Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 45

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The reader will not or cannot follow these links

Could somebody remember how was the Section 2.7 enriched by the following extremist instruction how to write texts:

“ While wikilinks should be provided for advanced terms and concepts in that field, articles should be written on the assumption that the reader will not or cannot follow these links, instead attempting to infer their meaning from the text. ”

Was there actually a WP:consensus for this wording? First of all, it does not describe a current practice. Certainly, wikilinks should be provided for advanced (and not so) terms and concepts in that field (and neighbouring fields), but an article has to stay on its topic, which in many circumstances contradicts to the requirement to infer their meaning from the text. On the other hand, instructions about the style belong to the competence of Wikipedia content guidelines, not policies. Would it be better to link appropriate guidelines and remove the problematical phrase from policies? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 09:11, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOT has to, by its nature, cover both content and style approaches that would otherwise push the bounds of what being an encyclopedia is, so we can't separate out this type of advice. That said, with complex terms, it is not that this nor other style guides same that you have to stop and explain the meaning of the term, but simply to write around it appropriate so that while the reader may not fully grasp the term's meaning, they can continue to read without being completely baffled. There are certainly concepts that are impossible to describe without injecting new terms, and it may be impossible to wrap these for readers to make their meaning inferred - this is common in higher maths articles, which is why the style advise about writing tech articles, which aligns with NOT here, is to start general and proceed to more detailed so that a reader knows when to break off if they don't need the nitty gritty but just need the basic gist of a concept. Also remember: that instruction in NOT has "should", like all of our descriptive policies. It's not a requirement. --MASEM (t) 14:33, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOT has to, by its nature, discourage certain patterns, not to suggest how to make an encyclopedia. I certainly know problems of “higher maths articles” (BTW there exists also theoretical physics, computer science, molecular biology, some topics in engineering, and other advanced domains), but the question is not only about them. Imagine a young person from some slum or village in an inland Asia, or Africa, or wherever. How the article United States should be written to became accessible for him/her without resorting to wikilinks?

The United States of America (USA or U.S.A., pronounced "Yu-Ess-Ay"), commonly called the United States (US or U.S., pronounced "Yu-Ess") and America (not to be confused with North America mentioned below), is a large country and a federal republic, where the word "republic" means a government legitimated by the nation (people) itself, not by a sovereign, and the word "federal" means that the country consists of fifty states and a federal district with their own governments and laws. The 48 contiguous states and the federal district of Washington, D.C. is the territory accessible to a travel from the capital city without leaving the national territory. It is situated in central North America, a large continent (landmass) on the planet Earth, between other, independent countries Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is west of Canada and east of Russia which lies further west across the Bering Strait (a gap between landmasses covered by water or ice, the frozen water, depending on season) in Asia, another large continent. The state of Hawaii is in the mid-North Pacific, the largest body of water of the planet Earth, which is situated west of 48 contiguous states. The United States also has five populated and nine unpopulated territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean, a sea (body of water) which lies on the southern side of North America. A "territory in a sea" means an island or group of islands, a piece of territory surrounded by water from all sides.

How aforementioned young person from an inland slum or village could know what is "North America", "federalism", "Canada", "Pacific", or even a "sea" or an "island"? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:52, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

We have to make some assumption on the reading proficiency and knowledge of the average reader, otherwise, we might as well be writing as if we were at the Simple English WP. Setting a level that we can expect the reader just makes everyone's lives easier in writing, both in how much detail on needs to provide to avoid wikilink explanations, but as well as to engage the reader properly int he topic. I know this isn't well documented but my read of where this lowest common denominator sits is based on a fluent English speaker with secondary education (high school) - this is consistent with the approach taken at WP:MOSLINK on when and when not to link. Thus, for example, we would not need to explain the term "republic" because that is a reasonable expectation of a high school level government/social studies course (though linking the term is still good); similarly we would not explain out North America as we expect these readers to be sufficiently knowledgeable in world geography. The "explanation" comes at the next level when we start getting to college-level topics, etc advanced maths, physics, etc, and that's where the articles need to start at explaining why this topic is important in high-school level terms, but then proceed to the more difficult discussion that may require more detailed knowledge of the field to really understand. --MASEM (t) 17:09, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

About "not censored"

As anyone familiar with wikipolitics knows, "not censored" is here to stay. Nonetheless, the current implementation is so draconian as to be rather POV in itself. At the risk of reductive oversimplification, I'm going to comment upon the issue from a US perspective; similar political rifts are found, in much greater magnitude, throughout the world. Consider the position of high school administrators in Utah: for cultural, and indeed, legal reasons, they can't allow many Wikipedia images containing nudity and sexuality to be displayed to their students through computers in their schools' labs. Yet identifying and blocking each such image locally would be an extremely unsavory, and probably Sisyphean task. So they may have little choice but to block access to Wikipedia in its entirety. Students then lose access to the 99.99% of Wikipedia that the school had no inclination to censor. Presented in falsely dichotomous terms, the so called “prudes” present a demand that we cannot possibly accommodate without grave injury to the utility of the encyclopedia. The cultural diversity of the world contains vast spectrum of standards of bodily modesty, many far more restrictive than what the school administrator in the example above ever wanted. Clearly not all of these will be adhered to on Wikipedia; privileging some but not others presents an issue of systematic bias. However, I propose a solution that gives everyone what they want, to the extent possible. The current practice of refusing to remove images because some people don't like them would be preserved. However, it would be possible to tag images with null templates whose names provided concise, NPOV, machine readable descriptions in the wikitext of the image pages, such as {{photographic nudity}}, {{human sexual act}}, and such. When viewing articles from an ordinary internet connection, the images would be displayed as normal, and the null templates would remain invisible unless editing the image pages. However, now our school administrators described in the example above get their preferences accommodated too, because they can set up the school's internet filter to selectively block the images with null templates they don't like, instead of having to remove Wikipedia from the school altogether. In fact, every school and other censor can do this, according to their own cultural standards, ensuring that each and every single one is equally provided for. Thus, there is no overall systematic bias, and no content is removed from the viewing of users whose ISPs would have allowed it anyway. From a purist perspective, it seems abhorrent to give the censors an easy, effective way to do their dirty work. But if we don't, then they can, and will, block us entirely. That would entail substantial collateral damage, such as students not being able to read our articles on evolutionary biology, or censorship! DavidLeighEllis (talk) 05:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

While good in theory, previous discussions on this have highlighted that objective, NPOV descriptions are difficult. For example, which of the following images would you tag as "photographic nudity"?

• Ben Nevis Guys
  Ben Nevis Guys
• 
  Dolcegab
• 
  Artistically tattooed
• 
  Panama Embera
• 
  KOT1234 (Femen)
• 
  Brighton Pride
• 
  Bikini
• 
  BW Embrace
• 
  Naked Berlin
• 
  Anterior view with labels
• 
  Soles
• Breastfeeding
  Breastfeeding
• 
  Scrotal skin
• 
  Transpiration perspiration
• 
  Frau censored
• 
  File:TrangBang.jpg: Non-free photograph of Phan Thị Kim Phúc running naked down a road near Trảng Bàng, Vietnam, after a napalm bomb was dropped on the village during the Vietnam War.

Some system administrators will want to block some but not all of those images, so more granularity is needed. Categories on Commons generally provide more (but not always sufficient) granularity, so why should we invest our time in duplicating that effort (which you note as being herculean)? Do note though that hierarchical blocking of categories can have unintended consequences, for example you might wish to block all images in Commons:Category:Sex and its subcategories but pictures of churches dedicated to Mary Magdalene are in such a category (Sex > Virginity > Virgin Mary > Churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary).Thryduulf (talk) 12:36, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Since the intent of null templates would be finer-grained descriptions than the existing categorization, tagging everything in a category would indeed be useless and lead to the sort of absurd consequences that you describe above. What is needed is some fine-grained editorial judgement on each image that appears in certain categories. My sample template names might not be the correct ones. This is, in principle, less difficult and subjective than, say, approving or denying featured pictures. Regrettably, I am not able to volunteer my services for this task. Every educational institution I've attended has had unfiltered internet access, so I'm not directly familiar with how the "other side" lives, beyond very general terms. Nor is sorting through this material, hour after hour, my idea of a fun afternoon. As with any editorial task, mere permission to perform it would not, by itself, effectuated. Whether permission should be granted, however, depends on whether we believe it would be appropriate, in principle, for the task to go forward, not practical possibility or lack thereof. We would not refrain from tagging articles for cleanup because of a huge backlog already, for instance. I would not countenance anything like null template categorization occurring without consensus here first. To proceed without consensus, and an addition to the wording of the policy, could easily be seen as an attempt to undermine a principle that Wikipedia professes to adhere to. That, of course, would be far worse than content that some people dislike. I will accept whatever the outcome of this discussion is. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 16:50, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Really this discussion is in the wrong place - to have any effect at all it would need to be implemented on Commons which is not something a discussion on en.wikipedia can say yay or nay to. The difference between tagging articles for cleanup and this proposal is with the utility of an inclomplete ist. If you have 1, 1000 or 1,000,000 articles tagged for cleanup the list is equally useful to have and nobody is seeing things they don't want to or not seeing things they do because of it. For the images list, until you get a significant proportion of images tagged it's basically useless - using it to whitelist you have in almost all cases the same outcome as blocking all images. If you are using it to blacklist then you still get people shown things they shouldn't/don't want to see and so it is in almost all cases the same as not filtering at all. Thryduulf (talk) 18:49, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying WP:INDISCRIMINATE

I suspect that WP:INDISCRIMINATE is the most incorrectly vaguewaved of our policies in deletion debates -it is often used to argue for the deletion of well-defined lists or chronologies, for example arguing that since content in a list is too broad -regardless of inclusion criteria that editors could arrange on the talk page to prune it- then the whole list is to ditch because it becomes "indiscriminate". Is there a way to make clear what does WP:INDISCRIMINATE forbids and what not? --Cyclopia^talk 18:19, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Any list that needs "criteria that editors could arrange on the talk page" should probably be deleted as WP:OR. Criteria for inclusion should be self-evident from the title. If this leads to to "too broad" a list, it is flawed from the start. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:54, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, perhaps an example can make it clearer. Timeline of food is currently at AfD. I personally think (and I'm arguing) that the topic is notable and the article deserves fixing -and indeed, I started fixing. Regardless of what you think, however, it seems pretty clear to me that a "timeline of food" is a very clear kind of information, and the fact that the original state of the article was a mess of unsourced random stuff doesn't make the concept any more "indiscriminate", even if the execution of the list was too broad. That's just the last case I've met: I've seen it vaguewaved in the same way many other times. I feel WP:INDISCRIMINATE is conceived to protect us from being a data-dump of obvious stuff like List of all prime numbers or List of source code revisions of the Linux kernel, not to be a jolly to argue for the deletion of every conceivable list/table. --Cyclopia^talk 19:07, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I was just looking at that - and it strikes me as just the sort of problematic 'list' I was referring too. It appears to me to be a synthesis of two different concepts, one probably valid, and self-limiting, and another indiscriminate and rather pointless. It starts off with a 'timeline of food' which indicates when a particular foodstuff first came into use (e.g. "7000 b.C. : Farmers in China began to farm rice and millet...") which, providing it is properly sourced seems genuinely informative and encyclopaedic. Later though, it suddenly becomes a list of particular brands:" 1888 Log Cabin Syrup 1889 Aunt Jemima pancake mix, Calumet Baking Powder..." - clearly US-biased, and clearly utterly incapable of being inclusive: it would end up being a 'list of every brand of food everywhere that anyone could find a date for' (if it was sourced, which it isn't presently). Either ridiculously long, or only including a small minority of the possible content. In any case, if a 'timeline of food brands' is justified at all, it should be just that - not something tacked on to the end of another list. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:27, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your diagnosis, but what I am pointing is a "baby-and-bathwater" problem: To use WP:INDISCRIMINATE as a sound reason to delete, I would expect that the article title is an obvious data-dump of some kind, while in this case it was just very poor content for what seems to me a reasonable article topic. What I would like to see is some clarification on what WP:INDISCRIMINATE excludes and what not. --Cyclopia^talk 19:48, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Not all lists/articles that require a WP-editor defined clarification is bad. We already do that for many "Lists of people from X", where generally any person on the list must have a blue-linked article. As long as the rational picked is natural and not some maze of red tape to delineate inclusion, it's acceptable to do such. --MASEM (t) 19:32, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we could get rid of WP:INDISCRIMINATE (as much as we love it)? In my opinion WP:INDISCRIMINATE doesn't adequately sum up its 3 component paragraphs. Section headings such as WP:SUMMARYONLY, WP:LYRICSDATABASES, and WP:STATISTICSEXCESSIVE could be assigned to those 3 paragraphs. Bus stop (talk) 21:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

It's needed as it's one of the 5 pillars. The thing to remember how NOT is layed out is that there are sections "these are not what we are", and then the specifics within each are incomplete examples where this concept applies. Eg: just not being listed as an explicit case at NOT doesn't mean it still can't fail not - we're just documenting the most common issues. It's very difficult to draw the line on exact cases of INDISCRIMINATE, but "we are not an indiscriminate collection of information" still rings true. --MASEM (t) 21:29, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Agreed with Masem. Only, I'd like it make it clearer what is classified as beyond the line and what not. Currently, it may seem clear to each one of us, but let's remember that "common sense" is not common at all. --Cyclopia^talk 21:34, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:INDISCRIMINATE is only a part of one of the WP:FIVEPILLARS.

