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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jytdog (talk | contribs) at 20:45, 24 August 2017 (→Proposal for new section under "Not a Newspaper: Not real-time news reaction, commentary, and analysis: RfC launched). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy

Just to notify you about the ongoing discussion: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy. Join in there to comment. --George Ho (talk) 16:48, 13 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

 Relisted The discussion was moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy. Then I have relisted the discussion, i.e. gave the discussion additional 30 days. Therefore, more participants would be welcome to comment at the newer page there during the extended time. --George Ho (talk) 01:48, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

International reactions RFC from April 2016

Just dropping by, since we discovered in a bit of archaeology, that nothing was implemented in WP:NOTNEWS regarding international reactions as a result of this April 2016 RFC at VPPOL. Does anyone here want to take a stab at an addition/amendment to NOTNEWS? --Izno (talk) 20:31, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

NOTESSAY

Hey all.

There is really no place that I have found that makes it clear really clear that Wikipedia articles are not like essays that a student might do for school in which they make an argument. (do you remember the 5 part format -- Intro/thesis statement, three arguments or chunks of evidence, conclusion/restatement of thesis?) I deal all the time with folks who want to add essay-like content and make arguments in Wikipedia. NOTESSAY comes kind of close to discussing this, but not really. I think a new item 4, after "personal essay", something like this? (very rough first draft)

4. Scholarly essay. Wikipedia articles are not scholarly essays. Such essays are written in dialogue with scholarship and cite sources, but they are written in order to make an argument, and they attempt to persuade the reader to accept the argument. People spend their grade school, high school, and college educations writing essays, but that is not what we do in Wikipedia.  The genre here is encyclopedia article. We summarize accepted knowledge. We describe. See WP:TIGER and the related section below, WP:SOAPBOX.

That is no where said in our policies and guidelines, that I have been able to find. It is kind of covered in SYN but SYN is a bit different. This is about the genre. Jytdog (talk) 22:13, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

You are onto something and may be discussed. However your description of essays is not without fault. I suspect it is US-centric. Essaays are not only for argument/debate; they also may be for discovery. That said, I do agree that with the promotion of wikipedia as school assignment, I see more and more articles written in "student's style", and a shortcut to an advice would be handy. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:32, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Happy! Please keep in mind that "personal essay" is #3 - that is more of the "thought experiment"/discovery thing, I think you have in mind? Jytdog (talk) 22:38, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I was it it, I see that NOTESSAY and paratitle "Personal essays" are a bit misleading. I would suggest to rename "Personal essays" into "Personal opinions" (according to the actual text of the paragraph) and retarget NOTESSAY to the new section proposed. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:40, 22 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I support this. (In fact it's along the RFA style of 'thought it was one already'!) — fortunavelut luna 15:46, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Re-proposal to include Wikibooks as part of cross-wiki search results

Another proposal to display Wikibooks pages in search results is made at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Join in there. --George Ho (talk) 18:21, 25 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Obituary nominated as RfD

Wikipedia:Obituary and other similar redirects are discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2017 June 18#Wikipedia:Obituary, where I invite you to join in. --George Ho (talk) 15:43, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is Wikipedia not a television guide?

I think Bertrand101 socks keep adding the not television guide and maybe to Bertrand101 to add unsourced info on Korean articles. Is Wikipedia not a television guide yet? 66.87.64.113 (talk) 22:04, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Articles" about academics

I run into the problem constantly, that articles about faculty members get treated by the faculty member, their department administrators, and many editors here, like a typical faculty profile page. Many of these folks even link to "their" Wikipedia page on "their" actual faculty webpage.

In my view these faculty articles are perfect conceptual trainwrecks of people mistaking WP for a personal webhost (NOTWEBHOST/NOTCV), like it is a place to record news about themselves (NOTNEWS) including of course their latest book that is coming out in a few months, and every article they ever published, and a vehicle for promotion (PROMO).

So with respect to this policy (!) here is the conceptual compare/contrast question about

a) a faculty profile page at a university website and
b) a legit WP encyclopedia article about a faculty person.
  1. What is the difference (there is no need to mention that the WP article needs to pass N or that the WP articles needs to have sources and needs to be free of puffery, etc. This is trivial.)
  2. How are they the same

