Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

"Get consensus" objections to text citing to Consensus policy

As a preliminary matter, I note that "get consensus" is not a valid objection to a bold edit on a policy page per wp:PGBOLD ("you should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there was no formal discussion indicating consensus for the change before it was made").

These two edits [1] [2] reverted the addition of the following text at wp:ONUS:

Compare WP:NOCON (lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit).

WP:NOCON is a policy page. Neither editor gave a substantive reason for their reversions. Is there one? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:02, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

I get the part about add rather than include, I agree they are not the same. For my edification, what is the purpose of the reverted addition? Selfstudier (talk) 17:16, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm not asking about add/include here (but will later). With regard to the WP:NOCON sentence, the purpose is to alert editors to another policy dealing the same issue. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

It waters down the policy here by excessively privileging pre-existing text. "Commonly results" is not the same thing as saying who has the burden of getting consensus to retain text. Material which is dubious is unlikely to gain consensus to include but may end up without consensus either way; such material should be left out. Changing the policy implies there must a consensus to exclude before it can go. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:30, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Do you genuinely believe that the current default for longstanding text, when discussions deadlock and fail to reach a consensus, is to remove it? I feel like we've been in several disputes where you supported longstanding text and restored it when there was clearly no affirmative consensus to retain it. If you're going to argue that ONUS requires affirmative consensus, is it all right for anyone to go around restoring disputed text without a clear consensus to support it? Or, I guess - my real point is, how do you see this working in practice? Let's say I remove some longstanding text in an article, and you feel that I'm whitewashing it by doing so. Is it all right for you to revert my removal without first establishing a consensus? If you do and I then start a discussion on talk that deadlocks and fails to produce a clear consensus for the disputed text, do you actually feel that we should go back and remove it again per your interpretation of ONUS? --Aquillion (talk) 18:46, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Do you genuinely believe that inappropriate text is required to remain at Wikipedia indefinitely just because someone failed to notice it for a long enough period of time? Are people allowed to stonewall discussions in bad faith just to retain their pet text which is otherwise inappropriate for Wikipedia? Why is there a time limit when we can't remove inappropriate text from Wikipedia? --Jayron32 18:55, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Because text that has stood for a long time on an article enjoys implicit consensus due to the number of people who have read it without removing it. Your proposed version (ie. the version with parts of the article removed) enjoys no consensus, and it is completely inappropriate to insist that it remain in place during extend discussions - nor has policy or practice ever supported that. --Aquillion (talk) 19:17, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Text that has stood for a long time on an article shows implicit ignorance that it has been a problem, as any number of people who may have (rightly) objected to the text when it was added didn't know it was there and if the text didn't belong, but should have been removed, it should not default that the person who added it gets "first mover" advantage in keeping text in an article so long as they pass some arbitrary time period with no one noticing it. --Jayron32 19:40, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I do think that (like I said below) we're not quite as in as much disagreement as might seem, since a lot of what you're saying focuses on "nobody noticing it" (ie. stuff that hasn't had many eyes on it, which would lack implicit consensus), whereas a lot of what I'm saying leans on implicit consensus (ie. the presumption that people have seen it and that the person who wants to remove it is just the first person to object to it.) I think any solution would do best to maybe hash out how WP:ONUS interacts with implicit consensus and what its contours are - though it's probably not something that can be nailed down with absolute precision, I think that "clearly nobody has seen this problem until now" is a valid argument for saying that something lacks implicit consensus and should therefore default to removal, whereas "clearly lots of people have read this text without objecting to it" is a valid argument that it enjoys implicit consensus and therefore requires affirmative consensus to remove. Part of the reason we disagree on what current practice is might also just be because we tend to edit different sorts of articles (ie. more established ones, controversial ones that have had a lot of attention, or even WP:GAs, where most of the text can be presumed to have implicit consensus; vs. newly-created ones or old but obscure ones that have very few edits and very few eyes on them, where it can't.) I do think that sometimes number-of-edits is a more useful measure of implicit consensus than just time-passed. --Aquillion (talk) 20:18, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

• I have reverted the addition of the corresponding text at WP:NOCON, largely per my arguments above; including it at only one policy and not the other gives the impression that ONUS trumps NOCON, which is not the case, and risks undermining NOCON in general. Beyond that I consider NOCON to be the better-worded and more well-supported policy (and the one that largely reflects actual practice), whereas the sloppy wording of ONUS with regards to what qualifies as consensus and what disputes it is meant to cover are what lead to the sorts of disputes we see here. I would strenuously oppose having NOCON point to ONUS in its current form. --Aquillion (talk) 21:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

  NOCON says (in hidden text) "This section summarizes existing policies and guidelines. It does not make any new rules. If this page and the more specific policy or guideline disagree, then this one should be changed to conform with the more specific page." It seems to me that in removing the sentence indicating that NOCON's summary might be incomplete ("Compare WP:ONUS (onus to achieve consensus is on those seeking to include disputed content)."), you kind of did the opposite of what NOCON says to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Conflict between ONUS and NOCON?

User:Crossroads, thank you for providing a substantive rationale for leaving the text out. Now I'm worried that the rationale you provide suggests WP:NOCON and WP:ONUS are in conflict. Is that the case? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:45, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I wondered about this myself in the past, the issue has been exhaustively discussed as I recall, including by yourself, Wikipedia talk:Consensus required ? Does anyone have a link to those discussions? Selfstudier (talk) 11:02, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Hey, if I don't remember discussing this in the past then it didn't happen (;-)). I look forward to you finding the prior discussion so we don't have to reinvent the wheel here. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:18, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

There's that link there I just gave, I will see if I can find the other discussion, there might have been, probably was, more than one. It comes up fairly often, I think. Ultimately, I think what people want to avoid is situations being wikilawyered so a fair amount of flexibility is built in to the policies at the same time as indicating what might constitute a problem.Selfstudier (talk) 15:24, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Consensus/Archive_21#NOCONSENSUS in article pages -- recent edits, and ONUS There's this one, I didn't read it all again, I see you there again, tho :) Selfstudier (talk) 18:52, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

A flexible policy is good until, that is, it directly conflicts with another policy. Do these two policies conflict? That's my question. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:49, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

• They are 100% not in conflict. WP:ONUS says that, when there is contentious material, leave it out of the article while discussion happens. WP:NOCON says that at the conclusion of the discussion, a "no consensus" result causes a return to status quo ante bellum. Which is to say that until the discussion concludes, we leave all contested material out. After discussion has concluded, then if there is no consensus, we return the article to whatever state it was in before the discussed changes were made. Notice two things 1) your initial edit changed "include" to "add". This is a BIG change, as it draws a distinction between newly added content, and content that had already been in the article, which WP:ONUS never had made such a distinction before you changed the text. 2) the text I put in italics notes key differences between ONUS and NOCON. Specifically, which you seem to miss, is that "during" is not a synonym for "after". --Jayron32 11:09, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Neither the word "during" nor the phrase "while discussion happens" appear in ONUS. Should we add text to make it clearer that ONUS only applies during discussion? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
  • That interpretation doesn't reflect current practice (excluding BLP-sensitive statements, which are a special case) - by that logic, I could remove any longstanding text from any existing article, argue about it on talk, refuse to accept any consensus, and start an RFC, at which point I could point to the RFC being in progress as an argument to continue excluding until it concludes (unless the RFC WP:SNOWed out or consensus was so glaringly against me as to be obvious.) The purpose of WP:NOCON is to ensure article stability; allowing people to remove longstanding text and then keep it out for as long as they can filibuster makes no sense and has never reflected any sort of practice or policy. --Aquillion (talk) 18:31, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
    • The phrase "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." Not add, and not remove, but "include", has been in the text of this page since at least 2017 (see this version), and in some form with slightly different wording since at least 2006 (see here [3], which states "Just because some information is verifiable, it doesn't mean that Wikipedia is the right place to publish it." which was later split out into WP:NOT, but was later returned to WP:V, as shown above. Also, we don't assume bad faith among fellow editors. If someone is abusing process, sanction the person. Good faith disagreements over content have always defaulted to "leave content out of articles", and has been codified here for at least 5 years, and at WP:NOT and other places for far longer. Bad faith behavior is dealt with through other processes, and not relevant to this discussion. There is no first-mover advantage. There's a consensus-having advantage, and while things are being negotiated, we talk it out. If a bad-faith actor is stonewalling consensus, deal with that elsewhere. But legitimately contentious material should be left out of articles unless there is consensus to include it. --Jayron32 18:53, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
      • Good faith disagreements over content have always defaulted to "leave content out of articles" This is flatly untrue. Disagreements currently - and have always - defaulted to leaving the longstanding version in place until consensus is achieved. This is necessary because a lack of consensus is a failure state, and failure states need resolve in a way that preserves article stability; outside of situations like WP:BLP, the longstanding version, which has had many editors view it and has had no objections until now, is safer and enjoys more consensus than an article where removals potentially leave it lopsided or incomplete, with no degree of consensus backing it up. And my point is not that the situation I described is an abuse of process - if someone feels strongly that text is wrong and needs to be removed, they're naturally going to be disinclined to accept consensus to include it unless it is glaringly indisputable, especially given that that consensus partially depends on the strength of people's arguments; and will naturally argue at length to exclude it, including starting an RFC. This will result in instability in longstanding articles, and versions ending up stuck in place for as long as a month on end despite being unequivocally disputed and never enjoying any sort of consensus (not even the implicit consensus that the longstanding version enjoys.) --Aquillion (talk) 19:16, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
    • User:Aquillion, are you saying there is a conflict between (a) NOCON and ONUS, (b) NOCON and Jayron's reading of ONUS, (c) both, or (d) neither? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:56, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

      I'm not Aquillion, but here's my answer: Yes, there's a conflict. No, it's not so obvious that any passing editor will notice it at a glance. No, the conflict doesn't affect most edits, as it is (in practice) only seen when someone tries to remove long-standing text and editors can't come to an agreement about what to do. (NB: "remove", "long-standing", and "no consensus either way" are required for the conflict to matter. If you don't have all three qualities, then there is no conflict between the policies.) However: Yes, it's a big enough conflict that some editors seem to selectively name the policy that aligns with the outcome they prefer and "accidentally" forget to mention the existence of the other policy.

      This has been discussed many times:

      Wikipedia talk:Consensus/Archive 21#NOCONSENSUS in article pages -- recent edits, and ONUS

      Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 162#RfC: Should we move WP:ONUS to WP:CONSENSUS?

      Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 68#WP:ONUS vs. WP:QUO

      Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 69#ONUS

      Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 70#ONUS: How to quickly fix it all

      Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 72#Silence and ONUS

      Fundamentally, if we are going to solve this, we have to decide whether the policy is – in the event that editors are unable to reach an agreement/consensus – either that we keep disputed long-standing text or that we remove disputed long-standing text. Right now, ONUS says that we remove disputed long-standing text unless editors agree to keep it, and NOCON says that we keep disputed long-standing text unless editors agree to remove it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

      I'm okay with such a discussion. I have been operating for years that there was no such conflict, but it is clear that there are different interpretations of the policy, and clearer language would help ameliorate that. I think it's important that such policy changes be based not on "bad faith" actors, but instead should reflect best practices of good faith editors acting in the best interest of the encyclopedia. Aquillion's scenarios are not helpful, as literally they can be retooled to imply that ANY policy is open to the abuse of bad-faith actors, (as I demonstrate above) and we should instead focus on best practices rather. --Jayron32 19:06, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

      • My point is not bad-faith actors (in fact, the fact that you characterize my description of the normal outcome of your proposed policy change as being "bad-faith" is a more severe indictment of your proposal than anything I could say about it.) My point is that, given that no-consensus outcomes are a failure state between people who feel strongly enough about their preferred version to result in an extended conflict, the default outcome of your proposed change would be disruptive and would result in a version with no consensus at all ending up on the article for an extended period of time over a version that enjoys implicit consensus - coupled with extended article instability, since any forceful objection to any longstanding text would require an immediate article change. --Aquillion (talk) 19:21, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

      • I sort-of mentioned this below, but I feel that the ideal solution is to incorporate the idea of implicit consensus more clearly into WP:ONUS. This basically reflects current practice and would answer most of the objections - it is presumed that when many editors have seen text without changing it, it enjoys a degree of consensus that requires affirmative consensus to remove, whereas low-traffic articles might not enjoy the same protection. (I also think that part of the reason these discussions go nowhere is because people are largely talking past each other in that respect - the people who side with WP:ONUS over WP:NOCON are picturing obscure overlooked bits of text saying something terrible, whereas the people who side with WP:NOCON are picturing longstanding text in a high-profile but controversial article, where someone removes a paragraph that has seen substantial editing and which has had a large number of eyes on it, then argues it should be kept out during discussions simply because it has never been discussed before.) At an absolute bare minimum, I would argue that the WP:GA version of any article automatically establishes at least a weak consensus for everything in it at the moment when it is promoted to GA - clearly removing and keeping something off of a GA requires affirmative consensus to do so. But this comes down to the more basic question that ONUS incorporates our concept of consensus, which is a bit nebulous by design. --Aquillion (talk) 19:10, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

      • My opinion is that they conflict to a degree, but that people have ignored the conflict by relying on the concept of implicit consensus to effectively render ONUS moot in most situations (which does answer some of Jayron's objections above, in the sense that text that has had few eyes on it lacks implicit consensus.) But clearly Jayron's suggestion does not reflect any sort of current practice - I've been editing for 18 years and the practice has always been to leave longstanding text in place during a dispute; people might sometimes WP:BOLDly remove it and sometimes it goes back and forth, but when it's clear the dispute isn't going to be resolved by editing the article is supposed to go back to the last stable version. Some people may disagree with that, or feel that that practice doesn't reflect ONUS, but the practice is 100% clear. In my 18 years here I've seen numerous disputes get stabilized by someone reverting to the last stable version while it has hashed out. I have never (not once) seen anyone follow Jayron's proposal to default to leaving disputed-but-longstanding text out outside of WP:BLP-sensitive statements, which are specifically called out as a special case in our policies. I have never even seen anyone suggest that it would be an appropriate way to approach a dispute outside of arguments on this talk page. When there's an intractable dispute on a stable, longstanding article (ie. one that has existed long enough to have a degree of implicit consensus), you go back to the last stable version until it is resolved - anyone who has edited controversial articles knows that this is current practice. --Aquillion (talk) 19:10, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

It looks like some discussed edits would be a major change, yet this this discussion is hard for anybody to understand or participate in. IMO any proposed change should be clearly specified here. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:08, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

The proposed change is on the backburner while we work on determining whether wp:ONUS and wp:NOCON are in conflict. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:15, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Nearly every editing decision also takes into account other variables. Including in defining / interpreting the terminology in the discussed provisions. How new is the proposed change/material? To what extent is it contested? Are other policy considerations being invoked in the conversation? (WP:Ver, WP:weight etc.) To what extent is the previous version "established"? This makes an explicit or precise "flow chart" guidance for those trillions of different possibilities impossible, so I'd advise against attempting that here. But these two policy provisions do provide influential guidance. IMO they do somewhat conflict/overlap, and persons here trying to "make it work" have been espousing seeing this through the lens of some some good views which eliminate/navigate the conflict but which are not policy. I think that the common meaning of "onus" is for new material, but it doesn't say that. Perhaps making that change would substantially reduce the overlap/conflict? North8000 (talk) 20:01, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

• I think that this raises some good points; and has things that I have not considered. I think this may be a good idea to start developing (not starting, but pre-writing) an RFC for clarification of the policy. I've always understood Wikipedia policy, per WP:ONUS, to be "It is better to be silent than wrong" however Aquillion's position, which is that longstanding text has implicit consensus, is also a reasonable interpretation (though I don't agree) of best practice, and I can see where those positions come into conflict. Perhaps it's time to start a new thread where we spend some time developing a neutral and concise RFC to bring to the community so we can see where consensus is on clarifying and harmonizing policy around this matter. --Jayron32 20:09, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  I should be clear (I mentioned this above, but I should mention it here too since it might be part of any resolution) that I don't think time-passed is the primary source of implicit consensus, just a usually-convenient shorthand. What really matters is how many editors have read the text without objecting to it. An article that has existed for ten years with only one or two editors probably doesn't enjoy implicit consensus for any of its text, whereas a high-traffic controversial article where everything is approached with a fine-toothed comb can probably be presumed to have it after just a few months. --Aquillion (talk) 20:22, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  @Aquillion, what I haven't yet understood from your comments is this:

  • Something gets added to an article.
  • Many, many page views/edits later, that something is still present, so we say that it has "implicit consensus".
  • Someone disputes the long-standing text.

  Does disputed text have implicit consensus? Or would it be more accurate to say that it used to have implicit consensus but now it is disputed?

  Imagine further that there are significant, substantive discussions about whether this content belongs in this article. The result is that editors' views are very evenly divided. There are good reasons to include it and good reasons to exclude it. What editors really agree on is that there is no consensus about what to do.

  When there is no consensus, is there also still an implicit consensus? It seems to me that these two states are mutually exclusive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  BLP-sensitive statements aside, text that is longstanding and which many editors have read without objecting to has implicit consensus even if someone disputes it - you'd need at least some form of consensus to overturn it, which just one person objecting doesn't qualify as. After all, if any objection was enough to overcome implicit consensus, it wouldn't have any meaning. When discussions break down, the older consensus remains in place - this is how it works in every other context, and WP:NOCON is very clear about how it works. --Aquillion (talk) 05:03, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

  Imagine this scenario:

  • Alice boldly adds something to an article.
  • Many, many page views/edits later, Bob boldly removes it.
  • Many, many page views/edits later, Carol objects to Bob's removal.

  How many times did we achieve implicit consensus? Which version counts as the "older consensus" if the discussion between Bob and Carol breaks down? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

  Or if its a small change that 100% of those discussing agree on, try just semi-boldly doing it? BTW, like usual, I'd advocate doing the homework 100% before putting out an RFC, and come up with something that we can get behind and make the case for. If we just put something this complex out too quickly, then we'd end up with 300,000 words and 10 additional proposals and no decision. North8000 (talk) 21:22, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  If I understood it correctly, which I never did all the other times, if we don't have all three of "remove", "long-standing", and "no consensus either way", then there is no conflict between the policies and when do have all three, the problem is selectively name the policy that aligns with the outcome they prefer and "accidentally" forget to mention the existence of the other policy. That right? Selfstudier (talk) 22:09, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  Almost?

  When we don't have all three of the relevant qualities ("remove", "long-standing", and "no consensus either way"), then we're going to quote you a different relevant page, e.g.:

  • "You're trying to re-word things, rather than remove them. I don't like your writing style, so STYLEVAR says to stop messing with my Wikipedia:Brilliant prose."
  • "This is brand-new text, so I can remove your contribution with near-impunity and tell you to follow BRD" (even though Wikipedia:What editors mean when they say you have to follow BRD isn't really what BRD is about).
  • "We have a CONSENSUS to do this."

  In the case of not having all three relevant qualities, it doesn't really matter which page we point at, because all of them end up in the same practical outcome (namely, revert everything unless and until there is a consensus otherwise).

  When we do have all three qualities, then we get divergent results:

  • "I don't like that long-standing content, so I'm removing it per ONUS. You have to prove to me that there is a consensus to keep this in the article, because Policy Says you have 'to achieve consensus for inclusion' before it can be included. If there's no consensus, the content stays out of the article."
  • "I love this long-standing content, so you can't remove it per NOCON and QUO. You have to prove to me that there is a consensus to remove this from the article, because Policy Says to 'retain the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit'. If there's no consensus, the content stays in the article."

  These two policies disagree on the proper outcome when all three of these qualities apply. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah I've definitely noticed this conflict before. I think I usually invoke ONUS rather than NOCON in those cases (and ONUS is definitely the way to go for BLPs). I personally think that if some content is controversial, we should not be saying it without a consensus, and would support changing NOCON to reflect this. Saying something in an article that is contentious (and thus possibly wrong/undue etc) is worse IMO than not saying anything. Galobtter (pingó mió) 23:30, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  I don't believe that ONUS and NOCON conflict, as I articulated previously in this comment. I tried to clarify the policies with an RFC two years ago, but I think that what I had proposed was misunderstood, so I did not get a clear understanding of community's feelings. Kolya Butternut (talk) 02:01, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

  I was trying to recall what I had said about this in a previous topic. Kolya Butternut helped out by linking to their post which was just under one of mine. I agree with WhatamIdoing's comment. Based on what we have now it's not clear to me if we should view the fact that something is long term stable as justification for keeping it in in the case of no consensus or removing per ONUS in such a case. Along the same lines how strong is implicit consensus? If 2 editors favor a change and 1 opposes is that a consensus for change or not (assuming reasonable arguments all around)

  Note even in highly trafficked articles questionable content/changes can be unnoticed. This is particulary likely if there is a debate about one part of the article and a change that looks minor is made to a part that wasn't being debated. It can also happen if a big, debated edit is made after lots of talk page back and forth. We shouldn't assume that editors have really scrutinized an older change simply because many other edits have been made since.

  Also note that ONUS only applies to new content (edits subject to WP:V), not other edits where a consensus related debate may apply. Examples that aren't subject to WP:V include the order of content in an article or what content should be in the lead vs just in the body.

  However, content that was added and not challenged at the time should still be subject to ONUS in my view. Thus any content that has never had explicit consensus established (talk page discussion, etc) would be subject to an ONUS based challenge. This would address questions like how long does content have to be in the article before we flip from NOCON=keep vs NOCON=remove. It also protects from a case where editors would have objected had they noticed (watched the article) when the change was first made rather than noticing it say 6 months later. If the page is well trafficked and no one talk about a change but editors support it, it should be reasonable to assume a talk page discussion will establish consensus after the fact. If it can't, the content probably shouldn't be included. Finally, since it was mentioned previously, I would keep long term content in the article during the consensus discussion. If some addition is being challenged a year later it isn't critical to remove it now vs at the end of the discussion if DUE-ONUS is the only concern. Springee (talk) 03:35, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

To me it's pretty simple if we understand one thing as a preface. Most editing decisions are made by weighing multiple factors. Most wp policies prima facie go against that by seeking to specify what should happen based on just one or two considerations, but then make themselves useful and workable in the Wikipedia world by softening themselves by adding wording that makes them non-categorical. The result is that they usually only put "fingers on the scale" in such decisions rather than unilaterally prescribing what should happen.

• Onus Depending on how one interprets its common meaning, wp:onus puts one or two fingers on the scale. One also exists in the world of common sense which is a finger towards exclusion of disputed material. The "probably" second finger is towards exclusion of new material. The context and common meaning of the relevant sentence in ONUS tilts towards applicability only on new material, but it does not explicitly say so in its relevant operative sentence.
• NOCON wp:Nocon puts a finger on the scale towards the status quo.

Sometimes these "fingers on the scale" are in opposite directions, but as long as one understands how wikipedia works, such is not a "conflict". Of course there are other "fingers" on the scale besides these policies. One is that we're here to add material and build an encyclopedia. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 10:27, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

WP:ONUS is part of WP: Verifiability, which is a content policy not a conduct policy. This discussed portion of WP:ONUS merely reiterates how WP: Consensus works. Kolya Butternut (talk) 13:12, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you that ONUS reiterates how consensus works in practice (albeit for a rather narrow set of circumstances). However, the (relatively new) NOCON section of Wikipedia:Consensus is too simple. It puts a finger on the scale towards the status quo (assuming editors can agree on what that was, which all experienced editors know is not always simple), and it doesn't do a good job of saying "Um, except for all the exceptions, which include adding disputed non-BLP material". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

• WP:Silence is weakest form of consensus, and to make matters worse for that argument, you have to consider that "silence" no longer enjoys the status of "implicit consensus" once a challenge has been issued, or an objection has been raised so the very fact it even goes to discussion at all will be enough to question it and take that status away unless fully supported for keeping. Huggums537 (talk) 03:47, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

List of possible meanings of the third sentence of ONUS

The discussion above makes it clear that there is no current consensus regarding the meaning of this sentence:

The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

Here I try to summarize the various meanings offered above. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

LIST OF POSSIBLE MEANINGS OF ONUS THIRD SENTENCE

Please add to the list if there are more possibilities. Please discuss this list at #Discussion of list of meanings of ONUS third sentence (below).

1. During discussion, disputed material may not be added. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
2. During discussion, disputed material may not be added or retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
3. During discussion, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
4. During discussion relating to verifiability, disputed material may not be added. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
5. During discussion relating to verifiability, disputed material may not be added or retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
6. During discussion relating to verifiability, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
7. Following discussion which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
8. Following discussion which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
9. Following discussion which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
10. Following discussion relating to verifiability which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
11. Following discussion relating to verifiability which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
12. Following discussion relating to verifiability which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:36, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
13. If you want to include something in an article, and anyone strongly objects, then it's your job to prove there is an active, positive agreement to include your material in that article. The people who want to remove your material do not have to prove that there is a consensus to remove the disputed material; they only have to establish (a) that they dispute the inclusion of the material (for any reason at all, including bad reasons) and (b) that you have not provided written evidence of an active, positive consensus to include your material. It is not enough for you to claim consensus without evidence; "presumed", "implicit", or "silent" consensus does not count for this provision of policy, and WP:STATUSQUO (which is only about what to do with an article during discussions about the dispute, and not about what to do after the discussion has ended) is irrelevant. (per WhatamIdoing, below at 02:21, 12 May 2022 (UTC)). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:52, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of list of meanings of ONUS third sentence

IMO none of the above. Those are all categorical and onus isn't categorical and, by the nature of how Wikipedia works, can't be. North8000 (talk) 17:52, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

User:North8000: Okay, if those aren't the meaning of the third sentence in ONUS, what is? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:15, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

I think what North8000 is saying is that ONUS is better understood as a rough guideline rather than a hard and fast rule. I do think that part of the problem is that people are trying to treat it as too categorical and giving it too much force. Our policies are usually looser, since that encourages discussion and consensus-building; some of the wording and interpretations of ONUS seem closer to the way WP:BLP works (and even BLP only has that degree of force for actually BLP-sensitive statements.) I don't think that that would help dispute resolution - we give BLP-sensitive statements that "always default to removal" force because of the specific risk of harm, it's not and has never been our general policy. More generally, we ideally resolve things through discussion and consensus-building, not through wrangling over legalese; making policies like ONUS too rigid goes against that. --Aquillion (talk) 18:12, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

During the last few (five?) years, I feel like the community (or at least the dramaboards parts of the community) has moved away from the kind of consensus building that involves compromise, common sense, and finding things we can all support, and towards wrangling over legalese. We have always had wikilawyers, and it's good to write policy to minimize the damage that a wikilawyer can cause by quoting policies and guidelines, but I think we have more people believing that citing WP:SHORTCUTS and demanding that their view be enacted in the article is the best, or even the only correct way to write good articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:45, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

+1.Selfstudier (talk) 11:12, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Right, the arguably loose language might occasionally lead to a discussion but consensus will still rule at the end of it. I guess what I am saying, is it really broken? User:Selfstudier (talk) 17:57, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

User:Selfstudier, I'm just asking what the "loose language" means. We can talk about whether it is broken or not later. Does the "loose language" incorporate any of the meanings above? Which one(s)? Does it also have additional meanings not listed? What are they? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:15, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

The problem with ONUS vs NOCON is what should happen when consensus cannot rule at the end, because consensus cannot be achieved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

• I get what you're saying, but sometimes consensus-building mechanisms break down - if people can reach a consensus then they don't need to rely on WP:ONUS or WP:NOCON. But we do need some sort of guideline for what state articles end up in when there's no clear consensus - and currently what happens is that we end up with situations where one person says "removing this, get consensus per WP:ONUS", then someone else restores it and says "no, you need consensus to remove it per WP:NOCON." That's not desirable. The guidelines do not have to be strict - in fact, they shouldn't be; honestly one problem with ONUS is that it is simultaneously vague about what it covers and incredibly stridently-worded. I feel that making the guidelines too strict in either direction discourages people from coming to the table and compromising, as opposed to just smacking each other with policy shortcuts. But at the very least the two shouldn't directly contradict each other. --Aquillion (talk) 21:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

  I agree strongly with this. The popularity of WP:BRD adds fuel to this fire, as removal of longstanding content is frequently seen as the B. I also want to echo Aquillion's point higher above that some reference to WP:IMPLICIT is needed. Doing so will lead to more status quo bias in the policy, which I'd prefer over bias toward exclusion of content. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 00:44, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

  I believe a common POV among experienced editors is, in Jimmy's words, "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information". I assume that you mean that you'd rather err on the side of including, e.g., accurate trivia and well-sourced but overly detailed facts, but you still want all serious problems removed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

  You're reading me mostly correctly. We're talking, after all, about material that's already cleared the bar of verifiability. Technically, adding or acknowledging a little status quo bias in ONUS wouldn't lead us to only err on the side of inclusion, as I'd equally support continued removal of content that was removed and kept out over many months/revisions. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:44, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

About B's dozen sentences: I don't think that we should prescribe the state of the article under which discussions happen. Sometimes you should discuss with m:The Wrong Version showing, and sometimes you should discuss with The Right Version, but it depends on circumstances, the nature of the problem, the real-world importance of the problem, whether editors are willing to discuss (sometimes, removing their contribution is the only way to motivate them to join the discussion), and (of course) the fact that you don't actually know, until the end of the discussion(s), which version is The Right Version. ONUS does not specify that the state of the article during discussions is critical, and caring too much about the state of the article during discussions is a bad practice in general; therefore, I conclude that it should not be interpreted to apply strictly in such cases. Therefore, I reject 1 through 6 as being focused on the wrong point in the process.

I think that sentence 8 is closest to my understanding of ONUS. The reason that I reject the others are:

• 7 is a subset of 8; it is true but is too narrow. Focusing only on additions puts us back in the realm of bad practices of edit warring to have The Right Version in the article while the discussion happens. If I get my version, then ONUS would have no effect, because I wouldn't be "adding" it after failing to achieve consensus. I'd only be "retaining" it. This would promote edit warring. Version 10 has the same problem.
• Material that is currently disputed no longer has implicit consensus. IMPLICITCONSENSUS says An edit has presumed consensus unless it is disputed or reverted. As soon as the dispute arises, the material no longer has any sort presumed/implicit consensus. Therefore 9 and 12 are wrong.
• ONUS does not require that the dispute be related to sourcing. Therefore 10, 11, and 12 are wrong.

That leaves only option 8. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:40, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Which is what happens in practice, no-consensus consensus if you like. But then someone will start an RFC:) Selfstudier (talk) 00:48, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

If someone starts an RFC, then we're still in the "during discussion" phase. :-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

The current question is not what the third sentence of ONUS should say, but what it currently says. Are you saying that (a) 8 is what it currently says? If not, (b) is its current meaning in the list? If not, (3) what additional meaning should we add to the list to make it complete? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:54, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

What it currently says is "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content", which is so obvious that I don't believe that's what you meant to ask. I assume that you meant to ask what that means.

If you feel that my response is too focused on what the policy should mean, then I could perhaps translate the current sentence's meaning in this more practical way: "If you want to include something in an article, and anyone strongly objects, then it's your job to prove there is an active, positive agreement to include your material in that article. The people who want to remove your material do not have to prove that there is a consensus to remove the disputed material; they only have to establish (a) that they dispute the inclusion of the material (for any reason at all, including bad reasons) and (b) that you have not provided written evidence of an active, positive consensus to include your material. It is not enough for you to claim consensus without evidence; "presumed", "implicit", or "silent" consensus does not count for this provision of policy, and WP:STATUSQUO (which is only about what to do with an article during discussions about the dispute, and not about what to do after the discussion has ended) is irrelevant."

Is that helpful? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:21, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, may I add the text in quotes to the #List of possible meanings of the third sentence of ONUS? (Or, better still, will you add it?) - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:16, 12 May 2022 (UTC) @WhatamIdoing: please reply. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:44, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it will help, but I don't object. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree, WAID, that the article state during discussion is overemphasized. At least, I agree academically, as I do sometimes feel very invested in which version is up. Since that overemphasis is a frequent cause of edit warring, I think the policy needs to address the reality. Clearer policy here can lead to less edit wars.

In practice, ONUS only comes up before and during talk page discussion, not after a discussion's consensus is evaluated. Mostly NOCON seems to come up at the end. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 00:56, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

About the academic agreement: Sometimes the Wrong Version is very, very wrong indeed, and I expect the discussions to last for weeks, or even months. It can be hard to focus in those situations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

• I also think 8 is the correct meaning, and the ideal meaning.
• It was noted above that the dispute here over ONUS vs. NOCON probably arises in large part from different editors picturing different scenarios. So I will explain why I support ONUS, and why I believe the opposing scenario meant to favor NOCON is not actually a problem under ONUS. This is a scenario I've seen evidence of firsthand multiple times.
• So, imagine an inexperienced editor inserts text on an article. This text contains sources, but the content is actually FRINGE or OR. The article it is inserted on has moderately-low or lower traffic and is on a complex topic. The text is just convincing enough that while some other editors do see it in passing, they are not familiar enough with the topic to notice the problems with it. It sticks around for years, with other edits occurring to other parts of the article and it seemingly thus gains implicit consensus. However, eventually, another editor figures out it is really bad text and deletes it with a mean red -4,000 or whatever in the edit history. Reversion and discussion ensues, but there's only one other editor in it, and they support the text because it looks superficially convincing or for POV reasons (maybe it was the original adder). Perhaps the remover knows the topic but not Wikipedia bureaucracy and detailed policy and thinks there is nothing left to do but give up. Which side should policy support?
• The editors who favor NOCON and the status quo seem to often have in mind scenarios where at a high-traffic but socially controversial topic, someone removes text and then games the system to keep it out. However, ONUS as written does not contribute to this problem - at such an article it is very easy to establish a quick consensus that supports the material; indeed one possibly already existed on the talk page.
• Right now ONUS basically says 'if content doesn't have consensus, it doesn't stay', which is better than 'it has to stay unless we get a consensus to remove it'. In cases where there is not a consensus for material, it should stay out, lest the encyclopedia accumulate garbage. We should not privilege material just for happening to lack scrutiny and sticking around for a while. Think about how huge the encyclopedia is and how little-scrutinized most of it is. Most passing editors are not too familiar with a topic and are biased toward letting through (or not bothering with) something that looks superficially okay.
• All this was a central concern at this aforementioned RfC, which was closed with this statement: There is an overwhelming consensus against this proposed change, primarily due to concerns that it would undermine verifiability and efforts to remove poorly sourced information. I supported this clarification (or something along those lines) of NOCON. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:11, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure I understand these concerns when we have WP:BURDEN. Kolya Butternut (talk) 05:33, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

  Read the footnote in BURDEN: "Once an editor has provided any source they believe, in good faith, to be sufficient, then any editor who later removes the material must articulate specific problems that would justify its exclusion from Wikipedia (e.g. why the source is unreliable; the source does not support the claim; undue emphasis; unencyclopedic content; etc.). If necessary, all editors are then expected to help achieve consensus, and any problems with the text or sourcing should be fixed before the material is added back."

  In other words, BURDEN generally does not apply to (plausibly) sourced content. Generally, under BURDEN, editors are only required to provide one source. Requiring editors to provide an unlimited number of sources until an POV pusher agrees would create its own set of problems ("Sure, you gave me sources from the Pope, the Queen of England, and Albert Einstein to support this statement, but I reject them all as being completely unreliable. Bring me another rock – or don't, because I will never agree that any source is reliable unless the source supports my POV.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:08, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

  • Crossroads, apologies for bringing up previous disputes; my point here isn't to go into them in-depth here but to try and get an understanding of what you feel WP:ONUS means and how, under your reading, it would actually affect the sorts of disputes we run into every day. We've previously had disputes on, among other articles, Mermaids (charity), Gina Carano, and Heterodox Academy where I removed longstanding text from articles that I don't think had previously obtained a consensus; you restored it, and discussion on the talk page broke down without producing a clear consensus to include. In each case, my understanding is that the text remained merely because it is longstanding - in the last case I eventually had to go through an RFC to remove it. Is it your assertion that in each of those cases the text should be removed, or at least that the onus is on you to demonstrate consensus if you want it to stay (and that an inconclusive discussion that breaks down roughly evenly means they get removed absent a formal RFC to keep them?) eg. do you feel that the Heterodox Academy text should have been removed, and that the onus was on you, and not me, if you wanted to restore it, once it was clear it was disputed and there was no prior consensus? Again, my point isn't to rehash those issues here; I want to understand how you think this would work in practice, what you feel qualifies as a consensus necessary to retain text, and so on, and to make it clear what I think is the implications of pushing for option 8 with no concession towards implicit consensus. Because I want to make sure we're on the same page in terms of what the implications here are - the next time I remove something because I feel it's undue, and you object because you feel it's due, how do you feel WP:ONUS will apply to that? (If you feel implicit consensus applies in all of those situations, that's fine, but that's 3 and not 8, so I want to be certain where the dispute here is.) --Aquillion (talk) 17:38, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I would agree that option 8 is correct. I wouldn't agree that WP:NOCON contradicts it. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:09, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I think option 8 doesn't account for situations such as when material has been in an article for years and it is just being disputed by one person. Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:01, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

If the material is truly disputed by just one person, then it should be possible to find one or two other editors who support its inclusion. In that case, we'd be able to form something like a consensus to retain the material, and ONUS wouldn't really apply. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Only one person did the original bold insertion. The policy doesn't say it will self-destruct after a deadline and adding a deadline would give a first mover advantage based on a vague ("years" or "longstanding") assertion which could trump multiple opponents afterward. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:19, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Since all are categorical, none of them account for other factors relevant to the outcome. North8000 (talk) 17:56, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

My issue is that I think that the applicability of implicit consensus is the main factor in the dispute. Removing the concept of implicit consensus (or making it so ONUS overrides it, which amounts to the same thing) would have fairly drastic implications to how we resolve disputes. --Aquillion (talk) 18:07, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I feel like WP:Consensus simply means, in part: The onus to achieve consensus for changes to consensus content is on those seeking the change. The third sentence of WP:ONUS is just part of this. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:13, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

My note is mostly structural and two steps. For example, if Mary says "I generally like big dogs", first what she really means is that when deciding whether or not she likes a particular dog or breed, that bigness is a plus. Maybe outweighed by that particular dog being vicious and having bit her kid on the face yesterday. So if we come up with very specific "meaning" ideas like "Mary likes all big dogs" or "Mary likes all dogs over 90 lbs" or "Mary likes all dogs over 80 lbs", through their specificity and explicitness we are inventing things that Mary never said. North8000 (talk) 19:33, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

In short, such efforts are in effect proposing a new revised version / meaning, not discerning a meaning of the current one. North8000 (talk) 23:14, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

User:North8000, speaking of which, I ask again (see 20:15, 11 May 2022, above), what do you think is the meaning of the current one? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:22, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

A sincere answer is that the meaning is "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content" applied and interpreted in the context of the preceding sentence, it's section header and how the Wikipedia system operates. If you would like me to attempt en explanation on that, the specific-simple-special-case version would be: If all other factors are neutral, inclusion of new disputed material requires a consensus. A more general case attempted explanation would be that in decisions on inclusion/exclusion of disputed content, apply an extra finger on the scale towards exclusion, and doubly so if it for new material. And in that context that a consensus puts a heavier finger on the scale than any of those. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:21, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Trying to put your general case in the simplified format I get: "If all other factors are neutral, the addition or retention of disputed material requires a consensus." Is that how you read the third sentence of ONUS? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 02:22, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

I understand your desire to get to the bottom of it, I still say the same, it's all worded so as to permit flexibility in edge cases and where it will never be entirely clear what the outcome might be. It is I suppose possible that nocon is an outcome (after endless discussions), most of the time consensus will sort it out. Like here, if this is really a concern, save some time and just go for the RFC. Selfstudier (talk) 10:39, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

User:Selfstudier: Just curious, what do you think the core principal is - what would the clear outcome be when you're not in an edge case? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:35, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow: You accurately restated the core principle in another post whcih you pinged me on. Regarding your second question, that can't be answered here....that would be determined by the Wikipedia system, and this merely specifies an input to it. North8000 (talk) 22:02, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Butwhatdoiknow, that would not be a statement of my "general case" explanation, but would be special case version of it as applied to that particular situation. But such an example is useful for illustrating the underlying concept. North8000 (talk) 13:51, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

User:North8000: And the core concept is "in decisions on inclusion/exclusion of disputed content, apply an extra finger on the scale towards exclusion, and doubly so if it for new material. And in that context that a consensus puts a heavier finger on the scale than any of those," do I have that right? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:42, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

I would agree with that in principle, I wouldn't like to try and codify that, tho. My inclination is still that it ain't really broke and it's more like we are trying to find ways to break it. Selfstudier (talk) 21:52, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Selfstudier, at this point I'm not trying to codify anything, I'm just trying to understand what the community thinks is the meaning of the current, "unbroken" third sentence of ONUS. Do you think the text I quoted from North8000 is the meaning of that sentence? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:28, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier, it is broken, because we get divergent results, as described above. Aligned policies lead everyone in the same direction, including people who don't know all the policies; broken policies let me cite the SHORTCUT that supports my POV, and if you didn't know that another policy says the opposite – well, too bad for you, because I'll win our dispute. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Until another editor shows up who knows better? It's not supposed to be a contest anyway tho I agree it can be sometimes. Selfstudier (talk) 10:46, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow: Exactly. Actually the first sentence is from wp:onus, the second sentence comes from how Wikipedia operates, but is good and needed explanation/clarification/information. North8000 (talk) 21:56, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

North8000, focusing just on the third sentence in ONUS, the core concept is "in decisions on inclusion/exclusion of disputed content, apply an extra finger on the scale towards exclusion, and doubly so if it for new material," right? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:28, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

I think 7 or 9 is the closest to my interpretation. Basically, if you add something and someone reverts you relatively soon afterwards, then the text stays out unless you can get consensus. If you remove longstanding text and are reverted, then the text stays in unless 1) you can get consensus or 2) there is no consensus and retaining the text carries unusually high risk (e.g. negative BLP material). -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 05:03, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

@King of Hearts, when you read "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content", do you really hear "If the disputed text has been there a long time, then the onus to achieve consensus is on those seeking to exclude the disputed content"? Or are you saying that's not what the text says, but that's what it ought to say/what the current practice is? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:43, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, because that this the only interpretation which is consistent with WP:NOCON. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 07:30, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Beware of implicit consensus as policy

I would like to caution against giving implicit consensus too much weight as policy, as the conversation seems to be heading in that direction. While WP:NOCON acknowledges that we often maintain the previous version in the absence of consensus, it does not actually recommend that course of action as the desired result; and I'd be wary of encoding it as the preferred outcome by policy. There is the risk that it will encourage editors to revert articles back to the status quo ante version, using "there's implicit consensus" as the only reason for the revert; which is far from a good guideline of desired behavior. As WhatamIdoing recalled above, implicit consensus disappears as soon as someone challenges it.

