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Is there a policy about writing articles about the same subject at 2 different technical levels?

Resolved

Hello again. I've seen several articles with the "too technical" banner produced by {{technical|date=}} at the top. Is there a wp policy about how to deal with this, other than what is stated in the banner "Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details"? What I want to suggest is to have TWO articles about a topic. For example, there could be an article Endoplasmic reticulum (which currently has a too technical banner) that was written so that a freshman high school student could understand it, and a second article (red link for now) Endoplasmic reticulum College level written with all the details expected by senior university students. If somebody searched wp for endoplasmic reticu... both articles would appear as suggestions. The reader could decide which to access. Readers of the basic article would be alerted to the more detailed article by hatnote at the top and "see also" entries. Is there a precedent for this? Is there a policy against it? Thanks, JeanOhm (talk) 16:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

@JeanOhm: There is precedent (see Introduction to evolution and Evolution and also Category:Introduction articles) but it is rarely done and usually only for "popular" subjects. --NeilN talk to me 16:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
If we were to do that then we might as well have a whole separate encyclopedia for advanced learning. It would also cause issues as one person's opinion on what is "college level" differs from the other. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 16:39, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, this is best avoided. We're an encyclopedia, which means we present information in WP:Summary style. That often excludes highly-technical details. You can always make use of further reading sections to suggest more advanced texts and liberally use wikilinks to provide in-line explanations for technical words/concepts. ~ Rob13Talk 16:42, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Not a policy here, but you can always fork an article to simple:Simple English Wikipedia. — xaosflux Talk 17:26, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

See also the featured article Introduction to viruses. An other such article is Introduction to M-theory. The others can be found here from [[Introduction to cooperative learning to Introduction to systolic geometry. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 12:07, 7 June 2017 (UTC)

In this specific case, I'd recommend improving the lede, but leaving the rest of the article as written. Cell is the page that should discuss the Endoplasmic reticulum at a level suitable for a high-school freshman. Power~enwiki (talk) 20:49, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
Thank you all for the replies. JeanOhm (talk) 01:05, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Maybe one last note: to avoid are POV forks (WP:POVFORK), however, of course. These are not about simplification but about POV pushing, a different matter. —PaleoNeonate - 03:27, 8 June 2017 (UTC)
  • In most cases, the key is to make the lead, and perhaps a section or two after it, as simple as possible, then, if very technical detail is unavoidable, put that below the lead. WP:MEDRS stresses this for medicine, & it is accepted (if often not followed) for articles on advanced mathmatics. Johnbod (talk) 14:57, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Proposing to bring all wikipedia policies in accordance with NPOV

IP blocked for block evasion.--Bbb23 (talk) 19:51, 13 June 2017 (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.

Making wikipedia policies as neutral as it's encyclopedic content. Do not forbid people with particulate believes or medical conditions to participate in the community for example. 178.187.10.7 (talk) 17:51, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

What leads you to believe that Wikipedia policy or guideline cares about the particulars of a person's beliefs or medical conditions? --Izno (talk) 18:00, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Some of it's policies. But my question is: Why we can't make this rule: Wikipedia be neutral by itself, not just it's content. Policies and everything be neutral. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.187.10.7 (talk) 18:23, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
It will be difficult to convince other editors that your ideas are valuable if you do not specify, in some length, the problems with certain, specific ,policies and guidelines. Which policies? --Izno (talk) 18:28, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Problem is not with policies. The problem is that Wikipedia is not neutral by itself. It could stand for certain political, ideological or moral believes, and there is no rules forbidding such stands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.187.10.7 (talk) 18:39, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't understand the request or the problem. Our policy on use of copyrighted material is stricter than required by (US) copyright law. Would that be considered an idiological stance? — Arthur Rubin (talk) 19:05, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Was it implemented from ideological or from practical reasons? Did it help it's encyclopedic purpose or harmed it? I don't know details.
Oppose there's no proposal here, and I would oppose any of the proposals I suspect the IP-editor has in mind. Power~enwiki (talk) 19:07, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
My proposal was very clear: Make Wikipedia's neutrality obligatory. It will only help it's purpose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.187.10.7 (talk) 19:18, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
We already have WP:NPOV. If you don't propose specific changes to the wording of policies/guidelines then all you're doing is wasting everyone's time. --NeilN talk to me 19:21, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Propose to change "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV)" on "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia and it's policies must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.187.10.7 (talk) 19:24, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Thank you and oppose. Wikipedia is "biased" towards summarizing mainstream viewpoints found in high-quality reliable sources and our policies and guidelines reflect that. I'm comfortable with this. --NeilN talk to me 19:31, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
If you agree that Wikipedia's policies and guidelines reflect that, why do you oppose? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.187.45.58 (talk) 04:16, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Did you read WP:NPOV? Your post is basically the first sentence of that policy. MarnetteD|Talk 19:30, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
I will give it a cautious welcome. Yes, it would be positive for Wikipedia. No, it will certainly lead to wiki-war. For instance, it will cut down the way WP:MEDRS is used to strangle subjects that only touch to health. For instance on "organic food" where MEDRS claims more importance than sources provided by agricultural universities and the like. It would also lead to equal treatment of schools and colleges across the board, demanding the same notability from American schools and colleges as required for non-American schools and colleges. Is it necessary to do that? Yes, it is. Is it realistic to do it? No, as the vested interest will fight it to the bone and beyond. The Banner talk 19:48, 13 June 2017 (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.

Hello my name is Neurorebel

Moved to WP:VPM

— xaosflux Talk 23:39, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of interest

You may be interested in this discussion, which relates to an interpretation of the verifabilty policy and the citation guidelines. Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Citation underkill. Scribolt (talk) 19:01, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Relisted RM at Template talk:2016 US Election AE

The ongoing RM discussion at Template talk:2016 US Election AE is relisted, so feel free to comment there until closure. --George Ho (talk) 01:12, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Neutrality and Morality

One of the larger problems that I've been seeing develop over the past 4 or 5 years but is growing to a head is the issue of neutrality with respect to morality in discussing subjective opinions about persons, groups, and other organizations.

Where we don't have problems is when someone or some group is seen as a subjective term but that is near-universally morally acceptable. For articles on people/groups that are regarded as geniuses, as the best creative person, as a strong businessman, etc., we are acutely aware of the appropriate language to use in these articles to stress that these are widely-held opinions and not so much fact. We rarely use these subjective, if not universally-applied labels, in the lede sentences, but introduce this later in the lede with statements that clearly make it attributable opinion rather than fact. This all is properly in line with WP:NPOV and other policies.

Where we do run into problems is when the subjective term is something that is seen to a larger group as immoral. It is human nature to call someone out when their morals vastly differ from ours, so it is natural to rush to push this immoral stance front and center. This is part of the problem.

Now, it is important we're not trying to play down someone or some group that has been convicted in court or a similar body of a immoral crime that directly harms persons or personal property. These types of actions are near universally accepted as immoral, and we should treat those as such. We shouldn't coddle subjective language around convicted murderers and terrorist groups, for example, though one must stress that if there's only an accusation pending trial, we presume innocent until proven guilty, which is where this morality question plays out.

When we turn to a subjective label that are particularly about someone's viewpoint absent of any actual harmful actions, such as "white nationalist", for example, this is clearly a view that to most would consider immoral, but it doesn't have the universal agreement; there are parts of this world where that is considered morally acceptable. This sets up the problem that I've seen: since by the nature of what we have deemed to be reliable sources for such commentary, they are generally going to share a specific moral center, which would agree with the larger moral center shared by Western, English-speaking regions. There is no question that this larger view should be included, but far too frequently, these views are presented front and center in the lede sentence of the appropriate article and without clarifying them as attributed opinion. Editors when challenged with this often argue that since the majority, sometimes near unanimity of the press, says this, it must be fact and must be presented as soon as possible per WP:UNDUE.

However, I would argue that WP needs to have more an amoral center, one that aligns with how we treated "positive moral" terms. Unless we're talking about convicted crimes, WP should not adopt the same moral center that the bulk of the RSes does as to reflect a more proper world view and to stay much more neutral on these types of topics. This means that we should not be so focused on introducing the subjective labels as early as the lede sentence and sacrifice factual content, nor presume the "factual" nature of these subjective labels. Again, we don't do this at all for "positive moral" terms, we shouldn't at all be doing the same for "negative moral" terms.

This also avoids a potential slippery slope, even if the press fall along that. Having views that are generally seen as "negative moral" like bleeding-heart liberal, fascist, anarchists, racist, misogynistic, white nationalist, alt right, far left, or far right is just having that view. Unless their actions actually lead to universally immoral crimes, they haven't done a single thing wrong from a legal standpoint, they just share a vastly differ viewpoint from what the moral average does. While the press may want to condemn them for this type of thinking, that seems extremely out of line with our job to be objective and neutral. Again, this is not saying that the majority stance shouldn't be included, but it should be tempered as to be attributed opinion and not as early as some wish to write. It also avoids the slope where less problematic labels or "thought crimes" deemed by the press are treated the same by us, such as "climate change denier", "conspiracy theorist", and so forth.

Most of the time, this is easy to edit to fix problematic articles, adapted a more amoral tone that does not seek to condemn the person or group. Take Jared Taylor which has come up before (specifically this version for discussion [1]) where the lede calls out his white nationalist and supremacist labels before actually introducing him properly. When it has been discussed before on BLP/N [2] many editors think that because the majority of sources treat him as such that these should be the facts and presented first. If WP was more amoral, we'd start by describing him as an author, and founder and editor of the magazine, followed by a sentence that says that he is generally considered a white nationalist and supremacist. Tidying up that lede to be more amoral and not treating "white nationalist" or the like as a crime to mark such persons with would go a long way towards meeting NPOV for the article overall. Here's another case happening just now [3] where just because the majority of sources call Breitbart "far right", it should not be forced as a factual statement in the lede sentence, though still clearly must be emphasized in the lede. But because other media sources label has such, editors insist it must be front and center. I stress: the goal here is not to eliminate such information from articles, but to temper it appropriately with attribution and outside of WP's voice while maintaining the proper balance.

The other problem is that without treating things with a more amoral approach, we then allow the moral center of WP to be determined by the press. As noted, this reflects only a portion of the world view, but more importantly, this view shifts over time, which affects our articles over time. For example, with Trump's election, the moral center has significantly shifted to the left, which if we held to that moral center, we'd have to update a lot of articles to reflect how people and groups are now treated this way. Since WP aimed for long-term stability, it would be much better that we work from a more amoral center, so that we're not forced to make changes like this even as the media's moral center changes.

Technically, NPOV has the language towards all this under "Morally-offensive views", WP:IMPARTIAL and at WP:OUTRAGE, and WP:LABEL also has some, but these are routinely ignored putting WP:UNDUE first and foremost.

The TL;DR of all this is that I propose we develop a guideline to support NPOV that has a stronger establishment that WP should take a more amoral stance towards morally-offensive views (just as we do for morally-accepted ones), and guidance for how to write such articles where the morally-offensive view is something you can't avoid writing about. This guideline would make it clear that there are places we accept are morally wrong (convicted crimes against others), but in most other cases, we should be much more neutral in tone and writing to not treat it as a condemnation even if every major press source wants to treat it that way. There needs to be a better balance of UNDUE and IMPARTIAL in these areas and how to be more amoral, otherwise we are going to continue to reflect what the press deems is the moral center.

Moreso, there needs to be advice to editors to put aside their own opinions when writing such articles; just as we have acute awareness when an article seems to factually present a morally-acceptable label to rework it as attributed option, we need that same acute awareness for offensive ones, which is often clouded by one's personal opinions.

(Cavaet: I in no way personally endorse, approve, or support any of the example views/labels, I'm just pointing out where there are problems.) --MASEM (t) 15:25, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Please, let Gamergate go. Johnuniq (talk) 23:26, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Why would any special policy be necessary? We should go with the consensus of reliable sources. When do we say a person is Jewish? When most of them say he's Jewish. When do we say he's white supremacist? " " " " " " " " " But if the sources say he's white separatist, then by golly, we say he's white separatist! We're here to shuffle the cards and deal them out, not to toss any under the table nor pull any out of our sleeves. Wnt (talk) 00:56, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose for the specific Jared Taylor article, there's no claim he's notable apart from his actions as a white supremacist, and he publicly attests to those views [4]. The only conceivable option apart from mentioning them in the lede is to delete the article entirely. The details of language policing ("white supremacist" v. "white nationalist" v. "alt-right" v. "race realist") aren't relevant; we should use terms understandable by most readers and used by most secondary sources. Power~enwiki (talk) 01:04, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Request for comment on parenthetical information in first sentence

Please join the discussion on what information should be included in a lead sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Altercari (talk • contribs) 06:44, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Allow private schools to be characterized as non-affiliated as well as religious, in infobox?

WP:SNOW. Broad and clear consensus is against allowing "none" in the "religious_affiliation" or "religion" field of {{Infobox school}}. Softlavender (talk) 10:50, 28 June 2017 (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.

{{Infobox school}} has a field for religious affiliation of private schools. Should "none" (or equivalent) be an allowable value for that field? In other words:

  • religion = Catholic -- this is currently allowed
  • religion = Methodist -- this is currently allowed, and so forth. The question is
  • religion = none -- should this be allowed?

(This is assuming that religious affiliation is an appropriate field for a school infobox at all -- it currently is a valid field, but editors may weigh on that more general question if they wish.) Herostratus (talk) 14:21, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

The above should be altered as the correct wording of the parameter in question is |religious_affiliation=. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 19:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Survey (schools infobox)

  • Yes of course. Given the current assumption that religious affiliation of a private school is key infobox-worthy data, then it seems non-optimal to allow "Catholic" or "Methodist" etc. but not to tell the reader if the school is secular. (As to whether religious affiliation belongs in the infobox at all -- yes IMO it does, as it is key quick-overview data for a private school.) Herostratus (talk) 16:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. It seems we just had a similar discussion. If "secular" or some related description was a stated part of the school's philosophy, maybe it could be included in some other parameter, but describing "none" or "secular" as a religion would be inappropriate. Are there any other infobox fields where you would use the value "none"? Jack N. Stock (talk) 17:19, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Inappropriate how? What I'm looking for is "It harms the reader's experience in this way: ________". What have you got for the blank? Herostratus (talk) 19:07, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
It's not encyclopedic, and some might even consider it petty or trivial. It is the same as writing "none" for any other parameter. For verification, it puts WP in the position of proving a negative. But you mention there is an exception to the previous RfC. Is there a specific article where you want to use "none" as a value? Do you have WP:SOURCES? Jack N. Stock (talk) 21:51, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. This was decided by RfC at Template talk:Infobox/Archive 11#RfC: Religion in infoboxes: "Without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the 'Religion=' parameter of the infobox". It is out of order to keep reopening a question that was settled less than six months ago (silly date error.. sorry about that) simply because you don't agree with the consensus of the community. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:44, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Well I addressed that in the hatted material in the "Threaded discussion" section. TL;DR: 1) it's not that recent, it was 2015, and in a smaller venue, and 2) and now an exception has come up, which needs to be addressed, and most importantly 3) that discussion was entirely or almost entirely about not allowing values such as "Marxist" or "non-practicing Jew" etc. to put in the religion infobox for individuals, and had little or nothing to do with the present question, besides which 4) there is no such thing here as "I got my way in a certain discussion some years back, and that caps it: never again can it be discussed, and I'll call for a procedural close if anybody tries". Herostratus (talk) 19:04, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
      • You are arguing that the closing comments by the administrator did not reflect the consensus found in the actual discussion. You have been around long enough to know that all such arguments are dismissed out of hand. If you think the closing admin got it wrong, you are supposed to first make your argument and ask the admin to reconsider on his talk page, and if that doesn't work to request a review of the close at WP:AN. This is how we do things here. We don't let every editor review the RfC and make his own decision about what the consensus is. We have uninvolved administrators do that for us, and then we either follow the consensus as described in the closing comments or we challenge the close. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • You quote something that refers to |religion=; the infobox in question has a parameter called |religious affiliation=. These are not the same. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • The very top of the RfC you are reading clearly says "religion = none -- should this be allowed?". Please don't blame me for addressing the actual question the RfC asks instead of some question it doesn't ask. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • They are the same for the purposes of the infobox. Either |religious affiliation= or |religion= can be used in the school infobox for the same value. Jack N. Stock (talk) 22:15, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Why is leaving the field blank unsatisfactory?--Jayron32 17:46, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Well, in the same sense as leaving the entire article blank is unsatisfactory: information is preferable to no information. Leaving the value blank prevents the header ("religion") from being shown at all, leaving the reader at sea as to the school's affilition, absent digging deeper into the article. Herostratus (talk) 19:04, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Of course "none" should be allowable. This tells the reader that the school is secular. Why would we not convey information to the reader if it is known to us? Bus stop ([
  • Yes but only the rare cases where it is particularly notable or exceptional e.g., a school founded specifically to provide educational opportunities to populations of students not served by the majority of contemporary schools founded and run by religious sects. ElKevbo (talk) 20:11, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes. In the US, it is quite common for private schools to be unaffiliated with any religious denomination or faith. In New York City, I would even say that the majority of private schools are not affiliated with any denomination or faith. A "none" in the infobox would help to differentiate these schools from the parochial schools (which are tied to a denomination or faith). A useful parameter for our readers. Blueboar (talk) 21:56, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
  • In general No, though there may be a few exceptional circumstances (I for one would like to see a case that arguably merits this parameter). I think parameters that are not applicable to a school should be left blank. We could list the number of third graders at a high school as zero or NA but there wouldn't be any point because the school doesn't have a third grade and leaving the parameter blank communicates the absence of this applicability just as well if not better than some filler value. I see no reason to depart from this with the religion parameter. EyeTripleE (talk) 02:53, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose The reasoning was sound in the previous discussion and nothing has been presented here that justifies carving out a narrow exception. MarnetteD|Talk 03:16, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. We've been through this before, and consensus is that a lack of religion doesn't belong in infoboxes. This proposal assumes that religion is of such critical importance that it must always be mentioned, even if it doesn't apply. This puts undue emphasis on the topic of religion. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 03:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • You seem to be accusing the proposal of something it doesn't contend. I'll quote Guy Macon's above comment from 15:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC): The very top of the RfC you are reading clearly says "religion = none -- should this be allowed?". End of quote, emphasis mine. Clearly, asking for allowance isn't the same as mandating it.--isacdaavid 18:47, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Someone with scarcely 400 edits under their belt should not be telling an administrator what happens on English Wikipedia. You seem to be completely unaware of the problem most of the "no" !votes are assuming. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:00, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No The field is only relevant if the school has a denomination. Our articles say for example that "St. Michael's College School is a private, all-boys Roman Catholic day school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada," while "Upper Canada College (UCC), located in Toronto, Ontario, is a private school for boys." Unless otherwise stated, one assumes the school is nominally non-denominational. TFD (talk) 03:28, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No; if it doesn't have a particularly strong affiliation, then there isn't any good reason to note that in the infobox. It would be much better to do so in the article prose (if anywhere). In fact, the only places such a parameter could possibly be viable for in the first place are those where a certain denomination is known to be a highly prominent aspect of the school, and even that would be rare compared to the schools that aren't really noted for anything of the sort. Snuggums (talk / edits) 03:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes. It's a characteristic of the school likely to be of interest to readers. I think readers will correctly understand the intended meaning of "religion: secular" or "religion: none". To be secular or to have no religion is a statement about spiritual beliefs just as saying Catholic, Anglican, Jewish, Islamic is. Omitting the religion parameter is able to be interpreted in different ways, 1) that we don't know the religion 2) there is no religion, so why do we wish to confuse the reader when there is no confusion about the facts of the matter? Why don't we resolve RfCs like this by surveying *readers*; aren't they the people we seek to serve? We know statistically that writers of Wikipedia are NOT representative of broader society, so maybe we shouldn't be trying to answer these questions on their behalf. Kerry (talk) 04:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No, parameters that don't apply get left blank. This is well established.-gadfium 04:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose (for the most part) if for no other reason than that it would be blatant WP:Original research/WP:Synthesis to declare a school irreligious just because we don't happen to have a source which classifies it as overtly religious. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially where Wikipedia's process for verification is concerned. Put otherwise, it is entirely appropriate to label a school as affiliated with a given religion if we have a reliable source which describes it as such, but under our WP:Neutrality policies, it is not appropriate--in any way, shape, or form--to classify a school (or any topic) as irreligious, just because we don't currently have a source which speaks to a religious character. Per WP:OR/WP:V, we would need a source which directly and explicitly describes a topic as irreligious before we could classify it as such. It's a WP:SNOW case of synthesis otherwise. And while there may be a very small handful of cases where private schools have such pride in their irreligious character that a source exists to describe the school as such (in which case I would support the parameter being included and filled with "atheistic", "agnostic" , or possibly "none") there will be no such source for the vast, vast majority of sources. If there exists no source to describe a school as irreligious, it is not one bit more appropriate to describe that school as having "no" religion than it is to pull a random religion out of a hat and fill that into the parameter, just to have something there. The same goes for any other class of topic; honestly, this is WP:V/WP:OR 101; we don't describe any topic in a way that is not sourceable.
    This is one of a series of similar RfC's on infoboxes that have cropped up in the last couple of years where some editors seem to want to be able to classify any topic which uses the infobox according to each and every parameter of that box. But there's a reason that our wiki markup allows for parameters to be omitted; sometimes they just are not relevant. And an obsession with trying to fit each and every article into a box for each and every parameter can lead to our placing our own (non-sourced) editorial assumptions into the article. If the choice is between A) leaving a field empty or ambiguous and B) using a description of our own choosing, that is not explicitly supported by a reliable source, clearly, we go with A. And that principle surely extends to describing a topic (institution, person, region, an ideology, it doesn't matter) as having no religion, even if we are personally "really, really sure!" that it is irreligious. On this project, no source to support a given description=no description of that sort in the article, be it in the prose or in an infobox. Again, there may be a small handful of cases where irreligiosity can be sourced, but those would a small minority and I expect that in most of those cases, the sources would probably describe the school as atheistic. Anyway, those can certainly be handled on a case-by-case basis as sourcing allows. But defaulting to "none" in the religion field for every school that does not have an attested religion is clearly original research, and counter to our most basic sourcing, verification, and NPOV policies. Snow let's rap 04:13, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No except for the rare school which is explicitly notable for being non-religious. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 04:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No per gadfium (parameters that don't apply get left blank, as is well established), with an exception somewhat narrower than noted by Od Mishehu (if a school is known in sources for taking a position on religion, such as being atheist, or anti-religious, or something like that, then the religion field would be an appropriate place to note that). Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Strongest possible oppose. A stop has to be put to people constantly trying to mark nonreligious persons and institutions as such. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:54, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There are private schools that belongs to a religious body and it is appropriate to note that with the religion in the infobox. If it does not belong to a religious body, then that tag in the infobox is irrelevant. Schools are no different from other uses of the religion tag in infoboxes. --Bduke (Discussion) 05:02, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. We've been over this ground twice before and it makes no sense for the reasons restated above.  Philg88 ♦talk 05:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No a non-existent field ie blank parameter field indicates no affiliations, though an allowance for exceptions in those circumstances where where the school being non affiliated, non-affiliated christian, or even non-affiliated jedi is of significance. Gnangarra 05:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • That is simply not so. A blank parameter indicates "not known" or "not yet entered". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • That's a rather (cough) unique interpretation. Got a policy or guideline to back up that claim? You do realize that you are claiming that whether Rico Rodriguez (actor) is married is unknown unless we put spouse = none in his infobox, that whether he is dead is unknown unless we put death_cause = none in his infobox, that whether he is a wanted criminal is unknown unless we put criminal_status = none in his infobox, and that whether he has children is unknown unless we put children = none in his infobox, right? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:14, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No I have no earthly idea why I was notified of this, as it seems to have only the most peripheral relationship to the 2015 RFCs, but I take a similar stance on it nonetheless. There's no good reason I can think of for this: schools that aren't described in the infobox or inline as having any religion in particular are assumed to be non-religious, aren't they? Adding this to public schools in countries like Ireland where the separation of church and state is iffy but where there are still technically "parochial" and "public" schools would be a disaster. Just because a school doesn't have a stated religious affiliation does not mean it is non-religious, and we shouldn't be assuming that it does. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:42, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • I agree. This is why every one of the previous RfC specifically encouraged editors to write up a properly sourced section on religion (or lack thereof) in the body of the article where there is room for such nuances rather than trying to cram everything into one word in the infobox. As it says in WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, "the purpose of an infobox is to summarize (and not supplant) key facts that appear in the article (an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored). The less information it contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose." --Guy Macon (talk) 07:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • By the way, I think User:Guy Macon should be slapped with a light WP:TROUT for what looks like borderline canvassing and providing a rationale for his own !vote that contradicts both his messages elsewhere and the content of the link he provided as evidence for the rationale. I have no recollection of my participation in the previous RFC in January 2016, and had to go back and look. The date on the RFC contradicts his !vote rationale: recently decided by RfC ... It is out of order to keep reopening a question that was settled less than six months ago (emphasis mine). He is right on the substance, but he was either lying in his comment or was being extremely clumsy with his wording. (I would say his memory was as bad as mine, but he went back and dug up the link in the same comment, so he definitely knew it was well over a year ago, and also probably knew Herostratus hadn't commented in that RFC and may not have been aware of it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:05, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No for all the reasons stated ----Snowded TALK 05:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes Since a blank field is appropriate to unknown affiliation or even an incomplete infobox, it would be a mistake to assume the lack of this field to mean no affiliation. This is an area of opportunity to make articles less misleading. --isacdaavid 06:00, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    • Would you add something like "Hobbies = Not collecting stamps" to an infobox on the theory that leaving a blank field is appropriate to unknown hobbies or even an incomplete infobox? Would you add something like "hair color = bald"? Where does the practice of adding what something or someone isn't end? --Guy Macon (talk) 06:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • The correct analogy is "Hobbies = none" and "Hair color = none". The practice ends where the "none" status is insignificant or irrelevant to the subject. I think you're overthinking this, Guy, but I'm abstaining from the !voting. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
      • The previous comment already explained why this is an incorrect use of Penn Jillette's aphorism; and this RFC isn't even asking to fill in the religion field with a list like "non-A, non-B, non-C, ...". I completely agree that "no religion" is, by definition, not a religion. But if not "none", then what else should a non-religious entity respond with when asked what its religion is? Do we expect it to withhold a reply on the grounds that the question wasn't a good one? Ultimately, I'm not overly concerned with the outcome of this consensus. I vote yes because I saw way too many no voters subscribe to the weird idea that omitting this field must unequivocally imply the school is irreligious.--isacdaavid 17:37, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
        • You ask "what else should a non-religious entity respond with when asked what its religion is?", Fortunately, we don't have to guess. Several such non-religious entities have respond to that question at length. Here are their answers:[5][6][7][8] This is a classic "when did you stop beating your wife" loaded question. It may have worked on other online forums, but it will not work here. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:04, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
          • Hi again!, I'm afraid the disconnect remains between us. The question was "What should a non-religious entity respond with when asked what its religion is". In other words, is "none" a valid answer? The question wasn't "Is atheism a religion?", which is what your references are talking about --and I agree 100% with them. The point is, the former question isn't a loaded one, because "none" is a valid answer (references at the end), unlike "Did you stop beating your wife?" which only admits yes or no as an answer. Use of "none" is standard practice, and several high-profile surveys on religious affiliation employ the "none" category: [9][10][11] --isacdaavid 17:24, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
But, we aren’t asking this question. We are filling in an infobox with 202 parameters. We are not going to list the 185 parameters that are not applicable. Objective3000 (talk) 17:28, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No, Object, and Oppose (See comments in threaded discussion) : Per user Snow Rise's many listed policies and guidelines including no original research and Wikipedia:Neutrality (part of the five pillars), that gives enough reasoning alone for a procedural close, and per user gadfium, "No, parameters that don't apply get left blank. This is well established.", with exceptions as pointed out by user Od Mishehu and user ElKevbo's "...but only the rare cases where it is particularly notable...", which means sourced. Likely to be of interest to readers is not sound reasoning to introduce unsourced content. Private schools that advertise not being affiliated with any religious organization, or promoting being "non-religious", will state this then it can be included as an exception and sourced somewhere in the body of the article. Otr500 (talk) 07:20, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) No per Guy Macon, The Four Deuces, and Snow Rise. 142.160.131.202 (talk) 07:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. Absense of religion is not religion.Charles (talk) 08:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. As argued above, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and would therefore be misleading. As an example, the school I went to was not listed as religious, but education took place in a clear Christian context. In that case, listing "religion" as none, because no evidence could be presented identifying it as religious, would be incorrect and give the impression that it was atheist, when it certainly was not. Additionally, we don't tend to put "none" in any other infobox parameter, we leave it blank, so why should we act any differently here? Simon Burchell (talk) 08:36, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No - Discuss it if necessary in the article text. But not in the infobox. As stated by Charlesdrawek, absense of religion is not religion. Garion96 (talk) 08:42, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No, per Guy Macon and others. Discussed and consensus established already here and here - no religion, leave it blank! But on the general issue - why this need to cram irrelevancies (not just religion, but it's a prime example) into every WP article? In Ireland, 97% of primary schools are "Roman Catholic", but they must teach a state-mandated religion curriculum and soon won't be able to exclude non-Catholics - so what benefit would accrue from seeing a school listed as "Catholic" in any case? BastunĖġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ! 08:44, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose It is a bit silly to use the field when there is no religious affilition. For example: Dutch public primary and secondary school have, by law, no religious affiliation. Why should the infobox be used there? And it is rather predictable that you get useless answers with this field, like "religion = none", "religion = atheist" or "religion = agnostic" (those three are no religions). The Banner talk 08:46, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No as, unless the school makes an explicit statement that they are secular, we shouldn't speak for it in Wikipedia's voice. Also, a nod towards WP:BIAS here: as touched on by The Banner above, whilst it might be common for schools in the US/UK to be dominational, in places where they're prohibited from doing so, it would be farcical to state they have 'none'. — O Fortuna semper crescis, aut decrescis 09:31, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Question - Would "Non-denominational" be more acceptable than "none"? Blueboar (talk) 09:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Support, but only when the school have stated that they have no affiliation/are secular. If there is no reference to affiliation or lack thereof, then "none" should not be used. In countries where the default is a religious affiliation, being able to state that a school has no affiliation is important enough to warrant inclusion in the infobox. It should be noted that having no affiliation (which is an active/legal link with a particular religion/denomination) doesn't necessarily mean that there wouldn't be any unofficial links. This parameter should be about the official/legal religious affiliation. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 09:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Guy Macon, Charlesdrakew(Charles), The Banner and others. Doug Weller talk 10:17, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Absolutely not, for the reasons put forward by numerous editors above. "None" is not a religion, and nor are "atheist" or "secular". The whole proposal rests on the mistaken premise that holding a religious belief is the normal, default, situation, and that the failure to conform to this norm is so exceptional that it needs to be noted. This is not an approach that we should follow. If in the case of a particular school, the atheist, secular or simply non-religious nature is sufficiently significant that it has been remarked on by reliable sources, then this could be included in the text of the article. But even then, it should not be added to the "Religion" section in an infobox, since these positions are not religions. RolandR (talk) 10:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. Unless religion is a specific incorporating issue of a school, then it is irrelevant. The fact that religion plays no expressed role in the founding mission of an institution is no more relevant in the infobox than whether or not the school serves tacos in the cafeteria. --Taivo (talk) 11:03, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Support use of "no affiliation" Carl Fredrik talk 11:05, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - There is no such religion as none. People really should not try to force the term religion into articles about secular institutions. Parameters that don't apply are left blank. Objective3000 (talk) 11:08, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Simon. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:42, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment and observation. It seems to me that looking at the previous RfCs that this has been done to death already, so why does it keep reappearing? May I suggest that the opposes have identfied religion as an ontologically normalised concept, where as the supporters are conflating two things religion and religion status. Both concepts I suggest are valid and until both cohorts of editors realise that they are arguing over two different things the RfCs will never end. I also suggest that an ontological reduction will show that there should be a hierarchy of categorisation something like meta-belief-system/philosophy then religious/secular, then religion/nondenominational/agnostic / then specific religion / political / then specific political alignment. Please note I have not at all attempted to do the ontological analysis here, just throw up a few concepts which would hierarchicaly categorise the reveant part of an institution's contextual framework. To me the question is do we either want to accurately categorise the institution, whihc I am saying will require multiple parameters in some form of dichotomous heirarchy requiring multiple parameters, or do we want to overload the one parameter and have it actually mean several things simultaneously? Until the more fundemental question on the ontological normalisation is resolved the debate of religion will carry on with religous fervour ? I think a A Wider View below is saying something similiar but provides a paramater name which is more open to overloading. Aoziwe (talk) 12:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
One of the problems with the past RfCs, and the discussion of religion in general, is that many religious people believe that everyone, if not everything, has a religion. That is, atheism, agnosticism, secular humanism, completely ignoring religion are all religions. In fact, many religious folk believe that the word ‘’secular’’ indicates an activity or thing not having a specific religious purpose or official connection – but still having a religion. I see some progress in this RfC over past such as this appears to be missing in this discussion. But, as you say, the question keeps reappearing even though it’s been beaten to death. I would guess (without casting aspersions) this may be because some people subconsciously insert religion into everything. Objective3000 (talk) 13:40, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
It isn't always subconscious. One of the main arguments of Christian apologetics is "atheism is just another religion. It takes faith to not believe in god" Examples:[12][13] --Guy Macon (talk) 16:36, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Yeah, I was being polite. Objective3000 (talk) 17:16, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Well knock it off. This is the Internet. You are supposed to call me a nazi pedophile bedwetter. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:04, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes (support). There are times when a reader needs fast answers and has no time to search through one of Wikipedia's great-yet-sometimes-long article bodies. The parameter seeks to answer the quick question, "What is the religious affiliation of the school?" A quick answer must be given in order to help those readers who only seek a quick answer. This is definitely a case where a valid answer to the quick question is to note that the school has no religious affiliation. For those rare, more complicated "Our school is a (religion) school, and yet our curriculum is secular," types, |religion=(see article) may be used.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  13:02, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No A "none" will give the impression that private schools are predominantly affiliated with a religion or that religious affiliation is an important characteristic of schools in general. Absent evidence otherwise, I don't see either of those being true. --regentspark (comment) 14:54, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No, leave it blank, unless the school officially and explicitly declares itself as "nonreligious", "militant atheist" or whatever. Same goes for "catholic", etc. The school must officially declare itself as such. If it does not, leave it blank. This is common logic applicable to all such cases. My very best wishes (talk) 15:09, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes; there are numerous cases where a school is explicitly and intentionally secular, and being secular is an important part of its identity. --GRuban (talk) 16:21, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose, mainly per Snow's argument relying on synthesis and verification. Additionally, the exception that Snow describes (a source that directly and explicitly describes the school as irreligious) would need to rise beyond and reach the level of also not granting undue weight to the lack of religion. Said another way, before putting "none" or something equivalent, the sources would need to indicate that the irreligious nature is a key fact. --Thirdright (talk) 17:32, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No it should not be allowed. That's like saying "Religion=None" for a living person in an infobox. The implication is that the nonreligious institution is abnormal. If a school declares: "We hate religion and our stance is "anti-religion" from here and henceforth to eternity," then I supposed you could say "anti-religious" in the infobox. But otherwise there is no point to saying "none" Coretheapple (talk) 17:42, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No per WP:COMMONSENSE. Infoboxes are (purportedly) an 'at a glance' summary of salient information for the reader, not a list of features an editor has decided is pertinent to the concept of all educational institutions because it may be pertinent to some. All of the key points as to why this is a non-starter have already been well addressed by other editors opposing the proposal. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 19:04, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No just leave out the parameter if it does not apply. It just clutters up the box with values like none (or na). If it is significant it can be stated in the text. Public schools would be expected to not belong to a religion, so it is just a wast of space to include it. And for some private ones with a idiosyncratic philosophical basis, they may claim none, but others may call it a cult of some sort. It is better to explain it in the text, rather than an oversimplification in the infobox. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No per Gadfium and Od Mishehu. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:48, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. Many persons and institutions are opposed to any association with religion, including a religion of "none". We wouldn't allow "criminal convictions=none" for the same reasons. If the subject openly claims some active anti-religion status ("Anti-theist" or whatever), only then can we go ahead and state that, but I can't see where "none" would ever be correct. --A D Monroe III (talk) 23:28, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • If the display said "Affiliation =" then I would have no objection to filling in a religion or "none", but since the display wording is "Religion=" that sets the presupposition that a school or organization SHOULD have a religious affiliation, which from an encyclopedic basis is inappropriate.
  • No. This is WP:FORUMSHOPPING. We've already had two RfCs unambiguously concluding to not put non-religious labels in a |religion= parameter. This should be speedily closed as "I didn't get the answer I wanted" rehash.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • NO. or Oppose – an infobox "summarizes key features of the page's subject" therefore should not mention what it does not have. If any other section does not warrant, such as death date for a living person, it does not say "Not yet", but is left blank and not listed.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 00:15, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No, I agree that parameters that don't apply should be left blank. Also, think it's a bit rich we are revisiting this again. Moriori (talk) 02:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • no to infobox clutter with inapplicable fields. - üser:Altenmann >t 03:14, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes where not having a religious affiliation is an important characteristic of the private school, or in national or regional contexts where it is a well-defined characteristic of many private schools. Per my comments below.--Carwil (talk) 03:52, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No per Gadfium, but what I really would like to see is the deprecation or elimination of this infobox field as unnecessary and potentially misleading. RivertorchFIREWATER 03:55, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No There is no reason to list something nonexistent as none. Such action would be moot and serves no practical purpose other than to add useless space to the server. If no religion is listed in the infobox, then users should be able to infer that the school has no religion. As other commenters pointed out, there are precedents (and I disagreed on the change, but my views have since changed) supporting removing religion=none from infoboxes to not create purposeless additions. Therefore, I oppose this change. Ueutyi (talk) 04:00, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No per NinjaRobotPirate. If the field isn't applicable it's removed or left blank. If a school's lack of affiliation were notable it can be mentioned in the article; it need not be covered in the infobox. Chris Troutman (talk) 08:38, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No This has been discussed already. As above, if a school's specific lack of affiliation is notable it can be mentioned in the article. Having a section in the infobox stating what something ISN'T makes exactly zero sense. Where would it end? Vyselink (talk) 09:28, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No Longstanding consensus for infobox fields is to leave blank in situations like this. Absence of a religious affiliation is not a religious affiliation. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:44, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No Unless the actual "non-affiliation with any religion" were somehow the primary purpose of the founding of the school, the "lack of official affiliation" is pretty much not salient. This opinion extends to any similar RfCs in future. Collect (talk) 11:59, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No. - "none" is no religion. Saying nothing tells me something. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:29, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No as with salary or height in infobox person, it doesn't need to be filled out unless it is applicable/relevant. Most public schools do not affiliate with a particular religion, so this should be left blank or removed. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 14:49, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Public schools are not at issue in this RfC. Most US private schools do affiliate with a religion (upwards of 65%) and those that do not are regularly recorded as not doing so in official statistics; see my comments below.--Carwil (talk) 17:26, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
But the RFC concerns infobox schools which covers both public and private. And some public schools can be religiously affiliated if the government deems so. I would see putting in "(see Religion section)" if the school was given a religious name (not associated with its location) and it has absolutely no affiliation with the religious group and for the "it's complicated" situations. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 01:05, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No, the value should only be present if it can be reliably sourced and the values applied consistently -- for example, assuming there are reliable sources, a value of "independent" should carry the same meaning such that it does not mean religious, but unaffiliated in some cases and secular in other cases. older ≠ wiser 15:17, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While I think that the "bald is not a hair color" argument is ridiculous, I don't see a need for this parameter in the case of schools. Schools that have religious affiliation tend to advertise this widely, so there's little chance of readers conflating non-religiously-affiliated schools with those whose affiliation was unknown to page authors. Daß Wölf 01:16, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose — Not all infobox fields should necessarily be entered, especially when the information is irrelevant. Real world example: Montreal used to have "Commission des écoles catholiques de Montréal". Those which were no longer Catholic were initially commonly labeled protestant, but today those public schools all fall under the neutral "Commission scolaire de Montréal", not "Commission seculaire" or "Commission non-confessionelle". In many parts of the modern world today, non-confessional schools are the norm and are uncontroversial, or the religious affiliation is only retained on traditional grounds in an otherwise secular system. Private confessional schools in this context are sometimes controversial (especially if the curriculum is non-standard), in these cases I find that it adds useful material to mention it. In any case, I would not mind if no infobox field existed at all for this; when it is relevant and notable, the article prose should discuss the topic anyway... —PaleoNeonate - 02:19, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
  • No, an absence does not need to be mentioned. However, if and only if, the school is specifically and officially declared as not having any religious affiliation this could be mentioned, but only with the support of a reliable source, and if the lack of affiliation is in some way noteworthy. This would require a section explaining the situation in the article. • • • Peter (Southwood) (talk): 08:06, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion (schools infobox)

