Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)

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The policy section of the village pump is used to discuss proposed policies and guidelines and changes to existing policies and guidelines.

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Why doesn't Wikipedia require editors to be 13 or older?

Most websites with user interaction require the users to be 13 or older. I think that having a minimum age would somewhat reduce the amount of vandalism on the website. How come Wikipedia doesn't have a minimum age? Félix An (talk) 14:39, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I suppose you could ask people to state that they are 13 or older, such statements might not be true tho.Selfstudier (talk) 14:42, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

This is impossible to enforce. One can add such a clause to the terms of use, but vandals do nt care about terms of use anyway.--Ymblanter (talk) 14:43, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

"Most websites ..." Most vandals don't log in anyway. And readers can use accounts for other things than editing. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Websites do that because the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act limits what personal data can be collected from those under 13. Wikipedia is not in the habit of collecting information, so it doesn't have that particular age concern. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:02, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Not only does WP not actively collect the kind of user information that such laws and regulations are concerned about, we actually advise young Wikipedians to not reveal their age or other private information. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:06, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, has no qualifications on who can edit other than accepting the terms of use. This is one of our founding principles. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:05, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Nobody should be pre-judged to be a vandal simply because of their age. And most vandalism by under 13s would not be very subtle, so would be easily spotted and reverted. It's the subtle, more hidden, vandalism that we need to worry about most, and most of that comes from older editors. If we are to ban people from editing because they might be a vandal we will have to ban everyone (even me, aged 63) from editing. Phil Bridger (talk) 15:50, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Agree Exactly, and I see this prejudice in a lot of the comments here, who seem to assume under-13 edits are somehow most or on average detrimental to Wikipedia. If you think you can get under-13s banned from Wikipedia when you cite neither theory nor evidence to support your apparent assumptions, then please seriously question your adult superiority. ‎⠀Trimton⠀‎‎ 01:00, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

As noted above, we don't really have a mechanism for enforcing an age verification requirement for WP editors on the scale suggested by the OP. We do have the WP:CIR guideline which in practice does weed out most very young editors. Personally I believe it would make sense to have a minimal age requirement for the admins, if only for legal reasons. Nsk92 (talk) 16:14, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

@Nsk92: there is such a requirement for Checkusers, Oversighters, and ArbCom members. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:04, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

@Félix An: why should it? A minimum age wouldn't reduce vandalism in the slightest, from what I can tell (I'm sure wanna-be 12-year-old vandals would just lie). Elli (talk | contribs) 21:04, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

The reason many websites have a requirement for the minimum age (13) is because of COPPA, which does not apply to Wikipedia as we do not collect, use, or disclose a user's age. Izno (talk) 23:02, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth (and this is peripheral), I believe that in the early days of Wikipedia there were administrators that were even younger than 13 and I can think of an incumbent who was 13 when they passed RfA. Questions of age of course come up in RfAs, with many voters unwilling to vote for minors. There's also the case of on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:10, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

@Sdrqaz: Yes, see my comments at User talk:Iridescent/Archive 41#sidetrack-within-a-sidetrack on age. Graham87 10:10, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Ah, that's an interesting bit of history, Graham (with a bit of commentary regarding Malleus sprinkled in). Are you aware of any successful RfAs for minors in the "modern" era? I'm reminded of this 2015 RfA, which I had stumbled on a week or so ago, where about half of the opposes were about age (and the candidate was older than many of the more extreme examples too). Sdrqaz (talk) 12:41, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

@Sdrqaz: Nope, I don't know of any. Graham87 13:40, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

I can't think of a recent succesful RFA by someone believed to be a minor, it would not surprise me if our youngest current admin is older than a teenager. There are two things that have made the community less open to adolescents in the last decade or so, the expectation to use inline citation, and a mobile platform that makes Wikipedia apig to edit on smartphones or tablets. This doesn't just give us a serious ethnicity skew, but we underrepseent the smartphone generation. ϢereSpielChequers 08:34, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@WereSpielChequers: The smartphone generation of dedicated editors doesn't exist. While exceptions exist, smartphones are used by consumers of media and beyond photos and video not so much by creators. Wikipedia is a pig to edit on smartphones or tablets because those devices lack a physical keyboard. Nobody writes a book on a smartphone. They may fix a typo here and there, add a category or even a reference, but are much less likely to add a whole section. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 16:23, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: Writing on mobile isn't so bad: I've found that glide typing speeds it up and when you're used to typing on mobile, touch-typing is actually possible. The point about consumers of media seems about right, though. Sdrqaz (talk) 16:31, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Sdrqaz: I suppose you could get used to anything, but even on a netbook keyboard I would probably still beat you on both speed and accuracy. The problem isn't just the keyboard either: the screen on a tablet or large phone would be almost adequate, and for the consumption of media it essentially is, but when you start typing the keyboard takes up a large portion if not all of that screen. It may not be impossible to write text on a mobile device if you are trained in that, but anyone who really wants to write more than a short social media comment or fix a typo on WP is likely to ditch their mobile device for something with a physical keyboard. So to circle back, Wikipedia doesn't underrepresent the smartphone generation, smartphone users underrepresent Wikipedia. Which just makes sense. Fiat Pandas are fine everyday cars but underrepresented in stock car racing and that's unlikely to surprise anyone. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 22:37, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I have a Fiat Panda, and I have a smartphone. I'd rather edit Wikipedia with the Panda than with Wikipedia's mobile interface. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

WereSpielChequers, that's interesting. I was thinking about it more in the sense of shifting RfA standards rather than a lack of representation. Personally, as a frequent "pure" mobile editor (using the mobile website, not the desktop site on a mobile à la Cullen), the interface is adequate (faint praise perhaps). You can't use Twinkle or RefToolbar without the Cullen method and it's difficult to have two windows open at once for better writing, but it's not as terrible as others say (the app on the other hand, is a different story). Inline citations can be done by having Template:Cite web open in another tab and copying the skeleton over or typing out the parameters manually once you've remembered it.

I would've thought that all things being equal (if we disregard the changing standards at RfA), the admin corps would have younger inductees than a decade ago because younger editors wouldn't have to wait their turn at the family computer and could just edit any time, any place.

Chequers, were the successful candidacies of minors because voters didn't care about their age or didn't know? Or maybe those who knew didn't publicise it so the rest of the voters didn't know? Sdrqaz (talk) 16:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I have looked back on two RFAs from ladies who I'm pretty sure were young when they passed their RFA. One in 2010 was a close call in numbers, in hindsight my own oppose there was over harsh and I've since only opposed for faulty deletion tagging where I've found multiple mistakes. One of the opposes in that one was explicitly because she was a schoolkid, but no subsequent opposes mentioned that or the maturity word, and quite a few opposes were of the "you're almost there come back in a few months" type, which I doubt were ageist. In 2007 I found one where there was a neutral vote "I cannot bring myself to support someone so young" but the RFA passed 90 to 1. Which fits my memory that the community didn't used to see it as a problem to have very young admins. I can remember a couple of narrowly unsuccessful ones in 2009, one of which had several editors cite "maturity concerns", but in both cases there were recent mistakes. So I'd say the community used to knowingly appoint teenage admins. I have vague memories of a more recent RFA where expectation had become more common that admins should be legally adult. ϢereSpielChequers 20:50, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Interesting stuff, WereSpielChequers, thank you. I think I am aware of which 2007 RfA you're referring to; she unusually had a reconfirmation shortly after. Looking at a 13-year-old candidate in another, they sailed through with 98% support without anyone bringing up age, so I'm not sure if anyone else was aware of their age at the time. Maybe the one you're thinking about that was more recent was this 2015 one? It seems around half of the opposes were based on age. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:53, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Almost certainly it was, at 15 he was older than at least one of the uncontentious ones from a few years earlier and most of the age opposes were on the principle of his age - there was also a huge amount of kickback in the support column from people who rejected the ageism in the oppose column. I'm pretty sure something changed insde or outside the community in the intervening years to shift Eric Corbett's view from an outlier to a large enough minority to probably derail an RFA. The only thing I can think of that might account for the shift is the Catholic sex abuse scandal and the role of admins in keeping certain things off the pedia and having access to deleted edits. I will leave it to some future researcher to work out whether a group of editors changed their views on young candidates or if this was the RFA electorate changing. Or indeed that by 2015 the community no longer had many teenagers or at least teenage admins. But clearly things did change, and I doubt they have changed back. I think the RFA crowd has long been capable of spotting very young candidates. ϢereSpielChequers 07:25, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I recently came across a BLP article that was being actively vandalized by an IP who was repeatedly re-adding an obscene pornographic image to the article to the infobox instead of the photo of the subject. As I was reverting the IP, I saw that the IP got blocked, and then I received a nasty e-mail through my Wikipedia e-mail with a threat of violence. Shortly after I saw that the blocking admin revoked the IP's talk page and e-mail access (I assume the admin received a similar message). I am pretty sure that the responding admin in that case was an adult, but in general I think we should not be putting minors (e.g. 15-year-olds who happen to be admins) in the position of having to address these kinds of situations. Nsk92 (talk) 13:22, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

A minimum age wouldn't really reduce vandalism because of the ability to edit anonymously. If it required users to click a button stating that they are 13 or older, the anyone could just click the button, regardless of whether or not they are 13. Also, the problem with this is that laws are different in different places. For example, one place might have a law stating the minimum age to have a forum account is 13 while another place might state is 18. Wikipedia is accessible to people from all over the world. So if we just set it to 13, it would cause problems for users who edit from places where the minimum age is below 13.

TL;DR Adding a minimum age to Wikipedia would do more harm than good. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 20:07, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

A lot of the explanations appear incomplete, and I am not sure either... I have heard that COPPA does not apply the same for not-for-profits like WMF, but I could be wrong. If Wikipedia was a for-profit endeavor, then yes, COPPA would apply. COPPA applies to any company collecting data from minors under 13 over the Internet without parental consent. That is why sites like wikiHow and Fandom enforce COPPA. Aasim (talk) 06:13, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

@Nsk92: That's an interesting argument – quite a lot of the opposition to teen admins is based on perceived immaturity/impaired judgement rather than as a child protection measure. Regarding just email, you could disable the ability of brand-new editors to email you, but of course hostility is also on-wiki. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• I think I remember one editor who made good edits to dinosaur articles was less than 13 when they started, so I'm not sure why we need to exclude them on that basis. FunkMonk (talk) 14:00, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
• I'm nine years old, in dog years. -Roxy the sycamore. wooF 14:03, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

  So, you admit to having made your first edit pre-conception. Please may I borrow your time machine? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:57, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

• Excluding those adolescents who obey rules such as don't edt until you are 13 won't lose us any vandals. It might lose us some goodfaith editors, and it might even attract some vandalism from adolescents who want to show that they can hit the edit button even though they shouldn't. So I don't see any benefit from this proposal, and there is a small disbenefit. ϢereSpielChequers 08:40, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

  Agree . If this were feasible to enforce, it'd be worth discussing. It's not, so it isn't. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:21, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

• In the US, COPPA applies to all personal data, even if voluntarily posted (contact info on a userpage for instance), if the operator is aware that the user is under 13. Nonprofits, however, are exempt. We follow best practices by oversighting such personal info when we come across it. –dlthewave ☎ 20:23, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

• Yes. Also, apropos of young admins, I can think of an arbitrator way back when who was 14, or possibly 15. A good arb, too. Bishonen | tålk 12:24, 23 April 2021 (UTC). Trimmed, BEANS reasons. Primefac (talk) 12:56, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

• Agree . RaptorLake (talk) 21:14, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

• In Europe, wouldn't Article 8 of the GDPR apply? Personal data is processed (IPs, email addresses). But I guess the WMF has figured this out with their lawyers. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:37, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

11 and 12 year olds should not be reading the Wikipedia. And it'd be hard to edit it without reading it. The reason being that Wikipedia is explicitly and foundationally an an adult publication ("adult" in the sense of "XXX" rather than "complicated"), because WP:NOTCENSORED is a core policy. I always figured that other sites have an "I'm 13" checkbox partly for legal liability reasons (so they can say in court "But your honor she said she was 13" or the equivalent). Pretty sure that Wikipedia, like Facebook and Twitter, isn't responsible for the content posted on it. If we were we'd be buried under lawsuits you'd think. (The individual writers are liable I think, but hard to find and probably poor anyway). So we don't need the age checkbox kabuki. Herostratus (talk) 13:15, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

• Umm, yes they should - at least in my part of the world. Do you put a gate in your libraries to prevent tweenagers from accessing the reference section? — xaosflux ^Talk 17:28, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Yes, I agree, If we were to follow Herostratus's logic then under 13s would not be allowed to use the Internet at all, because the Internet is not censored. Not being censored does not make any publication pornographic. I am now a grandparent, and my children were in the first generation to be brought up with the Internet when it was really in its "wild west" phase, but I brought them up pretty normally to be allowed to use what was available and they have turned out OK. I thought about replying to this comment when it first appeared but then thought it was so ridiculous as not to merit a reply, but now it has had a reply I need to add my two cents. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:48, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

All righty-roo User:Phil Bridger. If you allowed 11-12 year old kids to go in their rooms, shut the door, and go where they will on the internet, that's not something to brag about for goodness sake. Altho there weren't so many Nazis and Qanons and 4chans then, so I don't know about wild west. You got lucky (as far as you know), and good for you, but what has that to do with anything. Hoping for luck is not a good policy for most things.

Soooo..... Bukkake is three clicks away from Anime (->Japanese language->List of English words of Japanese origin->Bukkake). Anime is of interest to young people. It is! And there's a picture -- worth a thousand words, remember. Take a look. Take a look. 11 and 12 and 13 year old girls are very interested in the answer to questions revolving around "what will it mean to be a woman?" Stuff like this tells them: "meat". Believe me, it's intentional too -- I've worked with this article and similar. There are people out there who are not very nice and who don't like women very much, and sometimes they come here. At least, after some work, we were able to get in a mention in that this is a trope of pornography rather than something that grownups do in notable numbers, and also that it wasn't a punishment actually used in Japanese history. Hard to do because some people believe that what they see in porn is real. They need to.

But I mean the picture. Pictures tell a thousand words and bypass the language-processing filter. And you've got Gokkun, which apparently the information that it's primarily a pornography trope and (mostly) not real has been removed -- keeping up with stuff and dealing with these people is exhausting after all. Again, the picture. What does the picture say to a 12 year old girl? "Maybe your first boy will bring you flowers, but this is where it's leading; maybe you'll go to 'college' and have a 'career', but don't forget: women are cum buckets and always will be". Facial (sexual act). Felching. It's not helpful for children who are having their sexual awakening to be shown this. It just isn't. You may be ignorant of child development or don't care, and couldn't care less about these kids -- again, not something to be proud of IMO -- but not all of us are like that.

