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Closure review request for the RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• RFC closure in question
• Discussion with closer

Closer: ScottishFinnishRadish (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Notified: [1]

Reasoning: The issue the closer was to decide was whether Wikipedia should maintain complete, current lists of airlines and their destinations in articles about airports. In closing, they said the lists may only be included when reliable, independent, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. They also said on their talk page that they believe WP:NOT makes it clear that the threshold for inclusion for content that would normally not be part of the encyclopedia is inclusion in independent secondary sources. However, while such sources are required to show that a topic deserves its own article (WP:GNG), the same requirement cannot be applied to the content of an article (WP:NNC). Therefore, in order to avoid creating a new standard for content inclusion that is not rooted in policy, I believe the closure should directly state that per the consensus, the lists should not be included because of WP:NOT.

In addition, ScottishFinnishRadish wrote that their closure was partly based on a common thread that they had identified in people's comments. I believe there is a similar, longer thread in the RFC that actually supports the following idea: Individual routes can be described if reliable sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. Since my list of quotes from contributors to the RFC is somewhat long, here is a link to it in my sandbox.

In short, I think the first paragraph of the closure should be reworded as follows (my text in italics): "After reviewing the !votes and discussion, it is clear that there is consensus that airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT. Individual routes can be described if reliable sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. There is not a consensus for wholesale removal of such tables". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sunnya343 (talk • contribs)

• Superseded by my !vote below. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

RFC non-participants (airlines and destinations RFC)

• Not a huge fan of this close either for the reasons you mentioned, but if it's overturned, it shouldn't be to a stronger consensus against inclusion; there's no such consensus present in the discussion. I find weighing the WP:NOT arguments so heavily in such a discussion unconvincing; we can choose what content we want to cover and WP:NOT wasn't handed down by god. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• I'm confused. The primary close line "airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE." seems rather novel. WP:DUE is mainly focused on neutrality (the first word in the section) and majority/minority/fringe opinions or interpretations, not something like a schedule, which is a hard, cold fact. I'm struggling to understand exactly how WP:DUE plays into whether or not an exhaustive list should or shouldn't be included, which is an editorial decision, based on whether WP:NOT applies or doesn't. Maybe it is just me, but again, I'm confused. Dennis Brown 2¢ 04:54, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think that might have intended to be a reference to WP:BALASP? People often conflate WP:DUE and WP:BALASP - I’m not actually sure why they are distinct, it would make sense to me to merge them into one. BilledMammal (talk) 04:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  While that (on the surface) looks closer to the situation, I don't think that was the intent in creating that policy. The entire policy it falls under is called "Neutral point of view", so I can't see the policy applies in any way, shape, or form, to the (dis)allowing a list of all flights. That appears to fall directly into WP:NOT. I'm not commenting on the merits at this point, I'm just saying I think it is a mistake to use any part of WP:NPOV as guidance in the close. Neutrality isn't at issue, the only issue would seem to be "is this level of detail appropriate, or not?" which exactly what Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not was created to define. The closer should be taking all the votes based on WP:NOT and deciding if they are appropriate interpretations of the policy, not only as written, but in spirit as well. I can't fathom how you can weigh neutrality in the inclusion. There may be other policy considerations, but anything related to NPOV (ie: DUE or BALASP) isn't one of them. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  I would disagree with that; in my opinion as written BALASP clearly applies to all aspects of the article, even when those aspects - in the view of editors - are impartial.

  Indeed, BALASP says as much; For example, a description of isolated events, quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. BilledMammal (talk) 05:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  But that is very different from a table of schedules, be it train/air/bus, or say a sports teams schedule, or other "hard facts" that can't possibly be "Not neutral". Describing isolated events, or select news reports CAN make an article biased. Obviously adding quotes or criticisms can skew the article and make it violate NPOV. Adding a schedule can not, in any way, skew the bias for or against the airline. This is why schedules are specifically not listed in the policy on Neutrality. It simply does not apply here. I see WP:DUE misused in this context by editors somewhat regularly, but not in a close. It's an honest mistake, but it is a mistake. Dennis Brown 2¢ 05:50, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  What I see NPOV doing is telling editors to follow the sources, in all aspects - even when editors believe that a certain aspect has no bearing on neutrality.

  For example, a recent dispute came by dispute resolution where editors were arguing how much prominence to give John De Lancie’s role in My Little Pony compared to his role in Star Trek. Both of those roles are “hard facts” that can’t possibly not be neutral, but to decide how much weight to give either in his article is based entirely on NPOV - to interpret NPOV otherwise would effectively turn resolving such a dispute into “which aspect do Wikipedians think is more important” rather than “which aspect do reliable sources think is more important”

  The same is true of schedules.

  However, these aspects can have a direct bearing on an articles neutrality. For example, giving excessive weight to “hard facts” can result in giving improperly low weight to important controversies - indeed, this is a common tool of the better paid editors, who don’t remove controversies but instead bury them in verifiable facts. BilledMammal (talk) 06:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  I will just leave it for now. I don't think they are the same, and obviously I think this is stretching WP:DUE too far to use in this particular instance. The issue at hand is one of appropriateness, not bias. Again, I have no comment on the merits of the discussion itself. Dennis Brown 2¢ 06:20, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  DUE also mentions "aspects", but it's true that it focuses primarily on viewpoints. I would say that use of "DUE" as shorthand for "worth including in the article per the NPOV policy as a whole" is commonplace, and BALANCE is underused as a link, though one participant in the RfC did reference it specifically. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:27, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse. A major part of the objection rationale is a declaration that GNG doesn't apply to article content. This reads as a non-sequitur, since GNG was not mentioned in the close. The guidance to rely primarily on sources that are secondary and independent is not restricted to GNG. It appears, for example, in our NPOV and OR policies and the RS guideline. These were all cited in the RfC. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. This seems pretty clear cut. If someone is arguing that content should be included without regard for its weight in reliable secondary sources, that's a fundamental misunderstanding about how content is managed on Wikipedia and such !votes are not going to be taken seriously. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. The RfC asks whether airport articles should mention every single flight that the airport offers (no matter the way that the information is presented). The answer was very clearly "no" based on WP:NOT. I think the way the close was phrased is within closer discretion and that we should avoid micromanaging a close. That said, I read many of the !votes based on WP:NOT to be against inclusion of any tables at all, but that wasn't the question the RfC was asking. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  Clarification: the tables list every destination, not every flight. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 08:50, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse. The close is a reasonable summary of the consensus embodied by the RfC responses, and this is not a venue to re-litigate the arguments. Bon courage (talk) 05:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn based on Wikipedia policies. I was not involved in the RfC but I have studied it and discussed it since with several people.

The closer correctly noted the the Oppose/keep !voters were in the majority but made weak arguments. The closer then cited 3 policies in their decision to limit list items to those that are secondarily sourced. Lets look at what those 3 policies say:

1. WP:BURDEN: the lead sentences of WP:BURDEN, a section of WP:VERIFY, say

   • ”All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[b] the contribution.”
   • WP:PRIMARY, a section of WP:NOR, allows the use of primary sources to satisfy verifiability subject to criteria. There are 6 requirements; these are the ones salient to this discussion:

   • "Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them.". These table's editors cite material directly from airlines and airports. Neither publishes fake destinations.
   • "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation." Destination information provided by airlines and airports consists of simple facts requiring no interpretation.
   • "A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source…"
   • "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself…"
   • "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." Destination tables make up <10% of most airport articles' text.

2. WP:ONUS, a section of WP:VERIFY, says:

   • ”While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content."

   • The majority of the !voters at the RfC said the tables were valuable
   • At the one article where Sunnya343 deleted a destination table, opposition to deletion was unanimous on the article talk page. The opposers found the table valuable.

3. WP:NOT. An RfC was conducted to specifically amend WP:NOT to exclude all transportation destination tables (not just airports):

   • Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 141#RFC: Should Wikipedia have lists of transportation service destinations?

   • Outcome:"There is a clear consensus against the proposed addition to WP:NOTDIR."

   • WP:NOT does not exclude these tables.

As I see it, a majority supported inclusion and the closer misapplied the 3 policies they cited. Simple facts from reliable primary sources support simple facts in these accurate, very well-maintained tables. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 07:56, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• I have a few gripes with some of these points:

  Primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. – Misuse in this context doesn't mean posting false information. It means drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources. This would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources.

  Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself… – You cut off the second half of this sentence: instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Deciding that the content is important independently of its weight in reliable secondary sources is evaluation.

  Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them. – You're correct that it's not the "entire article", but you ignore the portion about "large passages", which is critical here. The point of having that expectation is because we don't want primary sources to determine what type of content goes into the article. When primary sources are used (which should be sparingly), they should be in conjunction with secondary sources, not in a section of the article dependent exclusively on primary sources.

  The majority of the !voters at the RfC said the tables were valuable – Consensus is not determined by head-count, and it's not fair to say that consensus to include was reached.

  opposition to deletion was unanimous on the article talk page. – This is a valid point until it was overruled by the RfC. Site-wide consensus overrules WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.

  WP:NOT does not exclude these tables. – That an RfC did not support a specific wording, in large part on procedural grounds, does not invalidate WP:NOTDIRECTORY, where the very first point disallows Simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit.

  Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  I have a few gripes with some of those points:

  It means drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources. This would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources. Every route announcement nowadays - and likely in the past as well - gets announced in the media somewhere. A mere mention in a table is probably exactly the amount of prominence the information needs to receive.

  Deciding that the content is important independently of its weight in reliable secondary sources is evaluation. We're getting really into the weeds here. Lots of factual information already on an airport article will already be sourced to primary sources, such as latitude and longitude, runway length, elevation... evaluation in this context does not mean inclusion.

  not in a section of the article dependent exclusively on primary sources. The assumption here is that every airline route article is primary, which is not the case.

  it's not fair to say that consensus to include was reached It's also not fair to say consensus to remove was reached. Furthermore, this discussion was about whether this information is encyclopaedic, and if it had advertised to the community which actively maintains the information a different consensus may have been reached, since many of us view it as encyclopedic.

  ...simple listings without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit. without contextual information showing encyclopedic merit - notwithstanding WP:NOTDIRECTORY does not apply here - we could deliver this information in prose, but it's far easier to understand and contextualise in a tabular format - this was rebutted in the RfC by the premise that destinations from shipping ports were routinely included in print encyclopedias, showing there is clearly encyclopedic merit to these tables. There are two valid arguments here: whether this is encyclopedic, and whether it is WP:NOT. SportingFlyer T·C 18:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Finally, none of these are specifically about the close, but all get into a rehashing of the RfC. SportingFlyer T·C 18:05, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn per A. B., but also because the close was not supported by the discussion: out of over 50 participants, only a small number discussed sourcing, and fewer than five discussed sourcing to the level of detail to which the closer drew their conclusion. The easiest thing here would be to overturn to simple no consensus. (There are also a lot of users who gnome in this area who may not have been notified about the discussion, myself included.) SportingFlyer T·C 13:19, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. I agree with Bon courage that the close is a reasonable summary of the discussion. JBL (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn A closer is supposed to summarize the discussion. This doesn't mean counting votes, but counting votes can be pretty illuminating for which direction the discussion is going. Reading the discussion, there's a small but pretty clear majority for keeping the tables. It's possible for a sufficient policy-based reasoning to overcome this, but despite what the closer said, I'm not seeing it. Both sides appear to be making policy-based arguments: the argument that a piece of information has encyclopedic value and therefore it should be kept is not merely WP:ILIKEIT, it's a perfectly reasonable argument against deleting a piece of content. A second reason I doubt either side was making non-policy compliant arguments is that there were several admins and lots of long-standing users on both sides of this argument, which implies that neither side was ignorant of policy. It feels to me like the closer made a WP:SUPERVOTE because the "no" arguments were more convincing to them personally rather than closing based on the actual discussion. Loki (talk) 08:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Here are a few !votes from the slim majority to include the tables:

  • The tables are fine if they are based in secondary sources rather than original research using booking systems and the like. Secondary sources
  • Yes, the tables should stay – from a user standpoint, I've found them very helpful.
  • Yes. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns.
  • Yes.

  The "common thread" quotes in my close were all from those supporting inclusion. This is why counting bolded votes is not illuminating in many cases. Additionally, some supporting inclusion cited WP:READERSFIRST, which is an essay, not a policy or guideline. WP:Closing discussions is pretty clear that arguments based on policies get more weight, and responses based on personal opinion only or that show no understanding of the matter of issue should be discarded. Arguments based in part on personal opinion or rebutted by policy based arguments should be weighed less than those with a strong policy basis. I covered this in the close, explaining why some responses were downweighted. The arguments based on encyclopedic value without any evidence are strongly rebutted by those citing NPOV/DUE while discussing using sources to establish weight states The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered. So stating "it's encyclopedic and should be included" while not providing any rationale that rebuts the requirement that sources be provided to demonstrate something is DUE and meets NPOV is a weak argument. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Only one user cited WP:DUE and only one user cited WP:NPOV, out of over 50 participants, without any substantive discussion of how either apply!! SportingFlyer T·C 16:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  1. demonstrating that they are not significant enough to merit inclusion in an article - link to NPOV/BALASP
  2. Yes, airport articles should include such tables when including a table would be due - invokes DUE
  3. Of course, all the usual guidelines relating to weight and reliable referencing (I'm thinking specifically of WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS) should still be considered, - invokes DUE
  4. Also if no other sources are describing this information, beyond primary sources, then are they WP:DUE. links to DUE
  5. I cannot see how these lists/tables of the airlines/destinations serviced by an airport provide so much utility and encyclopedic value as to override our policies on indiscriminate info, NOTDB, BALANCE, NOTNEWS, and OR. WP:BALANCE is part of NPOV
  6. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns links to NPOV
  7. So we get WP:NOTABILITY, WP:UNDUE, etc. weighing in too. links to UNDUE
  8. TMI is a WP:ESSAY, WP:NPOV is a WP:POLICY. link to NPOV

  These are some of the explicit mentions. There's also plenty of discussion that covers the same ground without explicitly invoking or linking. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Whether or not arguments based on encyclopedic value are rebutted by other policies at all, let alone strongly, is a matter for the discussion. Encyclopedic value, while a somewhat vague idea, is definitely not any of the list of things WP:DISCARD says should be discarded. It's not a personal opinion nor does it show no understanding of the issue because it's clearly intended as a counterargument to the principle behind WP:NOT.

