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Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 97

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Offensive content on "Main Page"

It seems that recently there have been a few occurrences of content on the Main Page that could be considered offensive. For example, "Encyclopedia **me And The Case Of The Vanishing Entree" was recently posted, and there have been a few others. Perhaps this has become more common, or perhaps I am just noticing more of them recently. I understand that Wikipedia is to have a full encyclopedia format, and if it's necessary to have those titles, then fine. But I think, as the Main Page is a central location that anyone could go to, before routing to the page they are interested in, it should only have content that is appropriate for all users. Is this possible to make happen? Stephanie (talk) 05:49, 21 June 2012 (UTC)the previous comment was made by Stephanie.stanage WormTT(talk) 10:46, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Could you link to the page, because your bowdlerisation is completely incomprehensible. Fifelfoo (talk) 05:53, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I would guess that the OP meant Encyclopedia Fuckme And The Case Of The Vanishing Entree, a DYK entry. → ROUX ₪ 06:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. Stephanie, Wikipedia is not censored, and neither is the Main Page. What you find personally offensive doesn't matter. What I find personally offensive does not matter. Grow up and put your morality back into your own life instead of waving it offensively in other people's faces. Fifelfoo (talk) 06:05, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not censored. Period. Get over it. Or perhaps you could define what content is suitable for 'all users'? I'm sure that the ruling parties in, say, Iran or parts of the USA would find this article completely unsuitable, for example. → ROUX ₪ 06:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Wow, thank you so much for that opinion (how about just actually read what I wrote?) I didn't ask for censoring Wikipedia, as I clearly noted; I asked about the Main Page. As far as I can see, there isn't a policy of censorship/non-censorship for the Main Page. Am I wrong about this? Please excuse my ignorance if I am. Stephanie 07:04, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

The Main Page is somehow... separate from Wikipedia? Again, please suggest a standard of content filtration that is somehow "appropriate for all users," bearing in mind of course that our users span the entire globe. → ROUX ₪ 08:23, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
What you're basically asking for is some sort of editorial judgement on the promotion of content on the Main Page. But because of the extreme difficulty of gaining agreement among Wikipedians on general standards for applying such judgement, there is very little exercised (sometimes there is a limited agreement enough for action on something specific). A reference to WP:NOTCENSORED is a short-hand for explaining this, but wrapping it in a bit of "it's a feature, not a bug" by applying the reasons for not removing information from the encyclopedia to the different issue of what to promote on the encyclopedia's cover. (And given that the example is a commercial product, I use the word promote deliberately.) Rd232 talk 07:30, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Censored or not, it's kind of funny to imagine that a game with this little third party coverage would pass the GNG. There's no secondary coverage of this that isn't just a routine review. There's an in-depthish pitchfork review and an in-depthish escapist review, both of which pass WP:RS I guess but are not quite what I would think of as normally encyclopedically significant (oh, and a one paragraph review in an av club article that reviews like ten other games.) A minor indie freeware browser-based game with such little coverage will have no lasting notability. If it wasn't currently on the front page, I think I would be tempted to AfD it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 07:48, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:ASTONISH applies just as much as WP:NOTCENSORED.
There is a problem with Main page in that it has been put into the main encyclopaedia but it is not an article. It does not describe what a main page is and provide citations and show why it is notable. How can one say whether censored or astonish apply to a page like that? Dmcq (talk) 08:31, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Aside from anything else, I can't help but feel that the OP has been leaped on here. The community is clearly galvanised on this issue (the principals have been argued over enough times), but that's not excuse for reacting against a post in a non-combative tone as if it has been a call to heresy. We have good enough reasons why we don't filter information for the main page, and the OP could have easily been directed to them without putting her under siege. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 11:10, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm usually always the first to defend the concept of not censoring Wikipedia. It's not only part of the guidelines, but it's just good policy. But that article was probably a bit much for the main page. I would think that a bit of intelligence and outright common sense would have discovered that.--JOJ Hutton 11:20, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
  • "it should only have content that is appropriate for all users.". The onus is upon you to demonstrate how this content is inappropriate; you have simply stated the premise and assumed we would accept it. --Golbez (talk) 19:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Although WP: CENSOR, many children use Wikipedia every day, and I don't think they should be seeing this when they visit our main page. Electriccatfish2 (talk) 12:23, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
  • There is nothing wrong in principle for the main page to feature content which is potentially offensive to some people if the linked content is of value. There are a lot of different subjects that offend different people and we can't be worrying about how to keep absolutely everybody happy all the time. We just need to be sure we are not being gratuitously offensive. What perplexes me is that an article that is about a pretty trivial subject and which is borderline deletable for notability (for my money it would be a very weak keep if I was !voting in an AfD on it) was chosen for the main page. I know that DYK is allowed to be a bit whimsical but I agree with Jojhutton. This was a poor choice and a bit of common sense should have told everybody that the value of the linked article was not sufficient to justify its inclusion on the main page. I am sure it was not intended to be gratuitously offensive but it will have seemed that way to many people. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:02, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, of course the main page is censored; any limited space must be subject to decisions on what it contains, and in that case the censorship is simply called "editorial judgement". The only difference is that you have to sometimes refrain from disclosing your real reasons: don't say "I'm offended", look for some other reason. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 13:12, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

  • The issue here is not WP:CENSORED, the issue is vulgarity.  WP:NOTCENSORED allows me to list all the words that rhyme with "buck" without concern that my edit will be partially overwritten by a bot.  For example, I still remember a site whose bot would overwrite part of the word "pussywillow".  But what were the people thinking that put that topic on the main page?  Unscintillating (talk) 00:26, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I think it's interesting that the English Wikipedia is actually quite tame compared to some other Wikipedias. Perhaps it's that puritanical current that runs through American society (not, of course, that America owns the English language), that gives us more vocal complaints. If I recall correctly, the German Wikipedia once had on its main page a human vulva in all its glory. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Is it your view that "complaints" about vulgarity should be WP:CENSORED?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Limitations on Admins, wax and wane

Administrators go through a lot of hell in their role. Certainly, it can make even the best person jaded after a while. My proposal is simple, and potentially controversial.

I propose that Administrators are given non-optional and cyclical 'vacations' on rotating basis, particularly admins who are 'people focused'.

Some editors and admins only focus on things that primarily don't involve other people, like copy editing, reverting vandalism, and so on. Other administrators work to resolve conflicts between editors and decide bans and blocks. It is primarily this second group that gives me more concern.

Civility is a primary tenet and pillar of Wikipedia, and while many admins do an outstanding job (with less credit than they might deserve), sometimes even the best among us can get exasperated and frustrated at having to tell the latest 'moron' the same thing for the 100th time. "Yes, 3 reverts does mean 3." Being welcoming and patient and motivated is a skill that few people are able to always keep 'on'.

Specifically, I would recommend that people-focused admins (perhaps all admins) are given a 6-month downtime after 2 years of service where the use of tools is suspended and they either take a break or simply work as a regular editor for that time.

This would result in a different perspective and different mindset about the expectations that they have to shoulder while at Wikipedia. If the community agrees, this could either be a period where they can still exercise non-tool-related admin functions, or simply a time where they are an 'Admin-meritorium' that they just take the time to do editor type stuff for a while. -- Avanu (talk) 00:36, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to the idea that admins ought to see life an a regular editor on occasion. However, let me throw in one complication. Much of my activity in the last month has been as an OTRS agent. One doesn't have to be an admin to be an agent, but my activity would be severely hampered if I were not an admin. Many times, someone is prompted to send in a permission statement because their image was deleted. It is straightforward, if tedious, to find the image, undelete it, add the permission and add it back to the article, but I would have to track down an admin or pass on many of the requests. As it is, I'm contemplating applying to be a Commons admin because it is such a pain to track down a Commons admin every time I need to restore a deleted image from Commons. One option would be to exempt OTRS agents from the vacation, another option would be to tell me it would be good for me to take a break as well.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 01:06, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
What happens if after the 6 month downtime they enjoyed their break so much they don't want to return to admin duty anymore? -- Ϫ 06:51, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Any admin is free to give up their adminship at any time. SilverserenC 09:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, this is never going to fly. This is a volunteer project. Telling people their services are not wanted for 6 months isn't helpful. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
No way. Judging from various backlogs, we need more admins doing admin tasks, not less. --NeilN talk to me 19:01, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Nothing stops an admin from taking time off. I have done this in the past, albeit not for 6 months. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
The idea is to encourage people to have a mindset that is not just administrator-focused. The length of time could be less, but hopefully not so insignificant that the person isn't able to gain a fresh perspective. And you are not telling people their services aren't wanted, you're telling them that being a part of the overall community is as important as being an admin. As far as that backlog you mention, there is a proposal under way right now to address that at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Proposal_by_Jc37. -- Avanu (talk) 19:09, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
That proposal, with currently only 7 more support !votes than opposes, does not look like it will have consensus to pass. Perhaps if we solve the issue of having too few admins first, then existing admins will do more "regular editing". --NeilN talk to me 19:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I think there may be something to be said for the idea of admins "losing perspective" on occasion...it's a danger for anyone in a position of authority. Six months seems like a rather long time to me though; three would be less of a concern. The argument that there are too few admins for this to be workable doesn't hold much water for me...it validates the current paradigm while raising another concern that consequently goes unaddressed. Anyway, I'll be curious to see whether anything comes of this; I think it could be beneficial, and I'm not sure why anyone should get their feathers ruffled over a non-punitive vacation that still enables them to assist the project in a meaningful fashion (i.e. nobody's getting blocked or such). Doniago (talk) 19:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I can't see consensus for enforcing this. But maybe we could get consensus for a bot to automatically suggest to admins

hey, you meet these criteria X/Y/Z which the community has set as making it maybe a good idea to consider a break from adminship tasks (see WP:Adminship break for explanation). Please consider taking a 3-month break from admin tasks in the near future. If you do, use template {{adminship break}} to let people know (and if necessary, have a bureaucrat temporarily remove adminship, if you need help sticking to the break).

Rd232 talk 21:32, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

We trust administrators with powerful tools to delete articles, block people, and so on. Surely we can trust them to recognize when they need a vacation! Maybe we just need to clarify this as an option for admins (although it seems obvious; surely we don't expect them to be signing up for an unbroken term of indentured servitude). They could ask another admin to watch their talk page while they are "on furlough", or even ask a bureaucrat for a "burnout vacation" for a length of time that seems good to them. I certainly don't agree with any one-size-fits-all prescription for the timing or length of the furlough, or with a "bot" recommendation triggered by some arbitrary criterion. --MelanieN (talk) 23:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Should we create a new namespace, for essays?

The Wikipedia: namespace contains policies, guidelines -- and essays. One doesn't have to participate in many discussions before one sees contributors admonishing other contributors for "violating" an essay.

While some essays contain excellent advice, others contain bad advice, or advice from a fringe position. I suggest no good faith contributors has an obligation to explain, in advance, why they are not following the advice of one of our very large number of essays.

Clearly the box essays usually have at their top fails to make clear to those who reference them, as if they had the authority of policy, that they are just essays. Due to the use of wikilinks to sections of both policies and essays, these links skip the preambles, as to whether the document is a policy, a guideline, or just an essay.

I suggest that if all essays were demoted to an essay namespace, fewer contributors would cite them as if they were policies.

I suggest all existing essays be copied, with their contribution history, to a new Essay: namespace, with an explanation left, telling readers that the document was an essay, and where it can be found. When the essay is the target of a bunch of wikilinks to subsections within that essay, I think the explanation should list links to corresponding section, in the Essay: namespace. I don't think the current redirections should be changed to be cross-namespace redirections. I believe it was the widespread use of these shortcuts that it largely responsible for the confusion between policies and essays.

If this step was taken some contributors may wish to promote some of the most widely cited essays to guideline status. I would see that requiring a discussion as to the whether the advice in the essay is widely enough accepted, and well enough written to belong in the Wikipedia: namespace. Geo Swan (talk) 14:24, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree there is a problem (many problems; most obviously that many of them don't make sense, but have "owners" who refuse to allow them to be corrected). But I think there are already quite enough namespaces. I would say that essays should be in the User: namespace (so it could be clear who owns them), whereas anything that is consensually accepted as giving good advice and accurate documentaion of accepted practice should be in the Help: namespace (no need then to further mark it as a "policy" or a "guideline"). That would leave the Wikipedia: namespace for internal bits and pieces that people have no need to read unless they want to. Discussion pages like this should be in a Talk: namespace. But I realize that I have far too logical a mind to bother trying to reason with anyone around here. Victor Yus (talk) 16:10, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Essays in the Wikipedia space can and should improve and gain acceptance gradually, or go nowhere due to lack of interest, mixed right in with the policies and established guidelines. I think this is much more in accordance with the wiki way than making a special, privileged public namespace. There is indeed some problem with people citing essays as if they were policy; a worse problem is that people cite guidelines as if they were policy. But overall, things work pretty well. Editors debate most changes on their own merits, appealing to the insights found in a sprawl of conflicting guidelines and essays with no clearly defined levels of authoritativeness. That is all just as it should be. I concur with Victor Yus: people who want to "own" essays should keep them in their private User area, not in a public namespace by any name. There is also a new danger with an Essay namespace: that could encourage people to post essays about any topic, not just insights and advice about editing Wikipedia articles. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 18:06, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose: I certainly agree that there's a problem - today I stumbled upon an essay that clearly goes against policy on at least three counts. I may have been too harsh in adding a warning to that essay. :/ Such extreme examples should not be included in the project namespace at all; they can go in the user area. But many essays contain useful information that isn't covered by official policy, and before one searches for the information, there's no way to know whether it will be in an essay or in a policy. Keeping them both under the same namespace makes it easier to locate that information. ʝunglejill 22:31, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
But then the (good) essays should be marked as guidelines, right? Because if you're told than a page contains just the views of an unspecified number of users, you don't know whether it is useful information or not. Victor Yus (talk) 13:56, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Something can be useful without being a policy. That's what the essays are for, I suppose. If something hasn't been made a policy, there's usually a reason, like lack of consensus, or a desire to treat certain issues informally. There is a way of knowing whether the information is useful - if it helps you contribute and doesn't contradict policy, then it's useful. ʝunglejill 21:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose. There's already too much weight given (by some editors) to the policy-guideline-essay trichotomy; this proposal would further entrench such misguided thinking and further embolden ruleslawyers to the detriment of the project. How many times have you seen variations on the following three themes at a noticeboard or in another discussion:
  • That's a policy, therefore there can be no exceptions...(even in your unusual circumstances which probably weren't contemplated when the policy was created).
  • That's a guideline and not a policy, therefore I am not required to follow it, and I can't be punished for continuing to violate it.
  • That's just an essay, so you can't bring it up as a justification or argument in favor of anything; it should be ignored in this discussion.
Essays can be particularly slipperly creatures to classify, too, because often they have much stronger elements of why, and much weaker elements of how—they may describe a particular line of reasoning or justification for a given policy or interpretation, rather than give specific directives about how to perform specific tasks.
Finally, I would remind the proposer of the Wikipedia policy that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:34, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Thanks to everyone who weighed in here!
I am going to take the liberty of attempting a summary -- there seems to be general agreement that contributors citing essays as if they had the authority of policy is a problem.
Thanks to Victor Yus for suggesting that essays which the original author or authors aren't still working on in User: the namespace, could be kept in Help: namespace. I'd certainly prefer that to the current situation. There are some essays that I think authors would like to promote from User:, that are so controversial, poorly thought out, or otherwise inadequate that they should be demoted back to User:. But I don't know a mechanism for that kind of demotion.
Thanks to Ben Kovitz for noting that an Essay: could encourage individuals to use it for general essays that aren't related to the functioning of WMF projects. Geo Swan (talk) 18:23, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
I think if someone cites an essay to help explain their opinion, that's fine. It can save a lot of typing. If anyone cites an essay and claims that it's policy, it's pretty easy to tell them that it's not. The only problem I see is with essays that contradict policies and good practice. ʝunglejill 21:02, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Usually, in the problematic cases, there is no explicit claim that the essay is policy (or even a guideline). What I see more is people giving shortcut links to essays in the same sort of context that they would give them to policies or guidelines, allowing readers to assume that the positions have consensus support. I am not saying that this is always deliberate and disingenuous, though sometimes I have my suspicions, but it's a problem even if it's not. --Trovatore (talk) 21:09, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
There's a disclaimer right above every essay. I agree that someone can always come along and completely misunderstand an essay as a policy - this is the internet after all. But let's not take lowest common denominator too far. Most editors are perfectly aware that not every wp:ACRONYM is a policy. ʝunglejill 22:00, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
It's not so much that anyone explicitly thinks it's a policy. It's that editors who approve of the essay subtly give their positions the air of an authority or a consensus they may not have. Some essays are habitual offenders on this point (WP:ATA, I'm looking at you). --Trovatore (talk) 22:07, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

I think I suggested this a while back - mainly so that essays would have an E: shortcut (instead of WP:) and be easily identifiable when cited. Rd232 talk 21:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the underlying problem is that this habit of "arguing" by writing things like WP:XYZ has become far too engrained. We need to rediscover our ability to think, instead of kidding ourselves that we have an infallible set of rules that will solve every problem for us, that arguments not based explicitly on any of these rules are deficient, and that simply writing the shortcut to a page of rules carries any weight as an argument. Another poor habit (not on topic, though it's illustrated by example here) is prefacing one's responses to others' suggestions with the words Support, Oppose and similar. We're supposed to be discussing matters and reaching a conclusion having weighed up all the factors, not jumping to a conclusion right away, which inevitably leads to a competitive debating-chamber atmosphere. Victor Yus (talk) 06:08, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I agree. But in terms of what we can do towards that, which is relevant to this thread: I think having Essay: and shortcut E: would help a little, because it would prod things towards using essays as argument (substitute for writing words - this essay says want I want to say here) rather than as authority, which WP: tends to imply. Rd232 talk 13:53, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Can anyone respond to the reason for my objection? To reiterate, it's easier to search for information if it's under the same namespace. A lot of essays contain useful information about editing Wikipedia, even if they're not formal policy. Sorry, but as a new editor, this is more important to me than providing a minor fix to a perceived problem with discussion style. ʝunglejill 14:06, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
it's easier to search for information if it's under the same namespace - not substantially. You would just need to tick both the Wikipedia and Essay namespaces at Special:Search. On the other hand, if you knew it was (or probably was) an Essay, you could restrict your search to that namespace, which would be helpful as the Wikipedia namespace contains an awful lot of content (all WikiProjects, for example). Rd232 talk 15:03, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I suspect that you're strongly overestimating the willingness of individuals to divide their writings into separate namespace-appropriate 'what we do' versus 'why we do it' portions. Consider the existing system with its Wikipedia: and Help: namespaces. There's a certain amount of overlap between the two namespaces' mandates (as there would be between a future Essay: space and WP:), with two consequences. First, the Help: namespace is underused; even documents that probably should be there often end up in the more-popular and better-known WP: space; pages that sit on the edge almost universally end up falling on the WP: side. There's no good reason to expect this not to happen with a new Essay: space. (Where do we put the putative essay Wikipedia:Advanced footnote formatting?)
Second, we have a massive number of cross-namespace redirects, shortcuts, and hatnotes so that people who go looking for something in one space can still find it if it happens to be in the other. This cross-namespace confusion grows to epic proportions if we move all the existing essays wholesale to a new namespace, as discussions would contain a deeply perplexing mix of WP:- and E:-prefixed titles and shortcuts. (We'd have to leave all the old redirects and shortcuts in place to avoid breaking hundreds of thousands of talk page archives, and there's nothing to prevent our thousands of experienced editors from continuing to use their familiar shortcuts.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:42, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this unfortunately seriously reduces the value of the proposal, and is probably the main reason I haven't supported it. There does not seem to be any feasible way to get rid of WP: shortcuts to essays, and the existence of E: shortcuts could perversely aggravate the problem of WP: shortcuts appearing to have consensus or authority (somewhat in the same way that the existence of bike lanes makes it harder on cyclists on roads where they aren't there, or are obstructed).
Nevertheless there is a genuine problem here, and even if I have no solution for it, I would like to see awareness raised about it. If editors were merely reminded somehow that pretty much anyone can write pretty much anything in Wikipedia space, and create a WP: shortcut to it, that would be a significant improvement. But how to remind them? --Trovatore (talk) 03:45, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
Essay shortcuts could also start using the E: shortcut regardless of what space they're in, as long as there's community consensus for it. See how a lot of Manual of Style shortcuts use MOS: (such as MOS:NUM, MOS:LAYOUT, etc.), despite them existing in the Wikipedia: namespace. The shortcuts technically exist in articlespace but redirect to Wikipedia-space. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 18:52, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't believe there are any truly urgent reasons for changing the status quo. many essays reside in user space where they are generally protected (by policy) from unwanted editing, and many essays are moved by their creators to WP space (where anyone can edit them). being in WP space doesn't make then any more important however. I have both kinds. 'E' space for all essays might be a good idea, but the editing policy of them would need more discussion. As far as citing essays as if they were policy, I believe that there are sufficient caveats, although some essays have acquired community consensus to be seriously recognised as a guideline - perhaps those should be promoted to guideline status.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:59, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
That's a highly problematic path to a guideline. Personally I refrain from editing essays I don't agree with; the authors are entitled to their views and to make them known. I imagine lots of folks do likewise. But then, if the general theme of the essay gets consensus, it means that the views of those who disagree have not been taken into account, and change to the new guideline may be resisted.
Instead, the essay should remain an essay, and a new guideline should be written from scratch, with all views considered. --Trovatore (talk) 22:20, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
I think you need to read WP:PGE.
I also think that if you think this through, you'll see the problem. Where would you file WP:BRD and WP:TE, which are "just" essays? What about WP:Five pillars, which is (officially) just an essay, but which 99% of newbies seem to think was the first page ever written on Wikipedia and the sole basis for all the official policies? (Its history is summarized at its FAQ if you're curious.)
And then there's the whole concept of what constitutes "policy" in the first place. If you hold Jimbo Wales' view, anything you write that accurately describes the community's view on an important point is automatically a Real Policy. So if you go to your user page, and you type "It is incredibly important to cite reliable sources when writing Wikipedia articles", then that sentence is a Real Policy and your user page (or at least that part of it) is a Real Policy. But if you write a page that says something anti-consensus, like "We've all agreed that WhatamIdoing doesn't have to cite sources because she never makes a mistake", then that is absolutely not a policy, even if you slap a {{Policy}} template on the top of the page.
The bottomline is that reality is mushy. Our advice pages form a continuum. WP:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays is subtle and murky. I don't think we are well served by trying to make much out of it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 23 June 2012 (UTC)
The point is that policies and guidelines are both expected to have consensus, whereas essays need not — they are allowed to be expressions of one POV within the Wikipedia community, even a significantly minoritarian one. If a page marked as a policy or a guideline is actually against consensus, the template designating it as a policy or a guideline will normally be removed in short order. In contrast, it would be quite improper to rewrite an essay to reflect consensus views, if done in a way that contradicts the POV of the essay — essays are an important tool for editors to explain views that may not be the current consensus, and to argue why, in their opinion, those views should become consensus.
WP: shortcuts, unfortunately, elide this important distinction.
As I say, I don't see any easy technical remedy for the problem, because we can't actually delete the shortcuts beginning with WP: without breaking all sortsa stuff. But that does not mean there is not a problem. (I note in passing that you gave a shortcut to an essay, in support of the proposition that essays should not be considered inferior to policies and guidelines.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:04, 26 June 2012 (UTC)
Technically, PGE is a {{supplement}}, and it's one that was written with the advice of the regulars at WP:POLICY to explain some of the stuff that people keep asking, but we didn't want to bloat the main policy page with. It could have just as easily been put in a {{FAQ}} page. Or we could have added it to the policy page. We talked about it. The fact that we took this approach doesn't mean that the page's contents are any less valid. (I think we would have used a different writing style, but the content would be basically the same.)
Your problem isn't really with shortcuts. The spelled-out name doesn't tell you what the status of the page is.
And, again, there's that difficult question about what's "really" policy. See the bold-faced text at WP:COMMONSENSE, which addresses the question of why that page is labeled as an "essay" rather than a "policy". Is "use common sense" a True Policy or just "one POV" or something else? IMO the True Policy is what the community does, which does not always line up perfectly with its official {{policy}}-tagged pages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
I didn't say it did line up. That's not the point. I made my point, but let me say it all by itself so it doesn't get lost in other stuff: Policies and guidelines are supposed to have consensus, and if they don't, they are supposed to be changed. Essays are not expected to have consensus — they are the opinions of their authors. --Trovatore (talk) 00:40, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
So is an essay therefore "owned" by the person(s) who originally created it? If I come along and add my opinion to an essay, can the author revert me purely on the grounds that (s)he disagrees with my view? Or is (s)he expected to engage in a consensus-forming process with me? If the first, then it seems the page ought to be in user space as a proprietary page of a given user; if the second, then it seems it is "supposed to have consensus" just as much as any other page would. Or are there some unwritten rules about the editing of essays that put them somewhere in the middle ground between my two scenarios? Victor Yus (talk) 11:58, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Essays located at the user's space are owned by that person and not expected to be edited by others. However, if you move your essay to Wikipedia space this is seen as an invitation to others to further develop the ideas in it. So you really have the two possibilities, with the final decision in the hands of the essay writer. The difference between essays at Wikipedia space with respect to guidelines is that essays don't need to be consistent with policy or other guidelines. Diego (talk) 12:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)
Of course, if you put it in Wikipedia space, you are "inviting others to further develop the ideas in it". However, to me, "further developing the ideas" is quite different from, say, writing a completely different essay, because you think the one there is flat wrong. When I think an essay is just completely wrong, that doesn't mean I try to censor it!
That's the point I'm trying to get across: An essay in Wikipedia space, while it may of course be edited by others, is still permitted to be an opinion that does not have consensus, or even that goes completely against consensus. It's unlikely that the community will completely change the thrust of an essay, just because most editors don't agree with it. This is different from policies and guidelines — if the community doesn't agree with a policy or guideline, it is normal for them to change it, or mark it as no longer a policy or guideline. --Trovatore (talk) 15:39, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

I like the idea of labelling shortcuts to essays with E: in the same way that shortcuts to the Manual of Style are labeled with MOS:. It solves the problem and doesn't require a new namespace, only a few users creting the shortcuts and beginning to use them consistently. This has a chance to gain traction and become widely used quickly, as it's very easy to spot. What essays should be the first to get the new shortcut style? Maybe those at E:Arguments to avoid (like E:JUSTAVOTE, E:UNENCYCLOPEDIC, E:ILIKEIT, E:OTHERSTUFF...) would represent a good test for fringe cases, since it's an essay that's actually used as a guideline. Diego (talk) 12:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

There is indeed a variety of Pseudo-namespaces, however they are classed as x-namespace redirects which there is a lot of opposition to. I agree that it would help with the problem of mistaking essays for policies, but I hope it won't get out of hand with every creator of an WP:essay creating a x-namespace shortcut for it. -- Ϫ 16:27, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm not convinced that a separate namespace is the best solution, but I am concerned that... well... essays cover a wide range. At one end of the range are essays which are respected by many editors, and at the other end you have essays which are a single editor's rant - but some at the latter end of the spectrum still have their WP:ONE_EDITOR_FEELS_REALLY_STRONGLY_ABOUT_THIS redirect - and I can think of a couple which have been cited often by the essay's author in discussions, using the WP: redirect as though it's a real and legitimate rule on enwiki. I find such editing problematic, because it gives a veneer of respectability and community support to a position which has no such thing; and in discussions which need to be formally closed, we can't always rely on the closer to follow every link and carefully weigh up the level of community support for the linked page. bobrayner (talk) 15:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Creative Commons licence prevents deletion of certain articles?

It seems as though a strict interpretation of the Creative Commons licence prevents the deletion of articles in some cases. Please see the discussion at WT:DEL#Creative Commons licence prevents deletion of certain articles?. It seems a bit barmy to me. Thanks, Bazonka (talk) 22:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Cleaning up featured sounds

I have come many sound files that are old and need sound cleanup, and have the software(and time) to clean up the sound(Adobe Audition). Where shall I upload it? Overwrite with a new version? New File? Whom do I notify to replace the file? I'm sorry, but I'm not so experienced with Wikimedia Commons file practices.Rarkenin (talk) 17:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

You should probably ask this at the help desk, either here or on Commons. David1217 What I've done 18:26, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Benifits from donation

Hello Everybody, I have given 100 $ donation to Wikipedia and I am proud of it.After all, Wikipedia is my favorite website.I'm using it since 2004.By the way, I was thinking that you people should created something like this.If a person makes a donation more than sufficient amount like 10000$ or something, then his/her user account should be given administrator privileges.Thus, I would say that any active user would be inspired to donate 10000 $ to Wikipedia and Wikipedia will easily make up revenues for expanding.Show what are your thoughts. Regards,14.97.189.216 (talk) 05:51, 6 June 2012 (UTC).

I was thinking you had said 1,000 there for a while, and was thinking if that was a reasonable amount to pay someone to create an admin sock for you given the number of hours required, the labor cost in various countries versus the level of english required and so on, of course, you wouldn't be putting the money into wikipedia to become an admin, they wouldn't accept it and might be a little disgusted with the idea, you'd be giving it to someone else to do the work for you, and no doubt they'd be happy with that arrangement, and wikipedia would be happy as there is no appearance of a conflict of interest, and you'd probably be happy until you found out the job is far from glamorous.
But then I noticed, wait a minute, you said $10,000, well, all I can say to that is email me :) Because I know I'll be really really really happy, not just 'I can't believe it's not butter happy' but fireworks jumping off my chair punching the air happy, tipping over the monitor by accident as I victory dance around the desk, while a cat ran out of the room with a Rarrrroow and I'm too busy being excited to think for a second 'wait, I don't HAVE a cat'.
But seriously $10,000, isn't that overpriced ? Penyulap ☏ 06:49, 6 Jun 2012 (UTC)
what is the going rate for adminship anyone ? Penyulap ☏ 06:52, 6 Jun 2012 (UTC)
These days? two pieces of leather: A belt to the mouth and a boot to the head : ) - jc37 14:08, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Uh, no. Buying adminship is just a bad idea. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:40, 6 June 2012 (UTC)
Buying admin seems misguided to me. On the other hand, there might be some kind of more harmless badge (something a bit like a barnstar) which could be given to donors. It may already exist. --Salimfadhley (talk) 13:59, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Buying admin seems indeed misguided. It would force upon the contributor the job of being a administrator. That's like being given a broom and the title "janitor" because you gave $10,000 to a charity. Being a administrator is not a title or a honor; its a responsibility and frankly a loot of work. A much better thing to give would be a barnstar or similar mark of honor. If someone gives time, or they give money, do not both deserve some kind of appreciation? Belorn (talk) 14:10, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
All donators, get free access to Wikipedia content. Those that donate $10,000 or more get un-metered access. What more could you want? Similar benefits are available for those who donate time instead of money. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 14:36, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
Why on earth would we treat a large donor so poorly as that? We wouldn't have any left! :) Joking aside, being an admin isn't some wonderful thing. It invites a lot of abuse and criticism, and generally very little praise to temper it. Admin candidates have generally been around the block several times, and know what they're signing up for when they put their name in at RfA. Someone who buys their way in might be in for a very rude shock. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
No, $10,000 is never ever overpriced.Why? Because It's worth all the efforts you make to become a successful candidate at WP:RFA, including but not limited to fighting vandalism, giving a good judgement, making high amount of contribution, spending your time from your busy day, waiting for a long period, being criticized by fellow users, giving reply to all the damn questions at WP:RFA etc.In a nutshell, if a user is a experienced on Wikipedia, than instead of WP:RFA, he should be introduced with a new method of becoming a administrator.On the second point, I must say that becoming an administrator on world's largest encyclopedia that follows an ideal system of management would be an splendid experience.You can get a power and control in your hand via just a click of mouse!So, I am telling you to rethink in your mind about this subject.Also, I am not insisting the price to be such higher.It could be decided later.Keep only two word in mind- 'experienced user' and 'high amount to charity' Regards.(P.S.-I'm the same who started this thread, just my IP address is not static.)14.97.183.183 (talk) 07:41, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
You have different ideas about what adminship than I do. Since becoming an admin, I have found it much more restricting than empowering. I certainly have to parse my words more carefully to avoid a firestorm, I'm expected to tolerate incivility from others while not being able to crack wise back. If I make any mistake, there are dozens of people happy to point it out in multiple venues. Power and control are overrated and overstated, as we admins aren't the leaders of the community, we are its servants. A great many of the best leaders, voices of reason and editors around here are not admins. Being an admin has been a splendid experience in some way but not all, and it isn't ideal management. It is more akin to herding cats. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 10:59, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
Hit the nail right on the head for why I wouldn't want to be an admin, it would cramp my style :) I have much more variety and scope of strategies for interacting with morons than I would otherwise. But enough of this Dr Smith Lost in space 'oh the pain, the pain, adminship is such a pain' it does have it's prestige in the eyes of newbies who arrive from other boards thinking it is like the role of a sysop. The main difference in the eyes of a newbie between God and an admin is that God doesn't walk around all day long thinking he' an admin. Sysops are held to account for destroying Bulletin boards and forums, whereas here, nobody cares, it's all good. Penyulap ☏ 07:38, 11 Jun 2012 (UTC)
The idea of making users admins for giving money is akin to appointing some dude for public office just because they gave a million dollars to the President. That's capitalism, and I don't like the idea of capitalism on Wikipedia - or anywhere. 68.173.113.106 (talk) 23:16, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Plutocracy, not Capitalism, fwiw, 113.106. --Tagishsimon (talk) 23:22, 12 June 2012 (UTC)
Ha! the irony, to be the US president, people have to give you the millions of dollars. Penyulap ☏ 07:11, 13 Jun 2012 (UTC)
I'm just glad to be an American, where how much money you have doesn't effect your chances to be elected. </sarcasm> Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 15:22, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose Wikipedia does not choose its policies or its admins based on revenues, and thank goodness for that. We are a volunteer organization that makes a free encyclopedia, and that is all. If money comes into it, that skews the editing and reshapes the entire purpose and direction of the project. —Ben Kovitz (talk) 18:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)
Oppose spam is already a serious problem here. If we started selling admin accounts then there are heaps of PR agencies, lobbyists and other advertising organisations for whom $10,000 for an admin account would be petty cash. There are plenty of ways that they could get their moneys worth. If people want to donate time or money then we should thank them for their donation. But we need to get suspicious when they start saying that it wasn't really a donation and they are entitled to something in return. ϢereSpielChequers 22:29, 24 June 2012 (UTC)
That's nonsense.What is relationship between the donation and community based volunteer work? Max Viwe | Viwe The Max 14:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
[1] - David Gerard (talk) 09:52, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Link to an image: how for a reader?