Seeing this stuff isn't going to destroy a kid, mostly. The kids will basically be OK. Kids are resilient and can usually be basically OK when stuff like this happens to them -- pr being bullied, growing up poor, growing up in an unhappy house, etc. But stuff like that doesn't help. OK? It just doesn't.

I was brought up to believe that we have a responsibility to other people, and particularly to the vulnerable. And children are vulnerable. They are. This is why we don't send them to work in the mines when they are 12, either, and why we are expected to curate their growing time in good directions. Freedom to go explore down the creek til dark is good freedom. Freedom to look at pictures about Snowballing (sexual practice) isn't. Other people think differently I guess.

I get that a lot of people maybe wouldn't believe a word I've said. They can't. It's OK. We do what we can with what we have. I know that people need to fit into their self image, whether its "I'm so liberal, yee" or "I'm so conservative, screw the kids" or whatever that person is about. Everybody needs to be the hero of their own story, and "I'm a supporter of pornographers ('One who is involved in the... dissemination of pornography' --Wiktionary, the free dictionary), and where kids hang out to boot" doesn't sound that that heroic when you put it that way. Does it.

Anyway... the point of the Wikipedia is to be a net asset to humanity. It's not just a hobby. It doesn't exist outside the human moral world -- nothing does, sorry. For kids, the best way the Wikipedia can be an asset is by not enticing or engaging them. The best way to talk to kids about the Wikipedia is simply to say "Stay away from the Wikipedia. Too many people there are WP:NOTVERYNICE and they do not have your interests at heart. Stay away from such people." Herostratus (talk) 20:01, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

Right from the very first sentence (where did I say that I allowed my children to go to their rooms and lock the door?) that post just consists of completely off-topic complete bollocks. I'm just glad that you are not my parent. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:18, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

• As I recall, 13 is the minimum age for bureaucrats. —Kusma (t·c) 18:25, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
  • Given bureaucrats don't have to be identified to the Foundation (I think), surely that isn't enforceable? Sdrqaz (talk) 18:35, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
  • — xaosflux ^Talk 18:46, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
    • Our youngest crat was 13 and didn't break anything. Of course that was back in 2004... —Kusma (t·c) 20:03, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
• Many here implicitly assume that the edits of under-13s harm Wikipedia overall, that kids are some constant force of vandalism. Are they? 1) Where is the evidence? There cannot be any evidence, since, as you read in previous responses, Wikipedia does not know the age of its editors. How can you then be so sure that any form of vandalism comes from kids? 2) Where is the theory? Immaturity has no age, incapability has no age, illiteracy has no age. Most under-13s are in school, meaning they literally study all day - how do you think they cannot add value to an encyclopedia? Kids grow up with technology - why would they ever make formatting mistakes or break a <ref>? Please consider how an editor under 13 must feel, reading that the majority of contributors here associate them with vandalism, and might even ban them, the moment it becomes technically possible. ‎⠀Trimton⠀‎‎ 00:48, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Undisclosed alternate accounts

For purposes of this discussion, "undisclosed" can be taken to mean "not publicly declared" regardless of whether the account has been disclosed to ArbCom or to a CU, or was discovered without voluntary disclosure. This discussion is aimed at "privacy alts", secondary accounts created for editing certain topic areas the user would prefer not to edit from their primary account.

Background

Since the early days of the English Wikipedia, there has been a tradition or custom of some users having either known or undisclosed alternate accounts. This has held over to some extent into the modern era of the project and is enshrined in policy at WP:VALIDALT. Publicly disclosed alternate accounts are fully free to edit in any way with few restrictions; however, WP:PROJSOCK states that undisclosed accounts may not edit the Wikipedia namespace. English Wikipedia is something of an outlier in this regard: many other WMF projects regard undisclosed alternate accounts as illegitimate sock puppets. Therefore, behavior that is technically acceptable at EN.WP can have serious consequences if practiced on many other WMF wikis. Existing policy makes it clear that private disclosure to ArbCom or individual functionaries does not allow for policy violations, but this is often misunderstood by users and can lead to frustration both on the side of users and of CheckUsers.

Issues

• A blanket ban on undisclosed alternative accounts editing project space results in a situation where content created by an alt could be under discussion, for example via WP:AFD, or the user's behavior may be under discussion at forums such as WP:ANI and by the letter of current policy, the user cannot participate in those discussions at all.
• Only the Arbitration Committee has access to the list of known undisclosed alternative accounts. This information is considered private and generally cannot be shared, even with checkusers. This means a user could have disclosed their alt account to the committee, only to be blocked for socking, and the connection between the accounts publicly revealed, in the course of a legitimate sockpuppet investigation.
• There is not actually a hard obligation to disclose alternative accounts at all, to anyone. It is therefore likely that the accounts known to the arbitration committee or individual checkusers are mostly those who would not abuse them anyway, and represent only a small portion of the total number of such accounts.
• There is no reasonable way to police all the edits of all known alternative accounts to ensure they are within policy.

Proposed remedies

• Not anyone else's problem Change language of policy to actively discourage using privacy alts and to make it clear that if the connection is discovered it is not the responsibility of the community, the functionaries or the Arbitration Committee to conceal it. If the connection is made clear by the privacy alt's behavior, that is the fault of the account operator.
• Clarify WP:PROJSOCK: Carve out narrow exemptions to the project space ban for deletion discussions related to content created or edited by the alt account, or discussions of the alt accounts' own behavior. Broader discussions on site policy, other users behavior, etc, are still strictly off limits.
• No longer allowed at all: The use of privacy alts is to be considered deprecated and removed from policy. Any user operating more than one account without publicly linking them for any reason will be subject to the sockpuppetry policy. This would not apply to legitimate clean start accounts where one account was abandoned before the new account began editing. (this option is mutually exclusive with the other proposed options)

Discussion of proposed remedies

• I've opened this discussion because some recent events have revealed a number of issues, identified above, with the policy on private alternative accounts. The first remedy in particular I feel pretty strongly about. Privacy alts are at-your-own-risk. If you screw it up and are detected, whoever you disclosed to can verify that you disclosed an alt to them, but that doesn't obligate that user to then cover up the entire affair. Generally, private alt accounts are just a bad idea, and we should probably be more stringent in discouraging them, and also making it clear that disclosing is not a free pass to otherwise violate the socking policy. On the second remedy, it's just not fair that we allow these accounts for privacy reasons, but by the letter of policy they cannot contribute to any project-space discussion, even if it is about their own behavior or content they created. The third remedy, I threw in there in case it happens that the community just wants to end this practice altogether, as many other projects have. I've not proposed specific wording, this is more about looking for consensus on the ideas, the wordsmiths can get in there and create the appropriate wording if such a consensus is reached. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:15, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Beeblebrox, Thanks for starting this discussion. I suspect it will attract enough attention that maybe you want to break it out into its own subpage? -- RoySmith (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

• One thing I'd like to see added to option 2 is permitting undisclosed alts to ask questions at appropriate venues (Teahouse, Help Desk, that sort of thing), since the letter of the law says those are projectspace but those aren't exactly policymaking venues. People also ask legitimate questions at the village pumps, but I'm not sure whether to include those in this exception since those are more "internal project policy discussion" venues. GeneralNotability (talk) 22:17, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• Question: I understand the reasons for public alt accounts (such as having an alt for public computers or at work), but what are the reasons (in the past, at least) for allowing undisclosed/private alt accounts? Schazjmd (talk) 22:21, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I would like to know this too. I don't have an issue with undisclosed alt accounts that would out someone who isn't paid but if you don't want to potentially connect yourself to your employer, a simple solution is to not edit about them. No one is forcing you to and conversely, no one is forcing you to edit Wikipedia at all. TAXIDICAE💰 22:27, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

See the comment directly below for one example. Often it's a matter of not wishing to "out"some specfic aspect of their life, either something mundane as mentioned below, or perhaps editing controversial topics on religion or sexual practices. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

@Schazjmd: that's a good question. The common old-school example for why someone would have a "secret" alt is to edit embarrassing subjects, e.g. certain sexuality topics. Another possibility is to edit a topic, which editing with the main account may compromise the user's privacy. Another possibility could be an existing Wikipedia editor having assigned coursework that involves editing Wikipedia, and would not want that associated with the main account, either from either side so to say (on-wiki in terms of an association with a given university, or having university colleagues know the existence of the main account). In some cases there are real-world implications in that Wikipedia editors may experience trouble with local authorities as a result of certain edits.

At the end of the day we are a project that permits pseudonymous editors. Short of running certain mass checkusers—something that is a non-starter as far as the privacy policy goes—we ought to accept that there is not much one can do about someone using two accounts to edit separate topics. Of course, there are obvious deceptive uses of multiple accounts; think of vote-stacking an AfD or cases where a banned user uses multiple accounts to evade the ban to continue the same disruption that led to the ban. That said, it ought to be considered whether the simple fact of using an alternate account is somehow a problem. Maxim_(talk) 23:34, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Praxidicae, I've edited with an undisclosed alt in the past. Not everyone is okay with being connected to articles about illness, politics, religion and sexuality. There's also a photo around here somewhere of the pierced penis of a Wikipedian which I helped anonymize. They made a request to vanish when they found potential clients who googled their name found a pierced penis as the top result. It actually took years, but I just checked it again and it seems Google has *finally* forgotten about it. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 15:04, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I do recall you using an undisclosed alt in the past. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 23:48, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

• I hope the third suggestion isn't going to be taken seriously. I have a some photos I've been meaning to add to a few articles when I get around to it. These photos could be traced back to my real-world identity. Should I really have to choose between adding the photos, and outing myself? Because I see no other way to add the photos than create a "privacy alt". Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 22:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I assumed someone would propose it during the course of the conversation, so I just put it out there. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:32, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Suffusion of Yellow, regardless of the above changes, using a separate account only to upload pictures shouldn't put you at any risk. Blocking someone for using multiple accounts requires behavioural evidence (with or without technical evidence), so the chance of someone connecting those two accounts is practically zero. (Yes, mistakes happen, and checkusers occasionally run checks they shouldn't, but that's also why oversight exists.) – bradv🍁 23:27, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  It doesn't matter whether you would be caught for uploading the images. It matters that it's against the rules. I've been in similar cases to Suffusion of Yellow and agree that the third suggestion is ludicrous. If there is a common use case of people evading a rule with no harm done, no way of detection and in a way that nobody could possibly object to then it is a bad rule. Though in my case it would actually stop me uploading pictures altogether, because I would follow the rule even if it's pointless and unenforceable (too high consequences for too low a reward). (And though Commons isn't under our scope, this soft redirect and the fact I have used or would use an en.wiki account to add the uploaded images to articles means that this is our jurisdiction.) — Bilorv (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• I would really only support 2 as worded, and could support 1 if language about "actively discouraging" is removed. I've never used an alternate account, but I respect that others may find it necessary. I agree that no one is ever under any obligation to keep knowledge of someone else's secondary account secret, HOWEVER, I also can understand legitimate reasons to use a secondary account. We should still discourage good hand/bad hand accounts, or similar purposes, such as participating in policy discussions while concealing prior activity on Wikipedia, but I do agree that exceptions need to be allowed for when the alternate account has itself an interest in the discussion, such as AFDs for articles where the account is a contributor. However, Wikipedia should neither encourage nor discourage the use of private alts with the only caveat that actual violations of community trust are likely to have consequences. --Jayron32 22:35, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• (This thread moved from its own section originally entitled A difficult example): Let's assume I'm a member of International Flat Earth Research Society, and I've made many posts edits from my personal account (with a non-PII account name) espousing this viewpoint, including vigorous participation in AfDs and other WP-namespace pages. In my day job, I'm employed by NASA where my job responsibilities include computing trajectories for space missions. I haven't told my employer of my flat earth beliefs because that knowledge would impact my career advancement. Assume for the moment that despite my private views, I'm good at my job. One day, my boss comes to me and says, "We need a WP:Wikipedian in Residence to curate articles about NASA, and you're it. Your job responsibilities will include being active in discussions about what articles to keep or delete". The "No longer allowed at all" option would put me in a bind. There's no way I can perform my job without either breaking our socking policy or outing myself to my employer. If you don't like my NASA example, I'm sure you can think of similar situations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 22:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Aside from the absolute absurdity of this example, your career advancement isn't Wikipedia's problem, nor should it ever be. You can turn down a WIR or come clean - transparency is key here. You don't have to dox yourself by adding your full name or even first name. Disclosure doesn't require identifying yourself. WIR is another matter and not really relevant to this discussion. TAXIDICAE💰 22:47, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Praxidicae, Why is the example absurd? We have many examples of people who edit as a requirement of their employment. A department in a University wanting every faculty member to have a wikipedia page and assigning that job to some low-level person in the department office. We've seen that scenario multiple times. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:56, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  And that person is welcome to decline that request from their employer if it would violate the sites terms of use for the same reason an employer demanding an employee break a law or policy should be declined. No one forces you to edit as a volunteer or a paid editor and our policy is already clear enough on that. TAXIDICAE💰 23:25, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  RoySmith, in this case you could just stop editing from your previous account. Using serial accounts does not constitute sockpuppetry, unless you are subject to a block or ban. – bradv🍁 23:15, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  But what if they are subject to block or other restriction. Continuing the NASA example, our theoretical editor (let's called them Tarquin) is presumably a generally good contributor and net positive to the encyclopaedia but perhaps they are topic banned from editing articles about the phantom time hypothesis or they have a mutual interaction ban with another user? If Tarquin just stayed away from those topics/editors we probably wouldn't be any the wiser, but it would be a breach of policy and obviously the other party to the interaction ban would not know to stay away from the new account. Thryduulf (talk) 01:28, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  If someone is subject to a ban they shouldn't be creating a new account or accepting a paid editing position – especially not without being fully transparent with both their employer and the editing community. That's currently prohibited by both our sockpuppetry policy and our paid editing policy, and none of the proposed changes above would alter that. – bradv🍁 02:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Thryduulf: I think you could have picked a better example for a username. :-) That user's very familiar to me for his early work in mathematics and classical music articles. I don't think I ever spoke to Tarquin personally but his name is very familiar to me in page histories and on old talk pages. I hope he'd be as amused by this as I am; I've mentioned it on his talk page. Graham87 08:46, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  In a paid WiR role, you are already mandated to disclose your alternative accounts under current policy Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure#How to disclose: "paid editors must provide links to the user page(s) of their Wikipedia account(s) on each website on which they advertise, solicit or obtain paid editing services, as well as in direct communications with each client and potential client (such as through email). If the paid editor has used or controlled more than one Wikipedia account, each account must be disclosed." This was added in a recent RfC. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:17, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Whether and to what extent that applies to Wikipedians in residence is not at all clear. It is also completely and utterly unenforceable because we can (and should) never know the contents of all private communication, as was pointed out repeatedly when it was proposed. I'm also dubious that stipulating the content of communication between employer and (potential) client is something that it is even legal for a third party to place restrictions on. Thryduulf (talk) 01:01, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• I explained my concerns with WP:PROJSOCK elsewhere. I can only see what I can read from the history, so perhaps someone who was actually there knows the context better and can point out any errors, but its current enforcement doesn't make sense to me. Most illegitimate uses are obvious why they're disallowed; you can't use multiple accounts to pretend to be multiple people in a way that bolsters your position, avoids scrutiny, or deceives editors. But PROJSOCK isn't intuitive in the same way. It's cited to an ArbCom case from 2007 where the evidence was an editor abusing multiple accounts to participate in policy discussions whilst avoiding scrutiny. The community appears to have narrowly worded it to this (and similar variants) for years after the case, clarifying that Alternate accounts should not edit policies, guidelines, or their talk pages; comment in Arbitration proceedings; or vote in requests for adminship, deletion debates, or elections. That all makes sense, and directly follows from the case evidence too. Then in 2014 someone boldly edited the page to the vaguer "quote[] from the underlying Arbcom decision" which says Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project. As a reader, discussions internal to the project is ambiguous whether it means a namespace ban or (indeed, as the original interpretation appears to have been) just consensus discussions, and a Wikipedia namespace ban doesn't logically follow from the evidence in that case. Asking questions in venues (including WP:VPT, which whilst is a "village pump", it's used for asking questions not consensus discussions on making policy) is totally fine, for example. That 2014 edit, at least as interpreted now, appears to have been a material change. Was there a discussion leading up to that? Why is the WP namespace more of a problem than any other NS? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:44, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
  • To be explicit, I’d vote to begin by scrapping PROJSOCK, as it’s clearly been misinterpreted from the original reason it was written, as is redundant to existing examples. But I see this not mutually exclusive with some other remedies, which extend beyond just project space. ProcSock (talk) 12:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
• (based on your old sandbox I've presumed option 1 includes CUs disclosing connections) Presumably users can be subject to discretionary checks for various reasons, and the CU policy is rather vague on what is grounds for a check. So, reading that option now, a discretionary check could result in a privacy account popping out (possibly already disclosed to ArbCom which the CU wasn't aware about, but even if not we don't treat ignorance of policy as deliberate attempts to violate policy), so the CU goes ahead and links the two accounts publicly. So basically you'd have CUs outing editors, with solid technical evidence to dispel any doubt too. Which just isn't fair on its face. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:57, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• My tenure on the Arbitration Committee, and as a checkuser, made me aware of plenty of situations where the use of an alternative account was the only legitimate way to continue participating on the project. I also saw any number of situations where legitimate use strayed into illegitimate. This was often by accident, but if someone sees that slip, the cat is not getting back in the bag. The conflict between alternative accounts and Wikipedia's commitment to transparency is unresolvable. I'll defer to the current committee on whether they think the present system is sustainable. Personally, I wouldn't want to be entrusted with that information, and if I were seeking to avoid scrutiny and still edit Wikipedia (a difficult task), I would be loath to disclose that information to anyone. Mackensen (talk) 23:01, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