  Whether it's a strong counterargument to WP:NOT or not is a matter of how convincing that argument is to the participants in the discussion. It's your job as closer to represent the conclusion the discussion reached on that and not your own opinion. I can't see any way of reading that discussion that concludes that it reached the consensus you're drawing. Loki (talk) 19:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse, despite the problems In vague terms this tightens up the criteria a bit which IMO is the result of the RFC. And IMO such is the right decision based on a complex application of several policies and guidelines, one which would be too complex to put into or derive into a close. The "despite the problems" is because I agree there were many problems in the details of the close, as pointed out in this review. North8000 (talk) 02:17, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Overturn Reversed my earlier position. Establishing WP:Due as a criteria to decide what is either a wp:not or wp:notability question is just too big of a mess to leave this in. North8000 (talk) 18:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn and/or relist Numerous RFCs (as noted below have argued for inclusion. Furthermore, a sizable majority !voted to keep. Both sides have valid points. If the someone finds the minority opinion more valid than the majority opinion, that's fine. However, they shouldn't close a well-reasoned discussion as "The consensus is <the minority opinion>". If you have invalid opinions expressed as "Support/Oppose because the moon is cheese" or other such nonsense, it's reasonable to discount such opinions. But unless there are such opinions, a small minority opinion should never be listed as the "consensus". At best, this is a no consensus or keep as-is. Buffs (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

  My count was roughly 6 not support or oppose, 26 oppose bolded, 33 support bolded, so not a sizable majority. An example of an unbolded response is The tables are fine if they are based in secondary sources rather than original research using booking systems and the like. Some excerpts from the supports include the examples I quoted in my close:

  1. articles should include such tables when including a table would be due
  2. all the usual guidelines relating to weight and reliable referencing (I'm thinking specifically of WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS) should still be considered
  3. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns

  This is why we don't close discussions with vote tallies. We have to read the full discussion to see that almost every vote wasn't a direct one or the other choice. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:07, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  So...by definition, if it was close, there wasn't a consensus (33 of 65 !votes is BARELY a majority and I think you're being a little generous to the support side), especially when you consider many other previous RFCs on the subject. If you found one side more convincing, you should have expressed your opinion and added it to the discussion. Perhaps you could have convinced others to change their opinion. Buffs (talk) 00:15, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Responses with a strong basis in policy are weighed more heavily than those without. Responses without are down weighted, and responses that don't make pertinent arguments are discarded. Here's some examples from the RFC:

  • Yes - this is one of the key aspects of airports, namely what connections to other airports they have. If the info is only embedded in prose, the risk of outdated creep increases. was weighed down because it did not address those citing WP:DUE, The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered and WP:NPOV, An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject. Nothing was provided to demonstrate that this is a key aspect provided in sources.
  • With my reader hat on, definitely yes - these are surprisingly useful. With my editor hat on, there is an obvious "...assuming they can be sourced", but this should not be difficult in most cases. Their view as a reader is downweighted for the reasons of the earlier example. Although this falls into the slim majority of supports, it also calls for sourcing.
  • Yes. WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NPOV can cover relevant concerns. Making a blanket rule banning such information is unnecessary WP:CREEP. This is also included in the slim majority of supports, but invokes NPOV, so it is weighed heavily, but for requiring sourcing for inclusion.
  • Yes. That was the whole thing. Discarded per WP:Closing discussions.
  • Yes The routes for an airport are sensible content and, per WP:CREEP, what we don't need are petty rules to micro-manage the form of presentation. Downweighted as personal opinion on the content with no basis in policy.

  There are many more examples across the RFC of responses that made policy based arguments and were weighed more heavily, and that did not and were not.

  WP:Closing discussions 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, If a large portion are making no argument from policy and a smaller portion are citing policy to support their position then we go with the controlling policy that has more support. The bolded !votes also don't represent a binary of blanket supporting inclusion or opposing inclusion.

  Lastly, I don't see an RFC from six years ago with less than half of the participation that was about the notability of list articles as controlling over this RFC. Additionally, WP:CCC. It's also worth noting that the issue 6 year old RFC wasn't raised at three RFC in question. As no one used it as a basis for their argument it should not be considered when closing. At this point it's introducing a new argument in the challenged RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Wow...with that expansion on your prior statement, I can see how you came to that conclusion, which I find to be inappropriate. People who cite specific policies you give extra weight = more weight? Those that don't cite it were downweighted? How would you treat a comment like "I agree with <user X>". Downweighted? They might be citing someone who made a valuable argument with policies, but you're dismissing them due to brevity. You openly admit that you downweighted based on someone citing WP:Creep which, while an opinion piece, summarizes both the logic AND applicable policies. It's common shorthand to prevent repetition and unnecessary walls of text. Just because someone used logic, but didn't cite a specific policy doesn't mean they are wrong or their opinion should be given less weight. Many were answering questions posed in the initial request.

  What part of Wikipedia:Closing discussions says to "downweight" !votes that are simplistic like "Yes"? or upgrade opinions that link to policies? Just because someone uses their own logic that IS well-rooted in policy/guidelines/prior consensus but doesn't mention the specific policy doesn't mean their opinion should be downgraded any more than someone with poor logic but links to a policy should be given more weight.

  How does citing Wikipedia:Closing discussions in your rationale bolster your argument? It's not a policy or guideline either.

  You've clearly downweighted !votes with valid, logical concerns and discarded at least 5 prior RfCs which came to a contrary conclusion.

  I strongly urge you to redo your analysis and/or reopen it. Buffs (talk) 18:20, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  What part of Wikipedia:Closing discussions says to "downweight" !votes that are simplistic like "Yes"? or upgrade opinions that link to policies? That would be the section WP:DISCARD, which reads in part The closer is there to judge the consensus of the community, after discarding irrelevant arguments: those that flatly contradict established policy, those based on personal opinion only, those that are logically fallacious, and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. --JBL (talk) 19:06, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Nothing in that list validates downgrading those who cite WP:CREEP:

  • those that flatly contradict established policy - Nothing in WP:CREEP contradicts policy
  • those based on personal opinion only - This is a logical argument, not merely opinion such as "I think it looks pretty" or a simplistic "this is better"
  • those that are logically fallacious - It isn't logically fallacious
  • and those that show no understanding of the matter of issue. - Clearly they understand the matter.

  Buffs (talk) 17:29, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  This kind of goal-post shifting is not endearing. You asked a question rhetorically, and it had a straightforward answer that disagrees with the point you were trying to make. Maybe you should have asked a different question, or maybe you shouldn't have asked a rhetorical question at all, but the civilized thing to do at this point is to admit the error, not throw a bunch of shouty bullet points and pretend you said something different. --JBL (talk) 18:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  JBL, if you are going to take organized thoughts as "shouting", perhaps you don't need to respond. Long streams of prose that don't apply (as I illustrated) were all from your post, not mine and waste time to dispel/address. If you don't want a response to them, don't respond. So let's go back through and summarize:

  • I very clearly stated "What part of Wikipedia:Closing discussions says to 'downweight' !votes that are simplistic like 'Yes'? or upgrade opinions that link to policies?" That was not rhetorical.
  • You gave a long quote from WP:DISCARD
  • I pointed out that the closer openly discarded opinions citing WP:CREEP (that would be the "like 'Yes'" I mentioned) and that nothing in what you stated justified such actions
  • You claim that this is "moving the goalposts" without justifying how...apparently in an attempt to waste time while at the same time throwing around personal accusations to imply I'm being uncivil. You already have a track record of tossing insults around. Let's not continue that. I asked for the opinion of the closer, so let's see what he has to say. Buffs (talk) 23:18, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  The problem is not the organization, it's the heavy-handed use of bold, widely recognized as one of the ways people shout on the internet: see WP:SHOUT.

  Here is what is missing in your response to me: You gave a long quote from WP:DISCARD [which unambiguously answered your question, demonstrating that WP:DISCARD does contain such advice]. I [completely ignored this and its impact on my argument, and instead changed the subject by talking about WP:CREEP, which was not part of the question you answered]. --JBL (talk) 23:46, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I was surprised to read here that bolding was considered shouting, so I checked WP:SHOUT:

  • ”…ALL CAPS and enlarged fonts may be considered shouting and are rarely appropriate. Bolding may be used to highlight key words or phrases but should be used judiciously…”

  Looking at the rest of the text beyond this excerpt, excessive use of bolding and other, similar forms of emphasis (italics, etc.) is associated with reduced clarity, not shouting. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:48, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

  As AB clearly points out, what you cite does not claim what you say it claims in WP:SHOUT. I pointed out that what was stated in WP:DISCARD doesn't justify discarding an opinion just because it doesn't cite a policy directly (and I demonstratively showed that it definitely did so through that essay rather than a wall of text...which you've also complained about in the past).

  For some people, it seems they want a predetermined outcome, whatever their motivation. Bolded? Unnecessarily aggressive. List? shouty bullet points. Questioning the result? "Not endearing". Summarizing by referring to an argument someone has already made rather than a wall of text? Opinion dismissed because it isn't policy. Wall of text? Too wordy; opinion dismissed. I've made my points. Many generally concur. Buffs (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  @JayBeeEll and @Buffs: I'm trying to stay out of your dispute and not take sides; I just was clarifying WP:SHOUT with my note above.

  Regards, --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 19:14, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  WP:CONSENSUS, the policy at hand says In determining consensus, consider the quality of the arguments, the history of how they came about, the objections of those who disagree, and existing policies and guidelines. The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever... any of these discussions will involve polls of one sort or another; but as consensus is determined by the quality of arguments (not by a simple counted majority), polls should be regarded as structured discussions rather than voting. Responses indicating individual explanations of positions using Wikipedia policies and guidelines are given the highest weight. It also says, Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.

  All arguments should be weighed by the closer based on policies and guidelines. A discussion in the proper location with double the editors of an earlier discussion overrides that discussion. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

  Gotcha, so now you're changing your standards to WP:CONSENSUS and not Wikipedia:Closing discussions after being challenged...that's fun/convenient. Fine, we'll discuss that...

  If your standard is "All arguments should be weighed by the closer based on policies and guidelines", that's not ALL you're supposed to do. You're also supposed to "consider the quality of the arguments..." You already said you downgraded those who cited WP:CREEP because it isn't a policy or guideline, but it CITES policy and guidelines in its argument. You've definitely and openly discounted multiple valid !votes. Buffs (talk) 17:44, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  This was a mess of an RfC. I appreciate ScottishFinnishRadish wading into it and trying to make sense of it, even if I disagree with his conclusion. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 17:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I appreciate the effort for sure. My only question is the accuracy. Re-opening this would make the most sense. Buffs (talk) 23:19, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

  I favor over-turning the RfC as “no consensus” and then just leaving the topic alone for 1-2 years to give people a break. No relisting.

  This particular RfC as written and then as subsequently understood by others had issues as noted in this discussion. It should not be relisted without rewriting. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 02:55, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

  I'd be good with that too Buffs (talk) 16:49, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

  I think reopening this discussion would be the least desirable option. Either the closure should be endorsed, or it should be overturned and immediately reclosed. In any event I would endorse the recommendation to wait a while before asking a question along these lines again. If and when there is another discussion on this I would strongly encourage workshopping before going live with input explicitly sought from a cross-section of people who commented on this RFC especially those who didn't answer a straight yes or no) to avoid another confusing mess. Thryduulf (talk) 16:57, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

RFC participants (airlines and destinations RFC)

• There's been several discussions following the close, and although I don't agree with all of them the restriction on PRIMARY sources seems off to me. Before commenting at the RFC a check several tables and the sourcing for many of them was bad. Certainly such tables need proper sourcing (especially after they have been challenged), but I don't see why this can't be from a primary source (as long as it's a stable reliable source). Yes there's a separate discussion on whether they are due in the article if they are not mentioned in secondary sources, but that's separate from if they can be sourced from primary sources. That specific part of the close appears to merge those two separate points into one. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  This is what I was getting at. User:A.B. explained in dispute resolution that primary sources are acceptable for this type of information - Airline X flies from city A to city B - and I agree with their analysis. The close of this RFC is confusing because it makes it seem as though a piece of information requires independent secondary sourcing to show that it can be included in an article. This May, Condor will begin a flight from San Antonio to Frankfurt, San Antonio's first nonstop service to Europe. Naturally there are only WP:PRIMARYNEWS sources about this route currently. Does that mean this flight does not meet WP:DUE and should not be mentioned in the article on the San Antonio airport? Sunnya343 (talk) 21:59, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  Well once it is reported in a newspaper, rather than just an airline or airport website, then we get a secondary source. Once there is more than one of these, the close statement says it can be included. That is fair enough in my opinion, and I endorse the close. (even though my vote would have supported weaker inclusion criteria). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  A newspaper article is not always a secondary source. See WP:PRIMARYNEWS. Sunnya343 (talk) 00:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Indeed newspaper content is most usually primary (and where it isn't, it's quite often not very reliable). WP:SECONDARY content is characterized by analysis, synthesis and commentary directed to primary material, and is not secondary simply by being an extra 'layer'. That is a very common misconception on Wikipedia. Bon courage (talk) 05:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  And it's a misconception that was pervasive in the RFC, which is why it was closed wrongly and why Sunny has been applying it inappropriately. There was consensus support for keeping the tables but adding more independent sources beyond the airlines' timetables (which prior discussions found to be acceptable), even if misstated by some in the RFC as secondary/primary. Reywas92^Talk 21:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  Information in an article should be weighted by it's inclusion in secondary sources. So if no secondary sources has ever reported on such information it probably shouldn't be included. But this is a separate issue to referencing.
  To put it mote distinctly for this specific issue. Secondary sources are needed to show that there should be a table at all, but the entries in that table should be able to use primary sources for referencing. The former is a discussion on article content, the latter is to show the data is verifiable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  I see, thank you for the clarification. Though I have a question about Secondary sources are needed to show that there should be a table at all. Practically speaking, how do we apply this idea to the lists? Do you need to find a secondary source that mentions all or most current flights? Or do you need to cite a secondary source for each destination, over 50% of the destinations, etc.?

  Those questions made me think of something else as well. The objective of the tables is to list every airline and destination that an airport currently has. Isn't it paradoxical to talk about the need for secondary sources, which [provide] thought and reflection based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event, for a list that is only accurate as of today's date?

  I'm starting to feel like I have to do mental gymnastics to explain the relevance of WP:NPOV to this debate, whereas the WP:NOT argument is much more clear. Sunnya343 (talk) 02:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  Secondary sources need to show that destination data is relevant. You don't necessarily need them for each exact detail, primary sources could be used for that. So no you don't need secondary sources to mention all flights and destinations.
  The objective of the article is to show what is relevant balanced by secondary sources, any objective of the table has to start from that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:11, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

  I might still be misunderstanding you. Are you saying that it is OK to cite a primary source (like an airline timetable) for the individual destinations, but you need a secondary source to show that the entire table has encyclopedic significance? Would you mind explaining how, say, the Heathrow Airport table should be sourced based on what you said? I don't see where you would cite the secondary source if you are citing primary sources for all the destinations. (Sorry if it seems like I'm badgering you, but I believe clarity is needed here, or else I do not know how to implement the RFC close as written.) Sunnya343 (talk) 02:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  I think your misunderstanding comes from being unable to unlink the requirement for secondary sources from referencing. Referencing is there for the purpose of verification, and a primary source could be used for that.
  The secondary sources could be used for referencing, or they could be used in a talk page discussion on whether the table is due or not. They are required to show that the destination from Heathrow are something that people outside of Wikipedia care about, they shouldn't necessarily be required for the purposes of verification. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:32, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Or a more simple explanation. The secondary sources are need for the "should it be in the article?" part (due), it should be allowable to use primary or secondary sources in the "is it verifiable?" part (referencing). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Understood. What you're saying is that, for instance, secondary sources show that the first flight from Las Vegas to Asia is due ([2], [3]), but I can cite a primary source in the article to verify that fact ([4]). That makes sense.

  However, I still think this idea is difficult to apply to the tables of destinations. Secondary sources by their nature are published some time after events occur; they look back in time and draw on primary sources to comment on those events. They identify which details ended up being more significant than others in the long run. For example, our article on the war in Gaza is pretty much entirely based on primary sources. In 20 years, by which time numerous secondary sources on the war will be available, some of the facts in that article may be removed or given less weight based on their prominence in those secondary sources. Pardon me if I appear to be lecturing you.

  With regard to the subject of this RFC, it is unclear to me what sort of secondary source could be found to show that a particular list should be in an article. Maybe you can find a source that discusses the growth of Heathrow's air service during the 2010s or the development of the British Airways hub over the years. But is it possible to find a secondary source that contains analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of Heathrow's current destinations? I know I'm repeating myself, but that seems inherently impossible.

  ScottishFinnishRadish, I know we have bothered you enough regarding this RFC, but would you mind commenting on our debate about the bolded portion of the close? Since you as the closer wrote it, you would be able to tell us what exactly you meant and how we would apply it to a particular airport's table. Sunnya343 (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC) Revised 16:10, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  No sorry I'm obviously still explaining bit poorly. Secondary sources are needed to show that the table should exist in the article at all, this is completely independent of any particular flight or destination.
  My point is similar to the notability standards for a stand alone list article. You have to show that the list article is notable, and that requires secondary sourcing. But the entries on that list don't need secondary sourcing they just need to be verifiable.
  The secondary sources just needs to say that destinations from Heathrow are something of note, not reflect on current destinations from Heathrow.
  As to up to the minute content there is no requirement for Wikipedia to carry this, Wikipedia is meant to be a tertiary source. But that's a separate discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  In regard to WP:NLIST, this comparison wades into the territory of notability, which independent secondary sources are required to demonstrate. Here we are talking about content. More specifically, we are discussing the maintenance of current destination data, which I believe falls within the ambit of WP:NOT, not WP:NPOV.

