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This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy). Please do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to revive any of these discussions, either start a new thread or use the talk page associated with that topic.

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"Stale" userspace drafts of articles

See also § Does WP:V apply to drafts?, above, for a related discussion about drafts.

An RfC on stale draft policy

Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring --QEDK (T ☕ C) 10:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I strongly encourage uninvolved editors to participate in this RfC to truly gauge community consensus. At the current rate, MfD as a whole is heading toward ArbCom, which is beyond absurd. ~ RobTalk 18:30, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Inside-Facing and Outside-Facing (essay)

I have written an essay, User:Robert McClenon/Inside-Facing and Outside-Facing, or WP:FACING, and would appreciate comments. This is applicable in part to the controversy over the handling of drafts, but it not limited to that controversy. Thank you in advance for comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Nature of Controversy About Drafts

I am increasingly aware of what appears to be a growing controversy about the handling of drafts, especially old drafts, both in draft space and in user space. I have my opinions. However, I would be interested in any comments as to what the problem is that a few editors are trying to solve, let alone what the solution is. As to retention of drafts, what is wrong with the existing CSD criteria including G13? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I addressed this question at: User talk:Robert McClenon/Inside-Facing and Outside-Facing § At least 4 different concerns (from vital to bogus) about userspace article drafts.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. I agree with the comments. However, I still have a question. What is the reason for the (apparently bitter) controversy about drafts and the rules about drafts? What is being said to be wrong with both the MFD process and with the CSD criterion G13? A few editors evidently think that the process needs to be fixed. Do they think that it should be changed to get rid of more drafts (either via CSD, or via MFD, or via robots, or what), or do they think that the process should be fixed to avoid getting rid of the drafts that are gotten rid of? What is the driver behind the controversy? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Essentially it's the age old disagreement between inclusionists and exclusionists that has plagued Wikipedia for years - only now applied to drafts instead of articles. The inclusionists think we are getting rid of potentially good material, and want fewer deletions. The exclusionists think we are getting rid of bad material, and want more deletions. Both sides accuse the other of gaming the MFD and CFD processes, and are trying to close what they see as being loopholes in the rules. Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. That is as it appeared. I would then say, as my opinion, that in most cases the exclusionists are just plain wrong, because the purpose of draft space is to provide an incubator (as it was formerly called) for improving the bad material into good material. The inclusionist-exclusionist debate has historically had to do with articles, which are outward-facing. I don't see why in general there should be a push to get rid of drafts that are not ready for article space, except via G13, which is already there. There is bad faith on both sides, and that is not good. I do see that moving a draft into article space to nominate it for deletion is a blatant form of gaming of the system by deletionists. How are inclusionists said to be gaming the system? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:15, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
It seems to be that the very argument that our usual deletion rules for articles shouldn't be applied to draft articles is a form of wikilawyering. I think that's an incorrect argument. But they may have other ones. And they do have some valid points. We do not need to retain drafts that have no salvageable content, which are attack pages, which are about WP:NFT material, which are nonsense, which have been surpassed by actual articles, and several other categorizations of "junk" pages. While userspace pages are "cheap", we don't want a billion of them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:43, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
From the outside, this whole Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring effort looks like the groundwork for some kind of funding proposal – a straw man of problem to get paid to solve. It is certainly not about draft "attack pages". –BoBoMisiu (talk) 12:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Ethnicity in infoboxes

There is overwhelming negative response to this suggestion. Drmies (talk) 17:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Moved from Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Ethnicity in Infoboxes
 – Was off-topic at original location.
See also previous discussions of ethnicity at Template_talk:Infobox_person [1].
See also related concurrent RfC about religion parameters in infoboxes. [Now archived at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 126#RfC: Religion in biographical infoboxes.]

A suggestion at the neverending debate at Talk:Bernie Sanders has been to include an |ethnicity= field in the infobox to get around questions about Sanders' religiousness while still making it clear he's a Jew.

The question: Should Wikipedia allow ethnicity to be marked in Infoboxes? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Discussion (ethnicity)

  • Strongest possible oppose. "|ethnicity=" in Infoboxes is one box of worms I don't think we should ever be opening on Wikipedia, and I would support an explicit ban on such a field. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose in general, but allowing for rare exceptions. I hesitate to make a universal ban, as I expect there are corner cases where it would be appropriate (but I haven't thought of one yet). On the specifics: |ethnicity=secular Jew was there for a while, which seemed very strange to have put a religious epithet under "ethnicity" given the ongoing argument about whether it would be permitted in the religion field! I also note that the USA census is very deliberate in making people members of black, Hispanic, Asian race or ethnicity, but does not recognise Jewish, so under US law, Sanders is probably "White, not Hispanic or Latino". --Scott Davis Talk 06:17, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
    • And definitions of ethnicities/races/etc vary from country to country—an oft-cited countrast is the difference between how the US defines "black" (especially in light of the one-drop rule) and they way "black" is defined in Brazil (where siblings with the same parents can be classified as different races). Wikipedia draws a very international audience, and race/ethnicity/etc are extremely complicated and contentious concepts—an Infobox is a horribly inappropriate place to put this stuff. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
    • By the "one drop rule", my wife might be American - one of her great-great grandfathers was born in Kansas Territory (of English parents). I thought Sir Isaac Isaacs (a Jewish former Governor-General of Australia) might have turned out to be one of my exceptions, but he "...insisted that Judaism was a religious identity and not a national or ethnic one." --Scott Davis Talk 10:29, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose. If you include the field some editors will feel they ought to fill it. On those very rare occasions when it is relevant to the main article it should be handled there in a sensitive and culturally aware manner. Curly Turkey's comments about definitions is important. Indeed I'd go slightly further; "ethnicity" itself is open to to interpretation: is it race, culture or geographical? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:38, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Such a parameter would get extremely messy and it really isn't something that should feature in a summary about a person (which is what an infobox basically is). If ethnicity needs to be discussed, it should be in the main part of the article. As above, its worth noting that the American fixation on ethnicity is not reflected in most of the rest of the world. There are other places where it is seen as important (for example an Arab Israeli politician), but to include an ethnicity/race parameter in the infobox suggests that it should be filled even when it isn't particularly relevant or important. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 11:27, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - In pluralistic societies such as the United States, this would, at the best, result in a proliferation of RFCs, about the ethnicity of each biography, and, at worst, result in edit-warring. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:18, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Kill it. Kill it with fire. Ethnicity is innately too complex for an infobox entry, and should be covered in the body of the article if we cover it at all. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:04, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per all of the above! BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 17:25, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Even if the person self-identifies with an ethnic group, there is no good reason to add it unless the ethnicity is an absolutely necessary part of the person's notability, and likely not even then in most cases. And, for good measure, I find this to be true for "religion," "ancestry" and "nationality" as well where there is the remotest possibility of the factoid being abused or misconstrued. Also for anything factoid not intrinsically needed to understand who the person is (or was). As for the "one drop rule" I have gotten into trouble for my strongly held opinion that "guilt by association," "identification by association" and "identification by ancestry" are, frankly, intrinsically evil. And I so state here as well. Collect (talk) 17:34, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. If reliable sources clearly establish a person's ethnicity, and establish that it is a key feature describing that person, then I see no problem with it in the infobox. Though I'm not quite sure how to find the exact number, it seems that "ethnicity" is currently listed in thousands of infoboxes at Wikipedia, so you're talking about quite a huge deletion here. If you're concerned about abuse of the field, you could require self-identification, but to completely ban mention of ethnicity is very silly. Being part of a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture is suitable for an infobox, and that's what ethnicity means. It also strikes me as odd that User:Guy Macon now wants to "kill it with fire" but publicly thanked me for this edit. Also, the Sanders controversy is not over yet, and it seems inappropriate to use this forum to advance a position in that content dispute. By the way, race and ethnicity are different concepts, and just because the US Census Bureau may occasionally prefer to use ethnicity as a euphemism for race does not make it so; laws often include "definition" sections that define words in weird ways for purposes of that law only.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:46, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the other opposes said it well, especially Guy Macon. Talk about it in the early life section with supporting links is much better imo Govindaharihari (talk) 18:03, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose for reasons already well explained above. We should also remove from {{Infobox person}} some other troll/flamer/pov-warrior/BLP-vandal magnets of a similar nature, like the |religion= one. It causes nothing but constant strife and disruption. For the few infoboxes that really need it, e.g. for religious leaders, it can be re-added as a custom parameter.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:35, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Please post an RfC about removing the religion parameter and allowing it as a custom parameter. I think that this is a good idea that will receive widespread support. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Surely all that is needed is a hidden note to accompany the religion parameter stating that it should only be filled if there is a reliable source? Removing it completely (and only being able to add it if you are "in the know") means that it wouldn't be available to new and/or inexperienced editors. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 10:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I also agree with SMcCandlish's suggestion regarding the |religion= field. I think Gaia Octavia Agrippa meant to ask, "Surely all that is needed is a hidden note to accompany the religion parameter stating that it should only be filled if there is a public self-identification with the religious belief made in direct speech by the article subject, and only if that religious belief is a defining factor in the subject's public notability? (As presently required by WP:CAT/R, WP:BLPCAT, and WP:NONDEF.) Xenophrenic (talk) 20:56, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Summoned by bot. No, and I don't understand the obsession some editors have with ethnicity. I do feel that Sanders' religion should be noted, however, and have said as much. Coretheapple (talk) 21:43, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose because defining ethnicity is difficult and often impossible, so inevitably this will lead to edit wars and inaccurate information. Ethnicity needs to be described with a story of the person's life, not a single classification.Waters.Justin (talk) 18:37, 12 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose. It's a tough call, because we do regularly include information on ethnicity in any number of biographic articles (BLP or otherwise), as informed by reliable sourcing. However, I tend to agree that the acrimony that would result from making this field available would vastly outweigh any benefit to that small handful of articles in which it could be used without contention. As others have noted, ethnicity is a deeply complex, often non-empirical, loaded topic informed by variant social context. By and large, it's simply better, when these sensitive and contentious topics are raised, to do so in the more flexible circumstance of the prose of main article body, where proper context and attribution can be made. Further, I agree that if the field becomes available, there are some editors with strong views in this area who will simply view it as an open invitation to impose or contest these classification with every fiber of their editorial identity. The net value of adding this parameter, in terms of clear presentation for our readers and the time and energy of our contributors, make too strong an argument for avoiding this strategy. Snow let's rap 04:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment Can you clarify please what precisely is being proposed and what it would mean? From what I can see, Bernie Sanders uses Template:Infobox officeholder. That template includes optional fields for citizenship, nationality and religion but not race/ethnicity. Would that then be applied to other infobox templates (presumably not this parent template?) AndrewRT(Talk) 18:54, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - completely lost meaning in modern times of mobility, where a person can claim 2n ethhic descents. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:13, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Question I take it that this would apply to all the infoboxes listed at Wikipedia:List of infoboxes#Person. Is that correct? DES (talk) 01:32, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Too simplistic, hard to verify, and not worth the trouble. Leave it for body. RGloucester — ☎ 01:34, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose inclusion under situations matching an argument I've made WRT military service: if its inclusion in the main body would lead a reasonable person to ask, "Why is this here?", it should not be in the infobox. 🖖ATinySliver/ATalkPage 03:02, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support ethnicity to continue to be marked in Infoboxes. All that's required here is a reliable source (maybe even the subject of an article themselves) stating what someone's ethnic background is in the first place. Guy1890 (talk) 03:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Ethnicity can be discussed in the article body or even occasionally in the lede, but its inclusion in infoboxes, which by necessity oversimply, is contentious, needlessly so. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:57, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose inclusion. Ethnicity is difficult to define, often irrelevant, and always inappropriate for the infobox. Frickeg (talk) 11:30, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. To the extent it is even a meaningful characteristic of a person, ethnicity is often a matter of discussion and nuance that can't be conveyed in a one-word infobox entry.  Sandstein  12:35, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Notice: All comments above this line were originally posted in the Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Ethnicity in Infoboxes location, and can be found in the edit history there.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:57, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose — As others have noted, defining an ethnicity is way beyond the scope of a couple of words in an infobox, and is often irrelevant to the subject matter of the article. But even beyond that, it's clear from this discussion and others that there is no consensus on what "ethnicity" even encompasses (i.e. race? religion? ancestral nationalities? a person's self-identification with any of the preceding?) The "nationality" parameter seems sufficient for the infobox level, and anything relevant requiring discussion beyond that belongs in the article body. TheBlinkster (talk) 13:45, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Object to framing of the RfC This is not a neutrally-worded RfC, as evidenced by the single example chosen. It asks "Should Wikipedia allow ethnicity to be marked in Infoboxes?", when there are infoboxes which already use |ethnicity=. No analysis of the current use is provided, and no link given to the discussion where it was decided to add that parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
    • There wasn't any such discussion to link to [2]. There is no requirement that an RfC provide any analysis, just that it be neutrally worded (and we mostly tolerate it when it's not, anyway, though I don't think that's a good idea). What neutrality problem is there? The question asked is "The question: Should Wikipedia allow ethnicity to be marked in Infoboxes?" There's a pointer to an example discussion, and it's clear that both the poster of the RfC and everyone in the linked discussion understand that the parameter already exists. It's difficult to see what the nature of your objection is.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:40, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose We cannot even agree on how ethnicity should be defined (there are some people on Wikipedia who confuse ethnicity with outdated racial theories). So we cannot simplify it to the level that it can be used in infoboxes without creating endless POV debates. Arnoutf (talk) 14:07, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Unlikely religion which is based on how a person believes they are, you can't change your ethnicity - that's something innate. It may be difficult to source at times, but this is far different from religion. --MASEM (t) 14:48, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose I simply can not think of a good reason for this and the reasons against are innumerable. At best this is a kluge for the Sanders infobox issue that will lead to massive disruption on every BLP where nationalist POV pushers have an interest. It is just another non-nuanced point to battle over and provides little, if any, added value to our readers. JbhTalk 15:07, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose for reasons given above. However, for some people ethnicity is a defining characteristic: WP has a massive category tree under Category:People by ethnicity. Logically, if we reject ethnicity in infoboxes, shouldn't we also delete all those categeories? — Stanning (talk) 15:33, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support — Ethnicity is frequently an objective and relevant qualifier for people. Where it is (and only where it is), it belongs in the infobox. In some cases (apartheid South Africa, Spanish colonial America, the Jim Crow-era South), it's a legally defined status that determines the rights of people involved. It's somewhat obtuse that Hannah Arendt infobox has the nationality of "German" but not the ethnicity of Jewish, a characteristic she described as "an indispensable datum of my life." Yes, it's subject to complications. But these complications are not best addressed by proposing to ban it from infoboxes, but rather by elaborating and enforcing policy and guidelines, such as MOS:BLPLEAD. To address concerns, I propose that the rules stated at Wikipedia:CAT/EGRS be applied to infoboxes.--Carwil (talk) 15:36, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong Support. The parameter is there for a reason. It should not be removed just because some folks may want to remove or exclude Bernie Sanders' ethnicity from his infobox (which is an individual case and should be decided by poll on that individual article alone). Also, there are plenty of European sub-ethnicities that are not reflected in a person's nationality -- Kurdish, and so on, and to say nothing of people's nationality/ethnicity when they are accidentally born in another country. This is an important parameter that is especially important in areas outside of the U.S.; do not let Wikipedia's WP:SYSTEMICBIAS exclude this notable and important parameter. Softlavender (talk) 01:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose In the rare cases where it is relevant, ethnicity is much better dealt with in article prose rather than simplified infobox labeling. Alsee (talk) 05:39, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Some things can not be summarised in a one word. AIRcorn (talk) 02:03, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support It is useful to readers.--RekishiEJ (talk) 11:57, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Deprecate the parameter entirely I fully echo what Guy Macon, Collect, Scott Davis, SMcCandlish, and others have stated on why it shouldn't be used. It is rarely (if ever) relevant to peoples' notability, and can easily be discussed within article body instead. Snuggums (talk / edits) 04:17, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Oh dear. It does not make sense, in 2016, to start trying to summarize people's ethnicity in a word or two. Just finished reading through some arguments at the religion parameter RfC, which of course is very similar to this one. This seems like it may solve a few problems but cause a whole lot more. Unlike religion, I don't think this is one that even needs exceptions. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:04, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - It is not needed, there are no ongoing problems that genuinely need this as a solution, and to have it would cause an endless supply of more problems. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:46, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - as per all above. All I see is WP:LAME edit wars firing up over such a subjective parameter, ethnicity is far better covered in article prose as others have said. We're really just inventing a problem when it isn't truthfully needed - it won't improve readers' experiences but certainly causes headaches for editors. NottNott talk|contrib 13:30, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Unlike religion, where a person's self-identification can generally handle many problematic cases, ethnicity has no absolute definition and no reasonable method for handling issues. For example, what's the proper ethnicity for a son of an African man and an American woman? עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:45, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Both of these discussions (Religion in biographical infoboxes[3] and Ethnicity in infoboxes[4]) are silly because they are compartmentalizing related topics. Ethnicity and religion can be related. Our aim is to inform the reader. The Infobox is useful to the reader. We should be intelligently using the Infobox. In for instance the Bernie Sanders Infobox we could complete the religion field with "Jewish, mostly nonobservant". This covers all bases. By that I mean that it reflects reliable sources. That benefits the reader. The bottom-line-question we should be asking ourselves is how best to reflect sources. What are the salient points expressed by sources, and how best can we sum them up? Bus stop (talk) 13:38, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
Your comment relates to many of the reasons of the opposing editors. How can we guarantee that the infobox is used intelligently, and how can we ensure that if ethnicity is not included if it is only mentioned in a byline (i.e. is not a salient point in the important sources). The problem with the inclusion in the infobox as is, is that it invites people to fill in the blank (which is non-intelligent) by whatever trivial source they find (which makes it non-salient in many cases).
If we can come up with an bot that can recognize and revert non-intelligent, trivia based inclusions for the infobox I would not oppose this parameter. But since it is highly unlikely such a bot can be created, I stick with opposing this field (which in my opinion is the lesser of two evils). Arnoutf (talk) 17:06, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose, no, nein, negative, negatory, I vote against it, denied, קיין. I hope that's enough reasoning behind my pretty obvious choice. LjL (talk) 15:51, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Ethnicity as "nationality"

Moved from Template talk:Infobox § Question about nationality/citizenship
 – Was off-topic in original location.

A number of different infoboxes include |nationality=, |citizenship=, or both. Should such fields use a demonym (eg. Citizenship: American) or the country name itself (eg. Citizenship: United States)? Nikkimaria (talk) 18:30, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

I'd say that citizenship should list the countries that a person is a citizen of and nationality would be their identity. The two might differ slightly, eg someone identifying as Scottish (nationality) but having UK citizenship. There's also people who hold multiple citizenships but identify with only one nationality; eg, Gérard Depardieu is French but holds citizenship of both France and Russia. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 22:42, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Citizenship should be the default. Nationality only comes in to play if it is more complicated and as an addition. Like the examples above or Curly's Canada one. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 01:54, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd prefer "|citizenship=United States" to "|nationality=American". "Nationality" is often used to mean something different from citizenship, and the adjectives can have different meanings as well. Think of how many ways "American" and "Spanish" can be taken—"citizen of the United States" and "citizen of Spain" can really only mean one thing. As "nationality" can be ambiguous, perhaps it should be avoided. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:54, 5 March 2016 (UTC)

Note It appears some editors are now using "Jewish" as a "Nationality" (sometimes hyphenated with other nationalities). Seems this is an interesting way of avoiding the (what I aver is) clear consensus above that "ethnicity" is improper as a general rule. Opinions? Collect (talk) 23:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

"Jewish" as a nationality?! What drives this obsession?! Hyphenated nationalities should be disallowed—how many Canadians would thus become "English-Scottish-Irish-French-Ukrainian Canadian"? Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:44, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
See my comment below, about the decision to introduce an |ethnicity= parameter. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:55, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

IMO we have to insist on the preferential use the unambiguous term "citizenship", disallow the sneaky usage of "nationality" for "ethnicity", and use "nationality" only when it has a specific legal meaning, e.g wor persons with nationality but no citizenship, etc. And these rules must be clearly described in templaate doc. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:22, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind the entire concept of "legal citizenship" is largely a modern one; people in 8th-century Venice, and millions even in the early 20th century in many places, didn't have passports and ID papers. The change you want to make could only logically apply for modern subjects in most cases.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Revert on sight the usage of "Jewish" [or anything similar] in these fields, as counter-factual, as WP:POV (whether anti-semitic, or "claim this subject as One Of Us"), and as WP:GAMING of the still-open RfC.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:05, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Notice: All comments in the thread above this line were originally posted in the Template talk:Infobox#Question about nationality/citizenships location, and can be found in the edit history there.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • REVERT ON SIGHT ERROR to have religion in the Nationality field. Search results:
    • insource:"nationality = Jewish" 45 hits.
    • insource:"nationality = Jew" 12 hits.
    • insource:"nationality = Buddhist" 3 hits.
    • insource:"nationality = Christian" 1 hit.
    • insource:"nationality = Hindu" 1 hit.
    • insource:"nationality = Islam" 1 hit.
    • No hits on Agnostic, Amish, Atheism/Atheist, Buddhism, Catholic, Confucianism/Confucianist, Druid/Druidry, Gnostic, Hasidic, Hinduism/Hinduist, Jainism/Jainist, Mormon, Muslim, Quaker, Scienology/Scienologist, Secular/Secularist, Shia, Sikh/Sikhism/Sikhist, Sufi/Sufism, Sunni/Sunnism, Tao/Taoism/Taoist, Wicca/Wiccan.
I am cleaning them all up. I invite cleanup on anything I missed. Notably, virtually all hits are Jewish. Sigh. Alsee (talk) 06:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Did you note "Jewish-American" and such variants in that search? Collect (talk) 13:57, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
 Done, and yep, the search didn't care what came after it. Lots of Jewish-Country came up. The search wouldn't have found anything like nationality = Russian Jew. Someone who knows REGEX better might be able to do a more thorough search. Alsee (talk) 14:30, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Found tons more when looking for "nationality jewish" in articles - almost all of which found infoboxes with that sort of usage - I think there is a major long-term problem lurking, alas. Collect (talk) 15:21, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

There's already someone (Toddy1) reverting[5] on this issue, with the very strange argument that a country's internal census-by-religion somehow trumps the standard English language and international meaning of Nationality. Alsee (talk) 15:44, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Alsee should read Race and ethnicity in censuses.-- Toddy1 (talk) 17:14, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Aha - so the US census has "nationality = Jewish-American" as a possible entry? Blacks should therefore have the nationality "Black-American" and Episcopalians should be listed "nationality = Episcopalian-American"? We can have "India-England-UK" as a "nationality? Sorry - looks like that sort of opinion fails to even reach "minority viewpoint status" here. Collect (talk) 18:41, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
I see nothing in Race and ethnicity in censuses that indicates that the US or any othet country has at any time listed "Jewish" or any religion or ethnicity as a nationality. Not everything listed on a census form is a nationality, after all. DES (talk) 19:51, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
See [6] and "Nationality = Jew" which one editor appears to think is a proper "nationality". I am awaiting the categorization of "Muslim-Americans" as a nationality any moment now. <g> Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
This is the Nationality field, not an ethnicity field. And the lead sentence of Race and ethnicity in censuses gives a pretty good explanation of why internal census results are useless internationally. Different countries may preform an internal census according to random and incompatible selection&definition of religion and ethnicity, and which are wholly unrelated to nationality. A Russian who happens to be Jewish is still a Russian-National. Furthermore the Russian/Soviet section of that page makes it blindingly clear that those internal census results are chaotically changing and unusable. 194 options in 1926 census, 97 in 1939, 126 in 1959, 122 in 1970, 123 in 1979, 128 in 1989, 192 in 2002. HELL NO, we are not going to insert those utterly random categories into countless biographies, and we're sure as hell not going to re-write them every few years whenever some bureaucrat decides to add or remove a hundred categories.
Hey! I've got a Pointy idea! Lets agree that the nationalities for Maria Mazina and Sergey Sharikov are "Jew" not "Russian". Then let's go to the Olympics-2000 article and strip those Fencing Gold medal wins off of the national Russian totals. Hmmm, interesting... it seems that Jews from Eastern European countries have been winning a disproportionately high percentage of Olympics medals. Those national Olympic-medal totals are going to go down quite a bit. Alsee (talk) 03:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
Nationality isn't ethnicity. No one's nationality is "Jew", although in modern times it may be Israel, and in ancient times (before and shortlky after the turn of the common era) it may be Judea. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 15:44, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposal to do away with including world leader responses to terrorist incidents

There is no consensus for the creation of a policy explicitly considering all responses from world leaders to be non-notable. In particular, concerns about the potential for such a policy to restrict editors from including coverage of unusual reactions or reactions that have an unusually large impact on policy have not been refuted by supporters. On the other hand, there is consensus to include a sentence at WP:NOTNEWS indicating that specific reactions and condolences generally do not qualify for inclusion. This alternative proposal effectively mitigates the concerns mentioned above, and many editors who voted oppose did indicate support for the idea that most reactions are not worth including. Very few editors supported indiscriminately listing all reactions from world leaders, and those who did failed to reconcile their position with WP:INDISCRIMINATE. (non-admin closure) ~ RobTalk 03:07, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

In the aftermath of the 2016 Brussels bombings, we have encountered a recurring dispute, namely: is there any use to be had in lists of world leaders' responses to high profile terrorist attacks like this? In the case of the Brussels attack, we have ended up with a separate article, Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings. There are several other articles like this (see the relevant category here:[7]). Now, while it's all well and good that Obama, David Cameron, Shinzo Abe, etc., have condemned the attacks in Brussels, did anyone think they wouldn't? Does anyone need to read the "response" article to know what the responses are going to be? I would argue that they don't. And consequently, the responses aren't notable. At the very least, all of them aren't notable. If we want to write something like "the attacks generated condemnation from world leaders", fine, but do we need the specific press release from the Latvian government? The response pages quickly become a collection of quotes and tend to promote a form of political pageantry. I would argue that that's not the purpose of Wikipedia. Now, I've never proposed a policy change before, so I welcome assistance/corrections in wording or procedure, but here it is.