Sorry to bring a detail of one template to the pump, but I feel it's necessary in order to have a proper discussion, for reasons there's no need to get into here. It's not an earth-shattering question, but the principle of rules being established via discussion and consensus is important, so let's see if we can have a reasoned discussion on the merits of the question.

So what you are probably going to see is an argument that's the matter has already been settled and further discussion is illegitimate. It's tedious and unimportant, so I'll hat it. You can read it if you want to.

Discussion of precedents

What you're probably going to see (at least I've seen it in the past, twice now) is a claim that there are four RfC discussions settle the question once and for all, and therefore re-examination of details and special cases is not only illegitimate but actually disruptive. So let's see:

  • Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 28#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion (21 April 2015) established that persons should not have "none", "atheist", "secular" etc. in in the religious field of their infoboxes. I haven't considered that matter don't have an opinion, but fine, and anyway this is moot, since the religion field was later removed, see below. Of course this has nothing to do with the question at hand. Private schools are different from individuals in significant ways and different information needs to be provided for them.
  • Template talk:Infobox country/Archive 11#RfC: Religion in infoboxes of nations (17 June 2015) established that nations should not have "none" or "atheist" etc. in the religious field of their infoboxes. I haven't considered that matter don't have an opinion, but this seems reasonable. Of course this has nothing to do with the question at hand. Private schools are different from nations in significant ways and different information needs to be provided for them.
  • Template talk:Infobox/Archive 11#RfC: Religion in infoboxes (31 December 2015) established that non-religions (the examples being "Agnostic, Antireligionist, Apatheist, Atheist, Communist, Ignosticist, Irreligion, Leninist, Marxist, NA, Non-practicing X, Nonbeliever, None, Nontheist, Raised as an X, Secularist, State atheism, Unknown") were not valid entries in the religion field for any infobox.
One problem with this is, this was made during a time when individuals had a religion field in their infoboxes (since removed, see below). The main thrust of the discussion focused on whether for individuals entries such as "Marxist" should be allowed for the religion field. The conclusion was "no" and this seems reasonable. Of course this has nothing to do with the question at hand. Private schools are different from individuals in significant ways and different information needs to be provided for them.
If you ignore the WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY policy and argue as you would in court, you can make the case that technically the RfC did propose "In all infoboxes... nonreligions should not be listed in the religion parameter" and "None" was included (along with "Non-practicing X" and "Nonbeliever" and "Raised as an X" and other values that clearly apply only to individuals) and so forth as an example of a proscribed value. This thus is the only one of the four discussion that could conceivably bear on the matter. But then... if we really wanted to ignore the WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY policy and argue as we would in court, we could point out that "no affiliation" is not one of the example proscribed field values, and use that instead of "none". But we're not in court and we don't go down that rabbit hole. Intent matters a great deal here, and so does actually trying to make an encyclopedia rather than standing on arcane matters of wording.
  • Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Religion in biographical infoboxes (24 March 2016) removed the "religion" field altogether from infoboxes for individuals. Seems sensible. The "religious" field for persons is a fraught, and there are enough people for whom the question is contentious and debatable that not having that field in infoboxes is perhaps best overall. Of course this has nothing to do with the question at hand. Private schools are different from individual persons in significant ways and different information needs
to be provided for them.

But none of that matters. Even if you accept the (extremely dubious IMO) proposition that most, or even any, participants in this 2015 discussion were intending to not allow the religious affiliation of schools to be described in a common-sense manner such as any other reference work would do, it is legitimate and reasonable to bring the question up for re-examination now in this venue, especially considering that we are looking at how to deal with an unintended side-effect.

What I would like to see is an argument on the merits rather than argument from authority. I mean, obviously, for individuals and nations religion can be a fraught and contentious question. For private schools, not so much. If St. Mark's Academy is a Catholic school, it's fairly straightforward. Usually it's pretty clear: it is or it isn't. And it's important. It's one of the first things you want to know about a school. It's part of the core identity and raison d'être for the school. And if a school is secular, that's important to know too. I can't see the sense of a policy "if it's Catholic, tell the reader right away. If it's Baptist or Jewish or Muslim, tell the reader that right away. But if it's nonaffiliated, well we mustn't tell the reader that; let's make her dig through the article to figure out whether or not it's a Catholic school" or whatever.

I'd like to see something along the lines of "Well, we should indeed denote the affiliation of religious private schools in the infobox, but not the affiliation status of non-affiliated private schools; avoiding giving the reader this information is a service to the reader and improves her experience because ___________". I'm generally curious as to what would go in the blank and am willing to be persuaded, but so far the only argument I've heard is "clear is not a color, and none is not an affiliation" which is IMO semantic pettifoggery rather than thinking about how to serve the reader, and I'd like to think that my fellow editors are capable of better than that. Herostratus (talk) 16:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Wow. How did you get from "Proposal: In all infoboxes in all Wikipedia articles, without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the Religion= parameter of the infobox." (Which comes from Template talk:Infobox/Archive 11#RfC: Religion in infoboxes -- An RfC that you conveniently forgot to list to "...not allow the religious affiliation of schools to be described in a common-sense manner such as any other reference work would do"? First of all, there is nothing "common sense" about calling a non-religion a religion, just as there is nothing "common sense" about calling not collecting stamps a hobby. Second, every one of the RfCs you cite specifically allows the religious affiliation (or lack thereof) to be described in the body of the article. So you have somehow turned "allows religious affiliation to be described" to (in your mind) "does not allow religious affiliation to be described" simply because the Wikipedia community decided that non-religions must be described in the body where there is room for explanations, subtle distinctions and citations, and not crammed into a single word in the infobox. It's as if you never read articles, only read infoboxes, and have concluded that if it isn't in the infobox it must not exist. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:37, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Heh. I didn't fail to list that discussion, it's right in the hatted "Discussion of precedents" material above. "Forgot" would OK (although erroneous), but with "conveniently forgot" you're insinuating something about my approach to discussions that's not accurate and I'd prefer you didn't do that. Herostratus (talk) 19:21, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
We do not, as a rule, list what something is is not in the infobox. We don't list "Affiliation = not affiliated with the Flat Earth Society." We don't list schools as being non-Sharia or non-Hebrew schools. Nor do we list them as not being based upon ships at sea as opposed to being land-based. We don't list them as not having a Pac-12 sport team, nor do we list them as being non-members of the Ivy League. In case you didn't notice, "No affiliation" is not a religion. "No affiliation" is the lack of any religion. Bald is not a hair color. Bald is the lack of any hair color. Off is not a TV channel. Off is the lack of any TV channel. Barefoot is not a shoe. Barefoot is the lack of any shoe. Silence is not a sound. Silence is the lack of any sound. Never is not a date. Never is the lack of any date. Clear is not a color. Clear is the lack of any color. Not collecting stamps is not a hobby. Not collecting stamps is the lack of any hobby. Thus we would never list "Hobbies = Not collecting stamps" in the infobox. If for some strange reason not collecting stamps is significant, then it should be covered in the body of the article, not by calling not collecting stamps a hobby in the infobox. --Guy Macon (talk) 18:21, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Nor do we have a one-track mind about what religion is. We are aware that bald is not a hair color and "off" is not a TV channel. We are in the business of providing information to the reader. We can point out to the reader that a school is secular. That is information. We should value the conveyance of information to the reader. It all depends on what the sources say, not the preconceptions concerning religion of a handful of editors in a policy discussion. Articles should be written by interested editors. On a case-by-case basis they should decide whether or not "Religion: none" belongs in an Infobox. The thing is that these discussions are so tedious that 99% of editors stay away. Bus stop (talk) 18:54, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Within the topic area of private schools, "non-denominational Christian" and "unaffiliated"/"independent"/"secular" schools are well established characteristics of schools. If sources and the schools themselves include this information, it should be a characteristic within Wikipedia. I would further suggest that religious affiliation of institutions is not the same as religion of individuals and that much of the reasoning attached to the original RfC doesn't apply here.--Carwil (talk) 19:59, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

On a peripheral note, it may be worth saying that there are private schools that are nominally affiliated with a particular religious group but are nonetheless entirely independent in their curiculum and their governance. It's unclear to me how such an instance could be accurately represented in a concise infobox field. This is one of the problems with trying to shoehorn complex information into infoboxes: sometimes the nuances get lost. RivertorchFIREWATER 00:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

It should not be "accurately represented in a concise infobox field." It should just be duly noted. You are describing the nuanced significance of religion. The problem here are our preconceptions. We should not let our preconceptions about religion get in the way of compiling information for an encyclopedia. Just because the school is "nominally affiliated with a particular religious group" is not a reason for us to assume for instance that objective rationality is shunned or that irrationality is promoted. At some point we are in the business of reporting the facts and bypassing the particular lenses through which we may personally view the world. Bus stop (talk) 01:10, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Including basic info in an info box doesn't require the negative; basic notation of what the school is without notation of what it is not seems to be the general practice, and there is no good reason to change it. The same arguments for "religion:none" could be applied to other parameters, and none of us want to see infoboxes with a long list of "none, none, none, none, none." Religion isn't a special case in this regard. If the school specifically states it is has some non-religious philosophy, that can be placed in the "type" parameter. Note also that there are plenty of schools articles with infoboxes that don't include religion even when religious affiliation is integral. If schools with religious affiliations often don't include a "religion" parameter, I can't see how it is helpful to complete that parameter when there is really nothing to be said. "None" tells us virtually nothing, it is far too general, and is virtually impossible to verify because a school doesn't need an overt religious affiliation to have some sort of philosophical color. Infobox values need to be more precise to be of any benefit. Jack N. Stock (talk) 02:33, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
@Bus stop: I was not "describing the nuanced significance of religion". I don't even understand what that means or how significance can be nuanced. What I described was a situation in which an institution has a theoretical affiliation with a larger institution while in practice operating independently. I made no statement about rationality or irrationality vis-à-vis religion or anything else, nor did I intend to. You have misconstrued my comment so thoroughly that I find myself wondering whether your reply is misplaced and was in response to someone else. RivertorchFIREWATER 14:55, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
@Rivertorch—we cannot accurately represent complex information in a concise Infobox field. This is a shortcoming of Infoboxes. But this is not news. This is commonly understood by everyone, including every reader. Bus stop (talk) 15:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Doubtful. I have a high opinion of many of readers, but not every one. Not even close. And it's pretty clear to mean that many Wikipedians don't understand it either, given the frequent and protracted battles waged over this field or that field. You're right, though, that it isn't news. It is a perennial issue that keeps cropping up in many contexts. This is largely because we are trying to put too much information into infoboxes instead of encouraging readers to read articles. In this case, a well-written article about a private school will specify in its lead section what affiliations, if any, the school has. Trying to summarize it in the infobox is unnecessary and may prove misleading. RivertorchFIREWATER 03:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • @Isacdaavid: You !voted yes for the exact same reason I !voted no. This RFC is not the place to tell our readers what they should and shouldn't be doing. We are trying to decide what editors should do based on what readers are doing, and I imagine most readers would assume that an article on an educational institution that makes no reference to religion anywhere is non-religious. Whether you think it is a good idea for them to make this assumption or not is another question entirely. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:07, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
"I object", "over ruled", "but I strenuously object" (sounds like something from a movie), and is not a good rationale for trying to ride a dead horse. "Wait, I have profound psychological reasoning why we should add information that is unsourced which would give a clear exception to OR, neutrality, or the five pillars".
I object to the fact that some editors seem to want to push an agenda, Wikipedia policies and guidelines be damned, broad community consensus be damned, or even clearly formed current consensus be damned, to keep a moot discussion alive. It has been, and so far still supported, that a field in an infobox, lacking any source for an exception, should remain blank and certainly should not contain misleading information that is not "provable" by sources. It does not matter if an editor, or a few, wish to argue, maybe because they are atheist, agnostic, or whatever other personal reasoning, against having the word "religion" included at all, and since getting it taken out failed--- lets argue allowing filling in the blank with original research because we want to argue an exception.
There can be absolutely no sensible argument, within any realm of common sense, to want to fill in "religion= none" just because someone is against any mention of religion. The "logical argument" is that if there is a religious parameter (certainly only allowed by continued consensus), and no source either way the field is left blank. It is a disservice to the reader and the organization to try to push "religion= none", or "religion= Not listed" or "religion= not listed": hat noting *Editors currently can find no mention from the school or reliable sources that can confirm any religious affiliation so "we" are listing it as "not listed" for that one-in-however-many-thousands of readers that may find it "likely to be of interest"..
Maybe the school might be actually concerned with education, not promoting religion at all, so didn't deem it necessary to approach the subject at all, welcoming any religious, non-religious, or even those not even liking anything religion, because the organization is concerned with education and not religion period.
If there is not sourcing to present information as fact, then surmising, conjecture, or plain original research placed in a parameter to placate any editor that does not like the parameter, is not valid reasoning, and is against very clear consensus, so it would seem good advice to drop the stick and stop beating the dead horse. I realize that will not happen as it is arguable that consensus can change, but after many attempts there is a point when picking the stick up, just to take one more swing at the dead horse, just proves there is an agenda against an established consensus by one or more, and maybe an attempt to try to wake up the dead horse to go for another ride. If there is sourcing, one way or the other, THEN use the parameter, if not, leave it blank. Bringing up something time and again, for what? hopes of eventual vote stacking?, helps how? Otr500 (talk) 08:42, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
So I take it that when your toilet backs up you prefer to call a plumber who just does plumbing, rather than a homeopathic shamanistic faith-healing plumber who will pray over your pipes? :) --Guy Macon (talk) 19:19, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
There is also a difference between non-denominational and non-religious. Schools may teach religion, but have no affiliation and may allow students with no religion. That becomes too complex for a one word description in the info-box. TFD (talk) 16:19, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
@Hijiri88: Far from showing it wrong, the concerns you bring in seem to reinforce my reasoning. I didn't vote with educating readers in mind. Unlike you, I do not try to imagine a priori what most of them will think when the "religion =" field is missing. The whole point was to point to bad reasoning from the editors' part (or at least from those who go about voting against making grandiose claims on what an empty field entails). If recommending against using "religion = none" bears no empirical impact on what readers will think of the school in question then this RFC is over-regulating. On the other hand, if "religion = none" does help some cautious readers come to know that the school's religious affiliation isn't merely unaddressed by the article, and doesn't have an impact on changing the opinion of your kind of readers with super inferential capabilities, then we have all the more reasons to not recommend against using the field in this way. By the way, how come the purpose of regulating what editors should do in response to average reader behaviour isn't trying to steer readers in one direction or another, when most voters "against" explain that the reason they are doing so is because readers should assume no mention to religion equals no religious affiliation? You have a long way to go explaining all those "no" voters that this isn't the place to decide what readers should do. --isacdaavid 18:26, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
@Isacdaavid: Drop the tone. It's unbecoming, and the fact that you chose to ping me indicates that you are more interested in trolling than actually addressing my concerns. I !voted based on the proposal itself, not what other !voters had done, as can be seen from the fact that it took me a while before I called GM out on his flawed rationale. And I simply can't find the "no" !votes you are referring to; most of them seem to be assuming that editors will try to fill in the infobox parameter with "none", which is a violation of NOR; it has nothing to do with making assumptions about what our readers will think if there is no religion parameter. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 20:57, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
What would you put in the box for a school that has no religious affiliation, but begins each day with prayers, religious hymns and Bible readings, yet allows students to not pray or sing if they choose? That was the standard practice for almost all non-denominational schools, public and private in Ontario. TFD (talk) 19:42, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
That was true of my public school in Virginia. What I would call it (as did the SCOTUS) is unconstitutional. Objective3000 (talk) 21:54, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
While SCOTUS has deemed prayer in school unconstitutional in a public school... it is not unconstitutional in a private school. The school I attended (a K-9 private school for boys in New York City) is unaffiliated with any religious denomination... the students come from many faiths... and yet they say a prayer at morning assembly each day. (The prayers are selected from multiple faiths... Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, etc). If a parent objects, they are free to withdraw their child from the school, and send them to some other school where the child will not be exposed to prayer. Blueboar (talk) 23:19, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
Pity that. Objective3000 (talk) 23:53, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

A wider view

It seems extremely clear to me that above there are two extremely persuasive arguments.

  1. In many cases schools have stated ("sourced") religious affiliations ("Church of England", "Non-denominational Christian", etc etc), and these can be noted in the infobox, but there are also stated affiliations such as "Secular", "Non-religious", "Boy Scouts" (perhaps), or even "Atheist". It is nonconstructive not to allow these to be shown exactly when they are not to do with positing a deity (or anything else traditionally regarded as a "religion").
  2. There is an established principle of not allowing "None" for "Religion" in (biographical) infoboxes; the "Bald is not a hair colour" argument.

These principles collide, because the affiliation (or philosophy if you like) of the school is being shown under "religion", and I think this is the source of the problem. Of course sometimes a religious label is convenient, but very often not. For example, a school might be run by a religious organisation as a secular school (there is much confusion above about "secular" above: it does not mean "not having a religion", it means "whether or not you have a religion you wish education to be carried out independently of religious teaching"). More generally, of course, sticking a "Religion" label on almost anything is I think a bad idea, because it perpetuates the falsehood that "everyone" must (or really ought to) have one.