WP:INDISCRIMINATE is a very important principle but it is a general concept for which there are countless manifestations. We have the problem of WP:VAGUEWAVE referred to by Cyclopia in part because we have three indiscriminately chosen examples of WP:INDISCRIMINATE below the general description of WP:INDISCRIMINATE. That general description should be retained and expanded upon. The three paragraphs below should be removed from WP:INDISCRIMINATE. In expanding the language of WP:INDISCRIMINATE we should explain that any editor invoking WP:INDISCRIMINATE should explain how they feel WP:INDISCRIMINATE applies to the particular case they are addressing. Bus stop (talk) 12:04, 18 June 2013 (UTC) Bus stop (talk) 21:39, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

One way we could fix this concern, if temporarily, would be to place "For example, " in front of "Wikipedia articles should not be:", no? Ansh666 07:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Except that would allow anyone to argue anything was indiscriminate, and by fiat change WP:NOT in a way that doesn't reflect consensus or community practice. The real problem is that INDISCRIMINATE, as some people want to use it, should actually be OVERLYTRIVIAL or WAAYTOOSPECIFICFORAGENERALPURPOSEENCYCLOPEDIA. Indiscriminate lists are things like "fish", 1492, and Spiro Agnew. THAT is an indiscriminate list. The list of Mobile Gundam whatever weapons is overly discriminate, not INDISCRIMINATE, but IINFO gets cited all too often in AfDs, and almost never correctly. Oh, and since WP:INDISCRIMINATE is listed on WP:5P, that's why strict construction is necessary--WP:NOT has evolved far more often and with less community-wide discussion than 5P ever will. Jclemens (talk) 07:24, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Jclemens. What Ansh666 proposes is the opposite of what I want. I want to see WP:IINFO be more specific, not more vague, and I want it to stop being a meaningless jolly card for deletion discussions. The point is that we need indeed something to avoid being a data dump: we don't want to have a List of powers of 2, even if for sure it can be sourced reliably. WP:INDISCRIMINATE should be more like WP:NOTDATABASE. But even that is at risk of ambiguity. -- cyclopia^speak! 13:49, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

It is likely that we are talking about "indiscriminate" for what the purposes of information in an encyclopedia should be and not so much indiscriminate to the specific topic. Eg: a list of Mobile Gundam vehicles would be highly discriminate as to what it is included as pointed out, but compared to what information should be in a summary tertiary source, is indiscriminate. That is, IINFO applies to the overall scope of the encyclopedia and not specifically to the topic (eg "WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information" certainly means "as a whole"). As to for NOT, it is impossible to project what people may do in the future, so the best we can do across the board is be like a case book of known "what we are NOT" aspects, as opposed to necessarily trying to define a vague shape. It is important to understand to that point these are examples to say what lines within and outside that shape, but no way we can define the boundary. --MASEM (t) 13:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The comment by Masem, and its comparison with the one by Jclemens, is helpful in that it is clear that WP:INDISCRIMINATE is understood in too many different ways across the board, even by very experienced editors. I agree it translates as "indiscriminate as a whole". However comments like "a list of Mobile Gundam vehicles would be highly discriminate as to what it is included as pointed out, but compared to what information should be in a summary tertiary source, is indiscriminate." tend to be close to of WP:UNENCYC, which is kind of circular. I wonder if overarching rules about topics that should be covered by WP are detailed in notability guidelines and similar ones, and if WP:INDISCRIMINATE is more about the presentation of such information. Let me explain, because I understand it's counterintuitive. To me, an article like List of known prime numbers falls clearly under WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Because we're not an "indiscriminate collection of information": it's not just a place where you dump bytes and hope they stick. But the same general topic is presented in Prime number and the like. So it is about the problem: how do we talk of prime numbers? Do we present the topic with an informative article, summarizing general knowledge from sources about them? (yes) Or do we just dump a list of numbers which actually presents no topic? (no) -- cyclopia^speak! 16:14, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, considering your comment, what is basically a truism is that the more discriminate you get as you detail a topic, the more indiscriminate that information becomes for a tertiary summary source. There's a point of balance here in how detailed you drill into a topic and how broadly we should be covering these as a reference work. To some extent, we use souring and notability to help take some guesswork out of the equation - if a detailed topic is well covered in independent secondary sources, it would not be indiscriminate of us to cover it as part of an encyclopedia. But this by far is not the only metric, and that's a way to look at the whole of NOT as a list of cases where we know that the line is crossed. Calling something "unencyclopdic" basically means that the information drills down to a level that is far too discriminate for that topic that dilutes the purpose of being a summary work. That said, I do agree that presentation also plays into it, but I would not argue that a raw data dump is necessary "indiscriminate", but simply poorly presented, at least how we use these terms at NOT. --MASEM (t) 16:42, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

The reason I proposed that above was the sentence "We have the problem of WP:VAGUEWAVE referred to by Cyclopia in part because we have three indiscriminately chosen examples of WP:INDISCRIMINATE below the general description of WP:INDISCRIMINATE." I agree it wouldn't be an adequate fix. The confusion about this seems to stem from the different meanings of the word "indiscriminate" (see Merriam-Webster, for example). It would help to narrow down exactly which connotation is meant in the policy, as a first step. Ansh666 18:04, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files"...

We've already broken that rule. 124.122.118.94 (talk) 11:27, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean in general or with a particular article, and if its one article you should mention which one.--174.93.171.179 (talk) 19:16, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:GAMEGUIDE

This section contains the specific text "Video game guides" - however, shouldn't it apply to other sorts of games (card games, board games, sports, etc.) as well? Ansh666 15:20, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

There was a relatively recent attempt to expand it into those others (I think I started it, but certain I know I was in favor of it), and there was considerable push against it from mostly those in sports as well as the "classic" games like chess, worried that it would impact articles on rules of professional sports and legit articles on game strategies (at least for chess for example). A rewording seemed appropriate then but it was hard to nail it down. --MASEM (t) 15:26, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Ah. This is because I have someone saying that "chess software" is not a "video game", and that GAMEGUIDE doesn't apply (the article now passes, after extensive changes). Ansh666 15:40, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The thing to remember: what is listed as specific cases under NOT are not fully inclusive of what we are not; the concepts they convey should be applied with common sense to other areas. Hence why I don't think there's a huge rush to try to expand GAMEGUIDE to all "games", because the concept is clear for video games and can easily get muddied for other types of games, though there should be some common sense application (eg yes, a chess program, for all purposes, is a video game, using the rules of chess which are well documented elsewhere). --MASEM (t) 15:44, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The specific type of content that this was written with in mind is mostly fairly specific to video games (although I guess some might also be appropriate to table-top games?) and it is video game articles that there was historically an issue with. That is not to say that we want detailed articles on board game pieces (although Monopoly money), but discussions of strategy in sports and in (at least some) card and board games can be encyclopaedic (e.g. Chess strategy, Bridge Base Basic, Go tactics, Formation (association football), etc). If there are problems with inappropriately detailed articles about these sorts of games that can be distilled into a few generally applicable bullets then it might make sense to do that and make the video games section a specific subsection of it. I'm not aware of any problems (though that doesn't mean they don't exist) and so I'm not really seeing a need to do it tbh. Thryduulf (talk) 16:00, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Then, one last question: if there was a section like Sorry! (game)#Strategy (pulled at random), would that break the spirit (obviously not the letter) of WP:GAMEGUIDE? And even if it did, could it justify removal? (I'm not going to do it if you say yes; I'm just wondering. Also, I'm pretty sure you've answered this above, but I just want to make sure I'm 99.99% clear on what you say using an example.) Ansh666 16:08, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

While some discussion of the strategy is probably encyclopaedic (I know nothing about the game though, so I'm not certain), that section is not (imho). The "Players .. can (and should) elect to move this pawn backwards." is fairly explicitly language from a strategy guide rather than an encyclopaedic discussion of strategy. Rather than remove it though, I would recommend rewriting it if you can find sources. Thryduulf (talk) 17:33, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Unsourced "strategy" sections is original research, even if the strategy seems obvious. How likely we'd retain a sourced section of that size depends to how much sourcing there is. A case I'm reasonably confident of is over at Dominion (card game) where there is basically a short para that describes about not diluting one's deck with end-game valuable but mid-game worthless cards. This is noted as a strategy by a reliable source. This is both short and sourced, and thus reasonable. Of course for Dominion there's probably several dozen volumes that could be written on strategy - but it hasn't from reliable sources, nor necessary to understand the game at the encyclopedic level. --MASEM (t) 06:21, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

It's hard to write strategy for a card game where the number of valid starting setups (10 of X, where X is the number of available card types) is rapidly approaching has just exceeded Avogadro's number. Jclemens (talk) 05:27, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Technically the same argument can be made about chess, but then we have, as a start: Category:Chess openings. This is not to argue that the chess opening articles fail GAMEGUIDE, as they are examples of strategy that is discussed in sources (and with the age of chess, much more established through the bulk of reference works). In the case of Dominion there are a lot more highly general strategic elements that could be called out (for example, what you can expect your first two turns, or what happens when two cards of synergistic function are on the board) but we're not able to because those elements of strategy aren't discussed in sources. --MASEM (t) 13:14, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Not really, no. Chess has exactly one starting setup. While the number of permutations per setup is far higher, I was just talking about starting setups, which are incredibly diverse in Dominion. Jclemens (talk) 06:38, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

The point is not so much on how the game is set up, but the volume of strategy information that is published. Chess is so well documented that there's hundreds of possible ways to lead off the game and most of those are discussed in a manner relating to strategy that we can have articles on those individual openings. For Dominion, there is nearly nil in terms of reliable sourcing about how to approach the game's opening or general gameplay altogether to allow deep strategy discussion. That would go against GAMEGUIDE, while chess opening coverage would not. --MASEM (t) 13:28, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protection

After the last, year-long, semi-protection expired in March almost every single edit by a new or unregistered user has been reverted, and such edits and reversions take up most of the history of the page since then. Accordingly I've indefinitely semi-protected it. Hopefully at some point in the future it will no longer be necessary, but I don't see it in the short term. Thryduulf (talk) 09:56, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Well done - I ought to have thought about it a long while ago. I've gotten fed up of seeing this essay on my watchlists several times every day. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:16, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Shortcut bloat

This is an important policy page with multiple and complex sub-sections. As a result, many users create shortcuts that are more intuitive and easier to type that full section links. Shortcuts are very helpful to this page.

That said, not all of them need to be listed in the infoboxes at the right of every section. The lists of shortcuts has in some cases become so long that they are again starting to interfere with readability. This is a maintenance effort that we seem to have to take every few years. I think it's time again.

Note: I am not proposing that the shortcuts be deleted. Most are helpful, useful and, most importantly, in active use. My proposal is merely to prune which ones we choose to advertise here. Rossami (talk) 22:26, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Yea, we need to keep trimming these. The shortcut can still exist, but we can't list them all. --MASEM (t) 22:56, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, the page does seem to be a bit thick of alphabet in a soup. But on the second glance there are not so many of them are clearly redundant. Some sections do speak of rather different things, which people may want to shortcut. IMO at the moment we just keep an eye against further shortrcut bloating. At the same time I'd second the resolving of the following clear redundancies:

• Most of the ones that do not have the word NOT. May be they are saving 3 keystrtokes, but may be confusing to editors weak in wp-lingo:
  • WP:PAPER, WP:FORUM, etc.
• Choose the style we would prefer to promote: with or without separators:
  • WP:NOTESSAY vs. WP:NOT#ESSAY

Delisting half of them will not bar from using them for those who is used to them. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:21, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Staszek Lem (talk) 16:21, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I am not certain about the formes not beginning with NOT, but for the ones that do, NOTESSAY is much better than NOT#ESSAY because we always prefer the basic alphabetic characters. DGG ( talk ) 00:13, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

• I support severe trimming of the display of shortcuts, particularly cute ones like WP:!. Keep the redirects for those that want them, but remove excess shortcuts from useful pages. Excess shortcuts leads to confusion: Why are the alternatives listed? Do they have some significance? Which one should an editor use? Johnuniq (talk) 00:45, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

"Not censored" again

I'm certainly in favor of the broad concept that Wikipedia not be censored. That being said, yesterday I came across a fairly context-less reference to Phimosis, and decided to look it up on Wikipedia, only to be immediately greeted by a large picture of an erect penis. Is that really necessary? Surely Wikipedia can be uncensored, and also use common sense about when to use photographs of erect penises (not above the fold, at the very least)? People use Wikipedia in all kinds of contexts where they probably don't want large pictures of genitalia to pop up unexpectedly - can't we at least throw a bone in their direction? john k (talk) 12:17, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, at that article, there's no way around the issue - that's exactly what is appropriate and necessary to describe. Even the simple diagram, if used for the top image, would still cause problems but we still need a representative image of the condition. The question is what of the article that linked you there as to lack context. If you know you are coming from a "G-rated" article to one that will likely have material that could be taken inappropriately, you should try to give enough context to make it clear (without explicitly stating so) what the article being linked to may be about. But we otherwise can't force the change at the given article. --MASEM (t) 13:13, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, it wasn't linked from a Wikipedia article - I just came across the term elsewhere and looked it up. Maybe I should have known better, but I still wasn't expecting a big picture of an erect penis. It didn't matter for me (I was at home alone), but I can imagine that kind of thing mattering for others. Putting the simple diagram up top would be a serious improvement, I think. john k (talk) 17:03, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

The place to discus that is at Talk:Phimosis, but do note that you will need to justify it on grounds other than the photograph not being appropriate for the article (as it clearly is). Thryduulf (talk) 19:14, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia should not be indulging exhibitionists, voyeurs, and other assorted paraphilias, especially on a site that permits anonymous editing. Contributors should show their faces, not their genitalia. Editing under one's RL identity requires more courage than stripping naked under a pseudonym. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:02, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately that goes counter to the Foundation's principles. Mind you, the Foundation does frown on nude pictures for sake of carnal pleasure, but there is nothing against someone that wishes to remain anon photographing themselves in the nude for the purposes of acadamic illustration of an article (as in this case). --MASEM (t) 00:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The "academic nudity" thing has surely worn a bit thin by now, hasn't it? DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:31, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The image in the article above is clearly of academic value to show what phimosis actually looks like. While its a picture of male anatomy, its not taken in a manner to necessarily arouse and instead to illustrate the medical term. How else do you propose to show it? --MASEM (t) 01:55, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Henceforth, all users who wish to upload magnified pictures of human genitalia would be required to pick up a hammer and chisel, carve their anatomy into stone, then upload an image thereof. You aren't Michaelangelo, you say? Then what artistic business do you have creating images of genitals, without daring to show your face? All directly photographic nudes should be of identifiable people. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:45, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

BTW, a trouble with "academic nudity" is that it opens the floodgates. Editors will then claim that "religious nudity" should likewise be exempted. I'm not kidding about this; Wiccans sometimes worship skyclad. Such practices are very uncommon, though not altogether unheard of, in Abrahamic faiths. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 01:09, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

And? What's the problem? Our disclaimers say that there may be content you find offensive and that you use WP at your own risk, taking any issue of whether certain images offend others out of WP's hand. Yes, we do have a larger policy of "principle of least surprise" , that an article about the concept of "worship" in general should not lead off with a nude Wiccan ceremony, though certainly later in the body that may be appropriate. But that's difficult to enforce without immediately tying hands on so many other issues. --MASEM (t) 01:52, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