In mainspace, we use images (graphic files). Quite often, there is no link=Some article set, so when our Reader clicks that image (link) it opens the image-page. Just think of it. My question is: how is that for the reader, or: how can I make that more gracious? The File:-page looks very ugly/technical/under-the-hood. For editors this could be OK (we are our 1%), but a bad experience for readers say always. Can someone explain, or point to a guideline, about this blurring of: readers only should see articles-idea? (Along the same line, templates themselves are not to be seen by readers).
My actual example: iron, its infobox links (top infobox) to File:Electron shell 026 Iron.svg. -DePiep (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

First of all, each reader is a potential writer (with exception of blocked users and the like). That's the whole idea of a "wiki". Second of all, I do not happen to see anything wrong with the image description page. It has links to the image in different resolutions and some information about the image. Why do you think that such information is of no interest to the readers? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:02, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Note also that in most cases the link to the file description page fulfills the requirements to credit the author of the image and to explain the terms under which the image may be reused. For example, the CC-BY-SA license used on File:Electron shell 026 Iron.svg requires that we keep intact the notice that the image is under that version of the CC-BY-SA license and that we keep intact the credit to the author.
In general, the only works that don't need this link are those in the public domain and those licensed CC0; there may be a few others such cases, but it's not common. In general, images used as illustrations in an article (as opposed to "decorative" icons, images working around poor font support for a character, and the like) should link to the file description page even if it's not strictly required. Anomie⚔ 02:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Donations in Bitcoin

Forgive me if this is in the wrong section. I had some Bitcoins burning a hole in my pocket and was surprised to see Wikipedia had no option to donate with them. I assumed an organisation such as Wikipedia would. You wouldn't be the first by far– Wikileaks and the Internet Archive both do, amongst others. Is there any good reason for this or has it simply not been implemented yet? Lukys (talk) 10:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Considering that the Bitcoin article was deleted due to a lack of notability (although more recently restored), it shouldn't be too surprising that there are some organizations who haven't accepted the concept yet, including the Wikimedia Foundation. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) had been taking them for awhile but found them too controversial and refunded/donated the funds in Bitcoins to some other organization and stopped accepting them. I would imagine given the track record of Bitcoin, several prominent thefts of the coins (mainly exchange sites) and some other problems including questioned legality of even using the electronic currency are something that the WMF may want to put off for awhile.
It is good intentioned, but Bitcoin is hardly the only alternate currency that has been suggested to the WMF in the past. I know that e-gold was pushed in the past where the then legal council (I don't remember the exact person) basically dismissed such ideas as did the WMF board of trustees on the basis that they didn't want to have too many complex donation options.
If you are serious about this, I'd suggest looking at sending something to Founjdation-l, the official WMF mailing list and where things of this nature are more likely to get some real response and traction if it is something that may happen. I'd also suggest looking in the archives of that mailing list to see if it has been discussed in the past. I've sort of stayed out of the loop for while so I don't know if it has been discussed recently or not. --Robert Horning (talk) 02:18, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Bitcoin is radically different in concept and form to e-gold. It is P2P and backed by solid cryptography, rather than just dispensed by a company. Donation by Bitcoin is also very easy, since you just enter the donation address into your client/wallet and specify the amount. This facilitates cross-border donations without needing an intermediary. This is the exact opposite of a 'complex donation option'.
The theft of Bitcoins is only as much as a problem for Bitcoin as it is for any other form of currency. It's really nothing to do with the form of Bitcoins themselves.
Finally, there is no law against Bitcoins. But I am not interested enough to petition WMF. I just wanted to donate and now I won't (not intended as a "that'll show ya!", just a fact). Lukys (talk) 17:58, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm well aware of the strengths and limitations of Bitcoins. I helped to write the original draft specification for the network protocol of Bitcoin by pouring through Satoshi's source code so I can say I'm a bit of an expert on the topic. I don't think it is all that different from e-gold BTW, at least from an outsider's perspective and the problem is more one of salesmanship to the Wikimedia Foundation in terms of if they would accept it or not.
As far as the legality of Bitcoins as a medium of exchange, the opinions on that topic are extremely varied. I'll agree there is no law (yet) about its use, but considering that the Wikimedia Foundation represents many official chapters in different countries whose laws vary by quite a bit as well as being governed as a Utah non-profit corporation (thus under the jurisdiction of American law more directly... Utah is just the state which issued the actual corporation charter), what law actually governs the activities of the foundation can be tricky. Accepting Bitcoins for donation purposes will be something that will need to be cleared by the general counsel of the WMF before it can be formally accepted.
I just don't have the energy to put forward such an ambitious proposal to get the Wikimedia Foundation to accept Bitcoins as a donation mechanism. I know what it would take as I've dealt with the WMF in the past and I have had proposals I've made become accepted by that body and have had a hand in influencing the direction of Wikimedia projects globally. If you don't at least send a simple e-mail to that mailing list, I'm simply saying as a matter of fact that there will never be acceptance of Bitcoins for donation purposes. If you are a fan, perhaps your attitude will change on that. Moaning about it here on en.wikipedia is not going to get the change you may even remotely hope for as the people who read the Village Pump for the most part aren't the people who can make a difference at that level which is needed. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Please don't take what I'm saying as moaning. I simply made an inquiry into something, and my curiosity has been satisfied. I'm not invested enough to take any action. I may petition for it at some point in the future. Thanks for your response anyway Lukys (talk) 18:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

What happens when a title-disambiguated article is sub-articled?

Either A: The disambiguated part of the title is kept in, or B: it is taken out. All across Wikipedia, I've seen both of these used, and I don't think it's been formalised yet. Perhaps now is the time. An example of the latter is with the article Mercury (planet) which has been split off into many other articles, including Atmosphere of Mercury - note NOT Atmosphere of Mercury (planet). So, what's the consensus on this? :)--Coin945 (talk) 14:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

In article titles, the general rule is to only disambiguate where necessary. Is Atmosphere of Mercury ambiguous? If not, then no additional disambiguation is needed. Categories may be somewhat different and I haven't kept up with the guidelines there. older ≠ wiser 14:38, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
In this case, since all other types of Mercury (like the element or the God) don't have an atmosphere, the planet specification isn't needed.  The Steve  04:37, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
It's quite formalized. The most relevant section of policy here is WP:PRECISION. Essentially, disambiguators are a necessary evil. The way to think about it is from the perspective of a person trying to find a particular topic they are searching for. A person searching for the planet is probably going to type "Mercury". The person searching for the god is probably going to type "Mercury" and the person searching for quicksilver is probably going to type in "Mercury". How do we maximize each of these three people reaching the article they want with the littlest hassle? Because all three targets are common and likely searches, we create a disambiguation page at the main title "Mercury"; thereby, all three of our "searchers" reache their intended target in "two clicks". However, if one of the three ambiguous titles is a much more likely search target (far more people will be searching for it than any other), then we make that one the main title—just "Mercury"—and put all the others on a disambiguation page with "(disambiguation)" in the title so that the most people searching for just Mercury will reach their intended target in one click, and everyone else (but fewer) will reach their target in three clicks: first to the wrong title, then through the disambiguation hatnote and then the click through to their intended target. See WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. The disambiguator in the title is thus, only there because it's necessary. No one (but a Wikipedia regular like me and maybe you) would search for "Mercury (something)". So if a "subarticle" of the topic has a name that is not confusing with any other article unlike the parent page, it would never take a disambiguator. So Mercury (Planet) and Mercury (element) by necessity here, but never Atmosphere of Mercury (planet) because no one would ever search for that title and there's no other title it could be confused with.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 01:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Notability - a question

In connection with an on-going dispute I am engaged with, can someone involved with "notability" as a policy please tell me if they have any evidence to show that a man by the name of Willielmus fil' (filius) Pauli is notable? With thanks, doktorb wordsdeeds 20:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

If I have found the correct person, he was a member of Parliament in the UK around the year 1300 (see Preston (UK Parliament constituency)), which means he should pass WP:POLITICIAN. If there is sufficient material to write more than simply what years he held this post, I don't see an issue. Chris857 (talk) 20:43, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I think that might be a bit of a stretch considering that you're talking about the year 1300. But as you say, if there is enough material, it might be ok. By the way, are you talking about the person making a big habit out of making links to non-existent articles? Just because someone passes a notability criterion doesn't mean their name must automatically be given a link, especially when the link points to nothing. -- Avanu (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

You two have hit the very issue I have been trying to get at. Is it not the case that, say with an episode of a sitcom or maybe a substitute footballer (of either/any code), policy usually discourages individual articles? And to the main question I'm leaning to - would it be constructive to red-link a person who might not have enough material for an article in their own right, or would it not be constructive? Avanu - your sentence is one I might quote in future, because it goes to the heart of the discussion/dispute. "Just because someone passes a notability criterion doesn't mean their name must automatically be given a link, especially when the link points to nothing" doktorb wordsdeeds 21:01, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

If no separate article is going to exist, but we can demonstrate that the object is "notable", then, perhaps, a redirect is going to exist? In such case there is nothing wrong with creating links (red or blue) to this redirect (potential or actual) - just as with any other article (potential or actual). The only exception (that doesn't apply to other articles) is the article that is (is going) to be the redirect target: we wouldn't make such links in that article, because we do not create links from the article to itself. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 22:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I would say between WP:OVERLINK and WP:REDLINK, unless a link is about to be made into a real article within a very narrow time frame, the text doesn't need to be linked. -- Avanu (talk) 22:47, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, WP:OVERLINK has the same exception that I have mentioned - "Do not link to a page that redirects back to the page the link is on." ([2]). And concerning WP:REDLINK ([3]), which part would you consider relevant? I see a contrary statement: "In general, a red link should be allowed to remain in an article if it links to a term that could plausibly sustain an article, but for which there is no existing candidate article, or article section, under any name."... The consensus seems to be that red links are desirable in general (for example, see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 89#Red Link Notice). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
The problem is not the existence of a red link. The problem is someone going out of their way to make NEW red links. If you run across a red link here or there, where someone intended perhaps to create an article, and you leave it alone, ok.. no harm, status quo remains unchanged. BUT, if you are running around the encyclopedia generating hundreds of new links that go nowhere, that is not improving anything. -- Avanu (talk) 23:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
And..? The users are free to do as little work, as they want. If you accept that there is nothing wrong with those links, what is the objection? Also, red links are improving something: they show, which articles can be created. Furthermore, when the article gets created, the creator doesn't have to look where the links would have to go. Some advantage, no disadvantage - thus adding those links (where the blue links would be suitable etc.) is an improvement (although a small one). --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:14, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Cheers guys. One more question from this - how long would you say was a reasonable time between creating a red link and starting an article? Does policy already exist which may help answer this for me? doktorb wordsdeeds 22:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I doubt there is a hard or soft timeframe on that. -- Avanu (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I am "almost sure" that no such policy exists, for the simple reason that there is nothing wrong with red links as such - or at least I (and a major part of the community) cannot think of anything. Can you..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with a glass of water, or even eight glasses of water. Doctors like it when you tell them you drink a lot of water. But hundreds of glasses of water and now you're drowning or killing yourself. One behavior might be beneficial, one is destructive and unhelpful. If someone legitimately intends to do something with these links, the intent is clear that they're just doing work in Wikipedia. If they are just creating hundreds and hundreds of placeholder links, we don't need that. There's real work to be done, and making up a zillion false links isn't useful. -- Avanu (talk) 23:40, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but we are not talking about glasses of water. I am not sure this metaphor is helpful. "If they are just creating hundreds and hundreds of placeholder links, we don't need that." - yes, that is your assertion. I know you think that having many red links is bad (by the way, please, keep the terms correct and neutral - those are not "false links"). I am trying to find out why do you think that it is bad. Maybe you think there is an obvious reason why having many red links is worse than having none, but I don't see it at the moment. If the case is going to be rather complex, take your time, write an essay and give me a link. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, which is why I'm trying to build consensus against a certain attitude towards them. It is not right that an editor is carrying on creating hundreds upon hundreds of red links with no intention of creating articles ("I have no timeframe", to paraphrase a response to a direct question). When you couple this with the potential for non-notable people to be red-linked and subequently redirected to their 'base' article and you have a recipe for disaster. I've no problem with some red-links when there's a chance an article will be created; I have a serious concern about creating dozens of them across hundreds of articles for no greater good other than the desperate race for kudos doktorb wordsdeeds 23:22, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but I do not really see any argument here... Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place... Could you please state your argument in the form like "X is bad. Y is X. Z is Y. Thus Z is bad." or similar..? For otherwise it would seem that you consider the edit count to be something like an "award" and object to users increasing it without "deserving" it - and I am sure it is not the argument you try to present. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Do you think it is appropriate that a single user is creating so many red links in the links below, to name just a few, with no intention to create articles?
  1. City_of_York_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
  2. Radnorshire (UK Parliament constituency)
  3. Preston (UK Parliament constituency)
  4. Portsmouth_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
  5. Plymouth_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
  6. Pembroke_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
  7. Kingston_upon_Hull_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

(With much more besides) doktorb wordsdeeds 23:47, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, I can't think of anything wrong with that (unless those articles are going to be the redirect targets - in which case the advantages and disadvantages would probably be rather well ballanced). That's why I'm asking you to write down the reason why you consider all this to be inappropriate. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I've explained it plenty of times already. It is surely inappropriate for an editor to be creating countless red links in this fashion, without creating articles, expecting others to tidy up behind them and disrupting the project by filling hundreds of articles with edits which contribute no constructive end result. doktorb wordsdeeds 00:14, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I have to disagree with you, Doktor, very strongly. These are members of the Mother of Parliaments, and there is no doubt whatsoever that we need to have articles on them. The existence of these redlinks is a warning signal that these need to be created by somebody with the time and resources to do so. I have done the same thing myself with various districts of the Wisconsin State Senate, and have in some cases been able to come back later and turn some of those redlinks to blue. But my failure to find the time to fix them all is no justification for removing the redlinks from Wikipedia! --Orange Mike | Talk 00:22, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Do you think it is appropriate to redlink Willielmus fil' (filius) Pauli, a man from the 13th century of whom there is almost nothing known other than the obvious? Is that good, or is that bad, for the project as a whole? doktorb wordsdeeds 00:35, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
"I've explained it plenty of times already." - where? At the moment I can only see assertions that "It is surely inappropriate for an editor to be creating countless red links in this fashion, without creating articles" and the like (expressed in different words), but no valid argument to support them (I hope it should be clear that proof by assertion is not a valid argument). Well, I assert that there is nothing inappropriate with creating red links. Now what? Which assertion wins? Well, mine has an argument: red links are beneficial (with further arguments supporting this statement), thus adding red links is beneficial too. And if there is nothing wrong with red links, there is nothing to "to tidy up behind them". So, once again: why do you think that there is something wrong with red links - or with a group of red links, if there is a difference? Why do you think that red links are worse than nothing? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:36, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
OK, maybe I'll try to "extrapolate" an argument from that "to tidy up behind them"... It is going to be rather speculative, but I hope you will correct me, if necessary. I guess you might be thinking that red links make Wikipedia look unfinished, and that is a bad thing. That would be an argument - it shows that conclusion follows from the premise. But, of course, I am going to deny the premise: there is nothing wrong with making Wikipedia look unfinished - well, it is unfinished. And it will be. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 00:53, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I think this is primarily a matter of taste and style. There seems to be an obvious divide here in those that think redlinks are a prompt to editors to get more involved, and those who see redlinks as an eternal 'under construction' sign and eyesore. My personal take is that if people were inclined to create an article, they would simply do so. Experienced editors don't need to see a red link in order to know how to make an article, and new editors will probably do best getting their feet wet by simply editing existing articles. I don't see an overwhelming benefit to red links, and while I wouldn't go out of my way to remove one that already exists, I see no point in someone deliberately creating hundreds of them. Anything in moderation is more likely to be good, but being driven to excess is simply disruptive. -- Avanu (talk) 02:03, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, if it is "primarily a matter of taste and style", then please, try to change your taste. "[T]hose that think redlinks are a prompt to editors to get more involved" - no, they are not a "prompt", but an indication that an article does not exist and a normal link when the article gets created. "[T]hose who see redlinks as an eternal 'under construction' sign and eyesore" - it is not "eternal" and there is nothing wrong with "under construction" signs. And if you don't like the fact that they are red, edit your personal CSS file and change their colour to, let's say, green or grey.
"Experienced editors don't need to see a red link in order to know how to make an article" - once again, the red link is not an indication how an article can be created, but that an article can be created. Experienced editors are not omniscient and do not have a list of potential articles in front of their eyes all the time. Also, the red links make creation of the article slightly easier: one doesn't have to type out the title, just to click on the link.
"I don't see an overwhelming benefit to red links" - yes, the benefit is small, but I do not see even a small real benefit of the absence of red links.
"Anything in moderation is more likely to be good, but being driven to excess is simply disruptive." - you still have to show when that "excess" is achieved and what real problems are caused.
So, in short, on one side (pro-red-link) we have arguments and personal taste and on the other side (anti-red-link) - just personal taste. Sorry, but arguments tend to win. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 12:55, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
No, we have reasonable arguments for both sides. I'll rephrase the 'arguments' on the con side for you. Redlinks get in the way of reading text. A unnecessary link or under construction link serves no purpose in a website and should be removed. If an editor is going to go out of the way to make a link, they should be focused on creating the content to go with the link, not simply using that as a directive for others to do the work 'later'. If the red link is created and the content is never created, you have essentially focused on work that served no purpose, and without proof that redlinks spur editor involvement, the implication that they are a primary motivator in article creation is spurious. When I used the phrase "matter of taste", I was referring to the fact that both sides here have reasonable arguments and the best one can hope for is a compromise position, where it is understood that redlinks should not be created just for their own sake, but because the editor creating the link has the intent to actually create the content for it. -- Avanu (talk) 13:11, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
OK, that's better. Finally, the arguments that have actually been given "black on white".
"Redlinks get in the way of reading text." - do you think they "get in way" more that "blue links"? I do not find text with links that much harder to read than text without them, although, perhaps, things are different for other people... Still, we are not supposed to add red links where blue links would be inappropriate anyway.
"A unnecessary link or under construction link serves no purpose in a website and should be removed." - yes, but what links are "unnecessary"? Also, in this case, everything seems to apply to blue and red links alike.
"If an editor is going to go out of the way to make a link, they should be focused on creating the content to go with the link, not simply using that as a directive for others to do the work 'later'." - I completely disagree. The users are free to do as little work, as they want, provided that it is at least slightly beneficial (compared with doing nothing). We keep the cleanup tags for the same reason.
"If the red link is created and the content is never created, you have essentially focused on work that served no purpose, and without proof that redlinks spur editor involvement, the implication that they are a primary motivator in article creation is spurious." - red link still indicates that the potential article does not exist. That's what it is meant to do. I don't think I have claimed that red links "are a primary motivator in article creation" (although I am not entirely sure what that is supposed to mean).
"When I used the phrase "matter of taste", I was referring to the fact that both sides here have reasonable arguments and the best one can hope for is a compromise position, where it is understood that redlinks should not be created just for their own sake, but because the editor creating the link has the intent to actually create the content for it." - well, in this case I do not find this compromise a very good idea, for, well, the sides are not nearly equal... I suppose a better compromise would be like the one agreed in Russian Wikipedia concerning one of their letters: editors are free to add or avoid adding red links (that are otherwise appropriate) and are not to be criticised for that, however, removal of red links (again - that are otherwise appropriate) is, er, discouraged.
And in the name of conciliation, could you, please, try to calm down the other editor on your side, before he gets himself blocked for personal attacks, edit warring or refusal to follow consensus (edits like [4] make me fear that it might end up like this)..? Oh, and it would be nice if all the other parallel discussions (like the ones initiated with edits [5] or [6]) would end up with a link here or something like that... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 14:00, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
  • As is stated by others above, if a subject can plausibly sustain its own article, then it's perfectly fine for someone to turn it into a red link to let others know that such an article has not been made yet. We have plenty of lists that do just such a thing. There's nothing wrong with it and there's certainly no time limit for when an red linked subject has to be turned into an article. SilverserenC 04:00, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Almost any word or phrase can be shown to have notability. I give you your own comment above as evidence:
As is stated by others above, if a subject can plausibly sustain its own article, then it's perfectly fine for someone to turn it into a red link to let others know that such an article has not been made yet. We have plenty of lists that do just such a thing. There's nothing wrong with it and there's certainly no time limit for when an red linked subject has to be turned into an article.
The point is that while someone can easily establish notability for a lot of things, that doesn't mean we Wikilink everything. As I said above, in moderation, I see no problem with an occasional red link or two, but intentionally creating hundreds, if one has no intention of creating the associated articles in a timely fashion, is nothing more than vandalism. -- Avanu (talk) 04:15, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with or vandalistic about creating thousands of red links with no intention of creating the articles (and there's nothing to "clean up" about this) but, and it's a very big but, if an only if the editor is very carefully vetting each such link to determine that a viable article can and probably should exist at that red link. The difference between the two is night and day. If the person is creating hundreds of links and is not vetting them, they should be stopped cold, and ultimately blocked if they don't stop. I don't think anyone has identified very clearly the divide between those two very different types of activities.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:57, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with you there. But, in this case, it appears that the red links in question are links to Parliament members throughout history, all of which should indeed be notable and should have pages and do meet our guidelines implicitly. Therefore, I don't see the issue here. It just seems like some users don't like red links for some reason. SilverserenC 06:06, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:POLITICIAN doesn't mean they get an automatic pass, and especially so if you're talking hundreds of years ago. In fact, it specifically says "Just being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of 'significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject of the article'." It is complete BS to think that some random member of Parliament from 700 years ago is going to have an extensive history beyond "Adam de Biri paid a tax in 1332." And that simply isn't all that notable since LOTS of people have paid taxes. It is BS to just trust that someone will populate thousands of red links with legitimate notable information. If they have a common habit of making good on such behavior, then ok, it is a reasonable thing, but for the average editor, sorry, no, you are living in a dream. -- Avanu (talk) 06:26, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

This is incredibly frustrating. I will try, again, to outline my position.

Let us look at the City of York article, above. There are red-links for every member of Parliament going back to the 13th century onwards to 1510 and then on again to the the 1620s. To borrow a phrase from above, this looks like a massive "under construction" sign. To make is worse, this user has shown no intention of creating articles. I have asked the editor what timeframe they have to create them. Their answer, on their user page for all to see, is "I have no timeframe". My conclusion - this editor is simply creating redlinks in some kind of rush to look useful or busy with no intention to help the project as a whole, or the specific politics/constituency projects. The City of York article has been "under construction" in this way since January this year.

Further to all *this* - 13th century members of parliament were essentially noble men straight and true picked for reasons we'll never know and came and went almost at their whim. There is almost no record of who they were or why they were chosen. To red-link a noble man from the 13th century as part of some "pure Wikipedia" mindset is grossly idealistic. I ask again - as it was not answered above - "Do you think it is appropriate to redlink Willielmus fil' (filius) Pauli, a man from the 13th century of whom there is almost nothing known other than the obvious? Is that good, or is that bad, for the project as a whole?"

As Avanu says, "WP:POLITICIAN" is not a free pass, and should not be the basis of an argument for retaining red links

I can't believe that other editors are happy with an editor creating hundreds, if not thousands, of red links in a manner bordering on vandalism, leaving them sitting there for the best part of 6 months if not longer, on the off chance that the existence of a redlink will act as some form of 'Batsignal' across the Internet to an expert in the field.

It looks like disruptive behaviour from the editor, it resembles vandalism from afar and unprofessional close-up, and shows no sign of being a scheme that's actually generated user content at all.


If there is no clear evidence put to me here that this editor has done much good in the work they've created, I have no hesitation in reverting each and every example I can find, because this discussion and others has been all the proof I need that nobody can justify such behaviour.


doktorb wordsdeeds 06:34, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Doktorbuk, I see nothing in this discussion or others as proof that redlinks should be removed from MPs! You have also stated here that I have no intention of creating these articles, but you know I've already created thousands of them, and contniue to create many every day. If it makes you feel better about redlinks in general, I will concentrate primarily on articles for these newly linked MPs, those pre-16th century, as I've already done at Lincoln, Kent, Devizes etc., so you can see the information is out there for them to be created (although reliable sources are already clear in the constituency articles). This seems to me an example of someone not liking redlinks, but I'm loath to see a long-term editor wasting his time worrying about redlinks to MPs, so am quite happy to concentrate on creating articles. Boleyn (talk) 07:07, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I know it's early and I, for one, have only had one cup of tea so far, but could I ask a direct question. Would you accept my removing all the red links from MPs prior to an agreed cut off point (say, pre-18th century)? doktorb wordsdeeds 07:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Just realised you also posed this question here, so for the sake of anyone following the discussion, my answer was no, I don't agree with removing redlinks to MPs from any year. Boleyn (talk) 08:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Not sure how many more times I need to say it: WP:REDLINK suggests it's ok to link once from an article to another article that can reasonably be created. As MP's are notable by definition, it's reasonable to suggest the article could be created. As such, redlinks are valid. Didn't the software once use that to determine "most wanted articles"?? (✉→BWilkins←✎) 18:05, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
  • There is nothing wrong with those redlinks and there is no need to stipulate a timeframe for article creation. Agathoclea (talk) 18:12, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I should weigh in here, as I've created a fair number of (relatively) early MP articles; I'm not doing so very actively now, but I'll probably come back around to them again. We're fortunate in that we have exceedingly good documentation for Westminster MPs in the form of the History of Parliament publications, which are in the process of being digitized and placed online. (Some periods are still being researched and written.) Each biography of a member in there is written on the basis of several primary and secondary sources. MPs have generally been held to be notable under WP:Politician as "members of a national...legislature". That said, I think doktorb's implicit point, that members in, say, 1300, can't really be said to be notable members of a national legislature in the spirit of that guideline is valid. I would tend to follow the rule that anyone for whom a biography is written in the History of Parliament is notable (although this doesn't help us for the volumes still being written); I don't see why our coverage here should be inferior to that work. As a corollary, however, an MP within the period covered (1386-1868, when they finish) who does not have a biography is presumptively non-notable; if the History of Parliament writers can't find enough material, we're not going to be able to. For individuals pre-1386, I would tend to assume they're not notable unless demonstrated by other sources.

All that said, I would prefer to take a lenient attitude towards redlinks. The approach of "painting them blue" in response to challenge by creating large numbers of sub-stubs seems to me more harmful to the reader (by discouraging them from clicking on bluelinks) than simply leaving them as redlinks. Choess (talk) 05:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the non-notable aspect is not an appropriate use of the term other than in the Wikipedia sense of notability that has some strange connotations. 14th Century members of parliament still are notable even if they aren't published in some book, but I'd agree that finding documentation about them or from earlier eras would be problematic at best. It would be like trying to find documentation about a 1st century Roman Senator... some will have enough documentation to write up an article but many wouldn't. Regardless, I'd say that anybody who became a Roman Senator in the ancient Roman Empire was very much notable. The likelihood of finding any sort of documentation about many of those Senators, on the other hand, seems to be quite unlikely.
Mostly, I agree with you that it will be unlikely that many of these members of parliament or other early historical figures that names may exist on some list but that anything approaching a short biography of these people much less writing an article on Wikipedia about them seems to be remote. Still, I fail to see what the point of prohibiting red links is all about, particularly because there may be some documentation that is buried or otherwise not currently in circulation which may contain information useful for such a biography in the future. The people themselves may be notable, but the documentation might be very weak. Heck, I'd dare say that even documentation on kings or even pharaohs from ancient times (clearly "notable" people) may have weak documentation or even non-existent documentation. That the article about those people couldn't be written because of the scarcity of the documentation is true, I still fail to see why a redlink shouldn't be made for those people. --Robert Horning (talk) 15:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I was using notability strictly in the Wikipedia-technical sense. Obviously, someone returned to Parliament in 1331 was of more moment than some villein swinking in the same year, even if all we know of the MP is his name. I think, however, that you err in trying to read redlinks as a marker of importance in the historical sense, rather than having meaning strictly in terms of Wikipedia. A redlink is simply an assertion that the material exists to create a policy-compliant standalone article about the subject of the redlink, whenever someone gets around to it. It's possible for some subject to be worthy of note in the greater historical sense, but not be suitable for an encyclopedia article here through lack of material. In that case, it shouldn't have a redlink, because the lack of material means that we can *never* fulfill the implicit promise made by the redlink that an article will someday be created. "What Song the Syrens sang" may not be "beyond all conjecture," but there's no reason to redlink it unless we at least know a little of the lyrics. Obviously, the state of knowledge can change, and a subject that was once considered inappropriate to link might be redlinked as new material comes to light. But we shouldn't redlink simply on the conjecture that such material might someday emerge. By presenting the subject in the appropriate context (say, a dated entry in a list of pharaohs), we've conveyed all we can of the subject and thereby fulfilled our duty to it. Choess (talk) 00:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
If a topic would be notable but is not currently sourceable then there is almost always going to be a suitable parent topic that would be suitable for a redirect. So if you've tried to create an article for that redlink and given up for lack of sources then the logical thing to do is usually going to be the creation of a redirect. That way in the long run most redlinks will wind up as either articles or redirects. On a broader note we have something of a chicken and egg situation on Wikipedia, at newpage patrol there are some who consider that it is a problem if articles start as orphans and yet there are people who don't appove of redlinks..... My response is that both orphans and redlinks are perfectly acceptable as ways to build the pedia. ϢereSpielChequers 01:04, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
My problem with a standard of suggesting something doesn't deserve a redlink because there is insufficient information to ever create an article is that it demonstrates a level of omnipotence that is something I can only find in a diety. I am being completely serious here too. How can you possibly possess the sum of all human knowledge to such a degree, even in a specialized topic, where you can possibly know every single bit of trivia and source of knowledge about that topic? I find that to be arrogant to an extreme. It is also setting up a standard for redlinks that they were never intended to carry and is something that I think is not only wrong but foolish and contrary to the very spirit of Wikipedia. They should be welcomed so far as it is in the very logo of the project, where the missing puzzle piece in the Wikipedia ball is the redlink. Wikipedia will never be complete and to think that Wikipedia ever could be complete without any redlink at all is totally absurd beyond anything I can imagine.
I'll even go so far as to suggest that redirect done to remove redlinks are improperly done and indeed ought to be deleted. It is an important part of the project to have those links, to let people know they are on the frontier of the project, that their contributions to those areas if they may have some knowledge about those people and topics is not only useful but extremely helpful. There are many sources of information that can be used to fill out some of these articles if the time comes, and you may be surprised out of what obscure corner of humanity may have a book that nobody else has seen for several centuries or some random floating bit of data that can be tied in to make a difference to get an article written. You should not ever have to put a link to the standard of an AfD, and that is exactly what it seems like is being done. A redlink simply implies that the topic or person may be notable and significantly that a reader of the article may otherwise want to find some information about that topic in some manner in context to the article that the link is included. The redlink itself is what identifies simply that Wikipedia hasn't gone there yet. Period. It doesn't imply there isn't anything to write about the topic, it only indicates that there hasn't been anything written about the topic. --Robert Horning (talk) 03:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Notability Policies and Guidelines

User pages redirecting into article space RfC

there is sufficient confusion over the issue to warrant a RfC   here. Penyulap ☏ 19:46, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard has been marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

"WP:DICTIONARY" should be banned

Can we please get rid of this silly policy altogether, or at least get everyone to stop using it as a solve-all policy?? In the wiki article on stubs, it explains that in its simplest form, a good stub simply defines the topic - giving the most vital information in a concise form: "Begin by defining or describing your topic. Avoid fallacies of definition. Write clearly and informatively. State, for example, what a person is famous for, where a place is located and what it is known for, or the basic details of an event and when it happened". This lowest common denominator the article speaks of, my friends, is the so-called "dicdef" that gets up some Wikipedians' noses to no end..... and it really annoys me. All over Wikipedia, I see good stubs being deleted on the grounds of being "merely" a dicdef... even though that's exactly how stubs are supposed to start out... (A recent example is here - obviously its not a good article by any means, but speedy deletion....??? .... seriously?!?!?). I say we can this ridiculous policy altogether! (or, as I've already stated, if the policy is a lot more than that, we can just spread the word that it is no longer a rationale for deleting those types of articles)

Oh, and while I'm here, I may as well inquire about something else: Many-a-time has a poor little editor (me :D) battled in vain against the cruel wiki-tyrants who have tried to rid the world of wiki-stubs on the basis that their current status was not perfect, even though they were on encyclopedic topics. While the Wiki-verse is still undecided over this controversial issue of current state vs. potential, I'd just like to point out a certain clause in the Wikipedia:Stub article (and this is just 1 example): "A stub is an article containing only one or a few sentences of text that, although providing some useful information, is too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject, and that is capable of expansion".