Can we articulate any meaningful conceptual difference? I don't believe we can. Jytdog (talk) 15:01, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably academics are familiar with encyclopedias and thus with what encyclopedia articles look like. It shouldn't be too hard to explain to them that WP:NOTCV applies when an article looks more like a "faculty webpage" or a résumé than an encyclopedia article. Deor (talk) 15:21, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not helpful. Please do answer the questions above. What is the difference, conceptually? How are they the same? Jytdog (talk) 15:42, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As you say, I think item 1 is obvious: reliable, independent sources talking about the person in-depth such that notability is established. That won't show up in a CV. What won't show up in a WP page are "character references" and information about the person or his activities which have not been published by reliable sources.
What might be the same: A list of publications which he has authored or been involved in, per WP:SELFPUB. A list of worked at-places might be reasonable. A list of fields of interest. Important contributions to his field of interest. (Hopefully, these are WP:RSd per BLP, but we might reasonably accept more WP:SELFPUB as long as the publication occurs-first elsewhere per WP:OR/WP:V.) There might be some other things here and there. --Izno (talk) 15:50, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
At least one difference is: whereas a university webpage is bound to have a a full list of publications and patents and presentations by the academic, our pages should only include key papers. (although we should fully document all books they wrote completely or edited). The full list is CV-type material, but unimportant for the long-term. --MASEM (t) 15:54, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So far, no sharp differences content-wise except the WP article should not include the full list of articles published. On that, please note that there is a very old argument in WP about that. There are people who vehemently believe a full publication list should be included, and if it gets too long it should become a separate bibliography page. (See the language here and here and here which say nothing about "selection" but rather flatly say "books or other works created by the subject of the article" and the like) Pinging User:DGG as I believe he has been part of the arguments over this in the past. Also interested in his take on the OP. Jytdog (talk) 17:02, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Please also be aware that per WP:NPROF there are lots of people who believe that GNG is not relevant to notability for academics. We cannot even say anything like "multiple independent reliable sources" or much of anything about independently sourced content for articles like this. This is part of why we are in a situation where as far as I can see, there is no conceptual difference between a normal university faculty page and a WP article about the person. Jytdog (talk) 17:07, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
First, there is no need to meet the GNG. This is one case where the guideline is unambiguous that the standard is not in addition to the GNG, but an alternative. The GNG is of course relevant if the person is also known for something other than academic importance--if they are for example a member of a legislature. It is undecided if the GNG can be used as an alternative for the academic work, or whether it is altogether irrelevant to that aspect of notability. The question arises when someone who doe not meet WP:PROF nonetheless has received writeups in the press--the most frequent example is young people whose accomplishments may be impressive for their age, but not meeting the WP:PROF requirements;another example whose interesting sounding medical idea is picked by the press but not the profession. AfD decisions here have gone both ways for fairly similar cases. (I'd tend to look also at NOT ADVOCACY for these, to remove promotional articles--promotions do not have to be commercial)
Second, the basic requirement is that their work be influential. This can be shown by prizes, appointments etc. as provided in WP:PROF , but the basic way academics are influential and recognized as authorities is by being cited. This is the rule the profession uses--nothing much counts for promotion except well-cited publications in good journals or books by major academic publishers. In science and other fields where notability is by journal articles, the most cited journal articles are what show notability. It is not the h value--any number of mediocre publications does not bring notability, and that's what h measures. Eugene Garfield who invented the method in the 1960s thought of it primarily for biomedicine, and considered the key level to be articles with 100 citations or more. The number depends on the field, and is best thought of as the citation density--the number of citations per article. In the physical sciences and mathematics the key value is lower than 100--in chemistry it is probably around 60, in math lower. There are all sorts of special cases: multiple authorship, self-citation, high counts from review articles that do not represent original research, etc. It is possible to actually determine this objectively by comparison with people widely recognized as highly notable--for example, by the other criteria. In the articles, we usually list only the 4 or 5 most important papers, which are normally the most highly cited, or the most highly cited recent work. The rest can be found in the CV. This is different from what we do for filmographies and the like, partially because we have an objective standard for importance. We usually pay attention only to papers in peer-reviewed journals, not conference presentation, except in those fields of engineering where peer-reviewed conference papers are considered of equal or greater importance.
For people in the humanities and history and any other field where books are the method of publication the reviews of the books are as important a the citations. All books from academic presses are exhaustively peer-reviewed before publication, and 2 or 3 books is the general standard. They will always be reviewed, and the number of citations depends on the field but is inherently low, because the citation density of books is much less than articles because of their much more substantial nature. It's normal for someone in these field for us to include a list of all the books authored or edited but not any book chapters, journal articles , or other publications, none of which counts all that much. (note that all this needs to be interpreted different before about 1950--certainly before 1900-- and in esoteric fields and non-Western traditions.)
There's a simple shortcut we should use, but is still not a formal criterion. Anyone holding a full professorship in a major research university will invariable meet the requirements for influence by publications. The reason is that we use the same standard they do. We should trust the interpretation of a tenure committee in such a university much mroe than what we can do here.
The difference between an academic CV and an encyclopedia article is that an academic CV lists everything-- every committee, every guest lecture, every conference talk, every interview. encyclopedia articles do not do this. The difference between an encyclopedia article and a press release is the an encyclopedia article list the education and positions in chronological order giving specifics of dates, and gives specific publication data and links, letting the journal articles or books speak for themselves, while a press release focuses on the latest position, is often vague about dates, often is sloppy about exact references to the publications, and describe in enthusiastic language what a great advance their work is, and why they are important to major world problems. (That's actually a distinguishing characteristic nature of press releases in all fields of endeavor). DGG ( talk ) 22:41, 14 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As with all writing, the key aspect that shapes the tone and content is the intended audience. A faculty profile is targeted for students and other professors to learn primarily about the professor's professional career. It generally will have a limited length, compared with a biography. It will focus on professional accomplishments, possibly with a greater emphasis on more recent ones, and usually will downplay any criticism or controversy, if it is mentioned at all. A biography takes a more complete view of its subject, covering personal as well as professional history. This can include numerous details about the subject's life, hobbies, and personal views, unrelated to the person's career.
At an individual sentence level, assuming a neutrally-written faculty profile, there probably won't be much difference: a sentence written in a profile could well appear within a biography. But a biography will encompass a greater scope and accordingly will have a greater length, as it is targeted at a broader audience with a more general interest in all aspects of the subject's life. isaacl (talk) 03:17, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate the time people have taken to reply, but nothing here is helpful to guide the admin of a professor who was told to buff up/update the professor's article. I have seen no concrete differences between a faculty web page (the question was not asking about the difference between a WP article and a CV - that difference is obvious). Where there is controversy that is an obvious difference but is a rare situation. And Isaacl hell no - WP articles are not places to list all kinds of trivia like someone's hobbies. for pete's sake.
Here are some concrete examples (the first three have recent issues; the last three are just random):
Jytdog (talk) 19:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You asked us to assume that notability, etc. were already taken care of. Obviously, anything contained within an article has to meet Wikipedia sourcing standards. This does mean that if someone's hobbies have garnered notable attention, they can be covered. (Claude Shannon, for example, is known to be a juggler.) If not, then they won't.
Yes, it's difficult to provide guidance, because a neutrally-written faculty profile can certainly be a stub biography. isaacl (talk) 19:34, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize if discussing the different natures of a faculty profile vs. a biography isn't helping you with your objectives. I was hoping that the discussion might help prompt any interested contributors to discern some greater differences that would help you. I'm sorry if it hasn't been any assistance. isaacl (talk) 19:43, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
User:Isaac i am sorry for being snappish. I think the community consensus on this is probably that there is almost no difference. I appreciate you providing input. Jytdog (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm surprised to see this thread posted here without reference to Jytdog's previous discussion on the same topic. I'm not sure there's a different answer forthcoming from posting the same issue on a different page, and to be frank I don't think your argument has improved with age. Of the handful of examples with "recent issues", in one case you appear to have reverted neutrally worded and easily verifiable updates to a BLP on the grounds that the person who made those edits acknowledges a COI.
In any event, the simplest explanation for the similarities you say you observe is that readers come to both Wikipedia articles about academics and to faculty pages looking for similar information, i.e. their place of work, their career history and affiliations, and their research or scholarly activities and how they fit into their broader academic field. Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:53, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
User:Opabinia regalis. This had nothing to do, whatsoever, with notability. The question asked explicitly assumes that status quo of PROFN and does not question it. The misrepresentation is noted. What you appear to be saying is that a WP page about an academic who meets PROFN is, appropriately, basically same as a typical faculty web page and that for academics to use WP as a professional webhost (like your average academic uses their faculty webpage, which tend not to be ridiculously promotional) is just fine. Thanks for providing your input. Jytdog (talk) 05:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Edit break

I've started a number of pages on historians (User:K.e.coffman#Historians), so my comments apply most to those in humanities. In my mind, the requirements for an encyclopedic article are two-fold:

  1. The lead establishes why the person is significant in the field: i.e. major research; notable publications; awards that are significant and well known, etc.
  2. The bulk of the article consists of 3rd party analysis of the subject's work.