PROPOSAL: We adopt a policy by which the responses from world leaders to high profile terror attacks are not notable and (a) don't get their own articles and (b) don't take up large sections of the article about the attacks themselves. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 15:05, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Oppose This oppose is based on the consensus at every one of the AfDs that have taken place regarding the matter. I understand that editors don't like the lists, but if done properly with prose they do pass WP:GNG. Please address each AfD, and the arguments already hashed out. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:12, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
    Previous AfD discussions should not be considered decisive here. AfD is a blunt instrument. There the question is: Should we delete this material entirely or not? The consensus from those discussions is, indeed: No, we should not delete it entirely. The present question is different. It is: given that we have this material, what is the best way to present it to our readers, and how much of it, in general, is it appropriate to include in the Article space? Cmeiqnj (talk) 15:20, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I've seen this in far too many articles, and agree that its kudzu-like. A list of tangible responses, such as sending money, aid relief, police, military, or the like, or even a country's offer to help investigations - something beyond just a quote - are reasonable to include, but just a bunch of quotes condemning a terrorist attack, or supporting a region hit by natural disasters, or the like, feels like puffery and violates WP:QUOTEFARM even if it seems the articles pass GNG. This is not to say that a few choice quotes aren't reasonable to include, summarizing such down to a few sentences. --MASEM (t) 15:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - comments by world leaders should be added to the BLPs of the world leaders. Such spin-offs smell too much like WP:RECENTISM or even WP:CFORK. Atsme📞📧 16:10, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Neither support or oppose The issue is that we're trying to fix a problem that requires a scalpel, and this proposal is using a chainsaw. It's a similar problem across Wikipedia in all sorts of issues. The issue is this 1) A good, well written article will often have a few representative examples of something important to the subject. For example, a famous song may have a few well known cover versions of that song which it is appropriate to include in the article. 2) People who lack proper discernment think that a "few well chosen representative examples" means "a complete, total, and unabridged list of every example possible." Thus, in my example above, people note "Hey, this article about a song has cover versions listed. I did a search at AllMusic and found 1,278 other cover versions. I should list and wikilink every one of those!" We need some balance and perspective to say that not all representative examples are equal and that we can have some discernment in choosing which examples to include, and which ones probably don't bear mentioning. If the president of a neighboring country, or a leader of a major world power, makes a statement, that's possible useful to include. We don't need statements from leaders of micronations unrelated to the conflict, however. --Jayron32 17:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Statements made by politicians (especially if they are leading nations) are by definition notable as they create policy. Consequently, I oppose the establishment of a blanket statement that reads "reactions of world leaders are not notable". It is true that for most of us it is not even remotely possible to realise and understand what significance each of these statements has; and rightfully so: This would require in depth knowledge and understanding of each country's political landscape, its internal and external affairs and even if some of us have it, it is certainly biased by our own political stances. For all the above, I consider that such statements are notable and should be recorded in an encyclopaedia as a statement of a fact. In line with Wikipedia's policy against original research, I also oppose to the selection by any group of well-intended editors to create a prose based on what they consider notable and what not. Rentzepopoulos (talk) 17:46, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Actually such statements are generally not notable, per WP:RECENTISM and WP:NOT#NEWS; they are stated and then get little coverage after the fact. Such statements don't create policy if they are not backed by any type of actual action (see my !vote above - it's one thing to send aid or offer intelligence services, its another to simply show respects). This type of information is fine over at Wikinews, but in the long term, these statements offer little understand by themselves of the original event. --MASEM (t) 18:41, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
    • How does a statement like "Prime Minister Kenny Anthony has expressed his shock and sadness at Brussels attacks" (taken from Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings) require "in depth knowledge and understanding" of the political landscape of Santa Lucia to understand... ? Wikipedia is not an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information, and statements of fact are not necessarily notable (WP:EXIST). If you need to do academic-level research to determine whether a political statement is significant or not, it's probably not (for Wikipedia, at least). —Nizolan (talk) 02:50, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Unsure - This is a tough one. I agree with the WP:RECENTISM and the WP:NOTNEWS stances, but I think a select few of those articles are notable and should be kept. Reactions to the September 11 attacks comes to mind. I suggest an alternative in which these reactions articles can be kept depending on the notability of the main articles, and I'm not talking about Brussels notability; I'm talking about 9/11 notability. Parsley Man (talk) 19:08, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
    • In taking the 9/11 article, there's three sections that are just lists of reactions (which is what most of these other articles are). Nearly all of those sections, from a first look through, could be reduced to a paragraph or two summary statements. Eg, we don't need a line item for each city/country where vigils were held, but a sentence stating that vigils were held all over the world would be right in line. Similarly the section on the reaction from the Muslim countries could be reduced to a handful of paragraphs. The sections about the US's reactions, which are all prose, is what I would expect from such reaction articles; the list format that many of these use is rote reiteration without any effort to summarize, which is a problem with these articles. --MASEM (t) 19:17, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Full support - I've tried to address this on specific articles in the past and usually got major pushback. Responses by world leaders are marginally notable at best during the immediate aftermath. In the long run, 99.9% are wholly unremarkable. Should one of those 0.1% of responses actually make it beyond the first two weeks of the news cycle and become something memorable, it should be included. But deal with those rarities when they occur. Moreover, they run afoul of WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS, and WP:QUOTEFARM. They add nothing to the understanding of the topic or event. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:14, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Agreeing with InedibleHulk below, my support extends to any catastrophe (shootings, bombings, airplane crashes, elder god attacks, natural disasters, etc.) EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:03, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Damn that Shinnok! Damn him with all my thoughts and prayers! InedibleHulk (talk) 20:07, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support The standard condolences never change in any substantial way. Yay freedom and kindness, boo terror and death. And the reaction to those is never anything special. They're just published, republished and repeated the next time. Burn the standalone lists and limit reactions in articles to those which do something (legislation, bombing, concerts, so on). And call that section "Aftermath", to not suggest it's a place for that hollow stuff. I'm somewhat OK with hearing from the leaders of the victim and perpetrator parties. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:15, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
My support also applies to mass killings (usually shootings or earthquakes) that aren't called terrorism, but evoke the same general responses. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:47, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. These articles usually include nothing substantial that is of encyclopedic value. The fact that world leaders condemned a particular terror attack can be summarized in 1-2 paragraphs in the respective article; it does not require an entire article on its own. --bender235 (talk) 19:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support I've argued thus at several articles, including that for last year's Paris attacks. They end up being lengthy lists of platitudes. If, perchances, a leader veered from the normal response then that might be worthy of inclusion but otherwise we can summarise international reactions simply by referencing one decent news source - they always talk of "the world condemning ..." etc. - Sitush (talk) 19:55, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Good idea, bad policy. Jayron32 said it well. Our enforcement of WP:NOTNEWS is also generally spotty. A part of the problem is that Wikinews seems to be mostly dead, so all the news stays here on Wikipedia. —Kusma (t·c) 20:51, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
@Kusma:, despite calling NOTNEWS bad policy, would you be opposed to a proposal of changing the wording on WP:NOTNEWS item #2 to While news coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, most newsworthy events do not qualify for inclusion. For example, routine news reporting on things like announcements, sports, or celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia. Similarly, condolences and statements in response to catastrophes and deaths typically do not qualify for inclusion. ... (emphasis added to proposed addition)? Even if enforcement is spotty, we can try to improve the policy itself. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:19, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
This looks like a good addition to me as well. —Nizolan (talk) 03:27, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Sounds like a good addition to me too. Edison (talk) 16:50, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support For the reasons already stated. Firebrace (talk) 21:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose over generalization to label all statement responses by world leaders non-notable. Spirit Ethanol (talk) 21:37, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Whereas I fully share the sentiment and understand where this proposal comes from, I do not see any way it could be implemented. We could state in the policy that no reactions may be added to the article - but then it does not make sense, because it is reasonable to add at least reactions of involved states, and possibly unusual reactions (for example, I added to the above article the reaction of the spokeswoman of the Russian foreign ministry - she basically said that the attacks are the results of the EU double standards policy). If we allow such reactions, it can not be formalized. If it can not be formalized, people will add them anyway, and it will cost the community more time to police such articles that to let them have the lists. The situation is similar with the galleries: WP:GALLERY is very clear on what can be added to the galleries, and 99% of the galleries in the articles are counter to the policy, however, if you remove a gallery from the article, you can be sure in three years it would be back does not matter what the policy says.--Ymblanter (talk) 21:44, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
Can't a formal written rule have formal written exceptions? The unusual is generally noteworthy and reasonable people should want to hear from involved (or representative) parties in any subject. I think the spirit here is just editing out the echoes. There's no such thing as "waste", from a storage sense, but not even NSA money can buy a server that gives readers more time in a day. Every second we spend reading what we've read already is a second we ignore better, fresher things. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:32, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose I understand the sentiment, and appreciate that articles can become loaded with material of little value; but in writing about incidents in years long past, these have been extremely useful in expounding differing perspectives. Weeding out the redundant ones can be done as part of the regular editing process. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:16, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
    • If they were written in prose rather than as a list, this would make sense. And I can understand that the days/weeks right after an event, one is going to gather these all up and a list is by far the easiest way to organize them in the short term. But after some time, I would expect weeding out and converting to prose, doing necessary grouping of common-themed reactions. If 20 countries all offered condolences to an event, and nothing more, you don't need 20 lines of reaction, but a single sentence. In most cases, having separate articles is unnecessary - I wouldn't flat out call them POV forks but they lean towards that since nearly all reactions to these types of events are in solidarity of the country affected. In terms of this proposal, I wouldn't say that reaction articles should be disallowed, but they should be strongly discouraged and favoring tight summary prose to avoid all other issues identified. --MASEM (t) 23:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Hawkeye7, I can understand, as a historian, why quotes might be useful in expounding different perspectives. However, the issue here is in large part that the quotes generally all expound the same perspective. - Sitush (talk) 08:59, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Semi-support, largely per Sitush and Ymblanter. I don't really see a benefit to adding every reaction from every figure, but involved, directly related, and unusual reactions do have encyclopedic value. ansh666 01:02, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support we need some sort of guideline which will prevent indiscriminate lists of quotes from appearing on Wikipedia. It sets a band precedent and grows out of control. Quotes and reactions articles are absolutely fine when their aim is to use prose, but such large indiscriminate lists should be the job of Wikiquote. See my post at Talk:Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings#Transfering to Wikiquote where I have explained the best course of action. I would propose adding the following to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists: Jolly Ω Janner 07:31, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

    An indiscriminate list of quotes from notable people and parties responding to an event is not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Instead consider using prose to summarise the main points from each side and compile quotations at Wikiquote.

  • Support. Nothing wrong with a couple of relevant statements, integrated into prose, from directly affected nations, but these lists of identical reactions from every country in the world serve no purpose. DoctorKubla (talk) 11:08, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support for reasons outlined when I created this thread. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 23:23, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment. I put together an essay a while back, Wikipedia:Reactions to... articles aka WP:REACTIONS, to summarize the takes on these articles. Edits welcome. Fences&Windows 00:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support: World leader reactions are entirely predictable; the entire section could be replaced by "the usual people expressed the usual sentiments". --Carnildo (talk) 01:42, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support with the important qualification that responses from world leaders are not inherently notable, which responds to many of the criticisms above. A selection of responses should of course be included, preferrably in prose format, but unless there's a very good reason I don't see why a generic statement from a country on the other side of the globe merits inclusion in the respective Wikipedia article. —Nizolan (talk) 02:46, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
Or on the other side of the border, for that matter. But if a giant fish swallows Aruba, it would make sense to hear from the Netherlands. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. The usual responses are predictable and formulaic: "The King of Foobar extended his condolences to the victims and their families" etc. No encyclopedic value whatsoever. This nonsense is a waste of space and just brings out the same arguments every time there is an international disaster. Get rid of it once and for all. Significant reactions ("we will bomb the perpetrators off the planet") can be included in the main article. WWGB (talk) 00:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Every one of these article and ones on other tragedies can usually be summarised in a version of the sentence "International leaders offered there condolences to the victims and their families". Obviously if the reaction was the subject of multiple, reliable sources then the article can exist in its own right through WP:gng, but almost all of these content forks are just WP:Indiscriminate collections of tweets and soundbites. AIRcorn (talk) 07:32, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose - A separate article is needed for such an important event with international significance.BabbaQ (talk) 09:11, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
We can not have a discussion here that perhaps ends with the result that the article should be removed/merged. And then have an AfD were it seems like a majority wants to keep the article and not either merge or delete. So decide.BabbaQ (talk) 12:42, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
To be fair, although the topics are related, the AfD pertains specifically to Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings, whereas this Village Pump discussion is more broadly about articles of that sort. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 16:47, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support per Atsme. Although we can pile up a bunch of reliable sources documenting such, I think this is one case where the topic itself is not notable. Really, most of the citations for these reactions likely mention the reaction but are not about the reaction so really the subject is not notable per GNG, regardless. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - This should probably be a guideline, not a policy. Responses from world leaders, and just about everyone else who gets on their soapbox in the wake of a major tragedy, are transparently self-serving, predictable, and utterly platitudinous. They have no enduring encyclopedic value.- MrX 23:10, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Mixed Unless the expression is intrinsically notable for its content other than routine praise/condemnation, we should not use it - but always recall that sometimes an expression of praise/condemnation does become notable in its own right, and should not be barred. Collect (talk) 23:59, 27 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support: Including every national reaction to an incident goes beyond the scope of Wikipedia. While this may contribute slightly towards readers' knowledge of how visible the event was, it can be summarized as "many leaders condemned <X> event" and within proper context. I support only covering individual reactions in the actual event in the article itself if the reaction is associated with an action (such as an aid package, declaration of armed action against a terrorist group, or national/UN resolution). Esquivalience t 00:16, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support per Esquivalience and Evergreenfir. I particularly like the wording change to WP:NOTNEWS that Evergreenfir proposed above. Wugapodes (talk) 00:55, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment This should not be a new policy. This should be proposed at an existing policy or guideline talk page. HighInBC 01:10, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - These lengthy lists of reactions are not encyclopedic. Let's get back to writing some actual prose for a change. Kaldari (talk) 03:27, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Not only is the content of the flagged bulleted list entirely predictable every time something atrocious happens, it violates WP:NOTNEWS. These routine reactions should be summarized, and only unusual reactions (those that are reported on, rather than merely reported) should be particularly mentioned.  Sandstein  08:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Is see the problem, but making this a policy will lead almost certainly to it being used against relatively novice editors who added such comments to share their outrage with the situation. Unless the application of such policy can be guaranteed to be polite (according to the cultural customs of all involved) and avoid all chances of WP:BITE (i.e. saint like application), I think we would do more harm than good with implementing this. Arnoutf (talk) 08:51, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Our articles on terrorist attacks also attract new editors who add unreferenced information or update numbers without updating the source. As far as I know, we normally revert them and leave a polite message on their talk page. I don't see why this would be any different? If it becomes that big of a deal, we could even create a specific user talk template for it... Jolly Ω Janner 09:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose – no reason to override existing notability guidelines, and sets a bad precedent. SSTflyer 13:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Keep this content Keep, for example, the article discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reactions to the 2016 Brussels bombings. This is in line with traditional Wikipedia policy. When a concept is covered in multiple reliable sources, then that concept has a place in Wikipedia. The amount of coverage that "reactions" get for these sorts of incidents is WP:UNDUE to go in the main article. It is appropriate content, and the only trouble with it is that there is so much of this appropriate content. When something is covered in alignment with Wikipedia policy, and it is undue for the main article, then it is right to split it into its own article.
    I see nothing new about this proposal. It might be a clarification about existing rules, but the base assumption is that "Wikipedia is a summary of what reliable sources report". Splitting this content off is a great way to capture it in an appropriate places. There is no limit to space for such content in its own article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:53, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I know this was already brought up, but I think WP:NOTNEWS is key in this discussion. More specifically, "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability ..." I don't know whether world leader's reactions to large-scale terrorist attacks like Brussels and Lahore recently have such "enduring notability" on their own, even if they can be very notable during the week of the attacks. I personally enjoy reading the controversial ones, issued by countries such as North Korea, though I don't think Wikipedia is the right place for that kind of content, eventhough nowhere else is either. ~Mable (chat) 17:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Wouldn't Wikiquote be the right place for the reactions of notable people to notable events? ~Mable (chat) 17:14, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is too broad-brush. Each case needs to be decided on its merits. A guideline on how to make such decisions may be beneficial. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:25, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Under reconsideration This is too wide-reaching of a decision that fails to consider the merits of individual reaction articles. A number of these response articles do contain developments in policy and foreign policy. For example, the Reactions to the November 2015 Paris attacks includes sourced information about how the attacks spawned debate over resettlement of refuges from the Middle East and mass surveillance, resulted in an increased military presence in combat zones, and has had an impact on American law. Now, I’m not opposed to solutions that would cut down on the number of repetitive “we condemn these attacks and mourn the victims” type statements. However, I don’t think uniformly banning these types of articles is the way to go. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 03:36, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
    • Spirit of Eagle That's not the proposal though. It only relates to the lists of responses. An article that contains nothing more than a list of responses would go through a deletion nomination and this proposal would be cited and it would get deleted. If an article, like Reactions to the November 2015 Paris attacks, were proposed for deletion then it would not be deleted (or at least not because of this proposal), because a reasonable amount of the content is not a mere list of responses. The Paris attacks can be dealt with on the talk page. To summarise, the proposal would only be used to delete article which are only made up of responses and very likely to be used on article talk pages when proposing to cut down such a list within an already well formed article. Jolly Ω Janner 08:23, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
      • Relatedly, this discussion could be used as an argument to remove bulleted lists of random world leader responses from regular articles as well. ~Mable (chat) 09:02, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
        • I certainly hope so, Mable. Sections comprising only rent-a-quotes are no more deserving than a separate article. - Sitush (talk) 15:58, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
          • I've reread the proposal numerous times, and it seems like a pretty uniform ban on reaction type articles. My concern is that the actual language of the proposal does not make any distinction between boilerplate condolences and more substantial reactions, such as passing laws, offering aid, performing symbolic acts of solidarity, ect. I'd be much more supportive if the actual proposal assumed that some reaction articles can be notable, and attempted to regulate the content within them rather than essentially outright banning them. Personally, I'd like it to be standard practices for reaction articles for a single map to be used to track which states offered condolences, and to then list out the most substantial reactions. (I think the fact that so many states have offered condolences is significant, but I agree that actually listing out every single boilerplate condolence is excessive) .Spirit of Eagle (talk) 19:44, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
            • The policy uses the term "responses", not "reactions". I think passing laws, offering aid (even this seems weak), performing symbolic acts of solidarity would not be classed as a response. If you want, we could propose an amendment which outlines the difference between the two. I think abounding the proposal would be a real disappointment. Jolly Ω Janner 20:25, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
              • I could support something along these lines. Also, I've struck my oppose vote pending further discussion:
              • 1. "Response to..." articles are acceptable if a number of substantial responses occurred and if the article subject meets standard notability requirements. Articles that contain nothing more than an extensive list of quotes from state leaders giving boiler plate condolences are generally not acceptable.
              • 2. Articles should not contain long lists of boilerplate condolence quotes. (Note: I removed some language about mapping responses due to concerns over original research)
              • 3. Reaction articles that are in compliance with point 1 but not point 2 should be cleaned up rather than deleted.Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:35, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
                • I like the idea of a colored-in map, at least as something to be made available on Commons even if it isn't used on Wikipedia, though I suppose that would probably constitute to synthesis and might give more weight to countries that haven't given responses. Regardless, I agree that we should create a guideline that balances WP:NOTNEWS and WP:N well, which is why I chose to discuss rather than to !vote. ~Mable (chat) 06:41, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
                • In regards to points number one, "Articles that contain nothing more than an extensive list of quotes from state leaders giving boiler plate condolences are generally not acceptable." seems to match my opinion and I think the intention of this proposal. If no one opposes, I hope that when the closing admin prepares the update to the policy page, this is also added with it. Please do not go down the route of making (or encouraging) a map of responses with or without option 1. It is rather controversial and is a clear breach of WP:Synthesis. To my knowledge there has never been a published list of countries to have given responses to an attack in this regard, unlike say GDP data which is frequently published by major organizations. You're essentially saying "this country hasn't given a response yet, because we haven't been bothered or able to find a source for it online" and it's generally taken to be negative about that country. Jolly Ω Janner 08:06, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
                  • I've removed the language about mapping responses, since I had failed to consider that not listing a country would imply, without sources, that the state had not offered condolences. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 21:29, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
      • I would hope that we could delete the indiscriminate lists before having to go through an AFD, especially as these always have to do with current events. The problem is that someone always adds these statements in the first place despite them being unnecessary, and then someone splits the article when it gets too big; it should not require the headache of a weeklong AFD to undo an unwarranted split. Reywas92Talk 17:20, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong Support There is no need for the repetitive obligatory statements by every world leader regardless of their relation to the event. They provide no useful information to the reader and a generic statement is notable neither by itself nor with all the others. Notability of the event does not lend notability to anything related to it whatsoever. Reywas92Talk 17:20, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - Most of the time reactions of politicians are for political benefit though not always.atnair (talk) 06:16, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - Support the proposal for International reactions are only deemed notable enough for inclusion if they are covered by reliable secondary sources outside of their home country.. Otherwise Wikipedia is essentially just pasting PR releases by politicians who issue these PR statements to "show" "how much" they "care". XavierItzm (talk) 12:45, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Very Strong Oppose, in fact the strongest oppose I can think of, times 10 to the power of 12. This is encyclopedic information, and more often than not, it's referenced in secondary reliable sources that cover the incident's aftermath. Would people rather portray world leaders as unsympathetic by excluding all mentions of reactions? I'd much rather tone down such sections if possible, but they should not be deleted outright unless they don't have any secondary sources at all. Instead, let them be trimmed and merged, or even better, deal with them on a case-by-case basis. epicgenius @ 15:47, 30 March 2016 (UTC) (talk) 15:47, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
    • "Portray world leaders as unsympathetic" Yeah, right. A statement from Belize hasn't been added to the Brussels list, but I don't assume now that Belizeans don't give a darn about Belgium or terrorism. A generic boilerplate statement the same as after any tragedy is not encyclopedic, and just because a source lists it doesn't mean we're required to re-report it. This could be "trimmed and merged" by saying 'heads of government from around the world condemned the attacks and expressed their condolences', or even say 'The governments of countries A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,K..... sent sympathies' to portray them as sympathetic, but repetitively quoting every one of them is unnecessary. Reywas92Talk 16:41, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
      • I am not saying that every single leader's full statement should be prominently idolized in their full glory, like a trophy case of wiki-praise-awards. I agree that we can paraphrase most of the quotes. What I don't agree with is deleting any mention of condolences at all. epicgenius @ 16:51, 30 March 2016 (UTC) (talk) 16:51, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Possible problem If this does come into force it would pretty much invalidate all of the AfD's including this one where a consensus leans towards keeping the articles. Please make this into an RfC to get a broader consensus from the Wikipedia community as I see chaos going forward with this. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 13:28, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
    • One of the last comments there argues that the problem is that there should be a discussion on the content, not deletion of the article. That article and others have excellent prose sections that could be merged into the main article and not deleted outright, and people are worried a delete vote would get rid of the good content too - they say AFDs should not be used as merge proposals or content discussion, just wholesale deletion of the article. Unfortunately talk pages usually don't get the interaction or admin closure that time-limited AFDs do. All of these AFDs get lots of people who say 'this has reliable sources, therefore we can't delete it' or worse, 'there are loads of these reaction articles, therefore this should be kept too', and the fact that they often occur in the midst of a recent news event impacts how people see the article. I do not believe that the AFDs on whole articles should have any bearing on the merits of these lists of statements in particular. Reywas92Talk 19:31, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose: recent AfDs about these articles have quite consistently resulted in keep or snow keep, and this proposal really is about as blunt as an AfD in its terms, despite some claims. It may be sometimes needed to condense semi-identical "canned" international response into a single statement, and only give prominence to the ones with different content, and in general, to use prose for this kind of content instead of lists of quotes with flags, to comply with policies and guidelines. That does not in any way entail banning the topic entirely, as a valid WP:SPINOUT or otherwise. LjL (talk) 22:06, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment I notice a number of comments in this thread seem to be taking issue with the notion that this discussion is undermining the AfD's on some of the relevant articles. Now, while I certainly didn't have that in mind when I created this thread, I think it's worth pointing out that that's one of the reasons why a policy discussion is necessary. We've been addressing these "reaction" sections/pages on an ad hoc basis and the argument often goes "Well, incidents X, Y, and Z got reaction sections/pages, so this event should too." The reasoning becomes circular and it remains too caught up in individual events. By addressing this issue at the policy level, my hope is that we can reach a broad consensus where in future, we can dispense with these arguments because there will be an unambiguous policy in place. Now, my personal position is that that policy should be to dispense with reaction pages, but even if this discussion goes the other way, I think it will be useful to all concerned parties to have the issue hashed out. Tigercompanion25 (talk) 04:13, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
True enough, Tigercompanion25, but since this proposal is not really much "milder" than AfD-type deletion in its wording (the alternative proposal below is different, although I don't particularly like that idea), it seems legitimate to object that if multiple AfDs overwhelmingly opted to keep these reactions, then consensus has been established on the matter. Do we want to establish it again anyway? Fine, but then it seems legitimate for me to say "oppose" based on my understanding that consensus on the matter has been satisfactorily reached in the multiple AfDs. LjL (talk) 13:27, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
LjL, there is an incomplete list of articles that have not been kept at Wikipedia:Reactions to... articles. It's also worth considering that AfDs will be kept if multiple users vote to redirect or merge the contents instead of outright deletion. By trying to reach a consensus on the matter here, we are trying to reduce the amount of bureaucracy involved in every single AfD (although they should still be treated individually, the same issues are frequently raised). It's also a valid point that the type of editors who post on a deletion review for an ongoing news-related story tend to be bias and less experience than those at the village pump. I would encourage you to find a non-circular reason against the proposal. Jolly Ω Janner 16:49, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Mine is not circular reasoning, because for something to be circular, it has to go back to square one. In this case, I'm saying I say "keep" because I've said "keep" on the AfDs and most other people have said "keep" on them. The reasoning would be circular if and only if the people saying keep on the AfDs did so because of "keep" being said here. LjL (talk) 22:11, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose noting international reactions is encyclopedic and notable. It is certainly something I'd be interested in reading if searching about a past event. If there are too many to be listed on the page, it is reasonable to split it --Tom (LT) (talk) 22:24, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. These "reactions" quotations have always struck me as kind of pointless. What's the point in hearing from 20 politicians who all make what is more-or-less the same prepared statement? I agree that it violates WP:NOTNEWS. At the very least, we should require international coverage of the comments. Otherwise, it's completely undue. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:51, 5 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Wikipedia isn't Twitter. These "reactions" sections infest every current event article and are almost all entirely pointless. Unless the reactions detail specific actions being taken that are related to or are made in response to the event, they should not be there. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose with caveats. We should not exclude citation of world leader reactions. The problem with these sections is not that we point to this well-sourced detail about events, but that we do not properly condense it like other details of text. To the contrary, there is a little cottage industry of putting cutesy little flags and crap to showcase these sections. This may be motivated as a show of support for victims, a feel-good gesture, but it's not really encyclopedic. When they are routine, it should be enough to say that "Condolences were made by leaders of Andorra,[1] Angola,[2] Australia,[3][4], Austria[5]......" Things on Wikipedia tend to get out of hand when we drop out of prose and go into some constrained format. Wnt (talk) 10:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Support ditching the "cutesy flags" and summarizing, in many cases. But, more broadly, response to some incidents that are not unadulterated tragedy is important. For example when someone is shot in a border dispute. Or "Responses to annexation of Crimea"...
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:22, 12 April 2016 (UTC).

Alternative proposal

I'm not sure how well this fits in with the above proposal. Perhaps they could both be used? Anyway, I proposed a method to decipher countries which are notable and non nontabele to an event on the Brussels talk page and a few editors suggested I bring it here. I would suggest adding the following ammendment (or words thereof) to WP:NOTNEWS:

International reactions are only deemed notable enough for inclusion if they are covered by reliable secondary sources outside of their home country.

I think virtually everyone agrees that these lists need to be trimmed? The problem is quantifying what is and what is not notable without bias. The sources of information used are newspapers (or online equivalents). What is interesting is that most of these newspapers have readers from only one country and therefore a quote from that country would be relevant. Wikipedia takes an international stance, but this shouldn't mean we should weight every country equally. So how do we assess how notable a quote is? Well, if it's being reported from an international news source or a news source from outside of the home country, then that goes a long way. So here is the proposal. Jolly Ω Janner 21:50, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Support I still support the original proposal, but fear that its implementation may only be confined to "Reactions to..." articles leaving the door wide open for the shit to flood on to the main article instead. It should be noted that I have some doubts about the proposal. Mainly due to the recent Lahore suicide bombing, in which I came across this TIME article being used. Fortunately, the US presidential campaign would be caught out by the rule, since TIME is a US magazine, but it still allows some to slip through. It's better than nothing and it builds upon the original proposal! Jolly Ω Janner 22:03, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I like this idea as a rule of thumb. I still think a lot of this content might be best off over a Wikiquote, though. ~Mable (chat) 07:53, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • The content is certainly best off over at Wikiquote and we should never forget that, but (to my knowledge) I'm the only one to ever make a transfer to Wikiquote, despite raising the issue several times. In my experience these reactions are tallied by IP or newly-joined editors in a way to exaggerate the notability of an event that they feel closely connected to (likely through nationality or hatred of terrorism). Wikiquote is virtually unheard of by most people and certainly won't get seen, so I doubt anyone with the former intentions would care to compile them at Wikiquote. We have an article tag, which I frequently put up on these articles to see if it might lure people in. I guess Wikiquote is rather alien to most people, even to experienced editors. I made a proposed amendment further up in one of my comments regarding the use of Wikiquote. I could separate that off as another sub-section if you or anyone else supports it. Jolly Ω Janner 08:12, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • I have to agree that Wikiquote is rather alien to me as well; I don't think I've ever even edited it. This whole "world leaders/famous people react to current events"-dealie might actually help make Wikiquote a more well-known website? Regardless, I feel like a dynamic bulleted list should generally be avoided in articles, and can often best be converted into more meaningful prose. In that sense "Worldwide responses" can work, but that's because it isn't plain news messages anymore. ~Mable (chat) 08:18, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • News source simply state the quotes or convert them into the usual wording of "X from Y shared his condolences with the following message:" There are only so may ways or rephrasing that. If we had sources that are dedicated to the quotes and their wider impact then converting them to prose would be a regular option, however it's pretty rare (maybe sometime they will cause controversy, which can be picked up on). This probably shows just how routine and unotable they are if even newspapers don't have much to say on them. And Wikipedia tries to make itself one step above journalism. Jolly Ω Janner 08:33, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support, but I'd prefer a stronger criterion. If the BBC mentions off-hand that someone said a thing, that doesn't constitute notability. My suggestion would be to go with WP:SIGCOV and strengthen it to "receive significant coverage in reliable secondary sources, including sources outside of the speaker's home country". —Nizolan (talk) 11:41, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose, because I have seen news reports doing - maybe not as in depth as one of our articles - but still just giving out lists of responses from selected world leaders without additional comment. This last point is the problem with the reaction lists is that just saying "X said Y" is not providing any additional context for the reader, making it feel like indiscriminate information. These response sections are fine when they are summarized in prose, which allows editors to help provide useful context, even if the quotes are coming from the sources in the same country. Now, if a third-party, different country source goes into some analysis or criticism of a response from a nation, that's good secondary information to include. --MASEM (t) 16:06, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Weak support Let's just not have these bullet point lists of statements. Just because media in another country happens to note a different president's statement does not mean we should continue to list all of these. They should be summarized in prose about actual actions taken, not the generic condolences always issued, regardless of who reports them. Reywas92Talk 17:20, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
  • For the time being, I support this idea. However, Wikiquote isn't really a good medium for such quotes. Wikiquote usually hosts quotes about the Wikipedia subjects themselves, not the reaction to Wikipedia subjects. Anyway, reliable secondary sources should be required for "condolence" lists anyway, because they're required for nearly everything else. epicgenius @ 15:50, 30 March 2016 (UTC) (talk) 15:50, 30 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Support - This is kind of what I was thinking when I previously said in the main discussion, "I suggest an alternative in which these reactions articles can be kept depending on the notability of the main articles, and I'm not talking about Brussels notability; I'm talking about 9/11 notability." Parsley Man (talk) 05:51, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is an attempt to bypass the community consensus at every single AFD. No credible criteria can be given to, for example, include the reaction of the US President (which will obviously be included) and exclude other reactions. AusLondonder (talk) 22:13, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
  • A reaction from a US president is more likely to attract news from abroad whereas reactions from world leaders with little recognition worldwide would be less likely to appear in the sources. Jolly Ω Janner 03:56, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose with caveats as above. Besides, this isn't really a meaningful restriction, because news today is very international. It is highly unlikely that any but the smallest country's condolences will not be mentioned by good newspapers around the world. I would be much more concerned about whether what was said was of substance - if a politician in a small country makes a routine condolence and goes on to say "this is why we're proposing a law to put cameras in your toilets." Wnt (talk) 10:43, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose "if they are covered by reliable secondary sources outside of their home country" by definition is WP:SYSTEMIC BIAS against sources within a country about events that may not be world news. –BoBoMisiu (talk) 13:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Support. Do away with them. Also do away with the "List of reactions" stuff. It is not encyclopedic (see caveat below), it's feelgood kind of stuff, it's advocacy (let me get my country here to show how much we care--and frequently NGOs and other organizations are listed as well), and it's typically an opportunity for flagporn--besides the fact that they are predictable cliches. Well-meaning cliches, and necessary cliches for the purpose of uniting humanity etc., but cliches nonetheless.

    The only caveat I can see is when (as some suggested) a reaction is a policy change. Let's say that as a result of some act a politician or statesperson decides to close the borders to [insert ethnicity, nationality, color, whatever], or even proposes to close the border, or change immigration law, or the availability of guns/semtex/whatever. That is worthwhile. But expressions of sympathy are of no inherent encyclopedic value, and not having any kind of guideline would suggest that the reaction by any notable person in the world is worthy of inclusion.

    We've had, in some articles, the tacit guideline of "only if the response is of importance, not just an expression of sympathy", or words to that effect, and that's something. Here's another instance where "it's verified so it's encyclopedic" is the wrong way to go. Drmies (talk) 17:02, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Political drivel that does not meet any CSD

At new page patrol I came across the page Refugee crisis in germany today. Another patroller prodded it and while it may go through a round of "creator deprods - prodder goes to AfD" I see zero chance that it survives after a week, be it at prod or AfD. (The page is basically an essay attacking German foreign policy in Syria and its consequences, in the most soapbox-y terms one could imagine.)