I would greatly like to see these 2 topics discussed below. Yours sincerely, a disillusioned wikipedia editor.--Coin945 (talk) 16:05, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

On Reveal, it's just a PROD so you can go ahead and remove if it you disagree with the statement; if the PROD nominator still feels it is wrong, they can take it to AFD.
But the question is, is that necessarily wrong? I think it's not so much that NOTDICTIONARY failed, but that people forget that we have no DEADLINE. NOTDICTIONARY should only be applied when we have an article that looks like it can't be expanded further but otherwise appears to be a dictionary entry (likely backed by word entomology). It is still proper advice, because Wikitionary is set up to handle content that is like that, but not here. But applying it to starting articles is not appropriate. --MASEM (t) 16:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Checking what NOTDICT says presently as well: "Articles should begin with a good definition or description, but articles that contain nothing more than a definition should be expanded with additional encyclopedic content. If they can not, Wikipedia is not the place for them: look to Wiktionary instead." I believe this is actually capturing the essence of your issues on what we actually should be doing. It contains the key aspects of expanding and only deleting if there's no further expansion possible, which is obviously not the case of Reveal. --MASEM (t) 16:18, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • As Masem says Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary addresses and discusses these points at length in several places. You should read the actual policy. The policy is not the problem, and (as our oldest content policy) is far from "silly". Uncle G (talk) 16:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • As it stands the linked article is just an unreferenced dictionary definition, in fact it could just be original research WP:OR: I'm not even sure 'The Reveal' is a thing. A stub should at least indicate or establish why the topic is notable even if that just consists of one or two referenced sentences. It provides no reasoning for why it's a notable topic and no indication that it can be expanded, it just looks like an OR dictionary definition with no indication of how it could be expanded (I don't see a similar definition in wikitionary either). So I am not surprised it has been prodded. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
    • And that's why WP:AGF is a policy. I'm not an arts person, but I am aware of enough about the medium that the term "Reveal" as listed on that page seems to be an applicable concept to the medium. Oh sure, I want to see refs, I want to see works created for demonstrating this, or which authors are known for this, at some point. There's clear ways it can be expanded, if that material does exist (and thus AGF that it actually does exist). But enough to discredit that as a bad stub that should be deleted at this stage of the game? Heck no. --MASEM (t) 16:46, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Wiktionary has had this sense for "reveal" since October 2005. It went to RFV and came back with quotations. Uncle G (talk) 16:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
      • I saw that reveal, it's not the same thing as the usage the article above describes. They are speaking of the event of the grand reveal at the end of a magic trick. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
        • No. When it was proposed for deletion, the article also said "book, play, or film plot". Uncle G (talk) 22:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Okay, first of all, don't let this discussion be based around "The Reveal" article. That was just 1 article I came across while hopping through the Special:newpages page. Whether it should be kept or not is irrelevant to my point, and was merely a recent example that crossed my mind while writing the previous comment. Second of all, it actually is a real thing, and a very important part of magic, cinema etc. Well... hmmm... perhaps if "The Prestige (film)" has anything to say about it, the correct title of the article should be Prestige (magic). I dunno.. anyways I do personally think that the article is notable.. but again, that's irrelevant. Thirdly, I was not ridiculing the policy on deletion. I do understand that it is vitally important, and I have read it before.. and I guess in the spur of the moment of writing the comment I just thought why not get rid of it altogether.. even though in retrospect that is just a ridiculous notion and totally disruptive. An added passage explaining when the policy should not be used is in order though.--Coin945 (talk) 16:48, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
    • What I think we're saying is that the language you want is there, just not flat-out "don't try to delete stubs that look like dict defs". We mention possible expansion, and only deletion when expansion is exhausted and still looks like a dictionary definition. Stubs, by definition, are articles waiting for expansion. So the language you want is there; if there's a repeated problem of one or a few editors nominating such for deletion, that's a behavior problem to be remedies and I don't think we need to change policy for that. --MASEM (t) 17:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
      • And that's exactly my point. Is there wiki-consensus that you should not delete an article so long as there is room for expansion? Is this considered by the majority to be the "correct" stance? If so, how is the best way to officially proclaim this the correct view, and end the ambiguity and uncertainty regarding this area of deletion?? (trust me... no matter how clear the policies are, this is still an extremely contentious issue on the AFD stage). Fine, let's not change policy, but if it about editors' attitudes, then what's the next step?--Coin945 (talk) 17:45, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
        • Well, first, if they are being tagged as PROD, you can remove the prod, possibly explaining the reasoning via the talk page if you feel necessary. If the editor that added the PROD insists, they will take it to AFD where the article will be judged by consensus. Most likely if we are talking cases similar to Reveal above, this AFD will close rather easily in terms of "keep". Likely, this will show the editor how stubs should work (that they should be given time to expand, etc.) , but outside of that, or discussing it more with the editor, there's little else we can do from this "first time" incident.
        • Now, if the editor keeps doing this, with every time the PROD being removed and AFD being closed as "keep", and yet they continue to persist, that's when you start taking about user behavior modifications via either something like RFC for users. Particularly if they have been approached before and told that these PRODs/AFDs are a problem because they're targeting developing articles. The repeated PROD/AFD can become disruptive, and thus we use RFC/U to try to help them adapt their behavior, and barring that, go to the next step of dispute resolution, WP:AN.
        • But given that our policies and guidelines are clear that stub articles should be treated as developing articles, there's not much else we can do. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
          • I really don't think a Wiki-policy war is the best way to go at this. It will only antagonise people... Making decisions without informing anyone, and then rudely shoving policy shortcuts in poeple's faces when they try to defy you is the sort of attitude that led to my comment in the first place..... sending poeple to issue-resolving places due to their (supposed) "insubordination" can't possible help the situation either.... :/--Coin945 (talk) 13:32, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
            • When an editor continues going against established consensus after being told it was a problem, that's the only option left short of block/banning, which we really don't want to do. The point of an RFC/U is to get the editor to recognize such cases; yes, there will be shoving of various policies in their faces at this, but this is the point if they've been ignoring them or interpreting them different. Mind you, this practice outside of a structured discussion can be harmful and why we'd want to see other routes to resolve taken first. --MASEM (t) 15:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
              • But, the thing is, many of the people who work at AFD on a regular basis seem to think whole heartedly that the thing we've been discussing is wrong. Totally wrong. The question is, are we right? It's hard to take the de-facto morally high ground when this is still a rather contentious issue. For every policy/guideline that supports our argument, there another one that argues the opposite. It's wrong to say we're right "just... cos", and have an attitude that's like "you're wrong, so deal with it". An intelligent discussion must take place first in order to reach agreement on what the "correct" stance is. Otherwise we'll just end up annoying each other and turning arguments heated, in a cacophony of misunderstanding, vagueness and confusion.--Coin945 (talk) 17:33, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

If WP:DICTIONARY should be banned, then perhaps we should then merge Wiktionary into Wikipedia? --MuZemike 18:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

  • I removed the PROD. I expanded the text and found some explanatory references (which I placed on the talk page). If anyone else would like to help contribute, they would be welcome. - jc37 21:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Amazing Article re: use of Wikipedia Information on ESPN.com (content theft)

http://deadspin.com/5924851/espn-entertainment-writer-has-a-wikipedia-habit — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.60.14.235 (talk) 02:07, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Propose 'Toast' Block

No, I am not advocating that we eliminate slightly browned bread.

I am proposing that we create a new type of block mechanism that allows for a block to be enacted on a timer. Some blocks today are implemented on a primarily administrative basis against newcomers that have no ill will toward Wikipedia, they are just ignorant of the rules and end up making mistakes. A specific type of block that comes to mind is the block that happens when Acme Guillotine & Cake Suppliers, Inc discovers Wikipedia. They get ambitious and make a new article about their company under their new username AcmeSlicersandSlices and start editing promotionally. Before long, an admin notices this and smacks them with a block. Poor Acme, all they wanted was a chance for the world to know how great they are at making world renowned execution devices and popular pastries for peckish party people.

So, now they're blocked. They're confused. And the boss has finished his cake and is eying the poor sap who volunteered for the PR department, and wondering about how to best use the promo-model guillotine XT-1000 on his desk.

So, let's cut, if we will, to the chase. I think it would be nice to give some editors a good faith window to ask questions, get their affairs in order, and transition without hard feelings to a new account. After all, we do want to retain promising young editors who have everything to prove, don't we? Immediate unexpected blocks, especially when you're new, come off hard and abrasive. And when you're just doing your best, why do we need to put their head on the chopping block for that? Let's look for ways to get more cake, and even maybe eat it too. A block that takes effect 1 week later, 2 days later, whatever, would be a nicer way to say... we're giving you notice... now its up to you to avoid the inevitable. And so we end up with a much happier editor, which is clearly, icing on the cake. -- Avanu (talk) 21:32, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

PS - I call it toast block because it pops up after a time. -- Avanu

I am not sure I understand... How is it different from simply warning first and then blocking after the warnings do not work? And, well, why do you think that a notice "You will be blocked after x days!" is going to be perceived as nice, friendly and non-confusing? I would expect it to be perceived as more confusing than a simple block (or warning)... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 23:16, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
In some cases, our policy does not allow for a warning. It is clear that a block is the only appropriate action. It is friendlier to say, "You will be unable to edit after 7 days. Please take measures to create a new account. If you have questions, please ask at the appropriate forum or on this Talk page." -- Avanu (talk) 02:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Sounds absolutely bonkers. The blocks you are talking about, the ones without warning are generally performed when the account is spamming and has a promotional username ("BricksRUsPR"), which is as desired, because we want them to stop promoting and to have a different username. A time-delayed block would result in one of two things happening, either they just carry-on believing what they are doing is correct, keep editing and end up blocked, or they disappear and never come back, which is basically what happens now, PR accounts are blocked and they either just leave, or they make a few unblock requests where they attempt to justify their edits and why they should be allowed to continue but rarely actually read our policies or try to comprehend why they were blocked in the first place. It is an extremely extremely rare situation for a promotional account to be unblocked, purely because most of them just never get what we're trying to do--Jac16888 Talk 16:25, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
We have wp:SOFTBLOCKs for people editing with promotionally named accounts. If I thought that a worthwhile proportion of spammers could be turned into useful editors I'd support a compulsory rename system, (Hi your username was overly promotional so we've changed it from User:Buy cheap rockets from Acme rockets to User:Pyrotechnology fan). But I don't see any benefit in the "toast" proposal to give spammers a 7 day free pass. ϢereSpielChequers 01:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah we generally just softblock those ones and politely inform them of our policies. Only their promotional username is blocked, they can still create a new account and hopefully the next time not be ignorant of our policies. -- Ϫ 05:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
It's not a bad idea. If the new editor is doing good work, and the only problem is the account's username, then you're not supposed to block the account. You're just supposed to point them at WP:CHU and hope they'll use the process to change usernames (which they cannot do if you block them, even with softerblock, because you have to be able to edit the separate request page to get your username changed).
Currently, the "enforcement" is "hope some admin remembers a week later to double-check that account". So something (a bot?) that let you say "one week to figure out CHU, or your account will be blocked" might be useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:32, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Someone needs to start enforcing policy on article ownership

Until recently I didn't pay much attention to it but I think we need to get a handle on WikiProjects and individuals setting limits on what can be added to articles. This problem seems to be getting worse as time goes on and projects and individuals are getting more defiant and brazen in the innapropriate ownership they appear to be showing to articles in their scope. In particluar and as one example some projects and individuals have demanded that articles in their scope cannot contain Infoboxes. For example, the Featured articles Emily Dickenson even goes so far as to have an invisible comment stating that it isn't required or necessary. This article is just one example and I'm not picking on it, just using it as one example of what I see as a growing problem.

I have several problems with this:

  1. Infoboxes are a standard fixture in Biographical articles, not an exception to them
  2. Infoboxes allow a quick reference summary of key information about the article without having to read the whole thing
  3. WikiProjects and individuals should not be demanding that infoboxes not be on an article
  4. IMO an article that does not have an infobox fails FA standards (and anything above B for that matter) because it fails B5 of the B-Class checklist for supporting materials.

Any comments on this would be appreciated. Kumioko (talk) 15:09, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Basically, the consensus is that infoboxes are not required. There's no way of convincing some people otherwise -- many of them would say your point #2 is a reason NOT to have an infobox. It DOES create a silly inconsistency that, say, Alexander Borodin has one but most classical composers don't. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
    • … and a pressure to write daft content simply to satisfy the needs of the infobox. See User:Geogre/Templates for a more thorough discussion. Uncle G (talk) 16:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
    • Theres really no pressure to write draft content, if there isn't enough content to populate a few basic parameters of an infobox, the 5 W's so to speak, then there probably isn't much for an article either. The articles you identify, to me, seem like ultra stubs so perhaps the infobox could help those tiny little things look a little better developed. Kumioko (talk) 17:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
      • While I will agree that we shouldn't be forcing infoboxes on articles where the editors have decided they don't want it, we need to be aware that some infoboxes have been designed to create meta-data for search engines or the like that are important to have. For example, we have most of our templates for persons incorporating details of the hCard format. Now, such information is very trivial or even laughably unnecessary for someone like Dickenson that's long passed away, but perhaps we had the case where the birth/death dates and other simple facts were used by meta-searching tools? I'm not saying they need the infobox, but the editors need to be aware that not providing one makes this data absent to meta-tools, and they should find a way to recreated it - within prose, within hidden text, I dunno, but of some means - if they are forgoing the usual method of providing that. --MASEM (t) 17:38, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
        • Isn't that what the persondata template is for? Choess (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
      • I wrote "daft", and the pressure to write daft content most certainly does exist. It's not where there isn't enough content. That's a straw man of your making. It's when the infobox pressures writers into filling in infobox fields with things that are either misleading or wrong; like specifying a modern publisher and an ISBN for a book that was published in the 18th century because {{infobox book}} has an isbn= parameter. Uncle G (talk) 18:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
      • So, the article is very short, therefore we should make it "look a little better developed" by adding some horizontal and vertical lines and repeating the content again? That's like saying: "This speech is rather terse, could you try stuttering through it to make it seem longer?" See also Wikipedia:DISINFOBOX#Example 2 to see how silly this approach is in practice. Choess (talk) 16:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
    • @Melodia: "Basically, the consensus is that infoboxes are not required." Are you saying that's a general consensus, or specific to this article? I didn't see much in the talk page archives that resembled a consensus on this article. Without a discussion that produced consensus in the instant case, I'm inclined to agree with Kumioko that an invisible comment directing editors not to add an infobox smacks of WP:OWN. Acdixon (talk · contribs) 17:45, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
      • In general. I don't remember where it was, but there was a large RFC on the topic, mostly relating the the classical composer issue. The basic outcome was "they are not required, however no WikiProject can make a general ruling overriding local consensus either". ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 02:24, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

In the case of the Dickinson article, which was only used as an example, the only discussion I could find was on Archive 3 and was minimal. In regards to the arguments that infoboxes are not required I would agree that generally that is true, as an article progresses up the scale and approaches FA I would argue that it becomes less of an if and more of a requirement. If Infoboxes were not a necessity we wouldn't need templates like {{Needs infobox}}, parameters in WikiProject templates like |Infobox needed= or categories like Category:Articles without infoboxes which currently contains several thousand articles. We also wouldn't specifically call it out in B-Class checklists as "supporting materials". As another example what happens if one project argues that an infobox should be used and another argues against it? Who is right and who is wrong? Allowing WikiProjects or individuals to state that an infobox cannot be used on their articles causes unnecessary tension where none needs to be. If the author or WikiProject that is developing the article doesn't want it when its being developed then thats ok but they 1) shouldn't be telling someone else that they cannot add it and 2)the article shouldn't be promoted beyond B-Class because it fails the supporting materials criteria. Kumioko (talk) 20:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Appealing to OWN is not applicable in the general case described above. Some editors are regular contributors in certain areas, and it is unreasonable to label them as having ownership problems just because they happen to agree with past practice in their area, and resist attempts by someone-who-knows-better who wants to add an infobox. Like one of the above comments, I cannot recall where I saw it but I have participated in general discussions where a wide discussion concluded that "no infobox" was a reasonable conclusion for a particular article (a classical composer?). There is no policy that all articles must have an infobox. A template or category suggesting otherwise is either misguided or is for articles in which an infobox is generally considered appropriate (but which don't have one yet). Johnuniq (talk) 07:46, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Kumioko, I'm concerned that you fail to see the asymmetry of your position. Your raison d'etre here seems to be going to very large numbers of articles and adding templates to the articles or their talk pages. I don't see why your right to add these templates to articles, because you think the articles are better with them, somehow mysteriously trumps the right of other people to remove them, because they think they make the article worse, or are redundant or unnecessary. If anything, WP:BRD puts the onus on you to justify your additions when someone reverts them. Furthermore, in your excited attempt to prove that infoboxes are "supporting materials" necessary to achieve higher quality rankings, you're managed to overlook the phrase "should be included where they are relevant and useful to the content." If the people who have actually put work into composing the article feel that an infobox is *not* relevant or *not* useful, we should do them the courtesy of discussing the matter with them at the article talk page, rather than trying to slap then down with some misinterpretation of WP:OWN. In articles where the subject matter can most easily be harmonized with the standard parameters of an infobox (say, the taxoboxes in articles about species), article editors welcome them. In articles where creating an infobox requires one to simplify to the point of misrepresentation, article editors generally discourage them. We should respect this. Choess (talk) 15:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Choess can you clarify? I'm not sure what your talking about. The only templates I have been adding en masse is WikiProject templates but I opened this discussion due to seeing an increasing number of articles without infoboxes. There seems to be this interpretation that Infoboxes are bad, ugly or unprofessional and they are not. At least not any more than having a category, sections or images. It is a supporting material and it is a template/supporting material that has for the most part been adopted across the site. My problem is that I have seen some projects (or members of them) over the last few months tell others that they cannot add an infobox to an article thats in that X WikiProjects scope because WikiProject Y doesn't allow infoboxes. This is not something that should be happeneing. Additionally, we should not be putting comments on articles telling users not to add infboxes, we shouldn't be promoting one article to GA with an infobox and another without it that is similar (both biographies for instance). This is both confusing to us and our readers but it makes the site in general (article appearance aside) look unprofessional when we can pick and choose what policies we want to use. We shouldn't be letting editors choose not to use an infobox on say a Biographical article anymore than they can choose not to have categories, images or references. I would also argue that I and others have the same right to add a template as another has the right to not add it. If the template is valid and applicable to the article it should be allowed. Kumioko (talk) 15:56, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. Infoboxes are not, as a whole, all good or all bad. Sometimes they are good and useful. Sometimes they are unnecessary and misinform the reader. This has been true for a long time. WP:DISINFOBOX, which is a nice capsule summary of cases where infoboxes are not useful, is about three and a half years old; Geogre's essay about templates and infoboxes is six years old. Please read over those two essays; they have a number of cogent arguments, and I think you would benefit from knowing what people have already said about the subject. Nor do I see what has changed between now and then that the use of infoboxes should suddenly become mandatory. Consistency is good, but a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, as Emerson said, and the idea that we must be uniform in our use of infoboxes to look "professional" is one I utterly reject.
I also disagree with the idea that because a template is "valid and applicable" it *must* be alllowed. This gets debated fairly regularly on reference formatting. There may be five or six ways of linking out from a journal article in a bibliography–to the journal's website, via DOI, to NCBI, to JSTOR, to archive.org, etc. Trying to cram all of them into the references section just because you can is not necessarily helpful, and has been repeatedly rejected in the past.
I may sympathize a bit with the way in which WikiProjects conduct themselves. They shouldn't be able to impose rules, but I do think it's reasonable for someone to say: "Look, we already had this argument about whether these templates should be applied to our subjects, here's a link; do you have a substantial reason to contest it?" Must go now, but happy to discuss things further later today. Choess (talk) 16:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
So long as your "someone" really means "anyone at all" rather than "only those someones who have decided to call themselves a WikiProject", and the link is at the particular article's talk page rather than at some project page, then I'll go along with that.
The problem that we keep encountering, however, is that User X works hard for weeks to develop a good article, and then a couple of other users waltz in and, without lifting a finger to improve the article, demand the immediate addition (or removal) of an infobox because "we're the wikiproject, and we say so". And good luck if you're working on one of the many areas in which more than one wikiproject is interested, because they give conflicting advice on both whether to add an infobox and also on which infobox to use.
The rule is that it's up to the people who are working on the article, not to a couple of self-appointed users. Users calling themselves a WikiProject may write WP:Advice pages and try to persuade users to voluntarily agree with them, but they may not demand that anyone follow their advice. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:56, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

CSD A7 & A9: kill "indication of importance" in favor of "documentation of coverage"

So here's a thought. On the one hand, CSD A7 and A9 are completely stupid, distorting the content of articles with their weird, archaic pre-GNG requirement that the article claim in some way that its topic is a big fucking deal, and creating special categories of content that have article-existence requirements orthogonal to notability as it is normally understood. On the other hand, lots of people would like it if a higher burden were placed on new article creators to document some form of notability-establishing sourcing for their articles. How about we chocolate-and-peanut-butter these factors and change "indication of importance" in CSD A7 and A9 to "documentation of coverage in independent reliable sources"? Then the incentive is not to make the article less encyclopedic with gee-whiz language, but to do the basic legwork involved in beginning to demonstrate notability. Since that's, y'know, actually useful, and tends toward keeping all our article-existence tests working from the same basis. Who's with me? —chaos5023 (talk) 15:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, many newbies have no idea on how to cite a reliable source, and I fear that overbearing NPPers (not to offend them—there are some great ones) will take it as a license to CSD any article that doesn't have citations to reliable sources (i.e. almost any article new editors write). David1217 What I've done 15:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, the idea would be that the content categories of A7 and A9 wouldn't change, so only individuals, animals, organizations, web content, and musical recordings would be affected. So "almost any new article" shouldn't happen. The bulk of A7 and A9 nominations should stay the same, but the idea is we wouldn't get any more nominations of sourced articles that lack only gee-whiz language (which does happen, and is a ridiculous state of affairs), nor would adding gee-whiz language be an affirmative defense against A7 and A9 nomination. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
So it's easier to Speedy delete things? Doesn't appeal to me. If it's basic legwork, anyone can do it, no need to say 'well, they didn't, so why bother trying?' Darryl from Mars (talk) 15:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Possibly a bit easier, but at least it'd be based on sensible criteria. I'd also argue that it would make more sense for NPP to add citations instead of nominating for deletion under these circumstances; if there are readily searchable citations for the topic available, it kinda makes more sense to throw them in and call it a day than it does to edit an article so that it starts asserting importance for its topic. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
From what I've heard, most of the NPPers are too swamped with work to add talk page tags and {{DEFAULTSORT}}, let alone researching and sourcing articles. David1217 What I've done 16:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. Well, after about 5 minutes in NPP you have feelings of hostility toward new content; that's just how it works. Psychologically, it feels a lot easier to me under those circumstances to hit up Google Books and Scholar and News Archive real quick and throw in a minimal citation if you find one than it is to, basically, argue for the importance of a topic you didn't care about five minutes ago and now hate a little. Citation finding is relating a statement of fact; asserting importance brings in opinion, which is a way higher bar in that context. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. That's contrary to WP:V, which requires that article content be verifiable, not verified: "It must be possible to attribute all information in Wikipedia to reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question. However, in practice it is only necessary to provide inline citations for quotations and for any information that has been challenged or that is likely to be challenged." (emphasis in original) And even WP:BLPPROD, involving a far more serious interest than simple notability, uses a WP:PROD process, not speedy deletion, and only requires one reliably sourced statement to avoid deletion. And then there's WP:BEFORE, which expects an AFD nominator to take the time to check whether there are sources available, not to just nominate an article because it currently lacks sources. So a whole lot of WP practice and principles are against such a change, and for a good reason. If the claimed "big fucking deal" in the new article is a blatant hoax, we can already speedy delete it on that ground via WP:CSD#G3. Otherwise, there's no rush and we lose out on both new content and (relatively) new editors if we don't give these things time to grow. postdlf (talk) 16:00, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, okay, but how does any of that make it make sense for an article that clearly passes the GNG with citations actually present to get speedily deleted because it didn't blather about how important its topic is? —chaos5023 (talk) 16:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
When has that happened? Can you give an example? postdlf (talk) 16:05, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. I don't personally know of any successful deletions of that kind, but I have gotten such a nomination on an article I created, Dune II (MUSH). It wasn't a valid speedy because MUDs aren't web content, but probably could've been carried out anyway, and the article had unambiguously notability-demonstrating citations when it was nominated. Nuclear War MUD got a PROD under similar circumstances that, though I can't prove it, I would claim is reflective of the content-category biases that A7 encourages. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I personally would consider the presence of reliable sources in an article as possible indications of the subject's importance (depending on what was sourced, beyond the subject's mere existence) and probably would not speedy it (AFD might still be valid though). I'd support an express addition to CSD#A7 to that regard. postdlf (talk) 16:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I remember the A7 and A9 language being "assertion of importance", and it seems to be "indication of importance" now, so perhaps strides have been made in that direction. Cited sourcing arguably satisfies "indication of importance" where it didn't satisfy "assertion of importance". —chaos5023 (talk) 16:45, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I can see that the letter of your argument has concerned the odd language, true it could be changed to mention notability and sourcing, just that the change you proposed also changes the -spirit- of the policy. I too doubt that anyone is actually deleting anything because of the ambiguity you're questioning, but it's not like I know that for a fact. Darryl from Mars (talk) 16:19, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
It does change the spirit of it, yeah. I would say that's a good thing; isn't the assertion-of-importance thing just a weird holdover from the days before the GNG when articles' "notability" was partly about them claiming their topic was notable? —chaos5023 (talk) 16:28, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
It still is. You'd get booed from the gallery if I posted a new, unsourced article about a now-deceased member of a national parliament, thus satisfying WP:POLITICIAN (and avoiding WP:BLPPROD) and you listed it at AFD just because it presently lacked sources without regard to whether it could be sourced. Claimed importance implies that there are sources out there, but there are certain topics that we have decided belong in the encyclopedia regardless of whether GNG is technically satisfied so long as they are verifiable (the aforementioned parliamentarian, named populated places, animal species). postdlf (talk) 16:37, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
But the article content on the politician doesn't have to get distorted to make claims about his importance. You can just say, oh, hey, he was a politician and he's dead, and the positive bias about the content category takes care of the rest. The negative bias against content categories, on the other hand, explicitly calls for unencyclopedic hoops to be jumped through in the article content, like we did in 2003. That seems a lot more silly to me. —chaos5023 (talk) 16:44, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Actually, y'know, never mind. The language change from "assertion" to "indication" is a different call to action that doesn't necessarily imply what the criteria once did. It's probably fine. :) —chaos5023 (talk) 16:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

We've changed the wording to "indication of importance" in the hope that it will produce what we want.

  •  N "Foo is terribly important and notable" is an "assertion of notability", but it's worthless.
  •  N "Foo is an organization in Ruritania" does not contain any information about why anyone should care about the subject.
  •  Y "Foo is the largest manufacturer of widgets in Ruritania" is what we're looking for: an indication of why this subject is worth writing about. Even if that sentence is the only thing on the entire page, it is not and should not be speedy-able. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:22, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia child protection

Let's not feed the trolls, folks.

There is a lot of discussion coming on lately about censorship in the internet. I want to remind everyone that Wikipedia censors pedophiles on the sole basis of their condition. Nothing else is required. Someone who

1) Does not advocate inappropriate relationships with minors 2) Does not attempt or facilitate inappropriate contact or communication with minors 3) Does not use Wikipedia for unlawful or illegal purposes

Will STILL be banned if that person is a pedophile.

That person might do excellent and remarkable contributions to Wikipedia, he might be an excellent editor and person. And yet, he will be banned for the sole reason of his/her attraction. The mere fact of being a pedophile grants an “indefinite block”on Wikipedia.

I don’t know what you think about this. I think its atrocious and a violation of human rights. Its censorship and discrimination. Banning certain people for having a paraphilia that they didn’t choose. It doesn’t matter how good and how much dignity the have as a person. It doesn’t matter if their contributions to Wikipedia are of superb quality.


“Wikipedia is against censorship”. What a joke.

--Mecha warrior (talk) 21:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

It's that or we ban the kids. We can't verify any user's age, but once someone claims to be a pedophile, that's verification enough. We have no way of guaranteeing that a pedophile will not use the website to advocate inappropriate relationships or use the site for hookups.
And the "censorship" argument is bullshit. The exact same information may be added by anyone else, so we are not for censoring, we are against people harming children. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:34, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
No, Wikipedia doesn't 'censor' pedophiles: instead "Editors who attempt to use Wikipedia to pursue or facilitate inappropriate adult–child relationships, who advocate inappropriate adult–child relationships (e.g. by expressing the view that inappropriate relationships are not harmful to children), or who identify themselves as pedophiles, will be indefinitely blocked". Given the opportunity for editing under a pseudonym, there is nothing whatsoever to prevent someone who has "a paraphilia that they didn’t choose" from editing, the same as anyone else. They can however be blocked for self-identifying as pedophiles. If they don't do it, and don't engage in the obviously-inappropriate behaviour that can also lead to blocking under this policy, nobody will know.
On a more general point, I tend to assume from the start that anyone who argues for changes of policy by describing existing policy as 'censorship' is on weak grounds from the start - and incidentally misusing the word 'censorship', in that this is a legal concept concerning the role of the state in regulating communication, and thus 'Wikipedia isn't censored' is either a false statement (it is, but by the state, not by Wikipedia), or meaningless (Wikipedia can't pass laws - what it can do is decide what content it contains, with due regard to the fact that it is an online encyclopaedia, not a soapbox or a campaign group for abstractions like 'free speech). If you want policy changed, explain so in relation to why you believe your proposals would improve the encyclopaedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Experience teaches that threads of this nature rarely accomplish much of value. Newyorkbrad (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
This is likely just another tired advocacy campaign on behalf of Commons user Beta M and his global ban via WMF Office action a few months ago. Nothing to see here. Tarc (talk) 22:22, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Blurry intersection between notability guidelines and verifiability policies?

I wonder if perfection on any policy or guideline is needed. I was a starter on WP:articles for deletion/Olivia Hack before I was blocked and then unblocked with mentorship. Anyway, that AFD concluded as no consensus because guidelines do not reflect actual significance made by the obscure person, according to policy. Even one or two roles can help her become notable, although she might (not) meet WP:NACTORS. --George Ho (talk) 23:22, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the WP:V intersection issue. This is a matter of understanding the relationship between the GNG and the subject-specific guidelines like NACTORS, and which has been a long-discussed matter on notability pages. Generally, for a topic to be presumed notable and thus have a topic it has to meet either the GNG or pass a specific criteria listed out in a subject-specific guideline. The presumption of notability is important to remember here is because other factors (such as other policies) or consensus may disagree with the evidence provided and disallow the article on that topic, so for example, you were completely in your right to challenge that her notability give by NACTORS was a problem; consensus may not see it that way, but the approach your argument took seemed fine.
The only place where WP:V comes into this is that to show that one meets the subject-specific guidelines, we need a source. It doesn't have to be a secondary source, but something that affirms the criteria was met. A person wins a Nobel Prize, we can like to the Nobel's website for that, for example. With the Olympics, I'm sure the various competitors will be listed out by national media of each country, making them presumed notable for participation. Yes, the GNG is not met, but that's not a requirement for presuming notability as noted. (That said, we do hope that such articles can be improved over time to meet the GNG, and thus if they can never be improved beyond that single facet of notability, consensus may opt to delete, hence the presumption of notability). --MASEM (t) 23:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Why must I follow WP:SIZE?

