we may as well at least suggest where they go when they die. If there's contention about a certain person, hammer it out on the talk page, and leave blank till there's a certain solution. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:20, March 24, 2016 (UTC)
    • Comment: There is a world of difference between where someone was born, which is a physical, geographical, verifiable fact, and what they say about what they believe will happen to them after they die, which is an unverifiable matter of pure speculation and personal belief. Hence the explanation above about nuance, which is putting it rather generously. (Unless you are just trolling us with the above, in which case well done and never mind.) – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:46, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • That's a matter of faith. Unerifiable, but gets many through the days. I don't believe in trolls, myself, or many other myths, but if someone else does, that's a matter of (eternal?) life and death to them. Noting who subscribes to which distinguishes them, and distinguishing someone is a good step toward defining them. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:55, March 24, 2016 (UTC)
      • Straw man. This is not |belief in afterlife=. This is about which religion a person follows, while alive. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:29, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If you believe in reward and punishment, you'll try to live the righteous life. Or at least ask forgiveness when you don't. Two sides of the same coin. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:09, March 24, 2016 (UTC)
  • Support removal under situations matching an argument I've made WRT military service: if its inclusion in the main body would lead a reasonable person to ask, "Why is this here?", it should not be in the infobox. 🖖ATinySliver/ATalkPage 03:01, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal. Religion should be allowed in an infobox only when the subject's religion can be demonstrated to play a key or defining rôle in the person's biography—such as with religious leaders, missionaries, or whatever—and then only under the condition that it can be simply and clearly defined and is uncontentious. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:02, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal. We don't need to fill in every single infobox parameter for every person. If the information is not directly relevant, it shouldn't be there. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 06:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly support. Infoboxes need to be kept to a brief succinct summary. The main body is the place for a detailed discussion, particularly of any controversial matters. "known for" and "occupation" are available if religion is a key identifier, otherwise keep it out. Besides which, those people for whom religion is a key factor often have occupations which clearly imply the fact: Pope, Archbishop, Dalai Lama, Mullah, Rabbi and so forth. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:26, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • No; we only have infoboxes for some people for whom religion is a key factor: those you list are only for clergy, not laity. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:21, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • This discussion is about {{infobox person}}, not any others. Pretty obviously "occupation=recognised religious leader" is going to imply clergy, in a Christian context at least. If you re-read my comment you will note that (1) I also mentioned the "known for" parameter which is appropriate for the likes of Richard Dawkins (for example - let's not reopen the whole atheism/religion debate here) and (2) "and so forth" includes those whose occupation is specifically religious but who are not part of a formal clergy. If a person is not a professional religious and is not especially known for a religious stance mention it in the article but not in the infobox. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:12, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal. While the religion parameter may be relevant for those known primarily for their religion (e.g. priests and other clergy); or those who publicly and strongly self identify as adherents of a religion; the many debates about using this parameter when this is not the case is a serious problem. Therefore in my view, the benefits of this parameter for a relatively small set of articles do not weigh against the problems caused by over-user of it. I support removal. Arnoutf (talk) 11:05, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly oppose removal. I am consistently baffled by this approach. Yes, there are some pages where this field is contentious, but this is outweighed by the vast majority where it is not, especially in historical cases. Of course there are cases where "it's complicated" is the best answer we can give, and obviously in those cases the field isn't appropriate; in others, consensus may determine that it's best left blank, and that's fine too. But in many, many articles (again especially in historical cases), it is a simple, uncontroversial field, like all the others. I do not see this as equivalent to sexual orientation or ethnicity (which I agree have no place in infoboxes - for what it's worth, I'd be targeting nationality as the most useless one still there); religion has a far lower incidence of being controversial than either of those do, and is rarely anything like as ambiguous. I am particularly unconvinced by the argument that it should be removed since being there at all encourages people to fill it regardless. I've seen very few infoboxes with all 100-odd parameters filled in, but I guess, for the 0.1% of the time someone tries it, I guess we should thin the herd - I mean, really, what kind of reasoning is that? I see, quite frankly, an overreaction here - an understandable one since I'm sure these are tedious and frustrating disagreements, but that shouldn't mean that the 99.9% of cases where this field is uncontroversial, useful and relevant should be ignored. For what it's worth, I think the current documentation needs rewording - "include only if relevant" is absurdly non-specific and, in my view, pointless, since "relevant" is virtually impossible to define in the majority of cases (I mean, is birthplace "relevant"? Is family?). A better instruction would be "include only if verifiable and uncontroversial", which I think covers the bases. Frickeg (talk) 11:26, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Did you just suggest, Frickeg, that we should extend WP:BLPCAT, WP:BLPSOURCES and WP:NONDEF to cover the infobox |religion= field? I believe they already do, and they make clear (unless I have misunderstood) that use of the |religion= field is restricted to cases where the subject's religious belief is a defining characteristic of their public notability. In short, their religious beliefs must be why they are notable. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I concur with you that they already do (although, again, in my opinion they are unnecessarily narrow), but disagree that it then follows that religion must be the reason they are notable. In fact, WP:NONDEF makes the difference between "definingness" and notability quite clear. Frickeg (talk) 22:41, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Xenophrenic: You have left out a few words of WP:BLPCAT. The full sentence in question is Categories regarding religious beliefs (or lack of such) or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources. Note that it says "public life or notability". --Scott Davis Talk 01:37, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, I didn't leave any words out. In fact, I didn't quote it; I paraphrased the three policies, and I believe I did so accurately. And Frickeg, you are, of course, welcome to disagree with Wikipedia. I think it would only be problematic if you attempted to edit against such "narrow" guidelines. As we all know, notability applies to determining if a subject should have a Wikipedia article. Once that article exists, it can be (and usually is) stuffed (including infoboxes) with all sorts of factoids of varying significance and relevance. EXCEPT when it comes to highlighting religion, ethnicity and sexuality in a Cat or IB; to do that, the information must be a defining characteristic of the subject's notability. Something that would exist in the WP:LEAD, no less. Xenophrenic (talk) 02:36, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for clarifying. This appears to be the point at which we have different interpretations of the same words. I see nothing that says that a defining characteristic of the subject should not be reflected in an article's infobox, even if that characteristic is not part of their WP:NOTABILITY. If the article's prose clearly and unambiguously describes the subject's religion (with appropriate references), then I consider it likely to be appropriate (i.e. there could still be cases where it is not) to include this religion in the article's infobox. This is similar to many other aspects of a biography. Very few people are notable because of their date of birth, or the political parties they are or have been a member of, however these are commonly characteristics used in an infobox (and often a category) if they do not require qualifications or deeper explanations. --Scott Davis Talk 13:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Religion is a key defining character for a significant number of the people we write about, and is often closely related to the reason for their notability. To suggest that the many non-clergy in, for example, Category:Roman Catholic activists should not have their religion shown in their infobox beggars belief. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:13, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • In these cases, their religion is generally evident from a glance at the article. Explicitly labeling the pope as Catholic is superfluous and looks weird, as if insulting the reader's intelligence.  Sandstein  12:40, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regarding the proposal to "Permit inclusion in individual articles' infoboxes (through the template's ability to accept custom parameters)...": This is a horrible, horrible cludge, One of the purposes of infoboxes is to provide clear, structured information, with using unambiguous label:value pairs. We increasingly also have the option to transclude data from Wikidata, also. This suggestion is counter to both. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:01, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • If custom parameters were a kluge, we would not have them. label=value pairs are just a feature of the templating language. Unambiguous ones, in the sense you mean, are an edidor convenience not a requirement. Our generation of metadata is an afterthought, not a requirement. There are are theoretically 1,000+ pieces of metadata we could generate about a topic; our deciding not to do for one because it's nuanced and complicated has no implications for anything. Existence of a datum in Wikidata, some day, does not require that en.WP accept it; our sourcing, relevance, and other standards are local to this particular WMF project, and the relevance varies with context within that project. The likelihood that Category:Roman Catholic activists should have their religion shown in their infobox is why the proposal would permit exceptions. I think this covers all the points you raised.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:00, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. In most cases, religion isn't such an important aspect of a person's biography that it warrants particular mention, and as with ethnicity, religion (which moreover can change over time) is often subject to such ambiguity that it is not suited to a one-word highlight in an infobox.  Sandstein  12:39, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal – Infoboxes oversimplify complicated field of religious identification, leave to problems of WP:NPOV and WP:V. It can be discussed in the body, but it does not deserve prime billing in the infobox, which is giving it WP:UNDUE weight. RGloucester — ☎ 13:37, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Alter parameter name Rename the parameter to 'religion_if_has_wp_weight' as per what I said in the discussion below. We should be dealing with the root problem which is people not understanding the requirements for including information. Dmcq (talk) 13:59, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal – The proposal is a common sense approach. For those persons such as clergy, members of orders, or those whose notability is otherwise tied to their religion (for example, Category:Roman Catholic activists, the custom parameter option could still be there by consensus. For the vast majority of notable people, such information is irrelevant in addition to being ambiguous at best, and contentious without a justified balancing benefit at worst. TheBlinkster (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Religion is, as mentioned above, nuanced. While it may be important in some peoples life it is not in others, even those who are nominally religious. By labeling a person with religion= it is possible that we are bringing undue attention to this facet of their life. Beyond that, massive disruption caused by conflict on-wiki about this parameter causes more problems than the, very limited, benefit the information provides to our readers is worth. JbhTalk 14:41, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Far too much tenacious editing revolving around this field, showing it doesn't work readily. It's only a fact that can be sourced to self-statements, and that's difficult to get. --MASEM (t) 14:46, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose — Religion is frequently an objective and relevant qualifier for people. Where it is (and only where it is), it belongs in the infobox. It makes little sense for Gerry Adams identified in the Infobox as Irish but not Catholic. One can think of dozens of historical situations (from post-Reconquista Spain to colonial Massachusetts to Nazi Germany) where religion is as consequential and salient to the lives of people as nationality. This is a blunt technical solution in response to a problem of overeager editing. Instead of an RfC turning off a feature, we should be extending the guideline at WP:MOS—"Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability."—to the infobox.