  Even if we accept the idea that you just need secondary sources to say that Heathrow's destinations are significant, I would disagree. For any airport in the world, you will likely find a source that discusses the extent of its service (though still, at a particular moment in time). For Heathrow you may find one that says the airport has destinations on all six inhabited continents, etc. I don't think that's enough to justify the inclusion of a complete, constantly updated list of destinations. Maybe that is what you alluded to when you commented on up to the minute content. This is what the WP:NOT arguments address.

  Also, if we were to apply the above idea to the Heathrow list, you would be able to create a new article entitled "List of destinations from Heathrow". But I don't think any of our stand-alone list articles are constantly being revised, with editors adding and subtracting content to remain up-to-date (as you would when Virgin Atlantic begins flights to Bangalore or British Airways stops flying to Funchal from Heathrow). Even with List of presidents of the United States, you are just adding a person every four years.

  (By the way, my example of the first flight from Las Vegas to Asia applied to an event that I would describe in the history section of the article, not a data point in the Airlines and Destinations table.) Sunnya343 (talk) 17:53, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  That's why I used it as an example, it's not meant to be exactly what I'm saying. As to content in general it should be based on all significant views published by reliable sources. Policies are overlapping, so just because something falls under one policy doesn't mean it isn't also under another. Finally you are discussing maintenance of the tables, I am discussing both the maintenance and the requirement for having them. My statement of 'up to the minute' was in reply to you example of Wikipedia's war reporting, where editors take to using Telegram channels as sources so the absolute latest details can be included. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:58, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse I find the reasoning of this close review unconvincing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed, the nominator has suggested banning the tables altogether, which would go against the consensus of the RFC, which was actually to maintain the tables but with more sources. Reywas92^Talk 21:04, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

• @Dennis Brown: I think you have a point. Let's say that a list meets the requirement for inclusion specified in the RFC close. That means you have appropriately referenced items on a list - e.g. British Airways flies from Heathrow to Aberdeen, Abuja, Accra, ... - as opposed to the description of a particular viewpoint on evolution, or a paragraph discussing John De Lancie's role in My Little Pony to take BilledMammal's example. Does WP:DUE truly apply to the inclusion of data points? Sunnya343 (talk) 02:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
• @Firefangledfeathers: What I was trying to say was that our policies do not require independent secondary sources for a fact to be included in an article. It appeared to me that the requirement for such sources in the close was similar to WP:GNG.

  I recently sought dispute resolution after facing opposition to my removal of one of these lists. Due to the wording of the close, the discussion at DRN boiled down not to whether the list violated WP:NOT, but to whether the [list was] attributed to reliable secondary sources. As I said, however, no policy requires content to be attributed to secondary sources. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:49, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• Response to A.B.'s stance: What I do believe is accurate in the close is Addressing the arguments, the strongest and by far most common argument put forth by those opposed to the tables is WP:NOTALLSORTSOFSTUFF. I do not seek to rehash arguments, just to summarize what people specifically said regarding WP:NOT. We argued that airport articles should not provide a:
  • Directory of current airline services from an airport
  • News service that documents the launch and discontinuation of every flight in order to remain up-to-date
  • Database of all presently operational flights: Essentially an attempt to duplicate the content of a database like Flightradar24
  • Travel guide: Though this is probably not the intention of most editors, the lists can be viewed as travel guides due to the emphasis on providing readers with a list of every city currently accessible via nonstop or same-plane, one-stop flights, and which airlines operate those flights

The closer added that There were also no strong arguments against the interpretation of WP:NOT, other than disagreement that it should apply. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:36, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

To this I would respond:

• Salience: The fundamental measure of a commercial airport is the extent of its service (airlines and destinations) and passenger/cargo volume.

• London Heathrow Airport and Los Angeles International Airport are known for their large volume of travelers and their extensive number of passenger destinations.

• Not their: parking, history, appearances in popular culture or bicycle access.

• Memphis International Airport and Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport are two of the world's most important cargo airports because of their cargo volume, number of destinations and carriers.

• Experience shows these tables are maintained and diligently kept current by the editors who enjoy this sort of editing. Over many years, I've found this to be true of not just of major hubs but even tiny airports in truly remote places.

• I find them more reliable than most Wikipedia content. God bless our wikignomes.

• Other information in airport articles also relies on primary sources (passenger traffic, runway length, etc.) from the airports themselves or government air traffic control agencies.
• Secondary sources for airport passenger service -- mostly local news coverage -- are spotty and less reliable. They seldom exist at all for cargo service.
• These tables meet the notability requirements of WP:NLIST. Like many lists, they convey easily understood information in a compact manner.
• WP:NOT does not directly address transportation destinations. An RfC to add them was defeated by the Wikipedia community.

• An RfC like that one on a basic policy establishes a higher level of consensus (WP:CONLEVEL) than an RfC on a set of airport articles, just as an airport RfC trumps local consensus at an article.

• An RfC administrative review should be based on policy, not ILIKEIT or IDONTLIKEIT. The RfC closure misapplied our policies with regards to WP:PRIMARY

• These primary-sourced lists are consistent with the policies discussed here -- WP:NOT, WP:NLIST, WP:CONLEVEL, WP:PRIMARY, WP:ONUS, WP:DUE, WP:BURDEN.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 03:34, 20 January 2024 (UTC) (and tweaked 04:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC))

This would have been a good response at the RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish, I was unaware of the RfC so I didn't comment. I agree with your comment in the RfC that you were presented with weak policy arguments on the keep side. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 04:09, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

People wrote in the RFC that it is possible to discuss an airport's air service without supplying an exhaustive, constantly updated list of destinations. Indeed, the closer noted that There were also arguments that the tables provide an idea of how well served or active an airport is, but those arguments were weakened by pointing out that the context could be provided in prose.

The claim that WP:NOT does not directly address transportation destinations is rebutted by The examples under each section are not intended to be exhaustive. Naturally, a policy cannot be expected to address every possible circumstance. What people did in this RFC was apply the principles expressed in WP:NOT to this particular situation. Regarding the RFC on amending WP:NOTDIR, I concur with Thebiguglyalien's statement above.

I agree with you about other information in airport articles also relying on primary sources. This is the point I am trying to make: the RFC close implies that information requires secondary sourcing to be included, even though no policy says that. I see no problem with mentioning the length of an airport's runway or how many passengers it handled in 2023, and citing a primary source. However, that is very different from the subject of the RFC, which violates WP:NOT according to the consensus. Sunnya343 (talk) 15:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Putting the context in prose instead of tables means there is less information and the articles are less useful for the countless people who rely on them to see a well-presented list about the airport's core purpose. I agree that the RFC close requiring "secondary sources" is wrong and against policy, but that would be incorrect to say there was a consensus the tables violate NOT. Reywas92^Talk 20:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

This was not mentioned in the close, but several people in the RFC talked about the importance of taking a long-term, historical view on Wikipedia, which as an encyclopedia is a tertiary source. Therefore, in the context of a Wikipedia article, perhaps the history of an airport - rather than a snapshot of its current destinations - is its most important aspect. This includes the history of its air service, such as the establishment of hubs or the first international flight. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Sunnya343, you make a good point about the history of airports service although that doesn't have to come at the expense of current information.

• Articles can note major changes as you've noted above: first international flights, hub status, etc.
  • Many airports already do this
  • Granularity: I don't think we need to note some airline added a flight from Adelaide Airport to Wellington Airport and then cancelled it later that year.
• Wikisavvy readers and future historians can make use of our edit histories to capture a detailed list of an airport's destinations and airline service at a given points in time. The refs will help, too.

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 02:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn to no consensus or that destination tables should be included, not OP's request – would endorse the RFC close rather than accepting OP's proposal, as the close does not mean that the tables must be removed. There was in no way a consensus in the discussion to remove/restrict usage of destination tables broadly, with a clear majority preferring to keep the tables, nor to require non-primary/truly secondary sources to be used, which contradicts policy and the usage and intent on primary source guidelines. While there was some support for the use of independent sources beyond just those published by the airport (or the airlines, which are independent of the airport, the articles' subjects), there was no basis to restrict those in the broad category of WP:PRIMARY, which even includes independent news reporting of airline activities but falls short of "generalization, analysis, interpretation, or evaluation of the original information", which is not really possible for such straightforward factual information. This closure (and the OP's application of it) twisted the reasons for avoiding primary sources, certain types of which may have the disadvantages of "propaganda...omit...overstate...prejudices...unaware". However, these cases – the simple facts of which airlines fly where – fall under WP:PRIMARYCARE: "Material based on primary sources can be valuable and appropriate additions to Wikipedia articles, but only in the form of straightforward descriptive statements that any educated person—with access to the source but without specialist knowledge—will be able to verify are directly supported by the source." Further, sources used in these tables (both airline statements and new reporting that incorporates them) comply with WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD: "authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, subject to editorial control, and published by a reputable publisher". The closure's mandate on the type of sources to be used is simply inconsist with the relevant guidelines. The OP points to WP:DUE, which is about maintaining neutrality and not overemphasizing fringe viewpoints, and is not relevant here. However, there is plainly substantial independent media coverage of airline routes, particularly when new destinations are announced, providing enough attention and relevance to an airport's destinations as a whole. It is also eminently clear that WP:NOT does not prohibit listing flight destinations, something that has been supported in longstanding consensuses at VPP, Wikiproject Airports, and individual airport articles. These tables are not a directory, not a news service, not a database, and not a travel guide. Reywas92^Talk 18:23, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse. I saw SFR's close summary of the "DUE" arguments as a restatement of the NPOV--in particular BALASP--concerns raised by participants, to be used as a reminder that this info really should be sourced to secondary independent media rather than current destination lists on airport websites etc. Although not explicitly stated, this made sense to me as an obvious distinction between the basic, integral material for which we generally consider primary SELF-PUB sources acceptable (e.g. a lot of the stuff that goes in infoboxes gets sourced to the subject's own websites) and the material we don't consider so fundamental that it should be in every article on the topic without any individual indication of secondary independent attention. I think the NOT arguments were what actually designated this material as "non-essential", while the NPOV arguments simply emphasize what that means in this case: destination lists are not exempt from our standard policy of following that specific subtopic's treatment in IRS. If exhaustive, up-to-date lists of destinations are not considered salient enough to receive IRS coverage, then that presentation of the data should not be in the article. JoelleJay (talk) 18:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

  Absolutely, independent sources should be incorporated, but please note the dicussion above regarding the misuse of "primary" and "secondary" in that just because a source is independent new coverage, it is not necessarily "analysis", but this is not the kind of source or facts that needs such special care to avoid disadvantages of propaganda, omission, or overstatement. Your original !vote cited Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them., but that's from Wikipedia:No original research which also says A primary source may be used on Wikipedia only to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the primary source but without further, specialized knowledge., which is the case here, including independent sources that aren't truly secondary. Reywas92^Talk 22:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn, either to No Consensus, or to Relist.
  • I am involved, not because I participated in the RFC, which I did not, but because I started to mediate a dispute at DRN over the removal of airline and destination tables from Harry Reid International Airport. I determined that some of the editors were acting in accordance with the close of the RFC, and some of the editors disagreed with the close of the RFC. DRN is not a forum to dispute the close of an RFC, and the RFC had established a binding rough consensus. So I closed the DRN case, advising the editors either to accept the rough consensus or seek to overturn the RFC. So here we are. (See, or do not see, Job 38:35.)
  • I am seldom inclined to overturn a close, either at DRV or of an RFC, but I think that the close was not consistent with the discussion. The closer had a difficult job to do. By my count, there were 31 Yes !votes, 28 No !votes, and 6 statements of some intermediate view, and one of the intermediate statements said that the lists should only be included if they were derived from reliable secondary sources. Other intermediate statements said that the RFC was poorly stated , which is correct, and should be closed. That is No Consensus, which is always an unsatisfying result, and the closer was in good faith trying to tease a consensus out of it. However, although the conclusion to include the lists of airlines and destinations only when based on reliable secondary sources was based on policy, some of the Yes statements and most of the No statements were also based on policy. The closer reached a conclusion that amounted to a supervote because they were trying to find a consensus when there was none.
  • The close should be overturned either to No Consensus or to Relist. If the RFC is relisted, it should be reworded, and the closer's conclusion of including lists of airlines and destinations when based on reliable secondary sources may be added as an option. Including the lists of airlines and destinations based on reliable primary sources has been mentioned by User:A.B., and maybe should also be in the revised RFC.

Robert McClenon (talk) 23:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Robert McClenon, could you explain why you think the RFC was poorly stated? /gen Sunnya343 (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

User:Sunnya343 - Some editors complained that it was not clear whether the RFC was asking if lists of airlines and destinations were allowed or required. On further review, I personally think that the RFC was asking whether they should be allowed. It should be clear that they will not be required, on the principle that stubs and other incomplete articles that can be expanded are generally allowed. I have crossed out one phrase. The question should be reworded because it was clear to some editors and unclear to others. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse - Solely because I have to reject the CR Review's proposal as raised the requestor Sunnya343 states as part of the reason to Overturn the closure: I think the first paragraph of the closure should be reworded as follows (my text in italics): "After reviewing the !votes and discussion, it is clear that there is consensus that airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT. In re-reading all of the RfC responses, I don't see support for this polarised revision, it is not supported in the RfC. Now could SFR's statement being improved? Always! (as an aside, could I also thank SFR for his efforts, hopefully this thread isn't reading as a persecution/criticism for your efforts). I am exceedingly interested in SportingFlyer & A._B.'s suggested revisions to the Closing Statement to help increase its value/definitiveness and their logical approach in this discussion is impressive. This explicit request for CR Review to be revised to include this phrase is a binary No in my view; the proposed revising would not be appropriate/supported at all. The other (excellent contributions by multiple well-experienced contributors) in this thread/discussion are all excellent, but many feel to me to be rehashing the RfC topic at hand, *not* the proposed CR Review as stated. To restate in simple terms: This request for reviewing & revising the RFC Closure is not supported by Sunnya343's statement of "[...] airlines and destination tables should not be included in articles because of WP:NOT". DigitalExpat (talk) 10:14, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

  Overturn (and by Overturn I mean nullify/relist as a new RFC) - Changing my vote as it was reacting to the lack of request for CR not following the wikipedia template (lack of neutrality/inserting suggested revisions in the reason section). I believe it was a (very) good faith misapplication of policies by the closer on a RfC that was imperfectly started (as highlighted by many respondents), the request for CR which was imperfectly crafted (non-neutral), and a topic that has been on the verge of WP:FORUMSHOP with previous RfC's being similarly ill-crafted (eg: RfC's are not to be multiple choice questions). I believe the RfC closure could have better applied WP:BURDEN, WP:ONUS, and WP:NOT instead of the way WP:PRIMARY was cited. I am definitely a biased participant in both the topic, the RfC, and now this closure. So I believe it would be the most prudent for me to suggest an Overturn based on my above points indicating a lack of strong WP:CON and suggest the root reason for lack of consensus be well considered by impartial 3rd parties (What is actually being challenged/asked for comment on here that is not WP:IDONTLIKEIT (please see my other comment) ahead of any additional formal action or RFC on the topic to be considered. A sincere thank you to all who have contributed in this/these threads! DigitalExpat (talk) 05:29, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

• Relist - per Robert McClenon. As the person who posted the RFC, I was admittedly unwilling to seriously entertain the concerns that people raised about it while it was taking place. The biggest problem seems to be how the RFC question was phrased. Trovatore, Horse Eye's Back, and others brought this up in the RFC. For example, it appears that some contributors thought the RFC was about how the destinations should be presented: table vs. prose. In the present closure review, I see that Voorts wrote that [they] read many of the !votes based on WP:NOT to be against inclusion of any tables at all, but that wasn't the question the RfC was asking, and A. B. said that the RFC question mentioned flights as opposed to destinations.