Why do we have to condense length of every article for the sake of mobile phone and smartphones and different browsers? If I follow it, then must I change the way I write? Should sun or cat be condensed because they have loading issues and irritating readability? As of now, its "Rule of thumb" is still disputed, and even user dmcq has compelling arguments about size. --George Ho (talk) 06:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Must you? It's a guideline; you've already found some obvious exceptions yourself. Of course, if you're wondering why some particular article you're writing isn't being given the same leeway that, you know, the Sun is...? Darryl from Mars (talk) 06:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Besides helping for browsers on limited/reduced bandwith, keeping size in mind does help to keep to our goal that we're an encyclopedia that summarizes information, not duplicates it all. No, per NOTPAPER we don't limit what can be covered for a topic, but it should help to guide how to organize information when it gets too large. It shouldn't affect how you write content but only how you section it up and place it across different articles (as needed). --MASEM (t) 06:33, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
According to WP:guidelines, "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." What kind of common sense, and what are exceptions applied? --George Ho (talk) 06:36, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I guess I found some obvious exceptions without knowing it, but what are less obvious exceptions? Also, I would hope more servers mean less loading times, but the loading issues may be up to companies, like Apple and Microsoft. Wiki-technicians can take care of loading issues without our help, right? Or must we donate money for more equipment? Anyway, editing issues... and readability issues.... if they are neither minor nor major issues, how can condensation and splitting resolve them? --George Ho (talk) 06:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Your style of writing affects how something is read, and we don't want to disrupt that at all with SIZE. But readability is also affected by length: no matter how good your writing is, an article that goes on and on and on is not well-suited to reading. At some point you need to think how to organize the information; which pieces of information start to get into trivial coverage and can be removed (with the understand that we are meant to be tertiary and a summary work) and to put the most relevant stuff up front and the more detailed information elsewhere. --MASEM (t) 13:50, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
We have seen several cases about content forking of celebrities that may violate WP:BLP and WP:NOT, like Personal life of Jennifer Lopez. If WP:SIZE has nothing to do with this, then is this article consistent with other policies and guidelines? --George Ho (talk) 06:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't know anything about Jennnifer Lopez but I feel if Elizabeth II of England can fit that sort of stuff in okay and practically every hour of her life is documented in reliable sources, then a whole article about Jennifer Lopez's personal life might just be fancruft rather than having separate notability. Dmcq (talk) 18:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I've been in discussion on WT:Article size about the problems of what the rule of thumb about article size is in aid of and what additional considerations should also apply. It is quite interesting the arguments it seems have been put forward in featured articles to justify pushing their size way beyond even what is agreed is a reasonable size for reading in an hour and for duplicating large chunks of subtopics rather than just including a short summary. Dmcq (talk) 11:52, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
The fourth criterion of a featured article is that it has an appropriate length. I think people focus more on the "comprehensive" aspect. I think we should be as much concise as we are comprehensive in each article, actively using summary style and leaving lesser details to sub-articles. I have not seen the length criterion strictly applied at the review stage. SFB 18:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
What do you think of this argument for including more from a subtopic in a main article "These 100-to-1 or worse readership drop-off ratios are common, I've seen them across many time periods and article/subarticle combinations. So if there's something important about any of these topics, editors know it had better go in the main article, otherwise 99 percent of their readers will never see it.".
Also and perhaps more relevant to George Ho's query what do you think of my 'I see a bit in the guideline about size not being a reason to remove stuff. Sort of, but not quite true either. Size is a very good indicator that trivia is being put into an article if it can't be split out into subtopics that have some notability. It doesn't apply that way for lists but lists can be arbitrarily split for instance by ones starting A-E so the bits don't become too huge.' Dmcq (talk) 18:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Your arguments are reasonable and decent. Somehow, they do not reflect which information is or is not important. I don't know what else to say, but right now I'm losing my opposition to this guideline because... length issues cannot go away. Still, this guideline could force editors into pleasing mobile phones, laptops, older browsers and operating systems, and obscure, old equipment without considering article quality. Now I'll have no choice but to follow it and to "section it up" (or restructure and condense). At least I'm working more on subtopics than main topic itself; they are easier to edit than main topic itself.

As for page views that you mentioned, well, I guess general knowledge is everybody's goal. When people do not often surf to subtopics, as I guess, quick learning and quick knowledge are a reader's goals. So sad that, even with hard work on subtopics, main topics are reader's priorities. --George Ho (talk) 19:21, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I have yet to see an article that is long that cannot have some reasonable section split off naturally that would still remain comprehensive after said split (usually through the use of a 2-3 sentence summary left behind). It may require editors to reconsider their present breakdown of an article if it is in a non-standard format, but usually this isn't the case. The harder part is knowing what that natural split is. Generally, as per advice at Summary style, detailed information that may not be necessary for the reader, learning about the topic for the first time, needs to know about, for example, if talking about a musical artist, their full discography is likely less important that their bio, musical background, styles, and success. It is not as difficult as it is being made out to seem here. --MASEM (t) 20:50, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
My feelings entirely. I thought there was some advice in the Summary style guideline to base a summary on the lead but I see in fact it talks about the summary often being twice the size of the lead. That would be at my top limit as I would be wondering what is the criterion for information to be put in a summary, it just seems like a pass to stick the whole subtopic in I think.
As to shoving stuff into the main article because it won't be read if in a subtopic article, that is quite a wrong headed argument I think, but it isn't straightforward to explain exactly what is wrong with it. Just saying it is against WP:NOTPAPER won't convince someone who believes in doing that. I see Wikipedia as like a shop selling information, how should one go about selling the most information to a customer? Putting more and more information into an article does not mean that readers on average will take more and more information away from the article nor does it I believe encourage them to look at other articles. I don't know however if anyone has even formulated the right questions about what we want a reader to do or take away never mind how we measure or improve on how well we do that. Dmcq (talk) 00:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Am I the only one sensing that this guideline could also be a disclaimer? Look, why not mentioning phones, dialup, and older equipment as disclaimers? That way, we'd be concerned less about them, as we did to "spoiler" templates? --George Ho (talk) 01:22, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Makes no sense that way. We actually have reasons to make sure we can serve information to devices on limited bandwidth, and to wave it away as a disclaimer saying that WP's only targeting large bandwidth devices is not a good idea at all. --MASEM (t) 09:28, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Masem. We don't really cater to the low-end of users, but then neither does any aspect of the internet (issues run from complex coding styles, to high memory usage in browsers, to the lack of options for throttling high memory/cpu web content). Also I think the size issues and solutions of articles and those of lists are profoundly different so it is not a great idea to consider them equally. George – can you demonstrate an instance where key information on a topic has been deleted from of an article and moved to its sub-article? I've never come across this problem. The sub-article readership stats aren't relevant if the information is appropriately summarised. I would expect to see large viewing variations within the very sections of an article (if we could magically see what readers were viewing). SFB 16:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I'll try: Social Security (United States) and History of Social Security in the United States. I'm not sure if they are right or wrong examples. However, here's a bad example: List of Codename: Kids Next Door episodes. --George Ho (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure I follow what you're saying there. I think the lead of the History of Social Security in the United States could be expanded a bit more in line with the summary in Social Security (United States) which could have a bit of cleanup on it, but overall nothing too untoward seems to be happening there that I can see. What I see in the list of Kids Next Door episodes is that it doesn't seem to have any real citations even as a list topic and I really wish people would leave out such lists unless a number of the entries have some notability, however I haven't figured out what it is you're trying to say about it. Dmcq (talk) 17:06, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I vehemently object to characterizing mobile device users "the low-end of users." There are large swaths of the world where mobile Internet access is the economic and cultural norm. Moreover, even in the U.S. there are particular populations where mobile Internet access is more prevalent. To dismiss those people as "the low-end" is ignorant at best and outright offensive at worst. ElKevbo (talk) 18:01, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I mean technically low-end. This phrase is not derogatory in any way and is in wide use. If you have low memory connection/equipment, then you are a low-end user. SFB 06:38, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

When I first started here some 4 years ago, I tried to follow WP:SIZE whenever I could. However, I really no longer do, at least on the technical side. That is because I have realized that technology and bandwidth have been ever-increasing for many years, now – moreso than the recommended 30KB recommendation that we used to have for a long time.

That being said, readability is different and separate issue altogether, which I would argue is a more important issue when merging or splitting articles than mere physical size. Sometimes that simply cannot be avoided; Abraham Lincoln is a good example of this, and a lot of people I think would reasonably expect that to be a big article (which it is) with a lot of information in it. That is where Masem's WP:NOTPAPER argument comes in; we don't have a strict limit on how large (or even small) articles can be, and not all articles are uniform and equal. --MuZemike 21:37, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:SIZE is a good idea so long as we make it clear that splitoffs made purely due to size are not independently subject to notability requirements. I have seen far too many AFDs in which it is claimed that "the early life of John Foo is not notable" or "the list of episodes from Foo: The Series is not notable, with arguments that John Foo or Foo: The Series are notable, their articles overly long, and these are encyclopedic subtopics and thus valid splitoffs, wrongly dismissed as WP:NOTINHERITED arguments. This is not only an incoherent way of analyzing the content, but it also fails to serve the underlying purpose of notability guidelines, and serves only to improperly constrain article content growth. So I'd like to see a way to preclude such AFDs, so that the decisions of how much detail is merited for a subtopic/section, and when a section should be split off because of article size, are clearly identified as purely ordinary editing decisions, not deletion decisions. postdlf (talk) 23:27, 11 July 2012 (UTC) (painstakingly typed on a mobile browser)

Even when mobile phones will evolve, the readability issues won't go away? Is there a way or no way to resolve readability issues, even when we can edit articles very well? Either way, what's the point of having this guideline if readability, editing, and loading issues will go away or won't go away, even after evolution of technology? --George Ho (talk) 23:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
We do have a very basic readability guide at WP:Article size#Readability issues "A page of about 30kB to 50kB of readable prose, which roughly corresponds to 6,000 to 10,000 words, takes between 30 and 40 minutes to read at average speed, which is right on the limit of the average concentration span of 40 to 50 minutes." If you have anything bigger than that you definitely start degrading the user experience is my feeling compared to having separately loaded pages. If something is larger than that readers will be spending quite a bit of their time skimming not reading - and we should enable them to skim better to find out what they do want to read. The Abraham Lincoln article is a very good one - as a paper article. It is not so good as an internet resource. The bits that are dealt with as subtopics should be summarized a bit more and have less in them. Have a look at a shop window. Do they cram everything they've got into it? They summarize and entice you in by quickly showing the main things and how good they are.
As to the business of splitting without any notability constraint - the current size limits are way far beyond causing problems that way except for the most fanatic collector of trivia or for list articles which simply are long lists. If one goes beyond the current guidelines that is an obvious indicator of a problem. People are shoving too much that should be in subtopics into a main topic. The subtopics are notable in the case of good articles, it is just editors can't bear not to have the pageviews denied to their nuggets of information that makes them pad out the main article. But what they really do is clutter up the shop front window and hide the inportant stuff amongst the clutter. Dmcq (talk) 07:51, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Further to that, while WP:Article size#Readability issues states that the average concentration span is 40 to 50 minutes, our average reader spends less than 5 minutes on Wikipedia according to Alexa stats, and as our articles increase in length, the tendency has been to spend less and less time on Wikipedia, with the recent drop below the 4 minutes mark. This is compared to people spending over 20 minutes on facebook and over 15 minutes on youtube. This also explains why readers prefer GA articles to FA articles. I think we need much more summary style than we currently have. It is too often assumed the quantity = quality, which is detrimental to the project. --ELEKHHT 08:15, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I guess quite a few would find "Abraham Lincoln i/ˈeɪbrəhæm ˈlɪŋkən/ (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865" gave them everything they wanted, if they'd only read the snippet of text in their Google results they needn't have bothered coming to Wikipedia. People might like looking at the Google results and see how they can help us. I was proposing something at WP:VPT#Section viewing but I don't think people really see what the gain would be. Dmcq (talk) 08:54, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I think it's worth noting that that tiny figure of our average reader spending less than 5 minutes on Wikipedia might have something to do with the Wikipedia game, in which players jump from wiki-article to the next..--Coin945 (talk) 17:28, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Woody Interruptus and conflicts with policies and guidelines

Many proposals to make a special notability guideline for fiction were attempted but failed. Therefore, we have something to reduce more preposterous, like Woody Interruptus, which I have copied-and-pasted into List of Cheers episodes. WP:PLOT doesn't apply to this topic due to its Directing Award win, but Outstanding Directing? Unfortunately, I have twice proposed merger and then failed because compelling arguments are weighing on awards that do not relate to writing or do not indicate why episodes were awarded for such. Still, there is nothing I can do to change consensus of that article. Maybe I can propose a general consideration, but not now.

Why not Writing? Look, there may be other stand-alone articles written like this article, but we must do something about them for notability considerations of episodes before we have more articles like this. And I don't think "idea lab" is a good idea right now, but I wonder if I must establish a straw poll. --George Ho (talk) 09:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Why are the awards not sufficient notability grounds? Why exactly would one want to have more than a one or two line description of those episodes in the list? The list is a list of episodes, it is not about each episode - that is one remove and that sort of thing should only be done for short lists where each entry is a significant part of the whole. If you want to remove the article propose it for deletion and see what the consensus says. If you think the consensus is against you then don't do what you were trying to do. Dmcq (talk) 10:04, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
This is an episode, not a book or a film. How would this article help readers recognize significance if it won Outstanding Direction (even if more than one)? Also, a plot summary in a list can be 100-300 words. --George Ho (talk) 16:00, 13 July 2012 (UTC) Template:episode list says so, as well as WP:MOSTV. --George Ho (talk) 16:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
As said before, I've proposed merger twice, and they want it kept. --George Ho (talk) 16:02, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
You're getting off topic George. You're not going to get a page merged here. You said you were coming here for clarification after I removed the banner you posted stating editors are not allowed to use arguments you don't like. Joefromrandb (talk) 17:38, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
There must be coming on to 300 episodes of the business. Just 100 words by 300 comes to 30000 words which is far more than is reasonable for any article never mind going to 300 words each. One can split list articles into pieces much more easily than normal articles but this just strikes me again as stuffing content up front and disimproving the user experience. If there were only 30 episodes I might see a point but I don't see what is being gained here.
Anyway you seem to be saying the article would not be deleted. Fine, in that case accept the consensus and delete the stuff you stuck into the list. As far as the article is concerned the way to get outside editors to overrule the local consensus is with an WP:AfD or a WP:RfC. If you think a policy or guideline needs changing they have their talk pages and there are RfC's for them too and you could say a bit more here if that's what you're doing. But at the very least the stuff shouldn't be in the list in the meantime.
As to episodes just try deleting one of the Star Trek episodes and see where it gets you. They are all notable by that test. The policies and guidelines are supposed to follow practice, and AfD are a very good way of establishing their limits. Dmcq (talk) 17:45, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
In other words, just one plot and one rating in one article, right, even if no awards? --George Ho (talk) 17:51, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Anyways, I am planning to split all Seasons into stand-alone articles, but I'm doing the Season 1 first before others. Therefore, I'm doing the best that I can. By the way, I'm not planning to remove that entry from the list just because it must be very, very short. --George Ho (talk) 17:55, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
If you split the list by seasons I guess that might fix the problem about shovelling stuff into the list. That is definitely a good idea before you go back to the talk page of that episode and stick in a third merge proposal and really get their backs up. Dmcq (talk) 18:00, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Regulating content on user pages

Questions have arisen on how much regulation should be applied to the content editors put on their userpages. Generally, policy has stayed clear of this, leaving it to the editor to decide what they like to do there within reason. Lately it's been brought to the attention of a few that some users like to redirect their userpage into article space, with the ensuing discussions moving in the direction of regulation.

Some of the suggestions go towards the content of a userpage and it's purpose, which would see regulation of the content itself, which side-steps the issue of how it got there, through a redirect, or transclusion, or straight copying. Regulating the content naturally is a dynamic which goes on and on and on and on and on.

Some suggestions circle around idiot-proofing, so people don't leave personal messages to their favourite article by following the link from the article they have arrived at to it's talkpage instead of the user-talkpage. A valid point, as there is no shortage of idiots out there, hmm, must be a factory or something.

So on one hand, we either put up with the occasional note to Elvis on the article talkpage about his reverting my blue suede editing, or we merrily head down the tack of regulating content, WooHOO!!!! more Dramas and how. (no I'm not trying to sway anyone, honest) Penyulap ☏ 07:57, 14 Jul 2012 (UTC)

It is already regulated to some extant WP:UP#NOT. Jeepday (talk) 10:13, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

yes, I like this part, the way it speaks of community building.

The Wikipedia community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants. Particularly, community-building activities that are not strictly "on topic" may be allowed, especially when initiated by committed Wikipedians with good edit histories. At their best, such activities help us to build the community, and this helps to build the encyclopedia. But at the same time, if user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption

Penyulap ☏ 11:08, 14 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Fry (Futurama) vs. Apu Nahasapeemapetilon

Great, I even did it. I learn how to spell Apu's surname... Ack... Even I didn't copy-and-paste... I did it.... I did it.... I did it.... I did it...




....Immaturity aside, Apu's surname is preferred over parenthetical disambiguation per WP:PRECISION. However, this may contradict "Fry (Futurama)", which is now an official title, while Philip J. Fry is now a redirect. Is there a need to treat fictional character naturally or parenthetically? If either, I wonder. If neither, I somehow wonder if we can continue using another case or a policy for a reason to either move or not move. Right now, I'm confused... --George Ho (talk) 13:38, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't this come down to using a bit of common sense, rather than going into the intricacies of what exactly policy mandates? I've watched Futurama enough to know who Fry is, but wouldn't know his full name. On the other hand, though I surely couldn't spell Apu's surname, when I see it written out, I know who it refers to. Anyway, Apu (Simpsons)) is a redirect, and entering 'Apu' in the search box would have found him quick enough. What exactly is the problem? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:48, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Does a policy, like WP:article titles, need amendments? If not, shall I propose a renaming back to "Philip J. Fry"? If not, is a guideline about naming a fictional character needed? (Honestly, there is no guideline about what to do with naming a fictional character. WP:NCP doesn't apply.) If not, what else can I do? I mean, Kendall Hart Slater became Kendall Hart by a move consensus. There are some editors who prefer Lucas Horton because he recently changed his name, but the consensus chose "Lucas Roberts". --George Ho (talk) 14:01, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
You've not really explained what you think the problem is. What needs fixing? AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
...and why is it a Village Pump issue, instead of something you could just resolve on the articles' talk pages? This is getting to be a habit. See also WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY, re: your apparent need to have every content issue specifically provided for by written rules. postdlf (talk) 15:44, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard no longer marked as a guideline

Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as a guideline. It was previously marked as a guideline. This is an automated notice of the change (more information). -- VeblenBot (talk) 02:00, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Canvassing

Im looking for clarification on a current Wikipedia:Canvassing. On 11 July the following AFD was created, well over one hundred nomination and no article creators informed, some articles were still being tagged over 24 hours later. As courtesy if not policy would suggest i advised two creators out of the six who created them using the standard notification template. An admin warned me that by doing so i was canvasing. Other commentators at the AFD pointed out that this was not canvasing.

Having read the policy if this is the case it needs clarification.

  • Spamming says Posting an excessive number of messages to individual users, or to users with no significant connection to the topic at hand.
  • Campaigning: Posting a notification of discussion that presents the topic in a non-neutral manner.
  • Vote-stacking: Posting messages to users selected based on their known opinions (which may be made known by a userbox, user category, or prior statement). Vote-banking involves recruiting editors perceived as having a common viewpoint for a group, similar to a political party, in the expectation that notifying the group of any discussion related to that viewpoint will result in a numerical advantage, much as a form of prearranged vote stacking
  • Stealth canvassing: Contacting users off-wiki (by e-mail or IRC, for example) to persuade them to join in discussions
  • Soliciting support other than by posting direct messages, such as using a custom signature with a message promoting a specific position on any issue being discussed.

Ill address my view on these points. Spamming two or even six is not an excessive number and in this case they all had a concoction to the topic as they created these articles. Campaigning a standard notification is posting in a neutral manor. Vote-stacking posting based on knowing opinions, i do not know there opinions or have even conversed with them in the past. Or actually edited that topic ever. Stealth canvassing, a notification is on wiki so its not that. And finally Soliciting a standard notification does not cover that section.

If it is agreed that this is canvasing then Wikipedia:Canvassing needs update to include advice on AFDS. I feel advice here [[7]] in section Notifying substantial contributors to the article allows standard notification.Edinburgh Wanderer 14:55, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Even if hundreds of editors have contributed to articles later nominated for deletion, maybe that should "skew" the discussion. I certainly don't see any real concern over notifying six. That's what you get when you nominate over a hundred articles for deletion. (Incidentally, I learned of this AFD through deletion sorting lists, and don't recall ever editing these myself). postdlf (talk) 15:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Neithier did i never edited them, only came across them because of an edit war report on the nominator let me to look why he was still tagging over 24 hours later never tagged them all, or notified even one editor.
As the admin in question, I don't have a great problem with two. The discussion was whether to notify all article creators on a large AFD: that would have resulted in six people being notified, all of whom were likely to vote to keep, based on the fact that they had created one or more of the articles. It goes against the vote-stacking issue, even if the notifications were in good faith, because the voters were all more likely to vote one way than the other. Six votes is enough to distort any AFD result.—Kww(talk) 15:57, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
You cannot prove six is excessive and [[8]] seems very clearly to allow use of a standard notification template. That is shown in this section Notifying substantial contributors to the article Edinburgh Wanderer 16:20, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
What do you want for proof that six is excessive? A statistical analysis of how many articles attract six voters? Omitting a courtesy notification is harmless, and notifying a biased group of editors is not. Erring on the side of caution would argue for not notifying in a case like this.—Kww(talk) 16:26, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
There is something wrong with your sig causing and error to appear every time you reply until i reply. Other commentators disagreed with you in the AFD, also the link i provided shows you should notify as a common courtesy. Your accusation and threat against me is unfounded based on the current wording at canvasing and by the link at the AFD page. That AFD was well over one hundred nominations some weren't even tagged six creators is not canvassing. Unless you can prove that six notifications when people viewing over one hundred noms would only lead to six replys you don't have a valid point. there were more than six replies in just over 24 hours with six days left to run most of them in a few hour period none of them were who i advised. Since you cant back up that claim the why don't we let other people reply. Did you read the comments made at the AFD that it was not canvassing.Edinburgh Wanderer 16:31, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Well the real question here is not the number of people but specifically whether you can count these article authors as a "Partisan" audience, per the Canvassing guideline. Obviously, we are the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, and those who have actually taken an interest in an article actually have a stake in the outcome, since they've invested time in the article. Does this necessarily mean they will vote 'Keep' as a rule? Are they partisan? Our general principle at Wikipedia is that anyone is welcome to edit any article, and that we want to encourage more of that. Whether people are willing to admit it or not, a poorly attended AfD is just as partisan-biased if people aren't able to pay attention during the short window it may be active. The Wikipedia Deletion policy has a strong bias in favor of finding alternatives to deletion, and the AfD guideline even says "While not required, it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion". AfD debates should be decided on the merits and strength of arguments not the number of people who show up and !vote Keep or Delete. If admins or editors are not closing debates on that basis, then we need to remind AfD closers what the actual policy is and enforce that. But keeping people out of a debate who have an obvious stake in it, especially if it is a neutrally worded notice seems to fly in the face of our Deletion policy, our AfD process, and our Civility pillar. -- Avanu (talk) 16:43, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
This does not "fly in the face" of anything. The purpose of an AFD is to have an objective evaluation of whether the article merits inclusion, and that means that one should not invite any group of people that are predisposed to either delete or to keep. I don't know how you can argue that people don't have a predisposition to keep their own work.—Kww(talk) 06:33, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
By that metric, having the nominator put their reasoning at the top of the AfD for all to see is another largely predisposing thing. For objective evaluation, the article should simply be anonymously listed, and then anyone who wishes to participate in the discussion must investigate the article for themselves to see if it merits inclusion. Objectively, of course. Anyways, so long as AfD isn't just a vote, but an evaluation of arguments, six people that are voting keep just because it's their article shouldn't be hard to discount, since we're assuming the case where their reasons don't actually justify their votes. Darryl from Mars (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

This is the exact wording on the notification page

  • While not required, it is generally considered courteous to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion. One should not notify bot accounts, people who have made only insignificant 'minor' edits, or people who have never edited the article. To find the main contributors, look in the page history or talk page of the article and/or use Duesentrieb's ActiveUsers tool or Wikipedia Page History Statistics. Use {{subst:AfD-notice|article name|AfD discussion title}}. At this point, you've done all you need to do as nominator. Sometime after seven days has passed, someone will either close the discussion or, where needed, "relist" it for another seven days of discussion. (The "someone" must not be you the nominator, but if you want to see how it's done see the next section.)

Edinburgh Wanderer 16:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Whether the admin that closes a discussion looks at whether there may be a conflict of interest that is there role not the nominator or someone who notifies them. A standard notification template isn't canvassing when following the above policy, it even states main contributors not just the article creators. Edinburgh Wanderer 16:50, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

I take great issue with the notion that participation from the content creators or contributors at an AFD causes "distortion," as if the policy-wonks likely to wander through an average AFD (myself included) are somehow a more important community than the editors who have actually worked on the content. If there are so many creators of the content you have nominated in a single AFD that their participation will outweigh others, then that says something about the scale of the nomination; and compare a situation in which one editor has unilaterally created a mass of articles no one else supports with what we had here. I simply see no merit to excluding notification of creators because there were a lot of creators, instead quite the opposite. One might as well argue against putting AFD notices on articles at all, on the claim that the greater number of visiting readers interested and editors who have it watchlisted will "distort" the results. Kww was wrong here. postdlf (talk) 16:59, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

  • If a policy or guideline requires or even suggests that you notify certain individuals, making a neutral template notification should never be considered impermissible canvasing. Maybe the wisdom of the AfD notification should be evaluated, but as long as it tells you to notify people the notifications are permissible. Monty845 17:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
    • That's a very good point; when done with the AFD of a single article, that's not going to be a problem, but a nominator should be aware that nominating 100+ articles at the same time and expected to get a delete needs to realize how the potential number of article creators should be notified and what their disposition will be to the mass AFD. If they know they're knocking on a wasp's net, maybe the solution is not a mass AFD but an open discussion on the matter at an appropriate talk page. --MASEM (t) 15:48, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
      • I entirely agree with postdlf, Monty845 and Masem: who is more likely to give (or not give) appropriate reasoning to keep an article than those who created it? AFD is not a vote: a poorly reasoned keep by an article's author will likely work against an effort to keep it. Not notifying content creators is frankly offensive to their work and only re-enforces the impression that AFD is frequented by people who are not involved in content creation. SFB 15:55, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I believe that notifying the authors would be fine, but if you didn't want to do that for some reason, it would probably be just as good to notify the relevant WikiProject, which is another thing that the AFD advice suggests. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Kww, if people follow the rules of closure, then even 1000 people showing up shouldn't be a problem. AfDs are supposed to be based on consensus, which is supposed to be grounded in good arguments, based in policy and guidelines. If people don't base their arguments on that, the argument should be tossed. Consensus is not supposed to just be what is popular, unless you feel that WP:Ignore All Rules is the best way to close AfDs. -- Avanu (talk) 06:24, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I wish I shared your faith that other admins would stop counting votes. I've found that any effort to evaluate consensus that results in an evaluation different than simple counting would achieve causes controversy.—Kww(talk) 12:39, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I have no faith that they are doing it correctly, simply that I know what the rules are supposed to be on AfDs. If these are being run like votes, then we need to either change the rules, which I think would be a bad idea, or enforce the rules, which is what we should be doing regardless. -- Avanu (talk) 13:10, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Concur with Avanu, if anyone has a reasonable argument that an AfD was closed as a simple vote count, over consensus grounded in good arguments, they should bring it up for discussion. If there are 100 "Keep because I like it" votes and 3 "Delete per BLP" it should close delete. There will always be border line cases, but where it is clear, bring it up, first with the closing editor (tactfully). Then elevate as needed. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree with everyone above concerning contacting those who may have edited a page (indeed, it's part of why we place a notice on the page - the idea that those who may read or edit the page may have it on their watchlist. However, Kww makes a very good point. All too many closers count "votes". Part of the problem of course is that when a closer doesn't, there's often a firestorm. If we find a way to deal with these issues, then the canvassing issue becomes less of a concern. - jc37 15:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I for one would be all for upgrading the notification of major contributors into a formal requirement to nominating an article for AFD. I've nominated several articles for deletion, but I always inform the major contributors, even if there are many of them; it seems to me unethical not to. If you've contributed significant content to an article, then you should be informed when that content is about to get deleted. Some people seem to take the attitude "Well, if they care about the article, they should keep it on their watchlist", but that just seems disrespectful to content creators. And if you're saying "But that means I would have to notify 40 people after nominating this article! And they'd probably all say keep!" - well, maybe that's a sign you should think twice before nominating that well-established article, isn't it? If you don't have a solid argument that would result in a delete outcome at AFD, and are hoping to 'win' merely because the article's supporters don't turn up, you shouldn't be there in the first place. Robofish (talk) 16:16, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
    • I never notify the creator. Never have, never will. It's not "unethical" at all, it's simply avoiding the presence of an inherently biased !vote.—Kww(talk) 17:42, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Regardless of whether a deletion nominator should feel compelled to notify creators, I think we have a clear consensus in this discussion that it was inappropriate to warn someone with a block for doing so. So let's not see that happen again. postdlf (talk) 18:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

File:Paint 7.png

Um... it should use the {{Microsoft screenshot}} template? 68.173.113.106 (talk) 16:58, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

It probably could. I also suspect the drawing needs a separate notice. Anomie⚔ 20:37, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
On closer look, maybe not. One of the requirements for {{Non-free Microsoft screenshot}} is that the screenshot not contain third-party content, which might include the drawing. That might be a question for WP:MCQ. Anomie⚔ 20:56, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Blocking policy

The blocking policy is one of the key policies used to stop wikipedia from suffering harm. It also shows that Admins don't have the right to block a user they have a conflict of interest with or are in dispute with.

This is an RFC to re clarify consensus on Wikipedia's blocking policy. Specifically the section on Conflicts of interest it states

  • Administrators must not block users with whom they are engaged in a content dispute; instead, they should report the problem to other administrators. Administrators should also be aware of potential conflicts of interest involving pages or subject areas with which they are involved.

This is not being followed by all admins at the present time for a varying reasons. I request the community decide whether we still feel this statement is appropriate and must be followed. Also do the community think actions should be taken against said admin if they do not follow the blocking policy.Edinburgh Wanderer 19:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

  • If the block was otherwise good, and the only issue is they made the block while involved, the admin should be summarily {{trout}}ed and then everyone should move on. If the block was bad, and they were involved, and it can't be resolved to satisfaction at WP:AN/I it should be sent to WP:RFC/U and eventually Arbcom if the recalcitrant admin doesn't respond to the problem appropriately. Monty845 20:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
A block can be good or bad by nature, to me the problem then is the wording. I think we have to be clear on something as important as the blocking policy, if the policy states Must Not then they are not allowed to do so for any reason. If we feel there may be circumstances where they can block then the wording should be made less harsh. An admin will know whether they are involved or not before they block, or be aware they could be considered involved.Edinburgh Wanderer 21:53, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, no. I've seen plenty of instances where "But you were involved!" was followed by a rejection of that assertion either by consensus, WP:IAR, or WP:COMMONSENSE. Determining involvement is sometimes a matter of judgement and if an admin, who has a good record, errs, they shouldn't be raked over the coals. --NeilN talk to me 22:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Right, the rule against acting while involved serves two purposes. First and most importantly, it is designed to stop an admin from letting the heat of the moment get the better of them and using their tools to give themselves an advantage in an editing dispute. The second purpose is avoid the appearance that an admin may have used there tools to give themselves such an advantage. If the block was otherwise good, the second purpose is still at issue, but its not as big a deal. If the first purpose is at issue, it raises a question about their fundamental suitability to remain an admin. Monty845 22:16, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

In case it is not clear, this issue was raised here WP:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Block_review_please. Leaky Caldron 22:24, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that Leaky but lets make this clearer. This is not about one admin or one particular situation if it had been i would of named several admins. this is about whether in general the community feels it correct to allow an admin to not follow the blocking policy specifically word such as Must Not. If the community feels they can under certain circumstances then the blocking policy has to be changed to exclude the words must not, possibly admins are strongly advised not to would be a better wording. Admins have the extreme trust of the community to follow key policy and that includes the blocking policy. Therefore the community needs to decide whether we trust our admins judgement fully and allow them to make that decision, or we feel they cannot exercise judgement in a situation where they are perceived as involved. Edinburgh Wanderer (talk) 23:22, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Sounds like WP:CREEP to me. --NeilN talk to me 00:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The Atlantic article on declining ranks of Wikipedia admins

I wanted to steer people's attention to today's article in The Atlantic online: 3 Charts That Show How Wikipedia Is Running Out of Admins. The author, Robinson Meyer, discusses several charts shown at Wikimania and discusses the drop-off in admin counts at en-wiki:

In June 2010, six people became admins. March of that year saw only two promotions...
There are reasons for this. Andrew Lih, author of The Wikipedia Revolution and a professor of journalism at the University of Southern California, told me the process by which new admins are promoted is arduous and extensive...
"The vetting process is akin to putting someone through the Supreme Court," he said. "It's pretty much a hazing ritual at this point..."
For the past few months of 2012, no more than one or two Wikipedia users have been promoted to admin status. This slow trickle of new talent means fewer people perform the encyclopedia's upkeep -- sorting, categorizing, correcting vandalism. And the arduous application process also fails to provide a little karmic reward for involved editors, which means they're less likely to devote time to improving the encyclopedia's structural weaknesses, like how, for example, to adapt the encyclopedia's sourcing to an age of social media.