I thought at first that there would "obviously" be a WP:CSD for things like that but there is none: it is not really an attack page (it does not even name German officials), and neither is it promotional (since it calmly states that current policy is a disaster, without obvious advertising of another policy). But of course, leaving that on WP for a week is already quite an eyesore (when leaving an article about software X that is non-notable after all is no big deal).

My understanding of the philosophy behind CSDs is that they are here for (1) things that may bring legal trouble and are urgent to correct (G10, G12, U3), (2) technicalities that cannot be debated, and (3) things that the WP community would be ashamed of leaving online even for the duration of an AfD even though it would not be totally unreasonable to debate them. That drivel seems to fit category (3). I was wondering if, in the vein of WP:G11 ("unambiguous advertising"), a criteria for "unambiguous political drivel" had already been proposed or would be feasible ("so much POV that a fundamental rewrite would be needed to be encyclopedic"). Of course, the problem is striking a balance between the urgency of the matter and the lack of real debate in the SD process.

Note: this is not an RfC, or even a straw poll, and I do not wish to establish consensus for a new CSD by this way. Actually, I hope someone will come up with a link to a similar debate of 5 years ago that convincingly settled the issue.

Tigraan (talk) 16:10, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

CSDs are a strict set of criteria, and nothing may be speedy deleted unless it meets one of these. It can be an attack page if it's purpose is to attack a policy, not only a human being. And your suggested #1 isn't completely accurate - firstly, because several of these "legal" criteria are actually more inclusive of the relevant legal issues; and secondly, because for Wikipedia to get into legal trouble, the Foundation must be informed about the issue and refuse to remove it; so us admins are not actually protecting Wikipedia's legal interests by speedy deletion of actual law violations. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 18:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I think you are to a significant extent mistaken on what makes for a good CSD, Tigraan. CSDs are for things that the community as a whole, generally represented by a fairly broad sub section at an RfC or similar debate, decides a) clearly to be deleted in all cases; b) can be reliably recognized by one or two editors without any community debate being needed, and where false positives should be rare, and c) come up often enough that speedy deletion will significantly reduce the load on one or more XfD processes. Those standards are far more important than "legal issues" or "shame", in my view, although ethics have some role in the CSDs for attack pages and hoaxes. DES (talk) 23:45, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
  • CSD exists solely for things that a person, who is entirely unfamiliar with the subject of the article in any way could still look at the article and tell unambiguously should be immediately deleted. For example, if someone started an article that said:

Jimmy is the guy who sits next to me in chemistry class and he's the hottest boy around!

That would be eligible for CSD#A7, since it describes a real person, but does not say how they may be important. There's no need to ask any questions. I don't even need to know anything about it. Speedy delete exists for that. On the contrary, I frequently deny speedy deletion requests for articles such as:

Jane Doe is a painter from the Central African Republic who has won several awards, including "Young Painter of the Year" by the Central African Republic council on the arts and "Best use of Form and Color" by the Central African Republic Academy of Painting Science.

The reason that THAT article should not be speedily deleted (by really, ANY CSD criteria, but lets focus on A7) is because it clearly states that the person is important and gives direct, specific examples of being recognized as such, by winning several national awards. Now, you may say "But really, are those awards themselves notable enough to make the person worthy of a Wikipedia article?" See, to answer THAT question, we'd have to research something about the awards, find out how well respected they are, discuss that amongst ourselves, etc. THAT'S why we don't use speedily deletion for things like that, it needs to be discussed. The article noted above, while it (in my opinion) should be deleted, does not tick the boxes necessary for speedy deletion, and as such, needs to go through AFD. --Jayron32 16:17, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

how does this work anyway?

someone proposes a policy change...a bunch of people vote on it..and the policy change idea "wins"...how is this then codified or promulgated into policy for Wikipedia and go into effect for every relevant article?68.48.241.158 (talk) 19:20, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Someone edits the policy page. It's a wiki. LjL (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
I've looked at the policy pages, I don't see anything that goes into the kind of detail like, for example, about the above discussion to do with having articles about foreign leaders responses to terror attacks...is there somewhere that lists all the policy fine print....?68.48.241.158 (talk) 19:53, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Policy is also created on pages like this one. A lot of policy is based on precedent and not written up. People might just point that archived Village Pump discussion, or it might get wedged somewhere into a style guideline in WP:MOS. Of particular note: MOS:BODY. -- zzuuzz (talk) 20:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
You might be interested in Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:09, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Policy and guideline should reflect community consensus, but it would be unmanageable to try to put all community consensus on every little thing in p&g. There are very few experts on organizing masses of information like that, no central control or authority, no mechanism for site-wide coordination of that information. So, some community consensus is reflected only in RfCs or simple discussions. It's often difficult, confusing, messy, and extremely inefficient, in part because (1) those discussions are usually hidden away in the archives of some talk space, and (2) there are often multiple relevant discussions hidden away in the archives of multiple talk spaces. Tons of editor time is spent just debating exactly what the community consensus is. It's a system that seems designed to drive editors completely mad, and someday we may have something better. The first step is to want to, and we haven't taken that step yet as a community. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:19, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
I see..68.48.241.158 (talk) 20:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
As an example of how I think this should be addressed, see Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Religion in infoboxes, especially the sections on "Background" and "Previous Discussions and related pages". I tried to pull together a list of all previous discussions and related policies and link to them. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:14, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Vote results get written into policy pages if someone decides it's worth editing it into the policy page.
The way it "[goes] into effect for every relevant article" is whenever someone shows up at that article and decides to make the fix. Obscure articles might not get fixed for years. If someone opposes the edit then you point to the vote-result or policy justifying why your edit should remain in place. Either they accept it, or they argue it. If they argue, more editors can be called in to resolve the dispute. Someone who persists in fighting against policy can be deemed disruptive and get blocked from editing at all.
You don't need to know all the rules, you are invited to boldly make good-faith efforts to improve articles. If someone disagrees with your edit, they can give you a link to the relevant policy or vote-result to make their case. Once someone does show you the relevant policy or vote-result then you're expected to respect it. It's all very learn-as-you-go. As long as you're trying to help and you respect community consensus, then it's all good. Reverting bad edits is quick and easy. Mistakes are easy to revert, and tripping-over-rules-you-don't-know is a harmless and expected part of the process. Just don't do things that are blatantly abusive. Alsee (talk) 11:47, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
so it's kind of messy like the American legal system with case law but with the additional problem that there's no hierarchy amongst potentially dozens of different consensus discussions etc...so the same consensus discussion might have to be rehashed over and over again for each specific case (suppose best of a bunch of bad options)... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.48.241.158 (talk) 13:55, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
That is because consensus can change depending on specifics. We do occasionally make exceptions to our own rules (if there is consensus to do so). The important thing to remember is that making an occasional exception does not necessarily make the rule invalid. Blueboar (talk) 14:20, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps the best way to define it is: We are ruled by consensus, and general consensus is that policies and guidelines should be respected.
One of Wikipedia's core rules is IAR: Ignore All Rules. For a simple clear case, let's say the graphics on some page are unreadable by people who are colorblind. You can and should fix that problem, even if the change technically violates some policy or guideline or consensus. It is obvious that consensus wants it fixed, even though no one ever discussed it. We don't leave the page unreadable just to lawfully-enforce a dysfunctional rule.
And yes, sometimes we get stuck re-debating the same crap repeatedly. For example the NOTCENSORED policy. We have endless incidents of people arguing that that sexually explicit content or images of Muhammad or whatever should be removed from articles. They fight over whatever article they find offensive, sometimes they attract a temporary local majority, but they have zero chance of reversing NOTCENSORED policy itself. Eventually the article ends up following policy to include the controversial content. Alsee (talk) 07:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

"Stale" userspace drafts of articles

See also § Does WP:V apply to drafts?, above, for a related discussion about drafts.

An RfC on stale draft policy

Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring --QEDK (T ☕ C) 10:57, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I strongly encourage uninvolved editors to participate in this RfC to truly gauge community consensus. At the current rate, MfD as a whole is heading toward ArbCom, which is beyond absurd. ~ RobTalk 18:30, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Inside-Facing and Outside-Facing (essay)

I have written an essay, User:Robert McClenon/Inside-Facing and Outside-Facing, or WP:FACING, and would appreciate comments. This is applicable in part to the controversy over the handling of drafts, but it not limited to that controversy. Thank you in advance for comments. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Nature of Controversy About Drafts

I am increasingly aware of what appears to be a growing controversy about the handling of drafts, especially old drafts, both in draft space and in user space. I have my opinions. However, I would be interested in any comments as to what the problem is that a few editors are trying to solve, let alone what the solution is. As to retention of drafts, what is wrong with the existing CSD criteria including G13? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:08, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I addressed this question at: User talk:Robert McClenon/Inside-Facing and Outside-Facing § At least 4 different concerns (from vital to bogus) about userspace article drafts.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. I agree with the comments. However, I still have a question. What is the reason for the (apparently bitter) controversy about drafts and the rules about drafts? What is being said to be wrong with both the MFD process and with the CSD criterion G13? A few editors evidently think that the process needs to be fixed. Do they think that it should be changed to get rid of more drafts (either via CSD, or via MFD, or via robots, or what), or do they think that the process should be fixed to avoid getting rid of the drafts that are gotten rid of? What is the driver behind the controversy? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Essentially it's the age old disagreement between inclusionists and exclusionists that has plagued Wikipedia for years - only now applied to drafts instead of articles. The inclusionists think we are getting rid of potentially good material, and want fewer deletions. The exclusionists think we are getting rid of bad material, and want more deletions. Both sides accuse the other of gaming the MFD and CFD processes, and are trying to close what they see as being loopholes in the rules. Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you. That is as it appeared. I would then say, as my opinion, that in most cases the exclusionists are just plain wrong, because the purpose of draft space is to provide an incubator (as it was formerly called) for improving the bad material into good material. The inclusionist-exclusionist debate has historically had to do with articles, which are outward-facing. I don't see why in general there should be a push to get rid of drafts that are not ready for article space, except via G13, which is already there. There is bad faith on both sides, and that is not good. I do see that moving a draft into article space to nominate it for deletion is a blatant form of gaming of the system by deletionists. How are inclusionists said to be gaming the system? Robert McClenon (talk) 17:15, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
It seems to be that the very argument that our usual deletion rules for articles shouldn't be applied to draft articles is a form of wikilawyering. I think that's an incorrect argument. But they may have other ones. And they do have some valid points. We do not need to retain drafts that have no salvageable content, which are attack pages, which are about WP:NFT material, which are nonsense, which have been surpassed by actual articles, and several other categorizations of "junk" pages. While userspace pages are "cheap", we don't want a billion of them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:43, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
From the outside, this whole Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring effort looks like the groundwork for some kind of funding proposal – a straw man of problem to get paid to solve. It is certainly not about draft "attack pages". –BoBoMisiu (talk) 12:05, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Academics...Proper?

I placed "autobiography" and "notability" templates on this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Paulson It seems to clearly fail at both in its current state to me (I explain in its talk page)...I only noticed article because the subject of it placed content about himself in another article recently, "incompleteness theorems," which seems to be against policy... I looked at some other similar "academics" stub like articles and most of them seem to fail in the same manner....it's possible the subject is technically "notable" according to the guidelines for academics but it's not established in anyway whatsoever by third party sources; and may even be difficult to establish such...a lot of these academics are inherently obscure to the point too that it's unlikely anyone would ever create/contribute to an article about them that do not have a COI....is this just an inherent problem with "academics"..? any thoughts?68.48.241.158 (talk) 12:55, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

and for someone like this too: is it proper for to have info about their wives and number of children they have (when could this be helpful to an encyclopedia user for this kind of subject??)...even if this could be verified by a source?68.48.241.158 (talk) 13:01, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
to clarify a particular aspect: was it proper to put those tags? even though I think technically proper? or is it kind of pointless (ie yes, we know most similar articles like this have this problem but to tag all 200,000 articles is pointless...??)68.48.241.158 (talk) 14:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
@68.48.241.158: Not sure if this is the appropriate venue for this discussion, but on the specific article: the autobiography template is probably fine and the notability template is probably unwarranted (his publications, linked at the article, seems to pass WP:PROF #1 easily). Details on personal life can be added on a discretionary basis, as long as they're supported by reliable sources—see WP:BLPPRIVACY. The current citation is problematic but we might want to be sensible about how to approach it. On the last point, there's nothing wrong with adding maintenance templates if you think they're warranted. —Nizolan (talk) 23:44, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
does just pointing at the google scholar suffice, you think? Is this a third party source that asserts notability, or just a listing of papers? is the listing of how many times the papers have been cited by others what is creating the notability there? I'd say he's a fairly "ordinary professor" (again, not that there's anything wrong with that) in that, for example, I went to the University of Michigan and I'd say every tenured professor at that institution (associate and full professor) could present themselves as being just as distinguished or more (note that he's been involved in a lot of the presentation about himself here on Wikipedia over several articles) but that I don't think every tenured professor at the University of Michigan is worth their own Wikipedia article....if they are, Wikipedia could potentially have 1,000,000 article stubs about ordinary professors that would keep growing and growing as the years move forward...I don't care about this particular person, but wondering about the philosophy more generally...is there a better place to bring this up? (but obviously listing this guy's wives/children is silly and listing what undergraduate courses he's currently teaching is silly and inappropriate.....)68.48.241.158 (talk) 16:33, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
This does not appear to be a discussion for policy. Google scholar is definitely not a reliable external source, as you can edit your own user page (to some extent). Have a look at Wikipedia:Notability (academics) - I see nothing in the article as it currently stands that makes this professor qualify. So I would say he is probably not sufficiently notable for his own article. Arnoutf (talk) 17:58, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
You can edit your user page but not your citation count: articles with citation counts of 2,571, 1,546, and 1,171 is pretty huge and easily enough to pass criterion 1 in WP:PROF. If there are real concerns on this front they should be explored at AfD though. —Nizolan (talk) 08:25, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I am not so sure it would. Yes citation counts above 2000 are pretty imprssive, but Scholar tends to be somewhat indiscriminate in counting. Citation count without an independent analysis of what this means in the specific field of an author does not really imply significant impact in the scholarly discipline. A friend of mine has top scoring papers with 7500 and 2500 citations in Google Scholar - and is assistant professor, and far away from notability. The interpretation for prof Paulson's citations is further complicated by the fact that his two best scoring publications are textbooks, yet he is especially since the two highest counted citations are from a textbooks, which may be in use for student papers or in reference to a software tool, but do not impact the discipline beyond that. If you look at his Web of Science listing (which is not free for all and only includes peer reviewed articles) his highest cited paper is only cited 38 times (considerably less than my own highest cited paper). So basically, I would say that Google in this case would be a fairly reliable primary source, but not useable in any way as secondary source to provide interpretations along the requirements of WP:PROF. Arnoutf (talk) 12:11, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Larry is certainly notable. If you look at researchers in the field of theorem proving, he is the most highly cited author, with almost 50% more citations than the next listed researcher (which is J Strother Moore, of the Boyer-Moore string search algorithm and the Nqthm and ACL2 theorem provers). Larry is a Fellow of the ACM, full professor at Cambridge, and a Distinguished Affiliated Professor at my own Alma Mater, the Technische Universität München. Plus plus plus.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I suppose he's notable, but is he his own Wikipedia article notable? and what does this supposed "theorem proving" category on "Google Scholar" actually signify?? again, every tenured professor at the University of Michigan, for example, is probably Wikipedia notable if this guy is Wikipedia notable....does Wikipedia potentially want 25% of their articles to be orphan/stubs about professors????68.48.241.158 (talk) 13:00, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I doubt that his Wikipedia article is notable. That's why we have a Wikipedia article on Lawrence C. Paulson (who, as you agreed, is notable), and not one on Lawrence C. Paulson's Wikipedia Article (the notability of which is indeed highly doubtful, and which would take WP:NAVEL to a new level). And you might want to take a look at List of University of Michigan faculty and staff - we do have quite a lot of articles on these people. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
haha but I think you know what I meant...68.48.241.158 (talk) 14:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Here's the issue: I would think that in the case of a fairly "ordinary professor" like this guy (and, again, not that there's anything wrong with that!) there may be work he's done that could be helpful to cite within the content of other article topics...but I don't see the utility or purpose of him having his own Wikipedia article (so he can list about his wives/kids/undergraduate courses he's teaching...who cares!?)...as this could lead to, as I said above, 25% of articles being stubs about professors....68.48.241.158 (talk) 13:14, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Without even sweating it, Larry meets WP:PROF #3 (Fellow of the ACM) and #5 (Distinguished Affiliated Professor at TUM). Not a "fairly ordinary" professor, but a highly distinguished researcher with massive influence via his contributions to Standard ML and Isabelle (proof assistant). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
But is fellowship of ACM HIGHLY selective. It appointed 42 new fellows last year only last year[8], while the examples for being highly selective are on the lines of the Royal Academy (the given example) with a membership of 80 in total - so definitely fewer than 40 appointees each year; is distinguished professor (or the German equivalent of the title) at TUM (which is a major institute) comparable to the title distinguished professor in the US? This does require some sweating for the point to be made. Arnoutf (talk) 16:54, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree that something like this shouldn't automatically qualify a person (it's a weakness in the guidelines)...I mean a Nobel Prize, A Fields Medal, a Pulitzer Prize etc....68.48.241.158 (talk) 17:31, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Well, the first example is not the "Royal Academy", but the Royal Society, which has 1450 members (who are all "fellows"). The other example for a "highly selective membership" is the IEEE. The IEEE appointed 297 new fellows out out a membership of 345,464. It has a total of 7113 fellows [9]. The ACM has about 100,000 members, so 42 for the ACM is much more selective than the IEEE fellowship. The ACM "recognizes the top 1%" of its members, so at most 1000, again much more selective than the IEEE, which is at around 2%. So yes, I think the ACM fellowship is "highly selective". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:24, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree this particular person (who came to my attention randomly and I'm just using as in illustration) may be technically notable according to the current guidelines (though not sure the article properly establishes this) so the policy point is whether Wikipedia wants people like this to have their own article...it's safe to say there's a 1,000,000+ people worldwide who could likely make academic notability under the current guidelines...it's good to use this particular person as an illustrative case but there is a policy question here...does Wikipedia want potentially 25% of their articles to be about fairly ordinary academics.....?????...or should people like this more be cited in other article topics if they've significantly contributed there but not have their own rather pointless articles....??68.48.241.158 (talk) 14:16, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Your claim of it being safe to say that there are "1,000,000+ people [...]" is unsubstantiated, and as far as I can tell, wrong. And both your implied assumption (if there are one million people who are notable, their articles will magically appear on Wikipedia) and your math are off (we have over 5 million articles in en:, so with a million extra bios those would make up closer to 15% than to 25%, even assuming no other articles are written). -Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:43, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
it's probably a huge underestimation...I'd be shocked if there's not 300,000 currently working in just the USA alone who would technically qualify (that's like 1 in 1000 out of the population..so certainly a quite exclusive club of people)...and that's just currently...look over past 40 years the numbers is far bigger just in USA....so if look at worldwide population and then consider how it will just keep growing over time...I think Wikipedia has a problem....so policy might be to greatly tighten up eligibility here....and of course many academics will be cited within other topics of interest but just not be eligible for their own stand alone article about them personally.....68.48.241.158 (talk) 17:28, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
This is an interesting case. The professor seems an above average professor. His work is notable. But is he, as a person, also notable? I seriously doubt that. While he may narrowly make some of the requirements as set out in WP:PROF, we should carefully consider that these requirement are relaxations of General notability requirements. So I would say that when there is doubt for these relaxed guidelines we should err on the side of caution (non notable). (PS Stephan Schulz, I notice your are related to the same field as this professor. Can you honestly say that your position would be as much in favour of including a similar professor studying let's say the mating rituals of butterflies? - just to make sure there are no personal motivations in your arguments).Arnoutf (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I'm in the same (rough) area. I also know Larry at least professionally (we go to some of the same conferences). That is why I understand the breadth and influence of Larry's work, know how to interpret h-indices and citation numbers, and so on. For me it's a no-brainer that Larry is not "barely notable", but quite notable indeed, and one of the central figures in the field. I know nothing about butterflies, and I would not have recognised the name of any entymologist, so while my considered position would probably be the same, it's more likely that I would not have formed a considered position in that case. I think the question wether "he, as a person" is notable is somewhat beside the point, as far as current policy is concerned. Compare e.g. WP:AUTHOR - it's all about the significance of the work. And from Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Academics: "Many scientists, researchers, philosophers and other scholars (collectively referred to as "academics" for convenience) are notably influential in the world of ideas without their biographies being the subject of secondary sources" (emphasis mine). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:06, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
The issue now becomes whether we can say that notability within the computer science community is sufficient for notability at global scale (ie Wikipedia). The mayor of (e.g) Ratingen is clearly notably within that community, but clearly not notable enough for Wikipedia.
If you read WP:AUTHOR you will see that while the work is important, the first two are about the person. From the guidelines " The person is regarded", "the person is known" and the second two are about work that are exceptionally central to broader society "The person has created ...., such work must have been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film", "The person's work (or works) either (a) has become a significant monument, (b) has been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) has won significant critical attention, or (d) is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museum".
If you want to translate this to an academic the person should either qualify as a person, or has done something that is broadly recognized as a central work outside his/her own discipline in all disciplines within academia or even outside academia. So I really do not see why this would support inclusion of this specific person.
And we do not need a biography. We need evidence that an academic as a person is notable in the world of ideas (that is the world - not the discipline they are working in). H-indices and similar listings do not provide such evidence, and nothing in the article we are currently discussing does (neither in the text, nor in the references).
As the Anon editor mentions. This is an interesting case. This is clearly a good professor, but is good enough to claim he is notable? And are the notability guidelines under WP:PROF strict enough? And what if the actual article does not make it clear that the person matches the WP:PROF guidelines? Arnoutf (talk) 18:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
so for this particular guy, for example, perhaps his "Isabelle" program is itself notable and deserving of a brief article (and of course this guy would be cited and mentioned within that article..ie "Isabelle was created by LP in 19whatever while working wherever")...but then not just have an article about LP himself...because what's the utility of an article about LP himself to the encyclopedia reader?? It's possible the encyclopedia user could seek out "Isabelle" but who could possibly be seeking out LP himself (to learn such things as what undergrad classes he teaches and how many kids he has....especially if thinking about this with a long view..years and decades from now) ???68.48.241.158 (talk) 18:37, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
You mean something like Isabelle (proof assistant)? Isabelle and its applications covered in many thousands of articles - both foundational and applications. Check e.g. this and note that Paulson's books on Isabelle have been cited several thousand times alone. What's the value of having an article on, say Miley Cyrus or Take That in the long run? Different people have different interests, and I find an article on a major computer scientist very useful - I might be asked to write the introduction to a Festschrift for him (well, not really - there are many more senior people working much closer with him), or as a speaker a conference (indeed, I would have, but he had to cancel and I introduced his replacement speaker instead). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:56, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
the question, of course, is whether this interest in the man himself is far too obscure to allow a stand alone article on just the man himself...as it opens up a whole can of worms....you can always find a person who's interested in anything at all...Miley Cyrus, like it or not, is objectively a phenomenon of giant general interest....so the analogy isn't relevant...68.48.241.158 (talk) 19:07, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
as the guidelines stand now Wikipedia is in a position to be a depository of hundreds of thousands of stub like articles (and eventually millions) about academics that are created by themselves or by people who work closely with them (ie grad students)...articles that have virtually no utility and more or less just list where these people got their doctorates, what their thesis was, and a general mention of their area of interest...but of course they'll also feel compelled to mention their kids and their pets....and this is all allowable because they're a member of some scholarly organization or penned a few papers that have been cited a bunch of times by other academics.....) I don't think Wikipedia wants to be in this business...these professors have their own web pages for such provided by their institutions....68.48.241.158 (talk) 18:56, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I think you are now oversimplifying it. First of all, people should be discouraged to edit their own Wikipedia article as that would be a conflict of interest. So if the kids and pets appear, it should be added by someone besides themselves, making it not very likely they will appear. Secondly, we are not talking about the local boyscout chapter when we are talking about highly esteemed societies like ACM, these are definitely not some obscure organization. Also penning a few papers is unlikely to gain any attention in the field. You need a visible general scope of the field to be cited more than a few times.
The professor we are talking about is definitely an important person in computer science. Also his textbooks on his method are extremely well cited (and to be fair - computer science tends to publish most of their work in conference proceeding which do not feature in web of science, making comparisons with other sciences tricky).
As I said before, this professor is well above averagely notably and he is either very close, or does even pass the Wikipedia requirements of academic notability. And that is, in my view, exactly why this discussion is relevant. Do we, who are not involved in computer science, think this person is sufficiently notable for an article in Wikipedia? And if not, should we aim to adjust notability guidelines or their interpretation? And what consequences would that have for professors we would like to include (like my fictitious butterfly professor). Arnoutf (talk) 20:26, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
and my view is that this guy probably qualifies for his own article based on the current guidelines (though the article has problems as it stands now)...But that the guidelines should be more restrictive...for example, being a fellow of IEEE or whatever should not automatically grant somebody the right to their own personal Wikipedia article, as it currently allows now.....this is ridiculous....68.48.241.158 (talk) 20:45, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
"Do we, who are not involved in computer science, think this person is sufficiently notable for an article in Wikipedia?" - I think that is exactly the wrong question. Why should people who are not involved in a particular field make that decision? Should we, who are not linguists, decide if the Igbo language is notable? What about the Tapei language? Should we, who are not biologists, decide if Nyctiphanes is notable? Or Tethea ocularis? The aim of Wikipedia is to provide a summary of all human knowledge, not the intersection of topics interesting to everybody (which likely would be empty). And of course there is no "right to ones own personal Wikipedia article". First, there is no such right to begin with. And secondly, articles are neither private nor owned, in particularly not by the subjects. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:45, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
I think this is where we disagree. Wikipedia is NOT, neither aims to be, the summary of all human knowledge. If that were the aim, all knowledge would be, by definition, sufficiently notable for Wikipedia. Instead Wikipedia aims to present all knowledge that is deemed sufficiently notable for a broader audience.
The issue thus becomes how broad the audience should be. That differs between topics (like the Tapei language (spoken by about 290 people in the world). And people, e.g. academics in the Tapei language research area. Any academic focussing on the Tapei language will almost certainly be notable within the Tapei language academic research area. Is notability among Tapei language academics enough to warrant an article about a Tapei linguist on Wikipedia. Almost certainly not. So I would argue that notability of an academic within a specific discipline does not constitute automatic notability for Wikipedia. That is why, in my view, the ideas of notability for those within a community; who can bring forward and interpret arguments about contribution of the academic within the community (be it Tapei language or computer science) should at least to some extent be aligned with those outside the community, who are likely better judges of whether the information is of any relevance to a broader audience. Arnoutf (talk) 07:21, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
@Arnoutf: according to Wikipedia: "Wikipedia seeks to create a summary of all human knowledge in the form of an online encyclopedia." The key word you are missing is "summary." VQuakr (talk) 07:30, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Good point; I stand corrected. Summary is the important word here. When summarising knowledge, the decision what details to leave out is the important decision. The arguments remain largely the same though. What for some is essential to a topic (e.g. the bio of a leading Tapei language researcher), for others is an irrelevant detail that can be summarised with a single mention in the larger Tapei language article, or can even be omitted at all. Arnoutf (talk) 08:44, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
"the all human knowledge" stuff is s a total misnomer, obviously....as there's all kinds of rules about what can/can't be included/what is/isn't notable....68.48.241.158 (talk) 11:05, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I would think it is obviously pointless to have a Wikipedia article on academics themselves in probably 95% of the cases that would qualify under the current guidelines...as all they're really going to say is "X is a professor at Y who researches Z." And this is going to involved hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of articles...Again, many of these people may very well be mentioned or cited in articles about other notable subjects...But there should be a higher standard than currently exists for a personal article...perhaps they should objectively meet several of the numbered criteria (or at least half) instead of just one...68.48.241.158 (talk) 13:09, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Why? See WP:NOTPAPER. Memory for these articles is, essentially, free. Bandwidths is only an issue if there is interest in the article. What is the argument to not have them, except from "they don't deserve it"? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
I can think of three potential reasons: 1. these articles (and the current standards) inherently invite (or even require) editing that is against policy (COI, POV, Autobiography)...whereas if to qualify was more difficult it is far more likely non-connected editors will create/contribute 2. having a large number/percentage of articles such as these degrades the perception of Wikipedia as having respectable standards/being of a high quality/not being frivilous 3. 99% of these articles will be orphaned/never edited properly/or made to adhere to policy (and never visited...particularly as the years go on)...I think Wikipedia does care about this even if it's "not paper."68.48.241.158 (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Keep the article and the policies/guidelines in the current state. We do not need more restrictions on what constitutes notability. We especially do not need more of the concept that if someone/something is only notable within a "niche" discipline, than they may not be "notable enough" for Wikipedia in general. Wikipedia isn encyclopedia about all notable disciplines. The vast majority of people in the world are utterly uninterested in the vast majority of Wikipedia article subjects, but that cannot mean that all those articles are unwarranted, or Wikipedia has failed its existence goal. LjL (talk) 14:25, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Just thought of an interesting example about academics: I think it is perfectly fine that there is an article about this "Isabelle" program that this Paulson created (so long as it's properly cited/verified/notable) where he would be mentioned and cited etc...but not okay to have an article about him personally as there is absolutely nothing that rises to notability about him personally....WHEREAS Noam Chomsky would require articles about his academic work AND (for better or worse) an article about him personally...this is an extreme example, an academic wouldn't have to be as objectively notable on a personal level as Chomsky to have an article, but...68.48.241.158 (talk) 14:48, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Chomsky easily meets general notability guidelines, which are much stricter than those for academics. Not really a good example.
Let's agree that prof Paulson is sufficiently notable.
Let's also agree that the article in the state at the beginning of this discussion (i.e. lack of independent reliable secondary sources discussing the person beyond merely referring to his work) was problematic in presenting the evidence for that notability (even under the specific guidelines as set out by WP:PROF). By now Stephan Schulz added the distinguished professor title and ACM fellowship, which makes the case much stronger.
I have said everything I wanted to say about this, and notice that I am merely reiterating arguments. A good moment to call it a day. Best Arnoutf (talk) 14:56, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
right, but the idea is to require academics to meet something closer to general notability guidelines to have a personal article...68.48.241.158 (talk) 15:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Question too: would this be the forum to discuss changes that could then potentially actually create the changes to academic notability guidelines? In the TALK in the article on academic notability guidelines I see a lot of policy discussion...should that just be discussion on how to word the policy or can policy be discussed there too????68.48.241.158 (talk) 15:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

IP, the place to get consensus for relatively minor changes to the guideline (not policy; the difference is minor but significant) would be Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics). This is a centralized discussion forum frequently used for more sweeping changes (ie deprecating a guideline or adding a new one). If you wished to propose, for example, removal of one of the 9 criteria at WP:NACADEMICS the guideline talk page would probably be a more efficient place to discuss it. In reply to your post just prior, the general reasoning behind secondary notability guidelines such as WP:NACADEMICS is to improve consistency in notability assessment. VQuakr (talk) 04:43, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

An ultimate Wikipedia:Autopatrolled?