It would take a couple hours to scribble a browser plug-in which would block images from Wikipedia pages which contain words "penis". Is none are marketed among numerous "parental control" tools, it means no demand, and all the more not a job for wiki[m|p]edia. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:34, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

m:Don't be a dick would seem directly relevant. DavidLeighEllis (talk) 00:48, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems rather like original research to me to suggest that this particular image of what is purportedly the penis of User:Andrew1985 is an example of phimosis. What reliable source confirms this? john k (talk) 19:39, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Uh, it seems visually obvious, based on the definition there, that that photo is showing the case. I would agree that if there was some marginal doubt that the image was showing that condition, and that the image was likely updated just to show off, we'd remove it. But here, just by reading the text and looking at the medical diagram, it's pretty apparent that the photo shows this, so it's not a question of naked photography for sake of being lewd. --MASEM (t) 20:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, WP:Original images. Chris857 (talk) 20:07, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

It's not proven by the photo. The definition of phimosis as the article gives it is "a condition in males where the foreskin cannot be fully retracted over the glans penis". A photo alone will not demonstrate the inability to retract the foreskin. You would need a video of someone trying and failing to retract the foreskin. Not that I am asking for such a video, I think the image we have already for this article is acceptable. Lesion (talk) 22:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I strongly oppose all censorship. That said, in this case it may be possible to reduce the shock value while increasing the educational value by cropping/zooming the penis photo a little (it's pretty high-resolution). In some cultures (Japan) the sight of public hair is what defines "obscenity", a factor which I suspect might be influencing you subjectively; and as it happens we don't really need the pubic hair to show something that is really happening up at the end. Wnt (talk) 19:20, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The edit I ended up making is [1]. (I'm not sure how far to crop, so I wanted it to be available for other editors to modify. But I'd better write a module because I just do not grok the bottom/negative pixel alignment) Is this more tolerable to you? Wnt (talk) 19:57, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - I would imagine that the inability to retract the foreskin is actually better demonstrated by a picture of an erect penis rather than a flaccid one? Lesion (talk) 22:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
  • Agree with Lesion that the illustration is valid (ie a genuinely encyclopedic illustration). Perhaps we could move it further down the page and position the figure a schematic illustration at the top, broadly per WP:ASTONISH? Adding: However, I think the present diagram is best left in its current location, under Management. 86.140.51.65 (talk) 07:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Requested move of Wikipedia:Advertisements

Hello all. I've just started a requested move discussion for Wikipedia:Advertisements, which has some relation to the WP:NOTPROMO policy. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Advertisements#Requested move if anyone is interested. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 15:31, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Lists of flags

Before I start a mass AfD or a massive series of AfDs: is there an obvious reason or previous discussion why most of the articles in Category:Lists and galleries of flags would be exempt from WP:NOTGALLERY? Things like List of municipal flags of Hokkaidō, Flags of Estonian counties, Flag of the Tuvan People's Republic, List of Belgian flags, Flags of Polish voivodeships, Flags of Asia ... can all be made (and should be made) on Commons, not here. Fram (talk) 10:00, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not aware of any previous discussion, but honestly I see flags as different from other galleries of images. First of all, it's not a gallery of photographs or paintings of a given subject: it's a list of official graphics symbols. Second, I suppose that lists of flags make sense in the context of the first pillar, when it refers to "gazeteers". -- cyclopia^speak! 11:21, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

If the flags were presented in a style of a gazetteer, where the focus is on the geographical place, that would make sense. List of municipal flags of Hokkaidō is not that. The list, which heads off from Municipalities of Japan, should be fixed to work more based on geography with the flag as secondary info to that. On the other hand, List of Belgian flags is more a historical approach and would seem ok, but really should have more context. --MASEM (t) 13:17, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of NOTGALLERY is not to prohibit certain style of presentation; it's to exclude content that is not encyclopedic in nature, like random collections of unrelated material uploaded to the site (in essence, what would be upload in a Wikimedia Commons category). A collection of flags is not a random collection, as it content is exhaustive and well-defined. A short, complete list of every item that is verifiably a member of the group is a valid criterion for a list article; that the elements in the list are of visual nature doesn't make them less valid for inclusion. So please, don't start a massive series of AfDs for flag articles, because WP:NOTGALLERY doesn't apply to them. Diego Moya (talk) 12:26, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

That's not how I understand WP:NOTGALLERY. It is about the presentation, not about the content, for which we have sufficient other criteria (a list of unrelated content is always excluded, no matter if the presentation is visual or textual). A list should either be self-contained, having all the necessary information about the presented items (e.g. lists of characters), or be a pointer to articles about the items that make up the list (or a combination of both). The lists of flags (e.g; those of municipalities or counties) fit neither description. Further, the intention of Wikipedia and the other wikis (e.g. wiktionary, but also commons) is to have the info in one or the other, not in both; these type of "articles" are perfectly suited for Commons, so why host them here? Fram (talk) 13:43, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

In one regards, I've not heard of commons having "articles", but another problem is that this would split flag lists, as there are countries where flags like these are not all free images, and they (if appropriate) could only reside here. But I completely agree that these lists which barely have any prose need to be better arranged to use flag images as the anciliary and not the primary purpose of these lists. --MASEM (t) 13:58, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

"Articles" on Commons are things like this or (more relevant perhaps for this discussion) things like this, this, this, ... Fram (talk) 14:20, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Eh,yeah, that looks like more nicely arranged gallery pages to help editors find images, and less about educational content. However, this still gets to your point that if we at WP are hosting these lists, they need much better context within the list or else they are effectively like these commons articles and should be moved there. --MASEM (t) 14:23, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

1. List of Polish flags is a Featured List. It's always good to keep in mind the "end result", rather than just the "current condition". List of Belgian flags is getting there. Flags of Estonian counties is essentially a "stub", and needs a lot of work. None of them need deletion.
2. Asking for input from the relevant wikiproject is generally useful. I've done so at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology#Feedback request at WT:NOT (I have no connection to or interest in the project).
3. WP:Gallery was created to deal with 2 issues:
   1. Pages named "Gallery of ..." that had no potential for notability.^[2]
   2. Editors adding un-curated images to a ==Gallery== section at the bottom of articles. That problem resulted in arguments about image-order, and image-relevance. The extreme example would be someone who wanted to add everything (or even most of) the images from commons:Category:Bananas into a Gallery at the bottom of Banana.

Hope that helps. –Quiddity (talk) 19:57, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

• Instead of thinking of Flags of Estonian counties as simply a gallery of flags, think of them as the list of official symbols of Estonia counties (flags). Just because the content happens to be flags instead of, say, county governors, doesn't make it any less encyclopedic. NOTGALLERY exists to keep articles from becoming collections of random pictures instead of an encyclopedic description of the subject, with pictures used to enhance the article narrative. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 22:11, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
  • But in this specific example, why can't the flag images be on Counties of Estonia, where there is more context provided (eg where we have gazetteer-like content)? This is the complain here, is Flags of Estonian counties is just a gallery without context, but can be transformed into something with context. --MASEM (t) 22:14, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
    • They can, but that wouldn't happen if they're deleted. :-) We have to admit this partial form as valid encyclopedic content if we want the incremental editing wiki-process to improve them to featured status. I agree with Quiddity above that WP:GALLERY was not intended for situations like this, but for collections of images that would have no place at any finished article.. Diego Moya (talk) 22:24, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
      • What I'm saying is there absolutely no reason to have the separate flag article if you put the flag images in Counties of Estonia. Flags of Estonian counties does fail GALLERY because just putting images together with no context is just that, but the images can be retained appropriate if moved to the other article and put in the larger gazetteer table. --MASEM (t) 22:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
    • I'm sure the images are just fine for Counties of Estonia. But at some point in time, an editor will decide that the current flags of Estonian counties article is a stub that they can work on expanding. They'll go out and find historic flag images, or even just flag descriptions, and create a new section on pre-WWI flags, and another section on Swedish Estonia flags, etc etc. That's never going to happen at Counties of Estonia, and the context of vexillological history will be lost because of a bureaucratic reading of a policy drafted to address a completely different circumstance. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 22:42, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
      • I very much doubt that will happen for non-national flags. National, yes (eg Flag of Poland), but at the sub-national level, there may be exceptions but I don't see that the case happening normally. If there is significant history to any of the flags, it can be expanded out ala the Flag of Poland article, but it would not expand out in Flags of Estonian counties. Hence a problem. --MASEM (t) 22:49, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
        • A merge discussion would be completely rational/acceptable to all. If part of it needed to be split back out later on (for reasons of length), that would be reasonable too. But the initial suggestion was a mass-deletion, which is not a positive direction to move in. –Quiddity (talk) 23:30, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
          • I agree a mass deletion is probably inappropriate, but a merge/condensing discussion does need to happen. --MASEM (t) 23:46, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
        • I don't know how to respond to just a blanket refusal to consider the usage scenario, but I've shown that a list of flags is a distinct entity from an article on the political entities. They have different expansion opportunities, neither of which are appropriate for the alternate page. If you want to suggest a merger, then Flags of Estonia is the place to put this content, with national and municipal flags added in. But this is still in direct conflict with the assertion that list of flag articles are inappropriate; just the opposite, in fact. So while this particular page has plenty of room to be expanded, and may be best merged with other content, the contention that list of flags are unencyclopedic is decidedly false. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 23:54, 5 August 2013 (UTC)
          • We're not here to host articles that are centered around images. Content that includes visual images, yes. I've pointed out the merger in one example is moving the flags from Flags of Estonian counties to Counties of Estonia. Given all the various flag articles on WP, I'm not seeing the potential for a non-national entity's flag of being expanded upon in the same manner that a national flag (ala Flag of Poland) can be expanded. --MASEM (t) 00:04, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
            • Where does it say that we can't host articles centered around images? Test card seems to directly contradict that assertion, and it reads a hell of a lot into a policy that talks about "mere collection(s) of photographs". The alternate suggestions say absolutely nothing applicable to these kinds of articles, which pretty strongly suggests that it wasn't intended to apply to this kind of article, or at least that this kind of article was never considered. In the end, removing this content, even if it's added to counties of Estonia, is anti-encyclopedic, removing flags from their vexillological context. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 00:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
              • WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an argument to use - Test card has significant problems outside of the NOT#GALLERY facet (too many non-frees). And what vexillogical context? There is none. Until that's shown, it makes no sense to have a separate article. You do a better job of covering both the flags and the gazetteer function when they are covered together. --MASEM (t) 00:59, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
                • Well, "We're not here to host articles that are centered around images" certainly isn't any kind of policy, so I assumed that you might have been trying to codify existing practice. Evidence to the contrary is certainly relevant where someone is trying to codify existing practice (See WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS#Precedent in usage). I simply WP:AGFed that you weren't just making something up and trying to pass it off as policy.

As for vexillological context, that would be the description, however terse, of the history behind these flags - a history that is certainly inappropriate for expansion, and maybe even mere inclusion, in the Estonian counties article, but wholly appropriate for a flags article. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 05:24, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I have to agree with Vanisaac here. No policy I'm aware of forbids image-centered content, provided it's not a "mere collection of photographs and media files" (to quote WP:NOTGALLERY). A well defined list or article containing several images is not a mere collection, as Gallery of sponges could be: it's a proper list of things that happen to be visual instead than textual. -- cyclopia^speak! 09:51, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Which we shouldn't be here due to our accessibility attempts as well as NOTGALLERY. We don't focus on visual content because we know a portion of our readers are blind, on mobile systems that don't support images well, or other reasons. Visuals should be alongside text where apprpriate. Also note that I'm not denying the ability to go into the history of a flag (barring non-free image issues), Flag of Poland is a perfectly legit article. But I do not see any point in having a separate presentation of flags when there is an equivalent list that is on facts and figures that matches up with the flags - putting both together does not weaken the flag aspect. And then when there is sufficient information to expand on the history of one flag, we then make the Flag of X article as appropriate. Flags of Estonian counties is a gallery for all purposes. --MASEM (t) 14:05, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

That some article content can't be accessed by some is not a reason to remove its access from everyone. Therefore if some article requires lots of visual content to make sense, it is entirely appropriate that it is. I agree that, when possible, a merge could be a good idea. But Flags of Estonian counties is not a mere gallery, it is a well defined list of things that happen to need a graphical representation, instead of a textual one -regardless of the possibility of a merge. -- cyclopia^speak! 15:07, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I am clearly missing something because I see nothing that is lost in presentation or visual information by moving the flags to the table of Estonian counties where they will be alongside other datum for each county, and improve the context of the images as to avoid the gallery issues. Otherwise, we might as well move the flag article to commons as Fram suggests. --MASEM (t) 15:11, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree we do not lose anything in that specific case, but I was saying that being mostly visual doesn't seem to me a reasonable argument, in itself, to merge or delete such a list. -- cyclopia^speak! 15:14, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

NOTGALLERY is the argument against making an article or a section of an article too reliant on just visual information. --MASEM (t) 16:01, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

NOTGALLERY is not such thing. It's a warning against having an unencyclopedic repository, not because it is visual in nature but because it's uncategorized. It's no different to WP:NOTPLOT and WP:NOTLYRICS, that don't preclude plot summaries or lyrics because they're textual but because they're presented without context. Or WP:NOTCATALOG, where genealogical entries are not forbidden for being genealogical entries (we have several of those) but because they describe people without notoriety. Diego Moya (talk) 16:34, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

... or we could put a See also link to counties of Estonia. Oh, wait, that links is already at the lead section. But you're right at one thing, Masem; to support accessibility, we should add an alternative text to each image with a description in words of its content; this way we can have a stand-alone list article that is useful for both sighted and blind. Diego Moya (talk) 15:32, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Alt text is not what is needed, as it would not improve the page for the blind/screenreader at all outside of describing what the images may look like. There is still no context to help. You need data or prose and not just a short lead section. --MASEM (t) 16:01, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Are you just trying to be adversarial? What does it mean "would not improve the page outside of what the images may look like? That is exactly what's needed to provide the same information to blind and sighted people and thus leave them with roughly the same content, so that accessibility is not a concern when taking the decision of what to do. Diego Moya (talk) 16:45, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Proper ALT text does not give any new context, it is supposedly to be purposely descriptive of the image. We're still missing context. --MASEM (t) 17:30, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

My point was that alt text would provide the same context for blind readers that the images provide for sighted readers. Given that many other editors find that amount of context adequate, this is a counterclaim to your assertion above that we should prevent this list from being stand-alone because it discriminates against blind people. Diego Moya (talk) 19:24, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:PURPLIST clearly allows for a simple list of a clearly defined taxonomical group for a science to serve as a navigation tool. User:MASEM, your insistence that there exists some rule against image based lists is simply unfounded. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 16:58, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