At the very least, any clarification to ONUS and NOCON should warn editors to provide, each time, a summary of the arguments on which consensus was achieved. Even if the outcome is the same of retaining the original version, at least the editor challenging the content will have a basis on which to work to improve the article on top of that consensus, maybe looking for ways to get their desired outcome without contradicting those arguments; instead of the alternative of being stonewalled by a flood of camped editors undoing all attempts at improvement on the only basis of "revert to previous consensus per WP:NOCON" with the force of policy. Wikipedia already has a bad reputation of veteran editors behaving that way; let's not encode in policy that undesired behavior, and instead guide editors to avoid it by explaining the most constructive way to protect a challenged article. Diego (talk) 07:46, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

The types of "clarifications" described above would have huge impacts and would require consensus in a widely advertised RFC. Maybe not for a low impact tweak. North8000 (talk) 13:27, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I, also, find the concept of "implicit consensus" to be problematic. Either we've had the discussion, and the consensus is taken from that discussion, or we haven't, and the status of consensus on any matter is merely "unknown". It doesn't become more known as time passes. This isn't always a problem; if something isn't contentious, the matter never comes up. But as soon as something DOES become contentious, an actual taking of consensus needs to occur. It isn't sufficient to say "no one objected until now..." as though that's somehow consensus. Once a good-faith reasonable challenge has been made, we need to assess the situation more closely. "No one objected until now" is only sufficient until someone objects. --Jayron32 14:42, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Jayron32. Most of our articles are thinly edited. We shouldn't codify any language that suggests the standing text has consensus merely because it's aged. For text that's been discussed or in articles that are frequently edited by many editors, implicit consensus has a valid basis, but consensus can change, new sources can become available, due weight can change, and we should not be publishing guidelines that may be misinterpreted in such a way that they hinder article improvement. SPECIFICO talk 15:42, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

@Jayron32, I wonder whether your last sentence could be usefully used to improve Wikipedia:Silence and consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The operative part of that essay is already in the first sentence. People seem to think that there's some kind of hidden time limit at which time Wikipedia articles become written in stone, but that essay already makes clear that consensus exists "until disagreement becomes evident". As soon as someone removes some text from an article (excepting obvious vandalism, etc.), it is evident they disagree. Unless there has already been a discussion about that text, the text is now no longer in consensus. --Jayron32 11:06, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

@North8000 Well yeah that's the thing, I don't believe you can solve this issue with a "low impact tweak" to the guidelines, that's why I'm raising the warning in this section. I agree if we are to include such clarifications it should be widely publicized, gathering feedback from the community at large. Diego (talk) 16:56, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. It might be possible to describe a best practice without insisting that it be followed every time. For example, "If someone cites this section, it may be helpful if you briefly outline your thoughts on the talk page. For example, you might post links to recent discussions about this matter on the talk page, which could help others understand why you believe there is support for including (or excluding) the material." WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:49, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that would be a good course of action, in line with what I was suggesting. Though I'm afraid it also has the potential to require wide, well publicized consensus as North8000 said. Diego (talk) 20:59, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Fixing this

One thing abundantly clear from the above discussion is that our policies ONUS and NOCON are not clear, open to multiple reasonable interpretations. What say we focus on clarifying them: let's talk about what they should say, and then draft an RFC to change them? Levivich 20:49, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

I fear that jumping to "what should we do about ONUS and NOCON" is likely to result in "no consensus." End result: the existing text stays and there is no improvement.

It seems to me that the first issue is that ONUS is ambiguous. My plan: (a) collect all the possible meanings of the current ONUS text (we've pretty much done that), (2) do a survey regarding which meaning is correct for the current text and see whether we can, at least, have a majority view regarding what the current ONUS text says. (3) Revise ONUS to more clearly say what the majority of folks says it means. And then, finally, (4) work on resolving any conflict between ONUS and NOCON.

How does that sound to you? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:26, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow: I'm certainly not opposed to your plan--hey, give it a shot--but I think you'll find that the answer to #2 is no, w don't have a majority view regarding the current ONUS text, and if we did have one, we wouldn't be having the problems with ONUS as we have now. So I don't think we're ever going to get to #3 (to "say what the majority of folks says it means"). I think the discussion above between Jayron and Aquillion was a rather perfect "microcosm" of the two leading views I've seen "in the wild" in editing discussions, and that's what we'd see on a larger scale if we had an RFC about the current meaning of ONUS. But of course I could be wrong... give it a shot. Levivich 03:27, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

...and I personally wouldn't focus on the conflict between ONUS and NOCON. I think that's not the best place to focus. I think the current "system" as written is not particularly helpful to us editors by and large, and so trying to "tweak" the current system won't lead to meaningful improvement (or even to consensus for any tweaks). I think, instead, it's better to focus on the goals or issues that ONUS and NOCON seek to address, which, namely, are about CONSENSUS, SILENCE, BOLD, BRD, and things like that. In other words, I think it'd more productive, instead of talking about the meaning of the current language, or conflicts between the current language, to talk about things like: when should/shouldn't an editor revert? When should/shouldn't "longstanding content" be considered (and what does "longstanding" mean)? What sort of consensus do we need to add something to an article, remove it, or change it? These are the sorts of questions that I think, if the community could answer them, would lead us to the best language for ONUS, NOCON, and other policy pages. Levivich 03:31, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I'll give (2) a try when I get a moment (busy times for me in the real world). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 06:07, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

The meaning of the CURRENT text at ONUS (introduction)

The third sentence of wp:ONUS reads:

The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

For the survey below, please select from the meanings of that sentence identified in the discussion above:

LIST OF POSSIBLE MEANINGS OF ONUS THIRD SENTENCE

1. During discussion, disputed material may not be added.
2. During discussion, disputed material may not be added or retained.
3. During discussion, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained.
4. During discussion relating to verifiability, disputed material may not be added.
5. During discussion relating to verifiability, disputed material may not be added or retained.
6. During discussion relating to verifiability, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained.
7. Following discussion which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added.
8. Following discussion which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or retained.
9. Following discussion which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained.
10. Following discussion relating to verifiability which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added.
11. Following discussion relating to verifiability which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or retained.
12. Following discussion relating to verifiability which results in no consensus, disputed material may not be added or, unless it has (or had) implicit consensus, retained.
13. If you want to include something in an article, and anyone strongly objects, then it's your job to prove there is an active, positive agreement to include your material in that article. The people who want to remove your material do not have to prove that there is a consensus to remove the disputed material; they only have to establish (a) that they dispute the inclusion of the material (for any reason at all, including bad reasons) and (b) that you have not provided written evidence of an active, positive consensus to include your material. It is not enough for you to claim consensus without evidence; "presumed", "implicit", or "silent" consensus does not count for this provision of policy, and WP:STATUSQUO (which is only about what to do with an article during discussions about the dispute, and not about what to do after the discussion has ended) is irrelevant.
14. A combination of the above (please identify).
15. None of the above (please provide the alternative current meaning of the sentence).

- Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

The meaning of the CURRENT text at ONUS (survey)

From the list above, please select one or more meanings of the current third sentence OF wp:ONUS as written: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content". - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• 14 (2 & 8). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:36, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
• 13 comes closest to the original intent. Blueboar (talk) 22:44, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

• 

  This means you!

  13 (which is not very different in substance from 8, although I think it is much clearer about the "this means you" aspect). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:15, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
• 14 by way of and 8 and 2; more specifically, the most important thing is what the result of a discussion is, so 8 is the primary meaning, with 2 as a secondary meaning. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:15, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
• 13. Selfstudier (talk) 12:47, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
• 15. Per my comments below, these are all far too categorical to accurately summarize the existing text; and the argument that a discussion ending in no-consensus results in omission reflects current practice is just obviously false, as anyone who has participated in that process is well aware. WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS, meanwhile, is policy and is therefore incorporated into this policy's meaning. I also want to register my specific objection to the non-neutral wording of 13, which I feel is clearly prejudicial - it is totally inappropriate to devote several times the text to one option, invoking other policies to justify its position and so on. This "simple explanation" of ONUS is several times the length of the sentence it supposedly summarizes. --Aquillion (talk) 21:23, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
• 15. I think the text speaks adequately for itself. I don't think that attempting to further clarify the current wording is likely to be constructive. -- Visviva (talk) 21:28, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
• 13 - it's pretty obvious. Atsme 💬 📧 19:12, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
• 13 though I get the concern that the others are summary statements while 13 is a more detailed statement. Regardless, 13 is how I would view ONUS. Springee (talk) 12:00, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
• 13 is how I've always interpreted it and how I believe it should be interpreted. valereee (talk) 17:22, 30 June 2022 (UTC) For those who are concerned about 13 being a non-neutral statement, 8+2 says the same thing IMO.
• 15, per Aquillion. IMPLICITCONSENSUS must be considered. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:00, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
• 15. I have real problems with 13 which I will expand upon below — PBS (talk) 17:20, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
• 13. I think this is the correct interpretation. WP:SILENCE and "implict consensus" for articles that are infrequently edited or the topic has not been discussed on the relevant talkpage is has no real meaning. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:22, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

The meaning of the CURRENT text at ONUS (discussion)

Discussion of issues raised at #The meaning of the CURRENT text at ONUS (survey), above.

User:Blueboar thank you for adding to the survey. However, the question is not the original intent. It is the meaning of the current text as written. Do you think 13 best matches the current text? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:10, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. Blueboar (talk) 12:20, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• 13 is just a long-winded way of saying 8 while preempting all the excuses people give for pretending that ONUS doesn't apply when the disputed content is something they want in the article. It is IMO "the meaning of the current text as written", just in a far more verbose and tetchy style. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• I would like to know how the "original intent" was worded, where can I find that? Selfstudier (talk) 09:43, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

In the archives… what eventually grew into ONUS was discussed in January and early February of 2013… and the initial language was added on 11 Feb, 2013 (by me). Blueboar (talk) 11:40, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you, bit of history is always good (and WP:PAGEDECIDE which I have never really paid that much attention to before). Selfstudier (talk) 12:17, 4 June 2022 (UTC)
• The original language does not appear to say anything about onus (what happens when there is no consensus regarding "whether specific information is irrelevant or trivial to the topic") or the process elaborated at 13. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:03, 5 June 2022 (UTC) @Blueboar: please reply. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

• I don't believe the just-added text, "if a discussion results in no consensus then the disputed material may not be added or retained," is appropriate in a policy that many Wikipedians treat as having the force of law. (Nor can the tiny number of responses above be taken seriously as representing any sort of project-wide consensus.) Taken literally (which people will), this new language goes far beyond a mere burden of persuasion and effectively gives a formal heckler's veto to any motivated group of bad-faith actors. Of which we have many. (I am thinking particularly of the nationalists that occasionally swarm an article they don't like, but there are plenty of other examples.) They wouldn't even have to put in the work of edit-warring! More generally, WP:V should not be in the business of specifying page-level dispute resolution practices. I haven't responded to the survey above because I see no overwhelming need for exegesis here. Sometimes ambiguous policies are ambiguous for a reason. -- Visviva (talk) 06:07, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with Visviva. It certainly should not have done until the discussion was closed. From my experience, Visviva accurately describes what would happen if the new wording is included. I'm reverting it. Doug Weller talk 07:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with Doug Weller said and go far beyond that. Adding such a disastrously prescriptive and categorical statement to this high impact core area of a core policy would be just that and require much more that just interpreting it out of this general local discussion.North8000 (talk) 13:48, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

• More generally, WP:V should not be in the business of specifying page-level dispute resolution practices. I haven't responded to the survey above because I see no overwhelming need for exegesis here. Sometimes ambiguous policies are ambiguous for a reason. This is an interesting statement (and one that seems to be excluded by even the exhaustive list of options above, which presumes that WP:ONUS should be categorical in some form.) Do you think it should be added to the RFC - something that makes it clear that ONUS is advisory or intentionally ambiguous and does not impose hard requirements? The fact that large numbers of people have contributed to the discussion without weighing in there suggests that there is a flaw or an omitted middle somewhere in it. --Aquillion (talk) 21:07, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  I think at least a "no additions are needed"/"the current text speaks for itself" option would probably be a good thing. Beyond that I'm not sure adding more options would be helpful give how many are already there. -- Visviva (talk) 21:21, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Visviva, we've had multiple long discussions about this. How many thousands of words do we need to spend discussing how confused certain editors are before you would agree that the current form isn't working for the editors who claim that they're confused by it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:07, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  FWIW, I am 100% in favor of removing the text entirely, as it already does more harm than good. I hadn't realized that option was on the table. I am skeptical that a consensus could be achieved for that either, however; many editors are likely very attached to their personal understandings of the policy. -- Visviva (talk) 18:59, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• I want to raise a particular objection to how this list provides a detailed rationale and explanation for 13 while all the other options are brief, terse sentences - that is obviously not a neutral way to word an RFC. Finally, every point where WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS is mentioned raises WP:CONLOCAL issues in that declaring that implicit consensus has no applicability here would effectively moot it as a concept, which isn't something that can be done by a relatively small number of people on an unrelated talk page. The argument made in 13 in particular makes it clear that people are interpreting this as not being related to or confined to WP:V-related manners. In that case, why is it on this page, and why are we discussing it here? Policy set on WP:V cannot override WP:CONSENSUS, which establishes implicit consensus, without a truly broad and overwhelming consensus itself, but the fact that by interpretation 13 this has nothing to do with verifiability makes it even more confusing. --Aquillion (talk) 21:24, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

  So we need the policy to explain that it must not be interpreted as 14(2<->8) or 13. I knew there was a reason I didn't understand it all the other times:) Selfstudier (talk) 21:29, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what to say to that because, as I've said, I've almost never encountered anyone actually attempting to use anything that I would describe as remotely compatible with 13 or the 2 + 8 in actual discussions where text has implicit consensus. I would like to drill down into what the people who support those actually mean, ie. what they think discussions should look like when governed by this, because I feel like there's a fundamental disconnect. I posted a big question to Crossroads in that regard above (since he's the one who I've had the most past disputes with where I feel that this change in practice would drastically alter the outcome) but didn't get a response... which is fair enough because I can understand not wanting to rehash past disputes. But if the result of what people are pushing for here is "no-consensus RFCs default to removal; if someone challenges any inclusion, it must be immediately removed and stay out until / unless you can point to an unambiguous consensus to include, either via a near-unanimous / overwhelmingly lopsided discussion on talk or a closed RFC", then that would break a lot of our existing consensus-building mechanisms and would result in any controversial article either being much, much shorter and more empty, or an absolutely massive wave of RFCs for anything that is seriously disputed. It would be one thing for people to propose this as a change - I'd think it's a bad suggestion, but I'd at least understand what you're suggesting. For people to say they believe that this is how things work currently, though, is, to me, extremely worrisome because it suggests that there's still no real understanding of what such a seismic change would mean in practice (and from the comments above regarding the specific proposed change I'm not the only one who shares that worry). --Aquillion (talk) 21:41, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Also, the other possibility, I guess, is that if the people who push for interpretations 13 or 2 + 8 actually believe that that reflects both the current practice and is what the current text means, then I guess to a certain extent the disagreement is illusionary because don't have to do anything; we can continue to default to the status quo or using implicit consensus to the extent that we currently do and nothing will actually change beyond occasional argument. But that doesn't seem to me to be possible because 13 or 2 + 8 so directly contradict that current practice - I can go over more examples of past disputes I've been involved in, maybe, and the people who push for those interpretations can say how they think those disputes should have gone, or ought to be going? --Aquillion (talk) 21:47, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't know why you keep bringing me up, and I don't think disputes with me are of any particular relevance. In my experience, text found not to have a consensus ends up deleted, even without an RfC. As has been said previously, IMPLICITCONSENSUS goes away once a good-faith objection appears. Often it will be easy to re-establish a stronger consensus, and "near-unanimous" discussions are not needed to establish consensus. If they were, I'd turn the question around - why would we allow content to stay even if a majority - though not "overwhelmingly lopsided" - said it should go? Also as said earlier, we need to beware of making it too difficult to remove old, bad material that went unnoticed. As other editors stated: If the material is truly disputed by just one person, then it should be possible to find one or two other editors who support its inclusion. In that case, we'd be able to form something like a consensus to retain the material, and ONUS wouldn't really apply. And: Only one person did the original bold insertion. The policy doesn't say it will self-destruct after a deadline and adding a deadline would give a first mover advantage based on a vague ("years" or "longstanding") assertion which could trump multiple opponents afterward. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:58, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

I spelled it out above, but in our past disputes on eg. Mermaids (charity) - I definitely think there has never been a clear consensus for the Training section. Do you believe it actually had explicit consensus? And, in your view, how would that be resolved, if I insisted otherwise? Would it require an RFC, and would it default to removal if that RFC reached no consensus? If you agree it lacked explicit consensus, what do you think the people involved should have done differently? My point isn't simply to dredge it back up but to try and get some understanding of how you feel WP:ONUS should work and apply to dispute resolution in controversial areas in practice. Rehashing specific discussions in depth can wait until / unless policy is actually changed or clarified here, but - I am using an example to try and understand what you think this interpretation actually means, in the sense of how it would apply to actual disputes. Because to me this is a drastic change that would overturn or throw into question numerous past status-quo decisions similar to that one, and would in practice lead to either article instability, controversial articles getting trimmed down to the bone, or an absolute avalanche of RFCs on every seriously disputed point. --Aquillion (talk) 22:10, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, as seen on the talk page, that section as it stands is the result of compromises, removals, and adjustments on the part of many different editors that are part of the process of consensus - which often is more complex than a simple keep/remove. I haven't reviewed that discussion for this, but removing it all after that agreement was reached would be throwing out that more explicit consensus on the part of one editor and hence inappropriate. As for RfCs, while I do believe that RfC closure as "no consensus" is best avoided since it sidesteps the whole point of an RfC which is to get a definite answer to an intractible dispute, if even after one there is such significant disagreement with merely including a matter, then yes, the encyclopedia is better off without it. I think this interpretation of ONUS is in practice what is usually done anyway, and would throw hardly anything into dispute again, as my experience in controversial topics is that usually most controversial text is the result of explicit consensuses on the talk page, or could have one easily developed in case of disruptive deletion. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:52, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

That first part is interesting. I don't totally disagree because as I've said above I feel that the crux of WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS is that the more people who have seen or, better yet, edited something without removing it, the stronger the implied consensus backing it; we use time only as a quick shorthand, obviously text doesn't gain implicit consensus just by lingering on an article with a single editor that nobody else has ever seen. But I still think that that's just implicit consensus and therefore would not count under either 13 or 2 + 8 proposals above. Part of this might be that we need to refine the concept of implicit consensus a bit better, or at least add more guidelines as to the difference between the hypothetical "clearly only one person has seen this ever, but it has been here for 12 years" text and "it's been here for three months but has been extensively edited by numerous editors on a high-traffic article without anyone objecting to its basic presence" text. By my reading, though, barring the use of implicit consensus to satisfy WP:ONUS would mean that the only thing that would satisfy it is a clear discussion or RFC about that specific text that definitely led to a consensus supporting it. Simply being discussed and failing to reach a consensus or being heavily-edited aren't enough - the first is WP:NOCON (leaving only whatever implicit consensus it had before in place) and the latter is just a strong implicit consensus. I would add a caveat that edits that clearly treat a disputed addition as controversial (eg. adding tags, but also edits that are solely attempts to tone it down or pare it back) do not really contribute to its implicit consensus - especially if, eg. someone removes an entire addition, gets reverted, then tries for a compromise that removes the most objectionable part, that doesn't mean they support it and per WP:NOTSILENCE can actually weaken or remove implicit consensus rather than strengthening it. It's important that any objection to a disputed new or no-consensus addition "breaks the seal" of implicit consensus and blocks it from achieving it afterwards, because otherwise you're discouraging people from compromising at all, ie. if an editor effectively says "fine, I don't want to get into an extended dispute on this, I think the whole thing should go but I'm going to at least remove the very worst part", that's not even implicit consensus, let alone explicit consensus. --Aquillion (talk) 05:00, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

@Aquillion, about "this list provides a detailed rationale and explanation for 13": No, it doesn't. There is no rationale given for 13 at all. The whole point of 13 is that it explains the existing wording in extreme, over-the-top detail. Some editors claim to have found it enlightening. Perhaps it offers a sort of "I really mean it – This means you!" moment for editors who had previously thought there was an implied exemption for their circumstances. But there is no rationale given for why 13 is the meaning. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:13, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I mean it goes on for several times as long as the others, with passionate wording that invokes arguments based on additional interpretations of other policies - like STATUSQUO and WP:CONSENSUS. Neither of those policies, obviously, can be changed or curtailed by discussions here; stuff on this page is only applicable to WP:V and to challenges related to V, per WP:CONLOCAL, and will not change how we assess consensus in any way. As it is, the wording reads to me as blatantly prejudicial - you don't ask people to choose between 14 sets of dry simple wording and a massive paragraph of passionate invocations. --Aquillion (talk) 07:52, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Can we talk about this when you have a little more time to think it over? You've just called STATUSQUO a policy, when it's an essay; and if I could get you to click here to open the specific section of CONSENSUS, I think you'll find a very interesting and relevant note at the top of the section that provides direct and explicit information about what to do if that section diverges from other policies. As a result, your worries about CONLOCAL are probably misplaced, if not exactly backwards.

I'd have thought that my highly informal, over-passtionate wording, which was turned into 13, would have discouraged other editors from choosing it. Editors generally want a certain amount of formality in their policies. Perhaps the important point, though, is that there's a gap between "This sentence correctly explains the meaning" and "I think this sentence belongs in the policy". I'm not seeing much of the latter; are you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:38, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

There's yet another severe structural problem with trying to interpret a policy change out of this. Trying to think that one can interpret the results out of a local "what do you think this wording means?" into a policy change on a high-impact core policy is not correct. The policy is what what is written right now, with all of it's deliberate fuzziness. Any change would nee to get proposed as a specific proposed change. North8000 (talk) 00:14, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I think that there is at least a lot of confusion over what implicit consensus is and how it works, which means that having a policy discussion that references whether to respect it but doesn't define it is mostly useless. At least by my reading, implicit consensus is any consensus at all that is not backed by a discussion that clearly reaches a consensus for the disputed text in question, or (in situations where there is any degree of reasonable doubt) an RFC; and, therefore, if ONUS does not respect implicit consensus, anyone who wants to restore any removed content must point to one of those two things first. I obviously don't think that's workable. The vast majority of our text has had either of those things. --Aquillion (talk) 05:06, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that WP:Consensus needs to better define what constitutes an implicit (silent) consensus, and how much weight to give it (to my mind, we should focus less on the amount of time between addition and challenge, and more on the number of intervening edits. That is a better indication that other editors have reviewed the original addition and are OK with it). However, that discussion really needs to happen at WP:Consensus, not here at WP:V.

All WP:V needs to include is a warning that Verifiability is only one of many factors to consider when determining whether to include or omit information… and those other factors can result in verifiable information being omitted. Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with your last bit. Some people above are saying that ONUS has no relation to, or is not limited to, disputes over WP:V; at that point... why is it here? It's not part of our WP:CONSENSUS-building policy; it's in the wrong place for that. If ONUS just said that verifiability does not guarantee inclusion, and referenced other policies like WP:CONSENSUS to define how consensus is built (plus stuff like WP:NOT, that also have things to say about it), that eliminate the problem. Well, it would eliminate it here, at least, we might still have to work on CONSENSUS if people think that it is missing some vital part that is currently only in ONUS. Aquillion (talk) 18:03, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

To put my last post in short form, a "what do we think that the policy means?" discussion is not a basis for changing a policy. An RFC on a specific proposed change would be needed to do that. North8000 (talk) 13:17, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

What say we focus on clarifying them: let's talk about what they should say, and then draft an RFC to change them per Levivich above. Is that where we are at? Selfstudier (talk) 13:29, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

If we do have an RFC, I'd like to have an option along the lines of what Blueboar said above, eg. All WP:V needs to include is a warning that Verifiability is only one of many factors to consider when determining whether to include or omit information… and those other factors can result in verifiable information being omitted - that is to say, WP:ONUS should not make any sweeping statements about the consensus-building process, it should just indicate that it is necessary and then point people to WP:CONSENSUS. --Aquillion (talk) 18:03, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

+1. The ONUS sentence, "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content", regardless of what it means or may be re-worded to say, really should be moved to WP:CONSENSUS (and clarified). The rest of WP:V#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion should do what Blueboar said in Aquillion's quote above (and what the section heading says). That remaining part could probably be wordsmithed too. Levivich 21:34, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

There already was a Village Pump RfC for a very similar proposal, and it was closed thusly: There is an overwhelming consensus against this proposed change, primarily due to concerns that it would undermine verifiability and efforts to remove poorly sourced information.

Tying implicit consensus to number of intervening edits instead of elapsed time per se doesn't really mitigate the issue. A lot of intervening edits can occur that are to, say, the lead of the article or some other portion, while those same editors don't notice the problem material. A lot of edits are copyedits, categories, AWB, and bots, and hence also aren't really much in the way of scrutiny. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:27, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

That proposal failed because it proposed bad wording for a new onus section of wp:consensus; it's not really applicable to this idea. Levivich 01:59, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

• To put an exclamation point on the risks of overly categorical language in this section, there is at least one prolific AFDer who contends that ONUS means that deletion is the default outcome of AFDs, and thus a guideline that states "there is consensus that articles of type X are OK and should generally not be deleted" means that all articles not of type X should be deleted. I have, of course, pointed out that of all the things ONUS is not, it is definitely not a deletion or notability policy. But I would have to think that this sort of misunderstanding is probably not original with this user on this day. Imagine the damage such a misreading could do if it the language of this section were even more legalistic. -- Visviva (talk) 00:48, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  In that discussion, the only person voting "endorse" is probably the only person misreading anything. The "prolific AFDer" whose edit you link to has participated in a whopping 19 AFDs. The editor, in that discussion, does not contend that ONUS means that deletion is the default outcome of AFDs (their argument is more complicated than that). And you should probably ping editors when you use them as examples. Welcome back, BTW, glad the new admin inactivity requirements have spurred a return to editing :-) Levivich^[block] 02:40, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

  It would have just spurred a desysopping if I'd had to spend any longer in the hospital, but I suppose we can leave that particular example of how policy change goes wrong alone. For my part, I would not wish to personalize a policy discussion in the manner you suggest or have it done to me, but ymmv. (I'll consider omitting diffs entirely in the future, although that hardly seems like an improvement.) I cheerfully withdraw the characterization, although I think anyone who has participated in more than a couple of AFD discussions (myself included) can fairly be described as "prolific" relative to the community as a whole. I do think I have accurately summarized the position in that comment; I am unclear what sort of "nuance" would lead to such an explicit inversion of NLIST if my summary is incorrect. In any event, I think my broader point here as to the risk of misinterpretation of this passage stands. As to me being "the only person voting 'endorse'" in that discussion, since I have been reliably informed (elsewhere on that very page) that consensus is now determined solely by strength of arguments rather than numbers, the fact that some of my fellow Wikipedians disagree with my correct interpretation of policy is, apparently, neither here nor there. What a time to be alive! -- Visviva (talk) 04:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• Okay, what about the other solution: removing the third sentence altogether? Or, at least, proposing its removal. By its own terms the onus would then be on those who want to preserve it to explain why we should "include" a policy statement when the community cannot come to a consensus regarding when it applies or what it means. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:41, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Sounds good to me. -- Visviva (talk) 04:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Of course not. Policy text is not article text; there is no risk of spreading misinformation to the public, and they are the rules that underlie how editing works, so ONUS does not apply just like WP:V in general does not apply. In no way would this discussion be sufficient to remove any sentence (I assume you meant the fourth sentence). And changing so it applied to changes in general was rejected at the Village Pump RfC - obviously removing it has the same effect of changing the policy and the same reasons for rejection apply. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:56, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
    • Given that the community cannot agree on what the sentence means, what is the policy that removal would change? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:03, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
      • To borrow phrasing from North8000 below, removal would put a finger on the scale away from exclusion of controversial and dubious material, and that's bad. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:29, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

@Kolya Butternut, in your vote, you wrote "IMPLICITCONSENSUS must be considered." Do you think that the sentence in question ("The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content") already/currently considers IMPLICITCONSENSUS, or do you think that its omission of IMPLICITCONSENSUS is something we should change? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the sentence considers all of CONSENSUS. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

What do folks think of my interpretation of ONUS: The onus to achieve consensus for changes to consensus content is on those seeking the change.? My point is really that ONUS is just reiterating part of CONSENSUS, so as Levivich said, WP:ONUS should be moved to WP:CONSENSUS (and clarified). Kolya Butternut (talk) 01:17, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that's a substantial expansion. WP:V says you can't add information unless it's sourced; ONUS clarifies that having a bit of information sourced is necessary but not sufficient, and if you can't get both sourcing and consensus for the material you want, then out it goes.

You are proposing that even copyediting or which color to make a sports team's navbox ("change") is controlled by WP:V. It's not appropriate for WP:V to reach into questions unrelated to sourcing.

Your wording will also increase the number of disagreements about who is "seeking the change". We have altogether too many disputes already that involve all editors declaring that "No, you have to get consensus because yours is 'the change'. My edit is the 'non-change' that gets to stay in unless you can prove to me in writing that everyone says my change is bad." That my-version-is-the-true-status-quo is one of the undesirable problems that ONUS is meant to eliminate within the narrow context of including/excluding information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:31, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

This is not a proposal for new wording. You wrote: You are proposing that even copyediting or which color to make a sports team's navbox ("change") is controlled by WP:V. No, the whole concept of "onus" is not controlled by V, that's the problem with the sentence's location there, I'm just explaining what the concept is. Kolya Butternut (talk) 08:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Changing it from requiring consensus to include, to requiring consensus to change, is massive difference in meaning and major tilt of the scale. This seems to be the same proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected at the Village Pump RfC. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:48, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

No, that proposal was for changes to "longstanding content". Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:08, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

IMHO the meaning of "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content"

IMHO: The meaning of "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content" must be understood in the context of the Wikipedia system. The "Wikipedia system" includes making multi-variable decisions (those fancy words describe how normal human decision making and wp:consensus works) based on considering and weighting numerous factors, policies and guidelines, this being (merely) one of them. (Examples of the many others include: how long the material has been in the article, how much tacit review/consent it has accumulated, and "last stable version" considerations) The meaning of this sentence is to put a finger on that decision scale towards exclusion when the the material is disputed. A few special-case derivatives/ examples of this are:

• If the material is disputed and all other considerations are equal, the material stays out
• If the material is weakly disputed, but other factors add up very strongly towards inclusion, it will be included

Like most Wikipedia policies, by necessity, the sentence is not written in a very specific, categorical way. Any attempt to do so would be something that preclude also taking into consideration other policies, guidelines and factors which is not how Wikipedia operates and would also create conflicts with other policies, guidelines and considerations.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:03, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

+1. It looks as if it's broken but it ain't really broke in practice and it's designed to be a bit woolly so as to cover all sorts of possibilities. Selfstudier (talk) 17:09, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Right. But if our policy documents did their job, they would read like what N8k just wrote here, which is a whole lot clearer than anything written in any of our policies. Let's actually document this, which the current sentence does a poor job of doing. Levivich^[block] 17:36, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

No objection here, might not have the patience for the discussion that tries to settle the precise words that will be equivalent to what N8k just wrote:) Selfstudier (talk) 17:46, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Yup same :-) Levivich^[block] 18:15, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Describing how the described aspect of the Wikipedia system actually works (including how it interacts policies, guidelines and considerations) could be called "out of place" here but besides solving the issue it could be the seed for something that would have astoundingly huge benefits. A tiny place for "make no small plans"  :-) North8000 (talk) 19:22, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

What North wrote was the easy part. It can be shortened to "Consensus is not unanimity. If you have a consensus, then do whatever you all agreed to do".

The question is what to do when the objections to the material (however they happened to be measured by you/in that specific dispute) are exactly equal to the support for that same material. Imagine 100 editors with 100 medium-strength arguments in favor, against an exactly equal 100 editors with 100 exactly equal medium-strength arguments against. There is no consensus; we have not achieved anything like an agreement. Imagine for simplicity that it is not possible to compromise on some sort of halfway-in-and-halfway-out position: the disputed material (e.g., an image, a name, a link, a source) is either included or excluded.

In those rare instances in which you cannot form a consensus to include or exclude, what do you do? The non-random options are:

• Default to an outcome (inclusion or exclusion)
• Default to a precedent (the oldest or newest edit)
• Default to a person/role (e.g., if one of the principal disputants is an admin, or whoever has made the most edits)
• Wikipedia:Supervote by quoting STATUSQUO or selective bits of WP:PRESERVE if you want to keep a version that included it, or by quoting ONUS and Jimmy on "Zero information is preferred" if you want to exclude it.

It's that last option that I'd like to see spiked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

<preach> The real problem with the WP:ONUS sentence ("The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.") is that it's written entirely wrong, and until we completely rewrite it--and completely change how we approach the problem--we will always have this underlying fundamental disagreement.

What's wrong with the ONUS sentence is that it frames the issue in a battleground way, by dividing editors into two camps: those "seeking to include disputed content", and everyone else (presumably, those opposing inclusion of the disputed content). To further encourage a battle between the two sides, the sentence gives one side the "onus" of winning inclusion--or in other words, it divides us into two sides and tells us which side is playing offense and which side is playing defense. Talk about encouraging WP:BATTLEGROUND and WP:GAME behavior!

In content disputes, nobody really "supports" or "opposes" inclusion. Everyone supports inclusion of what's WP:DUE, and opposes inclusion of what's undue. And we all read and interpret sources to determine what we think is due for inclusion. Of course, many people disagree about what's due, but to frame that as a disagreement between those supporting inclusion and others is to completely oversimplify what actually happens in real content disputes: people have many different and overlapping interpretations of sources that lead them to different and overlapping conclusions about what's due for inclusion. They discuss their interpretations until they come up with something that overlaps enough people's interpretations that everyone agrees it's more or less OK, and if successful, we call that "consensus".

The consensus-building process is not a battle between two sides, it's a collaborative effort with everyone working together towards the same goal. The fact that sometimes we have votes on things where people "support" and "oppose" is a granular detail, just a part of a larger process, and to focus just on that little detail by having rules about which side has the "onus" is to completely miss the forest for the trees.

Whenever I read the ONUS sentence, my initial reaction is always: "Who the hell cares where the onus lies?" How does it help us resolve a dispute to identify who has the onus of resolving the dispute, but not identify how the dispute gets resolved? Wikipedia is not a legal system and is not trying to be one, so why do we use these legalistic analogies like burden of proof? I suggest we don't care where the onus lies, we care about what to do with disputed content while we come to consensus about what's WP:DUE. That is what WP:ONUS should tell us.

And we already know half the answer: if it's newly-added content, it should stay out until there's consensus about whether/how to include it. The hard part is for content that's already been in the article for a while (however one defines "a while"), and when such "longstanding" content is disputed, what do we do with it while we figure out what's due for inclusion? I don't know the answer to that question, and I think it's a "multifactorial" analysis like what N8k wrote above, balancing multiple considerations on a case-by-case basis. We could clear up all this confusion about the third sentence of WP:ONUS by rewriting it so it answers the question of what to do with new content, and longstanding content, while inclusion of the content is being discussed. </preach> Levivich^[block] 18:18, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Ideally, yes. However, sometimes it reallt does come down to a zero-sum 'include or exclude' outcome, with multiple experienced editors on each side. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:36, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Levivich, I don't agree that there are no battles between two sides or that it's always a collaborative effort with the same goal. Sometimes people just want to stick their thing in, and they don't really care about anything else. Consider the newbie who seems to be posting a WP:SELFCITE to a source we'd never use. Consider the anti-vaxxers or other real-world (or at least Twitterverse-based) POV pushers, who want Wikipedia to give more airtime to their views. Consider the paid promoters, whose goal is to get their client mentioned in Wikipedia no matter what. "Everyone" isn't working towards the same goal unless your "everyone" excludes a lot of people.

Also: We might care a little bit about what to do with content while we come to consensus, but what about those rare times when we don't ever come to consensus? Shouldn't ONUS care more about these years-long situations than about a brief situation? BRD tells you to let the other guy win during the discussion, and if you don't like that, QUO tells you to leave it at some old version during discussion, and EW tells you definitely to stop edit warring over it, but most discussions only take about a week to resolve. Quit worrying about the relatively brief "during the discussion" part. Worry about what happens when it is utterly and completely impossible to develop a consensus. What should policies tell you about that?

And what about those situations in which an editor refuses to engage in the discussion? About a dozen years ago, I encountered an editor who would add something to a hotly disputed article and refuse to discuss it – unless and until someone removed it. Every removal produced a revert and a polite comment. If we didn't remove it, the editor refused to engage in the discussion. If we were to set the rules as "No removal unless discussion supports removal", then it would be in the best interests of the person who wants the material included to have the consensus-oriented discussion fail. I crammed that in the article, you can't get it out with consensus, and I sabotaged the discussion, so it'll never come to consensus. Voilà, there is no consensus to include that particular disputed material, but you still can't remove it.