So I suggest the "Religion" label should be replaced with a "Philosophy" or "Affiliation" or similar one, which can accommodate the stated policy of the school. Note also a huge source of confusion above: obviously the infobox should not have any entries equivalent to "Did not answer" or "We do not know"; only a stated and demonstrated policy of the school should appear. Imaginatorium (talk) 11:43, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

"Affiliation" is already a parameter in the schools infobox (e.g., Salwan public school), but that doesn't solve the problem of editors insisting that "none" is an affiliation as well as a religion. Jack N. Stock (talk) 13:16, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree that the underlying problem is that the parameter "Religion" is not really appropriate when talking about organizations (like schools). That parameter is more appropriate for individuals.
However, "Affiliation" does not work either... since that parameter is already being used to indicate which educational affiliations the school belongs to (accrediting organizations - Such as the National Association of Independent Schools), or sports affiliations (such as the Ivy League).
When we need to indicate a tie to a particular denomination or religion, I think the more accurate parameter would be: "Religious Affiliation"... and in that parameter, having "none" (or "no affiliation") is more appropriate. Blueboar (talk) 17:09, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
The SCOTUS is now going to look at whether a wedding cake shop can refuse to serve customers based on religion. Should we add a religion parameter to stores and insist that religion:none is in all store articles that don’t have religious rules? Why would we add :none to irrelevant parameters in infoboxes? The {{Infobox school}} template has 202 parameters. Should we fill in :none in all parms that don’t apply? This RfC is in deep snow territory and should be closed. Objective3000 (talk) 22:13, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

National or regional context

The following comments are particular to the United States, but I suspect that other countries or regions may follow this pattern. In the United States, religious affiliation and religious non-affiliation are among the basic characteristics of private schools. Many non-religious (as well as non-denominational schools) self-identify as such in their definition of themselves. Moreover, private school associations, public compilations of data on education, and private data sources on education all routinely use typologies including "non-religious" or "nonsectarian" or "not affiliated" to characterize individual schools. These include:

  • Council for American Private Education, an umbrella organization, defines "types of private schools" according to membership in a series of religiously affiliated associations, as well as two pedagogical associations (Montessori and Waldorf), and the National Association of Independent Schools, which requires financial independence from any church or congregation.
  • The governmental National Center for Education Statistics conducts regular surveys on private education (here is the 2013-14 report). The very first reported characteristic in the report is "a religious orientation or purpose." It defines this orientation or purpose as a "Private school typology," a cluster of nine types listed in Table 1. This means that a governmental survey regularly assigns schools to categories including "other religious"-but-"unaffiliated" and "nonsectarian." This affiliation category can be looked up for any school via this tool.

In short, "nonsectarian" and "independent" (the latter includes some nondenominational but religious schools) are well-defined and readily identifiable aspects of private schools in the United States. Referencing this material is generally regarded as relevant and as a key characteristic of US private schools. Local evidence strongly indicates that this is a relevant characteristic of private schools in the United States, which is simply not comparable to the claim that religion is a relevant characteristic of all people.--Carwil (talk) 04:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Which is why I think changing the parameter title to "Religious affiliation", (instead of "Religion") is appropriate. This would, I think, resolve this debate. Saying that an independent private school is "independent" is an accurate and meaningful way to describe schools that have no religious affiliation. Blueboar (talk) 10:39, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Except the implication of a value of "independent" in a field named religious affiliation is ambiguous. Does it mean the school has a religious nature but is independent of any formal denominational affiliation or does it mean it is non-religious? older ≠ wiser 15:12, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
"Independent" and "nonsectarian" are two different parameters, despite their overlap. The NCES uses two fields: Affiliation (e.g. Roman Catholic, nonsectarian) and Associations (e.g., National Association of Independent Schools). I strongly aree that including both of these parameters in an infobox is appropriate.--Carwil (talk) 17:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps so, but that is only one source and no guarantee that various sources will use the terms in the same way. And even if separate fields are provided in the infobox with copious and explicit annotations, there is no guarantee that they will be used consistently. older ≠ wiser 18:05, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Call for snow close

At 8 Yes, 48 No, the requirements of WP:SNOW have been met, and the Wikipedia community has decided, once again, that without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the 'Religion=' parameter of the infobox on any article anywhere on Wikipedia. -Guy Macon (talk) 06:42, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't see a reason it can not be closed. Otr500 (talk) 09:56, 28 June 2017 (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.

I've been off doing other things but how has this been snow closed? Guy Macon has extreme bias in this case (and anything to with religion=none). Counting the no vs yes is not how consensus is reached. Many of the no's above are actually yes in some cases (eg Od Mishehu, Dicklyon, Gnangarra, etc). Your conclusion above is wrong, with people being again "none" rather than all non-religions. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk 16:21, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree that Guy Macon should not have closed the RfC. Nor is his summary accurate, especially the "without exception" part. This RfC deserves a more thorough close by a non-biased, uninvolved editor. ElKevbo (talk) 16:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Next time, try actually reading the material you are complaining about. I did not close it, because that would have been inappropriate. I called for a snow close, which anyone is free to do, and Softlavender snow closed it. You are free to challenge that close; the proper way to do that is to first ask Softlavender to reconsider on their talk page and if that doesn't work to file a request that the close be reviewed at WP:AN. It won't be overturned, but you can try.
"Without exception" comes from the RfC at Template talk:Infobox/Archive 11#RfC: Religion in infoboxes: "Without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the 'Religion=' parameter of the infobox". You are not required to agree with that RfC but you are required to abide by it. If you want to attempt to overturn the result of that RfC, feel free to post yet another RfC. The result will be the same, but you can try.
Be aware that the Wikipedia community is starting to show impatience with these continued attempts to go against consensus and list nonreligions in the 'Religion=' parameter of infoboxes. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:36, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

"Ethnicity" on templates

Last year there was a discussion that removed "religion", and "ethnicity" from infoboxes all being centered on the U.S. American politician Bernie Sanders, and the people "reached consensus" (the "strongest possible oppose" "votes"were all literally just different people repeating the same arguments that either ethnicity was always irrelevant, or that "it's hard to define"), despite there being several counter-arguments that explained that in many people's infoboxes it was needed because simply placing one's citizenship wouldn't be enough (it's like saying that all notable Jews that died 💀 during the shoah were just "Germans"), but the same repeated arguments keptpersisting. Over that year I've seen numerousarticles about E.G. Austro-Hungarians or Yugoslavians where the individual's ethnicity mattered that look now like a complete mess.

The rules should've been amended that it should be only mentioned if relevant to the individual's circumstances (like many have pointed out, for example an Iraqi Kurd being "a Kurdish national" makes no sense, as It's now replaced by "nationality"), my other annoyance comes from replacing it with "Nationality", in general English the word "nationality" means citizenship, and "a nation" is often a geographical and political entity, I've seen several ethnic Italians or various other people that have lived centuries before Italy was even a thing as "Nationality = Italian", that makes no sense, for many historical people their ethnicity could play a lot into who they were, and oversimplifying it by saying "it's hard to define, therefore don't use it", or "it's never relevant" only take into account modern perspectives, and yes, modern taboos. This violates the WP:NPOV, if we write about historical figures we shouldn't treat them like "living people".

42.112.158.179 (talk) 05:34, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

I think you've misrepresented the consensus in your argument above. The primary issue is that discussions of ethnicity require some context, and a single-word mention in an infobox does not provide the necessary context. As an aside, let such matters go. Infoboxes are a minor issue anyways. Focus on the text of the article, where ethnicity can be explained in detail. --Jayron32 05:49, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
42.112.158.179 misstates the result of the RfC(s). We didn't "remove 'religion' from infoboxes".
There were actually three RfCs, and they all dealt with listing non-religions such as "none", "atheist", "secular" and variants thereof in the "religion=" field of the infobox. All three RfCs specifically allowed such information to be added to the body of the article, subject to our usual sourcing rules, and all three RfCs specifically allowed listing actual religions in infoboxes.
15 June 2015 RfC: Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 28#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion
This RfC had a clear consensus for removing the religion parameter from the infobox for individuals (living, deceased, and fictional), groups, schools, institutions, and political parties that have no religion, but that RfC was determined by the closing administrator to not apply to nations.
17 June 2015 RfC:: Template talk:Infobox country/Archive 11#RfC: Religion in infoboxes of nations
This RfC had a clear consensus for removing the religion parameter for countries, nations, states, regions, etc., all of which were determined to not have religions.
31 December 2015 RfC: Template talk:Infobox/Archive 11#RfC: Religion in infoboxes.
This RfC was a response to certain individuals insisting that the previous RfCs did not apply to their favorite pages (schools, political parties, sports teams, computer operating systems, organized crime gangs...) and had a clear consensus that in all all infoboxes in all Wikipedia articles, without exception, nonreligions should not be listed in the "Religion=" parameter of the infobox.
It took a lot of effort, but we finally had a community decision that "religion=atheist" and "religion=agnostic" would no longer be allowed. This should not have been an issue, because...
"Atheist" is not a religion. Atheism is the lack of any religion. "Agnostic" is not a religion. Agnosticism is the lack of any religion. Bald is not a hair color. Bald is the lack of any hair color. Off is not a TV channel. Off is the lack of any TV channel. Barefoot is not a shoe. Barefoot is the lack of any shoe. Silence is not a sound. Silence is the lack of any sound. Never is not a date. Never is the lack of a date. Clear is not a color. Clear is the lack of a color. Not collecting stamps is not a hobby. Not collecting stamps is the lack of a hobby. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:41, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
This, a million times this. Calling atheism a religion shows a complete lack of understanding of what it even is, and is offensive to atheists. Beeblebrox (talk) 00:42, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
With regard to religion, I believe the OP is referring to a fourth RfC, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 126#RfC: Religion in biographical infoboxes, closed on 11 April 2016 with consensus to remove the religion parameter from Infobox person. --Worldbruce (talk) 01:24, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Ah. I had missed that one. Companion RfC: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 127#RfC: Ethnicity in infoboxes.
So we have an overwhelming consensus to remove the religion= and denomination= parameters from Infobox person and against adding an ethnicity parameter to infoboxes (that RfC doesn't specify what kind of infoboxes).
Based upon my experience with with the three RfCs it took to finally stop certain editors from calling atheism a religion in the infobox, in my opinion the two RfCs I just listed will not prevent Wikilawyering ("The RfC didn't say that I can't add religion to the infobox at Rwanda and Pikachu. It says "person"). ("The RfC says 'no ethnicity parameter in infoboxes', so I am removing the ethnic_groups = parameter from Japan"). --Guy Macon (talk) 17:29, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
Wikilawyering can be dealt with as it arises. No RfC gets rid of all of it. Baby steps, baby steps. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Atheism is a religion. Atheism implies a lack of belief in gods, while "religion" refers broadly to beliefs about the supernatural that include animism, which deals with spirits rather than gods, Daoism, which in its purest essence e.g. Laozi concerns the "way" in which things work, rather than deities, and Scientology, which makes statements about souls ("thetas") but doesn't postulate anything higher-level than a really old war between crazy bureaucrats. Atheism implies thoughts about how things came into existence which supposes that the force(s) that created the Mandelbrot set and cockroaches are non-conscious; this is a specific religious philosophy.
Now as to all these parameters... how about lumping them all into one term, "Demographics:"? That way, (a) we don't have to dance on the head of a pin over what atheism is, (b) we don't have so much compulsion to include every aspect when it's stuff we may be unsure about or, more likely, is just too hard to put in a tiny box on a form, and (c) we can be really precise about the Pope being Christian (Roman Catholic) while we can be a bit vaguer about whether Muhammad was a Sunni or a Shi'ite. Wnt (talk) 16:58, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby. Atheism is a religion like silence is a language. Atheism is a religion like barefoot is a shoe. Atheism is a religion like off is a TV channel. Atheism is a religion like never is a date. Atheism is a religion like transparent is a color. Atheism is a religion like bald is a hair color. Atheism is a religion like total vacuum is matter. Pretending that atheists might not reject animism as if they only reject theism goes against the common (if not technically accurate) use of the term, which is "rejecting all religions and other forms of the supernatural" --Guy Macon (talk) 03:28, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
"Religion" may by an abbreviation for "religious position". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:05, 13 June 2017 (UTC).
"Atheism is just another religion! You need to have faith to not believe in God!!" is an extremely popular argument among fundamentalist Christians, and is vigorously denied by multiple annoyed atheists.[14][15][16] We don't call people names created by their enemies that they deny. We don't call abortion opponents "anti-choice". We don't call those who oppose them "anti-life". And we don't call atheism a religion. This was settled by the consensus of multiple RfCs. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:13, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
@Guy Macon: Atheism is a religion like not believing in phlogiston is a scientific position. Atheism is a religion like Independent is a political affiliation. Atheism is a religion like asexual is a sexual orientation. Atheism is a religion like Single is a marital status. Wnt (talk) 00:50, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that by consensus it is preferable to avoid contentious infobox fields for this, which are invitations to fill them for article writers. Where religious affiliation or ethnicity is a particularily important topic in relation to a BLP, there is usually enough important material to have an article subsection about it, or at least a mention in the prose. In other cases, it's something that is often contentious and is better left out. I don't understand why this thread is still open... —PaleoNeonate - 08:26, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

"Religion: atheism" says nothing about whether atheism is a religion or not. There are a bunch of concepts that fall under the general rubric of religion, atheism being one of them. If we were discussing a sentence in an article reading "Atheism is a religion", I would say that sentence was incorrect. But we are not discussing a sentence. We are discussing a word pairing, which is not a sentence, in which an entirely appropriate concept is placed after the word "Religion". Bus stop (talk) 01:54, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
The infobox could also say "Religion: none" if the subject is known to follow no religion. Jack N. Stock (talk) 03:34, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
Yes, it could. These are editorial decisions that should take place on a case-by-case basis and by the limited group of editors trying to develop a given article. Yes, "Religion: none" is perfectly acceptable, in my opinion, but we should not be deciding this at the level of project-wide policy applicable to all articles. Bus stop (talk) 14:27, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree. Jack N. Stock (talk) 04:03, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
The three of you are allowed to disagree with the result of an RfC, and you are allowed to post another RfC to see if the consensus has changed or whether you have an argument that will change minds, but you are required to abide by the result of the RfC whether you agree with it or not. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:48, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
In short, some people consider the use of the word in a religion description appropriate, some not. Many but not all people who very strongly & publicly consider themselves atheists would not be willing to state it formally as a religion, if only to discourage people from asking about religion at all, or because they think the entire concept area does not apply to them. The only way to avoid disputes between camps is not to use it at all in this manner. DGG ( talk ) 14:43, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
Ultimately this is a MOS:IDENTITY and WP:ABOUTSELF matter. If atheists themselves say they have no religion and object to the label there is no difference between a WP editor forcing it on them and another WP editor forcing "really is a man" on a transwoman. But this entire discussion is just rehash anyway. We've had multiple RfCs on it with the same result, and consensus has not changed, nor is it likely to.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Re: Wnt's question (way up there, above an out-dent), "how about lumping them all into one term, 'Demographics:'?" — No, "demographics" is something that pertains to a region or jurisdiction. I do not have any demographics, since no one lives inside me and I'm not a place. Some would assign me to various demographic groups, and I may or may not agree with their viewpoint, which will differ from categorizer to categorizer and their subjective lenses for sorting people.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

FYI
 – Pointer to related ongoing discussion:

Please see Template talk:Infobox officeholder#Religion in officeholder infoboxes.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Cease using Rotten Tomatoes in film articles

I know next to nothing about Wikipedia policies and how they work, and, from what I understand, the closed-shop attitude of many users therefore means that my proposal may well be dismissed out of hand, which is fine. This problem is likely to be exacerbated by the fact that I do not have any awareness of what policies currently support the current tendency to which I am objecting. Nevertheless, I believe it should at least be stated: it is detrimental to the encyclopedia, to cinema, and to culture in general that film articles on Wikipedia almost universally refer to the "Rotten Tomatoes" score for a film. This score, composed of a sum of thumbs up and thumbs down, represents the absolute nadir of critique. It indicates nothing of significance or importance about a movie, and only contributes to the general lowering of critical capacities, and probably to film producers being even further encouraged to worry about nothing except the lowest common denominator opinion. Use of this score represents, to me, nothing but the laziest approach to composing encyclopedic articles on cinema. In my view, whatever policies or guidelines support the constant reference to this website should be changed to prevent this use, and articles that currently refer to this "score" should be edited to no longer do so. Perhaps this question has already been debated and decided upon (I would have no idea where that debate may have taken place), but if so, it is time to revisit it: Rotten Tomatoes really is something rotten in the heart of Wikipedia's film pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.194.22.210 (talk) 04:37, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Kirk Cameron, for your input. It is nice to see a filmmaker of your caliber editing Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:13, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
Hmm... Although I happen to disagree with you, I think that it is best to provide context to things, and that there shouldn't just be a section saying "It was rated highly by critics" or something like that. I do think that stuff like that should be removed, but I think that if there was any context, like "It was rated highly by critics, especially for its score [music, in this case]" then it should probably be good. I do try and do stuff like this when writing the articles I write (in my case, I write about Japanese politicians, and I try to give the reader an idea of some of their main policies). But, it would almost certainly be discouraged for one to remove stuff like this wholesale—the best method would to try and fix it and context to the issues. I think that some information which could be helpful is better than none. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 14:48, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
We have a noticeboard to discuss and determine if sources can be used, the Reliable Sources Noticeboard (WP:RSN). I don't personally have an opinion about using Rotten Tomatoes or not. Thank you for your comment, —PaleoNeonate· 17:53, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
This isn't a debate on how reliable the source is, it is a debate on how much information is actually passed along by the score. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 18:23, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
In my experience with film articles, review aggregators like RT and Metacritic are used for a quick summary of critical reception before the article launches into a round-up of specific reviews and critiques. Well-written articles certainly don't rely on the aggregate score alone. Since this discussion relates to film articles, WT:FILM is probably the best place for it. For more info on how film articles are structured, see MOS:FILM (especially the bit on critical response). For an essay on review aggregators, see WP:ROTTEN. clpo13(talk) 18:05, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

The problem is that you are bringing your own biases to Wikipedia. Whether you think it's impacting film criticism or box office performance should not be a reason to avoid using the site. Wikipedia is, ideally at least, about undeniable facts. The fact of the matter is that the site, and Metacritic, are viewed as viable metrics by the vast majority of the general public at large. That is why we use them, not necessarily because we agree or disagree with it on a personal level. --Deathawk (talk) 04:15, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

If I may interject: Speak for yourself. I and many people I know ignore RT and MC as populist, lowest-common-denominator noise that rarely reflect how we would assess a film ourselves.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:04, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
Maybe we could aim a little higher than "majority of the general public at large". In most areas, the goal is to reflect what academic or expert sources say, no matter what the general public at large believes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:15, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
The Rotten Tomatoes scores are by movie critics who would be considered experts in their field. Secondly there is no good reason to not have this score other than someone stating that "I don't like this". It provides data that is not easily replicated elsewhere. --Deathawk (talk) 06:19, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
This very website is a product of the general public at large. Dismissing scores from public barometer sites such as Rotten Tomatoes, MetaCritic, and Alexa is to dismiss Wikipedia itself. Therefore, this conversation is self-destructive. Robert The Rebuilder (talk) 12:01, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
"The Rotten Tomatoes scores are by movie critics who would be considered experts in their field" is false twice over. First, RT scores are an aggregation; the scores are not written by movie critics. The original, long-form reviews published in other sites and publications are what they write, and the scores they individually assign ("four stars", etc.) are aggregated and averaged by RT (and MetaCritic). RT and MC are tertiary sources. Second, movie critics are not experts in their fields and reliable sources in the same way that a high-reputation physicist is in the field of physics. Movie, book, etc., reviews are nothing but a subjective opinion, no matter who wrote them. There is no science or fact to a rating, just a feeling and reaction generated by the reviewer's individual experiences and biases. (And in the aggregate they also reflect a bias, since professional reviewers are culturally rather homogenous.) There is no such thing as a reliable source that a movie is good, that a novel is unusually original, that a single is hard-hitting and catchy, etc. Any such statements must be attributed as specific reviewers' opinions. A review is always and by definition a primary source (as is any other opinion piece, such as a tutorial/how-to, advice column, editorial, or op-ed) even if it's in a publication, such as a newspaper, that often provides secondary source material in the form of regular journalism. (There's a different kind of review in some publications that is just an objective summary of a usually nonfiction work's content and scope and the background(s) of its author(s); this is a tertiary source, like any other kind of abstract, summary, or digest. Another thing termed a "review" is an academic literature review, which is not related to either of those things, but is an overview of the current state of research into a particular matter; this is a secondary source.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:58, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

There's no "closed-shop attitude" here at all; in fact, the opposite. Any and all ideas, suggested by anybody, may have consideration. Prefacing your topic with a slight on the editors is not such a kind thing to do, especially when they've created a resource you obviously use and value. Anyway, as for your comment, you are right that a film's article is better when its critique section explores the film merits (or lack) in prose. You are more than welcome to help improve the current state of affairs by adding such material, supported by reliable sources, to those film articles you feel could be improved. As for Rotten Tomatoes, I think you are confused over what it is. It is not a "critique" as you call it. It is an aggregate scoring based on actual reviews/critiques. It is just one metric to judge how a film was received by critics. No more, no less. A review and a meta review (aka aggregate review) serve different purposes. If you believe in statistics, the Rotten Tomato score actually means more than an individual review as the unexpected deviation of an average from the "true mean" is smaller than the expected deviation of an individual review from the true mean. I've read quite a few comments by Hollywood directors and actors upset by Rotten Tomatoes, saying that the low Rotten Tomato score hurt their box office take. Our policy is to be neutral. Wikipedia's articles are not to protect investors return on investment, or to ensure a sequel gets made, or that a new franchise hits the ground running. Its goal is to have encyclopedic coverage that is neutral. This includes valid critical and audience reviews and summaries about them without giving undue weight. In most cases, those filmmakers and industry insiders getting upset at Rotten Tomatoes have really misplaced their ire. They should be upset that they've made a bad movie rather than at Rotten Tomates for gathering critical opinion. Jason Quinn (talk) 07:50, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Protologisms

I have noticed that on AfD discussions, you frequently have editors whose defintion of the term neologism could more aptly be described as a protologism. Such incorrect semantics could be solved by clarifying the difference at wp:neo or MOS:NEO. Could someone more experienced than myself do this please? 80.249.56.85 (talk) 16:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Protologisms are a subset of neologisms. So while not all neologisms are protologisms, all protologisms are neologisms. In other words... I am not sure that the semantics are incorrect. Blueboar (talk) 17:13, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Civillian attack (terrorism) notability / standalone article policy

I think we should be better at defining the policy about when a civilian attack is notable and when not. When should they be mentioned on a list and when are they big enough to get a standalone article? We are seeing a lot of terrorism, should every attack get an article? At least I got a feeling that it is a very controversial subject on Wikipedia with no real policy. And some articles are proposed for deletion, others aren't. It would be nice to have a policy on that here on Wikipedia.--Rævhuld (talk) 21:57, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

We already have a policy—WP:GNG. If something has enough coverage and enough effect, then it is big enough to get its own article. RileyBugz会話投稿記録 21:58, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia's coverage of current events publicized in readily available e-media will obviously be more thorough at first than its coverage of things that people had to write books about, which now editors have to go out and find. That said, our coverage of current events moves on with the times, while those books sit on library shelves waiting for a volunteer editor to happen across them in five years or twenty... especially if they all eventually end up available for interlibrary loan in some decent arrangement like Sci-Hub. For this reason, we should not feel bad that Wikipedia is covering some modern stuff "unfairly" often - and we should encourage as many editors as are interested to strike while the iron is hot, even when the topic matter is fairly trivial, before all these publications linkrot away and the research becomes a hundred times more difficult. Wnt (talk) 20:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Notability for electronic devices

Moved from User talk:Mz7 § Notability for mobile phones

Hi @Kudpung, Oshwah, and Primefac: and Mz7.
Recently, there are way too many articles being created for mobile phones. User talk:Usernamekiran/Archives/2017/June#Notability. A perfect example for WP:NEE WP:ENN. I can come up with a draft for an essay for "Notability guidelines for electronic devices". But I dont know what happens to that draft later lol. I mean, I know there would be a discussion, many contributions from other editors, and a consensus before making it an actual essay/guideline. I request suggestion/guidance from you guys. —usernamekiran(talk) 23:16, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

There are also way too many articles about footballers (soccer players) based on a single mention in a team's website. For some reason Wikipedia considers them more important than scientists and university professors who have to jump through a whole row of hoops before they are allowed an article. I don't think there's much you can do about phones as long as they meet WP:GNG and are not blatantly promotional (generally phone manufacturers are so big they don't need extra advertising in Wikipedia). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:01, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
@Kudpung: yes. I also noticed the same thing about football clubs. I have no idea about football (never played, never watched, dont understand), so i usually skip these articles. And WP:NACADEMICS always surprised me. I first came across this when I saw an article of an actress in AfD. She has an article in encyclopaedia only because she has minor appearances in few "notable films". And a parson who has studied, and worked hard; has done reasearch, has taught students cant have an article.
These days, there are websites that have pages for a mobile as soon as it is announced/launched. It doesnt matter how trivial that mobile is going to be. There are websites for reviews, and for "unboxing gadgets". So these gadgets get mentioned a lot no matter how "non notable" they are. Currently, for these new articles everybody just looks for current mentions. Nobody thinks about "notability is permanent" or WP:DEGRADE. If this goes on like the way it is, soon wikipedia will become brochure for electronic gadgets. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Usernamekiran (talk • contribs) 06:55, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
To return to your original question - you are welcome to create an essay regarding notability of electronics. I think once it's done I'd get input from WP:TELECOM and maybe a few other projects in the Science and Technology space. They'll be able to give other thoughts, input, advice, and if there's enough support it can be converted into a formal guideline (though I'll be honest, I'm not sure if an RFC would be required for that). I support this venture. Good luck! Primefac (talk) 12:43, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
@Usernamekiran: I'm afraid I have to agree with Kudpung. In most cases a subject has to either pass a subject-specific notability guideline or the general notability guideline. If all we have currently for electronic devices is the GNG, and too many articles about phones are being created, I'm not sure creating an SNG is the proper way to go, since editors can argue that the subjects still pass GNG. Consider instead starting a centralized discussion about what level of coverage should justify a phone article, given the guidelines we already have, similar to discussions like Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 133#RfC on secondary school notability or the discussion that ended the Wikipedia:Pokémon test. What kind of criteria were you thinking a new Wikipedia:Notability (electronic devices) should have? Mz7 (talk) 13:19, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
To put it in precise words, "devices that have created an impact on market/society, are mentioned in the sources which are not related to technology itself (including websites of reviews, and technical specifications). They should be mentioned in other sources (news?). The devices should have something different/revolutionary or something notable." We can also add a guideline/case for number of consumers. That is, even if the mobile doesnt have anything different/revolutionary feature, if it made an impact on market/society like Nokia 1100 did.
Most of the recntly created articles have issues with WP:MILL, WP:ENN, and WP:SIGCOV. I am still thinking about the wording though. This comment uses words very loosely. —usernamekiran(talk) 13:40, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Kudpung, Oshwah, and Primefac: and Mz7.