The proper navigation for such lists would be via the government entity they represent (assuming the reader needs to figure out what the flag of a specific political entity is, this would be much faster). And the rule does exist because of NOTGALLERY as well as our non-free content policy. If we are just presenting free images without any additional context, we might as well put that at commons to allow all projects to take advantage of it. While none of the lists presently give appear to have non-free problems, we do not allow non-free to be used in lists or tables without sufficient context for the image, and having bare context-less lists even if free images is going to have newer editors think it is okay to do this. This is why we strongly discourage context-less image galleries. --MASEM (t) 17:30, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

"The proper navigation" says who? If you make an argument from authority you should cite that authority. There is nothing preventing you from attaching these flags to the associated government entity while simultaneously maintaining a navigational list of flags. These are not mutually exclusive so your argument for one does not exclude the other. Additionally, why do you keep arguing "free images without any additional context"? I've proposed several content variables that can be added to these lists. If your concern revolves around a lack of textual content, then why not add content? Dkriegls (talk to me!) 19:36, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

PS, I've notified WikiProject Lists of this discussion. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs

Popping over from Wikipedia:WikiProject Lists. I don't see a blanket rule for deletion or merging being applied to Category:Lists and galleries of flags. Vexillology is a real sociological science and lists about the subject are no less encyclopedic than Category:Biology-related lists. There are plenty of "textual" elements that can be added to the tables in flag lists. Dimensions, date of origin, historic variations, officiants, etc. Flag lists need be no more "textual" than say List of Galliformes by population to be informative and encyclopedic. WP:NOTGALLERY would most definitely not apply to a taxonomical group of an established science. Just because the elements I listed are not yet included, WP:Stub and WP:PURPLIST allow for lists to serve as "natural tables of contents and indexes of Wikipedia" for an indeterminate length of time. Vexillology lists that serve as navigational tools for people studying the subject is perfectly within WP standards. But I see these more as stubs needing expansion of the table to include the above elements and a good intro paragraph. Merging these lists takes away that call for further Development. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 02:16, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

I will point out that List of Galliformes by population actually has a lot of useful data on it, compared to Flags of Estonian counties, and the images of the birds are the last thing on the table, not the focus. There is no loss of information but everything to gain moving the flags to the gazetteer article as to make that more like the Galliformes list and more helpful to the reader. --MASEM (t) 14:05, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

That would be a valid outcome per WP:PAGEDECIDE, and at this point we have a consensus that WP:GALLERY does not apply here. But per WP:PAGEDECIDE, the possibility to have a stand alone article is also admissible, the list of flags being a valid list topic, and the best outcome is to be decided on the basis on the relative merits of each layout. VanIsaac above has given some reasons why having a separate article may be preferable to having the content merged into a section of an article devoted to a different topic. Diego Moya (talk) 15:41, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

But as Fram points out, if all you are just doing is splashing up free flag images without any context like history or importance, then these should probably be at commons. --MASEM (t) 16:01, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Remember list's WP:CSC - if the article provide a complete coverage of all flags in the same category, that on itself is considered enough context to create an article - the context is in the categorization and systematic coverage. Can it be expanded? Yes, of course. Is it too little? No, it's just enough to have it this way. Diego Moya (talk) 16:37, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

And WP:Stub allows for unfinished lists to exist pending further expansion. User:Masem suggested that List of Galliformes by population "actually has a lot of useful data on it" as if missing my point all together. My point is that any of these flag lists could have as much useful information as the Galliformes list. i.e., flag dimension, historical versions, date of origin, proper uses, officiants who presided over its creation, meaning of symbols. The fact that this information is not yet added to the list is perfectly reasonable per WP:STUB. Merging flag lists with geographic lists does not make sense because the above information would not be appropriate for those lists. You may think the science of Vexillology is silly, but it is a recognized science and these are real taxonomical categories, that alone should suffice in this debate per WP:PURPLIST.Dkriegls (talk to me!) 17:06, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

If you had that information for the flag, then that should be in a separate article about the flag ala Flag of Poland, on a per-flag basis, if there is sufficient information for this. Arguably most of the information about these flags are going to be tied with the political entity they represent through its history, and thus better comprehension is going to be when the flag images are discussed in context of the political entity, not standalone by themselves. If there is a taxonomity to these flags, that is clearly not being demonstrated here or its importance to understand why they need to be presented separately from the political entities. --MASEM (t) 17:30, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

That is exactly what everyone here but you is advocating ala List of Polish flags...Dkriegls (talk to me!) 19:25, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Things like Flags of Estonian counties are not navigational lists, and that argument only strengthens the suggestion to merge it to Counties of Estonia or a similar list. A list of X can be a navigation to all X'es, but not to all Ys where X is an aspect of; you can't navigate to any article on an individual flag article, only to county articles, which is not the natural navigational purpose of that list. A list of images of city halls of Belgian cities, which solely points to the cities, would be comparable and equally unacceptable. Fram (talk) 19:49, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Flags of the U.S. states is both navigation (it links to sub-articles on each flag) and informative-illustration (it helps the visually-oriented reader find the correct article, and helps everyone compare the various flags).

Pictures of city-halls are not (officially or unofficially) symbolically representative of the town, so that analogy is not great. –Quiddity (talk) 20:46, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

We have a Featured List for precedent, and as example to work towards. If you're unhappy with the speed of progress being made to the isolated list, then suggest a merge. You could either suggest a new page-name, like List of U.S. state, district, and territorial insignia and Symbols of the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, for the 2 lists to be merged into (Flags of Estonian counties and Coats of arms of Estonian Counties). Alternatively you could suggest merging them both into Counties of Estonia, but I predict less consensus for that, as the section is likely to overwhelm the prose article (once it has fully grown into something comparable to the aforementioned examples).

If it still needs further discussion, then consider using Seals of the U.S. states as the example, rather than continuing on the Estonian stub. Using stubs, as examples for broad discussions, is generally not helpful. –Quiddity (talk) 19:58, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

That Seals of the U.S. states one is an image gallery - not navigation for encyclopedic information - and should be over at commons. You already have the list at List of U.S. state, district, and territorial insignia, which is also a problem, but there if you cut down the size of the images you can include more datum to provide context (here, likely would be historical aspects like year of statehood, etc.) --MASEM (t) 20:15, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it needs to be expanded or merged. As do most articles/lists in Wikipedia. Working on the articles, or making a merge-proposal, would be helpful. Continuing to discuss it here doesn't seem helpful. –Quiddity (talk) 20:46, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Flags of Estonian counties is navigational for a taxonomic group of flag images. However, why continue this debate when all that needs to be done is add additional information the list? --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 21:07, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Flags of Estonian counties is navigational between Commons images, and thus belongs on Commons. Thanks for making my point. Fram (talk) 06:44, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Can you provide examples of other taxonomical groups for an established science that are exclusively on Commons? Dkriegls (talk to me!) 13:12, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Other "taxonomical groups for an established science"? You mean that as a description of "flags of counties"? I don't think these articles can be described as being taxonomical at all, and the scientific contents of them are nil. Things like Flags of the regions of France and many, many others are geographically and alphabetically ordered galleries with zero content. But Commons has e.g. this page, or [Street signs this one], and that one, and more specialized ones like this. Fram (talk) 13:27, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Vexillology is the study of physical flags, not images of flags. I don't see this point being addressed by the delete/merg editors. There is an entire workgroup dedicated to this science (Wikipedia:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology). The keep editors have demonstrated the potential for expansion of these articles and why they should be considered WP:Stub. Britannica has similar lists of flags. Wikipedia should do one better and add descriptive content to these lists. I don't see that these points are being address by the delete/merg editors. Unless I have missed it, the delete/merg position still relies on this just being a collection of images with no potential for expansion. How has this lack of potential been demonstrated? --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 13:49, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Traffic sign on commons has concurrent Wikipedia list articles (e.g., Warning sign). Nothing to stop us from having a commons list for flags and a Wikipedia list that can be expanded with additional descriptive content --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 13:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The articles on flags we want are like Flag of Poland that goes into the history and details about it, stuff that cannot easily be summarized in a table, and tightly connected with the national/political division it represents. Any list that gets to that information is going to be navigational, by default, if its based around presenting the images of the flags first and foremost. And since most of these are free images on commons, such lists should be there to maximize the use around all of the WMF projects. --MASEM (t) 13:56, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

So if you agree on the end goal, then how does moving them exclusively to commons not conflict with the intent of WP:Stub? Shouldn't they be left here to encourage development you concede is the end goal? --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 14:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I said the goal is for articles like Flag of Poland, which goes into the history and the like for the specific flag (eg part of your social science). I cannot see how we can simplify that type of information for a table that is no more a image-based navigation list that is better suited at commons. --MASEM (t) 14:13, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

The goal for a list article, is like List of Polish flags. For the last time, please either work on Developing the articles, or propose a merge. If either of you really wish to start a mass deletion, start with all of Template:State insignia, and I mean all of, not just the stubs. –Quiddity (talk) 17:44, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Creating content columns for the tables like this example will invite editors to research and add content to these lists. (Table created by Dkriegls)

County	Image	Dimensions	Date of first use	Restrictions of use	Meaning of symbols	Reference
Harju County
Hiiu County
Ida-Viru County

• Comment these should be considered for copying to Commons as gallery pages, if they don't already exist there, regardless of their status here on Wikipedia. -- 76.65.128.222 (talk) 04:01, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Not list of bullets?

There are a large bunch of "Timelines of..." articles out there that are simply lists of bullets, usually uncited, that purport to outline the history of an place, often a not-very-large place. This seems in lieu of constructing a valid, watched, peer-reviewed history. I think this should be discouraged. I can imagine some teen using these rather sorry, often pov WP:OR outlines for a history report. I suggest using the term "WP:NOTLISTOFBULLETS" to discourage such Timelines. (Note that this suggestion has NOTHING to do with real outlines which are sanctioned by Wikipedia). Thanks. Student7 (talk) 16:55, 10 August 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a good example? Or should I say bad example? --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 16:39, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Student7 probably refers to lists such as Timeline of New Zealand history, Timeline of the New Zealand environment, Timeline of New Zealand's links with Antarctica, List of years in New Zealand (and its subpages), and the thousands of others "[Year] in [Topic]" articles. Timeline of art, List of years by country, etc. Some are barely-stubs (Timeline of British botany), and some are well-cited throughout (Timeline of extinctions).

If you think you understand the scope of how many pages are involved, you're probably underestimating! And that's just the standalone-pages; including the bullet-point timelines that are embedded within articles would add many thousands more.

Some of the standalones could usefully be merged into a prose article, however many are large enough (per WP:SIZE) to remain split-out in the state that they are now (and as they've been for many years).

In the far-future, these lists will be useful for Wikidata, and we'll be able to call-up layers of information in some sort of visual-interface, ala http://timeline.verite.co/ - but not yet. Good Things Take Time.

In the meantime, use the many WP:Featured list "Timeline of [x]" articles, as a guide for development. –Quiddity (talk) 17:13, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

So, more of another huge hot mess needing massive cleanup and citation; rather than a wiki-not?Dkriegls (talk to me!) 05:07, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I would say a standalone list of bullet points as a "timeline of..." is a poor substitute for a well-written prose article on the "history of..." and probably should be deleted or rewritten as prose. Timeline of British botany is a good example of this. Timeline of art, on the other hand, is just an expansion on a navigational list. Each entry begins with the link to a "[year] in art" article. But then 2013 in art is another poorly referenced list of bullet points, which should be rewritten as prose and properly referenced. We would have to evaluate each of these lists on a case-by-case basis, as some may be relatively easy to convert to prose and move to "history of...", and in other cases it may be easier just to PROD and start over with a "history of..." stub. Does anyone see any reason why an encyclopedia should have "timeline" lists rather than prose histories? Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 15:14, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Again, see the WP:Featured lists page. There are almost 40 FLs titled "Timeline of [x]", many of which are in brief bullet-point format (eg. Timeline of the Manhattan Project and Timeline of chemistry and Timeline of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season). There's nothing inherently wrong with this format, and it is well suited to providing a concise chronological overview of a topic - bulking it out with prose would be unhelpful. –Quiddity (talk) 18:56, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Ya, I have several "History of..." books that utilize this format. I don't see it as inherently non-encyclopedic. The WP:OR is a bit of an issue when considering the scope of a list, and what is included; but the ordering of dates in chronological order isn't OR. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I see that Timeline of the Manhattan Project and Timeline of chemistry have well-written, prosaic and carefully referenced entries, as well as a well-written lead section that establishes notability and scope. Of course I don't have a problem with the entries being ordered chronologically, but I do feel that dropping the bullet points and simply condensing the text into paragraphs would convey a more encyclopedic tone. Still, you have a point that it is a concise and easily navigable style of presentation. D, the OR problem isn't the chronology, it's the multitude of unreferenced entries. Nor do I have any problem with navigational lists (such as Timeline of art), but articles like 2013 in art need clean-up, even if only to chase down some references and clarify a few entries. Wilhelm Meis (☎ Diskuss | ✍ Beiträge) 01:04, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Yep, referencing is the ever present problem on Wikipedia. There are editors like User:BuzyBody that seem to spend their entire time just adding references. I see what you are talking about with wp:OR. Clearly just adding a bullet with a sentence is OR if it isn't referenced. Especially with 2013 in art. Notability of art is so subjective, there really needs to be outside reliable source for each bullet. Just because a notable artist with a biography page did something means that the something they did is notable. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 01:06, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Not news?

A significant number of people are citing WP:NOTNEWS as a reason to delete at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Kidnapping_of_Hannah_Anderson. I suggest we need to add more clarification that what that means is that a minor news story with minimal short term (a few days) coverage is probably not sufficiently notable to have an article, but we need to be clear that any story receiving the broad coverage that this story did certainly meets notability.