--Carwil (talk) 15:21, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal - as someone who edits mainly medieval people (and many ecclesiastical leaders at that) I'd even be in favor of removing it for many religious figures. We don't really need it for someone who is a bishop - it is redundant and often times leads to fringe pushing of terms not used in the sources (See "Chalcedonian Christianity" at Template talk:S-rel#Introduce two new parameters which has also sprawled out into the infoboxes for medieval bishops). Ealdgyth - Talk 15:24, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal Infoboxes are best used for simple statements of fact, and as there is a strong likelihood of "religion" etc. being a contentious claim in many cases, the prudent course is to remove that line but even if a minority of cases are not a problem the removal is still the correct course. Many editors, alas, think "if the line exists in the infobox, it should be filled in" and this has now been shown to have very bad results. This is not "turning off a feature," it is "removing a temptation to place contentious material into infoboxes." (Yes - I would support removal of all material which can be viewed as "not simple statements of fact" from infoboxes, if that is ever proposed. I have been berated in the past for asserting that labelling people by religion may end up implying "guilt by religion/ethnicity/association" but I retain that assertion here.) Collect (talk) 16:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal. I have never understood the largely US view that everybody must have a religion. Even without the confusion of religion, ethnicity and culture inherent in, for example, "Jewish", in most cases it is completely irrelevant, on a par with their favourite pizza topping. I could be persuaded of the utility in the parameter remaining but with a strong documented comment that it is to be used solely in cases where religious activism is a prominent facet of the subject's public persona. Thus it would be removed for Bernie Sanders but not for Ted Cruz, for example. I will remain forever disappointed that "wingnut" is not an allowable option though. Guy (Help!) 17:20, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • See Demographics of atheism. 90% of Americans say they "believe in God?" whereas for the EU as a whole the figure is 51%. If you look at northwest Europe the it is roughly between 25% and 40%. Very, very simply put: for a US-centric view "Everyone has a religion - what's yours" in distinction to a NW EU-centric view "if you want to, that's up to you".
This fire-worshipping Canuck didn't mean to imply by his opposition that everybody must have a religion. Just that those who do should have a place in their infobox for it. If editors can't figure out how to figure out if somebody is religious, that's on them. I might just be hanging out at the wrong articles, but I've wasted far more time arguing with angry people over birthdates. The box is innocent! InedibleHulk (talk) 21:31, March 24, 2016 (UTC)
And no, we don't determine innocence through trial by fire. And we don't live in igloos, or say "aboot"... InedibleHulk (talk) 21:34, March 24, 2016 (UTC)
You may not, but Ted Cruz does. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:15, 25 March 2016 (UTC) [reply]
Went right over my head, and sent me on a wild goose chase, before I realized what you're talking aboot. Damn political games cost me 20 minutes (forever!), but at least I learned who he's fired, what he's under fire for, who says his pants are on fire and what Fire Island means in Washington (nothing!). Thanks for that. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:06, March 25, 2016 (UTC)
  • Support removal as being an attractive nuisance which tempts editors who don't understand our policies or the nuances of religious beliefs to get into huge stupid fights over infobox entries. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:56, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose removal. Significant information for many people. SSTflyer 03:09, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose removal, Frickeg said much of what I am thinking. In addition, infobox standard parameters allow for standard formatting and in some cases microformats to assist catalog engines of various kinds, and correlating information via Wikidata. Infoboxes should contain more than just "what is relevant to the subject's notability" as some people above have said. It should contain verifiable facts about the subject that are likely to be attributes that a reader might look for without wanting to read the entire article. I have no problem with infoboxes that have |religion= having their documentation updated and standardised to be more explicit that |religion= and |denomination= are only filled in if they are described and referenced in the text, which is the standard required for many infobox parameters. There are many parameters of infoboxes that are used in hundreds of articles for information which is not relevant to their notability, but once their notability is established, are relevant to their description. Most people are notable for something they have done, yet the infobox on an article about them includes name, date of birth, age, nationality, a photo, spouse, ... which are not relevant to their notability, but are relevant to summarising the information about the notable person. --Scott Davis Talk 08:05, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Shoesizes are not listed in infoboxes, and are, in the point of view of many Europeans, probably more relevant information than religion. So not all verifiable information about notable people that is relevant to summarise the information is provided. (note that the word relevant often, like here, is inherently subjective). Arnoutf (talk) 09:25, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Religious beliefs are not immutable, for many people they change over time. On a dating site it might work because the question then is current religious belief and the person who chooses the option is self declaring. But we are writing an encyclopaedia, and the infobox risks overly simplifying things. If we can reform the process so that religion is only used where relevant then I might be persuaded to change my view. ϢereSpielChequers 12:37, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal. Due to the ongoing insistence of various editors in causing BLP headaches. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very Strongly Support removal. Support. I was going to join the dozens of commenters above and give my "Support", primarily because proper use of the field is a constant source of editorial disagreement and it is a time sink. Data entered into that field is mutable, often ambiguous, and rarely is an accurate summary of the subject's religious beliefs. After carefully reviewing the (only 6 at this time) "oppose" arguments in search of reasoning I may not have considered, I've changed my "Support" to "Very Strongly Support", because the arguments not only failed to convince, but often strengthened the case for abolishing the |religion= field. One opposing argument equates date of birth (an objective point of public record data) with religion (a subjective notion which can only be self-declared, and rarely accurately summarized in 1 or 2 words), and ignores the highlighting done by the neon-light billboard known as the Infobox. One argument was based on the woefully inaccurate assessment, "I do not see this as equivalent to sexual orientation or ethnicity (which I agree have no place in infoboxes...)"; when Wikipedia strongly disagrees (see WP:CATGRS, WP:OPENPARA). One argument bemoans by way of example, that "Category:Roman Catholic activists should not have their religion shown in their infobox beggars belief", yet when I examined the (all 200+) entries in that category, the vast majority aren't even using the |religion= field, and the minority that do are not using a standardized data format. One argument defeats itself by admitting that an infobox "is to provide clear, structured information, with using unambiguous label:value pairs", when entries in the |religion= field have frequently shown themselves to be anything but clear and unambiguous, and are often contentious. One argument suggests we can keep the |religion= field if we only extend "the guideline at WP:MOS—'Ethnicity, religion, or sexuality should generally not be in the lead unless it is relevant to the subject's notability.'—to the infobox", oblivious to the fact that we already have, and it has failed to solve the problem. (See WP:CATGRS, WP:BLPCAT.) Two other arguments were either clueless about the issue, or amounted to "me too". I'll continue to watch for just one substantive argument against removing the problematic field. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:09, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To address my "woefully inaccurate assessment" here, I think (as I said above) that you are conflating "definingness" and "notability", which are quite clearly different concepts. WP:OPENPARA does include religion with sexual orientation and ethnicity, but hardly equates them; moreover it is clearly phrased as a suggestion and not a hard-and-fast rule. As for WP:CATGRS, that is again a bit of a stretch - they are grouped together as "potentially controversial", not "aligned in all ways". I will say that my stance here probably derives quite heavily from the fact that I generally work with historical politicians, for whom religion is very commonly important (even in recent history) - sectarianism has often been a significant aspect of political history in Australia (and in other places of course - I mean, this is kind of important for, say, Irish politicians, no?). Especially in early cases, it is often just as important as the |political party= field. Whether I would argue for its inclusion in other infoboxes (say, of actors, or sportspeople) - I don't know, but I suspect I wouldn't. But this goes back to my original point - this parameter is useful a lot of the time, and should not be removed just because it is the source of what I am sure are annoying disagreements. Adapt the documentation if we must; don't burn the place down. Frickeg (talk) 22:51, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Of course I have not conflated "definingness" and "notability", and WP:NONDEF should serve to clear away residual misunderstanding, if you feel the need. I mentioned that Wikipedia treats ethnicity, religious beliefs and sexuality with extra sensitivity and care, and with additional requirements and restrictions over all those other fields — especially in Categories and Infoboxes — and your most recent comment doesn't give me reason to change my assessment. Arguing with me that policy wording says "should" instead of "shall"; "generally" instead of "absolutely"; or is deemed a "guideline" instead of a "policy", etc., will be unpersuasive. The fact remains that religious beliefs of living persons are very frequently contentious, and therefore have higher sourcing requirements, and also more stringent requirements before they can be highlighted in an infobox or category. Religious beliefs are not well suited at all to being shoehorned into a template field or category that is designed for unambiguous, consistent, objective summaries of key facts, and that is why there is overwhelming support for removing the field. No one disagrees with you that religion can be important for historical politicians and others, and it certainly should be covered in the article. And no one is suggesting that we get rid of infoboxes specifically designed for people notable because of their religious beliefs. Xenophrenic (talk) 01:59, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep/Oppose removal: Improve the instruction set. In the cases where religion is an important part of someone's identity (for example Jimmy Carter) It should be made part of the metadata and used in an infobox, but also, there are many other parameters in {{Infobox person}} that aren't used in every article and are often irrelevant; height, weight, religion, political party, shoe size, etc. What I think is a better solution than removal is to refine the template page so that the "basic set" people can copy and paste is universailzed to only the most significant parameters (name, DOB, location, notabilit, etc.) , and all the other miscellaneous parameters that people use sometimes are in a "optional parameters to be used when appropriate". Montanabw(talk) 16:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • We already have WP:CATGRS which tells us that Religion, Sexuality and Ethnicity are to be handled differently and with more sensitivity than "shoe size" or "birth place". We already have an "improved instruction set", WP:BLPCAT, WP:BLPSOURCES and WP:NONDEF, that instruct us how to handle such information, yet the |religion= field is still a perennial source of contention and misinformation. It is also anything but standardized, as one would expect from a metadata field. Xenophrenic (talk) 19:31, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Montanabw: Perhaps shoe size should be removed. People don't fight over, nor do they insist that it should be filled in for every infobox, so it hasn't been an issue. Some very vocal editors continue to insist that the "|religion=" parameter should be filled in even when the subject has no religion, or even if the religion is unknown. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:22, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've yet to see a shoe size in an infobox (Ajaz Ahmed doesn't even have a box), but if there's a field and a good source, no. Not until a newer source shows there's been growth or shrinkage. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:20, March 25, 2016 (UTC)
  • Strongly Support removal. The "Religion" parameter has been or is being used for entirely POV purposes in far far too many biographical articles. In most of the cases the article itself, and the person's life or lifestyle itself, does not even evidence the importance of religion or religious practice. Softlavender (talk) 01:16, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support removal. Religion is much better addressed using full article prose where appropriate, rather than being oversimplified in infobox labels. In theory we should just have guideline that it's only included where it's specifically clear and noteworthy, but religion is an unusually messy matter and this field rises to the level of attractive nuisance. The religion field should remain in boxes for religious leaders, or other boxes explicitly relating to religion. Alsee (talk) 05:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - It would be fine if it were an available parameter that was used sparingly by intelligent editors. Unfortunately, there are too many POV-pushing motards out there... Carrite (talk) 13:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Extended discussions

