Jump to content

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 120

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Village pump (policy) archive  

This page contains discussions that have been archived from Village pump (policy).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.

< Older discussions · Archives: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, AF, AG, AH, AI, AJ, AK, AL, AM, AN, AO, AP, AQ, AR, AS, AT, AU, AV, AW, AX, AY, AZ, BA, BB, BC, BD, BE, BF, BG, BH, BI, BJ, BK, BL, BM, BN, BO · 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197

RfC: Guidance on commas after Jr. and Sr.

ENACTED
There is a consensus to enact the change; enacted in Special:Diff/666418299. Esquivalience t 01:35, 11 June 2015 (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.

The previous RfC: Guidance on commas before Jr. and Sr. has been closed with the decision to allow the comma before Jr. or Sr. to be optional provided that each article is interally consistent. Accordingly, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies § Names §§ First mention §§§ Child named for parent or predecessor has been amended to read:

Editors may use or omit a comma before Jr. or Sr. so long as each article is internally consistent. Do not place a comma before a Roman numeral designation. Examples: Sammy Davis Jr.; Martin Luther King, Sr.; Otis D. Wright II, not Otis D. Wright, II.

Hopefully this will avoid ongoing arguments on which is the "right" form for individual subjects (based on their preferences or sources' preferences) and won't lead to editwarring (see MOS:DATERET for the guideline avoiding similar editwarring over date formats).

As flagged in the previous discussion, this raises the issue of commas appearing after Jr. and Sr.. All style guides state that, if a comma is used before, a matching comma must appear afterwards if the sentence continues—acting as an appositive, much like commas after dates in MDY format (MOS:DATEFORMAT) and after city–state combinations (MOS:COMMA).

Style guides on commas before and after Jr. and Sr.
  • Chicago Manual of Style—Jr., Sr., III:

    Q. John Smith Jr. or John Smith, Jr.? John Smith III or John Smith, III?

    A. Traditionally, it would be John Smith, Jr., and John Smith III. But beginning with the fourteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style (1993), the recommendation is to use no commas in either case (see paragraph 6.47 of the sixteenth edition):

    John Smith Jr.

    But please note that within text, if you decide to use the more traditional comma before Jr. or Sr., the function of the comma is to set off these abbreviations, so an additional comma is needed after the abbreviation if the sentence continues (as in my first sentence above).

  • National Geographic Style Manual—Jr., Sr., III:

    Jr. and Sr. are preceded and followed by comma in full name:

    John M. Fahey, Jr. (left), went to...

    but John Jr. hurried...

  • Grammar Book—Commas:

    Rule 8. Traditionally, if a person's name is followed by Sr. or Jr., a comma follows the last name: Martin Luther King, Jr. This comma is no longer considered mandatory. However, if a comma does precede Sr. or Jr., another comma must follow the entire name when it appears midsentence.

    Correct: Al Mooney Sr. is here.

    Correct: Al Mooney, Sr., is here.

    Incorrect: Al Mooney, Sr. is here.

  • Daily Grammar—Lesson 341:

    Use a comma or commas to set off the abbreviations Jr., Sr., and Esq. Example: Carl Harris, Jr., is here now.

  • Answers—Is there a comma after Jr or Sr?:

    A comma would be used both before and after then designations of "Jr." or "Sr.," as long as the sentence continues. If the designation is at the end of the sentence, then a comma is used only before it.

    For example: John James, Sr., was well regarded in the community. However, the community had no use for John James, Jr.

  • Knox News—Grammar gremlins: Style for "Jr." and "Sr." varies:

    Sometimes the simplest point can cause us a problem when writing. For example, should "Jr." or "Sr." in a name be preceded by a comma?

    Some stylebooks say no, others say yes, but the "nos" outnumber the "yeses."

    However, those that specify no comma say you should follow the person's preference if you know it.

    A point to remember is, if you use a comma before either of these designations, you must use one after it.

Unfortunately, many editors are not aware of this rule in English and sometimes argue against it. Therefore, I recommend this section be further amended as follows:

Editors may use or omit a comma before Jr. or Sr. so long as each article is internally consistent (Sammy Davis Jr. or Martin Luther King, Sr.). If using a comma before, also include a comma after Jr. or Sr. if the sentence continues (John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was an American financer and philanthropist...).

Do not place a comma before a Roman numeral designation (Otis D. Wright II, not Otis D. Wright, II).

—sroc 💬 05:54, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Guidance on commas after Jr. and Sr.: Comments

Please add your comments below.
  • [Support:] Yes, if a comma goes before, it goes after. Standard logical clause construction. NB. Much prefer the British style where Jr and Sr do not need the period. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:21, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support the use of proposed addition. Consistency is a poor justification for going against WP:UCRN. GregKaye 06:34, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
    User:GregKaye - what does requiring the second comma have to do with WP:UCRN? Dohn joe (talk) 16:54, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
    Dohn joe My personal preference is that we should generally use a form of name that corresponds to WP:RECOGNIZABILITY and WP:NATURALNESS. Unless there are other pressing concerns, these are the considerations we, I think, should predominantly follow the way things are normally done for that person. WP:UCRN presents that: "Wikipedia prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in reliable English-language sources) as such names will be the most recognizable and the most natural." GregKaye 18:56, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
    User:GregKaye - agreed. But again, what does that have to do with whether we allow "John Smith, Jr., was..." and/or "John Smith, Jr. was..."? This RfC is only about whether we require that second comma after Jr. or not, not how we present the name (except for cases below like the Rockefeller library). I'm still confused about the relevance of wp:ucrn. Dohn joe (talk) 19:04, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Dohn joe My apologies for not understanding what you were saying. My support is mainly for the inclusion of examples such as "Sammy Davis Jr. or Martin Luther King, Sr.". I still think the commas content makes reasonable sense but you are right to point that this has nothing to do with issues relating to prevalence of use. GregKaye 19:40, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - What are you trying to do? The whole proposal that you have supported had no consensus. I checked the closed discussion, and you're still persistent on having all commas before successor or predecessor omitted. Also, you haven't contacted or pinged Go Phightins!, who accurately closed the previous discussion. Well, I'm still in favor of omitting a comma, but not when sources are divided or when consensus opposes it. This is instructional creep. --George Ho (talk) 07:04, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
@George Ho: What are you on about? This RfC isn't about the comma before Jr. or Sr.—it's about the separate issue of providing guidance for the comma after Jr. or Sr. All style guides say if there's a comma before there must be a comma after. That's all this RfC seeks to add to the guideline for clarification. —sroc 💬 15:21, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Note that this proposal was already flagged in the previous RfC:

Note: This RfC only concerns the comma before Jr. and Sr. If the result allows for that comma, then a follow-up discussion may be necessary regarding guidance on a comma after Jr. or Sr.

The result of that RfC allows for the comma before, so this RfC is about the comma after, exactly as previously stated. —sroc 💬 15:47, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
My bad. If you're concerned about a comma after Jr or Sr, perhaps I was mistaken. I struck original vote, so I will make a fresher one. George Ho (talk) 18:37, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Weak support - Look like an instructional creep, but a comma after Jr/Sr makes more sense when a comma before Jr/Sr is added. No comma before, no comma after, however. And I wouldn't care about regional differences as long as commas are properly used.
  • Oppose, it's an archaic style that's still listed in quite a few places and used in even less. The Jr. or Sr. without a comma has been the standard way of using the style as long as Jr. and Sr. have existed, or at least in my experience, which is almost as long. Official names, such as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, don't use it, probably because it makes things look worse instead of better and is so uncommon that the mind latches onto it and won't let go, like some kind of little dog sitting there growling at the preceding period. Randy Kryn 10:54, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
@Randy Kryn: That would be a good argument to do away with the commas altogether, but that argument has been and gone. English construction and style guides universally agree that a comma before requires a comma after. The fact that some sources flout this rule is no reason for this encyclopedia to follow in their folly. —sroc 💬 15:56, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The recently closed RFC closure on the issue of commas before Jr. or Sr. (essentially saying that we should have no rule other than "be internally consistent" within an article) reflected a practical and common sense approach that accounts for our lack of consensus on the issue. I think the same approach should be applied to the question of commas after... The important thing is for the style to be internally consistent within any given article. More than that is unnecessary instruction creep. Blueboar (talk) 13:33, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
@Blueboar: Style guides generally agree that commas may be included or omitted (the trend is to omit them) but all agree that a comma before requires a comma after. If we're consistent within each article about whether or not to have the comma before, "common sense" requires that we also be consistent about whether or not to include the comma after. —sroc 💬 15:24, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm fairly certain this covention is completely unknown in British English - were any of the "all style guides" for BE? People should be more careful about this. Even in AE it doesn't seem to me to be what is usual. Just in case it is adopted it should be made clear that this applies within AE only, for ENGVAR purposes. Johnbod (talk) 14:01, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support – The following comma is required in both British English and American English, and always has been (I'm a Briton). If the form with the comma before is to be allowed, the following comma must also be required. RGloucester — ☎ 14:24, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
This is simply nonsense! Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
There is nothing "nonsense" about it. Yes, we don't generally use "junior" and "senior" suffixes in British English. However, the rules of comma usage remain the same. Completing the apposition requires a following comma. Take a look at this guide here, which explains the use of commas with appositives quite well. In the American context, one might look at this Chicago style guide bit, which notes the necessary nature of the following comma. RGloucester — ☎ 15:09, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support Now I know why the British omit the period, so you do not have to argue of the mid sentence period. I agree that you should have a comma after a mid sentence period, except after Mr. and Dr. and others that are name prefixes, but that has nothing to do with changing the titles of articles. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:52, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It may be that all style guides that address the issue recommend using the second comma, but there are two complications. 1) Not all style guides even discuss this relatively minor point of punctuation. 2) In practice, many reputable sources leave out the second comma, regardless of the preferences of style guides. For example:
Routledge: Cromwell, Adelaide M. An African Victorian Feminist: The Life and Times of Adelaide Smith Casely Hayford 1848-1960. p.31. 2014.
Oxford University Press: Lischer, Richard. The Preacher King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Word that Moved America. p.197. 1995.
Many more (see for yourself with this Google Books search).
We have also already come across the case where WP editors have decided that the second comma might not be a part of the name of something. For example:
Talk:John_D._Rockefeller,_Jr._Memorial_Parkway#Requested_move_2_March_2015
Leaving out the second comma in general does nothing to change the ability of our readers to comprehend the meaning of the sentence. Despite style guides' efforts, the second comma is quite often left out, even in reputable, professionally edited sources. Real-world usage shows that both using and leaving out the second comma is acceptable in English. WP should therefore allow both styles, as long as an article is internally consistent. Any particularly strong argument for including or omitting the second comma should be taken up on a case-by-case basis. Dohn joe (talk) 16:41, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
@Dohn joe: The fact that some sources don't follow proper punctuation is no reason for this encyclopedia to follow in their folly. Cases like the Memorial Parkway (where even the "official" sources disagreed on the punctuation) show exactly why we should have proper guidance on this to avoid recurring debates by editors who are singularly focussed on particular articles without a considered understanding of this specific punctuation issue. —sroc 💬 03:55, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
User:sroc - the point is that style guides do not have a monopoly on what is "proper punctuation." Usage in reputable, professionally edited sources is good evidence of what is proper usage. When a significant portion of sources use a style (as with not using a second comma after Jr.), then WP should be allowed to permit usage of that style. Dohn joe (talk) 15:36, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
@Dohn joe: Prescriptivism vs descriptivism. I would rather defer to style guides on matters of style. If there was some leeway in some style guides then I might accept the argument, but all the style guides I've seen say comma before requires a comma after; none concede that the comma after is optional when the comma before is used. It's poor form for an encyclopedia's style guide to go against all style guides on proper punctuation. —sroc 💬 04:22, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
If this is folly, as you repeat, then the U.S. government is guilty of folly (not for the first time, if truth be told) over and over again. The comma after a Jr. or Sr. would change the name of institutions and memorials, of books and beanstalks. As I said, the use of comma after such a word combination misses the point of clear and clean language, and just adds more data into something which doesn't need to be explained. Randy Kryn 11:10, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
The comma is there precisely because it makes for "clear" language by following standard logical rules, as explained by the mentioned style guides. Some sources fail (for example, it has been said that newspapers omit the comma after MDY dates and city–state conjunctions to economise on space in narrow columns) and often disagree (for example, the same geographical feature is "officially" named as "John D. Rockefeller, Junior, Memorial Parkway" in founding legislation; "John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway" on signs and publications; and "John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Memorial Parkway" on its website). Where others fail, we should strive for accuracy and encyclopedic standards. —sroc 💬 11:40, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support - As far as I am concerned, British English uses' this standard. CookieMonster755 (talk) 23:12, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support—if editors are going to use a comma before Sr./Jr., then some form of punctuation is necessary to close the appositive. By default that is another comma, but it could be a semicolon, dash or terminal punctuation. We do this with constructions like "Milwaukee, Wisconsin", so we should be doing this with these types of names. (Dropping the comma completely in these names would simplify things greatly, of course.) Imzadi 1979 → 05:32, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
    The comma in the Jr. or Sr. is part of a person's proper name. "Milwaukee" is a proper name on its own, as is "Wisconsin", so in that form the comma is needed, but not if the comma is part of the proper name. Randy Kryn 1:38, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Except his name is often given simply as "Martin Luther King" and the "Jr." is only added as a distinguishing feature when needed; and in any case, this involves the rules of English punctuation which are supported by the cited style guides—you have provided no style guide references to contradict this. —sroc 💬 01:43, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
King himself used the comma as part of his proper name. The U.S. government, in its naming of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day have set the style in his case. Randy Kryn 1:48, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
You may think it "awkward", but it's English. The alternative was to do away with commas before "Jr."/"Sr.", but the consensus went against that. Americans failing English punctuation is no excuse for Wikipedia to pander to them. —sroc 💬 01:59, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Eh, it's generally everyone but American's who are dropping the commas, though.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:53, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: I was responding to Randy Kryn's comment about US government sources. I don't care who's dropping the comma after; mismatched commas are wrong and an encyclopedia shouldn't settle for sub-standard punctuation. —sroc 💬 17:47, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
Right. :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs)
  • Support a comma after when there is one before. – SJ + 15:15, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support: Yes, this is basic English punctuation. I'm skeptical that a Village pump (policy) RfC was needed for this. Minor clarification edits to MOS pages are discussed at their talk pages, or at the main WT:MOS talk page if the MOS subpage's talk page is poorly attended.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:56, 25 May 2015 (UTC)
I posted it here because the antecedent RfC: Guidance on commas before Jr. and Sr. was posted here, and that was because it was considered that MOS was not sufficiently patrolled for a previous RfC. Notification was also posted at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies § RfC: Comma or no comma before Jr. and Sr. §§ New RfCs. —sroc 💬 02:16, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
By the way, I would have hoped this wouldn't be controversial, but alas my fear that this would court controversy was realised. —sroc 💬 02:23, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
It courts controversy only because MOS-bashing has become a wikisport (and a team one at that), while not everyone who writes Wikipedia has much training in writing, plus the human tendency to believe that a rule someone doesn't want to be bothered with is a wrong in the world. Competent writers, and reliable sources on English-language usage, all know that commas are balanced in cases like this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:36, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
It's controversial simply because competent writers, and editors, such as the ones cited above from Routledge and Oxford, do in fact sometimes omit a following comma. An acceptable option in reliable sources should be an option here on WP. Dohn joe (talk) 17:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
Evidence of usage that has managed to make it into print doesn't constitute reliable sourcing that such a style choice is widely acceptable in a formal register like encyclopedia writing. Routledge and Oxford as publishers have little to do with the output of Cromwell and Lischer, the authors of the books in question. While the writers were surely subject to some level of editorial revision, we have no insider data on why this usage was not corrected to something more standard; we can't suppose it was because officials at the publishers preferred it, or it was just an oversight, or the authors in each case lobbied hard for it because they thought their audience didn't like commas, or what. There's no evidence.

It certainly isn't the case that Oxford can be cited as some kind of authority of in favor of omitting that comma, or even being neutral on it. Oxford's own style guide under various titles doesn't address this exact case, but they do address the general case. With the comma in such a name, "Jr." or "Sr." is an appositive, a qualifier, added to the name. Oxford is clear on these in general: "Use a pair of commas when the apposition falls in the middle of a sentence; they function like a pair of parentheses or dashes, though they imply a closer relationship with the surrounding text". (New Harts Rules: The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors, p. 68, Oxford U. Pr., 2005). That even neatly explains why we use commas, instead of some other convention like "Martin Luther King (Jr.)".

So, we do have four things here: 1) style/usage guides recommending commas before and after "Jr." and "Sr."; 2) guides not addressing this specific question but giving more general advice that inexorably leads to the same conclusion; 3) guides recommending or at least permitting the dropping of both commas (mostly news style guides, with focus on expediency); and 4) guides offering no applicable advice at all. The one relevant thing we do not have is style guides recommending dropping the second comma if the first is used. Even if a style manual can be found somewhere recommending no second comma, it would be dwarfed by the stack of books contradicting it. So there's really no debate to continue with on this point. It remains well sourced (in this thread and many before it) that reliable sources on English-language usage consistently say that commas are balanced in cases like this. The dropping of the second comma is fairly common in vernacular and journalistic writing (including books written by journalists). I catch myself doing it out of expediency pretty often. But it's not formal, precise writing, and it can lead to sentences that are difficult to parse correctly. Finally, WP is not bound to do what a numeric majority of external style guides do, anyway. MOS recommends what our consensus (collectively built and refined) determines is best for the encyclopedia's purpose and readership, not for the approval of pundits at any external publisher of style guides. An enormous number of WP:MOS-related and WP:AT-related arguments are predicated on approaching MOS/AT as if we're writing a style guide / naming convention for the world, instead of an in-house one for a single publication.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:24, 28 May 2015 (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.

Redirecting bots' talk pages to the operator's talk page

A bot's talk page is often redirected to the operator's talk page. 2602:306:B8E0:82C0:C57C:A2C7:42EA:556A (talk) 16:05, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Do you consider that good or bad and what do you propose would be the correct behavior? Thisisnotatest (talk) 20:54, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
In my opinion, it is and should be up to the bot operator. If she wants to keep bot messages on a separate page and is willing to monitor both, that's fine. If she wants to only have to monitor one page, that's fine as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:53, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
It also depends upon how many people are significantly involved in the bot's operation. If you have two or three maintainers (only one of whom is "the operator"), then a separate page might be the right answer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't redirect my bot's talk page to my page - but I do have a warning on the bot's talk page that I'm unlikely to notice messages left there. My bot doesn't do anything with messages left there, so if you want your message noticed, it doesn't do any good to leave one there. --B (talk) 21:37, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Unclickable images and licensing

I was looking at the arbcom noticeboard and noticed that the scales in their logo are unclickable. That comes from {{Arb-logo}} using the "link=" parameter to the File tag. In this particular case, File:Scale of justice 2.svg is public domain, so that's not a legal problem per se. It seems rather pointless, though, to deny someone who might want to make use of this image the ability to find it. It's one thing when we have the lock icon on protected pages or the administrator icon on administrators' user pages - at least we have a purpose there in overriding the link. So then I looked at the icon in the ArbCom navigation template and it is similarly unclickable. This image is File:Waage Zeichen.svg and it is licensed under the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license, which requires us to credit the author. So by making this an unclickable image, we're failing to do that. In a few minutes of looking, I found File:Crystal_128_reload.svg, which is used in {{Purge button}}. By having this image not go to the description page, we're failing to credit the author in violation of the license. So my policy suggestion is that a requirement for an unclickable image or for an image where clicking on it takes you somewhere other than the default behavior is that it must be a public domain image or some other image whose licensing requirements do not include attribution. --B (talk) 21:35, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I've fixed images like those in the past for that very reason. There's no need for a new policy that says we must comply with the license terms, just do it (with a decent edit summary to people watching know why).
I think PD, CC0, and {{CopyrightedFreeUse-Link}} are the only licenses commonly used for images here that require neither attribution nor some sort of notice that the image is licensed under the license. Years ago I started a list of free license templates sorted by "needs link for attribution and notice of license", "needs link for attribution only", and "no link needed" as part of a user script to highlight images using |link= in violation of the license, but I quickly discovered that (1) it'd be a huge pain to keep the list up to date and (2) Commons has way more license templates and didn't care to make the link requirement metadata queryable without scraping HTML so I gave up on it. Maybe commons:Commons:Structured data will fix it someday. Anomie⚔ 00:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I took care of those two templates, BTW: one by removing |link= and the other by replacing the GFDL image with a similar CC0 image. A third option would have been to somehow add an alternative link, like how <imagemap>...</imagemap> does (as shown in the example to the right). Anomie⚔ 00:43, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I really can't fathom a reason not to make images unclickable in normal circumstances. If you are doing some sort of creative interface and you're using an image for a decorative box corner or something (well, 1995 called and wants its HTML coding methodology back, but aside from that) then unclickable links make sense. But I can't come up with a reason that, when you have an image like the arbcom template or anything similar, it shouldn't be clickable. Sometimes, we have image buttons and clicking on them takes an action ... but I can't come up with a reason for them to be unclickable. --B (talk) 12:53, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
You did find a reason; you don't agree with it. Websites use pictures that are not links to make the page or section aesthetically pleasing. You don't have to be able to click everything on Wikipedia. It's perfectly acceptable when the licensing agrees. Killiondude (talk) 21:02, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
If the image is a part of the layout of the page (a fancy box corner, the background, etc), then it should be displayed using CSS, not using wiki markup. (This isn't 1995 - if you want a table that has a fancy image for its border, you use CSS to do that - you don't put an image tag in a cell of your table.) If you are using wiki markup to display an image, making it unclickable, while legal if the image does not require attribution, limits the ability of reusers to quickly find and reuse that image. (Note: I am talking about completely unclickable images that have link= nothing, not things like the {{administrator}} button where the link does not go to the image because it does something else useful instead.) --B (talk) 02:39, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

A challenge for all

WT:IPs are human too#Reflection and challenge — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.127.175.164 (talk) 00:50, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Revisiting trivia, and pop-culture / cultural references / cultural impact material

FYI
 – Pointers to relevant discussions elsewhere.
  1. New guideline material: I added a section to MOS:TRIVIA, at WP:Manual of Style/Trivia sections#"In popular culture" and "Cultural references" material, on how to approach pop-culture content from a MoS perspective (avoid list format, etc.). For content policy matters, I just cross-referenced to the relevant policies. I also (this will probably be the only potentially controversial part of the addition) linked to the WP:"In popular culture" content essay in this section, but noted that it is an essay, and did not recommend anything in it, just observed that's there.
    Please comment at WT:Manual of Style/Trivia sections#Covering cultural references / popular culture material.
  2. Proposal to develop a content guideline on encyclopedic relevance: There is no question that the Wikipedia community has a general consensus on the handling (mostly rejection) of trivia, on the fact that not all popular culture material is trivial, and that material on cultural influence/impact is a necessary part of encyclopedic coverage. We have no content guideline covering this, but a number of essays that include some very well-accepted advice and rationales. It should not be too difficult to develop a draft guideline for WP:Proposal from the best-regarded of these points, tied to WP:Core content policies. The last time this was attempted was many years ago, when inclusion of trivia was advocated by many editors. Much has changed since then. I advocate a descriptive as much as prescriptive/restrictive approach: Codify existing best practices, rather than introduce new rules.
    Please comment at WT:Handling trivia#Proposal to develop a content guideline on encyclopedic relevance.
  3. Proposal to restart WikiProject Popular Culture with a new focus: It still has years-old material about "saving" trivia, and has of course become inactive. It should be repurposed improve actually encyclopedic cultural references material, and perhaps to speed the removal of unsourced, unencyclopedic trivia.
    Please comment at WT:WikiProject Popular Culture#It's time we realign this project's priorities and reboot it.
  4. Proposal to deprecate the "In popular culture" heading: Other headings can more accurately describe the (proper) content of such sections, and be much less likely to attract the addition of trivial cruft. "Cultural references" seems to be the most popular alternative, but only address one of at least 3 rather different classes of / approaches to such sections.
    Please comment at WT:Manual of Style/Trivia sections#Deprecating the "In popular culture" heading.

I think that together, such efforts may lead to better handling of encyclopedically relevant cultural-references and cultural-influence material, and a faster general reduction in unencyclopedic pop-culture trivia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:56, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

It's a good start... I completely agree that we need to provide better guidance when it comes to the issue of relevance. But let's not stop at pop culture. Let's extend the discussion to all types of information. Relevance is one of the hardest things to explain to article writers, and we don't really offer much in the way of guidance about it. We hint at relevance in WP:V when we say "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion"... we hint at it again at WP:NPOV (with UNDUE)... however I think we could do more. The idea that we can decide that a particular tid-bit of information is "not worth mentioning in an article", and that we can make the editorial decision to simply OMIT it, is not well understood. Blueboar (talk) 18:36, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Oh, I strongly agree. I'm just starting with the easy part.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:58, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Since multiple sides of the gender-issues disputes have been around in large numbers ...

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

The outcome of this RM may be of interest: Wikipedia talk:Don't feed the divas#Requested move. Is it addressing a real issue or just being politically correct? Answer that after you read the discussion. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

"nowadays" seems archaic and unprofessional

This word is used in several articles I've looked at in the recent past, and every time I encounter it, it bothers me. Is a style edit to substitute this word with something less casual? An example usage is @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography#Overview_and_history in the 8th paragraph: "In its early days, holography required high-power expensive lasers, but nowadays, mass-produced low-cost semi-conductor or diode lasers...". The 'but' also seems too informal/casual for an encyclopedia.

A more specific timeline would, I think, be best. When one is not available, ending the historic sentence and starting a new one with some variation of "More recently," seems to be less jarring. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.161.127.120 (talk) 21:07, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Such sentences are also easily out of date, so it would be better to say "since the 2010's ..." or something related to a date, rather than the time the writer writes it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:23, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
Actually, "nowadays" doesn't fit WP:DATED. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:44, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I've seen the word often in quality publications. For example do a Google search with the terms nowadays site:spectrummagazine.org
Jc3s5h (talk) 23:57, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
I tend to agree with the original poster that "nowadays", albeit a fine word in and of itself, is slightly chatty-sounding for encyclopedic writing. The first hit for your search, for example, is a first-person narrative. I make no representations about its "quality", but I do say that its tone is not really appropriate for an encyclopedia. Encyclopedic writing is very nearly the highest register the English language has, higher than academic journals, maybe second only to diplomatic communications.
That said, I don't think this is a policy question. 69.161.127.120, I recommend that you bring the issue up on the talk pages of the articles in question. --Trovatore (talk) 00:06, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
I don't like "nowadays" in Wikipedia. I can't think of a case where it is the best way to say something and I would reword any sentence I came across that contains "nowadays". I don't get the "archaic" angle, though. I just see informal. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
I foresee any effort to systematically replace the word "nowadays" veering into tortuous freshman-comp verbosity. Rhoark (talk) 16:08, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
That's a content not a style edit. Changing "forwards" to "forward", in a construction where either word will work, is a style edit. PS: I agree it's not a word that belongs in an encyclopedic register. Encyclopedic writing and "quality publication" are not synonyms. Also, aside from tone, the reali issue with "nowadays" is the same as that with "recently": After some indeterminate amount of time passes, it will be inaccurate. Depending on the topic, and whether anything new happens in the field in question, it might even be tomorrow.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:09, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
I think saying "Since so and so day, month and year" would be more professional, as some said above, "nowadays" eventually becomes dated and editors may have to change that word to a phrase like "Since June 2013". Sam.gov (talk) 15:13, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Transparency

On its talk page I've proposed adding the following to our blocking policy:

Administrators are required to put enough information into the block log for themselves and others to determine the grounds for the block at the time and in the future.

Your thoughts at Wikipedia talk:Blocking policy#Transparency are welcome. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 05:12, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I was trying to figure out how to handle a problem with Best of Enemies (film). I put a hatnote on that article which has a red link because I don't have the time or patience right now to attempt an article on The Girls' Room, which probably passes the notability test. But I went to Wil Wheaton and there is a blue link to the movie in his filmography. It looks like a link to a Wikipedia article. But it's not. I went to edit, thinking something like this probably wasn't allowed, and "imdbtitle" was used in numerous links in the filmography. If this wasn't acceptable Wikipedia practice, someone surely would have fixed this, but it doesn't sound like it should be.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:34, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

That's... odd. How does that even work? [[imdbtitle:...]] would imply to me that it should be an article title, which it obviously isn't, but I'm struggling to find any documentation regarding it. Sam Walton (talk) 19:41, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
It's an interwiki link, but I don't believe it should be being used this way... We should only be linking films with Wikipedia articles, the rest should be red links if an article is likely, plain text if not. Skyerise (talk) 19:56, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
I see my hatnote is still there. One of these days I may find the time for the article to turn that red link blue. As for the Wil Wheaton problem, I assume it's okay for me to fix it there. Now the question is how to find all other instances.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:02, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

I raised the issue at WP:ELN. Johnuniq (talk) 01:39, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I would classify such links as spam. --Ronz (talk) 14:56, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
WP:ELN isn't WP:SPAM.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:29, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
I don't know what you mean. I mean that such links violate every relevant policy and guideline that I can think of, including WP:SPAM.
The links were added here --Ronz (talk) 18:18, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
I found that revision too and contacted the user and invited him/her to this discussion. No response so far.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:27, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Red link#Guideline revision urgently needed; subsection is at Wikipedia talk:Red link#Revision proposal. A WP:Permalink for the matter is here. Flyer22 (talk) 20:16, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Problem analogous to the above discussion

Suppose the following were true:

In 1976, a woman named Caitlyn Jenner (born in 1949) was thought to have been born in New York. She knows herself as someone born in New York, and all sources revealing her birth place reveal New York as the state she was born in.

Then, in 2015, it was suddenly revealed that Caitlyn Jenner was born in New Jersey. Wikipedia successfully updates its article on Caitlyn Jenner that after finding reliable sources, it now says she was born in New Jersey per this fact. But what would an article specifically related to a 1976 event where Caitlyn Jenner label her under the assumption that it is relevant?? Would it:

  1. Say Jenner was born in New York (as was thought at that time)
  2. Say Jenner was born in New Jersey (as is now known), or
  3. Say Jenner was thought to have been born in New York but is now known to have been born in New Jersey??