Any comments or suggestions? --B2C 22:51, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:NEVENT is what goes into detail what is expected for a stand-alone article for a news story, which includes those elements. Except, broad coverage is not a sign of a notable event - there are events that will get short-term, broad (read international) coverage but disappear from the news after a few days, but that is not notable for us. --MASEM (t) 22:56, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

And since notability guidelines are either-or, anything that can pass the GNG still deserves an article, which that one clearly does. Fact is, NEVENT represents a poorly-received effort by some to eliminate things that otherwise meet guidelines. The elitism that would suggest that people should not be able to find things that our customers care about in Wikipedia for one reason or another is never positive or supportable under our pillars, in my opinion. Jclemens (talk) 01:08, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

News coverage is generally not secondary coverage but primary (reiterating details but providing no analysis or other transformative mode), and hence simply having coverage doesn't meet the GNG. And yes, we do purposely remove things that fail to help make us a high quality encyclopedia even if they have high readership numbers. Our purpose is not to draw in readers, but to create a high quality freely redistributable encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 01:12, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Jclemens. Our purpose, by being an encyclopedia, is to help readers find information: by condensing it from sources, balancing, structuring, presenting it in a consistent way. When a reader searches something which we could cover and we actively refuse to, we make a disservice to the readers. Our purpose is not to draw them in, but our purpose must be to help them. Otherwise we're just a collective masturbation. Now: The GNG condenses from what are the minimum requirements to make our coverage possible: >1 reliable secondary source (as a guarantee that there is more than one voice on the subject, and that such voice is reliable and not directly connected to the subject's POV). I frankly disagree with news coverage being considered "primary", in the context of Wikipedia, and especially for WP notability. We need secondary sources to have something that is not controlled by the subject and as such is biased. The homepage of a company is controlled by the company, and as such is biased and unsuitable. News reports are not controlled by the events they cover, they just report them. --cyclopia^speak! 17:58, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not Google. If people are trying to find information on breaking news, they will always get better information via Google. We need to only distill down to those events that have a significant impact as a tertiary source. This is why news reports are primary - they do not transform information to place the event into the larger scheme of things. That's a point that's been set at WP:OR/WP:RS/WP:PSTS. (Further, the GNG does not require more than 1, it requires significant coverage which may be 1, or may require 10 or more. It depends on the depth of information provided by the source) --MASEM (t) 18:30, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not Google - Entirely correct. And in fact Google does not show information by condensing it from sources, balancing, structuring, presenting it in a consistent way, as I said clearly above. That's our job. I disagree that they will always get better information via Google: according to this logic, we could shut down WP altogether, because one can make the effort of looking for sources and making up their mind by themselves. What actually means "We need to only distill down to those events that have a significant impact as a tertiary source." is entirely unclear, because "impact" is extremly vague. About "primary/secondary", I admit I was conflating "secondary" with "third party". In this case I can reword my argument this way: I think that notability is shown by coverage by third party reliable sources, not necessarly secondary sources. We do not always need to put stuff in the larger scheme of things, this is an entirely arbitrary requirement that doesn't help bringing a service to our readers. Of course if we can, that's much better. (Oh, and the GNG explicitly says that multiple sources are, in general, expected - check under "Sources"). --cyclopia^speak! 19:00, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, not everything that passes the GNG "deserves" an article. Passing the GNG is the minimum threshold for having a separate article, not a guarantee of getting one.—Kww(talk) 01:15, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Ah, that age old issue. I'd generally argue that passing the GNG is enough assuming the topic passes WP:NOT

Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not outside the scope of Wikipedia. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources to gauge this attention. The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.

Further, some topics that don't pass the GNG might still have articles (notable academics often lack independent coverage). Admittedly, some that pass the GNG won't have articles for editorial reasons (we could easily write an article on Michele Obama's dresses that clear the GNG by a mile but AFAIK we haven't). So not saying Kww is wrong per-se, but saying he has stated things a bit differently than I would. (And honestly the MO dresses thing could make a featured article...) Hobit (talk) 17:48, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

WP:RAWDATA and List of Minor Planets

Does List of minor planets (WP:LOMP) clearly violate WP:RAWDATA?

LOMP is a bot-written duplication a Jet Propulsion Laboratory database of the sizes and orbits of all known asteroids.

If LOMP were deleted, it would simplify the process of dealing with WP:NASTRO-failing articles considerably.

LOMP could be deleted on RAWDATA grounds so that extra steps in NASTO, Wikipedia:NASTRO#Dealing_with_minor_planets, steps very difficult to take when dealing with many thousands of articles, can be cleared, making that chore feasible.

Not only do millions of such objects fail NASTRO and WP:GNG in terms of meriting stand alone articles, neither do they merit being kept as items on a chart or table, especially if doing so complicates the system for dealing with articles whose referents fail notability guidelines. This should fall under RAWDATA.

However, WP:RAWDATA might need to be strengthened first so that it clearly states that such things as LOMP are inappropriate for Wikipedia.

We need a clear ruling here that such things as LOMP are what WP:RAWDATA is talking about, and strong edits to RAWDATA that more clearly and specifically dis-recommend such things as LOMP.

Once that is done, a deletion discussion at List of minor planets can succeed.

Then, we can simplify Wikipedia:NASTRO#Dealing_with_minor_planets,

Accomplishing that, get a more realistic tally of how many articles there are on the English Wikipedia, an oft-quoted statistic on the front page that is badly distorted by the presence of so many NASTRO-failing articles.

However, the matter at hand is to strengthen the wording of WP:RAWDATA clearly describing and dis-recommending articles such as WP:LOMP.

Have a look at a presentation on You Tube by Scott Manley, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJsUDcSc6hE . LOMP could be replaced with such a visualization. The data for that could be taken directly from the JPL database the bots used to create all these articles. This is an interesting idea, but the point is LOMP is not a step toward that goal and serves no purpose not already better served by JPL, so that should not stand in the way of strengthening RAWDATA.

Thank you for your kind attention to this matter. Chrisrus (talk) 14:43, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree, as long as the community also says we keep every verified civilized place on Earth, which many of the articles were generated from census/government database. Verified minor planets are effectively the same type of information and generated in the same way, and thus we can't treat that different. --MASEM (t) 15:08, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

You are right that both were generated in the same way, but you don't seem to disagree that each civilized place is of interest to multiple people, for example local people. This is not the case with most asteroids, which are mere specks of rock in space. If the basis of your disagreement is the generation method, please understand that the generation method is not the point, it's the lack of a rationally foreseeable potential user weighed against the complications the list generates. Chrisrus (talk) 15:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

How is this considered WP:RAWDATA? I assume you think it violates number 3: "Excessive listings of statistics". However, nothing about that infers that Wikipedia can't have statistics, only that they need good leads to confer meaning and are presented in an organized manner. The example given expresses this perfectly: Nationwide opinion polling for the United States presidential election, 2012. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:37, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Signing statements and WP:BURO

Can someone please tell me what is the deal with signing statements, vis a vis, deletion discussions? I'm being told that WP:Admins are allowing to invent whatever policy they like when they close a deletion discussion. Maybe this discussion belongs better on WP:CREEP but I know my fellow policy hounds would like this fresh meat to be thrown here first. -- Kendrick7^talk 04:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

You are mistaken. Closures of any kind are all supposed to be accompanied by a summary of the results of the discussion - your "signing statements" (actually called the discussion "summary") are a standard practice to let other editors know the outcome of the discussion, and happens to enable WP:Closure reviews. Sometimes, when the discussion was small and uncomplicated, the summary will simply be "Closed as keep/delete", but a long, complex, or nuanced result will have a larger summary of the results of the discussion. Also, policy is never created by anyone, not even Jimbo, just writing something, but is rather by community discussions. Unless it involves a legal issue, where it may have come from the Wikimedia Foundation legal department, anything that is classified as "policy" or "guideline" on Wikipedia has been promoted through an WP:RfC, and often has been through several RfCs before the promotion discussion. The closest that you can get to any sort of unilateral action by an admin is through WP:IAR, and since it is almost unthinkable to have an IAR instance where a deletion discussion is closed as "delete" against policy, instead of "keep", almost any IAR deletion result is subject to non-admin closure. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 04:41, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) I concur with the main points of User:Vanisaac's response. To improve the discussion, can you link where you're "being told" that closers can "invent any policy they like"? Also note that discussions can be closed by non-admins, and that experience and knowledge of appropriate WP policy/guideline/essay can vary among closers. In my experience, a polite note to the closer on their Talk page, with a link to WP:CLOSING may encourage them to revise their closing comments to be more "on the reservation". Misuse of closing templates with parameters like "train wreck", or long complaints about the discussion, vs the summary of the discussion, can be addressed with calm, courteous request on User Talk. Express the importance of the close as a historical document, which expresses and affects the concerted emotional investment of many editors. I've requested re-do's of closes which IMHO were too brief, or too dismissive of discussion points, or too idiosyncratic to be useful to other editors as closing comments, and have gotten improvements in each case (if reluctant). --Lexein (talk) 19:43, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

"Ism" agenda?

Any thoughts about this article? It seems to be pushing the line into SOAP, agenda, POV, and teaming up to edit and/or promote an "ism".--Light show (talk) 19:51, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

You might just be insinuating thought crimes based on the interpretations of one overly enthusiastic young collage student's article. Hopefully collage professors at these universities place at least some value on verifiable sources and won't just instruct there students to freely edit their personal opinions into articles as the please for the reward of collage credits. However, if you find actual evidence of that... (--Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC))

I'd have to see more information to say something with any certainty, but I'd generally agree with the premise - there is a distinct lack of sourced feminist scholarship on much of wikipedia, and it would be good to get better coverage of feminist ideas and concepts. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 20:38, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Note: This is already being discussed at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Possible feminist canvassing. Best reply there, to keep discussions unfragmented. –Quiddity (talk) 20:38, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored

This states that Wikipedia servers are in Virginia and thus governed by Virginia law. I swear that just this week I just saw on a legal page somewhere that our servers were in Florida and we were governed by Florida law. I tried to find that reference, but couldn't follow my footsteps back to find the right page. The Wikimedia servers page says both states, but doesn't make reference to what law governs them. Just trying to get clarity. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 06:03, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

The change was made in February 2013 with this edit, and was based on this article at the Wikimedia site -- "Wikimedia sites to move to primary data center in Ashburn, Virginia". It says that our main operation is now in Virginia near DC. I don't know what the legal implications of this are, but since this is our primary data center I suppose it's reasonable that jurisdiction would devolve there. (Don't know the ins and outs of this; the Foundation lawyers would know for sure.) Herostratus (talk) 11:02, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pulling that up. I asked over at Wikilegal. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 01:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

There are probably some small state law issues that could come into play between Florida and Virginia but I suspect these will already involve edge case issues (without looking, I'm thinking on definition of a minor, etc.) but it's a CYA-language in case Virginia or whatever state passes new legislation that would affect WP's performance. --MASEM (t) 01:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Change the name

It was discussed in the 5P talk page that, to make it more logical to link to in the 5P statements, this page be moved to the name WP:What Wikipedia is and is not. I agree that is logical and will stop the perennial attempt to delink this page and put in its place wp:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia which by title makes more sense but is an essay instead of policy/guideline.Camelbinky (talk) 19:06, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are lots of articles with guidelines about what Wikipedia is. Adding that to the title here would create a false impression of coverage of the materiel here. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 22:15, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This page is all what WP is not and has nothing about what it is. There is no reason that a separate page (not what the current 5P is, as there's more than just what WP is listed there) for what WP is can't be created on its own to contrast this one. --MASEM (t) 22:23, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
• oppose - that would be a fundamentally different page than this is (and probably twice as long and this is on the long end of the spectrum already) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:46, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• I don't understand. What are these "perennial attempt[s] to delink this page and put in its place wp:Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" that you speak of? Is there an ongoing discussion to do this or is that edit regularly made, or what? I haven't heard of this before. That page just basically points to this page anyway, so I'm not sure what's being asked here.

Herostratus (talk) 03:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh, OK, something from Wikipedia talk:Five pillars, I see. OK, I read it. My vote is meh. "What Wikipedia is and is not" is little less wieldy than the current title and kind of misstates what the thrust of this page is. To correct a link from another page, probably not worth doing. Is this an actual problem that is causing confusion, or more a pedantic type thing? If it's actually causing readers to be confused, maybe just unlink it at 5P? Or change the link there to go to Internet encyclopedia? Or WP:ENC? Or something. I don't see how changing the name of this page is helpful. Herostratus (talk) 05:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment- it would be nice if everyone who commented here took the time to read the talk page at the 5P and the relevant thread to realize why the people who work on the 5P came to a consensus that they'd like the title of this page changed. But instead you've all decided to comment and/or oppose based on... well i'm still trying to figure that out from the "comments".Camelbinky (talk) 04:04, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
  • One page can't come to a consensus on what to do to another page which has been longstanding as policy (particularly a page that isn't policy). And I'm not convinced by the weak arguments there. --MASEM (t) 04:42, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Moreso, the problem with the rationale there is that because the one lead sentence in NOT is "WP is an online encyclopedia" does not translation to saying this page is describing what WP is and is not. NOT is strictly what WP is not, the first sentence only an affirmative to explain why we have all these NOT statements. --MASEM (t) 04:46, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per all above. Ansh666 01:35, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Listing directors, trustees, officials, and such for an organization

I was under the impression that an article about an organization should not include a list of its board of directors or of its staff other than, usually, the top one or two people, especially if the others are not notable. I was close to deleting such a list but I couldn't find the authority to cite for why I was deleting it. Was this an old policy/guideline that no longer exists? Or is it somewhere else and perhaps we should link to it from this policy? Nick Levinson (talk) 19:44, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see anything like that at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). In fact, WP:ORGDEPTH seems to encourage such lists in order to help expand an organization's page beyond a simple stub. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:36, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I must be reading a different ORGDEPTH because I don't see any such encouragement. To the initial question I would say that such content would fall under WP:NOTDIR as an absolute no-no. A clear example being film articles, we list major cast and major players in production, we don't list every stunt actor and the key grip--Jac16888 ^Talk 20:42, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Regardless of whether there is such a content guideline or not, I don't see how WP:NOT is the place for it. Jclemens (talk) 06:27, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIR would cover egregious cases of this. --erachima talk 09:30, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

True, however, I would argue that WP:ORGDEPTH would allow for minimal lists on pages of notable organizations where the source material doesn't provide much more than a stub's worth of information about the organization. But I'm a fan of filler material for stubs that might not be appropriate for FA status, not all editors are. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 23:08, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, where the source material provides little more than a lit of members of the board, then the organization can only be barely notable, and the way to improve it is not to add minor content. Indeed, for the most important organization, the members of the board of directors and the highest executive ranks are relevant content--in a very large and important organization they have a major role to play in the world in a minor organization , very little. There's one special case that concerns me: for political lobbying groups, think tanks, and politically oriented publications, the members of the board can be a very relevant indication of the actual nature and intent of the organization. DGG ( talk ) 03:34, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Not really. The CEO and certain other chairs/vice-presidents are likely notable because they are the face of the company, but the board members are rarely that afront. Add to the fact that these can change day to day. If reliable sources (not just ones that document the company in routine coverage like SEC filings) go into details on the board members then it would be reasonable to document them for that company, but I wouldn't do it across the board. (using the arbitrary point of "very large and important organization" would lead to edit war inclusion). --MASEM (t) 04:10, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm against filler that is only for stubs. Content should be appropriate under policies and guidelines regardless of whether the article is a stub or not, unless a policy or a guideline makes that kind of an exception. (At the other end of the length scale, if an article is getting close to being too long, an option is to delete content that is less appropriate than content that would be kept, but that judgment is not appropriate for stubs.)

