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RFC on WP:ARBPOL Forms of proceeding: Private Hearings

(Placing this here, as the talkpage of WP:ARBPOL is redirected.)

Worm that Turned has confirmed that ARBCOM are currently holding a private hearing and considering evidence that will not be provided to the subject of the hearing. See here.

This RFC is to gauge community consensus on the interpretation of the wording of WP:ARBPOL - specifically (emphasis mine) "In exceptional circumstances, typically where significant privacy, harassment or legal issues are involved, the Committee may hold a hearing in private. The parties will be notified of the private hearing and be given a reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them before a decision is made.

It is my opinion that the wording of ARBPOL does not allow evidence to be considered and used against individuals without that evidence being disclosed to them. The very worst members of society - rapists, murderers and child abusers are still told who has accused them, of what, when, how etc. They are often denied the opportunity to confront their accusers directly, but they are still provided all the available information on those accusations in order to defend themselves. I cant think the intention of the ENWP community through ARBPOL is that editors will be accused and judged based on evidence they have no access to and has not been seen. The wording 'reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them' cannot apply, how can you respond to what is said about you if you dont know what it is? The pseudo-legalistic approach arbcom has codified in ARBPOL is based on the modern legal standards of fairness and disclosure, the approach ARBCOM are taking shares none of that.

There is no doubt the issues surrounding WP:FRAM are best served by a private hearing, however that does not allow ARBCOM to disregard ARBPOL because the WMF have demanded their file on an ENWP editor is kept from that editor. ARBCOM are beholden to the ENWP community, not to the WMF. If the WMF have attached conditions to that evidence, then ARBCOM should reject it unless the WMF are willing to abide by ARBPOL.

Please indicate your support/opposition below. A support vote should indicate you are in favour of the interpretation above: that 'reasonable opportunity to respond' requires disclosure of all evidence to the accused. Please provide a reason why. An opposition indicates that you think the wording of ARBPOL allows for evidence to be considered and used against a person, but not to be supplied to that person. Likewise provide a reason why.

Any other comments also welcome, however I am not interested in this degenerating into another pro/anti Fram discussion, please keep on topic as to the specific issue of the interpretation of ARBPOL.

This is not intended to add, remove, change/alter the wording of ARBPOL, only answer the question 'Does the wording regarding private hearings support that evidence to be used against an editor should be disclosed to that editor in order that they can respond.'

Support (ARBPOL Private Hearings)

• Support - for the reasons stated above - in all modern systems of justice and arbitration, disclosure is one of the most important principles that needs to be upheld. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:08, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• A user cannot, by definition, have a reasonable opportunity to respond to evidence they haven't even seen. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 21:22, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Even the worst examples of abusive processes feature the basic components of notice and an opportunity to respond. It strikes me that excessive secrecy will effectuate a denial of those two most basic components. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:41, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. An accused person should always know the evidence against them. Secret trials and secret evidence are the characteristics of a totalitarian state and have no place on Wikipedia. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:36, 31 July 2019 (UTC).
• Support. In a normal arbcom proceeding (as is required by due process) a party can pose questions to other parties. The secrecy not only prevents the accused from organizing his own defense but precludes the accused from posing questions to the other parties. For example, if the Arbcom says that it is opening a proceeding regarding all acts of incivility involving an admin during the past three years, and editors A through Z come forward alleging incivil conduct, the admin should have the right to pose questions making plain the circumstances of those interactions. This RFC is important because the Arbcom is about to set a group of bad precedents on how to handle anonymous incivility complaints. Hlevy2 (talk) 23:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Per natural justice, person A must not be penalized without being told "what for" and being given opportunity to respond. It follows that a person cannot be penalized based on a private complaint. the private complaint may inspire an investigation that reveals public evidence of wrongdoing, to which person A can be informed and be asked to answer; or the complaint and be investigated but with outcomes limited to non punitive things, such as better education, or safeguards. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:46, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support - the involved parties of an arbitration MUST be informed of what has been said about them and by whom. However, the rest of the community does NOT have a need to know. ArbCom can (and should) issue a Wikipedia version of a “gag order” if necessary. I am adamantly opposed to having secret tribunals conducted by the “mistrust and unsafety team” ... I am fine with our ArbCom system holding “closed door sessions” of their normal forms of redress. Blueboar (talk) 01:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support - If they can't see it or have any reasonable expectation of what it is, how can they muster a defence? —A little blue Bori v^_^v ^Bori! 02:15, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support - The whole point of punting this to ArbCom was that T&S had short-circuited the entirety of en-wiki's dispute resolution process; this is supposed to be our chance to prove the efficacy of that process. However, any such proof can only be found if all of the rules of the process are followed. ARBPOL is policy for a reason, and must be respected; if T&S isn't willing to have its evidence disclosed to the accused, then their evidence must be disallowed. We're already bending over backwards to accommodate them by letting them redact and anonymize the evidence; if they want our trust, they have to meet us halfway on this and let ArbCom give Fram a summarized, anonymized version of it to respond to. rdfox 76 (talk) 04:07, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. The correct interpretation of ARBPOL is that evidence that remains private can only be used to initially motivate a search for evidence that can be made public. If there is already motivation to search for evidence, any evidence that remains private is unnecessary and the case must be judged on the basis of public evidence alone. Where this means that private evidence has to be disregarded, this is a valid and intentional tradeoff made to prevent filtered evidence from leading to incorrect decisions.

With respect to the community not needing to know, I disagree with Blueboar above. The involved parties are not the only ones who may be able to respond to evidence against them. If you allow the whole community to submit evidence against the parties in a case in private but do not provide a way for the community to refute this evidence, which requires that the community know what the submitted evidence was, you are systematically biasing the case against the parties.

Some of the objections below are about the Fram case specifically and I consider them irrelevant. Others miss the point: Rhododendrites, you say that arbitrators are the most trusted users on the project. The primary purpose of ensuring that evidence is made public is not to constrain arbitrators that are not trusted, but to allow responding to filtered evidence. Arbitrators need these responses all the more so if we trust them. Responses to public evidence can be targeted, which allows them to be more useful to the arbs in improving their judgment both if the responses are good and if they are not. If, in response to the public evidence, they get a strong refutation of the evidence, they can stop weighing the refuted evidence entirely; if the main points are eluded, they can weigh the evidence that is still standing more than they could have otherwise. This allows them to change their judgment or increase their confidence that the judgment is correct. — Rastus Vernon (talk) 04:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Responding here since pinged: made public - presuming you mean communicated to the relevant case party? Responses to public evidence can be targeted, which allows them to be more useful to the arbs - Indeed. But I can envision a scenario when revealing that information would be harmful and, at the same time, be sufficiently clear on its own, or in combination with other evidence that has been disclosed, that arbs can make a sound judgment without disclosure. I want to reiterate something: this should be extremely rare, and avoided as much as possible. I'm opposing because I don't want to state in any absolute terms that they are prevented from withholding evidence or from summarizing it in a way that leaves certain aspects out in those rare situations when it's necessary to do so. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:52, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support, the purpose overall should be that an editor should be able to better themselves. Evidence that cannot be shown or discussed with the defendant is not admissible for a case against the defendant as the defendant cannot defend themselves or put the evidence into (their) context. It is not anyone else's capability to judge evidence without having that context. (note: I do trust that ArbCom will handle this appropriately and in a transparent way). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:35, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  I am going to qualify my !vote here further in light of the opposes. I do not expect a full exposure of all evidence. What I expect is a reasonable chance to defend yourself. I do not expect '[here], [here], [here], and [here] you are commenting rather harshly on [user:<whoever>]'s edits', I do expect something along the lines of 'on several occasions you have been commenting rather harshly on the edits of multiple editors'. And I do then expect that the accused is allowed to come back with specific examples of edits where they themselves felt that indeed they were harsh, and put those in context. Those examples may accidentally be the same editors on which the accusation was based, it may also be other cases. An accusation of 'you were harassing editors <full stop>' is not something that one can, reasonably defend itself against. (and I do note, that the accusation 'you were harassing editors <full stop>' (or whatever the accusation(s) is/are) seems to be WAY more than what Fram knows, and it is certainly more than what the community knows.

  I do believe that there will be cases of people who are currently submitting evidence that say "OK, I will have it, ([diff], [diff],[ diff] are several situations with a person where I felt harassed by this person. I felt hounded because of [diff], [diff]. Show this to the community, and lets see what the accused, and the community says." What I then do expect is that the community respects those feelings of the accusing party and not burns that down with 'grow up'/'you have to develop a thicker skin', but I also expect that the accusing party respects the community when they return with 'yes, but the accused has been nicely talking to you [here] and [here] before that and you continued.'. As I have been saying for a long time, not everything is as black-and-white as child-pornography, death threats or, if you wish, checkuser data. And I know, the community is not very good at this.

  I will fully respect those editors who do not wish to be identified, and I also agree that we have entrusted the ArbCom with handling such private evidence. I also respect that that evidence may be mounting up to gargantuan proportions. It may even be of a nature that is indefensible.

  What I support here, boils down to me opposing cases where the accused, even if all evidence is indefensible, is not allowed to a reasonable way of defending themselves against that evidence, and no reasonable way of appeal. And yes, that may result in a 'we have a massive body of evidence, but most of it is inadmissible as we cannot assure that the accused has a reasonable case of defending themselves against the evidence'. But you cannot chose to have justice to people while denying that to others. And I do not believe that it is up to the ArbCom to decide to do the case completely in camera, that is up to the volunteers that present evidence on a case-by-case basis. It may then happen that all evidence is not visible to the community, but we should respect those editors who chose to do make their evidence public.

  I will wait for the case to proceed and see what happens. I do not envy the situation the Arbitrators are in. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:29, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support. I am okay with certain sensitive evidence not being made publicly available to the community and I must trust ArbCom with that remit, but the accused should always know what they are accused of. Secret trials on Wikipedia are unacceptable, as is the WMF's continued meddling in our dispute resolution procedures. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 07:04, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • It is possible for the accused to know what they are accused of without seeing all of the evidence presented against them. For example arbcom could say something like "You have been accused of X, Y and Z. The accusations of Z are not relevant/not credible and they will form no part in the case. X relates to on-wiki actions centred around article 1 and article 2, their talk pages and discussions of them at AfD. Y relates to (a) on-wiki activity at random and (b) emails you sent regarding it (copies of several emails have been forwarded to the Committee) since June 20xx. Specifically it is alleged that you have been doing A and B and that these actions are contrary to policies C and D.". That is presenting to the accused what they are accused of and giving them a reasonable chance to respond. If anything isn't clear then the accused can ask for clarification. Thryduulf (talk) 13:29, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support The community attitude has always been for robust protections. This may be a website but people have in many cases, including Fram, devoted much time and effort to the project, without seeking a dime in return and do not deserve to be cast off for no known reason. If ArbCom feels it needs to conduct secret hearings on secret evidence, I believe that is beyond what the policy intended and that it should come to the community and ask for a change of policy by justifying it. Who knows, they might get it. But the secrecy and stonewalling, even having secret reasons for secrecy, is foreign to our principles.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:08, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Such action denies the principles of natural justice. It is intrinsically abhorrent (as are other actions by ArbCom contrary to these principles). There must be ways to protect the parties while maintaining the principles without resorting to this. Furthermore, such action may be contrary to US law and expose WP to a criminal or civil liability - on the understanding that WP is based in the US and subject to US laws. It has tones of Animal House and "double-secret probation". One could link to some historical events for emphasis, but I have already got into trouble for doing that at ArbCom. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:22, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  Cinderella157, this is in no way a legal proceeding. It is a form of binding arbitration, which does not have to follow the rule of law or of evidence. This would be no different than someone being kicked out of the country club by the board of directors. Technically they could do so because they didn’t like the fact that you played with pink golf balls. I’d like to think that our process, while perhaps not ideal by legal standards, represents a balance between fairness to both the accused and the alleged victim(s), and I personally trust our arbs enough to strike that balance. CThomas³ (talk) 09:57, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

  Cthomas3, while the principles of natural justice do apply to legal proceedings, they apply broadly (or should) to all sorts of decisions made by governments and non-government organisations. In short, they encapsulate principles of fairness. It is therefore not a matter of following the rule of law or evidence. You could refer to questions to candidates for the most recent ArbCom election. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:37, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

  Cinderella157, I completely agree with you on that. I wasn't implying that we shouldn't be fair; we of course absolutely should strive to be as fair as possible. I was merely pointing out that we don't risk running afoul of US law if we choose to deviate from it in the interest of fairness, and in my opinion that needs to be examined not only from the point of view of the accused, but the victim(s) as well. My apologies for not being more clear on that. CThomas³ (talk) 23:54, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

  Cthomas3, I was pointing out that the foundation may be exposed to a legal risk/liability for such an action (ie not complying with the principles of natural justice). Identifying a potential threat should be a concern to corporate risk management. I am not so familiar with US law but base my observation on Australian law. Laws relating to incorperation may impose duties or obligations upon the foundation which are pertinent and there is the matter of potential civil liability where the foundation has acted unfairly (ie contrary to the principles of natural justice). Certainly, by your analogy of the country club, such a liability may exist if the board has acted unfairly or outside its constitution and bylaws. It is a matter of prudence to consider such a risk. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:58, 6 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support User:Tryptofish wrote:

  Yes, Premature. I might support something like this if I were convinced that Fram really is in a situation where he will have to defend himself against unknown charges.

  Fram will have to defend himself against charges, and therefore has the right to at least know what the charges are in full, so that he can present a full and credible defense. Yes, if the person doesn't want their name shown, their name can be hidden, but by all means, let Fram see the charges in full not some hacked up censored version of them! Wekeepwhatwekill (talk) 13:11, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support in theory, oppose in practice. ARBPOL should match what the arbs actually do - but given the very unusual circumstances surrounding the Fram situation I'm willing to hold off and give them time to reach their natural conclusions. I will say this to the Arbs - at the moment it appears you're only acting as WMF puppets. Many, perhaps even a majority, of the community are not satisfied with the WMF at the moment. There are (and have been) some outstanding individuals there (WMF), but the actions of T&S have put the relationship between the community (who have built this project), and the WMF (who spend the money we earn for them) in a great deal of jeopardy. I'd like to see Arbcom find a way out of this where we can all 'save face' a bit, but I'm no so sure that's in the cards. T&S violating the primary rules of our (WP-EN) site may get larger play than simply an article here and there at Breibart if they can't. — Ched :  ?  — 13:19, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support...Not only that the wording as it stands requires disclosure of the accusations, but that to refuse this information to the subject of the accusations prevents a determination of any restrictions on Fram's participation in the work of en.Wikipedia.

T&S, under the supervision of WMF erred. Promising the equivalent of redaction to the accusing party or parties, if interpreted as denying full identification of the accusations to the accused, stands in contradiction to the rules and methods of ARBCOM. The damage has been done. Fram's general record can be examined. ARBCOM can do a normal case. The secret case should be thrown out. The way T&S handled the accusations is problematic to the point that the current case can not go forward. Unfortunately, justice for the accusers is not going to be possible without their permission to allow disclosure of all evidence published on en.Wikipedia. The only exceptions that occur to me are events that happen off-wiki. — Neonorange (Phil) 17:39, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support: As written, ARBPOL severely constrains ARBCOM's ability to hold a private hearing that imposes sanctions based on evidence not provided to the sanctioned individual. It does not require ARBCOM to pass on all evidence received or generated, and it does not seem to prevent the use of withheld evidence to generate further evidence, providing that decisions do not rely on withheld evidence. The reasonable opportunity wording allows a little wiggle room to anonymize complaints, but only if it can be done without sacrificing the ability to respond. Now, I can accept the argument that there are some circumstances where the evidence is so clear-cut and yet also so sensitive that someone must be sanctioned without an opportunity to respond, but, under the current ARBPOL, the community has not given that remit to ARBCOM. So our options are to follow policy as written, change the policy, or declare IAR. Bovlb (talk) 17:56, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  Some further comments. I have carefully read the dozen opposes below. They offer justifications like: some cases require private evidence; we can trust ArbCom to exercise discretion; and other processes allow confidential evidence. These may all be true but don't seem to me to engage the question asked, which is about what the current policy says, not what it ought to say. Several point out that being shown all evidence is not necessary to have a reasonable opportunity to respond, which I sort-of agree with, but I still feel that the current policy gives little room to sanction based on secret evidence. Other comments suggest that the question is moot because of its relevance to an ongoing case, but this issue has come up before: see Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Committee/Noticeboard/Archive_32#The_Devil's_Advocate_banned. Bovlb (talk) 22:25, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  This part of the policy was introduced in 2011 after a discussion where I see many opposes that raise the concern that the new policy goes too far in allowing secret hearings. A subsequent discussion in 2016 overwhelmingly rejected the idea that ArbCom should have the discretion to override this provision in specific cases. Bovlb (talk) 23:18, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Support: Support, of course. Making the accusation known to the accused is the most basic right of them, otherwise they wouldn't know from what they should defend themselves. Having been the victim of a blatantly fraudulent ban from the WMF very recently, based on secret accusations made by secret parties, of which I wasn't even informed, not even when the punishment was already over me, I totally condemn this abhorrent practice, should it be from the WMF, ArbCom or whatever party. Darwin ^Ahoy! 00:20, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support: It's a shame that the question even has to be asked. Allowing the accused to see and respond to the evidence against him is part of our fundamental principles of justice. And you can't respond without seeing; it's necessary to be able to see the exact evidence in order to supply context or point out misunderstandings. We can say "trust Arbcom", but the person best motivated to give such context, and often the person best placed to know about it, is the accused. Ken Arromdee (talk) 18:57, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support I don't think Wikimedians only have due process rights "if they need them" or that ARBCOM is sufficient to protect editors against possibly baseless charges. Denying evidence to the accused undermines their ability to mount a defense. Chris Troutman (talk) 10:23, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• One of the most basic principles of justice is that a person may know the nature of the accusations against them. Stifle (talk) 09:58, 8 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support. Anyone accused should know what are the accusations and what supports them (I don't know shit about Fram or Fram's case, except that there is a case and lots of discussion out there of which I have read maybe a full 50 lines about it, i.e., nothing, at most :-) - Nabla (talk) 01:06, 10 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support Due process is a fundamental component of all fair judicial or quasi-judicial bodies. Although strictly speaking the arbitration committee is not a quasi-judicial body by law in the same way a university's conduct system might be, it does purport to be a formal method of resolving disputes in a fair and equitable fashion, which due process encapsulates. To have any semblance of due process, one simply must have the right to see the evidence against them. At least in the US (I believe also in other common law countries), one also has the right to confront their accuser. However, I suppose that would not be possible in this case. --Rockstonetalk to me! 08:08, 15 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support per previous discussions linked above. The community has made it clear that this is an important principle not to be eroded. I don't see any justification under the current policy not to present the document to the accused party. To some points below, no matter how trusted members of ARBCOM are, they have no incentive to try to debunk credible-seeming evidence, but instead to take it at face value. Without presenting the evidence, there would be no one in the entire process with such an incentive. ARR8 (talk) 15:33, 19 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support — Unless criminal activity is involved (in which case ARBCOM should not be involved), any evidence not provided to the accused can not be used in the decision making process. This is a reasonable trade-off. Otherwise social behavior is being controlled in an authoritarian manner. If certain behaviors on Wikipedia are a problem, the corrective will be found in open discussion. — Neonorange (Phil) 03:53, 31 August 2019 (UTC)
• Support, even though I also think this is too soon, I feel the need to respond to some of the opposes arguing that we should not adopt court-like principles because we do not have the legal power to protect victims in the way that a court does. Revealing the details of accusations against an accused party in a secret process, if they are guilty, is not telling them anything they did not already know. In what way is the accuser protected by witholding that information? If they are not guilty, then frankly, the accuser does not deserve protecting in the first place. SpinningSpark 10:10, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Oppose (ARBPOL Private Hearings)

• Premature if you want to be able to deal with harassment and similar things, you have to have a way so that victims are able to submit things without having a bunch of harassers come after them. Not saying the Fram hearings is a sustainable thing, or that guidelines shouldn't be developed, but this is reactionary, and hard cases make bad law. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:15, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

This is regarding the existing wording of ARBPOL. Not creating new policy, or developing new guidelines. Even in a workplace environment if you make a genuine harassment complaint, you will get the talk from HR that your identity cannot be guranteed anonymity. Do you feel the current wording allows for evidence to be kept from the accused in a private hearing, and why? Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:20, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

This. The RfC isn’t proposing anything new, or anything case-specific. In fact, it’s not even proposing that the identity of the accusers be disclosed. It merely seeks an affirmation of the basic fact that notice and an opportunity to respond are part of Committee policy. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:45, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• Yes, Premature. I might support something like this if I were convinced that Fram really is in a situation where he will have to defend himself against unknown charges. But until I see something more definitive about that, I'm pretty confident that the current ArbCom (who are, after all, the same people who drafted the response to the WMF that got well-deserved applause from the community) are conducting the inquiry in private for valid reasons and are going to find ways to give Fram a fair hearing, even if there are impediments to telling the rest of us exactly how they are going about that. We are still in an unprecedented situation, and I think we need to be careful about overcompensating or jumping to conclusions. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Arbcom have confirmed they are not providing evidence to Fram. Do you feel the current wording of ARBPOL allows evidence to be withheld from an accused editor, and why? Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:44, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

As I understand it, they are going to withhold some, not all, evidence. That does not necessarily mean that Fram will have so little information that he won't know what he is responding to. Whether the current wording supports it depends on details that I do not know, and I am not assuming the worst. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:03, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• Premature, obviously. ArbCom have promised to conduct a fair and rigorous investigation. Perhaps if we stop haranguing them with endless points of order, and attempts to delegitimise their investigation through RFCs such as this one, they might actually be able to spend their time conducting the investigation itself and then coming back to Fram and the community with a set of findings that we really can scrutinise for legitimacy.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:02, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

  I'll follow this up by adding an outright Oppose to the proposition, based on Iridescent's insight into the matter. The rules as currently written clearly do allow secret trials without presentation of evidence.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:26, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Premature - Let's see how this plays out before we go off half-cocked, making assumptions which have not been shown to be true. Beyond My Ken (talk) 23:14, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• Support/yes to the boldtext question we're asked to answer (but based on the !votes so far that seems to put me in "oppose" somehow) (question/text revised, so updating) Oppose. Arbs are the most trusted users on the project. I have no trouble trusting their judgment regarding what should/shouldn't be disclosed to whom. This is not a court of law. We specifically aren't dealing with people who have committed violent crimes, and I find the comparison bizarre. We're not talking about discussions that result in taking away someone's freedom. We're talking about whether or not we want to allow someone to continue being a part of this website's community of volunteers, or whether they have failed to uphold the rules/standards of the community. Yes, of course we should allow for exceptional circumstances when there is potential harm to the victim of harassment to disclose their complaints to the harasser. People seem worried about some hypothetical situation where someone doesn't actually do anything wrong but is accused and "sentenced" without knowing what they did wrong. In what situations, exactly, do you think a majority of the most experienced and trusted users would arbitrarily block/ban someone without looking at the evidence extremely carefully, based on years of experience with wikipolicy, norms, conventions, etc. (including those norms that say that they should be as transparent as possible)? That kind of judgment is why/how we elect the arbs we do. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:36, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• Due to your comments below I have altered the question slightly to make it clearer. You may want to change the first line of your reply above, however anyone reading this will understand your position. Only in death does duty end (talk) 06:42, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:44, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• I do just want to elaborate/reframe a little. In opposing this I am saying that I don't want to prevent arbs from withholding certain evidence or omitting certain details in the way they communicate with someone. I expect that refusing to communicate important information would be a very rare thing, but could see instances when it would be merited to protect a member of the community. Where that results in potential sanctions on someone, where I trust the arbs is in using judgment to determine the extent to which it's possible that missing part of the story due to the accused not having all the evidence might lead them to get it wrong. If it's not a clear situation, I would expect them to find a way to get that context before sanctioning. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:44, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose I fully trust Arbcom to deal with this in the way they see fit. SportingFlyer T·C 00:29, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Deal with what? This isn't talking about a specific case. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:39, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • Oh, please. This is clearly an RfC about the Fram arbitration. And arbiters have the ability to be fair and impartial without giving one of the parties all of the information - discovery's typically limited in arbitrations anyways. This would have the impact of turning Arbcom into something that's not really arbitration. SportingFlyer T·C 02:34, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
      • Nobody's talking about judicial discovery. We're talking about notice of accusations and an opportunity to respond to them. In a secret case like this there's neither. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 02:46, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
        • I don't want to get into a long discussion about this. I trust Arbcom to treat both sides fairly, and given my previous comments supporting them closing as much of the hearing as they saw fit, I'm happy they are arbitrating behind closed doors. I don't define "fairly" to imply both sides will have an equivalency of information. SportingFlyer T·C 05:19, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
          • Again, this isn't about mere information (or equivalency of information), or about "sides" (which I don't think there are formally). It's about the bare requirement of notice and opportunity to respond (which of course must be meaningful). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:29, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
            • What have I said that isn't clear? The answer to the question posed above, in my opinion, is a clear yes, if Arbcom deems that necessary, and as long as the Arbcom process remains fair, and I think it can remain fair while considering evidence that one party doesn't have. SportingFlyer T·C 05:34, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
              • How can fairness possibly be present without meaningful notice or a meaningful opportunity to respond to the charges? You're contradicting your own points. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 05:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
                • No, I'm not contradicting myself. This is specifically about whether Arbcom needs to disclose all of the evidence to Fram. A "reasonable opportunity to respond" as written on the Arbcom policy page does not mean Arbcom is required to disclose all of the evidence to the parties in the case. SportingFlyer T·C 07:07, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Premature for the reasons above. I'm pretty ambivalent on the question though. On the one hand, it feels like there is a meaningful difference between "reasonable opportunity" to "respond to what was said about them" and "has a right to view all evidence entered against them." I think it is completely reasonable to interpret this sentence of ARBPOL as being satisfied by an opportunity to respond to a proposed finding of fact that summarizes what was said about them. The question of whether we should interpret it that way is different, because the right to face your accuser is a rather central part of a fair hearing. That said, part of the reason harassment and similar behaviors are hard to adjudicate is that this framework provides a strong disincentive for victims to come forward as it risks bringing even more harassment (as we've seen the last month without even knowing the alleged victims). These are complicated questions and competing values which entire governments have struggled to address, and so I think this is reactionary and unlikely to yield a particularly well considered outcome (hard cases make bad law and all that). Wug·a·po·des​ 03:33, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose As Wugapodes has ably described above, the dichotomy is a false one. Not being given a verbatim copy of all the evidence is not the same as having no chance to respond to it. The committee have said that Fram will be given a summary of the evidence and he will have a chance to respond to that. Secondly, the analogy to serious crime is not apt. When someone is convicted of such a crime, they are prevented from taking revenge on their accuser, both because they are likely to serve time and because the victim then has the resources of the state to assist them. Wiki has none of that. The best we can do is to ban someone from our website; the real-life consequences of that for whoever brought an accusation are then left to them to deal with and there is nothing we can do. A victim's privacy becomes more important in this process, not less. GoldenRing (talk) 07:21, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • You misunderstand the question. Not being given a verbatim copy of all the evidence, but rather a summary, is the same as having no chance to respond to any part of the evidence that is not in the summary. If there is a summary of the evidence, that summary is the public evidence and the interpretation in question would allow it to be used. If there is any context that can be gathered from the private evidence that could affect the arbitrators’ judgment, responses to that context could also affect the arbitrators’ judgment and not allowing the parties to respond to it would bias the case against the parties. Similarly if there is evidence not part of the summary. This is not about whether it is fine for the arbs to provide only a summary, but whether they can use any evidence or context useful for evaluating other evidence that has not been made public (in a summary or otherwise); and they cannot, at least because such evidence cannot be refuted, making it unreliable for forming an accurate judgment. — Rastus Vernon (talk) 07:41, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • @Rastus Vernon: But the question is not about natural justice or logic or whether a process is reliable; it is about whether providing a summary of the evidence and allowing someone to respond is a fulfillment of the requirement to give them a "reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them." IMO it is. GoldenRing (talk) 09:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
      • Whether the opportunity to respond that is provided is reasonable according to the requirement has to be judged according to the purpose of the requirement in providing that opportunity. That purpose is the fairness and reliability of the process. — Rastus Vernon (talk) 18:41, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Do we require a CheckUser to provide the full technical details of a check to a sockpuppeter who requests a full hearing in order for the user to be considered to have a "reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them"? Nope. Do we require an Oversighter to provide the contents of abusive, suppressed revisions in order that a subsequent block based on that information be considered fair? Of course not. In the course of events, it may become necessary for ArbCom to hear evidence that cannot be disclosed to the accused party directly, that has an even greater privacy interest than CU/OS. I trust ArbCom to make that judgment, and to determine in what cases providing a user with "reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them" does not require ArbCom to make full, unredacted, verbatim evidence that may serve to harass a user further in order to properly resolve a matter before it. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 07:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • that has an even greater privacy interest than CU/OS. Oh that is absolute bunkum. Virtually everything relevant in that T&S casefile is going to be on-wiki and public information. And virtually everything that anybody is going to send to ArbCom about Fram is going to be public information. For the love of Pete can people please stop pretending that the information is some super secret microfilm that's going to get our agents in Moscow killed if it gets published? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 07:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • You're making assumptions that neither you nor I can confirm or deny, having not seen the file. But let's entertain them for a moment. You don't think that there is less of an interest in keeping private some material, release of which serves to harass members of the Wikimedia community, than in, say, the IP addresses of sockpuppeteers (CU data), or e.g. "potentially libelous information" (OS data)? You don't think there's that potential? You don't trust the ArbCom that you elected to weigh the factors and decide fairly? The implication that I have to be "pretending" (a verb whose connotation is deception) that there might be a justifiable reason to keep the information private is not particularly welcome. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 08:02, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
      • A sockpuppet will hear 'we have technically assessed your edits and checkuser data has revealed that you are likely the same person as Y'. You can have a rebuttal to that 'yes, I am a student in a large university and we all share only a couple of IPs on computers with the same software image, it is not unlikely that I my checkuser data is very similar to another user in the same institution'. That is something completely different than having to write a rebuttal to ' '. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:25, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
        • @Beetstra: It sounds like you agree with me, then. I'm not suggesting that the committee hide the nature of the reasons it is considering in a sanction decision. What I am opposing is the interpretation that 'reasonable opportunity to respond' requires disclosure of all evidence to the accused. 'we have technically assessed your edits and checkuser data has revealed that you are likely the same person as Y' is also not "disclosure of all evidence to the accused". Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 21:11, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
          • Kevin, 'you have harassed someone' (lets assume) is a statement out of a different class than 'you are technically indistinguishable from X'. The latter can be rebutted with 'I am logging in from a public library, the former only with 'yes' or 'no'. You cannot reasonably rebut it. (and that would already be much, much more evidence than what WMF has been willing to provide until now ...). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:48, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
            • That's not the question this RfC is answering, though. By its terms, this RfC asks whether ArbCom must transmit every shred of evidence presented to it and whether it has to refuse to consider any evidence it doesn't transmit verbatim. There are a lot of steps between sending "you have harassed someone" and that level of process, and it is frustrating to be criticized for taking the position that the latter is inappropriate on the grounds that the former is insufficient. Of course ArbCom should disclose as much evidence as it can, and it has committed to provide summaries. Making judgment calls and weighing the various interests at play is exactly what we elect ArbCom to do. Best, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 05:02, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as per Wugapodes on the current interpretation - "a reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them" is not synonymous with being presented with all evidence (including confidential evidence submitted privately). Premature relating to any thoughts on changing that interpretation. We do need a mechanism for harassed people to submit complaints privately (and some of the harassment I'm aware of - one case in particular, not Fram - has been truly horrible). I've previously committed to trusting ArbCom in the Fram case and I'm sticking to that - I say let's give them a chance and see how they handle it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:20, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  Adding: If there's a consensus that current policy requires ArbCom to provide all evidence to the accused, that will not mean Fram gets to see all the evidence in the current case, it will just mean the current case will have to be dropped. So all the work towards compromise, towards getting such difficult cases heard by the community's representatives on ArbCom, towards developing a better way to handle harassment cases, would end up being for nothing and it would all be handed back to WMF/T&S again - and that's surely the worst possible outcome. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:39, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  I'll also add (I should probably add it somewhere else but I can't work out where right now) that I'm saddened to see ArbCom's status in the minds of so many as having switched from being the Community's champions against the evil authoritarians to being the evil authoritarians. How have we managed to turn to such polarized "no compromise" attitudes, when we're just supposed to be a bunch of people building an encyclopedia? The big issue all along has been the erosion of community self-governance by WMF, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that self-governance is failing - as a fault of the community, not of WMF or anyone else. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:02, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. "Must be shown all evidence against them" and "Must be given a reasonable opportunity to respond to evidence" are not the same thing at all. For example I would say that arbcom giving someone an anonymised and consolidated copy of the relevant evidence is giving them a reasonable opportunity to respond but is not showing them all the evidence against them. In at least some cases expecting someone to respond to a consolidated presentation of only the relevant portions will be a lot more reasonable than expecting them to respond to reams of ramblings that include much duplication and much that is irrelevant. Thryduulf (talk) 13:10, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose The comment by Thryduulf just above says pretty much exactly what I was going to say. XOR'easter (talk) 16:53, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Private Hearings and the evidence is meant to be private for a reason and should be kept private unless the WMF or a legal order requires the evidence to be given to the user Abote2 (talk) 21:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Expecting a "disclosure of all evidence" is not possible in cases where we need to protect the identity of a victim of harassment or abuse. – Anne drew 23:38, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose as premature in cases of harassment or abuse, there is often some evidence that cannot be provided to the alleged offender in order to ensure that further harassment or abuse does not occur, or to meet confidentiality requirements, as two examples. I trust ArbCom to provide as much relevant evidence to Fram as they can, so that Fram can conduct a proper defence against the allegations. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:10, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. It is true that being able to see and respond to evidence against oneself is a core requirement for any judicial procedure in any jurisdiction committed to the rule of law and basic fairness. But ArbCom cases are not judicial proceedings, and arbitration policy is not part of a legal system. We are talking about access to a private website here, not criminal or other state sanctions. I think that it is possible to interpret the policy's requirement of "a reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about them" such that it allows summarizing and anonymizing evidence to protect important privacy interests of the complainant. And ArbCom is elected to decide whether and how to apply the arbitration policy in this manner. Their decisions are not subject to community review, including through RfCs. Sandstein 10:15, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. I won't clog this RFC with a long wall of text giving my reasoning, but it's explained at length here. ‑ Iridescent 10:41, 2 August 2019 (UTC)*
• Oppose. iridescent's (linked) explanation sums it up well. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:05, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Comparisons to actual judicial proceedings are invalid because apples and oranges. The committee should have some leeway to work in privacy to offer appropriate protection to those being harassed. In general editors get an opportunity to respond to and see accusations publicly and one of the things we should consider when electing arbs is do they have the good judgement to decide when to do things differently (i.e. the TDA case). Scribolt (talk) 11:57, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

