Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)

The miscellaneous section of the village pump is used to post messages that do not fit into any other category. Please post on the policy, technical, or proposals sections when appropriate, or at the help desk for assistance. For general knowledge questions, please use the reference desk.

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Merger proposal during AfD

I often see AfDs with lots of !votes for merge or redirect to some other article. If someone proposes a merger while the AfD is happening, what then? It sort of splits the discussion. Has this been discussed? Do we have some guidelines on this? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:01, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Many AFDs end up with "merge" as a result. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Administrator instructions covers how "merge" results are to be implemented. --Jayron 32 03:04, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Jayron32. But what about when AfD and merger discussions happene concurrently and both are going in opposite directions? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:18, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And sometimes there is a concurrent page move discussion and merger discussion.

This example shows that: A May 15, 2016 page move request then a May 16, 2017 merger proposal. They were both ongoing at the same time and it caused a bit of confusion as the page move wanted A --> B while the merger wanted B --> A. Do we need some sort of protocol? Linking to each other so users are aware? Making them subsequent (if needed) and not concurrent? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:18, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The protocol is covered at WP:FORUMSHOP; though not explicitly. Best practice is to merge the discussions in some way. --Jayron 32 03:21, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some way? Ah, and therein lies the rub. (I always like saying that, but am not sure when it applies.) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can't speak about which direction these are going, but Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Covfefe incident and Talk:Donald Trump on social media are happening right now. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:22, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion: If this were handled soon after the RM discussion opened, a close on grounds of FORUMSHOP, with an explicit link to the AFD, would have been appropriate. However, with this many votes (including 2 admins), it's too late to do this. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:02, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi עוד מישהו. Certainly for the example pointed out above, it is too late. But what about some way of handing this in the future? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:31, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If the merge request was madew after the AFD, then simply close the move request with a link to the AfD. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:54, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I like that idea, but would that be allowed? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think that we can IAR in this case, considering that it's close to Speedy keep #2 (since forum shopping is disruptive to the processes here), as well as the "wrong forum" rukle (since once the page has been nominated for AfD, merging it should be discussed there). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:33, 6 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi עוד מישהו. I'm thinking of future cases only. So yes? Would one get yelled at for quickly (before too many !votes start to land) closing the second or third item and posting a link to the first item as the centralized/first place for discussion? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:31, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen discussions at WP:AN being closed quickly for reqsons such as FORUMSHOPPING, never seen it at merge requests. The only real test for IAR is to do it and see how others respond - altyhough it won't go beyond yelling and possibly asking you to undo the closure. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:24, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

An additional thing you can do is put a note at the top of each requesting a single closer preform a unified close of both. A good closer can hopefully find a reasonable combined outcome, even if the two conflict. Alsee (talk) 11:43, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Alsee. Wouldn't that be fixing it after it was broken? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:31, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anna Frodesiak, preventing the problem in the first place is of course best. I was just trying to add an option to clean up a mess that has already formed. Your comment at 03:18, 2 June appeared to suggest two well developed discussions that had effectively formed consensuses in opposite directions. If it is a contentious matter, I can picture a battle breaking out over which of the two discussions should be squashed. Alsee (talk) 12:11, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Of course dear Alsee. I am sorry. I did not mean to appear ungrateful. Yes, indeed a way to nip it in the bud is best. As for the current thing, discussing how it should be handled here may not be best. Let's let that one happen as it will. You are welcome, of course, to post at one of those pages, but I fear it too late to help that case.

So, the future: Can we, if we see a second item started, quickly close it and send people to the first item? Would that put all heaven in a rage? Would that get us all hiding under the proverbial sofa? (There is no proverbial sofa. Sofas aren't used in proverbs.) :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 12:33, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, closing a discussion and linking to the other one normally works pefectly. It's a well established practice for merging a split discussion. The more swiftly you catch&close the second discussion the better.

I'm sorry if I created confusion. I have a habit of considering worst case scenarios. Heh. The idea of "requesting a single closer preform a unified close of both" should only be done as a last resort. It would be an attempt to salvage the situation if you have two large, well developed, conflicting discussions, and people start squabbling over how to fix it. Alsee (talk) 13:41, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Adding ping for Anna Frodesiak. Alsee (talk) 13:43, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Alsee.

Hearing "...well established practice..." is music to my ears. Good!

And you didn't create any confusion. I am in a state of confusion that was created at birth. Bad DNA or something. They explained but I was all confused.