The difference between the uni profile / CV and an encyclopedia article is that the former generally does not include Part 2 (3rd party analysis). Compare: Wendy Lower, faculty profile and Wendy Lower.

Does this help? K.e.coffman (talk) 21:12, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, this is a dead on, to the point answer. That is not how most articles about academics are written, and would provide a significant difference between a faculty webpage and a WP article about the person. Thanks! I am interested to hear people's responses to this. Thanks again. Jytdog (talk) 06:00, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

NCORP

Just providing a notification here that we are gathering proposals for an RfC to raise NCORP standards at the Talk page of that guideline; see here. Jytdog (talk) 18:23, 24 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for new section under "Not a Newspaper: Not real-time news reaction, commentary, and analysis

Based on a lot of issues over articles over the past 2+ years, I think we need to add a new case under Not a Newspaper to specifically discourage/prevent editors from focusing too much on the the reactions, commentary, and analysis that flood the news after/during a current controversial event.

This needs to be clear that this is not the same as covering notable, breaking events, as there are times we cover these less controversial topics well (such as disasters). We do not want to discourage editors from that, but we do want to avoid trying to rush to include the endless parade of talking heads throwing their opinions in the ring, particularly if the event is the type that generates a lot of talk and controversy. Trying to cover the analysis and commentary in real-time while such events are going on can be problematic and does not reflect the fact that we rather have topics discussed in this manner after a long time has passed from the conclusion of the event so that we have a better judgement of how to apply UNDUE and the like. This might be days, weeks, or months after the event has happened, but this is how we'd approach any event that already occurred in the past. We should not be letting the availability of volumes of talking-head opinions in the immediate wake of our event coverage drive how that article is written in the short term. This is essentially hitting on WP:RECENTISM as well as elements of WP:DEADLINE. Of course, if it is the news commentary that affects the actual event, documenting that as part of the controversy should be done. We want editors to document a controversy, but go no further than that until they have enough sources far enough removed to figure out that picture. --MASEM (t) 05:48, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

+ ten zillion. We are not part of the blogosphere! Just the facts please. Jytdog (talk) 05:51, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would strongly support this. I've made it clear I hate "reaction" sections on major event pages. I'd take this a step further and recommend a proposal to the MOS that reactions of (1) the head of state where the event occurred and (2) the regional leader (mayor, governor, etc.) are the only two notable ones by default. Others like NAACP (e.g., with Ferguson) or GLAAD (e.g., with Orlando) might be notable if major outlets report on it. Political candidates are generally not (the media reports a hard sneeze from them usually). Platitudes are not either. EvergreenFir (talk) 05:55, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
While "Reactions" sections to major events is definitely one area that I think this needs to cover, it does go beyond that too. A prime example of problem articles that this would influence is Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections; I don't edit this but there's seemingly a NPOV/N or BLP/N issue about it once a week because editors are rushing to add in talking-head commentary and putting aside actual, important reactions (like those actually involved in situation). It is very easy to use the endless stream of 24/7 news channels to support any viewpoint one wants, whereas weat this point should be aiming to only identify factual events in the larger picture. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
WP:RECENTISM is a huge issue, but I've yet to see Wikipedia combat it well, except for occasional cases. The WP:RSBREAKING guideline already tackles "current event[s] in real time" and recentism. I don't think addressing it at this policy page will help much, but trying is an option. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:19, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with this- should help separate the cruft from the actual topic, and provide a policy with which to deal with it. — fortunavelut luna 09:53, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested shift of focus: In coverage of anything, not only the very most currtentest events, opinions, hypotheses and speculations are encyclopedic only if they have major impact or significant overage. Therefore the subject discussed here is a special case of WP:DUE. Of course, it may be reasonable to elaborate on it in the context of WP:NOT in this generic form, i.e., WP:NOTPUNDITFORUM: Not a collection of opinions of everybody about everything. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:06, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen, not in exactly these words but in intent, that per UNDUE, if there are many published opinions about something (typically from the press that are part of our RS collective) who are otherwise uninvolved that per UNDUE we should be including those, to a point where the opinions/stances of those actually involved with the controversial event are then considered FRINGE views and not be included. Which is not documenting the controversy. UNDUE has a perfectly fine place, when the dust has settled and we're trying to write how something will be seen externally in the long-term, but we need language similar to what I or Staszek Lem are suggesting to avoid UNDUE being used in the short term. --MASEM (t) 20:25, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There're a couple reasons I'm a little leery of this. One is... well, we're here to serve the readers. The most readers are often most interested in an event soon after it happens. Something happens, people go to Wikipedia to learn about it. They do. I don't see the advantage of not serving these people. Maybe it's necessary, if y'all say so and can demonstrate it, OK. But acknowledge that there's a cost.

(And IMO stuff like "I've made it clear I hate 'reaction' sections on major event pages" demonstrates little beyond people's personal interests in what they like to read, which, so what? Then skip it. If there's a demonstration that this stuff is inherently low-quality -- we get it wrong too often, or whatever, and this is essentially structural to the event being recent -- that's differnt of course.