But we must also consider the rights of those being accused of harassment (remember, accusations may be false, so the accused may actually be the victim). The accused has a right to know who has said what about her, since that information is necessary to defend herself. Blueboar (talk) 12:14, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

I don't think they always do. I can think of plenty of LTAs and otherwise unpleasant people who've edited on this website who shouldn't get to know certain details. And it's the role of the arbs to make those judgement calls. Scribolt (talk) 20:09, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Or, more accurately, "I don't think this discussion is helpful at this time." Per several of the above, including Boing! said Zebedee, Thryduulf, and Iridescent. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:43, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Anything I could possibly add has already been said above and below. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 16:55, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Iri's wall of text on his talk. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:02, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Iridescent, Sandstein, and Roger Davies back in 2011: "Unlike real life situations, anyone can turn up and comment at an arbitration case. This produces an atmosphere totally unlike any real world situation. In some instances, it's called transparency; in sensitive issues, it's simply horrifically invasive. It is impossible to discuss private stuff publicly, no matter how cautiously, without the dots getting joined up or speculation/allegations running riot." Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:16, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Per above, and Arbcom is not a court and does not punish, it merely deals in binding the permissions of users on this private website; thus, its members individually and as a group of dedicated, mature, fair-minded volunteers on a volunteer website need and deserve trust and discretion to protect others and themselves. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:30, 2 August 2019 (UTC) Responding to Bovlb's argument, his argument is plainly wrong. Not only are the opposes directly addressing the issue, the issue addressed by the opposes is that the present policy is written in such as way as to give the reasonable leeway the opposes embrace. It's the interpretation of the supports which makes no sense in the context of Wikipedia, Wikipedia policy is almost never a straitjacket because such interpretation does not accord with the purposes of Wikipedia. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:24, 2 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Clayoquot's comment is the most closest to what I think. I believe the extraordinary openness of Arbitration proceedings (where anyone can show up to bring 'evidence'; evidence that can eventually influence final decisions) and where the participants can be subjected to unpleasant experiences because of taking a particular stand should be matched with some extraordinary powers in difficult situations like this. At this point we basically need to trust ArbCom to move on, or distrust them to the point they abandon the case and go back to square one; the default WMF position. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:46, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose because I do not agree that the words 'reasonable opportunity to respond' are the same as ‘requires disclosure of all evidence to the accused’. If the latter was what was intended, that is what the wording of the current policy would say. The use of the word ‘reasonable’ tells us that there is considerable room for discretion in this matter. Mccapra (talk) 12:43, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose I share Thryduulf's understanding of the wording, and I'm convinced by Iridescent's explanation of the intention behind the wording. --RexxS (talk) 20:28, 3 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose My expectation from the wording, before reading anyone's comments (or at least not many) would be somewhat similar to Boing!, Mccapra et al as the most logical interpretation, and the interpretation which best fits with wikipedia etc. Reading the discussion my view hasn't changed, in fact it's re-enforce by Iridescent's view that that this is somewhat akin to how it was intended when developed. And as with many others, I have not yet seen any reason to change this. I've long railed against attempts to make wikipedia function too much like a court of law given the fundamentally different effects and roles in society. We should carefully consider the principles they apply, and why they apply them, but we shouldn't completely ape them. As others have said the proposal would seem to disallow checkuser evidence in arbcom cases for example. And likely plenty of other things which happen on occasion. Note that for those that say none of that is the case here, I have 2 points. The first more minor one is that of it's impossible for us to know unless someone explicitly confirms it since that's the nature of something secret. The second more important one is that this has been explicitly presented as a general clarification, intended to affect the ongoing case which inspired it, but by no means exclusive to it and so it's moot. If a more specific proposed policy change is made e.g. that requires all on-wiki evidence consider is made public, we could consider that. You could also make specific proposals about what should happen in the Fram case if you want. But while this may be a discussion and not a vote, I think it's clear we're not going to come to a consensus on any such ideas from this specific discussion given the way it was designed and worded and the nature of RfCs involving many editors.Nil Einne (talk) 07:39, 4 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Iridescent, Headbomb, Boing!, Wugapodes, GoldenRing, and others. There is a distinct and important difference between full disclosure of all evidence and providing enough information to meaningfully defend oneself against accusation. I find the arguments that (some) legal systems provide persons accused of heinous crimes more access to evidence to be hyperbolic and uncompelling; the consequences here are, at most, the loss of editing privileges, not deprivation of life or liberty. Further, this is precisely why we elect trusted representatives to handle cases like these. Either we trust ArbCom or we don't. CThomas³ (talk) 04:28, 5 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Iridescent. While a ban should be justified based on publicly available evidence, before that point both public and non-public evidence should be reviewed. ChristianKl ❪✉❫ 07:12, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• Opposed to poison-pen letters, secret evidence, lack of accountability, closed door hearings, filtering of evidence to enable pre-determined results, and denial of the basic right of an accused person to confront their accusers and to present potentially exculpatory evidence. This takes the WP:BOOMERANG off the table. Actual bad actors are already subject to sanctions through established procedures and practices rooted in precedent. Carrite (talk) 08:01, 26 August 2019 (UTC)
• Strong oppose: the OP says ... rapists, murderers and child abusers are still told who has accused them, of what, when, how etc. The difference is that in those cases, the state has authority to limit the freedom of the criminals. Here, we have no good way of ensuring safety for the victim if the accuser is told something. (I don't refer to Fram specifically but to any user who is accused of misconduct.) Yes, we can block or ban someone, but everyone here knows how rampant and difficult to stop sockpuppets are. Even if the user stays off of Wikipedia, they are still allowed on plenty of Wikipedia hate fora and other websites where they could talk about what they were told. With Framgate, we have already seen a disgusting and shocking level of targeted harassment by Wikipedia users (let alone Wikipediocracy etc.) of people they guessed to be responsible for the WMF reports. The direct result of this motion passing is very likely to be a significant upturn in harassment against the subjects, which violates the confidentiality that they made the reports with the promise of—a more important right in this case than that of Fram, who is still receiving a fair trial. We violate the reporter's rights already by letting Arbcom see the evidence given by the WMF, but this is a reasonable tradeoff to hold the WMF accountable and ensure fairness in the outcome for Fram. It would not be a reasonable tradeoff to provide Fram with any further evidence, not least because of the dangerous precedence it sets. — Bilorv (talk) 07:43, 30 August 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - per Bilorv's statement above. If users cannot anonymously report harassment, most harassment will go unreported. Kaldari (talk) 04:25, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

Third option: Exceptional circumstances (ARBPOL Private Hearings)

• Restricted to exceptional circumstances such as off-wiki actions, law enforcement matters, on-wiki content subject to oversight such as threats and personal info. Per Iridescent's comments, private hearings were intended to cover things like disputes spilling into real-world actions and violent criminals and genuine lunatics. I trust the Arbs if they state this is about something such as violent threats or offwiki actions. However as I understand it the material currently at issue consists substantially or entirely of routine, publicly visible, on-wiki diffs. Secret evidence and secret hearings are not appropriate for content disputes and content-policy-enforcement disputes. The accused cannot be given a "reasonable [and effective] opportunity to respond" to editing disputes and policy disputes without showing them the diffs so they can explain their policy arguments for those edits, including but not limited to Wikipedia:Harassment#What harassment is not. If the accused gets to see those diffs then there's no point in trying to keep those diffs secret with a private hearing. I believe I see 4 acceptable outcomes here:
  1. Arbcom states that this involves oversighted threats/personal-info, off-wiki activities, or some similar category which is an established justification for secret evidence and a private hearing.
  2. A finding of wrongdoing and sanction based solely on publicly evidence in a public hearing. "Secret evidence" is irrelevant if it's not used against anyone.
  3. A finding of no wrongdoing and lifting the ban. "Secret evidence" is irrelevant if it's not used against anyone.
  4. If the Foundation is unwilling to accept a cooperative resolution then that is not Arbcom's problem to address. Intrusion of the Foundation into content disputes and issuing content-dispute-based-bans is problem to be resolved between the Foundation and the Community. If that is the case then I'll happily open an RFC for the community to resolve the problem from our end, substantially eliminating the Foundation's ability to impose these sorts of bans in the future. The proposal would be to delete any links to Trust&Safety from EnWiki, to delete any pages belonging-to or about T&S on EnWiki, delete any mention of T&S on EnWiki, and that Arbcom can of course forward cases to T&S after after reviewing them as appropriate for T&S to handle. Fram will still be banned, but Trust&Safety will no longer be engaging in such bans if no one can find T&S to submit complaints in the first place. Alsee (talk) 16:04, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

  Hmm... are you saying that the EnWiki community could issue a community ban of T&S? Blueboar (talk) 16:19, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

  Blueboar I don't think that's a good metaphor, and it would probably generate pointless squabbling over the metaphor itself. I would suggest "vanishing" as a better metaphor. We don't need to restrict or alter T&S, we can just make routine edits to our pages and leave them sitting at empty desks.

  I expect the proposal itself would be enough to persuade the Foundation that a cooperative solution is needed. Alsee (talk) 12:12, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

  I would think this would have exactly the reverse of the intended effect. What you'd be creating in effect is a two-tier system of insiders who are aware of how to look up T&S's contact details on Meta, and less-involved editors who don't know where to find them or aren't aware of their existence. It would tilt the scales even more than they're already tilted in favor of those who are part of organized canvassing groups who can find friendly insiders to lobby T&S on their behalf, and "those who are part of organized canvassing groups who can find friendly insiders to lobby T&S on their behalf" is the reason this discussion is happening in the first place. ‑ Iridescent 19:36, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Comment (ARBPOL Private Hearings)

• This Fram case is not intended to set precedent, but rather to break the deadlock that we were in last month. I (and I believe other arbs) fully intend to move forward with discussions on how to handle such issues once the case is finished. I appreciate that this process will not be perfect, but we are trying to find a solution that works. Worm^TT(talk) 21:18, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
  • You are affording Fram less rights than those allowed to rapists and child abusers. I do not, and will not accept that under any circumstancesl. I frankly dont care what you will/may be doing in the future. My only goal in the above is to gauge if the community agrees with you that ARBCOM can act that way towards editors, or that the provisions of ARBPOL do not allow, even in private hearings, evidence to be deliberately kept from the accused and thus depriving them of a reasonable opportunity to respond to said evidence. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:22, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • @Only in death: rapists and child abusers would get summarily banned by the WMF. So no, Fram is not treated worst than rapists or child abusers. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 22:20, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
      • Ha, you would think so. The WMF is remarkably slow in these areas. Despite constant badgering about the genuine risk in some cases. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:22, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
    • If convicted, rapists and child abusers would be imprisoned for many years. That is why they get the rights afforded by law. It is not reasonable to compare that situation with who gets to access a website. It is reasonable to think about whether an accused should be given the opportunity to identify their accuser, but not by comparison with rapists and child abusers. Johnuniq (talk) 00:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
      • This goes back to my point below: Even in cases where there isn't much at risk the basic protections of notice and an opportunity to be heard are basic (though these need not always be prior to action being taken). For instance, the ability to buy alcohol in city limits (Wisconsin v. Constantineau) or having your frozen chickens destroyed (North American Cold Storage Co. v. City of Chicago) or being dismissed by your university (Board Of Curators Of University Of Missouri v. Horowitz) or being fired by your public employer (Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill). There are, of course, many exceptions to this rule in the law (e.g., Board of Regents v. Roth) but we're not talking about the law here, we're talking about what we're prepared to tolerate as a body of editors. Do we genuinely think that the arbitration policy ever meant that the Committee could sanction somebody without giving that person notice of what they did and an opportunity to tell his or her side of the story? The common practice of holding cases in abeyance when editors disappear during a controversy says that the Committee has never been authorized to do this. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 00:27, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • Intent isn’t meaningful here. We’ve seen that the Committee follows its own precedents, no matter how nonbinding they’re intended to be. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 21:39, 31 July 2019 (UTC)
• It doesn't especially concern me that Fram (or any Wikipedian) would have fewer rights than an accused criminal, as the consequences are much different. Nobody is going to prison no matter what ARBCOM or the WMF decide. However, the ability to know what you are accused of is pretty fundamental to any legitimate system of justice.--Mojo Hand (talk) 21:50, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

To be honest it only concerns me in the abstract in that I just cant imagine the intent of that section of ARBPOL was to allow for secret evidence to be used against editors. Not publically disclosed is one thing, keeping evidence from the accused completely is an entirely different level. The point of the examples above is that even in those extreme situations involving abhorrent acts, we still hold to the fundamental principle that people have a right to know what they are accused of, so they can defend themselves (even when hopelessly and obviously guilty). Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:56, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The point of the examples above is that even in those extreme situations involving abhorrent acts, we still hold to the fundamental principle that people have a right to know what they are accused of, so they can defend themselves (even when hopelessly and obviously guilty). It’s worth noting that the problem mentioned above—that the reason we’re super protective of those accused of serious crimes is partly because of the serious penalties involved (life, liberty, perhaps property). In cases where what’s at risk is “less” (e.g., reputation) it’s not abnormal to have fewer procedural rights. But even in those low-risk cases, you get notice of what you’re accused of and a right to be heard. This is actually a really common problem that the law has dealt with for several decades, especially in decidedly “not a court” contexts (like hiring/firing decisions, arbitration, and administrative agencies). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:10, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Confidential private evidence will be used in harassment and other serious cases, that's not what's on the table here. The decision we have is whether to accept ArbCom dealing with such cases (in a way they/we will try to formulate and improve going forwards), or dig in with a "no compromise" attitude and see WMF/T&S take over. That's surely what we'll get if we reject the ability of ArbCom to keep private evidence confidential. Is that what we want? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:47, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• I would like to see a definitive statement from ArbCom on what will or will not be able to see (within the limits of the NDA). If he is not to be shown evidence, then I will support this fully. As with a previous discussion (concerning whether there are accusations of off-Wiki behaviour by Fram), ArbCom should not just accept the conditions imposed by T&S without clarifying with them what the limitations are. I hope there is a two-way dialogue going on with T&S about the evidence, what can be clarified, etc, at which these points can be raised and answers or clarification provided. If not, then I want a statement from ArbCom explaining why there isn't. SchroCat (talk) 22:05, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

The intent of this is to clarify the communities expections of the implementation of ARBPOL. If the community thinks that 'yes, evidence must be disclosed in private hearings to the accused' then ARBCOM's discussion with T&S is quite clear - if you want us to look at evidence, we will show it to the accused. The WMF either agrees or refuses, simplifies the decision tree immensely. The point is that ARBCOM are representatives of the community and must abide by ARBPOL. If the WMF find ARBPOL is insufficient for their needs, then thats an entirely different discussion. Currently WTT has confirmed they are unable to share evidence with Fram. There may be future conversations that allow some evidence to be shown to them, all of it, or none. That should not be ARBCOM's decision to make behind closed doors with the WMF. ARBCOM should have a clear direction from the community as to how accused editors are treated. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:14, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• This is one reason why there are lawyers. In civil cases there is often evidence that cannot be shared with a party, but it can be shared with that party's lawyer who is under strict obligations to maintain confidence and to act in a fiduciary capacity for the party. (Such evidence is marked Confidential AEO - Attorney's Eyes Only) If WMF wants to have secret evidence, they need to appoint a group of trusted users who can view that evidence, and let the accused choose one of those people to act as an advocate. I see no other way to achieve both confidentiality and fairness. Jehochman ^Talk 22:48, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

• Sure seems like support/oppose are reversed here. "Support" is typically an affirmation/"yes" of the question under discussion. The question is "Does the wording regarding private hearings allow..." but people supporting seem to be saying it does not allow... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:18, 31 July 2019 (UTC)

Unfortunately that's because the bolded question was added afterwards as the first two respondents in oppose ignored the actual point of it. I will reword above. Only in death does duty end (talk) 06:24, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• I just wanted to note that, quote, "The very worst members of society - rapists, murderers and child abusers are still told who has accused them, of what, when, how etc. They are often denied the opportunity to confront their accusers directly, but they are still provided all the available information on those accusations in order to defend themselves." is not entirely accurate. And I'm not talking about the stupendously rare case of the anonymous witness. I'm talking about pre-trial activities. The defendant is entitled to be presented with the evidence that is entered at trial, and to confront the witnesses who testify against him. The defendant does not get access to all documents generated by the prosecution or law enforcement. If the goal of Arbcom were to parallel common law standards, they would be asked to provide the defense only with evidence that is either the potential basis for a verdict, or is exculpatory in light of the previous. They would not be asked to provide the defense with literally everything. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:47, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Some prosecutors do in fact allow defense attorneys to view the file, talk freely to the witnesses, etc. Personally I consider this a best practice. What is there to hide?--Wehwalt (talk) 07:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with that in terms of real life stuff, most of the time. Incidentally, I have been trying to find articles about the practice - I could have sworn it had a name, but can't find it now. Anyway, in the case of ArbCom, I think what is worth hiding is the identity of a witness who decides they would rather their testimony go unused than be at risk of further harassment. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:52, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

This is slightly misleading. If the prosecution is in possession of evidence that would help the defense they are required to disclose it, or if the defends thinks it may help them. A number of rape cases in the UK have spectacularly collapsed because the CPS didn't hand over evidence. The standard is not if the prosecution is going to use it, or if the prosecution thinks it's exculpatory or not. That's not their decision - although functionally if you are unaware of evidence and it's not been disclosed by the other side, you are unlikely to request it. It's also completely irrelevant in this case as arbcom have already confirmed they are reviewing the evidence as part of their deliberations, The accused knows it exists, so it should be provided to them. Only in death does duty end (talk) 06:32, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, of course, it gets rather complicated, and it depends on where you are. I am mostly familiar with the Brady disclosure, but regardless I tried to keep it brief since I was only trying to make the point that in the real world the prosecutor doesn't just hand over the entire case file. Regardless, what I had in mind was, we mere peasants don't know what it is that ArbCom is reviewing, what secret information they are considering, and what they intend to provide as their reason for whatever decision they make, and therefore shouldn't jump to declarations that everything should be turned over. Obviously, "we are banning you for your harassing behavior toward User:[REDACTED] as evidenced in [REDACTED DIFFS]." or the like would make it impossible for anyone to mount a defense. Same goes for "we are banning you for the bad stuff you said offwiki at [WEBSITE REDACTED]." However, there's a lot of stuff I could see them not revealing, and be completely okay with. For instance, discussions among staffers, or between staffers and witnesses, might not all require disclosure, ethically speaking, where they only contain arguments and not evidence. Nor does the identity of whoever provided evidence necessarily need to be disclosed along with the evidence itself, especially if that person is not actually a witness providing testimony. This may be the case if the evidence is a list of diffs of alleged harassment. The real life parallel to that is the prosecution often being able to keep it a secret who actually pointed investigators at a suspect, since what matters is often what was found and not who noticed it first. This leaves the unfortunate possibility of ArbCom technically being able to hide evidence of selective prosecution. That is, even if ArbCom decides to be open about why someone is banned, they could in theory publicly state that someone is banned for reason X, but in reality that was a pretext and everyone is actually pissed at the defendant for secret reason Y, and the case would not have even happened otherwise. Personally, I'm not worried about that possibility, mostly because ArbCom is accountable through reelection. Though I also respect that reasonable editors could disagree with that sentiment. There is also the possibility that a particularly vindictive user or busybody is the one making secret reports as a campaign of revenge, even though the wrongdoing is very real, resulting in people on only one side of an issue being held accountable. I'm not worried about that possibility due to really the Wikipedia Community's general tendency, very much unlike real life, to equally investigate everyone involved in a dispute. I understand that not every reasonable person will be so reassured, but anyway, this is why I would be okay with ArbCom not revealing everything. However, I do think it would be good for them to at least give some guidelines on what they intend to share with the accused and the community in cases like this, assuming such guidelines are not simply imposed onto them. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:29, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• I think...perhaps premature, yes, but perhaps also still concerning. At the very least, I would say that if Fram does not have the ability to see and respond to that evidence, it should not be considered at all. It is quite fundamental to be able to see and respond to evidence which will be used against one. ArbCom can still hold the case on the basis of input from the community, and of course that input could well mirror the areas of concern brought up in the secret report. (I certainly hope anyone presenting case evidence understands that Fram will get to respond to that, and I damn sure hope that statement is true!). But I certainly never want to see the situation arise that we'd say "Well, we're banning you, but we won't tell you why or give you a chance to even respond." I know a lot of modern websites do operate that way, and I think it's a terrible practice that we should very much not emulate. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 05:01, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• Please bear in mind that the effect of supporting this will not be to give Fram full access to the private evidence in his case, because we are contractually prohibited from giving it to him. What it will do is stop ArbCom from having a case, sinking the only compromise solution we have yet found to this deadlock between enwiki and the WMF. I don't think we are breaching ARBPOL: we are making every effort to give Fram a reasonable opportunity to respond to what is said about him in what is a complex and exceptional circumstance. This is a process we have had to put together quickly, with little precedent and no time to consult the community on alternative formats. As WTT has said, it won't be the template for how private cases will or should look in the future. – Joe (talk) 07:57, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  Exactly this. Maybe people think that if they can get the Arbcom case closed down on a technicality, then Fram will be unbanned forthwith? I highly doubt that. The WMF would simply uphold their own ban in that situation. The best way to get closure on this (bearing in mind that such closure might simply be Arbcom an upholding or extension of the original ban) is to allow this case to proceed and reach a conclusion and the only way that WMF has permitted Arbcom to do that, is with redacted evidence and in camera.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:05, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  • (edit conflict) @Joe Roe: "what it will do is stop ArbCom from having a case, sinking the only compromise solution we have yet found to this deadlock between enwiki and the WMF" .. No, it does not stop that. You can have a case on the publicly available material, having an open evidence section where people can post evidence that they find and that they are willing to share, and then giving Fram (and others) to rebut the evidence. The evidence that is NOT being presented to the accused party is simply not admissible. You've seen the response of the community when the WMF banned a user on completely secret information, do you think that the community will respond differently to ArbCom if they would say 'Yeah, we've seen the evidence that you cannot see, and we keep the current ban in place'? The community will see that either as if you are meekly following WMF, or that you are doing the same thing as WMF.

  It may be the only option that you see here, but yeah, it may be what WMF's T&S' has turned the situation into. 70 pages of inadmissible evidence, and you now are collecting more of it. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:12, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  No, this is a compromise solution. The board statement said We support ArbCom reviewing this ban. We have asked T&S to work with the English Wikipedia ArbCom to review this case. We encourage Arbcom to assess the length and scope of Fram’s ban, based on the case materials that can be released to the committee. (highlighting added)
  If we choose to ignore the T&S document, then we are failing to honour the compromise. What we are trying to do is find a solution where they community (especially Fram) can see the reasons for our decision, whatever that might be, whilst respecting the compromise and doing our best to protect individuals. There's a lot of balls to juggle here, we are attempting to find the least worst solution. Worm^TT(talk) 10:53, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  It's not much of a compromise if it's imposed on you with no negotiation in good faith. Definitely not a solution either. As to the interpretation of the board statement, that is ridiculous. By expanding the inquiry beyond the T&S document you're already violating that statement. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:01, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  Mendaliv, we didn't accept the idea of simply reviewing their document and marking it with pass/fail. Holding a private case, in the manner we are is the compromise. I sincerely doubt the WMF is happy with the solution either. Worm^TT(talk) 11:10, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) In fact, I'm gonna come back to this again because I cannot comprehend how you can interpret that statement as requiring you to use the T&S document as the basis of your final decision, rather than as a preliminary investigative tool. Let's unpack that very quotation you gave: First, We support ArbCom reviewing this ban. This means that ArbCom can review the T&S ban. Review, at least in the adjudicative frame of reference in which we're working, means to determine whether it was proper. "Support" itself has meaning, but that meaning is not "require" or "mandate". More on this last point later. We have asked T&S to work with the English Wikipedia ArbCom to review this case. This is nothing binding on the Committee itself; indeed, it merely indicates that T&S is to work with ArbCom, presumably to the extent ArbCom requests their input. The other interpretation is that ArbCom and T&S are to work as "partners", which would be improper and a further intrusion upon the community independence that the Board claims to honor. So that reading can be thrown right out. We encourage Arbcom to assess the length and scope of Fram’s ban, based on the case materials that can be released to the committee. Let's start with the first two words: "We encourage". This is not a mandate, not a requirement, and not even particularly an aspirational statement. It's merely a suggestion, and taken in line with the previous sentence, which is unpacked to mean that T&S will be at ArbCom's disposal, makes clear that the intention is for ArbCom to not feel as though they cannot use the tools provided. The rest of the sentence, actually, if taken in the mandatory reading you seem to be implying, indicates that the only things ArbCom may review are the length and scope of the ban (i.e., whether 1 year is enough and whether just English Wikipedia is enough).
  Of course, continuing with your "compromise" analysis, the indications are clearly that the Board has already violated that compromise. They state that materials will be released to the Committee, which indicates that what can be released will be released. Instead, you have received a redacted document. There is no legal obligation for that redaction. In fact, the Privacy Policy makes clear (1) that it controls and (2) that information may be provided to community members as necessary for them to complete their tasks. Because it is necessary for you to receive that information in order to carry out your duties, you should have received an unredacted document. But WMF have failed to live up to this imposed "compromise". —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:13, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  "You can have a case on the publicly available material, having an open evidence section where people can post evidence that they find and that they are willing to share, and then giving Fram (and others) to rebut the evidence": No, we already know that dealing with alleged harassment cases wholly in public is not acceptable to WMF, and there's a strong desire to improve the way we handle harassment (which we have handled badly, historically). Rejecting ArbCom's ability to keep confidential information confidential will simply eliminate the community's ability to deal with such cases and hand it back to WMF. And no, it seems pretty clear to me that a public-only Fram case will not be allowed to override the current Fram sanction - ArbCom now has the power to re-judge the case based on the submitted private evidence, but not to disallow that evidence. This escalating "no compromise" attitude I'm increasingly seeing will surely result in the worst possible outcome for us all. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:13, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  ArbCom now has the power to re-judge the case based on the submitted private evidence, but not to disallow that evidence. Where in the world are you getting that from? —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 11:16, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  It's my reading of the wording of the compromise statement, and subsequent comments from Jimmy, the board, and ArbCom. Should ArbCom disallow the redacted 70 pages of evidence provided by T&S and hold a case based solely on public evidence (or on anything else), WMF will not accept the outcome sure as eggs is eggs. If you think I'm wrong, wait and see. And we've already had two Arbs effectively telling us that breaching the compromise with the WMF would kill the case. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:27, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  That is my reading of the replies from WMF as well, and the main reason that I have not asked my bit back. I don't feel that the community will agree with non-transparency, and I have to see whether another part of the community (and WMF) will agree with a fully transparent case and/or an unban of Fram. It was a difficult situation that WMF had to handle before the start of the ban, but I am afraid that the way that it was implemented was so utterly opaque that it is now FUBAR. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 12:31, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  This interpretation would not force ArbCom to choose between releasing all the evidence and not having a case. Instead, ArbCom could, if it wished, continue having a case, and not release all the evidence, but use only in making and choosing a proposed decision the part of the evidence that has been made public. Regardless, this is specifically about the Fram case, which I consider irrelevant to this RFC. — Rastus Vernon (talk) 18:49, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Beetstra and Rastus Vernon: How would that possibly work? Are we supposed to forget that we've all already read the T&S document? Remember that ArbCom is made of human beings, not evidence-processing algorithms. – Joe (talk) 08:56, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Joe Roe: that is a very troubling statement. Are you suggesting that the T&S document contaminated your judgement? --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:09, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  Contaminated? It's a document full of information relevant to the case, which I now know. – Joe (talk) 20:30, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  As I say in my comment above, let's see how this plays out. I'm curious to see what we will get next. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 21:08, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Exceptionalism query - some above in the comments and some in the opposes, seem to argue that as the only compromise found between us and the WMF, this setup has to be tolerated for at least this case, even if it would not normally be. I'd like to ask whether they think that exceptionalism is permissible (morally and policy-wise), given a lack of any exception in ARBPOL or even an RfC to accept an abnormal case (which wouldn't normally override ABRPOL). I certainly see the arguments that if the case collapses, the WMF intervenes again and the nightmare is back. God I see it. Against that is a strong Fiat justitia ruat caelum attitude. I'm unsure how I feel and hope for some moral-based arguments. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:47, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  I was typing something very similar to this in a more verbose manner but you said it, more elegantly:-) Thanks! ∯WBG^converse 09:19, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  I've been trying to same similar things too, but it's taken me far more words for far less precision and eloquence. Very well put, Nosebagbear. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:20, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  I think Nosebagbear hits this on the nose. (pun intended) While we are somewhat outside of the realm of precedent, we are not outside the scope of policy. I'm conflicted, in that I would not hold that exceptionalism is permissible, but also want this to be an opportunity to show that community processes are better (that is to say, more just) than T&S. WTT's interpretation may be taking a pragmatic solution, but using the T&S document as anything other than a signpost for where to dig in a real, transparent investigation which includes such basics as notification of all evidence and the right to respond smacks of exactly the same problems we had with T&S. This would seem to be a situation where there is a choice between doing what is right, and what is (comparatively) easy (not to imply that this situation is easy for any members of ARBCOM, as it clearly isn't). The question is, what do we do if, as Boing! expects, the WMF will not accept the outcome should ARBCOM disallow the T&S document as anything other than a fact-finding tool. ^LetUs_NotLose^HearT 15:36, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  The community could first work out what procedures it wants to adopt for handling anonymous complaints. This would mean leaving the current situation in abeyance until the appropriate policy and procedure changes have been made, though. The question is which is considered to be more urgent: providing a resolution sooner through an interim process, or getting a consensus agreement on a new process. isaacl (talk) 15:42, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Nosebagbear and Winged Blades of Godric: ARBPOL allows us to hold private cases. Apart from the stipulation that parties must be given a reasonable opportunity to respond, there is no other guidance in policy as to their format. This means that we fall back on the provision of ARBPOL that "the Committee may create or modify its procedures, provided they are consistent with its scope." When WTT and I have said that this case is exceptional, what we mean is that while ArbCom technically can invent a procedure for private harassment cases on its own initiative, we don't want to do that: the issue is too important and complicated and needs to be put to the wider community. But we didn't have time to organise that before taking the Fram case, so we are making it up as we go along, trying to keep it as close to a "normal" case as possible, with no intention of creating precedent. – Joe (talk) 09:07, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  Joe Roe, that fall-back-provision is a valid technical defense. ARBPOL allows you to modify your procedures at your own whims as much as the ToU (legally) facilitates WMF to evict Fram/you/me from their sites in a moment's notice w/o any minimal reasoning.