What do you think?? (This problem has nothing to do with the U.S. state Jenner was actually born in; it's just a problem that I see the above discussion about how to handle Jenner as an analogy to.) Georgia guy (talk) 14:31, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

To take that further, what if you then had a reliable sources with a copy of Caitlyn's birth certificate issued by NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital? Would you say "Caitlyn was born in New Jersey at the NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital"? That makes about as much sense as "She won the Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year in 1976". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:54, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, the article itself says that the hospital is in New York, meaning that anyone born in the hospital was born in New York. Georgia guy (talk) 14:58, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
And an article for the "Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year" would say that it is awarded to a male athlete. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:03, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, nobody back in 1976 knew Jenner was a trans woman. Georgia guy (talk) 15:06, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm skeptical that we have unequivocal evidence that Jenner was at that time. Perhaps on the road to that, but not there yet. Even if Jenner is certain that she was, that's an inner assessment, and does not agree with external ones. The assessment criteria are different, and the conclusions are not really directly comparable. In essence, Jenner's own internal assessment of "female" and a sport governing body's assessment of "female" are homonyms that refer to different, easily confused subjects. Imposing the former's assessment on the latter is OR and POV, and irrational in the end, though the logic break isn't instantly obvious to everyone. Also, this idea that trans people are trans in a deeply existential way, either at birth or at the very moment they first question their gender, or at the moment they answer that question firmly (depending on your hypothesis), is entirely theoretical, and hotly contested, in multiple fields. I know trans people who would not agree with this premise at all, who say they became TG over time, through a process of self-redefinition, not a discovery what they "really were all along". It's a YYMV situation, that differs for different people. The gender studies approach (an socio-psychology one) is radically different from an anthropological one, which different from a biopsychological one, which differs from a ... you get the idea.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:24, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I would say #3 would be best, to say Jenner was thought to have been born in New York but is now known to have been born in New Jersey. Whenever there is conflict in the sources, a Wikipedia article should acknowledge that. Likewise, whenever there has been a change in how a thing is perceived, Wikipedia should acknowledge that. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 16:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

This is a bad analogy. Here's a better one: every time someone moves, they are no longer allowed to be credited for things done in their old town. You play football in small town high school, but as soon as you move away to college, all of your high-school accomplishments can no longer be credited to you and have to be deleted from any article they occur in. You move to Boston and play ball in college, but you graduate and move to New York to pursue a career. All your college football credits have to be deleted from every article they occur in, they cannot be credited to you. You found a company which goes big, you sell it and move to LA. Gotta delete all those references to you from the company and other articles.
A name does not with a Gold Medal in the Olympics, a person does. And that person has the ethical right to be credited under their current name for their past accomplishments, even if they have changed their name. Skyerise (talk) 07:58, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
How many times have you updated pages that list female athletes' maiden names so far, to show their married names instead? If a person truly has "an ethical right to be credited under her current name for her past accomplishment, even if she changed her name", then I'm sure that, as an ethical person, you have been very busy updating thousands of articles about women who have changed names due to marriage or divorce. For example, every link to Sanya Richards must go, because "it's her ethical right to be credited under her current name".
Or are you proposing that this is a special rule for transgendered people, and that it doesn't apply to the thousands of cis-gendered women whose names have changed for other reasons? Or maybe this isn't actually any sort of ethical right, but instead something that should be done in a way that best educates and informs the reader, case-by-case, and following individual preferences rather than a mindless "current name no matter what the person says" rule?
I (think I) understand your frustration, but I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:42, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
It's already the special rule for transgender people, per MOS:IDENTITY, which was correctly decided some time ago. What people are doing here is what they do everywhere, not research or actually try to understand the reason for that, and look for some way to further deprive transgender people of their rights. I have quite a few edits and articles under my belt, and I even have the chance to get hired as a Wikipedian-in-residence, but I will boycott Wikipedia and organize protests against it in the LGBT community if this current status quo is overridden by a bunch of testoterone-poisoned jocks. Skyerise (talk) 11:49, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
Wait... if you don't get your way you're going to throw a tantrum? Boy that's really helpful, don't let the door hit you on the way out if that happens. You being hired to edit here means diddly squat. We are all equal partners in this encyclopedia. So calm down and we'll see where consensus leads us, as we always do at wikipedia. And be very careful about making threats against Wikipedia WP:BATTLEGROUND. It is against policy. Fyunck(click) (talk) 17:29, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
It's not "my way", it's the general feeling in the transgender community, who deserve the respect of not having their accomplishments credited only under their deadname. And I don't think WP:BATTLEGROUND has any authority over my activities outside of Wikipedia. I've trained new editors before, on Seattle topics and Native American literature topics. I'm sure there are a lot of trans people with a sincere interest in editing Wikipedia but who are intimidated by the complexity of citations, notability and other issues. If I choose to seek them out and get them to contribute to Wikipedia, that's not something Wikipedia can censor. Plus of course organizing trans people to boycott Wikipedia would be ineffective, the percentage in the general population is simply too low to have all that much of an effect. Getting them onto Wikipedia, though... to balance out the "oh, no, I'm not transphobic, I just care about sourcing" crowd.... That just might have an effect. Skyerise (talk) 17:54, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
Skyerise, I know what the exception at MOS:IDENTITY says; I even helped update it a few years ago. I'm specifically asking you about the scope of your claim that people have "the ethical right to be credited under their current name for their past accomplishments". Did you intend that sweeping statement to apply to "people" (what you wrote) or only to "trans people" (a small subset of all people)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:32, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
I think we should apply it to any person who changes their name. WP:COMMONNAME is fine for objects, but not for people. We should pick up on name changes and move articles and apply the same procedures for any formally announced name change. But it's essential for trans people, less urgent for others. Skyerise (talk) 03:08, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that this is an ethical right, and I'm also not sure that it's essential for all trans people. (But then I've met two MTFs who did not change their names at the time of their transitions; perhaps you haven't met any for whom naming was not such an emotional issue.) The fundamental Wikipedia issue doesn't change, though: How much of your time are you WP:VOLUNTEERing to make this happen? Trying to make articles comply with this alleged ethical right could probably occupy you full-time for a year. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:30, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

::::::::Of course it's not an ethical right. All we have been given thus far is anecdotal evidence. The MOS guideline is IMO quite shoddy, and appears to have been written by a small subgroup of editors. I fear any proposed change to bring it in line with what modern sources use will see fierce filibustering. The dubious claims being made by Skyrise indicated we have a classic Wikipedia COI problem.69.143.188.200 (talk) 07:11, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

I would go with (2) Say Jenner was born in New Jersey (as is now known). I would add the detail somewhere further down, perhaps in a footnote, that at the time of the event she was thought to have been born elsewhere, if it was at all relevant. Like if the event was supposed to be for New York natives.
It's not a great analogy to the name change case, though, because Caitlyn's birth place never actually changed, but her name did (regardless of whether we believe her gender or identity did). Nonetheless, I'd use the same logic and say Caitlyn was involved in the event, not Bruce, and probably add the detail that at the time she was called Bruce, because of all those historical documents (and memories) that use that name in connection with the event. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 23:23, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • There is question that has not been addressed: Is the change of birthplace relevant? It's an important question because HOW we deal with noting a correction in someone's birthplace would depend on whether the birthplace is important information or not. We have to ask... Is being a New Yorker or a New Jersey-ite directly connected to what makes the person notable? Certainly, if the person is notable for being a New Yorker (for example: if the person wrote a book that goes on and on about how she was "born in New York"), then it would be important to highlight the discovery that while she thought she was born in New York, it turns out that she was (in fact) born in New Jersey. On the other hand, if the birthplace is simply a matter of biographical trivia (background material with no real connection to the person's notability), then there is no reason to even mention the fact that the person thought she was from New York... we can simply amend the article to say New Jersey... and OMIT the fact that the person thought she was from New York.
To tie this back to all the angst and debate over IDENTITY... I think the flaw is in trying to make firm and fast "rules" ... I don't think we can. We have to look at each article individually. How we deal with a change of identity depends a lot on the relevance of the identity change in the context of what makes the person notable. Is the person notable because of the identity change ... that's going to be handled differently than if the person is notable for something else. Also... How we deal with Identity will change, depending on whether the person became notable for something that occurred before the identity change or after the identity change. Blueboar (talk) 21:27, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  • It's not a valid analogy, since in once instance a correction is being made, and in the other accurate historical information is being changed in order to reflect a current change in status. Onel5969 (talk) 18:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes, from an encyclopedic standpoint. The thinking that lead to the mess we have at MOS:IDENTITY right now is that "Jimmy at work won't stop calling me 'James' when I've been 'Janet' for 3 years, and he's just doing it be mean and a TG hater" is exactly the same thing as "Wikipedia won't stop referring to my past award, which says 'James' on it, as having been awarded under than name, when I wish the name 'James' had never existed for me, and I really want them to undo the past and lie to their readers to make me feel better." It's an astounding case of false equivalence. PS: Has Jenner actually tried to change her article? Published a statement criticizing Wikipedia for not erasing all mention of "Bruce Jenner"? Contacted WMF to file a formal complaint or threat? No? Then it's shameless OR to try to put words in Jenner's mouth, thoughts in her head, about these questions when they're really one's own activism.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:39, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Requests for Mediation

Wrong venue. Please move to User talk:Z07x10

Why are people allowed to refuse to participate in mediation but then continue to oppose content? Surely when an RFM has been filed, they should either participate or drop any issues they have with content.Z07x10 (talk) 08:15, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Let's try a few reasons. First, participation in any content dispute resolution mechanism is voluntary. Second, you have not shown why a formal request for mediation at requests for mediation would have a different result than an informal request for mediation at the dispute resolution noticeboard did, and have not answered that question. Third, you do not have a "right" to continue to try to wear down other editors by forum shopping, at WP:DRN, at WP:NORN, at WP:RFM, and here, until other editors agree out of sheer exhaustion to let you include the paragraph which has consensus against its inclusion. Fourth, there is already consensus against adding that paragraph. There has been consensus against adding that paragraph. Fifth, simply because editors do not agree on exactly why we do not want that paragraph added does not mean that, due to lack of consensus on why it is not needed, we have to concede to you. Sixth, continuing to press for eighteen months for the same edit is about as clear a case of tendentious editing as I have seen in years. Seventh, when you told the other editors to drop the stick and leave the dead horse, and they told you to drop the stick and leave the dead horse, they meant the horse that you have been flogging for eighteen months. Eighth, a Request for Comments is now running, and will run for thirty days, which is another thirty days for you to make the case. You just don't get the sixty to ninety days that a typical mediation runs. Robert McClenon (talk) 10:35, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
We tried at the DRN - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Eurofighter_Typhoon
This was then moved to NORN since the complainant claimed OR - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Eurofighter_Typhoon
You judged his claim incorrect - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#A_Summary.2C_and_Thoughts_to_Go_Forward
He then moved to source reliability have failed with OR (and you accuse me of 'shopping'), so then I took out an RFM, which he declined - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_mediation/Eurofighter_Typhoon_2
A consensus requires basis in policy, it is not just a vote - WP:CONSENSUS - none were provided. If we're just having votes then we may as well delete the policy pages.
The 'consensus' can't agree on the reason? You mean they can't find a single basis in policy to support their WP:I just don't like it.
They don't want an RFM because that might be done properly, whereas they have a nice little cliche/editor/cartel going so they can easily vote down in the RFC without any real substantiation or examination.
18 months?Z07x10 (talk) 11:56, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

This isn't the place for this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:51, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Animated GIFs in infoboxes

The new Shri Ram Institute of Technology has had an animated GIF put in its infobox, where one would normally expect a logo or similar. Is this allowed? I find it rather distracting. (see GIF at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shri_Ram_Group.gif) 220 of Borg 13:51, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia has no rules against the use of animated GIFs, AFAIK. There are some that have been featured picture of the day, even. That being said, merely because something is allowed, doesn't mean it is a good idea; editorial discretion and article quality are more important than rules, and if the image detracts from the article quality 1) feel free to remove it and 2) if someone objects and puts it back, don't edit war but instead have a discussion and come to a consensus. --Jayron32 16:36, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks Jayron. I think I have never come across a animated logo in an Infobox before though. An IP editor has now removed it. I think I'll leave it at that. 220 of Borg 17:04, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Kill it. Kill it with fire. If we don't have a rule against animated GIFs in infoboxes we should make one. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:14, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
    • I largely agree with Guy. I think animated Gifs have their place, and think we could use more, especially good ones, but generally oppose them in infoboxes. I'm not quite ready to support a firm rule, as I can imagine excepts. we do not have an article on animated Gifs or animated Google Doodles yet, but in such an article it might be desirable for an example in the info box. I do see that there is an animated Gif in Gif, and think that is a bad idea, but I don't have the energy to start the discussion there.--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:40, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Although rare, gifs are useful in some articles. For example, in our chess articles, where certain positions or a sequence of moves must be presented to describe the topic. See Scholar's Mate for an example; it doesn't have an infobox, but if it did, I can't imagine any image being appropriate there except a gif of that particular sequence. The OP's example is obviously a very different case, and that gif should probably be removed.   — Jess· Δ♥ 06:50, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
  • GIF animations of instructive things like chess moves are simply WP:VIDEOS, covered by that quasi-guideline. The use of the same technology to animate an oversized icon to be attention getting is arguably already within the purview of MOS:ICONS (basically: don't use icons as decoration), and even if we don't think it's covered, it's a simple matter to ensure that it becomes covered there.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:39, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Banning animated gifs from all infoboxes, is a little too broad of a rule for my taste. There are certainly some articles where gifs in the infobox would be warranted, though it may be few and far between. Advising against them in general as guideline would be fine, but a policy outright banning them would be too much. —Godsy(TALKCONT) 18:01, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
I hadn't seen it before. I love it. I didn't for the first 5 seconds or whatever. "What is this?!" On the second run, that became "WOW, I never thought of it that way before!" Pi, in ten seconds or so, went (for me) from just some number that math geeks care about for some reason, to a concrete thing in the world that made immediate sense and had relevance. I'm not math-stupid, either. So I realized, also on the second run, that the point on the circle that makes one full revolution showing us visually what pi really means in the physical world, also happens to trace a cycloid. "WOW! Pi and cycloids directly interrelate! They're two facets of the same property of circles, not isolated mathematico-geometric nerdery!" So, 10 seconds of harmless video radically changes my understanding of a basic property of the universe in two ways at once. It actually gave me neck hairs standing on end (in the awe sense, not the afraid-of-ghosts sense). Now I'm wondering what it would look like if you modeled the cycloid paths of a cluster of spinning galaxies... I'd call that animation exemplary (perhaps unwittingly) of what Wikipedia is here for, and a great demonstration of why "Wikipedia is not paper" is not some trite mantra. NB: I'm still seriously opposed to animated logos, and other "decorative visual crap" that violates the spirit or letter of MOS:ICONS. I wrote probably more of that guideline than any other single editor. I'm no fan of unencyclopedic images. The pi anim is the furthest thing from that. Same goes for molecule anims, though I'm not convinced they need to be in the infobox, if that's what the objection is. With the pi one, I probably never would have noticed it if it wasn't.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:42, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  • with regard to spinning gifs of drug molecules, WP:PHARM had a discussion on that a while back and appears to oppose such spinning gifs. See also Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility#Animations.2C_videos_and_audio with regard to accessibility issues. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
    • It's disappointing that PHARM is opposed to drug molecule animations, since they're informative. Or are they just opposed to them in infoboxes? I'm not going to get into MOS:ACCESS's various issues here in any depth. But just one hint that something's amiss there is the statement that to be accessible, a GIF has to be no more that 5 seconds long, or must have controls (pause, etc.). Um, there's no such thing as a GIF animation with such controls. There are user-side browser addons/plugins that can do this with Javascript, and anyone who needs to pause GIF animations for visual disability reasons probably already has one installed. Maybe we need to make a WikiAccessibility Toolkit for such users, for all major platforms, so they can have all the tools they need (throw in Unicode fonts while we're at it). I know someone with albinism who has eyesight so bad he has to read in about 200 pt font with thick glasses and face almost touching the screen, so would need to watch something like that frame by frame. The need is real, but "can't add that anim" isn't the answer. MOS:ACCESS It also repeats the design recommendations of accessibility groups (whose work I respect plenty) as if they were facts, like George Washington's birth date. We don't treat any other style/design advice that way. Anyway, we need to be wary of dumbing down content when addressing accessibility concerns. They're often best resolved in the short term by presenting information in multiple ways, not by deciding we can't add that (visual, audible, etc.) information. And a requirement like "you have to convert this GIF anim into an MPEG video because it's 5.1 seconds long" usually effectively means not adding the material, unless someone's really motivated and is a video nerd. Give the GIF alt and other metadata, plus present the information is conveys, to the extent possible, as text material, and later someone can provide a different more accessible video format. Don't deny all non-disabled readers the visual information in the interim, surely. For the GIF animation thing, the obvious ultimate solution is server-side scripting. Flag GIF animations as such in Commons (and WP's files uploader). Use PHP/Python/whatever to have Gimp split the anim into a series of still-frame GIFs, and use other server-side scripts, not client-side Javascript, to present controls, and to load the frames quickly (default: original animation speed, but responsive to the controls, and to logged-in user settings for default display speed). Any competent programmer could whip that up in a few days at most. But WMF's near-petrified development pace would take a long time to roll it out. Point being: There's usually more than one way to address an accessibility problem, and erecting barriers to content improvement should be the last choice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:42, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
      FWIW, there are issues with the 3D molecule images that are more specific than issues with animated GIFs in general. Many molecules have multiple 3D structures, it's often difficult to choose the 'most representative' one for complex molecules, and when people produce these images they rarely document their process in sufficient detail. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:03, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree that having animated GIFs in infoboxes is a bad idea. They are distracting and bad for accessibility. There may be a few exceptions, like Spinning Dancer, but these should be rare. Kaldari (talk) 19:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
  • This is indeed an important accessibility problem in infoboxes, whch appear at the top of articles--and having them there is never necessary. They can be very helpful elsewhere in the article, of course .DGG (at NYPL) -- reply here 15:05, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

English policy: So blindly obvious, but...

Over the weekend I had an incident on Wikipedia that convinced me the following needs to be proposed as policy:

All entries in article space need to be in English

Preamble

In order to assure all involved that any article satisfies the Five Pillars of Wikipedia, as well as Wikipedia's policies and guidelines the article needs to be able to be read. Since English is the language of this particular wiki, most users on this Wikipedia read English and communicate in English. Further, most of the users on this Wikipedia do not read any other language. Therefore it would be impossible to assure that any article meets the aforementioned Five Pillars and guidelines without being able actually understand what's being written. Therefore any article in the article namespace needs to be in English.

Instructions

Since Wikipedia assumes good faith, articles not in English can be moved to the Draft namespace and a tag requesting translation can be added there. That way, there is a mechanism for allowing a non-English submission to be considered for Wikipedia. Once the article is translated in Draft namespace and judged to meet all policies and applicable guidelines, it can then be moved to the article namespace.

Any article not in English posted in article namespace should be moved into the Draft namespace and a note to the submitting author must be sent informing them what has happened.

This is being done to verify that the article in question doesn't violate copyright, which is a pretty serious issue here, doesn't violate any office actions, and more simply put, that it doesn't violate any Wikipedia policy or guideline. This cannot be done if it's in a language that cannot be read on this Wikipedia (i.e. if it's not in English). We have other versions of Wikipedia for other languages, therefore, it's not an issue of exclusion, but rather one of making sure that the article meets all guidelines and policies.

KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 11:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no consensus to enact the policy. There are concerns over this adding complication to existing Wikipedia policies, with many of the opposers stating that there is already a well-established convention (i.e. WP:PNT) for non-English articles. Additionally, WP:PNT volunteers compose a considerable part of the opposition. If this proposal is passed, there may be dissatisfaction among the volunteers at WP:PNT, leading to a slower process, and a larger backlog. Esquivalience t 02:20, 23 June 2015 (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.

English policy: Support

  • Support as proposer, not to mention it's so blindly obvious KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 11:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support all non-English articles should generally be moved to draftspace on sight when they don't qualify for speedy deletion but also can't be fixed up in a short amount of time. With the current process, if someone creates an article about some non-notable nonsense in English then it gets speedied in five seconds, but if the article happens to be in some other language then we give it a two-week grace period to see if it gets translated and/or it may get forgotten entirely -- this doesn't make any sense to me and dealing with these articles is pretty annoying. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 11:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC) amended — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 17:23, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
    • Amending my !vote: this doesn't necessarily have to be a new policy page, it can also be written into some other policy or information page, and described as a standard/approved/okay method of dealing with non-English articles. But also it doesn't have to be mandatory to move every non-English article into draftspace (if an editor feels that it will be easy enough to turn that article into something worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia, i.e. they understand what the topic is and have the time to work on it). — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 14:55, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I think this is the essence of just do it! If you can translate the article, do it! But if you can't or don't have the time right now, add it to the list at WP:PNT and you or someone else can get to it soon. Is it easy enough to move an article back from Drafts to the mainspace, or does this require an admin to move over a redirect? —sroc 💬 15:58, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
After moving an article to draftspace, the redirect that gets created after the move should be speedied as R2. Cross-namespace redirects -- articlespace redirects that redirect to the Draft namespace should get deleted. So, assuming some time has passed and the redirect has been deleted, it will be easy to move the draft back to mainspace. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 16:11, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Yeah, I just saw this. All the more reason to move the article to drafts if you can't fix it right away, and it can be moved back when it's done. Not that the move needs to be mandatory, but they shouldn't linger in the article space unnecessarily. —sroc 💬 16:58, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
    • Another amendment: as said I don't necessarily support the creation of a new policy, but, wherever it is written, we should not include this part: "This cannot be done if it's in a language that cannot be read on this Wikipedia (English)." -- we can indeed judge articles even if they're in a language we can't understand, it can often be possible to determine (like by using a translator) if an article is total baloney or not. We can do it and we're allowed to, too. (And then tag for speedy (with an explanation for deleting admin if necessary) instead of moving to draftspace.) — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 17:14, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support-ish. I don't see that we need to enshrine in policy the fact that this is the English Wikipedia, but I'm a big fan of the idea of automatically moving non-English submissions into Draft-space. Yunshui 雲水 11:58, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Yunshui: What do you think of my counter-proposal below? —sroc 💬 14:11, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Od Mishehu: What do you think of my counter-proposal below? —sroc 💬 14:11, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Robert McClenon: See Category:Wikipedia articles needing translation. Winner 42 Talk to me! 13:58, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Winner 42: So move them and tag them. We don't need a policy for this. See my counter-proposal below. —sroc 💬 14:11, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support, I have seen non-English articles in mainspace before, most of which get mopped up in the NPP process. I have also seen articles that have been vandalized and left with completely non-English text for months though, so I would add the cautionary note of "any editor who is preparing to move a non-English page to the draft namespace must check the edit history to see if there is an English version that can be restored". Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 14:26, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. Duh. This is the English wiki, if someone wants an article in a different language, it should be directed to that language's wiki. GregJackP Boomer! 15:19, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. Lingua anglicana est universale.--Sigehelmus (talk) 22:55, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support it really is a no-brainer. Get them into draft space so they can be translated and verified more easily. Fyunck(click) (talk) 04:53, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support any other policy only creates more work and time put on the back of volunteer editors. I have enough trouble now assessing potential vandalism articles or good faith reversions when I cannot assess the content because I speak English (and Haitian, but no haitian topics have come across my path). Even assessing articles written with heavy jargon related to video gaming are difficult for me to assess without the proper vocabulary!  Bfpage |leave a message  21:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
  • By that logic, any page on any topic in any language that a particular person may not be able to understand, should be automatically moved to the draft space? You may not be able to understand it, but other people can when they are informed of it - i.e. the current process--Jac16888 Talk 21:01, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Jac16888 Absolutely, let it be checked first , in draft space, by those that understand it, to make sure it's fit for article space. If it is, translate it and move it over into article space. It's not much different from how we tell people to construct articles, first in draft space, then as an article. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 16:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