I would be interested in hearing what you think should happen if:

• I add well-sourced but possibly inappropriate content (and it's been there a long time).
• You want to remove it (for very good reasons).
• We have a long discussion followed by an RFC that ends with the words "There is no consensus either way. Editors were not able to agree on whether to include this or to remove it. Both numbers and reasons are closely balanced. There is no obvious reason to believe that further discussion will produce a different result."

Now what? That is the question that ONUS is meant to answer. What's your answer? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

It should be excluded. More specifically:

• If you just added it, and someone objects, they should revert it, and nobody should reinstate it unless and until there is consensus to do so. If the subsequent RFC ends in "no consensus", it stays out.
• If it's been there a long time, whether it should stay in during the discussion would be determined by a multifactorial analysis that looks at factors like: is this a BLP, is it sensitive/controversial content, how well sourced is it, how strong are the objections, how long has it been there, and how many edits since it was added, among other factors. As N8k put it above, the factors may weigh towards inclusion (e.g., if it's been there for 10 years over 1,000 edits, it's not a BLP, it's not controversial, and only one editor is objecting) or exclusion (e.g., it's been there for 1 week over 5 edits, it's controversial, it's a BLP, only one editor wants to include it), depending on the specific circumstances; that's a case-by-case. At the end of the RFC, if there is no consensus on whether to include or exclude, it should be excluded.

A section of WP:CONSENSUS should explain this. Levivich^[block] 17:07, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

sometimes it reallt does come down to a zero-sum 'include or exclude' outcome, with multiple experienced editors on each side yes, and those times are examples of "trees" in the "forest" that is the consensus-building process. By focusing on those "trees", ONUS misses the "forest". Levivich^[block] 17:01, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

+1 in agreement with Levivich. Atsme 💬 📧 01:04, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I see no real issue with the wording here, the meaning to me being obvious in that until there is an affirmative consensus to include material it stays out as disputed and it settles what "no consensus" should default to (exclusion). I think the better thing would be to adjust NOCON rather than attempt to adjust ONUS. NOCON defaulting to status quo ante should only be applied when there is an existing affirmative consensus, and no implicit consensus through silence or time is not that. A discussion where one can show a consensus, not necessarily an RFC, would be necessary for a no consensus to default to content being retained. nableezy - 18:41, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm with you on the first part of the argument, but I am a little confused by your conclusion. The kinds of battleground-type disputes where ONUS would apply at all are, as you note, not at all representative of what we are doing, or trying to do, on the wiki. So it's hard to see what it's doing in WP:V, which does apply to pretty much everything we do in article space. Disputes that get to the point of ONUS wikilawyering are so weird and warped in different ways that they pretty much all give truth to the hard cases make bad law maxim. Core policies shouldn't be tailored to edge cases. ONUS, as I read it, is trying to give a rough rule of thumb for those edge cases -- but it can't really do the job, because adding another Rule to the pile isn't likely to help anyone in finding a solution when the situation is already rife with wikilawyering. -- Visviva (talk) 19:13, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I think it ended up in WP:V for two reasons: The first is that we needed a place to stick it, and WP:V is "a place". Not every policy statement ends up in the most logical place, and this one could have gone in several places.

Two, there's a tendency to think that everything that can be well-sourced belongs in Wikipedia. I can find many very good sources about the color of Queen Elizabeth's hat at 12:00 UTC on the first Thursday of this month, but that doesn't mean that any Wikipedia articles need a sentence that says "At 12:00 UTC on the first Thursday of June 2022, Queen Elizabeth wore a powder blue hat", right? I know that; you know that; some editors are ...maybe a little shaky on that point.

The fact is that we're so used to removing badly sourced content that we kind of forget that there are other policies, so when we encounter a situation like that, we tend to think of WP:V before WP:BALASP or WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. So our shaky editor is saying "But I sourced it beautifully, and it fully complies with WP:V, so that means it can stay!", and we point to the section of WP:V where this sentence is: ===Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion===. It's not enough to perfectly verify that she wore a powder blue hat at that exact minute; also, if people are disputing your perfectly verified claims, then you have to convince them to leave your perfectly verified sentence in the article. They do not have to convince you to agree to removal.

We could have taken other approaches ("If you have a dispute about whether a bit of perfectly verified content should remain in an article, please see the following six pages:"), but editors ended up sticking the sentence here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Are the editors who who stuck this sentence here the same ones who gave us wp:NOCON? I ask because I'm still having trouble seeing how that policy doesn't conflict with this one. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:15, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

No. I wrote NOCON, except for the sentence that conflicts with ONUS. The conflicting sentence is one that I (we) discussed repeatedly, at both WT:V and WT:CON, because it never felt quite right. We were thinking about it as a kind of jumping-off point, to be tried out and refined later, etc., except that we haven't been able to make progress on it. "What we usually do" in that situation is complicated. Also, what we usually do in some instances might not be best for articles.

The other, more 'structural', problem with NOCON is that it's meant to be a convenient pointer to all the other, actually-controlling policies, but instead some editors think that NOCON is in charge of everything, and all the other policies have to change to align with it, which is backwards. It'd probably be safer in a separate essay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:36, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

It might be helpful to have a little more detail about the history.

• I started NOCON in November 2011. See this comment and the one by Kotniski that follows it for the most immediately relevant precipitating comment, but if you want to understand the motivation, you really have to read that entire section plus multiple discussions on that and other pages earlier that year.
• Ring Cinema added the QUO-oriented sentence in January 2012. I refused to add it myself because I didn't think it was correct, but I didn't object to attempting to cover this subject.

Something that might be useful to know is that Ring pushed hard, for years, to have QUO be enshrined in that policy as the One True™ Way. See, e.g., March 2012 to remove the idea that QUO didn't always happen; March 2012 to remove the anti-QUO BLP rules; same thing in June 2012; claiming that changes to the original version of an article without consensus are anti-policy in October 2012; July 2013 to remove the idea that QUO was a tiebreaker instead of a dominant principle, with edit summaries like "sorry, no consensus means no change -- it's in this policy", and so forth.

For clarity, this isn't the only editor who holds this view. See, e.g., this edit in 2015, or this one in 2020, which says even COPYVIO isn't worth mentioning as an exception to the sacred principle of QUO. Some people are dedicated to the principle that QUO is the law of the wiki. (Tangent: I wonder if editors who hold that view are disproportionately likely to end up blocked, like Ring was, for edit warring.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:50, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

And to add: Of course we default to QUO, except:

• BLP
• CHALLENGE
• COPYVIO
• ONUS (at least theoretically)
• No agreement on which version is m:The Wrong Version and which one is the QUO version
• One side's more willing to edit-war than the other
• Editors actually read QUO, and figured out that it says "During a dispute discussion, you should not revert", and doesn't say anything about what should happen after the discussion is finished.
• Editors actually read QUO, and figured out that it says "During a dispute discussion, you should not revert" and does not actually say anything even remotely like "you have a duty to force the status quo version onto the page".
• Editors develop a nuanced understanding of consensus ("We agree on this much, even if we don't agree on everything")
• Probably some other reasons

That amounts to a lot of exceptions, and possibly enough to swamp the boat. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:59, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

• OK… more background history… back in the day (before we had ONUS), when there was a dispute over whether an article should mention factoid X or not, one side would say: “you need consensus to include this”, while the other side would say: “no, you need consensus to exclude it”. We needed something to break this stalemate. We figured that it was usually easier to achieve a consensus to include than to exclude (proving the positive rather than the negative), so we placed the “onus” to achieve consensus on those who wished to include. Blueboar (talk) 19:29, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to guess that it ended up where it is because it relates to the sentences preceding it which I'll bet were an attempt to offset the oft-invoked false urban legend.....the verifiability is a reason for inclusion rather than just a requirement for inclusion.North8000 (talk) 19:35, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Survey point #13 vs BLPRESTORE

For those who think #13 is the meaning of ONUS, what is the difference between ONUS and WP:BLPRESTORE? Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:56, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

ONUS probably applies to all articles, BLPRESTORE does not. Compare wp:NOCON, which lists BLP as an exception. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:17, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but I mean that interpretation #13 seems to make BLPRESTORE irrelevant if ONUS works the same way for all articles as BLPRESTORE works for BLPs. Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:28, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Of course, #13 is one of what appear to be an infinite number of meanings that ONUS may have. That said, yes, if THE meaning is #13 then BLPRESTORE is redundant. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:56, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Just a note here to say that BLPRESTORE would be a "necessary redundancy"; sometimes, you have to say important things multiple times or in multiple places, so that more people will be aware of the rule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:23, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The meaning of the CURRENT text at ONUS (conclusion)

Regarding The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content, it appears from the discussion above that:

1. Some editors believe its meaning is opaque. Some of these editors believe this is a flaw, others that it is a feature.
2. Other editors believe its meaning is clear. These editors do not agree on what that clear meaning is.

- Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:20, June 29 2022 (UTC)

• LOL… sounds about right… and could probably be said about most of our Policies and Guidelines. Blueboar (talk) 16:41, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

The meaning of the CURRENT text at ONUS (additional discussion)

• My assertion is that it is clear in the context of a Wikipedia system that is unclear because it is complicated and not really described. :-) North8000 (talk) 16:45, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

But easier to fix than it sounds if we write the "grand unification statement" in big letters somewhere. North8000 (talk) 16:49, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

• Crystal, thanks for clearing that up :) Selfstudier (talk) 16:56, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
• Great! Please propose a first draft of such a statement (we can worry about where to put it after a consensus version emerges). Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:57, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I'll do that. North8000 (talk) 14:11, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow: Here it is, the current meaning of wp:onus: If there is a question about whether to include or exclude disputed material, wp:onus places (only) some influence towards exclusion in the Wikipedia decision making process. North8000 (talk) 19:53, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I prefer your fingers on the scale phrasing :) Selfstudier (talk) 21:14, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Next step: start a new subsection putting forth this meaning. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:39, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

That essay is not germane or helpful in the least. SPECIFICO talk 21:49, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

There are folks who like the two apparently conflicting statements. This allows picking which serves their agenda of the moment. North8000 (talk) 22:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

What two apparently conflicting statements are you referring to? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:49, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

wp:onus and NOCON. North8000 (talk) 10:54, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

) Selfstudier (talk) 11:05, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• I think we should resolve the disagreement between them, but it's also important to recognize that there's some value in policies that highlight conflicting requirements, since we do actually have conflicting requirements when editing. It's absolutely essential that verifiability alone not be sufficient for inclusion per WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. It's also policy that all changes, in principle, require consensus, which covers additions and sometimes removals. But it's also important to maintain article stability; and there are points at which removal itself is the more drastic change and therefore requires consensus. Figuring out where to draw the line is complicated. See some of the examples I referenced and the replies for what I think is an informative real-world cases; the fact is that most consensus is reached through editing - our articles are not built on explicit consensus and making it a hard requirement for every sentence on every controversial article is not feasible. So having policies that weigh different needs against each other is useful. I think the problem is that WP:NOCON and especially WP:ONUS try to be too strident. Policies that have some discretion to them and which highlight our ultimate goals rather than serving as bludgeons for people to hammer each other with during disputes are good because they push people to actually discuss and consider the specific context they're working with (as well as to seek compromises.) Policies that try to solve problems unilaterally from above by declaring an outcome by fiat don't usually work - even WP:BLP, probably the closest we have, is fairly cautiously worded at points, with stuff like strongly consider and the like. If you look at the arguments people make for sweeping versions of ONUS you can see some of this - there's an intense focus on theoretical bad actors and not enough focus on how this actually works for good-faith disputes in controversial articles. The fact is that any policy can be misused by bad actors; but even when editing in good faith, people aggressively removing things they disagree with is just as much of a risk as people aggressively adding stuff that slants articles. --Aquillion (talk) 12:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• Wikipedia has always had disputes between those who say “You need consensus to include that” and those who say “No, YOU need consensus to exclude it”. ONUS was an attempt to resolve these disputes. Blueboar (talk) 14:47, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

  It's a reasonable place to begin a discussion at least. Selfstudier (talk) 15:11, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

According to my post a few lines up, taking it within the context of the wikipedia system for making decisions, there is no conflict, there is only that these two provisions sometimes influence decisions in opposite directions. And if that reality isn't acknowledged, and one takes each as a stand-alone rule, there is no way to resolve what would otherwise be a "conflict" other than deletion of one of them. North8000 (talk) 19:13, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, there's an RFC, should we delete one or other of..... Selfstudier (talk) 22:13, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Survey point 13 and WP:3RR

I have think the phrase "and anyone strongly objects," in survey option 13 is a real problem. In Britain at the moment the War in Ukrain and the resulting energy crises have highlighted a political NIMBY problem. The governing Tory party have lots of constituencies in rural areas, to placate their voters the rules for new on shore wind turbines state that if just one person objects to building a turbine it will not be built (hence the emphasis on much more expensive off shore wind turbine farms). It seems to me that this phrase has similar implications as the "anyone" does not even have to base their objection on a rational argument based on Wikipedia policy just on "I don't like it". — PBS (talk) 17:44, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

I have not seen a discussion here on how WP:3RR fits in to what is being discussed would someone please explin how it does. For example one person objects to something which is sourced stating the source is not good enough. An editor with this on their watch list reverts and says take it to the talkp page WP:BRD, first editor reverts with no talk page discussion, a third editor reverts this second deletion. Knowing (s)he is loosing the revert war the initial editor takes it to the talk page saying (s)he "strongly objects" to the content, so must be removed while it is discussed? Should third editor self revert his or her revert? -- PBS (talk) 17:44, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

@PBS, thanks for these comments. I have the following thoughts, which might answer parts of your questions.

• "Anyone strongly objects": Well, if nobody objects, then "Alice Adder" doesn't have to provide written proof that there's an active, positive consensus to include the information, right? It's only when "Rob Remover" not just objects to the addition, but objects strongly enough to really stick with the dispute, that we reach the point of invoking ONUS at all.
• 3RR: This is still the policy. Don't edit war, full stop. If nobody is edit warring to restore the disputed information, then nobody will ever be able to reach the point of 3RR anyway.
• ONUS isn't really about what happens "while it is discussed". I suppose you could apply it during a discussion, but it's more like a tie-breaker rule about what to do with unclear discussion results. As a result, removers ultimately will need to "base their objection on a rational argument based on Wikipedia policy", because if they don't, the resulting discussion is likely to end up with written proof of consensus for inclusion.

ONUS-based scenarios usually look like this:

• Someone adds sourced content.
• I remove it (e.g., because I think it's off topic).
• The adder says: "This has to be kept! Policy says I get to keep anything with a source! Besides, there's a Silent majority in favor of keeping it."
• I say: "The policy says you have to prove, in writing, on wiki, that there's a consensus to keep it. If you get proof of consensus to include this, then of course we'll keep it."

This rule sidesteps arguments about:

• the content's age ("That so-called hoax is 10 years old. It must be kept until there is written proof of consensus to have accurate articles containing only verifiable information!"),
• spammers and UPEs making extra work for volunteers ("You have to prove to me that this sourced trivia about my client is too trivial to include! I expect an RFC with at least 45 participants, or I won't agree that there is consensus!"),
• POV pushers wearing down editors over time ("You have to round up a bunch of editors for the fourth time this year and prove that everyone agrees that these 16 paragraphs about my special worldview are far too much for this article. All of my content must stay in until you prove there's a consensus against me!"), and
• badly sourced content ("Just because you don't think this is well-sourced doesn't mean that you get to revert it. How about you spend the next three hours trying to find better sources all by yourself, or try to get other, extremely busy editors to come over to this talk page and very patiently explain to me why my content isn't perfect, while I go screw up edit another dozen articles?").

Of course, like Wikipedia:What editors mean when they say you have to follow BRD, if ONUS is applied early in the process, it can result in good content being temporarily removed from an article. One would expect in such situations that the good content would find a consensus in favor of restoring it. But the point of ONUS isn't really about what to do during the discussion; it's largely about what to do after the discussion, when you know that there is no consensus to include the disputed content, and especially when you know perfectly well that there is an active consensus against including it, but the would-be content adder is wrongly claiming that they won, or that there's no consensus, and that the alleged absence of consensus to include the content means that the content must be kept. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

You did not really address my point User:WhatamIdoing. Instead you put togeter an alternative scenario. I put together a simple scenario and asked about that specifec instance. I deliberately kept it to 3 editors, because often dicussions over conteent involve very few active editors. I am interested to know how editors other than myself think that this specific senario ought to play out. For example who of the 3 participants should remove the content under discussion? If removing the content involves one editor breaching 3RR must one of the other editors regard less of their wish to keep the content remove it if they wish to discuss its retention on the talk page? To work around 3RR is the person who wants the content removed allowed to solicit removal in another forum or is that a form of canvassing? -- PBS (talk) 09:38, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

The phrase "work around 3RR" gives me pause. Just don't edit war (or canvass), there are other means of dispute resolution, typically the solution is to draw in more editors, the obvious method being an RFC. Selfstudier (talk) 09:43, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

User:Selfstudier In an ideal Wiki world one follows dispute resolution and it garners lots of intersted informed editors and they all agree what is best. My experiance is in lots of cases one is lucky to get more than a couple of others involved and their input may or may not be based on policy. However at the start of the process under survey option 13 who removes the content if the person proposing removal can not do so without breaching 3RR? -- PBS (talk) 10:06, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly, don't edit war. If one breaches 3RR one is edit warring, in fact, to have reached the point of breaching 3RR, one must have already reverted 3 times? Which is still edit warring, even if not sanctionable. Often topic areas have portals, neutrally inviting users at those portals is a step before an RFC, if the argument is that the material is not NPOV, there is the neutrality noticeboard, keeping to the principle of the more eyes the better. Selfstudier (talk) 10:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Last year I was involved in a long running dispute over two different wordings of some the lead of an articlce. Under survey option 13 if all of the lead is contested is it acceptable to leave an article without a lead while the issue is resolved? -- PBS (talk) 10:06, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't see how emptying the lead is helpful in those circumstances. Selfstudier (talk) 10:18, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

"While the issue is resolved" should be wp:QUO, not wp:ONUS (or wp:NOT). Even if it is ONUS, as Selfstudier says, no edit warring. Tag the disputed text and discuss away on the talk page. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:26, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Your scenario is:

• A adds sourced content (possibly years ago).
• B reverts/removes it because the source is weak.
• C re-reverts/re-adds it and claims BRD, even though (a) it's not really a true BRD situation and (b) BRD says the person best adhering to its principles is the person who starts the discussion, not the one who says it's the other editor's job to start the discussion.
• B re-removes it.
• D re-re-reverts/re-adds it with the weak source.

and you want to know what ONUS says? ONUS says that B and D need to demonstrate that there is a positive consensus for including this information. ONUS does not establish a timeline for this; as far as ONUS is concerned, the material could be re-re-removed immediately or it could wait until the editors have finished six months of dispute resolution. There is no deadline in ONUS.

EW, on the other hand, says that if all of these edits happened during a 24-hour span, then both B and D are already at risk of being blocked for edit warring, and C might be, if A's content was added very recently and/or if A is the same editor as C. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

• This page is WP:V. It does not govern how we resolve disputes or what we do after disputes in any way; the only actual significant part of ONUS is that verifiability, alone, does not guarantee inclusion. The rest is merely explanatory in nature; no one should be consulting WP:V for details on how to resolve a dispute outside of the specific details of how verifiability is assessed and what it means. A single brief aside in the paragraph reminding editors that verifiability alone is not sufficient obviously does not have any great significance to our dispute-resolution process, let alone completely overriding large swaths of it, as you seem to be implying here. --Aquillion (talk) 12:31, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

• Aquillion, I left you a note on your talk page. I do not agree that ONUS is disputed. The dispute involves various misunderstandings of it that result from editors extending its meaning beyond the four corners of its text. The disputed tag gives the impression that Verification may be sufficient to establish WEIGHT, for which I've seen no support as policy, but which we see in innumerable articles' text and the associated edit wars. SPECIFICO talk 12:54, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to move NOCON to WP:Editing policy

See discussion here: WT:Consensus#Move NOCON to WP:Editing policy Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:25, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Dispute tags here and on WP:NOCON

Since someone added a dispute tag to NOCON, and since the dispute substantially relates to whether NOCON or ONUS takes priority, and since discussions on both pages have plainly failed to establish a clear consensus so far, I've tagged the current version of ONUS as disputed for parity reasons - we shouldn't give the impression that one of the two has more consensus than the other when that is clearly not the case (especially since I think it's clear that NOCON is the one that reflects actual current practice.) I'd be fine with removing both tags if people feel that it's inappropriate to leave a disputed tag on two longstanding policy pages, but I'm not fine with a situation where someone who consults or is directed to both is left with the impression that only NOCON is disputed and that ONUS is comparatively uncontroversial; so please do not remove one without the other unless you can point to an unambiguous consensus resolving the conflict in a one-directional way. --Aquillion (talk) 12:26, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

It's probably better to remove both tags. At this point, the WP:ONUS is on editors to get consensus that such a tag should be included this late in the whole above conversation (i.e., consensus that there is a true dispute between the two). It's one thing if a tag were placed early on, but a tag at this point definitely can come across as circumventing the lack of consensus in discussion. KoA (talk) 17:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

KoA, why do you think ONUS applies to tags (as opposed to "information") on Wikipedia pages (as opposed to encyclopedia "articles")? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:21, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, tags in order to produce a discussion but we are already having it so I'd say not needed just now. Selfstudier (talk) 18:02, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

"tags in order to produce a discussion" I always thought they were in order to let readers know that the text was disputed. What is the basis for your statement? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

"Disputed inline should not be used without also raising the issue on the talk page." Selfstudier (talk) 23:35, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. However, "no tag without starting discussion" does not necessarily also mean "no tag as soon as a discussion is up and running." A "disputed" tag is a useful tool to reduce edit warring during a discussion (see, for example, wp:QUO). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:33, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I would be fine with either restoring tags to both ONUS and NOCON or leaving both without tags. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:38, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Selfstudier, as WhatamIdoing said elsewhere (discussing the same topic): "it is in everyone's best interest for editors to be aware of these discussions, and not just the handful of people who watch these pages closely." (I look forward to your response to this post and my July 10 post (above).) - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

This page is on my watchlist, no need to keep pinging me. I already answered this, apologies if you don't like the answer. If you want to tag, I'm not stopping you? Selfstudier (talk) 16:37, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I thought you were taking a position on whether the tag should stay or not, which prevented me from restoring it. I now gather that I misunderstood and you are saying "It's not needed but I don't oppose it." - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Let's y'all remove. SPECIFICO talk 18:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed the tag here. I haven't been involved here (though watching till now), but if someone feels strongly about NOCON and removing that tag or leaving it, that can be handled over at that policy since we shouldn't be dictating what happens at other policy pages here. KoA (talk) 20:26, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the tag at NOCON. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:02, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

User:SPECIFICO, why do you recommend this course of action? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:09, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I think WP:BLUDGEON is becoming an apt reason on top of everything else given the numerous pings going out. KoA (talk) 16:15, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I read BLUDGEON as discouraging pushing the same point over and over. If you read my pings you will find that they seek more information so I can understand others' positions. And it appears that my ping to Selfstudier has resulted in clearing up a misunderstanding (see above). Meanwhile, accusing me of BLUDGEON behavior is not a substantive response to my ping to you. Do you have one? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Depends on the topic

The topic decides on which takes precedence, WP:NOCON, WP:ONUS, WP:BRD, WP:BOLD, etc. If the topic is emotionally charged & heavily watched 'or' barely given any attention at all? It will be handled differently. Any attempts to provide the same solution to articles of different topics? would be messy. GoodDay (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that this spills out into a huge range of other policies, including the ones you mentioned and, more generally, WP:CONSENSUS and our entire dispute-resolution process. Some of the arguments above essentially say that WP:ONUS somehow allows editors to completely ignore the well-established concepts of implicit consensus or consensus-via-editing. It's too much weight to put on a small aside paragraph in WP:V - ONUS is a useful reminder that verifiability alone is not sufficient to include something, nothing else. If we're going to change our core concept of consensus to only count explicit consensus, or revise our dispute-resolution process to default to removal, that needs to be done elsewhere and have more discussion there rather than fixating on a single sentence in ONUS. --Aquillion (talk) 02:31, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the ambiguity that exists in ONUS allows for implicit consensus to be taken into consideration. It's possible that "those seeking to include disputed content" can make the case that implicit consensus exists based on the article's history, giving some leverage in a discussion where consensus is evenly split. Of course, this would still need to be shown, and the onus to do so is on those in support of inclusion. It's also possible for implicit consensus to be a weak argument, again dependent upon the article's history, level of activity/visibility, etc. ONUS, to me, leaves that argument on the table. --GoneIn60 (talk) 17:20, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe that ONUS is ambiguous. I think that's part of the problem with the conflict: We're trying to pretend that there is ambiguity so that we don't have to deal with the sharp, clear words in ONUS. ONUS says:

• If I add it +
• You don't want it in the article, then
• out it goes, unless and until we have proof of consensus for inclusion (which it would be my job to seek, not yours).

We need to stop pretending that this is unclear. There is no secret "well, if she added it months/years ago, then it wasn't ever 'added' and ONUS doesn't apply" clause in here.

BTW, this might be part of the problem. @GoneIn60 writes that "implicit consensus exists based on the article's history". Actually: No. That's SILENCE, not IMPLICITCONSENSUS. Implicit consensus is when I add something, and you improve it. You "implicitly" consent to the material being in the article when you choose to improve the material instead of removing it. If you remove it, you are (a) proving that there is no implicit consensus for the material I added and (b) speaking out against any perceived silent consensus. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

If the content in question was improved upon, then that action would be a part of the "article history", would it not? But sure, that's a helpful clarification to make, and perhaps EDITCON should be more specific in that regard. While I think some ambiguity exists in ONUS (in a good way), I wouldn't necessarily call ONUS ambiguous. There are straight-forward examples like the ones you've provided that show when ONUS is most clear. It is less so in other situations. For example:

• Alice boldly adds something.
• Bob modifies Alice's addition.
• Carol later removes it entirely.
• Only Alice and Carol participate in the challenge discussion.

Does Carol automatically have the upper hand per ONUS? Does the implicit consensus count for anything if it pans out to a 1-1 draw? Maybe the default is still exclusion, but that seems less clear to me in a situation like that. --GoneIn60 (talk) 03:50, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Was the content in question sourced? If so, it can't be a CHALLENGE. (It can only be a "dispute".)

Was the content in question both poorly sourced and about a BLP? If so, then BLP overrides every other consideration, and results in removal.

Assuming that neither of those a relevant, we proceed to ONUS. Bob's implicit support for including the material should be counted when determining whether consensus exists. You might see a discussion summary (let's pretend we have one for convenience) that says "Well, Alice and Bob are clearly support its inclusion in some form, but Alice gave no reasons except that she likes it, and Carol says it's a violation of NOT, and I'd say the fact that two editors like it is basically equal to Carol's one strong reason, so it's a 50–50 draw with no consensus". In that case:

• ONUS says to remove it.
• BRD says not to restore it.
• EW says not to restore it and to seek more participants for further discussion.
• EPTALK says to consider BRD or dispute resolution.
• QUO says to remove it if it's new but keep it if it's old.
• NOCON says that, in such situations, we "commonly" remove it if it's new but keep it if it's old.

The process shouldn't be consider the discussion in isolation, declare it a no-consensus draw, and then add on other considerations, like edits made by editors who didn't participate. When you are determining consensus, you should be considering the whole situation, (e.g., policies and guidelines that you are aware of, but nobody in the discussion happens to have mentioned). If our imaginary editor provided this summary: "Well, Alice says ILIKEIT and Carol says IDONTLIKEIT, so that's a 50-50 draw with no consensus", then our imaginary editor was thinking too narrowly, and upon discovering that Bob had previously supported this, should revise the summary statement to say "Alice says ILIKEIT, Bob previously supported it, and Carol says IDONTLIKEIT, so if we think it's safe to assume that Bob's views haven't changed per NOTSILENCE, that's probably a weak consensus for inclusion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:38, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, yes it was meant as a simple example in a vacuum that assumes proper sourcing but doesn't take further dispute resolution into account.

I think it demonstrates the point that in some situations, ONUS may seem less clear (or perhaps less decisive) in determining a discussion's outcome. Typically no consensus between editors actively discussing the conflict results in exclusion per ONUS, but other factors – not described by ONUS – can impact the outcome. And that's all perfectly fine, because I think that's the intent. My comments were more a response to Aquillion's concern about arguments saying "WP:ONUS somehow allows editors to completely ignore the well-established concepts of implicit consensus or consensus-via-editing". It does not, and any argument that pretends otherwise is missing the point. The purpose of ONUS is to kickstart discussion placing the ball in the court of supporter(s). It does not rule out potential talking points of that discussion.

Perhaps we are more on the same page than first assumed, now that we've had a few paragraphs to flesh that out! ;-) -- GoneIn60 (talk) 16:16, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Can you name a situation in which the result isn't exclusion? Looking at my comment above, for the simple example, it appears that the options are "exclusion per BLP" and "exclusion per ONUS". Either way, the result is exclusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Thought we just did? Let's say Alice lays out her case for inclusion, and Carol follows up with her counter. Assume both arguments are roughly equal in terms of applicable policies and guidelines. If discussion ends here, it is a no consensus draw, in which case the content is excluded per ONUS. Bob's implicit consensus can get completely overlooked when squarely focused on ONUS. However, the result could have been inclusion had Alice known to bring Bob's contributions into the mix, but you can't fault Alice for assuming it's a 1-1 draw. Bob is not actively "seeking to include disputed content", and the knowledge to take other factors into account, like implicit consensus, is prescribed outside of ONUS.

SPECIFICO's comment below made me realize perhaps this tangent is straying too far off topic! --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:13, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Your description here is basically "We initially did a bad job of assessing consensus, but when we assessed it correctly, we decided there was consensus for inclusion". ONUS supports including sourced information when you determine that there is consensus for including it. I do not understand how "Oops, we did a sloppy job of assessing consensus" could mean that ONUS is unclear or that factors other than ONUS determine what to do when the actual state of consensus does not support inclusion. The fact that editors sometimes do a bad job of assessing consensus does not amount to a Get Out of Jail Free card for any policy, including this one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

That's actually a good way of summarizing this rabbit hole. Essentially, the bad job occurs because of a misunderstanding of the order of operations. The revert or removal engages ONUS which states "to achieve" and "seeking", present tense descriptions that could be interpreted as active participation. So those in support of inclusion may think the responsibility is now on whoever participates in discussion moving forward. Actions like Bob's occurred in the past. But ultimately, I think you're right that it boils down to a proper understanding of consensus, and ONUS does link to WP:CON. --GoneIn60 (talk) 17:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I should add that the position at WP:EDITCON about implicit consensus going away once challenged seems to me as a way to promote progress and change within an article. An editor's knee-jerk reaction shouldn't be, "This has existed for X months, and therefore, it has consensus. You must show it doesn't have consensus." My comments above are meant to address a situation in which discussion commences, setting implicit consensus aside, that ultimately reaches a stalemate. Implicit consensus could then be revisited and given some weight, if justified, tipping the scales in favor of retention. I'm not sure ONUS stands in the way of that. --GoneIn60 (talk) 17:35, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

It's perhaps also worth remembering that not all disputed changes are removals of materials. So while I think ONUS should apply to long term claims that haven't been challenged, I'm not as keen on including it for things like where content is located in the article, specific phrasing, content of the lead etc. So if fact A has been in the lead for a year without challenge or discussion and two editors disagree if that content is DUE for the lead, should ONUS come into play? Presumably the content is already in the body of the article. Same for the order of article sections. Basically I don't think putting more emphasis on ONUS means IMPLICIT effectively goes away. Springee (talk) 18:17, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

ONUS has always and only applied to whether a given bit of material is in the article. ONUS does not apply to moving the material to a different section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Is the (lowercase) "onus" to achieve consensus for changes to consensus content not on those seeking the change, regardless of what that change is? Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Depends on "consensus content". Is that consensus through editing or through discussion? If it's the former, EDITCON says that presumed consensus goes out the window as soon as it's challenged. But then there's different levels of editing consensus. If multiple editors have modified the disputed content over time, and the challenger is just one individual, does that then place the onus on the challenger? If so, what policy or guideline supports that? -- GoneIn60 (talk) 19:26, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Kolya, I think the short answer to your question is "no". For most editing, the onus/obligation/duty to figure out what the consensus is for the article is on every editor who wants to see the article improved. There has been a fairy tale going around for some years about it always being the other editor's job to start the discussion, but that was never in any policy. In fact, policies like Wikipedia:Editing policy#Talking and editing focus on what "you" can do to edit collaboratively and resolve any disputes that come up – always "you", and never "the other guy". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:12, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

GoneIn60, Isn't the onus on someone to challenge implicit consensus in order to change it? As explained in WP:SILENCE, if you disagree, the onus is on you to say so. Kolya Butternut (talk) 04:24, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Sure: An essay written by a couple of people presents that opinion. Also, making any edit to an article constitutes one form of "saying so". Have you ever seen anyone edit an article to communicate their belief that the version they're changing was better than the one they're posting? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, onus is a simple concept. Like you said, For most editing, the onus/obligation/duty to figure out what the consensus is for the article is on every editor who wants to see the article improved. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:54, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

As others have said above, "it" does not depend on the topic. I think you're just generalizing from having observed that some topic pages are widely and frequently edited and others are broadly neglected. To take two examples, many topic areas in current events are followed by hundreds of editors and talk page consensus is a reasonably good sample as to how the editing community of millions would resolve ONUS and WEIGHT and BLP. Then, on the other end of the scale, topic pages about social science and humanities, obscure works of fiction, and pop electronic media subjects (games, tik-tokkers, bloggers) are edited by a much smaller population -- and talk page discussion is likely to be dominated by a small number of enthusiastic POV advocates -- who are prone to good faith misapplication of NPOV. SPECIFICO talk 17:06, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

If you or any other editor(s) want to attempt a blanket treatment on all talk pages? Then by all means do so. There's the ideal world & the real world, which aren't identical. GoodDay (talk) 20:10, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I am not saying there's no way to parse it. I am saying that you parsed it in the wrong dimension. If this interests you, I suggest you brainstorm some ways to parse it according to the edit environments that are typical across topics rather than the topics themselves, within which there are diverse editing environments and diverse factors that effectively make a topic-based "real world" an unnecessarily blunt instrument. SPECIFICO talk 21:11, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if the word "topic" in that comment meant something closer than "a specific article, with its individual history and characteristics" than to "any and all articles on the general topic of ______, broadly construed". One could not really claim that all articles about (e.g.,) military history or films or the Middle East will be, or even should be, treated the same. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I meant to say that we should not be using "topic" in any sense. SPECIFICO talk 09:18, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Changes to BLP 3RR exemption

FYI, an issue related to ONUS and edit warring: Wikipedia talk:Edit warring#Making WP:3RRNO point 7 more specific. Levivich (talk) 15:08, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Definition of a source

SOURCE says:

The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings:

• The work itself (the article, book)
• The creator of the work (the writer, journalist)
• The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press)

All three can affect reliability.

I have been thinking since our last conversation on this about how to make it clearer. Here's my current thinking:

A source is the person, place, or thing that a Wikipedia editor took information from. Usually, when editors are talking about a source, they mean one or more of these four things:

• The work itself (the article, book: "That book looks like a useful source for this article.")
• The creator of the work (the writer, journalist: "What do we know about that source's reputation?")
• The publication (for example, the newspaper, journal, magazine: "That source covers the arts.")
• The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press: "That source publishes reference works.")

All four can affect reliability.

This adds a straight definition of source (NB source – not reliable source) and examples of how editors might use the word. I also separated publisher from publication, which turns our three categories into four.

As an example of why I think four categories is more appropriate, consider the 2022 Pulitzer Prize winners in investigative journalism. The winning work was a series of five articles by three reporters.[4] So we might say:

• the sources, meaning the individual articles: Part 1: The Factory, Part 2: The Failings, Florida’s only lead factory finds itself in damage-control mode, A look inside Florida’s only lead smelter, Cadmium spiked inside a Tampa lead factory. Workers didn’t get help., and Part 3: The Fallout
• the sources, meaning the journalists: Corey G. Johnson, Rebecca Woolington and Eli Murray
• the source, meaning the publication: Tampa Bay Times
• the source, meaning the publisher: Times Publishing Company

I think this will make the what-we-mean-by-this-word explanation a bit clearer. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

• I think so, it's tiresome when one cites with attribution a reliable source1 from a reliable source2 and someone claims that you misrepresented source2 because of some other stuff in source2 that you didn't mention. Don't ask. Selfstudier (talk) 17:48, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

  Because when you are talking about a source by a source in a source from a source, then everyone knows exactly what you mean when you say "I think we need to look into that source a little more", right? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:54, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

  ) Selfstudier (talk) 09:26, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

• Someone will have to dig back through the archives, but I remember that we had some discussions on this back when the section was crafted… it might be helpful to look back at those discussions. If I remember correctly, we deliberately chose to use the word “meanings” (and intentionally AVOIDED using the word “definitions”) in that sentence. Ie we were not trying to DEFINE the term “source”, but instead clarifying that people often USE the term “source” in different contexts, each of which need to be thought about when discussing the general mishmash that is reliability. Blueboar (talk) 18:39, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I agree that these things aren't really the definition of a source, but rather an odd mix between explaining what people may mean when they say "the source" and trying to list attributes of a source that affect its reliability. And for the latter, this list is importantly incomplete and badly weighted. I think it is good in WAID's proposal to recognise that the "publication" is an important attribute and often used as a noun when we say "source" (e.g. The Guardian is a good source) but I think we should drop "publisher". Who the publisher is is actually a bit vague. The examples here seem to think it is the corporate entity that owns the publication. But often that is just an "imprint" of a bigger publishing house who in turn are owned by someone further up (a trust, a listed company, a Russian oligarch). If a newspaper runs a political live blog, the publisher is really the journalist posting entries. For other articles, we might view the editor as the one who made a decision to publish an article. The corporate entities may own so many titles that they don't really feature in our views of reliability. When has anyone said 'I sourced this from Penguin Random House"' or "Elsevier is a reliable source" or "That's unsupported by the source, Guardian Media Group".

I wonder if this policy is so focused on what makes a source reliable that it has missed the fact that of the three or four "sources" listed above, only one of them is fundamental to verifiability: the actual text of the article we cite. If our article text is not capable of being drawn from that source text, it simply isn't even a "source" and certainly isn't verifiable. I think the policy should start with that, that fundamentally the thing that actually used as a source for the wiki text is some article text (or speech or a diagram I guess). These other nouns (creator, publication, publisher) may often be used to when we talk about a source, but whenever we do so, we are being vague and importantly we are being indirect. We don't actually source our text to Katy Balls or to The Guardian or to Guardian Media Group. We source it to words on a page.

So maybe we need to say this, what a source really is, and then explain that sometimes people use indirect nouns when they talk vaguely about sources. Because I don't think there is anything particularly special about creator/publication/publisher as attributes of a source that determine "What counts as a reliable source" (the section heading). For example, it is far far more important that an article in The Guardian is straightforward news reporting of current affairs rather than opinion, blog, review, obituary, humour, etc. We know in medical publications the article type is absolutely critical (more so than the publication or author) and yet does not feature in the above "what counts as a reliable source". There are other attributes at Wikipedia:Reliable sources such as age. A new source may more reliably reflect current thinking than an old source.

I think trying to focus on the primary attributes of "what counts as a reliable source" by listing these nouns is a bad approach we should now retire. -- Colin°^Talk 10:08, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

It is words on a page but no-one speaks about sources in that way, RSP is organized by publisher for example. I think it is helpful to describe simply what is a "source", not necessarily reliable and not necessarily for WP experts, agreed, but WP is not mostly experts and every little helps. Selfstudier (talk) 11:00, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

Well, WP:RSP is actually mostly organised by publication, not publisher. For example, it lists Scientific American who are a magazine published by Springer Nature who in turn are owned by Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. What's the publisher of a website like Science-Based Medicine? Is it themselves, their blog authors or the New England Skeptical Society that owns it? Who cares really, when we can treat it as a publication and discuss at that level. I guess books don't really have a "publication" since they are all one-offs, though they may be part of a series or an imprint that has a reputation. WP:V currently states "Random House" is what editors call a "source" and claims that being published by "Random House" affects reliability. Really? Has anyone ever called Random House a "source" and claimed they are or are not generally reliable? Surely that isn't a meaningful example.