  At any case, I have a fair expectation that you will (at-least try to) do your job with utmost fairness and competence despite the fracas, this has been. Let's see. ∯WBG^converse 10:05, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

  @Joe Roe and Winged Blades of Godric: - a couple of issues though, a) we have users above saying the setup isn't sufficient to meet reasonable, but needs to be done here (exact words vary, but it's a significant theme), it's not "reasonable as external pressure allows", reasonableness should be the same for all, b) if a protocol is generally too complicated for ARBCOM to create (or too in conflict with community norms), why is it permissable to do so for a single case at all? Is it fair for one individual to get the short stick? Those are the questions in play. On a personal front, I think I'd have more respect for those that handled the issue by openly arguing that yes, Fram is going to be hard done by, the process will be poorer than it should be, and his defence must be hindered...but...here's why that should be tolerated. Nosebagbear (talk) 12:27, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment Seems to me that the community has a simple choice. Accept this framework as the only approach available. Wait for the inevitable "time served" compromise decision by Arbcom in a few weeks or continue to dispute, debate and haggle and end up with a "time expired" decision in 10 1/2 months. Leaky caldron (talk) 11:40, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
• I would argue that the only people with the authority to create binding interpretations of ArbPol is ArbCom itself --Guerillero | Parlez Moi 18:45, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • That would contradict its being a policy, since that is not how any policy works. — Rastus Vernon (talk) 19:02, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
  • As was pointed out above, ArbCom doesn’t do state decisis—its decisions and interpretations are not binding on subsequent cases. In any event, I don’t see what’s being done here as enacting a binding interpretation of the arbitration policy, but making clear the community’s understanding of that policy. The Committee may do with that what they wish, but they would be ill advised to ignore just how disappointed people are (cheerleaders excepted). —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 20:33, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • Except ARBCOM usually does follow its precedents, even if it doesn't specifically refer to them. As such, there's a reticence by many to let it make that first step in case it becomes a cast Nosebagbear (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2019 (UTC)
    • {[ec}} In other words, "we" (i.e. a few vocal editors) were very disappointed that the WMF refused to let us know who made the complaint(s) so we could lynch them (as well as the person we think most is most likely to have done so), and having gotten the ArbCom to take a look the same "we" are now even more disappointed that we still don't get to know if we've lynched the right person and if there is anybody else who needs lynching. Speaking for myself, it is not the arbitration committee whose actions disappoint me. Thryduulf (talk) 22:03, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

Comment: The RfC statement is not neutral and brief as it's advocating for a certain interpretation of WP:ARBPOL. @Only in death: you should move the paragraphs starting with It is my opinion... and There is no doubt... to your !vote. – Anne drew 23:42, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

• Worm That Turned, or any other member of Arbom, can you please clarify the broad nature of the "secret evidence" are involved? My impression is that it is substantially or entirely a collection of ordinary publicly-visible diffs. Is this correct? Or does the evidence include things like off-wiki activities or on-wiki edits that were oversighted-for-good-cause? Or to phrase my question another way, if the case had been filed with Arbcom in the first place, without passing through the Foundations hands, would there have been any well-established well-accepted reason that you couldn't have handled it as a standard public-process Arbcom case? Alsee (talk) 16:18, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

  Alsee, I'm not going to go into details of what the T&S document includes, there is so much speculation and concern that anything I say will be over-analysed and quite probably misinterpreted. So, I'm going to focus on your alternate question. If the case had be brought in public, I expect we could have tried to handle it in public (with some private evidence). However, that does not necessarily make it the "right" forum for the case, per the Roger Davies quote Unlike real life situations, anyone can turn up and comment at an arbitration case. This produces an atmosphere totally unlike any real world situation. In some instances, it's called transparency; in sensitive issues, it's simply horrifically invasive. It is impossible to discuss private stuff publicly, no matter how cautiously, without the dots getting joined up or speculation/allegations running riot.

  If the case had been made to us in private directly by the individuals, I think there is a reasonable possibility would have considered a private case as private hearings have occurred in the past. However, I don't know how we would have handled it as we have less institutional memory on the committee from those times. The answer, however, is moot - because that's not what happened, the issues were not brought to us, they were brought to T&S. Worm^TT(talk) 10:54, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

• Comment the rubric for this RfC says This is not intended to add, remove, change/alter the wording of ARBPOL, only answer the question 'Does the wording regarding private hearings support that evidence to be used against an editor should be disclosed to that editor in order that they can respond.' From some of the discussion it feels as though we have moved away from considering what the current words in the policy mean, and onto whether we think we would be better to have different words in the policy. I expect that if there is no consensus that the current wording means what SUPPORT !voters think it should mean, we’ll be coming onto that next. Mccapra (talk) 21:02, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

Comments on confusion, unfair wording, and misdirection: I support that a "private meeting" may have to take place. A complaint may be made where certain information has to be looked at to determine if there is a need for a protection of privacy, possible victim protection, or some sensitive information (private evidence) protected. That Wikipedia may not be a "legal system", based on US, Great Britain, or any other types, may be true but in avoiding chaos there has to be some system and the Wikipedia world will ultimately mirror what we know from the real world. We go from "private meeting", to "secret meeting" as mentioned by Bovlb above (in the support section), to "secret trials". The wording of the sections seems to throw things off. I support there may be a need for "ARBPOL Private Hearings" only to look at evidence to determine if there are grounds to move forward with privacy or protection issues.

"I oppose secret trials" or secret hearings (per comments found in the support comments above). I agree with "that 'reasonable opportunity to respond' requires disclosure of all evidence to the accused.". We can't mix words that some may seem as meaning the same thing when they in fact do not have the same meaning. There is a distinct difference in a private meeting or hearing, to examine issues and facts, and a "secret trial".

@Amakuru: Any move to "delegitimise" ArbCom would be out of order and even detrimental. Discussions (RFC's) for clarity, attempts to ensure policies are being adhered to, perform "checks and balances" (safety valve for our values), and to make sure well meaning and good faith editors do not go astray, are not out of order. Your statement, "The rules as currently written clearly do allow secret trials without presentation of evidence." simply blows my mind if it is fact over interpretation and you support this. This was commented on by Jimbo Wales way back on 29 June 2008: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Arbitration Committee#Statement by Lawrence Cohen:

"I think the important statement has been made: no secret trials, and no convictions without giving the opportunity to present a defense. That's just basic justice, and I will overturn any ArbCom decision to the contrary. (Although, I should point out, there is ZERO chance of the ArbCom doing this in the first place.)".

• Read that closely as it seems your statement is certainly at odds with those comments.

If anyone here thinks the WMF, T&S, or Jimbo Wales will not have serious concerns over "protecting victims", I fear they will be mistaken, especially if there are potential legal ramifications. There is no way in hell we can even pretend to make Wikipedia a better place, or a safer place, or a more inviting place to edit, without consideration of protection if this is violated. To me that is too simple. We cannot have a "secret police" or a "secret judgement system" and if that is what we have, and ArbCom agrees, then there is absolutely a need for change according to Mr. Wales' statement and assuming he still supports it.

I have seen comments where editors have concerns of facing retribution or retaliation from the WMF (maybe ArbCom or even T&S) for being in opposition or critical of them and I feel these are unfounded. If I thought for a second this was true this would be my last edit on Wikipedia. Until I see that Mr. Wales has ditched Wikipedia (bailed out completely or otherwise relinquishes any final say) I will consider his other apparent statement from 2004:

"The Arbitration Committee [...] can impose a solution that I'll consider to be binding, with of course the exception that I reserve the right of executive clemency and indeed even to dissolve the whole thing if it turns out to be a disaster. But I regard that as unlikely, and I plan to do it about as often as the Queen of England dissolves Parliament against their wishes, i.e., basically never, but it is one last safety valve for our values..

• This seems to indicate he (Mr. Wales) retains some executive authority and I have not seen this recinded. If it is true, "The rules as currently written clearly do allow secret trials without presentation of evidence", this may be a case he needs to examine. I want to whole heartily support an ArbCom. I would like to see ArbCom, the WMF, and T&S work together for the betterment of the community and there not be an "us against them" mentality. I don't ever want there to be secret trials or a secret police and we (the Wikipedia community) needs to do whatever we can to ensure this does not happen. Surely Mr Wales faith in ArbCom has not been misplaced.

Moving forward, the direction of the T&S should be for the safety of the community and the public. It is important to remember that this Wikipedia community belongs to "all of us" and their decisions have to reflect this. It should be a paramount priority of Stewards to be the connecting point between the WMF (including T&S) and the community they represent.

Surely "no secret trials" would be just as applicable to T&S as ArbCom. Wikipedia is not a democracy but surely also not a Communist regime. Otr500 (talk) 12:30, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

This RFC seems based on a false dichotomy

The two alternatives it proposes are either supporting disclosure of all evidence, or supporting withholding of relevant evidence from the parties. I see comments in both the Support and Oppose sections that seem to be reaching for a middle ground. I'm going to try to develop a middle ground in this comment. But I do think legitimate the concern that the plan proposed for the case at hand (on its talk pages) may not fully satisfy the requirements of WP:ARBPOL, in that ArbCom does not seem to have ruled out the use of evidence that the parties cannot respond to when making their decision.

In a normal public case, people put a lot of information on the Evidence page, some portion of that is used to make Findings of Fact, and the Findings of Fact and the Principles are used to justify the Remedies. For a private case, I think we need that same chain of logic to exist. To satisfy the requirement that "the parties [...] be given a reasonable opportunity to respond", I think ArbCom would need to consider the Findings of Fact that they'd want to make based on the private Evidence submitted and identify the subset of that Evidence actually needed to support those Findings. The subset need not include things like the source of any of the pieces of evidence or the original complaints that led to the seeking of evidence if those things aren't relevant to the Findings. On the other hand, the subset should include any evidence that might serve to counter the Findings. They'd then present the subset of Evidence (but not necessarily the Findings) to the parties for comment. The commentary period should allow for back-and-forth discussion, such as the parties requesting additional context on some part of the evidence.

Particularly relevant to the case at hand, if for some reason they cannot present some piece of Evidence to the parties, they must not use that evidence to support any Finding. Instead they'd need to find other evidence to support the finding, or drop the potential finding. Yes, that will be a significant restriction in the case at hand since one entity was apparently allowed to submit far more than the usual 1000 words (or else they used a huge font for those 70 pages) and insists that none of it can be shared with the parties, but I think it's probably unavoidable if we want to maintain the legitimacy of the process. Similarly, if the parties state that they'd need more context on some evidence to adequately respond and ArbCom is not able/willing to supply that context, ArbCom should consider whether that brings the questioned evidence itself under the same cloud.

ArbCom would then need to reconsider only the presented Evidence plus the parties' comments to determine whether the Findings of Fact are still warranted and whether any additional Findings are appropriate. If they want to bring in any Evidence not in the original subset, they'd need to present that new evidence to the parties for comment and repeat the process. This iteration may take some time and should be expected when planning the process.

With this model we would need to trust that ArbCom won't become too tied to a provisional Finding that they accept it without sufficient Evidence remaining in the "admitted" subset or discount the parties' comments that might counter the Finding, that they'd be careful not to consider "unadmitted" evidence when reevaluating their Findings, and that they would themselves consider whether WP:BOOMERANG or the like might apply since the community can't do it for them.

IMO (and getting somewhat away from the topic of the RFC), ideally when they post the decision they should include the relevant subset of Evidence as well (possibly by writing it into each Finding). Also ideally, they should post a Proposed Decision for public review and comment rather than skipping directly to the Final Decision stage; while the final decision rests with ArbCom, the public comment stage could be useful to identify missing links in their posted reasoning. They might even run a hybrid private/public case, by preparing the "subset of Evidence" as described above but then posting it publicly on the Evidence page and proceeding from there as a public case. Anomie⚔ 23:33, 1 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree with the conclusion of this analysis. Arb com can consider private evidence that they cannot share with the community as background, and they can base their decision on material not shared with the community--but they cannot base a decision on material they cannot share with the accused. Evidence can be prejudiced or erroneous, and how can this be determined unless it can be challenged? The WMF has the power to force on us what rules it chooses, but that does not mean we have to co-operate with them when they are doing something outrageously unjust.

Even the English Tudor period trials for treason that found the parties guilty 99% of the time, presented them with the evidence. And there was an appeal (to the monarch, and it sometimes worked). DGG ( talk ) 21:15, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

I raised this same (headline) point on the talk page of the case, it was roundly ignored. I'm not sure I can be bothered to provide evidence, but if I do it will be public. At the moment I would be concerned to do this, in case there was an inappropriate reaction of "Oh noes! U broke the rulez!" All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 21:47, 9 August 2019 (UTC).

• Since Arbcom have now confirmed that Fram wont actually be seeing *any* evidence provided by T&S to arbcom, what the oppose section above is now explicitly endorsing is the WMF's (through T&S) ability and willingness to collect 70-page dossiers of your activities and use them against you via Arbcom, and you will never be allowed to see the 'evidence', not even a summary. Just so we are clear that is what is currently happening right now. So when this does come back to bite you, no one can say you were not warned. Given the entirety of the evidence that has been provided to him is at best one or two pages copied verbatim from old complaints that were found to have no merit, can you still truthfully say he is being given a reasonable opportunity to respond to the accusations against him? When well over 90% of the evidence being considered is being deliberately withheld? Even by the standards of some of the oppose voters above, that is very very wrong. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:05, 20 August 2019 (UTC)
• I oppose because the process WFM designed T&S is unworkable. I agree with DGG above. Failure to provide the accusations and evidence to Fram corrupts T&S's case. The current T&S process can either can either hold evidence secret or sanction Fram—not both. This was foreseeable. If this case is really about incivility or bullying, the current T&S process is not a workable way to improve our collaborative environment. Perhaps the way forward for T&S should be to avoid sanctions and, as many have suggested, open a ARBCOM case. Neonorange (Phil) 07:34, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• Am I missing something: It seems that someone in the WMF or T&S agree that an ArbCom case be opened. It seems they went from "We have the ultimate and incontestable right" to final decisions, to a different approach being an ArbCom case. If ArbCom continues with secret trials, out of some T&S fear or other reasoning, then see my comments above from Mr. Wales. If he has changed his position then someone please show me where. Anomie your comments, "while the final decision rests with ArbCom" might be true it seems that ultimately this is because the community wishes this to be the direction. I would choose to be able to have faith that any decision they make would be fair and normally accept it as final. I think there may be evidence to suggest that a broad community consensus can reverse a decision it finds not acceptable though. Otr500 (talk) 12:48, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Between Scylla and Charybdis

See Between Scylla and Charybdis and Dilemma.

In the US legal system there are two dangers to justice, and it can be difficult to avoid both dangers. Worse, some who comment on the US justice system focus on one danger while being seemingly unaware of the other.

DANGER ONE The witness is threatened or intimidated. You testify against the mob, the mob kills you and your family. The equivalent here is the implication by T&S that Fram did something details of which that they cannot reveal to Fram or to Arbcom (thus the redactions in the evidence Arbcom got) and that absolutely nothing about what T&S thinks Fram did can be revealed to the public (thus Arbcom repeatedly saying that they do not have permission to reveal anything in the T&S evidence.)

DANGER TWO: a clever complainant takes advantage of the possibility of danger one above to fabricate material that is good enough to convince the small number of judges/prosecutors who are allowed to see the details, and neither the accused or the public ever gets a chance to bring up counter-evidence not known to the prosecution.

In the US legal system we do not convict someone based upon evidence that they and their defense team are not allowed to see. Witnesses against the mob go into a federal witness protection system with a new identity. If the prosecution's case depends on material that is classified we let accused terrorists go unprosecuted rather than being convicted on evidence that they are not allowed to see. (Unless we keep them out of the US Justice system entirely by locking them up in a prison in Cuba, but that's another issue).

In the Fram case, I can think of an additional danger:
DANGER THREE: T&S actually does have compelling evidence against Fram, but the evidence is evidence that he did something that The Wikipedia community does not agree is a blockable offense. In this scenario T&S knows this, and that is why they don't want us to know why Fram was blocked.

Fram claims[1] "a few hours ago, they posted my one year ban, and helpfully gave the actual reason. Which is one edit, this one. That's it." No one has disagreed with Fram on this point and pointed to any other reason that T&S has chosen to reveal. Is there evidence that Fram actually wrote that? Sure. Is writing that it a "block immediately with no warning" offense by the rules of the English Wikipedia? Dubious at best. Now T&S seems to think they have evidence of some other wrongdoing that neither Fram or the public are allowed to examine, but that brings us back to danger two as well as danger three. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:55, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

One of the reasons that due process includes being notified of the charges against you is to avoid the rulemaker being able to alter the charge once the initial charge is shown to be groundless (and to pretend that that was the charge all along). If they claim to have evidence of some other charge, but didn't make this charge at the beginning, it's reasonable to assume that it's a case of this. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:57, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

What if Fram was right all along? Fram wrote[2]

• "That I just happen to be one of the most vocal and efficient critics of the WMF is probably a pure coincidence"
• "No evidence at all that the enwiki community tried and failed to address these issues... No, an edit expressing widefelt frustration with an ArbCom post is sufficient to ban me."
• "Basically, this one-year ban is at the same time a means to silence one of their most vocal (and fact-based, consistently supporting WMF criticism with many examples of what goes wrong) critics"

If Fram is right, am I at risk for posting things like Wikipedia has Cancer, 13 years and RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy? --Guy Macon (talk) 17:11, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

Fram is understandably pissed off, but don't take any of his wilder speculation too seriously. If this was genuinely an attempt by the WMF to silence a critic it was a singularly incompetent attempt, given that they explicitly allowed him to continue to edit Meta—the one place where complaining about the WMF actually has an impact. Other than a couple of bans earlier this year on German Wikipedia this was AFAIK the first time ever that T&S have banned someone and not removed editing privileges from Meta, so it's not as if this wasn't a conscious decision. ‑ Iridescent 17:23, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Honestly, I don't think it matters if we're actually at risk for criticizing WMF. The fact is that by wrapping this in layer after layer of secrecy when Fram happens to be a vocal critic has created the appearance of such risk. And really, it touches on a fourth risk not mentioned above, and additional reason for transparency: The need for people to actually know, and feel confident that they do know, the reasons and circumstances in which "the axe will fall".
Playing devil's advocate here (the devil being—in my view, rightly—the WMF) it's entirely possible that we've all been led down the garden path by a clever Fram, who has taken advantage of our suspicion of secret processes and the WMF, which is made all the worse by the fact that WMF can't now credibly claim that they didn't do Fram wrong—because WMF lacked the candor to be forthcoming with any information, which they could have done while protecting the complainant. So even if Fram is an awful person—and based on what I've seen, he's far from a saint—WMF's bungle here has created an atmosphere of fear. It has created an environment very similar to the one they seek to prevent by protecting complainants: Instead of people being fearful to complain about other editors, they become fearful to complain about WMF. Sure, everything at WP:FRAM can be waved at as a counterexample, but that's cold comfort, and really an oversimplification of these kinds of systems. A malevolent WMF wouldn't crush opposition openly, as that would just fan the flames of dissent. A malevolent WMF will bide its time and watch until each one of us makes a mistake, whether it's swearing in a post, arguing a little too forcefully, or reviewing one too many edits of another person. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 17:35, 16 August 2019 (UTC)

RFC underway regarding proposed inclusion of existing practice in TPE policy

An RfC regarding the inclusion of the existing practice (at administrator discretion) of granting template editor user rights on a trial/temporary basis in the procedural policy itself is currently underway. --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 20:14, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

About merging pages...

I recently happened upon Draft:Domestic Violence in South Korea; the draft was rejected due to there already being an article in mainspace, but Domestic violence in South Korea is a much shorter article. A merge has been suggested but attempting to merge the former into the latter seems a little counterintuitive to me, so how best to go about this:

1. Cut & paste the draft (more or less as a whole) into mainspace over the existing content, providing attribution in the edit summary; or
2. Move the pages, making the draft the "new" article and redirecting the old one.

Since the two pages have overlapping history, a history merge (perhaps the ideal option) would not be possible. Just looking for advice on the preferred course of action. PC78 (talk) 09:13, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Literally whatever's easiest for you, it shouldn't matter. Reywas92^Talk 09:40, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

RfC on user rights of (site) banned users is now underway

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.

---

An RfC relating to user rights of (site) banned users is now underway at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/User rights of (site) banned users. Please feel free to participate! --TheSandDoctor ^Talk 20:20, 11 September 2019 (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.

Question of using bemil chosun as a reference

I've been seeing this a lot, being used as a reference material for Korean-related defense article.

Here's the page.

I've seen some URLs that have "bbs" included. Ominae (talk) 01:23, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

Your question is more suited for WP:RSN noticeboard. You can move it there. – Ammarpad (talk) 01:41, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

MOS for policy and guideline pages

I have a proposed MOS for policy and guideline pages in my sandbox. Comments welcome. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 23:38, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

We do not need a MOS to say things everyone who writes PAG-stuff already knows though... --Izno (talk) 00:02, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

It is true that everyone knows these things, but there is a difference between knowing something and having a rule for it. If this proposal passes, editors pushing for better guidelines will be able to cite this page in debates. This should lead to better rule-making. --Wikiman2718 (talk)

Where has there been conflict about the points in your proposed MOS? Were those conflicts about the issues you think need to be covered in the current version of your proposal, or were they about some lost or contradictory (i.e. wrong) meaning or intent? --Izno (talk) 00:21, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I'd say that there is no conflict over whether or not these rules should be followed. Everyone already agrees that they should. But we include obvious rules in our guidelines all the time. Consider Wikipedia:Do not create hoaxes: I don't think that there is any conflict about whether or not we should allow hoaxes on Wikipedia. Nonetheless, this guideline still exists. There are good reasons for that too. Consider a hypothetical scenario in which two editors disagree about how a guideline should be written. One editor's proposal is shorter and simpler than the other's. If this proposal passes, the editor arguing for the simpler guideline can cite this MOS, making them more likely to win the debate. This will lead to better guidelines. If you want to make a rule against encoding things that everyone already knows in guidelines, you may add that to the proposed MOS. --Wikiman2718 (talk) 00:46, 18 September 2019 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to the idea generally, but it would have to say more than policies and guidelines should have a scope, be unambiguous, and concise. I'd lean toward Izno's view that those principles are rather obvious. In a sense, they really apply to any page on Wikipedia. --Bsherr (talk) 14:55, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style - a contradiction in the use of Capital_letters

The Manual of Style seems to contradict itself in MOS:THECAPS, something which needs changing. It states the following: In English-language titles, every word is capitalized, except for articles, short coordinating conjunctions, and short prepositions. First and last words within a title, including a subtitle, are capitalized regardless of grammatical use. This is known as title case. Capitalization of non-English titles varies by language. This is not applied to Wikipedia's own articles, which are given in sentence case: capitalize the first letter, and proper names (e.g., List of selection theorems, Foreign policy of the Hugo Chávez administration).

It's the case that the Engineering / naval conventions of using caps for titles is not covered by Wiki guidelines, and of course it should be. Yet song titles are. At the very least engineering design titles should be allowed to be capitalized.

Look here at List of patrol vessels of the United States Navy you can see the thinking behind how the USN defines designators for vessels of this type. It is consistent. First (the useage), second (the qualifier), third (a further method of subdivision). Example PHM, Patrol Missile Hydrofoil. You can see the applied logic through all the designators listed, and they are in caps.

The guidelines state that you can use title case for titles of works (e.g. books, musical compositions), not titles of WP articles on random things, which use sentence case, not title case. I would argue that there are other things too that classify as works, for example engineering classes and types, and bespoke metal fabrications (are works too) they are the same status in the real world as a book. They have titles, they have names.

How can there be an objection to using caps for classes of ships or engineered products when there is a project page entitled Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters? the very title of the policy itself contradicts its own content. How can Motor torpedo boat PT-109 be correct when it is a particular of Motor Torpedo Boat.

The project is in English. We need to conform to the English language, and not the other way round. If this Under My Thumb can be an exception then so should drawing / engineering titles. Which are of course works.

Why cant the policy be changed to follow the acknowledged rules of the English language? Broichmore (talk) 11:58, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

English is a weird language... the “acknowledged rules of the English language” are often self-contradictory. Also, there is often debate about what the rules actually are. Blueboar (talk) 14:46, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

I would not consider a designations like "Patrol Missile Hydrofoil" as a title. It is more a proper noun, which is covered under different MOS rules and allows for it to be fully titled when speaking about the classification. Titles more refer to the title of a book, movie, article, etc. and not designations as titles. --Masem (t) 14:45, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

There are many misconceptions about what a proper noun/name is, including a false view of equivalence between capitalisation (a matter of orthography) and what is a proper noun (a matter of onomastics and grammar). A proper noun is not descriptive yet such a designation is. Consequently, asserting that this disignation is a "title" actually has more merit than asserting it is a "proper name". My version of Fowler (2nd Ed, 1990 reprint) refers to capitalisation of titles in such a way as to make them separate from proper nouns (section on capitalisation). This type of military double-back speak (Boat, Patrol, Torpedo) is a designation format (complete with the capitalisation of which the military is fond). It is used in equipment tables and like for everything from the common nail upward (nail, bullet-head, 10 ga, 2 in long, wire, plated). While a "designation" may be considered a synonym of "title", it is not a "title" in the same sense of the guidance on titles of works. Further, if it were the title, it would (probably) be written by the designation, Boat, Patrol, Torpedo, and not Patrol Torpedo Boat, since the latter may be common usage but is unlikely the formal designation. The OP's proposition only has any chance of being compelling if it is used as the title of a work and I am not yet seeing any evidence that would support the arguement being made that it is. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:59, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

I realize that this to many is a trivial matter at the end of the day. Clearly there is insufficient interest to get the numbers to make a needed policy change. This came from a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 and other such boats here on the very subject of using caps in the title of a work.

Making changes to the English language on stylisation grounds, instituting a rule where there was not one before is akin to original research. I'm astounded that Dicklyon is getting away it. Broichmore (talk) 11:41, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

It's not clear to me what rule, or changes to English, you think I'm making. Dicklyon (talk) 14:10, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

What part of my opening paragraph do you not understand. Shortened version here. In English-language titles, every word is capitalized, except for articles, short coordinating conjunctions, and short prepositions. First and last words within a title, including a subtitle, are capitalized regardless of grammatical use. This is known as title case. Broichmore (talk) 12:53, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Are you saying that all our article titles should be in title case? Blueboar (talk) 13:28, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

No I'm not. However, If there is no rule in the English language for it, then we are not the people to enforce an arbitrary one, and one of our own making. Wikipedia contains articles about things; unique things and common things. It's a judgement call by the originator on whether its capped or not. To my mind if its a unique one off then it could be capitalised, if not then not. If a navy titles its boats sometimes in caps and sometimes in small, then we could use whatever, though I would veer towards caps. Notice I'm talking about tiles here, in particular, as opposed to the body of an article. In my experience the perhaps unwritten rule is to use caps or small, but to be consistent on a page, and that would include disambiguation pages. Broichmore (talk) 14:10, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

What i'm getting from the discussion here and at the Ship's forum is that there is no fast rule as such in the English language covering the use of caps for titles though its common practice.