  For a controversial issue like this one that affects a large number of articles, it is important to have a discussion centered around a clearly worded question that everyone understands - so we know everyone is answering the same question. Therefore, I support relisting the RFC and working with A. B., SportingFlyer, and any other interested party to design a properly worded RFC on these tables. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:33, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  I’m happy to help. I suggest any new RfC be listed at T:CENT if it wasn’t the last time. Despite your efforts, too many people didn’t know about the RfC. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 01:37, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  On further thought, I recommend overturning and just leaving all this alone for a year or two to give the broader community a break.

  We've just had the RfC itself, a dispute resolution discussion, a trip to ANI and now this discussion. This follows 5 previous discussions between 2015 and 2022 (see list below). --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 19:56, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

  Such a postponement sounds reasonable. Sunnya343 (talk) 01:29, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

• Overturn, relist, get more input, and close in a way that doesn't invent new policy. Generally agree with A. B.'s analysis, desite some quibbles by Thebigguyalien. Have to go to jury duty, so can't comment further until tonight.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:25, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

  Back now. In more detail, "drawing inappropriate conclusions based on the existence of primary sources ... would include the prominence of information in the article relative to its actual weight in reliable sources" is not correct, and cannot be. The first idea is from WP:NOR and is about WP:SYNTH in particular, the second is from WP:NPOV and is about WP:WEIGHT in particular. Notions and phrases from them cannot be mixed and matched to invent new policies out of nowhere (talk about "original research"!). Presenting a table of sourced facts about flights is not "drawing ... conclusions" of any kind, and no due or undue weight is given either way, because there are not two sets of sources presenting conflicting claims that have to be weighed against each other. I suspect that Thebigguyalien was trying to make some sort of WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE argument, but that's the same section as WP:NOT#DB, and that's what the RfC was about; this is not the place to relitigate "this should be covered by WP:NOT#DB" arguments that were insufficiently persuasive in the RfC. The rest of Thebigguyalien's objections have been adequately addressed by SportingFlyer, so I won't regurgitate them.

  Honestly, I tend to lean toward the view that our articles should not have such tables and that NOT#DB should cover them, but did not notice the RfC in time to partipate, [Edit: I did, and forgot! Moved my comment to the involved section.] But the purpose of an AN review of a closure is not to re-argue the case, but only to determine whether the closer properly applied understanding of policy in assessing the discussion results, and in this close that was not the case, so it should be overturned and probably re-opened for additional discussion which might bring about a clearer result.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:08, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• I will say that there are a number of us frustrated with the close of this RfC for the complete opposite grounds of the user initiating this review for several different reasons, and that this user may have initiated the RfC review in order to preempt us from doing so. My ground is that the closer reached a conclusion not supported by the discussion (few people talked about primary/secondary sources in the review, only one discussed WP:DUE) and I believe another argument is that the conclusion goes against WP:PRIMARY sourcing as WP:DUE does not discuss primary sources, but honestly that is not my argument to present, and we weren't quite ready. I don't know if this precludes us from opening a different RfC review now considering how odd this situation is. SportingFlyer T·C 12:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  Just to be clear, I would be advocating for the entire discussion to be overturned to a simple "no consensus," which is in reading with the discussion: about half of the participants think the information is not encyclopedic, while the other half think the information is encyclopedic. I am of the latter half - WP:NOT generally lists things that are included in things other than encyclopedias, but the tables in question do not fit into any of those categories (I am not convinced by the WP:NOTTRAVEL arguments because this is not information commonly found in your local bookseller's collection of travel guides, and Wikivoyage has specifically said they do not want to maintain this.) SportingFlyer T·C 12:23, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

  About Wikivoyage:

  • Wikivoyage only has articles for the world's 91 largest airports; none include destination tables. See: v:Airport articles
  • Wikivoyage editors don't maintain those articles like we do. For example:

  • v:Beijing Capital International Airport -- 127 edits since the Wikivoyage article creation in 2013 (1 edit/month)
  • Beijing Capital International Airport -- 6,343 edits since the Wikipedia article creation in 2003 (26 edits/month)

  A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 08:47, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• History:

There have been multiple discussions about airport destination lists over the years:

1. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 15#Request for comments on the Airlines and destinations tables: "Should we get rid of the Airlines and destinations tables in airport articles?"
   • December 2016. Initiated by Sunnya343. Multiple options were offered. The preference was for "Option 3: Keep the tables, but something should be done with regards to references and complying with WP:VERIFY."
2. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 17#RfC about references for the "Airlines and destinations" tables.
   • August 2017. Initiated by Sunnya343
   • Decision: "references must be provided, and 'searchable' websites are suitable for such references."
3. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 141#RFC: Should Wikipedia have lists of transportation service destinations?: "Should we update WP:NOTDIR to explicitly state that lists of transportation service destinations are outside the scope of Wikipedia?"
   • February 2018
   • RfC followed the community decision to delete dedicated articles listing airline destinations
   • RfC conclusion: "There is a clear consensus against the proposed addition to WP:NOTDIR."
4. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167#Airport destination lists
   • Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 167#RfC: Ariport destination tables: "Should tabular listings of destinations in airport articles be removed and replaced with prose descriptions?"
     • June 2021
     • RfC withdrawn by nominator in the face of strong support for retaining lists
5. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Airports/Archive 19#RFC on Maps and Airline & Destination Tables "Should we consolidate mainline and regional carriers in 'Airline and Destination Tables'?"
   • Implicit acceptance of destination lists during this discussion of how to organize them.
   • April 2022
6. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#RfC on the "Airlines and destinations" tables in airport articles: "Should airport articles include tables that display all the airlines that serve the airport and the cities they fly to?"
   • October 2023. Initiated by Sunnya343.
   • By my count: 32 wanted to keep the lists, 21 to delete and 9 said something else (of these 9, more tilted negative than positive). I see this as a decent but not overwhelming majority to keep once you factor in the "something elses". (see User:A. B./Sandbox20 for tabulation)

   • I am not asserting a majority !vote should carry a discussion but it's also "not 'nothin"

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 23:08, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

• One issue I haven't seen properly addressed is why this information has to be on Wikipedia specifically. A write up on the history of World War II or biographies of current world leaders are valuable information, but people would be understandably irritated if you started posting them on a travel site. Likewise, if you start posting directories and travel guides on an encyclopedia, people are going to be understandably irritated. That's really what's at the crux of the WP:NOT issue here. This could all be resolved if the editors who want to maintain this information went to or started a travel site and maintained it there. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:52, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Thebiguglyalien, you wrote: "One issue I haven't seen properly addressed is why this information has to be on Wikipedia specifically."

• My answer: Salience. As I noted above, "The fundamental measure of a commercial airport is the extent of its service (airlines and destinations) and passenger/cargo volume."
• Just one table has been removed to my knowledge since the RfC. That sparked off a heated discussion at Talk:Harry Reid International Airport that went to the dispute resolution noticeboard and then WP:ANI.

• 1 editor deleted the content and argued for deletion on the talk page.

• • Sunnya343

• 12 editors and 2 IPs objected or reverted the deletions:

• Metropolitan90, SportingFlyer, Packerfan386, 68.117.131.84, 2600:1700:12f0:97b0:ad0c:bc3f:13a6:cfae, Rsimasek, Janj757, Zackrules90, Reywas92, Jakeh1, Rlrcoasterdude21, RobH2488, Ericm2031, VenFlyer98

• Only two were involved in the RfC (Sunnya343 and Reywas92). Nobody else had heard of it.

• "This could all be resolved if the editors who want to maintain this information went to or started a travel site and maintained it there."

• So, go away then?

--A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 22:16, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Just posting here since my name was brought up, the original reversion by me was before I was ever made aware of the RfC and as stated, I did not take part in it. This was mainly due to not even knowing the RfC existed at the time. I talked with Sunny and while I am against the decision to remove the tables, I left it alone after that. But yes, as stated I was not involved in the RfC. VenFlyer98 (talk) 23:27, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The biggest assumption here from those opposing inclusion is that this is information that only helps people travel from point A to point B, which is not the case at all - I frequently use this data to see which places are connected to each other by direct flights for geopolitical reasons. SportingFlyer T·C 23:41, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I just want to note that I tried my best to advertise the RFC widely at the time, as I wrote below the introduction. Sunnya343 (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I make very few edits on Wikipedia and most relate to aviation, so I am not entirely familiar with the dispute resolution process. There is no valid reason to remove the Airlines and Destinations table, as I personally use it for my own knowledge to plan travel and learn about connectivity of certain airports. Although a lot of sources for the Airlines and Destinations table are primary and come from the airline itself, many of the secondary sources cite the airline as their source as that is the primary way to see what routes an airline flies or plans to start or stop service to. I just want to make it known that I am opposed to removing or replacing the Airlines and Destinations list for any commercial airport. Jake (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Sunnya343, you wrote "I just want to note that I tried my best to advertise the RFC widely at the time". I agree - you went to a lot of effort to advertise the discussion, diligently notifying people on both sides of previous disputes.

Nevertheless, 13 out of 15 people on the Las Vegas Airport talk page were surprised. That speaks more to the nature of things on Wikipedia than your exemplary efforts. Most editors aren't following everything everywhere all at once. 6+ million articles, 2 edits/second, 12,000 active editors, a plethora of discussion venues and ongoing discussions — it's a lot. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 00:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

I did undo it the last time. Lucthedog2 (talk) 17:51, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

I see that the subheadings of this review have been changed to RFC Participants and RFC Non-Participants. I made my statement above as an Involved party, but I did not participate directly in the RFC. Should my statement be moved, or left where it is? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:51, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

* On a lesser point to main topic at hand in this request - I'm trying to understand the last 8 years of this question being brought up repeatedly in different formats and audiences, inclusive of at least 3 times by the same user. While it should always be every wiki user's indelible right to productively challenge/improve the status quo, the frequency ratio of slightly-reworded-proposals to new-productive-justifications appears to be largely unproductive re-asking a question just because one didn't like the answer received (approaching Argumentum Ad Nauseam fallacy levels). The good faith patience of ActivelyDisinterested and A._B. in their explanations (and many others in re-reading all the historical responses) is impressive. For this matter, the fact that we are now in AN discussing about completely changing a closing statement to the point of changing/challenging the closure - all suggested by the same user, feels more a kin to a crusade (and not solely a quixotic one, but one that could be seen as aiming to tire other contributors with ignorance, feigned or otherwise).
Without sounding too pessimistic, my hope for the next such seemingly inevitable round of RFCs/debate on this topic is that we can have greater isolation of the question than this RFC had (is it the format, the subject, the proper citations? This had all three muddled into one); prevailing logos; and even greater awareness/participation. Cheers! DigitalExpat (talk) 10:23, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

• One more key observation that has been bugging me is I when reading this RfC and all the related ones (including the edits that sparked the Dispute Resolution), I believe are all either asking the wrong question, are framed in a fallacious way, or even worse - being presented as a false dilemma. In my reading, I think it clear that the question is:

  - Not about the article layout format (tables/lists) (which to @Sunnya343's credit he did clarify after the fact in his first edit to his RFC, unfortunately the question/title was not able to be changed),

  - Not about the subject (Aviation) - The same question was correctly pointed out in the RFC by @Reywas92 and others in the RfC, this type of information is similarly covered in other articles regarding train services, bus services etc...)

  I think the RfC's could all be better worded and more focused to reduce ambiguity, personal & subjective biases on what seems to be the topic at hand: Are the articles containing this type of information appropriately/sufficiently referenced & cited? (which ironically/appropriately is a core question for every Wikipedia article, no?). Which is just a longer way of stating some of the much more succinct points like @AirshipJungleman29 in the RFC, but I think these flawed RfC's (in particular ones that seek responses shaped into finite ternary choices like the 2016 and 2017 or binary choices like this latest 2023 one, are asking the wrong question/producing the wrong conversations from their outset (and resulting in what dangerously is then referred back to as precedent/justification for large changes to content. I would suggest that a better RFC topic would be something along the lines of "How can we better ensure articles list acceptably cited information when it comes to certain areas like transportation routes?" (or perhaps there's no RFC needed here at all as all content is bound by the same requirements to be accurate, properly referenced, and well-maintained?). DigitalExpat (talk) 09:37, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

• Let me add just a simple question. Are you seriously thinking that anyone involved in maintaining these tables will read all the stuff above in order to chime in and get the closure overturned? My position is to overturn it already and let us build and encyclopedia.--Jetstreamer ^Talk 16:12, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
• In light of the rather lively conversation between @Buffs and @ScottishFinnishRadish (and as we yet to reach a conclusion to this challenging of a conclusion) - I wanted to point out that I believe this 100+ strong thread is indicative of how complex this particular RFC is. I'd equate it to trying to land on a asteroid spinning on 3 axes:

• 1) A flawed/poorly worded RfC (By my count, at least 6 of the ~62 responding individuals explicitly cited this ( @oknazevad,@Horse Eye's Back, @Trovatore,@Thryduulf,@Senorangel,@DigitalExpat )

• 2) A sub-optimal framing of a question that has unfortunate previous multiple askings of it in different ways as well, that elicit different responses, resulting in pre-existing/citable concensuses that convolute the topic/question even more.

• 3) Unclear what is being challenged (tables? (no per Op), listing any destinations (no per Op), raising consensus above a WikiProject's WP:LOCALCON 2 RFCs (But asking a different question doesn't raise concensus?). Even (admittedly taken completely out of their context, the clarifying statements from the RFC creator read as contradictory/confusing: "The question is quite straightforward. Either you believe Wikipedia should maintain the current, complete lists of airlines and destinations found in all airport articles, or you do not.", (in response to @Epicgenius) [Did you think] "if you !vote "No", it means you believe that explicitly mentioning any current destinations should be forbidden? (Not asking sarcastically.) Because that's not what I meant."

Not intending/desiring to drive this Closure challenge conversation away from its conclusion but just wanting to opine that: 1) It was not a great RFC to begin with and 2) @ScottishFinnishRadish did a good faith genuine effort to make the stick the landing with the closure on this horribly messy 3-axes spinning target of an RFC. The fact that the closure was challenged by the RFC originator feels like a relitigation (and their proposed rewording of what the closure should say with a polar opposite outcome is....not following Closure Challenge procedures). This is all a mess, but it doesn't mean it can't be discussed properly and my opinion doesn't weigh in anymore than anyone else's but wanted to draw back the conversation to if this closure was achieved correctly. As we're past debate of the topic, hopefully an uninvolved 3rd party editor can help resolve this as per the request at the AN Board. Regardless of the outcome, I'd suggest that A._B. 's footnote linking this Closure Challenge (and its conversation) is tagged to the top of it to highlight the valuable points and merited discord in helping to gauge if the results of this RFC are deemed to be of any informative substance. DigitalExpat (talk) 08:52, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

@DigitalExpat, @ScottishFinnishRadish: This is a great description of ScottishFinnishRadish's very challenging task and efforts. I'm asking the closure be overturned but that should not be taken at all as any sort of implicit criticism of The Radish. The root problem was with the RfC and many of the confusing comments. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 17:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

Procedural question

• I and others including A. B. was planning on bringing this here for a completely different reason, but Sunnya343 filed/pre-empted this on completely opposite grounds after noticing our discussion on A. B.'s talk page here: [5]. Am I/are we allowed to write a separate, dissenting opening statement? I really don't think the close was correct, and I would be endorsing the decision on the grounds presented by the nominator, even though I think the close was grossly inaccurate. SportingFlyer T·C 01:53, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  pre-empted this on completely opposite grounds after noticing our discussion on A. B.'s talk page here

  I don't think your timeline is accurate:

  1. 02:13, 13 January 2024 - Sunnya343 questions the closure on the closers talk page
  2. 04:01, 15 January 2024 - You question the closure on the closers talk page in a new section
  3. 04:15, 15 January 2024 - You open a discussion about the closure on A. B.'s talk page
  4. 00:04, 17 January 2024 - The closer declines to adjust the close as requested by Sunnya343
  5. 04:07, 18 January 2024 - Sunnya343 opens the close review

  As far as I can tell, the first person to question this close was Sunnya343 - I don't think it's either accurate or appropriate to suggest that they only questioned it after seeing your discussion or to say that they did so to preempt you. BilledMammal (talk) 02:16, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  The fact they posted on A. B.'s talk page and were aware of our concerns still troubles me. SportingFlyer T·C 10:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  My request for closure review stems from my experience trying to defend my removal of this list based on the RFC close, dating back to November. In the ANI discussion that I linked on the article talk page, Robert McClenon listed three options for how to proceed with the dispute. The list was nevertheless restored without any changes, i.e. without [showing] that [it was] supported by secondary sources. I could have continued to advocate for the removal of the list, but I no longer believe the requirement for secondary sources is appropriate. In short, I have my own concerns about the close, for which I have requested closure review.