Weight applies to whether to list board members for political organizations and the like, including the largest and most effectual, and weight is to be determined from sourcing; otherwise we would be engaging in original research. Notability probably justifies weight; if a notable person is on the board or in the staff, that might justify inclusion in the article on the organization. A comparable situation is of articles about neighborhoods that list notable residents or about schools that list notable alums; in those cases, for the articles I've noticed if not by policy or guideline, notability and sourcing seem to be required for listing a person in such a list, and I think are so required. In a hypothetical case of a U.S. Republican lobbying organization having on its board of directors a former Republican President, the notability and a source might be enough; if also on the board was a non-notable Republican ideologue who turned out to be important to the organization's ideological direction, an independent source discussing the ideologue's role could justify weight for inclusion in the article about the organization (and might even establish notability for the ideologue as well), but the organization's annual report being the only source would not justify the listing. Organizations' own websites and annual reports that list board members typically give no one's qualifications or everyone's qualifications (in my observation) and are not independent sources; even if they give everyone's qualifications, we should not use that alone to write those qualifications into Wikipedia's organizational article.

Notability alone as justifying inclusion in a list of people related to an organization is justified by an analogy. Consider if we compiled a list of U.S. Presidents including those Vice Presidents who served for even the shortest time as President (e.g., VP Gore was the acting President for 7 minutes, according to him in a reported campaign speech, and I think that happens because the VP-Elect is inaugurated before the Presdident-Elect is and the former President's term by law ends regardless of a new President having been inaugurated). I think all of them would be notable. We would list them. To my knowledge, they were/are not in one organization. If they were, I think we'd still list them.

On the other hand, for a membership, if it is too large, I don't think even notability would be an adequate ground. For example, if we compiled a list of all notable Republicans, I think there'd likely be at least a million. However, if a membership is very small, listing those members who are both notable and independently sourced as members might be justified.

Nick Levinson (talk) 19:35, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I fully agree that a guideline should apply to both stubs and articles. I'm just not in agreement that there needs to be a guideline on this that trumps: "Each article on Wikipedia is standalone." If an notable organization has limited coverage, we don't have to include every detail, but we also don't have to write the article with the same limited-space considerations that we do with a large article. For example: with small towns and villages, editors include town councils and lists of notable people. When the article is about a big city with lots of source materiel to write about, the council gets deleted and the list of notable people becomes a stand alone list. I'm not trying to make a Wikipedia:Other stuff exists argument, I'm just highlighting that guidelines ably to both stub and A list article, but size of the article can determine some of the content. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:22, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, just out of curiosity, how large do you think is "too Large" before you "don't think even notability would be an adequate ground" (See: List of people from New York City and List of people from California).--Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:30, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Our articles should have coverage of the basic aspects of the topic that approximate the weight given to those aspects in independent/third-party/secondary sources. This is an idea that is represented in WP:NOT#PLOT - just because we can build a lot out of primary and dependent sources and meet WP:V, sometimes that's just not appropriate for an encyclopedia and puts undue weight on that coverage. So in the cases of those small towns that list out who is on town councils, that's not appropriate at all, as rarely who these people are are of interest outside the local coverage of the town. Same thing with board members and the management of a company. --MASEM (t) 20:44, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, except that weight is determined on an article by article basis, given that each subject has varying coverage. Weight should roughly equal the board's coverage divided by total coverage of the organization. For example, the same length of coverage about Citi Bank's board of directors would be measured as less weight than the exact same length of coverage for the board of directors at a notable animal shelter, simply because the total coverage of Citi Bank is huge, while coverage of a famous local animal shelter is likely to be very small. So if the animal shelter's board gets mentioned in a paper, we are not providing undue weight by including it in our small article about them. If we made the article about the board, that would be providing undue weight. I agree, primary sources should not be the only source mentioning that board. But if it is mentioned in a local paper, and the notability of the organization is established with sources that aren't a local paper, then per: "not everything in an article has to be notable", we should include it after properly weighing the impact. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 22:18, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Article length is under the guideline on article size. If an article gets to be too long, an option is to split it, which allows preserving content and adding more. If an article is at the length limit specified by the Wikipedia guideline and it is not to be split, then more than notability would be a good minimum. A comparison might be to an article about a scientific subject that has been much investigated; some older studies that used to be cited many times and thus were notable might no longer deserve weight in recent years and so would be deleted in favor of more important studies.

For stubs, their guideline does not suggest lowering editorial standards to increase content.

Legislatures are different because even for the smallest notable governmental units (including towns, etc.) legislatures are probably notable, if a local news medium covers its proceedings from time to time, and the local news outlet may well name its members with some regularity. The chances are that if the locality is notable then so are many of the members of its legislature and many of its judges.

My understanding of boards is that even when composed of prominent people those people are rarely important because of their board membership, because typically they pick a CEO and set or approve an overarching plan to be carried out by the CEO and then don't much interfere as long as there's no major trouble, because they have other things to do, with other organizations and elsewhere. Exceptions exist, such as if an organization entered a crisis and board members became publicly active in a rescue. The proposal allows for exceptions.

Local consensus controls articles unless our experience with Wikipedia shows an advantage to setting a future direction for consistency through a policy or a guideline, and that's what I'm suggesting for this situation.

Nick Levinson (talk) 22:35, 28 September 2013 (UTC) (Clarified reply & corrected indentation: 22:42, 28 September 2013 (UTC))

But you completely missed the point about sourcing. It's not about size of company vs size of board members, or the like. If I took all the available sources on Citibank, excluding those that were primary or dependent (press releases, corporate brochures, SEC filings), and looked through the rest of the available sources and found not one mention of the boardmembers, then we should not be including that information, even though it could be verified via the primary sources. It doesn't matter if it is the biggest bank in the world (I don't know if that's true), if no one else besides themselves talks about the board, it's not appropriately encyclopedic to include. --MASEM (t) 23:12, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I basically agree. (I think MASEM's post was responding to Dkriegls's last and not my last.) Nick Levinson (talk) 17:56, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Er, yes, that was to Dkriegls' point. --MASEM (t) 17:58, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

propose to add restriction on lists of directors, officers, staff, members, et al.

I propose to add text like the following to the policy, into the the section Encyclopedic Content, into the subsection Wikipedia is Not a Directory, after the list item for "directories, directory entries, electronic program guide, or a resource for conducting business"; I'll wait a week for any response. Nick Levinson (talk) 19:35, 28 September 2013 (UTC) (Corrected format & sig block placement & conformed punctuation: 19:45, 28 September 2013 (UTC)) (Edited proposed text: 17:56, 29 September 2013 (UTC) (adding the "17:56" UTC time stamp at 18:07, 29 September 2013 (UTC)))

# Directors, officials, staff, owners, members, and other people in comparable positions, past or present, usually shall not be listed in an article about an organization, except for the chief executive officer (regardless of anyone's title), the majority or controlling owner or ownership family, and notable people strongly associated with the organization. For a membership, if it is large, members shall not be listed even if notable, unless an additional ground supports the weight for someone's inclusion. Usually, only one or two people would be due weight. For those who are listed, information should be from independent sources and limited mainly to information relevant to the organization, that being the subject of the article; for example, someone's sports and family interests outside of the organization usually should be omitted. A person may be associated with another organization, but that would usually be due weight only if their position with the organization the article is about is ex officio based on the other organization. If the person is notable, a separate article about them can state their relationship with the organization and provide other biographical content. If many notable people are or were associated with the organization, it may be useful to create a category for people who are or were "with" the organization.

Disagree I don't think this needs to be codified. We should leave it up to the editors of each article to determine if this content is necessary or not. Dkriegls (talk to me!) 20:25, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• Generally agree, but.... There is often too much corporate cruft that I've noticed seems to be more common with lesser-known entities, but some editors list the boards of major listed companies too. Compounding the issue is that there are often also management boards and supervisory boards. Whilst I frequently remove such lists, including staff lists (such as production credits, of for radio stations, football clubs), it's not always easy to draw the line. I would support the above modification, up to but not including "Someone who is not notable...", with due emphasis on "usually shall not be listed in an article". -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 03:15, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I deleted the sentence "Someone who is not notable but who is associated with another organization which is notable normally does not thereby acquire personal notability, except where the other organization (usually a small one) is almost synonymous with the person.", because it needs clarifying so it's easier to read and because the situation it's meant for may not arise often enough to worry about (if it does, it can be proposed after clarification). Did you also object to what came after the quoted sentence? Nick Levinson (talk) 17:56, 29 September 2013 (UTC) (Deleted redundant word & corrected excess indent: 18:07, 29 September 2013 (UTC))

• Oppose No reason to put this into NOT, broadly per Drkiegls. Jclemens (talk) 03:38, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose- I can see this going either way depending on the article, sometimes appropriate, other times not. It will vary for each circumstance. No need for a hardline rule.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 00:52, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I no longer support this as I now agree with the consensus view, largely opposed to the proposal. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:42, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTCHANGELOG

I think it's time to revisit this policy, and try to improve it to allow useful and notable software version histories. Consider, for example, Android version history. It had 350,000 page views in September, and was ranked #340 on en.wikipedia.org, so it's clearly popular and useful, yet it technically doesn't comply with this policy.

Why should we allow some changelogs? For commercial reasons the release dates of software and the introduction of features have become quite significant, and such milestones in the software's history can be notable and are worth documenting. Major, complex pieces of software like operating systems usually have thousands of changes between versions, and obviously listing every single change is inappropriate, but a condensed list selected by editors and sourced from reliable third-party sources provides a valuable reference by showing a condensed history that is (ideally) free from marketing gloss and hype. Such a single-page history is usually not available from software developers, which tend to produce big marketing pages for each current release (example).

I suggest the following changes:

1. Require changelog items to have reliable third-party sources. This will still effectively ban changelogs for minor software packages, but allow significant changes in more notable software to be included.
2. Use common sense to decide what level of detail to include, since third-party sources will usually detail every single change for major software releases.
3. Remove the ban on tables. This is just a formatting issue best left to the MOS. Personally I think the info could be better presented as a simple list, but it's an odd thing to ban in this policy. If you want to ban particular types of content, ban the content, not the formatting. Converting the tables to prose would make it harder to find information quickly.
4. Move WP:NOTCHANGELOG back under the "indiscriminate collection of information" heading. A changelog is clearly not a directory (OED: a book or website listing individuals or organizations alphabetically or thematically with details such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers).

To try to forestall the usual arguments:

• WP:ITSUSEFUL says "If reasons are given, "usefulness" can be the basis of a valid argument for inclusion. An encyclopedia should, by definition, be informative and useful to its readers. Try to exercise common sense, and consider how a non-trivial number of people will consider the information "useful".
• WP:POPULARPAGE: I included the pageview stats in the above argument both to support the usefulness argument, and because the argument has been made in support of the current WP:NOTCHANGELOG policy that "Nitty-gritty changes will not be of interest to our average reader" when clearly they are to some extent, and I think I have presented arguments to show how software version histories can be in scope. Dcxf (talk) 21:49, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

You just used arguments against why we should not include detailed change logs. Our coverage of the aspect of a given topic should be covered at a level that is representative of what secondary, third-party, and independent sources give that topic, using primary/first-party sources to back up specific details. Most detailed changes do not get extensive coverage in these outside sources, particular on minor revision number changes. Major feature changes, such as has happened with both iOS and Android sytsems, can be documented, but not at the level of a running changelog. This information can be found elsewhere. --MASEM (t) 22:09, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

The point is to document significant changes in notable software, rather than to include verbatim dumps of lists of minor changes. The prohibition on changelogs makes sense when we're talking about software that has a lot of minor patch releases that do not introduce drastic changes, where the changelogs are only of the interest to the users of the software and otherwise not notable.

However, recently we've seen more software that sees relatively frequent incremental releases that introduce notable changes. Examples include Android, certain Linux distros, iOS, etc. Such software does not necessarily have huge major releases that would warrant separate articles (as in Windows Vista and Windows 7), but it nevertheless can have changes that are major enough that in the long run the software changes drastically, and so its history should be noted in some way. In addition, the incremental changes are often notable in themselves and covered by tech press, which will highlight, for example, the new major features in the latest release of Android.