If there is a rule (rather publishing practise) on this topic then it's to be consistent on a page. It's not the projects remit to creatively make rules for the language; which is unofficially Oxford University's if not the Queen's privilege.

So the policy should be changed to reflect that? Broichmore (talk) 17:14, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Over at the ships's forum Dicklyon tells us: I don't think I'm proposing any changes. I just go by WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. Most new articles get created with title-case titles whether they're proper names or not, so there's always work to do.

Yes indeed, he carries on with an agenda sanctioned only by himself, something that is unwanted and against the norm of the English language as we know it. Does he honestly think that every creator of an article doesn't put thought into the style of the title. So every time he change the case he's doing something without that persons agreement. Many against the one it would see, as he admits himself. Some of us know when to let stupid rules lie.

This whole thing is yet another instance of where we make a laughing stock out of ourselves. I have more respect for someone who does something valuable in the name of style such as correcting the apostrophe s.

Should not our rule be changed to You can use caps or small, but to be consistent on a page, and that would include disambiguation pages? From what Dicklyon says this would already have consensual agreement if most new articles are titled in caps. Broichmore (talk) 10:43, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Oh no, is it the Great Bird Species Decapitalization all over again? … [post trails off, author distracted by a pair of blue tits.] Pelagic (talk) 22:39, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

With this post at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships, it does appear that Broichmore is arguing from a position that WP should adopt title case for article titles - even if this is not the explicit arguement being made here. The arguement that is being made assumes that there is a work (an engineering drawing) with a title that directly relates to the subject and, that an article title, being directly drawn from the work should be in title case. As an arguement, this is all very hypothetical and a long bow to draw. For a real example, I might refer to the littoral combat ships (hull designation LCS), which has happily started its life as an article in lower case/sentence case and which consists of two separate classes (designs). In the discussion Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 and other such boats, where this notion was initially raised, the PT boats consisted of three main designs that were concurrently developed. The proposition is unlikely to fly - either specifically or more generally. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 00:06, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

BOT linking to archive.org possible copyrighted sources

I have observed the IABot (v2.1alpha3) linking to archive copies of books that appear to copyrighted at archive.org, needs a registration there to be views. Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/InternetArchiveBot 3 seems at least partially related. Quoting from Cyberpower678's User:Cyberpower678 (who has at least at some point received payment for the bot, no problem with that) : "User:InternetArchiveBot: A basic AI bot that is a subset of Cyberbot II. Its sole purpose is to combat WP:LINKROT." (It does this excellently in my opinion). The copyright status of "Internet archives" is unclear and I would have concerns if WP:COPYLINK applied in part. Referring to web pages in the Internet archive that were publicly available is one thing ... and a manually url link may be one thing ... but a BOT determining to link to likely copyrighted resources may be another and it may be promotion of one some (With a registration that could be monetarised?). I confess to being out of my depth and there but an example is [3] though I have no clue as to the copyright status of the book.Djm-leighpark (talk) 13:49, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen a lot of these edits. Book titles in references are being converted into links to where you can "borrow" the book from the Open Library if that library has a scanned copy of the corresponding ISBN available. They get their "copies" often from university libraries who have donated the scan of a book which they also remove from physical circulation. I think the books are in copyright (or else they would be on unrestricted access). A book preview is available and one person at a time may access a complete, time-limited scan. Wonderful for Wikipedia and really helpful. However, the activity seems to have little to do with WP:LINKROT because there is (so far as I have seen) no prior link to go rotten. Is the Open Library behaving lawfully and, if not, should we not allow linking to it? Our article Open Library seems helpful on the copyright matter and I haven't found significant references that are more recent. The copyright situation is in doubt and I'd be surprised if the matter doesn't reach the courts. I believe libraries pay over the retail price so they may lend print books so maybe this is just what they are doing. Thincat (talk) 15:56, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

I am confused because do you mean linking to books (ie. Google Books, Archive.org, etc.) or linking to webarchives ie. web.archive.org, archive.is etc..? They are completely different things. One is a scanned image of a book page, the other is a web archive. There is no such thing as a "archived copy of a book". The books on Internet Archive are library copies and loaned out to patrons like any library. The scanned books have a 1:1 ratio of physical book to loaned digital copy ie. for each loaned digital copy there is a physical copy owned by Internet Archive. They are not "archived books". The copyright clearance for showing snippits (a page or two) is the same used by Google for GoogleBooks which has extensive court precedent. -- GreenC 16:20, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

• I apologize for by poor way of putting this. I am talking about linking to archive.org where scanned image of a book is held. Such as [[4]]. Without registration there is a preview. I have not been beyond registration but assume there is a scanned version beyond the registration. From what GreenC says there is a 1:1 on physical/loan copy so copyright issues are overcome/avoided/satisfied by this mechanism. There may be a question of directing the web link at this library by a bot there is a promotion of archive.org library given the isbn link [5] should be the link to resources (does this link to an archive.org link)? Please remember also from one angle I see a declared paid editor promoting their coi source ... that isn't wrong but it means the scrutiny level needs to higher. If everyone is happy and its just silly stupid me then thats fair enough.Djm-leighpark (talk) 17:40, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  I thought your question was perfectly reasonable which is why I spent some time replying. Indeed, thank you for your question. The Open Library is one aspect of the Internet Archive and we have huge numbers of archive links to the latter, I think uncontroversially. However, the Open Library is in greater doubt from a copyright point of view and we have had far fewer links to it. My own view is that the paid editor aspect is, in this case, not relevant and I think it very highly unlikely indeed that the Open Library would (or even could?) be monetised. For me WP:COPYLINK is the primary issue. Thincat (talk) 19:30, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  It actually lets you download an (apparently encrypted) pdf if you register and then take a book out on loan - I don't know if the downloaded copy stops working after 14 days or if they are relying on the borrower to delete any copies. If the latter then it would definitely be a copyvio link.Nigel Ish (talk) 19:55, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  Initial testing shows that it goes through the standard Adobe de-encryption process for encrypted e-book files. (I decided to download an old book I used to own to test it.) — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 20:07, 8 September 2019 (UTC)

  And in two weeks you can let us know. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 01:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Concerning the BOT: I learned a lot and I appreciate that. It also seems I am confused. I have not looked at anything pass what is here but it seems to me there are red flags. Words like "copyright status of "Internet archives" is unclear" and "The copyright situation is in doubt and I'd be surprised if the matter doesn't reach the courts.", and "If the latter then it would definitely be a copyvio link", can cause a double-take and it seems to me that comments drifted away from the subject. Somehow, somewhere in the comments, I would like to have seen a definitive answer like "No! The bot is not linking to copyrighted sources" or something like the bot linking is acceptable "because...".

I somehow missed an answer to BOT linking to archive.org possible copyrighted sources. It would seem there could be problems. It would also seem the operator of the bot should be made aware of this, an Admin consulted, the issue raised at Wikipedia:Bots/Noticeboard, or possibly some combination.

I also saw "declared paid editor promoting their coi source". I may have misread this and it may not be an issue for the courts, Open Library, or possibly some other editors, but just the combination of words together presents a problem to me. A "declared paid editor" has severe restrictions on editing so "promoting their coi source" would be an issue.

If I missed something and joined the "silly stupid me" club could someone clarify things a little more? Otr500 (talk) 12:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• Since I've raised I've noticed a few things and perhaps learnt some things. In particular it blue linked a source at Dún Laoghaire railway station supporting the delay being a result of local opposition in Kingstown which I wasn't happy with and was tempted to check the associated source. ( It relates to Dublin and Kingstown Railway related articles I've been working on recently). I was actually tempted to buy the associated book second hand for about 12 GBP but in the end elected to try the open library/archive.org link. While I only tried the online viewing there were good indications a single user 14-day loan was implemented and there appeared to be a book from Boston Library scanned (and held?) in China? Fasinatinately the isbn link goes to [6] ... which goes to Open Library [7] (OL3033619M) whereas the loan is from [8] (OL22450451M). The bot did not put the 'ol' link in the cite. The ol link seems to give other (US based sources) for the book; the archive.org link did not. I'm sort of concerned the link ends me use in archive.org rather tha openlibrary and perhaps also that IABot is been used for other than WP:LINKROT. I will comment the paid here is more for a sort of Wikipedia infrastucture friendly paid than for an individual article COI ... so its a bit of a stretch. .... anyway after all this in my weird way I went off and did a wee article on the Author of said link so I'm not sure what to say really.... certainly have learned a bit about open library Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:00, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

  On the note of Open Library, |ol= is supported directly in CS1/2 templates. --Izno (talk) 22:02, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• Rightly or wrongly the ol= parameter is not being added to the citation by the bot.Djm-leighpark (talk) 20:35, 12 September 2019 (UTC)
• Well I can only comment my book loan went as expected with access for 14 days before loan expiry when access stopped; and another borrow seems to have it with perhaps one on the waitlist. So from that viewpoint everything was good. whether the IAbot should be doing that may be another matter, but it would seem reasonably probable most of its subroutines would likely be quite helpful in the process. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 09:50, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal guidelines

Per request at WP:ANRFC, I have closed the discussions at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC: Formalize Standing of Portal Guidelines as a Guideline (18 July 2019). Since the discussions were archived before closure, I have copied my closes below:

For the primary survey (Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#Survey):

There is clear consensus that the "Portal guidelines" are not, in fact, official guidelines. There is weak consensus for the page to be tagged as an information page; I will add that tag. Further discussion about if it should be an information page, a {{failed}} proposal, or something else can take place in the future; I suggest that the users that participated below be invited to participate in any such future discussion. Closed per request at WP:ANRFC. Feel free to ask me if there are any questions about this close. (non-admin closure) Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 05:11, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

For the alternative suggested (Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#ALT1):

There is consensus against the alternative proposed guideline presented here. Closed per request at WP:ANRFC. Feel free to ask me if there are any questions about this close. (non-admin closure) Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 05:11, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, --DannyS712 (talk) 05:11, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Requirement to notify users who are being discussed

At the top of WP:COIN are the notices (highlighting per original):

You must notify any editor who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{subst:coin-notice}} ~~~~ to do so.

and:

"This page should only be used when ordinary talk page discussion has been attempted and failed to resolve the issue, such as when an editor has repeatedly added problematic material over an extended period."

I have pointed out there, to User:MER-C that the lists they are posting of allegedly "suspicious new articles... that are disproportionally likely to be UPE, COI, or otherwise promotional or non-notable" do not meet those requirements. The response is that they will "post these elsewhere in the future (probably WT:WPSPAM)". the latter page apparently has no requirement like those quoted above.

Is it right that we have project pages acting as noticeboards with no requirements that those whose probity, rightly or wrongly (MER-C acknowledges that false positives are "likely"), is being challenged, are not told about? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:28, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Seems a bit premature. If MER-C (or anyone else) makes an edit on WT:SPAM that you think is a problem (and can't be resolved by discussion there) then a discussion in a wider forum might be warranted. DexDor ^(talk) 19:33, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

It is very different making a post about a single article where an editor is accused of having a COI and listing many articles where there may be a COI and flagging them for attention. Given that MER-C is not requesting any input from the article creators, nor directly accusing them of a COI, notifying each of them wouldn't be helpful. Yes, it is technically not in agreement with the notices at COIN, but it is very much in the spirit of what the noticeboard is for and forcing this to WT:SPAM would just mean there are fewer eyes on the articles. SmartSE (talk) 19:46, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a sitting duck for spam. Everyone knows that, and many try to exploit it every day. It is not helpful to hinder the work of the few people who defend the encyclopedia from spam. Everyone is a volunteer and if someone sees a problem, they might volunteer to investigate whether the problem is real: has action been taken against a significant number of good edits that helped the encyclopedia? would that action not have occurred if notifications had been done? If there is a real problem, a volunteer might monitor the noticeboard and evaluate when good edits are being opposed and consider notifying relevant people if appropriate. Johnuniq (talk) 00:49, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Why then, do the conditions quoted in my OP apply on COIN? And given that they do, what is the justification for applying a lower standard elsewhere? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Proposal to remove the prohibition on fair use images in draft space

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.

---

Per WP:NFCCP, "Non-free content is allowed only in articles (not disambiguation pages), and only in article namespace, subject to exemptions".

The prohibition on the inclusion of fair use images in draft space is not well-grounded in copyright law. Fair use permits the re-use of copyright-protected materials for certain purposes, including critical commentary and education, both purposes claimed by Wikipedia in using these images in article space. Such use must also be minimal in terms of the portion of the original work used, and must tend to avoid diminishing the market value of the original. Use of such images in a draft for an article is no less critical or educational than their use in article space, provided that the draft has at least some minimal amount of explanation of the subject, such that the image serves to illustrate this explanation. In practice, articles in mainspace can be lacking in textual support for fair use images to the same degree that drafts might be. In fact, it could be argued that the use of such images in draft space is even more squarely a fair use of an otherwise permissible fair use image, because the draft is less visible to readers, reducing the opportunities for the use to diminish the value of the original work.

On the flip side, allowing fair use images in draft space would make it easier for editors engaged in drafting to see how the article will appear with images arranged as desired, and to demonstrate more precisely how the draft would appear if promoted to article status. I propose that the prohibition on fair use images in draft space be replaced by a more nuanced approach allowing the inclusion of such images in drafts that are well-developed enough to include fair use images in support of existing textual content. bd2412 T 21:14, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

We are purposely more stricter than fair use per the Wikimedia Foundation. The whole basis of WP:NFCC is to outline why we are more strict, because our goal is to be a free content, and recognize that some non-free is necessary. We do not allow in non-free outside of main article space because that is not material being used in conjunction with the education content.

Yes, prepping a draft with images is a smart idea, but there are other ways to do this without non-free; using a free image of the same dimensions and appearance as the non-free ones you want, placeholder image banks, etc. There's just no good reason to weaken NFCC to allow this use. --Masem (t) 21:40, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

It would be very convenient, and a good reason is not required to relax NFCC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:01, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Given that NFCC is a requirement from the Foundation, we need a very damn good reason to relax NFCC. --Masem (t) 03:18, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

NFCC was created as a policy before draftspace existed. Of course it makes more sense not to have fair use content on user pages, talk pages, and in project space, but draft space is merely the space where articles are started, which (primarily) used to be started as stubs or drafts in mainspace. For all the purposes for which the fair use policy matters, draft space is a functional equivalent of article space. bd2412 T 03:24, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

NFCC is not fair use, it is purposely stricter. It is wrong to think NFCC is a fair use policy - it incorporates concepts of fair use, but we have "non-free content" which strives to minimize non-free works except where they are essential. They are not essential on draft pages that are going to be in main space at some point. --Masem (t) 03:32, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

They are no less essential in draftspace where articles are being put together and evaluated for promotion to mainspace than they are for the same article-building activities being carried out in mainspace. Substituting a placeholder is no answer when the determination needs to be made of how the page as a whole, in its final form, will look, and whether a particular fair use image suitably fits the page. How are we to collaborate on questions like that? bd2412 T 03:42, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Draft space is not meant to get an article to a final form, but to a sufficiently developed form that it will be in no danger of deletion and that editors can expand on. Image precision at that stage is absolutely unnecessary. And people did just fine without NFCC in user-space drafts before Draft: space was introduced. --Masem (t) 04:09, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Personally, I understand the restriction on namespace as one of logistics. Obviously drafts are articles under NFCC#9, they just aren't in mainspace. By restricting where the files can be, it makes it easier to find inappropriate non-free content by just browsing the category and looking for stuff outside main. Any change would probably disrupt a lot of workflows, and I think it's better to have as few instances of non-free content as possible. In many cases {{External media}} would probably work well as a substitute. Wug·a·po·des​ 03:02, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

We certainly have no problem now removing fair use images from draftspace in short order. With only a few tens of thousands of draftspace pages (compared to several million articles), and most draftspace pages having no images at all, I am not at all concerned that this will impact workflows or present logistical difficulties. bd2412 T 03:10, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose as an undesirable step towards draftspace hosting a shadow encyclopedia. If it is established that there is a notable topic with sourced material that benefits from a non-free image, move it to mainspace. Illustrations do not make the difference between keeping and deleting at AfD. Effort going into fair use arguments in draftspace will be a distraction from the very limited valid purpose of draftspace. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:07, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Wrong forum. WP:NFCCP is based on this WMF resolution, which is not subject to modification by consensus anywhere on Wikipedia. Use of non-free content in drafts would be neither use in "articles" nor use that is "minimal". VQuakr (talk) 04:18, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support As Masem has already pointed out, NFCC is not a violation of WP:NFCCP, but our implementation of it, and NFCC is not a violation of fair use, it is much stricter than it. There is no distinction between the use of an image in the draftspace or the mainspace except in NFCC, and use in the draftspace is not be any less minimal than the same use in the mainspace. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:27, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Draft space is very much different from mainspace, as it is not indexed by Google, nor a default space searched by the standard search bar here. Because drafts can remain around indefinitely, but not been seen by anyone unless you know you are looking into a draft space article, nonfrees would not be used by actual readers. As such, they would fail NFCC#9 which is tied to the WMF resolution as being associated with education content (eg the stuff we have in mainspace that can be indexed and searched on). --Masem (t) 05:37, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose no policy-based reason to relax NFCC has been offered; if one doesn't approve, may I suggest one takes it up with the relevant parties. ——SerialNumber54129 06:01, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose For a draft to pass our inclusion standards one needs an article that is properly referenced and contains sufficient information, one does not need an article that looks good (yes, an image tells more than a thousand words, but I doubt that one could pass a AfC by just having an image ..). And I don't think that inclusion of such an image is justified on an article that in itself overall is not justified to be in mainspace (and lets be honest, not all AfCs will pass that bar). AfCs are, by definition, not ready (yet) for public, the image can be included when they are ready for public (i.e., when/if they are actually moved to mainspace, include them at the same time as you enable the categorisation). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 06:06, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons above. Draftspace is for the development of articles - fair use images can easily be added in once the article is quality enough to be in mainspace. We have stricter rules than general copyright laws and we have good reasons for this, restricting them to help the layout of draft articles is not a good enough justification IMO. 06:11, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose- What exactly would be meant by a "well-developed" article? Such a regulation would be difficult to develop, and would be yet another thing to enforce for meagre benefit. One already has the option to preview their articles/edits before submission, and Wikipedia's image syntax is not that complex, especially for newcomers who are likely to be using it in a basic manner. They could easily leave a redlink or use a free image of a similar size as an placeholder until their article is developed. Also, as others have said, it would probably not be feasible even if it was a good idea due to WMF regulation. - Axisixa T C 02:46, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose simply because the presence of images in a draft has no bearing on whether the draft is approved, and so lifting this prohibition does not further the goal of creating an encyclopedia. Since there is no deadline anyway, it's not a problem at all if they images are uploaded after the draft is approved. I also find it incredibly helpful to be able to tell draft creators, especially the new ones, to stop worrying about how to upload a logo since they can't do it yet anyway, please focus on the issues that will prevent the draft from being published, logo or not. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:58, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support though I know it's hopeless. If everyone stays far away from the borderlines on fair use, those borderlines will contract in favor of copyright holders, and that is a bad outcome. Similarly for the claim that the blocker is WMF policy which we can't change — maybe we can't, but we shouldn't be proactively interpreting that policy in a more anti-fair-use key than the Foundation will insist on, and we don't know what they'll insist on before we try it. --Trovatore (talk) 03:55, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • "borderlines will contract in favor of copyright holders"? But only on Wikipedia, or are you thinking this Wikipedia decision will have wider world implications? Wikipedia is deliberately averse to fair use because Wikipedia is intended to be freely re-usable, which means you can pull details and freely re-use, but this is broken by details being fair-use, the re-users has to similarly make the fair use argument, and that is not freely re-usable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:06, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
    • I am thinking about the latter case, the wider implications (not "world" necessarily; fair use sensu stricto being a US legal notion, but even just the US is pretty important, I think). I understand the "re-use" argument but I don't see this as being as important as some do. In practice, Wikipedia is not really "re-used" that much. It's mirrored quite a lot, not sure why given that the mirrors typically add little value. Genuine re-use seems like something of a niche concern to me. It was an important part of the original rationale but has not really played out in practice. --Trovatore (talk) 16:18, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
      • Leaving aside that mirroring (*) is re-use from a licensing perspective, a few obvious commercial re-uses come to mind. People make print-on-demand books out of Wikipedia articles and sell them online (can't imagine too many sales occurring, but I guess the cost-benefit ratio is excellent). More notably, Google and Amazon re-use Wikipedia content in its search results (home assistants for both, plus web-based for Google). isaacl (talk) 16:47, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
      • (*) As to why it's done? Ads. isaacl (talk) 16:52, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
        • Sure, mirroring and other automated quasi-transclusions are "reuse" from a legal perspective, but I don't think they're "reuse" in the sense of the vision that was hoped for. I think that was more about creative, transformative reuse. I don't know why we particularly care about the more trivial sorts of reuse. Certainly we don't want to enforce (or even have the option to enforce) IP claims against them ourselves, at least as long as the reusers comply with the license, but their interactions with third parties strike me as more "not our problem". --Trovatore (talk) 18:40, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
          • One example of transformative re-use is the explainer videos out there that rely heavily on Wikipedia for its information. I do think extracting reference works based on Wikipedia articles is a type of transformation, albeit one already served by the Wikibooks project. There are two reasons to be concerned, one legal, and one philosophical. Legally, it is a violation of license to allow an incorporated work that only permits re-licensing for non-commercial purposes to be re-used for any purpose, as Wikipedia's license does. Accordingly, it is desirable to ensure the violation is as narrow as possible to ensure that an appropriate fair use rationale will apply. Philosophically, the Wikimedia Foundation has set the goal for Wikipedia to be freely re-usable by anyone, agnostic of their purpose or the degree of transformation. To disclaim any responsibility for ensuring the licenses of incorporated works are respected by re-users would be a barrier for re-use. isaacl (talk) 21:20, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
            • Your argument about violating a license doesn't make much sense to me. As I understand it, Wikipedia never relies on a "non-commercial" license. Fair use is a defense against assertions of copyright infringement, period; we don't need no stinkin' license, as we're just using the material in spite of copyright, which is what fair use is for. The fact that some incompatible license may also exist is irrelevant; we aren't relying on it at all.
              As to the philosophical point, well, that's the one I'm saying isn't that important. This is of course a normative claim, and one that people may disagree with. --Trovatore (talk) 21:35, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
              • Fair use is a defense, but the fact would remain that Wikipedia incorporated a work into it and provided licensing terms to use Wikipedia that are incompatible with the licensing terms of the original work. For example, if a work is licensed for non-commercial re-use, it would mean Wikipedia violated the licence terms and so is no longer eligible to use that licence. To ensure that the fair use defense is sound, strict guidelines on how to use the non-free work have been proscribed by the community.
              • Wikipedia could choose not to provide any re-use licence at all and, as you say, leave it to the third parties to decide if Wikipedia was re-usable. But the practical effect would be to vitiate the goal of enabling its contents to be freely available to all. isaacl (talk) 22:27, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
                • The licensing terms of the original work, for fair-use content, are completely irrelevant because we are not relying on them. We never rely on an incompatible license at all, in any way. It's exactly the same as if the original work were not licensed at all (and indeed much fair-use content is not licensed at all). --Trovatore (talk) 22:36, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
                  • Leaving aside the original purpose of this discussion thread, which is broadening the restrictions on using non-free content, yes, the licence is not relevant for the mere use of the work within Wikipedia. But Wikipedia provides a licence to re-use Wikipedia, and the licence of the work being incorporated is relevant for Wikipedia's licence. isaacl (talk) 22:48, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
                    • No, it isn't relevant for that purpose. The work being incorporated on a fair-use rationale is simply used without permission. It is not used subject to the license under which it was released. It is exactly the same as if it had no original license at all. --Trovatore (talk) 22:55, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
                      • That's not really correct. Our (en.wiki) use of non-free ends up under US fair use allowances which are arguably some of the loosest in the world. If someone were to come around and reuse our content including the non-frees, they would have to review all the original non-free images and check their licenses if they have special ones (like CC-BY-NC) that may restrict their use. Or you go to a country like Germany where fair use is more restrictive. Our goal per the WMF and NFCC is to get people to keep in mind to minimize the use of non-free as much as possible, so that our content is as reusable as possible. It's not just being jerks about it, but trying to install this philosophy of asking when non-free is necessary, when it can be replaced by free content, and when it is not necessary at all. And from past experience, there is no need for non-free in draft space; images can be added after the draft is moved, or if image placement is really important, you can use placeholder images or things like imageframe that give fixed dimensions for what you know you will be adding and so forth. A draft does not need to be picture-perfect before it is accepted, as the point of the draft is to make sure it is a encyclopedic article first with proper sourcing , after whihc it is moved can be improved to be visually interesting. --Masem (t) 00:02, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
                        • Let me put it this way. If content has a non-commercial or otherwise non-free license, this is not worse for re-users than if it has no license at all. And we do allow fair use of content that has no license at all. Do you agree with those two points? I think they're pretty much inarguable.
                          Therefore it is beside the point to bring up the license of the original work. --Trovatore (talk) 00:39, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
                          • Sure, all non-free content (either with an explicit licence or with no licence available) is a potential problem with respect to Wikipedia's license. I apologize for eliding my points to primarily discuss works with a licence that permits non-commercial re-use. isaacl (talk) 05:57, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support – oddly, for many of the same reasons others oppose: in short, it's harmless. As has been pointed out, the issue isn't copyright law but NFCC, which is stricter. Allowing editors to have non-free images on "well developed" drafts ("well developed" meaning, to me, that the image in the draft would be compliant with NFCC if the draft was in mainspace) in no way frustrates or impedes the purpose of having free content. The content in draftspace is less accessible to the reader, and isn't designed to be part of the free content that WP gives away. Prohibiting in draftspace what is allowed in mainspace is akin to saying you can hang a picture in the storefront but you can't bring it to the back room. It makes no sense to prohibit it; it would make things easier to allow it; I have no idea if we can actually amend NFCC or not, but I support the proposal. – Levivich 04:42, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • The problem is that Drafts are not always moved to mainspace or subsequently deleted, aka the "shadow" state talked about above. NFC will linger in those articles completely against NFCC#3 (minimal use) and NFCC#9 (main space only). People have able to develop drafts just fine without non-free until th article is moved into mainspace just fine. There are ways to drop placeholders and the like if you really need to check on image layouts. --Masem (t) 04:45, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
    • I see each of those points differently. I don't think "minimal use" under NFCC or legal definitions has anything to do with how long the work exists (does it?). If the use is minimal in the article, it doesn't matter if the article is published online for one day or 100 years, it's still minimal use. Same for drafts; it doesn't matter if they're around forever, if the use is minimal in the draft. As for NFCC#9, well, this proposal is to change it (isn't it?). As for "just fine", meh, they all had to wait until the draft was in mainspace before being able to put in the non-free image (and mess with its layout). As for placeholder images, kind of a pain in the ass, won't cover every possible dimension, won't show color (vis-a-vis other free images, or colored tables). Sure, we can get by without it, but we can also get by without reply-link. But why would you want to? :-) But the real point for me is that if we made this change to NFCC#9 (main space only), it doesn't make the content any less free than it was before. I can see no reason to prohibit brining pictures into the "back room". – Levivich 05:01, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
      • And that type of argument is the slippery slope that NFCC#9 is meant to prevent happening. So it might seem okay in draft space, but I can then see someone going "Oh, but I use my user page sandbox for my drafts, I should be able to use it there". And then you'll get "Oh, I should be able to use one non-free on my user page." and so one. The point of NFCC is to get editors to minimize the amount of non-free imagery and only use it when it is appropriate, and that's based on the WMF resolution, when it is used in main space. The idea that there's no harm in having these in the back room is just not correct because it shows no effort to continually reduce non-free use. --Masem (t) 05:44, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
        • You know that the first line of our article on the slippery slope defines it as "a logical fallacy". Otherwise, we couldn't let people eat eggs, because soon we'd have to let them eat babies. bd2412 T 00:10, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support. This will make articles require less maintenance when they are moved to article-space. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 12:40, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Our non-free content policy is based on wmf:Resolution:Licensing policy, which says that the policy "must be minimal" in its allowance of non-free use. Our policy reflects this by saying that one of its purposes is "[t]o minimize legal exposure by limiting the amount of non-free content". Not allowing non-free content in Draft space works to this end. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:53, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
  • "Minimiz[ing] legal exposure" is precisely the problem. If everyone minimizes legal exposure when considering fair use, fair use will shrink and shrink and eventually vanish, and an important counterweight to copyright overreach will be gone. --Trovatore (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
    • There is a difference in saying "you may only use non-free in this one specific namespace to minimize where non-free can be used" to "zeroing out all non-free" --Masem (t) 20:59, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
      • Not the point. I'm not so much worried about anyone trying to get rid of fair use in en.wiki at the current time. I'm worried about the effect on the legal environment. Courts uphold fair-use defenses when they look like other things that are customarily considered fair use. If we don't keep some pressure on the customs, then fewer uses will be seen as customary, and eventually it may be very hard to win a fair-use case. Wikipedia is one of the big players that can help prevent that from happening. --Trovatore (talk) 21:07, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for the reasons given above. Wikipedia takes copyright very seriously, and although I may be something of an image carnivore myself non-mainspace fair-use is a huge no-no. Even without copyright concerns there's the chance that this would turn Wikipedia into a web host of non-free content without the burden of providing encyclopedic content, contra NOTWEBHOST. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 22:29, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose - As much as I would like something like this, I'm not sure we can make a case for anything not in the mainspace to be "fair use" of images. It promotes new users (and lots of experienced ones) to upload anything to wikipedia, and put it as fair use in draft space. Maintaining that the article is actually about that, could be very difficult in someone's sandbox, or userspace. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:37, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose No good reason for this change has been given ("it would be convenient" definitely isn't one) and it would cause more issues with non-free overuse than we have now. Black Kite (talk) 00:28, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Draft space has a legitimate purpose. It is not required that a subject pass GNG in draft, but the intent is for future creation of articles. There are drafts where there is activity and those with none. Apparently there is no actual "timeline" but a "trigger" would be inactivity if it can be adopted and otherwise moved. At some point there is a reasonable expectation that a draft will be either moved to article space (by the creator or someone else), or submitted to AFC. The potential of the second is a concern regarding "fair use images in draft space". A reviewer may not have the time to specifically focus attention on one or more images and this may hinder creation at best. If there are concerns over the use of an image, and I don't have the time, I will simply comment and move on. The submission may otherwise look like a perfectly good candidate if not for image concerns. I cannot see where the use in draft is a direction that benefits Wikipedia. Otr500 (talk) 12:35, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, this would just result in more nonfree images to check for appropriateness and a more complex process in doing so. (Currently, if a nonfree image is used outside mainspace, the answer to its appropriateness is an immediate "No".) It would also result in hosting nonfree media for months which never actually serves to be used on a mainspace article, and create additional work for cleanup of drafts which don't make it to mainspace as then nonfree images will have to be tagged and removed as well. Eliminating the rather minuscule amount of effort to utilize "placeholder" images or HTML comments and replace them with the nonfree images once in mainspace is not worth putting that substantial amount of extra work on everyone else. (And of course, if someone gives careful thought to whether they actually need to use nonfree material in the article at all, consider that a bonus.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:23, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Our use of non-free content is deliberately minimal. Displaying non-free images in draft articles might be nice or convenient, but it's completely unnecessary. We're also better off avoiding any work or debate evaluating or policing the use of non-free images in draft space. This particularly includes the requirement that non-free file pages include extensive rationales for each page where the image is used. We're better off avoiding the mess of adding, policing, and cleaning up these kinds of rationales on file pages. Alsee (talk) 21:22, 15 September 2019 (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.

