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The idea lab section of the village pump is a place where new ideas or suggestions on general Wikipedia issues can be incubated, for later submission for consensus discussion at Village pump (proposals). Try to be creative and positive when commenting on ideas.
Before creating a new section, please note:

Before commenting, note:

  • This page is not for consensus polling. Stalwart "Oppose" and "Support" comments generally have no place here. Instead, discuss ideas and suggest variations on them.
  • Wondering whether someone already had this idea? Search the archives below, and look through Wikipedia:Perennial proposals.
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Better citation needed system

I encounter many pages that include at least one {{citation needed}} tag. The problem is, these tags often remain on an article for a long time, in some case years, before someone replaces the tag with a citation, if that even happens at all. Not only that, but the longer the unreferenced information stays in an article, the more likely a proposed citation is actually an example of WP:CITOGEN. I propose a new system that will solve this problem and insure that all articles conform to WP:V.

  1. First, we deprecate all forms of the citation needed tag other than the {{cns}} tag. This way, the software will know which specific information needs to be referenced.
  2. Then, we create a special page that lists all articles that have this tag. This will give users the opportunity to add citations before step 3 occurs.
  3. After one week (or some other period if time), a bot removes the information highlighted by the CNS tag.

This new system will ensure the prompt removal of unreferenced materiel, but will still allow users the opportunity to add references before the information is removed. What do you think? --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 16:45, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is a truly terrible idea, which will leave gaping gaps in many articles. These days, we have far too few editors who actually write text for this to work. A high proportion of tagged information is completely correct, but so many tags have been added in the past that people can't be bothered digging out refs. Surely we already have lots of categories like: Category:All articles needing additional references (373,006) of these, plus subcats? There are still 59 in Category:Articles needing additional references from June 2006. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I believe it is unfair to compare the current use of the citation needed tag with effects from its proposed use. Obviously, if implemented, users would use it more sparingly. Additionally, I am not proposing that we replace all the citation needed tags already in articles. I just want to stop using it in the future for the very reason that you mentioned. There are 373,006 articles that need more references. Obviously tags aren't working. If we want to continue to insure articles conform to WP:V we need to start removing unreferenced material instead of just adding a "citation needed" and forgetting about it. This system removes the unreferenced info while still giving users the time to add citations. There would only be "gaping gaps" in articles if the new tag was used like the old one, with articles being saturated with citation needed tags. I simply don't believe we should ignore adding reliable sources simply because editors assume "A high proportion of tagged information is completely correct...". --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 17:58, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This is using a hammer to squash a fly and would cause more harm than good, IMO. Any deletion of text from an article for being uncited is far better handled by a human than a robot.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:27, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
It’s worth pointing out that the bot would only delete information that has been tagged by a human. So, this isn’t really changing anything. As is, unreferenced material should be removed, it just isn’t because people don’t bother, which is a problem considering that WP:V is one the most important policies on Wikipedia. No policies are changing, I just want to create a new version of “citation needed” that actually works. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 01:31, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Unfortunately, it's not being handled by humans, as Johnbod himself said. As a result, Wikipedia is riddled with potentially inaccurate "information" and the validity of accurate information is undermined. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 23:01, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