English policy: Oppose

  • Oppose creating a new policy to say we can do this. There is nothing in any policy that says we can not move (not cut and paste) an article that is not ready from the mainspace to the draft space. An article that is not written in English is not ready for the mainspace so there is nothing stopping us from moving it. The creator should be notified where the article was moved to and why, so they can work on it. -- GB fan 12:14, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose the proposed policy as unnecessary. I have an alternative proposal set out below which I think is a lot simpler and easier to implement. —sroc 💬 14:05, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is a good example of an idea with a lot of merit, but some flaws that need addressing. A candidate for the Idea Lab to work out the kinks before asking for an up or down vote. Examples of kinks:
    • Suppose I run across an article in mainspace in another language, which when translated, is absolute gibberish, and qualifies as a G1. Of course, after moving to draft space I can delete it as a G1, but this policy, as written, requires that I move it to draft space first. If I do not, I am potentially santionable for violating policy.
    • Rinse and repeat for an article which is a clear copyvio, but in another language.
    • Or an article which is an attack. Yes, this could be fixed, but there are other issues to address. It states that the article will be moved to draft to verify that the article in question doesn't violate copyright . Moving an article to draft space doesn't solve the copyright problem. We don't have an exception that allows copyvios in draft space. There are other issues as well, so it isn't the case that a couple minor copy edits will make this acceptable as is. That said, it has promise.--S Philbrick(Talk) 14:57, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
      • These are problems that we already have. Currently it's not possible to speedy an article simply because it's non-English, and often that's a problem because we can't tell whether the article complies with policy or not. It could be blatant vandalism but we have to keep it for at least two weeks until someone can identify what we're dealing with. Moving that kind of an article out of mainspace (and to somewhere where search engines can't find it) is a good compromise. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 15:07, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it is possible to speedy an existing article in another language. (After re-reading, I guess you are saying that simply being in non-English is not a sufficient reason for CSD, but as I'll explain, I can identify valid CSDs even though my language skills are minimal.) I can tell that something is a copyvio if it is clearly an exact copy of a published item. Google translate is deficient for some purposes, but if Google Translate produces John Doe is a well-know child molester I don't need a competent human translator to tell me it can be deleted. If the article is created by a banned or blocked user, I don't even need to translate the content. Yet, this proposed policy says I should move it to draft space first. Why?--S Philbrick(Talk) 16:57, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Does it really say that? That you must? I'm not seeing it. If you can tell that an article qualifies for speedy then of course you can speedy it, I don't think anyone would argue that. Though in cases like this you may have to leave a note behind explaining how it qualifies, if it's not immediately obvious to admins who do the deleting. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 17:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose as unnecessary bureaucracy. Speaking as one of the half dozen or so editors who handle non-English articles at PNT every single day, we always deal with these articles in the best and most efficient way possible. This can be one of many ways, sometimes they're translated, becoming valuable articles, sometimes they are speedy deleted if they meet a criteria (and yes I'll admit that I usually IAR delete the essays and rants we often get), sometimes they are prodded/blpprodded or afd'd if we think they're not worth translating, if we think they are worth an article but can't translate them ourselves we leave them (and after two weeks they are prodded and deleted it not translated) and yes we sometimes userfy them if we feel they were created in good faith and that . To just point out how small a problem this is, currently there are 6 articles (out of 6,908,364) that are entirely not in English, 3 of which are currently prodded. Trying to enforce a firm rule that all non-English articles be immediately userfied is just overkill, and a good way to prevent potential good articles, the current system works just fine, the article which started this whole drama-fest being a perfect example.--Jac16888 Talk 17:18, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:CREEP. We already have processes for non-English articles. While they are not perfect they work well enough, better than this clunky idea would anyway. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:04, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Jac16888 who says the current system is working fine. Also, we assume good faith until shown otherwise. We don't assume the article may be "dodgy" just because we can't read it. SpinningSpark 18:22, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose There is already an established procedure for translating non-English articles, Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English. This happened to me once. I created a new article by copy-pasting the French language version, then proceeded to translate it in place. I expected this to be a quick task, but got sidetracked and then interrupted by an offline event. (I should have created it in the draft space, but this requires an admin request.) For my trouble I got templated that I should first list the article for translation, and then come back and translate it. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:07, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
* Comment Actually it doesn't require admin permissions. I've created a draft space article and I'm definitely not an admin. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 20:14, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Even IPs can create draftspace pages. o_O — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 20:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
True! But unfortunately moving the draft article to the mainspace causes a redirect to be left behind, which then requires a CSD (admin request) to delete. So I try to avoid this whenever I possibly can. Sorry, I did not make myself clear. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:53, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
Redirects from draftspace to mainspace are okay. AFC reviewers leave them behind all the time. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 09:06, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
@Hawkeye7: When moving an article there is an option to not leave behind a redirect = uncheck the "leave a redirect behind" box. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:42, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
@Ceyockey: Not true if you aren't an admin. Though I have been pushing for allowing this permission for non admins recently, it has been met with resistance. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 00:45, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
@EoRdE6: Ahhh. I did not realize this was an admin-only function. Apologies and thanks for highlighting that. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:58, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose revoking WP:PNT#Standard procedures without the proposer either acknowledging its long-standing acceptance or notifying the page that he hopes to revoke it (perhaps he just didn't know that it exists? Nobody can keep up with everything around here, because there are so many pages). In fact, most of the above "votes" don't seem to know that we have a procedure for handling such pages. I expect they all would have guessed that "edit-war to blank the page" isn't it, though. Jeraphine, Yunshui, IJBall, Od, Bosstopher, Aloha27, Ritchie333, Robert, Winner, Luke, Greg, I'd be interested in knowing how many of you were aware of the standard procedure before this discussion, and whether you think that years-old advice is probably an adequate approach, or if you still think we need yet another policy or guideline for the occasional article that isn't written in English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:39, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I was aware of the standard procedure when !voting, and have looked at and speedied persian article on WP:PNT from time to time. I voted under the assumption that if this passed, PNT would still function, only pages translated would be temporarily moved to draftspace first. This seems like the most common sense solution.Bosstopher (talk) 21:50, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I can see why a reasonable person might hope for that, but this policy would actually preclude the standard procedure. The proposed policy prohibits leaving a non-English article in the mainspace for two weeks (= it prohibits "the standard procedure"). The editors at PNT do not handle articles anywhere else (by choice, and those WP:VOLUNTEERS are the only ones who get to make that choice). It is not possible to have "the new policy" and "the standard procedure" operating at the same time. "There must never be articles needing translation in the mainspace" and "We only translate articles in the mainspace" cannot function at the same time.
The potential for confusion is why I'm unhappy about the failure to be more explicit about the policy's effects. I am worried that some people are voting for a benign-sounding, commonsensical statement without understanding that the intended outcome is to eliminate a long-standing process. This proposal amounts to revoking PNT's standard procedure, although it doesn't come out and say so in ways that will be clearly understood by everyone. If you want to change an old process, that's fine, but IMO you should say so, using words that cannot possibly be misunderstood (e.g., "I propose stopping the bad old way and replacing it with this obviously better idea:").
The immediate history also gives me pause: The precipitating incident is that the proposer blanked an article (three times in three hours, if the comment below is correct) and was told that the standard procedure is to tag it and wait for two weeks. He was not satisfied with waiting for two weeks, so he proposes here a policy to override it. However, he does not mention the existing standard procedure. He gives only the briefest mention that he lost a dispute because of it. The sole practical effect of his proposed policy is to revoke the process that caused him to lose the dispute. He makes no acknowledgement of how this proposal affects longstanding processes. I've spent years around policy pages, and I can tell you that this situation is a fairly reliable recipe for disaster and drama. If you want to kill an old process, then you need to tell to people that you're doing it.
Note that I don't mind changing old processes, if that's what people want to do. I've done it myself. My only requirement is that supporters understand that's the point of the proposal and say that they're intentionally replacing an old process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:38, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I think it's very simple to keep the old and new processes in place at the same time. You just apply all the same rules to the drafts that you would to non english articles, and speedy them if no one translates after two weeks. A venue for translation is still maintained and you don't end up with old non-english articles on god-knows-what languishing about in draftspace. Best of both worlds.Bosstopher (talk) 23:46, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  1. This proposal doesn't actually do what you want it to do. (The alternate below does something close, but the original does not.)
  2. In my experience it is never "simple" to force volunteers do things that they do not choose to do, and the volunteers at PNT have already said that they have no interest in doing what you want them to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:43, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
First of all I am someone who volunteers from time to time at PNT (as is GregJackP who supported the proposal and responded to you below), and in my capacity as someone who does so I believe its better to not have completely non-english articles languishing about in mainspace, and I would completely willingly move non-english articles to draft space. Also can you point me to exactly where the collective you refer to as the "volunteers at PNT" have unanimously opposed this decision? As for the proposal not doing what i think its supposed to do, this seems to be another example of an incredibly simple and beneficial change being bogged down in Village pump bureaucracy. I'm sure the closing admin will be able to interpret what I mean.Bosstopher (talk) 16:48, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
I base my statement about the volunteers at PNT on the comment below: "There is a long-held consensus, re-affirmed just a few weeks ago, at PNT that draft articles do not fall within our scope of work..." by User:Jac16888. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:13, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for directing me to that. Although I'd forgotten about it, I actually took part in that discussion and at the time (although I didnt write it because enough other people had) was opposed to the idea of putting all non-english drafts in PNT. However, I think this case is very different to that, as only drafts that were intitially posted in article space would be brought to PNT for temporary holding, as opposed to any gibberish written in draftspace. I think it's an apples and oranges situation. Bosstopher (talk) 20:22, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
I was aware also, and have tagged many such articles. I've also watched articles not be translated for significant periods of time. However, I don't think that we need to keep articles which are not written in English. BTW, your comment was very condescending, I guess us mere non-WMF editors wouldn't have thought of other options. GregJackP Boomer! 22:53, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
It's worth noting that the existing standard procedure predates the existence of the Draft namespace, and therefore might be due an overhaul with the new option in mind. That's probably something for the appropriate talkpage, though. It's my opinion that the suggestions offered here, especially the alternative version below, constitute an improvement on the current process. Yunshui 雲水 07:50, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • The template makes both Japanese and English text appear on the page, we also have Japanese names as article titles and as character names (as such the name would be included in the article's body) per WP:COMMONNAME. By all in English do you mean all content of a given article? I want to have an open mind but please specify as it sounds too broad if I read "All entries in article space need to be in English" right. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:29, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • @KoshVorlon: I would support your proposal for entries that are written fully in another language or a certain percentage of the article, there has to be some kind of footnotes/exceptions though if this is to become policy. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:40, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
Kosh, you continue to refer to your "little incident" as why this change needs to be made, and yet the article which started all of this (Detective Willy for anyone not already aware), was, once properly reported to PNT, translated and then prodded within a few hours of being created, similarly a dozen+ other articles have been created and dealt with in the time since then - I don't see how any of this is problematic. If anything your incident shows that, when procedure if actually followed, the system we have works great --Jac16888 Talk 20:41, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • "Hard cases make bad law" or in this case bad policy/guidelines. It's clear in that discussion that you didn't follow already existing procedures for handling such types of articles. But I honestly don't see the need for a policy over just one incident. —Farix (t | c) 20:20, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. The current process is working fine, and no non-English article is kept any longer than necessary. De728631 (talk) 18:30, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: no pressing need to adopt an English only policy for the first appearance of an article. A working proceedure is in place. — Neonorange (talk) 21:22, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment For those opposing, please see this recent posting to WP:AN where the the reverse happened. Just so I'm totally clear, I'm not suggesting that if we have an article about a Japanese term, or a Spanish term, that we can't use the Spanish or Japanese word itself, nor am I suggesting that that word be written out in the English alphabet. What I'm suggesting is that any article in article space needs to be in English, currently we're getting entries in article space that are 100% not English. I'm suggesting that they be placed in draft space where they can be translated , then judged to be in compliance with all applicable Wikipedia policies and guildelines. That's it, simple, obvious and very much common sense. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 11:00, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
You mean the posting which shows that when a non-english article is submitted to the proper place, it is dealt within just a few hours? A perfect example to me of how well the current PNT system works, when of course it it is actually used rather than ignored--Jac16888 Talk 16:32, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
Except that article space is the wrong place for non-English articles. So no, it wasn't in the proper place. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 16:42, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Not sure if you're intentionally misunderstood my point there or not. By "proper place", I mean PNT, as in, a user followed procedure and logged it there, and then it was resolved shortly afterwards. In fact had you done so yourself, or had you actually moved it to the draftspace properly (that being one way we do deal with non-english articles already anyway), there would have been no issue. I feel I have to ask this, as you've never actually addressed this: please can you tell me that you understand why blanking a page or copying and pasting it to another place is a bad thing--Jac16888 Talk 17:00, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Jac16888 - yeah, I did. I consider article space to not be the proper place for articles not in English, rather I'd say Draft space is. The article was in article space when I first ran across it. Yes, I agree PNT acted correctly by translating the article, I wasn't trying to change the process that got the article translated, rather the fact that the article should have been in article space prior to translation. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 15:29, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - you lost me at "Further, most of the users on this Wikipedia do not read any other language." That's absurd. Where did you get this information? I don't remember indicating what languages I can read when I created an account. It seems that, because you can't read any other languages, you assume everyone is the same? Otherwise why would you assume this? Further, how often are there articles that are entirely in another language that are not copyright violations or able to be removed for another basic reason? Why is this policy necessary? I looked at the ANI you suggested as cause for the proposal and I agree with Jac16888 - your insistence that you should be able to blank a page because it's in another language is not sound. It's laziness at best, censorship at worse. —МандичкаYO 😜 00:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Actually, what I mean is the language of this Wikipedia is English. I see your name is in Russian (ok, Cryllic , so it might not be Russian as other languages use the Cryllic Alphabet ) assuming you ARE Russian, would it make sense to have an article in ru.wikipedia.org in English rather than in Russian, even though there may be people on that Wikipedia that read English ? Of course not, it's common sense, the lingua franca on that Wikipedia is Russian, just the the lingua franca on this wikipedia is English. Articles should conform to the lingua franca, obviously there may be portions of the article that need to be in a different language (reliable references in other languages, a term in another language that needs to be in. That kind of thing. ). What we should not have in an article of any sort , written completely in another language. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 15:29, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
What irks me more is how we have maps that are written in different languages being used (Examples: Battle maps, road maps, ect...). Yeah the maps are encyclopedic but unless you speak the language there is no way to understand them. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 15:54, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
A good caption on the map can usually address that problem adequately. There's also a brand-new tool for making charts and maps (links at Wikipedia:Graphs and charts#Vega) that should make it much easier to translate vector-based maps. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: We don't need a WP:POLICY for this. That's overkill. Userspacing or deleting these things is already standard operating procedure. [PS: The expression is "blindingly obvious", not "blindly obvious"; it's a metaphoric reference to a very bright light.]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:47, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:CREEP. VQuakr (talk) 03:45, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose PNT works pretty well as far as I have seen, don't fix what ain't broke. This proposal also seems kind of pointy to me. Fyddlestix (talk) 23:19, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per [[U|S Philbrick}}, Wikimandia, Jac16888 and others above. This is WP:CREEP. It is a solution in search of a problem. Copyvios and attwack pages are no more to be tolerated in Draft: than in article space, so moving to draft is not an answer mto a fear of such problems alipping past undetected. As others have noted, google translate while not good enoguh for finished articel prose, should enable a patroller to detect attack pages and other blatant policy violations, and the copyright detection tools still work on non-english text, as I understand it. I havn't seen any reasons why our current procedures aren't workign or need to be changed. And I understand that the volunteers at WP:PNT don't want their remit changed/broadened to include or consist of the Draft namspace. I see no good reason for this. DES (talk) 02:15, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose Yes, it may seem reasonable, but we already deal with the problem. Articles not in English get translated or removed, or moved to userspace. Discussions already are required to be in English. We need to eliminate unnecessary rules, not add to them.DGG (at NYPL) -- reply here 14:59, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

English policy: Discussion

I can see that KoshVorlon had an issue (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard § Behavior of Jac16888) after blanking (three times in three hours) the article Detective Willy which was written in Spanish (it was translated into English within two hours afterwards).
Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English (WP:PNT) provides a process encouraging translation before hasty deletion, which may be a useful approach. It worked for the above-mentioned article and, if the article survives proposed deletion on notability grounds, it will be a good addition to Wikipedia. PNT isn't a policy or guideline, but if the policy proposed here were adopted, it would need to be completely re-worked. Accordingly, I have flagged this discussion on its talk page (Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English § Proposed policy to move articles in foreign languages to draft space).
—sroc 💬 12:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I don't see why an article could not both be (1) moved into draftspace and (2) listed at PNT. Wholly non-English articles where it's hard to even determine the subject, are not ready for articlespace, and they shouldn't be immune from our usual deletion criteria (like A7) simply because we can't understand what's going on in those articles. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 12:42, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Jeraphine Gryphon: I don't think Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion § A7. No indication of importance (individuals, animals, organizations, web content, events) necessarily applies just because an article is in a foreign language; however, you're quite right that an article which has no (or barely any) English-language content doesn't belong in article space. Wikipedia:Deletion policy § Alternatives to deletion §§ Incubation can be applied to move them to draft space while they are being re-worked.
I note that some of the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English § Pages for consideration have some English-language content and some foreign-language content requiring translation, so these would not be ripe for deletion and leaving them in article space may attract users to bring them up to grade. There are some articles, however, that are entirely in a foreign languages and have been listed for some time:
That's just the ones that are over the two-week period. This shows that while the system can sometimes work quickly (as in the case of Detective Willy), articles can languish in article space waiting for attention. This being the case, I would support WP:PNT being revised to encourage moving articles to draft space until they are translated, perhaps then allowing a longer period before nominating them for deletion to give them a better chance of being salvaged. I'm not convinced this needs to be enshrined in a separate policy, however. —sroc 💬 13:43, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
IJBall I'd suggest making this part of WP:ENGLISH. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 13:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Sroc You're right. That's what started this proposal. KoshVorlon Rassekali ternii i mlechnye puti 13:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
WP:ENGLISH is actually Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English), which I see as interpreting Article titles policy, so I don't think it can simply be appended there -- at least not without additional changes. This new rule would apply to the whole article, more like WP:MOS. I see this new rule as based more on the policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not or Wikipedia:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, where the English-language Wikipedia should be defined as written in English. --Boson (talk) 13:40, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I agree that this should not be part of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). There's a section Wikipedia:Drafts#Incubation which discusses moving articles from mainspace to draft space. Maybe a paragraph about when this is appropriate could be added there, including pages not in English.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:47, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Suggestion: As this is the case, I suggest that the new policy's "shortcut" should become "WP:ENGLISH" if adopted, and the "old" WP:ENGLISH's shortcut should become something line WP:ENGLISHTITLE or some such... --IJBall (talk) 13:53, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
WP:ENGLISH is a bit vague, and WP:ENGLISHTITLE may be better. However, a new policy may not be needed; instructions to move pages awaiting translation to Draft space can be added at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English#Standard procedures.—Anne Delong (talk) 13:59, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
WP:ENGLISHNAME would also work. --IJBall (talk) 14:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Changing the target of shortcuts if often a bad idea, because previous usages of the shortcut will then all point to the wrong target. — Jeraphine Gryphon (talk) 14:33, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Yes, agreed. But if this proposal passes, I think it may be warranted. At least, it should be discussed. --IJBall (talk) 15:54, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I think changing the description of the process would be better than a "policy" change, but am still wondering about whether any change in normal practice is necessary. In any case, it might be appropriate to change WP:English into something like a disambiguation page pointing to a number of pages that also deal with the use of English (e.g. pages needing translation, diacritics, transliteration etc.).--Boson (talk) 19:27, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Or at least to add a hatnote to ENGLISH that directs people to WP:PNT#Standard procedure. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

 Comment: In at least one country where English is the most widely used language, requiring English, or mandating English is a politically fraught topic (see English First). Also in en.Wikipedia, it seems. Better to ease along with what has worked for 5,000,000 articles. — Neonorange (talk) 02:22, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

I hope no-one minds that I've fixed a typo in the above proposal, and made the wording of one sentence a bit clearer: it had said "a language that cannot be read on this Wikipedia (i.e. English)", which made it sound like English was a language that could not be read on this Wiki. [1] -sche (talk) 17:39, 6 June 2015 (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.

Alternative proposal for dealing with foreign-language articles

There is also no consensus to enact this proposal. The above result can be echoed: that there should be no added layer to WP:PTN that involves moving articles into the draft space for now, and such moving should be done on a case-to-case basis. Esquivalience t 02:38, 23 June 2015 (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.

The proposed new policy is unnecessary and would conflict with existing processes, such as Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English (WP:PNT), which would then need to be re-worked. Instead, in order to streamline things and avoid fracturing, I would recommend amending WP:PNT to change the process for dealing with articles entirely (or almost entirely) in foreign languages as follows:

  1. Move the article into the Draft namespace.
  2. List the article at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English § Pages for consideration.
  3. Articles that are not likely to survive may be proposed for deletion according to the usual deletion policy or speedy deletion criteria to the extent that they apply to drafts (see Wikipedia:Drafts § Deleting a draft).

—sroc 💬 14:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge KoshVorlon's insight in highlighting this issue and getting the discussion going.
I would like to add that my proposed process doesn't need to be mandatory: if an article in a foreign language is obviously a copyvio, vandalism, etc., it can be sent straight to speedy deletion as usual without having to be moved to Draft first. This process is intended for articles that could survive if they are translated into English. —sroc 💬 17:08, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support - Not because I disagree with us KoshVorlon's idea, but because we don't need a policy, we need a process. As a new page patroller, I routinely move articles to draft space as an alternative to deletion, or as an alternative to leaving really incomplete content in article space. If either of these proposals passes, someone should follow up with the Twinkle developers to make sure that this multi-step process can be semi-automated.- MrX 14:35, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support I'd be equally happy with this proposal (and hear hear to getting the process Twinklified). Yunshui 雲水 14:39, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support Has the same net effect as the above policy, but is a more efficient implementation. Per MrX I would like to see Twinkle support moving articles to draft space more easily. I would also like to here other editors thoughts on moving other types of very-low quality articles by new editors into draft space without going through AfD to do it. Winner 42 Talk to me! 14:44, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support – OK, this sounds good as well. --IJBall (talk) 15:57, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support It seems clear that KoshVorlon's idea is based on an actual problem (and not an imaginary one) but I am skittish about adding still more rules to Wikipedia's already large collection. This looks like it would dovetail well with the existing structure. Also, "most, if not all read no other language"? Mis seis años de clases de español no están de acuerdo contigo. WP:COMMONSENSE already covers the idea that the English Wikipedia must be in English, and this looks like it would protect Wikipedia from copyright violations without overdoing it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:15, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose As noted above, there are articles entirely in non-English that may qualify as a CSD. If this policy is approved, it means if I find an article in Spanish written by a banned user, I cannot simply delete it as a G5, but I must first move it to Draft space. This is the very definition of silly bureaucracy. On a more general note, what is the reluctance to use the Idea Lab to sort out a sensible approach?--S Philbrick(Talk) 17:05, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
    This would not be a policy. It would be a process that you can choose to use, or not. Neither this nor the previous proposal would prevent other deletion processes from being used as needed. You say that this is the definition of a silly bureaucracy, but suggest sending it to the Idea Lab. Irony?- MrX 17:23, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick: Are you saying this to oppose Kosh's proposed policy or my proposed amendment to WP:PNT? Articles could still be deleted without being moved to Draft first, at least with my proposal, so your reasoning doesn't hold. —sroc 💬 17:58, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Given that the original was proposed as a new Policy, and this is labeled as an Alternate proposal, I thought it was intended to be alternative proposal for a policy. I now see it is an alternate proposal for a rewording of a process, so it doesn't contain the same weight as a policy. Still, my objection remains. The proposal step one says Move the article into the Draft namespace. I disagree. I'd start with Determine whether it qualifies as a CSD as is.If not, or indeterminate, move into the Draft namespace But this is OTTOMH and could use word smithing. Re "irony" I think it is misplaced. I am a big fan of bureaucracy, when sensible. We ought to have well-thought out rules for handling solutions, and well-thought out processes for dealing with issues. What I oppose is mindless bureaucracy, such as moving an article to Draft space, then deleting it when it is perfectly obvious it should be deleted as is. The entire concept of the Idea Lab is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to write up new Policies, and there ought to be a place to work on them, and get them ready for an up or down vote. Both the original and the alternate proposals qualify. Neither were ready for prime time. Both has some good ideas that I could support if the issues were addressed. The Idea Lab is intended as a place to address them. I get why people want to come here first, because they think their idea is so good it can be supported exactly as worded, or maybe with a tiny word change, but they miss that it often takes a robust discussion of issues to come up with good wording for a new proposal. This is more true today than it was in the early days of WP, when there was so low-hanging fruit, and it might have been reasonable to slap together a policy and approve it.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:09, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Sroc: I oppose the policy proposed by Kosh as written, for the reasons I outlined (and there are more objections, I just didn't think it was necessary to be exhaustive.) I oppose the alternative wording of WP:PMT. The existing process has a set of steps for entire articles. Your proposed step 1, which presumably replaces the existing step 1, says Move the article into the Draft namespace. Maybe you think it is implicit that you can delete via CSD before this step, but that's not what it says.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick: Nothing in my proposal seeks to usurp current deletion policy, and I've expressly said in my further comment that articles could still be deleted as usual without having to move them to Draft namespace first. I haven't set out the exact wording as I was just seeking ro assess general support—the exact implementation might be put to an RfC if necessary—but I was especially hoping to point out that although Kosh's intentions were good, that doesn't mean we have to leap to the first proposal (i.e., a new policy) and alternatives should be considered. —sroc 💬 19:08, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose also per WP:CREEP. We don't need a new policy, or a new process. And I do not like setting a precedent that anyone can just move an article into draft space on a whim, that will put us on a slippery slope. The correwct way to currently deal with such issues is to put the great big {{translate}} tag on the article, list it at pages needing translation, and add one the appropriate tag from WP:PNT/T to the creating user's talk page. I don't see how temporarily hiding it in the draft namespace on top of all that is any better. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:12, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I don't disagree with @Beeblebrox: on many things, so I'm probably wrong here, but I wouldn't mind if we were more aggressive in moving articles into draft space. However, I'd prefer to do it as part of a comprehensive overhaul of the review process, in which articles which aren't quite ready for prime time were moved to Draft space, and I see articles written in a foreign language (which are otherwise not eligible for CSD) as an important special case. However, I worry that Draft may become a wasteland, so I wouldn't support it unless we had some good processes for clearing it out. I'm struggling with this because my position is closer to Kosh's and Sroc's than my opposes may suggest. I, too, have run across articles in main space, written entirely in another language, and thought that moving them into the Draft space might be a good next step. But while I can think of such examples, getting from a couple examples to a policy or even a process is trickier than some seem to realize.--S Philbrick(Talk) 18:25, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Beeblebrox: My counter-proposal is not really a "new process" but refining an existing one. In fact, moving an article to Draft namespace may save potential articles that just need to be translated that might otherwise be hastily deleted just because the current (arbitrary) two-week time limit has passed. —sroc 💬 19:12, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
I now see the language in wp:PNT I had missed earlier Articles that are not in English are still subject to all other forms of speedy deletion should they meet the criteria. That mitigates my concern, but emphasizes the need to improve that page. When I see a process page with a list of steps, it seems reasonable that I should start with step 1.
In fact, one is expected to carry out some unnumbered steps first, which I will number, with the smartaleck convention of keeping the existing numbering intact:
Step -2: If someone speaks the language the article is written in and can state that it is not worth translating, the item should be moved to AfD or tagged with {{prod}}
Step -1: If the article is a mere copy of (all or part of) an article in a foreign-language Wikipedia, it can just be tagged with {{db-foreign}} to get added to Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion
Step 0: Check to see if other CSD criteria apply
Step 1 (existing): Use the notice {{notenglish|NameOfLanguage}} ...
Step 1 (proposed by you):Move the article into the Draft namespace.
Did you ever read the book Onion John? (I loved it, my daughter hated it), John waswanted a barn door hinge for the door on his house, because the wood is so rotten, standard house hinges won't hold. The town decides that they shouldn't just do the minor fix, they should replace the whole house. It goes badly. Which is unfortunate for me, because I'm looking at your proposed replacement of step 1 with a different step, and I'm noticing that the house is falling down, and think we ought to fix the house, while the lesson in the story is that this approach ends badly. So I don't know what to do, but I am still unhappy about tinkering with a process and ignoring the glaring problems.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:35, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Sphilbrick: I haven't read that book, but I see your point. I agree WP:PNT could use some work and can probably be simpler to follow. I would support a re-working of WP:PNT to solve the underlying issues and incorporate the use of Draft namespace (at whatever stage); I think that would be more productive than a new policy (which would only make WP:PNT harder to follow).
The comments here suggest an emerging consensus that: (1) something needs to be done to prompt utilising the Draft namespace for articles in languages other than English that need attention before being re-admitted to article namespace; (2) a new policy is not necessary or desirable to achieve this; (3) WP:PNT should be re-worked to address this (amongst fixing the barn generally). Perhaps this should be workshopped on the Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English talk page? —sroc 💬 21:27, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
@Jac16888: Thanks for the insight. Do you think this would work better if articles that have not received attention after the two-week period, and which otherwise do not obviously meet any deletion criteria, be moved to the Draft namespace then? Thus, all articles in foreign languages: (1) would be marked with a maintenance tag and listed at WP:PNT, as they are now; (2) after two weeks, would then moved to Draft namespace where someone could recover it in due course if they felt inclined; (3) could be deleted at any time just as with any article or draft subject to the deletion criteria. —sroc 💬 22:35, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
That could be done, but chances are that if after two weeks a page hasn't been translated by the creator or anybody else, it never will be.--Jac16888 Talk 23:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Support I dont see the earlier proposal as clashing with this one, but oh well.Bosstopher (talk) 20:15, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - first, there is already a process that works fine. If the good people who patrol WP:PNT felt there needed to be a new policy and their current routine wasn't working, I would defer to them. Instead this seems to me to be about an editor who randomly came across a page in Spanish and doesn't like that his decision to blank it kept getting reverted. Secondly, moving them to userspace decreases the likelihood that an editor who doesn't patrol WP:PNT will come across the article and help translate it. I strongly feel tagging the article with "please translate me if you can" is the best approach. —МандичкаYO 😜 00:38, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, but do clarify: Existing processes are working. User:Sphilbrick's note above about "Step -2", etc., indicates that extant procedure needs clarification, but that can be done without a proposal like this, simply by amending the PNT instructions. His "smartaleck" list (with adjusted numbering) is actually a good draft of what to use.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:05, 25 May 2015 (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.

Cattle articles titles

Moved to WP:LIVESTOCK TheMagikCow (talk) 06:14, 23 June 2015 (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.

Cattle articles have two different styles of names and this is confusing. They are Highland cattle (no brackets) and Limousin (cattle) (notice the brackets around cattle). We need to establish consensus over which one to use.TheMagikCow (talk) 15:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion

I believe that the title should be without brackets. When you see the breed's name in any other source, it is without brackets. Why is Wikipedia the only place to differ? TheMagikCow (talk) 15:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

You might want to bring this up at WT:LIVESTOCK. --jpgordon::==( o ) 21:30, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
just looking at the examples given. Highland cattle are always called highland cattle, not just highlands. the word cattle is part of their name. Limousins are called limousins without the qualifier, so require a disambiguation in brackets. It's all well Wikipedia wanting consistency but correct usage surely must come first. IdreamofJeanie (talk) 22:14, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
@IdreamofJeanie: Take a look at the nav bar here. http://www.highlandcattlesociety.com/ The official society refers to them as the highland. TheMagikCow (talk) 13:58, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
  • This discussion is probably better had at WT:LIVESTOCK as Jpgordon suggests, unless you mean to test a particular policy. From the article titles policy I'll point out WP:NATURAL, which suggests that natural disambiguation is preferred over parenthetical disambiguation, therefore if (for example) Limousin is not concise enough, then Limousin cattle would be a preferred disambiguation, rather than Limousin (cattle), even if that's not the breed's proper name. However, per WP:PRECISE from the same policy, if there is a common convention or local consensus that cattle breed articles should be consistently named one way or the other, then that can override the policy. So, yes, this should be discussed at WT:LIVESTOCK. Ivanvector (talk) 20:05, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
The Limousin cattle are actually called limousin cattle. They can be called limousins after being called limousin cattle. It is usually for convenience and being shorter to type/speak. TheMagikCow (talk) 06:09, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Without brackets

With brackets

Either method is acceptable

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.

The role and meaning of WP:FRINGE

Please join in at a discussion I've started at Wikipedia_talk:Fringe_theories#Does_WP:FRINGE_establish_any_unique_guidelines.3F about how WP:FRINGE fits in the overall ecosystem of WP policies. Rhoark (talk) 21:38, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Clarifying/updating WP:BIRTHNAME with respect to MOS:IDENTITY

Consensus is that WP:BIRTHNAME should be updated to reflect that birth names of trans and non-binary people should only be included in their articles' lead sentences if the people were notable prior to coming out; birth names may be introduced by either 'born' or 'formerly'. See my closing comment at the bottom which addresses why I, who was involved in the discussion, felt I could close it. -sche (talk) 07:21, 1 July 2015 (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.

Currently on Talk:Caitlyn Jenner there is disagreement about how to handle WP:BIRTHNAME with respect to MOS:IDENTITY.

WP:BIRTHNAME says that then a legal name change has occurred, mentioning the birth name in the lead sentence is advisable. For example, William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19, 1946) ... However, using "birth names" for trans people is usually considered offensive (see GLADD, NPR) and WP:MOSIDENTITY makes it clear that BLPs on trans folks are handled differently and with more sensitivity to the living person's identity and wishes. For many trans people's articles, birth names are not mentioned in the lead sentence (e.g., Laverne Cox, Janet Mock). Nevertheless, it seems the be the norm that if the trans person was notable prior to coming out, the birth name is mentioned in the lead sentence (e.g., Chelsea Manning, Chaz Bono, Kellie Maloney). The only past discussions I can find on this issue are here and here but neither directly address this issue.

I seek to clarify WP:BIRTHNAME with respect to MOS:IDENTITY for BLPs of trans and non-binary people who have changed their name (whether on legal documents or not). Below are some proposed wordings to add to WP:BIRTHNAME directly following the sentence starting In some cases, subjects have legally... and two following examples:

Option 1 - Specifying apparent norm

In the case of transgender and non-binary people, birth names should only be included in the lead sentence if the person was notable prior to coming out.
  • (from Laverne Cox, not notable prior to coming out) Laverne Cox (born May 29) ...
  • (from Chelsea Manning, notable prior to coming out) Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (born Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) ...

Option 2 - No birth name specified in lead sentence

In the case of transgender and non-binary people, birth names should not be included in the lead sentence.

Problem: Not all notable pre-change names are birth names. Interpret as "pre-change name" instead of "birth name"?

Option 3 - Same as Option 1, but change "born" to "formerly"

In the case of transgender and non-binary people, birth names should only be included in the lead sentence if the person was notable prior to coming out. Instead of "born", use "formerly".
  • (from Laverne Cox, not notable prior to coming out) Laverne Cox (born May 29) ...
  • (from Chelsea Manning, notable prior to coming out) Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (formerly Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) ...

I offer Option 3 as a sort of compromise. Part of the problem can be the language of "born" as some trans and non-binary people have never accepted the name their parents gave them, so the name they were called as a child was never really their name. Using "formerly" acknowledges the transition and name change, but also to me acknowledges that it's the name people used to call them, not necessarily their chosen name.