You say "no-one speaks about sources in that way". Well they really do at article level, because if you read an article and its citation you get the source for the text, which really really is the words on the page what is cited. Nobody (beyond newbie level) puts just an author's name as the source, or just "the Bible" as a source, even mind "Cambridge University Press" as a source. So I say: Nobody actually cites sources that way. And at the level of discussing whether article text "fails verification" then the primary thing that matters is whether the words on the page support the article text. If someone says "Hold on a sec, the source doesn't support the text", they mean the words cited, not the person who authored it. Or if they amend the text "per source" they are doing so per the words on the page, not per Random House or because they happen to personally know what Katy Balls really meant. Perhaps that kind of discussion generally gets sorted out on article talk page rather than going to noticeboards and such, so perhaps it is easy to forget.

Whenever you go beyond the words on the page, to the author, publication and so on, you are being indirect and general. And I'd say that these nouns less useful to us as a grouping mechanism for generalities than to consider attributes. Sure who the author is and what the containing publication is are also attributes, but so is the type of article and so is the age of the article. I think WP:V's over-emphasis on publisher/publication it is harmful, actually, because at MEDRS and medical topics, we have to explain to people that yes the NEJM is a fantastic publication, and yes the paper is peer reviewed, but your study of 20 patients in 1995 is not a reliable source for saying Wonderpam cures baldness. It is the wrong type of article and it is very old. Do you really think the fact that something is published by Cambridge University Press rather than Penguin is more important than whether one is 30 years old and one is a year old. -- Colin°^Talk 11:07, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Nobody (beyond newbie level) puts just an author's name as the source, is not true, every time we cite an expert opinion, the text of our article will cite the author as source, regardless of where it was published. This does not stop persons going on to say it was published by X and X is a crap publisher that does no fact checking, prints conspiracy theories etc etc. You see, no discussion of the actual text, just arguments about the author and the publisher, very common situation. Those MEDRS examples you mention are also typical of the discussions in other areas and again they are not about the actual words. The truth is that all of the elements whether they be WP:RS elements or V elements go into discussions (when they occur) about "a source". Finally your comment publication, not publisher kinda proves my point about how slippery this all is, so additions that clarify are welcome in my view. Selfstudier (talk) 11:20, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Are you talking about in-text attribution? I'm not sure that's quite what WP:V is talking about when it means a source.

Here's the thing, the actual words on the page that we cite as our source cannot be judged reliable or unreliable, any more than a clock face showing 3:15 can be judged reliable. Judging reliability means examining qualities of something from which we draw our cited source information from. Something bigger or more general. In the WP:V text we are discussing, we've gone bigger by crawling up the publication hierarchy. But we can become more general in other directions too.

Those attributes of reliability might be being in a certain respected non-fiction book, in a quality newspaper, by a professional author with relevant qualifications, be an appropriate type of article, be recent. Some of those attributes happen to align with concrete nouns that people casually talk about when discussing "reliable sources" but I argue some of those important attributes have been neglected. In medicine we might say that our source is a literature review, or it is a meta-analysis, or that it is just an editorial or a case report. I might say "A case report is a terrible source for Wikipedia". But this "type of article" doesn't feature in the above bullets. I might say "Try to use a modern source" but age doesn't feature in the above bullets.

Verification is concerned with two things. Does the source cited literally support the article text. This is the basic requirement to even meet the definition of source. I agree that when everyone here discusses reliability we don't discuss the actual text (much) and we discuss all these other things. The problem with hierarchies, as these bullet points above demonstrate, is that they often restrict our ways of thinking. They are just one way of organising things, and I think that by doing it like above, we aren't focusing on the most useful qualities and over emphasising a rather unimportant one. But also, I think we are confusing the newbie editor if we really are trying to say this is the definition of a source. -- Colin°^Talk 15:03, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

In re Do you really think the fact that something is published by Cambridge University Press rather than Penguin is more important than whether one is 30 years old and one is a year old?

I think the fact that something is published by the author, or published by the subject, or published by a predatory journal group is very important. The difference between CUP and Penguin could be trivial; the difference between a corporate press release and any large non-fiction publishing house is significant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:30, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

IMO, in practice talking about the publisher is usually in the context of confirming that it isn't self-published. And what's more relevant is the "next level up"; e.g. the magazine that it's in, not the ultimate owner of the magazine. Probably a distant second is when there is a respected known publisher who really does publisher-type work involved, such bolsters the source during any discussions. North8000 (talk) 11:43, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

The publisher is the key point if you're talking about predatory journals. Wikipedia:WikiProject Academic Journals/Journals cited by Wikipedia/Questionable1 is organized by publisher, e.g., Hindawi (publisher). WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:30, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Focusing on "publisher", and more specifically, that the publisher itself is key to relability when considering aspects like self-publishing and promotional/predatory works, can help. At least it becomes easy when you identify the publisher as the entity that has editorial control and review of the work before it is made public, and reliability is a measure of that editorial control. Eg it is understanding the YouTube nor Twitter is the publisher of that content, merely a host while the uploaded is the publisher. Forbes contribs have minimal review before they are published to which we consider the contributor as the publisher. A predatory journal is not going to have the rigorous peer review like top tier journals so while they may be the publisher, their process of editorial oversight sucks to make them unreliable. Etc. Masem (t) 19:46, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Plural

I think I've found a way to adapt the current/proposed text in a way that includes what is missing. I maintain that when the current text says "The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings" it is very misleading and WAID's proposal is only a little better "Usually, when editors are talking about a source, they mean one or more of these four things". Because there are five things we talk about, one of them is what we actually cite, and that isn't mentioned in either list. We cite a specific source text, with varying degrees of precision, and we expect the reader to be able to find words in the source text that supports the article text. We are not "citing" a person or a publication or a publisher and citing a whole book would be unhelpful. But we are talking about those things, mostly when we are considering reliability.

An additional problem with the current/proposed text is that it is all singular. And that's not often helpful for discussing reliability. Sure, we can find examples of these things that are individually considered unreliable. The Lancet MMR paper by Andrew Wakefield got withdrawn (eventually) and is itself widely notable as unreliable. Same goes for its lead author, Wakefield. And the Daily Mail is our go-to example of an unreliable publication. But it is often more helpful to talk in the plural and we do also consider them as a source in the plural. We may say "Primary research papers are not a reliable source of medical facts" or "Professional textbooks are reliable sources". We can say "Newspapers are not a good source for medical facts" without having to deal with a specific newspaper's own reputation.

How to talk about sources in the plural? Any ideas for revising the section? Here's a quick draft:

While a cited source is usually a specific block of text, when we talk about a reliable source we mean the person, place, or work that a Wikipedia editor took information from. Usually, when editors are talking about a reliable source or sources, they mean one or more of these four things:

• The work itself (the article, book: "That book looks like a useful source for this article.") and works like it ("An obituary can be a useful biographical source", "A recent source is better than an old one")
• The creator of the work (the writer, journalist: "What do we know about that source's reputation?") and people like them ("A medical researcher is a better source than a journalist for..").
• The publication (for example, the newspaper, journal, magazine: "That source covers the arts.") and publications like them ("A newspaper is not a reliable source for medical facts").
• The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press: "That source publishes reference works.") and publishers like them ("An academic publisher is a good source of reference works").

I disagree with WAIDs claim that their text "a straight definition of source (NB source – not reliable source)" because it missed out the cited source, which is a very important use of the word source, and I think (correct me I'm wrong) those other meanings are mainly concerned with choosing reliable ones. We aren't defining reliable source either, but trying to define source when used in either circumstance. When I say "The source does not support the article text" I'm referring to the cited source text, not the book or author or publisher. When I say "The source is not reliable" I'm not referring to the cited source text itself, but the other things around that. -- Colin°^Talk 10:59, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree with much of what Colin has said, but I wanted to raise considerations that go beyond WP:V (since editors are often juggling multiple policies and related definitions). For example when considering Notability, and also when establishing WP:BALANCE and WP:DUE, it is typically the publication meaning of "source" that is used as the unit of measurement in "counting RS" (though this doesn't apply to academic journals). Perhape we could keep these related aspects in mind for any proposed new text here? Newimpartial (talk) 12:05, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Colin captures the original intent of this section of policy. We were not attempting to define the term “source”, but outlining the different ways in which the term is used in discussions, and cautioning editors to think about all of them when assessing reliability. Blueboar (talk) 13:49, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

I hear what you're saying, but presumably the section should at least offer scaffolding for the ways "source" is used within this policy. The top of the policy page includes the statement If reliable sources disagree, then maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight, with a link to DUE, so it wouldn't be off-topic to note that the publisher definition of "source" is typically used in discussions of BALANCE. Newimpartial (talk) 14:48, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

There are two parts to this, and one of them is to define "source". The other is to give a somewhat clearer/longer explanation of the ways that the word gets used.

1. I propose adding an actual definition of source (NB: not "reliable source". Just plain old "source", including unreliable ones and ones whose reliability is not yet determined).
2. I propose expanding the "how we use this in this policy" bit from three types to four types, because I think that will cover almost all of the uses of this word.

I think that we should have a definition of "source" in this policy (again: not "reliable source"). People reading this policy should be able to find a sentence that tells them that if they're writing something that they read on social media, then social media posts are their source, if they are writing something their grandparents said, then their grandparents are the source, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

The expanded version I propose doesn't define a "reliable source" either, but it does clarify that we generally mean different things depending on whether we are citing it (in which case it is a concrete thing with actual words) or discussing the reliability of something that contains it or things that are similar to it and may even be an abstract thing like "newspapers" or "literature reviews".

If they are writing about something they read on social media and they actually cited it (a tweet, say) then their cited source is that sentence someone tweeted. Verifiability is very interested in that sentence (does it support the article text) but it is unimportant when we consider if it is a reliable source. If someone complains "that's an unreliable source" they might mention Twitter or the author of the tweet, but could also disparage all "social media posts", as you put it, as an unreliable source of information, which are plural and general, and that plurality and generalisation was missing from your original proposed version.

If they don't cite the source, then it is what we'd call "unsourced" even if there is a "source" within their head. The same goes for their grandparent's oral wisdom. I don't think your example then fits into "when editors are talking about a source" because we don't have extended conversations about intangible unknowable sources. The policy page is "Verifiability" and we are in the section "Reliable sources" and subsection "What counts as a reliable source". If we are concerned to educate our readers about any kind of sources, citable for the purpose of verification or only vaguely remembered, then source is a starting point for articles on the topic. -- Colin°^Talk 17:46, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

My main concern about your proposal is the inclusion of the word reliable in the phrase "when we talk about a reliable source we mean the person, place, or work that a Wikipedia editor took information from". Consider:

• "Source": Any person, place, or thing that a Wikipedia editor took information from
• "Cited source": Any person, place, or thing that is cited in the article, even if it's not the one that a Wikipedia editor originally took the information from (e.g., a source cited by someone else to deal with a {{fact}} tag; a source that has failed verification)
• "Reliable source": Any person, place, or thing that experienced editors accept as being appropriate for verifying the specific content in question.

The definition of (plain) source needs to encompass unreliable sources. What you wrote doesn't do that. If the problem isn't obvious to you, then try flipping that sentence: "the person, place, or work that a Wikipedia editor took information from is what we mean when we talk about a reliable source". It is not true that every person, place, or work that a Wikipedia editor took information from is a reliable source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I really don't want to be defining "source" or "cited source" or "reliable source" as though they are dictionary definitions, and I don't think those definitions are helpful. I was trying to clarify what editors mean by "source" in the two key circumstances that matter to Verifiability: when we cite a source and when we discuss reliability of a source. I don't think it is useful to clump all the possible meanings together, because we really really do not cite publishing houses or people, and we really really do not discuss the reliability of page 51 of the January 2022 edition of the British Medical Journal.

I think you got "person, place, or thing" from Google's definition of a "source" and I think that's an unhelpfully general definition because "place" might be fine for where you get your groceries but is pretty irrelevant to Wikipedia's use of the word. And "thing" is way too unspecific. A dictionary has to include e.g. "mackerel is a good source of fish oil" but we don't. We use the word "work" so we might as well lead with that, rather than "thing".

How about "While a cited source is usually a specific block of text, when we talk about whether or not a source is reliable, we mean the work or works a Wikipedia editor took information from, or those involved in creating and publishing those works:"

That avoids your concern that we are trying to define reliable source and is a better lead description than the "person, place or thing" that Google gave us. I think we can drop the last sentence too, and just let this one lead into the bullet list. In a way, this sentence then is a transition from thinking about citing specific source text, to thinking about "What counts as a reliable source", which is the section heading. -- Colin°^Talk 17:35, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I didn't get this definition from Google; that's the typical definition of a noun, which my own Miss Snodgrass insisted that all her students learn.

Citing a place is not common, except for {{cite sign}}, but a geographical location really can be a source of information, e.g., "I walked over to this park last week and found a monument to the soldiers of the Great War, and now I'm writing "There is a war memorial in this park" in the Wikipedia article. It might not be a reliable source, but if this is how you acquired the information you put in the article, then it is your source.

The reason I prefer "person, place, or thing" is because it encompasses everything that could give information to a Wikipedia editor. "Work" feels narrower, as if it includes only artwork and documents. What if you're reading the label on an object, and you add "The Russell Hobbs iron is made in China" to a relevant Wikipedia article? Is that "a work"? It doesn't feel that way to me. What if the source of my information is personal experience? I can tell you that falling down hurts a lot more than it used to. Is my personal experience "a work"? If it's the basis for me adding information to an article, it would be "my source" (and an unreliable one banned by NOR), but it doesn't feel like it's "a work". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

I think you are trying to do something different to what this point in the policy page needs to do, and was (imperfectly) trying to do, which is describe what editors usually mean by "source" when they are having sourcing discussions. While we could extend "source" to include one's grandparent's oral wisdom, what your primary school teacher taught you, your local woodland or your own self discoveries about pain, these aren't what editors are usually talking about. The {{cite sign}} template describes it being used for a noticeboard providing information. I'd regard that as a "work" (it certainly is wrt copyright in the UK) and it really isn't a place, even it has a static location that could be part of the citation. The word "work" was already used multiple times in this section and used multiple times in your draft.

Wikipedia's verification policy requires a source to be a tangible thing that another editor can consult independently in order to verify the article text. I would say that was a core part of the restrictive meaning of "source" we use when citing and when discussing their reliability. So, while those other meanings of "source" are valid for where you may have got your ideas from, they aren't relevant to Wikipedia, to WP:V or to the section on what makes a reliable source.

I think there's a reason that copyright licences use the term "work". It means it was created by a human and is more than what existed before (in our case, it presents information to the consumer of that work). It is more than just a "thing" and certainly isn't a "place". Is there an alternative word? -- Colin°^Talk 10:37, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Even if we were writing this policy from scratch, I would recommend having a definition of source in it. If people believe that all sources are copyrightable works, then people will be misled as to the nature of the actual sources.

It is not a matter of whether we "could" extend the concept of a source to unreliable and non-traditional works; the fact is that we "already do". Using your examples, it would surprise me if, in these 6,821,115 articles, there were really nothing based on what someone's grandmother said about the food she cooked, what an editor's schoolteacher said about grammar or basic mathematics, a description of a place based on the Wikipedia editor walking over to the woodland and then writing here a description of its location or the presence of some type of plants, or identifying a particular experience as being painful based on the editor's personal experience (e.g., the unsourced content in Breakup about pain). WP:PRIMARYCARE gives an example of using a painting as a source. NOR gives an example of archaeological artifacts as being sources. Middens probably don't qualify as "works", but NOR says they are primary sources. Note, too, that the FAQ at the top of this page mentions unpublished personal communications as being a source.

I think the disconnect is here: "Wikipedia's verification policy requires a source to be a tangible thing". It doesn't. Wikipedia's verification policy requires a reliable source to be a tangible thing, but it doesn't require an unreliable source to be anything. Source = unreliable+reliable. The definition of source should not be wrongly limited to reliable ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

I can't escape the problem that all the things you listed in the first paragraph are what editors here would call "unsourced". I'm quite sure there are lots of facts that come from these intangible origins but editors don't tend to regard them as sources worth discussing. It doesn't even make sense to consider whether they are reliable or not. When have we ever had a discussion about whether your grandmother was reliable, or the woods were a reliable source of facts about trees, or your heart was a reliable source about the pain of a breakup. I think for a section in WP:V that is describing what makes a source reliable, it doesn't help to get distracted by them.

I'm not really sold by the idea that editors need a general definition of source that so clearly majors on sources we don't discuss. I don't think the proposed text claims these are the only meanings, but they are the usual meanings that editors generally discuss.

I'm not at all claiming that sources need to be copyrightable. The word "works" has existed in this policy for a very long time, and I mentioned copyright licences merely to say that they also used the same term to describe something human created that has value. Your examples of paintings or archaeological artefacts being primary sources fits completely into "works" too, though we wouldn't tend to have a reliability discussion about those, more whether the facts claimed from such primary sources fouled OR. The proposed text says "usually" wrt both the citation ("usually a specific block of text") and the reliability discussion. Are you actually suggesting people cite paintings so often that "usually" is wrong? Or that I've been unaware of WP:UNRELIABLEGRANDMOTHERS where editors have for years been categorising which ancestors are reliable and unreliable?

Aside from your feelings that WP:V needs a general definition of source, which we haven't had to date, what really is wrong with the text I proposed and what is better about it? I think adding the plurals makes it much easier for us to point at policy when saying "this type of source is unreliable" rather than getting bogged down in specifics as the current text keeps doing. And I think it corrects the mistake in the current text that claims we cite people or publishers, because we really don't. Blueboar and Newimpartial appear to agree it is an improvement that better describes what editors are talking about. Perhaps there is room for your general source definition, if it has merit, in another part of the page? -- Colin°^Talk 07:55, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

When have we ever had conversations about whether someone's grandmother is reliable? In practice, probably about 90% of the times we've discussed whether any document written by a woman over the age of 60. But if you meant "When have we discussed whether unpublished personal communications count"?, then I repeat that this has happened often enough that it ended up in the Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/FAQ years ago. My own preferred example begins "I saw Karp in the elevator, and he said...", and I can find five conversations in which I've mentioned that specific example with a quick search, so it does apparently come up.

I think that WP:V and WP:RS will eventually need a definition of reliable source. That requires having a definition for source. It is very difficult to reach an agreement about what counts as "a source that is reliable" if we cannot reach an agreement about what counts as "a source".

For the rest, I repeat: My main concern about your proposal is the inclusion of the word reliable in the phrase "when we talk about a reliable source we mean the person, place, or work that a Wikipedia editor took information from".

Consider the classic OR violation of posting unpublished information. I even cite it: <ref>Unpublished document from work</ref>.

Now I read your proposed statement: "when we talk about a reliable source we mean..." – well, we don't even need to read the whole sentence, because apparently we mean something of absolutely no relevance to what I did, because I cited an unreliable source, and this whole thing is only about reliable sources. All the following stuff about documents, authors, and publishers has just been defined as irrelevant, because it's an unreliable source and this sentence is only talking about reliable sources. This means you're going to tell me that I can't say this because we care about publishers (and there isn't one, which is essentially a fatal omission for a document), and I'm going to very sweetly reply "Dear Colin, your sentence says we mean to talk about publishers for reliable sources. You said this is an unreliable one, so we don't talk about the publisher", and then you are going to think about whether to cheer for the comet. Sticking the word reliable in there is an unnecessary gift to dramamongers and wikilawyers. If you re-write your opening sentence in there to not limit the type of sources whose work, author(s), or publisher(s) could be meant, then I'd be satisfied. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:56, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

I've already amended the proposal to meet this demand. See the text in green posted 6th June, that says "when we talk about whether or not a source is reliable". That covers both reliable and unreliable sources, and covers the situation where those meanings are appropriate (vs the restricted kind of sources we typically see cited in articles).

I'm not aware there is disagreement or confusion about what is a source, in the general meaning, but if an editor is confused or disagrees, then they could be referred to a dictionary or an encyclopaedia. I don't see why policy needs to define every day words to include more general examples than is useful for a discussion on verifiability.

Wrt your personal communication example, the FAQ is a little misleading, in that the issue with such a source (telephone or email or letter or face-to-face or whatever) is that it simply isn't acceptable as verifiable by a reader at all, and the reliability of it is by-they-by. As the page you link to (Wikipedia:Published) explains: "Sources that are not published (e.g., something someone said to you personally) or not accessible (e.g., the only remaining copy of the book is locked in a vault, with no one allowed to read it) are never acceptable as sources on Wikipedia." While it also says reliable sources must be published/accessible, that is not a definition of reliable, merely that those attributes are a bare minimum before we can even entertain a discussion of reliability. For example, in the WP:V lead "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source", requires published/accessible for the "other people using the encylcopedia can check" bit.

The lead of WP:V already requires "content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors" and we have a section on accessibility. I think it is fair at this point in the policy ("What counts as a reliable source") to consider those sources that "other people using the encyclopedia can check".

Editors generally use "unsourced" to mean text that either isn't cited at all, or that it doesn't appear to come from the cited source, or that the citation is not to a published accessible source. I don't think it helps us at this point in policy to effectively state that nothing is unsourced, because everything comes from somewhere, even one's own "beliefs or experiences". That's why it has been useful to clarify what editors mean by "source" in citation/reliability discussions, and not to just offer a general dictionary definition. -- Colin°^Talk 12:36, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever seen an editor claim that a sentence is unsourced unless there is no little blue clicky number (or, previously, WP:PARENs) at the end of the sentence. People who cite inaccessible documents (I remember a case of documents available only to people belonging to a particular religion) are told that the source is unreliable or unacceptable, not that they didn't cite it.

I think the fastest path forward would be for you to make the change(s) you'd like to see. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:27, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Uh huh, second that, enough abstract, let's get concrete:) Selfstudier (talk) 09:25, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

• By focusing on “definition”, I think we are missing the important part of the statement: There are multiple aspects of a source that can affect whether we consider it reliable or not. All have to be considered. Sometimes one will outweigh the others (and that can be enough to tip the determination in one direction or the other), but they should all be considered. Blueboar (talk) 17:45, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

  There are so many factor to consider when thinking about reliability. This section doesn't cover them all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:12, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

I see WhatamIdoing incorporated the plural examples, and expanded the bullet-list to four meanings. I've tried to reword the leading sentence(s) to address my concerns that nobody sensibly cites authors, entire publications or publishers in Wikipedia articles, but they do discuss them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin (talk • contribs) 12:05, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Colin, if I write something like "The World Health Organization recommends face masks in some situations", followed by a little blue clicky number that contains a bibliographic citation to a page on their website about their recommendations for personal protective equipment, is that "citing" or "discussing"? And is it citing/discussing the WHO, or their recommendation, or the page on their website? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Verifiable ≠ cited

I feel like I've had too many conversations recently in which someone has selectively quoted BURDEN to claim that all uncited sentences are unable to be verified. The idea is that "other people" are entirely, hopelessly unable "to check that the information comes from a reliable source" unless a reliable source is presented to them on a silver platter.

I think it is probably time to add a sentence about the difference between cited and verifiable. NOR uses the line "verifiable, even if not verified", but "verified" could be understood as someone actually checking the source, rather than a source merely being listed in the article, so I'm inclined to suggest "verifiable, even if not cited" instead. A less stylish way might be to note that "if some material is not presently cited, but you can find a reliable source that directly supports it, then that material is already verifiable, and we would like you to edit the article so that the material is both verifiable and also cited".

What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:38, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if you are just trying to handle a situation where a room full of pedants still frequently use lazy shorthand, expecting others in the room to understand their shorthand, rather than to get diverted by someone dismantling their failure to be utterly precise. In other words, is this an issue to bother most editors with? The lead does already state everything must be verifiable but only "material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged" needs inline citations. So the message is already present in the lead that there is that there is text that is verifiable already but lacks and doesn't need a citation. Your proposed guidance would perhaps suggest editors should spend their time citing that Paris is the capital of France if they can find a source for it.

Perhaps the problem is with BURDEN:

"All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."

is absolute. The two sentences combined make this bold text require one demonstrates verifiability with citations in all content, which is wrong. We could drop that first sentence that just repeats what the lead has already stated. Replace this short paragraph with

"If material has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, the burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores that material. This is achieved by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."

Remember this is the section on "Responsibility for providing citations" so a statement "All content must be verifiable." is not vital here. However, if editors wish to keep it, I think the caveat I've added would mean that first sentence could remain:

"All content must be verifiable. If material has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, the burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores that material. This is achieved by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution."

-- Colin°^Talk 13:45, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Or perhaps insert a sentence: All content must be verifiable. Content might be verifiable even while it is uncited, but sometimes it is necessary to demonstrate verifiability, by adding a citation. (No changes, just adding the second sentence.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:44, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Way, way more than "sometimes". How much uncited text do you find in GAs and FAs? This isn't 2003 anymore where editors welcome people just plopping down whatever they believe to be true. The overwhelming majority of our text should be and is cited. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:24, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Using GAs and FAs as a guide to what a binding minimum standard like WP:V requires doesn't seem well-founded. -- Visviva (talk) 02:04, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

There might even be a difference between when it is "necessary" to demonstrate verifiability and when it is "desirable" to do so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

An aspect to consider: say I add a paragraph of info to an article, but because I am baffled by WP's citation system, I include the URL to the source on the talk page or even as the edit summary. That is a completely valid verified piece of info with a source, just that the source isn't in an inline cite, and meets this guideline. Obviously, not including the citation will make it hard on other editors to track, so it would be expected experienced editors can help to include the cite, but just because the cite is absent doesn't make it unverified. --Masem (t) 19:34, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Masem, I think the issue is about articles that end-up in the NPP queue or somehow make it into mainspace without any sources - totally unsourced articles - and the expectation is for NPP to find the sources that will (a) verify N, and (b) verify that it is not OR. NPP should not be burdened beyond identifying unsourced articles as being unsourced, and then send them to draft or PROD them for failing to meet GNG, and V. BURDEN states the onus is on the article creator to provide sources - NPP are not article creators and we have enough on our plates without having to finish the work that may be the result of a bot or UPE or an editor who just wants to take credit for article creation but doesn't want to do the work associated with V and GNG. NPP was not established to complete unfinished articles. Our job is to not allow them to be indexed, and to send them back to draft. We should not be encouraging the creation of unsourced articles by doing the work the creators failed to do, or were unable to do because sources don't exist, or the topic was not notable. Atsme 💬 📧 23:57, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Sure, but that said, if I as a new editor created an article and still confused about citation style, dumped all my sources into the talk page, that's still "verified" for all purposes. Mind you, we absolutely accept bare URLs wrapped in ref tags as acceptable inline cites (they can be improved but they aren't failing to source their information) and a NPP patroller can inform the user how to do this quickly. Masem (t) 00:43, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Even if you didn't dump any sources anywhere, the subject could be notable and the contents could be verifiable.

Have a look at Geriatric sexology, which I ran across yesterday. It's three sentences long. It's been unsourced since its creation about 17 years ago. But ask yourself: Do you reasonably expect someone to have written about this subject? Is there anything in those three generic sentences that sounds like the kind of thing that you'd never find in a reliable source? I don't see any problems here, and I suspect that the reason it remains unsourced is because nobody else thought it was all that important to have those three unsurprising, basic sentences followed by citations, either.

I'm not saying that the article benefits from being unsourced. I'm only saying that its completely uncited contents are also completely verifiable, even though it's obviously an article that made it into the mainspace without any sources. I'd expect a NPPer to glance at it long enough to see that it doesn't contain any inappropriate jokes, have enough general knowledge to realize that since old people have sex, someone's going to write about old people having sex, click the [Mark page as patrolled] button, and move on without giving it another thought. I would not expect NPP to spend time searching for sources (though if you want to, you can find several books on the subject as well as many journal articles), finishing the article (unless it just happened to be a subject area that interested the individual), or deciding whether it's worthy of being indexed by a search engine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:37, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I would expect at minimum a competent NPP patroller to at least dump the term into Google and make sure its not something made up, because it is very easy to make a unsourced article with compelling enough language to seem legit. (I'm thinking of the hoaxes involving "dihydrogen oxide" being dangerous as a outside-of-Wikipedia example). The NPP doesn't have to read any more than 2-3 pages of results - a whole minute of work - to validate its a legit topic and then flag the article for "needs sources". But its like Schrodinger's cat - without sources present somewhere (talk page or bare url or the like), there's no way to know if the topic can be validated without at least identifying the potential for sourcing. Masem (t) 04:48, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Masem, how about this idea - when NPP tags an unsourced article with a CSD or PROD, and an admin rejects the tag, they should go ahead and find the sources to satisfy Notability and Verifiability - it only takes a minute, right? And while they're at it, they can do some CE and make sure MOS is followed. I like that idea. Let the rejecting admins do the work and find the sources if they choose to not encourage article creators to make sure their articles are ready for mainspace, and are verifiable by adding RS since the ONUS is on them. Why won't that work? NPP has a 14k+/- backlog and that doesn't count AfC so it seems perfectly feasible for our admins to help out. After all, the article could be a hoax. j/s Atsme 💬 📧 12:37, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

This might be the only time you and I have agreed, Atsme. I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not but I do think that declining CSD/prods (by pretty much anyone) if it's largely unsourced/unreliably sourced, should absolutely put the onus on the decliner instead of allowing a vague notion toward "sources exist" which I know of at least 3 editors who mass de-prod, de-tag and de-csd articles but fail to even provide a single one of those "sources" that exist. PRAXIDICAE🌈 12:44, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Not sarcasm, Prax – I've never faked a sarcasm in my life. And we actually do agree on a lot more than you think, despite our occasional differences. We're both here to help build an encyclopedia. (PS: I love your new sig). Atsme 💬 📧 13:34, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

All I am saying is that asking for a NPP patrolled to do a 1-minute Google search for the topic where the new article lacks any type of source confirmation, just to make sure it doesn't appear to be a hoax, is a very reasonable check. They don't have to add sources, just be aware that potential sources exist. At worst, then.maint-tag the article for lack of sources before approving Masem (t) 13:21, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

It appears that the opposite is being proposed at Wikipedia talk:New pages patrol/Reviewers#Proposal: increase unreviewed new page search engine NOINDEX duration. We must prevent Google's users from seeing any content at all until we are satisfied that the subject is worthy of being shown to Google's users. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

This sounds like a problem with NPP taking on a bit too much, frankly. The expectations at WP:NPPCHK are wildly excessive for the basic protections against spam, vandalism and other facially inappropriate material that we actually need patrollers to protect the project from. If reviewers are overloaded because they're taking on extra work checking cites, or because this voluntary project has been structured in a way that makes them think they have to do a bunch of extra work, that's unfortunate but not really something a core policy should be addressing. -- Visviva (talk) 02:04, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree, @Visviva. NPP used to be our defense against CSD-worthy new pages. Now they're trying to stop anyone from getting an imperfect article into the mainspace. This is a hugely bigger scope than the original goal and a completely unfair expectation to put on them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Your linked example of geriatric sexology is not, in fact, notable, and is a fitting example of why it's good that NPP enforces reasonable standards, and why we shouldn't be so forgiving of unsourced material. The phrase, in quotes, returns almost nothing on Google Scholar - there is no evidence that this is a distinct field of sexology. Rather, research on this topic belongs in the much-better article linked in the "see also" - Sexuality in older age. I intend to pursue deletion or redirection of this article once this discussion runs out. I would very much not want NPP to approve a lazy and misleading article like this. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:26, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm a dedicated mergeist, so put me down as a support. Just please add a few sources while you're at it. ISBN 9789021905662 by Zwi Hoch and Harold Lief (quote: "The lifecycle subdivisions of sexology are: embryonal–fetal, infantile, child, pubertal, adolescent, adult, and geriatric sexology") is plausible, if old. You'll find a similar description in one of the books by John Money. But I point out that the question on this page isn't whether it should be handled as a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article. The question on this page is whether someone is "able" to "verify" that this information comes from reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be good if NPP could enforce those standards. The problem is that they can't. We don't have the volunteer capacity or the processes to quickly deal with unsourced material in the way that (some) NPP reviewers would like to, so they're getting frustrated and blaming the policies and processes that we do have. – Joe (talk) 09:13, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

The idea is that "other people" are entirely, hopelessly unable "to check that the information comes from a reliable source" unless a reliable source is presented to them on a silver platter. Doesn't matter. As soon as a good faith challenge occurs, it is the BURDEN of someone restoring a claim to demonstrate that the claim is verifiable. Why is the (frankly) bare minimum of "cite sources for your claims" so oddly controversial with some, getting derided as requiring sources "on a silver platter"? We should not water down BURDEN whatsoever with anything confusing about how uncited text is supposedly verifiable. Again, nowadays, we don't want people just lazily plopping down whatever they believe to be true. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:24, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Whether an uncited fact is verifiable is really a separate question from whether an editor should do something.

Consider "The capital of France is Paris".

We Y fully agree that if someone makes a good-faith challenge for that sentence, then editors must cite a reliable source for that uncited sentence.

The question we're addressing here, though, isn't whether WP:CHALLENGE rules apply to CHALLENGEd material. We all already agree to that and support those rules.

The question at hand is whether that sentence is actually verifiable right now, despite not having a citation after it right now, or if – according to some editors – the sentence is unverifiable unless and until someone adds a citation (...which nobody is "able" to do, because it's "unverifiable", right?).

Do you have an opinion on whether editors are able to verify that uncited sentence? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:17, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Responded below. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:41, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps it is the nature of the discussions I've been in, but I think I've had more difficulty with editors trying to satisfy verifiability with vague and unspecific citations, for example citing an entire 10,000+ page book, instead of citing a specific chapter or page within that book, than I have with editors trying to do what WAID has said when opening this section. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:33, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

FWIW I have also observed that this confusion seems to be increasingly common. I think the distinction is very important, and should be addressed in the policy, since the lack of clarity on this point only serves to encourage ever more aggressive gatekeeping that harms the project. -- Visviva (talk) 02:04, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

• I mean, policy is already clear that citations are only required for things that are challenged or likely to be challenged. I'd be reluctant to tinker further in the way you suggest because I do think that when something is challenged, the citation needs to be clear - it is not sufficient, in the long term, to say "a citation exists on talk" or "there's a citation elsewhere in the article." I think that in situations where a citation can be easily produced WP:PRESERVE might lightly discourage massive wholesale removals, but ultimately we can't forbid them because the burden is on whoever wants to keep the text. So I don't think we want to encourage process-wonkery arguments about the difference between "verified" and "verifiable" - if you are at the point where you're actually arguing with someone, then the bottom line is that whoever wants to preserve the text is the one with the actual responsibility to affix an actual citation to the disputed text in question, end of story. Yes, on a proverbial silver platter, so to speak. If people are going around challenging massive swaths of text on the belief that absolutely all text requires citations even on very new articles, they're mistaken and policy is clear about that; but once that challenge is made I'd be very reluctant to do anything that could weaken WP:BURDEN. --Aquillion (talk) 03:32, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  What I want is for highly experienced editors to not say that an uncited sentence, such as The capital of France is Paris, is unverifiable or a violation of this policy.

  It is very easy to follow this sloppy path, and I'm sure you've seen editors do it:

  • Everything uncited is unverifiable.
  • BURDEN says "All content must be verifiable".
  • That means all uncited content is a violation of the Verifiability policy!

  This conclusion is false, because it is simply not true that all uncited content is unverifiable. The capital of France is Paris is a verifiable statement even when it is uncited. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:46, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  If there's an editor who's routinely challenging such WP:SKYISBLUE-style statements, then you might be able to make an argument that it's a conduct matter rather than an issue with the underlying content being challenged. However, I'm not sure that this issue is endemic enough that a change to policy is warranted...though I might support further clarification on the differences between "verifiable" and "cited". In my personal experience, when I challenge "obviously true" statements, I tend to end up in arguments with editors claiming that the information doesn't need to be sourced because it's "obvious"...nevermind that the most productive option would be to simply produce a source rather than bickering over the need for one (maybe that should be in the policy), and then frequently the first source they (finally) provide is a bad source. DonIago (talk) 03:54, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  I am looking only for a clarification on the differences between the words "verifiable" and "cited". I am not looking to change the policy on when or whether something should be cited. (Editors in those disputes should WP:Let the Wookiee win; it's faster to cite obvious information than to argue about it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:25, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with the logic behind the concern. Editors can easily misinterpret BURDEN to mean that all material must have an inline citation. Instead of tinkering with the first paragraph, perhaps change the third paragraph to say something like: "Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may still be verifiable. If challenged, the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation..." (bold is only to emphasize the suggested change). Maybe that's not front and center enough to cater to the concern, but just a thought. --GoneIn60 (talk) 04:17, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

What would that change even mean? The removal itself is a challenge. The policy already says, in bold, that only things that are challenged or likely to be challenged require a source; anyone who ignores such a flat statement is not going to be convinced by turning the entire section into tortured language that reiterates that point again and again. Additionally, I would strenuously oppose anything that would add additional bars to removing unsourced material. We are not required to do so, but unsourced material 100% can be removed, at any time, by anyone, solely based on the fact that it is unsourced, and when that happens anyone who wants to restore it should find a source. (If it really is WP:BLUE, good for you; finding a source should be trivial.) I would oppose any change to that in strongest possible terms. Indeed, my position is that entirely unsourced articles should be removable at any time for any reason. It is absolutely essential that we encourage people to provide sources for the things they add, and the best way to produce that pressure is to make it clear that if you don't add a source then anything you add can be instantly removed with no further discussion or explanation. Per WP:PRESERVE it is not always required to remove it; often a CN tag is better. But I would never support anything that would prevent anyone from doing so or add any barriers to doing so. Removing unsourced text is always, without exception, valid, fullstop. --Aquillion (talk) 09:04, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

"The policy already says, in bold, that only things that are challenged or likely to be challenged..." The "only" in your statement is assumed; it is not explicitly stated in policy, hence the potential for confusion. You and I get it, but novice editors can easily interpret this to mean that no citation always means not verifiable, and therefore any statement lacking an inline citation violates WP:V and should be fixed, tagged, or removed. BURDEN shouldn't be seen as an instruction to do so, that some action must be performed, because it is possible for verifiability to exist without a citation. If there's a way to add that clarification without being overly repetitive, then I'm all for taking that into consideration. --GoneIn60 (talk) 10:11, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

As I've said before, the extreme overwhelming majority of our content does not consist of widely-known things like "Paris is the capital of France", so writing policy with that in mind is misguided. Rather, our content consists of things that most people don't know off the top of their heads. My concern is the 99.9999...% of content that tells most readers things they don't know, and that material should ideally be cited (and we definitely should not move toward saying or implying it's okay not to). And in that process, someone can quick cite the CIA World Factbook or something for where the capital of France is, rather than these lengthy debates about enabling failure to cite sources. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:41, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think that makes any difference. Consider:

• Here is information you know, and you can find a reliable source if you try. You are "able" to "verify" it, so it's verifiable.
• Here is information you don't know, and you can find a reliable source if you try. You are "able" to "verify" it, so it's verifiable.

Same end result, right?