And I'm OK with that as I think that the cure is worse than the problem.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:54, 28 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen a fair number of erroneous cn tags left by editors who don't understand consolidating cites at the end of a paragraph or otherwise don't understand that the material already has a cite. So, again, no robot should be deleting text.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 01:41, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If we avoided things because a new editor could make a mistake, we wouldn’t do anything. There are far worse things that new editors can do. Besides, if it does get out of hand, we can just prevent new editors from adding that template, the same way we stop them from indexing their userpage. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 02:13, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Overly aggressive solution. One really common issue is cn tags being placed when there are perfectly good general sources, as well as the issue that Sturmvogel noted. It also isn't a mistake that just new editors make. Also you want to deprecate all other cn tags, so that would make those editors you did prohibit completely unable to indicate missing citations. You'd need to demonstrate that major numbers of editors would sweep the board with these instances on them in order to either resolve, or even check the cn tags were placed legitimately, for this to not be an heavy overreaction. I don't think that's possible, so I'd be a firm oppose. Nosebagbear (talk) 10:09, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The proposal is a bad solution to a serious problem. Another idea would be to make it technically easier to add citations. It is much easier to add text or even intra-wiki links than citations, and this may contribute to the lack of citations. As an editor of scientific articles in an underdeveloped area, I often find it a better use of my time to add text than citations, hoping that someone else will clean up later. But that calculus could change if I could add a citation to a given arXiv preprint in a few clicks. Ideally, give an URL and have a bot detect which type of source it is (arXiv, DOI, journal, Google Book, etc) and generate the citation. In other words, consolidate and complete the existing tools into a single, easy to use tool. Furthermore, it could be made easier to reuse an existing citation (even from a different WP article). And citations could be made less intrusive in the text editor. Sylvain Ribault (talk) 19:54, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
​There is a Citation Bot that will allow you to use DOI numbers and will then expand out the citation correctly. — Will (talk) 15:47, 18 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
​DOIs are not enough. Arxiv preprints don't have DOIs. Even when the preprint is eventually published in a journal, I would rather send readers to arXiv than to a paywall. (The journal version might officially be considered the reliable version of record or whatever, but in practice scholars often use the arXiv version.) Sylvain Ribault (talk) 07:19, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
​I would wholeheartedly support that proposal. Perhaps incorporate it into Twinkle? --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 13:56, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
​I was hoping for tools that could be used by any editor, even editors who are unregistered or not very technically adept, and without installing anything. Thanks for mentioning Wikipedia:Twinkle, which I did not know about, but this seems to be for relatively advanced editors. Sylvain Ribault (talk) 19:48, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Soviets built a Dead Hand system that is still operational. If the system ceases to receive regular check-ins from its human minders it automatically launches a massive nuclear strike and no one can stop it. -- GreenC 21:08, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
If that's meant to be a metaphor for my proposal, it doesn't work. I want to reiterate that the bots would only remove text that was higlighted by a real human. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 21:40, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A Dead Hand is targeted (configured) by real humans. Without human intervention after a set period of time it takes over and "deletes" automatically. -- GreenC 22:18, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Which is exactly what my proposal does not do. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 01:04, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
OK I misunderstood then. I thought one targets text with the CNS template and if nothing is done after a set period of time (1 week) it is deleted. -- GreenC 01:13, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn’t oppose that solution, but I doubt it will solve the problem. As is, it’s easy enough to create citations using the tools in the toolbar. --PuzzledvegetableIs it teatime already? 01:07, 1 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Puzzledvegetable, if you are interested in improving Wikipedia by adding inline citations, then you might want to see Wikipedia:WikiProject Reliability#Getting started. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 13 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Non-commercial images

