Wikipedia talk:Canvassing

Proposal: social media

I propose we add a "social media" section (level3 header under "Inappropriate notification"), which would read something along these lines:

Posting links to discussions or links to articles under discussion, on social media such as Twitter and Facebook or on internet forums or mailing lists is generally considered to be canvassing. Even if the medium is public, the audience listening to one's posts in such media is often highly partisan.

Thoughts ? Icewhiz (talk) 13:45, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

It is hard to accept that being a Wikipedian means you can never again post a link to a Wikipedia discussion on Twitter or Facebook. That would be draconian and it's really not a realistic interpretation of canvassing.

Best practice help is what is needed. If you have 10,000 followers on Twitter, you might affect a vote, best practice may include being aware of that impact and if it is likely that several of your followers will go and vote, you probably need to flag that in the discussion, or raise it in advance for comments about what you plan to post on a noticeboard before posting. If you make a mistake, and realize that your "ranty" post is distorting a particular vote, again we need positive ways of allowing the poster to flag it themselves, and ask for advice on what action to take to correct the situation, without feeling that this will land them in an Arbcom case or a perma-ban.

If I use @wikilgbt with its 20,000 followers to promote a MOS related policy RFC on Wikipedia (something I may well do), if I try to make my post fair and neutral, then attracting a few more LGBT+ interested Wikipedians to participate should be considered a good thing to address our problem of having a wide base of participation, not just the policy wonks and regular long termers. --Fæ (talk) 15:41, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

• A completely different approach to this would be more transparency. Jehochman ^Talk 16:07, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Editors may use social media to draw more readers and editors to Wikipedia. To avoid accusations of canvassing and to avoid unfairly dominating discussions, editors should follow these best practices when making social media posts about active discussions on Wikipedia:

• Disclose your social media post by placing a link to it in the Wikipedia discussion.
• Word your post neutrally. In other words, don't say something like, "Come to this discussion and vote 'keep'."
• Encourage new users to follow Wikipedia rules and customs.
• Aim to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles.
• Avoid summoning partisans to a battleground. Sometimes an invitation just isn't helpful. Jehochman ^Talk 16:07, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Looks closer to something, agree with the 'advisory' list, though the last point gives me pause. Having been involved in a rather serious discussion about a different language Wikipedia where sysop powers were being used actively to discriminate against anyone perceived to be LGBT+, we can easily run into conflict over what words like partisan, bias, and even illegal, might mean in practice. For example, a Wikipedian Twitter poster who is known for, say, right wing views and wants to draw attention to a left wing bias dominating an article rename vote for what they see as "politically correct" reasons, is unlikely to be followed by anyone other than fellow right-wingers. Now, should we be telling them that even a neutral post on their Twitter stream which links to that discussion can never be made without being called canvassing? I feel like we should be responding differently, like encouraging them to flag it, and then balancing that by encouraging other Twitter users to comment about that potential bias, and make their own Tweets to gain a wider demographically balanced set of fresh voters. The end objective of gaining more viewpoints is perfectly healthy, responding by doing precisely that seems a better answer than trying to suppress free speech. --Fæ (talk) 16:28, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Apart from the last bullet point, these generally look like good practices. Some people have the remarkable effect of making anything they say "controversial", "partisan" or "biased" by the mere fact of who is stating it. We don't need a guideline that invites meta-arguments. XOR'easter (talk) 19:23, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

• It is simple: don't post off-wiki about articles that are subject to a deletion proposal. We have processes that deal with notifications for them via deletion sorting etc. - Sitush (talk) 16:34, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

If there is a dangerous cliff one builds a fence several feet back from the edge, not right up against the edge. Jehochman ^Talk 16:58, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

(ec, same thing, more words) That could be a guideline, but we should also cover all other types of vote or discussion where participation numbers might game the system. Further, there is a pretty obvious primary response, those with anything critical to say or promote will use anonymous accounts, and it is not unreasonable to expect that many Wikipedians already do use social media accounts that are never publicly connected to their Wikimedia account. If a policy is only effective for those that are open and transparent, then it seems only to punish the "good" users who are open, with zero effect on those most likely to cause disruption or game the system. For these guidelines to be effective they have to positively encourage best practice, not just establish a naughty list. --Fæ (talk) 16:59, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

And the more words we use, the more people will game the system through lawyering. Accept it: we're never going to stop this entirely from happening anyway, so let's just K.I.S.S. - Sitush (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

This is not a good proposal. What people post on their social media accounts is their own business. Attempting to regulate what someone says about a deletion discussion off-site is an ill-considered idea doomed to failure and (rightful) mockery from the rest of the world. "I can't tweet about Wikipedia? The hell I can't!" There are templates anyone can use to alert an AfD closer that a deletion discussion has attracted outside notice; much better to simply use those existing tools than to play social media nanny or codify prior restraint into policy. 28bytes (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I think for most people, their followers are family and friends, and people are essentially tweeting as part of a large group conversation. While I appreciate there is a potential problem with biasing Wikipedia editing, it seems unduly restrictive to try to dictate that one can't talk about their Wikipedia activities as part of an off-wiki conversation. I don't think calls to action are the only issue, given the targeted audience. Mentions of articles of interest, newly created articles, and so forth can attract attention. But I don't know what can reasonably be done about it. The best way is to stop making decisions by straw poll, and learn the lessons of Clay Shirky and give more weight to editors who have established their reputation as being knowledgeable in the appropriate matters under consideration. But it's unlikely to happen any time soon. isaacl (talk) 18:28, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. The solution is to ignore votes that don’t have a valid reasoning based on verifiable facts. Anybody can post whatever they want but if they are encouraging wiki warfare, they can be sanctioned for it. I agree: no prior restraint. I don’t agree: no accountability for what you say and do. Jehochman ^Talk 18:42, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Who has valid reasoning is in the eye of the beholder. If many people agree that Newyorkbrad has a history of giving well-reasoned analyses of stated arguments, then they will weigh his analysis more highly. Interpretation of policy is typically not an issue of verifiable facts, but an interpretation of community priorities and desires. isaacl (talk) 18:49, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I think I'd prefer not to implement any change such as this at this time. We already have WP:STEALTH, which covers some aspects of off-wiki contact. Also, it looks to me like this proposal comes out of some disputes that are currently happening elsewhere on-site, and so it might be best to let a little time pass in order to have more perspective. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:16, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Sitush that it's simple: "don't post off-wiki about articles that are subject to a deletion proposal." And not just about deletion discussions, but any matter that is trying to form consensus. The last thing we want are a bunch of forum users who don't edit Wikipedia and/or are unfamiliar with Wikipedia's rules to come and vote or otherwise weigh in on whatever, which has happened times before when people have tried to sway a matter in their favor on this site. Whether we call them meatpuppets or not, it's not something we should allow. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:07, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

How would you feel about standard format notices, i.e. a standard recommended wording with some rules for sticking to hash tags that match the categories of the vote or AfD?