I could agree that it's worse to have that second type of information unsourced, but I can't agree that it's unverifiable. The question here isn't whether uncited information is bad. The question here is whether uncited information is unverifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:19, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

As I've said at length at WT:NOR, I don't think that whether sources "exist" in some vague sense, but are never cited, really matters in practice. Trying to make the policy go on about that more is just confusing. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:44, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

• To be honest, other than the two sentences at the top of the BURDEN section (which I think should be fixed because their juxtaposition suggests verifiable = cited), I keep seeing WP:V reminding me that "Verifiable ≠ cited". Read the sentences beginning "When tagging or removing..." Those would make no sense if uncited meant unverifiable. I've read a lot of completely made up and untrue things about polices in the last few months but I don't think adding more text to those policies always a solution. If NPP needs guidance is how best editors should handle utterly uncited articles, say, then perhaps there should be some guidance for NPP, rather than a policy text change. -- Colin°^Talk 09:01, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  To be frank, ^{because I'm always being honest,} the problem is not that NPP doesn't know what to do or cannot discern the difference between cited and verifiable. Verifiable means that the article, in its current state, should include RS that establish notability, verifiability and NOR. If it doesn't, then it fails and should not be allowed in main space until those issues are addressed. The policy needs to more clearly state that RS are required to establish both V, N and OR before an article or stub will be published in main space and indexed. Otherwise, V will conflict with all our other PAGs. What some may not be taking into consideration is whether or not the article includes any sources at all, it's not simply about inline citations. Stubs/articles that are sourced and have no inline citations are simply tagged by NPP with either or a big tag at the top of the page. NPP reviewers know the drill. My concerns are not about material that is added to an article that already contains RS. For all we know, some of those thousands of articles sitting in main space that are not sourced at all, and have slipped under the radar, could have been created by a UPE who has written a really nice promotional article that reads like an advertisement for a BLP or company they represent. How do those articles make it into main space? Could have been theft of a redirect, or an autopatrolled editor helped make it happen – I don't know, but we eventually find out if it's an admin or NPP reviewer with autopatrolled rights. There's a reason the decision was made to stop automatically giving all admins autopatrolled rights, and for having new reviewers either attend NPPSCHOOL or qualify via experience before they are given NPP user rights. Unsourced articles are much more serious than what some of the arguments have presented. It is not in the best interests of WP for any of us to turn a blind eye and simple accept unsourced articles under an assumption that they qualify. It's time to stop (a) putting bandaids on gaping wounds, and (b) encouraging editors to create articles in main space without RS or having first established V, OR and/or N. Perhaps some of our problems stem from a lack of qualified AfC reviewers, I don't know. I've read some of the comments by DGG who is inundated with new articles at AfC and carries more than his weight. He's beginning to burn out, and the same happens at NPP. Atsme 💬 📧 14:32, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  Atsme is absolutely right. An article without any RS has no right to exist here. Independent RS notability has not been established. There is no evidence it's not a hoax or OR. It doesn't have to be fully referenced, but there must be enough RS to first establish V, OR and/or N. Period. Without RS we should treat it as the opinion of the author, and we don't allow such content in any article here. Send it back to private userspace or draft space. The initial burden of establishing V, OR and/or N is on the article's creator. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:14, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Valjean, I disagree. @Atsme says:

  • "Verifiable means that the article, in its current state, should include RS that establish notability, verifiability and NOR."

  The actual policy says:

  • "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source."

  These definitions are not the same. Worse, one of them is wrong. If you read the next bit, you see her say 'The policy needs to more clearly state that "RS are required"...'. This indicates to me that Atsme's first sentence is a statement of what she wishes the definition of verifiability were, rather than what the definition actually is.

  It is not necessary to say that uncited information is technically unverifiable or a violation of this particular policy to say that unsourced articles are a blight upon humanity. If you want to establish rules that say unsourced articles are bad or banned (i.e., even when the contents are technically verifiable because someone could add citations), then I suggest making a proposal at WP:NOT. Please insist that at least one of those sources be WP:INDY. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:32, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  WhatamIdoing stated: "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." That is exactly what it says, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. See Use-mention distinction which may be at issue here, so forgive me for using bold text and for highlighting the important aspects of the policy that are either being overlooked or misinterpreted. Based on what I've gleaned, the position in some of the arguments is that we should keep unsourced articles in main space and not worry that the article isn't sourced or is missing inline citations because it can be verified. The "how" of verification is what appears to be missing or misunderstood, as does the use of "material" which may include the entire stub/article. The following very important aspect of V supports my position: Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. It goes on to say: Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced. Granted, not every sentence in an article requires a citation provided the article is properly sourced...only challenged material or material that is likely to be challenged are affected. If those sources are not provided the material can be removed and that comes straight from our core content policy as does the following: {{tq|All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and it is satisfied by providing an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[2] the contribution.[3] NOTE 2 is also extremely important: A source "directly supports" a given piece of material if the information is present explicitly in the source so that using this source to support the material is not a violation of Wikipedia:No original research. What part of the former and latter are causing editors to believe that unsourced articles are ok, and should not be removed from main space? But wait...there's more. Unsourced articles are automatically challenged as OR - and any experienced editor should already know that, especially if they've edited in a controversial topic area or BLPs. If a source is not cited, and/or there are no sources listed in the article at all, is it expected that our readers should leave the article to find those RS in order to verify the information in the article? If that's the case, why read WP? Here's a somewhat comparable comparison: a grad student turns in a master thesis without references or citing any sources, and then simply tells the prof not to worry about it – it's verifiable. What do you think happens? When an article is unsourced, it's more than just a matter of simply finding a source to verify that the topic is a valid one, and not a hoax. It involves finding multiple RS to satisfy GNG, V, and OR, as I've stated repeatedly, and am being criticized over. Far too many arguments are failing to acknowledge that the sources used must support what the author wrote, so if the author failed to provide the sources they used, and failed to provide inline citations for the material they added that is likely to be challenged, how are we supposed to find those same sources that were used to add that material? Cited sources and citations are how we separate the wheat from the chaffe. Bottomline: if the article creator failed to provide the sources they used and/or failed to include citations for material that is likely to be challenged so that our readers could easily verify a statement, opinion, or fact in that article it should not be allowed in main space. Atsme 💬 📧 12:39, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  I think you're missing the point. It's not about whether articles should be sourced. It's about whether you say that uncited material is impossible to verify. This is a use-the-correct-jargon problem. Whenever these steps can happen:

  • Alice adds uncited information
  • Bob slaps a fact tag on it
  • Alice adds an inline citation to a reliable source that Wikipedia:Directly supports the information.

  then that information was never "unverifiable". That information was "verifiable, but uncited". In the third step, Alice now demonstrates verifiability, but the information already was verifiable from the very beginning. The policy says that all information has to "be" verifiable; it does not say that all information has to "be demonstrated to be verifiability".

  The "how" of verification has never been defined or restricted. The policy does explicitly state that information does not need to be "easily" verifiable by anyone.

  This is long, so perhaps numbers will help in case someone wants to pick out a bit for further exploration.

  1. "The position in some of the arguments is that we should keep unsourced articles in main space and not worry that the article isn't sourced"
     • ...is irrelevant. This discussion is about whether you declare something to be "uncited" vs "impossible to verify", not about whether it's a good idea to have completely unsourced pages in the mainspace.
  2. We all agree that "Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed."
     • But there is no sentence in this whole policy that says all "uncited" information is "impossible to verify".
     • There is also nothing in here that says completely unsourced pages are banned, and you've produced no evidence that all unsourced pages always contain material that needs a source. Have a look at User:WhatamIdoing/Christmas candy. Do you see anything in there that qualifies as contentious matter about BLPs? And direct quotations? Any material that has been challenged? How about any material that you think is Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged (i.e., by anyone who isn't trying to get blocked for bad behavior)? My answers are nope, nope, nope, and nope, and I bet yours are, too. If you can't find some material in that page that falls into at least one of those four WP:MINREF categories, then the whole page does not contain "Any material that needs a source", and therefore the whole article does not (technically) need any sources, because the whole article already complies with WP:V even without them. BURDEN doesn't apply.
  3. Granted, not every sentence in an article requires a citation provided the article is properly sourced...
     • The last phrase is wrong. Not every sentence in an article requires a citation even if the rest of the page is garbage. Whether this material is possible or impossible to verify does not depend on whether the rest of the article is properly sourced.
  4. NOTE 2 is also extremely important: A source "directly supports" a given piece of material if the information is present explicitly in the source so that using this source to support the material is not a violation of Wikipedia:No original research. What part of the former and latter are causing editors to believe that unsourced articles are ok, and should not be removed from main space?
     • I think you might be reading more into Wikipedia:Directly supports and NOR than is really there.
     • I don't see anyone claiming that unsourced articles are "ok". I see them claiming that unsourced material is not always impossible to verify. We might be able to get an agreement that unsourced pages are Very Extremely Extra Bad – just not "unverifiable". Most of our unsourced pages contain verifiable information.
  5. "Unsourced articles are automatically challenged as OR"
     • Um, nonsense? NOR is the policy that actually says Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy. Anybody who is automatically challenging unsourced articles as a NOR violation needs to go read the policy. If you run across an unsourced article, please don't put Template:Original research on it. Please use Template:Unreferenced instead. You might find this table of problems and their matching templates handy.
     • (If you wanted the equivalent statement for this page, I think it would be "Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy, assuming that they contain almost no information at all.")
  6. "how are we supposed to find those same sources that were used to add that material?"
     • WP:V doesn't require that "those same sources" be cited, assuming anything has to be cited at all. If (and only if) we need to demonstrate verifiability, then we need to cite any reliable source that directly supports the material. It does not have to be the original source. In fact, there doesn't even have to be an original reliable source. The "original source" might be an editor's own memory, or something on Twitter. You should still cite a reliable source whose contents match the claims you're putting into the Wikipedia article. We do not insist on a strict interpretation of WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT (so long as you actually did read the source that you put in the article).

  The TLDR:

  • The absence of an inline citation doesn't actually mean that people aren't "able" to "verify" the material.
  • This policy permits (some) uncited material.
  • This policy permits (a few) completely unsourced pages.
  • Editors should call uncited material "uncited" or "unsourced" or "bad", but not "unverifiable".
  • Editors should use the word unverifiable to describe material that is impossible for anyone, no matter how determined, to find reliable sources that could support it.

  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  Why does this hair-splitting of terminology matter? When content is CHALLENGED and removed it makes no material difference whether, unbeknownst to everybody, a reliable source exists out there somewhere ("uncited") or not ("unverifiable"). Either way, the unsourced content must not be reinstated, and the editor(s) supporting it must cite RS that directly support the claim. Really, what we should do is update WP:V's clauses from like 20 years ago where Wikipedia was an obscure site that lacked content and welcomed people adding whatever they thought was true, and bring it in line with current practice by formally deprecating adding material without citation. Atsme's comparison with the student turning in a thesis with no citations is the perfect reductio ad absurdum of this outdated idea of 'verifiability is just when sources exist somewhere out there'. Crossroads ^-talk- 00:06, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

  What you call "hair-splitting of terminology" is what other people call "clear communication". WP:Policy writing is hard, and it doesn't get any easier when people use the same words to mean significantly different things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:49, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

• Citations do not verify; they merely facilitate. The process of verification is inherently difficult because, even when you have some evidence, analysis and understanding is required to confirm that the evidence corresponds with the assertion. The process of analysis itself requires verification and so you then get an infinite regress per What the Tortoise Said to Achilles. At some point, the reader just has to accept that something is true and that requires an act of faith. Often this faith is lacking and this generates much activity at WP:RSN.

As an example, consider the main page of Wikipedia and notice that none of the facts there are cited. But we mostly accept them on trust that someone has done the relevant checking to ensure that they all stand up. But this is a fallible process and so there is regular activity at WP:ERRORS.

And, even if everything has been done right, there will still be a disclaimer footnote which says emphatically that "WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY".

So, as we are not claiming that any of our pages are exactly correct, we should just relax and save our energies for the most controversial and complex cases. It's like the dictum of Frederick the Great, "He who defends everything, defends nothing."

Andrew🐉(talk) 13:37, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Andrew, I'm just going to jump in here and leave a comment. Tell me (ping) if I'm close to the point. You write: "Citations do not verify; they merely facilitate." I agree. We need to differentiate between "verifiability" and "verified". The initial content should be accompanied with a verifiable source. Hopefully, it also verifies the content. If it doesn't, then we have a case of "failed verification" and the "source" should be removed. The next question is what to do with the now unsourced content. If the content isn't seriously controversial or a possible BLP violation, it can be tagged with a "cn" tag. If controversial, then the content can be deleted. This is a matter of editorial discretion.

My point is that maybe we need to say something about the difference between "verifiability" and "verified". The existence of a citation/ref is not the end of the process, because some editors are careless or even sneaky vandals. Other editors should seek to "verify" the "verifiable" source. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:01, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

• Question - Something that needs clarification for this discussion to continue productively: are we discussing the situation where an article has NO citations (at all)… or are we discussing the situation where an individual fact (within a sentence or short paragraph) does not have a citation? I think these are two different issues. Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  My understanding is that it's the latter; sentences or short paragraphs that do not have an inline citation. I agree that these are two totally separate issues, and judging from some of the responses so far, it looks like there may be some confusion. --GoneIn60 (talk) 21:26, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  Unless it's a 2 or 3 sentence stub like this one: Jagatipala. Or you have to deal with articles like 3rd Alley, originally deleted back in 2008. Right now there are 182 pages in the NPP queue with no citations/sources. From what I've gathered, some editors are of the mind that as long as an article is verifiable it meets V, but there's no guarantee that V aligns with N, or OR. And doesn't using V in that context also suggest that an article's notability is also verifiable if sources are automatically verifiable? Why even bother to add sources if it's ok to make these assumptions? We could just let WP run as an aggregator, I guess.^[stretch] + ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Atsme 💬 📧 22:10, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

  Information that (truly) meets V will always meet NOR. But there are no guarantees whatsoever that something complying with WP:V is a notable subject. If the only sources ever published about a business are the business's own self-published website, you could write a fully verifiable and even fully cited article, but it would not be a notable subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:40, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  It doesn't really matter. Uncited information that could be cited to RS is verifiable. We are "able" to "verify" it; it is "verifiable". This is true whether we are talking about the only three sentences on the page, or the only uncited three sentences in an otherwise well-sourced article.

  There might be some differences (e.g., whether it is a minor problem or a serious violation of all that is holy), but the presence or absence of other citations elsewhere on the page makes no difference in whether someone is actually able to verify that particular information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  Uncited information that could be cited to RS is verifiable. We are "able" to "verify" it; it is "verifiable". I like this. Effectively explains in a nutshell why verifiable ≠ cited. Sometimes it's the simple analogies that really hit home. Perhaps some variation of this is the answer. --GoneIn60 (talk) 05:49, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  Nope, it's misinformation - read the highlighted text above. Atsme 💬 📧 12:44, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  Atsme, do you really think that the statement: “Trenton is the capitol city of New Jersey” becomes misinformation if we say it without citing a source? There are thousands of sources that support this fact (atlases, almanacs, history books, tourist guides, news papers… etc, etc). It is an extremely verifiable statement, even if we don’t actually cite any of them. Blueboar (talk) 13:10, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

  Blueboar, I've never even hinted at such nonsense – it defies common sense – but since you and I are usually on the same page in such matters, if you've seen something I've said that motivated your question, please point it out to me so I can fix it. My position throughout this discussion remains the same because I have not been convinced that it needs to change. I have made valid statements that are unambiguously supported by our core content policies, or at least I thought they were unambiguous. My highlighted text above remains as the crux of my position. Atsme 💬 📧 13:32, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I think that there are two different important things being discussed here. The second raised one is the lobsided "prove/establish a negative" workload related to look for wp:GNG sources which is causing the in-progress collapse of NPP. It's not simply a google search. Even the easier ones (where a search of English language / Arabic character set sources is enough,) that still involves evaluating every hit for GNG sourcing criteria. And quadruple the person-hours required when the "source area" where we need to "prove a negative" has a non-english language with a different character set.

On the first topic raised, when there is a sincere concern about the verifiability/veracity of the material, I think that we need to strongly keep the burden for sourcing on the person seeking to include the material. But if you look at the problem cases, I think that a common theme is that there is no actual concern about the verifiability / veracity of the material, and none expressed, often resulting in deletion of uncontested sky-is-blue material. Probably the three most common cases of this are:

• POV warriors wanting to knock out material as a way of pursuing that end. And using this rule in synergy with "RS" classifications.
• Somebody that is having a pissing war with the editor involved
• Somebody being obsessive, thinking that an overkill approach is "just enforcing the rules"

I've long advocated for a measure that I think would dramatically reduce these problems without upsetting the apple cart. And that is to require any removal on such a basis include a statement of concern about the verifiability/veracity of the material. That alone would constitute fulfillment of the challenge criteria. Sincerely North8000 (talk) 13:12, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

You're talking about a completely different problem. Compare these two:

• Alice posts “Trenton is the capitol city of New Jersey”. Bob says "You put unverifiable information in Wikipedia! That's bad!"
• Alice posts “Trenton is the capitol city of New Jersey”. Bob says "You put uncited information in Wikipedia! That's bad!"

Bob's first statement is wrong. Bob's second statement is correct. Are you able to understand why the first is wrong but the second is correct?

NB: The difference is not in whether it's bad. Also, it has nothing to do with NPP or notability. It is only about whether Bob is wrongly declaring that it's actually impossible for someone to find that information in a reliable source, or rightly declaring that this statement was not followed by a little blue clicky number. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

I think that something is confused here. First, I noted the second topic infused into the discussion (NPP and verifiablility) mostly to identify it as separate but I did not post on that, and then I posted on the the main topic which is basic wp:ver. And, of course I understand that distinction, I understood it in my first 5 minutes of reading wp:ver over 12 years ago. Now, on applying my point to your examples....the case that I noted is neither of those. It is where Bob is a POV warrior that wants to minimize coverage of Trenton. So they just delete the material, saying "unsourced" without making either of those two statements that you described. Or if it is sourced but to an attack able source, they just delete it saying "not RS sourced" And what I advocate is requiring Bob to make one of those two statements that you describe (either the right one or the wrong one) which would cut down on what could be called bad faith deletions or even a weaker one like "I have a concern that the statement might not be verifiable" North8000 (talk) 13:39, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Sure, and we've agreed on this for years. But that's outside the scope of this conversation. I really just want people to understand that a particular bit of content can be technically, according to this policy, actually totally verifiable even if there are no sources named on the page. That's it. I want your POV warrior to say "unsourced" instead of "unverifiable". Getting to the point that we CHALLENGE only material that we have an actual reason to doubt is for the advanced class.

Perhaps I should put this another way: I do not want any editor who reads this policy from top to bottom to be able to say that this policy says that everything is unverifiable unless it is cited. Right now, we have a few good(!!!) editors who are saying that. They genuinely believe, or at least fervently hope, that this policy bans unsourced articles (in particular) and that uncited material is a violation of this policy. I want good people to read this policy and discover that "All material must be verifiable" does not mean "All material must be cited", or even that "WP:V says that every article must name at least one source". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

• Thing is… even if Bob is acting in bad faith, the quickest and easiest way for Alice to tell Bob to shut the fuck up is to return the Trenton statement with a citation. Don’t worry about why Bob wants a citation. Give him one and move on. Blueboar (talk) 14:43, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

That happens after the bad-faith deletion and so is not related to my idea which is a simple soft requirement that would reduce bad faith deletions. BTW the most common case isn't for a totally unsourced item, it's when the POV wikilawyer uses this provision on an already-sourced item in tandem with a wikilawyer attack on the source or use of the source. North8000 (talk) 14:56, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. That prevents this Bob this time, but does nothing proactive to prevent the next string of Bobs down the line... Huggums537 (talk) 06:21, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• There was a lack of sophistication in the initial guidelines, where it was assumed that any source on the internet would be satisfactory verification; considering that good sources accessible on the internet were many fewer than now, it produced generally poor quality verification by current standards. Most articles from that period that have not been extensively revised have inadequate sourcing by current standards. W :What is the operative definition of verifiable? I think the usable meaning is that we have many analogous articles, whicch we have sourced properly, and know that there will be similar sources available. But it can also mean an article translated from another WP, without copying their references (a great temptation, because the formatting usually needs to be reworked completely, and because some excellent WPs, such as deWP, accept extremely general references, such as "for references, see the entry in the national bibliography"). I think the safest course is to insist on at least one reference that verifies eexistence and the general notability -- which is the current standard at BLPPROD. DGG ( talk ) 18:27, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  @DGG, I think the operating definition of verifiability is "If I go to the trouble and expense of truly searching, I am able to find a reliable source for this specific claim".

  This really isn't about notability standards. I'd love to see a rule that says all newly created articles must contain at least one source that is (a) reliable for at least one statement in the article and (b) financially independent of the subject matter. We don't have that rule; I suggest proposing it at WP:NOT. WP:NOT#UNSOURCED would be a good shortcut. In five or ten years, we can start apply it retroactively.

  But really: All I want to achieve today is that people will stop saying "Aaaaarrgghhh, it's another stupid unverifiable sentence" and start saying "Aaaaarrgghhh, it's another stupid uncited sentence" whenever they have a reasonable expectation that someone could add a reliable source at the end of that sentence. That's it. Change one word. I want people to know that if someone is "able" to "verify" it, then it is "verifi-able". This really should not be a difficult concept. Maybe the simplicity of it is the actual problem? It's so patently obvious, so we need to drag something controversial or difficult into it, like NPP's challenges or how to establish notability or what to do about rules-lawyering POV pushers? But that's not what I want to accomplish. I want to tell people that "All material must be verifiable" means that it someone must be able to find a source, and not that someone must have already done so. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:13, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

  I have to quibble… I believe that it is the responsibility of those who wish to add material to actually have found a reliable source for it… before they add it. However, they don’t always need to cite that source (the “Paris is the capitol of France” exemption). Blueboar (talk) 11:54, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

  As do I, and quibble I will because it appears to me that there is an attempt to lower the bar for verifiability in that material included in an article doesn't have to be corroborated if one RS has been cited. Granted, the primary purpose of V is to demonstrate that the material is not OR, and that content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors. However, none of what has been proposed has taken into consideration the fact that there actually may be opposing views, and that we must maintain a NPOV. Furthermore, any effort attempt to dilute BURDEN requires community-wide consensus, especially the part that states Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports[2] the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. That statement should not be altered, but I'm finding that this "no sources are ok" position to be rather disconcerting because it contradicts long standing policy and opens the door to contentious material and relentless debate. Atsme 💬 📧 01:40, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

  @Atsme, you said "none of what has been proposed has taken into consideration"...

  What, exactly, has been proposed? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

  WhatamIdoing, if you need "exactly", then may I suggest a keyword search using "propose", or some form of it? This discussion is now tl;dr for me, and I'm not inclined to keep repeating what I've already explained. I think we're pretty much on the same page on some issues with the exception that quite a few of us don't think the policy needs to be changed. The opening sentence is quite clear, which you've also quoted but I've added some bold underline: ...verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. It doesn't say search online for a RS if you want to verify it. The RS that the material came from has to be with the article, hopefully in the reflist. It's the only way we can check where the information came from, otherwise we must assume OR, or that it's possibly rumor, a hoax or taken out of context. If we have time, we can search for a RS to verify that the material is supported, but then it may require a rewrite as it may not exactly support what's stated in the article, not to mention that it could be taken out of context. The options we have include tagging it , or removal. If there are no sources with the article at all, we have options for deletion. It's pretty simple. This diff supports my position, and I also agree with what Aquillion stated in this diff. There's nothing more I can add. Atsme 💬 📧 01:39, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  Why do you think this policy requires editors to cite "the RS that the material came from", vs, "that the information comes from a reliable source" – "a" reliable source, as in "any reliable source in the whole world, even if it's not the specific RS that the material came from"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  P.S. "This diff supports my position" isn't a diff. It also doesn't say that we need to cite the exact RS that the material came from. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:51, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

  @WhatamIdoing: OK, I'm starting to see your main point in this thread. (Although if I read your last post precisely, it's to get people to change a wording in a sentence that I don't see people say.) But I'm starting to see it as raising awareness of the fact that the general standard is verifiable, not verified. And I think a non-controversial small step in that direction would be adding a sentence to WP:ver that adds emphasis to that point. But going beyond that small step starts to get complicated. The most common removal verbiage isn't what you described, it's simply like "removed unsourced material" and the second most common is something like "not a WP:RS" with the WP:ver based removal material. And usually the person wants to remove the material, and merely used wp:ver as a justification. What would you propose regarding that? My idea is to require challenges to include an expression of concern such as the sentence in your post. North8000 (talk) 12:54, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Re WhatamIdoing's question on is the uncited sentence Paris is the capital of France verifiable, yes obviously. But if anybody challenges it then it still needs a citation. Even if you, or I, think that challenge is silly. Or even if made by a Nice supremacist who is POV pushing. Like Blueboar said above more poetically, the quickest way to dispatch that request is getting the requested citation, not argue over if it is technically verifiable or what the other editor's motives are. nableezy - 13:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

If there's a pattern of behavior in good faith editing that's tied to BURDEN, as observed by the OP, then it might be worth pursuing some additional clarity. However, it's a good point that the fix is often quicker than deciphering the motive. Maybe we need a clearer picture of the scale of the problem to help us weigh the benefit of action over inaction. --GoneIn60 (talk) 23:09, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Also… as I have mentioned elsewhere in these threads… Wookies are MUCH more receptive to explanations about “why a source isn’t actually needed” AFTER they have “won” the challenge and a source has been provided. The conversation shifts tone from being confrontational “drama” to being friendly “education”. Blueboar (talk) 23:38, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

WE're talking bout the more reasonable common use of this which is on an unsourced item. But keep in mind that the most common disputed use by wikilawyer POV warriors is on a sourced item in tandem with nitpicking the source. North8000 (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Wikilink to Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged

@Crossroads: I wonder if I could convince you to self-revert the removal of the wikilink to Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged. That same essay is linked 1078 times in the Wikipedia name space, including WP:WHEN, WP:MINREF, and Wikipedia:Editing Policy. Particularly in light of it being linked in a core policy, it seems as though it is due for inclusion here also. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:57, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

I am very concerned that one of our core content policies is being edited in a way that changes its meaning without first getting community-wide consensus. This has to stop. Atsme 💬 📧 01:18, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

I am at a loss to understand the concern that led to the removal. The link changes nothing in the meaning of the policy. "Likely to be challenged" means "likely to be challenged", i.e. more likely than not, which is all that the linked essay says. "Has been challenged" is a separate bullet point, so verifiability applies to likely and unlikely challenges alike. The point is that preemptive citation is specifically expected if you anticipate that the material probably will be challenged. -- Visviva (talk) 02:18, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Based on what I've gleaned, the concern is the 50-50 number which some experienced editors, who have had material challenged, may view as an open door to argument, which is what Crossroads suggested in his edit summary. The issue goes away by simply citing the material when challenged. This TP discussion speaks volumes about the open door to argument concerns that can be easily avoided without the proposed changes and leniency toward citations and/or inclusion of references. I don't understand why simply adding a citation to challenged material is causing such a stir. Does any of the following sound familiar as possible reasons for refusing to cite challenged material: (a) the material is OR, (b) it was taken out of context, (c) Hanlon's razor, or (d) WP: JUSTFIXIT? Did I miss any? Atsme 💬 📧 15:27, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

In context though I believe this is a misunderstanding. As it states in the first sentence, the 50-50 guidance from WP:LIKELY falls away as soon as any editor makes a challenge, and it then becomes the responsibility of any editor restoring the unsourced text to provide a citation for it, because it has been challenged. That is further enshrined in the reformatting of the existing criteria at WP:BURDEN, which as can be seen prior to the reformat already said Attribute all quotations and any material whose verifiability is challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source. Emphasis from the original text. This essay is already linked in another policy; Wikipedia:Editing Policy, specifically in WP:EPTALK in the exact same context as we are discussing here.

As such I do not think this is an open door argument to allowing for unsourced text. This is merely explaining what is already editorial practice, and consistent with other policies. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:55, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Once something has already been challenged, the likelihood of it ever being challenged is provably 100%. How could something be unlikely to be challenged, when it already has been?

It might make sense to invert the traditional order and say:

• Contentious matter about BLPs requires inline citations – right now, no exceptions, this means you.
• Anything that's already been challenged requires inline citations. WP:Let the Wookiee win and don't bother us with any excuses about why you shouldn't have to.
• Anything that (according to your best guess) has at least a 50% chance of ever being challenged requires inline citations now. Don't wait for a 100%-actual-proven challenge; cite it when you add it. Every time you add anything, use your very best judgment to decide whether each individual fact/claim has a ≥50% chance of making another editor wonder whether a reliable source said that, ever. While not everything has to be cited at the time it's added, and the exact proportion will vary from subject to subject, overall, I personally believe that this clause means that most material in Wikipedia, including almost everything that's interesting, should be cited.
• All direct quotations require inline citations, even if nobody ever CHALLENGEs them, because Wikipedia:Plagiarism.

The thing we need to communicate with "Likely to be challenged" is that it does not mean, e.g., a 99% chance of getting reverted today, or a 95% chance of someone adding a fact-tag this week, and it especially does not mean that you should wait until you have a 100%-actual-proven likelihood of a challenge. This does not sound to me like "leniency toward citations". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:50, 25 June 2022 (UTC)

Attempting to quantify "likely" is misguided. Really, in the long run, does not the odds of something being challenged eventually approach 100%? To put it another way, even if not challenged in the next few years, by 2100 someone will probably have challenged it.

Really, though, "likely" could be interpreted more loosely. Say, a 20% change of challenge could be considered 'likely enough' by a writer to cite the text.

It doesn't matter that this essay is linked elsewhere; that is not a reason to endorse its contentious claims here too. It amounts to defending the writing of unsourced text, which we need less of.

I'll note that two different editors gave me a "thanks" notification for that edit, neither of whom have commented here yet. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:32, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

The Thanks log is public; @Mathglot and @Levivich, do you have anything you'd like to add? (No problem if you don't, of course.)

The policy has said inline citations are required for content that is likely to be challenged. A one out of five chance of something happening is not "likely" to happen. It may be that "a writer" (i.e., any individual) would personally choose to also cite material that is not likely to be challenged, but the policy does not actually require that. This is a statement about what the policy requires, not ways in which individuals might choose to exceed the minimum requirement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:14, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

To quote Atsme above, "I am very concerned that one of our core content policies is being edited in a way that changes its meaning without first getting community-wide consensus. This has to stop." I'm concerned that this practice -- major changes to core policies -- is something I see at almost every core policy and it's a very small group of editors who do this. I don't really want to have to watchlist all of our core policies because I'm worried that someone might one day change their meaning, create new requirements or remove existing ones, link an essay that doesn't have global consensus, or just make it longer, because they're already too long. And I don't want to have to have 1,000 discussions about 1,000 proposed changes to 1,000 policies that I rely on all the time... I just want to know what our policies are without it being a daily discussion in my life. And I know that some people spend ten or fifteen years having daily discussions about Wikipedia policies, and that's fine if they want to... but they should check with everyone else before actually making changes, and they should only ask everyone else to weigh in maybe once or twice a year. Policies should be among the most stable pages, avoid major changes without consensus, consolidate proposals for changes, prioritize, make fewer of them, ask for less editor time. Levivich^[block] 06:09, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

@Levivich, the policy has said that everything "likely to be challenged" needs to be cited. What do you understand that to mean? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

• Sigh… this (and the related threads above) all comes down to three distinct, but overlapping concepts: 1) what you MUST do, 2) what you MAY do, and 3) what you SHOULD do.

First, let’s look at these concepts from the POV of someone adding material…

When you add new material to WP, you MUST be sure that the material is verifiable (ie that a reliable source directly supports it). You MAY omit a citation to that source. You SHOULD include a citation if YOU think it likely that someone will challenge the material. IF the material is never challenged, you are not required to do anything further.

HOWEVER - if you guessed wrong, and the uncited material IS challenged, You SHOULD save yourself a lot of time and angst and simply add a citation. You MAY try to convince the challenger to back down. You MUST cite it if the challenger won’t back down.

Now, let’s look at these concepts from the challenger’s perspective… (for the purposes of this discussion, please assume that the ONLY issue in the challenge relates to Verifiability - and NOT some other issue)

In order to challenge on WP:V grounds, you NEED TO understand the difference between uncited and unverifiable. You MUST believe that the material is unverifiable (Do NOT issue a WP:V challenge if you know that the material is, in fact, verifiable). You MAY simply remove any material that you believe is unverifiable. You SHOULD consider other forms of challenge (tagging, asking on the talk page, etc). You SHOULD do at least a cursory search for sources BEFORE you challenge. Blueboar (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Finally… as to whether something is “likely to be challenged” … that is a judgement call. Different editors will have different opinions on how likely a challenge will be. From experience, I have learned that unlikely challenges occur all the time… they are, in fact, quite likely.

A LOT of these challenges are from people who DON’T understand the difference between uncited and unverified … And yes, that is annoying, but ultimately not not worth the effort to argue about - much easier to just “let the wookie win”- pop in a citation that isn’t necessary - and perhaps try to educate the challenger after the fact (when, having “won”, they might be in a more receptive frame of mind). Blueboar (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

To your MUST/MAY/SHOULD comment, I add that we also have an occasional problem on this page at WT:NOR with editors who are trying to produce The Right™ Outcome by writing the policy to say The Fake Rule, because they hope that if the rule is "wrong" then people will flout the written rule to the correct amount, and end up in the right place. This is the sort of thinking that results in cities putting up a sign that says "Speed Limit 25" when they're hoping that people will do "30" instead of what they're doing now, which is alternating between "40" and "stuck in traffic waiting for another wreck to be cleared".

On wiki, if, in whatever area I most frequently edit, I see people directly refusing to cite things that absolutely need citations (e.g., medical statistics), then I want the policy to say that citations are always required, required, required, and required absolutely everywhere unless you have a personal dispensation from Jimbo plus a majority vote from ArbCom, and probably we ought to enforce the addition of refs via software, so I'll never have to spend any more mental and emotional labor on this stupid problem. We can dream, right?

But if, in whatever area I most frequently edit, I see people spamming fact tags and blanking quite simple content (a popular form of using WP:V to suppress POVs you disagree with), or using WP:V as a way to threaten others into improving articles that honestly might not be the top priority right now, then you might want the policy to say that citations are wonderful everywhere but only required under more limited circumstances, such as when non-stupid editors have a really serious doubt about the material's accuracy, and would you please quit CHALLENGEing things like "The human hand has five digits" or "the terminology here [i.e., in this section of the Wikipedia article] is that used on the British canals", because frankly if you don't know that human hands have four fingers and a thumb, and that 4+1=5, or if you really think that someone can find a reliable source that says "Yup, this specific section of that Wikipedia article is using British terminology", you might actually need to be blocked on WP:CIR grounds so the rest of us can get on with improving Wikipedia already. (Yes, those are both real examples, though I suspect that the second was an error that he'd self-revert if he noticed what he did.)

In other words, these editors' goals aren't always about having the policy accurately describe real practice and real rules; it's about re-writing policy to stop the problems they personally encounter and their personal preferences, without taking into account the needs of people dealing with the opposite problem. To people on both sides, I'd say: In my experience, it takes two years for editors to discover that a policy has changed. Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, and they definitely don't read the directions frequently. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

All true… and yet ultimately not what is important. The policy is actually quite simple:

1. Everything must be verifiable (ie a reliable source must directly support it).
2. We demonstrate verifiability by citing our sources.
3. You don’t have to cite everything… but you will have to cite most things.
4. When challenged, you must cite.

That’s it. All the rest is extra verbiage written in by wikilawers to interpret these simple rules in various scenarios. Blueboar (talk) 21:46, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

On behalf of the Association of Wikilawyers, Pettifoggers, and Other Useful Persons, I am asking you to please use the phrase clarifying the community's policies rather than "extra verbiage". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Why do we even have a distinction between "uncited" and "unverifiable"? It doesn't exist in education or academia. If anyone told their teacher, professor, or peer reviewer, "you see, even though I didn't cite sources, it was okay because it is verifiable if you look for the sources yourself", they'd get laughed out of the room. And sources are much more necessary on Wikipedia because it's edited by WP:Randy from Boise.

Yet here and at WT:NOR, a few editors insist that this distinction is really important and try to make the policies emphasize even more that citations are sometimes not needed. Why? How does this improve the encyclopedia? How does this fight misinformation, let alone outright disinformation and hoaxes, of which there have been numerous cases on Wikipedia?

I submit that upwards of 99.99% of our content is "likely to be challenged" in the long run (say, in the next 200 years) were it unsourced. And for that last tiny bit, it's more sensible to just say "cite your sources" as a blanket rule rather than confuse people with trying to establish what is an exception and thus risk being too lax and allowing errors to slip through.

In other words, suppose that who of us had the status quo were reversed and that the text of WP:V said, Verifiability means that all claims made on Wikipedia must be cited to at least one reliable source. Why would we then change it and say, "actually, we should say that all claims must be citable to a reliable source, but they don't need to actually cite those sources"? Crossroads ^-talk- 01:18, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Because we are not all deletionists, and some of us believe that article creation can move modestly ahead of the actual sourcing present in the article (for some non-BLP topics), so long as that sourcing is found when challenged. This is a question of how, practically, we want to write articles: do we insist that the load-bearing structure of references be put in first, or do we allow visible elements to be added without testing the structural elements, knowing that we may have to drop some pieces off or add additional support when challenged. You may think there is obvious, community-wide agreement on what modes of article creation are appropriate, but I suspect that there are more approaches to this within the community than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Newimpartial (talk) 01:27, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If the rule actually were that we required citations, then the rule would be that we require citations. I do not imagine that editors would, in this decade, change the rule from "must cite" to "must be possible to cite, but you don't actually have to do it".

But: that's not the rule we have (or have ever had). The rule that we actually have says that it must be possible to add a citation. Accurately and clearly describing the existing rule is the point of these discussions – rather like, in fact, the discussion that you and I have been having on another page about accurately and clearly describing the kind of humans who get pregnant. The difference between "uncited" and "impossible to verify" is at least as significant as the difference between pregnant women and pregnant people, and I have the impression that you have strong feelings about which words are "correct" there.

If you want us to have a rule that everything should be cited, or even that 90% of sentences in an article should be cited, then you should just propose that. You should, in fact, strongly insist upon this distinction between cited and verifiable, and once editors understood the distinction, you could then demand that the rule stop being verifiable and start being cited. But I don't think you'll get that adopted if you keep insisting that there is no difference between (un)cited and (un)verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

This seems to amount to "because it's how we've always done it." The difference is already perfectly clear in the policy text. I know this because I remember as a new editor thinking "it's odd how they make it sound like citations are optional when it seems like everything is cited and they revert stuff that's unsourced." What we do not need is more and more elaboration about not citing sources, making it seem more acceptable. "Undue weight" as we say. And that also applies to linking to an essay telling people not to cite sources unless they think someone will challenge it.