I'm deeply concerned that we have a culture that pushes away many of our best contributors and a process that seeks to promote only those editors best able to worm their way through an incredibly bureaucratic and adversarial process. If we want Wikipedia to be a more welcoming and less fighty place, then it doesn't make sense to select our admins through a trial by fire that is anything but. It seems to me that one of two paths is worth seriously pursuing at this point:

  • Radically refining the RfA process to grant the tools upon request, or at least most of them, to relatively active users in good standing without any of the usual 20+ question grilling, endless hypothetical, digging through every past edit that could be seen in a remotely negative light, wildly different definitions of required qualifications from different users, requirements for article work, requirements for non-article work, expectations that the user be an expert in virtually everything, etc... In short, the community should agree on a much more clearly defined criteria and apply that criteria to all requests without interposing personal judgements on what that criteria should be. If a user has a concern about the criteria, then they should put that up for discussion, not make every candidate uphold individual personal standards. Going along with this, we should feel free to remove the admin bits from users when things don't work out, with an explicit promise to fairly reconsider in a few months if improvement is demonstrated.
  • Eliminate adminship entirely and spread its constituent privileges across a range of smaller permissions. Editors could separately request the right to handle deletions, blocks, interface changes, protect pages, etc... Each privilege would be comparatively easy to obtain and would be available to editors with relevant experience in a particular area. This approach would de-emphasize the role of administrators by focusing on the actual tasks to be performed rather than conferring an overall status of authority.

Zachlipton (talk) 21:15, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

RFA is to a veteran user, what Wikipedia is to a new user. It is a symptom of the community being overly critical. It will only change when the community decides to change itself. Nothing else will fix it. It's that simple. 64.40.54.3 (talk) 23:38, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Seriously, adminship really isn't that big of a deal, and the special tools available really aren't necessary for doing most things on Wikipedia. You mention "sorting, categorizing, correcting vandalism" -- none of those actions require admin tools -- although in some cases they could be handy, I could see. Where admins are particularly needed is cases of persistent vandalism, or when a particular topic is in the news. Then, you need someone with extra tools to protect pages until it calms down. But 99.9% of what Wikipedia needs is more people to actually improve articles. Who really cares that we now have 4 million plus articles on the English Wikipedia when there's only about 20,000 that are rated as Featured or Good, and even only about 100,000 are B-class. That's only about 3% of our articles that are even halfway decent (and there's a lot of grey area because B-class really doesn't have any specific or enforced standards like FA & GA do).
I've been editing here since about 2004 or 2005 -- under a different username earlier. I was here in the heyday of editing, and I even was nominated for adminship (failed). Yes, the adminship process is ridiculous. It's easier to defend a Ph.D. Dissertation than a successful RfA! Even Jesus Christ would probably fail at RfA. So, I no longer care about adminship. Today, most ofusers what I care about here is improving articles and helping to develop some sort of consistency in articles such that people can generally trust the encyclopedia for the information that is here. I really don't care to get too involved in hot button topics prone to edit wars -- I don't have time for that. I tend to focus my efforts more in some of the smaller articles and ones that may not have been touched in awhile but desperately need attention. I don't need admin rights to do that. WTF? (talk) 02:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The other problem is strong disincentives for existing admins to use the tools: they get nothing but stick for it. In an all-stick and no-carrot environment, dedication to duty only goes so far and only increases the burnout. (And that's not even considering stalking from lunatic troll sites or gibberingly weird arbcom decisions.) We have an impending serious problem with lack of administrative effort on the way, because the incentive structure is completely wrong. I'm at a loss to think what would make a suitable carrot, but surely something could be done about the amount of stick - David Gerard (talk) 11:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Special case of CSD G7

Is one allowed to nominate mainspace titles for CSD G7 where (s)he:

  1. Has overridden an existing redirect with an article (because RFD takes at least a week and is too slow)
  2. Has been the only substantial contributor to that article ever since
  3. After the nomination, the prior article content will be immediately used to recreate.

This is for the sole purpose of upping article creation count. GotR Talk 05:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The answer is 'no'. Ruslik_Zero 15:01, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Is there a "Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right" policy?

Hi All,

I think there is a policy that says, "Just because there is a mistake on one page does not mean the mistake should be proliferated or tolerated on another page." Am I right, or is there something at least similar? If so, please post a link. Many thanks! Ebikeguy (talk) 15:49, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I think you're looking for WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. rdfox 76 (talk) 16:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Otherstuff is a good argument, but note the message that "it is not a Wikipedia policy or guideline". The actual relevant policy for your case is WP:Consensus. Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:Ignore all rules may also apply. Diego (talk) 16:18, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Notability (geography)

A draft proposal for the notability of geographic features is being developed at the frequently-cited Wikipedia:Notability (geography). Many AfD discussions suggest a threshold for notability below Wikipedia's General Notability Guideline and cite this essay as support. A failed proposal can be viewed at Wikipedia:Notability (Geographic locations). G. C. Hood (talk) 03:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The draft and discussion have moved to Wikipedia:Notability (geographical features). G. C. Hood (talk) 00:47, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Are there any concrete Wikipedia policies to oppose bribery?

I brought up this issue at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines to which User:Dmcq recommended that that this place would be better to address the issue. I have encountered a user who attempted to bribe me with an offer that he/she would support a position that I had taken on a talk page, and abandon their previous opposition, on the condition of an exchange where I would support that user's stance on another article that I was not involved with. Other users noticed that this involved a violation of WP:CANVASS, but they noted that there is no such thing as a Wikipedia policy opposing bribery. The user who bribed me was blocked on grounds of WP:CANVASS and WP:UNCIVIL. User:Art_LaPella claims that bribery could fall under Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and particularly Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#Close relationships. The problem I have with this is that I have had no close relationship with the user who bribed me, in fact I have strongly disagreed with the user in the past. I believe that bribery of any sorts - be it financial offers or an offer of favours - is contrary to the principles of Wikipedia.

User:Dmcq has supported the intention of my request, saying: "I have come across the same sort of thing myself with people trying to do horse trading between different articles, not just whether something would be better covered in one or the other but actually offering to suppor an RfC in one if others would support another RfC in a different article. I do think it may be worth a paragraph and a WP link about it somewhere." If there are no existing policies that deal with this, I suggest that such a policy needs to be created, I think it should be placed within the Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest with its own section titled Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest#Bribery - from the blue colour of the link, it appears that such a policy did exist but has since been removed, the policy could be linked through shortcut links titled WP:BRIBE, WP:BRIBERY.--R-41 (talk) 16:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but calling such behaviour 'bribery' is not only misleading, but possibly libellous. Yes, it is wrong, and yes, it may well need explicitly spelling out in policy somewhere, but giving it a dubious label isn't going to help. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
The link is blue because the COI page exists; the software doesn't evaluate section headings. Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest#Random garbage from mashing the keyboard is also blue. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Do we really need to spell out every instance of Things Wikipedia Editors Should Not Do? If someone's only excuse for doing something or not doing something is "Nothing says I have to/Nothing says I can't", then they have failed to be a good editor. postdlf (talk) 17:23, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

What is with the aggressive, cynical attitude of some users here? I mean is this a place for users to address issues or not? Because I think that my contributions are neither being respected nor welcomed here at all. So much for the Wikipedia guideline "Be welcoming"! If you are a user who is too worn out, too tired out, or too cynical to even address issues here presented by concerned users, then just say so, because being aggressive to two users (me and the User:Dmcq who agrees that the problem I addressed is real), is not helpful.--R-41 (talk) 18:33, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

How is it cynical to expect that editors refrain from bad behavior even when there is no rule prohibiting each and every type of possible bad behavior? Or that people not simply do whatever they think they can get away with according to what the rules say? Rather the opposite, I'd think. I was commenting on the assertion by the blocked user that he did nothing wrong only because "there is no such thing as a Wikipedia policy opposing bribery." postdlf (talk) 18:41, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I could not think of another word at the time other than "bribery" to describe it, perhaps a better term of reference is vote trading. The user who Andy says I'm being "libelous" to, was banned for canvassing, gross misconduct, and immediately prior to being blocked, the user even admitted to being a sock puppet of the banned User:Chaosname. at the time to describe someone offering to support an edit of mine on the condition that I support one of their edits. I have seen policies that oppose financial offers - that deals with one aspect of what I addressed. User:Dmcq says that he/she has run into this editing as well. Due to Andy's address, I will revise the issue to vote trading, and propose a WP:NOVOTETRADE or WP:VOTETRADE to be added as a part of Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest.--R-41 (talk) 18:36, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

The scenario you describe is already covered under our WP:SOCK policy, specifically the WP:MEAT section. -- Avanu (talk) 18:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
The sock issue I know about. The issue is the evidence of vote trading, regardless of whether the user was a sockpuppet. It is an issue separate from that.--R-41 (talk) 18:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be explicitly stated, it's already covered by the use of WP:COMMONSENSE. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Understandable, but that is just an essay regardless of its relevance. The user in question attempted to argue that there is nothing wrong with vote trading.--R-41 (talk) 18:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Thinking about it, WP:NPOV already covers this. Horse-traded 'support' is self-evidently not 'neutral'. I see no need for further policy. If someone is 'trading' their credibility for support (or is offering to 'trade' support), they will soon cease to have any credibility at all - and can be shown the door per WP:NOTHERE as displaying "editorial dishonesty". AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:56, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
That is the response I was looking for, evidence of policy that bars vote trading. It is settled then.--R-41 (talk) 18:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Just make sure to distinguish from situations where editors compromise as part of positive dispute resolution, such as agreeing to stay out of each others' areas of interest. Agreeing that A will not edit Article One if B will not edit Article Two is still horse trading, but if it ends a stream of endless disputes it would be a good thing. Monty845 19:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Making an offer to stay out of an area of interest of another editor if they stay out of yours is very wrong behaviour I think. It is coercion with threats. Soliciting votes by swapping yours is bad enough without descending to that level. Dmcq (talk) 20:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
It should also probably be distinguished from compromises on content concerning matters like due weight; e.g. I think it would be ethical for an editor to support calling the UK a "parliamentary democracy" in one place on the condition that the term "constitutional monarchy" is used in another place. Editors should be able to "haggle" over which aspect should be given prominence, i.e. what constitutes due weight and how to express it. --Boson (talk) 23:33, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Already covered under WP:CANVASS and WP:MEATPUPPET. As you say, in your example the offending editor has been blocked. The fact that a deal was offered could be taken into account when the offending editor is sanctioned. However, it does not meet the criteria for bribery, unless you think you can prosecute offenders in criminal courts. Also see WP:BEANS - we do not want to explain to tendentious editors all the techniques they can use. TFD (talk) 20:53, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:Beans is exactly what came to mind as I read the OP's comment (though his inquiry is an understandable one, all the same). Yes, this is clearly unacceptable behaviour, but of the sort that is not likely to be overlooked simply because it has limited representation on policy pages. That is to say, anyone vote-swapping or otherwise offering tit-for-tat in discussion of content has already shot themselves in the foot; their opinion will quickly be discounted by other contributors in the relevant discussion(s) and their willingness to game the system and make arguments that are based on anything but their genuine interpretation of policy will make them susceptible to sanction regardless of the specific impetus for their misrepresentation. Honestly, I don't see the need to formulate a specific policy in this instance, as I don't see that the motive for the dishonesty is entirely germane other than its probative value in establishing that they were not acting in good faith, period. Honestly, what it boils down to is that "support trading" is such a wikiethics no-brainer -- that is based on more fundemental principles that every experienced editor should be familiar with -- that explaining it explicitly is unlikely to change the behaviour of anyone unknowledgeable or dishonest enough to engage in it in the first place. So there's very little benefit to spelling it out, wheras, the down-side (new editors forever citing it improperly against other contributors who make good faith compromises which do not violate the same ethical principles) could be considerable. All of that being said, although R-41 seems satisfied with the policies that have been cited now, he could always write a user essay on the matter connecting all of the dots if he thinks it could prove useful. Snow (talk) 00:34, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't think language needs to be in policy to spell out what can be said and what cannot be said because that would be instruction creep. The editor offering to "trade votes" can gently be chided about the impropriety of that and be done with it. Sorry. Not meaning to get on R-41's case. I see no harm in bringing this up. But I would be opposed to policy explicitly spelling how to behave in every nook and cranny of human interaction. I see it as making a mountain out of a molehill even if the underlying question is idealistic and an ideal that we all should be able to recognize. Bus stop (talk) 01:04, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Also, if one follows NPOV in one's edits, one is unlikely to attract tendentious editors wanting to maker deals. TFD (talk) 04:55, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I think some people may mistake vote trading or agreeing to not tread in another editor's backyard as consensus building, and the closest we have to a policy against it is WP:Consensus#Consensus-building pitfalls and errors in "WikiProjects, or editors are permitted; but actions that could reasonably be interpreted as an attempt to "stuff the ballot box" or otherwise compromise the consensus-building process are considered disruptive editing." I think it is interesting there is such a diverse set of policies people consider it might be closest to and yet there are people who think actions like this are okay. Dmcq (talk) 07:15, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback v5 RfC

You are invited to comment on an RfC on developing a guideline for responding to AFTv5 feedback. David1217 What I've done 20:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

How to fix Wikipedia

A lot of people have been leaving Wikipedia lately, and I think it's because of hostility, infighting, bureaucracy, and Wikipedia's no-longer-welcoming environment. For example, User:Fastily left for those reasons, and membership has been dropping off. To save the encyclopedia from more users leaving, I propose the following:

1. Scrap 3RR -- there are too many exceptions, it doesn't catch edit warriors (one can still edit war without breaking it, and still get blocked), it encourages wikilawyering, and overall it's just more trouble than it's worth.

2. Scrap the MoS -- it's more complicated than the U.S. tax code (it even has its own search bar!), it encourages admins to bite new users who haven't read it, it's much too long for anyone to read all of it, it's overly bureaucratic, and enforcing it wastes valuable time that could be spent creating new content and/or improving existing content.

3. Enforce WP:BITE and apply it to deletion -- When newbies are insulted via deletion by either having their pages deleted without explanation or with a rude explanation or being attacked in an XfD, they will not want to stay and contribute. We should also encourage newbies to be bold instead of belittling their contributions. If something a newbie does violates our standards, they should be gently reminded rather than slammed and belittled. WP:BITE should be made an official policy rather than mere guideline (so people will be less inclined to ignore it), and be enforceable with blocks and bans. Same goes for WP:AGF.

4. Recognize that admins are part of the problem, and take steps to restore the honor of being an admin -- My idea is to create a discussion board called something along the lines of Wikipedia:Administrator grievances where users could post grievances about admins. If an uninvolved crat decided that the grievance was real, he or she would then place the admin on probation (i.e., take away their admin tools temporarily) so the community could discuss the grievance (the crat would open the discussion). After 2 weeks, the following action would be taken:

  • If the result was Retain: The crat would close the discussion as such, and the matter would be over, with admin tools given back (kind of like if it were a trial and the admin was found not guilty).
  • If the result was Caution or No consensus: The crat would close the discussion as such and give the admin tools back, but the admin would be warned not to do whatever it is they did again, and the discussion and items from it would be able to be used as evidence in future discussions regarding the administrator's conduct.
  • If the result was Desysop: Again, the crat would close the discussion as such, and admin tools would not be given back (kind of like if it were a trial and the admin was found guilty).

5. Encourage people (especially inclusionists and deletionists) to work together to build the encyclopedia rather than constantly fight. Everyone has things to offer the encyclopedia, and when we work together, we are equal to more than the sum of our parts. Let us take advantage of that fact and encourage peace and collaboration rather than strife and competition.

I know this is a big proposal, but when they left, Fastily and other users gave us a clear message: "This is what's wrong with Wikipedia. Fix it." That is why I am here today, writing this proposal. Please, take the time to think about this before !voting "oppose". ChromaNebula (talk) 21:35, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

1: 3RR is not a hard-fast rule, users can and are blocked for "edit-warring", regardless of numbers or time-span, but at the same time 3RR is a good way of saying "ok you've reverted this twice now, one more and you'll be eligible for a block".
2: Do you actually understand what the MOS style is? It's just about trying to keep articles uniform and general project wide consistency, it's what stops people changing english variations every ten minutes, randomly bolding for emphasis and capitalising Hims when referring to the big guy.
3:It's not biting to delete an article which doesn't belong here. Yes people should be nice to new users and yes people should be called out on it if they go yell at the new kid cos they wrote an article about their awesome band they just started in their garage, but trying to make a rule that says be super-nice and make sure you don't offend them otherwise you're blocked is just silly and unworkable.
4:Admins are part of the problem, sure they are. How exactly? If admins are part of the problem then all the non-admins must be the rest of problem, you can't just say "admins are causing all the trouble so they need to be kept in place" just like you can't say "the french are stealing all our women they must be kept in place" after one french bloke marries the girl next door. Yes we all know that there needs to be a better way of dealing with editors who have the bit and who misuse it and yes there should probably be a better way to create admins, but creating a big board for anyone to go have a bitch about the admin who just deleted their article or made a decision they don't agree with is just going to make things worse.
5:Not to be rude but is this your big Miss World ending? The whole point of wikipedia is to encourage people to work together, with so many people of course there will be fights, there is no way of preventing arguments--Jac16888 Talk 21:58, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I did not recommend not deleting any articles. If a newbie creates an article in good faith that doesn't meet our standards, the article should be deleted, but the creator should be gently reminded of our standards rather than having policies shoved in their face. Likewise, terms like "trash" and "worthless junk" should only be applied to articles created in bad faith. Creators of deleted articles should be informed of our standards, but civilly, politely and without insult. As for the MoS thing, people know what proper English is, and any genuine mistakes can be easily corrected without an MoS. And I never said administrators were all of the problem, only some of it. Incivility from regular editors is dealt with via blocks and bans, but there's currently no way to discipline an admin (they can easily unblock themselves) apart from ArbCom, and ArbCom only handles the most serious cases. (By the way, I hope the noticeboard would rarely be used). As for 3RR, the edit warring/3RR noticeboard is mostly focused on 3RR, and as I said before, exceptions and the "you-don't-have-to-break-this-rule-to-get-blocked" clause make the rule pretty darn complicated and, in my opinion, more trouble than it's worth. I know there will be fights, but there have to be things we can do to discourage fighting and encourage collaboration and peace. We can't stop all fights, but surely we can reduce the number and severity of fights. How? Maybe a clause that says that the more aggressive warrior automatically loses the argument? ChromaNebula (talk) 01:16, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
The deletion notices that are generally provided are informative and polite, are there specific cases you know of where new users are being repeatedly insulted because I'm not aware of any major problem except for some robotism. Mos wise, the whole point is that people don't know what proper English is, or rather everybody has their own version, hence MOS, if everybody had perfect grammar and those yanks got over their z fetish then maybe we wouldn't need one. Well you've got one fact wrong right there, yes an admin can unblock themself, except that to do so is cause for an immediate desyop, as has been demonstrated on more than one occasion, and I suggest you start reading ANI if you think such a noticeboard would be rarely used, why not see how many cases of "Admin abuse" you can spot, and how many are actually "admin abused". If you think it's complicated now, how bad would it being if there were no rules at all, 3RR does in fact stop more experienced users from going crazy with the reverting, and can be a way to quickly stop an edit war if, just like a warning to both users in an edit war regardless of 3RR that if they carry on they'll be blocked can stop it too. Ff the noticeboard is that difficult to work with then its the noticeboard that is the issue, why not try to create change there? The simple truth is that so many people with such different backgrounds spread out so thinly that arguments are inevitable and finding them is hard enough, let alone preventing them. With most arguments the only way to fix things is look for common ground and reach out to other parties to form a consensus, having "because x did this, y wins the argument and z goes in the article" is just unpractical--Jac16888 Talk 09:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Jac16888. But if we're doing some blue sky thinking, how about giving two extra reverts to the person who starts talkpage discussion about a dispute? If you do that, then the person to start discussion effectively wins. Knowing that would dramatically change the dynamics of edit wars. Hard to say exactly how it might work out in practice (definitional issues about "starting" and "discussion" might be a problem, possibly solvable by application of common sense), but it might be interesting to try. Maybe we can figure out a way to apply it on a limited basis to certain edit-warry articles, as a way to test it. Rd232 talk 22:11, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Vast thousands are still here, but not talking about WP:MOS: After months of examining the editor-count statistics, I have tried to explain that the "editors-leaving" view is something of an illusion, because many editors are also joining, but the edit-stats show only limited use of talk-pages. In fact, I am fairly certain it can be said: the majority of Wikipedia editors do not edit talk-pages much, but rather focus on article-edits. Meanwhile, the WP:MOS rules are only "suggestions", so the admins should be reminded to allow some slack there. However, we really need all those MOS rules, when people want to force a choice; otherwise, someone will claim there is no rule to prevent 1 million ("1,000,000") from being changed to a "better" format as "1.00.00.00" or "1\000\000". Ifever people want to add too much wild text, then WP:MOS provides a clear foundation to explain the typical format for articles.

Part of the illusion of "fewer editors" (by comparing editor-counts) is because experienced editors, who formerly made over 100 small article-edits per month, now have learned to branch out into other namespaces. The count of active editors with "100+ edits" is for the main article namespace, where talk-page edits, templates, files (images), categories, and "Help:" or "WP:" edits do not add into that "100+ level". Hence, as editors learn to edit categories, or make minor changes to "WP:" guideline pages, those edits are not counted in the main editor-counts, but rather, as talk-page counts, or "other" counts. We even have some admins who make "147 edits" in a month, many crucial edits, daily, fixing 50 grammar errors in an article as 1-edit-per-page, but at the end of June, have a total of only "78 edits" or such (in article namespace), appearing to fall from the core "100+ edit" group into the occasional "5+ edits" group. Instead, looking closely at the editor counts, at the monthly editor-statistics data, reveals there are over 10,000 editors who edit Wikipedia on a daily basis, just not all article-edits every day. That count of 10 thousand editors helps explain why so much happens every day in Wikipedia, but remember most of those people are not posting messages in talk-pages. They truly are the "silent majority" who are rapidly changing articles but not talking about it for several days at a time. -Wikid77 (talk) 23:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

They are not "only suggestions." If they were, it would not be possible to punish anyone for violating them. I got brought up on AN/I for going against WP:LQ. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes we have a problem with editor retention, but it isn't a huge problem as overall numbers are fairly stable, and we are still getting around 200,000 edits a day. Perhaps MOS could do with being shorter, but what we need there is proposals for simplification not wholesale deletion. Deletion errors are a problem, and while it is rare that people delete or tag articles for deletion without informing the creator it is a damaging anomaly that we allow people to tag articles for deletion without informing the authors. We don't allow people to file an AN/I complaint on someone without telling them, and we shouldn't allow people to tag articles for deletion without informing the authors (except for a few exceptions such as dead, banned and retired editors). We do have a serious problem in that our number of active admins is declining, we have 300 less than at peak and recruitment of new admins is way below replacement level. One of the parts of the project that works fairly well is our desysoping process. Replacing or supplementing Arbcom with an easy desysop system that omits such elementary safeguards as dispute resolution would make the admin recruitment problem worse. ϢereSpielChequers 00:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I would argue differently as there is a huge editor retention issue right now, and those who claim there isn't are mainly those who like the status quo which has been going on for several years now. I see it particularly when I get into a group of people who are tech savvy but are as a rule not involved with Wikipedia. Their experiences are all across the board with mainly negative experiences. Some of them don't really understand the core philosophies of the project like the five pillars, several of them have had very negative experiences with admins or the new page patrol, and a few just got confused from the firehose of information expected to be understood out of brand new editor/contributors.
My largest complaint is the automated tools that are used. I've gone the rounds with this and some of those who are trying to help out the proejct, but that personal touch from one person to another is really lacking right now on Wikipedia. With much of the automated bot editing and standard forms that people paste onto new user pages, they feel they are talking more to machines than to people and view the whole editing process as extremely impersonal. When I've gone out of my way (I'll admit not nearly as much as I could) to welcome new users to Wikipedia and even leave a paragraph of a personal nature behind usually commenting about the work they are doing that brought them to Wikipedia in the first place, I usually get a response like "wow, I didn't know that real people still existed on Wikipedia". That should be a more normal reaction than an exception.
If new editors are viewed as a pure statistic and some sort of flow of people from the aether that will magically or not contribute to the project over time, something is most definitely lost. It is the attitude of those on the front line of the project who are interacting with these new contributors that makes a huge difference. Sometimes when you are on something like the new page patrol (or simply reviewing edits in general) those people (particularly admins) see so much garbage from spamming, vandalism, and simply trolls who damage the project that it is natural to think everybody who has an IP address account or is a new user is a similar kind of troll wanting to destroy the project. It couldn't be further from the truth.
I'd argue that some of this is a training issue, and teaching people about Wikipedia, how to use Wikipedia, and in particular training those who are on the front lines of the project meeting these new users so they don't make an ass out of themselves or drive away those who might be beneficial to the project. None of that is happening right now, where the training consists of reading a bunch of dry policy pages, "on the job" training where you are forced to sink or swim (more sink than swim), and if you are very lucky you might be able to attend a Wikimania conference where one of the talks/discussions might be about how to be a more effective admin. The process of developing a competent editor on Wikipedia is a very Darwinian attitude right now, and Wikipedia is weaker because of that too. --Robert Horning (talk) 02:44, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
You aren't arguing that differently to me. I acknowledged that deletion errors are a problem, and you've given some excellent reasons why they are a problem. You also raised the issue of newbies and how poorly we handle them, I'd agree with you there as well. But neither of these are about people leaving the project, which is what started the thread, they are really more about people not being able to properly join the project. Yes we have huge problems in the way we treat good faith newbies, and its an important topic, but there are big differences between our problems in retaining experienced editors and our problems in recruiting new ones. There are some developments in the pipeline, WYSIWYG editing will make a big difference to newbies, though as with any change it may not be welcome to the regulars. There are some relatively easy fixes, template bombing would be reduced if we replaced maintenance templates such as deadend, uncategorised and orphan with automatically generated hidden cats. One of the most bitey aspects of deletions could be ended if we put an obligation on deletion taggers to inform authors. Other problems are more difficult, not least because the community doesn't agree on the problems. BTW don't assume that it is the admins who are most jaded when it comes to IPs and Newbies. most admins don't do ether newpage patrol or recent changes, and our most active hugglers and many of our most active patrollers are not admins. ϢereSpielChequers 07:05, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't think the WYSIWYG editor is going to make all that much of a difference. I've seen what it does on the Wikia projects, where it is already in widespread use and even on wikis where it is the primary editing tool (turned on by default for new projects) where I've even volunteered as an admin simply because I'm familiar with project administration in general. There are a few people who are new to the whole notion of wiki editing that it does seem to help, but they tend to make just as many mistakes as if they were using the more traditional wiki mark-up language... if not more so. On top of that it tends to produce a whole lot of bloat to the size of the articles (see also the WP:SIZE discussion and note that relates directly to the WYSIWYG interface in a hugely negative manner if followed closely about keeping article sizes down) and in general it doesn't help as much as everybody hopes. You can't pretty up the interface for simply adding raw content, as that still simply takes writing skills that are hard to develop. It is a good thing if that 1% of those who would be turned away due to being technophobic but otherwise have the skills to participate decide to stay because the WYSIWYG interface is implemented, but it doesn't solve the much larger issues at hand. I still say that the reason why those on new page patrol and the admins who back them up are bitey is mostly due to a lack of training and skill in how to perform that task, knowing that it is a very steep learning curve in how to use those tools properly and how to perform that very important task. Some are very skilled at the task, some are eager learners, and a few in the NPP are destroying the project due to being over zealous, where they don't get stopped until they've stomped on far too many people. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:14, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

We desperately need new editors because we desperately need to improve the quality of our content. Our content needs to be GA quality or better, in my opinion. Of our core editors, I'd say maybe 10% are able to improve the quality of our articles in one way or another. Here's the numbers I think we need.

  • We need 10,000 people that can properly reference an article with high quality references from reliable sources
  • We need another 10,000 that can write high-quality prose
  • We need another 10,000 that can organize content in a meaningful way for a proper encyclopedia article
  • We need another 10,000 that can properly copyedit an article
  • We need another 10,000 that are able to research and expand our stubs

That's 50,000 editors just to fix our existing quality problems. If only 10% of new users fit into one of the above groups, that means we need to go through 500,000 new editors just to get the fifty thousand we need to become a decent quality encyclopedia. I say we desperately need new editors because our quality depends upon it. 64.40.54.44 (talk) 07:22, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

The way to encourage good new editors, and to retain good experienced editors, would be to more rigorously enforce existing procedures with much less tolerance of "but I'm only new and I can't take the time to read all those links on my talk page because I have to tell the world about my wonderful news". Johnuniq (talk) 07:50, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Exactly, there is nothing wrong with the existing procedures and policies, there is something wrong with US as a community. Adding more red tape will not fix the problem, calling each other on grounds of civility and creating better tools to manage the information is the trick. WikiHow and the FB Places Editor have proven that last point to me. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 08:49, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I would also add a couple more topics to this debate. W

  1. We need to stop this nonsense of blocking all the bots because they perform a few minor edits. We are taking minor edits way way too seriously and its even leading to editors being banned from automation or kicked off the site entirely. Thier minor, IE not that big of a deal and although some, arguably don't need to be done, many others do including deleting deprecated parameters from templates and a wide range of other things that we are currently forced to keep cluttering up templates and articles because a few strong handed and high ranking editors refuse to allow these to be removed because they don't render changes to the page, of course they don't there broken and deprecated.
  2. There are a lot of other things we need to do in Wikipedia too, some are outlined here and in other places. What needs to be done is to create a place for these topics to be discussed at length rather than continuously closing them for being in the wrong venue. If its wrong then fine, move it to the correct one but don't close it completely.
  3. The list goes on, there are just too many problems to list and no good way to deal with them. Kumioko (talk) 14:43, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention (WP:WER). (See also Help:Talk pages#Indentation. How can I follow it here now?)
—Wavelength (talk) 16:03, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Well we shouldn't scrap the MoS, but maybe there should be a way to keep people's whims out of it. For example, there's a rule called WP:LQ that requires British punctuation throughout Wikipedia, even on articles that are otherwise written in other varieties of English. An article on the American Civil War shouldn't use British punctuation. As a trained writer and editor, I find it insulting that I am required to use punctuation that is flat-out wrong within the context of American English.
I don't think that the length of the MoS is as big of an issue as it might seem. Most manuals of style are meant to be spot-used rather than read cover to cover. The table of contents (and CTRL-F) help users find the passages they need pretty quickly.
The MoS should be held to a standard at least as high as regular articles: every rule in it must be backed up by reliable sources, not people's pet peeves. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:21, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Some elements of the MoS can be sourced of course, but others are a choice - quotation marks, serial comma etc vary between publications in the same country depending on a choice of house style, not reliable sources. pablo 08:19, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
That is true of the serial comma and title-style vs. sentence-style capitalization but not of American vs. British punctuation. In U.S. English the overwhelming majority of sources say, "putting periods and commas inside the quotation marks is right and leaving them outside is wrong." The overwhelming majority of British sources say "place periods and commas inside or outside depending on whether they apply to the quoted portion or the entire sentence." It's not optional. This is an ENGVAR issue and should be treated like one. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I would like an alternative to just blanking a page which does not meet the exacting specifications of the manual of style. rather than delete the page outright, place it in a user space or slap an under construction sign on it with a link to an article on how to wikify articles. Because an unfinished article is like an unfinished house, it may look rough, but given work it may be a featured article one day. And if you delete all the half finished articles there will be no new finished articles.... Washuchan (talk) 18:05, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Kind of a side issue, but would someone mind collecting links to the many, many archived discussions about editor retention problems? Most editors who start discussions like this are inexperienced, like Chroma here, whose first edit was less than seven months ago. So one of your friends leaves (or says he's leaving, which isn't the same thing; see meatball:GoodBye), and it seems like the sky is falling and Wikipedia's going to be abandoned forthwith. But you know what? People have been saying that for at least five years, since the number of editors peaked, and guess what? We're still here, and since then, people like you have joined us.