This came up on Commons recently. Didn't go anywhere, but that's Commons and this ain't. Maybe it's come up here and I haven't found it. Seems that surely it has been discussed before. But why exactly is it that we allow local fair use images, but we don't allow local non-commercial images? I mean, if we're trying to divine "degrees of free", non-commercial images must surely be "more free" than fair use. I can understand why a project that didn't allow local fair use, also wouldn't allow non-commercial, but I'm not sure it's obvious why the English Wikipedia doesn't. GMGtalk 20:08, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

We (en.wiki) can use non-commercial, but that is required to be treated as non-free, as all free images must meet the definition given by WMF which is here: [1] and any license not meeting that (including non-commercial reuse) must be treated as non-free. --Masem (t) 20:11, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yeah, but how we treat "non-free" is (as far as I understand it) a local decision wrt m:Resolution:Licensing policy. Couldn't we just amend our EDP to accommodate non-com? GMGtalk 20:20, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To be more clear, I don't know that there is a hard barrier (as far as I understand it) to us creating a WP:NCCC (non-commercial content criteria) to compliment WP:NFCC, in cases where no completely free alternative exists, and yet a free non-commercial alternative does. GMGtalk 21:33, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There would be no point, as per wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy I don't think we could change it to allow us to do anything with "non-commercial" images that we can't already do by treating them the same as any other non-free image. They'd still have to be labeled as being allowed by the EDP (#2), they still couldn't be used where a free version can reasonably be expected to be uploaded (#3), and only for limited purposes (also #3), would still have to have a rationale (#4), and so on. About all we might do would be to try to prefer "non-commercial" to other types of non-free files. For which, why bother?
Besides which, I very much doubt any such change would get consensus. Anomie⚔ 21:35, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
To be fair, the issue was raised because the Foundation's own working group were the ones who suggested a change. We could still look to drop 2, 3 and 9 (and possibly 8 in favor of 5) from NFCC. GMGtalk 21:44, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Someone who is freely licensing their work for non-commercial reuse only has explicitly reserved their right for commercial exploitation. I don't think English Wikipedia should treat this intent as being less restrictive with respect to safeguarding the copyright's holder ability to benefit from the work. isaacl (talk) 21:52, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As long as the Foundation has a binary distinction of free v non-free, we really can't change that (they want all content to be redistributable and modifyable by any end user to be able to call it free) But we can say in guideline that we would definitely more prefer a CC-BY-NC over a straight up standard copyright, if there was a choice between two images. And if a CC-BY-NC was up at FFD and on the border of whether it was appropriate, if it has a good strictly educational factor, I'd probably have it kept.
I will note we do talk about "freer" images when it comes to images that may carry multiple copyright, such as photographs of 3D artwork. (The artist's and the creator's), but this ends up as a non-free image. --Masem (t) 22:20, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I think a generic statement to favour works that are licensed for non-commercial reuse could be somewhat perverse, in some cases. We'd be rewarding a copyright holder who is making their content available for pure non-commercial use by violating their copyright. I'm sure there are many situations where the copyright holder won't mind, but I'm wary of making it a general guideline. isaacl (talk) 22:38, 30 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
For all purposes, WP is a non-commercial use and WMF non-profit, so we cared little on redistribution, we could be using -NC content left and right. The problem is that the -NC restricts redistribution and reuse to a portion of users (commercial), so because the Foundation wants freely redistributable materail, we tag -NC as non-free. But the thing to keep in mind is that our disclaimers do warn reusers that they are responsible for reviewing any File: content they wish to include. So for educational redistributors, NC is great and helps, but still poses the same problems to commercial users. --Masem (t) 20:08, 31 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We'd be rewarding a copyright holder who is making their content available for pure non-commercial use by violating their copyright. I'm not sure I follow the meaning here. GMGtalk 14:44, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Say someone takes a photo of an event, who wishes to sell it or license it to businesses. The copyright holder wishes to contribute to the non-commercial community and has graciously allowed it to use its photo for non-commercial use only. Your proposal suggests that in return, English Wikipedia should not respect the commercial opportunities for the photo (NFC criterion #2) and not limit the resolution of the photo (NFC criterion #3). In the name of fair use, the English Wikipedia community will have chosen to violate the non-commercial use license, and given an onus to the copyright holder to pursue any commercial re-users of Wikipedia who have infringed copyright, without making the accommodations that are given to protect the commercial value of works that offer no non-commercial license at all. I do suspect that some copyright holders won't mind the tradeoff in exchange for the greater visibility their work will receive, but I'm wary of making this a blanket guideline. isaacl (talk) 17:48, 4 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
We at WP would not have violated the NC license. We would have made it more visible for others to use in a way that would violate the license, but there's a distinction. Every time we use a fair use image, we are making it visible for violators. Since most use of WP is probably noncommercial, the current policy could be seen as interfering with the possibility for legitimate use. The onus in pursuing copyright is always with the owner, and in choosing to se a NC license in the first place, the owner will know perfectly well that there might be commercial uses that they may want to pursue. No major commercial publication would use a NC image--they watch out for liability. Our responsibility is to post a clear warning that the image is not under a free license. We would not be favoring works with a NC license. We would continue to favor works with a free license. We would only favor works with a NC license over those that were not licensed for reuse at all but which we ae using under the US fair use provisions. I think it would be appropriate for us to do so. Every step towards free licensing is good. We've been saying we can not liberalize our policy because the foundation would not let us, which has indeed been an absolutely valid argument. The question now is what would we best want to do if they did let us. I think this neeeds a general discussion. If it is rejected, and I think it is probable that it would be, it should be rejected with full awareness of the possibility DGG ( talk ) 14:53, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Although I remain wary of making images more visible for unlicensed use, I agree upon further review of Wikipedia's licensing terms that only Wikipedia's text is covered. Since Wikipedia is not providing a licence for incorporated media, it does not violate the licence of works that are licensed only for non-commercial use. I still think that it would be more encouraging to rights holders to continue to respect the commercial value of their works. isaacl (talk) 18:03, 16 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There's also the slight possibility people who would otherwise take photos and license them under the CC license would release them under a non-commercial license instead. I know if I had the option to upload a photo under non-commercial or CC, I would pick the one more favourable to my rights unless I'm intentionally trying to help the project. SportingFlyer T·C 05:43, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Which Creative Commons licence are you thinking of? I imagine a lot of people licensing their works for non-commercial reuse are using Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. isaacl (talk) 05:58, 20 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