Related:

--Guy Macon (talk) 04:20, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Moved inserted question out of proposal text into discussion area.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:14, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All this removal of things - infoboxes will start removing date of birth soon at this rate and pictures will be removed because they are not the definitive picture of the person or show them at the wrong age or something like that. The basic problem is that people are putting in things which aren't really relevant and for some things we really require that it have some weight. Isn't what's really necessary to rename the parameter from'religion' where people think it is okay to just find it out, or even feel obliged to find it out, and stick it in, to some name like 'religion_if_has_wp_weight' so people think for a moment if the religion is actually something people associated with the person as part of their interest? We should be concentrating on the actual problem not on removing things because clueless people might misuse them. Dmcq (talk) 13:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • That's a slippery slope fallacy and reductio ad absurdum. The removal of one thing from infoboxes (or even 17 things) would not mean "infoboxes will start removing date of birth soon". What's the difference between changing it to a parameter name no one can remember, and just removing it and allowing it to be done as a custom parameter (i.e. another string that people are not liable to memorize). In both cases, it requiers the exact same thing: Slowing down long enough to go to the template documentation page and figure out the name of the parameter to add, just enough time to think critically. The proposals are essentially equivalent.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:23, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • What this discussion is highlighting is the need for clearer guidance on filling in infoboxes... to help editors figure out when it is appropriate to include a given infobox parameter... and when it isn't appropriate. It's not a one-size-fits-all thing. Blueboar (talk) 15:03, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • No doubt we do need that, but it seems unlikely to solve the problem. The majority of edits by this point are made by non-regulars (or I saw stats to that effect no long ago; even if it's not quite so, a large percentage of them are). They have no idea what template documentation is. They see |religion= empty in an article, so they fill it and move on. Their next stop is an article where the entire parameter is missing (because consensus discussions the editor doesn't know about remove it). So they add it and fill it, and move on.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:09, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly my point. Just rename the parameter so they do think and that will probably reduce to problem to something fairly minor whilst letting people put it in where appropriate. No great fuss or fanfare. No need for editors to do anything special just because of clueless drive-bys. As to the slippery slope business we already have arguments around the place about removing any montage of few people illustrating something like a religion or a people and RfC's like this one and the one below. Yes it is a slippery slope and we're flies in the inside of a pitcher plant heading down to the digestive juices below. The first aim should be to develop an encyclopaedia, so we should try and allow things and just put in as little as necessary to stop things going wrong. Dmcq (talk) 15:26, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Except there's a lot of concern that usually including religion labels is not encyclopedic. I'm content to let the RfC play out. You and I have both made our views clear already. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:48, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
An RfC is supposed to also be about comments and you have gone straight to wanting a particular solution without the discussion about alternatives. Even the descriptive text for 'religion' has not been phrased in a way that would stop people just sticking them in if they can find a citation. Your solution is about making it technically difficult for some editors who might be interested in religious matters whilst leaving it as something that can be cut and pasted by a technically competent drive by editor from another article without them seeing any real warning. It should be straightforward wher eit is appropriate whilst deterring people just sticking it in because they can figure out the religion. Dmcq (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, I think I've said my piece already, and am more interested in letting the discussion run, without trying to dominate it, that's all. I don't have a "campaign" to manage here. I've asked a question, and the community can ponder and answer it. This question was inspired by the earlier-started RfC on ethnicity in biographical infoboxes (a discussion that is now immediately below this one, having been moved here from its off-topic original location on the talk page of the main infobox meta-template). I honestly don't follow your objection, anyway. The idea here is that we should not have religion in infoboxes at all, except where there's a consensus at a specific article's talk page to go out of our way to insert that information there because we're certain that it's correct, that it's relevant, that it's simple and non-controversial enough to be such a one-word label, and that there's proper sourcing for it. Based on experience it seems unlikely that most cases meet all of those conditions, and as a result, strife erupts constantly over the inclusion of |religion=Something here, on page after page. Better to just leave it out, in my view, and the RfC asks the broader editorial community if it collectively agrees.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish—I can't agree that "most cases" fail to "meet all of those conditions". I think that the single point of disagreement I have with this RfC concerns "simple and non-controversial". I think that in fact religion is often "simple and non-controversial". Controversy can also be generated by those wishing to remove religion from an Infobox. It is easy to veer into original research and argue that such-and-such a factor calls into question the religion of an individual. That is a problem found on individual article Talk pages. I don't believe one should attempt to solve this particular problem by making this problem project-wide. This particular problem would be alleviated by applying the policy of no original research to the discussions that arise over this question. Bus stop (talk) 01:16, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
If that were the solution, then the problem wouldn't exist, would it? It's not like NOR is a new policy, or we didn't know how to use it until this afternoon. PS: It's not necessary to diff people's quotes from the same conversation. If they can't remember what they said within the last day or so, they're probably not competent to be working on the project.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ , 02:43, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not a problem—let me un-diff the quotes. Bus stop (talk) 02:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The problem isn't one of WP:NOR but of WP:WEIGHT. That's why the current description of the parameter is wrong. It can be quite easy to check the religion - and that's all the description currently implies one should do - but really very often it just isn't something important enough to stick into the artricle.. We don't often for instance put in what hair color of height people are and reli=gion is quite often just an incidental foist on people by their parents rather than anything relevant to anything of interest about them. Dmcq (talk) 11:52, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dmcq—you say "We don't often for instance put in what hair color of height people are and reli=gion is quite often just an incidental foist on people by their parents rather than anything relevant to anything of interest about them." That is an argument for the omission of religion from the Infobox at an individual article. It is not a general argument for omitting religion from Infoboxes at all articles. You are correct that WP:WEIGHT could be applicable as a part of an argument for the omission of religion at an individual article. Some editors are presenting that argument when they use the word "highlighting". If I can paraphrase such editors, they are arguing that the placement of religion in the Infobox "highlights" that person's religion. This is debatable, and I am going to refrain from entering into that debate. Suffice to say that is an argument concerning WP:WEIGHT, but that argument is not applicable to all articles. Certainly religion, according to reliable sources, in some instances, is justifiably noted. And this is not just in the case of for instance clergy. Reliable sources sometimes draw connections between for instance behavior displayed and religious affinities, whether incidentally foisted on the individual or not. The point that I wish to make is that this debate properly takes place at the individual article. We should not be deciding here that in all cases religion in the Infobox constitutes undue weight, because sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. Bus stop (talk) 18:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Are most of the offending edits coming from people who are using the visual editor? If so, the proposal from User:Dmcq appears to be an effective way of addressing this, which I would support. AndrewRT(Talk) 19:49, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm unaware of any connection. To clarify, this isn't about "offending edits", but whether it makes sense in very many cases to religiously label bio subjects in their infoboxes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Question for clarification of scope Is this conversation about all biographical infoboxes as the section header says, or specifically about {{Infobox person}} as proposed in the question? A significant difference in the current layout is that {{infobox person}} generally highlights the personal information before the positional information, whereas {{infobox officeholder}} tends to put official positions first and personal information further down the infobox. I wonder if the supporters' "highlighting" concerns can be addressed by changing the layout of infobox person to emphasise positional over personal biographical information. --Scott Davis Talk 08:33, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It was intended to apply generally, including to derivatives of infobox person, like infobox officeholder; the "straw the broke the camel's back" case was Bernie Sanders. The RfC is phrased such that, if the result were to deprecate the parameter generally, a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS could override this, e.g. for clergy. In theory it could also override this for politicians, though that would defeat the raison d'etre of the RfC to begin with. It would definitely be okay, and expected, to override it on a case-by-case baais, e.g. for a candidate whose platform and part of their notability is the advancement of a particular religion and/or denomination's views. Anyway, I don't think "highlighting it less" by moving it further down the infobox would have any effect on the analysis of whether the alleged information belongs in the infobox, since it mostly has to do with relevance, oversimplification, PoV and/or original research (e.g. particular interpretations – one might be "proud to be Jewish" or "a supporter of traditional Christian values" without either being a statement of religious faith or affiliation at all), etc. Probably the least important concern is where it is in the infobox. The presence in it at all, as a one-word label with no context or nuance, is the issue.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are something like 300,000 Wikipedia articles with infoboxes about people (person, officeholder etc). The |religion= parameter seems to be contentious in under 300 of them, less than 0.1%, which says to me that in the vast majority of cases, it is handled well under existing policies on the talk pages of individual articles, and does not require heavy-handed mass removal. At most, the "short form" blank template examples could be modified to not show an empty religion field suggesting that it would normally be filled. --Scott Davis Talk 01:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That is a potential outcome. The ethnicity RfC below could go the same way. I don't see it as the optimal outcome. I think it comes down to this: We can go out of our way to pigeonhole other people with over-simplistic labels, or we can avoid doing this and focus on why they're actually notable, on their own terms. I've noticed that articles that take the latter approach tend to be more encyclopedic and well written, while the former tend to have more problems and attract more PoV disputation. This isn't simply a difference in Wikipedian approaches either, but a far more general one. In simple terms, it's far more important to understand what the 44th president of the United States has accomplished (and failed to accomplish) that what the first black president of the US has. JFK's accomplishments and foibles had nothing all, really, to do with nominally being a Catholic. PS: I disagree with your stats. Not all of the 300K bio infoboxes use the religion parameter, and the number of active vociferous disputes is not a measure of the number of problems, just of the ones that people are presently pissed off about enough to be fighting over. A lot of the religion (and etnicity) labels on minor-notables' bios are problematic, but not many editors are to argue about these things on the article of a chemist from Zagreb, an actor who last did a movie in 1937, or a billiards player who retired in 1986.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ , 02:43, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Ethnicity in infoboxes