It could also be that twitter/facebook/telegram accounts and channels related to Wikimedia Associations and WikiProjects have some sort of behavioural agreement and then are effectively community approved to share vote related notices. Keep in mind that this already happens, and nobody thinks that a self selected group of Wikipedia users has any authority to stop or control how the wikimedia-l email list works, or how @WomenInRed composes tweets, though both those examples may be seen as having already adopting best practices for social media. --Fæ (talk) 10:54, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

If it is a (fairly) standardized message AND there is notification on the discussion itself on Wikipedia (so other discussion participants aren't in the dark on where it was advertised - allowing them to counter-publish in other venues if they feel the advertised audience is biased) - THEN I personally think that's OK. Icewhiz (talk) 11:33, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Fæ, "twitter/facebook/telegram accounts and channels related to Wikimedia Associations and WikiProjects hav[ing] some sort of behavioural agreement [making them] effectively community approved to share vote related notices" is better. But I'm iffy on it. More from me below. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

As I don't have time or impetus for contributing these days, and thus am mostly a bystander, I don't know that people will bother to read much further. But this is a manifestly poor rule to enact, because it's simply going to turn into one of those backside-of-the-card rules from The Pilgrim's Regress. Obviously the solution for anyone who wants to talk about what goes on here is to make a pseudonymous comment. On-Wiki canvassing is manifestly much more of a problem (since that is one of the purposes of the projects), and this is not a way to fulfill "everyone can edit" in its cliquishness. Mangoe (talk) 12:05, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

• I don't agree with Sitush's suggestion - it throws out the good and the neutral along with the bad. I do agree though that simple is good so I would suggest something like "If you post links to a Wikipedia discussion on external forums or social media, best practice is to word posts neutrally and, where possible¸ post links to your post in the discussion." In the past I have used social media to attract the attention of people I know who have relevant subject knowledge (this is little different to posting on a wikiproject talk page), and on one occasion used facebook to get an uninvolved editor to close a discussion I was involved in when all on-wiki channels had failed to get someone to do the job (iirc it was listed at ANRFC for about 2 weeks with no takers). Thryduulf (talk) 14:23, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

Posting to social media "to attract the attention of people who [...] have relevant subject knowledge" is not egregious as long as the posting is not to influence a deletion discussion or some other WP:Consensus matter. Even then, though, it can have the effect of a mishandled WP:Class assignment. Often, we get an influx of students who mean well coming to edit Wikipedia, but end up making a mess of articles. And that is even when they are somewhat trained. Think of how much worse it is to send a bunch of random people here from Facebook or Twitter. And as for neutral posts? Off-wiki canvassing was a big issue during the Gamergate controversy. It's still an issue. It does not matter how neutrally worded a post is if one is posting to a men's rights group or similar on Reddit about coming over to Wikipedia to weigh in on Gamergate issues. So the choice of a site/forum itself can be non-neutral. Those non-Wikipedians do not belong here. If one is contacting an uninvolved Wikipedian on Facebook to close a discussion, that's not the same thing. But people will find the matter questionable if that uninvolved Wikipedian is the editor's on-wiki friend. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 15:26, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

On the surface these words seem like it could be a sensible precaution, but look at the severe lack of good faith that resulted from forcing me to Arbcom. I have been happily, openly, Tweeting about Wikipedia projects for 8 years, encouraging the public to support our projects. If I ever Tweet about Wikipedia again, it will not be from any account that you know about, because I do not want another experience of being hounded and pilloried. Driving Wikipedians active on social media underground as a necessary act of self-preservation, by using fear of witch hunts to punish their enthusiasm for our project and attempt to control their free speech, is the only consequence you will see from a strategy that is not supportive and positive to adopt. --Fæ (talk) 15:44, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I'm lost on what your point is, Fae, but I stand by what I stated above. I've never seen anything positive result from canvassing non-Wikipedians to come vote or otherwise weigh in on matters here. And if we don't want to call it canvassing, it's still a problem and has been a problem countless times. I'm not talking about "driving Wikipedians active on social media underground." I'm talking about bringing a bunch of newbies here who don't know what the heck they are doing. In my opinion, no newbie should be weighing in on a AfD...at least not without a few months experience with how WP:Notability and related matters on Wikipedia work. But when it comes to trying to contact Wikipedians on Twitter or Facebook, etc., the notification process can be sketchy in terms of selection bias. Facebook may have a number of pages devoted to whatever topic, and each page has a select group who may think somewhat differently from the other group devoted to the same topic. Unless an editor is going to seek to contact all associated Wikipedia Facebook pages devoted to the topic, there is some selection bias there. Meanwhile, Wikipedia has one WikiProject for the topic and it comes with transparency. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 16:29, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Regarding Those non-Wikipedians do not belong here: That's not how it works. Anyone can edit. Even newbies and/or clueless people. If their arguments are poor or unsupported by policy or common sense, the closer will take that into consideration. If their arguments make sense, we should listen to them, even if they were "canvassed" via a tweet. 28bytes (talk) 18:24, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

I knew someone might bring up that comment, but I stand by it. Non-Wikipedians canvassed here don't belong here. WP:Meatpuppet is pretty clear about that. I clearly stated, "It does not matter how neutrally worded a post is if one is posting to a men's rights group or similar on Reddit about coming over to Wikipedia to weigh in on Gamergate issues. So the choice of a site/forum itself can be non-neutral. Those non-Wikipedians do not belong here." I was referring to those types being brought here by an editor specifically to influence a matter on Wikipedia. Just no. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:03, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Hold on, I was accused of meatpuppetry and canvassing, this ended up with an Arbcom case request. The meatpuppetry policy states that you should not go around accusing people of meatpuppetry, which is a reminder to stick to the facts. The fact is, that someone tweeting a link to an AfD, is not by itself a request to your friends to set up SPAs and manipulate a vote. Even if someone were stupid enough to openly tweet from a non-anonymous account, asking their followers to create an account just to bias a vote, that tactic will always fail, as it is blooming obvious if a vote has an influx of SPAs or newbie accounts.

Setting unrealistic "rules" for Twitter, Facebook, and everywhere else off-wiki that nobody can ever link to a Wikipedia vote, is equivalent to shouting out of your bedroom window, about a problem that in practice is easy to identify and correct when it happens. The easiest solution to discouraging real meatpuppeteers is to handle it in an undramatic and civil way, in the very, very, rare occasion when it happens and might have a tangible affect, we already have sufficient policies and guidelines to do exactly that, without chasing unicorns by policing everybody's Twitter account and making everyone paranoid or driving good faith editors away with unpleasantly bad faith witch hunts. --Fæ (talk) 11:13, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Like I stated, we shouldn't be pulling in editors and non-editors in the way that I mentioned with regard to my Reddit example. The WP:Meatpuppetry policy is clear on that. The WP:Meatpuppetry policy does not state "that you should not go around accusing people of meatpuppetry." What it states is the following: "The term 'meatpuppet' may be seen by some as derogatory and should be used with care, in keeping with Wikipedia's civility policy. Because of the processes above, it may be counterproductive to directly accuse someone of being a 'meatpuppet', and doing so will often only inflame the dispute." And? When obvious meatpuppetry is going on, we note that. It's not like we are never to call someone a meatpuppet or point to the WP:Meatpuppetry policy. It's not like accusations of meatpuppetry are usually without common sense and therefore care. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:38, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