I think that if we did a better job of documenting these conversations, new people would have a better perspective on the reality of userbase churn, and those trying to solve the problem would have quick access to some of the many suggestions that have been made. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Just to throw my own tuppence into the mix, one of the problems I have seen with Wikipedia, that is completely invisible on the site, is I personally know people who could contribute to Wikipedia and get several articles up to GAN / FAC without too much sweat, but refuse to do so because of drive by biting, primarily due to a number of admins not recognising their research as being serious, threatening to take all their work to WP:RS/N and marking it as unreliable. There also was one instance of a bad speedy deletion which was challenged on the admin's talk page to no response - I can't remember what the article was, so the speedy delete might have been justified, but for an admin to blank discussion about it and not explain the deletion rules to newbies is very poor form and a great way to alienate people. I don't want to name names and give specifics, but I can if required. It's probably all ancient history to the admins involved, but it happened to rub enough people up the wrong way who are now giving a strong and consistent POV of "Wikipedia's crap, it's full of wonks, look at 'x', 'y' and 'z'" elsewhere on the internet, that people have no reason to disbelieve. In all fairness, this was all quite a few years back and I think things have got better since then, but the shit has still stuck. --Ritchie333 (talk) 16:58, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

1. Possibly. WP:EW should simply say "don't edit war, if you get edited you get blocked", but there should still be a bright line to stop disruption.

2. Sounds good in practice, but would only lead to chaos.

3. I'd suggested that myself - see WP:DANNO - but my suggestions that there should be a 'time limit' on speedy deletion tags following article creation get pooh-poohed. Perhaps the ability to propose deletion should be a user right a la being autoconfirmed?

4. Absolutely not. Yes, there are bad eggs in the admin corps. But there are just as many if not more in the 'Admin Abuse cheer squad' who would rub their hands with glee at the thought they could get an admin's tools taken away just like that - I've seen far too much on AN/I to be able to have good faith that such a process, although it sounds good in theory, wouldn't be instantly gamed for petty purposes - the only thing it would do would be to drive admins away from the project, without replacement, and create an atmosphere where nobody would dare do anything controverial (including enforcing policy against 'vested contributors') for fear of being 'hauled before the court'. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:47, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Also: one thing the people who wring their hands about editors leaving, lack of new content, etc. need to realise is that this is a natural part of the process. There's a lot of subjects on which articles have yet to be written, and zillions of articles needing improvement, sure. But as far as "having an article (however stubby) on X" goes, I'd wager that the vast majority of articles are already here - the rush of "I can start an article on my favourite subject, X!" is no longer there, as X already has an article in most cases. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I have found punctilious adherence to WP:MOS to be problematic. In some instances it is tantamount to polishing up a problem. I don't find it to be a major problem in some instances for an article to have a rough-hewn appearance. I think in many cases we should be less concerned with giving a professional appearance and more concerned with getting the overall thrust of an article right. It is important that style be followed but always after getting the general shape of an article right. It often occurs to me that articles would be better if they were crudely put together but with an overall form that best said what needed to be said on a given topic. Style concerns I think should always come second to the broad form that is called for in a given article. I commend ChromaNebula for bringing this up. I think we are in agreement about this. Bus stop (talk) 01:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
A few counterpoints:
  1. As already touched on above, 3RR is not a hard-and-fast rule. It provides a convenient point for deciding when enough is enough.
  2. Throwing out the Manual of Style would not solve any problems. It would only create them. The MoS exists to ensure consistency across the project. By removing it, you're inviting endless edit wars over how to title an article or best use a period. And worse, you've just killed the thing sticking the project together style-wise, which is a huge detriment. At the very least, the Manual of Style provides a policy people can point back to. (As a reference, I own a copy of the AP Stylebook as part of journalistic work I do. I'm not familiar with every single page of it, but it's still a helpful reference when I'm confused on something, and by sticking to it, I ensure that my work is at the same quality as the work of everyone else who's doing reporting.)
  3. While I can certainly why we need to improve relations with users, I'm not sure how transforming the site into a virtual police state of "BE NICE OR ELSE" helps. The biggest problem at NPP is that the process is ill-equipped to not make it frustrating for new users: a lot of new people spend a lot of time on something that probably wouldn't have been accepted here anyway, or have large content concerns that would need to be addressed. A better solution IMHO would be to have new editors head through a process such as WP:AFC first; it would ensure them time to work on the article and get feedback on it without suddenly being slapped with a deletion tag and warned for it.
  4. There's a huge problem with "restoring the honor of being an admin." Possessing Wikipedia's mop is "no big deal." If anything, we need to be making it easier to become an admin, not harder. (Indeed, one of the biggest pushes I've seen the past two years is a reform of RfA, which is long overdue.) The board you're proposing is more or less identical to what AN/I already does, and would only serve to be yet another place for people to create absurd amounts of drama because an admin made one bad move. That's not going to keep people here. It's going to further drive people away.
  5. That goes without saying.
elektrikSHOOS (talk) 19:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Kudos to you for bringing up an important strategic subject. Above I see the most common "shut-down" response which goes something like this: "Claims of the worse case scenario ("sky is falling") are false, therefore, no significant changes are called-for." I tend to think that the biggest symptoms of problems are that Wikipedia has "plateaued out" in two major areas:

  • Articles involving contentious areas (or more specifically, areas where there is a real world conflict or contest going on) are almost all permanently disasters. These are almost all of low quality, biased and misleading. People who value their sanity have mostly left them as being hopeless situations, and the talk pages of those articles are usually vicious nasty places.
  • There is a lack of expert editors participating at many articles that need them, and so many many the articles have "plateaued out" at a mediocre level.

I tend to think that some changes in main policies are the most important part of the fix. And in general, we need to start recognizing that the persistent problems involve MISUSE of the rules, NOT violation of the rules, and work on policies should start to be guided by that understanding. Of course the total number of editors is has either an effect on or is affected by this, but is not the direct measure. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

WP:WAF conflict with WP:NOR?

We're having a discussion about tweaking WP:PSTS on the WP:NOR talk page here and I thought some of you might want to join in. The issue is that some editors of fictional subjects (and others, I presume) want to allow a broader understanding of "interpreting primary sources" (which, of course, include the fictional work itself, see here) than what some other editors might allow. All comments are welcome. --RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:39, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't really see much about tweaking in there. I do see a large chunk of confusion over whether "primary" sources are acceptable as sources because WP:PSTS happens to live inside WP:OR and makes such a huge deal over this irrelevant distinction, and some confusion over "original synthesis" versus "encyclopedic summary" because WP:SYN itself does not do a good job of making this distinction.
The bottom line is that we may not include any analysis, interpretation, or synthesis that is not already present in whatever source we're using, be it "primary", "secondary", or "tertiary". While it's true that a "secondary" source is more likely to contain useful analysis or interpretation than a "primary" source, we may not add any additional analysis or interpretation in any case so the distinction is not relevant beyond a broad, vague suggestion as to what sort of source to look for. Making this irrelevant distinction in policy just leads to what I call "primary source paranoia".
Even in the case of WP:N, the "primary"/"secondary" distinction is irrelevant. What we really are aiming for there is an evaluation of the degree to which the source is independent of the subject and to which the coverage indicates that the author of the source considers the subject worthy of note versus just mentions the subject in passing or covers the subject as part of an exhaustive overview of a larger topic.
As for WP:SYN, it too needs cleanup. And IMO the example about Smith and Jones needs to be killed—the issue there isn't "original synthesis", it's POV-pushing and "what the Harvard Writing with Sources manual says is entirely irrelevant to the topic".
TL;DR summary: IMO, WP:PSTS should be moved out into an essay, and WP:OR, WP:V, WP:N, WP:RS, and other policies/guidelines should be cleaned up to remove any reference to the irrelevant "primary"/"secondary" distinction. But I doubt that will ever happen, too many are too invested in the status quo. Anomie⚔ 15:13, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Just a point: Even in the case of WP:N, the "primary"/"secondary" distinction is irrelevant. is wrong. WP:N requires secondary sources that put the topic into some type of encyclopedic context that cannot be determined from primary sources. There is a significant distinction between primary and secondary sources for notability evaluation. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I used to think that too. But what WP:N really wants are reliable sources that are independent of the subject and that are not "trivial" mentions of the subject. While it is true that such a source will almost always be "secondary", the converse (any "secondary" source is independent of the subject) is not true. IMO we should discuss the actual requirements for Wikipedia:Notability rather than a fallible heuristic. Anomie⚔ 15:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:Secondary does not mean independent. Many independent sources, including most news stories are primary sources.
I agree though that WP:N ought to care more about independence than about the analytical, comparative, etc. commentary that turns a source into a secondary one. But it's definitely best to have both, because without a secondary source it's difficult to provide encyclopedic context for your subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Discourage alphabetical order

Could we discourage the use of alphabetical order, especially within articles, where a more natural order exists? For instance: chronological order, order of size, or (in sport) order of merit? These other orders all have the advantage of being informative, unlike alphabetical. The only advantage of alphabetical is that it is easy to find a given name: but most browsers have a "find" facility that reduces the value of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pete Ridges (talk • contribs) 15:06, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Could you clarify what you are talking about? Order of what? What is "order of merit" in sport(s)? Order of size of what? I completely fail to understand your query/suggestion. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
I assume that by "order of merit" he means that the best athlete should be listed first, e.g., the winner of the race, and so forth, until you come to the worst athlete, who is at the end of the list. For "order of size", I assume that it would be a class of objects whose size varied, e.g., the planets in this solar system, which could be listed from smallest to largest or the other way around. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Are there any particular articles where this is a problem? Most tables should be sortable by the items mentioned. Chris857 (talk) 23:15, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
(ec) In some cases, the issue can be resolved (or at least ameliorated to an extent) by replacing a plain bulleted list with a formatted, sortable table. For example, List of longest suspension bridge spans offers a table that permits the reader to (re)order the rows by bridge length, date of completion, name, or location by clicking on the 'sort' double arrow at the head of each column. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Same theme: there's often a fairly obvious chronological order to categories when it comes to biographies. Some decent stab at chrono order makes it easier to digest the categories at the bottom of the bio than if they're alphabetical (or random, or some arbitrary sense of importance). Rd232 talk 00:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

A fundamental problem with administrators and inactivity

About 6 months ago, I noticed that the number of administrators and the number of semi-active/inactive administrators was at near 50% with slightly more semi-active/inactive admins than active. Right now we sit at 697 active and 773 semi-active/inactive, or 47% active. Semi-active is fewer than 30 edits in the past 2 months, but at least 1 edit in the past 3 months. Inactive is 0 edits in the past 3 months.

The problem I'm addressing isn't inactivity, but rather competence of semi-active/inactive administrators who may not be informed of current practices on Wikipedia since they have been away. Our policy on removing administrator access to inactive accounts is good, but it's easy for someone to game the system to just keep their admin bit, and their status of trust, within the community. All we require is a single edit or single admin task to keep it. The problem is that all they have to do is come back once a year to make a single edit to continue holding their status. The status of administrator on Wikipedia isn't just the tools, which anything they can do can be easily reverted, but rather a pedestal of high regard and respect in the community that, without proper evidence or reasoning, usually isn't challenged. The problem with this is that with over 770 inactive or partially active accounts with admin, not all of them could be informed on our current practices after being inactive so long. Like I said, one non-binding edit confirms that they own the account, which is great, but it doesn't address them coming back with stature within the community and potentially being uninformed. Here are a few different examples in what I am talking about (these particular users were taken partially at random):

  • Xeno (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - This is an example of an administrator who is semi-active I have no problem with having adminship. Their last fifty edits date back to the beginning of this year and he comes back infrequently to edit and do administrative tasks. It's clear that he is is still capable of holding his position.
  • (aeropagitica) (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - This administrators last fifty edits date back from 2012 all the way back to 2009 with 15 of those 50 edits came on the same sessions of editing and 10 of them are in his own user space. In three years, I don't know if he/she is still capable or knowledgeable of different changes that have occurred in guidelines and policies.
  • Lightdarkness (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA) - This administrator's last 50 contributions go back to 2007, with 0 edits since 2010 and only 12 edits since 2007. They avoided having their administrative bit removed by deleting the How do i add content test page in 2011 and hasn't edited since. 19 of 50 of their last edits were in their own user space. Again, I don't know whether they're informed of everything that has changed since 2007.

There is a tipping point that was established when User:LC, who had his adminship removed in 2011 for inactivity, came back to get his adminship restored and was denied because he had not edited since 2002. There was a fear of giving LC his adminship back for reasons of the myriad of changes over a 9 year period that he may not be informed of (also it was not sufficiently proven that the account was controlled by LC himself, and he did not reply to queries). At what point do we decide who is equipped and knowledgeable of our current policies and guidelines to still be valuable to the community with the tools or to have the tools restored to them?

If you're looking to skip to the proposal here it is. I think the answer is really simple, all that it requires is a different method of determining who is an active administrator and deprecating the current "one year inactive" de-adminship. It's fairly straight forward: If you do a combined 50 edits or admin actions outside of your own user space within a calendar year, you are considered an active administrator. If you make less than 50, your adminship is removed for inactivity. It actually benefits the encyclopedia in various ways:

  • It stops inactive administrators from simply coming back and doing a null edit to their user page to keep their adminship for another year and leaving the community to wonder if they are coming back or not.
  • It forces administrators at least provide a bare minimum of contributions or administrative duties to give us something to base their work on. We won't have to wonder whether they are equipped to handle to tools anymore.
  • The difference between a bare minimum of 1 edit/log to confirm they are here and my proposed 50 is this:
    • 773 semi-active/inactive administrators making 1 edit to confirm they are still admin under our current system is 773 edits/logs (which could be as little as a user page edit.)
    • 773 semi-active/inactive administrators making 50 edits/logs outside their user space is 38,650 productive edits, and all of them could keep their adminship and be considered active.
  • For administrators who fall inactive, the method of restoring their admin bit is slightly the same: all the former admin has to do is make 50 edits (outside their user space) to confirm that they are active, and they make request at WP:BN to get their admin bit back (at the bureaucrats discretion as always).

An example of this proposal in action is as straight forward as it's worded. For example, between 00:00 January 1, 2013 and 23:59 December 31, 2013, all an admin would have to do is make their combined 50 edits or administrative logs, and they keep it until 2014. In 2014, they just have to make another minimum 50, and so on into the future. The only way I see this being debated is because the proposal actually enforces that an administrator has to make a bare minimum number of edits, but is that a bad thing compared to accounts sitting there and rotting with an admin bit? Normally active administrators are unaffected, admins aren't forced to be here any longer than normal, and it makes inactive administrators only spend minimal time here if they want to keep being administrators. At 50 contributions per administrator who are inactive at this point, we can gain tons of useful contributions and the rate of completion for doing the minimum number is achievable within a single day. I look forward to seeing responses about this. — Moe ε 13:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

  • The inherent flaw in your proposal is that you assume the inactive admin has not simply been reading, rather than taking an active role. Further, it's inherently "forcing" admins to meet a quota, something that really flies in the face of making good decisions. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 18:52, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't assume that they aren't reading, and if that is the case, they could be very informed which is good. But if that's the case, if you make 50 edits in less than a year, you're not doing your part, are you? Out of the 1,400+ people entrusted on the entire website to be here and actually do something when there are problems, are the people we allow to sit and do nothing? Do you knowingly pass a user on RFA, if it said in their nomination "After I'm give admin, I'm going to rarely be here at all, but I'll keep informed and make an edit or two a year."? No, you won't. Like I said, is enforcing a quota a bad thing? Why do we tolerate administrators to sit back and not do anything? If you gave a janitor a mop and bucket and he only came by once a year to adjust their locker and leave, I'd be pretty pissed nothing is being done. We have 697 active and 773 snoozing. 50 administrative logs or edits combined, is such a minor task for someone at the level of an administrator. It's achievable by them logging in once and year a doing something, which is all I'm asking really. — Moe ε 23:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Apologies for the delay in responding. Took a short Wikibreak.
The reason your janitor analogy fails is in two parts: A) this is a volunteer service, so no one is required to be here at X time or X days a week, and B) there is not a limiting factor on the number of admins, ie. we aren't "over budget" or running out of "space" for people. If someone works that hard to get the bit, then goes idle, that's their business. As long as they haven't abused the bit, I see no reason to remove it due to lack of activity. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:23, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Hell, I've been active here for eight years and I don't even know our current practices. The problem isn't inactivity among admins, the problem is in informing everyone of evolving standards and practices. --Golbez (talk) 19:38, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • And that's fine Golbez :) I'm not expecting someone to re-invent the wheel or be some kind of connoisseur of the English Wikipedia. All I'm asking for is a simple minimum number of duties, a combined 50 edits and/or administrative logs (outside their userspace) that you do within a year. It's just a simple recognition that you are here and that you actually do something still, something very minor to prove you are still competent in holding the tools. — Moe ε 23:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Ah, the only problem I have with this proposal is that you mischaracterize the background. Logging in once a year to make one edit is not "gaming the system", since desysopping inactive accounts is a procedural matter only. And LC was not denied a resysop because he had been inactive too long to know what he was doing. That was claimed, sure, but there was no consensus on it. His resysop was actually declined because even the bureaucrats who didn't care how active he was weren't sure if his account had been compromised, or why he was asking. But getting back to the actual proposal, this seems to me like a solution in search of a problem. Please show me the administrator who, as a result of ignorance of policy changes, started screwing up the encyclopedia and resisted all attempts at being educated. An RFA is a stamp of a approval on an editor for not only being knowledgeable of policy, but also having clue. I choose to believe that any editor capable of passing RFA is at least cognizant of the fact that policies change. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:37, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I too would like to assume that anyone we give a stamp of approval on is aware of our every-changing policies and guidelines, but the reality is that most of them are probably not actively reading every day. If they are, that is one thing, and doing a bare minimum of 50 edits/administrative logs isn't very hard for someone reading Wikipedia every day. In the case of those who are not, then they don't have a clue what the current policies and guidelines are, because they are never here. In the case of Lightdarkness above, are you sufficiently satisfied that he is still able to perform administrative duties within Wikipedia based on his last bout of active editing stemming from 2007? The problem, as I said from the beginning, is accounts sitting there and rotting under the guise of they are an administrator for life, as long as they come back and make a null edit. I don't need to be convinced they are superlative at handling the admin bit, or that they know every policy, but rather confirmation that they are here and at least trying. Why would we give someone special privileges and stature in our community for them to sit and idle on it? — Moe ε 23:12, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • FWIW, both Meta and Commons have (different) substantive activity requirements:
    • Commons: less than 5 admin actions in 6 months: 30 days' notice to confirm intention to return; then desysop without warning if again less than 5 actions in 6 months. See Commons:Commons:Administrators/De-adminship.
    • Meta: less than 10 edits in 6 months: immediate desysop; 10+ edits but fewer than 10 admin actions: 1 week to confirm intention to remain admin. See meta:Meta:Administrators#Inactivity.

Rd232 talk 21:19, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

    • The Commons policy of harassing administrators in otherwise good standing to perform work to maintain that standing is, to be frank, bullshit. --Golbez (talk) 22:47, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
      • And if anyone missed in my proposal, as long as you come back and do your minimum number of duties, even if you are de-admined for inactivity, you are given back to the tools procedurally like we do now. It's just changing 1 edit to prove that you're alive, to 50 to prove you're still functional. — Moe ε 23:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Yes, this is a good proposal.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I also support more substantive activity requirements. --99of9 (talk) 05:00, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Support This just seems like common sense. If you can't make at least 50 edits a year, then it is extremely unlikely that you are keeping up on policy changes and admin responsibilities and activities. Sure, there might be a few outlier admins, but the possible amount of those is so low as to be negligible for the main purpose of this proposal. SilverserenC 05:13, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. On these criteria, we would have lost User:Moreschi, an excellent administrator. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • They can easily do RfA again. I mean, if they're good admins, then it should be pretty easy to get reinstated and it would further show community support for them in general. And, heck, we could use some more RfAs in general for our current dismal stats in that area. SilverserenC 05:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Hello Future Perfect at Sunrise. Actually, Moreschi would be fine, re-review the actual proposal. He has made 50 edits and administrative logs combined this year alone, so under this, he would retain adminship. If he was inactive for a long period of time previously (assuming he was gone for a very long time?), his edits proving him being active now means he would have got his adminship restored if it was removed. The only difference between our current practice and this proposal, is that it's 50 edits or administrative logs combined (outside of the user's own userspace) in a year, as compared to a single edit anyone on Wikipedia in one year. He actually wouldn't need to go through RFA again, Silver seren, he would just have to prove he is active on Wikipedia. This is to prevent administrators from idling for an entire year and committing a single edit to retain adminship without providing any service to the site. — Moe ε 06:07, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose. What we need are admins who are capable of fair, judicious and impartial actions. Those qualities do not degrade over time. The argument that a period of inactivity should of itself be a disqualification is flawed for several reasons (as mentioned above they may be observing but not editing, or they may be completely absent but prepared to spend time getting up to speed when returning).
RfA discussion is not just about technical knowledge of current policy, it's about assessing intent, motivation and character. And from the point of view of this longstanding, but not especially active editor, it works. The quality of admin work here that I have seen has been outstanding: not because of detailed current knowledge of every last policy, but because it has been thoughtful.
Now I'm sure there are examples of misuse or incompetence, and that might be the motivation behind this proposal, but the way to address that concern is to streamline the process for de-adminship (for action rather than inaction).
Another legitimate concern is that requests for administrative action be dealt with promptly - let's achieve that by encouraging communication by means other than the talk page of an administrator. I would support a proposal to put a "Seems to be inactive" notice there.
Finally, (sorry this is so long), it's hard enough to get properly engaged editors, let alone properly-motivated admins so please let's not let impose an arbitrary technical requirement. Mcewan (talk) 05:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Hello, Mcewan. I'm not rather questioning their past usefulness to Wikipedia, which is self-evident because they are administrator, but rather wanting to expand what is considered inactive for the sake of the website. It's rather preposterous, the little amount of requirements it takes to retain adminship, don't you think? If admin X left now, July 3, 2012, under our current policy, he could do a total of ten edits and/or administrative actions, once a year, from now until 2022 and retain adminship without a further glance. We have continued to push a mantra of "administrator for life" to the point of ridiculousness. The whole premise behind that makes things very difficult to retain administrators, because they can come back anytime they like, make their minimum requirement of 1 edit and move on. After that, they can come back and by the time they do, it's not the same Wikipedia they left with. You can check any policy or guideline page on Wikipedia to exactly 5 years ago, it isn't the same as today. That mantra is fine for people who are here every day contributing, but it's the 1 edit admin a year this isn't fine for. All this proposal does, is makes someone who is an administrator fill a quota of 50 edits or administrative logs (blocks, protections, deletions, etc.) so that we can be sure that they are somewhat familiar with the site on a yearly basis. — Moe ε 06:28, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi. I suppose my point is that if we trust someone to be an admin then we implicitly also trust them to keep current on policy before acting. There is no correlation between knowledge of policy and number of edits, so why impose any activity requirement at all? Personally I would be happy with none. Mcewan (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose, proposal doesn't actually solve any problem. 5 or 10 or 50 admin actions per year don't help me keep up with what is going on (unlike a month of lurking at ANI). We already have an arbitrary automatic desysop cutoff, and you have not demonstrated any actual problems (bad admin actions) that have resulted from making it easy to stay an admin. —Kusma (t·c) 09:17, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

For the record: on nowiki there is a gadget which helps people to keep track of who is active on which administrative tasks. See MediaWiki:Gadget-show-sysop-activity.js. Maybe someone finds it useful here as well. Helder 13:47, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the problem. Or, the problem that this would solve is not a problem that I've seen or that is being complained about. If we have signs that someone kept the bit (e.g., by making one edit every 12 months) and later screwed up with the admin tools (more than the average admin might), then de-sysopping due to inactivity (by any measure) would be reasonable. But I'm not seeing any examples of this happening, and failing any such evidence, the OP wants us to pretend that having the tools is a great big deal. Also, there are some admins who rarely do anything on the English Wikipedia, but who are sometimes enormously useful to us, e.g., dealing with multi-project copyright violations. Some of our "inactive" admins are actually quite valuable to us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
There are also uses to being an admin that don't involve performing any admin actions. A lot of feedback issues, help desk questions, and OTRS queries require looking through deleted edits. You could theoretically have an admin who uses his tools all the time, just not the ones that log. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:53, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
  • This is a solution looking for a problem. I took a lengthy wikibreak at one point, probably near two years, but came back around occasionally during it. I still read the articles, after all, and I just can't see a typo or easily fixed problem here without, well, fixing it. I was never intending to leave the project permanently, just to take a long break. This being a volunteer project, I have every right to take a "leave of absence" whenever, for whatever reason, and for whatever period of time I want, and so long as I'm not leaving to evade likely sanctions, to come back in just as good of standing as when I left. Coming back to make a null edit every so often isn't "gaming," since inactivity desysops are strictly procedural and are immediately reversible upon a simple request to the 'crats anyway. It's just a way of saying "I'm still interested in working on the project, I just am not doing it right now." Obviously, it would be incumbent upon someone who takes a long break to carefully review any changes that have occurred in their absence, as I did when I returned, but admins have passed a community process showing trust in their judgment. I should think it very basic good judgment to say "Hrm, I've been away for X years, and this project is pretty fluid. I'd better make sure I check on current community expectations before I wade in to hit the big red buttons." If someone fails to do that and fails to respond to feedback when they're told we don't do it that way anymore, we can handle that through normal processes and ultimately ArbCom, but I know of no such actual circumstance. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:33, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
Hello, Seraphimblade. We can only hope that people who come back to their former hobby they no longer participate in actively are as willing to realize this. I know most of them would be, but there's always that exception :) In your case, since you came back, you would have had your admin bit restored procedurally just like our current policy after proving that you are active again. There have been a fair share of administrators who have come back for their admin bit on the 'crat noticeboard, then proceeded to disappear again. With this proposal, all it does is make those editors participate minimally in the community rather than not at all. — Moe ε 07:37, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Hello, everyone. The most common oppose I have read from the above oppose !votes to my proposal have been based around no current problem and there not being any examples of there being an issue. I understand the premise behind that understanding, which is something we usually base our policies and guidelines on, but this is rather a solution to a future problem which is going to arrive since we have nearing 800 inactive/semi-active administrators. Active administrators are actually a minority that is steadily declining. Just keep that in mind. :P I may write a formal WP policy proposal based on the idea, since a few people did say they supported it. I'll be around to read comments until the thread dies. Regards, — Moe ε 07:32, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Support A good administrator deactivated through inactivity shouldn't have any problem going through RfA again, and we should welcome the chance to review their credentials for currency. --BDD (talk) 15:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose - The whole idea is that the community chose to trust the individual with adminship. The proposal would de facto be a way for Wikipedia:Removal of adminship. We have had a tradition that any admin who has not had the tools removed "under a cloud" may have adminship restored by any bureaucrat. This proposal is contrary to that common practice.
    And by the way, no offense to anyone asserting this idea, but the argument that someone coming back after a few years wouldn't know or understand the continually evolving common practice, and so should have adminship removed is straight up BS.
    First, you have NO CLUE whether they have been reading during this time. To use myself as an example, at one point I had severe technical issues. And while I don't mind reading wikipedia at the local library or other such places. I strongly preferred to not sign in and edit from such places.
    "Second, if we as a community decided to entrust them with the tools, and that includes to not mis-use the tools, then it follows that we should trust them to not misuse them after a lengthy wikibreak. This proposal just violates long common practice here.
    So to re-affirm: Strong oppose - jc37 16:35, 5 July 2012 (UTC)
Hello, Jc37. To reply to your concerns:
  • If an administrators tools were removed for not being active (50 edits/administrative logs in a calendar year) under this, they would get them restored procedurally just like we do now at WP:BN, but the only difference is instead of 1 edit/log, it would be 50, to prove activity.
  • The notion that the semi-active and inactive administrators who only make an occasional edit to the encyclopedia and their request adminship back, but simultaneously sit and watch policy and guideline pages, is preposterous. There are semi-active adminstrators who do a fair share of edits around the encyclopedia, 2-3 every week, who would be unaffected by this. It's essentially only those who come back to WP:BN, request their adminiship back, then idle again are the ones who are directly affected for the most part since even semi-active admins make the bare minimum number of contributions of 50 edits/logs a year.
  • Even if there was "reader" admins who sit and make no edits but request their adminship back, what good can come of giving the occasional reader of Wikipedia adminship? Why don't we give adminship back once they no longer have technical issues or once they are ready to actively return and make a bare minimum number of contributions? Like I said, the process is still procedural that they get the tools back once they are active and ready to contribute using the tools. I hate the thought of giving someone access to tools when they aren't here for a majority of the time. It's true, we don't know whether they are caught up-to-date on policy or not, but being inactive suggests that they are not here, rather than that they are.
  • Regards, — Moe ε 07:41, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
The reason is that this creates needless bureaucracy. Someone gets to baby-sit the logs (or develop an automated process) to watch every admin's contributions, and remove the bit if they don't meet their quota. Then, if the admin comes back, they have to pester the 'crats to get it back. It's creating more work for no real benefit. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 16:30, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi Moe. I disagree with several of your points, but that's fine, neither of us can read minds, nor has the ability to see the future, so we're welcome to have a difference of opinion.
But to just address your 50 edits idea. Why is the amount higher than what we require for autoconfirming an editor? that seems a bit much. Once upon a time, we had a consensus for autoconfirmed to be changed to 7 days 20 edits. but the devs implemented a smaller amount (erring on the side of caution, which I can understand). This might be almost worth discussing if the numbers were down in that range. But 50 just seems ridiculous (as several above have noted).
Though again, I'm pretty much opposed due to the fact that trust includes not using the tools just as much as using them. So I think the entire premise of this proposal is flawed on those grounds. - jc37 15:47, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose - the solution to the problem of having so many inactive admins is to have more active admins and to seek reduce the reasons that cause active admins to leave in the first place. See, for instance, today's Atlantic article on the decline in our admin ranks. Taking away admin rights from proven members is exactly the opposite approach from what we should be doing. Indeed, that would likely be the final slamming of the door to keep out those who have already made substantial contributions to the project. Removing admin bits from users who have been completely dormant for years makes good sense from an account security perspective, but the goal here is to increase the total number of active admins, not eliminate the inactive ones out of some kind of unsubstantiated fear of a future problem. Zachlipton (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - As previously mentioned, this doesn't seem to be a problem needing fixing. User:Moe_Epsilon hasn't shown that changing the arbitrary definition of admin inactivity will reduce the number of admins who misunderstand Wikipedia policies. There are already procedures in place for dealing with admins who don't follow policy. Matt (talk) 04:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. My most important criterion for adminship is maturity - a quality that does not degenerate with absence from the project. That said, we do need a more accurate criterion of 'active' admin; from what I see, the majority of admin work appears to be done in reality by a group of around only 50 - 100 regular sysops. We'd be better served by looking for ways to revive interest in being an admin than in looking for more reasons to strike more off the list. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

How to fix Wikipedia? Tags

I guess the big hot topic of the month is the declining number of editors we have here on Wikipedia, and ways to help remedy that situation. One of the things I've noticed develop is an overall increase in the number of articles being littered with tags of all sorts. Either the article needs to be tagged because it doesn't have enough references, or it needs images, or it's NPOV, or it doesn't have an appropriate "worldview", etc, etc, . . . ad nauseum. While I do understand that there is a certain purpose to these tags, as they do seem to warn editors that the content may not be up to par, and many of them do add articles to various categories for easy tracking, I also question the necessity of many of these tags. I also see lots of editors who seem to have developed a favorite pasttime of not really editing by just sprinkling random articles with various tags at their whim -- the favorite one these folks like to use is the "citation needed" tag. And I notice many of these tags are simply added by someone who neither provides a reasonable explanation in the edit summary nor explains why the tag is being added in the talk page.