  Mackensen, I've just noticed that you were part of the Committee that passed the principle that led to PROJSOCK (Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings § Sockpuppetry). What was the reasoning behind it? The first two sentences are intuitive, but I don't understand that final restriction. Pinging those members of the Committee.​​​​​​​ Sdrqaz (talk) 21:57, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz wow, what a fucked up thing {{bcc}} is. How in the living hell is a recipient supposed to know where on the page they've been bcc'd? Otherwise, my opinion about sockpuppetry (I hate that term) is the same it was back then: "Should be generally forbidden. Wikipedia is not a role-playing game." But I wasn't going to win that argument, which is why I've divorced myself from all involvement in Wikipedia policy; I'm a sore loser.--jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 00:56, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sorry about that, jpgordon. I only use it when I feel there are too many people being pinged. Thanks for sharing your opinion on sockpuppetry. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:12, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz, I don't think we thought we were saying anything new. See for example my comments at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings/Workshop#Alternate accounts: The use of an alternate account to stir up policy debates while the main account does something different has never been acceptable on Wikipedia. Sockpuppetry was understood to mean the abuse of multiple accounts; using multiple accounts non-abusively was frowned on but not banned. Maintaining a burner to stir things up on policy pages evaded accountability. Mackensen (talk) 23:22, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz, that said, this was apparently a controversial assertion at the time (I'm sure I knew that once, but I'd forgotten). See Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings/Proposed decision#Principle 3 concerning sockpuppet policy. Mackensen (talk) 23:27, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  I was pinged into this discussion. The contentious issue seems to be the natural justice of excluding undisclosed private accounts from the Wikipedia: namespace. My reaction here is "too bad". I would keep the principle, and just note that there may be mitigating circumstances for such editing. On the whole we want to know that users edit in good faith from single accounts in internal discussions, and I find said "restriction" natural at the level of ArbCom principles. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:12, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, Mackensen and Charles. Mackensen, wouldn't such abuse fall under the "avoiding scrutiny" part of policy? I don't think PROJSOCKing should be encouraged (and the maintenance of accounts in the Privatemusings case arguably falls under that avoidance), but a blanket ban doesn't sit well with me. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:12, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• I would prefer that PROJSOCK be modified. There are cases where a privacy alt is useful. Just because we are not censored, does not mean the world is the same. They can be particularly useful in maintaining sexual health articles. A recent example is the RfD's for Tiny penis. It's reasonable to not want that at the top of your contribution history, and as long as the editor is not being deceptive or behaving in a way that will get them sus'd out, we should allow privacy alts in discussions of that nature and not actively discourage their use. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• I generally back proposal 2. There are reasons for private accounts. While editors obviously can't be obliged to "cover it up", that does not mean that we have to pick an all or nothing approach. For example, a sockpuppet investigation could have the details revdelled if it was agreed no breach had occurred, but required major disclosure to demonstrate it. We wouldn't be any worse off, other than a few minutes of admin clerk time. Some minor amendments to the nature of proposal 2 to include helpdesks and so on in the exemption also seems reasonable. I had originally wondered "why not just switch back to the main account to ask", but realised that certain questions would require enough specificity to accidentally twin the accounts. One additional change I'd propose would be formally authorise ARBCOM to share details on private alts with CUs Nosebagbear (talk) 23:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
• If never the two accounts shall meet, why should we care? Absent seeking significant bits, is it really an issue if an editor manages to successfully maintain two alternate wiki personalities for years on end? The risks should be disclosed up front (option 1) and from there on, it should be on the editor to ensure the two personalities are never in the same venue. Once they catch the eye of a CU AND violate policy, then public revelation may be a consequence (though pointing to things like WP:BLP, we have expressed an aversion to exposure that could lead to real-world harm of subjects, though guess editors do not get the same courtesy). In short, it seems like we shouldn't be playing a game of gotcha until/unless pseudo-anonymity is not a core policy of en-wiki. Slywriter (talk) 00:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• A modified option 2 (with the warnings from option 1) is really the only practical option here, but instead of minor amendments it should be rewritten wholesale to focus exclusively on detailing what activities and behaviours are prohibited. For example we want editors to be able to highlight problems and potential problems with articles/project pages/technical issues, we want them to be able to respond to queries about their editing, we want them to be able to ask questions aimed at improving their editing, etc. We don't want them to misrepresent themselves as more than one person, we don't want them to !vote multiple times in a discussion, we don't want them evading sanctions, etc. All of these things are equally desirable or not desirable regardless of what namespace they happen to occur in. Asking for help on an article talk page is no different to asking for help at a Wikiproject page or the teahouse, discussing the reliability of a source on an article talk page is no different to discussing the reliability of a source at WP:RSN. Discussing changes to a template used on user pages is unquestionably a "discussion internal to the project" but I see no possible justification for excluding privacy alts from such a discussion, doubly so if they are excluded if the discussion happens in the Wikipedia namespace but not if it happens in the template talk namespace. If there are certain discussions such users need to be excluded from (and I'm having difficulty thinking of any) then we need to detail what those discussions are and importantly why they excluded (people are more likely to abide by rules they understand the purpose of that rules they don't). Thryduulf (talk) 01:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• I was writing something up, then Thryduulf put it in a far more elegant manner. I have no objection to private secondary accounts editing project space and would scrap PROJSOCK entirely. The standard provisions under WP:BADSOCK would apply, such as voting twice in the same AfD (though that would defeat the point of a "private" secondary account), voting twice in the same discussion, editing the same articles etc. Sdrqaz (talk) 01:24, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Sdrqaz, I'm trying to think of any truly problematic behaviour that is prohibited under PROJSOCK but isn't covered by one of the other provisions, and I can't think of any. Scrapping that line entirely may, in fact, be the most straightforward solution. – bradv🍁 02:09, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks, Bradv. I'm open to changing my mind if someone puts forth a good argument, but I'm pleasantly surprised by how commenters so far are viewing it – I had thought mine would be a minority opinion due to a desire for transparency. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• Scrapping WP:PROJSOCK sounds good, given that all of the areas where editing project space creates problems appear to be dealt with by other restrictions. Tamwin (talk) 07:02, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• I agree that WP:PROJSOCK should be scrapped. As written, it doesn't make much sense because it may not be clear which account is the alternate and which is the primary. And it's not clear what "discussions internal to the project" means or why this matters. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap WP:PROJSOCK. The whole thing has contradicted Wikipedia:Clean start outright for years, even though the latter is policy (rather than essay). The only things we need to stop alternate accounts doing is evading scrutiny, bypassing editing restrictions and creating a false illusion of support for an action (and anything else uncontroversial I'm forgetting off the top of my head). Our rules here are ludicrous. Let's say someone edits as a child and gives away a bit too much personal information (not enough to dox, just enough for them to be concerned that combined with the topic of their edits or time zone or something else, it's enough to not wish to be public). Let's say that someone copies and pastes the wrong text without noticing, it's personal information and by the time it can be oversighted they're scared someone has seen and saved it. Or someone drunkenly writes something with stupidly much information. All three of these people have the choice between losing all right to privacy or never editing Wikipedia properly again (just mainspace edits is not "properly"). People here are underestimating how much information editors can unintentionally give away in behavioural evidence such as subject knowledge contributions, timestamps of edits, edits about localised topics etc., and how much some people value privacy. If an experienced editor wanted a new account just to stop the behavioural evidence piling high enough that they could be targeted then that's a plenty good enough reason.
  If someone starts an SPI based on a valid alt then you need to contact them by email or contact a CU/SPI clerk by email and explain the situation. The SPI should then be dropped, with the closure written to create as little suspicion as possible. Tough situation with no ideal solution but it's better than nothing. If you think your alt is now unusable because of the connection drawn, even though the SPI was thrown out, then start a new valid alt. — Bilorv (talk) 12:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Bilorv, creating a new account, as long as the old one was not under some sort of sanction or block, is not and has never been sockpuppetry and does not violate PROJSOCK. It's only sockpuppetry (and that includes PROJSOCK) if you operate multiple accounts simultaneously. GeneralNotability (talk) 19:46, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: says who? WP:SOCK says "The general rule is one editor, one account", "sockpuppetry, or socking, refers to the misuse of multiple Wikipedia accounts", "Editors must not use alternative accounts to mislead, deceive, disrupt, or undermine consensus" etc. No mention of whether you're operating them simultaneously. PROJSOCK says, in full, "Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project", correct? The page doesn't define "alternative" but I've always taken it to mean "second or subsequent account created" (with complications in the case of IP editing). If that's not the case and I've not overlooked a definition, then it needs properly defining. It also seems to me that a counterexample to your comment is that WP:BADSOCK explicitly lists "Misusing a clean start", a term specifically referring to a new account operating never in conjunction with an old account, as an instance of sanctionable sockpuppetry. (Though this bullet point is almost the exact opposite of CLEANSTART, as the main use of a clean start is when you think you've been messing up and you want a chance to leave that baggage behind i.e. avoid some types of scrutiny. Another one to remove entirely.) I think we need a lot of discussions about how to rectify the many contradictions within SOCK and itself, and SOCK and CLEANSTART, and removing PROJSOCK is one of the things I would like to happen. — Bilorv (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Bilorv, further down the page, under WP:SOCKLEGIT: Clean start under a new name: A clean start is when a user stops using an old account in order to start afresh with a new account, usually due to past mistakes or to avoid harassment. A clean start is permitted only if there are no active bans, blocks, or sanctions in place against the old account. (some further details follow that quote, but that's the gist). Also, If you are unable to access your account because you have lost the password or because someone has obtained or guessed your password, you may create a new account with a clean password. SPIs are routinely declined because the reported accounts operated sequentially. I concede that both of those say you're supposed to mark the old account as retired or (for lost-password cases) publicly declare the connection between accounts. With lost-password scenarios, however, odds are that the editor in question didn't actually read the sockpuppetry rules when they got locked out and created a new account, so that is fairly loosely enforced. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:11, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: I'm struggling to see which of this text supports the claim creating a new account, as long as the old one was not under some sort of sanction or block, is not and has never been sockpuppetry, or which of it refutes any of the statements I made. — Bilorv (talk) 21:23, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Bilorv, apologies, it's actually the context of those sentences (the fact that they're under WP:SOCKLEGIT, which is the section "Legitimate uses") which supports the claim. The heading of that section, in part, says Alternative accounts have legitimate uses. For example, editors who contribute using their real name may wish to use a pseudonym for contributions with which they do not want their real name to be associated (...) These accounts are not considered sockpuppets. and then goes on to list examples of legitimate alternative accounts, two of which I quoted in my previous post. I do, however, quibble with the terminology of "alternative accounts" since that (to me) implies the use of more than one account at the same time. GeneralNotability (talk) 21:35, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: thanks, I think I understand better where you're coming from now, though I can't agree that the policy as written supports your claim. On the other hand, I think I agree that it should be written in a way that makes the claim unambiguously true. There are lots of problems here—"Inappropriate uses of alternative accounts" is including things which maybe don't fit the letter of this definition of "sockpuppet", but it's labelled WP:BADSOCK and everyone uses this as a list of sockpuppet behaviour. This definition of "These accounts are not consider sockpuppets" follows the section, rather than preceding it, and still leaves a lot of terminology specification to be desired. This is the sort of thing I'm referring to about SOCK contradicting itself—I suppose the base issue here is that I've been here 7 years and read the page dozens of times and I don't feel I understand clearly where the boundaries are. In general I don't like legalese and bureaucracy, but I do think we're doing a huge disservice to anyone navigating alternate accounts (or IP and logged-in editing) in good faith because they need to be able to say: here is an ironclad justification for my actions and if I ever have to defend them, here is unambiguous policy as written at the time I made these decisions. Or they need to know: actually, I can't do this, and here's the unambiguous reason why. — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  The more this discussion goes on and the closer I look at all the policies the more I see what a complete mess they are. Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry could do with a complete top-to-bottom rewrite to increase clarity, remove contradictions, and present everything in a logical order. For example several of the bullets under inappropriate uses are different examples of appearing as multiple people, there should just be a single prohibition on doing that with an non-exhaustive list of examples. Thryduulf (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  Absolutely, this is part of the point I'm trying to make (though I think I'm muddling it partly because I don't even understand what the rules are and aren't, so I struggle to suggest concretely what new version to change to). — Bilorv (talk) 21:56, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