WP:GNG for academics

SNGs are always superseded by WP:GNG with the exception of academics, which look to WP:NPROF to determine academic notability. Unfortunately, WP:NPROF can be difficult to apply, especially if you're outside academia - I was told it's similar to what you would look for when granting tenure, which I have absolutely no idea about. Proposals to transition WP:NPROF to be superseded by WP:GNG have generally failed. Academia does not always get written about in sources which commonly pass WP:GNG.

I personally see this exemption as a problem, not because I have any bias against any academic articles, but because it's difficult for me to apply WP:NPROF and therefore difficult to assess an article about an academic at AfC or NPP. I tend to just leave these for others unless I see a copyvio.

What I think would be exceptionally helpful is maybe some sort of "WP:GNGA." Clearly, there's a way to determine whether someone has achieved prominence in their field based off of sources, whether it's the number of times they've been cited or being written about by other academics in journals. I would make a more formal proposal, but I don't know quite enough about what sources we look towards determining whether one of the WP:NPROF prongs has been met, something along the lines of the following (along with an explanation for the exemption): "When determining the notability of an academic, the following types of sources are exempted and count towards satisfying WP:GNG: 1. the following is an example A press release or article about the academic written by the academic's institution announcing the academic's named chair While technically a primary source, named chairs at major academic institutions are generally notable, and consensus has demonstrated these sources to be reliable 2.." would really be helpful. SportingFlyer T·C 03:14, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • More specifically, at the end of the day, we want a quality article, but we used presumed notability from the GNG or an SNG to allow for a sub-quality article to be in mainsapce on WP to draw editors to help expand and improve with without a fear of a deadline; though if someone still presents a strong rationale for why an article likely cannot be expanded or improved further (per WP:BEFORE), then deletion is reasonable. Going from ATH to the GNG is a step towards that better quality of article. (The reason the GNG supercedes an SNG is that a topic may fail an SNG it is normally within but meets the GNG, allowing for an article.) --Masem (t) 15:07, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • A major point about SNG's that is sometimes not clearly understood is that an SNG can never be used to exclude a subject that meets GNG. An SNG is by definition meant to (temporarily) lower the bar for subjects for which proving GNG compliance is difficult. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 05:51, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's solve the problems, not the things which may not seem logical but are not actually problems.
The distinction is a little different. The SNG for WP:PROF neither supersedes nor is superseded by the GNG--it's an alternative It was adopted because it matches what the world in general and the profession in particular thinks relevant. It became finally accepted when it was realized 10 years ago that I and others working in this area could, if we truly relied on the GNG in a literal sense, could show everyone who had published more than one or two papers moderately-cited papers notable, because there would be significant discussion of their work in some of the articles citing them. It's a practical convention. Other SNGs are also interpreted in ways that make them somewhat unrealistic conventions--for example the presumption that professional athletes will meet the GNG even if have only statistical sources. Or, in the other direction, the refusal to accept a presumption for local sources for losing major-party candidates in national elections. My feeling is that the only way to avoid indefinite fighting is to allow those working in each subject and commenting in the afds for that subject to decide what they will accept. Actually, it's the only way compatible with Wikipedia--because we go by consensus, and the entire structure of notability is only a guideline.
Where we need policy for articles on people is where we have it, NOT ADVOCACY. Of all the major fields , there's so far relatively little promotional articles or other junk on academics, because those of us who work there put great emphasis on removing such articles unless there is very clear notability , and in practice will rewrite any article on an actually notable academic to remove any promotionalism. The few really divisive debates about articles on academics have been articles on beginning academics --usually those with very attractive very professional photographs -- who do not meet WP:PROF, but have other sources that are essentially promotional , but accepted here anyway-- or, in the other direction, people who clearly meet the usual standard but have adopted currently unpopular ideas.
Perhaps we will eventually realize that the GNG was a naïve idea which has left us wide open to promotionalism. The effect is that anyone is notable who has a competent PR agent who can get the right sort of articles published about their clients. It doesn't correspond to what anyone outside WP thinks matters, and its use in some areas make us look ridiculous.
There are lots of places to clean up WP; if you are interested in the academic world, 95% of our articles on universities need rewriting. I did all US law schools a half year ago, but I know I'll need to do it again next year. Anyone who knows the UK willing to help with the UK institutions that have greatly expanded the pomposity of their titles in recent years? Anyone who knows what matters in India willing to try to combine the articles about little proprietary offshoots of universities into their actual notable parents or sponsors?
anyone really want to clean up WPshor start by helping us ban all paid editing, as even the honest paid editors admit is necessary? Anyone willing to try a rule not letting any biography or organization be a person's first article?
and if anyone actually cares about notability, how about we start enforcing the most neglected WP:GNG provision, WP:NOPAGE, for merging articles about people or things where there is nothing much encyclopedic to be said? (The first step would be a simple way of enforcing a contested merge outside of AFD. )