Could we see some specific examples of articles or other material that is problematic? Herostratus (talk) 21:04, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Right and what WP should do it is give the facts of the matter. That is how we best serve readers. To the extent we provide important player's perspectives, that should have less WEIGHT than the actual facts. Otherwise we just become an extension of the blogosphere and whatever battles are being waged out there, get pulled in here, which becomes just a tremendous waste of time for every body. The proposal helps us all avoid that. Jytdog (talk) 21:15, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What I wrote above is my general approach in all the subjects I edit in. But you asked for an example - I have been working on Charlie Gard case and have been advocating there that we keep all the furore in the blogosphere at a minimum and give the most WEIGHT to what was wrong with the baby and what actually happened in the various court cases. People have been wanting to replay the arguments in social media and to even interweave them. Some of it has crept in despite my efforts but hey this a community project so one has to compromise. In my view we serve readers as I said above, by presenting the facts of the matter cleanly, and sketching interpretations separately. We don't get into the weeds of rehearsing those battles here per WP:Beware of tigers. Since i have offered this as an example, I will post there that I have done this. Jytdog (talk) 21:26, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the most recent examples involve anything that has touched the last election and Trump-related articles. A very specific example is James Comey. Among other issues one specific point of concern was inclusion of other opinioned reasons of why Comey was let go from office in May 2017 that was different from what the official dismissal memo said. Now, considering how many moving parts there are on the election/Russia interference story, the dust over that and anyone involved, particularly Comey, hasn't settled, so we don't know how to see this situation properly from a longevity viewpoint. In an encyclopedic perfect world, we'd have noted only what the dismissal memo specifically said, and that the dismissal was seen as controversial, at least until a point in time where these events are a thing of the past, but instead, there's inclusion of several theories from RSes (so not in violation of any other content policy) that bloat it out, and written in a manner to be critical of the dismissal (and of Trump by that nature). At one point, one editor argued that the dismissal memo wasn't important because we can't trust that was the reason for dismissal. Editors like these are playing games with policy and the near-endless supply of Trump-critical opinions and analyses to maintain a certain viewpoint on articles, which may or may not be appropriate, we just can't tell right now. It is far better to avoid giving any more detail beyond what is the verified truth and possibly not appear complete, as that state then can be expanded on once we have the correct long-term view of the situation; rather than trying to crap a selective choice of opinion or analysis into an article while the situation is still happening. --MASEM (t) 00:13, 1 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Agree that it is certainly an issue. But degree-of-relevance is also relevant to this. :-) Per the framework at WP:Relevance, "reaction to" is one step removed from coverage directly of the topic, with greater selectivity required. While this issue may arise more with current news, coverage of reaction is a common way to tilt an article (a wp:npov issue). Also I'm not so sure that it's an issue for wp:not; it's probably more of an issue for wp:npov and our missing relevance guideline, and missing infusion of wp:coatrack principles into policies and guidelines. North8000 (talk) 21:31, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That is a good point about NPOV and coatrack but a lot of this has to do with what people see WP as being for. In my view a lot of the problems addressed by the proposal are actually related to the SOAPBOX part of the policy, but addressing this under NOTNEWS in a subsection like WP:NOTBLOGOSPHERE or yes WP:NOTPUNDITFORUM would be immensely helpful to add clarity to help keep everyone on-mission. Jytdog (talk) 21:35, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
While reactions are one step removed and are secondary sources, what is at issue is short-term reactions, even by journalists and analysts that have studied the situation in depth but still speaking their opinion without considering the long-term. We want the long-term secondary coverage, once the matter has settled down to gauge opinions, but not while it is at a fevered pitch. The reason that it is suggested here at NOT is that it covers several different content issues. Some of this is NPOV issues, but there are, for example, the case of "reactions to major disaster" sections that certainly are neutral but when it is just a list of condolences, its not appropriate content, so falls under NOT. I also see this analagous to being not a newspaper, we're also not a talking-heads 24/7 news station ala CNN, FOX, or CNBC, which has news coverage but in a far different matter from a typical newspapre and also far from what an encyclopedia should be .--MASEM (t) 21:38, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Good points by both Jytdog and Masem. I'm always leery of provisions that overlap with other policies or try to fix a problem in the wrong place but I think that you are in essence saying (or led me to) that the issue is so much bigger in areas covered in wp:not (e.g. "not a newspaper") that it would be good to cover it here. Agree. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:07, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Proposed language - I want to hash this out first here, but I do think we need to have then a full RFC about this since it is a core concept policy and going to link in a non-policy page (RECENTISM) which some might balk at.
    Real-time news reactions, commentary and analysis While Wikipedia can excel at the cooperative development of detailed articles on breaking events in near real-time, editors should keep such articles focused on facts and immediate impacts, and avoid including opinions, reactions, commentary, or similar analysis generated in the short-term by the media or by others not directly connected to the event, despite the quantity of such sources that may be available. We seek to cover an event's permanence and, as there is no deadline to getting these articles right, should only include such commentary and analysis well after the event has ended so that we can evaluate the proper balance of long-term views of the event's significance. This is particularly important for controversial events; we want to document the controversy but not comment on it until the dust from the controversy has long since settled.
  • I suck at policy language so feel free to adjust/amend/rewrite, etc. --MASEM (t) 16:36, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question People commenting so far seem to have a certain type of Wikipedia editing in mind. Can anyone give some examples of Wikipedia article which was developed in this undesirable way? I can only imagine instances of good editing with news, like for example with various crisis situations and updates on politics to match the developing narratives. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:46, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not the worst, but recently there's been July 2017 Lahore suicide bombing of which about 50% of the post-lead text is a "reactions" section. It used to be a lot worse, but there's some dedicated editors who kill it when they see it. There's been a habit of expanding stubs on current events by putting every publicly available reaction from every famous person or national government one can find. If it doesn't happen as much its because people are actively removing it (as they should). But I think the OP is looking for policy guidance to give some meat to their work. --Jayron32 16:58, 2 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Reaction sections like Jayron describes is one aspect, but the larger issue, as I've tried to identify above, currently exists with nearly every article around Trump and the last election relating to the possibility of Russia's involvement. There are very few established facts on the case - though clearly a timeline of events we can document and which we should document - but editors in these articles seem invested to make sure the media's stance (which is currently hostile to Trump, in broad terms) is included. We should be asking, once the matter is settled, in any resolution, would we be including all the current media's stance and opinions and analysis? To counterpoint, imagine the Watergate scandal being written in real-time compared to what we have now. Properly, this has a "role of the media" section to emphasize how the talking-heads at the time made this a big media thing, but in the long-term context, it's not outline all the opinions but the roles that had. The few reactions are from the major world players at the time, and thus appropriately summarized. --MASEM (t) 00:11, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this. I am unsure what to think. The content is not obviously bad or good to me. For an issue I cared about then I might want to see this content, especially if there is little other information on the topic. The reactions in the Lahore case demonstrate that people in positions of authority cared about the issue, which I would not realize otherwise. For US political reactions sometimes dumb items in the media still somehow direct large sums of labor, money, and other resources so I also am not sure that we should discourage this behavior. I also do not feel sure that we should have this - I definitely see why Wikipedia does not need this content. Perhaps I am unhappy both with leaving it and removing it. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:41, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • That is a darn good first draft. I suggest changing the last sentence to "This is particularly important for controversial events; we want to describe the controversy, summarizing high quality sources; we do not participate in the controversy." Jytdog (talk) 03:54, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not 100% sure on that change. I have seen people argue that if the NYTimes or BBC or other high-quality RS opine on something it should be included, and that's what we should be avoiding in the short-term coverage. Obviously a retrospective on the event by the NYTimes is extremely valuable. --MASEM (t) 04:09, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • How about "This is particularly important for controversial events; we want to describe the controversy, summarizing high quality sources reporting, not commenting on, the events; we do not participate in the controversy." ? Jytdog (talk) 21:59, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Has anyone pinged EEng? I know he interested in a restriction like this. Personally, as long as "this talking head says the shooting is racial [1], while Yakkety XIV says this sudden bankruptcy is an industry wake-up call [35]" is kept to a minimum, I am opposed to attempts to restrict the recent addition of events to Wikipedia. L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 21:29, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not an attempt to curb current events, NEVENT remains the core guideline to judge that. This is simply to prevent articles on current events from going too far into the weeds of opinions and analysis in the short-term, focusing on non-contested facts that are part of the event, and waiting to include the more analytical considerations well after the event has settled down. --MASEM (t) 21:56, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we need to distinguish between "talking heads" and "blogosphere" and the reaction to notable events by notable persons. Also we need to recognize that the mode of transmission of those opinions and reactions today are frequently tweets. Even the Pope tweets. We all know you-know-who does. What used to be press releases and men in suits sitting in front of flags is now the same people twittering in their pajamas. Their doing so almost always results in pickup in reliable sources. Also NOTNEWS should not be used as a bludgeon to prevent notable events from receiving proper coverage simply because they are recent. I'm more concerned with the articles that seem to crop up after every major news event, thrusting nobodies like Richard Matt into prominence when they deserve to be promptly forgotten. Matt is a low-life who busted out of prison, whereas Charlie Gard, op cit, was the center of global controversy that received extensive coverage. We don't want NOTNEWS to mean "nothing recent please," and it can be misinterpreted as that sometimes. Coretheapple (talk) 22:03, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, part of this is avoiding the inclusion of short-term reactions that people that have nothing to do with the event, at least while the event is going on, even if those people are notable. Or at least distinguish between the volume and influence of such reactions (which are fine if they affect the situation in the short-term), and exactly what they say. Taking the Gard case, there are some cases of proper reaction inclusion under this idea, and some that are not. The first para of "Political and public policy" is good, describing how those tweets (particularly Pope's and Trump's) influenced the situation and larger reaction. And to understand how they did, the contents do need to be mentioned (plus, they were actually talking actions to be taken, rather than just offering condolenses). But at the same time, Pence's comment isn't needed since it is just condolences, and has no clear impact on the situation. One needs to think how the article will be five years from now, if all those positions will be relevant. --MASEM (t) 23:48, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • In fact Pence did more than just offer condolences but made a political statement, which was indeed quite consequential from the standpoint of the political impact of the case. As for five-year impact, that's a tricky question. Re Pence, will he be president in five years? Will single-payer (the subject of his comment) still be consequential? If either is the case, it will be relevant. Which raises another issue: relevant to whom? To a taxi driver or a researcher or student? Do we pretend to be arbiters of what might possibly be relevant to unknown audiences in five years? That's not currently in this policy, but if you wish to add language to that effect, feel free. Getting back to this particular possible policy change, I guess my concern is that this may be a cure for which there is no disease. If there are specific articles in which this policy change would have come in handy, had it existed, I would like to know which articles and the impact this would have. The Comey article is one example but I think more would be useful. Coretheapple (talk) 02:05, 5 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • As another example, here is a case of where we really shouldn't have an article because while the story may be notable, it is pretty much all about talking heads, right now, and that is Google's Ideological Echo Chamber (tl;dr version: google employee releases internal memo critical of Google's diversity-driven hiring practices, ends up being leaked, guy is fired, analysts from both sides are fighting over this). There's not much "news" to the story yet, but it's gained more than a wealth of secondary sources speaking about the issues. But this is all short term elements - we shouldn't really be covering this part of the story, outside of noting that the memo's release sparked further controversy in the ongoing culture war. --MASEM (t) 21:49, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I nominated it for deletion, but I have a strong suspicion it will survive on formal grounds, rather on its encyclopedic merits. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:07, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    That's an example of NOTNEWS, for sure. I'm not seeing how this addition to the policy that is being proposed would be necessary to deal with this article. Seems to me that it's amply dealt with in the policy as currently written. Coretheapple (talk) 19:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    You'd think, but look at the AFD currently. Far too many keeps claiming that coverage of it is there. There is extensive coverage but the bulk of that coverage is people throwing their opinions into the ring about the nature of the memo, and not so much about the event. If we had this bit for NOT, then we'd delete that article (or at least merge to a larger topic), and not go into all the reactions until it was determined down the road that it was actually a significant event and look at the analysis of that from the long-term perspective. --MASEM (t) 19:16, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    NOTNEWS and WP:EVENT already are more than sufficient to blow an article like that out of the water. But the language being proposed here would not just impact (ineffectually in my view) on AfD discussions but on the articles themselves, adversely, hampering their development by giving ammunition to people who don't like the subject matter. I would suggest that if AfDs are your concern, the place to have this discussion is WP:EVENT, the notability guideline for news events. That's already pretty strong, and should already be sufficient to deal with this Google article and others, But do keep in mind that WP:RAPID works against deletion of articles on recent events. So the policy change being discussed here may fail to help with AfDs and only work against the articles after they actually exist, and may do real harm to articles that are legitimately kept. Coretheapple (talk) 19:46, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll have to respectfully disagree here. Using the Google memo AFD, if you do not consider this, editors are reasonably arguing that NEVENT does not apply (that is, that the article meets NEVENT and should be kept), namely because there is significant secondary coverage of it. But the type of coverage that it is being generated is all short-term analysis and everyone trying to get their voice out there in putting this in the context of the larger culture war. If we all recognized that this was short-term analysis that was far too soon to cover encyclopedicly, then the article would be stripped of most of the response commentary, and the article's inappropriateness would be obvious per NEVENT. Perhaps that if this were to be added here, NEVENT would also need proper updating to remind editors that a news event that generates a lot of short-term commentary is not necessary an appropriate topic would also help. There's a combination of several issues at play here. --MASEM (t) 23:51, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    There is such passion to keep in such situations, even ones amply covered by the policy and WP:EVENT now, that it's hard for me to envision this policy change having much impact. (Not that it would have much practical impact but I think there would have to be major changes in WP:EVENT, not just updating, if this change were enacted.) Far more troubling to me is the possible impact on exiting articles. I'd like to see some examples of articles that are not currently at AfD, that exist now, that this policy change would impact, and what that impact would be. For instance, James Comey has been mentioned and I would be interested to know what would happen to that article if this policy change were implemented. Coretheapple (talk) 14:28, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    There were two cases in Comey that I know would be touched on by this. First was his dismissal as the media speculated on reasons for his removal beyond what the official dismissal notification said. They're making guesses, and given that Comey's still tied to the ongoing situation over the Russian interference in the election, we're still waiting for dust to settle, so we shouldn't be including those third-party comments yet. Second was how much of a role Comey played in the election. It is necessary to identify the factual actions that he did, but to guess at how much weight they had by analysts (some saying he cost Clinton the election) is too much at this time, for the same reasons above - we're still in the stage where the election investigation is ongoing. This would not gut much from the existing article, just avoid commentary on situations that aren't resolved. If/when the election mess is figured out, we can then see what analysts say then to include back into here. --MASEM (t) 15:21, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I guess I'd have to know what specifically would be imperiled. Looking at the Comey article I'm not seeing anything terrible. You know, I !voted against that Google article and I still feel it is best as a merge, but I don't feel the "keeps" are totally out of whack. I did feel the Richard Matt "keep" !voters were way off base (I initiated that AfD) but in retrospect, I'm not so sure. Coretheapple (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    It's only a few places: in the lede we have "His decisions are viewed by some analysts as having possibly cost Clinton the election."; some of the last para of "Release of information about the investigation", the latter half of the "Dismissal of James Comey", and now I see someone went and created Dismissal of James Comey. (That latter one I think is more a direct NOT#NEWS/ PROSELINE problem , trying to detail every minute timeline event. Even our articles on famous and well-documented battled in WWII don't go into that much minutiae). But focusing just on Comey's article, we're talking all of about 5% of it , at most, certainly not gutting it. Maybe Comey's not the best example of a problematic article but it shows the elements we should be avoiding in the short-term. --MASEM (t) 16:33, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Hard for me to judge in the abstract but those are significant points. Coretheapple (talk) 20:47, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure if exactly what was intended but related enough: I'd like to see something about in this addressing "breaking news". I started an essay a bit ago at WP:HOLDYOURHORSES/WP:DJTG about avoiding breaking news since they are often wrong. Not sure how to work it in here but thought I'd mention it. EvergreenFir (talk) 07:52, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • For that, we already have the base "Not a newspaper" ("Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news reports on breaking stories"), and application of WP:NEVENT to wait long enough to make sure a story is legit (collaborating accounts) before determining notability and making a standalone article. This concept is related but not quite the same issue (here, it is usually the news event is validated to have happened, but because everyone and their brother is opining about it in the short term, that's where we need to avoid the talking-heads analysis until the situation has settled down). --MASEM (t) 13:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there are not other refinements offered to the proposed language this seems ripe to pose as an RfC. Are there any other suggested tweaks to Masem's draft above? Jytdog (talk) 16:42, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • More as a counterexample of what this language should be encouraging is the current state of the 2017 Unite the Right rally (permlink to current). There is a reaction section, but it is limited to key players, and notably the reaction to Trump's comment that many high level officials feel didn't go far enough. There is very few comments from non-gov't officials (read: the media) despite the fact that there's well over 1000s of opinion pieces issued on how this event reflects many issues today - eg we are avoiding the talkings-heads part despite the abundance of such availability. --MASEM (t) 14:02, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's actually a very good example of the perils of this suggested policy change, and demonstrates for me why it is not a good idea. Compare that version with the current version of that article. If we're going to brand anyone other than "key players" as "talking heads," the outcome would be what you see in the version you cite -- an unnecessarily short, in fact grotesquely stunted article that is pretty much unusable for persons interested in learning about the subject matter. Yes there is indeed an "abundance" of so-called "talking heads" available because it is a "yuge" controversy. We mustn't set ourselves up as clairvoyants who will say "oh no, these are 'talking heads' who won't matter in five years." Truncating reaction sections as suggested would in fact present a very serious WP:UNDUE problem by failing to fairly and fully present all major viewpoints reflected in reliable sources. Coretheapple (talk) 13:38, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, I think it still applies (note when I made that comment, that was before more things happened as a result). Keep in mind that the goal of the proposed language is to avoid inclusion of near-term talking head analysis that is just there for the debate points, not actually part of the news. Nearly all the reactions/responses in the current Rally articles are ones that created further news coverage (and in turn created more reactions and coverage) that are completely appropriate: Trump's response and the fallout from that, the various online sites denying the use by the rallying groups + others, the statue removals, and the vigils. These are all things that are not real-time analysis without any impact, but actual news associated with it. Of the current section, only three are of the type of "talking heads" , that being Public Opinion, Religious Response, and Academic Responses, and those are very tame compared to what they could be if we included all the post-event talking head analysis that wasn't related the other reactions that happened. --MASEM (t) 13:50, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's no question, however, that this rule change would have hampered development of that article. I suggest that for clarity's sake that you provide an example of an article that is already "aged" and contains excessive quantities of what you describe as "talking heads" or other bad stuff that would not be there if this policy change was implemented. I've asked at least once before and no such exxamples have been produced. If there are no such examples then this goes back to what I was saying about this proposal being a cure for which there is no disease, as well as being not constructive. Coretheapple (talk) 14:40, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Again, disagree. First, there's no WP:DEADLINE, and because we are not news (with or without this), we have no requirement to be up to date. Considering the biggest reaction that had impact was Trump's initial statement, it didn't need to be include until it started this criticism of it, and then it would have been appropriate to include.
  • A key part of this is to discourage the creation of articles (or sections of existing articles) like Reactions to the 2017 Barcelona attack (which is at AFD at the moment). Or if we are going to have them, they need to be better curated like what we have at Boston Marathon bombing (distilling to principle involved people/groups and actions that really mean something rather than just words). --MASEM (t) 15:19, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • But that's the problem: not being "up to date" can and often does skew the contents of an article so that it is not neutral. I see your point re reaction articles, but I am more interested in seeing whether there are articles apart from that which contain content that would be affected by this guideline. Coretheapple (talk) 15:32, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would it be correct to say that you want Wikipedia to be a newspaper without the controversy of analysis that cannot be a considered opinion without the passage of time?  Why do you want newspaper-style coverage on events in an encyclopedia without the perspective of time?  Unscintillating (talk) 16:28, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, as we shouldn't even be covering stories like a newspaper in the first place. The ideal, but completely impractical way, to write about an event is to wait fully until the dust settles and only then write the event article from the perspective of an encyclopedia; this avoids issues with proseline updates, we have been sense of what perspectives are appropriate per WEIGHT, and we can figure out how to present the event in a larger world context, and have a better sense of event's notability. But we can't stop editors from making articles on events moments after they happen despite NOT#NEWS. So if that's going to be the case, then editors need to stick to core facts (which should include statements and comments from those directly involved) and avoid the talking-head analysis that has no immediate effect. --MASEM (t) 16:38, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's been tried, it doesn't work. You can't prevent editors from making articles, and NEVENT was crafted to try to stem that tide, and trying to push editors to employ Wikinews has generally failed. So we do have to live with editors making articles on breaking events, but we can make sure that they stay on the focus on the factual aspects of the events rather than to shoehorn in reactions and responses, which at times can be done in a POV-ish manner depending on the event. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not just events. Why do we allow articles on an escaped convict when the escape itself is the subject of an article? That's how the AfD discussions turn out. But don't forget that this problem will not, repeat not' be addressed by this proposed policy change. Instead its sweeping language could be used as a blunt instrument to curtail the development of articles on significant issues of lasting importance. I still have yet to see produced here any examples of articles that have spun out of control with horrible, unnecessary "commentary" and "talking heads." Where are they? There should be at least 10-15 good examples of such articles before we wield a blunt instrument like this. Coretheapple (talk) 12:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, there is an entirely separate problem of people rushing to create articles that fail to meet the immediate needs of NEVENTS or fail BLP1E/BLPCRIME and a whole host of other things. Editors have tried to stem those, its very difficult because people read the GNG and think "widely-covered news story" equates to notable. Part of this is a lack of admins handling AFD to pay attention to that distinction here.
  • This proposal is not trying to address that. It is addressing, where there has been evidence of a notable event, to make sure to keep the initial article focused on facts and not talking-head analysis while the event is ongoing. The biggest place is any breaking news that gathers a "Reactions" section that is a per-country list. This has been considered before [1] and as noted there this does point to a category where such reaction articles have been created Category:Reactions to terrorist attacks. But it does affect articles in other ways. Dismissal of James Comey is the type of article that seems far too narrow and overly focused on one specific event because talking heads have made it such a point. (Not that the dismissal doesn't belong somewhere in WP, but it makes much sense to describe it in context of Comey and/or the investigation of the election). If a year from now that dismissal is considered a key event, then full expansion of that separate article makes sense. --MASEM (t) 13:33, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