Note, I do not offer a fourth option of using "born" for all people as that seems far too counter to MOS:IDENTITY and, as explained by GLADD and NPR above, does too much WP:HARM. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:39, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

"Never really their name" is virtually a spiritual position, not something we can verify with reliable sources, unlike the recorded birth name. How the subject feels about that name is their personal business, but vital statistics are a matter of public record. There's no way around that. That said, if Option 1 carries, this will only be a problem in cases where a) the subject was notable before the change, and b) they also have utterly disavowed the name, so it's probably not a long list. Perhaps more to the point any such person is a public figure and has way, way, way bigger PR fish to fry that one website among thousands happening to mention, once, what their old name was. It's a non-issue in such a case.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:39, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Option 1 - Norm specified

  1. Support as a compromise (between former/birth/current names), and because the birth name is used in articles of similar nature, where the subject is not transgender but their current name is different. Intermediate names, which use "formerly", can be explained further in the article's body sections. Epic Genius (talk) 20:01, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  2. Support. Our articles should retain the usual format (Wendy Carlos (born Walter Carlos)) for trans people as for non-trans. It should not be a concern of ours that some trans people do not prefer the neutral statement of fact that is the Wikipedia standard. Binksternet (talk) 23:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
    ...your example is of a transgender person, perhaps choose a different example of our "usual format" such as William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III; August 19, 1946)? Ogress smash! 08:33, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  3. Support. I don't see an issue here, the use of "formerly" I can see causing more confusion. As it is, we have to explain why we use opposite pronouns when describing a transgendered person. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 00:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  4. Support per my comments on Talk:Caitlyn Jenner. ¡Bozzio! 04:37, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  5. Support and add birth names for all. Wikipedia records facts, and facts are facts. If someone was born with one name and changed it for whatever reason that is a fact. If they find a fact "offensive", well, sorry, but tough! This is an encyclopaedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:52, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  6. Support. Talking to or about a trans person in the present day by referring to a birth name they no longer use can be viewed as offensive. However, the historical record is what it is. So whether or not a trans person was notable prior to coming out and/or changing their name, if we intend to be serious about creating complete, accurate biographies, we need to be neutral about history as well. That being said, if using "formerly" is considered a more neutral way to do it, I would be fine with that as well. The only problematic choice here is pretending that a birth name did not exist. Resolute 17:05, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  7. Support option 1 or option 3 (I have no preference). It is extremely important to have the birthname specified in the lead if the subject was well-known primarily by that name at some point. For example, Bradley Manning was already very well-known as Bradley Manning prior to coming out. A reader arriving at Chelsea Manning might legitimately wonder if they had arrived at the correct page, were it not clearly specified early on. The goal of an encyclopedia, first and foremost, is to inform. This is an important part of doing that. Sławomir Biały (talk) 21:29, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  8. Support. I see no point in making an exception to the general rule in this case. -R. fiend (talk) 22:14, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  9. Support Mentioning the birth name in the first sentence. I also support using the birth name and gender when referring to events that happened before the gender change. Bobby Martnen (talk) 02:21, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
  10. Support It's consistent. We don't allow subjects to suppress or downplay information about them just because they find it unpleasant (and frankly that kind of double standard is condescending). A change of gender identity should not be treated shamefully as The Name Change We Dare Not Speak Of. Option 3, using a different word, would be inconsistent, but would at least preserve WP's independent neutrality. -Jason A. Quest (talk) 17:10, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
  11. Support I actually agree with Necrothesp above... this is an encyclopedia that's filled with facts regardless of whether we like it. Add birth names for anyone that changed it. Fyunck(click) (talk) 09:22, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  12. Support. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  13. Support. -sche (talk) 18:03, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
    Incidentally, I notice that Mother Theresa's article, although its subject is cis, happens to follow this practice — it omits her birth name from the lead because she was not notable under it. -sche (talk) 08:23, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  14. Support: if the birth name is notable (like Manning), it should be in the lead. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:40, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  15. Support - Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, which is a depository of facts. The current norm of using prior names should definitely continue in the lead. Onel5969 (talk) 18:42, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
  16. Suppport per Binksternet. Acather96 (click here to contact me) 14:51, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
  17. Support in part, sometimes but other times #3; not all former names are birth name. The part I don't support is suppressing factual, verified information, if it's encyclopedically relevant.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:00, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  18. Support. This seems to reflect current policy on leads, which says that we have to mention any names the subject might be searched under to avoid confusion; and I don't see any reason to change that here. I don't feel that a simple acknowledgement that they once had a different name violates the WP:BLP requirement to respect their self-identification. Without this, someone who searches for Manning under her old name without knowing her full history might think they'd arrived on the wrong page. On the other hand, if the original name is not notable, there's no particular need or requirement to mention it, since people are unlikely to search using it (and anyone who knows it probably knows the subject's new name.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:17, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
  19. Oppose. I don't think WP:BIRTHNAME and MOS:IDENTITY conflict. "the subject's full [birth] name should be given in the lead paragraph, if known," regardless of whether they were "notable prior to coming out." A subjects birth name has various possible uses to readers (further research on the subject prior to their name change etc.).—Godsy(TALKCONT) 04:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Option 2 - No birth names

  1. Weak support? I really don't think the use of birth names is actually useful, given the existence of redirects. All things considered, I think this option is basically probably the best choice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cam94509 (talk • contribs) 19:08, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  2. Oppose - why suppress information that is important to identifying subjects of articles and is all over the internet? Bobby Martnen (talk) 02:22, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
  3. Support in lede. If we need to give someone's birth name, we can do it in an "early life" section. Something like this: """==Early life== Susan Bloggs was born Joseph Francis Bloggs on 2 December 1971 in Lower Fnord, Ruritania, to Joseph Philip Bloggs and Sarah Smith-Bloggs.""" --Alison (Crazytales) (talk; edits) 14:45, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  4. Oppose - Option 1 is the better, more nuanced choice. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:27, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  5. Support non-inclusion of birth name in lead sentence, but require birth name in both Infobox and in Early life section only if the subject was notable pre-transition.I'd not include the birth name anywhere if the subject was not notable prior to their transition. Most transgender people in states which allow it get their birth certificate reissued with their chosen name and gender. At which point the previous certificate is retired and not available on request. Claiming a birth name in such a case could lead to an article which is verifiably wrong. In fact, I don't think such an article should mention the gender-transition at all, even if there are sources to support it, because it is simply not interesting or relevant unless the subject was notable pre-transition. Give these folks some privacy. Skyerise (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
    I don't believe it is accurate to say "most" do anything. It was only this year that passports were allowed to be updated without proof of sex reassignment surgery and only a small fraction of trans people have this surgery (e.g. Jenner did not have this surgery). It is probably accurate to say that "most transgender people that have had sex reassignment surgery" get a new birth certificate but that's it. --DHeyward (talk) 20:20, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  6. Oppose We don't usually go out of our way to censor here on Wikipedia. Where known, we give the birth name. Fyunck(click) (talk) 20:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  7. Oppose - Extremist POV pushing. Carrite (talk) 20:28, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  8. Oppose This is overdoing it. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 22:46, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  9. Support - It is hard for me to see why birthnames seem so important to editors. Whatever made the person notable enough to be included in Wikipedia should have more weight. Implementing a policy to avoid birth names would help combat deadnaming. - MellowMurmur (talk | contributions) 20:47, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  10. Oppose: if the birth name is notable (like Manning), it should be in the lead. --NaBUru38 (talk) 23:41, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  11. Oppose: We do not suppress verifiable information if it's relevant. It doesn't have to be notable to be relevant, and relevance is determined on a case-by-case basis, in this as in all other matters.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:01, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  12. Oppose. This is well-intentioned, but the problem is that in situations where the article's subject was highly notable under their old name, there are likely to be people who search for them under it who will be confused when they end up at a different-looking article. This is why the policy states that we have to explain any likely names people will use to arrive at an article in the lead; I don't think it's a problem to mention their old name in this context as long as we make it clear that it is old and is no longer their name, and use their current name everywhere except in the places specifically clarifying that point. --Aquillion (talk) 18:21, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Option 3 - Use "formerly" instead

  1. Support per my explanation above as a compromise. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:39, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  2. Support per EvergreenFir. Please note my signature... :) --Guy Macon (formerly Guy Macon) (talk) 22:16, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
    You missed a golden opportunity to go with "Girl Macon (formerly Guy Macon)" or vice versa. :-p -sche (talk) 00:00, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
    LOL Loved that (though maybe that's what Guy intended). Epic Genius (talk) 02:52, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
    Nope. I just wasn't clever enough to think of it. :( --Guy "do you mind if we call you Bruce?" Macon (talk) 05:50, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  3. Support Given EvergreenFir's argument, I think this is best solution, actually, for anyone who changes their name. I prefer "formally" rather than "birth name". For notable people, what matters is their commonly known former name, not what name was on their birth certificate. Liz Read! Talk! 21:22, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  4. Support this seems most accurate, all things considered. Lirazelf (talk) 21:27, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  5. Support less horrific for trans people who are "dead name shamed" constantly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CE95:57B0:ED66:B25B:B2A2:792D (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
  6. Support No one is "born with" a name or a gender; these are assigned. We are all born babies. Funcrunch (talk) 03:59, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
  7. Support, second choice - I could support this as an alternative to Option 1. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:28, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  8. Support offense is reduced that way. But if any are offended, they have chosen to be offended, and for the vast majority of readers it is not offensive in the slightest. People are not often born with a name any way, that step comes a bit later. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
    The vast majority of readers are not transgender. People affected by gender dysphoria do not "choose to be offended". It causes actual pain for us to be misgendered (including being referred to by our previous names). I voted for this option with the understanding that it would apply only to people who became notable under their previous name (whether assigned at birth or adopted later), as a compromise. Funcrunch (talk) 22:49, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
    I believe you. I wouldn't dream of calling you by any other name, but at the same time you don't hold any special privilege on how all trans people should be gendered in an article during various phases of their life. Generally we should go by what the sources say. Fortunately for you almost every RS uses the persons preferred gender for present and future tense. But this "carve out" where we have to use the preferred term for all phases unless the subject makes it known otherwise is ridiculous. This is an encyclopedia, not an activist proving ground (not that I think you were acting in this way, far from it). 69.143.188.200 (talk) 01:37, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
    It's not "ridiculous", it was already an established guideline in MOS:IDENTITY to handle gender this way. It's not about activism, it's about respect and not causing unnecessary harm. Funcrunch (talk) 02:23, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
    Well even if it causes no difference in offense I am still in favour of this option. The people that have a problem with the former name are going to find it everywhere online and in publications, so all Wikipedia can do is reflect the sources and not overuse the previous name. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:44, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
  9. Support as a considerate compromise, with the awareness that like some of our other policies the persons most deeply affected will consider it a step short of what they would like, but only (as Funcrunch clarifies) for people who were in fact notable under the other name. --Orange Mike | Talk 23:55, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
  10. Support per Funcrunch ForbiddenRocky (talk) 01:29, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  11. I support option 1, and I don't have a strong preference on whether "born" or "formerly" is used, which means I'm fine with this option, too. -sche (talk) 21:30, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  12. Weak Support I don't think we can definitely say in every case whether "Born" or "Formerly" is the most natural or illustrative for people that are notable prior to transitioning (and I'd argue of they aren't notable prior to transitioning, birth and former name are irrelevant in a BLP). I would use different names with Caitlyn Jenner depending on the style chosen. "Formerly Bruce Jenner" or "Born William Bruce Jenner" as "Born" seems to imply given name at birth and "Formerly" has some choice or common name associated with it. She was known as "Bruce Jenner" regardless of the legal name so that argument has no merit. As a general guideline, "Formerly" is okay though. Personally, I'm less attached to my full legal name than the shortened nickname, i.e. "Hi, I'm X" is an introduciton of who I call myself and is personal. - I am not sure whether the very formal birth name "William Bruce Jenner" is more or less offensive than the common name "Bruce Jenner" but I also don't see how we don't mention the previous common name of a famous person (and let's keep in mind the exceptional case makes poor precedent. A white, male, gold medal athlete is already one of the most privileged classes (is there a more privileged one?) and then going public with a gender transition that makes the cover of Vanity Fair in their sixties doesn't happen everyday. Gold medal athlete to Vanity Fair cover model is two things that rarely happen to one person, let alone the same person and are famous for both now. Jenner does not represent transgender people that generally have higher poverty rates, lower access to proper healthcare and much higher suicide and murder rates. Does anyone know a 60+ year old so comfortable with themselves they'd pose in their underwear for a national magazine for everyone to view/praise and criticize (or would be offered the opportunity? My airbrush has yet to be invented. This is an extraordinary case.) --DHeyward (talk) 19:34, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
  13. Support Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:39, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  14. Support in part, sometimes if it's the birth name not a mid-life name, use #1; some former names are not birth names. The part I don't support is suppressing factual, verified information, if it's encyclopedically relevant.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:59, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  15. Weak support. I don't think that this aspect of the word-choice is really significant enough that we need to establish it via policy one way or the other, but I have no objections to 'formerly' if we are going to do so. --Aquillion (talk) 18:23, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
  16. Support. If you are adopted, your birth name is erased and replaced on your birth certificate in the US. Fact is, that is your name - although you may have formerly been known by another name. Gmcbjames (talk) 20:23, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

General discussion 2

There is already an ongoing RFC about this issue above.amazingly similar discussion above sparked by the same news cycle item.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:42, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I see the one above about using past names on other articles. I know they are similar, but I'm asking for a specific clarification to WP:BIRTHNAME. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:48, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure we need to suppress information in the public record, so I'd be fine with either option "born" or "formerly", the distinction there seems stylistic. The difference between how we write the narrative of a person's life (using their preferred identity) and noting the existence of facts in the public record which are not matters of dispute. I don't think we even need to suppress the facts for people who were not known under prior names. I don't favor treating this one particular thing differently than other name changes; for example Gerald Ford was never notable under any other name, but we don't suppress his prior names. We also never use any name except Gerald Ford (or variations thereof) in his article except where noting his prior names as plain facts in the public record. I don't see why this should be any different. The exact word used to indicate the prior name isn't important. --Jayron32 19:52, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
    My understanding of the difference is that Ford's name change did not result from a fundamental identity dissonance that persisted through his formative years. Powers T 18:31, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
That's a difference that matters to the subject, and to other parties in some other contexts, but not all parties in all contexts. Anyway, I also concur with Jayron32's take.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:55, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  • This is not about trying to suppress anything; this is a unique situation, involving the deepest questions of human identity, and in some ways a special sub-case of WP:UNDUE. The amount of sheer gratuitous nastiness and transphobia I'm seeing in some of the comments is deeply disappointing. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:00, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
    Actually I was thinking that almost all the comments were surprisingly reasonable and non-transphobic, and that this was going mostly smoothly. There are differences to be sure, there always are (just like with diacritics on wikpedia), and there are always a few on the extreme ends, but mostly things have been on an even keel and calm. Fyunck(click) (talk) 00:24, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Aye. What's deeply disappointing to me is to see intelligent people assume that any disagreement with a premise they feel strongly about translates into fear/hatred somehow. (It happens on other issues too, not just this one. Hint: Never, ever XFD anything with "women" in its title unless you have a very thick skin, not matter how sensible your rationale is.) It's even worse when you consider that this kind of reaction is also treating any ignorance (which is reparable by discussion and reading and experience), or failure to follow one's argument exactly as one intended (which may have more to do with one's own writing or reasoning), as more fear/hatred. No thanks. See WP:Advocacy, WP:GREATWRONGS, WP:Assume good faith, and WP:Assume clue, for starters. A bit of self-education on both sides of this debate would be useful.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:49, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
There seems to be nearly unanimous support for options 1 and 3 (and opposition to option 2); given the nature of them and the comments made on each, I take that to mean articles can use either "born" or "formerly". Do we need an admin to close this, does the discussion need to stay open longer, or can we just modify WP:BIRTHNAME to say:
In the case of transgender and non-binary people, birth names should only be included in the lead sentence if the person was notable prior to coming out. One can use either "born" or "formerly".
  • (from Laverne Cox, not notable prior to coming out) Laverne Cox (born May 29) ...
  • (from Chelsea Manning, notable prior to coming out) Chelsea Elizabeth Manning (formerly Bradley Edward Manning, December 17, 1987) ...
? -sche (talk) 02:38, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
@-sche: Not sure if needs to stay open longer, but given the topic and its history on WP, might be smart to ask an admin to close. Just my opinion on it. I think the wording you propose is perfect given the outcome thus far. I'll wait until closed to add to BIRTHNAME (or if someone gets to it before me, that's cool too). EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
I went to WP:AN/RFC to ask someone to close this, only to find that it says "Many discussions do not need formal closure and do not need to be listed here. Many discussions result in a reasonably clear consensus, so if the consensus is clear, any editor—even one involved in the discussion—may close the discussion. The default length of a formal request for closure is 30 days ...; if consensus becomes clear before that and discussion has slowed, then it may be closed early."
It seems to me that consensus has become unusually clear and discussion has petered out, and discussion has been open for 1 month, so I am closing it.
With one exception, everyone who has expressed an opinion on option 1 supports it; the one person to express opposition says they don't think MOS:IDENTITY and WP:BIRTHNAME conflict in the first place, which is no reason not to clarify them. Everyone who has expressed an opinion on option 3 supports it, with several users pointing out that it is a compromise between not listing even notable birth names (option 2, which has no consensus behind it) and listing even non-notable birth names, an extreme no-one even thought to suggest as a distinct option. Some supporters of option 1 do note that they would also support listing even non-notable trans people's birth names, but they are balanced by supporters of option 2 who oppose listing even notable birth names. The consensus is that WP:BIRTHNAME should be updated to reflect (the existing norm) that birth names of trans and non-binary people should only be included in their articles' lead sentences if the people were notable prior to coming out. Birth names may be introduced by either 'born' (as suggested by option 1) or 'formerly' (as suggested by option 3).
-sche (talk) 07:21, 1 July 2015 (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.

Multiple listings under "List of people from ___"

I've been going through List of people from Pennsylvania to clean up the alphabetization within sections and a few other odd things I've found. I noticed that several people are listed there multiple times; e.g.,

Is there a policy about this? Should there be? Please {{Ping}} me to discuss. --Thnidu (talk) 22:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

@Thnidu: It would seem to me that if a person is notable for multiple disciplines, then that person belongs in each one separately. For example, Maimonides is correctly categorized as a doctor, rabbi, and philosopher. If each of these categories has a geographical subcategory for a location where the person's functioning in that capacity was notable, then the person would certainly belong in all the relevant categories. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:28, 1 July 2015 (UTC)
@Od Mishehu: That makes sense. And could cross-ref between the listings... except that's unlikely to stay consistent as different editors add more. Thanks. --Thnidu (talk) 15:46, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Non English images

I think that all non English images should be removed and replaced with English images.--Moran25004 (talk) 10:57, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you give us an example of what you mean by a "non English image"? Do you just mean Images with non-English titles, or are you talking about (for instance) German-language maps? – iridescent 11:02, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I am talking about for instance German language maps.--Moran25004 (talk) 11:20, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Images are, by definition, more important for their visual content than for the text. If you can download the image, translate the text and upload it again (as a new image, and mentioning the original one), then do so. Or request someone else to do it. But, in the meantime, don't remove it just because it's not in English. Including a translation in the file description should do it for the moment.

Have also in mind that if the text was not generated by computer software, but part of the original image (such as this one), then you shouldn't upload a modified version. Cambalachero (talk) 13:28, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, you could (as a new file, not replacing the current one). The original is in the public domain and anyone is allowed to create a derivative work. This would be a pointless exercise because nowhere on Wikipedia would the image with the translation be considered an acceptable replacement for the 1685 original.
A more interesting question is this: suppose that some enterprising fellow decided to translate the text from that image into English, German, etc. and released it with a CC BY-SA 3.0 license (either on a personal webpage or by adding it to the summary at [ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Simon_leers.jpg ]). Would that be usable, or would it be considered WP:OR? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:29, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, the policies in common are different from wikipedia, as they have media files instead of articles. The concept of "original research" is moot, because there is no room for research, original or otherwise. In fact, commons encourages users to create their own content when possible, as well as working with very old media (namely, go and take photos, or open a software and draw your own diagrams). As for a modified version f an old document, it would be treated like an hoax image (because it would not be the original historical one), outside of the Project scope and deleted. Cambalachero (talk) 18:17, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
This is straying off topic, but people do de facto translate work titles, etc in articles (whenever a non-English phrase needs to be cited but its meaning also needs to be provided to an English audience). I don't know if there's a policy on the matter. -sche (talk) 07:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

The what? of all knowledge??

The words "the sum of all knowledge", a goal for Wikipedia set by James Wales, are ambiguous to non-first language English users. My Wikipedia Dutch chapter WMNL thinks it means "all knowledge". Dictionaries (Websters, Oxford Learner's, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sum etc.) agree that Sum has various meanings:

  1. the numerical or otherwise total
  2. the gist, summary or substance
  3. ...etcetera...

I am reading a biography by Ivor Keyes: Johannes Brahms which has a section of four pages "The sum of Brahms". So Wikipedia's "sum of all knowledge" could mean

  1. simply: all knowledge. That would be a lot, also non-encyclopedic material (how-to, cooking recipes, we can go on, enormous detail in the sciences ...) or
  2. the summary of all knowledge. This seems more practical, and in line with the ambitions of classic paper encyclopedias. But English speakers should decide.
  • Can you help us out?

Thanks, kind regards, Hansmuller (talk) 21:18, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

More context would be helpful, but in general it is useful to strike a balance between being an indiscriminate collection of information and setting the bar for notability so high that topics of the public and historical interest are excluded. How these policies are implemented is often highly contextual and can vary from Wikipedia to Wikipedia. Also, while English Wikipedia is the largest and most active Wikipedia, it is not the governing Wikipedia, each individual language site gets to make their own policies, even if they are often based on the English Wikipedia. Hope this helps. Winner 42 Talk to me! 21:28, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
It is ambiguous to native English users too. It isn't English Wikipedia policy however, and consensus on the English-language Wikipedia at least is that we don't include 'all knowledge', but instead limit ourselves to verifiable encyclopaedic content. Not that we necessarily always agree over what 'encyclopaedic' means. As for what the Dutch Wikipedia decides is appropriate, that is a matter for them, not us, to decide. Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is the relevant policy here - I suggest you ask your Dutch colleagues if they have a similar policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:35, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
You could always ask him. @Jimbo Wales: any thoughts? VQuakr (talk) 06:23, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
@Hansmuller: I've been reading voraciously for about sixty years, and I have always understood "the sum of all knowledge" to mean literally the whole of all the knowledge in the world. It is often used somewhat figuratively but with the same root meaning, e.g.,
To help, to continually help and share, that is the sum of all knowledge; that is the meaning of art. —Eleonora Duse
ISTM that the "arithmetic" of this artistic aphorism is exactly parallel to that of Hillel's expression of the ethic of reciprocity:
That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn. —Hillel the Elder
As far as I can tell, in the context of Wikipedia, "the sum of all knowledge" means literally all the knowledge there is... to be interpreted as is appropriate to an encyclopedia. Not a "summary", though. --Thnidu (talk) 22:59, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Thnidu, the phrase is "the sum of all knowledge", not "the summands of all knowledge". If "all the knowledge there is" includes 1, 3 and 4 (as in, the simple arithmetic of 1 + 3 = 4), then Wikipedia's goal is the "4", not the "1" and "3" parts. This is a necessary distinction, because encyclopedias summarize. They do not provide all of the background details about how the sum(mary) came to exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Democratic Wikipedia

I had a idea. What if we were like a real country in the sense that we had a Council of Wikimedia staff and a Parliament that would be elected every 4 years? The Council would consist of Wikimedia staff. The Council would be chosen by Jimbo every 4 years. The Parliament would be elected by all the members of Wikipedia including IPs. The Parliament would consist of users and IPs. The parties will be as follows. Wikipedia Democratic Party (WDP) party supporting IP rights Wikimedia Staff Party (WSP) party supporting staff rights. Travel Party (TP) party supporting road articles. --Moran25004 (talk) 09:02, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. It is a monarchy, and I'm the king. Cambalachero (talk) 18:20, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia. That is all it is, and all it is intended to be. Pretending to be something it isn't is pointless. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:24, 30 June 2015 (UTC)
More accurately, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and a community of people who (more or less) enjoy writing an encyclopedia. Dragons flight (talk) 03:39, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and part demarchy. It is not (a) government, nation, state, province, region, city, municipality, aristocracy, geniocracy, kratocracy, meritocracy, timocracy, technocracy, autocracy, despotist, dictatorship, fascist, monarchy, absolute, constitutional, diarchy, elective, emirate, bankocracy, corporatocracy, nepotocracy, kakistocracy, kleptocracy, ochlocracy, authoritarian, authoritarian, totalitarian, demarchy, democracy, ergatocracy, kritarchy, netocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, stratocracy, theocracy, anarchy, anocracy, republic, constitutional, democratic, parliamentary, federal, socialist, adhocracy, bureaucracy, chiefdom, cybersynacy, parliamentary, presidential, nomocracy, capitalist, communist, distributist, feudalist, or socialist. Esquivalience (alt) (talk) 02:36, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
  • And Wikipedia is not a thesaurus ;) AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:38, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
If the way Wikipedia is structured and works has to be equated to a form of government, anarcho-communism is about as good a fit as possible (imho). The article actually mentions concepts such as freeware, creative commons, etc as contemporary examples. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:06, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Propaganda

Countries with authoritarian govermnets usually have a state-sponsored press, which actually works as propaganda outlets. Their editorial line may be basically described as "our country is a paradise, everything is completely fine, the 100% of the people love our infallible and glorious leader, and whoever says another thing is a traitor to the nation, working for the evil imperialism". In successful authoritarian governments, such as Castro's Cuba or Chávez's Venezuela, the standard impartial press has been vanished and only those types of "press" are available for the population.

Question 1: Are those newspapers reliable sources to report general facts? Is it appropiate to use such sources to write the article about the "glorious leader", or the political crisis or scandals he may have been involved with?

Question 2: The "glorious leader" says that 2 + 2 = 5, and the propaganda outlets repeat that. 2 + 2 = 5, and those who say it's 4 are enemies of the nation seeking to overthrow the beloved leader! Would it still be a fringe theory? Should we report that for everyone 2 + 2 = 4 and for that guy it's 5, or would that give undue weight? Cambalachero (talk) 14:59, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

This has been discussed pretty in depth before in this RfC. You can also read a clarification on the closing admin's talk page here, for more information. Bosstopher (talk) 15:14, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's all explained in Questionable and self-published sources, see WP:SELFSOURCE and WP:ABOUTSELF in particular. As an encyclopedia we are interested in documenting how such regimes present themselves, and as a neutral, non-biased resource we are required to include all points of view that are relevant to the topic at hand (and they should attributed as such to the party making them).
This doesn't mean that we should include the official position of the regime at every article where the regime has one; only for subjects where the opinion of that government is on-topic we should mention it. At other places, their statemenst would be fringe as you say. So, the final answer is "depends on the context", as it happens with everything regarding verifiability and reliability of the sources. Diego (talk) 15:18, 24 June 2015 (UTC)
Exactly... a lot depends on how Wikipedia presents the material. Is it being presented as an unattributed "fact" or as an attributed "opinion"? A propaganda outlet might not be reliable for the former, and yet might be extremely reliable for the latter. Blueboar (talk) 13:56, 25 June 2015 (UTC)
I started an essay on this, Wikipedia:Propaganda. Cambalachero (talk) 14:05, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
That looks like a good candidate for moving into userspace with a redirect, as I did with WP:1AM. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:18, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC: elevation of Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle to guideline status

Closing this as participation has dwindled. There is a clear consensus not to elevate this, and a consensus not to mark this as historical and/or redirect it elsewhere. The general feeling is while BRD should not be compulsory, it is a guide to best practice, so removing it is not going to be constructive. Mdann52 (talk) 13:07, 6 July 2015 (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 hereby submit a proposal to be reviewed by the community. The proposal is as follows: the essay titled Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle, commonly known as WP:BRD, should be elevated to the level of a Wikipedia guideline. The reasons for this proposal are simple. The essay in question has attained a level of currency across Wikipedia that punches above the weight of an "essay". It is commonly cited by administrators during the course of their duties to halt edit warring. It is the most apt tool that we have to encourage discussion. It is clearly an example of a Wikipedia "best practice", which is how guidelines are defined by the policy on such matters. As such, it has proven that it is worthy of guideline status. RGloucester — ☎ 00:55, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Support: BRD elevated to guideline

  • Support ::"Don't edit war" is ambiguous and vague, and differing opinions about the correct way not to edit war result in unnecessary friction and conflict. Most users will follow a process that is simple and clear, if it has community consensus. I've found that things go smooth as butter when all present agree to follow BRD. The minute someone shows up and says, I don't have to do that, it's only essay, things turn to shit in a hurry. Something about that tells me BRD is a good thing for Wikipedia. Can BRD be abused? Of course it can, anything we did could be abused. Fault the abuser, not the process. Should we can WP:IAR because it's routinely misused out of ignorance or abused in bad faith? No, because it's a net positive. The same applies here. I don't care much about all the ivory tower intellectual objections to BRD, generously sprinkled with WP:CRYSTAL, I'm a practical guy and I'm only interested in what I've found to work in real-world Wikipedia editing. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:44, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Have you noted how most people who invoke BRD do it in violation of BRD, often with the same person reverting the article to its initial state three or four times, or reverting with the only reason being "let's discuss the change first"? (which BRD lists as an invalid reason) There's nothing simple in the procedure, and turning it into a guideline would only create a weapon for those who like to WP:OWN articles to wikilawyer. Conversely, the good faith editors who know how to make the best of BRD don't need it to have any legal weight, nor to force others to follow it; BRD only works well in such cases because it's optional. Make it mandatory and it will kill all the goodwill that it requires to be successful. Diego (talk) 18:16, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Ok, scenario: Someone makes a controversial and unsourced change. May I assume that one revert is the right move, or must one of the others immediately start a talk thread? If the revert is good, the editor re-reverts. What's the proper next move? Is it bad to enforce the concept that a disputed edit must stay out until there is consensus for it? Where is the road map for this that has community consensus, that everyone can agree on? Simply stating general principles doesn't work, and has not worked, since that's over the heads of too many of the general editing population. Specific steps are needed, and this is the concept I have attempted to explore at #Discussion break 1 (BRD). As many have said many times, there is no possible solution that could not be used for bad-faith purposes. Bad-faith editors are experts at turning the rules around and using them as weapons, no matter what the rules are, so I really don't get the point of using that as an argument. We might as well throw out laws against rape because someone can falsely claim rape and use the laws to hurt someone they don't like. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:38, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
In your scenario the edit would be out because of WP:V, not because of WP:BRD. Counter-scenario: an editor removes a piece of gossip from a biography that is unsourced. Some editor reverts the removal arguing that it's a well-known fact, maybe adding a reference to a tabloid to satisfy WP:BURDEN. Should the sentence then remain in place until a consensus is arrived through discussion at the talk page? What if the fact is not about a living person, but still the reference provided is quite low quality and unreliable? The "defending the default version" rule is not desirable in that case.
Is it bad to enforce the concept that a disputed edit must stay out until there is consensus for it? Yes, because it undermines the core concept at WP:CONSENSUS that all editors should work towards a solution that all parts involved may accept. If you enshrine the idea that one side in a dispute gets to defend their preferred version of the article by default, that side no longer needs to negotiate any proposed improvement - they can just philibuster against any change, which we as a project haved agreed it's a bad idea.
Also BRD says that performing such edit is often acceptable. So enforcing BRD would not prevent that edit, and editors who want to undo the potential improvement would still need to provide a rationale other than "because BRD". Diego (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
Some points taken, but I'm having trouble grasping a lot of that after over 14,000 edits. I'm far from alone in that respect; in fact, out there in the real editing world I'm not seeing anyone showing the correct path in various situations, including editors with considerably more experience than I have. All I'm seeing is (1) edit warring, or (2) misinterpretations of BRD with "per BRD" in the edit summaries. Basically, nobody knows what the hell they're doing. That makes arguments such as the above fairly academic, wouldn't you say? The "right way" isn't much use if it can't be effectively communicated to the masses, and how much more evidence do we need that the existing written information is not getting that job done? ―Mandruss ☎ 13:29, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Weak support - I'm fairly ambivalent on this one. While I see the points of the first two oppose votes below, BRD is widely accepted and often treated as a guideline when discussing behavioral evidence on ANI and other forums. WP:PG states that guidelines are meant to outline best practices for following those standards in specific contexts. The specific contexts makes me think that WhatamIdoing's concerns are partially addressed. We have other guidelines (e.g., WP:BOLD, WP:POINT, that are similar and I see no major problem to adding this one to the bunch. Just to add, seeing the list of reasons against in past discussion, adding this as a guideline would not negate other guidelines like WP:OWN. I can concerns about status quo though. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:04, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
I haven't seen WP:OWN enforced in the last seven years; no matter how painful the truth, I'm afraid it's a dead policy. Can you explain what benefit we would get by forcing editors to always follow the next step in the cycle? And how would you assess whether starting a new cycle with a BOLD edit after discussion does comply with the guideline or is disruptive? Diego (talk) 18:26, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support as proposer – I also endorse the fine words of Mandruss. RGloucester — ☎ 02:10, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support For the simple reason that it already is a de facto guideline. I've read the opposes and find them unconvincing. As a guideline it is still not a policy, just a ... wait for it... guideline. It applies in most cases but is not a hard and fast rule to be enforced on people. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support I am in agreement with Beeblebrox's reasoning. Gmcbjames (talk) 06:54, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. BRD is something that happens sufficiently often for it to be elevated to 'Guideline'. The emphasis of the current essay is 'Discuss' which of course it should be and which, sadly, too many editors don't care to do. Promoting to Guideline would provide BRD with a note of authority while retaining the aspect that as Beeblebrox suggests, is still a GUIDEline. I find the oppose votes rather unconvincing however much traction they appear to have gained. In fact some of them I actually find very hard to follow. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:50, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
If you think the emphasis of the current essay is 'Discuss', you haven't understood it. The emphasis is on "balance discussion with juicious editing, don't let any one dominate the other". Which proves my point - no two editors will try to enforce it the same way, which is a bad idea for something supposed to carry any authority. I'll ask again: what is the benefit you expect by having this labelled with the word "guideline" instead of "essay"? Diego (talk) 12:39, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
I can't speak to anyone's internal motivations/expectation, but the result of it would be the effective end of WP:Be bold; might as well just go slap {{Historical}} on it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:54, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Oppose: BRD elevated to guideline