This seems a tangent. Posting a link on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere off-wiki, asking for more people to give their opinions, is not meatpuppetry. Neither would an effective ban from posting links off-wiki do anything to stop true meatpuppetry should anyone want to try it. --Fæ (talk) 09:36, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Posting a link on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere off-wiki, asking for more people to give their opinions, is meatpuppetry when done within the realm of what the WP:Meatpuppetry policy covers. And ether way, it's problematic for reasons that I and others have noted in this discussion. It's canvassing that Wikipedia does not tolerate, as seen time and time again. An editor can claim that they were being neutral all they want to by posting a link to a Twitter or Facebook page that conforms to their view, but it will not work. And like Isaacl stated below, "It also provides incentive for pile-on comments: if the supporters for one viewpoint canvasses and supporters of other viewpoints do not, there is a disproportionate weight given towards one viewpoint." This is similar to what I stated above; I stated, "But when it comes to trying to contact Wikipedians on Twitter or Facebook, etc., the notification process can be sketchy in terms of selection bias. Facebook may have a number of pages devoted to whatever topic, and each page has a select group who may think somewhat differently from the other group devoted to the same topic. Unless an editor is going to seek to contact all associated Wikipedia Facebook pages devoted to the topic, there is some selection bias there. Meanwhile, Wikipedia has one WikiProject for the topic and it comes with transparency." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:42, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

It's a tangent because posting a link is not asking your friends and relatives to create accounts to manipulate a vote. In the example Arbcom case, there were zero SPAs, yet I was still accused of meatpuppetry and canvassing.

The are no good outcomes here. Do we start banning well established contributors because they openly posted a link on their Twitter accounts, and make enough fuss so that everyone with anything to say about Wikipedia in the real world, will now ensure they do so with no link to their Wikipedia accounts? This is paranoid rubbish. As Nemo has pointed out, all you do with daft unenforceable faux policies like this will be to put more power in the hands of malicious actors who would like nothing better than create plenty of drama that gets long term Wikipedians banned. --Fæ (talk) 12:02, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

We aren't going to agree on this. Like I stated, posting a link on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere off-wiki, asking for more people to give their opinions, is problematic and is not something that Wikipedia tolerates. At this point, I'm just repeating myself. If we held a big RfC on this, I very much doubt that most Wikipedians are going to agree that posting a link on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere off-wiki, asking for more people to give their opinions, is just fine. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:00, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

It's not clear to me that the community would agree with you. Consider GorillaWarfare's statement that she has expressed opinions in other venues about Wikipedia activities. I think trying to restrict how much people can talk about their Wikipedia contributions in other places is difficult. isaacl (talk) 16:08, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Considering how the Wikipedia community has repeatedly treated this matter (including at WP:ANI), I think it is clear that they would agree with me. Regardless of the comment by that editor, Wikipedia has been like this for the longest, which is why Arbitration was even considered in that case. Plus, ArbCom's opinions have commonly been out of step with the wider Wikipedia community's opinions. I'm stating that if an AfD is going on, and an editor advertises that AfD on social media and their followers and/or friends, who are not Wikipedia editors, come pouring in, it's been called canvassing or otherwise inappropriate many times and the votes and other arguments by those one-time posters are discounted. One doesn't even have to know who brought in those influx of newbies; it's obvious that someone did unless the article is getting a lot of traction already, like the kind of traction that the Chelsea Manning article was getting at one point regarding the article title and what pronouns to use in the article; that article was also in news. And discounting the comments of obviously canvassed individuals is the same regardless. Even if all or some of the editors are Wikipedia editors, it's seen as problematic because it's highly likely that those editors share that editor's point of view, while editors contacted at different related WikiProjects are likelier to have more diverse opinions on the matter. The same thing has applied to move discussions. If it's a Wikipedia dispute of any kind, and influx comes in, we know that canvassing (whether or not one wants to call it canvassing) has occurred (again, unless the article's traction indicates that the influx may not be due to canvassing) and an admin may be called in to handle it. It might be taken to WP:ANI. This has certainly been the case with articles under WP:Discretionary sanctions. The vast majority of editors do not want to allow canvassing, whether it's canvassing Wikipedia editors or the general public, and it's for reasons I stated and what you stated below. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:45, 18 February 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2019 (UTC)

The question is what's special about an AfD? If I post a tweet saying I'm working on improving coverage of person X's political views, then it draws the attention of all my followers to the person X article, and they could show up on the talk page to ostensibly help me. A prohibition on using social media would have to cover any mention of Wikipedia-related matters to be effective. It's unclear to me that a consensus can be obtained to agree to this. isaacl (talk) 03:29, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

I didn't just focus on AfD. And AfD is obviously special in terms of consensus; it's about whether or not Wikipedia should have a Wikipedia article on the topic. It's something that is very often subject to a significant dispute, and WP:Single purpose accounts showing up, and WP:Gaming the system issues. A dispute over what image to use does not have the same level of conflict, in part because it's not advertised with a tag like AfD is. As for "a prohibition," we already have the WP:Canvassing guideline, the WP:Meatpuppetry policy and the WP:Common sense supplement page. If you contacting your followers or friends about an AfD or whatever dispute results in the matter leaning in your favor, common sense dictates that you alerting your followers was inappropriate. And you can bet that the AfD or whatever will be considered tainted and that comments from the people you pulled in will be discarded. Again, this has happened numerous times on Wikipedia. I am speaking from experience. I also watch and edit enough controversial topics to know what I'm talking about. But, hey, we can always take the matter to WP:Village pump (policy) and see just how many are going to agree that a person contacting their followers or friends about an AfD or whatever dispute, resulting in those people coming to Wikipedia and weighing in on the matter so that the dispute (artificially) leans in that editor's favor, is a fine and dandy. No one wants to be in a dispute with someone and to then have that person go whine on Twitter or whatever and bring their followers into the dispute. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:01, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I am also speaking from what I've seen and experienced. "Please vote for X" is frowned upon, and new accounts coming to Wikipedia will be found and dealt with. "I'm writing articles about group X" doesn't cause anyone to bat an eye, and it's really hard to tell how an established editor decided to weigh in a discussion. A prohibition on overt canvassing will just push people to less obvious ways of attracting like-minded people. No one likes outsiders who don't understand the context of the current discussion to come in and shoot off an uninformed opinion, no matter if they are new Wikipedia editors or old hands. But English Wikipedia's decision-making tradition gives everyone equal weight, which provides an incentive to canvass. To really put an end to it, we need a decision-making process that makes it less effective. There are different, non-mutually exclusive options, but all of them will to some degree move away from treating every individual editor's viewpoint as equal, and the English Wikipedia community does not seem amenable to following this direction at present. isaacl (talk) 07:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Again, when it comes to Wikipedia tolerating the type of canvassing or "pulling in people" this discussion has concerned, Wikipedia in general does not tolerate it. And for good reason. That has been my point. You stated, "A prohibition on overt canvassing will just push people to less obvious ways of attracting like-minded people." Eh? Overt canvassing is already covered by the guideline. Contacting off Wikipedia? The "Stealth canvassing" section states, "Because it is less transparent than on-wiki notifications, the use of email or other off-wiki communication to notify editors is discouraged unless there is a significant reason for not using talk page notifications. Depending on the specific circumstances, sending a notification to a group of editors by email may be looked at more negatively than sending the same message to the same group of people on their talk pages." From what I've seen, editors do not restrict the "to notify editors" part to editors only; they apply it non-Wikipedians who may become editors at any moment as well. And editors already do "less obvious ways of attracting like-minded people." I don't agree that explicitly stating "don't post about disagreeing with an AfD nomination on social media while the AfD is ongoing" will increase canvassing or make things worse. That's like stating that we shouldn't be strict at all when it comes to our rules because it just makes breaking the rules that more alluring or makes people that more determined to break the rules, like telling a child not to do something. Either way, I'm not arguing for anything to be added to the WP:Canvassing guideline. When the "pulling in people" thing this discussion has talked about comes up, editors already point to WP:Canvassing or WP:Meatpuppetry; so the WP:Canvassing guideline and WP:Meatpuppetry policy are working fine in that regard. Editors already use common sense on the matter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:29, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