Moved from Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Ethnicity in Infoboxes
 – Was off-topic at original location.

See also previous discussions of ethnicity at Template_talk:Infobox_person [26].


A suggestion at the neverending debate at Talk:Bernie Sanders has been to include an ethnicity= field in the infobox to get around questions about Sanders' religiousness while still making it clear he's a Jew.

The question: Should Wikipedia allow ethnicity to be marked in Infoboxes? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (ethnicity)

  • Strongest possible oppose. "|ethnicity=" in Infoboxes is one box of worms I don't think we should ever be opening on Wikipedia, and I would support an explicit ban on such a field. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose in general, but allowing for rare exceptions. I hesitate to make a universal ban, as I expect there are corner cases where it would be appropriate (but I haven't thought of one yet). On the specifics: |ethnicity=secular Jew was there for a while, which seemed very strange to have put a religious epithet under "ethnicity" given the ongoing argument about whether it would be permitted in the religion field! I also note that the USA census is very deliberate in making people members of black, Hispanic, Asian race or ethnicity, but does not recognise Jewish, so under US law, Sanders is probably "White, not Hispanic or Latino". --Scott Davis Talk 06:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • And definitions of ethnicities/races/etc vary from country to country—an oft-cited countrast is the difference between how the US defines "black" (especially in light of the one-drop rule) and they way "black" is defined in Brazil (where siblings with the same parents can be classified as different races). Wikipedia draws a very international audience, and race/ethnicity/etc are extremely complicated and contentious concepts—an Infobox is a horribly inappropriate place to put this stuff. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • By the "one drop rule", my wife might be American - one of her great-great grandfathers was born in Kansas Territory (of English parents). I thought Sir Isaac Isaacs (a Jewish former Governor-General of Australia) might have turned out to be one of my exceptions, but he "...insisted that Judaism was a religious identity and not a national or ethnic one." --Scott Davis Talk 10:29, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongest possible oppose. If you include the field some editors will feel they ought to fill it. On those very rare occasions when it is relevant to the main article it should be handled there in a sensitive and culturally aware manner. Curly Turkey's comments about definitions is important. Indeed I'd go slightly further; "ethnicity" itself is open to to interpretation: is it race, culture or geographical? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:38, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Such a parameter would get extremely messy and it really isn't something that should feature in a summary about a person (which is what an infobox basically is). If ethnicity needs to be discussed, it should be in the main part of the article. As above, its worth noting that the American fixation on ethnicity is not reflected in most of the rest of the world. There are other places where it is seen as important (for example an Arab Israeli politician), but to include an ethnicity/race parameter in the infobox suggests that it should be filled even when it isn't particularly relevant or important. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 11:27, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - In pluralistic societies such as the United States, this would, at the best, result in a proliferation of RFCs, about the ethnicity of each biography, and, at worst, result in edit-warring. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:18, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Kill it. Kill it with fire. Ethnicity is innately too complex for an infobox entry, and should be covered in the body of the article if we cover it at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:04, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per all of the above! BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:25, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Even if the person self-identifies with an ethnic group, there is no good reason to add it unless the ethnicity is an absolutely necessary part of the person's notability, and likely not even then in most cases. And, for good measure, I find this to be true for "religion," "ancestry" and "nationality" as well where there is the remotest possibility of the factoid being abused or misconstrued. Also for anything factoid not intrinsically needed to understand who the person is (or was). As for the "one drop rule" I have gotten into trouble for my strongly held opinion that "guilt by association," "identification by association" and "identification by ancestry" are, frankly, intrinsically evil. And I so state here as well. Collect (talk) 17:34, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If reliable sources clearly establish a person's ethnicity, and establish that it is a key feature describing that person, then I see no problem with it in the infobox. Though I'm not quite sure how to find the exact number, it seems that "ethnicity" is currently listed in thousands of infoboxes at Wikipedia, so you're talking about quite a huge deletion here. If you're concerned about abuse of the field, you could require self-identification, but to completely ban mention of ethnicity is very silly. Being part of a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture is suitable for an infobox, and that's what ethnicity means. It also strikes me as odd that User:Guy Macon now wants to "kill it with fire" but publicly thanked me for this edit. Also, the Sanders controversy is not over yet, and it seems inappropriate to use this forum to advance a position in that content dispute. By the way, race and ethnicity are different concepts, and just because the US Census Bureau may occasionally prefer to use ethnicity as a euphemism for race does not make it so; laws often include "definition" sections that define words in weird ways for purposes of that law only.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:46, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - the other opposes said it well, especially Guy Macon. Talk about it in the early life section with supporting links is much better imo Govindaharihari (talk) 18:03, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for reasons already well explained above. We should also remove from {{Infobox person}} some other troll/flamer/pov-warrior/BLP-vandal magnets of a similar nature, like the |religion= one. It causes nothing but constant strife and disruption. For the few infoboxes that really need it, e.g. for religious leaders, it can be re-added as a custom parameter.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:35, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please post an RfC about removing the religion parameter and allowing it as a custom parameter. I think that this is a good idea that will receive widespread support. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Surely all that is needed is a hidden note to accompany the religion parameter stating that it should only be filled if there is a reliable source? Removing it completely (and only being able to add it if you are "in the know") means that it wouldn't be available to new and/or inexperienced editors. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 10:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also agree with SMcCandlish's suggestion regarding the |religion= field. I think Gaia Octavia Agrippa meant to ask, "Surely all that is needed is a hidden note to accompany the religion parameter stating that it should only be filled if there is a public self-identification with the religious belief made in direct speech by the article subject, and only if that religious belief is a defining factor in the subject's public notability? (As presently required by WP:CAT/R, WP:BLPCAT, and WP:NONDEF.) Xenophrenic (talk) 20:56, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Summoned by bot. No, and I don't understand the obsession some editors have with ethnicity. I do feel that Sanders' religion should be noted, however, and have said as much. Coretheapple (talk) 21:43, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose because defining ethnicity is difficult and often impossible, so inevitably this will lead to edit wars and inaccurate information. Ethnicity needs to be described with a story of the person's life, not a single classification.Waters.Justin (talk) 18:37, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. It's a tough call, because we do regularly include information on ethnicity in any number of biographic articles (BLP or otherwise), as informed by reliable sourcing. However, I tend to agree that the acrimony that would result from making this field available would vastly outweigh any benefit to that small handful of articles in which it could be used without contention. As others have noted, ethnicity is a deeply complex, often non-empirical, loaded topic informed by variant social context. By and large, it's simply better, when these sensitive and contentious topics are raised, to do so in the more flexible circumstance of the prose of main article body, where proper context and attribution can be made. Further, I agree that if the field becomes available, there are some editors with strong views in this area who will simply view it as an open invitation to impose or contest these classification with every fiber of their editorial identity. The net value of adding this parameter, in terms of clear presentation for our readers and the time and energy of our contributors, make too strong an argument for avoiding this strategy. Snow let's rap 04:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Can you clarify please what precisely is being proposed and what it would mean? From what I can see, Bernie Sanders uses Template:Infobox officeholder. That template includes optional fields for citizenship, nationality and religion but not race/ethnicity. Would that then be applied to other infobox templates (presumably not this parent template?) AndrewRT(Talk) 18:54, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - completely lost meaning in modern times of mobility, where a person can claim 2n ethhic descents. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:13, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question I take it that this would apply to all the infoboxes listed at Wikipedia:List of infoboxes#Person. Is that correct? DES (talk) 01:32, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – Too simplistic, hard to verify, and not worth the trouble. Leave it for body. RGloucester — ☎ 01:34, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose inclusion under situations matching an argument I've made WRT military service: if its inclusion in the main body would lead a reasonable person to ask, "Why is this here?", it should not be in the infobox. 🖖ATinySliver/ATalkPage 03:02, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support ethnicity to continue to be marked in Infoboxes. All that's required here is a reliable source (maybe even the subject of an article themselves) stating what someone's ethnic background is in the first place. Guy1890 (talk) 03:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Ethnicity can be discussed in the article body or even occasionally in the lede, but its inclusion in infoboxes, which by necessity oversimply, is contentious, needlessly so. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:57, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose inclusion. Ethnicity is difficult to define, often irrelevant, and always inappropriate for the infobox. Frickeg (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. To the extent it is even a meaningful characteristic of a person, ethnicity is often a matter of discussion and nuance that can't be conveyed in a one-word infobox entry.  Sandstein  12:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notice: All comments above this line were originally posted in the Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Ethnicity in Infoboxes location, and can be found in the edit history there.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:57, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose — As others have noted, defining an ethnicity is way beyond the scope of a couple of words in an infobox, and is often irrelevant to the subject matter of the article. But even beyond that, it's clear from this discussion and others that there is no consensus on what "ethnicity" even encompasses (i.e. race? religion? ancestral nationalities? a person's self-identification with any of the preceding?) The "nationality" parameter seems sufficient for the infobox level, and anything relevant requiring discussion beyond that belongs in the article body. TheBlinkster (talk) 13:45, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object to framing of the RfC This is not a neutrally-worded RfC, as evidenced by the single example chosen. It asks "Should Wikipedia allow ethnicity to be marked in Infoboxes?", when there are infoboxes which already use |ethnicity=. No analysis of the current use is provided, and no link given to the discussion where it was decided to add that parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • There wasn't any such discussion to link to [27]. There is no requirement that an RfC provide any analysis, just that it be neutrally worded (and we mostly tolerate it when it's not, anyway, though I don't think that's a good idea). What neutrality problem is there? The question asked is "The question: Should Wikipedia allow ethnicity to be marked in Infoboxes?" There's a pointer to an example discussion, and it's clear that both the poster of the RfC and everyone in the linked discussion understand that the parameter already exists. It's difficult to see what the nature of your objection is.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:40, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose We cannot even agree on how ethnicity should be defined (there are some people on Wikipedia who confuse ethnicity with outdated racial theories). So we cannot simplify it to the level that it can be used in infoboxes without creating endless POV debates. Arnoutf (talk) 14:07, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Unlikely religion which is based on how a person believes they are, you can't change your ethnicity - that's something innate. It may be difficult to source at times, but this is far different from religion. --MASEM (t) 14:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I simply can not think of a good reason for this and the reasons against are innumerable. At best this is a kluge for the Sanders infobox issue that will lead to massive disruption on every BLP where nationalist POV pushers have an interest. It is just another non-nuanced point to battle over and provides little, if any, added value to our readers. JbhTalk 15:07, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for reasons given above. However, for some people ethnicity is a defining characteristic: WP has a massive category tree under Category:People by ethnicity. Logically, if we reject ethnicity in infoboxes, shouldn't we also delete all those categeories? — Stanning (talk) 15:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support — Ethnicity is frequently an objective and relevant qualifier for people. Where it is (and only where it is), it belongs in the infobox. In some cases (apartheid South Africa, Spanish colonial America, the Jim Crow-era South), it's a legally defined status that determines the rights of people involved. It's somewhat obtuse that Hannah Arendt infobox has the nationality of "German" but not the ethnicity of Jewish, a characteristic she described as "an indispensable datum of my life." Yes, it's subject to complications. But these complications are not best addressed by proposing to ban it from infoboxes, but rather by elaborating and enforcing policy and guidelines, such as MOS:BLPLEAD. To address concerns, I propose that the rules stated at Wikipedia:CAT/EGRS be applied to infoboxes.--Carwil (talk) 15:36, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support. The parameter is there for a reason. It should not be removed just because some folks may want to remove or exclude Bernie Sanders' ethnicity from his infobox (which is an individual case and should be decided by poll on that individual article alone). Also, there are plenty of European sub-ethnicities that are not reflected in a person's nationality -- Kurdish, and so on, and to say nothing of people's nationality/ethnicity when they are accidentally born in another country. This is an important parameter that is especially important in areas outside of the U.S.; do not let Wikipedia's WP:SYSTEMICBIAS exclude this notable and important parameter. Softlavender (talk) 01:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose In the rare cases where it is relevant, ethnicity is much better dealt with in article prose rather than simplified infobox labeling. Alsee (talk) 05:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnicity as "nationality"