  I have known about A.B.'s intentions to challenge the close since 20 December. So I am well aware that you and others have a very different perspective on this RFC. You are fully entitled to that perspective, just as I am to mine. Once you have formulated your arguments, I see no reason why you should not be allowed to challenge the close on the basis of them. Sunnya343 (talk) 03:07, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

• Question - Maybe I am making the mistake of expecting editors to explain concisely what the issues are. I see that User:Sunnya343 is challenging the close. I have known since about 21 December 2023 that User:A.B. was planning to challenge the close, since I closed the DRN case. When I closed the DRN case, I said that editors should either accept the rough consensus established by the RFC closure by User:ScottishFinnishRadish or challenge the closure at WP:AN, which is now being done, only one month after the DRN dispute. I am puzzled as to how Sunnya343 and A.B. say that they have different close challenges. If the two of them have different ideas as to how the RFC should have been closed, maybe it might be helpful if they each stated what they think that the close should have said. That is, if one wants the close overturned, what should it be overturned to? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:11, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon, the closer stated "there is consensus that airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE". The closer cited 3 policies to reach this decision; my analysis above shows they misapplied the 3 policies to this situation.^diff For this reason, the RfC should be overturned to allow tables based on reliable primary sources. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 08:31, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon I second A. B.'s justification but also note the close is inconsistent with the discussion, similar to a supervote argument at DRV. A simple majority of users said yes, the yes votes are grounded in policy, out of 60 participants only one discussed WP:DUE at all, and only four participants distinctly discussed either primary sources or secondary sources in their response, only four or five participants discussed the reliability of sources. The idea there's a clear consensus on sourcing is technically a supervote based on the discussion, and should either be removed, or the discussion overturned to a simple no consensus. This argument is in addition to the misapplication of WP:DUE. SportingFlyer T·C 10:08, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  @Robert McClenon - I strongly third the above. After much much re-reading of multiple threads (including the very essential reading of the DR!). @SportingFlyer and @A. B. describe it perfectly above, I would say part of the reason it is so needed is this CR Review was opened and in the reasoning for the opening the audience is presented with an easy to miss syllogistic fallacy (paragraph 2 of the reasoning can be paraphrased as: "many RfC voters expressed opinions that valid sources need not be secondary", paragraph 3 then can be paraphrased as: "the closing statement should be reworded to say the flight information should be not be included in articles because its WP:NOT"). This is a flawed & invalid reasoning to request a CR be reviewed and is a contributor to the much confused conversation (that ends up being non-objective (CR Review) and trends to subjective posts/voting in this CR Review (re-discussing the subject of the RfC) as evidenced above I would suggest. I voted Endorse solely because the CR Review request to be voted on is crafted in a way that makes it an incorrect/false dilemma. DigitalExpat (talk) 09:07, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

• SportingFlyer, could you please move your comments out of the uninvolved section. You can present them in the involved section and make it clear who they are in response to. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  I wasn't involved in the RfC.

  SportingFlyer T·C 21:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry SF! Friday afternoon blindness. Sunnya343, could you please move your comments per the above. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:28, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

  Will do. Sunnya343 (talk) 21:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

It's time to resolve this review

It's been three days since the last comment was posted. --A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 01:49, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

I just posted a request for closure at WP:CR. Sunnya343 (talk) 02:01, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Bumping to hold off archiving. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:30, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I've added a 30 day {{do not archive until}} template. Hopefully we'll have closure before then. Thryduulf (talk) 20:21, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Abusive and threatening posts on Talk: Ivan Katchanovski

IP user 174.92.47.171 has made a series of recent posts on Talk: Ivan Katchanovski that need admin attention. This appears to be a single purpose account. The user purports to be the subject of the article and makes a variety of paranoid claims about the actions of certain editors who have contributed to the page. This is part of a continuing pattern of threatening behavior by anonymous accounts with links to Ivan Katchanovski. Nangaf (talk) 06:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

It would be best to try to engage with the IP. If I could remember the link I would advise them to make an account and verify their identity. I just scanned the two sections at the bottom of Talk:Ivan Katchanovski and they look like what would be written by an unhappy person with a typical level of understanding about Wikipedia's procedures. That is, they need guidance. If that were unsuccessful, admin action might be needed. If there are threatening words, please quote some so they can be found. Johnuniq (talk) 08:37, 9 February 2024 (UTC)

I have tried to explain a few of the issues to IP-Katchanovski, as has @My very best wishes (courtesy ping), which is commendable given that Katchanovski doxxed him in one of his works. Limited success has been achieved as IP-Katchanovski has continued to dump walls of text and drop sources that are not always up to our standards and sometimes in foreign languages, suggesting nefarious reasons for their non-inclusion when there are simpler explanations such as sourcing policies and language barriers. I understand he wants his bio to look better, but there's a point where he seems to want it to puff him up, and he doesn't seem to take criticism well.

I do not know what direct admin action could improve the situation, but there are some things that might be worth looking at. As mentioned, Katchanovski published the identities of some Wikipedia editors in one of his articles. This personal data was then shared here by user Prohoshka (these contributions have since been revedelled), who at the time got away with a slap on the wrist. Now IP-Katchanovski seems to suggest Prohoshka is a sockpuppet of user Wise2. I do not think IP-Katchanovski knows how to open a report at SPI (or what SPI is), but if an administrator/checkuser wants to have a go at it, it might assuage IP-Katchanovski's concerns. I also think that someone might want to tell user Nangaf to take a step back from the article. I was less than thrilled with his attitude at AfD in the past and it hasn't gotten any better, which doesn't really help. Cheers. Ostalgia (talk) 10:15, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Ostalgia: You are welcome to your opinion. I would note that I did, by your own admission, step away from the page for several months, only for you to troll me on the talk page, as well as here: so perhaps you could take your own advice. Nangaf (talk) 18:07, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

An IP user claiming to be Katchanovski has now made accusations of libel on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ivan_Katchanovski_(3rd_nomination). This is unambiguous abuse. Nangaf (talk) 04:05, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

What's the desired outcome? You wrote to every single related forum that Ivan Katchanovsky spreads conspiracy theories. In the article itself (Special:Diff/1206207202, Special:Diff/1206659223, Special:Diff/1205974670), at the 3rd AfD, at Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Ivan_Katchanovski; this was said or implied at the article's talk page.

It does seem that references to support this statement, where provided, do not directly mention Ivan Katchanovsky or his publications. Accusations regarding a living person are seemingly based on editors' deductions don't make it look good. (And neither the IPs' walls of text on article's talk, and the past history of Ivan Katchanovsky vs Wikipedia editors mentioned by Ostalgia.)

I don't understand what are you trying to achieve writing about this conflict everywhere. To protect article's talk page from IP editors? Surely, there's a better suited venue to ask for that without making statements about a living person in five different places? PaulT2022 (talk) 17:57, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

I request that an admin removes the abusive posts. On previous occasions when an IP user claiming to be Katchanovski has made legal threats against other editors, that is what has happened. [6] Nangaf (talk) 19:28, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Nangaf, you have a userbox on your user page stating that "This user may sometimes share an IP address with Ivan Katchanovski and his many sockpuppets.". Can you clarify (a) whether this is true, and (b) if it is, how you come to be sharing said IP address? I don't think that it is unreasonable to suspect that such circumstances might be indicative of some sort of conflict of interest, and an explanation would no doubt clarify the situation. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

This discussion is moot. The Katchanovksi article and associated pages have been deleted. Nangaf (talk) 19:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of general sanctions at the village pump

A discussion is taking place at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Community sanctions: rethinking civility enforcement at RfA that may be of interest :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 20:05, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Editor hopping IPs like a jack rabbit, creating chaos on pages of Karen Black and family members

Karen Black's page is not a priority for the admins, so they've done diddly to intervene despite my starting a discussion on her talk page four days ago.

80.136.196.48 (also editing as 2003:D3:FF12:1D52:B55E:EBB9:DBF7:EF2B and 2003:D3:FF12:1D52:B8A2:D7CA:55DA:3AEE) keeps making trouble on the Wiki pages of Black and her family members.

• Claims Black's daughter Celine is "non-notable" and blanks/deletes any mention of Celine on her mother's page.[7] (Celine acted alongside her mother on film and has been mentioned in the press countless times; this blanking is preposterous and bizarre.)
• Makes similar edits on the Wiki pages of Black's son Hunter Carson[8][9] and sister Gail Brown.[10][11]
• Puts "Conflict of Interest" tag on pages for absolutely no reason.[12][13][14] Claims in edit summary that content is "unreferenced", which is a complete lie and an obvious one at that.
• Deems entire family of Theodore McKeldin (whose daughter's widower is Black's brother) as "non-notable" and deletes/blanks properly sourced content, including the acknowledgment of a deceased grandson who twice ran for public office.[15]
• Removes licensed photos from article,[16] claiming that "family snaps are non-notable", which is rubbish as Gold Star articles like Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart display such photos.

This troublemaking editor is obsessed with blanking standard information and has been hopping IPs like a jack rabbit to do it. The pages were fine until the jackrabbit came along and made them incomprehensible. The "COI" (conflict of interest) tag that this editor has repeatedly added to the pages of Black and her family members is nothing but a frivolous attempt to create chaos and divert attention.

I'm posting at this noticeboard because the admins haven't said squat at Black's discussion page.[17] The solution is simple: Add protection to the pages of Karen Black, Gail Brown, Hunter Carson and Theodore McKeldin, and put watchdogs on the pages to make sure the jackrabbit doesn't continue to make disruptive edits. It's a no-brainer. Deep Purple 2013 (talk) 23:06, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

• Blocked per NOTHERE--the Deep Purple account, that is, for returning to an edit war right after coming off a block. And for all the rest, of course: the battleground, the false accusations, the refusal to take responsibility and to communicate. Drmies (talk) 23:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

  Are blocks going to be effective? Might temporary semi-protection be a better solution for the pages in question? Buffs (talk) 17:05, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

  That, and several of Deep Purple 2013's complaints appear valid. E.g., "notability" has nothing to do with picture licensing; politicians and actors covered in the mainstream press are public figures enough for WP:PUBLICFIGURE in BLP; "notability" has nothing to do with mention of someone in another article (only with whether they can have their own stand-alone article); and so on. It might be reasonable to suppress certain names of certain people for WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE reasons, to exclude other kinds of details for various reasons covered at WP:NOT, to remove a photo for WP:COPYVIO reasons or some other concern (encyclopedic quality, etc.) covered at WP:IMGPOL or MOS:IMAGES, and so on. But the reasons given by the IP-migrating anon appear to be uniformly invalid, and entirely geared to suppressing information about Karen Black and people connected to her for some reason, which is more "not here" than the issues raised by Deep Purple 2013 (at least in this proceeding; I've not gone diff-digging about their other behavior and don't raise an objection about the block; rather, I agree with Buffs about semi-protecting the page).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

CTOPS/ARB-PIA question

Question stems from this !vote from a non-EC editor. The discussion is a merge proposal to merge Maersk Hangzhou (A ship article; not CTOPS) into Attacks on the MV Maersk Hangzhou (A CTOPS attack article part of an PIA conflict (Red Sea crisis). The merge discussion is on the non-CTOPS article. Can someone clarify if non-EC editors are able to comment in this type of discussion (i.e. a merge of a non-CTOPS article into a CTOPS-PIA article)? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:25, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

It would seem to me that the primary question is about the notability of the ship. It would also seem that the nominator also agrees, based on the location of the discussion. And the vote is very specific, only commenting on this question. So it would seem to me that the vote should be allowed to remain, as the ship is not CTOPS. Animal lover |666| 09:15, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Got it! I just wasn’t sure how that worked and that answered that. Discussions have to be on the CTOPS talk page for non-EC !votes to matter. Thanks for answering that. Cheers! The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 15:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

User talk:Varials

Could an admin action this unblock request. It's languished for two weeks. Thanks -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 06:04, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I need one more for a tiebreaker. Thanks. (some reading required.) -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 10:40, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Commented on by Suthasianhistorian8 and actioned by OhanaUnited. -- Deepfriedokra (talk) 07:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Neglected SPI

This SPI has been languishing for well over a month-[18], despite the user being an extremely notorious long term abuser who block evades on an almost daily basis. They frequently engage in harassment, intimidation and resort to frivolous reverts of legitimate users with the sole intention of bolstering and aggrandizing their own community. What is even more confounding about the lack of response from admins is that the user literally logged out edited on the SPI, similar to what they had done months prior-[19] and subsequently filed a retaliatory SPI against some other users-[20]. The behavioural evidence presented is irrefutably sockpuppetry, or at the very least meatpuppetry, so it would be helpful to get some sort of update on it. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 17:27, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Added my 2 cents at the SPI. I don't think you have conclusive enough evidence here. To reiterate, I'm not seeing any clear evidence of sockpuppetry/socking. While edit warring may indeed be a problem, that's not an issue for SPI. I advise EVERYONE involved to step away, cool down, and engage in a discussion on the talk page. In one instance the IP in question changed the number of troops at a battle hundreds of years ago from 60,000 to 20,000 and had multiple sources. Assuming both sources are right, couldn't we just say 20,000-60,000 and cite the various sources? Historians and editors can reasonably disagree and still produce good work. Buffs (talk) 06:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Close review of Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Capitalization of NFL draft article titles

To start, this has been one of many attempts by a set of users to get the title "Draft" lowercase, going back to at least 2013. The most recent RM on the subject "National Football League Draft" occurred a few months ago and closed against lowercase being the title. A month ago, User:Dicklyon decided that "the large number of football-fan editors compared to the editors who want to respect our style guidelines" at RM was too great – something demonstrably false as a number of football editors supported lowercase – and so he decided to open up this village pump RFC in violation of WP:RFCNOT and prior consensus (not that he can't try again after a time, but it feels like its been happening over and over again – feels like a WP:STICK). The discussion was plainly a disaster; one of the worst and most disorderly proposals I've ever seen. First, not nearly enough notifications were sent out – e.g. NO relevant pages had a notice at the top as required by RM; the NFL project page received a notice but not the also-very active college football project; after the close, one of the most prominent football editors asked "When and where did that consensus happen?" and later noted that it seems "pretty sneaky."
At the discussion, a number of users pointed out that it was an inappropriate RFC and WP:FORUMSHOPPING, which was split out into its own section; by my count 11/15 out of the users commenting there said it was an inappropriate discussion. As demonstrated by the later WT:NFL discussion, a number of interested editors were discouraged from commenting due to the belief that it was going to be rejected as inappropriate. Furthermore, others were discouraged by the EXTREME AMOUNT of WP:BLUDGEONING from several lowercase supporters; User:Hey man im josh noted that three users combined had 192 comments. There is simply no way to come about a consensus when such extreme bludgeoning occurs. The amount of the discussion which was actually editors !voting was about 1/6, a number of which of those were "procedural close" comments. Hey man im josh gave an accurate description of the chaos in this comment; among other points, he noted that:

The validity of the discussion wasn’t established early on. There were a number of users who thought it was an inappropriate forum ... I think as a result some people didn’t participate or comment as much ...
Wikilawyering and bludgeoning the conversation to death was a significant reason why the discussion ended the way it did and I wish MOS discussions were better moderated to avoid these types of outcomes. “These type” being ones that are won by sheer number of comments and wearing people down ...
NFL Draft is absolutely (and clearly) a proper name of an event (in relevant sports sources, aside from ESPN, who is looking into their style guide based on an email I sent) but bludgeoning and wikilawyering has prevailed ...
There are inconsistencies in sources because most sources don't have a style guide they must adhere to, but that doesn't mean that downcasing is actually the proper result ...
It’s sometimes downcased in sources because sources themselves, which often consist of dozens of different writers, are not necessarily aware that it’s a proper name. This is a common problem for events, drafts particularly, that have self descriptive names which are also nouns ...
Inconsistency in sources doesn't mean that something’s not actually a proper name, despite what some are screaming from the rooftops ...
Some people refused to even consider the possibility of a proper name once the ngrams, which are notorious for lacking meaningful context, came out and showed an inconsistency (again, context is key) ...
Several people reached out to me privately to say that the discussion was such a trainwreck and drama filled that they weren’t participating ...