Petition to Amend the Arbitration Policy: Interim Elections

Since several people have mentioned this both at the current election RfC and I believe elsewhere, I think it is worth opening a discussion to amend the Arbitration Policy's provisions on elections. I am proposing adding the following the the Arbitration Policy.

Proposal

If 20% of arbitrators (rounded up to the next whole number) resign or are removed from the arbitration committee before 1 September, automatic interim elections are to be held following whatever process the community has established for interim elections. No interim election shall be held on or after 1 September in a given year unless called by motion of the Arbitration Committee.

Petition signatures

1. First noting that this is a petition to hold a ratification RfC, not a ratification RfC itself. A few people have brought this up at the current election RfC, and now seems as good a time as ever to make the amendment. The September 1 deadline seems sensible assuming that an abbreviated process is in place as has been proposed by me at the ACE RfC and looks likely to pass (~1 month election for 4 month term isn't bad.)
   Basically, while I am very much usually on team "give ArbCom the benefit of the doubt", even with a procedure in place to call interim elections, I think it is unlikely that a future committee would, and that having an automatic trigger in place would be helpful.
   I am not including inactive arbs, because they can always return to activity, and if the inactivity is bad enough, they can be removed from the committee, which would also have the affect of calling an election. I also think as this has been a concern of the community about this ArbCom, having the amendment come from the community is ideal. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:48, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
2. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:59, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
3. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 07:08, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
4. I think that this is the only effective way to keep ArbCom elections as impartial as possible, and is the best way to keep ArbCom as involved in the election process as little as possible. OhKayeSierra (talk) 07:53, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
5. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:47, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
6. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 02:26, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
7. There are valid concerns, but on the balance, I support. I would similarly support a change along the lines of what WereSpielChequers outlines below (yes, I know this is just a petition, not the RfC for the actual change). Vanamonde (Talk) 22:06, 3 September 2019 (UTC)
8. Presuming that concerns over the exact provision to be ratified will be worked out in due course, I certainly support initiating the process. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:26, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
9. 20% may be too low, but having procedure ready when we risk running a case with a really low number of Arbs (7 or less) is wisdom. (I know this is a petition, not an RfC). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 19:04, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
10. We can debate the number, but something should be done. Calidum 22:12, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
11. I think there should be interim elections from time to time in a way other than ArbCom calling them, details to be worked out.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:16, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
12. This is a process moving forward. See comments below. Otr500 (talk) 13:12, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
13. Fine. We do need other ways of replacing arbitrators, however; and as this is a petition to kick off the process, I shall hold my tongue (for once). — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 14:06, 7 September 2019 (UTC)
14. Very late support. I agree that some sort of automatic trigger is necessary. — Jkudlick ⚓ t ⚓ c ⚓ s 00:35, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
15. The events of this year necessitate this. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:31, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Comments

• I know this is just at the petition stage, but I express to know my intention to oppose should it ever reach the ratification stage. I am hopeful that the current proposal allowing for snap elections will pass. I would then prefer to count on ArbCom to do the right thing in calling elections when appropriate than dictate that they must do so. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:13, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
  • To be blunt, I don't think any ArbCom will ever call for emergency elections. I think having procedures in place for them is a needed step in the right direction, but that an amendment to the policy taking the choice out of their hands is the final step in that reform.
    At least one previous arb has expressed to me in private their view that it is better to have someone elected and go inactive for 2 years than to have someone "unfit" on the committee, and I get the impression that while this may be an extreme view, the general outlook by most arbs would be against it because of the uncertainty. This is understandable because ArbCom by it's nature breeds conservatism, but probably the one thing I do not trust the committee on is determining anything to do with ArbCom elections. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:17, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
    • Which is why ArbCom hands off that responsibility in the regular elections to the Electoral Committee - but I don;t think we want to hold over the EC and have them decide if their should be an interim election, so an amedment seems like a good idea. Can I ask where the 20% figure originated? Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:38, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
      • It's 3 arbs, which for 15 or 13 seems like a reasonable number. Making it a percentage just makes it scale if the size changes: i.e. if we ever had 18 arbs again, we'd need 4 resignations before we went through an election. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:40, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• Doesn't this create the risk of bad incentives for arbs who might otherwise resign and under this system choose to remain long-term inactive on the committee? Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 08:58, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
  • That’s already the case, so I don’t see it as really changing anything. To address Nosebsgbear’s comment below as well, the problem of inactivity is that someone could return to activity after a long absence (DQ did her final term), so in my view it makes sense to focus on actual resignations and not the inactivity issue, which I view as basically unsolvable since any solution to it I’ve thought of has more negatives than positives. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:38, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• Failure to resign is going to be a big issue here. Something like this may need to be tied with something like "3 months inactivity is an automatic resignation" Nosebagbear (talk) 09:26, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• 20% means that simply increasing the number of Arbs to allow for resignations doesn't prevent elections even if it does solve the problem; better would be to set a quorum. 1st Sept is so close to the normal Arb elections that there is an argument for not holding a fresh election that close to the normal election. The solution to inactive v resignations is to treat them the same, and indeed recusals. My alternative would be to pick a quorum, the absolute minimum below which Arbcom can't go on a case. The number has to be odd, for obvious reasons. I'd suggest three, but you could go with five, or "all decisions must be by majority, with at least three in support" Which would mean that three could still act, but only where they were unanimous. That would mean that three arbs could still do uncontentious acts such as emergency desysops in clearcut cases. Putting a date in things is sensible, but in the opposite sense of the suggestion. If you are less than x months from the next election then cases can be put on hold for the next Arbcom, more than that and a fresh election makes sense. So a simple rule would be, If Arbcom is unable to get five arbs to sit on a case then a special election will be held for all vacant seats. Unless elections are due within four months. A more complex rule would be All Arbcom majority decisions must have at least three arbs in support. If the majority in an arbcom decision does not include at least three arbs, then a special election will be held for all vacant seats, unless the usual elections are due within four months That should solve the underlying problem. ϢereSpielChequers 10:46, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
  • Well, assuming abbreviated procedures pass (as they look likely to do) a one month election starting in mid-August for three new arbs for 4 months sounds reasonable to me personally. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:38, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• I suspect it will be gamable no matter what we do. Personally, I would like to see a regularly-scheduled election to fill vacancies for midyear. It won't solve all the problems but there would be less heat generated from than a once-in-a-while special election. And it would keep numbers up.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:54, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  Is the exact Arbcom number so tightly constrained that we have to have six monthly elections? If so we could double the number of tranches and hold elections six monthly. I suspect that the opposite actually applies, Arbcom number can vary quite a bit without the system breaking down, and we just need a rule for the once in a decade scenario where a mid year election is needed. ϢereSpielChequers 11:00, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

  If we are filling vacancies as a routine every six months, we can probably make do with fewer arbitrators.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:14, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• I don't like this. I haven't discussed with the current committee in particular, but at least some of them have said in public that they considered an interim election this year and the problem was the time it would take, not the will to do it. So the proposal at the ACE RfC to streamline interim elections is a good one. I'm not convinced we need to force elections when we are down from fifteen to twelve arbs (assuming the committee is put back to fifteen members this year). This year, this change would have forced an election with the resignation of Callanecc on 19 August; would an automatically-forced election in the middle of WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Fram have been helpful to the community? I doubt it. Actually, I think interim elections are so likely to be disruptive to the community that they should only be held in extreme circumstances. The conservatism of the committee on this point is a good thing.
  I also have a technical comment on the proposal: It is all very well saying "automatic interim elections are to be held" but who is to be responsible for making them happen? The current committee? The bureaucrats? The last year's electoral commission? The arbitration clerks? Anyone who WP:BOLDly goes ahead and has a go at creating the nomination pages? GoldenRing (talk) 12:00, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I have no doubt that such things would be discussed and settled if the proposal ever went forward. As is usual.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:39, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, we’d have had new elections when Callanecc resigned. Under an abbreviated procedure, this wouldn’t really have been an issue as we’d have a new arb in around a month with 3 months to serve. As for who calls them, any random member of the community acting boldly. Mz7 has organized the last 3 ACEs in this capacity without any formal authority from the community. All you’d need is one person to start the page and post on the previous election commissions page to see if they were up for it, and it’d be good. Also as Wehwalt says, we’d figure specific details out after passage which is how every other policy works. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:38, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Or move up the designation of the electoral committee. But as I said, given you top off the tank every six months, you don't need as big a ArbCom.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:01, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Regarding the triggering threshold: in March I had suggested a quorum of 3/4 of the full committee, although for the purpose under discussion at the time, it was based on active arbitrators (so inactive arbitrators didn't count towards the quorum). I think 80% is a bit high and would prefer a lower one. isaacl (talk) 18:19, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

@isaacl: I'd love to work on this in the future with you if given the chance after this latest election is over. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 20:49, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

• @Isaacl: - I'd be game for having a more detailed discussion on. I think a more detailed consideration will be needed. On the plus side, so long as we don't lose 3 new arbs immediately after the election, it shouldn't be a problem to take our time Nosebagbear (talk) 10:46, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

• Per other comments above, I tend to think that this would create as many problems as it might solve. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 2 September 2019 (UTC)
• I would rather this be a community-initiated process rather than an automatic one, and I would rather it be a particular quorum rather than a proportion. Allowing for a community issued snap-election in the same way we do arbitration policy amendments might work: someone puts forth a petition, if it's signed by X number of editors elections are held. As for the quorum, I would rather it be a specific number that represents the minimum number of arbitrators we think are needed for the committee to work effectively. I'd ballpark that at around 10 arbs. If this went up for ratification, I would probably support as a compromise, but I wouldn't sign on to a petition that didn't address these issues. Wug·a·po·des​ 23:17, 3 September 2019 (UTC) To clarify based on Ivanvector's comment below, this definitely should not be interpreted as a recall process for the points they bring up. Any community-initiated component should be to only fill vacant seats; no sitting arbitrator should be replaced, only empty seats filled. Wug·a·po·des​ 23:13, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Doing a petition first and then an election makes this a multi month process. That's not the ideal way of solving current problems. But , personally, I think it would be simpler just to restore the earlier size orf arb com, so they expected resignations andi nactivity do not present such a problem. DGG ( talk ) 06:34, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

I definitely think increasing the size is the best solution to our current problems. But I think Tony makes a good point that any ArbCom is unlikely to initiate snap elections on their own, so I don't see this so much as a solution for our current problems regarding size, but trying to fix the system of snap elections in general. Wug·a·po·des​ 02:52, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Hmm, without having read all the comments I just proposed this in the elections RfC, and it may be out of scope. I'd prefer if the bar were higher and certainly a percentage rather than an absolute, but maybe this needs more input from folks who have served on the Committee. I also think there ought to be a provision to declare an arb resigned if they have been inactive (as defined in ARBPOL) for an extended period, say 91 days. I also think it's quite important that this not become a "recall" process, i.e. there should not be a way for the community to trigger an interim election. As we've seen this year, some controversial but necessary Committee actions attract mobs of disgruntled editors, and we can reasonably predict it will not be less drama if those mobs obtain the ability to force an election. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:20, 4 September 2019 (UTC)
• That we need a solution is without question. A "recall", as some knee-jerk reaction, could be possible but I like the idea of some automatic trigger. I also am not opposed to an idea that would include replacing long-term inactive members. This would likely only be a necessity if there was already a shortage due to resignations right? Otr500 (talk) 13:20, 6 September 2019 (UTC)
• I'm strongly against any automatic election as circumstances may not be right. I also find 20% to be too low Worm^TT(talk) 10:06, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Worm That Turned what "circumstances may not be right"? Here is what I see, 1)- It seems there has been a lack of active ArbCom members, 2)- ArbCom has never called a special election and likely may not in the future (please see #3), 3)-ArbCom should not make decisions regarding their own elections, 4)- The current timeline for any special election is too long. Preventative "rules", like "automatic triggers", can prevent any circumstances like #1, 2, and 3, from happening, and #4 would be minimized .

It would seem a mandated policy a better idea than "community issued snap-elections". Cases, especially those of utmost importance, should never have to be refused or remanded because there are not enough ArbCom members. I think the community expects a system to work and when it doesn't a solution needs to be explored. If an ArbCom member becomes inactive, without a clear timeline of returning, it would seem a no brainer at some point (91 days?) to consider that ArbCom member resigned instead of a "that is just how it goes and is expected" mentality. If 20% seems too low then explore 25%. The lower number would be better if current ArbCom seats are retained but if increased then a higher percentage would seem to be better. The main thing would be to prevent extreme circumstances or the "once in a decade scenario" (per WereSpielChequers) from becoming detrimental so a higher number could be a buffer. I also think the "complex rule" suggested by WSC to be worthy of consideration. Concerns of GoldenRing are important to consider but I think able to be solved by clarification. It would seem that an election committee should be considered to serve over the entire election timeline and certainly could be used to initiate or enforce special election mandates.

Would not the community actually always be able to initiate a recall or "trigger an interim election" as mentioned by Ivanvector? If not then where is this prohibition recorded?

TonyBallioni How would a long term inactivity being considered a resignation create more negatives than positives? I am sure we don't elect members with the expectation that it be alright if they just fill a seat while being inactive. Otr500 (talk) 09:18, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

@Otr500: In principle the community could trigger a recall or an election, but that would have to be done via an amendment to WP:ARBPOL. That requires a petition signed by at least one hundred editors and then a majority vote with at least one hundred editors in support; the very process we're going through here, in fact. Historically I think it's been quite difficult to get through this process, and it would certainly be difficult to get through it quickly. For a recent example, the amendment following the incident that provoked Ivanvector's protest against this year's committee managed 22 support votes and even the RfC above related to WP:FRAM on private evidence above has only 27 supporting it. In practice, things have to be really, really bad for a community petition of this sort to succeed without the support of the current committee. GoldenRing (talk) 11:53, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

• I see automatic elections on the drop of an arb to cause more problems than it solves. For example, single issue candidates, and lower quality candidates generally. Inter-year elections are likely to be shorter and therefore have less participation, meaning the robust scrutiny is reduced.
  I might be absolutely wrong on those concepts, but I doubt I would be the only one with those worries - so let's see how that fear turns out. Arbs are less likely to actually resign, but instead go long term inactive, masking the problem and the likelihood of actual elections. The committee might not remove a problematic arb or have to visibly damage the reputation of a problematic arb because their removal might trigger an election where they might come back in (or be replaced by other problematic candidates). As I say - I do not see an upside to automatic elections, especially at the threshold quoted (I may well support at 50% rounded up - by which point my concerns become irrelevant as the functioning size of the committee has reduced so far). NB by "problematic candidate", I mean "arb who has to be removed for cause", which is more common than I'd like to admit. Worm^TT(talk) 14:11, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. So "!voter turnout" more than likely contributes to the status-quo. I am not sure the actual definition or what constitutes "really, really bad". I can understand a possible need for an instance when it might be needed to examine "private evidence", but if there is any remote possibility that it entails secret hearings as "trials" it would seem everyone would be alarmed, YET -- an administrator stated, ""The rules as currently written clearly do allow secret trials without presentation of evidence.". This blows my mind. If the broad community does not equate this to "really, really bad" I guess they deserve what they get or there needs to be a better advertising method. I would question the validity of such a rule having received the required 100 votes. It was clearly not the intention when ArbCom was set up as indicated by quotes from the founder shown here. My protest would be asking a future question of ArbCom candidates if they agree with secret trials as I would think this important. Otr500 (talk) 12:51, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

• Note of clarification: My comments in the preceding paragraph were specifically concerning "rules for private hearings" especially as "secret trials" and not specifically ArbCom recalls. I think a large number important concerning the possibility of changing an election. I might likely not agree with many decisions ArbCom makes but would think few would want to run if a smaller number of upset editors could result in a recall. Otr500 (talk) 14:17, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
• On the general issue: it very often happens that 20% or so will have resigned during the year--typically due to their outside life rather than anything on-wiki. It doesn't greatly affect the committee. It is also the practice for arbs to go inactive when they will be away for a month or two, partly as a security measure. It doesn't affect the committee's work. The problem is when we get down by 40% or so. This may never happen again, but it would be good to have some provision for it. DGG ( talk ) 00:18, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• Why don't we do what the government does and simply take the next candidate who would have been elected in the previous election? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 02:05, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• Err "the government" calls a bye-election. Of course "the government" is dependant upon where you are reading this. ;-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:42, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• The government in the US calls a special election, the governments of the UK and its constituent nations call by-elections, the governments of Canada, Ireland and South Africa hold by-elections, the government of Australia has Senate replacements chosen by the Senate from the same political party as the departing Senator and Representative replacements elected by by-election, the government of New Zealand either holds the seat empty until the next general election or holds a by-election… I literally know of no government in the world where the situation you describe happens in real life. ‑ Iridescent 11:17, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• You know the quickest way to tell if someone is wrong about the US electoral process is whether they make it sound like we have a system that makes sense. GMG^talk 11:50, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• You think "if an elected official dies in office, their replacement is whoever came second" would be a system that makes sense? Quite aside from anything else it would lead to failed candidates who've retired from politics and gone off to write their memoirs suddenly being thrust into leadership roles years after they ceased to have any political involvement, and it would make assassination a viable mainstream political tactic. ‑ Iridescent 12:09, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

• I mean, that is sortof how we fill the US presidential seat, and before the 12th Amendment, it was literally how we filled the US presidential seat. It is still effectively how we fill cabinet level positions, though even that is extremely complicated and filled with asterisks. The supreme court has no interim successor process whatsoever. Special elections are required in the House some of the time, and the rest is anybody's guess. The Senate is a mess, and most (36) states do not hold special elections, but appoint an interim senator (with about a million asterisks). Some states have ambiguous or contradictory laws, and no one is really sure what should be done until the law is clarified or challenged in court. GMG^talk 12:26, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

A citation to a part of a work

A work needs two independent authoritative citations to be allowed as a primary source.

I have a work with one independent citation, but this work is a book and it is based in part on another shorter work which has yet one independent citation.

Does the citation of this "part" of a book published separately count?

--VictorPorton (talk) 17:11, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Where did you hear that primary sources are required to have independent citations? Blueboar (talk) 17:15, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Blueboar: At least two third-party sources should cover the subject, to avoid idiosyncratic articles based upon a single perspective. --VictorPorton (talk) 17:28, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Ah... I think I understand now. For a TOPIC/SUBJECT to be considered notable enough to have a stand-alone WP article about it/him/her/them the TOPIC/SUBJECT must be discussed in reasonable detail by at least two reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the topic/subject. However, primary or self-published sources can be acceptable for supporting specific facts within the article (but use them with caution to avoid WP:NOR).

In other words, primary sources ARE allowed (when used appropriately, and sparingly)... but they don’t count towards NOTABILITY. The article should GENERALLY be supported by secondary sources, but primary sources CAN be used for specifics. Hope this helps. Blueboar (talk) 18:29, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Sorry, it is not an answer to my original question ("Does the citation of this "part" of a book published separately count?") — Preceding unsigned comment added by VictorPorton (talk • contribs) 18:32, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

VictorPorton, this is a case where a concrete example of what you want to do would really help. I'll try to guess what you mean. If you are talking about a trying to use the same material as two independent sources because it was published first in one place and later in a book, the answer is it is just one source. If you are talking about a discussion about the topic in a book that cites the first source but also adds additional material/analysis, then you have two sources. If neither of these is what you mean, tell us what the sources are and how you are trying to use them. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:30, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Policy on links to academic archives

We need more comments on Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#CiteSeerX copyrights and linking. In the context of Help:Citation Style 1#External links and Help:Citation Style 1#Identifiers, there are different views on the policy standards to add an open-access repository or web archive to a citation. To simplify, there could be three outcomes:

• per WP:COPYLINKS, linking a web archive like CiteSeerX or the wayback machine is always/generally fine;
• the burden of proof is on the user adding the link;
• the burden of proof is on the user removing/challenging a link.

There are then different views on what is sufficient as proof/evidence etc. Nemo 11:00, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Referring to a self-published improvement of a published work?

There is a published book that was self-republished by the author. Should I refer to the official publisher or to the Amazon account of the author in the reference URL? Amazon version contains some improvements (such as fixed typos) but is self-published.

The main trouble is that if I put a reference to the better self-published version, it could be removed as self-published. I need to note somehow that the self-published version is authoritative because it is a version of an officially published work. How? Should I add a note like "republished from ..."? How to add this note to the {{cite book}} tag? Should I mention in the note that the work was improved? What exactly to say?

--VictorPorton (talk) 12:52, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@VictorPorton: Why not just cite the original, if the only fixes are minor like typos? RudolfRed (talk) 16:34, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Because it benefits readers to cite a work with fewer typos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VictorPorton (talk • contribs) 17:08, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Have you considered citing both versions. Blueboar (talk) 17:22, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

VictorPorton, you have been self-publishing on a mathematical topic you call a "funcoid". The source you are talking about is a book written by yourself. No one else on Google scholar has used the term. I cannot find any peer-reviewed publications on the topic. You are trying to add this topic to Proximity space. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Until there are some peer-reviewed published sources by mathematicians independent of you, do not add this material here. An online discussion of the material by another person is not enough. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:58, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

StarryGrandma, I disagree: Todd Trimble is an Assistant Professor and thus is considered as an authoritative person, therefore accordingly to Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both., the source is considered reliable (no need for both, to have a reliable publication process and be regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject. --VictorPorton (talk) 20:11, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@VictorPorton: please read WP:Conflict of interest. Writing about yourself or to promote your own work should be avoided, yet all your recent edits (and others going back farther) seem to be doing just that. postdlf (talk) 20:15, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Postdlf: "Writing ... to promote your own work should be avoided" statement is your own invention, there is no such statement in WP:Conflict of interest. It just says to keep the neutral point of view (and considers some special cases such as political candidates). --VictorPorton (talk) 20:23, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

The conflict of interest guideline leaves has a vague hole open for "personal conflicts" which would include this. More importantly, this is also covered by the policy "What Wikipedia is Not", specifically "advertising or promotion" WP:NOTADVERTISING. It doesn't even matter if you're not selling anything, or offering anything for sale. If your purpose on Wikipedia is to promote yourself or your work, you are advertising. The perennial rebuttal to this accusation is to claim that one is only interested in improving the encyclopedia by adding new information, to which the rejoinder is that if this information cannot be found in any independent reliable sources, the behavior is indistinct from advertising, and will be treated the same. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:37, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

In any case an Assistant professor is not an authoritative source automatically. Hell, I held a tenured position at a British University but I wouldn't have considered my self an authoritative source for everything I said. An academic needs a track record of publications at the very least, and if those are seen as controversial that might not be enough. Doug Weller talk 08:14, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Resysop criteria RfC

There is currently a request for comment on implementing the community consensus for a stricter resysop policy at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2). All are invited to participate. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:20, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

RFC regarding the scope of RfC regarding italicization of the names of websites in citations and references

Pursuant to a request by the closer:

There is a request for comment to definitively determine how widely the RFC Italics of websites in citations and references – request for comment should be applied. Please contribute.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:17, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

WP:PROTECT and Fascism

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.

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We've had an ongoing problem at Fascism regarding repetitive and disruptive edit requests, WP:NOTFORUM issues, and vandalism from throw-away WP:SPA accounts. The article talk-page was semi-protected by Acroterion for some time, but this eventually expired and immediately upon the lift of the semi-protect we began experiencing problems again. This led to this discussion about longer-term talk page protection. While I still believe this may end up at Arbcom before the ongoing disruption of the page will be quelled, the one person in the conversation who opposed permanent semi-protection of article talk suggested that, while they didn't believe local consensus at article talk would be sufficient for such an unprecedented move, bringing the topic here might provide some support. The problems with disruptive SPAs at Talk:Fascism is ongoing even as recent as today [9], [10], [11] and this has been going on for months except for the period in which the talk page was under semi-protect. Pinging the editors who were involved in the discussion at article talk:

@Acroterion: @Ritchie92: @Slatersteven: @The Four Deuces: @Aquillion: @K.e.coffman: @Beyond My Ken: @Red Rock Canyon: @Snow Rise:

The truth is that we can't just do nothing so hopefully this forum can provide us with something resembling a long-term tool for preventing disruptive talk page activity in this fraught area. Simonm223 (talk) 13:46, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if it might be best to somewhat permanently semiprotect the Fascism article (probably doesn't need permanent, I'd suggest only ten years), but also create a couple sub-talk pages. Basically, "if you are here to tell us that Fascism is actually a left-wing thing, go here; all other suggestions go here." Someguy1221 (talk) 13:50, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protect does seem to be the only answer.Slatersteven (talk) 13:52, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Troll pits were commonly used by early internet forums. They... didn't work. Simonm223 (talk) 13:53, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

While I am usually loath to protect talk-pages for longer periods of time, in this special case I would not oppose permanent semi-protection. But, and here I'll throw my hat in the ring with an idea I have been mulling over for some time now without ever getting around to it: enable pending-changes protection for talk-pages (I do not even know if this is technically feasible, though), as this might prove also useful for other talk-pages I have known.Edits not going live is a great deterrent. Lectonar (talk) 13:58, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Permanent semi-protection is the only really reasonable and rational response. These right-to-left requests all come from IPs or brand new accounts, usually as their first and only edit. We're not losing anything by screening them. Beyond My Ken (talk) 14:02, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with permanent semi-protection. This is a fairly frequent topic on fringe websites and so attracts a steady stream of unregistered editors to the talk page. TFD (talk) 14:06, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I disagree. They are taking issue with the content of the article, it is our long custom that talk pages be open. I don't see that they are being disruptive, they are just disagreeing. People who edit for the first time are often called "readers". I would not make talk pages into walled gardens.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:16, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I dunno, took a gander. I think half of them are just disagreeing. The other half are ranting about propaganda or complaining that the article hurt their fee fees. All of them are useless. Someguy1221 (talk) 14:38, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

• It might help to take all of the discussions about the right/left nature of fascism, and copy them into a single dedicated archive page. Then, at the top of the current article talk page, pin a permanent link to that archive (make it prominent). Include a note explaining that this is a frequently discussed issue, and asking editors to review the archive before starting a new discussion on the topic (to avoid everyone having to repeat an argument that has been held many times over the years).

If the trolls see that all their concerns and questions have been addressed and answered many times before, they might hesitate to raise them again.