I created a very preliminary draft for the essay at User:Usernamekiran/sandbox2. Kindly let me know what you think of it. I haven't added a declaration stating its just an essay and not a guideline. Also, there are some inline notes/comments. Your feedback is much appreciated. Thanks. —usernamekiran(talk) 21:04, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi, and sorry for the late response here. My first thought here is that putting the idea out there that having notability requirements for electronics wouldn't be a bad idea. Do keep in mind that the general notability guidelines exist and are guidelines that all articles must meet, but if you feel that further guidelines need to be written specifically for this area (such as "Wikipedia:Notability (electronics)"), I'm open to seeing what the reason behind it is, as well as what proposals are made. ~Oshwah~(talk) (contribs) 04:29, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi everybody. Mz7, and Primefac; I made some changes to the draft essay.
@Oshwah: I am not stuck on making it "solid criteria" (rule?), but I think there should be an essay for sure. I mean, a loose guideline. An essay will be able to discuss/explain the already established WP:GNG in context to the devices. Its just that, without this explaining and coverage on internet, there are lots of articles being created for every mobile being introduced recently. This is also spreading to other electronic devices gradually. If this isnt taken care of soon, then we would have an article each for every model of 5.1 home theatre system manufactured by a famous company like Sony or Yamaha. —usernamekiran(talk) 19:45, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
  • As mentioned in the discussion above, the essay is still under construction. I am not sure if it would be made into a wikipedia policy; but the situation is calling it for sure. I would like opinions from other editors. Thanks a lot for the consideration. Best, —usernamekiran(talk) 02:15, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Create/Treat as an essay - Since the NSPORTS "inclusivity" discussion declared GNG (though not a hard-and-fast rule) neither replaced nor superseded by SNG, why need a specific guideline on notability of mobile phones? Even if a mobile phone fails GNG, it can meet other portions of WP:Notability, WP:Verifiability and/or WP:Deletion policy's alternatives section. However, sometimes a "notable" phone would not guarantee a stand-alone article. Treating a page about notabilities of such phones as an essay would be fine, but as a guideline? Thanks, but no thanks. --George Ho (talk) 02:49, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
The chances of it being adopted as a guideline are very low, and even if it did become a guideline, it would still be subordinate to the very well established guidelines such as GNG. I wouldn't use too much time on this. See Wikipedia:Time management. Jack N. Stock (talk) 03:18, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • I cannot really see a problem here. But an essay could recommend the articles that should include the information if a standalone phone/device article is not warranted. The degree of granularity can be included, because we probably don't want separate articles on the white and black models for example. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:20, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I would love to see all the specialty notability guidelines trashed. Their biggest effect comes from intentional misreading, when they are used to vote down GNG-worthy articles. The other effect - when read properly, supporting articles based on insufficient sources - is also dubious. I think that in place of them all, we should have just one provision to add to GNG:
If a topic has not been shown to be independently notable under this guideline, it may nonetheless be presumed notable if the following all apply:
a) It is a member of a well-defined, enumerated set of topics. (such as all American Olympics participants in 2016, all Mokia cell phone models, all U.S. military bases)
b) Multiple references exist that describe this specific overall set of topics, and mention the topic concerned in sufficient detail to be used as sources for an article. (like two articles about the American Olympics participants in 2016, or all the Mokia cell phone lineup)
c) Most of the topics in the enumerated set are determined to be notable by Wikipedia guidelines (like you actually have multiple articles about the Mokia 100, and the same for the Mokia 102 and 103, but you can't find articles specifically about the 101)
Wnt (talk) 22:34, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Policy about reaction articles

Should a reaction article get a standalone article? On some terrorist incident articles, the reactions by other countries and other world leaders got a standalone article. I think that is a little bit too much. Especially because they didn't stated anything really new or interesting. It was just about which country brought its condolences with which words.--Rævhuld (talk) 22:00, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to nominate those articles at AFD with a recommendation to merge into the primary article about the incident. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 22:50, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Reaction sections are one of those things that plague recent events; yes it is easy to proseline one country's reaction per line, but that really doesn't help. Reactions that are just condolences should be removed or grouped into a catchall, and usually after you do that, you'll find no need for a standalone page. (For example, I'm surprised but glad to see that we don't have a separate page for reactions to the Boston Marathon bombing, that's the type of reaction section we want to see, summarizing rather than itemizing ). --MASEM (t) 23:01, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
Summarization is a good practice for any part of an article on an event... be it in the description of the event itself ... or the reaction to it. Blueboar (talk) 14:01, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain we had a recent RFC on reaction sections and articles generally but it's not jumping out in a search. Anyone else? --Izno (talk) 12:00, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
@Izno: Are you thinking of Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 127#Proposal to do away with including world leader responses to terrorist incidents? There was no consensus for the main proposal, but the close stated, "There is consensus to include a sentence at WP:NOTNEWS indicating that specific reactions and condolences generally do not qualify for inclusion." But it doesn't look like anything was ever added to WP:NOTNEWS as a result. --Worldbruce (talk) 19:00, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
Heh, "recent". Yes, that one. Glad we have now caught that NOTNEWS needs updating. :D --Izno (talk) 19:04, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Recap of RfC discussion regarding WP:Outing and WMF essay

The RFC discussion regarding WP:OUTING and WMF essay about paid editing and outing is now archived. Milieus #3 and #4 received substantial support; so did concrete proposal #1. Recapping the results already done at WP:administrators' noticeboard:

Milieu 3:

"The balancing COI and privacy/outing means that the only option is that people investigating COI must submit information in private to the relevant people. Currently this is the arbitration committee and/or the WMF, but other bodies could be considered if there is consensus for this."

Closing rationale: "There is consensus for the proposal with the obvious caveat, that this approach needs a lot more details and clarification.Many have clarified that other bodies shall only refer to editors who have been vetted by the community to handle sensitive and personally identifying information.There has been concerns about the use of the word only as it seems to nullify on-wiki processes based on CU and behaviorial evidence."

Milieu 4:

"We need to balance privacy provided to those editing in good faith against the requirements of addressing undisclosed paid promotional editing. To do so can be achieved with a private investigation with some release of results publicly to help with the detection of further related accounts. These details may include the name of the Wikipedia editing company with which the account is associated (such as for example the connections drawn here)"

Closing rationale:

There is consensus for the above proposal, with a condition that the proposal must be clarified to remove vaugeness, and that any information released must be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation".

More specifically, the information that is to be clarified is:

  1. Who is doing the investigating? (this looks like it's covered by Milieu 3)
  2. What information is to be released? The proposer has stated in the discussion below (and other editors agreed) that the information that is released is to be limited to "employer, client, and affiliation". This renders the argument of wp:outing invalid, which really was the only argument brought up on the oppose side.

--George Ho (talk) 23:53, 21 June 2017 (UTC); expanded, 00:02, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

New welcome template

The welcome template links to Wikipedia:Citation underkill? What do others think? QuackGuru (talk) 01:11, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

QuackGuru, I see you are requesting speedy deletion. Why do you want to have "welcome-citation" deleted? It's a good template... and a better one than the above. --George Ho (talk) 02:02, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Pinging Blueboar about this. --George Ho (talk) 02:13, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
You previously wanted the content restored to only nominate it for deletion? You want to leave it alone? How about today? It is not too late to nominate it. QuackGuru (talk) 16:57, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
You're right: no deadline to nominate it. However, if I nominate "welcome-citation" without a strong reason why, that would be seen as disruptive editing. I can't risk that. I got in trouble once, and I am doing my best to avoid that. Also, the consensus says delete the "Welcome-citationunderkill", and I predict "Welcome-citationunderkill" will be deleted soon or a few days later. I apologize for changing my mind. I did not mean to frustrate you. I just... saw more value in the "citation" version. BTW, I did address] your ability of collaboration, but then you reverted it. --George Ho (talk) 17:07, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
I don't want this to linger on. If you want it nominated then I will do it for you with a link to your comment that you wanted me to nominate it.
What is the specific reason WP:Citation underkill is not good for welcome templates. QuackGuru (talk) 17:15, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
No, no need to nominate "welcome-citation". I have no reason to request deletion on it. For the question, obviously, WP:UNDERKILL is an essay, an opinion of one or the community. It's neither a policy nor a guideline; not a rule (though used for blocks). Well, you can give a newbie a link to the UNDERKILL essay if you want as long as it's not part of any welcome template. In other words, you can give any newbie a custom/personalized welcome message, i.e. a hand-made welcome message. See Wikipedia:Welcoming committee#Welcome new users. Or you can use a welcome template and then add a custom/personalized message afterwards. Would that do? --George Ho (talk) 17:38, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Is there a problem with citing content? See Wikipedia:Citation underkill. QuackGuru (talk) 16:22, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
    • No, and you might be surprised to learn just how much I agree with your essay, though I don't always agree with how it's expressed or some of the details. But I don't agree with putting it, whether through a template or a custom message, on new users' talk pages without a clear disclaimer on the user's talk page and not just at the top of the essay that it's just your opinion. New users don't know whether welcome messages are coming from just another user or from a (yes, nonexistent) Wikipedia Official and frequently will not recognize the distinction between an essay and policy, even with the disclaimer at the top of the essay. I think that you're only being overzealous in the advocacy for your opinion, nothing more, but you're verging on being pointy. I strongly recommend to you that you either include the disclaimer or stop including references to the essay (or the opinion expressed in the essay) on new users' pages. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:44, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
I'll take TransporterMan's comments and raise it a level... your overzealousness is getting beyond being pointy... it is boadering on becoming disruptive. Blueboar (talk) 20:33, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
You guys, before you do anything, I sent QuackGuru an email, which might help him collect his thoughts. Have you read it, QuackGuru (or QG)? --George Ho (talk) 20:41, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Wikilinking a guideline page in mainspace

An editor has done this. Is there a policy or guideline about linking to internal wikipedia documents from mainspace? I found WP:NOTPART but it doesn't address wikilinking. Thanks. -- GreenC 18:51, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

I believe that you are looking for WP:SELFREF. You may also be interested in WP:SALLEAD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
That's it, and thanks for SALLEAD. -- GreenC 21:58, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

A new page for information, guidelines and policies on nations interacting with Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Nations and Wikipedia is a new meta page to accumulate and help organize ways nations/governments and Wikipedia interact and for the Wikipedia community to establish relevant policies and guidelines. I thought you might be interested in this page and that I should probably link it here. Please share your thoughts on it on its talk page.

--Fixuture (talk) 20:25, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

Official Statement from WMCH Board and staff

As the association for the promotion of free knowledge in Switzerland, we would like to comment on what was recently discussed in particular in the French-speaking community.

First of all, we deeply regret the continued assumption that Wikimedia CH is involved in conflicts despite the numerous measures that we adopted since more than one year, so as to develop the association in the most sustainable, efficient and transparent way as possible.

To that end, this is a short overview of steps taken on the following important topics:

The question of "Paid editing" and the range of associated questions, are taken very seriously. We have accepted and dealt with these questions with an external expert as part of a "Governance Workshop", details of which can be found in our "Impact Report" under "Managing Conflicts of Interest in a multilingual context" (see [17]).

The last general assembly meeting in Lucerne unfortunately saw a short verbal altercation between various members present. Since we did not have an external moderator and the President of the Board (who took care of the facilitation himself on that day) ran again as candidate for the Board for the coming term, we failed to act quickly and adequately in this unfortunate situation. To prevent anything similar from happening in the future, we have now officially introduced a "Respectful Space policy" (see [18]). In future we will ensure all events and discussions that are organized/held by Wikimedia CH or financed via the association, comply with these rules (and implemented if necessary); (see protocol of the first meeting of the Board of Directors dated 6 June 2017). In addition to this, the future general assembly will be led by an external moderator.

Furthermore, the Board decided unanimously (see resolution dated 20 June 2017), to offer the possibility of an external independent mediation expert for the conflict between association members from the French-speaking community and to bear related costs up to CHF 1,000, provided that the mediation is availed of by 30 September 2017. The parties involved are therefore provided with a neutral and professional framework in which problems can be defined and tackled in a constructive manner.

As regards the above measures, we as Wikimedia CH assume that we have done everything within our power to ensure our values such as inclusiveness, diversity and respect as well as prohibiting harassment in any form.

Wikimedia CH Board and Staff

Please note that in case of conflict, the German version of this statement prevails — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ilario (talk • contribs) 12:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

What does this have to do with ENWP policy? Would this not be more appropriate at Jimbo's talkpage or Meta? Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:11, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
@Only in death: It involves the potential violation of policy? I agree that Meta is likely the best place for this. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 15:17, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
What policy? Its Wikimedia Switzerland apparantly in some sort of off-wiki dramafest. I cant see anything that relates to ENWP? I cant even find the original place where this has (obviously) caused a stink. I am assuming its probably FRWP related due to the languages in Switzerland. Unless there is a page on ENWP somewhere where this has been brought up previously? Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:40, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Ah... seems that it's copied from meta:Wikimedia CH/Official statement of Wikimedia CH (conflict in French speaking area)#Official Statement from WMCH Board and staff. I'll post the brief version soon at both places. Thank you. George Ho (talk) 19:01, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Hi all, I thought to post here too because there was a discussion of conflict of interest concerning this specific topic on en.wikipedia pages some weeks ago. This statement is a consequence of that discussion. So it's not happened off-wiki, it's not like a dramafest, and it's not unrelated with the en.wiki policy. Kind regards. --Ilario (talk) 20:28, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Have some essays unintentionally been given quasi-rule status

Have some essays been unintentionally elevated to rule status?

Since December 2016 there have been many diligent and good faith changes to WP:Project namespace. The part that troubles me is with regard to essays bearing the “supplement” template. Here’s why.

The changes at WP:Project namespace include separate sections for

In various places there is text that says the policy supplement essays have no more clout than 'mere' essays, yet the simple fact that they are treated separately and are called "pages" runs great risk of inculcating the idea that they are rules, not essays. Also supplement essays such as WP:BRD seem to fall under both of these categories. Yes, it is an info pages and describe a common approach to the policies, but yes it is an essay.

I’d like to commend Moxy (talk · contribs) for hard work trying to refresh the organization of the namespaces, and in no way imply anything improper here. Nonetheless, by splitting essays into “mere” essays at WP:ESSAYPAGES and “something more” essays at WP:INFOPAGES, the well-intended changes at Project namespace seem to imply rule status for BRD and other essays tagged as a “supplement”.

Is it time to redesignate “supplement” essays as quasi-rule pages with a new name?

If not, does Project namespace require more work so that all essays of every stripe are under the same subcategory? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:31, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Comment for the curious... there is no underlying content dispute here. I took a housekeeping interest when the matter crossed my path. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:39, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind comments NewsAndEventsGuy ....I have been trying my best to get this right for years. Noone seemed to care till now.....great to see movement on this. I think the first place we need to start is the summaries of the pages at WP:RULES....then expand on those explanation at WP:Project namespace. --Moxy (talk) 16:42, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Comment: There are some very common sense essays, like WP:BRD, which are rightly treated as much more worthy of citing than some of the very frivolous essays out there. bd2412 T 17:06, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
I am hoping that my essay at WP:1AM will someday reach that status. a bunch of editors have spoken highly of it, and there have been no serious objections to the content, but it has a long way to go before it is quoted as much as BRD is. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:21, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
For my purposes, the underlying question is whether a supplement does carry more clout than an essay. My instincts and reading of the template say "yes", because if supplements were equivalent to essays, why are they called something different? This seems like a situation that at best may cause momentary confusion and at worst could lead to genuine misunderstandings and disputes. If the key difference is that a "supplement" is formally considered to have stronger consensus, than I would argue that the template should include a link to the discussion at which the formal approval was given to call it a supplement rather than an essay. DonIago (talk) 17:12, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
Supplements differ from essays in that they are linked from a guideline or policy page. In origin, the Supplement tag was called "supplemental essay", and it was merely an indicator that such linking had been made, nothing more or less. It had nothing to do with having stronger consensus, only with being better known.
And INFOPAGES are supposed to contain merely factual descriptions that clarify and expand on some guideline, with no attempts at introducing new procedures and requirements. Essays and supplements are nothing like that. Diego (talk) 06:58, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, the current wording "has no more status than an essay" is helpful, but I worry that it conflicts with "explanatory supplement" also. I would expect the latter to expand on the implications of a policy/guideline, not necessarily to be an opinion piece about said policy/guideline. Put another way, supplements don't appear to be explaining guidelines or policies, but rather simply proferring an opinion linked back to such...and then, on what grounds is this linking being made? I'm tempted to argue that this template should only be used when it can link to a discussion at which consensus was clearly obtained for linking the essay to the guideline/policy. DonIago (talk) 07:32, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
  • WP:POLICIES (amended last year) and Template:Supplement documentation (that long standing in its wording) seem to imply that there is a distinction...Template:Supplement even going so far in saying that there is a different template for lesser pages. We need to address a few things .....are all pages not a policy or guideline just an essay. ...or are there levels of essays....and if so what should they be called and how do they gain this distinction? Should supplemental pages be their own class separated from essays and info pages? WP:The difference between policies, guidelines and essays outlines our problem. See also WP:CONLEVEL Revision, January 6, 2017 --Moxy (talk) 17:26, 25 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Supplement essays are essays that have been linked from a policy or guideline page. As such, they are no more or less than highly influential essays: yes, they are often voluntarily followed by editors and quoted as the basis for arguments, but no, you can't enforce compliance with them.
Supplements have the problem that they are not required to reflect consensus, so they can contain highly controversial rules. If they were to be used as enforceable advice, they should first pass a widely publicized RfC and be converted to guidelines. Diego (talk) 06:56, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Is The Needle Drop a reliable source?

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#Anthony Fantano responded with his take on the debate if his reviews on The Needle Drop are "professional" or not

I'm not entirely sure (I didn't start it). Possibly because it follows up on this?
Moving it here seems appropriate, though, because the direction in which it's moving means it might have an impact on more than just this individual source, and might thus be of interest here. —WLM / ? 13:45, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Not really no. We don't put up articles intentionally for AfD to get a larger crowd, so this should not have been done here. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 13:45, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Let me offer a counter proposal, try moving this to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous). - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 13:50, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
And why the hell would you copy/paste the entire discussion here? Are you unaware of how to provide difs to a discussion? No one's going to bother to read through this massive wall-of-text before they even see the question you've proposing. Also, you misread what was proposed in the original discussion. They said discuss at VP at the general prospect of Youtubers being a RS. If you're just specifically asking about TND, you'd go to RSN. Sergecross73 msg me 13:53, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Sorry, I thought this was the way this sort of thing was supposed to go. I'll move it back for now, and we can discuss where to put it there. —WLM / ? 13:58, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
As far as I can see, WP:RSN is for "for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable". That's not really what's happening here, because it has already been established that Fantano is not reliable (see WP:RS), in accordance with the existing policy.
Over time, the discussion became less about Fantano and more about the existing policy on self-published sources and whether they can be relevant enough to articles to be included. I'm not posting it here to get a larger crowd; I'm posting it here because it's a discussion about policy to a large extent. The miscellaneous page might be more appropriate, though. —WLM / ? 13:58, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
The heading of "Is TND a reliable source" doesn't represent the progression of that discussion though. And a person would have to read through a massive wall of text to understand that the discussions moved in that discussion somewhat. Sergecross73 msg me 14:09, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
True. —WLM / ? 14:13, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
Currently, it doesn't appear that anyone has started a conversation on the Reliable sources noticeboard or at Village pump (miscellaneous). Should we take the discussion there or elsewhere? ThrillShow (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

RfC regarding the WP:Lead guideline -- the first sentence

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Request for comment on parenthetical information in first sentence. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:38, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed addition to Dispute Resolution policy

FYI, I started a thread at the talk page for the DR policy. The proposal is to add some text to "Discuss with other editors". The new text seeks to prevent blow ups before they occur. Please add any comments to the thread at that the DR policy's talk page. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:36, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Overlinking

MOS:DUPLINK says, "Generally, a link should appear only once in an article, but if helpful for readers, a link may be repeated in infoboxes..." I have seen many editors remove linking on this basis, on the grounds that the first instance should be linked, but not the subsequent ones. For example, in an article on "Widgets", "John Smith" is linked to the article on "John Smith" the first time "John Smith" is mentioned. However, later in the article, John Smith is not linked to. I can understand the logic in this, but it seems to imply that people read Wikipedia articles from start to finish. I don't think this is true. People read what they are interested in. For example, someone might read the section entitled "Widgets in Spain" and see a mention of "John Smith". Who is this "John Smith"? they ask. There is no link. There is a link to "John Smith", but it is buried halfway through the article under "Widgets: Technical Aspects". Is there any research which says that people read Wikipedia articles from top to bottom?--Jack Upland (talk) 02:17, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there's any research, but instead it's part of our MOS. Things like linking, abbreviations/initialisms, last names over full names, etc. are all based on the assumption that there are two ways we anticipate readers use articles: They read the lede only, and they read the lede followed by the rest of the body. We know people will jump to a section, but it makes it very clumsy for us to account for this mode and still make the other modes cleaner to use. We're still writing that each article should be usable in a standalone mode. I do agree that people shouldn't strip away links without any thought, but their inclusion does require careful thought. --MASEM (t) 02:28, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
Just slightly above in WP:OVERLINKING: "An overlinked article contains an excessive number of links, making it difficult to identify links likely to aid the reader's understanding significantly". I think that this concern is still valid in relation to duplicates. Also, because links appear in another color or style, even if not reading the whole article, it is rather easy to visually locate the important links (this too would be more difficult if the article contained too many links)... —PaleoNeonate - 18:31, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
However, if I was looking at a particular section of a long article, I would have no way of knowing there was a link to John Smith elsewhere. I could search the page for the name, but I might assume there was no article on John Smith because of the lack of link. Removing the link to John Smith in that section has made navigation difficult with no real gain.--Jack Upland (talk) 20:43, 7 June 2017 (UTC)
My point is that we've made a decision in the MOS and several other places that we work on the assumption the reader will read from top to bottom, which has requirements that are mutually exclusive from those that presume the reader can jump in and start in any other place in the article (eg we establish what an initialization stands for once in the article, at its first use in the body, rather than the first time in each major section). We know this is not ideal for the reader that jumps to a section, but we had to pick one way or the other. Fortunately, linking is not as mutually exclusive compared to other MOS parts. We do want editors to use good judgement in such links not to spam one reuse in each section but fair reuse is reasonable. --MASEM (t) 01:36, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
@Jack Upland: I don't really see a problem to use common sense and link more than once in very large articles, since in this case the readability issues I mentioned don't apply. Here was an obvious overlinking example (and I think that some work had already started to reduce them). What you propose would not necessarily result in this . Duplicates was not the only issue, but general unnecessary overlinking... —PaleoNeonate - 08:47, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Agree If I had to make a call, it would be to allow for duplicate linking between large sections in noticeably large or complex articles. People might not read the whole article and jump between sections, so when they come across a term – if it wasn't linked in the immediate section above, I see no harm linking it again. That's essentially how I see a lot of articles having been edited. There's always duplicate linking inevitably, and can be helpful to the reader as long as it isn't cluttered. DA1 (talk) 08:06, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Just thought I'd mention that links should actually appear twice in an article, once in the lead and once in the body. I'm personally more concerned with everyday terms being overlinked than with a legitimate link appearing an extra time. Primergrey (talk) 13:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree. The overlinking of everyday terms is far more of a problem. Not only is it unnecessary, it is also potentially misleading. A reader can be lead to believe the link will lead them to something specific and relevant to the article whereas they are just led to a general article about an ordinary term that most people understand.--Jack Upland (talk) 19:00, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree about the over-linking of everyday terms (such as ISBN). But try to avoid "easter-eggs", which should help minimise the second issue you raise. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC).
  • Agree I also agree that in long articles, repeating links in different sections would facilitate navigation between articles. I also agree that common sense needs to be applied to ensure that there is not overlinking that hinders readability. As long as the section isn't already full of links and it's not a trivial term, adding a link would be helpful and could prevent needing to search the page (and losing your place) to find a link. Adding this to the MOS would reduce the chance that someone removes helpful links because "it's policy". Ry's the Guy (talk|contribs) 14:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Agree I agree as per Rystheguy above. MB 15:35, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
  • agree also, though we would need someguidelines on how to use it. Major sections of new articles is one good use. though not for every term. Another is the olacewhere the concept is being primarily discussed. DGG ( talk ) 14:12, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Agree with repeating links in long articles, especially when you get to a section well below the lead which is the main one to deal with the link topic. I must say I thought this was what the policy said, rather more clearly than it does now (ans the language doesn't appear to have changed for a few years). Also I usually link names & work titles etc. in captions. I note FAC seems fine with both of these, and requests by reviewers for 2nd links in text or caption are not unusual. Johnbod (talk) 14:53, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
  • The status quo, standard operating procedure (i.e., actual consensus) is that redundant links are removed from short articles, from the same section, and from contiguous sections, but are left alone if they are widely separated in a long article, and the presence of the additional link is likely to be genuinely helpful to readers and is not linking "just because we can". An extra link is best kept when we know that the section in which it appears is directly linked to from another high-traffic article, and when knowing who/what the link target is will be necessary to understand the material in the current article

    MoS could probably be clarified in this regard. The place to propose such a clarification is WT:MOS.
     — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

The MoS is a guideline - this particular element says "Generally, a link should..." and goes on to list some ten or so explicit situations where the guideline might not apply. Where there is a good reason to re-link, go ahead and do it.

As far as research, I am pretty certain there is research that shows people generally read the lead and sometimes a little more. The injunction against over-linking is to avoid a "sea of blue".

Perhaps we should consider functionality to highlight a section of text and provide a search option - there are plugins that do that.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:22, 17 June 2017 (UTC).

On a related note, I believe it would do us all much good if the Foundation were to fund research into how people read a Wikipedia article. Right now, it's all based on existing practice which is based on the idea of (1) a lead section & (2) organized sub-sections on various aspects of the subject, (3) a lot, but not too many, links, & (4) maybe, just maybe, infoboxes. But there are no existing guidelines on how to write an encyclopedia article (I've looked), so maybe we're doing it wrong...or maybe we're doing it right & don't know it. If nothing else, it would tell us whether overlinking actually helps reader comprehension. Lastly, having some concrete facts would help us write a better encyclopedia, seeing as we're almost the only ones doing it any more. (The others have either gone out of business, or are desperately hanging on.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:03, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

Agreed such research would be useful, and is very doable. Usability consultants like the Nielsen Norman group have this down to a science, with eye-tracking equipment, etc. I'm sure it's within WMF's budget. Should be done separately for desktop, tablet, and cellphone users ("mobile" is too catchall; tablet and phone browsing behavior differ, with the former often more like desktop usage in many ways).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:40, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I would love to have a button beside "See also" that says "Show all links on page" Dougmcdonell (talk) 20:18, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Do we need different standards for fictional and 'actual' content?

If I write that George Bush was born in 1904, that can easily be checked, likely from the references on the page. If I say the NYT reported that JFK was assassinated, that can be checked as well. There are citations, and information without citations is flagged or taken out. However, it is different when it comes to fiction, or tv shows, or things of that sort.

Take an example of these articles: Fictional universe of Harry Potter. Or Produce 101 Season 2. How can the facts in these articles be verified? Well, you need to have read all the books, or have seen every episode. Lots of vandalism occurred to Produce 101 today, but frankly it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn't. How do I know who was taken off the show and who wasn't?

And Harry Potter: "Some wizards are the products of unions between humans and magical creatures of more-or-less human intelligence, such as Fleur Delacour and her sister Gabrielle (both quarter veela), Professor Flitwick (a quarter goblin), Madame Maxime and Hagrid (both half giant). Prejudiced wizards (such as Umbridge) often use the insulting term half-breed to refer to mixed-species wizards and werewolves, or other beings such as house elves, merpeople and centaurs (who are separate species). The centaurs within the series prefer to exist amongst themselves, with little interaction with humans." Is that entirely made up? I have no idea. Maybe you do. But even if you read the books, you'd have to look back to check. And there are thousands of pages of Harry Potter.

You probably get the picture. A lot of my time is spent in articles re current events, especially terrorist attacks. The things that are argued over are pretty minute, and they involve dozens of editors. Was the Manchester attacker a Muslim? There was quite a bit of argument over that. But is Harry Potter a union between a quarter veela and a Umbridge? I don't know. Someone could put that in and frankly unless someone just read the books or knows them by heart, how can any of these things be confirmed? It's clear that there is just a discrepancy between the two categories.