*The Comey article is probably a pretty good example of how a policy change like this is good or bad as indicated by the way you are defining it. Yes, it is too long, in part because it shows the entire text of relevant documents. And it does have a "clear the notebook" technique of publishing everything in reliable sources. Now the controversy is over and I look at that article but I'm not seeing any area that requires massive cuts. If one removed what you call "talking heads," you remove an important aspect of the article, which was indeed the furor.

Thus I think it underlines the point I made earlier about this proposal running up against WP:UNDUE, When you have a controversy characterized by a media furor, the media furor ("talking heads") is part of the story, and removal skews the article in a manner not allowed by UNDUE. And again, who are we to say what will be of interest in five or ten years? Only in five or ten years will we know that. If we are writing about something that happened five or ten years ago, it is a different story. Then we can judge if WP:PERSISTENCE is applicable. (Events that are only covered in sources published during or immediately after an event, without further analysis or discussion, are likely not suitable for an encyclopedia article. However, this may be difficult or impossible to determine shortly after the event occurs, as editors cannot know whether an event will receive further coverage or not. That an event occurred recently does not in itself make it non-notable.) That's from the notability guideline but I think its reasoning is applicable here. Coretheapple (talk) 13:49, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I disagree that the event is actually "over" - while his dismissal is now a few months old, the investigation is still ongoing, so what exact role in that is in question. Say the investigation completes, Comey not considered under any part of the gov't evaluation, and a year from them, academics and analysts, without pressure of time to press, come to conclusion that Comey's dismissal was not in any way a factor. In other words, the furor made by the media over it was over nothing. Should we still have an article that long, considering BLP , etc? This is the type of situation we get into when people flood news articles with media commentary as to make them seem more important before the more proper measure of time. And it's great we have WP:PERSISTENCE but that's a guideline (and not content for that matter) and gets trampled on at AFD. Since this is a broad situation and not just related to events (though frequently will happen most with those), we need policy-level strength to warn editors to not rely too heavily on media analysis and op-eds in the wake of breaking news but consider them well-after the fact. --MASEM (t) 14:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • And to that end, that's where we should err on WP:DEADLINE and not try to include it before we actually know the situation. Stick to the facts of the story which aren't going to change, but editors shouldn't be trying to do analysis summary at this point. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • This has zero chance of passing, but badly needs to be done. We need to stop acting like a newspaper and start acting like an encyclopedia. We should limit all breaking news articles to a template that says "Wikipedia does not cover breaking news until it is at least 30 days old. Here is a link to Wikinews for those who want more current information." Then we need to nuke the "in the news" section on the front page. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:07, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • as discussion on the actual proposal stalled a while ago, I have posed the RfC below. Jytdog (talk)