Maybe what we should do to help remedy this is to encourage editors to use tags more sparingly, and try to improve the article first before randomly tagging it? If you add a tag, make sure to explain on the talk page why you're adding the tag, and give your rationale. We could also go ahead and remove tags immediately if no rationale is provided for them? Perhaps the tags could be redesigned to be a little less intrusive or less annoying as well? Does anyone have any other suggestions? WTF? (talk) 03:09, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Pretty sure this is a perennial proposal by now... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 04:11, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd personally rather that editors always endeavoured to flag issues with articles wherever they exist. Tags are the fastest and most effective way of drawing attention to problems with articles. Articles which are tagged are improved faster than articles which aren't tagged. The tagging system has been a phenomenal success. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Your suggestions in the second para are good ones, but I think tags are a service to the reader: they warn people that (a) Wikipedia has rough edges (b) they're on one right now. Wikipedia is useful but not reliable, and papering over this strikes me as a disservice to the people using it - David Gerard (talk) 11:20, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Part of the problem is that we undeniably have over-tagging, because people are sometimes reticient about removing tags from articles ("I haven't cleaned it all up", "I don't know if I'm allowed to") or simply forget to (especially with section editing). Even if the proportion of problem articles is constant, the number tagged will thus seem to balloon.
One approach that would help a lot is to get readers to interact the tags - I've wondered before about the practicality of a one-click system, a la HotCat, which allows readers to easily remove no-longer-appropriate tagging... Andrew Gray (talk) 12:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Only a tiny proportion of our articles have any tags. It is simply false that there is presently an "over-tagging problem". What's more, it is undeniably better to have an article with superfluous tags (which any competent editor can remove at will) than an article which is missing tags that apply (which means that it isn't categorised for appropriate cleanup and bears no simple indication of how to improve it). Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:02, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
What constitutes "tiny proportion" in your mind? Last I looked, about 6% of articles were tagged with {{unref}}—and that's just one template alone. About a quarter of WPMED's articles are tagged with some sort of clean-up template. I suspect that's reasonably typical, and I don't think that counts as "tiny proportion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:43, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm at a loss as to what your answer is to 6% of pages being tagged as unreferenced. Should they not be tagged? Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't bother tagging unreferenced stubs, since a glance at the page shows they are unreferenced, but you said, "Only a tiny proportion of our articles have any tags." I do not agree with your assertion that "Only a tiny proportion of our articles have any tags." I believe that up to a quarter of our articles have some type of tag, which is an entire an order of magnitude above what I'd call "a tiny proportion". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
My use of "over-tagging" here is on a per-article basis, not an overall one - I do think that many more articles have problems than have problem tags, but at the same time there are a substantial number of articles which have too many tags because the problems are since resolved (or were never really present, in a few cases). I don't think these two issues are antagonistic, or that improving one is at the cost of the other - in fact, some of the root causes may be the same. Andrew Gray (talk) 23:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Whether you agree with the fact we have an "over-tagging" problem or not, I think the real concern should be focused on actually trying to fix the problem instead of simply drive-by tagging it in the hopes that somebody else will come by to fix it. The chances that somebody else will fix it is decreasing every time Wikipedia loses more editors. Plus, for articles that have multiple tags, I suspect that it may be scaring some people out of editing it, because there may be a perception that the article may have too many issues to fix and it's just an insurmountable task. Or others may steer clear of them because they might think there's some sort of edit war going on and they want to avoid controversy. WTF? (talk) 17:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes but it's often not so easy and/or very time consuming to fix problems that are easy to see are problems. Never forget we're all volunteers here. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 18:14, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
Marking the problems is also a good thing, much better than doing nothing, which that "actually trying to fix the problem instead of simply drive-by tagging it" too often becomes. Not everyone who can notice a problem can fix it.
Anyway, there was one thing you said that is really worth notice: "Perhaps the tags could be redesigned to be a little less intrusive or less annoying as well?". So, to start, what makes you think that the tags are "intrusive" and "annoying"? Is it the shape, the size, the colours, the icons, the wording..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 18:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I think what bugs me the most is that they're generally placed at the top of articles, and for articles with multiple tags, you sometimes have to scroll down at least half a page just to see the content! That seems a bit excessive. Maybe for articles with multiple issues (or, let's just say, they totally suck), a single "THIS ARTICLE COMPLETELY SUCKS" tag would be appropriate and be done with it. Then, you don't have five or six tags going down the page -- leave the details about why the article sucks to be discussed in the talk page. WTF? (talk) 21:09, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
"[F]or articles with multiple tags, you sometimes have to scroll down at least half a page just to see the content!"? In such case, what is the size of your browser window (or screen resolution)? Having enough tags to cover the whole screen and half of another seems to be a lot (far more than "five or six" - unless you have a small browser window or meant something different) and I don't remember ever seeing so many tags... --Martynas Patasius (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
I end up fixing a majority of pages I tag by myself, I'd wager. The tagging helps with my workflow. What is nice is that I can provide hard data for that in the form of ~100,000 listed contributions. Personally, I'm more prone to believing hard evidence than in some personal hypothesis that an unknown number of editors are recoiling from Wikipedia like a vampire from sunlight because a page has a tag on it. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 20:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: On the unconference day at Wikimania this year, some of my colleagues and I rounded up a table full of Wikipedians and banged out an experiment idea designed to test the hypothesis that cleanup and maintenance tags are actually negatively affecting editor engagement. We literally came up with the hypothesis, assumptions, and metrics in under an hour, so it's still pretty rough – but I think this will be a great thing to test for a short period of time on a sample of articles, to figure out if this is really an issue that needs more attention. Stay tuned... :) Maryana (WMF) (talk) 21:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Maryana (WMF)'s proposed experiment sounds like an excellent idea. My personal opinion is that it's mostly the appearance and placement of the tags that's the problem. Consider the stub templates, for example. These are tags which invite readers to expand the article. They are quite attractive and polite and are usually placed at the foot of an article, where they seem quite restrained and pleasant. Does anyone ever complain about stub templates? If not, then they may serve as a model of how to tag an article without upsetting people. Warden (talk) 18:30, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Article Feedback

A recent BBC News article, lead me to blog entry about this Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool/Version 5 which I understand is an attempt to have readers make suggestions about improving (without actually editing Wikipedia) and an editor will come along and make the changes. Seems to me we already do this with any number of tags, I know that Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced articles alone has a back log that grows faster then is addressed. So where do the editors who are going to make this edits come from? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The tags don't seem to be doing much of anything other than contributing to increasing the backlogs. There seem to be too many "editors" who do nothing but tag articles (the "citation needed" tag is a particular favorite of these people), and not enough true editors that actually work on improving articles. See the discussion earlier on this page on tags. WTF? (talk) 17:44, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I believe editors are already discussing some of these concerns up above. In any event, resolving a "Citation Needed" tag would seem easy enough to me - either provide a citation or remove the unsourced material. Problem solved. I'm not sure what the problem is with anyone using a "Citation Needed" tag if in fact a citation should be provided. Doniago (talk) 18:52, 18 July 2012 (UTC)rea
If it is so easy to resolve, then why don't all the [citation needed] people just resolve it themselves? User:Wiki.Tango.Foxtrot is right on this one, many users put tags because it is easier than actually doing the work required to fix an article. While we do need a small segment of editors to put tags, that a huge proportion of our editing community does so with only a small amount actually improving the article directly is definitely harmful to Wikipedia. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 19:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I would argue that it's more harmful that editors are adding unsourced information without taking the effort to source it to begin with. If tagging the information at all increases the probability of a source being provided, then I consider that beneficial. Editors are not under any obligation to find sourcing for material they are not contributing to the project; would you prefer that the CN tag be delisted and policy be modified to more strongly endorse simply removing unsourced material as a form of resolution? Doniago (talk) 20:19, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Conversely, we might consider asking ourselves if all these citations are absolutely necessary. I've seen some articles where almost every single sentence has a citation at the end of it, some sentences with multiple citations. I've also seen some editors who apparently only read the WP:LEAD section without reading anything else, find that there's nothing cited there, and sprinkle a couple of unnecessary citation needed tags into the lead when the information is merely summarizing other information -- that's properly sourced -- in the article itself. Perhaps we need to re-examine what content needs a citation and what content really doesn't. WTF? (talk) 20:24, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I concur that material in the lead doesn't require a citation if it's cited in the body of the article; CN tags placed in the lead under such circumstances should be removed with explanation; maybe contacting the editor who placed them would be worthwhile as well. Presumably editors generally insert CN tags because they feel the information should have an available reference, but I suppose if an editor disagrees with the placement of a CN tag they could always ask the inserting editor why it's there, or start a discussion on the Talk page. If they're really being placed as thoroughly as you say, I would suggest that the section itself (or the article) should have been tagged, rather than specific statements. In any event, these don't sound to me like unfixable situations if we're just talking about article aesthetics and editors not being familiar with available templates. Doniago (talk) 20:35, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Actually, the discussion about tags as such seems to be "offtopic" - there is another discussion just about them... Still, to use what you said, do you think that the "Article Feedback Tool" is going to be "definitely harmful to Wikipedia" too..? --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Article feedback "We are developing a new way for readers and editors to work together" (bold is mine) and apparently this is a a proposed guideline. I thought we were the "Wikipedia that anyone can edit". Before helping two classes of people interact, maybe we should ask if there are two classes of people. So are there two classes? Is there a single editor, who never read and an article? is there a single reader who does not have the option and ability to edit an article? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 10:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
It takes a lot for someone to dive into the world of policies and talk pages and become what we'd consider an editor. As I understand it, providing the opportunity to evaluate pages is meant as a kind of gateway drug to becoming more directly involved in the project. Darryl from Mars (talk) 10:49, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
If you change "we'd consider an editor" to "we'd consider an experienced editor", I think most everyone would agree. But is it a good thing to encourage yet another division of Wikipedians? Many of the issues discussed here are about this group or that group... IMHO everyone is in the same group, Wikipedian. We all started in the same place, we all stumbled across our first Wikipedia entry somehow, we all decided to make our first edit or not, we all learned from the same school, then we diverged into different directions, but we remain members of the same family. The first listing on Wikipedia:Administrators used to be "No big deal" do we really want to make the division between reader and editor be a "Big deal"? JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 15:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, I think it's already a big deal :(. Lets be honest and blunt, editor-to-editor: most of us don't encounter readers. We know of them as an abstract Other, and that distinction between us and them already exists - we contribute, they don't. Actually, I see this as an opportunity to weaken the distinction, in two ways.
The first is that, for the first time, the distinction isn't based on contributions. Readers have the opportunity to make (admittedly small) contributions to articles just as editors do. It's narrowing the gap, not widening it, because for the first time both groups have a tangible stake and a sense of ownership. The second is that we can no longer think of readers as this abstract group with undefined views and opinions and needs - we know what they need, because we've provided a mechanism for them to tell us. They need a reference added, or updating, or additional images (or occasionally "poop lolol" ;p). I'm actually really optimistic about what this'll do to our relationship with readers. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 10:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Judicial de-adminship

Currently there is no way of removing administrators from their posts short of an Arbitration Committee case. This ensures that numerous grievances regarding administrator misconduct may take a long time to be resolved, assuming that the ArbCom even decides to hear the cases against these administrators. Various proposals have been made for community de-adminship, but the results of community de-adminship proceedings is based not necessarily on reasoned discussion but ultimately on a vote count. When dealing with an issue as contentious as whether an administrator should lose their privileges or not, a better system is required.

I propose that a new subcommittee of the ArbCom - the Administrator Conduct Subcommittee (ACSC) - be created in order to facilitate proceedings against administrators and reduce the caseload of the Arbitration Committee. An Arbitration Clerk shall review each request to open a case against an administrator posted on a designated page of the ACSC, and shall decide whether the case may be tried before the ACSC, or whether it is serious enough to go before the Arbitration Committee itself. The Arbitration Clerk shall then inform the rest of the Arbitration Committee and its subcommittees of the decision, whether or not these subcommittees are trying the case. The Arbitration Committee may at any time take up a case itself or reassign it to another committee by a majority vote of its members. The ACSC may, by a two-fifths vote of its members, reassign the case to the Arbitration Committee, which may delegate it to another subcommittee or try the case itself as per the procedures of the previous sentence. Whichever body is selected to try the case shall have the permission to accept or deny trying it, in which case nothing shall be done against either party

The ACSC shall be permitted to issue temporary injunctions with penalties up to de-adminship for the duration of the case, and may enact remedies with the maximum penalty of one year's loss of administrative tools, with the ability to regain it only upon a successful RfA after the period has elapsed. In procedure the ACSC shall follow the model of the Arbitration Committee, but with only five members. The members of the ACSC shall not be Arbitrators themselves, but rather individuals selected by the Arbitration Committee as being suitable to handle the task of membership. The ACSC shall be composed of five members, a number which ArbCom may increase at its own discretion, but may not reduce below five. Any case involving private information should be declared as such when a user makes a petition for a case, and should a case involve private information either declared in advance or brought up later in the case, the case must for legal reasons be moved to the Arbitration Committee.

Any case may be appealed to the Arbitration Committee, which shall take up the case at its own discretion.

This, in essence, is my idea to allow de-adminship to take place more rapidly when it is required, but allow it to maintain a high standard of evidence and review. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 19:42, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps it is unfair of me, but my only authentic response to this long proposal is to wonder who you'd like to see de-sysopped. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
There is nobody I want to see desysopped specifically, but I do feel that the current state of the Wikipedia community is one of harsh conservatism, with it being difficult to remove administrators in case of misconduct. Administrators have mistreated me in the past. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 19:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
While certainly not attempting to discourage this idea, I should point out it's on the list of perennial proposals. There's also an ongoing push to reform RfA/desysopping at WP:RFA2012 which you should look at. elektrikSHOOS (talk) 23:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
The fact that it is a perennial proposal shows that administrator misconduct is an ongoing issue on Wikipedia. I will look at your recommended pages. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 19:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
How many desysoppings are seriously considered by the ArbCom in any given year? Is there any evidence to suggest that their process is being overwhelmed by such requests?
  • The ArbCom already has (and has made use of) procedures for rapidly withdrawing administrator privileges in the event of serious concerns about an admin's conduct: Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Procedures#Removal of permissions. In the most urgent cases, a temporary desysop can be carried out by the unanimous request of just three Arbs in only a few minutes.
  • The ArbCom has demonstrated a willingness to desysop admins by open motion (without the rigmarole of a full case) in situations where a broader examination of other editors' conduct isn't required, and where the circumstances and community's expectations are clear. See, for example, here. (In that case, statements were made between 20 January and 23 January; an Arb presented the motion to desysop on 28 January; voting was completed and the admin desysopped on 30 January.)
Before you tell us how to fix the problem, you need to be a little bit more specific about what's broken, and how it isn't being handled properly by existing processes. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:54, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
How many desysopping requests can ArbCom seriously consider in a year? The limited time of ArbCom means that for every request seriously considered, ten will be ignored. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 19:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
There is a lack of accountability of administrators to the community once their RfA passes, with only ArbCom being able to assign remedies. This speeds up the work of desysopping when required and reduces the workload of ArbCom. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 19:37, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Consider my questions suitably modified, then. How many credible requests to desysop has the ArbCom ignored in, say, the last year—whether due to excess workload or sheer fecklessness? What fraction of admins do you believe need to be axed? I've provided an example of the ArbCom quickly and efficiently handling a clearly-stated desysop request by motion in less than ten days; how much more does the process need to be accelerated? Repeatedly asserting that cases are falling through the cracks without offering any evidence to support your statements doesn't advance your argument. Bluntly, your proposal doesn't demonstrate that you've done your homework. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:17, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
The current ArbCom is fairly quick to desysop (a bit too quick, I think, and there is no appeals court). —Kusma (t·c) 19:44, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
This will make ArbCom the appeals court and ensure that the desysoppings which should be conducted quickly are conducted quickly, while the more contentious ones have a longer process. Wer900 • talk • coordinationconsensus defined 20:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Which are the ones that "should be conducted quickly", and why are the processes mentioned above not able to handle them? Be specific, instead of just repeating yourself. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:04, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorting in tables with letters with diacritics

There is a discussion over at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Malmö FF players/archive1 on how letters with diacritics, Å, Ä and Ö in this case should be sorted in a table and if there is any policy on this. The letters are sorted after Z in the Swedish alphabet but how should they be sorted on the English Wikipedia, under A and O or after Z? Thanks! --Reckless182 (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Since such lists could potentially contain names from different languages, including, for instance, German with Ä, Ö, Ü, which in a German locale (and possibly a Swedish locale?) are sorted in the neighbourhood of the letters A, O, U), I would suggest that any style guidance should be based on the untailored European ordering rules (or similar), which are probably appropriate for cross-country lists of names written in Latin-based alphabets. I believe that would mean sorting (the whole name) according to the notional base letters and then sorting the whole name by diacritics (so that Müller immediately follows Muller). I believe the European ordering rules include a specification for the order of diacritics, but the problem of names that differ only in the different diacritics is probably largely academic within a Wikipedia article. I expect librarians' organizations have discussed the problems in detail with regard to international access to library catalogues (starting with Z39.50?). I don't think the best approach would be to use ISO/IEC/Unicode ordering rules that have been tailored to a very specific locale (ordering rules may potentially differ between languages and/or countries).--Boson (talk) 22:42, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
That seems like a good solution. Thank you! --Reckless182 (talk) 10:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Blocking IPs from posting on your talk page

If someone is an admin, which often means dealing with IPs, is it appropriate for the admin to make their page for autoconfirmed only, thereby blocking IPs? I assume there are some who wish to only be IPs or newbies who dont know what signing up for Wikipedia accomplishes who may come across an admin and need to respond on their page regarding some action towards the IP by the admin. I think perhaps it's time we set some limits on admins to require they are responsive to the needs of those they serve, which includes allowing IPs to contact them.Camelbinky (talk) 00:32, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

No—an admin who actively opposes disruptive editors or trolls can attract a team of haters, and the community needs such admins to be relatively free from abuse so they will continue their work. If there is an individual case where someone believes a page is inappropriately semiprotected, that should be discussed with the admin concerned. If not satisfied, and if it was felt that it would help the encyclopedia, I suppose the next step would be WP:ANI. Johnuniq (talk) 01:33, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
So an admin does... whatever admins spend their time on... to an IP and the IP has questions, concerns, explanation, whatever, and therefore can not contact said admin. And we think that's ok...? Wow. Keep bleeding editors. Good job Wikipedia keeping up your reputation for ignoring newbies and being hypocritical regarding "dont bite the newbies". "Admins attract haters"... yes, just a large group think admins as a group are useless power hungry power seeking buffoons. Protecting one's talk page should not be justified by that. Nor should admins, who are here to SERVE US, be removed from being contacted by those they SERVE.97.85.211.124 (talk) 03:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Admins do not serve individual users. They serve the project.
Nearly all admins whose talk pages have been semi'd for very long set up a separate page for such communication. Alternatively, an unregistered user may contact others with the problem or question.
I'm not sure that you understand the level of problems. It's not just simple complaints about a page being deleted over copyvios. We've had admins who get threats to their families and friends, whose pages are filled with libel, who are harassed by postings about their race, gender, sexual orientation, who get dozens of messages from someone IP hopping just to be irritating, etc. Admins should not have to put up with abuse from unregistered users. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:39, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Precisely. Anyone wanting to contact an admin but unable to do so can ask for assistance, for example at WP:HELPDESK. Johnuniq (talk) 10:55, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps an appropriate message could go on the Admin blocked page(s) to point IP's to a more appropriate page. Just blocking without an alternative is WP:BITEy. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 15:43, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Speaking out about this issue, I have served in the position of being an administrator on Wikimedia projects before (not here on Wikipedia though). I know how bad trolls can get, where I ended up putting full protection (edits only by admins or bureaucrats) on my main user page and considered strongly to do that to my talk page as well. There are some users who simply dislike any sort of communication on their user pages preferring to have such communication on article or project talk pages instead. For myself, I'm fine with that, particular with the harassment issues expressed above as well. There certainly is no "right" to post on somebody's user or talk page, and it can be disruptive in the hands of some trolls. Telling IP users in this case to go to the Admin noticeboard for any issues they may be having seems to be very realistic (or wherever else the particular user in question wants to see that kind of activity redirected with a soft redirect). Indeed, if there seems to be a problem even for non-admins, I'm even fine with ordinary editors requesting this kind of protection on their user talk page. I likely would never do that here on Wikipedia for my own reasons, but I'm fine with some users who get fed up with some kinds of communication on that level. Heck, full protection could even be requested by ordinary users on their talk page so it would only be communications from admins to that user. --Robert Horning (talk) 00:02, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I managed to get the user and talk pages of an inexperienced editor permanently semiprotected (that wasn't easy due to it's highly unusual nature). The editor had pursued a troll, removing their garbage from various articles. Unwisely, the editor had left enough clues that their identity could be guessed, and the troll occasionally posted sinister rants with the real name of the user, their wife, and their daughter, and their address. They did that over a period of years despite the editor doing almost nothing on Wikipedia. The people we know from everyday interactions are not the only kind of people in the world—there are also crazies who will never stop.
If there is a real problem with new users being unable to contact a particular admin, the solution is to include a hatnote: If you are unable to add a message here, please contact WP:HELPDESK. Johnuniq (talk) 00:33, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Harassment policy

There's a discussion going on here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Harassment#Consolidations about what seem to me to be fairly drastic changes in the harassment policy. I am noting it here so that interested editors can take part if they wish to do so. Or maybe the conversation should go on here; I'm not sure. Here is a diff of the proposed changes, which I've just reverted in order to try to start a conversation: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Harassment&diff=503634478&oldid=503126887 — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest continuing the discussion on that page, if necessary you could slap a {{RFC}} tag on it, but the above post may attract enough attention on its own. Monty845 00:23, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Good point about the RFC tag. I forgot about that. I put one on the talk page over there.— alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Images of fictional characters and/or shows in Getty Images

File:Jaleel White Steve Urkel.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was deleted because it is licensed to Getty Images and is used commercially, and prior publication does not erase later commercial intent. File:Cheers cast photo.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) was deleted for the same reasons. I tried deleting File:Frasier Crane.jpg (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs) because it is licensed to Getty, even if the original author is NBC or Paramount. Nevertheless, someone challenged it, and I am almost ready to nominate it for deletion. I wonder if any image of a fictional character or show fits the bill of WP:NFC#UUI, as these images themselves are not notable enough as stand-alone articles. If not, shall they be excluded from fitting the criteria of photo agencies? --George Ho (talk) 18:06, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Working on the assumption that a character is notable, either a photo of the character (from a press agency kit, most likely) or a screenshot of the character is generally accepted, but as you note, if that photo is coming from an agency like Getty that are publishing the photos commercially, we can't use them, and need to find another source. That is, the respect for commercial opportunities and the issue with photo publication entities trump the UUI aspects. Same if we're talking a cast photo to be used within the description of a show. --MASEM (t) 18:11, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
There is a question to be asked too: where did the original photo come from? Is it the case that a press agency pack get to Getty, who put those photos up for commercial redistribution? (In this case, if we can demonstrate the photo actually came from the press agency pack and thus Getty doesn't own the rights to it, we can use the press agency photo) Or is it that the photo is exclusively from Getty's archives, meaning that we can't use it at all. This is a tough question to answer and so if Getty images or other agencies are involved, and we can't positively determine the original photo source, we need to play it safe and delete such images. --MASEM (t) 18:14, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
But what about original and subsequent intentions of original authors? Have photos been originally distributed as publicity photos or commercial photos? Either way, would subsequent intentions triumph original intentions, or the other way around? Does commerciality triumph publicity? --George Ho (talk) 18:25, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't know, is the short answer. Given the *broadness* of Getty's catalog, and the fact that you can click a button on Flickr to publish an image via Getty, probably means that there are copyrighted photos belonging to party A, uploaded elsewhere without copyright licensing (read, possibly fair use) by party B, and picked up by Getty based on party B's intentions, ignoring what A had intended. I have no idea of how Getty works to assure uploaded photos are owned by the person that says they are (just as with Flickr, there's lots of images "licensed" as CC-BY but are clearly copyrighted elements without validation the copyright owner said it was ok). Unfortunately, because it's Getty, we have to play bad cop here. --MASEM (t) 18:31, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
George, your question goes to the source information, which is as good a proxy for "intention" that we can have. If the original source of an image hosted by Getty was a press kit, then it shouldn't matter that it is now part of Getty's archive. And a screenshot has none of these concerns, and should be readily obtainable for any TV or film character. Your initial post made it sound like you were (incorrectly) thinking it was the subject matter of fictional characters that was at issue. postdlf (talk) 18:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
Then why was the "Steve Urkel" image deleted? Should deletion be reviewed? One of my mentors MGA73 says no review. However, ask Nyttend; s/he challenged speedy deletion proposal. Masem is uncertain, but you said it doesn't matter. Now I'm confused. --George Ho (talk) 18:47, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
What do you mean, why was the Urkel image deleted? Your question implies we just contradicted something when I thought it was explained very clearly and consistently. The Urkel image was deleted because it was from a commercial source (Getty), there was no evidence it previously originated from a non-commercial source (such as a press kit), and a screenshot was already in use to depict the character that had none of those problems. This is what we just explained, and it was quite clear from the FFD itself, so your confusion confuses me. Maybe you should take some time to re-read and think through these comments, and then come back later when you've had a chance to digest it all if you still have questions. postdlf (talk) 22:34, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Very suspicious image. Getty credits the image to "Bill Reitzel/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank". The image was made by NBC and NBCU Photo Bank appears to be another commercial image host belonging to NBC. The site contains information about image licensing and pricing, so I would assume that any image on that site would count as a WP:NFCC#2 violation. I tried locating this specific image by searching for the term "Frasier Crane", but the NBCU Photo Bank returned 40 pages with 25 images per page, so it takes too much time to search through them all, but I assume that the image is there somewhere. I would say that it should be deleted per WP:NFCC#2 since it seems that individual copies of the image are sold not only by Getty Images but also directly by NBC through the NBCU Photo Bank. I am aware that anyone can make photos available through Getty using Flickr, but wouldn't Flickr images normally be credited to the Flickr account holder? I would expect Getty to treat Flickr images as own works by default, even if the images are copyright violations on Flickr. This image is not credited to some obscure Flickr user but to NBC directly. --Stefan2 (talk) 20:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

You simply missed this, which I saved in image description: GettyImages.com. --George Ho (talk) 20:36, 16 July 2012 (UTC)
 
Hello, Village pump (policy). You have new messages at Wikipedia:Files for deletion/2012 July 16.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Stefan2 (talk) 21:18, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

One of images displayed in NBCU Photo Bank is deleted. --George Ho (talk) 02:21, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

ArbCom's silent coup d'état

Fæ is likely going to be banned see here for being in contempt of ArbCom. Note that the "numerous violations of Wikipedia's norms and policies", is nothing more than this; just read the FoFs that are passing.

I think it is high time we replace ArbCom with another system that doesn't make itself part of the problem. If an editor doesn't cooperate well with dispute resolution processes, that can obviously affect the outcome, but kicking someone out of Wikipedia should only be done if the evidence referring to actual editing of Wikipedia proves that the editor is incapable of doing that without problems.

The present outcome fais the WP:IAR test. If Fæ were to violate his ban and edit anyway, his edits would have to be judged to be a priori ok., given everything that ArbCom has found. If someone is topic banned then this is not the case (assuming the correctness of the ArbCom's ruling), as the editing of that editor in the topic would have been judged to be problematic. Then any violations of the topic ban would have to be judged to be a priori problematic.

This then shows that the ban is not about maintaining Wikipedia at all, it has to do with ArbCom's authority. But ArbCom was never put in such a position of authority by the community, that's something they did themselves. Doing so is a violation of WP:IAR, as violating their authority while still editing correctly should never be a problem.

I suggest that we correct this problem here. Count Iblis (talk) 18:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