Note: I alerted the talk pages of WP:Policies and guidelines and WP:Edit warring to this matter, as seen here and here. The talk page of WP:BRD was already alerted. And with as many people participating in the Caitlyn Jenner/Bruce Jenner matter above, there might be no need for me to go around alerting a bunch of WP:WikiProjects like I did in the case of a WP:Lead discussion. By that, I mean that it's likely that editors voting on the Caitlyn Jenner/Bruce Jenner matter will also vote on this case. Flyer22 (talk) 01:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
I also see that this matter was discussed in 2014: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 116#WP:BRD as essay. Flyer22 (talk) 01:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Another note: When alerting the pages that I did for this latest WP:RfC, I initially messed up the linking. Flyer22 (talk) 21:49, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose A guideline should be something that (a) anyone can successfully follow and (b) is generally applicable. BRD, by contrast, directly says that this is a good practice for only some editors and some situations: "BRD is best used by experienced Wikipedia editors. It may require more diplomacy and skill to use successfully than other methods, and have more potential for failure. Using BRD in volatile situations is discouraged." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. WP:TALKDONTREVERT is enough. Consensus can be established without WP:BRD, and forcing editors to use WP:BRD will just create more problems (aspersions, unnecessary arguments and what not). Esquivalience t 02:33, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. In a perfect world it would be a great idea. But BRD is regularly abused now, it'd be a real clusterf*ck if it were to be given more weight. Skyerise (talk) 03:23, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per WhatamIdoing and Esquivalience. GregJackP Boomer! 17:50, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose as impractical and a magnet for battleground. BRD may very well be the most misunderstood and controversial instruction set at the Wikipedia space. Half editors believe it to be a call for making bold edits any time debate becomes stalled in a gridlock, the other half swear that it's a reason to never ever touch the article again until talk pages have been crammed with every possible argument and counter-argument, and avoid edits unless everyone involved has endorsed even the smallest change. If we can't even agree to what it means, how can it become official? We'd have to rewrite it word by word before turning any part of it into a guideline, and by then all consensus would have evaporated. Diego (talk) 18:09, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WhatamIdoing ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:25, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WhatamIdoing, Flyer22, and Diego Moya. The appropriate means to resolve issues over disputed content depends on the particulars, and trying to shoehorn everything into a singe process simply doesn't work. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:37, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose Sorry RG, the sound of a 1RR on every article doesn't bode well. It sounds like a good idea as BRD is used a-lot but in it's current wording wont make a good guideline. I suggest you look into BRD's wording and seek consensus to adapt it for a case by case basis. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:06, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I agree with Diego. In addition, I find BRD to be far, far too long. The core idea could easily be expressed in two paragraphs. Instead, it is needlessly overlong. Neutralitytalk 22:25, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - too vague and hard to follow. It's widely invoked because people perceive it as being so many things. It calls itself optional. Isn't an optional guideline an essay? Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 22:34, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I will take what Diego Moya said. I encounter editors who have no idea of even the correctly applied concept of BRD. This does not need to be escalated to carry greater weight of repercussions and punishment. Fylbecatulous talk 16:35, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I consider that we rely excessively on BRD, and that it is in many cases a direct invitation to unnecessary and undesirable conflict. DGG ( talk ) 22:20, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is already what it should be, an oft-cited method of editing that works well in certain situations. Attempting to make it imperative will fail horribly. VQuakr (talk) 03:10, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the above arguments: it isn't especially clearly written, it doesn't apply in all situations, I also see it as contributing to conflict rather than helping to avoid it, and it would effectively impose 1RR on all articles. That BRD is a useful approach in some circumstances and it's oft-cited are not enough reasons to elevate it to a guideline. Ca2james (talk) 05:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
  • oppose as per WhatamIdoing and others above. BRD is oftne a good method to avpoid edit wars, but it is not a one-size fits all solution. It does not, for example, work well in a situation with multiple editors each of whom has a someehat different PoV on the issues. Other cases whre it is not a god fit have been mentioned above or in the discussion below. DES (talk) 05:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose the current text says, "The "Bold–refine" process is the ideal collaborative editing cycle." If anything that should be made into a guideline. GregKaye 15:12, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose TL;DR: See first item at #Case studies, below. BRD, regardless of the fact that some have used it to good effect, is essentially a WP:POINT and WP:FILIBUSTER tool. Detailed rationale:
    Policy arguments: WP:BOLD is policy (along with WP:IAR), while WP:BRD is a voluntary (if fairly customary) agreement between editors to suspend pursuit of bold action in the interests of WP:CONSENSUS (including the avoidance of WP:EDITWARs). BRD is a behavior guidance essay that recommends one interpretation of and preference regarding how the BOLD and CONSENSUS policies interact. There are other interpretations, such as WP:DR (which is also a policy, and which helps resolve disputes instead of generating them, as BRD tends to do). Likewise, we have quite a large number of essays that provide other interpretations and recommendations (mostly along the "walk away and do another of the zillion things Wikipedia needs done, and spare your blood pressure" vein). These other views are at least as valid as BRD process, and usually less problematic. WhatamIdoing's observation that BRD itself says it's not for everyone is enough to derail this proposal anyway (and no, removing that wording won't get around that problem).

    Community and common-sense arguments: It's readily observable that many of those who cry loudest for BRD when they don't like an edit (or editor), are the least willing to engage in BRD when they think they won't win a protracted consensus discussion, or are right, by God. It's the same underlying psychology behind the old maxim "Everyone is for free speech, as long as it's their own." Diego Moya accurately described the two most frequent problematic results of reliance on BRD, and DGG among others is entirely right about this essay being practically invitational of strife. One of its most frequent uses is to WP:OWN a page or prevent inclusion of something that actually has consensus or wasn't really controversial, by WP:FILIBUSTERing until the opposition gives up. Another is WP:HOUNDING another editor by BRDing all of their major changes within an entire editing sphere (wikiproject scope, or whatever) until they go away. BRD shouldn't be sent to WP:MFD, but its successful application is much less frequent than its fans believe, and it is one of the top reasons WP's quality improvement has slowed to a crawl in the last few years. It needs to be clarified that it can't be abused for stonewalling or wikistalking. If the editor who made a change has a better rationale, then WP:BOLD clearly applies, without having to have an RfC about every editorial point. It's amazing how many editors today incorrectly believe that "you didn't discuss this first" is a valid rationale for reverting anything they want to, regardless of the rationales for the edit. But an increasing number of "differently clued" admins are actually siding with this terribly un-wiki misinterpretation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:47, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Oppose I fully intended to support until I read the arguments against. Chris Troutman (talk) 11:26, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose I don't mind having it as an essay that some people may want to use, I personally think it's not the best method of conflict resolution, and I absolutely oppose making it a guideline or policy. -War wizard90 (talk) 05:22, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While BRD is an accepted practice, it is a practice requiring skill and experience, and the BRD essay fails to confer the skill and experience onto its readers. People who do not already know when to be bold, when to revert, when to discuss, and when to stop discussing are not the sort of people who should be encouraged to practice BRD. Instead, support tagging as historical with pointers to EDITCONSENSUS, BOLD, and 3RR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:20, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose - The three-revert rule is already in the edit warring policy and elavating the Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle to a guideline would almost impose a one-revert rule. Though it would only be a guideline (as opposed to the 3rr and 1rr policies mentioned in the previous sentence), guidelines have much more "weight" than essays. The Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is a good suggestion/idea, but isn't a blanket cycle for all cases. It's fine as an essay.—Godsy(TALKCONT) 16:25, 23 June 2015 (UTC
  • Oppose - BRD is good advice but inappropriate as a mandate. Rlendog (talk) 00:26, 26 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose It is good advise but I think making it into a rule sort of misses the point of the essay. Chillum 00:32, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Neutral

  • BRD is excellent advice and guidance, but not all that good in terms of being "the rules". Unfortunately, too many editors think that "guideline status" equates to "the rules". Blueboar (talk) 12:05, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Blueboar, how does guideline status not equate to being a part of Wikipedia's rules? As you likely saw, I commented on guidelines being rules with my "22:07, 6 June 2015 (UTC)" post in the Discussion (BRD) subsection below; I pointed out that per WP:Policies and guidelines, guidelines are also rules. I don't understand the interpretation that only policies are rules because policies have to be followed. Like WhatamIdoing mentioned below, WP:Preserve is also policy...and editors routinely ignore it even while being aware of it. Flyer22 (talk) 06:45, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
OK, let me rephrase... One of the primary purposes of a Guideline is to outline "best practice"... but "best" practice does not mean "only" practice... and unfortunately as soon as we enshrine a "best" practice by giving it Guideline status, too many editors treat it as being the "only" practice allowed.
(as for WP:PRESERVE... remember that PRESERVE is balanced by WP:CANTFIX. I strongly suspect that, most of the time, when an editor appears to be "ignoring" PRESERVE, he/she is actually "following" CANTFIX.) Blueboar (talk) 12:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Maybe it depends on what's in your watchlist, but I see reversions over typos in wikitext formatting, because the source is "only" a peer-reviewed journal article, things that ought to be moved to another article rather than blanked and lost, and other things that are obviously not CANTFIX territory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:46, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion (BRD)

  • What effects, if any, would this proposal have on the encyclopedia? Winner 42 Talk to me! 00:57, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
    • It would enshrine WP:BRD as a "best practice", encouraging editors to take a more discursive approach to controversial topics. RGloucester — ☎ 01:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
      • That's one possibility, I suppose. BRD doesn't limit itself to controversial topics, however, so the best case scenario is that editors will waste a lot of time taking a more discursive approach to everything.
        IMO, another, and unfortunately more likely, possibility, is that more editors will go around saying that if you're reverted (by anyone, for any reason), that it's your duty to drop everything and go "discuss" with WP:Randy in Boise what the professional literature says about this subject, and why academic sources are preferable for those subjects, and that if you respond to reverting with either a reasonable revert or with another bold effort, then you are a dangerous editor who probably needs to be blocked for edit warring. TLDR: If we're going to set up a WP:0RR rule for bold editors, then let's be honest about what we're doing.
        Also, if this becomes a guideline, we're going to see an increase in reverters demanding that bold editors go start a discussion (because BRD puts the burden of starting a discussion on the bold editor, right? No, no, don't go read it or anything; you might discover that it doesn't actually say that), and insisting that BRD enshrines their right to revert anything and everything at least once, including edits they personally believe improves the page (an endemic problem at policy pages: "I agree, but I'm reverting this tiny change because you didn't say Mother, May I? on the talk page first").
        Basically, I think that BRD is a good idea for editors who are both experienced and have a certain degree of personal maturity, for disputes involving a small number of thoughtful people. Some editors aren't capable of it (they have other options, like learning WP:How to lose or deciding to WP:Let it go, or going through formal dispute resolution), and other times it's not the best choice. In short, it's good for people who can choose to voluntarily apply it to an appropriate situation, and to refuse to apply it in others. It's not good for everyone or every edit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:20, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Guidelines, by definition in the Wikipedia policy on such classifications, are applied in appropriate situations. They are merely examples of best practice, and are not a dogma to adhere to with fervour. This proposal is not to elevate BRD to "policy" status, but to "guideline status. Please revise your remarks in accordance with the proposal as it was made, not with some imaginary proposal to make BRD a policy. RGloucester — ☎ 02:48, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Hello, Theory, please meet Data.
"Mere guidelines" like WP:FRINGE and WP:MEDRS are enforced with a zeal much greater than some of our core policies (especially WP:IAR). Some essays even get cited as reasons for blocking editors. Everything, even policies, ought to be applied only in appropriate situations, but the fact remains that we have a sizable group of active editors who believe that every single "rule" must be complied with at all times, and that their POV is the only one that matters. You can see a perfectly reasonable, good-faith example of this around electronic cigarettes: is that a "health-related" article, and so WP:MEDMOS's suggested article structure applies, or is that a "manufactured consumer good" article, and so it doesn't? This community is slowly calcifying in its approach. There is a "right way" to do everything, and everyone must conform. This proposal—that a particular style of handling everyday editing disputes be elevated above all other styles—is actually an example of that systemic problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:51, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Indeed. I have to strongly agree with your observation that, if I may restructure it, BRD leads to two different kinds of problem: POV ownership of articles, when it's used to filibuster all "disagreeable" facts, and fossilization of Wikipedia-namespace pages like policies and guidelines, by reflexive reverts that lead to 20 screenfuls of noise generated by people who can't follow basic reasoning. I thank RGloucester for proposing this, since it's clearly going to fail, and this will dump icewater on the zeal of people to abuse this in such ways (and worse ways, like blocking people for not following an optional essay). If this snowballs as bad as I hope, we may actually get back to a productive, fast-paced editing environment like we had ca. 2008. Remember those days, and how much we got done? BRD is the #2 reason we don't any more. The #1 cause is, of course, the shrinking editing pool which despite all kinds of kooky theories is obviously primarily the result of the fact that in the very productive period we already wrote all the "sexy" articles, leaving only increasingly specialized and nerdy topics for people to get a fresh crack at. The frontier has disappeared, and WP is now in an intellectual "suburban sprawl" stage. The only way out of that to a new cycle of renewal is elimination of unnecessary process-mongering. Like BRD.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:19, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I feel that with "a more discursive approach to controversial topics" RGloucester misunderstands much of the intent of BRD, which is to encourage a new bold edit in response to unfocused discussion, to provide an exit to talkfests and filibusters. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:42, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
If only it actually worked that way. I generally just leads to reversion of the filibuster-breaking bold edit, and new cycle of BRD noise.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:20, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
It does work that way, you just don't see it. BRD is an excellent method for working with other editors, and required no invocation of BRD. (you make your edits, and if reverted you discuss before going back to editing) If you count attempted uses by the number of occasions that someone in a discussion or edit summary says "BRD" you'll be counting the people who don't understand. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:23, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Some of the opposers seem to be of the opinion that this would make a 1RR rule apply to all articles. That's a red herring/strawman argument that is just plain wrong. 3RR is a policy. If you break it, you are probably going to get blocked. You can't "break" a guideline, all you can do is choose to ignore it. If there are users or admins out there (and there most certainly are) that apply essays and guidelines as if they were rules or policies, that is a problem with those users, not with the guidelines and esays themselves, and not promoting this to a guideline isn't going to fix that problem. (I would actually support BRD being a policy for other policy pages only as nobody should just be changing policy on a whim, and if they are reverted they should obviously seek consensus for their changes, but that's another discussion for another day) Beeblebrox (talk) 21:12, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
Beeblebrox, as noted at WP:Policies and guidelines, guidelines are rules and editors should attempt to follow them. Do I always follow every guideline? No. There is a valid WP:Ignore all rules reason for some cases, but an editor should not be waving the WP:Ignore all rules policy around often as if that gives the editor a reason to ignore a guideline in every case. Guidelines are guidelines because they have generally been found to be best practices; there should be a valid reason for forgoing them; WP:IDON'TLIKEIT reasons are generally not what I call valid. Flyer22 (talk) 22:07, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
The difference between a policy and a guideline is not about blocking. People get blocked every day for "breaking" the guideline about WP:External links. And how many community bans have we seen for WP:IDHT, also a guideline? But when was the last time you saw someone blocked for "breaking" the WP:Editing policy? That policy gets violated every hour of the day, especially the WP:PRESERVE section, but almost no one gets blocked over it. I'm not sure that it's even possible to "break" WP:POLICY or WP:IAR. But people get blocked for "breaking" the mere essay on WP:Tendentious editing.
I believe that the actual goal here is to impose something like 1RR on articles (rather than on people): to stop edit warring by declaring that if you are reverted, your only acceptable course of action is to start a discussion. No more reverting the reverter (even if the reversion is clearly a mistake, clearly anti-policy, etc.) and no more trying a different, bold change: If I revert you, then you must start a discussion (or stop editing the article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Re: Nobody should just be changing policy on a whim" – Um, policy (other than that handed down externally from WP:OFFICE) got written and developed mostly from people changing it boldly ("on a whim" is a dismissive, subjective value judgement that presupposes you can psychically know what's going on in the editor's mind). We need more of this, not less, all over Wikipedia, which has slowed to a crawl in virtually all areas, public-facing and internal. Most changes to policy don't stick, but they tend to lead to policy development far more than does going to the talk page first and trying to drum up interest in discussing how to maybe approach crafting an attempt to address something that maybe we should talk about exploring to see if it's sufficient concern to warrant addressing with ... blah blah blah. Just put in what you think it should say. If it makes perfect sense, it sticks. If it makes some sense, other people will help massage it into something useful. If it's stupid, it'll get nuked. If you habitually insert stupid stuff into polices and guidelines, you'll be asked to stop. If you don't, then noticeboards. This process worked perfectly fine for over a decade before BRD dumped a truck full of slowly hardening glue over everything. NB: All of this also applies to article content, not just Wikipedia-namespace editing, other than what you add to articles needs to also comply with the core content policies. The underlying process (and what makes it work well or poorly) is the same in both cases.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:30, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Alternative: Do a better job of explaining the concept (and when to use it) at WP:CONSENSUS

ESSAY

An editor should not need to have a 130 I.Q. and three years of experience to know how to edit without edit warring. I don't know, but my guess is that most or all opposers of this promotion fit that description, and they are unconsciously assuming that most editors are like them. Not so, probably not even a majority, and therein lies the disagreement in this proposal. Guys, it may seem simple and clear-cut to you, with all your experience, but it's not. I've said it before in a different context: Wikipedia has become designed by the experienced, for the experienced, and we wonder why we can't keep new editors — and I got a bit of experienced support for that statement. I'm here as a representative, possibly the only representative present in this discussion, of Average Editors.

(I don't mean to imply that other supporters have an I.Q. under 130 or less than three years of experience. Don't overthink.)

Somehow, the wisdom of the elders needs to be translated into a somewhat simple process, a road map, for the rest of us. We don't need to know why, only how. Vast amounts of time are wasted arguing about who has the responsibility to start the talk thread, for example, and that could be avoided if a guideline process simply clarified that question. If it's true that one size can't fit all, or if it's true that any such guideline would be a net negative — and I'm not convinced of either — then we need to accept the fact that we will never be rid of widespread edit warring, that Wikipedia will forever be an acrimonious and chaotic battleground environment. Those are the two choices as I see it. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:38, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Alternative - rather than promote BRD itself to guideline status, I would do a better job of explaining the BRD concept (and when to use it) at WP:CONSENSUS.
If we do promote it, it will need some explanation of when not to use it. There are times when the BRD cycle is unnecessary... and times when it is. For example, BRD is not really necessary in brand new articles... as an article starts and grows, it is likely to change rapidly as editors add new bits of information, and freely rewrite sections with existing bits of information. These articles work best on an "Bold, revert, less bold, repeat" cycle. The discussion part of BRD isn't always necessary. A stricter BRD cycle works better for articles that have been around a while and are more stable. In such cases, it is fine to be bold, but if someone reverts it is usually best to the article and ask why the revert was made. For some articles (and especially our core policy pages) every paragraph, sentence and phrase has been discussed and discussed yet again... and we have reached the point that Bold edits are almost guaranteed to upset long standing consensus. The Revert part of BRD can be assumed if you attempt to make a bold edit... and so "Discuss first" is best. Blueboar (talk) 22:24, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
Let's ignore everything outside of mainspace for this discussion; relative to the entire editing population, I doubt many editors know they are allowed to update policy and guideline, feel competent to do so, and want to do so. Within mainspace, based on your comments, would it be at all feasible to produce, say, three different "editing models", with a road map for each? If that could be done, then the main area of process-related conflict would be which model to use at a given time on a given article, and any model change switch could be decided by local consensus. One of the models could be pre-designated for use with the more stable articles, which would avoid a problem when there aren't enough people around to form a consensus. It could be designed to work for a two-editor situation (a one-editor situation doesn't need a process because an edit war requires at least two). Perhaps three sizes could fit all? ―Mandruss ☎ 23:15, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

[[

File:Oversimplified flow chart for editing.png|thumb|This shows a possible decision-making path for editors on Wikipedia.]]

Thank you for keeping the less-experienced editors in mind. It's easy to lose sight of that perspective.
There are probably a dozen alternatives (some of which are listed at WP:BRD#Alternatives), but if you exclude anything that smacks of edit warring, then the basic categories might be these:
  1. Bold, refine, rejoice
  2. Bold, revert, discuss
    • with the editor that reverted your bold change (BRD is focused on talking to one or two objectors, not everyone)
    • with everyone/via formal dispute resolution processes
  3. Bold, revert, try again (trying something else, maybe a less ambitious edit, not re-reverting)
  4. Bold, revert, give up (or move on to another article: an ideal approach for cleaning up {{linkfarm}} problems)
  5. Moderate edits (e.g., deliberately change one paragraph or other small piece a week until you're done)
    • Usual options of discussing, re-attempting, and giving up if you're reverted, but reversions are less likely
  6. Discuss first (aka "timid" editing; wide range of options in this category)
Well, that looks like six. Probably other editors would produce different lists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
At over 14,000 edits, I don't understand a third of the above, or how I would use it in practice. Am I atypically stupid, or atypically lazy? Even if I understood it, that would be worthless unless most of the others present understood it, too; a majority agreement as to process is needed. Seriously, how are editors expected to stick it out long enough to understand all that? With road maps, we don't need to understand it; we just follow the instructions. We can drive our cars without being experts in auto mechanics, but only because automakers figured out how to isolate us from all that and "dumb down" cars.
Thank you for keeping the less-experienced editors in mind. It's easy to lose sight of that perspective. - sounds a bit like we're talking about a small minority that's easy to forget. Are we? My perception is that perhaps 10% of active editors are at a level capable of understanding the above, or anything close to it. Again, unless the majority present are in that 10%, their knowledge can't have any beneficial effect. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:23, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Well, I've added a flowchart. To keep it on one page, I've simplified some of the options, but it's the general idea. Maybe that will make more sense than the rather jargon-y list.
IMO you don't need to know any of this to edit. You just need to click the 'Edit' button and have a go. You can figure out each step individually, as you go along, without any sort of roadmap. Just trying something out is how most of us get to the point of being able to identify all the different options. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
Do we have statistics on number of active editors by edit count? Like a graph? ―Mandruss ☎ 11:29, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Maybe, although I don't know where; however, it looks enough like this as to make no particular difference. Or, to put it another way, in the history of Wikipedia, there have been 25,369,760 accounts created, and your contributions put you in the top 0.02% for number of edits ever. If you ranked there in terms of American income, you would not only have been "a one percenter", but your income would have have ranked in the top 10% of American millionaires (using the definition of a millionaire as someone who earned at least a million US dollars last year, not those with lower incomes who have saved a total of $1M or more). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:00, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
My sole objective is to achieve a dramatic reduction in edit warring. It is abundantly clear that the status quo is not working, and yet, most experienced editors say that no change is warranted. I can't get my head around that; if it's not working, a change is warranted, full stop. That would seem to be the first step on a path toward a solution. We are not going to repeal human nature any time soon, so it's not realistic to simply say that the required change is within us. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:28, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
I believe that everyone would like to see less edit warring. Speaking for myself, requiring BRD is neither a practical nor an effective way to build a good encyclopedia, and its effect on the more severe forms of edit will probably be zero. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
What I'm talking about is that the elders don't say, "Promoting BRD is a bad idea, let's find a better solution to edit warring." Instead, most of them say, "Existing policy and guideline is all we need to prevent edit warring. People just need to use it correctly." My reply is, "How's that approach working so far, after years of use?" At that point they go silent. There seems to be a widespread reluctance to accept that some change is in order, and to be willing to take a look at alternatives like this one with an open mind. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:30, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
I agree that edit warring is a problem. I agree that we should try something different (or even multiple things). I disagree that we should try this different thing.
Since you seem to have a good grasp of the problem, I invite you to expand Wikipedia:Irregular verbs on Wikipedia to include a new section on edit warring. The last line will be "They edit war", of course, but what do you think that 'the elders' believe themselves to be doing when they are reverting? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm strongly in favor of doing a better job of explaining the [original] concept behind BRD, at WP:CONSENSUS (specifically WP:EDITCONSENSUS), and beginning this with the outlining-alternative-approaches model given above. That would probably be most productively done at WT:Consensus, of course, but this is a nice start. With that page being a policy, it's unlikely that any of the bad aspects of BRD will survive such a vetting process, and we might get something very good out of it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:40, 14 June 2015 (UTC) Rescinded. Just mark it {{Historical}}. WP:CONSENSUS is fine as it is. (See first item at #Case studies, below, for why I changed my mind.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:14, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Make Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle a redirect to Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching consensus through editing

  • Support making Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle a redirect to Wikipedia:Consensus#Reaching consensus through editing. The current WP:BRD essay rather muddies the waters than "supplement the Wikipedia:Consensus" policy. It causes more trouble than it solves, a sort of overcomplicated alternative ruleset to what is actually policy. Typically WP:BRD is invoked when a revert/discussion cycle has gone apeshit, and all parties contend that they were faithful to the essay, so "doing nothing wrong". Whether or not they adhered to the policy in the matter WP:EDITCONSENSUS and subsequent sections at WP:CONSENSUS seems not to bother them, as long as they can make themselves appear immaculate in the light of WP:BRD. And then indeed that essay is so complicated that anyone can defend almost any edit with it, using the sort of counterproductive "I did – no you didn't" back and forth as a replacement for consensus-seeking. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:11, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Very hesitant about this. This proposal means making BRD "policy". Kneejerk reaction is a big NO, it means throwing away nearly all the documentation on BRD, and risking future editors believing that they "MUST" BRD. In fact, BRD is an advanced high speed method for fixing/building content, and the BRD rules, as they, are mark the boundary between bare minimum consultation and edit warring. However, there might be something serious to this idea. If the wording about BRD was correct, and was placed in the policy, it may give BRD a better grounding, and the essay page could remain to discuss DRB more lengthily. There is a problem that BRD is pseudo-policy, and that the essay is not written as policy. I'm pretty sure I will object to converting the essay to a redirect, but this is a very new and interesting idea. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:50, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
    • Re. "this is a very new ... idea": [2] – even then I don't claim to have invented the idea, I'm sure I read it many years ago already (around the time when File:Consensus Flowchart.svg was introduced at WP:CONSENSUS?) when it was decided to give WP:BRD the benefit of the doubt.
    Re. "BRD is an advanced high speed method for fixing/building content" – I challenge that summary: true, it is "advanced" in the sense that WP:BRD's File:BRD1.svg has more steps and complications than WP:EDITCONSENSUS's File:Consensus Flowchart.svg, but that can hardly be seen as increasing speed.
    There's no kneejerk in this: WP:BRD has had its chances for many, many years. It hasn't worked out. Now we can feel sorry for ourselves having let it absorb so much energy over the years. If I had foreseen this around the time when WP:EDITCONSENSUS was adjusted to the practical "high speed method for fixing/building content" it is now, sure, I had been more insistent to make WP:BRD a redirect then. I don't intend to lose further time with self-pity though. The practical guidance on the matter is policy, no need for the somewhat more bloated version that doesn't seem to really know where it is going. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:47, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I'd rather re-write BRD to return it to something close to its original (which was advice for experienced, clueful editors who were trying to jolt unproductive discussions out of their ruts by giving an example of what could be done and working through the objections one at a time). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:56, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Naw. Effective deletion of the essay and redirection of the many, many links to WP:BRD to a different target would be unhelpful. VQuakr (talk) 04:04, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
    • I could live with tagging it as {{historical}}, pointing to WP:EDITCONSENSUS as the current applicable guidance, but then I don't know whether WP:BRD ever had guideline or guideline proposal status (demotion of an ineffective essay is usually deletion or redirection).
    Another solution is possible, and I could live with it too: it's the solution hammered out for WP:DEFINING after some intense discussions, with the same problem: it had been used historically as a shortcut in so many previous discussions, that re-redirecting the shortcut seemed impossible. The redirect goes now to a page that is framed as a how-to page that transcludes relevant guidance from applicable guidelines, including the one it originally redirected to. Instead of rewriting Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (which doesn't seem very practical given the wide array of opinions on it), why not replace the "essay" template by a {{Howto}} template and, after a short introduction, quote (by transclusion, so that the content is automatically updated when the guidance is updated) relevant guidance from WP:BOLD (for instance the intro and the "... but please be careful!" sections), and WP:CONSENSUS (I suppose the WP:EDITCONSENSUS and "Reaching consensus through discussion" sections)? --Francis Schonken (talk) 21:20, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

*OpposeSupport: WP:BRD, as it stands, is way, way, way too bold. Reverting should be done on a case-by-case basis. Reversion can either foster discussion, or lead to constant arguing without any compromise on the horizon. Esquivalience (alt) (talk) 00:10, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

    • As far as application of guidance goes: WP:EDITCONSENSUS doesn't seem to have that trail record of problematic application, although it is applicable in the same circumstances as BRD. Maybe just because the former is better written, clearer, less prone to misinterpretation, and just more effective with less of the problems associated with BRD. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:50, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Reluctant oppose: I agree entirely with all of Francis Schonken's rationales, but I wouldn't go that far. We tolerate a lot of really iffy essays, and BRD does sometimes get used to good effect. I think WhatamIdoing sums it up best: 're-write BRD to return it to something close to its original'.
    But strongly support tagging BRD with {{Historical}} as soon as WP:EDITCONSENSUS has been upgraded as proposed in the subthread immediately above this one.
    Then, rewrite BRD to observe and describe a mindset/approach/preference to dispute resolution and how/why it often works, not recommend a methodology/process/practice which often fails dismally. The entire problem with BRD is that it's been written as procedure you should follow, which some editors (including admins) increasingly see as something you can be punished for disobeying, rather than a more philosophical essay on how agreeing to stop and discuss can be used to resolve differences in place of revertwarring back and forth. The former is something to impose, the latter is something to mutually participate in. After a rewrite like that, restore the essay tag.>
     — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  13:54, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Strongly support tagging BRD with {{Historical}}, but no redirect, per SmokeyJoe's observation. See first item at #Case studies, below, for why. BRD, regardless of the fact that some have used it to good effect, is essentially a WP:POINT and WP:FILIBUSTER tool. I've given it all the benefit of the "good faith" doubt that I can. I'm done.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:12, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose WP:BRD is still frequently cited, so it is no historical. The essay could be rewritten, but not just redirected. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:29, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose Regardless of whether it should be promoted to a guideline, the BRD essay is still quite useful and should not be paved over. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:59, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose converting to a redirect. WP:BRD is a Wikipedia historical fact. The incoming links, I bet there are a lot, need to arrive at what something reflecting what was intended at the time of writing. Support tagging historical with pointers to the WP:EDITCONSENSUS section, WP:BOLD and WP:3RR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:14, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Tag WP:BRD as {{Historical}}