My apologies for eliding the full statement; of course I meant if the prohibition in this proposal is implemented, then people will just find other ways not covered by this proposal to attract like-minded people. But if you're not arguing in favour of this proposal, then we don't really have to continue this thread. isaacl (talk) 02:30, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

The problem with canvassing is that English Wikipedia discussions are typically closed by straw poll rather than weighing the arguments directly. The number of supporters for a position is used as a proxy to indicate the strength of the sum total of the arguments for the position. This fails to isolate the strength of each individual argument, which is necessary to weigh them against each other properly. It also provides incentive for pile-on comments: if the supporters for one viewpoint canvasses and supporters of other viewpoints do not, there is a disproportionate weight given towards one viewpoint. As I said in my comments in the case, moving away from straw polls to make decisions and focusing on weighing arguments for and against is the best way to reduce the incentive for canvassing. isaacl (talk) 16:40, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

I have seen more good closers than I have seen bad closers. A good closer should know not to close an AfD based solely on how many people voted "Keep" or "Delete." WP:Consensus is clear that consensus is not supposed to be about votes, except for those discussions that are specifically designed for it...such as an RfA. If it's an image discussion, it's also common for it to be about the number of votes in favor vs. against. But if I see a matter closed solely or mostly based on votes when it should not have been, I am likely to address the closer about it. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Other than cases of obvious bad rationales, or a spate of newly registered accounts, I've rarely seen closures go against the straw poll results, and those that do get raised at deletion review, where the number of supporters is used as a proxy for strength of argument. Canvassing of persons who joined Wikipedia just to chime in on the issue in question is the easy case to deal with. But if already-registered editors are drawn to a conversation, it's hard to discount their views, particularly when it's not a black-and-white problem but one of interpreting community priorities. isaacl (talk) 03:29, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Unless a discussion specifically has a straw poll section as a last resort, I often seen closers weighing the strength of the arguments, as they should. It's often that that the majority of the votes just so happen have the stronger argument(s). If it's often that the majority of the votes have poor arguments and the closer closes in favor of those poor arguments, that is a problem and it's something that needs to be addressed elsewhere for broader discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:01, 19 February 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:09, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Almost all discussions end up having support and oppose statements, as it seems people really like to write them (and put words in bold)... As I wrote above, if closers really closed on the basis of strength of argument, they'd line up the arguments, evaluate them, evaluate each option on the basis of the arguments, and see which option yields the best net positives. Instead, they all make statements about how many people supported each option, and how much they discounted individual opinions based on the arguments. The focus is on the number of people supporting each option, instead of weighing the options based on their pros and cons. isaacl (talk) 07:02, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

The support and oppose statements usually have rationales. If those rationales are not based on policies or guidelines, they are often ignored. If they are not ignored, they usually should be. Sometimes editors will specifically address the editor with a poor rationale; for example, if the editor has made a poor WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument. You stated, "As I wrote above, if closers really closed on the basis of strength of argument [...]." Are you really arguing that editors never or rarely close on the strength of the arguments? If so, I can point to numerous closes where the editor clearly closed on the strength of the arguments. In this case, we can see that Galobtter discounted "the other arguments against [inclusion that] were personal opinions on the importance of [the material]." Galobtter also stated that "the not yet arguments are somewhat less strong 15 days later." In this case, we can see that Swarm thoroughly weighed the strength of the arguments, and the pros and the cons, and that when I addressed him about the way he closed...he clarified. There is no need to "line up the arguments" (especially the poor ones), but Swarm did line up matters in a way that helped clarify how he closed. In this case, we can see that Wugapodes weighed the strength of the arguments (although I and others disagree that it's a WP:NOTCENSORED matter). Yes, Wugapodes stated that "the numbers were evenly split between the two positions," but Wugapodes immediately followed that up with "both of which have reasonable policy based rationales for their side." As I mentioned, there are a lot of other examples. So I don't agree that "the focus is [always or solely] on the number of people supporting each option, instead of weighing the options based on their pros and cons." Yes, the number of people supporting each option is a part of closing, but good closers also weigh the strength of the arguments. So to repeat: If we have more poor closers than good closers, that is an issue to address elsewhere. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:29, 21 February 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:43, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Your examples show closures that basically follow what I said most closers do: they looked at the straw poll results and then looked for reasons to discount the views for each option based on strength of argument, and they all followed the straw poll results. Swarm explicitly counted up the number of people supporting each option. Wugapodes found there was no consensus after saying the numbers were split. These cases don't show the closer making a decision based on strength of argument, since the closer did not provide a description of each option's strengths and weaknesses on that basis. In the real world, if a decision is being made by consensus and not a vote or benevolent dictator, the typical approach is to tally up the relative pros and cons of each option and weigh them on the basis of the strength of arguments. If you have examples of any closures that took an argument-first approach, breaking down and analyzing the options on the basis of their pros and cons, I'd be glad to see them. isaacl (talk) 03:03, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