and if anyone really cares about logic, they could try rewriting the entire set of guidelines and help pages into something consistent and coherent.
and is anyone is brave enough to tackle the most neglected part of WP, let's look at upgrading the quality of sourcing and content? . DGG ( talk ) 06:52, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've just realized I didn't answer the easy part of the question. It is agreed that an official CV is a reliable source for the facts of a person's career (just as for an official list of elections and committees for a legislator) It is however necessary to be careful about university press releases, which emphasise what they want to and need to be confirmed: if they announce a named chair, they're reliable for the fact of the chair, but not necessarily for the earlier career or the correct statement of the fields of interest--and certainly not for the adjectives of praise they tend to use. Similarly, an announcement of an award from the awarding body proves the award, but the statement that accompanies it tends to be hyperbola. Lately, there is also a problem with faculty pages written in a personal or promotional style, often by the university pr staff--they are written in most cases for the purpose of attracting graduate students. Fortunately, the really key WP:PROF guideline, effect upon the person's field, is unambiguously verifiable from the publication and citation data of the articles or the books. Straightforward as it seems, there is judgment involved--it is impossible to construct a proper bio by bot from a list of data. DGG ( talk ) 07:07, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @DGG: Thank you, this graf is exactly what I'm asking about. All I'm really asking is, as someone who knows relatively little about academia, which sources should I be looking to in determining whether the article should be kept? In any other subject, including WP:NCORP, you perform a WP:GNG analysis, and I've had some misses with WP:NPROF because the guideline for determining whether someone's notable enough isn't clear to me. SportingFlyer T·C 17:42, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • {ec}} I thank DGG for his thoughful reply. SportingFlyer, the corpus of this encyclopedia contains tens of thousands of perma-stub biographies based on a single, non in-depth, and non-independent source. Therefore, Dodger67, WP:ATH, for example, is most definitely not always used as a 'temporary' measure. The texts of the guidelines are clear enough to understand. What I do not fully comprehend however, is that certain Wikiprojects, insist that by virtue of the sheer popularity of the parent topic, the lower bar of their SNG for bios trumps GNG and BASIC, while some users insist that topics that obviously benefit from exceptions to GNG, such as just for example, proven human settlements and geographical features should be deleted. This is probably partly due however to it still being possible for new pages to be patrolled by new and inexperienced users who do not have access to Curation.
WP:NOPAGE is unfortunately one of the least well known guidelines. For example, the notability (or lack of it) of university sub-sections, faculties, departments, or affiliated schools, or members of a band, or minor movie actors, needs to be pointed out more often and in conjunction with WP:NOTINHERITED, and merge/redirect which is actually a policy, not simply a guideline.
In some English language regions, especially those heavily populated ones where it is an official second language, it is often the cultural dichotomy which makes it hard for people from those regions to understand that the English Wikipedia generally targets an anglosphere readership, and that is why our en.Wiki guidelines should be observed, irrespective of how the 300 other-languages apply their own notability criteria. Many people believe also that scraping the Internet for fleeting mentions makes a plethora of very weak sources add up to notability. It doesn't.
DGG's suggestion: Anyone willing to try a rule not letting any biography or organization be a person's first article? is a very valid, organic, and natural extension to ACREQ which we fought for nearly a decade for and which was rolled out a year ago with great success. With that, we may prevent a lot more UPE which is mainly commissioned by self-important individuals and political candidates more so than blatant spam or advertorial. I'll put some feelers out before we jump into something controversial. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:45, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Kudpung: As I do most of my work in the sports part of the encyclopaedia, I can assure you WP:ATH does not "trump" WP:GNG. If someone can show the article does not pass WP:GNG at AfD, it will be deleted. (The exception of course is where there's enough consensus, valid or otherwise, to keep the article. But I've found improperly applied consensus to be a very minor yet project-wide issue.) SportingFlyer T·C 17:42, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
SportingFlyer, the corpus of this encyclopedia contains tens of thousands of perma-stub biographies based on a single, non in-depth, and non-independent source. Despite a notability guideline to the contrary, an AfD will gain consensus to 'keep' because of 'delete' votes being out-voted due to the sheer popularity of the parent topic. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:13, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Kudpung While I agree there's a lot of permastubs (and I don't think permastubs are bad if properly sourced - not every article needs to be a GA), for the most part, I disagree with you - the majority of AfDs I've seen with no sources which satisfy WP:GNG (even based on only one source) tend to get deleted. But this is getting far away from the point I'm trying to bring up, which is to make WP:NPROF more accessible. SportingFlyer T·C 18:20, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