So, what's the solution? I don't know. You could add disclaimers: This plot summary may not be correct. Or you could make it so that extensive plot summaries need to go to Wikia or some other outlet. I don't know. This is just something I have been thinking about. WP is not a paper encyclopedia, but I don't know if it has any business re-stating the plot of anything. It seems to go against what it's good at-- cited factual information. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador ᐁT₳LKᐃ 06:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

  • This is already being discussed in an AfD. As the page title starts with "Fictional", I don't particularly care as long as it's not egregiously bad, e.g. a copyright violation. Power~enwiki (talk) 06:54, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
  • If I write that George Bush was born in 1904, that can easily be checked, likely from the references on the page. If I say the NYT reported that JFK was assassinated, that can be checked as well. There are citations, and information without citations is flagged or taken out. However, it is different when it comes to fiction, or tv shows, or things of that sort. Firstly, I don't actually agree that the ease of verifying something is that strongly related to whether or not it is fictional. It would be much easier to verify that "in JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels, Harry was the son of James and Lily Potter" (which I would bet good money can be cited to a dozen places other than the Harry Potter books) than it would be to verify "the British artist Henry Moore had a pet dog called Fawkes, named after Guy Fawkes" (really true, but unless you happen to know where that fact comes from, not easy to verify). The difference is not whether or not a fact is relevant to the real world or to a piece of fiction, the difference lies in how significant a fact is to the subject. In-Universe, Harry's parentage has plot significance, while Fleur Delacour's doesn't.
  • Secondly, current events (especially terrorist attacks) are often held to a much higher standard of sourcing than any other article for two reasons: firstly, the BLP implications, and secondly, they often contain information which is "challenged or likely to be challenged": that is, meeting two of the three circumstances according to WP:V and WP:BLP where inline citations are actually necessary rather than required. By contrast, if you read articles on ancient history, lots of them, especially in less-popular topic areas, have been less fully cited than I would prefer, and/or cited mainly to primary sources, for years.
  • Personally, I would like to see more citations in plot summaries, but the fact that they mostly don't have them does not appear to be holding plot summaries to a different standard of citation than other information. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 08:11, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
I also would like to see more citations in plot summaries. I often see detailed plot summaries which are completely unsourced, in my view this indeed would be a de-facto lower standard. It probably doesn't matter until someone begins contesting. It seems that since fictional information is non-critical information (i.e. versus medical claims, BLP claims, fringe theories, subjects with political implications (some may include myths considered as fiction by many, but is really of higher gravity), etc), primary sources can also be used and would be better than no source. This may become required when a content dispute occurs on things which are easily verifiable using a primary source. However, if the interpretation of those primary sources becomes difficult to the point of content disputes (primary sources not being enough), then resorting to secondary sources may be necessary. If the subject is notable and difficult to interpret, notable secondary sources which already did such interpretation, research or synthesis, are likely to exist. If such secondary sources are reliable (if they even exist) is probably another matter... —PaleoNeonate - 08:48, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
if the interpretation of those primary sources becomes difficult — there should be no interpretation at all. State the plot in the simplest terms possible, and leave any interpretation to reliable sources. Bright☀ 12:33, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Plot summaries do not get citations because the work itself is supposed to be the citation. Stuff that isn't in the original work needs a citation but doesn't belong into the plot summary in the first place. Secondary sources are not good for this, they tend to have accuracy problems. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:22, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
  • It may help to differentiate between a broad plot summary and a narrow plot detail. Broad summary is verifiable by reading/viewing the primary source (the book or performance itself). Narrow plot details are also verifiable by reading/viewing the primary source ... but narrow details are much more likely to be challenged than a broad summary, and so may need to be cited to specific locations within the primary source. Certainly, a detail needs to be cited to the specific location if it actually is challenged (per WP:BURDEN). Then we have plot analysis... analysis always needs to be cited to a secondary source (Per WP:NOR). Blueboar (talk) 10:50, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
  • The big issues with plot summaries are that they either get too detailed, or that they are "hooks" like jacket blurbs or magazine listings. Some are also awful English. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 11:25, 17 June 2017 (UTC).
This is covered under WP:SYNTH. I agree, plot summaries are often coat-racks for original research and for that reason they should be kept to the bare minimum, and preferably cited to non-primary sources. Bright☀ 12:26, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Actually, unless you are explicitly writing analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic plot summaries you should refrain from using secondary sources as they are often wrong. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:32, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
You should never write analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic plot summaries. Bright☀ 12:35, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for all the opinions guys, really. I continue to stand by what I said, that the content in those sort of articles are of a lower quality level and with lower reliability. But it probably is just that it will stay how it is, I just had to share my opinions, and thanks for considering them. ‡ Єl Cid, Єl Caɱ̩peador ᐁT₳LKᐃ 15:53, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

  • We have chosen to have higher standards of sourcing in two areas, Biographies of living people and medical matters. Both are subsets of "actual information". The implication of that is that we already have a higher standard of sourcing for the average non fiction article as opposed to the average article on a fictional subject. There are good reasons why we want to have stricter standards in those areas. The risk of people acting on false information in an article on a fictional subject is hopefully less than if the subject is medical or a living person. I'm not currently aware of a similar need in another area, but if there is I'd suggest we start the discussion with an explanation as to why the consequences are more significant of an error in the area where you are proposing stricter standards. ϢereSpielChequers 18:36, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
That Hagrid is half-giant and Fleur id quarter Veela are both established in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire; Madam Maxime being half-giant is also pretty obvious from the book (and I'm sure that many Harry Potter fan sites would agree), but not exlicitly mentioned in the series. And yes, we do have a higher sourcing standars for statements about living people and medical issues, due to real-world harm that can come from mistakes in these topics. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:05, 19 June 2017 (UTC)

There is a broader issue with "fiction" on Wikipedia, and that occurs in a great many articles involving technology. Invariably "science fiction" shows up, such as the hydrogen powered passenger jet. I'm dismayed by the amount of "maybe possible sometime" stuff that's in the encyclopedia when it's not being researched now and may be impossible ever. I'm pretty confident it's not what people expect in an encyclopedia. Dougmcdonell (talk) 20:57, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

  • I don't think we need any additional standards; MOS:WAF does a very good job. Plot summaries should be short and concise, a clear synopsis of the content of a work. Analysis should be cited to secondary sources that discuss the themes of the work from a real-world perspective, not an in-universe one. Fictional universe of Harry Potter is in rather egregious violation of those guidelines, filled with original analysis and speculation that veers into world-building. It's a shame MOS:FAIR USE wasn't brought up at the AFD, because that's a serious concern, and I think the article is a fairly clear copyright violation. Regardless, these things happen, and they don't mean we need to change the rules. It's a wiki; sometimes the rules get ignored or misapplied.--Trystan (talk) 22:31, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

Lack of a few sources !?

Naturally must our contributions be built on (secondary) sources. However we have some issues , matters that never appear to have been questioned that has become somewhat traditional. For instance our plot-parts of film/motion pictures. As a reader am I personally glad that we do have these, despite they very seldom contain any sources. And with that in mind, please have a look below the headline "Name" in the Estadio Azteca article. The part is partly referencing to sources - but here has complaints been made. Again as a reader do I find the Name part of this article to be interesting to read. I cannot help thinking, if the "un-sourced" parts was pure nonsense , that if so, someone else in Mexico City ought to have fixed that. (It's a huge city) And that sources for this may be hard to find, but the story might well be well-known locally. I have no real thought trough suggestion, but why the difference towards our plot parts in film related articles ? I was thinking about "locally well-known" issues like this (in a fairly harmless article)- perhaps if a number of different contributors with knowledge perhaps could somehow "vouch" for a statement's safety. Independenly from each other, and several. And only in harmless articles. But like I said, it's not fully thought through. But if something could be done in a case like this, perhaps a different background colour/color for not fully soured parts ? It's also possible to just having texts as it is in this case (including [citation needed] etc) - but then remains the question of, for instance, plots (they never includes "citation needed" and similar, as far as I have seen. And it's probably OR to use a film itself as source, and certainly not secondary). Please note - I'm not questioning our guidelines in general. Only if something can be done about minor lacks of sources in articles that are obviously harmless (as well as largely sourced) as in this example, and just as plots seems to be. Any thoughts or suggestions ? Or was this just foolish to bring up ? I don't mind negative criticism here at all. It's thoughts only. Boeing720 (talk) 01:22, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

This double standard is definitely there. Another area where we bend our normal practices is in regards to the notability of elements of computing languages. I suppose these areas are where the Wikipedia:Ignore all rules policy is trumping our normal efforts. Jason Quinn (talk) 04:35, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Quoting from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Sourcing and quotations: The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. Anomie⚔ 16:24, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
There's a class of statements that don't require sourcing: WP:BLUESKY. – Uanfala 22:24, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
A creative work is a primary source for the creative work. A plot section requires no source other than the work itself for basic facts. Interpretation, meaning, analysis of character behaviour etc behind the plot almost always requires a secondary source. This is why most plot sections of books/films are along the lines of 'And then and then and then' because that requires no other sourcing. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:40, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
Yep. I keep encountering {{fact}} tags in plot summaries, and removing them when they're tagging basic facts about the "first this happened, then that happened" plot outline, and do not involve any WP:AEIS for which a secondary source would be required.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:47, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
We want our articles to be based upon sources that are both independent and secondary, but that does not mean that we cannot WP:USEPRIMARY sources, especially for basic, undisputed facts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:40, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

policy re: bioRxiv citations and image use

Hello. Is there a wikipedia policy about citing bioRxiv articles? Also, there are images in bioRxiv articles that I would like to upload. On bioRxiv they have cc by 4.0 license. I suspect, but do not know for certain, that the eventual published version will be copyrighted. Is it OK to use those sorts of images even after they appear in a copyrighted publication? For example, figure 2 A and B panels of http://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2017/05/17/139097.full.pdf would be excellent addtions to an article I'm interested in. Thank you. Viroguy (talk) 19:51, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi Viroguy. Yes, bioRxiv articles are used in citations. There is even a template at {{cite bioRxiv}}. There are many cases however where a citation to an unpublished article is not appropriate. As far as images in the article are concerned, once they have been released under a license the release cannot be taken back no matter where else they are published. You would need to include the citation to the article when you upload the image. That documents the licensing as well as crediting the creators. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:20, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
With rare exceptions, everything is copyrighted from the moment it's created. Creative Commons and other licences give permission to use a the copyrighted work. It's still copyrighted. If it is republished without changes, you can keep using it under Creative Commons regardless of what terms are offered (or not offered) on the new version. If it's published with modifications, you can keep using the Creative Commons version, but you would need to check what (if any) license was available before copying the new version. Alsee (talk) 09:20, 3 July 2017 (UTC)
Thank you both!!!!Viroguy (talk) 02:45, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

IPs nominating articles for deletion

Currently, IPs can nominate articles for deletion, but they can not create the deletion discussion because they do not have an actual account. Should we have someplace they can ask for assistance in completing the nomination? The relevant information is discussed here (that page is not a policy or a guideline page). Should we add a link to WP:ANI or some other location for them to request help? As it is, they nominate them,. and then someone wanders upon it sometime later and reverts the nomination because there is no discussion and it's been a while since the nomination was made. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:33, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

Given the current volume of requests (very small), WT:AFD seems to work fairly well. WP:Helpdesk, WP:AN, or as you mentioned WP:AN/I could work as well. My personal approach when finding an AfD tag placed by an IP is to look for anyplace where they provide a justification, (usually edit summary or talk page) and complete it, but I guess that doesn't always happen. I also don't have a sense for how common it really is. Do you think there is enough volume in requests for a dedicated location? Monty845 04:46, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
@Monty845: I don't have any stats for how common it. Regardless, I think having a place for them to go and request help completing the nomination is a good thing. It will reduce frustration for everyone involved. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 04:57, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Don't they typically do it at WT:AFD? I've completed a few procedural noms from there if I recall. Just add that link to the page linked above. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:59, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @TonyBallioni: Maybe some do, but I just dealt with an IP who was nominating articles. I didn't notice that s/he had been putting a reason on the talk page of the articles (I just noticed the incomplete nominations), so I removed the tags from the articles. They reverted without comment, so it got to where they were being threatened with blocking for doing it. I figured it might be good to make it more obvious for IPs how they could request help completing the part they can't do. Maybe put it in the AfD template itself (the part that shows when the AfD page hasn't been created)? I just want to avoid as many unnecessary escalations in the future. I do agree that WT:AFD is a good place for it, as it seems to get a decent amount of traffic. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:08, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Nihonjoe, yes, I'm for anything that doesn't lead to productive IPs going to AIV. Putting it in the template or in the instructions makes sense. I don't have a strong opinion as to where to put the instructions. The template suggestion might confuse newer users because even after I Twinkle-AfD something it shows up as a redlink until I clear the page cache. If you word it something like If you have placed this without registering for an account, please go to WT:AFD to complete the nomination and... I think it might work. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:16, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
@TonyBallioni: I like that idea. The instructions need to be as concise as possible, and we could also add a notice at the top of WT:AFD advising IPs that If you need help completing the AfD nomination, please do the following.... ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:47, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:45, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict × 2) I've been cleaning up WP:BADAFD for years, and while I can't speak to what happens while I'm asleep or away (which is of course most of the time), I don't think there's enough of these to merit a separate page, and to be honest I don't think that most of them would use it. WT:AfD should work just fine. One other thing I've seen IP editors do is creating the discussion page in the WT: space, then asking a logged-in editor to move it over to WP: space; it's rare but I think a good way to do it, and maybe we could add it to the instructions. IMHO the AfD process is quite complicated for people who aren't as familiar with how the site works - lots of people fail to complete the process, IP or not - perhaps we should review the instructions at WP:AFDHOWTO and try to figure out if there's a way to simplify those instead. ansh666 05:04, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
@Ansh666: I could see adding a note to the part II area directed at IPs. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 05:09, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
I dunno, it seems like most of them don't get that far. For every incomplete AfD (IP or account) that has a rationale on the talk page or WT:AfD, there seem to be 10 that don't. ansh666 05:19, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
@Ansh666: We can make it as easy as possible. Sure, there will always be a few that can't figure out how to click a mouse, but we can deal with them. If we make the process easier, it will will be easier on everyone, I think. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 07:48, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
I am opposed to IPs being involved in any back-office procedures like AfD. I think reverting these edits is the best course of action. If IPs want to contribute to Wikipedia they can register an account. I am always concerned that we have Wikipedians logging out and editing behind IPs the things they lack the backbone to edit logged-in. Accommodating this practice would only serve to promote a lot of questionable noms. Chris Troutman (talk) 08:34, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Or in plainer English 'Every IP is potentially a logged out user up to nefarious actions and should be treated as such!' Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:33, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
@Chris troutman:During May, there were 3 requests made at WT:AFD whic hI can find in the archive - and all 3 were deleted. During June (it's not quite over yet, but we're near the end), there were 5 requestsd made at WTL:AFD - 3 were deleted and the other 2 are still open. Based on these sataistics, I would say that allowing anons to make AFD nominations is reasonable. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 16:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC):
I'd say it should be the same procedure as IP SPI - have the IP create the no on the talk page of the subpage, then place {{edit semi-protected}} on it. – Train2104 (t • c) 13:59, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
I link the SPI approach - however, please check both the edit summary for a deletion reason, the page's own talk page, WT:AFD, and any other reasonable place which the IP edited around the same time before deciding (s)he didn't give a reason. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 14:53, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Could be an easy job for a bot; any AfD template that is added to an article by an IP gets automatically added to a list at WT:AfD? GoldenRing (talk) 16:03, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
WT:AFD seems to work reasonably well. I don't think we should go to any particular effort to invent an easier method for IPs to do this as we do already have a very easy one: they can create an account and nominate them in the usual way. Hut 8.5 17:54, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
IPs should not be nominating articles for deletion. It's a total lack of transparency. If they care so much, then they should create an account. Lugnuts Fire Walk with Me 06:57, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
How do IP nominations lack transparency? You can see who their ISP is, what country/region they live in. That's a lot of information compared to anonymous users like you and me. And of course the identity of a nominator doesn't matter, just their policy-based arguments. Ntsimp (talk) 03:53, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Limits of when we use non-free image

Moved to Wikipedia:Media copyright questions#Limits of when we use non-free image. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:14, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

pre-RFC on user talk page archival

Okay, so I'm not going to put this up as an official RFC because I might get thrown bodily out of the room, but I wanted to gauge people's opinions on user talk page archiving. While I know it is entirely up to individual editors when and if to archive their pages, but I have seen multiple times on multiple talk pages recently where there are hundreds of sections and some old discussions going back to 2010. Maybe it's just me, but when you get user talk pages reaching 400k (or even more ridiculous at over 900k) it gets hard, not only for the processor to load, but to read through. I'm on a fairly new computer, and it still throws a hissy fit any time I visit these pages.

Now obviously, there are some people whose talk pages are huge because they're heavily involved in areas where they simply get a lot of commentary on their talk pages, and that's not really what I'm concerned about. I'm concerned about the people who are apparently unconcerned with ridiculously long pages.

So here's my general question: should we force users to archive their talk pages if and when they reach a certain length? For the sake of this argument, let's say 200k, since that seems to be about as long as I can find of people who do have archiving. Primefac (talk) 17:18, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Attaching "must do's" to userspace is something we should be very careful with. There are obviously necessary limits on userspace for the safety and security of the project that I think nearly everyone accepts: Don't have hate speech on a user page, don't have copyright violations, don't have libelous material, etc. We need those restrictions but there's a philosophical difference between "you can't do these things" and "you must do these things." I think the closest we have to the latter we have currently is leaving declined unblock requests and a few other notices (Arbcom, some deletion ones) on the user talk pages, but even that is a restriction that actually says: "A number of important matters may not be removed by the user..." It goes back to preventing a user from taking an action rather than imposing an action that the user must perform. This proposal would be the first example of the latter category I'm aware of and that means it breaks a lot of new ground. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:44, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
I think a lot of users probably don't know how to archive pages or don't think it's worth the time. Forcing them to do so would just make them mad.. Perhaps a friendly note about archiving with some helpful instructions would be better? Spanneraol (talk) 17:49, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
I agree, so long as it's bot driven and not involving any effort on the user's part. We often create policy in order to make Wikipedia accessible to all, I don't see why this should be an exception as it cripples browsers (mine included). In general, I feel it would be a courtesy to the user as archiving either manually or bot-assisted can be a bit of a hassle to some. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 17:53, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Perhaps an essay describing the benefits of archiving and how to set it up would be the way to go. Then, if a talk page is getting overly long, we would have something to point to. Encourage rather than force. Blueboar (talk) 17:57, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm genuinely curious how your browser struggles with something like this. Stock Chrome reports the page requires 2.2 MiB of data and a mere 83 MiB of memory. By comparison, scrolling past a dozen posts in my Facebook newsfeed fetches 4 MiB of data and requires 118 MiB of RAM; CNN's home page necessitates a whopping 5.4 MiB data transfer and fills 245 MiB of RAM for the tab. My tentative feeling is that a user whose talk page is already substantially leaner than many contemporary websites should not be forced to archive it; 900 KiB is not an unreasonable amount of data in 2017. Rebbing 17:58, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
    • PCs, sure, but iPads? Tablets? Phones? People don't just browse on PCs these days. There are semi-weekly complaints that WP:ANI is getting too long, and some of these talk pages are longer than ANI. Primefac (talk) 18:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
    • User:Rebbing, that is true, and probably the reason the Facebook crashes my browser every time I visit it, whereas, with a few recent exceptions, Wikipedia behaves well. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:16, 10 June 2017 (UTC).
  • I'd quite strongly oppose enforced archiving. While I agree it's an issue (and have recently commented at length on the talkpage I assume prompted this proposal to that effect), for third parties to try to second-guess which threads the editor will no longer keep is a recipe for endless revert-wars and frayed tempers. Unless it's set so ridiculously high as to be useless, a bot-enforced maximum talkpage size will be completely impractical; as a straightforward example my talkpage is currently 170,000kb in length and generates a server load more than twice as heavy as EEng's, but that's because there's one very long thread currently there which contains multiple large images, and an enforced bot archiving to bring it below the recommended 75kb would have the perverse effect of removing the one thread currently on my talkpage in which people are still currently commenting. Some situations just don't lend themselves to firm rules, and this is one of them; the way to force people to keep talkpages to manageable sizes is through social pressure and the hope that if enough people say "this causes problems for some people and keeping it doesn't have any obvious benefits to outweigh those problems", the editors in question will at some point decide that they don't want to be known as "that jerk with the disruptive talk page". ‑ Iridescent 19:08, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
    • I must be missing something obvious here, but yours is currently 154k (I guess the bot came by since you posted) and EEng's over 900k according to the page information. That translates to 277k and 1.6M HTML, respectively. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
      • @Opabinia regalis In terms of bandwidth rather than just "nuisance to scroll through" it's not the text that causes issues on big pages, it's images and templates. (These are the actual bandwidth loads broken down by component for EEng's talk page and my talk page. Note that for my talk, virtually all the load comes from downloading the two big screen-captures.) You probably don't see it because you've visited my talkpage repeatedly between the images being added, so they're in your cache and not being downloaded each time. The easiest way to see how long a page will take to load for someone coming to it fresh is to open the page in the Wikitext editor (the real one, not the love-child-of-VE experimental new one) and select "preview"; because of how MediaWiki operates that forces your browser to re-load all templates and images from scratch rather than using the cache. (With images, bear in mind that except for a few exceptions like animated gifs it's not the size of the file that causes issues, it's the size of the displayed image as the actual image processing is done server-side; a tiny file displayed at 300x200px will create more load than an 18Mb high-definition scan displayed at 200x150px. If you really want to fry your browser, go to a high-def architectural blueprint like File:Noel Park plans.jpg and compare the time it takes to load the thumbnail with the time it takes to load the full-size image.) ‑ Iridescent 20:45, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
        • You're right, I forgot about the images. I also forgot about your randomized top image, till I just now got the cat video. Unrelatedly, I kinda like the love child of VE.... Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I may support it provided a provision that this excludes threads which have been active in the past week - that is, if the threads which were active within the last 168 hours add up to a very long total, you don't need to have it archived. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 07:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I'd probably oppose a 'mandated archiving' solution, but just for the record, holy shit is this annoying. I catch up on wiki stuff on my phone a lot and I really have no interest in using my mobile data to download someone's talk page threads from 2010. Rebbing isn't wrong that these are not unreasonable amounts of data, but they are unreasonable amounts of unwanted and irrelevant data. I already have a mental list of "those jerks with the disruptive talk pages" and really, I want those neurons back. Opabinia regalis (talk) 19:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
    • For whatever it's worth, I much prefer talk pages (user and article) that are kept tidy and somewhat relevant. I have the bot set to keep mine under fifteen threads; even with pictures (I probably should archive those), it weighs in at only 229 KiB. Rebbing 20:03, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
      • OR, not wanting to commit lèse-majesté but I feel I ought to point out that by far the worst offender for "volume of irrelevant crap on a user page" is one of your esteemed fellow arbs, whose talkpage is currently hosting considerably more threads than does EEng's, and doesn't even have EEng's virtue of occasionally being interesting or entertaining. ‑ Iridescent 20:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
        • Who reads arbs' talk pages? There are arbs there! Well, except Drmies; everybody reads his talk page. Opabinia regalis (talk) 22:52, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
          • Drmies isn't actually top among the current arbcom. Why anyone would want to read DGG's talkpage when there's perfectly good paint to watch dry, I leave as an exercise for the reader. ‑ Iridescent 22:59, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
            • Hmm I thought I was more popular than DGG. Far be it from me to criticize my fellow arbs, but I agree that DGG's talk page is a heavy load to handle. As for the matter at hand, I also don't want to enforce certain limits--but EEng's talk page (he knows I feel this way) is torture. His I try to avoid; DGG's I visit rather frequently but only when I have to: those two pages are difficult if not impossible to load navigate on a mobile device, and even on my desktop. Drmies (talk) 04:24, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
              • DGG may be the most watched, but you're the highest traffic by a long shot: [19]. In other news, I'm somehow not the most boring arb, and I beat NYB by six whole views in the last three months. Neener neener! Opabinia regalis (talk) 04:27, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Like other editors who have commented, I would oppose anything that is mandatory. But I think that it could be a reasonable advisory to have on a guideline page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm sure glad Iridescent brought that up because I had the bytes tabulated and names of admins lined up...but the sign says "Please do not feed, touch, poke, prod, tease, pester, annoy, torment, worry, irk, harass, disturb, bother, or ruffle. While we tease EEng about archiving, he is not an admin, so discourse is optional unless there is something that requires an elevated amount of attention. There's always the option of pinging him from one's own TP. He does archive, and like others who commented, I would oppose anything that requires mandatory archiving. Atsme📞📧 21:25, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
  • You are mistaken (except in the sense that Flow's handling of images and templates was so fubar that it would have rendered the issue moot). Even text-only pages using Flow sucked up bandwidth like a hoover owing to all the kludgy javascript (example); once you started scrolling through them, the lazy-loading setup was spectacularly inefficient. (Try scrolling through a Facebook or Twitter feed—or anything else using lazy-loading—on a metered connection and watch how quickly your data goes. You'll be shocked.) ‑ Iridescent 21:58, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment -- Users' Talk page archiving looks like a non-starter. Although, automatic archiving of article Talk pages would be quite welcome. I.e. if one could add a template that would automatically transclude to set it up, it would be great. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:28, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Thank you everyone for the input. While I can't stop people commenting, I'm going to echo coffman and consider this discussion  Closed. Primefac (talk) 14:04, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I have received as many comments that people are glad I have a system of manual category archives, as I have received complaints that the main page is too long. I also have a system for follow-up that I must manage manually--I typically have a considerable number of in-progres follow-ups dating back to initial inquires a few months back. I know I have fallen behind on both, but I can & will fix that. I absolutely do not want it archived automatically; it will make things even more complicated for me. DGG ( talk ) 16:02, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • FWIW I would probably oppose the RFC but instead would support a detailed guideline, Another user that springs to mind is Hullaballoo Wolfowitz who received quite alot of shit for the size of his talkpage, Anyway I'd happily support a guideline. –Davey2010Talk 16:33, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Mandatory user talk page archival (and talk page archival in general) is a non-starter until the archiving bots work reliably. They currently don't, and it's not clear if anyone is maintaining them. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 16:33, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
  • This sort of policy will be akin to a legislation saying that no person in the country will weigh more than 80kg⮘FORCE RADICAL⮚ 10:46, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I think I would support something like this. There's plenty of archive bots, and I could add Femto Bot fairly easily.
    • At some point, not archiving becomes disruptive.
  • Perhaps there should be a gentle approach though.
All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 23:23, 10 June 2017 (UTC).
  • Oppose, unless and until someone can show that we have multiple users whose talk pages reliably cause the browsers of others to crash upon viewing or (more likely) editing. If this condition is met, and it's rare, it's an administrative prerogative to archive some of the page (over a year old? use discretion) to preserve functionality. If it's common, a bot should deal with it automatically. If the user is active, a request to archive is usually sufficient (and I've received some myself from time to time). If they're not active, you don't need to leave them a message anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:37, 20 June 2017 (UTC)
  • As with never leaving an edit summary, failing to archive one's talkpage following numerous reasonable good-faith requests is a form of disruptive editing. So I would support some sort of motion or guideline to that effect. I don't know how one would enforce it, but I support making it a requirement if, for instance, an ANI thread has been brought about a user to that effect and community consensus is that the user needs to archive, then it is required. Softlavender (talk) 10:39, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Please no. This type of restrictions is just asking for unnecessary drama. Politely ask for archival of large talk pages, but respect the owner's wishes. I hate automatic archiving (it often hides information that may still be relevant or that would benefit from more eyes) and also generally oppose new behavioural rules. —Kusma (t·c) 12:40, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposed Exclusion of Sandbox and Users own TalkPage from T-Bans

Early closing per WP:SNOW and WP:BEANS. Nothing positive for the proposer can come of this discussion. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 17:31, 5 July 2017 (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 User Sandbox exits for the sole purpose of experimenting. As such it is not covered by many of the editing policies. The only restrictions on sandbox editing should be those which make sure that edits in the sandbox are not damaging wikipedia as a project. However, editing the sandbox to include content that comes under a T-Ban does not damage the wikipedia. Therefore users should be given the freedom to edit thier sandboxes, no matter what kind of bans they are subject to. The same goes for a persons own talk page. He/She should be allowed to edit the personal talk page without fear of violating a T-Ban. In effect T-bans should exclude these two areas, as they constitute personal space of users whose content is not included in mainspace articles. FreeatlastChitchat (talk) 06:08, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

  • It would all depend on what the ban is for, and what the circumstances are. Whether or not the scope of the ban includes user space should be decided when the ban is imposed. Reyk YO! 06:29, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Topic bans are not imposed to avoid damaging wikipedia. That's what blocks are for. Topic bans are to help the editor. The idea is that an editor may have potential to be a productive editor in other areas, but feels so strongly about one particular area that he has misbehaved and cannot be trusted in that area. Allowing that editor to make edits about his problem topic in his sandbox defaets the purpose. He needs to stay completely away from the topic, edit productively in other areas, and then (typically at least six months later) apply for the topic ban to be lifted. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:05, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
    User sandboxes are for allowing the user a location for content which will help him/her improve Wikipedia, although isn't yet ready to post in its proper location. Any content a user can't place elsewhere, (s)he shouldn't be putting in his/her sandbox. And user talk pages are for discussing a user's behavior with the user, notifications the user should get, getting a second opinion from the user, and other discussions with the user. It's not for a user to place content on, unles this content is related to a discussion with him/her. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 08:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Od Mishehu. The OP's question is clearly a leading and involved question, and he is clearly under a topic ban and should not be seeking ways to circumvent it. Softlavender (talk) 08:52, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
FreeatlastChitchat has a history of having problems staying away from the topic he is banned from.
His latest block specifically said
"To clarify, although you should already know: Your topic ban covers all articles, talk pages, user space (including sandbox), any place on Wikipedia whatsoever. It also includes editing about the banned subject in any article that doesn't seem like it is covered. As per the original ban[20], 'You are indefinitely prohibited from all edits and pages related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, broadly construed.' "[21]
Also see: Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan.
I suggest that we stop discussing this, because [A] FreeatlastChitchat already has the answer to his question, and [B] We need to do everything we can to help him to stay away from pages related to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, broadly construed. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
User space should not contain essays unrelated to Wikipedia itself (no soapboxing WP:SOAP, also see WP:UP#GOALS), article POV-forks (WP:POVFORK) or fake articles (WP:FAKEARTICLE). This suggests that it would be inappropriate to use this space for political goals anyway, even if no topic ban was in effect. But I also agree that a topic ban should apply generally. —PaleoNeonate - 13:08, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
  • This is a non-starter for me. Topic bans cover topics, not specific pages. They give the user a second change to avoid being indef blocked. If you allow them to edit in their own space (and ping others, and edit war, and put INDEX tags on it so Google indexes it, and create POV forks, etc) what you will end up with is more indef blocked users and more ANI traffic. You also make it harder to monitor by a mile. Well meaning, but a bad idea. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 14:19, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
A general recommendation: People under an active topic ban should not make such policy proposals. It immediately comes off like an attempt to evade the sanctions. As for the proposal itself, it will just lead to bickering. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:33, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
That is true, and I now agree with you and Guy Macon that it should be closed, especially that noone supported the proposal yet. I should have closed the thread instead of commenting, now I'm involved so someone else must do it... —PaleoNeonate - 14:47, 5 July 2017 (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.