At a minimum, this will give us one single place to point to when some troll DOES show up to repeat the same arguments we have rebutted so many times before. We can simply respond with... “See the discussions in the special archive linked above. Unless you can bring something new to the discussion, it is pointless to respond to your concerns. They have already been discussed multiple times and a firm consensus has formed”. Blueboar (talk) 15:12, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

We have this at the top of the page and it has dissuaded nobody:

Simonm223 (talk) 15:19, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

This is my issue, we have a big warning yet still hve to fend of the claim time and time again. Personally I have no issue with this, it does take much effort to type "No". But some disagree, and there is no question it is bloody tiresome. So if it will make most of our time here easier, lets protect it.Slatersteven (talk) 14:43, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• WP:RBI is made for just this sort of situation. Any time a new account shows up on that page to whine about fascism being left-wing, revert them, per RBI, WP:NOTFORUM, and the edit notice. If you have the rights, block them per WP:NOTHERE. Talk pages are not forums for "debating" demonstrably counterfactual political grievances, but they should otherwise be open. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:35, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

While I see what Simon and others are saying, I think it's important for reader concerns to be brought on the talk page, where the regular editors of the articles will see it, rather than a sub page which may not be well-monitored. I seem to recall a previous instance where such a page was instituted and it didn't go well, but I've been here 14 years and my memory is not perfect. I do recall several times when I was not minded to support a change to an article based on one comment, but the fact that several editors came along suggesting more or less the same thing convinced me. I suggest you come up with more stock answers and employ patience and an open mind. I'm also concerned about the effect on other controversial articles.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:36, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Is there a notification on the article talk page? I see a number of editors have been pinged above but I don't see any notice there, and a number of active editors haven't been pinged, such as Rjensen. Also, it looks like this was discussed on the article talk page and no consensus was reached.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Apologies, I tried to ping everyone who participated in the previous conversation. I'll put a note on the talk page now. Simonm223 (talk) 15:00, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support indef semi-protection; it makes sense at this point. --K.e.coffman (talk) 00:27, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
• I tend to agree with Ivanvector. RBI seems to be the best policy to deal with this. I'm happy to add this page to my watchlist and lend a hand if that is the outcome of this discussion. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:41, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support permanent semi-protection, for all the reasons listed above. --Enos733 (talk) 04:05, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support permanent semi-protection, for all the reasons listed above. Rjensen (talk) 04:19, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
• I think RBI is the better route; it will be hard to sell me on protecting an article talk page. It's probably already pretty high profile, but ask at WP:AN if you need more eyes and block buttons. Wug·a·po·des​ 04:22, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
• comment It takes me about 20 seconds to respond “no” to these requests and change the response to “yes” in the template. I get great satisfaction refusing these requests, but it would be nicer if we didn’t get them in the first place. Roxy, the dog. wooF 15:31, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
• With regard to RBI, while I appreciate the place it's coming from, I'm concerned. Wikipedia hasn't exactly been aggressive with blocking far-right POV accounts unless they actually start openly saying explicitly racist things, and a lot of admins avoid the extreme politics article set as a den of vipers they'd rather nothing to do with. Past experience has shown me that users can openly display the swastika on their user pages and face no consequence as long as they lampshade it sufficiently. So while I understand the argument for RBI in this case, I'm concerned that what we'll end up with is what we already see on the antifascism articles: R-R-R-RSN-R-3RR-ANI-R-R-R-I. Simonm223 (talk) 16:11, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

I think if you care enough about the article to watchlist it, edit it, and participate in discussions about it, part of that responsibility is having to listen to the views of the public on the talk page, and not shunt them off to a page you need not watchlist. That's part of the job. The answer to too many people complaining to customer service is not to cease to monitor the mailbox.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:26, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

No, it isn't. It's not part of any Wikipedia editor's "job" or "responsibility" to entertain trolls. The left-wing-fascism trolls aren't here to be informed or to participate in an academic debate, nor to contribute constructively to Wikipedia, they're here for the sole purpose of making Wikipedia agree with their factually incorrect opinion that fascism is a left-wing ideology, and to waste the time of anyone who disagrees. They are the definition of not here to build an encyclopedia. The only appropriate response is to shut it down: remove their comments without replying (not put them on some other page), and block them if they persist. Any other response is a disservice to building an encyclopedia. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 16:45, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

• Support indefinite semi-protection of article, WP:RBI without engaging in debate should be used on the talk page, with limited use of short-term semi-protection (a few hours to a few days) as needed to deal with any rapidly evolving disruption. --Jayron32 16:49, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
• Indefinite (semi)protection is not appropriate for a subject which obviously depends on time-sensitive events like the current political climate in this or that country. Make it 5 years, if 1 year was not enough. Nemo 08:11, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support ~10 year semi-protect of Talk. Using RBI may counter productively inflame some people into Long Term Abuse. I prefer to avoid permanent protection... it's easy enough to renew protection if needed, but perma-protection can just disappear into the system. Alsee (talk) 09:44, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support multi-year semi-protect of Talk. I don't see RBI working because the community would not accept blocking a new editor simply for posting their misguided views. Johnuniq (talk) 10:04, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support indef semi-protection of talk, regretfully. I'm not at all happy that it's come to this (I'm someone who's tried to talk to some of these people on occasion), but I don't see any other way forwards. Large numbers of off-site activists continuously push a vision of the topic that is plainly and utterly inconsistent with mainstream scholarship or reliable sources; nothing we do on our end seems likely to change this or to stem the tide of people demanding that our article reflect what some talking head on YouTube told them. While we can revert or dismiss these repetitive requests, they come in such volume that it makes it hard to get anything else done on the talk page (especially since well-meaning users - ahem - often end up replying to them without realizing they're wasting their time, complicating handling them further.) There are lots of other things that need to be discussed on that page - we can't continuously humor people who want to use it as a forum to debate basic pol-sci 101 questions. Indef is best because let's be real, this isn't going to change unless there's some sort of massive shift to the informational ecosystem these people are coming from, and there's no reason to think that will happen in just X years or whenever. Also, to those who think this is just some passing phase in US political culture that will end in a few years, I suggest going back and reading the earliest talk page archives on the subject - it has been a consistent refrain for as long as the talk page has existed. Talking heads in the US have been peddling this for decades, and this page has attracted complaints from people who follow them for as long as it has existed. Literally the second edit ever made on the article itself - in 2001! - was someone adding the argument that Communism is actually Fascism. --Aquillion (talk) 20:51, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support Indef semi-protection. Carrite (talk) 17:26, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
• Support semi-protection of the article and talk page, any length up to indef. (And then taking down that silly red warning.) Semi-protect is not really a high bar: it's not too much to ask that someone create an account and edit elsewhere for a few days before editing or participating in discussions about one of the most controversial articles on Wikipedia. Anyway, when an article is as "touchy" as Fascism, it requires a real understanding of the nuance of our policies to be able to contribute meaningfully, as well as having taken the time to read the long history of prior discussion. The upside of instituting the very low bar of a few days' experience is that we save a lot of editors' time and nerves by significantly reducing the amount of disruption they have to deal with on a daily basis. It's a trade well worth making. – Levivich 02:31, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• Comment I think indefinitely semiing that talk page will achieve absolutely nothing except moving all those stupid meatpuppet comments to the Help Desk, the Humanities refdesk, Talk:Main Page or another wrong forum. What's the difference? Either way they can be reverted and ignored. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:53, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support indef semi-protection of talk page. In the worst case there are several other wrong fora so such inanity would be dispersed across them rather than be a massive time sink for other topics in discussion. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:40, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose any form of protection of the talk page. The solution is to revert the edit, leave a boilerplate "Fascism is a right-wing ideology because ..." message on the person's talk page and move on. It'll take 20 seconds a pop once you've written a boilerplate message for it. Just a note that while "fascism is a left-wing ideology" is a deliberate attempt at spreading misinformation by the alt-right, the very point of spreading misinformation is that some people who repeat this lie are not themselves alt-right, just misinformed; hence some of them are people who could contribute constructively to the site in some way, and so WP:BITE and shutting down entry points into editing is still something we must be careful of here. — Bilorv (talk) 21:02, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support near-indefinite semi-protection. I'm sympathetic to the RBI approach: but by their nature (it beng apparent from the big red box at the top of the talk page) these are no more than trolling edits. These IPs and throwaways know what racism, leftism and rightism are—they just want us to say something else per their agenda. They don't care how many editor-hours it takes to get their way (water dripping on stone), just that they do. From our point of view, those are editor hours that can be usefully spent "building the encyclopedia", as we call it, rather than getting distracted by putting unnecessary pages on watchlists (pace Peacemaker, although the offer is respected) or getting RSI from continual rollbacking. No; the only satisfactory solution is to close the time and energy sink(s) that these edits force us to attend our on-wiki time to. ——SerialNumber54129 16:25, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support Seems like the best response to the problem. My experience on 0.999... is that such people are stupid, not just ill-served by a poor quality education system, and are unlikely to go on to contribute constructively on the topic. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:33, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support semi. My ideal would really be a warning template for issues like this and other cases where some users take a stance that is WP:CIR levels of wrong (e.g. antivaxxers, flat earthers, InfoWars fans...) saying "here's the sources, if you still want to say (stupid thing), we will block you;" along with a relevant block template explaining WP:FREESPEECH, WP:GEVAL and other common objections by fringe advocates. Like, I don't mean any iffy cases where any view could have zealots (e.g. Arab-Israeli conflict), I mean a both ArbCom and community consensus approved list for undeniably wrong topics only advocated by lunatic charlatans. Hell, I wouldn't even want a broad "pseudomedicine" category, but specific values in the template for water fluoridation conspiracies, crystal healing, and antivaxxers. This will help them understand that we are biased toward reality and if that bias appears liberal (or whatever), that's their problem. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:53, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support semi. Some of the latest stuff is complete lunacy (i.e. "So is Wikipedia actually allowing people to make false assertions even after being shown it’s false? I agree, it appears this was written by some far-left liberal hoping to use Wikipedia to falsely create a new definition, without any citation, to include “right wing”."). I can just about AGF with some people confusing socialism and National Socialism, but even most of them are simply trolling. Black Kite (talk) 22:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
• WP:RBI I believe that Ivanvector is correct Talk pages are not forums for "debating" demonstrably counterfactual political grievances, but they should otherwise be open. Lightburst (talk) 14:35, 8 October 2019 (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.

Why only GPL, why not MIT (edited)

A developer want to give his code to Wikimedia Foundation, so that they can use it in there project (which is actually needed).the code is actually "javascript" & Licenced under MIT licence because a small portion of the code was already licensed under MIT licence .now my questions are.

1. MIT license says it is compatabe with GPL . so why can't foundation use this code even when the developer is ready to give a written acknowledgement ?
2. If the 1st isn't possible, then can he license his code in dual license (MIT+GPL) ? then give the code under GPL license ?
3. If 1st & 2nd isn't possible , then.can he make a portion of the code licensed under GPL ,so that he can give his code to the foundation ?

Thanks in advance .--md masum (talk) 18:23, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

The MIT licence (well, any of the well-known different versions) is compatible with the GPL, so code under the MIT license can be incorporated into GPL projects with no problems. I see no legal reason why the WMF would be unable to use it. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

However, Wikipedia uses the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), not the GPL, does it not? (Wikipedia:Copyrights). Regards SoWhy 20:02, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

GFDL is for text contributions. This is not code (well, executable), so does not need the "as is" warranty that GPL/MIT has. GPL is fine since the only restriction is that code is provided as-is, so MIT should be fine too since it has the same non-restrictions on use and only the as-is disclaimer. --Masem (t) 20:44, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

The MediaWiki software is licensed under GPLv2. isaacl (talk) 17:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Just a curiosity question ,@Stephan Schulz: , @SoWhy: , @Masem: . there are many open license projects (GPL & MIT) in github . why the Wikimedia Tech team can't use these code to make a ton of cool features .what's the legal issue ?many many thanks in advance--md masum (talk) 06:24, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Coordinating licenses is only one problem. Building working software systems is hard on a technical level - and the more "cool features" are added without a consistent architecture, the more technical debt is incurred. Most industrial software project fail (either officially, or by massively overrunning budgets while underdelivering on features). This is expensive, and the WMF should be careful not to overcommit. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:43, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I worked for a few decades in IT and saw many projects fail (usually unoffically because nobody wanted to take the blame) because all of the stakeholders wanted their pet features to be included and nobody had the authority to say "no" to them. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:35, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Has policy changed re: inline use of sister project linking?

I've recently seen more inline linking in article text to articles in other language projects, where it supposedly even is OK to use that method for sourcing. Having always thought that we need to source articles speciically, not in an indirect manner like that, I'd like to know if there has been a policy change since I first logged in 10 years ago. Anyone know? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:00, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

To my knowledge, all Wikipedias (including our own) are unreliable sources per WP:UGC. They may (and should) cite reliable sources for their assertions, but those sources need to be cited again here. Putting a link to the other Wikipedia article in the citation (like this: ) is not enough. Daß Wölf 19:28, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

@SergeWoodzing: We should not reference to any open wiki, and do not consider ourselves a reliable source. If the article on, say, de.wikipedia has a sentence that has a reference there, then you don't link to the german article, you use the reference from there. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Agree with those two. Of course, not all editors know this, but hopefully they won't explode when you tell them. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:51, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

It's quite important to distinguish between citing other wikis (which is not acceptable) and linking to articles in foreign language wikis where an English language article does not yet exist. For instance "with musicologist Cornelia Schröder-Auerbach and violist and composer Hanning Schröder, in 1930 he founded the Harlan Trio" is acceptable but the example given by Daß Wölf is not. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:05, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Martin of Sheffield, note that I there accept the use if the ill template, not de:Hanning Schröder (which appears as a bluelink). —Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 09:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Reflist - Has policy changed re: inline use of sister project linking?

References

@SergeWoodzing:, it would be much easier to answer this question if you could give a concrete example where a link to another language Wikipedia has been considered acceptable as a source. Phil Bridger (talk) 08:20, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you! After receiving highly appreciated opinions here, I made this change yesterday to the latest one of several during the past months. There is an older example with four svWP links toward the end of the first § here. I have not made any changes there yet. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

In neither of those cases is/was the interwiki link being used as a reference here. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:42, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

You are right. Part of my question, however, regardless of references, is whether or not we are now OK to use interwiki inline citations linking like those that, when subjects do not have articles on enWP. I haven't thought we are supposed to do that. Perhaps Google translate has improved to a degree which makes it more feasible to do that nowadays? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 18:21, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Depends on language, Svante Thunberg g-translated seems rather helpful/understandable to me (I like the The Archipelago Doctor translation). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Once again, these are links, not citations. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:12, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Phil Bridger: sorry i misstyped last time above.  Fixed now. Are you - or is anyone else - willing to address the question as it does not pertain only to citations?

Does anyone know if it now has become acceptable to add inline links to subjects where there are articles in sister-language projects but none here as yet?--SergeWoodzing (talk) 19:34, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

As far as I am aware that practice has always been regarded as acceptable. The ill template has been around since 2013, but my memory goes back further than that. Can you provide any evidence that this was ever considered unacceptable? It seems obvious to me that this is good practice, because any individual language Wikipedia will inevitably be subject to a bias towards articles that can be sourced in that language. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:52, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• My understanding has always been that we should NOT include inline links to articles in other projects (such as other language WPs). This is primarily due to the fact that other projects and language WPs have different core policy rules than we here at enWP do (ie they don’t follow our rules on Verification, NPOV, NOR, Notability, etc.) Blueboar (talk) 20:07, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Whenever a title is suitable for a red link it is also suitable for an interwiki link. Why on Earth not? Let's not assume that the English Wikipedia is the be all and end all, and that it is anywhere near complete, particularly when it comes to topics whose sources are not in English. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:09, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Help:Interlanguage_links#Inline_links may have something helpful, my reading is that using them (like Cornelia Schröder-Auerbach) is a case-by-case consensus thing. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:55, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

• Per our WP:REDLINK guideline: The subject of the red link may be covered on another edition of Wikipedia. If such an article meets the English-language Wikipedia criteria and you are able to translate, then follow the procedures at Wikipedia:Translation; if not, use a link to the article in the other edition of Wikipedia instead of or next to a red link. Such links can be made manually or by using the interlanguage link template {{ill}}. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:31, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you all, but my question is not (not) about red links, where I understand, it's about blue links that go directly to articles on other language Wikis. Acceptable? --SergeWoodzing (talk) 15:11, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

• Well.... in general, other wikipedia's shouldn't be considered a "reliable source" to be used in a reference, regardless of how the linking mechanics are performed. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:28, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Ah, you mean like in "Ulf Brunnberg, Kisa Magnusson, Bill Öhrström and Bruno Wintzell". IMO bad idea and potentially annoying for readers. In general, a "normal-looking" wikilink should not take you outside en-WP. The ill-template is preferable. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:38, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. The {{ill}} template, which I was unaware of before this discussion, gives the best of both worlds: a local red link and a live link to another language Wikipedia with further information. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:30, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you again! I too agree. And I've learned something new, now again, despite being an old dog. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 17:46, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

SergeWoodzing, the answer is in WP:SISTER. "Normal-looking" inline links to other language editions of Wikipedia are not absolutely banned, but they are discouraged. However, regular links to Wikisource (e.g., you're talking about a non-notable document that Wikisource happens to have a copy of) and Wiktionary (e.g., words that may be unfamiliar to some readers) are accepted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Attempting to overturn recent consensus

I was looking for a project page that stands for the proposition that an editor should not attempt to revisit a topic for which a discussion was just closed by starting a new discussion on the same topic. Since WP:TOOSOON is taken by a page on people seeking admin rights before they are ready, I decided to expand and repurpose my prior essay on moratoriums into Wikipedia:Attempting to overturn recent consensus. Let me know if I've missed anything. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:04, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

This appears to be a new proposal that would require consensus to implement. If this is the page where the consensus is supposed to be achieved, I support the proposal as it appears to be in good working order, although it should not apply when any new request is substantially different from previous ones. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:34, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

It might be worth adding some language to that effect, and delineating factors that make a new request substantially different from previous ones. bd2412 T 21:42, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

BD2412, I think it is nice expansion from WP:Moratoria.

It is a mix of sort-of existing and recognized best practice, to wait before trying the same thing again, and is gently pushing the concept further. It crosses the unclear line between essay and proposal. It is very similar to WP:RENOM, which is primarily for seeking deletion after an AfD "keep" decision.

It lacks comment on relitigating a discussion that was closed as "no consensus". These cases tend to be worst cases of beating dead horses until the community gets more than annoyed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:07, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Somewhere in Wikipedia we need to provide some guidance on when it is not okay to try to hastily relitigate something where strong feelings have not yet settled, and this is a start. bd2412 T 14:31, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Any protection against reopening a topic needs to be dependent on the original discussion having been notified to any relevant/interested projects, and on it having been held in the right place. Cabayi (talk) 14:39, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree with this idea. Perhaps come up with some redirects to point to this essay with some shorter titles, so that people can find this more easily. Sm8900 (talk) 14:47, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Good idea, if it is workable. Earlier this year we had a suggestion that "chairman" be changed into furniture or some neologism. The proposal failed to achieve consensus. Within hours of being closed it was reopened, with the same result. Immediately after that it was reopened for a third time. When you see behaviour like this it is pretty pointless taking part in an RfC. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:11, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

@Cabayi: I agree, but do you have wording in mind for this? For now I am just copying what you wrote. bd2412 T 17:39, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

BD2412, the gloss you added to my text fills out the balancing points. I'm happy. Thanks, Cabayi (talk) 09:10, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Just for the record, WP:TOOSOON is about notability and WP:NOTNOW is about RfA. (We really need to fix this, but I don’t know how.) —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 22:39, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

Well I knew it was one of them. Still, no policy page (or any guidance) one when it is too soon to start a new discussion of a previously settled issue. bd2412 T 23:17, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• I think this needs to be taken on a case by case basis. I was recently involved in a case where I requested for a "consensus" to be overturned. Long story short the proposal gained "consensus", but it was big change that affected a lot of projects, and was against other Wikipedia policies. The original submitters suggested that they advertised this widely, but for a such a big change I successfully argued to re-open it on the basis that it needed to have much more input to even argue there was consensus. After many months the whole debate was closed as no consensus, because in reality there was no consensus. So I have strong feelings about consensus, and perhaps the outcomes should have votes for/against/abstain in summaries. Consensus should be able to be overturned if there is consensus that it should be. However there needs to be balance of being able to overturn inappropriate change, against repeatedly bringing the same proposal to a table. I think a sensible way of doing this is that if recurrent RfC on the same topic are proposed, then it should be escalated to admin/multiple admin/governing board at some level. It really just needs everyone to play honestly. Master Of Ninja (talk) 09:19, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

Require pending changes protection

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.

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Should there be a new non-flagged pending changes protection for all pages? QuackGuru (talk) 21:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

A non-flagged pending changes protection means any editor with more than 500 edits can approve an edit. This is a good compromise. QuackGuru (talk) 21:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

I recommend WP:PCPP for all pages. Only approved edits will pass, while still allowing IPs and new accounts to edit pages. People are spending hours each day reverting vandals. This change will cut back on vandalism while freeing up more time to improve articles and pages. QuackGuru (talk) 21:02, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. See the edit history of this article. Pending changes protection is working like a well-oiled machine. QuackGuru (talk) 21:11, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• No. If you want this and the consequential eternal backlogs that come with it, learn German. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 21:19, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• Support as worth a try. Xxanthippe (talk) 21:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC).
  • I feel I need to point out that what is being proposed here is FlaggedRevisions being deployed here on en.wp. Pending Changes is a very deliberately neutered version of it that we only got because we as a community objected to it. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 21:29, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I have updated the proposal for a new non-flagged pending changes protection. A non-flagged pending changes protection means any editor with more than 500 edits can approve an edit. QuackGuru (talk) 21:36, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
      • Which is an idiotic idea that even most pro-PC/FR users rejected when we were debating PC/FR. Edit count is not an accurate predictor of whether someone knows how to review (which is also why most automatic-reviewer-status proposals have failed). —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 21:42, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Do you have a better idea? QuackGuru (talk) 21:47, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
          • Yeah. Jettisoning Pending Changes entirely. I have made my position on PC/FR very clear (if this is news to you, you have not been] paying attention), and am dead serious about anyone interested about seeing how it works on a project-wide scale learning German and contributing to de.wp. Oh, and PC is contraindicated on pages that see high volumes of edits because it causes massive backlogs. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 22:01, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
            • Non-flagged pending revisions would have much less backlog because anyone with over 500 edits can check it. QuackGuru (talk) 22:44, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
              • Edit count is not and never will be a substitute for what is actually required to be a CRASH member that doesn't suck at their job. In all previous discussions all edit-count-based automatic reviewer proposals have failed. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 23:20, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
              • Currently, everyone with over 500 edits can patrol all of the non-protected articles and revert vandalism. What would change by putting them all under protection while allowing editors with 500+ edits to review them? isaacl (talk) 23:28, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
                • The proposal is not about changing what is the requirement for WP:Reviewers. I'm trying to think of a way to make it easier for a new process for non-flagged pending changes. QuackGuru (talk) 23:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
                  • There isn't going to be one because there is consensus against basing the reviewer right or anything equivalent in power solely on edit count. You're trying to circle a square by allowing non-reviewers to review articles, which isn't even technically possible at present AFAIK. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 23:38, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
                • What would change by putting them all under protection? The edits would not be visible to the general public until checked. QuackGuru (talk) 23:33, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
                  • What would change is the backlog would get even more unmanageable. Even if we stick with just EC users (47,637, deliberately not counting myself) and just mainspace (5,951,561) the ratio is 1 editor for every 124.9 articles. For reference, when I crunched the numbers of active reviewers to BLPs - much smaller numbers, both, and done years ago during the PC "fuck you got mines", the ratio I got was approximately half that (1:65). —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 23:39, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
                  • You said that backlogs would be reduced since anyone with over 500 edits could review the pending changes. But why would these editors be more willing to review potential vandalism changes than they are now? They have the full ability to do so now, and since the content is live there is a greater urgency to perform reviews. What would entice them to engage in this endless, thankless task? isaacl (talk) 23:43, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
                    • There is an unseen backlog of edits from the countless edits that never get checked. That is the real backlog. If the backlog is unmanageable then the vandalism is currently unmanageable because there are too many edits that go unchecked. QuackGuru (talk) 13:15, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Pending changes is very useful in certain limited situations. BLPs come to mind as particularly suited to PC protection. However, the backlog that would result from turning it on for all pages would be insane. There would be no way for the editing community to keep up with that. If you think the "hours each day" spent reverting vandals is wasted, the hours each day reviewing and approving or reverting every single edit by non-autoconfirmed users that would result from having PC on by default would be at least 10 times the current amount of time reverting vandals. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 22:07, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose ONUnicorn hits the nail on the head. This is also rife with the antipathy to anonymous editors. I know some people don't believe this but IPs do make good edits - I see dozens every day. This would mean those good edits would be held in limbo until they are checked. Add to this the fact that there are dozens - 100s - 1000s of articles that are not on any active editors watchlists and there would quickly be countless edits that never get looked at. MarnetteD|Talk 22:26, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose: Not the right time for this, if ever: wholly inefficient for current editors; and how would we accrete new editors? (What, wait for their edits to go through, even if an IP focuses solely, on, say, United States diplomats of the 20th century? Now, that's one of my fields, but even I have to be away from the computer at times...) Like MarnetteD, as well, I can't help but see this as tinged with distaste toward anonymous editors. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 23:32, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. Pending changes works well for pages where there are a few people paying special attention. Not so good elsewhere. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:57, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose This goes squarely against the five Pillars, namely Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute. If the community would really want all articles to be protected in some form, the community would have formed consensus to just do that a long time ago. Lectonar (talk) 13:44, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

  Also: a lot of vandalism by IPs and regular users is reverted by IPs; no need to cut them off by showing some kind of mistrust which is unearned. And a lot of valuable content is also created by IPs. Lectonar (talk) 13:47, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose Same as with other, prefer a registration "nag".Selfstudier (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2019 (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.

Request for comment

Please see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 community sentiment on binding desysop procedure. GMG^talk 01:03, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

An alternative to consensus

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.

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An alternative to consensus. Apparently the idea of consensus is taken for granted on WP. Not surprising since the vast majorityof editors and admins come from an academic environment and are accustomed to peer review. (When it comes to peer review I can't help but think of the treatment of the father of plate tectonics aka continental drift, (Alfred Wegener) received at the hands of his peers, Let me commence my dissertation with my opinion about consensus. I realize that WP has been "put together" and the rules written by academicians whose forte is peer review and consensus. That may work well in an area where the subject matter is narrowly defined (e.g. endocrinology), but doesn't work at all in an area open to the general public. The problem with consensus in this environment is that it is too easily weighted by proponents or opponents of a particular subject. As shofly pie attacts flies, so does a pile of dung. People will gravitate towards an article in which they have a particular interest and as a consequence will,if endowed by power, exert control over content in that article. Thus when an editor shows up and posts something that is threatening to the beliefs of the controlling consensus, even though it is well researched and sourced, it tends to be reverted with the most specious of charges, and reversion of the revert leads to edit warring and of course the edit war is bound to be won by the editor who has the longest history on WP and has a long standing relationship with other editors, especially those of a like mind. Not to mention the whole affair is disruptive and leads to anger and bad publicity,which apparently is reflected elsewhere on the internet, such as phorae and blogs,and apparently some erstwhile editors have had their (user) name dragged through the mud on the internet.

Point being is that consensus is not the way to run a multi faceted project. A scientist does not submit an article on endocrinology to a group of psychiatrists, much less a conglomeration of plumbers, cops and beauticians. Also editors should start giving more thought to their edit summaries when they revert.Oldperson (talk) 23:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

You're not actually suggesting anything, just complaining in a roundabout way about "losing" something. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:43, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• So what's your idea of an alternative? You need consensus to try and ascertain the correct truth. However articles can have sections to account for multiple viewpoints. We have consensus because we really don't have a better way at the moment. Master Of Ninja (talk) 09:11, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
• Peer review is based on consensus? Please tell that to Reviewer 2.^{how is that a redlink?} – Joe (talk) 09:21, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
• I think Oldperson has a point, since in practice Consensus is often invoked to trump basic policies like V and NPOV. The Consensus rule assumes that everyone is equally committed to the core policies and will come to a reasonable agreement on what those policies require. But, especially in dispute-prone areas of the project, that is often not how it works at all. That said, I don't see any way to fix this problem. Zero^talk 09:42, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

  Granted, but like all coins that coin has a flip side. If I cite V or NPOV incorrectly and refuse to back down, what is the mechanism for overriding me? Oh yeah...consensus, uninvolved close, and close review, as necessary. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

• Would it be possible for a revert popup where reverter picks relevant policies being relied on or am I asking for too much there?Selfstudier (talk) 10:38, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Oldperson: If I get the drift of your complaint (and it's entirely possible that I don't), it sounds as though you might have found Citizendium more congenial than Wikipedia. But Citizendium is essentially a dead project, whereas Wikipedia is a daily fact of life. Granted, there could be other explanations (network effects and so on), but from the data we have, peer review doesn't seem to have shown itself an effective way to build an online encyclopedia. --Trovatore (talk) 23:39, 12 October 2019 (UTC)

@Trovatore:Thanks, and thanks for the link to Citizendum. Actually mine was not a complaint,but an observation. The biggest problem I have with consensus is that the only people who are attracted to an article are folk who have an emotional, religious, professional, political interest in the subject, and thus consensus weighs in in favor of those who have the most interested editors. Even something as inane (to an uninvolved westerner) as say an African or Indian or Chinese ethnic group, all it takes is one innocent well meaning edit to awaken the hives. But I understand when it is the only tool in the toolbox.Oldperson (talk) 00:20, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Wellll... yes this can happen. One point is that local consensus can't (or isn't supposed to) override consensus of the larger community. For instance, a group of editors involved in an article can't just decide to ignore WP:RS or WP:NPOV for the purposes of that article. Or any rule which is generally followed by the community at large. For situations like this, WP:RFC can be your friend.

Maybe it's just me, but my experience is that, usually, when a person is significantly outnumbered in a talk discussion, it just means that they're wrong, or at least "wrong" in the sense that other people just honestly don't agree with them, and don't find their arguments convincing. It's happened to me many times certainly: I feel really strongly that I'm right, but the other editors in the discussion are against me 9-2. Drive you nuts, but I'm (almost always) not being tag-teamed or brigaded; people just plain don't agree with me. That's life on the Wikipedia. Herostratus (talk) 02:57, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

A group of editors involved in an article certainly can decide that an editor's citation of RS, NPOV, or any other policy, is without merit or outweighed by other policy arguments. It's easy as hell to raise the NPOV flag in error, either because one doesn't understand NPOV or because they don't agree with it. I know of more than one experienced editor who repeatedly makes false-balance arguments and hangs the NPOV label on them, despite being corrected on that again and again.

The body of our policy is sufficiently rich, vague, nuanced, watered-down, and self-contradictory, that a knowledgeable editor can present a policy argument for A or !A in most situations. And there are not enough highly competent editors willing to spend their time on the difficult, thankless, and often stressful job of uninvolved closes; in most cases we have to assume that a majority of those present won't be wrong on policy. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:37, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

BUT....consensus does not overrule NPOV policy: This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus. Seriously. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:04, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

"Consensus does not overrule NPOV policy" is not really a meaningful statement, because the policy can't enforce or apply itself. It takes a consensus of editors to do that, to interpret the policy and decide its consequences for a particular content question. postdlf (talk) 20:18, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

And then again, sometimes the local majority are wrong on policy. It is the system we have, and with all its faults it works a lot of the time. If there is a better way (including in efficiency of time spent), for a largely unidentified/pseudonymous-user crowdsourced project, I would like to know some details. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 08:28, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

Peter Southwood - There are solutions and politically viable ones. Solutions include:

1. Take policy out of the hands of the common (wo)man, as that noble experiment has clearly failed. Institute a policy board of highly qualified editors. Their mandate would be to:
   1. Make the body of our policy greatly less rich, vague, nuanced, watered-down, and self-contradictory. Applying it correctly, and recognizing incorrect application of it by others, wouldn't require an IQ north of 110 and three years of heavy editing experience. There would be considerably less disagreement, and we would be less vulnerable to POV pushing via policy abuse.
   2. Prevent a recurrence of the uncontrolled creep that got us to this point.
2. An army of highly qualified closers.

Politically viable solutions include:

1. None. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I doubt that the listed solutions are reasonably practicable, aside from any political objections. I don't think that we can get there from here. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:59, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Consensus has its shortcomings, but I think that some editors here are taking an overly pessimistic view of it. The sheer scope of Wikipedia means that a one-size-fits-all set of rules is going to be impossible to uphold and will definitely get in the way of things in the long run. Also, the fact that most discussions have valid policy-based rationale for A and !A is at least partly because experienced editors (usually) know better than to waste their time arguing A if guidelines and policy say B. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 06:14, 17 October 2019 (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.

American or British spelling? Neither.

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.