  • Support per reasons given above and below. Under the {{Historical}} tag add a friendly reminder that the former essay has been replaced for all extents and purposes by the WP:CONSENSUS policy and additional guidance found in WP:BOLD. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:56, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Support that. It would put an end to people using it as policy, and work as a reminder of what the real policy is. I would also add a link to "...additional guidance found in WP:3RR" (in addition to the link to WP:BOLD), to appease rollbackers. Diego (talk) 09:30, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's a good essay, and still frequently cited. In many cases, it does represent best practices, even if it does not carry they weight of policy or guidelines. We should not mark historical those pages which are still widely supported and actively used. --Jayron32 07:11, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Case studies - real discussions illustrating why BRD should be elevated or not

  • Here's one going on right now (well, I just terminated my participation in it). This may well be best example in the history of Wikipedia of how BRD fails and can be abused: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Improving examples in "Quotations": "Point of View" section. Short version (it's a text-wall, as BRD tends to lead to; it just seems nitpicky until round 2, when the "fun" starts): I opened a discussion in good faith, after a revert of a bold edit, showing my copyedit and insertion of some new content, plus a clear rationale. This was then nitpicked in virtually every possible way, in a circular WP:FILIBUSTER, WP:IDHT and WP:TROLL pattern, through three nearly identical cycles, while agreement to accede to the edit was withheld until conditions that are literally impossible are met, yet the D in BRD must continue! It borders on the unimaginable. I'm actually changing my !vote above, in favor of just redirecting BRD to WP:CONSENSUS on the basis of this abuse of (voluntary) process, and am unlikely to ever agree to BRD again.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:12, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Without having read you case throughout, I immediately note that it is not BRD (BRD is a cycle, after some D return to B, it is not BRDDDD...), and then note that the MOS pages are particularly troublesome places, and then note that BRD is intended for mainspace article editing where the common objective is more objective than a MOS page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:30, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Good illustration of what's wrong with WP:BRD. Above I argued how WP:BRD is onworkable because of its many redundant complexities. When you're unsuccessful in proving your immaculateness with WP:BRD as written, sure, why not, invent a new unwritten rule, adding another redundant layer of complexity "...BRD is intended for mainspace article editing..." – way to go! Is that what you propose as a rewrite to salvage an essay that is steering for its own destruction? Is that making it more straightforward as argued above?
FYI, WP:EDITCONSENSUS doesn't have these complexities, works in all namespaces, and points to alternatives when getting stuck in a discussion. It's so easy to say "..., it is not BRDDDD..." – sounds good, but what does it actually say? Nothing, not a single idea offered on how to get out of an unproductive discussion (or was the idea: when being bored by "...DDDD", throw a few bold edits in, then you're immaculate for WP:BRD...?) In contrast, WP:CONSENSUS has direct access to all sorts of tools to bend an unproductive discussion in something with a clear outcome, either an edit or a status quo... without losing time with empty procedural discussion. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:51, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Francis, um yes. I take your point. Can I add something that may further make your point: People who use BRD well don't need the essay for guidance on how to do it, and people who need to read the essay, even if it were better written, probably should not be encouraged to claim they are using it. I also take someones point that the essay serves as an invitation to conflict, more than it helps. Maybe it would be a good idea to tag it as {{historical}}, with a pointer to WP:EDITCONSENSUS. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:53, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Was thinking along these lines as a replacement for the current {{essay}} template on top of the page:--Francis Schonken (talk) 09:18, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Updated per Diego's suggestion above. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:05, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
Support this tag, but remove the 2nd and 3rd shortcuts from the linkbox. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:09, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
  • I often correct errors or implement the result of RfCs on hundreds or even thousands of pages at once. Every time I do, I get a handful of reverts from IP addresses that have never edited Wikipedia before, with no edit summary. Rather than starting a talk page discussion that has a near-zero change of getting a response, I simply re-revert [2RR], and if it doesn't "stick" (which happens pretty much never), then I start a discussion. I don't think that changing 3RR to 1RR (which is what elevating BRD will do) is a good idea. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:30, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me? "Abuse"? You proposed new text, got reverted, and then got all huffy when I asked you about sources! How is that abuse of BRD? A lack of desire to enter unsupported personal opinions into the MoS does not constitute abuse of process. As the sole other participant in the discussion that SmC is citing, BRD only came up when I defended SmC's right to add the disputed text in the first place. It was an expression of approval of SmC's choice to take the matter to the talk page. [3] I was trying to be nice and keep SmC's feelings from being hurt. It seems I failed. So this is one way in which someone might use BRD, but in this case it didn't work. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:08, 18 June 2015 (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.

Closing this as participation has dwindled. There is a clear consensus not to elevate this, and a consensus not to mark this as historical and/or redirect it elsewhere. The general feeling is while BRD should not be compulsory, it is a guide to best practice, so removing it is not going to be constructive. Mdann52 (talk) 13:07, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

"and a consensus not to mark this as historical and/or redirect it elsewhere" I can't see where he read that consensus. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:05, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

The meaning of accessdate in the cite templates

Until recently, I thought that the accessdate parameter in the various {{cite ...}} templates signified no more than "The referenced article really existed at this URL on this date." Thanks to User:Number 57, I now know that the accessdate parameter means that the reference was verified to support the article text. However, this is unworkable for at least two reasons. First, if an editor discovers that a URL has changed and updates the URL, but does not wish to take the time to verify that the reference supports the article text, that leaves a dilemma. Leaving accessdate unchanged falsely implies to most users that the displayed URL worked on that date. Removing the accessdate parameter removes the fact that some other editor claimed to have verified that the linked page supported the article text on that date. Second, a specific named reference may be used many times in the text of an article, and some points in the article may be supported by the reference and others not. If a fact checker finds a named reference, with an accessdate, used multiple times, with some uses supported by the reference and others not, what then? I have started discussions on these problems at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 8#accessdate when url changes and Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 8#accessdate and named references used multiple times. I suggest continuing this discussion there unless there is a strong reason to comment here. —Anomalocaris (talk) 22:40, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

I would guess at least 99.9% of readers had your same understanding. I did until now and I read more WP and Template docs than 99% of readers. From {{cite news}}: "Note that access-date is the date that the URL was checked to not just be working, but to support the assertion being cited (which the current version of the page may not do)." That is really nice in theory, but completely unworkable in practice. See the discussion here about "own work" CC on uploading files. People are people. You are not getting much traction at Help CS 1, so I would encourage this to continue here, many more eyeballs. Mnnlaxer (talk) 17:37, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Increasing the activity requirement for retaining bureaucrat rights

In light of Sam's proposal above, now may be a good time for me to gather opinions on a similar proposal now at Wikipedia talk:Bureaucrats#RfC: Increasing the activity requirement for retaining bureaucrat rights. –xenotalk 21:11, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Notability of publishers

There is an RfC on the subject of whether Wikipedia:Notability (publishing) should become a guideline, which is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Notability (publishing)#Should this become a guideline?. James500 (talk) 19:04, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to change the focus of pending changes

This entire thread was initiated and driven on by ban-evading sock IPs. No concrete proposals were presented and discussed by legitimate editors. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:27, 4 July 2015 (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.

Should we enable the creation of articles by IPs with safeguards? See Wikipedia:Village pump/technical#Where do we go from here? 156.61.250.250 (talk) 09:38, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Some years ago, pending changes were introduced on an experimental basis. A subsequent RfC voted to end the experiment, but pending changes are still with us. Some administrators take advantage of this fact by putting more articles in. Most of the work on Islamic calendar, for example, is done by IPs, but since it was put in pending changes (for no good reason) editing has stopped. I suggest we enforce the RfC and that all articles currently in pending changes be taken out.

This will mean that pending changes reviewers (who I take to be everyone who is autoconfirmed) will have nothing to do. I therefore propose that IPs be given back the right to start articles for an experimental period of six months on a pending changes basis. That is to say, their articles would not be publicly visible until the text had been approved by an editor.

Technically, I suppose that what would happen would be that the article would be created and accessible as normal, with the usual edit and history tabs. The text created by the IP would appear in the edit box but would not be seen publicly (the article would appear as any page does when it has been blanked). Editing would be as normal for pending changes, with the first edit to be publicly visible being the first edit by an autoconfirmed editor. Normal deletion policy would apply.

Where an editor tags for CSD he may find it convenient to make the offending text publicly visible to assist those following up. Either way, if there are no objections an administrator will be along about fifteen minutes later to delete. Every article started in this way will automatically remain within pending changes for one month after creation.

There are two big advantages of this proposal. Article growth went well from inception until just shy of the five million mark, when it stalled. This proposal will put it back on track. It will also result in an infusion of new blood. Wikipedia is haemorrhaging editors. It desperately needs new ones. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 14:46, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Isn't that essentially AfC? Kharkiv07Talk 15:06, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
The difference is that you can put something in AfC and it hangs around for months so most people don't bother. Under this proposal you are in the driving seat so a lot more people will add worthwhile content. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 15:48, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
As is, most articles created by newcomers are deleted quickly without discussion, a situation which I believe to be very BITEy, and possibly is a significant cause of Wikipedia "haemorrhaging editors"; move the permission to create articles a bit farther back, and the situation will become worse, not better. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:28, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
I'm confused by your proposal for a few reasons. First, IP editors can still edit with pending changes, in effect it is a weaker version of semi-protection which BLOCKS all IP editors. I would suggest moving many semi pages to pending changes actually and strongly oppose removal of pending changes. As for AfC, it works. Reviewing a new article is a process, more so than a simple pending changes button, and does take a little longer. And third, only users with the Pending changes reviewer can review the pending changes, even though any auto confirmed users edits will be accepted. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 23:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
The last RfC decided that PC was wanted and it was up to editors to decide how to implement it. To date there has been no consensus on this so there is no mandate to put Islamic calendar (or any other article for that matter) into PC. PC seems to be very complex - there are at least two levels of it and SlimVirgin said she didn't understand it. I think it is too complicated. Given that here in March there was a consensus that PC should not operate for an extended period all that is needed is a week of semi - protection where necessary to drive the vandals away.
Od Mishehu says that "most articles created by newcomers are deleted quickly without discussion". That's a failure by the established editors. They should work to bring the articles up to standard, not delete them. This is why IPs should be allowed to create articles - they then get the benefit of all the other editors who know something about the subject adding sources and content. That is the essence of crowdsourcing.
Replying to EoRdE6, AfC takes months and is permanently backlogged. With direct article creation other editors can come in and get the article on the road to GA status in a few days. You see articles like the Charlie Hebdo massacre which within just a few hours of creation are full of content and sources. The system of creating stubs giving experts the opportunity to come in and build a full length article has worked well.
There is a proverb "If you want a job done do it yourself". AfC relies on getting other people to post the content to mainspace. It's a form of action by proxy which is proven to be inefficient. The British government in 2002 experimented with postal voting - included was the local council election in my area. There were no polling stations (no electronic voting here - today is the general election and everyone takes printed ballots, fills them in and posts them into the ballot box). The voters had to fill in the ballot papers then give them to the postmen who had to give them to the council. Needless to say the experiment was not repeated.
It's the same everywhere. We got supermarkets from America - before then shoppers queued at the grocer's while he picked their selections off his shelves. Now checkout operators have been done away with and customers scan their shopping themselves - no more queuing. No more queuing at the public library either - readers return and renew their books themselves at self - service kiosks, resulting in a more efficient use of their and the staff's time. Self - service machines are at railway stations - everywhere you can think of. Introduction of AfC was a retrograde step. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 11:21, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
I suggest you take a reread of Wikipedia:Protection_policy#Pending changes protection and Wikipedia:Pending changes as you are mistaken. The closing statement of the last RFC which dealt with the issue is quite clear Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC 3.

There was very strong consensus to enable the use of Pending Changes throughout all namespaces

and further

The consensus on this was fairly clearly against having any specific criteria, but a significant minority expressed concern that its use is less well-defined than is the use for conventional protection methods; if enormous inconsistencies with application are seen upon implementation, this may be a topic worth revisiting

and at the end

As with the previous RfC, assessing the usefulness of what gained consensus here will require some monitoring. The same time frames (1 month for obvious problems, more for subtler issues) seem to fit with everything in this discussion as well. It appears that after this and the previous RfCs, we have the necessary framework to roll out Pending Changes, and we know what aspects of its use will require the most monitoring and later attention.

So no we aren't waiting for the community to come to some sort of agreement on how to use it. (There were earlier RfCs which also dealt with when to use PC1.)
Of course, if you feel that PC1 is being in ways that are unhelpful in some instances, you're welcome to start a properly fleshed-out RfC on the matter, but I strongly urge you to talk to others about this before hand, and make sure you actually otherstand what the history is, otherwise your RfC is unlikely to do anything useful. (As it stands, you're failing to follow information I had sort of heard before, but to be honest had mostly forgotten by now and only properly relearned by actually reading the PC page and following the links to the RfC has lead to your proposal being sidetracked by this unnecessary discussion.) Now if you feel the admin's closing wasn't an accurate summation of the RfC consensus, or if you feel that the RfCs had insufficient participation compared to earlier RfCs, you could try to dispute that, but relitigating stuff after 2+ years rarely works well.
There were two followup RfCs, Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2013 and Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2014, which concerned PC2 and ultimately came up with criteria for the use of PC2, but no actual consensus to use PC2. These don't of course affect the use of PC1, for which in the absence of clear evidence consensus has changed, we stick with the older RfCs which showed there is consensus to use PC1.
Nil Einne (talk) 15:11, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
Your example also seems fairly poor.

Perhaps Islamic calendar may have had useful IP edits, but it also had many that were reverted (which look to be more or less the same edit from a persistent IP hopper). I didn't look in to these enough to say if the reversions were proper, simply that they happened therefore whether before or after PC, IP edits were being rejected.

More importantly perhaps, the time frame here is insufficient to tell us anything about pending changes, particularly if you look at the logs or edit history carefully. On 13 April, both PC1 and semi protection were applied with the PC1 due to expire on 13 July and the semiprotection on 27 April. My thoughts and a search confirmed via Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2015 March 18#Pending changes and Semi-protection simultaneously that this works and is evidently done sometimes when it's felt that there is an acute problem that needs to be dealt with via semiprotection for a short time, and a chronic problem that needs PC1.

Without commenting on whether this was the case for Islamic calender, this means it was impossible for IPs to directly edit from 17:36 13 April to 27 April. So there's a fair chance the absence of IP edits for this period had nothing to do with PC1.

So really all you're talking about is from 27 April until now. In that period, we had 3 IP edits. 2 were rejected, 1 accepted. Again without commenting on the appropriateness of any of these edits, unless we were getting an average of 1 useful IP edit on average every 3 days or so (which it doesn't look like we were), it's difficult to useful conclude things were so much better before PC1. You simply lack sufficient data to be able to make any conclusion about a reduction of helpful IP edits. And at the very least, the editor who kept making the same change which I think lead up to the semiprotections and PC1 seems to have left for now.

BTW, for the avoidance of doubt and confusion, I should mention I'm aware editors who haven't been auto/confirmed are affected as well, I just used IPs for shorthand and since it's also harder to spot such editors.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:59, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

I think that the proposal that an article should go into PC just because a lot of IPs don't edit it is misconceived. The Islamic calendar is hardly a mainstream subject. Your comments on PC generally are a joke. About twenty years ago the local council proposed to demolish a housing estate and being short of cash proposed to sell off the land to a private developer. To do that, it needed the consent of the tenants. It assured them that the estate would not be sold if the majority were opposed. The tenants kept asking for a ballot but the council ignored them. Finally the ballot papers arrived, and the tenants were dismayed to see that their votes would be rolled up among those of tenants on other estates which were going to be refurbished. This followed an "opinion poll" conducted by a survey company which doorknocked to ask the tenants what they wanted for their estate but did not ask the key question Do you want your estate to be sold or not? The council's ballot paper was craftily worded - not "Do you want your estate to be sold?" as discussed in literature and meetings but "Do you want your home to be sold, meaning that the tenants' views would be submerged amongst the views of all the tenants on other estates who were going to get new kitchens and bathrooms instead of seeing their homes reduced to rubble.
Same here, there was a lot of discussion about how pending changes might work, but no discussion of whether its reenablement would be a good or bad thing. Since pending changes is a dead loss, let me reformulate my proposal. IPs would be able to create articles just as before Siegenthaler with one exception - edits by non - autoconfirmed editors would only become publicly visible when the page was first edited by an autoconfirmed user. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 13:21, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

The claim "Some years ago, pending changes were introduced on an experimental basis. A subsequent RfC voted to end the experiment, but pending changes are still with us" is factually untrue. What happened is that PC was implemented with permission of the community with the restriction that it be removed after a set period, that promise was broken and PC remained, then all hell broke loose. Later, after it was removed and we put down the pitchforks and torches, a second proposal was made to implement PC permanently, and the decision of the community was yes for level one PC and no for level two PC. So the reality is that [A] the current PC policy is supported by the community and [B] we would be fools to ever again believe a promise like "let's try this for six months and then we will turn it off and evaluate how theexperiment went" after having been lied to in the past. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:34, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Editors were given two alternatives: PC anywhere or PC in restricted areas. The third alternative, PC nowhere, was not presented. This is the same trick the council played when wording its ballot on council house selloffs. After John Prescott was told where he could stick his housing policy he came up with more alternatives:
  • transfer to private landlord (and if you disagree there's no money to maintain your home so it will fall to pieces around you)
  • private finance initiative (PFI) where developers get a long lease in return for financing the work
  • arms - length management organisation (ALMO) where the council retains ownership of the homes but the management is farmed out to a quango (quasi non - governmental organisation).

The fourth option, stay as you are, was not presented.

Tenants were ballotted on the three options and - surprise - the council claimed 80% of them were in favour of option 3. In fact, hardly anyone voted, so the actual percentage in favour was tiny.

As for broken promises, anyone can start an RfC suggesting that PC be turned off, and if it wins a consensus that's more power to the community. Don't underestimate the power of public opinion - Prescott had a scheme to decimate (and I don't mean reduce by 10%) perfectly serviceable housing in Liverpool which was withdrawn in the face of strong opposition. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 16:30, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

156.61.250.250, I suggest that you read the discussions and RfCs in question and edit the above claims accordingly.

In particular, Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC 2 and Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC 3 clearly show that your your claim "The third alternative, PC nowhere, was not presented" has zero basis in reality. Did you really imagine that nobody would check? --Guy Macon (talk) 21:33, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

You've linked to eleven RfCs on this subject. I was given just two to look up, one of them being Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC3 which you also cite. I don't see anywhere in that wall of text where editors were asked to !vote on the proposition "Do you (a) want to enable PC or (b) switch it off. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 08:43, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Actually you were given 2, which all have the header showing all the RfCs. More importantly, your original comment was "The last RfC decided that PC was wanted and it was up to editors to decide how to implement it. To date there has been no consensus on this".

I'm sure I wasn't the only one who assumed that this meant you were already aware of Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012 (which had, we think at least 503 participants) where the decision had already been made that PC was wanted. It sounded like you only weren't aware about the following RfCs (together I think with the discussions on the policy page), where decisions were made and consensus reached on how to implement the existing consensus for PC.

I don't know that much about the history surrounding all the RfCs, but I presume the decision was made that there was no need to revisit the decision to implement PC since it had already achieved consensus in the earlier RfC. (Although opposition to PC wasn't ignored, it just wasn't made a specific question in the RfC.) Note that the consensus wasn't conditional on there being a final yes or no !vote (which is a silly concept anyway) on whether to implement PC after a policy a better policy was in place.

In fact the RfC itself didn't even find there was need for consensus for a new policy, the draft policy was sufficient but not ideal. Notably also, it looks to me like there were far more participants in the decision to implement PC, rather than the later discussions surrounding PC policy. (Only the 2013 RfC about PC/2 seems to have come close but also still quite far.)

However if you believe consensus has changed, you're welcome to open yet another RfC. It would of course pay to do your own reading in the hope you will show a far better understanding then you have here on the history. Rather then expecting to be spoonfed everything when you are the one making the proposal. If not, frankly your proposal is likely to fail as much as your one here.

Not to put a subtle point on it, but your original comments were bad enough. Now it sounds like you didn't even know about the major RfC despite being up in arms about how PC never had consensus (even if it wasn't the focus of your proposal). If you start an RfC where the focus is disabling PC saying there was never any consensus, and you say this partly because you weren't even aware of the RfC which had (we think) at least 503 participants, well expect to be ignored.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:01, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Hello, here's my view on the subject. In a word, social issues can't be solved with technical solutions. --NaBUru38 (talk) 00:53, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

I think it's time to add a comment which has been sitting on 156.61.250.250's talk page for days waiting to be pasted over.

@Nil Einne:Would you please paste the following statement to the Village pump (policy) discussion.

I've been given confusing references - RFC 2012 (Sept.Oct.Nov), Wikipedia:PC2012/RfC 2, Wikipedia:2012/RfC 3, and now Wikipedia:Pending changes/Request for Comment 2012. Having read through this last I see that editors endorsed the use of PC in line with a draft policy. This draft policy explains the variations PC1 and PC2 but says nothing about which one is the more desirable or whether neither is desirable. After mentioning the above RfC you mention "the following RfCs ...where decisions were made and consensus reached on how to implement the existing consensus for PC."

@Nil Einne:RFC 2013 and RFC 2014 are by definition "following RfCs". RFC 2013 decided

There is only a consensus for implementation if and only if an rfc concerning criteria for its use gains community - wide consensus first.

So there is one more RfC to look at - RFC 2014 - and the close of that is a reiteration that PC will not be implemented until there is a consensus on how to implement it. If and when that discussion takes place it would be totally wrong to deny editors the opportunity to decide that they don't want PC at all. This is the principle of "no parliament can bind its successor". 156.61.250.250 (talk) 08:48, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Since the link at the top of this section no longer works I'm adding the content here:

At a time when the long - term viability of Wikipedia is in doubt, editors have been discussing invigorating the community by enabling the creation of articles by IPs subject to safeguards. There have been no opposes. WMF have been asked to comment and have raised no objections. The mood of the community appears to be that the change should be implemented. Presumably it would involve reversing the post - Siegenthaler dev changes and moving onto a "level 3" pending changes regime in which pending changes would be turned off immediately an autoconfirmed editor edited the article. What is the procedure for turning an agreed change into reality? 156.61.250.250 (talk) 10:22, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

That change is far from agreed upon, I see more people rallying for complete removal of IP editing than this. We have WP:AfC that let's IP editors create an article, and that is all that has been agreed so far. NPP is badly backlogged, and it is well documented that most articles by new editors fail, no references, pure advertising etc. I can't see consensus on this anytime soon. EoRdE6(Come Talk to Me!) 13:09, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
That's the whole point of allowing new users to do things, so they learn enough to become valuable contributors down the line. Checking the new pages feed I saw one article at the top of the list awaiting review. A few seconds later it had been patrolled. If PC is turned off, all the PC reviewers can turn their attention elsewhere.
If you think people are agitating for the removal of IP editing you're looking in the wrong place. The proposition in the March proposals RfC was to ban IP editing or never unprotect a semiprotected page. It was defeated nemo contradicente. Some quotes:
  • Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
  • There are plenty of people that come on Wikipedia reading, notice a problem and, as an IP, fix it.
  • If we block IP editing, we'll move one step closer to being like Citizendum. With all due respect to Sanger's efforts, visit Citizendum's website and see how spotty their articles are. There are some very well - known topics that don't have articles there. That's what happens when you make it hard to edit a wiki. Do you want that to happen to us?
  • 81.9% of edits by unregistered users were not vandalism. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 17:57, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong agreement with 156.61.250.250. If you want to count edits that occurred as a result of our IP editing policy, count all of mine, because I started as an IP editor and would have never started if this had been one more website that requires registration. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:56, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
Discussion has now slowed. There is a clear consensus that this useful change should be implemented. Can someone please close accordingly. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 08:12, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
I can count one person (Guy Macon) in both this discussion and the one at VPP who agrees with you. How is that clear consensus? --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:16, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
2 to 1 in favour = 66 2/3% majority. 156.61.250.250 (talk) 18:43, 26 May 2015 (UTC)
I am tempted to apply a close as you requested. My close would be NO CONSENSUS based on a majority of one, and NO CONSENSUS based on a participation of 3 being grossly inadequate to propose a major sitewide change. If you want to seek a consensus for change I suggest you slap an RFC notice on here. That will get you participation and a close. Alsee (talk) 07:18, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
Seconded. Not enough participation to ratify a major change. Samsara 07:23, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
I see that an RfC has been started at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 120#Proposal to change the focus of pending changes. 5.150.92.19 (talk) 11:36, 31 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.150.92.20 (talk)
I note that discussion has paused. Can we confirm that now this has been made into an RfC this discussion has legitimacy, irrespective of the participation? The proposer is an IP so is not in a position to advertise this at WP:CEN but if any editor feels it necessary no doubt he or she will do it him - or herself. I think the legitimacy of the decision here is a given taking into account that the removal of IP article creation powers was never authorised by the community. 5.150.92.19 (talk) 12:56, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
I just found out that this idea of starting an article out with a blank page is not new. At present, non - autoconfirmed editors do their articles in their sandbox, then an autoconfirmed editor creates the blank page and the first editor pastes the content from the sandbox. So I can say with confidence (correct me if anyone disagrees) that even if nobody contributes to this discussion in the remaining fifteen days we have the mandate to make this tweak in the software. 5.150.92.20 (talk) 14:21, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose AfC is the process for this, there is no reason to have a duplicate process. What we need is more AfC reviewers, not another backlog. In my personal opinion we should be going in the opposite direction, preventing unconfirmed users from creating articles at all and have them go through AfC. If I recall there was no consensus on this change in the past, but AfC is great for preventing bad articles from being created in mainspace and exists as a less bitely alternative to deletion. Winner 42 Talk to me! 14:42, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I surveyed article creation in the fifteen minutes before 3 pm this afternoon. Within half an hour a third of them had been deleted. The percentage may be much higher, because after deletion articles no longer appear in the list. So your argument that putting everything through AfC is less bitey doesn't hold water. A lot of new articles are templated, and the creators (or others) then come along and do the necessary fix. Leaving a submission languishing in AfC for months is a sure way to create a backlog. And don't forget that all those AfC and PC reviewers will now be patrolling new pages, so all those backlogs will disappear. 5.150.92.19 (talk) 15:47, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure where you are getting your information. In the past 12 hours only 3 active AfC submissions have been deleted. Two were deleted for copyright infringement and one because it was created by a block evading user. If we look at articles created in mainspace in the same time frame, I see hundreds of deletions under A7 and/or G11 in the deletion log by unconfirmed users. If those unconfirmed users created their articles in AfC space, most if not all of those deletions could have been avoided. Additionally the idea that the AfC backlog goes on for months is misleading. Most articles are dealt with within the first week with difficult submissions finding their way to the backlog. The idea that new page patrol is doing better is inaccurate, it has a 764 day backlog compared to AfC's 4 week backlog. Winner 42 Talk to me! 16:22, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
I think you're comparing apples with pears. Those hundreds of deletions can't be articles by unconfirmed users because unconfirmed editors can't create articles. They must be articles by autoconfirmed editors, which proves my point. Since the work of unconfirmed editors isn't being deleted in AfC that shows that they are the ones who are clued up. So let's give them their head and get rid of AfC. It's win - win all round. 5.150.92.19 (talk) 18:55, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
That is incorrect, you do not require either form of confirmation to create articles. Winner 42 Talk to me! 23:42, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Tarc, how wrong can you be? This very issue is being discussed at the RfA talkpage and your view is a tiny minority. Here's an extract from a survey cited in the discussion:

According to this [4] most of the content comes from IPs.

This quote is revealing:

If Wikipedia is written by occasional contributors, then growing it requires making it easier and more rewarding to contribute occasionally. Instead of trying to squeeze more work out of those who spend their life on Wikipedia, we need to broaden the base of those who contribute just a little bit.

Unfortunately, precisely because such people are only occasional contributors, their opinions aren't heard by the current Wikipedia process. They don't get involved in policy debates, they don't go to meetups, and they don't hang out with Jimbo Wales. And so things that might help them get pushed on the back burner, assuming they're ever proposed.

Out of sight is out of mind, so it's a short hop to thinking these invisible people aren't particularly important. Thus Wales's belief that 500 people wrote half an encyclopedia. Thus his assumption that outsiders contribute mostly vandalism and nonsense. And thus the comments you sometimes hear that making it hard to edit the site might be a good thing.

"I'm not a wiki person who happened to go into encyclopedias," Wales told the crowd at Oxford. "I'm an encyclopedia person who happened to use a wiki." So perhaps his belief that Wikipedia was written in the traditional way isn't surprising. Unfortunately, it is dangerous. If Wikipedia continues down this path of focusing on the encyclopedia at the expense of the wiki, it might end up not being much of either.

5.150.92.19 (talk) 19:36, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
Tarc, how wrong can you be? Well I suppose very much so, in any given circumstance. This is not one of them however, as IPs are not people, they are addresses. You under the guise of "5.150.92.19", have no more right to vote than my post office box downtown does. If you wish to participate in all aspects of this project, then make an account, and accumulate a significant number of edits to show that you're actually here for good and not here to push a certain agenda. Thank you for pointing out the RfA discussion, I have weighted in over there as well. Note that the IP who initiated this discussion...who may very well be you Mr. "5.150.92.19"...has been blocked for 6 months for disruption. Curious, that. Tarc (talk) 20:24, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Show you're actually here for good and not here to push a certain agenda.

So everyone who states their views, and gives reasons, is up to no good?

Exactly right, Tarc. IPs are not people — they are random screeds of numbers with an uncanny ability to type out coherent thoughts as though they were somehow sentient like you or I. They are faceless, nameless entities whose mere presence creates a cognitive dissonance of sorts, in that there is something almost human-like about them. These mysterious beings lurk within the shadows of our community-based project, tainting its sanctity with their identities of integers. They have no business editing in non-IP namespaces, where only us real editors should be participating.

No wonder you're a topic banned editor. 5.150.92.19 (talk) 13:22, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Winner 42, I just typed "The 2015 Tower Hamlets mayoral election" and a message came back

The page "The 2015 Tower Hamlets mayoral election" does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.