Seek Administrators who know the industry in which new articles are published vice Administrators who do not

Based on recent new article that was dubbed not in compliance with G11 or A7 by administrators who upon review of their page are reflect no knowledge themselves of said subject being written, yet have the ability to "tag" an item as ambiguous or not credit worthy. How is this possible? If citations of individuals provide support of the person being written about in the article is not only validated yet repeated as a subject matter expert as well - what else would be needed to pass criteria? I know...knowledgeable administrators of said industry! I applaud volunteerism, expanding knowledge, keeping freedom of speech and thought free; however, when a platform that is left unchecked by over zealous free service defenders of such ideas start to know use their time of service as foundation of being an "experts" in all areas - this is when I start to raise a flag and say "flag / foul" let's collectively revisit the role and intentions of the platform that is open to all that solicits the public to VOLUNTARILY edit/write/contribute to articles to fine tune the information therein - can that endeavor not be "speedily marked for deletion" by what is seemingly to the writer as ignorance of the administrator who again based on their profile is simply not knowledgeable of the industry in which they are reviewing.

My policy change request is:at a minimum allow new articles to be available to public to VOLUNTARILY edit/write/contribute for minimum 72 hours, have administrators who are in those industries actually review and concur with at least 1 other - ideally 2 other administrators for concurrence of wiki violations and then clearly indicate to the writer - where their error in compliance warranted the deletion.

My intent is not to snub/point finger/maliciously retaliate or be rude, just to bring awareness to an area in the article writing process that can be better managed.

I will again re post my recently written article that was deleted in the hopes that an administrator who knows this area of which I am writing can review and approve. If the content of the article is not "strong enough" again - clearly identify what area of the article give wiki admins concern - but truly not enough to delete when citations clearly are there.


LaTonja EstelleLatonjae (talk) 20:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)LaTonja EstelleLatonjae (talk) 20:31, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

@Latonjae: I've just had a read through of the article you created (Rico Anderson) and I can't really agree with the above - you don't need to be an industry expert to know that Rico’s musical genuis can be heard on movie soundtracks such as is promotionally toned, or that a single reference is enough to support the entire article. Please don't just recreate the article again, as it'll be deleted again - instead, use our article wizard to create a draft, which will then be reviewed by an experienced Wikipedia editor (who may even know a thing or two about music!). If it's up to scratch, it'll get approved, and if not you'll get detailed instructions on how to improve it. How does that sound? -- There'sNoTime (to explain) 20:41, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
If you start an article in a use a sub page, and it doesn't have problems such as copyright violations, you probably have days, weeks, or maybe months to get it in shape. While not everyone agrees with this, it's my view that if an article is in mainspace while it may not be complete it ought to meet our hurdle for inclusion. So the simple answer is dark the article and he is a sub page rather than trying to started in mainspace.
Asking for a 72 hour grace period in mainspace is a nonstarter as we have a working alternative.--S Philbrick(Talk) 20:46, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
@Latonjae: Incidentally, if you are working for or with Rico Anderson (or any potential article subject) in any sort of paid capacity, than it is important to review, understand, and follow Wikpedia's policies on how to handle Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and how to make a suitable Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:12, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

Archiving blanked sections of other users' talk pages on one's own talk page?

Hey, I'm not sure of the appropriateness of this.[22][23] I know that everything is properly attributed and the like so that there is no "licensing" problem or anything, but as "saved" there is no apparent indication that the conversation originally took place somewhere else, and it does seem to go against the spirit of our being allowed to blank our own talk pages. Has this kind of thing come up before? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:06, 5 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Not sure if there is a policy reason for it, but it seems to be pretty POINTy. Everything that you all have said is already available until the WMF goes bankrupt and shuts down the servers in the revision history. I can't think of a reason why it would be necessary to move something like that if one party made it clear they did want to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:16, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
For goodness' sakes, people - there is such a thing as asking. I assume that this [24] fixes things? Newimpartial (talk) 23:36, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
What are you doing with that, though? Drafting an ANI report? I disagreed with you on an AFD, and you kept posting non sequitur arguments and demanding responses, then when I had made it quite clear I wasn't interested you took it to my talk page, where I again explained I wasn't interested, let you have the last word anyway, and then blanked the section, to which you responded by copying it over to your user space. I have no idea why you would want to preserve it any form (including a permalink). I assure you, I am not going to get blocked or otherwise sanctioned for wanting to work on articles rather than talk philosophy with you. Wikipedia is not a social networking site. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:47, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
No, I do not feel that you need another ANI appearance, Hijiri. I simply want to have ready access to both of those "conversations", for the next time I am optimistic about moving dialogue to a talk page from a discussion page. And for gosh sakes, your characterization that I "kept posting non sequitur arguments and demanding responses" is entirely counterfactual, since I didn't post any nonsequiturs (as explained by now ad nauseum) nor did I "demand" any "responses". If you stop asking me questions ("What are you doing with that, though?") and mis-stating my comments ("wanting to ... talk philosophy") then I can promise you a voluntary, one-way IBAN on my part. :) Newimpartial (talk) 23:55, 5 July 2017 (UTC)
There's no policy issue that comes to mind. In general it's a good idea to annotate copied conversations with some indication of their source (something like This thread copied from User talk:TenOfAllTrades would do) just to avoid confusion down the line about who said what on which page—and to aid in locating diffs, should that become relevant. I've very occasionally copied threads onto my own talk page to consolidate discussions and keep records all in one place; in due time they roll off into my archives with everything else on my talk page. Having the text unblanked on a page somewhere means that it can be searched, which is sometimes useful—but that searchability is also sometimes a valid reason to ask for content to be blanked, depending on the circumstances.
Editors are allowed (in most circumstances) to modify and blank their own user and talk pages; that privilege works both ways. I can silence you and remove any record of our discussion on my talk page, but you can keep a full record in your own user space.
Personally, I don't sweat my talk page much. I'll roll back vandalism and block-evading trolls, but pretty much everything else stays where it is until the next archiving. If someone shows up and is abusive, I'll let them look silly. If I make a mistake, I try to own up and apologize. Other people have different philosophies for maintaining their talk pages. To each his own. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:07, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Notability for electronic devices (including mobiles)

Hi
Since almost a month now, I have been having discussions about a notability guideline for electronic devices, which resulted in an essay.

Recently, the situation that I was describing came in effect, when an editor created 16 articles for cameras, all of which are being considered for deletion 3 PRoD, and 13 AfD.

The essay is almost finished, but I would like more opinions/suggestions on it. Maybe it will not become an official guideline/policy, but I think it should be treated at the least as an essay. The essay is currently in userspace, if consensus is achieved theb it can be moved in mainspace.

Here is the essay: User:Usernamekiran/Notability (electronic devices).

Thanks a lot in advance. —usernamekiran(talk) 05:54, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Policy on location of RfCs

Near-unanimous consensus to oppose this as a default procedure.But this seems a perfectly suitable choice for RFCs which get too long--subject to the choice(s) of the participants.Winged Blades Godric 09:51, 6 July 2017 (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.

This page is currently 636,434 bytes long. I suggest we remedy this by having RfC on sub-pages, with a short, neutral, notice posted here. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:06, 26 June 2017 (UTC)

  • Oppose such a general rule. This takes away a lot of attention from the RfCs (makes them much harder to notice if you only check your watchlist and not the entire page). It may be justified on a case-by-case basis when some RfCs become overwhelmingly large. —Kusma (t·c) 13:23, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose the principle of a general rule, Strongly support doing so for individual, lengthy RfC like the referrer one. ☺ · Salvidrim! · ✉ 13:32, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Support Proposal seems to be analogous to AfDs which work well? We could even have RfC sorting postings . . ? Aoziwe (talk) 14:11, 26 June 2017 (UTC)
    AfDs suffer from terribly low participation. I disagree that they "work well". —Kusma (t·c) 09:14, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose I agree that longer RfCs may need to be moved to a subpage, but not by default. Besides RfCs are held at numerous locations, not just at Village pump but also on article talk pages, noticeboards, etc. — Music1201 talk 17:13, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose: per user Music1201's rationale especially concerning default moving. Moving longer RFC's on an individual basis is a given. Otr500 (talk) 10:01, 28 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose: This page is now 175,000 bytes. 251,311 bytes. After several days the enormous school-template RfC (now closed) can also be one-click archived, which should get the page down to 100,000 bytes or less. Softlavender (talk) 10:53, 28 June 2017 (UTC); edited 10:32, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Support when the RFC discussion is long. I think it's fine to start them here (or on other pages), but when the discussion is long, then it should be moved to a subpage. (That solves lots of archiving problems as well.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:37, 4 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose generally. If RfCs get incredibly long, it's a good sign they should have been started on a subpage to begin with with notices, but most RfCs are fine here and benefit from the exposure. ~ Rob13Talk 01:39, 4 July 2017 (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.

Status of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft)

A short-lived move request at Talk:Boeing Insitu ScanEagle#Requested move 6 July 2017, now withdrawn as wrong venue, established that Wikipedia:Naming conventions (aircraft), a titling guideline established by WP:WikiProject Aviation, has a de facto community consensus based on its longstanding presence in the listbox at the top of Wikipedia:Article titles (the link text there is "Aircraft"). The project's guideline is contrary to titling policy including, in many cases, WP:PRECISE. If there has ever been a community-level discussion, nobody has found it yet or claimed that one exists.

Is this an adequate substitute for the formal community approval required by WP:CONLEVEL? Or, should the project seek that approval now? ―Mandruss ☎ 17:57, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Even stuff linked as "see also" and "further information" in polices does not become policy or guideline merely because of the reference. That goes double for stuff in templates, such as listboxes. All of those pages are ended independently of the policy or guideline and aren't reviewed with the same care as the policy. Just as notability isn't inherited, neither is policy status. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 02:04, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Mandruss, nearly all of the subject-specific naming conventions and a good many of the subject-specific style advice pages predate WP:PROPOSAL.
At this point, you should either treat it like something with no (non-historical) connection whatsoever to any self-selected team of editors (including, but not limited to, WikiProject Aviation), and therefore propose changes just like you would propose changes to WP:AT itself, or – if WikiProject Aviation asserts priority – it should be WP:MOVEd back into the group's 'namespace', e.g., WP:WikiProject Aviation/Naming conventions (in which case, a non-participant should no more edit that page than you would edit an essay in someone else's userspace).
What we do not want is for the page to be in the Wikipedia: namespace and to be treated like a community-wide guideline, but only for certain self-selected editors to be permitted to decide what it says. So either it's everyone's, and you're free to edit it, or it's not, and the page needs to be moved. (The WP:PROJPAGE guideline probably has links to suitable tags if it ends up getting moved.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

What to do with possible family editing FA about dead person?

Today, somebody using an IP (whose edit summary indicates they might be a family member of Bud Dunn) added info to the article that considerably changed what was there about Dunn's children. The article is FA and has been for about 10 months now. If the info was obviously false I'd revert, but they provided bare urls for sources which do back up what they are saying and seem to be reliable. Unfortunately, they also go against what all the book and newspapers I had used as sources in writing the article said. I really don't know what to do; just revert, or fill in the urls, or ask the IP to fill them in since they added them, or just assume their sources are wrong and the 20+ others are right. I don't know. What makes it even weirder is the IP said the article was a great job except for the part about the children. White Arabian Filly Neigh 20:55, 7 July 2017 (UTC)

  • Having a COI doesn't make them wrong. Often, it makes them right. I would just go to the talk page and start hashing out the sources and to be honest, I might lean towards what the IP put in, as they may have a COI but there is no financial gain from it nor "evil" intent in putting in sourced corrections. Having conflicting sources isn't that unusual, so again, I would give a little extra faith in the IP if the sources check out. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 21:06, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
    • That is kind of what I was leaning towards. I have seen some instances where an editor had a COI and it wasn't like they were making money off it, but somebody else saw it as an issue for them to edit something they had a real life connection with. Since this is an FA I figured it might be particularly contentious. I'll probably post on the IP's talk.White Arabian Filly Neigh 21:15, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Keep one set of data and reduce the other to a footnote and write a few sentences about the sourcing situation. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:17, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
I may end up doing that, although upon rereading some of the original sources they do imply Dunn was married more than once and therefore his children had two different mothers. I guess they didn't say it because that wasn't as common back then. For now I'm leaving the IP edits and have left them a friendly talk message. White Arabian Filly Neigh 21:24, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
Let me see what I can find at Familysearch, do you have a free account there and know how to find original documents indexed there? Looks like Kentucky does not have a marriage index like California and Connecticut does. OK, I confirmed their changes from the Kentucky Vital Record Index (1911-1999). When an obituary calls the last wife, the mother of all the children it is correct, even though she is the stepmother, and has no biological connection to the children. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:30, 7 July 2017 (UTC)
No, I don't have a familysearch account. I didn't know that about the stepmother being called mother, although I wonder if the last wife might have formally adopted one or more of the children if they were minors and living with him when she married Dunn. White Arabian Filly Neigh 21:00, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Proposal for new response parameter to COI edit requests

Hi all. As a COI editor who sometimes makes requests on behalf of clients, I've been struggling with the length of the COI edit request backlog. It pretty consistently hovers around 170 requests, with many that are four months old or more.

I understand that the community is busy, and these requests can't take special precedence. However, an uncertain response time that spans months or more is a tough sell when I'm advocating to potential clients to work with me through Wikipedia's proper COI disclosure process.

As a partial solution, I propose creating a new response parameter to the {{request edit}} template, along the lines of "Revision needed." Editors could use this response to ask the original requester to update their request with additional detail or sources as needed before resubmitting. This would reduce the number of poorly formatted or ill-thought-out requests in the queue, so that editors can focus on reviewing the requests that are ready for thoughtful consideration and inexperienced COI editors can receive useful guidance on how to collaborate with the community. I also propose that COI editors be permitted to provide this response to certain COI edit requests, where it's applicable. To be clear: I am not suggesting that COI editors be empowered to accept or reject others' COI edit requests wholesale. This would simply be a way for COI editors to "give back" to the community by providing guidance to their peers and helping make the backlog less overwhelming for the NPOV volunteers who assist us.

Looking forward to everyone's thoughts and feedback. Thanks for your time! Mary Gaulke (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Sounds too much like the tail is wanting wag the dog. It is COI's who are causing the backlog. Aspro (talk) 21:38, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
This proposal doesn’t reduce our workload but just creates a temporal displacement. It take more of an editors time to review (as other edits may have been made before an article can be reviewed and so the history will have to be searched as well to make sense of it all) so it will increase our workload. Suggestion to remove your frustration -Stop using WP to promote your clients business interests and encourage them into paying for an entry in trade directories etc. Aspro (talk) 22:01, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
Note that WP:EPH exists that you can point users to. --Izno (talk) 23:36, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
This discussion is from Wikipedia_talk:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Potential_process_changes. Read there for more of the history. Most edit requests from COI editors aren't good edits; I mentioned a half dozen bad ones back there. Still, a bit of help at reducing the backlog at User:AnomieBOT/EDITREQTable would be nice. I've dealt with about 10 of those, but can't do it alone. Thanks. John Nagle (talk) 05:16, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Think the OP is playing with semantics here. There is no difference between Request edit & proposed "Revision needed." Has anyone noticed the second proposal : ”I also propose that COI editors be permitted to provide this response to certain COI edit requests, where it's applicable.” Translate: Paid COI's can then advise other COI's to use Request edit. There, you will find, unpaid volunteer editors that will be eager guide you through how to promote your company etc. with out you having to learn how to edit WP competently. After all, you're not interested in WP mission to spread free knowledge to all but just promote your own self interests. So let some other jerk do the work. Ref: ibid and in OP's own words: “Editors could use this response to ask the original requester to update their request with additional detail or sources as needed before resubmitting”. Notice she did not say We editors. To the OP: what did your last slave die of? Aspro (talk) 15:24, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
@Aspro: I hope you'll lighten your tone. Whether you like the idea or not, the OP is offering a suggestion to reduce the workload for volunteer editors, by proposing a recognized method for knowledgable COI contributors to offer advice to less knowledgable ones. I think it's a good idea, and I'd support it. As a longtime COI contributor (and longer-time volunteer) myself, I'd be willing to help offer feedback to make requests easier for volunteers to follow up. Moreover, there already is a request edit queue on Wikipedia for this purpose, and Jimbo Wales has asked volunteers to help, so paid editors feel less compelled to edit directly. And speaking from experience, a lot of this work is not about promoting clients, but simply correcting outdated information. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 15:59, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Just as quick follow-up note, I think that Aspro might have missed that Mary isn't suggesting pointing COI editors to {{request edit}}, what she's saying is that "revisions needed" be added as a response parameter to close existing open edit requests that aren't appropriate in their current form. COI editors would help adding this response where it's needed, to close open requests that are problematic for editors to respond to, and give the requestors feedback on what they need to do to make their request appropriate to Wikipedia. Same as WWB Too, I'd be more than happy to jump in and help out with such an effort. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 16:10, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
@Aspro: I think you may misunderstand me. As 16912_Rhiannon noted, I'm proposing a new response parameter that would allow COI editors to help triage the incoming queue of COI edit requests, so that NPOV editors can focus on requests that are of high quality, and COI editors (including myself) can help their peers learn how to format and source their requests properly in order to create the least possible friction. Per WP:COI, of course, COI editors are not supposed to edit directly articles on which they have a COI; if they believe changes should be made (including basic factual corrections and updates), they must either use this edit request process or violate Wikipedia guidelines. And to be clear, regarding your "We editors" comment: I fully count myself as one of the COI editors who would take time to use this new response parameter to help reduce the load on other editors. I'm a Wikipedian too who regularly works to improve articles on which I'm NPOV. I'm sincerely trying to help the project here. Mary Gaulke (talk) 17:21, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Don't misunderstand me either. Think you have a brilliant idea to set the fox to guard the henhouse Aspro (talk) 17:51, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
To be completely clear: I don't suggest empowering COI editors to approve or implement others' requests, just to provide guidance for improving the quality of poorly sourced or ill-conceived requests. Mary Gaulke (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, You have these rights already! As a WP editor you already have the right to offer guidance to other less experienced editors! Also, if you have been grated reviewers rights, you can also improve the quality of poorly sourced or ill-conceived requests on flagged protected pages! Your argument appear to revolve around paid COI's being given a special privilege to have their edits short-cut our policies where we endeavour to treat all editors as equals. Reminds me of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Quote: "All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”. Aspro (talk) 23:33, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
True we can do that now, although the new parameter could help to flag it in the queue temporarily (if in fact that's what MaryGaulke is suggesting) and allow volunteers to focus on requests that are more "ready for prime time". It would also probably help somewhat for the less experienced COI contributors to get some helpful response, even if it's not a final decision. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 19:03, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Correct—that is indeed exactly what I am suggesting. Mary Gaulke (talk) 00:24, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

In general, there is such a big fixation on the COI aspects that there is not enough awareness of how they serve it up to the reviewing editor.....whether their method makes it a big or small job for the editor that might put it in. My experience is that even very intelligent editors lack this empathy/understanding, and propose it in a way that would make it a very big job to put it in, thus impairing response to such requests. The best remedy/ forcing statement that I can give briefly is to say to give simple, explicit instructions for the requested edit. North8000 (talk) 01:11, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

  • COI does not necessarily refer just to paid editors--it applies also to the person being discussed in the article, or those with a close relationship. Their help can be very useful in building up articles, and they should be encourage to contribute--in the proper manner. One good way of encouraging them is to respond to their queries quickly, and anything which will help people sort out which to reply to is useful. DGG ( talk ) 14:18, 16 June 2017 (UTC) .
  • @North8000: Agree—my thought is that this response parameter could be a way of getting more requests into a format that straightforwardly presents all the necessary information before a NPOV editor reviews them, removing some of the pain from the response process. Mary Gaulke (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Well, that's clear enough. The OP wants to bypass NPOV review, thus removing the pain from paid editors! As pointed out above, if All animals are equal why should some animals be more equal than others ??? Aspro (talk) 15:43, 27 June 2017 (UTC)
Sounds like while there may not be overwhelming interest in MaryGaulke's suggestion, respondents taking the suggestion seriously do not seem to oppose the motion. Since there is no lock on the template itself (and it was once extensively edited by another COI contributor) I think it would be a good idea to at least mock it up in user space and have a look. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 18:36, 30 June 2017 (UTC)
Circling back on this—I have this on my radar and will share a mockup here when it's ready. Mary Gaulke (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:OWN and essays

I have been thinking about WP:OWN and how it relates to WP:Essays. Essays often contain the opinions of a specific group of Wikipedia editors. But let's say that another group of editors comes along and significantly edits the essay... to the point where the essay no longer reflects the opinions of the original group of editors (perhaps to the point where it now states the complete opposite). If the original editors try to object (perhaps saying "Look, you can go write your own essay... please leave our essay alone"), the new group can just point to WP:OWN (and say "Nope... you don't own the page"). This bothers me. If one of the reasons for essays is to give editors a place to state opinions, shouldn't we provide some mechanism to protect those opinions? I am thinking that we should allow some degree of ownership when it comes to essay pages. Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 19:56, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I believe that an essay may ber edited by othger users only to the degree that it still expresses the same opinion. Of course, any user may create an attributed copy, and edit this copy to say anything they want. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 20:09, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
No firm opinion here, just some thoughts:
  • Is there a distinction to be made between user space essays and Wikipedia-space essays? WP:POLICIES already says that any essay that the author does not want changed should be in user space.
  • A policy which says that a Wikipedia-space essay cannot be changed in a way that it no longer expresses the same opinion could be read to say that any change whatsoever causes it to vary from that opinion, since the Devil is often in the details.
  • If we have a policy which says that essays can be OWNed, is that going to lead to a proliferation of essays with just tiny differences? For example one essay says that infoboxes ought to have colored backgrounds (and the color should be blue) and another says color, yes, but light blue and another says color, yes, but royal blue, etc. And if so, is that a problem?
  • What about an amendment to OWN which says something like, "Since essays are the opinion of the author, a much higher degree of ownership-like conduct is to be tolerated in order to prevent the essay from moving away from the editor's original position. If an essay is located in an editor's user space, the author has the prerogative to modify or revert any changes made to it by any other user. In either case, however, the right to engage in ownership-like conduct does not allow the essay's author to delete or modify other editors' edits to the essay's talk page. Nothing here, however, is intended to allow edit warring over the content of any essay, wherever located."
  • Who should be entitled to exercise OWNership of an essay? Only the original author? If the original author fails to defend an essay from changes, should that simply make it fair game for changes or should it trigger deletion or userfication of the essay?
Best regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:57, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
It should be noted that most (I said most) essays in the Wikipedia namespace are there because they reflect a large portion of the community's views, though not large enough to elevate the essay to guideline status. Some of these essays are even used (successfully) as reasons for deletion at AfD. They may also be used to explain a portion of a policy page. If any of these essays were changed, this would likely be immediately noticed and reverted. The editor who made the initial change would then have to show why community consensus has changed to the point of having to rewrite the essay (essentially WP:BURDEN, but for the Wikipedia namespace). — Gestrid (talk) 00:07, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
For anyone curious about the context, see the RFC at Citation overkill, where there is some discussion about whether the essay should be changed to (somewhat) encourage citation overkill, instead of to oppose it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
There is no discussion about whether any essay should be changed to encourage citation overkill. The RFC is malformed and misinterprets others intentions. QuackGuru (talk) 02:38, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
While that RFC certainly inspired my question, my question here isn't really about that RFC. I would like this discussion to be more general in scope... it can apply to many of our essays (especially those essays that express a minority viewpoint... cases where a group of editors disagree with broader consensus, and have written an essay to express their opinion) Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
IMO, people should be able to OWN their essays, as that's what an essay is, it's an expression of one person's thoughts and opinions. If you disagree with those opinions, write your own essay. If an essay becomes important enough to be commonly cited, it should probably be promoted to a guideline, as happened with MOS:ICON (which was originally Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags). Kaldari (talk) 23:33, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
You have accurately described essays in user space. Those in the Wikipedia namespace represent the views of far more than one editor, and some of those gain enough support to be called "widely accepted" essays. Notably, WP:BRD is widely considered to be widely accepted, and it carries more weight than the average essay, but repeated attempts to promote it to guideline have failed. You are suggesting that it should therefore be moved to user space, and I don't think that's going to happen. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:45, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
Self-correction: When did BRD get promoted from essay to "explanatory supplement"? Regardless, it was essay for many years, even years after it was widely accepted, and that was seen as a normal situation. WP:OSE is another example that still exists. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:49, 12 June 2017 (UTC)
BRD was promoted from essay to "explanatory supplement" in May 2012. Hawkeye7 (talk) 02:44, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
{{Supplement}}s are still essays, just a particular type of them. It's not a "promotion", but a categorization clarification that reflects an unusually high level of community buy-in regarding the thesis of the essay as (specifically) an explication of an already existing policy or guideline.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:19, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
At the suggestion of another editor, an essay of mine (WP:RECEPTION) was recently moved from my user space to project space. As far as I'm concerned I lost ownership when that happened. If it evolves in a direction I don't like, I'm free to recapture my original ideas in another user essay. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:52, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Mike. If the community disagrees with the content so much that a consensus emerges that changes it beyond what you originally intended, you can always write another essay expressing your own unfiltered views. That said, it's perfectly legitimate for the community to 'protect' namespace essays even if they don't fully agree with them to preserve the original opinion, as is happening in the case that prompted this discussion. So I don't see a need to introduce a concept of ownership in namespace. Scribolt (talk) 06:52, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Why should those who spent time and effort to write an essay to express their viewpoint have to write another essay to express their viewpoint? After all, they have already gone through the time and effort to write one. Shouldn't the onus to write another essay be on those who don't share the original view of the one already written? And if the original (minority view) essay writers do write a second essay to express their unfiltered views, do they "own" that? what's to stop the majority from changing the second essay as well? When does it stop? Blueboar (talk) 10:57, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Because as Mike said, the second essay would be a user essay. Scribolt (talk) 12:23, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
It shouldn't be a user esssy if there are multiple editors who support it. Say the original version (now the second essay) reflects the views 20 editors... but 200 disagree with that view. The 200 can effectively silence the view of the 20 by constantly editing that view away. Blueboar (talk) 21:14, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, it's not effectively silenced because anyone who wants to can still read it. It's not like it disappears. In your hypothetical example, I think that if 200 people felt strongly enough that something was inappropriate and needed to be removed or amended, then it should be userfied or changed. I disagree with your premise that just because multiple (2? 3?) editors think agree on something that that means it automatically deserves protected status in namespace. Namespace should mean that enough people tolerate it (even if they don't agree with it) for it not to be significantly changed in tone or content (as is happening on citation overkill, where editors are explicitly defending the essay's right to exist and not be compromised). If not enough people care enough about what an essay says to stop others from disrupting, the chances are that it doesn't say anything that other people find useful or relevant and if the author really wants to preserve it, then they can have it as a user essay and the multiple people that agree can still refer to it. Scribolt (talk) 06:52, 14 June 2017 (UTC)
hmm... a lot to think about here. thanks for all the replies. Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 17 June 2017 (UTC)
Mandruss and Hawkeye7, BRD has been tagged as a supplement for years (since at least 2008, and it was tagged that way by the original author). But the {{supplement}} template itself was changed (not for the first time) to remove any mention of "essays" in December 2016. The change itself is not unreasonable, but some of the tags (e.g., the one on BRD) are no longer as obviously appropriate as a result of the change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:58, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
It can be tricky to distinguish between following the original author's topic for the essay versus the author's personal opinion on the topic. Take Wikipedia:Administrators' best practices as an example. Leaving aside the question of whether or not the topic would already fit into another page, are future contributors required to preserve the same best practices as written by the original author, or can they introduce new best practices? Can the original best practices be refined further or modified, or would this be considered a dissenting view that should be covered in a separate essay? In that case, does it make sense for one of these essays to be called "best practices"?
Another challenging aspect is how much of the original author's writing style should be considered part of the original message to be preserved. For this example, I thought the original tone was overly conversational in a way that personalized the advice from a particular non-neutral point of view. I felt this was detrimental to communicating the recommended best practices, as administrators could dismiss them as supporting that point of view. However I appreciate that others may think this is part of the original author's message and so is untouchable. Again some of the problem lies with the essay's title, which implies the content has gained general consensus. If the title more clearly identified the essay as one person's thoughts, there would be less need for the essay to be written from a neutral standpoint. isaacl (talk) 00:03, 18 June 2017 (UTC)
  • A Wikipedia-namespace essay is subject to all the same consensus rules/process as any other projectpage. So, no, consensus will usually not be in favor of inverting an essay to state its opposite. However, consensus often is in favor of moderating hyperbole, bullshit, demonizing of others, or an anti-policy, anti-consensus (i.e. WP:NOTHERE) thesis. This is what happened with WP:DICK and WP:DIVA, among others. Essays that cannot be salvaged in these regards, either due to their nature or due to OWNy behavior by particular parties, are regularly deleted or userspaced by WP:MFD. Consensus is also often in favor of introducing other viewpoints in their own sections, or at least linking to alternative essays. On the other hand, a userspace essay is an individual editor's personal opinion, and shouldn't be extensively modified by others without invite. Both kinds of essays can be forked, into either namespace, by someone else for further and different development. But this is not Essaypedia; we are not here to write essays, and any of them we have, in either namespace, should be helpful to the encyclopedia project and its editors as such (not as Internet users, or political pundits, or gamers, or parents, or whathaveyou), or they are subject to deletion per WP:NOT#WEBHOST policy. I don't think I'm suggesting anything at all new or different here, just stating the status quo.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:17, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Widely held (but minority) views

A question related to the one above. WP:POLICIES states that "Essays that the author does not want others to edit, or that are found to contradict widespread consensus, belong in the user namespace." My question is... how "widespread" does a "widespread consensus" have to be? Can an essay be considered to have "widespread consensus" if it is supported by a reasonably large and diverse group, or must the essay be supported by the majority of the community? In other words... how large/small a consensus should an essay have before it is moved from main policy space to userspace (or conversely from userspace to main policy space)? Blueboar (talk) 15:02, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

To answer your last question first, you'd have to consider the number of people who support this "widespread consensus", the strength of their views, the number of views on that subject, and also how far the essay departs from the "widespread consensus".
For example: Basically everyone is in favor of free content, we feel strongly about it, there's really only two views ("for" and "against"), and an essay that favored scrapping free content would be userified.
On the other side, we have a wide variety of views on how to interact with classroom assignments, no single view really holds a complete majority, and an essay that proposed, say, reverting student edits after the assignment seemed to be finished instead of minutes after the edit was made (perhaps with a justification about reducing time spent explaining policies) would not be very far from accepted practice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
Generally agreed. A simpler rubric, for anything more closely pertaining to Wikipedia itself than something vague like "free content", is this: It has widespread consensus if it's found in a Wikipedia policy, guideline, {{supplement}} essay, Help-namespace page with a long history, process page instruction section (like those found at XfD pages), or general essay that the entire community treats as a near-guideline (e.g. WP:AADD and WP:BRD). If it doesn't have that level of community-wide buy-in then the view does not have "widespread consensus". An essay espousing a view that doesn't have widespread consensus need not be userspaced; we have dozens that do not, including many that are pro and pro pairs. But an essay that contradicts widespread consensus definitely belongs in userspace, or should just be deleted if it isn't useful and seems not here to help the encyclopedia project. I've even seen users indefinitely blocked for having what amounts to such essays as sections on their user pages – any kind of "why Wikipedia sucks and and you all suck" kind of thing is a deletion candidate. So are "why this policy or guideline I hate must be torn down"-style anti-consensus rabblerousing pages. So are other anti-consensus things, whether they take "essay" form or not; I can think of pseudo-wikiprojects that were consensus-resistance canvassing farms, and were deleted at MfD.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:17, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
We need to be careful how we respond to dissent. Something that is "consensus-resisting" or even "anti-consensus" today may represent the consensus in a few years. Ten years ago, opinions on many WP issues were very different to what they are now. Sometimes the way to move from a lone voice to consensus is to simply wait. (I realize that this opinion is itself anti-consensus...) Jack N. Stock (talk) 03:49, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

I had a problem with citation overkill. I created a Citation underkill. It represents the consensus of at least one editor. Me! One editor can make a difference. QuackGuru (talk) 23:59, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Compiling competing essays

A theoretical way to address this issue is to compile essays with competing views of Topic X into a single essay which reports the existence of the competing views, and tries to present each policy-compliant perspective in a fair manner. (Remember that non-polioy-compliant essays are subject to deletion through MFD etc.) But to do that would take a heap of cooperation. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 20:39, 3 July 2017 (UTC)

FYI proposed rename of Wikipedia how-to template

FYI comments welcome Template_talk:Wikipedia_how-to#Requested move 11 July 2017NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 09:15, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Fundraiser banner "ad"

Is there a discussion page anywhere about the latest batch of fundraiser banners? I've looked extensively, and can't find one. Perhaps the Foundation has decided in advance that it knows the feedback it'll receive (massive-sized, joltingly intrustive, hectoring in tone, JW insisting on his (utterly revisionist) "proper title" of "Founder", and so on), and just doesn't want to hear it? 89.101.50.203 (talk) 15:45, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

Good question. Many Israelis would find it insulting that it calls 15 shekels "the price of a cup of coffee", which is actually 6 shekels now. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 17:54, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
I imagine meta:Fundraising#Contact_Us would be a great place to start. FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY [u+1F602] 00:58, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

Don't blank but archive talk pages.