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I don't understand why this has historically been made a bigger issue than it should be. Clearly, picking one or the other inevitably brings up defensiveness, so why not pick a 3rd neutral option? Retain MOS:TIES, but in the case that an article doesn't have any real ties (e.g., science), use Oxford spelling. It's the most etymologically accurate, most neutral, most international version of English used by almost every international organization. In terms of vocabulary, keep the current policy where you follow the standard that's already been established in the article, and/or maintain MOS:COMMONALITY. Having a "retain the variant of English used by the OP (original poster)" policy creates a silly first-mover advantage for article creators in some sort of race to create a bunch of article stubs tagged with their favourite variant of English and effectively tie the hands of all subsequent contributors. And supporting multiple variants of spelling is absolutely asinine in my opinion. If 193 countries around the world and basically every international organization can agree on a common standard, why can't Wikipedia? Getsnoopy (talk) 18:22, 9 October 2019 (UTC)

• Because we reached a consensus to allow more flexibility. Blueboar (talk) 18:27, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
• The standard is to use the most appropriate variant for the article in question. See WP:COFAQ#ENGLISH and MOS:ENGVAR. I feel as long as the English is readable and understandable these slight variances shouldn't be a problem. However every now and again someone wants to push their own view of what is correct English onto the whole of Wikipedia, which then generates pushback, and leads to extended debates rather than improving Wikipedia. Trying to standardise things will never generate consensus - see the whole debacle the lasted months over trying to spell organisation/organization. I think the OP also is incorrect in stating that other organisations have agreed on a standard: in reality if you want to do work you can have to be pragmatic and accept slight variants in English. And these are variants in that apart from slight spelling differences there is complete mutual comprehensibility. We should not worry too much over this. - Master Of Ninja (talk) 08:53, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Master Of Ninja: The UN (and therefore all countries that interact through that body) uses Oxford spelling exclusively, as does the IMF, ISO, IEC, BIPM, etc. I've never considered "it's not a big deal" to be a good argument, if at all. The same could be said about many things in WP:MOS because one could say, "At the end of the day, what matters is the message getting across. Grammar, spelling, style, formatting, etc. are all secondary." The point of standards is to make communication efficient and frictionless. Insofar as that is possible, we should strive for it. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:52, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
    • @Getsnoopy: The standard is English and most people can get around the common variants of spellings. What is your actual proposal here? The way you've formatted the original post is a general complaint about a contentious subject that is already explained in MOS:ENGVAR. Is it the Oxford spellings you want to standardise around? If so say so. I'm not sure further discussion without a proposal is a good use of time. If you really want to change a policy I would go and build consensus for a view, and then form a proper argument and subject it a RFC (not sure which board is most appropriate). I wish you luck with this as it requires a lot of energy, which is IMHO better spent just making and editing good articles. Another option is to get involved with some of the technical side of Wikipedia - there was a suggestion of porting over something that is used in another language Wikipedia (?variants of Chinese) that automatically translates the spelling based on your dialect. Master Of Ninja (talk) 09:07, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
      • @Master Of Ninja: Yes, that's what I'm proposing. I said that in no unclear terms: "Clearly, picking one or the other inevitably brings up defensiveness, so why not pick a 3rd neutral option? Retain MOS:TIES, but in the case that an article doesn't have any real ties (e.g., science), use Oxford spelling." As for improving WP, while I agree with you that there are many ways of improving WP, I think this is one of the ways to do that as well. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
        • @Getsnoopy: Your original post then needs to be clearer that this is what you are proposing. I feel that the current consensus is actually the most pragmatic and inclusive for editors, however don't listen to a naysayer like me and if you want to propose it, propose it. I would however start a new thread and *explicitly* state that this is your proposal, rather than write it what looks like a complaint that has been discussed many times over the years. Like I say village pump may not be the best place to discuss this but I'll leave that up to you to decide; not the best place as if you want to effect change you really, *really* need to engage stakeholders and come up with a consensus or more like supermajority of editors/admins in charge to make a common style standard. I would start your proposal as e.g. "Proposal to make English style as Oxford English", state what your proposal and define Oxford English, and then state your reasons why you want this to be done, and to make it balanced benefits and drawbacks. I would start as a request for comment before potentially pushing it to a vote. Again good luck with this. Master Of Ninja (talk) 08:55, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
          • @Master Of Ninja: I'll be sure to do that; I guess as this discussion has been progressing, I changed my proposal to the one at the bottom of this section if you want to take a look. Which venues do you suggest I make this proposal in? And which stakeholders do you suggest I engage to make progress on this? Getsnoopy (talk) 21:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
            • @Getsnoopy: I'm not sure where your proposal is, but then again there's so much in the thread now I've lost where everything is. Anyway you can get a flavour of why people are in favour of WP:ENGVAR here. I'm not sure which forum is best to propose something like this in - have a look at the MOS pages and the general Village pump pages to see where it best fits in. It may need crossposting, but again don't know the rules on this as I tend to focus on editing rather than stay on WP politics - the only reason I have this page on my watchlist was that someone some time ago tried to push through a proposal in (my perception) a fairly underhanded way. There will be a lot of stakeholders with different views so can't really list them all, but they will be under the umbrella of wikipedia editors. Master Of Ninja (talk) 06:17, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
              • @Master Of Ninja: Thank you. I'll take a look around. Getsnoopy (talk) 07:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• I would love Wikipedia to agree on a standard, whatever standard that might be, but we have enough editors who are not willing to agree on a standard to make that impossible. An example of how we can not agree on a standard in one tiny area, let alone for the whole of Wikipedia, can be found at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 153#RFC: spelling of "organisation"/"organization" in descriptive category names. We Brits are perfectly capable of reading American books written in English, just as Americans can read sources written in Indian English, with no problem, so this should not be an issue. The only problem I remember ever having had in this area is with pronunciation rather than spelling, when, when I was following an online course in architecture, the instructor kept talking about "nitches". It took me a bit of time before I realised that she was talking about niches, which I would pronounce very differently. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:35, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
  • I totally agree. I have seen some of the most absurd and wasteful edits over the diff twixt AmerEnglish and BritEnglish, AusEnglish and the idea of CanaEnglish or JamaEnglish or any other country where English is the primary language such as Liberia, boggles the mind.
  • @Phil Bridger: But that's exactly the crux of my point: I wouldn't be OK with any standard, since I, for example, don't agree with American spelling even though I'm American. And again, this is not to say that the other aspects of a dialect should be standardized as well (vocabulary, etc.); I'm merely talking about spelling. So I'd be fine with people using "elevator" vs. "lift" or "trash can" vs. "rubbish bin" as long as we spell them the same way. And I think the reason people haven't been willing to agree is that the options presented have always been one particular national variant at the expense of another. As far as I can tell (and search for), I haven't seen Oxford spelling being proposed as a standard. Getsnoopy (talk) 02:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• To me I don't care if it is spelled color or colour, neighbor or neigbour, labor or labour, my only peeve is with colloquialisms that are not known or used outside of a region (Angle land and Mericke have plenty), Oldperson (talk) 20:44, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
  • This edit was reverted because it wasn't believed to be policy. I was told to take it to "the talk page".What talk page? The comment was agreement. This editor doesn't see what a big deal it is if an edit is made in AmerEnglish or BritEnglish.Oldperson (talk) 01:25, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per above. This is a long-contentious area of Wikipedia, and there's no likelihood or reason for the consensus to change. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:44, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @John M Wolfson: Well the point is about whether it's a reasonable proposal, not what its likelihood of success is. If everybody thinks it is reasonable and should change, then obviously, the likelihood of its success is 100% regardless of old consensus. Getsnoopy (talk) 02:14, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oh boy, an evergreen discussion. But MOS:ENGVAR is pretty clear, and to me at least it doesn't make sense to not use Australian English on some very Australian articles. SportingFlyer T·C 11:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @SportingFlyer: I actually don't think this specific discussion has been had. In the past, most people have proposed using one national variety wholesale, which is not what I'm proposing. And you'd still be able to use Australian English in terms of vocabulary, grammar, etc., just not spelling. Besides, Oxford spelling is quite similar to that of Australian spelling. And all of this notwithstanding, I'm only proposing Oxford spelling for generic articles; MOS:TIES would still be retained for all articles with strong national ties. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:34, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
• The idea of "Oxford spelling" as some kind of compromise between various competing spelling standards might be tempting in theory, but in fact you're basically suggesting that we write a significant number of articles in an form of spelling that essentially no editors or readers use in their daily lives. Oxford spelling is no less arbitrary than any particular national variety of English, and it has the disadvantage of being unfamiliar to everyone, aside from UN bureaucrats and British academic journal editors, I guess. Even the least-common English regional spelling variety is at least accepted as normal by those native to that region. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 23:35, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • ?? Loads of Brits, including me, use Oxford spelling all the time. I think you're under a misapphension there. But there is a lot more to ENVAR than the limited number of issues Oxford spelling would settle. No need to to heckle, Getsnoopy. Johnbod (talk) 23:41, 10 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Loads of Brits reading something using Oxford spelling would just think it is American. MilborneOne (talk) 14:36, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
    • There's no perfect answer, and the system we have is probably the least-bad one. I'm not in favor of "You must always do it this way" type prescriptions when avoidable. It's alienating. The current system gives some leeway to article creator, which is fine. Don't muzzle the ox that treads out the corn.
      
      Also, I mean if you wanted to lock down one single standard, I suppose the best would probably be American English rather than Oxford spelling or anything else. Reason being -- I looked this up, and was actually quite surprised -- about 2/3 of native English speakers are Americans. England and Canada and South Africa and Australia &c. taken together are large, but America is very large. I'm not recommending this, tho. Herostratus (talk) 18:38, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
      • @Herostratus: There are many rules in WP:MOS which outline how one "must always do it this way", and yet there are no complaints there even though a lot of those rules vary among countries, dialects, and even publishers. As for American English, the US's English-speaking population is only about 25% of all English speakers in the world, and the remaining 75% speaks some variant of British/Commonwealth English. Wikipedia is not only for "native English speakers", so using native English speaker statistics serve as a weak argument. The fact that WP hasn't been able to settle on American English as the standard for everything is no coincidence considering those facts. Getsnoopy (talk) 04:12, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Actually, there are plenty of complaints, but the MoS regulars (I sort of speak as one, I guess, though a bit malvolentieri) are organized and manage to shut them down. Trying to impose British spelling on American editors, as a site-wide preference, would be a whole different ball of wax. They won't put up with it. I won't put up with it. And while non-native speakers are absolutely welcome here as both readers and contributors, it seems to me they're less likely to have fixed views on variety. In any case consistency is massively overrated, in general. --Trovatore (talk) 04:46, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
          • Seconded. There are complaints. Consistency is overrated. Consistency is good for editors (readers probably don't much care) for the sake of not having endless arguments over some things. And yes, if I am creating an article about something that is not country specific, I am not going to write "colour". Phhht. That's right out. (If the article's already started, that's different, for the sake of comity I'll go along with the article creator -- just as she will go along with me.) Yes the point about Indians (they use British English, and a lot Indians speak English very well and it is both common and official in India) is important, but so is the point about 2/3 of native speakers being American. They both matter. That's one reason why the system we have now is probably OK. Herostratus (talk) 15:33, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
        • @Trovatore and Herostratus: How exactly is that a "whole different ball of wax"? "They won't put up with it. I won't put up with it" isn't a valid reason for how that's any different than any of the other standards. Also, I find it ironic that as a "MoS regular", you're claiming that consistency is overrated. Imposing British spelling is exactly what I'm against as well, which is why the title of the section is "American or British spelling? Neither"; I'm proposing a neutral option which is Oxford spelling. The Oxford English Dictionary specifies "color" as a co-headword with "colour"; it actually does that for all the -our/-or suffix words, so no one would have to spell it only as "colour" and such. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
          • Consistency is overrated. That's my opinion, whether you find it "ironic" or not. You are in fact proposing imposing British spelling, albeit a particular subtype of British spelling that conservatively retains one feature American spelling has also retained. You have not made the case that such a change is necessary; its downside in terms of the bad feeling it will engender is obvious. --Trovatore (talk) 20:20, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
            • @Trovatore: Given that all editors have already accepted the existence of MOS, I don't really see that adding to that set of standards will "engender" a "bad feeling". Getsnoopy (talk) 21:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
              • We aren't talking about en dashes versus hyphens here. This proposal is essentially a proposal to deprecate American spelling, with the sole exception of -ize endings. If you don't understand how that could engender bad feeling, then I don't know what to tell you. --Trovatore (talk) 23:48, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
                • @Trovatore: No, it isn't. Oxford spelling allows for -our/-or suffixes co-equally (as I've already mentioned), as well as preferring the -ize suffixes. But that's besides the point; the proposal is about choosing a neutral variant of English for what are essentially neutral articles (international articles with no strong ties to any particular variant). It seems like you're quite biased/defensive about maintaining American spelling rather than rationally understanding what the proposal is actually calling for. And I've in fact tweaked my proposal to make it the least disruptive; please read the bottom of this section. Getsnoopy (talk) 07:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
• User:Getsnoopy, can you give a few examples of article creators who are "in some sort of race to create a bunch of article stubs tagged with their favourite variant of English"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 11 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @WhatamIdoing: Yes, here are a few: Coupé, International Date Line, and Carbon fiber reinforced polymer. If you look at the early histories of those articles, you'll see that they've been tagged with a certain variant of English early on (the latter one hasn't been explicitly tagged, but the edits all veer in the direction of supporting American English, for example). Getsnoopy (talk) 04:12, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
    • These all go back to 2003 or 2002 in the last case. You say: "the latter one hasn't been explicitly tagged, but the edits all veer in the direction of supporting American English, for example". Well, double doh! Maybe it was written by American editors. Enough of this. Johnbod (talk) 17:21, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
      • @Johnbod: How is what year they were created in relevant? Also, did you read what the question was about? I was pointing out examples where in the "stub" stage of an article, the article was explicitly tagged with one variant of English which is usually unnecessary at that stage of an article. The fact that that has been done would indicate that some article creators are trying to impose their favourite variant of English. The latter example was originally titled "Carbon fibre", and there were some editors who changed it to "fiber" arbitrarily (hence the point about not being explicitly tagged with {{Use American English}}, but setting the stage for that in the future). Getsnoopy (talk) 20:00, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Whatamidoing's question was stated in the present tense, and you gave examples from the early days of Wikipedia. That does not seem to be particularly convincing as an argument that this is a widespread current problem. Admittedly there's no way you can establish that with "a few examples"; en.wiki has almost 6M articles, so even if you can find three or four current cases, it doesn't prove much. I imagine this does happen to some extent, but you have a very heavy burden of proof to show that it happens enough to justify your incredibly disruptive proposal. (To clarify, I don't mean that making the proposal is incredibly disruptive; it's only a little disruptive, as probably not that many people are paying attention. But it would be incredibly disruptive if implemented.) --Trovatore (talk) 23:03, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
          • I don't agree that the proposal would be disruptive if the assumption is that people are aware of the differences and that they can navigate them with ease. See my proposal at the bottom of this section for how to make this proposal the least disruptive. Getsnoopy (talk) 21:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
• With the current policy a large proportion of editors get to write in "their" variant of english, and where people write in articles that are obviously in another version of english there is a good chance that they know or are aware of the difference. If we changed to one standard form of spelling then a whole swathe of editors would find themselves being ticked off by pedants for not conforming to MOS. That makes this proposal one that is likely to lose us far more editors than it gains us, and with the community divided as to whether editor retention or civility is our biggest problem, standardising on one form of spelling is going to make things worse, whichever of those two you consider our biggest current problem. Remember our editors are unpaid volunteers, we don't require them to learn MOS before making their first edit, and nor should we. ϢereSpielChequers 00:01, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Yah. Generally speaking, editor relations work better on a peer-to-peer model rather than a cop-to-perp model. When possible (it's not always possible), it's better to be like "let's talk about this and work it out" rather than "I'm reporting you to ANI". If there's some kind of "rule" made that, when creating a non-location-specific article, I have to write "computer programme"... well, I'm not going to do that, so then when I don't, I guess I'll get in "trouble", and how is that helpful to what we're trying to do here. Herostratus (talk) 02:43, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @WereSpielChequers and Herostratus: Hmm...those are good points. I guess the point of my proposal is not to catch violators of this proposed rule "red handed" and reprimand them in some way. We already have many articles which are in violation of MoS, and there are many editors who go in and edit those articles to make them compliant over time. I'm imagining a similar mechanism with this. So how about this: currently, editors are forbidden from changing the English variant of an article if it's already been established; we should change the rules so that if an editor wants to change the variant to Oxford spelling for a non-strong-ties article, it should be allowed. That way, editors who want to get going initially will not be burdened/dissuaded by onerous rules, but editors who favour consistency have the freedom to make the articles compliant. Getsnoopy (talk) 21:52, 13 October 2019 (UTC)
    • No. The purpose of WP:ENGVAR is to avoid the ill feelings and wasted time that results from people with nothing better to do who go around looking for articles to tweak according to their favorite rule. This is a good WP:BIKESHED issue which people are happy to discuss at length, but the take-home message is that there will not be a change to ENGVAR. Johnuniq (talk) 02:43, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
      • @Johnuniq: I don't understand what ill feelings could arise from changing a neutral article to what is arguably the most neutral English variant; strong ties articles will remain, and so will neutral articles where there's no motivation to change it. If editors want to optionally change neutral articles to Oxford spelling, they can. People who've been following MOS:RETAIN will continue to follow it thereafter. As for wasted time, it's an editor's choice; if you don't want to expend the energy to change articles, that's totally fine, but why would you prevent others who are motivated to improve the consistency of WP from doing so? Getsnoopy (talk) 07:07, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
        • What makes an English variant neutral? Or not-neutral? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:38, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
          • @Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Any English variant specific to a particular region is by default non-neutral; Oxford spelling (despite what the name suggests) is not really used very much in England (as compared to "standard British" spelling). It's also in terms of spelling features: Oxford spelling prefers -our suffixes, but -ize suffixes, but also -lyse suffixes. Since it has a mix of features from all the major English variants, it's the most neutral, which is why practically every international organization in the world (including the UN) has adopted it. Getsnoopy (talk) 16:03, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
        • How many articles have you created? Believe me, if someone spends a month writing an article after purchasing and studying reference books, it is likely that ill feelings will result from a passerby with no interest in the topic who changes the style because rules. The wasted time comes from arguing about the style changes. Johnuniq (talk) 09:36, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
        • @Getsnoopy: Wikipedians invest a lot of time and effort writing articles. If you change their work into a different spelling than the one they know and use, the expectation is that subsequent edits to that article have to be in the new spelling. Not everyone knows or uses oxford spelling, so such a move will cause ill feelings among editors who are no longer able to maintain articles that they have voluntarily put a lot of time into. This would cause ill feelings, a level of ill feelings that is guaranteed to prevent such a decision getting consensus. If it were implemented it would lose us editors. I left another site in recent years when they decided to standardise on US spelling, I would leave this site if it decided to standardise on a version of English other than the one I use. Alternatively you could end the rule about article consistency, but that would give you a situation where some articles were inconsistent as to spelling within an article. I don't see this site having consensus to go to a system where half of an article might be in one spelling system, and the other newer half in the system preferred by the person who originally wrote the first half. ϢereSpielChequers 09:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
          • @WereSpielChequers and Johnuniq: I see, I can understand that. But the problem already exists for strong-ties articles. If I'm an editor using American spelling who spends a month researching and creating an article about an article on a New Zealand topic, for example, then some passerby with no interest in the topic can come in and change the style to New Zealand spelling under current rules. Wouldn't that engender "ill feelings" for the creating editor? Similarly, if a creating editor created an article, and another editor saw that it had some places where there were style errors (no spaces between quantities and their units in measurements, for example), so they went in and edited it, are you saying the the creating editor would "feel bad" about this? It's not a personal attack; we're all trying to improve WP together. And unless we have editors who solely create articles, they will have edited other people's articles as well (which presumably will use spelling other than their own). I don't know that having to use a spelling that they don't use in their daily life "locks them out" of being able to contribute at all; and if it does, then they're not far away from Googling the differences between the two (which they presumably would've done already if they're editing articles other than their own). Being "locked out" of an article and refusing to learn spelling differences (and maybe subsequently quitting an entire platform) seems quite dramatic, and I doubt they'd be able to get far as an editor seeing as they most likely would have encountered a situation where their spelling of choice wasn't used in an article, so they'd be bound by MOS:RETAIN. Getsnoopy (talk) 19:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Yeah, and re "We already have many articles which are in violation of MoS, and there are many editors who go in and edit those articles to make them compliant"... well in some of those cases it is the MOS that is wrong not the article. Because whatever people do, that that is the standard -- the de facto standard, and we are not a rulebound entity that favors de jure over de facto.

          There are actually a number of rules that are mostly ignored. Somewhere in the MOS, for instance, there is a prescription against using place of birth/death in the vital-statistics line after a bio name: "John Howard Smith (April 9, 1814, Lincoln, Nebraska – August 13, 1889, New York City)" is not allowed. It's not allowed because somebody came in and added that, and while several people grumbled, nobody WP:BRD'd it (unfortunately). "Birth and death places, if known, should be mentioned in the body of the article, and can appear in the lead if relevant to notability, but not in the opening brackets alongside the birth and death dates." Well that's not just micromanaging pettifoggery, it's anti-function since in short bios (one or two paragraphs) it makes sense to out vital locations in the opening parenthesis, rather than awkwardly shoehorning them into the article text. Again, in this case it was just one person's preference.

          Anyway, do I follow that rule? No, of course not, not when it makes the article worse. What do you take me for? I'm here to write articles (and stuff), not shuffle papers. Herostratus (talk) 16:27, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

          • @Herostratus: Isn't that more of an issue of WP:BRD not being followed properly than it is of MoS being incorrect? I mean if MoS is "incorrect", then it would be changed, and if not, then the article text would be changed. Why have a MoS at all if it wouldn't be followed? Getsnoopy (talk) 19:41, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
            • @Getsnoopy:"if MoS is 'incorrect', then it would be changed"... only in theory. The way it works here actually, it is very hard to change anything. To change the MOS requires basically a supermajority, which is hard to get. I'm sure if I wanted to change or get rid of ""Birth and death places, if known, should [not] be mentioned... in the opening brackets alongside the birth and death dates", I could get let's say 9-6 in favor, so no change. Many people are of the mind "I, personally, don't do this or like to see it, so it should be forbidden" rather than "I, personally, don't do this or like to see it, but that's just my personal aesthetic, and it's not a big deal, so let other editors do it if that's their preference". Because: people. That's how a lot of people roll. It's mediocre IMO, but it is what it is. Consequently we are encrusted with a number of rules, not MOS particularly, which are non-useful and not followed. Herostratus (talk) 07:17, 15 October 2019 (UTC)
              • @Herostratus: That is...unfortunate. Getsnoopy (talk) 00:14, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
            • Because we keep hoping, against all odds, that Wikipedia articles will be written by people who not only know something about the subject matter, but also people who care more about producing a educational article for a reader who actually wants to learn something, than (e.g.,) producing an article that complies with All Teh Rulez.
              And Trovatore was absolutely correct: I wrote that question in the present tense on purpose. I want to see evidence that there is a current-meaning-this-very-month race to create articles just to be able to declare that this or that subject must henceforth be handled in someone's favorite form of English. I very strongly doubt that this is happening, and if it is, I want to hand out Wikipedia:Barnstars to everyone involved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:05, 14 October 2019 (UTC)
              • @WhatamIdoing: Oh I didn't mean that there is a race to create articles; that would be great (at least from that particular perspective). I meant that for articles stubs (which, tautologically, have already been written) that haven't quite "formed" their own English variant (bottom-up) or haven't been tagged explicitly with an English variant template (top-down), there's an incentive for editors to go in and add in their favourite English variant template to the article to essentially "lock in" future editors. Insofar as showing that that's happening, I was pointing out those examples. As for whether that's happening currently, I'd have to run a query on the database to be able to tell you, but I wouldn't say it's zero. Getsnoopy (talk) 00:14, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
                • WP:RETAIN says "When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary." A stub doesn't have "consistent usage of a variety", and nothing is "established"; it's mostly a placeholder. It's a misuse of the templates to apply them to stubs.
                  Of course that doesn't mean it never happens. I don't ever recall seeing it happen, but WP is big. But you haven't shown any evidence that it's a current problem at all, and even if it is, the obvious course of action is to address that misuse, not to propose a nuclear change to the treatment of English varieties in the whole encyclopedia. --Trovatore (talk) 02:47, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
                  • @Trovatore: I guess I was using the term "stub" loosely. Yes, if the content is merely a paragraph or so, it would be misuse of the policy. But if the content is long enough, it wouldn't be misuse but would still "fall through the cracks". For example, if an article has been fleshed out to enough length to not qualify as a proper "stub", but only has enough content where it can be determined to be any English, it could be tagged as any variant. But let's say there's enough content to determine that it's some sort of Commonwealth English, but it gets tagged as Canadian English, then it would have to follow down that path for the rest of the life of that article when maybe it was being actually written in British English, for example. Regardless, the point isn't that that's the whole reason I'm proposing this change. The primary reason is consistency; the secondary reason is to ward off any potential "misuse" as you're describing it. And again, it is the farthest from a nuclear change. It's opt-in. If it were to be implemented today, nothing would happen; no one would be in violation of any rule. Only if editors want to make articles consistent would this apply, and it would happen quite slowly. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:02, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
                • I'd love to see proof that editors are so in love with their national variety of English that they're willing to expand lots of articles for the purpose of "locking in" future editors (at least until the same future editors have a quick chat on the talk page and decide to change it). I don't find the claim particularly credible, but I'd be happy if a love of spelling were actually some editor's primary motivation for building the encyclopedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:10, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
                  • @WhatamIdoing: But that's exactly my point: one needn't expand an article. An editor can just go in an tag an article with a certain variant of English while it's in the "stub" stage, and that's it. The article would have to follow that path of English spelling for the rest of the life of the article. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:02, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
                    • That's not true. Tagging the article "documents" the established standard (or, more precisely, someone's best guess at the established standard). If you wrongly tag an article, then it can simply be removed. And none of this "for the rest of the life of the article" because the relevant rules say that the style can be changed at any time, just be having a quick chat on the talk page. I really begin to think that you don't understand anything about the rule that you're hoping to replace. English varieties are NOT PERMANENT, the template is documentation, not decision, and nobody's doing this anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
                      • @WhatamIdoing: No, I understand it just fine. On the contrary, I'm beginning to think you're not understanding my point at all. Yes, the tag documents rather than dictates...in theory. But almost every editor just looks for a tag before editing an article, and proceeds to edit it compliant with said tag. Unless you're telling me every editor reads every article in full, parses it, and comes to a conclusion about which variant it's written in independent of the tag at the top, the tag has power. So when an article is in a stage when it doesn't quite have a specific variant, but has enough length to be considered one of any of the variants, an editor can tag it with a specific variant and send its future editors down that path. I agree that it's not truly "for the rest of the life of the article", but it effectively is, since MOS:RETAIN lists MOS:TIES and "reduced ambiguity" (ironically itself ambiguous) as the only valid reasons to change it. So a "quick chat" on the talk page wouldn't mean much, unless you're saying that the discussion on the talk page trumps the reasons listed in MOS:RETAIN. Getsnoopy (talk) 23:42, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
                        • What's your evidence that "almost every editor" looks at those tags? I'd guess that a majority of editors honestly have no idea what {{EngvarB}} means. Also, they're not used in ~90% of pages anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
                          • @WhatamIdoing: Isn't that the expectation? I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt. Getsnoopy (talk) 17:51, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
        • I was recently involved with a copy edit process where the ce initially decided that Britain wouldn't do (needed to be UK and so on) and as well changed EngvarB to Oxford spelling. After I queried the Brit thing, the ce thought that maybe it ought not to have been changed after all and that it could be switched back, haven't decided yet what to do about the Oxford spelling bit because article has "ise"s and "ize"'s both. Not complaining just mention it as indicative. Selfstudier (talk) 17:00, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

• I wonder if a sizable chunk of the friction over which dialect of English we should standardize on might be avoided if in those cases where someone wants to rewrite an article into another dialect that editor simply asked first. Post the question on the Talk page, wait a month, & if no one objects go ahead & do the rewrite. (Personally, due to my eclectic reading interests, I conclude I write in a mangle of English dialects, so I wouldn't be surprised were I asked if I minded if my article were re-written in American English.) -- llywrch (talk) 20:25, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Llywrch: Hmm...that is a good point. More of an organic approach, eh? Although one problem I see with this is that MOS:RETAIN says "maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary", which I would take to mean that if no one responded to your request, it doesn't count as consensus. Getsnoopy (talk) 20:02, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
    • llywrch, as the guideline has said for several years now, you don't even have to wait for a whole month. Ordinary, everyday, garden-variety consensus from a quick chat on the talk page is all you need to change the variety. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:25, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
      • Based on how little traffic most talk pages get, unless there is evidence to the contrary I think waiting a month is a good rule of thumb. If one can't be bothered to respond after a month, then it's safe to assume that no one cares much. On the other hand, if an editor can't remember she/he asked about changing the dialect of English for an article after a month, & maybe forgets to go back to that article, then it's safe to assume this isn't an important issue, & maybe should not be done. In any case, asking then waiting to make a change like that -- which is not critical to some of us, but is to others -- this shows a bit of civility, a modicum of respect. Which is not often enough shown enough around here. (And really, do we need a guideline to dictate showing a modicum of respect to each other?) -- llywrch (talk) 22:50, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Based upon Category:Wikipedia behavioral guidelines and Category:Wikipedia conduct policies, we apparently think that we need 12 policies and 20 guidelines to dictate that modicum of respect. ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 18 October 2019 (UTC)
          • Generally, if someone wants to massively expand an article I might agree to that, but otherwise would be likely to object to any change on principle - the principle being "let sleeping dogs lie". I'm far from being the only editor to feel this way (a decent claim of a "strong connection" would be different). Johnbod (talk) 04:39, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Please be aware that Getsnoopy started a similar thread at Template talk:Convert#Spelling and WP:COMMONALITY with no mention of this thread. Looking through his contribution history, I see that he has started similar discussions on multiple pages/templates without referring to any of the others. I find this divide and conquer approach highly suspicious.  Stepho  talk  02:26, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks - but it's more "divide and flop". Time to close this discussion. Johnbod (talk) 04:39, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
• @Stepho-wrs: How is that relevant? They're completely separate issues. And suspicious of what, exactly? Getsnoopy (talk) 17:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Because everything to do with regional differences of spelling is in WP:ENGVAR and hence {{convert}} and many other templates are subservient to ENGVAR. If I was trying to game the system then I would try to convince some major templates to go my way, then use their results to influence the main policy discussion by saying "hey, we're already doing it my way in practice, we may as well make it policy". I would also keep the template discussions strictly separate from each other, not advertising about any other discussions ( hoping that other editors won't see any relevant points in the other discussions) and claiming that there is no relationship between spelling in one template and spelling in another. That way, I could lose the argument in many of them but hopefully win in one of them and claim that one as the path to policy victory. I would also avoid at all costs talking at WT:ENGVAR and WT:SPELLING where knowledgeable editors hang out. So far, you are doing 10 out of 10 on such a plan.  Stepho  talk  18:58, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
    • @Stepho-wrs: While I'm flattered, you're giving me way too much credit than I deserve; you clearly need to get acquainted with Hanlon's razor. This is my first foray into anything related to WP policy, so I looked around and saw that something like an ENGVAR discussion is "evergreen" and bound to get outright rejected, so rather than launching into a proposal, I read that the issue should first be brought up in Village pump (here). And so I did. This issue (proposing allowing articles to be changed to Oxford spelling as an exception to MOS:RETAIN), in my mind, is completely separate from the issue of correctness and commonality that's associated with the SI units. So I proposed that idea on the {{convert}}. If you look at my conversation above with @Master Of Ninja, I was trying to suss out the venues in which to bring up this issue, and he didn't quite know where it was best. Little did I know that I was meant to cross-post or somehow declare all my ongoing proposals throughout WP. I was hoping for this conversation to shake out and consider all the ideas before posting it somewhere as an actual proposal. Your guess of some grand conspiracy, while valiant, is just not true. Getsnoopy (talk) 07:55, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
      • No problem, I can accept ignore instead of malice :)

ENGVAR would have been the proper place because it is the central policy over regional variations in spelling - which is exactly your topic. However, this talk page is also a reasonable place - as long as a notice was left at ENGVAR to say so. Templates such as {{convert}} simply follow ENGVAR, therefore discussions on such templates must wait for the discussion on ENGVAR (or here) to finish before they implement the result.  Stepho  talk  22:24, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

What about Canadian spelling, which is a compromise between Oxford and Webster's? TFD (talk) 19:43, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

• @The Four Deuces: But Oxford is already a compromise between Webster's and Chamber's (for example). It allows -our and -or suffixes co-equally (though it prefers the former), allows -re and -er suffixes co-equally where it's etymologically accurate (though it prefers the former), prescribes -ize endings where they make sense, prescribes -yse endings, etc. It's the best of all worlds. This is why almost every international organization uses it. Getsnoopy (talk) 07:55, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Even if organisations that employ full time staff and which can afford to train new staff into a corporate standard do this; It isn't a viable route for a volunteer based project that needs to minimise barriers to new volunteers. ϢereSpielChequers 08:07, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @WereSpielChequers: Agreed, which is why I addressed this point up above. I think we've come full circle at this point. Getsnoopy (talk) 04:21, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Is there any move forward either with a firm proposal or closing the thread? I think as has been stated WP:ENGVAR exists for a reason. If a proposal can be written, supported with statements, and then voted on, it would allow things to move on without what seems like endless debate. Master Of Ninja (talk) 09:05, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
  • @Master Of Ninja: Yes, I think we can close this discussion now. I have everything I need to write an actual proposal, which I'll be doing on the talk page of WP:ENGVAR. Getsnoopy (talk) 04:21, 22 October 2019 (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.