Prohibiting the latter kind of content should not be within the spirit of NOTCHANGELOG, yet because such a release history can be said to be a changelog, it has been a subject of some debate. If we agree that in such a situation coverage of the history of the piece of software should be included, then, as Dcxf said, this is no longer a WP:NOT issue but rather a matter for the MoS.  — daranz [ t ] 22:59, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, there is a difference between a true changelog, and what the current Android article is (baesd on doing a quick review of sources that talk about 4.3). The two distinquishing factors are a good reliance on secondary sources that are not simply parroting the marketspeak from Android, and that these are high level, broad features and not like "made border 1 pixel wider"-type documented changes. There is room for something like the current Android article here. But, to avoid it being the change log, it seems almost better to present these as prose, with a table to summarize the releases, dates, etc. involved here. Most of these secondary articles go into detail what such changes mean to the end user, which is important, and we should capture that aspect in prose, not a straight-up table. --MASEM (t) 23:23, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

To me the examples of android and Ubuntu are far from a dry list of low level changes which is what is typically meant by a changelog. These list high level feature changes. Perhaps the policy can reflect "high level feature" changes as not being what is meant by a change log. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:41, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Support points 2 and 3; indifferent about points 1 and 4. (3rd party sources are unlikely to be more reliable than a primary changelog in the case of software; also, the change can typically be verified by examining the software itself.) --greenrd (talk) 05:48, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

• Strongly support points 2 + 3, support point 1, neutral on point 4. This argument has been bought up numerous times, usually just to (attempt to) delete one article rather than all. It's clearly open to abuse from fanboys on all sides and we need a clear policy change. This would be a step in the right direction again and avoid inconveniencing thousands of visitors and users, forcing them to another site, and damaging editor retention. Make Wikipedia an encyclopaedia again and put the user experience above the bureaucracy for once. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 09:34, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

- Notified WikiProject Computing about this discussion for a bigger response. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 11:28, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support 2,3 and 4. There's an agreement in the comments above that documenting software changes that have attracted attention by third parties provide encyclopedic value. The policy should reflect this, that changelogs are not forbidden for being changelogs (just like WP:PLOT is not forbidden merely for being plot, but for being plot only), but for being trivial and without commentary. Treating it as WP:IINFO would signal that they are forbidden only when changes are included in an indiscriminate way, and not when they are supported by third party sources that are evaluating their impact. Diego (talk) 12:22, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

• As a suggestion, the problem with an article like Android version history is that it does not put the changes in any context for a non-Android user to readily understand. It is not that the table format is bad (that actually helps to standards things like version #s and release dates), but the straight-up bullet-by-bullet listing of even high-level features that are recognized in sources doesn't aid that reader is what make people think this is a change log. What separates these feature lists from the usual changelog is that, through sources, the end impact of what these features provide can be summarized by paraphrasing and use of sources to expand on, while the usual changelog is more targeted to a power user and rarely can be rephrased cleaning for the end user. Perhaps it would be more helpful if there was lead discussion about the topic - take, for example, PlayStation, which the first half of the article is prose discussing the history of the units in the PlayStation line, and then breaks into the specification table. For, say, Android, it would seem reason to have a brief prose section on each of major release sets (like Jelly Bean) and broad overview of new features. (Eg: the section on "Update Schedule" in the main OS article could be brought to here to explain that. The key is to set the stage for the layreader before getting into the nitty gritty, something you typically can't do with the more typical changelog approach. --MASEM (t) 14:33, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support all, for reasons by proposer. This seems an excellent change of policy in that it explicitly stems from asking "what do our readers want/need?". Wikipedia needs more of this open mindset. --cyclopia^speak! 15:25, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
  • "What readers want" is not always encyclopedic, however (going off what I see in reader feedback). It's a balance to give what the average reader needs in the broadest terms for an encyclopedia, and if they need to know more, provide them sources where they can find more. --MASEM (t) 15:35, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
    • "What readers want" is not always encyclopedic, however - Absolutely. There are many instances where we must not bow to popular demand (WP:NOTCENSORED is an example), because such demand can contrast our goal of providing encyclopedic knowledge. But given that this project is at service of readers, when one can accomodate the demand without going against the project goals, we should consider that. --cyclopia^speak! 23:58, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support all these sound very reasonable to me. Major releases like Android or Red Hat do get third party coverage. What needs to be removed is the uncited litany of details that tends to inflate articles on otherwise minor subjects (except perhaps to a very devoted small community). The other point to add is that prose might be a better way to discuss release history in context with other history in many cases. Tables seem better than bullet lists in most other cases I would guess. Tables that merely repeat what is in prose only are needed in rare cases where a summary of a long and detailed prose history would call for it. Bullet lists that repeat prose never seem appropriate that I can think of. A final idea is to delegate more of the computer-specific guidelines to the computer-specific manual of style, which is somewhat bare-bones right now. I can think of other guidelines specific to computer technology articles that could use some consensus building. For example, the over-use of dated language like "currently" or "new" (every release is "new" when it first comes out"), better guidelines to discourage the articles on "two kids and an app", the usual issues with marketing terms like "solution", "platform", "launch", "worldwide", etc. W Nowicki (talk) 18:45, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support all: this rule is one that's mostly enforced in spirit rather than in letter - IMO it's more meant to keep articles about software from becoming a super-detailed changelog (considering that they do tend to take a lot of space) rather than banning them altogether. There's still a lot more detail than desired in, say the example of Android version history given here, but generally it's a good idea to have around. The changes to this policy proposed here are a step in the right direction, but #2 will be the most important one in bringing pages like this to the standard of the rest of the project. Ansh666 01:29, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

• While I agree there's no question of consensus to make the change, the consensus was not for outright removal of NOTCHANGELOG. It needs to be improved to reflect the distinction between what's been discussed compared to what a traditional changelog is. --MASEM (t) 02:27, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Ah my bad, I thought it was outright removed. I do think we could use better language in the new location to better distinguish between the possible cases. --MASEM (t) 02:38, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Bright line rule

More central discussion taking place at RFC at Wikipedia Talk:No paid advocacy. --MASEM (t) 17:27, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

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

---

There is a new proposed policy at Wikipedia:No paid advocacy and an RfC on its talk page. As the proposer here, I'll suggest that we close this discussion here and all move (and re-!vote) there, as it seems to be cleaner and avoids the technical problem pointed out by User:Masem that WP:NOT is about content, not behavior. There shouldn't be any technical issues involved, so let's at least get a clean up-or-down decision on making the Bright Line Rule policy.

I'll note that the minor issue on wording in the next section should still be decided in that section, and that the !votes here were a very slight majority in favor of the Bright Line Rule. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• User:Jimmy Wales's "Bright line rule" is widely accepted by Wikipedia editors and by ethical PR firms, and PR organizations. With the current PR-sockpuppet scandal, it's clear that not all PR firms recognize the concept. We need to make this crystal clear to everybody and part of Wikipedia policy, not just a guideline as in WP:NOPAY. Accordingly, I have added the following under the "Not Promotion" section

6. Writing for profit. Businesses and other organizations, their major owners, officers, employees, and contractors must not write or edit articles on their organization, their competitors, their products or similar topics. They may write proposed articles or corrections on talk pages and user pages if they identify their conflict of interest and their employers or clients near the proposed changes on those pages. Paid interns working with recognized Wikipedia projects such as WP:GLAM in roles such as Wikipedian-in-Residence may contribute to article pages, provided that they are supervised by unpaid Wikipedia volunteers as part of the project.

This is, as I understand it, Jimmy's bright line rule

I've also added "marketing or public relations" to:

5 Advertising, marketing or public relations.

PR people seem to make a very fine distinction between "promotion" (which is forbidden) and "advertising" (which is forbidden) and what they do. Normal people do not make this distinction, so this is just filling in the blanks. I suppose "Advertising (broadly defined)" might do the same thing, but is not clear. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:45, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

As suggested in the next section - I believe this section from "I've also added" on should be covered separately in the next section.

All this is covered by WP:COI, there's no need to make a new line in NOT for it. --MASEM (t) 23:48, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

This is actually very different from WP:COI and much stronger. It is already widely accepted as a rule on Wikipedia, where practice sometimes outruns actual written policy. It clearly needs to be written down as policy now. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 23:59, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Right, it's widely accepted because it's already documented at WP:COI which goes into much more detail on how to write about articles where COI might exist. (Also, arguably, how COI is dealt with is not always bright-line, and thus calling it policy with more rigorous handling is not a great idea, hence why COI is a guideline and rightly so.) Adding it here is basically instruction creep. --MASEM (t) 00:08, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

And a few other points: First, just because Wales says something does not make it WP policy. He has no authority beyond being another well-reasoned voice in discussion, and we are under no requirement if Wales, in his own personal statements, wishes for en.wiki to do something. (On the other hand, if the Foundation said something, that's different.) Second, there's a current threat at WP:ANI in regards to the PR issue, which is affirming they can block the site using COI guidelines (see [3]), so no new policy is needed for this. --MASEM (t) 00:20, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• oppose while I am absolutely opposed to PR hacks interfering with Wikipedia articles, I don't think that the proposed wording and insertion will do what the proposer suggests it will (or do it any more effectively than can be done with the current wording of policies and guidelines) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:25, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support. This is a step in the right direction. A further step would be to give the policy some teeth to enforce the ban on paid editing. Binksternet (talk) 00:49, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Except there is no ban on paid editing. It is highly frowned upon, but not outright banned. Hence why COI is a guideline. --MASEM (t) 01:19, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

This is exactly what makes this proposal different from the current COI guideline. This is a clear statement of what type of paid editing would be banned as part of a policy, which can be enforced by a block. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:10, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support - policy should reflect actual practice. Adding this text would make our stance on paid editing clearer and more prominent, possibly helping to deter those considering it. (By the way, has Jimbo Wales been notified of this discussion? He probably should be.)Never mind, I see he has been. Robofish (talk) 01:22, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Weak Oppose COI covers it. Also, the need for some case by case assessment (vs. an outright rule) is needed as not all COI conflicts are malicious or done by editors who are fully aware of our COI guidelines. I agree paid editing should be challenged, but is there something not happening that this policy would add? Or is this just adding more words to an already lengthy text, just increasing the learning curve necessary for new editors?Dkriegls (talk to me!) 01:50, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Note there is a discussion regarding demoting/deleting WP:COI here --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:57, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose anything that smacks of thoughtcrime, rather than judging editor's contributions based on their compliance to our content policies. In my time on the arbitration committee, I saw nearly as many complaints of attempted outing trying to root out COIs as I did between various other nationalist or political partisans. If an editor's behavior is OK to do unpaid, it's OK to do paid. If an editor's behavior is not OK to do while paid, then it's not OK to do for free either. This approach is shamelessly stolen from the GPL, which does not restrict anyone using any so-licensed software for profit. Jclemens (talk) 02:31, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

This is not about making advertising or public relations or anything else a "thought crime," any more than the prohibitions here on writing up original research or opinion pieces make original research or having an opinion a thought crime. Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, is just not the place to do such activities. Feel free to write up your original research, opinions, ads, and pr someplace else. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:42, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

What do you call it, then, when the proposal intends to discriminate against editors not on the basis of their behavior or quality of their contributions, but solely on the basis of paychecks? More to the point, how can we continue to have a pseudonymous and open editing community, when one way to remove editors from contentious topic areas is to out their private relationships? That quickly turns ugly and uncollaborative, as we saw at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/TimidGuy ban appeal. Jclemens (talk) 04:26, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Jclemens I don't know where you work, but almost every workplace, and every nonprofit, has a COI policy. They are not about thought, they are about action -- about doing things that take advantage of access for private inurement. Additionally, for institutions where credibility is of great importance, they also serve as a crucial tool to maintain credibility. I work at a university. Our COI policy's primary goal is to drive public disclosure of potential conflicts of interest, and then manage those potential conflicts -- usually by requiring public disclosure, and then putting certain boundaries in place to ensure that potential conflict doesn't become actual. At wikipedia with the brightline policy, the management of conflicts, would be to prohibit editing articles where someone has a COI. With respect to enforcement, we already have procedures and tools to pierce anonymity, and people empowered to use them under confidentiality, to investigate socks and other abuses of anonymity. I am unaware of those tools being abused. I don't understand the concerns you are raising. Do you see why Wikipedia needs a COI policy, especially in light of the recent paid-editing scandal? Jytdog (talk) 04:54, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support Yes exactly. We need more efforts to keep Wikipedia independent from conflict of interest. Those who are paid will support their products, often in a many that is had to detect. We have excellent evidence that who funds a study has a major effect on whether it comes on positive or negative.
• One of many papers on the topic Heres, S (2006 Feb). "Why olanzapine beats risperidone, risperidone beats quetiapine, and quetiapine beats olanzapine: an exploratory analysis of head-to-head comparison studies of second-generation antipsychotics". The American journal of psychiatry. 163 (2): 185–94. PMID 16449469. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 05:13, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• You are a medical professional and presumably are paid for your work. This therefore gives you a potential conflict of interest when writing about medical matters and so you would be forbidden to write here upon them with a broad-brush reading of "similar topics". Perhaps you suppose that the rule would only apply to other people, not yourself, but see the golden rule. And, in practise, enforcement of such rules would be in the hands of amateurs too. Naturally they will tend to focus on those who are open about their credentials, like yourself. Warden (talk) 10:28, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support as a step in the right direction, though it would not address many abuses (paid editors planting articles or dominating talk pages). Coretheapple (talk) 05:22, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This would forbid professors and researchers from writing about their area of expertise. Warden (talk) 07:24, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

Are you saying you would support if "similar topics" were struck? Is that the part that you think forbids academics? Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:57, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• No. The bit that made me blench most was "Wikipedian-in-Residence may contribute to article pages, provided that they are supervised by unpaid Wikipedia volunteers". I've met several Wikipedians in Residence and they seem typically to be highly competent editors who should be supervising the amateurs. Warden (talk) 11:21, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

So, how about "Wikipedian-in-Residence may contribute to article pages, provided that their resident status is openly documented on their User page"? Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:35, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Qualified support - I would prefer an exemption for academics and genuine researchers. --greenrd (talk) 09:00, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This would stop editors from contributing on most organisations of which they had close knowledge or involvement. Of course there is a problem of conflicting interests, but what some Wikipedians conveniently forget is that almost all information actually originates from within an organisation, especially factual. The fiction that because it has been published by a third party that is somehow not true is convenient, but of course absurd if we examine it closely. If the argument is that only senior management and things officially sanctioned by the officials of an organisation (and I am talking about societies, churches, government bodies etc, not just commercial corporations) will be caught, and disgruntled junior staff or whatever can write so long as management or leaders do not approve of it that is also unsatisfactory. If we wanted to say that every factual statement had to be submitted through an uninvolved editor not only would that be impracticable, but it could not rely on volunteer effort. We would need paid editors to do it. --AJHingston (talk) 10:09, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support Part of the problem, as I see it is that anyone participating in this discussion could be a paid editor, and thus be skewing this discussion because of their conflict of interest. So, yes this is a step in the right direction. Knowledge will still be accumulated through the usual channels of research and documentation, if this passes, so there is no downside. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:48, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I do want to point out that another problem with this is that this proposed change is describing behavior, but WP:NOT is purely a content page. This is another problem with the above proposal, even if the idea of enforcing bright line is agreed on. It's the wrong page for it. Really, what should be happening is what changes should be done to WP:COI, the core guideline that goes on for this, should be changed. --MASEM (t) 14:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• The practice has generally been, in my experience,that factual, non-controversial changes may be made directly even by editors with clear COI. For example, if a company's CEO retires and someone new is appointed t the position, a company employee may change the article to reflect the updated facts without going through an edit request. The proposal should be altered to include this sort of thing, in my view. DES ^(talk) 14:21, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Support, there's so, so, much trash created at WP:AfC about small companies. Very often we find out that the authors are employees. As Wikipedia's status has grown a great many people and organisations see editing Wikipedia not as a volunteer effort but as a self-promotional platform, and this is only going to increase. WP:COI, as it stands and is currently enforced, simply doesn't have the teeth to prevent the sort of mendacious and burdensome COI editing. Put this in the policy (work out common-sense caveats for academics and Wikipedians in residence), then work out a way to enforce it. --LukeSurl ^{t c} 23:16, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose- Already covered by WP:COI guidelines.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 00:48, 14 October 2013 (UTC)
• Comment - the proposed language in new paragraph 6 is unclear and misses the boat. The bold short title is "Writing for profit" but the text immediately says "Businesses and other organizations..." So... what about owners/employees of nonprofit organizations? Think, Cato Institute or think Greenpeace, as you will. Also, it says nothing about "writing for profit" when you are someone like Wiki-PR - where you are writing on behalf of a third party that is paying you, which is a big problem. I would support a modified paragraph 6 being added to the text above or below, pointing to the COI guideline (which should be a policy) and explaining it. Jytdog (talk) 02:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)(striking a bit, as I am changing to support Jytdog (talk) 02:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC))