This is a varsion of questions i asked erlier on Help desk. Thought it's a good idea to ask them here as well:

1. I understand autopatrolled users are not being checked just for new articles they create. I wonder have the community ever discussed what would be the implications of creating a new status for complete auto-patrolled users? Correct me if im wrong, but in simple terms auto-patrolling means that "this user will always create useful and well written new pages, therefore checking him/her is pointless". This a strong right, that show great deal of respect to the wikipedian. It is also a given by nomination, rather than by consensus or voting. My question essentially is what will happened if we extend this right to auto-patrolling each and every edit? These users would be auto-marked for each edit they make, meaning every edit is auto-patrolled. Do you think there were discussion on this topic? I searched and couldn't find it.

Generally Im curious about wiki policy on patrolling. I understand there are two major patrolling projects in wiki: Newpages patrol and Recent change patrol. There is also Pending Changes Reviewer and Roll-backers. Am i forgetting any important ones? Also autopatrolled users area passive part of the patrolling procedure, as they are bypassing the new pages patrol. does ultimately, the community wish every edit would be patrolled by trustworthy community members? If the answer is yes (which i doubt, but that's the whole point), creating the above mentioned status seems to answer this need as well. The "ultimate autopatrolled user" will would also get some kind of "positive patroling" effect when they revert or change any page they edit. Do you think it can help monitor pages?

3. Do you know if there are wikis that require every edit to be patrolled? Are there statistics that cross wikis on this kind of specifics?

Thank you all,

Mateo (talk) 17:40, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Licensing issues

Several days ago, I wrote a post on Meta-Wiki about the license of Wikipedia [10], but no one has responded. Since my questions come from issues here at Wikipedia in English language, I would like to receive help in the Community of Wikipedia in English language, to know if I can make these changes to Wikipedia in Spanish language.

First issue: Some time ago I saw these changes in Wikipedia in English, both invoked the legal team of the WMF: for MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyright [11] made by Philippe (aka User:Philippe (WMF)) and for Copyrights [12] made by Moonriddengirl (aka User:Mdennis (WMF)). I wanted to ask whether they are mandatory in all the Wikipedias, because I have not seen any page of the Wikimedia Foundation that explains these these changes.

Second issue: I also wanted to ask about the Creative Commons 4.0 license. I understand that it is not possible to insert text CC BY SA 4.0 into any Wikipedia (with license CC BY SA 3.0), but due to the fact that m:Licensing update/Outreach does not report anything about the Creative Commons 4.0 license, I am not sure if I can import text with a CC BY 4.0 (without SA) licence into Wikipedia (with license CC BY SA 3.0).

Third issue: Threfore I don't have clear if it is possible to export text from Wikipedia (with license CC BY SA 3.0) to an external site both with CC BY 4.0 or CC BY SA 4.0 license.

Thank you for your answers in advance. Trasamundo (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Trasamundo. The edit of which you speak to the Wikimedia copyright template was not made by User:Philippe, but by User:Philippe (WMF) - which is an important distinction. :) His former edits are as a volunteer and have the same authority as other edits by volunteer. That edit was in his capacity as senior staff at the Wikimedia Foundation and on behest of the Wikimedia Foundation's General Counsel. It links to the wmf:Terms of Use, which is binding on every project.
The change that I made as Moonriddengirl was in my capacity as a volunteer administrator, not in my capacity as Wikimedia Foundation staff. However, as the footnote advises, it was made in consultation with Wikimedia Foundation legal staff. However, every Wikipedia requires that you license your content under CC-By-SA 3.0 and (in my cases) GFDL. You can read the Creative Commons license page yourself and see that it is not compatible with older versions of CC-By-SA. Accordingly, it is not compatible with our Terms of Use to import content from a CC-By-SA 4.0 source to any Wikipedia, as it cannot be licensed under CC-By-SA 3.0.
I am not able to speak in staff capacity to your export question. As Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content notes, neither the Wikimedia Foundation nor the authors of content can provide legal advice. However, the link I gave above may help. :) --Maggie Dennis (WMF) (talk) 00:31, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain that what you meant was "Edits using his former username" rather than "his former edits", which could be read to understand that ALL of my previous edits had the weight of my volunteer edits, which is not the case. It would disallow, for instance, actions that I took under WP:OFFICE. :) (Sorry for being pedantic, but wanted to be absolutely clear there.) -Philippe (talk) 11:41, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you very much for your quick response, Moonriddengirl. There is only one issue that I do not see clear. I understand that the CC BY requires that the original author is given credit and that the user is free to do what he wants with the work, including modifications; nevertheless, I do not manage to see if original CC BY 4.0 text (not CC BY-SA 4.0) is compatible and can be mixed in a text with CC BY-SA 3.0 as final license. Trasamundo (talk) 18:10, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
Hello, Trasamundo. For that, see WP:COMPLIC. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 22:34, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
Thank you very much. Regards. Trasamundo (talk) 22:27, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

National Enquirer allegation about Elton John

My recent comment on a the artiste's talk page has been removed by another editor. Looking back through the history, another editor has experienced the same treatment. I'm alarmed that editors are attempting to prevent others from even discussing news stories: do other Wikipedians share my concerns? ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 12:42, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

If The National Enquirer and Twitter are all that's available, I agree it needed to be removed immediately, for the reasons given by the removing editor: WP:BLP and WP:RS. It is not "news", it is blatant sensationalism. WWGB (talk) 12:50, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
My question here is about neither the veracity nor the importance of the allegations: I was requesting others' opinions on the censorship of talk pages. I would expect a comment such as yours to have appeared under mine on the talk page: instead, the whole debate was immediately shut down. This wasn't my understanding of how debate worked on Wikipedia ~dom Kaos~ (talk) 13:08, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Dom has a point here. First - There is a difference between what is acceptable to put in an article, and what is acceptable to discuss on a talk page. Second - the talk page edit under discussion asked whether a source was accurate or a hoax... That is an appropriate question to ask on a talk page. The question did not repeat the allegations made by the source, it merely pointed to it and asked whether it was accurate. No BLP violation occurred. Blueboar (talk) 14:37, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
I think it's well within the spirit of WP:BLP to redact it. The WP:BLPTALK advice would be appropriate for seeking advice about a genuinely serious allegation made in a plausibly credible source. A tweet of a tabloid making tabloid allegations isn't something we should even be linking to, nor stating that it's "a pretty serious accusation".--Trystan (talk) 15:02, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

It would be best, perhaps, to remove the link and leave the comment. Sometimes other editors will come later having seen the same allegations elsewhere and will want to discuss them as well in good faith, so it would be helpful to have an existing talk page discussion that already says "we can't put this in the article". Dom Kaos' comment complied with BLPTALK and no violation occurred, but its removal was a good faith effort to enforce BLP, so let's not causally claim "censorship" here. Gamaliel (talk) 15:41, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

@Gamaliel: Did you perhaps mean "casually"? DrChrissy (talk) 15:47, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
I did. I need more coffee. Gamaliel (talk) 15:49, 9 April 2016 (UTC)::
Gamaliel, do you mean it happened twice "casually"? Carlotm (talk) 18:49, 11 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Concur with Blueboar. It is not and should not be a violation of WP:BLP to ask about a source on a talk page. That is not a statement that the source is true, but that the source exists, and is necessary for regular editing. It is amazing and depressing that people are arguing to cover up the basic citations to cover a story even when it is all over the news. The doggedness of censors to cover up what everyone already knows is outright inexplicable, but it is one of their universal and distinctive traits. Wnt (talk) 10:24, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Particularly with how the removed question was asked - it wasn't trying to push any BLP issue, but asking if the report should be taken seriously or not. That easily falls under BLPTALK. If it was an experienced editor stating that we must include a contentious bit of info that can only be sourced to a tabloid like tha National Equirer, or to Twitter messages, that'd be something potentially actionable, but not what was given in the original post here. --MASEM (t) 15:49, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I was just ragging on about something similar at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Amakuru. I was annoyed that a bureaucrat removed a "BLP violation" from the discussion (someone called an African leader a despot ... who could imagine?) including a response by the actual RfA candidate. I mean, this business of using the policy to stifle discussion of whether an edit is good or bad is just intolerable, but it's totally absurd to me that you can have this process to make someone an admin, almost unanimous support for him, and someone is redacting his comments for supposed violations of policy right in the middle of his RfA when people are supposed to be reading what he says and making up their minds! It's just lunacy. Wnt (talk) 21:30, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
I and BLPTALK consider the act and content of Dom Kaos's post completely reasonable, and properly making the intended use of the article talk page space. fredgandt 01:20, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

NOTE: There is a similar discussion at Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Proposed change re bringing questions about new content on a Talk page. Editors commenting here may wish to contribute there. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 02:03, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

  • This should not have been removed per "per WP:BLP and WP:RS". The post was explicitly appropriate per WP:BLPTALK (i.e. "For example, it would be appropriate to begin a discussion by stating This link has serious allegations about subject; should we summarize this someplace in the article?"). Those that have expressed approval of the removal above should raise their concerns on the talk page of the policy if desired as this type of comment is allowed by it.—Godsy(TALKCONT) 07:14, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Addition of content about Biharis and different figures regarding people killed and women raped

Please comment at Talk:1971 Bangladesh genocide#RfC: Addition of content about Biharis and different figures regarding people killed and women raped. Sheriff | ☎ 911 | 16:29, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Notifications, like the section title of an RfC and the explanation also need to be worded neutrally. Otherwise it's a clear cut case of WP:CANVASS. Please reword your section title and notification accordingly.Volunteer Marek (talk) 17:57, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

RFC: Should lists of species that share a common name be set indexes or disambiguation pages?

It is quite common for multiple species to share the same common name. For example Black alder is used for 2 different species of tree. Timber rattler is used for 2 different species of snake. The articles for these common names are typically created as set indexes, although they function more as disambiguation pages, i.e. readers are rarely interested in the "set", they just need to figure out which article represents the species they are interested in. Pages like Water ash, Black alder, and Indian laurel are especially awkward as set indexes, as the species are not even related to each other. From a practical point of view, defining these articles as set indexes is also problematic as they are not excluded from pages such as Special:Random, Special:ShortPages, Special:LonelyPages, Wikipedia:Database reports/Forgotten articles, etc. like disambiguation pages are. The argument for creating them as set indexes is that the listed pages are all of the same type, i.e. tree, snake, etc. What are other people's opinions on this? Should we keep creating these as set indexes or turn them into disambiguation pages instead? Should such lists that are currently set up as disambiguation pages (such as Black angelfish and Tube-snout) be changed into set indexes? Kaldari (talk) 21:00, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

I would suggest that multiple species (or multiple things of any kind) should only be listed together in a set index if there is some "value add" in doing so. If the set index will merely function as a disambiguation page, only providing the reader with a way to find the article they were actually looking for... then it should just be a disambiguation page. On the other hand it if is possible to say interesting (and verifiable) things about their connectedness, then a set index is fair enough. After all, set indexes are meant to be articles in their own right. So I support the use of disambiguation pages in these cases, and in any other cases where the set index consists only of a listing of articles with a cursory description. Thparkth (talk) 21:36, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
  • The need for SIAs is largely caused by the tight restrictions on disambiguation pages. Look at Nettle for example. The introduction would not be allowed in a dab page, nor would the line reading "Lamium, particularly Lamium album". So unless more flexibility is allowed in disambiguation pages, I strongly support keeping these lists as something different. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:03, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
    • The tight restrictions on disambiguation pages exist because disambiguation pages are merely navigational tools intended to get the reader to the actual topic of interest. Most disambiguation pages list topics that are in completely unrelated fields. Where there is a relationship between the topics listed, the reader may be looking for information about exactly that relationship, in which case it is appropriate to have something there other than a directory of links. bd2412 T 22:09, 17 April 2016 (UTC)
So you would support allowing images of organisms whose common names are similar in a dab page? This is of great help to readers in many cases. There are some good SIAs that do this. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
That might be a good sign that what is needed is an SIA, not a dab. If one species is a bird and the other is a frog, they are truly ambiguous and no picture is needed to tell them apart. If there are three similar kinds of frog with the same name, then pictures are probably necessary, and the animals are probably closely related enough to belong in an index. We do have the problem of references from other articles sometimes intending all the birds (or frogs, or shrubs) known by a certain common name because they share some common characteristic like a territory or a predator-prey relationship. bd2412 T 11:17, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I fully support the view that most (if not all) SIAs should be either a dab page or an article. There may be a few cases where that is restrictive, but on a collaborative enyclopedia like this once the concept of a SIA exists some users (mis)understand it to mean that if all/most of the entries on a dab page are similar things then the page needs to be turned into a SIA. For example, the page Green woodpecker has been changed from a dab to a SIA which means that inlinks (e.g. from List of Local Nature Reserves in Hertfordshire) don't get fixed (either by the editor who created the link or by the DPL team). Even the page Orange emperor (an African dragonfly or an Australian butterfly) was changed into a SIA by a user who presumably thought that was helping readers of this encyclopedia - and see this (non-animal) example. There are some more notes at User:DexDor/Dabs and SIAs. DexDor (talk) 05:25, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
The solution to the problem of inappropriately created links to SIAs is for the bot to report them to editors as it does for dab pages, not to force SIAs into the same straight jacket as dab pages to the detriment of readers. Consider Orange emperor. It would be much more useful to readers if it included an image of each species. The alternative to SIAs is to convert the pages into "List of ... called ...", e.g. "List of insects called orange emperor", and label them lists. (This is what was done for many plant common names before SIAs were used.) I fail to see how this would be an improvement. It seems to me that the internal classication into dab pages, SIAs, lists, articles, etc. is taking precedence over benefits to readers, and this is just wrong. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Having a bot report "inappropriate" links to SIAs would lead to further complexity e.g. would we have INTSIALINK like we have INTDABLINK?, what about links to SIAs such as List of peaks named Stone Mountain?... We already have a level of complexity that is beyond what many new users can cope with (e.g. a user was creating "synonym" redirects just to populate a category for SIAs - RFD) so we should be trying to simplify things - not make the situation worse. I think we can assume that readers can tell the difference between a dragonfly and a butterfly (and it would usually be clear from the context whether it's about Africa or Australia) so how would the Orange emperor page be "much more useful to readers if it included an image of each species"? Similarly for Green woodpecker - a reader who reaches that page from an article about (for example) Cuba wouldn't be helped by having images on the page. However, more to the point, you appear to be assuming that there's a rule that prohibits any images on dab pages (even if it would help disambiguation, as could be the case for some plants) - afaik that isn't the case - see, for example, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Disambiguation_pages#Images_and_templates. DexDor (talk) 17:03, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
  • It looks to me like these set indexes are disambiguation pages. I don't think that disambiguation pages should be so constrained - while this can be a matter of policy, I can scarcely think of a situation where WP:IAR applies more strongly. If you can make a change that defies disambiguation page rules and you see that it makes the encyclopedia better, do it! Then make the case for changing the rule based on the improvement that is visible on that page. We should never let ourselves get in the position of making an edit where we say yeah, we know this makes the page suck, but that's the rules! Wnt (talk) 10:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Couldn't that just as easily be phrased, if the rules governing disambiguation pages are too restraining, make something other than a disambiguation page? bd2412 T 11:19, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Spot on! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:22, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

FWIW, I think the whole concept of set index articles needs to be reconsidered. I don't think the claim SIA are needed because the rules for disambiguation pages are too rigorous is a valid argument. If a term is ambiguous and could refer to any of several articles, disambiguation is needed. Full stop. IMO, the only times a set index might add value is 1) where there is something meaningful that could be said about an entire set of similarly named topics -- though this ventures into what might be considered a WP:BROADCONCEPT article; or 2) to present a comprehensive (and sourced) list of topics where only some have their own pages (for example, lists of mountains with the same name). There might be a few other use cases, but recently I've seen many disambiguation pages converted into set index pages where the rationale was in effect either A) the topics are too closely related to allow easy disambiguation and putting them in a SIA moves them off the reports of pages with links that require disambiguation or B) that some formatting or organization not typically allowed on a disambiguation page was desired. I don't think either is a very good rationale in many cases. Sometimes rationale A can correspond with #1, but often, the disambiguation template is simply replaced with the SIA template and no additional information about the set as a whole is added. older ≠ wiser 14:14, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, to me something is still a "disambiguation page" even if you provide some pictures or a bit of explanatory text. I don't know when or how a "SIA" became a thing, but to be clear, I think that the term "disambiguation page" can and should include those and any page that does not require GNG sourcing or special-rule alternative sourcing on the page. So if I see a mainspace page that talks about two kinds of alders and it doesn't have citations at the bottom, then either it's an unreferenced article or it's a disambiguation page - I don't have a third category in my head. Any such page should be, with a freer format than suggested here but with brevity, a guide to get you through to the real articles that have citations at the bottom. Wnt (talk) 16:45, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
I can see no reason why an SIA would not include citations. bd2412 T 17:00, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

What level of description/detail is permitted in a disambiguation? Is the following (hypothetical) example kosher as a dab?

  • Thread plant may refer to:
    • Herbus cyaneus, a species of aquatic herb native to North America, bearing blue flowers and with narrow thread-like leaves
    • Treeus albus, a species of tree native to Australia, bearing white flowers and with bark used to make thread

I think all of that detail will be useful in helping readers find the article they want. But I've seen similar details removed as not being compliant with MOSDAB. At it's most extreme minimalist interpretation, MOSDAB seems perfectly happy with:

  • Thread plant may refer to:
    • Thread plant (Herbus)
    • Thread plant (Treeus)

My first example doesn't include the dab title term with each entry, which I understand MOSDAB frowns on. But I don't see a good way to include the title term for most organism common names without making utterly useless parenthetically dabbed redirects (e.g. Pawpaw (genus), Mountain cranberry (Arctostaphylos), or see grayling where all of the entries with parenthetical terms are still incomplete disambiguations).

I think photographs will often be very useful in helping the reader select the organism they are interested. MOSDAB actually permits (but discourages) photographs. But that hasn't stopped people from removing photos while citing MOSDAB.

If MOSDAB focused editors would stop removing useful details and photos it'd be great to turn the SIAs into DABs so that incoming links get fixed. SIAs started out because ship editors felt that necessary details were getting removed.

As far the argument that some of these can't be SIAs because the listed organisms aren't closely related, where do we draw that line? Same genus? Same family? Black darter can refer to a fish or a dragonfly. I'd say those are different. But orange emperors are both insects (albeit in different orders that are easily distinguished by the lay person). Going back to ships, I think most folks could tell the difference between a sail-powered frigate, coal-powered dreadnought and a nuclear aircraft carrier. Should a ship SIA that lists a frigate, a dreadnought and an aircraft carrier with the same name be converted to a DAB (and stripped of detail)?

Finally, there are links that are extremely difficult to disambiguate. Take a look at what links to red snapper. The only place this is unambiguous is when referring to a fish (Lutjanus campechanus) living off the coast of the southeastern United States. This is the only fish that the US FDA permits to be marketed as "red snapper", but the regulation is rarely enforced. I've seen red snapper in the stores that's a product of Venezuela or Indonesia. L. campechanus doesn't occur in these countries, but I have no idea what the actual fish in the store was. Sycamore, wormwood (plant) all have incoming links from articles that don't provide enough context to figure out which species is intended. There's another complication with birds; the "official" common names are regularly abandoned when species concepts change, and it can become impossible to know which links should go to a newly recognized species. If set indices are converted back to DABs, will DAB focused editors be happy having more impossible to disambiguate links to deal with? Plantdrew (talk) 17:00, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

Plantdrew has set out very clearly the key issue: MOSDAB focussed editors constantly prevent the creation of useful disambiguation pages when the disambiguation is complex and needs explanation. The format forced on dab pages cannot always give the reader sufficient information to understand the issues involved in selecting among the competing disambiguations without having to go off and read all the pages, and in some cases full disambiguation is impossible. Invoking IAR, as bd2412 did above, is useless when there is such concerted hostility to anything beyond a page with a single link per line and the shortest possible text. I would welcome SIAs being replaced by dab pages if dab pages were allowed to be more flexible. The alternative is that we go back to using list articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:53, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
The problem is that disambiguation pages easily become magnets for all sorts of cruft - for things that don't really match the ambiguous term, but sound vaguely like it; for groups of related concepts with wholly unambiguous names; for non-notable things not found anywhere else in Wikipedia. The basic purpose of a disambiguation page is to act like the index in a book, which tells you with the least amount of fuss where to find the target you're looking for when you use a specific word. What might help clarify one meaning might bury another one, so we go with the minimum. bd2412 T 18:56, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
@BD2412:, set indexes attract the same sort of cruft as disambiguation pages -- only there are no common standards for maintaining them. Some projects have guidelines (such as for ship indices), but there are far fewer people actively maintaining them than for disambiguation pages. I have to question the validity of the concept of a set index as currently applied, often simply to escape from WP:MOSDAB oversight while essentially filling the exact same function as disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 20:18, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
@BD2412: People are always complaining about 'cruft' in articles ... more often than not, unreasonably. I would agree that a disambiguation page should not be burdened down with things that can never be notable or are not reasonably linked to the query term. However, I would love to see scandalous things like, for example, if we didn't have both of the articles on black alder, make a redlink for the one we're missing and provide an external link to a good source after it so the people looking in the encyclopedia have something to look at. Also, one thing I like to see that I've run into resistance about is to have an explanation when some of the things are named after others. So if there's a town of Foo and there's the Foo Tower and the Foo Lake and the Foo River, and the tower and the lake are named that because they're in Foo and the Foo River is something in Sweden whose name is a coincidence, we should have a bit of organization to explain that to people right when they look at the dab. Because the more terms there are in a dab, the more important it is to spare them from having to click them all - and the fewer terms there are, the less we have to worry about drowning them in cruft! Wnt (talk) 23:51, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
(after ec)@Plantdrew and Peter coxhead:, yes there are some extreme literalists involved in disambiguation (some might consider me one, although I think I tend to argue for moderation in many cases). I think the longer Thread plant descriptions are just fine for a disambiguation page, so long as they don't have extraneous links or references. I think the descriptions can be a long as needed to allow readers to distinguish between them.
Strictly speaking, unless something has changed very recently, the parenthetical entries on Grayling are not incomplete disambiguations. Grayling (genus) redirects to Thymallus and Grayling (species) is not a redirect at all. FWIW, I'm still not sure I understand why Pawpaw (genus) is not a redirect to Asimina -- I don't see much of a case for the genuses of the other non-Asimina species being commonly known as the Pawpaw genus or the genus of Pawpaws.
Images are OK on a disambiguation only when there is a strong case for them being helpful to distinguish terms. For descriptive minimalists, this may be difficult to grasp -- some might claim that a difference of a single letter or capitalization in the linked term is all the description needed.
I think both Black darter and orange emperor are better as disambiguation pages. Although it's only my opinion as yet, to me, the distinguishing factor for a SIA is that it should be possible to say something meaningful about the group as a group. If it is just a collection of things that happen to have the same name, that is a disambiguation page. Or the other type of SIA would be a comprehensive and sourced list of things with similar names, regardless of whether they have an article or not. Red Snapper probably should be a disambiguation page, though it could conceivably be recast as a broad concept article about fish that may have a reddish hue that have a quality that makes the "snapper" description appropriate. I don't think difficulty in disambiguating should be a deterrent or a determining factor for whether something is a disambiguation page or a set index. If there are a lot of similar things that get muddled, a broad concept article that elaborates on the commonalities and the differences would probably be better than either a disambiguation page or what commonly passes for a set index these days. older ≠ wiser 20:13, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Grayling (species) could also refer to the article titled grayling (butterfly), and both grayling (butterfly) and grayling (genus) could refer to Hipparchia (leaving aside the other fish and butterflies listed). Pawpaw (genus) would probably be understood to be Carica in parts of the world where papayas are usually called "pawpaws". I know this is getting a little bit off the direct topic being discussed here, but it again stems from MOSDAB. MOSDAB appears to want "Thread plant, a commmon name for Herbus cyaneus...." for every potential entry on an organism common name page, making my longish descriptions even longer with the added text providing no additional value in disambiguation. I just don't see the point in opening each line with the page title on organism common name pages (it makes more sense on dab pages like Paw Paw that also include non-organism uses of the term, but even then, using parenthetically dabbed common name redirects can be misleading). Plantdrew (talk) 21:45, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
@Plantdrew:, I think I see what you're saying, though that doesn't make Grayling (species) an incomplete disambiguation. It is perhaps an incorrectly named article or perhaps if it is considered to be the primary topic for "Grayling (species)", then perhaps there should be a hatnote referring readers to either the butterfly page or the disambiguation page. And perhaps Hipparchia (genus) is known as "Grayling (genus)", though one wouldn't know that by looking at the page. However, this is getting far afield from set index versus disambiguation page considerations. These may primary topic and article title considerations, but I'm not seeing how they make any difference in set index vs. disambiguation pages. And if Carica is in fact referred to as Pawpaw (genus) in reliable sources rather than guesstimations, that should warrant discussion about what should be at Pawpaw (genus) -- whether a redirect to an article, perhaps with a hatnote or to a disambiguation page. About Thread plant descriptions, yes perhaps the MOSDAB guidance can be better framed to allow for such cases. In practice, such a formulation is not that unusual, but you are right that MOSDAB does not clearly describe such cases. And I think I mostly agree with you that creating redirects such as Pawpaw (genus) purely for the purpose of artificial compliance with some interpretation of MOSDAB guidelines (especially when the redirect may be questionable as in this case) is not something to be encouraged. I'm not sure if you recall, but I had lengthy disagreement with another DAB editor on that very topic. older ≠ wiser 00:35, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
@Bkonrad: I can only repeat what Plantdrew wrote: If MOSDAB focused editors would stop removing useful details and photos it'd be great to turn the SIAs into DABs. For plants and spiders (two areas in which I work most), SIAs as a class exist only because MOSDAB focussed editors have kept removing useful details and photos from dab pages and have insisted on rigid formats (which is not to say that all current SIAs need these features). I believe that WP:PLANTS and WP:SPIDERS members are usually better placed to decide how to assist readers in finding the right plant or spider article than editors who focus on other topics, but we've not been free to make these decisions or even make the case for these decisions.
The alternative to an SIA for something like List of plants known as nettle is to change its class (back) to "List", and add lots of references. Similarly, we could have List of plants known as pawpaw. And so on. I can't see how this would help readers, which should always be our main focus, but perhaps that will have to be the way forward. I would be very disappointed if this were the case. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:03, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: I'd suggest that editors need to make the justification that such images and details are helpful for disambiguation and aren't just for decoration or pedantry. I suppose what is considered "useful" may be a matter of opinion. Many DAB editors are quite willing to IAR when the occasions call for it. older ≠ wiser 00:40, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
With the Pawpaw plant cases, why not separate those out into a list or index with images? bd2412 T 01:41, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Opinion on a BLP revdel

People might be interested in this ANI discussion about WP:BLP revdel. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 04:10, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Use of the phrase "piracy" to mean "copyright infringement"

There is consensus to generally prefer "copyright infringement" over "piracy", but this should not be interpreted as any sort of bright-line rule. A sizable group of editors supported avoiding "piracy" altogether, but their arguments were not based in policy. If "piracy" is MPAA propaganda as many editors claim, then it's successful propaganda, as "piracy" has made its way into many reliable sources. Neutrality is certainly important, but NPOV requires us to be neutral in presenting the information within reliable sources, not neutral in some moralistic sense of the word. Based on the arguments for and against the use of "piracy", it seems most appropriate to default to "copyright infringement" and use "piracy" only where reliable sources (preferably multiple) use the term. (non-admin closure) ~ RobTalk 15:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Two months ago, I decided to go to a number of articles about creative works and change the word "piracy" to "copyright infringement" or whatever I felt was appropriate. After about 700 edits, I estimate that I am halfway done. This is quite a small number for a term that is heard so often in real life. Compared to newer non-neutral terms that I would also like to remove, "piracy" already seems to be used quite sparingly on Wikipedia. A clear explanation for this is the fact that many "veteran editors" are strongly critical of the recent trends in copyright law. Even if they had no such opinions, the manual of style states that a contentious label should only be used in a direct quotation or a sentence that also includes the name of the speaker. An example of this de facto consensus is the fact that digital piracy, media piracy, online piracy, Internet piracy, software piracy, movie piracy, film piracy and video game piracy all redirect to an article that only uses "piracy" in a discussion of loaded language. And yes, some articles were actively demolished in the making of those redirects. I have also seen concerns about this raised by people like Yamla, Son_of_eugene, Smk65536 and TiagoTiago.

Anyway, I knew my edits would elicit some reactions. A few people clicked the "thank" button and a few people clicked the "undo" button. However, one user Masem, now thinks I should stop until a larger discussion takes place. So be it. The reasons to keep "piracy" that I have heard seem to fall under four broad categories:

  1. The word is commonly used in many types of sources. Indeed it is, but so are thousands of other pejorative, demonizing terms.
  2. The word used to be pejorative but has since become neutral. I may not be paraphrasing this one correctly but Masem has written "It is a fair concern to avoid non-neutral language but I think in this case, piracy has become a more neutral term by sources when discussion copyright infringement issues." I suppose there are examples of this happening historically, but I don't see how "piracy" can be neutral when the copyright debate is far from over. It was not long ago that a judge decided it was too prejudicial to be used in a trial. And papers about its connotation are not hard to dredge up.
  3. The word was meant to describe more than just copying because infringing copyright before the 1900s was only possible if one's whole career was invested in it. This is fair enough and I have agreed to stop rewording paragraphs about pre-industrial "piracy". Perhaps the scope of this activity was so large that it really did require a different word.
  4. The word is more accurate because it only refers to a specific type of copyright infringement. Even if this were true, I think it behoves us to think of whatever combination of neutral words might be needed to describe the same thing. Looking at the content industry's response to file sharing, I do not see how there is any specificity left in the term. I've seen the label applied to all types of uploading / downloading, whether commercial or not, and the three people who have commented on my talk page have given three conflicting definitions of piracy.