  @GeneralNotability: Question: Say you got a 14 year old doing some silly stuff and gets themselves indeffed. 4 years later they decide to give Wikipedia another try. Obviously it's not ideal to be continuing an account where one was adding obscenities to articles or something. So... they're expected to get an unblock on their main account, and then mark it as retired and then create a new one? If they've lost the password to the original, they're expected to reset it. If they've lost the email, then...? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 09:24, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Just to clarify the point a bit: I strongly oppose all three of the proposed remedies and feel they are a step backwards from the already inadequate status quo, though (1) is the least objectionable. — Bilorv (talk) 20:42, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

• 1 or 3 are my preferred solutions. --In actu (Guerillero) ^{Parlez Moi} 13:47, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap WP:PROJSOCK. I can't think of any behavior we want to disallow which isn't already covered by one of the other bullet points in WP:ILLEGIT. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap PROJSOCK per the others. Otherwise oppose all three options. Levivich ^harass/_hound 15:44, 16 April 2021 (UTC)
• Keep PROJSOCK, but can clarify; 1 and 3 are preferred I largely agree with Guerillero on this (also courtesy ping to Risker for some history on the topic.) I am fine with clarification on PROJSOCK that people can validly use it to comment on discussions directly relevant to them, but that isn't a reason to throw our the baby with the bathwater.
  There are several reasons behind PROJSOCK, but one of the main ones is that it provides a clear line for individuals rather than the rather ambiguous avoidance of scrutiny line, which is open to interpretation. As an example of where these would be issues:

1. People commenting on AE or ANI cases related to individuals they have a known negative relationship with. This prevents the closer from weighting arguments (grudges are fair to consider), and has the effect of potentially preventing sanctions on a main account (i.e. IBAN.) Even if only one account comments, this is an issue.
2. Potential harassment concerns following users around in project space that they don't like from disputes elsewhere. Even if there is not any double voting, this is still an illegitimate use of multiple accounts. It is significantly harder to deal with, however, if there is not a clear prohibition.
3. Concealing behaviour on internal discussions that might not be sanctionable but would have a negative impact on someone's position within the community -- if you're an archinclusionist or archdeletionist with positions way outside of the community norm and use a "privacy alt" to comment on AfDs this is an abuse of multiple accounts. If you request permissions at NPR and it is clear that you do not have an understanding of the notability policy that is in line with the community's it will be denied. If you run for RfA and you have positions on any number of topics that show a clear disconnect with community consensus, you will not pass RfA. All of these are forms of evasion of scrutiny that erode community trust, and are abuses of multiple accounts, but without PROJSOCK would be much more difficult to deal with.

We are an online community and part of that is about trust. If you don't know that the person who you are talking to is not commenting in a completely absurd and abusive manner 10 minutes later, or at least have reasonable assurances that they aren't, trust will go down hill. Many other Wikimedia projects do not allow secondary accounts at all. Updating our policy to allow people to essentially have as many personalities as they want in project space, and have ways to Wikilawyer out of it as the policy would be unclear is a clear negative, and would set us up with Commons to be one of the projects most open to abuse. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:32, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Hmm... On #2, surely hounding is hounding anywhere (why is it any better to be following an editor around on article talk or template talk pages?). On #3, surely we shouldn't make policy that affects many editors for the sake of the dozen per year that want to run RfA (who can be asked to disclose individually?). Also, general note, aren't 1/3 not mutually exclusive with 2? Seems like Beeble has pointed out multiple issues, and even if PROJSOCK is adjusted (in whatever direction) the 'issues' about CUs not knowing declared alt accounts, or the infeasibility of policing edits (whether in WP: or any other namespace) remains. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:15, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

TonyBallioni, The problem is, this is conflating "internal discussions that affect project policy" with "Wikipedia namespace". Given that we do allow privacy socks, surely you're not arguing that WP:Teahouse should be off-limits? Is asking for help on Help talk:Footnotes OK, but not on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources?

If a privacy sock is dragged to WP:AN, can they defend themselves there? Or if one of their articles is nominated at WP:AfD, can they participate in that discussion? Would it be OK to protest a WP:PROD, because that happens in article Talk space, but once you've done that and somebody takes the next step and brings it to AfD, you're stuck?

And what about WP:DYK, WP:GA, WP:FA? Are those fair game for privacy socks? DYK reviews take place mostly in Template space, GA in article Talk space, and FA in Wikipedia space. Does that mean that DYK and GA are OK, but FA is not?

What about participating in wikiprojects? They're in Wikipedia space. Would our hapless NASA employee from my earlier example be barred from participating in WP:Wikiproject Flat Earth? Maybe that's off-limits but Portal:Flat Earth is fine?

What about drafts? Can they review submissions in Draft space, but not add their name to Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Participants?

Your goal is to ensure that privacy socks don't get to speak with multiple voices at discussions that drive project policy. That's a laudable goal, but outlawing the subset of pages that happen to fall into the Wikipedia namespace does not advance that goal. By the time you're done carving out all these exemptions, the bright line you seek will have gotten rather blurry. -- RoySmith (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Your goal is to ensure that privacy socks don't get to speak with multiple voices at discussions that drive project policy. No. That is not my goal, and my entire response above was saying it doesn't matter if people only contribute once to each discussion if they are doing so in a way that is designed to avoid scrutiny and deceive the community. My goal is to prevent evasion of scrutiny by people using multiple accounts, because evasion of scrutiny destroys trust on a collaborative project, which is one of the driving principles of our policy on the abuse of multiple accounts.

The reason why Wikipedia space in particular matters is because the only reason to use a second account in the Wikipedia namespace outside of limited discussions about content (RSN, AfD, and FA mainly) is to avoid scrutiny. It's to separate personalities, and not cause you to associate actions from one with the other. Unless your dealing with sexually deviant materials or other similar controversial topics, there really isn't a valid reason to want to have privacy on your project space discussions other than evasion of scrutiny

Which leads us to the final point: clear lines addressed with common sense are easier to enforce than ambiguous policy. No one is currently being blocked for commenting on the Tea House or in DYK or the like with a second account. CUs and SPI clerks have brains and are able to determine intent. If you remove a clear prohibition, that becomes much harder to figure out, and appeals become more difficult. Ambiguity on what constitutes "Avoidance of scrutiny" isn't helpful, and by keeping one line that clearly defines it for everyone, you help people know what is and isn't allowed and you help with enforcement. We're dealing with hypotheticals about the negatives, there are some heavy handed blocks, but they're pretty rare for this violation. The positives of this line when it comes to enforcement, however, are pretty huge. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

"by keeping one line that clearly defines it for everyone" Except the current single line doesn't clearly define it for everyone (otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion). In addition to RSN, FA, AfD there are the village pumps (this one arguably excluded), the help desk, WikiProject pages, XfDs (especially related to pages they've contributed to with the alt account), RFU, RFHM, ITNC, TALKPP and similar projects, AN(I) when their behaviour is being discussed or they are the victim of others' bad behaviour, CCI, EFR, EFFP, EAR, Arbitration space for cases relevant to the pages they edit with the alt, RFA/RFB for someone they've interacted with in topics they edit using their alt, and likely many more I've not heard of. Yet the current wording does not do anything to stop someone developing multiple account personalities in discussions that happen to occur in places other than the Wikipedia and Wikipedia talk namespaces. By saying "CUs and SPI clerks have brains and are able to determine intent." you seem to be agreeing with me that what matters is the intent of the person, so surely the rules should be written to state that what matters is the intent not the venue? "The positives of this line when it comes to enforcement, however, are pretty huge." I've not seen a single good enforcement of this rule that was not also covered by other existing provisions so I completely disagree with you that "The positives of this line when it comes to enforcement, however, are pretty huge."Thryduulf (talk) 18:19, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

clear lines addressed with common sense are easier to enforce than ambiguous policy — Easier for CUs. But for the people actually using these accounts, it's much harder. Whether you will be blocked and outed is based on the goodwill of a CU or their whim on whether to go by "common sense" or the rule. We should not be setting a rule stricter than how we want to apply it—rather, the opposite, because "disruptive editing" does not have and does not need a rigorous definition, as the community can always decide to rule something as disruptive on a case-by-case basis. — Bilorv (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

• Keep PROJSOCK, leaning option 1 – essentially per Tony. Abolishing PROJSOCK would require us to replace it with a huge wall of text explaining what exactly constitutes evasion of scrutiny in projectspace. Yes, there's a reasonable argument to be made for split contribution histories in articlespace in some cases. But independently using two accounts to participate in behind-the-scenes community processes inherently makes it impossible for me to evaluate someone's conduct as an editor in context, and that is poison for community discourse. If carveouts and clarifications are needed, that's fine and we can discuss those, but deprecation of PROJSOCK would either lead to ballooning policy or socking galore. As for my take on option 1: The current system of is suboptimal because it presents us with complicated OUTING considerations – I'm not opposed to people using alts to edit controversial topics (in articlespace) per se, but using them in a way that's policy-compliant and disconnected from their main account should be the responsibility of the operator. --Blablubbs|talk 09:39, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Blablubbs and TonyBallioni: Why is projectspace special? Why is evading scrutiny on a page in the Wikipedia namespace different to evading scrutiny anywhere else? Why is, e.g. Wikipedia:Help desk a "behind-the-scenes community process" but e.g. Help talk:Citation Style 1 not? Why would we need a "huge wall of text explaining what exactly constitutes evasion of scrutiny"? Surely it is better to just prohibit "evading scrutiny" and list some examples so that we don't have to deal with wikilawyering? Thryduulf (talk) 11:08, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, the Help Desk is one of the places I would consider carveout-worthy. What is special are places like AfD, AN(/I), AE or RFAR. The issue with relying only on the evasion of scrutiny clause is that it will lead to Wikilawyering either way. It inevitably provokes situations where people say "but it wasn't one of the listed examples" and we have to have drawn-out unblock discussions and AN threads about what is and isn't evasion of scrutiny. I'd argue that most scenarios where someone uses a privacy alt in community discussions are inherently scrutiny evasion; a blanket ban on PROJsocking with specific, narrow exceptions is more feasible. Blablubbs|talk 11:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Even if we say something like PROJSOCK is required, "consensus discussions and conduct dispute resolution" seems to encompass all of those examples, and others. The average projectspace page is just not problematic, from WikiProject talk pages to bot/editfilter requests. Even the text I cite is questionable, as asking whether a source is reliable at RSN could be seen as a "consensus discussion" but is just not problematic. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:25, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Also, what if a privacy alt is being harassed? They can't post to ANI, so what's their recourse? Should they contact an admin privately? (if so, how do you communicate this to them? using the ANI banner that evidence shows few actually read?) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:34, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  @Blablubbs: So a privacy alt is not allowed to contribute to a discussion at XfD about a page they are a significant contributor to? What benefit to the project does that bring? As long as they only contribute using one of their accounts and don't otherwise give the impression of being multiple people, I just cannot see how their actions are harmful? As for "but it wasn't one of the listed examples" it's much much harder to wikilawyer around a list of examples that is explicitly not a complete list than it is a list that purports to be complete. Thryduulf (talk) 11:54, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  I'll reply with two quotes from Tony's comment that I'm in full agreement with. As for noticeboards and AfD discussions:

  • I am fine with clarification on PROJSOCK that people can validly use it to comment on discussions directly relevant to them, but that isn't a reason to throw our the baby with the bathwater. Whether we want to keep the wording as "projectspace", or tweak it to "consensus discussions and conduct dispute resolution" is another matter.

  As for what harm it brings to just blanket-allow participation in such discussions:

  • ...if you're an archinclusionist or archdeletionist with positions way outside of the community norm and use a "privacy alt" to comment on AfDs this is an abuse of multiple accounts.

  If we see such an obvious alternative account used to vote in AfDs now, current policy gives us grounds for an investigation; a deprecation of PROJSOCK would severely complicate that, but such behaviour is highly problematic and a serious breach of community trust. Blablubbs|talk 12:11, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Firstly, why is using multiple accounts to express extreme views more problematic than using a single account to do so if there is no attempt to manipulate the discussion or appear as multiple people? Secondly, why is using multiple accounts to communicate such positions problematic in the Wikipedia namespace but not in any other namespace? Thirdly, If we agree that using an alternative account in a given manner is problematic then surely policy should explicitly prohibit using multiple accounts in that manner rather than as part of a very broad and very vague prohibition that requires numerous carveouts and exceptions to avoid catching things we don't want to prohibit and requires people to guess what behaviour we don't want them to engage in? Thryduulf (talk) 12:43, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  Anyway, even if we do nothing but remove "Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project." the behaviour you are talking about would still be covered by "it is a violation of this policy to create alternative accounts to confuse or deceive editors who may have a legitimate interest in reviewing your contributions." Thryduulf (talk) 12:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  To answer your question as to why it's problematic for someone to use different accounts to segregate views on internal matters: our system is built on trusting other contributors, and part of that trust is built on knowing their past history of views. As an example, I know you and I agree significantly on most things related to the harassment policy and outing, but have very different views on speedy deletion. While I'll engage with you on the latter topic, I'm also not going to spend a significant amount of my time trying to persuade you around to my point of view because at some point based on past discussions, I know we're just going to have to agree to disagree. On the flip side, in discussions around harassment and privacy, I'm much more likely to rethink my position and see if I considered everything if I see you or someone else who I know I share similar thoughts to arguing one way.