CC-BY attribution for every contributor

Given the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that is applied to contributors—contributed content.

How is the "CC BY" (a component of cc-by-sa) attribution effectively "shown/presented" for every contributor:

• Does it have to be in the article content as a non-displayable remark? —apparently not.
• Does the article contribution history effectively function as "CC BY" attribution to each individual contributor? —where is the policy/opinion-essay that presents how this is compliant with Creative Commons Attribution requirements. --2db (talk) 16:21, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

An article history is considered the history of contributor contributions for CC-SA. It is why it is important that page moves are done properly and not through copy-and-paste, that merged content should be identified by the oldid/diff where it originated from, and history merges used when merges occur followed by deletions so the contributions are kept. External to WP, it thus is sufficient to simply link to the WP page the CC-SA content was pulled from as the edit history can be found there. See WP:REUSE for the instructions to reusers of WP content. --Masem (t) 16:30, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Only caveat here is that this applies to textual content on Wikipedia, and may not extend to media uploaded under a different but compatible free license under different terms. GMG^talk 16:34, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• An article history is considered the history of contributor contributions for CC-SA.

Ok, this implies that "article history" also meets the "CC BY" (a component of every CC–License) as attribution of the contributors—contributed content.

As I understand, every contributor "owns" each "original-work" textual contribution. However when the owner/contributor publishes said textual content on WP, the owner is agreeing to apply the unrevocable CC license mandated by WP. Now WP still has a requirement to give "CC BY" attribution to the contributor—which is met by the "article history" mechanism.

I concur that the "article history" mechanism, meets the "CC BY" content attribution requirement—as proper attribution to the contributor, however that is my opinion. Has any policy/essay been published on why this is correct? --2db (talk) 17:44, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I mean, I don't know that there's ever been a court case challenging this form of attribution under the license. That's the only real form of precedent setting publication on the matter. GMG^talk 18:53, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

It is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use that we agree to when we edit. We agree to be attributed in this way. See m:Terms of Use. StarryGrandma (talk) 19:05, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

What is the status of a contributors—contributed content that has deleted from the article. Does the unrevocable CC license mandated by WP per the original terms for publication by the contributor become null and void after x amount of time? --2db (talk) 03:50, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

@2db: basically, it doesn't change things: that the Wikimedia Foundation, though its volunteers, has chosen to stop publishing a contribution has no bearing on the copyright release that was made by the original contributor. You can release any copyrightable work you produce under CC or any other license you want - we just only accept for publishing works that are under that license. The Creative Commons license, and the GFDL are not licenses to, or licenses of Wikipedia. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:04, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Copyright doesn't last for ever, more like life plus 70 years. But as some of our contributors are rather young, this could lead to some interesting discussions about Copyright in the next century. If it is Life plus seventy, and one assumes human life expectancy sticks at 115 being a safely high number, then by 2180 you should be safe to assume that early versions of Wikipedia are out of copyright. However, I'm not sure if the rules are different for collective works, afterall we were able to include work from the 1911 Britannica after less than a hundred years. ϢereSpielChequers 21:43, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

RfC on additional page mover permissions

Howdy,

There is a current request for comment at Wikipedia talk:Page mover (discussion link) regarding whether page movers should be permitted to move pages which are full-protected. As this would require a change of policy, I'm cross-posting here. Sceptre (talk) 18:08, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

RfC closure grants bureaucrats new discretion in processing resysopping requests

Main page: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/2019 Resysop Criteria (2)

There's been a closure of the above-linked RfC resulting in significant changes to the resysopping procedures used by bureaucrats.

These changes need to be written into the policy page at Wikipedia:Administrators before the procedure page at Wikipedia:Bureaucrats can be updated to reflect the changes.

Note I've expressed some reservations about the closure in a personal capacity, but will be continue to be guided as a bureaucrat by whatever policies achieve community consensus. –xeno^talk 17:29, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Discuss this

On v In categories

There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islands#Revised RFC that it has been suggested I notify here. Crouch, Swale (talk) 10:50, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

Require a captcha for every IP edit in reader-oriented spaces

Look, if you really want to encourage IPs to register an account without requiring them to do so, and you don't want regular editors to face the backlog from making all IP edits pending changes, just require IPs to enter a captcha for each and every individual edit made in mainspace, template space, category space, image space, and portal space. Incidentally, this will help prevent editors with accounts from accidentally making edits while logged out, since they will get the same notice that a captcha is needed before they can save. IP editors who are serious about improving the encyclopedia will likely trudge through some captchas to make their changes (and perhaps will use fewer edits, since I have seen IPs go through a string of 20 edits to fix up an article, when they could have used the preview function and avoided all that). IP editors who merely want to comment in talk page discussions will be unaffected. bd2412 T 19:14, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

*lol* Irritate the hell out of them before they do it to us - or auto-gen an ad they have to watch before they can make any changes. Love it! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:33, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

No one will ever support adding adverts, maybe the WMF will support making IPs watch Jimbo plead for donations before saving each edit. Wug·a·po·des​ 04:19, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Surely that is banned by the Geneva Conventions! · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 05:49, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

@Tony the Marine and QuackGuru: Does this satisfy your concerns? bd2412 T 19:16, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@BD2412: long-standing issues such as phab:T6845 should probably be solved first... — xaosflux ^Talk 19:24, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I proposed a captcha because it is a minor annoyance that would nudge people towards registering and make IP vandalism more time consuming for the IP. We could just as easily use a popup on each edit requiring the IP editor to confirm that they wish to continue even though their IP address will be recorded, or the like. bd2412 T 19:34, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I know we're not really voting (or maybe we are?) but support. Anyone can edit and this does not prevent it, but as has been repeatedly pointed out over a very long time, registering an account is more anonymous than editing with your IP address attached to every edit. Whatever technical issues there are solved first, of course. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 19:37, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

This definitely helps. There are some IPs that never register but have made hundreds of edits. It should be capped off at about 100 edits (not including talk pages) to require a captcha for IPs and new accounts. QuackGuru (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose as counterproductive and yet more "Fuck Tha IPs" bullshit. Why would you demand a CAPTCHA to revert vandalism? That's something that IPs can and will do, and throwing this sort of barrier up is going to discourage that. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 20:52, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
  • All new edits by IPs and new accounts would require a captcha for at least the first 100 edits. Talk page discussions would not require a captcha. QuackGuru (talk) 20:59, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
    • There's no way to meaningfully tell a new edit from a revert for IPs that don't know how to use page histories. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 21:04, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
      • A new edit or a revert for IPs and new accounts would still require a captcha under the proposal. QuackGuru (talk) 21:37, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
        • 100 captchas? I would have sworn off Wikipedia before I was a 1/5th of the way through - and that's not counting that our captchas are terrible Nosebagbear (talk) 21:45, 16 October 2019 (UTC)
        • Is your actual plan to flip off IPs and softban them from Wikipedia, QuackGuru? Because that is the only way I can still presume good faith and reconcile your proposals. Also, what Nosebagbear says above. —v^_^v ^{Make your position clear!} 21:55, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• • I think a registration nag/limitations till registered is sufficient.Don't like captchas.Selfstudier (talk) 22:42, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose: I despise captchas, too. (They don't like me; and don't get me started on their image-based replacements: even worse.) I wouldn't dream of inflicting them on others. This is a proposal that, if implemented, would do immeasurable harm to IP editors and to Wikipedia's image as a whole. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 23:16, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

And I forgot to mention this: I believe this proposal, if implemented, would fall afoul of the nondiscrimination resolution at WP:ACCESSIBILITY. — Javert2113 (Siarad.|¤) 23:22, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

I do not think captcha is the answer. When I first wrote my comment I was expressing my personal opinion which I titled "I Believe", I had no intentions of creating a "support" or "oppose" issue, however the title was changed to "Require Registration" by someone else. I know there are a lot of un-registered users who are good at what they do and mean well. Most of these end up being registered users who have made great contributions to our project. However, many users agree with me that the majority of the vandalism made to our great articles are made by non-registered users who have bad-faith editing on their minds. My personal believe is that they and everyone else for that matter should be held accountable for their contributions, whether these are positive or negative. I have known many great contributors to this project who gave up because of all the negative editing going on. That is why I believe that Wikipedia has to or should implement some rules or policy to protect those of us who love this project and wish for it to reach high standards of reliability. That is all I have to say in regard to my personal believes and this subject. Tony the Marine (talk) 23:50, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Little late to the show (I had to figure out which pictures showed a crosswalk partially obstructed by a traffic light manufactured by Consolidated Lighting between 1937-1962), but: it is true that "the majority of the vandalism made to our great articles are made by non-registered users". Not only that, but the majority of the vandalism made to our lousy articles are also made by non-registered users. That matters, but it matters a whole lot less than this: the net effect of edits by not-registered users is positive. I base this on watching a 2,000-article watchlist for ten years. The net effect of edits by not-registered users is less positive than the net effect of edits by registered users, this is true. But so? It's still a positive. IP's vandalize, but they more often fix spelling, improve grammar, add good material, correct facts, add refs, and so forth. Herostratus (talk) 03:32, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

• Not captcha but some minor friction/login-reminder on most or all IP edits seems like a good idea.  Just an extra OK click to say I'd really rather not log in or make an account should be enough.  I logged out for this edit just to see what I would get. I got a welcome/start editing dialog; is that always there, or just on first edit from an IP address?  98.210.161.131 (talk) 04:07, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
  • Probably just from the first edit. The last time I accidentally logged out and made an edit, I was surprised to see the edit coming from my IP address. I frankly would have preferred some kind of head's up. Yes, some minor friction. bd2412 T 04:12, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
    • I got it again. Maybe because in a private window there's no cookie to say I've seen it already? 98.210.161.131 (talk) 04:15, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
      • Yup, no such notice on second edit in same private window. 98.210.161.131 (talk) 04:16, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose any barrier to entry for good-faith edits. --Jayron32 14:41, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose From my experience, exceedingly slow. Captcha should only be used to prevent vandal bots, spam bots, ad bots, and other non-human vandals and advertisers, not humans. Plus Captcha might not work in some areas, and on some networks I have found that it doesn't work at all. From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 23:22, 17 October 2019 (UTC)
• Captchas are used to filter out non-human agents. There doesn't appear to be any spate of malicious anonymous bots, so the proposal seems to be only about erecting obstacles in the way of IPs. Maybe this could entice a small number of them to register an account, but it's sure to annoy the hell out of many others and deter them from editing altogether. – Uanfala (talk) 13:02, 20 October 2019 (UTC)
• I agree with 98.210.161.131 ("Not captcha, but some minor friction/login-reminder on most or all IP edits seems like a good idea.") I don't have anything specific to propose at this time. So, I oppose this exact proposal but support a later attempt to get us somewhere. While we do not want to discourage good-faith contributions, we do need to encourage account-creation, and discourage bad-faith (or even "grey-faith" – boneheaded, test/experiment, or just plain clueless) edits, most especially bad-faith ones done in rapid-fire succession. It's been a problem for 18 years and is not abating, so steps need to be taken, and have needed to be taken for a very long time. It's shameful how much constructive volunteer time is wasted cleaning up after bad IP edits. I'm extremely skeptical that the amount of good content contributed per day by IPs exceeds the amount of mess everyone else has to clean up. Maybe it did in the 2000s, but likely not today.  — AReaderOutThataway ^t/_c 05:39, 22 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Vandals are humans, not bots. Bots are already stopped using other methods, this will have zero effect besides slowing them down. BigDwiki (talk) 23:08, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
• Per Atsme, not a bad idea. Keep ideas coming, esp. ones like this. Sooner or later one will stick. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
• Moral support it's not ideal, and maybe not every edit, but something along this line would in my mind be the best compromise. There is a use for captchas as a means of preventing WP:MEATBOTs, not just actual bots, and for all the reasons above the added friction will probably make vandalism less appealing while having a minimal impact on good faith contribution (people are used to captchas in other contexts). Speed bumps are actually helpful at not just slowing down speeders but also getting those going the speed limit to pay closer attention and look for pedestrians. Wug·a·po·des​ 04:14, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose, we need to make it easier, not harder, to edit. —Kusma (t·c) 20:57, 27 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose for IPs. Now what would be great if the AbuseFilter could have an option 'require capcha before being able to safe' (which thén could be applied on both named and IP vandals). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:37, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

  T236760 Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 08:51, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

  Turns out there is already an older request for this, T20110. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:08, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose. Everyone must be able to edit without creating an account, without extra difficulty. We should not be making it more difficult to edit. --Yair rand (talk) 09:22, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Captcha is horrible, failing as often as it works. Also, as mentioned above, it is not intended for this purpose. IP editors are not bots. Jack N. Stock (talk) 16:12, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose Bizarre suggestion seeking only to needlessly increase the difficulty of editing without an account. That captchas are frustrating to humans is a side effect, not their purpose. At any rate, accessibility concerns trump all others. Sam Walton (talk) 00:09, 10 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose This would make sense if most, or even enough, IP editors edited quickly and in bulk, but I see no evidence of such. SportingFlyer T·C 12:44, 11 November 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose per Uanfala above. Captchas solve a different problem, unwanted automated edits, which seem surprisingly rare on Wikipedia. Certes (talk) 12:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Expansion to WP:G14

Currently, according to the criteria for speedy deletion, a disambiguation page can be deleted if it disambiguates one or zero items. I have seen disambiguation pages that disambiguate two items. I even tagged one of them for PROD. I propose changing this criteria so that DAB pages will be deleted if they disambiguate two or less articles. I think this will be helpful because unnecessary pages will be cleaned up. For example, let's say there is an article, Example (disambiguation), that only disambiguates two articles, Example and Example (foo). Example can have a hatnote to disambiguate Example (foo). I cannot wait for your inputs. Thanks for reading. --LPS and MLP Fan (Littlest Pet Shop) (My Little Pony) 23:18, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

There are two cases to consider. If there is a primary topic with only one other topic then we can indeed dispense with the dab page and just use a hatnote. However, if there is no primary topic then we still need a disambiguation page, even if there are only two possibilities as at John Quested. Certes (talk) 23:39, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Certes is correct - we continue to use DABs in cases like these because otherwise we'd have to make a PRIMARYTOPIC decision where one wasn't really warranted. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:44, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Book notability question

I'd like to create a new article for a book (ISBN 978-9782651051 by Chinweizu Ibekwe). It seems to satisfy WP:NBOOK, I quote, "The book has been the subject of two or more non-trivial published works appearing in sources that are independent of the book itself.". Here are the sources,

• Women's quest for rights: African feminist theory in fiction], this paper references the book in the body.
• Gender Relations and Domestic Power Politics, the book is a work cited.
• Seeing Foucault’s theory through African lenses: The discourse on sex, gender and power - inline and cited reference
• Gender Disparity and Psycho-sexual Violence - inline citation

My question: does this actually satisfy the book notability guideline? Or am I misunderstanding something? I could not find any News coverage for this book, which is not surprising as the author is African and this book is generally not well-known in English speaking countries (although it is written in English).

(Please ping me when replying)

—Srid^YO 20:24, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Sridc: Is the book the subject, though? The external works need to be talking about the book, not about some other concepts and using the book as background or reference material. --Izno (talk) 21:53, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

No, it is the latter. —Srid^YO 21:57, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Then they are insufficient for notability. --Izno (talk) 22:24, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Why would a particular sub-topic not be covered in an article?

While casually reading Meghan_Murphy#Twitter_ban_and_lawsuit I learned for the first time that in late 2018 Twitter changed its policy to officially prohibit calling a trans person by the wrong pronouns.

I wanted to find the details, so I went to Twitter and tried Ctrl+F'ing for 'pronoun' - but couldn't find anything.

Is there a Wikipedia policy that would preclude mentioning this topic (re: pronouns) in Twitter? Or is it just a case of no editor specifically bothered to include it?

(Please ping when replying)

—Srid^🍁 —Preceding undated comment added 02:02, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Hey Sridc. You may have better luck with these questions at The Help Desk. This is more of a place to discuss things like potential changes to policy, and not necessarily the right place for specific questions about clarification or application in particular circumstances. GMG^talk 02:19, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the pointer. I definitely misread it (overlooked the "proposed" part). —Srid^🍁 02:21, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

• Or WP:NPOVN for WP:NPOV issues (eg. whether some part of an article is balanced), or WP:RSN for WP:RS issues (eg. can a particular source be used for a particular statement.) --Aquillion (talk) 03:03, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

Block only mobile anonymous edits

Is it technically feasible to block only those anonymous edits coming from mobile devices? It seems to me that the vast majority of vandalism we receive is from mobile devices in particular. This way non-logged in users can still contribute, but only logged in users may contribute on the go. My apologies if this has been proposed before. -- Rockstonetalk to me! 05:08, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Is Youtube a Reliable Source?

I would like to place an article edit where I plan to use Youtube as the source. The article is a BLP and the user's own video would be the source. In this case, does it meet WP:RS?BigDwiki (talk) 23:07, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

No because YouTube is a self-published source and is not moderated. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:42, 25 October 2019 (UTC).

BigDwiki, Depends what you intend to use it for, see WP:BLPSELFPUB, and how clear it is that the YT is from the subject. An uncontroversial birthdate, place of birth, etc, could be ok, but try to avoid if possible. HOWEVER, something selfpublished never helps with WP:N, but I read you to say that the article already exists. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:31, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

YouTube isn't a source. It's a host, or a republisher, of others' content. As such, the question isn't if YouTube is a reliable source, it's if the uploader of a video is a reliable source. (And also, if the upload is or isn't a copyright violation.) Imzadi 1979 → 01:10, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Examples where YouTube could be hosting reliable source: Fox News shows Schumer making recent remarks. Just as reliable as a broadcast TV show, because that's what it is. YouTube is hosting a reliable source for Avril Lavigne's latest video, so transcribe the lyrics or whatever. YouTube probably isn't a reliable source for lots of stuff, whether it is an "unverified" account, or a copyright violation which abounds on the service, or any one of all sorts of other things. Use it with a large grain of salt and a lot of discernment. Elizium23 (talk) 00:18, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

• A lot of what Elizium23 said. Asking whether "YouTube" is a reliable source is like asking whether "television" or "radio" is a reliable source. In your case, you need to deal with WP:BLPSELFPUB, and not really the medium. GMG^talk 00:31, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
• Most of the time, no, as there are both issues on copyright violations and reliability of the poster.. But if a video is one that is 1) known to belong to a channel with a confirmed identity, and 2) that channel identity itself is known to be reliable source, then the video came be used. For example, [12] this CNN video is clearly fair game as an RS. The {{cite video}} template can be used to cite. --Masem (t) 00:40, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
  • In the case of a BLP's own channel, you need to be 100% sure the channel belongs to the BLP. This generally means it needs to have the "verification check" by the user name that implies YouTube has confirmed the identity. Most average channels don't have that. If that can be done, then the video can be used within the scope of WP:BLPSPS, but keep in mind that there are NPOV issues when we rely too much on an BLP's SPS work. --Masem (t) 00:43, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
• Not to beat a dead horse, but as people have said above a YouTube video in the circumstances you have described would likely be acceptable (assuming no issues w/ copyright, etc.) but subject to BLP, especially BLPSPS and ABOUTSELF. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)
• @BigDwiki: Technically YouTube isn't a source, it's a hosting provider. The source is whoever put the content on YouTube, which might be a reliable source (like the BBC), or an unreliable source, like your cousin Larry. Kaldari (talk) 20:45, 4 November 2019 (UTC)
• It's context-specific YouTube is a platform/a content distributor/a content aggregator. Thus, it depends on who published the video. A video by TED talks or Al Jazeera English would be reliable, but a YouTube video by a regular YouTube user or Media Matters would not. Doug Mehus (talk) 00:41, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
• I recommend reading Wikipedia:External links/Perennial websites#YouTube. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

RfA Policy Idea

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.

---

After recent controversial RfA happenings, I got to thinking how we could make it easier for voters to determine an editor's aptitude for adminship. So I came up with this policy idea. Comments would be appreciated

After three days of the RfA process, the candidate is granted temporary, two-day administrative privileges that they may use to show potential voters their aptitude/ability to use the tools if the support percentage is above 65%.

This policy would make it a lot easier to see the users aptitude for the tools. Of course, the voters who voted in order to get to the 65% approval rating are free to move their votes based on how the candidate performs. I think this would make it a much easier choice to support or oppose an RfA. Also, the days and the support percentage aren't final, that's just what I think would be best, but they can be changed to make the policy better. Thank you for considering this policy! Cheers - Puddleglum2.0 ^{Have a talk?} 01:21, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

• @Puddleglum2.0: I have to say that that sounds like it would be really unpleasant - 200 individuals following your every admin action. But that notwithstanding, I see a couple of major flaws:

1. The main effect would be candidates only making really non-controversial admin actions, which wouldn't really tell us if they were well suited
2. After being made an admin, you need to do quite a lot of reading up and testing on the appropriate test pages - my reading and practising took longer than this, so many candidates would be forced to make admin actions before they felt ready to participate.
3. We encourage individuals with new tools to ask for help when unsure, but here there'd be a risk of !voters disliking this because they'd want the candidate to be self-standing - so we'd actually be making a perverse incentive not to ask for help
4. New admins are always going to be more at risk of good faith mistakes - their first few days would make a terrible length of time to judge their aptitude because it wouldn't actually fit with their general performance. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:50, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

This has been considered in the past, IIRC. Ii is a naive proposal that won't fly. If RfA is controversial, this plan would not make it less so. Leaky caldron (talk) 12:00, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

@Nosebagbear: Oh ok, I didn't realize any of that. Thank you for taking time to explain that. By the way, is there a way to archive this immediately and not wait 7 days for the bot to do so? I don't think that there is a need to continue the discussion, as I was unaware of all those problems when I wrote it. Thank you, Yours - Puddleglum2.0 ^{Have a talk?} 04:11, 18 November 2019 (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.

RFC Closure Tags

Proposal: Make the use of some variant of discussion closure tags mandatory for non-involved editors/administrators when closing RfCs.

Rationale: As seen Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Talk:Milo Yiannopoulos#RFC - Improving the lede, requested by editor Cunard, and in literally too many other places to reasonably or practicably note here per reasons of brevity, I participated in a seemingly non-closed RfC, originally with plans to assess the consensus and close this seemingly long-outstanding RfC. When I added an RfC tag, Legobot remembered it had been removed, and removed it, which is fine in that Legobot is operating per its programming. However, the problem comes down to one of time-wasting and user experience. With scripts like DiscussionCloser, adding closure tags is easy-peasy. And, we mandate it for closed page moves, AfDs, merger proposals, and elsewhere. This would be both consistent and reasonable. Doug Mehus (talk) 20:12, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Would your proposal even have applied there? Or was the problem that the RFC never got closed? Anomie⚔ 13:04, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Anomie, It never got closed, its tag expired, or it got closed and the closing editor/admin chose not to wrap in optional closure tags and state consensus outcome. I don't think making mandatory use of closure tags for WP:RFC would be problematic. It would be consistent with our other processes. Doug Mehus (talk) 17:19, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Looking at the history, it expired and the tag was removed by Legobot here. I'm not sure your suggestion would help or is advisable. RFCs are supposed to be able to expire without being formally closed (that possibility is listed on WP:RFC), especially in situations where the consensus is clear and already-implemented or is rendered moot by later events. Requiring a formal closure risks WP:CREEP - what would you have Legobot do in those circumstances? Should there be an "auto-closed by Legobot" template? An "RFC expired" template? Would this effectively require that RFCs stay open until someone comes in to formally close them? Are you suggesting expiration should require someone formally close the RFC as "expired", and would that require an uninvolved editor? I feel like any possible fix could lead to more wasted time and effort than the problem you're trying to address. Especially considering that, honestly, there's a much simpler fix - if the RFC template is present, the RFC is open. If it isn't, the RFC is either closed or malformed, and in either case you shouldn't just leap into trying to close it. Underlining the rules of "don't remove an RFC template unless you have a valid reason" and "all open RFCs must have an RFC template" would fix this problem much more cleanly and with fewer burdensome requirements than changing the way RFCs expire or removing the option to end an RFC with no formal closure. --Aquillion (talk) 06:52, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Doug Mehus, what did you actually want to achieve? Did you need someone to come along and "officially" declare that everyone agreed on something (or didn't agree on anything)? People to just stop talking about it and move on? The question to be advertised longer? Something else?

Something that can be useful in these discussions is to have a look at the little glossary inside WP:RFCEND, so that everyone who's talking about "ending" or "closing" is really talking about the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, I was just looking to have some actual finality to RfCs. Often, since the closure tags are optional, I and other editors will reply to a discussion that's already concluded. Worse still, some discussions are listed on the closure noticeboard requesting closure except they appear to have been closed with no determination of consensus. I don't see the harm in making closure tags mandatory especially with DiscussionCloser. Doug Mehus T·C 00:52, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

"Finality" is anathema to Wikipedia's consensus policy. Wikipedia:Consensus can change at any moment, including immediately after the most respected admin in the community boxes up a discussion and declares that the discussion had reached a particular result.

The meaning of closure tags (the colored box) is "you and your views aren't welcome here any longer". Except in rare cases (e.g., discussions that are pointless or destructive), I consider sending that message to the people who will see the discussion the next day/week/month and perhaps have a useful contribution to make, to be a serious harm.

Are you having trouble telling when a discussion is actually concluded? (Hint: It has nothing to do with when the bot removes the RFC tags.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, Yes, I get that, but that's precisely the point why it makes sense to make closure tags mandatory, so the old discussion can be closed and the new discussion—and new consensus—can begin anew/be formed. Doug Mehus T·C 01:24, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

I don't look at coloured boxes that way. It just means to me, "OK, don't comment here, but feel free to start a new discussion and don't bother looking at the past discussions unless you want to," which is precisely in keeping with WP:CON, no? Doug Mehus T·C 01:26, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Where's the value in starting over, especially if it's a reasonably recent and not a very long discussion? Imagine that a few people had a discussion. A month or two after their last comment, you had something to contribute. Wouldn't it be annoying if you were told, "Oh, no, you can't just join our conversation. Our conversation is too special for you to join now. We set a totally artificial, completely arbitrary deadline, and you missed it. You have to go start a separate new conversation."

When the discussion is really resolved (i.e., people made a decision and implemented it), and it's been a really long time (long enough that some of the people involved in the decision might not be active), then it can make sense to start a new discussion. But if it's recent, or if it's still unresolved, I think it's a lot better to just jump in and have your say right there. The normal talk page guidelines apply to talk page discussions that happen to have been advertised, and that includes the normal rule that you can re-open old discussions and join in anything on the talk page, regardless of the date of the prior comments. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

See meatball:WikiNow: "The idea of the WikiNow is that all conversations are current, no matter at what time they are read. This means two things: as a writer, that readers five years in the future will look upon what you write with currentness; and that as a reader, what was written five years ago is still prime for continued discussion." Closing sections just because they're old isn't useful, it's just needless WP:BURO. Wug·a·po·des​ 04:08, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Multiple users logged in on same account

Does anyone know if there is any rule against more than one person being given & using the password of a user account? Can't find anything on that. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:30, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

@SergeWoodzing: That's not usually allowed, see WP:NOSHARING. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:40, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you - that's what I was trying to find. --SergeWoodzing (talk) 20:41, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

It's good to know there's a restriction, Portuguese Wikipedia even had a shared sysop account at some point, I just assumed it was allowed and a study group I direct considered doing it for organisational purposes (and to avoid meatpuppetry accusations). We never did it anyway. Leefeni^{aures audiendi audiat} 21:36, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

This strays from the original topic, but why isn't there a policy that explicitly bans or otherwise restricts shared accounts whose usernames don't imply that they're shared? From AnUnnamedUser ^{(open talk page)} 00:23, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

We have the policy Sharing an account – or the password to an account – with others is not permitted, but one of the common ways of finding such accounts is when the name implies they are shared. ϢereSpielChequers 14:56, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

And why is there a policy that explicitly bans or otherwise restricts shared accounts? I was believing wikipedia was for sharing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.136.208.32 (talk) 01:40, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

It is for sharing, but contributions must be attributable to "a person". Matt Deres (talk) 19:08, 21 November 2019 (UTC)