* Oppose paragraph 6 - as others have commented, this proposed addition is not about content, but is about contributor. It is unlike everything else in this policy. I support making the COI guideline a policy, and having the brightline in it. Every organization I know has a clear and actionable COI policy that is easy to find; it is crazy to me that WIkipedia does not have a COI policy. I acknowledge some ignorance here - if there is some strange thing that keeps us from having a COI policy and in the real world this is the only way to get it done, I would consider supporting.Jytdog (talk) 02:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC) (striking as I am changing to support Jytdog (talk) 02:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC))

• Jytdog, we've been unable to promote the relevant parts of COI to policy because people in favour of paid advocacy have in the past objected. Promoting the whole guideline to policy is hard because it's too long-winded for policy, but getting consensus on a rewrite would be difficult because 1,000 editors will arrive with 1,000 different views. So even though it seems clear that the community wants the bright line, the lack of cohesion about wording, etc, has meant no progress. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:36, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support, but I'd remove the part about GLAM interns and Wikipedians-in-residence needing to be supervised. As I understand it, these are experienced Wikipedians and there is no profit motive. Better to focus exclusively on the real problem, which is paid advocacy and companies promoting themselves. It will be easier to gain consensus if the focus is narrow. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:36, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I have no objection to somebody modifying or even eliminating the sentence on Wikipedians-in-Residence as long as it is understood that this program originated from Wikipedia and is monitored and accepted by Wikipedians. It is a clumsy situation, however, and I expect some folks might ask "why is it ok for these folks to get paid and not others. Brief answer to that involves a) non-profit educational institutions, b) short-term internship type position c) monitoring, d) loyalty to Wikipedia's mission, and e) it was our idea, not an outside profit motivated corporation's. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 05:39, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support - with caveats in my comment above and with SlimVirgin's strike too. Since this is the way to get it done, let's get it done.Jytdog (talk) 02:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Mostly to those that support - note that I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but that I really really don't think NOT is the right place for behavior and editing patterns, as it is a content guideline. If WP:COI is not going to move, perhaps this means we need a new policy WP:Paid editing that can go in the detail of what is and isn't allowed, but this advice simply is wrong to fit into the content policy of NOT. --MASEM (t) 02:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I am with you that it is a bit awkward here, but what is do-able is more important perhaps than what is elegant. How about we do this, and we work on a WP:Paid editing policy that would expand on it? If we are able to get the WP:Paid editing policy done, this new #6 could possibly then come out of NOT, and we would end up with something done and elegance. Jytdog (talk) 02:54, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem right now is that there's at least 3 different places this convo is going: here, COI, and the AN thread about banning these ppl. There probably needs to be an RFC about what policy or guideline should be changed and now, so that we're not massively changing policy that doesn't need changing. --MASEM (t) 03:00, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

(e.c) Agree with Jytog. It is moreover an extension of content, if you read it as 'WP does not display unmediated/un-independently reviewed content to readers that is subject to financial COI creation.' -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 03:07, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

User:Masem I just withdrew (for now) the suggestion to promote COI guideline to policy. So that's out. I don't quite agree that this is a "massive change" - it is adding a few sentences to policy that (as I understand it) most everybody finds reasonable and treats almost as policy anyway. It is the do-able thing, yes?Jytdog (talk) 04:59, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

If moving COI to policy was opposed at COI, you cannot stick it in here and submarine consensus that way. This is why we need a central discussion of exactly what step should be done. --MASEM (t) 05:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

After I wrote that, I regretted it as I thought "people might think I am opposing the suggestion for RfC" Which you indeed did think. Sorry about that. RfCs are always good. I was just trying to reduce the clutter of conversations - the RfC is the wikipedia way. Sorry about that. Jytdog (talk) 12:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose as proposed. WP:COI could use some teeth, but this is extremely broad, vague, and doesn't reflect what I've seen happen here. Ultimately it needs to address intent and NPOV - people with a CoI should not be editing the encyclopedia to advance their point of view nor using the encyclopedia for a competitive advantage. They're really no different from the activists - they have an axe to grind and they want to use Wikipedia to help them in their scheme. CoI is fundamentally built on WP:N and WP:UNDUE, conflict itself is not the problem, it's the lack of neutrality that's the problem. Presumptive assumptions of bad faith on the part of contributors don't really help. 71.231.186.92 (talk) 05:42, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Er, WP:N and WP:UNDUE have nothing to do with COI - those are just about sources. --MASEM (t) 05:45, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Why do we ban CoI editors, then? Spite? The purpose of CoI control is to make sure that people don't use Wikipedia as a marketing tool, soapbox, etc..., not to stop people with a conflict of interest from editing just because we don't like them. 71.231.186.92 (talk) 06:16, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

First, we don't ban (yet) COI editors - we discourage it but if they must do so, they need to identify themselves in relation to the topic they are editing. And the reason is more to assure neutrality in articles, per NPOV. --MASEM (t) 13:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. If the WMF or the chapters think it is a good idea to create GLAM projects for touristic purposes (or to take another example, "The goal of this project is to promote Mexican culture and identity as it is found on both sides of the Mexico-US border" is the actual purpose of a now defunct GLAM project!), then they shouldn't be pushing a bright line rule at all. We are not here to promote anything, we are here to spread knowledge. If Jimbo Wales and / or the WMF want a bright line rule, they should start to lead by example. Fram (talk) 08:12, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose - Wikipedia shouldn't be policing this when it's run by volunteers. It doesn't matter what suspected or announced COI a person has, it's the quality of their additions that matter. We shouldn't deter people being honest about this stuff or you'll quickly see specialist subjects deteriorate and stunted. It will deter editors, lead to "thought crime" (as someone else said), and tell those with in depth knowledge of a topic that their input is not wanted, or worse, banned. When Wikipedia is already haemorrhaging users this just makes the problem worse and speeds up the decline. There's not a single way this can help Wikipedia except for a smaller AfC cue. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 08:37, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

1)How does this deter honesty, isn't it expecting that they will be honest about financial COI? How is expecting disclosure thought crime? What "in depth" knowledge would be lost, given that all sources have to be publicly published, already? Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:30, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting you're an idiot, but no one could possibly believe everything a source says is true and argue that point. Even reliable sources don't always know what they're on about. Could you edit articles on particle physics using only references to learn the topic? I couldn't. We need people who know the topic. We don't need more reasons to exclude people.

If you punish people for being honest about a COI then you have to expect more with a COI to stay quiet for their editing. I'd announce a financial COI on my userpage. It wouldn't stop me editing, but i would at least announce it. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 13:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Particle physics is not going to be hiring anyone to write a wikipedia article about it, so your concern seems unfounded. And yes, disclose, thanks. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:52, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

My point appears to have alluded you. I look forward to your version of Wikipedia, where the Wikimedia Foundation will inevitably be paying people to write in a few years as membership has declined to an unsustainable point. It becomes a possibility more and more with added regulation and bureaucracy. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 14:01, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Your point is that volunteer financial conflict of interest disclosure and expectations, will cause the Foundation to hire people? That's a "future" that seems most improbable. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:17, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Jenova, couple of things... first, I do hear you, that fewer editors are an issue, and I understand that WMF is working to address that. But I look at that as part of Wikipedia's maturation, not a crisis. With respect to COI, in my view, this glorious Wikipedia project with its open nature, leaves itself vulnerable to manipulation by conflicted editors. And it has matured a lot since the early days - this has changed a lot of things, including the level to which the public has come to rely on us. That is a responsibility we need to rise to. Conflicted editing hurts our credibility and our name and nonprofits must have the public's goodwill, or they die. Rather than putting barriers to entry (like some kind of application to get editing privileges) which is the common way to weed out bad eggs, I would prefer making it more clear to editors, via clear and enforceable policy, that they are responsible to avoid editing articles where they have a financial COI. I am not a purist - I do not think companies or financial interests are evil per se; but at minimum, COI must be declared by editors and managed by Wikipedia. Its a basic governance issue. Do you not agree with any of that? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:47, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

No, decline of users aside, Wikipedia has a big problem with reliability. Even people on the help desks will routinely tell people Wikipedia is a starting point for research and not a reliable source. That won't ever change for some topics with a deterrent to people with a COI who understand the topic. Some of this is covered under Wikiproject Editor Retention. I'm not convinced at all that this is a positive for the project. It's easily a negative to force more people out, who can't be proven to be harmful by normal means. This just strikes me as a way to sweep them under the rug and pretend they don't exist because there's a strict policy in place. Be clear and honest here, this policy change won't eliminate paid editing and COI, it will hide it. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 15:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Very much my concern as well. We all know that many (most?) articles are written by people with little knowledge of the topic. In the case of organisations, by and large only those connected with it will know whether the article is accurate and up-to-date. Just in the same way as those on academic subjects will be best if they are contributed to by people familiar with the best and current RS and in many cases will have done research in the field. We will not get a better WP if we ignore those problems, and rules discouraging such participation beg the question of how else we can substitute for it. --AJHingston (talk) 15:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Having no financial conflict of interest does not seem to be a reliability problem for the rest of the world, quite the opposite, it fosters reliability. (See, eg. [4]) Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:50, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Take a look on the help desk on any day and it's full of COI editors and IPs complaining their articles are out of date. What are they told? Bring it up on the talk page...Where if it's a low traffic article their concerns will be ignored. So they edit the article instead, and guess what? They're either reverted by someone who knows less on the topic and doesn't agree with the change for whatever reason, or under this policy, they're blocked, and Wikipedia continues to be an unreliable source. At least if they edit the articles themselves, they may eventually go onto other topics and become learned editors. I started in a similar way, only without a paid COI. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 15:51, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Support and the language in the COI "guideline" should be revised. As long as there is a policy somewhere that makes nondisclosure a policy violation that is subject to sanction, then some of the problems should be preventable. --Ubikwit ^連絡 _{見学/迷惑} 15:29, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I believe that there has been some WP:CANVASSING going on.[5][6][7] --Guy Macon (talk) 09:42, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Um, guy, if you actually read WP:CANVASSING you will see that posting in the three places you link to is not canvassing but is actually encouraged. Jytdog (talk) 11:11, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Read the message accompanying each invite to the discussion. They're not the most neutral. They read more like, "quick, support me before i'm outnumbered or all the opposing opinions get in". See Campaigning for more information. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 11:14, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course, that can be counterproductive. It certainly did not make me more willing to support the proposition, but it did set up alarms bells causing me to contribute. --AJHingston (talk) 12:50, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

That's the difference between Campaigning and Canvassing with the intention of Votestacking I believe. Thanks ツ Jenova20 ^(email) 12:53, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I hear you on the less-than-neutral language. It appears to be working, in any case, to attract people on all sides, as it was posted in the right places.Jytdog (talk) 13:02, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose our processes for allowing those with a COI to propose an edit, and have it made by an independent editor, are so broken and backloged (with requests dating back 6 months), that prohibiting direct edits will do nothing but drive editors with a COI underground. We will create more incidents like the current one, not fewer with this sort of a rule. We want to bring COI editors into the fold, so that their work receives appropriate scrutiny, but that requires compromise, and creating a system that allows productivity. We need to create such a system first, and not create a situation where COI editors feel forced to work around us, rather then with us. Monty₈₄₅ 15:25, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Add "marketing or public relations"

As proposer, I agree with the comments below that say this should be dealt with separately. I've taken the liberty of changing the section name from "convenience break". Just to repeat the proposal:

"I've also added "marketing or public relations" to:

5 Advertising, marketing or public relations.

PR people seem to make a very fine distinction between "promotion" (which is forbidden) and "advertising" (which is forbidden) and what they do. Normal people do not make this distinction, so this is just filling in the blanks. I suppose "Advertising (broadly defined)" might do the same thing, but is not as clear."

• Comment - nobody has opposed the minor change about adding "marketing or public relations" to Advertising. This is just a clarification that marketing and PR don't fall in between the cracks between "promotion" and "advertising" (as suggested by many PR people). So, I've put it back in the policy. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • That I believe is reasonable. --MASEM (t) 14:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Wait until RfC has closed. No need to jump the gun if there is gonna be a whole paragraph like you want. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 18:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
      • This change is completely separate from full paragraph addition. It is to clarify a term that can be misused by PR firms, and only adding a couple related terms without changing the intent of policy, so it is completely reasonable and can be done separately from the above change. --MASEM (t) 18:43, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
      • I support the addition of "marketing or public relations" Jytdog (talk) 02:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

More central RFC

A more central RFC has been started on Wikipedia talk:No paid advocacy on whether the bright line rule suggested here should be made policy via that page. I would recommend that we close this section as to centralize the discussion there. --MASEM (t) 17:19, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I just put up a notice at the top of the section (as proposer here) suggesting the same thing. The only thing I ask is the section immediately above on the minor change of words be kept here. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 17:25, 14 October 2013 (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.

Add "marketing or public relations" (again)

I moved this discussion from the above closed discussion, as I did not propose that this part be closed. As proposer, I agree with the comments below that say this should be dealt with separately. I've taken the liberty of changing the section name from "convenience break". Just to repeat the proposal:

"I've also added "marketing or public relations" to:

5 Advertising, marketing or public relations.

PR people seem to make a very fine distinction between "promotion" (which is forbidden) and "advertising" (which is forbidden) and what they do. Normal people do not make this distinction, so this is just filling in the blanks. I suppose "Advertising (broadly defined)" might do the same thing, but is not as clear."

• Comment - nobody has opposed the minor change about adding "marketing or public relations" to Advertising. This is just a clarification that marketing and PR don't fall in between the cracks between "promotion" and "advertising" (as suggested by many PR people). So, I've put it back in the policy. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 12:52, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
  • That I believe is reasonable. --MASEM (t) 14:04, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Wait until RfC has closed. No need to jump the gun if there is gonna be a whole paragraph like you want. --Dkriegls (talk to me!) 18:41, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
      • This change is completely separate from full paragraph addition. It is to clarify a term that can be misused by PR firms, and only adding a couple related terms without changing the intent of policy, so it is completely reasonable and can be done separately from the above change. --MASEM (t) 18:43, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
      • I support the addition of "marketing or public relations" Jytdog (talk) 02:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#List_criteria

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#List_criteria. Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)