Moved from Template talk:Infobox § Question about nationality/citizenship
 – Was off-topic in original location.

A number of different infoboxes include |nationality=, |citizenship=, or both. Should such fields use a demonym (eg. Citizenship: American) or the country name itself (eg. Citizenship: United States)? Nikkimaria (talk) 18:30, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that citizenship should list the countries that a person is a citizen of and nationality would be their identity. The two might differ slightly, eg someone identifying as Scottish (nationality) but having UK citizenship. There's also people who hold multiple citizenships but identify with only one nationality; eg, Gérard Depardieu is French but holds citizenship of both France and Russia. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 22:42, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Citizenship should be the default. Nationality only comes in to play if it is more complicated and as an addition. Like the examples above or Curly's Canada one. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 01:54, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd prefer "|citizenship=United States" to "|nationality=American". "Nationality" is often used to mean something different from citizenship, and the adjectives can have different meanings as well. Think of how many ways "American" and "Spanish" can be taken—"citizen of the United States" and "citizen of Spain" can really only mean one thing. As "nationality" can be ambiguous, perhaps it should be avoided. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:54, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note It appears some editors are now using "Jewish" as a "Nationality" (sometimes hyphenated with other nationalities). Seems this is an interesting way of avoiding the (what I aver is) clear consensus above that "ethnicity" is improper as a general rule. Opinions? Collect (talk) 23:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Jewish" as a nationality?! What drives this obsession?! Hyphenated nationalities should be disallowed—how many Canadians would thus become "English-Scottish-Irish-French-Ukrainian Canadian"? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:44, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See my comment below, about the decision to introduce an |ethnicity= parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

IMO we have to insist on the preferential use the unambiguous term "citizenship", disallow the sneaky usage of "nationality" for "ethnicity", and use "nationality" only when it has a specific legal meaning, e.g wor persons with nationality but no citizenship, etc. And these rules must be clearly described in templaate doc. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:22, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, keep in mind the entire concept of "legal citizenship" is largely a modern one; people in 8th-century Venice, and millions even in the early 20th century in many places, didn't have passports and ID papers. The change you want to make could only logically apply for modern subjects in most cases.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Revert on sight, as counter-factual, as WP:POV (whether anti-semitic, or "claim this subject as One Of Us"), and as WP:GAMING of the still-open RfC.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:05, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notice: All comments in the thread above this line were originally posted in the Template talk:Infobox#Question about nationality/citizenships location, and can be found in the edit history there.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • REVERT ON SIGHT ERROR to have religion in the Nationality field. Search results:
    • insource:"nationality = Jewish" 45 hits.
    • insource:"nationality = Jew" 12 hits.
    • insource:"nationality = Buddhist" 3 hits.
    • insource:"nationality = Christian" 1 hit.
    • insource:"nationality = Hindu" 1 hit.
    • insource:"nationality = Islam" 1 hit.
    • No hits on Agnostic, Amish, Atheism/Atheist, Buddhism, Catholic, Confucianism/Confucianist, Druid/Druidry, Gnostic, Hasidic, Hinduism/Hinduist, Jainism/Jainist, Mormon, Muslim, Quaker, Scienology/Scienologist, Secular/Secularist, Shia, Sikh/Sikhism/Sikhist, Sufi/Sufism, Sunni/Sunnism, Tao/Taoism/Taoist, Wicca/Wiccan.
I am cleaning them all up. I invite cleanup on anything I missed. Notably, virtually all hits are Jewish. Sigh. Alsee (talk) 06:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Did you note "Jewish-American" and such variants in that search? Collect (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
 Done, and yep, the search didn't care what came after it. Lots of Jewish-Country came up. The search wouldn't have found anything like nationality = Russian Jew. Someone who knows REGEX better might be able to do a more thorough search. Alsee (talk) 14:30, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Found tons more when looking for "nationality jewish" in articles - almost all of which found infoboxes with that sort of usage - I think there is a major long-term problem lurking, alas. Collect (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's already someone (Toddy1) reverting[28] on this issue, with the very strange argument that a country's internal census-by-religion somehow trumps the standard English language and international meaning of Nationality. Alsee (talk) 15:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Alsee should read Race and ethnicity in censuses.-- Toddy1 (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Aha - so the US census has "nationality = Jewish-American" as a possible entry? Blacks should therefore have the nationality "Black-American" and Episcopalians should be listed "nationality = Episcopalian-American"? We can have "India-England-UK" as a "nationality? Sorry - looks like that sort of opinion fails to even reach "minority viewpoint status" here. Collect (talk) 18:41, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I see nothing in Race and ethnicity in censuses that indicates that the US or any othet country has at any time listed "Jewish" or any religion or ethnicity as a nationality. Not everything listed on a census form is a nationality, after all. DES (talk) 19:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See [29] and "Nationality = Jew" which one editor appears to think is a proper "nationality". I am awaiting the categorization of "Muslim-Americans" as a nationality any moment now. <g> Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Disambiguation and inherently ambiguous titles

What guidance should WP:Disambiguation give for article titles that do not result in a conflict between two or more articles, but which are not inherently unambiguous to a general audience?