Froglich reverts

I reverted two edits from this article that appear suspicious, along with two redirects. [2] [3] [4] Could someone with more experience on this page review my reverts? Objective3000 (talk) 01:00, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Your reverts are correct. The language used is highly suspect, though there is a ring of truth of something we should be aware of, but we'd need deeper discussion to determine inclusion. --MASEM (t) 01:59, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If there's a "ring of truth" that "we should be aware of", then how about we improve the "highly suspect" language instead? I formulated the now-reverted piece, and am here for the deeper discussion.--Froglich (talk) 05:30, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A principle oft-repeated at WP:V is that we want "verifyability, not truth". If there is no reliable source that are challenging that a narrative may be presented, we can't cover that, per WP:V, per WP:NOR. --MASEM (t) 05:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It should also be noted that the word "verifiable" means "able to be shown to be true" (c.f. veritas) The purpose of the maxim "Verifiability not truth" is that being true is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for information to be included. The information included has to go beyond merely being true, it needs to be able to be shown to be true. Mere assertions of truth are insufficient. If something false happens to be printed outside of Wikipedia, we are not obligated to repeat it merely because it was written down somewhere else. Truth is still a necessary precondition for verifiability. The purpose of the maxim is to remind people that they have to back up their assertions of factuality and that assertions of truth are insufficient without evidence. It isn't to say that truth is irrelevant, and that all that matters is citing some source, especially if it can be shown that the source is wrong. Froglich's addition is rightly reverted here; not merely because of its combative tone, but also because it's entirely redundant with well-established principles. --Jayron32 12:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I will add that there are proper questions of "blind acceptance of truth" or "refusal to consider critical viewpoints not considered in RSes" and to what extend WP should do this, but that is a much deeper and difficult set of questions to answer and can't just go into NOT without that discussion. I will agree that there are places on WP where editors have "circled the wagons" around what the RS says and only what the RS say, without willing to entertain the larger picture that can be shown, but only if one extend one's view past core RSes into the opinions and attributed statements from less-reliable ones (still can't treat these as facts). However, we have to be careful that is applied right as allowing that approach may benefit some areas where there has been a very narrow view would also allow any random conspiracy theory to get in as well, so there's a very difficult balance to get, again requiring much larger discussion before cementing in policy. --MASEM (t) 13:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And that's why speaking in the source's voice is relevant, and that Wikipedia reflects mainstream consensus on a topic. Presenting a fringe theory as "Here's a fringe theory that has been widely discounted, but is commented on enough to bear repeating here" which is fine and "Here's a fringe theory which could also be true" which is not fine. --Jayron32 13:25, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Error in text?