5.150.92.19 (talk) 13:39, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
I'd rather be a topic-banned editor than a fully-banned one, which is what you likely are, given the wiki-familiarity and the whiny rancor. This is why IP editors will remain exactly as they are now; barred from participation in some parts of the project and viewed with suspicion and disdain in the rest. So who is this, Russavia? Demiwit? Benjiboy? Tarc (talk) 13:42, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
  • Can I vote to enable PC2 here? Cuz I like PC2, and I think it should be enabled. If not, then I guess I don't care that much about this RFC, because it seems like this is mostly just a bit ranting, and I don't want to read it all. I'm involved in enough drama as-is. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:59, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Courtesy break

There are two proposals being considered:

(1) To re - enable the creation of articles by non - autoconfirmed users per the community consensus which was ignored when the creation power was taken away. PC1 will apply to an article started by a non - autoconfirmed editor until an autoconfirmed editor edits it, when it will automatically come out of PC.

(2) To disable PC, per the original consensus (the only consensus we have ever had on PC) except for the limited use described above. 5.150.92.20 (talk) 19:16, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Discussion is entering its final week. There have been efforts in the past few days by some high - placed editors in various venues to formalise a second - class status for IP editors. These proposals have been roundly defeated. We have seen that a vast number of articles started by autoconfirmed editors are being deleted. Articles started by IPs will not suffer this fate, since IP editors tend to be knowledgeable in the specific subjects they write about. The discussion so far shows that the community is not opposed to re - enabling IP article creation. From the very beginnings of the project there has been strong community support for tapping this rich lode of expertise, and Wikipedia's problems only began when this resource was switched off and editors' attentions were diverted from editing to nibbling at the backlog on AfC. The switchoff was done suddenly, without either warning or discussion - editors awoke one morning to be presented with a fait accompli. After a month of discussion we now have a clear mandate to restore the status ante quo. 5.150.92.19 (talk) 08:38, 19 June 2015 (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.

Invalid close. The suggestion that all the contributors are socks is absurd. I'm in Sheffield, by the way. Let's see if F P blocks me as a sock. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.200.161.28 (talk • contribs)

Ridiculous. If a blocked editor votes at RfA it doesn't invalidate the RfA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.209.97 (talk) 11:25, 7 July 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.217.249 (talk)

Are CheckUsers required to be administrators?

Per Wikipedia:CheckUser:

Although checkusers are not required to be administrators, nearly all CheckUser members up to this point have been, and WMF policy requires that they have passed an RfA or similar process.

However, per Wikipedia:User access levels#CheckUser:

Checkusers are also required to be administrators.

Which is correct? Gparyani (talk) 18:32, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

The former is a policy, the latter an information page. A policy has primacy over an information page. I believe there was once someone appointed CheckUser that was not an administrator, but think they gained adminship shortly after or just before getting the permissions. –xenotalk 17:56, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Moreover, on the latter, a reference adds this:

The Wikimedia Foundation has stated that an "RFA or RFA-identical process" is required for users to be granted access to deleted revisions and hence have the administrator user right.

Based on that, the former seems more correct. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 18:01, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Access to deleted revisions (or oversight) is a different thing to a Checkuser. I hope the non-summary version of the statement clarifies the reference to Checkuser. A Checkuser without access to deleted revisions might be a bit awkward. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:10, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Checkusers have access to deleted revisions without administrator (Special:ListGroupRights); I believe this was added around the time we appointed a non-administrator to the Audit Subcommittee. –xenotalk 18:18, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, OK, as long as that is the case they'll need to be admins. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:21, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
That piece of policy probably pre-dates Philippe's 2013 statement, then. –xenotalk 18:23, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't mean they need to be admins. They just need the RfA-type process. -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:25, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes, as I read it, if the candidate passed an RfA-identical process we could appoint a non-administrator as checkuser or oversight. –xenotalk 18:26, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
The Foundation rule doesn't appear to me to directly include Checkuser ..presumably we could remove deleted revisions from Checkusers if necessary? -- zzuuzz (talk) 18:33, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I suppose we could do that. But as you said, they might be somewhat hamstrung without that ability if they weren't administrators. –xenotalk 18:37, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

With the former policy page, a CheckUser candidate can pass RfA, then get desysopped for any reason, and they'll still be allowed to be a CheckUser, since they passed the RfA. Gparyani (talk) 18:35, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

If they voluntarily requested removal, they could retain the permissions. If the administrative rights were removed for cause, I don't think the checkuser privileges would be left in place anyways. –xenotalk 18:37, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Checkusers sometimes look at deleted revisions to verify that there is enough evidence to justify a check, I believe. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:38, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
Well, speaking as a checkuser, we look at deleted revisions for a LOT of reasons, not just to justify checks. Just one example: if a possible sock has only deleted edits, the checkuser would be expected to review at least a sample of the deleted edits for behaviour to either include or exclude the account in a sockpuppetry investigation.

There was a theory at one point that it would be nice to "democratize" CU and OS; in fact, one of the earliest Audit Subcommittee members was not an administrator. However, that has been significantly tightened up over time. I'll also point out that I'd be concerned about a checkuser who couldn't perform his or her own blocks in situations that require prompt action (as opposed to SPI cases, which can benefit from the behavioural review of another admin and are rarely time-sensitive). Risker (talk) 21:21, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I've been looking through the list of sysops by date and it seems a lot of the 2002 and earlier admins (some of them still active) and at least one crat didnt have any RfA process. On a funny side note, check out what RfAs looked like in 2003! Bosstopher (talk) 00:28, 10 July 2015 (UTC)
I would love to see someone try to make the case that the 2003 RfA process resulted in worse admins than the RfA process we have now. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:04, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Notability of historical topics

There is an RfC on the subject of whether Wikipedia:Notability (history) should become a guideline, which is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Notability (history)#Should this become a guideline?. James500 (talk) 19:41, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

--197.128.239.216 (talk) 13:35, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

RFC - Clarifications regarding obligations when restoring material deleted for being uncited

See Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#RFC - Restoration of deleted unsourced material clarifications. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:19, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Preventing Wikipedia from being used by scammers and theives

Hello Community,

This is my first post at Wikipedia. Which means I have a bit of passion about this topic. Recently I was scammed via my iPhone and a Wikipedia page was referenced to help build legitimacy and aid in the scam.

The back story...

As I surfed the web on my iPhone I hit a site, that was placed by the scammers, which generated a perpetual pop up window telling me my iPhone was hacked and that I should immediately call Apple support. I did. While talking with the "technician" I was asked if he could run tests on my computer. I allowed this "technician" access and they ran "a test". Once ran, the "technician" reported that I had received the Koobface virus. At that time the "technician" took me to the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koobface At this page he reviewed the danger of the virus with me which solidified their scam in my mind. They then recommended an "Authorized Vendor" to cure the problem and shared the web page to: http://www.squaretechno.com/ again to solidify the scam.

I later got concerned I was being scammed and hung up. After doing research I confirmed that I was scammed by a real Apple Technician confirming this is not a process that Apple supports and by reading community pages warning about such scams. Example: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7070529?q=Square%20Techno There are many more. And in many of these posts the victim reports being shown the Wikipedia page I submitted above.

My suggestion is to mark pages, like above, that are being or have the potential to be used in scams. Curious if there is a way to place an asterix or icon on such page warning the visitor that the page has been referenced as used in recent scam activities. I believe the content on the page to be true, the warning is about the information being used to build legitimacy in the scam being presented.

How cool would it be to prevent scammers leveraging this community and the information in Wikipedia to aid in their scams? How cool would it be if the "technician" saw a big warning on the above page the next time the "technician" took one of their proposed victims to such page?

Thank you for reviewing.

/ss "Kongeegen" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kongeegen (talk • contribs) 18:33, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

They would just use another page. We are here to build an encyclopedia and I don't think anything we can do will stop some people from falling for scams. Chillum 18:38, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Legitimate customer support services do not make unsolicited calls, emails, or pop-up ads. If people keep falling for those, it doesn't matter what Wikipedia does. None of the real problem lies with us. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:59, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
The only thing I could begin to imagine helping would be a banner across every article saying "unsolicited phone calls, emails, or pop-up ads are never legitimate sources of technical support, income, real estate, or medicine; always (call/email/visit) the official (tech support/store/company) (number/email/address) and not one that unsolicited messages give you" but that's something people should know anyway. Not saying you deserved what you got, but please post that quoted bit about unsolicited messages on Facebook so your friends know better. Ian.thomson (talk) 19:09, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia can, in articles on online scams, document how sources tell us they work. But WP repurposing itself as a scam alert systems isn't our "job" and wouldn't work; as Chillum says, they'll just use a different page. It would probably take then just a few minutes to adjust some scripts. There are loads of websites out there about how to avoid falling for scams of this sort. And the bad guys will invent new ones, and a new batch of people will fall for those, until they're widely know to be tricks. That's just how the world works. Always has. In this particular kind of case just realize that it's essentially physically impossible for some remote website to analyze problems on your computer and alert you about them. Don't even fall for those "Your Flash plugin is outdated! Click here to download the new version!" things. Some browsers, like Chrome/Chromium may themselves prompt you to update outdated plugins, but random websites don't, unless they're trying to screw you over.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:04, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Kongeegen, it sounds like you might be interested in reading about Technical support scams. I'm glad that you didn't fall for it in the end. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Updating nonfree content policy to reflect the existence of the draft namespace

The primary nonfree content policy and guideline (WP:NFC, WP:NFCC have not been updated to reflect the creation of the draft namespace. Moreover, despite express policy language limiting nonfree images to articlespace, practice tolerates use of nonfree images in userspace and sandbox drafts. I believe we should modify the nonfree content policy, consistent with the WMF Licensing Resolution, to

1. Authorize the display of nonfree content in the draft namespace

2. Create standards to limit the time drafts may display nonfree content, and encourage editors to save drafts with linked images -- eg, [[:Filename.ext]] -- rather than displayed images

3. Sunset the toleration of nonfree images in userspace and sandbox drafts (my suggestion is December 31, 2015), and establishing a standard practice for addressing violations (eg, moving page to draftspace, suppressing display of images, etc)

I don't believe this is terribly controversial or difficult, and hope the essential text can be quickly developed and sent to RFC, assuming the concept is accepted in principle. The Big Bad Wolfowitz (aka Hullaballoo) (talk) 00:51, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Makes sense to me. I like the idea of moving moribund userspace drafts to draftspace (with human intervention, not automatically - if a user subpage isn't actually an article draft and is using non-free images, they should just be disabled). But anyway, the basic principle that the spirit of "allow non-free in articles" implicitly means "allow non-free when drafting those articles", is sensible.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:07, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I could favor this, with some cautions and reservations. "encourage editors to save drafts with linked images" does not work unless WP:NFCC #7 "One-article minimum" is interpreted to include linked items from drafts as "use", and this is made explicit. I don't see the need for "Create standards to limit the time drafts may display nonfree content" but if that need is felt, then make the limit at least the 6 months allowed before an unedited draft is considered stale -- I would prefer a year. DES (talk) 16:08, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I agree with the first two suggestions, but think that allowed use in drafts should include userspace/sandbox drafts. I believe that works in progress are protected by fair use law and that amending our non-free content guidelines to allow use in the draftspace is fine. I would prefer a one-year limit (and no less than six months) to the time the fair use image is allowed outside the article namespace and that there should be a guideline that specifies the draft must be a potential article that is being worked on...not an article that appears to be created just to host non-free images or is not something that the author intends to turn into an article or section of an article. There should be a bot to alert the persons working on the draft a reasonable length of time before the images are deleted (since some users are not very active on WP at times). I think a template on the article in the draftspace (at top, something like "This draft article contains non-free images which will be deleted in X days unless...") or message on the user's talk page (article is in username/sandbox) as well as, of course, a deletion template on the file page. I think one month is a preferable length of time to add these, as it allows users which aren't very active a descent length of time to finish the drafts. AHeneen (talk) 22:22, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC on whether calling an event "murder" presumes the perpetrator is a "murderer".

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography#Request for Comment: Does "murder" presume "murderer"? Or don't. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:19, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Why only one FA nomination at a time?

The Featured Article nomination rules say: "An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only one article at a time; however, two nominations may be allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them.". Could someone please explain why this rule was instituted? What's the problem with allowing editors to nominate multiple articles at any given time? Thanks. Leptictidium (mt) 21:19, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

It was decided here, along with the mandatory two week break after failed nominations to deter people playing shoot-till-you-win, and you're very unlikely to get consensus to change either. The problem was certain editors had a tendency to play "throw all the darts and see what sticks", in the hope that one would slip through; this made FAC unmanageably large. If you have a good reason to nominate more than one at once, the delegates will usually allow it if you ask. – iridescent 23:10, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
No, they never do. Hawkeye7 (talk) 11:06, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
"Never" is pushing it a bit, given that I had two running simultaneously last month and the world did not come to an end. As of 11 June, the delegates' stated position was "It's not uncommon for us to permit a second solo nom when the first is obviously fairly close to promotion". – iridescent 23:20, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
The other exception is joint nominations, which I think is a good thing - i.e. if this encourages editors to work together on broader, larger articles with the payoff that they might have two running at once. Hence I have a joint nom and solo nom up at the moment. Good to see you again Leptictidium (feel free to translate any mushroom articles to/from Catalan :)). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:49, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

Formatted ANI Discussions

WP:ANI can be rather chaotic and highly disorganized. The more heated the dispute the longer it ends up being and the more disorganized it can be. This makes ANI manipulatable. The longer the discussion there is and the longer it goes on the more chance the issue being brought forward is ignored. Simply put people get too tired to bother with it. I propose that we adopt a policy enforced format for ANI discussions. I was thinking something along the lines of the format used by Arbcom. See WP:RFAR. In addition I think it would be beneficial if this policy encouraged (but not required) brevity where possible.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 10:07, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Opposed: I think the idea is overkill... many (most?) ANI discussions are actually settled fairly quickly... and adopting a "mandated" format would actually make such quick settlements harder to achieve. More over, a mandated format can be gamed because "procedure was not followed". Would some ANI deliberations perhaps benefit from an "Arb-Com like" format?... sure. Would all benefit from an enforced format? No.
What I would suggest is a two stage solution... keep the current ANI discussion as step one... but if that does not resolve the issue, then go to a more formalized "Arb-com like" format. Blueboar (talk) 10:46, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: WP:RfC/U was closed with the understanding that ANI would become the proper place to have the sort of discussions that were at RfC/U. Such discussion were rare at RfC/U and are rare here, but any attempt to limit ANI so that it can no longer fulfill that role needs to contain a proposal for a new place where such discussions are allowed. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:59, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment I agree that most are handled fairly quickly. It might be that less than 20% are long and tedious. I agree that setting up a means that could be used to get a procedural close would be a poor idea. I did not consider that when proposing this. I'll move this to the ideas lab so perhaps a more workable solution could be discussed. Perhaps some sort of ANI clearinghouse, where the discussions that meet a certain criteria and would benefit from an "Arb-Com like" format could be moved to.-Serialjoepsycho- (talk) 18:41, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the same reason Guy Macon raises, as well as for WP:BUREAUCRACY reasons. We don't need another rule muzzling people for the sake of "process" and to make it more easy for editors who spend too much time in noticeboard WP:DRAMA factories to pass judgement on others. What is being proposed here is already used at WP:AE, basically, and it doesn't work well. It leads to too much "Judge Dredd" action taken without sufficient review of the facts. This can result in cases of people being restricted for things they did not really do because they're not allowed to adequately defend themselves, and occasionally to cases of no action being taken about actual bad-faith editing because you can be punished for providing sufficient evidence to make the case. I've also had admins at AE literally delete the evidence I presented because it had exceeded their arbitrary length limits, and then proceed to take serious-consequence actions based on the evidence still left in the page, as if the evidence they'd deleted themselves had never been presented. Usually, this kind of enforced discussion formatting and content limitation just gives an advantage to a complainant trying to make someone else look bad, because it takes approximately twice as much material to simultaneously defend against the accusation (party B's diffs about party B) and show why the complainant has unclean hands (party B's diffs about party A), and doing so effectively doubles the number of claims to examine. Over time, this effect increases "wiki-litigiousness": Whoever is first to make an accusation is more likely to get what they want, as long as they can carefully construct a claim that looks damning on its face, and will require a lot of diffs and explanation to disprove, since it makes both any defense and any examination of the complainant's own involvement in the matter less likely to be thorough. The last thing we need is yet another kangaroo court that trains people how to be WP:WIKILAWYERs. Finally, many semi-noobs end up at ANI for some "schooling"; a WP:RFARB-styled legalistic approach is difficult even for long-term users to figure out, so imposing it on ANI would be giving another wikilawyering advantage to those with with the most practice at generating drama on noticeboards.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:30, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Comment: The ArbCom Request format wouldn't work because ANIs need to have threaded discussions. What needs to happen at ANI is more eyes, and more people willing to closely examine all of the points of evidence. Right now it's not so much that threads get long, it's that threads get ignored. I'm appalied that ANI sometimes seems like a ghost town or an echo chamber, with only the most belligerent of parties' threads (either the filer, or the subject) getting much involvement or investigation/traction. (Sometimes this is a result of a poorly filed ANI.) What works best at ANI is when all parties, or at least those parties participating who have an organizational bent, work to keep the organization in bounds, within consensus. I like to add subheaders (especially "Proposal: _____"), or sidebars, to focus discussions, so that ten discussions/topics aren't happening at once in the same space. Also, sometimes judicious hatting of irrelevant digressions helps a lot. I think awareness of the problem and the intention to solve it is key. Of course the resolution sometimes depends on how uninvolved and neutral the person attempting some organization can be. Of course the one thing that makes some ANIs so lengthy is the endless back-and forth of people who have had grievances against each other for years. I think if more admins got involved and reminded people to stick neutrally to the point, it would help. That brings up the point I made at the beginning: Admins seem to be conspicuous by their absence on ANI these days. Some legitimate threads don't get closed before the bot eats them, not even when there's a consensus of numerous editors. We need more admin eyes on ANI. Softlavender (talk) 09:02, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
    • I concur with all of that. If more of us spent a little time in ANI, then the workload would be lower, and the influence of people who treat it like their own personal entertainment medium would be greatly reduced. I'm not sure how much that broader participation will fix, though, given the declining admin pool in numbers, and the declining willingness of remaining admins to get involved in controversies that may generate ill-will toward them individually. I'm not sure how much longer this can go on. Our adminship system is clearly failing, in multiple ways (and many have been predicting this for 5, 8, even 10 years). All organizations have lifecycles, and if the needs of each phase of them are not adjusted to, it can cause any organization to fail. If these needs are met, an organization can continue through multiple iterations of the cycle indefinitely.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:13, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose: Would send it the way of the (unworkable and justifiably staked-through-the-heart RFC/U) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:51, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

The best solution for the biggest online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Currently, many people consider Wikipedia as a fake encyclopedia. Some of them say "Wikipedia can't be trusted, it contains all wrong information and everyone can change it". What I would like to propose is seen that on Wikipedia IPs will be always welcomed, why don't we protect all articles here permanently, as the Indonesian and others do. Or else the EDIT TAB at the top of the page must be hided. This will defend Wikipedia from vandalism and people will be trusting and caring more to Wikipedia. Otherwise all IP edits can be reviewed. Hope that everyone agrees with this perfect method.--Graspleonanymore (talk) 19:58, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

see Wikipedia:Perennial_proposals#Prohibit_anonymous_users_from_editing. Your suggestion is generally shot down because it won't actually address the issues as can be seen [5] where a registered user account inserts unsourced promotional content into an article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:29, 21 June 2015 (UTC)
I think they are proposing that all pages use pending revisions for IP edits. Jason Quinn (talk) 12:40, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Considering Wikipedia's grown into an amazing resource using an open model, it seems to me that you are arguing against proven successful methods in some strange bid to prevent failure. You registered your account yesterday. Why do you think you have the experience to know what the "perfect method" for Wikipedia is? If it is so easy and obvious, somebody among our many thousands of multi-year veterans would have figured out a perfect method and proposed it already. It is not so easy or obvious. As for the people who dismiss Wikipedia as having no value being it's open, consider them dinosaurs and just ignore them. Why should we change in response to people who have an inaccurate view of the world? Jason Quinn (talk) 12:40, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
Ip users contribute about 90% of edits and lots keep minor spelling and grammar in order. Could we consider a WP:SNOW for this? TheMagikCow (talk) 17:08, 22 June 2015 (UTC)
It's far fewer than 90%! Johnbod (talk) 13:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)
It's closer to 40%. Dragons flight (talk) 02:23, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
Let's follow this to its logical conclusion and do away with pending changes for editing existing articles. Give IP editors the ability to create articles and put those articles into pending changes. At one stroke we get rid of AfC with its huge backlog and free pending changes reviewers to do something more useful - like reviewing new articles by IP editors. We don't need pending changes on existing articles because they are on watchlists and any vandalism is soon reverted, either by ClueBot or an editor. This proposal will be found at the top of this page and it needs discussion - it's been running for 31 days but so far only four people have !voted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.127.144.1 (talk)
Yeah, I'd like to see some real stats on this. This probably does need to be re-examined periodically. At some point a line will probably be crossed where anons generate more mischief than positive results.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:03, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I've got to support the anon here. As much of a headache as persistent vandalism is, the positives outweigh the negatives. There have been so many occasions when an IP, with poor formatting and bad spelling will post that tidbit of truth that can take fact-finding in a whole new direction. From these things that might even look like vandalism, there is truth that can be googled and sourced. Whole articles have been constructed from the path an IP has sent me on, and any editor who is conscientious about checking before pushing the vandalism button should have the same kind of story. As big as some people's egos are, we can learn things from other people. Trackinfo (talk) 04:26, 28 June 2015 (UTC)
I'm also going to support the "anonymous users" here. Vandalism is an annoyance; however even without IPs, vandals would just to take a couple seconds and register (no email verification!) There are many IPs that wish not to register for personal reasons, and many are constructive (contrary to popular belief; IPs are often presumed vandals by quite a lot). Some also see no reason to register; why would they do so if they just want to correct a grammatical error or do some quick editing? Esquivalience (alt) (talk) 02:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
It's not just vandalism, which implies deliberate destructiveness, it's also the disruptive editing that seems well-intentioned but is inept, and where, because of dynamic IP assignments, the proffered user warnings are apt to go unnoticed (or so it sometimes seems). I think Wikipedia could do a better job of sorting out the good from the disruptive IP edits. Dhtwiki (talk) 00:13, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
Ineptitude can go both ways. I'd like to think I'm an experienced editor, but I have had my own ineptitude corrected by anon IPs . . . today. It is amazing how fast information flows here. People are watching. We even have an effective, sometimes obnoxiously so, new article patrol. I have great faith in watched articles getting corrected. Your quality may vary depending on the watcher(s). I've seen some garbage in low traffic, poorly watched articles. Our problems come from unwatched articles. Right now that list is secret, which does to motivate the kind of diligent wikipedians we depend upon to watch, to take those articles under their wing. So who knows what is in unmonitored articles? Trackinfo (talk) 00:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)
Experienced editors should not be inept, although they might miss things that a well-intentioned IP editor can be helpful in spotting, especially if you narrowly define ineptness as persistence in getting it wrong. Some IP addresses excel in that, and that is where the problem lies, not in IP users generally. As far as unwatched articles being a problem, I think that it's the high-traffic articles that are most prone to disruption, and where that disruption, if left unchecked, is most likely to adversely affect readers and give Wikipedia a black eye. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:11, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
As an anon user I can tell you that I would do far less cleaning up of articles if I was forced to register. I am overwhelmed with the culture of Wikipedia - all the rules, formatting, and quibbles. I just want to remove blatant vandalism and misspellings when I see it. Thanks for listening to my anon comment. (I hope I posted it right) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.190.222.225 (talk) 09:26, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
I am with 70.190.222.225 on this one. I first started editing Wikipedia as an unregistered user on 01 January 2006. I made a few mistakes and got into a few arguments, but it didn't take long to figure out that helpful edits like reverting obvious vandalism, correcting typos, and adding references to reliable sources where [Citation Needed] used to be pretty much never got reverted. I registered under this username on 09 June 2006 and nine and a half years later am still an active editor. I may not have ever gotten started if I had to jump through a bunch of hoops before seeing any results. Vandals, on the other hand, appear to be willing to jump trough all kinds of hoops to accomplish their vandalism. and I don't see other websites with involved registration processes having any shortage of trolls or vandals. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:46, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
I was an anonymous IP editor for four years before I created this account, and edited desultorily for four more years after that. I can see that letting people edit without registering can be an inducement to getting involved, but I don't see how continued IP editing is a necessity. If greater control of IP editing, while not doing away with it entirely, releases editors from the onerous chore of reverting disruption, that has to be weighed against the gain of attaching new people to the project, and the fact that a limited amount of disruption can be beneficial. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:17, 14 July 2015 (UTC)
I'm under the impression that editors now spend far less time engaged in "the onerous chore of reverting disruption" than ever before. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:31, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Re: OP's opening word "currently" – has always been true, always will be. Not a big deal. Were in the top 5 most-used websites in the world.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Was "Own work" a disastrous choice for a descriptor for image uploads?

I do a lot of reviewing new draft articles for AFC, and I absolutely consistently, constantly see people uploading things like logos (especially logos), promotional photos, etc. as "Own work" to Wikimedia Commons. For a huge number of these cases, I'm pretty sure that the person didn't actually create the work, and in the few cases where the uploader does indeed own the work, I don't think they at all understand the implications of "releasing" your own logo under Creative Commons.

Is the problem that "Own work" gets constantly interpreted as "why yes, I am indeed the person who took a screenshot and then hit the upload button!"? Would we be far better of if the option was labeled something more like "I personally am the copyright holder of this work"? Sure, I bet a number of folks would just lie for the sake of convenience, but that's a problem no matter what. But I do think a large chunk of "Own work" labels are from people who simply have no idea what they're actually selecting, and/or no concept of derivative works.

I realize too that short of flashing a screen-wide animated "You must type the words I hereby release this text and images under CC version..." in huge flashing letters (and maybe not even then) we're always going to have people that don't understand the concept of releasing info to CC, but I think that the incredible vagueness of "Own Work" just exacerbates the problem. Is there any remedy to this at all, or do we just shrug and accept that a huge portion of our photos are not actually CC as Wikimedia states, but are mistakenly/illegitimately uploaded copyright works? MatthewVanitas (talk) 14:42, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know if this is a problem that can be fixed with mere terminology. Assuming that most users are using the upload wizards, the Commons upload wizard has a gigantic cartoon as the first step that explains the concept of derivative work. The English Wikipedia file upload wizard tries desperately to get users to use the Commons wizard if the user declares a free work, but if not, it still asks the user to declare that "I made this myself, from scratch, without copying or incorporating anybody else's creative work". I'm guessing that a lot of users just don't care. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 18:23, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
As somebody who has spent a lot of work, over many years, in trying to improve the instructions we give to uploaders, I've come to the rather cynical conclusion that it doesn't really matter how we phrase these things. People will ignore them. It's not because they are difficult to understand (there's really nothing difficult to understand about "I made this myself from scratch", just as there is nothing difficult to understand about "a free replacement could be created", or "this image is the object of discussion in the article"). These things aren't difficult to understand but difficult to accept. People just won't accept anything that boils down to "sorry, no, you really can't use this image". People who come to our upload system just want to know "what do I have to do to upload this picture?" and won't take "nothing, you just can't" for an answer. People come here with their experiences of elsewhere on the internet, where nobody cares about copyright, and naturally assume that here, like elsewhere, copyright notices and licensing rules are just meaningless boilerplate that's there for form's sake and can safely ignored in practice. The only thing that would get the message of "no, we really, really mean that" across to such uploaders would be if somebody stood by to physically slap them in the face if when they proceed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:54, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
I believe that one of the major cable providers has a patent on physically slapping people in the face when they proceed... --Guy Macon (talk) 06:09, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
That would be a nice change from the major cable providers (in the US anyway) are usually metaphorically doing to a certain tender body part of their customers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:09, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
For photographs of living people, a very large percentage of those uploaded as "Own work" are NOT photographs taken by the uploader. Particularly in evidence, for instance, are uploaders from Pakistan or India who claim photographs taken from all around the world as "Own work". These are obviously paid editors adding photos to the articles they have written and who don't know enough to provide the copyright documentation (from the photographer), or who do know to do that but would prefer to skirt the easily skirtable rules. Obviously we need to change the wording on uploaded photographs to read "I took this photograph myself" (rather than "Own work"). Softlavender (talk) 06:44, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
For whatever good it may do, I second the motion. --Thnidu (talk) 04:29, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
"I took this photograph myself" isn't clear enough. Sure I took it – right off that magazine's website! We would need something like "I physically pushed the button on the camera myself". Or maybe a pop-up window that would let people "subcategorize" the answers:
  • "Own work" – I personally pushed the button on the camera or drew this in illustration software, starting from a blank page.
  • "Own work" – I copied this all by myself from someone else's website.
  • "Own work" – I asked someone else to take this picture for me.
  • "Own work" – Somebody else made it, but I'm the person who is doing the work of uploading it.
Running a quick image search might be more practical. Then we could automatically reject things that are already on the web. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
Rejecting a photo based on an image search assumes that editors who upload their own work do so exclusively to Wikipedia. I can guarantee that's not universally true. Regards, Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 03:20, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
Also, images from Commons get posted everywhere because they are CC released ... so of course an image that's been on Commons a few weeks can, and will probably, appear numerous places. Softlavender (talk) 03:27, 11 July 2015 (UTC)
Yes, but I'm talking about running an image search during the uploading process itself, when there will have been no "few weeks on Commons" for it to have spread all over. Also, if you publish your photo on some other website first, then it requires OTRS paperwork. The main drawback that I see is that an image search will capture public domain photos, e.g., off a US federal website – but those shouldn't be uploaded as "own work" in the first place. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Yes it was a disastrous choice! In particular, apart from some other cases discussed above, it encourages people who take photos of copyrighted things like paintings to claim the Picasso etc as "own work". I understand Future Perfect at Sunrise's cynicism, but the fact of the matter is that we don't even begin to explain what we mean, and never have, so we can't really know what would happen if we did. Johnbod (talk) 17:17, 9 July 2015 (UTC)
    +1. -sche (talk) 07:57, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Definitely needs clarification. I've thought this for years.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:21, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

The description uploaders have to select in the file upload wizard here on en-wp in order to upload something as "own work" is the following: "This file is entirely my own work. I am the copyright holder. I made this myself, from scratch, without copying or incorporating anybody else's creative work, and I am willing to release it under a free license." How anybody could say that we "don't even begin to explain what we mean, and never have", is beyond me. What exactly does anybody propose could be further clarified about this (while keeping it short enough that people will actually read it)? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:31, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

  • I would like this debate to continue to a conclusion, that as thing stand 'own work' and present explanations does not get the message across. On WP & Commons we don't like to resort to legal threat unless threats are leveled at us. Yet, it may be worth pointing out to potential unloaders that claiming ownership may have legal implications (to the up-loader) if they get it wrong. This Foundation's legal team would be wise to have an import on such a statement I think. Look in any publication and they prefer to use images from the big photo-libraries because they offer to pay for the legal cost if a client uses an image -only to then find out their getting sued by the rightful copyright owner. This gives the publisher confidence which they don't have when considering WP & WC images. For those that have been here for a long time they will remember that some up-loaders have faced legal challenges. Therefore, why not point out to potential up-loaders and underline it, that they up-load images at their own personal risk and so must not just click any box at random if they want to stay on the right side of the law. Think the Foundation's views would help because we have a policy not to offer legal advice and Jimmy would hate it if we appeared to be patronizing. Yet, why not reduce the image patrollers work-load a little, by giving potential up-loader this necessary information – and perhaps naïve up-loaders potential grief?--Aspro (talk) 21:38, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Notability and directory issues for lists

Please see here for input on notability and directory issues for lists!