At the risk of taking this tangent further off topic, I don't believe your characterization of my close is quite accurate enough. I did see consensus, there was near unanimity to keep the image but there was no agreement on what to do with it so it defaulted to the status quo. In fact, that close was partly diplomatic. I think a reasonable editor could have interpreted that discussion as having consensus against obfuscation, and I personally didn't find the arguments for obfuscating it strong. However the result between consensus against and no consensus would be the same (it stays in the lead unobfuscated), so given the wide range of disagreement I opted to take the more conservative approach and leave open the possibility of compromise. That range of disagreement was exemplified by the tallies, but it doesn't have to be. Though there was near unanimity in wanting the image somewhere, there were 7 different proposals on what to do with it: uncollapsed in lede, collapsed in lead, move to mid article and don't collapse, move to mid article as part of a gallery, keep in lede but use a progressively sharpening gif, keep but unspecified on what to do with it, and the 2 uncompromising remove opinions. By far the most common opinion was keep in the lede uncollapsed, and the opinions are only "split" if you do what I did and summarize the other proposals under some common theme: they all didn't want the image to stay as it was. So even within the "not status quo" camp there was no consensus on what to do. Though I grouped these into "obfuscate" and "don't obfuscate" for ease of exposition, I could have done that close without any reference to the number of opinions in each of those camps. My job as a closer is fundamentally not to weigh arguments, except where the rationale violates our fundamental principles, it is to neutrally summarize the opinions of the community. If an argument has merit it should have convinced the community and would be obvious from the discussion through widespread agreement. Our goal in discussions should not be to convince some random person who stumbled across WP:ANRFC, but to convince and compromise with others in the discussion. This is why, in that close, I link to WP:Not counting heads which says "If the discussion shows that some people think one policy is controlling, and some another, the closer is expected to close by judging which view has the predominant number of responsible Wikipedians supporting it, not personally select which is the better policy." So Flyer is right, there is disagreement in whether NOTCENSORED applies, but that disagreement was brought up and not resolved in the 2013 discussion, and brought up and not resolved in the 2015 discussion. I did not close as I did because I thought they had equal merit (I don't, I think NOTCENSORED applies), but because there is and has been disagreement about whether it does and so me deciding which one wins isn't an adequate representation of the lack of agreement in the community for the past 5 years. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 07:57, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Isaacl, I'm not going to keep debating you on this. You argued that closers don't really close on the basis of the strength of the arguments. You stated, "Instead, they all make statements about how many people supported each option, and how much they discounted individual opinions based on the arguments. The focus is on the number of people supporting each option, instead of weighing the options based on their pros and cons." You are wrong, per what I stated above (including the examples I pointed to). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:32, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

Wugapodes, sorry if you felt pulled into this. I figured that If I was going to point to examples, it was fair that I ping the closers I've mentioned. And your response to Isaacl above shows that I was right to ping you. I want to point out, though, that the gallery discussion wasn't technically a part of the RfC. Had that option been presented in the RfC -- the suggestion that we use a less trypophobic-inducing image as the lead image and move the lotus image to a gallery -- I think a number editors would have voted for that option. If I do another RfC on the matter, I will present that option in the RfC. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:47, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

The sentence The numbers were evenly split between the two positions, both of which have reasonable policy based rationales for their side and so I'm loathe to discount them. is the problematic one. A evaluation of the community's viewpoints on the strongest arguments has no need to discount the numbers. But I will agree that my viewpoint is mainly a semantic difference for this case, since the discussion is weighing the strength of opposing priorities for image placement, and there's no evident way to weigh that without counting heads. I appreciate the greater explanation provided by Wugapodes here. I disagree that neutrally summarizing the opinions of the community precludes determining its consensus view on the pros and cons of the various options. I think finding an approach closest to true consensus, where the greatest net gain is achieved across the community, is what is sought. The community includes everyone, not just those participating in the conversation. I disagree that convincing others in the discussion is necessary for one argument to be viewed as stronger than the others, as those participating are just a small sample and self-selected. I agree though that there are multiple ways to achieve this, but some are more vulnerable to canvassing than others. English Wikipedia's current decision-making tradition is vulnerable to self-selection, which is why we try to stop canvassing. But this exacerbates the small sample size problem, as there are only specific acceptable ways to try to increase the sampling of people weighing in. isaacl (talk) 18:32, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

To repeat: Your argument was that closers don't weigh the strength of the arguments. Per my above examples, I view you as wrong on that. And that is the case regardless of if you are speaking of "generally don't" or "never don't." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:41, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

• This kind of rule on off-wiki behaviour can only serve to discourage transparency and empower abuse. We're never going to find out about private chat rooms or Facebook groups created with malicious intents, while you can be certain that good faith activity done in the open (and probably innocuous) would get targeted by malicious actors. Nemo 14:56, 12 February 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose AfD is moribund and so discussions often have to be relisted again and again to attract any input. This is a symptom of a general decline in Wikipedia participation. It is therefore sensible to publicise discussions. We put a big banner tag on any article up for deletion to attract attention but Wikipedia's mobile app doesn't show this – not the slightest clue. Other means are therefore needed. And you simply can't stop people talking to each other. Andrew D. (talk) 09:05, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Weak support A while ago I would have said no, but after what happened over Mark Dice a couple of months ago I now lean yes. It caused far to much hassle to try and deal with the wave of meat puppets who fetched up.Slatersteven (talk) 14:51, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

A rule clarification that is (apparently) needed

Hi all. :) I'm proposing adding the following sentence to the "Vote stacking" section. (My addition is in bold):

Votestacking is an attempt to sway consensus by selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion (which may be determined, among other ways, from a userpage notice, such as a userbox, or from user categorization), and thus encouraging them to participate in the discussion. (Note that "notifying" an editor includes, but is not limited to, leaving a message on their talk page, pinging them, or contacting them outside of Wikipedia.)

This is in response to a particular user (user:Flyer22 Reborn) arguing, in an ongoing move discussion on the Genderqueer talk page, that pinging someone by mentioning them on a talk page does not count as "notifying" them. While Flyer22's stance obviously goes against the plain language of the guideline*, if they are confused about what "notifying" someone means perhaps other people are too. More clarification wouldn't hurt.

I BOLDly already made the change. Predictably, Flyer22 reverted it (in an edit incorrectly marked minor). In their edit summary they said Editor trying to use this page to influence a discussion. This isn't true, I haven't cited my guideline change in the ongoing dispute and had no intention of doing so. Instead, I'm trying to prevent people from misunderstanding (or trying to Wikilawyer their way around) the guideline in the future.

Note that this rule change would not completely prohibit talk page pings during contentious discussions. The intention here is just clarify that a talk page ping is essentially the same thing as a user page ping which essentially is the same thing as an email, etc. Sometimes, as the guideline notes, it is acceptable to notify certain users during a discussion and this clarification would not change that.

*See: the Wiktionary definition of notify: To give (someone) notice of (something). See also Wikipedia:Notifications, which does not distinguish between user page messages and talk page pings, and lists them both as a form of notification/pinging.

WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 01:49, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Regarding this, as seen here (followup note here), I reverted the following addition by WanderingWanda: "Note that 'notifying' an editor includes, but is not limited to, leaving a message on their talk page, pinging them, or contacting them outside of Wikipedia."

As I've made clear to WanderingWanda, what counts as canvassing when pinging and whether or not pinging should count as canvassing is debated among editors. This is seen, for example, with the Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Dane discussion. It's been discussed at this talk page before, and in other venues, like WP:ANI. The community has not been able to find a consensus on this. This is because of the intent aspect that comes along with canvassing and because of complicated cases like the Dane one. Like I mentioned before, "I see such pinging all the time at WP:ANI, for example, and the pings are usually used by editors (administrators and non-administrators) for support on whatever they are arguing." And regarding notifying editors off Wikipedia, I noted to WanderingWanda that, as seen in the #Proposal: social media discussion above, even what constitutes canvassing when alerting a Wikipedia editor off Wikipedia has recently been debated. And yet WanderingWanda made the "contacting them outside of Wikipedia" addition.