Background:

  • This content regarding titles that inherently lack precision was added to WP:DAB on June 6, 2015, by SMcCandlish, consisting of a paragraph under "Is there a Primary Topic?", an example under "Deciding to disambiguate", and a summary sentence in the lead paragraph: "Disambiguation may also be applied to a title that inherently lacks precision and would be likely to confuse readers if it is not clarified, even it does not presently result in a titling conflict between two or more articles." SMcCandlish posted a rationale of this addition to the talk page, which received no replies.
  • On July 16, 2015, Red Slash removed the main paragraph, with the comment "How does this have anything at all to do with disambiguation?". A talk page discussion between Red Slash and Francis Schonken discussed this removal.
  • On July 28, 2015, Red Slash removed the example under "Deciding to disambiguate". On August 6, this example was restored by SMcCandlish and again removed by Red Slash, then, on August 7, restored by SMCandlish, removed by Francis Schonken, again restored by SMcCandlish, and again removed by Francis Schonken. An RFC on the content from that time doesn't appear to have been officially closed, but by my count has three editors in support of the principle of "disambiguation for clarification" and three opposed.
  • In February 2016, the lead sentence (the only remaining portion of the content originally added June 6) was removed by Born2cycle, restored by by SMcCandlish, removed by BD2412, restored by Dicklyon, removed by Calidum, restored by Tony1, removed by Calidum, restored by Tony1, removed by Calidum, and restored by Bagumba who locked the page for edit warring. A talk page discussion did not result in any clear consensus.
  • On March 23, the lead sentence was removed by Dohn joe, restored by In ictu oculi, removed by Dohn joe, and restored by SMcCandlish. A further talk page discussion ensued.
  • With respect to the participants on both sides, the discussion of the proposed guideline so far has generated more heat than light. I'm hoping a straightforward and (pardon the pun) unambiguous RFC can resolve the issue somewhat permanently and put an end to the disruptions to WP:D. Two of the talk page discussions have proposed taking this to RFC, but don't seem to have been able to reach agreement even on what an RFC should look like. As I have not, to my recollection, participated in the dispute, I have done my best to frame it neutrally and been so bold as to just go ahead and post it here. Please let me know if I have missed anything salient in the above summary.--Trystan (talk) 02:34, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Responses (disambiguation)

Parenthetical notes in an article title (unless the parenthetical notes are part of the article title) should only be used to distinguish between multiple articles with the same title. I can't think of a time when I would add a parenthetical dab to a title of an article when it didn't belong, merely to clarify something. Perhaps if some examples of contentious article titles were posted, we could see the nature of the dispute here. --Jayron32 03:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • No guidance. This kind of guidance is a can of worms - loads of unintended consequences. We should not "pre-disambiguate" an article because "it sounds too generic" or "that doesn't sound like it is an X" or "that sounds too similar to X". If there is an existing encyclopedic topic that shares a name with another topic, there is potential ambiguity, and we refer to WP:DAB's guidance. If there's only one topic, then WP:DAB does not come into the equation. The examples given to illustrate the contested guidance show that. "Flemish giant" - with no context - sounds like it might be a tall person from Antwerp. While this may be true, tall people from Flanders is not an encyclopedic topic. So instead, Flemish giant redirects to Flemish Giant rabbit - a domestic rabbit breed.

    But that's the point - "Flemish giant" redirects to "Flemish Giant rabbit". Why? Because there is no other encyclopedic topic to disambiguate from. Conversely, Algerian Arab is a dab page, while Algerian Arab sheep is an article about sheep. So in this case, "sheep" serves to disambiguate, while "rabbit" does not. If you prefer "Flemish Giant rabbit" for WP:CONSISTENCY purpose or something else, that's fine, but it's not actually disambiguating anything.