TL;DR: This discussion was an absolute disaster of a discussion – one of the worst I've ever seen. A large number of the participants didn't understand the terms of the proposal, many didn't comment because they thought it was inappropriate and going to be declined, not even close to enough notifications, zero notices on affected pages as required, SO MUCH BLUDGEONING, etc. etc. I could go on and on. But this really was a disastrous discussion to the point that no consensus could possibly be found in my opinion – even one of the supporters (User:Amakuru) later commented that they realized "This was a rare case ... where the raw numbers from ngrams didn't tell the whole story, there was decent evidence that capping could have been appropriate which was amply presented in last year's discussion, and without casting any bad faith ... this decision to go behind the back of the RM participants is a poor one." Whichever way this goes, we are willing to abide by the result (Hey man im josh has actually implemented some of the changes), but in my opinion, this really should be Overturned to no consensus. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

BTW - Am I seeing double? Why are some individuals commenting in both the uninvolved & involved subsections? Ya can't be both uninvolved & involved. GoodDay (talk) 20:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Uninvolved comments

• Endorse close the various bad-faith and/or factually-inaccurate complaints about the forum should be discounted completely. An RFC can change policy, and the sheer volume of complaints about the forum prove that there was sufficient notification. Once the "how dare you propose this" complaints are discounted, there is consensus for the move. 217.180.228.138 (talk) 01:59, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. This has been a contentious point for years. The RfC sought to resolve the debate and was well attended with spirited discussion on both sides. Having read through the debate, I conclude (a) a community-wide RfC (with input from both American football and MoS editors) was a good way to resolve the issue one way or the other, and (b) the closure by User:The Wordsmith was reasonable.
  As for the concern with "bludgeoning", both sides were quite active in their comments. Compare User:Randy Kryn from the "upper case" camp (31 edits) with User:SMcCandlish from the "lower case" camp (42 edits). I don't see that as a basis for overturning the close. Cbl62 (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  @Cbl62: I wasn't planning to join the discussion, but I think it's more useful to search for signatures as opposed to edits. The page was created part of the way through the discussion and some users replied to multiple comments in the same edit. I think that's a better reflection of someone's participation in the conversation as opposed to the edit count at that page. Hey man im josh (talk) 02:43, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  Fair point, but a signature count ends up with roughly the same proportion: 41 for Kryn, 51 for McCandlish. And I didn't see anything that was particularly intimidating or "over the top" in the comments made. Cbl62 (talk) 02:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  Though then there's also Dicklyon (72) and Bagumba (57); I for one was discouraged from commenting as much as I wanted due to seemingly every single supporter of uppercase receiving a barrage of opposition from one of those three (plus others), something that has continued at the related Talk:USFL Draft discussion. BeanieFan11 (talk) 03:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  Are we really going to count number of edits/comments by editor here? I think the relevant questions on this matter are simply 1) was this RFC an appropriate substitute for an RM and 2) was there proper notice? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:15, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  You labelled "capitalized" examples at Talk:USFL Draft § 2022, 2023 drafts that were almost half incorrect—either shown to be actually lowercase or without mention of the specific term "USFL Draft". The fact that it received responses is a reflection of the factual errors and failure to acknowledge the discrepancy in a timely fashion. Per WP:BATTLEGROUND:

  Editors in large disputes should work in good faith to find broad principles of agreement between different viewpoints.

  Discussions are not merely to tally votes without a policy and guideline-based discussion to understand opposing viewpoints. I'd welcome an uninvolved editor to assess the actual non sequiturs. MOS is under Wikipedia:Contentious topics, and the disruptive behaviour needs to be reeled in. —Bagumba (talk) 04:30, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  Indeed. The last couple of months have actually shown repeated cases of what amounts to outright sourcing falsification in attempts to WP:WIN in tedious and trivial over-stylization disputes (especially in American in sports topics, e.g. here and here). This is turning into a WP:TE problem, a "let me capitalize stuff just to imply how important it is to fans, or else!" sort of thing. (That said, one assumes it is a product of presumption, selection bias, and inexperience at doing statistically meaningful usage examination, rather than being intentional sourcing distortion for PoV reasons. But the result is disruptive nonetheless.)

  To claim that editors who provide detailed refutation of such pseudo-sourcing are "bludgeoning" is just a hand-waving attempt to avoid scrutiny and to silence principled objections. In particular, Brandolini's law is highly applicable here: it almost always takes more effort and verbiage to refute provably false claims than to make them. The issue is exacerbated by the habit of many of those in favor of over-capitalizing things to simply repeat their "it's a proper name and must be capitalized!" claims in WP:IDHT fashion after it has already been proven that indy RS generally do not capitalize it as a proper name. Such proof by assertion attempts generate another round of refutation. The problem is further magnified when later arrivals do a "per X" !vote that cites the rationale of the provider of the bogus statements and so-called evidence. Most commenters do not read RfC, RM, and other discussions in any depth, and simply pop off with whatever best suits their predilections.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  On Jweiss11's two questions: Yes, since consensus can form by any means the community chooses, WP not being a bureaucracy. And yes, at first, though the latter rapidly turned into repetitive and activistic canvassing (see extensive diffs in the RfC itself) by a particular pro-capitals party – basically, bludgeoning at a site-wide level. The idea that this discussion somehow had insufficient pro-capitalization input is a fantasy. And the input level really wouldn't make much difference, anyway, since the question was simple: is there sufficient capitalization in the independent RS to meet the MOS:CAPS (and WP:NCCAPS) standard? This was in a no way a question of what people might personally just like the look of better. Though several of them tried to turn it into effectively a referendum on whether editors focused on a particular topic can override WP:CONLEVEL policy to get a result they want, and the answer was of course "no", since the entire point of the policy is preventing editors involved in a particular topic from making up their own "counter-rules" and forcing other editors obey them in that category instead of following the actual WP:P&G and the sourcing.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  Despite what WP:BUREAU says, Wikipedia is indeed a bureaucracy. Only a bureaucracy would claim it wasn't one. :) Jweiss11 (talk) 22:13, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close. It is reasonable to bring discussions that have not reached consensus on the pages involved to a wider audience, especially when they concern application of a global guideline. The evidence and policy-backing was overwhelmingly for lowercase, so even if every gridiron editor was properly notified it shouldn't have made a difference (unless they all invoked IAR, with impeccable reasoning). And as Bagumba noted, it doesn't seem like football editors were all that concerned about "proper procedure" back when the RM for the 2016 NFL draft page resulted in all the draft pages being moved to uppercase without notification or RM notices being placed. JoelleJay (talk) 04:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  To be clear, JoelleJay is referring to my comments at the RfC, not here. For convenience, here are links to said 2016 RM and its move review.—Bagumba (talk) 05:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Involved comments

• Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT. My view hasn't changed, concerning the matter. An RM should've been opened at the page-in-question, including related pages. IMHO, an RFC shouldn't be used as a substitute for an RM. GoodDay (talk) 01:14, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• I'm not quite sure if I'm considered "involved" or not since I did not participate in this RFC, but I did participate in the 2023 RM and I am quoted above! I'll go with involved. I concur with GoodDay that this change should be conducted via an RM. I'll also note that the "notice" of this RFC to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League was underwhelming: [21]. Jweiss11 (talk) 01:24, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

What exactly are you're expecting for an RfC notification...? That's neutral and includes a link with a self-descriptive title, with further context provided earlier; nothing more should be said in such a notice. JoelleJay (talk) 05:00, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

There was a repeat notification later at 18:31, 6 January, seen now at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Football League/Archive 23 § NFL Draft RFC at Village Pump.—Bagumba (talk) 05:27, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close. I don't understand why GoodDay and Jweiss11 and Randy Kryn and BeanieFan11 and a few others want to see this discussed again at an RM. The same evidence and same guideline-based arguments would prevail. You can see an example of a "related" RM (that is, similar issue, different football league) at Talk:USFL Draft. BeanieFan11 is again there posting ridiculously wrong info and then complaining when editors point out the mistakes. His "evidence" make the opposite case of what he's arguing for. Ultimately, probably much more quickly in that case, we'll follow the guideline, as we've done with the NFL Draft RFC. Lawyering about the process slows it down, and wastes a lot of editor argument time, as here; I'd call it disruptive, but we have a long tradition of letting everyone have their "day in court", so that's where we are. I commend the closer of this long mess of an RFC for all did he, other than making us wait a full 30 days when the result was clear weeks earlier. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close. The purpose of a close review is to examine whether the closer erred, not to relitigate why people would have preferred one outcome or another. The closer did not err here, and despite the length of the discussion, the only actual questions to resolve were quite simple: does the sourcing show enough capitalization in indy RS to meet the MOS:CAPS standard? Clearly no. Is there some means by which the community can be prevented from addressing the question in an RfC (at VPPOL and later stand-alone)? Clearly no. Randy Kryn has been beating a drum that WP:RFCNOT somehow invalidates the RfC or makes it inoperable and just "an opinion poll", but this is a bad misunderstanding of policy. WP:Consensus can form anywhere by any means. RFCNOT (an "information page" essay) suggests, of course, that RfCs are not the usual process for effectuating page moves, which is true. However, this was not an RfC standing in for an RM, it was an RfC to resolve the problem that that a previous RM and a WP:MR after it failed to come to a consensus. That's a perfectly valid reason for an RfC, though it could also have been done via a followup RM. The RfC route netted broader input, so was the better choice, despite all the patently disruptive "shut it down!" handwaving by people unhappy with the predictable outcome (predictable because the WP:P&G on the original question are clear, as is the sourcing). In short, the closer did not err, the process was not broken (despite various parties trying hard to break it, and extensive pro-capitalization canvassing). The closer has stated in user talk that their intent was that the RfC result could just be used as a rationale to move the page in question, consensus already having been established. This is correct per WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY and WP:CONSENSUS. However, it's ultimately immaterial. It's clear that the pro-capitalization camp are going to insist on opening yet another RM about this anyway, so the pointless discussion is guaranteed to continue and waste more editorial community time. But that has no implication of any kind for whether the reasoning in the close is faulty, which it is not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:09, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Endorse close yeah I thought it was the wrong avenue, but I trust the judgment done on the forum. Plus it evolved into its own page, so I accept the outcome. Plus, I'm not overly bitter about it and I guess I know when the bludgeoning gets really toxic, I just ignore it. Conyo14 (talk) 07:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn page moves per WP:RFCNOT, the RfC itself was a good opinion poll but then the next step would not be moving pages but opening a Requested Move. Anything else is WP:IAR without the necessary reasoning of why unilaterally moving pages improves Wikipedia. Reversing the page moves is another topic and not related to this review, and should be addressed separately. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:51, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Weak endorse. I voted to keep "draft" capitalized and I stand by my opinion, but there did appear to be weak policy-based consensus to change it to a small "d." Sound, policy-based arguments were made on both sides but the closing admin got it right in the small "d" side having better support. While RM would have been the preferred way to handle this move, this RFC received significant participation from a wide range of users including consistent contributors to NFL-related articles and those who do not typically edit in this area; this RFC can be considered valid grounds for a page move. Frank Anchor 14:12, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn the discussion on both sides devolved into an absolute mess. As I previously noted, I generally avoided the discussion after a few comments due to the tone. I will also note that the whole "wrong venue" discussion was a distraction for both sides. The original intent of going to RFC was to gather a larger audience. That was achieved but at the expense of a huge distracting discussion. I feel like both sides would be better served by having a cleaner discussion in the right venue (notifications can occur left and right to everyone) to mitigate any ancillary concerns. Seems bureaucratic, but it would seem that both sides would probably prefer to have a cleaner consensus to point to moving forward. « Gonzo fan2007 (talk) @ 15:29, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn. I'm not thrilled with the closer hand waving away the RFCNOT concerns raised in the RFC. I would also like to dispute the idea that the "Pro Caps Crowd" was somehow canvassing when the "lowercase crew" has an entire section of WT:MOS dedicated to canvassing. And of course the bludgeoning issue needs to be addressed. There is no need for any editor to make dozens of comments at an RFC, regardless of which side they are on. Jessintime (talk) 18:05, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

  That section at the top of WT:MOS, of current and past style-related discussions, is kept neutral, central, and open to anyone interested, much like automatic and other notifications to Wikiprojects. Canvasing is something else entirely. Dicklyon (talk) 10:55, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• Endorse close The review rationale does not identify anything in the close that was unreasonable or against policies or guidelines. The close is detailed and accounted for the major counterarguments, even if it differs from those cherry-picked quotes or what some !voters like. The claim of a "disaster" or bludgeoning mandating a do-over are unconvincing, if not also insulting. Veteran admins are capable of separating the wheat from the chaff, perhaps moreso than some non-admin closers, who might "safely" close with an otherwise unexplained “obvious no consensus”, instead of investing time to filter and assess the valid points. The OP argues WP:RFCNOT, which is from an information page, while WP:NOTBURO and WP:CONSENSUS#Consensus-building are policies. The close gave more weight to policies:

  Analyzing the relative strength of the arguments, those who sided with RfC being a valid venue for this issue have significantly stronger policy-based arguments. ..there is no consensus that the RfC is invalid or inappropriate.

  Circling back to the the review rationale, it has factual errors. The most recent RM was closed as "no consensus" not "closed against lowercase being the title" (see WP:THREEOUTCOMES). The RfC was closed in line with P&Gs. The info page WP:CLOSECHALLENGE states:

  Closures will rarely be changed by either the closing editor or a closure review…if the poll was close or even favored an outcome opposite the closure, if the closure was made on the basis of policy. Policies and guidelines are usually followed in the absence of a compelling reason otherwise, or an overwhelming consensus otherwise, and can only be changed by amending the policy itself.