  This is what comes with being a community: you take all of the actions and positions of people, and they do impact how you read what they're saying and influence your thoughts. That's not a bad thing, that's human nature and it is a natural and important part of communities, both online and otherwise. The concern isn't an account that exists solely to segregate views on policy discussions, it's two accounts that never overlap and are fully developed accounts with their own personalities contributing to community discussions in a way that if uncovered would cause a loss of trust in the community. Having some policy around that clearly prohibiting it is a good thing, as in my experience it's easier to deal with clear lines with common sense than it is to deal with ambiguous lines in a similar manner. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• All three original options seem reasonable to me, per the proposal. Removing WP:PROJSOCK from the sockpuppetry policy entirely, however, is an idea that came up during the discussion and that isn't agreeable to me. Imagine someone who operates two accounts, one for mainspace and one for projectspace. Both are strictly separated: The mainspace account never edits the Wikipedia namespace, the projectspace account never edits articles. The result is an account that does not violate any policies while undermining our trust in community discussions. One of the main aspects of internal Wikipedia discussions is that they're held by users who also contribute to the encyclopedia in ways that can be easily looked up. Allowing project-only sockpuppets to loudly participate in internal discussions without ever having made any visible contributions to the encyclopedia would be a mistake: Policies affecting all articles are created in internal discussions, so we'd suddenly be open to policy changes by people who have no idea what their proposed changes mean to editors. Policy must be written, and consensus must be found, by people who verifiably contribute to the encyclopedia. Project socks prevent this verification. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 10:59, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

  An account that edits only in projectspace is a very, very uncommon situation and PROJOCK both prohibits far, far more than that and doesn't actually prevent an account that doesn't contribute to the encyclopaedia from contributing (loudly or otherwise) in internal discussions held on e.g. template (talk) pages, help (talk) pages, article talk pages, category (talk) pages, etc. I'd also argue that an account that has contributes to the development of back-end tools and similar has verifiably contributed to the encyclopaedia. Thryduulf (talk) 11:14, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• "The reason why Wikipedia space in particular matters is because the only reason to use a second account in the Wikipedia namespace outside of limited discussions about content (RSN, AfD, and FA mainly) is to avoid scrutiny." I disagree with this. I would create a second account under my real identity if I could, and use my real-name account for noncontroversial editing and all noncontroversial project space discussions, while using my anonymous Levivich account to edit controversial topics (like war, politics and religion) and related project space discussions. If I did, it wouldn't evade scrutiny, it would increase it. Right now I could have a privacy alt that edits, say, sex topics (User:Sexivich?), and I can use this Levivich account to edit project space RFCs about sex issues and no one would know Sexivich's edits in those areas were mine. That avoids scrutiny. If instead I could use the Sexivich account for sex-related project space discussions, that would be more transparent, not less. If we're going to allow privacy alts (and we do, as we should), we should allow those alts to edit all namespaces. Levivich ^harass/_hound 18:45, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly agreed on the first remedy. We should discourage privacy alts not because they're illegitimate, but because they don't work very well. Like Beeblebrox, my experience with this on ArbCom was a bunch of cases of people setting up a privacy alt for good reasons, accidentally outing themselves and/or getting themselves CU-blocked because they misunderstood our byzantine sock policy, then asking us to unring the bell. Probably there's a bias there in that we only heard about the cases that went wrong but, with this and other policies (oversight, vanishing, clean starts), we need to be more up front with the fact that the only reliable way to maintain your privacy on Wikipedia is to never reveal private information in the first place.

I always thought PROJSOCK was an arbitrary rule, but I don't know the history behind it, so I'm on the fence about that. – Joe (talk) 19:05, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• Scrap PROJSOCK, remedy #2 second choice Projectsock is really an outdated and overly broad guideline that should be eliminated, but if that doesn't have consensus I would support clarifying it to make its reach more narrow.Jackattack1597 (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Strongly Discourage non-publicly-declared parallel-editing accounts,
  and simplify the rules for simple cases before getting bogged down in the complicated LEGITSOCK rules.

WP:SOCK is confusing for a simple newish Wikipedian to get simple answers. There is some very complicated stuff in it that is interspersed with simple stuff, and I think the simple stuff should be stated clearly and upfront, and with the complicated stuff below, under warnings.

The simple stuff is:

WP:SOCKING is NOT:

• The use of multiple accounts that are publicly declared (declared on the main userpage, and all such accounts connected). Examples for this include secure and non secure computers. Segregation of edits of different types. Maintenance of multiple watchlists. Templates for this include {{User alternative account name}}, and I think they belong at the top of the main userpage.
• Non-editing accounts. eg. Reader accounts; long-abandoned accounts; doppelganger-prevention accounts.
• Editing logged out to fix errors in mainspace.

Stuff gets complicated when talking about multiple editing accounts that are not publicly declared. Mainly, the reason for these seems to be "privacy". There are good reasons to not publicly disclose two editing accounts. You may have a good reason to edit publicly, in front of family, work, or for educational course purposes, and not want to reveal your main anonymous account. However, the section allowing for this should clearly and strongly state that doing this is NOT RECOMMENDED, and if done, done only briefly and for very narrowly defined purposes. One little mistake, and the connection may be spotted, and may then be forever public. Relative newcomers to Wikipedia should be actively discouraged from running undeclared editing accounts in parallel. This complicated stuff needs to be written, and is written, but it should be separated from the simple for the sake of simple comprehension of a simple reading of policy for simple questions.

The rules for non-publicly-declared parallel-editing accounts need to be clear and hard. There is currently a rule that you have these, only the main account may edit project space. This is very important for accountability. I think some words are needed to clarify what is a "main account".

Should an undeclared account every be allowed to participate in AfD discussions on their own content? We had discussions on this at WT:SOCK in March 2010, and in the end I found User:SlimVirgin, 10:03, 19 March 2010 specifically, convincing that legitsocks should not be allowed at AfD or dispute resolution. I also think that it is a simple and necessary extension to this that IPs must not be allowed to contribute to AfD, or to project space discussions in general.

--SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:36, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Answering User:RoySmith's questions of 12:47, 17 April 2021 (UTC). For LEGITSOCKS, that are the not the main account, These should be specific-purpose, preferably short-term accounts. WP:Teahouse should be off-limits. Asking for help on Help talk:Footnotes maybe, but not on Wikipedia talk:Citing sources? No, simple hard rules are needed for this dangerous practice. The main account can ask questions about citing sources. I don't see why the non-main LEGITSOCK should be asking at Help talk:Footnotes.
If a privacy sock is dragged to WP:AN, they cannot defend themselves. If a privacy sock is dragged to WP:AN, and the thread is entertained, something is wrong, and the person is not qualified to run a privacy sock. An account trying to be quiet and do a specific thing should be quiet and well mannered.
If one of their articles is nominated at WP:AfD, can they participate in that discussion? No. The community has to be trusted to be running a fair AfD.
Would it be OK to protest a WP:PROD, because that happens in article Talk space, OK. But once you've done that and somebody takes the next step and brings it to AfD, you're stuck? That's right. Trust the community at AfD.
And what about WP:DYK, WP:GA, WP:FA? These are high end editing, competitive and somewhat drama associated. Reputation and accountability are important here. It is no place for a sockpuppet.
No to WikiProjects. No to AfC reviewing. No to Portals.
Pretty much, LEGITSOCKS should stick to mainspace, and to answer questions directed to them in talk space and user_talk. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:21, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• I strongly support the right to have privacy alts. Accordingly, they should be allowed to contribute in the project namespace, insofar as it's practical to write policy allowing this, subject to concerns such as the ones raised by TonyBallioni. They should certainly be allowed to defend their articles from deletion, and other such directly relevant activities. Benjamin (talk) 08:45, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap PROJSOCK and scrap disclosures - PROJSOCK misinterprets the Arbcom case that led to its addition to the policy. The issue there was not that the user was using undisclosed alternate accounts in project space (in and of itself) but that they were using them in ways that were already forbidden by WP:SOCK (apparently WP:GHBH and WP:STRAWSOCK). It's not Arbcom's place to invent policy and they should not have done so here. If someone uses different accounts to contribute to different discussions (not the same discussions) in otherwise legitimate ways, what does it matter? PROJSOCK is a "gotcha" policy that punishes users for no benefit to the project; we should just remove the bullet. As for disclosures, we should probably stop: it's irresponsible and probably unethical to suggest that disclosing a private alt to Arbcom somehow imparts a guarantee of privacy, which is absolutely not the case. It's also clear that everyday editors don't understand that each WMF site is a separate project with separate governance, that our coordination between projects is deliberately very limited, and that what might be allowed here might not be allowed on other WMF projects. What we should do is more strongly advise editors considering a privacy alt of the dangers: if they do use their alt in forbidden ways then we will publicly connect their main just as we do for all sockpuppet accounts, and although we discourage outing, Wikipedia is in the real world and we really have no control over other editors trying to "unmask" a privacy account, though I say we should do more to discourage editors who make a habit of malicious witchhunts. If a user is going to try to use a privacy alt, they need to understand the risks, and that they are responsible for maintaining their privacy, not Wikipedia. I am, however, very strongly against creating a policy that private alts are forbidden. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 13:30, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
• Question: I've been editing since 2006, but usually I create a new account every few months because I don't think scrutiny is fair. That is, if someone doesn't like what I write about sexuality topics, I don't want them going through my environmental topic editing to dig dirt on me. Is my behavior outside established norms? If I give myself a WP:CLEANSTART every three months, and abandon all my earlier accounts, is that bad? 50.242.124.27 (talk) 16:04, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
  • I think it's fine. I'm sort of the opposite of you: I've only ever edited under one account. But I've given serious consideration to doing it your way (repeated clean starting), or just saying the heck with having a registered account and editing only under a dynamic IP. The irony of IP editing, especially from a large dynamic range like a mobile provider, is that it entirely avoids all the "scrutiny" that others talk about. Dynamic IPs can edit (almost) everything and there is zero way to even see their contribs history (since the ranges are shared). And like 90%+ of the encyclopedia is written by IPs this way... no scrutiny for most editors and yet the website doesn't fall apart. That's why I think talk of scrutiny and community is misplaced: really the transparency and control we think we have over registered accounts is a joke: we only have that for those who bother to register an account and use it, and use it within policy, which is a tiny minority of all editors. Transparency and scrutiny of this type are an illusion. Levivich ^harass/_hound 17:44, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
    • None of this is aimed at clean start accounts. Having two accounts at once is different than abandoning an account and starting a new one. If the IP has really been doing that for as long as they say, they are doing it exceptionally well and I for one have no problem with that. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:20, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

      @Beeblebrox: Doesn't it (strictly speaking) violate the letter of Wikipedia:Clean_start#Contentious_and_scrutinized_topics? (if so, perhaps that letter needs rewording) ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:48, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

  • This is exactly the sort of case that SOCK/CLEANSTART needs to allow. Privacy is serious business. We can't just have our rules say that it's not an option. Thank you for your contributions and I would hate to see you forced to change your editing pattern. — Bilorv (talk) 18:01, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
• There's an interesting point above. Posit this situation:

  RoySmith decided to do it the other way around: Edit as real-world identity User:RoySmith, easily identified with boating being a well-known name in the boating world, on boating subjects; and in order to hide the shame from xyr boating colleagues of also knowing about K-Pop and species of beetle, editing everything else except for boating as User:BigBubblyBoatingBob.

  Currently this is both a Project:Sockpuppetry#Legitimate uses and illegitimate under the above proposals.

  Is this even the problem to be addressed? People mention AFD, but the sorts of sockpuppetry that we largely get at AFD are pretty much always of the kind that are illegitimate anyway. It certainly does not seem to be anything like what the Privatemusings case was, either.

  Uncle G (talk) 22:48, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

• I think the solution is to encourage sockpuppetry. There are a few common uses of sockpuppetry that are so heinous that the entire concept is banned: socking to evade a ban/block/sanction (block evasion), socking to create the illusion of consensus (vote-stacking), and socking to evade scrutiny (WP:GHBH). There's also the well-established norm that no person can have more than one account with admin permissions. Beyond that, I think we need to re-consider why socking is a problem. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 00:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
• I don't support any option as I feel that some editors may be embarrassed for users to know that they edit in a specific category and if they declared that they used an alt in those categories it might further increase the embarassment. I feel like instead there should be a template that says "This is a privacy alt of a user who would wish to remain anonymous, who uses this alt to edit in these categories:", that way the alt would still technically be declared but it saves the editor the embarrassment of having to specifically declare that they own the alt who edits in categories they would wish to not be known as an active editor in. Blaze The Wolf | Proud Furry and Wikipedia Editor (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
• Just to clarify for myself: I do not support getting rid of PROJSOCK entirely. I think it needs to be changed, but I do think it serves a purpose. Privacy alt sre intended to be used for editing content, if you want to talk about policy, you should use your main account. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:04, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
• To borrow Benjamin's phrase, I strongly support the right to have privacy alts. To those people saying they need to judge a person's history and character to have a working community: a privacy alt is effectively a separate person (or persona). Their contributions, discussions, and interpersonal relationships can stand on their own. I understand there's a fear that you might hold Dr Jekyll in high esteem whilst there’s a Mr Hyde stalking around. Wouldn't that be a rare occurrence? Much more common would be the case of Rob the boating expert and Bob who edits in other areas. If both accounts behave in a respectful and constructive manner, and they're not teaming up to mislead, then they should both have a voice in all parts of the project that relate to their respective topic interests. Pelagic ( messages ) – (11:14 Sun 25, AEDT) 00:14, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
• Beeblebrox, it's a bit of bullshit that there is no option to "leave things as they are". We aren't under any obligation to parrot other wikis, after all. I haven't read all the discussion (and shouldn't need to in order to opine here), but a discussion for change that doesn't allow the option to leave the status quo is null and void, imho, as you can't gauge the most basic question "is there an appetite for ANY change?". It's not like you to make such a glaring omission like that. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 18:03, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

  I don't quite see it that way. I'm proposing remedies to perceived problems. If the community feels that either there is no problem or these aren't the remedies that will solve them, they will be rejected and the status quo retained. Happens all the time. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:54, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

• I support retiring WP:PROJSOCK, which I have always regarded as a truly asinine policy. I shouldn't have to log in every time I want to contribute to a "discussion internal to the project," which, by the way, could be understood to mean "any discussion anywhere, not just in the project space, that doesn't deal exclusively with article content," and my failing to do so shouldn't be a valid excuse for some priggish admin to block me. Also, I strongly oppose the idea of effectively restricting everyone to one account—I see it as nothing short of an attempt to sneak in a (near-)prohibition on IP editing. Iaritmioawp (talk) 14:52, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
• This site is discussing an issue prevalent on Reddit; should burner accounts be allowed? Over there, people can get away with that with (near)-impunity; but, for what it's worth, this is a new account as my old account never had email when I created it in the late 2000s on here (around 2004-2005, IIRC). I would argue people do need privacy-related sockpuppets, but there's also the people who come simply to claim usernames. As it is, there was even a suggestion on here, way back in 2007, that a now long-gone vandal (notorious for moving pages, IIRC) who wanted to reform should restart under a new account and never disclose the old one! This is a difficult topic area. But allowing multiple accounts on platforms has always been a touchy issue. I can see both sides of the argument though. Chelston-temp-1 (talk) 13:20, 30 April 2021 (UTC)
• Scrap WP:PROJSOCK. There are plenty of reasons why an editor might want to edit under their real name for their main edits, and an alt account for topics they don't want to be associated with their real name. Say they support an unpopular political candidate. But then that alt account can't participate in wikiprojects on that topic, or discuss policy issues that affect that topic. That's silly. --GRuban (talk) 17:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I believe the policy clause being questioned here is a misinterpretation of ArbCom. The statement is sourced to Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Privatemusings#Sockpuppetry, which says: Sockpuppet accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project, such as policy debates. Firstly, this quote doesn't refer to discussions about behavior or to deletion discussions. Secondly, and more importantly, the question is if "sockpuppetry" means using multiple accounts in a single discussion, or using a non-main account in any of the discussions this statement refers to. I believe we should take the first meaning here, while the policy statement takes the second; if you take the second, it should apply only to the discussions refered to by the first issue here. 147.161.8.37 (talk) 12:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

The best way to know is to ask the arbs who handled this case, hope some of them are still around and remember this case 14 years later. The arbs are: User:Kirill Lokshin, User:UninvitedCompany, User:FloNight, User:Jpgordon, User:Jdforrester, User:Mackensen, User:Morven, and User:Charles Matthews. 147.161.8.37 (talk) 13:19, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Anonymous editing, and efforts to maintain anonymity, were more widely thought to be good things in the early days of the project than today. Specific scenarios that I recall being discussed during that era (possibly but not necessarily as part of the Privatemusings decision) were individuals who were risking governmental or institutional reprisal for their edits, most notably editors from China. Another example would be editors disclosing details of cryptographic or DRM systems, which posed real risks of prosecution in some jurisdictions back in the day. Yet another would be contributions to topic areas that would reveal lifestyle choices (sexual orientation, recreational drug use) that could result in real-world discrimination. These concerns remain valid today for editors contributing from particularly conservative jurisdictions.