I'd support any proposal to change it to 'citations are required'. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:48, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I'd support "citations are required" and I bet the larger community would too and we should have an RfC. It would reduce arguments and improve reliability. Levivich^[block] 07:17, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Crossroads, can you tell me which words in Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged are "telling people not to cite sources unless they think someone will challenge it" and that the policy-as-currently-written says should definitely be cited? Or is your objection just that the policy has said, for years and years, that editors don't have to cite material that is neither contentious matter about BLPs nor already CHALLENGEd nor likely to be challenged nor direct quotations, and you wish it said "Everything must be cited without exception"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

For whatever it's worth, I would locate the policy authority (and, more importantly, the purpose-based rationale) for not requiring that all content always be cited at Wikipedia:Editing policy. In particular, the first sentence: Wikipedia is the product of millions of editors' contributions, each one bringing something different to the table, whether it be: researching skills, technical expertise, writing prowess or tidbits of information, but most importantly a willingness to help. Writing well and citing well are different skills. To expect all edits and editors to exhibit both skills all the time is to starve the project of its most important nutrient: lots and lots of informed, good-faith, incremental edits. If one person knows that the mayor of Whoville lost the 2020 election and updates the article, they are providing important value to the article, whether they add or update the citation or not. The next person to come along may have no background knowledge of Whoville politics, but knows how to find and add an appropriate citation, and so the wiki process moves on. This is always how the wiki has functioned, to the extent it has functioned at all, and is the reason why Wikipedia left the perfection-first approaches in the dust. Of course, when those additional incremental improvements don't happen, we sometimes end up with what I am choosing to call citation mildew, which is IMO a lot worse than having no citations at all -- but that's a problem that can only be solved by having more editors making more edits. Trying to raise our standards for each edit because we already don't have enough editors is only going to make the problem worse. -- Visviva (talk) 02:48, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

• It's a fair question (it also relates to the current AFD issue before ArbCom, in that a lot of that touches on what to do with uncited stubs and whether there is a requirement to try and find sources for them before prodding them or sending them to AFD.) Historically our sourcing requirements were significantly lower than they are now. Practically speaking, I believe the limited nature of the source requirement to things that are challenged or likely to be challenged is for four reasons. One is to encourage participation from new editors, who often won't know how to cite things they add; immediately getting their first edit reverted could drive them off, so we want to avoid doing that if they add something that is unexceptional and likely-citable but uncited. The second is because of the practical difficulty of implementing a blanket source requirement - would we monitor every edit? Have a bot to automatically revert the creation of unsourced paragraphs (or even sentences?) If people go through and do it manually then that is in practice the same as current policy; unsourced stuff remains until someone who thinks it needs a cite comes along and challenges it. The third reason is WP:EVENTUALISM - for things that are not WP:EXCEPTIONAL, not WP:BLP-sensitive, and so on, while we obviously want them to have a source eventually, there are at least some situations where having unsourced-but-likely-citable text is more useful than nothing, since it makes it easier for Wikipedia to expand over time via smaller edits. And finally, it's that way because our policies are normally written from a minimalist perspective - trying to dictate as little as possible, and leave as much leeway up to individual editors as they can, provided the core essential points needed to produce an encyclopedia are covered. The current version does that in the sense that it requires sources where sources are absolutely needed, and steadily pushes for more sources until everything that doesn't fall under WP:BLUE is cited. And - well, the fact that the encyclopedia reached its current well-sourced quality under that policy shows that it, mostly, works. The one thing I would note where it might be an improvement to change it is the creation of entirely unsourced or inadequately-sourced stubs, which is overwhelming WP:NPP. --Aquillion (talk) 22:26, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

• Suggestion - since this discussion is going nowhere fast, go ahead and craft an RfC with whatever you're proposing, present it at VPP, and let the wider community decide. Atsme 💬 📧 01:40, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

  RFCs about changing policies normally happen on the policy's own talk page, not at the village pumps. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

• I think that when discussing an RFC it's also worth talking about what this would mean in practice (in order to potentially break it down into smaller implementation details.) Experienced editors do not, as a general rule, add uncited text, outside of maybe stub creation, and that is the precise point where this is likely to be most controversial. Inexperienced editors do not know our policies anyway, so - how exactly would we implement a hard requirement? In practice the change wouldn't affect many actual disputes; once there is an individual dispute a source is required because it's challenged. You could in theory drag someone to ANI or the like if they repeatedly added unsourced content, but in practice any situation where that's a problem goes there anyway. Are we envisioning taking new-ish editors to ANI for adding entirely-uncontroversial, easily-sourced sentences without citations? --Aquillion (talk) 22:30, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

  Do experienced editors create unsourced stubs? I wouldn't, but maybe that's just me. I do see, and even occasionally approve of, editors adding some types of unsourced content to an article. The practical difference between a hatnote that says:

  Not to be confused with Apple or Orange (fruit).

  and a sentence that says "An appleorange is not the same as either Apple or Orange" is minimal, but theoretically you could CHALLENGE the latter and not the former. It's the same situation with the ==See also== section.

  In another example, sometimes a highly technical section needs an introductory sentence or two in plain English. I don't think editors are wrong to add "unsourced" new content that summarizes existing (and hopefully already sourced) content. In other cases, it's just a small explanation. If you can turn a sentence like "Oranges reproduce through nucellar embryony" that can be understood by normal humans by adding some text like "(a type of asexual reproduction in which a plant makes seeds that match its own genome)", then I'm not likely to quibble over whether your "new content" has its own citation.

  On the other hand, if you're adding other kinds of content, I'm likely to be less generous.

  As for the RFC: The only "proposal" that I think was much discussed in this section is that Crossroads should self-revert and re-add the link to Wikipedia:Likely to be challenged to this page. I honestly don't know if one link is worth an RFC. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

  No, I think experienced editors rarely add unsourced text in general. But I do think that we have swaths of unsourced text added by inexperienced editors that is basically uncontroversial, unexceptional, and (while not necessarily ideal) generally better than nothing. Our ultimate goal should be to fix that text up and cite it, but I think that as an interim plan retaining it until / unless someone challenges it is better than blanket removal. The stickler is that while probably the majority of uncited text is not-great-but-fine, there's a few specific things that are not just wrong but actively dangerous. But that's why we have policies like WP:BLP, WP:EXCEPTIONAL, WP:MEDRS, and so on that intensify our sourcing requirement in situations where getting it wrong could do immediate harm. --Aquillion (talk) 02:49, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

• I want to second Aquillion's point. We shouldn't try to remove a bunch of content that is verifiable but isn't currently cited. I know a number of the automotive technology articles are light on citations because most of the typical online automotive "RSs" wouldn't cover the topic. Plenty of blogs/forum posts/personal sites do have the correct information but they aren't RSs. That leaves us with specialty books or SAE papers as resources. Most of those aren't easy to access. However, removing the information in those cases is likely worse than not having a citation. As another example, the whole Associated_Electrics article. I'm sure much of this could be filled in with access to a stack of hobby magazines from 25+ years back. Again, the on line sources probably won't meet our RS guidelines. Springee (talk) 03:20, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

• I missed this part. Yeah, I disagree with the Do NOT issue a WP:V challenge if you know that the material is, in fact, verifiable bit. It's important that people be able to challenge any text for any reason (outside of blatantly bad-faith stuff like challenging every single thing an editor ever added without a clear basis for doing so.) A fact tag is a basic "this needs a source" indicator, and there are lots of reasons why something might need a source even if you know one probably exists somewhere. I also do think that there's this idea of article maturity - as an article matures, it ought to eventually get sources for everything that isn't WP:BLUE. So when there's just a few uncited statements left in the article it's reasonable to tag those as requiring a source on that basis alone (though the ultimate way we do that is via the WP:GA process. But a fact tag makes it more likely that eg. a random reader who happens to have access to a source will add it.) --Aquillion (talk) 02:49, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

  @Aquillion, WP:CHALLENGE says "When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source, and the material therefore may not be verifiable."

  If you personally know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the material is actually verifiable – if, for example, you read a fact in this morning's news, thought it would be appropriate for a Wikipedia article, went to that article, and found that someone else had already added it, but had not yet cited it – could you honestly and genuinely state that you are concerned that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source and that the material therefore might not be verifiable?

  Or would you feel like that would be a dishonest thing for you to say, given that you have, right there in front of you, a published reliable source that could be cited to support this material?

  And if you think it would be dishonest for you to follow CHALLENGE's rules, why would you CHALLENGE the material? (I'm assuming that, like most people, you believe that dishonesty is a generally bad thing.)

  I suggest to you that the best practice is to add a citation yourself, but an acceptable practice is to not issue a CHALLENGE, and instead only leave a non-CHALLENGE note that a citation would ideally be added. I grant that the difference between a proper CHALLENGE and a nice note about the joys of well-sourced articles might be subtle and even easily mistaken for a CHALLENGE, but IMO it would be much better aligned with the spirit and goals of the sourcing policies, and it certainly wouldn't have a nasty whiff of "I know this is verifiable but I'm so uncollegial that I'd rather destroy your contribution than spend an extra four seconds to copy and paste the URL that I still have open in another tab". And if you can't be bothered to improve it, or to encourage someone else to improve it, then maybe you should just leave that known-by-you-to-be-fully-verifiable information alone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:13, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

No, your argument here is absolutely wrong. The section in WP:CHALLENGE you are talking about plainly means to state that concern if you have it; it is awkwardly-worded, but does not make such a concern (or expressing that concern) a requirement. We've been down this road with WP:BEFORE and it leads to madness. There is no requirement - none, not even the smallest amount, not even the tiniest smallest speck - to believe that a source is unciteable before you add a fact tag to it. I can add a fact tag even if I know, without absolute certainty, that a source exists. I can add a fact tag if I literally have the source sitting on my desk. I could add a fact tag with an edit summary saying "fact tag; I know a source exists because I have it physically sitting on my desk, but I don't have the time to input it properly, and don't want to spend the effort to move my eyes a few inches to the side to refresh my memory as to its title" and while that would be a weird thing to do I would be 100% in the right and my edit would be a valid challenge. There are no requirements whatsoever for challenging a statement outside of the basic requirement that the challenge not be made in overtly bad faith, in the sole sense that my ultimate goal must be to improve Wikipedia. This is an extremely basic and essential part of how we work with sources - we can allow unsourced statements to exist (which I think we do want to do, in uncontroversial situations, for the reasons I outlined above) only because challenging a statement is one of the most lightweight actions an editor can perform. There are no requirements and no way to do it "wrong" short of behavior that is blatant vandalism or in blatant violation of our conduct policies (eg. WP:HOUND; or WP:FAIT when something potentially controversial is done on a truly massive scale without prior discussion.) But for individual fact-taggings there is almost no way for it to be wrong. Requiring that an editor do some sort of search before adding a fact tag, or opening the door to trying to punish them for it somehow in any way, leads to the sort of nonsense that WP:BEFORE gave us and would risk turning WP:BURDEN on its head. I would agree in principle that it is better to find a source if you can before tagging, but editors have no obligation to do so even if they know with absolute certainty that a source exists, and even if the effort necessary to find and add it would be utterly minimal. --Aquillion (talk) 06:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Why do you think we call it "challenging" the material? Consider the difference between "I'm challenging this material" and "I'm fact-tagging this, because ideally there would be an inline citation here". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

No, as I said at the end of the section above, I consider the addition of a fact tag to always constitute a challenge. The best way to deal with challenged text varies depending on a number of factors (how likely it is that a source exists; whether it is WP:EXCEPTIONAL or could cause harm; how important it is overall and how much would be lost of it were removed, etc.) But at the end of the day WP:BURDEN and the current wording of WP:V require that challenges be extremely 'lightweight' in order to function properly, and I'd be opposed to adding any restrictions, limitations, or requirements to it at all. We want editors focused on finding text that needs sources and adding sources to it, not on procedural red tape. --Aquillion (talk) 23:24, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Just so you know, if I ever hear of someone removing information from an article, and declaring that they are invoking WP:CHALLENGE, while that editor has a reliable source that supports this information at hand, I'm going to think that editor is a POINTy-headed jerk who is probably NOTHERE to build an encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

@User:Blueboar while I agree with most of what you say in your "Sigh...." I take issue with "Do NOT issue a WP:V challenge if you know that the material is, in fact, verifiable".

A really common occurance in biographies of long dead people are the family section in the articles. That someone married X is well known and in a reliable secondary source. That the named eldest child inherited the title is also in the reliable source (eg the ODNB).

However the date of the marriage has been inserted into the cited sentence after it was written. So it looks like the reliable cited source supports it.

That date fact along with a gagle of none notable children were added at some time from a genealogical, self edited site by an account holder distently related to the subject of the biography. That they were added from there can be assertained by the cut and past nature of the bullet points. The problem here is that the information might be verifiable, or it might not have been published in a reliable source. I have no way of checking and I am not going to try to compile a list from primary sources as that would be very very time consuming and, even if practical, probably a SYN. Personally I would edit the section moving the date out of the sentence and stick a "citation needed" on it and also on all the children that do not have a cited reliable source to support their inclusion. If after a time usually 6 months or more I would delete all the information in the section adjacent to citation needed templates. -- PBS (talk) 12:41, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

@User:PBS In the situation you outline, it seems obvious that you don’t know whether the information is verifiable or not… so my statement “Do not issue a WP:V challenge if you know that the information is, in fact, verifiable” would not apply. Blueboar (talk) 13:43, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

As I do not have access to a database of all verifiable information, I do not know whether or not most data is verifiable. I can know when information is verifiable (from the small subset of all verifiable information to which I have access), but far more is an educated guess. For example I know that Germany has a good soccer team. If Germany lost a semi-final in a socccer world cup 0-1 and I came across an article with that score it would not surprise me. If I came across an article that stated they lost a semi-final 1-7 I would be surprised and ask for a citation. Both facts could probably be found in the same book, so it is not as if either is not verifiable it is just that my guess would be that the 1-7 score was highly unlikely. In this case reliable sources can be found quite easily with an internet search, but let us suppose it was not. Requesting verifiability also has something to do how surprised the requester is by the information (ie how likely in their judgment it is to be accurate), and not just how likely a German world cup soccer result is to appear in a sports almanac. — PBS (talk) 14:32, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I still don’t understand your objection… it comes down to: do you (user:PBS) know the information is verifiable? You keep giving me situations where you don’t know for sure. Try to think of a situation where you personally DO know (100%) that the information is verifiable. Would you challenge it? Of course not. Blueboar (talk) 15:29, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Just because I know that all valid world cup soccer results are verifiable, it does not mean that incorrect ones are. As to what is likely to be incorrect? That comes down to each editors knowledge and judgement.

Unless it was the sky is blue sort of fact and I have access to a reliable source I would add a citation because I work on the assumption "not a lot of people know that", so most facts need citations. -- PBS (talk) 16:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

The overall point is that you would not necessarily challenge an uncited statement if you knew it was verifiable. You might add a citation to ensure other editors can easily verify, but you wouldn't become a challenger that tags or removes the content. Understanding the difference between uncited and unverifiable is the point of the "challenger's perspective" described by Blueboar. Your comments do not appear to indicate that you are objecting to this premise. --GoneIn60 (talk) 16:39, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it really does come down to each editor's knowledge and judgement. Otherwise, we're left with "PBS, what's your own name?" "Oh, I don't know everything, so you should assume I don't know anything, even my own name." That would be stupid, so we don't do that.

Now: does that mean that every editor knows the same things? No. I can give you a pretty solid description of the difference between how to handle a piece of bread at a formal dinner in Paris vs in Washington, DC, but just because I happen to know what's right (the French leave their bread, and all its crumbs, right on the table top, but they don't put butter on their bread at dinner, so the universal rule of never endangering the linens is still preserved) doesn't mean the next editor will know the same thing. So it would be bad and wrong for me to challenge a statement that I personally know is correct (and the US side of which I could source from the bookshelf facing me right now), and also good and right for the next editor – any editor who doesn't happen to have the same information – to challenge the same information.

The key distinction isn't what hypothetical "editors" should do. It's what you, personally and individually, should or shouldn't do. You – just you, personally and individually – should not pretend that information is possibly false and unverifiable when you – just you – happen to know perfectly well that this particular piece of information is correct and verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, you can test your theory by adding birthdates on bios/BLPs that either don't have one, or that have an uncited DOB. Atsme 💬 📧 12:32, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

My comment is about whether you should remove information that you know is correct and verifiable, not whether you can add uncited information.

The equivalent for an uncited birthdays would sound like "I happen to know that Abe Lincoln's birthday is February 12th, but there's no little blue clicky number after the date in Abraham Lincoln. Would it be stupid and/or POINTy for me to remove accurate and verifiable information when I personally know that this date is accurate and verifiable?"

The answer is "yes" – for me. But if you didn't happen to know this, and you were genuinely (though incorrectly) concerned that the date was wrong, then it would be okay for you to CHALLENGE it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:27, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't eat bread. I put my butter directly on the tablecloth. Nobody's ever objected. SPECIFICO talk 13:52, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

/me makes mental note to only invite Specifico to picnics. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

• I'm not sure if WP:V does of good job of explaining what Verifiability means. The lead states: "verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source"; it's unclear what "can check" means. And does the lead follow the body? It seems like the definition of verifiability is implied in places in the body but never explained.... Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:51, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

  "Someone can check" means "someone is able to compare the information in the article against information in a reliable source, and see whether the article says the same thing that a source says". "Can check" includes "can use a search engine to find a source", not merely "can read the cited source". Of course, it is easier to do the check if there is a cited source, and if that cited source happens to be freely available online, but this is not a requirement. "VerifiABLE" contrasts with "verifiED", which means "someone has already done the comparison against a specific reliable source and determined that the article says the same thing that the specific reliable source says". Most content in GAs and FAs is both verifiABLE and verifiED.

  Your sense that it's "unclear" is why I think it's important for experienced editors to say "uncited" instead of "unverifiable" (except when they actually mean that nobody is able to verify the information in any suitable source, which happens fairly often in certain subject areas). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not just just presence of a link in the article. Putting it as an in-link in a policy statement is an invoking of the linked item is a part of the policy statement. We should not have those for essays. Anything invoked by a policy statement needs to be a policy, with all of the consensus, vetting, carefulness and scrutiny that goes with that. Putting it in "for further reading" is less so. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:21, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

So... do you want to remove the links to Wikipedia:Reliable sources first? " Anything invoked by a policy statement needs to be a policy", and WP:RS is not a policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: To answer, I need to parse this out. First, to clarify, my post was limited to when the link is a part of a policy statement not to just a link from a policy. WP:ver has both types. Second, you pointed out an unintended overreach in my statement. I should have worded it: "It's not just just presence of a link in the article. Putting it as an in-link in a policy statement is an invoking of the linked item is a part of the policy statement. We should not have those for essays. Anything invoked by a policy statement needs to be a policy or a prominent guideline, with all of the consensus, vetting, carefulness and scrutiny that goes with that. Putting it in "for further reading" is less so." Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:53, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@North8000, look at the first link in the second paragraph. That's not a policy. That's not a guideline. Do you want to remove it?

The first link in BURDEN is not a policy and not a guideline. Do you want to remove it?

The first link in the penultimate paragraph of BURDEN is not a policy and not a guideline. Do you want to remove it?

The first and second links in SOURCES are not links to a policy and not links to a guideline. Do you want to remove them? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:03, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Free-to-read vs. limited-access sources

On Andrew Garfield (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs), a user replaced a limited-access Washington Post citation with an article from the free-to-read Variety. When I asked them whether there was an issue with the former, they said it was best to use "an alternative that is not limited" and that we would "favor a source that is available to read/access to everyone over one that's blocked behind a paywall". Is this true? KyleJoan^talk 04:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

In general, I think it would depend on the specific content and sources. If the two sources are otherwise equivalent for the content being sourced, then yes, a free-to-access source would be better. If they're not equivalent, there's always the option of providing both. In this case, for citing a statement about Emmy nominations, the free source, Variety is probably equivalent (it's reliable for things like Emmy awards), and since it's free, it's probably better than WaPo. Now, if the content was about the war in Ukraine or something like that, it'd be a different story. Levivich^[block] 06:08, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

There is no official rule favoring the FUTON bias, although some editors personally prefer it and advocate for it.

"All else being equal" is an uncommon situation. "Not truly 'equal' but definitely 'adequate for this claim'" is much more common. People who don't like sourcing disputes often add their free-as-in-beer source next to the paywalled one, rather than removing the paywalled one and substituting their preferred one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:26, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

"IMO "all else being equal" is a simplified way of say "the decision involves taking both this consideration and other factors into consideration". IMO a source that is freely and electronically available in the language of the Wiki which cited it is going to be more useful to a typical reader and makes it easier to determine if WP:Ver has actually been satisfied compared to some combination of "paid only", off line and in a different language. . But we can't have wp:ver precluding any source based on those attributes. North8000 (talk) 16:48, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Typical readers don't read the sources. In 997 out of 1,000 page views, nobody clicks on any refs at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I was more commenting on the fact that the more difficult it is to see and read the source, the more the editor has insulated the text from verifiability scrutiny. Not that that implies that we should be excluding such sources. North8000 (talk) 02:43, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Sure, it's harder to check such sources. Sometimes we even cite sources that are truly difficult to check. Gartner reports on the tech industry can cost hundreds of dollars. Medical textbooks are notoriously pricey, and some reference works are worse. Springer's got a sweet Encyclopedia of Signalling Molecules that's on sale right now for more than US$5,000 (ISBN 978-3319671987; get it while you can!). Some rare books are extraordinarily useful, but only available if you can travel to where the book is. This is a very common problem with {{cite sign}}. The policy says all of that's okay, though. Ease of verification does not ever seem to have been a concern for this policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

$5000? I don't think I'll even check whether their 75% off offer applies to that! ;-) I definitely agree that even if that is definitive many readers can be quite poor, and it is better to put in a second citation that lets them check the basics without needing to sell their kidneys. Being a free encyclopaedia is one of the major aims and the knowledge is not quite free if the verification requires money. I agree verifi8ability shouldn't mention this as a requirement but we should certainly keep it in mind! NadVolum (talk) 15:07, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

$5000 is the price for libraries, which over 90% of our readers have access to. Rjensen (talk) 15:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

In my experience, small community libraries do not give patrons access to online technical literature, because of the expense, nor do they have physical volumes on the shelves. University libraries generally give access to physical volumes to whoever walks in the door, but you have to be a member of the faculty or a student to access the non-free online publications the university subscribes to. So I don't believe 90% of our readership has access to technical journals, even in first-world countries, unless they're prepared to travel to one of the few really large public libraries, like the New York Public Library. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:30, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

• As I've said in the past on Jimbo's page - the WMF needs to fix the access issues if they expect volunteers to keep the quality of the project up to par. Jake & the TWL team are doing all they can to get us access, while the WMF capitalizes on our work with Enterprise...but I wonder how long that income stream will last if we keep moving toward lowering our standards relative to RS, and V. WP:NPP & AFC reviewers are already struggling with backlogs despite the WMF's ability to provide the funds & resources we need to develop the tools necessary to do our job - like access to articles behind paywalls. If they don't, then we can rest assured that we did our best to stop the downward spiral and loss of quality in what we publish, not to mention the loss of $$ contributors to the WMF, the loss of experienced, hard working editors who got burned out, and the inevitable paradigm shift that will occur as UPE/PE dominates the encyclopedia, making it appear more as a sales catalog than an encyclopedia. At the rate AI and decentralization is advancing globally, it probably doesn't matter anyway. Good luck with relaxing our PAGs. Atsme 💬 📧 18:06, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

  Jake left the WMF more than three years ago. Samwalton9 is the best contact for the Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library now. If you want to talk about whether meeting Google's demand for a high-speed data funnel has ever been cost-free to the WMF (or to Bomis before the WMF existed), or whether providing Google with extra services to meet a legally enforceable Service-level agreement will be cost-free, then you're looking for Wittylama. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

  • This is Wittylama - answering/commenting from my staff account, since this is definitely a 'work related' question. Interestingly, the topic is at the intersection of two things I'm directly involved in... Until last year I was coordinating the "WikiCite" grant which was about supporting things to do with references (access, reuse, datasets, outreach...), and as the outcome of that project I made this proposal for what our movement might be able to do in the future: I called it "Shared Citations". This is just a proposal, no funding/approvals yet, but I think that one of the biggest problems in how we handle references is that they are extremely labour intensive to manage and we can't do much analysis of the corpus of citations we actually use across wikimedia project. Hypothetically, with a citation management database we ought to be able to query what % of references in (for example) Medicine topics are behind paywalls, or whether there are any academic citations which are still 'in use' on WP articles but the publication has later retracted it. As you can see on the proposal's mockup of what I citation record might look like (in slide 8) it would be possible to link to various places where a source can be found (open, closed, preprint, pirate) at the discretion/editorial policies of the community.

With regards to the Enterprise API service that was mentioned... The status quo is that donor funds are subsidising the business model of large commercial organisations and because all of the API services currently offered are independent of each other, smaller external organisations are willing-but-unable to re-use Wikimedia knowledge in their products. The re-use of Wikimedia content for commercial purposes is and always has been allowed/encouraged in accordance with Free Licensing principles, but by providing no assistance for smaller commercial orgs, we've actually been limiting the number of ways our knowledge can reach different audiences around the world. So, by providing a service where the big companies pay for the operation of commercial-specific features they require (super high volume/speed, contractually binding SLAs, dedicated customer support) AND where smaller companies can access the exact same product/service at the volume they desire, that means that a) commercial usage subsidises the movement not the other way around, and b) there is a more level 'playing field' for access to free-knowledge. There's an Essay, FAQ and Operating Principles, if you're interested in more detail. The shorthand metaphor is that: "they're paying for some bigger pipes, the water is the same". Sincerely, LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 12:24, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@LWyatt (WMF), have you seen some of the work already done on retracted papers? Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-03-31/In focus#The Wikipedia SourceWatch has a good overview. I assume that this work is only being done at the English Wikipedia. Someone else was working on identifying paywalled sources, but I can't find a link right now. One of the problems is that paywall status changes. For example, articles in Blood are paywalled for a year and free to read after that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing - The en.wp WP:WikiProject Academic Journals project has not explicitly been involved in the design of that proposal, but several people involved in it are. in particular User:Evolution and evolvability who has been doing lots of thinking about the 'retracted' problem has been involved in the designing of the 'shared citations' proposal. And for the example of status change, this is emblematic of the problem for any kind of metadata maintenance: that we're doing it manually, to varying degrees of consistency, across each wiki independently. That's a burden on volunteer labor and introduces many vectors for data inconsistency and is especially burdensome on smaller language editions. LWyatt (WMF) (talk) 12:30, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Add "of information" to ONUS

1. I added "of information" to the last sentence of ONUS, explaining "clarify that ONUS relates to information (and not, for example, grammar)." The result was:

The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion of information is on those seeking to include disputed content.

2. Another editor revered with an explanation of "compact."

3. A third editor restored my change, saying "The original wording "inclusion of information" is better. Changing to "its inclusion" causes ambiguity since there is more than one nearby noun."

4. There were some intervening edits - none of which spoke to the substance of the edit summaries at 1 and 3 above - that ended up back at my change (1. above).

5. The reverting editor (2. above) reverted again, saying "Clearly the change to longstanding status quo has destabilized this little sentence. Let's just proceed on talk. I really doubt there was a problem with the longstanding. If there had been, it surely would have come up in the monumental go-rounds on the talk page." This, too, is not a substantive objection to the change. See WP:DRNC.

Is there any substantive objection to adding "of information" for the ''reasons'' given at 1 and 3 above? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:32, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

We as editors are naturally concerned with exact phrasing, including tone, punctuation, and grammar. Moreover, we often find the compromise that reaches consensus in precise wordsmithing, and sentence and paragraph construction, and should not degrade or disregard that enterprise. We are not just in the work of blurting out information, the work is as much about providing information in a precise, certain, and concrete way. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:05, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Better to focus on "content" not "information" Alanscottwalker has brilliantly summarized the operational importance of that distinction. SPECIFICO talk 20:24, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Move "disputed content" to earlier in the last sentence of ONUS

So you'd both be okay with a switch to: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion of disputed content is on those seeking to include it"? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:03, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Not sure about that… ”Content” could refer to an entire article, and that isn’t what ONUS is discussing. ONUS is focused on disputes over smaller bits of verifiable but problematic material… and whether that material should be included in or omitted from a specific article. Blueboar (talk) 21:12, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

That is a topic for another day (and one I'd love to discuss). But, for now, I'm just asking about rearranging the sentence in a way that Alanscottwalker and SPECIFICO may find acceptable. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I really think this is not the part of the section that needed clarification. The problem is that this simple section is just trying to quash unsubstantiated claims of WEIGHT based solely and merely on the ground that the content is Verified. And that is a problem, because we have long had editors go off into unrelated tangents about consensus and longstanding and status quo and other unrelated issues. I don't think we should mess with the part that's more or less OK lest we introduce unanticipated problems like the NOCON tangent and other unforseen irrelevancies. SPECIFICO talk 21:24, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps the problem is that the section tries to cover two distinct issues in one paragraph. First there is NOTGUARANTEED … which is merely a cautionary statement to tell editors that there is more to inclusion/omission than JUST Verifiability.

Then there is ONUS, which talks about consensus when there is a dispute over inclusion/omission.

Perhaps they should be separated (Even if only by a paragraph break)? Blueboar (talk) 21:55, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, but a religion has arisen around this confusion and it's now ~1000 AD into that mess so we can't go back and disrupt the origin story. Folks would just continue the same argument even after the whole section is erased. I think the second part was just anticipating the obstinate refusal of half the editors' tendency to ignore the fist part. SPECIFICO talk 23:04, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Right that's a problem. But, for now, I'd appreciate your thoughts on my proposed compromise of moving "disputed content" to earlier in the sentence. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:49, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I favor no change. Let sleeping dogs lie. SPECIFICO talk 23:58, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Why do you favor no change? What objection - other than it isn't the status quo - do you have to "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion of disputed content is on those seeking to include it"? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

It's the dogs. SPECIFICO talk 00:30, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, I'll put you down as "has no non-frivolous objection." - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:34, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Or, you could just stop asking me the same question over and over and over and note the reason I'd already given at least 3 times above. I don't see a line of editors at the door waiting to tell you how much they like your proposal. SPECIFICO talk 10:34, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Edits and objections to edits must be supported by substantive "reasons." All I've heard you say over and over is that you oppose my proposed edit because it is a change. That is not a valid reason no matter how many times you repeat it. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:48, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@User:Alanscottwalker, as a compromise I propose above changing the ONUS sentence to "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion of disputed content is on those seeking to include it" (Moving "disputed content" to earlier in the sentence.) Would that be acceptable to you? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:34, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Why change it at all, did someone complain they couldn't understand it? Selfstudier (talk) 07:38, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I am complaining that the subject of the sentence ("disputed content") doesn't appear until the end of the sentence. This is a very minor change that improves readability. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:48, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

It was OK before but anyway, looks like we are going to have another go at fixing the whole thing as opposed to tweaking. A paragraph with the word information in it 4 times (and nearly 5 times) has gotta be wrong, lol. Selfstudier (talk) 15:56, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

"It was okay before" is not the same as "your proposal doesn't improve it because ..." And I have little doubt that a discussion to fix the whole thing will ultimately fail. I just want to make this small change to make a small improvement. Do you have any reason to believe that it won't accomplish that goal? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:24, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I replied to this earlier but for some unknown reason @Fram: decided to delete it. Consult the history if you want to see what I wrote. Selfstudier (talk) 09:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh, Go Fish, what a fun game. I found the revert here. User talk:Fram was clearly out of line. I've restored your post below. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:44, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Trouble with the mobile, it was not intentional. Selfstudier (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, but once they knew they had made an error they should have fixed the damage. (I look forward to your responses to my replies to your restored post (see below).) - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:44, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

"Not an improvement" is a standard reason for objecting/reverting. As for failing, I see that it already has so no more tweaking either, seems an RFC will be necessary to make any change. Selfstudier (talk) 09:20, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: I look forward to your replies to my July 23 posts (below). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:21, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah, but it is an improvement. I checked both versions at a readability calculator. The current version has a score of 44.97. Moving "disputed content" to earlier in the sentence raises that to 50.24. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

The proposed change just reorganizes the sentence - it does not change the meaning in any way. I fail to see how an RFC that hasn't started prevents us from making this small readability improvement in the interim. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

If it makes no substantial difference and there are currently bigger fish to fry, might as well just leave it be, no? Selfstudier (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

No, because (1) it makes a significant difference (increasing readability by more than 10%) and (2) frying the small fish does not prevent us from simultaneously frying the big fish. And isn't that what Wikipedia is all about - making improvements when and where you can? Compare Perfect is the enemy of good. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:07, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what you want me to say, it makes no difference to me in either version, I go by comprehension not "readability" according to some criteria Idk or care about. If that's such a great thing, then WP can run it on the entire encyclopedia and we need not worry about it for every little edit. I haven't reverted your edit anyway, ask other editors to agree with you, I'm sticking with fish frying ftb. Selfstudier (talk) 09:26, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

What I hear you saying now is "while I still don't see the point of making this minor change, I do not oppose it." That is good enough for me. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:30, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow: I'm not sure those numbers are reporting what you think. The lower the overall number, the more readable the prose is. Each individual score spit out by each formula represents the "number of years of education" required by an individual to easily understand it. So it would seem that you would want lower numbers, not higher, to make your case. --GoneIn60 (talk) 18:13, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, you made me look. The score for the current sentence is 44.97. For my proposal it's 50.24. That can't be a reference to years of education. So I tried "the cat is red" and got a score of 118.18. Then I tried "the cat is red and likes peanut butter and jelly" and got a score of 78.25. Conclusion: the numbers are reporting what I think and moving "contested matter" to earlier in the sentence would improve readability. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Could you try "The cat is peanut and Red likes jelly" ? How does that score? SPECIFICO talk 19:59, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Yep, I didn't dig deep enough. At first glance, I thought the overall "Flesch Reading Ease" score was a simple sum of the individual index scores (where lower scores matter, because they represent education years), but a closer look reveals that's not the case. Disregard! --GoneIn60 (talk) 20:12, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

"Red and cat jelly peanut is the like" scores 94.37. ""Jump stain log mole" scores 120. Artificial, no intelligence. SPECIFICO talk 22:15, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

The website tests readability, not coherence. Are you suggesting that "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion of disputed content is on those seeking to include it" is nonsense? If not, what is your point? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:12, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

It was an experiment. I concluded that the index is nonsense, or at least not helpful to our efforts here. SPECIFICO talk 21:48, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

We have an article about that: Flesch–Kincaid readability tests#Flesch reading ease

@SPECIFICO, your earlier nonsense sentence produces these stats:

• Gunning Fog index: 3.20 (years of formal education)
• Coleman Liau index: 2.54 (US grade level)
• Flesch Kincaid Grade level: 3.76 (US grade level)
• ARI (Automated Readability Index): 0.23
• SMOG: 3.00
• Flesch Reading Ease: 82.39

Note that some tests require a minimum of 100 words, and others produce consistent results only when given very long passages. None check for grammar, sense, or background knowledge (e.g., whether adults know what a Security deposit is, even though those are "difficult" words).

For comparison, Colorless green ideas sleep furiously produces these numbers: GFI 18, CL 17, FK grade12, ARI 12, SMOG 11, and Flesch Reading Ease 15.64.

@Butwhatdoiknow, the difference of FRE 45 vs 50 is not really significant. Also, you might be interested in https://hemingwayapp.com/ as it does more than just look at readability numbers (e.g., passive voice and overuse of adverbs). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:39, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Two questions: (1) Why is 10% "not really significant"? (2) Even if the proposed change would only be a 1% improvement, why not make it if it is an improvement? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:30, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Because it's not really 10%. A 10% change in the FRE number does not represent a 10% change in the actual effort needed to understand the text. All that's happened here is that you shortened the sentence by two words ("better" FRE), while slightly increasing the average number of detectable syllables per word ("worse" FRE). Those are the only two things that FRE cares about. You could alphabetize the words in the sentence and get the same FRE score. FRE believes that "I should go" and "I ought to leave" are almost identical in reading difficulty, even though the first has simpler, high-frequency words that a beginning reader can manage, and the second doesn't (unusual sound for ou, silent gh, additional vowel digraph in ea, and a silent e).

If you are interested in using readability scores, then I recommend that you start with https://www.ahrq.gov/talkingquality/resources/writing/tip6.html Please note that, within the literature on readability scores, this is what's considered a supportive viewpoint. If you want to see a more typical viewpoint, then https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2019/07/readability-formulas-7-reasons-to-avoid-them-and-what-to-do-instead.php has a good, reality-based summary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:58, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

My proposal moves the subject of the sentence earlier in the text. What test do you recommend we use to determine whether that is an improvement or not? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 03:16, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

I recommend a form of Usability testing, namely that you ask editors on this page which option, if either, is clearer to them. It appears that you have done this and that nobody thinks that it is a material improvement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, I think would be a material improvement. So that's one. And no one is saying it would make the sentence worse. So, is there any reason other than status quo bias to not make the change? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:47, 1 August 2022 (UTC) @WhatamIdoing: I look forward to your reply. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:34, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Status quo bias is frequently considered a sufficient reason to avoid non-substantive changes to the wording of a policy. Some part of the community seems to be happy when the wording of policies is not messed with merely for minor gains in clarity.

Another reason you should consider is whether this is "the hill you want to die on". We collectively believe that the benefit is likely minimal but positive (or at least not negative), but continuing to push for the change could damage your relationship with other editors. Is this minor change worth the risk that your future proposals could be met with a certain amount of "Oh, him again – he can't take a hint, he can't read the room, his proposals are always so painful"?

A third reason is that this change is a bit of "rearranging the deck chairs": Why bother copyediting it now, when North's considering an RFC that might result in it being removed completely?

As usual, note that whenever I give you a list of reasons, it is not a complete or exhaustive list of reasons (unless so labeled). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

No need for a change. Moxy- 22:43, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Do you see any harm arising from the change? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:12, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Rewrite entire ONUS section discussion

If you look at the context of the paragraph that onus is in, it looks like a first attempt of putting what should have actually been in there which is "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion." And then wikilawyers mis-applied it elsewhere. And the fuzzy Wikipedian system did it's best to incorporate it, including it's otherwise-conflicts with wp:consensus), in the way that I described it previously. We should just replace onus with that and solve this whole big complicated mess (plus other problems) with one fell swoop. North8000 (talk) 12:41, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

BTW, "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion." that is not a change, it is a summary of of current policy and reality. North8000 (talk) 13:51, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Deal.Selfstudier (talk) 14:10, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

• I would favor a complete rewrite. The current version tends to derail disputes into arguments over process rather than attempts to reach consensus. --Aquillion (talk) 18:59, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

OK, if it must be tweaked, how about

While all article content must be verifiable, not all verifiable information should be included. Content that is WP:UNDUE does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article.
The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those who seek to include disputed content.

SPECIFICO talk 14:30, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The second and third sentences are implied or follow from the first. So it's just that last one, which I'd say is pretty much how consensus works anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 14:36, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes the last sentence really could be omitted. That would also get the word "consensus" out of the way. Everything's done by consensus so nothing new there. That would also address North's objection below. This section is really just a pointer from V to NPOV, saying content needs both, and not just V. SPECIFICO talk 16:16, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Shall I strike the ONUS sentence? That would be funny. SPECIFICO talk 16:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

That makes the main problems (confusion and wikilawyering mis-use) even worse, including now entangling 3 policies instead of two. North8000 (talk) 14:59, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Better version

Per the discussion below, the last sentence adds no meaning beyond sitewide editing policy and protocols. Hence, new proposal:

While all article content must be verifiable, not all verifiable information should be included. Content that is WP:UNDUE does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article.