  WP:POINTY also has some applicable guidance:

  Practically speaking, it is impossible for Wikipedia to be 100 percent consistent, and its rules will therefore never be perfect. If consensus strongly disagrees with you even after you have made proper efforts, then respect the consensus…

  For all the fuss about appropriate venue, nobody has explained how the MOS was applied incorrectly (MOS:CAPS: Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.), or explained how a new RM would present any new arguments. NOTBURO indeed.—Bagumba (talk) 19:23, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Time to move on The RFC was a disaster from start to finish and I suspect there's zero chance that it is actually overturned because who has time to read through all of that debate about proper nouns? The lesson here is bludgeoning and badgering can work in certain situations. The endless wall of text comments certainly obfuscated the issue enough that a consensus was somehow pulled out of the wreckage. Congrats, I guess. It seems like there's more important matters to the project that interpretations of proper nouns. The English language isn't a math equation and treating it like one seems like a waste of time, but YMMV. Thanks! Nemov (talk) 19:50, 16 February 2024 (UTC)
• Overturn while I generally agree with everything Nemov said, I'm loathe to reward the badgering and bludgeoning by tacitly agree with the close. I've no interest in wasting further energy on a mostly-pointless debate, but for the record I dislike the pompous and contemptuous tone that the MOS crowd takes toward content area specialists. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Behavior of editor User:MrOllie

Repeated deletions involving several pages, and in particular the redirection of page Sampling (computational modeling)

Evidence

This is my second dispute opened in relation to the operate of User:MrOllie, see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis for a record of the first. In this second I would like to look at what happened to other pages supervised by the same editor, as, in my opinion, a troubling pattern emerges. As previously noted User:MrOllie has removed my citations from several pages, in a rather 'deletionist' style, but the action of this person has been particularly inconsiderate in two specific pages, sensitivity analysis (see Talk:Sensitivity_analysis and sensitivity auditing, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. I hope that the adjective inconsiderate referred to the action of a person is not censored and is accepted as a criticism moved by an author to the operate of an editor. Plenty of material is available in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to motivate the adjective inconsiderate - in brief, the works removed are the most cited in the discipline as attested by several authors. In the case of sensitivity auditing the issue is that the reference removed by User:MrOllie is the first reference introducing the method, quoted by all remaining references of the page, see Talk:Sensitivity_auditing. After the systematic deletions I made a public confession (see Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard/Archive_241#sensitivity_analysis) of my sins - not notifying a conflict of interest while citing my own work. Having learned the lesson, I declared a possible conflict of interest in three talk pages: the two mentioned plus Quantitative storytelling, see Talk:Quantitative storytelling. I then opened three requests for edit under the edit COI template in Talk:Sensitivity_analysis, Talk:Sensitivity_auditing and in the page Talk:Post-normal science. These requests are in the pipeline. During all discussions so far, users User:MrOllie maintained a confrontational tone, although I always addressed this person with courtesy. Another clear inconsiderate deletion - that gives the occasion for this second dispute - took place once user (User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia - a person I know belonging to the community of sensitivity analysis practitioners) created a new page on sampling for numerical simulation Sampling (computational modeling). User:MrOllie eliminates the page with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics). The talk page associated to this now redirected page explains while the adjective inconsiderate applies here. I copy the page in full below in blue as I find it self-explaining. Listening to reason: the talk page of Sampling (computational modeling) User:MrOllie I just undid your redirect of this page, (you eliminated the page created by User_talk:Kozlova_Mariia with a redirect to the page Sampling (statistics)). My motivation is the following: If one cares to read the two pages one will see that Sampling (statistics) is devoted to empirical experiments, either involving physical objects or individuals (humans) to be polled. This is about extracting entities from a population e.g. to set up an experiment in the laboratory or in a society as to ensure that several characteristics of the population are explored. Sampling in numerical experiments has to do with the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces to the effect of e.g. testing the output of a model, numerically integrating a function and so on. If anything, Sampling (computational modeling) is closer to Design of experiments (DOI) than it is to Sampling (statistics), though very few mathematical modellers use pure DOI but preferentially the methods in the newly created page. There is no conflict of interest in this page, neither mine not of the user creating it, and I consider that noticeably is ensured for this page. An incise, just to be clear: I know and appreciate the work of the user who created the page but the page does not contain self promotional material for either of us. A litmus test of the argument for the difference between Sampling (statistics) and Sampling (computational modeling) is that neither Sampling (statistics) nor Design of experiments contains Low-discrepancy sequences, also known as quasirandom sequences or quasi random numbers that are a best practice in computer simulation. Note the existence of a more specific and technical page on Quasi-Monte Carlo method. The newly created page is a useful bridge for users interested in numerical experiments. I suggest that before deleting this page again the opinion of other editors is polled. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:35, 12 February 2024 (UTC). The linked methods describe themselves as statistical methods and link to Sampling (statistics). This is clearly the same topic, just applied to a slightly different domain. We should not have two articles about the same topic, just as we don't have Samplling (medicine), Sampling (social science), etc. - MrOllie (talk) 12:28, 12 February 2024 (UTC) Sorry to contradict you User:MrOllie, but please note that Wikipedia has sampling (medicine) Wikipedia does not have sampling (social sciences) but has sampling (music) and sampling (signal processing) as well. Even sampling bias. As clearly noted above, in both sampling (medicine) and in the missing sampling (social sciences) that you take as an example one extracts samples from populations (of rats, drugs, chemicals, humans, treatments); bar discipline specific features, this can be covered in sampling (statistics). In sampling for numerical simulation or computational modeling one explores multidimensional space and this is not a slightly different domain. For example the concept of discrepancy - central to the field of sampling for numerical experiments - does not work for drugs and treatments. See the discussion of quasi-random sequences above. As I tried to explain, if redirecting (which I disagree with), this should be to design of experiments, not sampling (statistics). As I proposed, it would be useful to see what other editors think of this disagreement. Though I am not a great expert of Wikipedia procedures, a speedy deletion request from your side would have been preferable to a redirection, as this would have allowed a discussion with more editors. Hoping that you will consider my reasons, I remove again your redirect. Best regards.Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC) Those aren't repeating the same material about statistical methods, as this article is. Speedy deletion requests are resolved without any discussion, that is why they are speedy. MrOllie (talk) 13:38, 13 February 2024 (UTC) It is quite interesting how my arguments have been dismissed - User:MrOllie is categorical in his judgment, and a second pair of eyes is not needed. I did not continue the conversation seen its futility, but for whomever is reading this I would like to note that not one of the references of the removed page Sampling (computational modeling) appears in the page Sampling (statistics). Of the four methods described in suppressed Sampling (computational modeling): Simple random sampling Latin hypercube sampling (LHS) Quasi-random sampling (QRS) Full factorial design (FFD) Only the first, random sample, is mentioned in Sampling (statistics) - no LHS, QRS or FFD. Why did I not write this as a continuation of the exchange with User:MrOllie? In one looks at the text in blue above User:MrOllie is not receptive to the reasons put forwards and continues repeating rather mechanically that the two pages are repeating the same material about statistical methods. Is this about reason or about power? I hope I have demonstrated that the page cannot be redirected, and especially cannot be redirected to Sampling (statistics): I add that the decision should not be left to User:MrOllie alone. Behaviors such as those described here have been registered by other unhappy authors, even outside Wikipedia, as I move to discuss next. Outside Wikipedia Looking outside Wikipedia, one discovers that several authors - like me - have been unfavorably impressed by the deletionist style of User:MrOllie. One user asks if this entity is a bot or an extremely busy human. Another asks Who is MrOllie and points to the critique of Wikipedia by Tom Simonite. I agree with this author that Simonite's piece -- although old -- is still very much to the point. The loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that deters newcomers who might increase participation in Wikipedia and broaden its coverage. Author laments these high-edit Wikipedia editors who can "undo" the work of those who do actually contribute. Another author repeats the message that this incessant deletion has the effect of scaring people off, possibly scaring off people who could give a good contribution. These people might find themselves in a rabbit hole trying to comply with the rules and grammar of Wikipedia in a possibly vain attempt to get redress against behaviors such as those flagged here in relation to User:MrOllie. Another wounded author writes: I just want to say: Mr.Ollie is a serious piece of work...Put in serious creditable sources from real authority sites, not some fake ass wannabes, and everything and he just...never mind leaving this thread before I start getting nightmares from him haunting me again.(Signed xReminisce) One more author, apparently a physicist, gives what seem valid reasons why the deletion of User:MrOllie were inconsiderate. Maybe all these authors - who have brought their complaints outside Wikipedia, were wrong or deluded, while User:MrOllie was consistently right. My direct experience of this editor is that in my specific case User:MrOllie was plainly wrong, and consistently aggressive and confrontational. The theme of impoliteness emerges very vividly in one looks inside Wikipedia. Inside Wikipedia User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_5#dealerbid An excerpt: Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#Shawarma_Page Here a dispute with an author who calls MrOllie lazy for deleting things instead on engaging with the content. just say you're lazy and unwilling to fix a simple error. you only just noticed the link from the previous contributor on this topic, and used it as an excuse to delete the whole thing. I fixed it now, let's see what new reason you come up with to delete it. Plainonlycheese (talk) 18:43, 4 September 2023 (UTC) MrOllie responds that personal attacks are forbidden We also don't allow personal attacks. If you keep on like this you won't be successful on this site. MrOllie (talk) 19:05, 4 September 2023 (UTC) Was this a personal attack? So if an author complains of the behavior of an editor as I am doing in the present note this is a personal attack. While receiving complaints from academicians for his intervention in the Talk:Sensitivity_analysis page MrOllie accused me of 'canvassing'. In other words, MrOllie is always right. Elsewhere [[22]] one Author complains after a series of exchanges But you are not a cooperative person. Not kind either. Neotesla (talk) 02:45, 23 October 2022 (UTC) To which MrOllie replies No personal attacks is a policy here, too. Do not post on my talk page again, I've read enough insults. MrOllie (talk) 02:49, 23 October 2022 (UTC) Is being 'not kind' and 'non cooperative' an attack or a criticism? Interestingly, MrOllie wrote on my own talk page User_talk:Saltean#Managing_a_conflict_of_interest, in reply to a polite expression of my reasons, You've been writing about yourself and your work all over the encyclopaedia. That is obviously a conflict of interest as we define it here. MrOllie (talk) 16:50, 9 September 2023 (UTC) I would typify this characterization of my 17 y in Wikipedia as aggressive, but I would not make an issue of it, were not for the pattern that emerges from the present analysis. User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_18#False_statement_in_Epoch_Times_article Here an author is asked to apologize to User:MrOllie: Don't post on my talk page again unless you're showing up because you've finally read the whole article and are coming to apologize. MrOllie (talk) 23:04, 8 September 2023 (UTC) User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_17#Your_message_to_me_about_removals Too long to be cited but here an author appears as complying with a request of MrOllie and eventually giving up after MrOllie refuses to take notice User_talk:MrOllie/Archive_16#Removal_of_some_citations_and_the_improvement_of_existing_ones_from_the_articel_"Evolutionary_algorithms" Here one author has inserted a group of references including on of her/his own, and MrOllie removed all of them. ... Do you want to prohibit experts who have worked in the thematic field of an article from citing one or other of their own publications in addition to other sources, provided that it fits the facts? The publication in question deals in detail with the complexity of the task being worked on with an EA. In other words, exactly what was described in the article and for which evidence was sought. I am looking forward to your answer. Wilfried Jakob (talk) 10:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) The reply of MrOllie Yes, I do want to prohibit that. Citing a few other sources is not tax you pay in exchange for putting your own name on Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 12:47, 29 September 2022 (UTC) In my opinion here MrOllie should not have removed the extra references but only that object of a COI, inviting the author to use the COI template if to cite her/his own. Conclusions Like the user in I think that 'rabbit hole' well captures the syndrome that might befall an author (academic or otherwise) that after mastering the grammar of Wikipedia and its (evolving) set of norms finds herself or himself confronted with actions such as those discussed here. Once upon a time I spent some energy to convince my fellow academic authors from all disciplines to work in Wikipedia. I was a Wikipedia enthusiast of (almost) the first hours. I wasn't extremely successful in this proselytizing, I must say. I am more cautious now. I have met editors that have helped me and in a sense nurtured my work in Wikipedia. Maybe Wikipedia after the infamous 2005 case involving journalist John Seigenthaler has evolved with time to become more and more intensely policed, so that today, in 2024, the Wikipedia ecosystem needs the deletions of MrOllie more than my entries. Yes policing should not come with a sense of omnipotence. Erring authors needs to be corrected, not humiliated, their work encouraged, not deleted; a moralizing tone should be banned; editors' abrasiveness should be kept in check. Pace MrOllie, Wikipedia should not be an over here, that User:MrOllie defends from an over there of erring authors whose content is cleared acritically. Sentences such as Wikipedia is not here for you to help build your reputation as a writer, I'm afraid are inappropriate and come to a price in terms of deterred contributors. References References

Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 07:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Holy WP:MWOT. Shouldn't reports like this be over at WP:ANI? And about 95% shorter? And (preferably) about 100% more comprehensible? Bon courage (talk) 07:46, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I've collapsed it for now. Primefac (talk) 08:20, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

No one is going to read all this, here or at ANI. It is an essay, not a report. Dennis Brown 2¢ 08:18, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I actually went through it, because I was eating a sandwich and couldn't type or do anything else productive at the same time. The gist is that Saltean has a conflict of interest in the subject area and was citing their own publications in at least one of the related articles; does not have a legitimate behavioral complaint to pursue againt MrOllie; is trying to tar him as being part of some alleged "cabal" problem that some off-site writers were venting about; but is probably correct that Sampling (computational modeling) could be a stand-alone article (just using material beyond what Saltean has published). In short, this is a typical content dispute. I would recommend using WP:AFC to create the article, since various reviewers will check it for self-promotion, for WP:GNG passage, for not being a WP:CONTENTFORK, for having WP:Neutral point of view, for lacking WP:Original research, for citing WP:Reliable sources, and so on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I owe you a sandwich. Just glancing through, I kind of got that same feeling, but I lacked the patience that the sandwich gave to you, enough to read the whole thing. COIs are are such a tricky thing, and this seems to be an example why we recommend that people with COIs don't directly edit. I did read enough that your suggestion would be the best course of action, and for Saltean to be patient, as the average article reviewer may not be experienced enough to reviewing the article. I certainly wouldn't be. They can always ask for others here with the technical experience to review it after it is more or less complete, not just the regular article reviewers. Saltean, you need to understand that the default around here is to keep the status quo, unless it is clear that a change is needed or obviously beneficial, so when you try to do something large, it typically gets pushback until you develop a consensus for it. Developing the article outside of mainspace (per SMcCandlish's idea) is probably the best way to approach this. Writing walls of text isn't. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

It's not just about self-citations. The reverts were factually wrong too. We have been trying to raise that over and over now. If you go look at the pages' discussions, many researchers have been trying to make this clear. And if you look at who these researchers are (because you can as we all publicly give our real names-my second name if you doubt that part as most do), you will see that we are the top researchers in the field. And sure you can argue that we know each other and have a conflict of interest, yes sorry the field is small and we go to the same conferences and are friends. My bad.

I guess my question is the following: are you then saying that, we, the most knowledgeable people on a topic should abstain to write about our own scientific contributions and methods? And then leave that up to people who are making mistakes? Because this is what is happening, people making mistake and we are trying to fix things. Tupui (talk) 19:21, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

I am saying that people that have a conflict of interest need to edit carefully and still must get consensus for their changes, no matter how expert or brilliant they are. The policies at Wikipedia are the same for everyone. This is also why I agreed that a separate article should probably be started over to the side, so they can find tune it before submitting it. That is for their own benefit. Not so much to benefit everyone else. What you don't understand is we are flooded with people who are self-proclaimed experts, some real, some imagined. They still have to follow the same policies. Farmer Brown - 2¢ 00:15, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Damn, what was in that patience sandwich? El_C 07:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thyme? Dennis Brown 2¢ 07:14, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

It was certainly sage advice. Bon courage (talk) 07:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

With a hint of spicy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I fuck with spicy mayo. El_C 08:09, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

egg mayo? – robertsky (talk) 10:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

You are all being quite disrespectful now. A serious matter is being raised and this tangent is showing a deep lack of consideration and inclusiveness. Tupui (talk) 10:25, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, come on everyone, let's keep the humour at bay. Bon courage (talk) 10:39, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I am actually going through your report while having a bowl of soup. I have nothing much to add to SMcCandlish's except to seek third opinions from another experienced editor for content disputes. The editor giving their analysis or feedback may not necessarily be an expert in the area of interest, but will suffice for determining/mediating the path forward. That being said, since it is here, do consider SMcCandlish's advices which are sound and come from experience. – robertsky (talk) 11:11, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

@Saltean and Tupui: I'll answer the original really excessive length with a bit of length of my own, in the interests of being clear and advisory instead of dismissive. The advice in this thread is sound. Use the WP:AFC procedure to create a new article, and this may be quite slow-going, and potentially rather frustrating. The central problem here is that Wikipedia is not a journal and does not publish cutting-edge primary research. A novel sub-field with few practitioners, who all know each other and are themselves defining the subject (which is a very important factor – see AEIS discussion below), does not generally make for an encyclopedia article, because it is too new, too much of a walled garden, and lacks in-depth coverage in reliable but independent and secondary sources. The onus is on you (collectively – everyone with an interest in creating such an article) to demonstrate that this field-specific meaning of "sampling" passes the general notability criterion with such secondary coverage, and to base the bulk of the draft on that coverage, not self-promotionally on your own primary-reserach publications. It is distinctly possible that Wikipedia cannot have an article on this subject for some time, even if it conceptually merits one, due to insufficient secondary material.