I am not asking others to make this change on their own time, nor am I asking for some kind of "immunity" from people who want to revert me. But a first attempt to remove POV from these articles (especially ones that only ever included "piracy" because they were neglected) is something that should be allowed to go ahead. Connor Behan (talk) 21:11, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

  • Do not use piracy – See the lead of the Copyright infringement article that points out that it's so biased that some courts don't even allow the MPAA to use it: "... copyright holders, industry representatives, and legislators have long characterized copyright infringement as piracy or theft – language which some U.S. courts now regard as pejorative or otherwise contentious." (with three citations there). However, converting to "copyright infringement" may not always be the right thing to do; we just need to make sure we are taking sides, e.g. calling something infringement if it has not been determined to be. Piracy is sometimes defined as "unauthorized access", which may not even be illegal; so we need to be clear, about who is alleging what act, in some cases. Dicklyon (talk) 21:18, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use piracy Not a neutral, non-emotive term: it carries both historical and modern connotations. Obviously this is only relevant to the idea of copyright infringement, but I see no reason not to replace piracy with copyright infringement (when it's relevant!), crh23 (talk) 21:29, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Follow the sources - As one of the commentators on Connor Behan's page, the issue that in some areas, the term "piracy" is strongly established as the de facto term, particularly in the video game industry (where I saw this first appear on my watchlist) where even those that engage in the activity often call themselves "pirates". I would agree that if the legality of the act is unclear or there's no assignment of guilt yet, to use caution and stick to "copyright infringement". If it's not clear what the sources prefer, it makes sense to default to "copyright infringement" but it should not be wholly replaced without considering how the sources around the issue discuss the matter. --MASEM (t) 21:51, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
    • One other aspect to add in re-reading the bit on the court order that prevented MPAA from using "piracy" during a case - it is important that if we are referring to any specific person or group that has been accused of such copyright infringement that we should not use "piracy" unless that person or group readily self-identifies like that. (The point at the trial was that this term presumed guilt already on the action before the judgement was made) But when broadly talking about the situation of copyright infringement with no specific group identified, we should review the sources and use what they use. I use video games again as many times developers can track the difference between legal sales and copyvio versions and thus it is well known there that software piracy is going on, so it is called this out directly most of the time. --MASEM (t) 22:18, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
    • As an example of a case where we should follow the sources: the game Stardew Valley is notable in part because though it was pirated a lot, many pirates admitted to buying the game after the fact and some players helped those buy legit copies. Now, if you go to the sources (via google news search), there is nothing calling this "copyright infringement". It's "piracy" through and through. Even though the term can be loaded, it's established by both the copyright owners and those that engage in it that that's the word they use. --MASEM (t) 19:20, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • No blanket policy - Use whatever terminology seems best on a case by case basis. As Masem points out, our neutrality depends on presenting sourced information, not deciding what that information should be. fredgandt 22:00, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
    I agree that a formal policy is not needed. Deciding case by case, whether to use "piracy" or not, is essentially what I'm doing. And so far, "not" has won out every time. Usually when a source refers to "piracy", we may replace that with one of the multi-word synonyms without changing the information conveyed by that source. Connor Behan (talk) 17:42, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
    It might be helpful to add piracy to the list of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Contentious labels. That doesn't require creation of a separate rule, and doesn't prohibit its use, but does flag for editors that there may be more neutral alternatives.--Trystan (talk) 18:49, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
    The evolution of language is a constant [pain in the ass]. Looking at the hatnotes of Piracy and Copyright infringement paints the picture pretty well, that it can be reasonably expected these days for people to use the terminology interchangeably - sometimes at best. Etymologically speaking (teh lolz), English is a hotchpotch of gibberish, with a side serving of poppycock. Although everything everyone does here is important, it's essential to always keep in mind that it will never be finished - just like the English language. Go get 'em tiger! ;-) fredgandt 19:08, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Generally not appropriate to use piracy. We are an encyclopedia and we stick to more formal and non-controversial terminology. Alsee (talk) 04:05, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • No strict rule, but avoid piracy whenever that can be done in a reasonably convenient way. I'm also a little concerned about this term causing confusion for people with limited English skills: Piracy is a maritime crime involving ships and guns, not downloading songs from the internet. I think that using piracy to describe intellectual property violations in pre-Internet times is particularly inappropriate. Copyright violations were very common at some points in history, e.g., William Smith (geologist), who ended up in debtor's prison after the Geological Society of London violated his copyright by re-printing and selling one of his maps. Nobody in 1815 would have called that "piracy". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
Don't be so sure. This use of piracy does date to that era. That doesn't mean we should be using it that way. Dicklyon (talk) 05:22, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Preferentially avoid "piracy" per User:Alsee, but no need to add a rule; that would be instruction creep. You can take this !vote as meaning I don't want to do anything at all official, but unofficially I support Connor Behan and encourage him to continue. --Trovatore (talk) 05:44, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use "piracy" Using the word "piracy" is RIAA/MPAA propaganda, so a violation of WP:NPOV. Jackmcbarn (talk) 19:11, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use "piracy" when no ships are involved, do not use "copyright infringement" unless a court has ruled that there is copyright infringement. The phrase "piracy" as commonly used by the copyright monopoly (even when sources parrot the phrase) is far too pejorative for use in an encyclopedia. For a nuanced discussion about this, see When Stealing Isn’t Stealing by Rutgers Law School professor Stuart P. Green. Or, for those who prefer cartoons, see https://www.youtube.com/embed/IeTybKL1pM4 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4 :) --Guy Macon (talk) 19:57, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
    Yup. Also this one. I can try to say "alleged" whenever I say "copyright infringement" but I don't think the term is much worse than "unlicensed access" or "unauthorized distribution". When I watch a torrented film, there are many reasons why it will never be condemned by a court: encryption, too many fish, privacy laws, shared wifi, interoperability exemptions, lack of evidence to support or refute fair use, and the fact that I have no money. However, it is clear that I've committed some sort of infringement against how the filmmakers hoped it would be used... whether it is legally enforceable or not. Connor Behan (talk) 01:18, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
    To avoid using "copyright infringement" makes no sense. Regardless of the situation, if you use someone else's copyrighted work without permission, you have committed copyright infringement. Now, whether your use falls into the fair use defense, or if you have egregiously violated the copyright, or the like, that's a matter of courts to decide, but you still have committed copyright infringement. --MASEM (t) 09:49, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
    Nonsense. There are multiple ways to "use someone else's copyrighted work without permission" that are not copyright infringement. For example, Fair Use, use of Mechanical copyright, and cases where there is Copyright misuse are not infringing. More importantly, you appear to be implying that being accused of a crime is the same as being guilty of a crime. See Copyfraud#Notable cases to see why you have to prove copyright infringement in a court of law. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:57, 3 April 2016 (UTC)
    Further, different jurisdictions, commentators, etc., have different opinions about whether a particular act of copying should be considered infringement. Even a legal conclusion, in one jurisdiction or another, is subject to dispute. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
    Regardless, it is silly to consider that we should not use the term "copyright infringement" when it applies, either to the results of a court case or as part of a legal case which the claim is made, making sure to keep it as a claim. Eg: a company using ContentID to strike videos from YouTube claiming that those putting those videos up as copyright infringement and without any other legal assessment of the situation -- we'd obviously not call the users as "copyright infringers" in WP's voice, but it would be silly not to use the words "copyright infringement" to describe why the company struck down the videos. --MASEM (t) 16:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
    Agree. We should neither blindly accept it whenever someone makes the accusation, nor should we avoid it when, for example, it is the stated reason why Youtube says they removed a video. "Removed because of copyright infringement" seems clear; it means "Youtube decided that this video was a copyright infringement and took it down". Likewise, "found guilty of copyright infringement" clearly implies a decision by a court. On the other hand, just because the Arthur Conan Doyle estate claims that use of Sherlock Holmes or Warner/Chappell Music claims that use of the song "Happy Birthday to You" is copyright infringement that does not mean that we should accept those claims. We should report them as being claims. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:40, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
    I agree with Guy Macon. There are contexts where we need to use terms like "alleged" (this doesn't distinguish between "piracy" and "copyright infringement"). A person may sue an other person for "copyright infringement", not for "alleged copyright infringement". A web site may remove content because of "copyright infringement", even if no court has actually declared it to be such. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:01, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use piracy. It's insipid SPA/MPAA/RIAA propaganda. Shameless PoV-pushing and hyperbole. It's exactly like calling shoplifters "inventory rapists". Also agreed with 'do not use "copyright infringement" unless a court has ruled that there is copyright infringement.' We do not label subjects criminals without WP:RS demonstrating a conviction.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:52, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Use piracy where in most sources and appropriate It has come to mean a specific type of copyright infringement and is not infringement in general. It is breaking the law and there is nothing intrinsically bad about using 'loaded' terms to describe wrongdoing.. The beef I have with the SPA and MPAA is the Mickey Mouse business of extending and extending the copyright period. I think Mickey Mouse should just be a trademark and early cartoons should not still be copyright. Copyright is a good thing but they are pushing and twisting it to their own ends and causing harm and turning people against it. Dmcq (talk) 10:13, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use piracy—for pretty much all the reasons already brought up, but also because "piracy" once had the nuance of "for profit": copied CDs sold on the black market, say, or those underground American copies of Ulysses. There's a huge difference between that and filesharing, regardless of whatever beliefs you hold about filesharing. Its use thus introduces ambiguity. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:44, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Use IF an article is made on the idea: I've actually been working on an article lately (probably "Piracy (media)") that covers the term "piracy" as being a subset of infringement in regards to creative works. The term "piracy" has specific connotations; you can have copyright infringement that isn't piracy (i.e. illegal sampling), but most piracy tends to be infringement. ViperSnake151  Talk  18:23, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Many people before you tried to make the same article and it was turned into a redirect every time. So far, your draft mainly rehashes the terminology section of copyright infringement and creates the illusion that it's a well defined term. If copyright holders actually agreed that illegal sampling was something different, there wouldn't be entire papers arguing that "piracy" should be avoided for sampling but used to describe other acts. Connor Behan (talk) 19:45, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose any ban on "piracy". This sounds like righting great wrongs to me. Wikipedia isn't the place to change how society uses a certain word. And, anyway, it's not like "pirate" is such a horrible insult. Has everyone forgotten about the Pittsburgh Pirates, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Dread Pirate Roberts? Sheesh. You'd think that pirates were loathed in Western society. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:31, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Piracy is a specific thing, a deliberate coopting of somebody else's clear private property right, in order to profit from it while denying the legal owner of the privileges of ownership. In some cases, such as setting up clandestine DVD reproduction operations and selling them on the streets in third world countries, this is clearly privacy as so defined. In other cases, e.g. a kid downloading a youtube video to play the audio of a song at a party, it is hyperbole, and any sources that say otherwise could be falsified. We speak in an encyclopedic voice, avoiding loaded terms, or siding with one camp or another in a battle to define narratives. Thus, we should avoid loaded terms like piracy, regardless of sources, unless there is an overwhelming, compelling reason to do otherwise. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:33, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use piracy - "Copyright infringement" is a modern-era civil matter concerned with the protection of income deriving from a created product by restricting the usage of that created product by others. Piracy is a serious criminal matter with a long history that often involved death. Those that use the latter when referring to the former are either just lazy reusers of jargon or are wanting to inflate the seriousness of the effects of copyright infringement on society in general. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:00, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
    • ...much like the misuse of "lynching" or "rape" to refer to objectionable speech. It not only artificially inflates the seriousness of the less serious behavior, it minimizes the original crime. It also, by conflating two different things, makes our language less precise. It hinders communication if we don't use the same definitions for words. Yes, you can decide to use non-standard fleemishes and the reader can still gloork the meaning from the context, but there ix a limit; If too many ot the vleeps are changed, it becomes harder and qixer to fllf what the wethcz is blorping, and evenually izs is bkb longer possible to ghilred frok at wifx. Dnighth? Ngfipht yk ur! Uvq the hhvd or hnnngh. Blorgk? Blorgk! Blorgkity-blorgk!!!! --Guy Macon (talk) 15:57, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
      • This is the problem that I have when it comes to the video game industry. There's very little half-measures if one is going to engage in copyright infringement - either you have legally acquired the game, or you have done some act to get the game without respecting the rights of the copyholder, and there's no middle ground, in comparison to say the issue with Napster and other peer-to-peer sharing aspects which have grey zones. Those that willing infringe calling themselves pirates, the term "piracy" is used to describe this act, and its almost impossible to find where "copyright infringement" or similar is used. In other words, its not that "piracy" is used at some different frequency as "copyright infringement", but that it is nearly used exclusively. It would be confusing to readers if we discussed piracy-related issues using "copyright infringement" while sources do not use this wording but instead use "piracy" exclusively. Other industries, like the music industry, I agree are far more complicated and there, "copyright infringement" is probably the better term overall. --MASEM (t) 16:42, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
        • @Masem: No middle ground? what about situations where A) the person downloading the game previously bought the game but it was destroyed/damaged, or B) Where the downloader would happily pay, but the game is no longer offered for sale and is only kept in circulation by torrent copies? Both of these situations could easily be called copyright violation, but A would in most precincts not be considered copyright violation or at least considered a grey area (see Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.), and B would generally always be considered copyright violation, however most people would agree that neither is morally wrong. I agree with you that exclusively using CI while sources generally use P doesn't make much sense.  InsertCleverPhraseHere  01:55, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
          • In which case we should follow what the sources say about these cases. I agree there is a small grey zone, but that's far smaller than the grey zone for the music or film industry. --MASEM (t) 03:38, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use "piracy" - to the average modern reader, piracy refers to ships. While there are some other meanings where the word is irreplaceable (e.g a specific sports team, a specific international organization), we should avoid the use in any context where it is avoidable. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:46, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I suppose I'm feeling a little confused about some of the opinions above. This little FBI notification still shows up at the beginning of most films, and it clearly uses the phrase "piracy" to mean "theft of this copyrighted work". --Izno (talk) 17:17, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Which accomplishes nothing because "theft" is also a pejorative term. If you define "piracy" and "theft" to mean "all use of a copyrighted work without permission that is not fair use", we are getting somewhere. But then we are right back at the problem of labelling an often harmless activity as inherently villainous. Connor Behan (talk) 21:06, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
  • No blanket decision, obviously. Folks, you understand the concept of a homonym, right? A word can have more than one connotation. It is not the role of Wikipedia to rule by rote on whether a word's usage was the result of "MPAA propaganda" or whatever. Follow the sources (as required by NPOV). VQuakr (talk) 17:33, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Avoid the term "piracy" except in direct quotations, or where it has become part of the accepted and well-known name for a particular event or controversy, in line with WP:COMMONNAME. But when speaking in Wikipedia's voice, use "copyright infringement" with or without an "alleged", as circumstances may warrant, or some similar neutral descriptive term. DES (talk) 21:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
  • This is beginning to look like a foregone decision in favor of deprecating/discouraging using the word "piracy". FWIW, about the only reason I can think of to prefer "piracy" over a more neutral term such as "copyright infringement" is when one quotes a source using that word. -- llywrch (talk) 17:07, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Good point. Compare how we deal with sources that use the terms "anti-life", "pro-life", "anti-choice" and "pro-choice". We pretty much avoid those terms except in direct quotes, and we tend to avoid even quoting them. Sometimes we allow "pro-life" or "pro-choice" because that's what they call themselves, but we pretty much always reject "anti-life" and "anti-choice", because that's what their enemies call them. "Piracy" is a term coined by the copyright monopoly. Yes, a lot of blatant (and anonymous) copyright infringers use the term to tweak the nose of the copyright monopoly, but it is still an innately POV term not suitable for an encyclopedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:43, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Follow the sources per Masem. As opposed to what people like Od Mishehu say, "piracy" is common usage among various communities (most notably, as has already been pointed out, video games), and does not have the inherent pejorative connotation most of you believe it does. I'm actually rather surprised by the course of this discussion; to me it seems like those in support of not using "piracy" are the ones blatantly espousing a WP:POV. ansh666 18:59, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Do not use piracy except in articles that discuss copyright issues as part of the conflict. Elswhere, the term is non-neutral and ambiguous. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:18, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Avoid "piracy" except in direct quotes Of course, if using a direct quote, we must use it verbatim. The same is true of the names of organizations or the like. When speaking in "Wikipedia's voice", however, "copyright infringement", "unauthorized copying", etc., are good, specific, neutral terms, and should almost always be preferred. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:27, 15 April 2016 (UTC)
  • FBI calls it Piracy, so use what is sourced all those claiming that the term "piracy" is RIAA/MPAA propaganda haven't watched a movie recently. Before every American movie/DVD/Blue-Ray the following warning comes up (unless you're watching a pirated movie), courtesy of the FBI. FBI Anti-Piracy Warning Seal from: https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/white_collar/ipr/anti-piracy — Preceding unsigned comment added by ‎ Sir Joseph (talk • contribs) 20:50, 19 April 2016
    • Good Lord, I hope you don't think the FBI of all things is some sort of neutral source. We're talking about an agency that in theory is tasked with investigating violations of federal law, but in practice, openly and despicably lobbies the legislature for its detestable policy preferences. --Trovatore (talk) 21:06, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

On Wikipedia, is it true that "During a dispute, until a consensus is established to make a change, the status quo reigns"?

In WP:STATUSQUO, a statement is made in Wikipedia's voice that "During a dispute, until a consensus is established to make a change, the status quo reigns." Is there any policy or guideline supporting this statement? Is this appropriate advice to give? LK (talk) 12:07, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

That's an essay, not a policy or guideline. The same with WP:BRD which says the same sort of thing. It is very good advice but it is not absolute, if something does not have a citation and seems very dubious then that can be a good reason for removing until a citation is provided for instance. Dmcq (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
What you're describing is a bias for removal. The claim is made here that there's a bias to keep as is. Suppose I remove an statement in a BLP, and my removal is reverted. This says, the bias is to keep the statement if it's been there for a while (whether cited or uncited). Also, WP:BRD is very careful about not making claims about policy. LK (talk) 12:32, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
BLP's are subject to the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy. As per the BLP policy, any uncited/contentious information can be removed and *stays* removed unless it is reliably sourced or judged not to be a BLP violating issue and can be restored by consensus. Even if something is not strictly a BLP issue, it will often stay removed until consensus is formed on the talkpage to restore it due to the sensitive nature of BLPs. When editing biographies, like every other article on wikipedia, if you add material that is not already in the article and someone removes it - you need to form consensus on the talkpage to include the material. This is where WP:BRD and WP:STATUSQUO come into play. They are not *policy* as per BLP, but they are best practice guidelines for collaborative work. Your question appears to have a specific target, do you have a recent example that can be looked at? Otherwise (excepting BLP's) it needs to be judged individual depending on the material being removed/added. Generally yes, in an editing *dispute* the status quo should stay unless there are mitigating policies (BLP etc), otherwise you have people ending up edit-warring. If the dispute is between you and one other person, you need to get a third opinion. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:48, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
In principle, that is true about BLPs, but in practice, i see plenty of slanderous negative things in BLPs when there is a concerted effort by a group of editors to slander that person in their bio, and all policies be damned, they'll do whatever it takes, including gang editing, filibustering, original research, whatever it takes, to impose their agenda. SageRad (talk) 13:16, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
What matters in an article is what is right -- we need to get the articles right above all. The status quo doesn't matter by default although it's good manners to not go around messing with articles for the heck of it, without just cause. What matters is that the article is supportable an accurate according to the world of reliable sources on the topic, and gives due weight to the various subtopics of the article, and represents controversial viewpoints accurately as such. There is no policy favoritism to the status quo and anyone who tells you so is full of it, and probably using policy to push an agenda, because true arguments really rely on sources and reason and civil discussion in good faith among editors. 13:16, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
Actually articles are required to be verifiable. Not 'right'. Which is why you tend not to get on well as your definition of 'right' is quite often at odds with others. Also your comments on BLP's are laughably incorrect. The BLP noticeboard is one of the few that acts quickly on reported violations - if you think there are 'slanderous' BLP's under the control of a cabal of editors, feel free to name them there. In practice what happens is you show up at an articles talkpage, declare it is non-neutral and attempt to edit it to conform to your personal opinions (a mixture of anti-science and pro-psudoscience woo promoting) then claim everyone has an agenda (except yourself) when you get reverted. It is unsurprising your favoured anti-science BLP's seem to be under the 'control' of people opposed to you. The relevant policies which favour the 'status quo' are WP:Burden which applies to the most common form of adding/removing content - sourcing, WP:NPOV which governs the use of info added/removed that would affect the neutrality of the article (an article that is already considered neutral which has WP:UNDUE content added or removed is obviously going to be reverted to the status quo until consensus is achieved), and WP:Consensus - Consensus links directly to guidelines and essays like WP:BRD because they are best practice in order to achieve consensus. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)
So do we agree that in policy, there's no particular favor for status quo. Rather, the bias is for removal of bad material, whether it's unverified or poorly verified material per WP:BURDEN, or biased per WP:BLP and WP:UNDUE? LK (talk) 09:40, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
The bias in an edit dispute (both adding and removal of material) is always for the status quo UNLESS there are mitigating circumstances such as bad sourcing, BLP violations etc which would lead towards removal (and consensus to return it to the article). If there is no clear argument for material being removed (or added), the status quo stays until consensus is reached on the talk page for changes. Otherwise editors end up blocked for edit warring. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:05, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
I think there's a bias for removal of unsupported material in BLPs especially, or anywhere that the material might do harm. If it's rather neutral but unsupported by reliable sources then my choice is to leave it in place if there is not reason to doubt it, and if there is some reason to doubt it then to tag it with a "source needed" tag. I prefer to bias toward leaving things in rather than removing material, as many things can be the input of editors who wrote without sources but with personal knowledge and that is allowable unless challenged, and i don't like when people "challenge" all material without sourcing just because they feel like it, like they're on sort of purging mission. I find that actually harmful to the encyclopedia. SageRad (talk) 13:04, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
"Which is why you tend not to get on well" --> drop your personal attacks. I tend not to "get on well" with people who use personal attacks like this constantly. SageRad (talk) 12:59, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
When i say right -- i mean correct according to the best reliable sources, and representing them well. That includes "verifiable" in a sense but right is the word i chose to use and you chose to attack me and characterize me as not getting on well. I get on well with all people who are not bullying and agenda-pushing. SageRad (talk) 13:01, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
I will note that "Only in death" has had serious issues with me in the past, and conflicts, and seems to have it out because of my username being my username, probably not really because of what i said here, and therefore i ask them to leave personal grudges at the door and assume good faith and refrain from personal attacks and aspersions and mischaracterizations, etc. SageRad (talk) 13:05, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
I notice you still have not given any evidence to support your blatant misrepresentations of BLP articles being controlled by cabals of slanderous editors. Come back when you have some. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:26, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
It's not a statement that needs "proof" though i could if i cared to. It's a reckoning by one person. And then you responded with ad hominem -- that shows a lot about your character. SageRad (talk) 21:19, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Bluntly, SageRad, I rolled my eyes the moment I saw you involved in this discussion. Only in death is not wrong here. Literally the only contribution you have made to this particular discussion is to cast aspersions and then engage in long winded whining when challenged on it. Resolute 15:35, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Well no thanks for the support of the ad hominem bully. Add one more editor who lacks basic integrity to speak to content rather than to go to personal attacks and slander. Not rare here, unfortunately. SageRad (talk) 21:19, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
Your first post was to cast aspersions without demonstrating the basic integrity required to support your claim. So before you lecture, you should take a serious look in the mirror first. Resolute 23:19, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
My first post in this section, beginning with "In principle, ...", did not cast aspersions to anyone here. Do you disagree? SageRad (talk) 12:18, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

This is all getting beside the point. Can I at least get agreement that "the status quo reigns" is too strong? This can be used as a 'hammer' by experienced editors to revert and drive newbies away. Shouldn't it be a weaker claim like, "unless controverted by policy, the status quo is preferred." LK (talk) 15:57, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

I disagree, actually. "Won't someone think of the newbies" is a rhetorical tactic that pleads for us to govern from an emotional basis rather than a logical one. Absent a policy-based reason to do otherwise, a change that is challenged should remain absent pending discussion and consensus. So yes, in most cases, the status quo reigns. This is built upon the presumption that the status quo enjoys consensus support. That, basically, is the point of the essay: There needs to be a good reason to move away from status quo ante during a dispute. Resolute 16:07, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree. WP:NOCON is part of the policy Consensus. It states, "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." The essay, in this respect, seems to be consistent with the applicable policy. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 16:16, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
There needs to be good reason to either change or to keep the status quo -- and anything questioned can be re-examined at any time using the best reliable sources. SageRad (talk) 21:19, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
You're just re-stating what I said. You make a bold edit, I challenge by reverting. So we examine the claim using the best reliable sources. But absent an overriding concern, we retain status quo during that deliberation. Resolute 23:19, 19 April 2016 (UTC)
I don't think so. You said "in most cases, the status quo reigns" and i said it doesn't reign. You say there is a status quo ante and i say there is not. I think we are saying different things. SageRad (talk) 12:20, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
While I have certainly found it to be true that "a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit", it is also common during a dispute that an administrator must step in and protect the article until the dispute has been settled. When that happens I have been told over and over and by administrators that when they are alerted to the dispute, whatever state they find the article in at the time they lock it against editing, is where it stays put until the dispute is settled. I guess there are always exceptions, but if the last edit was performed by the "bold editor", that's where it sits till there's an agreement. When you do finally hammer out a consensus agreement by RfC or whatever, it's a pretty strong statement of consensus and "status quo" against someone messing with it again. Just make sure you're nice to the new guy on the block and point out the previous discussions. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:59, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

Religion: Jewish

Asked and answered. Recently closed RFC addressed this. Lets not rehash the same argument again. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:00, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have been witness to a number of pretty rancorous discussions over the use of "Religion: Jewish" in biography infoboxes. The two most recent discussions were at the talk page for Bernie Sanders (you can read it [here], and, now ongoing, at Talk:Stanley Milgram ([here]). Since this is a very touchy issue with a number of Wikipedia editors, I thought it might be worth making a general policy decision about this.

You can all read the endless arguments over this issue in the discussions cited. Here is a brief summary: Opponents of including "Religion: Jewish" in the infobox contend that there must be explicit, self-stated proof that the subject of the article actually practiced the Jewish religion as an adult - that is, attended synagogue, or participated in Jewish rituals, and so on. If a person says, "I am Jewish", that is not enough, because Judaism can be seen as an ethnicity, as well as a religion. A person, contend these opponents, can be ethnically Jewish, eat gefilte fish and say "Oy" when frustrated, but not be religiously Jewish. The religion parameter of the infobox is reserved only for those who actually practice a religion, so say the opponents.

The supporters of "Religion: Jewish" contend that this distinction is largely bogus, and, indeed, many of them find the distinction actually offensive (full disclosure: I now don't really have an opinion one way or the other, though, when the arguments first started, I did find them offensive). Many people self-identify as Jews, as children perhaps went to religious school and had Bar Mitzvahs, perhaps they had Jewish weddings (but perhaps not), and perhaps expect to be buried in a Jewish cemetery (or not), but have no active involvement in Jewish practice as adults. Many (Milgram is almost certainly one of these) actually are practicing Jews (for example, they attend and participate in Passover Seder) but leave no documentary evidence of this.

I believe that the reason many of the supporters find this issue so touchy is that requiring documentary proof of religious practice for Jews sets a much higher standard than for other religions. No one seems to be challenging the religion parameter of most members of the US Congress, even though a great many of those who identify themselves with various Christian denominations have not seen the inside of a church for years.

So I think a general policy decision on the issue would help avoid a lot of angst.

Regards,

--Ravpapa (talk) 16:47, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Excellent!! That settles it, then. Thank you, --Ravpapa (talk) 20:01, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
Concerning religion in infoboxes (religion in the body of the article has different rules):
From WP:BLPCAT: "Categories regarding religious beliefs (or lack of such) should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources" ... "These principles apply equally to lists, navigation templates, and Infobox statements".
From WP:CAT/R: "Categories regarding religious beliefs or lack of such beliefs of a living person should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief in question (see WP:BLPCAT), either through direct speech or through actions like serving in an official clerical position for the religion."
Per WP:LOCALCON, a local consensus on an article talk page can not override the overwhelming (75% to 25%) consensus at Template talk:Infobox#RfC: Religion in infoboxes that nonreligions cannot be listed in the religion entry of any infobox.
The word "Jew/Jewish" is a special case and has has several meanings, some nonreligious. The source cited needs to specify the Jewish religion (Judaism), as opposed to someone saying "I am a Jew", which could refer to nonreligions such as ethnicity or culture. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:56, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
Guy Macon—in fact "Jew/Jewish" is not a "special case". We abide by the findings of reliable sources. We do not engage in original research. Bus stop (talk) 03:23, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
Which is what Guy macon said. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:30, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Jews should not be held to greater scrutiny than Christians.

Mitt Romney: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Rick Santorum: Roman Catholicism
Rick Perry: Nondenominational Evangelicalism
Elizabeth Warren: United Methodism
Rand Paul: Presbyterianism
Joe Biden: Roman Catholic
Jim Webb: Nondenominational Christianity
Chris Christie: Roman Catholicism
Jeb Bush: Episcopalianism
Lincoln Chafee: Episcopalian
Marco Rubio:Roman Catholicism
John Kasich: Anglicanism
Ted Cruz: Southern Baptist
Ben Carson: Seventh-day Adventist
Hillary Clinton: Methodist
Donald Trump: Presbyterianism
Martin O'Malley: Roman Catholicism
Carly Fiorina: Nondenominational Christianity
Jim Gilmore: Methodism
Lindsey Graham: Southern Baptist
Mike Huckabee: Southern Baptist
Bobby Jindal: Roman Catholicism
George Pataki: Roman Catholicism
Scott Walker: Nondenominational Evangelicalism

Wikipedia is not in the business of evaluating the religiosity of candidates for the US presidential election. Yet Bernie Sanders does not have Religion: Jewish in the Infobox. Wikipedia should not aspire to be a parochial encyclopedia. Bus stop (talk) 03:56, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Religion is a big deal in the US, a high proportion of US Presidential candidates have made clear and unambiguous assertions of faith. But that doesn't mean we should override our policies to create a primary source or to try to be comprehensive about something that may not be public. It simply isn't our role to fill in this gap. Leave it to him, or in the long run his biographers. ϢereSpielChequers 07:23, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Video thumbnail image licensing: Can we use them?