Anyhow, now I know what to do (or recommend) in advance. That's good, because, like you said "...the more swiftly..." Best wishes and thank you!!! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:01, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anna, it's reasonably well-established, but so is the practice of complaining that the "wrong" discussion was closed. And – well, perhaps some editors are perfect, but I think that most of us have accidentally overlooked pointers to other discussions at least on occasion, and if we usually hang out on one page but not the other, then inertia becomes an issue. It can be hard to actually get a discussion moved, even if people aren't upset about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi WhatamIdoing. Wouldn't the first discussion be the wrong one to close, and concurrent ones discussing the same thing that were started after be the right one(s)? And if there were 2 !votes, it could seem reasonable, but if there were dozens, should that ever be closed mid-way? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:08, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I can imagine all of these arguments, plus more, in both directions. "Mine was first – close the other one" followed by "Mine is the current one – stop yours!", and so forth. I recommend using your best judgment, being gentle with people who aren't paying attention, and possibly copying/pasting one discussion into the other (ideally so that it pings everyone whose comments you've moved). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I'll take it case-by-case. And I'm not sure about copy pasting being a good plan, and I doubt if it would ping more than a few people, and it may ping nobody. Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:38, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to test and discuss the Echo notifications blacklist

Hello,

To answer a request from the 2016 Community Wishlist for more user control of notifications, the Anti-harassment tools team is exploring changes that allow for adding a per-user blacklist to Echo notifications. This feature allows for more fine tuned control over notifications and could curb harassing notifications. We invite you to test the new feature on beta and then discuss it with us. For the Anti-harassment tools team SPoore (WMF) (talk) , Community Advocate, Community health initiative (talk) 15:25, 2 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

When a WP language version is (mostly) inactive

Prompted by this post to ANI, I looked at the Romani Wikipedia and noticed that it seems to be fairly inactive. What is the best advice to give to people who discover abuse - in particular blatant abuse as reported in the linked post - at an inactive language version? Is it the stewards that step in? (I don't actually know whether there are active admins at rmy.wp, but I'm guessing that there may not be a lot of them given that there is a banner at the top of the project's pages calling for a revival of Romani Wikipedia, if interested speakers of the language can be found.)

Sorry if this question is misplaced, but hopefully there's somebody who can at least point me at a relevant guideline :-) --bonadea contributions talk 09:49, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Bonadea: Not sure of the best place, but it's certainly not here, which is solely concerned with the English Wikipedia. Discussion about Wikipedia in other languages (where posting on that other language Wikipedia is impractical) is normally done at meta:, and I think that you could start at m:Talk:Language committee. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:00, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

bonadea, global or cross-wiki issues are handled at Meta wiki. ~~Their "Village Pumps" is at Meta:Babel.~~ Meta:Wikimedia Forum is probably the more appropriate page. If Romani is defunct, or admins are unavailable or there is any sort of systemic dysfunction, that's where to raise the issue. Alsee (talk) 11:58, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess that if you find abuse, especially with inactive or small wikis, you should contact one of the meta:Stewards. --Izno (talk) 12:18, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Belated thanks to all. I knew that en.wp is not the place to report abuse at other wp versions, obviously, but the IP who made the report did not know it and I thought it would be more helpful to find out where they should go to report it. Thank you Alsee for adding that info to the ANI thread! Cheers, --bonadea contributions talk 18:52, 7 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Plot to Hack America and Donald Trump series

Should the article The Plot to Hack America make use of the template {{Donald Trump series}} ?

See Request for Comment, at Talk:The_Plot_to_Hack_America#RfC_about_the_Donald_Trump_series. Sagecandor (talk) 05:37, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Disambig for topics not covered on Wikipedia?

I just noticed that we have articles on Kaushik Narshibhai Patel and Timil Kaushik Patel, both of whom (if Wikipedia is to be believed -- I've actually never heard of either of them) essentially share a name with a convicted murderer who doesn't appear to be mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia.

I'm a little concerned that crime junkies who don't know anything about cricket might accidentally think that one or the other of the above cricketers, both apparently LPs, is the same person as the child-murderer, also probably an LP. I'm a crime junkie who doesn't know anything about cricket and I quickly figured out what was going on, but I'm also a Wikipedian with above-average knowledge of how WP:NATHLETE and WP:NCRIME work, which probably can't be said for most of our readers.