As Wikipedia has evolved, the very onerous restrictions on anonymous editing (especially in difficult topic areas) make it necessary to have a named account to make meaningful contributions. It is my view that requiring users to link all their contributions by using the same account at all times will silence important voices that have a genuine interest and ability to contribute. I also believe that the present approach to dealing with socking is heavyhanded and unsustainable, and that we are better off evaluating edits based on their merit rather than their source. UninvitedCompany 20:27, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

My mood at the time was pretty specific -- I was really pissed off at Privatemusing's socking to "carry on and exacerbate drama", as I said in refusing an unblock request from him, and I was likely only considering it through my really intense hatred of socking in general. I think now I'd recommend deleting it; we don't need this blanket policy to deal with disruptive and/or dishonest socking when it's disruptive and/or dishonest. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 23:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• Delete WP:PROJSOCK. Since this discussion has not yet closed, I'll add my voice to those who think the simplest solution is to get rid of PROJSOCK entirely. I asked earlier in this conversation if there was any disruption being caused by alternate accounts editing in project space that was not also covered by one of the other rules, and to my knowledge, no one has come up with one. But what's more concerning to me, as a checkuser and a member of the arbitration committee, is the number of times that obvious alternate accounts get checked solely because they edited project space, despite there not being any disruption or evidence of abuse. I don't believe such checks fall within the spirit of the CU policy, but they are justified simply because of this wording in the sockpuppetry policy. This is circular logic at best, and it's high time we fix it. – bradv🍁 21:53, 27 May 2021 (UTC)
  • User:Bradv, and many others, what do you mean by “Delete WP:PROJSOCK”? It looks like you haven’t read the text that you link. PROJSOCK says that you mustn’t use alternative accounts to circumvent policy. I think you might mean WP:SOCK#Legitimiate uses#Privacy??? I note that WP:SOCK is a mess in terms of structural logic of presentation of information, and debating by reference to SHOUTYONEWORDSHORTCUTS is not helpful. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:11, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

    SmokeyJoe, you're right, I should clarify. I mean that this line should be removed: Internal discussions: Undisclosed alternative accounts are not to be used in discussions internal to the project. It's redundant to the actual problematic behaviour described in the subsequent lines. – bradv🍁 04:29, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

    @SmokeyJoe: I've tried to solve the problem by creating an anchor for that shortcut; WP:PROJSOCK should redirect to that sentence specifically. Sdrqaz (talk) 11:57, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

    User:Sdrqaz, I think that is counter productive. Too many non-intuitive shortcuts do not help understanding of the policy, and the6 make it harder to improve the structure and presentation. It would be better to quote text explicitly, and to not write in slogans. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:14, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

    SmokeyJoe, I agree that we shouldn't overuse these shortcuts (especially without linking to them when first mentioned) because it creates barriers of entry to newer users, but the immediate problem at that point was that it wasn't clear to where WP:PROJSOCK referring. That was the (admittedly superficial, in light of other concerns you've raised) problem I was trying to resolve. Sdrqaz (talk) 12:25, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Consolidating help venues

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § Consolidating help venues

Relax requirements for the Content Translation Tool

I am an editor on multiple other Wikipedias, and the Content Translator is not limited there. I think I made a Vietnamese translation of Babar and the Adventures of Badou with the tool. I don't need a set number of edits to do that there. Can we make it so that 100 edits lets you access the tool? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Namethatisnotinuse (talk • contribs) 22:09, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@Namethatisnotinuse: if you follow the notes at Wikipedia_talk:Content_translation_tool#From_deWP you will be able to move forward. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• As far as this policy suggestion goes, we already have a work around as noted above, but prior discussions did not have consensus to actually advertise them. I'm in favor of adding some directions to guide prospective translators to their sandbox or draft space. I'm not really in favor of changing the threshold, as the ECP level seems to have striken a good balance already. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:49, 6 May 2021 (UTC)
  • So apparently as CX has had more development, the devs have already inserted hints about this (e.g. MediaWiki:Cx-tools-linter-cannot-publish-message) - but our local help is silent about this, and silent about how to go about doing this. Makes for a bad UX one way or the other. Any objections to at least updating the local help page with some directions on this? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:41, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

    My understanding of the current situation was that we allowed that backdoor to exist because if a translator found it and utilized it, they had probably also found, read, and understood the community's history with the tool, and in particular the issues with unedited machine translations. Finding that backdoor also probably implied reasonable English-language competency. We didn't want to advertise it because that would defeat the purpose of making sure people who used the backdoor were aware of the context around the tool. By default, I'd oppose any change to the status quo, but if someone went through the data and showed the abuse of the CXT is low, opening up more access to the tool is sensible. Tazerdadog (talk) 21:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Impartial Expert Editor

Maybe this is the wrong place in which to be asking this question. However, at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, there is a dispute where one of the editors says that they need an impartial expert editor to supervise the rewriting of a group of articles. Wikipedia does not have any designations of expert editors or master editors. (Some new editors may think that the various service ribbons on user pages have more meaning than they do. The editors who display the service ribbons know that the awards are either humorous or humourous, depending on continent.) There isn't a pool of impartial expert editors who can be called on when requested. My thinking is that improving any group of articles is sort of what WikiProjects are for. Is there any additional advice that I should give to an editor who says that a whole group of articles need to be substantially rewritten? Robert McClenon (talk) 04:23, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

• Isn't this where setting out the issues on the article talk page and then requesting comments using the feedback request service can provide the benefit of impartial input from experienced editors who have signed up to that service? They may not bring topic expertise as such but can advise on whether there is indeed a problem and what might be next steps. AllyD (talk) 06:26, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
  • User:AllyD - Yes, but.... I don't think that is exactly what the editor in question wants. The editor in question wants to recruit an impartial expert editor to oversee a long project of rewriting a group of articles. As I understand the Feedback Request Service, it is invoked via the Request for Comments mechanism, and so can be used in either of two ways. The first is to ask a specific question and obtain a binding consensus, for which other editors will have been invited via FRS. The second is to ask an open-ended question, which will obtain comments (just as RFC stands for). I think that what is being asked for is something more. Thank you for your comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 17:01, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
    • @Robert McClenon: I'd go with your initial hunch: WikiProjects. If the most relevant WikiProject is dormant, try its parent project or something closely related. WikiProjects get a lot of criticism but this sounds like a perfect task for them. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:33, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
      • Thank you. I think that the editor who requested an impartial expert editor has the idea that there are ranks or grades of expertise among Wikipedia editors which may be indicated by their service ribbons on their user pages. We know that some editors display various sorts of service ribbons on their user pages. It has always been my understanding that those service ribbons are humorous and should not be taken seriously. I think that I have seen at least one case of an editor who thinks that there is a semi-official pool of such editors to be called on. Robert McClenon (talk) 23:03, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Need clarity around the role of AfD closers

It's not uncommon for admins closing discussions at WP:AfD to offer their own opinion on the notability of a subject, i.e. whether WP:GNG and/or some WP:SNG is met. These will often get brought to WP:DRV for review. There's one such case at DRV now, and while that case was indeed what led me to start this thread, I want to focus on the more general issue, not just that one case or that one admin.

For as long as I've been involved in AfD (which is a long time), the rule has been that closers are supposed to distill the discussion, not inject their own opinions about notability. Unfortunately, I can't find any policy statement which comes right out and says that. WP:CLOSE#Policy comes close, calling out specific exceptions for WP:V, WP:OR, WP:CP, and WP:NPOV, but doesn't explicitly say those are the only exceptions. In any case, it's a WP:INFOPAGE, so doesn't rank as policy. Likewise, WP:Supervote, while widely cited in DRV discussions, is just an essay.

So, what I'm looking for is a more official statement that AfD closers must rely on the input of the discussants regarding notability. If there's not an actual policy page where it makes sense to add that, then at least a consensus close to this thread and updating WP:CLOSE#Policy to explicitly disallow closers to apply their own notability judgements would be good enough. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:04, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this issue. WP:DGFA might be a place to put it also. But I think the issue you're raising is broader than deletion discussions. We have almost no policies or guidelines about closing statements, and what is and is not appropriate to include in them. It's not really spelled out in WP:CONSENSUS, WP:CLOSE, WP:RFCEND, DGFA, WP:XFD, WP:DELPOL... how to write a closing statement doesn't appear to be anywhere in our alphabet soup. I would imagine the rules or at least principles for closing statements should be the same for XfDs as for RFCs and other discussions. We should write something, as it will help all sorts of closure reviews. Levivich ^harass/_hound 16:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

• Thanks RoySmith for raising this; I agree that the principle of not supervoting definitely enjoys community support and ought to be codified somewhere, along with other information about closes per Levivich. Info about non-admin closes could be moved there, too. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• I think most practices around closes are informal, split over various individual consensus', and some good advice in Wikipedia:Advice on closing discussions. It's generally recognised that it's not the job of closers to supervote; very few closes are, and I don't think anyone has ever made the WP:JUSTANESSAY argument when their supervote is challenged, so I don't see why a policy is necessary (and don't think it's a good idea). Decisions are made by WP:CONSENSUS and I suppose the role of closers is just someone uninvolved who summarises what the consensus in a discussion was. I guess a note in Wikipedia:Consensus could be added to this effect? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:34, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• I would support this. SportingFlyer T·C 17:52, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• My sense has always been that arguments presented in a closing statements should never include (other than perhaps as background information and only if they don't affect the close) any argument that was not presented by participants/!voters. Unless they are overriding policy, such as when folks want to keep a clear copyvio. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:45, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators § Rough consensus, which is linked to from Wikipedia:Closing discussions § Consensus, discusses examining strength of argument and any relevant policies. Arguments that are made in bad faith, contradict policy, are based on unsubstantiated personal opinion, or are illogical are given as examples of arguments that may be discounted. I'm not sure any new official guidance on determining consensus is required on this aspect, but perhaps Wikipedia:Advice on closing discussions should be more broadly advertised to prospective closers. The "Additional considerations" section covers not discussing arguments that weren't raised in discussion, and not reaching an outcome that no one discussed, for example. isaacl (talk) 19:57, 24 May 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not sure the responses have adequately discussed exactly what RoySmith proposes - there have been a couple DRVs of late where the closer has appeared to agree with the side that "wins" the discussion, especially where the closer looks at the sources and makes their own determination of whether something is notable. This isn't about raising arguments that weren't raised in discussions, it's about whether closers should be looking at sources to assess the notability of the article they're closing. SportingFlyer T·C 10:40, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
• Perhaps better direction is in order about what the closer should look for, but it seems almost impossible for a closer to close a dispute about claims based on the sources presented and whether they reasonably support one side or the other, or both sides to some extent, without looking at the sources. (eg.: 'Primary source!' 'No, it's not!' Look at source, who makes the cogent claim, or is there a reasonable disagreement?). Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, in such cases one would often end up with a "Both sides are advancing legitimate arguments about whether the sources satisfy WP:SIGCOV and none of them is clearly more compelling than the other, so no consensus it is". Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:40, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

• The closing statement in a deletion discussion is very much a performative utterance and there are expectations that we don't pollute the performance of closing (which enacts consensus in addition to, hopefully, summarizing the strength of arguments) with the arguments it's supposed to be considering. In most of the cases I've seen where people take issue with a closer expressing an opinion, it was a matter of framing rather than an actual supervote. If someone changes "it doesn't meet GNG" to "consensus it that it doesn't meet GNG" or "arguments that it doesn't meet GNG were strongest" that changes it back from a supervote to a summary. My concern about adding more exact and/or prescriptive language into instructions for closers is that it's already hard enough to close discussions based on strength of argument vs. numbers. People already get accused of supervoting just for closing against the numbers all the time. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

  That's a good point about not wanting to make it harder to close against the numbers. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 10:42, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

• I largely agree with what Jo-Jo, Alan, and Rhododendrites said. Closers should read the sources to make sure the claims are accurate but shouldn't stray beyond what participants said about the sources (unless some major policy like WP:BLP is being ignored). AfDs are unusual in that they are often a binary outcome---delete or !delete---while other discussions are far more open ended. Because of this, summarizing the debate and major view points can look like a supervote, but if the close focuses on how participants applied the policies under discussion (numbers can sometimes be helpful here) I think most misunderstandings can be avoided. I don't close many AfDs, but this is how I approach requested moves which have a similar binary outcome. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:51, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

  I have to disagree on reading the sources, that's really the participants' task, not the closer's. Also, the lines would get blurred between what's the closer's own preference and what the consensus is if closers went this far. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:47, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

• As noted, there's certainly lots of cases where it's more the closer has just failed to add "consensus of discussions states that" before "GNG is not met" (etc). Sure, if they raise an argument (other than copyvio etc) that isn't mentioned at all then that's a bit problematic, but again I've not seen issues at DRV on those cases - usually its fairly obvious if its a superclose. In terms of "should they be checking sources to see if reasoning on those grounds is justified" I have to answer no - that would just be a different form of a supervote. If !voters think other !voters' arguments that sigcov et al are/are not met are invalid, they are responsible for disputing that and making that determination, not the closers. Nosebagbear (talk) 13:10, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

  So if an AFD gets flooded with socks saying that source A says XYZ, and it in fact says no such thing, a closer should close in favor of the provably false assertion to avoid supervoting? That's an absurd conclusion that I strongly disagree with recommending. Just to put some meat to this hypothetical, say 7 editors claim that The Example Daily article covers subject Anex Ample and is written by an independent journalist. One lone editor says "actually, the author bio at the bottom says the author is an employee of Anex Ample and was paid by them to write this article", and one of the original seven comes back to say "no it doesn't". Under the "don't look at the sources" theory, I should close with the 7 editors even if the source does say it was paid for by Anex Ample.