I simply couldn't find a more suitable venue to ask, and am not so great with the technicalities of licensing, so without further ado:

Many YouTube and Vimeo hosted video thumbnails show in Google's image search results as being e.g. "Labelled for noncommercial reuse" (and other categories).

An example of one such thumbnail is used for Google’s Cool Star Wars Easter Egg hosted by Vimeo.

Can we reuse these images on articles? fredgandt 20:36, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Non-commercial use is considered non-free for en.wiki's purposes. This means while they can be used they must meet the criteria for WP:NFCC. --MASEM (t) 20:38, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Masem - Can you help me out by providing a link to where this stuff is clearly outlined? I'm not being lazy, I have looked, but went 'round and 'round and 'round and still could find anything. fredgandt 16:10, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Probably WP:NFC, which is the guideline outline how NFCC should be approached. Also note if you're trying to upload, you should use Wikipedia:File Upload Wizard to help fill in things that will meet NFCC. --MASEM (t) 16:14, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Oh yes, I've been there. I guess I am lazy after all! I hope you won't mind me coming to your talk page to continue a more specific discussion. Thanks. fredgandt 16:22, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Company icons in edit history pages

I am thinking of a proposal to allow company icons in edit history pages for disclosing conflict of interest. I think it will require changes to MediaWiki to do so though. Should I file a MediaWiki bug? Yuhong (talk) 22:37, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Off the cuff, I am flat out opposed to the idea of icons in histories. Since we have strict guidelines about COI edits, any that make it into articles will have to be approved by the community, and as such become implicitly not considered COI - if you catch my drift. So any indication of COI would need to be declared, and if it is, and is published, why would we need to know that it was COI? fredgandt 22:52, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
The idea would be the icon would have to be approved by the admins after submitting proof of the conflict of interest, after which they can edit Wikipedia directly if the admins approve. Yuhong (talk) 02:49, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
With a great deal of respect to that august body of persons, I believe that we should be finding ways for admins to have less influence on content, not more; not least for their own protection against accusations of involvement. I also concur with the non-free images point raised by Masem below. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 03:39, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
There's also a serious issue of many company icons being non-free images, and this would not be an allowable use. --MASEM (t) 23:39, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
MediaWiki bug is here: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T133479 Yuhong (talk) 03:51, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
With respect, given that all responding editors have been opposed to the idea, filing a bug would seem to be more than a touch presumptuous. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 05:03, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
This is just to add support to the MediaWiki software. It would be up to the wikis whether to use it. -- Yuhong (talk) 07:09, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
Probably less presumptuous if there was a wiki which had established a desire to use it. FWIW, the non-free images issue seems insurmountable; there may be less issue with a generic COI image - which I would still not support. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 08:56, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
Remember that companies can self host their own MediaWiki instances for example. If employees can get permission to edit Wikipedia, they can likely ask about permission to use the company image. - Yuhong (talk) 10:09, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
That's not what is the issue - we'd need to have the company agree to have their logo released in a free license, and that's not the same as simply giving permission for its use. --MASEM (t) 14:25, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
Absolutely not, this would quickly turn in to advertising - now I might not be opposed to a single indicator like (COI) or something that would be applied - but then --someone would need to declare "this edit is a COI" to enact it? — xaosflux Talk 22:39, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

ReAsking: "An ultimate Wikipedia:Autopatrolled?"

Trying to get some attention to this issue, im reasking some question that gor archived without response:

This is a varsion of questions i asked erlier on Help desk. Thought it's a good idea to ask them here as well:

1. I understand autopatrolled users are not being checked just for new articles they create. I wonder have the community ever discussed what would be the implications of creating a new status for complete auto-patrolled users? Correct me if im wrong, but in simple terms auto-patrolling means that "this user will always create useful and well written new pages, therefore checking him/her is pointless". This a strong right, that show great deal of respect to the wikipedian. It is also a given by nomination, rather than by consensus or voting. My question essentially is what will happened if we extend this right to auto-patrolling each and every edit? These users would be auto-marked for each edit they make, meaning every edit is auto-patrolled. Do you think there were discussion on this topic? I searched and couldn't find it.

Generally Im curious about wiki policy on patrolling. I understand there are two major patrolling projects in wiki: Newpages patrol and Recent change patrol. There is also Pending Changes Reviewer and Roll-backers. Am i forgetting any important ones? Also autopatrolled users area passive part of the patrolling procedure, as they are bypassing the new pages patrol. does ultimately, the community wish every edit would be patrolled by trustworthy community members? If the answer is yes (which i doubt, but that's the whole point), creating the above mentioned status seems to answer this need as well. The "ultimate autopatrolled user" will would also get some kind of "positive patroling" effect when they revert or change any page they edit. Do you think it can help monitor pages?

3. Do you know if there are wikis that require every edit to be patrolled? Are there statistics that cross wikis on this kind of specifics?

Thank you all,

Mateo (talk) 17:40, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

16:46, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2016_April_16#Wikipedia:Autopatrolled for reference. @Mateo:
Re 1): You seem to have missed the epic debate about "pending changes"/"Flagged revisions" extension. Take a week off and start reading up.
Re 3): German Wikipedia, polish WP too and a dozen others. See meta:Flagged revisions and talk page. --Atlasowa (talk) 22:16, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
1) Where is that epic debate???
3) Great stuff, will read!
Mateo (talk) 10:23, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
WP:PC/RFC2012 was the culmination of it (which I helped close), and it has links to the earlier discussions dating back to 2009/2010. After that was another round of discussions at WP:PC2012/RfC 1, WP:PC2012/RfC 2, and WP:PC2012/RfC 3 (I was the only one of the 4 closers of the previously linked discussion willing to take those on). More recently there was some discussion about PC level 2, someone will no doubt find that. (As a quick aside I still have no feeling at all about PC, I suspect I'll never be able to care one way or the other about it) The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:01, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Scotland

I would like to propose that Scotland is given different treating on Wikipedia,than what it already gets. First of all I would like it to be acknowledged, Scotland's right to exist as an entity, a country and a national identity. Following that I wish for Scotland to be on equal terms to the likes of Aruba, part of the Netherlands in the Carribean. Unlike Scotland, Aruba gets its on entry in the Coverage of Google Street View page. I would like Scotland to receive this as well. Finally, I would like Scottish people to be referred to as Scottish instead of British, as that would be what they would say their national identity was if they were to be asked about it. Pablothepenguin (talk) 20:43, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Your wish to list Scotland in Coverage of Google Street View is already discussed at Talk:Coverage of Google Street View where it belongs. One article with its own specific issues like different dates for Netherlands/Aruba but the same for the whole UK [14] is not suited for a general policy discussion here. See Wikipedia:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom for some advice and links. This proposal is too vague and ignores previous discussions. I suggest it's closed before a long discussion that is unlikely to achieve what others haven't. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:39, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Is anyone actually going to discuss this issue here? Pablothepenguin (talk) 08:16, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Unlikely. Unless you actually have an idea for a policy that has a chance of passing - 'Pretend Scotland is not part of Great Britain' is not it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 08:31, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
What i see at Scotland is "Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain." Do you wish something different? SageRad (talk) 10:07, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Treatment on par with Aruba. Pablothepenguin (talk) 13:33, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Thats a decision for a consensus discussion at Talk:Coverage of Google Street View as PrimeHunter has already mentioned. In short - there are practical reasons why some sub-nations/protectorates are listed separately from their parent country. They are geographically separate and were mapped at different times. Great Britain was (generally) mapped as a whole so little benefit to be had by breaking down the country into its component nations where the presented info would be identical. Assuming this is an ideological issue (Scotland should be free!) Wikipedia:Nationality of people from the United Kingdom explains that nations as part of the UK are generally treated on an individual basis and in context for the article in which they are used. Which is not inconsistant with how the Google Street View table is organised. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:03, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Specifically, what does Aruba article have that Scotland article does not? SageRad (talk) 13:57, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
Apparently, the Aland islands in Finland are allowed on the Street View article. So, why can't Scotland be allowed as well? I demand Scottish recognition on that page. Pablothepenguin (talk) 11:44, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
This is a page to discuss general policies and guidelines for an encyclopedia with five million articles. Keep the dicussion at Talk:Coverage of Google Street View. We are not going to make an official Wikipedia policy with details like whether Scotland should be included in a specific list about a website. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:29, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Placement of Google Doodle template

I've noticed a couple discussions related to the use of Template:Google Doodle, which is now added to pages linked from Google Doodles. However, this template and policy seem to have been implemented without a consensus, and I have seen several users (e.g. @Gobonobo:) raise questions about whether such a template is needed. Indeed, I feel that there are several drawbacks - they add no encyclopedic value to an article, are highlighting the action of an external party (Google) with no relevance to Wikipedia, and clutter the top of the page. What's the distinction between putting an article on Google Doodle articles versus other high-profile articles (or even FATD) that are likely to draw a lot of new users? It's a slippery slope, and there's no encyclopedic value (unlike the templates for recent news events, or those warning of potential biases) for cluttering the top of the *article page* with another template. I wanted to bring this here for general broader discussion and see if we can reach a consensus one way or another. If there's no consensus in favor of adding them, then I think the use of such a template should be deprecated (or at the very least shifted to the talk pages). Also pinging @Stillnotelf: so s/he can chime in here too (we were in a discussion at Talk:Hertha Marks Ayrton; also see Wikipedia talk:Today's articles for improvement/Google Doodle task force.) 2607:F6D0:CED:5BA:D41F:9C10:2CF0:6985 (talk) 20:24, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

If you feel the template is inappropriate, you may nominate it for deletion through TFD. Personally, I find it rather useful, as traffic to google doodle related pages surges after the doodle comes out, and Wikipedia is usually at the top of the search results. Pinguinn (🐧) 21:23, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

When is it appropriate to include net worth in a BLP

Hi all. I noticed early last year there was a discussion about Net worth, where the conclusion seemed to be that the decision to include should be made on an article-to-article basis, where reliable sources are available and it is pertinent to the article's subject. Recently, an editor (130.65.109.103) has been mass-adding net worths to articles cited to the unreliable source CelebrityNetWorth. When I pointed out to this editor that this was not a reliable source, they continued to mass-add net worths and estimated annual incomes using different sources. I was wondering if there exist general guidelines as to what "pertinent to the article's subject means", and when the inclusion of net worth is appropriate and when it constitutes WP:UNDUE coverage. I believe the inclusion of estimates of annual income, for instance, are generally inappropriate, as are net worths in articles about people not known for business or financial endeavours. I'm curious in particular what people have to say about musicians, actors, writers, and scientists. Intelligentsium 22:39, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Let us face a reality: the world of the Internet is changing. You can now type into Google search any notable person's name with the suffix "net worth" and get some information, often in a Google-special box as the first hit. That was not the case five or ten years ago, when Wikipedia was younger. Net_worth and salary of notable people are transitioning from private to public. Sites like CelebrityNetWorth might yet become a reliable source someday.--130.65.109.103 (talk) 22:52, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Be as that may, Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for anything that can be found on Google. There has to be some indication that the information is relevant to the article's subject for it to be included. Intelligentsium 22:57, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
But if you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&limit=500&offset=0&target=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fprofile%2F you will see that we already point to a lot of Forbes profiles in BLPs. I support that there is also the issue of how/why did the person become notable. For, say, professional athletes or musical artists or even authors, they did it, perhaps in part, for the money.--130.65.109.103 (talk) 23:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Almost all of the links already present that you're citing are about businesspeople, entrepreneurs, and businesses themselves. In fact, I checked the first 10 article pages and all of them are. There is long-standing consensus to include net worth in articles about businesspeople but I wish to assess the consensus on other types of biographical articles. Athletes are another interesting case - I can see how one might make the argument that a musician or performer is a "businessperson" in it for the money too but it's a bit harder in the case of athletes no? Intelligentsium 23:11, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
Then we get into mind reading: why did they do it? Why did they do whatever they did to become notable. Was it for both fame and fortune? It is easy to say so for businesspeople. But for these others, we might be engaging in hero worship to suggest that this or that notable person did it for the amateur love of the activity. It is safer to assume that they did it for greed for the money and just report the financial figures. Any CPA would agree and just say that if it was not for greed, then apologies but we are still going to report the figures.--130.65.109.103 (talk) 23:33, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
That's not what I mean. The motivations of the subject of the article are quite irrelevant (unless you're suggesting the ideal would be to report the net worths of people who did it for the money, and not report for the ones who didn't, even if they have the same career?). My question is more along the lines of, for what professions/types of people is it likely that the net worth will be relevant, generally available from reliable sources, and of interest to the reader?
Also, CPA? That might be true but this is an encyclopaedia, not a tax return - there's no need to report every figure. Intelligentsium 13:19, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
  • There's two separate questions here. First, it is appropriate to include net worth (or any other fact) in a BLP (or any biography) if reliable sources state that and it's actually relevant. For a BLP, we need really good reliable sources. For the second question, I'd say CelebrityNetWorth is not a reliable source but that question is better settled at a board like WP:RSN than at the village pump. The question is whether CelebrityNetWorth has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". As someone who has dealt with Indian film box office numbers, there's a lot of terrible alleged sources out there and it takes time to figure out this. Separately, I find little evidence that any secondary source actually cares about these net worths (we need something akin to "according to CelebrityNetWorth, this person's net worth is X and this is important because of Y" to avoid WP:UNDUE import to this basically trivial guessing to me). -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:21, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
I'd say the key question here is relevance (I'm assuming that a RS has been found). If the networth has not been the subject of substantial coverage, why would we want to include it? The default position should probably be don't include. My 2p.Pincrete (talk) 09:55, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree, though it's a bit unclear what "relevance" means. For example, is net worth relevant for a musician? What about an author? A scientist? What about a scientist who is also an acclaimed author? Forbes tend to profile a large number of people, so I would lean towards saying Forbes should be concerned a reliable source if the net worth is to be included, but not sufficient to justify including it on its own. I also think there's a scale component as well - there's absolutely no reason to include the net worth of a person if it's a few tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, even if others in the same profession have net worths included (for example, an athlete who doesn't take sponsorships or a bankrupt businessman). Intelligentsium 14:01, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I'm on the relevance bandwagon too. I could see where the issue of net worth might be relevant in the Bill Gates or Donald Trump article, but is it that relevant to say an author who wrote a moderately notable book? Probably not. Niteshift36 (talk) 19:35, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

How to make neutral fashion designer's page in Wiki?

How should I create a fashion designer's page not to be punished for advertising? What are the exact 'rules' and 'definitions' of marketing/advertising? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AliseTrautmane (talk • contribs) 18:58, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

Make sure to avoid WP:COI conflict of interest. In other words if you have any personal or business stake with the designer (or their article) you should not create such a page, in any circumstance
Secondly check whether the designer is sufficiently notable as evidenced by independent reports in reliable sources to warrant a Wikipedia article following WP:BIO.
Finally make sure that you write in a neutral tone of voice, and stay away from normative statements (like "this brilliant designer") and support all facts with reliable sources.
These are no guarantees you will get no criticism, but rather a lower level that needs to be met before you should even consider creating such an article. Hope this helps a bit Arnoutf (talk) 19:15, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC on Appeals of RevDel usage

See Wikipedia_talk:Revision_deletion#RfC_on_Appeal_of_RevDel_usage, which attempts to clarify what should happen when editors disagree about the usage of revision deletion. ~ RobTalk 23:34, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

CSD g13

add g13 to include non afc drafts as well... Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ (talk) 14:19, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Diagram image size (on wikipedia webpage) should be increased. (Creating a discussion)

Recently on a conversation with another user another user , I came to know, diagram size could-not be increased about a certain limit.

I quote the talk here

May 2016
Information icon Hello, I'm ChamithN. I wanted to let you know that one or more of your recent contributions to Stereophonic sound has been undone because it did not appear constructive. If you would like to experiment, please use the sandbox. If you think I made a mistake, or if you have any questions, you can leave me a message on my talk page. See MOS:IMGSIZE ChamithN (talk) 05:27, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

as a matter of fact, before knowing this, where-ever in Wikipedia I encounter diagrams , whose labelings are not visible at-a-glance, or difficultly readable, I tried to increase the image size.

While reading a scientific text, clicking on the diagrams all the time (to read the labelings) , is quite irritating.

In-fact many critical things actually may remained unnoticed if someone read a scientific text , not matching it with the diagram. And also, several times while reading Wiki pages i've noticed i've missed a diagram (didn't click on a diagram), Just because i couldn't read some labelings of the diagram at-a-glance, so didn't realize the importance. (think about a person trying to understand a phenomenon, thinking, scribbling on paper, flipping pages of books & websites, obviously be benefited if the person could realize, clicking on which link would reach to stronger answer. Or think about a non-expert , say a kid, is reading a topic. Normally it could fail to decide click on an image, and thereafter correlating the thought with text. )

The above mentioned user also informed me, these guidelines helps mobile user.

Now, if it is the only cause, then as a suggestion, I could say, the 'mobile view' could be loaded as the default view in the mobile-users, and in that , smaller-size image could be sent. And the desktop users could access the fully readable page at one chance.

Common sense tells , diagrams should appear in properly readable sizes. Surprisingly, there exists a trend to show photographs in larger size and diagrams in smaller size. But the thing should be opposite (with exceptions also). Reading the diagrams should run with te text, without clicking them/ opening them on a separate page.

( A related issue: in case of PDF download also, the images are often unclear due to small size, moreover, though Wikipedia shows larger size images also; forceful insertion of the image into 1 of the 2 columns, make them unclear. That could be resolved by not inserting the detailed-diagrams inside the columns, rather printing them separately using a large portion of the A4 page)

Thanks. RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 14:21, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Schoolblocks

In the early days of Wikipedia, shared IP templates were created to point out hey, this IP represents a bunch of people, don't assume what happened yesterday is from the same person as what happened today, and if you do block this IP, keep it short because there will be collateral damage. It was not unusual to see blocks say things like have your system administrator contact me to have this block removed. Sysops have become block happy with schools (and some even [to having elaborate plans of identifying school IPs]). What is particularly disturbing to me are rangeblocks on entire states' networks, such as this block by @Materialscientist:, and this block by @JamesBWatson: (which I will start an AN/I about tomorrow), neither of which appear to have had any discussion prior to their implementation. These rangeblocks on state networks bother me; even if you want to argue schools cause more trouble than productive activity, libraries and universities could in the future join those IP ranges and no one would even know unless someone requested unblocking. I know of at least one public library system in Florida which uses the Florida Information Resource Network, and it would be affected if a sysop similarly rangeblocked FIRN to stop the pom-pom type editing tests and vandalism from schools. In my opinion, the real vandalism problem we have is with adults trying (sometimes quite cleverly) to inject their POV into articles, not middle and high school kids writing "Katryna <3" on pages; I can't tell you how many times I've seen grown-up places like big corporations, federal agencies, and the military tagged with {{CheckUser block}}, something that happens when there's serious issues, and something I rarely ever see schools tagged with despite the schoolblocks not stopping logged in editing. If anything, it seems we should be heavy handed with those kind of places instead of schools (and this comes from a grown 24 year old, not some kid crying discrimination). Also in my opinion, we have enough mechanisms in place to deal with the pom-pom type editing tests and vandalism without putting into effect blocks that could stop a good faith contributor from making his/her first edit. As I said on JamesBWatson's talk page, the pom-pom type editing tests and vandalism that schools spew out are like sugar ants on the floor in a restaurant. It doesn't look good if the customers or the Division of Restaurants see them, but they're really not hurting anything. Not to mention, anyone stumbling upon it can easily remove it. What really hurts Wikipedia is the POV pushing and deliberate factual inaccuracies, which are more like cockroaches on the cook line in a restaurant, which may not be spotted as quickly by customers but spread disease causing germs. When the customers get sick from eating at the establishment, they may not return. Similarly, if someone gets bad information from Wikipedia, they may not return. That's not to say that schools aren't responsible for that kind of vandalism too, but I would argue there's not any more of that kind of vandalism from schools than there is from Hospital Corporation of America or General Motors; most of what I see from schools is stuff like "CHRIS IS A FAG" or "My name is Siobhan and I am deeply in love with Jeff <3." I would also argue that a lot of this so-called "school vandalism" isn't vandalism at all per official policy, but rather editing tests. How can we differentiate "silly vandalism" from editing tests unless there's a definite pattern (vandalism to the same article over and over again, excluding the high school's article or the town's article, posting the same thing over and over again, etc), especially when you consider how many times this pom-pom type vandalism gets self reverted? Assuming good faith according to official policy, I don't think a lot of the "school vandalism" is vandalism at all, but rather students curious about the editing process. That's not saying some of it isn't vandalism with malicious intent, but it's really hard to tell what is and isn't vandalism if editing experiments aren't vandalism, unless there's a real behavioral pattern. Another thing to consider is that, despite admins claiming the IPs they block do nothing but vandalize, we do get good faith edits from these IPs. 204.86.170.3 is currently under a long term block, despite this, this, this, this, this, this, and this, and if you look at the rest of the contributions, they were all just silliness and easily spotted and reverted. Then you have this state college IP with a mix of good and bad long-term blocked because @Gilliam: wants to stop the pom-pom editing tests at all costs.
Regardless of where you stand on this, I think we could probably agree that we need real policy on this matter rather than admins just blocking IPs and IP ranges for however long they want because IPs make editing tests and vandalism. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 07:26, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

A school is an institution where the same people will be around for a long time; and we only block school IPs where there actually are long-term problems. In {{school block}}, it says "Due to persistent vandalism (see edit log), anonymous editing from your school, library, or educational institution's IP address is blocked (disabled)"; unless there in a case of "persistent vandalism", {{school block}} shouldn't be used. And while there is a significant amount of disruption from "grown-up places like big corporations, federal agencies, and the military", I would tend to think that such places tend to have a higher percentage of edits which are actually helpful towards Wikipedia than schools do. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:58, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
We only block school IPs where there actually are long term problems. Then we need official policy on that, because no one told some of tge sysops that. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 17:39, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
These admins should see Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Blocks should be preventative, where it says that blocks should be used to "prevent imminent or continuing damage and disruption to Wikipedia"; this means that long term blocks should only be made for an IP address or range f there is long-term disruption coming from there. (While open proxies are an exception, these are rarely in schools and don't get {{school block}}s.) And admins who use templates for block reasons should know what the template says - in this case, "Due to persistent vandalism. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:08, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree, however, the sysoos I'm referring to will often use excuses like this IP does nothing but vandalize or there was vandalism 24 hours after the last block. If someone is going to sit there and tell me the same person patiently waited 2+ years for a block to expire and returned to vandalize some more, and for some reason didn't use other mediums to launch an LTA campaign (and these IPs are rarely tagged for socking, it seems), their obsession with maliciously using the school computers maliciously is probably something they should see a a doctor about. Otherwise, following WP:AGF, it's probably just test edits if there's no clear sign someone is trying to sabotage the encyclopedia. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 22:14, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
If the contributions on a school IP address (or mobile, which sometimes gets mistaken for a school) are a mix of good and bad edits (particularly if the ratio is typical of IP edits and it's just that those IP addresses are shared by more users) blocks should usually be shorter. Longer blocks would still be appropriate in some cases - persistent disruption by the same user, multiple edits suitable for revision deletion criteria 2 or 3 over a period of time, or IPs with numerous vandalism or test edits and nothing else. Peter James (talk) 23:19, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
Then why is Florida SouthWestern State College, at 169.139.115.67, and Charlotte County Public Schools, at 204.86.170.3, subject to extended blocks? Those IPs are a mix of good and bad. Yes, there's a lot of test editing, but not an unbearable amount of it (we don't have a daily dose of vandalism sprees from them), to me, the damage caused by the type of abuse from those IPs (very minimal) is not enough to stop even one good faith edit for an extended amount of time. Additionally, what is your take on long-term rangeblocks impacting entire states, just to stop pom-pom type test editing? Seems like overkill to me. Overkill that is not supported by policy. Policy calls for long term blocks to stop idiots like User:Grawp or User:Mmbabies, not infrequent pom-pom type test editing. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 00:56, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Sometimes a school IP address is the source of a sudden burst of vandalism, suggesting that either a single person or a couple or more kids playing around together are responsible. In such cases a warning very often puts an end to it, and if not then a short block will usually do the job: very often a block for a few hours is enough, and a couple of days at the most. Obviously, if the IP address also has a history of constructive editing, then that will weigh against a block of any sort, and if a block is considered it will even more likely to be a short one. Personally, I never place any kind of IP block without first carefully checking the history of the relevant IP address(es) over a time period of significantly more than the length of the block. If constructive edits are a substantial proportion of edits in the time period involved (even a substantial minority), then I do not place the block, even if it has the unfortunate effect of allowing some vandalism to continue.
  • Very different from the case of one sudden burst of vandalism (or several sudden bursts well separated) is the situation where a particular IP address or group of addresses is the source of endless continuing vandalism or other unconstructive editing. Very often, I have known the following to happen. An IP address is blocked for a short time, such as 48 hours, the vandalism returns immediately after the block expires. Several things happen to the vandalism edits: most of them are either reverted by editors who do nothing other than revert, so that nobody else is aware that teh vandalism took place, or else simply not noticed, so that some articles have false information in them for months or even years. A minority of the edits are reverted by editors who post warnings on the relevant IP talk page. Because these warnings come only for a small minority of the edits, and because warnings from a while ago are treated as stale, it can be a very long time before the vandalism is reported AIV or in some other way brought to the attention of an administrator. Consequently, what often happens is that short blocks alternate with long periods when the IP address is not blocked, and vandalism flourishes on a large scale. Short blocks are therefore of very limited use in these cases of persistent vandalism, in contrast to the situation I described above of sudden short bursts of vandalism.
  • Blocks are supposed to be preventive, not punitive. If a particular IP address or range of addresses has been the source of thousands of vandalism edits over the course of years, with no constructive edits or only a couple of dozen constructive edits among those thousands, then blocking the relevant IP address or addresses stands to prevent that vandalism. The argument that it is unlikely to be the same person who has patiently come back and vandalised years later is totally irrelevant, as the vandalism is the same whether it is one person or 200 people. The only possible way that I can think of that anyone could think that is relevant if they are thinking in terms of punishing the vandal, rather than in terms of preventing the vandalism. I also can't imagine why "this IP does nothing but vandalize" is described above as an "excuse" for blocking: isn't the fact that an IP address is the source of nothing but vandalism a perfectly good reason for blocking it? I also don't understand why "there's no clear sign someone is trying to sabotage the encyclopedia" is put forward as an argument: if there are edits at the rate of a hundred per day which add false information to articles, then those edits are disruptive and harmful, whether the intention is "to sabotage the encyclopedia" or not, and it seems reasonable to try to stop it. One's speculations as to what may be the intentions of the disruptive editors may influence the language one uses to describe it (e.g. whether one uses the word "vandalism") but there is no logical reason why a belief that disruption is not done with malicious intent should discourage one from taking what steps one can to prevent continuation of the disruption. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 09:41, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
But one could also argue IPs in general persistently vandalize. My understanding of policy is that blocks for persistent vandalism are to prevent the Energizer Bunny from going and going and going and going... with malicious edits. I would agree that if an IP produces a daily dose of vandalism sprees it's silly to mess around with short term blocks. However, I'm sure we can agree that CCPS and FSW, both under long term block, were not producing daily doses of vandalism sprees, and had some good faith contributions. Another case study: 208.66.198.214 belonging to Gulf Coast High School in Naples, Florida. Mostly silly, pom-pom type nonsense edits, easily spotted and reverted, and even if it's not, everybody pretty much knows that Wikipedia is editable, and an occasional occurrence of nonsense isn't going to destroy our reputation (in fact, someone spotting that kind of obvious nonsense and reverting it could be the next administrator, bureaucrat, checkuser, ArbCom member, or Wikimedia Foundation employee's first interaction with Wikipedia, thus creating a net positive). But, three of the last 50 edits were constructive, that may have been that person's first edit, and that person may have registered an account now and could be writing featured articles now thanks to that first taste of editing Wikipedia. As for /16 ranges, don't be silly, just don't. For one thing, word of mouth has gone around that those institutions were blocked from editing for the last two years while that range was blocked, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the only edits coming from 100s of thousands of users were curious test editors. Furthermore, if you look at the last 50 or 100 edits coming from a Comcast or CenturyLink /16 at the wrong time of the day (not any specific time, just wrong place wrong time) you'll probably find nothing but vandalism there too. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 19:25, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
According to one study, about 82% of all anonymous edits are actually not vandalism. If a single IP address/range shows around 20% vandalism, that's average; if it shows around 20% non-vandalism, that's very bad. If a single sample of 50 edits shows not a single non-vandalism edit, you can be almost completely (around 99.5%) certain that at least 90% of its edits are vandalism. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 21:09, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
If you're saying that these IPs should be blocked because they produce more bad then good, fine, but there needs to be policy on it. One of our foreign language sisters blocks all schools from editing based on a policy they created. Maybe we need that kind of policy here? Also, "test edits" are not vandalism per WP:Vandalism, but "silly vandalism" is. How do you differentiate between the two of them? I still think these blocks do more harm than good. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 21:36, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
I keep hearing the same rhetoric over and over again, these IPs vandalize, these IPs vandalize, what I don't see is anyone actually refute my arguments. 1,000 instances of obvious test editing or silly, pom-pom type vandalism does zero real damage to Wikipedia, whereas 10 good faith edits actually help Wikipedia, sometimes more than other times. Consider the net gain vs. the net loss. The exception to this is the ones who monkey around with numbers, which I see a lot of from schools, but at the same time, if a person does this from a school vandal patrols will be more suspicious of it than if the same person does the same thing from a cell phone, so the chances of it being caught and reverted are greater if it comes from the school computer vs. the vandal's cellular carrier. The most legitimate reasons I can think of to block schools are to protect the school IP user from being bit by someone assuming bad faith or being targeted for harassment by vicious trolls who have nothing better to do than harass Wikipedians. Other than that... I think we'd get farther if there were some way to technically restrict cheerleaders and ball players from editing Wikipedia. Seriously though, if you analyze the content of the pom-pom vandalism, I think it's more an issue with those two categories of people taking pleasure in monkeying around with the encyclopedia than school IPs themselves, and those categories of people happen to have access to the school networks. I've occasionally seen it be band members or ROTC members, so that wouldn't eliminate all vandalism, but probably would stop more of the vandalism than the school blocks do. (And yes, that's what you call a joke. User:Maddiekate gave us good edits. I guess you just can't generalize. But I am being somewhat serious, because although I know blocking them would be ridiculous even if it were possible, it seems like a disproportionate amount of the pom-pom vandalism does come from cheerleaders and ball players, that's why I call it pom-pom vandalism.) PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 22:00, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
The net loss is that our editors spend time fixing preventable disruptive editing when they could be improving the encyclopedia elsewhere... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:50, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Some people are content contributors. But then we have people who do nothing but vandal fighting. It seems a lot of the RC patrolmen only do RC patrol. If that's their niche, why do you assume they will take up improving the encyclopedia elsewhere if all vandals suddenly disappeared? PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 15:54, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps many of the non-vandalism IP editors make more edits, but from fewer IP addresses, so the average IP address will have a higher percentage of disruptive edits than that. Should it make a difference whether the same people are editing through random and constantly changing IP addresses in a /16 range or all from the same 2 or 3 IP addresses in the same range, if the edits are just as likely to be vandalism? Peter James (talk) 23:52, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
I'd love to see some proof that people were IP hopping in that North Carolina range. Actually, from my experience encountering IPs in that range, I think most of them are static IPs with each individual IP representing thousands at a particular district (I know Avery County Schools fall under that range and their IP seems to be static). I'm not as sure on the Washington as a lot of the times you'll see one edit coming from there and never see them again, so it's quite possible Washington School Cooperative has some system where users hop around the range, but I've never noticed it. If the IPs are rotating rapidly, that changes everything. However, if Florida Information Resource Network ever gets rangeblocked like this, I can attest to the fact that those IPs are static because I used to constructively edit from one (mostly logged in though; sometimes the system would hiccup and I'd get logged out). PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 00:22, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
  • As a former teacher, I applaud temporarily blocking school IPs when students vandalize Wikipedia. The inconvenience of contacting an admin and getting the block undone encourages educators to pay more attention to what their students are doing on-line... To supervise the students, and teach them proper on-line behavior. Blueboar (talk) 00:24, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
Comments like that can only serve to encourage arguments from passion. The purpose of the blocks is in no way, shape or form to compel educators to become more involved with their students. Primergrey (talk) 00:50, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
I never said getting teachers to be more involved with their students was the purpose of the block... But it may be the result of a block (and a positive one in my book). Call it an unintended consequence if you want. Blueboar (talk) 02:03, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
My point is simply that, since most of this discussion is about the purpose of the blocks, a related but ultimately irrelevant interjection cannot aid in reaching a conclusion.Primergrey (talk) 02:27, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
    • Key word: Temporarily. I have no problem with short bans, or even long ones (six months or a year) if the IP does nothing but spew vandalism day after day after day. It seems a lot of these blocks turn out to essentially be permabans, because the IPs just keep getting reblocked for a year, two years, three years, five years, ten years, etc, and I do have a problem with that. I agree it's good for staff to recognize the importance of monitoring students activities (CCPS does that at district level, Winn-Dixie and the two hospitals I worked at also monitored activity very closely). PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 00:39, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Add the State of Utah to the mix: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log/block&page=User%3A205.121.0.0%2F16. Frankly, I don't like these unilateral state blocks; these should be discussed before being implemented. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) Jesus Christ loves you! 05:27, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Policy proposals by User:PCHS-NJROTC