In the section on "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" we have the sentence, "...Similarly, articles on works of non-fiction, including documentaries, research books and papers, religious texts, and the like, should contain more than a recap or summary of the works' contents." Isn't that sentence missing an "not" after the word "should"? Because otherwise this implies that the articles on works of fiction, etc. should contain the entire work, which I don't think is what is intended here. I would have fixed this myself as it seems like an obvious error but I have been wrong too many times in the past and this is a high-profile page. Please advise. thanks. KDS4444 (talk) 22:32, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If you read the whole paragraph, beginning Wikipedia articles should not be: (1) Summary-only descriptions of works..., it seems plain enough that the current wording conveys the meaning intended: Noyster (talk), 22:41, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) The current text is fine. It is saying that if there is a book about basket weaving, for example, then an article on the book should contain more than a summary of the book's contents. Johnuniq (talk) 22:42, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I see why the OP was a bit confused by the text, and I tried to patch it up a bit [5]. I think that bullet could be tightened by combining the first bit (" fiction and art") and the second bit ("non-fiction, such as a documentary, research book or paper, religious text, or the like"), but I somehow don't feel like taking that on. EEng 22:47, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did the thing. (I await the inevitable reversion.) --Izno (talk) 11:18, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for doing the thing, and look! Not even revert! Well done, I say. KDS4444 (talk) 18:05, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I could revert if that would make anyone feel more at home. EEng 18:17, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
According to WP:EW you already did. :D --Izno (talk) 19:25, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Now, now, you boys! Go on home afore I spanks (thanks??) y' both!  :-) KDS4444 (talk) 00:01, 17 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an organised anti-WP:SOAPBOX effort/group out there?

Since Wikipedia is (one of) the world's most consulted website-references that 'anyone can edit', that makes it a prime target for anyone seeking to WP:SOAPBOX-'broadcast' it. I've seen this a lot in my ~13 years here, but have seen little done to counter it.

And always it's the same behaviour pattern repeating: those WP:PUSHing a claim, since reason nor evidence is on their side, will engage in all the worst 'tactics', and drown any discussion in sophist-distraction... often answered point-by-point by well-intended contributors (whose demonstrations of evidence are often just ignored), but the result is always a too-long-to-read mess (and this itself has become a soapbox-er disuasion-confusion-muddle 'tactic'). Admins involved in any conflict this generates tend to balk at this and not dig down through all the distraction to the central issue, resulting in a judgement that actually aids the soapbox-ers, and I've seen this same thing happening time and time again.

Is there any place contributors could go to seek the advice/administration help of those who are familiar with this trend? THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 09:59, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@ThePromenader: Can you give an example of a problem case? I fail to recognize the situation you are describing. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:51, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am presently involved in around the elimination of a 'persecution by atheists' category: with 'state atheism', it is an exclusively apologist/anti-atheist concept (not to be found in any history textbook or non-apologist reference), but a few would like to use Wikipedia to make it seem a real, widely-accepted 'thing'. Another example: I spent ten years helping to battle a single contributor (and their mostly off-wiki 'help') who tried to lead readers to believe that Paris' suburbs-alienation problems didn't exist (and that 'Paris' was the size of an entire state, which is akin to someone trying to tell readers that Hoboken is in New York City). THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 17:24, 18 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Bluerasberry:? THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 06:46, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@ThePromenader: I understand what you are trying to do. I am not aware of any policies or essays about this type of activity. I am not sure how anyone should respond or control this, but if I entered this space, I would probably start by giving the activity a name, writing an essay about it, then soliciting comments.
I understand the example that you are giving, and hear you say that there is no particular name or definition for the concept described by the category. I think what you are saying is that Wikipedia editors identify some nameless concept, identify instances where they imagine that nameless concept applies, then do original research to group them into categories in a way that no scholar has ever done. I confirm that this happens. Although I cannot immediately pull examples, I feel like this has been done both in ways that people like and in ways that are inappropriate. I am not sure how the line should be drawn between them.
Perhaps in addition to a definition/essay, we could compile a casebook. I am starting to hear more wiki editors talk about collecting cases as a prerequisite for having conversations, so that the cases can be a running log of what discussions happened before. I am not sure what to think. Where do you think this conversation should go? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:19, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your kind reply, @Bluerasberry:. I have no idea where it should go (but somewhere where it would get lots of 'veteran' attention, for sure), but already your idea makes for the most progress I've seen on this, ever. Perhaps if you (or I) would like to start a 'scratch' casebook page somewhere, we can add things to it until it finds a suitable 'home'. And if you can think of anyone who would like to join this discussion (who has had similar experiences/observations), perhaps let them know (and I can do the same). THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 14:00, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

RFC: New subsection under "Not a Newspaper:

This is a proposal to add the following in WP:NOTNEWS, per the discussion above.

5. Real-time news reactions, commentary and analysis While Wikipedia can excel at the cooperative development of detailed articles on breaking events in near real-time, editors should keep such articles focused on facts and immediate impacts, and avoid including opinions, reactions, commentary, or similar analysis generated in the short-term by the media or by others not directly connected to the event, despite the quantity of such sources that may be available. We seek to cover an event's permanence and, as there is no deadline to getting these articles right, editors should only include such commentary and analysis well after the event has ended so that we can evaluate the proper balance of long-term views of the event's significance. This is particularly important for controversial events; we want to document the controversy, not participate in it.

-- Proposed by Masem above, posted here by Jytdog (talk) 20:44, 24 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

!votes

Discussion

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