    So - there is actually nothing unusual here. Regular WP:DAB questions should be asked of any title. Those questions should not include "Doesn't that kind of sound like something else?" Dohn joe (talk) 03:45, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"If you prefer 'Flemish Giant rabbit' for WP:CONSISTENCY purpose or something else, that's fine, but it's not actually disambiguating anything." OK, by your narrow definition, this is not actually disambiguating anything, in that there is no confusion what article you want if you say Flemish giant. Note, however, that by a broader definition, quite often that extra word that is "not necessary" does a lot of good in terms of improving precision and reducing ambiguity. Did you look at the railway station example I added? The point is that that minimalist titling that some espouse leaves things looking imprecise, and we have many examples of consensus naming conventions that don't interpret precision and ambiguity in this narrow B2C way. Dicklyon (talk) 03:52, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Projects are allowed to develop naming conventions. They usually are exceptions to the precision/ambiguity criterion of WP:AT - see WP:USPLACE, WP:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies), etc., referenced at WP:PRECISION. So, yes, consistency, or naturalness or some other consideration can override precision. But it should remain an exception that doesn't swallow the rule. Dohn joe (talk) 04:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure projects don't change, supercede, or make exceptions to policy and guidelines. And WP:PRECISION isn't overridden by having the article title "unambiguously define the topical scope of the article". People seem to ignore that provision, and treat precision as a negative when they could use a shorter title without a collision. That's the B2C algorithm, and it's nonsense. Dicklyon (talk) 05:03, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'd never seen Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies) until today. I can't believe it exists. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:09, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Your singular personal belief is not required to make things exists. The world, and the things in it, exist outside of your consciousness. --Jayron32 05:18, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And the world outside the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (UK Parliament constituencies) basement has moved strongly against this pointless "disambiguation"—WProjects like WP:CANADA and WP:INDIA dropped this silliness years ago. So, what were you saying about "singular personal beliefs"? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:25, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And yet, it still exists. Notice how you had a feeling or an emotion (you thought it "silly") and nothing changed. The world works like that: reality continues to keep being real despite you having feelings about it. It's odd you haven't learned that. --Jayron32 16:17, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You don't appear to have a point. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:18, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What Dohn joe is missing is that Algerian Arab was disambiguated to Algerian Arab sheep on the basis of it simply being naturally ambiguous. It only became a disambiguation page later. His 'So in this case, "sheep" serves to disambiguate, while "rabbit" does not' point is completely invalid. He doesn't appear to understand what "ambiguous" and "disambiguate" means. Neither do many of the other correspondents here. Fortunately, RM respondents often do. That's why Argentine Criollo, Welsh Black, British White, Florida White, and many other such names were disambiguated to more WP:PRECISE titles, despite no other article directly vying with them for the shorter ones.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • No guidance. WP:DAB was created to address a very specific situation – what to do when two or more articles share the same name. Everything else is covered by WP:AT and its spin-offs. For example, I'd consider Flemish Giant to be an inappropriate title (or at least less appropriate than Flemish Giant rabbit) because it fails WP:AT's "precision" criterion ("The title unambiguously identifies the article's subject..."). No extra guidance needs to be added to allow for titles like Flemish Giant rabbit, and any such guidance would be outside the scope of WP:DAB. DoctorKubla (talk) 09:39, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Retain the guidance – and this RfC is non-neutral and grossly misleading due to major errors of omission: No policy rationale presented for removal, only false claims that consensus wasn't established. The material describes actual practice at WP:RM for 15 years, and actual requirements of various naming conventions (e.g. WP:USPLACE). Attempts to delete it are based on lack of basic understanding of the word "disambiguation" (it means "to resolve ambiguity"), patently false claims that previous discussion did not happen and that consensus wasn't established, and a minority, extremist view that WP:CONCISE trumps all other article naming criteria in every case, no matter what, despite the clear wording of the WP:AT policy. The RfC falsely paints a picture of a slow editwar. Actual review of the history shows two back-to-back consensus discussions, two different attempts to by parties that the RfC falsely paints as opponents to integrate the material into WP:AT policy itself, normal WP:BRD process and revision, 8 months of acceptance, the two drive-by attempts at deletion predicated on false claims and unawareness of previous discussion, which were reverted by multiple parties. See #Discussion (disambiguation) for details. This RfC, whatever its intent, would reverse much longer-standing portions of multiple stable naming conventions like USPLACE and WP:USSTATION, just for starters, yet none of the affected pages were notified. Three quarters of a year of stability is plenty evidence of consensus, especially after three consensus discussions refined the material to its present state.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Recognize that disambiguation is more than one thing. Keep the guidance, as it deters those who try to use the omission (of recognition of this common practice of making titles non minimally short in order to make them more precise and less ambiguous) to drive toward a precision-is-bad minimality. 2620:0:1000:110A:71BE:75D9:749D:32C9 (talk) 19:42, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That IP is me. Sorry for forgetting to log in, and expressing myself so poorly. The point is that disambiguation of this "unnecessary" sort is used, widely, in wikipedia, and is even encouraged in various naming guidelines and conventions, for the purpose of supporting the WP:CRITERIA or precision and recognizability. Those who argue against this use of disambiguation seem to want to take a very narrow view of what ambiguty is, and put zero value on precision. This approach is epitomized by the decade-long campaign of B2C for "title stability", described by him at User:Born2cycle#A_goal:_naming_stability_at_Wikipedia, where he espouses moving toward a system of unambiguous rules, essentially removing from editors the discretion to make titles more precise or less ambiguous than the shortest possible title that does not have a name conflict. To support this approach he has spent years rewording the recognizability, precision, naturalness, and consistency criteria to essentially minimize their value, leaving concisenss as the main criterion. I find this approach abhorrent. Dicklyon (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • No guidance from disambiguation should be created for article titles generally. If someone is looking for information about the Flemish Goose, which is very large and sometimes referred to as the Flemish Giant, then it is good to have the search box suggesting "Flemish Giant rabbit" as the only possibility before the person clicks and starts reading and is disappointed. Ditto for the Flemish Giant cross-stitch pattern. A recent example of a too-short page title that I came across was Hybrid name, which I moved to Hybrid name (botany) because on the talk page are such comments as "Why is this article written entirely from the point of view of plants, as if hybrid animals don't exist? We need to redress the balance." and the page itself had a tag "The examples and perspective in this article may not include all significant viewpoints. Please improve the article or discuss the issue. (May 2010)". The situation has clearly confused a few readers because although hybrid animals such as Ligers do exist, there is no special way of naming them, whereas for plants there is a detailed set of rules for creating scientific names. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:58, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Retain guidance as it stands - This isn't even a properly presented RfC. What is the problem with the current guidelines and why does it need to be re-evaluated per WP:PG? All I'm seeing here is WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT or something for the DRN (which would be rejected). --Iryna Harpy (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • No guidance. I feel that this sort of guidance should be integrated into WP:AT itself, if ever. I've been here on Wikipedia for a long time and I've always understood the WP:DAB guideline to only apply whenever two or more articles have ambiguous titles, and not merely because a non-ambiguous title sounds ambiguous. So such additional guidance that touches singularly on precision should be placed into WP:AT, where a more holistic look at the 5 criteria of good article titles should lead to better titles. Otherwise, the guidance placed on WP:DAB will seek to emphasize precision over the other criteria. —seav (talk) 03:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Injection of some facts and reliable sources, since at least half the respondents here don't seem to understand what "disambiguate" means. It is not a made-up Wikipedian neologism, for "resolve a title conflict between two articles" (resolving such conflicts is simply the most common use of disambiguation on WP; it has never, in the entire history of the project, been the only one).
    1. Definition of disambiguate at Dictionary.com (Random House Dictionary [US] and Collins English Dictionary [UK]): RH: "to remove the ambiguity from; make unambiguous: In order to disambiguate the sentence 'She lectured on the famous passenger ship,' you'll have to write either 'lectured on board' or 'lectured about.'"; Collins: "to make (an ambiguous expression) unambiguous".[30]
      Definition of ambiguous: RH: "1. open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal: an ambiguous answer; 2. Linguistics. (of an expression) exhibiting constructional homonymity; having two or more structural descriptions; 3. of doubtful or uncertain nature; difficult to comprehend, distinguish, or classify: a rock of ambiguous character; 4. lacking clearness or definiteness; obscure; indistinct: an ambiguous shape; an ambiguous future." Collins: "1. lacking clearness or definiteness; obscure; indistinct; 2. difficult to understand or classify; obscure."[31]
    2. Definition of disambiguate at OxfordDictionaries.com [UK & US]: "Remove uncertainty of meaning from (an ambiguous sentence, phrase, or other linguistic unit): 'word senses can be disambiguated by examining the context' ".[32][33]
      Definition of ambiguous: "(Of language) open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning: 'the question is rather ambiguous', 'ambiguous phrases' ".[34][35]; "Not clear or decided".[36]. Note that the definition some people want to apply here as if it were the only one does not appear to be a language-related one: "Unclear or inexact because a choice between alternatives has not been made: 'this whole society is morally ambiguous', 'the election result was ambiguous' ".[37]
    3. Definition of disambiguate at Dictionary.Cambridge.org [UK & US]: "specialized to show the ​differences between two or more ​meanings ​clearly: Good ​dictionary ​definitions disambiguate between ​similar ​meanings."[38]
      Definition of ambiguous: "having or ​expressing more than one ​possible ​meaning, sometimes ​intentionally: The movie's ending is ambiguous. ... His ​reply to my ​question was ​somewhat ambiguous. The ​wording of the ​agreement is ambiguous. The ​government has been ambiguous on this ​issue."[39] "having more than one possible ​meaning, and therefore likely to cause confusion: Many ​companies are ​appealing against the ​ruling, because the ​wording is ambiguous."[40]: in "Business" tab 
    4. Definition of disambiguate at Merriam-Webster.com/dictionary [US]: "to establish a single semantic or grammatical interpretation for".[41]
      Definition of ambiguous: "able to be understood in more than one way : having more than one possible meaning; not expressed or understood clearly; doubtful or uncertain especially from obscurity or indistinctness: eyes of an ambiguous color; capable of being understood in two or more possible senses or ways: an ambiguous smile; an ambiguous term; a deliberately ambiguous reply.[42] "Not expressed or understood clearly".[43]: Learner's Dictionary subsite 
Shall we continue?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think we all know what "disambiguation" means in the real world – however, I think it's one of those words, like "notability", that has acquired a very specific meaning in the world of Wikipedia. In the four years I've been here, I've only ever seen the word used in relation to article-title conflicts. WP:DAB, since its inception, has only ever been about article-title conflicts, and it's the broadening of the scope of this guideline that I object to. DoctorKubla (talk) 18:57, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (disambiguation)

  • More detailed background: Attempts to delete part of the guideline, which was established through standard consensus-building discussion and revision many months ago, are predicated on two obvious fallacies: 1) That "disambiguate" is a made-up Wikipedian neologism for "prevent article title collisions". Check any dictionary; it's a plain-English word meaning "to resolve ambiguity"; doing so to prevent title collisions is simply the most common reason we disambiguate and has never been the only one. 2) That WP:CONCISE is akin to a law, and that the most concise possible name must always be chosen no matter what. Actually read WP:AT policy – all of the WP:CRITERIA are considered, and balanced against each other; the overriding concern is not following any "rule" bureaucratically, but ensuring clarity for readers. The naming criteria "should be seen as goals, not as rules. For most topics, there is a simple and obvious title that meets these goals satisfactorily. If so, use it as a straightforward choice. However, in some cases the choice is not so obvious. It may be necessary to favor one or more of these goals over the others."

    The previous debates about this guidance are misrepresented in the the summary in the RfC, which incorrectly paints it as a slow editwar instead of removal, discussion, refinement, acceptance, then much latter isolated attempts to delete it without a rationale. In the original discussions 8 months ago here and here, Red Slash tried to move it into policy itself at WP:AT (rejected), objections were raised about iit original length (it was shortened), and about particular examples it use (removed); the principal objector was Francis Schonken, on the basis of having made a proposal to rewrite AT in ways that would have integrated this and made various other changes (which did not achieve consensus at AT). After revision, the short version of this material was accepted in WP:Disambiguation without incident since that second discussion. This is standard WP:BRD operating procedure, and this revision and resolution process is how consensus is established. By August, the principal objector, Schonken, was removing attempts to reinserted expanded wording and examples [44] but retaining the agreed short version from prior discussions [45], which had already been accepted for two months. It remained uncontroverted for 6 more months, clearly long enough for consensus to be established, especially in a much-watchlisted guideline we use every single day.

    It was drive-by deleted in Feb. by Born2Cycle, with a bogus claim that discussion didn't happen and consensus was not been established [46]. This is is part of his years-long, tendentious campaign to promote WP:CONCISE as some kind of "super-criterion" that trumps all other concerns – which WP:MFD has rejected three times in a row: 1, 2, 3. The recent attempt by Dohn joe to delete material was predicated on his unawareness of the February discussion (which is mischaracterizing as being against inclusion when it was not) [47], his misunderstanding of previous discussions (see WT:Disambiguation#Restored content on precision cut from lead, which covers much of what I've outline here in more detail), and more false claims that consensus was not established.