Restrict discretionary blocks on IP addresses

  • Restrict blocks on IP addresses to six months, except in the case of open proxies.
    • Allow exceptions to this in truly exceptional cases, such as cases of demonstrated long term abuse. Not just because an IP belongs to a school and has a history of kids being kids (unless the second proposal is also passed).
    • Require discussion and community consensus before implementing the long term block.
    • Require CheckUser involvement before placing a long term block to determine exactly how bad the collateral damage would be if an extended softblock were put in place. An IP which may appear, to an ordinary contributor or administrator, to produce nothing but vandalism could, in theory, be responsible for 100 good faith accounts being created.
    • Require an abuse report be sent to the ISP, school, agency, company, etc before placing the long term block? This would be a courtesy to the network administrator, to let them know someone's actions are going to cause something that could adversely affect other users to take place.
  • Restrict blocks on IP ranges to three months, except in the case of webhosts.
    • Again, allow exceptions to this in truly exceptional cases, such as cases of long term abuse.
    • Again, require discussion and community consensus before implementing the long term block.
    • As with the exceptions to the prohibition on long term IP blocks, any time a sysop wishes for an exceptional long term range block needs to consult with a CheckUser to see how bad the collateral damage would be.
    • Yet again, should we require an abuse report be sent first?
  • Restrict the use of rangeblocks to IP hoppers, not just because a sysop wishes to schoolblock an entire /16 range.
    • Scratch that if the second proposal is implemented.
  • Prohibit immediate implementation of another six month block following the expiration of a previous six month block, and require sysops to reset to short term blocks in assumption of good faith.
    • Blocking a shared IP for six months over one sporadic unhelpful edit after a long term block expiration, claiming persistent vandalism, is as silly as the vandalism itself.
  • Assume that silliness is always going to come from schools and only block them if there is truly disruption that requires administrative intervention, such as a vandalism spree or block evasion, not just because there's been a handful of editing tests over a months time.
    • Once again, scratch this if the second proposal is implemented.
Advantages
  • Any IP block has the potential to create collateral damage. I would rather 500 people keep the RC patrolmen busy than lose one good faith contributor due to heavy handedness.
  • This establishes official policy on the length of blocks, vs sysops placing them for however long they wish. In the past, {{Shared IP edu}} actually said that blocks would only go up to one year. Now I see them for 5+ years.
  • Some people may, for various reasons, be unable to request an account or make an account elsewhere. Some students or employees may not have access to email from school or work (and are very likely not to have an official email address from their institution as the block templates say to use when requesting an account) and may not have internet access elsewhere.
  • In cases of schools, often time the actual damage to the project by their pom-pom vandalism is very minimal; I find it's often someone being silly rather than someone actively trying to cause serious disruption. In contrast, any time someone takes an interest in becoming an editor, it's a good thing for our project. We have a lot of good contributors who are students and school employees.
  • Shared IP do give us some good edits, even some good Articles for Creation submissions.
Disadvantages
  • School IPs are a major source of test editing and removing the blocks will mean more test editing.

Block all educational institutions on sight

  • As soon as an editing IP address is determined to belong to a school, put an immediate, long term softblock on it.
    • Duration should be comparable to that of open proxy blocks.
    • Must know that it is a school, none of that "likely a school" business.
  • If an educational institution owns an entire /24 or /16 range, block the range.
  • Do we treat colleges, universities, libraries, and military basic training facilities different from high schools and school districts?
    • Here's some examples to take into consideration when making the decision: 69.88.160.1, 169.139.115.67, 64.56.87.252, 131.247.0.0/16, 132.170.0.0/16, 128.227.0.0/16, 144.174.0.0/16, 131.91.0.0/16, 139.62.0.0/16, 204.29.160.0/24, 129.171.0.0/16, 169.139.217.0/24, 131.247.152.4, 199.87.224.33, 192.35.61.0/24, 147.253.0.0/16, 204.193.117.66 (library), 74.5.231.189 (library), and 169.139.19.96 (library).
  • Change the {{school block}} template to reflect the new policy change.
Advantages
  • Educational institutions generate a lot of test editing and vandalism. Blocking them all will eliminate this.
  • Editing from a school IP opens one up for WP:Harassment. Worst of all, a really vicious troll could get mad at someone at a school for undoing their vandalism, post harassing comments on the IP's talk page, and cause mental anguish for a totally different person.
    • This could result in Wikipedia being completely blocked out by the institution, meaning people couldn't even read Wikipedia.
  • Again, considering the ugliness of some of the trolling, one has to question whether someone under 18 has any business contributing here anyway. Should elementary school students be subjected to random vandals calling them cunts or faggots? Should middle and high school students be subjected to cyberstalking by vandals? Is this a liability for Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation?
Disadvantages
  • These blocks could prevent someone from making their first edit, and they may not bother (or may even be unable) to make an account.
  • A young editor may feel unworthy of contributing to the project after seeing that their school is blocked.
  • These blocks could interfere with class projects.
  • IPs could be reassigned.
  • Blocking schools just pushes the vandals onto other mediums, such as cell phones. Vandalism is, frankly, easier for RC patrols to spot

coming from a high school than coming from a cell phone; you can often tell what IPs are institutional (school or otherwise) when RC patrolling. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of this project day by day. 04:03, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Comments

  • Oppose. This is WP:BURO overkill looking for a solution when no one has shown that an actual problem exists. Further we shouldn't be changing the entire blocking policy, revising template and doing a multitude of changes via a discussion at WP:VPP. Propose these separate if you'd like but I'm not going to support five-ten wholesale changes at the same time. We are only blocking anonymous editing at these places. Editors can still log-in. I don't care about whether or not we can patrol and stop vandalism, the point of the matter is we shouldn't have to waste time on this just for the abstract possibility that blocking a school will somehow hinder some great potential editor from coming here if they don't know they can vandalize articles with abandon and have to instead create an account before doing that. The fact that blocking a school doesn't solve all vandalism isn't the point, the point is whether we are overall better off having the school blocked. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 00:32, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
  • I Oppose this motion

The wikipedia project is about democratising knowledge. That has to be the core of any discussion regarding censorship. Schools shouldn't be singled out simply because they are schools. I agree with the policy of blocking anonymous.school.users but genuine contributors may rely on school internet connections. Any there may be a case to be made for a general promotion of school involvement. Shinyapple (talk) 01:36, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

    • I was playing devil's advocate with the proposal to block schools. Anonymous editing (or at least account creation) is just as important as logged in editing for people who solely rely on their school's internet connection (particularly in K-12 schools. If a student has no internet at home, (s)he probably doesn't have an email account even if the school allows students to access email from school, so (s)he can't request an account. I'm glad there's no raging support for a policy to block schools on sight, because now I can use that in arguments against long-term school blocks. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of this project day by day. 04:49, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
    I don't understand that argument at all. If a user has to edit from school because they don't have internet access from home, it is extremely likely that either (a) they have an email account provided by the school, or (b) they can create an email account with a free webmail service using their school internet access. If you believe that there is a significant number of people who can only edit wikipedia using school-based internet and do not have an email address and cannot gain access to an email address, it would be fantastic if you could support that point, because in my experience that is not at all the case. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:46, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
    I don't think too many middle and high schools provide school email accounts to students, and in fact, I think many of th prohibit the use of email from the school computers (and actively block the free email providers). Charlotte County Public Schools is this way. I will look online for some acceptable use policy links. Public school is a lot different from college. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 19:47, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
    All the schools in my area (in the UK) provide their own email accounts to students; I am very surprised to hear that this is not common in the US. IIRC, my school didn't block any of the major webmail providers either. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 23:16, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
    See page 7. You're just going to have to take my word for it that they don't give out student email accounts (they do however have intranet stuff like KidBiz2000/TeenBiz2000 and Florida Virtual School), but the only email permitted in the network is the teachers' district email accounts. Anything else is considered personal use. Actually, good-faith editing of Wikipedia would be a violation of the AUP, but is that our problem? I can get you a screenshot of the block page on Gmail if you don't believe it. Section 300.3 of Sarasota County's Code of Conduct has a similar policy prohibiting Using a computer, video, camera or program in any manner other than for appropriate educational purposes, but I honestly don't know if they block the free email providers like Charlotte County does. Only way I can think of to accurately find out would be to pull into the parking lot at North Port High School and scan for an open wi-fi hotspot. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 04:52, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
My district, the Pasadena Unified School District, gives every student an email, and they don't block anything except for porn, social media, and torrents. Here's the C:File:2015-16 PUSD Parent Student Handbook.pdf, which has the Acceptable Use Policy in it. To be honest, I didn't even read it before I signed it, which is my fault. But that shows how much kids don't care these days. TJH2018talk 01:23, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
Funny thing is I was going to ask you that and hadn't gotten around to it (although I was going to ask about LAUSD, not knowing any better)... This is news to me, I thought it was common place for districts to block personal email. Of course, CCPS blocks Wikipedia too (again... after it had been unblocked, which I think was an accident); they're very authoritarian with their webfilter. It's a big surprise to me though because the guy who runs/ran the webfilter (who I used to email all the time when I was in high school) told me that the law required them to lock things down tight like that, but maybe the laws are different in California. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 01:54, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is solution looking for a problem. All of the proposals seem to throw nuance out the window, our admins are chosen for their discretions so lets allow them to use it. Our current procedure is not broken, so lets not fix it. HighInBC 15:58, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
Our current procedure is not broken... Hahahahaha I almost spat my Dunkin Iced Coffee out when I read this ignorant comment. In addition to being a Wikipedian, I am a Conservapedian, and I have seen the results of excessive blocks there, and it's happening here too. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 19:23, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm opinionated and unafraid to say things that may hurt some feelings. If you don't enjoy encouraging test editors to contribute constructively or playing whack-a-mole with the vandals, you know there are articles you could be editing or creating instead of doing RC patrol. No one is making you do RC patrol. The only ones who are so in favor of long-term IP blocks are RC patrols (which I do plenty of myself) who think they are Barney Fife with his one bullet. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 19:45, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
I was referring to Conservapedia, but if you want to denigrate and slur RC patrollers who can barely keep Wikipedia safe as it is, be my guest. BethNaught (talk) 19:48, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
RC patrol is a laudable thing to do, I enjoy doing it myself personally, but it desensitizes some people that they're like cops beating a petite young mother with a billy club outside of Publix for stealing a can of baby formula. Speaking of political stances... the people screaming "school IPs vandalize, school IPs vandalize!" remind me of the liberals screaming "guns kill people, guns kill people!". No they don't, people using school IPs vandalize, and people using guns kill people. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 20:06, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
  • No thank you. We checkusers already have more than enough to do. I will note that over the years we periodically see schools *requesting* that their IPs be blocked because they do not want their (frequently traceable) IPs misused to vandalize Wikipedia. The students can still *read* Wikipedia even when the IP is blocked. Risker (talk) 04:14, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose The proposal to restrict blocks on IPs is deeply flawed and appears to be based on the peculiar circumstances of an individual who wants to edit from school networks regardless of what problems those networks have caused. One point that I did not notice above is that relentless vandalism is a very big turn-off for many good content builders who wonder why they are contributing to a project which cannot take reasonable steps to defend itself against nonsense. Johnuniq (talk) 04:55, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
    I have an account, unless there's a hardblock, I can edit from schools and other shared IPs all I want. Not that there's much use in editing something that very may well go by the wayside within 10 years as long as simple minded people are running the project. Wikipedia is going to die because too many IPs are going to be blocked in attempt to stop the inevitable from happening in an open project and the only people who are going to go out of their way to become contributors are going to be people that have something to gain from registering (POV pushers, paid editors, spammers, vandals, etc). Guns Shared IPs don't kill people articles, people using them do. Ha, I remember the initiatives we launched to support libraries, and to try and attract more female users, what about the libraries we block (school libraries, college libraries, and public libraries mistaken for schools), and what about all of the girls/young women we block with schoolblocks and anonblocks, poking that silly looking schoolhouse in front of them almost like some sort of insult? What about all of the test editing girls that we should be trying to convert into constructive editors? I'm not talking about the hard core, long term abuse vandals, I'm talking about the simple test editors, I'm sure at least some of them could be converted if the right efforts were made to do so. We're no longer a free, open project, so I think someone should propose a change in our slogan. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Growing tired of the bullshit day by day. 05:11, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
    Something else worth adding. If someone can't handle someone coming in and vandalizing their creation, only for the vandalism to promptly go away, how are they going to react to someone making legitimate edits to their creation? PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Schoolblocks are like gun-control, they only stop good faith contributors. 06:33, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment All of these people harping about how one can create an account, just stop talking or find something you are more knowledgeable to talk about. Conservapedia briefly tried making everybody "request an account" and I don't think we had a single account registered while we had that setup. Do you think Wikipedia will fare better? I don't. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Schoolblocks are like gun-control, they only stop good faith contributors. 05:19, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
Intentional disruption by the very editor who is apparently making a good-faith proposal in this very section is not useful.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Humorous proposal

Since we have successfully built a wall keeping all school children from editing Wikipedia through the use of schoolblocks, I propose that we build another wall to keep out the Syrian refugees POV editors from the middle east. Introducing User:PCHS-NJROTC/MiddleEastBlock! This new concept will finally free us of the annoying POV pushers from the middle east which anyone involved in Israeli–Palestinian conflict related articles are all too familiar with, just as {{School block}} has freed us of those pesky, pom-pom wielding school vandals! I propose we immediately start blocking entire /16 ranges belonging to middle eastern ISPs using this template. I also propose adding to the block reason drop menu "{{Anonblock}} Likely a Muslim based on behavioral evidence" for those pesky Muslim POV pushers who have migrated to Europe and America. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Schoolblocks are like gun-control, they only stop good faith contributors. 04:42, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

What a disgusting proposal. Why not cut the crap and sanction you instead for WP:POINT.-50.5.79.114 (talk) 05:25, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
WP:POINT? However, just because someone is making a point does not mean that they are disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate that point. Also, see WP:NOTCENSORED. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages)Schoolblocks are like gun-control, they only stop good faith contributors. 13:36, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

There is an important request for comment on WP:MOS-JA regarding the use of numeral romanizations in Japanese articles. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles#RfC: Romanization of numerals in Japanese_articles. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 06:11, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Discussion about No Personal Attacks

A discussion about a change to the no personal attacks policy has been proposed. Additional minds are requested at: Wikipedia_talk:No_personal_attacks#Personal_attacks_against_groups_of_people. HighInBC 17:01, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC: MOS vs COMMONNAME

Snow close. Nobody thinks that the concept of COMMONNAME deferring to MOS makes much sense, and no evidence of any actual conflict has been presented. Dicklyon (talk) 02:15, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Proposed:

Resolve that style elements are not essential parts of the names of things. Modify WP:COMMONNAME to state that it defers to MOS as to style elements. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:22, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

The question remains unresolved. I know this because I'm not seeing any links to an unambiguous, community-level consensus in discussions. All I'm seeing is the same arguments being made in local discussion after local discussion.

That lack of resolution is causing undue conflict and costing untold editor time.

The issue is an open wound, and the project seriously needs an unambiguous consensus here, one way or the other. This is fundamental and foundational, and that means it should be addressed and resolved first—not allowed to fester indefinitely because it is highly controversial—even if that is difficult and painful. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:22, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC survey: MOS vs COMMONNAME

  • Support as proposer. 1. This is consistent with the application of MOS by other entities that have MOS. 2. Style elements are not necessary for disambiguation. 3. Style elements do not change essential meaning. 4. It does not elevate MOS to policy status if a single policy explicitly defers to it. 5. The project would benefit greatly from the elimination of this vast battleground, which diverts and distracts from more important issues. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:22, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose this or any other proposal to make MOS compliance mandatory. The MOS is a cluster of arbitrary and sometimes contradictory proclamations written by whoever happened to shout loudest at the time the section in question was written, not a "manual of style" in any meaningful sense of the word, and shouldn't be taken remotely seriously. If you want the MOS and Wikipedia's usual practices to match with regards to a particular area, change the MOS to match our practices, not the other way around. ‑ Iridescent 10:29, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
    (adding) I'm assuming that by "style elements are not essential parts of the names of things", what you're proposing is that (for instance) Wikipedia have an article on Imac rather than iMac. You may want to make that clear. ‑ Iridescent 11:14, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
    Why is this argument advanced so seriously oh-so-often? The counter-argument is trivially {{sofixit}}--if you have a serious concern that the MOS is not internally consistent, or that it does not follow best English practices (or best Wikipedian practices--not the same things), you should work to change that, not base all future arguments related to the MOS-as-a-concept on this supposed fact. --Izno (talk) 11:36, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
    Because I consider the MOS a pointless talking shop and have got through the last decade ignoring it without suffering any apparent ill effects, so I couldn't care less what the half-dozen people who take it seriously (it's always the same names there) happen to have it saying at any given time. ‑ Iridescent 12:31, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
    Basically, you're admitting your argument is irrelevant to the discussion at hand? K. --Izno (talk) 12:36, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
    You may want to make that clear. I didn't feel the need to make it clear that there would be rare legitimate exceptions to this as with anything else. This is about a default policy. And I'm frankly surprised to see an editor with your experience, Iridescent, make that argument. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:21, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose Style very often is an essential part of a name so the premises is flawed. We should not be trying to dictate to the world how it should work, we should just be summarizing how it actually does work. Dmcq (talk) 11:58, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Opposed - If anything, the conflicts between COMMONNAME and MOS should be resolved in the other direction. Our MOS guidance should defer to COMMONNAME.
To my mind, the single most important sentence in MOS is contained in the nutshell - where it says: "... it is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply."
The problem is that this key sentence is often ignored by our fellow editors who focus on conforming articles to MOS guidance... they think of MOS as a set "firm and fast RULES" - rules that should have no exceptions. That attitude needs to change. I strongly believe that, in situations when a significant majority of reliable sources all present a name using a particular stylization, that common stylization becomes included as part of the COMMONNAME. And if the common stylization it is contrary to what is indicated by MOS guidance... then we should make an exception to (otherwise good) MOS guidance, and follow the sources. Blueboar (talk) 12:19, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm completely with Blueboar on this one. It should be the other way round if we are going to explicitly state a preference. COMMONNAME already describes the accepted standard. If it is in conflict with the MOS, the MOS either needs to be ignored or adjusted. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:42, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. MOS is for WP, only. COMMONNAME is derived from everyone else. There's no way WP can impose MOS on the outside world. I suppose there might be a few cases where the common name isn't very common, and some sources "fix" the name in ways that might conform to MOS, but those will be rare exceptions, already handled by IAR. --A D Monroe III (talk) 13:31, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per all. Johnbod (talk) 14:20, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose First and foremost, decisions should be made based on the usability of the encyclopedia, hence COMMONNAME. MoS does help with usability, as a consistent(ish) style across WP can make reading easier, but it is not the priority. —  crh 23  (Talk) 14:27, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Reject the premise – those who think that a "versus" relationship exists here are confused. Dicklyon (talk) 15:31, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
    @Dicklyon: I agree there there is confusion, but there is a "versus" relationship at the root of the discussion. I asssume we agree that capitalization is part of style and not part of a name. Then there are two ways to decide on the wording and capitalization of an article title. (1) Use WP:AT (not just COMMONNAME) to decide on the title of an article (2) apply capitalization as per the MoS. (2) Use WP:AT to decide on the title including how it should be styled, regardless of the MoS. These are genuine alternatives; the choice between them is real. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:46, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
    Both WP:AT and MOS:CAPS agree that we use sentence case for titles unless it's a proper name. I suggest using the discussion section below if you find a case where a difference between them was relevant to a title decision. Dicklyon (talk) 17:08, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Using the common name is an important principle of accessibility on Wikipedia while MOS is a guideline, something that helps editors format and structure the content they contribute. We should primarily think of our readers and only secondarily of our editors. --regentspark (comment) 16:02, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Blueboar. The tail should not way the dog. oknazevad (talk) 17:03, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Blueboar, who outlined my feelings much better than I could have. Calidum ¤ 19:19, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Support in spirit some clarification, but also reject the "versus" premise. There's an entire essay about why already, at WP:COMMONSTYLE. It is true that AT and the naming conventions guidelines defer to MoS on style matters (they do so in over a dozen places). However, "style" is broad and diffuse without a clear definition, and this is actually also true of proper names (the linguistic and philosophy definitions of the concept diverge), and how to determine what is the most common is often itself controversial. So there is necessarily a bit of overlap. MOS:TM, MOS:CAPS, etc., and WP:AT and the NC guidelines, already appear to adequately account for this. E.g., use "iPod" and "PlayStation", not "Ipod" and "Playstation", because the vast majority of reliable sources use those spellings (that's an MoS rule, independent of AT). What I do support strongly is that WP:COMMONNAME does need to be clarified that it is not a style policy, even if some style matters can sometimes – rarely – be part of a common-name determination on a WP:COMMONSENSE basis. I'll address specifics in the discussion section below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:53, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
'There's an entire essay about why already, at WP:COMMONSTYLE'? Which you wrote. Dmcq (talk) 16:32, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
And? Every essay was written by someone. Surely you realize they do not appear by magic out of nowhere. The point of essays is that they lay out once, and clearly, an argument we don't want or need to restate over and over again, and the point of referring to them is "go read this instead, so we don't waste time on this rehash again".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:00, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I am agreed with SMC just above at "support in spirit some clarification, but also reject the 'versus' premise", as well as his extended comments below and conversation with Blueboar. --Izno (talk) 11:19, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Blueboar et al. –Davey2010Talk 12:46, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment - Ok, it appears I asked the wrong question. As I see it now, the best approach is to SNOW fail this and start over with a new RfC (which I will leave to someone better qualified to frame this issue, I nominate SMcCandlish). I stand by my statements that we need dearly some kind of resolution here. ―Mandruss ☎ 13:51, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose per almost everyone. A new RFC isn't needed, seems to be enough. Randy Kryn 17:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
    We have a SNOW consensus that COMMONNAME should not defer to MOS on style. That's great; the problem is that, apparently, no one but me felt that it should do so, or that that was even a viable question. So we have made no progress whatsoever as to the problem I described in the opener. We've had a bit of constructive discussion, but it was off topic within this RfC. There is no concise alternative proposal, and we couldn't !vote on it here if there were, not without creating an unworkable mess. This RfC was a misfire, and I don't think it seems to be enough. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:51, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
    I'm pretty sure that's not what you have. Any assertion to that effect would draw out the defenders of the MOS, just as an assertion that it should draws out the defenders of TITLE. The problem is not a "versus" relationship between these policies and guidelines, which actually work pretty well together, but rather between the people who want to shift the balance of responsibility between them. Better to just keep on coexisting, working together toward consensus results in article style and titles. We still have no examples of where this breaks down. COMMONNAME is a strategy in support of the Recognizability criterion. Following the recommendations of the MOS is a strategy in support of CONSISTENCY among other things. All worth considering, as TITLE says. Nowhere does it empower COMMONNAME to override other considerations. Dicklyon (talk) 18:20, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) We don't have consensus for that either. COMMONNAME doesn't address style at all. Negative reaction to an RfC misapproaching the issue is not consensus for an "anti-MoS" change in the extreme opposite direction, especially when many of the comments are about the erstwhile RfC itself and the lack of conflict between AT and MOS, rather than whether any changes should be made to either. It would be nice to see COMMONNAME clarified, but the approach to doing that is probably to work it out with AT, MOS, and RM regulars, who understand the effects of nuanced changes at these policypages. Village Pump is like ANI, a pot of emotional responses with insufficient background information and experience most of the time. The "common style" issue has been discussed before, and is nowhere near resolution yet. Aa recently at Jan. 2016 it was seriously proposed (with more support that most would have expected) to merge most of AT back into MOS. I more specifically raised the narrow issue you raised here, Mandruss, in late 2015 at WT:AT, and the response was basically "meh". That's probably because earlier in 2015 both MOS:TM and MOS:CAPS were adjusted, after substantial negotiation, to include wording that more closely aligned with COMMONNAME, in explicitly taking into account majority source usage, at the expense of some consistency. In Feb. or March of this year COMMONNAME was copyedited to stop burying its lead and otherwise being confusing, and this automatically brought it more into line with MoS (or, rather, corrected misinterpretations of it as conflicting with MoS). And so on. Incremental changing making the perception of conflict more and more moot.

    Two years ago, virtually every day people were screaming about a "conflict between MOS and AT", and now the issue hardly ever arises. When it does, it can almost always be traced directly to the WP:COMMONSTYLE fallacy, the failure to distinguish between what the common name is ("PlayStation", however styled, vs. "PlayBox" or "WorkStation") and how it is styled ("PlayStation", "Playstation", "Play Station", "pLAYsTATION", "PLAYSTATION", "Play-STation", "Play-station", etc., etc.). The standards are different. COMMONAME wants us to choose the most commonly found name in reliable sources and run that through the criteria, which it will usually pass. It might have not that much of a majority (most common-name debates are about whether the statistical research to determine which name is more common was valid, because few people know how to use N-grams, etc., correctly). MOS:TM (and MOS:CAPS, etc.) expects that if a stylization does something non-standard in English (like using capitalization in the middle of a name, or starting a name with a lowercase letter, or using some kind of non-letter character in place of a letter, etc.) that it will be avoided unless it is found consistently in the vast majority of sources, not just a slight majority.