SportingFlyer, perma-stubs are completely useless as encyclopedic content. All they do is make work for the people who have to do something about them. Note the expression 'perma-stub' - I'll explain it for you on my tp if you don't understand it. I wholeheartedly agree however, that academics who make a serious contribution to humankind beyond simple entertainment should have an access at least as straightforward as any unknown footballer who has kicked a ball for only part of a match as a substitute and whose only claim to notability is a listing on the club's squad page. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 18:39, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • @DGG: - "My feeling is that the only way to avoid indefinite fighting is to allow those working in each subject and commenting in the afds for that subject to decide what they will accept. Actually, it's the only way compatible with Wikipedia--because we go by consensus, and the entire structure of notability is only a guideline." - excellent phrasing. The SNG lower/higher/replacement/alternate division is a morass, but I don't believe that there's a way to make them line-up without some major negatives. At that point we'd be prioritising neatness over actual functionality. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:24, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • To understand the special relationship of WP:PROF, it helps to note that WP:PROF and WP:CORP predate WP:N. All other SNGs derive from WP:N, or have been merged smerged or deprecated.
Anyone willing to try a rule not letting any biography or organization be a person's first article?. That could be a very good idea. I would exclude people who died over fifty years ago. Many newcomers start with historic local people. I’ve suggested before that whenever anyone wants to start an article on a company, or its products, or its founder or CEO, the. The onus should be on them to provide the WP:THREE sources that demonstrate notability. Kind of like an autoBLPPROD, but for promotion-liable articles. It’s definitely about WP:PAID.
On that, WP:PAID, as teaching institutions become increasingly front ends for this money making businesses, there is a blurring between an academic teacher and a non academic teacher. There are modern universities, lacking campuses, not doing research, who have “professors” that are not professors as traditionally understood or assumed at WP:PROF. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:46, 15 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • No BLP should be the first article by an editor or the first biography about the subject. I think DGG makes an excellent suggestion but I think a "no first rule" should be applied to both editors and subjects, and we could start by applying it to BLPs and seeing how that goes. I'm perhaps a bit of a fanatic in my belief that, with rare exceptions, unless an article is based upon two independent, reliable, secondary sources, it should be deleted. – Levivich 00:51, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @Levivich: No BLP should be the first...biography about the subject - what? An article where the subject is a living person is a biography of a living person - how would these ever get created? — xaosflux Talk 15:26, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Xaosflux, I mean Wikipedia shouldn't be the first to publish a biography of a person. In order for there to be a BLP, there should already have been a biography (i.e., SIGCOV, preferably two or three) published by some reliable source, for us to use as a source in our article. – Levivich 15:30, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's a misinterpretation, the first article of an editor should not be a BLP or organisation article is what is suggested. I don't think this would be effective in preventing paid editing or coi editing as the editor would just write a mini-stub on some other subject first. Some undeclared paid editors boast of having more than 80,000 edits so this would have little effect except reducing autobios so its not worth biting the newbies with this proposal imv, Atlantic306 (talk) 15:44, 21 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are we doing this thing again where people argue that NPROF is exempt from GNG because someone just decided to add it one day in 2015? GMGtalk 15:39, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:SILENCE? It appears no one challenged the edit at the time and years later. And it's not even clear whether the clarification was as a result of any discussion or not. – Ammarpad (talk) 07:27, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    There was a 2017 RfC on NSPORT directly contradicting it wrt all SNGs. I'm stuck on mobile so little chance I'd be able to find it quickly. Regardless, SILENCE is thin grounds for sweeping project wide changes in basic policy. GMGtalk 20:08, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    PROF's relationship to GNG has been contested on and off for years. See, e.g., my complaints about "The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity", which does not require that any alleged "substantial impact" be verified in independent sources. According to this SNG, any prof has a substantial impact if he's quoted in the paper (which is a function of his willingness to return phone calls from journalists, not his actual achievements), or if he wrote a textbook on a mainstream subject, or if any editor says so. And once notability is declared, the entire article can be written from his employer's webpage. We'd never accept such claims for, say, Fortune 500 CEOs, but we accept them for all profs. That page has been the source of a remarkable number of other strange claims, like this edit objecting to the requirement that sources used for verifiability purposes must be WP:Published – and claiming that self-published sources are an exception to the requirement for published sources (making them, what, self-non-published sources?). The fundamental problem is that some editors really, really, really want to write lots of articles about academics because of their personal belief that they're important, and the world gives us relatively few Wikipedia:Independent sources about them. So we're trying to make do with a combination of WP:ITSIMPORTANT and not caring about whether we're giving WP:DUE weight to the independent and non-independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:02, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    @WhatamIdoing: I'm mostly just impressed that you wrote all that and managed to not link to BLP even once. GMGtalk 04:02, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    Practice makes perfect? ;-p WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:05, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Participation in Global Climate Strike