SPECIFICO talk 19:39, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

No, our policies and guidelines do not come down to just DUE. And of course, it adds meaning, we need to construct pieces of work that satisfy the WP:Content policies and in accord with WP:Guidelines to reach a solution "that incorporate[s] all editors' legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines." (WP:CONSENSUS). The proponent of text edits and images necessarily must do that, to the satisfaction of editorial process. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:05, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything in that wording that deprecates any of our other content policies and guidelines. But as others have said, since editing decisions (with BLP COPYVIO and a few other exceptions) are all by consensus, there's really nothing added by referring to consensus or behavior on a page that's about content and verification. In fact, this seems to have led to lots of confusion, the last sentence about behavior and consensus in this location. SPECIFICO talk 20:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I meant to add, at least 3 of the Legal Policies (the ones dealing with article text and images) need to be satisfied. But I see, you are deprecating the other policies because a true consensus respects all of them, not just DUE. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm more or less back at my original feeling that we should let sleeping dogs lie. These policy pages are basically codifying existing practice -- like a compilation of case law or common law principles. It's not as if what we change here is going to change the course of editing history. It would at best just create a more helpful page to which we could refer when the inevitable edit wars and arguments erupt over cherrypicked UNDUE sourced content. SPECIFICO talk 20:34, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

But part of my problem is that at least one reasonably-common interpretation of ONUS does not reflect actual practice. If you look above you'll see some people saying that a single sentence in ONUS effectively negates all of WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS, WP:EDITCONSENSUS, and large parts of WP:CONSENSUS as a whole by making it so only explicit consensus reached through discussion counts when there's a dispute or a WP:NOCON situation - meaning that in any circumstance where there's no clear previous discussion to point to, they think we should default to removal. That is clearly not and has never been anything remotely close to actual practice. RFCs with no consensus generally keep the last stable version; it is possible to get text removed in that situation if you can show that it never had consensus, if it violates BLP, or if there's some other issue with it, but unless text was recently added the onus there is generally on the people arguing that it never had consensus to convince the closer that that is the case, not on the people who want to retain it. I think our current practice works well but that that interpretation of WP:ONUS frequently derails discussions into debates over process. I also think it's a problem in the sense that editors who have no valid objection to a particular piece of text will sometimes just cite ONUS, which I feel is inappropriate. Once text passes WP:V objections must be specific; they don't necessarily need to be good, that's something to work out via discussions and RFCs if necessary, but citing purely procedural reasons to remove something, with no underlying objection, is often a sign of stonewalling because it effectively just derails the consensus-building process without providing an actual way forwards. (Also, I wonder if this might be worth a general essay - "don't derail content discussions into debates solely over process." Consensus-building requires stating objections and hashing out arguments over the text and sources, not using red tape to argue who wins by default.)--Aquillion (talk) 09:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Only reached through discussion? Very little is originally added to the pedia through discussion, that does not relieve the author, the proponent, of adding decent content (improved content). What's decent? What's decent is content that does not raise legitimate concerns. Content, is decent when it "incorporate[s] [the] legitimate concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines." (WP:CONSENSUS) And, of course, it is sometimes work to tease out the legitimate concern, that is why we have discussion, discussion is not just a process, it the only hope of solution, and when a legitimate concern never materializes, it does not defeat WP:CONSENSUS. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:17, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree that it's unworkable to only rely on consensus that is reached through discussion; but see the conversations above, where a significant number of people argued that ONUS requires exactly that. That's a core part of the dispute we're trying to resolve here. Likewise, my point is that ONUS, by its nature, discourages discussion because people are citing it to argue that they do not need to participate in discussions to produce and workshop a legitimate concern - they believe they can simply say "I object, and I have no further responsibilities to say anything else; the ONUS is on you to do everything from here." --Aquillion (talk) 22:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@Aquillion, IMPLICITCONSENSUS and EDITCONSENSUS are the same thing. And they evaporate into the mists as soon as someone challenges the results. The second sentence of that section ends with the words "until it is disputed or reverted."

So you start off with IMPLICITCONSENSUS, and then "it is disputed or reverted", at which point, IMPLICITCONSENSUS does not exist. We have never had a rule that says "But nobody else objected for a long time, so your objection is invalid" rule. We have always had a "As soon as someone objects, you have to find consensus" rule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I also don't think that ONUS requires consensus to be reached through discussion. (How could it? It doesn't even mention discussion.) ONUS says who has to do the work, but it doesn't prescribe the method by which the work is done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

• Something to remember: Consensus is not permanent… because “consensus can change”. Something may have had consensus when it was added … but that does NOT mean it has consensus NOW. This is true whether that consensus was implicit or determined through discussion. Any time someone questions content, the previous consensus has to be reassessed, and is either reaffirmed or overturned. Consensus is not an end result, but an ongoing (never ending) process. Blueboar (talk) 23:11, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The trick is to know, which way the wind is blowing. GoodDay (talk) 23:44, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The history of WP:ONUS

Ok… it may help to look back and explore how (and when) the current language developed:

• the phrasing “Verifiability is not a guarantee of inclusion” was first added to the policy on 28 Oct. 2011. As part of implementing an RFC. It was originally part of the lead paragraph of the policy.
• In February of 2013, it was moved to its own sub-section, and expanded. At that point it just said that inclusion/omission was determined by consensus (no onus).
• The word “onus” was added on 13 August 2014… with a shortcut added soon after that.

I would suggest that everyone look through the archives at the talk page discussions around these dates - to better understand how we got to the language we have now. Then we can better decide if we need a change and, if so, what language to use going forward. Blueboar (talk) 15:11, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

You have already looked/were responsible for some of it, so is North's 1-liner OK from where you're sitting? Selfstudier (talk) 15:58, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't actually see any discussion in the archives about the "onus" line at the time it was added by JzG. I do see HighInBC's edit summary when it was agreed to: "I suppose any change challenged needs consensus."[5] Kolya Butternut (talk) 17:26, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I tend to approach content disputes with the view that the majority decides on what's added or deleted from a page. I'm aware of WP:VOTE, but it's extremely rare, that the minority side wins. GoodDay (talk) 17:29, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@GoodDay, what should happen in the rare circumstance that the vote is a true tie (by whatever method you choose to use)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

If it's an RFC? The closer decides. But if it's a local consensus attempt? A tie would normally come out as - 'keep it there (if it was already there) or leave it out (if it wasn't there). A tie says maintain the status quo. GoodDay (talk) 01:00, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@GoodDay, people who write closing statements aren't allowed to pick the outcome when it's a true tie. Their job is to say "no consensus", not to record a WP:Supervote so that there will be a decision made. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Also: What if there isn't a "status quo version"? For example, imagine a dispute over an article that was just a day old at the time the dispute arose. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:43, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

There are times when editors have challenged RFC closings. GoodDay (talk) 22:47, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Wow.....so one word in a core policy which has steered tens of millions of words of disputes and wikilawyering was added with no discussion !?!?!?!?! North8000 (talk) 18:13, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The key takeaway here, at least for me, is that there has never been a consensus supporting the final sentence of WP:ONUS, at least under the sweeping interpretations we sometimes see - it appears to have slipped in under the assumption that it was a mere clarification of existing policies (ie. nothing would change if it was removed) and then repeatedly cited out of context until it became treated as a significant part of our dispute-resolution process in its own right. But it is, itself, something whose inclusion never had a consensus behind it. --Aquillion (talk) 19:02, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately it's been there so long that I suspect any attempt to remove or clarify it will be continue to be contentious, at least going by the above "meaning of ONUS" subsections. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I would say, there has always been a consensus that an author of our articles must edit in accord with a true consensus, meaning the work respects our policies and guidelines in the judgement of themselves and, as importantly, other editors. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:51, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Ultimately we want everything edit to have a consensus backing it; but we also need WP:NOCON for what to do when consensus-building mechanisms break down. Part of the problem (as you can see in the discussions above) is that editors don't always agree on what constitutes consensus, or what constitutes a proposed change from an existing consensus reached via editing vs. a challenge to something that never had consensus. But another part of the problem is that stridently-worded dispute-resolution policies can sometimes make it harder to reach a consensus because they encourage discussions over content to derail into disputes over process rather than substance (ie. "rv, get consensus per WP:ONUS"; or even editors simply refusing to engage in discussions at all beyond demanding that someone else produce a consensus, which makes consensus-building hard.) There's no perfect solution to this, but at the very least ONUS lacks the depth and nuance that WP:CONSENSUS has.--Aquillion (talk) 09:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

When consensus finding breaks down you move to dispute resolution, those who don't participate in an RfC, for example, obviously get no say. But there is a more pervasive problem than citing ONUS, it's, despite the double stringent warnings in V, the, "I gotta source, so no matter what this piece of content goes in."

The thing is, the onus, or responsibility, does not first arise when there is a dispute, it arose at the time an author's first article addition, including at article creation. The principle for adding content is that it improves the pedia, we judge what improves the pedia by whether it accords with editing policies and guidelines: an irrelevancy does not improve the pedia, a mangled context does not improve the pedia, a misplaced context does not improve the pedia, a lack of context does not improve the pedia, an overstated or misunderstood source does not improve the pedia, a trivia does not improve the pedia, a POV does not improve the pedia, a CVIO does not improve the pedia, an original research does not improve the pedia, etc. The onus, the responsibility, never moves, it is always on the author. No author is perfect or can be perfect but they do have to work to improve the pedia, and show it to the world, in their work.-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:21, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

it arose at the time an author's first article addition - no, this is flatly incorrect (or at least misleading.) Per WP:EDITCONSENSUS most edits are presumed to enjoy consensus until someone objects; as a result, there is no requirement to demonstrate consensus before someone objects - it is presumed. This is why "rv, get consensus" with no other objections is not a valid thing to do. Beyond that, the problem is that ONUS isn't just being cited as an abstract principle but as if it were a defining part of dispute resolution, so we need more than those general statements - we need to discuss how it is going to work in practice. Let's say a paragraph was added years ago, has been heavily edited since then by countless editors with no objections; someone then sweeps in and deletes the whole thing without explanation and reverts any attempt to restore it. There's discussion about it on talk (the first time the paragraph was ever actually discussed) and there's no clear consensus. There's then an RFC, which is also closed with no consensus. Do you believe 1. this RFC outcome will result in the paragraph being deleted, and 2. that this RFC outcome should result in the paragraph being deleted? Current practice is unambiguously no on both accounts; through editing and sufficient people reading it without objecting, text eventually achieves sufficient weight that removal becomes a significant edit that requires consensus, even in the absence of prior discussions. --Aquillion (talk) 22:42, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

You just proved that the consensus forms at first edit as a matter of presumption, thus, "it arose at the time an author's first article addition" is completely correct. The existence of article content is an implied consensus, meaning an implied assertion that the material satisfies legitimate editorial concerns, while respecting Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (the meaning of consensus), and not just to other editors, to the world. You go on to say, that as time goes by, as editing continues, that implication becomes stronger and stronger. And at some point, when and if the presumption is tested, it is either sustained or not. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 08:54, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

This is an extremely widespread problem in the PAGs. (I think we have a bizarrely upside-down essay on the subject, although I can't seem to find it; I thought it was called "SETINSTONE" but apparently not. The upshot as I recall was "just because these PAGs were created by a bunch of randos editing randomly doesn't mean you don't have to treat them like the word of God, you peasant". Maybe that was just a bad dream I had -- I hope so.)

The problem is partly due to a historical shift in how policies and guidelines have been treated -- from "just another part of the wiki that should be edited boldly and ignored freely" to the current, uh, situation. But most of that shift had taken place by 2014, so I'm guessing ONUS has more to do with the other reason -- that flaws in Wikipedia' implementation of consensus make it easy for determined editors to push the project toward their desired policy positions by sneaking their preferred positions into policy and then declaring that, since policy represents consensus, there is therefore a consensus for their position and the burden is on anyone who thinks otherwise to demonstrate consensus against it. Like edit consensus, but for wikilawyering. (On a side note, the original creator of WP:N was a true master of this craft, and although I worked closely enough with them to be confident that they truly believed they were acting in the project's best interests, I would have to say that history has not been kind to this approach.) I suspect that closer analysis of whatever else was happening on-wiki around the time that change was made, and especially where "onus" was first used in a content dispute, might be revelatory.

Given that the vast majority of provisions of our sprawling PAGs have never had either positive consensus or the backing of valid fiat authority, I think the project would be much healthier if we removed everything but the nutshell and lede from every policy, especially this one, and gave "Guidelines" the more valid name of "Best practices". Maybe someone should just do that, and then declare that those changes now represent consensus. Sauce for the goose...-- Visviva (talk) 23:47, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Re the essay: there's one named WP:STONE but it seems more pro-peasant. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:54, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• See JzG's talk page from the time they added ONUS.[6] Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:10, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

  I am but a humble rando, but that sure looks to me like the exact opposite of consensus. But the adder did not withdraw the addition when it became clear there was no support for it, and now here we are. -- Visviva (talk) 01:12, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• There is a broader topic here, on whether long standing undiscussed policies and guidelines, and informally discussed policies and guidelines, have the same level of consensus as formally discussed policies and guidelines. I have seen this emerge several times over the past year; at WP:NZNC (a widely used section added after an informal discussion between two editors, removed in 2021 by formal consensus), at MOS:ISLAM (most of the guideline was boldly implemented, the rest without formal discussion), at WP:NOTDIRECTORY (a line on the requirement for notability on dab pages implemented boldly), and at MOS:DABMENTION (initially implemented boldly, modified slightly in 2020 with an informal consensus).

I think a broad discussion on this, at the village pump, to determine a policy on how to handle these bold additions, would be more productive than having a debate every time an individual boldly added PAG becomes contentious. BilledMammal (talk) 03:46, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I doubt that such a discussion would be productive, and I'm convinced that it is a bad idea to suggest that "long standing undiscussed" and "informally discussed" advice is somehow less-than, non-binding, or otherwise worse than "formally discussed" changes. Very little of our policies and guidelines was written on the basis of RFCs. I doubt, for example, that you will find any RFCs officially voting that the core content policies should be called policies instead of guidelines.

I suggest that a more functional way to understand the changes is that advice that worked back in the day does not always work today. In other words, the prior/current advice doesn't have to be "wrong" or "false" or "added without following the proper bureaucratic procedures" for it to be "not what we need today". The practical reason to change a policy or a guideline is that we don't want it to say that any longer, and not, e.g., that MOS:ISLAM didn't follow the WP:PROPOSAL process – which it didn't, because MOS:ISLAM was written several years before I wrote PROPOSAL. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:59, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree that these guidelines and policies are as binding as those formally discussed, but I disagree that such a discussion won't be productive, as coming to a consensus that we can point at to settle such debates in the future will be very useful. In addition, it may give us an idea of when they become binding. BilledMammal (talk) 09:12, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

But you can't settle debates for the future, because Wikipedia:Consensus can change. We can agree now that the current consensus supports (or doesn't) something, but we cannot agree that it's binding in the future. If you point to "Well, back in the day, we had an RFC and everything, so that's consensus", then they can point to WP:CCC and say "that was then, and this is now – where's the evidence of this alleged consensus now?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

No, but you can require editors to go to a certain level for consensus to change. If we agree now that the current consensus supports something, then we can add it to a suitable policy (probably WP:CONSENSUS) and editors who believe consensus can change will need to propose that the line is removed from CONSENSUS; until they do that, debating it at lower levels will be pointless. BilledMammal (talk) 13:22, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

So the problem you present with MOS:ISLAM is that we agreed back then that the current consensus (back then) supported something, and we added that to a suitable guideline, namely MOS:ISLAM. And now that editors (now) believe that consensus has changed, you're complaining here that they have to go through some sort of bureaucratic process to remove those lines from MOS:ISLAM, because debating it at lower levels is pointless (even though those "lower level" debates are how we usually find out that the guideline no longer represents the current consensus....). But you recommend that exact process for changes to WP:Consensus. Do I have that right? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

• While there are many reasonable interpretations of ONUS, I think one thing is for certain as a result of discovery: Long-standing content cannot be removed from an article solely due to "no consensus for inclusion". Because to do so would be hypocritical as it rejects the very foundation by which ONUS even exists as a policy. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:11, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Can we at least agree that "There IS a consensus for exclusion" is a valid rational for removing material? That is what the VNOT sentences are about. Blueboar (talk) 21:04, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I feel that we need a better definition of "long-standing", which is one of the points of contention above. Text that has been heavily-edited on a high-traffic article, with nobody objecting to it over a long period of time, has a stronger consensus behind it than text that has sat on some stub which has only had one editor ever, even if it sat there for ten years. That is what really has to be hashed out. --Aquillion (talk) 09:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. There are different levels of implicit consensus for sure, but it seems there may be some disagreement on how to define them and whether we should. Even in high-traffic articles, there's no guarantee the content was ever seen, let alone evaluated or modified, unless you take the time to dig through diffs. Time and traffic alone cannot be the only factors to consider in support of implicit consensus, especially in a lengthier article. ONUS is a special case, of course, since it has been used in countless discussions both here and elsewhere since its inclusion. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

More often, the problem arises in a thinly edited article where some gossip or thinly sourced news flash was added to the article -- maybe even disparaging BLP content -- and then it is called "longstanding consensus" as grounds for edit warring it back into the article when it's discovered. SPECIFICO talk 16:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

IMPLICITCONSENSUS does not say that anything "has a stronger consensus behind it", no matter how heavily edited or high-traffic the article is. IMPLICITCONSENSUS says that there is a presumption of consensus. This is a very important difference.

"Has consensus" means that when you go to a high-traffic article, like Diabetic neuropathy (8,000+ page views a month, 487 registered editors total, consistently has dozens of edits per year, WP:ORES rating of B-class), and you see something that's been in it for multiple years, then there are editors who will actually support the content you are looking at.

"Presumption of consensus" means that when you go to that article, you can just remove the hoax statement in it, even though it was there for 4.4 years, because a presumption of consensus is not the same as actual consensus, just like a presumption of innocence is not the same thing as actual innocence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Hope you all can come up with a solution. I'm moving one. GoodDay (talk) 23:45, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Removing ONUS...

Sorry, it's so long, I must have lost track...where we did decide to remove The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

Because I'm still not comfortable with that. valereee (talk) 23:16, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there's not a consensus for removing it, there's been a long inconclusive discussion about it thats's been going on this talkpage for months now. I am not convinced that the relatively small number of participants to the discussion here are reflective of the broader Wikipedia community. I don't see this being resolved without a well-publicised RfC with a simple binary choice to keep or remove it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, @Hemiauchenia. I was going back and forth on the diffs and I was like, 'what did I miss?' valereee (talk) 23:24, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Indeed. With this much of a flurry of edits going on, I'd expect blocks based on seeing similar or even lesser occurrences on other policy pages.

I've gone ahead and restored the policy section to the last status quo [7], and any additional changes really need consensus at this point. Propose changes here, but don't go making them to the policy itself like an article. KoA (talk) 23:27, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Do normal editing policies apply to policy pages? If so, #The_meaning_of_the_CURRENT_text_at_ONUS_(introduction) meaning #13 states "it's your job to prove there is an active, positive agreement to include your material in that article." The alternative meanings for #15 seem to indication that the onus sentence is redundant with "Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article", which would mean it could be removed. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:35, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Policy pages are even more stringent. Especially for anything contested like this, and where all editors on the talk page would already know the change is controversial, there is really no excuse to be editing the policy directly like what happened recently. KoA (talk) 04:04, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

KoA, where can I find the "policy pages are even more stringent" provision? wp:PGBOLD would suggest there isn't one. (That said, wp:QUO tells us the best practice during discussion is to leave the status quo version in place.) - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 04:13, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow, to me WP:PGCHANGE (which incorporates PGBOLD) says exactly that policy pages are more stringent. It says talking first is usual, that editing boldly is permitted (rather than encouraged), and that folks should follow 1RR or 0RR. That's more stringent than BRD. valereee (talk) 12:47, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. Perhaps the problem is the use of the word "stringent" (which does not appear at wp:PGCHANGE). While PGCHANGE encourages caution when editing polices and guidelines, it does not set forth a rule. And, to my mind, recommendations cannot be "stringent." - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, the guidelines for making changes to policy pages specify using more caution than the guidelines for making changes to articles? valereee (talk) 15:25, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, now we're splitting hairs. In my mind "encourage" equals "recommend" and "specify" equals "requires." - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:39, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I do not think it's splitting hairs to point out that there's stronger language re: policy pages. valereee (talk) 18:48, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• My big problem with all the text above is nobody has said what 'disputed' means. I have no real problem with people trying to achieve consensus over some disputed text, but unfortunately in Wikipedia we have loads of people who say something is 'disputed' because it is different from what was there before, or they just say they dispute it or some other non-reason. If we could get people to state a reason that can be true or false and can be contended to an objective result that would be an immense step forward. This I think could help greatly especially when ogres just dismiss some newbie's contribution with a list of WP:TLAs that each points to thousands of K of text. NadVolum (talk) 07:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

This is something I touched on above - I think that a lot of the problems could be resolved by making it clear that once a credible source has been produced, further challenges require an actual policy-based objection related to article content (rather than a procedural one.) It doesn't have to be a strong one or a good one, that's something we settle through discussions or RFCs; "rv, WP:UNDUE" is notionally fine, although you'd be expected to explain in more detail eventually if there was an ongoing dispute. It's also not necessary to continuously repeat your objection once it's been stated (although it doesn't hurt to mention it in the edit summary, just to ensure everyone is on the same page.) But "rv, get consensus per WP:ONUS" when nobody has expressed anything that could remotely be construed as a policy-based objection is inappropriate, and I feel that one of the issues with ONUS is that some people have interpreted it as allowing that. This is part of what I mean when I say that policies that are unnecessarily strongly-worded can impede consensus-building by making it harder to bring everyone to the table. --Aquillion (talk) 09:54, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

That's more an issue of taking things out-of-context: All you have to do is comply with Note 3, and if we want we can repeat Note 3 at the end of ONUS. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:32, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I might be getting a bit ahead of things here, don't we have enough in all these discussions to ask in an RFC whether that ONUS sentence should stay? Selfstudier (talk) 11:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Before we have an RFC… I want to suggest an option: rather than simply removing the ONUS sentence, we should consider moving it over to WP:Consensus. I don’t really object to what the ONUS sentence says, but I have never understood why we say it in this policy.

I understand why this policy includes the VNOT sentences (they are a useful reminder that there is more to inclusion than just WP:V). But why does our Verifiability policy outline who must gain a consensus when the dispute is about something other than Verifiability? Shouldn’t that be outlined at WP:Consensus? Blueboar (talk) 13:32, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

That is an idea with which I do not fundamentally disagree and if the thing is to be argued about, then let it be argued about there rather than here. Likely still needs an RFC though. Selfstudier (talk) 13:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@Blueboar, because newer editors often need to see these two policies (V and ONUS) presented together so that they understand that the simple fact we can verify something doesn't mean we include it, and that the person who is insisting we include some trivial fact is the one who needs to gain that consensus. These two policies are interrelated, and if we don't present them together, that's often difficult for newer editors, who are still on a steep learning curve, to see. valereee (talk) 13:53, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

ONUS by itself is just a sentence, not a policy, pretty troublesome one at that. Selfstudier (talk) 13:56, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, valeree, and the V policy is unique, in that its focus is on one source, it has practically no regard for context, broad research, or subject matter knowledge. And it's not the case that V has nothing to do with NPOV and NOR, indeed they must (we say, although this is what fails too often) they must be read together. Moreover, the burden of V is very light, "any source [the editor] believes, in good faith, to be sufficient." That's not nearly enough for vouchsafing good content. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:09, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

The short version of how onus works in the wikipedia system is that it puts a finger on the scale towards exclusion of material when there is a debate. It's also a too-vague version of reinforcing the point of the paragraph that it is in. Which more directly would be: "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion". If we want to get rid of it, it would take a big RFC, and to do that right we'd need to do our homework on formulating a good plausible RFC and then supporting it. Which also means dealing with the two current effects of onus. IMO the "finger on the scale towards exclusion" isn't by itself needed or even good, and some would say conflicts with another policy, but IMO the latter reminder is much needed. Even with the (weak) reminder we have the persistent urban legend is that merely being sourced is an argument for inclusion. My idea for an RFC (which IMO would fix everything in one fell swoop) would be:

Replace: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content" with "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion"

Which, BTW, is pretty neutral on the overall "inclusionist vs. exclusionist" balance, which many folks care about. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:10, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not about exclusion, its what is needed for inclusion. Ignoring everything else, Verifiability is subject to consensus. We don't want content in which verifiability is in substantial doubt, nor do we want content where a NPOV is in substantial doubt, nor OR, nor etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:36, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

But isn’t all that covered by the VNOT part of the paragraph? Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

If an RFC on this matter is held? Would the Village Pump be the proper place for it? GoodDay (talk) 14:08, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not a new policy as such, just an amendment to an existing one (or two if we are to transfer the subject to another). Wouldn't here + WP:CENT be sufficient? Selfstudier (talk) 14:45, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

For something like this, high participation is more important than the specific venue… So wherever we hold it, we should put very prominent notices in as many different locations as we can… maximize the number of participants and minimize the number of people who will later complain that they never knew about it (of course, some will… no matter what we do). Blueboar (talk) 14:59, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

So we have something like this so far?

Should the sentence The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content

1) Be replaced with the sentence "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion" or

2) Be moved to an appropriate place at WP:CONSENSUS or

3) Stay as is. Selfstudier (talk) 15:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

In this proposed RfC are options 1 and 2 mutually exclusive? You could in theory modify the text here to include the "requirement for inclusion" rewording, and put the current onus text in consensus. If they are not mutually exclusive, then I agree with what North8000 says below in that it would complicate the RfC and the closer's job. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:10, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

We may want to strike "appropriate" as non-neutral phrasing. --GoneIn60 (talk) 16:27, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I think "appropriate" in this context means "an appropriate place within the text of WP:CONSENSUS" and not "WP:CONSENSUS is the appropriate place to put this text". Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:36, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

For me there's a fourth possibility -- if ONUS redirects to CONSENSUS, keep language (with a link to the new location) at V. For me that would (mostly) addresses the issue of needing this language to be at V. valereee (talk) 16:52, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Can we move the ONUS wikilink to WP:CONACHIEVE? Nothing about onus is stated there, but it's implied you have to engage in the consensus-building process? Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:21, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Having three or more choices makes it pretty complicated. IMO we should hammer out a proposed change here and then do a "support/oppose" RFC. And IMO, an RFC at the place involved (here) plus listing at centralized discussion would be OK & best. North8000 (talk) 16:09, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Concerning the proposed RFC. You'll find it would become messy, if we ignore the fact, that it's mostly the majority who establishes consensus in content disputes. If enough editors argue that Orange is Green? the result will be Orange is Green. GoodDay (talk) 16:16, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Is that concern not inherently covered by the overall WP:CONSENSUS policy and specifically WP:DETCON? DETCON already states that it's not the majority, but that it's the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy which determines the consensus outcome of a discussion. I'm not sure we need to duplicate that here. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:20, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Those are the words, yes. But putting them into practice is usually messy, if the position of the minority is chosen. GoodDay (talk) 16:23, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

As written, DETCON is arrant nonsense that nobody actually believes, since it would give the self-selected closer to impose their own view of the "quality of the arguments" over the community's. If I went around closing discussions based on DETCON I would expect to get desysopped right quick, and rightly so. At best, it is a guide to resolving rare corner cases involving e.g. manipulation or other suspected bad-faith conduct. Outside of those situations, if you need to ask yourself how to determine if there's consensus, there probably isn't one. -- Visviva (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure if folks were responding to my "makes it pretty complicated" but what I meant is that with having 3 or more choices can divide up the support of persons with similar views. Also that they usually a blend of 2 or more questions. North8000 (talk) 19:40, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

• I think this may need more than one RFC… but the initial question could be asked with just 4 choices:

1. Cut the ONUS sentence
2. Move the ONUS sentence to another page (such as WP:Consensus)
3. Edit the ONUS sentence
4. Leave as is.

Those are the “basic” options we have been discussing. Blueboar (talk) 21:39, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

5. Leave the ONUS sentence and move the ONUS shortcut to WP:Consensus.

Kolya Butternut (talk) 15:44, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

§ Removing ONUS...

The right question to ask here isn't "where we did decide to remove The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." but rather where did we decide to add it?

As discussed above the current statement under dispute: The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content.

is materially identical to the statement which was BOLDLY added 13 August 2014: The onus is on those seeking to include disputed content, to achieve consensus for its inclusion.

Clearly from this extended discussion The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. is itself disputed content and therefore the onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include this disputed content.

So any multiple choice RfC on this matter is out-of-order and premature. We need a binary-choice RfC with yes/no or keep/remove the disputed statement The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. which is necessary per the policy to achieve consensus for its inclusion.

Questions about moving or editing the sentence should only happen after the binary-choice RfC finds a consensus to keep it at all. – wbm1058 (talk) 03:14, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Good point, but for several reasons I don't think that that will work. First, many would not accept that retaining something that has prominently been around that long requires a consensus. Also, folks like me think that it does a (albeit weakly and poorly) does an important job for that paragraph and so simple removal would have another headwind there. I think that it would more useful to strongly make/remember the point that it was added without consensus. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:CCC (silent or otherwise) and I think we are paddling around in that pool at this point. The question is how to make progress? I get the desire to have a yes/no scenario, tend to agree that might be insufficient, then again, four/five choices might well result in 25/20% each so how to arrange it? Selfstudier (talk) 15:07, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

How to move forward. The problem is that there are multiple questions (content and location) and infinite possibilities. Let's start by ruling out the unlikely and unfeasible one which is moving it to another policy. That would mean changing two policies at once and getting a different policy to accept our problem-child phrase. :-) So now we're down to potential changes at this policy... The three choices there are status quo, delete or change. And under "change" we still have infinite possibilities. So, let's discuss to decide best one or 2 to offer under "change". And then offer the three choices, but ASK EVERYBODY TO GIVE THEIR OPINION ON EACH ONE OF THEM. This will avoid the math problem associated with having 3 or more choices. North8000 (talk) 20:36, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The easiest solution isn't necessarily the correct one. I think this debate is really about IMPLICITCONSENSUS, and we just need to make clear that the onus sentence reiterates CONSENSUS. This could be achieved through option #5, and then our discussion would move on to IMPLICITCONSENSUS. Kolya Butternut (talk) 20:54, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

It could be the case that there is a relatively silent majority out there thinking that there should be no change. Perhaps we ought to first test that hypothesis. That is a straight choice between no change and some change (to be determined if there is a consensus for it). Selfstudier (talk) 21:40, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier, that doesn't usually go well. People feel like they're being asked to buy a pig in a poke. They fear that a vote to change it will later be interpreted as a vote to change it to something they disagree with. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't feel that way but maybe I'm all alone in that. Anyway, just putting it out there, trying to pin down what an RFC should look like if it is not to result in nocon (=no progress, come back later). Tbh, I was hoping some silent folk might comment, guess not. Selfstudier (talk) 21:23, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

It's not the "easiest" way, it's just A way which is pretty good and following in general what people think should happen. Vs. it being eternally heading towards no resolution process. North8000 (talk) 22:09, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

OK I might boldly put that structure forward in a week. For that we need two change proposals. I have one that I suggested. Does somebody have another 1 or 2 to float? North8000 (talk) 11:37, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break for discussion of draft

Could you show an outline draft of the RFC (with a space for the missing change proposal). Pretty please. Selfstudier (talk) 11:57, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Responding to @Selfstudier: here is a draft of the RFC, proposing putting it up on August 2nd:

This RFC is about the existing sentence in wp:verifiability which reads: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content" Which is often called "onus". The discussion has already been lengthy, here are 5 possibilities. To avoid math problems associated with more than two choices, please give your input on EACH of the 5 possibilities where you have an opinion.

1. No change. Keep the status quo.
2. Simply delete: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content"
3. Make the following change: Replace: "The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content" with "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion"
4. Make the following change: (additional change proposal to be worked out by discussion here)
5. No immediate change. Have an additional RFC to consider other change ideas

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) (7/26/22)

Being a lil bit bureaucrat, what are we going to call RFCbefore (for newcomers), it's most of this page, ha, from "1." on down? Selfstudier (talk) 18:44, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

For the blank, how about Replace "Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. The onus to achieve consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." with "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion" (the thing I most dislike about that little para is the segue from V to talking about consensus). Selfstudier (talk) 18:52, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. North8000 (talk) 20:20, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

You can add it as an option, but it would be the only option I would actively oppose. It cuts a key part of VNOT. A consensus that X does not improve an article and should be omitted (even though X is verifiable) is one of the key reasons why “Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion”. It directly relates to the section (unlike the ONUS sentence, which is tangential). Blueboar (talk) 00:27, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Side note… the above just made me realize why I have always found the ONUS sentence so jarring: the VNOT sentences all discuss what might happen DUE TO a consensus to omit verifiable information (ie when there IS a consensus) … ONUS suddenly shifts to discussing what happens when there ISN’T a consensus. Blueboar (talk) 00:57, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Those additional two existing sentences weren't on my worry list. "Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article" is vague and structurally says little-to-nothing (a consensus against an addition can keep the material out...duh) but in the fuzzy Wikipedia world it does add emphasis to the fact that that it also has to be a good idea to make an addition. IMO "Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article." is silly but is harmless. (That if there is a consensus against inclusion of material the rejected material should go into another article.) But it never gets used so it's harmless. But we're here to hammer out an additional proposal, and your discussion is a part of that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 01:39, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not married to my suggestion for the blank space, if there is a better something to put in there, fine by me. Selfstudier (talk) 13:07, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: Would you like to have your idea listed in the RFC? Please ping me with an answer if so. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:19, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

@North8000: I leave it to you to decide, I can always refer to it in my comments if needs be. Selfstudier (talk) 18:33, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

That's what we have so far. As noted on 7/26, I plan to put the RFC up on August 2nd. North8000 (talk) 16:28, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I think an RfC should clearly define the problems and how the proposals would address them. Kolya Butternut (talk) 18:02, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Surely the RFC in whatever form it takes is an attempt to do just that. The raft of RFCbefore on the page would indicate that even though editors seem to be in some agreement that there is a problem, they are not able to agree on what the problem is exactly. With a bit of luck, some progress can be made. Selfstudier (talk) 18:16, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Kolya Butternut What you are asking for would make the RFC non-neutral. But I would plan to do that when I weigh in as a participant. North8000 (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I do not think this RFC, as written, will be productive. I think it will generate more heat than light. I do not think you should start this RFC next week. I think you should consider alternative questions, and I think you should consider asking for help with drafting a question at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment.

As one example of a different question to ask (one that will be informative, but not directly and immediately settle the question about what to do with this sentence), we could ask:

"When editors are at an impasse over sourced content (e.g., some editors do not believe it belongs in this article, and others do), should the disputed material be retained or omitted?"

Also, I'd like us to spend a while with the point raised by @Blueboar: Maybe we need to add something to this subsection to explain why this is here. Consider, e.g., the old wording:

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

versus this:

While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Sometimes editors will agree that certain information should be omitted or moved to a different article. Other times, editors are not able to agree. The editors who want to include the disputed material are responsible for forming a consensus to include the disputed content. If they are unable to reach an agreement to include it, the disputed material should be omitted from the article. It is not enough to have a reliable source for the material; you must also have other editors' agreement that the material should be included.

I know that some editors prefer QUO to this rule, but at least this suggested version is clear about what the rule is and how it is relevant to VNOT. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Regarding the RFC, I'll answer from a couple of different angles. The framework is designed to handle multiple ideas while avoiding the math problems that usually come from having 3 or more choices. Also, I try for the "middle of the road" between something that is not really going to go anywhere and being too rushed, the happy medium between zero help making this happen and going too far and fast. IMO it would be a good idea to delay my August 2nd date about another week until August 9 to see if another proposal gels that at least a couple of people like and then if so we put that one into it as well. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:51, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Be cautious of RFCs with more then three options. Those tend to end in 'no consensus'. Anyways, looking forward to participating in it. I'm assuming it'll be held at this talkpage. GoodDay (talk) 13:39, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

The focus of North's proposed RFC is "make a decision abut wording". I wonder if we need to "gather information" or "make a decision about the best practice" instead.

Part of the reason that I am interested in other approaches is because we have a problem. This problem is not named/described in the proposed RFC question, which makes it difficult for editors to figure out what we're trying to achieve with these five options. Also, if the most popular result is #1, then we will still have the same problem.

Separately, North's line that "Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion" sounds like a slogan, not a rule. I agree with the sentiment, but if you want more editors to understand it, then I'd suggest wording like "Verifiability is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for including any material in an article. The fact that material is verifiable does not mean that the material should be included. All material in all articles must also be relevant to the subject of the article, appropriate for an encyclopedia, and support an overall neutral point of view for the article." (I suggest that last phrase because each individual sentence does not need to be fully NPOV in isolation. For example "Alice says X" is 100% focused on the POV of one source, but it can contribute to an NPOV article when it is combined with "Bob says Y".) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:13, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: IMO it just stops a widespread mis-impression which launches from wp:ver. (IMO, from it's location, something which wp:Onus (badly) attempted to do). The sentence doesn't without trying to say what should happen.....that gets determined by Wikipedia:How_editing_decisions_are_made which is based on multiple policies, guidelines. IMO you are trying to describe that overall process in one section of the Verifiability policy which to me is impossible to do well. That said, you've mentioned 2 ideas. Maybe a shorter broader version of what you are getting at would be good. Is there on which you would like to have listed in the RFC? North8000 (talk) 18:22, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the wording Verifiability is a necessary but not sufficient requirement for inclusion would be better for option 3. Kolya Butternut (talk) 14:00, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I'll put that in as one of the choices. Regarding other choices, @Selfstudier: said they were neutral about whether or not I put their idea in. Given that, and that their idea involves broadening the question to eliminate additional text that we're not been discussing, I don't plan to put it in. I pinged @WhatamIdoing: (see one post up) to see if they have one to put in; if so I'll put that one in also. Again, asking people to give thier opinion on all of them will reduce the math problem of having more than two choices. North8000 (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

You feel "not a reason for inclusion" is better than "is necessary but not sufficient"? It would be best to have fewer options, but I know you've been advocating for that language for a long time. We could provide a rank-choice analysis for the closer, like I did for the lead image of Woman at Talk:Woman/Archive_19#Instant-runoff_method. Kolya Butternut (talk) 16:48, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

IMO ranked choice is pretty clearly voting, which sort of goes against the "not a vote" concept. IMO saying "give your opinion on every item" gets the important benefits of ranked choice without have that issue. North8000 (talk) 19:31, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I think ranking is no more voting than writing "support" or "oppose"; it's just a way to indicate relative support, and this ranking should not be given without arguments. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:58, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I think that people might be interested in adding one of the not-a-reason/necessary-but-not-sufficient sentences without removing the only "what to do if someone stuffs in verifiable trivia" sentence. Consequently, Option 3 asks two separate questions. To support that option, you have to support two things:

• Remove this, and
• Add that

The "Remove this" question is redundant to Option 2. It should probably be left out of Option 3, which would become (only) "Add that".

I think you could re-organize this list (which I still think is premature, because people don't know what the actual problem is) as these options:

1. Do you think we should remove the ONUS sentence?
2. Do you think we should add <North's new slogan>?
3. Do you think we should add <WhatamIdoing's long thing>?
4. Do you have other concerns or ideas about this section that you would like to share?

By asking four separate questions, we lose the need for a "no change" option, as "no change" can be achieved automatically/implicitly by answering all of the questions "no". It also merges the original 4 ("make another change") and 5 (have another discussion first), because both of those views can be reported as "other concerns or ideas".

Also, each of the first three questions can be evaluated separately. There will be no need for ranked-choice voting or anything else, except to the extent that someone might say "first choice" or "second choice" for the middle questions.

It would probably help to provide people with the entire (four-sentence) ONUS paragraph, because most people won't click over to read it themselves. It would definitely help if there were a description or story about the problem that needs to be solved, which is that ONUS gives the advantage to article-blankers and NOCON gives the advantage to change-opposers, and this is not always the same editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:53, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

That sounds like starting the discussion that we've already been having for the last ~6 months. Plus it wanders away form the "what to do with the onus" question. Those other ideas dealt with it because they are in essence "replace the onus sentence with...." How about you write up the WhatAmIDoing idea (to substitute for the ONUS sentence) and we put that in the RFC? North8000 (talk) 20:56, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

• Do you want to remove A?
• How about we remove A and insert B?
• How about we remove A and insert C?