Is there precedent for some kind of "Not to be confused with such-and-such person about whom we don't have an article" headnote?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:33, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the guideline says not to (WP:NOARTICLE) so it is actually already covered. Whether it's a good idea is a different question. However, if the alternative subject is not notable enough for inclusion, why mention him at all? Should we place hatnotes on all articles of people with common names because there are certainly enough convicted criminals with the same name ("This John Smith is not a murderer, rapist, arsonist etc. but there is a guy with the same name you might have heard of")? Or can't we trust our readers to assume that the subject of the article is not a criminal if the article contains no information about a crime? Regards So Why 12:15, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there's much you can or should do in that sort of situation. Writing "this person is not a murder/rapist/pedophile/terrorist" in someone's biography is severely prejudicial. It can consciously or subconsciously plant that idea, where it didn't previously exist. If we were to dig up every name of non-notable every person in history who committed some crime or scandalous act, we would wind up with one or multiple name-matches for a huge number of biographies. Alsee (talk) 12:44, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thing is, though, the criminal might well not be non-notable, while the cricketers might well be. NATHLETE is infamously loose, while we are extremely strict about standalone articles on criminals (oftentimes what would essentially be a biographical on a criminal is deliberately written to be about the crime, even when said crime does meet the much stricter standards of NCRIME). BLP also makes it a lot easier to write about athletes who are peripherally notable and have not been the source of any significant controversy than about violent criminals who don't merit encyclopedia articles but whose presence in news media means their names are likely at least as well known as said athletes. You may well be right that writing "Not to be confused with..." could very well create that association needlessly. I'm just putting this out there to see what people think; I'm not actually considering editing the articles to this effect -- if I did I would just do it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Signpost's newest issue

News update: The WP:Signpost just published the newest issue after over three-month hiatus. Read it all yourselves. --George Ho (talk) 02:47, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Curious about "probably good edits"

Hi. Long-term RC patroller here. Along with options showing and hiding registered/unregistered users edits there's a new option on the Recent changes page about hiding and showing "probably good edits". I'm curious about what the difference is that makes an edit a 'probably good edit' compared to one that isn't. Thanks. Minima © (talk) 21:51, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It was originally called "Hide good edits".[1] See mw:ORES review tool which still uses the old name. Users who enable "New filters for edit review" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures don't see this option but instead get more detailed options. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:49, 9 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Minima, the edits are examined by a machine-learning system (a simple AI). The strongest factor for a potentially bad edit is simply that it was made by an IP. It also looks for profanity, words like 'gay' or 'faggot', strings of repeated letters, all caps, blanking sections, WP:puffery words, words like "I", various kinds of wikitext-markup changes, and tons of other stuff. I think it can spot if it was previously reverted. Basically a "probably good edit" is one that has lots of good features and no bad ones. For example an edit that contains a <ref> probably gets rated more positively. Cited info, from a user experienced enough to use a ref, is much less likely to be damaging. However the software can't understand the meaning of a sentence, so it can't tell if the info is biased or wrong. Alsee (talk) 08:00, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the detailed reasoning. I understand that it isn't perfect, but it probably is a better option to use to patrol certain edits if Cluebot isn't working. Minima © (talk) 13:03, 10 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Anon editor making small changes to Hebrew text

212.198.122.22 (talk · contribs) is making large numbers of small changes to Hebrew text. See Special:Contributions/212.198.122.22. There are no edit comments. Someone who reads Hebrew should check these. Could be improvement, vandalism, or some dispute over Hebrew spelling. Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 20:15, 11 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Volunteer closed RFC and refuses to explain why

Recently I had an RFC which was closed (inappropriately I feel) by an inexperienced volunteer. When I went to the volunteers page and asked (very politely I might add) for an explanation, I was at first told "No - I see no need". Upon further inquiry, the volunteer agreed to explain the reason for his closure, and then promptly disregarded his commitment to do so. Further entreaties were met with radio silence. Here is a link to said discussion - is this how volunteers are supposed to behave when asked a simple question that would take less than 5 minutes to answer? 2600:1012:B068:9A8C:51CA:D45C:30DF:BD0E (talk) 00:03, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

IP, could you please link to the RFC discussion and not just to the user's talk page? Oiyarbepsy (talk) 00:27, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Please disregard - situation has been handled. 2600:1012:B05A:3A60:CCDD:CB0D:4EA6:40F2 (talk) 00:58, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]