  This cannot possibly be the correct outcome, partly because it incentivizes lying. No consensus is usually a default keep, so if you want an article kept, just lie about the sources and fillibuster the discussion---the closer can't check and the participants won't have enough time to refute them all (see Gish gallop). Making sure that participants are engaging in good faith dispute and accurately characterizing external material is basic due diligence; not doing so makes it impossible to comply with Wikipedia:Closing discussions#not counting heads as a closer would not be able to figure out which claims are false let alone discount them. Imagine if judges in a court room could only hear testimony but never see the evidentiary documents discussed in that testimony because it might compromise their objectivity. If that's the fear then the solution is not enforced ignorance but to forbid that person from being a judge (the whole point of recusals). Verifying assertions and drawing your own conclusions from a source are two very different things, and if a closer cannot distinguish between the two, they should not be closing discussions. If I cannot trust a closer to objectively verify the assertions made about external material, why I should I trust them to objectively evaluate the discussion at all? We should not confuse ignorance with objectivity, let alone recommend it. — Wug·a·po·des​ 03:54, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

  Agree with this, generally. I don't think reading the sources is always necessary, but where the question of which argument is indeed stronger comes down to what the sources actually say, the closer shouldn't refrain from looking at the sources for fear of being labeled a supervoter. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:17, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

There is too much supervoting on RfCs and with WP:NACs too, but maybe for another time. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:05, 31 May 2021 (UTC).

Original research heraldry for fictional universes

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Is there some more specific policy for this? I removed some: Special:Diff/1026260344 and Special:Diff/1026072768. These images are artist impressions based on text descriptions. I'm afraid there may be a lot more out there. According to OTRS the image on the right is a creation of User:TTThom. It's used on Heraldry of Middle-earth, I'd remove it but removing all the OR will leave the article gutted and I'm not in the mood for an edit war. Is there some misunderstanding about WP:OR that causes these to be added without getting reverted in a decade? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 12:02, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

It's one thing to make up heraldry for real-world royalty/houses based on language but I would tend to agree that doing this for the same for fictional ones are far less appropriate. Unlike real heraldry which follows a specific language format that allows for license-less recreations without engaging in OR, fictional ones rarely are given in the same verbiage and thus fan-made art, while maybe not being strictly a copyright violation or failing fair use, is likely original research. --Masem (t) 13:25, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

• If the depiction actually matches the description in the primary sources (which should always be the author themself or someone explicitly authorized by the author), and the depiction is both sourced to said description and presented as an artistic depiction with clear labelling of such (not just in the caption, but with, for example, a section hat), and is not used in the primary infobox of a page, then I would find such images appropriate and useful. Anything short of that warrants either removal, or improvement to the standards I described.

Note that I would not apply this standard to images on commons, where I think that the only standards which needs be met is a clear description of what it is and a clear statement that it's an artistic depiction. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

• Well, even with a limited knowledge of heraldry, there are in fact very few heraldic colours - only one kind of yellow (gules), only one kind of green (vert), and so on, so there is little to get wrong if, as the editor above has rightly stated, the original description is clear and unambiguous. I'm sure any specialist in heraldry will be able to confirm that they can readily reconstruct any badge or flag or coat of arms from its description, so if there's a lion rampant on a vert field or whatever they can draw it exactly to the satisfaction of other heraldry specialists. As long as it's made clear that this is an artist's impression or a heraldic reconstruction or some such phrase, there is no problem here. I don't agree with Masem, therefore, that there's any particular issue about heraldry in fiction; if a book's author has given a heraldic description, then that account can be taken as a specification of a heraldic badge without any suggestion of editorial invention. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:03, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

  Chiswick Chap, there are in fact very few heraldic colours - only one kind of yellow (gules), only one kind of green (vert), and so on, so there is little to get wrong if, as the editor above has rightly stated, the original description is clear and unambiguous. Not that it's an important point, but I'd like to note that just because we have a limited palette of colors in real life heradly, that does not suggest that fictional heradly would use the same palette, or even have limits at all.

  But, you should not read that as disagreement with your overall point that heraldry is constrained to certain norms, and depictions that fit within those norms are very likely to be nearly identical to each other. Furthermore, I do, actually, think it quite likely that Tolkien, at least, would have limited himself to real-world heraldric standards, due to the depiction of Middle-earth as pre-paleolithic Europe. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:16, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

  If these are all coming from language that is based on real world heraldry (and we're talking what appears to be mostly ME and Wheel of Time, which I would think are works that would follow that) then I can see the argument there's no issue with these. What we want to avoid is crossing a line to full fledged fan art on WP for fictional universes (eg a fan's interpretation of Battle of Helm's Deep would be inappropriate despite how descriptive the book + associated works give it). --Masem (t) 15:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

  Masem, This tracks exactly with my view. I outlined what my standards would be for making it explicitly clear, above. I'm a little waffley on the issue of fantasy worlds like Westeros, which is less historically tied-in to the real world, but generally speaking, I'd say a firm "no" to depicting anything that there's already an official or semi-official depiction of, like the battle you mentioned. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:24, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  I'm also thinking cases where, for example, the original cover art is a clear influence on the work that fan art may become derivative of that creates a question. This example gets away from the heraldy aspect but like a fan's version of Harry Potter (short of cosplay) would likely be problematic given the "official" presentation on the original cover as well as the US printing as well in the films. Heraldry, as established for even real world cases, is different and why we can use user-created COArms and flags even though there may be existing preferred versions out there, but anything short of this is going to fall more into derivative works that can be at issue. --Masem (t) 19:06, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  Masem, Exactly.

  Now, if there's a good reason why we would want to show fan art, then it's up for discussion. As a hypothetical, I imagine a work of fiction which became known primarily for the fan-art it inspired. In that case, a couple examples might be okay. And cosplay might be useful to help demonstrate the prominence of a work in pop culture.

  But there's no way, to steal your example, that we'd use one of my childhood paintings as the top image at Battle of Helm's Deep, or one of my depictions of Stryker no matter how fond or proud of it I was, no matter what kind of "artistic depiction" templates we slap on it, because if we need an example, we can grab a still from the film under fair use.

  On a side note, the use of images in that article is spot on. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:30, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

  Nitpick: gules = red, or = yellow. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:20, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• I don't really have a problem with illustrating the statement "the flag of the fictional domain of Kusmaland is a red pterodactylus on a green background" with a user-created image of a red pterodactylus on a green background. Actually, I think this should be encouraged. It just needs to be made absolutely clear what is being shown, and no claim of "official" status of this artist's impression should be made without it appearing in other sources. Something like the flag gallery in The World of the Wheel is not appropriate without explicit sourcing. —Kusma (talk) 15:54, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

BLPPROD and Authority Control

Hello!

I ran into a couple unsourced BLP articles (i.e. Kev Hopper) and proposed them for deletion via Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people. I noticed that they had authority control templates, but that was it. The BLPPROD templates were later removed on the grounds that authority control counts as sources in the same way that external links would. While this reasoning makes sense, authority control is pulling links from Wikidata. The Wikipedia page source code only shows {authority control} and nothing else, so in my mind, the Wikipedia page itself contains no sources in any form. That's the disconnect for me.

Whether authority control makes BLPPROD ineligible or not, I think it should be explicitly specified in the policy to avoid this confusion again, such as "adding article contains no sources in any form (as references, external links, authority control identifiers, etc.)". Mbdfar (talk) 19:02, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• This is ridiculous, authority control is not a substitute for sources. In the case of the particular article you mentioned the "source" in the authority control is unreliable anyway (see WP:UGC). The BLPPROD template clearly states Once the article has at least one reliable source, you may remove this tag., yet it was removed even though there are no reliable sources anywhere in the article including the authority control template.--Rusf10 (talk) 19:07, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

To be fair, GB fan would have been in his right to remove the tag if authority control does count for sourcing. Per the policy, "to place a BLPPROD tag, the process requires that the article contains no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc.) which support any statements made about the person in the biography. Please note that this is a different criterion than the one used for sources added after the correct placement of the tag." So if the authority control does count for sourcing (no matter the reliability), I would have placed BLPPROD incorrectly as the page would have been ineligible. Mbdfar (talk) 19:14, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

• 100% agreement with Rusf10 here. The authority control listed at Kev Hopper links back to a database of user generated content, and even if the content were editorially controlled, that would not in any way establish notability, as there's no bar for inclusion that roughly translates to GNG. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 22:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

MPants at work, Rusf10; Right, but you guys are missing the point of this discussion. My apologies for being unclear. This is not an argument about subject notability, nor about the reliability of sources. This is about WP:BLPPROD. BLPPROD states that "to place a BLPPROD tag, the process requires that the article contains no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) " For example, BLPPROD is invalid on an article that has so much as a link to a tweet. My question is whether pre-existing authority control identifiers qualify as a source contained in the article. In other words, is an article BLPPROD eligible if it has a valid authority control identifier? The policy should be made clear. Mbdfar (talk) 22:32, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

No it isn't, because "To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) supporting any statements made about the person in the biography". In the case of Kev Hopper, the AC link (which is to MusicBrainz) does not support any statement mde in the prose of the article. And even if it did, it's not a reliable source, which makes me wonder why we bother with it. Black Kite (talk) 22:38, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

Black Kite, if I may ask a follow-up question; If an AC link DOES support a statement made in the prose of the article, would you consider it a valid "source" (thus rendering the article BLPPROD ineligible)? Take the page Jorge Niosi for example. He has many identifiers that support his birthdate, nationality, and publications. Would you consider this page BLPPROD immune? Mbdfar (talk) 22:52, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The AC link definitely does support material in the biography -- it verifies an item on his discography, and by having a discography, it verifies that he's a musician. Is it a reliable source? Probably not, but that is not (and should not be) a requirement for preventing BLPROD, which is meant to wipe the most blatant cases. If this concern about AC and BLPROD is something that arises frequently, then yes, it should be added explicitly to the BLPROD descriptor. If this is a rare case, then probably not worth the hassle. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:03, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

The AC link verifies nothing because its NOT reliable. (WP:V is about using reliable sources) A source that is not reliable does not count. Otherwise, someone could just create an article and link to their own blog to circumvent BLPPROD.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:08, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

But BLPPROD does say reliable or otherwise, so someone could circumvent it that way. JoelleJay (talk) 02:39, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

A source that is not reliably absolutely counts for making the BLPROD illegitimate. Per WP:BLPROD, "The requirements can be summed up as: only add a BLPPROD if there are no sources in any form that support any statement made about the person in the article, but once (properly) placed, it can only be removed if a reliable source is added." If you want to change the core of BLPROD, that's a much larger discussion to have. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:08, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

There are alternatives to get rid of pages with only unreliable sources such as speedy delete, prod, or AFD, so no need to be concerned about gaming the system. Unreliable sources need more examination to see if they are, so not great for fast deletion of articles based on that. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Authority Control should be considered valid for external links, provided that (as far as we can tell, after the fact) the link in question was actually there when the tag was added. 147.161.12.57 (talk) 06:21, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Mbdfar, I wholeheartedly concur with Black Kite's response to this comment. The AC template is not, and should not be considered a source. It is an index which allows one to find data on the subject, but it doesn't guarantee the existence or relevance of said data. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:23, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• I would agree that the AC template, on its own, is not enough to prevent a PROD... however... it does link us to an index of potential sources that should be reviewed prior to a PROD (per WP:BEFORE). If it is likely that one of those potential sources could support information in the article, then don’t prod... go directly to AFD if you wish to question/challenge notability. Blueboar (talk) 12:41, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The question is not is the AC template enough to prevent a PROD. The question concerns WP:BLPPROD. The BLPPROD policy says that any source, reliable or not, on the article that supports any information in the article makes it ineligible for BLPROD. If we have this scenario:

1. We have a BLP.
2. The BLP has {{authority control}} in its source code.
3. In the authority control template that renders on the article there are link(s).
4. In at least one of the links there is some piece of information that is also in the article.

Is this enough to make this BLP ineligible for BLPPROD? ~ GB fan 13:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

GB fan, I would say that depends entirely on whether or not the information in that link exists and meets our standards for reliability. In the example listed above, it clearly does not do the latter. If there's a case where it does... Well, I think that such cases should be discussed, which probably puts me on your side of things for those cases. In general though, the presence or absence of an authority control template on a page should not be a factor in dealing with BLPROD. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Exactly... Do due diligence BEFORE prodding. First check the potential sources linked through the AC template. If any of them could be cited in the article, then PROD is probably not appropriate. But if none are usable, then go ahead and prod (and mention that you checked AC and found no viable sources). Remember that PROD is for clear cut cases. If there is any doubt, don’t PROD. Blueboar (talk) 15:35, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

MPants at work: Why should an AC link be treated any differently than any other external link when it comes to BLPROD -- i.e., if it contains any of the information in the article, even if it's not reliable, then BLPROD is not allowed? If there's some reason, that would seem an exception that would have to be built into BLPROD, which it currently is not. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:43, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

NatGertler, because there's no guarantee that it will contain any information at all, let alone any information that's in the article.Just because something's indexed in a database doesn't mean there's any data attached to that index. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:49, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

MPants at work, so it sounds like we should treat it like any other external link. Merely having an external link doesn't void a BLPROD. "To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, etc., reliable or otherwise) supporting any statements made about the person in the biography." An AC link that supports statements in the bio would seem to fit quite nicely into the "etc." in that, if not simply as an "external link". I'm still not seeing the "but not Authority Control" exception in this. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:09, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• snicker* good luck with that. The wikidata crowd dont want it treated as an external link because then it would be subject to WP:EL and its content being removed in many cases. The solution to this is to alter BLPPROD to allow BLPRODing of articles that do not contain references/sources. External links or templates are not a consideration if something can be prodded based on the sourcing, because they are not sources or references. Just remove the wording that is causing this. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:17, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

the "but not Authority Control" exception for me (which lead me to starting this discussion) is that the AC links are hosted on Wikidata, not Wikipedia. The links on Wikidata can be changed or removed without leaving a changelog on Wikipedia. I think this is important in a BLP context. The Wikipedia page itself hosts no external links or sources, which lead me to interpreting BLPPROD this way. Mbdfar (talk) 16:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the distinction of whether data/link content is stored on Wikidata or on Wikipedia is particularly useful to make. We use images from Commons in our articles all the time although that means we don't have local control over changes. In the case at hand, had someone turned the AC template into a MusicBrainz link would not have made the situation any better, or any worse. —Kusma (talk) 18:52, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• NatGertler, Merely having an external link doesn't void a BLPROD. I agree, and believe that merely having an AC template should not void a BLPROD.