Hi all,

I know sometimes Wikipedias have gone offline as a protest against internet censorship [1].

I would like to propose English Wikipedia (all others as well!) participate in the Global Climate Strike [2].

There are nearly 2000 independent demonstrations in 150 countries, encouraging striking between 20th to 27th September.

I know it is very late notice as the main strike day is tomorrow but I would love to hear people's thoughts on this.

Thanks :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gizmoguy (talk • contribs) 14:53, 19 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

'Featured Wikipedian' on main page

Maybe we could nominate Wikipedians who have made an lasting contribution on Wikipedia, via, let's say, a page of the name 'Main_Page/Users who have made an legacy on Wikipedia' (shortcut: WP:LEGACY) and feature one on WP:MAIN. This way, we have recognition of people on WP. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mac Henni (talk • contribs) 21:09, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This falls squarely into WP:NOTSOCIAL territory if not also WP:NOTMEMORIAL. --Izno (talk) 22:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, well. Then I guess that it is a done deal. Maccore Henni Mii! Pictochat Mii! 15:10, 24 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Category for book donatores

Can we have a category for book donatores? covers a big group of people, can be called humanitarian? --Ruwaym (talk) 17:28, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Ruwaym: are you talking about a category to place subjects of biographies in to, or for Wikipedia editors? — xaosflux Talk 18:12, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Xaosflux: For Wikipedia articles. You know, I always see in many biographies of notable Muslim people: He gifted all of his books to X, donated it, or made his own library a public Waqf. like Al-Hakam II, i guess, and many contemporary people. -Ruwaym (talk) 18:17, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Ruwaym: start by looking over Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Category pages and maybe through Category:Philanthropists. Generally a category for articles should be notable in some way (e.g. there is an article about the subject of the category). — xaosflux Talk 18:22, 26 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Andrew Carnegie, who is listed in Category:American librarianship and human rights, is probably a decent model. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:08, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Support for non-textual assertions

Visual images such as maps often make unsupported nontextual assertions in Wikipedia articles. I see this as a problem (see this discussion about that), and a remedy has occurred to me. I've applied this remedy the case of two maps and in articles showing those maps as their lead images. This is better shown by example than by explanation, I think, so see the lead images in the State religion, Abortion in the United States, and Abortion in the United States by state articles and the supporting cites in their captions. I'm looking for comments regarding or suggestions for improvements on what I've done there. Thanks. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:03, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oops. The wikilink labelled this discussion above navigates to the wrong discussion archive. It ought to go to Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 60#Verifiability policy for images offered and used to illustrate article content. Sorry about the confusion. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 22:53, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Wtmitchell, that looks useful. I don't think that we want a rule that says "Thou Must Always", but I think that it would be helpful to see that approach used in more cases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Copy the layout innovations of Wiki2.org

Please, have a look to wiki2.org.