    After 8 months of stability, the burden is on would-be deleters to demonstrate what the supposed problem is, and provide actual evidence that WP-wide consensus that such precision-and-recognizability disambiguations are permissible when necessary has somehow disappeared all of a sudden. This RfC, and two editors' PoV against this part of WP:DAB, would undo very long-standing naming conventions that call for this kind of precision-and-recognizability disambiguation, like WP:USPLACE and WP:USSTATION, and fly in the face of years of common sense decisions at RM, like the disambiguation of Algerian Arab (now a disambiguation page) to Algerian Arab sheep, and British White to British White cattle. Per WP:POLICY, the purpose of guidelines is to record actual community best practice, not try to force someone's made up idea about how things should be, like changing the meaning of English words, or preventing RM from doing what RM routinely does. Retaining this does the former, and removing it does the latter, both to pretend the word "disambiguation" doesn't mean what it means, and as to elevate concision above every other criterion, against the clear wording of policy.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments (since there seems to be confusion): Wait! You mean I just don't like it doesn't mean we can change things just because? How about used in conjunction with and while ignoring all rules.
We have many policies and guidelines and a single one can not be used in disregard of others. I was under the impression we can not ignore all rules, if it is against consensus, even if we don't like it, unless we can sneak it in under the radar. FYI -- we should not really (according to policy) attempt to make or change policy by using WP:BRD unless we "ignore" the policy on Proposals and Good practice for proposals. The first states: "Proposals for new guidelines and policies require discussion and a high level of consensus from the entire community for promotion to guideline or policy.". The second: "If consensus for broad community support has not developed after a reasonable time period, the proposal is considered failed. If consensus is neutral or unclear on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal has likewise failed.".
Further, the procedural policy explains the process in detail that is located in the second part. A request for comments here is only one part of that process and not a determining factor for an outcome. Some confusion at Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance#Policy discussions seems to be at odds with policy and may contribute to errors. Policy (Good practice for proposals) states the process for any proposed changes to policy:
1)- The first step is to write the best initial proposal that you can.
2)- Authors can request early-stage feedback at Wikipedia's village pump for idea incubation and from any relevant WikiProjects.
3)- Once it is thought that the initial proposal is well-written, and the issues sufficiently discussed among early participants to create a proposal that has a solid chance of success with the broader community, start an RfC for your policy or guideline proposal in a new section on the talk page, and include the {rfc tag along with a brief, time-stamped explanation of the proposal.
4)- A RfC should typically be announced at this policy page (and/or the proposals page, and other potentially interested groups (WikiProjects).
There appears to be some confusion at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion concerning sequence or location but policy seems clear.
DAB: Does cover the topic question above as well as WP:AT. Although there are editors that seem to prefer parenthetical disambiguation, or unnecessary use of such on article titles (Britannica style), this has not been established by any broad consensus but more just the opposite according to policy natural disambiguation is preferred and parenthetical disambiguation as a last choice. The etymology of "disambiguation" would be "not unclear" which would be "not clarified". An article title should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that.. Recognizable, natural, and concise goes along with this. DAB states: "Disambiguation is also sometimes employed if the name is too ambiguous, despite not conflicting with another article (yet),". Consistency also goes along with these and gives more than one reason why we have Flemish Giant rabbit, Continental Giant rabbit, French Lop, Lop rabbit, Angora rabbit, and so forth. Certainly using the more common name according to references. Common sense is also thrown in there somewhere.
Conclusion: We should not attempt to change or change policies or guidelines on a whim or by any local consensus. The process is made somewhat complicated to prevent easy changes. DAB and AT do a fine job. I think if editors disagree then they should probably follow the above procedures. Otr500 (talk) 12:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]


Philippine government works - resolving contradiction between Commons and enwiki policy

Forking off this discussion from Wikipedia:Files_for_discussion/2016_March_20#File:Ph_seal_ifugao.png and Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2016_January_21#Template:Non-free_Philippines_government: Right now, the English Wikipedia considers {{Non-free Philippines government}} as a non-free file template but Wikimedia Commons considers commons:Template:PD-PhilippinesGov as free images on the grounds that the restriction mentioned by the enwiki template is a non-copyright one. This has been upheld here and here, more background on commons:Template talk:PD-PhilippinesGov. There is no reason why Wikipedia should have a more restrictive policy than Commons for images, especially given the difficulty of enforcing WP:NFCC for non-local files. Thus I am suggesting that the Wikipedia template should be matched to the Commons one, unless someone wants to reopen a deletion discussion for their template on Commons and do so successfully. Pinging @Stefan2, Tbhotch, TagaSanPedroAko, Geni, and Izno: as enwiki participants in related discussions.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:36, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would support this (that is, moving to Commons' stance). The issue appears to be beyond a copyright issue, similar in nature to trademarks or rights of publicity, which is beyond what the WMF cares about but that we still do provide disclaimers on Commons and here that reusers of images should validate that their reuses fall within their country's respective IP laws to reuse appropriately, but for us and the WMF servers in the US, we consider the images as meeting the free content goals. --MASEM (t) 15:16, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The current tags have been upheld in two Commons deletion requests and two TfD discussions on this project, and there has been further discussion at WT:C and probably also on Commons, so the issue seems complex. The problem is essentially that Wikipedia and Commons interpret the Philippine copyright law differently. I don't think that the Commons and Wikipedia communities are experts on Philippine copyright law, and I'm not sure if we should change any of the tags without getting some clarification from experts on Philippine law on whether such works are free content. Anything we do without getting such clarification may be wrong. I think that copyright tag stability is important here.
It might be a good idea to clarify WP:F8. Is the image's "license [...] status [...] beyond reasonable doubt", as required for deletion under that criterion? I'd assume not as Wikipedia and Commons interpret the law differently. It could also be useful to keep such files locally as we don't want logos removed from the articles about lots of organisations if Commons changes its mind about the issue. --Stefan2 (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

AfX: Move to userspace

At WP:AFD, many users' first articles are getting deleted, and that's okay. However, if an article is not a blatant hoax or vandalism, and has any potential to eventually become an accepted article, I believe these articles should be moved to the creator's userspace. This desicion would be made by consensus at the AFD page. This would create a more accepting environment for new editors while helping to create new articles. This is a win for everyone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ProgrammingGeek (talk • contribs) 04:18, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This result already regularly happens; there's nothing to propose here. Anyone who's created an article with potential can request that it be userspaced for additional work if the AfD looks like it won't be in favor of the article. This will usually be honored if the piece isn't totally unsalvageable (garage band, WP:NFT, copyright violation, attack page, etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: In-universe name details of fictional characters, in article leads

Should we list the in-universe (fictional) former names, aliases, middle names only ever mentioned rarely or in non-canon material, and other name variants of fictional characters, in the leads of these characters' articles? Example:

  • Jeanne Mary (Garcia) Deaux' is a character on the soap opera Last Days of Our Lives ...
  • Jeanne Mary Deaux' (formerly Jeanne Smith, born Juanita Maria Garcia) is a character on the soap opera Last Days of Our Lives ...
  • The Superfudge (in day-to-day life the reclusive businessman Robert O'Blivion, a carefully maintained alias of Petrov Vlaidimir Zorkov III) is a superhero in ...

A recent discussion of this matter, with editwarring and WP:ANI drama surrounding it, can be found at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Soap Operas#Middle names, maiden names, married names, birth names, etc.... This relates closely to previous discussions like Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics/Archive 48#Lead section and character names, about changing comics character leads (for articles at the name of the superhero/supervillain) to begin with the fictional "real" name of the character in everyday "life", as if these were articles on real people.

An excessive genuine example of the issue is here ("Nicole "Nikki" Newman (née Reed; previously Foster, Bancroft, DiSalvo, Abbott, Landers, Chow, and Sharpe) is a fictional character ..."), but is not representative of typical cases, and the RfC question is more general; i.e. it should be taken as using the first of the above examples as typical. It should also be noted that the simple formula "Superman is a fictional superhero.... As Clark Kent, he is a journalist by day...", or "Iron Man (Tony Stark) is a fictional superhero...", is typical in superhero/villain articles, and many other fiction (novel, TV series, etc.) articles on fictional characters with aliases, and this RfC is not challenging that. There are more complex cases as at Spider-Man, where the "real" (fictional) person who is the superhero has changed over time; these generally approach this matter with prose explanations, not long strings of alternative names, and is often handled outside the lead, as at The Shadow.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:02, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural note: I've included a bio tag on the RfC specifically because the style matter in question is mimicry of biographical style for fictional subjects, and it's expected that bio-focused editors will have opinions on whether it is great to do this a win for consistency or a detriment as a confusion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:04, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • No Leave pure minutiae to fanpedias, and not turn this one into Cruftipedia more than it already is. Robin (comics) is about the limit of what is "tolerable". Collect (talk) 21:11, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment—the style you give is pretty ugly, but I think it depends on how prominent the other names are. If we're talking about a maiden name that just happens to be mentioned on the show, then absolutely not—probably nowhere in the lead. If we're talking Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man, then Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, and Peter Parker needs to be mentioned in the lead—but if you look at their articles, none of them are done in the style you mention. If you're talking about the "in day-to-day life" language, then no, that should be avoided. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:26, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • No For the reasons I've already listed in the thread SMcCandlish linked to above (which was started by me) and at the other conversations on the matter I've also taken part in (I'll go find them now).Cebr1979 (talk) 22:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New RFC dealing with citation formatting and the scope of WP:CITEVAR

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Views are wanted at WT:CITE#RFC: Is a change in citation markup method a change in citation style?. There is a long standing dispute over this issue, and it really ought to be resolved. DES (talk) 22:06, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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