An AC link that supports statements in the bio would seem to fit quite nicely into the "etc." in that, if not simply as an "external link". Yes, hence why I said above that it's worth discussing in those cases. I agree with Blueboar that checking the AC links should be normal due diligence for BLPRODing an article. I also assert that double-checking the AC links should be part of the normal due diligence for removing a BLPROD. Finally, I also agree with Only in death below that external links should not be included in the criteria at WP:BLPROD. There should be actual sources to void it, not simply external links. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 16:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• As I understand it, BLPPROD uses bright line rules. The Musicbrainz link was present in the article (doesn't matter whether through AC or directly), so the article wasn't a BLPPROD candidate. However, the link doesn't verify anything useful, and I can't find sources that support much other than #REDIRECT [[Stump (band)]]. I would support strengthening BLPPROD to require presence of a reliable source/a reliable xlink before use, that would make adding and removing the BLPPROD follow the same rules. —Kusma (talk) 15:53, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Are there any serious objections to redirecting? We still have this unsourced BLP to take care of... —Kusma (talk) 18:54, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

If only we had a clear cut policy to take care of unsourced BLPs ;)

Jk, I think a redirect is rational. Mbdfar (talk) 04:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

The current version of WP:BLPPROD is, if there is any source in the article, whether it is reliable or not, and that source supports any statement in the article, the article can not be BLPPROD'd. So an external link to the BLP's personal self published website that supports some statement in the article makes the article ineligible for BLPPROD. Going back to the article that was mentioned in the first post in this section, Kev Hopper. It has an authority control template with one link. That link goes to musicbrainz.org. The musicbrainz page says that Kev Hopper released an album called Stolen Jewels in 1990. The first entry in the list of Solo albums in the Kev Hopper article says that he released Stolen Jewels in 1990. So we have an external link that supports information in the article. Under the current version of BLPPROD, is this eligible for a BLPPROD? ~ GB fan 17:51, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• Not eligible. —Kusma (talk) 18:04, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Ignoring for the moment, the unreliability of that database, I don't think the name & release year of an album really rises to the level of being considered a source here, else one could just as validly point to the article's name as being sourced to the AC link. I'd want to see some substantial facts in the AC link, not just a single datum that does nothing to really tell us anything about the subject. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:22, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• If you determine that a subject is not notable then just use a different procedure to propose/nominate it for deletion. The BLPPROD procedure is simply something that was introduced in the midst of a moral panic when some disruptive editors, egged on by Jimmy Wales, thought that it was more urgent to delete unsourced articles that said "Joe Bloggs is a footballer who plays for Anytown United" than to delete genuine BLP violations, which often cite loads of sources. Please let's think about things, rather than blindly follow procedures. I'm still convinced that the difference between what is valid for placing a BLPPROD tag and what is valid for removing it was a simple accident of wording caused by the rush to put something in place, rather than the philosphical talking point beloved of Wikilawyers that it seems to have become. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:56, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to adjust the policy wording to include "authority control"

I propose that we update the policy to read To be eligible for a BLPPROD tag, the entry must be a biography of a living person and contain no sources in any form (as references, external links, authority control links, etc., reliable or otherwise) –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. I've had one of my BLP prods declined for this before, and it was not intuitive to me. I think it needs to be explicitly stated. I don't have an opinion on whether authority control should count or not, I just want to make sure that if this is the de facto standard, that it is stated clearly in the policy. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support, seems I've made a mountain out of a molehill, huh? I echo everything stated above. Mbdfar (talk) 03:51, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• There are good arguments above for this. Namely that BLPPROD is a special circumstance, PROD is still available, and authority control does imply potential. That said, what about just a link to a google search for the subject's name? The idea of a "source" implies to me that it could in some way have been intended as a source for the text of the article. That is, it was added to support material in the article, even if it happened to be added as an external link, etc. That seems unlikely for authority control... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for your comment. The policy currently states "sources in any form, reliable or otherwise". Seems to me like any source or link invalidates the use of BLPPROD. If we wanted to discuss making the application of BLPPROD broader (having some links be "so bad" that they don't count as links, essentially), maybe we could start a second proposal. I have some opinions on this, but I'd prefer to discuss them in a different section, since at its heart it is a different proposal. –Novem Linguae (talk) 05:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

  I'm not so sure "sources" applies to absolutely any link on the page. Again, what about just a link to a google search? It makes more sense to interpret this as "if someone used a source but only included it as an external link rather than a citation, that's still a source" rather than "any link=source". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support only if a strengthening of BLPPROD does not pass. This proposal is a useful clarification that may save us pointless discussion in the future, but "BLPs must have a reliable source or be eligible for BLPPROD" might be a better approach overall. —Kusma (talk) 10:03, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support Makes sense. Perhaps have authority control in between 'references' and 'external links'? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 10:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - A database of potential sources is not itself a viable source. The sources linked through AC may or may not invalidate a BLPPROD... but we don’t know without checking them before Prodding. I would also remove the “or otherwise” in the parenthetical - but that may require a second RFC. Blueboar (talk) 11:42, 4 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose An authority control link is not a source. The language regarding external links is quite clearly to permit sourcing that's not properly cited, a common mistake by new editors. But any editor capableof implementing an AC template with the link, is capable of making proper cites. Given that an AC link doesn't guarantee to contain any info beyond the name of a subject... There's no reason to treat it like a source. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

We can not even assume that the AC template was added by a human editor. It might have been added by bot, with no one checking to see if any of the potential sources are actually viable. Blueboar (talk) 10:28, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Authority Control in some cases (including the one above) does not even use reliable sources. If anything we need to improve the quality of sources being used for BLPs.--Rusf10 (talk) 01:25, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose - authority control is not a reliable source. Levivich 15:04, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  NOTE that BLPPROD does not (currently) require sources to be reliable to negate the PROD. Even the presence of unreliable sources can do so. (We can change that requirement if we want to, but that is a different question from what is being asked).

  The more fundamental problem is that Authority Control isn’t a source, but merely a generated list of databases in which potential sources might (or might not) be found. Blueboar (talk) 15:20, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  Good point, thanks. I updated my !vote. Levivich 21:11, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose I think the wording's confusing about what constitutes a "source." An authority control is not a source. It could be a source, but it would need to support content in the article. We include "external link" because we have several different ways of referencing which new editors may be unfamiliar with, and may use direct links as a source - those words exist to not punish those users. SportingFlyer T·C 21:26, 5 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose – a source, by definition, is something that the author relied upon in writing the article. Authority control, by definition, is a navigation tool. That's really all there is to it. Authority control templates are means by which someone could hypothetically find reliable sources in the future. They are not sources in and of themselves, any more than {{BLP unsourced}} is a source because it contains links to search engines that might hypothetically find reliable sources. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 22:01, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

POV with admitted lack of knowledge on the matter ?

Hello, I witnessed a WP:TAGTEAMed administrator both warning an user of possible block and acknowledging he/she did not reviewed the relevant conflict/edits/discussion. Is there a WP:RULES that administrator or user cannot take consequential actions if they have no knowledge of the said matter ? I would like to know such rule to cite it. Yug (talk) 11:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Better to ask this at WP:AN, but you should maybe link the relevant discussion so people can understand the context and advise accordingly, and also judge whether your summary is a fair representation of the events. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:28, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

My idea was to cite that WP:Rule if it exist when I will message WP:AN. I already bumped into the concept of "flyover" editors/administrators for users who jump in, drop an opinion without understanding of the situation, then leave, but I can't find the page if any. Yug (talk) 12:24, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I don’t think there is any “rule” (for or against). A lot depends on WHY the admins in question “jumped in”. Blueboar (talk) 12:50, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The closest that I can think of is WP: ADMINACCT, where admins are supposed to be able to explain and justify their actions as admins. --Kyohyi (talk) 13:07, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Notice of RfC on how usernames should be displayed in custom signatures

See Wikipedia talk:Signatures#RfC: usernames in signatures — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:11, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Welcome over warning

Hello, How about having a new policy for experienced Wikipedians in relation to WP:Don't Bite Newcomers that promotes sending "Welcome" over "warning"? A number of unconstructive edits by anonymous users don't happen to be pure Vandalism. They are either mistakes or test edits. Sometimes due to the lack of the knowledge of Wikipedia, they err the formatting. We have rollbacking tools like Redwarn that just warn those users. Whereas, the Welcome template has more helpful links for them to better understand Wikipedia and make constructive edits to Wikipedia. This way, we can retain more happy newcomers. P.S.- This need not be exercised for those who truly vandalize Wikipedia. They better be warned than getting a Welcome. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 02:56, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

That is a good idea. I always use {{Subst:Welcome to Wikipedia}} due to its pleasant and yet comprehensive content. VV 06:21, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

• It depends on WHY you are warning the new user. Some behaviors are so unacceptable and egregious that they should be slapped down (hard)… no matter who the editor is. Blueboar (talk) 15:30, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

  Certainly that is the case in some situations. But lets not have that get in the way of the broader discussion on being more welcoming to new editors in general. I agree that a little too often we are more likely to slap on a warning template rather than something a little more helpful and welcoming. PackMecEng (talk) 15:37, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree we have such users but not all are as I wrote in my post as well. Lightbluerain❄ (Talk | contribs) 06:00, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Wikiquote

Hello, my question is about the link to Wikiquote found at the bottom of some WP articles. In my opinion, the quotations inserted in WQ are often an important complement to the WP page, for example when WP talks about the thought of an author and WQ illustrates it with the author's own words. However, the link to WQ is located at the bottom of the WP page with other external links and I am sure that it goes unnoticed by the vast majority of readers who might be interested in such quotes. To remedy this lack of visibility, is one allowed to insert the link to WQ in one of the sections dealing with the author's thoughts? In the French WP it is tolerated. Regards,--Hamza Alaoui (talk) 14:53, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

In general, I think bottom of article is reasonable, since WQ is WP:USERG and shouldn't be given more "attention" than external links. I may be pessimistic, but I find it probable that a WQ entry could have serious cherry-picking problems from some sort of POV. I've never edited WQ, so I don't know how "good" it is. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:13, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Reverting a revert

The following scenario is frustratingly common: An editor changes the longstanding status quo with an edit. You revert the edit and encourage them to discuss on the talk page. They then revert that revert. There should be repercussions for this disregard of civil discussion through the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. I propose that the following becomes policy:

If a user's edit that changes the status quo is reverted, a revert of that revert will result in a talk page warning. A second revert of such a revert begets a 24 hour block.

This would not apply to an edit originally removing some gross violation of Wikipedia policy, such as a BLP vio. And, 3RR would still stand, as the 3 reverts do not necessarily have to be over the exact same issue. ~ HAL333 18:36, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support as nom It would encourage discussion and help stifle edit warring before it heats up. ~ HAL333 18:46, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Comment – let's clarify this because the wording is a bit confusing. User1 makes a WP:BOLD edit, User2 reverts to WP:STATUSQUO and encourages talk page discussion. User1 reinstates the edit, gets a talk page warning. User2 reverts it again to the STATUSQUO. User1 again reinstates the edit, gets blocked. Is that what you're proposing, HAL333? —El Millo (talk) 18:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Facu-el Millo, Yes. Sorry for any confusion. ~ HAL333 19:04, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support, no contested edit should be allowed to remain before the issue is settled just because of the editor's persistence. —El Millo (talk) 23:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. People aren't born with knowledge of how Wikipedia works. A warning for making the same edit twice? And a block on the second offense. Maybe they thought their edit didn't save. Or maybe they're really right and the "status quo" is wrong, but they don't yet know about WP:CITE, WP:V, WP:BRD, WP:OMGWTFBBQ, etc. Or they didn't see the warning. Or the first person to revert them was carelessly pushing buttons. Or they're an busy or elderly expert in their field, and just don't have the time or patience to learn our petty little rules. Or they're a kid, trying their best. A block on the second offense would be spectacularly heavy-handed. Give people time to learn how this place works.
  And, I'd like to see "status quo" defined in a way where all the tricky edge cases don't just work out to "version preferred by the editor with the higher edit count" in practice. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:53, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Suffusion of Yellow Valid point - we shouldn't bite the newcomers. How about three such warning templates for IP, new, and autoconfirmed editors and only one for those who are extended confirmed? ~ HAL333 04:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• Comment I think we would have to clearly define at what point something becomes WP:STATUSQUO. Is it WP:STATUSQUO after being in the article a day, a week, a month, a year, etc? Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 01:02, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

How about 15 days or anything present in an article after going through a GAN or FAC? It wouldn't be fair to give February and July equal treatment. ~ HAL333 04:13, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

• [ec] Comment, There is nothing special about status quo per se. Do not mistake it for consensus as a result of reasoned discussion and evidence. A lot of status quo is the consequence of no-one getting round to making an improvement yet. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 04:16, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose as currently expressed. Too vague, with loopholes for misuse. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 04:25, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. This needs to be added to WP:PERENNIAL. Making WP:BRD a guideline or policy instead of an essay has been proposed many times, and failed every time. If someone insists on engaging in editwarring, use WP:ANEW if it breaches WP:3RR. If it's more a long-term pattern of evading 3RR but editwarring a lot anyway, try WP:ANI as more likely to produce a restraint.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:14, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose BRD is worth trying to follow but it isn't always possible or even desirable. There are enough ways to deal with this situation already.Selfstudier (talk) 10:29, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. There are many situations where such a bright-line rule would lead to perverse outcomes, such as when a spelling mistake is corrected that nobody has noticed for years. Are we really saying that someone who reinstates a reverted correction should be warned and then blocked, even if the correction is obviously correct? As so often, this is an area where human judgement is needed rather than adherence to strict rules. Phil Bridger (talk) 10:33, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• I completely agree with the issue presented, but I can't agree with this implementation given concerns raised by Phil Bridger, among others. I agree we should use common sense more when it comes to edit warring. Elli (talk | contribs) 14:42, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Support in principle but oppose as currently written. "Do not repeat an edit without consensus" is what our rule should be (it would be an effective sitewide 1RR, which I would support, and is basically what is being proposed, but I quibble on the propose wording). Levivich 14:48, 7 June 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose There are several situations where a revert of a revert is perfectly acceptable – for instance, the outcome of a discussion being implemented and the original reverter being unaware of this outcome, or reverting a knee-jerk blind revert that was not done in good faith. The issue for me is more with 3RR giving an advantage to the editor going against the status quo. IMO this should be amended to allow an editor one free revert to restore the status quo. Number 57 15:10, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

I totally agree with you on 3RR. ~ HAL333 16:33, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Am I canvassing?

Hi, a user just made this comment.[1] Am I doing something wrong? I don't think I'm canvassing... I am exposing in this discussion[2] with a user encountered in an AE request, all the events that I consider unfair about another user. If so, I'll stop now. Thank you.--Mhorg (talk) 18:57, 6 June 2021 (UTC)