  1. switch the default colour of the stylesheet, page backdrop, WP tables, and article'summary
  2. see images put into a grey frame
  3. have an expandable search tool box. This avoid users the need to go at the top of the page, each time they want to look for a a new article.

Wiki 2 is one of the many only-read web browser which copyright Wikipedia work and content. We can't be so confident to be enabled in the future to separate open-licensed content from closed and proprietary software, like this.

Apart of that, browser copyright the Wiki software while introducing secondary innovations. And WP software is open source and open-licensed as well as the contents of Wikipedia.

Why don't you forbid this bad and dangerous practice? Or, in change of this comercial use, ask to have in the public domain some of their graphical futures so as to be implemented and runned on Wikipedia.org? Hope this help Wikipedia not to loose web traffic in favour of commercial web services. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.14.139.212 (talk) 23:13, 27 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I'm finding it difficult to undertand what you are saying here, particularly as your links don't work. I would suggest closing this thread unless someone can put it into comprehensible English. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:12, 28 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]
This appears to be about Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks/VWXYZ#WIKI_2, which at the time was considered a compliant mirror. There are instructions at Wikipedia:Mirrors_and_forks if it is not compliant now. RudolfRed (talk) 00:45, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
See the link that goes to a malformed page containing only a literal text string of "404" - what are we supposed to do with that? — xaosflux Talk 03:14, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
See HTTP 404. It could have been presented better, but it didn't come from Wikipedia. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:58, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Wtmitchell: right, it came from "wiki2.org" - from following the example of the original poster, a completely broken page being served by a platform that can't even produce proper error messages. Not sure what all that "+Brights" stuff is they are adding, some sort of referrer code perhaps? — xaosflux Talk 13:16, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • On a quick skim through their "Random Page" button, their pages are all attributed to Wikipedia with a link to the original article at the end. Since they're using a database dump they should really link to the specific version of the article they've imported and include a link to the page history for full attribution, but they certainly appear at least to be making a good-faith effort to attribute correctly. Regarding what appears to be a suggestion that we re-skin Wikipedia to mimic their appearance, it's not as simple as it sounds; a site with a readership the size of Wikipedia needs to display correctly and consistently on a huge variety of platforms, from antiquated PCs to non-graphical terminals running Lynx to smartphones to web-enabled televisions to screenreader software to huge high-resolution DTP setups, hence our display output appears fairly basic and primitive compared to sites serving a specialist market. Other websites with the same need to function consistently regardless of hardware (Google, Yahoo, Reddit, Facebook…) have similarly primitive-looking interfaces. ‑ Iridescent 16:22, 2 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Mass create redirects of abbreviations

On Wikipedia I have often created redirects from abbreviations I observed in real life, often abbreviations of U.S. states I see in the media (example: Anywheresville, Tx.)

In Tokyo I noticed that the subway stations are all using the abbreviation "XXX Sta." or "XXX sta." on English signage. Creation of multiple redirects collectively takes a long time, and many editing hours would be saved if an editor writes a bot to do mass creation of redirects like these:

  • XXX Univ. (and variants like "Univ") for universities
  • XXX, U.S. or Canadian state abbreviation (like Houston, TX or Houston, Tx.) for U.S. and Canadian cities
  • XXX HS for senior high schools (Lamar HS)
  • XXX Sta. (and sta.) for railway stations, like Shinjuku Sta.)

WhisperToMe (talk) 00:53, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

If memory serves (and it may not; I'm sick, and my brain melts at low temperatures), User:Headbomb did similar work with academic journal abbreviations, and therefore might be able to help you figure out whether it's a good idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Visual change the appearance of user pages compared to regular pages

Title. When you click to a user page it's still confusing to me, and I assume to regular users, to differentiate immediately between an official edited page and a user page. I think that something very simple like a slightly darker gray background to user pages would be worlds more helpful for every party. Pretty simple suggestion. Kugihot (talk) 19:39, 3 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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