What do you expect people to do, if they want the paragraph to include A+B+C? What will you think if someone says "No, don't remove A, but yes, do remove A and insert B"? Editors who want A retained will say that pair of responses should be thrown out as illogical nonsense. Editors who want A removed will say that this pair of responses means that A should be removed. Framing the questions that way will lead to avoidable disputes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

I plan to put the above RFC up soon. Including asking people to respond on all options that they have an opinion on to avoid math issues from having more than two options. Beside the "keep as is" option, it has one for "no change now but consider more ideas". I've been asking for a while, but if anyone has another specific option to include, please provide it. North8000 (talk) 19:33, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Muse...delete the whole lot, everything under "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion" :) Like, yeah, we know that, don't we? Might as well put it up, see what happens. Worst case is we have to do another one. Selfstudier (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

So, what does the RfC draft look like now? I like "necessary but not sufficient", but not the rest of WhatamIdoing's "long thing". Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:45, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break, continuation of prior discussion

• Regardless of how it was added originally, strong consensus was found for it at this Village Pump RfC. It was proposed to move WP:ONUS to WP:CON, and redefine it as about removals too - as about any change - and it was rejected. The closure states, There is an overwhelming consensus against this proposed change, primarily due to concerns that it would undermine verifiability and efforts to remove poorly sourced information. Crossroads ^-talk- 16:12, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  Even North opposed that, lol. That's not really where we are at atm, though. Selfstudier (talk) 16:19, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  I don't think the rejection of that RFC amounts to an endorsement of the status quo. Levivich (talk) 16:40, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

  • That RFC tried to do two things at once … move ONUS and change what it said. It seems that most of the opposition focused on the language change, although a few did oppose the move. Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

  I wonder whether it would make more sense to ask people what they think should happen in certain scenarios, instead of asking them what words they think should be used. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:20, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Quick side request

Twice now, I have attempted to insert a simple paragraph break between the VNOT sentences, and the ONUS sentence - so that those newly arriving at this discussion can better visualize and understand what we are discussing. Unfortunately, on both occasions my simple edit was immediately followed by a more substantive edit, and then a revert back to the original (one paragraph) version. It may be that my attempts to insert a break simply got caught up in objections to what followed… but I am not sure. So… let me ask: does anyone object to my re-inserting a paragraph break (with no change to the text)? Blueboar (talk) 19:07, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

It is a single sentence, a sentence is not a paragraph and the paragraph logically places the sentences together. Seperating words from context in this policy is especially problematic, since this policy tends to get atomization of of analysis on the singularly focused but also important source-content relationship, especially since the burden is so light. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:18, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

But that’s part of the problem… VNOT and ONUS are talking about completely different things. They don’t logically go together. The only reason I can see for placing them in the same paragraph is that both contain the word “consensus”. Blueboar (talk) 20:13, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

They are not two completely separate things, each sentence explicates and why and how verifiability does not mean inclusion. So, the grounds for your proposal is substantive, not clarifying, it is to bolster taking words and concepts out of context, through the odd means of creating a non-paragraph of one sentence. Alanscottwalker (talk) Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:41, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Ok… I disagree, but at least I know that there is a thought out objection to my paragraph break. I can let it rest. Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 21:02, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If it helps, I'll echo one of my comments in an earlier section that there isn't really consensus that there's a dispute in policy or that there is an issue needing changes here. At the time, others were trying to continue the dispute despite not gaining any traction by adding a tag after significant talk discussion. This would fall into similar territory, regardless of intent. This is the point where editing the policy page itself really needs to stop, and consensus is needed for any change at this point. KoA (talk) 21:04, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@KoA, I think we agreed last round that there is a dispute in policy, but that it only rarely appears in practice. Consider this scenario:

• Alice creates an article.
• Bob adds some content one hour later.
• Carol objects to Bob's addition one hour after Bob added it. Specifically, Carol does not believe that this content belongs in this article.
• The ensuing discussion attracts many experienced editors. At the end of the discussion, the following facts are presented to you:
  1. All editors unanimously agree that the disputed content is properly supported by an inline citation to an appropriate reliable source.
  2. All editors unanimously agree that the disputed content does not involve anything about BLPs.
  3. All editors unanimously agree that the disputed content does not involve a copyright violation, legal concern, or any other characteristic that could result in either speedy deletion or any other automatic decision.
  4. All editors unanimously agree that it's beyond silly to talk about a "status quo version" for an article that was only one hour old at the time the content was added and two hours old when the addition was disputed.
  5. All editors unanimously agree that, on the question of whether to include or exclude the material, they have produced the most perfect tie you could imagine. Regardless of whether you are counting votes, evaluating the strength of arguments, or even considering the apparent level of passion individuals have about the dispute, there is no consensus for the article to contain this content and equally no consensus for the article to omit this content. The community's view is unanimously declared to be exactly balanced.

What do you think editors should do now? Alternatively, what additional information would you need to make a recommendation to editors about what they should/shouldn't do about the disputed content? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:19, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

ONUS reiterates Consensus. Per NOCON the material stays out. Kolya Butternut (talk) 21:14, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

What makes you say that? "Per NOCON", why isn't Bob's bold edit removed? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:32, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

What's the difference? What do you think happens? Kolya Butternut (talk) 22:00, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

NOCON says – noting that this is disputed, but here's what it says – "In discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles, a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit."

I'm curious why you pick Bob's bold edit as "the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit" instead of picking Alice's edit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:54, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't understand how you got that from what I said. I said "the material stays out." Bob's edit is the only material in question. Kolya Butternut (talk) 23:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I misread your comment. But the same question applies: Why isn't Carol's "proposal to...remove material" the one that's reverted, and why don't you want to be "retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

The dispute is over Bob's bold edit. Kolya Butternut (talk) 03:17, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

But Bob says the dispute is over Carol's bold blanking of well-sourced content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:01, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

ONUS is a great tool for brigading and wargaming, but for building knowledge not so much. There's no effort to distinguish between what is excluded for being questionable on its reliability, and what is questionable on its importance. Hyperbolick (talk) 09:21, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm too old, weary, tired etc. Hope ya'll will find a solution with WP:ONUS. GoodDay (talk) 23:47, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Don't hold your breath :) Selfstudier (talk) 10:28, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

This is mostly a response to WhatamIdoing's post (20:19, 25 July 2022 (UTC)). I haven't read the whole discussion in full, and I am apologizing in advance if I raise some questions that have already been concerned.

In my opinion, your question describes two totally different cases:

• First, Bob's addition is in agreement with WP:V, AND WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, BLP and other non-negotiable policies. In that case, Carol's objections may or may not be justified. The reason for the objection may be that the Bob's text is only marginally relevant to the article's subject (if relevant at all), or it is stylistically poor, etc. This type issues can and should be resolved by consensus, and it is Bob's task to convince others that his addition improves the article. Since this type issues are mostly a matter of taste, some soft consensus may be sufficient for new text's acceptance.
• Second, Bob's addition is in agreement with WP:V, but it violates either WP:NOR or WP:NPOV (or both). According to the policy's text, these two policies are non-negotiable, so the discussion of the Bob's text should focus not on the merits of the proposed text, but on its compliance with these two content policies. If during this discussion at least one editor raises a legitimate concern about a violation of NPOV, NOR, BLP etc, and other editors fail to properly address it - the proposed text must be rejected.

Currently, the ONUS is somewhat misleading, because it mixes these two (totally different) cases, and it directly contradicts, for example, to the WP:NPOV's preamble, where it directly says it is non-negotiable. It creates a false impression that inclusion of ANY verifiable information is a subject of negotiations among editors, whereas NOR and NPOV say quite the opposite.

I propose to make it more specific by adding a reference to other two policies (and, probably, BLP and NFC). Something like:

Verifiability of the information, as well as its compliance with WP:NOR and WP:NPOV are necessary criteria for its inclusion in an article. However, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that, although certain information meets all criteria described in our core content policies, is does not improve an article.

--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:15, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

In addition, with regard to the "one hour" issue, the time should be measured not in days or hours, but in views and edits. If some article is being viewed just one time per day, and is being watchlisted just by one editor, and it had not been edited during last year, then the edit made one year ago may be considered as pretty recent, and it may be senseless to speak about any stable version at all. In contrast, consider some article that is being viewed 100,000 times every day, and watchlisted by 10,000 users. If some edit was made just one hour ago, but after that 100 other edits have been made, we may have some ground to conclude this edit in not as recent as it seems...--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I can agree to your proposed text, and completely agree with your comment on views/edits. Blueboar (talk) 21:56, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

If you look at the scenario, the article is two hours old at the time the dispute appeared, and there have only been three edits to the article ever. I think we can assume that the maximum number of watchlists involved is three. Notice, however, that "The ensuing discussion attracts many experienced editors", so the number of watchlists is not relevant. Imagine an CENT-listed RFC with 100 editors, if that helps. Also, notice that the "many experienced editors" unanimously agreed that it's silly to claim that a STATUSQUO version exists when a dispute arises in a two-hour-old article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:24, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert, you've missed the point. There is only one case here: Editors cannot decide whether Bob's addition violates NPOV. Consensus didn't determine that the disputed material violated NPOV; consensus determined that half the editors believe it's a NPOV problem (with a reasonably convincing argument) and half the editors believe there is no NPOV problem (with an exactly equally convincing argument).

I agree that "This type issues can and should be resolved by consensus" – usually. But the fact is that sometimes we cannot (or at least do not) form a consensus on every single issue. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:21, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

If I were to come across the above scenario… before determining who should “win”, I would want to see if there has been any attempt at compromise? Did Bob (or one of Bob’s supporters) suggest reworded versions of what they want to add, and we’re those attempts to compromise discussed or just stonewalled? Did Alice (or one of her supporters) make a similar effort? This would tell me a LOT about whether there was actually a good faith effort to reach a consensus or not. Remember that sometimes, holding a !vote can be the wrong approach, and once the involved editors move beyond binary !vote mode, a consensus is achievable after all. Blueboar (talk) 20:56, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

@Blueboar, I don't know if you'll remember this, from forever ago, but there was a real-world dispute about whether someone's farm was in active operation. (I was under the impression that the government could take over abandoned farms or force a sale in that country, so this was a bigger deal than it sounds like.) Commons had a photo of the farm. More precisely, Commons had a photo of a cow or two standing in front of a house that was believed to be at that particular farm. There were concerns (not in sources, if I recall correctly) that the photo might have been produced as part of a disinformation campaign, since you could borrow a cow from a neighbor long enough to take a few pictures. There's no way to re-word a picture, and no way to include a picture halfway. So either we include the only photo we have, which is normal, or we exclude it, because we think it's faked. Including it implies that Wikipedia has decided the allegations were false. Excluding it (at least if you happen to know that this picture exists) implies that Wikipedia has decided that the allegations are true.

I agree that consensus is usually achievable, and that compromise is usually possible, but sometimes you can't achieve consensus (e.g., this year) and sometimes you can't achieve a compromise. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:31, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 July 2022

196.189.113.113 (talk) 16:03, 26 July 2022 (UTC) verification problem

 Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Verifiability. If possible, please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. If you cannot edit the article's talk page, you can instead make your request at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection#Current requests for edits to a protected page. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 July 2022

(1) Embolden the words "Please immediately remove" in the sentence "Please immediately remove contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced." in the lead section.

(2) Add the following text to the aforementioned sentence, before the period at its end: and [[WP:LIBEL|libelous material]].

I've always known that it's a Wikipedia policy to remove libelous material from articles about living people, since it may seriously and negatively affect them. I've also read today about the lawsuit from April 2019(?), in which the Wikimedia Foundation was obligated by a German court to remove libelous material from an article's history. The author of the post in the Foundation's blog wrote that the Foundation was forced to oversight the article's history. So I was surprised when I read WP:LIBEL, since it isn't linked to from Wikipedia's content disclaimer, about page, the five pillars, or anywhere important really. To quote: "It is a Wikipedia policy to immediately delete libelous material when it has been identified. Page revisions containing libelous content should also be removed from the page history. Libelous material (otherwise known as defamation) is reasonably likely to damage a person or company's reputation and could expose Wikipedia to legal consequences." This is in contrast to the implication of the Foundation's blog post that oversight shouldn't be exercised in such cases.

So please, if you can make these changes to the article to make it clear that certain material must be immediately removed as of Wikipedia policy, especially if one such policy is the Foundation's policy due to potential legal consequences and surprisingly isn't widely mentioned. 85.64.76.29 (talk) 03:57, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:04, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Should I just wait for someone to look at this talk page and see this? What should I do? 85.64.76.29 (talk) 04:13, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

If you'd like to, you could restate your reasons in a new section, without needing to propose a "change X to Y"-style edit like you needed to for the edit request. Probably it's fine to leave this up, as this talk page has some fairly active participation. I don't strenuously oppose the change, but I'd prefer not to see more boldface added to the intro. WP:LIBEL is linked prominently from WP:BLP, which is the most likely place editors will be when working with contentious material about living people. For the scope of this policy, I think "contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced" covers libelous material as well. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:22, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. What about libelous material about organizations? And if this is such an important policy, it should be linked to standalone without relying on editors to read the BLP policy and somehow notice this too. At least that's what I think. 85.64.76.29 (talk) 04:39, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Good point on organizations! Let's see what others think. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:48, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I have no objection to adding this, but I am not certain that it's important to add the link, as the problem rarely arises, and when it does, people don't seem to have trouble doing the right thing. For example, the rumors in April 2019 indicated that that situation could have been handled under BLP rules anyway.

In my experience, the main problem with talking about Wikipedia:Libel on wiki is that we have a lot of armchair lawyers, and not very much appreciation for the variety of legal rules around the world. For example, are defamation and libel the same thing? Are accurate/true facts defamation? Is it legally possible for a corporation, political party, or other organization to sue over libel? Different jurisdictions have different answers to these questions, but editors tend to think first/only of the rules they're personally familiar with.

Then there is the impossibility of applying it to individual cases: Is "During a #metoo thread on Twitter, two people accused him of raping them" (a true fact, in that they really did say this) still defamation? How about meticulously documenting every time someone has been involved in lawsuits or other legal trouble? I knew two people who were in the habit of suing their employers and business partners. Having the "true facts" widely known would do significant harm to them, because nobody who knows those "true facts" would ever agree to work with them. But is it actually libel to say "He worked for X from 2000 to 2002, and then sued them for wrongful termination; he worked for Y from 2002 to 2003, and then sued them for wrongful termination; he worked for Z in 2004, and then sued them for wrongful termination"? The answers aren't simple. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:10, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

But these are questions you raise regarding the meaning of the WP:LIBEL policy. Whether it means one thing or the other, it's still a Wikimedia-wide policy. Maybe the Foundation needs to narrow the policy or clarify the explanation in the WP:LIBEL page, but because of the official status of it and its importance, I still think it needs to be mentioned. I think the right place for these questions is in the talk page for WP:LIBEL (or perhaps emailed to the Foundation), and not affect whether it should be linked to from WP:V. 85.64.76.29 (talk) 15:35, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

What does the libel policy have to do with verifiability (i.e., that other people can verify that the information came from a reliable source, and not from an unreliable source/the editor's imagination)?

If your goal is just to have it linked in some important page or another, then it's already in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:34, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

As I see it, there are two possibilities, since the text already as-it-is in the verifiability page mentions the BLP policy:

(1) Either the text could be amended to include my changes or completely removed if it doesn't belong in the page; or...

(2) The text could be left as-is if you don't care that much that it would be complete/precise/etc.

So... Do you suggest the text "Please immediately remove "''Please immediately remove [...]''" be erased from the article completely?

I think it was put in the page because verifiability helps prevent libelous information that is blatantly false, so it probably seemed relevant for the original editor of the page to request false info in BLPs to be removed. That's how I see it. 85.64.76.29 (talk) 17:14, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

Are prior publications the only way to establish someone as an expert for the SPS expert exemption?

The current wording of SPS offers definition of who can qualify as a expert, "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." How would this apply in areas where expertise is better defined by ones resume vs ones CV? In a resent RSN discussion[8] I used light aircraft and automobile racing as examples. Would we treat as expert opinion the self published comments of Burt Rutan on the design of a light airplane, Rick Mears on performance driving, [Adrian Reynard] on the design of formula racecars or Ralph Firman on design and sales of jr level formula racecars? I think all of these people would be acknowledged as experts in their respective areas based on their easily documented accomplishments. However, our current SPS exception seems to only consider academic publication as proof of expertise while ignoring industry for the same. I've tried to find some prior discussions on this topic [9][10]. I think much of the concern in those was related to SPS where the person comes across as an expert (and perhaps is quite knowledgeable) but it's just editor's opinions of the person's work vs any sort of outside measure. I can see this as a legitimate concern since a slick website or videos can make a person of just average expertise present as more knowledgeable than they may actually be. However, I feel that if we can point to a solid list of accomplishments this shouldn't be a concern (with all other self published expert limitations applied). Springee (talk) 12:55, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

The prior publications do not need to be academic… just published independent of the author. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

What if we aren't aware of any publications by the person? Using Adrian Reynard as an example, I'm not aware of any work published by Reynard (though I'm sure he has been interviewed, for argument sake lets assume he has never published), but if he were to offer an opinion on the cause of a NOTABLE crash of the Mercedes-Benz CLR would we treat it as SPS expert opinion? Springee (talk) 14:28, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

If an individual is widely cited/quoted by independent reliable sources on a topic (is treated as subject-matter expert by RSs), that seems like it would be a factor worth considering. Schazjmd (talk) 14:47, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think so. The way that you get widely quoted by journalists is to prioritize replying to them quickly, and to hand them short, easily quoted statements. Knowing what you're talking about is not really a requirement. In some industries, some consultants use getting quoted in independent news and magazines as their primary marketing technique.

@Springee, I think you have been a bit quick to assume that these BLPs have no publications. WorldCat lists Rutan as an author on several things (example). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:15, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I didn't search Rutan but that doesn't surprise me. I'm asking this as a hypothetical so to some extent I have to make up the facts as I go :D Looking at the other three, particularly Firman would would be little known outside of his industry, I would still be curious if we would allow him to be an expert in context of a SPS opinion. As an example, he might offer an opinion related to the impact Swift Engineering had on the Formula Ford market in the 1980s. I will note this is a slightly loaded example because I know Firman was asked exactly that in a book cited in the Formula Ford article. Springee (talk) 02:36, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I would say these are probably the exception that prove the rule. Sure, these are people who know a lot about their respective fields, but are they any good at putting that knowledge into written words? That's what the "has authored independently published articles" requirement is so good at sussing out. There are probably dozens of people in every field who are very good at what they do, and they probably even have interesting opinions. But that would make them worth quoting when quoted by journalists who are reliable and publishing in RSes. It would not make them necessarily good (or reliable) at writing their own stuff. hence why they can fail SPS but be worth quoting as in RSOPINION. SPS is reserved for people who are subject-matter experts and good at writing about it. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:37, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

So continuing with my hypothetical, let's assume Firman has a personal blog or his company has a blog and on that blog he said, "The reason the Swift DB1 was so successful was XYZ". Would RSOPINION allow the use of that claim so long as it was presented as an attributed opinion? Springee (talk) 14:43, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

It'd be self-published and primary, so it might fail WP:DUE anyway. Generally speaking, any publication in which Alice says _____ is a reliable source for a statement that "Alice said _____". The fact that it's "reliable" is not really the main question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:18, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree that once "expertness" has been established, next up is the relative importance or dueness of what is being said. So in the given case, if there was some back and forth about reasons for success, then that opinion might fit right in, maybe not if it is just sitting out there all by itself as a random opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 22:17, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I presume the DUE part is similar to any other case of a SPS. For example, Alan Dershowitz would certainly count as an expert in constitutional law. If he opines about something the SCOUS does we would still have to establish that Dershowitz's opinion on the subject is DUE. I actually think that would be harder in a case where there are plenty of RSs talking about the SCOUS's decisions. Anyway, off the top of my head I can't think of a time I've run into a case where this question might apply but I wanted to seek clarification anyway. It's something I could certainly see coming up in articles about auto racing/specific race cars and likely a lot of other topics that have limited general interest. Springee (talk) 23:18, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

My inclination is to first do whichever test seems easiest, rather than going in a set order.

Reliable sources aren't limited to sources of general interest. I assume that there are still some magazines about auto racing out there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Recent reverts

@Jc3s5h: @Zero0000:

Could someone explain to me why the last edits were reverted? Altanner1991 (talk) 12:52, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

If your major policy change were allowed to stand, the policy would have read

Any material that does not have a source must be removed.

Why this change is a bad idea is explained in detail in the essay Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue.

In particular, the consensus policy contains the statements

In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source

and

All content must be verifiable.

This does not mean every article must contain a citation for even the most trivial and obvious fact. For these trivial and obvious facts, it is left to the reader who doesn't already know the fact to look it up in some commonly available reference work, such as a world atlas. The consensus version of the article allows well-known easily verified facts to be present without a citation; your version would require a citation within the article for every single fact. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:11, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I have to digress because "source", "reference", and "citation" are words in gradating order of proximity to the body's text, with source implying verifiability at its most flexible interpretation, and citation meaning the superscript placed next to the paragraph content. To say that sources are questionable can directly contradict the principle of verifiability. That was the distinguishing I was trying to make. I think it would be useful if Wikipedia readers/editors would become accustomed to this language, so that policies can be developed and communicated in easier/more precise ways. Altanner1991 (talk) 12:32, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

The phrase Any material that needs a source directly contradicts the preceding statement: everything on Wikipedia needs to be verifiable; there are no exceptions. The current policy page therefore implies either this contradiction, or it is confusing the concept of a "source" with the concept of a "citation"; the most likely explanation is the latter, but the former explanation can also used unfortunately as an excuse to have unverifiable information. Altanner1991 (talk) 16:25, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

You're right. That could be confusing, especially if someone reads it out of context (i.e., without reading the immediately preceding sentence, which defines when inline citations are needed). I've therefore substituted the word "inline citation" to be clearer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

The grammar had been ambiguous; thank you for clarifying. Altanner1991 (talk) 20:12, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

There is still more though that should be done to distinguish "sourcing" from "citing"/"referencing". These are necessary distinctions. Altanner1991 (talk) 16:15, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I would just like to endorse Jc3s5h's response here. I would have reverted this change, as well. Happy (Slap me) 13:13, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

In addition, it is not true that material that doesn't have a source but needs one must be removed. There are alternatives such as (a) add a citation-needed tag, (b) add a source, (c) put a note about it on the talk page, (d) let someone else handle it. The original wording "may be removed" is correct. Zero^talk 13:17, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Indeed you are correct. Thank you. Altanner1991 (talk) 12:29, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

My guess is, the change was reverted because there was no established consensus for it. GoodDay (talk) 15:58, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Altanner1991 (talk) 12:29, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

If so, that rationale would have been insufficient. See wp:DRNC. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 14:45, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

WP:DRNC does not apply to policy pages. See the first box at the top of the page: Changes made to it should reflect consensus. Generalrelative (talk) 19:31, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Generalrelative, the box links to wp:CONSENSUS, which allows bold editing. For more specific support, see WP:PGBOLD, which says "directly editing [policies and guidelines] is permitted by Wikipedia's policies." - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:01, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

A continued search for explicit truths in WP is doomed to failure, thought that was already clear in the ONUS thing. Wiggle room and vagueness is built in, I suspect deliberately. Anyway, this talk is V not CON. Selfstudier (talk) 16:09, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Selfstudier: Agreed, perfection cannot be achieved, but I encourage you to not give up on efforts to lessen the size of the wiggle room and reduce the level of vagueness. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:39, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

About the other change:

It is true that any material that does not have a source may be removed on grounds of verifiability. (On grounds of WP:DUE or WP:VANDAL or WP:NOT, etc., you can remove even well-sourced information.)

This rule is not limited to "material that needs a source", because the moment someone removes unsourced material and claims that it needs a source (or that it can't be sourced, or that it ought to be sourced, or any variation on such a complaint), that material automatically becomes material that needs a source. This policy does not recognize the existence of material that some editor claimed needs a source but is somehow exempt from removal just because someone else doesn't agree that it really needs an inline citation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is the usual sourcing policy, thank you. Altanner1991 (talk) 20:08, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Proposed ECREE addition

WP:ECREE has become increasingly useful reference. I especially like the bullet points that identify what makes certain sources "extraordinary" in the right way and what does not.

To that end, I think a good link to include here is to WP:SENSATION as often sources that get touted as being extraordinary are found to run afoul of that. A brief bulletpoint that said something like:

• Any source engaging in sensationalism by promoting extraordinary claims without considering ordinary or standard explanations.

jps (talk) 11:42, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

@ජපස, I want to agree with you, but I think I need more of an explanation. Also, maybe it would make more sense to link to the encyclopedia article at Sensationalism instead of a notability guideline, because Notability guidelines do not usually apply to content within articles or lists, and the link may confuse people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:37, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

@ජපස, I'm not sure this fits. We don't want someone to read a sensationalist "news" article and repeat that sensational story in Wikipedia's voice. But imagine a source that says something sensationalist plus also something very ordinary. We don't want to rule out the source entirely. Here's an example:

I saw a feel-good news story the other day. It contained a statement that many Wikipedians from Western cultures would consider a case of "promoting extraordinary claims without considering ordinary or standard explanations", insofar as it ended with a quotation in which the person to whom something nice happened said that it was the result of divine intervention. Many Wikipedians would scoff at that and believe that the real "cause" was random chance. (I have forgotten what the story was about, but it was something like having a medical emergency right in front of the right sort of healthcare provider.)

This would be a lousy source if you wanted to write "A bona fide miracle happened in the American South last week" but it would be a perfectly fine source if you wanted to write "Alice Expert is a specialist in scaryitis" or "Alice Expert was awarded the Minor Local Hero Award in 2022 for providing medical assistance during an emergency". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Hi! I missed your first comment, so apologies. But I think that it is always true that the sensationalist content is what is the problem. The issue is the extraordinary claim itself -- not the claims that are not extraordinary. As for examples, I think the one you are mentioning is great. I have seen accounts who have tried to use sources like that to argue for the veracity of extraordinary claims. jps (talk) 09:41, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

To keep the focus on the extraordinary claim, I don't think we could write "Any source engaging in sensationalism...". People would be rejecting sources for any and all claims, not just for extraordinary claims. I think we'd have to say "sensationalist claims, including extraordinary claims that could have ordinary or standard explanations".

(And then we would probably need to write an essay asserting that WP:Sensationalism does not belong in Wikipedia, with a half-dozen examples of what editors should not do.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:38, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

It dawned on me that this is becoming a distributed enough problem that an essay is probably the right maneuver. WP:N should not be doing all this lifting. jps (talk) 20:32, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I only just saw this thread. You should probably notify WP:N to remove it. It's CREEP that's redundant with V, NOTGOSSIP, and NOTNEWS. At the end they even just laundry list the policies that they say this "applies ... beyond". The "See also" makes zero sense. The wls to tabloid journalism, infotainment, etc. add zero useful information to the guideline ('sensationalism' is defined by being sensationalist, and here are other subtypes of sensationalism in other media, and that's supposed to help?). If it's replaced by an essay, the essay should be written from scratch, because this guideline is awful as is. SamuelRiv (talk) 03:34, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Some of it is pretty awful. It looks to me like according to this anything supported by a primary source getting challenged becomes an exceptional claim, and the super hilarious part is that it will be especially true if the proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them (because you know how important it is for us to focus on editors, and their mental health rather than content.) Haha! Huggums537 (talk) 03:51, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Must alternatives be equivalent?

An editor made the following change:

Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be fixed, tagged, or removed.

The edit summary says "not equivalent alternatives." I agree that, for example, fixing is better than removing. But I wonder: Do we have an "alternatives must be equivalent" rule? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:46, 24 August 2022 (UTC) (Bolding added. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:56, 24 August 2022 (UTC))

Whether to add alternatives to "remove"

To my mind, the question of whether to mention the alternatives depends on what we intend when we use the word “may”… are we warning editors that unsourced information might be removed, or are we giving editors permission to remove? If the former, then there is no need to mention the alternatives. If the latter, then mentioning alternatives is helpful. Blueboar (talk) 12:29, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Given this statement follows the line of things that require cites (quotes. Contentious material), this line shouldn't use "may" but "should". But to that end we should say "should be removed unless proper sourcing can be cited inline". Masem (t) 13:02, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Best practice for material that might be right is to tag cn and if one not forthcoming in a reasonable time, remove. If material is thought to be crap/wrong, remove it without the cn step. Fixing is not compulsory, nor should it be. (I'm an AI editor so every statement requires a cite). Selfstudier (talk) 13:20, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Again, for this specific part of policy, it 7s clearly in reference to material that must be cited, like quotes. This is where fixing is compulsory, but whether that is removing the uncited material or adding the right ref is the question. Tagging an unsourved quote with a cn tag is not an appropriate fix. Masem (t) 13:59, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

"should be removed unless proper sourcing can be cited inline" looks like a good start to me. Maybe put in a link to WP:PRESERVE. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:00, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

This is not true.

When you encounter something that is required to have an inline citation, you have many options, including:

• remove it
• cite it
• change it (to something that doesn't require an inline citation)
• tag it
• ask for help
• do nothing

It is not true that it should be removed; it is not always even true that you (personally and individually) "should" do anything at all. You might, for example, leave unsourced material alone because you're sending the whole page off for deletion.

It is especially not a good idea to write that it "should be removed unless proper sourcing can be cited inline", because we will end up with disputes: "Why are you so mad at me? WP:V says I ought to remove absolutely everything that's unsourced unless I personally can cite a proper source, and I just don't have the time to find sources for anything and my dad won't pay $39 per journal article, so I actually can't cite any of this. Wikipedia:Use common sense isn't a policy, and policies always outrank using your brain, so I'm mass-blanking everything in sight."

@Blueboar, I'm not sure whether this sentence is meant to provide warning to the lazy editors or permission to the article-blankers, but a statement of permission to the latter group would also have the effect of warning the former group. I kind of agree with @Altanner1991, though: BURDEN already says "Any material lacking an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports the material may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source", so it's not clear to me that we actually need to repeat that rule ("Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be removed") in the lead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:02, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Another question is: who are we addressing - an editor wishing to include material, or an editor following up on material that has already been added? If the former, we want to stress citing the source when the material is added. No need to mention alternatives. If the latter, then we want to stress FIXING… and there are multiple ways to do that, including adding a citation yourself, tagging (so someone else will add a citation), or removal. Blueboar (talk) 14:21, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I should note that Zero0000 (talk · contribs) had raised in the prior discussion: the material can be fixed, tagged, or raised on the talk page. Altanner1991 (talk) 20:11, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I would remove Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be removed. because it is too overbearing to resummarize basic Wikipedia principles in that sentence's location in the article, unless others think we have been crystallizing Wikipedia policies enough to do that. Altanner1991 (talk) 20:19, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

If material needs citation, yes, it can be removed. I oppose de-emphasizing this. That someone can simply add a citation is obvious and would be absurd to repeat. And "tagging" shouldn't be emphasized. I've seen far too many erroneous claims stick around for years that someone tagged, but nonetheless stuck around and was not cited. People need to know be directly told that bad unsourced text can be removed. Crossroads ^-talk- 06:17, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

What is the basis for your argument that the option to remove is less obvious than the option to fix? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 06:21, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Might or might not be, depends the editor and why they are there. As whatamIdoing said, lots of possibilities in theory. Selfstudier (talk) 09:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that option is the most ideal. I was speaking to the Wikipedia "crowd", but I, too, am very strict about reliable sources. Altanner1991 (talk) 16:08, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I actually prefer that options for how to deal with uncited information be as broad as possible. I imagine someone is in this situation:

"I have come across this statement that does not have a citation. What is the correct way to handle this?"

If all we advise such a user to do is "you may remove it", it gives them no other options. If we say "Here's a list of things you may do" then it allows the user some flexibility and I find it is also better, when there actually are a multitude of ways to act, that we present those options and not narrow our advice. Certainly, removal is an option, but it does not need to be the only option we present; nor should it necessarily even be the best option, nuance needs to be applied in every case, and when all we say is "you may remove it..." we aren't taking that nuance into account. --Jayron32 16:17, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

And how would that change the wording on the policy page? Altanner1991 (talk) 16:22, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I would make it say exactly what it said above: "Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be fixed, tagged, or removed." That is sufficient. --Jayron32 13:08, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes it was my suggestion but Crossroads presented I think the more ideal option: we don't want to encourage uncited material. Altanner1991 (talk) 16:56, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Point to WP:EDITING, WP:FIXTHEPROBLEM etc Selfstudier (talk) 16:24, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Of course. Altanner1991 (talk) 16:25, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

• I just want to point out that the policy already contains an entire section outlining alternatives to simple removal. Are we focusing on individual trees instead of the forest? Blueboar (talk) 16:58, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

  Maybe. Perhaps the question we should ask is whether the second paragraph of the policy's lead should contain:

  1. an incomplete statement about what "may" happen to unsourced text;
  2. a (reasonably) complete statement about what "may" happen to unsourced text; or
  3. nothing in this specific paragraph about what "may" happen to unsourced text, because (a) it's explained in detail in the first section and (b) we should move straight on to the point removing contentious BLP matter.

  IMO all of these are reasonable choices, and it's just a matter of picking one. I currently prefer #3 myself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:23, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC: A TikToker, ... , other accused constitute 'Public figure' or not?

Some of other related policies for current requested RfC discussion: WP:BLP, WP:SUSPECT, WP:BLPPUBLIC, WP:NOTPUBLICFIGURE. Also WP:Wikivoice, WP: POV/NPOV, Due/ Undue, WP:NOTCENSORED, WP:onus

Requesting inputs about WP policies regarding, WP:BLP protocols and naming of the accused in relation to mentions of allegations and counter allegations in the given article, against a female victim of sexual assault, her associates and also other accused.

Requesting well studied, carefully thought inputs @ RfC: A TikToker, associates, other accused constitute 'Public figure' or not?

Thanks and warm regards

Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 10:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Sources must have been "published"

This edit was reverted[11] by Jc3s5h, but AFAIK, this is the current policy, and I was not changing it, simply explaining it better. Andre🚐 02:15, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

The means of gaining access to a source mentioned include online access that requires paying a fee, a print source in a library, and rare historical sources in special museum collections and archives. More often than not, providing access to a source through these means is publication. By adding the statement "though they still must have been published at one time" it creates an implication that making documents available through a public archive, or a web site that charges fees, is not publication.

An example of a document that is not published is a document in an archive, or similar entity, that is not accessible to the public. An example of an unpublished document would be a death certificate held by a US state health department that is not made available to the public, because it has been less than 100 years since the person died. An example of a published document would be a death certificate from the very same state health department that is available to anyone who pays the required fee because the person died more than 100 years ago. User:Jc3s5h 02:28, 29 August 2022‎

An unpublished document is not verifiable because it's not published. Verifiability is about published sources. Archives where you have to make an appointment to dig through them, that's OR. See also discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Objection_to_"Definition_of_published" Andre🚐 02:30, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Documents available to the general public, especially in an organized way, are published. Lots of documents are hard to use, that doesn't make them unpublished. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:00, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I feel like we're talking past each other. I agree that some documents are for-pay, or hard to obtain, whether journals needing a subscription, or something that's out of print. These sources are acceptable to use. I am trying to clarify that unpublished archival sources aren't usable. Andre🚐 03:04, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

If the archive is open to the public (or the archive makes some documents available to the public and the document being cited is available) then it's published. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:14, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) An archive is not a publication. "creates an implication that ... a web site that charges fees, is not publication" I don't see that implication, at all. Per WP:NOR as a dilettante, we should not be looking at primary source archival records. Leave that research to legitimate historians as we can use the secondary sources they publish. Again, the point here is that publication is the bedrock of verifiability, regardless that a book is out of print or a website is behind a paywall. That a primary source document exists somewhere does not verify facts in the way we need. And, might I say, the way many editors on this website shamefully ignore checking sources, I'm surprised you want to quibble over this point. Chris Troutman (talk) 03:17, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Chris, for a change ;-) Andre🚐 03:18, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

You're trying to say that they are 1) unpublished, 2) not usable, and 3) to use them is OR. All three are incorrect interpretations of WP's definitions of "published", acceptable RS, and OR (what does WP:OR have to do with you having to pay to access a document? Where is that kind of thing mentioned, or hinted at, anywhere in that policy, or in that policy's history?) SamuelRiv (talk) 03:14, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Huh? I just said, that, for-pay sources: "These sources are acceptable to use" Maybe you don't know about this, but there is such a thing as an archive, it's a physical place where you can go and look through records. These records often were never published and that is why in the past, and as far as I know, continuing to today, the community has considered it original research and unverifiable to go digging through specialized records that were never published, as in made available to the public (not, just, to some people like academic researchers by appointment) Andre🚐 03:17, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

That sort of thing would very much depend on the context and I don't think a policy can reliably specify when an archive would be an acceptable source. For example, an archive of presidential papers that permitted general access might be acceptable as verification for some text (and it might not). If a business has an archive box of papers in their warehouse, it would probably not be acceptable as a source. Johnuniq (talk) 03:56, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

There's whiplash between here and the RS thread -- I suppose I had the expectation that you could take combined context from the conversation previously, within hours between posts, remember them, and conclude that I probably made a typo, and then address the substantive point: that OR says nothing about "digging through records that were never published" (and whether or not "the community has considered it original research and unverifiable" (two different policies) (to claim the community has concluded this requires a link to past discussion) is not really helpful if the stable policy does not in any way state this. OR is about writing articles, not about how you go about "digging through records".

The broader issue seems that you want to expand WP's definition of 'published'. It's short and simple and easy to understand as is. It is then a tool which helps write clearer policies which are then used for RS, V, etc., that might conform to what you might colloquially prefer to think of as 'published'. Don't then go around and say that a foundational tool made to be as simple as possible is now inadequate because it doesn't fit your preferred colloquial definition -- that's not its purpose. SamuelRiv (talk) 03:56, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Hang on, it's a well-established community consensus that unpublished sources, which does include some archival records, are not acceptable per WP:V. You are incorrect in your understanding of policy. Since you and I have had this difficulty in the past of not really operating in the same consensus-based factual reality, let's agree to disagree and someone else will be around presently to correct you (or me, but I'm pretty sure it's you) Andre🚐 04:05, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

You misunderstood entirely what I said. I don't think me restating it will help. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:24, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

If you read the whole policy you will find

Source material must have been published, the definition of which for the purposes of Wikipedia is made available to the public in some form.

This is followed by a footnote which states

This includes material such as documents in publicly accessible archives as well as inscriptions in plain sight, e.g. tombstones.

The edit which prompted this thread made no distinction between special museum collections or archives which are public and those which are private. Allowing the edit to remain makes the policy self-contradictory. Jc3s5h (talk) 04:24, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

I am not particular about the text, but I am concerned if users think it's OK to add material from archival sources that haven't been published at any time. I maintain that a private museum collection or an unpublished record in an archive, is not published. Verifiability and reliable sources talk about the concept of publication for a reason. AFAIK this hasn't changed. I've pinged a bunch of people from the prior discussion who are still around to see if any will drop by and shed some light. Andre🚐 04:36, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

• They talk about publication, but the actual Wikipedia policy on verifiability (Wikipedia:Verifiability), which you reference, explicitly states as noted above, that this (the term "published", which the policy explicitly states "the definition of which for the purposes of Wikipedia is made available to the public in some form") means "This includes material such as documents in publicly accessible archives as well as inscriptions in plain sight, e.g. tombstones."). Thus, respectfully, you are simply wrong. The policy is quite explicit that publication does not mean "published as in a journal/book/magazine/etc", it simply means "made available to the public in some form". Indeed, WP:NOR also explicitly recognizes that, although they should be less-used than secondary sources, primary sources are also ok. Many primary sources are not "published" in the manner you suggest, but are absolutely "available to the public in some form" (such as in an archive) and are, therefore, both "published" and "verifiable" for WP purposes. A tombstone (an example the policy explicitly references as acceptable) is not "published" in the traditional sense you reference, but is available to the public in some form, so is 'published' in a Wikipedia sense. An article that overly relies on primary source material (whether archival or 'published' somewhere, in your parlance, like in a collection of letters) may run afoul of WP:NOR's guideline that primary sources should be used "to a lesser extent", but un-"published" (by your definition) archival materials are no more or less reliable (and certainly no more or less verifiable) than, say, some random self-published book or website online. tl;dr: As I read it, WP's definition of "publication" turns on availability to the public in any form and not availability via a book/journal/website, as you seem to be calling for. Best. Staxringold _talk^contribs 12:59, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
  • As an add-on afterthought, I agree with Jc3s5h that your edit makes the policy self-contradictor. The entire policy says (to paraphrase) "these materials do not have to be 'published' in the traditional sense, they must simply be available to the public" and you added a footnote that said (again, to paraphrase) "but they totally have to have been 'published' in the traditional sense at some point." Staxringold _talk^contribs 13:06, 29 August 2022 (UTC)