At the moment, I happen to be the only arbitrator voting against the proposed siteban that you are criticizing, so I'm not here to defend it. However, I don't think that this is the right place to argue about the merits of a proposed arbitration decision. And the strident phrasing ("silent coup d'état") is, at best, unhelpful. Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I think alot of the griping about Arbcom that goes on is uncalled for, they deal with the most problematic editors, and need to make tough calls. While I don't always agree with the decisions, they are usually within the realm of reasonable judgement and discretion calls. This is not one of those cases. As best I can tell, Arbcom is planning to ban someone whom they acknowledge has not edited in a way that would justify a ban, but instead will be banned for failing to cooperate with the investigation and failing to respect Arbcom's independence. Those are clearly not appropriate grounds for a ban, it comes off as Arbcom lashing out over its own insecurity, and I hope Arbcom reconsiders before making an embarrassing mistake that will undermine the legitimacy of the banning process. Monty845 01:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I've not followed this case but, from scanning the decision page I can't see any indication of what is being alleged (i.e. ArbCom banning someone whose general conduct they acknowledge does not merit a ban). Could you draw my attention to what I should be looking at? Formerip (talk) 01:40, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
    See the support rationales associated with votes 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 in support of remedy 6. Monty845 01:59, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
OK, I've looked at that and I have to say I find it hard not to see your point. Maybe this ties in with an existing discussion here. At present, the appeal route is Jimbo, but Jimbo is not neutral with regard to this particular user. Formerip (talk) 02:28, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • It's going to be hard to have a silent coup since you've let everyone here know about it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 02:42, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't know much about this case but from what I have read both sides have merit. What does seem to be the continuing trend is that if someone goes before Arbcom they can expect to be site banned or at least limited to the point where they may as well be. I also notice with this case, as with several over the last few months that the terms are written in such vague fashion that they can be interpretted in a variety of ways to ensure that it will be difficult if not impossible for the defendant to be in compliance for long. If Arbcom wants the negative comments to end then they need to start drafting the cases more clearly and definitively. They don't need to be so loose that they are open to unending interpretation and debate. Well among other things, but that would go a long way. Kumioko (talk) 02:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't believe Arbcom is part of the problem or that they are attempting to grab power. I think Arbcom has realized the toxic environment created by many sanctioned users and that remedies short of site banning tend to permit them to simply continue that disruption, even if they are in compliance with the sanctions. I think Arbcom has realized its role is to prevent disruption, not ensure fair and equitable treatment of persons before it. I think Arbcom has also realized that many prior sanctions were so specifically tailored that they merely encouraged gaming by the parties and that by keeping sanctioned users within a very tight limit; making it clear that if they cause even the slightest bit of disruption they will be removed from the community, they will reduce disruption within the project. MBisanz talk 03:12, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • With respect I don't agree. I don't want to turn this into an Arbcom bashing debate but the truth is I think that many of the members of Arbcom are out of touch with the realities of editing. Its impossible to please every editor and the more edits you perform the more likely you are to irritate someone for something stupid like violating their perception of a minor edit, "filling their watchlist" or something else equally trivial. I also don't think they need to cater to every mob that comes along with a complaint and ban them for the troubles. But that seems to be the trend and IMO that perception is not helpful for their mandate nor for the long term health of the pedia. Kumioko (talk) 03:25, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Without reviewing the specifics of the case... to me if ArbCom (a) found a good reason to open the case and that it wasn't frivolous, and (b) requested some kind of comment or explanation from the editor in question, then some bare minimum level of cooperation should be expected from that editor. If everyone who didn't like ArbCom scrutiny could just say "enh, screw you guys, I'm going to keep doing my thing, catch me if you can", that would set a pretty bad precedent for future cases. It would render ArbCom completely ineffective, and fundamentally undermine our dispute resolution process. I think the editor in question should always owe the community some level of explanation, unless the case is completely dismissed for being groundless. Shooterwalker (talk) 05:02, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Too many forums on this at one time for anyone to follow. There is a famous sign in a Western saloon ... "Please don't shoot the piano player He's doing the best he can." It applies here. I had commented early in the process that the committee should cut to the chase early, and not allow all the sideshow to develop. As it did. Collect (talk) 12:10, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
A major problem I see with the ongoing Arbcom pattern of banning every editor submitted to them, because they have preconceived notions of guilt if the case makes it to them, is this. It takes a lot of time and effort to participate in an Arbcom case. It requires research, writing, following the story as it unfolds, etc. If Arbcom develops a pattern that your gonna get blocked then why would anyone outside Arbcom and their cabal bother to spend the time to plead the case? If the evidence doesn't matter and the end result is always the same within a couple degrees of variation then why bother? Its just a Drumhead trial anyway right? Going back to the original point of this discussion, ArbCom's silent coup d'état, hardly a day goes by lately that I don't see something where Arbcom is trying to build and expand their empire and establish themselves as the supreme rulers of the Wiki. On point with what you are saying I agree that we need something like Arbcom but I am growing more and more convinced that it needs to be different than the committee as it exists today. I admit I don't know exactly what that is, but I know this ain't it. Kumioko (talk) 14:11, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
They've done this for a while. They tried to interfere in the PR response to the National Portrait Gallery on the grounds that the images were on Commons therefore showed up on en:wp. (I have the emails from functionaries-en, if any of them dare try to dispute this.) It's part of the admin problem too - why take any admin action if you might be sitebanned for it years later? - David Gerard (talk) 15:00, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Kumioko, I certainly agree that they need to start drafting the cases more clearly and definitively, and do more to prevent the side-tracking and Strawmänner. However, WADR, I don't believe that Arbcom is planning a putsch any more than British High Court judges are considering a coup over the UK government. One thing for sure, and which I was most relived to see after meeting some of them in person recently, is that at least Arbcom is staffed by mature, educated individuals and not by the many who see such office as simply another hat to collect on the way up some personal greasy pole, such as we find lurking around lower levels of 'power'. I generally agree with most Arbcom findings - although I sometimes find their sentencing a little too mild and cautious. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 15:22, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
It's not so much a coup as people pushing them into the job: wikis make people uncomfortable, so they want there to be a government, so the arbcom gets shoved into the role. The failure is that of the arbitrators and the committe collectively to realise this is not necessarily a good idea. It also doesn't help that an elected position of power selects for politicians, even if the actual stakes are minimal - David Gerard (talk) 15:25, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
I should clarify that in general I have tended to agree with most of the Arbcom decisions relating to things other than editor behavior but I think they all too often favor a complete block for relatively minor infractions just to make the problem go away. I also think that more often than not they seem to succumb to peer pressure from those submitting the requests. Those who it seems are rarely the ones doing the editng, but those that are doing the nitpicking of those doing the actual editing. Kumioko (talk) 15:39, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Trying not to interject too often in this thread, but I can't help noticing that Kudpung opines the remedies imposed by the Committee are sometimes too mild, while Kumioko opines they are often too severe.... (Of course, in different cases they could both be right.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 15:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
Personally I'm not quite sure how Kudpung can justify that they are too mild since it nearly always equates to an indefinate block. That to me is just about as severe a punishment as can be levied unless society grants Wikipedia actuall penal powers. Kumioko (talk) 17:21, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
I think that's the problem. Many times there is only "an indefinite block" from a case for the worst actor, while several other parties get editing restrictions or have articles placed under general sanctions. I think an increase in the number of indefinite blocks resulting from arbitration cases and a corresponding decrease in the use of topic bans would help the problem. If someone is filing a case or is the subject of an accepted case, it's no longer about "relatively minor infractions" and both sides should expect that by bringing in Arbcom because they couldn't resolve the matter, they are opening the door to being blocked. MBisanz talk 15:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
MBisanz your suggested solution to the problem would only compound another, far more serious set of problems that currently plagues the project. An increasing amount of control of influence of the project (and even pushing for more power outside the project by Arbcom), a decreasing number of active contributors and edits in general, a decreasing number of admins willing to perform actions for fear of prosecution and a general feeling within the community that Arbcom has their own agenda and that agenda isn't always in the best interest of Wikipedia. Yes it may be preferred by a small subset of contributors who don't like too many edits in their watchlists, don't like bots, don't think we should allow one thing or another or whatever. As Arbcom's continued determinations and blocks increase and spread the number of editors willing to perform certain admin actions, to use bots and to be active contributors will decrease in contrast to those actions. Its already happening as can be plainly seen by the reduction of certain types of admin actions, the reduction in bot operators and bot tasks, the reduction of contributors, etc.
There is even (or was recently) an RFC about Arbcom's impacts on these and a lot of sidebar discussions on the impact of Arbcom on various areas. Some users like yourself may feel that Arbcom serves WP well as the Judge, Jury and executioner but there are a lot of us that feel otherwise.
Indefinate block by Arbcom should only be done in certain circumstances such as obvious sockpuppetry, Copyright violations, Vandalism, etc. Not for filling watchlists, performing too many edits to quickly, performing too many minor edits, upholding the rules such as Wikipedia's Copyright policy and not catering to ever petty complaints about every action performed by the user, many of which are personal feelings and counter to actual policy. These are the types of things that Arbcom is banning editors for over the last few months and it is having a detrimental impact to long-term health and operations of the project. Kumioko (talk) 16:07, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Kumioko, not to play dumb, but, which policies, articles, or processes has Arbcom attempted to control or influence as a means to increase its own power in 2012? I see ten cases and twenty-two motions in 2012 (Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Cases/2012, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Motions#2012). I'm familiar with a good number of them, and they seem to basically be reinforcement of the WP:INVOLVED, WP:CIV, WP:CONSENSUS, and WP:DISRUPTION/WP:EDITWAR. I know some people think Rich's case was wrongly decided (I'm one of them), but it was still within the realm of reason since someone filed a case and evidence showing a continued conflict. Also, I have not seen Arbcom mucking around in WP:BRFA, telling BAG how to approve bots, or otherwise trying to interfere to implement their own opinion of automated editing as a supervote over the community. The motions dealt with similarly mundane topics that have lengthy histories of arb involvement. I don't see Arbs randomly creating new policies through their decisions, telling non-parties how to edit in new ways, or appointing themselves in control of other elements of the project.
As to the decreasing contributors and admins, I think Arbcom's actions serve to help that. Many of their cases have reinforced the view that admins are not exempt from policy and that admins cannot use their powers when involved. Admins doing so drive productive editors away by squeezing them out of articles and RFA becomes stricter when people are afraid an admin can abuse their power and get away with it.
More specifically to the "too many edits" blocks, I think if Risker had phrased it in the way I would have (I wanted to block him, but was a party to the case); namely as a block based on WP:MEAT, WP:TEND, and WP:DUCK, it would have sailed through without a problem. Poor phrasing of a block reason doesn't make it a bad block.
Also, as to the point of Arbcom as judge, jury and executioner; I agree with you. I think Arbcom has done a good job of letting the non-arb crats handle most desysops and letting non-arb admins handle most of the enforcement of discretionary sanctions and editing restrictions. Further, in a recent block I made, I was criticized for not letting the Arbs make it since it involved their page. That an Arb can be criticized for blocking someone in a case and a non-Arb can be criticized for blocking someone in a case tells me we have a healthy balance.
Indefinite blocks serve to protect the project when we are certain a person cannot be a net positive contributor to the project. Copyvios, vandalism, sockpuppetry are the clearest indications of this, but other things such as SPA-editing, tendentiousness, POV-pushing, and failure to discuss are also valid negatives that count against a person. MBisanz talk 17:05, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
First of all, MBisanz is right, given the level of their activity, ArbCom is hardly a parawikitary organization bent on domination of the encyclopedia. But we all understand that sometimes we are given to hyperbole. However, on the statement of "Poor phrasing of a block reason doesn't make it a bad block", I would have to emphatically disagree. By definition almost it is a bad block if you don't give a good reason for it. Blocks are intended to be a powerful measure to protect the encyclopedia, subject to review by the community. If the community is looking at the block rationale and can't discern a legitimate basis for the block, it is a bad block. Now, that does not stop the admin from explaining their block better in a description on the blocked user's page, or on AN/I, but that's all textually part of the "block reason" IMO, so it directly relates to the block summary. But there is absolutely no place for a block in Wikipedia that hasn't been backed up by a clear, coherent and reasonable rationale for why it was enacted. And when you consider that the admin can update the block summary any time, and can further explain the block on Talk pages or elsewhere, leaving a poor block summary, no block summary, or unclear explanations simply means that it is a bad block on its face. We aren't mind readers. -- Avanu (talk) 17:14, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Not to make this discussion too long but there were several proposals or discussions (some formal and some more informal) in the last few weeks I had some heartburn about regarding Arbcom's ever increasing power. There was some discussion about Arbcom stretching outside the En to others such as commons, there was some discussion in the last few days about removing some of Jimbo's power and giving it to Arbcom or at least removing Jimbo's authority to override it. I have also seen discussions on several Users talk pages regarding their feelings on Arbcom's power. Many of them are afraid to comment on the Arbcom discussions because they are afraid Arbcom will block them for supporting. That to me is a huge, huge problem. Whether true or untrue the perception is a real morale killer. As for specific user cases. I had a huge problem with the Rich decision also as you know and I frankly haven't thought much higher about most of the decisions about users. Most of the nonuser related decisions are sound IMO but their judgement on the User cases has me less impressed. Of all the user cases I really only agreed with a couple (the Beta case had me on the fence).
In regards to the Admin actions point I disagree. I have seen and heard several admins mention in discussions (particularly after the Will Beback incident) they were hesitant or reluctant to act in certain circumstances because they were afraid if someone disagreed it would go to Arbcom and they would be banned. Not that they would be blocked, punished, desysopped or yelled at. Banned. That they automatically think its going straight to a ban is a big problem for me.
Arbcom is no longer an Arbitration committee working to find the best solution to a problem. They are a committee working to stop the problem and in most cases the fastest way to stop it, admittedly and especially regarding users, is to ban them and close the case. Its not a fair or unbiased ruling its an expedient one.
I also know that I have been an fervent critic and many just look at what I am saying and ignore it or think I'm just being overly critical so I'm not going to continue to dwell on it. I have said my opinion and whatever happens happens. All I can do is say what my feelings and beliefs are and deal with the fallout. Kumioko (talk) 17:30, 21 July 2012 (UTC)


  • Newyorkbrad, this is not to argue about thia specific case, rather that the outcome suggest that there is a systemic problem. In this case, the ArbCom did what they are not supposed to do, i.e. ban someone based on issues that are irrelevant as far as actually editing Wikipedia is concerned. Remedies are supposed to be focussed on purely the editing and maintaining of Wikipedia. Evidence of bad conduct, harassment, personal attacks etc. etc. should always be evaluated in this narrow context. At the end of the day Wikipedia is just another website, it's not some company with the ArbCom members being the senior managers who can decide in some meeting that some employee (an editor) should be fired for not interacting well with them. By doing that, one actually makes Wikipedia a lot more vulnerable to the social dynamics that is causing all these problems involving harassment that played a role in this and other cases. Count Iblis (talk) 00:05, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes. When, whatever the intentions are, the observable end result is the Arbitration Committee functioning as water carriers for Gregory Kohs and associates ... then we may have a problem - David Gerard (talk) 10:47, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

For those only just reading this thread, it is worth noting that the proposed decision as it currently stands (about to be closed) is different to what it looked like when Count Iblis started the thread. It really is best to limit discussions outside the case pages about currently open cases until after the case has closed. Valid criticisms should be raised at the case pages (not at user talk pages, and certainly no-one should be afraid of commenting at case pages, please don't make ArbCom out to be some sort of monster, I know several of the people on the current committee, and they are human just like everyone else). The other point to make is that the workload of ArbCom is such that it really helps if criticism is not of the variety that is heavy on words and rhetoric, but concentrates (or is backed up by) detailed links and diffs. Broad brush-stroke conclusions have their place, but they need to be backed up by analysis of what actually happened, not just opinion. It would be great if some of the most fervant ArbCom critics did more than just commenting at threads like this (and on case pages), and put in the heavy lifting and hard work needed to produce detailed pages on the major problems as they see it. It won't be easy to produce such a document, but it will actually be of more use than hand-waving and rabble-raising. Follow each and every case and motion. Make notes. Carry out analysis. Be fair and objective and try to avoid bias. Then you might be on to something. You will at least show arbitrators how they should be conducting their business if you can show that they should have reached different conclusions. Carcharoth (talk) 21:32, 21 July 2012 (UTC) PS. David, I vaguely remember the functionaries thread you refer to, my recall of it is not quite the same as yours, but I could look it up if you remind me of the details.

The exact wording of the justification was "en-Wikipedia uses many of the pictures involved and many of the pictures are viewed by readers of en-Wikipedia articles", and it was written in message-ID 206791b10907190639s4fb55136v11bce10a017c0e9e@mail.gmail.com, datestamp Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:39:36 +0100, by ... you! This was after me asking several times what the hell the justification actually was, and that was the only one anyone actually came up with. Except the arb who claimed that a BBC article (that named DCoetzee as "David Coetzee") saying the images were on "Wikipedia" meant the images must be arbcom's problem - David Gerard (talk) 13:53, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Heh. If you want to rehash that argument, we will be here a long time. I will concede that that was one of the less edifying threads that took place on that list at that time. It started with me expressing outrage at something you did, and with hindsight I should have raised it with you privately first. I have no idea what things are like now on the functionaries and arbitration mailing lists, but I expect things are in some ways much the same, and in other ways maybe saner given the relative differences in personalities between then and now. I do think it is unfair to use an example from 2009; looking at the datestamp you provide, that was just over three years ago. Carcharoth (talk) 15:23, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
It is not unfair, we have nothing to assure us that everything done "behind closed doors" is squeaky clean except the word of those who are behind the closed doors (which they have not given). In the past, going by leaked ArbCom mailing list content, there were endemic problems of attitude if not of conduct. We have no reason to believe that things are better now, only hope. Rich Farmbrough, 07:11, 23 July 2012 (UTC).
For what its worth I too have met several members of the Arbcom and my feelings of the process aside I hold no ill will towards any of them. That still doesn't change the fact that I think the existing process is flawed and broken. After looking back at the case as you referenced above, yes there are some changes but the result is still leading to a ban, just with shorter a period at which the user can request a review of their block. You are also correct that links help. They do however take a lot of time to research and add and since the adding of these links is unlikely to change the outcome I don't feel that is a very good use of my time. I do admit that I am likely a strong reason that Rich F wasn't completely banned from the pedia but it took a huge investment of time and effort that could have been better spent on the pedia and not in arguing a case based on petty grievances that never should have made it to Arbcom in the first place. I also don't have time to act like an Arb. I'm not on the committee nor do I wish to be. The main problem is that the majority of the people involved in these cases are either members of the committee or those that mean to see the user banned. Very few ever comment in support. Partially because they are afraid to get involved, partially because they know that Arbcom will ban them anyway so commenting is just a waste of time, some because they don't know about Arbcom or the process and still others because they just think that their time is better spent in actual edits and not in Wikipolitics. Kumioko (talk) 23:38, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, like Kumioko no animus against the Arbs individually or as a group, but there is a de facto increase in the effective power being wielded. The question of whether the power is being wielded well or badly is to some extent a separate issue, as is the question of how these problems can be resolved. Here are some examples of creep:

  1. Beta - attempted community solution sunk by ArbCom Motion.
  2. Precedent - use of previous cases principles has effectively created case law, which was never intended to occur
  3. Chilling effect - BAG is cowed by ArbCom cases, either onging, proposed or historical
  4. Governance - ArbCom is asked to rule on govenance issues
  5. Control - ArbCom controls and appoints its own audit subcommittee
  6. Control - ArbCom appoints checkusers, very few historical checkusers remain
  7. Chilling effect - Arbcom's severe and erratic de-sysopping results in admins being reluctant to be bold
  8. Policy - Arbs attempt to and do change policy, contrary to their remit.
  9. Self-starting - Arbitrators bring cases, which is a severe abuse of privilege
  10. Self-serving - Arbitrators ban users by motion, thus taking supreme executive power

This is all from memory, research would doubtless throw up more examples. Rich Farmbrough, 07:05, 23 July 2012 (UTC).

Rich, if I assume the above to be true, would the existing semi-democratic process for electing arbitrators simply make that an extension of the editing community's consensus? Is ArbCom excused because we (we being anyone who can vote and is not an arbitrator) continue to give them the power they have? In other words, I'm asking if your beef is ultimately with ArbCom itself, or the decision the community made in electing its current members. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:49, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
The problem is the present ArbCom system, ArbCom elections are held within the existing ArbCom system. There is likely no consensus for having the ArbCom system we have at present. So, if Jimbo were to abolish the present system and he were to ask the community via a few RFCs to choose a new system, the present system being one of the options, I would be very surprised if the present system would end up being selected by the community. Count Iblis (talk) 16:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Do the rules apply only to less connected wikipedians, while connected wikipedians get a free pass?

Back under the bridge, please. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 16:22, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Do the rules apply only to less connected wikipedians, while connected wikipedians get a free pass?

See this AN/I case, where one admin edit warred, reverted a revert of the competing editor, blocked the competing editor in order to win the edit war, and brought in puppets to do his war.

The other editor complained at the AN/I, and asked to block that admin and his puppet show. The decision of the AN/I was to block the editor that complained, and to hide the complaint inside a closed hat template.

I think that the rules either apply to everyone or they apply to no one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.182.219.30 (talk) 16:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Blocked this IP hopper, block evasion, I've been all over the place with this one... Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 16:22, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I am not going to edit war, but this IP needs to get blocked as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:59, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
It's not edit warring when WP:DENY is involved. Obvious sock was obvious sock. Ian.thomson (talk) 18:05, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Blocked. It isn't warring since vandalism (close enough) is a clear exemption to 3RR. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 18:32, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Sock or no, the question posed in the thread heading is a legitimate concern and one whose answer is "yes". Now you can ignore ME, but you cant call me a sock or meat puppet of anyone.Camelbinky (talk) 20:49, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
Well, I suppose if you want a real answer, it starts with defining what a "Connected Wikipedian" is. Natural human socialization gives us connections, of course, and the more socialable someone is, the more people they end up knowing. We treat those we know with more trust and forgiveness than those we don't, in general. Another type of connection might be people who share a common interest or have a common attribute. This might be people who volunteer together at a certain Wiki project, like Copyediting, or who like the same kind of pasta, *or* might relate to people sharing a status, like Administrator or Bureaucrat or Arbitrator. Strangely, I've seen very odd and mixed reactions in this. If someone is an admin at the English Wikipedia, it might get them respect here from other admins, but an admin from another language iteration of Wikipedia might not get as much good will. I think generally it boils down ultimately to how congenial you are versus how patient or altruistic others are. If you're nice, and pick your battles carefully and you happen to be an admin on top of that, you're going to be loved by all. If you're not so nice, come out swinging too much, and you're an IP editor, you can expect to get a kick in the face pretty fast. All this despite whether you follow our rules here or not. It is human nature. So the question is... where do you feel like fitting in on this continuum, and are people being patient and altruistic *enough* generally that it isn't so bad? -- Avanu (talk) 20:59, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
We can debate whether altuism actually exists, and while the facts from my anthropology courses I helped teach as a TA might be out of date, I'm still going to go with the standard answer from back then "no altruism isnt real". But the point is in Wikipedia- it does NOT matter who or how many friends you have, the !rules do apply to all EQUALLY. This crap of- if you have more friends there must be a reason for that, and therefore you must be more careful and more respected and less likely to do something wrong on purpose.... smacks of Chamberlain-esque appeasement to bullies. Bullies have plenty of friends. Hitler had plenty of friends, the NAZI party was democratically elected. We dont allow those with lots of friends to get a free pass. Anyone who justifies it should not be allowed to comment on AN/I or anywhere else where penalties may apply to someone who does something wrong. This results in people who bring an admin or other long-term editor to AN/I getting themselves censored instead of a remedy.Camelbinky (talk) 21:06, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Of course, becoming an admin (or even being a prolific editor over a long period of time) does require some degree of reasonableness and responsibility, so the favor is not entirely unreasonable. If any editor (even Jimbo Wales, hypothetically) is totally uncooperative, incivil, or trollish to other users, in spite of well meaning advice from other users, that editor shouldn't be here. If they evade their blocks only to continue their inappropriate behavior, the other account should be blocked and existing blocks should be extended. Ian.thomson (talk) 21:10, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

And once again, Wikipedia boards show Godwin's law perfectly. Keilana|Parlez ici 21:27, 22 July 2012 (UTC)


The question here, Camelbinky, is whether we are following common law, civil law, or some other process entirely here at Wikipedia. Honestly it is hard to tell sometimes. Creative interpretation of the rules is discouraged by the average editor, and seemingly encouraged via the IAR pillar when an Admin feels they have a *need* to do something. So it is a bit like the "Do as I say, not as I do" method of parenting, and unforunately people get caught in the middle of this mess because of inconsistent enforcement and an unintentional Blue Code with a small degree of Lese-majesty that comes I think from a tendency to regard those who challenge the status quo as 'upstarts', rather than as 'fixers'. I would strongly discourage labeling everyone in a class as a bad actor. In fact, most of this is not anyone's 'fault' as much as it is just human nature. I think Wikipedia lacks a few controls and checks to balance out this disposition (those need to be addressed), but overall the spirit of Wikipedia is pretty darn awesome. So, what should be done? -- Avanu (talk) 21:30, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Well, seeing as how NOTHING in Wikipedia is analogous to a constitution or set of laws and we specifically spell out that our policies and guidelines are NOT "rules" I would say probably common law is the closest analogy we have. But the point is that common law is decided upon by courts, our policies and guidelines are decided upon by consensus of the best practices of what we already do. Our actions determine what the policies and guidelines should say, policies and guidelines are written after the fact of the Community already disregarding them and changing our Standard Operating Procedures. We are the biggest form of pure democratic anarchy and the problem with that is there is a subset of the Community, especially among Admins that see Wikipedia as a strict-constructionist interpreted Constitutional republican form of governance with policies and guidelines as "laws". That has been struck down MANY times most notably at wp:5pillars everytime someone wishes to change the wording to make it a POLICY or some how where "policies flow from" which it is not and never has been classified as such.Camelbinky (talk) 22:09, 22 July 2012 (UTC)::I find that approach somewhat problematic.
Suppose that one or two editors revert an edit of an other editor, and say that the edit of the other editor is against current consensus, despite that edit being in accordance with current written policies. How can anyone verify that current consensus is indeed what the reverter(s) claim that it is? It is impossible or impractical to confirm it.
Thus, the result is that the "consensus" is dictated by a small group of people, and is not really a consensus at all.
The policies pages should reflect the current method of making decisions. If someone don't like the current method of making a decision, then he/she should take his/her dispute to the policies pages, and not dictate their whims in article space against current written policies. --79.183.216.1 (talk) 23:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC) :P
Though the policy WP:LOCALCONSENSUS does clarify that policies, representing the consensus of the community as a whole, overrides consensus among small groups. Ian.thomson (talk) 23:32, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
The policy WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is ignored by people who ignore policies, just like any other policy. In light of the above, they can also easily claim that the current broad consensus is exactly what they do, a claim which is impossible to prove or disprove, even when in fact it is a small local consensus between one or two editors.
If the current written policy don't reflect the consensus with regard to how things should be decided right now, then there is no such thing as consensus. The decision making is just a power trip. It has nothing to do with what is right for an encyclopedia, and for its audience. --79.183.216.1 (talk) 23:45, 22 July 2012 (UTC) :P
Policies are "descriptive" not "proscriptive" if a dispute occurs whether or not a policy should be ignore then discussion occurs, and perhaps the policy or guideline is rewritten. I have been part of that process for MANY years, I see nothing wrong with it. What I see a problem with is admins going around applying the policies as written-in-stone laws and acting as if they are the police and judge and jury of what can and can not be done in Wikipedia.Camelbinky (talk) 23:56, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
This is indeed a major problem. The attitude that "I am an admin (arb, Bagger, Crat, established editor...) therefore I tell you what to do" even backed up by policy (and even when it is correctly interpreted which is not all the time) is basically unfriendly. I have found that in almost every dispute that remains unsolved one party wants to tell the other party what to do. Rich Farmbrough, 06:45, 23 July 2012 (UTC).
@Rich I agree. I also think that it is unfriendly to just tell the other party what to do, and expect the other party to comply just based on who the teller is. I think that everyone should have to explain the rational behind their point of view.
@Camelbinky I agree that the admins shouldn't act like the police judge and jury. However, doesn't it bother you that the same question could be asked in relation to a million of articles, and in many articles could be decided in a way that is not optimal for the encyclopedia, just because of a local consensus? Doesn't it bother you that time and energy are wasted on many small instances of the same dispute? Parohstein (talk) 16:51, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes. I think there are two ways in which well-connected Wikipedians benefit from a free pass when it comes to conduct issues. The first is the "... but he/she is a net positive to the encyclopedia", meaning that if you're unnecessarily personal when you get into a disagreement it will be okay if you improve enough articles. The second is the benefit of numbers that can always disrupt a consensus, so that even 10 friends can make it impossible for an RFC or an AN/I to arrive at a consensus. As much as these two things annoy me, I don't think the answer is some "purist" interpretation of policy where we ignore an editor's good contributions, or editor conduct is evaluated by people who have no direct experience with that particular editor's history. If we slammed everyone for every infraction, we wouldn't have very many editors left. Being a more active editor typically means more actively putting up with a lot of crap, and those editors have earned a longer rope than your average 10-edit troll. The key is this: with a longer rope needs to come clearer and more pre-emptive warnings. We would resolve a lot of issues if those editors in good standing were told "hey, you're a good editor, but you should know better than to do that, so please stop", even if there's no block or ban. We actually inflame the problem when we try to sweep the bad conduct under the rug completely and say "ahh, give him a break and just drop it". When we "just drop it", we end up in a negative pattern where we drop it and drop it and drop it, until that editor has caused so much damage and drama that now we have no choice but to resort to a hefty block or ban. And by that point, a lot of editors have left Wikipedia in frustration, because of what they saw as a completely blind eye to bad conduct. If I could sum up my argument, I'd say we SHOULD grant leniency to editors who are a net positive, but that doesn't mean that they should get a free pass until they do enough damage to become a net negative. Shooterwalker (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

New guideline proposal

I've proposed making Wikipedia:File mover a guideline; please read my suggestion at the talk page and offer your input. I've never before made such a proposal, so any technical help would also be appreciated. In particular, I don't know whether I need to announce it anywhere; for example, is there a bot that makes announcements of proposed guidelines? Nyttend (talk) 22:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

At a minimum you should start an RFC on the question, a notice here, and at WP:CENT are sometimes used. You have already sort of notified this board, and I don't think it really rises to the WP:CENT level as it is focused on the narrow role of file moving. Monty845 22:13, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
Given your link in your response at the talk page, I'm going to withdraw this temporarily, since I searched but failed to find any previous attempts to make it a guideline. Please expect a modified proposal before long. Nyttend (talk) 22:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
See WP:PROPOSAL for advice that you should adapt as needed to the situation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:07, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Reminder of Verifiability policy RfC

Reminder: the request for comments on how to word the lead section of the verifiability policy will close on July 28. Editors are invited to participate. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:58, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Policies: number and size

Policy name Size (bytes)
Wikipedia:Administrators 38,502
Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/CheckUser and Oversight 11,144
Wikipedia:Arbitration/Policy 13,393
Wikipedia:Article titles 41,906
Wikipedia:Attack page 3,324
Wikipedia:Banning policy 25,822
Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons 40,608
Wikipedia:Bot policy 30,562
Wikipedia:CheckUser 26,261
Wikipedia:Child protection 3,621
Wikipedia:Civility 25,264
Wikipedia:Clean start 8,671
Wikipedia:Consensus 23,855
Wikipedia:Copyright violations 13,100
Wikipedia:Copyrights 27,245
Wikipedia:Criteria for speedy deletion 52,873
Wikipedia:Deletion policy 31,020
Wikipedia:Dispute resolution 21,752
Wikipedia:Edit warring 6,624
Wikipedia:Editing policy 12,258
Wikipedia:Global rights policy 8,002
Wikipedia:GlobalBlocking 1,506
Wikipedia:Harassment 19,295
Wikipedia:Ignore all rules 3,476
Wikipedia:Image use policy 37,544
Wikipedia:IP block exemption 10,149
Wikipedia:Libel 3,963
Wikipedia:Mediation 8,812
Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy 31,576
Wikipedia:Neutral point of view 40,785
Wikipedia:No original research 27,674
Wikipedia:No personal attacks 15,786
Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria 7,953
Wikipedia:Open proxies 5,347
Wikipedia:Oversight 20,341
Wikipedia:Ownership of articles 15,601
Wikipedia:Proposed deletion 11,614
Wikipedia:Proposed deletion (books) 9,230
Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people 10,106
Wikipedia:Protection policy 29,763
Wikipedia:Reusing Wikipedia content 13,134
Wikipedia:Revision deletion 23,087
Wikipedia:Sock puppetry 25,953
Wikipedia:Username policy 23,980
Wikipedia:Vandalism 39,981
Wikipedia:Verifiability 28,402
Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team 12,028
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not 56,798
Wikipedia:Wikimedia policy 814
Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary 18,612

Firstly, sorry for the large table, I just know that if I put it somewhere else maybe half of people only would not bother. As you can see, it lists the 55 Wikipedia policies currently identified at Category:Wikipedia policies and their respective sizes – the total is over a million bytes, at least 100,000 words and possibly more (although I think bytes are relevant, because other things like images and tables are relevant to understanding the policy). Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, and particularly their proliferation, has been noted as a principal reason among those preventing new editors from joining the community. We haven't ever really got a grip on the extent of policies and guidelines (let alone short summaries of them) and policies look like the natural place to start. Before I have a look at potential things to merge, demote, or copyedit with a view to shortening, how widely agreed is it that Wikipedia's policies should be fewer in number and more concise?

You see, if you propose a change in isolation the big picture is missed; the argument becomes one of whether we really care about the topic of the potential policy (which we always do) and therefore often the status quo appears to be policy rather than guideline. I would also note that there are two symptoms I see of two much policy: firstly, policy pages often summarise each other; secondly, we often deal with subsets such as "Procedural" or "Behavioural" policy. Both might be necessary but surely they aren't where we would like to be. So, first, that central question. Thanks, Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:21, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Comments

It's actually surprising how few of those affect a typical new user. What new editor is going to worry about Wikipedia:Bot policy? Policies related to the Arbitration Committee? Policies about checkuser, child protection, global rights, or global blocking? There's maybe a dozen of those policies listed that may have real impact on newbies: edit warring, image use, NPOV, NOR, and the like.—Kww(talk) 19:48, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll add that most of the policies that are important to new users are actually "common sense written down". For example, is it likely that the good new users will have to read Wikipedia:No personal attacks to know that insulting strangers at random is not a good idea? Lithuanian Wikipedia actually manages to discourage insults (perhaps better than the English Wikipedia) without even having such policies written down...
And one more point: I don't think that the users who come to write encyclopedia are going to be discouraged by reading...
Of course, all that doesn't mean that the policies can't possibly be improved, but each case has to be considered separately. --Martynas Patasius (talk) 20:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
  • If we required editors to pass some sort of test on these prior to editing, it'd be a problem. But we don't. As Kww says, editors need only concern themselves with policy (or even know about the existence of policy) as and when they want to. A lot of this is back-end detail that the vast majority of our contributors (who don't have accounts, don't use talk pages, don't know what an admin is, have never heard of any namespace except for mainspace, or all of the above) never need concern themselves with. And furthermore, this is the most highly active collaborative project in the history of the Internet, and in a great many ways in the history of mankind: we are not going to get by with a 16-page pamphlet and WP:IAR alone for the simple reason that if we have to reinvent what we presently codify in policy from first principles in every dispute we'd be even more bogged down in politics than we already are. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 21:05, 17 July 2012 (UTC)
  • KWW hits the nail on the head there. In practice, the vast majority of those policies are there for the edge cases, and will never apply to 99% of editors. They may be arcane, and most could stand a bit of freshening up of both their substance and prose, but they are mostly irrelevant to new editors and couldn't possibly be an obstacle to them. — Coren (talk) 00:30, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

In the spirit of George Carlin's Ten Commandments,[10] I don't think we need all those policies when only one will suffice. I suggest nominating all those pages in that list for WP:AFD except for Wikipedia:Ignore all rules. Remember, There can be only one. WTF? (talk) 21:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

  • If we are opening up this discussion, we should probably also mention the fact that we use shortcuts EVERYWHERE, and shortcuts are written in CAPITALS and capitals are related to as shouting in many online communities. I'v experienced more an more people who are heavily offended by the SHORTCUTS we 'call' them. I realize they are handy, but perhaps we should add some 'auto expansion' or something on those things, using templates or the like. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 07:49, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

"how widely agreed is it that Wikipedia's policies should be fewer in number and more concise?" I agree there should be fewer and they should be more concise. Something like combining WP:5P with the related {{nutshell}}s comes to mind. 64.40.54.83 (talk) 10:51, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

  • I don't think that listing the number of bytes is very helpful. WP:IAR is listed at over 3KB, but the policy consists of one sentence. Most of the content is interwiki links and standard templates linking to other policies. Hut 8.5 16:54, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I agree there should be fewer and they should be more concise. Coincidentally, I was pulling together a list of policies and their size for this purpose, and another purpose. I wanted to track the size over time, because I think that is relevant to RfA requirements. (In round numbers, the size has doubled since approximately 2006). At Wikimania, I ran into someone who has already assembled the data, so I have an email in to get it. My incomplete analysis also included Guidelines. While secondary to Policies, I think any effort to work on streamlining needs to include a review of Guidelines. And, unfortunately, because I think it makes the task almost impossible, rather than simply very difficult, I don't think a proper view would be complete without looking at Essays. For example BRD is an essay, but I bet it is cited more often than some policies.

    Sue Gardner, in a speech in London, talked about the difficulty of paring back policies. I think she is right that our processes aren't well suited for the task, but we should take it on.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 17:24, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm all for some kind of modest target. Say, reducing the number of policies by 20%, and reducing the cumulative length of those policies by 20%. That might not seem like a big reduction, but I suspect it will be challenging enough as is. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
I can't identify 11 of these pages that I'm willing to live without. A couple could be merged, but not eleven. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
  • 55 policies!? Note that the US Constitution only has 7 articles and 27 amendments. There's obviously a lot of a redundancy here. We have at least five different deletion policies (deletion, oversight, revisions, proposed and speedy) and three different sub-methods of proposed deletion including a special one just for books (of which I was totally unaware). We have separate policies for civility, harassment and personal attacks and they all seem equally useless. And we can be fairly sure that all these policies are mostly original research, unsupported by external evidence and based mostly upon personal POV. That's why editors love them so much - they are personal creations and so tended lovingly. That's why we have an absurd RfC to agonise over the wording of one sentence in WP:V. Now, we even have a policy which states that all these rules are largely pointless, "...rules are not the purpose of the community. Written rules do not themselves set accepted practice.". You can therefore delete all of these pages and Wikipedia would carry on just fine. Where do I sign ...? Warden (talk) 22:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
    • US Code of Laws : Wikipedia's total Policy/Guidelines :: US Constitution : Wikipedia's Five Pillars. --MASEM (t) 22:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
      The analogy interested me, but it's not precisely correct. The US Code came after the Constitution and could not have happened without it; FIVE was created from TRIFECTA some years after the creation of the core policies, as a summary for newbies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I've started a discussion suggesting the demotion or redirect of WP:ATTACK at its talk page. G. C. Hood (talk) 16:57, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Also, interested editors may want to coordinate efforts through WikiProject Policy and Guidelines. G. C. Hood (talk) 17:03, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
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