I was clear to WanderingWanda that pinging editors who were involved in a previous discussion, who watch the talk page where that previous discussion was had, and who asked to be kept informed is not canvassing. Notice the use of "and" instead of "or" in that previous sentence. Not only was that the case, I was mentioning two editors who researched a matter. I was not going to mention them and not ping them. Even after I pointed WanderingWanda to Wikipedia:Canvassing#Appropriate notification, which notes the exemptions to the canvassing guideline, including "Editors who have made substantial edits to the topic or article," "Editors who have participated in previous discussions on the same topic (or closely related topics)," "Editors known for expertise in the field," and "Editors who have asked to be kept informed," WanderingWanda still chose to view the matter as a canvassing violation (as is clear by their "Flyer is confused" nonsense above). Like I told WanderingWanda, "If one or two editors asked to be kept informed, I do not need to then notify every editor who participated in the discussion but argued in the opposite direction." Predictably, WanderingWanda came to this guideline to add "pinging" to it, despite the Dane example I pointed to. Despite all of the past discussions on pinging and editors being cautious about adding anything on it to this guideline for a number of reasons, including those gone over by Collect, WanderingWanda, a newbie who isn't really a newbie, somehow knows better than the significantly experienced Wikipedians. I'm apparently confused despite pinging editors the way I did being quite clearly allowed under the "Appropriate notification" section. Apparently, we need clarification on the a rule that WanderingWanda understands better than us. WanderingWanda speaks of wanting to stop editors from gaming the system... Well, adding "pinging them" without context is ripe for Wikilawyering. And, indeed, "notification" being interpreted as including pinging was discussed after it was added to the introuction. This type of interpretation by WanderingWanda is what I was concerned about. As for WanderingWanda not trying to influence the Genderqueer discussion, I disagree. There was no reason to even mention that article here in this section, for example. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:27, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Whether you were justified in pinging the specific editors you did in that specific discussion is beside the point. It seemed like canvassing to me, but, whatever, that's not what I'm here to talk about.

We're both agreed that there are exceptions where it is appropriate to notify editors of a discussion. Here's where we seem to disagree: you've said (in that other ongoing discussion) that WP:Canvassing [does] not address WP:Pinging and (just now) whether or not pinging should count as canvassing is debated among editors. To me, that position doesn't even make sense. It's literally incomprehensible to me. How is notifying someone on a talk page different from notifying someone on a user page? How is one a notification and one not a notification? They're obviously both notifications!

I fully admit I'm not a very experienced editor (although, hey, I did just get my apprentice badge. :) so maybe there's something obvious here I'm missing, but I'm completely baffled by your position. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 02:54, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

How are you "completely baffled by [my] position" when looking at cases like the Wikipedia talk:Requests for adminship/Dane case? Why do you think, in that discussion, Sir Joseph stated that "pinging is not canvassing."? Why do you think editors were arguing over pinging in relation to canvassing in that discussion? How many more similar discussions should I point you to for you to get the point that it's the case that WP:Canvassing clearly does not specifically address WP:Pinging and that whether or not pinging should count as canvassing is debated among editors? Should I ping everyone involved in that Dane discussion? I think I should. We obviously need a big discussion on this. And by "a big discussion," I mean a discussion at WP:Village pump (policy) about it. It's long overdue. I personally can see pinging as canvassing in a particular case, but adding "pinging" to the guideline needs much discussion per past arguments on the matter. You interpreting my having pinged those editors as canvassing is a prime example of that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:16, 3 May 2019 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:19, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but in general, for a discussion, as you can see at WP:AN, you can't ping an editor, you need to notify them on the talk page. People don't necessarily read pings. In order to be properly notified, it must be on the user's talk page. That is my opinion. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 04:04, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

A formal notification requires a user talk page message, yes. But canvassing can be done with a ping, email, or other off-site channels. Whether or not a specific message is canvassing is a different question. isaacl (talk) 04:12, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

--

So let's back up and ask a few basic questions.

1. What is a ping? The page WP:Notifications seems to indicate that a ping is anything you do on Wikipedia that causes another user to receive a notification pop-up, including sending them a Wiki email or leaving a message on their user talk page. However, in this discussion I think we're using the term more narrowly to mean: when you link to a user's page on a talk page (which automatically sends a notification to that user). For clarity, from now on I'm going to call that specific form of ping a talk page ping.

2. Does the guideline Wikipedia:Canvassing cover talk page pings? It does not mention talk page pings specifically, but what it does cover is notifying in general.

3. Does a talk page ping count as notifying? Well, it sends a notification to a user, so yes. How could it not? By any reasonable definition of the word notify, to ping someone on a talk page is to notify another user. Note that WP:Notifications treats pinging and notifying as synonymous: Notifications ...commonly called pinging. Therefore, any time the canvassing guideline talks bout notifying other users, the word notifying encompasses talk page pings.

4. So what, in the end, is the current guideline for talk page pings? Simple, any time you see a word like notify replace it with something like talk page ping, and you'll have your answer. Let's try it:

When talk-page-pinging other editors of discussions, keep the number of notifications small, keep the message text neutral, and don't preselect recipients according to their established opinions. Be open!

...In general, it is perfectly acceptable to talk-page-ping other editors of ongoing discussions, provided that it be done with the intent to improve the quality of the discussion by broadening participation to more fully achieve consensus.

Canvassing is talk-page-pinging done with the intention of influencing the outcome of a discussion in a particular way, and is considered inappropriate. This is because it compromises the normal consensus decision-making process, and therefore is generally considered disruptive behavior...

Votestacking is an attempt to sway consensus by selectively talk-page-pinging editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion (which may be determined, among other ways, from a userpage notice, such as a userbox, or from user categorization), and thus encouraging them to participate in the discussion.

In conclusion, I disagree with the notion that the guideline doesn't currently cover talk page pings, it does cover them, just not explicitly. In the discussion you linked, the person who seemed to have the most reasonable point of view was Swarm:

It's a matter of common sense as to whether pinging constitutes canvassing—it depends on the intent, obviously, and can only be judged on a case by case basis. If one opposes an RfA, and unnecessarily pings another editor who was in a dispute with the nominee and will likely oppose as well, I don't understand how you can say it's objectively not canvassing. Per AGF, the default assumption should be that canvassing was not the intent, but surely you could see why one might view such a move as suspect.

In the case of that other contentious discussion we're both engaged in currently... if you pinged those editors because your intent was to get additional voters that would vote in line with your own POV, it was canvassing, if you had another intent, it wasn't. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 04:09, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

The reason that the guideline does not yet explicitly cover pinging is because of the issues I mentioned. And regardless of whether or not an editor is going to agree with the person doing the pinging, and the one doing the pinging knows that the editor will agree, it's still the case that pinging an editor who asked to be kept informed is an exemption. Nowhere does the guideline state that an editor should only keep another editor informed if the editor who asked to be kept informed will disagree with them. Nowhere does the guideline state that an editor should only keep another editor informed if, after pinging the editor who asked to be kept informed, that editor pings all others who were involved in the previous discussion. Nowhere does the guideline state that pinging an editor who is already watching the talk page is canvassing.

Speaking of pinging, I'm pinging the following editors who took part in that Dane pinging discussion: TParis, Beeblebrox, Ivanvector, Primefac, RileyBugz, Juliancolton, Lepricavark, Swarm, Ritchie333, clpo13, and Yintan. Also pinging SMcCandlish because he's contributed to many of our policies and guidelines and is good at proposing matters at WP:Village pump (policy) if they need to be presented there. He often has good ideas about crafting policies and guidelines. I didn't ping Coffee because he's currently indefinitely blocked.