I know that "blanking" on Wikipedia is essentially the same as archiving (but without the search 🔍 results being shown). But it just seems useless to have a bot blank IP talk pages when archives can be created, it would seem better if IP addresses got archives than were being blanked. Sure "newbies" who use new IP's will be amazed by it, but by creating archives we will keep relevant discussions searchable, blanking helps no-one. --1.55.183.244 (talk) 08:14, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Do we really have a bot doing this? I was editing as an IP address since 2005 before recently creating this account and my previous IP address' pages were never blanked. It's possible that for some ranges with a header like school blocks those are regularly restored. On the other hand, most of those messages are user warnings, I'm not sure how useful it would be to have those among search results. Also, archives would be likely to be pruned by IP address editors because they would often not be related to that person's activity. If they were protected, this would be non-standard practice. —PaleoNeonate - 14:04, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
Well, I think IP talk pages should be archived properly, because it's much better than rooting through revision history, as well as recording the history of the IP in question for reference. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 05:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Clarification proposal on user subpages closed as "opposed"

Wikipedia:User pages/RfC for stale drafts policy restructuring/B4 clarification is closed as failed/opposed. The rationale is too detailed, but one of rationales is worth quoting: "Abiding by rules is an integral part for the development of any community. But rules exist primarily and solely for the development and the greater good of the encycloepadia in general. Rules are not meant to be created just for the sake of it." Read further more. --George Ho (talk) 01:12, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC on labelling page mover closures of RMs

An RfC has been opened on the labelling of closures of requested moves by pager movers at Wikipedia talk:Page mover#RfC: Labeling page mover closures. All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:38, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:ACTRIAL

The discussion on this topic has been occurring in a low trafficked page regarding the implementation of ACTRIAL. The WMF, apparently, has agreed to go along with it for a short trial to gain statistical insight. Their reasoning is a six year old consensus on the matter. When it was brought up whether or not a new RfC should be done to reconfirm that consensus it was shot down as unnecessary. Due to the immense change in Wikipedia policy that would result in this trial I felt it was necessary to post this notice to a much more seen board. The fact that this is being done in relative secret, away from the knowledge of most people, is astonishing and should bother any Wikipedian who values community input on such wide reaching actions. Therefore, the notice. Please see a retooled Wikipedia:Autoconfirmed article creation trial for further details. --Majora (talk) 19:26, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Anyone interested in responses to the above may like to see User talk:Jimbo Wales#WP:ACTRIAL. Johnuniq (talk) 07:43, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Editors are invited to join the conversations at WT:NPPAFC and WP:ACTRIAL. I think the discussion at Jimbo talk has made it clear that this discussion is about a trial, and not any permanent change, which is often a misconception. Jimbo talk is probably the best place to continue having this conversation so it will be in one place, but I did want to make it clear here as well. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:58, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • The claims made above by Majora are based on a misunderstanding broadcast in several places by Majora who is not familiar with what ACTRIAL involves. There have been no secret discussions. Any current relevant discussions invovle development by the Wikimedia Foundation and are being held very openly in various high traffic places such as WT:NPR, WT:NPPAFC, the two projects that handle these issues. Any RfC have been published properly and at Cent.
Depending on the results of the experiment, the WMF will collaborate with the communit to make or improve the tools that have been requested. A decision to run the trial was reached by a consensus of a series of RfC including one of the largest RfC ever held on Wikipedia. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:45, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Once again, your constant assumptions on my understanding, my profession, my life, and everything about me is nothing more than pure arrogance. Once again you assume and cast aspersions when you know nothing about me. Casting aspersions left and right for much of the past 24 hours, constantly attempting to put me in a negative light. You know nothing. All I wanted to do was ensure that people know what was going on. That is it. Now I'll ask you to stop but I know that you won't and that's ok. You've been doing it all day and I doubt any request from me is going to change that. --Majora (talk) 03:59, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • A different response would have occured if you had posted a neutral message without the nudge-nudge adjectives that suggest the effort to salvage new pages patrol is a secret plot to subvert Wikipedia. How about acknowledging that there really is a gigantic problem with new pages, and that hoping someone else will fix it is no longer adequate. A neutral message would simply have linked to the ACTRIAL page with a brief explanation of what ACTRIAL is. Johnuniq (talk) 05:49, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • No body is casting aspersions on you! WP is not the optimum place for discourses in Gandhian ideology and One can't expect to throw stones and in return be welcomed with a shower of flowers!. On a seperate note, you would probably do well to understand that a single statement can be delivered in numerous ways each highlighting a different part of the issue.Your statement precisely highlighted something of the sort of--How dare, we some underground editors try to implement some shady deals on the entire wiki?!And now that you have fairly got an idea on how the issue appeals to your intended community(Sigh!) of Jimbo-talk-page-visitants, stop bellowing out-- All I wanted to do was ensure that people know what was going on. and the usual accompanying garble---arrogant, negative light....Winged Blades Godric 11:15, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
  • The notice wasn't neutrally worded, but that is water under the bridge as far as I am concerned. Marjora was concerned and posted here to let people know, and while I would have preferred to work them on the wording of the post, its fine and more people know where to look if they want information now, which is good. The Jimbo talk conversation makes it clear that the community is still behind this and has brought more voices to the conversation. There's plenty of work to be done going forward, so lets do it. TonyBallioni (talk) 16:40, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about establishing a new speedy deletion criteria

There is currently a discussion underway about establishing a new criteria for speedy deletion for undeclared paid editing. Please consider participating. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:04, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank)

Recently, there has been some confusion on whether or not the 7 July 2017 UNESCO decision to list the Old Town of Hebron, specifically the Cave of the Patriarchs, as a World Heritage Site, can or cannot be listed in the main list of World Heritage Sites in Israel. I have proposed that it be listed there, while other co-editors have disagreed with me. Wikipedia policies outlined in WP:Naming conventions (West Bank) do not specifically deal with the historical/geographical aspects of sites in the West Bank and which places were, in antiquity, called by different names. For example, the geographical place known as the "Land of Israel" is also a country historically defined as such in the Midrash and Mishnah (compiled in 189 CE). Saying that a place (Hebron) is in the Land of Canaan, Judea, Palestine, the Land of Israel, the Holy Land, or whatever, is NOT necessarily a political statement, as it is a historical statement. It just so happens that the Government of Israel calls the country by its historical name. Had the Wikipedia article, "World Heritage Sites in Israel," been titled "World Heritage Sites in the State of Israel," the resentment in having Hebron or the Cave of the Patriarchs listed there may have held up, insofar as that is disputed. But, historically, there is no dispute whatsoever about its historical connections to these geographical names. If UNESCO wanted to politicize something, as in the recent case involving Hebron (see: UNESCO puts Hebron on endangered heritage list, outraging Israel), does that mean that we, on Wikipedia, must also politicize the same thing? Of course not! Please clarify Wikipedia's policy in WP:Naming conventions (West Bank) with respect to the use of geographical names used in antiquity, and which are NOT meant to offend any ethnic group, per se, but only mention its historical context.Davidbena (talk) 22:16, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what claim is being made here. The page World Heritage Sites in Israel references the modern country Israel, not the historical Land of Israel, as is true of all of the Lists of World Heritage Sites by country. The list for Russia, for example, would be quite different if it were based on the historical Russian Empire. Newimpartial (talk) 22:34, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
Based on Davidbena's argument, we would also list sites in Ireland, the United States (east of the Mississippi River), Canada, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Australia and so on as being in the British Empire. Jack N. Stock (talk) 22:46, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
The one difference being that the countries you've mentioned, their borders have changed, but in Israel's case, the borders are the same, and the ancient geographical names are still being used today for these places. Why deny the obvious?Davidbena (talk) 22:52, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
"The borders are the same"? Are you trolling? If you think that Israel extends to, and beyond, the Litani river, you had better inform the government of Lebanon.
Lists of UNESCO World Heritage sites are clearly intended to be classified according to current political boundaries, not irridentist fantasies. Newimpartial (talk) 23:02, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
For the most part, the borders are indeed the same. But what you have said about Lebanon (although it has no bearing on the point that we wish to make here about ancient topography), Josephus mentions the land of Judea and Galilee under Herod's Dynasty extending to places that were, prior to 1967, held by Syria (i.e the Golan Heights), but this is a regression. What we are mainly concerned with here is NOT to delineate the modern-day border of Israel based on the old, but rather to simply recognize that old appellations for the country (Canaan/Palestine/Judea/Israel) would include within them Hebron, a thing admitted to even by the Palestinian Arabs. Therefore, the old appellations are still relevant. There is no such thing as "fantasy" when historians (whether Jewish or non-Jewish, Greek, Roman or otherwise) have given multiple names to the same country, and which "naming conventions" of old are still being used in academic literature, and often have more of a historical/geographical bearing on the ancient sites today, than do any political considerations.Davidbena (talk) 01:13, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
The "argument" you offer has exactly the same bearing on the Russian Empire. I have seen no rejoinder to that. The list pages for UNESCO sites only refer to current boundaries. Newimpartial (talk) 03:25, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
My friend, in a historical context, one may also mention the old names given for the Russian Empire. Here, in this case, however, where the Land of Israel is concerned, it has NEVER lost its appellation. Let's say that you were a geographer, or a historian, and you had mentioned the site of Hebron in its historical context (Canaan, Palestine, the Land of Israel, Judea or the Holy Land), it would still be relevant. It has absolutely nothing to do with modern-day disputes over the site's location, or whether or not Israel has sovereignty over the country known as the "West Bank," a matter currently given-over to dispute. If you feel that Hebron cannot be listed under the name "Israel" because of its political status or its implied connotation, that can be remedied by adding an asterisk after the word "Israel" on the page, World Heritage Sites in Israel, making it clear that the term Israel as used here is only a geographical location, one and the same as Palestine, Judea and Canaan, when used in a historical context. Otherwise, we run the risk of infringing upon WP:IMPARTIAL. To steer clear from partiality, in this case, let us add an asterisk with an explanation.Davidbena (talk) 04:19, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
So... you want us to put a star * next to a load of Jews? I'll get my coat... Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:55, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

The tag Category:World Heritage Sites in Israel was recently added to Cave of the Patriarchs. I removed it, and there is now a discussion fork on this topic underway at Talk:Cave of the Patriarchs/Archive 1#Categorisation with respect to status as World Heritage Site. Snuge purveyor (talk) 00:55, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

(Re-paste of argument). The use of the category, "World Heritage Sites in Israel," ought to be considered valid with respect to the Cave of the Patriarchs and/or the Old Town of Hebron for the simple reason that its being designated as a World Heritage Site is irrelevant of the country, seeing that the identification of the place itself is undisputed, although the UNESCO board members have opted to take a political stand by not calling the country of its location "Israel," using instead the word "Palestine." The name of the country is disputed merely on political grounds, but should not have any legal bearing on making mention of the country based on its accepted use and understanding, broadly construed. By "broadly construed" I mean that "Israel" and "Palestine" are one and the same country, the one word used in place of the other by Jews and by Arabs. Moreover, seeing that the final borders of the "State of Israel" with respect to the Palestinians have yet to be finalized, and by saying that Hebron is not in Israel proper, you have taken sides in this argument. Secondly, it was Great Britain who first decided to partition the country known as "Palestine" by dividing it into two sovereign regions, which never came to fruition. Considering the history of violence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine prior to 1948, Britain decided in 1936 to divide Palestine between the Jews and Arabs, as we learn in The Survey of Palestine under the British Mandate: 1920 - 1948, published by the British Mandate government printing office in Jerusalem in 1946, p. 166: "The commission, under Lord Peel, was appointed on 7 August 1936 to investigate the cause for the outbreak of the Arab rebellion and the way the Articles of the Mandate were being implemented. Between November 1936 and January 1937 the commission studied the situation in the country, and in June 1937 published its recommendation to abolish the Mandate and to divide the country between Arabs and Jews." (End Quote). In this matter, nothing has been resolved. Still, prior to these recommendations, the area of Hebron was called by Jews and Arabs "Palestine," as was it called in classical Hebrew literature dating back to the 2nd-century CE "the Land of Israel." It is not our place to politicize the situation, simply because UNESCO wishes to do so. By that logic, Hebron is a "no-place" - neither in Israel, nor in Palestine. It would be outrageous to actually say such a thing.Davidbena (talk) 02:49, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Why is this discussion open both here and at AN? Seraphim System (talk) 02:52, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Here, it is open because of the desired or expected outcome, namely, of bringing about either a "modification" or "clarification" in Wikipedia's stated policy with respect to naming conventions used in articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially since what has happened with UNESCO's decision to list the "Cave of the Patriarchs" in Palestine. There, on WP:AN, its purpose is to achieve agreement as to the use of a category called "World Heritage Sites in Israel.".Davidbena (talk) 03:42, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
There seems to be an element of forum shopping in having three active discussions. Nonetheless, let me repeat my comments from Talk:Cave of the Patriarchs: There are no World Heritage Sites in Biblical Israel or Mandate Palestine for the simple reason that all WHS have been designated since 1972. Machu Picchu is not a "World Heritage Site in the Inca Empire," because these two terms never overlapped in time. When we say "by country" we mean the present, without feeding the extralegal ambitions of either side in international disputes.--Carwil (talk) 12:38, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Not only does this appear to be a case of forum shopping; there also seems to be an element of disingenuity by the editor originating these discussions, who advances different (even tangential) arguments in each of the three fora. I would suggest that, right now, there is no evident desire to revise the naming conventions for West Bank articles (which would require an eventual RfC anyway, rather than being resolved in any of the fora in which Davidbena has raised the question); those interested in the specific case ought to address the most active discussion, which seems to be at Talk:Cave of the Patriarchs/Archive 1#Categorisation with respect to status as World Heritage Site. For my response to the editor's bizarre argument that because borders have not been finalized that therefore the effective borders of the state of Israel are coterminous with the historical Land of Israel, and that any other view is "politicizing the situation", see the discussion at the aforementioned talk page. Newimpartial (talk) 13:12, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
To be fair to User:Davidbena, I was the one who opened the third discussion at Talk:Cave of the Patriarchs. I was aware of the discussion here, but unaware of the one at AN. However in contesting the categorisation I felt the article's talk page would be the proper venue. I apologise for adding to the confusion, and for not notifying this discussion immediately upon opening the thread. Snuge purveyor (talk) 17:26, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
I'll take some responsibility here too, actually. I should have opened a discussion on the talk page when I saw one beginning here (and later on AN). The talk page discussion should always happen first, before any forums are consulted/shopped. Newimpartial (talk) 23:48, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
  • PROPOSAL: Since, as far as historical topography is concerned, no juridical legitimacy or anything "binding" can be ascribed to UNESCO's decision of 7 July 2017 to mention the Old Town of Hebron (the Cave of the Patriarchs) as a World Heritage Site in Palestine, anymore than its decision earlier (in 2001) to mention the fortress Masada as a World Heritage Site in Israel, as you can see here: UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Israel, although both places are located in the so-called "West Bank" captured by Israel in 1967 (or what some hope to be the future State of Palestine). UNESCO's use of nomenclature in this most recent matter is based purely upon political motives. However, in terms of Wikipedia's recognition of this unresolved border dispute, or its leaning towards any one side in the Arab-Israeli conflict, let it be resolved that we, as neutral observers, steer clear from taking any political stand, but maintain a neutral point of view, in accordance with WP:NPOV and WP:IMPARTIAL. In consideration of which, it is here proposed that the following disclaimer be appended to the Wikipedia pages broadly construed with the Arab-Israeli conflict, namely, that an asterisk (*) be placed after the word "Israel" in the category known as "World Heritage Sites in Israel," with a reference to the effect that the proper name "Israel" is used here apolitically, that is, as a geographical/historical toponym, often used in the same sense that "Palestine" is used, and whose recognized borders may actually be disputed; or vice-versa, the proper name "Palestine" is used here apolitically, etc. This may bring some succor to this complex and troubling issue.Davidbena (talk) 13:35, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
This is a ridiculous proposal; clearly Wikipedia should maintain the category "World Heritage Sites in Israel" according to the same principles used for all of the other categories for World Heritage Sites by country, using currently accepted national borders. The adoption of so-called apolitical toponyms as a cover for irridentism would be a violation of WP:NPOV and would be no more appropriate than categories classifying World Heritage Sites by the historical borders of the Russian Empire or of Poland. Newimpartial (talk) 13:43, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Quite the contrary, historical/geographical names such as "Canaan," the "Land of Israel," "Palestine," "Judea," - are all used for one and the same country, as is well-known. As for what you claim to be an "ulterior motive" of mine (or being, as you said "irredentist"), meaning to say that I am seeking to advocate the restoration of territory to my country (or what was formerly thought of as such), that notion is incorrect, as Israelis do not need the world's approval or disapproval, as G-d is our witness. Still, in your allegations about me, you have not assumed WP:Good Faith with me and with these rather sane proposals. But let others, here on Wikipdia, be my judge. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 14:00, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not confuse historical regions with contemporary countries; the categories for UNESCO sites by country use contemporary names and accepted borders and should do no other.
Your argument that "Israelis do not need the world's approval or disapproval, as G-d is our witness" to restore territory to your country "or what was formerly thought of as such" is precisely an irridentist argument. I did assume good faith when you began this discussion, Davidbena, but you exhausted that assumption long ago; you also seem not to hear what others are saying, in spite of several editors raising similar objections to your arguments as I have raised. Newimpartial (talk) 14:22, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
My friend, my only objective here is to resolve disputes, rather than create new ones. So far, you are the only one who has responded here, after submitting my proposals. Let's wait and see how the administrators will handle this issue.Davidbena (talk) 18:58, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Right after we move the old city to world heritage sites in Judah. This whole notion that Israel is eternal and undividedly belonging to the Jewish is hopeless fringe POV (in terms of available scholarship on the subject which shows that the historical reality of "Jerusalem as a capital of Israel" was much more complex) - but forget about that, it is a fiction - fortunately this is not that complex or confusing, it is not a world heritage site in Israel, which cant mean anything more then a UNESCO designation. Seraphim System (talk) 19:04, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

SIMPLIFIED REVISED PROPOSAL: As per Wikipedia's recognition of the unresolved border dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, or its leaning towards any one side in the Arab-Israeli conflict, let it be resolved that we, as neutral observers, steer clear from taking any political stand, but maintain a neutral point of view, in accordance with WP:NPOV and WP:IMPARTIAL. In consideration of which, it is here proposed that the following disclaimer be appended to the Wikipedia pages broadly construed with the Arab-Israeli conflict, namely, that an asterisk (*) be placed after the word "Israel" in the category known as "World Heritage Sites in Israel," with a reference to the effect that the proper name "Israel" is used here apolitically, that is, as a geographical/historical toponym, often used in the same sense that "Palestine" is used, and whose recognized borders may actually be disputed; or vice-versa, the proper name "Palestine" is used here apolitically, etc. This may bring some succor to this complex and troubling issue.Davidbena (talk) 19:46, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