Actually provable outright error with regard to this subtopic that might be found in broader-topic articles should be corrected, of course. But that doesn't necessarily means you are the ones to do it. It again depends largely on citation to secondary-source material, not assertions from your own primary publications. For researchers whose careers are deeply involved in something this narrow, conflict of interest is likely, so such correction requests should be done with {{edit COI}} on the talk page of the relevant article; people are apt to revert your own changes based on your own material (or that of your friends) as improperly sourced and potentially self-promotional of a particular researcher-cum-Wikipedian's own work.

This not an invalid concern. While Saltean has a long history here, the bulk of their editing is within a topical sphere that seems to correlate strongly with their work life (and some of it is questionably encyclopedically constructive, including a lot of writing about rather random-looking academic edited volumes that clearly do not pass WP:GNG, or WP:NBOOK more narrowly, and are tagged as non-notable, so are probably going to WP:AFD at some point. Tupui does not have a long history here at all, with a very low input level, 100% of it focused on their professional interests.

Many if not most long-term and producive WP editors here learn to steer away from writing about their work subject(s), because it is very difficult to avoid conflicts of interest. E.g., professionally, I have been a civil-liberties activist, policy analyst, webmaster, and systems and network administrator, among other things, and I virtually never edit in topics that pertain to areas of my professional focus, because I am too close to them (and often to prominent individuals within those fields) and have strong opinions about virtually everything in those subject areas, which are difficult to discard; this general problem impairs the ability to treat the subjects with encyclopedic neutrality. Conflicts of interest in the broad sense can be subtle, including: selection bias with regard to sourcing; subtle viewpoint-pushing out of a conviction that one professional/academic faction has the facts more on their side even if a real-world consensus has not come to that conclusion; over-reliance on primary-research papers that have stood no test of time and are not subject to any academic secondary-source scrutiny (systematic and other literature reviews); even attempting to rely on such materials for analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis (AEIS), which is not allowed; and so on – instead of relying upon an as-neutral-as-possible due weight analysis across all the available modern reliable source material, with overwhelming dependence on secondary not primary sources. The AEIS issue in particular appears to be pertinent to this topic; it looks like AEIS of these individuals' primary work is the basis of the material that has been attempted at WP on the subject so far.

Finally, fixing errors (outright or of omission, especially omission of what one might feel is deserved attention/credit) can sometimes be frustrating and lengthy. In my case, our article on a topic of some public importance in Internet history in which I was deeply, formatively involved was for a long time miscrediting some obscure organization (who did exist and did have some minor involvement) as being originators of the topic in question, which was completely wrong. (Whether fair to me or not isn't the issue; it was grossly misleading to the reader, and acting as unabashed promotion of the other partty). I used edit-requests on the talk page to resolve this, and it actually took several years. And I still am not mentioned by name in the article content (due to lack of secondary sourcing that makes me an important part of the story), but the other group is no longer falsely credited with work they did not do. That result is actually okay. If secondary sources do not consider it a matter of keen public interest to name-drop me in that connection, then Wikipedia is not in a position to second-guess that "real-world consensus" on what is important about the subject. If you are here to ensure that your name and work are tied by name to this sampling subject, then you are here for the wrong reason. Note that's an if; I'm not saying that is the case (not being a mind-reader). But self-citation and an editorial focus on only that which pertains to your career focus can easily give that impression and raise red flags in the minds of other editors.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to all who kindly contributed to this exchange. A few thoughts:

• I am happy that with the complicity of a sandwich some of my text (pardon, my WP:MWOT) has been read. No, by all means, I do not fault User:MrOllie for belonging to a ‘cabal’, the opposite, I fault User:MrOllie for going alone on a page where User:MrOllie is clearly not at the top of his/her expertise. I also dislike his/her manners but I understand this issue has little currency here. It is only human that you close ranks around your fellow editor, but I hope that among yourselves you have at least a doubt that not all is well with this person – how many of you managed so many complaints as User:MrOllie? What if abusing authors the way User:MrOllie seems to do exceeds the specifications of his/her job?
• Thanks User:SMcCandlish for your kind and considerate advice. At present I am still testing what the Wikipedia own rules permit by way of COI. As I learned my lesson, I will no longer talk about my published work. Yet, since I am an author and not an editor, I prefer to write about things where I have an interest, as you can see at User:Saltean. I believe our roles are different. The present situation is a transient one, where we need to remedy some factual damage done by User:MrOllie. Of course, we could ask others to do reinsert the missing references – and this would be gaming the system, or wait patiently that someone does, but if you do not mind, I would like this to be done following Wikipedia own rules; for me, an interesting experiment.
• Going back to the page Sampling (computational modeling) (no COI) that is the main object of the dispute: I am still unsure of how to proceed: can I undo again User:MrOllie and simply add at the top of the page the WP:AFC label? Will he not redirect it again? Apologies for my ignorance of the mechanics of it. Your editors’ home may be an author’s rabbit hole. Thanks for your help and patience.

Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 11:26, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Replying to this in user-talk, since we're getting far afield of what WP:AN is for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

• Further discussion: Talk:Sensitivity analysis. Softlavender (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2024 (UTC)
• Tupui, you would do good to lighten up a bit. Many of us have devoted a great deal of time to Wikipedia (For me, it's 69,000 edits over 17 years, and I'm not unusual or "special"), and take the principles of Wikipedia serious, but not ourselves. Humor is how we deal with issues like someone leaving a tomb for a report, which is very difficult to comb through. SMcCandlish has just provided you with a gold mine of information that should clear up some things for you, much better than I could have said it. We write articles, we don't save lives here, so best if we don't take ourselves too serious. Like it or not, we are all just equal drones here, none of us is special. Dennis Brown 2¢ 10:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  69,000 edits — nice. El_C 11:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  I have been deeply involved in a few open source communities for years and what you are doing right now would have been flagged as a Code of Conduct breach. Humour only works if everyone is indeed laughing.

  On the matter at hand, I do not understand your position. Now we are being told that our field might be too niche though Andrea is pointing out that the EU now has regulatory requirements with regards to sensitivity analysis. The field is also almost as old as the variance.

  My take away from all of that is that we experts are not welcomed to contribute our knowledge. Instead random folks, which clearly have no clue about a subject, are more welcomed to share their non existing knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Those EU regulations might be a usable source. Bon courage (talk) 11:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Yes but then it’s again a citation for Andrea… That’s the thing which folks are missing here. The field is not small, there is an extensive literature around it and massive usage. Yet the researchers and professionals making new methods and driving the field are just a few individuals. And I would argue that it’s a chance for Wikipedia that we would be willing to spend time to share our knowledge. Tupui (talk) 11:37, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia is not the place for "making new methods and driving the field", rather it's for a summary of accepted knowledge based on secondary, independent sources. Bon courage (talk) 12:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  As I tried to explain, these are not new methods, nor is the field. I am only saying that we are the researchers driving the field, not that we are trying to add our latest stuff to Wikipedia. Tupui (talk) 12:44, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Well if there are secondary independent sources there should be no problem. Anyway, there is no user behaviour case to answer here. The conflicted editors should declare themselves per WP:COI and the content issue(s) sorted out on article Talk pages. I suggest this is closed. Bon courage (talk) 12:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  And what if there are no secondary independent sources? Does that mean we could not write anything on a topic? Not saying that's necessarily the case here, just trying to understand the policy here. Tupui (talk) 12:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Still to me there is a behavioural issue. It should not be normal that an editor with a lack of expertise just remove hard work by the press of a button based on nothing but: "too much self citation", completely disregarding the actual edits and not trying to find a compromise with the citation issues. Tupui (talk) 12:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  If there are no independent secondary sources, then we don't publish it. It's that simple. Verification is more important than completeness, it's one of our core principles. We are a tertiary source, we only publish what is available in multiple, reliable secondary sources, and only allow primary sources under certain circumstances. An editor that reverts because some facts rely too much on primary sources is not a behavior issue, they are likely enforcing our policies on verification. See WP:BRD to understand how reverting works and what is expected from editors. Dennis Brown 2¢ 13:23, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Tupui, I have a detailed response to what you've said, which I hope will be helpful, but it's better put in user-talk, since I think the AN crowd is tiring of this thread entirely, and the material is rather detailed and analytical about process, sourcing, WP actual needs for and from experts, etc., none of which is really a WP:AN matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:40, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

  Your take-away is incorrect. A couple of times a year or so someone running afoul of our self-cite norms complains that Wikipedia is unwelcoming to experts. There are plenty of credentialed experts and published authors contributing to Wikipedia. But we don't cite ourselves (or not as much). Wikipedia is not for promoting your own work. Levivich (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't see anything to respond to here that has not already been covered by others. But I do want to note something: Saltean says above that they have no COI with regards to Sampling (computational modeling). Technically true, but it needs to be stated: that article (which just lists a few common statistical methods - it duplicates our existing article) was written by Kozlova Mariia (talk · contribs), who is a coauthor of Saltean's, and has been working on a draft about a book of Saltean's at Draft:Book on the politics of modelling. Between this and the several single purpose editors who appeared at Talk:Sensitivity_analysis to add testimonial type comments, I suspect there is some off-wiki coordination going on here. My question on that talk page was ignored, so I will put to Saltean again here: Did you contact people outside of Wikipedia and inform them about these discussions? - MrOllie (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Please don’t be insulted but here’s the challenge the rest of us face:

• On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog

In other words, we’re all just screen names to each other; we don’t really know for sure if the other person is who they claim to be. We’re flying blind which is why we have to give claimed expertise zero weight.

Since we have to assume nobody here is a legitimate expert, we require reliable sources. With a few narrow exceptions, these reliable sources also have to be secondary sources.

Even with reliable sources, we have to avoid overweighting certain points of view. Someone editing with a conflict of interest potentially hijacks that point of view, even if they’re very knowledgeable.

You’ve gotten advice to avoid topics in which you are knowledgeable because of COI concerns. I disagree with this; I suggest editing areas immediately adjacent to but just outside your narrow area of COI. You can help us a lot.

Thanks for caring and coming here to build out Wikipedia. Just stick within our rules. I know they sometimes seem gratuitously odd and even counterproductive. Nevertheless they represent 20 years of collective experience dealing with hundreds of thousands of anonymous editors including some cranks, self-promoters and imposters. —A. B. ^{(talk • contribs • global count)} 15:04, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I entirely endorse that, BTW. Editing topics just outside your CoI but still within your expertise area is a fine way to contribute, perhaps the best for many editors, and something we need a lot more of.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:46, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot User:A. B.. I accept this and please note that I am not an expert myself in the exploration of multi-dimensional spaces - I have papers that use methods (one out this week, coincidence, in a good journal) but I am not the one developing them. I would really like not to follow on User:MrOllie provocation to reach out to the wider community. This dispute must be solved here in Wikipedia possibly following Wikipedia existing rules. Authors and Editors can cooperate to do precisely this and do it now.

As I said before, User:MrOllie should stop deleting the page Sampling (computational modeling) because User:MrOllie is patently wrong on the subject matter and continues to repeat mechanically that it duplicate an existing page when (a) none of the references of Sampling (computational modeling) appears in Sampling (statistics) and (b) three of the the four methods in the new page are not covered in other one. Even for a non-expert, this should be a telling sign that User:MrOllie insists in neglecting. In my opinion the person with a conflict of interest is now User:MrOllie.

Why don't you User:MrOllie do the decent thing to let the page live and let other authors decide its fate? Incidentally, with time we can improve this page, and work is also needed in Sampling (statistics), Editors please check if what I say is true. Can some of the editors who kindly contributed to this discussion with their experience and histories volunteer to help with this simple process, so that we can all move on? Please don't make me open another procedure (third opinion?) on this matter when we have, I believe, all already extensively discussed it. Andrea Saltelli Saltean (talk) 15:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Behavior of editor User:Oz346

Disruptive editing that appear to be inline with WP:NAT. While an ongoing discussion in the talk page on his NPOV editing, is in progress, Oz346 has back my citied additions to the article stating "excess background information" and "definitely undue weight". Kindly request Admin intervention to defuse the situation. Cossde (talk) 14:52, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Your latest addition was definitely excessive background information for the topic, and is undue weight. The background information at present is suffice. The topic of the article is the pogrom. By flooding the background section with excess non summarised text with excess small details, it submerges the actual topic of the page.

@Cossde has also been engaging in nationalist editing, by repeatedly trying to remove mentions of reliably sourced content related to crimes committed by the Sri Lankan security forces. One example is here, where he disputes the reliability of reports published by established human rights sources, including the UN commission of human rights. Now in this latest dispute, he has been trying to remove the mentions by reliable sources of the initial police violence in the 1977 anti-Tamil pogrom from the introduction. Oz346 (talk) 15:10, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Restoring a "deceased" editor

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I've come across something very strange. Frostly registered as a new member at 05:09 today but from the user page (which only contains "in memoriam") no longer appears to be active, ditto user talk. It seems to me this may be the result of the last user page edit by Frostly but we really don't know how to deal with it. I am unable to notify the user in question as the talk page is dead. See also User talk:Rosiestep where this has been discussed without progress.--Ipigott (talk) 13:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe the problem will be resolved automatically. I've just posted a message on the talk page where I read "Frostly has recently suffered a significant loss and is grieving. Consequently, his ability to work on Wikipedia and his time available to do so may be affected. Your patience with delays in handling Wikipedia responsibilities and in responding to talk page messages or e-mails is appreciated, as is your compassion and understanding. Thank you."--Ipigott (talk) 13:56, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ipigott. There appears to be some confusion here. The "in memoriam" in the user's page is related to the recent passing of another member of the community. Isabelle Belato ^🏳‍🌈 13:58, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Isabelle Belato: Yes, I realize this and have just found the above talk page explanation. What is strange is that the subject has been active since posting the in memoriam. Does this mean things will soon return to normal?--Ipigott (talk) 14:03, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what you mean. It is a tribute to another editor who is deceased. There is no implication that Frostly is deceased. Spicy (talk) 14:05, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Ipigott, There is no such function/feature on Wikipedia that sets a user to deceased, or inactivates their userpage or talk page or prevents the editor from editing while it is up. The user you are asking about is in mourning and has modified what their user and talk page displays. That does not make a difference as to how anything works. You can still contact them, they can still edit if they want to. They may make a few edits here and there and return fully later, or whatever else they feel like. Nothing over there affects anything. Your choice is between contacting them for the WIR onboarding right now or giving them a few days. There is nothing else to fix. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 14:17, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Inspection request

In this poll, @Tehonk called me a paid editor and another time called me a sock (of course without reason!), I request the administrators to check my account first and block me if this is the case. But if this is not the case, please warn the user @Tehonk so that they don't accuse other users.

In addition, user @Tehonk deletes the articles I have written (1, 2) when nominated, without informing me (as the author of the article), they just label the written article. (How should I explain why I created the article when I am not informed that the article has been selected for removal nomination.) Meyboad (talk) 19:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

This complaint is without merit. The evidence regarding sockpuppetry has correctly been completed at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/BenYaamin and Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/ArmanAfifeh, which will be reviewed by the appropriate people in due course. Secondly, it is not mandatory to advise the article creator of an AfD, as per this section which states "Consider letting the authors know on their talk page by adding" (emphasis mine). Daniel (talk) 22:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, you have failed to notify the editor you have reported to AN, as per the red box at the top of this page, as well as the yellow box in the editnotice when you add a new topic. I have done so now to rectify this omission. Daniel (talk) 22:49, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Okay @Daniel, I'll wait for the experts' answer. It's just interesting here that I generally created the articles of famous Iranian people who had Persian Wikipedia or were considered famous according to the rules of Wikipedia, and I didn't know that this was against the rules and I didn't read about this anywhere.

And the next point is that people who have already had articles, when I was trying to create them, I would come across an article with this topic: if you want to create an article similar to the previous article, don't do it, and if you want to write a new article start.

1. I can't see the previously created article

2. When I started writing essays, I used to research again to find standard sources.

My explanation is only for you to know why I wrote the article.

  Anyway, I am waiting for the opinion of inspection experts. Thankful Meyboad (talk) 23:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)