If we are going to add pinging to the guideline, let's get it right. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:07, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• There seems some disagreement on the necessity of a) whether individuals in prior discussions had to have stated their desire to be informed to be pinged in future similar discussions and b) whether a minority of individuals desiring to be informed, could be pinged without needing to ping all individuals. I would say a is clearly "if they sounded interested, you can ping them, if you're even-handed" and b is "yes, you can first ping the "enthusiastic" group, without needing to ping all. So long as this is not part of a shared tactic to enable canvassing". Nosebagbear (talk) 14:47, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Poll

• I support the proposed addition as a useful clarification and an anti-WP:GAMING effort, even if I deplore the tone of this proposal's presentation and the major response to it. Just the amount of WP:WIKILAWYERING going on in the discussion following the proposal is strong evidence why this is needed. I would say that I've noticed that attempts to skirt the edge of WP:CANVASS have gotten much worse and more frequent over the last couple of years, and that the community enforcement against it has weakened, in part due to lack of specificity in the guideline wording. Some meta-commentary on this thread: Hint 1) If your only rationale for doing something is that the formally written policies and guidelines don't quite prohibit it in exact wording, you have no argument; WP does not work that way, and you know it. Hint 2) if you're proposing a change, stick to the proposal and don't inject extraneous arguments that go way beyond it and start treading on practices that most editors firmly believe are not a problem.) In closing, please consider that the neutrality, concision, and other advice at WP:RFC is applicable to anything serving the function of an RfC, including proposals that don't have an {{RfC}} tag on them (they pre-date the existence of that template, for one thing; and see also GAMING, WIKILAWYER, WP:POLICY, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:COMMONSENSE, etc., about trying to escape a general principle on a technicality, a tactic exhibited by both of the more vocal sides in this debate). Please also consider that editor A unnecessarily personalizing a matter to seem be all about editor B doesn't require editor B to do the same, tit-for-tat; it's more constructive to rise above this (even just declaring that the personalization is distasteful and will not be addressed in any detail is often sufficient to deflate it).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:40, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in,  SMcCandlish. You support this exact wording? Or would you propose different wording? And what of the gray issues/context aspect that both Collect and Swarm have mentioned? And what of the "editors who have asked to be informed and/or are already watching the talk page" aspect that I mentioned above? There are many cases where a dispute is going on at the talk page of an article and editors ping other watchers of that talk page. I'll go ahead and notify WP:Village pump (policy) to this discussion. Masem and BullRangifer, who are also good at crafting guidelines and policies, might also propose something. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't have any issues with the original wording change proposed; it's still all subordinate to the main point, "selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion" (i.e., vote-stacking). As I say in many matters like this, if there's some minor issue with the wording it can be tweaked, and most WP:P&G language gets adjusted over time; this is not carved in stone. Thus, I'm also not opposed to any particular tweaks to the wording if they make sense; nor to reforumlating this as a proper RfC. I'm supporting the general principle being included. I don't think any grey areas can or should be addressed in this; it's the very nature of grey areas, and WP is full of grey areas. WP:P&G and WP:CONSENSUS and related pages already take this into account, and WP:IAR exists for a reason. Next, when editors directly ask to be notified, community consensus already entirely accepts pinging them; there is no issue to resolve there. Same goes for notifying en masse all editors from a prior round of discussion about a new round. None of this relates to vote-stacking or is questionable. The proposed addition doesn't undermine these in any way; it does nothing but clarify that "selectively notifying editors [with] a predetermined point of view" isn't magically permissible if you do it via method B or method C instead of method A. It's simple, clear, and is actually already the operational community consensus that we simply haven't bothered writing down yet. It's just unfortunate that the proposal wasn't left at that, without the paragraphs of venting.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:20, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Just wanted to say I agree I haven't handled this proposal, or my disagreements with Flyer22, as well as I could have. Will try and be more mindful in future. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 17:10, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose - I'm not okay with the premise of this proposal to begin with. This is clearly inappropriate spillover from a content dispute, and it feels like a dirty move. One thing we don't do is change policy wording just so that we can write our content dispute opponents outside of policy compliance, and that appears to be exactly what is going on here. The proposed wording change itself is just a statement of common sense. It does not need to be spelled out that "pinging" is a method of "notification". It's asinine to suggest that Flyer is incapable of comprehending this, and to suggest a wording change of the policy itself in response to such a ridiculous premise is entirely inappropriate. There's nothing inherently wrong with notifying. There's nothing inherently wrong with pinging. That's not what this policy is about, with or without the proposed change. There's obviously this blatant underlying implication that Flyer engaged in canvassing via the ping function, which is sending selective notifications, with the intent to fabricate a biased result. When one suspects this is happening, one is supposed to substantiate their accusation with evidence and report the issue to administrators at WP:AN/I. Not jump straight into the policy page and try to reword it so that it seems like your opponent is more in the wrong. If Flyer canvassed, then that complaint should stand on its own merits. We should not be here, discussing changes in policy wording. Looking at the canvassing accusation itself, Flyer immediately refuted this complaint, saying "[the] editors I pinged, although they agree with me, were either involved in the previous discussions and/or asked to be kept informed. I'm not going to note who asked to be kept informed. And two of the editors -- Legitimus and Mathglot -- were central to research on the matter". In other words, these are editors who are already involved, which is a reasonable justification to notify them. That's not canvassing. If there is some evidence missing that would prove that the notifications were biased, surely Wanda would have seized on it. Yet, Wanda instead degenerated into this bizarre argument that Flyer was arguing that pinging could not be canvassing because it's not mentioned by this page. That's clearly a disingenuous straw man argument, and to take it so far as to attempt to change the policy itself is ridiculous. I refuse to take this seriously. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 06:22, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Pointy. Policies are not part of an extended war game. Any words along the lines of "contacting them outside of Wikipedia" encourages self appointed social media police, using fear of being outed as a weapon, damaging and potentially distressing Wikipedians interested in working collegiately and openly. This is becoming a spooks charter, making it possible to hound open contributors by asking who their friends are, which facebook account they use, which twitter account, which email groups they are part of. This already happens and those doing it should be hammered for attempted outing and harassment, rather than making policies that will be used to protect them from sanctions because they vaguely suspected someone of off-wiki canvassing. --Fæ (talk) 08:37, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• Without expressing an opinion here on whether the instance that prompted this was canvassing, it seems obvious that if you take any situation that we do agree meets the threshold of canvassing, via talk pages or e-mail, etc, and replace the method with notifications sent via WP:Notifications, it's still (erm) notification, and canvassing. An addition like the one proposed would be a helpful anti-GAMING clarification, as SMcCandlish says, so I support it.
  Pace Swarm, while I know it's rough for a user to see a change be proposed in response to something they did, I think it's reasonable to expect proposals to arise in response to situations where guidelines are wikilawyered over: when users propose changes to merely 'head off' problems that haven't yet arisen, other users (including me!) routinely question whether change is needed / whether the problem actually happens, and shoot them down—having evidence that a proposal is in response to an actually-occurring issue makes it more worthy of consideration, IMO. -sche (talk) 08:30, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