We can't just ignore UNESCO's own designation, which is what this category is about, for no reason other then editorial POV. Attempts to present this as WP:NPOV are ill-conceived, to say the least. If you actually read WP:NPOV it has nothing to do with the kind of reasoning that is being presented here, which has nothing to do with WP:RS and basically amounts to "if I don't like it it's not neutral". Editors are really getting tired of this. While there has been criticism that can be briefly noted in the article, it can't be categorized as a "World Heritage Site in Israel" because it's not one. Seraphim System (talk) 20:00, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Friend, my contention is that you cannot call half of the country "Palestine" and half of the country "Israel," when both toponyms were used for ONE and THE SAME country. Besides, it was the British who first proposed dividing the country in 1937, and which proposal eventually led to a war between Jews and Arabs, each trying to gain as much control of the country as possible. As far as borders are concerned, nothing has been resolved between the two parties in this dispute ---- a dispute, mind you, which I call one of the great "political intrigues" of the 21st century! Have a good day (here, it's evening).Davidbena (talk) 20:10, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
This is now clearly not an issue about the World Heritage Site, but rather a general issue of nomenclature for the entire West Bank and Gaza. Revisiting the current consensus would require a well-formulated RfC, at the very least. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
That has been the entire foundation of this argument from the beginning. It's only WP:NPOV, if the whole country is Israel. Why not treat the whole country as Palestine instead and include all World Heritage Sites in both categories? That is the only way this proposal could be construed as neutral, otherwise we have no choice but to adhere to UNESCO's own classifications without imposing editorial POV on them. This "half of the country" language is fringe POV―Israel is a modern state that was created through modern quasilegal processes, it has no other existence and never has (except as a mythological concept and a reality that all kinds of scholarship and evidence has shown was far removed from that mythology). What everyone else is talking about is Israel as a nation-state, not Shangri-La, and the recognized borders define the entire country. Even the partition is disputed by some, but views that "the whole country is Israel" or "the whole country is Palestine" are generally regarded as equivalently outside the mainstream. The mainstream view, reflected in UNESCO's decision, is that settlement activity beyond the agreed upon borders of Israel is illegal, and that Hebron is not within those boundaries. What you are proposing is a pretty unworkable position in terms of WP:NPOV. Seraphim System (talk) 20:53, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Friends, @Newimpartial: and @Seraphim System:, editors have been "politicizing" the situation since who-knows-when. But why do you insist on politicizing the situation when it negates Wikipedia's stated policy? As you can see here, the Israeli objection to calling regions of the country by two names - the one "Palestine" and the other "Israel" - based on political motives, or more precisely, on the now defunct 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan, is what we are dealing with here. (For the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan, see discussion here [Green Line]). Israelis view the entire country as one, but to give two separate names for two regions of the country is inherently wrong and is based on perpetuating an errant political stand taken by the British in 1937 who sought to divide the country. Moreover, the 1949 Armistice Agreement is no longer binding. While some might refuse to recognize Israel's de facto claims and hold of this territory, hoping to return to the pre-1967 border, the reality is such that the entire country is called "Israel" by the Israelis who live here. What's more, in a broader sense, the country's historical and geographical names have never changed, whether Palestine or the Land of Israel. So, I object to your claim that this discussion isn't about the "World Heritage Sites in Israel," as it still is. As for Wikipedia's naming conventions, the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed. My proposal is to leave the "West Bank" just as it is (since it only describes a geographical region that once divided positions held by Israel and Jordan), but to add a disclaimer there, stating to the effect that Wikipedia's use of the words "Palestine" and/or "Israel" are meant to be understood apolitically, and as purely geographical-historical terms used in antiquity. In this manner, we steer clear from politicizing the situation. Whenever editors mention "Israel" and their intent is to describe a political case involving the State of Israel, or the Government of Israel, the words "State of Israel" or "Government of Israel" should preface their editorial entry. Be well. Davidbena (talk) 06:26, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Hebron is not recognized as part of Israel by the United States, and even if it were that would not help Israel or the United States. Palestine is considered a state now, and the only place this is heading is straight to the ICC, or possibly other courts, where all the wonderful youtube videos of people saying "the whole country is Israel" will be available for prosecutors in the future. Fact finding is not as difficult when people openly admit to genocidal intent on youtube, but no, it is Palestine and to say otherwise may satisfy several of the demanding requirements for genocide under the law, so why don't you stop and certainly do not drag Wikipedia into it. What I am trying to tell you is recent developments in genicide law have shown that courts may not require a state policy and may bot require as dramatic an actus reus as you imagine, if the intent requirement is met so certainly anyone who is stating an intent to destroy Palestine as a nation, which is what this amounts to, may not understand how serious what they are saying is. It isn't cute, it isn't benign, and it isnt WP:NPOV, the majority of scholarship including legal scholarship is in agreement that the settlements in Palestine, and Hebron, are illegal - Wikipedia is not a mouthpiece to legitimize fringe and hateful right wing POV, we dont tolerate it for the KKK, we dont tolerate it for neo-nazis and I certainly hope we dont tolerate it from the Israeli right either. Seraphim System (talk) 07:13, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
For example you just suggested that we rewrite the policy to state that "Palestine is a historical-geographic term used in antiquity" - I have literally seen people indeffed for much less then this when the comments could be construed as "anti-semitic" - so, what you are suggesting is that we use "State of Israel" for Israel, and Israel for Palestine? Are you actually being serious right now? - I don't mean this in a sarcastic way, I actually can not tell if you are seriously proposing this. Whatever your intentions are, and I will assume you are acting in good faith, it's disgraceful and sad that this discussion is being allowed to continue like this is a reasonable proposal that should be entertained. Seraphim System (talk) 07:57, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Again, you're politicizing the situation, and you've taken-up a non-neutral position, in defiance of WP:NPOV and WP:IMPARTIAL, besides having stated that "Palestine is considered a state now", when, in fact, it is NOT a sovereign State. We all know that International Courts are not unassailable, so whoa! Hold back your horses and try to proceed in this case on neutral ground. Why use such harsh derogatory words as "genocidal intent"??? That's a clear regression from the topic here. And, yes, I see nothing wrong with using "Palestine is a historical-geographic term used in antiquity." Have you never read English translations of Al-Muqaddasi's description of Palestine, or Al-Tamimi, the physician's use of the word Palestine? Have you never read where the Mishnah (Kelim 1:6), compiled in 189 CE, mentions the "Land of Israel"? All are used in a pure historical-geographical context.Davidbena (talk) 08:22, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
You are wasting our time with strawman arguments at this point. I'm not "politicizing" anything, there is nothing political about what I'm saying beyond the general effect of the massive press attention it would attract, I am telling you my understanding of the current situation based on many different sources, including recent scholarship and law cases, is that this is a very serious matter. The majority of sources, far from accepting the position that "There is no Palestine" seem to be discussing which of a variety of war crimes and crimes against humanity would be the best legal fit for the facts of the occupation in the territories. This isn't my POV, it's my understanding of the situation based on a lot of sources, including the recent activity of the UN. You can think the UN is just being flippant with this most recent designation, but the proposal that Wikipedia should declare that UNESCO is a politically motivated anti-semitic agency and that we should alter our policies to favor your POV on this basis should probably be worth at least a trouting.Seraphim System (talk) 09:04, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
The decisions passed at the UN are often biased, as we all know. I have never once suggested that "there is no Palestine." For me, Palestine, the Land of Israel and Judea are one and the same country. Our duty as editors is to remain NEUTRAL in political disputes. My proposal will help ensure this, and will help remedy a problem that currently exists. There is nothing wrong with mentioning aspects of the political morass inherent in the Arab-Israeli conflict, but this can be done with civility, and without taking sides in this issue.Davidbena (talk) 09:17, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
So, you think you are neutral, and everyone else is biased? That because Palestine and Israel "are one and same country" for you anyone who disagrees with you must be biased, including not only the UN, but the experts at the UN (whose reputations and subject areas expertise carry far more independent gravitas then anything association with the UN adds to them) Seraphim System (talk) 09:37, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Also, I think if someone posted the equally foolish proposal that we should rewrite our policies to clarify that Israel is actually the "Zionist entity" in order to avoid politicizing the situation and to fulfill our obligation to remain NEUTRAL, that they would at the very least be strongly admonished, so once again I am dismayed that this conduct is being normalized and tolerated. Seraphim System (talk) 10:28, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
No, you misunderstood me. I'm not saying that the country names of "Israel" and "Palestine" are not disputed on political grounds. They are! All it takes is for you to look at the objection of the Israeli Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the UNESCO declaration, here or Netanyahu Protests UNESCO Hebron Decision with Scripture. This dispute revolves around how the government of Israel exercises de facto rule over these parts, and considers them an integral part of the multi-national and Jewish State of Israel, while the other side wishes to be given a sovereign state of their own. For this reason Netanyahu voiced his displeasure at the UNESCO declaration, where it, in turn, referred politically to the region as "Palestine." You see, the matter of how the country should be called is disputed on political grounds by two peoples (Jews and Arabs), with Israelis calling it Israel, including Hebron. We ought to steer clear from this dispute, and use the words apolitically. Moreover, as good editors who adhere to policy, we are expected to uphold Wikipedia's policies of WP:NPOV and WP:IMPARTIAL. This does not prevent us, of course, from talking about these heated political issues. It does prevent us from taking sides in this conflict. What we might feel personally about this issue should not come across in our editing.Davidbena (talk) 12:22, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Could I direct attention to this recent comment: "This dispute revolves around how the government of Israel exercises de facto rule over these parts, and considers them an integral part of the multi-national and Jewish State of Israel" - that, my friends, is irridentism. This is as if we were to adopt WP:NPOV by treating all sites in Slovakia, and Croatia, and Transylvania as though they could also be equally be described as "as integral parts of the multi-national and Magyar state of Hungary". The perspective Davidbena is advocating here is purest marginal POV; leave it to this new editor to formulate an RfC if they choose, but WP has a well-established, neutral, and quite carefully-balanced consensus on this nomenclature AFAICT. Newimpartial (talk) 13:16, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
You stand to be corrected, User:Newimpartial. Irredentist is defined by Oxford Dictionary as: "1. A person advocating the restoration to their country of any territory formerly belonging to it." This is not true of me because Wikipedia cannot change the borders that already exist. I was merely showing what the Israeli Prime-Minister thinks of this issue, without advocating anything. Look again at my words above. Besides, in Jewish orthodox law, even if the country were governed completely by non-Jews, it does NOT change the halachic requirements associated with the land and a Jew's obligation to uphold those laws vis-à-vis the country. Who the country is, therefore, governed by is totally irrelevant here. Even internationaly recognized borders has no bearing whatsoever on what Jews will do within those same borders, since Jewish law stipulates special laws to be performed in the territorial boundaries once held by Jews returning from the Babylonian captivity, and which State boundaries are not necessarily the same today - some still in Lebanon, for example. The Halacha, nevertheless, remains the same, no matter who is in control of these territories. I have been trying my best to deal with a problematic issue, the issue of rampant POV editing, as in the case of the UNESCO declaration concerning Hebron and our being prevented from listing the site in Israel, on political grounds, rather than historical grounds, but you have not assumed "Good Faith" with me.Davidbena (talk) 13:41, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
The article on Israel does not refer to a territory governed by Jewish orthodox law, but to a legally-recognized state, which happens not to include Hebron. Your argument that this article should deal with "the Halacha" is hopelessly POV, and is in fact the topic of another article. When there are two perspectives on an issue (e.g., the limits of a state's sovereignty), one belonging to political factions within one small country and the other belonging to virtually the entire rest of the world, WP:NPOV and WP:BALANCE do not mean that those two perspectives should be presented in parallel, as I believe I have shown with the examples I have taken from Russia and Hungary. But by all means, formulate an RfC that all nomenclature governing Israel and Palestine should be "historical". In the mean time, your argument that "what country it is" doesn't apply to the listing of UNESCO world heritage sites by country is - well, entertaining. I'll give you that. Newimpartial (talk) 13:53, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Again, you misunderstood me. My reference to Jewish Halacha was only to show to you that what we do as Jews, here in this country, is NOT affected by what Wikipedia writes here. This was said in order to stress to you that my motives are pure, and that my only interest is in correcting a wrong, namely, blatant POV editing, and non-neutral editing. That's all. And, yes, I'm aware of world public opinion (majority view by virtue of their sheer numbers), but in this country the majority opinion is reversed. That means WP:DUEWEIGHT does indeed apply, with consideration of both views. Your analogy is almost like saying that if the majority of Chinese (being the most populous nation on earth) adopts a two-child policy, the same policy should be adopted by all other nations. Of course, you can see the absurdity of such a statement. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 15:54, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
No, my argument is the equivalent to saying that UNESCO world heritage sites in Taiwan would not be listed in a category for World Heritage Sites in the People's Republic of China, unless such a categorization was established by reputable sources on the world stage. The fact that the majority of Chinese might regard Taiwan as part of China does not affect the way wikipedia would list such a site, because it does not affect the standing of Taiwanese territory in the domain of world public opinion. Newimpartial (talk) 17:14, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
But if Taiwan was held by China, it would. Both history and reality would dictate that fact. Therefore, your analogy of China and Israel is inaccurate, especially given the history where Jews and Arabs in this country, prior to 1948, were both called Palestinians. Golda Meir had a Palestinian passport. But, let us leave aside for a moment this argument. I can see that we are nearly the only ones debating this issue. You seem to be a wise man. What steps or measures would you take, here on Wikipedia, if you wanted to impress upon our general volunteer staff of co-editors to maintain a more neutral posture in our editing? Any suggestions?Davidbena (talk) 17:38, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

As I have suggested before: if you would like to propose a change to the nomenclature for locations in the West Bank and Gaza, you should formulate a Request for Consensus (RfC). Newimpartial (talk) 17:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I hear you. If this venue closes with no results, I will do exactly that. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I have posted a response to this conversation here. Snuge purveyor (talk) 21:09, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Leaving aside the dubious merits of the proposed change, the tendency of Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian disputes to bring a whole host of historical baggage, documentation, and arguments into quotidian matters like categorization, nomenclature, and syntax on Wikipedia is exhausting and unproductive. There's no need to change a well-established consensus on what "in Israel" means. Supposing there were, understanding the Balfour Declaration, the Mandate period, and 1948 would not contribute to it. I would urge all parties to avoid litigating the conflict itself when wikipedia categories are the issue at hand.--Carwil (talk) 01:09, 17 July 2017 (UTC)
Carwil, just for the record, you mention "a well-established consensus on what 'in Israel' means," which is fine. I can also agree to that. But is there a well-established consensus on what "in Palestine" means? You see, the current category designation for the Cave of the Patriarchs is "World Heritage Sites in Palestine." If the words "in Israel" refer to the country, and they do, are you saying that "Palestine" refers to a different country? Here, it seems to me, that we're meddling with politics. All said and done, have a good day, and may you be given the wisdom to help solve some of these problems.Davidbena (talk) 01:27, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
A colleague on the Cave of the Patriarchs Talk-Page has suggested a good solution (see here), and that is to rename the category to read: List of World Heritage Sites in Disputed Territories. This seems to be the most compromising thing that we can do under the current circumstances. Anyway, my own suggestions have not gained much ground here. Be well.Davidbena (talk) 12:46, 17 July 2017 (UTC)

RECOMMENDATION: I earnestly urge those who are in a position to mend the current Wikipedia:Naming conventions (West Bank) that they define and present a more clear guideline as to the categorization scheme used in "by country" categories on Wikipedia. This modification is important, as it will help solve the issue now underway in the Talk-Page of Cave of the Patriarchs, see Categorisation. Can the word "Palestine" be used for territories now referred specifically to as the "West Bank"?Davidbena (talk) 12:08, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

The first two lines of the lede, and the importance thereof.

Google Search often takes the first two lines of the lede for a Wikipedia article and puts them in search results. As a result, promoters of some articles try hard to get what they want in those two lines. Or they try to keep out negative information. If they can just push the bad stuff down a bit by adding some verbiage, it disappears from Google. I've hit this issue twice in COI editing situations.Is there policy on this? Should there be? Discuss. John Nagle (talk) 20:13, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

There absolutely should be. I've found too many times editors want to make sure labels that may be predominate in public opinion/media coverage but denied by a person or organization are stuffed into the lede sentences, claiming WP:UNDUE requires them to be there. WP:IMPARTIAL and other points in WP:NPOV tells us to use caution, and the first few sentences absolutely set a tone for the article. There should be not one single controversial statement in the first two or three sentences of the lede and should be left as uncontested facts. A second paragraph or later, sure, attributed statements that are controversial should be be included if they are critical to the person or organization's notability, but they don't need to be present in the first few lede sentences. --MASEM (t) 20:22, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
Ah. That problem. That's shown up at English Democrats, over how right-wing they are. The UK has several right-wing parties, who argue over who's "far-right". That's a tough call. Ideas?
The problem I was thinking of is when a company or person did something really bad, and they want it out of the first two sentences. We've had that at Michael Milken, the "junk bond king" of the 1980s, who has a paid editor trying to de-emphasize his time in the Federal pen. (There are at least four wealthy ex-cons on Wikipedia with paid editors, and those are just the ones that came up at WP:COIN). We had a huge problem with this at Banc De Binary a few years back. BdB turned out to be a total scam and is now out of business, and they had some really aggressive paid editors. John Nagle (talk) 18:37, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
(Sorry about accidentally deleting this whole page. Firefox crashed during editing and recovered, but that somehow turned a section edit into a whole page edit.John Nagle (talk) 19:01, 19 July 2017 (UTC))
Of course the lead sets the tone, I don't see how we can set a one size fits all restriction for the first two lines of the lead. That needs to be worked out between editors following our policies and guidelines. The idea that nothing positive or negative should go in the first two lines just won't work. Doug Weller talk 19:07, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
If an entity has been found by courts of law to have done something illegal or criminal, and that contributes greatly to their notability, then hiding that is pretty much impossible (eg Lee Harvey Oswald) and it would be silly to actually hide that in the lede sentences. But that then diverges into two cases.
  • If we have a case of an entity that has been found to have done something illegal/criminal, but that is not greatly contributing to their notability then it shouldn't be pushed into the lede. For example, a lede for Exxon Mobil should not call out the Exxon Valdez oil spill, though clearly this should be somewhere in the article.
  • The other case, and the one that is usually more problematic, is where an entity has been accused of a crime but either not found guilty or still awaiting trail - or more often have fallen afoul in the court of public opinion, and that fact contributes greatly to their notability. This is where the first sentences should be as impartial as possible, but then break into the attributed issues that are part of their notability. Eg, there are several articles on entities called out as white nationalists as an clearly-attributed label from the mass media/public opinion, but they have not self-identified that way. The fact they are widely seen in this light is definitely needed to be included in the lede, but it shouldn't displace objective, uncontestable facts like their actual profession/service, etc, and definitely not included in the first two-or-so lede sentences. (Consider the counter-case of a highly received entity like a famous movie star or scientist; we don't start those articles off with intense praise in the opening sentences, but do get to how they are generally recognized as the best in their field with attribution.)
I agree there's no common formula to use here, as there's so many divergent cases, but I think it is fair to have editors avoid any facts that are of any type of subjective nature until after a few sentences. It's not hiding material but setting a neutral tone for the article at the start. --MASEM (t) 19:59, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

"New York" is now New York (state)

Following an extensive and well-attended discussion, the article on the state of New York, formerly at "New York", has been moved to New York (state); the title, "New York", is now a disambiguation page for the state, the city, and the many other meanings of the name. Since links to either the city or the state can come up in a wide array of editing contexts, please note this in making links going forward. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:10, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Policy for use of poster art in film articles throughout Wikipedia

There are several hundred film articles at Wikipedia and Interwiki which use unaltered poster art to introduce film articles which are being promoted by this poster art. There is never an issue of this being fair use, though every use of such promotional poster art created for the purpose of promoting films still requires fair use discussion which seems repetitive and redundant. For hundreds of films, the poster art ends up being used without any impediment or copyvio. Should there be a standard template created or policy established which would identify unaltered poster art as not being a copyvio and avoid the vast amount of redundant time being spent by hundreds of editors justifying the use of promotional poster art for films on a film-by-film basis? JohnWickTwo (talk) 17:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Generally, this should fall under an allowed non-free use per WP:NFCI#1 (using a film poster for identification, as it carries implicit understanding of the film's marketing and branding). There is also {{Film poster rationale}} that standardizes the use of a poster for the infobox. --MASEM (t) 17:51, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
@Masem: One example is on the current Akira Kurosawa article where an editor has deleted poster art. Could you glance at this to see if it was correct? JohnWickTwo (talk) 17:57, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Yes, deletion there is correct. On an article about a director/producer, the film's poster is not appropriate, unless there is some sourced commentary to make the inclusion of the poster image relevant. It's not the case on Kurosawa, but an example would be if the director created the poster art himself, and that was the subject of some commentary, then that could be possibly justified. But just to show a film poster an example of one of his works is not appropriate at all if the poster is non-free. --MASEM (t) 18:19, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
@Masem: Thanks for your comment. After some effort I managed to find a still from the film on Italian Wikipedia here [25] which, if I understand your concern here, might solve the image issue on the Akira Kurosawa article. When I tried to substitute it from the Italian version, it did not seem to be recognized. Is there an chance I could ask you to substitute the Italian image here on Kurosawa, if its possible, in order for me to learn how to do it in the future? If I understood your comment above, then any other versions of the poster cannot be used, only the still image. JohnWickTwo (talk) 18:45, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
It's not just the poster, it's any non-free image from the film, just to illustrate a section about the film. The poster or the film still would satisfy normal fair use law, but we are more restrictive since we are a free content project. As such, we don't allow extraneous use of non-free images. See WP:NFCC for more details. --MASEM (t) 19:03, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

RfC: WP:MICROCON

I'm having a crack at getting WP:MICROCON moved from proposed (where it's languished for a while, to say the least), and it's apparently good practice to post an announcement here. The link to the Talkpage section is here. Thanks, Bromley86 (talk) 21:23, 20 July 2017 (UTC)

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC: Red links in infoboxes. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:43, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Which way is preferred for categorizing templates: in template or in doc?

Category declaration, [[Category:Some-topic templates]], can placed in template or in its doc. They are both widely used, and the guideline or help page have no opinion about which way is preferred, until this week User:Redrose64 says declaration in doc is preferred.

Pros for declaring in template:

  1. Conceptually more direct. The template is categorized because its source contains the category declaration. Not because it contains a doc page which contains the category declaration.
  2. Consistent with the way main articles are categorized.
  3. The only way for pages without a doc page.

Pros for declaring in doc:

  1. Does not trigger re-render for pages transcluding the template.
  2. Separation of content edit and category edit. Protected templates can be re-categorized freely.

Golopotw (talk) 05:35, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Please do not put the whole of the blame on me. My edit was a direct reaction to this edit by Golopotw (talk · contribs), which was shortly followed by this edit by the same person, which I amended similarly. Please note that neither Help:Category nor Help:Template are policy pages.
Yes, declaring in template is consistent with the way main articles are categorized - but articles don't have doc pages, so for articles this is the only way available. One thing that you have not mentioned is that templates are often protected, their doc pages rarely are. The advice to place the cat on the doc page is consistent with several other pages, such as: Template:Documentation#Best practice; Template:Documentation/preload (you need to view the page source for this one); Wikipedia:Template documentation#Categories and interwiki links; and indeed with Help:Template#Documentation. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:06, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
As far as I've been aware, declaring in doc (when a doc page exists) has been recommended practice for a decade or so. The "pros for declaring in doc" you describe are significant and measurable, while the "pros for declaring in template" are minor and in no way outweigh them. Anomie⚔ 12:38, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
The advantages of "declaring in doc" does not apply to low traffic templates, that is, most of the templates. Golopotw (talk) 23:25, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is saying that a doc page must be created if all it is going to contain is a category. However, obviously if a template is useful it should have a doc page, even if minimal. In that case, categories belong there. Johnuniq (talk) 01:51, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
If a template has a doc subpage, place categoories there - thesde categories are more a part of the template's documentation than of the template itself. If the template doesn't have a doc subpage, don't create it just for the category. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 05:18, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Dispute resolution RfC

Hello. You are invited to comment on this RfC, which seeks to reform certain aspects of Wikipedia's dispute resolution processes. Biblio (talk) 15:47, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

WP:SEEALSO

Hello everyone 🙋🏻, I’d like to request some amendments to WP:SEEALSO. I’ve created a plethora of articles and while creating them I tend to follow this policy to the letter, however I do notice that other editors simply ignore this and immediately start adding links already in the article.

Sent from my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL with Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile 📱.

Background

The articles I’ve created and / or greatly expanded always link appropriately upon publishing/expansion, I tend to use templates like “Main” and inline “Seealso” to make sure that interested readers know where to find related articles. This however doesn’t stop other editors from still (re-)adding them into the “See also” section, I’ve seen this not only on “my” articles (as in the ones I’ve created, don’t worry I'm not asserting ownership, it’s just a manner of speaking), but on countless of other articles that I either read or just make minor edits to, for example I’m reading an article about let's say German history and Herr Bismarck is mentioned several times and even appears in a “Main” template above some users will still add him into the “See also” section, now I’m an inclusionist and I really hate to revert edits that aren’t maleficent in nature, but I know of several “dedicated” (read: Over-active) editors who go out of their way to find every break of WP:SEEALSO, and remove the links. Now my proposals below will not only save those people countless of hours in what can basically be summed up as “useless edits for the sake of following WikiPolicy”, but I believe will greatly benefit the readers (you know? The people we all do this for).

" but I know of several “dedicated” (read: Over-active) editors who go out of their way to find every break of WP:SEEALSO, and remove the links." What a lot of garbage. Did you make your account yesterday just to enlighten everyone as to how properly using a see also section is inferior to having every link from an article repeated? Primergrey (talk) 16:00, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

My proposals

I'll get straight to the point, abolish the guideline that states that a repetition of links is bad 🙅🏻, especially on larger articles though I personally don't plan on ever adding these links if this proposal would go through we have to think of how some readers read Wikipedia, I personally when I have the time prefer to read full articles 🤓, heck I even click on links or add some references through Bing News if I find “Citation Needed” 🔎📔, reckon that most of y’all do something similar, but I would guess that since the majority of the readers never edit that they would probably only look for the things and sections they’re interested in (at that moment), maybe someone only needs to read the end of the article and never bothers to go through the rest but they’re still interested in related subjects, what then? Well under WP:SEEALSO nothing, the assumption is that everyone reads full articles.

In my current editing style I tend to (re-)add links from earlier in the article if it’s for the first time in a large section again, imagine that an article on sulfuric acids has a link 🔗 to let's say base, but the article itself is 90 kb’s long, abs it gets mentioned again as an important comparison very late in the article, not linking would be a major disservice to readers, and from most people I know that only read and never edit Wikipedia, many don’t even know that there are navigation templates 🗒 at the bottom, let alone categories. In fact from the people I’ve asked (NOT A SCIENTIFIC SAMPLE, THIS IS WP:OR BUT I’LL CITE FOR REFERENCE AS NO ACTUAL STATISTICS CAN BE GATHERED AT PRESENCE) they tend to not read further than the “See also” section, sure we should still be able to differentiate when a navigation template suffices, and wen the “See also” section is needed (in fact I started my first “over-active” account purely to make a navigational template).

I propose therefore that links MAY be repeated (especially in larger articles, which for me as a mobile editor are hard to navigate through as is) if relevancy is either direct to the subject, or is extremely comparable / antonomic to the subject. I mostly read and edit Wikipedia on a mobile device (my Microsoft Lumia 950 XL) and in order to even be able to see a template at the bottom (LET ALONE EDIT ONE) I am forced to click on “Desktop”, I don’t think (read: Speculation) that most readers would do this to look for related subjects. So far WP:SEEALSO is a bane on the mobile reading experience, and as none of Wikipedia’s developers seem to have any interest in improving either the mobile reading or editing experience changing this one policy would probably be easier and best for the readers.

--Nayman30 (talk) 11:35, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

No. Things are bad enough as they are, with the prohibition that links that appear in the article should not appear as a see also. Removing the prohibition would create a list magnet which will soon grow out of hand, the see also is for links that are tangentially related to the article, any link that is important enough to be indispensible tothe article should be fully integrated into the article.--KTo288 (talk) 18:46, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
Please don't use characters like 🙋📱🙅🤓🔎📔🔗🗒 - they show as little rectangles. Also, don't use curly quotes “”‘’ they are against WP:QUOTEMARKS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:27, 24 July 2017 (UTC)

RFC pointer: CSD G13 to include all draft-space drafts

Watchers of this page may be interested in WT:CSD#Expand G13 to cover ALL old drafts. --Izno (talk) 12:10, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Resolving conflicts between (and within) PERFNAV, FILMNAV, and PERFCAT

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Resolving conflicts between (and within) PERFNAV, FILMNAV, and PERFCAT, which proposes mutually conforming clarification to these guidelines, in a centralized discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

Editors abusing the system

Disputes over a deletion result may be taken to Deletion review.

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.

It's an issue. Some editors out there are putting actors' pages up for deletion NOT because they have incorrect or unreliable sources but because of what their idea of what 'famous' means. That is a matter of opinion and NOT fact.

One editor in particular recently asked for an actors' page to be put up for deletion because of a few reasons, such as:

1)The actor in question has only been to "one convention" and it happened to be where the actor lives. Where the actor started their career. Now tell me. Where does it say that an actor MUST attend a convention AT ALL to be notable? 2) The shows the actor has starred in have not been broadcast widely on television, netflix, or amazon. But I suppose that funimation is not a streaming service where you can watch their shows online, or on a TV or mobile device like those subscription based streaming services mentioned. 3) The actors' career coverage is limited to the subscription based dubbing company, funimation. Needs to be put up for draft until proven notable. So, the the dubbing company themselves are releasing cast list themselves and that is not reliable sourcing? Because it's from the same company?

As you can see, when putting a page up for deletion I believe several people need to be involved and take a second look at the editors' reasoning for doing so. In most cases, you'll find it's due to the editors' personal beliefs and not due to incorrect information/improper sourcing.

Wikipedia could really stand to improve upon itself and for the users to not abuse the system. This is supposed to be an informative site. Hoping others will see this and be aware. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Swiedenx3 (talk • contribs) 14:22, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

@Swiedenx3: Which article, or which deletion discussion, is this about? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:24, 30 July 2017 (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.

G11 deletions

I propose that, in the case of abandoned drafts and AFC submissions that would otherwise be subject to criterion G11 of the speedy deletion criteria and show promise of possibly becoming a full-fledged article, be instead moved to draftspace. I am aware of the refund policy, but it's better to not delete the page in the first place, because other people would more easily see the content and contribute if the page was not deleted. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 07:38, 15 July 2017 (UTC) *facepalm* I confused G11 and G13, and I also retract my proposal. This was poorly thought-out Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 08:16, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

I think this is wishful thinking. I'd be very surprised if more than 0.1% of such drafts would get someone willing to clean it up. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:29, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Never mind that a number of G11 articles are copyright violations which frequently aren't caught at the time of G11-tagging. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:30, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Isn't this the whole purpose of draftspace though? To hold pages that have potential to be articles, while getting rid of copyvios and other obvious garbage on the spot? Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 10:37, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Nah, the scope of draft is unfinished articles and these which need review. Spam and copyvios don't belong there. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 11:15, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
Anything which won't eventually become an article good enough to survive our deletion process doesn't belong in the draftspace. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 19:31, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
I mean, when spam and copyvios are made in draftspace, they get deleted before they can make it into mainspace. They are vetted in draftspace. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 02:48, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
They aren't "vetted", someone has to vet them. That's the point - someone has to do all the vetting work. That manpower does not appear out of nowhere and your proposal means an even greater need for manpower.
There are lots of proposals that this or that class of pages should be cleaned up instead of being deleted. Such proposals almost always ignore that someone has to do the clean up work, that the proposal means more clean up work than there already is and offer no suggestion as to where this manpower can come from. Which is a real issue because a lot of processes here are backlogged including copyvio cleanup. This seems like yet another proposal in this pattern. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 09:20, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Well, the thing is it's not very hard to give a page the once-over and move it to a draftspace page, as opposed to an admin deleting it after being speedy-tagged. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 00:21, 29 July 2017 (UTC)
About the only area where there is no shortage of manpower is in the creation of pages which require cleanup. Especially now that the school summer hols have started (in England anyway), they have more time on their hands to write about the garage band that their mates are starting. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:37, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
The proposal is based on the false premise that deleting admins are unthinking bots who are too unintelligent to recognize an article with potential. How about producing an example of a problem before proposing a solution? Johnuniq (talk) 04:28, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
The policy defaults to (soft) deletion. I'm aware that admins know better, but I'm trying to change policy itself. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 05:02, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
How about producing an example of a problem before proposing a solution? Johnuniq (talk) 05:25, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
I already did propose the problem; that drafts deleted by G13 cannot be seen and improved by the average editor, and finding examples is impossible because of the problem. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 06:43, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
That sounds like a hypothetical problem. Can you point to a discussion showing that someone saw a page before deletion and believed that the page should be kept as an article? Johnuniq (talk) 07:54, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Well, this happened a few hours ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Brendan_Kelly_(politician)&oldid=790775496 . I know an admin probably wouldn't delete it, given its state, but it shouldn't be in the policy to speedy it at all. Jjjjjjdddddd (talk) 08:14, 16 July 2017 (UTC)
Whoa, slow down, it sounds like you're suggesting that admins are capable of higher thought, that can't be right. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:46, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Pointer to the RfC on the draftspace

There is an open-ended RfC on the purpose of the draftspace, including the possibility of dumping the draftspace altogether: Wikipedia talk:Drafts#RfC: on the proper use of the draftspace. Participation is very welcome. -- Taku (talk) 03:53, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Speedy-closed. No clear proposal, a previous RFC had been closed hours earlier, and severe objections from participants. Alsee (talk) 07:17, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Has been unclosed. The previous RfC was closed quickly and didn't generate a discussion. Not every one is on Wikipedia so we need to open it at least for a day or 2 even if we were to close it. By the way, this RfC is not a proposal but is a request for the community to give some opinions (that's why I said it's open-ended) -- Taku (talk) 08:18, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
Has been re-closed by an independent editor because a certain editor is choosing a very hyperbolic position with respect to WP:TE/WP:POINT/WP:WALLEDGARDEN/WP:OWN. Hasteur (talk) 13:16, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

So this means we need an RfC on whether to have an RfC seriously? Why shut down the discussion at all? Trying to win an argument by shutting down any attempt to discussion is disingenuous at best. Also please see Wikipedia_talk:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion#Expand_G13_to_cover_ALL_old_drafts for the context for this RfC. -- Taku (talk) 23:01, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

And you may see what constitutes a train-wreck.Winged Blades Godric 15:05, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

WP:ACTRIAL research questions

The WMF has posted research questions for the upcoming autoconfirmed article creation trial at meta:Research:Autoconfirmed article creation trial. Comments there or at WT:ACTRIAL are appreciated. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy

Moved to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy
 – Hi everyone. Because this discussion has become so lengthy (a good 226,000+ bytes), I've moved it to a subpage of the village pump to make the village pump a little more accessible. I apologize if any confusion was caused by this. Respectfully, Mz7 (talk) 03:55, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted I have relisted the discussion, i.e. gave the discussion additional 30 days. Therefore, more participants would be welcome to comment there during the extended time. --George Ho (talk) 01:41, 30 June 2017 (UTC); added icon, 01:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

For an update, the discussion was closed and then summarized. --George Ho (talk) 21:36, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_136&oldid=1150272550"