    This is not a "conflict", it's a completely different analysis, of a separate matter. Failure to understand this is, as I noted elsewhere, is a general semantics problem, like being unable to understand the difference between the proper construction of a room and whether is painted (styled) white or off-white. Generally, people actually can tell the difference, and just want to pretend they can't because they have an interest in a promotional, non-neutral presentation of something; or they don't or won't understand that a specialist style for specialists to use with each other is often not how we write encyclopedic prose for the broadest audience ever; or they falsely believe that WP is a vote or a democracy swayed by off-WP demands ("It's 'SONY', dammit!"), or must do everything exactly the way some paper publications do it, especially those not really independent of the subject, but mired in it. WP's job is to summarize in encyclopedic style the facts as found in reliable, independent, secondary sources, not to ape the impenetrable, obtuse style of technical and legal publications, or the hipsterish, hyperbolic style of entertainment journalism and blogging. So, I don't see what we need another RfC for. AT and MOS work together much better today than they did only a year ago.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

    Ok. I saw a lot of policy debate in article talk—disagreement about what the policy actually says. Not how it applies to that article, but what it means for all articles. This essentially turns article talk into dozens or hundreds of scattered extensions of this page and other community-level venues, with a ton of overlapping and conflicting discussion. I saw that as extremely inefficient and counterproductive. I felt that kind of thing should be done here, once. If the community is ok with that, I'll just live with it. Now, are we prepared to close? ―Mandruss ☎ 19:29, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Echoing Blueboar and everyone who followed in assent that this is entirely backwards. COMMONNAME must not be held hostage to MOS. Fylbecatulous talk 21:26, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose per Iridescent. MOS is routinely at variance with what everyone does, and its dictates are handed down by a tiny minority of people who feel like continually arguing over minutiae and then imposing their will on everyone else. Aside from general MOS provisions, such as WP:ERA and WP:ENGVAR, there's no reason to bow to the MOS types on article titles when we shouldn't be bowing to them on content. Nyttend (talk) 01:16, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC discussion: MOS vs COMMONNAME

  • Comment Personally I think pushing too hard for standards is damaging. Unless there is a clear reason otherwise I think articles should be left as they are written and not changed by people who know nothing about the topic. Yes the MoS is liberally sprinkled with exceptions like if the subject habitually said something else then it should be like that - but someone will go around anyway pointing to the MoS and changing it without knowing as much as the original author -and the author if still around will be beaten down by having some TLA WP refernece stuck into the change summary. Dmcq (talk) 12:39, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
What about the scores of very knowledgeable editors who lack the writing skills to create a quality article? Are those who can write well to excuse themselves from improving the article because they lack knowledge of the topic? That, I think, more than anything in the MOS, would be at odds with real-world practices. Also, I had to look up TLA just now and, although it took ten seconds, I think I'll be alright. Primergrey (talk) 13:08, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
Hopefully these very knowledgable editors actually know or read up enough to contribute. No I'm principally worried about people who'll for instance if something is called X-3 will put in a minus sign and change the 3 to 'three' because small numbers should be spelled out. Dmcq (talk) 14:31, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
It's not happening, since it's clear that doesn't pertain to serial or model numbers, per MOS:NUM. The concern doesn't seem warranted. What's the evidence of a problem in this regard? Show us someone trying to rename the B-2 bomber article to "B-two". As for the earlier point in this sub-conversation: The vast majority of WP content is written by non-experts in the field in question. This is possible because WP is based mostly on secondary sources not primary. It takes no expertise to review the all major books on a topic and summarize what they're saying. It takes a great deal of expertise to wade through 2,000 journals worth of primary, unreproduced research and try to figure out what may have validity and what is bogus. There's a reason this is not Academipedia. Experts are of great use on WP in correcting Dunning–Kruger effect incorrect assumptions about source material (including the secondary), and weeding out secondary material that does not actually reflect the consensus in the field in question. But it is true that many scientists and other specialists are not good writers, and few people at all are great writers of encyclopedic material, which is a discipline unto itself, albeit a volunteer hobby for most who engage in it. That doesn't make 5 or 10 years of intensive experience at it less of an acquired and honed skill.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment I think it would be helpful to the discussion if it were spelt out exactly which bits of "style" guidance in the MoS are under consideration. I guess from previous discussions that these include capitalization, the use of hyphens and various kinds of dashes, the use or non-use of periods/full stops in abbreviations and acronyms, and the use or non-use of commas in contexts like "Smith, Jr". What else?
Another of my concerns is picking out WP:COMMONNAME from WP:AT; stylization also bears on some of the other principles, like precision and consistency. For example, we could re-open the discussion of how to style the English names of organisms based on showing that for a particular organism the title case style was the most common, even though for most organisms of the same kind the sentence case style was the most common. (I quickly found examples using Google ngrams: e.g. "European robin" beats "European Robin" but "Manx Shearwater" beats "Manx shearwater".) If COMMONSTYLE is to be used, it should be applied to categories of article title, not individual ones. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:34, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
Another "what else" is character substitutions. This sort of thing is already covered at MOS:TM pretty well.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:03, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Comments: The key point is that the most common styling/stylization of something is not automatically used at Wikipedia, but often eschewed, because the most common styling is frequently not independent of the subject, but outright promotional. In other cases, it may be a highly specialized style that is confusing to encyclopedia readers and found only in ivory-tower journals (or in in-universe geekery materials, or buried in technical jargon that assumes a decade of professional experience, or whatever – by no means is all "specialized", very-narrow-audience publishing of an academic character). In yet others, it may be a pop-culture topic, with most coverage appearing in low-end entertainment press publications, that use informal, efficiency-at-all-costs journalistic style, which has little in common with the encyclopedic register (news style is mostly about getting the most content into the smallest columns as possible, for quick visual scanning; encyclopedic style is about maximum clarity in communication). Worse yet, much of that newsprint, especially in pop-culture topics (entertainment, sports, etc.) is often try-to-sound-hip-or-clever-at-all-costs even more than it is expediency-driven, and its clarify and neutrality terribly suffers as a result.

    In short, WP, like all serious publishers, has a house style, and it applies by default regardless what the topic is, absent very strong reasons to override it, and when (not very often) overriding it helps rather than hinders reader needs (not editor, wikiproject, or external third-party desires).

    The vast majority of the time that people make bogus "COMMONSTYLE" arguments, it's when they're pushing something that does not belong here. Often it's inappropriately promotional (e.g. capitalizing "SONY" to mimic the logo), jingoistic (stripping diacritics from the name of a sports figure who uses the diacritics, just because Americans are less familiar with the proper spelling and the sport governing body is too lazy to use them itself in tournament charts), or an attempt by specialists to force WP to write for its broad readership the same way the specialists write to each other in their own journals (most commonly this is a) Overcapitalization Of Things The Specialists Find Important In Their Context; b) the dropping of hyphenation of compound modifiers in cases where specialists know its a compound modifier but a 7th-grader does not, as in "medium-chain fatty acids" which many scientists want to write as "medium chain fatty acids"; and c) the use of obtuse and often redundantly wordy terminology instead of plain English – "myocardial infarction" at every occurrence instead of "heart attack" which is better in a non-medical article, "party of the first part" instead of "first party", etc.).

    :This is not a conflict between MOS and AT, it's a conflict between encyclopedists who understand the nature and audience of the publication, and people who (often subconsciously) try to misuse the encyclopedia as a tool for things that others will interpret as snobbery, aggrandizement, and/or browbeating.
     — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:02, 11 May 2016 (UTC)

yes we do have a house style... But it is a house style that we can change if there is consensus to change it. If there is a consensus that we should follow source usage for stylization of names, then our "house style" should be changed to reflect that consensus. Blueboar (talk) 21:31, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
A three-part response:
There is no one source usage for much of anything. When there is a near-universal option, of course we use it, rather than make up something (thus iPod, PlayStation, and Deadmau5, not "Ipod", "Play Station", or "Deadmaus", which are almost unattested in RS). When a non-trivial number of the RS use one or more alternatives to an odd stylization, we use a less promotional/ridiculous/confusing option (thus Alien 3 not "Alien3" and Pink (singer) not "P!nk"). (MOS:TM already covers all this in quite a bit of detail.) When the sources are not uniform in a stylistic treatment, we have no reason to go with a visually aggrandizing, silly, or obfuscatory option, and plenty of reasons not to. The huge and stressy RfC about capitalization of common names of species settled this issue over two years ago (as did plenty of RfCs before that, and more since).

WP consensus is to use whatever sourceable style best serves the encyclopedia readers' needs. It can't rationally be any other way. Yes, theoretically, we could have a change of consensus to do everything the most common way, like a techno-hipster theme overall (e.g. [15]), andhaving banner ads all over the place, and HUGE SCREAMING ALL-CAPS HEADINGS, and stupid-but-funny cat GIF animations, and social networking features, and sneaky user-tracking cookies, and writing like bloggers and sports journalists, and photos and icons all over the place crowding our the text, and breaking up ever article into a "1 of 24 >" pane series so content is doled out a mobile-screenful morsel at a time, and yadda yadda yadda. Of course, we don't do any of these things, in spite of how common they are. The COMMONNAME policy fragment is about using commonly-recognizable names. It is not a policy to use the most numerically common style, or stylization, or capitalization, or layout, or font, or typographic effects, or coloration, or [insert whatever else here]. Virtually nothing about WP is done the most common way, but rather the best way we can muster for an encyclopedic purpose and audience (and, secondarily, a volunteer and largely untrained and nonprofessional editorship, though even that consideration has greatly reduced over time, as both regular editors get better at it, and the number of brand new people arriving to try editing for the first time has shrunken greatly now that the novelty has worn off). If anything, COMMONNAME sticks out, like some weird hairy growth on the nose of policy.

WP:COMMONNAME could actually be deleted with no harm to the project. Few people bother to actually read it and think about it. It is not a central policy concern of WP:AT in any way. It's nothing but a default to try first as the most likely candidate to fit the actual naming criteria at WP:CRITERIA. It is not itself one of the criteria at all, and those criteria would remain and still be applied, in the absence of the COMMONNAME wording that refers to them. It is actually superfluous instruction creep that has done little but generate drama and fanaticism. In the end, all of this flag-waving about how style "should" be part of COMMONNAME is just a bunch of pointless extra distraction about what is itself an underlying pointless distraction. We do not need a section in the policy that says "Try this first, as a shortcut for complying with the actual policy requirements" if people are just going to fetishize it and battleground indefinitely against any infidels who do not accept it as somehow replacing the actual policy requirements it was written simply as a funneling tool for. Mistaking COMMONNAME for the actual naming criteria is like taking a road trip to California, reaching the "Welcome to California" sign at the state border, then going home because you've seen California now.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:07, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Examples?

I think that part of the problem is some people feeling more aligned with MOS or TITLE – but is there a problem, or just a perception? It might help to look at examples. If you know a case where there was a discussion of conflict between MOS and TITLE (or the COMMONNAME) section, list it here so we can look and understand what was at stake. I found one to start with:

  • Sunn O))) – At Talk:Sunn_O)))#Requested_move_2, entire rationale for moving back from Sunn (band) to the stylized trademark (still pronounced "Sun") was given as "COMMONNAME". Personally, it looks to be squarely in the domain of MOS:TM, and could have been resolved within the recommendations there, which already says "When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should choose among styles already in use by sources (not invent new ones) ..." As Frungi wrote there, "Support unless we can cite some substantial reliable sources that do not include the decorative characters. Everything I’m seeing in e.g. Google News does include them, so it seems to me like we’re inventing a style by using 'Sunn' bare." So it looks like no modification of MOS is needed to get it to agree with the result that people were looking to get from COMMONNAME. The move was supported "per MOS". No conflict. The discussion was primarily over whether plain "Sunn" is a style in use or not, and it was decided not. No "MOS regulars" objecting, as far as I can see. Dicklyon (talk) 00:53, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Dot the i – At Talk:Dot_the_i#Requested_move_2, both COMMONNAME and MOS:CT were invoked. Both lost to the lack of consensus. They were both on the same side, of moving to Dot the I, but an interpretation of a blood splat over a capital I on a movie poster was taken by many editors as evidence that the lowercase i was intended. No conflict, just harmony between TITLE and MOS in this case, and conflict with fanboys. Dicklyon (talk) 05:59, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Arbcom Probation Templates

I just noticed that several articles that had been on article probation, but no longer are, still had the associated notices on their talk pages and were still included in the Category:Articles on probation. (For those interested, the particular articles should be relatively easy to find from Talk:First_Baptist_Church_(Hammond,_Indiana)#Removing_Arbitration_Probation_Template.)

I would like to propose that, if it is not already part of the policy, that we modify the policy and procedure for Arbcom sanctions so that articles under probation have the notice removed when they are no longer under probation. I imagine there are likely instructions somewhere for what to do when a decision like that is rescinded. I noticed that we strike out the decision. The instructions should be changed to explicitly note that articles ought to have the notice removed from their talk pages and removed from the category at the same time that the original sanction is struck on the respective Arbcom page.

I'm not sure if this particular case was just an oversight and it is the general policy to do that, but if it is not the case, then it ought to be modified. Zell Faze (talk) 05:36, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Havent looked through any relevant policy pages, but this looks like a good idea. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:13, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Suppressed RevDel'ed edits

Theres nothing in talk but why were these edits suppressed? Nothing in talk or otherwise for removing the content additions from history? [16][17]. What is WP doing with lack of accountability? My page someone claims its content vio but that can be reworded by consensus instead of suppressing itLihaas (talk) 16:08, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Oversight#Complaints explains what to do. --Jayron32 16:42, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
@Lihaas and Jayron32: This isn't an Oversight issue, it's a revision deletion issue. According to the revision deletion guidelines, discussion of those actions should happen on the administrators' noticeboard. {{Nihiltres |talk |edits}} 16:57, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
Why did you bring this here? You were specifically invited by the editor to open a dialog with them if you had any questions about the removal or thought it was in error. It appears you underestimate how seriously we take copyright violations at Wikipedia and have a misunderstanding regarding the nature of our licensing policy. We cannot "reword" copyright violations because the violation "taints" any subsequent derivative work. Copyright-offending material must be deleted. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:07, 13 May 2016 (UTC)
The logs for both pages say that the redactions were done by Diannaa, due to copyright issues. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 06:16, 15 May 2016 (UTC)
@Lihaas: The edit was detected on April 30 by a bot as being a potential copyright violation, and was reported here. I removed the content on the 5th of May and revision-deleted it under criterion RD1 of the revision deletion criterion and left a short note on your talk page. While in an ideal world it would be nice to post on the article talk page first and discuss how the content should be re-worded, in reality this is not going to be possible, as there's 75 to 100 copyright violations being detected by this bot every day. The content is readily available at the source newspaper article here, or if you wish I could send you a copy of the removed material via email. If you feel my actions violated policy and you wish to bring them to the attention of the wider community, I suggest posting at WP:AN as recommended in the revision deletion policy page. — Diannaa (talk) 13:45, 15 May 2016 (UTC)

Implementing the results of the infobox RfC

I am going through the entire list of all forty candidates for US President in 2016 (many now withdrawn) and trying to make sure that the religion entry in the infobox of each page meets Wikipedia's requirements as per the recent RfC on this page

Here are the requirements for listing a religion in the infobox (religion in the body of the article has different rules):

  • Per WP:BLPCAT: "Categories regarding religious beliefs (or lack of such) should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs are relevant to their public life or notability, according to reliable published sources" ... "These principles apply equally to lists, navigation templates, and Infobox statements".
  • Per WP:CAT/R: "Categories regarding religious beliefs or lack of such beliefs of a living person should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief in question (see WP:BLPCAT), either through direct speech or through actions like serving in an official clerical position for the religion."

The forty candidates are:

Extended content

Source of list: United States presidential election, 2016

  • Name: Farley Anderson: No Wikipedia page, nothing to do.
  • Name: Jeb Bush: Infobox Religion: Roman Catholicism Religion name mentioned in Body? Yes, but all links cited are dead. Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Ben Carson: Infobox Religion: Seventh-day Adventist. Clearly meets all requirements for inclusion, nothing to do.
  • Name: Darrell Castle: Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Lincoln Chafee: Infobox Religion: Episcopalian. Religion name not mentioned in body; religion entry in infobox should be removed.
  • Name: Darryl Cherney: Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Chris Christie: Infobox Religion: Roman Catholicism. Religion name mentioned in body, self-identifies as Catholic.[18] Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Hillary Clinton: Infobox Religion: Methodist. Religion name mentioned in body, self-identifies as Methodist.[19] Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Ted Cruz: Infobox Religion: Southern Baptist. Religion name mentioned in body, self-identifies as Southern Baptist.[20] Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Sedinam Curry: No Wikipedia page, nothing to do.
  • Name: Carly Fiorina: Infobox Religion: Nondenominational Christianity. Religion name not mentioned in body; religion entry in infobox should be removed.
  • Name: Jim Gilmore: Infobox Religion: Methodism. Religion name not mentioned in body; religion entry in infobox should be removed.
  • Name: Lindsey Graham: Infobox Religion: Southern Baptist. Religion name mentioned in body, but citation fails direct speech requiement.[21] Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: James Hedges: Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Tom Hoefling: No Infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Mike Huckabee: Infobox Religion: Southern Baptist. Clearly meets all requirements for inclusion, nothing to do.
  • Name: Bobby Jindal: Infobox Religion: Roman Catholicism. Religion name mentioned in body, self-identifies as "Evangelical Catholic."[22]
  • Name: Gary Johnson: Infobox Religion: Lutheranism. Religion name mentioned in body, but citation is a dead link. Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: John Kasich: Infobox Religion: Anglicanism. Religion name mentioned in body, self-identifies as Christian[23] but citation doesn't have him specifying anglicism in direct speech. Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Chris Keniston: No Wikipedia page, nothing to do.
  • Name: William Kreml: No Wikipedia page, nothing to do.
  • Name: Gloria La Riva: Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Lawrence Lessig: Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: John McAfee: Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Kent Mesplay: Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Martin O'Malley: Infobox Religion: Roman Catholicism. Religion name mentioned in body, comes really close to self-identifying[24] but I would be more comforable if we could find a citation with unambigious direct speech. Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: George Pataki: Infobox Religion: Roman Catholicism. Religion name not mentioned in body; religion entry in infobox should be removed.
  • Name: Rand Paul: Infobox Religion: Presbyterianism. Religion name not mentioned in body; religion entry in infobox should be removed.
  • Name: Rick Perry: Infobox Religion: Nondenominational Evangelicalism. Religion name mentioned in body, but this page is a classic case of what happens when you don't follow the self-identification rule. Someone took a reference that says "Perry now attends Lake Hills Church more frequently than he attends Tarrytown, he said, in part because it's closer to his home"[25] and assigned him as being a member of Lake Hills Church based on that slim evidence. Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Austin Petersen: No Wikipedia page, nothing to do.
  • Name: Marco Rubio: Infobox Religion: Roman Catholicism. Religion name mentioned in body, but this page is a classic case of what happens when you don't follow the self-identification rule. Someone took a reference that says "Rubio... attends Catholic churches as well as a Southern Baptist megachurch."[26] and assigned him as being Roman Catholic based on that slim evidence. Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Bernie Sanders: Infobox Religion: Infobox religion already decided by RfC. See Talk:Bernie Sanders/Archive 13.
  • Name: Rick Santorum: Infobox Religion: Roman Catholicism. Religion name mentioned in body. Many citations about him being catholic, but I couldn't find a place where he self-identifioes using direct speech. Religion name mentioned in body,
  • Name: Rod Silva (businessman) No Infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Mimi Soltysik Infobox Religion: No religion entry in infobox, nothing to do.
  • Name: Jill Stein Infobox Religion: Reform Judaism. Religion name not mentioned in body; religion entry in infobox should be removed.
  • Name: Donald Trump Infobox Religion:Presbyterian. Infobox religion already decided by RfC. See Talk:Donald Trump/Archive 1#Donald Trump Religion
  • Name: Scott Walker Infobox Religion: Nondenominational Evangelicalism. Religion name mentioned in body, self-identifies as "born-again Christian".[27] Discuss on article talk page.
  • Name: Jim Webb Infobox Religion: Nondenominational Christianity. Religion name not mentioned in body; religion entry in infobox should be removed. Note: Citation in infobox fails self-identification requirement.

My goal is to determine whether Wikipedia's requirements are met for the above forty pages, and to insure that we have citations to reliable sources that meet the requirements.

Any help finding sources would be most appreciated. I have posted a query on many of the article talk pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:02, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

  • As the closer of the RFC in question I don't think it would be appropriate for me to offer opinions on its implementation, but pinging Wehwalt as the editor with probably the most experience working with US politician articles at Wikipedia's higher end. ‑ Iridescent 20:06, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
  • The US has never elected a president who did not profess a belief in Christianity at least to some extent. It's still relevant in American politics in a way, say, it is not in Australia, which has elected at least one atheist prime minister. Note the fascination with Obama's religion, from the Rev. Wright to today. I would say it is relevant to the office, at least until we elect a president without religious belief.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:28, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't think anyone disagrees that religion is still relevant in American politics. For that reason, there is likely to be at least some information on a candidate's religious beliefs in their article. What we're trying to determine here, however, is whether these candidates are also so notable for their religions that we should activate the reserved |Religion= field for them — just as we would for Ministers, Rabbis, Popes, Priests, Cardinals, Bishops, etc. Keep in mind that if religion is not already a significant part of Mr. Joe Politician's notability (i.e.; mentioned in the lead as a defining characteristic), it doesn't automatically become part of his notability when he declares his intent to run for US Presidency. The problem I expect the OP will run into, repeatedly, is that many editors don't realize that 'Religion' categories and fields in infoboxes are indeed reserved for people who are notable because of their religion; instead, editors wrongly believe that as long as a subject's religion is known and sourced, go right ahead and use the |Religion= field. Xenophrenic (talk) 04:30, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
Guy, your comments don't accurately reflect my position there, but as I'm the only one taking it I guess that's understandable. Improve the close of that RfC so that it clearly affirms a consensus on the notability point of your multi-point proposal, and I'll oppose inclusion at the Clinton article. As I said there, "This user abides by consensuses they disagree with." As for "quagmire", I looked that up in the dictionary and there was the Wikipedia logo. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:20, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • A position of "religion is relevant for every politician" is direct anti-consensus defiance of the RfC. The only US president in living memory who would qualify per the (essentially two) criteria (self-identification, and more importantly only if directly tied to the person's notability); it was a huge deal in American politics of the era that he was Catholic. If Sanders, as a candidate, were a self-declared, practicing Jew religiously, he might also qualify, but he's simply an outspoken, proud ethnic Jew, of indeterminate spiritual beliefs. It's not in any way part of H. Clinton's notability that's she's at least nominally some form of Christian, like most Americans (and most Westerners, for that matter).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:23, 17 May 2016 (UTC) The religion parameter should be removed from almost all of these candidates, except those campaigning on a particularly religious platform (maybe Cruz qualifies, but I doubt it; being a moralizer and being notable for beliefs of a particular religion are not the same thing (e.g. his anti-masturbation rants would meet with agreement from lots of Muslims, etc.). There have long been some minority candidates in various election cycles that are explicitly tied to a particular religious platform, and notable specifically for this, e.g. Rev. Jesse Jackson back in the day. That kind of candidate needs a religion parameter in the infobox, because they arguably qualify as a religious leader or at least a spokesperson for a particular religion/denomination. This should be within WP:COMMONSENSE bounds. I'd bet good money that quite a number of Libertarian Party candidates have held pseudo- or quasi-religious "credentials" with the Universal Life Church, but this should not be taken seriously (I hold them myself, and in Church of the Subgenius, and as a Discordian, and I can legally do weddings and stuff in various jurisdictions, but I'm 100% irreligious).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:23, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Does IAR overule our Manual of Style?

In particular, does it overrule MOS:APPENDIX as Beyond My Ken claims here? How does obeying a MOS that the community has agreed upon "prevent you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia" (which is the requirement to invoke IAR)? --bender235 (talk) 20:16, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Ignore all rules trumps all other policies in my view. But this goes if, and only if, it makes improvements over general practice (for example because the situation is specific to the article under discussion). In the specific case you are referring to, the change makes the matter worse as the inline references are now suddenly labelled "notes" while the further reading section (which are not references to the article but suggested further reading) is listed under references. There is no reason to assume this exception is needed for this specific article, so without a very sound and complete argument why IAR should not be used. Arnoutf (talk) 20:22, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Can IAR "overrule" MOS? ... Yes. Does it "overrule" MOS in every case... Nope. Should it "overrule" MOS in some specific case... probably not. Blueboar (talk) 20:32, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Moreover, once IAR is cogently argued to support an edit against policy, if the edit is opposed then it must get consensus in order for it to stick. Since consensus is determined by the superior argument, all IAR really says is that the better argument in a consensus discussion isn't merely trumped by the argument that the opposite result is required by policy. IAR isn't a death pact which automatically overrules all other policies, even if there's a fairly decent reason for it, if the policy is supported by a better reason. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:00, 7 May 2016 (UTC)
Does IAR overule our Manual of Style? Yes, IAR is a policy while the MOS is a guideline; and, as User:Arnoutf states, it is in some sense the most powerful policy. In this specific case, was it a good invocation of IAR? Absolutely not. The point of IAR is not to let policies or guidelines get in the way of improving the encyclopedia but unless there is a real good reason not to we stick with the guidelines and policies. There seems to be no such overriding reason here. The editor has a IAR banner on their talkpage but their edit summary here, where it uses its policy status as the means to the end, suggests a deep misunderstanding regarding IAR. To throw away the manual of style so willfully is half-deserving of a {{uw-mos1}} warning. I've seen the editor around quite a bit and although I don't remember specifics, I have favorable overall impression of their edits. Hopefully this is just a momentary lapse in judgment. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:54, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

IAR allows someone to ignore a rule when it prevents them from improving or maintaining the encyclopedia. Any action taken under it still needs to be accepted by the community, it is not a magic bullet. HighInBC 17:59, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Every instance of invoking IAR needs to be justified as being clearly in the interest of improving WP, it's not "get out of jail free" card. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:13, 8 May 2016 (UTC)
One case where you know IAR is inappropriate is when, without major privacy issues being relevant, you find out that consensus is against your action. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 03:06, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
  • IAR, on its very face, trumps all rules; but, as many here have suggested, it is not a mandate to break all—or any—rules, nor an invitation to mavericks, nor an excuse for selfishness or laziness. Strunk & White's Elements of Style, if I remember right, perhaps puts it better: "Break any of these rules, if you have a good reason." In other words, IAR is never, by itself, a sufficient grounds for departure from generally-accepted rules: it is merely a proviso allowing such departure in particular instances, where a given rule stands in the way of improvement or preservation of Wikipedia.
The editing conflict cited by the OP seems to me to be a no-brainer: there are strong arguments in favor of a uniform order and format for fundamental elements of articles, particularly for appendices; and none that I can think of for variation. J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 16:40, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
  • Others have explained the meta-rule of IAR adequately, so I won't reiterate that, just chime in with agreement that BMK's edit in question is not an improvement and thus does not qualify for IAR.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:26, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

blacklisting and 'archive.is

What criteria are used for blacklisting urls? Please forgive my ignorance but every once in a while I see a url that is blacklisted by wikipeida but have difficulty finding out why, (but are considered so toxic that even in a forum like this I could not save this question without chopping up the link to something like a.r.c.h.i.v.e.is to avoid making it functional). For example this article (Hizb ut-Tahrir) I am working on has a big tag ({{Blacklisted-links|1= *http://a.r.c.h.i.v.e.is/20120525084606/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070301faessay86208/robert-s-leiken-steven-brooke/the-moderate-muslim-brotherhood.html) on it because it includes a citation using a link to a.r.c.h.i.v.e.is.
Doing some brief searching I saw nothing explaining what was wrong with a.r.c.h.i.v.e.is, which seems to be the only place you can find that Foreign Affairs article online.
Thanks for any help. --BoogaLouie (talk) 14:50, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Please review these search results. --Izno (talk) 15:26, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to upgrade essay WP:BRD to official policy in edit warring issues.

The proposal is similar to previous proposals, and there does not appear to be a radical shift in consensus. Tazerdadog (talk) 23:57, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A simple proposal. That BRD be upgraded to official policy. As an essay it is useful and thought - provoking. As policy I believe it would greatly increase discussion, editor retention through early and perhaps positive engagement with I.P's with potential to be useful and would lead to a steep drop in edit warring over a relatively short period of time. Just a rough initial series of thoughts here. If it gains any traction the community can discuss just how it would fit into existing policy. My initial thought is that it would replace 3RR as the bright line in edit warring issues, or that they can be used more in tandem. which the community can refine. Refusing to discuss a revert should be the trigger. It will give admins the power to nip (what are now) long drawn out and time-consuming visits to be board in the bud. Refusal to communicate is usually the major part of edit - warring. This would require communication at the earliest stage, and would weed out I.P's who are potentially WP:HERE from those who will just be a drain on the project's resources. It would also encourage more experienced registered editors with a documented reluctance to communicate to actually give their rationale for edits. Thoughts? Irondome (talk) 23:11, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Please review Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 120#RfC: elevation of Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle to guideline status, held about a year ago. --Izno (talk) 13:25, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
Izno Appreciate that. Looks to be covering similar ground. I doubt if consensus has shifted since then..Irondome (talk) 14:14, 11 May 2016 (UTC)
LOL. Even elevating this to guideline level was soundly rejected, so moving it to policy is way off the table. Faith in BRD is at an all-time low, because of the frequency with which it is used for WP:GAMING, especially WP:ONEHAND antics.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:09, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
BRD is probably best described as a best practice, but for various reasons, elevating it to an officially sanctioned "rule" (whatever we call it) would have a negative effect on collaboration; it opens up the opportunities to "game" the system by granting a clear advantage to one person in a dispute, rather than leaving all persons on equal footing. --Jayron32 16:18, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
When I started editing relatively controversial subjects, I mistakenly thought WP:BRD was a policy and edited accordingly till someone pointed my mistake out to me. It has served me well: I have never been in trouble for edit-warring. That said, I agree that it is better seen as a "best-practice" rather than policy. I think it is fine the way it is. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:22, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Basic Data Page (A4 or 2xA4 max)

Ideally, this should be the lead paragraphs of every article, as per WP:LEAD. Efforts to create these pages would be more fruitful if they improved these leading paragraphs instead. Tazerdadog (talk) 04:40, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

There are many excellent pages on Wikipedia BUT as an general-knowledge user rather than being an expert in any specific area I find that many articles are so large as to be very difficult to obtain the key data.

The introductory paragraph(s) vary greatly in quality - some are perfunctory, others begin to include quite small details.

When I look at, for example, Florence Nightingale - I don't need ALL 23 pages of the detail; nor do I need all the data for many topics I have had to look at recently. And I believe the assembled expertise of Wiki can build this secondary resource very well and very effectively and to the benefit of the Wiki-world.

SUGGESTION

That major articles and articles over, say, 8 pages are allowed or expected to have a 'Basic Details' section immediately after the introduction. Perhaps an alternative would be to have a section in addition to Article and Talk.

The aim would be to EXCLUDE the references as part of the print and to have a maximum of say two pictures - albeit that one picture can equate to a 1000 words.

I have created pages for this project to see how easy it is. I am very willing to create a page on almost any topic to show that this BasicA4 version is viable and useful.

(A Third alternative would be for this to be somewhat equivalent to the Childs' Wikipedia which has many fewer articles.) JK Joking99a (talk) 09:49, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

The WP:LEAD is this, or expected to be so. --Izno (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
But LEAD doesn't supply this and isn't even often anything approximating a worthwhile summary - such as an A4 page might offer. How do I push this idea a little further? Joking99a (talk) 10:44, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
The response to "it's not often good enough" is for you to fix it, or at least tag it with {{lead too short}}. Pushing your idea is unlikely to go anywhere, and a proposal would likely be WP:SNOW-closed, because we already have a guideline which says "write a good summary in the lead", but you are always welcome to develop your idea and then propose it in a WP:RFC. --Izno (talk) 11:14, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

For me to 'fix the short or overlong or poor introductions' - I would have to be skilled at all the articles in which I have sometime only a casual interest. And there are a lot of experts in wiki-world who with encouragement would do a better job. Oh well, In the next few weeks 'll put in a few and see what happens. Or, more likely, i'll build up a set and post them in a bunch - wot u think Joking99a (talk) 18:44, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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