• "Pace"? Like, as in the Latin sense? Really? That is almost as insulting as this proposal itself. The key words here are "actually-occurring issue". There is no "actual issue". The purpoted "issue" is that Flyer pinged some users who ended up supporting them in a content dispute. Wanda is attempting to portray that as "canvassing", in an apparent attempt to game the content dispute. When Flyer pointed out that they actually had a perfectly legitimate reason to notify the users in question, Wanda misrepresented their argument as "pinging can't be canvassing", which is not actually Flyer's argument. That is the basis of this proposal, in lieu of actual canvassing prompted by subpar wording. This is a joke. By supporting a policy wording change on this basis, you're legitimizing a fabricated argument to win a content dispute. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 08:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Wanda misrepresented their argument as "pinging can't be canvassing", which is not actually Flyer's argument. It wasn't their only argument, but the idea that talk page pinging in general might not be covered under WP:CANVASSING was one of Flyer's arguments, unless I am drastically misunderstanding what they were saying. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 17:01, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

You seem to be held up on the fact that they said WP:Canvassing [does] not address WP:Pinging, at the expense of every other statement they made explaining that their notifications were appropriate and justifiable. You're apparently interpreting that as an argument that "pinging can't be canvassing". But based on Flyer's subsequent explanations, their argument is more along the lines of "pinging can't be automatically labelled as canvassing, because it's a nuanced issue, just like any other form of notification". Perhaps they didn't initially word it the best possible way, but they've certainly clarified their position by now, and you don't seem to be looking at anything other than cherrypicked statements that look bad. Maybe you're not intending to, but that's just how it looks to me. ~Swarm~ ^{sting} 19:42, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Swarm. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose as not solving a well-defined problem. Truth be told, IRC, email and "other channels" would really have to be covered for the CANVASS rules to have any teeth at all. Collect (talk) 12:56, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose – partly, per my colleagues' comments above, because it's always a bad idea for editors to try and change PAGs while they're in the middle of disputes. Moreso, however, because if we were to make a change to this guideline, I would !vote that it be deleted altogether. On a collaborative project such as this, editors should be encouraged, not discouraged, from reaching out to each other and soliciting input. Concerns about votestacking, cabaling, and other such inappropriate canvassing ignore several key points, such as 1) anyone who wants to cabal only needs to follow their friends' contribs or watchlist their friends' talk pages, no actual communication is required to collude on Wikipedia, and 2) off-wiki communication make colluding trivially easy for anyone who wants to do it. As such, prohibiting on-wiki communications will only drive the "bad actors" to use off-wiki means, even assuming they need to communicate at all. TLDR: WP:CANVASS is pointless and counterproductive. Leviv ich 16:48, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  I agree with that. The guideline is, effectively, "don't canvass openly where everybody can see it." We can't legislate morality and cheaters are gonna find a way to cheat. But I don't think we're going to reach consensus to delete the guideline in this discussion, which is not about that. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:21, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  No, I don't think so either, but until then, I'd oppose any expansion of it. Leviv ich 17:24, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

  Even though we can't stop canvassing completely, the guideline has been helpful in a number of cases, including contentious topics such as the Gamergate controversy. It's never a good thing for an editor to go to Reddit, for example, and bring in a bunch of WP:Meatpuppets. We shouldn't think of the "we can't stop canvassing completely" matter as "Oh, well, since we can't stop it completely, we should just allow it or ignore it." I would never support abolishing this guideline. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:49, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

  Oh I don't suggest just allowing it or ignoring it, but we could replace many very complicated PAGs with a single, very simple one: Don't be sneaky. That would be equally effective, or equally ineffective. We belabor precise definitions to the nth degree, as if we're programmable robots, and then criticize people for being tangled up in them, which we call wikilawyering. Every clarification creates another ambiguity which requires clarification, without end until we just give up in frustration and say we can't do any better. The entire approach is wrong, and dysfunctional. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:23, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support per SMcCandlish. The proposed change is logical and clear, regardless of the dispute that generated it. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw) │ 20:57, 04 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support - the nutshell definition is When notifying other editors of discussions, keep the number of notifications small, keep the message text neutral, and don't preselect recipients according to their established opinions. "Notifying" is any act designed to attract someone's attention to the discussion; pinging is clearly such an action. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 01:42, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose While using pings to deliberately canvas is of course wrong, if there is any grey area about the notifications an editor intends to make, the method that should be encouraged is pings on the page containing the discussion. The visibility of the ping promotes transparency, and allows any questions of canvasing to be addressed at the time, rather than when someone notices a message located elsewhere later in the discussion. Specifically calling out the use of pings I think would discourage their use in this type of grey area situation. Since the language already covers bad faith canvasing of all types, I think a specific call-out of pings would do more harm than good. Monty₈₄₅ 02:55, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The statements by Monty, Swarm, Collect, and Levivich already cover the reasons I have for opposing, so no need to repeat them. Schazjmd (talk) 20:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support. I can't see how anyone can argue pinging isn't a way of notifying an editor of an ongoing discussion. Calidum 04:25, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support. The only reason I might hesitate is because it should be blindingly obvious that it doesn't matter how someone is communicating these message(s). The issue is intent or knowing disregard for disruptive results. Stacking !votes with sockspuppets, or meatpuppets, or biased participation, or a mob of clueless-junk-votes, or turning a discussion into a clusterfk, or anything else that threatens an improper outcome or threatened a confusion-based-no-consensus or threatens to impair our other work is disruptive. There are times and ways that it is appropriate to notify an individual or advertize for general participation, and that is generally addressed by Appropriate Notification. However inappropriate notification is inappropriate no matter how it's done. As an example, if there is an AFD and an editor posts about it off-wiki while the AFD is in progress and knowing that it is likely attract biased or disruptive activity in that AFD, then they are at risk of receiving a warning or sanction for the on-wiki disruption they caused. Unless canvasing is exceptionally egregious, a first instance generally results in a warning and education about the issue. But I definitely support preventative-blocks against repeat offenders, needing a clear statement that they understand the problem and will not repeat it before being unblocked. I note that these instances seem to most often occur in topics covered by discretionary sanctions. Any individual engaging in initial canvassing behavior in such a topic area should be given the relevant discretionary sanction notice, and repeated instances should receive discretionary sanction blocks. Alsee (talk) 23:13, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. This confuses canvassing with letting interested, or previously involved, parties know about something. The guideline ought not to be interpreted to mean that people who care about something aren't allowed to be told about it. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:31, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

What About Off-Site Organizing & Education?

As a relatively New Editor, I've been confronted with several challenges, and wished that there were some kind of off-site resource I could go in order to have open and wide-ranging conversations (meaning outside Wikipedia Rules) about "How to Edit Wikipedia", to the extent that I sometimes toy with the idea of forming such a site on my own. Last night I happened upon this Article, read it, and wondered if there was anything outside of this Article that would prohibit, or regulate, such an activity. I've heard rumors that sometimes college students get together and make a project out of editing Wikipedia and always assumed this was considered okay, but when I contemplate doing, or facilitating this kind of thing myself, I wonder if the idea be doomed from the start for some unknown reason.Tym Whittier (talk) 17:30, 13 May 2019 (UTC)