Thanks! Mootros (talk) 15:08, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Having looked at it, I think that topical RfC is quite symptomatic of a more general problem. While it needs to be settled on its own terms it is context, the central problem is the inability of many editors to distinguish between WP:Notability (whether a topic has enough reliable-source coverage to be kept as a stand-alone article) and encyclopedic relevance (whether something can be mentioned at all in an article). This problem is endemic to discussions of list content and their inclusion criteria, and it needs to be resolved site-wide. The simplest and most direct solution is for the list-related guideline to directly advise against using the word "notable" or any derivative of it in list inclusion criteria, so people stop confusing the two concepts. That's probably a discussion to have at WT:LIST, though it could also be had here (I just don't think it'll do much at the article talk page linked by the OP).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:54, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
It is not a problem limited to lists. "Notable" is used on including content in articles which otherwise meet notability as well, or with sources at times. I'll comment at that discussion. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:36, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
Fair enough. The points about using the word for list inclusion criteria apply to content in other article types.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:11, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Awards and nominations-type tables for athletes

Those infoboxes can get very crowded with all the various awards etc. that sportspeople have accumulated over their long careers. It got me thinknig of how we could use the "awards and nominations" model to create similar article lists for atheletes which concisely show everything they have accomplished in their field.

Thoughts?--Coin945 (talk) 18:36, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, just copy that format wholesale. Heh. Seriously, was there something about the one format that doesn't translate well to the other?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:45, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
Well sportpeople dont really win awards do they? Medals yes. Titles yes. But awards and nominations? I'm not sure. And how would it work for sportspeople who have had a career in other media like film/TV? It would confuse the heck out of me working out how to arrange it all.--Coin945 (talk) 18:21, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
Track and field already has {{AchievementTable}} for this purpose (see e.g. Paula Radcliffe#Achievements or James Kwalia#Achievements); but I'm not sure how easily that table could be adopted by other sports. Sideways713 (talk) 14:50, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
Eh, we do not need a VP discussion to come to the conclusion "Yes, table fields and parameter names need to be changed to make sense." Seriously. I thought you were asking if the overall layout of the table needed adjusting.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:08, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

RfC: On Software Notability.

There is currently a RfC on the topic of software notability at Wikipedia talk:Notability (software)#RfC: On Software Notability.. Interested editors are requested to comment. :) ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 09:16, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

New essay on petty demands

I decline to single out who inspired this lately, but I'd been thinking of writing this for years: WP:You can search, too.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:46, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Good essay. Thanks!- MrX 14:48, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

RM at WP:SAL

Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists#Requested move 23 July 2015. thanks... Blueboar (talk) 11:48, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

Community desysoping RfC

A discussion is taking place on a proposal for a fast-track, community driven desysoping process which ultimately should also lead to making RfA easier to pass. You are invited to comment at RfC for BARC - a community desysoping process. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:59, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Centralization of sexual harassment policy proposals

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

This discussion has been centralized at Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Sexual harassment policy, and listed at WP:CENT. The two competing drafts have been merged into Wikipedia:Sexual harassment.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  17:58, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Sexual harassment policy

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Harassment § Sexual harassment policy
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Discussion centralized at Wikipedia talk:Harassment#Sexual harassment policy. [Non-admin closure.] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:26, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I've created a proposal here: Wikipedia:Sexual_harassment

Should there be a sexual harassment policy on wikipedia? What form should this policy take? Please feel free to completely rewrite the proposed policy if needed. --ScWizard (talk) 23:15, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

You may not have noticed it, given your extremely sporadic contribution history, but please note the section above re: non-discrimination policy. I do realise that some might argue the two are not the same but there is also a RfC knocking about somewhere, which is referred to in that thread by someone else. - Sitush (talk) 23:34, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
They're related but separate I'd say. --ScWizard (talk) 23:37, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
We already have WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL... we don't allow harassment of any kind. So I am not sure a specific Sexual harassment policy is needed. Blueboar (talk) 03:02, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
The trouble is that WP:NPA and WP:CIVIL are frequently ignored and treated with contempt, even by those like admins who are charged with enforcing them. How would any new policy be treated any different?Nigel Ish (talk) 07:36, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
Just no. You're conflating two things that should be separate. Editor interactions are what are within the boundaries of community policy and norms. The actions you outlined are Office Actions and law Enforcement. It's absolutely silly to require reporting to WMF when it's clearly something that can be report to law enforcement. I wouldn't jeopardize a prosecution if my clear choice was a LE report. It's sort of like a requirement to inform the diocese about child molesting by priests. It might happen but they are not required to. Certainly the WMF isn't going to let the community set Office Action policy either nor will they allow editors to advertise legal action they have taken against other members per WP:NLT. This is misguided and it's the WMF Office Action that needs review. --DHeyward (talk) 08:19, 17 July 2015 (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.

Adoption of a non-discrimination policy

See also: Wikipedia talk:Harassment § Sexual harassment policy

According to Roger Davies, discussions relating to an open Arbcom case considered the possibility of recommending that the community adopt a policy similar to the WMF's non-discrimination policy. His comment is here and it would seem that the ArbCom are unlikely to pursue that line at least in the present case. I know that there have been numerous attempts to micro-manage/enforce various notions of civility on en-WP, which usually hit the stumbling block of subjectivity, but has there ever been a formal proposal to implement something along the lines of non-discrimination? If yes, what came of it? - Sitush (talk) 14:15, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

Hey Sitush There was a discussion in 2009 to adopt something similar. It died because, I suspect, it was too complicated and too gold-plated. The failed proposal is here; the adoption discussion, such as it was, took place on its talk page.  Roger Davies talk 06:53, 12 July 2015 (UTC)
The 2009 proposal is practically laughable, with bits like "Wikipedia's discrimination policy should supersede any other Wikipedia policy" (identifying in particular notability) and trying to use "dignity" as a justification for censoring images of genitalia (not expressing an opinion on them, just noting the folly of trying to purge them as "discrimination").
That said: I like the idea of a non-discrimination policy. The question here is what practical effect one would have, given that it is mostly covered by civility and in theory already existent through the WMF's policy (the WMF's policy is reiterated at Wikipedia:Non discrimination policy). What do we add? As Roger Davies already noted (in Sitush's link), the risk is that we generate a big pile of fodder for wikilawyering. That, plus the usual issues with policy creep… {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 15:55, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the link, Roger. Nihiltres, yes, the 2009 thing does seem at least naive and, yes, the scope for wikilawyering might be huge even if a less naive attempt were made now. I guess the devil would be in the detail. - Sitush (talk) 07:36, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
The amount of resistance met even trying to address basic sexism and other bias issues on WP is higher than one might expect, so that would be a stumbling block to adoption of such a policy here (even one not based on subjective stuff like "dignity"). The libertarian-right stream that wends its way through the dominant "US West Coast privileged white male nerd" editing bloc that dominates WP (and of which I'm a statistical member if not an ideological one, nor sharing the ideology of their main, left-wing oppoents, being a "classical liberal" myself) tends to see all bias-, minority-, gender-, and culture-related concerns as "just a bunch of p.c. 'microagreesions' crap" by WP:ACTIVISTs looking to soapbox and POV-push in campaigns to right WP:GREATWRONGS. To their partial credit, they not actually wrong about this in every single case (cf. the tendentiousness and meatpuppetry that has been going on in efforts to get WP to essentially rewrite history just make transgendered bio subjects happier), just usually wrong. Tthere's a frequent inability of that mindset to distinguish between 1) socio-political agendas that push writing that isn't actually better (largely external forces trying to affect our content in the course of remaking the world), 2) inappropriate behavior in furtherance of genuinely better writing (an internal ends-justify-the-means issue), and 3) genuinely better writing that accounts for real societal mores and which isn't pursued tendentiously (this is not actually a problem of any kind).

This cognitive dissonance is an impediment to making progress on the general WP:BIAS and WP:GENDERGAP problems, because it falsely equates anyone who raises a legitimate sexist language concern (as an example) with kooks who want to change English to use made-up gender-neutral pronouns like zie and hisr, or refer to woman doctors as "doctresses" (or contrariwise to totally erase -ess from the language), etc. Even the community consensus changing over time to now accept simple things like using diacritics correctly in Latin-script names in which they belong has met resistance from this same ideology, and there's a strong current of jingoism, linguistic prescriptivism, and other forms of traditionalism in this thinking and approach.

Even aside from this "new traditionalism" trend, it really would be difficult to craft an anti-discrimination policy in a way that it couldn't be abused as "a wikilawyer's charter", as you put it in the post of yours quoted at the link provided by the OP. Between reasonable concerns and unreasonable resistance there doesn't seem to be much room for such a policy to evolve. If it did, it would have to start, at least, as something about editors' behavior towards other editors, the way the WMF policy is about internal behavior, and not address the content of public-facing edits.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:50, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

WMF "Non Discrimination Policy" already applies to WP anyway

The ungrammatically named wmf:Non discrimination policy already applies to Wikipedia and all other WMF projects. As it states, it "is approved by the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees to apply to all Wikimedia projects. It may not be circumvented, eroded, or ignored by local policies." It continues: "The Wikimedia Foundation prohibits discrimination against current or prospective users" on the basis of any criteria we'd ever be likely to want to cover here. Just sayin'. All this stuff about "We need to import WMF's policy and apply it to WP!" is pointless, as is much of the demanding to fork WP:HARRASS into various subtopical microaggressions policies on the basis that WMF's NDP doesn't cover WP so we have to compensate somehow.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:37, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Moving modules

I propose the following:

  • Only administrators can move modules
  • When a module is moved, its documentation subpage is automatically moved as well
  • The "suppress redirect" option is automatically selected when moving modules; see also Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 127#Module redirects?
  • All instances of {{#invoke:M|f}}, where M is the old name and f is a function, will have to be fixed to {{#invoke:N|f}}, where N is the new name

GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 15:01, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

  • Templateeditors should also be able to move modules, obviously, when this is feasible. Part of the development process is progressively moving code around to do increasingly complex and efficient things, and this need not be held up by WP:BUREAUCRACY. It sounds like you are making technical proposals, in the second and third bullet points, for what the software should do, but this isn't WP:VPTECH. The last point is just general cleanup we should do anyway, but it's something that would have to be done automatically and instantly during the move process, by the software, or it would not be possible to move modules without breaking all the templates and pages that use them. There's a way around this problem, highlighted at the very discussion you already cited. :-)

    Counter-proposal:

    • Only templateeditor users (which includes administrators) can move modules.
    • If the module was already used in any non-test pages, then in a text editor prepare the code return require('Module:N'), where N is the name to which the module will be moved; this will be used to create the functional, invocable equivalent of a redirect from the old to the new name. Do likewise for any Module:M/X submodules.
    • Then move the module from the old Module:M pagename to the new Module:N location. Do not use the "suppress redirect" option during the move if the module was used in non-test pages.
    • Immediately save the "Lua redirect" code from your text editor to the old Module:M location, as its sole content (i.e. replacing the #REDIRECT [[Module:N]] {{R from move}} material in it), so that the invocations of the module are not broken for more than a few seconds. Do likewise for any submoduless.
    • All instances of {{#invoke:M|...}} in templates or other pages are then to be updated to the {{#invoke:N|...}} module name, and corresponding require('Module:N') changes made to any other Lua modules that require the module that has been moved. In the interim, the redirects from Module talk:M and Module:M/doc to their new locations help people find the new location of the module.
    • The "Lua redirect" may then be deleted or sent to WP:MFD for deletion.
    • It will be proposed at WP:VPTECH that a warning about moving modules will appear automatically for Special:Move when the namespace is Module:, either pointing to where these instructions are documenting them, or including them directly.
Note that by not suppressing redirects, we preserve a history of the move at the original location, and create redirects for the talk and /doc pages. Do suppress it for code that is still in development, so we con't create redirs no one could need.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:22, 15 July 2015 (UTC)
  • This all seems unnecessarily bureaucratic. gerrit:146608 will fix this the right way. Jackmcbarn (talk) 17:44, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
    • Fine be me if they get it right. But I've learned not to hold my breath waiting for such changes, even obvious ones sometimes take several years to make it through the dev process. Several of the bugs I opened 6-8 years were still open last I looked a few months ago. Anyway, my version describes a way to do it, now, without causing problems, while the original does not. Anyone competent to be moving these things around already knows what I wrote up there; I just didn't want to see the not-practical version to go unchallenged. PS: Neither version is "bureaucratic". Technical specificity to avoid breakage isn't "bureaucracy"; that's not what the word means. The only bureacracy point, barely, in either proposal is the permission level (and mine's the less bureaucratic, since it permits many, many more editors to do this if they're competent, instead of only admins (i.e., a bureaucracy).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:03, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia's "Manual of Style/Text formatting" should allow boldfacing of "row headings"

Moved to WT:MOS § Wikipedia's "Manual of Style/Text formatting" should allow boldfacing of "row headings"

Row headings are the first words at the start of items in a list format, usually ending in a period; for instance the names of people who are the subject of the paragraph. Boldfacing of row headings is common in publishing. It's user friendly for the same reason that the boldfacing of standalone headings is helpful. It helps the reader grasp the outline of the material, and helps the re-reader navigate it more easily; it provides readers with visual "handholds" in a blank wall of normal text.

Wikipedia's "Manual of Style/Text formatting" neither recommends nor proscribes boldfacing for row headings. It seems unaware of their common use. It ought to be revised to allow them in a list format (after an *). RogerKni (talk) 15:33, 22 July 2015 (UTC) PS: I recently lost over a dozen row-heading boldfaces to a Wikipedia monitor who is following the guidelines in the "Manual of Style/Text formatting," hence my proposed change to that manual. RogerKni (talk) 15:57, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

@RogerKni: Just propose it at WT:MOS; this isn't really a WP-wide policy matter, just a "tweak MOS to match actual practice" matter. But actual practice is narrower than you suggest. This style is used in particular to boldface list items like * '''Tiger salamander''' (''Ambystoma tigrinum''), North America, [other details], where the words to be boldfaced do have the character of an inline heading. Not for things like * At 2014 board meeting, elected new Executive Director Cris Allston, and passed resolution to .... So, you'd need to draft a specific, well-thought-out wording to add to the guideline. See also MOS:GLOSSARIES. When you want this effect, and would like the entries on one line and their descriptive text on the next, template-formatted glossary list structure will do all of that for you automatically. PS: It's already common practice to boldface entries of sort illustrated in the salamander example, and all of WP knows that, so there isn't really a necessity to add it to MOS. If it's added (I think it should be), a short version should appear in MOS proper, if at all, a short version at MOS:BOLD, and the detailed version at MOS:LIST since this only applies to list content.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  16:33, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: :@Melonkelon: :@Herostratus:Thanks for your help, SMcCandlish, with suggesting where to submit this. I propose to submit the following text (down to the long dashed line):
Wikipedia’s “Manual of Style/Text formatting” currently does not explicitly permit the boldfacing of inline headings. Under Boldface, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting#boldface, under == Boldface ==, then under === Other uses ===, the advice reads (all is quoted material until the dashed line):
Use boldface in the remainder of the article only in a few special cases:
  • To identify terms in the first couple of paragraphs of an article, or at the beginning of a section of an article, which are the targets of redirects to the article or section (e.g. sub-topics of the article's topic, rather than the synonyms as already boldfaced per the above). (See Wikipedia:Redirect § What needs to be done on pages that are targets of redirects? for examples and further details.)
  • Mathematical objects traditionally written in boldface such as vectors and the rational number symbols Q and Z.
  • In some citation formats, for the volume number of a journal or other multi-volume works.
As a result, a STiki Barnstar of Bronz Merit-winner who has been keeping tabs on my edits in a particular article (“Patterson-Gimlin film”) has deleted the boldfacing of over a dozen inline headings, including some that pre-existed my editing. When I protested, he cited the aforesaid Manual via “MOS:BOLD”.
However, lower down on the same page in the Manual, the boldfacing of inline headings is employed; I quote:
Italic type (text like this) should be used for the following types of names and titles, or abbreviations thereof:
  • Major works of art and artifice, such as albums, books, video games, films, musicals, operas, symphonies, paintings, sculptures, newspapers, journals, magazines, epic poems, plays, television programs, radio shows. Medium of publication or presentation is not a factor; a video feature only released on video tape, disc or the Internet is considered a "film" for these purposes, and so on. (See WP:Manual of Style/Titles § Italics for details.)
  • Court case names: FCC v. Pacifica. (Case citation or law report information is presented in normal font)
In addition to the fact of exiting common use, documented above, boldfacing of row headings is common in publishing. It's user-friendly for the same reason that the boldfacing of standalone headings is helpful. It helps the reader grasp the outline of the material, and helps the re-reader navigate it more easily; it provides readers with visual "handholds" in a blank wall of normal text. (These advantages can be seen in a second instance of the Manual's use of a boldfaced inline heading style, at the end of its References section.)
The deleter of my boldfacings is acting in good faith, and he has a good case as the Manual is currently worded. And furthermore, even if he were to agree to undo his deletions, which I think he may have hinted at in his latest comment, another person could come along and justifiably delete them again, based on the Manual’s wording. So that wording should be expanded. Here’s what I suggest as a new second item in the Manual’s list above. Improvements welcome:
“* As an inline heading, also known as a row heading, in a list format (preceded by an *), which should come at the beginning of the text and have the concise characteristics of higher-level, own-line headings, rather than of discursive text.”
Is the use of <code> . . . </code> necessary? I hope not.
BTW, you wrote, “PS: It's already common practice to boldface entries of sort illustrated in the salamander example, and all of WP knows that, so there isn't really a necessity to add it to MOS.”
But it’s not true that “all of WP knows that,” because, as I had written above:
“I recently lost over a dozen row-heading boldfaces to a Wikipedia monitor (the otherwise-excellent Melonkelon) who is following the guidelines in the "Manual of Style/Text formatting," hence my proposed change to that manual.”
So there is a necessity to revise the manual. RogerKni (talk) 09:21, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm having trouble following this formatting, so will just start and the top and work my way down:
    • This horizontal line formatting isn't helpful. Just use {{bq|1=...}} to blockquote the entire chunk of quoted material (if any; see below), and the chunk of proposed material.
    • There's a plurality disagreement in "a journal or other multi-volume works", but maybe that's in the page now; I'll go fix it if so.
    • Drop the polemic 'STiki Barnstar of Bronz Merit-winner who has been keeping tabs on my edits in a particular article (“Patterson-Gimlin film”)'. It comes across as flamebaiting. Just link to the diff neutrally. It is good to provide a concrete example of the problem, but it's wrongheaded to finger-point about it, especially when the revert was actually to comply with what MOS presently says. Just leave personality out of it.
    • The fact that MOS itself uses a style not specified in MOS isn't a good rationale; MOS applies to article content, not all pages on en.wikipedia.org everywhere. People tend to follow it anyway, but it's not a "rule". I personally like to try to ensure MOS complies with MOS, to avoid editor confusion, but that doesn't help your proposal.
    • The real rationale #1 for this is that a heading is a heading, and doesn't serve a suddenly-different purpose when it is put inline to better suit the format of a list or other layout need.
    • The #2 rationale is that it's already deployed in similar situations, so not permitting it for lists is inconsistent and confusing. Examples: a) row and column headers in tables (a world-wide default in GUI browsers, not just on WP); b) glossary entries and any other things that resolve to <dt> markup in HTML (the boldfacing is hardcoded into MediaWiki as the default font-weight for the element); c) inline headers for infoboxes, navboxes, and similar templates; d) list entries on disambiguation pages and set index articles; d) ... [there are probably other examples]. I guess you could also mention that MOS itself and other WP:POLICY pages use such formatting in lists very frequently; that would probably be reasonable as an example instead of as a separate rationale/complaint. No need to quote a block of examples; it's readily apparent already.
    • "The deleter of my boldfacings ...": Not helpful for reasons already mentioned. Where you link to the diff, you can simply say "While that could be self-reverted, any later editor could repeat the deletion based on what MOS presently says", and leave it at that.
    • I do buy your "not everybody knows or we wouldn't be here" point, on reflection; thus I'm helping (I hope) to construct the proposal.
    • The specific text has readability issues. I'd suggest: '* As an inline heading (also known as a row heading) in a lists, between the * at the beginning of the list entry and the rest of the entry's content, and having the concise characteristics of a higher-level, own-line heading, rather than of discursive text.' Even that might be a bit prolix, and people might want to trim it, but it gets the point across clearly.
    • I'd restructure the whole thing, and lead with 'Proposal: Insert the following at [where to put it]:', then the proposed text, then 'Rationale:' followed by the rationale. Otherwise, lots of eyes will glaze over.
    • Aside: Whatever you are using to edit, it's inserting curly quotes; you should probably turn that feature off in your external editor, of you'll be inserting them into articles, which WP does not want.
Hope that helps.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:11, 25 July 2015 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: :@Melonkelon: :@Herostratus:
SMcCandlish wrote:
"Drop the polemic 'STiki Barnstar of Bronz Merit-winner who has been keeping tabs on my edits in a particular article (“Patterson-Gimlin film”)'. It comes across as flamebaiting. Just link to the diff neutrally. It is good to provide a concrete example of the problem, but it's wrongheaded to finger-point about it, especially when the revert was actually to comply with what MOS presently says. Just leave personality out of it."
I agree that it "comes across as flamebaiting," and that I should have said something different, because that was not my intent. I should have reversed the order of the sentences in my paragraph. IOW, I should have put the fact that the deletions were in accord with the MOS guidelines, and then mentioned, as an aside, that the person who did so was not just some eccentric nit-picker, but rather an experienced and highly commended (i.e., mainstream) site monitor. Thus, it was a mainstream problem, needing mainstream correction. I didn't think that the person I was alluding to would be offended, because:
    • I referred to him later on as being "otherwise-excellent" and "acting in good faith."
    • We've exchanged four ‘Thanks’ apiece over the past six weeks of my editing of the PGF entry, along with an occasional cordial sentence or two. I think he knows or suspects that I appreciate his "keeping tabs on my edits," because it implicitly indicates to others that there’s nothing that cries out for correction in them.
(If he didn’t, know, he does now. Thanks for your oversight, Melonkelon. I actually am happy that you’ve enforced inappropriate MOS policy, because that has motivated me to try to change it. If that happens, it will have a much greater beneficial effect on Wikipedia than the fringe-topic edits I’ve been making.) RogerKni (talk) 22:17, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
It's all good. From a third-party perspective it looked like some kind of sarcasm, i.e. "someone who thinks they're special because of their barnstars is revert-warring...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:38, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Editors offering 'donations' to get their pet article published

I recognise that it is often an expression of exasperation, along the lines of "How do I get my awful piece of COI junk accepted? Must I make a donation to Wikipedia in order to do so?" but I also see this as a highly offensive behaviour. It offends me as an editor because it implies that my editorial judgement at WP:AFC (where I review reasonably actively) can be bought, and it offends me as a Wikipedian because it implies that Wikipedia can be bought. This takes the concept of paid editing, playable to some, unpalatable to others, to an extreme I find deeply unpleasant

This means I do not feel disposed to treat this lightly.

We do not treat legal threats lightly, even throwaway ones, and I wonder if we ought to treat offers of corruption, even throwaway ones, the same way.

What I am hoping for is a discussion about the formulation of a simple policy or guideline that allows editors and those issuing the silly words alike to understand that it is unacceptable behaviour and how they should proceed. This might included a suitable single issue notice or warning able to be issued by (eg) Twinkle. Fiddle Faddle 12:42, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I hear that you feel offended by this action but, as an uninvolved party, I don't see anything disrespectful in the example you gave. It's difficult to talk in hypotheticals but I see neither an offer nor a threat in the quote above. Asking if Wikipedia publishes articles in return for donations isn't implying that your "editorial judgement" can be bought, it's asking about the process involved. It's a straightforward question with a simple answer; no. Should we not just educate the newbie and move on? I don't think we can warn people for asking how Wikipedia works- surely it's already opaque enough without making general enquiries an offense? Perhaps there is more to the situation than you feel you can post here? Djonesuk (talk) 22:56, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
It's not entirely easy to explain the issue because it can sound bizarre. What concerns me is that Wikipedia is devalued unless we have a standard response. That response is something that I consider, at present, would be best enshrined in a guideline. I don't want to upset further someone who is expressing frustration, and yet, in parallel with that I feel the need to refer them somewhere, not just to me as a "kind uncle explaining to a child" (a poor metaphor, but you get my drift, I hope). In the past few days I have encountered two certainly, perhaps more, folk making the rhetoric offer of a donation to get their drafts accepted. I had not encountered it before, though I have reviewed quite a few drafts. The cluster may have made it seem to be more of an issue than it is. Even so I am leaning towards a formal guideline to refer to. Fiddle Faddle 23:13, 23 July 2015 (UTC)
I don't see that the posting is anything sinister. Exasperated perhaps, but I don't think one could reasonably infer that you were seriously being offered money to accept the draft. I also don't see how dragging this to ANI and now here really helps matters, my advice would be to just let it go and avoid reviewing that user's drafts if they make you uncomfortable. Lankiveil (speak to me) 11:23, 24 July 2015 (UTC).
WP:BITE. Try to put yourself in the newbies' shoes from time to time. WP:OTHERSTUFF is most definitely not obvious to the newcomer, and if they start wondering why articles worse than what they are submitting are live, jumping to the "maybe they have donated" conclusion isn't outlandish. At AFC, you're often the first face of Wikipedia, and playing Cerberus at the gates isn't exactly giving a great first contact with the 5th most popular website on the internet. MLauba (Talk) 15:41, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
Offering money to publish an article kind of implies a system of corruption. However, I didn't interpret anything sinister in the statement. I think all that would be required is perhaps letting people know that there is never any quid pro quo for donations. Also, I am reminded that corruption (politicians, police, etc.) is a way of life in many non-Western cultures, so even if the speaker were serious, it's still not sinister. If anyone wants to get anything done, it's just a matter of whose palm to grease. That's not the case here. It's still just a lack of education on the process, not malice. --Unready (talk) 22:43, 24 July 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure that it implies a system of corruption; it might just imply that the person is familiar with the concept of paid advertising, and wants to know if that's the system here. It should be easy enough to write a simple, standard reply. Maybe something like this would work:

I'm happy to be able to reassure you that donations are not necessary to get an article accepted! Wikipedia is a volunteer-run educational project. Articles are accepted if they meet our basic requirements for inclusion, such as having been discussed in detail by independent reliable sources. Although donations are accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation, the Wikimedia Foundation has no role in deciding whether an article should be accepted. Volunteer editors do not have any access to donor information and never consider whether anyone makes a donation.

Or something like that, probably followed up with the usual explanation about needing better sources and to write so that it sounds like an encyclopedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
+1.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:56, 27 July 2015 (UTC)
Agree with the WP:BITE concerns. Non-editors do not know anything about, much less understand the values/mores of, Wikipedia's editing culture. Most real-world work is paid and most of what gets done in the world operates on a monetary basis, so it's completely reasonable for a newcomer to assume there's a way to donate toward coverage (or improvement of coverage) of something. It doesn't "imply a system of corruption", and I'm retroactively offended by that assumption. When I first arrived here 9-or-something years ago, my own assumption was that there was probably a way to "grease the wheels" with a targeted donation. There used to be a page where editors could directly bribe other editors to work on things here (but not for money directly); I forget what it was called, but it lasted a long time. There's no way to really patrol all paid editing, anyway. Any J. Doe can pay anyone to write an article about them, or about a questionably notable local restaurant, or whatever, and no one would be the wiser. There's a fair chance it would even produce a proper article, though we very strongly discourage this sort of thing, even when declared openly, because neutrality is so difficult to engage if you are not independent of what you're writing about. In a subthread below, I urge that our concerns about paid editing mostly should focus on organized, large-scale, propagandistic forms of it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:08, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Prioritizing concerns about paid editing

To editorialize about the underlying perennial concerns about professional and semi-professional editing: We usually can't know if someone is being paid by someone to edit, and we probably shouldn't stress our collective self worrying about it when it comes to individuals. If the edits are actually biased, this will usually be apparent. WP:AGF instructs us to not question the motivations for people's editing here. This is not just because it's rude, but because it's unproductive on multiple levels. Most edits performed here are done under a "conflict of interest" in the broader sense; someone edits space video game or hunting dog or Chinese astrology articles mostly because they have a personal interest and involvement in those topics. A subject-matter expert – our most valued kind of contributor – is someone with a very deep and personal interest in a topic, and often a professional in (i.e. paid to focus on) that subject area. Other editors may primarily not write new content but go around fixing typos and grammar mistakes, because they personally can't stand split infinitives and missing commas. Many readers become editors precisely because a topic very near and dear to them, perhaps even of deep religious significance, has coverage on WP that they feel lis terrible. These kinds of interests are often much, much deeper motivators, and more likely to produce PoV-pushing results (usually unintentionally) than "I will get $100 if I can write an article that passes WP:CORE and WP:GNG for this client".

Even in the WP-particular sense of "conflict of interest", WP:COI editing isn't even banned, it's just suspicious, discouraged, and difficult to do without violating policies and guidelines; it's more strongly discouraged if paid, and declaration of the COI is required (but, again, can't really be enforced). If a paid editor actually cares about WP's rules and follows them, there should be no difference at the results level (a proper article) between that and various non-volunteer WP:Wikipedian in residence job opportunities that WMF itself is spamming us with in page-top banners. Being associated with a university or other institution doesn't magically inject objectivity, though an institutional paid editor like that is probably more apt to be neutral, is under some job constraints about their editing, and is WP:DISCLOSUREd and watchable. But money is still changing hands to edit WP.

The more serious paid-editing problem – the one we do need to be genuinely concerned about and vigilant for – is the propagandistic kind being organized by serious forces in the world, not Joe's Bar paying a patron in beer to create a probably soon-to-be-deleted article about the establishment. WP:CIVILPOV pushing by very crafty representatives of multinationals, government agencies, and PR/advocacy entities has a much greater likelihood of sneaking past the community's B.S. detectors that typical slanted editing-for-hire. The organized kind of skewing is what could undo the public trust WP has earned through so much hard work.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:08, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_120&oldid=1142561477"